... He's young enough to be my son but he's almost, I'd say, my mentour you know? And John Lockwood, who is my real sidekick too…beautiful, and Bill Pierce, who is just a marvelous man; fantastic player and person. And probably one of my oldest dear friends of all you know, Andy McGhee is going to be there. And, of course, Herb Pomeroy who is…needs no introduction.; I mean he's, you know, really, really a force here and has been, so for many, many years,; a force here both in the performance of jazz and education in jazz. So I'm really looking forward to this. I'm very excited about it.

Your association with Andy McGhee, is that early fifties, Lionel Hampton? Is that what that is? Where that is?

Well, no, actually we go back further than that.

Really?

We were both in Lionel Hampton's band but not at the same time.

Oh, ok, ok.

I met Andy when he came here to go to school. I was still in high school and he was just out of high school. It was about somewhere in the mid forties I guess,, maybe around 1947 or somewhere around there…’48. And you know, we played a little bit together then but we really got to be very tight when we were in the Army Band together in Fort Dix. Andy was there a year before I was and I must say that that due to Andy's sort of like blowing my horn, so to speak, I had no trouble getting into the band.

Is that right?

And so there was that association and Andy got out a year before I did and he joined Jimmy Tyler's band down in Atlantic City and it so happened that he was playing down in Atlantic City a couple days before I was discharged in 1953 and well, I wound up, you know, joining Lionel Hampton’s band through another dear friend of mine, who I think is coming to Boston maybe some time in August, Clarence Johnston.

Oh yes, yes, yeah, yeah.

We grew up next door to each other, you know. And so at any rate, through Clarence I got the gig with Lionel Hampton in 1953 and I think Andy went with Lionel in somewhere around 1957, somewhere around then, ‘cause he stayed out a lot longer than I did. I stayed out about three months..

Is that right, yeah?

And then I said, “Well okay, I think I've had enough of this”, you know.

Now how did you…you ended up in Paris, didn't you? Isn't that where you made your first recording session?

That's the first jazz recording I made.

First jazz recording, okay. Tell us about the other recording and then we'll talk about the first jazz one.

Well there were a couple this…really, really some of the recordings, I think they are really definitely forgettable.

Ok.

I think the very first recording I ever made was one of those “Brother Bones” records. You know them?

I don't know “Brother Bones”.

Oh well…see, that's what I said, “that’s the world's best-kept secret”, you know, and rightly so. But yeah, actually the first jazz records were made in either Paris or Sweden. We made a number of records while we were over there, you know. This was the band that Clifford Brown was in and Quincy Jones and Art Farmer and Jimmy Cleveland and Gigi Gryce and George Wallington for a while before he turned around and went on back. Annie Ross was singing with the band and Monk Montgomery, who is probably the first of the Fender bass players and, in my estimation, still the best that ever, ever happened.

I know loads of people say that. Loads of people say that, too.

Yes sir.

Yeah and now, I have a copy of that recording. We'll put it on in a little while. We have it on lp so...

Oh, yeah, Clifford Brown, the Clifford Brown band, “Brown Skins.”

Right. The lp was called “Clifford Brown in Paris” and you are working with…it's basically a French, other than you, a French rhythm section.

Oh, let me see, I was thinking..

Pierre Michelot, Henri Renaud, the bass player and piano player.

Hold on now, I had forgotten that Monk was not on that, and the reason why that Monk was not on that is because Monk was playing strictly Fender bass at that time and there were sometimes some problems with repairs and all on the instrument.

Strictly Fender bass in '53? In '53?

Yeah, umhum.

Boy oh, boy. Was Fender bass being used in pop music at that time, do you know?

No.

No.

The first person I ever…I had never saw such a thing and never heard of such a thing before then. And boy, here you wind up…You know it's amazing that you wind up the first time you ever hear about that, here is a guy who is a virtuoso on the instrument and so you know you are bound to be judging everybody else on the instrument by him. He was a monster player.

What were the other musicians’ reactions to this new electronic gizmo?

Well, you know, it was a really a Godsend in Lionel’s band because Lionel's band was a pretty heavy band, you know. And Monk certainly anchored the band. I mean it highly mattered who was playing drums heavy, you know.

