WEBVTT 00:00:37.826 --> 00:00:45.217 - an opinion. It is a music that cries out for expression. Most of all, it is a music about freedom. Freedom 00:00:45.217 --> 00:00:52.400 - of expression, of spirit, and of a lifestyle of the people who play jazz because they love it. One time 00:00:52.400 --> 00:00:59.583 - somebody asked me why, why do I play out in the park on Sunday afternoon and this and that. I just said 00:00:59.583 --> 00:01:01.310 - for the joy of swinging. 00:01:02.818 --> 00:01:08.677 - The legacy of today's jazz goes back to the turn of the century when a new music swept the Midwest. 00:01:08.677 --> 00:01:14.654 - That music was born of traveling musicians and black banjoists who worked, listened, and played while 00:01:14.654 --> 00:01:20.806 - spreading its rhythmic vitality in the streets, parks, and at world fairs. That music was ragtime. Well, 00:01:20.806 --> 00:01:26.724 - Indianapolis was no different than any other ragtime center. They took basically a march, which they 00:01:26.724 --> 00:01:31.646 - had learned from Susan from the bands in the park, and they played it off the beat. 00:01:32.194 --> 00:01:41.755 - If you hear the beat in the left hand, the oompa of the tuba going like this. They simply added some 00:01:41.755 --> 00:01:51.506 - cornets and trumpets in the right hand and played slightly off that oompa sound and it came like this. 00:01:51.506 --> 00:01:59.742 - Now that is Joplin, but it was the basic device in ragtime. It was called syncopation. 00:02:00.450 --> 00:02:05.693 - And it existed all over the country. It was followed here in Indianapolis. It was practiced by the Striden 00:02:05.693 --> 00:02:10.642 - piano players in New York and the pianists out in Kansas City. Indianapolis's great virtue, I think, 00:02:10.642 --> 00:02:15.592 - was that they had a lot of publishing here. They were able to write down their music. They were able 00:02:15.592 --> 00:02:20.639 - to get it out and get it played across the country. Indianapolis was the center of the bouncy rhythms, 00:02:20.639 --> 00:02:26.078 - but other cities like Fort Wayne, Hammond, Lafayette, Marion, and Decatur also reveled in this new exuberance. 00:02:27.394 --> 00:02:34.488 - Ironically, at a time when blacks were relegated into teaching, preaching, and performing, their music 00:02:34.488 --> 00:02:41.583 - with its Afro-American tradition emerged into American society. Recordings in the 1920s, and of course 00:02:41.583 --> 00:02:48.609 - remember that the industry was very young then, the records that were considered real jazz records or 00:02:48.609 --> 00:02:56.254 - records that came out of the kind of jazz background, blues, what have you, were not considered genteel enough 00:02:56.898 --> 00:03:03.333 - for white people to listen to. One example of a recording by a black artist was done by Jesse Crump 00:03:03.333 --> 00:03:10.024 - at the Jeanette Studios in Richmond. Jesse Crump played at the Golden West Saloon up on Indiana Avenue. 00:03:10.024 --> 00:03:16.652 - Now, he and Herb Duerson and some others are sort of like bridge figures between ragtime and the great 00:03:16.652 --> 00:03:23.280 - blues era of the 30s when you had some tremendous blues players there right on Indiana Avenue. So they 00:03:23.280 --> 00:03:25.982 - play something that's sort of in between. 00:03:26.114 --> 00:03:33.763 - In New York, we probably would have called it stride piano. But out here, it's still ragtime. Mr. Crump's 00:03:33.763 --> 00:03:41.052 - rag is very fast, very pyrotechnical, lovely piece. And that was a bridge figure between ragtime and 00:03:41.052 --> 00:03:48.412 - the blues. Another composer was May Afterheide, who studied classical piano and published 19 songs in 00:03:48.412 --> 00:03:49.278 - her career. 00:03:50.498 --> 00:03:56.818 - Julie Niebergahl composed three swinging rags, but she chose performing over composing and played piano 00:03:56.818 --> 00:04:02.894 - at movie theaters like the Colonial. Another Indiana notable was J. Russell Smith. He played at the 00:04:02.894 --> 00:04:08.971 - Severn Hotel with his band that included Reginald Duvall and Noble Sissel. Sissel formed a lifelong 00:04:08.971 --> 00:04:15.230 - association with UB Blake, and Smith went on to New York to work with W.C. Handy and James P. Johnson. 