Photo by Kal Reece







Concord Records

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH WALLACE RONEY


There was a time when my father was a very prominent journalist and not a day goes by when I pick up pen and paper where I don't feel his shadow or the expectations of being my father's son. For many years, I resented that people would compare me to my father. How dare they. I am my own man (or so I assumed). In this regard, I feel Wallace Roney's pain. I can't remember a review or article about the trumpeter, where he wasn't referred to or compared to Miles Davis. Talk about pressure and high ass expectations, Roney must be a man among men to have stood tall and lasted through that kind of critical firestorm is difficult on a man. I sat down with Roney to get his thoughts and he spoke frankly about his life and times, unedited and in his own words.


FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.

WALLACE RONEY: I'm from Philadelphia and my father was a boxer and he loved music as well. He bought a trumpet and they used to get together in Philadelphia and listen to all the records and they were big fans and he was a fan of trumpet players. So I saw this trumpet around the house and I listened to the music all the time and the music that they were playing a lot in Philly was Miles and Coltrane and Art Blakey and Horace Silver and things like that, Cannonball Adderley. That was the music I loved and when I turned about five years old, I started taking music lessons and when I turned six, I started taking trumpet lessons. That is how I started.


FJ: Did you feel a kinship to the horn?

WALLACE RONEY: I loved the instrument from the beginning. I chose the instrument. I loved the sound of it. I loved the musicians who played it. Even at an early age, I was attracted to the sound and the timbre of the instrument and the power of it and the grace of it, the power and grace.


FJ: Who exhibited this grace and power in your eyes?

WALLACE RONEY: Miles was my hero then, Kenny Dorham, Blue Mitchell, the same people I kind of like now. In Philadelphia, they were up on the current music all the time. They had the latest records. My father was responsible, all his buddies used to come over on the weekends on Fridays and they would stay until Sunday and the guy was responsible for all the drummers records and another guy was responsible for all the saxophone records that came out that week and he was responsible for all the trumpet players records. And they would come over to my father's house and compare notes and just love it and I was in on it at an early age, like two or three years old.


FJ: Let's touch on your time with Art Blakey.

WALLACE RONEY: Well, Art Blakey was about the integrity of the music and nothing else. He believed that this music was special and he parlayed that to all of us and that we should take it serious and that a lot of people gave up their lives to messing up themselves with drugs just to play this music, not because they liked the vices so much. So this music was special and when you play it with your heart, it means something and it gets across to the audience. It is not really an entertainment music. It was a music for the soul, which I got from Art Blakey.


FJ: Does that knowledge linger within you?

WALLACE RONEY: Oh, sure. I think we all do, well, at least most of the people that are serious about it. There are probably a lot of people that are in it for the fame, or in it to prove a point, or in it because of the technical gifts that come with it. The ones that are serious and don't make any money on it and still do it, they are only doing it because of that, that kind of thing. It is a give and take thing. First, you get a chance to express yourself and God gave you an artistic outlet to do it and then on the other side, you are actually giving to people too.


FJ: In the early part of the Eighties, you made some solid recordings for the now defunct Muse label, Obsession and Intuition, with Roadshow favorites Gary Thomas and Kenny Garrett. Why don't you play with these guys? What, all three of you guys can't afford each other anymore?

WALLACE RONEY: Well, first of all, Fred, Gary was a guy that I knew from long ago. I kind of put Gary on the scene. I knew Gary from when we went to school together and at the time, when I knew Gary, he loved Dexter Gordon. Of course, he loved John Coltrane and Wayne too, but Dexter was his big hero. And then I heard him again when we did a gig together in Washington D.C., four years after we had went to school and boy, he really grew. Like all the stuff we were practicing, he really took serious. We started growing together more. So when I got my first record deal, I don't think Gary had made a record and so I said, "Man, you are going to be in my band." And that was before he got with the rest of those guys that he is with now. That is how that happened. It was great, but after a while, he started doing his thing and so the next person I got was my brother (Antonie Roney), who was also part of the same molding of musicians. As far as Kenny Garrett goes, Kenny Garrett and I met in Detroit, about the same time that I had known Gary. My wife (Geri Allen) had introduced me to Kenny Garrett and she said to me at the time, it was 1978, "I want you to meet a guy who reminds me of you." So I took a trip to Detroit and I met a young guy and we were friends from that point on. Our musical paths always seemed to cross and not by accident because we were hanging together and we were always making sure that we were in the running so to speak.


