Transcription Of "Forgotten Tenor"

A Film By Abraham Ravett

Sound:
Music "Easy Living"
Telephone ringing.

Abraham calling Allen Eager

Abraham:
Hi I'm calling area code (904)426-0696, is this the telephone number for Mr. Allen Eager? If it is, my name is Abraham Ravett, from Hampshire College Film and Photo program, I was referred to you by Ira Gitler. My number is area code (413)586-6588, it's Saturday the 16th at 11:45 a.m.,I'm calling in reference to a film that I am making on Wardell Gray, and I wanted to speak with you if it's possible and get some input from you, if you could call me back I would appreciate it. Thanks very much. Bye bye.

Music.
"I Cried For You"
Helen Humes on vocals

"I cried for you
Now it's your turn to cry over me.
But every road has a turning and that's just one thing you're learning.
Yes, I cried for you.
What a fool I used to be, but I found two eyes just a little bit bluer.
I found a heart just a little bit truer.
I cried for you now it's your turn to cry over me.
Yes, I why I cried for you so it's your turn to cry over me baby.
Every road has a turning and that's just one thing your learning.
Yes I said it was there and I cried my eyes out.
What a fool I used to be, but I found two eyes just a little bit bluer,
I found a heart just a little bit truer,
yes I cried, I cried, Lord knows I almost died,
so it's your turn to cry over me."

Eddie Bert (Part 1)

Abraham:
Is there anything else that lingers in your mind about Wardell at all, now that you've looked, I mean, at these films a couple of times, what stays with you?
Eddie Bert:
Just that he was a great guy, but, I mean, that one story, the way I remember at the Flamingo Hotel, we're playing like I think two or three weeks there, at the Flamingo in Las Vegas and there was a dinner set we had to play. So, generally Benny was there but this one night Benny wasn't there and Benny had lent them a Bundy clarinet which is a plastic clarinet because on New Year's Eve at the Paramount Theatre Benny wanted to play his tenor, Wardell's tenor. So he said, "Look, I'll give you one of my clarinets and lend me your tenor and we'll play the show that way, you know, and we played the show that way. But then, Wardell ended up with his Bundy clarinet, which is, you know, a resinite, like a plastic clarinet, so anyway, this one night Benny didn't show up at the Flamingo for the dinner set, so Wardell got up in front of the band with the clarinet and made like he was Benny with the back problems and a few other things that Benny used to do and you know, just imitating him you know? But he didn't realize that Benny was in the audience, so Benny came running up on the stand and he fired him and he made him go through the kitchen again, with all his horns and Benny comes running after him through the kitchen saying "Give me my Bundy clarinet back". So I thought that was very funny. Of course he hired him back the next day, who's he going to get? You know, I mean, it was just a thing.
Abraham:
Of all the people that Benny had to hire at the time, why do you think he hired Wardell to play with him?
Eddie Bert:
Because he played good. Benny liked clean players.

Music.

Clark Terry (Part 1)

Abraham:
Those questions again, or should I ask... You want to start with the first one, after all these years, what lingers with you about Wardell?
Clark Terry:
Yeah, o.k.
Abraham:
I'd like to ask you after all these years, what lingers with you about Wardell Gray?
Clark Terry:
Well the thing that lingers with me, after all these years, about Wardell, was his complete command of the instrument. Very few articulate people around on the saxophone today, who were as into it as much as Bones was, my pet name for Wardell was Bones, this was rather obvious, he was a rather not too well fleshed person. And I used to affectionately refer to him as Bones. And I always remember him as a rather dear friend, a close friend, a conscientious person. We stayed constantly in touch, we wrote each other all the time and we had a very very beautiful time with the Basie small group. Basie broke the band down to a small group from the big band. Basie got into little problems with the office and he had to work his way out of debt so the office cut the band out and put Basie in a small group context, which is Basie, himself and he had a bass player from the south, I think from Kentucky I think he was named Jimmy Lewis and the drummer was Gus Johnson, Freddy Green came along. We started out with a young saxophone player out of St. Louis named Bob Graf, whose playing was eventually taken over by Bones. And we recorded several things, as Basie's small group and of course before that Wardell, and a little bit after that, he was with the Basie big band. We had a lot of fun. I remember all of these things, they're all very outstanding in my memory because he was one of the few people at the time that kept close in contact with me. He was very religious about writing letters, he would write and the same thing, when I got a message from someone, someone told me in a gossiping way that, "Man, Wardell is using shit" (heroin) , and when I saw him again,and I said this to him I said "Man, somebody had the nerve to say to me that you were using shit", of course I laughed and he chuckled a little about it. However it hit home because he really was, and I wasn't aware of it and from that particular point on I never heard from him anymore. So that kind of squashed our relationship as far as correspondence is concerned. So I guess what it did, in reality, was make him realize that I was aware, his good buddy who he didn't want to know, that he was in that shape, had found out and he was a little bit embarrassed I think.