00:04:16.514 --> 00:04:22.596 - Indiana's most famous son, Hoagy Carmichael, was inspired by Duvall. Instead of him, he was high-brown, 00:04:22.596 --> 00:04:28.678 - long-fingered, played a lot of piano, and helped me gain my first conception of harmony and jazz. Hoagy 00:04:28.678 --> 00:04:34.760 - promoted tours for the famous Wolverines that featured Bix Beiderbecke. This is Hoagy Carmichael's band 00:04:34.760 --> 00:04:40.725 - from IU, and it made a record in Richmond, Indiana in 1928. I'll play a little bit of it, but you can 00:04:40.725 --> 00:04:43.006 - see how the college influence came on. 00:05:04.034 --> 00:05:11.115 - That's kind of an arrangement in the head. They call those head arrangements. So everybody knew his 00:05:11.115 --> 00:05:18.196 - part, but they played the same way every time, pretty much. Jeanette Records in Richmond acted as a 00:05:18.196 --> 00:05:25.419 - magnet for all eager orchestras. The first group to record jazz was a white group called the original 00:05:25.419 --> 00:05:31.934 - Dixieland Jazz Band in 1917. But it had nothing to do, I think, with the fact nothing to do 00:05:32.130 --> 00:05:39.321 - with it being predominantly a white phenomenon. The thing is that the major exposure for jazz in the 00:05:39.321 --> 00:05:46.726 - early years was for young white players. The original Dixieland Jazz Band, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings 00:05:46.726 --> 00:05:54.201 - and groups like that. But certainly King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong were all very, 00:05:54.201 --> 00:05:58.046 - very big in the so-called race record market. So that 00:05:59.906 --> 00:06:06.598 - while the major exposure might have gone to the young white players. Basically the music, its genesis 00:06:06.598 --> 00:06:13.618 - was within the black community. Ballrooms, dance halls, and river boats constantly vibrated to the rhythms 00:06:13.618 --> 00:06:20.311 - of the Charleston, the jitterbug, and the foxtrot. Yet it was a time when the temperance movement was 00:06:20.311 --> 00:06:27.134 - pushing for prohibition. It was also a time when young men and women pulsated to the pleasures of jazz. 00:06:28.898 --> 00:06:35.899 - jazzy rhythms were also heard on college campuses. I have a theory and I guess it's borne out by some 00:06:35.899 --> 00:06:43.243 - facts I discovered when I was doing a book on jazz. I made it on Indiana jazz in particular and I followed 00:06:43.243 --> 00:06:50.038 - very closely the story of the college bands and I thought that the college musicians were probably 00:06:50.038 --> 00:06:57.039 - responsible for a great deal of the carrying on the tradition as you say because they were able to be 00:06:57.039 --> 00:06:58.206 - together and owe 00:06:59.042 --> 00:07:05.052 - long periods of time over a whole year at least before somebody graduated and they were replaced. And 00:07:05.052 --> 00:07:11.061 - the net effect was that they were able to play a lot together, experiment. They didn't always have to 00:07:11.061 --> 00:07:17.130 - please a public or please dancers, although they did play for dances. But they could practice on their 00:07:17.130 --> 00:07:23.257 - own and develop new things. And as big bands or other bands came to campuses to play dances, they would 00:07:23.257 --> 00:07:26.910 - go and sit in with these other musicians and they would trade 00:07:27.714 --> 00:07:34.150 - what they used to call borass sessions in college. Everybody who I've talked to remembers the borass 00:07:34.150 --> 00:07:40.649 - sessions. And what it amounts to is what we call a rap session today, a musical rap session. So there 00:07:40.649 --> 00:07:47.340 - was a trade between the college men and the professional union musicians who were coming in and playing. 