To loosely paraphrase an age-old bromide, Know and recognize the truth and the truth will set you free. The only way to defeat racism is to recognize it’s existence and confront it head on. That my friends is one of the cornerstones of the Independent Ear. Yes there are times when taking positions in recognizing racism in this music is unpopular in some corners. Yes, unfortunately there are those who – high-minded or free of racist impulses or not – somehow fail to recognize racial disparities. Have you ever heard an African American, or any American of color for that matter, come close to forming their lips to suggest that we live in a post-racial society, that we’ve reached the end of racism? Yet that ridiculous notion is afoot in this age of Obama.

Greg Thomas was a contributor to the Independent Ear’s ongoing series on black jazz writers, Ain’t But a Few of Us. So naturally we had some questions for him about his current series on race & jazz in AAJ.

Writer Greg Thomas on his best behavior – with his lovely bride

What prompted you to begin this series on Race and Jazz, and how many parts do you anticipate contributing?

I began the series on Race and Jazz Race and Jazz for several reasons. One was to prompt discussions by the jazz community that go deeper than most conversations about race on radio or network and cable television, or even print publications. Another was because I wanted the freedom to write without the usual space and editorial constraints.

Yet another reason is to amplify a conception of culture as a more accurate and acceptable basis for understanding group and individual dynamics rather than the idea of race, a concept tied to skin color and power relations. [Editor’s note: indeed, the whole concept of “race” is an artificial, man-made construct.]

And most of all, I’m doing this 12-part series because I think the key to the resolution to the “race” problem, both in jazz and the society, is found right in the values and practices of the music itself. So, the main motivation is to show how jazz can help us overcome one of the most intractable issues of our time, which has been a problem in the United States since before the nation became a nation.

You’ve certainly spoken the truth, yet some folks would rather not deal with the truth. But ultimately what do you hope readers will take away from your series?

I hope readers gain insight into the various ways race has informed and deformed the jazz discourse over time. Jazz, as a cultural product of black folks in the United States, had to be shaped in part by race, since the idea—and the beliefs and behavior which come from that idea—is central to the history of the nation. So jazz, of necessity, is informed by race, but I think “culture” is the true key to unlock the power and magnificence of this great art form.

But since culture, as I explicated in detail in the second essay of the column, is so often confused with race, “race” ends up deforming the conversations and thoughts of many who discuss jazz history, jazz in contemporary times, as well as the larger meaning and values of the music.

What kind of comments and feedback have you gotten from this series thus far and how would you respond to that feedback?

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive, both in the comments section under the essays, and on Facebook. I tried to answer each comment for the very first column entry, so I urge folks reading this to check out the back and forth for the “Jazz vs Racism” essay. The hyperlink above, in my answer to your first question, will take readers to a page at All About Jazz in which each one of the Race and Jazz columns can be accessed.

In one interesting case, a Facebook friend of mine, Darryl Cox, and I had a philosophical disagreement. In a nutshell, I see the glass as half full, and he sees it as half empty, and we had an exchange that amplifies those points of view. In another, Joan Cartwright, founder and director of Women in Jazz South Florida, asked how the column addresses economic fairness as well as jazz and sexism. Again, I suggest that folks check out my responses in the comments section of the first essay to see my answer to her query.

It’s understandable that folks want to address the issues that most concern them. But I wanted to put a spotlight on race and jazz, past and present, to confront the predicaments and silences and disparities caused by race. Class, gender, and other issues are important too, no doubt, but I’m clear on my theme and intent. And those other admittedly related issues will be confronted as they arise organically. For instance, in the third column, the racism that underlies the lack of recognition and economic opportunities of black writers on jazz is discussed.

These days, many folks, as I say in the column, “sweep race under the rug.” I’m pulling the rug away, and exposing some of the dirt, so it can be seen and swept away. I also want the column to serve a maintenance function. All adults who have to clean for themselves know that a one-time sweeping is just that: one-time. Dust and dirt must be cleaned away consistently. So for those already aware of these issues, and who have themselves envisioned and lived their own resolutions to the “race” situation, the column can serve as a way to not only discover but to maintain resolutions to the problem.

As I just mentioned, my third column [has just posted at www.allaboutjazz.com]. It features an interview with Gary Giddins, one of the top jazz writers and critics of the last 30+ years. He identifies disappointing racial disparities in major newsrooms and in specific awards given by the Jazz Journalists Association. He defends the contributions and worth of the work of Amiri Baraka, Stanley Crouch, Albert Murray, and others. So, unlike the first two columns, which dealt with, one, my personal experience in overcoming the temptation of racism, and, two, past examples of how cultural reality and the power of jazz supersede “race,” this third essay is tackling race and jazz in the present-day.

The subject matter may be controversial, but we’ll roll and swing with things no matter what.

What must we do to encourage young writers of color to contribute to the jazz reportage and literature on this music?