I don't believe that.

I'll tell you I blessed him everyday, you know.

Is that right?

Yes sir.

My guest tonight is Alan Dawson and it's a pleasure to have Alan here with me. Next Wednesday night.

Neither one of us are going to be here, as a matter of fact, because both of us are going to be at Berklee Performance Center. Alan is going to be honored with a “Tribute to Alan Dawson” and I'm going to be the host of that event.

That’s just great.

So neither one of us will be here. We'll hear great music together.

Yeah, we’ll make it a date for a week from today.

Okay, yeah. Why don't we do this, Alan? Why don't we take a listen to “Brown Skins” from Clifford Brown in Paris. I think I can slip a record on quick enough for us to get a chance to listen to that.

Great.

This is the first (jazz) recording from Alan Dawson.

Oh we were just listening to something from a recording entitled Clifford Brown in Paris. That selection, “Brown Skins,” was recorded September 28, 1953 with Clifford Brown on trumpet. Also in the trumpet section - Art Farmer, Quincy Jones, Walter Williams, …oh, Fernand Verstraete - I don't know how to pronounce this. I'm not even sure what language that is, to tell you the truth. Fred Gerard also on trumpets. Jimmy Cleveland, Bill Tamper, Al Hayes on trombones. Gigi Gryce on alto, Anthony Ortega also on alto. Clifford Solomon on tenor, Henri Bernard on tenor, Henri Jouat on baritone sax, with Henri Renaud on piano. And no, the bass player's name is not Henri. It is Pierre Michelot and, of course, our guest for this evening, Alan Dawson on drums. That was his first recording session. It's on a recording entitled Clifford Brown in Paris. Next Wednesday night at the Berklee Performance Center, there will be a tribute to Alan Dawson and it will get underway at 7:30 and will feature Dave Brubeck, James Williams, Billy Pierce, Jack Six, John Lockwood, Herb Pomeroy, Andy McGhee and of course, the man of the hour or two or however long the concert lasts, Alan Dawson. Alan, you just took part in another project too, the “In Our Time” Project.” And I think…are you playing at their performance this weekend??

No, I'm not performing on that this weekend.

Ok.

I had some other commitments.

Ok.

But yeah, that was a pretty interesting project. I mean I had a very small part of it. I played just one tune.

But you played vibes.

On vibes, right. A tune that Frank Wilkins wrote which was a beautiful, beautiful song.

Mmhum. You actually have recorded on vibes over the years several times, not a whole lot, but a few times.

Yeah, a few times. Jaki Byard is the one is the one who kind like brought me out of my shell, as far as the vibes are concerned. "Come on play whatever, whatever you can do, do it" you know. And so he kinda gave me a little bit of a boost in confidence to come out and play vibes and it’s been a ball. I love playing the instrument. I don't play it out all that often. But I play it probably more than I play the drums at home, you know, with students and all.

Is that right? Well, that's interesting. There's been, just recently, there been a group of things that were reissued that were recorded at the 1959 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and you are the drummer on quite a few of them and Jaki Byard is the piano player on quite a few of them. Monday night, I played several selections with you on there too.

I have never heard those. Those actually didn’t come out on records per se, did they?

Not as far as I know of. No.

They were released just as a video.

No, they are on CD. They came out on CD about a year ago.

Well how about that.

You haven't heard those?

I've heard…on your show I remember listening to your show and hearing Sarah Vaughan on a thing and I said, “Gee that sound a little familiar.” And I heard a couple of them, it was a ballad, and I said, “Gee, you know, that sounds really kind of familiar” and I said, “Yes, that's me”. And I said, “I never recorded with Sarah Vaughan, did I?” But that's it. It’s from that New Orleans thing.

Yeah, yeah, right, but there are a few other things there too. You must have been awfully busy there.

Yes I was. I really was. I mean we were...I think that was the first of those festivals in New Orleans and that particular one, I think was before George Wein took it over as, what’s the name?

Festival Productions?

Voice of America …Voice of America.

Willis Conover?

Yeah. Willis Conover actually put that particular one together and he, being a real fan of Jaki Byard’s, had Jaki Byard as a musical director and head of a house band. So that's what. We were there for an entire week with Jaki Byard and Milt Hinton on bass.

