Tristano: An Unpublished Interview Transcript (+Bonus)+New Postscript!

(A short funny new postscript is at the bottom!)

(First, You should take a minute and revisit my Paul Simon essay to see the new postscript from a subscriber at the bottom—short and funny! Also, a subscriber solved the Monk mystery tune, and it’s not Monk.)

(Paying Subscribers, your gift at the bottom is a complete 1958 magazine with rare interviews of Tristano, Monk and his family, Earl Hines, Hank Jones, Randy Weston, and more!)

The first college course I ever taught was jazz history at the Experimental College division of Tufts University, thanks to its dean, Robyn Gittleman, who became one of my mentors. It was the spring semester, January through early May, of 1977, and I was only 25. There were about 20 students in the class and I required them to write a final paper. One young woman, who has asked to remain anonymous, chose to interview Lennie Tristano (1919-1978) by phone in March or April 1977 and to write a detailed report. Tristano asked her not to record, but she wrote down everything he said, and the written transcript rings true—it sounds like the Tristano that we know from his few recorded interviews. She also spoke with a few of his students. [Please note, I have added a few clarifications in brackets like this.] Here’s the interview:

An Unpublished Interview with Lennie Tristano, March/April 1977

by a Tufts University undergraduate student

Most fans and critics were very taken aback by what Lennie Tristano was performing during the forties and fifties. Tristano retreated and had almost a cult following of musicians who gladly became his students. This circle of Tristano devotees continues today. If Lennie likes you and you are involved with his philosophy of thought and music, you can study with him for twenty dollars a lesson. Lessons are erratic, but from all accounts, always worthwhile.

Tristano plays the role of demigod, especially to his students, so that he may command respect. Lessons range anywhere from ten minutes to an hour. If you have practiced up to Tristano's ideal, he very well may say, "That's good, you can go." This depends on his mood and the strategy of the particular learning experience. Sometimes he will also tell you to go if he feels you are wasting his time that day. Discipline and experimentation are a must. These early dismissals are quite motivating, I am told. Usually, however, Tristano spends much time and effort on his students. He assigns tapes to listen and play to, and albums he deems worthwhile. Tristano also welcomes his students to bring him contemporary music to listen to, as he likes to keep aware of trends in jazz and other forms of music.

He is also very much involved with the voice. The theory goes that you can not play in tune if you can't sing in tune. One must really hear and feel the music to further extend it to an instrument. He may have you scat a tune to the point of mastery before translating it further to your instrument

Tristano does not only teach piano. He also teaches improvisation on flute, saxophone, and bass. All lessons are given in his large house in the borough of Queens, N.Y.C. There is a music studio built into his home.

One Sunday night, I decide I am finally going to call up Lennie Tristano. As the phone rings, my heart beats the music of warning, my stomach is ready to fight or flee. It takes Lennie eight rings to answer the phone, and I wonder if that is because he is blind. His voice is raspy like the cheshire cat’s. I tell him I must write a paper on someone in the jazz world, that I admire him greatly, and ask, would he answer some questions for me. He says that he is teaching, but that he will talk to me another time. He suggests late Monday. But, first he says, "Wait a minute. Let me go look at my schedule." When I ask him if 11p.m. is too late to call, he exclaims."Hell no, honey, I'm up all night. That's when I do all my work!"

So I call back. He knows who I am right away. He immediately blurts out, "No tape recorders,” and I know my writing hand is in for a rough time. He tells me to ask him anything, anything at all—he won't answer if he doesn't want to, but feel free to ask. So, I ask him what he does to all hours of the night. He practices: "When I'm really into something, I practice eight to twelve hours a day." “What are you into just now?,” I wonder. "Playing a [melodic] line," he answers, "[with] chords behind. Being as spontaneous as possible. Playing enough that whatever happens will happen."

And then he asks me if I play a musical instrument. So, I tell him that I play the sax, but that I took it up in my old age, and have only been playing a year. He laughs and asks me how old I am. When I tell him twenty, he laughs some more, and tells me that he is an old man, that I do not know what old age is. "How much do you play, honey? If that's what you really want to do, you must do it always." I explain that I do not play very much, because writing is my real passion. Immediately, Lennie fancies me a composer. But I set him straight: ”l compose words, not music. I write prose."

"Oh, do you write poetry too?" Some, I say. "Do you know Emily Dickinson? She's my favorite woman poet, I have everything she ever wrote. Not only her poetry, three volumes of her letters. She is so beautiful, man. Dig this, man. She was absolutely beautiful, and fucking great, and dig this, her agent never did shit for her. It was her sister who got her published after she died.”

