Ethan Iverson Interview With Billy Hart

Interview with Billy Hart | DO THE M@TH about:reader?url=https://ethaniverson.com/interviews/interview-with...
ethaniverson.com
Interview with Billy Hart | DO THE

M@TH
74-94 minutes
January 2006, part one. “Let’s call it the jazz tradition: that
huge world that is a sociological development demonstrated
through music.”
Billy Hart: The first 78 I had was Charlie Parker with strings
playing “Just Friends” and “If I Should Lose You.” Buck Hill gave
me that record, and also the 78 that had “Star Eyes” on one side
and “Au Privave” on the other. From those two records, I fell in
love with jazz. I was fifteen or sixteen, and I think I was already
playing some drums.
They were the first records that came to me direct. I’m sure that
my mother and father had stuff that I grew up hearing that was in
there, but it didn’t mean anything (especially after television
came in when I was about seven years old–those big console
sets that you had to move the antenna to change the channel).
I can visualize myself at school, being so hooked on those

records that I couldn’t even sit with other people in the
lunchroom. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, singing about it…it
wasn’t like I took drum lessons or piano lessons, but it just took
1 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
hold—I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Tootie Heath was close. I don’t know if it was in high school or in

college…but for sure he did come by my room and make a
physical thing outside the room [laughter] so that to avoid being
embarrassed I had to excuse myself and go out into the hall and
hang out! I remember going with him to go buy some drum
sticks one time, and being impressed with his rudimental skills.
He also played me my first Ornette Coleman record. In those
days it seemed like was a lot older than me. Ben Riley, Tootie
Heath, and Louis Hayes were already playing gigs when I was in
high school. (My own age group seems more like Tony
Williams, Al Foster, and Jack DeJohnette.)
Ethan Iverson: You told me once that of all the drummers on

the East Coast, Tootie and you were in the same bag.
BH: No doubt that Tootie and I play similarly. Tootie and Louis
Hayes were my first mentors. But it wasn’t like that they sat
down and showed me anything, they were just the first guys that
I had the chance to watch and imitate. Tootie’s interest in
Ornette was strange because he never played any of that kind of
music (that I heard about). He was playing with the Jazztet, and
with Bobby Timmons. I remember him talking to me about
playing with Timmons, and that Ron Carter was on the gig, and
that he really enjoyed it, that it felt really good. This is before he
went to Europe. When he came back he played with Herbie
Hancock’s sextet briefly and then he was in Yusef Lateef’s
brilliant quartet with Kenny Barron and Bob Cunningham. Oh,
and before that, he had a very interesting connection with Cedar
2 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
Walton when they both played with J.J. Johnson. Tootie has a
flair for comedy: of all the people I know, Tootie is one of the
funniest. All the Heath brothers are humorous, but Tootie is
outrageous. He used to make up lyrics to all of Ornette’s tunes.
That’s how he would teach me that music, by singing his own
lyrics to Ornette’s tunes, which were always funny, and may be
one of the reasons I was so into Ornette. Lou Hayes, obviously,
didn’t or wouldn’t understand Tootie then!
I do know that when I was coming up, there was more of an

emphasis on finding your own sound. I remember people talking
about Clifford Jordan and Sonny Rollins in intimate conversation
—discussing if Clifford was his own man yet. Guitarist Eddie
McFadden told me: you can get it from other guys–or you can get
from the source (by studying music from books, and learning it
yourself). The thing was to get your own sound. If not your own
style, and least your own sound.
EI: When did you think you had your own style?
BH: There is a video of a Tony Williams clinic that I am going to

quote. Tony says, “As far as I am concerned, I don’t have my
own style. I was always trying to play like Art Blakey, Philly Joe
Jones and, Max Roach. I wanted to play like they played, if they
were me!”
If there was another word besides “academic”…Tony, for his age,

seemed to me more thorough in the study of the jazz tradition of
drumming than anybody I’ve ever come across. That doesn’t
mean there aren’t other guys. But the more I learned, the more I
3 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
realized that he had somehow gotten that history together. And it

is not just patterns, it’s the reason why.
I guess it would be in any kind of musical tradition, certain chords

or accents or whatever present an emotion that been tried and
true over a length of time, which I guess “speaks” or is
traditionally accurate or correct. Tony had that. It wasn’t just that
he played this rhythm or pattern, it was that the pattern belonged
there traditionally. A lot of people today might play a Tony
Williams pattern, but they play it just because they heard it…they
don’t know why or how it works.
EI: There is that video you played me of the Miles Davis quintet
with Herbie and Ron playing “Autumn Leaves.” There are some
tensions in the piano and bass, and Tony responds by playing a
simple shuffle on the snare and cymbal, which is kind of an
advanced response to the tension.
BH: Except that it so correct! You can see Miles is immediately

influenced and affected emotionally. And then you back to Philly
Joe or anybody, hear them do it, and go, “oh right.” It’s like a
change of color or a heightened intensity. (As opposed to
starting a tune that way—if you start a tune there, you have to
stay there.)
EI: One of the interesting things about the Miles band is that
there were a lot of details about the tunes that incoming
members have to learn, like the cymbal beat and piano tremolos
on “All Blues.” Tony and Herbie interpreted those parts in their
own way, but still they clearly knew the details.
4 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
BH: That’s something else that Tony said. Someone asked him
about getting the gig with Miles just before he was 17 years old.
There must have been other good drummers, right? Tony said,
“Hard to know. I’d like to ask Miles myself. I can’t say that I was
better than anybody else. But I was definitely prepared for the
gig. There was nothing Miles could play that I didn’t already
know.”
EI: You once told me that in your development that you thought
you found your own style, but then you heard Roy Haynes.
BH: Yeah. Not only that, I even used to look like Haynes — a
lot! In the magazines his drum set also looked like mine.
Evidently I wasn’t the only one that thought that. When I first
moved to New York, and it looked like I would never have a gig,
ever, I went to see Roy play for some inspiration, and I tried to
muster up all the bravado I could get.
I walked up to him and said, [aggressively] “How you doin’

Haynes?” He looked up and said, [even more aggressively]
“How YOU doin’, Haynes?” [laughter.]
And then I played this legendary club in Brooklyn called The Blue
Coronet. I was playing with Jimmy Heath and Art Farmer. (This
was during the days that Billy Higgins didn’t even own a drum
stick, let alone a drum set. Higgins was playing gigs with spoons
and knives and shit.) There was this drummer named Lenny
McBrowne at that gig, and when he came up to me afterwards he
said, “Billy! You sound great, man, just like a young Roy
Haynes!”
5 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
Recently, just a couple of months ago, I played some Eric Dolphy

music with pianist Eric Reed. He gave a tape of Dolphy with
Haynes on drums. It wasn’t until I heard this Dolphy tape that I
realized that had never really studied “Far Cry” and all those
tunes, or that concept of playing. I found the music very
challenging, and Haynes played it back in a day when you don’t
think of guys reading on a very high level. I’m still puzzled how
Haynes was able to play that music so masterfully. I mean, you
can easily just chalk it up to genius, but I’m still looking
for…something else! As I much as I thought I knew about
Haynes, that he was this brilliant and innovative drummer who
had the true message of bebop from Bird and Monk and Diz, I
know now that he performed miracles with the next generation
too.
EI: There’s also great Roy on that Andrew Hill record with Joe
Henderson and Richard Davis, Black Fire.
BH: You know, I had that…and the Jackie McLean album It’s
Time. But think that Haynes was playing so advanced on that
music that it was over my head at the time. Now that I’m 65, I’m
beginning to catch up. Thanks for reminding me of those
records; I’ll go back to them too.
EI: You don’t play like Haynes any more. In fact, you seem to
have had your own style from the earliest recordings I’ve heard
you on in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
BH: Well, I guess what I thought was gonna “my style” that Roy
Haynes was already playing was only a part of “my style.” An
6 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
important part, but there were certainly other elements,

