Jazz From Lincoln Center

Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron

Written by Paul Chuffo

(c) and (p) Jazz From Lincoln Center, 2001, all rights reserved

 

1) Music: "Monk’s Dream"

 

2) Vox: Steve Lacy

"Well, no matter who you play with it’s a different story. It’s like who you talk to. You talk in a different way, you know. If you talk to a waiter or you talk to a taxi driver or you talk to a policeman, or you talk to your friend or you talk to your lover it’s a different, it’s a slightly different language, a different tone, sure// I mean jazz is like conversation, really, especially in a duo concert, it’s a conversation."

Vox: Mal Waldron

"I try to respond. It’s always a question of trying and reaching out and searching. You don’t always know if you succeed until it’s over [laughs] But I’m always trying every minute and he’s always trying every minute, too. So that’s what really counts. You don’t always succeed but you try all the time."

 

3) Bradley:

WHEN TWO LONGTIME FRIENDS GET TOGETHER, THEY USUALLY TALK ABOUT THE OLD DAYS. FOR OVER TWENTY YEARS, SOPRANO SAXOPHONIST STEVE LACY AND PIANIST MAL WALDRON HAVE HELD THAT KIND OF CONVERSATION IN THEIR DUET PERFORMANCES.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL THEY DO. THESE TWO MASTERS HAVE CREATED EXTRAORDINARY CAREERS BY CONSTANTLY SEARCHING FOR NEW WAYS TO PLAY.

WE’LL HEAR THEM EXPLORE THE MUSIC OF THELONIOUS MONK, ELMO HOPE, BUD POWELL AND THEIR OWN COMPOSITIONS. STEVE LACY AND MAL WALDRON PLAY A DUET ON THE HUDSON : ON THIS EDITION OF JAZZ FROM LINCOLN CENTER. I’M ED BRADLEY.

 

4) Music fades, turns into something from Lacy’s Reflections CD

 

5) Vox: Steve Lacy

"I fell in love with Monk’s music in the fifties, and I’m still very much taken up with it, really. And Mal also, we both share an interest in Monk’s music and always play some if it. Always."

 

6) Bradley:

IN 1958, STEVE LACY DECIDED TO DO A FULL ALBUM OF THELONIOUS MONK TUNES. FOR THE RECORDING, HE CALLED ON MAL WALDRON, A PIANIST HE HAD FIRST WORKED WITH THREE YEARS EARLIER.

MONK’S DISTINCTIVE STYLE INSPIRED THESE MUSICIANS TO DEVELOP THEIR OWN INSTRUMENTAL VOICES. WALDRON FOUND A WAY TO PLAY POWERFUL RHYTHMS WITH TENDERNESS AND SPACE. LACY DEVELOPED A CLEAN TONE ON THE SOPRANO WITH AN ELECTRIC QUALITY WHICH IS SOMETIMES UNPREDICTABLE.

MORE THAN FORTY YEARS AFTER THEIR FIRST FORAY INTO MONK’S MUSIC, SOPRANO SAXOPHONIST STEVE LACY AND PIANIST MAL WALDRON HOLD A DIALOGUE ON "EPISTROPHY."

 

7) Music: "Epistrophy" (T. Monk/K. Clarke) 7:49

 

8) Bradley:
AT LINCOLN CENTER’S STANLEY KAPLAN PENTHOUSE, MAL WALDRON PLAYED PIANO AND STEVE LACY THE SOPRANO SAX ON THE THELONIOUS MONK AND KENNY CLARKE TUNE "EPISTROPHY."

AFTER 50 YEARS OF PERFORMING, STEVE LACY HOLDS AN UNUSUAL PLACE IN THE MUSICAL WORLD. HE’S RESPECTED BY THE MAINSTREAM, THE AVANT-GARDE AND EVERYONE IN BETWEEN. HE’S PLAYED IT ALL, AND NOW WORKS ON COLLABORATIONS WITH DANCERS, POETS, PLAYWRIGHTS – ANYONE WHO WANTS TO PUSH THE LIMITS OF ART.

LACY RECALLS A PIVOTAL MOMENT EARLY IN HIS CAREER WHEN HE HEARD A RECORDING OF DUKE ELLINGTON’S "THE MOOCHE." THE SOLOIST WAS SIDNEY BECHET, A PIONEER ON THE SOPRANO SAXOPHONE.