Imagine a summer camp for young writers of color, where they would be baptized into the fires of jazz, until they spoke in aesthetic tongues that they don’t fully understand right now. We would show how jazz is tied to others types of roots, pop and fine art music, to various genres they may be more familiar with. We’d have them experience the music live, not just on record, because that way they can have a more sensual engagement with the music. The music has to get in their bodies and their emotions, not just in their heads based on the music’s historical importance. But we’d also play audio and videos of the masters of the idiom, so they can know what the art form sounds like, looks like and feels like, at the very highest levels. Ideally, we’d also have master classes with true living masters of jazz—that would drive home the message too. We’d also show them the ties that bind together the music and the other cultural expressions and practices that give meaning to their lives in the United States, and even globally.

So, education is essential. As is business and entrepreneurship. You and I have talked about the horrible state of the black audience for jazz. We also know that the recording and music industries are in flux, big time. These are problems that can present business opportunities for those with the guts, foresight and vision, and ability to bring resources to bear to address them. If young writers of color see a vibrant scene happening, they are more likely to be drawn to it. Let’s not just wring our hands about the predicaments, let’s swing into action to confront them. Young people, especially those attuned to hip hop entrepreneurship, will be more interested if we, an older generation, act boldly and take risks that can pay off big, or that may have us go down in flames. The risk-taking that doesn’t pay off in the short run—if it doesn’t kill you—can be what Albert Murray, in The Hero and the Blues, wrote of Thomas Mann’s Joseph character: “. . . he proceeds as if each setback were really a recoil action for a greater leap forward, as if each downfall were a deliberately designed crouch for a higher elevation.”

Talk about your recent affiliation with the New York Daily News, how you’re starting to fill the jazz reportage gap at that paper, and your plans for that affiliation.

I have Gary Giddins to thank for urging me to go after a spot writing about jazz at the Daily News.

Howard Mandel, who leads the Jazz Journalists Association, held a town hall meeting in the Big Apple during the APAP conference in January 2010. During this discussion, Gary Giddins talked about the days when all sorts of publications covered jazz, way, way more than today. He specifically mentioned that he thought someone should try to write for the New York Daily News. They hadn’t covered the music in years, which made no sense for the largest circulation daily in the jazz capital.

Later that year I called Gary to discuss this issue further and he urged me to go for it. He said that writers just assume that if a publication wanted to cover jazz, they’d be doing so already, and hence don’t even try to break in. He recalled his own experience at the Village Voice, where he approached them, and as soon as he began writing about jazz, the paper’s advertising revenue from jazz clubs increased.

So I tracked down a retired black executive of the Daily News whom I had met back in the late 1990s to pitch my desire to write for the paper, in terms not only of my fit and experience as a jazz writer but also in business terms. I said to this former Vice-President: why is the Daily News leaving all jazz-related ad revenue to the New York Times and other publications that still cover the music regularly? Although the music industry overall is hurting and the city and the country is coming out of a recession, New York still has a viable, active jazz scene, and several jazz publications are thriving here. I told him they were missing out on advertising dollars.

That’s how you can really get their attention.

The retired Daily News executive liked both aspects of my pitch, so he put me in touch with a key person—a sister—still inside the Daily News, who hooked me up with Robert Heisler, the Features Editor. Fortunately, he digs jazz and likes my writing. (I later found out that the Editor-in-Chief likes jazz too.) In January, my first feature focused on Chick Corea, who was about to perform with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. The piece was a home run, and elicited great traffic and feedback. Since then they’ve published close to 20 pieces by me, including features on Esperanza Spalding, Jimmy Heath and Benny Golson, Miguel Zenón, Dianne Reeves, Barbara Carroll, Milton Nascimento, Marcus Roberts, the 50th anniversary of Impulse!, the Bill Charlap trio, the pairing of Jason Moran and Meshell Ndegeocello for a “Fats Waller Dance Party” in Harlem, Latin jazz artists and the Grammy cuts controversy, the 10th anniversary of the Juilliard Jazz program, and more.

Just last month, I had a whole page devoted to jazz CD reviews, which I’ll be writing on a monthly basis for the paper.

I share these details in the hope that younger writers of color (and even discouraged ones of my generation and older) will take my example and use it as a model upon which they can learn and succeed. I’ve been in the proverbial shed for a long time as a journalist, over 20 years in fact. So perseverance, strategic planning, excellent execution and consistent follow-through are the keys, along with talent and developing and tapping into a social and professional network.

Right now I’m still working on a freelance basis with the paper; I’m striving to become a staff writer there, while making entry into other publications of note that pay well. Man, I’ve got a family to feed and a daughter a few years from college, so I ain’t got no time to waste!

Continuing our series of Weeksville Heritage Center interviews with jazz Brooklynites and those musicians and other jazz folk who lived for significant periods in the borough and either created or were a part of Brooklyn’s jazz scene, we turn to the veteran trumpeter-educator Cecil Bridgewater. Mr. Bridgewater, who came to live in the New York area not long after matriculating at the University of Illinois, lived in Brooklyn from roughly 1991-2007. Before that he lived in Queens, however his brother saxophonist Ron Bridgewater moved to Brooklyn in about 1970. Their musical partnership – as a Bridgewater Family band with Cecil’s then-wife, vocalist Dee Dee – took them to several Brooklyn jazz haunts we’ve chronicled in past Independent Ear installments. These included the East, detailed in previous interviews by founding member Jitu Weusi and Mensah Wali, who booked the East.

