Gary Bartz (2012)

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

He’s a musician, band leader, composer. He’s worked with some of the giants of music: Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Max Roach and many may others. And his music has crossed boundaries and genres as well as generations. So won’t you please join me in welcoming Mr Gary Bartz.

[applause]

Gary Bartz

Thank you.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Terrific show last evening.

Gary Bartz

I had so much fun. I really needed to do that. People probably don’t know but my mother had passed away about a week ago. She was 97-years-old. She was the one who had the most faith in me and my family about music. She said, “Oh no, he’s going to be a musician.” My dad said, “We don’t know about that.” She kept on so she was my inspiration and last night was the first I’ve performed since she passed and so it was real special. I’ll always remember that.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

The feeling was definitely special in the room. Was that your first time collaborating in performance with Bilal and Aloe or had you guys done stuff before?

Gary Bartz

The first time with Aloe but Bilal and I are involved in a project that Jill Newman Productions is working on and so we’ve been doing things through the last couple of years and so it’s a growing project but it’s a project that we’re really proud of.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Rightfully so. Seeing as we had vocalists working with you and the performance last night, usually I like to start these things out with a little bit of music. Even though we didn’t all have the experience of the show together last night so just to get everybody refocus and set, I know there’s a lot of talk this morning. I’m going to play a little something from Mr. Gary Bartz to get us started here.

(music: Gary Bartz – “Music Is My Sanctuary” / applause)

Gary Bartz

Thank you.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

For anybody who may not be familiar with that song, what was that we just heard?

Gary Bartz

 “Music Is My Sanctuary.”

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

This is what from year was this recorded?

Gary Bartz

Let’s see, I think that would have been around ’76 somewhere around there, ’76, ’77.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Your career has, as I said earlier, spanned many years in different styles. What do you recall about creating something like this? This is a “rare groove anthem.” It’s one of these recordings that has really been championed by a whole generation of DJs both here and the UK for many years. I don’t know if it was received that way upon its release but it’s certainly in the years since become an anthem for people. What do you recall about even just the process of making this?

Gary Bartz

I had been working with the Mizell Brothers on some of Donald Byrd’s records and I thought that was a good marriage. I enjoyed working with the Mizell’s and so I asked him when I signed with Capital Records, I wanted them to be the producers and then so they also wanted to do it. We continued working together and Syreeta. I loved Syreeta from the first time I ever heard her voice.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Syreeta Wright?

Gary Bartz

Syreeta Wright, yes. I was happy to have her going to the recording and it was a time I had moved to LA in 1974 so that was an LA time, I still love LA. I love the West Coast. It’s warm. When we left to come out here a couple of days ago, it was ice on the ground and snow so I always love that. That recording was a very happy time and initially because to me music is my religion. I tell people I’m a born again musician and so that was very important but I couldn’t come up with a word. Initially, music is my religion but that doesn’t sound so good. Someone suggested, “How about ‘sanctuary’?” I said, “That was it. That was the word.” Yeah, that was a good time.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

What was that process like with the Mizell’s? I mean, Josh had mentioned them earlier and some of you guys might have been at that session that happened in LA a year or so ago. What was their vibe like? What was it about them that made you trust their putting this album and other recordings in their hands?

Gary Bartz

Their process was more or less where we’d go by the house and we just work on music all day so it was a loose kind of thing. Somebody would be maybe in the kitchen and somebody would end up at the piano and start a groove or start something and we’d say, “Come in and you hear this. What do you think about this?” The same thing in the studio, a lot of time, I would be a little upset sometimes, because I’m used to when I go into the studio I’ve got the music already. I’ve written it down, I’ve rehearsed it and everything and a lot of times, we would go out and go in the studio with them and they would just have a kernel of an idea and we would work on it in the studio and I would always say, “Man, we need to work on this before the studio time.” We’re paying for the studio time here but it always came up good.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

It’s funny you mentioned that because some of the other recordings from earlier in your career, you know, which we’ll get to in a second, they all seemed to be very well rehearsed and performed live. Maybe some of the things for Milestone, which are in the traditional, I don’t want to use the “J” word, we’ll get to that in a second as well, but that traditional instrumental ensemble going in and just sort of cutting it start to finish. Was it difficult to adapt to that and how where you able to adapt because your music has, as I said, adapted so well to these different forms?

Gary Bartz

It was a little difficult at first because I didn’t understand their process but that’s how they worked and it worked for them, you know, so I just went with the flow. We had a little difficulties every now and then but it worked out in the end so, I said, “Well, let me go with it.”

