November 1, 2007 Unknown author

Roy Haynes: I’m Not a Metronome

Previous

Roy Haynes

Next

6
 7

Mr. Roy Haynes has always represented the hippest of the hip and the
coolest of the cool. Appropriately, he once had a band called the Hip
Ensemble. Now, at a somewhat freaky 30-ish 82 years of age, he
somehow defies even Mother Nature herself. He speaks on and off the
drums with a clarity that seems nothing short of a mad scientist’s
successful experiment. I was 19 years old the first time I got to play
with Roy Haynes in a band with McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson-talk
about being raked over the coals! I’m very honored to have had such a
close musical relationship with this man ever since. I was thrilled when
I was asked to interview Mr. Haynes at a panel sponsored by NARAS-
the Grammy people-at the International Association for Jazz Education
Conference earlier this year. What follows is just an excerpt of our
conversation there, but I hope you’ll learn something about the one-
of-kind Mr. Roy Haynes.

Christian McBride: You were born and raised in Boston. Tell us about
how you got started and discovered the drums.

Roy Haynes: I think the drums discovered me. I lived in the Roxbury
section of Boston. On the street that I lived on there was a drummer
that had played with that band. His name was Herbert Wright. The
other end of the street was another drummer named Bobby Donaldson,
and I was surrounded by all of these drummers. I have had a feeling
ever since I could remember to want to play drums. I was always
[playing] with my hands in school. In fact, they pulled me out of school
once for playing on the desk. I had the whole class in the palm of my
hands and the teacher didn’t like that at all. So he sent me to the
principal’s office saying that I had disturbed the class, and the principal
said, “Don’t come back to the school unless you bring one of your
parents with you.” I didn’t ask my father to come because my father
probably would have wanted to kick the principal’s butt. But my mother
came and she said when the principal spoke to her, he had his head
down and didn’t look up at her at all and he talked about me and my
mother said, “That couldn’t be my son!” And she talked about that for
the rest of her life.

I had always wanted to play drums. I’d be playing on my mother’s

dining room table and dishes and I would just be breaking up
everything. I started from there. My father had introduced me to
Herbert Wright and that’s when I started my first drum lessons.

We lived in front of a Jewish synagogue. It was really heavily interracial.

First of all, my father bought the house when I was 2 years old and we
lived in that house until I came to New York in 1945 to join Louis
Russell. The Irish people lived on the left side of the house and on the
right side of the house were French Canadians. Down the block where
Herbert Wright lived there were a lot of black people. I know how to
deal with this person and I know how to deal with that person. And
that’s the way I came out and I’m sure that probably helps with the
music throughout the world with different countries and different
people. That’s a part of the way I started.

CM: When did you get your first drum kit?

I didn’t have a set of drums, but I started getting it piece by piece. The
group of guys I hung out with, we had a name; we were called the
Feather Merchants and the girls that hung out with us were called the
Feather Maids. This other neighborhood, which was close to Roxbury,
we would go to one of my buddies who lived in the building and I think
his parents would take care of the furnace in that big building. So that’s
where we would hang out, like our own club. One day this guy named
Griffin, he had come into the club with a trap case with a snare drum in
it and some cymbals and some drumsticks. I never to this day found out
where he got it. But that was my first snare drum and cymbals. He is not
living now, but he was kind of fast, so you will just have to use your
own imagination where they came from.

I started getting gigs and I didn’t have my hi-hat when I started. I just
had to play the cymbal with one stick and choke it and open it like a hi-
hat does. I got this gig in the Borden Square section of Boston, the
Italian section, and the trumpet player said, “Hey, why don’t you get a
hi-hat?” I finally got a hi-hat later.

CM: Did you have the bass drum at this time?

Actually, my first gig was without a bass drum.

CM: So it’s you just stomping on the floor, huh?

[Claps like foot stomps] You know what I mean? I worked at a summer
camp and I saved up my money and that’s when I bought my first bass
drum. There was a war at that time and they couldn’t use the mother-
of-pearl. They had to use things [made] out of wood; I think it was a
William F. Ludwig bass drum. I think it was a 26-inch bass, which was
considered small. Herbie Wright and all of these guys had a 28-inch
bass drum. They’d come down the street with that big bass drum.

