THERE ONCE WAS A TIME WHERE YOU COULD CALCULATE A MUSICIAN’S AGE BY THE STYLE OF MUSIC THAT HE PLAYED. GUYS FROM THE SWING ERA SOUNDED A CERTAIN WAY, AS DID BEBOPPERS AND HARD BOPPERS, AND THEN WERE THE GUYS WHO PLUGGED IN OR FREED UP.
THAT ALL CHANGED A FEW YEARS AGO WHEN YOUNGER GUYS STARTED LOOKING BACKWARD PAST THE DAYS OF JOHN COLTRANE AND LEARNED THAT THERE WAS MUSICAL LIFE “BC”, SO TO SPEAK.
ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT HAS BEEN TENOR SAXIST HARRY ALLEN, WHO MAY NOT EVER MAKE THE DOWNBEAT WINNER’S POLL (FOR REASONS WE WILL DISCUSS) BUT IS STILL ABLE TO LIVE THE TRUE JAZZ LIFE OF AN ARTIST, EXAMPLED BY HIS CATALOGUE OF CONSISTENTLY SATISFYING ALBUMS
WE HAD A CHANCE TO CHAT WITH HIM, AND LIKE HIS TONE, HE WAS WARM AND ACCESSIBLE
MOST GUYS YOUR AGE PLAY WITH THE COLTRANE SOUND. WAS YOUR DECISION TO PLAY LIKE THE SWING PLAYERS A CONSCIOUS DECISION OR A NATURAL EVOLUTION?
I just grew into it.
I have a feeling that part of it was young in my first years of school, my father would play me a lot of records before I’d leave for school
My father became an engineer, but he was a drummer during the Big Band Era. He went to high school and played with (Ellington saxist) Paul Gonsalves. So, a lot of the records he listened to were Ellington records featuring Paul Gonsalves when I was a kid. That’s probably where the bug got into my ear to play like that
Consciously, the bug got into my ear when I was in a music store where I grew up in Rhode Island. The guy who owned the store said “you’ve got to check out this new guy on the scene; he’s from Rhode Island” and he gave me a record of Scott Hamilton
I had just started playing saxophone, and I heard his great sound and new that was the direction in which I wanted to go
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“This is the first thing I say to almost every student that I teach, ‘you’re lifting your fingers off of the keys; there’s no need for that. It’s a waste of time. It slows you down and hurts your technique.’”
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WHAT ADVICE DID YOUR DAD GIVE YOU?
The most important thing that he instilled in me was a love of music.
He had lots of saxophone players that would come around, and he directed me to Art Pelosi, who was one of the greatest Rhode Island tenor players. He was basically my first teacher
Art Pelosi recognized that I had a talent for it, so I’m sure that my lessons were very different from all of his other lessons
He immediately started me on ear training
I was a beginning saxophone player, but not a beginning musician because I had played the accordion for many years. I started that when I was seven, and the saxophone when I was twelve
The other thing that he did with me, which has paid dividends throughout the years as it is something that has gone out of fashion, was to train me to keep my fingers on the keys all the time.
This is the first thing I say to almost every student that I teach, “you’re lifting your fingers off of the keys; there’s no need for that. It’s a waste of time. It slows you down and hurts your technique.”
Pelosi was very good about that, so I started by playing correctly.
So many musicians nowadays, even professional ones, don’t play that way, and it really slows you down.
All of the players with great technique, Stan Getz or Charlie Parker, their fingers don’t leave the keys
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“All of the players with great technique, Stan Getz or Charlie Parker, their fingers don’t leave the keys”
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YOU HAVE A UNIQUE EMBROCHURE. WAS THAT ALSO CONSCIOUS?551
It’s a combination of being taught and what’s natural
We all go through equipment and try different mouthpieces and horns.
When I decided to try to play the mouthpiece that Ben Webster played…that was my favorite saxophone sound of all time…all of a sudden I realized that I didn’t have to put my teeth on the top. It was like “Wow, I don’t have to do that!”
It led to this idea of playing as loosely as you can.