Past Independent Ear interviews have also included Roger Wareham and Viola Plummer on the development and current scene at Brooklyn’s Sista’s Place. In this conversation Cecil Bridgewater not only provides vivid details in contrasting the remarkable similarities in the scenes at the East and Sista’s Place, he also speaks of playing such other Brooklyn African American-run venues as the Muse, Jazz 966 and touches on our recent subject in this series, the historic Blue Coronet. Do African American jazz musicians get a different feel when playing for largely African American audiences? Read on…

Willard Jenkins: So the time when your brother was living in Brooklyn was during the time of the East. Did you play the East at all?

Cecil Bridgewater: Many times and went there a bunch of times seeing different people – Pharoah Sanders, Betty Carter… you name it, just about anybody that was in there. I remember seeing Gary Bartz there with Andy Bey, but I don’t know if they ever recorded there, [the East] didn’t have the [recording] facilities.

WJ: There were a couple of recordings made there, one that I’m certain of is the record that Mtume made there for Strata East titled “Al-ke-bu-Lan”. Also there is a record called “Pharoah Sanders Live at the East” [Impulse!], but it wasn’t actually recorded at the East. It was during that time and was in the flavor of what Pharoah was doing at the East at the time. What was the scene like playing at the East from a musician’s standpoint?

CB: Very much like playing in your living room as far as the people who came to listen. There was no alcohol so [musicians] weren’t competing for that, you weren’t even competing to get an audience in there because they had a regular following of people who came who were, for lack of a better term, black nationalists or at least that way of thinking and so they really came to enjoy whatever it was that you had to offer. It was a place you could go and just relax and play and you didn’t feel that you were going to be drained, like you were in some of the other places where you’re competing with the alcohol and the food and waitresses running around doing this, that and the other thing. The people just really came to enjoy what you were doing.

WJ: They did have food there…

CB: But you weren’t in competition with that, you were allowed to go ahead and play for whatever length of time you wanted to play it and it was really well accepted. At the same time I was working with Thad Jones-Mel Lewis [Orchestra] at the Vanguard and with Max Roach, and we were doing some touring. Playing in the Village Vanguard, and later at the Blue Note or someplace like that, you realized that you were part of the “help” and you were looked at in that way, like ‘OK, you came in here and you did your job but you did your job just like the bartender or the waitresses; it wasn’t put on that level, but you were just like them.

There was just a different level of respect that you felt when you went into the East. It was like ‘whew’, you could relax and just do what you do, and you always wanted to do it to the highest level. I mean you always want to do that anyway, but you just felt like you knew it was going to be received well [at the East] just because of the nature of the people that were in there.

WJ: What you’re mainly talking about is esthetics, but how did that translate in a musical sense in terms of what you might have played if you had been playing at one of the other clubs in Manhattan, as opposed to what you felt compelled to play at the East?

CB: It could take on a much more Afrocentric perspective. So if we played something… some original tune… my brother had written a thing called “African Sunrise” or we played “Afro Blue” or Dee Dee sang – because it was my brother and I, Dee Dee and a rhythm section, some of the time we used Reggie Workman, Freddie Waits and Stanley Cowell, then later we used Michael Carvin, Hubert Eaves was playing piano with us – we recorded a couple of albums back in the late 1970s. But it was the opportunity of doing things that you would feel maybe – I won’t say uncomfortable [at other clubs] – but you would feel very comfortable doing something [at the East] especially something that had an Afrocentric attitude about it, as opposed to doing that at the Village Vanguard or Sweet Basil.

Sometimes you would do the same things [at other clubs] but you knew they didn’t quite get where it was coming from… A lot of the groups [at the East] were using African percussion that was perfectly accepted there, whereas at some other places it would be like ‘why you got that stuff in there, why you using that(?)’ So when Pharoah or somebody like that would come in [the East] and do something like “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” or even Dee Dee would do some of Aretha Franklin’s stuff with our interpretation of those things, there was no feeling that we couldn’t do that [at the East] or that it wasn’t going to be accepted in a certain kind of way. So it was like whatever you wanted to do would be viewed in a way that that was what you wanted to present and you didn’t have to play some of the “standards”, you could bring in your own material and present it.

Cecil & Ron Bridgewater in action

I remember hearing Gary [Bartz] and them doing Langston Hughes poem “[I’ve Known] Rivers”, I think it was before he ever recorded it. I said ‘oh, we can do that too’, we can do those kinds of compositions that we put our minds to and it was not going to be questioned or… I don’t want to say ostracized [at other venues], but that was probably what was going on at that time. [At the East] this was an extension of what was going on in the 60s. There was the Collective Black Artists at that time and I got a chance to become a part of that on the back end because they had already done that years before, but to be able to do things that way, to feel like you had some ownership of what you were doing, as opposed to not having ownership. Like the Strata-East record company and all that stuff was active at that time and my brother and I were getting ready to do a recording with them but there was some funny stuff happening at that time.