especially because of the gigs I got. I left Buck Hill and was with
Shirley Horn. Later I was with Wes Montgomery and Jimmy
Smith.
Right at that point, something very, very important for drumming

happened. (This relates very much to Tony Williams again.) At
that point, the bebop guys had already embraced Afro-Cuban
music. (Not unlike they’re doing today. As usual, the guys who
romanticize that thing today seem to be totally oblivious to the
fact that the bebop cats romanticized the Afro-Cuban thing at
least as much then as we do now. Think of “Night in Tunisia” and
“Woody’n You.”) That had changed quarter notes to eighth
notes. [Sings an example of juke joint music first with swing
eighths and then with an even eighth backbeat.] That’s what the
beboppers did for popular music (as far I’m seeing it). So, by the
time I’m checking Roy Haynes, I’m also looking at this, in sort of
an osmosis kind of way. Like any young boy today. (I do all
these clinics, and young cats ask me what I think of pop music—
rock and roll, hip-hop—as if I hadn’t been there when it was
invented, and as if it didn’t influence me!)
So anyway, at this time [the late 1950’s] the possibility of that [the
even-eighth backbeat] being part of a positive evolution for
drumming– if not the music itself– takes hold. Because as much
as Roy Haynes and Max and those cats were a part of the
process, they didn’t play [the backbeat]. They were playing like
Chano Pozo and Machito.
EI: This makes me think of that song “Eighty One,” on the Miles
7 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
album E.S.P., with Tony on drums.
BH: Yeah! Sure! That is definitely Tony’s analysis of the

situation. I think Tony Williams—this is not anybody else
speaking here, but just me–I think Tony Williams is the inventor,
the innovator, the father, and the designer of so-called fusion
drumming, if not fusion itself. That is a big chunk to say, and I’m
sure some could defeat me academically or articulately over this
point in an argument. But it wouldn’t change how I felt inside—I
will go to my last breath believing that.
“Eighty One” is it. Tony is so deep that shows what I just

demonstrated [with the juke joint singing], but it also shows how
Tony knew the “second-line.” Do you know what I mean by
“second-line?”
EI: New Orleans parade beat.
BH: But it is more than that. It’s the direct translation of the
African rhythm through India, Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the
West Indies to the drum set. As we get rid of racial prejudice, we
know more about the origins of rhythm. A lot of the more
advanced drummers of today are basically going backwards.
Because: the Swing Era was the West Indies, and Bebop was
Afro-Cuban and the Caribbean (Puerto Rico too), and then right
when I hit the scene we have Brazil! And now metric-modulation,
odd-groupings, and hemiola implies the study of the classical
music of India.
As the American players of those styles begin understand that

each step, it’s like the real cats have been there waiting—“Oh,
8 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
now you’ve found it? You’ve figured it out? Ok, now we will
show you how to do it with a little more authenticity.” And as we
learn that authenticity, it makes the whole thing a little stronger, I
suspect. First we brought in some of the Afro-Cubans like
Machito, and then eventually Eddie Palmieri and (even more
jazz) Hilton Ruiz…now we are to the point that Danilo Perez and
Gonzalo Rubalcaba are fully in the mix. From Brazil we had
Jobim and Sergio Mendes, then Milton. Now, there are Indian
players on the scene like Vijay Iyer.
Anyway, the “second-line” is all over this music, and still is today
(like in Kenny Garrett’s or John Scofield’s music). Do you realize
that Vernel Fournier’s beat on “Poinciana” is pure “second
line?” A modern example of traditional style “second line” is
Adonis Rose on Donald Harrison’s New Orleans Legacy album.
So, anyway, back to me. I had Roy, and I had this other stuff,
which I acquired though osmosis or had naturally. Then I began
playing with Jimmy Smith. I went with Jimmy Smith to learn
more about bebop—or whatever you want to call it. Let’s call it
the jazz tradition: that huge world that is a sociological
development demonstrated through music. Although I went with
Jimmy Smith to learn that, he wanted me because I could play
the new beat, or this new way of looking. He was looking to for a
way to cross over with more authenticity.
I’m not on Jimmy’s records from the time I played with him, since
the record label Verve was trying to make Jimmy a big star using
an certain system. They put Jimmy with big arrangements,
almost Frank Sinatra style, to make him make palatable for a
9 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
wider audience. It was Creed Taylor’s concept, first at Verve,

then at A&M, and then finally his own record label CTI. It was
very successful! Jimmy was the first jazz artist to get the Creed
Taylor treatment. Jimmy played with strings and big bands, like
he was a popular singer.
I was with Jimmy three and a half years.
EI: A lot of us don’t realize you did serious road time with both
Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery.
BH: I was with Wes immediately after Jimmy, and not for that
long, maybe for about a year and a half or two years. Wes was
coming out of the same concept. Identical Creed Taylor concept
on Verve and A&M.
I buried Wes. I was a pallbearer at his funeral. I might still be

with Wes Montgomery today because he put me on salary. I got
paid every week whether we worked or not. He had a hand-
drummer in the band, which meant he was already open or
aware of what was to come, right? All this was pre-fusion fusion
music, as I look at it now. Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery, and
Eddie Harris. After Wes passed, I went with Eddie until I didn’t
want to do it any more (I got tired of the gig).
EI: Tell me about Wes and the ride cymbal beat.
BH: Right! It was very, very helpful. As helpful as it was

humiliating. Basically, what he wanted was just what I didn’t
have: more of a clear understanding, a clear direction of keeping
time. I couldn’t do it. So Wes gave me a lesson that showed me
that I didn’t have a clear cymbal beat. Which is how I learned
10 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
how to play.
(Ed Blackwell has one of the clearest cymbal beats. Well, he’s
from New Orleans. They get a special badge from birth, right
after they cut the umbilical cord. It says, “You will have great
time for the rest of your life.”)
EI: What did Wes tell you? He certainly didn’t say, “Billy, could
you play a clearer cymbal beat?” [Laughter.]
BH: It happened again with Stan Getz. He did the same thing to
me. It’s interesting how you learn things—I wonder how
someone like Tony Williams learned it so correctly? Or how Elvin
Jones learned it so correctly…well, anyway, someone had to tell
me in the most embarrassing way possible, you know? But at
least I learned it—or became aware of it, anyway. Wes said to
me, “Billy, what’s that you’re doin’ with your cymbal?”
And I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Wes.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Wes, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“OK , Billy, let me put it this way: the shit ain’t laying.”
Now, how am I supposed to know what that means? Well, of