I ask him if he reads a lot, and he says yes. Then he asks me if I am into art, and I nod furiously, and he knows that I have nodded furiously. "If you're into art, that's where you are. I can't stand bullshitters." He wants to know if I listen to music. It accompanies most everything I do, I return. Now he sounds angry: "Probably what you hear is bubblegum schlock: ‘Torn Between Two Lovers.’ Preteens love it, is why it makes it—they have the bread to buy these records."

I admit that I am stubborn, that I would not even listen to jazz until two years ago, that I just said I didn't like it without even knowing. He says he likes stubborn women, that he is stubborn too. "Because I write, I am into words," I declare. ”I thought music could only be good with lyrics.” He responds, ”You should get into Billie Holiday. She really sings those lyrics."

I ask him who his greatest student is now. Who holds the most promise? "Listen," he confides, "you'll be glad to hear who my greatest student is because she is a woman." I already know he is going to name Connie Crothers (1941-2016) because Lennie produces all her concerts, and albums, so I make the guess. He is glad that I know who she is, and I am glad that I like her. "Connie is great. Completely beautiful. Can you imagine improvising four-part counterpoint—four lines happening at one time? Two different rhythms, while improvising with her right hand. I want to tell you where it is really at. The asshole critics will not cover her because she is a woman. She's in her thirties."

This makes me angry too, because not only am I a woman, but I am a person, and this lack of human decency and love enrages me. And I like her playing, so I am doubly insulted. "You're sweet, and I love you already," says Lennie. Yes, he is a real charmer. He knows what you might like to hear. But he has no reason to charm me or anyone else in this world, and I know that he means what he says. I am touched, as if his saying that makes everything okay.

He continues, “The press would not cover her concert. Gave no excuses. Women are going to have a hard time no matter what the art form. If you don't have balls, that's it for you. How can a woman have balls? She’s got guts and brains and talent. Women got it all." He asks me if I am into the [Women’s Liberation] Movement. Yes. He wants to know if I will change my name if I get married. I say I think not. He says, “Don't you do it. Keep your name because it is yours, change it if you like, but don't ever take a man's name. Since the mid sixties when women's lib took off, I've been into that completely. I'm glad the movement is fragmented. If it weren't, they'd get completely fucked up. There are so many factions, so they survive. Some lesbians say they don't need men, that they want to kill them. Parthenogenesis is the answer, so you don't need men to produce a baby."

"Takes all the fun away," I joke, in the spirit of things. “Takes all the beautiful love away," Lennie trills. "I've loved women for a million years." I can tell. "Kate [Millett] and Gloria [Steinem] sold out. Ms. Magazine is about as slick as you can get. The most beautiful thing to happen in the 20th century was that women said, ‘Listen baby, fuck you, I am a woman, dig it, I want to be what I am, dyke or lesbian or heterosexual or anything.’ We taught our young boys to be physical, period. We taught our young girls to be emotional, period."

I ask him how he knows so much about women."I've been married twice," he says proudly. I have four kids. Steven is twenty-five, Bud, named after Bud Powell, is eighteen, Tania is seventeen, and Carol is fifteen. They're all just beautiful because I raised them until their mother took them away from me. I mean changing all those shitty diapers. I did not toilet train them. I just waited until they wanted to be clean. That means I had to do all the dirty work. When I played the piano, one would sit at the table and draw, and one would fall asleep under the piano, and one would dance all over the place. I was completely open with them, so they love me. ‘What does '“fuck” mean, papa?,’ they say. I explained everything to them. When they saw crap like that written on a wall, it did not matter, because papa told them.”

"Will you ever play in public again?" I ask. "You cut out of the whole scene so long ago."

"I hate the nightclub scene. I started at twelve or thirteen. My first gig was in a whore house [in Chicago]—this was going on in the early thirties. On the first floor they had music. The cats and chicks would sort each other out and find who they wanted to go upstairs with. And I didn't know what was going on. The whores loved me. They were really sweet. They'd get me on their laps and talk to me. That's why I didn't know what was going on. I did that dumb shit all my life. Bar-mitzvahs, weddings, political rallies. In 1946 I came to New York and decided not to do that shit anymore, play the music I wanted to play instead. I was twenty-seven years old. It was the turning point in my life."

"What about the other musical instruments you used to play, Lennie?"

"I used to play two saxes at a time, both in my mouth. I played a tenor and an alto—my left hand on the alto, my right hand on the tenor—so I could get a lot of groovy shit going. I worked with an accordion player. We sounded like a big band. I also played three clarinets at a time.”

"Am I gullible or what, because I believe you. I mean you’ve got me convinced that you played three clarinets at a time, while I ponder getting my embouchure right on one sax," I giggle to Lennie.

