Almost 10 years ago now, I had decided to embark on interviewing as many of my father’s friends and musical colleagues as possible before I would not be able to do so. In the case of Brookmeyer, it turned out to be prescient because he was to pass on not too long after this interview.
In fact, after this interview I had called him repeatedly to approve of the draft I had made of this interview and got a little annoyed at him for not returning my call.
As it turned out, he must’ve been ill by that point and simply didn’t call back due to his failing health.
The interview is presented in it’s entirety with little editing with the exception of two places.
We were discussing some personal items in regards to Jim Hall and out of respect for the living members of the Hall family, I’ve withheld it. I don’t think it’s anything major or controversial but to err on the side of caution I’ve done this.
The original reason for delaying publishing was due to these issues.
There is also withholding of major name jazz musicians mentioned in this. I have supplied a clever pseudonym to avoid the inevitable re-quoting that will likely happen. For those of you familiar with Bob’s balls-to-the-wall online posting in years past you will likely know whom he is referring to.
Feb 8, 2011
JR: When did you get your start in music? Did you start at an early age?
BB: I liked it very early and I had a ukulele for a while. My father brought home a metal clarinet which kind was a turn right )and I did pretty well out on that so I got a wooden clarinet and I was (….) in a stage group right across the street (?) though I was playing… my Benny Goodman hot licks and sight reading my lessons.
JR: How old were you then
BB: I was about 9 I guess, 10. I got to be a hell of sight reader
JR: Wow
BB: And then I ended up quitting playing, and I had a problem with my teeth and my lip or something and I wanted to play drums very badly and I worked all summer, did days jobs to buy a set of drums, and when I got home at the end of summer I was the new 6th trombone player in Central Junior High School. So for some reason I rolled with that, but trumpet was my 2nd choice so I watched the guys learn how to finger and whatever possible kind of baritone horn out of the band room and then finally got a series of terrible valve trombones and finally in ’48 I got a rental that was brand new which was the first good horn I had.
I got a piano when I was about 16 and then I was doing the conservatory. I was playing on the piano and studying it also and working a lot – society bands mainly, some jazz. People would come through and they needed a piano player. My facility on piano was pretty good on piano and reading and then I was playing with Claude Thornhill and I sold my slide trombone to the other guy. He had a 78-8 which was too big and that was the beginning of all (only playing) valve trombone.
JR: Ok. So it was because you sold the slide trombone that you decided and kind of got acquainted with the valve and decided that was your preference?
BB: I had been playing the rental (valve trombone) by then for about 4-5 years. So I was very happy with that. I played slide trombone because I had to.
JR: Right. Is there something about valve trombone that you prefer, outside of the articulation?
BB: I don’t know. When I was playing with Giuffre’s 3 I really learned how to play the trombone and I became a positioned studio trombone player, which was one of my aims because the valve trombone player would always be out and no one could sound good on valve trombone. And they didn’t. So I learned how to play the damn thing and I became a 1st, 2nd and 3rd trombone player.
JR: Were there other valve trombonists?
BB: Nope. Nobody who did what I did. I moved to LA and I was in the “A” Band there too. And these are heavyweight trombone players on both coasts so I think I did ok. And I was very pleased with that.
JR: Ok
BB: And with Jimmy, in Kansas City he was through I think with Jerry Wald’s band and then through with Woody’s band.
JR: So that’s when you first saw him?
BB: I saw him, I wouldn’t know how to meet him. I just stood in front and I recognized Jimmy. I knew about him.
JR: So that was about 1945 or so?
BB: Yeah, ’45 and I think Woody’s band was ‘48
JR: What did you think of his playing back in 1945?
BB: Well I didn’t. I just had records and you couldn’t really hear so much with a big band. But by ’48 I heard him on records and – you know – very good.
JR: So you heard about him and heard him on some records. When did you first meet him?
BB: It was in NY and probably at Charlie’s Tavern, where everybody hung out. And we liked each other right away so we became friends and he was you know a charming man and I was really glad to meet him and he seemed to be good with me too.
JR: What was that, 1949-50…?
BB: No, I came to NY in ’52. That would be ’52 or ’53 something like that.
JR: Who were you playing with at that point, Giuffre?
BB: Let’s see… before I joined Stan I played mainly in big bands and small groups with Teddy Charles and Charles Mingus and making a living playing piano. So, doing -you know -whatever you do to work out your union card. And then Frank Isola was playing with Stan and Jimmy Raney left and that’s when he called me from Boston and asked if I could come up for a week and play with Stan so of course I gladly did that. But I promised to join Woody’s band, which was a life-long ambition.
JR: So you were supposed to replace Jimmy- for a while or just sub for him while he was out or was this after he left?
BB: He left, yeah. So I left Stan, went with Woody’s band. Quit the first night because the band was not good and stayed 6 weeks and then Herbie (Steward) came back and I left for Kansas City and then Stan and I… I wrote the music and then joined him about 2 months later in April I think of ’53 and then we went out to California until the fall of ’53 and I left. At that time we were hanging out with Mulligan and Chet and playing out after work. Mulligan’s quartet was just outrageously good, so Gerry…
JR: You said “We were hanging out…” who did you mean?
BB: I mean Stan and me.
JR: Oh, Stan and you.
BB: Yeah.
JR: How was that the first time playing with Stan the first time?
BB: It was ok. I was writing arrangements at intermissions. I enjoyed it, but I shrink when I hear somebody play a CD of it.
JR: Who was in the rhythm section?
BB: Duke Jordan, Bill Crow and Frank Isola.
