E: You were born November 15th, 1915 in Victoria, Texas. This much I know.
C: That’s right. I’ve lived in Texas my entire life. I moved from
Victoria to San Antonio, and then when I was nine, I moved to Houston.
E: Tell
me how you got into music.
C: I got into music when I was about 12 years old. I saw an article saying if
you sell 12 cans of a salve, you’d get a saxophone.
E: A “salve?”
C: Yes, a salve. At that time they had salves that you would put on your skin
– you wouldn’t eat it – you’d put it on your skin. And
it would heal you if you had a little problem. Anyway, that article interested
me. I said, “I know I can sell 12 cans!” So I sent off and got my
cans and sold them all in one day. But they sent me a toy saxophone! And I was
sooooo disappointed. But after I got over my disappointment, I went on and started
playing on it. I learned everything they had on the book that was included.
And then I moved on. In two days, I knew that I was hooked and would become
a musician.
E: So you’re self-taught.
C: No. I’m partially self-taught, but I went to school for it. I went
to Wiley College, Houston College, University of Southern California –
I studied for it!
E: You started in Houston. What musicians were you looking
up to?
C: In my younger years, I looked up to Jimmy Withersmith – a sax player,
Duke Ellington, Count Basie. Basie was a latecomer on the scene, but I really
did love him. There were many sidemen that I admired, like Lester Young.
E: The
Big Band era.
C: That’s right, I came up in the Big Band era. I played saxophone and
clarinet.
E: Buddy Smith told me that you came up with Illinois Jacquet!
C: Yeah. We used to play. Arnette Cobb too. We all lived in Houston, I played….
well, during those days it was different. To advertise, if a company put out
- let’s say a new brand of soda water – well, they would advertise
it by putting a band on a truck and letting the truck drive around the city.
Or they would have us play at the stand where they were selling, and the music
would draw people to the stand. Illinois was a drummer at that time! This was
around 1939 or 1940.
E: Were there any other local musicians that blew your mind?
C: There was a band called The Birmingham Blues Blowers. This was in Houston.
We listened to them quite a bit. They played many proms at the school. I remember
peeping through the windows of the gymnasium when I was a little kid to watch
them play. I said, “I want to do that!”
E: When did you realize that
music was something you wouldn’t be able to give up?
C: As time progressed, I got deeper and deeper into it. And I played in the
school band at Jack Yates High School in Houston.
E: Your dad led that band,
didn’t he?
C: Yes, but my dad was actually a dentist! He had worked his way through college
playing music. He wasn’t a musical director per se; he was a trumpet and
flute player. And he was a tremendous vocalist. I had him for about 3 years.
E:
I bet you he whupped you into shape!
C: Well, one way or the other! (Laughs) Anyway, the band made a trip down to
Dallas and that did the rest of the hooking. I knew then that I would always
be involved in music.
E: When did you join your first professional band?
C: Just out of high school. I played almost every joint in Houston, whether
they had small bands or whatever. I was all over the place.
E: What was it like,
being a black performer at the time of Jim Crow? Segregation, outright racism?
C: I’m going to explain it to you like this. At that time, the people
– black and white - who really had the money to hire the players wanted
black performers. Because they were the naturals - blacks introduced jazz to
the world.
E: So it wasn’t hard for you to get gigs?
C: Man, we had almost all the gigs! I was working all I wanted to. Blacks introduced
this music. If people wanted to get real jazz, they had to hire black bands.
E:
Now back to the colleges you mentioned. What was the first college you attended?
C: The first was Houston College, and then I went to Wiley in Marshall, Texas.
An old established college. They only carried about 400-500 students but they
were – and are - a real good school. Then I went to the University of
Southern California, and then when I came back to Texas I went to Prairie View.
E: Did you major in music education?
C: I majored in English and Music. I was finishing my masters at Prairie View
and I got sick. I got ill – I was just doing too much. I was pushing from
all angles. Traveling here and there, clinics, writing, performing at night.
Eventually I fell out.
E: When you finished with school, what kind of job did
you get?
C: First I got a job in Carnak, Texas – fifteen miles from Wiley. A dean
at the school there had watched me grow while I was in college and he wanted
me to be his band director there. I took him up on the offer. I worked there
for two years and there I had an unusual experience. The school was newly built
– but the architect didn’t realize the capacity it needed to be.