course I did know what it meant, you know what it means…how
do you put that in words? “It’s not perfectly in sync?” Or “It’s not
causing the kind of euphoria that we refer to as swinging or
grooving?” Well, anyway, the way he put it was: “The shit ain’t
laying.”
EI: Did he just tell you that just once?
11 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
BH: No, no. Being a younger person, I wasn’t going to accept it,
so I said, “OK, well, he means he wants me to play that old-
fashioned, old-style-ass cymbal beat. If he wants it, fuck it, I’ll do
that, but I still have my other three limbs. With my left hand and
right foot I’ll still help the evolution of the planet in a positive way,
without this buffoon imposing his own old-fashioned-ass ways.”
So, two or three months later, he says to me, “Billy, what’s that
you’re doing with your left hand?” And we went through the
same thing again.
EI: With all the limbs, I suppose.
BH: Well, I don’t think we had to deal with the high-hat. But it
definitely went down with the snare drum and the bass-drum.
In keeping time, this kind of time, since the music started out as a
sort of dance music, that meant the drummer was in jail, if not a
slave. (A modern drummer like Nasheet Waits would consider it
hard time on a chain gang.) So, it took evolution to get out of
that, but once cats tried to do that, then they were really leaned
on in terms of how to keep the beat. Basically, it boiled down to:
“You can try some of this shit, but if the beat transfers one iota,
it’s out!” Kenny Clarke told stories of how, after a while, he could
look at the leader’s face—the leader wouldn’t have to say
anything, he’d just start packing up his drums, ‘cause he knew he
was fired. So, when you’re playing this dance music, what ends
up happening is that guys begin start developing this
independence in a very clear way, because the time could not
waver. How it starts is with rudiments—stuff you do with your
12 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
hands. After a while you play them with your hand and your foot
while keeping time. As the thing evolved, the rudiments evolved
too, so the shit between the left hand and the right foot got even
more complicated. There were three guys were able to take this
into a very clear fruition right around when I was comin’ in. The
three guys are Edgar Bateman, Donald Bailey, and, of course,
Elvin Jones.
Donald Bailey was particularly important to me since I took his

place with Jimmy Smith. Even if I hadn’t been that interested in
this approach, I would have had to learn it to play the gig.
By the time I get to Wes, I’ve had three and a half years to work
on all of this. Wes, you know, his concept of a very fucking
advanced drummer was Jimmy Cobb.
[Laughter.]
Now, Jimmy’s great–one of the greatest. He’s also one of my

mentors. But Jimmy keeps time so that he STARES at his [right]
hand and cymbal as he plays. It’s like a computer graph, where
you make sure everything is in sync. Suffice to say, I didn’t quite
play like that! And that was Wes’ favorite drummer, right? So
there was a WIDE space between us…and I had to get it
together. In one club in San Francisco the bandstand was next
to the wall, and the wall was next to this glass painting that acted
like a mirror. So I could sit there, and watch myself play…check
out my posture. Sitting there watching myself, that’s how I
learned to play Wes’ beat.
Wes never mentioned Jimmy Cobb to me, which would have
13 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
been a simple thing to do, but maybe he didn’t realize Jimmy was
from Washington and that I knew Jimmy’s playing.
Whatever, he just said it wasn’t laying.
EI: What about the snare and bass drum?
BH: The snare drum, (as I understand it) relates to the treble
clef of any ensemble. (The bass drum relates more to the bass
clef.) That means your snare drum could be the trumpet section
of a big band. It implies a certain tradition of arranging, whether
it’s Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Thad Jones: it’s how
you put that in the mix. That’s what Wes needed, that tradition.
EI: One of my perceptions about Jimmy’s Cobb’s beat is that it

can be kind of on top, but still really swinging.
BH: H’mm. Well. That’s interesting.
There’s a way of playing on top of the beat which makes things

happen… like Ron Carter, Tony Williams, or even Louis Hayes
…it definitely works and is accurate musically. It’s a definite way
of playing and it doesn’t rush. All you have to do is have that
attitude. If you don’t have that attitude, it will rush. But if you
know what you’re doing, it is just a way of playing. (I have really
only become aware of this approach as a clear concept in the
last ten years or so.)
Now, Jimmy, that’s not his real way of playing. In fact, I think that
Washington, D.C. (where I’m from) has a way of producing
drummers that play behind the beat. But Miles tried to get every
drummer to play more on top.
14 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
EI: Really?
BH: Oh yeah. Definitely!
EI: When I listen to the records I feel that Philly Joe is more laid
back on the beat than Jimmy.
BH: It’s a serious conflict if you naturally feel the beat in the front
and the bass player feels it behind (or vice versa). There’s a
professional way to resolve the situation that explains Philly Joe.
If you’re playing behind the beat and you don’t want it to slow
down, you play more upbeats. That’s where the shuffle comes
in. That’s why the shuffle is valid and correct, because it
resolves that situation. If you want to lay back, then you use
more shuffles. There’s a certain euphoric sensuality to laying
back in certain situations, but you don’t want to lose your
erection. To keep it up and lay back at the same time, you
shuffle—and Philly Joe was great at that.
EI: Philly Joe’s rim click on the track “Milestones” is pretty on

top—unusually so, for him. It’s as ahead as it can be and still
feel good.
BH: Well, that was probably Miles. Miles always wanted his
drummers to play on top. Same with Stan Getz, even with
ballads… I was very uncomfortable playing ballads with Stan
Getz since it was never fast enough for him. Never! I grew up
playing with Shirley Horn—you can imagine how different that
was. A modern day cat who is the same way is Geri Allen. It
doesn’t matter what I do. I’ll say to her, “How was that, Geri?”
And she’ll say, “Oh, that was great! Except, it still feels like it is
15 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
slowin’ down.”
EI: What about McCoy Tyner?
BH: Well, he plays on top of the beat. So, if anything, he might

be the opposite. He might want you to pull him back a bit. He
wants that isometric thing.
EI: Oh, right. Like he had with Elvin, of course.
BH: Absolutely.
2006, part 2. “Rhythm is at least equal to harmony in the

scheme of human evolution.”
EI: Max Roach.
BH: 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
16 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
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.
EI: I like his tympani playing with Monk.
BH: 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, 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.
17 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
EI: I asked Ornette who he loved best to play with, Higgins or

Blackwell.
BH: Now, why would you do that?
EI: I couldn’t help myself. We were talking about drummers.
BH: Well, what did he say?
EI: He said “Blackwell, who played the most truthful phrases.”
BH: How can you disagree with that?
EI: John Coltrane.
BH: 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
18 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
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.
EI: McCoy was playing better and better.
BH: 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
19 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
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.)
EI: 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.
BH: That is exactly right…it makes a lot of sense if he knew he

didn’t have much time.
EI: 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!”
BH: Oh man…you are right.
[Laughter.]
EI: You didn’t play with Trane, but you did play with Pharaoh
Sanders.
20 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
BH: 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.
EI: It was a lot of vamps, right? Not as free as the Coltrane

band.
BH: 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.
EI: Was that the first time you met Herbie?
BH: 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.
EI: Who was playing bass with you and Shirley?
BH: 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?
EI: 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
21 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
Steeplechase, A Lazy Afternoon, which is trio with Billy and