But all of that stuff that Dr. King and Malcolm X and the Black Muslims had talked about, about owning your own stuff – and Max was talking about that too, and Randy [Weston] – talking about ‘hey, you do something you own that, take that responsibility and don’t just give it away,’ so there was that opportunity for us to do that at the East, where we could play what we wanted to play, the way we wanted to play it and there were no restrictions on us and we didn’t feel like somebody was hovering over us and saying ‘play 60 minutes and get off the bandstand because we’ve gotta sell drinks, turn the house over, etc., etc.’ There was none of that kind of feeling [at the East].

WJ: Besides the fact that it was a black audience, what was the audience’s response and participation at the East as opposed to other places you were playing at the time?

CB: Well you didn’t feel drained. When you played at these other places, the Village Vanguard or some of those other places, you felt like in a sense people were sucking the juice out of you. You didn’t feel like you were getting things back. It’s like the black church, the preacher says something and the older sister says something in the corner, she agrees and she’s talking back to the preacher. The call & response thing is happening all the time; that was kind of the way it was at the East. So if you played something that moved somebody they let you know immediately. It wasn’t like when we would go to Japan with Max and the whole audience would be so quiet with respect, but you didn’t get that until maybe the end of the piece you would get that with loud applause. But at the East you got that immediately. If you did something that moved somebody in the middle of your solo you’d get that ‘yeah, yeah, great, great, go brother, speak…’ all of that kinda stuff.

Like I say it was so relaxed in that way and such a different kind of feel that you got there than any other places. With Max and with Thad Jones-Mel Lewis we were playing all over the world basically, but [the East] was a place that when you got an opportunity to play there you just kind of relaxed and let the music come out.

WJ: And how did those opportunities to play the East come about?

CB: A lot of it was going in and talking with whoever was booking the place at the time and sometimes they approached me and asked me ‘would you like to bring the group in?’ It was the Bridgewater brothers, with my brother [saxophonist Ron] and Dee Dee; the Bridgewater Family was the way it was billed. So we put a group together and let them know it was available and they started calling us.

Getting into May or June they started having an outdoor festival right there on the corner [the East was located at 10 Claver Place in the heart of the Bedford-Stuyvesant district] and then that turned into the International arts festival. So that was a thing where they’d make a stage, invite us to come and play, and it was always such a joyous kind of thing. It was never a drain, you never felt like when you finished you just couldn’t move, and you always felt energized. That kind of atmosphere created a real conducive atmosphere to play and if you came up with something that was totally different than what you had intended to play, it was still well accepted and you didn’t feel like somebody was writing a criticism of how you just did that and it was gonna be scrutinized in that kind of way.

WJ: During that time that you were playing the East, were there other places that you played in Brooklyn?

CB: We put together a group – Reggie Workman, my brother, Michael Carvin, a couple of different piano players, and we called it Top Shelf and we did play at the Blue Coronet; I think I only played in there once or twice. That was a historic place for me even to walk into, having known a lot of the people that played there, including Max and Miles and all of these different people. We did get a chance to play there… The Muse, which was on Bedford just off of Atlantic – Reggie Workman was running that at the time and before that Bill Barron had it…

WJ: What was the Muse like?

CB: It was an educational center, cultural center in a sense – not unlike the East – but they also were giving lessons to young people that wanted to learn about the music. I remember they put on a thing where they had Krasilovsky, the lawyer that wrote a book about the music business; he came in and gave a lecture, an educational kind of thing for musicians of every age to know about how to protect yourself legally, with your publishing, contracts and all that kind of stuff. So Reggie brought him in. There was also a big band there so guys could go in and learn how to play. It was on Bedford just below Eastern Parkway. That was the early 1970s, they started in the late ‘60s but around ’72 I think Reggie came in and was the head of the program there.

WJ: Was there any sense of competition between the East and the Muse?

CB: Not really. If anything, the Muse was the educational center for the musicians whereas the East was like an educational center for grade school students, trying to give them a sense of who they were and what they should be about. On the weekends was when they had the music [at the Muse]. I taught a little bit there, Reggie brought me in to do some big band and do some teaching with some of the trumpet students.

WJ: How old were the students?

CB: They were anywhere from preschool on up through high school in their teens. They might have had adults there at the same time.

WJ: So is it your sense that any of those students at the Muse went on to become professional musicians?

CB: Some of the musicians did; there were some students who were at Jazzmobile who were at the Muse. I don’t remember all of the students, but there was an atmosphere there, like the East, where you could come and study for practically no money, it was a matter of musicians giving something to the younger musicians.

WJ: Were there other places that you played in Brooklyn?

CB: There were a couple of things that were done – they weren’t clubs, they were like concerts that were put on at that time. There’s also 966 on Fulton Street, I’ve played there a few times. That was another of those places, the same kind of experiences. We had elders that would come [to Jazz 966] but they knew about the music and they intimately knew a lot of the musicians that had performed here in Brooklyn. I remember one year it was around my birthday and they were talking about people who had had birthdays that month who were musicians. That was the other thing about the East and the Muse, there were people who were there who were long time jazz fans, who knew intimately some of the musicians who were here in Brooklyn, like the Kenny Dorhams, Freddie Hubbards and all those kind of people who had lived here in Brooklyn at one time or another. Including Randy, all the way back and all the way forward, they knew these people.

