Gabriel Bar-Cohen 12/2/18
Conversations with the Great John B. Williams: How to unpack your bag.
Gabriel Bar-Cohen: Before we get into the music, I want to ask you about your childhood. You grew up in Sugar Hill, Harlem. What was that like?
John Williams: It was great. It was great growing up there and going to school. It’s hard to
describe to someone that is unfamiliar with the area and with that era. But it was great! Sugar Hill is located at the tip of Harlem, which is more like a borderline between Harlem and Washington Heights. I went to Public School, PS46, which is on 146th street, above St. Nicholas Avenue around Amsterdam. After that I went to (Edward W.) Stitt Junior High School on 164th street. I grew up there, in that area. I went to school with Frankie Lymon. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. We all grew up together. I went to Music and Arts High School, up there on City College’s campus, 135th street. Back in those days I was in a group with Jimmy Castor called “Jimmy Castor and the Juniors”. We wrote a song called “Promise to Remember.” During that
time we were kind of competitors with Frankie Lymon (and the Teenagers) because we were all around the same age.
Gabriel Bar-Cohen: What kind of music were you playing/listening to at that time?
John Williams: R&B. Rhythm and Blues. Doo-Wop. I grew up listening to the R & B groups of the time, which were The Cadillacs, The Harptones, The Five Satins, and The Platters.. All those groups of the 50’s. I grew up listening to and inspired by all of those R&B groups. I heard jazz in my household because my sisters were all musicians and they all listened to jazz. But my age group (in highschool), we were all in to R&B, and latin. Latin music. The main radio station was called WWRL. It was all the way down at the end of the dial. The DJ’s name was “Dr. Jive,” and he used to alternate rhythm and blues music with latin music because latin music was very popular where I lived because we had such a large population of Puerto Ricans, Haitians, and later on Dominicans. Latinos. So they would play something like Tito Puente, and then play The Cadillacs. Then Tito Rodriguez, and then the Five Satins. Back and forth like that because, you
know, all the kids in my age group used to dance mambo, cha-cha, and muerenge. We used to hang out at the Palladium (Ballroom), down on 53rd street. On wednesdays they used to have
like three bands. They would have, like, Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, and Machido. Those were the three main Latin bands at that time that were established. We used to go down there and they would alternate (Puente, Rodriguez, and Machido) and we would just be in there dancing and hanging out and just having a great time. That place was really popular.
GBC: How did you get your start on your instrument.
JW: I went to Music and Art High School, but I went there playing drums. I started out playing drums when I was like 12 or 13. My mom and my sister bought me a set of drums. I had a musical family so we had musical instruments in the house. One of my sisters, Jean, played the bass at Seward Park high school and on the weekends they would let her bring the bass home so she could practice. Before that they had a musical group called “The Jay Sisters” because my
sisters names all started with a J: Jackie, Joyce, Jean, and June. And they all played musical instruments. They used to tour up in the Catskill mountains at the Resorts with people like Donny Thomas, Danny Kaye, and Andy Youngman and all of those other jewish entertainers. They used to call it the “Borscht belt” because the Catskills had a lot of jewish resorts. So that’s how I heard music. It was always a staple in my household. I picked up the bass when my sister brought it home. I used toy with it and just pluck on it sometimes, bit at that time I had no desire to play seriously. I was really into drums. We had a piano in the house too and I learned how to play chord changes to the jazz songs that were popular at that time. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Hank Mobley. Max Roach.
GBC: This was in the 50’s?
JW: Yeah. This was in the 50’s. I learned well enough to join a band. One of the guys in my neighborhood, George Wheeler, was a drummer and had a band called “George Wheeler and the Jazz Disciples,” and we used to play some of the fashion shows around town. Little gigs like that. We got a chance at Amateur Night at the Apollo and we won three weeks in a row! But when it came time for the fourth week, when you win four weeks you get the chance to work a week at the Apollo, I had already signed up to join the military.
GBC: Wow. What prompted that decision?
JW: Well, one of my best friends, Billy, who lived near me, we had decided to go into the military to get away from the streets and get away from the drugs and the weed smoking and all that kinda stuff. My sister said to me “you better do something with your life and get off the
streets.” So I decided to join the military.
GBC: What year was that?
JW: 1960. So Billy and I decided to join on the “buddy plan.” We went down to the recruiter on Times Square and joined the Marines. Well so much for the buddy plan because when we got out of bootcamp, they sent him to Okinawa and they sent me to Norfolk, Virginia. My aptitude test
showed I would be a good radio man, learning how to morse code, so I got sent to the Marine Barracks in Virginia to go radio school. In my off duty time I would hang out with the Marines, and we got to talking and I told them I was going to radio school and the all started chuckling
because in actual combat, the life expectancy for a radio man is about 30 seconds.
