SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
FALL, 2018
VOLUME SIX NUMBER TWO
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
SMOKEY ROBINSON
(October 6-12)
(October 6-12)
THE TEMPTATIONS
(October 13-19)
JOHN CARTER
(October 20-26)
MARTHA AND THE VANDELLAS
MARTHA AND THE VANDELLAS
(October 27-November 2)
RANDY WESTON
(November 3-9)
HOLLAND DOZIER AND HOLLAND
(November 10-16)
JELLY ROLL MORTON
(November 17-23)
BOBBY BRADFORD
(November 24-30)
BOBBY BRADFORD
(November 24-30)
THE SUPREMES
(December 1-7)
THE FOUR TOPS
(December 8-14)
THE SPINNERS
(December 15-21)
THE STYLISTICS
(December 22-28)https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bobby-bradford-mn0000764303
Bobby Bradford
(b. July 19, 1934)
Artist Biography by Scott Yanow
One of the best trumpeters to emerge from the avant-garde, Bobby Bradford largely fulfilled the potential of Don Cherry (whose chops declined through the years due to the amount of time allocated to performing on flute and other instruments). Bradford grew up in Dallas, playing trumpet locally with such local players as Cedar Walton and David Newman. In 1953, he moved to Los Angeles where he met and played with Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. Bradford spent time in the military and in school before becoming Don Cherry's replacement with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in 1961-1963, a period when the group unfortunately rarely worked. After moving to Los Angeles, Bradford became a school teacher and also began a longtime association with clarinetist John Carter; his mellow trumpet blended in well with Carter's dissonant flights. He recorded with Ornette Coleman in 1971, but otherwise is best known for his playing and recordings with Carter. Since the clarinetist's death, Bradford frequently led a quintet (the Mo'tet) featuring Vinny Golia and occasionally Marty Ehrlich. In the '90s, he also performed with John Stevens' Freebop, the David Murray Octet, and Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra.
Bobby Bradford: Musician, Educator, Survivor
BOBBY BRADFORD
(b. July 19, 1934)
by
In 1991 the prolific saxophonist David Murray recorded Death Of A Sideman (DIW), an album that put a spotlight on the compositions of Mississippi born cornetist Bobby Bradford. A long time coming, Bradford's music was finally receiving the kind of recognition it deserved, and from one of jazz's biggest names. Murray had been a student of Bradford's back in 1974 at Pomona College in California, where the cornetist still teaches to this day. Bradford's story, however, started in earnest in 1969 when he and John Carter released their debut album Seeking (Revelation Records) under their group name of the New Jazz Art Ensemble. Turn the calendar back another decade and we see that, despite having played trumpet in Ornette Coleman's band prior to Don Cherry, Bradford would have to wait many years before receiving the level of recognition his music warranted. Being a West Coast "Free Jazz" player would be an uphill struggle for Bradford and his long time playing partner John Carter with precious few records to show for their efforts. What they did manage to release, however, can today stand comfortably alongside the records of wider known exponents of the music such as Anthony Braxton, Peter Brötzmann, Cecil Taylor and Evan Parker. Although rooted in the free form blues of Ornette Coleman's early albums for Atlantic, Bradford's music took that initial inspiration as a point of departure to improvisational and instrumental realms that would mark him out as one of the most resilient, thoughtful and melodically aware trumpeters of the past fifty years. Over a period of a week in three separate interviews, I spoke with Bradford by telephone in his home in California where he has lived for several decades. A true gentleman and natural communicator, Bradford's long career encapsulates everything a musician must be prepared to face if they are to dedicate their life to the pursuit and creation of jazz music.
Bradford was born in 1934 in Cleveland, Mississippi, and for lack of a school music programme took piano lessons at the behest of his mother. After moving across the USA with his family as his father searched for work, they eventually settled in Dallas in 1946. It was here that Bradford first discovered the cornet, the shorter and punchier version of the trumpet that would many years later become his instrument of choice.
"There was a guy who lived right across the road from us who played the cornet. He'd sit there and play the cornet and I somehow became fascinated with him. He wasn't playing jazz, just pretty songs. I went over to this guy and said "I can play that!" and he said "Oh, you're kidding!! It takes a lot to play this horn."
In what was a very tight knit, Black community, Perry Como and Bing Crosby songs filled the radio airwaves of the day. Occasionally you'd hear Benny Goodman or Duke Ellington but jazz was something of a rarity. Bradford soon learned the Harold Arlen standard "Blues In The Night" on the cornet (as it required only the middle valve to be used, Bradford recalls), much to the surprise and delight of his cornet playing neighbour.
"All I had to do was be locked up in a room for a while and figure it out," Bradford explains.
Although Be Bop was the new music in jazz at that time in New York City, it wasn't quite making its way to Bradford's home town of Cleveland which had a population of around 5,000 in the mid 1940s. Access to Be Bop at that time was through records. Local musicians would gather together in their homes, listening fervently to 78s by the likes of Dexter Gordon and Fats Navarro who would prove to be a lifelong influence on Bradford. The song Bradford remembers most fondly was a 12-bar blues called 'Index,' a simple tune reminiscent of Charlie Parker's "Now's The Time." Indeed, it was the blues that would permeate most persistently throughout Bradford's later career, an influence consolidated some years later when he would meet, and subsequently play with, Ornette Coleman. Some of Bradford's schoolmates in the late '40s would years later rank amongst the great names in jazz such as James Clay, David "Fathead" Newman and Cedar Walton. Notable was their willingness to share ideas and compare notes, learning to play jazz together. As the saying goes, "A rising tide lifts all boats."
"Sometimes at the end of the day, we'd all trade ideas about something we'd transcribed off records. At the speed of the 78 record you could keep putting the needle back until you got the part clear. There were no books at the music store about jazz at the time."
When Bradford got his first live experience of hearing Be Bop it was courtesy of trumpeter Johnny Coles (much later a Mingus sideman) who came through town with Bull 'Moose' Jackson. Bobby Bradford, Cedar Walton and James Clay were playing almost entirely by ear at that time, doing the best they could. One could conjecture that learning jazz this way, in an unacademic manner later married up to a more scholarly approach, is what gave that generation of musicians such distinctiveness as players and soloists. You have on the one hand a natural, instinctive understanding of the music, deeply embedded in the blues, that reaches a fuller expressive power through a more scholastic methodology. Listening to records was one thing, but the idea of making a career from playing jazz was inconceivable at the time. It would be several years until Bradford would become a teacher of jazz, let alone a full-time player.
"I never had any idea that I'd be involved in music as a profession or a career. If you were in a Black middle class family, there was a great deal of emphasis on going to College. In fact sometimes we said jokingly in the Black community "What's your kid going to be? Doctor, Lawyer, Preacher, Teacher." That was the reality of it. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billy Eckstine were all very visible at that time but we looked at them and thought "Now, that's very special. Not everybody's going to do that..."
A few years later Bradford would form perhaps the most significant musical relationship of his career before meeting saxophonist John Carter in the late 1960s. A favourite expression of Bradford's is "As fate would have it" and fate was about to shine its unpredictable light on the young trumpeter.
"In 1952, at Charles Moffett's wedding reception in Texas, Ornette Coleman was the best man. I didn't know Ornette but word was out that there's this guy from Fort Worth who wears his hair real long, he's weird and he plays some pretty far out stuff but that's all we'd heard."
In what must have been a pretty unique Wedding Reception band, Ornette Coleman and fellow saxophonist Leo Wright kicked off a jam session. Tin Pan Alley tunes were soon replaced by what Bradford terms "the Ornette Coleman assault." Coleman's harmonic extensions prompted bafflement from the guests and fellow musicians but instant approval from Bradford. It would prove to be a watershed moment in Bradford's life, both musically and personally. Coleman would not only exert a hugely important musical influence upon the trumpeter but a personal one as well. The influence of Charlie Parker at the time was immense, and on all instrumentalists, not just saxophonists. It took someone truly revolutionary in spirit, unafraid in character and utterly fluent in natural (not studied) technique as Ornette Coleman to break through that influence to forge a clear, bold new direction in the music.
"It was clear that he'd already heard Charlie Parker and had embraced, even digested, the articulation of the Bebop style. He was already inspired enough to think he had something to say that should be heard. I didn't understand what Ornette was playing, but I liked it."
Bradford goes on to explain the unique alchemy that Coleman possessed.
"Around 1953, Ornette wasn't very adept at precise notation. He had no formal music training, he was what one would call an autodidact. The things he did know, he didn't know them by the name that you call them. He once said to me "Sometimes I will yield to whoever is the strongest voice when we're playing." That kind of thinking made a lot of players nervous."
Up to this point, the formal structure of jazz was the determining factor in the creation and execution of the music. In other words, the chord structure of the classic song form would act as the bedrock, the safety net even, for the less adventurous players. However for the real trailblazers of the day, from Sonny Rollins to Charles Mingus, this structure was instead a point of departure to regions more far flung. For Coleman, who told Bradford "I don't want to do that. I want to be creative so that I can follow my impulses," this still wasn't enough. Bradford eventually understood that this approach to music was one that required a total command of one's instrument. With this bold musical conception came psychological freedom as well, including the freedom to move beyond the teacher's edict of 'Be Free.' One of the lost treasures of jazz must be the unreleased recordings that Bradford made with the Ornette Coleman group. Apart from Science Fiction and Broken Shadows in the 1970s, there remains no record of Bradford and Coleman playing together, surely one of the most sought after periods of recorded jazz that stubbornly remains lost. Bradford, however, hints this could change.
"He had tapes everywhere. There was one occasion where we recorded a piece of his called "The Sun Suite" at UCLA Berkeley with about 20 musicians from the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, me and Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. There was also one occasion where we played at the Jazz Gallery, in the 1960s. Ornette had tons of recordings, he never threw anything out."
Jazz
is characterised as much by soloists as it is by meaningful and
fruitful collaboration between musicians who bring out the best in each
other and in themselves, occasionally from opposite ends of the playing
field. Indeed, it's this contrast that sets into relief each
individual's special qualities. Think of the sparse, Byronic melodies of
Miles Davis opposite the cascading ceaselessness of John Coltrane in the late 1950s, or the colossal abstractionist blues of Cecil Taylor alongside the pointillistic superbop of Max Roach
in the late 1970s. Like minds come together just as opposites attract.
Bobby Bradford and John Carter could be both at the same time, and
pushed the boundaries of their instruments to electrifying heights over a
steady, twenty-year period.
As recounted in the past, it was Ornette Coleman who introduced John Carter to Bobby Bradford. Although both men grew up in Texas, Bradford and Carter didn't know each other but were aware of one another. Carter was a precocious 16 year old musician who later moved to LA with his family to look for work. In 1967 the two met and quickly found common ground, both musically and personally. Despite their fast-formed friendship, there was some initial disagreement about what direction their music would take together. While Bradford preferred to keep the occasional standard in their repertoire, such as his beloved Thelonious Monk, John Carter, who was several years older than Bradford, was insistent their material be entirely original, non-chordal, compositions.
"We were kind of at odds about that initially but it was a healthy kind of conflict."
And that's the thing—like minds can also be at odds with one another and it is from this friendly conflict that grows true creativity. Getting work, however, was far from easy for the group which finally settled on the rhythm team of seasoned drummer Bruz Freeman and bassist Tom Williamson. Bradford and Carter went around LA playing their new music to club owners but were largely met with (commercially motivated) resistance. One could conjecture that, because the large majority of jazz musicians were in New York City at the time, change was slower to come to the typically Bop driven West Coast scene. LA was never the hotbed of new talent that New York City was with its constant (even aggressive) stimulus from new musicians. A breakthrough eventually came in the form of an invitation from club owner/drummer Shelly Manne to play at his famous Shelley's Manne Hole as a part of Black History Month. By this time the band was playing with an exceptional level of cohesion and empathy. Each man had day jobs and were therefore able to dedicate themselves to their music with the kind of patience and resilience that was required. Even people who didn't like their music responded well to the playing of the group.
In the same period as their 1969 debut album Seeking (Revelation), Bradford and Carter recorded two stunningly creative albums for Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label, Self-Determination Music and Flight For Four. Thiele, whose legendary Impulse albums with John Coltrane were already behind him, travelled to the West Coast to hear what was going on in the "New Music" scene. Musicians like Horace Tapscott and Arthur Blythe were on his radar as were Bradford and Carter. After a brief audition in the home of bassist Wilbur Morris, Thiele asked the duo to make a record with him and the result was the 1969 classic Flight For Four. On this album, which contains four Carter originals and one Bradford original, we hear a distinct, cohesive and unmistakeably new musical conception. Whilst influenced by the Ornette Coleman Atlantic albums of the late 1950s and early 1960s, it is Carter's compositional genius that marks this out as an altogether more uniform kind of freedom, to mix metaphors. The complex structure of the compositions, including Bradford's pungent blues lament Woman, more directly informs the solos than in Coleman's albums. Carter was still playing clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone at the time, offering a broader sonic palette, whilst Bradford's trumpet playing penetrated deeper than its smaller cousin the pocket trumpet.
Things seemed on the up for the group.
"We were getting good reviews, including the Japanese magazine Swing Journal, but couldn't get a job booked, including in Japan. Bob Thiele said to us "You're going to have to move to New York." John and I had to sit down and do some real soul searching about that. At that point we both had three kids each and a regular day job. In fact later, we experienced some ambivalence about whether or not that was the right move, to stay in LA. But I look back on it now and think that if either of us had moved to New York it would've been a big mistake."
Bradford would soon visit Britain for the first time on an educational trip that would lead to one his most stimulating collaborations with British drummer John Stevens and his Spontaneous Music Ensemble. Stevens was already familiar with the music of Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, placing him in an ideal position to join Bradford's band where group improvisation and enhanced listening skills were at the forefront. Introduced to him by the British writer Richard Williams, Bradford took an instant liking to the unconventional Stevens.
"On some level he was just a lunatic but he was a beautiful human being and a wonderful, wonderful creative artist. On the second trip, John introduced me to Martin Davidson who helped organise a tour in Germany, Holland and France at Le Chat qui peche where we played for five or six nights. From that we made the album Love's Dream on Emanem. We'd also played a few times at the Little Theatre in London and in the big ensemble Keith Tippett had called the Centipede."
Bradford put together an entirely new ensemble of musicians in the UK whose musical empathy was matched by the kind of listening ability required to fully grasp, and execute, that conception. Although from radically different backgrounds to Bradford and Carter, saxophonist Trevor Watts and drummer John Stevens understood their idiom and within it, discovered new expressive qualities. Watts' drumming on Love's Dream (Emanem) is a prime example of how a drummer can dramatically reconfigure group dynamics, especially in free jazz where constant listening and adaptability are paramount.
"Use this material as a kind of spring board," is what I used to tell them, "I want to hear what you want to play, not what I want you to play" which is something Ornette Coleman had said to me years before. Free jazz forces the player to be more resourceful...we're taking another tributary which means you don't have the safety net of sticking to the format of the tune. You have to be more resourceful in creating a direction for the solos. You have to find a place to go, tonally."
Bradford's approach to improvisation was quite at odds with other trumpeters who sometimes fell prey to the idea that they needed to cover every imaginable register, as though in competition with each other. Bradford's improvisational world was a more patient and less grandstanding one, much like Steve Lacy's musical conception on the soprano saxophone. Free Jazz has always been notoriously difficult for a trumpet player to grapple with, often forcing them into rather pointless, dead-end runs and sloppy glissando notes, avoiding the more challenging intervallic playing that can trip up unprepared brass players, especially at speed. Bradford's conception and execution, however, remained focused, thoroughly musical and always surprising.
As recounted in the past, it was Ornette Coleman who introduced John Carter to Bobby Bradford. Although both men grew up in Texas, Bradford and Carter didn't know each other but were aware of one another. Carter was a precocious 16 year old musician who later moved to LA with his family to look for work. In 1967 the two met and quickly found common ground, both musically and personally. Despite their fast-formed friendship, there was some initial disagreement about what direction their music would take together. While Bradford preferred to keep the occasional standard in their repertoire, such as his beloved Thelonious Monk, John Carter, who was several years older than Bradford, was insistent their material be entirely original, non-chordal, compositions.
"We were kind of at odds about that initially but it was a healthy kind of conflict."
And that's the thing—like minds can also be at odds with one another and it is from this friendly conflict that grows true creativity. Getting work, however, was far from easy for the group which finally settled on the rhythm team of seasoned drummer Bruz Freeman and bassist Tom Williamson. Bradford and Carter went around LA playing their new music to club owners but were largely met with (commercially motivated) resistance. One could conjecture that, because the large majority of jazz musicians were in New York City at the time, change was slower to come to the typically Bop driven West Coast scene. LA was never the hotbed of new talent that New York City was with its constant (even aggressive) stimulus from new musicians. A breakthrough eventually came in the form of an invitation from club owner/drummer Shelly Manne to play at his famous Shelley's Manne Hole as a part of Black History Month. By this time the band was playing with an exceptional level of cohesion and empathy. Each man had day jobs and were therefore able to dedicate themselves to their music with the kind of patience and resilience that was required. Even people who didn't like their music responded well to the playing of the group.
In the same period as their 1969 debut album Seeking (Revelation), Bradford and Carter recorded two stunningly creative albums for Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label, Self-Determination Music and Flight For Four. Thiele, whose legendary Impulse albums with John Coltrane were already behind him, travelled to the West Coast to hear what was going on in the "New Music" scene. Musicians like Horace Tapscott and Arthur Blythe were on his radar as were Bradford and Carter. After a brief audition in the home of bassist Wilbur Morris, Thiele asked the duo to make a record with him and the result was the 1969 classic Flight For Four. On this album, which contains four Carter originals and one Bradford original, we hear a distinct, cohesive and unmistakeably new musical conception. Whilst influenced by the Ornette Coleman Atlantic albums of the late 1950s and early 1960s, it is Carter's compositional genius that marks this out as an altogether more uniform kind of freedom, to mix metaphors. The complex structure of the compositions, including Bradford's pungent blues lament Woman, more directly informs the solos than in Coleman's albums. Carter was still playing clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone at the time, offering a broader sonic palette, whilst Bradford's trumpet playing penetrated deeper than its smaller cousin the pocket trumpet.
Things seemed on the up for the group.
"We were getting good reviews, including the Japanese magazine Swing Journal, but couldn't get a job booked, including in Japan. Bob Thiele said to us "You're going to have to move to New York." John and I had to sit down and do some real soul searching about that. At that point we both had three kids each and a regular day job. In fact later, we experienced some ambivalence about whether or not that was the right move, to stay in LA. But I look back on it now and think that if either of us had moved to New York it would've been a big mistake."
Bradford would soon visit Britain for the first time on an educational trip that would lead to one his most stimulating collaborations with British drummer John Stevens and his Spontaneous Music Ensemble. Stevens was already familiar with the music of Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, placing him in an ideal position to join Bradford's band where group improvisation and enhanced listening skills were at the forefront. Introduced to him by the British writer Richard Williams, Bradford took an instant liking to the unconventional Stevens.
"On some level he was just a lunatic but he was a beautiful human being and a wonderful, wonderful creative artist. On the second trip, John introduced me to Martin Davidson who helped organise a tour in Germany, Holland and France at Le Chat qui peche where we played for five or six nights. From that we made the album Love's Dream on Emanem. We'd also played a few times at the Little Theatre in London and in the big ensemble Keith Tippett had called the Centipede."
Bradford put together an entirely new ensemble of musicians in the UK whose musical empathy was matched by the kind of listening ability required to fully grasp, and execute, that conception. Although from radically different backgrounds to Bradford and Carter, saxophonist Trevor Watts and drummer John Stevens understood their idiom and within it, discovered new expressive qualities. Watts' drumming on Love's Dream (Emanem) is a prime example of how a drummer can dramatically reconfigure group dynamics, especially in free jazz where constant listening and adaptability are paramount.
"Use this material as a kind of spring board," is what I used to tell them, "I want to hear what you want to play, not what I want you to play" which is something Ornette Coleman had said to me years before. Free jazz forces the player to be more resourceful...we're taking another tributary which means you don't have the safety net of sticking to the format of the tune. You have to be more resourceful in creating a direction for the solos. You have to find a place to go, tonally."
Bradford's approach to improvisation was quite at odds with other trumpeters who sometimes fell prey to the idea that they needed to cover every imaginable register, as though in competition with each other. Bradford's improvisational world was a more patient and less grandstanding one, much like Steve Lacy's musical conception on the soprano saxophone. Free Jazz has always been notoriously difficult for a trumpet player to grapple with, often forcing them into rather pointless, dead-end runs and sloppy glissando notes, avoiding the more challenging intervallic playing that can trip up unprepared brass players, especially at speed. Bradford's conception and execution, however, remained focused, thoroughly musical and always surprising.
"I do play in little cells and sequences. Intervallic relations are very important to me as opposed to thinking about what note I could play out of a particular chord that's coming up. I was never a big high note player but I never wanted to do that anyway. I liked the register that Miles Davis explored but Fats Navarro was one of my favourites. His playing had a kind of continuity I always liked."
Bradford's best was yet to come as he again teamed up with John Carter who by this time had devoted himself almost entirely to playing clarinet. Performed live between 1979 and 1982, Carter and Bradford recorded Tandem (Emanem), a dazzlingly virtuosic duet album that spans two discs. A uniquely challenging environment in which to play, the music was a result of both pure improvisation and prepared lead sheets. Driven in part by the harsh economics of taking a quartet on the road, Bradford and Carter worked on duo format pieces and rehearsed them the same way they'd rehearsed quartet pieces. Bradford describes the track 'Tandem' as being really outlandish...(and) insane to play." Indeed. More conservative writers may even question the jazz credentials of such a piece. Taking a more thoughtful approach to the matter one might instead question the credentials of the actual word 'jazz.' When the word no longer encapsulates the music it purports to define, then perhaps it's time for the 'word' to be ditched as the 'music' extends beyond it. "Tandem' is a masterpiece in modern improvised music. Partly comical, sometimes impish, often confrontational, always compelling, 'Tandem' pushes both men to new heights of instrumental virtuosity and musical clarity. Its jazz roots are unmistakeable but it's as though we've cut loose in a little dinghy from the main ship, the further we drift away the smaller the ship becomes, the more empowered and determined the dinghy is. The bare bones format of the duo brought out new tonal possibilities, mistakes even, from both Bradford and Carter, and in the process an enlightenment of the very act of creation.
"When you play in that format you're telling the listener "I'm trying to get your ear here." In the absence of a rhythm section, all these big open spaces have to be dealt with. The piece itself and your own imagination and your awareness of what was happening helped you learn more about your instrument and each other."
Bradford and Carter were now exploring the kind of music that modernist European composers had been mining, such as Luciano Berio, whose compositions for solo instruments, Sequenza, breathes the same oxygen as the miraculous music we hear on Tandem. It's not so much a Blues Connotation as a blues annotation.
In March 1991 John Carter passed away aged just 61, seven months before David Murray's Death Of A Sideman was recorded. It ranks as one of Bradford's greatest and most glorious moments on record as both composer and soloist. The album is suffused with a hard-won musical dignity and valour, perhaps the ultimate testament to Bradford's accomplishments. Whilst a sombre yet dignified portrait of Carter adorns the inner sleeve, Bradford explains it is not a tribute album, but rather an album that coincided with both the untimely passing of Carter and Bradford's musical thinking at the time.
"A lot of people thought there was something sad about that record and obliquely, there was some reference to John Carter but I'd been working on that music for some time. It was a serious documentation...and I'm glad we did it." Lisa Tefo's liner notes to Death Of A Sideman poignantly ask the reader "Does a life devoted to art have any meaning, in the face of death?." Many years from now when we look back at the entire career of trumpeter/cornetist/composer/educator Bobby Bradford, Tefo's inquiry could be rephrased to echo the thoughts of Luciano Berio when he declared:
"The work stops, it doesn't end"
Select Discography As Leader
Love's Dream (Emanem, 1975)
Vols. 1 & 2 with John Stevens (Nessa)
Bobby Bradford & the Mo'tet Lost in L.A. (Black Saint, 1984)
Midnight Pacific Airwaves (Entropy, 2009)
Vols. 1 & 2 with John Stevens (Nessa)
Bobby Bradford & the Mo'tet Lost in L.A. (Black Saint, 1984)
Midnight Pacific Airwaves (Entropy, 2009)
With John Carter
Flight for Four (Flying Dutchman, 1969)
Self Determination Music (Flying Dutchman, 1970)
Secrets (Revelation, 1973)
No U-Turn—Live in Pasadena, 1975 (Dark Tree, 2015)
Comin' On (hat ART, 1989)
Tandem 1 & 2 (Emanem, 1996)
Self Determination Music (Flying Dutchman, 1970)
Secrets (Revelation, 1973)
No U-Turn—Live in Pasadena, 1975 (Dark Tree, 2015)
Comin' On (hat ART, 1989)
Tandem 1 & 2 (Emanem, 1996)
With David Murray
Murray's Steps (Black Saint, 1983)
Death of a Sideman (DIW, 1991)
http://www.metaljazz.com/2006/01/bobby_bradford_interview_2003.php
Death of a Sideman (DIW, 1991)
http://www.metaljazz.com/2006/01/bobby_bradford_interview_2003.php
Bobby Bradford interview, 2003
by Greg Burk
LA Weekly
6/19/2003
Bobby Bradford plays his cornet in public several times a year, but mostly he teaches. Turning 69 next month, he’s where most jazz masters find themselves at some point or permanently: You work the first half of your life perfecting your lip action, finding your special sound, learning your chords, figuring out the whole thing. (When universities lay “honorary” degrees on musicians, people get the wrong idea about who’s honoring whom.) Then, when you’ve become a complete player — always growing, but complete — you spend half your time teaching youngsters the 12-bar blues.
Glory infinitely deferred isn’t a problem for Bradford. He’s content with the choices he has made for his family and for himself. Besides, not everybody is equipped to tell a student what the blues is and ain’t.
“All these tunes that sound kinda blue are not a blues,” he says. “In jazz, when we say blues, we’re talking about a specific form, not just some sad song about somebody stole your pickup truck.”
He also knows the limitations of a classroom. “One of the first things I say is I can’t teach you how to play blues. But I can teach you how to play the form.”
You can tell Bradford is a good communicator from the way his speech comes, in quick, easy bursts of Southern abbreviation. If he gave you directions to the turnpike, you’d get there.
His musical dialect is similarly pointed. In his rich, slightly astringent horn tone there’s a background of blues — wistful maybe, but not self-pitying. The church and the human faith of his minister father are there, too.
“The connection between the church music and the blues music is very clear, at least it was to me,” says the Mississippi-born Bradford. “Just a difference in the words. Same music.”
Those are the roots, but the flowers are modernist. When he was about 14, lugging his cornet past the house of pianist L.J. Bomar in East Dallas, Bradford always heard bop coming out the windows.
“One day he called me in and said, ‘Listen to this.’ The first record I think I heard was Fats Navarro and Dexter Gordon. Whshew. It knocked me out of my socks.” Trumpeter Navarro and saxist Gordon, two of the first to track Charlie Parker into the wilds of bebop, made small-group recordings together only in late 1947, so it must have been a brand-new platter at the time Bradford heard it. Soon he was copying the trumpet solos of Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie and McKinley (“Kenny”) Dorham, and when his family returned to Los Angeles (they’d moved here briefly during the World War II employment boom), Parker was the common ground for 1953 jams with locals and fellow transplants, among them Ornette Coleman.
Coleman hailed from Fort Worth, just down the highway from the Dallas high school where Bradford had been in the band with Cedar Walton, David “Fathead” Newman and James Clay; Bradford also knew Red Garland, Budd Johnson and T-Bone Walker in his old neighborhood. Texans hung together: Coleman found that, aside from Lone Star homeboys like Bradford, Clay, Dewey Redman, Charles Moffett and Ronald Shannon Jackson, he could locate few sympathetic ears for his chordless conceptions. Bradford would reunite with Coleman in 1971 for the Science Fiction album, but Coleman wasn’t pushing his “harmolodic” theory even then, at least not within his own group.
“Ornette certainly is a genius, there’s no argument about this guy. I think Ornette’s approach was all intuitive. But as time went by he was often called upon to explain what he was doing, so he had to be able some way to articulate it. But when I was in the band, feeling was what we talked about.”
After spending the latter ’50s in the Air Force — warrior designation: “bandsman” — Bradford, back in L.A., connected in the ’60s with another Fort Worth reed player he’d heard about in Texas, John Carter. “We both had families, both were teaching, and we both had some idea about what we wanted to play.” Their association would last until Carter’s 1991 death; meanwhile they recorded some ear-twisting stuff that, like Ornette’s, made listeners test their notions of what jazz really was.
“A lot of people said what John Carter and I did was classical music,” says Bradford, who’s worked with outsiders from David Murray to Nels Cline. “People’d say, ‘Is this jazz?’ Yeah, it’s still jazz to me, whether or not it swings in the sense of 4/4 swing. On Interstellar Space, Coltrane playin’ with his drummer [Rashied Ali] — he’s not keeping time. That still swings to me.”
Bradford settled down with his family in a rustic Altadena house 25 years ago, and he’s still there. He’s got two classes in improvisation at nearby Pasadena City College, which he likes because his students really want to learn. He also goes out to Pomona College twice a week to teach the history of jazz, a subject he has researched with thoroughness and love, as the approving images of Louis Armstrong and Lester Young on his walls would attest if they could speak.
Oh yeah, he still plays, too. Bradford just did a festival in Northern California. As you read this, he’s off to Portugal in a band with Vinny Golia, Alex Cline and Ken Filiano. In September he’s playing Monterey with his Mo’tet.
A couple of Mondays ago, Bradford and Golia arrive at Silver Lake’s little Salvation Theater for a duo performance that echoes former years’ Bradford-Carter work both in form and, now and then, in material. It’s sold out, which means there are about 50 people poised to soak up every note.
Avant-garde it may be, but there’s a sweetness to this teaming attributable to a long-standing teacher-student vibe that persists even though Golia, in his mid-50s, is an established educator himself. Reading from charts, the two finish each other’s phrases, hit long notes and riffs together, create head-shivering harmonies, intertwine their lines tightly — Bradford on cornet, Golia on sopranino sax, B-flat clarinet and Tubax, a new variation on the huge contrabass sax. When Golia picks up his bass clarinet, he eyeballs his partner, apologizing, “I know you don’t like this instrument.” “Oh, I like it,” deadpans Bradford. “I just don’t show it.”
When the doors close, the room gets hot, but Golia is hotter, reeling off unbordered phantasmagoria through his circular-breathing technique. Bradford, by contrast, is uncomfortable in the vest he’s worn over his long-sleeve shirt, and his playing is often blurry around the edges. The humidity causes extra condensation, which the musicians frequently have to dump from their horns; by intermission, they’re both standing in pools of water.
Bradford finds his pace after the break, diving into a soft, flowing zone that drips with feeling, and Golia rolls on undiminished through Bradford’s “Side Steps.” The audience wants more, but the two beg off; they’re sweating like plow horses.
Host Jeremy Drake takes the stage and plugs the CDs available in the lobby. Among those are two new ones by Bradford. One was recorded last year on the patio of the L.A. County Museum of Art with a spectacular seven-member Mo’tet featuring Don Preston, Roberto Miranda and Chuck Manning; though the recording quality is only somewhat better than you’d expect from an open-air gig on cement, it’s a valuable document of a varied, swinging modern set with numerous brilliant solos. Another is a more austere, very adventurous trio disc with saxist Francis Wong and tuba player William Roper. (You can buy both at a few local stores or by e-mailing bradfo@earthlink.net.)
“Come and get ’em,” urges Drake. “They’re going fast.”
Golia, breaking down his horns, snickers loudly. “They’re going fast” is quite a relative statement. And in the twilight of the deep-rooted jazzmen, it has more than one meaning.
LA Weekly
6/19/2003
Bobby Bradford plays his cornet in public several times a year, but mostly he teaches. Turning 69 next month, he’s where most jazz masters find themselves at some point or permanently: You work the first half of your life perfecting your lip action, finding your special sound, learning your chords, figuring out the whole thing. (When universities lay “honorary” degrees on musicians, people get the wrong idea about who’s honoring whom.) Then, when you’ve become a complete player — always growing, but complete — you spend half your time teaching youngsters the 12-bar blues.
Glory infinitely deferred isn’t a problem for Bradford. He’s content with the choices he has made for his family and for himself. Besides, not everybody is equipped to tell a student what the blues is and ain’t.
“All these tunes that sound kinda blue are not a blues,” he says. “In jazz, when we say blues, we’re talking about a specific form, not just some sad song about somebody stole your pickup truck.”
He also knows the limitations of a classroom. “One of the first things I say is I can’t teach you how to play blues. But I can teach you how to play the form.”
You can tell Bradford is a good communicator from the way his speech comes, in quick, easy bursts of Southern abbreviation. If he gave you directions to the turnpike, you’d get there.
His musical dialect is similarly pointed. In his rich, slightly astringent horn tone there’s a background of blues — wistful maybe, but not self-pitying. The church and the human faith of his minister father are there, too.
“The connection between the church music and the blues music is very clear, at least it was to me,” says the Mississippi-born Bradford. “Just a difference in the words. Same music.”
Those are the roots, but the flowers are modernist. When he was about 14, lugging his cornet past the house of pianist L.J. Bomar in East Dallas, Bradford always heard bop coming out the windows.
“One day he called me in and said, ‘Listen to this.’ The first record I think I heard was Fats Navarro and Dexter Gordon. Whshew. It knocked me out of my socks.” Trumpeter Navarro and saxist Gordon, two of the first to track Charlie Parker into the wilds of bebop, made small-group recordings together only in late 1947, so it must have been a brand-new platter at the time Bradford heard it. Soon he was copying the trumpet solos of Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie and McKinley (“Kenny”) Dorham, and when his family returned to Los Angeles (they’d moved here briefly during the World War II employment boom), Parker was the common ground for 1953 jams with locals and fellow transplants, among them Ornette Coleman.
Coleman hailed from Fort Worth, just down the highway from the Dallas high school where Bradford had been in the band with Cedar Walton, David “Fathead” Newman and James Clay; Bradford also knew Red Garland, Budd Johnson and T-Bone Walker in his old neighborhood. Texans hung together: Coleman found that, aside from Lone Star homeboys like Bradford, Clay, Dewey Redman, Charles Moffett and Ronald Shannon Jackson, he could locate few sympathetic ears for his chordless conceptions. Bradford would reunite with Coleman in 1971 for the Science Fiction album, but Coleman wasn’t pushing his “harmolodic” theory even then, at least not within his own group.
“Ornette certainly is a genius, there’s no argument about this guy. I think Ornette’s approach was all intuitive. But as time went by he was often called upon to explain what he was doing, so he had to be able some way to articulate it. But when I was in the band, feeling was what we talked about.”
After spending the latter ’50s in the Air Force — warrior designation: “bandsman” — Bradford, back in L.A., connected in the ’60s with another Fort Worth reed player he’d heard about in Texas, John Carter. “We both had families, both were teaching, and we both had some idea about what we wanted to play.” Their association would last until Carter’s 1991 death; meanwhile they recorded some ear-twisting stuff that, like Ornette’s, made listeners test their notions of what jazz really was.
“A lot of people said what John Carter and I did was classical music,” says Bradford, who’s worked with outsiders from David Murray to Nels Cline. “People’d say, ‘Is this jazz?’ Yeah, it’s still jazz to me, whether or not it swings in the sense of 4/4 swing. On Interstellar Space, Coltrane playin’ with his drummer [Rashied Ali] — he’s not keeping time. That still swings to me.”
Bradford settled down with his family in a rustic Altadena house 25 years ago, and he’s still there. He’s got two classes in improvisation at nearby Pasadena City College, which he likes because his students really want to learn. He also goes out to Pomona College twice a week to teach the history of jazz, a subject he has researched with thoroughness and love, as the approving images of Louis Armstrong and Lester Young on his walls would attest if they could speak.
Oh yeah, he still plays, too. Bradford just did a festival in Northern California. As you read this, he’s off to Portugal in a band with Vinny Golia, Alex Cline and Ken Filiano. In September he’s playing Monterey with his Mo’tet.
A couple of Mondays ago, Bradford and Golia arrive at Silver Lake’s little Salvation Theater for a duo performance that echoes former years’ Bradford-Carter work both in form and, now and then, in material. It’s sold out, which means there are about 50 people poised to soak up every note.
Avant-garde it may be, but there’s a sweetness to this teaming attributable to a long-standing teacher-student vibe that persists even though Golia, in his mid-50s, is an established educator himself. Reading from charts, the two finish each other’s phrases, hit long notes and riffs together, create head-shivering harmonies, intertwine their lines tightly — Bradford on cornet, Golia on sopranino sax, B-flat clarinet and Tubax, a new variation on the huge contrabass sax. When Golia picks up his bass clarinet, he eyeballs his partner, apologizing, “I know you don’t like this instrument.” “Oh, I like it,” deadpans Bradford. “I just don’t show it.”
When the doors close, the room gets hot, but Golia is hotter, reeling off unbordered phantasmagoria through his circular-breathing technique. Bradford, by contrast, is uncomfortable in the vest he’s worn over his long-sleeve shirt, and his playing is often blurry around the edges. The humidity causes extra condensation, which the musicians frequently have to dump from their horns; by intermission, they’re both standing in pools of water.
Bradford finds his pace after the break, diving into a soft, flowing zone that drips with feeling, and Golia rolls on undiminished through Bradford’s “Side Steps.” The audience wants more, but the two beg off; they’re sweating like plow horses.
Host Jeremy Drake takes the stage and plugs the CDs available in the lobby. Among those are two new ones by Bradford. One was recorded last year on the patio of the L.A. County Museum of Art with a spectacular seven-member Mo’tet featuring Don Preston, Roberto Miranda and Chuck Manning; though the recording quality is only somewhat better than you’d expect from an open-air gig on cement, it’s a valuable document of a varied, swinging modern set with numerous brilliant solos. Another is a more austere, very adventurous trio disc with saxist Francis Wong and tuba player William Roper. (You can buy both at a few local stores or by e-mailing bradfo@earthlink.net.)
“Come and get ’em,” urges Drake. “They’re going fast.”
Golia, breaking down his horns, snickers loudly. “They’re going fast” is quite a relative statement. And in the twilight of the deep-rooted jazzmen, it has more than one meaning.
http://www.pointofdeparture.org/PoD24/PoD24BobbyBradford.html
Bobby Bradford @ 75
an Appreciation by
James Newton
James Newton
Mark Weber©2009
How can one begin to assess
the numerous contributions of a great
cornetist, trumpeter, composer, bandleader and educator? How can one also
adequately offer a testament for an artist who is such a high quality
human being and who profoundly touches so many lives?
Those of us who have been
blessed to know Bobby Bradford for a number of years can attest to a
probing, powerful intellect that assimilates the history of Jazz in a
highly unique manner, drawing conclusions that are as innovative and
provocative as one of his solos. His understanding of the history,
coupled with his embracing of Jazz’s mandate for innovation, reveals
itself in his teaching, playing and composing. I have profoundly
admired his brilliant mind, up-tempo wit and his usual location of
being two or three steps ahead of everyone else. Like Lester Bowie, he
has achieved an individualistic incorporation of Louis Armstrong’s
musical language and has placed that influence within the context of
modern Jazz’s avant-garde movements. Like Sonny Rollins, J.S. Bach and
Ornette Coleman, Bradford has a strong penchant for using musical
sequences in both his compositional and improvisational languages. Also
like Sonny Rollins, Bradford has a remarkable gift of musical memory.
These gifts along with a boundless imagination have consistently
enabled Bradford to deftly organize his improvisations. I am
consistently stunned by the exquisite musical architecture
instantaneously created in his solos. These improvisational edifices
give room for his listening audiences to roam within them – exploring
and discovering something new about him and themselves. Bradford’s
rhythmical language is extremely diverse and his lyrical leanings give
many of his solos an emotional depth that only the best practitioners
in the music achieve. Bradford is Bradford - coming out of Louis
Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Fats Navarro, Charles Parker, Dizzy
Gillespie, Lester Young - yet still Bradford.
One crucial aspect of Los Angeles’ musical scene, from Bop to Free Jazz, was that one had to
find his or her individual sound. It is impossible to confuse one note
of Bobby Bradford with that of any other trumpeter or cornetist. His
sound uses a smidgen of air, sometimes in a fashion similar to Ben
Webster or Paul Gonsalves’ use of air, as an expressive part of the
sub-tone sound. Bradford’s timbral specificity within his language (not
the one sound fits all ideas approach) adds a vocal quality to his
playing that exudes emotional sensitivity not often found within the
context of new music.
Just as Horace Tapscott was
during his lifetime, Bobby Bradford is an important musical and
personal mentor for many in the Los Angeles basin. To this day his
Mo’Tet ensembles continue to help to develop many younger and mature
musicians. I first met Bobby Bradford in 1973 in Claremont, California
while he was playing in Stanley Crouch’s group, “Black Music Infinity.”
The front line of Black Music Infinity consisted of Bradford and
alto/soprano-saxophonist Black Arthur Blythe. It was amazing to hear
the two of them together. Looking back, I am convinced that it is still
one of the most effective front lines that I have ever heard.
Eventually the ensemble expanded, adding David Murray, trumpeter Walter
Lowe, Mark Dresser and me. Bradford’s influence on all of us younger
members of the ensemble was immense. He treated each of us as if we were
his equal, although we were struggling mightily, trying to come to
grips with the distance between what we were able to articulate and the
precious gold that poured out of Bradford’s cornet and Blythe’s alto
sax. I can clearly see his (and Arthur Blythe’s) imprint on all of us.