There weren’t enough rooms for the classes and the children. So I taught
band – but I didn’t have a room. Now, there was an old Chevrolet
bus that I would drive to pick up the school kids. I’d bring them to and
from school – and then I’d teach band in that same bus.
E: Really!
C: And that was a job too – ‘cause the drummer might hit anyone
with that mallet! (Laughs) And the trombone had to be careful with his slide!
It was something else. I got a lot of experience there.
E: What kind of a band
were you leading – a jazz band?
C: It was a marching band, but we taught them how to play jazz too.
E: Man, everyone
I’ve spoken to about you has told me that you were famous for your great
marching bands. Melvin Sparks is actually the first one to bring that up to
me.
C: Yeah! I know Melvin well, that’s one of my guys! I taught him at Booker
T. Washington High School.
E: We’ll get into all these legendary musicians
that you brought up through the ranks. My question for you is – were you
influenced by the blues? Texas was a blues hotbed.
C: Well, it’s my impression that that jazz and the blues all sprung up
at the same time, in different cities. Because when they were doing certain
things in New York, we were doing the same things here in Houston. When they
played blues in Chicago, we were playing blues here. So maybe it all started
in New Orleans and the delta, but it almost simultaneously started here.
E: So
basically all of this music reaches you at the same time. You were surrounded
by it growing up.
C: Yeah, I sure was. You see, you can’t play jazz if you can’t play
the blues. Jazz has blues lines running through it. This was just something
that people understood. It was a branch of music – the blues. But there
could be sad blues, happy blues, work song blues. Basically jazz came from blues
and gospel.
E: What were the first records you put out yourself?
C: Blues records, for a company called Freedom Records. And I guess I put out
12 or 13 records. I wrote the music and recorded the band.
E: So these weren’t
released as Conrad Johnson records – you were the producer.
C: Right. I was hired by the studio to write and produce records.
E: Is this
how you made your name?
C: No, I made my name later with the high school bands.
E: We’ll get to
the stage band stuff later. How about in the 1950s?
C: Well, I was going around Houston. I was playing blues, but Jimmy Lunceford
influenced me. I still loved big bands!
E: In the late 1950s, r&b got bigger
and took over popular rhythm. How did you feel? You being a cat that was into
the jazz swing rhythm?
C: Well, I grew along with it. It wasn’t that far away from jazz. Just
a step. Sort of like rap. Rap is a bit further away from jazz, but it is still
close. So I got into the r&b thing. I played a lot of r&b gigs with
my band.
E: Which band?
C: It was called “Connie’s Combo.”
E: You know it’s interesting
– two great funk musicians, Sparks and the organist Leon Spencer, said
they met while playing with you in your combo.
C: That’s right.
E: You were playing with musicians of all ages –
Sparks and Spencer must have been in high school!
C: Right. Sparks was. I think he finished at the school were I was.
E: And Spencer
was attending school across the city at Yates High School – were you went.
He said you all met at a session and you introduced him to Sparks. This ends
up being a big deal ‘cause when Sparks moves to New York, he ends up taking
Spencer along with him and they played on a huge amount of soul jazz sessions
for leaders like Jack McDuff and Lou Donaldson.
C: Hey, I knew Lou. Oh yeah…
E: You’re percolating and instructing
a lot of musicians that would go on to be great in the funk scene!
C: Well, we had a lot of musicians that left Texas to go to New York and California
- and they made it. Just like Sparks and another one of my students, Wilton
Felder.
E: And some of your students went on to do incredible things locally.
Bubbha Thomas was an early student of yours, and he released some great jazz
and funk LPs on two Houston labels, Judnell and his own Lightin’.
C: Right. He was in the band in the early 60s. I instructed him on drums. You
know a lot of the guys that played with BB King’s band started with me.
E: When did you start teaching jazz band?
C I started teaching jazz band in high school at Booker T Washington. I taught
there for eleven years. I taught Sparks at Booker T.
E: You got a job at Kashmere
Senior High School and started leading the school’s stage band in 1969.
Why did you switch schools?
