Gigi Gryce: Unknown Audio Interviews Alone and with Art Farmer (+Bonus)

(Paying Subscribers: Thanks to researcher and jazz theorist Masaya Yamaguchi, your gift at the bottom is a fascinating and rare Gryce sheet music folio, with the relevant recordings.)

Here is another in our series of interviews conducted for Swedish radio by the late Claes Dahlgren. You can find biographical information about him, and his other interviews, by using the Index. As with the others, this has only been heard in Sweden, and that was more than 70 years ago! So I think it is certainly fair to say that these are “unknown.”

We generally don’t have the exact dates that the interviews were recorded, but we do have the date when Dahlgren wrote his narrator’s script, which was usually just a few days later. This script is dated June 9, 1956, so the interview was probably conducted in early June.

Art Farmer and Gigi Gryce both recalled that they met at Farmer’s recording session on July 2, 1953, for which Gryce wrote one piece. The date was originally released on a 10-inch LP and was later issued on this 12-inch LP:

That fall, they both toured Europe as members of Lionel Hampton’s big band. At the time of this interview around early June 1956, Farmer and Gryce were working together in a quintet, in between gigs with other groups. Claes interviewed them together:

At 2:00, Gryce mentions that he works a lot as a composer and arranger, but that it’s not always work that he finds “agreeable,” just a way to make a living. Dahlgren at 2:40 mentions that Farmer seems to be always growing as a player, and Art replies that he hasn’t really been studying but that he’s been lucky to work with good players, which leads one to improve. At 3:25, Gigi discusses the latest recording of their quintet:

Now, let’s listen to an interview with Gryce alone. The narrator’s script for this one is dated July 5, 1961. Claes opens by asking about Gigi’s current version of “Take the ‘A’ Train,” recorded in November 1960 by Gryce’s sextet which included vibraphonist Eddie Costa. Asked about new developments at 1:30, Gryce says there really haven’t been any since Duke Ellington. Again, he says that he does more writing than ideally he would wish to. He feels that “soul jazz” is just a fad (3:00). And at 3:45 he talks about his moody slow piece “Reminiscing,” which you can hear performed by his sextet here, also recorded in November 1960.

As an addendum to the above interview, here is an excerpt that wasn’t broadcast at the time, where Gryce says more about how Duke was really the innovator, and that bebop builds on that. As for soul jazz, and avant-garde “spacemen” music—in his judgement, none of it is new:

The biographical book about Gryce is available here.

We are able to hear this recording 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 newsletter Only —no other copying or publishing of this recording is allowed without prior approval. Let us all please honor this, in which case more interviews will be coming your way. (I promise you that I have some additional amazing ones lined up!) In short, do not post the audio of this interview anywhere else—but please do share the link to this page with everyone you know! (If you see the word “Share” below, just click on that.)

All the best,
Lewis

P.S. Paying Subscribers: Thanks to researcher and jazz theorist Masaya Yamaguchi, your gift at the bottom is a fascinating and rare Gryce sheet music folio, with the. relevant recordings.