GBC: Really?! That’s rough..
JW: Yeah because that’s the first person that the enemy wants to knock out, the radio man, to keep you from communicating your position. So I’m like, this is no good for me, and I quit radio school. So they transferred me, kept me on the base and transferred me to the barracks where I
became an MP, a military police. But that didn’t work out for me because it was too much
discipline (involved in the work), so they transferred me to Camp LeJeune in North Carolina. The largest marine base on the East Coast. I made some friends and we would go out to Jacksonville, the closest town to the base, and one day we passed by a pawn shop and I saw a bass hanging up in the window. But let me back up a bit..
Before that when I got to camp LeJeune I noticed that they had a lot of Officer’s clubs and a lot of NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) clubs that had live music. A lot of guys in the marine band used to work after hours and make extra money playing gigs in these clubs. I saw that as an opportunity to make a little extra money, but the problem I ran into was there was an
overabundance of drummers, but there was a shortage of bass players. So fast forward to when I saw the bass in the pawnshop when I saw the bass fiddle hanging up in the window, I said this might be an opportunity for me, because I already knew a little bass from when my sister would bring hers home. So I went in and they told me that the bass cost $100. So I put down my (military) ID card, which was instant credit, and I bought the bass. When I got back to the camp, I went over to the bad barracks and I asked the band director if I could keep the bass there, and he agreed that I could keep it there and practice. So I began practicing and coming home on
weekends to New York, and I had a friend, Alex Lane, who’s still in New York, we still keep in touch, and he gave me bass lessons. Then I bought a Victrola, a turntable, and I would listen to
some Miles Davis records, people like Paul Chambers, Oscar Pettiford, and Charlie Mingus, and emulate what they were doing. I learned to play because of my ear and I could find the notes on the bass. After a few weeks I got good enough to go out and play some gigs, and I got busy
because there was a shortage of bass players. In 1964 when I got discharged, I took my bass and put it on top of my buddies car and drove home.
I came home and there was a buddy of mine, Billy Cobham, who knew Ron Carter. He told me if I wanted to get serious, then Ron was the guy. A studio drummer called Bobby Thomas gave me Ron’s number and I called him and had a chat with him and he offered to take my on as a student. So that’s really where I became a bass player.
GBC: What kind of stuff did you study?
JW: Classical. Classical bass. He didn’t let me do any piccicato. I had to do everything with the bow. No jazz. No popular music. Everything we did was out of a book called Semandyl, which is a german bass method. Which was the most popular book. I think even still today. So I studied out of Semandyl and I studied with Ron for about 2 and a half years.
GBC: Where were you staying at the time?
JW: My mom had passed away while I was in the military so when I got back I took over her apartment. My other sister that was living there had gotten married and moved out. So that’s
where I lived, on Edgecolbe, same place I grew up. At the time, Ron didn’t live too far from me. He lived over on Riverside drive. Right around 150th. A short way for me. It was worth it anyway, just to get a lesson.
GBC: Were you playing gigs at that time?
JW: While I was studying with him I was playing little gigs. Billy Cobham and I started playing a lot together. We kind of came up together. While I was in the Marines, Billy was in Fort Brag, in Jersey in the Drum and Bugle Corps. We started playing and working. We started playing with some well known musicians.
GBC: Do you mind naming some names?
JW: Let me think.. Horace Parlan was one guy whose name comes to mind. There used to be
some clubs on the East Side, 40th street up to 57th street. Real hip little restaurants and bars that had music. So I got a gig with Horace Parlan in one of those places. Rodney Dangerfield, the comedian, had his own restaurant around 53rd street, 2nd or 3rd avenue, near where we would play.
GBC: How’d you meet Horace Silver?
JW: We found out that Horace Silver was putting together a band and was holding auditions, so Billy (Cobham) and I went up to this rehearsal hall around broadway and we tried out and Billy got the gig but I didn’t. Reggie Johnson, another well known bass player that I was friends with, got the gig because he had a little more experience than I did. I was still kind of young and new at it.
GBC: What year was this?
JW: This was like.. 1966. Late 1966, because in 1967 I started working with Horace when Reggie (Johnson) couldn’t do it. Reggie also got the chance to play with Max Roach.. I think Max was also paying a little more money.