If you look at pictures of Ben Webster playing, the mouthpiece is jostling around in his mouth with his vibrato; he’s not holding it down with his teeth
I’ve seen Ben Webster’s and Stan Getz’s mouthpieces, and there are not teethmarks on the top of the mouthpiece. These guys were not clamping down.
You look at Zoot Sims, on a video playing “What The World Needs Now”, his embrochure is so loose that It’s basically a “non-embrochure”
The other thing that happened was when I was in my twenties, I was on a tour with the great baritone saxist Joe Temperely.
I had already been on records and had been doing tours, and while on stage Joe looked at me and said “You’re blowing all wrong!”
I was a little bit pissed off!
But he said, “You have to look up and stand straight. Look up at the corners of the room when you play”
The next day after I got over myself, I thought “Well, he does have about the best baritone sax sound I’ve ever heard, so maybe I should listen to what he said”
So I took my horn out in the hotel room which I was staying and did what he said. It raised my level by 40% in an instant.
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“I’ve seen Ben Webster’s and Stan Getz’s mouthpieces, and there are not teethmarks on the top of the mouthpiece. These guys were not clamping down.You look at Zoot Sims, on a video playing “What The World Needs Now”, his embrochure is so loose that It’s basically a “non-embrochure”
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WHAT DID YOU DO DURING YOUR “EQUIPMENT PHASE”? DID YOU START USING POPSICLE STICKS FOR REEDS TO SOUND MORE LIKE BEN WEBSTER DID?
I heard a rumor that he played on baritone reeds, so I tried that
I’m not over my “equipment phase”
Two days ago I switched mouthpieces
There are several ways to go about it.
Zoot Sims played the same mouthpiece that came with the case when he bought his horn as a student. He played that mouthpiece his whole career.
I was lucky enough to work with Carl Fontana, maybe the greatest of all trombonists. He was in his seventies.
He came on stage and put a chair next to himself with an array of mouthpieces. He’d play a solo, put on another mouthpiece, play another solo, put another mouthpiece on
That was very inspiring: here’s one of the greatest trombone players of all times, in his late seventies, and he was still searching.
WHAT DID YOU GLEAN FROM YOUR TIMES WITH TWO PLAYERS WITH DIFFERENT STYLES THAN YOURS, BOB MINTZER AND SAHIB SHIHAB?307
Bob Mintzer taught me a lot of what Duke Ellington said, which was “there are two categories of music, good and the other”. Most musicians feel that way
I know most people in the press pigeonholes me as “conservative” or “swing”. Whatever
I don’t look at myself like that. I think I have a wider range of influences than people give me credit for
I love Bob Mintzer’s playing and approach. He put me into superimposing over chord changes and I really got into that and learned a lot from him.
Sahib Shihab was a little bit of a different story
Both of them were my teachers in different years at Rutgers University. Shihab never gave me a lesson as a teacher
Every week I would show up at his office, he would look at me and say “You’re fine; get out of here!” (laughs)
He obviously liked my playing. I played in his big band for a number of years.
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“I know most people in the press pigeonholes me as “conservative” or “swing”. Whatever”
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WHAT ABOUT YOUR FIRST GIG WITH KENNY BARRON. WAS THAT YOUR “BAPTISM BY FIRE?”
He was not my baptism by fire.
We had a family band when I was a kid. We had a lot of gigs; we played at weddings, nursing homes and all sorts of parties things
But I think that my first real gig was when in college I met John Pizzarelli. He was playing in a club nearby my dormitory and said that I had to come over to his house and meet his dad, Bucky.
I met him, and he hired me for my first gig, which was subbing for Zoot Sims, who couldn’t make the gig. John Bunch was on piano, Ruby Braff, George Masso…it was an amazing band
The gig was in Englewood, where Dizzy Gillespie lived, and he walks into the club. I was already shaking like a leaf, and when he walked in I almost fell off my chair. That was my first baptism
Then, Tim Baron was the piano instructor was the piano instructor at Rutgers, and he hired me for so many recordings for CBS while I was in college. It was one of the first records that was released as both an lp and a cd. Cds were brand new at that point
They did a ten cd series of singers, and I was on one of them with Ben Riley and a singer from San Francisco, Bobbe Norris. We did it n the RCA studios, and I was so glad. It was an amazing experience to record in the RCA studios because they went out of business soon after that. It was an amazing studio
DO YOU NOTICE THAT YOU PLAY DIFFERENTLY WITH A RHYTHM GUITARIST AS OPPOSED TO A PIANIST?