Dorothy Gray (Part 1)

Abraham:
O.k., let's give it a shot. Let's just try it O.k. So let's start with, what have you got in front of you?
Dorothy Gray:
I have Chicago, Friday night.
Abraham:
Friday night?
Dorothy:
Front page.
Abraham:
Chicago, o.k. Let's do that.
Dorothy:
Dear spouse,
Belatedly, thanks for a very nice letter, in fact thanks for two very nice letters. I shall attempt to answer them as fully as possible. To start with, I love you my darling, and I find myself missing you very much. I can tell just how much I do miss you by my feeling, almost constant, of" alieninity", with a question mark. A sort of displaced condition that is not overwhelming, but strong enough for me to be uncomfortably aware of, but I comfort myself in that fact that the days seem to be going fairly fast and this week is almost up. Then one more week, a week from this Sunday, and the following day, barring anything unforseen, I shall be winging my way to you. Everything you said in your letters made me feel good and I'm proud to have you for my wife. I think ultimately how nice it would be to be with you. Our being together, you, Mickey and I, all working hard, studying, going to school, perfecting ourselves for one another. What a vast sense of accomplishment there will be in the atmosphere. I find myself unable to remember all these things that you mentioned in your letter so I've taken them out of their envelopes and opened them in front of me. And the first thing I see is your reference to Benny Carter. You tell him that my notice is in. And I am doing only two weeks with Basie here, and will finish up next Sunday and leave some time Monday. And tell him, if he gives that job to anyone else, I'll put a bomb under his house. I saw Ashby in Salt Lake City, and he told me that he was cutting out from Nat." Very drug". I told him I was cutting out too and he said that he and Jerry W. and the rest of the cats would be waiting for me. Baby, please call Benny and tell him that I will be there, and to count on it. That's it.
Abraham:
O.k. That was Chicago?
Dorothy:
That was Chicago.
Abraham:
O.K.

Jimmy Lewis

Abraham:
You were going to start with the question about Count Basie?
Jimmy Lewis:
Yeah.
Abraham:
O.K. And then, what recollections do you have of those sessions, what other recollections you have of Wardell, what kind of person, and what was it like playing with Wardell? O.K. Are you going to include that story about when his wife came into the club? What was her name, Dorothy?
Jimmy:
Yeah, that's right.
Abraham:
Are you going to include that?
Jimmy:
Yeah, I guess so, yeah.
Abraham:
O.K. The only other thought I had was, where was it that I wrote it down, maybe when we finish these, I just want to know, since that film, what happened to Freddie Green?
Jimmy:
He died too.
Abraham:
Yeah, and then what happened to Helen Humes?
Jimmy:
Oh, she's dead
Abraham:
I know, but do you remember when and how?
Jimmy:
Wardell, was such a nice guy to get along with in the band. He always kept everybody happy. You know? He liked to tell jokes. But he was very tender hearted, he would cry in a minute, you know? Little things could upset him. He was very serious about all his music too, he was, he liked everything to be just right, you know. And when he'd come on the bandstand, it was all business that's one thing. Before he'd come on the bandstand, he'd keep everybody happy telling jokes, you know, and ..but when he'd get to the bandstand, he was very serious about his music. That's what I found out about him, you know? Now I don't know what else I can say about it at that point.
Abraham:
That's good. O.K. You want to give me a slap, a little higher, a little higher. Good. O.K.
Jimmy:
O.K. now you want to know about Wardell Gray. His playing ability, he was a very relaxed player, he always knew where he was going. His tone, was very melodic, most of the time, unless he was playing something very fast or something like that. He used to seem to create as he went along, you know?, on his solos. You can always tell when something new pops into his mind while he's playing, because he'd always smile, you can see him smiling while he's playing his horn.
(Silence.)
You know I'd like to see him featured in a film, where he could really show off his talent. Really show it off, say, it was just the band playing in the background, and put him out front. I think, when I was with Basie in his big band, and Wardell was featured on a tune, Wardell he gets out and he plays the first chorus, and right in the middle of the thing he says, come on, let's play, let's play now. Now this is right while the recording was going, and he played that thing, he played his heart out man, he just played and it looked, he gave the whole band a lift because he had so much to offer you know? He tried to put everything in his tunes, so Basie would say let him go, he wasn't supposed to have maybe one or two choruses and he ended up playing five or six choruses of the same tune you know? Basie would call a tune, and he would listen to the tune, Clark Terry or somebody would be playing a solo, and he'd listen to the tune and then he'd come in with his interpretation of that tune and it would be altogether different. And most saxophone players used to follow him, you know. They'd say, well he's got such a good sound and he's this young, let's see what this guy has. So they'd always try to copy his style you know. Nobody really got to it, at that time.