JR: Stan has sort of a funny reputation. How did you get along with him? Ok?
BB: Ok. We established a relationship early on that he couldn’t fuck with me.
JR: (Laughs)
BB: I invited him off the bandstand one night. So he liked me but he couldn’t pull that shit. He’d only be rotten to you if you let him.
JR: I see. It’s like trial by fire? Seeing if he could get under your skin?
BB: Uh-huh.
JR: I heard recent stories from Kenny Barron how kept firing the bass players – stuff like that – all the time.
BB: He was on with Billy Hart after I got sober… he (Stan) talked me into joining the band again –which was good. And Billy came to me in San Francisco (I didn’t know Billy that well) and he says, “Could you get Stan off my case? You’re his best friend!” and I said, “Oh my God…(laughs)… don’t tell me that!” So he (Stan) was… a real asshole. And there may be good things about him and he was good to me but I didn’t love everything else. He made me go on the road again and I almost stayed in California and became an alcoholism counselor. So for me, it was ok. But other people he was really shitty to.
JR: Yeah.
BB: Or they allowed it.
JR: What do you remember was Stan’s relationship with my father? How was that?
BB: I think, probably just… it (he) had to be very impressed, because Jimmy was such a wonderful player then. He was the first bridge – he talks about… um (Tries to recall who “he” was) The other guy in New Jersey, the older guitar player…
JR: Tal Farlow?
BB: Tal Farlow, yeah. But, Jimmy had it. After Charlie Parker, they said Charlie Christian was the bridge. I don’t think so. I think Jimmy was the bridge.
JR: Hmm.
Bb: He was you know…. I talked to my wife. I played her some of his stuff. I said if he wasn’t a genius, he was pretty close to it.
JR: Yeah. I guess that Charlie (Christian) was still on the edge of the swing era. Maybe sort of pre-Parker in a way. I mean definitely within … I was listening to some stuff the other day (with Benny Goodman) and I was surprised at how modern it was. I was listening for stuff, trying to check what my father was listening to and try to put myself back in those days. But my father I think he changed the feel, almost you know?
BB: He did, I would say…
JR: The way the eighth is or something. It was a very strident eighth before, you know. Even Dad’s playing was almost a little out of the Christian feel in the beginning… like exaggerated swung eighths. It seemed like he consciously made it a little bit more – I don’t know – a little bit more the way it is now. Or something. I don’t know if he was the only one doing it but he was definitely one of them. That’s what I always thought anyway.
BB: Yeah, I think that people were playing with exaggerated accents, trying to get the line to speak and Jimmy was so full of subtleties…
JR: Yeah.
BBL: But I think that nobody even came close to that. On horn, or guitar or piano or anything. Al Haig could be a little close – when he was in a good mood, but…
JR: Yeah, there’s some amazing stuff with Al that I’ve heard. With Al and Red Rodney. It was quite good.
JR: I wanted to mention something. I don’t know if you seen it. It’s gotten a little bit of press, about the Jazz Loft?
*I didn’t hear him say David at that moment
BB: Uh-huh
JR: I guess it was Dave Young’s pad and I guess it was shared by the photographer… was that Eugene Smith, was his name?
BB: Yeah, he was the last one there. Hall Overton was downstairs, Dick Cary below that and Gene Smith. I knew Jimmy er… David in Boston* so he got in touch with me, and he got the loft and we started playing over there. And Jimmy was one of the first ones I think. And when Jim Hall got in town with Giuffre, I got to know Jim Hall and he came over and there were some memorable times of he and your Dad playing.
JR: Uh-huh.
BB: Jim said Raney would play these long solos. And Jim said it was “like hearing an art form”. Which is more a Classical term. But it was so well-constructed that it was really very close to a written art form.
JR: Yeah. He was… I guess that was around 1955-56 maybe?
BB: Yeah ‘55-‘56. And we were fully in shape by ’56-‘57
JR: Did you know about the recording they were doing? Did the musicians know they were being recorded?
BB: I don’t know. I didn’t know Gene Smith was recording. And in fact I didn’t know Gene Smith was anything but the “crazy guy” downstairs that took photographs. So I found out years later that he was “somebody”. I don’t know whether we knew (about the recording) or even care…
JR: Right.
BB: Because it was such a wonderful place to play.
JR: Because they… a couple of years ago. Around that time, I was actually talking to Jim Hall about it and Dave Young decided – he was long trying to get those tapes of the music. You remember Dave Young?
BB: Oh yeah, sure. Good friends
JR: He – I guess this was his swan song – he wanted to put out his art, plus release all that music. And there was some kind of lawyer contacting me about granting the release of the music and stuff like that. And I learned since that they’ve sort of taken it up in a new form with Eugene Smith as the lead and there’s like a show in Chicago? Did you hear anything about that?
BB: Now I didn’t. I knew Dave Young was really pissed at Smith.
JR: Well they were competing for the same thing! (sarcastic laugh) Smith just wanted to do the exact same thing he did (*note: in other words, getting a bigger sell of his own art by cross selling what I and many others felt was “bootleg” music). You know?
BB: Yeah
JR: I never liked the idea. I told him (Dave) it was … and he said, “Well they knew they were being recorded!” and I said, “Well they didn’t know that 40 years later you were going to try to turn around and make recording and make a profit on that for un…(compensated work). So they actually ended up giving posthumous royalties for some people.
BB: If it was Dave Young that could get some money out of it, that would be fine.
JR: Yeah, well he was sick so…that was alright.