I guess the correct answer would be “yes”, but not necessarily.
Whenever I’m playing, I’m relating to what’s going on, so the feel will be different with Bucky Pizzarelli than a pianist. I’m responding to the group.
WHAT’S MORE DIFFICULT FOR YOU, BALLADS OR BURNERS?
I really love both. It depends on the tempo of the burner. (Laughs)
At a certain point, you’re just picking things that you know you can execute, but if I’m not at that point I can enjoy both.
HOW DO YOU AS A SAXOPHONIST WANT TO SOUND LIKE SOMEONE, BUT RETAIN YOUR OWN INDIVIDUALITY?
The thing that I always remember is that every single musician (and it doesn’t matter how much they have changed the music) all started out copying someone.
John Coltrane started out copying Lester Young, and then went on to change, and changed jazz.
Everyone starts out copying, and then there are some musicians who evolve and change massively through their whole career, like Coltrane. And then there are others that kind of stay playing the same their whole career, like Zoot Sims. And one’s not better than the other. They’re just different.
So you have to do what you want to do
That’s the biggest thing; you’ve got to be honest about what you’re playing.
I’ve done a couple of tracks for people where it was not jazz, but I’m not going to approach it as something that I don’t do. It’s still fine.
The thing that I always remember is that every single musician (and it doesn’t matter how much they have changed the music) all started out copying someone.
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“Everyone starts out copying, and then there are some musicians who evolve and change massively through their whole career, like Coltrane. And then there are others that kind of stay playing the same their whole career, like Zoot Sims. And one’s not better than the other. They’re just different”
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DO YOU FEEL THAT THERE’S AN ELITISM IN JAZZ WHERE MUSIC PRE-JOHN COLTRANE, LIKE SWING, IS IGNORED OR DENIGRAGED BECAUSE MUSICIANS LIKE YOU ARE NOT “PUSHING FORWARD”?
Yes, in a small part the musicians, but in a large part the critics and the writers have a bias towards more modern, which I really don’t understand.
I’m basing my style on something that was going on in the 1940s, and someone like Chris Potter is basing it on something that was going on in the 1960s, so I don’t understand why one is “modern” and the other is not. That is a bias amongst (amongst writers and critics)
WHAT’S TWENTY YEARS BETWEEN FRIENDS?
And, honestly, no one is doing anything new. All of the new stuff was done a long time ago
If you want to go to classical music, harmonically, all of the stuff that could have been done was done 100 years ago
WHAT DO YOU LISTEN FOR IN A TENOR SAX PLAYER, AND WHAT IS YOUR PET PEEVE?
Sound is very important to me, so I like a guy who has a really nice sound and it doesn’t have to be a Ben Webster-type sound. I thought that Michael Brecker had a beautiful sound; Eric ***Alexander has a beautiful sound. I really focus on sound.
Also time. No matter what genre you’re playing, it’s got to be swinging or it’s not happening for me.
My pet peeve is guys who lag behind the beat a lot. Dexter Gordon did it and made it sound incredible, but most people don’t succeed in it.
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“The thing that I always remember is that every single musician (and it doesn’t matter how much they have changed the music) all started out copying someone”
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WHAT MUSICIAN LIVING OR DEAD WOULD YOU PAY $1000 TO SEE PERFORM?
Ben Webster.
WHO IN WORLD HISTORY WOULD YOU LIKE TO SIT DOWN WITH FOR AN EVENING AND PICK HIS OR HER BRAIN?
Duke Ellington. Cole Porter, too.
There have been a lot of geniuses in jazz, but Porter and Ellington have to be at the top of the genius pool
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“There have been a lot of geniuses in jazz, but Porter and Ellington have to be at the top of the genius pool”
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DO YOU STILL DO LONG TONES?
I’ve never done long tones!