Right, right. I couldn't remember who that was, yeah.

...Let’s see, Clark Terry and Zoot Sims and myself, and then Richard Davis came in as a guest on one day, I remember. So, it was really a ball. We were down there for an entire week. They put us up in a nice kind of a hotel, but kind of, you know, a house type hotel with cooking facilities and all that. We brought our wives and all - a great, great time.

Alan, we were sort of moving chronologically. I guess. We had you in Paris and you did that recording. Now what happens after Paris?

Well, let's see…if that was in September (1953)…let's see now. We were in Europe from, I guess, early September ‘til just before Thanksgiving, so almost three months I guess. and let’s see,…we were in Paris, we passed through Paris maybe two or three times on that tour. What's the most memorable in Paris was this recording and we also played quite a bit in Scandinavia and at that particular time, Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden was kind of the center of jazz in Europe at that time and so we played in Sweden quite a bit. And I remember doing some recordings there in Sweden. As a matter of fact, I think I only did the one recording in Paris and I think I did maybe three or four of them in Sweden. One of them was with Annie Ross, another one was with Art Farmer and...

Do you know if any of that material is available?

You know I don't know. I have this thing where if I'm on a record or something like that or in recording, I can't wait to get a hold of it and I want to play it and play it and I play it for maybe a week or so and then I put it away…

Then you forget about it.

...and I don't hear it again for maybe six months or it might be six years or in some cases, like I’ve told you about this recording that you had on when I came in, I haven’t heard that in probably 25 years.

Yeah, well that's interesting then. But it's a good feeling when you hear something that you did 25 years ago, most of the time, right?

Most of the time it is, you know. I tell you, most of the time it’s a revelation because, you know, you listen to things and when you first listen to them, you've got this adrenaline kind of rush going, you know, “Wow! I was this”, and then the reality starts to get in and you say, “Oh man, listen to that in bar five of the third chorus, man”, and you start to pick it apart and then,

you know you get a little depressed and you put it away and you don't want to hear it again. But then, you know like they say, “time heals all wounds”, I guess or something like that or at least it’s kind of like it’s a little merciful thing and you listen to something after you haven't heard it for many, many years and you say, “Geez that's wasn't so bad after all, you know, that’s pretty good”.

Do you ever hear things when you listen back to something that maybe you used to do but that you don't do anymore? That you say, “Wow, boy, that was interesting”.

Oh yes, yes, yeah, that happens quite a bit. As a matter of fact, that’s something I think that …is a two edge sword, you know, because I think there’s a danger when you listen to yourself too much and then you pick out things and say, “Wow, yeah, I used to do that, that was great;. I like that thing; let me put that in there”. And you start to kind of become almost a caricature of yourself, you know. You are copying yourself and then, of course, that's no better than copying somebody else, as far as that's concerned.

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

I mean when influences come on you, that’s fine. I don’t mean that you are not influenced by anybody else. You should be, because there’s all this great legacy of great players to draw on. And if you don’t avail yourself of that, I think you’re crazy. But when you start to pick and edit yourself, then it sounds not natural.

Who are the influences on Alan Dawson? Who were and who are?

Well, were and are…first of all, as far as musicians themselves, Joe Jones, Papa Joe Jones.

Papa Joe?

Yeah. Tremendous influence on me and second to him is Max Roach. Now there have been other influences. I mean, who could grown up in Boston and not be influenced by Roy Haynes, you dig? I mean obviously and…

Are you talking about contemporary?

Well you know, it’s funny, there’s only about four or five years separating us, but when you’re very young…

That’s a big difference.

It’s a big, big difference and especially if one person started at a very early age. I mean Roy Haynes was playing in the clubs and all when he was in his early teens, I guess. I started pretty early but I didn’t start playing in clubs till I was maybe about eighteen or something like that.

Un hunh.

So there was a big difference there. It’s not that big a difference now. Like I say he’s about four, maybe four years older than I am.

You guys ever get together and talk old time drum talk or something?