00:07:47.340 --> 00:07:50.462 - So they were influencing each other all the way. 00:07:52.034 --> 00:07:58.487 - Other groups in the swing era included the Parisian Redheads, who relied on henna and wigs to keep their 00:07:58.487 --> 00:08:05.002 - namesake accurate. Other all-girl bands toured around the Midwest, too, but the Redheads played ballrooms 00:08:05.002 --> 00:08:11.332 - like Chicago's Aragon and Trinon. Most every group, though, fell victim to the grinding road tour with 00:08:11.332 --> 00:08:17.662 - changing club dates, low fees, and broken down vehicles. But they also enjoyed great musical pleasure. 00:08:29.602 --> 00:08:39.801 - From the 30s to the 40s, Indiana bands flourished in the musical styles of Benny Goodman, Paul Whiteman, 00:08:39.801 --> 00:08:49.709 - and Fletcher Henderson. While others kept their bands segregated, one man thought an interracial band 00:08:49.709 --> 00:08:56.606 - would work. During that era around, just before prior to World War II, 00:08:57.378 --> 00:09:05.924 - I made up in my mind that I was going to have an interracial band, because during the war, most of the 00:09:05.924 --> 00:09:14.636 - musicians were being drafted into service. And it was the shortage of musicians. And then I also figured 00:09:14.636 --> 00:09:23.098 - this, that why not? Because I was the type of fellow, regardless of your color, creed, or race, I was 00:09:23.098 --> 00:09:24.094 - at the top. 00:09:25.122 --> 00:09:32.441 - And several of the fellows told me, said, it won't work. I said, why not? And they said, it still won't 00:09:32.441 --> 00:09:39.548 - work because Indianapolis has never supported an interracial group. I said, well, I think it's going 00:09:39.548 --> 00:09:47.219 - to work. And it did. Brothers experienced the grueling hardships of a musician's life. Well, to be perfectly 00:09:47.219 --> 00:09:51.230 - frank, when it wasn't organized, nowhere near organized. 00:09:51.362 --> 00:09:58.281 - like it is today, see. It was just a struggle. Catch-is-catch-hand type of bases, see. It was really 00:09:58.281 --> 00:10:05.269 - a struggle, really a hassle. And we just didn't have the opportunity. And a lot of times we had jobs, 00:10:05.269 --> 00:10:12.393 - had a chance to get a job out of town, didn't have any money. How we gonna get there? You know, getting 00:10:12.393 --> 00:10:19.518 - there was a problem. We could get back because we'd get paid, but then getting there, I mean, we had a, 00:10:19.682 --> 00:10:28.503 - It was a hassle back in the 30s. It was really a hassle. The end of World War II brought about many 00:10:28.503 --> 00:10:37.324 - changes in American life. Music was one change, and jazz was about to surface in a new and exciting 00:10:37.324 --> 00:10:41.470 - form. With the advent of the Second World War, 00:10:41.826 --> 00:10:48.065 - It was no longer feasible for big bands to travel as much as they would have at another time simply 00:10:48.065 --> 00:10:54.491 - because of the war effort which meant limited gas supplies. It meant that there were that you had also 00:10:54.491 --> 00:11:00.294 - a basic problem with manpower because the young people who were a certain age were of course 00:11:00.294 --> 00:11:06.533 - being conscripted and going into the service. You also had the fact that the recording industry was 00:11:06.533 --> 00:11:09.278 - seriously curtailed simply because the same 00:11:09.762 --> 00:11:17.033 - same raw materials that made records were the things that you used to make war products also. Couple 00:11:17.033 --> 00:11:24.304 - that with the fact that then there was a 20% tax levied on all entertainment that went into clubs or 00:11:24.304 --> 00:11:31.575 - went into theaters if there was dancing or singing as a part of the thing. In other words, you know, 00:11:31.575 --> 00:11:36.542 - entertainment in the largest sense. So what many club owners did was 00:11:36.994 --> 00:11:43.415 - go then to strictly small group performances with no dancing or what have you as a way to circumvent 00:11:43.415 --> 00:11:49.773 - that particular problem. All of these things ultimately led to the demise of the big band. Yeah and 00:11:49.773 --> 00:11:56.194 - bebop of course separated everything. That's where the public got separated and everything from jazz 00:11:56.194 --> 00:12:02.742 - because the bebop was more mental and not as just human sounding as some of the music in the 40s. When 00:12:02.742 --> 00:12:06.366 - the bebop came along it was more abstract kind of music. 