A few years later when
Bradford opened up The Little Big Horn it became the place for the
avant-garde community in the Los Angeles area. The grim realities of
segregation that characterized much of the Los Angeles musical scene
were left outside of Little Big Horn’s doors. For the most part, it had
a feeling of hope and determination. It was clear that Bradford was
highly respected in numerous communities and that this high standing
was a force that united many. Bradford’s openness gave musicians and
listeners a freedom that was rarely found in Los Angeles’ performing
establishments. John Carter, William Jeffrey, Roberto Miranda, Vinny
Golia, Mark Dresser, Tylon Barea, Diamanda Galas, Charles Owens, Alex
and Nels Cline, Allan Iwohara, Azar Lawrence, Wayne Peet and many
others were able to explore all that they artistically had to offer.
To discuss Bobby Bradford one
must also reverentially look to clarinetist/composer John Carter. Bobby
Bradford and John Carter performed exquisitely together for decades.
They were very close friends, although musically they had very
different personalities. When they came together to perform, their Texas
roots emerged, both of them being masters of the Blues and Texas-Bop
Traditions. The blues was an undercurrent in much of their music. Added
to the Texas roots was a powerful focus on producing something new and
fresh in every performance. John Carter called it “futuring”. Their
groups were the example of how an ensemble can create in a way that the
whole greatly exceeds the sum of the individual parts. Thank God for
“futuring.” Thank God for Bobby Bradford. Happy seventy-fifth birthday
Maestro Bradford! May many more birthdays come your way!
James Newton©2009
http://www.kunm.org/post/interview-bobby-bradford
http://www.kunm.org/post/interview-bobby-bradford
An Interview with Bobby Bradford
Today
we talk with Bobby Bradford about jazz and trumpets and the artists who
play jazz trumpet. Bobby Bradford plays the near-relative of the
trumpet known as the cornet. We'll cover everybody from Dizzy to Buddy
Bolden to Don Cherry, Shorty Rogers, Chet, Bix, Bubber Miley, Cootie
Williams, Art Farmer, Fats Navarro, and King Oliver.
Bobby grew up in the heart of the Mississippi Delta in the late-30s, spent his high school years in Dallas with classmates Cedar Walton and James Clay. Graduated from Sam Houston College in Austin (now known as Houston-Tillotson College). Joins Ornette's band in Los Angeles 1953-1954. Goes into Air Force 1954-1958. Back with Ornette in NYC 1961-1963. Moves his family to Los Angeles. Meets John Carter and they start the quartet that recorded four albums of such distilled and articulated modern post-bop "free" jazz that all these years later the re-issued 3-CD set on Mosaic is winning awards. Rejoins Ornette in NYC for the 1971 sessions at Columbia that produced SCIENCE FICTION.
In 2009 Bobby was honored with the Festival of New Trumpet Music Award in NYC with front page headlines (Arts section) of NY TIMES and a week of his music at the Jazz Standard with lines around the block. He is the professor of jazz music at Pomona College in Southern California and one of the preeminent scholars on jazz music. SO, there's a LOT to talk about! This will be a Live telephone interview from Bobby's home in Upper Pasadena, California.
--Host MARK WEBER
Slideshow photo:
Professor Bradford, May 16, 2008
Potter Valley Jazz Festival, California
photo by Mark Weber
http://www.darktree-records.com/en/archives/2570
Now that his gem from the vaults has been released on CD by Dark Tree Records under the title No U Turn (DT(RS)05) I thought to ask Bobby to explain what these compositions are about. We sat down in his studio in Altadena early afternoon of August 13, 2o15 and talked, forty years after this great concert took place. The KPFK jazz radio host John Breckow produced the concerts (there were two others in the series: BB & JC were the 3rd) and Bobby says he got the call and asked John to join him on the date. I wrote extensive liner notes for the release which explain everything. Bertrand and his team did an exemplary job of producing this CD package: graphics, engineering, and feel are all perfect.
Bobby Bradford Interview — Love’s Dream — Track 1
MW:How is the tune “Love’s Dream” constructed? What’s the form?BB: Well now, if I understand the question, often when we talk about form in jazz, we’re talking about groups of bars, and so many of the tunes that we do are often 32-bar form, often referred to as AABA or ABAC or something like that. Well, this tune doesn’t fit any of those. It’s just a little melody that unfolds but you can’t put it in any of those song forms. (Just to make it go really fast here), we play it twice, we repeat it when we play it.
MW: In the opening?
BB: Yes, in the opening, and going out, too, I believe we do, too. But, sometimes when I’m playing that . . . I mean, when I say “sometimes,” I don’t play it that often, but when Trevor Watts and I used to play it, some nights we’d be really wired, man, we’d only play the head once, we were so anxious to get playing we’d go right into the improvisation. We’d go: [scats the melody]. So it’s a very short thematic piece, and it doesn’t break up enough to call it an A and a B part. But you could if you had to. You could make the A part [sings the melody calling out possible bar lines], but it’s not worth it, it’s too short.
MW: How many bars is the piece, how many measures?
BB: Gawd, I don’t know, I couldn’t even tell you right now. We could sit down and figure it in bars, but that doesn’t have a lot of mean, because we often stretch it out over bar lines. [Demonstrates it in a strict manner] But we never play it evenly like that, see what I mean? So, if you sit down and try to notate it so that someone in Tibet could read it [laughing] and put it in bars it’d sound really funny, if you forced it into bar lines, that takes some of the flexibility out of it. See what I mean? It’s like about a ten bar tune.
MW: So, is it just a line?
BB: Well, you could call Charlie Parker’s tunes “lines.” Now, it doesn’t have chords but it’s such that if you wanted to you could sit down and put some chords underneath that melody. But, it wouldn’t work, you see, when we were playing because you wouldn’t know when to play them. That’s the idea of playing a free melody like that. You couldn’t ask a piano player to second guess you about when you’re getting ready to move to the next section.
MW: Is there a tonal center, there’s no home?
BB: There’s no tonal center that you could keep using, like if you’re going to play Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology” or “Anthropology,” that has a basic tonal center that you could play all through the tune, even though it goes to some different chords, what we call secondary dominants if you want to. But you can see that when Charlie Parker is playing “Ornithology” that it’s in the key of G and you can relate to that all the way through the tune. But you can’t do that with this tune.
MW: Did you write this in England? 1973-ish?
BB: Yes, I wrote that while I was in England.
MW: Did you first write it with bar lines?
BB: Uummmm, yeh, but they weren’t bar lines. I would just have a group of notes and I might have had a bar line some place but it wasn’t like I had 4 beats in every bar. It’s like “H.M. Louis,” I don’t know how many bars that is. Now, I have some tunes that I could tell you how many bars it is because it’s about bars, like “Sideman,” see that’s 32 bars because that’s the form and it’s AABA and you keep playing that over and over when you’re playing that tune.
MW: And your “Birdzeg” is based on “Confirmation.”
BB: Right. Now, I wouldn’t play “Birdzeg” and then take it out, or, what’s that other phrase you use?
MW: Open it up?
BB: Right. I don’t use that phrase but I know what people mean. When I play “Birdzeg” I will play those “Confirmation” chords over and over.
MW: Is “Confirmation” rhythm changes?
BB: No, no, no, that’s Charlie Parker’s flag waver, that’s his masterpiece, even he said that. Oh man, that’s brilliant. There’s lot of amazing tunes, even Tin Pan Alley tunes that have lovely chords, but in jazz I don’t think there’s anything before it. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t other tunes just as complex, do you know what I mean? “Prelude to a Kiss,” Duke Ellington ain’t easy (rueful chuckle).
MW: So, you were using the same “Confirmation” chords when you wrote “Birdzeg”?
BB: Yes. I would sit down at the piano and play those chords [plays “Confirmation” on the piano]. I played those chords over and over because that helped me hear the line. “Birdzeg” wasn’t intened to be played without the bass and the piano playing the chord sequence, I enjoyed that, but I wouldn’t want to play like that all night. See, when I play blues, most of the time I play it like 12-bars, but sometimes I play things that are blues-like, that are not 12 bars, but it has all the tonal properties of blues music, but it’s not 12 bars.
MW: What does the title mean, Love’s Dream?
BB: Oh man, whew. That’s, whew (laughing). One of Trevor’s friends asked if it was like that tune by the classical musician, I think Franz Listz, who wrote a piece called “Liebestraum,” which is Love’s Dream. I wasn’t thinking about that then, at that point I was thinking of a romantic kind of thing, like what people mean when two people fall in love. It’s like you know better but you fall in love. My mother, and my elders used to say Yeh well you were just climbing fool’s hill, that’s what the old people say. You just go gaga, there’s no explanation for it, it’s just the dream of what love is about.
Bobby Bradford Interview — She — Track 2
MW: Let’s talk about “She.”
BB: Okay. Well that was originally recorded as “Woman” and that’s on one of those records with Bob Thiele, and they kept moving the publishing around to different people, and right now, you see, when that record is being played some place, I never get a nickel of that, it’s been screwed around, it’s been subletted to Hokey Dokey, and that’s the way they do and I never see a nickel of that. So, anytime that I have recorded or played it since, like when I play it on concerts in Europe where you have to itemize what you played on the concert, I call it “She.” And the money comes right directly to Gethsemane Music. I said something to Bob Thiele about it when I made that record Dedicated to Malcolm X with David Murray and I said Hey, what’s happening? and he said Well it doesn’t amount to much money, and I said I don’t care what it is, I want it! If it’s a nickel, I want it. And he got pissed off, we were having a conversation and he walked off, it really ruffled his feathers.
MW: So, “She/Woman,” what’s the form?
BB: It doesn’t have a form, either. It’s a very short melody. You couldn’t call it AABA or any of that, it’s only about ten bars long. Now, let’s look at the melody [he pulls out the sheet, and counts the bars] Oh, it’s twelve bars long, but it’s not a blues.
MW: So, when you originally wrote it you didn’t put bar lines?
BB: I don’t think I had bar lines, I just had phrases. See when I copyrighted it I put in the bar lines, because you have to send them something.
MW: At one time was this tune called “Omen”? You told me that, ages ago.
BB: Oh, yeh! At first it was “Woe-man,” I don’t know who changed it, maybe somebody at the record company. I had it written down, you know, like in the Bible it says Woe unto you or whoever. I was just being silly, but that’s what it was. And then when it came out they had it changed and so everybody would ask me what woman was that you were thinking about, (laughter).
MW: When did you write it?
BB: I probably wrote it six months before we made that first record on Flying Dutchman FLIGHT FOR FOUR. See, if I had written it earlier we would have used it on our first record that we made that came out on Revelation.
MW: And when you write a tune like that, do you specify the instrumentation?
BB: No, I play that whatever. Of course, most of the time when me and John were going to do anything I wasn’t thinking any bigger than a quartet, ever, you know? We always wanted some material that we could get off on. Like when I was working with Trevor, all those tunes I wrote in Europe were tunes that two horns can play and generate some feeling and just bang.
MW: You once told me that “Woman” was your best effort as a composer.
BB: That’s one of my better tunes, just in terms of a melody that I didn’t have to keep chipping on it, trying to change something, you know, how you edit and change it and change it, I didn’t change a note of that. It came just right out. Like “H.M. Louis.” I wrote “H.M. Louis” in like thirty minutes.
MW: But, you do have tunes that you chip on for awhile?
BB: Oh yeh! Like “Ornate,” I chipped on that for over a year trying to get out of that.
MW: And you still rewrite bass lines for it.
BB: Well, sometimes if a bass player hasn’t played with you before, I write something out for them to get them going. But that tune, man, I kept getting trapped in this one place where it wasn’t working and the more I worked at it the worse it got! that was a motherfucker!
MW: And you also write new counterpoint lines for the other horn on that.
BB: Yeh, sometimes. I get tired and want to hear something new. Now, going back to “Woman,” Tom Williamson played something underneath that with some smears, that’s really good. Eventually, I changed the bass to that ostinato.
MW: Does “Woman” lend itself to having a counter melody?
BB: Well . . .it depends. Let’s just say you were going to do that in a duet, with just me and another horn. I wouldn’t want a horn to play that ostinato. See, because on the bass it has a certain percussive quality that you don’t get on the clarinet. That’s the beauty of the bass, where you’re plucking it, it’s percussive and it’s tonal. Like the piano, you hammer it. But you can always have another line.
Bobby Bradford Interview — Comin On — Track 3
MW: Okay, tell us about “Comin’ On.”
BB: Right. Okay. Let’s see, I’m trying to think if that has a form in the way that you mean it. No, that’s just a short melody, too. But now this is a tune where if I’m playing with people I haven’t worked with a lot because it takes you into the free form really easy. When you get done playing this melody it’s easy for you to get out there, without thinking about a key. But I do have some things that people can play behind “Comin’ On” or can play while the soloists are playing, what I call an obbligato. And everybody’s got something different to play on their parts. The main line is [sings] see, that’s a short line, it’s only [looking at the sheet] one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, uh, ten bars. But then I have some written stuff, something different for everybody, and [ruffling pages] . . . see, here’s the trombone part, and Michael (Vlatkovich) can play any one of these lines lettered A, B, and C. And I say You play those at will, any place you feel the urge to play, you could play those while I’m soloing or I might play them while you’re soloing.
MW: You wrote “Comin’ On” a long time ago?
BB: I think the first record that I used “Comin’ On” was LOST IN L.A. (June 1983)
MW: Really?
BB: Yeh, with me and Kousakis.
MW: But, you wrote it a long time ago? You wrote it back in the New Art Jazz Quartet days.
BB: No, no, no, we didn’t have that then. The Revelation period? I hadn’t written that then. I didn’t play this with John Carter, see, if we had that, it would have been a part of our regular repertoire, because we used it a lot later on.
MW: When you were singing it right now it sounded kind of boppish.
BB: You could say it’s boppish. You could say “His Majesty Louis” is boppish, just based on the articulation. See, when we play “Comin’ On” we never play it even like that, I was just singing it [straight] to bring the tune into focus. Sometimes we speed it up or slow down, we never play it in that bop mode.
Bobby Bradford Interview — Come Softly — Track 4
MW: So, on this November 17, 1975 concert you sit out on John’s composition “Come Softly,” but you’ve played this tune many times over the years.
BB: Oh yeh, I’ve played that lots times with John, as a duo.
MW: So, what’s the form on that.
BB: Well, pretty much like a lot of John’s, it’s a very short tune, it’s not long enough to have, like a bridge, you wouldn’t call it that. If you had to, though, you could break part of it and say this is the A part and this is B, but that would be pushing it. But you could. But, you see it’s not long enough to even worry about the form, there’s not enough bars . . . see, when you say “a form,” well that’s like what people say when you write in the longer forms, it’s more difficult. See, if you were going to write a piece like a symphony, that’s more difficult than writing a march, because the form is so long you have to have some ideas that you develop, like an A section, and then an A2 and then B and C and D and as it gets longer, you know? You can’t write a novel that’s only eight pages (laughter)! A lot of John’s tunes were short, they were intended to be a duet piece. So, a lot of this is dictated by what and who is going to play it and when. So then, when John started thinking about that octet stuff, when he started writing things that were longer, then they do have these sections. Very deliberate. Sometimes the form might be AB or ABCD or ABCAD or three A’s and two B’s, so you could keep track of the form.
Bobby Bradford Interview — Circle — Track 5
MW: And the last track on the album is John’s “Circle.” You and John played that for years. (Appeared first on the fourth album SECRETS, that track recorded November 11, 1971)
BB: Yes. Now, “Circle,” is a very short line, too. That was designed where you play first, and then you play the head afterwards. We didn’t play the head in the very beginning, you blow, and then you play the head at the very end of it. We played that a lot. And we’d play it lickety-split, but if you’re not listening carefully you’ll miss the head on this because we’re just blowing until the very end until we start slipping the head in there.
MW: How do you know when you’re going to go to the head, between you and John?
BB: Well, it depends, if we’re playing in a group, like a quartet, one us might lead back to it, and in duo where we’re standing shoulder to shoulder there, it’s just instant. You know when you’re standing there playing a duo the contact is instantaneous. But if you add drums and bass then you have to cue each other some kind of way. Sometimes, you know, each of us is going to play a long solo, which we did, and then if you’re going to give a solo to the drum or bass, usually we just look at the drum or the bass, so the form for that particular tune was solo + solo + solo + solo + the head at the end. But ordinarily, you play the head, then solos, then maybe group improvisation, then back to the head at the end. Going all the way back to New Orleans, the Swing Era, cool jazz, bebop, post-bop, and it gets to be kind of a habit, that’s why I avoid it now, sometimes, because it sets you into a place where pretty soon you get fixed in the thing and you can’t get out of, you’re trapped into that. This forces you to re-group in your head.
MW: And that was John’s compositional idea all along with “Circle”?
BB: Yes. And I’ve got a Charlie Parker tune where he comes in blowing and doesn’t play the theme until he goes out. So, what I’m saying is, that is not a completely new idea of John’s, like nobody had done that before. Gerry Mulligan has a couple pieces where they start blowing and they don’t play the head till the end. He and Chet Baker would be playing over the changes and then work up to the head. But, by and large, the idea is to play this thematic piece and then try to develop the improvisation based on that, so that’s why you work hard on a piece, so that it has a lot of goodies that’ll catapult you into improvisation.
MW: So, why did John call this piece “Circle,” does it relate to something in the arrangement?
BB: I guess, because sometimes he’d say, we would all improvise in a circle, he’d play, I’d play, then the drum and bass would play, and then maybe we’d go around again. And then we’d go to the head finally.
MW: So, are you just supposing that might be the reason he called it “Circle”?
BB: Well, I don’t remember him saying that, but that’s a good way to describe what happened.
Bobby grew up in the heart of the Mississippi Delta in the late-30s, spent his high school years in Dallas with classmates Cedar Walton and James Clay. Graduated from Sam Houston College in Austin (now known as Houston-Tillotson College). Joins Ornette's band in Los Angeles 1953-1954. Goes into Air Force 1954-1958. Back with Ornette in NYC 1961-1963. Moves his family to Los Angeles. Meets John Carter and they start the quartet that recorded four albums of such distilled and articulated modern post-bop "free" jazz that all these years later the re-issued 3-CD set on Mosaic is winning awards. Rejoins Ornette in NYC for the 1971 sessions at Columbia that produced SCIENCE FICTION.
In 2009 Bobby was honored with the Festival of New Trumpet Music Award in NYC with front page headlines (Arts section) of NY TIMES and a week of his music at the Jazz Standard with lines around the block. He is the professor of jazz music at Pomona College in Southern California and one of the preeminent scholars on jazz music. SO, there's a LOT to talk about! This will be a Live telephone interview from Bobby's home in Upper Pasadena, California.
--Host MARK WEBER
Slideshow photo:
Professor Bradford, May 16, 2008
Potter Valley Jazz Festival, California
photo by Mark Weber
http://www.darktree-records.com/en/archives/2570
Now that his gem from the vaults has been released on CD by Dark Tree Records under the title No U Turn (DT(RS)05) I thought to ask Bobby to explain what these compositions are about. We sat down in his studio in Altadena early afternoon of August 13, 2o15 and talked, forty years after this great concert took place. The KPFK jazz radio host John Breckow produced the concerts (there were two others in the series: BB & JC were the 3rd) and Bobby says he got the call and asked John to join him on the date. I wrote extensive liner notes for the release which explain everything. Bertrand and his team did an exemplary job of producing this CD package: graphics, engineering, and feel are all perfect.
Bobby Bradford Interview — Love’s Dream — Track 1
MW:How is the tune “Love’s Dream” constructed? What’s the form?BB: Well now, if I understand the question, often when we talk about form in jazz, we’re talking about groups of bars, and so many of the tunes that we do are often 32-bar form, often referred to as AABA or ABAC or something like that. Well, this tune doesn’t fit any of those. It’s just a little melody that unfolds but you can’t put it in any of those song forms. (Just to make it go really fast here), we play it twice, we repeat it when we play it.
MW: In the opening?
BB: Yes, in the opening, and going out, too, I believe we do, too. But, sometimes when I’m playing that . . . I mean, when I say “sometimes,” I don’t play it that often, but when Trevor Watts and I used to play it, some nights we’d be really wired, man, we’d only play the head once, we were so anxious to get playing we’d go right into the improvisation. We’d go: [scats the melody]. So it’s a very short thematic piece, and it doesn’t break up enough to call it an A and a B part. But you could if you had to. You could make the A part [sings the melody calling out possible bar lines], but it’s not worth it, it’s too short.
MW: How many bars is the piece, how many measures?
BB: Gawd, I don’t know, I couldn’t even tell you right now. We could sit down and figure it in bars, but that doesn’t have a lot of mean, because we often stretch it out over bar lines. [Demonstrates it in a strict manner] But we never play it evenly like that, see what I mean? So, if you sit down and try to notate it so that someone in Tibet could read it [laughing] and put it in bars it’d sound really funny, if you forced it into bar lines, that takes some of the flexibility out of it. See what I mean? It’s like about a ten bar tune.
MW: So, is it just a line?
BB: Well, you could call Charlie Parker’s tunes “lines.” Now, it doesn’t have chords but it’s such that if you wanted to you could sit down and put some chords underneath that melody. But, it wouldn’t work, you see, when we were playing because you wouldn’t know when to play them. That’s the idea of playing a free melody like that. You couldn’t ask a piano player to second guess you about when you’re getting ready to move to the next section.
MW: Is there a tonal center, there’s no home?
BB: There’s no tonal center that you could keep using, like if you’re going to play Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology” or “Anthropology,” that has a basic tonal center that you could play all through the tune, even though it goes to some different chords, what we call secondary dominants if you want to. But you can see that when Charlie Parker is playing “Ornithology” that it’s in the key of G and you can relate to that all the way through the tune. But you can’t do that with this tune.
MW: Did you write this in England? 1973-ish?
BB: Yes, I wrote that while I was in England.
MW: Did you first write it with bar lines?
BB: Uummmm, yeh, but they weren’t bar lines. I would just have a group of notes and I might have had a bar line some place but it wasn’t like I had 4 beats in every bar. It’s like “H.M. Louis,” I don’t know how many bars that is. Now, I have some tunes that I could tell you how many bars it is because it’s about bars, like “Sideman,” see that’s 32 bars because that’s the form and it’s AABA and you keep playing that over and over when you’re playing that tune.
MW: And your “Birdzeg” is based on “Confirmation.”
BB: Right. Now, I wouldn’t play “Birdzeg” and then take it out, or, what’s that other phrase you use?
MW: Open it up?
BB: Right. I don’t use that phrase but I know what people mean. When I play “Birdzeg” I will play those “Confirmation” chords over and over.
MW: Is “Confirmation” rhythm changes?
BB: No, no, no, that’s Charlie Parker’s flag waver, that’s his masterpiece, even he said that. Oh man, that’s brilliant. There’s lot of amazing tunes, even Tin Pan Alley tunes that have lovely chords, but in jazz I don’t think there’s anything before it. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t other tunes just as complex, do you know what I mean? “Prelude to a Kiss,” Duke Ellington ain’t easy (rueful chuckle).
MW: So, you were using the same “Confirmation” chords when you wrote “Birdzeg”?
BB: Yes. I would sit down at the piano and play those chords [plays “Confirmation” on the piano]. I played those chords over and over because that helped me hear the line. “Birdzeg” wasn’t intened to be played without the bass and the piano playing the chord sequence, I enjoyed that, but I wouldn’t want to play like that all night. See, when I play blues, most of the time I play it like 12-bars, but sometimes I play things that are blues-like, that are not 12 bars, but it has all the tonal properties of blues music, but it’s not 12 bars.
MW: What does the title mean, Love’s Dream?
BB: Oh man, whew. That’s, whew (laughing). One of Trevor’s friends asked if it was like that tune by the classical musician, I think Franz Listz, who wrote a piece called “Liebestraum,” which is Love’s Dream. I wasn’t thinking about that then, at that point I was thinking of a romantic kind of thing, like what people mean when two people fall in love. It’s like you know better but you fall in love. My mother, and my elders used to say Yeh well you were just climbing fool’s hill, that’s what the old people say. You just go gaga, there’s no explanation for it, it’s just the dream of what love is about.
Bobby Bradford Interview — She — Track 2
MW: Let’s talk about “She.”
BB: Okay. Well that was originally recorded as “Woman” and that’s on one of those records with Bob Thiele, and they kept moving the publishing around to different people, and right now, you see, when that record is being played some place, I never get a nickel of that, it’s been screwed around, it’s been subletted to Hokey Dokey, and that’s the way they do and I never see a nickel of that. So, anytime that I have recorded or played it since, like when I play it on concerts in Europe where you have to itemize what you played on the concert, I call it “She.” And the money comes right directly to Gethsemane Music. I said something to Bob Thiele about it when I made that record Dedicated to Malcolm X with David Murray and I said Hey, what’s happening? and he said Well it doesn’t amount to much money, and I said I don’t care what it is, I want it! If it’s a nickel, I want it. And he got pissed off, we were having a conversation and he walked off, it really ruffled his feathers.
MW: So, “She/Woman,” what’s the form?
BB: It doesn’t have a form, either. It’s a very short melody. You couldn’t call it AABA or any of that, it’s only about ten bars long. Now, let’s look at the melody [he pulls out the sheet, and counts the bars] Oh, it’s twelve bars long, but it’s not a blues.
MW: So, when you originally wrote it you didn’t put bar lines?
BB: I don’t think I had bar lines, I just had phrases. See when I copyrighted it I put in the bar lines, because you have to send them something.
MW: At one time was this tune called “Omen”? You told me that, ages ago.
BB: Oh, yeh! At first it was “Woe-man,” I don’t know who changed it, maybe somebody at the record company. I had it written down, you know, like in the Bible it says Woe unto you or whoever. I was just being silly, but that’s what it was. And then when it came out they had it changed and so everybody would ask me what woman was that you were thinking about, (laughter).
MW: When did you write it?
BB: I probably wrote it six months before we made that first record on Flying Dutchman FLIGHT FOR FOUR. See, if I had written it earlier we would have used it on our first record that we made that came out on Revelation.
MW: And when you write a tune like that, do you specify the instrumentation?
BB: No, I play that whatever. Of course, most of the time when me and John were going to do anything I wasn’t thinking any bigger than a quartet, ever, you know? We always wanted some material that we could get off on. Like when I was working with Trevor, all those tunes I wrote in Europe were tunes that two horns can play and generate some feeling and just bang.
MW: You once told me that “Woman” was your best effort as a composer.
BB: That’s one of my better tunes, just in terms of a melody that I didn’t have to keep chipping on it, trying to change something, you know, how you edit and change it and change it, I didn’t change a note of that. It came just right out. Like “H.M. Louis.” I wrote “H.M. Louis” in like thirty minutes.
MW: But, you do have tunes that you chip on for awhile?
BB: Oh yeh! Like “Ornate,” I chipped on that for over a year trying to get out of that.
MW: And you still rewrite bass lines for it.
BB: Well, sometimes if a bass player hasn’t played with you before, I write something out for them to get them going. But that tune, man, I kept getting trapped in this one place where it wasn’t working and the more I worked at it the worse it got! that was a motherfucker!
MW: And you also write new counterpoint lines for the other horn on that.
BB: Yeh, sometimes. I get tired and want to hear something new. Now, going back to “Woman,” Tom Williamson played something underneath that with some smears, that’s really good. Eventually, I changed the bass to that ostinato.
MW: Does “Woman” lend itself to having a counter melody?
BB: Well . . .it depends. Let’s just say you were going to do that in a duet, with just me and another horn. I wouldn’t want a horn to play that ostinato. See, because on the bass it has a certain percussive quality that you don’t get on the clarinet. That’s the beauty of the bass, where you’re plucking it, it’s percussive and it’s tonal. Like the piano, you hammer it. But you can always have another line.
Bobby Bradford Interview — Comin On — Track 3
MW: Okay, tell us about “Comin’ On.”
BB: Right. Okay. Let’s see, I’m trying to think if that has a form in the way that you mean it. No, that’s just a short melody, too. But now this is a tune where if I’m playing with people I haven’t worked with a lot because it takes you into the free form really easy. When you get done playing this melody it’s easy for you to get out there, without thinking about a key. But I do have some things that people can play behind “Comin’ On” or can play while the soloists are playing, what I call an obbligato. And everybody’s got something different to play on their parts. The main line is [sings] see, that’s a short line, it’s only [looking at the sheet] one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, uh, ten bars. But then I have some written stuff, something different for everybody, and [ruffling pages] . . . see, here’s the trombone part, and Michael (Vlatkovich) can play any one of these lines lettered A, B, and C. And I say You play those at will, any place you feel the urge to play, you could play those while I’m soloing or I might play them while you’re soloing.
MW: You wrote “Comin’ On” a long time ago?
BB: I think the first record that I used “Comin’ On” was LOST IN L.A. (June 1983)
MW: Really?
BB: Yeh, with me and Kousakis.
MW: But, you wrote it a long time ago? You wrote it back in the New Art Jazz Quartet days.
BB: No, no, no, we didn’t have that then. The Revelation period? I hadn’t written that then. I didn’t play this with John Carter, see, if we had that, it would have been a part of our regular repertoire, because we used it a lot later on.
MW: When you were singing it right now it sounded kind of boppish.
BB: You could say it’s boppish. You could say “His Majesty Louis” is boppish, just based on the articulation. See, when we play “Comin’ On” we never play it even like that, I was just singing it [straight] to bring the tune into focus. Sometimes we speed it up or slow down, we never play it in that bop mode.
Bobby Bradford Interview — Come Softly — Track 4
MW: So, on this November 17, 1975 concert you sit out on John’s composition “Come Softly,” but you’ve played this tune many times over the years.
BB: Oh yeh, I’ve played that lots times with John, as a duo.
MW: So, what’s the form on that.
BB: Well, pretty much like a lot of John’s, it’s a very short tune, it’s not long enough to have, like a bridge, you wouldn’t call it that. If you had to, though, you could break part of it and say this is the A part and this is B, but that would be pushing it. But you could. But, you see it’s not long enough to even worry about the form, there’s not enough bars . . . see, when you say “a form,” well that’s like what people say when you write in the longer forms, it’s more difficult. See, if you were going to write a piece like a symphony, that’s more difficult than writing a march, because the form is so long you have to have some ideas that you develop, like an A section, and then an A2 and then B and C and D and as it gets longer, you know? You can’t write a novel that’s only eight pages (laughter)! A lot of John’s tunes were short, they were intended to be a duet piece. So, a lot of this is dictated by what and who is going to play it and when. So then, when John started thinking about that octet stuff, when he started writing things that were longer, then they do have these sections. Very deliberate. Sometimes the form might be AB or ABCD or ABCAD or three A’s and two B’s, so you could keep track of the form.
Bobby Bradford Interview — Circle — Track 5
MW: And the last track on the album is John’s “Circle.” You and John played that for years. (Appeared first on the fourth album SECRETS, that track recorded November 11, 1971)
BB: Yes. Now, “Circle,” is a very short line, too. That was designed where you play first, and then you play the head afterwards. We didn’t play the head in the very beginning, you blow, and then you play the head at the very end of it. We played that a lot. And we’d play it lickety-split, but if you’re not listening carefully you’ll miss the head on this because we’re just blowing until the very end until we start slipping the head in there.
MW: How do you know when you’re going to go to the head, between you and John?
BB: Well, it depends, if we’re playing in a group, like a quartet, one us might lead back to it, and in duo where we’re standing shoulder to shoulder there, it’s just instant. You know when you’re standing there playing a duo the contact is instantaneous. But if you add drums and bass then you have to cue each other some kind of way. Sometimes, you know, each of us is going to play a long solo, which we did, and then if you’re going to give a solo to the drum or bass, usually we just look at the drum or the bass, so the form for that particular tune was solo + solo + solo + solo + the head at the end. But ordinarily, you play the head, then solos, then maybe group improvisation, then back to the head at the end. Going all the way back to New Orleans, the Swing Era, cool jazz, bebop, post-bop, and it gets to be kind of a habit, that’s why I avoid it now, sometimes, because it sets you into a place where pretty soon you get fixed in the thing and you can’t get out of, you’re trapped into that. This forces you to re-group in your head.
MW: And that was John’s compositional idea all along with “Circle”?
BB: Yes. And I’ve got a Charlie Parker tune where he comes in blowing and doesn’t play the theme until he goes out. So, what I’m saying is, that is not a completely new idea of John’s, like nobody had done that before. Gerry Mulligan has a couple pieces where they start blowing and they don’t play the head till the end. He and Chet Baker would be playing over the changes and then work up to the head. But, by and large, the idea is to play this thematic piece and then try to develop the improvisation based on that, so that’s why you work hard on a piece, so that it has a lot of goodies that’ll catapult you into improvisation.
MW: So, why did John call this piece “Circle,” does it relate to something in the arrangement?
BB: I guess, because sometimes he’d say, we would all improvise in a circle, he’d play, I’d play, then the drum and bass would play, and then maybe we’d go around again. And then we’d go to the head finally.
MW: So, are you just supposing that might be the reason he called it “Circle”?
BB: Well, I don’t remember him saying that, but that’s a good way to describe what happened.
https://www.chron.com/entertainment/columnists/dansby/article/Jazz-great-Bobby-Bradford-finally-gets-his-due-5331103.php
Jazz great Bobby Bradford finally gets his due
Mosaic Select, a compilation of music
by Bobby Bradford and John Carter
Jazz musician Bobby Bradford
once wrote a composition called "Crooked Blues." The intriguing title
speaks to the composition itself: familiar music presented differently.
"Crooked Blues" could also reference
Bradford's career, which has for 50 years zigzagged around in a way that
should have made the unique instrumentalist far better-known. Bradford,
a cornetist who performs in Houston next week, is revered in
progressive music circles, yet not as well known as saxophonist and
composer Ornette Coleman, a former collaborator, or next-generation saxophonist and composer David Murray, who is the most famous of the many students Bradford has mentored since he began working as an educator.
Bradford's connection to Coleman - both had moved from the Dallas-Fort
Worth area to Los Angeles - should have secured his renown, but because
he was drafted into the Air Force, another great trumpeter, Don Cherry,
famously played on Coleman's innovative recordings between 1958 and
1961. Bradford rejoined Coleman right about the time Coleman scaled back
the frequency of his performances. Bradford can be heard on Coleman's
1971 masterpiece "Science Fiction," most notably on the aggressive piece
"The Jungle Is a Skyscraper," where his raspy, slurry playing is full
of fire.
By that point, Bradford had already initiated a long-running partnership with Fort Worth clarinetist John Carter,
starting with "Seeking," an album credited to Carter and Bradford's New
Art Jazz Ensemble. They maintained a sporadic partnership until
Carter's death in 1991.
Bradford might have more recognition had he,
like Coleman, moved from Los Angeles to New York. But he stayed in L.A.,
raising a family and starting a career at Pomona College, where he teaches jazz history and oversees the school's jazz ensembles.
Bradford's talents as an instrumentalist and
improviser are still well documented. In addition to his recordings with
Carter, he played in Murray's octet on "Murray's Steps," one of my
favorite Murray recordings, though I also recommend the more recent
"Death of a Sideman," on which Bradford plays eight of his own
compositions as part of Murray's quartet.
"Reknes," a live set, is also worth digging for. Bradford leads a quartet that includes noted Norwegian improvisers Frode Gjerstad on saxophone and clarinet, Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten on bass and Paal Nilssen-Love
on drums. The album bristles with relentless energy and striking
contrasts between Bradford's earthy tone and Gjerstad's more frenetic
playing. Bradford was 74 at the time the album was made, and the
cornetist sounds as vital as at any point in his career.
Bradford turns 80 this summer and shows no
signs of slowing now that he's getting the attention that should have
come his way decades earlier. He will appear in Houston with two-thirds
of the band on "Reknes" (Chicago drummer Frank Rosaly
will sit in the seat occupied by Nilssen-Love). The show - which the
experimental-music organization Nameless Sound is presenting - should be
a spirited conversation between creative players who cross cultures and
generations.
It also is a good opportunity to hear a
remarkably dexterous player from jazz's early avant garde. Bradford is a
versatile instrumentalist with a deep knowledge of bebop and the more
daring types of jazz that sprung from that form. His contribution to
jazz has been greater than broad-stroke accounts like "Ken Burns' Jazz" have documented.
Demand for modern jazz remains higher in
Europe than in the United States, but even there several venerable
record labels have shut down. And iTunes doesn't begin to offer the
breadth of recorded music that Bradford has contributed to: a few titles
under his name, "Murray's Steps," a few of his collaborations with
Carter, and that's about all that can be found.
But recordings document the past, and at 80
Bradford continues to move forward, which makes a live setting the best
place to see his restless muse skitter about again.
Bobby Bradford Quartet
When: 8 p.m. Tuesday
Where: MECA, 1900 Kane
Tickets: $13; namelesssound.org
Born in Cleveland, Mississippi in 1934 and raised between Dallas and Los Angeles, trumpeter Bobby Bradford began playing with Ornette Coleman in Los Angeles in the 1950s, and replaced Don Cherry in an unrecorded Coleman quartet during the early 1960s. However, the most significant partnership in Bradford's musical life was with the clarinetist and composer John Carter (1928-1991), with whom he worked and recorded from 1969 into the 1980s a very different brand of free-bop. Now a professor at Pomona College, Bradford continues to lead his Mo'Tet and is being celebrated at the 2009 Festival of the New Trumpet in New York.
All About Jazz: Could you talk a bit about who you're working with presently?
Bobby Bradford: I have a group called the Mo'tet, and for a while we were working about once a month in this Italian restaurant in Sierra Madre, but we could play whatever we wanted—no restaurant music or anything. That band has William Jeffrey on drums; Roberto Miranda on bass; I use Don Preston on piano and on saxophone Chuck Manning; Ken Rosser on guitar; and Michael Vladtkovitch on trombone.
But when I go to New York or Chicago, there's never enough money to bring my own guys. The same thing happened with John Carter and his Octets; when he'd perform outside of LA, they'd fit him in with some good players but they didn't know his music nearly as well. The only person he brought with him was me. When I go to New York, I work with great players—[reedman] Marty Ehrlich and David Murray,Andrew Cyrille on drums, Mark Dresser and Mark Helias on bass, and Benny Powell on trombone—but they aren't my working band.
AAJ: And how did you get in connection with the Festival of the New Trumpet?
BB: Well, I was introduced to Dave Douglas and played in the festival in 2005, which was dedicated to Lester Bowie. I had one set with my group before another Texas trumpeter, Dennis Gonzalez, went on. Again, I used New York musicians like Ehrlich, Dresser, and [bassist] Ken Filiano—it was two basses and two horns in a quartet. This year, since it was set up around what I'm doing, I'll have a quintet, an octet, and [trumpeters] Jeremy Pelt and Eddie Henderson will be playing as well as Ambrose Akinmusire, who has written a piece for me that I haven't heard.
AAJ: What about recording these performances? Have you given any thought to it?
BB: It's a serious possibility, but I would have to clear it with everybody involved. I remember a gig I was on with [drummer] Billy Higgins not too long before he died, at Yoshi's in Oakland with [saxophonist] Dewey Redman and [bassist] Charnett Moffett. It was great, they'd set up everything and Dewey didn't want it recorded or released so that was that.
AAJ: Could you give us some background on your growing up, early life, and how you got involved in music?
BB: In my family there were two boys (my brother and me), and we left Mississippi when I was about ten or eleven because my mother had remarried. We left and came to Los Angeles in 1944 or '45 because my stepfather had family out there and as they were doing well, he figured we would do well too. So we stayed in Los Angeles for one semester of the school year, and midway through we packed up again and moved across country to Detroit. We stayed there the other half of the school year.
In the summer of 1946, my mother sent my brother and me to live with my real father in Texas. I went to high school in Dallas and graduated in 1952, at which point I moved to Austin to attend a small Methodist college there called Sam Houston University. At the same time in Austin there was another small black Methodist college called Tillotson, and they merged in about 1954 to become Huston-Tillotson University. I went there the spring of 1952 and left in the end of the school year at the end of 1953. After that I went to Los Angeles to stay with my mother and stepfather. It was then that I got to play with Ornette Coleman.
AAJ: So you didn't know Ornette in Texas.
BB: I met him in Texas but I didn't play with him until Los Angeles.
AAJ: When did music first become a major force in your life?
BB: I was taking piano lessons when I was a kid in Mississippi, because my mother had told me to—but I wasn't involved on any deep level. Music didn't hit me until about 1949 or 1950, when I was in high school. That's when I first heard the beboppers and that's when I was swept off my feet.
AAJ: What made you choose trumpet—or were you able to choose?
BB: That was what happened to be available—the cornet, really. It's not like my parents laid out a bunch of instruments for me and said 'pick one.' There was a guy who lived across the street that had an old, beat up cornet which he was willing to part with. I played it in the high school band; some of my classmates in that band were [pianist] Cedar Walton and [saxophonists] David "Fathead" Newman and James Clay. When I came back to LA in the summer of '53, I ran into Ornette Coleman again after having met him in Austin. He came to Austin to be the best man at a wedding and afterwards they had a little jam session—that was the first time I heard him play. When I ran into him later, we furthered our acquaintance and he invited me to come over and rehearse tunes with him, and we became good friends. We played together until I went into the military in the summer of '54.
AAJ: Was it an immediately musical friendship or was it a regular friendship that developed into music later?
BB: Oh, this was music right away.
AAJ: What impressed you about his way of approaching music? Was it different that how you had previously approached playing?
