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Transcripts from
Harlem Speaks

December 7, 2006 • Eddie Locke (excerpt)

LOCKE:  But you know, when Tommy Flanagan passed away, and I was at his wake, and Peter Jennings… You know, Peter Jennings loved him. Peter Jennings was standing there and we were talking. And he said, “You know what?” And he said, “You know what? So many musicians came…” And he said, “You know, one time I asked Tommy that.” And he[?] said, “His answer really surprised me. And I asked him, ‘Why did so many great musicians come from Detroit?’” I said, “Well, what did he tell you?” He said, “He said, ‘They had great schools.’” He didn’t say music schools. And they did have great schools then. My eighth grade education was better than some’a these junior college educations are today. You know why?

SCHOENBERG:  Why?

LOCKE:  ’Cause we had to do the work, man. Was no jivin’ around. You know, these people go to school now and they can’t do this, and they can’t do that, you know. There wasn’t no excuses. You know, I seen my mother whip my oldest brother in front of the whole class in school, with her strap. Because he did something bad in the school. And she whipped him, right in front of the whole class. Nobody would ever think about doing nothing like that. But he never did that again. [they laugh] You know what I mean, it was just a… The school, and— you can’t play music—you know that—unless you have at least some kinda intellect. So when he said, “We had good schools…” It helped your mind. And in Detroit, all of us were together. We all— you know, we all shared. Barry Harris had a little band. And I— you remember that movie they made, the shadow people, about the guys that made all that music for Motown? They made a movie.

LOCKE:  Well, the guy that helped [inaudible], we had a band together. His name was Earl Van Dyke. He was the pianist. And he lived on my block. So we had this band. They called it Ear Van Dyke and the Hungry Five. [they laugh] That’s— we were young.  So we get to this… The Paradise Theater had amateur shows, just like the Apollo. So we go to this amateur show, and Barry’s on there too, with his little band. And there were some other people on it, but it got down to be just the two of us, his band and our band. And [chuckles] Barry makes me tell this story everyplace I’m with him. Now, Barry’s band, they were alright. But we had this guy named Don Juan, man, that played guitar and, man, that his hair done, and he was big, and he’d stomp, man, and dust would be flyin’ up, man. He could play the blues. That’s all we played, was the blues. And Barry was playing, you know, one of those bebop tunes or something, [chuckles] of course. Now, when they came out with the— got to the time to hold the thing over each’s head, you know. So they held the thing over our head, you know, and the kids clap, blah-blah-blah. When they held the thing over Barry’s head, man, the band’s head, the place went crazy! I said, “Now, wait a minute, they weren’t that much better.” It’s when they turned the lights up, Barry had every kid from his high school, they all had the high school sweaters on. [laughter] He was just like he is now. The same thing! All of ’em, they went to Northeastern. All the green and white, they all— when they turned the lights up, the whole theater… [laughter]

SCHOENBERG:  His people.

LOCKE:  …was filled. [laughs] And I tell him about that now, I say, “Your band wasn’t that much better than ours, man.” But he was something, you know. He was teaching like that, just like he’s doing now, in Detroit, the same thing. He taught Roland Hanna how to play changes. ’Cause he was a classical piano player. And he— Barry, I mean, Roland talked about that all the time. He used to go up to Barry’s house.

SCHOENBERG:  Did Charlie Parker come through town?

LOCKE:  Yeah. Oh, yeah, I saw him a couple times, quite a few times. Guys used to sit in with him, when he came to Detroit. Yeah.

SCHOENBERG:  Were there any of the musicians left— you mentioned the Greystone Ballroom, which was famous for McKinney’s Cotton Pickers.

LOCKE:  McKinney’s Cotton Pickers.

SCHOENBERG:  And Cuba Austin [inaudible]

LOCKE:  [Over Schoenberg] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn’t see him, but they tell me he was something.

Additional excerpt from same interview

EDDIE LOCKE:  Because everybody that hear those records— it was about ten albums we made. And I’ll never forget it. First time it really came to my mind, Mike LeDonne had heard the one we did on the music to No Strings.

LOREN SCHOENBERG:  Those records you, Tommy Flanagan and Major Holley made with Coleman Hawkins were classics.

