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Billy Hart in conversation with Ethan Iverson "Rhythm is at least equal to hamony in the scheme of human evolution." January 2006
Max Roach. Well, every great modern drummer told me they got what they do from Max. Roy, Elvin, and Tony all told me that. But Max was not the inventor of that style—he’s the personification of it. The inventor of that style, the one that paid the most dues--and even though he’s dead, he’s still paying the dues because we don’t acknowledge him--was Kenny Clarke. Most of the great drummers have played piano. Not some; most. Kenny Clarke was a great piano player. From 1896 (or whatever) to almost 1946, drummers didn’t play the ride cymbal. People played the snare drum, or when it was finally invented, the high-hat. Kenny Clarke is the guy who played the ride cymbal. Also, Kenny Clarke played with Freddie Green before Green played with Basie and Jo Jones. Jo Jones and Clarke were from the same era, actually…Klook was like Monk, a little more advanced than the others. And he gave us the ride cymbal beat. I have a friend who played with Clarke at the end of his life. He said that when Clarke played that cymbal beat, he OWNED that beat. Max Roach, not unlike Tony Williams a generation later, put it all in academic order. He was a real scholar of the instrument: not only physically, but socially. He was aware of everything, and of course he was the one on the records with Bird. Max also had wanted to be a classical percussionist. He was accepted for the Baltimore Symphony until he showed up for the gig—and they turned him away because he was Afro-American, of course. That’s one of the reasons he became so revolutionary later. I like his tympani playing with Monk. Elvin played it too—I met Elvin’s tympani teacher once. When you think about how Max related drumming to music, it makes sense. He had kind of a Kenny Clarke thing but more impressionistic, but also more aggressive and outward. A lot of it is how you feel about life, and how you feel about social issues. For example, one cat will play with Ornette one way and another guy will play with him another way. Obviously, Ed Blackwell heard the direction, whereas Billy Higgins…if Higgins was impressed with the music at all [any music that Higgins was playing, not just Ornette’s], he wanted to make it swing. That’s a hard act to follow, too—making Ornette swing! And I don’t know why Higgins was in the band instead of Blackwell when Ornette came to New York, but maybe it made the band more acceptable, since it was swinging so hard. I asked Ornette who he loved best to play with, Higgins or Blackwell. Now, why would you do that? I couldn’t help myself. We were talking about drummers. Well, what did he say? He said "Blackwell, who played the most truthful phrases." How can you disagree with that? ------------------------ John Coltrane. The first time I fell in love with John Coltrane was his solo on “All of You” from Miles’ ‘Round Midnight. I’ve talked to Gary Bartz about this, and he felt the same way—that this solo made us Coltrane fans, forever. The neighborhood I grew up in was a residential area…but it was five blocks from The Spotlite Room. Somehow, this residential area had a jazz club. And in those days, there was no air-conditioning. Instead there was a huge fan. Of course, in the wintertime, the fan wasn’t on, so I could stand outside. If it had been in a less residential area, there would have been about a hundred of us standing outside, freezing, but because of the location, it was only me, freezing, standing by the fan. I could watch through the fan, and that’s how I saw the Miles Davis sextet with John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb—who had JUST joined the band. As long as I could stand the cold, I would watch. Coltrane was back from being with Monk. He was doin’ that “sheets of sound” or whatever they call it. I watched it happen. So when Coltrane formed his own band, I was waiting for it. I wasn’t surprised, I was waiting for it. The thing that surprised me was Elvin. To see it! Jones…to see it! I went every night. It was at the Bohemian Rhapsody. At the end of the last night, I was there looking at Jones taking his drums down. I couldn’t move—like I was stuck in cement. I was just watching him. So finally he called me up to the drums, and he gave me his bass drum pedal, which had broken—the mallet part was broken. How do hit the bass drum so hard that you break the mallet without breaking the drum head? That’s quite a physics problem. That’s when he said, “Don’t ask me to show you anything, because if I could show you, we would all be Max Roach.” Anyway, I was into Coltrane…so much into Coltrane. Then at some point I realized one of the reasons I was going to see the band was the pleasure of watching McCoy catch up. McCoy was playing better and better. Yeah. Not just technically, he always had that, but harmonically. I could see how the band was growing through the piano. Some people left John at Giant Steps, other people left him at A Love Supreme. Certainly many people left him at Meditations. But I was hanging in there! And I was hanging in there with Alice and Rashied in a very deep way. So much so, by this time, I was into Cecil Taylor and Sonny Murray. John came to Washington one time. He was still looking for two drummers. (That was the first clue that Elvin was going to leave—two drummers.) John wanted Elvin, but