CM: When you were doing your first gigs on your Frankenstein kit, had
you been checking out other drummers on records at that time?

During that early period, I was hearing a lot of stuff on the radio-they
had good radio stations in Boston at that time-and naturally I was
checking out the Basie band, because my older brother was very hip. In
fact, Papa Jo [Jones] told me that my brother brought me to him. I was
still in school. He said, “You had your schoolbooks!” There was a club
on downtown Warrington Street; I think that is where the Basie band
had played. Papa Jo was one of the first guys I was into. People told me I
looked like him. That really made me feel good.

CM: So you graduate from high school and you’re gigging around
Boston…

I didn’t graduate. They threw me out. That’s why I didn’t go back. I

didn’t want to go. I was making money playing the drum. I knew where
I wanted to go.

CM: Now you hit with Louie Russell’s band before you got with Lester
Young. How did you get with that gig?

I had a summer gig in 1945, in Martha’s Vineyard. We were playing

with a band, with stock arrangements playing for people dancing. And
while I was there for that whole summer, I got a special delivery letter
from New York and it went to the Boston local [union], which was 535,
so they sent it special delivery to where I was. I opened this letter, and I
had wanted to go to New York with a big band anyhow. [Russell] told
me how much he would pay me and he told me who recommended me
to the band and he had never heard me. He told me I would probably
start playing at the Apollo Theater or the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem.
It’s 1945 and the war was just supposedly over in that period. He sent
me a one-way train ticket and I stayed at his house for about four
weeks until his wife got tired of me sleeping in the living room,
hanging out on 52nd Street all night…

CM: So you jumped right into the New York scene right away and
became one of the pillars of the scene.

Louis Russell was from Panama and he went to New Orleans. Very early,
I think he won some kind of money or something. He played piano and
he was a big-band leader. He played with King Oliver and Louis
Armstrong. In fact, Louis Russell had this big band and Louis
Armstrong would use that big band and say it was his band and front
that band. Russell was very hip; we would rehearse up in Harlem in one
of those brownstones at 131st Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.

CM: How long did you stay in that band before you went with Prez? And
how did you get that gig from Prez?

First of all, I stayed with Louis Russell’s [band] one year and I quit. I
gave him my two weeks notice, because I was hanging down 52nd
Street every night listening to Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Then
Louis Russell got this young singer by the name of Lee Richardson from
Washington, D.C. He had a voice; I mean this guy could sing. He made a
record called “The Very Thought of You” and he had a contract with
another company so they couldn’t put his name on the record. They
called [him] “Mr. X” or something like that. The record was selling.
This guy was hitting high notes and low notes and all of the girls were
coming. So I went back with the band for another year. I was with the
Louis Russell band for two years.

CM: When you gave them your two-weeks notice, was that when you
had the gig with Prez all lined up or were you just kind of freelancing
around New York?

I started at the Savoy Ballroom, and I had heard that Prez was very
insensitive to his drummers. But I had no problems with Prez. [I
worked for] a lot of the saxophone players back in those days. I used to
sit in with Don Byas and that was my thing. Pete Brown, I used to work
with a lot. Somebody once said I was a saxophone player drummer-so
that could be part of my thing. You know, like with Coltrane, with Bird,
with Prez. I just liked the sound of a cymbal with the sax. It was cool
with a trumpet, too. Back in the old days we used to play the hi-hat for
trumpet players and also for the piano soloist. Now all of the guys want
you up there.

CM: Did you find [Prez] or did he find you?

He had a fine drummer [who] got sick or something. Prez was the most
original man I have ever met. As far as the way he spoke, the way he
dressed, everything about him. After I played a couple tunes with Prez,
he had a way where he wouldn’t walk; he would just float from here to
there. Sat over here and the drums are there and he comes and just
floats over there. His name is Prez, because he called everyone else
Prez. So he said to me, “Hey, Prez, you sure are swinging. If you have
eyes the gig is yours.” I stayed with him two years making a hundred
dollars a week and they were taking out tax. I got maybe 92 dollars. And
in those days we had to pay our own hotels. You guys today are lucky,
man.

