Condition is "Very Good".

Down Beat Magazine

FEATURES

SONNY ROLLINS INTERVIEW

These days Newk has the reins of his career

firmly in hand-from self-producing his own

albums to playing showcase engagements

rather than week-long gigs-since, as he tells

Bob Blumenthal, "I don't have to go up on the

bridge [anymore]."

"I'M NOT A JAZZ SINGER"

Or so says Sarah Vaughan. The No. 1 distaff

vocalist with dbers reveals to A. James Liska

that she still gets butterflies before a perform-

ance, and "I'm a singer." Period.

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

Electrifying Polish violinist Michal Urbaniak

found his first Stateside, State Department-

sponsored visit a lark; when he subsequently

emigrated with singer/spouse Urszula Dud-

ziak, they received a typically hostile Big

Apple reception. It's all behind him, as Lee

Jeske discovers.

WILLIAM RUSSO

Though perhaps still best known for his work

with Stan Kenton in the early '50s, composer/

arranger/author/educator/erstwhile-trom-

bonist William Russo has seemingly done it

all-jazz, rock, blues, symphonies, operas,

ballets, soundtracks, plays, books. Not so, he

tells Jon Balleras, there's more on the horizon

----------- 2 -----------

DEPARTMENTS

29 Record Reviews: Amarcord Nino

Rota; Wynton Marsalis; Old And New

Dreams; Dewey Redman; Swing; Echoes

Of An Era; Kenny Drew; Cedar Walton;

Amina Claudine Myers; Art Blakey; The

Crusaders; Spyro Gyra; Art Pepper; Muhal

Richard Abrams; Leroy Jenkins; Mark Mur-

phy; Luba Raashiek; Waxing On: Ellington

Lives!

47 Blindfold Test: Chico Freeman, by

Leonard Feather.

49 Profile: Emily Remler, by A. James Liska.

Miscellany

6 The First Chorus

8 Chords & Discords

10 News

Cover photography of Sonny Rollins by Darryl Pitt design by Bill Linehan.

----------- 3 -----------

50 Caught: Oliver Lake's Jump Up, by Sam

Freedman; Sydney Jazz Fest, by Lee Jeske;

Joe Lee Wilson, by John Howard.

Pro Sessions:

52 "The Dynamics Of Music And Sound

Equipment," by Larry Blakely.

54 "How To Handle Pandiatonic Harmony,

Part 1," by Dr. William L. Fowler.

56 "Stan Getz' Solo On Joy Spring-A Tenor

Saxophone Transcription," by Trent

Kynaston.

58 Pro Shop

62 City Jazzlines

BY

ВОв

BLUMENTHAL

s are

Visits to Boston by Sonny Rollins are

always events, but the tenor saxo-

phonist's November 1981 stop held two

special points of interest. The Rollins

quartet that maintained constant per-

sonnel for three years had broken up

and been replaced by a new band, and

this was Rollins' first local appearance in

a showcase club that generally books

rock (the Paradise), after years in jazz

clubs (primarily the now-defunct Jazz

Workshop) and concert halls (primarily

the Berklee Performance Center).

With these things in mind, and not

wanting to take another stroll over both

sides of the bridge (for all his shyness,

Rollins has been a frequent and cooper-

ative interview subject), I decided to

focus the interview on how life and

music are for Sonny Rollins in the '80s.

What follows is an edited conversation

that took place in Rollins' Airport Hilton

suite the night before he played the

Paradise. The new album Rollins men-

tions, recorded the following month,

features Bobby Hutcherson and guitar-

ist Bobby Broom in addition to Bob

Cranshaw and Tony Williams, and has

been released as No Problem. (Mile-

stone M-9104).

BOB BLUMENTHAL: You just finished

touring Europe, which must be an in-

creasingly important segment of your-

and other musicians'-audience.

SONNY ROLLINS: I started going to Eu-

rope in the late '50s, but there is more

happening there now, in more places.

All the cities want to have a jazz fes-

tival-these are winter festivals, not the

summer ones which were already big

business with tourists. We did the Rome

Jazz Festival, and for the first time they

did a thing at the Opera House for jazz.

Photo by Andy Freeberg

----------- 3 -----------

|n late 1980 during the first of four Frank Nelson Double-

day lectures at the Smithsonian Institution, the subject

of singing was approached via this question: "Who is

the greatest vocal artist of the century?"

