“ABOVE ALL ELSE, GUARD YOUR HEART, FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO FLOWS FROM IT”
PROVERBS 4:23
WHETHER WE ACKNOWLEDGE IT OR NOT, WE ARE THE PRODUCTS OF OUR UPBRINGING, AND THIS INCULCATION OF OUR WORLDVIEW IS EVENTUALLY REFLECTED IN OUR WORK AND PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS.
AVERY SHARPE MADE A NAME FOR HIMSELF IN THE EIGHTIES AS THE PREMIER BASSIST FOR THE LEGENDARY PIANIST MCCOY TYNER. SINCE THIS ‘BAPTISM BY FIRE, SHARPE HAS RELEASED A SERIES OF ALBUMS THAT HAVE BEEN SOCIALLY AND SPIRITUALLY CONSCIOUS CONCEPTS RANGING FROM PEOPLE LIKE THE ABOLITIONIST SOJOURNER TO HIS MOST RECENT RELEASE 400, WHICH IS A HISTORY OF BLACKS IN AMERICA WITH AN INSPIRING VISION TO THEIR FUTURE. IT’S A RARE ARTIST THAT CAN SUCCESSFULLY COMBINE CREATIVE AND ACCESSIBLE MUSIC WITH A POSITIVE AND INSPIRING MESSAGE.
WE RECENTLY HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO CONVERSE WITH MISTER SHARPE, WHO TALKS ABOUT THE FOUNDATION THAT HAS MADE HIM NOT ONLY THE MAN THAT HE PRESENTLY IS, BUT ALSO THE ARTIST THAT HE ASPIRES TO BE.
WITH ALMOST ALL OF YOUR ALBUMS HAVING SPIRITUAL AND INSPIRING MESSAGES, IT’S OBVIOUS THAT YOU GREW UP IN CHURCH.
Of course! (laughs)
I was raised in the Church of God in Christ, a Sanctified church. My mother was the piano player, and I’m number 6 of 8 kids, each two years apart up to myself. I was able to spend a lot of time with my mother.
If you know anything about the Pentecostal or Sanctified Church at that time in the segregated south, you think of black folks being Baptists where you only go to church on Sunday, but in the Sanctified Church you go all week.
At 10 you have Sunday School until 11:30, then after that until about 2pm, or whenever the Lord touches the minister’s heart to let you out (laughs) you have the service, and then you go home and come back at 630 and have what they call WPWW, which is a Bible Study for Young People. Sort of like Catechism, if you were Catholic, and then another regular church service at 8 at night.
Monday night you have off; Tuesday night is prayer, Wednesday night is Bible Study, Thursday night is Choir Rehearsal; Friday night is a regular service at 8 o’clock, which upset me as a kid because I’d miss an episode of my favorite TV show The Wild, Wild West.
Saturday you might have another program or go to another church, and then you’d start all over again.
Because my mom was a piano player, she would do revivals, and they would be all week, every night. I was the youngest at the time, so I’d go with her.
These were Southern Revivals, which were different, especially in black neighborhoods, playing at a storefront church. This was in Savannah, Georgia; my father was in the service, but we were also stationed in Guam, and then New York.
So, I went from the segregated south, with no snow to Plattsburgh, New York near the Canadian border. My mother was active in a revival in Springfield, MA and told my father there was an air force base the next town over (my father was in the Korean and Vietnam wars), so we went over there in 1965.
I had started taking piano lessons when I was 8 years old, and in middle school I played accordion. I was a strange kid.
I then got into electric bass at 16. I loved the sound of it and would listen for it when I’d watch TV and memorize all of the bass lines.
At the Church of God in Christ, you have to be involved in something. One Sunday I was looking at the organ player, it was the minister’s son, and thought I’d start playing bass with him.
I got used to that kind of intensity coming out of the Church of God in Christ. When I got to college I got into different kinds of music and got into a funk band.
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“The thing he told me that stuck and kept me going was “You’re going to want to quit” because he knew of the pain that was involved”
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DID YOUR MOM OBJECT TO YOUR EXPOSURE TO JAZZ?
My mom was pretty avant garde. Even though she was in the church, she was the one to take me to clubs to play. She would never go inside; she never saw me play in a club until I was in my 40s when she saw my in DC at Blues Alley.