Buster Williams. The lovely track “Why Did I Choose You?” is
played, which features advanced piano harmony.]
BH: 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
22 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
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, 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 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.
EI: I didn’t know you played with Sonny. Who else was in the
band?
BH: 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
23 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
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.
EI: Did he say why?
BH: No…and he had his manager call me, not himself.
EI: That’s cold.
BH: 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 and everything about it. I didn’t know this, so
I tried to play with him like I would have played with the MJQ.
EI: Oh, dear.
BH: 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.” [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.
EI: So, Sonny must have felt you were playing too light?
24 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
BH: 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!
EI: 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.
BH: 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
25 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
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.
EI: Really? I didn’t know that.
BH: 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.
EI: For sure. It can’t have lasted that long, right?
BH: 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.
EI: Tootie is on The Prisoner, but Joe Henderson and Buster are
on it, not Clifford and Ron.
BH: 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.
EI: It’s a shame that those two didn’t record more together, they
26 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
were a phenomenal combination.
BH: 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.
EI: 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.
BH: 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.
EI: 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…
BH: 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.
EI: 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.
BH: 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
27 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
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.] “Bemsha 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
28 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
value.
EI: I think my profound attraction to jazz is that is the precise

intersection of both values.
BH: Right. That’s what jazz is.
EI: 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.
BH: 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. [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 cascara 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.
EI: 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.
BH: 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
29 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
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.
30 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
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.
2006, part 3. “I so believe in tradition that I believe there is a

logical solution for even the most ‘out’ music: that there is
31 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
always something to find to make the avant-garde

presentable.”
EI: Billy Higgins.
BH: Well, obviously Higgins has that island element, too, but I
haven’t really been able to trace where he comes from. Every
time I asked him, over and over again, he gave the same
response:
“How many times do I have to tell you, Billy? I studied with Ed

Blackwell.”
A year later I would have heard some other record with Higgins.
I’d see him and say:
“C’mon, Higgins. Where did you get that?”
“I practiced with Ed Blackwell.”
It’s really deep what that is…and Higgins has that from Blackwell
the way Elvin got it from Haynes. Elvin and Higgins both have
some correct shit that doesn’t come from where they come from.
Higgins called it “The Lift,” but basically it’s a use of upbeats. An
upbeat is not the “and of one” or the “and of two,” it’s a part of a
triplet. It just sounds like an upbeat, since it’s so close. Elvin
often played the last two of the triplet, and Higgins just the last.
Where it gets deep is how Higgins ride cymbal is like the cascara
— almost an even eighth-note — and his left hand is playing the
triplet. Elvin has something similar, except for him it’s harder to
define. And when you go back to see how Art Blakey or Philly
Joe did it, you realize that this element is crucial to what we call
32 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
swing. And some cats, like Roker or whoever have this so

naturally. And they talk about it that way, too: “Man, how are you
going to explain that? That is some natural shit. You can’t
explain that academically.”
EI: There certainly isn’t the right language in place to talk about
it.
BH: Well, their way of looking at it was that it was impossible! It

was so “from osmosis,” so “culturally ingrained.”
EI: These days a hip-hop producer puts it on his computer

screen and controls it very precisely, of course.
BH: What do you mean?
EI: Well, to maximize a groove, they make sure that the different
parts of the drums are in just the right place of disunity or de-
synchronization, just like between the hands of Elvin or Higgins
— or yourself!
BH: Of course they would do that, huh?
EI: I recall that you once told me that you thought the backbeat
was a commercial simplification of the clavé.
BH: What! Did I tell you that? Do I really mean that? [Pause.]
Let me put that another way: I hear the second-line, which is
clavé, in all jazz. The backbeat seems pretty simple compared to
something as vast as God!
The clavé (and all the great Latin rhythms associated with the
clavé) is always four and six at the same time, or rather, triplet
and binary at the same time.
33 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
EI: Just like you were saying about Elvin and Higgins just now.
BH: Exactly! I told Higgins that I had seen it: “Goddamn,

Higgins! You and Elvin are playing the same thing!”
Higgins said: “You gotta remember, I was with Coltrane first.

Elvin took my place.”
EI: That’s right! There’s not much recorded, but there is a great
photo of both Elvin and Higgins playing with Coltrane at the same
time.
BH: Now we got Ben Street in the band, and of course Ben is
playing with the modern historian of the clavé, Danilo Perez.
Have you heard the record Panamonk? That record is where it
started. Somehow Danilo, without being murdered — and I’m
still not sure that he’s safe — he’s been able to transfer the clavé
into odd groupings like five and seven. I mean, the clavé police
don’t allow that! That means Danilo had to be very articulate
about it.
Danilo is so heavy, man. The first recording is Panamonk, with

Jeff Watts on drums. People don’t remember that Watts played
with Danilo (and The Fort Apache Band). He’s of course also
associated with New Orleans musicians…so if anyone could put
together the relationship between the second-line and the Afro-
Cuban, it would be Watts. [Terri Lyne Carrington is on Panamonk
also.]
For the seven, Danilo took the 2-3 of the son clavé and made the
last beat of that the first beat of the rumba clavé 3-2. That’s
going around now…it’s a hell of a thing.
34 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
Maybe it’s just the times, but I’m still surprised that the clavé
police allowed that. They don’t allow much: they are like playing
with Lou Donaldson, George Coleman, and Sonny Stitt all at the
same time.
EI: What did Lou Donaldson say about Herbie Hancock?
BH: Yeah: that Herbie Hancock could maybe play some

classical piano, but he certainly couldn’t play jazz. And really, the
clavé people are even tougher than Lou.
Danilo asked me to play with him a few times but I always felt
that I didn’t know enough about Latin drumming to do it. Now
he’s got Adam Cruz, who’s father was also a Latin drummer, so
Adam really understands all of that. That trio is rough. [Perez,
Street, and Cruz.]
EI: Well, Billy we have been talking for over three hours. I don’t
want to wear you out.
BH: Has it been three already? Well, I’m loquacious. That’s a

Sagittarius trait.
EI: One thing I would love to get on tape is a story you told me
on tour. The story of the day Lee Morgan died.
BH: Uh-huh.
EI: It’s an epic tragedy. Do mind telling it again for the tape?
BH: Well, I don’t mind telling you what I know…
[Rather than transcribe the next segment, here is an Mp3 file of

this remarkable piece of urban folklore. It’s a little over 11
35 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
minutes.]
Audio Player
EI: What an incredible story. It’s like a Frankie and Johnny-type
ballad.
BH: Yes, or like Robert Johnson or James Reese Europe…
EI: See, a story like this is real window into the reality of —
whatever you want to call it — the jazz life, if not jazz music,
period. You know, I’m a white guy who grew up in the cornfields
of Middle America. When I studied this music off of records as a
kid, there was no way for me to learn about the cauldron that this
music came out of.
You might buy a Lee Morgan record on Blue Note, but the liner
notes are not going to give you much of an idea about the reality!
I mean, Leonard Feather?
BH: Right! Right! [Laughter.] I remember running into Morgan at

The Showboat one time. The Showboat had two flights of stairs,
kind of like Smalls — a few more steps down after the place
where they take your money. Well, Morgan was there sitting on
the stairs where the tickets were taken, nodding. I began talking
to him about Mickey Bass, who I think was just playing with Art
Blakey. Then I asked him about The Sidewinder, and he said,
“Yeah, man, ain’t that a bitch? I played all this hip music, and
we threw this other shit together just to finish out the record, and
that becomes the hit. My first hit had to be some dumb shit like
that.”
EI: Of course, then they started putting a tune like that on every
36 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
Blue Note record. There are a thousand tunes that emulated