he wanted another drummer too, so there was Frank Butler in California. Then when he was in D.C., he asked for me. I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t do it…I thought I wasn’t ready. But I also thought I was going to get another chance, because I didn’t expect him to die. (I have been hearing, just recently, that he might've known he was going to die.) In one of the interviews, Trane says that he didn’t intend for Elvin for leave—that he wanted a band that could do both the Rashied music and the swinging music with Elvin. But Elvin took off, and Coltrane didn’t look back, but just kept going on out. That is exactly right…it makes a lot of sense if he knew he didn’t have much time. One of the most beautiful things about the Coltrane legacy is that you ultimately don’t have the option to leave him at Giant Steps or A Love Supreme. You have to accept it all. He tells you very clearly that this is where it needs to go. A lot of people would prefer that those last two years didn’t have that kind of music, but he is there every day, telling you, “This is where this goes!” Oh man…you are right. [Laughter.] You didn’t play with Trane, but you did play with Pharaoh Sanders. I’m on three of the records, and he called me for the other two, and that’s part of why I left Eddie Harris, ‘cause being on tour with Eddie prevented me from being on those. It was a lot of vamps, right? Not as free as the Coltrane band. Well, live it was very free at times. Right after that, within a year, if not six months, I recorded with Herbie, McCoy, Zawinul, and Wayne. Walter Booker---and Booker’s pad--was real important at this time. That’s where I first played with Herbie—trio with Miroslav Vitous. Was that the first time you met Herbie? That was several years before at the Village Vanguard. He was coming to watch Miles play, and I was playing with Shirley Horn, alternating sets. Herbie was standing in sort of the same area as Freddie Hubbard and Joe Henderson, but they didn’t know each other yet. Who was playing bass with you and Shirley? Ronnie Markowitz or Walter Booker, probably. I think that Herbie got some stuff from Shirley, actually—as a piano player, Shirley had a bigger influence than most people realize. That intro to “My Funny Valentine” that Herbie played? That owes something to Shirley. Her intros---did you ever hear those? I know she’s a wonderful pianist, but it sounds like I haven’t checked her out enough. [Interview pauses while Billy finds the first Horn album on Steeplechase, which is trio with Billy and Buster Williams. The lovely track “Why Did I Choose You?” is played, which features advanced piano harmony.] I got her this record date—I arranged it all. Her comeback was my idea! I’ve always been a singer’s musician—so has Buster, actually. Then, after this record, she started to gig in New York again. I was playing with her somewhere, and Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter both told me I was playing too loud for a singer. So the next set, I pulled it back. Afterwards, Shirley comes up to me. “Billy, are you for me or against me?” “Aw, Shirley, people been telling me that I’ve been hitting too hard.” She looked at me, and said, “Don’t tickle me.” And the inflection, you know, was purely sexual—like, “Put it all the way in!” [Laughter] Man, I was so lucky to know her. I miss her. She was my most important teacher. --------------------- Back to the night at the Vanguard that I met Herbie Hancock …I remember telling Herbie how great he sounded on this Donald Byrd record with Billy Higgins. He seemed surprised that I knew it and was really grateful for the compliment. Miles came over, and was very displeased with me for not knowing anything about the Washington boxing scene, which I guess was very strong. Miles walked away shaking his head, and Freddie, brash as always, said to me, “punch that motherfucker!” [Laughter.] It took me a few years to play the Vanguard again. That was after I moved to New York. After Wes hassled me so much [see part one], I decided to quit his band. Of course, that’s when he finally complimented me. He said, “Billy, you sure sound good.” I said, ‘cause I was drug [upset] with him, “Well, I’m just trying to keep a gig.” He looked me straight in the face and said, “Well, man, you got one. You got this one. This is your gig.” In retrospect, what he made me go through was good for me, although I hated it at the time. In the final analysis, I figured it out. When I moved to New York, Walter Booker, who I had known from Washington, got me gigs, and pretty soon Pete LaRoca and Higgins (who both knew Booker) were getting me gigs. The most popular drummer seemed to be Mickey Roker—he was the Lewis Nash of his day. But, yeah, Sonny Rollins called me for the Vanguard. I didn’t know you played with Sonny. Who else was in the band? Reggie Workman—can’t remember who else. But is a sad story—I didn’t finish the week. Sonny did call me again a few times, but I never felt able to accept the gig—I was never that frightened, disappointed, or dismayed, as when he decided to make a change in his band mid-week at the Vanguard. This is after he called me four of five nights on the intermission at the Blue Coronet, making sure I was going to make that Vanguard gig. He let me go after two nights. Did he say why? No…and he had his manager call me, not himself. That’s cold. Well, I figured it out. I hadn’t played in New York enough. Let me tell you