C: Well, the principal of Booker T. Washington, George Hanes, left and moved
to Kashmere, so I went there. I had a free run at the band. George was a musician
himself - a jazz drummer. He told me, “Listen, I want everybody to know
what you’re doing here. So I’m going to let you take off and do
jobs with the stage band, whether it’s school hours or not.” He
took a big responsibility ‘cause the teachers didn’t like that.
Anyway, that’s when the band got popular.
E: Could you explain the concept
of the stage band?
C: Basically, it’s the same concept as a big band, except that the musicians
were young kids.
E: Where is Kashmere High School located?
C: In North Houston. It’s predominantly a black school.
E: So most of the
musicians were black.
C: Now and then we’d have one white guy, or maybe a Mexican. But it was
mainly a black school.
E: Now another thing that everyone tells me is that you
always stayed abreast with popular music. When you first came to Kashmere, the
biggest music amongst young black kids was soul and funk. James Brown was the
king. Were you checking out funk artists, following the movement?
C: Yes. I knew what was popular. I enjoyed the music; to me the music had a
lot of power. But it had to be harnessed. That’s what I was trying to
do with my band, harness it.
E: So you start your kids on a diet of funk rhythms
and big band jazz arrangements. Did your students respect your vision? I mean,
you’re about fifty five years old and you’re leading them in covers
of “Super Bad!”
C: Oh man, I had the highest respect. When I said, “Do you want to try
this?” They’d say, “If you think we can do it, we’ll
do it.”
E: You’re credited by every jazz band educator that I’ve
spoken to in Houston as being the first to successfully meld the big band feel
with the funk rhythms.
C: Yeah, that might be true. When I first got to Kashmere the band was only
playing big band music. But I changed it.
E: And your kids responded so well,
they being the ones that were surrounded by the funk influence.
C: And I put the two together. The funk was powerful, but it was undisciplined.
I wanted to add that missing element.
E: A lot of band directors weren’t
teaching their kids, rather they were just walking them through performances.
Didn’t you take a more instructional role?
C: Exactly right. The kids didn’t know a thing about jazz. Look man, the
history would be transmitted as I taught. It entered as I taught.
E: Well, you
are living history.
C: I guess so…
E: Do you think that the crop of students you were drawing
from were inherently talented?
C: No, they didn’t have it until we worked with them. And we developed
that talent. See, I didn’t lead a band that you had to take a test to
join. The students would simply apply to enter the band. I’d let almost
all of them in, there were very few that I turned down.
E: So many hours a day
did you play with the students?
C: Well, if you include going on jobs and all that? At night I’d be with
them for like 4 or 5 hours. And during the regular school day I’d be with
them for like 2 or 3 hours.
E: Those kids, and the music, was – matter
of fact, it is – your life.
C: That’s true.
E: You dedicated so much to your students. Did they appreciate
you for this?
C: Oh yeah, before they came to me they didn’t know anything about the
music!
E: What was the catalyst to record the first Kashmere Stage Band LP –
“Our Thing” - in 1969? Why go into the studio?
C: OK, you asked me the question, now let me answer. I decided to record my
band because I had dreams to record – like any musician. But because I
was dealing with children, I said, “I’m going to let them do what
I want to do.” And I said that I’d record myself later. I put off
my desire for theirs.
E: You funded the initial record with Principal Hanes.
C: Well, we also made the money playing gigs.
E: And you were already a record
producer –
C: Yeah, see I had done this in the studio. I was doing this with blues groups.
I had about four blues singers. And I was producing them in the studio. I was
writing the music, rehearsing the band, and recording them.
E: What was it like
going from professional musicians to high school students?
C: Well, it was no problem. I just knew that I had to work a little harder.
E:
Do you remember the music from that first LP?
C: Well we did “Misty” for one thing. We covered “Take Five,”
but we did it in 4/4. That totally changed the feel.
E: Of course you added in
that funk backbeat.
C: Oh yeah, we did quite a bit of funk. You know, over the years, I wrote out
at least five funk charts for big band. The students really got into it. We
did really complex arrangements, but the kids got it. They played the heck out
of them.
E: How much did you have to work to get your kids to play so well? Your
high school students were as good as any funk band in the nation!
C: The thing about it is, they had to depend on me for interpretation and concept.
But they listened. And they got it! And once they did, it was right on the money.