So I got home, a little bit depressed, well, very depressed because I didn’t get the gig and my buddy Billy did. But later that night I got a phone call and it was Horace Silver, and he says
Reggie couldn’t do it but I like the way you played, and he was impressed that I was able to play the “Senior Blues” bassline. That was one of his big hits. It has a pretty busy bassline, and I was able to grasp the bassline, and (Horace) said that he liked the way I played and he liked my feeling. And so I got the gig. So I started working with him in the beginning of 1967. I went on tour with him and I stayed with Horace a little over two and half years to about 1969.
GBC: When did you start playing electric bass?
JW: Well he approached me one day, we’d been working and touring together for about a year, and he asked me if I would be interested in taking up the electric bass, because he was going to get an electric piano, and he wanted to do some things a little on the funky side.
I was really hesitant about doing that because the upright bass players around New York at that time were an elite group and we kind of looked down on electric bass players. We thought that was just for the cats that played R&B. Jerry Jemmott and Chuck Rainey and all of those guys.. working with Aretha.. He (Horace) said “if you don’t want to do it then I’ll hire an electric bass player”, and I said “no don’t do that! Let me check it out.” So he “okay I’ll get you a bass.” So what he did was we had a gig coming up in Chicago, and during that time they were holding the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Show. That’s where NAMM began, in Chicago. Back then in 1968, the NAMM show was held in the Conrad Hilton Hotel, in the ballroom. The whole thing! Big difference from what it is today.
So he took me there and got me a bass endorsement with a company called National, that made
electric basses and amps. So I ended up getting a free bass and amp. And then he took me over to the Juzek bass booth and got me an upright bass endorsement. So I made out really well! I came home with an electric bass, a bass amp, and a Juzek bass. He hooked me up!
I started touring with the electric bass and the more time I spent with it the more I loved it. I said this isn’t taking away from my upright playing, its adding to it because things I could do on the
electric I could do on the upright and get more of a funky feel on the upright. It worked well because I could read and I could also play jazz and swing on the electric bass.
That really worked for my benefit because when we got back to New York we had a gig at club in Brooklyn in Bedford Stuyvesant area, which was the first time the band was going to be showcased in New York. All of the well known cats came out to hear the new New Incarnation of the Horace Silver Quintet.. To hear the “new, young lions,” they called it.
GBC: Who else was in the band?
JW: I was about to tell you! It was Bennie Maupin, Randy Brecker, Billy Cobham, and myself.
That was the band. We’d been to Europe. You can see the band on youtube if you look up “Horace Silver, Copenhagen – 1968” and also “Horace Silver Stockholm 1968.”
GBC: Yeah I’ve seen the Copenhagen video! Wow!
JW: Yeah. You’ll see I had hair back in them days. *Laughs*
After we got back from Europe we played in this club in Brooklyn, and one of the bass players who came to hear the band was the late, great Bob Cranshaw. He came and saw me switching back and forth between acoustic and electric bass and was impressed because he was one of the
few guys at the time that was doing sessions in New York on electric bass. The engineers thought that the electric bass was easier to record than the acoustic so Bob was able to get a lot of work swinging on the electric bass. A lot of the cats wouldn’t do that. They were exclusively upright bass.
So Bob approached me on the break and asked me if I would like to help him out doing some session work. So one of the first things he called me to do was this new children’s show called
“Sesame Street.” I said I was kind of worried to do a session, but he said “man don’t worry about it. Just go in there and play the way you play. The contractors name is Danny Epstein. Tell him that Bob got caught up at the bank and sent me.” I rushed over and they were a little leery of me because they didn’t know who I was, but they gave me a shot. As it turned out, they loved what I did. They loved what I played, and they said to me after the session was over “listen, we’re going to let Bob know to send you whenever he can’t make it.” And so I wound up doing about 70% of the Sesame Street Show in the beginning.
GBC: Wow! Well I grew up watching that show!
JW: Oh yeah? Well good! I started doing that show all the way up through 1969. I got well known with the session players around New York; Jerome Richardson, Snooky Young, Frank Wes, Bobby Thomas, Bernard Purdie, Grady Tate. I got on sessions with all of those guys and wound up doing a lot of studio work. I wound up getting on a Count Basie record.
GBC: Which one?
JW: It was called “Afrique.” Oliver Nelson had written music for the Basie band that had latin/afro cuban influences, which was a new thing for the Basie band. So I was the first bass player to play electric bass on a Count Basie album. Shortly after that I got a call from the same contractor, because Oliver Nelson liked my work, to play on a Louis Armstrong record. This was in 1970.
GBC: Wow. That’s incredible. Can you tell me about the Johnny Carson Show?
