Warne Marsh: The Intense Saxophonist in An Unknown 1959 Audio Interview

We continue now our occasional series of audio interviews from the Claes Dahlgren collection in Sweden.

It is often said that for certain artists, recordings just don’t do them justice. Tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh (1927-1987) was such an artist, in my experience. Of course recordings capture the notes he played—which in themselves are quite amazing—but for the most part they do not capture his intensity and magnetism. I wish you could have been at the Village Vanguard in June 1980, as I was, when he played there with Sal Mosca on piano, and a bassist and drummer. I was a little late, so he was already in the middle of a solo. The power and brilliance of his lines and of his tone were mesmerizing. I have never seen an audience so still and absolutely focused. It was clear that something important was happening. And his unique sound was strong, not the somewhat “thin” tone that people describe from recordings. This video from 1980 gives a taste of how he sounded in person. Some audio recordings that capture him well, in my judgement, are this one from Copenhagen in 1975 (which was analyzed by Dr. John Petrucelli when he was my grad student), and the various “live” albums from his tour with Lee Konitz, also in 1975, such as the one linked here.

Marsh and Konitz were, of course, the best-known disciples of the brilliant pianist Lennie Tristano. Of the two, Konitz went on to become much better known. But Warne has been cited as a formative influence by Wayne Shorter, Mark Turner, and others.

As you’ll hear in this interview, Marsh was a quiet man. You can find printed interviews with him, but audio of him speaking is rare. This is certainly his earliest audio interview, and he speaks for most of its 14 minutes. The date of the script (that is, Dahlgren’s words) is May 2, 1959. That means the interview was conducted shortly before that, and broadcast shortly afterward. Only a few bits of this interview were broadcast, and only in Sweden.

When this was edited for broadcast, some portions were removed from the tape, literally cut off. For example, at 2:20 it is evident that Marsh said something about the big impact that seeing Tristano made upon him, but we only hear Dahlgren’s follow-up question, “When did you get to see Lennie?” At 7:08 we are missing Warne’s reply about what he had been doing since Lennie’s group disbanded. And the tape ends when Claes asks Warne about his plan to continue performing with Konitz, so we don’t get to hear the reply. Recorded music tracks are also not included here, but of course we can find those elsewhere.

But there is a lot here: First, the host Dahlgren talks in Swedish about Warne, Tristano, and Konitz. Then at 0:40 he gets Warne to talk about his childhood when he first played drums, then piano, then accordion, and so on. At 1:30 Marsh says that his early influences were Tex Beneke of Glenn Miller’s band, then Ben Webster, and then Lester Young.

From 2:50 on, Marsh discusses the Tristano sextet that recorded on Capitol Records. He talks about their free improvisations at about 6:00. West Coast jazz is the topic starting at 7:10. At 8:45, Warne hints that a new recording with Lennie might be under discussion. But such an album never happened.

At 9:45, Warne and Claes discuss bringing the interview to an end—obviously this part was never intended for broadcast. But, luckily for us, they keep talking, about Tristano, about the current jazz scene (at 11:20), and about some of the current musicians whose music he enjoys—he names the Zoot Sims/Al Cohn group, and Bill Evans.

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 essay series 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 still have some excellent ones to share.) 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.)

Here is the interview:

If you are interested in Marsh, you’ll want to check out this website, which includes a very detailed discography, memories of Warne, photos, and more.

The late Safford Chamberlain did a terrific job on Warne’s biography. In addition to a long and well-researched life story, the back of the book offers transcriptions and analysis by Gary Foster and other musicians, a discography and more. (I was the general editor of the book.) Some of the rare recordings discussed in the book may be heard here. You can read guitarist John Klopotowski’s book about studying with Marsh here.

And Warne’s son K.C. Marsh has been working on a documentary film (go here and scroll down).

All the best,
Lewis