BB: He was really broke then. I used to take him around. When we went out I paid for everything. He didn’t have any money. So it would’ve been nice for him
JR: Yeah.
JR: Did you and Jimmy gig together at all?
BB Not really very much. I get a week at The Composer for about a month, actually and I had Jim me and Teddy Kotick. And Bill Evans was playing intermission piano and I was playing a lot of piano then too. I was playing too much piano on the trio gig and the owner said, either more trombone or you’re fired! So I said fuck it, and I got fired.
JR: (laughs)
BB: That was about it. I was getting busy with Mulligan and the big band I was hired… (as much mine as Gerry’s?) And very interested in that and Jimmy and I musically lost touch but not socially because we’d see each other at Jim and Andy’s, which was the “new Charlie’s Tavern”. And as I said, we liked each other a lot and we enjoyed each other’s company.
JR: uh-huh
JR: I wanted to talk to you about uh- well I want to come back to Bill Evans in a second… You know those classic records you did were really something. The ones from ’56. There were two right around the same time (*note… the other not mentioned here was Jimmy Raney: In Three Attitudes, with Bob, Al Cohn and Red Mitchell. Plus a 3rd near that time –The Street Swingers with Bob and Jim Hall) and one has recently been re-released digitally. It’s available You know, the one Jimmy Raney featuring Bob Brookmeyer?
BB: Uh-huh.
JR: I wanted to ask you a little bit about that record… if you remember (laughs)
BB: Well, I just listened to one track on Youtube and I couldn’t stand my playing (laughs)
JR: (laughs)
BB: I have trouble with some of my playing then. But Jimmy liked to work with me. And that was a weakness of his, so he’d hire me for the record date(s) with him and of course I used him on a lot of my stuff.
JR: Yeah, you had something that was maybe just before, that uh- The Dual Role of Bob Brookmeyer? Was that a little bit before that record? Where you played piano and trombone?
BB: Yeah, probably was.
JR: My father actually comments on that record as kind of… I mean a lot of people revere a lot of those early records from let’s say 1951 thru ’54 as they should but… he’s always said that he always felt stiff and nervous. Sometimes nervous, mostly stiff. And that the first record he felt comfortable was that record: 1956. The one with you.
BB: Uh-huh (sounds a little surprised)
JR: That’s what he told me. And I just… I really enjoy it. Do you know how the players got selected? Like for instance there were 2 piano players on that record. Do you know?
BB: Yeah. Probably Hank couldn’t make one of them… so they got Dick Katz
JR: So this was on separate days?
BB: I guess either the record company did, or Jimmy did (hire the musicians). I just showed up. I didn’t have any pick in it.
JR: Do you remember how the date went? How you felt about while it was happening?
BB: No. But with Jimmy everything was always fine
JR: Uh-huh
BB: Well, one of things you notice… I notice about those records – and some of this is the way you play with Stan as well – is that counterpoint stuff. Where you or the other player will play a counter line a lot of times near the end, sometimes in the middle depending. And I was wondering was that somewhat spontaneous? All spontaneous? Worked out? Or? Do you know what I mean?
BB: Well, I was a writer and arranger since I was 14. You tend to know how the inner voices go. And it seemed if you played guitar it went nice with tenor, with unisons. Or even trombone. But sooner or later you got burnt with that and you start making up a line with it and of course after a year with Mulligan who was a master at that – you get the feeling that it’s almost necessary to be free with the line.
JR: Yeah, like on the ballads and especially endings. And I noticed that with you and Dad and also with you and Stan, the records I think about… there are two that come to mind (although there are some that came before) were the ones you did with him and Stan … I guess it was 1961 and Steve Kuhn was the pianist?
BB: Yeah that was ’61 (he thought I said ’51)
JR: Yeah
BB: Well, I think it was the first time that Stanley found another horn he could play with. You know he played with Jimmy and they did wonderful things together but to find a horn – like a trombone or a trumpet that he could noodle with was new trip for him.
JR: Yeah. Did you feel like that counterpoint style was something within…. there’s a certain sound associated with you guys. I don’t know how to describe it exactly. But it’s like you, Jimmy, Stan and maybe some others. Were you aware that it was part of your identity in a way? Your whole approach? Or did you not really think of it that way?
BB: Yeah. I once told somebody that I enjoyed playing with people. And had most of my life played with people. So not just playing my band (which was never there…) but playing with somebody else you start to make some kind of a line to make it more interesting for yourself. So that was how it started probably. Just boredom playing the melody and my ears wanted something more satisfying to listen to.
JR: Right, right.
BB: And one of my regrets. (well not regret, but) to hear Jimmy now, and I was so close to it that I knew he was a master but I’d have been even more impressed (laughs) than I am now. Now I just go, “Holy shit!” you know? I knew him and got to play with him so my estimation of him has just grown with leaps (and bounds) the older I get.
JR: You guys were really close and I know you knew my mother. Did you ever come by the house in Briarwood?
BB: Yeah, I did with Jimmy one time and I had a car then for a while. And I took Lee home. She was without a ride and it was too late for a subway so I dropped her down too. I didn’t know that Kotick lived nearby.
JR: Yeah, he lived around the corner from the Briarfield actually. The sons, Teddy’s son and Doug knew each other and hung out.
BB: I was not a great fan of Ted’s – personally. Good music but we had a hard summer with Stanley in California so…
JR: I was thought he was one of the most underrated bassists ever. I just thought he was really just top-notch in terms of his feel and everything. When I think about a bassist from that period, his whole approach was just something I wanted to hear in a way. Like, a lot of the good records I hear. I’m like ok that’s Teddy Kotick… that’s why (it sounds good). He just had that lift in his line. That bounce that really worked.