00:12:06.882 --> 00:12:24.275 - took more imagination to listen to it, so there was a kind of a separation in the public. When I came 00:12:24.275 --> 00:12:35.870 - out on in 46, bop was a thing. So nobody had heard Bird. I had some 00:12:36.194 --> 00:12:43.642 - beautiful musicians in the Army, they never had heard of Charlie Parker. And I was trying to tell them 00:12:43.642 --> 00:12:51.595 - how they can't play it and they just couldn't believe it, you know. So after the war was over and everything, 00:12:51.595 --> 00:12:58.826 - they got to hear him, you know. In the case of bebop, jazz musicians were by and large disenchanted 00:12:58.826 --> 00:13:05.406 - with the large ensembles that afforded them very little opportunity to actually improvise. 00:13:05.826 --> 00:13:13.310 - Also, they were playing primarily for dancing, which meant a certain length solo, what have you. And 00:13:13.310 --> 00:13:21.386 - a lot of this was taken somehow or another offset by the jam sessions at the time. But it was just something 00:13:21.386 --> 00:13:29.017 - in the air. New ideas about rhythm, new ideas about how melodies work. Some jazz musicians found their 00:13:29.017 --> 00:13:32.574 - old values threatened with the advent of bebop. 00:13:33.282 --> 00:13:40.359 - others were eager to explore this new language. It's a language which I find to be a very romantic language. 00:13:40.359 --> 00:13:46.851 - Bebop also has like certain kinds of sociological implications in that it was the music, it was the 00:13:46.851 --> 00:13:53.734 - period in which jazz musicians began to first perceive of themselves as artists rather than entertainers. 00:13:53.734 --> 00:13:57.694 - I'm not sure it was to the same degree of the same degree of 00:13:57.954 --> 00:14:06.402 - art-for-art sake that was to happen in the 1960s with groups like the New Jazz People, the Avant Garde, 00:14:06.402 --> 00:14:14.524 - but certainly a time when jazz musicians were very aware of their stature and who they were and the 00:14:14.524 --> 00:14:22.972 - importance of the music. I started playing with Jimmy and Cole in 1948. I believe it was. We were going 00:14:22.972 --> 00:14:27.358 - to Butler University, playing a science, a nightclub, 00:14:28.482 --> 00:14:40.950 - On Meridian Street. I can't remember what the block was. 1110. 1110 Meridian. And we had a small group 00:14:40.950 --> 00:14:53.538 - and then from there we went to Cincinnati for a short stay at the cotton club. I had to come home about 00:14:53.538 --> 00:14:55.838 - five or six months 00:14:57.570 --> 00:15:04.742 - We've been playing together for a long time. In the 40s, there were any number of large bands, I think 00:15:04.742 --> 00:15:11.774 - immediately, people like Jimmy Coe and Eldridge Morrison. And of course, J.J. had come through these 00:15:11.774 --> 00:15:18.806 - same bands when he left Christmas Alex in 1942 to go to New York. But in the late 1940s, there was a 00:15:18.806 --> 00:15:25.630 - proliferation of both jazz clubs and young players coming. I mean, you know, coming on the scene. 00:15:25.954 --> 00:15:34.717 - For instance, on Indiana Avenue, from roughly down around City Hospital, which it was called at that 00:15:34.717 --> 00:15:43.394 - time, down to the corner of Indiana and Ohio Street, there were countless clubs, I think, of places 00:15:43.394 --> 00:15:52.157 - like the Red Keg, the Onrays, the Sunset Terrace, the Cotton Club, and it went on and on, where jazz 00:15:52.157 --> 00:15:55.454 - was gaining a foothold, where you had 00:15:55.682 --> 00:16:02.714 - sessions that went on virtually nightly, where most of the things we have come to see as the Renaissance, 00:16:02.714 --> 00:16:09.415 - you know, as basically the bebop era. You know, these were happening in Indianapolis, just like they 00:16:09.415 --> 00:16:16.182 - were happening all over the country. During the 50s, we were playing big band music with the trumpet, 00:16:16.182 --> 00:16:23.015 - alto, tenor, baritone, sax, and three rhythm, because we had some very good players, including Pookie, 00:16:23.015 --> 00:16:25.470 - Joe Mitchell, Bill Boyd on baritone, 00:16:26.274 --> 00:16:32.568 - We had a great drummer, Earl Fox Walker. We had a piano player who is now a noted organ player, Jack 00:16:32.568 --> 00:16:39.050 - McDuff was in the band. The way Jack got in the band, Earl Grandy was supposed to go to Cincinnati with 00:16:39.050 --> 00:16:45.282 - us, and at the last minute, he couldn't go, so we took Jack McDuff as a substitute. But like I say, 00:16:45.282 --> 00:16:51.763 - we played big band music with a small group. And that was our bag. It made good solos. Solos would have 00:16:51.763 --> 00:16:56.126 - leaned toward the bop thing, because that was what was going on then. 00:16:57.090 --> 00:17:02.586 - The state of Indiana is still one of the foremost states in producing top-flight jazz musicians. 00:17:02.586 --> 00:17:08.364 - You know, where else are you going to find a Freddie Hubbard and a Virgil Jones, you know, coming out 00:17:08.364 --> 00:17:14.143 - of the same town? Or go back further than that to a Roger Jones, who was like one of the really great 00:17:14.143 --> 00:17:19.809 - trumpet players, or still is. And then you look up and then there's a Wes Montgomery, you know. And 00:17:19.809 --> 00:17:26.494 - that doesn't even talk about the fact that Jennings, Bill Jennings, who was the great left-handed guitarist, was also 00:17:26.914 --> 00:17:33.442 - working in and around Indiana and Floyd Smith. Now that's three of the seminal guitar players in one 00:17:33.442 --> 00:17:39.969 - city. Look at the fact that in 1962 when J.J. was acclaimed the number one trombonist in the country 00:17:39.969 --> 00:17:46.755 - in the critics' poll, two of his disciples, Sly Hampton and myself, were the new stars. You know, that's 00:17:46.755 --> 00:17:53.348 - another set where you got three people from the same city, you know. So we're in good shape, man. And 00:17:53.348 --> 00:17:56.062 - I think that, of course, the universities 00:17:56.386 --> 00:18:07.749 - in the area have done much to help perpetuate the myth of Indiana jazz. Learning jazz wasn't easy, and 00:18:07.749 --> 00:18:19.222 - the approaches to learning jazz were as varied as the player's personalities and circumstances. I first 00:18:19.222 --> 00:18:23.966 - got into jazz when I was a trumpet player. 00:18:24.354 --> 00:18:31.224 - which was my first instrument I played. I listened a lot to Miles Davis, people like that. Later I became 00:18:31.224 --> 00:18:37.834 - interested in the bass, and there was a player here for the music school who was actually a classical 00:18:37.834 --> 00:18:44.833 - major, but he's a great jazz player named John Clayton, who later played with Count Basie, Monte Alexander, 00:18:44.833 --> 00:18:51.379 - and others. And he really set me right as to certain fundamentals of playing good jazz, and I'm very 00:18:51.379 --> 00:18:52.286 - much indebted 00:18:52.482 --> 00:19:00.646 - to him more than anyone. Not to be redundant, but there's a piano player in Indianapolis named Claude 00:19:00.646 --> 00:19:09.051 - Sifferlin that I feel like I've learned more from since then, since John, than anyone else. 43rd Street, 00:19:09.051 --> 00:19:15.294 - the village, cats on the corner, you know, that's the school, the school was. 00:19:15.650 --> 00:19:21.949 - get out there and see it and hear it with your own eyes and ears. That's what scared me. I wasn't influenced 00:19:21.949 --> 00:19:27.728 - by a music school at all. I don't think there's any best way to learn jazz. I think there are a lot 00:19:27.728 --> 00:19:33.565 - of different ways. It turns out that one of the most expedient manners of which one might learn jazz 00:19:33.565 --> 00:19:39.459 - is via an institution. Simply because now things have been codified. There are ample books. There are 00:19:39.459 --> 00:19:43.678 - plenty of records. There are people who have the know-how to communicate 00:19:44.194 --> 00:19:49.554 - in a very short period of time, a year, perhaps, what it takes people in the street, 10, 15, 20 years 00:19:49.554 --> 00:19:54.809 - to learn. I can teach in a year what it took me 20 years to learn. Maybe that's why my books are so 00:19:54.809 --> 00:20:00.222 - expensive. But it doesn't really matter. The main thing is that that's one way. There are other people 00:20:00.222 --> 00:20:05.530 - who learn strictly in the streets. Also they had the, which I think a lot of us have forgotten, they 00:20:05.530 --> 00:20:11.100 - started the National Stage Band Camp here in Bloomington at Indiana University. Ken Morris had one that's 00:20:11.100 --> 00:20:12.414 - been about 22 years ago. 00:20:13.026 --> 00:20:17.965 - where students could come young and old and learn to play in the big band. And then for a week, 00:20:17.965 --> 00:20:23.213 - you know, and then a couple years later, Stan Kenton kind of got hooked up with that. I don't know if 00:20:23.213 --> 00:20:28.564 - you remember that or not, but there was a lot of people like Gary Burton and Keith Jarrett and so forth 00:20:28.564 --> 00:20:33.863 - who attended those camps. And they all started right here in Broomington. It was very early, the first 00:20:33.863 --> 00:20:39.214 - ones, the band camps, jazz camp. Then I started teaching in about the, gee, 60s, I guess. And then from 00:20:39.214 --> 00:20:42.558 - there, I realized there was a need for kids to practice at home. 00:20:42.722 --> 00:20:49.649 - which records and things like John and I practice with now, so we started putting out the play along 00:20:49.649 --> 00:20:56.782 - records. That was the beginning of that. That was the reason for it. If I hadn't been involved in those 00:20:56.782 --> 00:21:03.914 - summer camps, I don't think I would ever be doing what I'm doing now. It seems as time goes on, things, 00:21:03.914 --> 00:21:11.184 - the business scene and the commercial scene becomes more and more, has a greater hold on the music scene. 00:21:11.184 --> 00:21:12.350 - There's so many, 00:21:14.402 --> 00:21:23.655 - A lot of people that were my idols at one time have pretty well gone commercial, and it's a bit difficult 00:21:23.655 --> 00:21:32.647 - to understand. I mean, obviously, they're going for better money. There's very little money to be made 00:21:32.647 --> 00:21:41.377 - in jazz in performing. A few make a lot, and the rest make very little, I would think, if you could 00:21:41.377 --> 00:21:42.686 - agree on that. 00:21:43.394 --> 00:21:50.852 - To me, jazz has always been a rebellious music and a very intelligent one, if I might say. And I'm a 00:21:50.852 --> 00:21:58.384 - little disappointed that it is being commercialized today because to me that was a very philosophical 00:21:58.384 --> 00:22:05.916 - issue that jazz was trying to make. We're so conditioned by Top 40 Radio that most people just aren't 00:22:05.916 --> 00:22:12.414 - exposed to jazz enough. They're not exposed to a lot of good things in the arts enough. 00:22:12.738 --> 00:22:18.205 - because if you listen to Top 40, it's music to be thrown away. It's disposable music. It's like, 00:22:18.205 --> 00:22:24.066 - you know, recyclable aluminum cans. You know, Top 40 rock, that's what it is. You're supposed to listen 00:22:24.066 --> 00:22:29.759 - to it once or twice for about three weeks and listen to it a lot for three weeks and then never hear 00:22:29.759 --> 00:22:35.451 - it again. Whereas this music, I mean, I'm playing right now, Billie Holiday, 1956. This record is 26 00:22:35.451 --> 00:22:39.678 - years old, almost to the day. It was recorded two days before today in 56. 