BB: Well, if you go back to 1953-54, bebop was the music of the day and Ornette was still developing as a musician. He was still pretty much in the bebop mold, but he began to develop some very original compositions that had bebop roots, and had things that were different—trying to improvise on something other than a chord sequence.
AAJ: Had you been thinking at all in those directions before you and Ornette got connected?
BB: Absolutely not. Some people try to muddy the waters there, make me look like I was doing something that I had no thoughts about before. I was working my way up the bebop ladder in much the same way he was, actually. He is a very talented composer, and much of his early music sounds like bebop—the lines on the first couple albums, you can hear that connection immediately. But when you hear him improvise, there's also something peculiar going on outside that tradition. That's also where he caught all the flak.
AAJ: I think [pianist] Walter Norris said something to the effect that he didn't even know his own tunes. Clearly there was a lag between what he was doing and whether people had an inkling of what he was up to and then trying to catch up.
BB: That's what Walter said to me once. But yeah, after he left Los Angeles for New York in 1959, people realized they had to pay serious attention to what he was doing and could not dismiss it. My mother used to write me and tell me that the guy I used to play with [Ornette] was in the paper again. In fact, he made his first recording in LA in 1958 [Something Else, Contemporary]. But he went on to a jazz camp at Lenox, Massachusetts, and then to New York.
AAJ: What was the Los Angeles musical community like apart from Ornette, as you were climbing the bebop ladder?
BB: It was primarily bebop a la Charlie Parker, and also a sort of lighter—what would come to be called "West Coast Jazz," which I find totally inaccurate because the guys playing in a lighter style were clearly rooted in bebop chords and so forth. There was [saxophonists] Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon, [trumpeter] Art Farmer, as well as [baritone saxophonist] Gerry Mulligan, [trumpeters] Chet Baker, Shorty Rogers and Don Fagerquist—good musicians that played a much less aggressive style of bebop. LA was full of players; it was very busy and I don't know that there was much money to be made, unless one was working in film or television. But there were lots of places to play and lots of activity during that period.
AAJ: How long were you in the military?
BB: I was in the Air Force 46 months. I went in September of 1954, and I got out in October of '58. I was discharged in San Antonio, and that's when I decided to come back to Austin and further my education.
AAJ: It seems pretty clear to me that as far as making a life for yourself, education and a more stable lifestyle were in the offing—something other than music would offer.
BB: The school I went to and graduated from, the only thing they offered was Music Ed. Growing up in Texas if you thought about going to college and you were Black, it was as a music major. The schools were very segregated at the time, and the little black schools only offered music education. You assumed that when you graduated, you'd get a job as a high school band director—you weren't going to play in the Dallas Symphony or be a concert librarian. That was totally unrealistic. I had no big master plan of going to New York and tackling the big city. Firstly, I wanted to learn how to play the music I loved—that was my concern, rather than to get famous playing the trumpet.
Of course, during military service I got married and had a couple of kids. So I left with a family and I had the GI Bill available to me—it was about 75 miles from San Antonio to Austin, and I was enrolled straightaway at university. I went to see the guy in charge of music at Huston-Tillotson and he gave me a pretty big scholarship offer to return. It made a lot of economic sense to me to go to Huston-Tillotson, have my tuition paid so I could make rent every month and put food on the table, and I finished in three semesters.
I think it was the fall of 1960 that Ornette called me to New York to make the Free Jazz album (Atlantic) and that was right in the middle of the semester. I told him I wouldn't do it—I talked to professors and they all said I'd fail or get an incomplete that I couldn't recover from. I wanted to finish my education, get a job, and provide for my family, so that was the answer. At any rate, I didn't go in 1960 and in 1961 I dropped out of school for a bit because I needed to work full time. Ornette sent for me again (he and Don Cherry had parted ways) and this time I decided I would go to New York.
I had about another year left in school, but since it was the summer my wife and I talked about it, and I left in summer 1961. During periods when he wasn't working, I came back to Texas (my wife and kids were in Dallas near her mother). I didn't bring them along on the initial trip, because I didn't know what was going to happen. Ornette was auditioning bassists and drummers; he finally got [drummer] Charles Moffett in the band, and at one point it was Jimmy Garrison on bass (he left in 1962 to go with John Coltrane) and at another, David Izenzon. In 1962, I brought my family to the East Village, but Ornette was having serious thoughts about boycotting the clubs. He didn't think he was being paid enough (indeed, he probably wasn't), and there was a big gap between black and white players. He couldn't expect to go into the Five Spot and no matter how packed it was he wouldn't get paid what someone like Gerry Mulligan was making. He decided he wouldn't play for a while, and I left the band in 1963 for lack of work. The last band we had was with Moffett and Izenzon.
Once it was clear we weren't going to be working, I took my family back to Austin and finished college. I graduated from Huston Tillotson in May of '63 and got a job teaching in Crockett, Texas, out in the Hill Country. I was the high school band director from 1963 to 1964. My wife and kids packed up at the end of that year and we all came back to Los Angeles.
AAJ: Being in small town Texas wasn't the right thing at the time.
BB: I can't tell you how rough it was—it was dreadful. It was the kind of town in the Baptist Belt where people would look through my trash and ask me about beer or wine bottles in the trash. Of course I had some good friends there, too, but I couldn't stay and we moved out. We stayed with my mother at first, and I looked around for a job and there weren't any available for a music teacher from Texas (even if I'd been from LA, it wouldn't have mattered). So I took a job as a workman's comp adjuster. If you get a blue suit, you know, you can go to work the next day. By 1966-1967, [reedman] John Carter called me out of the blue. I knew his name; he was teaching in the school systems in Los Angeles and I was working 9-5, practicing a little but not really playing. He got my number from Ornette, introduced himself, and wanted to start a band playing original music. So we got together right away and started talking, and found that we had a lot in common—we both studied to be teachers, both had families, and we were both interested in the New Music. We searched around and found a bassist and drummer who were sympathetic. I think the first public appearance we made was in 1968—we were rehearsing regularly for about a year before we got a job. That first band was with Tom Williamson on bass and Bruz Freeman, [saxophonist] Von and [guitarist] George's brother, on drums.
AAJ: How did you select that pair for your "rhythm section?"
BB: We put an ad out that we were looking for a band, and not a lot of people showed up. Most that did, once they saw the music and heard us play, they bailed out right away—good, strong beboppers, but if you didn't have a chord chart they weren't interested.
AAJ: Well, Bruz played with [pianist] Hampton Hawes and people like that, too.
BB: Sarah Vaughan, also—he was a good bebop drummer, but he was real open. He liked what he heard right away, as did Tom. We were both writing—John more than I was. We were doing original music, something that either of us wrote, and they were into it.
AAJ: What struck me immediately upon hearing Seeking (Revelation, 1969) was how different it was. I'd been through the Ornette and Don Cherry records and was as a listener familiar with that language, and was expecting more of the same, but it really isn't.
BB: That's right. A lot of people who aren't careful make that assumption—I get people all the time who say "you listened to Don Cherry, didn't you" and I have to stop them. That's like saying "Chet Baker listened to Harry James"—it's so remote. Don was a wonderful trumpet player and a very talented guy, but the connection between his playing and mine—it's just not really there.
AAJ: You've got an incisive and very direct sound. I was going to ask who you were really listening to at that point.
BB: When I first played trumpet, I listened to what anybody else would—Dizzy, Miles, Fats Navarro. I think Fats was my favorite out of all those guys, but I liked Kenny Dorham and all of them. I liked a lot of saxophonists too. But beyond that, the only thing John and I had in common with Ornette was philosophy. The lines that John wrote had very little to do with Ornette—the way he chose to develop them, you know.
AAJ: There was a sense of orchestral color to it, too, and well before John had done any large ensemble compositions—a weight behind it.
BB: John was a thoroughly schooled classical musician with a master's degree from Boulder. He wasn't fooling around with the clarinet—he'd been playing it all the way through, and later on began playing saxophones so he could get work. Anybody with that background isn't going to throw it away, especially when they begin to write. People would say "he's trying to write classical music," and two bars into a piece you knew right away it was American music with a connection to jazz. When people compared him to Ornette, John would get really upset—after about five questions about Ornette Coleman he'd say 'we can move on now.' If you play improvised music without chords, you become an Ornette Coleman disciple, so to speak. To that extent, they just put us in the free jazz camp.
AAJ: What was the response like when you started performing out as a group?
BB: Around LA? There was just a small community; we played places that would seat 50 people or on the university campuses where if you played interesting music, they'd hire you. Generally, most people looked at us pretty strange—one guy I had known back in the '50s said "man, you used to be a pretty good trumpeter, but that Ornette just ruined you" [laughs].
AAJ: Also, in the latter half of the '60s, performance spaces for creative music were few, because of the influx of rock and psychedelic music.
BB: Of course, that impacted everybody, yes, but even now LA is a town of post-bop players. There is some new music activity, but it's limited and the places are hard to come by and don't last long. In spite of that, there is a population of individuals who like playing this music—younger people like [reedman] Vinny Golia and the Cline brothers. Also, [pianist] Horace Tapscott was around during that earlier period.
AAJ: I was going to ask about him—you both recorded for Flying Dutchman, and I was sure you'd had a fair amount of contact.
BB: I knew him; actually, I knew him before I was in the military and at that point he was still playing trombone. By the '60s, he'd started to do writing for large ensembles, and it wasn't really that close to what we were doing—it was more modal. Some wonderful players came through that band he had.
AAJ: Recording must have brought notoriety to the band—were there calls coming from out of town?
BB: Our first record was in 1969 on Revelation. We didn't get calls from New York because of that record—we got good reviews, but we were still "West Coast guys." It managed to get around to some of the European magazines. Bob Thiele heard it, and came to LA in 1970 looking for what was on offer. We went and auditioned for him, as did [saxophonist] Arthur Blythe and Horace Tapscott. He gave us a record date, and that became Flight for Four on Flying Dutchman. Then right after that we made another record for Revelation called Secrets, and after that was Self-Determination Music for Flying Dutchman again in 1971.
We got some press, but we didn't get any invitations to go anywhere and play. Thiele sat us down and said "well, guys, I hate to tell you this, but if you want to move from where you are in this little scene, you're going to have to go to New York or your careers will just sit." John and I talked about it and opted to stay in LA—we had families that we didn't want to move, and we weren't going to pack up and leave them either.
So we played more around LA than we had before, but in the summer of 1971 I went to England on holiday. I took my horn and had a couple of names around London to look up, like the writer Richard Williams. He gave me the number of [drummer] John Stevens, and we made a record that summer with [saxophonist] Trevor Watts, [vocalist-guitarist] Julie Tippetts, Yaron Herman on bass, and an American trombonist, Bob Norden [Bobby Bradford with John Stevens and the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Nessa]. I came back after the holiday and shared that information with John, how exciting and fruitful it could be in Europe, and we talked about getting booked over there but at the same time, it didn't result in hopping on the next plane, either.
Then I went back over in 1973, met up with John Stevens and Trevor Watts and [bassist] Kent Carter. I decided that I would stay over about ten months. We gigged around London and took the ferry over to Holland, got a van and drove around France and Belgium. We played a lot even though there wasn't any money; that record I made on tour, Love's Dream, was made after two weeks in Paris at Le Chat qui Peche. The owner of the Emanem label, Martin Davidson, traveled with us in the van and recorded that stint, and we picked the best performances to release.
AAJ: The reception sounds like it was pretty good over there—Le Chat was a noted performance space at the time. Were audiences receptive?
BB: Oh yes, we played the BIM Huis in Amsterdam and people were stomping and cheering—they loved it.
AAJ: You hadn't had anything like that in LA, I assume.
BB: Oh no, nothing like that. In Europe, we played places that seated two or three hundred people, as well as pub gigs. Later on, I went to Portugal and Italy with other groups—anyway, I loved it but there was no money and I had to support myself as well as family back home, so I came back. During the time I was gone, John had put down the saxophones and flute to focus on the clarinet exclusively. He made a recording, Echoes from Rudolph's (Ibedon, 1977) in a band with his son Stanley on bass and William Jeffrey on drums.
AAJ: Rudolph's was his space, right?
BB: It was a dentist's studio and for whatever reason, the dentist couldn't decide what to do with the place. He didn't want it empty, and a bassoonist named Rudolph had somehow turned it into his living space. Rudolph decided to have Sunday afternoon concerts, and I don't know how he and John met, but they went on for a long time with these concerts.
AAJ: Were you playing much with him when you came back, or not as much?
BB: Oh yes, sure, whenever we could get together and play, we did. But I lived in Pasadena, which was on the opposite end of the city. I had a little loft that I called the Little Bighorn, and sometimes John would come over there and play. We were doing what we could to keep things happening, with gigs at UCLA, Pasadena City College, Cal-State and other places in the Los Angeles Basin.
AAJ: You were also teaching again at that point.
BB: I started teaching about the same time John and I got together, actually—teaching sixth grade elementary school in 1967-1968. I was in La Puente, California, in the Basin. I started to teach music in the Pasadena City College in 1974-1975, and also at Pomona City College during that time, just one class each. Stanley Crouch orchestrated my teaching work at Pomona, because he was on faculty in the Black Studies department there.
AAJ: He was still playing music [drums] then, too.
BB: Sure, he had a band called Black Music Infinity, and sometimes I played with them—me, [bassist] Wilber Morris, Arthur Blythe, David Murray and [flutist] James Newton. David was a student at Pomona in 1975, and Newton was in the area because his father was in the military. He found the Pomona College campus accessible.
AAJ: And you had the Extet that you were leading as well.
BB: Yeah, the name came up because I wanted to make sure each band I put together wouldn't be confused with some other group I had. A few weeks later I might be calling something the "Whet-Tet." At that point, the name didn't have much meaning—James Newton and I were both being interviewed on a radio show, and I don't think we used that same configuration of guys again, except maybe at the Little Bighorn on Sundays.
AAJ: That record [Midnight Pacific Airwaves, Entropy Records, 1977/2009] for me, when I got it, it seemed out of left field because that period of your work wasn't too well documented. As far as what you were able to do, had the climate changed in any way in LA so that you could perform more regularly?
BB: It had to a degree, but I must confess it was never good. I can't say any period was a golden period—when you have to open your own club just to play, the pickings are pretty slim. Some people were not willing to make the move—John and I did things around town, but it wasn't like people were going to call you. You had to orchestrate the whole event.
AAJ: As far as teaching goes, was that a viable enough thing?
BB: The beauty of that was that I had one class on each campus, and it gave me some income each month that left me to work at what I was doing, go out of town. For example, when I went to New York to record with Ornette in 1971 (Science Fiction and Broken Shadows, Columbia) that one class didn't restrict my time. I could get out of town for a week and manage to keep things together. That helped a lot—I don't know what I would have done without it.
AAJ: Was there a group of students that you played with, sort of like proteges?
BB: Not really; nobody except for David Murray and James Newton. The class at Pasadena City College was a Black Music survey course covering blues, gospel, and jazz. There weren't any students in that class that were serious about playing music. I didn't teach "how to play" at either place, except that Stanley's band was at Pomona and some of his band mates also took his classes. He was writing plays and playing drums, and one thing led to another but what they hired me to do was teach a History of Jazz class—textbooks, listening to records, but no playing.
AAJ: It'd be easy to go down the path of discussing Stanley Crouch, and how the music has been perceived as a result of his words, but at that time he was very clear-cut in his involvement with the New Music.
BB: He back-stepped after he got to New York. He got to a point where he stopped playing the drums because he was ill-equipped to do what was necessary on the instrument. Instead, he chose to focus on writing. He also didn't like the post-Albert Ayler and late Coltrane stuff, that high-energy thing, and instead he took a stand that there were only a few valid people in the New Music—me, Ornette, Dewey Redman, Don Cherry and [bassist] Charlie Haden. He didn't think a lot of the other groups borne out of that. Some people say he did a complete about-face in New York, though I don't think that's true.
AAJ: Like anybody, his tastes shaped what he wrote about.
BB: Sure, and he was focused completely on writing.
AAJ: A record like Self-Determination Music is pretty dense, but there's a sense of space throughout your music, both on your own and with John Carter. Was that a conscious decision, to "open the music up" to a degree?
BB: The best I can answer that is that I never sat down and thought about a certain approach. How I write—and it was probably true for John as well—is determined by how I play. I'm not a person who wants to use a lot of noise effects in my music, though that doesn't mean I don't like to hear someone do it well. I still like to hear the trumpet played traditionally.
I like a lot of what Albert Ayler did and I love the late Coltrane music, Interstellar Space [Impulse, 1967] and things like that. People say it's coming from Ornette, too, but the only connection between the two is philosophical—playing music without chords. In fact, the big glaring thing was that Trane was willing to use drummers who didn't play time, whereas Ornette always had to have timekeeping in his music. That's huge. You're really out on a limb when you ask a drummer to play free, and you've got to be able to do something to back that up. John Carter and I both liked that a lot.
AAJ: It involves a lot of trust. But even as that music had become historically valid, there still wasn't a lot of recording or performing opportunity in the States for the New Music during the 1980s, for example.
BB: There never was much work. John came to attention with the Octet pieces, like Night Fire [Black Saint, 1981] and the Roots and Folklore series [Gramavision]. When that crystallized in his mind and we recorded it, those records became viewed as his best work, even though I think the Flying Dutchman records and the solo Moers album were very important also, as well as our duet repertoire [Tandem 1 & 2, Emanem, 1982]. It's like when Ornette won the Pulitzer he should've got in the late 1960s, when his work was still fresh, even though it's good that he finally was awarded for Sound Grammar [Sound Grammar, 2005]. That's good stuff, but his greatest was a long time ago. Of course that's just my opinion.
AAJ: It's tough because this music deserves recognition, but that recognition has to be timely and for the right things. You don't want to take the small nugget that's offered, either.
BB: Yes, that's very true. But it sure felt wonderful when we played as a duo at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland to about 800 people. If there was a way we could have figured out how to have a base in Europe, we would have done it. It just wasn't feasible—we couldn't come over with a knapsack and a horn, and just wing it. The audiences were there, though.
AAJ: Could you discuss a bit more in how you teach—is it structured from your experience?
BB: To some extent, but I don't just teach an oral history for 14 weeks. I only bring my personal experience into focus when it's about the music that I played. I precede it with a serious look at the blues and the Negro spiritual, especially as to how people can grasp their relationship to jazz. When I move to the New Orleans style, I don't talk about anything other than what's in books and on records. I take the class through Bix Beiderbecke and the Chicago sound, swing and Count Basie versus Tommy Dorsey, Lester Young, then from bebop up to the tail end. I only talk about my own life when it's a situation where I can say "I was there." People say that Eric Dolphy was the heavy in LA during the '50s, not Ornette, and I have to say "whoa" and stop them right there. I lived it, you know.
Selected Discography
Bobby Bradford/Frode Gjerstad/Ingebrigt Haker Flaten/Paal Nilssen-Love, Reknes (Circulasione Totale, 2009)
Vinny Golia Quartet, 'Sfumato (Clean Feed, 2003)
Bobby Bradford Mo'tet, Live at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Waterboy, 2003)
David Murray, Death of a Sideman (DIW, 1991)
John Carter, Castles of Ghana (Gramavision, 1985)
John Carter, Night Fire (Black Saint, 1980)
Bobby Bradford Extet, Midnight Pacific Airwaves (Entropy Stereo, 1977)
Bobby Bradford, Love's Dream (Emanem, 1973)
Bobby Bradford with John Stevens and the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (Nessa, 1971)
John Carter/Bobby Bradford Quartet, Flight for Four (Flying Dutchman, 1970)
New Art Jazz Ensemble, Seeking (Revelation, 1969)
Bobby Bradford: Self-Determination in the Great Basin
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Born in Cleveland, Mississippi in 1934 and raised between Dallas and Los Angeles, trumpeter Bobby Bradford began playing with Ornette Coleman in Los Angeles in the 1950s, and replaced Don Cherry in an unrecorded Coleman quartet during the early 1960s. However, the most significant partnership in Bradford's musical life was with the clarinetist and composer John Carter (1928-1991), with whom he worked and recorded from 1969 into the 1980s a very different brand of free-bop. Now a professor at Pomona College, Bradford continues to lead his Mo'Tet and is being celebrated at the 2009 Festival of the New Trumpet in New York.
All About Jazz: Could you talk a bit about who you're working with presently?
Bobby Bradford: I have a group called the Mo'tet, and for a while we were working about once a month in this Italian restaurant in Sierra Madre, but we could play whatever we wanted—no restaurant music or anything. That band has William Jeffrey on drums; Roberto Miranda on bass; I use Don Preston on piano and on saxophone Chuck Manning; Ken Rosser on guitar; and Michael Vladtkovitch on trombone.
But when I go to New York or Chicago, there's never enough money to bring my own guys. The same thing happened with John Carter and his Octets; when he'd perform outside of LA, they'd fit him in with some good players but they didn't know his music nearly as well. The only person he brought with him was me. When I go to New York, I work with great players—[reedman] Marty Ehrlich and David Murray,Andrew Cyrille on drums, Mark Dresser and Mark Helias on bass, and Benny Powell on trombone—but they aren't my working band.
AAJ: And how did you get in connection with the Festival of the New Trumpet?
BB: Well, I was introduced to Dave Douglas and played in the festival in 2005, which was dedicated to Lester Bowie. I had one set with my group before another Texas trumpeter, Dennis Gonzalez, went on. Again, I used New York musicians like Ehrlich, Dresser, and [bassist] Ken Filiano—it was two basses and two horns in a quartet. This year, since it was set up around what I'm doing, I'll have a quintet, an octet, and [trumpeters] Jeremy Pelt and Eddie Henderson will be playing as well as Ambrose Akinmusire, who has written a piece for me that I haven't heard.
AAJ: What about recording these performances? Have you given any thought to it?
BB: It's a serious possibility, but I would have to clear it with everybody involved. I remember a gig I was on with [drummer] Billy Higgins not too long before he died, at Yoshi's in Oakland with [saxophonist] Dewey Redman and [bassist] Charnett Moffett. It was great, they'd set up everything and Dewey didn't want it recorded or released so that was that.
AAJ: Could you give us some background on your growing up, early life, and how you got involved in music?
BB: In my family there were two boys (my brother and me), and we left Mississippi when I was about ten or eleven because my mother had remarried. We left and came to Los Angeles in 1944 or '45 because my stepfather had family out there and as they were doing well, he figured we would do well too. So we stayed in Los Angeles for one semester of the school year, and midway through we packed up again and moved across country to Detroit. We stayed there the other half of the school year.
In the summer of 1946, my mother sent my brother and me to live with my real father in Texas. I went to high school in Dallas and graduated in 1952, at which point I moved to Austin to attend a small Methodist college there called Sam Houston University. At the same time in Austin there was another small black Methodist college called Tillotson, and they merged in about 1954 to become Huston-Tillotson University. I went there the spring of 1952 and left in the end of the school year at the end of 1953. After that I went to Los Angeles to stay with my mother and stepfather. It was then that I got to play with Ornette Coleman.
AAJ: So you didn't know Ornette in Texas.
BB: I met him in Texas but I didn't play with him until Los Angeles.
AAJ: When did music first become a major force in your life?
BB: I was taking piano lessons when I was a kid in Mississippi, because my mother had told me to—but I wasn't involved on any deep level. Music didn't hit me until about 1949 or 1950, when I was in high school. That's when I first heard the beboppers and that's when I was swept off my feet.
AAJ: What made you choose trumpet—or were you able to choose?
BB: That was what happened to be available—the cornet, really. It's not like my parents laid out a bunch of instruments for me and said 'pick one.' There was a guy who lived across the street that had an old, beat up cornet which he was willing to part with. I played it in the high school band; some of my classmates in that band were [pianist] Cedar Walton and [saxophonists] David "Fathead" Newman and James Clay. When I came back to LA in the summer of '53, I ran into Ornette Coleman again after having met him in Austin. He came to Austin to be the best man at a wedding and afterwards they had a little jam session—that was the first time I heard him play. When I ran into him later, we furthered our acquaintance and he invited me to come over and rehearse tunes with him, and we became good friends. We played together until I went into the military in the summer of '54.
AAJ: Was it an immediately musical friendship or was it a regular friendship that developed into music later?
BB: Oh, this was music right away.
AAJ: What impressed you about his way of approaching music? Was it different that how you had previously approached playing?
BB: Well, if you go back to 1953-54, bebop was the music of the day and Ornette was still developing as a musician. He was still pretty much in the bebop mold, but he began to develop some very original compositions that had bebop roots, and had things that were different—trying to improvise on something other than a chord sequence.
AAJ: Had you been thinking at all in those directions before you and Ornette got connected?
BB: Absolutely not. Some people try to muddy the waters there, make me look like I was doing something that I had no thoughts about before. I was working my way up the bebop ladder in much the same way he was, actually. He is a very talented composer, and much of his early music sounds like bebop—the lines on the first couple albums, you can hear that connection immediately. But when you hear him improvise, there's also something peculiar going on outside that tradition. That's also where he caught all the flak.
AAJ: I think [pianist] Walter Norris said something to the effect that he didn't even know his own tunes. Clearly there was a lag between what he was doing and whether people had an inkling of what he was up to and then trying to catch up.
BB: That's what Walter said to me once. But yeah, after he left Los Angeles for New York in 1959, people realized they had to pay serious attention to what he was doing and could not dismiss it. My mother used to write me and tell me that the guy I used to play with [Ornette] was in the paper again. In fact, he made his first recording in LA in 1958 [Something Else, Contemporary]. But he went on to a jazz camp at Lenox, Massachusetts, and then to New York.
AAJ: What was the Los Angeles musical community like apart from Ornette, as you were climbing the bebop ladder?
BB: It was primarily bebop a la Charlie Parker, and also a sort of lighter—what would come to be called "West Coast Jazz," which I find totally inaccurate because the guys playing in a lighter style were clearly rooted in bebop chords and so forth. There was [saxophonists] Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon, [trumpeter] Art Farmer, as well as [baritone saxophonist] Gerry Mulligan, [trumpeters] Chet Baker, Shorty Rogers and Don Fagerquist—good musicians that played a much less aggressive style of bebop. LA was full of players; it was very busy and I don't know that there was much money to be made, unless one was working in film or television. But there were lots of places to play and lots of activity during that period.
AAJ: How long were you in the military?
BB: I was in the Air Force 46 months. I went in September of 1954, and I got out in October of '58. I was discharged in San Antonio, and that's when I decided to come back to Austin and further my education.
AAJ: It seems pretty clear to me that as far as making a life for yourself, education and a more stable lifestyle were in the offing—something other than music would offer.
BB: The school I went to and graduated from, the only thing they offered was Music Ed. Growing up in Texas if you thought about going to college and you were Black, it was as a music major. The schools were very segregated at the time, and the little black schools only offered music education. You assumed that when you graduated, you'd get a job as a high school band director—you weren't going to play in the Dallas Symphony or be a concert librarian. That was totally unrealistic. I had no big master plan of going to New York and tackling the big city. Firstly, I wanted to learn how to play the music I loved—that was my concern, rather than to get famous playing the trumpet.
Of course, during military service I got married and had a couple of kids. So I left with a family and I had the GI Bill available to me—it was about 75 miles from San Antonio to Austin, and I was enrolled straightaway at university. I went to see the guy in charge of music at Huston-Tillotson and he gave me a pretty big scholarship offer to return. It made a lot of economic sense to me to go to Huston-Tillotson, have my tuition paid so I could make rent every month and put food on the table, and I finished in three semesters.
I think it was the fall of 1960 that Ornette called me to New York to make the Free Jazz album (Atlantic) and that was right in the middle of the semester. I told him I wouldn't do it—I talked to professors and they all said I'd fail or get an incomplete that I couldn't recover from. I wanted to finish my education, get a job, and provide for my family, so that was the answer. At any rate, I didn't go in 1960 and in 1961 I dropped out of school for a bit because I needed to work full time. Ornette sent for me again (he and Don Cherry had parted ways) and this time I decided I would go to New York.
I had about another year left in school, but since it was the summer my wife and I talked about it, and I left in summer 1961. During periods when he wasn't working, I came back to Texas (my wife and kids were in Dallas near her mother). I didn't bring them along on the initial trip, because I didn't know what was going to happen. Ornette was auditioning bassists and drummers; he finally got [drummer] Charles Moffett in the band, and at one point it was Jimmy Garrison on bass (he left in 1962 to go with John Coltrane) and at another, David Izenzon. In 1962, I brought my family to the East Village, but Ornette was having serious thoughts about boycotting the clubs. He didn't think he was being paid enough (indeed, he probably wasn't), and there was a big gap between black and white players. He couldn't expect to go into the Five Spot and no matter how packed it was he wouldn't get paid what someone like Gerry Mulligan was making. He decided he wouldn't play for a while, and I left the band in 1963 for lack of work. The last band we had was with Moffett and Izenzon.
Once it was clear we weren't going to be working, I took my family back to Austin and finished college. I graduated from Huston Tillotson in May of '63 and got a job teaching in Crockett, Texas, out in the Hill Country. I was the high school band director from 1963 to 1964. My wife and kids packed up at the end of that year and we all came back to Los Angeles.
AAJ: Being in small town Texas wasn't the right thing at the time.
BB: I can't tell you how rough it was—it was dreadful. It was the kind of town in the Baptist Belt where people would look through my trash and ask me about beer or wine bottles in the trash. Of course I had some good friends there, too, but I couldn't stay and we moved out. We stayed with my mother at first, and I looked around for a job and there weren't any available for a music teacher from Texas (even if I'd been from LA, it wouldn't have mattered). So I took a job as a workman's comp adjuster. If you get a blue suit, you know, you can go to work the next day. By 1966-1967, [reedman] John Carter called me out of the blue. I knew his name; he was teaching in the school systems in Los Angeles and I was working 9-5, practicing a little but not really playing. He got my number from Ornette, introduced himself, and wanted to start a band playing original music. So we got together right away and started talking, and found that we had a lot in common—we both studied to be teachers, both had families, and we were both interested in the New Music. We searched around and found a bassist and drummer who were sympathetic. I think the first public appearance we made was in 1968—we were rehearsing regularly for about a year before we got a job. That first band was with Tom Williamson on bass and Bruz Freeman, [saxophonist] Von and [guitarist] George's brother, on drums.
AAJ: How did you select that pair for your "rhythm section?"
BB: We put an ad out that we were looking for a band, and not a lot of people showed up. Most that did, once they saw the music and heard us play, they bailed out right away—good, strong beboppers, but if you didn't have a chord chart they weren't interested.
AAJ: Well, Bruz played with [pianist] Hampton Hawes and people like that, too.
BB: Sarah Vaughan, also—he was a good bebop drummer, but he was real open. He liked what he heard right away, as did Tom. We were both writing—John more than I was. We were doing original music, something that either of us wrote, and they were into it.
AAJ: What struck me immediately upon hearing Seeking (Revelation, 1969) was how different it was. I'd been through the Ornette and Don Cherry records and was as a listener familiar with that language, and was expecting more of the same, but it really isn't.
BB: That's right. A lot of people who aren't careful make that assumption—I get people all the time who say "you listened to Don Cherry, didn't you" and I have to stop them. That's like saying "Chet Baker listened to Harry James"—it's so remote. Don was a wonderful trumpet player and a very talented guy, but the connection between his playing and mine—it's just not really there.
AAJ: You've got an incisive and very direct sound. I was going to ask who you were really listening to at that point.
BB: When I first played trumpet, I listened to what anybody else would—Dizzy, Miles, Fats Navarro. I think Fats was my favorite out of all those guys, but I liked Kenny Dorham and all of them. I liked a lot of saxophonists too. But beyond that, the only thing John and I had in common with Ornette was philosophy. The lines that John wrote had very little to do with Ornette—the way he chose to develop them, you know.
AAJ: There was a sense of orchestral color to it, too, and well before John had done any large ensemble compositions—a weight behind it.
BB: John was a thoroughly schooled classical musician with a master's degree from Boulder. He wasn't fooling around with the clarinet—he'd been playing it all the way through, and later on began playing saxophones so he could get work. Anybody with that background isn't going to throw it away, especially when they begin to write. People would say "he's trying to write classical music," and two bars into a piece you knew right away it was American music with a connection to jazz. When people compared him to Ornette, John would get really upset—after about five questions about Ornette Coleman he'd say 'we can move on now.' If you play improvised music without chords, you become an Ornette Coleman disciple, so to speak. To that extent, they just put us in the free jazz camp.
AAJ: What was the response like when you started performing out as a group?
BB: Around LA? There was just a small community; we played places that would seat 50 people or on the university campuses where if you played interesting music, they'd hire you. Generally, most people looked at us pretty strange—one guy I had known back in the '50s said "man, you used to be a pretty good trumpeter, but that Ornette just ruined you" [laughs].
AAJ: Also, in the latter half of the '60s, performance spaces for creative music were few, because of the influx of rock and psychedelic music.
BB: Of course, that impacted everybody, yes, but even now LA is a town of post-bop players. There is some new music activity, but it's limited and the places are hard to come by and don't last long. In spite of that, there is a population of individuals who like playing this music—younger people like [reedman] Vinny Golia and the Cline brothers. Also, [pianist] Horace Tapscott was around during that earlier period.
AAJ: I was going to ask about him—you both recorded for Flying Dutchman, and I was sure you'd had a fair amount of contact.
BB: I knew him; actually, I knew him before I was in the military and at that point he was still playing trombone. By the '60s, he'd started to do writing for large ensembles, and it wasn't really that close to what we were doing—it was more modal. Some wonderful players came through that band he had.
AAJ: Recording must have brought notoriety to the band—were there calls coming from out of town?
BB: Our first record was in 1969 on Revelation. We didn't get calls from New York because of that record—we got good reviews, but we were still "West Coast guys." It managed to get around to some of the European magazines. Bob Thiele heard it, and came to LA in 1970 looking for what was on offer. We went and auditioned for him, as did [saxophonist] Arthur Blythe and Horace Tapscott. He gave us a record date, and that became Flight for Four on Flying Dutchman. Then right after that we made another record for Revelation called Secrets, and after that was Self-Determination Music for Flying Dutchman again in 1971.
We got some press, but we didn't get any invitations to go anywhere and play. Thiele sat us down and said "well, guys, I hate to tell you this, but if you want to move from where you are in this little scene, you're going to have to go to New York or your careers will just sit." John and I talked about it and opted to stay in LA—we had families that we didn't want to move, and we weren't going to pack up and leave them either.
So we played more around LA than we had before, but in the summer of 1971 I went to England on holiday. I took my horn and had a couple of names around London to look up, like the writer Richard Williams. He gave me the number of [drummer] John Stevens, and we made a record that summer with [saxophonist] Trevor Watts, [vocalist-guitarist] Julie Tippetts, Yaron Herman on bass, and an American trombonist, Bob Norden [Bobby Bradford with John Stevens and the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Nessa]. I came back after the holiday and shared that information with John, how exciting and fruitful it could be in Europe, and we talked about getting booked over there but at the same time, it didn't result in hopping on the next plane, either.
Then I went back over in 1973, met up with John Stevens and Trevor Watts and [bassist] Kent Carter. I decided that I would stay over about ten months. We gigged around London and took the ferry over to Holland, got a van and drove around France and Belgium. We played a lot even though there wasn't any money; that record I made on tour, Love's Dream, was made after two weeks in Paris at Le Chat qui Peche. The owner of the Emanem label, Martin Davidson, traveled with us in the van and recorded that stint, and we picked the best performances to release.
AAJ: The reception sounds like it was pretty good over there—Le Chat was a noted performance space at the time. Were audiences receptive?
BB: Oh yes, we played the BIM Huis in Amsterdam and people were stomping and cheering—they loved it.
AAJ: You hadn't had anything like that in LA, I assume.
BB: Oh no, nothing like that. In Europe, we played places that seated two or three hundred people, as well as pub gigs. Later on, I went to Portugal and Italy with other groups—anyway, I loved it but there was no money and I had to support myself as well as family back home, so I came back. During the time I was gone, John had put down the saxophones and flute to focus on the clarinet exclusively. He made a recording, Echoes from Rudolph's (Ibedon, 1977) in a band with his son Stanley on bass and William Jeffrey on drums.
AAJ: Rudolph's was his space, right?
BB: It was a dentist's studio and for whatever reason, the dentist couldn't decide what to do with the place. He didn't want it empty, and a bassoonist named Rudolph had somehow turned it into his living space. Rudolph decided to have Sunday afternoon concerts, and I don't know how he and John met, but they went on for a long time with these concerts.
AAJ: Were you playing much with him when you came back, or not as much?
BB: Oh yes, sure, whenever we could get together and play, we did. But I lived in Pasadena, which was on the opposite end of the city. I had a little loft that I called the Little Bighorn, and sometimes John would come over there and play. We were doing what we could to keep things happening, with gigs at UCLA, Pasadena City College, Cal-State and other places in the Los Angeles Basin.
AAJ: You were also teaching again at that point.
BB: I started teaching about the same time John and I got together, actually—teaching sixth grade elementary school in 1967-1968. I was in La Puente, California, in the Basin. I started to teach music in the Pasadena City College in 1974-1975, and also at Pomona City College during that time, just one class each. Stanley Crouch orchestrated my teaching work at Pomona, because he was on faculty in the Black Studies department there.
AAJ: He was still playing music [drums] then, too.
BB: Sure, he had a band called Black Music Infinity, and sometimes I played with them—me, [bassist] Wilber Morris, Arthur Blythe, David Murray and [flutist] James Newton. David was a student at Pomona in 1975, and Newton was in the area because his father was in the military. He found the Pomona College campus accessible.
AAJ: And you had the Extet that you were leading as well.
BB: Yeah, the name came up because I wanted to make sure each band I put together wouldn't be confused with some other group I had. A few weeks later I might be calling something the "Whet-Tet." At that point, the name didn't have much meaning—James Newton and I were both being interviewed on a radio show, and I don't think we used that same configuration of guys again, except maybe at the Little Bighorn on Sundays.
AAJ: That record [Midnight Pacific Airwaves, Entropy Records, 1977/2009] for me, when I got it, it seemed out of left field because that period of your work wasn't too well documented. As far as what you were able to do, had the climate changed in any way in LA so that you could perform more regularly?
BB: It had to a degree, but I must confess it was never good. I can't say any period was a golden period—when you have to open your own club just to play, the pickings are pretty slim. Some people were not willing to make the move—John and I did things around town, but it wasn't like people were going to call you. You had to orchestrate the whole event.
AAJ: As far as teaching goes, was that a viable enough thing?
BB: The beauty of that was that I had one class on each campus, and it gave me some income each month that left me to work at what I was doing, go out of town. For example, when I went to New York to record with Ornette in 1971 (Science Fiction and Broken Shadows, Columbia) that one class didn't restrict my time. I could get out of town for a week and manage to keep things together. That helped a lot—I don't know what I would have done without it.
AAJ: Was there a group of students that you played with, sort of like proteges?
BB: Not really; nobody except for David Murray and James Newton. The class at Pasadena City College was a Black Music survey course covering blues, gospel, and jazz. There weren't any students in that class that were serious about playing music. I didn't teach "how to play" at either place, except that Stanley's band was at Pomona and some of his band mates also took his classes. He was writing plays and playing drums, and one thing led to another but what they hired me to do was teach a History of Jazz class—textbooks, listening to records, but no playing.
AAJ: It'd be easy to go down the path of discussing Stanley Crouch, and how the music has been perceived as a result of his words, but at that time he was very clear-cut in his involvement with the New Music.
BB: He back-stepped after he got to New York. He got to a point where he stopped playing the drums because he was ill-equipped to do what was necessary on the instrument. Instead, he chose to focus on writing. He also didn't like the post-Albert Ayler and late Coltrane stuff, that high-energy thing, and instead he took a stand that there were only a few valid people in the New Music—me, Ornette, Dewey Redman, Don Cherry and [bassist] Charlie Haden. He didn't think a lot of the other groups borne out of that. Some people say he did a complete about-face in New York, though I don't think that's true.
AAJ: Like anybody, his tastes shaped what he wrote about.
BB: Sure, and he was focused completely on writing.
AAJ: A record like Self-Determination Music is pretty dense, but there's a sense of space throughout your music, both on your own and with John Carter. Was that a conscious decision, to "open the music up" to a degree?
BB: The best I can answer that is that I never sat down and thought about a certain approach. How I write—and it was probably true for John as well—is determined by how I play. I'm not a person who wants to use a lot of noise effects in my music, though that doesn't mean I don't like to hear someone do it well. I still like to hear the trumpet played traditionally.
I like a lot of what Albert Ayler did and I love the late Coltrane music, Interstellar Space [Impulse, 1967] and things like that. People say it's coming from Ornette, too, but the only connection between the two is philosophical—playing music without chords. In fact, the big glaring thing was that Trane was willing to use drummers who didn't play time, whereas Ornette always had to have timekeeping in his music. That's huge. You're really out on a limb when you ask a drummer to play free, and you've got to be able to do something to back that up. John Carter and I both liked that a lot.
AAJ: It involves a lot of trust. But even as that music had become historically valid, there still wasn't a lot of recording or performing opportunity in the States for the New Music during the 1980s, for example.
BB: There never was much work. John came to attention with the Octet pieces, like Night Fire [Black Saint, 1981] and the Roots and Folklore series [Gramavision]. When that crystallized in his mind and we recorded it, those records became viewed as his best work, even though I think the Flying Dutchman records and the solo Moers album were very important also, as well as our duet repertoire [Tandem 1 & 2, Emanem, 1982]. It's like when Ornette won the Pulitzer he should've got in the late 1960s, when his work was still fresh, even though it's good that he finally was awarded for Sound Grammar [Sound Grammar, 2005]. That's good stuff, but his greatest was a long time ago. Of course that's just my opinion.