CM: So you’re playing with Lester Young now and you’re in his band for
two years. After Prez, that’s when you hooked up with Bird, who had
come back east. How did you hook up with Bird?

While Miles was with Bird, Max was with Bird. There was a place in the
Brownsville section of Brooklyn that had opened in the summer of 1949
called Soldier Meyers. He was a soldier; he had two sons, Knobby and
Walter. Knobby was the youngest one. And Soldier Meyers had a low
voice, like a mafia-type feeling. And Miles had I think the first gig there
with his band around 1949. Miles left Bird. Meantime, the drummer
was Max Roach and he was king in Brooklyn. After Miles’ gig in
Brooklyn, I go to 52nd Street with Bud Powell.

In the meantime, Max is going to get his own band at Soldier Meyers in
Brooklyn. He’s playing at the Three Deuces on 52nd Street with Bird
and I’m playing across the street with Bud Powell and Sonny Stitt is on
alto, and everybody’s hanging out where we are. Max comes over one
night, told me he’s leaving Bird and he wants me to replace him. I’m
having such a good time with Bud Powell and everybody, I don’t give
him an answer. But he gets disturbed; he says, “Well, if I don’t get you
I’m going to get Kansas Field.” After a few nights go by, Charlie Parker
comes over himself and asks me to join him. And I said yes. One time
much later, we were doing something for children and Elvin’s there,
Louie Bellson, Max and myself, and we are all talking. When Max
Roach’s turn to talk comes, he comes up and says [yelling], “Roy
Haynes took my gig, and he never gave it back!” And I said, “I was
supposed to give it back?” I never knew that.

CM: He said it wasn’t your fault he wanted to start his own band, right?

When I first joined Bird, Red Rodney was there, because Miles had
already left. I couldn’t play like Max, you know. I had to play like Roy
Haynes, of course. But there was something about the way I [played]
that Bird really liked, evidently. Because he told Red Rodney, “That’s
my favorite drummer.” And I remember going to Bird’s funeral and
[Bird’s widow] Chan said, “You know, you were Bird’s favorite
drummer.”

CM: You stayed with Bird for how long?

With Bird we didn’t work steady. You know, Bird had a lot of problems.
I remember going to your hometown, playing in Philadelphia with Bird.
We would open up on Monday for the matinee. It would start at like 3 or
4 o’clock in the afternoon and the place was packed. Our last night
would be Saturday. We would wait to get our money and there wouldn’t
be no road manager-it was Charlie Parker. The union man would
always be there because Bird would commute. He knew that if he stayed
in Philadelphia he would get busted. That’s what Billie Holiday got
busted for.

CM: ‘Cause Billie was treacherous at that time.

They knew who was doing what. We would stay in the club and maybe
stop playing at midnight. Bird would owe money and by the time it
came to pay the band, he ain’t got no money. We were there all
morning, while they’re trying to figure out who gets this and that. It’s
what would happen in Philadelphia. But Bird, he’d be playing some
nights and it was memorable stuff.
CM: Playing behind Bird, dropping those bombs and playing all that
slick stuff on the snare drum. There was Max and there was you. It’s
like you two cats played like boxers. I know Miles used to say that about
both of you, you had that jab or stick-and-move thing happening. I can
only assume you’ve always played like that. I think it was also around
this time that you were playing with Bird that you did that gig with Ella
Fitzgerald. This was I think before you joined Sarah Vaughan’s band or
was this after you joined Sarah?

First of all, I would like to say that I played with the greatest singers
ever. We were playing in Providence, Rhode Island. I think it was 1952.
Hank Jones was the pianist. Nelson Boyd, who played with Miles-you
know “Half Nelson” was dedicated to Nelson Boyd. We’re playing with
Ella for that whole season at this club in Providence. Organ trios were
very popular in those days. We’re doing a repertoire with Ella, and then
on the weekend, they bring in this organ trio and they’re burning …
they’re really burning … I forget who the drummer was. Ella gets mad
at us-me, Hank Jones and Nelson-and she says, “You mf’ers aren’t
swinging. What’s up?” So being a drummer, I had attitude. I’m playing
with Hank Jones and Nelson Boyd and I ain’t swinging? You get a whole
lot of things when you deal with singers, but Ella could swing. That lady
could swing.

