DURING AN ERA WHEN JAZZ ARTISTS ARE KEPT IN THE CORNER OF MUSIC, IT’S DIFFICULT TO REMEMBER A TIME WHEN THE AIRWAVES WERE FILLED WITH SWING AND BOP.
BEN SIDRAN, JAZZ WRITER, COMPOSER, PIANIST AND PRODUCER, IS A MAN WHO NOT ONLY REMEMBERS THE DAYS WHEN ROCK AND JAZZ CO-EXISTED WITH JOY, BUT WAS A MAJOR PART OF IT.
WRITING IMPORTANT MATERIAL ABOUT BLACK JAZZ MUSICIANS IN THE 1960s, HE ALSO PLAYED WITH THE LIKES OF ERIC CLAPTON, THE ROLLING STONES AND PETER FRAMPTON WHILE ALSO PRODUCING ALBUMS FOR SINGERS RANGING FROM DIANA ROSS TO MOSE ALLISON.
IN THE MEANTIME, HE COMPOSED A PLETHORA OF HIP TUNES, MOST FAMOUS IS HIS “SPACE COWBOY” THAT BECAME A BIG HIT FOR THE STEVE MILLER BAND.
RECENTLY RELEASED IS A 3 DISC SET, BEN THERE, DONE THAT, WHICH IS A 40 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE OF HIS LIVE PERFORMANCES, GIVING A RICH ANTHOLOGY OF THE CREATIVE JUICES THAT FLOWED FROM THIS SELF DESCRIBED ‘MIDDLE CLASS JAZZ MAN.’
WE HAD A CHANCE TO CHAT WITH SIDRAN, WHO GAVE A RICH PERSPECTIVE OF HIS ROLE IN THE JAZZ SCENE, LEADING UP TO THIS VERY MOMENT.
HOW DID YOUR PARENTS RESPOND WHEN YOU TOLD THEM YOU WERE PURSUING A PHD IN AFRICAN MUSIC STUDIES?
My parents didn’t focus on my; they were in their own world at that point. We’re talking about the late 1960s; students were kind of drifting and I supposed they were just glad that I wasn’t in jail! (laughs)
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“I’m one of the very few true middle class jazz musicians!”
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YOUR BOOK BLACK TALK GOT A LOT OF ATTENTION WHEN IT CAME OUT IN 1971. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS OF IT IN RETROSPECT?
The Phd dissertation was literally published and went out there. The musicians loved it. Archie Shepp wrote an introduction for it and said that he thought that I was British. He asked “Why did this white British kid write a book about black music that black people should have written?” He loved the book. Cannonball Adderley and Jackie McLean loved the book.
Jackie told me “You wrote down what we know.” Which is what I did by writing down what they knew. The critics, however, had trouble with it because what I was saying at the time was a departure from the way people talked about jazz.
I was coming from a communications theory point of view, using some of Marshall Mcluhan’s ideas to parse black music in America vis a vis the literate western culture. Musicians loved it and critics didn’t know what to make of it.
YOU HAVE A CAREER AS A JAZZ SINGER AND MUSICIAN, YET YOU’VE DONE WORK WITH CHARLIE WATTS, PETER FRAMPTON, BOZ SCAGGS AND STEVE MILLER, EVEN COMPOSING THE BIG HIT “SPACE COWBOY.” WERE YOU LEADING A DOUBLE MUSICAL LIFE, OR WAS IT MORE OF A PROGRESSION OF SORTS?
My whole life has been jazz. When I was 13 I discovered jazz; when I went to the University of Wisconsin I was in a jazz trio.
But I then fell in with Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs. They had a little blues band, and we were playing songs by T-Bone Walker and Jimmy Reed. I had never heard this stuff; I loved it because I was a big fan of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and the blues is the blues.
This is 1963-64 where all of the music was percolating in the same pot. In this pot you had Paul Butterfield in it, but so was Coltrane and Cannonball and Muddy Waters, and we’d listen to all of their records. I dropped out of the university to work in a record store just so I could keep my hands on all of these records that were coming through. It was just one big gumbo!
My main orientation was a particular kind of jazz. It was “groove music.” I loved Louis Jordan, Horace Silver and The Jazz Messengers, so this fell in with the kind of R&B that I was listening to with Scaggs and Miller.
And Coltrane although he went as far out as he could, he started in R&B.
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“if you listen to the middle of “Space Cowboy”… I had Steve sing Dizzy Gillespie! I don’t think he ever knew it!”
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HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH WRITING MATERIAL LIKE “SPACE COWBOY”?
Well, actually the instrumental breakdown of “Space Cowboy” is a refrain from Dizzy Gillespie’s “Birk’s Works.” I don’t think to this day that Steve Miller knows that.
But, if you listen to the middle of “Space Cowboy” I have Steve sing the harmony in the middle. (scats the melody of “Birk’s Works”). I had Steve sing Dizzy Gillespie! (laughs) I don’t think he ever knew it!