AAJ: It's tough because this music deserves recognition, but that recognition has to be timely and for the right things. You don't want to take the small nugget that's offered, either.
BB: Yes, that's very true. But it sure felt wonderful when we played as a duo at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland to about 800 people. If there was a way we could have figured out how to have a base in Europe, we would have done it. It just wasn't feasible—we couldn't come over with a knapsack and a horn, and just wing it. The audiences were there, though.
AAJ: Could you discuss a bit more in how you teach—is it structured from your experience?
BB: To some extent, but I don't just teach an oral history for 14 weeks. I only bring my personal experience into focus when it's about the music that I played. I precede it with a serious look at the blues and the Negro spiritual, especially as to how people can grasp their relationship to jazz. When I move to the New Orleans style, I don't talk about anything other than what's in books and on records. I take the class through Bix Beiderbecke and the Chicago sound, swing and Count Basie versus Tommy Dorsey, Lester Young, then from bebop up to the tail end. I only talk about my own life when it's a situation where I can say "I was there." People say that Eric Dolphy was the heavy in LA during the '50s, not Ornette, and I have to say "whoa" and stop them right there. I lived it, you know.
Selected Discography
Bobby Bradford/Frode Gjerstad/Ingebrigt Haker Flaten/Paal Nilssen-Love, Reknes (Circulasione Totale, 2009)
Vinny Golia Quartet, 'Sfumato (Clean Feed, 2003)
Bobby Bradford Mo'tet, Live at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Waterboy, 2003)
David Murray, Death of a Sideman (DIW, 1991)
John Carter, Castles of Ghana (Gramavision, 1985)
John Carter, Night Fire (Black Saint, 1980)
Bobby Bradford Extet, Midnight Pacific Airwaves (Entropy Stereo, 1977)
Bobby Bradford, Love's Dream (Emanem, 1973)
Bobby Bradford with John Stevens and the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (Nessa, 1971)
John Carter/Bobby Bradford Quartet, Flight for Four (Flying Dutchman, 1970)
New Art Jazz Ensemble, Seeking (Revelation, 1969)
Bobby Bradford | June 16, 1983 | Photo by Mark Weber
(Looking at the Prestige two-fer “The Arranger’s Touch”, 1950’s material
by Gil Evans and Tadd Dameron):
BOBBY BRADFORD: Oh I’ve got this stuff on other records, man this is great! Philly J.J. and Theme Of No Repeat, I used to play in a band back here in L.A. in the early ’50’s and we had all these charts, listen to the make-up of this band: Sonny Criss was playing alto, a kid who spent all his life in the penitentiary since then played baritone, named Earl Anderza, bad! An alto player who played baritone. And Vernon Slater from L. A. played tenor. Herb Mullins was playing trombone, he used to play around with Lionel Hampton. The bass player was this cat who plays around New York now, Moe Edwards. And a chick playing piano, Vivian Slater, the tenor player’s wife; a hell of a pianist, (back to record) Yeah, this group here is dynamite! On this one thing here on the Evans material Lacy plays a beautiful solo, just a short one but whew it’s good. Lacy and I were supposed to make a record for some company in Paris, but you know it’s just a mess, the record business. Somebody told me recently that the best way to get a record out now is to record it yourself and send the record company a test pressing. If they like it they’re going to find you, if they don’t they’re going to throw it in the garbage. You can save all that time knocking on doors to see Mr. Record himself. And then if they want it you can sell it outright or lease it.
Mark: I’ve always
thought that you should be recording all along. Ten years from now
everybody’s going to wonder where all that music went.
Bobby: Oh I do, but not quality tapes. I have tapes at Ornette’s place with Ornette’s band.
Ornette Coleman Quartet 1962 NYC | Jimmy Garrison, Bobby Bradford, Ornette, Charles Moffett | photographer unknown
Mark: When you were with Ornette in ’61 and ’62?
Bobby: Sure, Ornette’s got just reams of tapes of us. But of course he’s kind of a packrat, you know what I mean? He has his video tape machine, and saxophones that he’s broken hanging in big bags from the walls, Uher tape recorders that he’s broken and tried to fix himself, but that’s just the kind of cat he is. You know what kind of mess tapes make when they are unwound, well he’ll have them shoved under beds or stacked up in the corner.
Mark: I’ve heard that Ornette has tapes of him and Albert Ayler playing together.
Bobby: Maybe so, I kind of doubt that though. I could see a cat like Albert Ayler having a difficult time getting Ornette to sit down and make a tape of them, because Ornette thinks you’re always trying to make a tape to sell of him, you know? Because that would be a pretty marketable tape, don’t you think? Ornette’s very suspicious of anybody coming up, if a man came up and said, “Hey man I got a bag of gold for you”, Ornette would just look. See what I mean? Because man he’s been ripped off so many different ways, he’s never made the type of money that he’s supposed to make, none of the cats have. This music business man, it’s a bitch! They have already agreed that the musician is a certain type of fellow that they are going to treat a certain type of way, I can just see them now back in their offices saying, “Here’s some more of those jazz musicians….” It’s like they think the musicians are a necessary evil or something like that so they can play out their roles or whatever. That’s just a picture that comes to my mind from watching these things over the years. It’s not about being fair or even close to fair. It’s just whatever they can pull off.
Mark: What were these “collaborations with Coltrane” that I’ve read about? Playing?
Bobby: No, not really. All we really did was fool around at Ornette’s. We talked about making a record, just talked though. He used to come to Ornette’s to hear our rehearsals, that’s when he was getting ready to really move out. So he came to check it out. He used to come every Saturday morning. He’d make the drive from Long Island, where he lived then, down to downtown Manhattan where Ornette used to live in a loft, way down where Broadway almost runs into the ocean. He was still with Miles then. So he’d come to hear the rehearsals and we’d take a break and be talking, and we talked about doing a date, but it never got past that.
Mark: Didn’t Leonard Feather talk down the music of the Carter-Bradford Quartet in his L.A. Times column?
Bobby: Yes and no. He didn’t talk it down any more than anybody else who was playing this kind of music back in the sixties. He was consistent there at one point about what he said, not that I got upset about what he said. We were playing down at Shelley’s Manne-Hole once back in the sixties and he came in and saw us and wrote it up the next day in the Times, saying that this is Ornette Coleman’s type of music. Now maybe the format is like Ornette’s in that it’s free music but my music or John Carter’s is not like Ornette’s, do you know what I mean? Not really. But Ornette is the pioneer in that type of music so you have to expect to be sounded against what Ornette has done. But now after all of these years I’ve sort of accepted all of that stuff, it’s all part of the scam, something that you’ve got to do.
Mark: Did you ever play with Red Connor?
Bobby: No, I heard Red play lots of times though – a hell of a saxophone player! He played tenor, and like Ornette and lots of other guys from Fort Worth, he used to come over to play in Dallas, he used to play with a guy named Bobby Simmons who played trumpet and was playing Miles’ and Dizzy’s licks back then. At this point I’m in high school, the 12th grade or something, and they came over to play at a little club in Dallas called The Disc Jockey, he and Bobby and David Newman on alto….
Bobby Bradford during the interview | September 17, 1976 | Photo by Mark Weber
Mark: Who used to go to your school then.
Bobby: Yeah, he went to the same high school that I did, but he was several years ahead of me. Anyhow he was a precocious kind of cat, when he was 15 he could play, he was the kind of cat who just picked the horn up one day and by that afternoon he could play, James Clay was like that too, really gifted cats. Anyway what impressed me about this Red Connor was just the way he handled a saxophone, with such dexterity and completely relaxed, he was like a wet noodle. Man they would be playing these lightning tempos and he’d just be standing there playing all over his horn, just effortless. There was a cat who never had any lessons, just taught himself how to play the horn. He played kind of like Lester Young in a way, in his approach physically to the horn but was playing the Parker things, and you could hear Lester in his sound – a big, breathy, gauzy kind of sound, real full, but he wasn’t playing quite as spaced. By that I mean that he wasn’t using as much space in his solo line as Young, he was already off into the Parker tradition, by this time Sonny Stitt had already made some inroads into the modern tenor saxophone so I guess Red Connor could have picked up on what Stitt was doing.
Here was a cat right in our own area who was easily as good a tenor saxophone player at that point as anybody on the scene. I wouldn’t have been nervous about seeing him with Sonny Stitt, or with Lockjaw, Ben Webster, Hawk or with anybody, he was a monster! And there were several other cats around town who were of that caliber. Dallas has been a jumping-off place for a lot of professionals, in residence in the same city while I was living there, and I played with them sometimes. There were cats like Buster Smith, the alto player with Basic right? And his brother Boston Smith, who played piano. Buster had a little band and I played with him when I was 15 years old. Of course I don’t know what I was playing, couldn’t have been much, but there I was on a gig with a cat like Buster Smith, see what I mean? And I was listening. Here we had the university of jazz right there in Dallas at our disposal if we had sense enough to do something about it. John Hardee was living there, a Coleman Hawkins or Ben Websterish sort of tenor player, a bad ‘ cat.
Then there was Freddie Jenkins, a trumpet player from Duke Elllngton’s band. He didn’t play anymore because he had tuberculosis, but his influence was still there forcing the other trumpet players to do more of what they were doing. And then there were other cats who didn’t have national reputations but they were good, a lot of good old well seasoned ex-professional musicians in town. Red Calhoun, and there was another little band I used to play with around town by the name of Shorty demons, a tenor saxophone player, and another saxophone player called Brother Bear, that’s what they called him. I don’t know what his name was but a good blues and ballad saxophone player. You see in Dallas during that period it was always a dancing situation, there were no clubs where you went to see a band and listen, where the audience would just sit. You always had to play danceable music even when you were trying out your bebop licks.In those days you were always playing in bands that were playing for people who were going to dance. So guys like James Moody would come to town with a band and he had to play for a dance too, and so did Sonny Stitt, and Gene Ammons. The later it got into the evening though the more jazz they played, the drunker people got the less inclined they were to dance. So the cats would open up and start playing a little bit more jazz and everybody would listen.
Bobby Bradford & Stanley Crouch | @ The Little Big Horn | April 24, 1977 | Photo by Mark Weber
Richard Rehwald & Bobby Bradford | @ The Little Big Horn | October 28, 1976 | Photo by Mark Weber
Richard Rehwald, bass; Jimmy Robertson, flute; Bobby Bradford, cornet | October 28, 1976 | Photo by Mark Weber
Mark: What blues players
were around then? I know that Victoria Spivey lived and worked in North
Dallas, she recorded Black Snake Moan in 1927.
Bobby: Well the Black part of North Dallas was a notorious cut-throat get-killed area. But I’m not familiar enough with her music to say, other than what’s on her records. I did hear Lightnin’ Hopkins a lot when I was a kid there in Dallas, although he spent most of his time in Houston. And there were the Johnson brothers in Dallas – Keg Johnson, the old man who just died recently who played trombone in a lot of big bands, and Budd Johnson, the tenor player who played with Billy Eckstine’s big band and used to write for Count Basie and a lot of other people. There was Red Garland, the pianist with Miles. And a tenor player named Warren Lucky who used to be with Gillespie. Hot Lips Page, T-Bone Walker and a lot of other people used to hang out in Dallas a lot, like Lloyd Glenn, Lowell Fulsom, and a lot of the blues bands that I used to play with back in those days I met in Dallas, guys like Percy Mayfield, and Charles Brown. I played with him in ’53, somewhere around then. Monk Montgomery was in that band, you know Wes Montgomery’s brother. I played with PeeWee Crayton during that time. And remember there was a tune during the war period that was real popular, The Hucklebuck recorded by Joe Liggins, and he had a brother in the business, not quite so popular named Jimmy Liggins and I played in his band once. They were passing through town and needed a trumpet player so I played a couple of jobs with him. You know sometimes you might play with bands just a couple of times and forget all about it until somebody mentions it, like Joe Houston who recorded Pachuco Hop, I played with him around California.
Mark: He was a bar walker, wasn’t he?
Bobby: Oh yeah, honker, screamer, a good tenor player though. A lot of kids peeped some things from him. Do you know this tenor player Big Jay McNeely? He did the bar walking and the squealing too but he could play the saxophone. Lots of cats ripped off Big Jay’s licks, believe it! You know, somebody like Bill Haley, I’m sure he ripped off a lot of things from Big Jay.
Mark: When you first came to L. A. in ’53 you played with all kinds of people.
Bobby: Oh yeah, all the cats. Eric Dolphy, but not on a regular basis, just casual jobs. Dolphy had just gotten out of the army, and Walter Benton, a tenor player here who was big friends with Eric, they went to high school together, I played with those two a lot. Eric in those days was still playing kind of like Charlie Parker, he never quite had a sound like Parker but he was playing the Parker line, you know. Walter Benton was playing kind of like you would imagine, sort of an updated Lucky Thompson/Coleman Hawkins. And I played with Ornette obviously. And played around town with Joe Maini, the saxophone player who got killed playing with a pistol, some sort of accident or something, an Italian cat from New York. And I played some with Herb Geller, he’s in Germany now and has his own club. Both of those cats Maini and Geller recorded with Clifford Brown. There used to be a club down at 3rd and Main called The Tip Top, sort of a gay bar, and we played there Friday and Saturday nights. Sunday at 6:00 in the morning was a jam session and it would be packed, that was sort of the red light district in those days. Nobody would go to bed that night, we’d go out to the beach and fool around, because if you went to bed you would never get up for that. Then we’d play to around 11:30 -12:00 and then go home to bed.As I remember Ornette never played there, but Ornette and I used to play in the general area, down on 5th Street which was a gay area too and everything else, dope peddlers, prostitutes, everything but more Black than 3rd and Main. We used to play at a little club down there called The Victory Grill, and another The Rose Room. Ornette, me, Eddie Black-well, and a piano player named Floyd Howard who’s still around L.A. but I don’t think is playing anymore. We played Ornette’s tunes and some jazz standards. We didn’t get that much work but we were playing often enough to be playing some of Ornette’s tunes. Then I went into the service in December of ’54 and Don Cherry became the trumpet player with Ornette.
Bobby Bradford with KPFK disk jockey’s Paul Vangelisti and John Breckow | January 14, 1977 | Photo by Mark Weber
John Carter & Bobby Bradford | November 17, 1978 | Smudge Pot, Claremont Colleges, California | Photo by Mark Weber
Bobby Bradford, cornet; Mark Dresser, bass; James Newton, flute | @ The Little Big Horn | January 2, 1977 | Photo by Mark Weber
Mark: That’s when Ornette lived at the Morris, a sort of skid-row hotel on 5th Avenue?
Bobby: Now I don’t know about that, but you know how the stories come and go. As I remember it, when Ornette moved out here he married a young girl from Los Angeles who’s a poet in New York now, Jayne Cortez, that’s Ornette’s ex-wife. But I remember Ornette living with his in-laws. I don’t remember him living in any flophouse down on 5th Avenue. You know musicians get down and out on this stuff but you’re not going to see Ornette down in some place needing a bath, I don’t care how hard times get you’re not going to see me down in the street with my pants on and the ass out, one shoe on and needing a hair cut, no none of that. You might see some cat going through a mental phase but you’re not going to see Ornette needing a bath, you know what I mean? Somebody might read that somewhere and just assume that all of that might be happening. I remember when Ornette got married I was the only one of our bunch who had a car, one that my step-father had got me because he was a mechanic. An old ’41 Chrysler, lemon of a car.
Ornette and I used to troop around in it and it would break down, or when you drove around too much at night the battery would wear down and the car wouldn’t start. So when he got married I helped him move out of the family’s place with it, into this little apartment. They didn’t have much in the way of belongings so it didn’t take too much to move them. In fact Ornette and I used to work together at Bullock’s. I worked there as a stock-boy, you know wearing the little blue smock and running around. So when I had to go into the service, I knew about a month in advance, and I knew that Ornette was looking for a job, so I told him that when I leave he should get this job. Ornette was wearing a beard then and his hair was long, so I said, “Man you know what’s gonna happen if I take you in lookin’ like this”, this was 1954. So he shaved and got his hair cut, man did he look funny.Well we went down to meet the cat, and the cat hired him, and we worked together for my last month or so. He moved from that into elevator boy and stockboy, we talk and laugh about it now. At that point he didn’t think he was going to be able to make any money playing music like he wanted to, so he had to get a job. But the next thing I knew my mother had written me in the service and told me that Ornette had made a record, it must have been ’58. I also remember playing around L. A. with Wardell Gray, who got killed in some dope deal out in Las Vegas. I’m not sure what happened, I really don’t like to think about it. The newspapers said one thing, but I suspect another. They found him in a field about 20-30 miles outside of Las Vegas. Anyway, I used to go over to his house and he’d show me things just by rote. Nice cat, and a hell of a saxophone player! It was a big help, inspiration-wise, for a cat like that to befriend you and help you out like that, because you can’t go up to some of these popular players now and say, “Hey man, will you show me…?”, they’d say, “What!…”, you just can’t feel free to do that anymore, it’s sort of secret. Times have changed, it’s not about that anymore.
Mark: Have you ever been associated with Horace Tapscott and the U.G.M.A. (Underground Musicians Association)?
Bobby: I’ve only played for Horace in a sort of filler position in times when he needed me to do something. I never was a regular part of his organization. I talked to Martin Davidson the other day and he wants to re-press “Love’s Dream”, it should be out in a couple of weeks. I’d like to make a record now, but I want to make a good sounding record like the quality of ECM or one of those labels. You know, where you can sit down and hear the bass parts, and the whole band. Another thing, whenever I make a record anymore I’m going to have some of the tracks short enough to be played on the radio. There’s no point in asking the disc jockey to play a 12-minute cut of mine, so I’m going to have a shorty on each side and I’m going to call it A Short Piece For Radio, or something like that. You know what I mean, those cats won’t play for me, they’ll do it for Herbie Hancock, but not for some avant garder from Mississippi.
Mark: When did the New Art Jazz Ensemble begin?
Bobby: 1964, ’65, somewhere around then. I was living in Pomona and John (Carter) got in touch with me, and asked me if I was interested in starting a group. It must have been ’66 when we started rehearsing over on 103rd and Grandee, right in the middle of Watts. John and I, Bruz Freeman, and we went through a couple of bass players before we got Tom Wllliamson – all of the others sort of bombed out because they weren’t interested in playing free music. John and I were in a similar position, both teaching for the obvious family reasons or whatever, and both frustrated over not having fulfilled what we had wanted to do in music. While I was in Pomona my horn was under the bed, like “that thing has called it a day or something… probably not though”. So we were making ourselves available for anything that came along, we’d play a benefit in a minute. So eventually we made those records on Revelation and Flying Dutchman. …
Glenn Ferris, trombone; Bobby Bradford, cornet | December 19, 1976 | Photo by Mark Weber
Mark: “Self Determination Music” has two basses.
Bobby: Yeah, they didn’t mention Henry Franklin on that one. Not only that, but they flopped all the negatives backwards so it has me playing left-handed and Bruz has his name on those as Buzz. By the time we made “Secrets” for Revelation I had already gone over to Europe once, in the summer of 71, and I made that record with John Stevens and SME for Alan Bates at Polydor Studios. Then came back and made this record with John (Carter), we used Ndugu on a couple of tracks and Louis Spears – you know him, he’s played with everybody, Nancy Wilson, Eddie Harris and Erroll Garner, a good bass player. I think he’s from Oklahoma, has a brother named Maurice who plays trombone with Ray Charles. When I met those guys they were both in a band travelling with Lou Rawls in the late ’50’s before Lou was a big name. Then I made that record with Ornette, “Science Fiction”, in the summer of ’72. In ’68 Ornette came here and I went up north with him to perform with about 35 people from the San Francisco Symphony, a piece that Ornette called “The Sun Suite”. We performed that at the Greek Theatre at Cal Berkeley and Ornette has the tapes of that too. Ornette said he might sell that to somebody who wants to buy it. I think that before too much longer Ornette and I will probably make a record together, if not at his insistence then at mine. I’d like to make a recording with him playing my music – you know, put him in another environment. He likes my tunes, I think (laughter). As we both get older the idea is less objectionable, we should be able to pull it off.
Mark: When you were with Ornette during ’61 and ’62 did you do any recording?
Bobby: Yes, that’s where that picture comes from, Atlantic Studios, New York City, but they never released them.
Mark: You were with Ray Charles for a while, when was that?
Bobby: Oh, just for a little quicky there in ’58 when I first came out of the service. Just around Texas – something happened to one of the trumpet players while they were in Texas, and I knew everybody in the band, Fathead, LeRoy Cooper, so they gave me a call just to fill in for a while.
Mark: How did Fathead get his name?
Bobby: We had a band director who was a notorious disciplinarian. His name was James K. Miller but we called him Uncle Dud, and Uncle Dud had a band of about 60 kids – great big tough dudes, and he was a little guy but quite a disciplinarian. So he’d walk right up to some big guy and be looking at his belt and say, “Listen kid you get that horn over there and get your ass in that seat, and I don’t mean maybe….” He was a tough little cat, that’s what it took to run that band, but everybody loved him, he was one of those types of cats. And if you didn’t do something right he’d say, “No, no, no, Eb fathead!”, so he found himself calling David Newman fathead enough times for it to stick, so we all called him Fathead. I saw an article the other day on this trumpet player Leo Smith, and he’s from Mississippi too, from Leland, not far from where I grew up. We used to call that a little dump of a town because it was smaller than the town where I grew up. We used to go there, it wasn’t far, maybe 25 miles, you see we had a village square downtown, with a court house and sheriff, general store and all that. Most of these country towns didn’t even have that.
Mark: What some people
would give to be there around then. Robert Johnson, Bukka White, Texas
Alexander and all of those cats running all around that area.
Bobby: Yeah right, Sonny Boy Williamson used to broadcast down there, a flour company, Clabber Girl or Sunshine Flour, baking powder or something like that used to sponsor them. I think it came on in the middle of the day, (sings) “… the flour that blooms in your oven… “, (laughter) something like that.
Mark: Where’s this music going to go, anyway?
Bobby: I don’t know man. If I had the vision or whatever it takes to figure that out I’d be straight, I’d just sit back and watch it all take place. Like what’s going to happen with South Africa now? But nobody has that kind of vision. Man it takes some heavy duty contacts to see that, doesn’t it?
Bobby Bradford | September 17, 1976 | Photo by Mark Weber
Mark: Jazz has covered a lot of area since its inception. It’s all stretched, and looks to become a music of individuals.
Bobby: And there haven’t been too many fluke things to come along and just fizzle out, do you know what I mean? Just about everything has been explored for about a ten year period just like you’d expect. I see the free music as having run its course in a way, just like the bebop did, except that it didn’t quite get the exposure that the bebop did or have to contend with a much more powerful conventional force going at the same time. Where bebop didn’t have to deal with a much more powerful force of traditional jazz pushing it around. You see bebop ultimately became the music of the day, didn’t it? Whereas free music never reached that stage. By 1960 everybody that was a jazz player was a bebop player, or post-bebop player.
But the jazz community as a whole has never fully accepted the free form, there’s still a lot of cats who say that it is invalid, but with bebop after ten years nobody questioned it anymore, it was a music. At Charlie Parker’s death his music was accepted as a valid statement. But with free music we still have doubters, like Mingus, he’s a doubter, even though he flirts with it I still think he’s a doubter. There are times now where the heaviest of the free players might have doubts, because it’s such a more revolutionary move than going from swing to bebop, to go from bebop to the free. Because you don’t have as many things to hold on to and I’m sure there are times when the musicians, myself included, have had doubts about whether it was happening or not. But I always come back to my good sense that it’s a valid musical statement. It’s certainly representative of the times, it’s as much a reflection of America in that period as any other music has been. Nobody in his right mind could expect the music to stand still once the sixties came along.There was all of this sub-cultural, drug movement, the youth movement, anti-America burn the flag, make some pants out of it, nobody could expect the music to still be going to-doo, to-doo, to-doo, you know what I mean? It had to change. As great as Charlie Parker was his music did not speak for the blacks, or yellows, or browns or anybody in America or the world in the sixties. It took a Trane or an Ornette Coleman to speak for the people of the sixties. What other time in the history of this country could we have a group like The Art Ensemble of Chicago expressing themselves the way they do? The Art Ensemble could only have occurred in the sixties or the seventies, there’s no other place in our musical history where they could have been a reasonable expression of anybody’s mind….
Bobby Bradford & George Sams | February 13, 1981 | San Francisco | Photo by Mark Weber
Mark: There were some pretty wild things going on with the early Dixieland, and New Orleans musics.
Bobby: Sure there was, but the premise was just the opposite. You can have two people doing the same thing and each of them going after it in a different way, because it’s another thing for him. They’re getting up there and all playing this line that seems to be free, but all of those cats are still playing the tune. No matter how wild they got. Now if you go back so far, the music was pretty wild, but it was a different kind. It’s like the difference between somebody who draws a stick doll, who can’t draw at all, who only senses one dimension, as opposed to someone like Picasso who will draw one and know better, but it’s still a stick doll though isn’t it? You know that Picasso’s expression is of another intent. That’s how that strikes me. Because I’ve heard some Dixieland cats who sounded as if they were playing free music. I’m thinking now of some of the stuff that I’ve heard in Ellington’s band, where it was so out that it was damn near free, but I think these cats all still related to the chord structure of the tune, the form of the tune and the harmony too. You know there’s such a thing as saying, “This is really far out”, but it’s far out with Bb as a point of reference. And if Bb is the chord, how far out can you get? – with something against Bb.
Now, what about something that is far out against air! You know what I mean? (laughter) That’s just the way it comes to my head, it doesn’t have to be worth ten cents, that’s just the way it strikes me. I see what Ornette did as only being able to come around at that point because that’s the only time that Black people in this country were in such a state that they could deal with what Ornette was doing. If Ornette had emerged earlier, white people in general… it was bad enough that they had to take that kind of music from a Black, but for that move to be made ten years earlier it would just have been unbelievable, I think they would have shot him. In other words if Marxism, if that whole concept had been created by some South African mulatto, it would have taken twenty years off of its life! Besides questioning it as a way of life or a political or social doctrine, they would have said, “Well, who said it?”, “Some South African whose daddy was a German and his mother was a Black”, “Oh well that invalidates it right there… “, see what I mean? So for Ornette to do what he did, Charlie Parker had to open the doorway by him being who he was, and he wasn’t easy to take.
I just see the world as being ready for Ornette at that point, he didn’t make them ready. I think the times were such that they could handle this music. Like the double quartet, man that’s heavy! You know “Free Jazz”, that’s heavy right now, think of it in 1960! I think they wanted to put Ornette on a big stick and just run him out of town, all of the rest of the jazz musicians thought “Oh my God! What are we gonna do with him? ” I think if there had been some secret way they could have all just had Ornette disappear, an atomizer you know – go downtown and put a guy’s name on a card and drop it into this machine and push the button and it would atomize him – he would have been out in space years ago. Lots of cats would have put his name in that machine and done that, (laughter).
Interview taped September 17, 1976 at Pasadena City College, California.
Benjamin, Lisa Tefo, & Bobby Bradford | June 16, 1983 | Photo by Mark Weber
https://jazztimes.com/news/festival-of-new-trumpet-music-honors-bobby-bradford-with-jazz-standard-series/
Festival of New Trumpet Music Honors Bobby Bradford With Jazz Standard Series
Steve Mundinger. 2007 Thelonious Monk Competition winner Ambrose Akinmusire
The Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT), Roy Campbell and Dave
Douglas’ nonprofit promoting all things bold and brass, is taking over
Jazz Standard Oct. 1-4. This particular series pays homage to Bobby
Bradford, the trumpeter, cornetist, composer, educator and avant-garde
luminary known for his Mo’Tet band and his associations with Ornette
Coleman and John Carter. As usual, FONT has commissioned new music, this
time from Ambrose Akinmusire, who will perform an original piece
dedicated to Bradford on Oct. 1. On Oct. 3 and 4 the man himself
performs, along with very special guest David Murray. See below for set
times and line-ups full of heavy hitters.
Also look out for Varistar on Full Bleed Music, a newly released 1999 studio recording of the Southern California-based free-improv chamber trio featuring Bradford with tuba player Tom Heasley and liquid-toned guitarist Ken Rosser.
For tickets visit jazzstandard.com.
THURSDAY, OCT 1: AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE QUARTET
plus special guest Avishai Cohen
Ambrose Akinmusire – trumpet
Vijay Iyer – piano
Chris Tordini – bass
Marcus Gilmore – drums
Special Guest – Avishai Cohen
Music Charge: $25
7:30 PM | 9:30 PM
Also look out for Varistar on Full Bleed Music, a newly released 1999 studio recording of the Southern California-based free-improv chamber trio featuring Bradford with tuba player Tom Heasley and liquid-toned guitarist Ken Rosser.
For tickets visit jazzstandard.com.
THURSDAY, OCT 1: AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE QUARTET
plus special guest Avishai Cohen
Ambrose Akinmusire – trumpet
Vijay Iyer – piano
Chris Tordini – bass
Marcus Gilmore – drums
Special Guest – Avishai Cohen
Music Charge: $25
7:30 PM | 9:30 PM
FRIDAY, OCT 2: JEREMY PELT
plus special guests Eddie Henderson and James Zollar
Jeremy Pelt – trumpet
Marc Cary – piano
Vicente Archer – bass
Gerald Cleaver – drums
Special Guest – James Zollar (trumpet)
Special Guest -Eddie Henderson (trumpet)
Music Charge: $30
7:30 PM | 9:30 PM | 11:30 PM
plus special guests Eddie Henderson and James Zollar
Jeremy Pelt – trumpet
Marc Cary – piano
Vicente Archer – bass
Gerald Cleaver – drums
Special Guest – James Zollar (trumpet)
Special Guest -Eddie Henderson (trumpet)
Music Charge: $30
7:30 PM | 9:30 PM | 11:30 PM
SATURDAY, OCT 3: BOBBY BRADFORD QUINTET
featuring David Murray
Bobby Bradford – trumpet
Marty Ehrlich – alto saxophone, clarinet
Mark Dresser – bass
Andrew Cyrille – drums
Special Guest – David Murray (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet)
Music charge: $30
7:30 PM | 9:30 PM | 11:30 PM
featuring David Murray
Bobby Bradford – trumpet
Marty Ehrlich – alto saxophone, clarinet
Mark Dresser – bass
Andrew Cyrille – drums
Special Guest – David Murray (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet)
Music charge: $30
7:30 PM | 9:30 PM | 11:30 PM
SUNDAY, OCT 4: BOBBY BRADFORD OCTET
featuring David Murray
Bobby Bradford – trumpet
Marty Ehrlich – alto saxophones, clarinet
Benny Powell – trombone
Baikida Carroll – trumpet
featuring David Murray
Bobby Bradford – trumpet
Marty Ehrlich – alto saxophones, clarinet
Benny Powell – trombone
Baikida Carroll – trumpet
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/gbmq/
CHURCH:
I asked about religious affiliations: “We were all baptists.”
*Member of Ornette’s band 1953-1954 (OC bought his first plastic alto) — the band at this time was Blackwell and on piano, Floyd Howard
* Worked at Bullocks, Wilshire Blvd — 2 years w/ Coleman also, as elevator operator
*Bobby has 1941 Chrysler that the band uses
Bud Powell begins a several week’s long gig at The Haig, downtown Los Angeles with a local trio of Chuck Thompson(drums) and Curtis Counce(bass). [See Peter Pullman’s biography on Bud WAIL (2o12) pp205-209 for details] Bobby Bradford attended one of the nights before the gig was cancelled by John Bennett, manager of The Haig, before the second week ended due to erratic performances.
After military service enrolled at University of Texas, Austin — started with the 2nd semester in January
1959-1960
Discussing with BB the compositional elements that went into John Coltrane’s “Impressions,” Bobby reveals that he and Ornette, and Moffat, were out clubbing that night, having just worked a couple weeks in early October at the Five Spot, and were in the Village Vanguard the night the Coltrane Quartet recorded the monumental “Impressions” —- this first released version was from November 3 and the one we all grew up with on the Impulse! album of same name, where Tyner lays out for most of the almost
15 minutes and leaves tenor, bass, and drums. Bobby recalls Dolphy on stage as well, of which, Dolphy was on this tune on the November 2 & 3 recorded versions, found in the box set COMPLETE 1961 VILLAGE VANGUARD RECORDINGS, so, Bobby could have been at either of these 3 nights. [Interviews w/ MW & BB 26 & 30 July 2o18]
*see John Litweiler bio on OC — David Wild OC discography posits “circa June 1961” with a double-quartet: BB/Cherry, Lacy/OC, Garrison/Art Davis, Blackwell/Moffett *BB says, “Not actually a recording date, just rehearsal”
*June 1962 Ornette Coleman Quartet (BB, Moffett, Izenzon) played a week at the Jazz Gallery NYC opposite Lambert, Hendricks, & Bavan w/Gildo Mahones
*It was during this time (1962) that Bobby subbed in Quincy Jones’ band for his old Air Force buddy Marcus Belgrave while MB straightened out some issues with his cabaret card
*BB also worked in what he calls “pre-salsa” bands
*NOTE that during BB’s 2-year tenure in Ornette’s Quartet at this time he was back & forth to Dallas visiting family and taking jobs “during flat spots” in OC’s bookings — BB finally leaves NYC and Ornette’s band Fall 1962 to return to college
*Ornette performs and releases TOWN HALL concert (ESP Records) in December 1962 but BB was gone by then
The New Art Jazz Ensemble performs at Century City Playhouse, 10508 W. Pico Blvd ———— As reported in the Calendar Events of L.A. TIMES (April 4, 1968) and research by Steven Isoardi > MW
1968 — April 29 at 8:30pm
The New Art Jazz Ensemble — Bobby Bradford, trumpet; John Carter, reeds; Tom Williamson, bass; Bruz Freeman, drums —- at The Ice House, 24 N. Mentor Avenue, Pasadena, California
The New Art Jazz Ensemble — Bobby Bradford, John Carter, Tom Williamson, Bruz Freeman —- at the Ash Grove, 8161 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California
John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quartet w/ Tom Williamson & Bruz Freeman — at Foshay Junior High School, 3715 S. Harvard Blvd, Los Angeles — sponsored by the Society for the Preservation of Black Music
beginning of a long-standing musical relationship
1970 — Sunday August 30
John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quartet at South Park Recreational Center, 345 E. 51st Street, Los Angeles
The Bobby Bradford-John Carter Quartet at USC Hancock Auditorium, 3616 S. University Avenue, Los Angeles (at Exposition & Figueroa) presented by The Universal Order of Black Expression (which Steve Isoardi tells me later folded into UGMAA) — Concert billed as “Infinite Black Culture” — (even though Bobby and John are listed separately on the Sentinel advertisement it’s my guess that they played together, although, by the 1973 they both began keeping separate ensembles as well as playing together)
1973 —- Oct 13
London, England —- The pivotal moment when Bobby switched from trumpet to cornet —- Receipt in Martin Davidson’s name as the store wouldn’t take Bobby’s American bank check (ie. cheque to you Englishers) —– BB traded his Conn trumpet into the deal
John Carter initiates Sunday Afternoon Concert Series at Rudolph’s
Fine Art Center, 3320 West 50th Street (at Crenshaw), Los Angeles —
proprietor Rudolph Porter
John’s trio The John Carter Ensemble performs every Sunday 3-5pm for over 2 years
1973 — December
Article in the Los Angeles Sentinel Dec. 20, 1973 “Jazz Musician to Teach” reports that BB “a professional musician and member of the music faculty at Cal State College Dominguez Hills has spent the Fall on musical tour of England . . . . Bradford is returning for the winter term and will teach courses on Afro-American music and jazz performance. Both are evening courses.” [Thanks to Steve Isoardi for discovering this.]
Bobby Bradford-John Carter Quintet performs at 7:30 at Baxter Lecture
Hall, Caltech, Pasadena, California, presented/produced by John Breckow
(KPFK radio host) — recorded on 4-track reel-to-reel by Pete Welding —
William Jeffrey, drums; Stanley Carter (son) & Roberto Miranda,
basses
1. “Love’s Dream”(BB)(21:10)[JC on soprano]
2. “Woman”(BB)(11:00)[JC on clarinet then to soprano]
3. “Comin’ On”(BB)(19:48)[JC on soprano]
4. “Prayer # 1″(R.Miranda)(16:01)[JC on soprano]
5. “Come Softly”(JC)(6:23)[BB out — JC on clarinet]
6. “Circle”(JC)(14:24)[JC on clarinet]
*This is most likely the concert sequence as it comes from Pete Welding’s tape — and I’d say the break between Set 1 and 2 occurs after the three compositions of Bradford’s
** Four remarkable things about this recording is:
1) This is probably the only time “Love’s Dream” was performed in America, it was a tune BB used with his English ensemble.
2) This is the earliest extant recording of Bobby & John live in performance — although, you could say that all of their released recordings are live in the studio, as never once has BB used editing or overdubbing or punch-ins in his entire recorded output —- AND there are earlier Live recordings from the Five Spot 1971 of BB with Ornette circulating among collectors —- BUT, of John & Bobby this is the earliest recording
3) This documents the 2 or 3 year period in which JC was using soprano & clarinet equally, having retired his other horns sometime after 1972 (their 1972 album SECRETS has John on alto & clarinet) . . . all before he retired the soprano and strictly concentrated on clarinet.
4) Shows their practice of using two bass players in their bands, first encountered on their 1969 album SELF-DETERMINATION MUSIC
Stanley Crouch’s Black Music Infinity play at David Hammond Studio, 2409 West Slauson, Los Angeles —- Bobby Bradford (cornet), James Newton (flute), Roberto Miranda (bass), and Stanley (drumset)
1976 — April 2 & 3
Sunday afternoon session at The Little Big Horn, Pasadena — The Bobby Bradford Extet: BB (cornet & emcee), James Newton(flute), Kevin Brandon(bass), Kim Calkins(drums), Vinny Golia (soprano & tenor saxophone & bass clarinet) —- audience recording on cassette exists by Mark Weber: 1) “Comin’ On (the Colorado)” “H.M. Louis” (subsequently transferred into the digital realm) —— John Carter present
1976 — Friday evening December 31
BB thought we’d get over-flow crowds from the Rose Parade parties on Colorado Blvd just half block south of The Little Big Horn, so he proposed an all-night-till-dawn jam session like he used to participate in back in Texas —- musicians came and went —- at 2 a.m. I turned on my cassette recorder and caught Duke Jordan’s “Jordu” —- participants that I noted were Bobby (cornet, flugel, elec-p), John Carter (clarinet, sop. sax, elec-p), Richard Reywald (bass), Mark Dresser (bass), James Newton (flute), Jimmy Robertson (piccolo), Vinny Golia (bari & sop saxes), Nathan Hood (bari), Charles Hall (drums), among others —- We got out of there as the sun came up on January 1, 1977
1977 — January 15
Stanley Crouch visiting in town from NYC (he had left L.A. 1975) and sits in on drums at the regular Sunday afternoon jazz session at The Little Big Horn along with Bobby, John Carter, Vinny Golia, James Newton, and Richard Rehwald—- see photos
1979 — April 1
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Century City Playhouse perform as a quartet with Glenn Ferris (trombone), Bert Karl(drumset), Noah Young (bass)———– only 4 tunes from this evening exist on tape:
1. “Ornate” [beginning truncated] 2. “Snuffy”(BB)(“I dont think I played that tune 5 times in my life, in public!!!” –email BB>MW 24apr2o17 3. “Comin’ On” which BB sometimes in these days called “Comin’ on the Colorado” [Colorado Blvd was just half a block south of his club The Little Big Horn] 4. “The Theme”(Miles)
** “Snuffy” from a suite of portraits BB was composing at the time. Full title: “A Portrait of Thelonious Monk: Snuffy”
1979 — Friday April 27
Bobby Bradford Quintet in a Tribute to Duke “in a musical salute to Duke Ellington” 8pm at Farnsworth Park Auditorium, 568 E. Mount Curve Street, Altadena, California — produced by Bill DeLaney of the City of Pasadena Recreation Division
Bobby Bradford & John Carter in duet at Stratford Court Theatre, 1353 Stratford Court, Del Mar, (San Diego), California — 8pm —- $4 admission
1980 — May 24
Bobby Bradford Quintet at the Pasadena Jazz Festival, Memorial Park Bandshell, 85 E. Holly Street, downtown Pasadena, California — This was the 2nd Pasadena Jazz Festival — presented by the Universal Jazz Preservation Society, Bill DeLaney, director / co-sponsored by the City of Pasadena Leisure & Community Services Department ——- NOW, we have a problem, as Steven Isoardi has pointed out, who found the L.A. Sentinel articles on this event, in that BB played at Moers Festival with the John Carter Quintet on May 24 (evidenced by the photos)(the program guide for the Moers Festival 1980 lists the John Carter Quintet playing on May 25 — Did the JC Qnt concert move to May 24 which gave BB time to fly back to Pasadena to play there on Sunday?) — We’re still endeavoring to sort this enigma out, any help will be welcome . . . . .