00:22:40.098 --> 00:22:45.316 - And you're going to be listening to this record in 100 years if we're still around there are record 00:22:45.316 --> 00:22:50.586 - players. We're in a period which I think is one of synthesis. I think every 10 years or so you get a 00:22:50.586 --> 00:22:55.909 - period where it's, you know, the upheaval, the turmoil, the catalysts of the new generation. And then 00:22:55.909 --> 00:23:01.231 - we go through a period where it's like kind of an assessment, a kind of a synthesis. And I'm not sure 00:23:01.231 --> 00:23:04.414 - where we are now, but we're in a period of coexistence where 00:23:04.642 --> 00:23:11.473 - There's a kind of symbiosis between all of the kinds of jazz music. There are the revivalists like Warren 00:23:11.473 --> 00:23:17.918 - Bache and even musicians around Indianapolis who are still committed to earlier styles. Then you've 00:23:17.918 --> 00:23:24.427 - got the stronghold of the bebop players, which is essentially what Indianapolis is by and large. But 00:23:24.427 --> 00:23:31.065 - then you've got like at the same time free jazz, you've got fusion music, you've got punk rock, you've 00:23:31.065 --> 00:23:31.838 - got it all. 00:24:07.202 --> 00:24:15.517 - The original material written by our guitar player, our keyboard player, it's kind of a cross between 00:24:15.517 --> 00:24:23.750 - funk and contemporary jazz, traditional jazz, blues, you know, just whatever what we feel, you know, 00:24:23.750 --> 00:24:31.983 - is basically what it boils down to. Most of us have a second job. I don't think we rely on our music 00:24:31.983 --> 00:24:37.118 - as our primary income, and I think we all have that in common. 00:24:37.346 --> 00:24:47.062 - second job situation. I think Bloomington doesn't have that demand for jazz where you rely on it as 00:24:47.062 --> 00:24:50.366 - a permanent source of employment. 00:25:09.218 --> 00:25:15.076 - It's not possible to really make a living playing jazz in Indiana, and it's not really possible in most 00:25:15.076 --> 00:25:20.765 - places in the world. New York City might be one of the exceptions, but even there it's difficult. So 00:25:20.765 --> 00:25:26.454 - essentially, if you want to be a full-time musician, you have to do other things and branch out into 00:25:26.454 --> 00:25:32.143 - other areas, such as playing in Indianapolis, for example, the Starlight Musicals, or playing in the 00:25:32.143 --> 00:25:37.888 - studios, or playing in a variety of rock bands and anything that comes along. But it is more and more 00:25:37.888 --> 00:25:38.846 - possible to play 00:25:39.202 --> 00:25:46.218 - jazz purie for the art of it and the enjoyment of that art form. The other problems are merely communication. 00:25:46.218 --> 00:25:52.597 - Many of the gigs that we've been doing down here are not people who are all from Bloomington, so we 00:25:52.597 --> 00:25:59.294 - have communications hassles and also transportation hassles. If somebody is coming up from Cincinnati or 00:25:59.426 --> 00:26:06.033 - from Fort Wayne or sometimes like I say, you know, people coming in from out of town or whatnot. It's 00:26:06.033 --> 00:26:12.834 - a little difficult and financially it's difficult for this kind of gig to pay enough money to even cover 00:26:12.834 --> 00:26:19.441 - those traveling expenses. The beautiful thing about jazz is that the full life expectancy or the full 00:26:19.441 --> 00:26:25.854 - life length of jazz has been because of the quality of the music and because of what the music is. 00:26:26.082 --> 00:26:36.511 - without support of anybody. In the recent years, it has started to be subsidized and somewhat supported 00:26:36.511 --> 00:26:46.941 - by the government of this country. But it lives on its own quality and its own strength. Jazz is a city 00:26:46.941 --> 00:26:54.462 - type of music, but I really enjoy the environment out here in the country. 00:26:55.138 --> 00:27:03.878 - breathing fresh air. It has a lot to do with improvisation and how improvisation you encounter things 00:27:03.878 --> 00:27:12.533 - that you don't know about what's going to happen. And you just plod your way right through. And life 00:27:12.533 --> 00:27:21.102 - and jazz have a lot of similarities like that. But also, this type of life is just a whole lot more 00:27:21.102 --> 00:27:24.958 - enjoyable to me than the rat race of a city. 00:27:25.890 --> 00:27:31.742 - And playing jazz is something I enjoy quite a bit also.