In observance of master drummer Ed Thigpen’s birthday, I’m posting the proceedings of an interview that we did on WKCR a few weeks before his 64th birthday, when he was in NYC to play a week at Bradley’s with the late Memphis piano master Charles Thomas and bassist Ray Drummond.
(Some eight years later, he offered his memories of Ray Brown.)
Ed Thigpen (WKCR, 12-14-94):
[MUSIC: Thigpen Trio: “Gingerbread Boy,” “Denise”]
Q: Ed Thigpen is in residence at Bradley’s this week with top-shelf trio that features pianist Charles Thomas from Memphis, Tennessee, and bassist Ray Drummond, gracing the small space with a mind-boggling variety of sounds and textures and rhythms from his drum kit. Let’s talk about your recent CD, Mister Taste, on Just In Time, which received five stars in Downbeat. You’re joined on it by a bassist you’ve worked with frequently since moving to Europe twenty-odd years ago…
ET: Yes, 22 years ago, as a matter of fact. Mads Vinding, who is probably one of the finest bassists you’ll ever hear. Denmark has a penchant for putting out good bass players, Niels-Henning, and we have another young man named Jesper Lundgard, who is also fine — but Mads is special. And bringing Tony Purrone and Mads together, it was pure magic.
Q: You comment in the liner notes on particularly the resonance and nuance of the sound Mads Vinding brings to the bass.
ET: Well, for one, he’s so in tune, and quite inventive. I am particularly pleased with the interplay between he and Tony — well, the whole group, actually. Like I said, it was magic. It was one of those magical dates that came together. We had done a television show, and like many Jazz endeavors that come about, you don’t have too much time to rehearse. I brought some tunes in, and it was just… The only thing I can say is that it was like magic, the things that happened, their response, and it was so open…
So when I heard it, I said, “I have to record it.” So we went into the studio. We had another one-nighter in Copenhagen, and then a day off. So we laid down about seven tracks, and I used it as a demo. Then Just-In-Time was interested in putting it out. So I brought them back over again, and went into the studio another evening or two, and had a couple of rehearsals — and that’s the result of it.
Q: Ed Thigpen’s father was one of the prominent drummers of his period, really, in defining what’s called the Southwest Sound and that way of playing drums.
ET: Well, a Swing drummer, yeah. He was great. Swing. Swing, that was Ben Thigpen.
Q: Ben Thigpen, who played with Andy Kirk for many years. And your birthplace is Chicago. Did you live there for a number of years, or…?
ET: No. Actually the band was on the road, and that’s where I was born. But the band was actually stationed out of Kansas City. So I guess when I was old enough to travel, we traveled to Kansas City, and then my mother took me to California, where I was raised from 1935.
Q: Tell me about your musical tuition. Was your father your first teacher, or how did it happen?
ET: No, he wasn’t my first teacher. Actually, I started in grade school. You know, all the kids… We had church choir, tap dance lessons, some piano lessons, and we had rhythm groups, and a little orchestra in grade school! Then in junior high school I did my first drum contest. We had people like Buddy Redd, who was Elvira Redd’s brother, a young man named Jimmy O’Brien. Then naturally, the concert band. Then getting into high school with the swing band, which I think sort of kicked things off, because that band came out of Jefferson High School. Art Farmer was in the band, and Addison, Chico Hamilton had come out of the band, Dexter had gone to that school as well — so it was quite rich.
Q: And the band-master at Thomas Jefferson High School was Samuel Browne, a famous teacher.
ET: Samuel Browne.
Q: Describe him a little bit, his methods…
ET: Well, complete openness as far as exposure. All styles of music. We had arrangements by Fletcher Henderson, by whoever was popular — Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Boyd Raeburn. Dizzy Gillespie, they had charts from that band.
Q: At that time.
ET: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Q: So he was fully open-minded.
ET: Oh, totally. And you were allowed to go as far as you could. It was totally open. We had great arrangers in the band, wonderful singers. Mister Browne was just very encouraging to all of us. He was a very dedicated man.
Q: Were you basically a born drummer? I mean, is that your first instrument? Or were you studying other instruments…
ET: No, I’ve worked hard at it. I still do.
Q: I don’t mean that it was a natural talent. I mean, was that the first instrument that you…
ET: Gravitated towards?
Q: Yes.