"I dig you. I would never lie to you. I played one with the left hand, one with the right, and an open G [requiring no fingers] on the middle clarinet. I could do ‘Old Black Joe,’ which too many people didn't appreciate. [From Lew: That’s because it is a mid-1800s minstrel song, by Stephen Foster.] I also played the trumpet with my right hand, accompanying with my left hand on the piano. Before I took it seriously, I did everything. I also played the guitar. I had one wooden and one metal clarinet, alto, tenor and C-melody saxes, a trumpet, trombone, guitar, and ukulele. I finally realized if I was going to be serious, I would have to settle on one instrument, the piano. I was best at piano. I sold everything but the trumpet."

"Aw, you shouldn't have sold them.” I mourn the instruments.

"Yes, yes, I had to. When I had all my instruments, I had to play them all, so I could not concentrate on one. I was playing the piano before I could remember playing the piano. ‘Come on motherfucker,’ I said to myself, ‘give it up and play one.’"

I tell him that everyone who comes into my apartment and hears Crosscurrents [an LP that contained his groundbreaking 1949 recordings] says “What is that? It's wonderful.” I make him know how much I love that album.

He says,"I love hearing that. You can flatter me. I love it. I was one of the first people who thought, if two to five musicians got together and didn't play a tune, it would work. Just play together. It didn't start to happen until the sixties. I did it in 1949. We used to do it in clubs before then. Everyone thought it was great. They got hung up when I said it was totally improvised. We played Bach fugues too—I’m sorry I didn't record it. Konitz and Marsh played two- and three-part inventions, and it was beautiful and everyone loved it. I didn't say what was happening until it was over. People thought we were just playing jazz.”

[From Lew: Although he didn’t record Bach in a studio, there is an example played by Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh on a 1950 performance tape that was released after Tristano’s death. Actually this is a “fughetta,” or “little fugue,” BWV (Bach works catalog) number 899:

You can hear the Bach original here, with score, on a keyboard of Bach’s day, which was tuned lower than modern instruments. Now, back to the Tristano interview:]

“I hate the night club scene. It costs too much money to hear good music. The whole atmosphere is totally different from what it was thirty years ago. I've been doing small concert scenes. I've thought of opening my own nightclub. After two in the afternoon, you're not safe anymore [from thieves], that’s why I never did it."

We get off the subject. I tell him how good he has been, that I have enjoyed talking with him so much, and was scared stiff at the prospect of calling him up. I thought he'd tell me to leave him alone. I know how he feels about reporters and all the various people who have interviewed and recorded him in the past. He has been burned a lot, which is why he retreated from the fire so long ago.

He responds, ”I liked the way you sounded. I go strictly by that. You sounded real. You sound good to me." This is an ego trip for me. "People all belong to a certain species, human they call it. They don't act like it. Cockroaches, rats, dogs, they get along great [among themselves]. It's people who don't make it with each other, this lack of species contact. I already got it from you because I like you."

"Well, I like you," I reply, genuinely in love with my very own idol.

He asks me to come see him the next time I am in New York. I say I will be there next weekend or the one after that. He writes down dates, and tells me when I should call. Between our two schedules, it will be a tough squeeze, but I will try my damnedest. This matters.

"I feel like we are friends," says Lennie.”Can I call you my friend?"

"Are you kidding!?" I say in disbelief. “Of course you can. That would be the greatest honor to me, and an even greater ego trip. I adore you. You could be my friend anytime."

"Good" he says. "I'll see you then. I just want to meet you and shake your hand. I think you're great. How beautiful you sound!"

Am I high! I have seen the beauty in him that was evident in his music.

I call up a friend of mine, someone who studied with Lennie for years. He says that he feels the same way I do about Lennie, that he is wonderful. “That's it!” exclaims my friend. “You have inspired me to start going back to Lennie [for lessons]. I miss him. He's a fucking genius."

END

Postscript from Lew:

The author of this interview did not get to visit Tristano before he died in November 1978. We thank her for sharing this candid interview with us!

POSTSCRIPT: My old friend and subscriber, bassist Bob Nieske, who teaches at Brandeis U and N.E.C., worked with the late drummer Randy Kaye (1947-2008) in Jimmy Giuffre’s quartet during the 1980s. (I performed with Kaye once at a club on St. Mark's Place in Manhattan’s East Village.) Bob shared this story that he was told by Kaye:

Randy had a very strange lesson with Tristano. Never saw him, because Lennie was in the bathtub the whole time, yelling the instructions and comments from upstairs!

All The Best,

Lewis