My church was very strict; no drinking, no smoking, women didn’t wear pants or makeup, with their skirts below the knee, so I told her “That’s pretty bold of you to take me to the clubs.”
She said, “The saints (that’s what we called members of the congregation) shouldn’t be there.” If you weren’t playing church music, or music “ordained by God” then everything else is pretty much the devil’s music.
I never understood why they never said that about classical music.
My father wasn’t in the church, so he’d bring me Duke Ellington, Count Basie and what we called “soul music” back in the 60s: Motown, James Brown and Stax. My mother brought in Mahalia Jackson, Shirley Caesar, James Cleveland and so I got a good mixture of music.
When I got to college I started listening more to jazz, and while I was at the University of Amherst in Massachusetts, Max Roach was there as well as Archie Shepp living there. Billy Taylor was working on his doctorate there at the time.
WHO INSTRUCTED YOU ON JAZZ BASS?
Reggie Workman was my first upright bass teacher. He was coming up a couple days a week from Brooklyn.
He taught me from day one; how to tune it and hold it, etc. A lot of stuff that he taught me didn’t really sink in until 2-3 years later. He was the first one I saw play the bass at that level.
When the older cats would come into town and used to see me play, they’d say, “Wow, you sound like Reggie Workman!” (laughs)
WHAT ADVICE DID HE GIVE YOU?
He said “You’ve got that electric bass really down. That’s not my generation, don’t stop playing it, but spend most of your time on the upright.
The thing he told me that stuck and kept me going was “You’re going to want to quit” because he knew of the pain that was involved, as the upright is a more physical animal than the electric bass, and I’m running around campus with this thing in tears because no one’s hiring me and carrying around this stupid thing, thinking “Why am I playing it?” I’d remember what he’d say, so I didn’t quit, and I thank him for that.
He once told me “I handed you the football, but you ran with it out of the stadium.”
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“you hear in my playing the spiritual and gospel influences. I always try to get back to the original intent”
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WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST TAKEAWAY GROWING UP IN THAT TYPE OF A CHURCH ENVIRONMENT?
The music, God, and the spirituality in terms of trying to express it and communication.
I was raised in the church, but I always felt that I had a different path than playing in only the church. But that’s why you hear in my playing the spiritual and gospel influences. I always try to get back to the original intent. Whatever spirituality a person has or doesn’t have is expressed in their playing, and mine is expressed a little differently.
My spiritual life now is not so much as in an “organized” way, but in more by my actions, how I conduct myself and behave, and live my life as an example to others. I’m not good at proselytizing or doctrine.
I think the main purpose of religion is not need “religion” to be a means of controlling people, but I use it as a big part of my spirituality and my music and keep that vibe. When you hear me play, I want you to hear the intensity from those church services.
DO YOU STILL GO TO CHURCH AND READ THE BIBLE?
Occasionally. When my kids were growing up and I wasn’t on the road, for them to see where I came from, and for them to see where they culturally come from. They need to know that there’s something here.
I always try to keep the original intent of music, which is man (and woman) trying to communicate with God. I try to keep that intent in my music, and I’m just expressing it through jazz.
DID YOU FEEL THAT THERE WAS A SIMILAR GOAL WHEN YOU WERE WITH MCCOY TYNER WHEN YOU WERE IN HIS TRIO AND BAND?
McCoy adopted Islam in his adult life, but he was raised Methodist (I think).
That’s why I say it doesn’t have to be any particular religion; it’s just a spirituality that McCoy has and obviously Coltrane had. That’s why he was so powerful; he had this cerebral and spiritual thing happening at the same time which I try to achieve. He just took it to another planet.
You can feel it in McCoy’s music. It’s powerfully spiritually and always majestic.
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“I never felt intimidated to do Coltrane’s music. I went from playing Kool and the Gang in the “Chitlin’ Circuit” in college to John Coltrane’s “Ascension” overnight”
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DID MCCOY TYNER GIVE YOU ANY SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS WHEN YOU FIRST JOINED HIS BAND?
I started working with McCoy back in 1980 when he had the sextet with John Blake, Joe Ford and Gerry Gonzalez.
I was with him for so long because our personalities are similar. Sometimes you work for people who don’t always lead by example. McCoy was quiet in not telling you what to do, but he gave you opportunity to grow.
For instance, a lot of time we would be on stage and McCoy would just lay out and stop playing. Some cats don’t like that; I loved it. It was like “Here’s your space; what are you going to do with it?”
