Oliver Nelson: Unknown Audio Interviews, & Concert at Eastman (+Bonus)
(Paying Subscribers, your gifts today are a long feature article on Nelson from Ebony magazine, and his innovative music book Patterns for Improvisation.)
By the early 1960s, Oliver Nelson (1932-1975) had become one of the most original and in-demand composers and arrangers in jazz, and soon he was to become very busy writing film and television scores in Hollywood. (Many of his compositions are available here.) He was also a unique and powerful saxophone soloist. So it was a shock when he died suddenly in October 1975 at the age of 43 from what appeared to be a heart attack. His son went on to become an accomplished saxophonist and educator.
Nelson left behind a number of print interviews, but today you’ll hear what might be his only audio interviews, conducted by the Swedish jazz journalist Claes Dahlgren. These were only ever heard on Swedish radio, and that was over 60 years ago. As you may recall from other interviews that we’ve posted by Dahlgren, these were originally done on reel-to-reel tapes, and in those days editing the tapes for radio broadcast meant literally cutting them (with a razor or scissors) and taping the desired pieces in order. So we will hear the interviews as they survive today, with some splices and some “off the record” conversation, and a lot that was never broadcast.
Dahlgren’s script (he always wrote out his narration and questions) for the first two segments is dated February 26, 1962. This means the interview was conducted most likely in mid-February. The main topic is Nelson’s first major recorded compositional work, Afro/American Sketches (that’s how it’s written on the album cover). This was recorded in the Fall of 1961 and released early in 1962, so it was brand new at the time of the interview. Dahlgren’s English was excellent, but when he says the album has “shaken up” himself and others, he means it in a positive sense—that it has had a big impact.
Dahlgren first asks Nelson to describe the origin of the suite. There is an awkward splice right at 0:22, and the name of the “A&R man” who proposed the idea of the album is missing. (A&R stands for Artists and Repertoire and is essentially the role of a producer.) It was Esmond Edwards, a photographer for Prestige Records who by this time was also supervising albums. He later produced many important albums for a great variety of artists and labels, and was an important Black pioneer in the recording business. Nelson explains that he was concerned to apply classical techniques (in which he had a Masters degree), without losing contact with his Black heritage. At 3:15 Dahlgren asks if this is protest music, and Nelson says it’s not his nature to protest or to be angry. Let’s listen:
Next, below is a long segment that is assembled from unedited material and spliced passages. For example, there’s a noise at 1:22, they talk a little between questions at 2:35 and at the very end. And there are also some splices— for example at 9:35 they are suddenly discussing a new piece involving “male and female,” but the name of it was spliced out.
This segment begins right after the first question in the previous segment. Nelson finished (at 3:10 above) by saying that jazz itself didn’t come from Africa, but it had roots there. Dahlgren has a follow-up question about that but he stumbles over it a bit, which is why that portion wasn’t used. Then he asks Nelson to talk about the instrumentation, and he notes, intriguingly, that he wanted to add singers (probably a choir) but Prestige “didn’t go along with it.” Then he describes each movement in detail. To follow his descriptions, you will enjoy listening to the full album here or here (both are free). Also, just below this audio you will find the liner notes by Nelson himself, which amplify his spoken explanations:
Here are the notes from the album. I’m using the British edition because it’s the highest resolution copy that I have:
From today’s viewpoint, it’s a little disturbing to hear Nelson say, at the end of the above audio, that he doesn’t seem to need as much sleep as he used to do. At the end of the third segment, below, he specifies that he works all night and gets 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night. This is worrisome because ever since he suddenly died, there has been a theory among musicians that he drove himself too hard—and it might be true.
In any case, this last audio is from a separate short interview that was conducted about a year later, around the beginning of March, 1963. The topic this time is mostly the so-called “third stream,” a term that was coined by Gunther Schuller to apply to pieces that combine jazz and classical music into a third genre. Nelson says that many such pieces sound too artificial. He considers George Russell to be very successful at combining the two, but John Lewis not so much. At the end, he tells us about a work that he will write for Reverend John Gensel, the long-time “jazz pastor” of New York City:
Finally, let’s listen to a piece by Oliver Nelson that was only performed and recorded once, at a special 50th anniversary concert at the Eastman School of Music, in Rochester, New York, March 4, 1972. Let’s listen to his “Piece For Studio Orchestra and Soloist”:
You can find the complete score, with explanation, in this book by saxophonist, composer, educator and Eastman alumnus Rick Lawn: Jazz Scores and Analysis, Vol. 2.
Below is the program from Nelson’s residency at Eastman. In it you will find bios of Nelson, trumpeter-composer-jazz faculty Chuck Mangione and arranging professor and jazz chair Ray Wright (I previously shared my memories of them), as well as the complete personnel of the studio orchestra:
And here are photos from the occasion. Top left, Nelson at the blackboard during a master class; top right, teaching the class with Mangione (wearing his trademark hat) in front of him and Wright standing in back; bottom left, Nelson, Mangione and Wright studying the score during rehearsal; bottom right, the concert.
We are able to hear the interviews thanks to the generosity of The Claes Dahlgren Collection at The Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research (Svenskt visarkiv). I want to personally thank Wictor Johansson, head of the audiovisual collections, and Jörgen Adolfsson, research archivist and musician, for their kind assistance.
Please Note that permission was given for the audio to appear in this series Only —no other copying or publishing of these recorded interviews is allowed without prior approval. Let us all please honor this—do not post the audio of this interview anywhere else—but please do share the link to this page with everyone you know! (Copy the URL, or if you see the word “Share” below, just click on that.)
All the best,
Lewis
P.S. For help with this essay, a big thank you to David Peter Coppen, Special Collections Librarian and Archivist at the Sibley Library of the Eastman School.