On hand to answer the question and supply the

evidence was Gunther Schuller, a man whose mark has been

made on American music through his efforts as a composer,

conductor, and scholar. Schuller noted that "it's one thing to

have a beautiful voice. It is another to be a great musician. It is

still another to be a great musician with a beautiful voice who

can also compose." He then proceeded to list several opera

singers (Lauritz Melchior, Cesare Siepi, Kirsten Flagstad, and

Photo by Tom Copi

----------- 3 -----------

Maria Callas) in tandem with several jazz musicians (Louis

Armstrong, Joe Williams, and Charlie Parker).

The comparative evidence supplied, his biases exposed,

Schuller announced Sarah Vaughan as the answer to the

difficult question. "Hers is a perfect instrument, attached to a

musician of superb instincts, capable of expressing profound

human experience, with a wholly original voice."

"Leontyne Price," Vaughan offers quickly as her own

answer to the same question, adding that when she hears a

commentary like Schuller's she first blushes. "Then it gets

embarrassing," she says, laughing that little girl laugh which

so regularly punctuates her speech. "They say it and go on and

MAY 1982 DOWN BEAT 19

----------- 4 -----------

s up and walks pares into the fog-bound evening. If people=

on and on. I'm just so happy that everybody enjoys what I do.

It is a few days before Vaughan's all-Gershwin concert with

the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which Michael Tilson

Thomas will conduct. Vaughan is relaxing in the tastefully

appointed bedroom of her suburban Los Angeles home,

great sprawling house high atop a hill in a carefully guarded,

exclusive community in the San Fernando Valley. Her prepa-

ration for the concert, a program performed frequently in the

past, includes home rehearsals with Tilson Thomas, whose

arrival is expected momentarily.

"I'm a one-room person," Vaughan says, looking around the

room which serves as both sleeping and working quarters.

The room, which opens out onto the swimming pool, is large

by any standard and has all of the usual bedroom furnishings.

Black and white photographs of a variety of jazz figures, in

simple black frames, adorn the wall over the bed's headboard.

Against another wall there is an upright piano equipped with

Pianocorder-

keyboard which she takes on her frequent tours. A television

-an electric piano

and

a portab

electronic

a

set is situated to facilitate her watching from bed, and atop it is

the familiar

golden figure

of an Emmy

award.

"I won that for a TV show I did, but nobody ever knew about

it. People are always surprised I won that," she laughs. She

gets

Vallvalks

the Valley, and g

t the Emmy, toward a window overlook-

If p

don't remember the Emmy, they do remember and like

her

g. Her thoughts have left the subject of the Emmy and

return to her popularity and hard-earned fame. "It's unbeliev-

able

that's

they do. I still can't beliomat everybody likes me as well as

Sarah Vaughan's

what

that is, that

being where she is was not so much a

matter of planning, nor the result of years of rigorous training-

as it was just being in the right place at the right time-

initially, at least. "I was going to be a hairdresser before I got

into show business. I always wanted to be in show business,

and when I got in, I didn't try. I just went to the:

and in two weeks I was in show business. It

amateur hour,

shocked me to

that."

me a long

hour" was a contest at New York's Apollo

competition and was recommended by

That "amateur hous" tong tìme to get

over that

That "amateur.

Theatre. She won the competition

singer Billy Eckstine to his boss, bandleader Earl Hines.

Vaughan made her debut

band in April of 1943, leaving the next year to join Eckstine's=

own band. She stayed with him until 1945.

Since that time and with few exceptions-not counting

innumerable guest appearances with various bands-she has

worked as a solo throughout her illustrious career. Usually

she relies on her own small groups-like her current one of

pianist George Gaffney, bassist Andy Simpkins, and drum-

mer Harold Jones-to provide accompaniment.

Preparation for such a career was minimal at best. As a

child in Newark, New Jersey, Vaughan sang at the Mount Zion

Baptist Church and studied piano. But she never had any

formal voice training or music education by today's stan-

dards.

Her training came more in the way of exposure to and

working with some of jazz music's greats, from the swing and

bebop eras to contemporary time. Strongly associated with

Parker and Gillespie, her unique vocal qualities have enabled

her to gain acceptance in both the jazz and pop worlds, with

abilities equal to many an opera singer. Those vocal abilities-

have attracted such fellow musicians as Michael Tilson

Thomas, who has just arrived at her home to rehearse for the

upcoming concert appearance with the L.A. Philharmonic.

a pianist and singer with Hines'

"D

o it Chopin-style," exhorts Tilson Thomas

from the keyboard of the acoustic piano.

"Take the time at the bottom, then get it

back." He turns to Vaughan, who is now

sitting on the edge of her bed studying the

page of music he has written to introduce The Man I Love and

petting one of her three dogs which make frequent runs

through her bedroom. "You know all about that stuff"

20 DOWN BEAT MAY 1982