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Right. In the lecture that you did in Barcelona, if for those who don’t know Gary was a lecturer at the Academy in Barcelona in 2008 and Om’Mas and Emma Warren, who moderated the discussion with you spoke a little bit about your aversion to a certain word. Om’Mas described you as a musician as a blues man and I wonder if you might elaborate on that a little bit. The category for the show last night was the four letter word J-A-Z-Z.

Gary Bartz

Was it?

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I believe so. I saw it on printed material.

Gary Bartz

Good thing I didn’t see that.

[laughter]

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Maybe you could share some of your views on that.

Gary Bartz

I moved to New York in 1958, I was 17-years-old. I’d go to Juilliard and then learned its music and I was fortunate enough to have met Max Roach in ’54. I guess I was about, what, 14-, 15-years-old something like that and so we struck a friendship and when I moved to New York, he looked out to me. He and Abbey Lincoln would invite me by the house and have dinner. I remember I told Abbey that one time not too long ago before she passed. I said, “Do you remember what you used to cook?” She said, “I used to cook?” She didn’t even remember that but we had many discussions and he was totally against the word, the “J” word. I don’t even like to mention it because at this point it’s such a negative word. It means nothing. And to me, in my opinion, they ask me, people ask me, “What do you call it?” “I call it music.” You cannot argue with the fact that it’s music. You can argue that it’s this or it’s that. You can get an argument but when you say music and we don’t need to go any further. I don’t need to go any further. Either you like it or you don’t. In doing research Duke Ellington hated the word. Miles didn’t use the word, most musicians and this is from time immemorial, I guess, they don’t label their music. We don’t have time to label the music. We’re creating music so if you’re labeling it under a certain name, then that stifles you because you have to go with whatever that category or whatever people think that category is. I don’t want to have those shackles on me so it’s just music. And most musicians, I was around a lot of guys, I was very fortunate from Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, you name it, none of them used that word.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

It has something to do with some of the negative historical connotations of it as well?

Gary Bartz

It does. Yeah, because it’s a curse word to begin with. It started in the whore houses of New Orleans and people would say, “Well, I’m going down to the jazz. I was getting me some jazz.” I mean, I’m going down to get some pussy and going in or even say, “Did you fuck that woman?” They would say, “Did you jazz that woman?” The music was being played in those places and so when someone would say, “What kind of music was it?” Said, “It was jazz music. Fuck music.” It’s a negative word and for me, negative words bring negative energies so that’s why I’m against it.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

You just mentioned moving to New York. Where did you grow up?

Gary Bartz

I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, which was at the time a segregated city. My mother couldn’t try on clothes in the department stores if I was with her. She was actually light enough, she could have passed but if I was with her, she couldn’t try on the clothes so I didn’t go shopping with her much because she wanted to try on the clothes. Schools, I went to all black schools until they desegregated schools in ’54. It was a good music town though. There was much music. I do have a lot of negative memories from that time period because it’s being a Libra. It’s unfairness on justness, something that I can’t take too well.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

When did you decide you wanted to become a musician? When did you decide you wanted to pick up the saxophone?

Gary Bartz

When I was about 6-years-old, I heard this record of Charlie Parker. Now, I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what the instrument was. I just knew it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard in my life so I told my mom and dad, I said, “I want to do that whatever that is.” I found out it was a saxophone so I’m begging every year, every Christmas, “I want a saxophone.” “What do you want for Christmas?” “A saxophone.” “Ah, you don’t want no saxophone.” You’re too little, the saxophone was then about the same size as me, but finally, when I was 11, they got me a saxophone.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Was it because of Charlie Parker that you chose the alto?

Gary Bartz

Yeah. I had never heard anything like that.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Your father also at a certain point later in life opened up a music establishment.

Gary Bartz

I saw that “J’s” getting ready to pop out there.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I don’t know. I’m trying to keep on top of our first conversation.

Gary Bartz

Yeah. He worked on the railroad most of his life. He was a railroad person but in 1960, he and a couple of friends of his opened up a night club and that I had somewhere to work.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

At that point, you were already at Juilliard?

Gary Bartz

I was already in New York, yeah, but I actually joined Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers from his club. They were working at the club and he found out that his saxophonist was leaving so he called me in New York, he said, “Why don’t you come down and sit in. He’s looking for a saxophonist,” which I did and joined the band right there.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Whose seat did you take?

Gary Bartz

John Gilmore.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

John Gilmore, okay.

Gary Bartz

Yeah.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Any Sun Ra fans out there?