Music. "I Cried For You"

Earl Van Riper

Earl Van Riper :
We were playing with the band, the band was based in Illinois, but we used to play in Michigan and during the summer we would go around Bass Lake, Sturgis Michigan, Manistee, Vestaberg, Bennington Michigan and that`s when I first met Wardell, we were in this band. And when we first met, it was his imagination and his musical ideas on any given tune, he was just very gifted.
Abraham:
Could you give me an idea of what you mean by that, specifically?
Earl:
His ideas for improvisations on tunes. He used to have a way of playing one tune and another tune with corelated musical changes.
Abraham:
So did you recognize then, when he was a younger guy..
Earl:
Even then, even after all these years I know that a lot of musicians, because of his excellence and his playing and everything, say that there are very few that can surpass such a fertile imagination in improvising on a tune. Because he impressed Benny Goodman and he's a pretty hard man to impress. With such a vivid imagination you knew he was playing with small groups and Benny would show him off. And with Count Basie. I used to see him with several, different bands.
Abraham:
Could you give an example with a tune, what he would do that was so imaginative?
Earl:
Well, for instance, if he was playing "Honeysuckle Rose", I remember the first time I heard him do it in the groups, in the bridge he played" Humoresque", "Humoresque" was a classic. That's a classical piece of music. And he played "Honeysuckle Rose" just like, there's, unlimited source of ideas. And then later, of course, the way I looked at him was as a swinger, under certain circumstances like Dizzy Gillespie, what they started, he and Charlie Parker, they started the chords, the harmonic structures of old standard tunes and writing another melody off of these same chord tunes and you would have another tune. And before that, Wardell came into the style of what is now known as Be-Bop. Wardell is the first one I had heard, I'm not saying he was the first one to begin it, but he was the first that I heard doing it.

Art Farmer (Part 1)

Art Farmer:
Testing one two three, testing one two three four five six.
Abraham:
Is that the level you'll be talking at? Let me take one more reading here. O.K. You can take your time, there's no rush. You can take your time. Can I sit on this chair?
Art:
I first met Wardell in Los Angeles in 1945 he was working with the Earl Hines orchestra and he came out to play at a place called the Lincoln Theatre. And I went around backstage and met him then. And that was just briefly. I didn't see him again until probably the early fifties, I guess it must have been around 1950 or 51, he came back to Los Angeles with the Benny Goodman orchestra. And he decided to settle in Los Angeles at that time. And that's when I really got to know him and we started to play various jobs together. Sometimes with Wardell Gray's quintet and sometimes with a group that was led by Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray.
Abraham:
What about those liner notes?
Art:
He was a very wonderful person to work with of course. Wardell recorded for a label called "Prestige" records and that's the label that I recorded with Wardell on and these records have been reissued by "Prestige" or "Fantasy" records. And an English writer named Mark Gardner wrote the liner notes on it and he said Wardell was thought of as a father figure to the younger jazz musicians out in Los Angeles, at least some of them. I would say he was more like a big brother, he was more approachable than a father figure would be and not quite as stern. But he was very helpful and that's the way I felt about him and also reading Hampton Hawes' biography he felt the same way also since he had already been there although he was comparatively a young man. He'd already played with the top people in the business, such as Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Benny Carter, Earl Hines, Billy Eckstine to name a few. So he had the experience that we could learn from by talking to him and playing with him and listening and seeing how he conducted himself. He was a very honest and frank person, he would tell you what was wrong and what was right. Just a good guy to be with.