[Editor’s note: Jazz 966 is a regular Friday night happening with first class jazz musicians, many of them Brooklyn residents, performing before deeply appreciative audiences in a congenial setting resembling a jazz cabaret party at the Senior Citizen’s facility at 966 Fulton Street.]

WJ: So all these places that you’ve spoken about are all places that had black constituencies and were essentially run by black people. There was uniqueness in that respect as opposed to what was happening in Manhattan. You moved to Brooklyn in ’91. What was happening musically in Brooklyn at the time you moved here?

CB: There were a lot of African American musicians living here and I was living in Fort Green. So there were a lot of us in that area – Eddie Allen, Kenny Davis was down the street from me, Carl Allen lived nearby, Earl McIntyre… a whole bunch of us were in that area. And the other thing is that was quickly accessible to Manhattan so you could get back and forth without any problems. There were maybe not as many clubs going on then and there were lesser known clubs – some places would open up and not be able to stay open for awhile – but there were still some places to play [in Brooklyn].

WJ: What were some of those places?

CB: Well, one was the Brooklyn Conservatory; they were putting on concerts and things there that were going on in the early ‘90s. There was a place on Fulton Street right near BAM… The Up Over was happening on Flatbush; Eddie Allen had the jam sessions on Monday nights that he’d ask me to take over when he couldn’t. Later there was the Night of the Cookers; so there were some places around where you could play or you could go and hear music for a reasonable sum. It wasn’t like you go into the Blue Note and you get gouged; the Blue Note has never made sense to me – you’re playing on one side of the room playing to a wall on the other side! Logistically it makes no sense to me, so it was always kind of uncomfortable for me to play in there. I worked in there with Max mostly, with his quartet and the double quartet. It wasn’t about the music, but then it was; and that’s the difference between that and places like the East and now like Sista’s Place. You go in there and you don’t feel like its all about how much money they can get in, how many seats they’re gonna fill and then turn the house.

The Village Vanguard… I got comfortable in there because I played there so many times with Thad Jones-Mel Lewis and then with Max. Max made a comment one time when we were in there that stayed with me. He said, “This stage is hallowed ground”. I was like ‘really, this is the Vanguard, this is a joint…’ But then he said all the music that’s been made here and all the recordings that have been made here, and then it took on another dimension for me. I talk with my students about this; where you go to perform, that’s where you go to do essentially what you were put on earth to do, and so you’ve gotta respect that, you’ve gotta have a certain respect for that and if you don’t you’re not respecting your elders.

Max always talked about the people whose shoulders we’re standing on. So you’ve gotta respect that and you’ve gotta respect the place where you do that, even if its in your home practicing; you’ve gotta have reverence for that kind of place.

But like with the East, with Sista’s Place and some of the other places here in Brooklyn you always had that kind of feeling. Its like on Randy’s concert [50th anniversary “Uhuru Afrika” concert in November ’10], he said “we’re doing this for the ancestors.” It’s not so much about us, but it’s those ancestors whose shoulders we’re standing on – going all the way back. I had an experience, Winard Harper was doing Max’s “Freedom Now” suite and it was at Lincoln Center and he invited me to come to the rehearsal and kind of assist a little bit, I wasn’t playing at all. He had a young sister from DC and she was doing the singing part. So they did “Driva’ Man” and Winard was hitting the drum, and I said ‘but Abbey [Lincoln] was doing that with the tambourine, so let her do that.’ So she did it and I said ‘now that whack that you give [with the tambourine] is the [slave master] whip coming across your back,’ then it began to have a whole different meaning.

Then she did the “Tryptich” and when she got into the “Tryptich” I saw her get caught up, when she was doing the screaming and the hollering and everything [that Abbey Lincoln did on the original recording], she couldn’t come out of it, she didn’t know how to come out of it, and her body just started trembling and she was in tears. Afterwards she sat down and I talked to her and she said ‘I don’t know what happened’. I said ‘I know what happened, the ancestors were coming through, they were using you as a tool to come through.’ And she was like ‘really?’ it was like a whole ‘nother mind set that she took on.

In the performances – they did two nights – she didn’t quite get there, but she approached that. It was at Lincoln Center at the Kay Playhouse at Julliard and it was kind of difficult to get there looking out over a sea of white faces. But if she’d been at the East or someplace, she would have had no problem getting there [laughs], because the ancestors would have helped her and she would have felt them in the crowd. That’s what I mean by sometimes it feels like you’re being drained when you’re not in that environment because essentially you’re playing for people who don’t understand where its coming from or what it’s about.

WJ: That Lincoln Center audience understood the historic importance of the work but not necessarily the root source of the work?

CB: That’s right.

WJ: Talk about Sista’s Place.

CB: It’s very much the same atmosphere that I felt when I went into the East, and I often mention that to the audience and a lot of people were at the East or know about the East and so when they come [to Sista’s Place] they bring that same vibe in there. But that same kind of energy and knowledge of that cultural aspect at Sista’s place has been transplanted from the East by the people that run [Sista’s Place], they understand that, they allow you to do whatever it is that you’re gonna do; they don’t put any restrictions on how you’re gonna perform or the length of your performances. So anytime I go in there I usually end up playing way overtime [laughs], just because I’m enjoying it and we’re all enjoying it and I look at my watch and realize we should have been off an hour ago.