Gary Bartz

Yeah.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Okay. Can you describe a little bit about New York, coming to New York at that time? I mean the Academy is happening in New York this fall. It must have been a pretty exciting time for you. Early ’60s, the music, your musical heroes are working constantly, you’re at Juilliard. Can you set the scene of what your routine was like to go out enjoy the city and experience music?

Gary Bartz

Like I said, I was 17 when I first moved to New York so I really wasn’t supposed to be in the clubs but it was kind of lenient. We knew how to get in and I remember when Tony Williams moved to New York, he was 15, so he really had a problem. I just saw this interview with Sonny Rollins and Tavis Smiley did an interview with him, and I never knew this, but he said they used to paint mustaches on so they’d look older so they could get into clubs but we never did that. We would take musicians instruments in. I’d take a snare somebody would take the cymbals and that’s how we got in and the other way we would just walk up to the box office like we were supposed to be there. “Hey, how you all are you doing here? I got to get in there real quick. I’m running late.”

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Besides the clubs, you’ve mentioned the loft scene. Was that around the same time or was that later?

Gary Bartz

That was a little later, yeah. You know it’s a funny thing, when I moved to New York, it was the most exciting. I mean music everywhere. Clubs in every borough and I was just taken aback, and the older musicians would always say, “It’s not like it used to be.” Damn, it must have really been something. They remembered 52nd Street and that particular era which I missed that. Moving to New York in ‘58 that Charlie Parker had just passed away three years previous so that energy was still alive so it was really a good time. To this day, now, I find myself young musicians come to New York and now I’m saying, “Well, it’s not like it used to be.”

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Where did you live in New York?

Gary Bartz

I lived in Harlem. Actually, I had a room in a Jamaican family’s apartment on 152nd and Broadway.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

One of your band mates, Justin, lives right on that like a 150th and Broadway he was telling me earlier today so.

Gary Bartz

Who?

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Justin, your drummer.

Gary Bartz

Justin, yeah. He’s from Harlem, yeah.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

What has Harlem like back then?

Gary Bartz

A lot of energy, lots of energy. Club Barron, Small’s Paradise was still open, Count Basie’s. As a matter of fact, I did an engagement one time with Max, a real famous engagement with two bands but a lot of people didn’t know that Count Basie had a club, at least it was in his name. I don’t know how much he had to do with the running of it but I was working with Max Roach and the other band was Miles Davis so I mean you couldn’t get in that place. We were there for ten days.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

What was your schedule like? This was after Juilliard or still in Juilliard?

Gary Bartz

This was after Juilliard. Yeah.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Okay. Pretty much the life of a musician in New York City, early ’60s. Every night a different gig?

Gary Bartz

Yeah. Always somewhere to go and lots of jam sessions too. I knew Freddie Hubbard. Freddie moved to New York in ’58 also, which I called that whenever you moved to New York, if you’re not from New York that’s the class, so I was the class of ’58 and so was Freddy Hubbard, moved in August of ’58. I moved in September of ’58. We met each other kind of early and we’re used to doing. And the funny thing is, the reason why wanted to go Juilliard was because I was totally an ear musician and I think that’s the proper way to learn music is by ear. Any other way is backwards because I mean from Mozart to Beethoven, they were writing songs at the age of three. They didn’t even know how to write their names so they couldn’t read music so it was totally by ear. And ear comes first, it has to because you have to hear something first, say, “Oh, I heard it,” and then it comes down. What happens is nowadays, kids go to school and they’re learning music but people have already worked the music out for them. You know, they’re looking at the paper. We worked it out for ourselves and when you work it out for yourselves, you have a better understanding of it. I forgot what the question was.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Just the regular sort of routine for you as far as gigging and things like that. You wound up joining like as you said Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Who were the other leaders whose bands you joined in that ’60s period?

Gary Bartz

Let’s see, I must say I had the pleasure when I worked with Art Blakey, Lee Morgan who was one of my teachers and one of the great musicians of all times, as far as I’m concerned. My mother would always say, “I don’t care what anybody says, Lee Morgan is my favorite trumpet player.” [laughs] He was one of mine too but I worked with Mingus. I had the pleasure of working with Charlie Mingus, who had a workshop at the Village Gate every Monday. It was an improvised big band and so there was no music. That’s where I met Eric Dolphy and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, they were also in the saxophone section and so Mingus would start a song with the bass or with the piano. He played piano also and he would come over to Eric who was the head of the saxophone section and he would whisper something, you know, hum something in his ear and then Eric would play it and give it to us and then Mingus would give something to the trombone players. That was the first time I worked with Mingus. I worked with them later on too.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

What did you learn do you think from Mingus working with him? He’s such a legendary character as well as musician with a very tumultuous life.