what Milt Jackson said about me. I played a gig with Milt just after this Sonny thing went down. Well, I thought I knew Milt Jackson, I had the Modern Jazz Quartet records, you know. How was I to know that Milt Jackson hated John Lewis and the music of the Modern Jazz Quartet? He hated the non-swingingness of it—everything about it. I didn’t know this, so I tried to play with him like I would have played with the MJQ. Oh, dear. Word got back to me—LUCKILY, word got back to me that Milt said: “Billy Hart! I never heard a drummer that didn’t do nothin’… I thought the motherfucker was dead.” [Extended laughter.] So, between Sonny Rollins and that, it dawned on me that when you moved to New York, they wanted more of a drummer than just a subservient cat. You know what I mean? Your hometown cats were one thing, but in New York, they definitely wanted your opinion. So, Sonny must have felt you were playing too light? Yes, or just indecisive--that I was trying to figure him out. He was a man who had played with Max Roach and Elvin Jones, and he’s at the Vanguard, in front of a lot of people—he doesn’t want someone tiptoeing or fumbling around! A year or two later you had learned your lesson, right? That’s when you played and recorded with McCoy, Wayne, Zawinul, and ended up joining Herbie’s band. I just wish I had realized what a moment it was…You know, you get into New York, and you are just scufflin’. You are just trying to survive. I heard other people say that, didn’t accept it from them, but now I’m using the same excuse. I did several rehearsals with Wayne, Sonny Greenwich, and Cecil McBee. But the Wayne record I’m on [Odyssey of Iska] has all these other cats except Greenwich. Greenwich was Canadian, and he was my favorite guitar player in New York at that time. Then I had this steady gig with Marian McPartland at 42 and Lexington. That’s where I met Michael Moore, who remains one of my favorite people and one my favorite bass players. That gig lasted several months, and I felt lucky to have the work. One night I was on my way out the door, late for the gig (as usual), and I heard the phone ring. I had already locked the door, and nearly didn’t go back in to get it, but I did, and it was Joe Zawinul, asking me to come down to the studio where he was recording. I sent Harold White to the McPartland gig, and I’m on that Zawinul album…with two drummers (Joe Chambers is other, I think). Like John, it seemed that everybody wanted two drummers for a while. Also on that date was Herbie, which was the first time we played together since that time at Booker’s pad. Me and Herbie again. I guess he’d seen me weasel my way onto the scene…his first drummer was Pete LaRoca. Really? I didn’t know that. Oh yeah, that was the first drummer in the Herbie Hancock sextet. The first sextet was Ron Carter, Pete, with the front line of Johnny Coles, Garnett Brown—and this is interesting—Clifford Jordan. Think about it! What a great band. For sure. It can’t have lasted that long, right? Well, one reason was that LaRoca said he didn’t feel like being creative before 11 o’clock at night—so he never showed up before 11. And this is Herbie’s first gig with his own band, right? And with Ron—Ron is the kind of cat (just like Wes) who feels that if you are not half an hour early for the gig, you’re late. So that didn’t last long. But Clifford Jordan knew that Tootie was on his way back. I think Tootie must have come back by boat, because Clifford wired him on the boat that he had a gig when he got off the boat. So, Clifford wanted Tootie in that band. Tootie is on The Prisoner, but Joe Henderson and Buster are on it, not Clifford and Ron. I don’t know why Clifford split. And by the time I join the band, the trumpet player is Woody Shaw, so it is Joe and Woody. It’s a shame that those two didn’t record more together—they were a phenomenal combination. Buster had just moved back to New York too. He had subbed for Ron in Miles’ band, that’s how he met Herbie. He had a connection with Mickey Roker, a Philadelphia connection, and I think he got Roker the gig with Nancy Wilson. Roker is the drummer on Speak Like A Child. He sounds good, but I’ve always wished it was Tony Williams, or someone else who played…more interactively. It’s funny what people want from drummers. Ethan, you’ve got to remember, you are in a minority…you always seem to encourage in drummers what most people would reject. It’s true that people love Roker’s playing on Speak Like a Child, and he sure does sound good, I’m not saying anything else! But… Also, man, you’ve got to remember what drummers were playing like back then. Tony Williams was very heavily criticized…there were no other drummers doing that style yet. Everybody plays like that now, but nobody played like that then. I just mean that…well, like Roy Haynes doesn’t sound out of place with Chick and Miroslav on Now He Sings, Now He Sobs the way that Mickey Roker sounds out of place on Speak Like A Child. Right…well, you say that now, and that’s easy to say. Back then, with an egotistical glint in my eye, I might have felt that way myself. But I think that if Roker had been available for that Hancock gig, I never would have gotten that gig myself, I can tell you that much! [Laughter.] See, Roker’s first name is Granville. What does that sound like? Maxwell Roach. Wynton Kelly. Theodore Rollins. Those are English names, from the Caribbean element. They have an island heritage, American