ET: In some senses. Actually, it was the piano at first, but the piano lessons, instead of… I think in the old days it was, like, I used to get stomach-aches because I didn’t know about this fourth finger being tied, and the concentration on being a concert pianist, and I didn’t have the facility for that. I sort of wish… Now when I teach, I teach young people to enjoy the music. It’s not about being Horowitz. It’s about enjoying the music. But now I’m studying again!
But it was piano and dance. We took dance; we did tap dancing. And singing in the choir and stuff like that.
Q: You went to school with and were roughly a contemporary of a number of musicians who became very well known in the Jazz world. Were you performing outside of school in teenage groups, ensembles? If so, what sort of things were you playing, and what was the ambiance like?
ET: Well, no, I wasn’t playing outside of school until I became a senior. I just had graduated from high school. My first professional gig was with Buddy Collette, as a matter of fact. He hired me to do a gig. We’d have dances, you know, at the YMCA and the YWCA. Then the Swing band, of course, we did a lot of touring around the city. We played all the high schools and so forth.
Q: The Jefferson High School band.
ET: That was Jefferson High School, but we played other high schools in concert. We had… Well, who else had a Swing band? I think Dorsey(?) may have had a band. But our band was quite known, so we traveled all over the city, doing concerts and so forth.
Q: As far as emulating a style, I guess your father would have been an obvious example to you. But who were the drummers you were trying to model yourself after? Was it by records? Were you able to go to the theaters, hear big bands coming through, and hear those drummers first-hand?
ET: As I said before, we had drummers who came through who were there. Chico Hamilton was quite helpful to me. As a matter of fact, he taught me how to play paradiddles. I enjoyed his colors. Then, like all kids at that time, Gene Krupa was a… You know, you went to the movies and watched Gene Krupa for the show business and all that stuff. Then I started hearing records, and when I heard Dizzy, it was little subtle things that I liked very much. “Ow!” was a big influence, that particular piece. I found out later it wasn’t Kenny, but it was Joe Harris. But also Max Roach, Art Blakey — all of the masters playing. Just people who played well.
Then, later, after I had moved to St. Louis, I had the opportunity to see Jo Jones, Papa Jo, as they call him now. Once I saw him, that was it. He was a symphony on drums for me.
Q: What was the event?
ET: Well, actually I was in St. Louis, and I was going to see Buddy Rich at the Jazz at the Philharmonic, but Buddy didn’t make the show, and there was Jo Jones. Well, I hadn’t seen him before, and I was just mesmerized. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Just everything that he did was so musical, and the touch and the swing — and from there on, that was it for me. That was the one who I more or less patterned a lot of my work from.
Q: Did you speak with him then?
ET: Oh yes. He and father were very close, and I obviously spoke to him, but it wasn’t about drums. We talked about tennis, as a matter of fact. When he came to L.A., when I first him, he didn’t even know I played drums. I introduced myself, and he knew my Dad, of course, and we were out on the tennis court together. But that was it.
Q: What was his tennis game like?
ET: Fine! He was a good tennis player. Yeah, he was fine.
Q: Talk about the elements of his style that you were able to incorporate, coming from another generation and dealing with somewhat different demands that were placed on a drummer.
ET: Well, what I liked first of all was the swing. You know, you popped your fingers. It was his cymbal beat, his hi-hat patterns. Then when I saw him pick up brushes, which I hadn’t used before really… And his touch. It was the musicality of his approach to playing. It was the instrument… It wasn’t just drums when he played. He used to tell me later, after I got to know him, that the hi-hat became his brass section. He was one of the first ones I saw utilizing a certain amount of independence, subtle independence, and colors and things of that nature. It just floored me. So I think it was the overall musicality of the swing, the epitome of swing.
Q: Were you working professionally right after graduating high school?
ET: Oh, yes. I started working with a group called the Jackson Brothers. It was sort of a show group. It was Pee Wee Crayton, you know, Rhythm-and-Blues. Most of us started with Rhythm-and-Blues. Then when I moved to St. Louis, it was Peanuts Whalum. Miles came home one time, I had a gig with him. And then I went on the road with (we had territorial bands) a gentleman by the name of Candy Johnson. In that band was Jack McDuff, believe it or not, and Freeman Lee and James Glover. So you traveled around the Midwest and the South. Then I wound up in New York, and my first job here was at the Savoy Ballroom.
Q: Was the Candy Johnson band dealing mostly with jump band things, rhythm-and-blues, or was it a wide repertoire?
