Meet Bobby Watson

This article was first published at All About Jazz in October 1999.

Background and early career...

I started playing clarinet and piano in my grandfather's church. I played saxophone in junior high school: originally tenor and switched to alto when I got to high school. From there I got hip to jazz and tried to do as much as I could. I went to the University of Miami and got a degree in theory and composition. In 1976 I came to New York. I met Art Blakey on October 11 (his birthday—that's why I remember) and joined the band on January 11, 1977. I was with the band four years, musical director three years. The musicians who came into the band during my tenure were George Cables (for a quick minute) and James Williams on piano, Wynton Marsalis on trumpet, Charles Fambrough on bass, and Billy Pierce on tenor. Blakey launched me into the big time. From there I started my own band, Horizon, in 1981. We went through several incarnations, and we recorded an album called Gumbo now on Evidence. We did three records for Blue Note and three for Columbia before we put Horizon to bed around '95. We felt at that time the band had run its course. The money wasn't there, and the appreciation wasn't there. We decided to leave it alone for a while. We're bringing it back now, and hopefully we'll do a record. It's all the same guys: Victor Lewis on drums, Essiet Essiet on bass, Terell Stafford on trumpet, and Edward Simon on piano. We're going out Thursday for two weeks.

Qualities of a bandleader...

What I learned from Art was to delegate authority, to trust musicians that you hire, and don't be a dictator. Be honest (very important) with the cats, share information, and solicit contributions from all the cats—get them involved and make them feel ownership in the project. The more people can feel like they're involved the more loyal they are. Make sure there's a platform so they can feature themselves. And not really be insecure about letting some cats play good. A lot of guys like to have weak cats around them so they are the best cat, but the stronger the cats are around me the better. Everybody goes, "Man, the band was great. Nobody was weak." I can hold my own. I'm not worried about somebody else getting more applause. It's not about that. It's about the band is the star. I also try to pay the musicians the best I can.

Helping younger musicians...

Some of the musicians I've hired or worked with on their way up: Roy Hargrove, Wynton Marsalis, the Harper Brothers, a lot of cats. Melton Mustafa, Steve Nelson recorded one his first records with me, Marvin (Smitty) Smith, Mulgrew Miller, Terell Stafford, Edward Simon, Orrin Evans (who is by the way a finalist this year in the Monk competition on piano as was Edward who came in third behind Jacky Terrasson). So now Orrin, my last discovery on the piano, is on his way to the finals, and I hope he does well. Stefon Harris I gave one of his first gigs. Chris McBride. I'm like their uncle. I enjoy that. Helping other people makes me look good.

Jazz education...

I'm on the staff of Manhattan School of Music. I teach privately as well. I think it's very important. The main thing about jazz education is being able to demonstrate what you are talking about. The young kids, you know, they will only to listen to you talk so long. Sooner or later they want to see you prove it. That makes a big impact on kids. I try to get them to get into themselves and to love themselves. Because when you start to love your sound that's how you start to find your own voice. I have something I call "the final frontier" which is the mind. And once you cross over and start to love yourself, exploit your weaknesses as well as your strengths, then you start to become an individual. The main thing is getting over fear. I try to do a metaphysical thing because everybody's practicing hard, but the main thing is how they break that last barrier which has become a mental thing. When you learn to say "I am who I am, and I love who I am, and I'm going to go with it"—that's when you start to make progress as an artist. Self-discovery—that's what seems to separate the average from the special people: people that love themselves and enjoy their sound. Teach them to get over the fear of rejection and the dogmatic approach of trying to be perfect. Enjoy your mistakes. Then it becomes fun. That's what I learned from Art Blakey: how to enjoy who you are—not try to be somebody else. I have my students tape themselves and listen to themselves, and critique themselves. The tape recorder is a very good tool we have now which makes it all the more amazing how the old cats got their sound without this Walkman mentality. I encourage my students to tape themselves at every opportunity and be critical and then find what they like and they don't like. Just move out from there because everybody has an individual sound. Certain people don't know how to exploit it.

Touring with a band vs. going out as a single...