JW: Well shortly after that I auditioned for the Johnny Carson Show, with Doc Severinsen
because some of the guys like Grady Tate, that knew me, had recommended me for the show. So I played the show for a week as an audition. Tommy Newsom was conducting the band then
because Doc was on vacation. When Doc got back, Tommy gave me the thumbs up to Doc, so I got the Tonight Show. That was 1970.
And so I was doing Sesame Street sessions during the day and then going to work over at NBC at night, so I became pretty busy. So they called me to do the Louis Armstrong session. It was divided into two sessions. Side A was all strings, all orchestral stuff, and side B was brass, big band stuff. I did side A, the string sessions and Chuck Rainey did the brass sessions because I was working with Doc Severinsen and couldn’t take off in time to do the brass session.
Otherwise I would’ve done the whole album.
GBC: Can we backtrack for a second? You mentioned that you toured Europe with Horace Silver. How is jazz received in other countries, compared to the US?
JW: Well because of the fact that jazz is indigenous to the culture over here, it was newer and
more novel in Europe and Japan and other countries so it was very widely received. A lot of jazz musicians, especially black jazz musicians, moved to Europe because of the fact that the music was appreciated over there and jazz musicians had a higher level of appreciation than we did over here. I’ll tell you one thing; The tour was the George Wein Newport Jazz Festival Tour and it was several bands that were touring. And it was Dizzy Gillespie, and he put a band together with all musicians that were from the states that were living in Europe. He put a big band together. He went over there and just took a rhythm section. So that lets you know how many
cats were over there. Living over there and getting married over there. Dexter Gordon. Charlie Polk. So many well known, great musicians went over, loved it, and just stayed there.
GBC: Was race a factor in the move overseas? Did black musicians move because they were treated better in Europe?
JW: Well it was known that jazz was black music, and in those countries especially, black music was popular. Not only jazz but gospel, R&B. Black music in general was highly, highly respected outside of the US. Keep in mind that it was our music, it was started in this country (US), so it was still novel outside of this country and the musicians were highly respected, until they were able to copy what we did, and learn how to do what we did, as well as we did. Then
the price went down. We didn’t get as much money because they could do it.
The Japanese were really able to copy jazz. They were able to copy anything! They could copy classical music, ballet, jazz, country and western. I was over there in the 80’s with Nancy Wilson and I checked into the hotel and went downstairs to have a drink and I heard this country and western music happening. So I checked it out and it was an all japanese country and western band. They were copying us to the tee! They had the western wear, the cowboy hats, the boots.
Everything! And they were playing the music! In the late 80’s I went back with Bennie Maupin and a guy I went over there with, Calvin Edwards, a guitarist, his brother was a hip hop producer.
They flew him over there to produce japanese rappers! Now these guys were dressed like us, all the gear was the same. You would’ve thought you were in Harlem somewhere. Or out here in South Central LA. They had all of the mannerisms of the hip hop culture. I mean, they also have rappers out in Europe. Really great rappers. Now rap is all over the world. Jazz is all over the world. Everywhere I’ve traveled people are emulating the music of this country, the music of the united states, and black music and black culture.
GBC: My next question is regarding music in the US: in 2018 we live in a time of political turmoil. The 60’s and even the 70’s was also a time period with a lot of changes. How do you think the social, cultural and political landscape affected the music?
JW: Well that was the time where Monk, and Trane, and Mingus were playing music that was very, very powerful, that reflected the social climate of that time. Some of the best work that
Trane did was in the 60’s. It was amazing! The stuff that Miles was doing. Fusion and all of that stuff. Miles started fusion with Bitches Brew. That started it all. Out of Bitches Brew came Weather Report, out of Weather Report came Return to Forever. All of that stuff came out of that one record because all of those guys played on that record. Herbie Hancock started Headhunters, Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter started Weather Report, Chick Corea started Return to Forever.
Even though socially it was painful, the music was beautiful. The music was amazing.. The stuff that came out that social climate.
GBC: Yeah. Music is a reflection of what’s going on around you.
JW: Let me say this: New York the musicians had very little respect for the West Coast jazz scene. They thought it was lame. It reflected the west coast climate, out here. In New York we play with a lot more intensity because we have to deal with snow, we have to get to gigs on the subway, I had to carry a V-15 amp and an upright bass on the train all the way to Brooklyn to play a gig for like $10, something like that, you know. You get to the gig you put the bass in a cab, we didn’t have cars, a lot of us didn’t drive. I carried a bass around Manhattan on the subway and stuff, very seldom on the bus.. Putting a set of drums and a bass in a cab.. And so by the time you get to the gig with all of the hassle that you had to go through, sometimes you had to go through some sh*t with the cab driver.. *laughs*.. That made for the music to have the level of intensity that it had. Sometimes I went to see Trane at the Village Vanguard and he would play like one tune per set. Or two tunes that were like 30 minutes long and the intensity would be so high.