It was there.
E: You know, I should make an important point - I’m asking
you about the records, ‘cause that’s the medium by which I was exposed
to the music. But your band was really into competitions.
C: That’s right. Competitions and performances.
E: So you’d record
the music only ‘cause people in the high school wanted to hear it.
C: Also so I would have a record to show the other kids the music they had to
learn. It worked even better than I could have thought, ‘cause by the
time the kids got to me they had bought the record and learned their solos!
So I just threw the music around and kept on stepping.
E: Did your kids pick
up the pace? Were they comfortable in the studio?
C: Of course! We did so many festivals and shows. At the end of the year the
kids were at their peak. So I didn’t have to do anything particularly
special in the studio, ‘cause I’d already done it preparing them
for concerts. I’d say, “We’re going to record. And I want
you to do exactly what you did at the stage band festivals.”
E: Was it
recorded live or did you track out the music?
C: Oh it was live. Let me tell you what. I told you that the band was a show
band. And when we went into the studio to record – well, the kids were
used to doing movements while they were playing. I tried to get them to do it
without moving, but they said they had to move – it gave them better time,
and a better feeling. So I let them do the movements while they played. It amazed
me. But they played better. They were dancing! Live, it blew the audiences mind.
That’s the history of the band. I set the trend for that whole era. We
knew when to dance. If it interfered with the music, we wouldn’t do it.
In other words, if there was a man taking a solo – we wouldn’t do
any pantomiming behind him. Why? ‘Cause it would take the peoples’
minds off the solo. See, many people trying to do this didn’t understand.
So while a person was soloing, the band was dancing around and it took away
from the solo.
E: Let’s talk about the sound of the band. Your progression
is easily heard. It goes from being more rough-hewn in the early days –
like your first version of “Thank You” (the 45) – to being
very polished. But still funky! Like the slower version of “Thank You”
from the Zero Point LP.
C: That’s right! You’re exactly right! When I was a kid, we would
walk twelve to fifteen miles and no one would bother us. So we’d walk
to this man’s house that had every record you could think of. And we would
sit and listen for hours. That was before I even finished high school. I knew
how a band was supposed to sound, having grown up listening to Duke Ellington.
E:
Especially in the tuning of the horns. Listening to a lot of stage band records,
I can only wish that the band director had been more careful in the way that
he tuned up his kids.
C: Right! You know why we were always in tune? The way I started the school
year off, I would tune for thirty minutes. If it took forty-five, I’d
tune for that long. I would NEVER PLAY out of tune. So, when we got to playing,
if anyone got out of tune, the band would stop and look around. This is what
developed. The students would pick up on the mistakes! They wouldn’t play
out of tune! They’d say, “We have to straighten this out.”
E:
You know another thing that differentiates your records from the records of
other stage bands is the sound quality. You wouldn’t just record your
stage band live at a contest and then release that as an album.
C: Yeah, I went into the studio. See, I made the sound one of the biggest things
that we did. Every day – EVERY DAY – we worked that sound the same
way. And it was a magic tone. And I figured I’d catch that best by recording
in the studio.
E: Now you released these records yourself. Who bought them, just
kids in the high school?
C: Oh no man, we sold them wherever we played. All those festivals that you
can read about on the back of the albums, we sold them there. Even when we went
to Europe, or Tokyo, Japan – we sold albums there. France even!
E: How
many copies of the albums were made?
C: Mostly we’d make 500. Sometimes we’d have to go back and get
another 500 made. At the most 1000 copies.
E: Talk to me about the funk rhythm
section. Almost all of the jazz you played was over funk rhythms.
C: I understood funk rhythms. The thing is, if a student came to me and said
he wanted to play funk it was OK. That was the music of the day. But I wouldn’t
let him play so loud that the other instruments couldn’t hear. But I also
wouldn’t make him play so softly that nobody could hear him. That was
the problem with the drummer in a lot of stage bands. When it got to a soft
part in the song, the drummer dropped out. And then the band had nothing to
go on! I kept that drum’s presence the whole time. And we always kept
the hands and the feet even.
E: You mean in the drum kit.
C: THAT’S RIGHT! See, that was the problem with a lot of bands. They didn’t
work on it.
E: Your drummers had it. Like Craig Green.