The last two years I've been doing a lot by myself because during these times I find Bobby Watson, guest artist, is worth more than Bobby Watson, bandleader. So I do a lot of stuff by myself, anything from the BBC in London to local rhythm sections around the world I've worked with over the years that know my music, guest artist with colleges and clinics, things like this. That's really what I've been doing the bulk of the last few years.

Repertoire: standard tunes vs. originals...

I find that in the American lexicon there's a song for every situation in life. Love lost or love gained: "Everything Happens to Me," "I Wish I Knew," "Fools Rush In," "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." There's something about everything in life. The older you get you approach these songs as you can relate to them besides the normal stuff like "Stella by Starlight," "Green Dolphin Street," "All the Things You Are" that we learn. As we get more and more into the American songbook we find we relate to many other levels of the repertoire. It's a matter of growing older and living life and you'll be able to interpret songs. Even playing the blues. I had to learn how to play the blues myself. But the older you get things happen to you. Then you don't have a problem playing the blues. It's an art form and a life experience. I find certain songs that I like. I just started doing a treatment of this Sammy Davis, Jr. thing, "I Gotta Be Me." I did a little hip thing on that one because I can relate to that: I gotta be me. In the mean time you're always trying to push the envelope with your own ideas and trying to innovate the presentation. I think the main innovation that still needs to be explored is the song form. I'll write compositions that never repeat. Do you necessarily have to repeat the melody at the end? People don't repeat the beginning of their speech at the end. Some of the greatest speeches are like "through compositions"—they start and they finish. I'm trying to bring things like that into it: open sections where we can get off the treadmill for a minute. We don't have to go to the bridge until we're ready. Loosen it up and make it more natural.

The music business...

Musicians should control their publishing. Musicians should be aware of what they're getting into in basic contracts. They should be aware of everything that's out there. This is the information age. Being a musician requires you to know as much as you can like the Internet. I see the ultimate thing in music is profit sharing. Basically the music business is unconstitutional. Hey, really! If you run any other business you get yours last. You pay your employees first, and if you make a profit then you get yours. With the record business before they turn a profit they take theirs on top. And the artist is left holding the bag. Without artists you can't make records. Basically it's a backward situation. Several lawyers have spoken with me about that. I don't know what can be done about it because it's such a huge industry, probably second behind oil. It would take a consortium of some type, some kind of a class action or a huge conglomerate. It could get totally out of control. It probably never can be changed. Right now it's like a crapshoot. You can have the most airtight contract in the world. Basically it's like trying to throw a ball through a hole at the fair: the ball is nine inches, the hole is ten inches, and the percentages are against you. Some win. Most don't. I think information and education helps everybody. And they're afraid of that because they just want to exploit people as much as they can. You ask for things like health care. When a football player signs with a team he has to get a physical, so why can't musicians have that same thing? If you're going to sign a musician and invest some money in him you'd like to know he's healthy. We could have been other things. We could have been doctors or lawyers, but we chose music. Michael Jordan and other people who are icons are much younger than I am (I'm 46). But there are other businesses that relate to entertainment (putting butts in seats), and they have other things covered. Baseball players and football players—they have things they do on a high level to cover them that we don't have. When you live the life you can see it. You really can't explain it. Most people think music is a hobby. "Well, what do you really do? Play music all the time?" I raised my family on it. Still we don't really have a support system. That's the thing we're trying to do. But it all bases on talent. It's like athletics in a way. Either you can or you can't. It's a very difficult profession.

Big band writing...

Besides my big band record, Tailor Made, I have a suite called the Afroism Suite, commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council. We premiered it in Edinburgh and in Vienna in 1994. It's never been heard in the states. I hope to record it some time. I'm always writing, but basically the big band stuff is supply and demand. My wife did a one-act opera last year. I orchestrated that for her. She did all the music and libretto. It was based off a Langston Hughes short story called Mother and Child. She called it The Meeting. When I get into that mode it takes me away from the horn. It takes a couple of weeks to get to the piano, shift gears, and think orchestration. The hardest thing is putting the notes on the paper. But that's something I'll do my whole life—writing when it's called for.

New CD release...