That makes you rise to a certain level, especially after he just played everything on the planet. Now, you’ve got it! (laughs)
At first it kind of shook me, but he was telling me that I need to rise to the occasion. I wouldn’t be playing the way that I do today if he hadn’t done that.
WHEN YOU PLAYED THE “COLTRANE” ALBUM WITH TYNER, DID YOU FEEL ANY INTIMIDATION GIVEN TYNER’S CONNECTION TO HIS MUSIC?
I never felt intimidated to do Coltrane’s music. I went from playing Kool and the Gang in the “Chitlin’ Circuit” in college to John Coltrane’s “Ascension” overnight. I didn’t start with his early stuff; I started with his “out” stuff.
My girlfriend, who later became my wife, was in my room at Amherst, and the radio was playing this “out” stuff that I’d never heard before. I just sat there with the radio turned up for 5-10 minutes enthralled. It was like a spiritual experience.
I went and got all of his “out” albums, and she would call and say, “I’m not coming over if you’re going to listen to that noise.” (laughs)
I always felt like a part of Coltrane’s music. In my junior and senior year in college I would listen to “My Favorite Things” every night before I went to bed.
We did one tune on that album with a simple bass line, “India.” At the session I was trying to play something really different and hip, but I told McCoy “What Jimmy Garrison played on that tune, even though it’s so simple, I just can’t improve on it; it fits so perfectly.” So, I ended up playing the same thing instead of trying to get cerebral about it.
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“McCoy would just lay out and stop playing… It was like ‘Here’s your space; what are you going to do with it?'”
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IT’S LIKE THE MOUSETRAP. YOU CAN’T BREAK IT DOWN TO ANYTHING BETTER.
(laughs)
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR TIMES WITH PAT METHENY.
I played with Pat a couple times in 1980, with Ronnie Burrage and Bob Berg. Just before he did that 80/81 recording. He was trying out some new music.
We’re the same age. I love Pat because he figured out a concept at a very early stage in his career, which to me is the measure of a great artist.
We can play; that’s not the issue. If you have great technique it’s impressive.
But what impresses me most is when a person comes up with a concept, and Pat came up with one at a very young age. That is really extraordinary.
HOW ABOUT YOUR SESSION WITH MICHAEL BRECKER
He was a very sweetheart of a cat. An incredible player.
We did a couple records, when he did his record when they brought back the label Impulse! putting him together with McCoy, who was of course on the label way back with Coltrane.
We did a few concerts together, and I said to McCoy “Not only is he a great player, but he’s just a nice human being.”
I remember talking to Yusef Lateef, who is one of my mentors. He encouraged me to start my own label in the 90s, and I’d call him once a month or so. He was a beautiful person inside, and a walking, talking encyclopedia. A musical giant, and I’d just call him once a month to learn from him.
One thing he’d discussed was to first try to be a good person. We’re all human beings and have different approaches to life.
That was really important; I’m always concerned with being a good person, father and husband. We do play music, but there’s much more to our lives.
LIKE MY MOM USED TO SAY, “WHAT YOU ARE SPEAKS SO LOUD I CAN’T HEAR WHAT YOU’RE SAYING.”
(laughs) Sometimes a musician will die, like Dizzy Gillespie, and our first response was “Wow. A great person, and one of the greatest musicians of the 20th Century.” Someone else dies and you say. “Great musician.” That’s it.
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“When you hear me play, I want you to hear the intensity from those church services”
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YOUR LATEST ALBUM, 400: AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN MUSICAL PORTRAIT IS FASCINATING IN THAT IT MUSICALLY TELLS THE HISTORY OF BLACK AMERICA. YOU HAVE STYLES RANGING FROM CHURCH GOSPEL TO RAGTIME TO BEBOP AND BEYOND. WHICH OF THESE ARE YOUR “COMFORT FOOD?
It’s like asking a mother which child she likes the best. She loves them all equally.
But the songs “Arrival” and “500” are probably the ones.
I was talking to my youngest son, and we have six grandkids. He said that my youngest grandson was playing the recording, and he said “Lion King.”
He noticed the entire episodic message that I was trying to get across, even though “Arrival” sounds nothing like “Lion King.” I was trying to get that idea of a journey across.
YOU WROTE “500” AS A VISION FOR AMERICA 100 YEARS FROM NOW. WHAT IS YOUR DREAM OF THAT TIME?