 

9) Music (under): Bechet playing Ellington’s "The Mooche"

 

10) Vox: Steve Lacy

"Well, that’s how the whole thing began, that’s how I found my instrument, how I found my voice,// When I heard that it was like a call for me and I heard that call and I took a day job and saved some money and bought a soprano saxophone without knowing anything about it, but I just had to have that really. It’s like you see a car somebody’s driving, you’ve just got to have a Ferrari. You don’t know how expensive it is, how hard to drive it is, how unpractical it is, but you just got to have that. So that’s what happened to me with the soprano saxophone. I just had to have that."

 

 

11) Bradley:

WHEN HE JUMPED INTO THE MUSIC SCENE IN THE EARLY 1950’S, LACY PLAYED TRADITIONAL JAZZ WITH SOME OF THE GREATS - PEE WEE RUSSELL, BUCK CLAYTON, JO JONES AND REX STEWART. LACY BUILT ON THIS SOLID FOUNDATION, BUT REMAINED OPEN TO NEW SOUNDS, WORKING WITH PIANIST CECIL TAYLOR AND COMPOSER GIL EVANS.

 

12) Vox: Steve Lacy

"It was like an organic phenomenon, really. You know I went through the whole history of jazz, and I started at the beginnings, the music from the 20’s, and I went through the 30’s, the 40’s, the 50’s, the 60’s,// And when I worked with Cecil Taylor in the 50’s, he really turned me on to what was happening, in all the modern stuff, also including the Bartok, the Stravinsky, Schoenberg and all the 20th Century music, and Gil turned me on to Indian music then I discover Harry Partch, and then I heard Jimi Hendrix then the Beatles, and that was all a part of it, you know, you just eat up all those things, you devour that stuff, you assimilate, you go through it. Music is a funny thing, you have to go through other music before you can get to your own,"

 

13) Bradley:

THE MUSIC THAT EMERGED FROM STEVE LACY’S STUDIES IS AS WIDE-RANGING AS ITS INFLUENCES. LACY WENT ON TO PLAY WITH TROMBONIST ROSWELL RUDD AND THE SINGER ABBEY LINCOLN.

 

14) Bradley (cont):

LACY’S ONE OF THE FEW SOPRANO SAXOPHONISTS WHO PERFORMS SOLO CONCERTS. HE’S ALSO PLAYED DUETS WITH MAL WALDRON FOR THE PAST TWENTY YEARS. IN ANY SETTING, LACY BLURS THE LINE BETWEEN COMPOSITION AND IMPROVISATION, STARTING WITH A SIMPLE, SWINGING MELODY AND CREATING STRUCTURES AS HE PLAYS. WE’LL HEAR HIM DO THIS WITH CONTRASTING MOODS ON THIS NEXT TUNE.

STEVE LACY AND MAL WALDRON PLAY "ESTEEM."

 

15) Music: "Esteem" (S. Lacy) 8:04

 

16) Bradley:

AT THE STANLEY KAPLAN PENTHOUSE, STEVE LACY’S "ESTEEM" WITH LACY ON SOPRANO SAX AND MAL WALDRON ON PIANO.

 

17) Vox: Steve Lacy

" I love to play with him cause he makes me sound good."

 

18) Bradley:

STEVE LACY ON MAL WALDRON.

 

19) Vox: Steve Lacy

"But you know he makes everybody sound good. He made Billie Holiday sound good, too. She loved him. And Eric Dolphy and all the thousands of people he’s played with they all love him because he makes them sound good. And he sounds good himself, he gets such a wonderful sound out of the piano and he’s got his own style, his own angle, and a vast knowledge of structure, of harmony, of rhythm, and time and space and, well, he’s an ideal partner. Ideal."

 

20) Bradley:

MAL WALDRON HAS BEEN THE IDEAL MUSICAL PARTNER TO MOST OF JAZZ’S ROYALTY. ALONG WITH HOLIDAY AND DOLPHY, ADD CHARLES MINGUS, JOHN COLTRANE, JACKIE MCLEAN AND BOOKER LITTLE TO THE LONG LIST.

BORN IN NEW YORK CITY, MAL WALDRON STUDIED CLASSICAL MUSIC AT AN EARLY AGE BUT SOON SWITCHED TO JAZZ. AFTER SEVERAL YEARS TRYING HIS HAND AT ALTO SAX, WALDRON DRIFTED BACK TO THE PIANO. BY THE LATE 50’S, HE WAS PLAYING WITH JAZZ’S GIANTS. HE’D ALSO FORMED HIS OWN TRIOS AND WAS PUSHING THE LIMITS OF THE POPULAR HARD-BOP STYLE OF THE TIME.

WALDRON MOVED TO EUROPE IN 1965, AND CONTINUED TO PERFORM – THOUGH RARELY IN THE UNITED STATES.

