Margherita Fava
Good evening WUOT and welcome back to on keys with your host, Margherita fava. The song you just heard was entitled Traveling Lady, an original composition by our guest today, I'll leave you to our conversation.
Today, our guest is pianist, composer, arranger, jazz messenger, George Cables, who, over the years, has toured the world and recorded well over 250 albums with artists of the caliber of Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Art Pepper, Bobby Hutcherson, just to name a few. He's also released several records as a band leader, and was recently awarded the Jazz Legacy Fellowship Award among other artists that played a pivotal role in the formation of jazz music and its idioms. Welcome to the show. Mr. Cables, it’s great to have you!
You are one of my all time favorite pianists and composers. I first met you in Jazz at Port Townsend Summer Camp in Washington State, and I was so lucky to, I don’t know if you remember, but basically I would just follow you around, trying to listen to every note you played: if you were in front of the piano I just wanted to be there and just try to experience that in real life! So I'm stoked that I get to talk to you. For a moment I would like you to take a step back and just think about your first days as a musician. I was wondering what was your first gig, and was that the moment that you decided what your career was going to be?
George Gables
I can remember going to the Five Spot and seeing Thelonious Monk, and that was just, you know, with Charlie Rouse and Frankie Dunlop and Butch Warren. And that was just a great inspiration. It was a total inspiration. Just to see these guys, to hear them, yes, because I heard them on records as well, but to see them, that was a whole other dimension. And to see the atmosphere and the place…I just wanted to be a part of this. And then to go back to the Five Spot, which was like my go to place at that time…I’d go to see Charlie Mingus, the only time I saw Eric Dolphy and Jaki Byard, who would you know if he didn't inspire you, he’d discourage you, one of the other! You know, he played the whole history of the piano…but those experiences and seeing the musicians and being a part of that atmosphere was one which really kind of made me want to say that “okay, this is what I want to do. I want to be a part of this”. This is not, you know, it's more than just, you know I” want to play music for a living”. I wanted to be a part of this life, this lifestyle. At that time, the legal age, that is to say, the age at which you could go into places that sold alcohol, was 18. That was a time, I think, that I kind of made my decision, and my first gig was, I mean, I was working with…we had a neighborhood band, which wasn't too shabby! I mean, Billy Cobham was a drummer, Houston was a bassist. Artie Simmons played trombone and drums. And his cousin was Roy Haynes who'd come and check us out.
Yeah, that's right, because your house has been like a hub for all these great musicians for all this time. You were hosting rehearsals and all of that. Do you have any moments that stand out to you from one of those rehearsals back in the day?
I mean, there were a couple. There was one where, I guess, I think my mother's upstairs, and she just about had enough of it! We had, I think, three drums, three drum sets, drummers and drums and four bass players playing at the same time. So that got to be that was a milestone, but that was the last time that ever happened. But there were just moments, you know, musical moments with discovery and just plain fun and going back and forth. But, yeah, so all the, all those things running together, and it seemed like a, you know, a process, you know, Woody, I think, got Lenny and me a gig with Jackie, Jackie McLean at Slugs, and somebody else after that, and then he in 1969 in January, that's when I started working with Art.
…Blakey, yeah! And please tell us more about it. I've heard some stories about the way that you got that gig, so I would love to hear the full story from you!
Well, he just, you know, he said “okay, I’m getting a new band”. So he called me, and Billy Harper was still a part of the band. He was there from the old band. He was there for the gig, and Buster Williams was playing bass. But you know, when we got there, of course, new to the band, so he's there early. Got there, Art started on time, which I found out that was kind of unusual, you know, started right on 9.30 right on the dot. And we were playing, and I happened to look around, and here comes the old band walking through the door, as apparently Art didn't tell them he was making a change, but he knew he might. I was there early, and started early with the gig. You know we were playing whatever, I remember we were playing a lot of Woody (Shaw) stuff, playing Zoltan and Moon Trane. We used to play this about every day. And as time went on, we played a couple of Buster Williams pieces so…but that's how that first night went, oh yeah. And after, you know, I felt like I hadn't acquitted myself as well as I like to. So after the gig, I was noodling on the piano, and Billy Harper started to play drums with me, and Art said “Hey, George, you don't have to prove anything. You’re a Messenger now”, and there's nothing better that he could have said.
And that was George Cables alongside Freddie Hubbard on trumpet on a blues by Hubbard entitled Birdlike.
We're talking like late 60, early 70. So definitely, like, still early in your development. How much of your development was alone at the piano versus in rehearsals or on the bandstand?
Well I can't give a percentage of the time, you know. But the development was really in playing with the band. That was one part of it, that was an important part of it, playing with people. But a lot of the development was listening and playing and practicing at home, finding ways to play on the chords, playing outside of the chords. And that came not just playing with Art Blakey or Max Roach, but also, you know, like playing with some of my peers…listening, you know, like listening to some of the records they had, and listening to radio and going out to hear live music, that was really important. That was a big part of developing because, you know, there was what's happening now and being relevant to the time we were playing in and living in, so going to the Five Spot to hear Roy Haynes, like with bands…I can remember one important, well, two! weeks my life. Roy was at Slugs. The first week his band was Chick Corea, Joe Henderson and Scotty Holt, and the next week was Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, McCoy Tyner, and this is at a time when Chick was just becoming Chick. You could hear him with different people and at one time he sounded like Wynton Kelly, a bit Horace Silver. Then he sounded like Herbie, and a lot like McCoy. You could hear a lot of McCoy and then, but you could always hear some Chick, and the more, as the more time went by, the more Chick you heard.