So I came out to California, and there were palms trees.. But hey you know I had had enough of New York by that time.
GBC: You’d paid your dues..
JW: Yeah that was enough. But I was blessed that I did come from New York to LA, and not the other way around. Hugh Masekela was a good friend of mine that I’d worked with for a while and when I was getting ready to come out here he gave me some advice. He said “you go to LA, don’t unpack.” I didn’t realize the meaning of that until years later. It meant “keep your integrity.”
After I did the Tonight Show for almost seven years I got fired because I wanted to go to school and get my college education. I went to an experimental college in Westwood called the International College. There were no classrooms. They had various teachers, and you would travel to where they were and study with them one on one. I studied music history and my professor lived in Silverlake, which is right here in California. I bought the books and worked out of them and did the homework, and I would go to his house once a week and let him see the work I’d done. It was amazing.
Well during that time I was working with Doc Severinsen and I was going on the road with him in addition to doing the Tonight Show. I was working with his road band on the weekends. We
were playing state fairs, you know. Corny sh*t like that. When we’d be on the bus I’d be in the back of the bus with my books doing homework. Well the cats would be getting high and stuff like that, and I couldn’t do that. Couldn’t mess around. I had to do my work. He started asking
me, “well are you anti-social,” or stuff like that. I said “no, I have homework. I’m putting myself through school,” and he was kinda like “oh he’s drag..” But my whole demeanor had become a
little more serious, whereas I wasn’t clowning and acting a fool like some of the other guys in the band, and he called me on that. He told me “if you want to be in this band you’re going to have to start smiling and acting like you really want this gig.” He didn’t hire me to smile. You hired
me to play.
Doc came out to California and became a star. I came out here from New York and I was still all about the music. In New York, we live to play. In California, we play to live. Everybody has a
nice lifestyle, and houses and sh*t like that. They play golf and all that. In New York we lived in apartments and we get to the gigs and it’s all about the music. Your apartment was just a place
where you sleep and eat. Lot of times you eat out. It was a place to keep your instrument. It’s a different kind of lifestyle. So that’s what Hugh Masekela told me. Don’t unpack. I didn’t
“unpack” and I maintained my integrity, and that sort of went against the grain of Doc Severinsen. One day it all came to a head in the dressing room. He said “you’re going to start smiling or you’re done..” I’d just had enough and I said “you know you just do what the f*ck you want to do I don’t care!” He told me I was fired and I said “f*ck you, I quit” and that was it. When I got back to LA to go back to the Tonight Show (it moved to LA in 1975), I found out that I was on notice. He’d fired me from the weekend band, so he told the contractor to fire me from the Tonight Show band. So I said okay, cool. I got back and I was terminated.
When word got back to New York that I’d been fired I got calls from so many people that I couldn’t believe, like Ron Carter, Bob Cranshaw, Sheldon Powell, Frank Wes, all these guys that I’d worked with on these sessions, congratulating me for standing up and proverbially “unpacking my bags.” I felt real good. Ron Carter was very comforting. I’m out here (in LA)
now. I’m married. I had Megan. Megan was just recently born. She was about a year old. I had bought a house, and I had no work now! Ron Carter said “man, don’t worry about being alone. Take a deep breath and stretch out your arms and realize all the room you have. It’s going to be fine. Don’t worry about it.” And I did. And I got work and did gigs and starting playing, and I was able to support my family and myself.
GBC: That’s incredible. When did you start playing with Nancy Wilson?
JW: I got a call from Nancy Wilson around that time.. Asked me to go out and join her. So I went out on the road with her, and I worked with her for 25 years.
There’s a lot that I did in between all of these things too. I made a lot of great records with a lot of different people. Made a great record with Billy Cobham called “Crosswinds.” That was a great record, a great milestone for all of us that were on that record. Unfortunately I didn’t want to leave the Tonight Show to go out on the road with Billy. But it was a great record for all of us. Billy and I still stayed friends. As a matter of fact he came out here last year and put a reunion band together with me, Randy Brecker, and Kenny Barron. We did a little two week tour of San Francisco and LA. We had some nice things.
GBC: One last question: Any advice you have for young musicians?
JW: My advice is to do more than one thing. I do spoken word. I do poetry. I started doing that with Nancy. I did that for five and a half years. I saw the joy of spoken word. I integrated spoken word into my music.
And the adventure continues.