WJ: So when they say the first set starts at 8:30 and the second set starts at 9:30… throw that out the window?

CB: Yeah right, you might actually start at 8:30 but the second set might not start until 11:00, depending on how it goes. But it’s that kind of energy and willingness that people come in with and participate in it… People ask me sometimes ‘what’s your favorite place to play, or what’s your favorite country to play?’ And essentially it’s wherever people are really there to listen, and I’ve had the most fun at the East and at Sista’s Place, because I don’t feel burdened by anything, I can just go in there and do what I’ve gotta do and talk to the audience, and when I talk to them they understand what I’m talking about, it’s not a fight.

WJ: What kind of band do you usually bring into Sista’s Place?

CB: Usually a quartet – Kenny Davis on bass, last time I was in there I used Michael Howell on guitar, Donald Baker, Rudy Walker comes in on drums, before that sometimes George Gray or Alvin Atkinson will be the drummer… Kenny has been pretty much the constant in the group. When we first went in there we were just playing trio, just trumpet, bass and drums. [Vocalist] Charenee Wade has come in a few times to sit in, Vanessa Rubin has come to sit in… It’s an inviting kind of atmosphere.

Two years ago I had my birthday there [October 10], and Eddie Allen came and sat in, Neil Clarke sat in and played with us, Vanessa, Carla Cook, Charenee, and Karen Francis all came by and sang. It was just like ‘come on, it’s a party in here’ and we’re just gonna have some fun. [The audience] comes in and they want to participate, so it makes it enjoyable from that standpoint and you feel like you’re really at home, they just make it feel that way, you don’t feel that you’re under any kind of restrictions or that people might not understand what you’re talking about, musically or verbally…

I remember we were playing Randy’s 80th birthday concert and I was sitting there on the bandstand next to Billy Harper, Benny Powell and TK Blue and I looked over at Randy and I said to myself ‘you know, this is why I came to New York.’ To experience that kind of thing that I couldn’t experience anyplace else; but Randy’s concerts are always like an event, it’s not like a concert it’s like an event. That’s kind of the way I feel going into Sista’s Place, and like I felt before at the East… it’s not just a performance, you’re not going to a club to play – it’s like an event, and it’s an enjoyable event.

That whole cultural aspect in Brooklyn… You could walk down any of the streets where there are restaurants and just about get any kind of food you want to get. Most of the time we don’t think about culture. What we leave to the rest of the world is our culture: which is our food, our clothing, and our literature, all of that kind of stuff. So when we go back and study Africa and Egypt and all those kinds of places, that’s what we’re looking at.

Coming soon to our ongoing series of Weeksville Heritage Center interviews: Bass master and educator REGGIE WORKMAN on the Muse

Had a recent conversation with an anonymous source very close to such information and here’s a further take on the subject of who shot Miles Davis following that fateful (see below) gig at the Blue Coronet in Brooklyn. Make of this what you will…

There was a bit of a struggle for the mob to keep its cash flow via Village jazz clubs in the late 60s. Miles (along with Max Roach) decided to take their music uptown and to Brooklyn to avoid the shakedowns in the Village. Miles had booked the Gate by himself by 1969-70 but after the shooting he sent a memo via Teo Macero to Bill Graham asking to play the Fillmores. Miles had turned down the gig due to the lack of play but Columbia [Records} had made a deal with Graham to record a lot of Columbia artists at the Fillmore so Columbia paid Miles to play the hall.

Willard Jenkins, The Independent Ear, NOW TWEETING AT @indyear

From 1965-1985 one of the New York metro area’s hotspots for live jazz was the Blue Coronet in Brooklyn – the Bedford-Stuyvesant community to be exact. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps Brooklyn should be labeled the Second City instead of Chicago, given the backseat that storied borough so often takes to its little sister Manhattan (Brooklyn being by far the bigger land mass). Case in point, while surfing the web in search of additional background on the Blue Coronet, consistently the only listing that shows up in a Google search is reference to a bootleg recording made there in 1969, about which more in a minute. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz has a generally reliable series of pages under its Nightclubs entry that provides handy thumbnail sketches of various and sundry jazz clubs around the country, in major cities as well as smaller burghs… except for Brooklyn, where none of the borough’s jazz clubs are mentioned. And this is despite the fact that during a period in the 50s and 60s Brooklyn was alive with jazz clubs, particularly in the Bed-Stuy, an area that was home to a significant number of great jazz masters, including Eubie Blake, Max Roach, Randy Weston and Cecil Payne, and also including a certain trumpet player who spent many nights at the Blue Coronet and who as a younger man had lived in Bed-Stuy with the mother of his first child.