C: Oh yeah. Craig Green was one of the finest drummers I had. He was the one
who played on “Kashmere.”
E: Off of the Kashmere Stage Band Plays
Originals LP. Let’s talk about him. On “Kashmere” the work
he’s doing with the kick drum is so dynamic. And he never misses a fill.
Even when he transitions to the half time breaks! He’s so immaculate.
Was he a natural drummer?
C: Oh yeah, he was a natural. He played that song everywhere. On the road, at
gigs. I’ve developed drummers that could play that as well as he did.
But he was the best at the time.
E: “Kashmere” is a very powerful
song. Especially the breakdowns with the horn stabs. It fills the room!
C: That was the way I wrote the number. It was a drum feature, ‘cause
I had nothing to feature drums out of all that was going on at the time. So
when I wrote “Kashmere,” I had it feature the drums. And the drummer
had the two or four measure breaks, Craig was featured, and then the band would
come back in.
E: The best thing is, during the breaks he didn’t fall into
some esoteric solos, he stayed in the pocket.
C: That was the whole idea. That was the only way to get through the song properly.
That’s another mistake that band directors made – they gave the
drummer a solo and let him go for it. You don’ t do that! Stay in the
pocket!
E: Plays Originals has the distinct Kashmere Stage Band Sound, a sound
you achieved first on the Zero Point LP.
C: That’s true, and that was about my third or fourth album.
E: What lead
to the change in the sound? Your engineer Joel Johnson?
C: Well, it was maturity. Maturity in my kids. See, I had developed better tones.
By using my tuning technique…
E: But the recording was better.
C: That’s true, the studio learned to record us better.
E: Yeah, you had
the whole band in there.
C: Yup, about 18 pieces. I didn’t double any instruments. A lot of band
directors had seven or eight trumpets. I didn’t do that. I just did five
sax, four trumpet and four trombone.
E: Tell me about Gerald Calhoun… He
played on Zero Point and on “Kashmere.”
C: Oh he was one of the finest bass players I ever had. Count Basie played at
my school and he was sitting on my piano bench. And when he heard Gerald warming
up he made this statement to Ebony Magazine, “I went to the band room
at Kashmere. And while I was there I heard the bass player warm up on scales
and it blew me away.” He was that good, to impress Count Basie. Gerald
is playing and singing now.
E: What percentage of your students went on to play
music professionally?
C: Well, I wouldn’t be able to state a percent, but I’d estimate
about 10%. Not many. A lot of them went on to varying careers. One of my finest
trombone players became a member of the mounted police! I’ve been by to
see him many times, and every time I say, “Get your horn out!” (Laughs)
He was just a natural…
E: How old were Craig and your other students when
they recorded with you?
C: They couldn’t have been over 17 at that time. And they didn’t
come to the band playing like that. They studied for a while and then they started
playing that hard!
E: On to one of your last LPs, Out of Gas But Still Burning.
That LP contains the song “Kash Register,” which is Kashmere’s
most out and out funk song.
C: I know this.
E: Why did you want to record a song like that? Or was that something
that the Cold Fire subset wanted to do? For Cold Fire (of The Kashmere Stage
Band) is credited with writing and performing that song.
C: I capitalized on everything that came through that band. I had groups of
girls singing, and I had small groups recording outside of the band. With Cold
Fire I didn’t stand over them, I put them to work on their own material.
And they did a fabulous job. I believed in them, that’s why I released
the song as a 45. They recorded it well.
E: After Cold Fire left Kashmere High
School, you recorded them for Lightin’.
C: They went to Bubbha Thomas ‘cause they wanted to be recorded. See Bubbha
came under me; he was one of my students. Bubbha agreed to it. And they got
a great sound, oh yeah! I was proud of their sound!
E: How about Black Rain?
They released a 45 called “Spark Plug” that wasn’t on any
of the Kashmere Stage Band LPs.
C: Yeah, that was a little bit later on. But that was Kashmere too.
E: When
you first started bringing the band to contests, how long did it take before
you started sweeping the shows?
C: That is the question! It took about two and a half years before I really
got into it. The judges just didn’t want to believe it at first. They
would always make us tie or something. So I said, “OK, you want to make
ties, we’ll see about that.” So I went and wrote more music, and
came to find out later from one of the judges that the music I wrote was the
strongest.