BB: He could really play. He just seemed to get inward and combative sometimes. The summer(?) with Stanley. It was like 3 rhythm parts: piano, drums and bass and it got to be really silly. You know? Who’s right and who’s wrong. Only young people could do that?
JR: (laughs)
JR: There’s something I wanted to mention. On the record you did with Dad in ’56. Doug was born. Was my father a bit distracted? I don’t know if it was before or after.
BB: I don’t know. I wasn’t much of a baby fan then. He didn’t smoke cigars or anything
JR: (laughs)
BB: But he probably told me and was very pleased.
BB And when Doug got older. That story I told you about Janos Starker (the cellist) and me. I still get a kick out of those. (The story was he told was that during a short period, Doug decided that he would only answer to the name, Janos Starker and not Doug. Then later it was only Brookmeyer) Not knowing much about kids and Jimmy was already this marvelous eccentric but his child would only answer to Janos Starker. (I laugh). Dinnertime, bedtime, whatever. Then after 6 months it changed to Brookmeyer. Go figure. You know. Janos Starker was because Jimmy was playing cello. Where he got me I don’t know. (I laugh). But I loved it. That was great.
JR: Did you guys hang out and listen to records together? Like classical music or anything like that? Listen to Bartok? Because obviously he was pretty much into that stuff I think at that point. Studying with Hall Overton
BB: Not so much. Late at night occasionally I’d bring him down to my place in the village and we’d listen to something. But we didn’t decide really… There wasn’t the time, you know. He was working nights and I was doing something or working and we just didn’t realize it would be nice to spend an afternoon together listening to music. Like there was always something we had to do.
JR: My Dad credits you for introducing him or telling him about Bill Evans since you had some early associations with him – like early in Bill’s career. Is that true?
BB: Yeah, it could’ve been. Since I knew Billy right after he got to town. And we worked a little bit together. I played with (?) at the Half Note. That was ’59 I think. Before that it was when George Russell and I used to throw parties back and forth and we lived about a block and a half apart in the village and Jaunita Russell and I would try to get Bill off the wall cause he’d go stand in the corner by the wall . But we considered it a successful party if we could get Billy sitting down in a chair.
JR: He was very shy, huh?
BB: Oh, extremely so, yeah.
JR: Well my father mentioned seeing him for the first time. I guess it was those famous… what the Village Gate or something where he was playing opposite (some major act)? Or was it the loft or something?
BB: Probably not The Gate but maybe the loft. Yeah, it could’ve been.
JR: What was my father’s influence on Jim Hall.
BB: I would think it would have to be profound. When Giuffre’s trio came to The Vanguard which was right around the corner from me, I really fell in love with the band. That’s what I was saying, it was just great, and Hall was playing so well and simplified and had his guitar tuned lower and the trio was just delightful. So, I think with the two guitars playing together like I have a movie of them doing it in my yhead. And Jim always felt like that couldn’t play fast. He and I were working together for a year playing duo, we kind of talked him out about that and Jim said he couldn’t play fast yet I had some tapes from Fat Tuesday’s ‘72 -3 …uh (corrects) ’82-83 where he could play (fast) but never like Jimmy. I see the things now and watch his hands (the Youtube videos) and that must’ve been stunning for Jim Hall. Because nobody was doing what Raney was doing, so it had to be an influence, you know. His tone was beautiful and the facility and how he made the lines hang together.
JR: Jim (Hall) had mentioned that (I think) that he and [Anderson Clift] would follow Jimmy around, like at gigs. Is that accurate?
BB: Could’ve been I don’t know. I was talking to my wife, I said Jimmy’s time … like [Winston Hedges] I heard- played a festival with – he can’t play, I mean he’s not a jazz player. Well all these guys, [Anderson Clift] …(etc.) they’re one trick ponies and they get a lot of money and backers and they‘re going to become famous. Well Raney was not cut out for fame. He’s not full of shit and can’t market himself like that so…
JR: You felt that [Anderson Clift]’s fame was all about marketing? His schtick with octaves or…
BB: Yeah, you know playing 8ves and all that stuff
JR: I thought he was a very influential musician to other guitarists who imitate him and – maybe. I usually take that to mean that there is something there if enough people take an interest in the guy’s style. Like chord melodies and (lines)…
BB: Yeah, I didn’t because I had Jimmy in my ears or Jim Hall and I was so guitar(oriented?) because the year I was playing duo I went to hear all the guitar players who came through town and nobody held a candle to Jim Hall so I felt I knew guitar players from working with them and having a chance to play with two of the best ever as your Dad and Hall and more and more now, hearing some of these people it’s just.. you know (laughs) it’s no contest. It’s Jimmy and Hall and the rest of them.
JR: (stunned) Right. When do you suppose… this is going to take a turn here but … When did Dad start getting noticeably inebriated – shall we say- uh socially as you recall?
BB: Well it’s hard for me to tell because I was there too, you know and we both drank heavy and uh…
JR: Was he able to drink and play at the same time? For a certain amount of time? Or did that…
BB: Yeah, I guess so, we were drinking over at the loft and smoking some dope and all that. I know one time at Junior’s somebody gave Jimmy some capsules, it was supposed to be cocaine and then Jim snorted it and it was very different. So I guess it was heroin (laughs). Oof… what’s this! (laughs) So you know, that was a part of our lives. Not injecting but if you could smoke it, snort it or drink it, it was ok and…
JR: Well he didn’t do that too much. He always said that heroin frightened him.