“The Sidewinder.”
BH: Yeah. But that first tune is still the one, because there goes
Higgins with that cascara again! Just like Roker. They used
those guys like Higgins and Roker because they could still make
hit records without having to subscribe fully to the rock and roll
formula. See, as long as they could do that, they didn’t feel like
they had fallen to playing rock and roll.
EI: It’s true: the backbeat didn’t really appear on jazz records
until the seventies.
To conclude, do you want to say anything about this current

group or about Ben Street or Mark Turner?
BH: Well, Ethan, when we did that record with Reid I felt really
compatible…much to my surprise. I mean, you are a weird
player. [Laughter.] Do you know that many people have told me
they heard that record, by the way? A lot of drummers have
heard The Minor Passions.
When you brought Ben in I was nervous, since I felt so

comfortable before with Reid. Why did you do that, anyway?
EI: Well, Reid and I formed The Bad Plus with Dave King, where
we all are leaders together. I’m on some old Reid Anderson
records as a sideman and vice-versa, but those days are over, at
least for now. In the beginning of The Bad Plus we had a terrible
time getting the press to understand that it wasn’t my trio. It’s still
an issue, actually: the last review of us in JazzTimes called me
the leader.
37 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
BH: Well, you know, people don’t recognize “Ethan Iverson” that
well yet. I tell people my piano player is Ethan Iverson, and they
go “Who”? Then I say, “The piano player in The Bad Plus,” and
they say, “What?”
EI: Yeah. Well, The Bad Plus has its own way of doing things,
Billy.
BH: I’ve noticed that. Well, you sure are doing something right.
One way you can tell is how angry people get about you!
EI: Ouch!
BH: I mean, I was talking to X [famous straight-ahead jazz

player], who thought that you didn’t know one thing about this
music! Like that you didn’t know even one Bud Powell chord or
something. [Laughter.] I told ‘em they needed to hear you with
me…although I don’t think you play any different in The Bad
Plus.
But anyway, I really liked playing with Reid. But then Ben was
great, too.
Ben really knows something about rhythm. All the time, at every
clinic, somebody asks me what I like in a bass player. And I
always say this: I prefer the acoustic bass, no doubt. But I need
an acoustic bass player that knows the workings of the electric
bass, in terms of music. I guess that means that they are more
sophisticated rhythmically, and more enthusiastic about being
sophisticated rhythmically.
One of the things that I feel about rhythm is that it can be played
38 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
close together…but it can be really beautiful if you space it out

and still can make it swing. In other words, if you did something
June 1st, then did it again September 22nd, and than again
February somethin’…if it was the right thing, it would be this
amazing orgasmic rush. (This is a weird way of saying it, I
know.) But lot of electric bass players, the good ones, that is part
of their gig. They have to find out a way of doing that.
Well, Ben has that, and when you add the sophistication of
understanding the clavé the way he does…whew!
EI: I remember listening to a record of Coltrane with you (it was

the live in Seattle gig with “Body and Soul”). I commented how
beautifully strange Garrison’s playing was. You looked at me and
said, “Yeah, and you always get those kind of bass players!”
Reid and Ben are always declaring a point of view when they
play.
BH: Garrison is a great example of doing that. Well,

Philadelphia has a bass player legacy. Spanky DeBrest—Buster
Williams—Reggie Workman—Christian McBride—Stanley Clarke
—Jymie Merritt—
Lee Morgan used to fuss with Merritt on the bandstand. He’d

say, “C’mon, c’mon. C’mon, Merritt, please!” And Merritt would
be in here, you know, doing double stops and everything, and
would say back: “It’s too late, Lee! It’s too late now!”
EI: I think Garrison is underrated by the jazz world overall.
BH: Well, definitely that!
39 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
EI: I even feel like a lot of the cats playing jazz in the seventies
and eighties loved Trane, McCoy, and Elvin, but not Garrison.
BH: But now, things are getting to be a little different. Like Larry
Grenadier, who has all the hippest gigs: who plays more like
Garrison than that? And he’ll tell you, straight out. If Peter
Washington will tell you he is trying to play like Paul Chambers,
than Larry will tell you — with no doubt in his mind — that he is
trying to get to Garrison.
EI: When you were listening to the playback of “Confirmation”

from the record, you looked at me and said that Ben and I
sounded like Wilbur Ware and “The Legendary Hasaan,” which is
about the highest compliment I think either of us ever expect to
receive!
BH: On some tune when were recording, I went for something

that was so ridiculous…it was bordering somewhere between
egomania and fantasy. Afterwards, I apologized to Ben, but he
said,
“No, man, I apologize for not being able to find the right thing to
go with it…” I really like that he looked at it that way, because I
look at things that way. I look for…I so believe in tradition that I
believe there is a logical solution for even the most “out” music:
that there is always something to find to make the avant-garde
presentable. And Ben clearly feels that way, too.
As for Mark Turner…now, in some way, I think that you and Mark
play alike, at least in the way you both make me play.
Now that I’m playing with Mark regularly, I’m noticing how many
40 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
other saxophonists are trying to play like him. Is that true?
EI: Yes, he is one of the most influential saxophonists of his

generation.
BH: A lot of people told me that he had figured out a system.
EI: He knows what he’s doing, but he’s a real improviser, too.
BH: He is a genius and an innovator. When he used to come

see us perform, you would tell me that he wanted to play with
us. I thought, “Why would he want us, or really, me?” But I
always played with you with more space, and soft. And I think
Mark likes it when I play like that.
EI: Yeah, well, we also like it when you kick our asses!
BH: Somehow, this band covers that as well as the other. This
band really is uniquely of me. And it is a unique challenge.
EI: We are four unrepentant individuals, for sure!
BH: I still don’t know how you knew to put the four of us
together.
EI: Well, all I’ve ever really cared about is how the drummer
sounded in the band. And that’s how Ben and Mark feel, too. As
much saxophone as Turner plays, he never overplays. He
always leaves space. In his playing, he asks the band to
participate in an ensemble.
BH: That’s true. You are actually describing my ideal.
EI: Too often, the drummer is just asked to provide, to make

everybody else feel comfortable. All three of us are just so
41 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
happy to be in a band where Billy Hart gets to play the way he

wants to play.
BH: I will keep trying to live up to that challenge!
[More from a train in Italy, late January or early February

2008.]
EI: Do you regard yourself as a bebop drummer?
BH: Well, I’m trying, I’m learning. I’m still discovering more and
more things, day by day, about how intricate and perfect it is.
As much as I loved and respected Tony Williams from listening to

the records and hearing him play with Miles, it wasn’t until I
started teaching that I realized how much basic knowledge about
the instrument he really had.
Now I said basic, but that’s not really the best word. I have a
certain paranoia that a lot of guys don’t know a lot about jazz
drumming and think they do. So they’ll use a word like “basic.”
Art Farmer used the word basic, but I think a better word is
“traditional”: traditional knowledge, knowledge of the history. Just
to say “basic” doesn’t really cover it. So Tony had this traditional
knowledge that was almost unbelievable for a kid of sixteen,
seventeen years old.
All I can offer is my experience, especially if I have new

students. I ask them and say, “Man, do you know who I am?”
That’s number one. Number two, if you know, “Why did you
choose me as your instructor?” The point is, at the college level,
you should have some idea of what you want to do, you know,
42 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
what creative perspective do you have. So the more you know

about me and what I play, the better you can judge how I can
help you.
So after I’ve asked everybody that, then I say, “Play something.