ET: No, it was Swing. It was a wide repertoire. I think the closest… Candy played tenor, alto, clarinet, baritone; he played a lot of baritone at that time. Jack was playing piano. We weren’t playing organ; playing piano. There was some Bebop, there was some Swing, we had a lot of stuff Charlie Ventura type with that group that he had with Bennie Green. It was just good music, just swing. Basie charts. The standard things. He was a wonderful player.
Q: So you really had a ton of experience by the time you came to New York, working in all sorts of situations, I guess.
ET: I would say so. Then when I got here, you know, it started again, working with Cootie Williams. That band was my first exposure to doing the tobacco warehouses doing what they call the Chitlin’ Circuit. We traveled with people like the Ravens, the Dominos, the first Doo-Wop groups, the Orioles, then with Dinah Washington — it was wonderful. That’s when I met Keeter Betts and Jimmy Cobb and Wynton Kelly. That was the rhythm she had. Then, when I saw Jimmy Cobb, that floored me again.
Q: Talk about that little bit.
ET: Well, I have to go back before Jimmy. I mean, when I first came to New York in late 1950 or early 1951, the first person I looked up was Max Roach. He was playing at a place called the Palm Garden, I think, down the street from the Apollo Theater. I had heard Max on record. He, again, was so musical. You could just follow the melodies when he soloed. I couldn’t believe someone like that. And his descriptive playing, total… Again, he had a great influence in the sense… I didn’t have the technique that he did, but it was the musicality of the drums. That was the thing that really got to me. I met him, asked questions and so forth.
Q: Max Roach, of course, was tremendously influenced as well by Papa Jo Jones.
ET: I think everyone who came up had to be influenced by him. He was a great innovator, let’s face it.
But anyway, when we were out on the road with Cootie, we were traveling with Dinah Washington, and as I said, they had Wynton Kelly and Keeter Betts and then Jimmy Cobb. Then I was really flabbergasted, because here was a guy who was sort of like out of Max, but his solos and time, and he swung so hard… He had such great technique, too. I just said, “Wow!”
All these guys were nice. That’s the beauty, for me, of the business, is the camaraderie of the men who are involved in the music. They’re all such great men, such wonderful people. So from that, you just try to make your little niche and participate in this wonderful music.
Q: You worked with Bud Powell and Billy Taylor, I guess, in the mid-1950’s.
ET: Yes. Well, I went into the Army from Cootie Williams. When I came out of the Army, I was discharged in Chicago.
Q: I’m sure you were in a band in the Army?
ET: Yes. I was at Ford Ord, California, for almost the first year. I was the instructor in the Army band. I really got the gig as an instructor because I could play a good Samba, and my Master Sergeant had a band outside of the regular duties, and he wanted me to play with him, so they stationed me there.
Then I went to Korea, and I was in the Sixth Army Band, Maxwell Taylor, you know, the Armed Guard Band.
Then when I came out, I got out in Chicago. Cootie had another drummer, and the guy who was his road manager said, “I don’t think you’re going to get this gig back.” Anyway, Keeter Betts told me that Dinah (he called her the Queen)… he had heard that the drum chair was open. So I spoke with her. She was coming into St. Louis two weeks after I was discharged. I went down to the dance, played with them, and she said, “Why don’t you come and go to Kansas City?” So the next thing I know, two weeks after the Army, I’m with Dinah. And from Dinah, I’m back to New York, and then it’s Birdland — and you’re exposed to here. Then my whole thing began again.
Q: Began to blossom.
ET: Yes.
Q: Talk about playing with Bud Powell.
ET: Oh! Playing with Bud Powell. Again, that was a thrill.
Q: Did he have on nights, off nights? Was he fairly consistently?
ET: Well, some people say he wasn’t… You know, he had been ill for so long, so there would be evenings when I guess those who knew him when he was at his peak would say it was off. But for me it was always on, because again, he played so much music. I wasn’t real…with the sticks… Like, I said, I could swing and I was good with brushes, and he liked what I did with the brushes. So just playing with him, just being on the stand with him was wonderful. And all of that obviously came in. I tried to find ways to accompany him.
Q: Would he have pretty much set arrangements? Did you have any input into the shape of his performances…
ET: Oh, no-no-no. At that point there was no actual conversation going on. Everything conversationally was done musically. He’d look over and smile, and he would just play. So you know, the ears had to have it.
Q: And then you worked for several years also with Billy Taylor’s trio, which was a popular trio.