BB: He was a drinker.
JR: yeah.
BB: And I was too. That was the main thing and I didn’t know him at work. I never even went there so I couldn’t tell how he did there. But I’d seen him at the loft when that was going and then from 1960 when I was in Mulligan’s band, that had all my attention. So I really couldn’t tell. I was a successful drinker which is a bad sign, that I could hold a lot and that’s not good news.
JR: right.
BB: And I don’t recall Jimmy… you know, once in while we’d be stoned, he’d show it, you know. you let the prides in with whatever you were doing, to do a lot of it, but don’t show it. And Jimmy wasn’t too great at acting so if he showed it- he would show it.
JR: Well, when I was growing up, he was full-on over the deep end kind (of drunk) where he would jump into another personality practically and playing was out of the question because he would get so far gone. But that probably means, that early on he probably was what you call a functioning alcoholic
BB: Yeah, and so was I. We could become buzzy …. Uhh (takes a breath) late 60’s when I moved to California, I was almost not hire-able when in NY so I tried to make a fresh start and I was a functioning alcoholic – which is hard work – but I lasted about 4 years in California doing studio work and finally it catches up with you and your drinking curve increases and from then on you’re out of it, so.
JR: Yeah. Well I remember seeing you on the Tonight Show with Getz. I guess it was in the 70s or something like that. And I seem to remember them saying, (rough paraphrase)”and after a long time…” or “After a long lay-off… is Bob Brookmeyer…” or something. Was that sort of the beginning of your come back? Do I remember that right?
BB: Yep.
JR: Was that like maybe ’71 I want to say? I was a kid, I remember….
BB: ’77, I think because I got officially sober by ’76. So I joined Stanley a year later, the fall of ’77 and I wound up in NY, June or May of ‘78
JR: Right
JR: I remember actually, meeting you again later on with Dad and I seem to remember you wanting to help him. Do you remember that?
BB: I wanted to do to do something for Norman Schwartz then off his record company and I was helping him produce some things and I wanted to very much try to get Jimmy back on a recording and performing. I was very ambitious. So I asked to come to NY for a week and talk with Norman and make some plans, play on some records and some club dates. I would love to play with him. And he caught the plane but nobody me told me that he wouldn’t last the plane trip so he arrived stoned. You remember that (Actually I repressed that memory. It’s familiar now that he tells it but still foggy).
JR: Yeah
BB: So we had to get him back (to Louisville, KY) after about a week. I was dumb, I guess I should’ve known. But I didn’t. You know, I quit so everybody else should be able to.
JR: Yeah, he would have these things, you know like– he’d be fine but it was like every 6 months and you never knew exactly when he would take a turn, but I almost feel that – for dates and things like that – it was like he almost didn’t really want to do them inside. Because he actually was to show up for Schlitten date (record producer, Don Schlitten) which was with Jimmy Rowles and I was there. And he wasn’t there then I found out later (I just went into the bathroom to take a leak) he was in the bathroom the whole time (I don’t believe they knew either. I think they thought he just didn’t show up). So it was tough. He finally got a little bit better around 1979 and he was living with Cyra Greene, actually. I remember he had a pretty good period there, as I recall. It was right down the street from Bradley’s.
BB: I went to school for counseling in California for almost a year. My first sobriety year and it’s a hell of a disease. It’s fascinating to counsel because how can you talk to alcoholics all day. You try to find the magic spot, you just keep talking going over, and pushing here and pushing there and I was lucky. It took me 2 times through the hospital. The 2nd time I got it. The first time I didn’t do anything they asked. The 2nd time I did. I volunteered I went to group. I decided I wanted to be a counselor so they got me into that. And that was really helpful. Besides I couldn’t go anymore. I was too bad for the street. So I either died or kept going. So I kept going
JR: Why do you suppose you were able to master it (alcoholism) and Dad wasn’t. Was there any particular thing…?
BB: I don’t think Jimmy had the chance with the people involved. There was a counselor (Emil Grace?) he was the head our group. But I really liked him and wanted to emulate. He was very together. Another guy, Mike Stewart and he was tall, and he had a girlfriend named Jan, oddly enough. So I would like some of that. But Emil was really great and I stayed with him. I’d go to California on or for a visit, to go and get some counseling and I wanted to make sure I was thinking straight. I’d run my life’s choices before him and said, “What do you think?” and oddly enough he showed me – we talked about how people go off on a drunk and they he proceeded to it and he vanished. So you’re getting 10 years sober 15 and a very influential very nice guy, head of the whole alcoholism business in California in L.A. For his 20th birthday he took his wife out and had a drink and he was gone for 3 months.
JR: Wow
BB: So you learn. I was a chicken-shit alcoholic. I didn’t allow any alcohol in my house. Somebody had drinks, I’d buy a pint and they took what was left with them. So it was 2 or 3 years before I’d allow anything around the house.
JR: Right
BB. So I really wanted to stay out of it. It just felt too good not to be fucked up.
JR: (laughs)
BB: And Jimmy didn’t have that chance.
JR: I guess it’s almost like a technique in a way. That you just have to practice, maybe. Or mental discipline. I mean there’s a part of your brain that knows it gets pleasure from doing something like that but even though you realize intellectually – or whatever- it’s destroying your life, that there’s still a small part that holds onto it. I really don’t know. I’ve never had the issue.