You know, very rarely. Unfortunately we don’t wind up crossing path as often as people that play other instruments, you know. I mean we don’t wind up on the same gig. I would occasionally get to hear Roy if he was appearing some place in town or, once in a blue moon, we’ll be on a tour together. I think the last time we were on a tour together was back in nineteen seventy-three. We were in Australia and I was with Dave and he was with Jimmy Smith All –Stars. We got to do a little hanging out there. But that’s something that…unfortunately that doesn’t happen more often. When you play the same instrument, you don’t get to hang out on the gig that much together.

When I first got to Boston, one of the first things about Alan Dawson before I got a chance to hear you live, was that you had been Tony Williams’ teacher.

Well, I’m very happy and proud to say so. Yes.

How old was Tony Williams when Alan Dawson got to be his teacher?

Well, let's see I think...I was thinking eleven but he corrected me. He said ten.

Is that right?

Ten years old.

Now at ten years old, what did you think? Do you remember?

Oh yeah, I remember that very well. First of all, he was the very first student I ever had.

Is that that right?

Yeah.. I didn't set out to be a teacher, it just sort of happened. And it happened because Tony's father, you know...

Tillman

...the late Tillman lived around the corner from my house or actually my ’mother’s house and this one day, he came by. I didn't even know he had a son, because Tony, I think, had been…was born in Chicago and I don't know how soon he came to Boston. But at any rate, Tillman came around to say, “Come here, come on, I want to show you something” and he takes me around the corner to his house and we go up in the attic and he has this little guy who looks ten years old or less.

And there is this great big bass drum that is practically hiding him, you know. And Tillman picks up his saxophone and they started playing and this little kid is picking up on everything and they start doing some fours and all like that and this little kid is…he’s got no chops, he’s falling all over himself. But he's...when I say he's falling all over himself, he's coming out right all the time and he's got this fantastic sense of where it's supposed to be. Whether he's got the technique to do it yet, you know. And they finished playing and Tillman says, “Well, what do you think?” I said, “Jeez, that’s something else.” Little, little fella here, maybe he’s got something. He said, “I want you to teach him.” So that’s it. That's how I became a teacher.

Is that right? Uh-huh. How long did you two work together?

Oh, let's see now…on and off, from ahhh…this is 1954, on and off …til…well actually, he must have been about maybe sixteen or somewhere around then I think, when he ... but when I say on and off, his mother would periodically take him. She’d say, “Tony, no more lessons because your school work is suffering.” And sure enough, I mean he was a smart little fellow. She took away the lessons, but he went and got the schoolwork together and raised his marks so he’d be back studying with me. So on and off, it was a good four or five years at least.

Huh. We're talking with Alan Dawson. A reminder next Wednesday night a tribute to Alan Dawson will be held as part of the Boston Globe Jazz Festival and on that program, you will find Dave Brubeck, James Williams, Billy Pierce, Jack Six, John Lockwood, Herb Pomeroy, Andy McGhee and of course, Alan Dawson. That concert is next Wednesday night at 7:30 at the Berklee Performance Center. As I said, I'm happy to say I’ll be the host for that concert also. Why don't we take a listen to something else with you on it Alan? This is Billy Pierce.

Oh, I'm glad you have that. I was meaning to bring that with me and I really got a little behind getting out here and I was searching around for that frantically and couldn’t find it and I'm so glad you got it.

Do you have a choice then of tunes?

I have…

Can you see in the dark here?

I have to admit that I'm not all that familiar with titles on this tune, you know. I know when I hear them but I liked everything on here and I hate to just bail out like that, but I really did like everything on this.

Okay. Well I've got one selected. I got the second one selected on here, too.

Okay, great.

This is from Billy Pierce's recording called One for Chuck. Bill Pierce will be part of the tribute to Alan Dawson. Alan Dawson is the drummer on this recording. This is “Strictly Taboo."

We were just listening to Billy Pierce from his recording called One for Chuck. Chuck was a guy that a lot of people knew here in the area. He was a friend to a lot of musicians. We listened to a tune called "Strictly Taboo" with Bill Pierce on tenor, Ira Coleman on bass, Mulgrew Miller on piano and Bill Mobley on trumpet and flugelhorn and our guest this evening, Alan Dawson on drums. Don't forget next Wednesday night at the Berklee Performance Center, the tribute to Alan Dawson. Alan, we've just got a couple minutes left but I got a phone call earlier tonight from the tap dancer, Josh Hilberman, and he asked me to get you to make some comments on tap dancers. He said you had been working with tap dancers recently.