Play.” I mean, a lot of kids play stuff like the records now. Takes
a while before you get some stuff that’s really yours. And that’s
because you have a tendency to be insecure about your stuff.
Eddie Harris told me when I was in his band: “Man, I go to check

out people that nobody likes.”
I said, “Why’s that?”
He said, “Because they have a tendency to be more original.”
I said, “Really?”
He said, “Remember this, Billy: people have a tendency to only

like themselves when they sound like somebody else.”
EI: Jorge Rossy told me that it was a very important moment in

his development when you came and saw him play, and
afterwards you said, “Jorge, you played great! Just make sure
that at least once a set, you play something only you can play.”
BH: Did I say that?
EI: Which I think is the best practical advice I’ve ever heard for a
jazz musician!
BH: Back to bebop drumming: There is a formula I’ve put

together from some things that Stan Getz told me. You know,
Stan Getz, he’s such a rival… he’d try to break people. And he
43 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
could. Because he had so much experience and he played so

good all the time. So for about six months, he put his arm
around my shoulders and said, “Billy, this is one of the greatest
musical experiences I’ve had.” And then one time, we got off the
bandstand, he put his arm around my shoulders and said, “You
know, Billy, if anyone knows what you’re trying to do, God knows
that I know what you’re trying to do. But man, it’s just not
working.”
He ended up coming up with some phrases that I still use to this

day. He said, “Undulate, motherfucker, undulate.” Now, when I
say that to students, they say, “Well, what does that mean?” And
I say, “Well, man, look it up in the dictionary. Investigate this.”
Have you ever seen a definition of undulation? It means waves –

waves of energy, you can see it moving on a graph. Reminds me
of, when you’re in a hospital, and you look at the screen, and it’s
going like that – you’re alive. If it’s going like this, you’re dead.
That’s what undulation means.
Now, how did I interpret that for the cymbal ride? What it was –
and I think I’m pretty close to it — is the shuffle, because it
covers both the two and three.
Okay, so you say “bebop…”
You have these upbeats, bing, bing, bing, bing-KA-bing, bing-KA-

bing. The tendency, I guess from a European classical
perspective, is to say, okay, the upbeats are the “and” of one, the
“and” of two, the “and” of three. [Even eighths.] Well, in jazz, that
upbeat is part of a triplet. In other words, a perfect upbeat triplet
44 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
is a shuffle. It’s that upbeat – da-DUT, da-DUT, da-DUT. So

that’s what Stan was trying to tell me.
EI: Having four and six at the same time, which of course is an
African type of thing.
BH: There’s no reason to discuss this from any other

perspective. We’re talking about so-called “jazz” because of the
Afro-American contribution. Purely. You can’t have an Afro-
American contribution if it comes from China.
EI: Is it too reductionist to say that to undulate, you need to

imply both the four and the six at the same time?
BH: Yeah, that sounds right. Definitely. Something like that. I

have to think about how to answer that more specifically, but the
answer is yes. But also what it does is that it creates a texture, a
texture that feels good, that breathes. When people talk about
keeping time, they talk about how good it feels. How good it
feels – that implies a texture. And having a simultaneous two
and three is one of the most clear ways of producing that texture
that people like.
I mean, there’s all kinds of textures, but the one that seems to be
more classic, and of a higher level or class, is Billy Higgins
playing with Cedar Walton. And before that, the impression I get
from talking to people is that that’s what they got from Philly Joe.
And then when I talk to people older than that, they’ll say Kenny
Clarke. They stop talking about any full-blown European concept
of technique, and they talk about texture, how it feels, how it falls.
So when I play, I try to emulate that as far as I understand it.
45 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
And so then I get complements from people, say somebody like

Ben Street – you know, he doesn’t really describe what it is he
likes about my playing, but I feel like it helps acoustically, it helps
people who play acoustic instruments particularly.
Like when Bob Hurst first joined Charles Lloyd’s band. After the
first night, he said, “Man, I can say a lot of things, but one thing
for sure, you certainly know how to play with a bass player.” So I
assumed, between him and Ben, that’s what he means, that
texture that works acoustically.
And I think that goes back to the lesson I got from Stan, that
Lester Young thing… you know, supposedly Lester Young would
tell guys, “Don’t give me none of those bombs, just give me some
titi-boom, titi-boom.”
At Dewey Redman’s funeral – you were there – you know

everyone played and everything, and then at the last minute Roy
Haynes got up and played. I expected to hear some traditional
Roy Haynes, with that kind of Latin cascara he has for a ride
beat, but they just played this medium blues.
EI: That was one of the most swinging things I’ve ever heard.
BH: Man, did you hear that?
EI: It was incredible.
BH: That texture, that he had that, and in the back of all this
other stuff he’s got it, just a basic understanding of that texture.
So, okay, that’s undulation, right. And that undulation creates this
texture that some people, you know, they’ll say “that feels good.”
46 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
Even when you say “grooving” or “swinging,” it goes away from

accepting it as a meditative or therapeutic kind of feeling.
EI: For that texture, do you need to feather the bass drum?
BH: Yeah, well, I’m still working with that. As we’re talking about
it, I’m still asking people about it, because those earlier jazz guys
were definitely somewhere between the 2/4 and the ostinato
thing that went down, starting with the tuba, and then onto the
trombone, and then the contrabass. The contrabass comes
really late in the game, but it’s the connection with that where
doing stuff is the bass drum. That pattern you can take all the
way back to Africa, although we haven’t got past Brazil
yet…there’s a few of these patterns that are so old – they’re in
the Second Line, in basic jazz drumming, and also in Afro-
Caribbean music, Cuban music, and Brazilian music. Identical!
The exact same pattern.
It’s interesting. I don’t know if it was you or Ben that said it

yesterday, but he didn’t say it right. He just said the American,
uh, “commercial” version of it. He just called it the “Charleston.”
EI: Oh, that was me.
BH: If we call it the “Charleston,” if we put an American name on

it, okay, then we don’t even know the real name for it, because
it’s African. And that same beat, that same pattern, that same
system is the thing I’m talking about, in all of these countries.
EI: I personally don’t object to using the word “Charleston”

because it was James P. Johnson’s most famous song.
47 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
BH: Really?
EI: Yeah! So at least there’s that.
BH: Interesting. I’ll keep that in mind.
So now we got patterns, concepts, of course, that cause – I was