I have a new record coming out in October on Sergio Veschi's Red Records called >Quiet As It's Kept. It's really reflective—almost ballad like. I feel people today like music that can set an ambiance in their house. I know I'm like that. The stuff I listen to is for ambiance. I can still work, pay bills, clean up the house. Something that sort of clears the air. So I'm hoping this record is something like that. Something you can maybe talk over, but still hear. Set the mood, relax the mind. I've done so many records. People know I can play fast, I have technique, and I'm very clever. But this time I'm trying to use my sound and also explore song forms. There's a couple of compositions on this record that are "through composed"—they have a beginning and an end but don't repeat—what we talked about earlier in song form. I have a couple of examples on this record. It's basically no up-tempo. I feel like people need that kind of thing now. I have enough records out, and I have enough confidence in myself. I don't have to display a lot of chops. I'm really proud of it. I hope it does well. . It has Curtis Lundy on bass, Orrin Evans on piano, Terell Stafford, trumpet, Marlon Simon on percussion, my wife Pamela on vocals, Greg Skaff on guitar, and Ralph Peterson on drums. By the way I also do a Blakey project with Ralph. I feel he has Blakey's spirit. The other musicians in the Blakey project are James Williams, Billy Pierce, Brian Lynch, and Essiet Essiet. That's really strong. I hope to do more of that at some point.

Recorded music vs. live performance...

I like to look at the records as a documentation of what I'm doing in my life. Usually I go into the studio with people I've been playing with so that's why the records have cohesiveness. I don't like to do records where I call people up, do two days' of rehearsal, and record. Usually the records I've done have been with working groups or frequent associates so I get a certain feeling I think people hear. Records are sort of a by-product of the work you do day to day. I'm always working towards recording. Every time I play I pretend I'm making a record. So it's a mentality I have. I'm always looking for that chance to be documented. I stay serious and focused. That way when I walk into the studio I have something to say instead of just fishing around for tunes. It's like that.

29th Street Saxophone Quartet...

Yeah!! We put it to bed for a while. We did fourteen years, mostly in Europe. In the States it never really caught on I think basically because it was bi-racial: two whites and two blacks. The critics didn't really know what to do. We got some very strange reviews—weird and subtle. An all-white band or an all-black band wouldn't have this problem. Somebody has to be the intellectual. Somebody has to be the soloist. Somebody has to be this and that. So we put it to bed for a minute like we did Horizon. Hopefully we'll come back one day because we have a lot of fans, and we spawned a lot of sax quartets around the world. We get email all the time talking about how they love the music, how they transcribe our songs, how we inspired them to do a sax quartet. Jim Hartog on baritone innovated some stuff in the bass. A sax quartet is like a marriage. You can't really sub. Horizon has had different bass players and piano players over the years, and it still retains the sound. But the sax quartet is actually one thing we're married to. If any one of us couldn't make it we couldn't do the gig because it got so deep. So many things we played weren't in the written music—they couldn't be explained to anybody. We had a feeling with each other. We were like an amoeba—four as one. We're still in touch with each other, and I hope that before we get too old—a sax quartet is very demanding—we can do it again. In fact we just did something for a friend of ours, Thurman Barker, a drummer. He wrote for a sax quintet—we added James Carter. We went into the studio last week, recorded his piece, and it felt real good.

Theme songs...

I think the one thing that's lacking in jazz today is none of the young kids that are being pushed have theme songs. For every jazz artist I know and respect you can sing a song and you know who it is: take "Round Midnight" you know it's Monk. Say "Bye Bye Blackbird" or "Maiden Voyage" or (sings) "duhDUHduhduhdut"—"St. Thomas." I don't have to say who these people are. You know if you're into jazz. And that's what's missing right now. You can't say these people are going to be the next Ella or the next somebody because they had hits. "A Tisket A Tasket." All these singers had hits. That's what made them, gave them their signatures and all. People come to our gigs wanting to hear a certain song we've done with Horizon. I don't mind playing that because that's what keeps us working. That's what we're trying to do over here in my camp—play songs that people remember, relax to, get married to, make love to, bring them back to a period in their lives. That's what keeps us working, and I'm very grateful for that.

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