That Brooklyn disparity is one reason we’ve embarked on a research project of discovery into jazz in Bed-Stuy, essentially Central Brooklyn, for the Weeksville Heritage Center. In recent months The Independent Ear has excerpted lively interviews with some of the principles behind such legendary Brooklyn jazz venues as the East, and the current bastion known as Sista’s Place. However one joint preceded both of those homes to the music; the Blue Coronet has consistently been mentioned by both musicians, activists and fans alike as a home of great sounds. So we sought out Dickie Habersham-Bey, the owner-proprietor of the now-shuttered Blue Coronet. Though somewhat frail of health recently, Mr. Habersham-Bey gave some lively commentary on the Blue Coronet, including shedding some light on one of the more notorious nights in Miles Davis‘ storied odyssey. Read on…

Willard Jenkins: How did you come to own The Blue Coronet?

Dickie Habersham-Bey: The [original] Coronet closed down in 1965, it was in the same building at 1200 Fulton Street. I bought it about ’66 and opened it as The Blue Coronet. The first musician I opened up with was [pianist] Wynton Kelly, with Jimmy Cobb on drums and Paul Chambers on bass.

The Wynton Kelly Trio, one of Miles’ greatest rhythm sections, was an early staple at the Blue Coronet; Wynton actually lived in the neighborhood.

WJ: When you were hiring musicians at that time, how long was their typical run at the club?

HB: When I hired Wynton Kelly that was for two weeks. My grand opening, in 1967, was Max Roach with Abbey Lincoln, Charles Tolliver on trumpet… I forget who else he had, he had a dynamite group. Then I started booking musicians for a week, and every week I had a different musician for 15 years. The week would begin on Tuesday and last until Sunday, they played three sets a night starting about 8:00 and ending about 3 or 4am.

WJ: What were the audiences like when you first opened?

HB: Very accepting. When I first opened up it was a big thing.

WJ: How was it in terms of steady business?

HB: With jazz [the audience] is not real big money spenders – at least not at that time – so I had to charge a door price, which kept a lot of riff-raff away because at the time there was a big drug problem going around. One of the reasons why the original proprietors [of the Coronet] closed up is because there were a lot of drugs in the area and I scrutinized whoever came in.

WJ: And how would you scrutinize them?

HB: By charging at the door. At the time it was $2 during the week, $5 on weekends.

WJ: What was the capacity of the Blue Coronet?

HB: The capacity was small… about 100… with 150 people it was packed.

WJ: That was 150 sitting at tables?

HB: No, about 100 sitting at tables, the rest sitting at the bar or standing up.

WJ: Describe the Blue Coronet physical space.

HB: When you came in there was a foyer, a standing room that amounted to about 10 feet before you got to the bar. To the right was the bar, which was about 35-40 feet long and held about 18-19 stools and then you had the standing room, then you had the back. It was open and you could see the stage anyplace in the bar. The stage set up around 5-feet [high]. And I opened up a [new] kitchen [from the former Coronet]. I did maybe $100,000 [renovation] job on it.

WJ: So there were good sightlines throughout the place?

HB: Yes, that’s a good way to put it.

WJ: On an average week you would present someone from Tuesday-Sunday. What were your biggest nights?

HB: Our biggest nights were of course Friday & Saturday, and if we had a good act Thursday as well.

WJ: Who were some of the more successful people who played your club in terms of your audience?

HB: To tell you the truth, the bigger act at that time, the heavy jazz boys: of course Miles [Davis], Max [Roach], [Thelonious] Monk… those would get you crowds. We had a lotta local Brooklyn boys, seemed like everybody in the world came out of Brooklyn… maybe because of cheaper living, but we had our crowd [of musicians] come out of Brooklyn: Kenny Dorham… I could go all down the line; but you get what you pay for. I remember every New Year for a long time we used to have double acts, for New Year’s Eve I would have like Freddie Hubbard and his quintet and Lee Morgan and his quintet… a battle of the trumpets. We had a lotta repeats: Mongo Santamaria…, I’ve got lists of names… but everybody you could name, you name ‘em they played there, every jazz musician of note: Hugh Masakela… you name ‘em, big and small.

Master conguero-bandleader Mongo Santamaria brought Afro-Cubana to the Blue Coronet.

WJ: Was your audience an all-black audience?

HB: It was 95% black. You gotta remember, the Village was going strong then – the Village Gate, Village Vanguard… and I was doing just as much as they were doing. I had a few singers, but mostly instrumentalists.

WJ: What singers did you present?

HB: Local singers… No real big singers, mostly local. Abbey Lincoln came in with Max, Etta Jones played there many, many times with Houston Person.

Brooklyn had the biggest conglomeration of jazz musicians living there… Randy Weston did a lot of shows for me, Kenny Dorham, Cecil Payne all the time… [Laughs] You name ‘em, they played…

Kenny Dorham was another of the greats who lived in Brooklyn and played the Blue Coronet.

WJ: Did you have other places at the time?

HB: 1985 – twenty years… or better. I had four other bars at the time, all in Brooklyn – Dickie’s Monterey; the New World on Flatbush Avenue; the Uptown Lounge on Sterling Street… I had my brother working with me too.

WJ: Did you maintain the same policy at the Blue Coronet for all that time?

HB: Sure… One of the reasons I did cut out, or left it alone, was because it wasn’t attractive anymore, we had a drought… and I couldn’t maintain it.

WJ: When did the drought begin?