Gary Bartz

Yeah. Well, you know, working with almost every musician, I learned something from everybody. I learned something from people, you know, like people would ask me who I was influenced by. I’m influenced by life and everybody because somebody, I might have a friend, not a musician, but they may have a little something or a quirk that they do or they say and that ends up in the music so you take from everywhere.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I would imagine that those experiences became very useful for you when you became a leader of your own group. How were you able to make that transition from playing with all these other great band leaders to being a band leader yourself?

Gary Bartz

Because I think I watched how each band leader ran their particular band and so I’m making decisions along the way, I’m saying, “Okay, I’m not going to do that.” I learned a lot of things working with Art Blakey but they were things, like I said, “Okay, I’m not going to do that. When I have a band, I’m definitely not going to do that.” When I worked with Max, a lot of positive things working with Miles. To me, Miles and Max were the best leaders I ever worked for.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Why?

Gary Bartz

Because they cared. They cared so much like Miles, you could almost do anything. If he wanted you in his band, you’d be in the band. You could go out and rob a bank and you end up in jail. He would come down and bail you out. “We got a gig next week, man. What’s wrong?”

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I would imagine also with Art Blakey, I don’t know if anybody here is familiar with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers but that’s kind of a group that produces musicians to be… It’s kind of a transient group in a way because Art Blakey is the only constant as the drummer and he always is able to bring in this young musicians and they become famous band leaders in their own right afterwards.

Gary Bartz

In a way, yeah, the thought just crossed me. In a way he was like a Norman Connors, only he really could play. I mean, not that Norman couldn’t play but he was more of a producer. I look at Norman that was his genius. He was a hell of a producer, still is.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Now, before we get back to a little bit more music. As a leader, can you actually talk a little bit about the loft music scene in New York in the ’60s at that time because I think a lot of DJs in this room, the loft in New York connotate something of a different generation of the underground disco scene and yet there is a precursor to that in a way in which you guys experienced? Can you explain where those lofts were? What was the scene like? How long did you stay for? What did you do?

Gary Bartz

A lot of musicians started running lofts because the rent was cheap. Some of the lofts were as big as this and you could play at anytime the day and night because most of the lofts in the building were businesses which would close down at 5 o’clock in the afternoon so we could go there and just play. I remember Kiani Zawadi had a loft at Allen Street and I remember taking out a grand piano, it wasn’t a grand, it was a huge upright piano, taking that up about four, five flights of steps in this loft and that was hard. We would go by his loft and one time Grachan Moncur had acquired all of the lead sheets to Thelonius Monk’s music and so we said, “Oh, we got to learn his music.” We went up to the loft. We stayed there for about three or four days. We chipped in, buy food, cook, sleep, get up and they were always drummers and bass players and pianist and horn players coming by different times and so we would stay there and work on the music and learn the music and so it was that kind of community.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Yeah, a real communal experience. When you became a leader, what was your mind set? Was it just to record and perform your own compositions? Was it to push the boundaries of what you were doing as a sideman for these other bands?

Gary Bartz

I guess when you become a leader, you want to get your own musical ideas out and so, I mean, I had compositions working with Art Blakey. Actually, my first record date was with Art Blakey and I’d... what a lucky man I was in because my first record date had Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard. I said, “Oh my god. Can’t get any better than that.” But that was because Lee was a little erratic during that time so we had just gotten back from California and Art couldn’t find Lee and so he called Freddie Hubbard just in case. So they both showed up and so they both ended up on the record date.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

But primarily to record your own material?

Gary Bartz

Yeah.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

You recorded, I think, two albums as a leader or three albums before you formed the NTU Troop.

Gary Bartz

Right. Yeah.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Can you speak a little bit about what Gary Bartz NTU Troop was, this particular band of yours as a leader?

Gary Bartz

Right. That particular band, to me, the concept was I wanted a band that we could perform anywhere. We could go out in the middle of the jungle and perform so that meant no microphones. That meant no pianos. It was all acoustic and so that was the whole concept and NTU Troop to me was everybody. It wasn’t just the band because in those days we would play at places like The East in Brooklyn and the audience would bring the instruments. They’re sitting out there and as we played they were banging and playing tambourines and cow bells and different things. It’s funny because I can remember my mom and dad when I was a kid, they would go to Atlantic City and they would bring these souvenirs back and there was this one thing that was a stick with a wooden ball and I said, “What the hell, what is this?” They would bang. They used to do that then. That gave me the idea of asking people bring your instruments.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Can you explain NTU, the word NTU and what that signified?