FJ: I have siblings and I can't possibly imagine working with them on a professional basis. Is it easier or harder?

WALLACE RONEY: Right, right, no, it is not easier or it is not harder because you have got to look at them as professional musicians and they have to be as professional. I didn't get Antoine in my band because he is my brother. I got him because he was a good player. Before that, I had Gary Thomas in my band and my brother was around. But at that time, Gary was playing his butt off and my brother was still developing. As far as Geri goes, Geri was always one of my favorite pianists before. I knew Geri since 1975 and I was her biggest supporter and I told everybody about Geri. Unfortunately, at the time, nobody was interested in a woman playing, no matter whether she played good or not and that was the problem. But then, she got with certain people and she became popular in spite of those people. So when it was time to get my band together on a serious level, now she was already popular, but I had been in her corner and pushing her way before and even through that. Even when she was with M-Base, I was there singing her praises. So it isn't like that, Fred. I don't get people because I have relationships with them. I really believe in these people when I get them that they are the best people.


FJ: Let's touch on your latest for Concord Records, No Room for Argument.

WALLACE RONEY: Well, actually, this record, No Room for Argument, was supposed to be Village, my record that I made on Warner Bros.. It was the songs that we were going to put on that record, but with all that Warner Bros. promised at the time, they were in fear of it. They were always in fear, even on my second record for Warner Bros., The Wallace Roney Quintet, we had a big fight. They didn't want what we were doing. (Sighs) So I couldn't use the instrumentation number one. I couldn't use the concept. So on The Wallace Roney Quintet record, you got a chance to hear the music without the full instrumentation. On Village, I had to compromise. I had to get guest artists. I had to play some familiar tunes.


FJ: This is exactly the reason why I have such reluctance recommending major label recordings.

WALLACE RONEY: And then, Fred, my original drummer, Eric Allen, had left the band and then Lenny (Lenny White) came in the band and when Lenny came in the band, he came right in it when this music had developed and so it didn't sound the same. That was 1996 and then Warner Bros. was scared of it as well, but by the time we got around to doing it for real, Lenny had fully integrated himself with the music and what I wanted because what I wanted was what Lenny had to offer anyway. It was just a point of view on how to bring it out from my point of view. In other words, I wasn't really changing Lenny.


FJ: Why did you choose to place "A Love Supreme" (Coltrane) and "Filles de Kilimanjaro" (Davis) on the record? Placing a Miles tune is only going to add ammo to the theorists that say that you are a Miles imitator.

WALLACE RONEY: That is great. I am glad you asked that, Fred. This record was the first time that I felt that I could do everything. It was the first time that I really had freedom in the studio and it was a freedom situation, the very thing that Warner Bros. had been asking me to tell people that I had with them, but I was really getting it, only I might not have had the money that Warner Bros. has. I figured that if I am never going to have a chance to record or I get millions of chances to record, I am going to put what I really feel out there and how I feel about music and what I was trying to do even with Muse. I felt my point of departure, the music I loved the most, what I thought was the greatest, that summed up everything that had happened in music before and what was to come, the most advanced of which to come was "A Love Supreme" and "Filles de Kilimanjaro." So I wanted to make an updated, modern version of "Filles de Kilimanjaro." That was going to be my theme, my starting point. This was so that no one would have no doubt where I'm coming from. Everybody wants to say that all I am doing is playing music from the early Sixties or Fifties or whatever. Look, this is my point of departure. It is right here. It is Nefertiti, A Love Supreme, Filles de Kilimanjaro, Mwandishi, Tony Williams' Lifetime, and the things that I had learned when I was with Miles, with modern keyboard orchestrations and my point of view. My point of view meaning my point of view, not Herbie's record. That would erase whatever people had to say and if they say that then they are right. I am starting from there and I am going backwards and forward.