I can play my scales, but I never practice scales
But I’ll tell you how I do practice…
I just pick a song, and play it all by myself with no metronome or backing track. All by myself.
When I’m playing it, I don’t just play fast songs, I practice ballads too. I play them in a way that I’m getting my long tones because on the ballads I’m holding the notes. It’s always worked well for me.
DO YOU WORK ON TRANSCRIPTIONS, OR DO YOU JUST SIT AND LISTEN?
I’ve done some transcriptions in my life. I have perfect pitch, so transcribing is something I never had to work on
The truth is that I’m transcribing every time I’m listening to music, whether it’s in a supermarket or elevator. I’m always transcribing what I’m hearing
WHAT GIVES YOU THE MOST JOY?
If a rhythm section is sounding great.
If a rhythm section is not sounding great, sometimes I’ll try to build up the energy by playing more notes than I want to
When I’m playing with a rhythm section that’s sounding really great, I don’t do that; I play exactly what I want
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“If a rhythm section is not sounding great, sometimes I’ll try to build up the energy by playing more notes than I want to”
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WHEN DID YOU FEEL THAT YOU ARRIVED AT MASTERING YOUR INSTRUMENT?
I’ve never felt that, and I never will
I’m 59 this year, and I’m probably fooling myself, but I always try to keep getting better.
I don’t think that there is such a thing as mastering your instrument.
WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE GOALS?
As Houston Person frequently says, “The Grammy? You’re working tonight; that’s your Grammy”
I’ve been lucky enough just to play the saxophone my whole life. My goal is to keep doing it, keep recording and keep making music that I love.
DO AUDIENCES IN EUROPE OR JAPAN RESPOND TO YOU DIFFERENTLY THAN IN AMERICA?
I’ve never been in that camp that thinks European audiences are better than American, or that they appreciate jazz more.
I think that musicians have a skewed view of it because when they’re in Europe, they’re playing in all the best places, the best clubs and concerts
But in the NYC area, you end up doing all sorts of gigs. Sometimes I’m playing at Birdland, sometimes I’m in little clubs or even private parties. All sorts of things.
Audiences here in Birdland are just as enthusiastic as the audience in Birdland in Milan
I will say that I think that the Japanese jazz fans may be more knowledgeable than any other jazz fans. They are more likely to come up to you and know all about your career and records
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“And, honestly, no one is doing anything new. All of the new stuff was done a long time ago”
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DO YOU HAVE A PHILOSPHY, TEACHING OR RELIGION THAT HAS BEEN YOUR NORTH STAR OR MORAL COMPASS?
I try to be honest and true to myself with whatever I’m doing; not get into situations where I can’t be true to myself.
HAVE YOU READ ANY BOOKS THAT HAVE BEEN A BIG INFLUENCE ON YOU
I have to admit that I’ve never really enjoyed reading
The books that I’ve enjoyed the most are historical accounts. But even with that, there was a book on Ben Webster that I bought and I felt “this guy knows nothing about Ben Webster”(chuckles)
WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
(chuckles) “He was all about music”
WHEN DO YOU COME TO CA?
Every February I do the San Diego Jazz Party, but I hope to do other things before that
IS THERE AN ULTIMATE SAXOPHONE THAT YOU WISH YOU HAD?
Not really. I’m not a collector, but if I were, I’d love to have Ben Webster’s or Lester Young’s horn. A saxophone is a saxophone; I have my favorite model
Stan Getz’s horn is up for sale; I believe they’re asking a million dollars
ANY DREAM FUTURE PROJECT?
I’ve written songs in the past, but since the pandemic I’ve written a lot more songs
I’m about to embark on a recording of my own songs, written with Greg Oppenheimer, who’ writes lyrics.
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“I don’t think that there is such a thing as mastering your instrument.”
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LOUIS ARMSTRONG WAS ADVISED AS A YOUNG MAN, ‘WORK ON YOUR TONE; IF IT’S GOOD IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU PLAY”. HARRY ALLEN HAS LEARNED THE WISDOM OF THE AGES, AND THEREFORE IS ABLE TO MAKE TIMELESS MUSIC. TAKE SOME TIME TO TAKE IT IN.