Benny Carter (Phone Call)

Phone Call:
Abraham:
Mr. Carter? Mr. Carter?
Benny Carter:
Hello?
Abraham:
This is Abraham Ravett I don't know if you remember I spoke with you last night, I hope I didn't call you too early. I've just been thinking last night, and I was wondering if it would be possible for me to ask you a couple of questions on the telephone maybe and if we could do a little interview on the telephone, would that be possible?
Mr. Carter:
Well, I don't know what you want but go on.
Abraham:
Well what I was interested, you mentioned that Wardell only played with you for a week and then you also told me that you thought he was a great player. I was wondering if you had any kind of thoughts at that time, in 1955, what was it about his playing that interested
Mr.Carter:
I can't analyze nor define people's playing. In fact I find that very silly, I mean the music speaks for itself and it's in the ears of the listener. The listener has to say what it means to him and what it sounds like to him, I really, I really can't comment on that.
Abraham:
O.K. I'm sorry to keep bothering about
Mr.Carter:
No, no, that's alright. No, No.
Abraham:
I'm feeling that maybe I shouldn't keep bothering you about this, I think you've been very kind so far in
Mr.Carter:
No, it's just that I don't have any deep knowledge of the man, you know, and there's nothing I can add to whatever you might have heard.
Abraham:
Oh. O.K. There's no recollections that you have of him in terms of
Mr.Carter:
You mean something anecdotal?
Abraham:
Yeah..
Mr.Carter:
No, I do not.
Abraham:
Yeah..yeah..
Mr.Carter:
It's a long time ago.
Abraham:
Yeah it sure is. O.K., once again, thanks again for your patience.
Mr.Carter:
Once again, good luck.
Abraham:
Bye.

Dorothy Gray (Part 2)

Abraham:
O.K., so which question do you think you want to start with?
Dorothy:
Oh, I don't know. Would you..would you think about when I met him..I don't remember the year. You know, I only know it was the late forties.
Abraham:
O.K. why don't we start with that.
Dorothy:
Wait a minute. When I can tell you that where I met him, what comes after that?
Abraham:
We'll go on to the next question.
Dorothy:
Just like that?
Abraham:
If you want to stop there, yeah.
Dorothy:
Because there really isn't that much else to say about it.
Abraham:
O.K., well we can just go on from one question to the other until we, until you feel we can hone in on one particular one.
Dorothy:
As to what kind of person he was, that involves a lot, because he was interesting, studious, funny, he was a good cook, he was good with my daughter, he was a sports nut and a newspaper clipping fanatic. Friendly, warm, that's about enough. But he was wonderful. When he was playing, he always seemed to be a little embarrassed by the reception that he got. He was a little shy.
Abraham:
You mean he was surprised at how
Dorothy:
No, I don't think it was so much surprise but he loved the reception that he got but it still was a little embarrassing to him. If you know what I mean.
Abraham:
He was..humble.
Dorothy:
Yes, yes, he was. He was kind of into practical jokes too. I just thought about that when I went back over this other question. As for the tensions..I didn't like the long absences, but they were necessary of course. But there were times, like once he called me from Chicago to see if I wanted to see a Cubs (baseball) game. So I got a chance to go and join him for a while. And then once, I went to spend time, Christmas time with him in Indianapolis I think it was. Those were the good times but the long absences I never did like. But I'll tell you something, in a way it helped when he died because it was easier. But the person who loses their husband from a nine to five, you know, it's really different, but you can sort of play games with yourself when they're gone and back and gone for a long time you can just feel like they're on the road and it helps. Does that sound strange?
Abraham:
No, not at all.
Dorothy:
So, that was one of the things that softened it for me. Because I could play those games that he was just on the road.

