Bassist Ron McClure In Russia with Charles Lloyd, Jarrett, & DeJohnette, from Ron's New Book

[The well-known bassist Ron McClure is my friend and neighbor on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He worked for years on a memoir full of candid and entertaining tales of his life and his experiences with Monk, Wes Montgomery, Dave Liebman, Sarah Vaughan, and many, many others. I recently took on the task of editing the book, and it is now a completed 700-page PDF titled Bass In Time, richly illustrated from Ron’s own photo collection, plus posters and news clippings. Among the many positive responses, guitarist and composer Jarno Kukkonen, faculty member at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, writes, “I can’t think of any biography as interesting as this!” The PDF is available for $20 by writing to Ron at: mcjolt@icloud.com or rondixmcclure@gmail.com. Below is an exclusive excerpt of Ron’s book for your enjoyment!]

With Charles Lloyd in Russia

by Ron McClure

I began writing what became this book at age 26, on this tour. It was so emotional, so unusual, and so historically important that I felt compelled to write about it in my room on any scraps of paper that I could find. I primitively documented the events of that trip in May 1967, in my sloppy handwriting. The anticipation of being the first Americans to perform at a Russian Jazz Festival was in itself enough pressure for me to start writing about what I was feeling and experiencing.

I had joined Charles Lloyd, Keith Jarrett, and Jack DeJohnette in late January 1967, after Cecil McBee left the Lloyd quartet. May 8th, 1967, was the day of our flight from New York to Helsinki, Finland, and ironically it was also Keith’s birthday. When we got to Helsinki on May 9th, I felt unwell, but record producer George Avakian, who was also Charles Lloyd’s manager, pleaded with me, regardless of how sick I felt, to go play for an hour or so at a local jazz club. He succeeded in talking me into going with him, Keith and Jack, because it would mean so much to the Finnish people who expected to hear us play. Of course, he also wanted to document the event for historical reasons. This wasn’t an official gig, but George had already arranged to have people from the media recording it. There were journalists and musicians important to his overall mission—which was to bring jazz to the Soviet Union.

We went to the club, and I played “I’ll Remember April” on piano instead of bass, with Jack playing bass and Keith playing drums on at least one tune! As soon as I got there and saw how excited the people were to see us, I realized how important our being there was for them, and I suddenly felt fine. The power of music was at work, once again.

We left the port of Helsinki on the ferry early on the warm and sunny morning of Wednesday, May 10th, having neither a contract nor itinerary. We didn’t know what would happen to us when we arrived in Russia. None of us knew what had been agreed upon between the organizers and the government. The Cold War between the U.S.A. and Russia was still very much a factor, and all we knew was that we were about to break new ground, while having no idea how we would be received by the Russian government, or the Russian people—that is, if we even actually got to play at the Tallin Jazz Festival.

We boarded the ferry for the 80 kilometers (50 mile), several hours journey across the Gulf of Finland to Tallin, the capitol of Estonia, in the U.S.S.R. We were about to become the first American group to perform at the Tallin International Jazz Festival. But our historic performance in Russia would never have come to fruition, had it not been for the passion, skills and connections of Avakian, an Armenian born in Russia who spoke the language. George had collaborated for months with his Russian counterparts, such as Alexey Batashev, the leading jazz historian there, who was himself a musician and was trying to promote and advance jazz in the Soviet Union. George had previously arranged for Benny Goodman to perform in Russia in 1962, and he never stopped trying to bring other American groups there.

I unpacked my bass and played it on the ferry with Charles. Jack played an abbreviated version of his drum kit, but there was no piano for Keith. We went forward to the bow of the ship and waited for our first glimpse of the U.S.S.R. As we approached the coastline, a gunboat rushed towards us, and nobody was throwing flowers and blowing kisses to welcome us. Instead, there was a machine gunner at the bow of the Soviet ship, with an expression on his face that wasn’t saying “Hi guys, welcome to Russia.” It was very clear that we weren’t welcomed guests, and jazz was still being discouraged by the communists. Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. We cleared their version of “Customs & Immigration,” and were hustled off to our hotel, where we spent most of our time in Tallin. The official word was that they weren’t sure if they would allow us to play, but we were required to sit in the front row of the Kalev Sports Hall every night, and listen to groups mostly from Eastern Europe and even Siberia. Some of the groups, especially Polish and Czech bands, were quite good. Each of us had been assigned our very own personal KGB officer, who stationed themselves outside our individual hotel rooms. They were dressed like Dick Tracy and acted as if they thought we had no clue that they were watching us, night and day, for the entire time we were in Tallin.

I had a Canon camera that suddenly jammed—the film wouldn’t wind—so I went out of the hotel and looked for a camera shop. I found one, but it only had Russian cameras, and the shopkeeper pretended that he couldn’t help me, most likely because my personal KGB dude had followed me through the streets and was standing just outside the door to his shop. There was smoke billowing from the nearby paper mill, which tainted the sky yellow, and created an odor similar to the “Tacoma Aroma” which I later noticed on our trip to the state of Washington.

I walked around the streets, looking for fruits and vegetables, but there was nothing to be found. We existed on powdered eggs, dark bread and caviar, which was just about all there was to eat at the hotel. Late in the afternoons, young men would come to our hotel bar and restaurant after work and order pitchers of vodka, which they drank from tall glasses, as if it was water. They’d stagger out of the hotel after getting totally inebriated, and would return like clockwork the following afternoon. Life in Tallin in 1967 didn’t seem dull at best.

There were children playing basketball in a schoolyard near our hotel. They had climbed through a hole in the fence between the street and the playground. When they saw us watching them they waved for us to join them, so we obliged them and shot some hoops with these grade-school aged boys. One of the boys asked me for some American coins. When I reached into my pocket, the boy said “Not here. We’re being watched.” So we agreed to come back the following day to play with them again. We returned to the playground the next afternoon, accompanied by American cameramen from CBS and NBC News, who tagged along to document this historic event. To our dismay, the hole we had climbed through in the fence the day before had been securely mended and there was no sign of the kids.

[Lew notes: The Lloyd quartet actually showed up to perform on Friday May 12 and were asked to leave. The news got picked up in the U.S.A. Here is a short notice from the Long Beach, California Press-Telegram on May 13, 1967:]

[Ron continues:]

As the high drama increased daily, I realized how important this tour was. George Avakian spent his days and nights negotiating with government and festival officials, who didn’t give us permission to play until Sunday, May 14th, the last day of the festival. We had heard every note that every group played during their hour-and-a-half concerts, but we were told that we could only play for 30 minutes, for obvious and politically motivated reasons. We opened with Keith’s composition, appropriately named “Days and Nights Waiting,” which he had written in his room during the torturous time of waiting to learn if we would be allowed to play or not. It’s the first track on the Atlantic Records album Charles Lloyd Live in the Soviet Union. When we finished our 47-minute set, the audience went wild, causing the KGB to walk through the audience, telling them to sit down and be quiet, because they were “acting like children.” We were followed immediately by a string orchestra which played the ballad “Laura,” in order to calm down the audience who came to hear the Americans, of course.
[Lew notes: There were reports in the American papers. Here’s one from Traverse City, Michigan’s Record-Eagle on May 15:]

Later we went to Moscow. I will tell you that story in a bit. Meanwhile, here I am in the famous Red Square:

[Thank you Ron, for sharing these amazing memories. There is much more in Ron’s book of course. We will share another excerpt soon. The complete 700-page PDF is available for $20 by writing to Ron at: mcjolt@icloud.com or rondixmcclure@gmail.com }

All the best,

Lewis