LOCKE:  And so I told Mike LeDonne, I said, “We never rehearsed.” He said, “I don’t believe that.” He said, “You all didn’t rehearse?” I said, “We played with that quartet over ten years. And all the music we made on all those records, most of the time, we— Coleman had never played none’a those songs, a lotta times. You know, they had those A&R guys, and they’d bring the music in, you know, that was… People don’t even know about that now. These guys used to— that’s what used to be, a guy that brought music for you. And I tried to explain to them, I said, “You know, that quarter was the finest example of what jazz really is supposed to be.” It was about caring about each other. You know, we didn’t find fault with each other. You know what I mean? So that consequently, that made everybody play better. Of course, we couldn’t find fault with Coleman Hawkins, but I mean, just as a quartet, it was never none’a that kinda stuff. You know? I mean, I hear guys now that I played with, and I never heard Coleman Hawkins ask Tommy, “What song? What chord was that you played?,” or something. You know, kind of like, you know, “I didn’t like it,” or… You know what I’m saying?

SCHOENBERG:  Yeah. That doesn’t happen too often when Tommy Flanagan’s playing. [laughs]

LOCKE:  No but, you know, hey, man, you’d be surprised how some people are when they get in a situation where they’re in charge. It doesn’t make any difference whether— you could be a genius, and he could find something to let you know he’s in charge. Do you understand what I’m saying?

SCHOENBERG:  I do.

LOCKE:  Ok. But that’s what I mean. And everybody’s— when that guy brought that CD for me to sign today now, everybody that asks me, and I tell ’em that, they don’t believe it. Mike LeDonne said, “I don’t believe you guys didn’t—” I said, “And not only had we never rehearsed, we had never seen that music, till the day that that date was.” And not many people record that music.

SCHOENBERG:  Maybe that’s why…

LOCKE:  Was some strange music on there. [laughs]

SCHOENBERG:  I’m just thinking that, you know, maybe that’s part of what made it such a great album. Because with musicians of the caliber of Coleman Hawkins, Eddie Locke, Major Holley and Tommy Flanagan, who were playing, you know, a regular repertoire as a quartet all the time, and you get musicians like that, and you give ’em, like, a big piece of meat like that, some great odd music…

LOCKE:  Yeah.

SCHOENBERG:  And what that record, I guess, actually captures is the actual… It’s almost like Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue…

LOCKE:  Uh-huh.

SCHOENBERG:  …where they say that they had never heard that music either.

LOCKE:  Right.

SCHOENBERG:  And they just turned on the microphone, and the genius came out. And thank God that most of these albums that Eddie made with Coleman Hawkins are now all available on CD. For many years, they were hard to find [inaudible]

LOCKE:  [Over Schoenberg] Yes, they were hard to find for a while.

SCHOENBERG:  But now they’re all out, and you can get them all.

LOCKE:  But that always just amazed me that… It didn’t amaze me then, ’cause I didn’t— when you’re in it, you didn’t… It amazes me now, more than it did at the time, ’cause when you’re in it, you just— you can’t see it, because you’re in it. And it didn’t seem— we never had any… That’s the only four people I ever played with where we never had any thing going on. Never. We were together all the time. And never, never, never.

SCHOENBERG:  Well, it sounds like it was…

LOCKE:  We made the music work all the time. You know?

SCHOENBERG:  Eddie, for people who will be looking at this interview, as I mentioned, in fifty years from now…

LOCKE:  Oh.

SCHOENBERG:  …or a hundred years from now, if there’s a world, [laughter] what do they need to know about Coleman Hawkins?

LOCKE:  Well, I’ll tell ya. I’ve been around a lotta musicians in my life. I mean, really great musicians. But I think he undoubtedly was the most musical person I’ve ever been around. Musically. ’Cause his foundation, you know, everybody knows; he came from, you know, piano, to the cello, and then the saxophone. And he loved music so much, till it was just like unbelievable, in that— you know, I told that to Stanley Dance in— you know, when he put me in that World of Swing book. Coleman was at my house one time for dinner. And you know, I got these— I loved Rubenstein, and we had these [inaudible] because of him, I loved Rubenstein. I had these encores. It was just a… And we were sitting down eating. And tears just started coming down his cheek. And he told my wife, he said, “Honey, don’t pay me no mind.” He said, “That’s just so pretty, it’s bringing tears to my eyes.” Now, [inaudible] love music. He loved music so much. You know, and he said, “I love pretty music.” And you can hear it, when he plays. You LOCKE (Cont.):  know? And that’s a part of jazz that really got lost. And that’s how come, you know, you’ll hear— I hear this all the time. They’ll say, “Well, man, why people don’t come and hear jazz?” I say, “’Cause you all ain’t playing no jazz. [chuckles] You ain’t playing jazz, that’s why they don’t come.” You know, people wanna feel good. They don’t wanna come there to figure out no crossword puzzle or nothing, you understand? You know, they wanna feel good. That’s what… Listen. It’s so weird when I hear that. I hear it all the time.