AND YOUR BUDDY BOZ SCAGGS HAS TURNED HIMSELF INTO A JAZZ CROONER
Well, Boz is a real sophisticated guy. He’s not a dilettante at all. Boz is a serious musician who’s still growing. His latest 3-4 records have been very heartfelt and sophisticated.
I give Boz a lot of credit. He had those huge hits, but he doesn’t want to live in that world. He wants to grow as a musician.
YOU’VE HAD THE BENEFIT OF GETTING THE ROYALTIES FOR A FEW BIG HITS SO YOU COULD AFFORD TO DO THE TYPE OF MUSIC THAT YOU WANT.
I was very lucky. I’m one of the very few true middle class jazz musicians! (laughS) I’ve raised a nice family, I’ve had a good life, I’ve made the music that I want to make, I write and play. I’m very fortunate.
YOU’VE DONE ALBUMS RANGING FROM THE JAZZY BORN 2 B BLUE TO DYLAN DIFFERENT.
Born to Be Blue is me convincing Steve (Miller) that he could make a more sophisticated record. I was wrong; I thought what Steve wanted to do, after having all of his hits and money, was to be credible.
I’d known Steve his whole life, and said, “Let’s do a jazz record.” His father was a jazz fan, so let’s make his father proud of him. I got him to do Born 2 B Blue.
Subsequently, Steve went on the road, and all of these kids wanted to hear his hits, so he didn’t follow that path. As the Jews say, “Dayenu”; It would have been enough.
I stumbled onto Dylan Different. I was playing in Spain about ten years ago, and had an arrangement of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” that was in my set. People would come up to me and say “That was the first time I’ve ever understood the lyrics” because Bob kept swallowing his lyrics.
So, I thought that maybe I should do a whole record of this stuff. The whole thing took a couple of years. Those songs on Dylan Different were road tested; I played them in gigs.
It was basically taking this classic material and putting it into a context. I got this idea from Mose Allison; any time Mose Allison. Anytime Mose got a song that wasn’t his own, he’d do it in his own way. He’s got a version of “You Are My Sunshine” that sounds like he wrote it.
I came to Dylan’s material with that in mind. How could I do these songs so that they sound like Ben Sidran could have written them? How can I get that comfortable with them?
That’s how you grew up the 60s; in 1965 I was listening to the album The Word From Mose, Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home, Coltrane’s Live at the Village Vanguard; back then you’d listen to everything. It wasn’t a stretch. The music wasn’t two different things as much as two different sides of the same coin.
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“The music wasn’t two different things as much as two different sides of the same coin”
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YOU’RE STYLE IS INFLUENCED BY MOSE ALLISON. HOW DID THAT COME ABOUT?
I was very fortunate; I produced all six of Moses albums on Blue Note. Bruce Lundvall of Blue Note was looking for somebody, but you don’t “produce” Mose Allison. You run interference for him, which is what I did. I just made sure that he got what he wanted and that the records turned out the way he wanted them to.
I discovered Mose when I was in high school. In college in the 60s I was pretty lost, trying to find my way and there was this record The Word From Mose which really picked me up.
I met Mose in the early 70s and didn’t work with him until the 90s.
DID YOUR VOCAL STYLE MUST HAVE COME FROM HIM BY OSMOSIS? (NO PUN INTENDED!)
No.
I got my first recording contract in 1971. It was with Capitol Records. I had written songs like “Space Cowboy” and had worked with Miller and Boz. I’d done a session with the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, and doing all of this rock and roll.
I got a call from the president of Capitol records, and told him that I’d get Steve and all of these guys to sing on my album.
He said, “No, man. If we’re going to sign you, you have to sing. So, for my first record, in 1971, I opened my mouth in front of a $10,000 microphone and that’s what came out. I didn’t even think about it.
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“you don’t “produce” Mose Allison. You run interference for him, which is what I did”
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AND THEN A COUPLE ALBUMS LATER YOU PUT OUT A CLASSIC, THE JAZZY AND BLUESY DON’T LET GO.
I love that record. That was with Blue Thumb Records. I made my first record for Capitol; by 1972 the world was a cultural casino.
One night at 2 am I get a call from Bob Krasnow, who said he owned a label called Blue Thumb Records. “I want to sign you; what do I have to do?” I said “Call me tomorrow; it’s 2 am!!” (laughs)
He calls me the next day, and I signed with Blue Thumb. They were fantastic, and it’s here that I met Krasnow’s partner Tommy Lipuma. I made four albums with them, including Don’t Let Go.
YOU RECORDED WITH A REAL JAZZ LEGEND, BUNKY GREEN
I loved Bunky Green. In the 60s he made a record called The Latinization of Bunky Green. Nobody knows about it, and it’s a bad record. Fantastic; he was a Chicago cat He was under-exposed; he wasn’t underrated because anyone who heard him loved him.