Jeri Gray (Part 1)

Abraham:
So, above production costs you'd feel comfortable if I paid you three hundred dollars?
Jeri:
O.K. look, suppose it goes there and it goes there and your money starts getting bigger and bigger and bigger, so what do you say...
Abraham:
So what are you saying, you want a cut now?
Jeri:
I'm by myself, I need help.
Abraham:
Are you saying you want a percentage over every thousand dollars? (laughter)
Jeri:
Let's say of over every three thousand.
Abraham:
Over every three thousand I make you want three hundred dollars extra?
Jeri:
Well you can give me a little bit more but I mean
Abraham:
That's ten percent.
Jeri:
Well..
Abraham:
You want ten....
Jeri:
Wouldn't you do that, wait a minute, this could be you over here you know.
Abraham:
No, well, I couldn't agree to that ten percent because I'm going to talk to a lot of people..
Jeri:
But a lot of people, they're not me...
Abraham:
That's true.
Jeri:
There's a difference. A lot of people they`re not me. I knew the other part. They knew the music, I know the other part.
Abraham:
O.K.
Jeri:
You can talk to me about parts that the other people don't know.
Abraham:
Well, I don't really want you to reveal any kind of intimate details, I mean I'm really asking I think a kind of general type of question.
Jeri:
O.K. so you just want me to stop right there.
Abraham:
I think that a flat fee would be fair because I can't say a percentage..not knowing..
Jeri:
O.K. you say a flat fee is good. So it's going to be just a flat fee and if you make money and if it's going to be all over, well let's go back to the five then. That's a flat fee.
Abraham:
O.K., so a flat fee of five hundred dollars, if I make a profit of how much? If I make five hundred dollar profit do you want my only five hundred dollars?
Jeri:
No, no, no, I'm not that cold blooded get out of here. O.K. let's say five thousand.
Abraham:
O.k., if I make five thousand dollars, you want five hundred dollars. That's it. It's agreed.
Jeri:
Gentleman's agreement. You see this hand that I'm shaking...
Abraham:
You're going to kick my ass..
Jeri:
I will cut it off (laughing)
Abraham:
O.K., but Jeri, so now for five hundred dollars, now we made an agreement for five hundred dollars, do you want that in writing.
Jeri:
Yes.
Abraham:
O.K. So I'll send you a letter.
Jeri:
Please. I want to know where you live in case
Abraham:
O.K. so Jeri where do you want to start with, any particular question?
Jeri:
Anything you want.
Abraham:
O.K., so, let's see. o.k. Jeri let's start with the questions about after all these years what lingers with you about Wardell?
Jeri:
I think his honesty. He was very very quiet. He had no problems. He was just a nice dude as far as I'm concerned. We never argued or anything like that and just, he was wonderful. A good man, you know? That's all I can say. The ten years that we lived together we were just, it was just there's never been anybody like him as far as I'm concerned.
Abraham:
Could you talk a little bit about his music, his playing, you said he had a good ear..
Jeri:
I don't think that anybody could ever swing like Wardell. Wardell could, he could really play. And what makes it better, when you're a dancer, if you do four bars you know that they're swinging..I'll never forget once he said to me Jerry, if you ever dance, dance with Art Blakey playing drums because he plays, he swings. Don't dance with Max Roach because he`s, he is a percussionist and Wardell could hear, the things he could hear inside and bring it out, was phenomenal. He was just, he was just a great musician. Just, yeah, it don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing and that's what Wardell had. He could swing. I better talk quick because that tape is running.
Abraham:
Let's stop for a minute.

Buddy De Franco (Part 1)

Abraham:
Are you ready with the mic? You want to give me a slate? O.K.
Buddy De Franco:
Okay, just go on with it? We were talking about Wardell. Wardell's ability to swing musically, maybe even now, I don't know what the younger musicians talk about but we used to talk about swing, whether swing isn't on top of the beat, behind the beat right on the beat, but I think swing has nothing to do with behind the beat, in front of the beat, or on top of the beat or on the beat. I think it has everything to do with the combination of the inherent gut or soul of the musician playing. In other words, I've heard some very intense players and if you analyze for instance, the great John Coltrane, some of his ballads especially, where he would play a million notes across a very slow four, none of the notes would be on the beat or off the beat at any given time. It would be on, off, late, forwards, and yet the pulse, the inherent pulse from the soul of the player was there, of John Coltrane. And Wardell had just a natural way of swinging and he could play, he could fool with the time, he could play behind, or forward or on it and make certain statements but there, the way he made certain statements is the way that made him swing so to speak. I know so many school bands throughout the United States that say we're going to play like Count Basie, so our ensemble is going to play behind the beat, which is basically how Basie's band operated. The rhythm was steady and the ensemble played behind the beat. However, it's not so much that they played behind the beat, as they inferred that they were behind the beat and that the soul, the feeling was from the depth of the organism. Late, of course, behind, a little bit behind but you couldn't put it into a computer and say here's how far behind the beat Count Basie's band played. You see? There were a lot of times where they played right on the money though, maybe a couple of times they might have gone ahead a little. So sum it up, swing is like feeling, it's like the feeling of Jazz. Swing is the ambiguous mysterious element, it's either there or isn't there. And Wardell had it.