SCHOENBERG:  How did you meet Coleman Hawkins? Because again, like we were talking before about, like, playing the Apollo Theater, and jumping from the minor leagues to, like, the Yankees. I mean, how did it happen?

LOCKE:  This is how it happened.

SCHOENBERG:  How did it happen?

LOCKE:  I met… Roy Eldridge was the first. I met Roy Eldridge because I was playing with Hal Singer. You remember Hal Singer? Played tenor.

SCHOENBERG:  Cornbread.

LOCKE:  And we were playing a job out in Brooklyn. And it was like a Sunday afternoon. Used to be a lotta those kinda things. Sunday afternoon. And Roy was the special guest. Right? And I had never played with him before. He didn’t even know— he knew who I was from being around the Metropole a little bit—just a little bit—he said. So when we got ready to play, he came over to the drums, you know. And I was getting nervous right away. And [laughs] this was his musical education. Said, “Whatever what you do, just keep hittin’ those things, don’t stop. [laughter] Just keep hittin’ ’em,” he said. [laughs] And when I played with him, he  used to like to sing those Louie Jordan songs. He loved Louie Jordan. And I did, too. That’s how I learned how to play the shuffle, listening to Chris Columbo, who was Louie Jordan’s drummer. But I played that shuffle for him. From that day on, I was his drummer. He said, “Man, can’t no young drummers play that, man. Yeah, you’re my drummer.” You know, I said, “I’m not— you don’t even have no job, and you’re calling me your drummer.” But you could be upfront with him like that. But so I met him, and then we started playing. See, a lotta people associate me with Roy from Jimmy Ryan. But I was playing with Roy long before Jimmy Ryan.

SCHOENBERG:  Right.

LOCKE:  I made my first— the first jazz record that I ever made was [Swingin’] on the Town.

SCHOENBERG:  With Ronnie Ball?

LOCKE:  Ronnie Ball. That’s a nice album. And Roy plays the mute[?] in everything except one number. And on that record, a lotta people don’t even know that was the first time they used the word bossa nova on a jazz album in America. I bet you didn’t know that. But we didn’t play a bossa nova. He played a blues. Wa-wa, like that. But a lotta people, that’s a good trivia question.

SCHOENBERG:  Mm-hm, ok, I’ll tell Phil Schaap.

LOCKE:  Yeah. [they laugh] But ok, Roy. You know, I was playing with Roy.

SCHOENBERG:  Right.

LOCKE:  So somebody came up with the idea that Coleman and Roy, they wanted them to come and play in the Metropole. You know, as a quintet. So Roy said, “I told Coleman, ‘I’ll get the drummer.’” So Coleman said, “Well, I’m gonna get the piano player.” ’Cause that’s the way they both thought, that different about music. You could tell, the way they played.

SCHOENBERG:  So he wanted changes, and he wanted the rhythm.

LOCKE:  Rhythm, right.

SCHOENBERG:  Right..

LOCKE:  You know. Coleman said, “I’m gonna get the piano player.” So Roy said, “I’m gonna get the drummer, then.”

SCHOENBERG:  Right.

LOCKE:  So he got me. And we had an assortment of bass players you would not believe. ’Cause they couldn’t— that was a tough job, the Metropole. I remember one week, I lost seven pounds in one week.

SCHOENBERG:  Why was it a difficult job?

LOCKE:  Because it was— you were on every minute. You know, ’cause you were up there on that— behind that bar.

SCHOENBERG:  Can you describe it…

LOCKE:  There was no place to…

SCHOENBERG:  …for people who were never there?

LOCKE:  It was just a long bar. From that wall to that one. Maybe longer. The bar was that long, or longer. And the place was like that. It wasn’t much deeper than this. You know what I mean? But you were like— and the people were just standing there lookin’ at you. You know, they were that close. I mean, they were really close. And it was like, Wham! Bam! Zwam! I mean, every— it was no foolin’ around up there. You know what I mean? And boy, we had so many bass players, ’cause they couldn’t deal with it. ’Cause it was just like, [claps] boomp! You know what I mean? Until we found Major. Major was— when we got Major… We wore about five bass players before we got Major. [laughter] When Major came in, that was it.