ET: Oh, that was a delight. That was my introduction to… oh, to so many things. Billy introduced me to so many things. Number one, he’s such a fine person. Again, he gave me total freedom. With Billy I think prepared me to work with Oscar, in a strange way. The appreciation of a ballad. No one plays a ballad like that for me. Then, I was able to experiment with him. We used to talk about the story-line of a piece, “Titoro,” or what we wanted to get out of it. That was also my introduction to general Jazz education. He’s so knowledgeable. We used to go out and do a lot of freebies, and do clinics and workshops. I gained a great deal from Billy. Still do, as a matter of fact!
Q: We’re in a straight line here, and I guess that will lead us to your joining Oscar Peterson.
ET: Oh, 1959. Yes, January, 1959.
Q: That was six years?
ET: Six-and-a-half years. ’59 to ’65.
Q: Ed Thigpen will select a set of favorite performances over the years with Oscar Peterson, and we’ll be back with him for more conversation. [ETC.]
[MUSIC: OP/Milt Jackson “Green Dolphin Street” (1962), “Tin Tin Deo” (1963) “Thag’s Dance” (1962)]
Q: In the previous segment we were encapsulating Ed Thigpen’s life up to joining the Oscar Peterson Trio. I’d now like to ask you a little bit about your years with that group, and the demands of playing with a trio of such incredible musicians, both as improvisers and in terms of their general musicality. Talk about playing next to Ray Brown for six years.
ET: Oh, a total delight. Ray was a big brother to me, in many ways. You know, we almost lived together on the road for about six years, and rehearsing every day, playing time, playing golf…just having a good time. It was a delightful experience in most ways; it really was.
Q: He has one of the most distinctive sounds in Jazz. He’s one of these people, one note, you pretty much know it’s him.
ET: Oh, yes. Well, I used to like to have him just lay down a groove. Nobody lays down a groove like him.
Q: I’m going to ask you a bit about the strategies of the group. Were the performances intricately worked out beforehand? How much improvising went on on the bandstand in terms of shaping the arrangements, apart from within the arrangements?
ET: Well, as you can see, they were highly arranged as far as the compositional things. Oscar was a genius in how he wanted things to be; after he had shaped the outside parts, how he wanted… Except when it came to things where we’d just play things spontaneous, like when we did eleven albums in two weeks of that whole song-book series, with no short takes. Well, those things are just spontaneous, you know, doing the melody, the groove, have little interludes, and you had to be quick and just make it happen. Of course, as you know, with Jazz music, so much of it is improvisation, so the skills have to be there.
But with the group, we would have rehearsals, and we’d learn the pieces in sections. When it came to things like West Side Story, which was probably one of the most difficult ones for me at that time, because some of the things were quite intricate, you had to put blinders on, not sing somebody else’s part, and play yours. It was quite intricate.
I just enjoyed listening to the trio. I felt every night I was at a concert. I wasn’t just participating. I was also part of the audience, listening to them play. But outside of that, I think one of the biggest things I got out of that whole thing was the idea about being consistent, keeping at a very high level. That was his credo. We were supposed to sound better than just about anybody on our worst night. That was the whole idea, was that you never cheated. I mean, every song was an opener and a closer, whether it’s a ballad or whatever. You just went out and go for broke, the whole thing.
Q: Well, it’s certainly a group which gave new meaning to the phrase “split second timing.”
ET: Oh, yes. It was something else.
Q: Was the reason for leaving that six years on the road was too much, or…
ET: No, it was time. Oscar was hearing other things. I began to hear other things. I think in any type of situation like that… You know, you watch Miles’ groups, he changed. There comes a time when that period of whatever you’re going through, has to end, and you move on to other things.
Q: Well, he certainly put the drummer in a situation where I guess just about every possible sound you could out of a drum kit would be incorporated within at least several performances by the group.
ET: Well, I wouldn’t say… To be honest, not every sound. Because that’s why you move on. You know, you’re working for and with a person who is a very strong personality, who is a stylist as well. He has ideas about how he wants things to go, and they are absolutely right. It would be the same if you were working with Erroll Garner as a stylist, or someone else. There would be certain things that… When you’re working with one particular group over a long period of time, and it’s almost exclusively with that group, there are many things you don’t get a chance to play, you know, a lot of repertoire — you can’t cover everything. There were things I would do with Billy that I didn’t do with him. There were things I did with Tommy that you didn’t do with Billy or you didn’t do with someone else. Over the years, you find yourself in other situations, and each individual, or each group that you work with will give you other areas of your personality… You know, you continue to grow, so you experiment. It’s constantly evolving. You’re not really one-dimensional. I guess that’s the best way I could put it.