CM: I guess when you hear an organ trio like that, getting the crowd all
jumping and hollering. Now when did you join Sarah Vaughan’s group?

1953. I had always liked Sarah. Sarah made a record with Dizzy-I don’t
know if Bird was on it. I first heard Sarah with Earl Hines. And when I
was with Prez, we would play a place called the Blue Note in Chicago
and they would hire Sarah and Lester Young so I had to accompany her.

CM: Did she send you a telegram or did she come and snatch you off of
Bird’s gig?

Well, we sort of knew each other then. Her husband and manager was
George Treadwell. I was playing a gig somewhere. Joe Benjamin was
playing bass. She snatched both of us, which was 1953. The time I
played with Ella Fitzgerald was the whole summer of 1952.

CM: Ella and Sarah-back to back. Talk a little more about Sarah
Vaughan.
Sarah Vaughan … she could really hang out. I joined her in Philadelphia
and the opening night the pianist got the wrong date so we opened
without a piano at a place called the Rendezvous-one of those
downtown speakeasies. She accompanied herself that night. She’s a
very good pianist and at the end of the night she wanted to go hang out
so we go to South Philadelphia. I think there was an after-hours place
called Pies. I was driving that night. I had my car, the first automobile I
had bought, a convertible, and we hung out in that car. She was
drinking Gordon’s Gin-this is not a commercial-during that time.
Every time she ordered one, she would say, “Give him one, too,” and I
was driving.

First of all, they didn’t want to let us in because they didn’t know who
we were-me, a buddy of mine and Sarah. She kept nudging me, saying,
“Tell them who I am.” So I said, “This is Sarah Vaughan.” And they
looked at us and said, ” Uh, yeah right.” So they had to go get
somebody who they thought knew Sarah Vaughan. We got into this
place drinking Gordon’s Gin and stayed until 10 o’clock the next
morning. That was my first night playing with her-1953. This was the
first time I had a hangover. We played at Birdland-we’d do four or five
sets a night-we’d start out at 10 and play until 4 in the morning. Like
on a Saturday night, we would get off and drive to Atlantic City and
hang out all night. They had something called the breakfast show at
Club Harlem. Then we’d get in the car and drive back to do the Sunday
show. Those were beautiful days.

CM: You played with her from ’53 to ’58. I want to move us up two
years. In 1960, Esquire voted Roy Haynes one of the best-dressed men
of the year. Now people are getting to know you not just for being hip
on the drums but also being hip off the drums, as well. He has been
known as one of the slickest, most in-demand style counselors of all
time and I’ve done my best to pay tribute to Mr. Haynes today. I didn’t
have any cowboy boots, but I pulled these out for you [Christian shows
off fancy boots, laughs].

Go ahead. Can I ask you a question? Can you play bass with those shoes
on?

CM: Yeah, but it hurts after a while. The first time I saw Roy Haynes
with the hat and the boots-looking sharp, playing hip-I said, that’s me
right there, I want to be like him.

I still have that magazine. There were only two young guys listed in
there-only two brothers. Me and Miles Davis. All the rest were Walter
Pidgeon, Fred Astaire. [The article] was called “The Art of Wearing
Clothes” and it was written by George Frazier. He also did liner notes
for Miles. The only reason I was in there was because we went to the
same tailor. In those days I was wearing suits, really dressing up. I
dress down now. During that period I was getting more play for that
than for playing the drums. When I would go to Philadelphia, the young
hipsters would come to see [what I was wearing]. In the old days, they
had some people up in Harlem, who didn’t even play instruments, who
would try to out-dress each other. That was a big thing in Harlem. Then
the rock thing started happening. Then the jeans started happening.
Now guys come to play a gig with sneakers on. That was unheard of
then.