Oh yes, that's very true and Josh has been quite a force in tap dancing in this area, despite his being a pretty young fellow. As a matter of fact, he was just over to the house this morning, with a friend of his from Germany, who is a tap dancer as well as drummer and I was talking about the influence of tap dances on drums in terms of one of greatest four bar solos……or was it two bars? Two bar solos that Shadow Wilson played were suppose to come from a tap dancer This was the solo that he played in “Queer Street”.

Is that right?

And it sounds very much like a tap dance type of a thing, beautiful thing. But I was also commenting upon the fact that tap dancers, as it seems to me, were kind of more aware of the idea of form and melody than most drummers were earlier. In other words, tap dancers were able to play, to tap like say two choruses or three choruses of a tune, so on and so forth and know where they were, whereas most of the drummers - I'm talking about in the thirties and early forties - if they played more than say a chorus, then it was like free soloing and they just used a cue to come on in.

Is that right? Really?

Mostly that was so, so a lot of the type of things that we are doing now are very much influenced by tap dancers in terms of where form is concerned, as well as, like, I said, previously, certain actual licks themselves are very tap dancey.

And Shadow Wilson, you say, is the first major figure to bring this to the drums?

Oh, no. No, no, no, he was not the first person to bring this to the drums. There was a lot of interaction between tap dancers and drummers, always. To the extent that people like Sid Catlett and Jo Jones and a number of the drummers were tap dancers. There was a clearly an intermingling there a lot. In fact, I was very surprised at a book that I read recently that Jimmy, Jimmie Lunceford was the one who persuaded Jimmy Crawford, the dancer, to come and play with his band.

Is that right?

Jimmy Crawford is one of the greatest, you know, drummers in the big bands and later was on the Broadway shows and they loved him because he had this innate feeling for playing behind dancers and so on so forth, having been a tap dancer himself, you know.

You got a chance to work with Savion Glover just recently, who at least at one point in his young life did play drums too. Did you know that?

Now, see I didn't know that. He's the one guy that didn’t sit down and play the drums. Everybody else did. but I'll tell you, he didn't need to. I tell you he got to doing his thing with his feet. It was like 50 drummers playing. He is an incredible tap dancer. But he did have two very talented young fellows playing behind him, bucket drummers. You know they play on the buckets.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Their names were J.R. and…oh boy, the other one is just going to kill me for forgetting his name but…Larry, Larry and J.R.

That doesn't bother you these guys playing on buckets? That doesn’t bother you? You don't say, “Oh my goodness, they are defaming my craft” or something?

Are you kidding?? When I heard them play on these buckets, I was saying, “Man, what am I doing with all these drums up here.?” These guys were fantastic. No, I mean, practically any drummer, if you ask him what he started out playing on, he started playing on chair rungs, on chairs and buckets and whatever was available - table tops, plates and those 50 gallon drums that we used to use for trash barrels. I remember in our apartment houses they were turned upside down and gave you a fantastic sound.

Okay. Alan, we're going to have to get ready to call this a night, but it's been my pleasure.

Well, it's always a pleasure and I must say, a much too infrequent pleasure to come in and see Eric and I hope to get in sometime to see you when we are not selling anything.

Alan, you know what? I do have to ask you this and I need a quick answer ‘cause I want to play another selection before the news. You know I was listening to an interview that I did with James Williams. I’m getting ready to do some notes on James Williams' next recording and I was listening to an interview that I did of James in 1985. He says on there, “I'm getting ready to produce a recording for Alan Dawson.”

Well, let me see. That didn't happen in 1985 but just recently. I think this was, let’s see, a year ago Christmas so it would have been 1993, or something like that, he did produce a record for me which has not been put out yet. But yes we did that in December.

It is done?

Yeah, and we are just hoping to get it out sometime in the not too distance future.

Okay, well we're all looking for it. Alan Dawson, thank you again, very much too.

All right Eric. If I don't see you before, I'll see you next Wednesday.

See you next Wednesday.