Q: I guess the next major gig for you was several years with Ella Fitzgerald, in the late 1960’s.
ET: Yes. That was another thrill.
Q: Which has a whole other set of demands for accompanying a singer, and as formidable a stylist as Ella Fitzgerald.
ET: Well, she was a total orchestra. You know, you have some soloists… Her voice was the instrument, let’s face it. And she instinctively… When she sang it was orchestration. It almost commanded that you do certain things. You find certain soloists… Benny Carter is another person who plays that way. When they play, it’s like an orchestration. It leads you to something. So it’s not really as difficult to play with them, because they know so much about what they want, and what they’re going to do without even saying it. It comes right out. If you react to that, then it’s almost automatic. It’s just a big thrill to be in that situation.
Q: Our next set of music will focus on an aspect of Ed Thigpen’s European experience, which has been ongoing for twenty-two years. You live in Copenhagen. Has that been your residence since moving to Europe?
ET: Oh, yes. I was married and we had children, and I stayed there and raised my kids. And Copenhagen was a nice place to be at the time. For a period there, we had Dexter, Thad, Kenny Drew, Horace Parlan, Idrees Sulieman, Sahib Shihab, Richard Boone — it was a nice community.
[MUSIC: Ernie Wilkins Big Band “Sebastian”; Thad Jones, “Three In One” (1984)]
Q: Ed Thigpen is working this week at Bradley’s in a trio featuring the strong Memphis-based pianist Charles Thomas, who has influenced several generations of Memphis piano players, and bassist Ray Drummond. Is this your first time playing with Charles Thomas?
ET: The first time. James Williams called me, the wonderful pianist, and said, “I have someone I would really like you to play with. He would like to play with you.” Because Charles had been a big fan of Oscar, myself, and so forth. He said, “You’re really going to like him. He taught a lot of us from Memphis.” Meanwhile, I spoke with Billy Higgins, and he raved about him too. Charles is a wonderful pianist, a wonderful musician. People really should come down.
Q: You were mentioning the breadth of his repertoire.
ET: Oh, the scope of his repertoire. He knows… We’re playing everything from Christmas carols to the height of Bebop, so tunes that you don’t hear, some compositions I’m beginning to learn right on the bandstand. It’s pure magic. Again, one of those situations when you have someone who plays so well and knows the music so thoroughly, and it’s just a treat to be there with him.
Q: He’s a very elegant and incisive soloist. He never plays too long, and always with a little different twist to what you might expect.
ET: Well, I like his harmonics. He swings his head off. We went into some Blues last night, and it was deep. It was really something! So I am looking forward to every night. You know, it’s a long gig when you do 10-to-3 in the morning, but doesn’t seem long to me, because you know, Ray is playing so beautifully… When you’re playing with great guys like this, and the music is so interesting, and the treatment of the music is nice, so it’s stimulating for both the audience and for us as players. So it’s a nice place to be.
Q: We heard you backing Thad Jones. You mentioned that you played with him quite frequently over about a seven-eight year period…
ET: Well, seven years anyway. The last seven years of his life, really, or until he went with Basie, I was doing a lot of work with Thad. I hooked onto him when he came over. Because this man, just coming out of a rehearsal under him made me a better father, the way he handled people and he was encouraging to everybody…
Q: An anecdote?
ET: Just love. Love, love and perfection, and just creativity, a lot of it — and caring. This was a man who cared about his musicians. I think the thing that I gained most was that working with Thad… Other musicians attest to the same. What he wanted was you to be the best you you could be. It wasn’t a matter about comparing. It was the idea about individuality and being the best you, and he would just encourage you to be the best you that you could be.
Q: Talk a little bit about what’s distinctive about his compositions for a drummer.
ET: Well, for me, again, we’re talking about total musicality. Orchestrating the rhythmic aspect of his music was perfect. Tommy used to tell me, “It’s simple.” He would start at odd places, but once you got into it, it was just so logical; it was so logical you wouldn’t even think about it. It’s just right. Unique.
Q: Talk about some of the other musicians you’ve had close associations with. Mads Vinding, obviously, is your partner on bass.