Music. "I Cried For You"

Gus Johnson (Part 1)

Abraham:
So Gus,should we talk a little bit about Wardell?
Gus Johnson:
I don't know that much about Wardell. We played together different places.
Abraham:
Do you remember playing with him?
Gus:
Sure.
Abraham:
Do you remember playing with him with Count Basie?
Gus:
Yeah. The seven pieces.
Abraham:
Yeah, the septet. What do you remember about Wardell from that group?
Gus:
A really beautiful tenor player.
Abraham:
What kind of person was he?
Gus:
Well, put it this way. I had a chance to know him I knew him quite a while. Excuse me. He liked to jam you know, he did like to jam because I played with him a lot of times...........
Abraham:
A lot of people talk about his ability to swing and what a great tenor player he was. Do you remember him playing? What kind of thoughts do you have about him now as a player?
Gus:
As a tenor player, he was a really good tenor player. We had jam sessions at the theater after we finished playing, it was more relaxed. Tenor horn, that's what he played with Basie. I myself, Charlie Parker, Wardell Gray, what's the bass player's name..
Abraham:
Jimmy Lewis?
Gus:
Jimmy Lewis, he was in there. Somebody else,
Abraham:
Gus, what kind of person was Wardell?
Gus:
Well, to me, he was a very nice person. We'd go and sit in on mostly any band that was playing he could sit in on.

Sound.

Abraham:
Do you remember when you heard that he died, do you remember what your response was, were you surprised?
Gus:
Yes I was. I was really surprised about that. I heard they found him in a ditch. I don't know anything else, just that they found him in a ditch. You know so many things go wrong nowadays. Puts you on edge. They all liked Wardell Gray, he was a different kind of player.
Abraham:
How do you mean by that? How was he different?
Gus:
Well in a lot of ways he swung more than Charlie Parker. I'd say they both were about the same. He played music for so long he didn't have to ask what key you're playing in, he'd just come on in and start playing in the key that the others played in. I'm trying to think of the club we used to go by and see the different musicians and play with them. For me, the truth is I liked Charlie Parker better, I'm not sure it's because I knew him longer than I did the other kid.

Music.

Mr. Weinstock (Phone Call - Part 1)

Abraham:
Hello, Mr. Weinstock, Good Afternoon. This is Abraham Ravett I'm calling from Florence, Massachusetts. I was referred to you by Art Farmer, who I spoke to several weeks ago. I'm in the process, the last couple of years, of making a film on Wardell Gray and he suggested that I might talk with you, if you might have some information or ideas or anecdotes about your relationship with him as the executive of the record company that you owned. So I'm just taking the liberty of calling you and finding out if you could be of some help to me.
Mr. Weinstock:
Well, I could try my best, but unfortunately I can't at this hour of the day think very much because I'm up from three in the morning doing my work.
Abraham:
Oh really, O.K.
Mr. Weinstock:
Actually I have dinner in a few more minutes and then I go to bed.
Abraham:
O.K., that's sounds good.
Mr. Weinstock:
I'd be very happy to wrack my brain. Wardell was a very fine person.
Abraham:
Well, that's been consistently what everyone's said so far.
Mr. Weinstock:
He was a great musician. You know, a transition from the..he was the first transition of the Lester Young into the Bird.
Abraham:
Yes, yes.
Mr. Weinstock:
I'd be very happy to say something but, what's a good time for you.
Abraham:
Well, I think I'm at your convenience. You tell me when would be the best time to reach you.
Mr. Weinstock:
Well, the best time for me is early in the morning, as early as you can make it.
Abraham:
You mean like six or seven?
Mr. Weinstock:
Yeah.
Abraham:
Oh good. I'll call you back.
Mr. Weinstock:
And I'll be happy to go through my discography and check the sessions we did and see what I can come up with.
Abraham:
O.K. That sounds good.
Mr. Weinstock:
You know I always think of Wardell because he was such a nice person and I really to this day enjoy the limited amount of records he made.
Abraham:
Yes. You produced him didn't you?
Mr. Weinstock:
Yeah.