HB: After about 25 years. There were a number of things, big drugs in the neighborhood, high unemployment, lack of concern for jazz fractured the musicians… all those factors. Sonny Stitt used to be my very good friend, and it got to a point where I payed him $1500-1600 a week, which was not too bad for a small place, I could live with that… I would give him a week there and a week at Count Basie’s [club]. Miles Davis, I would pay him $5,000 a week – but look who he came with! A lotta guys would play the club and the [musicians] union would supply them with local [rhythm sections], but Miles came in with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams… so when he came in he had his regular group.

The Miles Davis Quintet recording “Complete live at the Blue Coronet 1969” is the only known live recording made at the club; this widely available bootleg featured the band that followed the disbanding of Miles’ second great quintet, with Wayne Shorter as the lone holdover, joined by Chick Corea on electric piano, Dave Holland on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. Buyer beware: the poor-to-mediocre sound quality of this 2-CD set – likely recorded surreptitiously from underneath some patron’s table or trench coat pocket makes it purely for Miles Davis completists.

The Night Miles Davis was shot…
WJ: Speaking of Miles, there’s the famous story of his being shot after a Blue Coronet engagement.

HB: [Chuckles] There’s always been guys that want to take over the business when they see you doing good business. The week I had Miles… he was working for me regularly; anytime he had a week off he would call and say ‘hey Dick, I’ll bring [the band] in. This guy who was monopolizing the business – he’s dead now, he got shot on Flatbush Avenue… the name is not important. I booked Miles that week [the week Miles was shot in an altercation in Manhattan after a gig at The Blue Coronet], the Village Gate had Gloria Lynne. Now he made a deal with me to have Gloria Lynne at my place, I told him I couldn’t, so he told Miles ‘don’t show up’ [at The Blue Coronet]; certain people tried to bulldoze musicians at that time.

I looked in the paper and it said Gloria Lynne was gonna be at the Village Gate. This guy said ‘no, Gloria Lynne gonna be at your place…’ There were some threats passed and Miles lawyer – Harold Lovette… that bastard [laughs] knew there was tension. Harold called [this guy] and told him what to kiss… See Harold started everything. They weren’t consulting me because I knew Miles was going to be at my place, and not Gloria Lynne. Then Harold told that guy what to kiss and said Miles was coming over [to the Blue Coronet] anyway. So over Harold’s BS, this guy wanted to make a point, to show you how bad he was.

When Miles played I had to keep two parking spaces out front of the Blue Coronet to keep Miles and his red Ferarri out front because there were no designated parking spaces. So when Miles left the club they put the boys on him. You know in Brooklyn it’s very easy to get shooters, even at that time, and they drove up and shot Miles’ car up. When I went down to see the car, if Miles hadn’t had that heavy [car] door, he would have been dead. They arrested Miles for having a couple of reefers on him. Miles said he was never coming to Brooklyn again.

WJ: Were you there that night, and how did you find out what had happened?

HB: In the papers, on the radio. They shot him in Lower Manhattan after he left the club [date: October 9, 1969]; they followed him to Manhattan. Right after that Miles started playing that off-beat [electric] jazz.

WJ: Did you have any kind of stylistic policy in terms of who you brought into the club?

HB: Not really, I didn’t have any real… I wasn’t opinionated about the type of music they played. Avant garde stuff like Randy [Weston] plays… Randy would get on that piano and play two months… I love Randy, that’s my man, but somewhat avant garde. Another one was McCoy Tyner, the same way…

WJ: What makes you refer to your place as a community place?

HB: It was all black for one – the Coronet had a white owner – I made the Blue Coronet a black atmosphere; I gave all the locals a shot, I gave everybody a shot.

WJ: How would you compare your policy at The Blue Coronet with the policy of other clubs in Brooklyn at the time?

HB: They didn’t have many. They had Town Hill at the time; that was a variety place, mine was strictly jazz. They had Sam Cooke up there, Dinah Washington… and that was a huge place, mostly singers. Turbo Village was just live music at the time; no one compared with what I was doing at the time.

WJ: So your place from 1965-1985 was, at least in your estimation, THE jazz club in Brooklyn.

HB: Right.

WJ: Was your audience strictly Brooklynites, or did people come over from Manhattan and other places?

HB: I never took no census, but I advertised in the New York Times, the Post, the Daily News… advertising was a big part of it… I did radio [advertising]; a good part of my money went out for advertising, posters… mostly in Brooklyn. I advertised in the Amsterdam News… I got my play in the newspapers; when they [listed] jazz spots, the Blue Coronet was there. I got a big picture in the Daily News, me and Sonny Stitt… They gave me my play… I advertised every week.

Sonny Stitt was a Blue Coronet regular and personal friend of owner Habersham-Bey.

WJ: Did you have MCs at the Blue Coronet?

HB: Yeah, we had Irvin C. Watson… he was from Brooklyn, he was a friend. And Jimmy Morton.

WJ: Were you on good terms with the musicians?

HB: Yeah, very good terms, ‘cause I was a fair guy and I knew how hard it is being a black musician, especially a jazz musician. I was discriminating about what I wanted in the club; if it was going to be a jazz club, be a jazz club.