1982 — Saturday May 1
John Carter – Bobby Bradford Quartet w/ Roberto Miranda & William Jeffrey at The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street (just below Astor Place) NYC
1982 — May 2
John Carter – Bobby Bradford Quartet w/ Roberto Miranda & William Jeffrey perform in Washington DC at Pension Building on a double-bill with The New York Hot Trumpet Repertory Company [reported in dOWNBEAT, Sept 1982 by Howard Mandell]—-absolute proof / ticket stub provided by Michael Zelner
1982 — May 28
1982 — August 3
John Carter – Bobby Bradford Quartet w/ Fred Hopkins(bass), & Andrew Cyrille(drums) — Hartford, Connecticut —- recording exists —- 1) “Sticks and Stones,” 2) untitled 3) “Sunday Afternoon Jazz Society Blues” 4) untitled
1982 — Wednesday August 25
at Bimhuis, Amsterdam: The John Carter Quartet w/ Bobby Bradford (cornet altho it sounds like might be trumpet), John Lindberg (bass), Steve Clover (drums), John Carter (clarinet) —- The existing recording has: 1) untitled new original by John (17:30) 2) “Woman” (20:10) 3) “a blues” (15:30) 4) clarinet + drums duet on something that sounds like John’s “My Sweet Poppy” (7:30) BB comes in at very end 5) “Circle” is announced as the next tune but didnt make it to this recording
1983
John Carter opens The Wind College, a music school at 2801 La Cienega Avenue, Los Angeles
BB forms Gethsemane Music Publishing (ASCAP)
duet recording session with Michael Vlatkovich on one tune “9113: White, Black & White, and Mostly Brown” released on Michael’s LP 9113 (Thank You Records) —
1985 — Saturday night May 25
ten-piece group under the direction of Roberto Miranda called Home Music Ensemble — Bing Theater, Los Angeles — w/ James Newton (flute), John Carter (clarinet), Bobby Bradford (cornet), Thom Mann (tenor), Horace Tapscott (piano), Roberto (bass & conducting) — “Roberto Miguel Miranda spent a lot of time verbally directing his 10 cohorts. Whatever Miranda said, it worked. The concert was an exicting display of crisp, crackling jazz spiced with free-form playing . . . . Two ballads stood out, one where tenor saxophonist Thom Mann laid out thick, shiny lines that breathed passion, another where pianist Horace Tapscott offered rhapsodic, moving passages. Later, a very swinging, medium-tempo item found flutist James Newton establishing a dandy groove. Miranda took one unaccompanied solo . . . .” says Zan Stewart, Los Angeles Times, May 27, 1985
Bobby is added to the trio called DETAIL w/ Frode Gjerstad (tenor — Norway), Johnny Dyani(bass — South Africa, living in Stockholm at the time), John Stevens(drums — England) making it an international Quartet —– performs in London at The Plough
1986 — Tuesday July 1
The quartet DETAIL PLUS records in a London studio the album NESS with additional musicians: Harry Beckett(trpt), Courtney Pine(woodwinds) — released on Impetus (E)IMP-28509 — Bradford on 4 of the 6 tracks on this double-LP
1986 — Wednesday July 2
The quartet DETAIL records in Cambridge, England, the album WAY IT GOES/DANCE OF THE SOUL (E)IMP-18611 vinyl LP — at Kite Studios —- Roger Chatterton, engineer
1986 — Saturday July 5
Large ensemble under the direction of John Stevens performs at Bracknell Jazz Festival and recorded by BBC Radio 3 —- Lp vinyl album entitled FREE BOP: LIVE TRACKS on Impetus Records (E)IMP-18610 ———- w/ Ted Emmett(trumpet), Ron Herman(bass), Pete King(reeds), Dave Marchant(guitar), Nigel Moyse(guitar), Eddie Parker(flute), Courtney Pine(soprano & tenor), Annie Whitehead(trombone), Nick Stephens(elec-bass), John Stevens(drums & compostions) and Evan Parker(tenor)
1986 — Sunday July 6
The quartet DETAIL performs in Stavanger, Norway — the recording of the concert released as cd IN TIME WAS (Circulasione Totale Productions CD-86-07-06)
1986 — October 24
Johnny Mbizo Dyani dies in West Berlin (after a performance) age 40
John
Carter Quartet w/ Bobby Bradford, Andrew Cyrille, Richard Davis —
Koncepts Cultural Gallery, Jenny Lind Hall, 2267 Telegraph Avenue,
Oakland, California
1987 — July 8
The Together Again Band: John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Horace Tapscott, Arthur Blythe, Donald Dean, Roberto Miranda — Gaststatte Waldsee, Freiburg, Germany, in performance: 1. “The Dark Tree”(HT) 2. “With Respect to Monk”(R.Miranda) 3. “Sketches of Drunken Mary”(HT) 4. “Woman”(BB) 5. HT & JC duet 6. “Circle”(JC) 7. “Ashes”(BB)
1987 — July 10
Horace Tapscott Sextet perform at Nickelsdorf Konfontationen, Nickelsdorf, Austria — Bobby Bradford (cornet), John Carter (clarinet), Arthur Blythe (alto), Donald Dead (drums), Horace (piano), Roberto Miranda (bass) — 1. “The Dark Tree”(Tapscott) 2. “With Respect to Monk” 3. “Circle”(Carter) — recording exists
1987 —- Sunday July 12
John Carter – Bobby Bradford Duo at North Sea Jazz Festival, Bon Bini Zaal, Den Haag, NL —-[thanks to Bertrand Gastaut for researching this]
1987 — August 15
John Carter Quintet w/ Bobby Bradford, James Newton, Roberto Miranda, William Jeffrey
1988 — May 27-29
John Carter Octet — Montreal, Quebec, Canada — FM radio broadcast
“Castles of Ghana Suite”
1. Evening Prayer
2. The Fallen Prince
3. Capture
4. Theme of Desperation
5. Conversations
6. Castles of Ghana
also they played Kimo Theatre, Albuquerque, around this time
1989
at the New Music America Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Arts, New York —- John Carter Octet perform the entire SHADOWS ON THE WALL SUITE — 6 pieces —– w/ John (clarinet), Bobby Bradford (cornet), Marty Ehrlich (bass-clarinet, flute), Craig Harris (trombone), Don Preston (synth), Terry Jenoure (violin, vocals), Andrew Cyrille (drums), Fred Hopkins (bass), Christina Wheeler & Iqua Colson (backing vocals) — recording extists
1990 — Thursday, September 6
John Carter dies, age 61 — cancer — ending a musical relationship that lasted 25 years
1991 — October 18 & 19
David Murray – Bobby Bradford 5 w/ Dave Burrell, Fred Hopkins, Andrew Cyrille —- Tribute to John Carter at Moers Festival ———– [we are still endeavoring to substantiate this date —- what day was it? Did Bobby and this band actually assemble for this gig and then again five months later for Groningen? Please help us verify] — Recording exists
1992 — September 25
David Murray – Bobby Bradford Quintet tribute to John Carter: Davie Burrell(piano), Fred Hopkins(bass), Andrew Cyrille(drums) — Groningen, Holland — Recording exists that is being traded around
1993 — sometime before July
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet plays at 3rd Annual Jazz at Drew Legacy Music Series which was a 2-day affair that included Gerald Wilson Orchestra, George Duke, Wayne Henderson & The Next Crusade featuring Wilton Felder & Jimmy Witherspoon, George Bohanon-Bennie Maupin Quintet, Watts Prophets, Jimmy Scott, Cedar Walton Trio w/Red Holloway, Oscar Brown Jr, Hugh Masekela, John Handy, Dwight Trible, Tony Williams Quintet, and many others — at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science, 1731 E. 120th Street, Los Angeles
1994 — July 21, 22, & 24
John Stevens dies in England
1994 — Friday, October 21
David Murray Big Band — at Cafe du Soleil, Saignelégier, Jura, Switzerland, conducted by Butch Morris; DM–tenor sax & bass clarinet; Kahil Henry, Benny Russell, James Spaulding, John Purcell, Marc Shim–saxes & flutes; Hamiet Bluiett–baritone sax & alto clarinet; Hugh Ragin, Rasul Saddik, James Zollar–trumpets; Bobby Bradford–cornet; Craig Harris, Al Patterson–trombones; Bob Stewart–tuba; Jimane Nelson–piano; Fred Hopkins–bass; Randell Merritt–drums
1995 — November 17
02 – “Shawnee Indian Song” (Charles Tyler) – 15’05
03 – announcement by Wilber Morris and David Murray – 03’12
04 – “Hip Day” (Charles Tyler) – 11’36
05 – announcement by David Murray – 00’48
06 – “P.C.O.P.” (Wilber Morris) – 22’32
07 – announcement by David Murray – 00’38
08 – “Sad Folks” (Charles Tyler) – 16’51
09 – announcement by David Murray – 01’33
10 – “Flowers For Albert” (David Murray) – 13’30
Total Time: 101’46
November 16 in Toulon / Nov 17 Marseille / Nov 18 Tremblay / Nov 19 Argenteuil / Nov 20 Venissieux / Nov 23 Lille / Nov 24 Montreuil / Nov 25 Agrenteuil / Nov 26 an “atelier/studio” in Nanterre / Nov 27 another studio in Argenteuil / Nov 28 Nanterre / Nov 29 Metz
1995 — December 21 & 22
the initial performance of trio C/D/E, a cooperative group of whom all three have worked with Bobby Bradford in various projects over the years: Mark Dresser (bass), Marty Ehrlich (woodwinds), Andrew Cyrille (drums)—– They opened this performance at Knitting Factory with Bobby’s “Comin’ On” —- This is also when Mark’s composition “For Bradford” had its debut (six more times this tune has made it to CD subsequently) —– They had planned to have BB join the trio for this performance, but, as the liner notes to their 1998 cd says: “FreeJazzEconomics dictated another reality” —— a recording of this performance exists
1996 — December 8
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA
1997 — March 22
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Open Gate Theater (American Legion Hall, 131 N. Marengo, Pasadena) featuring Nels Cline and Vinny Golia [does anyone know who else in Mo’tet on this date?]
1997 — April 13
Bobby Bradford Quartet at Beanbender’s, Berkeley, California — Ben Goldberg(clarinet, contra-alto-clarinet, bass-clarinet), Don Preston (piano), Bill Douglass (bass), Bobby (cornet) — Recording exists—- FIRST SET: 1. Comin’ On 2. Woman 3. A Little Pain SECOND SET: 4. Sho’ Nuff Blues 5. Have You Seen Sideman? 6. Side Steps 7. Ornate
1997 — September 14
at Birdland West, Long Beach, California — re-opens for one day to participate in 10th annual Long Beach Day of Music — BB appeared with a group called The Leaders w/ Billy Higgins, Charles Owens, Roberto Miranda
1997 — October 10
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA
1998 — February 1
mother dies
1998 — May 22
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA w/ Vinny Golia [does anyone know who else?]
1998 — June
European tour with David Murray Big Band
1998 — June/July
Bobby Bradford & Chuck Manning at Rocco’s, 2930 Beverly Glen Circle, Bel Air
1999 — February 27
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Rocco’s w/ Chuck Manning, Ken Rosser, Roberto Miranda, Alex Cline
1999 — March 29
Bobby Braddford Mo’tet at Rocco’s
1999 — May 8
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet perform and discuss free jazz in: Free Jazz: A History of Jazz Informance, sponsored by Thelonious Monk Institute at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, downtown Los Angeles
1999 — May 23
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at MOCA w/ Nate Morgan, Roberto Miranda, Don Littleton (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles)
1999 — October 7
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at The Downtown Playhouse, downtown Los Angeles
1999 — November 19
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Rocco, Bel Air
2000 — November 3
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA
2001 — March 14
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet recording session Newzone Studio, Los Angeles — engineered by Wayne Peet — demo session — short versions with short solos if any for grant proposal — 4 Bradford compostions: 1) “Comin’ On” (5:04) 2) “A Little Pain” (5:17) 3) “Side Steps” (4:59) 4) “Crooked Blues” (5:40) total time: 21:13 ————– w/ Ken Rosser(guitar), Chuck Manning (tenor), Roberto Miranda(bass), William Jeffrey(drums), BB(cornet)
2001 — April 14
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA
2002 — January 26
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Downtown Playhouse w/Vinny Golia in the band
2002 — May 27
2003 — February 27
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA
2003 — June 9
Frankfurt Jazz Festival concert — The Grandmothers and The Strings Of Invention, with special guest Bobby Bradford ( video ) Napoleon Murphy Brock: lead vocals, alto & tenor saxophones, flute, Bunk Gardner: tenor sax, bassoon, soprano sax, flute, Roy Estrada: bass, pachuco falsettos, operatic madness, Don Preston: piano, keyboards, electronics, vocals, Ken Rosser: electric guitar, stunt guitar, loud guitar, Christopher Garcia: drumset, marimba, percussion, vocals, special guest: Bobby Bradford: trumpet. The Strings of Invention: Julia Barto: violin, Jansen Volkers: violin, Mike Rutledge: viola, Stephan Braun: cello
BOBBY BRADFORD QUINTET/SEXTET
College Hall Chapel, Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, Vermont —- Bobby (cornet), Chuck Manning (tenor saxophone), Claire Arenius (drums), Eugene Uman (piano), Jamie MacDonald (bass), John La Rouche (harmonica) — *Recording exists —- Good audience
SET ONE
1. Crooked Blues — which BB explains was his spin-off after studying
Straight No Chaser and he called originally it Crooked With Ice (17:30)
2. A Little Pain (14:00)
3. She/Woman (21:00)
SET TWO (disk 2)
1. Sidesteps (16:15)
2. Have You Seen Sideman? (15:20)
3. Sho Nuff Blues [Bb blues] (10:20)
4. Comin’ On (15:40)
5. Ashes [BB sings intro: “Stone cold dead in de market . . .” with a Tinidad accent — band plays calypso] (6:30)
**Bobby & Chuck flew out from California and the rhythm section was a pick-up band, of which Bobby already knew the bassist and the harmonica player from California
***concert produced by John LaRouche. “John La Rouche I met at PCC and he played in the combo…his dad owned a jaguar that he got from Chet Baker and I think he lived in Upland!!” –email BB > MW 23apr2o17
**** “Stone Cold Dead in the Market (He Had it Coming)” was a 1946 hit for Louis Jordan & His Tympani Five w/ Ella Fitzgerald (recorded Oct. 15, 1945 for Decca) — Louis Jordan loomed large in Bobby’s sphere of influences when he was a teenager
2005 — August 5
Purple Gums at Rosalie & Alba’s Performance Gallery, 1417 W. 8th Street, San Pedro
2005 — December
Eldridge Bruz Freeman dies — (b. August 11, 1921 Chicago)
2006 — January 27
William Parker Septet at New York City Vision Festival XIV, Orensanz Center – concert w/ Bobby Bradford (cornet), William Parker (bass), Hamid Drake (drums), Bob Brown (alto), Lewis Barnes (trumpet), Billy Bang (violin), James Spaulding (alto) —– released as Disk 5 on box set WOOD FLUTE SONGS (AUM-084)—- Recorded by Steve Schmidt
2009 — July 21
2010 — November 13
Bobby Bradford Quartet
Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London Jazz Festival
Bobby Bradford-Frode Gjerstad Quartet at Kampenjazz, Oslo, Norway — Bradford (cornet), Frode (alto sax & clarinet), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums), Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (bass) —– released on vinyl LP in 2012 as KAMPEN (NoBusiness Records) in an edition of 300 copies [if anyone knows where I can acquire a copy please let me know] with tracks > Side A: 1. “This Is” 2. “A Live” Side B: 1. “Recording From” 2. “Kampen, Oslo”
The album FLIGHT FOR FOUR re-issued on CD by International Phonograph
2013 — August 9
*** More than 500 people in attendance, a wonderful night on Wilshire Blvd
2014
Charlie Haden memorial in Hollywood — private gathering at actor Jack Black’s home on Los Feliz Blvd (Mr Black is married to Charlie’s daughter Tanya, one of the triplets) — Bobby was asked to say a few words, as was Maurice Jackson (professor Georgetown University, DC), and Putter Smith (who often subbed for Charlie at Cal Arts over the years), and Pat Metheny spoke and played a solo guitar dedication, among a few others (Charlie died July 11 — aged 76)
2014 — September 22
Ornette dies in NYC age 85
2015 — June 21
2015 — October 19 Monday
Day Two of Cadence Improvised Music Festival at The Blue Whale — Bobby in duet with Vinny Golia as the 3rd Set — (Opening set: “Jamaica Suite” a story about Herbie Nichols, text by Steve Swallow, introductory text by Roswell Rudd, read by David Haney w/ musical accompaniment; 2nd Set: George Haslam in assorted duos & trios) — Bertrand Gastaud of Darktree Records visiting from Paris in attendance.
BB & VG played 4 pieces: 1) “She”(BB) 2) a spontaneously improvised piece 3) “Petals”(John Carter) 4) “Side Steps”(BB) and Tina Raymond sat in on drums on this number (she was there with the band that played the 2nd set)
2015 — December 17
Rudolph Ashland Porter passes away in Los Angeles
2o16 — February 2, Tuesday 8pm
BB in duet with Vinny Golia at The Loft, 9500 Gilman Drive, San Diego 92093 California (on the campus of Cal State University at San Diego in the student center) ——- BB, cornet & vocals; Vinny, Bb & bass-clarinets, soprano & baritone saxophones —– performed
1. She
2. Hello Dali
3. Comin’ On
4. Side Steps
5. a blues with BB vocalizing “Hey lookah heah man dontch you know?” [email BB to MW 5feb16]
*Mark Dresser was advertised to join the duet but “I was under the weather and couldn’t make it” [email from MD to MW 6feb16] ——
on a double bill w/ Ecosono Ensemble featuring Glen Whitehead (trumpet & laptop) and Matthew Burtner (soprano sax & “interactive media” probably laptop computer)
2016 — February 28
Obihiro Cowboys (William Roper, Michael Vlatkovich, Joseph Mitchell, Bobby Bradford) 7:30 at Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th Street (at Olympic) in Santa Monica
2016 — March 18
Purple Gums (William Roper, tuba; BB, cornet; Francis Wong, saxophones) in San Francisco as part of the 6-day ImprovisAsians 2016: Sounding Unity In the Pursuit of Narrative conference — 10:30am Master Class in room 152 Creative Arts Building at San Francisco State University
2016 — March 18
Purple Gums Short Performance — 1:10pm in Knuth Hall, SFSU w/ guests Lenora Lee (dancer/choreographer) and Genny Lim (poetry) “carrying on the tradition of making music in the moment”
2016 — March 19
Purple Gums (“full length performance”) 2pm at Tateuchi Auditorium, Sutter YWCA Building, 1830 Sutter Street, San Francisco Japantown 94115 — with special guests Lenora Lee and Genny Lim
2o16 — Wednesday 6-7pm March 30
The Bobby Bradford-Hafez Modirzadeh Quartet at Arms Music Center 3, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts — Presented by Jason Robinson and the Music Department of Amherst College — Bobby said this was a small room and somewhat informal so that during Q & A with the audience Bobby demonstrated a line that Ornette had wrote years ago (1961-1962) that he never recorded and could never figure how to resolve it — It’s a little 8-bar phrase “that is pure Ornette, it’s so simple, until you start to analyze it, and typical of Ornette it’s brilliant even as it breaks all the rules, I’ll have to show you someday on the piano what I mean) — So, Bobby had suggested a little 2-bar ending and Ornette said: Yeh, let’s use that. So, for demonstration purposes the BB-HM Qrt went ahead and played it, and BB named it, “So?” in reference to something else that had come up during the Q&A. Bobby says if he ever records it he’ll call it “Variations on a Theme by Ornette Coleman.” They also played: “Bayraktar” by Hafez; “Silhouette” by Ken Filiano; “She” by BB; and “Wadsworth Falls” by royal hartigan. Bradford–cornet; Hafez Modirzadeh–saxophones; Ken Filiano–bass; royal hartigan–drums *Recorded professionally by Dan Richardson. BB said he saw film cameras, also, on tripods, and hand-helds.
2016 — Thursday evening 8pm March 31
concert at Bezanson Recital Hall, University of Massachusetts Amherst — presented by Magic Triangle Jazz Series —
The Bobby Bradford-Hafez Modirzadeh Quartet, as previous — one set — Opened with:
1. “She” (BB)
and the rest not necessarily in this order:
2. “Bayraktar” (Hafez Modirzadeh)
3. “Silhouette” (Ken Filiano)
4. “Wadsworth Falls” (royal hartigan)
5. “So?”
and ended with
6. “Ashes” (BB)
*Recorded professionally by Dan Richardson. BB said he saw film cameras, also.
** Released on vinyl Lp in 2o17 in edition of 500 copies — titled LIVE AT THE MAGIC TRIANGLE (NoBusiness Records NBLP108)
2016 — Saturday afternoon April 16
outdoors at Walker Beach on the campus of Claremont Colleges — Bobby Bradford Mo’tet: Don Preston (piano), Chris Garcia (drums), Dion Sorrel (bass), Chuck Manning (tenor sax), BB (cornet) —- They played:
1) Straight No Chaser
2) Solar
3) Umbi
4) Ashes
5) Body & Soul
6) She
7) Blue Bossa
2016 —- Friday September 2
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at World Stage, (new location, across the street from the original location) 4321 Degnan Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90008 from 9 – 11:30pm —- Don Preston, piano; Chuck Manning, saxophone; Michael Vlatkovich, trombone; Christopher Garcia, drums; and Henry Franklin subbing for Roberto Miranda on bass ——– All Bradford compositions except the Monk:
1. Umby
2. She
3. Sidesteps
4. Ashes
5. Hello Dali
6. Well You Needn’t (Monk)
7. A Little Pain
2016 — October 22
Saturday night @ 8:00pm — BOBBY BRADFORD MO’TET at Orange Country Center for Contemporary Art in the Santa Ana Artist’s Village, Santa Ana, California, on the occasion of the exhibition PIPE DREAMS: GEORGE HERMS assemblages — a fundraiser for the artist-run alternative space Herms helped create —- Bobby Bradford – cornet; Henry Franklin – bass; Chuck Manning – saxophone; Theo Saunders – piano; Michael Vlatkovich – trombone; Chris Garcia- drumset —- They played: 1) She 2) Umby 3) A Little Pain 4) Solar (Miles) 5) Side Steps 6) Ashes (all compositions by BB except #4) *It was recorded by Bobby’s son Keith
This tour was originally to be The Bobby Bradford-Vinny Golia Quartet w/ Bernard Santacruz (bass) and Cristiano Calcagnile (drums) for nine dates across Europe but at the last minute BB wasn’t feeling well (nothing serious) and had to postpone his involvement, so Vinny continued on in trio format — January 29 at Parazzar, Brugge, Belgium; January 30 at La Malterie, Lille, France; February 1 at Atelier Polonceau Thomas-Roudeix, Paris, France; February 2 at Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Netherlands; February 3 at Piano Terra, Milano, Italy, with guest Massimo Falascone (alto sax); February 4 at Spezia Festival, Trevozzo, Piacenza, Italy; February 7 at Centro d’Arte degli Studenti del’Universita di Padova, Padove, Italy; and February 8 at Porgy & Bess, Vienna, Austria
2017 — 9pm Sunday January 15
Hafez Modirzadeh w/ Bobby Bradford at the Blue Whale in quartet with Roberto Miranda (bass) and Vijay Anderson (drums) —- They played:
1. “The Blessing” (Ornette)
2. “Raphael” (R. Miranda)
3. “Almost Not Crazy” (Vijay Anderson)
4. “Crooked Blues” (BB)
2017 — January 16
evening concert at Vortex Immersion Dome, 450 South Bixel, a little west of downtown Los Angeles near 5th Street — The Silverscreen Sextet under the direction of drummer Vijay Anderson, w/ Hafez Modirzadeh(saxophone); Vinny Golia (woodwinds); Bobby Bradford (cornet); William Roper (tuba); Roberto Miranda (bass) — performing “Song from The Insidewalk” an immersive audio-visual composition/improvisation on the historical spaces and contrasting cultures of Los Angeles with full-dome visuals projected by artist Tim Hix
2017 — Thursday February 23
Purple Gums (William Roper–tuba; Francis Wong–saxophones; Bobby Bradford–cornet; guest artist: Lenora Lee–dance) —- perform for 2 afternoon classes at University of California Irvine — 12:30 and 3:30, a jazz history class and a Jazz improvisation class — 4002 Mesa Road, Irvine, California
2017 — Thursday February 23
Purple Gums (guest: Lenora Lee–dance) concert in Room 218 UC Irvine Music & Media Building at 7pm
2017 — Friday February 24
Purple Gums (guests: Melody Takata–taiko; Lenora Lee–dance) concert at UC Riverside, The Barn (theater), 900 University Avenue, Riverside, California at 12noon – 2pm
2017 — Saturday February 25
Purple Gums (guests: Melody Takata–taiko; Lenora Lee–dance) concert in Little Tokyo in remembrance of composer & community activist Glenn Horiuchi (1955-2000) at Far East Lounge, 353 E. 1st Street, Los Angeles at 2pm
2017 — Sunday February 26
Purple Gums (guest: Brad Dutz–percussion) recording session at Brad Dutz Studios, 7732 Apperson Street, Tujunga, California
2017 — Monday February 27
Purple Gums (guest: Lenora Lee–dance) performance at Cal Arts, 24700 McBean Parkway, Valencia, California at 2pm
2o17 — March 27
Arthur Blythe died — complications of Parkinson’s Disease — Lancaster, California in the Mojave Desert, age 76
2017 — Thursday March 30
Evening concert with the Bobby Bradford-Vinny Golia Quartet at Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque, New Mexico w/ Tina Raymond (drums) and David Tranchina (bass)
(Bobby was Live in-studio guest on KUNM noon Thursday jazz show with MW — we discussed Bird, Ornette, the origins of Free Jazz, Wardell Gray, Max Roach, Lester Young, Vinny Golia and the quartet)
SET ONE
1. “Woman” (BB) –ss *BB quotes Gershwin’s “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'”
2. “Hello Dali” (BB) — as
3. “Winterset” (VG) — ts/flute
4. “Sidesteps” (BB) –ss
SET TWO
1. “Hello to Mrs Minifield” (VG) — as
2. “Comin’ On” (BB) — ss
3. “Pirouettes & Star People” (VG) — ts
4. encore — (TR & DT out) just alto sax & cornet “Room 408” (BB)
* Vinny brought soprano, alto, tenor saxophones + C flute Tunes of Vinny’s they had brought but ran out of time to play: “So Close to Where You Live” and “Tenorphonicity”. Recording exists — recorded from 11 tracks taken off the soundboard by Steven Schmidt — (the soundman was Kirk Brown)– The quartet rehearsed at Bobby & Lisa’s place in Altadena the Sunday afternoon before the trip out to New Mexico
2o17 — March 31
Diamanda Galas performs Bradford’s composition “She” on her Spring tour of U.S. —- on this song she performs solo accompanying herself on piano and wordless vocals —–March 31 (Seattle @ Neptune), April 5 (Los Angeles @ Cathedral of St Vibiana), April 8 (San Francisco @ The Masonic), April 11 (New Orleans @ Joy Theater), April 14 (Austin, Texas @ Paramount Theater), April 17 (Chicago @ Thalia Hall) * Bobby & Lisa Bradford attended the Los Angeles performance
2017 — August 2
This note from Kirk Silsbee to Mark Weber >
2017 – October 8
@ Battery Books, Pasadena, California (curated by Rich West) a trio of BB (cornet), Vinny Golia (woodwinds), and David Tranchina (bass) performed ——— Great photos by Roch Doran (see FB)
2017 — October 14
Bobby Bradford – Vinny Golia Quartet w/ BB(cornet), Vinny(saxes), Dave Tranchina(bass), Tina Raymond(drums) as part of 10th Annual Jazz & Beat Festival at John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 First Street, Davis, California, at U.C. Davis (the city of Davis is 11 miles west of Sacramento) — performed at 7:30 — they played
1) Woman
2) Winterset (Vinny’s tune)
3) Sidesteps
4) Comin’ On
5) and a totally spontaneous free piece (BB sang the “Hey Looka Heah Man” song within the improvisation)
*No recording was made
2018 — Thursday evening January 4
an ensemble assembled by Elliott Levin (poetry/woodwinds) w/ Marshall Allen and Bobby at Zebulon, 2478 Fletcher Drive, Los Angeles 90039 —- With the delays that day in flights from Philadelphia due to snow storms both Marshall and Elliott didn’t arrive at LAX until late and missed the first set —— BB had asked Chuck Manning to bring along his horn just in case (Chuck had been planning to witness this historic meeting) —— Bobby didn’t know the bassist or drummer (Elliott’s choice) and so the first set started at 10pm with Bobby Bradford (cornet), Chuck Manning (tenor), Don Preston (keyboards), JP Maramba (bass), and Ryan Sawyer (drums) —– They played: 1) “A Call For All Demons” superimposed on top of “Woman” 2) “Comin’ On” 3) “Well You Needn’t” 4) “Straight No Chaser” — not necessarily in that order — doubtful if it was recorded —- Set 2 started at 11:30 with Chuck sitting out, and Marshall Allen on alto saxophone & EVI (Electronic Valve Instrument — a variety of eewee, ie. EWI), and Elliott Levin (poetry and woodwinds) —- They played one long uninterrupted spontaneous set, with no discussion previous to mountain the stage: just pure free jazz
2018 — MLK Day Monday evening January 15
BB is sideman in a multi-media production & group assembled by Bay Area drummer & composer Vijay Anderson called Invisible Visible at The Handbag Factory, 1336 S. Grand Avenue, near downtown Los Angeles 90015 —– Evening opened at 6pm with a panel discussion with BB, Vinny Golia, Roberto Miranda on the panel and Charles Sharpe as moderator on the topic of Martin Luther King and civil rights and the relationship with jazz: “courage . . . tenacity . . . creativity . . . love,” BB wrote, and “while we played they projected on a screen behind us MLK events, L.A. scenes and a mixed bag of art and artists. Good show but poorly attended…..Lots of homeless encampments nearby.” [email BB > MW 18jan2o18] Ensemble hit at 7pm: Bobby Bradford (cornet), Vinny Golia (woodwinds), William Roper (tuba), Hafez Modirzadeh (woodwinds), Roberto Miranda (bass), Vijay Anderson (drums/compostions), Tim Hix (video projections)
2o18 — February 3
Ndugu Chancler passes away — prostate cancer, age 65, in Los Angeles —- Ndugu was on Bobby & John’s 1972 album SECRETS (Revelation) —- among hundreds of records he appears on
2o18 — Saturday 8pm February 17
Bobby Bradford plays with Elevated Mantra (Will Alexander, piano; Lester McFarland, elec-bass; Mark Pino, drums) at Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd, Venice Beach 90291 — Bobby says: “mostly playing mute, plunger, etc, back-ups for poet Will Alexander . . . . then about 30 minutes of Will at piano doing a kind of vamp with the group . . . . totally free but not quite as the vamp kept us grounded.” [email BB > MW 26feb2o18]
2o18 — February 23
8pm show —- double-bill w/ Jeff Parker New Breed (from Chicago) and TRIO, which was Bobby Bradford (cornet), Vinny Golia (woodwinds), Mark Dresser (string bass) — at the Loft, University of California, San Diego —- Trio played 1) “She”(BB) 2) “Winterset”(VG) 3) “For Bradford”(MD) 4) “Comin’ On”(BB) 5) completely spontaneous piece —- Trio played first, followed by guitarist Jeff Parker’s group
2o18 —- Sunday 2pm April 8
at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica, 1220 2nd Street, Santa Monica, California —- Bradford played on this 2nd day of performances of The Unwrinkled Ear Festival of Improvised Music, produced by Andrew Choate : First Set: trio of Evan Parker (reeds), Roscoe Mitchell (reeds), and Bobby Bradford (cornet) ///// Second Set: quintet: add Sten Sandell (piano & church organ), and Kjell Nordeson (vibes, drumset & percussion) both from Sweden although one of them now lives in San Diego —– BB said “We knocked it out of the park!! Great space …really great sound…great audience.” [email to MW 4/12/2o18] —- The concert was recorded and video taped. Bobby said that John Litweiler attended the concert, in town visiting family in Santa Monica, so I wrote John and asked what his thoughts were > “Mark, that Bradford-Mitchell-Parker trio set was certainly the best event of the year, or probably the decade. The close exchanges, the listening, the challenging, the great creativity of the 3, the way Bobby sort of prevented the 2 sax players from getting into their obsessions – what vivid musical personalities. All 3 were at their very best, which is saying something, since in recent years every now and then they’ve recorded some of the best music of their lives. I heard it was recorded but am not holding my breath waiting for a cd to appear. The Sunday concert was the trio, then Sten Standell solo, then a quartet of the 2 saxists and the Swedes – Bradford made it into a quintet. —— Cheers, John” [JL email to MW 4/16/2o18]
2o18 — May 4
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at the World Stage, Los Angeles —- Theo Saunders(piano), Henry Franklin(bass), Chuck Manning(tenor), BB(cornet), Michael Vlatkovich (trombone), Yo Yo Morales (drums) —- performed: 1) Umby 2) A Little Pain 3) Broken Shadows(Ornette) 4) She 5) Hello Dali 6) Straight No Chaser (Monk) ——- all compositions by BB unless otherwise noted —- BB comments “Terrific drummer!!!” [email to MW May 8, 2o18] — No known recording —- I asked Michael Vlatkovich’s opinion of the date: “Regarding the concert, I am always surprised by the enthusiasm of the audiences at Bobby’s concerts. We don’t play too Out for the room.” [MPV email > MW May8, 2o18]
2o18 — early afternoon of Monday June 11
at Wayne Peet’s Killzone Studios in Santa Monica —- BB records in trio with Michael Vlatkovich (trombone & little instruments), William Roper (tuba & percussion & didgeridoo), and Mark Weber (poetry) for cd NIGHT RIDERS —- 7 pieces recorded with this format
2o18 —- Friday 6pm June 15
BOBBY BRADFORD MO’TET at LACMA __ Bradford (cornet), Henry Franklin (bass), Michael Vlatkovich (trombone), Chuck Manning (tenor), Yayo Morales (drums), Theo Saunders (piano): FIRST SET 1) “Broken Shadows”(Ornette)(8:00) 2) “Ornate” (11:20) 3) “Crooked Blues” (17:40) 4) “She” (14:15) SECOND SET 5) “Hello Dali” (13:20) 6) “A Little Pain” (11:45) *BB quotes “Caravan” in his solo 7) “Side Steps” (10:00) ————-Recorded by Mark Weber on mini-disk with AT822 mike set up under the PA system———-There is also a recording done from the soundboard—-Concert produced by Mitch Glickman, who also interviewed BB prior to concert to be broadcast on KJZZ “KJazz” 88.1fm Sunday 7-9pm July 1 interspersed with the concert broadcast ***Yayo Morales is new in town and was brought to Bobby’s attention by Henry Franklin — Yayo was born in Bolivia and spent his first 20 years there, then to Madrid for 23 years and marriage, and now L.A. with his wife, a tremendous jazz drummer ++++ All tunes composed by Bobby Bradford except for the first number of the concert. There were 350 serious listeners in seats and another 100 or 200 people milling about — (It’s an outdoor free summer event so people are there for various reasons) —– The Mo’tet rehearsed at Bobby’s studio in Altadena the Monday before the gig —- Bobby wanted to use the same group as his gig at World Stage May 4 that was so successful —- (Chris Garcia & Don Preston were out on tour with the Grande Mothers) —-
2018 — 9pm Tuesday June 26
An Evening with Elliott Levin, Zebulon Cafe, 2478 Fletcher Drive, Los Angeles — “EL & the Eclectic Elders of Improvisation” includes: Don Preston (Steinway), Bobby Bradford (cornet), Anders Swanson (bass), Chris Garcia (drums), Elliott Levin (tenor sax, poetry, flute) —- Elliott in town from Philadelphia performs with Angelinos —- all spontaneous free jazz, except the last number of the evening — two long sets — the last thing they did was Ornette’s “Lonely Woman” wove together with BB’s “She” —- “Good crowd, very attentive” –BB email > MW [6/29/2o18]
2o18 — 7:30pm Thursday June 28
Soundwaves Concert at Santa Monica Public Library, 601 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica CA —— same group as June 26 with the addition of Jeff Schwartz sitting in on bass
2018 – July 28
Bobby Bradford Brass N Bass as part of the Outsound 17th Annual New Music Summit in San Francisco: Community Music Center, 544 Capp Street in the Mission District —– produced by (saxophonist) Rent Romus and (bassist) Bill Noertker ——- This evening was a double bill with Marilyn Crispell quartet —– Bobby was asked by former student at PCC to do a presentation, so, as things go, and flights were too expensive Bobby decided to drive up from Altadena, and his wife Lisa requested that I go along to assist in driving (we went up I-5 and came back I-101) —- Bill assembled the musicians and the concept: 2 cornets + 2 bass, all under Bobby’s direction/arrangements and his music: They rehearsed at 11am for an hour & a quarter at Local 6 Musician’s Union, 116 – 9th Street, San Francisco (I recorded most of the rehearsal after the first piece was so good I scrambled to set up my microphone) —– Concert started off with a short panel discussion with the musicians, music began, to a packed house, at 8: Theo Padouvas & Bobby on identical cornets (silver Schilke model XA-1) with Scott Walton and Bill Noertker, contrabasses —— They played four numbers: 1) Woman 2) Comin’ On 3) Hello Dali 4) spontaneous free piece ———– Concert was recorded on 3 different rigs —- This concert was so good I’m hoping it makes it to CD someday —Mark Weber
2o18 —- Saturday evening of September 23
Purple Gums performs on the second day of 2-day event Panorama Creative Music Summit hosted by Bakersfield College Performing Arts Dept & Jazz Studies Dept (trumpeter Kris Tiner is a teacher there)(Vinny Golia had a group play on Friday) —- Purple Gums: William Roper (tuba & low horns & percussion & monologues), Bobby (cornet & song & percussion), Francis Wong (tenor saxophone) —- one long 50 minute spontaneous improvisation, BB says at one point William sang “When You’re Smiling” and somewhere before the bridge he (BB) broke in and sang some of “I’m in the mood for love” —- a recording exists —- “a very nice room” BB said (Simonsen Performing Arts Center) — There was a panel discussion earlier at 5:30 w/ Vinny, Bobby, William, Francis Wong, Kris Tiner, and Ottum.
2o18 —- September 27
A video portrait
Events
Fanfares & Arhoolies
Landing Safely In Africa, ver. 3
Land Ob Cotton
“Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them.” – Richard Strauss
2o18 — Thursday October 4
BB as member of the Silverscreen Sextet on a double bill with Satoko Fujii Trio (w/ Kappa Maki & Yoshi Shutto) at World Stage, 4321 Degnan Blvd, LA, as part of Angel City Jazz Festival —– a one-hour presentation non-stop music with improvised solos as seques into & between Vijay’s compositions – sextet: Roberto Miranda (bass), William Roper (tuba & spoken word), BB (cornet), Vinny Golia (woodwinds), Hafez Modirzadeh (woodwinds), Vijay Anderson (drums/compositions), Tim Hicks (video projections) —- Vijay recorded the event
2o18 —- Sunday November 4
Purple Gums perform at Open Gate, Eagle Rock (produced by Alex Cline) — video exists – They open with a few measures of “Get Happy” —- one continuous improvised 50-minute set
As anyone who regularly visits this space knows, I'm a huge fan of the music created by the LA jazz musicians John Carter and Bobby Bradford, whether together or on their own. In the summer of 2013 the great Chicago reissue label International Phonograph put the classic 1969 Flying Dutchman release Flight for Four (performed by a quartet led by Carter and Bradford) back into circulation, featuring a beautiful restoration of the original artwork within a lovely cardboard package. But most of that particular release had been previously issued on a CD (as was another album reissued by International Phonograph, by fellow LA titan Horace Tapscott). The second album Carter and Bradford made for Bob Thiele's label, however, has never been available on disc—until now.
A few weeks ago the British imprint BGP reissued the 1970 album Self Determination Music, and although the packaging and new liner notes are generic, the music is so wonderful that I don't care. For this recording the quartet—which also includes drummer Bruz Freeman, a former Chicagoan and brother to Von and George, and bassist Tom Williamson—was expanded to a quintet with the addition of second bassist Henry Franklin, giving the music an impressively knotty, spindly low end and an extra blast of propulsion. But as usual the real thrill is the work of the ebullient front line, which was in the thick of putting its own spin on the sound of Ornette Coleman—an icon whom Bradford had played with, both before Self Determination Music and later for the sessions that produced Broken Shadows. Carter wrote three of the four pieces, with Bradford composing "The Eyes of the Storm," an aptly titled burner with extended multilinear solos on which the highly attuned rapport of the horn players couldn't be more obvious.
Carter's moody ballad "Loneliness" mixes up the timbre, with Freeman opening the piece with terse xylophone figures over bowed basslines and the muted braid of Carter's flute and Bradford's cornet, the latter of which set the tone before the simmering melody rolls in like a bank of fog. Bradford, playing with a mute, shows off his most tender, lyric side, with Carter shadowing him with gauzy, liquid flute shapes. The high-velocity closer "Encounter" deftly shows off Bradford's agility at a breakneck tempo, pushing into the horn's upper register without losing control of his tart, tuneful phrasing, while Carter delivers a jagged tenor solo that demonstrates there was already far more to his game than Coleman's strain of free jazz, at times sounding closer to Sam Rivers or John Tchicai. Below you can hear the opening track, Carter's "The Sunday Afternoon Jazz Blues Society," which he rerecorded as "Sunday Afternoon Jazz Society Blues" for his great 1989 album with Bradford called Comin' On (Hat Art). I first heard it on the later album, and its spirited, chirping melody has never left me—hearing this version was like running into an old friend.