E: You won so many competitions – 42 out of 46 between 1969
and 1978. I remember Buddy Smith said that one year you placed second and that
the audience couldn’t believe it. There was a huge controversy! You went
up against- and took out - white bands, black bands.
C: That’s right! And for many years I was the only black band in those
contests.
E: You were going up against programs with lots of money –
C: And plenty of teachers! They had private teachers!
E: And you were destroying
them. How?
C: It was the feeling of the band. I gave them the music. You see, the kids
didn’t know much about music when they came there. The students I was
teaching only knew the rock era. But I taught them jazz. And the way that they
understood it was uncanny. We won festival after festival. I was just inducted
into the Texas Bandmasters Hall of Fame. When I was at the ceremony, I saw band
directors that knew me from the years that I led Kashmere. And they said, “Man,
when we saw you in those competitions, we knew we were playing for second or
third place.” I trained my kids to try to win the contest. Give it all
you got and then don’t worry. And it worked. There would be times when
the kids came to me and they wanted to fight! And I said, “No, you can’t
fight ‘cause you’ll destroy your image.” Man, other kids would
tell them some ugly things. Kashmere played well and the kids couldn’t
beat them. I had to talk to my kids, man ‘cause these kids WOULD FIGHT!
E:
And they were mean looking dudes! On the Zero Point cover? Man!
C: (Laughs) Yeah, you see all of them! Look here, they could fight. But I controlled
them. And it ended up that the band directors and the students actually liked
them.
E: I find it interesting that other high school bands in Houston didn’t
start releasing records until you stopped releasing them. Howard Jones, Buddy
Smith and Ronald Thornton all released their LPs in the late 70s.
C: Well I started that and the idea of going out of the country.
E: You toured
Europe in 1973. That same year the mayor of Houston declared an official Kashmere
Stage Band day. Building off this success, you journeyed to Japan in 1975. How
did the Japanese take to these young, black Americans playing this most wonderful
mixture of jazz and funk?
C: They were blown away. We played at a college. The college’s group played
first. We listened to them and they sounded good. But you know that thing we
call “soul?” It just wasn’t there. Then we played! And when
we finished playing, the other band took off their beautiful, red jackets and
gave them to the Kashmere Stage Band. That was one of the neatest things I’d
ever witnessed.
E: So you had everybody shook. Even people that respected you.
Every bandleader I’ve spoken to admits how much he looked up to you! But
by the end of the 70s, changes in the administration wreaked havoc on stage
bands and the music programs.
C: It sure did, it sure did…
E: They basically forced you into retirement!
C: That’s right…
E: This was something I tried to get Buddy to explain,
and he was screaming and yelling! What a serious subject… Why would the
administration take something that was so positive and shut it down?
C: I was forced into retirement. Now listen to me. That is what I want to save
for my book. I don’t want to into that now, I want that to be fresh. I’ll
go into detail in my book.
E: Understood. But needless to say, if you could have
been leading the band into the 80s, you would have. And by the mid 80s stage
bands had fallen off. And you were doing the marching band too.
C: Concert band, marching band, stage band, symphonic band. Strings! Three dance
band, three of them! Really, I don’t see how I survived. What is was –
I did it to avoid a lot of other things. I don’t want to get into it right
now.
E: Fine. The year 2000. The funk movement came and went. Stage bands are
nothing like they used to be. Especially for young musicians in the black community,
there’s nothing left. Unless there’s people like Bubbha Thomas,
who has maintained his Summer Program for nearly twenty years. The kids have
to fend for themselves. And America is not set up to let minorities succeed.
C: No, it’s not.
E: Look back on those years that you lead the Kashmere
Stage Band. That was hope. When you look back, how do you view it as a whole?
C: Here’s the way I look at it. All of the people - this is true - all
of the people who saw that band perform and heard the magnificence in their
sound, and their work… Only those people will ever know. The records are
just a facsimile. Seeing and hearing that band perform was unexplainable. There
was nowhere for that band to go, they’d done everything. Once the kids
from Kashmere got to college, they saw that they had already one everything
that college bands were doing. So they weren’t interested in going there.