too of course, but those British names are from the islands, from the Caribbean. For me, as a drummer, I feel that they are closer to the source rhythmically. What always happens is these cats bring back some sort of rhythmic truth just when it is getting too harmonic. That’s why New Orleans is important, because it is the closest port to the islands—that is where Jelly Roll Morton got the rhythms. When you think about Rollins, he’s from there, and he plays these rhythms. Coltrane doesn’t play those rhythms, but Theodore does. [Sings some of “St. Thomas.”] Rollins imposed so much of that in post-bop that it has become a part of the tradition. Next time you listen to Sonny again, notice how much of those island rhythms he plays. Also, Thelonious is an island name. I mean, it’s not Greek, is it? [Laughter.] Bemesha Swing. It’s rhythm. Rhythm is at least equal to hamony in the scheme of human evolution. It’s just that the European concept (since it was so devoid of rhythm) related harmony to emotion so clearly that it used to seem like the only way to do it. At this point, we know differently—obviously rhythm can give you that same emotional value. I think my profound attraction to jazz is that is the precise intersection of both values. Right. That’s what jazz is. On my instrument, it could not be more literal. When you listen to Jelly Roll Morton or James P. Johnson, you are listening to the collision of 2,000 years of heritage from two different continents. James P., he was rough, man. A bad cat. Anyway, this keeps the rhythm honest, especially anytime we want to have some kind of a “designer” rhythm. [Extended laughter.] And when you are looking at Roker, that is what you are not looking at: the island element. The cascara rhythm. Roker had the cascura in his ride cymbal beat, just like Higgins and Haynes. And drummers who have the cascara beat in their cymbal will always be very popular. Well, by the time you were Herbie’s band, you brought the odd-meter and rock beat element, which I don’t think Roker would have done. Well, anyway, Tootie had the gig anyway, not Roker. And Tootie was ready to try to do that stuff. His favorite drummer at that time was Billy Cobham. He told me to my face that he thought Billy Cobham was the newest thing since Bird. I said, “Man, you haven’t checked out Tony Williams.” Anyway, what happened was this. Herbie was trying to put a band together, and had an old college chum named Granell booking the band, which—well, a whole summer tour fell apart. So Tootie split and went with Yusef Lateef, who had a bunch of gigs. It wasn’t just for the summer, it was…forever! And Tootie had a family. So not only did Herbie not have a drummer, he had no work, which also made it easier for him to try someone like me. He had just done Fat Albert Rotunda, which has both Tootie and Bernard Purdie. I joined the band right at that point. We were on our way to some gig, and Joe Henderson doesn’t show up. He sends Pete Yellin—one of Joe’s boys. (I just made a record with Yellin, actually. He’s been teaching quite a bit recently, but I remember when Joe Henderson had a sextet for a minute with Woody, Yellin, George Cables, Stanley Clarke, and Lenny White.) And then the next time Joe can’t make it, he doesn’t send anybody, he just calls at the last minute. Buster had been playing with Bennie Maupin in Lee Morgan’s band, and he told Herbie to call Bennie. We went down in a van, and Bennie is there, reading the music in the van, so that’s how that happened. Then we had a gig in California, and Herbie offers Woody a ticket, but Woody recommended Eddie Henderson, who was living there, being a psychiatrist at the same clinic Denny Zeitlin was at. Eddie was always a good reader—that’s how I knew him as a musician. When I was in the Howard theater band, Eddie was in it too: we played behind all the rock and roll acts: I played with Joe Tex, The Isley Brothers, Sam and Dave, Patti Labelle, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. But at the time of the California gig, I knew him as a doctor, not as a jazz player. Also, in addition to being a doctor he is an ice-skating champion and a chess champion. He’s a brilliant man. At the end of the California run, I said to him, “Man, Eddie, you sure sound good.” Because as good as he was playing, and he got better every night, I was still thinking of him as a doctor, not as a trumpet player. “Nice seeing you again, Eddie, nice playing with you again. If you weren’t a doctor, and you were living in New York, you would have a chance for this gig.” And Eddie said, “Man, I already hit on Herbie for the gig.” “What? WHY? What about all those years: pre-med, med, and another stint on top of that for psychiatry. What about all your training in medicine?” And he said, verbatim: “Motherfuck medicine.” He was at one of the most respected clinics, making serious money, driving every night to the gig in a Ferrari. That gives you an idea how much love there was in the band. I had just joined Herbie Hancock, and was totally in love with him, and now Eddie gave up his life to be in the band too…and this is before Julian Priester joined, Garnett was still the trombone player. (Garnett was really a studio player, and that is how Herbie knew him, from all the studio work they did together.) And that’s how that sextet, which will always be one of the highlights of my musical life, came together.
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