Bobby Bradford Love's Dream Review
Album. Released 2003.BBC Review
A welcome reissue of cornettist Bradford's live adventures with Trevor Watts and others
2004
Tracks
- 1 Love's Dream
- 2 Coming On (1)
- 3 She (Woman)
- 4 Roswita's Dance
- 5 Coming On (2)
- 6 HM Louis I
Release Details
- Label Emanem
- Date Nov 10 2003
- Country United Kingdom
- Format CD
- Catalogue # 4096
In
1971 Los Angeles based trumpeter Bobby Bradford arrived in London,
fresh from the sessions for Ornette Coleman's classic Science Fiction.
Soon he was hooked up with a group of young British musicians inspired
by Coleman, Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and the AACM. Among them was drummer
John Stevens;he and fellow players like alto saxophonist Trevor Watts
were also involved inthe nascent British free improv movement as well as
playing more conventionalfree jazz.
Bradford got involved with both scenes, but he was an odd fit with the pointillist abstractions of Steven's seminal Spontaneous Music Ensemble. In full on freebop mode (as with this album), he seems much more comfortable. Love's Dream was first released in 1974 and was recorded the previous year by label owner Martin Davidson during a week's residency at Paris jazz club Le Chat Qui Peche. Stevens and Watts are present, with fellow S.M.E. member and Anglocentrically inclined American Kent Carter on bass.
Stanley Crouch's liner notes to the original album are reproduced here (together with a slightly rueful note on Crouch's subsequent interest in 'more conservative areas of jazz'). Stan is (unsurprisingly) keen on placing Bradford in the lineage of Fats Navarro and Louis Armstrong, and he has a point. The cornettist'sunbroken, dynamic swing and advanced bebop melodics are miles away from Don Cherry's fractured lyricism. It's a nice fit with Watts' take on Ornette (laced with a spot of Eric Dolphy's reconstructed bop figures); listen to their quickfire exchange at the top end of 'Coming On'.
We get two versions of this piece, and listening to different takes of the same tune tells you a great deal about how a band operates. Davidson's notes suggest there was little in the way of fixed material other than the themes statements, but even these are dispatched loosely, as if the whole band had simultaneously happened across them by chance. Stevens' characteristically joyous swing keeps things close to boiling point; check his snare detonations on the title track, dodged by Bradford's agile cornet stabs.
Carter is tireless in support and often the most abstract in his solos (reflecting his S.M.E. experiences, perhaps). His dark, warm tone puts muscle on Steven's robust but intricate rhythmic skeletons, feeding Watts and Bradford a constant stream of ideas. Neither horn is stuck for inspiration in any case, and this fine release bears testimony to an unusual and highly successful collaboration. Very, very nice.
Bradford got involved with both scenes, but he was an odd fit with the pointillist abstractions of Steven's seminal Spontaneous Music Ensemble. In full on freebop mode (as with this album), he seems much more comfortable. Love's Dream was first released in 1974 and was recorded the previous year by label owner Martin Davidson during a week's residency at Paris jazz club Le Chat Qui Peche. Stevens and Watts are present, with fellow S.M.E. member and Anglocentrically inclined American Kent Carter on bass.
Stanley Crouch's liner notes to the original album are reproduced here (together with a slightly rueful note on Crouch's subsequent interest in 'more conservative areas of jazz'). Stan is (unsurprisingly) keen on placing Bradford in the lineage of Fats Navarro and Louis Armstrong, and he has a point. The cornettist'sunbroken, dynamic swing and advanced bebop melodics are miles away from Don Cherry's fractured lyricism. It's a nice fit with Watts' take on Ornette (laced with a spot of Eric Dolphy's reconstructed bop figures); listen to their quickfire exchange at the top end of 'Coming On'.
We get two versions of this piece, and listening to different takes of the same tune tells you a great deal about how a band operates. Davidson's notes suggest there was little in the way of fixed material other than the themes statements, but even these are dispatched loosely, as if the whole band had simultaneously happened across them by chance. Stevens' characteristically joyous swing keeps things close to boiling point; check his snare detonations on the title track, dodged by Bradford's agile cornet stabs.
Carter is tireless in support and often the most abstract in his solos (reflecting his S.M.E. experiences, perhaps). His dark, warm tone puts muscle on Steven's robust but intricate rhythmic skeletons, feeding Watts and Bradford a constant stream of ideas. Neither horn is stuck for inspiration in any case, and this fine release bears testimony to an unusual and highly successful collaboration. Very, very nice.
John Carter & Bobby Bradford
Among the 22 tracks compiled on the three-CD collection JOHN CARTER & BOBBY BRADFORD (Mosaic Select), 10 were released four decades ago by an obscure jazz label and the other 12 were unknown until now. Odds are you’ve never heard any of this astounding music before. In the middle of the last century, Carter and Bradford, who traveled in similar Texas jazz circles, were drawn to the same brilliant flame: the pioneering Fort Worth saxophonist Ornette Coleman. Carter, who played a number of instruments, jammed with Coleman in the late forties; trumpeter Bradford met Coleman in Dallas and later gigged with him in Los Angeles. When Carter also showed up in L.A., the two men quickly found each other. The spacious sound of Coleman’s early albums (Bradford nearly appeared on Coleman’s debut) looms large on the earlier sessions compiled here, which date from 1969 to 1972. The performances are by turns playful and disjointed, mournful and haunting. Like Coleman’s compositions, the tunes offer no chord changes to hang on to, though perhaps because of Carter’s formal training, the music feels more melodic and thematically tethered. Bradford plays full-bodied, Miles Davis–style trumpet runs, while Carter, who was best known in his later years for his clarinet work, reveals himself to be a fiery, impassioned saxophonist. The previously unreleased 1979 duet sessions, which make up the set’s third disc, are equally absorbing, if a bit more challenging. But for fans of modern jazz, everything here qualifies as a major find.
https://www.internationalphonographinc.com/the-john-carter-bobby-bradford-quartet-flight-for-four/
The John Carter & Bobby Bradford Quartet, Flight of Four
In this meticulously reissued CD version of the original vinyl, John
Carter and Bobby Bradford's quartet are at the peak of their creativity
in a breathtaking performance. Originally recorded in 1969 for Bob
Thiel’s Flying Dutchman label in Los Angeles, the playing crackles with
energy and purpose, yet remains accessible through its bluesy, melodic
foundation. Although the quartet seamlessly plays as an organic whole,
the musicians surge and recede on their own, playing with originality
and fire. As Phil Freeman of Burning Ambulance stated in his review:
“This is an amazing, joyous record that will reward any jazz fan who
seeks it out.”
https://markweber.free-jazz.net/2013/01/28/bobby-bradford-timeline-work-in-progress/
Bobby Bradford — April 22, 1978 — Los Angeles — photo by Mark Weber
BOBBY BRADFORD TIMELINE: work in progress
NOTE that not every recording session by Bobby
Bradford has been listed simply because a complete sessionography can
be found at the Tom Lord Discography. I am hoping that anyone with
additional biographical information on Bobby Bradford will add to the
Comments at bottom on page.
1934 — July 19
Bobby Lee Bradford born: Cleveland,
Mississippi, in the heart of the Delta — BB spent his years in Cleveland
at his family’s house at 313 Ruby Street (he was actually born in a
house a few doors down from there) — his mother: Bernice Bradford nee
Griffin (later she became Bernice Walker) — his father: Webb Eugene
Bradford — Bobby spent these years with four generations of his family
in the home, his mother’s mother Asalee Hemphill, (BB’s grandmother),
and her mother, Emma Ambrose (born c.1846)(BB’s great-grandmother) lived
with them:
SIDEBAR:“She lived to 93 and died when I was about 5, she was born back in Civil War times, back during slavery. She used to make soap, you know, collect the fat after cooking porkchops and mix that with lye in a great big black cast-iron pot in the backyard, and make soap. She’d slaughter pigs, she knew the most humane way to kill them, she was known for that. And she’d boil all the clothing, the cotton underwear, and sheets, socks, in her pot, to clean them, and add bluing to the pot, I never could figure out how you could add something so blue and it would make the clothes white. Remember Miles had a tune called “Bluing.” [telcon 21jan13]
For years I expectantly interrogated
Bobby about growing up in the epicenter of the blues, how there must
have been bluesmen playing guitars on every street corner, the Delta was
crawling with cats like Tommy Johnson, Willie Brown, Honeyboy Edwards,
Son House, Johnny Shines, Skip James, Sonny Boy Williamson, Ishmon
Bracey, hundreds of them in the 30s, before they all caught the train to
Chicago, Howlin’ Wolf resided in Ruleville, the next town over from
Cleveland, and Charlie Patton was stabbed by Bertha Lee in Cleveland the
year before Bobby was born! Now, Bobby has always said that yes there
were guitar players around but he mostly remembers the gospel quartets
singing on the corners and at gatherings, which, if you study the
ethnography is exactly correct, it’s just that my guitar-centric
generation focused on guitarists out of the Delta like Robert Johnson
and the Chatmons.
CHURCH:
I asked about religious affiliations: “We were all baptists.”
1940
age 7-9 — piano lessons in a group setting — lady teacher charges 25 cents per child
1944
“I was actually 11 ———I’ll tell you what
happened there: My biological father had left Mississippi I think in
1943 or maybe 1942 and gone to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to work in the aircraft
industry, because Douglas Aircraft, the big bomber-maker, the B-29 and
all that, those were made by Douglas Aircraft, and he was too old for
the draft, but a lot of black people, men especially, were leaving the
south going to work in the war industries, so he came to Tulsa, that
leaves me and my mom and my brother there in Cleveland. Well, whatever
happened, he began to sort of write to my mom less and less and things
got kind of strange. So, somewhere between the time he left, and I think
he only came back to visit once, uh, he and my mom agreed to disagree
and she hooked up with this guy, my stepfather, name of Augustus. And he
and my mom and my older brother Eugene we left Cleveland, Mississippi, I
think it was 1944, and came to Los Angeles, because he was looking for
work, too, except he had a brother here [L.A.] who had a couple grocery
stores, one in Bakersfield, and two in L.A. And we drove in a big old
maroon Pontiac, I remember that [chuckling] ’cause he was a mechanic,
and we came to L.A. and we stayed here, as I remember it, most of the
fall semester of 1944, and we went to a school up there where Dodger
Stadium is, called Palo Verde, about 99% Hispanic, and there were about
five or six black kids on the playground, including me and my brother,
and we were there, enrolled in the little elementary school from
September to about December or maybe January, then for whatever reason,
my stepfather and mom decided to go back to Gary, Indiana, because he
had another brother who worked the steel mills in Gary.
I guess he thought he could get an even
better job there. Well, so we drive across country. And we wound up
staying in Detroit, after the thing in Gary, Indiana, didn’t pan out,
and we stayed with a woman, she and my mother were the daughters of two
sisters, I forgot what you call that relationship? So, that would be
through the spring of 1946, ’cause that’s when we finally came to
Dallas, Texas — I’m losing some months along the way — But, one semester
we spent there in the public schools of Detroit, and by the summer of
1946, we’re being packed up and shipped, my brother and I, to come to
Dallas, Texas, because my natural father has now made his way to Dallas,
Texas, and we were going to be with him, because my stepfather and my
mom were in disagreement about something, which didn’t include the two
boys, so you see we were kind of shipped around there, but we wound up
in Dallas, Texas, that summer, I think June maybe or July of 1946 [MW
says: Summer of 1946 is an absolute date?] Yes, that’s absolute, the
summer of 1946, because when school starts in September I’ll be in the
6th grade and my brother in the 8th grade. And we went to a little
school there in East Dallas, ’cause you know the black schools didn’t
have a middle school or a junior high. Elementary school went 1 through
8. And high school went 9 through 12.
Well, I was at this elementary school
grades six, seven, and eight. Where my brother was there only one year.
Because he was in the 8th grade and so he went right on over to high
school, he was almost three years older than me, he’s 2 years and 7
months older than me. So, that’s a certain date, that summer of 1946.
[MW asks: Wasn’t Eugene one of those guys that worked in marketing and
could create little snappy phrases to sell products?] Oh yeh, but not
when we were kids, you know he was a really great illustrator, in fact
when he graduated from high school he moved back to Detroit and was
staying with that same woman that we’d stayed with when we were younger
who, she and my mother were daughters of two sisters, I guess that would
make them first cousins, wouldn’t it? Something like that. Anyway, he
went back and stayed with her again and went to that same school that a
lot of jazz guys went to, Cass Tech, and he took the illustration
courses and was doing illustrations for magazines and stuff like that,
and he decided after he got married, to move to Los Angeles, I forget
when, but he got jobs doing illustrations for magazines and the Yellow
Pages and stuff like that, and little by little he found himself working
for CBS, as an illustrator, long before guys were doing anything
digital, this is when you had to be able to draw. And the advertising
thing sort of hooked up with that.
That’s when he showed that he had a knack
for advertising. Little advertising jingles and things like that. [MW
asks where did Eugene live when he worked for CBS?] Oh, right over there
where Rodney King got in that mess, what they call Lake View Terrace,
right across from Hansen Dam. [MW asks if Eugene followed jazz very
closely?] Not really. He was a big fan of Billy Eckstine, but that was
only because of Billy Eckstine’s wardrobe [chuckles]. Let’s see now, if
he graduated from high school in 1950, but you’re asking about jazz? Oh,
I don’t think he had any awareness of things like Thad Jones, and
Donald Byrd, and all that crowd, and Doug Watkins, and all those people
that went to Cass Tech. Except that, Detroit is the sort of city where a
lot of those guys are playing for things around town besides the
hardcore jazz, but you see, the jazz community is sort of tightly knit,
even in a big city like Detroit, and I’m sure on some occasion he ran
across guys like Frank Foster, but just socially. There was one part of
Detroit where there was a big gymnasium where everybody went, where kids
who were interested in boxing, and there was an indoor pool, called the
Brewster Center, and his is the heart of black East Detroit. When we
were there, like 1946 or whatever, it was just amazing to us that in the
winter with snow on the ground we could go to the Brewster Center and
go swimming [chuckles]. Because we were just right up from Mississippi,
you know, except for that short period in L.A., man, we thought this is
Planet X.” [telcon with MW March 9, 2o18 from his home in Altadena]
1945
Father & mother, begin to separate — father moves to Tulsa to work at Douglas Aircraft defense plant
1945
Left Cleveland, Mississippi by car w/
mother, step-father and brother Eugene (his only sibling) “age 10 or 11”
moved to Chavez Ravine, attends school only the fall semester THEN they
all traveled by car to Detroit and stayed not quite a year — arrives
winter of 1945? January 1946?
stepfather: Augustus Walker
1945
Spelling bee champ — Trowbridge Elementary, Detroit, Michigan
1946
Summer [this date is definite] he and
brother moved to (East) Dallas, Texas, and lived with his father (this
would be 6th Grade )
1949
Freshman year at Lincoln High School,
Dallas with Cedar Walton, James Clay, David Fathead Newman — started on
trumpet this year, 1949, “Started on cornet in 1950 or late 1949 but I
didn’t get into the band till fall 1950. One of my neighbors saw me
packin’ that horn case and turned me onto a 78rpm with Fats and Dexter. I
was hooked!!!” [BB email to MW 27dec2o12] — this would be the 78s:
Dexter Gordon & His Boys, w/ Fats Navarro & Tadd Dameron,
“Dextrose,” “Index,” “Dextivity” recorded December 22, 1947 — the
pianist L.J. Bomar is the neighbor in East Dallas who turned him onto
bebop:
“One day he called me and said: Listen to this. It was Fats Navarro and Dexter Gordon. It knocked me out of my socks.” [interview with Greg Burk, June 2003]
James Clay interview — CODA #178 (April 1981) —-
“. . . when I went to high school, J.R. Miller and James White were my two instructors . . . . . this was when the Jazz at the Philharmonic was going strong and they used to play ‘Blue Room’ which was one of the first things I learned. It was by Flip Phillips . . . and sometimes they would play a ballad by Gene Ammons, ‘My Foolish Heart.’ . . . .Then I started taking band and that’s where I met Cedar Walton. He was already a piano player but I wasn’t aware of it. He was trying to learn the clarinet. A trumpet player named Bobby Bradford and I went by Cedar’s one day after band practice and this is where I got my head opened, because that’s the first bebop I ever heard. [ I believe JC is referring to hearing 78rpm recordings of bebop] . . . . There was a Fort Worth cat, a hell of a player named Red Connors . . . I didn’t know much about music then but I knew he was good. Bobby and I started to go to clubs and we would just tell the cats, ‘We ain’t gonna drink, we just come here to hear the band,’ we’d get into a corner and stay out of the way so they’d let us in. Used to be a club on Washington called The Disc Jockey, and we used to go to the Rose Room. They’d let us in there, we’d go get a corner and squat and watch. That’s the first place I heard Sonny Stitt. And by this time James Moody and all those people started to come there . . . . . I was playing in joints myself then, I started gigging about my junior year in high school. The first regular gig I got was at the Harmony Lounge. I worked there six nights a week with Lee Cooper and John Hardee, and I was going to high school. They were playing ‘Cherokee’ and all this bop, I wasn’t fuckin’ with no blues, went right into that bop thing. Those cats made me practice, man! . . . . Buster Smith told me you can’t learn anything from somebody who can’t play as good as you! . . . .” — interview by Tim Schuller [redacted by MW]
1949
We were talking about the practice of
dropping bombs in jazz drumming — I was saying how Chick Webb was known
for his commentary with something like “bombs,” before they became
standard part of the Bebop vocabulary. BB said it wasn’t exactly the
same. I asked Bobby to define bombs: “Bombs are placement of a bass drum
shot in an unexpected place.” Bobby said in high school in Dallas there
was a group called: Luther Charles Bell & His Bombshells. BB noted
how you wouldn’t use the term “bombshells” these days, that it’s sort’ve
dated, came into the vernacular after World War One. “He was a tenor
player and was a couple years ahead of me, when he graduated I got his
band uniform.” (You had to buy your own uniforms in those days — Do you
still? — And so it was common to get a previous member’s uniform.)
Luther’s band was not really a serious working band (quintet: sax,
trumpet, bass, drums, piano) but played some of the school dances in the
Gene Ammons-Jimmy Forrest-Illinois Jacquet vein. [telcon w/ BB
2july2o16]
1951-1952
member of Buster Smith’s band based out
of Dallas — he and James Clay were the horn section, and Buster by this
time wasn’t playing sax (bad teeth) but was on electric bass, “He had an
old pickup truck we traveled in.” They had midnite-2am gig at a
Hillbilly joint — John Hardee was mentor to James Clay these years, and
Bradford by association — Clay was one year younger than BB,
“He was still on alto, and then his first year in high school he switched to tenor, he was a big fan of Stan Getz, and he got one of those see-through red mouthpieces that Getz had, and he could sing all of Stan’s solos” [telcon 11jan13]
1951 — October
attends J.A.T.P. w/ Dizzy, Prez, Harry
Edison, Jimmy Jones, Oscar Peterson, Tommy Turk, Flip Phillips in Dallas
— “Me and James Clay went backstage and talked with Lester.” [telcon
w/BB 2012] — at Fair Park Music Hall, Dallas — the 11th annual National
JATP Tour — graduated high school mid-year (January 1952). Graduated on a
Friday and by Monday was in college
1952 — January
Begins college at Sam Houston College,
Austin, Texas, (now called Huston-Tillotson College, a black Methodist
school) — Summer off from college, stayed in Texas — September — back to
Sam Houston College — till June 1953 — ( Receives B.A. degree from this
same college ten years later)
*dorm
roommate was saxophonist Leo Wright — BB had the top bunk and Leo had
the bottom, “in those days each guy had a steamer trunk, remember those?
with drawers, well, that was your wardrobe”
*Heard
Ornette for the first time at Charles Moffett’s wedding jam session at
Victory Grill, Austin. Ornette was Moffett’s best man.
*John
Gilmore was stationed outside Austin at Bergstrom Air Force Base and
would come into town on weekends for jam sessions, “Baad mutherfucker!
There were only a few guys at school who could play with him, and that
would be Leo Wright, and this other (sax) guy, Marcus Adams”
1953 — June
Moved to Los Angeles — “Probably on the train or the Greyhound, I certainly didn’t have a car then”
*Ran into Ornette on streetcar (the renowned Red Car of that era that ran between downtown and Long Beach)*Member of Ornette’s band 1953-1954 (OC bought his first plastic alto) — the band at this time was Blackwell and on piano, Floyd Howard
* Worked at Bullocks, Wilshire Blvd — 2 years w/ Coleman also, as elevator operator
*Bobby has 1941 Chrysler that the band uses
*Sat
in with Joe Maini and Herb Geller @ The Tip Top, “Joe was especially
nice to me. I never played with Lorraine.” [Email 28dec12 ] —
“There used to be a club down at 3rd and Main called The Tip Top, sort of a gay bar, and we played there Friday and Saturday nights. Sunday at 6 in the morning was a jam session and it would be packed. That was sort of the red light district in those days. Nobody would go to bed Saturday night, we’d go out to the beach and fool around, because if you went to bed you would never get up for that. Then we’d play to around 11:30 or 12 and then go home to bed.” [MW interview w/BB 17sept76]
*These
are Bobby’s jam session years — I asked if he was ever on the set with
Shorty Rogers, Bud Shank, Joe Mondragon these years:
“Yes, I did sit in with that crowd, so
did OC and Don Cherry. That crowd included Stu Williamson, Joe Maini,
Herb Geller, Herbie Steward, Onzy Matthews, Jack Sheldon. Bill Holman
was still active on tenor. By the way, the bass player’s name is
pronounced just like it looks, monDRAGON.” [email 4jan13 ]
1953 — October 30
Bobby caught Bird three times, all in Los
Angeles — the first time is probably this date: Bird at a large
auditorium downtown presented by Gene Norman as the opening concert of a
package tour called “West Coast in Jazz” (that ran up the Pacific Coast
and ended on November 9) and emcee Gene Norman came out and says:
“Ladies and gentleman: The Bird, Charlie Parker! and Bird didn’t come
out, and so GN says, again: Ladies and gentlemen: The Bird, Charlie
Parker! and finally Bird comes running out in a hurry wearing that
famous black velvet jacket, and had his hair in that Quo Vadis style
that was around for a minute, both blacks and whites were wearing it —
Bird obviously had his hair long enough he could do that, he had it
fried and konked and combed forward like bangs across his forehead, like
the movie Quo Vadis, which was big at the time” — [movie released Nov.
1951 ] —
“Then, a week later Frank Morgan had his hair in a Quo Vadis when I ran into him at the California Club!” [telcon w/ BB 27dec12 ]
*BB is positive he never caught Bird at the Shrine Auditorium
1953 — Sunday, November 15
[ this date is solid speculation, a
proposal, but not that far-flung if you take into consideration the book
BIRD’s DIARY by Ken Vail (1996) and the books on Chet Baker, and Max
Roach, and Brownie, and Ornette; and the stories & interviews of
Howard Rumsey, Clora Bryant, Herb Geller, Don Heckman, Don Cherry, Teddy
Edwards from the various Los Angeles legendarium provided by the jazz
scholar Kirk Silsbee] — The second time BB caught Bird would be at
Five-Four Ballroom (54th & Broadway) aka 5/4 Ballroom — BB remembers
the band was Chet Baker, Amos Trice(p), Jimmy Bunn(p), Lawrence
Marable(d), and Bird allowed a lady singer to sit on for one song and
she sang some popular ballad like “Harbor Lights” and he remembers a lot
of people dancing to Bird’s music
1954 — Friday January 8Bud Powell begins a several week’s long gig at The Haig, downtown Los Angeles with a local trio of Chuck Thompson(drums) and Curtis Counce(bass). [See Peter Pullman’s biography on Bud WAIL (2o12) pp205-209 for details] Bobby Bradford attended one of the nights before the gig was cancelled by John Bennett, manager of The Haig, before the second week ended due to erratic performances.
1954 — March 1 – 4
the third time BB caught Bird was one of
these nights at the Tiffany [this date is certain, whereas the other two
Bird sightings for BB are speculative dates] — this is also the
engagement where Ornette caught Bird, but BB doesn’t remember being
there same night as OC
1954
member of rhythm & blues band King
Perry & His Pied Pipers based out of Los Angeles who toured the
coast from San Diego to Vancouver and over into Canada: Calgary,
Alberta, Moosejaw, Saskatoon — Spring of 1954 recorded 78rpm w/ King
Perry “Christopher Columbus” and “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be”
BB confirms that he did play at a jam session with Kenny Drew at
Zardi’s (6315 Hollywood Blvd, near Vine Street) also Walter Benton that
afternoon and Lawrence Marable, Don Cherry, Jimmy Bond (bass) — Clifford
Brown came by but didn’t play [telcon w/BB 5dec15]
1954 — March
Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet forms in
Los Angeles. They have extended gig at California Club (Santa Barbara
& Western Avenue) and their rhythm section plays the Monday Night
Jam Sessions, “I think it was a night off for Clifford, or something,
but it would only be Max and Bledsoe and I think Carl Perkins,” where
BB, Eric Dolphy, Walter Benton, Teddy Edwards, Don Cherry, sit in — some
nights Wardell Gray leads the jam session — It was during these jam
sessions that BB shared the stage with Clifford Brown, and had a chance
to talk with him, merely about things that trumpet players talk about
among themselves, “He was very cordial” — He remembers the first time he
caught Clifford at this club, he was standing next to Rolf Ericson, who
was so flushed with disbelief at what he was hearing, and what a high
level this young newcomer on the trumpet scene had achieved, that his
face turned red — (It was also at the California Club where BB first
heard Bud Powell play live) — SO, I asked about the Sunday afternoon jam
sessions at Zardi’s and BB confirmed that yes, Clifford Brown was a
participant, along with Walter Benton, Kenny Drew, Dolphy — I asked if
Curtis Counce was at these jam sessions, and he says he mostly felt a
“bad vibe” off of Counce, “He was one of the big anti-Coleman guys
around then, actively against anything Ornette was doing” –[telcon w/BB
11jan13] — Even though there is no present documentation of Clifford
Brown-Max Roach playing Zardi’s, Bobby is certain of the actuality of
this — Zardi’s aka Zardi’s Jazzland
1954 — April
Bobby as member of Big Jim Wynn’s R&B
band featuring an exotic dancer who sang — Club Alimony, Main Street
(at 97th), Los Angeles — thanks to Kirk Silsbee for finding this in
Chazz Crawford’s column for the California Eagle
(April 1, 1954) who wrote: “Best girlie show is at the Club Alimony at
97th and Main! Sharp enuf, with Frances Neeley, Sylvia Moon, Donna Jean,
and Florine Collette (blondah than ever!)” — also at this club, quite
possibly on same bill, was Redd Foxx, and Johnny Otis
1954
BB remembers jam sessions on Sunday
afternoons in Hollywood at a place called The Big Top where he played
with Bill Holman one time, “a good tenor man!”
1954-1958
Drafted into U.S. Air Force — reported
for service: December 28, 1954 – October 1958 — “opted to go to Air
Force instead of Army” served 4 years, he was offered “two months early
out” — this is when Don Cherry takes BB’s place in Ornette’s band — BB
stationed at various locations around Texas: Waco, San Antonio, etc — 46
months total
1957
Marriage to Melba Moore (aka Melba Joyce)
while in the military (they divorce in 1970) — she is the daughter of
singer Melvin Moore, who recorded with Dizzy Gillespie and toured with
big bands — Melba now lives in NYC
twins Karl & Keith born — Karl now
resides in Saugus, in the Santa Clarita Valley, same town that Red
Callendar lived the last part of his life — and Keith is a long-time
resident of Pasadena
I received a letter from the poet Jack Saunders in Florida after he’d seen the BB Timeline:
“I was in the war with Bobby Bradford. At Waco, Texas, in 1957. We drove to Dallas on weekends for jam sessions at Woodman Hall. The house band included James Clay and Leroy Cooper. I visited him in San Antonio after they broke up the band in Waco and he was transferred to San Antonio. He was going to the University of Texas and working as a porter in a bowling alley. He said some day he’d like to be on the cover of Downbeat but right then he would settle for a big chicken dinner.” [written correspondence 17july13]
Further correspondence:
“I was in the band at Waco with Bobby Bradford. I played drums. On weekends we drove to Dallas and he played at Woodman Hall. The house band was the Red Tops. Leroy Cooper on baritone sax. He played with James Clay. When Ray Charles came to North Texas State, Clay and David Newman had tenor battles in Dallas. When they broke the band at Waco up, Bobby was stationed in San Antonio at Randolph Air Force Base. I’d say he was in San Antonio in 1958.” [email from Jack Saunders 26mar14]
NOTE
that John Carter in the 1970s wrote a tune “Woodman Hall Blues”
commemorating his times there which appears on his album VARIATIONS
(Moers Records, 1979). John spoke often of the jam sessions there and so
has Bobby.
1958
daughter Kathy born and at age 10 months
dies in auto accident when a bus hit Melba’s car in Austin, while she
was driving. Kathy was born at Ft Sam Houston Army Hospital while BB was
stationed at San Antonio and then after discharge from San Antonio they
moved to Austin where BB attended 3 semesters at UTEP before he was
awarded a scholarship to return to Huston-Tillotson College. (telcon 17may2o14)
1958
Worked around Dallas area with Ray
Charles band, “Either one of the trumpet players got arrested or didn’t
show up or something and Marcus Belgrave pulled me in to play, ’cause
Ray was using two trumpets and three saxophones. In fact, Marcus got me
in Quincy Jones’ band in New York. It was a brief period with Ray
Charles, until this other guy got out of jail or whatever.” [ Interview with Kirk Silsbee, May 17, 1989 — appeared in CADENCE, January 1996]
1959After military service enrolled at University of Texas, Austin — started with the 2nd semester in January
1959-1960
gigging around Austin regularly — “a hip
little club on the north side of UT (University of Texas) called the
Cliche, that was in the part of town known back then as The Drag —
played there with Jimmy Ford, a good white tenor player, those were just
quartets, quintets, I even remember playing there with just a bass and
drums — Jimmy Ford was from Texas, he’d played with Kai Winding and Tadd
Dameron and Red Rodney, but he was from somewhere in Texas” (telcon 26apr14)
1960 — July 19
daughter Carmen born in Austin (Bobby’s 26th birthday, coincidently) — she now resides in Atlanta
1960 — December 21
Ornette’s FREE JAZZ double-quartet
session — OC had contacted BB to be a participant but BB couldn’t get
away from studies at college
1961 – Friday November 3Discussing with BB the compositional elements that went into John Coltrane’s “Impressions,” Bobby reveals that he and Ornette, and Moffat, were out clubbing that night, having just worked a couple weeks in early October at the Five Spot, and were in the Village Vanguard the night the Coltrane Quartet recorded the monumental “Impressions” —- this first released version was from November 3 and the one we all grew up with on the Impulse! album of same name, where Tyner lays out for most of the almost
15 minutes and leaves tenor, bass, and drums. Bobby recalls Dolphy on stage as well, of which, Dolphy was on this tune on the November 2 & 3 recorded versions, found in the box set COMPLETE 1961 VILLAGE VANGUARD RECORDINGS, so, Bobby could have been at either of these 3 nights. [Interviews w/ MW & BB 26 & 30 July 2o18]
1961-1962
Member of Ornette’s Quartet in NYC —
Bobby re-joins the group in June of 1961 replacing Don Cherry although
there was some cross-over of trumpet duties that summer — plays Five
Spot, 5 Cooper Square, Bowery, East Village w/ Moffett and Jimmy
Garrison in the band — they played July 17-August 19 and again September
11-October 15, 1961[Litweiler, ibid.] (Ornette’s final recording
session for Atlantic was March 27, 1961 — a photo of this quartet exists
in Atlantic Studios that dates from 1961 — if recordings exist they
were lost in the infamous Atlantic vault fire)
*( I asked BB where he first met Mingus)
” I met Mingus while at the Five Spot,
sometimes he would come to the club to catch the band. Once, I sat there
and listened to him try to get OC to make a tour as the warm-up band
for him. OC refused and Mingus stormed out of the club and drove off in
an old Buick convertible that needed a muffler. He was beginning to gain
weight and was wearing a bowler. This was 61 or 62.” [ Email 2jan2o12 ]
*BB & family live at 310 East 4th Street (Moffett lived in these apartments, also)
*BB makes the Cincinnati gig w/Ornette (a band that included Steve Lacy) although the band didn’t perform*see John Litweiler bio on OC — David Wild OC discography posits “circa June 1961” with a double-quartet: BB/Cherry, Lacy/OC, Garrison/Art Davis, Blackwell/Moffett *BB says, “Not actually a recording date, just rehearsal”
*June 1962 Ornette Coleman Quartet (BB, Moffett, Izenzon) played a week at the Jazz Gallery NYC opposite Lambert, Hendricks, & Bavan w/Gildo Mahones
*It was during this time (1962) that Bobby subbed in Quincy Jones’ band for his old Air Force buddy Marcus Belgrave while MB straightened out some issues with his cabaret card
*BB also worked in what he calls “pre-salsa” bands
*NOTE that during BB’s 2-year tenure in Ornette’s Quartet at this time he was back & forth to Dallas visiting family and taking jobs “during flat spots” in OC’s bookings — BB finally leaves NYC and Ornette’s band Fall 1962 to return to college
*Ornette performs and releases TOWN HALL concert (ESP Records) in December 1962 but BB was gone by then
1961
Bobby participates in famous photo by
Herb Snitzer “Twenty-two trumpeters in Central Park” NYC w/ Don Ferrara,
Charlie Shavers, Dizzy Gillespie, Booker Little, Roy Eldridge, Herman
Autrey, Red Allen, Nick Travis, Yank Lawson, Buck Clayton, Joe Thomas,
Ernie Royal, Doc Severinsen, Max Kaminsky, Booker Little, Freddie
Hubbard, Dizzy Reece, Joe Newman, Ted Curson, Clark Terry, et al.
1962
Leroi Jones publishes his essay
“Introducing Bobby Bradford in KULCHUR, the Greenwich Village bohemian
literary arts magazine, which was later reproduced in Leroi’s
influential book BLACK MUSIC(1968) — BB was 27 years old at the time of
the interview and working at the 5 Spot with the Coleman Quartet — BB
still uses Leroi’s monumental book BLUES PEOPLE, among others, in his
jazz history courses
1962 — September
Returns to Texas and Huston-Tillotson
College, Austin, where earns Bachelor of Arts degree — graduates June
1963 — bachelor’s recital of Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto
1962 — September or October or November or December
(telcon 26apr14)
I mentioned to BB that Janis Joplin went to UT in Austin around that
time and he said a friend reminded him of the night Janis sat in with a
band he was working with at Charlie’s Playhouse on 11th Street near the
Victory Grill, on the east side of Austin — “I didn’t realize it then,
of course, or remember until he reminded me, that this young girl with
the sandy complexion and that big voice sat in with the band” — I asked
if it was R&B or jazz and BB figures it must have been R&B —
Janis Joplin was enrolled at UT from the summer 1962 through December
1962 (p45 biography SCARS OF SWEET PARADISE by Alice Echols)
1963-64
teaches the school year, Sept-June, as
band director @ Ralph Bunch High School, Crockett, Texas “the year that
Kennedy was assassinated” — Crockett, population 5,000 in 1960, is 120
miles southeast of Dallas
Many years ago BB had mentioned visiting
the Texas songster Mance Lipscomb, so I asked (telcon 26apr14) where
that happened and BB said it was during the time he was living in
Crockett, “You could take a little bottle of whisky and he’d be on his
front porch playing guitar . . . Navasota, where he lived, was just a
stone’s throw from Crockett”
1963 — November 22
I’ve always wanted to ask Bobby what it
was like living in a small Texas town a hundred miles south of Dallas on
that horrible day. “Well, first off, Crockett is a little further than a
hundred miles, it had a very small black community, and everybody knows
everybody else’s business.” Not too many days after that day the FBI
showed up at Bobby’s house in Crockett. It was a weekend and Melba and
the children were in Dallas visiting her family. The agents came inside
and spread out a bunch of 8×10 photos on his bed and followed up various
leads. Bradford had worked for Jack Ruby and his telephone number,
along with all other musicians who’d worked at Ruby’s strip club, had
been scrawled on the wall near the pay phone at the club — this was
Ruby’s contact list. BB says that the rumor around town was that Ruby
had killed Oswald not out of retaliation for JFK’s assassination but
because the policeman that Oswald had killed as he fled the Book
Depository had been Ruby’s gay lover.
1964 — June
moves family by car to Los Angeles where
his brother and mother were already settled and stayed with his mother
in the Valley, in the town of Pacoima — Returning after
“Having not been here since I was in the Air Force, ten years later, and I’ve been here ever since” [Silsbee interview, ibid.]
1964
Bobby subs in Bill Green’s ensemble at
Marty’s on the Hill, 5005 S. La Brea, Baldwin Hills, a prominent jazz
club during the 60s co-owned by Martin “Marty” Zuniga and trumpeter
Bobby Bryant, and managed by
KBCA disk jockey Tommy Bee [telcon with
record producer Tom Albach 31jan2o13 — Tom was at Marty’s often and
remembers Tommy Bee as the manager, “His theme song on his radio show
was Miles’ version of The Duke”] — Bill Green was a renowned woodwinds
master and studio musician who was instrumental, along with his close
friend, Buddy Collette, in the amalgamation of the black & white
Musician Unions in the early 50s — this would also be the period when BB
would play in Gerald Wilson’s Orchestra
1964
I asked Bobby when he first caught Miles:
“Hollywood Bowl in 64 with Wayne Shorter,
Herbie, Tony Williams, Ron Carter. And I can’t count the times I saw
him in New York before that. I saw him with Wynton Kelly, and with Bill
Evans, caught him at the Jazz Gallery, the Village Gate, the Vanguard.
You know, some places will let you come in if they know your face, and
let you stand at the bar and sip a drink. I even caught him in some club
in the Bay Area, in the 60s. And I caught him at Shellys.”
1965
moved to Pomona, California, east of Los
Angeles on Rt.10 — residence: 2254 Belinda, Pomona — got a job working
in San Bernardino as workman’s comp insurance claims adjuster for the
State of California
daily 30-minute drive to work
1965 — August 11-17
Watts Riots, probably more properly
referred to as the Watts Uprising — “I’m not black but there’s a whole
lot of times I wish I could say I’m not white” — Frank Zappa in his song
about the riots “Trouble Coming Every Day”
1965 — August 22 through September 2
Louis Armstrong booked at the Royal
Tahitian in Ontario, California (2525 E. Riverside Drive) and Bobby was
there one evening — BB not sure this is where the wonderful photo
backstage of his children Carl & Keith standing on both sides of
Louis and Carmen sitting in his lap “probably taken by Melba” their
mother simply because there is no Polynesian decor in the photo and that
he had also taken his family to see Louis in these years at Disneyland
and the photo could be from that location.
1966-1972
elementary school teacher — 6th grade —
La Puente, eighteen miles west of Pomona on Rt.10 — most probably begins
this teaching position the school year 1966-1967 — BB teaches here
through the 1971-1972 school year, after which he spend most of 1973 in
England. It was while he was employed thusly when Stanley Crouch set him
up with a position at Cal State Dominguez Hills, Carson, teaching Jazz
History and small ensemble improv — (BB was teaching here by the time of
Frank Kofsky interview January 1970) — in a 1977 JAZZ magazine it is
reported BB taught 5 years in this capacity. [ An anomaly exists in the
Timeline that we’re endeavoring to sort out: BB very much remembers
being employed by workman’s comp in San Bernardino when he met John for
the first time, which was definitely May or June 1967. So, maybe he
began teaching 6th grade in La Puente the following year?]
1967
Met John Carter — (Worked with JC from
1967-1991)(John had moved to L.A. in 1961 from Ft Worth) It was
Ornette’s suggestion to John that he and Bobby get together — (John
would conduct Ornette’s orchestral work “Inventions of Symphonic Poems”
in May 1967 at the UCLA Jazz Festival) — “John had called me after I had
moved to Pomona and he and Gloria and the kids came to visit so John
could talk to me about the band he wanted to form. And once or twice a
week I would drive out to Los Angeles to rehearse. He already had Bruz
and I think there had been another bass player before Tom, but by the
time I came on board, it was Tom.” — They form the collective The New
Art Jazz Quartet — in the early years they rehearse twice a week,
eventually public performances in Los Angeles area at Century City
Playhouse, Occidental College, Shelly’s Manne-Hole, Ice House, Cal State
Jazz Festival, Watts Festival — the band was a quartet & quintet
with Bruz Freeman, drums; Tom Williamson & Henry Franklin, basses —
an audition tape was created from a session most probably at Studio
Watts — this recording is certainly from before they met John William
Hardy and were working up a tape to submit to Lester Koenig of
Contemporary Records (one wonders if the actual audition tape exists?)