Art Farmer (Part 2)

Art Farmer:
I can't think of any stories about Wardell really. This crosses into how does Wardell influence your playing. I mean we could include one in the other.
Abraham:
Yes, let's do that. O.K.
Art:
To play with Wardell was like playing with the professor because he was an excellent musician and he always knew exactly what he was trying to do. And he was able to do it. And he was a wonderful example for us in Los Angeles because he was really doing what we wanted to do. And we could learn just by listening with him and to be on the same bandstand with him and to play after him you really had to put your best foot forward. I remember talking to him one day and at that time I wasn't working that much because of the scene in Los Angeles wasn't too much going on for Jazz. Actually I had a day job working in the Los Angeles County General Hospital. And if Wardell got a job where he could use me then I would take that or else I might work for the other people who liked what I was doing. But I remember telling him one day, I said you know if I could just work six months steady I would really have it all together. And he looked at me as if to say well, if you could do it that fast you're a better man than I am. He was really surprised that I had such a naive attitude about it, that it would just take six months. Of course he was completely right because what I was trying to do then is a never ending quest, and it's not six months or six years, it's a lifetime thing. And he knew that and I'm sure that he felt the same way himself . But for me to listen to him I felt that he was perfect already.

Buddy De Franco (Part 2)

Buddy:
You're in the story, can I talk to you?
Abraham:
You don't have to hide the fact that I'm here
Buddy:
Shall I call you Abraham or Abe?
Abraham:
Anything you like.
Buddy:
"Honest Abe".
Abraham:
Could you tell us about his playing, what was it specifically, people talk about his ideas, that he was amazing in terms of his ideas about playing. Could you say something about that, what was it about his ideas?
Buddy:
Well, see, there again, my terminology would not be ideas because that infers that you assemble a variety and you package a variety of cliches of licks. Now we all use patterns, there's no question about that, but the patterns, I feel, are like the words in any language. When you write a book you use the same words as so and so does, the English language, but it's where you place them. How you place them. That comes from within. So it's not so much ideas as the fluency, the flow of his particular patterns that belonged to him and the way he played them. Naturally he was influenced with players it's obvious Coleman Hawkins and the "Bird" (Charlie Parker) like we all were. But we all kind of put that together and mixed it up and tried to bring out our own personality. And Wardell had his own personality in the way he played and so that was what we might consider ideas. But my concept wouldn't be so much of his ideas as the way he fluently played whatever came into his head, you see. And I consider Jazz, the best Jazz are the guys who can extemporaneously play unedited.

Music. "I Cried For You"

Patti Richards (Part 1)

Patti Richards:
Such controversy. I mean the air just got electrified. And we sat down. He came off the bandstand he says you want to dance, because I was just a little smart kid, I say sure. We get halfway around the floor and there was this..and he says uh-oh and went back in ..because we were so used to joking back and forth so there were no limitations in our house. You could joke, you could laugh you could smack each other, whatever you wanted to do.
Ready?
Well I think I was probably fourteen or fifteen years old when Wardell was playing with Benny Carew at the Mayfair and they had morning dances for the factory workers. And I used to skip study hall in the morning, my father was a bartender at the bar so I knew all the ins and outs and I'd run over there to listen to that band. And at fifteen I had a wonderful crush on Wardell. I had a crush on his playing which is..even at fifteen I knew was out of the ordinary. Wardell was an out of the ordinary person, he was very very bright and very very funny. He could be very very sarcastic. He had a way, he knew who he was and he wasn't ashamed of who he was which made him pretty unique in those days. All the musicians, my mother being one, recognized his extraordinary talent and they were all..we had an open house. We had Black friends before it was chic to have Black friends. They were in and out of our house all the time, Wardell was in and out of our house,Paul Bryant, the Carews, I used to babysit with their children. So there was no Black or White situation it simply was a situation of who was the musician. That`s really the way we judged everyone was on their ability not on their color. Wardell's ability was above the average and he knew it because he used to rear back once in a while and say that he played so much better then what he heard, and why was he where he was. So I've never been sure because everybody that was alive then, are all dead, so I don't remember exactly how he went with Father Hines, but I do know that we did go down to the Paradise Theater immediately to see him and then he came back to Lansing. But I did get to see him after 1941 0r 42, I can't remember.