Gary Bartz

NTU was like a suffix from the Bantu language in Africa in West Africa. The English pronunciation is “Bantu” but they pronounce it “Ba-bintu,” everything “Keet-ntu.” The suffix encompassed all of the arts of whatever the philosophies that you had were. So I just used the suffix itself.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

The first two Gary Bartz NTU Troop albums, Harlem Bush Music, is that correct or is there one before that actually?

Gary Bartz

The first one was a live recording at a place in Baltimore. Baltimore used to have organization called the Left Bank Jazz Society, which I became a member of before they became that, before that, because it had been a segregated city. The first organization that precursor was called the Interracial Jazz Society, which musicians said, “Well, we don’t like that.” They ended up changing it but it was because the races were mixed and Baltimore didn’t come from that. They came from a more segregated thing.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

So that album was the first NTU Troop album.

Gary Bartz

Right, with Woody Shaw, Rashied Ali, Bob Cunningham and Albert Dailey were on that. Yeah.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Harlem Bush Music, two separate albums.

Gary Bartz

Right, which actually it was supposed to come out as a double recording, and record labels as they can be sometimes, decided they didn’t want to do that but it was all recorded at the same time.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

The music, of course, speaks for itself regardless. I find these to be really beautiful and fully realized musical experiences. And let’s play a little bit of something from one of these. We heard something actually last night, Aloe performing with Gary. I don’t know if we should go to that right now. Should we go to it right now?

Gary Bartz

No, you pick.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Pick a different one maybe.

Gary Bartz

No, you pick whatever you think.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

All right. We’ll try something else. This is something from one of the Harlem Bush Music recording sessions.

(music: Gary Bartz NTU Troop – “Uhuru Sasa” / applause)

Gary Bartz

Thank you.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

What goes through your mind when you hear that now?

Gary Bartz

That was the Vietnam War was going on. They felt like I would make a good soldier. I didn’t think so. That’s a protest song. I remember that time. I was ready to either go to jail or leave the country as something I wouldn’t… I don’t believe in war. Call me funny or whatever but I lost a lot of friends. I lost family through wars. I was feeling that there’s a lot of music and to me, music can work in different ways so I started trying to think of other ways that the music could work especially in the community. It’s funny, I just found out about a month or so ago, someone was telling me, well, “Almost every Black Panther family had that album.” I said, “Well, good.” That made me very proud. [laughter]

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Also, Andy Bey, the vocalist on this.

Gary Bartz

Yes. Great Andy Bey.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

What can you tell us about him and the experience of working with him? How did you guys come to work together?

Gary Bartz

I’m not sure. I don’t remember when but seems like I’ve known Andy forever, but I remember Andy & The Bey Sisters. I don’t know whether you remember that group. He was the little kid and the band but he was the talent. He played the piano and sang and his sisters sang with him. Then, we did an album, Members, Don’t Git Weary, Max Roach album that Andy was on, and he gets mad when I say this, but I knew I wanted a vocalist and Leon Thomas was a good friend of mine. But Leon had just done this Pharoah Sanders record and I didn’t want to sing like I was copying that. So I started thinking, “Who could I use?” I thought of Andy. I guess we saw each other somewhere and I said, “That’s the guy and it was the right decision.” I tell everybody he always is, “I wasn’t even your first choice,” but he was the best choice, I think.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

He was the best choice, and I think just from a musical listener’s perspective, where his voice in the range of frequencies filled the space within the band, I think was one thing. Also, you contributed vocals to a lot of these songs as well, which was, I guess, a new thing for you at that time. What made you step out to also do that?

Gary Bartz

Like I said, I wanted everybody, I wanted the audience to sing, I wanted everybody to sing. That was part of the community and a communal thing. The NTU Troop was a communal band. We survived working a lot of the black student unions and all of the universities around the country, as diverse as Notre Dame, many big universities and small universities. I guess they don’t have that like they did. I had a conversation with someone not too long ago. I guess they still have the union, the black student unions, but they’re not as vocal right now in the communities but Andy was and he still is. As a matter of fact, the song that we do on my latest album that Andy sang, it’s the music of John Coltrane. He sang “Dear Lord.” Friend of mine wrote some beautiful lyrics and so he’s still doing it.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I wonder what your view is. This Harlem Bush Music era so informed by the times having gone through segregated Baltimore as a child, the Civil Rights era, seen all these different things. When you speak about different unions, not necessarily being as active today, to me, the music is timeless because we still do with all of these issues. When I listen to this music, it’s such a spiritual thing. It takes me and so many other people somewhere and yet it still really resounds because of what’s happening now. Yet, why do you think that energy may be missing from what folks might be doing now on the same level of how it was then?