Another tape exists (7 1/2″ reel-to-reel one channel) from this same
time period — this is some streamlined modern bebop, Bruz is killing,
all original tunes, John on alto throughout except clarinet on one
piece; Bobby on trumpet; piano is Bill Henderson — over a half dozen
tunes, quite enlightening (I refer to these as “The Belinda Recordings”
because that is the address listed on the reel-to-reel box) — NOTE that
John Carter is on record saying that he and Bob (JC called BB “Bob” or
sometimes “Robert Lee”) first met in 1965 but BB recollects that it had
to be after Ornette’s UCLA performance of “Inventions of Symphonic
Poems, because I didn’t know about that performance, I was living in
Pomona and still had the job with workman’s comp, so this would be when
John got my number from Ornette” — the Belinda Recordings are probably
1967 — BB says they might have used his Wollensack reel-to-reel for this
but also remembers playing a formal audition for Koenig, who said,
“There’s nothing new about this band,” whereupon JC told BB that this
was all a big mistake [telcon 11jan13 ]
* in
the interview with Fred Jung, 13may03, “A Fireside Chat with Bobby
Bradford” BB says that NAJE rehearsed Tuesday and Thursday evenings for
about a year before their first job, “We rehearsed right across the
street from the red car stop where we took the photos [JW Hardy photos
for album SEEKING] other artists used the space as well (Studio Watts,
10311 Grandee Street, just off 103rd). I think the space was one of the
things Larry Hagman and others helped make possible in the wake of the
riots and the rebuild process. Hagman just died recently.” [BB email 4jan13 ]
It was at Studio Watts or at The Watts Happening Coffee House around
the corner in the Mafundi building during this time that Bobby met
Stanley Crouch. And he and Stanley have remained close till this day,
keeping in touch via telephone
* BB
verified that he remembers Century City Playhouse as being one of their
first gigs (this is years before Lee Kaplan booked CCP) because he
remembers Wilber Morris showed up, and they hadn’t seen each other since
boot camp together in northern California, near Pleasanton — I told him
that Frank Kofsky has them playing at the Ash Grove, but BB doesn’t
think so, he does remember hilarious story when he went to see Lightnin’
Hopkins there and the union had sent over a bass player who was having
trouble with Lightnin’s music,
“because you know, Lightnin’ would add
extra bars, and extra beats,” and this bass was giving Lightnin’ some
grief, and Lightnin’ smirked and said: “Just follow me, sonny.” [telcon 11jan13]
1968 — January?
the February 8, 1968 issue of dOWNBEAT
(Vol. 35, #3) reports New Art Jazz Ensemble giving their “first public
performance” at the Century City Playhouse, presented by concert
producer Ray Bowman [researched by Bret Sjerven] — Bret also speculates
that this could be where John Hardy first heard the group
1968 — Sunday April 7 at 4:30 The New Art Jazz Ensemble performs at Century City Playhouse, 10508 W. Pico Blvd ———— As reported in the Calendar Events of L.A. TIMES (April 4, 1968) and research by Steven Isoardi > MW
1968 — April 29 at 8:30pm
The New Art Jazz Ensemble — Bobby Bradford, trumpet; John Carter, reeds; Tom Williamson, bass; Bruz Freeman, drums —- at The Ice House, 24 N. Mentor Avenue, Pasadena, California
1968 — August 5
Listed with Ornette Coleman Quintet at
Fillmore West, San Francisco (Ornette, alto, trumpet, violin; “Robert
Bradford trpt”; Dewey Redman, tenor; Denardo, drums; Charlie Haden,
bass) (see concert poster p153 in book THE ART OF ROCK by Paul Grushkin)
— “I didn’t make that gig. I’m on the poster, but I wasn’t there, I
can’t remember why.”
1968 — August 11
performs with Ornette Coleman at
University of California, Berkeley, Hearst Greek Theatre w/ ensemble
includes Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Denardo Coleman, and a string
section from San Francisco Symphony performing “Sun Suite” (Bobby on the
unissued tracks — some of this concert released on album ORNETTE AT 12
(Impulse))
1968 — November 10
Watts Happening Coffee House, 1802 E.
103rd Street, Watts — Cultural afternoon 2-8pm — ( entry 75 cents ) — w/
Elaine Brown’s Revolutionary Song; Horace Tapscott’s New Black Music;
New Art Jazz Ensemble; Semaj & Suttal’s Music of the East; and Black
poets [Kirk Silsbee archives]
1969 — January 16
record their first album SEEKING (Revelation Records — Rev-9) at Occidental College in Herrick Lounge
1969 — January 21 at 8:30pm The New Art Jazz Ensemble — Bobby Bradford, John Carter, Tom Williamson, Bruz Freeman —- at the Ash Grove, 8161 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California
1969 — April 3
records album FLIGHT FOR FOUR (Flying
Dutchman) as the John Carter & Bobby Bradford Quartet at United
Recorders, 6050 W. Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, probably Studio B,
engineered by Eddie Brackett [quod vide Bret Sjerven] — BB says the
first time he met Bob Thiele was in Wilber Morris’ garage-studio in
Watts (Wilber would shortly thereafter relocate to San Francisco) — this
session has been listed at “April 1” in previous discographies, but on
April 1 Bob Thiele was preoccupied with recording Horace Tapscott’s
Flying Dutchman album.
1970
BB teaching a jazz history course (jazz
history courses were in their nascent stages at this time, BB and
Stanley Crouch were trailblazers in this regard) at Cal State Dominguez
Hills — this position most likely began school year of 1969-1970, ie.
began September 1969 — BB had a 1969 Chevy Nova and would leave La
Puente, where he still taught 6th grade, and jump on the San Bernardino
Freeway (Interstate Rt.10) and barely make it the 30 miles to his 4pm
class at Cal State on 190th Street [telcon 22dec12 ]
work for Motown in Los Angeles — this was
during the time Diana Ross had a hit with “Ain’t No Mountain High
Enough” and Berry Gordy was working up a big band situation for a gig
Diana had in Las Vegas — Bobby can’t remember where exactly the
rehearsals were but they were not at the Union — Gordy brought together a
standard 16- or 17-piece jazz big band for a read-through of the
charts, just to test the waters, and for Diana to sing — Besides himself
on trumpet he remembers Al Aarons, also; and John Carter played alto;
Fred Smith on tenor; and Berry Gordy was there handing out charts and
supervising — they read-down the hit and the entire batch of
arrangements
1970 — January 25
John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quartet w/
Bruz Freeman, Tom Williamson — Foshay Junior High School concert — (Eric
Dolphy went to this school c.1940-1941 — in California, a junior high
school comprises the 7th and 8th grades, ages 13 and 14)
1970 — February 8
John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quartet, w/ Bruz & Tom — Foshay Junior High School
1970 — Sunday March 8 at 3pm John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quartet w/ Tom Williamson & Bruz Freeman — at Foshay Junior High School, 3715 S. Harvard Blvd, Los Angeles — sponsored by the Society for the Preservation of Black Music
1970 — May 31
John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quartet w/ Bruz & Tom — Foshay Junior High School
1970 — summer
records SELF DETERMINATION MUSIC (Flying
Dutchman) same quartet as previous Flying Dutchman record plus Henry
Franklin so that there are two bass players, a format BB utilizes often
in subsequent years — Bob Thiele takes them into TTG Studios, 1441 N.
McCadden Place, Hollywood, engineered by Ami Hadani [quod vide Bret
Sjerven] — credit for Henry as the other bass player was mistakenly left
off the LP version of this record, and when I had Henry autograph the
jacket in the 70s he wrote: “Henry Franklin–the tellin’ Bassist” — my
guess is that these Flying Dutchman albums were only pressed in editions
of 2,000 copies — they were hard to find even in the 70s
1970 — August 23
Carter-Bradford Quartet — Hancock Hall, University of Southern California
1971 — summer
Meets John Stevens while on holiday in Europe (no more than 2 weeks on this first visit)beginning of a long-standing musical relationship
1970 — Sunday August 30
John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quartet at South Park Recreational Center, 345 E. 51st Street, Los Angeles
1971 — July 9
records with John Stevens Spontaneous Music Ensemble, London, England — see Nessa Records 17/18
1971 — Saturday February 27 at 8pmThe Bobby Bradford-John Carter Quartet at USC Hancock Auditorium, 3616 S. University Avenue, Los Angeles (at Exposition & Figueroa) presented by The Universal Order of Black Expression (which Steve Isoardi tells me later folded into UGMAA) — Concert billed as “Infinite Black Culture” — (even though Bobby and John are listed separately on the Sentinel advertisement it’s my guess that they played together, although, by the 1973 they both began keeping separate ensembles as well as playing together)
1971 — July 11
John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quintet w/Nate Morgan, piano — Widney High School
1971 — September
Rejoins Ornette for three-night gig at
Slugs, East Village, NYC and recorded SCIENCE FICTION album @ CBS
Studios, 49 East 52nd Street, NY, 6th floor in Studio E — Bobby misses
the first day of school in La Puente where he is employed as 6th grade
classroom teacher — These are ironically the first formal recordings of
Bobby with Ornette (BB on these sessions Sept 9 & 10) — About these
sessions, years ago Bobby told me how Ornette had used a sort of
makeshift traffic signal gadget to let soloists know when their solo was
over, it was a red light-green light set-up, and I have often thought
about this device, and in a recent conversation with Bobby he said you
can hear a note of his at the tail end of one of Dewey’s solos because
of misdirections from the Go-Stop lights [telcon 10mar2o10]
— And so, lo & behold, in the booklet for the 2009 Dave Brubeck
Quartet 3-cd Sony Legacy Edition of TIME OUT there is a photo of this
traffic signal (a lot less homemade than I had imagined) in Studio E !
*The Slugs gig was first weekend of September: Friday, Saturday,
Sunday, September 3, 4, & 5 — recordings exist of Sept 3 & 5
recorded by the painter John E. D’Agostino — Radio host Ben Young WKCR
aired the extant recordings on his Ornette birthday show March 9, 2o14
1971 — November 9
begins recording sessions that result in his 4th album with John
Carter called SECRETS (Revelation 18). Subsequent sessions are April 4,
1972.) On the album cover Bobby is whispering into little Claudia
Hardy’s ear a secret, she is the child of the producer John William
Hardy — the session this day produced only one song (“Circle”) that made
it to the album — five more tracks exist including BB’s new portrait of
Louis Armstrong, “H.M. Louis the First” (His Majesty Louis the First)
that he had recorded the previous July in London with John Stevens —
these are the last recordings of the band that formed back in 1966 — as
well, it will be the last time you hear John Carter on any saxophone on a
formal recording, except one track on the RUDOLPH’S album where he
plays soprano — John started as a clarinet player as a kid and he
returned to it fully around 1975, but it was gradual
1972 — April 4
recording session for Bobby Bradford-John
Carter Quintet — Herrick Chapel Lounge, Occidental College, Los Angeles
— with a young band: Nate Morgan, piano; Ndugu Leon Chancler, drums;
Louis Spears, bass — three songs are included on the album SECRETS —
Gary Foster volunteered with engineering duties helping William Hardy:
“I remember that time and Revelation Records well. Some of the recordings were made at Occidental College, some at Hardy’s house in Highland Park, and some in the back room of a music store where I taught.” [Gary Foster email 30dec12 ]
1972 — September 4
Bobby as member of Horace’s Tapscott’s
Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra — Charlie Parker Festival, South Park, Los
Angeles (this is the park Bird would frequent to practice his horn)
“Since they occupied the same stages on many occasions — these are only the ones we have recordings of them doing so — we can assume there was some mixing with the Arkestra. Tom Williamson told me that on many occasions he’d play in both groups, which he said made for very long days! And there is some evidence that Bruz Freeman played with UGMA(A) groups as well.” [Steven Isoardi — email 6jan13 ]
1972 — October
Stanley Crouch Black Music Infinity
perform as part of English Professor Dick Barnes’ play “The Death of
Buster Quinine” presented in a rock quarry near Claremont Colleges with
giant puppets, poetry, jazz, fireworks, light sculptures and a flaming
jaganath equipped with whirling Mexican castillos — Barnes would go on
to restage this production three more times over the years — BB and Mark
Dresser were members of the band and I was there as a high school
student in what would be my first encounter with this music, we stood up
on the rim —
“I remember at one point the puppets are hurled down into the quarry. I don’t remember the signal that you mention. I do remember my parents hiking down into the quarry!” [Dresser email 12jan13 ]
1972 — December 10
John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quintet w/
Ndugu Chancler, Roberto Miranda, Nate Morgan — Performing Arts Society
of Los Angeles (PASLA) — also on the program was the UGMAA/Horace
Tapscott Quintet + 1
1973
Extended stay (ten months) in London —
bought cornet (“brand new” Yamaha) in London and switched from trumpet
to cornet permanently — Formed his quartet w/ Trevor Watts, John
Stevens, & Kent Carter, toured England, Belgium, Holland, Germany,
and France — recorded album LOVE’S DREAM (Emanem LP302, Emanem LP3302,
and cd 4096) — “BB stayed with us (Madelaine and me) during most of
those ten months” — Martin Davidson (email 4/27/2o14)
during this time BB remembers playing at
the Little Theatre Club, London, with the Keith Tippetts large ensemble
Centipede, that had as many as 30 musicians, along with John Stevens,
Julie Tippetts, Paul Rutherford (he’s pretty sure Derek Bailey was not
on any Centipede dates that he worked) — “it was always on Sunday
afternoons, or whenever the Theatre had an opening for us, we were
always glad to have a place to play” (telcon 17may2o14)
Also, it was during this stay in London that BB also played with SME
and John Stevens at Ronnie Scott’s club (as well as the Little Club)
both in Soho. (telcon w/BB 18dec2o16)1973 —- Oct 13
London, England —- The pivotal moment when Bobby switched from trumpet to cornet —- Receipt in Martin Davidson’s name as the store wouldn’t take Bobby’s American bank check (ie. cheque to you Englishers) —– BB traded his Conn trumpet into the deal
1973 — November 16 & 17
Bobby Bradford Quartet gig at Le Chat qui
Peche, Paris, “Seven or eight days, it was more than a week,” and
Martin Davidson recorded every night, of which selections from these two
nights were released on LOVE’S DREAM — BB tells the hilarious story of
how everybody was dropping by the club and one night he had smoked some
hash, and not being a habitual smoker of weed, if at all, (he remember’d
Steve Lacy had brought the hash), Byard Lancaster wanted to set in, and
so, Bobby announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct pleasure
to bring to the stage, on tenor saxophone, Jaki Byard!” and while
thunderous applause, Lancaster is mystified, then Bobby realizes he
messed that up, and starts over, only to say the exact same thing,
again: “Ladies and gentlemen, Jaki Byard!” and now Lancaster is becoming
more and more ruffled, and if I remember correctly Bobby messed it up a
third time before getting it right! — This story is even more funny to
those of us who know how eloquent and succinct and articulate Bobby
normally is — after all, it was Stanley Crouch in his book CONSIDERING
GENIUS (2006) page 21: “Bradford was one of the most intelligent men I
had ever known and his sophistication was greater than that of any
musician I had met up to that point [c.1968-1975]” — and arguably up
till now, as well, eh, Stanley? “I’m pretty sure the quartet played the
Chat qui Peche from Monday to Saturday. I only recorded Friday and
Saturday [Nov. 16 & 17]” — Martin Davidson (email 4/27/2o14)
1973 — late summer
John’s trio The John Carter Ensemble performs every Sunday 3-5pm for over 2 years
1973
Won the annual dOWNBEAT Talent Deserving Wider Recognition on trumpet
Article in the Los Angeles Sentinel Dec. 20, 1973 “Jazz Musician to Teach” reports that BB “a professional musician and member of the music faculty at Cal State College Dominguez Hills has spent the Fall on musical tour of England . . . . Bradford is returning for the winter term and will teach courses on Afro-American music and jazz performance. Both are evening courses.” [Thanks to Steve Isoardi for discovering this.]
1974
Instructor in Music Dept at Pasadena City
College, Pasadena, California — semi-retired 2008 but retained one
class with the 9-piece jazz combo for a few subsequent years . . . .
1974
Lecturer & Adjunct Professor of Music
at Pomona College, Claremont, California — a position he still holds as
of this writing (2013) — began teaching Fall Semester 1974 (September
1974)
1974 — a Saturday in April
The Kohoutek Festival at Claremont
Colleges (Pitzer College campus)(I swear they were calling this the
First Comet Kohoutek Festival, but that would have been 1973?) —
outdoors on The Mounds — Bobby Bradford led a small ensemble, of which, I
can’t exactly remember who was in the band, but it was a quintet with
Bobby as the only horn, and I’m pretty sure Roberto Miranda was on bass —
THIS is the second time I ever caught Bradford playing live (the first
being in the Dick Barnes play of October 1972) but this is my first
encounter in a very real way — I had been living in the foothills of Mt
Baldy in the Sunshine Apartments and I already had the two Flying
Dutchman albums by Bobby & John, so that when one of the other
residents of Sunshine, a Claremont student name of Larry Seidler,
dropped on me that Bradford was playing that weekend, well, I jumped,
all of this “out” jazz was so new to me at the time it was like meeting
mythological heroes — and when I met Bradford and told him how much I
listened to his albums he says, “Well, here’s John,” and I met John that
day also, who had drove out (Claremont is 50 minutes east of Culver
City where John lived) to hear Bobby’s band — AND it was then that John
told me about his Sunday engagement at Rudoph’s Fine Arts Center and so I
drove out to South Central (we called it Watts back then) the very next
day, and every Sunday thereafter — From, at least, this time onward
Bobby and John always kept separate bands as well as continued their
combined efforts. Simply because Bobby has always been a bebopper at
heart and enjoys playing song forms as well as out (ie. non-chordal).
Whereas, as the dust settles we’ll come to better see John Carter as a
20th century composer who just happen’d to be black and had arrived at
this modernity via jazz jam sessions in Texas.
1974
member of Stanley Crouch Black Music
Infinity w/ Arthur Blythe, David Murray, James Newton, Mark Dresser,
Wilbur Morris, Walter Savage, Walter Lowe, collectively — Based out of
the Claremont Colleges (May 24, 1975 performance “audience recording”
exists from Little Bridges Auditorium, Claremont Colleges)(this band in
existence 1973-1975 and reaches back as far as 1969 and 1967) — also,
Stanley took the ensemble into a Los Angeles recording studio (1974) for
two consecutive days of recording: First day was David Murray, Mark
Dresser, Walter Lowe, Bobby Bradford, Charles Tyler, Black Arthur
Blythe, James Newton, Wilbur Morris, Stanley Crouch — Second day:
Murray, Blythe, Newton, Stanley, David Baker (cello), Mark Dresser (on
the second day one of the tunes they recorded was Bradford’s “H.M. Louis
the First” — these recordings are in the possession of Stanley Crouch
and hopefully someday the world will get a chance to hear them —
projected titles for the two albums: NOW IS ANOTHER TIME and PAST
SPIRITS — these recordings are informally listed as 1972, and some
sources say 1973, but I feel 1974 to be more correct, simply because
Murray did not arrive from Berkeley to Claremont until Fall of 1974
school year — Stanley Crouch remembers: “I will never forget how it felt
to hear Arthur Blythe and Bobby Bradford invent such strong melodic
lines that would occasionally explode into pure energy, which was never
an end in itself, only a strident color used sparingly.” [p.20
CONSIDERING GENIUS]
* I audited Stanley’s Jazz History Course at Claremont Colleges for a couple yearsFrom Mark Dresser: “I was a student of Bert Turetzky at UCSD who introduced me to Stanley Crouch at the summer Claremont Music Festival in Pomona, CA in July 1972. He had told me about Stanley who taught at Claremont College and was playing drums. Bert had lent me his recordings of Bobby Bradford and John Carter, and Horace Tapscott. I was intrigued. The first time I played with Stanley was in trio with Bobby Bradford. I was 19 at the time, Stanley 29 and Bobby 38. It was captivating on so many levels. It was unlike anything I had ever played before, plus the hang was amazing. After the festival was over I stayed in Pomona at Stanley’s for a month, playing every day, listening to records, talking (mostly listening) about music, politics, race, literature, about being an artist. Stanley was the first person who spoke about the responsibility of talent. Musically it was so unlike anything I had ever played rhythm section wise. Intellectually I felt out of my league. Here was a guy who was concurrently reading at least 3 books simultaneously listening scores of records cross referencing eras of the tradition. He had a remarkable way of identify a gesture of Louis Armstrong, showing how that same phrase was morphed into Bird’s language and then by Ornette’s.” [Dresser email 30dec12]
*Stanley
Crouch’s residence during his tenure at Claremont was: 440 St
Bonaventure, Claremont — BB says it was a big 4-bedroom house with a
huge fireplace and they’d have all-day rehearsals, and the art student
Monica Pecoe would be cooking in the kitchen and players would be Walter
Lowe, Arthur, Walter Savage, Errol Henderson, and a conga player who
died of cancer when he was quite young that BB can’t remember his name
at present, and I’m sure Dick Barnes was a regular, as well, he and
Stanley were close
1975
Moved to his current home on El Molino
Avenue, Altadena (prior to that Bobby lived at 158 Loma Alta, Altadena —
I remember Bobby had a Camaro)
1975
Lisa Tefo (Lisette M. Tefo) begins relationship and they are married 1980 in Berkeley —
“We were just hanging out in San Francisco going to museums, I didn’t have a gig or anything like that, and even though we had talked about it now and again, it was spur of the moment” [telcon 11jan13]
1975 — November 17
1. “Love’s Dream”(BB)(21:10)[JC on soprano]
2. “Woman”(BB)(11:00)[JC on clarinet then to soprano]
3. “Comin’ On”(BB)(19:48)[JC on soprano]
4. “Prayer # 1″(R.Miranda)(16:01)[JC on soprano]
5. “Come Softly”(JC)(6:23)[BB out — JC on clarinet]
6. “Circle”(JC)(14:24)[JC on clarinet]
*This is most likely the concert sequence as it comes from Pete Welding’s tape — and I’d say the break between Set 1 and 2 occurs after the three compositions of Bradford’s
** Four remarkable things about this recording is:
1) This is probably the only time “Love’s Dream” was performed in America, it was a tune BB used with his English ensemble.
2) This is the earliest extant recording of Bobby & John live in performance — although, you could say that all of their released recordings are live in the studio, as never once has BB used editing or overdubbing or punch-ins in his entire recorded output —- AND there are earlier Live recordings from the Five Spot 1971 of BB with Ornette circulating among collectors —- BUT, of John & Bobby this is the earliest recording
3) This documents the 2 or 3 year period in which JC was using soprano & clarinet equally, having retired his other horns sometime after 1972 (their 1972 album SECRETS has John on alto & clarinet) . . . all before he retired the soprano and strictly concentrated on clarinet.
4) Shows their practice of using two bass players in their bands, first encountered on their 1969 album SELF-DETERMINATION MUSIC
1975 — December 14
BB joins the John Carter Ensemble on a
Sunday afternoon at Rudolph’s with Roberto Miranda, Stanley Carter,
William Jeffrey — audience recording exists, cassette master > CDR
transfer — two pieces were recorded by MW “Come Softly,” and “Woman”
1976 — January 4
BB joins the John Carter Ensemble for a
Sunday afternoon at Rudolph’s with Roberto Miranda, Stanley Carter,
William Jeffrey — audience recording exists, cassette master > CDR
transfer —– they played “Come Softly”(JC)(11:35) clarinet;
“Circle”(JC)(22:30) soprano; & “Love’s Dream”(BB)(19:28)soprano; and
probably a couple others . . .
1976 — 5pm March 27 Stanley Crouch’s Black Music Infinity play at David Hammond Studio, 2409 West Slauson, Los Angeles —- Bobby Bradford (cornet), James Newton (flute), Roberto Miranda (bass), and Stanley (drumset)
1976 — April 2 & 3
Charles Mingus Quintet at Cocoanut Grove
(Ambassador Hotel) on Wilshire Blvd downtown Los Angeles — quintet
included Danny Mixon (piano), George Adams (tenor), Jack Walrath
(trumpet), Dannie Richmond (drums) —- Bobby Bradford attended one of
these concerts as did myself and John Breckow, Kirk Silsbee and his wife
Cathie —- BB says: “I remember that concert. Glenn Ferris and I went
together, the trumpet player was a friend of his . . .Jack? I had a long
conversation with Mingus, mostly about his health and overweight. He
remembered me from the Coleman band.” [BB email > MW 27nov2o15]
Mingus was on the road a lot these years
with this band. The history is quite staggering: This quintet was in
Rome recording CUMBIA tracks on March 31 & April 1, and then flew to
San Diego State University for a gig April 2 (a recording exists) THEN
up to Los Angeles for this two-night engagement at the Grove, which,
Kirk Silsbee has an L.A. TIMES advertisement showing that they played
there Friday and Saturday nights April 2 and 3, 1976 (so, was the San
Diego gig in the afternoon?). Seems like a pretty tight schedule. From
there they went up to Keystone Korners for a couple week’s engagement.
(In Los Angeles in 1969 Glenn Ferris and Jack Walrath formed the band
Revival.)
1976 — April or May
Rudolph’s Fine Arts Center closes — John Carter Trio & Friends
had performed there consecutively every Sunday afternoon for 2 1/2 years
1976 — June 12
John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quintet perform at Inner City Cultural House, L.A.
1976 — September 5
Opening show for his club The Little Big
Horn, 34 N. Mentor, Pasadena —Bobby Bradford Extet w/ James Newton
(flute), Henry Franklin (bass) & Glenn Ferris
(trombone)—–double-bill w/John Carter Trio (Stanley Carter, William
Jeffrey + young Chris Carter, bongoes)— Public performances of a
workshop nature every Thursday evening (8-10pm) and Sunday afternoons
(4-7pm)
1976 — September 17, 1976
MW interviews BB at his office at Pasadena City College published in CODA (#157 October 1977)
1976 — December 12 Sunday afternoon session at The Little Big Horn, Pasadena — The Bobby Bradford Extet: BB (cornet & emcee), James Newton(flute), Kevin Brandon(bass), Kim Calkins(drums), Vinny Golia (soprano & tenor saxophone & bass clarinet) —- audience recording on cassette exists by Mark Weber: 1) “Comin’ On (the Colorado)” “H.M. Louis” (subsequently transferred into the digital realm) —— John Carter present
1976 — Friday evening December 31
BB thought we’d get over-flow crowds from the Rose Parade parties on Colorado Blvd just half block south of The Little Big Horn, so he proposed an all-night-till-dawn jam session like he used to participate in back in Texas —- musicians came and went —- at 2 a.m. I turned on my cassette recorder and caught Duke Jordan’s “Jordu” —- participants that I noted were Bobby (cornet, flugel, elec-p), John Carter (clarinet, sop. sax, elec-p), Richard Reywald (bass), Mark Dresser (bass), James Newton (flute), Jimmy Robertson (piccolo), Vinny Golia (bari & sop saxes), Nathan Hood (bari), Charles Hall (drums), among others —- We got out of there as the sun came up on January 1, 1977
1977 — January 15
(Saturday evening) — James Newton &
David Murray give a concert of duets & solos at The Smudgepot on
Claremont Colleges campus in the basement of The Coop (one of David’s
many return visits from NYC to his alma mater) — The Coop was a central
social center to the consortium of colleges that make up Claremont
Colleges — a smudgepot figures in strongly in local lore as a heater
that was used in the citrus groves that used to be everywhere near the
colleges (a mixture of gas & oil was used in these tubs w/ a
smokestack — I’d get paid $10 a night to light them when the temp
dropped below 27 degrees AND ALSO be put on a list that I didn’t have to
go to school the next day! because we’d been up all night lighting
smudgepots) — The Smudgepot is no longer there (major renovations in
1999) — during James Newton’s solo set he performed Bradford’s “Woman”
which was released on the 12″ stereo vinyl Lp FLUTES! SAM RIVERS/JAMES
NEWTON(Circle RK 7677/7) Sam on one side and James on the other. I
believe the LP notes are erroneous in noting the concert was January 16,
my field notes and wall calendar have it as January 15, not Sunday
January 16 which would have been an odd date for a concert in California
in those days — I took pictures
1977 — February 25
Bobby Bradford Extet — quartet at Avery
Auditorium, Pitzer College, Claremont, California — Bobby, cornet; Glenn
Ferris, trombone; Kim Calkins, drums; Roberto Miranda, bass — Concert
emcee Larry Seidler — recorded by Bruce Bidlack. NOTE that the Bobby
Bradford Extet with Glenn Ferris existed 1976-1978 (Ferris left town for
NYC on October 9, 1978 and worked there for about 6 months before
returning to Los Angeles for awhile in 1979 whereupon he traveled to
Paris, France, where he has resided ever since)
1977 — April 2
Live on KPFK w/ host John Breckow — Bobby
Bradford Extet — this broadcast released in 2008 on cd as MIDNIGHT
PACIFIC AIRWAVES (Entropy Records)
1977 — April 24Stanley Crouch visiting in town from NYC (he had left L.A. 1975) and sits in on drums at the regular Sunday afternoon jazz session at The Little Big Horn along with Bobby, John Carter, Vinny Golia, James Newton, and Richard Rehwald—- see photos
1977 — departs June 15
English tour with Trevor Watts group (BB
didn’t make the European portion of tour as he returned to Dallas to
attend his father’s funeral) (according to my CODA report (#155) BB was
to be away till September) ( I have a 21×31″ poster announcing “JUNE AT
THE BAND ON THE WALL, Swan Street, Manchester — Every Thursday in June —
Admission at door —- June 23, 1977 U.S. Trumpet Star ex Ornette Coleman
— BOBBY BRADFORD Quartet with Trevor Watts”)
1977 — July 31
performance with Glenn Ferris Celebration Orchestra at Century City
Playhouse — 20-piece orchestra included BB, Vinny Golia, James Newton,
John Carter, Benny Powell
1977 — September 18
Bobby Bradford X-tet perform at Century City Playhouse
1977 — Saturday, December 31
All night jam session at The Little Big
Horn straight through till the sun came up on January 1, 1978 as the
tens of thousands of people arrived for the Rose Parade on Colorado
Boulevard — Little Big Horn was in the first block north of Colorado
Blvd — jammers were BB, John Carter, Jimmy Robertson, Nathan Hood,
Richard Rehwald, James Newton, Vinny Golia, Charles Hall, and others — I
made a cassette recording of them jamming on “Jordu” and other
standards
1978
name change to Bobby Bradford Mo’tet
1978 — February 26
BB w/ Mark Dresser, Tylon Barea, James Newton, perform in San Diego
1978 — March 5
Bradford Mo’tet — McConnell Hall, Pitzer College, Claremont Colleges — 2-4pm Sunday
1978 — April 22
BB-JC duets for Eric Dolphy Memorial
Tribute Concert — also on the bill was Gary Bartz, solo alto saxophone,
and poet Kamau Daaood, and Henry Franklin-Frank Morgan Duo — Century
City — a production of KPFK with host John Breckow broadcast Live —
recordings exist
1978 — May 15
BB & John Carter play Monday night @
Keystone Korners, San Francisco — [this performance yet to be verified —
I have a note in my journal, but BB doesn’t remember it]
1978 — August
Little Big Horn closes its doors —
although, activities had slowed down there over the last six months,
Bobby was operating Little Big Horn as a workshop out of his own pocket
(he had a partner who went in halves) but the rent was escalating and it
had run its course, it was a good 20 months of steady playing for BB —
his chops were in prime condition, he could take 30 chorus solos all
evening, I always lament the disparity of recordings from this period,
other than my little cassette recordings — It was during this period
that I developed the notion of Bradford’s playing as a sort of geometric
lyricism, you could almost watch the notes as they traversed through a
3-D harmonic universe, always linear, but with plenty of horizontal
triangulation, as well, a perfect rotating symmetry —– LBH had opened in
the wake of Rudolph’s closing and now it was Lee Kaplan at Century City
Playhouse that created a venue for free jazz
1978 — October 9
Glenn Ferris, a regular member of the
Extet leaves for NYC and stays about 6 months then returns to Los
Angeles (his home town) before moving permanently to Paris, France — “I
did come back to L.A. after a certain time then went back to NY late 79
or early 80 and then from this time I moved to Paris” [email from GF 25july12]
— He was certainly back for February 1979 gigs with the (now called)
Mo’tet because I have rehearsal photos from then — Glenn leads a band at
the Come Back Inn on June 14, 1979 that I think was a regular gig . . .
All during these years Glenn is playing with everyone from Zappa and
George Duke to Billy Cobham, Don Ellis, and Harry James. He was on the
Don Ellis band during their stay at Whisky A Go Go when Art Pepper was
briefly a member of that orchestra — I saw this with my own eyes!
1978 — October 22
BB-JC cornet & clarinet duets — Century City Playhouse (NOTE that
CCP Sunday Night series began with a Frank Lowe Quartet, July 2, 1976,
and lasted a few years — produced by Lee Kaplan)
1978 — November 5
John Carter, Bobby Bradford, George Lewis performed as trio at
Century City Playhouse — this performance recorded by NPR “Jazz Alive”
series — two compositions by GL are documented: 1) “Shadowgraph 5” and
2) “Player”
1978 — November 10
Bobby Bradford-John Carter Quartet play La Jolla Jazz Festival, @ the
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, in La Jolla, with Alex Cline,
drums; and Noah Young, bass
1979 — February 10
Live broadcast over KPFK — engineer’d by Carl Stone — trio of Bobby
Bradford, John Carter, & Vinny Golia — almost 35 minutes of music of
freely improvised spontaneous music — I have an aircheck taken off my
home stereo which is marred by static, but I believe Vinny has the
reel-to-reel of this earshot and is of great importance1979 — April 1
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Century City Playhouse perform as a quartet with Glenn Ferris (trombone), Bert Karl(drumset), Noah Young (bass)———– only 4 tunes from this evening exist on tape:
1. “Ornate” [beginning truncated] 2. “Snuffy”(BB)(“I dont think I played that tune 5 times in my life, in public!!!” –email BB>MW 24apr2o17 3. “Comin’ On” which BB sometimes in these days called “Comin’ on the Colorado” [Colorado Blvd was just half a block south of his club The Little Big Horn] 4. “The Theme”(Miles)
** “Snuffy” from a suite of portraits BB was composing at the time. Full title: “A Portrait of Thelonious Monk: Snuffy”
1979 — Friday April 27
Bobby Bradford Quintet in a Tribute to Duke “in a musical salute to Duke Ellington” 8pm at Farnsworth Park Auditorium, 568 E. Mount Curve Street, Altadena, California — produced by Bill DeLaney of the City of Pasadena Recreation Division
1979 — May 13
Vinny Golia Wind Quartet @ Century City Playhouse w/Glenn Ferris, John Carter, BB, and VG
1979
summer in Chicago for a jazz scholar’s conference, then a return road trip visiting Indian pueblos in the Southwest
1979 — July 7
Bobby & John record duets at Westlake
Studios for Jon Horwich of Revelation Records — unreleased until 2010
(see Mosaic Select 36) — NOTE: Bobby plays cornet on these sessions (not
trumpet)
1979 — August 15
recording session — John Carter Quintet
for album VARIATIONS (on selected themes for jazz quintet)(Moers
Records) w/ Bob Stewart, BB, James Newton, Phillip Wilson — Studio 57,
Dusseldorf, West Germany — my journal notes from that time remark that
JC was not happy with the out-chorus on “Bobby Lee’s Delight,” nor was
he pleased with the producer’s selection of the front cover photo with
Phillip scratching himself and James caught in wild-eyed instance
1979 — October 20
Bobby & John open up for Art Ensemble of Chicago on double-bill
to large audience in Schoenberg Hall, UCLA, the astounding results
appear on cd TANDEM 2
1979 — October 21
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet perform at Century City Playhouse — as a trio:
Bert Karl (drumset) and Noah Young (bass) — my notes say they played
“Woodman Hall Blues,” “All the things you are,” and “Green Dolphin
Street,” among others
1979 — October 27
Bobby Bradford-John Carter Quartet @ Soundscape, 500 West 52nd
Street, NYC w/ Art Davis, bass; Philip Wilson, drums — recording exists
(“Tandem” is one of the pieces they played according to Martin Davidson)
— Soundscape series (1979-1983) curated by Verna Gillis, recordings
from the series now housed at radio station WKCR, Columbia University,
NYC — SET ONE: 1. “And She Speaks” mostly duet 2. “Tandem” duet 3.
“Woman” JC out 4. “Encounter” BB says they had no time to rehearse,
hence the bass line that is very much a part of the composition couldn’t
be mastered for this concert –SET TWO: 5. “Johnetta’s Night Song” solo
clarinet 6. “Fast Fanny’s Cake Walk” solo clarinet 7. “Woodman’s Hall
Blues” 8. “Petals” 9. “Circle”
1979 — November 5
Bobby Bradford-John Carter-George Lewis trio at Century City
Playhouse — recorded and broadcast by NPR’s Jazz Alive series [ does
anyone have a copy of this performance recording?]
1980 — April
Film THE NEW MUSIC: BOBBY BRADFORD &
JOHN CARTER a documentary by Peter Bull Bob Wise, & Alex Gibney, Los
Angeles — BB&JC in duet performing “Circle,” “And She Speaks,” and
“Woman” (Nels Cline has a cameo in the film as he walks across the stage
area in his capacity as technical support)
1980 — February 17
Duet performance with Charlie Haden at Century City Playhouse (recording exists)
1980 — April 1
Film THE NEW MUSIC: BOBBY BRADFORD &
JOHN CARTER a documentary by Peter Bull, Bob Wise, & Alex Gibney,
Los Angeles — BB&JC in duet performing “Circle,” “And She Speaks,”
and “Woman” (Nels Cline has a cameo in the film as he walks across the
stage area in his capacity as technical support) — filmed at UCLA as a
graduate project of the producers who were UCLA students
1980 —- March 15 (Saturday)Bobby Bradford & John Carter in duet at Stratford Court Theatre, 1353 Stratford Court, Del Mar, (San Diego), California — 8pm —- $4 admission
1980 — May 24
Moers Festival — John Carter Quintet —-
John Carter, clarinet; James Newton, flute; Bobby Bradford, cornet;
Roberto Miranda, bass; William Jeffrey, drums —- photos by Gérard Rouy
exist
1980 — Sunday May 25Bobby Bradford Quintet at the Pasadena Jazz Festival, Memorial Park Bandshell, 85 E. Holly Street, downtown Pasadena, California — This was the 2nd Pasadena Jazz Festival — presented by the Universal Jazz Preservation Society, Bill DeLaney, director / co-sponsored by the City of Pasadena Leisure & Community Services Department ——- NOW, we have a problem, as Steven Isoardi has pointed out, who found the L.A. Sentinel articles on this event, in that BB played at Moers Festival with the John Carter Quintet on May 24 (evidenced by the photos)(the program guide for the Moers Festival 1980 lists the John Carter Quintet playing on May 25 — Did the JC Qnt concert move to May 24 which gave BB time to fly back to Pasadena to play there on Sunday?) — We’re still endeavoring to sort this enigma out, any help will be welcome . . . . .
1980 — October 10 & 11
Bobby in duet with Charlie Haden at McCabes, Santa Monica — also, Nels Cline played duets with Haden these nights
1980 — October 27
Bobby Bradford Ensemble perform at Avery Hall, Pitzer, Claremont
Colleges — John Carter, clarinet; James Newton, flute; Roberto Miranda
& Noah Young, basses — [my report in CODA #177 says that it was an
evening of Bobby’s compositions, “Snuffy,” “Variations on a Theme by
Jerome Kern,” and “Ornate” ] *My field notes also add: “Circle aka Brief
& Peppy,” “Woman,” and a duet between John & James “Echoes of
Harlem” —- also, it says: “JC very unhappy with new series 10G Selmer
clarinet” ——- Noah was recording but this recording has never come to
light ]
1980 — November 10 & 11
recording session — John Carter Quintet — Barigozzi Studios, Milano,
Italy, for the album NIGHT FIRE (Black Saint) w/ BB, James Newton,
William Jeffrey, Roberto Miranda
1981 — February 13
BB-JC Duo — New College, 777 Valencia Street, San Francisco — on a
double-bill with Gerald Oshita, solo — curated by George Sams as part of
New Jazz Festival over three evenings — the previous evening Horace
Tapscott played solo on a triple-bill with James Newton, solo; and Karl
Hester’s big band Jazz Art Movement — the following evening was Robert
Porter Quartet, and Eddie Moore Trio
1981 — April 24
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet live broadcast on Le Jazz Hot & Cool, KPFK,
Los Angeles, host John Breckow — BB, cornet; Mark Dresser, bass; Newell
Canfield, drums; Ooxnokahkee, percussion; James Kousakis, alto sax; Doc
Holliday, conga, percussion — five tunes performed + interview, “Dirty
Rag,” “Woman,” “You Know,” “Ashes,” “Comin’ On” — I have a recording
taken off radio and hope that master tapes exist, it was a lively event —
this was Breckow’s Friday evening radio show
1981 — June 17
recording session at Music Box Studios,
Hollywood, California for Thomas Tedesco’s Lp OCEAN (Nimbus 1470)
(subsequently re-issued on cd on Clarion Jazz). This same ensemble,
Ocean, had a regular engagement at Heaven on Earth restaurant in Santa
Monica playing every Saturday of October and November 1982 with Alex
Cline substituting for Sherman Ferguson. NOTE that there are two “Tommy
Tedesco”s in Los Angeles that play guitar — this Tommy is the free jazz
guy.
1981 — July
Wilber Morris Trio records Bobby’s
composition “H.M. Louis” (aka “His Majesty Louis the 1st” aka “H.M.