People ask me “Why did you do 400?”
My reason for doing 400 was to say that this atrocity should never have happened, and shouldn’t happen again.
The apex of the Civil Rights era was the 1960s, and people are trying to hang onto those things that we got then. Yet there are still some people out there that wouldn’t mind going back to slavery, the way it was, if you look at what’s happening today.
When I was thinking about what it would be like in the next 100 years, I was thinking about that we had President Obama, and so we have to be constantly vigilant and say “Never again.”
I purposely left it kind of open, as I didn’t think about what the goal might be. Will we be going backwards or continue to move forward? How will this end?
DID YOU THINK OF YOUR ALBUM AS A CONTINUATION OF ELLINGTON’S BLACK, BROWN AND BEIGE?
Not really. I’ve done a lot of large projects with orchestras, gospel choirs and jazz quintets.
Obviously Duke Ellington has had an influence on everybody, especially with larger pieces. He showed us that it can be done. I like big; that’s why I play bass! (laughs)
IT’S INTERESTING THAT THE THREE OTHER PEOPLE THAT YOU’VE DONE ALBUMS ON, SOJOURNER TRUTH, JESSE OWENS AND SISTER ROSETTA THARPE HAVE ALL BEEN DEVOUT CHRISTIANS, SHOWING DIGNITY THROUGHOUT THEIR LIVES
They were extraordinary people, especially considering the conditions that they were dealing with.
Jesse Owens after the 1936 Olympics was banned from further competition. Now, you win a gold medal and you’re on the box of Wheaties. You now make a lot of money; he ended up racing horses to make a living.
People go through extraordinary things. Sister Rosetta Tharpe came up through the Church of God in Christ; you think of people like Aretha Franklin with Sam Cooke having that secular-sacred pull.
Rosetta Tharpe could write a great gospel hymn like “Up Above My Head” and then you’d hear her on the radio with Lucky Millinder Orchestra “I Want A Tall Skinny Papa.”
WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ON THE MORE CONSERVATIVE BLACK SPEAKERS LIKE LARRY ELDER, THOMAS SOWELL OR LARRY ELDER? DO THEY HAVE A VALID VOICE IN THE BLACK CULTURE?
I did a play with Jasmine Guy called Raising Cane, based on the famous piece Cane, which was the literary spark of the Harlem Renaissance. If you go back and read what was going on during that Harlem Renaissance, not everyone was on the same page. Some were very conservative.
They all thought differently. They may have had an artistic side, but not everyone was on the same page.
The play that we did featured three approaches. W. E. B. Dubois was big on civil rights, then we had Marcus Garvey telling us all to go back to Africa, and also Booker T Washington that told us to do the best you can to be independent, and to heck with ‘em! If we’re the best that we can be, they’ve got to come to us!
In Tuskegee, they made the best bricks in Alabama, so people would say, “I don’t like ‘em, but they do make the best bricks!”
I don’t know if the conservative blacks are ‘to the bone’ about it, or if they are to just make money off of it. I think guys like Armstrong Williams have a voice, and I understand what they’re saying. They might be misguided or it might just be their own personal experience. Some I do agree with, and some I don’t.
Let’s not forget the elephant in the room; people have achieved in spite of racism.
THE BOTTOM LINE IS “THE PROBLEM ISN’T SKIN; THE PROBLEM IS SIN.”
Very good!
WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE GOALS?
Keep breathing!
AVERY SHARPE IS ONE OF THE FEW ARTISTS WHO IS GIVING POSITIVE MESSAGES AND DIRECTIONS IN A WORLD OF CACOPHONY AND ANGER. THIS IS A RESULT OF GROWING UP IN A FAITH THAT GAVE HIM HOPE, AND A SPIRITUAL STRENGTH THAT HAS GIVEN HIM A PROPER PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE. CHECK OUT NOT ONLY HIS MOST RECENT ALBUM, BUT HIS CATALOGUE AND LEARN FROM A MAN WHO HAS IMBIBED FROM DEEP WATERS. WITH A STRENGTH FROM GOD, HE LIVES OUT ONE OF THE SONGS FROM HIS RECENT ALBUM, NAMELY “AIN’T GONNA LET NO ONE TURN ME AROUND.” SHARPE IS A MAN WITH A DIRECTION WORTH FOLLOWING.