They would go to college, but some wouldn’t even play in the college band.
And a lot of kids stopped playing music altogether once they left the high school.
And I had some fine players! It upset me…
E: But this is offset by Wilton
Felder, Melvin Sparks, Bubbha Thomas. They continued on...Positive musicians
who have influenced so many.
C: They never gave up. My goal was to help the children understand. I had a
chance to witness jazz when it was in its infancy. I had the chance. I wanted
to spread that joy to the kids I taught.
E: How’d you get your musical start?
C: I started very young, my father played tenor sax.
E: Was he in a group?
C: Yes - Big Tiny and The Thunderbirds. I used to go to the rehearsals, I would
just bang on the drums a lot. I picked it up then. I was playing by the time
I got to elementary school.
E: When was this?
C: Well, I was born in 1954. When I went to Kashmere High School, I had just
turned 18. I was zoned to another high school in my junior year. I had met “Prof”
when I was in junior high. Kashmere was playing in a jazz festival and my junior
high band was playing there. They had this guitar player that was just outstanding
- Johnny Reason. Johnny was talking to me, he said, “You really ought
to come to Kashmere.” So in my senior year, I decided “This is my
last chance to go.” My parents didn’t know I was going to go. I
would take my little sister to the school they thought I was going to, and I
had enrolled myself in Kashmere. So I would drop her off and drive to Kashmere
and go to school. I got away with that for a couple months and then the registrar
discovered that I was living outside of Kashmere’s zone. They sent me
back to my home school. But when my father saw how important it was for me to
attend Kashmere, he went and rented an apartment in the Kashmere zone and lived
with me. He and I moved out of our house into an apartment, for a couple months,
so we could meet the residency requirements!
E: By this time, you’d been
drumming for quite some time.
C: I had been drumming for at least 6 or 7 years. That was my first love. The
only reason I wanted to go to Kashmere was for the stage band. It was Conrad’s
leadership and the musicians in the band. I was going to a school that had a
real strong junior high jazz band. We would be at festivals and I’d come
across the Kashmere band. As I talked to guys in the band , (I noticed) they
were always excited about music, focused on what they wanted to do. It was a
joy to be around young musicians, my age, that were that into the music. That’s
why I had to got to Kashmere– to get into that environment.
E: And Conrad
was a great educator.
C: “Prof” was very enthusiastic, and serious about what he wanted.
His expectations matched what I wanted to do. He said, “Children can do
whatever you give them to do.” His expectations were high. I liked to
play music that I thought professionals were playing.
E: What year was it when
you came to Kashmere?
C: I got there in 1972. There was a lot of talk of me getting there before I
arrived. They had a favorite son - there was a guy there that everybody said
was THE drummer. One day I was driving a motorcycle with a friend of mine down
one of the streets in the community and he was in the garage playing his drum
set. My friend talked me into going over to where he was. We went over to his
house and we got to talking and I told him who I was. Everyone (present) was
like, “Oh yeah, this is the guy that everybody’s talking about coming
to Kashmere! Well go on and play!” So I played a little bit and everybody
went back to the school saying, “This guy that’ s coming is gonna
cut everybody’s head!” So by the time I got there, there was already
a word that I was coming - that I was gonna take over. That wasn’t my
intention, I just wanted to come be in the band. But when I got there, after
I started playing, it pretty much became me being the top player over there.
E: What records did you record with the band?
C: Well, I was on Kashmere 73, and then Plays Originals. “Prof”
had a professional band, a singing group called the Royal Temps, so we would
go into the studio recording different things with different groups. And I kinda
didn’t keep up with that. I was just glad to be doing it. I don’t
know which songs I was on.
I think I was on “Scorpio.”
E: “Scorpio” – the
Kashmere version is stunning! How did the band get so good at playing funk?
Was it because it was the hippest music out at the time?
C: We listened to a lot of musicians, that’s one thing “Prof”
would always do. He would bring in a lot of professional guys from the area
and have them play. We would go out and listen to bands play all the time. We
had a group - the Nut, Bolt and Screw company. We’d do gigs, or get together
and jam a lot, listen a lot. Gerald Calhoun (bassist on “Kashmere”)
and I used to practice all the time. It could just be the two of us. We’d
get so into it - we’d just fall out on our instruments going crazy, doing
what we tried to do. My theory, when I was developing, was to be able to play
anything I heard. I listened to funk music - a lot of James Brown, I grew up
on that. I listened to a lot of Harvey Mason, he’s my mentor more of less.