BB: You know, I was just reading. The young sister of this model was a druggie and an alchie and she was out of the woods for about a year but she was going thru some heavy shit, people getting killed and all that and she said if I could just have one taste, because the drugs did wipe all of that stuff away. You can remember that ok. But -you know- you have to remember what happens 4 or 5 months later on. So it makes you get a new life. For me I felt like I was really born again, as corny as that is. Because I could experience things I hadn’t before and I was ambitious where I was negative before. It’s a new life and once you get some of that you really don’t want to throw it away.
JR: Right
BB: I’d walk by a liquor store where I lived in Gramercy park. I said, if any alcohol appeared in my brain, that’s the alcohol thinking of me, that’s not me thinking of the alcohol.
JR: (Laughs)
BB: (Laughs). It was thinking of me and I say you know, “Get out!”” and you know I’m thinking of it. Funny thing was that there was an ice cream store about a half a block away, so after a hard day on Friday in the evening I’d go over and the oriental guy would go, “Single, or double?” (I laugh) So I had a double. It was a hard day. And I had mentioned…
JR: Move up to the soda bar…
BB: Yeah, and next to the ice-cream place, which was all full of joy and kids and everything was a bar! A real old tavern that I had spent a good part of my life in. Dark, miserable. The people in there looked dark and miserable. And I said, “Jesus, am I lucky.”
JR: Yeah
BB: So it’s hard. We don’t know. You know physically they’re still finding out more about it. What physiologically causes the whole thing to happen, but on top of that – just learning to call yourself an alcoholic is a big step.
JR: right
BB: And from there on, you start getting into honesty and feelings and all that stuff and you start to roll with it. You know Jim Hall got sober. He’d stay dry for a while then he went off on a long drunk and I don’t know why. Maybe with his wife, I can imagine. He just did. I would see him in the hospital. He lived right near me in the country. He was just (the same old) drunk. But he finally got straight.
JR: My feeling from my father was that he. and maybe this will be off the record. But it was almost that, you know my father felt like he sort of was shutting him out or something? He had a gig at Zinno’s and Jim Hall (from what I understood) lived around the corner and he never went to see him. He felt like it was like the old days of them hanging out drinking …
[Out of respect for the Hall family, this part of the interview was withheld]JR: Right. I wanted to mention something. On one of my Dad’s birthdays I got him the original, I mean- it was an LP of Bob Brookmeyer and Friends.
BB: Uh- huh
JR: And he just loved that record, so much that he put on tape and he had it in his car, basically when he started his car, he like memorized every solo and knew all the lines, every detail of that record. And my brother loves that record and so do I.
BB: He told me that and I was extremely pleased and tickled with that. For Jimmy to like something that much that I did.
JR: There’s something about that record, it’s like chamber music. Aside from the surprising group of musicians for that record. Or maybe they were playing with Stan I don’t know. It was like Miles Davis’ musicians or maybe Stan’s and Miles’, I don’t really know, but it’s an amazing collection of players (Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Elvin Jones and Gary Burton) on there. Do you have any thoughts on that date?
BB: Yeah. Teo Macero was the producer and he and I got into it the first day. Like screaming at each other and uh. Elvin I knew and Ron I sort of knew. And Herbie, I think worked with Clark Terry and I, so it was really fierce and Stanley got worried and called the vibes player, Gary Burton to come in, thought it might cool things down but (they didn’t?) things just got more and more agitated every day.
JR: What were they getting agitated about, exactly? The material?
BB: Yeah, the material. I had some originals and Teo was being really nasty and I just – I don’t take that and I’m coming to work with Tony Bennett (again- a that moment I missed this.. It thought he said Sony… or something like that). Next day there’s Jobim (joining us?) what are they doing here? Well, they had to help the record. Thanks… (laughs sarcastically)
JR: Well, what’s his name – Tony Bennett showed up on some of that record for a cut or two on that record.
BB: One song.
JR: So they’re throwing everything and the kitchen sink at the record. Was that it?
BB: No, Teo was trying to take over the record. It was a trade. I was taking over for Stanley. Columbia or one of the record companies were and they gave me the job of getting the material together. So I had some standards and some originals.
JR: And he didn’t like the material. He wanted it to be like what Miles did?
BB: He wanted it his way, yeah. No, he wanted standard songs. You know
JR: “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Face”. That’s the song I woke up singing. So that was really the most unpleasant date I have had in my life.
BB: I think…people? You know. I think it wound up ok, which you shows you don’t need to be friends. I was friendly with the band. But the rhythm section, especially Ron and Herbie were very shocked, they hadn’t seen this before. Because when I get mad, it’s loud and it’s long. So, it was very unfair to them. But you can’t push me that far.
JR: So there was no tension between you and the musicians. Just between you and Teo Macero
BB: Yeah. The musicians were worried. They hadn’t seen this shit before, so…
JR: Well I think Herbie sounded better than I ever heard him on that record, you know?
BB: Burton?
JR: Herbie
BB: Yeah. Me too. Herbie really went downhill I think. When he started making all the commercial junk, and uh… I saw Miroslav Vitous, and old friend and we were talking and he says Herbie really almost dropped off the table there for a while, he didn’t know what was working for him or not.
JR: Uh-huh.
BB: So anyway, he did good (on the record)
JR: My brother actually (he told me this) when he was at a clinic he often quoted one of your tunes and one of your solos off of that as like the model of development. (I start humming the head to his tune, “Bracket” and then the first part of his solo). In terms of… well I hate to throw your own solo back at your face, but… it’s just a very long development going on there. But just to tie it back to Jimmy. I think I read somewhere in Bill Crow’s Newsletter where he talked about your melodicism and how that you said you got it from Jimmy or maybe that you got it from Jim Hall and Jim Hall said he got it from Jimmy, maybe it was the other way around. Do you recall something like that?