Gary Bartz

I’m not sure if the energy is missing, as I think energy is directed in a different direction right now.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Maybe the urgency, not the energy necessary.

Gary Bartz

Yeah, but when you see the Occupy Wall Street, that to me is going along the same type of thing because we protest. We came from the Martin Luther King marches and all of that. Malcolm X, I used to follow Malcolm X around. We knew where he would be every day. At about 4 o’clock, he would leave the newspaper Muhammed Speaks and he would come into the restaurant, Shabazz’ restaurant, right off of a 116th and Lennox and we always knew he would be there so we waited for him and he was such a spiritual person. I was never around Martin Luther King but the two people that I happen to have the pleasure to be around, to me, that had a Christ-like aura, Malcolm was one, John Coltrane was the other.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Obviously, Coltrane a huge influence musically on you?

Gary Bartz

For sure. Yeah.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Coltrane’s someone who played with them obviously. Miles Davis, you were in his band around this time too.

Gary Bartz

Yeah.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

You mentioned Miles before. I want to ask you about the process by which Miles would record you guys and then make records because I feel like it connects with how people make music now.

Gary Bartz

It’s funny, when you just said that. He almost worked like the Mizell Brothers where he would come in with sketches. I think the whole time I work with Miles for two years, I think we had one rehearsal. With Art Blakey, we never had a rehearsal. I learned all of the music onstage, which is by ear, which is like I say, that’s the best way. I teach school also but I see that young musicians and they get up [and read the music]. If I go into a club and I see the band and the band has music, I’m ready to leave. I really am because to me that means one thing and one thing only: it means they don’t know the music. You learn it. It’s like going to see a play or a movie and actors are reading from the script.

[laughter]

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

But Miles would record you, guys, and then edit the pieces together for…

Gary Bartz

No. He would give us sketches. He would have sketches like he would give me a page of music and it had so many different ideas and he said, “This, we’re going to do this.” It might be a little four bar thing so I just work on that. See, I never went into studio with Miles. He felt that particular band was an organic band. He didn’t think that was so much as a studio band so he recorded it almost every performance, every concert we did was recorded so that’s why you have like so many bootlegs out.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Did he record you guys and then released those recordings complete or did he edit them together like on some of his other albums?

Gary Bartz

He edited them. He and Teo Macero, as a matter of fact, we had to learn because every night, one of the musicians and some of us would record. I remember Keith Jarrett would record one night, Jack DeJohnette would record, I would record and so travelling in the bus we’re listening to the night before and so Miles, “Hey, what you’re listening to?” I would say, “This was last night.” He said, “Let me listen to it.” We’d give him the tape to listen to it. You’d never get that tape back.

[laughter]

We learned not to give him these tapes but what would happen, he would hear something that he liked, it might be two bars, three bars, four bars, however many and they would actually put that in the recordings that came out so they were a melange of different [performances].

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Right, pieced together, which is more or less what happens now with a lot of DJs and producers. You’ve obviously been sampled quite a bit. How do you like that?

Gary Bartz

I love it because I own my own publishing.

[laughter / applause]

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

How about the art form of it as well? Do you respect it apart from being able to get a check?

Gary Bartz

Yeah, I do. I think it’s a very viable art form.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I want to play something real quick, just a piece of something which you have not heard and this is basically what a lot of DJs and producers do nowadays is they’ll get the stems, look at the individual parts of, say, recordings from the Fantasy catalogue or Milestone.

Gary Bartz

Which I couldn’t get in those days, I would try to get them and…

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

You could probably get them now actually because someone put you in touch with the people on that one and people do their own remixes. They’re not how you envisioned them but they’re how a different generation might have envisioned them. Similar to sampling. I just want to play something for you and see what your impression was and everybody here should probably know this track.

(music: Gary Bartz – “Gentle Smiles (Kon re-edit)” / applause]

Gary Bartz

Where can I buy that?

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

That’s Gary Bartz’s “Gentle Smiles (Saxy)”, known as being sampled by A Tribe Called Quest.

Gary Bartz

Yeah, “Butter.”