ET: Jesper Lundgaard. We have a couple of pianists now in Denmark who are wonderful. Now I have this new association with a sort of American-German-European, but sort of like more esoteric and descriptive, but wonderful. I’m having a ball with this new group, After Storm, with John Lindberg and Albert Mangelsdorff and Eric Watson. We all come from different backgrounds, one Classical, two of us Jazz, older and younger men, this mixture of young and old, and mixing some Classical aspects to the improvisational things that we’re doing, so some of it is like descriptive music, but you know, with a beat behind it. Just interesting to play. Free.
What’s happening now, you may not be playing just the Blues, but it will have the feel of it, you know. You might not be playing just “Rhythm” changes, but it all has rhythm. All music has rhythm. Breathing, walking, everything has rhythm to it. As I said before, it’s not a matter of being in a box. I call it descriptive. It’s an opportunity to… Maybe you want to paint a picture. You might depict rustling leaves, for instance. So it can be very theatrical. It’s like theater music, in some ways. Descriptive music is the best way I can put it.
Q: Do you paint pictures for yourself while you’re playing, regardless of the situation?
ET: Yes. I try to relate to some type of story form, an idea you’re trying to communicate, a feeling, a picture, a story, whether it be the ocean, or whether it be something lyrical. You try to be… It is a matter of communication, you know, telling a story.
[MUSIC: Thigpen Trio, “E.T.P.” (1991), Thigpen Group, “Heritage” (1966); Thigpen/ Mangelsdorff/Lindberg/Watson, “Punchin’ aPaich Patch”]
Q: You said that the Mangelsdorff/Lindberg/Watson group has some tours set up for next year.
ET: Yeah, we have a couple. We have a short one when we record again in February, and in March we have a tour. So I’m looking forward to it.
Q: That’s the type of group that if you were feeling a little stale or in a rut, it seems like you would never have any problem finding fresh ideas.
ET: No. It’s very stimulating. I enjoy it very much. As I said, it’s descriptive. I enjoy descriptive music. And they’re interesting to play with it. I really enjoy it.
Q: When you came to Europe one thing that was either a cliche or not is that it was hard to find good rhythm section. So of course, if a strong drummer arrived, there would presumably be a lot of work. Was that the case with European rhythm sections? If so, how has that evolved over the years?
ET: I think that’s changed now, obviously. Jazz is a world music now. It’s always been. It’s encompassed it, because this country represents the world. I think you have to be here, you have the… There’s something unique about this experience in the United States that figures in everything. It is a United States art form made up of all the peoples and cultures in the world.
But we have some wonderful players over in Europe, really. As far as… I used to hear about… I understand it was that way at one time about rhythm sections, because you know, the essence of the music is here. It’s like, if you’re going to deal with Opera, you have to deal with Italy. Everybody has to have something, right?!
Q: Conversely, how has your European experience shaped you, and made you a more, let’s say, expansive improviser or given you a more expansive palette?
ET: Not necessarily. These are the things that I’ve always been interested in. As I said, a lot of people don’t realize how diverse the United States is. There is a very interesting article quoting Max. Every time I think of something, he’s already said it. He’s so observant! And the fact that this country represents…brings in cultures. You know, it’s a mixture of various cultures. So most of us are exposed to all types of things here. I mean, you turn on the radio… Well, it’s different now, in some ways. But I was introduced to Brazilian music when I was ten years old in Los Angeles. I play good Country-and-Western music. So it’s all here.
Q: You said you got in the Army band because you played a good Samba for your Sergeant.
ET: That’s right. If there is a difference in Europe, I don’t think the European fan is as fickle. Everything is marketing here, and it’s like what’s new rather than necessarily what is classic. We don’t really honor…it’s even about honor, but just even respect our own uniqueness sometimes. Sometimes I have a problem if people don’t realize that we do have a very rich heritage. I just wish they would support it more.
Q: I think that the stretching boundaries and “experimentation” was represented on the middle track, which is from your first album as a leader, Ed Thigpen’s Out of the Storm from 1966, on Verve. That one featured Clark Terry, Kenny Burrell, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock and Ed Thigpen. That track featured your pedal tom-tom.
ET: Well, it was a pedal miazi(?), pedal tom-tom, an Italian drum. It works somewhat similar to a tympany. I was actually able to do melodies on that drum.
Q: And sing.
ET: Oh yeah, that was another thing.
Q: The call-and-response effect you were able to get there.
ET: Yes, between that and toms and so forth. You know, years ago, we had one of the first what I guess you would call Avant groups with Gil Mellé, who was very advanced. We were doing things on…like, he was very much into Bartok, you know. But it’s just playing music, man, making you feel good and having a good time!
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