BB: I think from Raney. Jim and I were close to a place and looking back, I wish that I had now a chance to play with Raney because now I think I play well enough to do it, for my satisfaction. I really got interested when I got sober in intervallic structures, so I’m making long lines and the stuff I subconsciously learned from Jimmy and I wish uh… you know, maybe in the next world I get a chance at it. But I really was so far under him as far as what he could do and what I couldn’t do that, that now I get to catch up maybe
JR: Well, I guess we’re all too close to it but I know that he had players that he admired greatly and listened to constantly and you were obviously tops in his book.
JR: I wanted to. Speaking of playing with Raneys. You played with Doug in 1987. I have a recording of it. I think it’s from La Fontaine (a Denmark nightclub). Is that right?
BB: Yep…
JR: How did that come about. Did you blow into town? Did you call him up? How did that gig come about?
BB: I was in town probably with the Radio and I think either the club or Doug called.
BB: And said Oh that would be great. You know, I hadn’t heard him play really and to play with Jimmy’s son. And we played together and for me it was funny thing. After the first set, intermission he says, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” and I said “Sure.” And he said, “How do you do this stuff? You know what you’re doing chromatically” and I said, “You’re serious?” and he said, “Yeah. Could you give me a hint?” and I said, “Jesus, man. I said, you’re what 20’s or 30’s. I should be asking you how you did that (laughs). I mean you’re a young guy asking an old man about that stuff!” So something’s wrong with this picture. But that was very nice. Also we met later and he told me a lot about Jimmy and his problems with drinking that I didn’t know and I kind of sensed that Doug was having problems too. But we got along very nice and I enjoyed playing with him. You know, that was a real treat. You know on the Youtube I was surprised how much he looked like Jim. He had a great face.
JR: Yeah. He was a handsome fella, wasn’t he?
BB: And you sound like him and maybe Doug also. So he was really… some strong genes.
JR: Well my brother was almost like- sounds like Jimmy funneled thru a NY street-tough accent, or something.
BB: (laughs)
JR: (laughs)
BB: Yeah. That’s a hell of a father to have, to try to play guitar. He’s a good player though.
JR: He’s a tougher road to hoe than I do. I picked piano, at least of I steal stuff from Dad it sounds like original, you know. Because it’s not related to the instrument
JR: In terms of you, you’ve been all over the map. You were living in Copenhagen?
BB: No I didn’t live in Copenhagen. I worked there a lot.
JR: I thought you were living in Europe at least.
BB: Yeah, I was. I was living in Rotterdam
JR: Oh, you were living in Rotterdam
BB: Four years. I moved over to start a new school and I got a commission for an opera in (inaudible) Germany. So, the sole, great idea didn’t work out and I got this… for the (inaudible) and that was dropped too. So we enjoyed being over there, and I wondered if I should come back. But I came back. I did ok but the country’s not doing too good. Mixed feelings.
JR: How was it that you go so. like you were the arranger for Thad Jones/Mel Lewis for years and years and did you become so adept at arranging because you started so young and you got a very early orientation or was there something that attracted you to the whole process?
BB: Well I liked to write and my trombone teacher was an old German guy and I went over every Sunday and he spit in my face? Teaching me how to tongue. But he wrote music by hand. And you know, lovely hand, lovely calligraphy and there was lots of blank music paper around which I really hadn’t seen and it had a very tactile look and I wanted to do this. So I began to arrange right away and I became a successful arranger and copyist and stayed that way until I got to NY. I copied for a while in NY, wrote. And Manny Album was very helpful in getting me started writing for record dates.
JR: Was there anybody who was influential, or did you learn from in terms of your arranging or you pretty much learned as you went?
BB: Well I got to be friends with Bill Finnegan and remained so and he of course knew everything. I began, there was an office, it was Emile Charlap? the copyist started in ’56 and ’57 and it was Ralph Burns, Billy Beyers, Manny, Al Cohn and me. And I was certainly low down in the totem pole, but I learned a lot and I did a lot of record dates, so if you use your ears you could hear what people were doing. Like Ralph’s music for Woody’s band had spacing like Stravinsky so you could pick things out. And you look at scores and all, like that. And finally, when I was about 30-31 I got a call to help Finnegan out. He would get stuck and just go blank, so I was ghosting for Fiinnegan and Al Cohn and I ghosted for Ralph Burns. We wrote two Ray Charles CD’s under Ralph’s name.
JR: Really?
BB: So you’re around that activity and you just get better. It’s like learning to write for strings. Well I just started. I knew what they were but the first Ray Charles with Strings I wrote the first 2 tracks.
JR: Ray Charles with Strings, you wrote some of those tracks?
BB: Yeah, “Just for a Thrill” and the second one, I forgot what it was called (it was “You Won’t Let Me Go”). That was my first string writing in NY.
JR: Huh…
BB: And the Georgia CD, Al wrote half of that and I wrote half of that. Al wrote Georgia not Ralph Burns.
JR: Is that right?
BB: (laughs) and Ralph got the Grammy and all that, yeah. But Ralph really got to depend on us, especially Al. Because Al was Mr. Music. So he could handle anything you threw at him.
JR: I did some arranging for Al’s son, Joe Cohn on his first record. I don’t show up on it as an arranger but I did the first 2 cuts on there.
BB: Well that’s a real learn. When I teach I could explain things to you, show you what works and what doesn’t, but your teacher is when you finish the piece and hear the band play it. That’s the only lesson you’ll ever get that’s worth anything.