NOW HE’S PLAYING SOLO CONCERTS, COMPOSING, AND CONTINUING THIS 20 YEAR DIALOGUE WITH STEVE LACY.

HERE’S MAL WALDRON.

 

21) Vox: Mal Waldron

"It’s a conversation, that’s what it is. Music is really a language, you know. As long as you have the same vocabulary you can communicate, and the vocabulary consists of all the musical experiences that have gone before. If you’re both aware with everything Duke Ellington did and you’re both aware with everything Monk did, and you’re both aware of everything everybody else did, then you can communicate more easily // The vocabulary is very important – the language."

 

 

22) Bradley:

IF MAL WALDRON’S VOCABULARY WERE RESTRICTED TO WHAT HE’S PLAYED OVER THE YEARS, IT WOULD STILL COVER THE FULL RANGE OF JAZZ STYLES. SO WHEN HE AND HIS FELLOW ICONOCLAST STEVE LACY GET TOGETHER, THEY TAKE WALDRON’S TUNE "WHAT IT IS" FROM THE FUNKY HARD BOP OF THE 50’S TO MORE EXPERIMENTAL TERRITORY.

AT THE STANLEY KAPLAN PENTHOUSE, MAL WALDRON AND STEVE LACY - "WHAT IT IS."

 

23) Music: "What It Is" (M. Waldron) 9:26

 

 

24) Bradley:

PIANIST MAL WALDRON’S "WHAT IT IS," WITH STEVE LACY ON THE SOPRANO SAXOPHONE AT LINCOLN CENTER’S STANLEY KAPLAN PENTHOUSE.

 

25) Music (under): "Johnny Come Lately"

 

 

 

26) Bradley: Midbreak

SUPPORT FOR JAZZ FROM LINCOLN CENTER COMES FROM NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO MEMBER STATIONS AND NPR, WHOSE CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE THE LILA (LYE-la) WALLACE READER'S DIGEST FUND -- SEEKING TO ENRICH COMMUNITY LIFE THROUGH SUPPORT OF EDUCATION, THE ARTS AND CULTURE.

TO SEE THE SCRIPT OF THIS PROGRAM OR FIND OUT MORE ABOUT STEVE LACY OR MAL WALDRON CHECK OUR WEBSITE AT WWW.JAZZRADIO.ORG. SEND US E-MAIL TO RADIO@JAZZATLINCOLNCENTER.ORG , OR WRITE TO JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER, NEW YORK CITY 10023.

(:10 i.d. break)

 

27) Vox: Steve Lacy

"There was a thing at that time called ‘Jazz and Poetry’ and they used to have San Francisco poets come in once a week and I was in the little quintet that was accompanying them// so anyway Mal was the pianist and that’s how I met him in 1955."

 

28) Music (under): "52nd Street Theme"

29) Bradley:

STEVE LACY MET MAL WALDRON IN A SETTING THAT APPEALED TO THEIR TASTE FOR THE AVANTE-GARDE. TO THIS DAY, EACH OF THEM CONTINUES TO USE ESOTERIC LITERATURE TO INFORM THEIR WORK. LACY OFTEN MELDS TEXTS LIKE THE "I CHING" WITH HIS MUSIC AND CALLS IT ‘LIT-JAZZ.’ MAL WALDRON IS CREATING A FULL LENGTH JAZZ OPERA IN GERMANY.

THEY ALSO ENJOY REVIVING THE OBSCURE WORK OF FORGOTTEN COMPOSERS LIKE ELMO HOPE. HOPE PLAYED PIANO WITH SONNY ROLLINS, JOHN COLTRANE, CLIFFORD BROWN AND PHILLY JOE JONES. BUT HOPE FOUGHT A HEROIN ADDICTION, AND HIS WORK WAS OVERLOOKED IN NEW YORK’S CROWDED MUSIC SCENE IN THE ‘50s. HIS COMPOSITIONS ARE RARELY HEARD, BUT AT THE STANLEY KAPLAN PENTHOUSE, STEVE LACY AND MAL WALDRON RESURRECT A GEM.

HERE’S ELMO HOPE’S "ROLL ON."

 

30) Music: "Roll On" (E. Hope) 6:52

 

 

 

31) Bradley:

STEVE LACY ON SOPRANO SAX AND MAL WALDRON AT THE PIANO WITH "ROLL ON," COMPOSED BY ELMO HOPE.

ONE OF ELMO HOPE’S CLOSE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS WAS THE PIANIST BUD POWELL, WHO SET THE STANDARD FOR BEBOP PIANO. LACY AND WALDRON ALSO SHARE A SPECIAL CONNECTION TO POWELL. ALL THREE LEFT THE UNITED STATES TO LIVE IN EUROPE, WHERE AMERICAN JAZZ MUSICIANS HAVE LONG BEEN WELCOME.