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Yeah, for “Butter” and that was a remix re-edited by Kon of Kon & Amir fame, who’s a producer and DJ and does quite a number of these types of remixes but this is not for commercial release. It’s just something he was working on, sort of an unfinished version. I called him this morning and I said, “Would it be cool if I play this for Gary Bartz to get his impression because I know he’s very progressive in terms of his attitude of what DJs do and how music is edited?” So what’s your impression when you hear this?

Gary Bartz

I love it. I want it. [laughs]

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I feel as though because of your experience working with, say, the Miles Davis band and the fact that you had a good experience as far as hip hop producers sampling your material, you have an attitude that maybe some other musicians may not have and you’re more open and friendly as far as you can recognize the creativity in this.

Gary Bartz

Yeah. Well, that’s why I don’t like the different genres because that keeps you in a box and I’ve had that problem during my whole career because I’m not in a box. Even though they want to keep me in this box and I’m always I’ll do this. You play music that you want to play. I’ve had to fight record labels, as I call them plantation labels. Well, this goes back to a panel I did a few weeks ago on Nicholas Payton’s blog. I don’t know if anybody’s familiar with his blog but he is totally against the “J” word also as most thinking musicians are anyway. I categorize musicians in three types of musicians. There are house musicians, there are field musicians, there are free musicians. House musicians will do what the record label says, “I’ve got this idea. Let’s do an Elvis Presley cover. We’re going to…” A house musician will say, “Okay. Whatever you say, boss.” Field musician will say, “No. I won’t do it. Plus, I’ve got my own publishing so I want to do the songs that so I can…” That’s a whole other conversation but that goes back to that.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I want to keep things moving a little bit here. We do have time for questions, I believe, at this point. If anybody has a question for Mr. Gary Bartz, wait for the microphone please and you can ask. Anybody? Right over here.

Audience member

You mentioned The East and my grandfather’s actually Jito Weusi, and also in your song, you’re saying “uhuru sasa,” and that’s a school that my mother… so could you elaborate on your relationship to that because that kind of hit like personal note for me aside from music so if you could elaborate on that? That’ll be awesome.

Gary Bartz

That was very important. It still is important. Jito is your [grandfather]? Wow. Great man, really is. I just saw him not too long ago but, yes, “uhuru sasa” which means “freedom now” in Swahili. Actually, I had worked at 10 Claver Place. You’re from Brooklyn? 10 Claver Place had been used by wives… they had an organization, I think it was called We… I forgot the name of their organization but the wife like Freddie Hubbard’s wife, Cedar Walton, a lot of guys that lived there and so they were used in the place before The East but that was a place that this music was performed, unlike most a lot of the clubs around the city were not hiring those particular groups. That was our venue, that was our home. The East was a very, very important time and it was… You got a lot of notoriety because they didn’t allow [white people] in. It was only for black people, that only black people could come and so people would come from other regions. To me, there’s no such thing as race. It’s humans but during that time, I guess we needed to do that to make a point and that was a very wonderful time. It still goes on. I did something with Pharoah Sanders there about a year or so ago. It’s still going on, good, yeah. Tell Jito I said, “What’s up”.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Who’s next? Hello.

Audience member:

Hi. You talked about last night in your show about you were a field musician and about your job is spread messages and you were on a major labor back in a day. Can you elaborate on that a little bit, like what does that mean to you and what was that about?

Gary Bartz

Can you say that again?

Audience member

You talked about how when you’re on a label, you were kind of a field hand.

Gary Bartz

Field hands, they’re not in the house. They are out in the field. They may be a part of the plantation system but if you look, the most successful musicians, just across the board, we’re not talking genres, but it seems like a lot of times, the most successful musicians are house musicians and so they usually don’t own publishing and so it’s to the advantage of the record labels to push those artists because the record label owns their publishing and so the record label’s going to get more money if they break these artists. If they break some artists that have their own publishing, they’re not making as much money. They don’t mind if the record sells but they’re not going to help the record sell as much as they would house. Once you’re free, you don’t have to deal with them at all. You own everything. To me, that’s a big problem because the great music that we created in the last century, musicians own hardly any of it. It’s all owned by corporations which is where we get back to the occupied Wall Street thing. I did a research one time because I was trying to find out who owned… you know, 3rd Bass sampled me, I don’t know if you’re familiar with 3rd Bass but I know a lot of you guys are. They sampled me and I was having trouble getting the publishing and so I went down to Washington DC to the Library of Congress and was researching who really owns this. I was shocked because most movies, most recordings, most things are owned by the banks. Not even the record labels. They don’t own it because they used these things as collateral. They all put it and give it to the bank as collateral to get money and The Wizard of Oz is owned by a bank. It’s amazing, you know, so I don’t know whether that answers your question.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Who’s next?