I listened to Bernard Purdie, Billy Cobham. Danny Seraphin with Chicago. Dave
Garibaldi. I wanted to emulate that style, but back then we were all about trying
to get a lot of syncopation. I was trying to push the limits of what I came
up with and be able to keep time.
E: A perfect example of that drive is “Kashmere”
– your showcase piece.
C: I was given that song and given two bar breaks. The idea was never to leave
the pocket. I think it was a Barry White song, “I’m Going To Love
You…” I took that idea and used it in “Kashmere,” ‘cause
it sounded like it would work there. When “Prof” first brought the
song, he told me he had something he was writing that he wanted me to play on.
But he didn’t tell me what to do with it. So when I heard it, I just thought
that that beat would go with it.
E: It just felt right?
C: It’s the type of feel I thought “Kashmere” should have.
One thing about “Prof,” he allowed you to be creative. To express
the ideas you thought would work, as long as it didn’t conflict with anything
he thought should happen That’s where I got the idea for that beat. And
“Kashmere” required it to be up a notch.
E: It must have been tough,
at that elevated tempo, to keep that energy up.
C: That was the whole idea- in the pocket, stay in the pocket. Keep the groove
steady. Don’t let the tempo fluctuate, but keep the energy up and give
a little interesting turn around here and there.
E: Do you remember any live
performances with the Kashmere Stage Band?
C: We played that song live for a jazz festival at Sam Houston State University.
I think Roy Haynes really was knocked out by what I was doing - he came down
and talked to me about it. When I went to school at NTSU, Ron Fink in the drum
dept was asking me about that song. When I did a jury I was showing them how
I played the beats I was playing. I didn’t have much input in my jury,
‘cause I was breaking down the things I was doing, so they could pick
it up. So they could do it, so I said, “Something is wrong here! I’m
up here to learn what they have to offer and I’m explaining what I do.”
E:
How long did you attend NTSU? And are you featured on any of the NTSU Lab Band
albums?
C: I went to NTSU for two years. I didn’t record though.
E: Did you think
that over 25 years later that funk fans would be so into Kashmere’s albums?
Or your drumming?
C: No, not really. Because we were all excited, we had gone to the studio, had
a chance to hear ourselves play back, but no one else really seemed like they
were interested - beyond our families. Over the years we’ve talked about
it, to the point where we’ve probably got on some people’s nerves!
Some said it wasn’t important to anyone but us. But I’ve always
thought that somebody should (put “Kashmere” song out). In Houston
especially - we have so many outstanding jazz band programs, some of which have
recorded. There should be a radio show or something to show the work that’s
gone on, and continues to go on in the schools there. We get to see football,
and all the high school sports, but we get no exposure on the music end. I think
that’ s something that would be good for the schools and people in general.
E:
Man, what was it about Houston and the wonderful musicians that have sprung
up from there?
C: There’s always been a lot of competition, and at that time there was
a camaraderie among the young musicians that showed a love for the music and
each person’s ability to play. At least until they stole my car.
E: What?!
C: They stole my car at Kashmere. I had my drums in there, and I said to myself,
“This sounds like a conspiracy.” I made some enemies once I started
playing over there. Enemies in the band. I felt it was a retaliation for people
saying I was the best drummer over there. One day someone said to me, “Hey
your car iss going down the street.” I was glad in a way, ‘cause
I was able to get a new drum set after that happened. I found my original drums
in a pawn shop, later.
E: You mentioned that you attended NTSU after your short
stint at Kashmere. What happened since?
C: After graduation, I came back and finished at the University of Houston with
an undergraduate degree in music, and a graduate degree in music education.
Now, I’m band director at Johnston Middle School, a performing and visual
arts magnet school. My school is a feeder school for the High School For The
Performing Arts.
E: So you’re bestowing the same knowledge that “Prof”
passed along to you.
C: I had good experiences at a young age, and I’ve passed on as much as
I can to the children I’ve had. I’ve had quite a few pursue music,
there are some playing professionally.