And this was very much Chick’s career, especially, you know, we're talking about with Roy Haynes! They had a great musical relationship. And then listening to the different ways that those guys, those two groups, played with each other…it was a lot of vertical music with the first band, with Chick and Joe and Scotty, and a lot of horizontal, I mean, it's the way I kind of perceive it, a horizontal playing with, with Wayne and Ron, but McCoy was a little more vertical and percussive. McCoy was like playing the drums on the piano. Listening to those guys and playing, of course, with different people, like after I was working with Max (Roach) and started working with Joe Henderson, all that helped develop my development. And then later with Bobby Hutcherson…and feeling more free, you know, like with Joe feeling more freedom to do things in and out of the chord, more free harmonically with Joe and Freddie.
So I feel like most of us listeners, we are used to experiencing names like Freddie and Joe and Bobby as players, but you got to work with them in the role of band leaders. How did you find yourself in that relationship?
You know, you say band leader and side man like a band leader and, you know, boss and an employee. It wasn't that at all. Really wasn't like being an employee, being that separation. We got to be friends, musical friends, and they were sort of mentors to me. And of course, Joe, being the first, I had to get used to the idea “that's Joe Henderson!” But as time went on, you know, we could discuss things. I mean, Joe would set boundaries in terms of being the captain of the ship. You know, I can remember, we're going to Joe's room saying “hey, Joe, you know, it was great! We could do this, we could do that…”. So Joe got a little sick of that, and said “Well, look, you know, I'm the captain of this ship!”, so that message was received. We got that loud and clear! But we still had a lot to say. We had a lot. It's not like Joe was the soloist and everybody else's backup. It was all, you know, like a group effort. We all work together to make the music happen. And it was Freddie as well. Freddie was kind of a more gregarious kind of guy. You know, he's kind of fun. He would mess with you a lot, but he was, as all of these guys were, very serious about (the music), like Dexter Gordon. You know Dexter, you know he could be, you know, with his attitude, he would be pretty relaxed, but when we're playing music, it's serious business. It's fun, but it's serious business. So Freddie, being kind of a gregarious guy, liked to hang out and party…when it came to playing his instrument and playing the music, he was dead serious. That didn't mean that you couldn't have fun, but we, I think we all took on that attitude, all these guys gave us freedom to be ourselves, to make music, and that was a very important thing, because we could explore and be ourselves and be ourselves in the context of that band.
And welcome back to On Keys here on WUOT 91.9 FM. Today we are talking to jazz messenger George Cables, and you just heard him alongside trumpeter Woody Shaw. That was an original by Mr. Cables entitled Think On Me.
And another very long collaboration of yours is with another great saxophonist, Art Pepper, who defined you as his favorite pianist at some point. So could you talk a little bit about how that collaboration came to be and your time with Art?
Well, you know, I did a record with Woody called Blackstone Legacy, and the producer of that, Lester Koenig, some you know, he was somebody with who had principle. You know, he loved this music, and he loved the musicians. And some people used to describe him as “the only honest man in the music business”, and he's the only person that ever came out of the booth and asked me to stretch out more! And I loved that! Thank you for that! He was also a big supporter of Art Pepper. Sometimes, you know, Art would be out playing, and he’d get busted and go to jail. So he’d get out of jail, and Lester would record it. So Lester got us together. Though you know, Art was…he just wanted to play music, and he was around during that time when LA's music scene could be segregated. So, you know, he felt like sometimes he wouldn't be as accepted by the black musicians, I guess I just kind of kind of made him feel comfortable, because he had a lot of other issues as well. So I would just be supportive of him, and we had a great band. We had Billy Higgins and Tony Dumas, Carl Burnett at some point, David Williams. But playing with Art…you know, like making him comfortable and playing with him was really important. And, I mean, I would try to do that in any band, because my role as pianist is, I feel like, is like being “the glue” in the rhythm section, you know? I've got the orchestra. I got the whole orchestra at my fingertips, but it's a percussion instrument, and I like to relate especially to the drums attack.
And let me jump in right there, because once you told me, we were talking over the phone, and you said something that really resonated with me. You told me “jazz is in the drums, the drums inside of us are the life of this music”. And you arguably, played with all the best jazz drummers who have ever lived. You know, from Elvin (Jones) to Tony (Williams), Philly (Jo Jones), Jimmy (Cobb), Roy (Haynes). So I'm wondering, like, can you talk more about your relationship with the drums?
Oh, yeah that's important. I think the thing about jazz is the rhythm, it's the drum, that's where the music starts, and that's where it comes alive. So once you have a groove, once you start, you know you are not just playing the time. That's playing the pulse, okay, but once you really get that feeling, that feeling comes from the rhythm, you can do just about anything you know, then your brain can take over and be as adventurous as you like, because you’ve got that foundation. This music comes from African Americans in the world, right there, Africa. You can think about the African drumming, which is not the same as jazz drumming, but it's got its roots there. You know, it comes from there.
And that was Journey to Agartha from George Cable's last record I Hear Echoes. I'll let him tell you more about this song.
And actually, now I'd like to ask you about a composition that you included in your last recorded album entitled, I Hear Echoes. There's a song there that stands out to me, Journey to Agartha. Could you talk a little bit about that song?
Yeah, it's a piece I really like. There's a young woman named Arcoiris Sandoval who I really respect, who's musicianship I really love and respect because she plays with good energy and she writes or rewrites things, she does things with her own voice. She has her own voice. And this piece kind of spoke to me. There are other pieces that she has on this particular record, Sonic Asylum, that I really like, but I wanted to do something to represent her as a younger composer, newer on the scene and that should get more recognition.