Audience member

I imagine that there was a lot of saxophone players around the era of your time in New York, so how competitive was it? Because I imagine there were so many people that were influenced by Charlie Parker and Coltrane, was it also competitive for you as a saxophone player as opposed to other instruments?

Gary Bartz

No, actually it was a community. Pharoah Saunders taught me how to circular breathe. We used to practice every day, come by my house so we’d go out to West Side, the Riverside park and play all day. And we would have this contest, the cars were going by the drive West Side highway and we would try to play a note so loud that make the drivers [look around where the sound is coming from]. Nobody ever did because it’s too loud but that’s how we would open our sounds. We were helpful, Trane, you know I used to go by Trane’s house but I was too shy and in awe of him. I just used to listen, you know, but some guys would play with him but he was always practicing whenever you would go by their house. But no, it was communal thing. We taught each other, we learned from each other.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

In the front here.

Audience member

First, I just wanted to say I’m a pianist myself and your performances with Miles Davis’s group are a constant source of inspiration, and not just in the musical notes sense, but in the way the music was constructed and the interaction between you onstage. Could you elaborate a little bit on what it was like to perform with that band and whether you see as you phrased it the organic music whether you see a connection or a place for that in today’s musical world?

Gary Bartz

Yeah, there’s always a place for that but Miles was such a thinker. I just did a panel with Ron Carter when they released the Miles Davis band from ’97 with Wayne, Herbie, Tony and Ron and so I was listening to that band. That was a totally different band from any other band he ever had as all of his bands were. That was the freest band I’ve ever heard. Because I was in New York when Ornette Coleman came to New York and everybody, “Ornette Coleman. You got to go down hear his guy, man.” And all the older guys like Roy Eldridge and Coleman Hawkins, “What the hell is he doing?” Everybody would go down, Dizzy Gillespie went down, they all sat in. They wanted to sit in with him just to feel what it was like this new music. I remember at the time, Miles, he didn’t like it. But when I listened to that particular band from, what was it, what did I say? It was ’97, ’67, that’s from ’67. He took what Ornette [created], he took it to another level because that particular band of Miles was the freest band and the fact that they would play chord changes. They would play the song and if something happened or somebody went somewhere else other than where the chords were, everybody went with them. I asked Ron about that. “Is that what do you…?” He said, “Yeah.” He said, “Someone would take the lead. Sometime, Tony would take the lead and everybody would go with Tony.” Even in the midst of the soloist’s idea as Ron played that line and somebody heard it and Herbie heard it, everybody would go there. I’ve never heard a band like that that could go in and out of the changes go free, go changes. What was your question?

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Was that what you guys did as well and you were the group that followed after that like a couple of different bands, ’70-ish, right?

Gary Bartz

Seventy, yeah, I’ve joined the band in ’70.

Audience member

Was that the same kind of creative interplay for you guys?

Gary Bartz

No, because by that time, they were not playing the changes, or we weren’t playing changes like [that]. I just did a gig with Chick Corea in New York and Jack DeJohnette and Wallace Roney, and who’s playing bass? Do you remember? Oh, Eddie Gomez, yeah. How could I forget Eddie? We were playing some of the songs from that particular band from ’67, like “Dolores” which they never even played that live. “Pee Wee,” Miles did not even solo on that on the record. Wayne was the only soloist so we’re playing songs like that and that’s some hard music. I mean, wow. “Dolores,” the structure is eight bars, eight bars, six bar bridge and then eight and eight. So funny, man, I said six but it was hard enough to play the chords and then you got to count too, oh my God.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

You had to be a pretty good musician, I guess, to be able to do that stuff.

Gary Bartz

Yeah.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I think at this point, we’re actually going to wrap as far as questions go. Anything you want to say in conclusion?

Gary Bartz

I would like to say that I’m proud of today’s musicians and I think that what you guys are doing is what we were doing, and Charlie Parker, and people like that were doing because it comes from the street. It’s a street music and right now, you guys are very street and I love that. Don’t lose that because teaching school I’d see musicians come in and the first time they played, they were reading and so when I say, “Okay. Play this. Play a note.” Bam, they can’t play it because they have no ears. My son heard me talking to somebody and I was saying, “Oh yeah. The young musicians of today, they don’t have any ears.” He pictured literally. “What do you mean they have no ears? What happened to them?” I must say I commend you guys and the DJs and keep doing what you’re doing.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

And you as well. Everybody, let’s say thanks to Mr. Gary Bartz.

Gary Bartz

Thank you.