FJ: So have you turned the page onto a new chapter of your musical journey?

WALLACE RONEY: The funny thing is, Fred, we have been playing this way for the last five years.


FJ: But no one has heard that.

WALLACE RONEY: No one has ever heard it because I didn't get a chance to record because if you hear what we're doing with it, now you hear it on record. Now, if you hear it live, you'll say, "Oh, man, we were three years behind." Even live, we are still three years behind because we've developed the music.


FJ: Assess the impact that John Coltrane has had on you.

WALLACE RONEY: You know what, Fred, my idols when I was a kid and my idols still to this day were Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Malcolm X, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammed Ali, Bruce Lee, those were my idols, and Earl Monroe (Vernon "Earl the Pearl" Monroe). Those were the guys that were my idols. But John Coltrane was, I mean, he was, what can I say, he was, yeah. Absolutely.


FJ: You made a reference to Miles Davis as being one of your heroes. Throughout your career, there have been numerous comparisons to the late trumpeter. Although those whispers have quieted down considerably since, it must have been very discouraging for you initially as a young player trying to develop an identity.

WALLACE RONEY: It was never discouraging to me, Fred, because I did love Miles Davis. It is just like when you read Miles and he talks about how much he loved Dizzy or you read Sonny and he talks about how much he loved Bird. There is nothing wrong with that. What was discouraging was that they made it a negative. That was the discouraging part of about it and they didn't seem to make it a negative to anybody else that loved the way Miles did things or anybody else that influenced them. And it is not a put down when I say that I'm as much as influenced by Miles as Michael Brecker is by John Coltrane or Tom Harrell was to Freddie Hubbard or Woody Shaw was to Freddie. I'm not putting those guys down. I think those are great individual artists as well. Wayne Shorter was floored by John Coltrane and we know what kind of individual artist he was. He doesn't hestiate to tell you how much he admired and studied John Coltrane and you hear it in his music all the time.


FJ: Favorite Miles record?

WALLACE RONEY: Filles de Kilimanjaro, that is probably my favorite. That is why I put the two together, A Love Supreme and Filles de Kilimanjaro.


FJ: What is it about Filles de Kilimanjaro?

WALLACE RONEY: What I liked about it was that it seemed to have taken this type of improvisation to its highest level. They were playing 4/4, but they weren't necessarily walking. Everything had a futuristic viewpoint to it as far as jazz went. People like to say that it was the beginning of fusion. I say it is better than the beginning of fusion. It was something that never got addressed. Fusion didn't even get as good as that as far as I'm concerned. I love some of the things that happened with fusion. As far as I'm concerned, Tony Williams Lifetime was the beginning of fusion, but the thing that they did on Filles de Kilimanjaro, they are playing in odd meters and they never play a backbeat. They play as free as John Coltrane played on some of these songs. I mean it was really the future. It seems like when the band disbanded, they all didn't know how to put those elements together and play it or they didn't do it, so it was better than the future in the beginning. It wasn't the beginning. It was something, what do you call it? How do you call that? It is something that was futuristic, but everybody kind of missed it. It was intense. Don't get me wrong, Fred. To me, Tony's band had some of it and Herbie's Mwandishi group definitely had some of it and the beginnings of Weather Report, but they never had the collective. I guess Herbie's band would have been if they had Tony and Miles in it, right? I guess they needed each other to do that. So that was my point of departure. I wanted to do that with John Coltrane's energy and spirituality and his integrity.


FJ: Is that kind of integrity missing in our time?

WALLACE RONEY: Yeah, I do, Fred. Yes, I do. And it wouldn't be a bad thing if we all tapped into that and tried to play it out as far as we can to the point that we try to develop something new out of it. I mean, there was a time when people were influenced by some of the technical part of it, but they didn't have all the technical parts and they definitely didn't have all the spiritual parts. I am convinced that we should never give up on anything. We should just develop it and try to make it evolve into something else.


FJ: There is certainly no room for argument there.

WALLACE RONEY: Thank you, Fred. Thank you.


Fred Jung is Jazz Weekly's Editor-In-Chief and believes the internet should be free. Comments?  Email Fred.