CM: Talk about your time playing with John Coltrane.

That was serious. That was really serious. Coltrane would play a ballad,
and talk about intensity. And he was a young kid. After playing slow and
nice with Sarah Vaughan. Wow. That was over. [Demonstrates driving
beat on his chest]

CM: Tell me about meeting Mingus.

Mingus was playing with Red Norvo and Tal Farlow. Ray Brown took
me. Ray said, “Let’s go over to the Embers on the East side. We’d leave
Birdland from Broadway on the West side. He introduces me to Mingus
and Ray tells me that the first time he met Mingus in California,
somebody was having a fight and before you know it Mingus was in the
damn fight too. He jumped right in the fight. Ray Brown was
something. We had a gig in Europe and they lost my luggage. Ray said,
‘Roy Haynes, that’s the first time I ever seen you look funky, wearing
those funky clothes.’

CM: How did you wind up playing with Monk?

Monk was very hip to me from a long time ago from playing with Bud
Powell. And I met Monk when he came to Boston with Coleman
Hawkins. So I met him early. During that period in New York, there
weren’t as many musicians. So if a young guy comes into town,
everybody’s going to know him. We were closer together in the ’40s
and ’50s then now. Now, a youngster like yourself comes in from
another city and gets a manager and right away you’re big time. Then
you had to work and pay your dues. There wasn’t a lot of work and
money, but there was a lot of love and closeness.

In Harlem, you’d bump into anybody. One day I’m standing there, at
126th Street and 8th Avenue, which was the Mecca for us. It was
October 1946. I’m just standing there. Louis Armstrong’s band is
getting ready to do a tour through the South. The bus is sitting there.
Armstrong says, “Roy Haynes! Our drummer is sick. We need a
drummer.” I lived on 149th Street. I got the bus and went and got my
bag. He said, “You don’t need your drums.” I went with Louis
Armstrong down South for six concerts in a bus. We weren’t flying. The
drummer in the big band was always tight with the lead trumpet player.
You would sit next to him. They didn’t have no drum parts. He would
tell me everything. Don’t forget that. Roy Haynes played with Louis
Armstrong! Put that in your book.

CM: Can you tell me about Jazz at the Philharmonic and Buddy Rich?

That’s a heavy one, because here’s what would happen. Charlie Parker
told me this more than once. Lots of time he would get ready to do a
record date and Norman Granz would ask who he was going to use and
Parker would say this guy and that guy and when it come to the drums,
Bird would say, “I’m going to use Roy Haynes,” and Granz would say,
“What? You’d rather use Roy Haynes than Buddy Rich?” I saw Norman
Granz in London much later and asked him about that, and he said that
Charlie Parker was lying. So who am I going to believe?

In 1950, when Jazz at the Philharmonic was going to play, they would
always do two concerts in one night. They’d open in Newark at the
Mosque Theatre at 8 p.m. and a later one at midnight at Carnegie Hall
in New York. The next day they were going to go to Washington, D.C.
Sunday morning I get a knock on my hotel door. And it’s the roadie for
Charlie Parker saying, “You got to come to Washington, because Buddy
Rich isn’t playing.” I didn’t have my drums. Buddy’s drums are sitting
there. I got to go on first with Charlie Parker. I don’t know what
happened between him and Buddy Rich, but Charlie Parker sent for me.
I get to the gig and I get up to the drums. I learned something that day.
You never sit at someone else’s instrument and adjust things. Buddy is
standing there. He said, “Roy, as they are!” His exact words. And he
meant, don’t change anything, don’t move them, don’t tune them, play
them as they are. He was a little uptight. We had some words that day,
Buddy and I. And we became so close later. I remember one time I was
driving on the West Side Highway in my car, a convertible with the top
down, and somebody comes zooming past me, yelling, “Roy Haynes!”
It was Buddy Rich, vroom.

CM: Didn’t you and Miles do some drag racing in my hometown

Philadelphia?