JR: These days they have computer programs where you can actually push notes into a score and listen back. Do you ever use any of that stuff?
BB: The electronic stuff, no
JR: These music programs, Sibelius and some of these other music writing … you strictly pen and paper?
BB: Yeah. I’m suspicious of computer copyists because they don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t have any idea when they’re writing a note. What that note is in the chord. Does it belong on the instrument even? So they just go ahead. When I was copy-editing, you knew what the part was, you knew what the instrument was, where it belonged in the chord and you know also, proofs everything, automatically. Now they charge you for proofing. So, they get so good? They get paid more than arrangers. So the copyists have a good deal now. The arranger still gets the shaft.
JR: (laughs) I suppose so.
JR: Are they any projects you’re working on right now?
BB: Yeah, I’m just starting an album. A CD of standards for my New Art Orchestra and we record late April in Nuremburg and I’m halfway thru a CD for the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
JR: Uh-huh
BB: And that will be finished and recorded late December I think.
JR: Wow
BB: And I’m still close to them because – you know- being an original member of Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz. And when Thad left suddenly, I had just returned to NY so Mel called me and I began to write for the band. That was the first writing I had done since I was a recovered drunk.
JR: Right
BB: And he needed me and I needed him so and the band -I was looking back on it—appreciated me too. I didn’t think so at the time because they have good memories of it. So, I sort of belong partly to the band, too.
JR: Well you were certainly an integral part of that unit. I remember seeing a documentary with you on it. It was a treat.
JR: I think I sort of can’t think of anything else I wanted to ask. I think I’ve run down the list pretty much (laughs)
BB: (laughs). Ok!
JR: I don’t mean it to be so stiff but I am in the presence of royalty and I wanted to cross all my t’s and dot my I’s
BB: Not royalty. You’re talking to a friend. So we both share a great admiration for your pop, you know.
JR: Do you think that – I mean I always thought, perhaps this is a leading question – that the world somehow missed him or that Jimmy’s place in history has been omitted by some. Like when they do a jazz history survey, he’s a footnote when he really should be right up there. Would you agree with that?
BB: Yeah. And I think we shared that to some extent too. Because I don’t included in the lists of trombone players, or arrangers or composers and sometimes I don’t know why because I write and play better than some of the people they picked. And Jimmy was like that too. He just got passed by. People accepted what he did but for him, it was too subtle and too musical and really sounded joyous on the surface and the technique was fantastic but the whole package was so artistic and so effortless that I don’t think people really grabbed it. Talking about Jim Hall, he sounds like he really is working sometimes to get out what he gets and Jimmy never sounded that way. It was just easy, and it sounded very hard to do, but what he did nobody has done. Nobody has come close, the technique, the touch, the fingers. I was really glad when you said Scofield was actually…(?) at his hands… on the frets and I loved to watch seeing on the TV (computer screen) I can really concentrate on watching his hands move. And it’s amazing. Really fucking amazing. Nobody. I don’t care who they are. Nobody came within 16 miles of that. They passed that right on by.
JR: Right.
So Jimmy IS one of the major figures in music and there have been people…Konitz is getting… around…. to play all these years, people are finally accepting him and he had a hard time early on and Warne Marsh never (dented?) anything and Warne was a brilliant player. And I’ve been with the two of them and Lee would just get discouraged and stop playing because Warne was just too good and you can get past the point of simple or acceptable to the listening public or people put some money on your ass to make you popular and you’re gonna get lost in the traffic and you’re gonna keep dropping down and finally your name is not on the tips of people’s lists, you know. So, it happens.
JR: Well, you know I certainly want to do what I can to fix that. I get the sense now that people are discovering him through those videos and I got a note from Scofield the other day who said that Pat Metheny sent him a note saying (paraphrased)”Well I don’t know how I feel about all this Youtube stuff but every once in a while I see something that really turns me around” and it was Dad’s playing on one of those cuts (videos) – not “Dancing in the Dark” but “Billie’s Bounce” or something like that and that he listened to it 4 times in a row and ..This guy is just unreal.. he says. So Scofield passed that along to me.
BB: That’s great.
JR: You know the young people are listening to it. With the power of the Internet that whole word of mouth thing is different. So maybe we might be able to set some things straight, you know?
BB: Well, he’s gourmet food. I listened to Billie’s Bounce and he turned around some things and I laughed out loud because I didn’t quite know what he did, but it was unusual for him. I know his playing fairly well and these were things, common materials, that he made into silver and gold again. So he still can confound me, happily. And that’s very nice.
JR: So what do you look forward to for the future, anything?
BB: Jesus, I don’t know. I’d be curious to hear the standards thing. It’s hard.
JR: The upcoming records you’re doing?
BB: Right. I’m just starting to write now and I’ve heard part of the Vanguard stuff and one of them, the last one I did, I like a lot – which is unusual. And, I’m just trying to make some money and make a living for us. Because a freelance composer doesn’t make a whole lot of money so I’m trying to find a safer, saner place to live. So we’ll see how that goes.
JR: Well where you are now – it sounds like you’re pretty happy with where you are now in New Hampshire…
BB: We love it, but the country’s getting very strange – severely. It worries me.
JR: Oh you mean the political climate.
BB: Yeah. I can’t say what because if you criticize anything you’re a terrorist.
JR: Hmm.
BB: So I’m not a terrorist so I better so I better head (out) than criticize.
JR: Well, Bob I think we pretty much covered everything.
BB: Well, I sure enjoyed talking to you, absolutely…
JR: Likewise!