gonna say “imply,” but I’m going to go so far as to say “cause” –
a texture. But it also causes changes of mood. Psychologically.
There’s a color to the bass drum that alters your mood. It offers a
certain kind of psychological depth.
So now, the question of studying it is, when, and how, and for
what reason, does it first go from 2/4 to 4/4? And I’m still
investigating that.
You know, you ask a lot of people, and they say, “Well, Pops
Foster, Walter Page, boom boom boom.” But I asked Buster
Williams one time, and he said, “I think the bass player got it from
the drums.” I had never considered that! So anyway, I’m still
investigating.
EI: You were saying that, early on, you weren’t feathering yet –
BH: – even though, from the very beginning, cats tried to get me
to do it –
EI: -so tell me a little bit about that, because I think this is so
common, that a beginning jazz drummer has sort of heard about
feathering, but doesn’t want to do it because he doesn’t think it
really exists.
BH: Well, that system, or that mood, exists, it’s just from what
angle they want to interpret it. So the dude who doesn’t do that,
48 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
I’ll say, “Well look, man, play me a rock beat.” And he’ll play the
shit out of the bass drum. And I’ll say, “So why did you do that
then, and not when you play jazz?”
I’ll say, “Play that same rock beat without playing the bass drum.”
And I’ll say, “So that’s what’s missing when you play here.”
EI: Didn’t you talk about this with Milt Hinton?
BH: Yeah. When I played with Milt Hinton, Eddie Jones (the guy
that was with Count Basie) and George Duvivier, I immediately
attempted some stumbling, fragmented approach to doing it.
[chuckles] It’s like going to a country and at least attempting to
speak their language. They applauded me for that attempt, and
encouraged me. So that’s what happened with those three: “Ah-
ha! Very good. That really feels good. Thank you. You’re the
guy that I’m going to recommend.”
And when Illinois Jacquet heard it, he said, “Boy… ain’t but a few
of you bad motherfuckers left!”
EI: Really?
BH: Just from feathering the bass drum.
EI: It’s beautiful to hear that duo with Sonny Rollins and Philly
Joe Jones, because you can really hear the feathering. When a
whole band is playing on a record it’s not always easy to hear it.
BH: In the early days of the recording industry, the bass drum
would knock the needle off. So they would actually make certain
drummers not play the bass drum. And when I say certain
drummers, I mean certain white drummers, because those are
49 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
the guys who were making the records.
It wasn’t until Gene Krupa insisted that they at least allowed him
to do it. He wanted to get that sound! And then from there,
Buddy Rich was so great that they allowed him to do it on
record. But basically, it was like enriched bread – they didn’t
want the whole wheat.
So, anyway, the feathering of the bass drum, it creates that

depth, that mood. It affects people psychologically immediately.
When you think about Elvin Jones, you think about that depth.
When you think about Art Blakey, he has that depth, that bass
drum depth. And of course, there are subtle versions of it,
depending on how smooth the texture is: is it cotton, is it silk,
and so on.
EI: When you hear the masters feathering the bass drum, do
you hear an implied clavé?
BH: Well, yeah! Because if you just do that [taps quarter notes]
like a metronome, that’s cold, that’s like a straight line, that’s
death.
EI: The first time you told me that you’ve always heard the clavé
in the normal jazz swing time, I had no idea what you were
talking about. But then I heard “Bags’ Groove” with Percy Heath
and Kenny Clarke, and I had a glimmer of what you were talking
about.
BH: Okay, well, see, going back to the undulation factor – the
upbeats and whatever – that’s a system passed down for maybe
millions of years. I tell my students, “It was around when we got
50 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
here, and it’ll be here when we go.” The clavé is another word
for God, as far as I’m concerned – it’s always been here, and it’ll
always be here.
So that system of that upbeat, which causes this mood and

change of textures and all of that, is referred to in Spanish as
clavé. Clavé means “key.” Now – what other reason would you
call a pattern, the “key?” In other words, we call it clavé, but
that’s a Spanish word; if we were saying clave in English, we
would be playing the key. The key to what?
EI: The key to life!
BH: You know what I’m saying?!
So this system of upbeats that causes this texture, is the key. It

isn’t just [taps quarter notes]. In fact, if you did that, your foot
would get tired! It has to be [sings and taps irregular pattern].
And that’s what feathering the bass drum is – it’s not just “boom,
boom, boom, boom”; it’s [sings clavé on “boom”]. That’s how it
keeps that roundness.
So, that’s the way the clavé is in the bass drum…but the clavé is
in the snare drum too! The bebop stuff seems to be how you
mesh one with the other. Because when you add the European
contribution, the harmonic thing, it’s like the bass drum works
with the bass clef, and the snare drum works with the treble clef.
You gotta realize that the ride cymbal doesn’t really come into
existence until around Kenny Clarke. Basically, that means that
the ‘40s is really when the ride cymbal establishes itself. At that
point, the ride cymbal is the bass drum, but it has a high pitch,
51 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
which means that you have a tendency to say that it’s a treble
clef instrument. But it’s not – it’s a bass clef instrument. That’s
why the cymbal is so important with the contrabass, I think, in
this process.
Even if you don’t play the bass drum, if you don’t realize that the
cymbal functions the same way the bass does with the bass clef
of the ensemble, then it’s like you’re driving a car that is out of
alignment. That’s what happens a lot of times when guys just
play the cymbal…and they work on the cymbal…and they go
searching for the right-sounding cymbal…when in fact, if you
played the rhythm right you could play it on this [taps seat]. Then
it’s going to cause what you need to get.
EI: I’ve been in the corner of the Vanguard watching your bass
drum and ride cymbal, and there are times when you’re not
feathering —
BH: — most of the time I’m not feathering —
EI: — but it sounds like you are, because the cymbals have that
depth. Elvin talks somewhere about playing bass drum in the
marching band, and how he felt like that’s what gave him good
time, just lining up all of everyone playing the bass drum.
BH: Yeah, well, that’s the original drumset. If you go back and
check out the Second Line: it came out of the marching band,
came out of the people of African descent who happened to play
European instruments, even European percussion instruments,
because they weren’t allowed to have their own drums. So after
the Civil War – you know, some cats were marching with guns,
52 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
and other cats were marching with their trumpet – well anyway,
so after the war, there were all these instruments laying in the
field, even if they move the bodies, there were drums and
trumpets just laying in the ground. So cats would pick these up,
start playing ‘em.
And that’s where the original bands begin. That’s where

European instrumentation comes in. They had a guy playing the
cymbal, a guy playing the bass drum, and a guy playing the
snare drum. After a while, after it got down to less cats doing it,
the guy that played the bass drum also played a cymbal – he had
a cymbal on top of the bass drum and he played that with his left
hand. That’s why, even today, New Orleans cats play that sort of
Vernell Fournier Second Line beat with their left hand.
So, okay now, getting back to Stan Getz, undulation’s just one
word. The others are clarity, projection, and placement. Some of
that I got from him, some from other people.
But before I worked with Stan, I was on a few records a year, and
after I worked with Stan, I was on thirty records a year.
EI: That jump was probably helped by thinking about those four
words.
BH: I think so.
Placement. It’s above tempo and the metronome. Nobody ever

said Elvin Jones had perfect time, but everybody loves him.
Yesterday, during the soundcheck, I played some Elvin-isms, and
everyone went off like, “Wow, that’s really swinging!” So this
fluctuating, dragging, kind of “undulating” – that’s what you mean
53 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
by heavy groove swinging? [laughs]
EI: I guess it is – a lot of the time. What about projection?
BH: One time I was in a recording studio, playing with Herbie. I

thought I was confident, and I went to the engineer and said,
“Hey man, I just played something, and I didn’t hear it.”
EI: Didn’t hear it on the playback, you mean.
BH: Yeah. And he looked up at me and said, “Look, man, if you

wanna hear it, you’re going to have to play it.” In other words I
played my spiritual card and he played his material card.
EI: [laughs]
BH: Right? So of course, I had my boy backing me up – Eddie

Henderson walked in and said, “Well, I heard it.” Like:
“Motherfucker, you talking to my boy about this?” So he heard it,
and related to me spiritually, if you wanna call it that.
So that’s what I think about projection. You have to make it more

obvious! Sacrifice your subtlety, which means sacrifice your
creativity. Play something for people that don’t necessarily
appreciate subtleties – for whatever reason – and people who
don’t necessarily appreciate creativity – for whatever reason.
Satisfy them anyway!
And then you see why some people say, “Well, fuck them!” And
then you’re this outcast, this weird guy, like Thelonious Monk, or
Elvin Jones.
EI: Is projection is also just a certain amount of sound out of the

instrument that you need to get?
54 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
BH: Well, that’s a material way of looking at it. Yeah!