IN 1959, BUD POWELL MOVED TO PARIS AFTER SUFFERING YEARS OF RACISM AND EMOTIONAL TROUBLES. BY 1965, CLUB OWNERS FOUND LACY TOO EXPERIMENTAL, SO INSTEAD OF SCUFFLING FOR WORK IN NEW YORK, HE TOURED EUROPE AND SETTLED IN PARIS. WALDRON HAS BEEN A MAJOR FORCE IN EUROPEAN JAZZ SINCE 1967 FROM HIS HOME IN MUNICH.

AT THE STANLEY KAPLAN PENTHOUSE, THREE EXPATRIATES MEET: SOPRANO SAXOPHONIST STEVE LACY, PIANIST MAL WALDRON AND COMPOSER BUD POWELL.

HERE’S POWELL’S "I’LL KEEP LOVING YOU."

 

 

32) Music: "I’ll Keep Loving You" (B. Powell) 11:12

 

33) Bradley:

AT THE STANLEY KAPLAN PENTHOUSE, SOPRANO SAX PLAYER STEVE LACY AND PIANIST MAL WALDRON PLAYED BUD POWELL’S "I’LL KEEP LOVING YOU."

AFTER WORKING TOGETHER FOR OVER FORTY YEARS, HOW DO LACY AND WALDRON KEEP THEIR MUSIC FRESH? WELL, WITH THELONIOUS MONK’S TUNES, THEY GIVE THE COMPOSER MUCH OF THE CREDIT.

HERE’S STEVE LACY ON MONK’S COMPOSITIONS.

 

34) Vox: Steve Lacy

"// They work very well for me, and the piano part, too, you know they’re vehicles, they’re vehicles you can take out and ride around in forever, cause they’re well made and they run, and they always inspire the best playing you can do. Monk had a way of bringing out the best in musicians and making them play at the top of their form, and I got to play with him in 1960 for about 4 months and it was a very very wonderful experience."

 

35) Bradley:

AND FOR MAL WALDRON, MONK’S INSPIRATION TAKES ON A MORE PHILOSOPHICAL HUE.

 

36) Vox: Mal Waldron

"For me he was perfection, because he didn’t say with ten words what he could say with one word. Very economical and his music was very basic and very subtle at the same time, and I like that, so he was my perfect musician. // I learned from him that silence is important, too. If there’s no silence, then the sound doesn’t mean anything."

 

37) Bradley:

STEVE LACY AND MAL WALDRON STARTED THEIR LONG COLLABORATION WITH THE MUSIC OF THELONIOUS MONK, SO IT SEEMS FITTING TO END THEIR PROGRAM WITH A VERSION OF HIS "LET’S CALL THIS."

 

38) Music: "Let’s Call This" (T. Monk) 7:37

 

 

39) Bradley:

AT THE STANLEY KAPLAN PENTHOUSE, THELONIOUS MONK’S "LET’S CALL THIS." SOPRANO SAXOPHONIST STEVE LACY AND PIANIST MAL WALDRON KEEP THEIR 20-YEAR CONVERSATION GOING STRONG THOUGH TRADITION, EXPERIMENTATION, AND SURPRISE.

 

40) Music (under): Monk’s Dream

 

41) Bradley:

JAZZ FROM LINCOLN CENTER IS PRODUCED BY JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER AND MURRAY STREET ENTERPRISE NEW YORK. THIS PROGRAM WAS WRITTEN BY PAUL CHUFFO AND EDITED BY LAUREN KRENZEL. OUR SENIOR PRODUCER IS STEVE RATHE.

 

42) Bradley (cont):

THE RECORDINGS WERE MADE BY ED HABER AND IRENE TRUDEL, WITH DIGITAL POST PRODUCTION BY DAVID GOREN AT STEVEN ERICKSON'S.

OUR ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS ARE AVE CARRILLO AND JOSHUA JACKSON.

THE PRODUCTION TEAM INCLUDES GWENDOLYN DEAN AND PETER ZANGER.

THANKS TO CHRISTA TETER, SUSAN RADIN, TRACEY SCHUTTY, THE RADIO FOUNDATION, AND THE STAFF AT THE STANLEY H. KAPLAN PENTHOUSE.

THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER IS ROB GIBSON. THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR IS WYNTON MARSALIS.

I'M ED BRADLEY. THIS IS N-P-R, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO.

Copyright © 1998-2000 Jazz From Lincoln Center, All Rights Reserved.