Going Wess With Sinatra and Basie

Frank Wess has been playing jazz for over half a century. Born in 1922, he played in an Army band that accompanied Josephine Baker during World War II, performed with the Count Basie Orchestra from 1953 to 1964, and since then has worked on various side projects with some of the most prominent figures in jazz. On December 18th at 8:30 p.m., he will play with the Columbia University Big Band in a free show at Miller Theatre.

Spectator: What do you think of the jazz scene now compared to when you started playing?

Frank Wess: It’s much more involved, and it’s getting better all the time because it’s going into the schools, although they don’t really have enough good jazz teachers.

SPEC: It has sort of moved into colleges and gotten more academic respect. What do you think about that?

FW: It should have been there long ago. I know when I went to college in 1937, if they caught you playing jazz, they’d put you out of conservatory.

SPEC: What did you study while at conservatory?

FW: At that time I was playing the flute.

SPEC: Were you the first guy to really use the flute as a jazz instrument?

FW: Well, I was the one that was known for it. Wayman Carver was the first one, with Chick Webb’s band, in a group called the Little Chicks.

SPEC: Was it helpful to have the classical training to play flute?

FW: Well you had to learn the instrument, you know. You learn the classical repertoire, you know, so that you have the facility and the sound to play the instrument.

SPEC: What was it like playing with Basie?

FW: Oh, that was good. It was a good 11 years. It was a good band, and Basie was a good band leader. ... It was a life experience.

SPEC: You guys went overseas a lot. Was the reception different there?

FW: Generally people were much more knowledgeable about jazz. At that time, people didn’t say “jazz.” Jazz was still a bad name. Now you can get a degree in jazz.

SPEC: So even though jazz was made here, it had to go overseas to get a good reputation?

FW: Yeah, there’s more interest in it now. You know, at first there wasn’t that much interest in jazz in this country, but by foreign people being introduced to it and thinking a lot of it and paying to see it, they became interested in it.

SPEC: How did you get started playing jazz?

FW: By listening. Listening and studying with the people in the streets.

SPEC: Do you think you lose something by learning it in school instead of on the streets?

FW: In some cases you do, in some cases you don’t. It all depends on your instructor and your education. ... You’ve got to listen. Wherever you learn, you’ve got to listen. Music is not one of the visual arts. You have to hear music, and if you don’t, you can forget it.

SPEC: Were your parents upset when you told them you wanted to play jazz?

FW: They weren’t upset. They wanted me to do something else. They were worried I wouldn’t be able to make a living.

SPEC: It was hard at the time?

FW: It was always hard to make a living playing jazz. It ain’t like selling shoes, you know.

SPEC: You’ve done a lot of writing in addition to your instrumental work. How important do you think it is that guys write their own stuff as opposed to, say, interpreting standards?

FW: Well writing helps you form an identity. In jazz, it’s much better if you have your own identity. That’s all the old jazz players. If you heard two notes, you knew it was Louis Armstrong. If you heard two notes, you knew it was Lester Young, or Benny Carter, whoever, but now you don’t know just who you’re listening to. It’s so much the same because everybody’s reading out of the same book. Most of the people you’re hearing about or reading about are people who didn’t read the same book.

SPEC: Is it harder for players today to find their own voices, since they’re all in schools “reading the same book”?

FW: It makes it easier because you have more to listen to. It makes it easier, but you gotta listen. You gotta pay attention.

SPEC: Do any of the people you’ve played with stand out as especially great?

FW: Frank Sinatra was great to work with. Very professional.

SPEC: What advice do you have for a college student who wants to start listening to jazz but maybe doesn’t know so much about it?

FW: Well there are plenty of good jazz clubs. You got the Vanguard, the Jazz Standard, Dizzy’s Club, Iridium—there’s plenty good jazz clubs in town.

SPEC: What about in terms of style? Should they go for hard bop, or...

FW: I don’t know about all the hard bop or soft bop or anything like that. It’s either good music or it isn’t.

SPEC: So you just play good music then?

FW: Well, I try.