Yeah, but that was in New York-by Central Park late at night. We
learned that from Coleman Hawkins and Billy Eckstine. Me and Miles,
we looked up to those guys. Hawkins and Eckstine were into driving
and automobiles. They’d be driving through Central Park doing 90
miles an hour. On the curb! You hit one light, you jumped one light and
then make all the rest. Then later, Tony Williams got a little car and he
was doing it. Boom, the fast lane. Those days are over, man.

CM: You got that right. A few years after working with John Coltrane,
you made another album of legendary stature, very influential on a lot
of us, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, with Chick Corea. How did you meet
Chick? You guys played together with Stan Getz.

I knew Chick’s father. His father was a musician in the Boston area. We
got closer when we played with Stan. I had some gigs where I hired
Chick. In fact, when I started the Hip Ensemble, which would have been
late 1969 or early 1970, we rehearsed at Chick’s house. He lived in
Queens. We were playing at this acid-rock place called the Scene on
46th Street. I had George Adams on tenor and Charles Sullivan on
trumpet in the band. Chick said, “Man, you really know how to put a
band together.” We had to accompany some singer singing Beatles
tunes. Richie Havens came by to see us. Jimi Hendrix came on our last
night and brought us a bottle of champagne and came up onstage.
That’s when I was wearing shoes like yours. Back then. Acid rock.
Everything was there. The sky’s the limit.
CM: Now we get to the ’80s. You won your first Grammy for the tribute
to John Coltrane. You gave the acceptance speech.

Yeah, David Murray was there, but he was up in the balcony, and by the
time he got down I had already spoken. I was surprised that it won.

Audience Member 1: Is there anybody you’d like to play with that you
haven’t played with?

Ornette Coleman and I jammed together when he first came to NYC at

the Five Spot. We haven’t played together since. I think that could be
interesting. Something was scheduled at Carnegie Hall last year, but it
didn’t happen. I thought we could have hooked up then. He’s a Pisces,
too.

Audience Member 1: The world is ready for that. You and Ornette
together, Lord have mercy.

Audience Member 2: Did you have a favorite bass player from when you
were coming up?

People ask me that, but it’s hard. Paul Chambers would be one of them.
He’s someone who doesn’t get much credit. A lot of writers and critics
are always saying who is [this] and who is that. That can turn me off.
They can only go so far. That’s why I’m so proud to be up here with
Christian today, because we played together and we know-the feeling
in a bass player that’s so real. With my concept, sometimes I’m not
really on the one or it’s floating. I’m a dreamer, I’m thinking. One time
I’m on the stand with Coltrane and McCoy in Chicago. Trane didn’t
count off tunes or give cues, he’d just start playing, and I had the nerve
to get lost. But once I found out where it really was, hey, leave me alone.
I’m going to hold onto it. I’m not a metronome. Let it hang loose.

Audience Member 2: I’ve always thought what has separated you from
the rest of the pack is that you’ve always managed to stay so modern. I
know so many jazz artists that always talk about staying modern, but
it’s almost as if they have to talk themselves into doing that. You just
do that, you just smile, you laugh, you have fun and you’re always on
top of everything that’s happening. I’ve heard you play funk, and then
you played the hippest, greatest swing, still. How do you do it?
That’s hard to answer. Well, seeing that it’s on the left side, it’s right at
the heart and the drum is the heartbeat. And I just go from there, from
feeling.

Audience Member 2: It just amazes me that [you’re 82]. I’m sorry, but I
just don’t know any other people in your age bracket that can hit with
Pat Metheny and really kick it. Whatever it is that you have, I sure hope
that we all out here can have it when we reach 82.

People ask me, “What is your secret?” I never thought of things as

being really a secret as far as approaching the drums and so-called jazz.
I play from feeling as you can tell. I didn’t try to have a lot of sharps
particularly. A lot of it is the street-the sounds of some bugles or drum
rolls and stuff like marching down the street in the ghetto. I play from
feeling.

Audience Member 2: That’s important, that street element. A lot of cats

are scared of the street.

That’s why those rappers are so hip and making so much money!

Interview used with permission of the National Academy of Recording

Arts and Sciences and the Grammy Foundation (www.grammy.com)

Originally Published
Share This:

Viewed using Just Read