Placement. Confidence, self-confidence. Somewhere in there is
– well, I don’t know. Who you asking?
EI: I’m asking a master! A master of projection. I’m pretty sure

you never play anything at the club that doesn’t project. What
about clarity?
BH: Well, it all goes in there. I was fortunate enough to be in the

presence of Jonathan “Papa Jo” Jones in San Francisco for four
or five days when I was with Jimmy Smith. Hanging out with
Papa Jo Jones, for me, was like hanging out with Stravinsky for
somebody else. I couldn’t believe it. I was terrified, and in awe,
and excited, all at the same time. In fact, some of the times I
didn’t want to see him, because the pressure of standing beside
him was just too much.
So after a few days of doing this, he actually shows at my gig

with Jimmy Smith, who was a loud motherfucker – the organ is
loud even with one Leslie speaker, but Jimmy always had two. (I
watched him wipe out big bands over a chordal disagreement –
he’d just wipe out the band for that period of time.) Anyway,
Papa Jo sits in on my gig, and when he gets down, Jimmy looks
at me like he smells something, and says, “Man, that’s the
trouble with drummers like you and Jack DeJohnette – you don’t
think enough ahead of time.”
When he was saying that, I was thinking, “Well, that’s what I want
to do. I want to be on the spur of the moment. I want to create.
I don’t want to think ahead of time. That’s like a machine.”
55 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
But Jimmy was suggesting composition. It gives you some place

to go, rather than just sitting around meandering, where
sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you aren’t.
When I was listening to Papa Jo that time, that wasn’t the first
thing that came to my mind. But it was interesting that Jimmy
said that.
EI: What did you feel about listening to him sit in on your gig?
BH: Oh, just the texture. Even if it seemed a little dated, it

immediately got the point across. Immediately. No rushing or
dragging or playing too loud or playing too soft – just the right
shit. Relaxed. No worries. No scuffling. Just total fucking self-
confidence. [chuckles]
So I’ve taken that to heart. I’ll tell you how I’ve used it: a lot of
times, you have to make a decision, or you feel you’re at a point
where you feel you have to make a decision. “Should I do this, or
should I do that?” And you have a fraction of a second to think.
And my answer is, if you thought of it – do that. Rather than fuck
around.
Use the confidence of playing what you hear, no matter what.

Just play it. Some people will ask you, “Well, what should I do?”
And I say, “Play it. Just play it.”
That’s what I’ve taken from that thinking-ahead-of-time thing that

Jimmy was talking about. It comes like that – it’s still creative, it’s
just that you don’t mess around with it. Think of it as a gift from
God: boom, boom. There it is. And if you do it like that, then the
next step will be more apparent.
56 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
It’s interesting to have all this kind of thought process coming

from a drummer, right? [laughs] But if you’re talking about jazz,
you’re talking about all of us as co-composers, right?
EI: Absolutely. The drummer is arguably the most important

member of the ensemble.
BH: Cecil Taylor asked me to play with him once. He said, “Billy,
the reason I want you to play in my band is so that you can play
what you wanna play. Because that’s what my band requires, is a
drummer that plays exactly what he wants to play.”
He said, “If you want to sit in my band and not play anything, you
can do that in my band. You can just sit there and not play
anything.”
So I’m sitting there scratching my head, trying to figure out what

this motherfucker is saying. And while I’m doing that, he looks
over at me and says, “Look, man. There have been many, many,
many, many, many, many, many, many great jazz bands, but very
few innovative jazz bands. And in every innovative jazz band, the
drummer has been free.”
57 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM
(2005 photos by Jos L. Knaepen.)
58 of 58 11/1/17, 6:56 PM

Ethan Iverson Interview With Billy Hart

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ethan Iverson Interview With Billy Hart

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ethan Iverson Interview With Billy Hart

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Interview with Billy Hart | DO THE M@TH about:reader?url=https://ethaniverson.com/interviews/interview-with...

Interview with Billy Hart | DO THE

I can visualize myself at school, being so hooked on those

hold—I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Tootie Heath was close. I don’t know if it was in high school or in

Ethan Iverson: You told me once that of all the drummers on

I do know that when I was coming up, there was more of an

BH: There is a video of a Tony Williams clinic that I am going to

If there was another word besides “academic”…Tony, for his age,

realized that he had somehow gotten that history together. And it

I guess it would be in any kind of musical tradition, certain chords

BH: Except that it so correct! You can see Miles is immediately

I walked up to him and said, [aggressively] “How you doin’

Recently, just a couple of months ago, I played some Eric Dolphy

important part, but there were certainly other elements,

Right at that point, something very, very important for drumming

album E.S.P., with Tony on drums.

BH: Yeah! Sure! That is definitely Tony’s analysis of the

“Eighty One” is it. Tony is so deep that shows what I just

EI: New Orleans parade beat.

As the American players of those styles begin understand that

wider audience. It was Creed Taylor’s concept, first at Verve,

I was with Jimmy three and a half years.

I buried Wes. I was a pallbearer at his funeral. I might still be

EI: Tell me about Wes and the ride cymbal beat.

BH: Right! It was very, very helpful. As helpful as it was

And I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Wes.”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Wes, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Now, how am I supposed to know what that means? Well, of

EI: Did he just tell you that just once?

EI: With all the limbs, I suppose.

Donald Bailey was particularly important to me since I took his

Now, Jimmy’s great–one of the greatest. He’s also one of my

Wes never mentioned Jimmy Cobb to me, which would have

Whatever, he just said it wasn’t laying.

EI: What about the snare and bass drum?

EI: One of my perceptions about Jimmy’s Cobb’s beat is that it

BH: H’mm. Well. That’s interesting.

There’s a way of playing on top of the beat which makes things

BH: Oh yeah. Definitely!

EI: Philly Joe’s rim click on the track “Milestones” is pretty on

EI: What about McCoy Tyner?

BH: Well, he plays on top of the beat. So, if anything, he might

EI: Oh, right. Like he had with Elvin, of course.

2006, part 2. “Rhythm is at least equal to harmony in the

EI: Max Roach.

Max also had wanted to be a classical percussionist. He was

EI: I like his tympani playing with Monk.

BH: Elvin played it too, I met Elvin’s tympani teacher once.

When you think about how Max related drumming to music, it

EI: I asked Ornette who he loved best to play with, Higgins or

BH: Now, why would you do that?

EI: I couldn’t help myself. We were talking about drummers.

BH: Well, what did he say?

EI: He said “Blackwell, who played the most truthful phrases.”

BH: How can you disagree with that?

EI: John Coltrane.

The neighborhood I grew up in was a residential area, but it was