I discovered him on one of his records and couldn’t get enough. So, when I got my recording contract I called up Blue Mitchell, my favorite horn player. I then went to Chicago to record with Bunky. He was fantastic.
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“We were the last (generation) to be raised on the dotted 8th feel, which is shuffle. It’s the old blues shuffle”
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YOU TALK A LOT ABOUT THE MUSICAL VIBE OF THE 1960s. YOU COULD MAKE A GOOD ARGUMENT THAT THOSE YEARS WERE THE LAST ONES WHEN PEOPLE GREW UP WITH A NATURAL SWING FEEL TO MUSIC, AS ROCK AND ROLL CAME ON LATER TO CHANGE HOW WE PLAYED AND L ISTENED TO MUSIC
This is absolutely right. I never believed in the “fusion” of jazz and rock ‘n roll. It was jazz with rhythm and blues, because R&B has the dotted 8th “swing” feel, and rock is a straight 8. They are very different.
The dotted 8th is a “black” feeling, while the strict 8th is a “white” feeling. We were the last (generation) to be raised on the dotted 8th feel, which is shuffle. It’s the old blues shuffle.
YOU RECENTLY RELEASED A 3 DISC “RETROSPECTIVE” OF CONCERT MATERIAL. WHAT WAS THE MOTIVATION AT THIS STAGE IN YOUR CAREER?
I just turned 75; the University of Wisconsin just acquired all of my papers, memoirs and tapes. I’ve made 36 albums. (producer) Zev Feldman called me to do a retrospective of my “live” recordings, as he knew I had a large catalogue. Because the University of Wisconsin took all of my stuff, I had digitized a couple hundred gigs, and had the music right in front of me.
It allowed me to go back and put out songs like “Song For A Sucker Like You” and “Mitsubishi Boy.” These songs go back 40 years, and to put them out with that band with Bob Malach on tenor sax, it was just burning.
It was a great opportunity, and it wasn’t nostalgia at all. I wasn’t nostalgic about the music; I looked at it as a chance to put out great versions of this music that people got blessed by it and followed my career would dig. I made this for the people who dig my music.
ARE YOU STILL TOURING?
I’m playing tonight in Girona, Spain! I’m going to Barcelona next week and was in Paris three weeks ago! I’m still playing!
AND MALACH IS TOURING WITH MIKE STERN!
Mike works all the time, and Bob’s a hard working musician, so that’s a great pair-up.
I was going on a Japanese tour in 1978 and called Michael Brecker up to see if he’d go with me. He couldn’t but recommended Bob Malach who was about 23 at the time. Ever since, this cat has been my go-to sax player.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
I really am kind of a family guy. I’m a middle class jazz guy. I’m a rarity, a do-do bird! We don’t exist anymore.
I get to go and spend time with my son and granddaughter and my wife. I love it! That’s what I’m all about. They are what inspires me to keep going.
If I didn’t have the friends and family, I don’t know what I’d do. I’d probably be in jail.
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“There’s a Jewish motto that you’re supposed to leave the world a little better than you found it. The phrase is “Tikkun Olam” which means “repair the broken world”
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DID SOMEONE TEACH YOU TO BE FAMILY ORIENTED?
It’s not just about being family oriented. I decided something a long time ago. There’s a Jewish motto that you’re supposed to leave the world a little better than you found it. The phrase is “Tikkun Olam” which means “repair the broken world”.
So I thought that if I could just contribute to make it a little better, when I was working for NPR and all this stuff, I always thought of it in terms of journalism. If I could report and tell people who didn’t know about jazz who these guys were and why this music is important then I could make the world a little better.
That is what I am about. How could I memorialized this music that is so important? That’s been my guiding light.
AND BE A MENSCH IN THE PROCESS!
Absolutely!
As Phil Woods once said, “Die with your boots on.” I want to keep going!
THE ARC OF BEN SIDRAN’S LIFE, AS WELL AS THIS INTERVIEW, GIVE SUPPORT TO THE IDEA THAT IF YOUR GOAL IS TO “BE COOL,” YOU WILL END UP FRUSTRATED AND SHALLOW, BUT, AS WITH BEN, IF YOUR GOAL IS TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE, YOUR DEMEANOR WILL AUTOMATICALLY BE WHAT YOU WANTED, BUT AS A RESIDUAL OF BEING THE PERSON GOD MADE YOU TO BE. IT’S A SIMPLE CONCEPT, GOING BACK TO THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT, “SEEK FIRST HIS KINGDOM AND RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND ALL THESE THINGS WILL BE GIVEN UNTO YOU.”
COOLNESS, LIKE HAPPINESS, IS A BI-PRODUCT OF A GIVING HEART. BEN HAS LEARNED AND LIVED THAT ULTIMATE LESSON OF THE COOL.