SCHOENBERG:  Right.

LOCKE:  So now Coleman still ain’t— you know, we’re not talking yet. ’Cause those guys were [chuckles] very funny, you know. He wasn’t talking to me yet. So one night I was playing behind Roy. You know, Roy was playing and I was playing. And he kinda walked over to me and he said, “Are you playing like that when I’m playing?” [they laugh] In other words, he said I was playing more. And I probably was.

SCHOENBERG:  Playing for your boy.

LOCKE:  Yeah. ’Cause this relationship with him, Roy and I had, you know. But that was so funny for him to say. He says, “Are you playing like that when I’m playing?” [they laugh] And from that period, from that, that’s when my relationship started with Coleman. And then I started playing with them separately, as a quartet. ’Cause they didn’t work together that much, you know; nobody would hire ’em together.

SCHOENBERG:  They were too expensive?

LOCKE:  Yeah. That’s what they said, but it was just… Well, I don’t even wanna go there. But anyway, you know, it’s just like ridiculous. So I worked with Roy Eldridge’s quartet, and I worked with Coleman’s quartet. And then that caused a little friction, ’cause Roy… [laughs] You know, Roy didn’t… He had something about him that wanted to be… He wanted me to be with him. Even if he wasn’t working. [laughter] You know what I’m saying?

SCHOENBERG:  Yeah, sure.

LOCKE:  He was a very sensitive guy, you know? And I’ll never forget, one time he was playing at that place— that was before you came here, probably.

SCHOENBERG:  The Embers?

LOCKE:  The Embers. [inaudible voices] Not the Embers on the East Side, no. No, no, no. It was a Embers on the West Side, in this hotel. There was a little— one’a them hotels right there in the forties, in the bar. It didn’t last a long time. But Roy started playing there. Like a house band, almost. And we were playing down— I was at the Village Gate with Coleman. So when we got finished—’cause we got finished before him—we’d come up there to hang out. And so Coleman comes in the club and says, “Yeah. Man, we tore it up down there!” ’Cause Coleman liked to keep stuff— he was signifying. ’Cause he knew how Roy was, too.

SCHOENBERG:  Right.

LOCKE:  Yeah. He was puttin’ [inaudible; chuckles] Well, Roy got— he was mad. He said, “Yeah, I guess you did tear it up down there. You got a bass player singer in the bass; a drummer playing with his toes and his fingers.” [they laugh]

SCHOENBERG:  Right, right.

LOCKE:  Yeah, so it’s…

SCHOENBERG:  When I look at you and I think of all those nights of music that you made and that you heard…

LOCKE:  Whoo!

SCHOENBERG:  …and all those Coleman Hawkins ballads, and all those hundreds and thousands of songs, and Body and Souls, and everything that you were part of, can you tell us about some…

LOCKE:  When I tell…

SCHOENBERG:  …[inaudible] nights?

LOCKE:  You know, when I tell everybody now— I mean, tell people this all the time. If I never, ever played music again in my life, I would never be unhappy. Because it’s very few humans have had the opportunity to do what I did. It’s not because they weren’t good or nothing, either. It’s something— something smiled on me, that I was able to play… I mean, playing with one of them would’ve been enough.

SCHOENBERG:  Right.

LOCKE:  But to play with Roy Eldridge and Coleman Hawkins both? That— it’s like what Martin Luther King said, I’ve been on top of the mountain and I’ve seen the other side. And really, I mean, it’s really amazing. I try not to— ’cause they told me, “Don’t be a ghost,” that’s LOCKE (Cont.):  what they used to tell me. It still comes to me now sometimes when I’m playing with people; it’s just not there, the things that I felt when I played with them. It was just like, unbelievable feeling. [chuckles] Joe Jones told me this one time, he said, “You know what?” You know, he was my mentor-mentor. And he said, “One’a these days you’re gonna be playing with Roy Eldridge, and he’s just gonna lift you right outta that drum seat.” I said, “What is he talking about?” You know, ’cause Joe would say something, but he would never expl— he’d throw something at you like that, and leave you. Years went by. And one time I was up in Toronto, Canada with Roy. And you know, I used to do this feature on Caravan all the time, right? And we were on the bandstand, it was behind a bar in Toronto [inaudible]. And man, we got to that middle, man he hit a note, man, and did it to me, right? I said— I couldn’t even play. I couldn’t even play the bridge. He just played the bridge by himself. I couldn’t even play. It was just, like, so dynamic, you know?