Louis I”) in New York for their cd COLLECTIVE IMPROVISATIONS (Bleu
Regard Records CT1946) w/ Charles Tyler, alto & baritone saxes;
Denis Charles, drums; Wilber, string bass
1981 — October 2
son Benjamin Tefo Bradford born — (NOTE
that the photo of BB holding Benjamin on the back of Tommy Tedesco’s
album OCEAN was take subsequent to the recording session.) ALSO NOTE
that contrary to the Bobby Bradford entry in Leonard Feather’s
Encyclopedia (1999) Bobby is not the father of Dennis Bradford, drummer
with the Jeff Lorber Fusion
1980s & 1990s
musical director for various theatrical productions by fellow Pomona
professor & poet Dick Barnes — one play was called “The Poverty
Circus” — Dick also wrote about road trips with Bobby to Mora, New
Mexico, published in his book The Real Time Jazz Band Song Book (1990)
1982-1989
records John Carter’s culminating life-work on five albums “Roots and
Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music” in octet
form — the albums are: 1) DAWHE 2) CASTLE OF GHANA 3) DANCE OF THE LOVE
GHOSTS 4) FIELDS 5) SHADOWS ON A WALL
1982 — March 14
performs with Vinny Golia Large Ensemble,
Schoenberg Hall, UCLA (3 LP- box set on Ninewinds Records — NW-110) —
14-piece ensemble, the maiden voyage of Vinny’s Large Ensemble annual
manifestations — this is the first time that Michael Vlatkovich plays
with BB — HISTORICAL SIDEBAR: It was at this well-attended concert,
afterward, that producer Tom Albach ran into Horace Tapscott outside
this venerable concert hall — Tom had already released, at least, five
albums of Horace’s music, in small ensembles and the Pan Afrikan Peoples
Arkestra, as well as several other projects in the can — he found
Horace restive this night, if not somewhat down,
“He was withdrawn which wasn’t like him, very distant,” as they had a smoke — So, it was on Tom’s drive home to Santa Barbara that night that he hatched the idea to record Horace in solo piano sessions that has amounted in eleven monumental volumes on LP & CD, with fifteen hours more yet unreleased — a volcanic out-pouring of artistic grandeur — [telcon w/ Albach 7jan13 ]
1982 — April 29
Emmanuel Church, Boston — BB-JC duo — “mini-tour” of Philadelphia,
Worcester, Boston area of duet concerts with John Carter, clarinet and
cornet — one concert (April 30) results in monumental culmination of
their work in duet format: TANDEM 1 and 2 (Emanem)(two volumes on CD) —
my guess is that Philadelphia precedes Boston in the mini tour — one
track survives from April 29 (unissued) “Swiss Account”
1982 — April 30
Piedmont Center for the Arts, Worcester, Massachusetts — BB-JC duo —
according to Martin Davidson’s liner notes to TANDEM 1 the tour
continued to NYC Public Theater (May 1) in quartet, adding bass and
drums, and to Washington DC (May 2) also in quartet. NOTE that the solo
cornet improvisation “Portrait of J.B.G.” is for Dizzy Gillespie.1982 — Saturday May 1
John Carter – Bobby Bradford Quartet w/ Roberto Miranda & William Jeffrey at The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street (just below Astor Place) NYC
1982 — May 2
John Carter – Bobby Bradford Quartet w/ Roberto Miranda & William Jeffrey perform in Washington DC at Pension Building on a double-bill with The New York Hot Trumpet Repertory Company [reported in dOWNBEAT, Sept 1982 by Howard Mandell]—-absolute proof / ticket stub provided by Michael Zelner
1982 — May 28
Moers Festival — David Murray Octet —-
David Murray, ss, ts, bcl; John Carter, ALTO SAXOPHONE; Bobby Bradford,
cornet; Lawrence “Butch” Morris, cornet; George Lewis, trombone; Don
Pullen, piano; Wilber Morris, bass; Billy Higgins, drums —- great photos
by Gérard Rouy exist
1982 — June
The Wind College opens — 2801 La Cienega Avenue, Los Angeles — mostly under the direction of John Carter
1982 — July 14, 15, & 19
sessions in Milano, Italy, for David Murray Octet cd MURRAY’S STEPS
(Black Saint 120 065-2) w. Henry Threadgill, Butch Morris, Wilber
Morris, Steve McCall, Craig Harris, Curtis Clark1982 — August 3
John Carter – Bobby Bradford Quartet w/ Fred Hopkins(bass), & Andrew Cyrille(drums) — Hartford, Connecticut —- recording exists —- 1) “Sticks and Stones,” 2) untitled 3) “Sunday Afternoon Jazz Society Blues” 4) untitled
1982 — Wednesday August 25
at Bimhuis, Amsterdam: The John Carter Quartet w/ Bobby Bradford (cornet altho it sounds like might be trumpet), John Lindberg (bass), Steve Clover (drums), John Carter (clarinet) —- The existing recording has: 1) untitled new original by John (17:30) 2) “Woman” (20:10) 3) “a blues” (15:30) 4) clarinet + drums duet on something that sounds like John’s “My Sweet Poppy” (7:30) BB comes in at very end 5) “Circle” is announced as the next tune but didnt make it to this recording
1982 — November 7
“John Carter Quintet featuring Bobby Bradford with special guest
James Newton” 7pm at the Kool Jazz Festival, Beverly Theater, Los
Angeles — billed as “KOOL JAZZ explores New Directions in Sound &
Rhythm, Kool Jazz Festival November 6-10” other artists were Anthony
Braxton- Muhal Richard Abrams Duo (same evening as BB-JC), Art Ensemble
of Chicago, Laurie Anderson, Leroy Jenkins, Roscoe Mitchell Sound &
Space, Lester Bowie’s Root to the Source, World Saxophone Quartet, James
Blood Ulmer, Nikolais Dance Theater —- from Advertisement in Los
Angeles Sentinel provided by Steve Isoardi1983
John Carter opens The Wind College, a music school at 2801 La Cienega Avenue, Los Angeles
BB forms Gethsemane Music Publishing (ASCAP)
duet recording session with Michael Vlatkovich on one tune “9113: White, Black & White, and Mostly Brown” released on Michael’s LP 9113 (Thank You Records) —
“I suspect it was sometime in 1983. I never have kept dates for anything. I first played with Bobby at the first Vinny Golia Large Ensemble concert, that was at UCLA.” [ Email from MPV–19dec2o12 ]
1983 — February 20
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at film studios of NBC, Los Angeles, to tape
“On Campus,” hosted by George Fennemen on the subject of “Harlem
Renaissance” — Bobby’s quintet was James Kousakis, alto; Mark Dresser,
bass; Ooxnokahkee, percussion; Newell Canfield, drums; and BB, cornet —
“They played live and George did a brief Q&A with Bobby” [ Kirk Silsbee email 29dec12 ] — One hopes this footage survives . . .
1983 — June 7 & 8
records album LOST IN L.A. (Soul Note)
1983 — September 22
BB member of Charlie Haden’s west coast version of Liberation Music
Orchestra, Ernie Watts, John Carter, Marty Krystall, Jeff Elliott(trpt
& flugel), Ken Wiley(Fr-h), Tom Heasley(tuba), Doug Wintz(tbn),
Milcho Leviev(elec-p & glock), Nels Cline, William Jeffrey, Martin
Sheen(narration on Ballad of the Fallen”) — Brookside Park, Pasadena
1983 — November 18
Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra (as previous) — Hop Singh’s
1984 — March 22
quartet calling themselves Bradford-Carter-Haden-Higgins plays Hop
Singh’s, 4110 Lincoln Blvd, Marina Del Rey — ie. Bobby Bradford, John
Carter, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins
1984
during the Summer Olympics hosted by Los Angeles — JC-BB Quintet
played at Ford Anson Amphitheatre on combined bill that included Big Joe
Turner, and a Tommy Vig Big Band w/ Shelly Manne (“I remember Shelly
wore one of those French Foreign Legion-type hats with the flap that
covers your neck because it was so hot.”) Summer Olympics were held July
28 – August 12.)(Shelly died September 26, 1984)1985 — Saturday night May 25
ten-piece group under the direction of Roberto Miranda called Home Music Ensemble — Bing Theater, Los Angeles — w/ James Newton (flute), John Carter (clarinet), Bobby Bradford (cornet), Thom Mann (tenor), Horace Tapscott (piano), Roberto (bass & conducting) — “Roberto Miguel Miranda spent a lot of time verbally directing his 10 cohorts. Whatever Miranda said, it worked. The concert was an exicting display of crisp, crackling jazz spiced with free-form playing . . . . Two ballads stood out, one where tenor saxophonist Thom Mann laid out thick, shiny lines that breathed passion, another where pianist Horace Tapscott offered rhapsodic, moving passages. Later, a very swinging, medium-tempo item found flutist James Newton establishing a dandy groove. Miranda took one unaccompanied solo . . . .” says Zan Stewart, Los Angeles Times, May 27, 1985
1985 — October 11 & 12
BB & JC duo — Koncepts Cultural Gallery, San Francisco? Oakland? < 2 nights?
1985 — Monday, November 4
John Carter Octet performs “The Castles of Ghana” at The Public
Theatre, NYC — Bobby Bradford, Baikida Carroll, Benny Powell, David
Murray, Terry Jenore, Richard Davis, Andrew Cyrille — they also recorded
the album CASTLES OF GHANA (Gramavision) on this trip to NYC probably
in the days following the concert — Vinny Golia reports that this music
was performed in Los Angeles with a hometown band prior to the NYC gig,
with VG, BB, Roberto, William Jeffrey, and others for octet
1986 — April (probably April 10)
John Carter Quintet — New Music America ’86 — Houston, Texas —
noontime concert — Don Preston, synthesizer, is only musician listed in
CODA #208 by Steve Hahn in a preview — is BB on this date? “I don’t
remember ever playing in Texas with John!” [Email 20jan13 ] — maybe John played as a quartet? James Newton and Vinny Golia report that they were not on this date, either
1986 — early July
tour of England and Norway — performs and
records with John Stevens Freebop and with Frode Gjerstad — See Tom
Lord Discography for details — this is Bobby’s first meeting with the
Norwegian saxophonist Frode Gjerstad, of whom he will record ten CDs up
through 2012 — see Frode’s website
1986
London — with the Charlie Watts Orchestra — BB as a sub in the trumpet section of this 32-piece jazz big band,
1986 — Monday June 30“playing standard big band charts like Stompin’ at the Savoy and Stardust — John Stevens set that up, he and Charlie Watts were old friends, and John would set up his drums in back with the band and Charlie would set up his set out front for his solo spots, and so, John arranged for me to play with them — paid good money, they sent a limousine to pick me up — Evan Parker was on that gig” [telcon 21jan13]
Bobby is added to the trio called DETAIL w/ Frode Gjerstad (tenor — Norway), Johnny Dyani(bass — South Africa, living in Stockholm at the time), John Stevens(drums — England) making it an international Quartet —– performs in London at The Plough
1986 — Tuesday July 1
The quartet DETAIL PLUS records in a London studio the album NESS with additional musicians: Harry Beckett(trpt), Courtney Pine(woodwinds) — released on Impetus (E)IMP-28509 — Bradford on 4 of the 6 tracks on this double-LP
1986 — Wednesday July 2
The quartet DETAIL records in Cambridge, England, the album WAY IT GOES/DANCE OF THE SOUL (E)IMP-18611 vinyl LP — at Kite Studios —- Roger Chatterton, engineer
1986 — Saturday July 5
Large ensemble under the direction of John Stevens performs at Bracknell Jazz Festival and recorded by BBC Radio 3 —- Lp vinyl album entitled FREE BOP: LIVE TRACKS on Impetus Records (E)IMP-18610 ———- w/ Ted Emmett(trumpet), Ron Herman(bass), Pete King(reeds), Dave Marchant(guitar), Nigel Moyse(guitar), Eddie Parker(flute), Courtney Pine(soprano & tenor), Annie Whitehead(trombone), Nick Stephens(elec-bass), John Stevens(drums & compostions) and Evan Parker(tenor)
1986 — Sunday July 6
The quartet DETAIL performs in Stavanger, Norway — the recording of the concert released as cd IN TIME WAS (Circulasione Totale Productions CD-86-07-06)
1986 — October 24
Johnny Mbizo Dyani dies in West Berlin (after a performance) age 40
1986 — November 11
performs with Frank Sullivan Trio, Gainesville, Florida, results released on ONE NIGHT STAND (Soul Note)
1986 — November 15
Bobby Bradford-John Carter Quintet at
Keller Hall, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque — Dwight Dickerson,
piano; Roberto Miranda, bass; William Jeffrey, drums — recorded by
American Jazz Radio Network [ where are these tapes? ] click here for a video
1987
Tour of Germany with the ensemble called
The Together Again Band (July 10 at Nickelsdorf, Austria) aka The Horace
Tapscott Sextet (July 8 at Gaststatte Waldsee, Frieberg, Germany) w/
John Carter, Roberto Miguel Miranda, Horace Tapscott, Arthur Blythe,
Donald Dean — recordings exist
1987
most possibly a February tour that took
the Bobby Bradford-John Carter Quartet to Oregon where tenorist Rich
Halley caught them with Andrew Cyrille and Richard Davis at the
Berg-Swann Auditorium of the Portland Art Museum
1987 — February 7
John
Carter Quartet w/ Bobby Bradford, Andrew Cyrille, Richard Davis —
Koncepts Cultural Gallery, Jenny Lind Hall, 2267 Telegraph Avenue,
Oakland, CaliforniaThe Together Again Band: John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Horace Tapscott, Arthur Blythe, Donald Dean, Roberto Miranda — Gaststatte Waldsee, Freiburg, Germany, in performance: 1. “The Dark Tree”(HT) 2. “With Respect to Monk”(R.Miranda) 3. “Sketches of Drunken Mary”(HT) 4. “Woman”(BB) 5. HT & JC duet 6. “Circle”(JC) 7. “Ashes”(BB)
1987 — July 10
Horace Tapscott Sextet perform at Nickelsdorf Konfontationen, Nickelsdorf, Austria — Bobby Bradford (cornet), John Carter (clarinet), Arthur Blythe (alto), Donald Dead (drums), Horace (piano), Roberto Miranda (bass) — 1. “The Dark Tree”(Tapscott) 2. “With Respect to Monk” 3. “Circle”(Carter) — recording exists
1987 —- Sunday July 12
John Carter – Bobby Bradford Duo at North Sea Jazz Festival, Bon Bini Zaal, Den Haag, NL —-[thanks to Bertrand Gastaut for researching this]
1987 — August 15
John Carter Ensemble, Meervaart Theater,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands —- concert & radio broadcast w/ Charles
Sullivan aka Kamau Adilifu (trpt); Bobby Bradford (cornet); Benny Powell
(tbn); Marty Ehrlich (b-cl.); Terry Jenoure (violin&vcl); John
Carter (cl.); Richard Davis (b); William Jeffrey (d) ——— (1) “Evening
Prayer” (6:14) (2) “Conversations” (8:40) (3) “The Fallen Prince” (6:57)
(4) “Theme of Desperation” (7:37) (5) “Capture” (16:34) (6) “Castles of
Ghana” (23:52) —- all compositions by John Carter
1987 — September 3
Thursday night at Chicago Jazz Festival —
John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quartet w/ Richard Davis, bass; William
Jeffrey, drums ———–Bradford remembers this date especially since they
went on after Illinois Jacquet and Harry Edison.
1988 — May
Bobby Bradford-John Carter Quintet — tour
of California — that recorded at Catalina’s (see following citation)
with Andrew Cyrille, drums, Richard Davis, bass, and Don Preston, piano —
playing at Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society (May 18) in Half Moon
Bay, and Kuumbwa in Santa Cruz, and probably Yoshi’s in Oakland, and Cal
Arts in Valencia. (This tour did not extend to San Diego or go north of
San Francisco) — Bobby remembers staying in a hotel in Oakland during
the Yoshi’s engagement where Harold Land, Curtis Fuller, and the
Timeless All Stars were staying, and Curtis Fuller coming over to chat
with he & John at their table in the lounge one day, there must have
been a festival going on because he remembers talking with Albert
Mangelsdorff, as well.
1988 — May 14
John Carter Quintet w/ Bobby Bradford, James Newton, Roberto Miranda, William Jeffrey1988 — May 27-29
Recorded live at Catalina’s Bar &
Grill, 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd, Hollywood, California (just south of
Hollywood Blvd) — all three nights were recorded but only the third
night is represented on the CD release COMIN’ ON (hat Art) — the L.A.
TIMES review by A. James Liska notes that they played “Woodshedetude”
which would be the earliest performance of this tune by Bobby which
eventually shows up on David Murray’s 1991 cd DEATH OF A SIDEMAN
HISTORIC NOTE: across the street from Catalina’s at 1608 N. Cahuenga was location of the original Shelly’s Manne-Hole.
1988 — July 2John Carter Octet — Montreal, Quebec, Canada — FM radio broadcast
“Castles of Ghana Suite”
1. Evening Prayer
2. The Fallen Prince
3. Capture
4. Theme of Desperation
5. Conversations
6. Castles of Ghana
John Carter – Clarinet, Marty Ehrlich –
Bass Clarinet, Bobby Bradford – Cornet, Kanin Adilike – Trumpet, Benny
Powell – Trombone, Terry Jenoure – Violin, Roberto Miranda – Bass,
Andrew Cyrille – Drums
1988
John Carter Octet in Europe performing
music of “Castles of Ghana” w/ Bobby Bradford, Baikida Carroll, Roberto
Miranda, Marty Ehrlich, Benny Powell, Andrew Cyrille, Terry Jenoure,
John Carter — a concert recording from what possibly is Frankfurt, exits
1988-1989also they played Kimo Theatre, Albuquerque, around this time
1989
John Carter Octet recording session — Los
Angeles — listed in the Dave Cramer discography on John Carter as
John’s last recording session: BB, JC, Vinny Golia, Roberto Miranda,
William Jeffrey, others unknown at this time — VG has a copy of the tape
— I asked Vinny about this:
“John, Richard Davis, and I got a consortium grant to write pieces for each other. We also had to record them. So, John, Bob, myself, Ken Filiano and I don’t remember if it was William or not on drums, it was not Alex [went into the studio]. The grant was awarded in 1989, we recorded just a month or so before John passed and before the last Octet gig I think.” [VG emails 20&24jan13]
The consortium grant was from Meet the
Composer/Lila Wallace Readers Digest Commission for Composition — Kirk
Silsbee relates that “John’s last L.A. performance of record was at
SCI-ARC (Southern California Institute of Architecture) in Santa Monica
on November 4, 1989. It was the Octet and six pieces from Castles were
played” [KS email 4jan11] — Kirk also notes that a preview article by
Zan Stewart lists musicians as Bobby Bradford and John Fumo, trumpets;
Thurman Green, trombone; Charles Owens and Vinny Golia, woodwinds;
Roberto Miranda, bass; and William Jeffrey, drums; plus John, of course,
on clarinet — John’s previous concert of record is a duet with Barre
Phillips at L.A.C.E, June 8, 1989
1989 — September 2
The John Carter- Bobby Bradford Quintet
with Craig Harris, Andrew Cyrille, Fred Hopkins — Willisaw Jazz
Festival, Willisau, Switzerland — recording exists — this is the show
where Craig Harris played the trombone, at one point in a solo, with his
feet laying on his back (I’ve seen Dixieland cats do this in Los
Angeles, in the 70s) — In 1989 the Willisau Festival was August
31-September 3
1989 — November 4
John Carter Octet at Southern California
Institute of Architecture, Santa Monica, California (I believe curated
by pianist Richard Grossman): Here’s Don Heckman review in THE LOS
ANGELES TIMES (6nov89): “There was a certain appropriateness to the
appearance of the John Carter Octet at the first concert in the Southern
California Institute of Architecture’s new music series Saturday night
in Santa Monica.//Carter and SCI-ARC share vigorously contemporary views
of their respective creative disciplines, and the iconoclastic sounds
of the Octet sounded perfectly at home in the warehouse high-tech
environment of the school’s main building.// The program consisted of
six extended selections from Carter’s “Castle of Ghana” Suite. While the
clarinetist is a firm advocate of unfettered improvisation, “Castles”
was a through-composed piece rich with fascinating textures and colors.
Acerbic dissonances, leaping melodies and brooding bass ostinatos
dominated the work. A series of passionate “free” improvisations — most
notably those by Carter, saxophonist Charles Owens, cornetist Bobby
Bradford and bassist Robert Miranda — circled through and around the
composed sections.”
1989 — Saturday afternoon November 11 at the New Music America Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Arts, New York —- John Carter Octet perform the entire SHADOWS ON THE WALL SUITE — 6 pieces —– w/ John (clarinet), Bobby Bradford (cornet), Marty Ehrlich (bass-clarinet, flute), Craig Harris (trombone), Don Preston (synth), Terry Jenoure (violin, vocals), Andrew Cyrille (drums), Fred Hopkins (bass), Christina Wheeler & Iqua Colson (backing vocals) — recording extists
1990 — Thursday, September 6
John Carter Octet at Japan America
Theatre, Los Angeles — performed the “Castles of Ghana” suite — Bobby
Bradford, cornet; Oscar Brashear, trumpet; Thurman Green, trombone;
Charles Owens, soprano sax & flute; Vinny Golia, bass clarinet;
Roberto Miranda, bass; William Jeffrey, drums — the L.A. TIMES article
(5sept90) by Don Snowden quotes JC that this would be only the third
time he was able to present his octet music in Los Angeles
1991 — January 5 & 6
sessions for saxophonist Chris Fagan’s
LOST BOHEMIA (Open Minds 2411-2) w/ Andrew Cyrille and Reggie Workman —
CF a former student of BB’s at Claremont in the early 80s and a member
of the stage band that BB directed, “He was not a music major, I don’t
recall what his major was, he lives in Seattle” [telcon w/BB 11jan13]
1991 — March 31John Carter dies, age 61 — cancer — ending a musical relationship that lasted 25 years
1991 — October 18 & 19
David Murray Quartet — recording session
at Power Station, NYC of all new compositions by Bobby Bradford —
released as: DEATH OF A SIDEMAN (DIW–Japan) could be my personal
favorite Bradford record and hardly nobody in USA has heard it ( ! ) w/
Ed Blackwell, Fred Hopkins, Dave Burrell, Murray, & BB
1991 — October 28
Los Angeles County Museum of Art “Monday
Evening Concerts” in a trio billed as: Bobby Bradford & the Marty
Ehrlich Special Project w/ Ken Filiano
1991 — August 29
Mo’tet in quintet formation — recording
session at Newzone Studio — Vinny Golia, Don Preston, Ken Filiano, Billy
Mintz — engineer’d by Wayne Peet — PLEASE see Tom Lord Discography for
complete sessionography of Bobby Bradford
1991 — November 24
John Carter Memorial Tribute concert at
Los Angeles Harbor College, Bobby led “The John Carter Quintet” Roberto
Miranda, Don Preston, William Jeffrey, James Newton, performing John’s
“In A Pretty Place” and then a duet with BB & JN on “Sunday
Afternoon Jazz Society Blues” — Lo-Fi cassette recording exists (other
performances that evening were duet of Red Callendar, tuba, and Shawn
Woodyard, soprano sax on “In a Sentimental Mood” — the Coltrane version
of this always played for arrival at Rudolph’s on Sunday afternoons,
John had a special attachment to that version — Don Preston Trio played
John’s “Transformation” and “Ode to a Flower Maiden” w/ Ken Filiano
& Fritz Wise — Vinny Golia played in trio with Ken Filiano &
Fritz Wise, “Koranto” excerpt from Vinny’s 6-hour elegy dedicated to JC —
and the late Will Thornberry gave a talk, among others )
1990s
performs in a series at Dallas County
Museum, Texas, w/ James Clay “in one of those local-boy-makes-good sort
of concerts” on a double-bill w/ Billy Harper band that included Eddie
Henderson — I asked BB what tunes they played in their one-hour set: He
said they played “Have You Seen Sideman,” which is a 32-bar chordal
structure; “Comin’ On,” and a tune with rhythm changes; “Woman,” and
some standards, he thinks one was “I Remember April”; and “Crooked
Blues.” He said Clay was completely willing to try the free approach. “A
guy like Clay is so talented he can tackle anything.” It was a quartet
but a local piano player managed to get on stage who had no affinity for
free harmony. There is no recording that we know exists. (James Clay
died January 1, 1994, Dallas)
1992 — May David Murray – Bobby Bradford 5 w/ Dave Burrell, Fred Hopkins, Andrew Cyrille —- Tribute to John Carter at Moers Festival ———– [we are still endeavoring to substantiate this date —- what day was it? Did Bobby and this band actually assemble for this gig and then again five months later for Groningen? Please help us verify] — Recording exists
1992 — September 25
BB participates in David Murray & Friends recording session in NYC that results in compact disk MX (Red Baron)
1992 — October 9David Murray – Bobby Bradford Quintet tribute to John Carter: Davie Burrell(piano), Fred Hopkins(bass), Andrew Cyrille(drums) — Groningen, Holland — Recording exists that is being traded around
1993 — sometime before July
Kimara Dixon sessions as part of a
proposal for a sculpture + sound in a park in San Diego — solos, duets,
trios w/ Kimara, BB, Benny Maupin, of which Kimara over-lapped some of
the solo tracks and made collage — the sculpture was to be a railroad
train engine — one 5-minute piece was the target — not sure if Kimara
was awarded the commission
1993 — July 6
Bradford arrives in Albuquerque for a
short visit — leaves his vehicle here with us and departs on Amtrak
afternoon of July 8 for Chicago and from there to NYC to rehearse with
David Murray Big Band conducted by Butch Morris — This was Bobby’s first
encounter with Butch’s conduction system and when he returned he was
quite enthusiastic about the concept and how it worked so well — BB
ret’d to ABQ on Greyhound July 18 — there must have been a gig
associated with this trip to Chicago & NYC? For Bobby’s birthday we
watched all 5 hours of the movie LONESOME DOVE, of which we are both big
fans, Bobby smoking his birthday cigar, afterwards he said how much
he’d like to live in the Wild West days, “They’d call me Black Bob!” —
has this in common with Sonny Rollins, their love of westerns — (BB is
not a regular smoker of cigars, only now & again, he started smoking
cigars when he was working for workman’s comp) — He drove left for his
home in Altadena on July 20 —
LITTLE KNOWN FACT: Bobby always wanted to record with Frank Morgan — it was this summer that BB voiced that desire
1993 – Saturday September 11Bobby Bradford Mo’tet plays at 3rd Annual Jazz at Drew Legacy Music Series which was a 2-day affair that included Gerald Wilson Orchestra, George Duke, Wayne Henderson & The Next Crusade featuring Wilton Felder & Jimmy Witherspoon, George Bohanon-Bennie Maupin Quintet, Watts Prophets, Jimmy Scott, Cedar Walton Trio w/Red Holloway, Oscar Brown Jr, Hugh Masekela, John Handy, Dwight Trible, Tony Williams Quintet, and many others — at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science, 1731 E. 120th Street, Los Angeles
1994 — July 21, 22, & 24
recorded the fragments for John Rapson’s
assemblage eventually realized as fascinating cd DANCES & ORATIONS
(Music & Arts 923) with Anthony Braxton, Alex Cline, William
Roper,Wayne Peet
1994 — September 13John Stevens dies in England
1994 — Friday, October 21
BB is music director and performs with
musical group for medieval scholar & poet Dick Barnes play “A New
Death of Buster Quinine: The Sacramental Farce and Fire Opera” —
presented at night at Conrock Quarry, Claremont, California — Dick had
friends who had made the arduous hike up to top of Cucamonga Peak (San
Gabriel Mountains) that over-look Claremont at 10,000 feet, so that
during a specific time in the play he sent them a signal (this is
pre-cell-phone era! ) so they could beam a light toward the production
in the rock quarry — from Dick’s description: “Ghost play written for a
single performance at the Conrock Quarry for an autumn night” — with
actors, giant puppets, and fireworks
1995 — March 6
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet @ Alligator Lounge,
3321 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica, as part of Nels Cline-produced series New
Music Monday(s) — William Jeffrey (drums), Roberto Miranda (bass), Don
Preston (piano), Chuck Manning (tenor), Bobby (cornet) — the Mo’tet
played on this series at least 3 times
1995 — April 21
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet performs in quartet
formation at Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque — with Vinny Golia,
Roberto Miranda, William Jeffrey — one tune, “Gates of Hell” appears on
cd ALBUZERXQUE Vol. 26 (Zerx Records)
1995 — July 17David Murray Big Band — at Cafe du Soleil, Saignelégier, Jura, Switzerland, conducted by Butch Morris; DM–tenor sax & bass clarinet; Kahil Henry, Benny Russell, James Spaulding, John Purcell, Marc Shim–saxes & flutes; Hamiet Bluiett–baritone sax & alto clarinet; Hugh Ragin, Rasul Saddik, James Zollar–trumpets; Bobby Bradford–cornet; Craig Harris, Al Patterson–trombones; Bob Stewart–tuba; Jimane Nelson–piano; Fred Hopkins–bass; Randell Merritt–drums
1995 — November 17
David Murray Quintet — Homage To Charles
Tyler: Cité de la Musique — Marseille, France *audience recording. David
Murray – tenor saxophone (#01, 04, 08, 10), bass clarinet (#02, 06),
vocal (#02, 08, 10), Bobby Bradford – cornet, Billy Bang – violin,
Wilber Morris – bass, vocal (#02, 08), Andrew Cyrille – drums
01 – “Afro-American Indian” (Wilber Morris) – 15’5702 – “Shawnee Indian Song” (Charles Tyler) – 15’05
03 – announcement by Wilber Morris and David Murray – 03’12
04 – “Hip Day” (Charles Tyler) – 11’36
05 – announcement by David Murray – 00’48
06 – “P.C.O.P.” (Wilber Morris) – 22’32
07 – announcement by David Murray – 00’38
08 – “Sad Folks” (Charles Tyler) – 16’51
09 – announcement by David Murray – 01’33
10 – “Flowers For Albert” (David Murray) – 13’30
Total Time: 101’46
David Murray Quintet — Marseille, France —
Homage to Charles Tyler w/ David Murray, Billy Bang, Wilbur Morris, BB,
Andrew Cyrille — this was a short tour around France, “No more than
three dates, one of them was a French elementary school, kids about 7 or
8 years-old, and then we played a club where Billy Bang was really
flamboyant and the audience loved it” He doesn’t remember a studio
recording session, so, one of the performances was probably what was
being shopped around to record companies by Tyler’s widow, who funded
the project — as yet unreleased — BB remembers it wasn’t summer because
they were wearing coats, it was cool weather. At the Billy Bang
Discography these titles are listed: “Homage to Charles Tyler”,”Kit
Day”, “Flowers for Albert”, and two unknown titles. Recording by
Bertrand Gastaut: “I used a cheap cassette recorder with even a cheaper
mic! I was a teenager at that time (16 in 1995) and played those
cassettes a lot on my Walkmans and only did the transfer to CD a few
years ago.” [Email from BG to MW 30jan2o15]
Bobby most likely went on this entire tour of France, but then duties
at college might have cut it short —– (We’re still endeavoring to
confirm) —- We know for certain that he was on November 24 concert as
there exists a good magazine review by Francois-Rene Simon, and also he
was on the November 19 gig as he is listed in the concert program, as
well, there is the recording by Bertrand Gastaut of the November 17
concert —–SO, it would seem Bobby was on all concerts from November 16
through 24 for positive. Bobby says he can’t exactly remember [email
4/21/2o17 “MW—-The only thing I remember with that group is the tribute
to Chas Tyler . . . sorry . . . memory bank account overdrawn! Ha”] BB
with David Murray Quintet: Cyrille, Wilber Morris, Billy BangNovember 16 in Toulon / Nov 17 Marseille / Nov 18 Tremblay / Nov 19 Argenteuil / Nov 20 Venissieux / Nov 23 Lille / Nov 24 Montreuil / Nov 25 Agrenteuil / Nov 26 an “atelier/studio” in Nanterre / Nov 27 another studio in Argenteuil / Nov 28 Nanterre / Nov 29 Metz
1995 — December 21 & 22
recording session in Hollywood with
Horace Tapscott Octet at Sage & Sound (unreleased) — w/William
Roper, Michael Session, Fritz Wise, Thurman Green, Phil Vieux, Roberto
Miranda, BB, and HT — they recorded BB’s arrangement of his composition
“Eye of the Storm” — produced by David Keller — executive producer: Don
Snowden
1996 — January
radio interview WKCR, Columbia University, NYC — Bobby visits the studios for a Live in-person interview with host Ben Young
CADENCE magazine (Vol.22 No. 1) publishes
Kirk Silsbee’s in-depth interview with Bobby that was recorded May 17,
1989 in Altadena, California
1996 — May 5
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Mimi’s Jazz
Salon, Encino — Vinny Golia, Don Preston, Roberto Miranda, William
Jeffrey — Mimi Melnick’s by-invitation concerts in her home in the
Encino Hills out in the Valley (ie. San Fernando Valley over the hills
from Hollywood)
1996 – June 30 NYCthe initial performance of trio C/D/E, a cooperative group of whom all three have worked with Bobby Bradford in various projects over the years: Mark Dresser (bass), Marty Ehrlich (woodwinds), Andrew Cyrille (drums)—– They opened this performance at Knitting Factory with Bobby’s “Comin’ On” —- This is also when Mark’s composition “For Bradford” had its debut (six more times this tune has made it to CD subsequently) —– They had planned to have BB join the trio for this performance, but, as the liner notes to their 1998 cd says: “FreeJazzEconomics dictated another reality” —— a recording of this performance exists
1996 — December 8
Roberto Miranda & Afro-Latin American Jazz Ensemble at Mimi’s Jazz Salon — w/ BB, Charles Owens, Nate Morgan, Don Littleton
1997 — February 21 Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA
1997 — March 22
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Open Gate Theater (American Legion Hall, 131 N. Marengo, Pasadena) featuring Nels Cline and Vinny Golia [does anyone know who else in Mo’tet on this date?]
1997 — April 13
Bobby Bradford Quartet at Beanbender’s, Berkeley, California — Ben Goldberg(clarinet, contra-alto-clarinet, bass-clarinet), Don Preston (piano), Bill Douglass (bass), Bobby (cornet) — Recording exists—- FIRST SET: 1. Comin’ On 2. Woman 3. A Little Pain SECOND SET: 4. Sho’ Nuff Blues 5. Have You Seen Sideman? 6. Side Steps 7. Ornate
1997 — September 14
Frode Gjerstad Quartet session in New
Jersey w/ Pheeroan akLaff, Borah Bergman, that results in cd IKOSA MURA —
I remember the first time I heard this music was on Mark Weaver’s radio
show on KUNM here in Albuquerque and I immediately recognized
Bradford’s cornet but the tenor player threw me for a loop, I had to
call the station and ask who it was . . . .
1997 — September 15 & 16
Frode Gjerstad Quartet in upstate New
York at The Spirit Room studio, Rossie, NY recording for Robert Rusch —
BB, Wilber Morris, Newman Baker — results released on cd THROUGH THE
WOODS
1997 — September 27 at Birdland West, Long Beach, California — re-opens for one day to participate in 10th annual Long Beach Day of Music — BB appeared with a group called The Leaders w/ Billy Higgins, Charles Owens, Roberto Miranda
1997 — October 10
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA
1998 — February 1
Charles Owens Quartet at Mimi’s Jazz Salon, Encino, California — w/ BB, Roberto Miranda, Billy Higgins
1998 — April 18mother dies
1998 — May 22
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA w/ Vinny Golia [does anyone know who else?]
1998 — June
European tour with David Murray Big Band
1998 — June/July
six week residency at Civitella Ranieri
Foundation, Umbria, Italy, where he worked on his suite “Portrait of
Duke Ellington” and also wrote the tune “Umby” — the visiting artists
stay in outbuildings of a medieval castle, nice accomodations,
“I was in the refurbished pig pen (laughter) with a kitchenette, and a piano, and even a little sound studio” [BB telcon 27dec2o12]
his wife Lisa and son Benjamin accompanied him on this retreat
1998 — summer
recording session for David Ornette
Cherry’s disk THE END OF THE CENTURY — David is one of Don’ Cherry’s
sons — this record was in process over the course of a year (October 7,
1997 thru November 17, 1998) — BB was only brought in to overdub his
solos & obligattoes, “I only remember one session, at a studio in
some guy’s house here in Altadena. I just went in, put on the earphones
and over-dubbed some improvisations,” over existing tracks that the
ensemble previously recorded — it was summertime, most probably after
the Umby retreat— BB appears on 3 tracks on the released CD
1998 — August 25
Tom Heasley quartet @ 24th Street
Theatre, Los Angeles — Tom Heasley, tuba; Bobby Bradford, cornet; Don
Preston, piano & electronics; Ken Rosser, guitars — recording exists
(4 tunes), recorded by Wayne Peet — one track (“Primeval #7”) was
released on Don Preston’s cd WORKS (Crossfire-9507) in 2007
1998 — October 28
Bobby Bradford-Fred Anderson Quartet at
Empty Bottle, Chicago w/ Harrison Bankhead(bass), and Chad Taylor(drums)
— DAT recording exists — all compositions by BB except where noted: 1.
“She”(22:24), 2. “Comin’ On”(18:35), 3. untitled vamp(20:07), Set 2:
track 4. “A Little Pain”(17:52), 5. “Crooked Blues”(17:37) 6.
“Sidesteps”(9:14) 7. duet BB+HB “Round Midnight”(Monk)(5:47) 8. duet
FA+CT untitled free improvisation(6:53)
1999 — January 23Bobby Bradford & Chuck Manning at Rocco’s, 2930 Beverly Glen Circle, Bel Air
1999 — February 27
(ten minutes before midnight) — Horace Tapscott dies of cancer in his beloved Los Angeles, age 64
1999 — February 28
Tribute for Horace Tapscott — Washington Prep High School —
1999 — March 3“Bobby played in an ensemble with Teddy Edwards, George Bohanon, Bobby West, Roberto Miranda, Fritz Wise, and unknown on flugelhorn” [ Steven Sisoardi — email 7jan13 ]
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Rocco’s w/ Chuck Manning, Ken Rosser, Roberto Miranda, Alex Cline
1999 — March 29
Memorial concert & benefit for Horace
Tapscott — Catalina’s, Hollywood — with Arthur Blythe, Dr Art Davis,
Henry Franklin, Vinny Golia, William Henderson, Alex Cline, Paul
Humphrey, Roberto Miranda, Herman Riley, Phil Ranelin, Jerry Rusch,
Michael Session, Andy Simpkins, Gerald Wiggins, Bobby Bradford and
others — produced Kirk Silsbee & Barbara Brighton — the Mo’tet
1999 — May (uncertain which day)“Bobby, Vinny Golia, Roberto Miranda, Alex Cline played 2 pieces” [ Steven Isoardi — email 7jan13 ]
Bobby Braddford Mo’tet at Rocco’s
1999 — May 8
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet perform and discuss free jazz in: Free Jazz: A History of Jazz Informance, sponsored by Thelonious Monk Institute at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, downtown Los Angeles
1999 — May 23
Roberto Miranda Sextet at Mimi’s Jazz Salon — w/ BB, Charles Owens, Kenny Burrell, Billy Childs, Don Littleton
1999 — May 24
Recording session at Wayne Peet’s
Killzone Studios, Los Angeles for Roberto Miguel Miranda’s cd WITH
GROANINGS TOO DEEP FOR WORDS with Billy Higgins, Kenny Burrell, Charles
Owens, Billy Childs, Don Littleton
1999 — August 13
Billy Higgins Quartet — performs at
Yoshi’s, Oakland, with Dewey Redman, Charnett Moffett — as part of the
Eddie Moore Festival produced by Jazz In Flight — BB says he met Ben
Goldberg that night who was there with his young child — Dewey had been
working on “Half Nelson” so they played that [telcon 5oct12] —
1999 — August 15 & 16“I was on a gig with Billy Higgins not too long before he died, at Yoshi’s, with Dewey Redman and Charnett Moffett, and they’d set up everything [to record] but Dewey didn’t want it recorded, so that was that.” [ BB interview by Clifford Allen, October 2009]
recording session: Vinny Golia Quartet w/
Ken Filiano, Alex Cline, and Bobby playing trumpet, making this the
only time since 1993 he has played trumpet on record (even though, the
CD booklet shows him playing cornet) cd LINEAGE (Ninewinds 214)
1999 — September 7Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at MOCA w/ Nate Morgan, Roberto Miranda, Don Littleton (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles)
1999 — October 7
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at The Downtown Playhouse, downtown Los Angeles
1999 — November 19
Tom Heasley(tuba), Bobby Bradford(cornet), Ken Rosser(g) perform in trio at New Langton Arts, 1246 Folsom Street, San Francisco
2000 — January 10, 11, 12
BB records his parts for John Rapson’s
assemblage based on pre-recorded tracks of Billy Higgins & Roberto
Miranda eventually released as cd WATER AND BLOOD: The Billy Higgins
Improvisations (Nine Winds 252)
2000 — January 15
Bobby organizes a Salute to John Carter
as part of the Inner Ear concert series at Knauer/Johnston Studio, Santa
Monica — this concert curated by Nels Cline — BB pulls together a
quintet to play selections from John’s “Castles of Ghana” suite w/ Art
Davis, bass; Vinny Golia, reeds; Tylana Enomoto, violin; Alex Cline,
drums; Nels Cline — NOTE from Alex:
2000 — June 22 & September 8“Bobby’s tribute to John gig was famously aborted halfway through because the police came and shut it down. Classic. I even have some photos from that gig. We played some of “Castles of Ghana” for the first set (which was all that got performed!) The band was Bobby, Vinny, Dr Art Davis, Nels, and me, and a woman violinist (I can’t remember her name), a student of Bobby’s. She was good, too! William Jeffrey was set to play the second half with Roberto as a quartet, but it never happened! The photos, in fact, were given to me by the photographer years after the gig.” [emails 30jan&1feb2o13]“There was a great little tribute to John at the Knauer/Johnston Studio, 1547 10th Street, Santa Monica. Different group configurations including Bob, Dr Art Davis, William Jeffrey, violinist Tylana Enomoto, Vinny, Alex Cline and Nels Cline. It was co-produced by Cryptogramophone (which means there are tapes somewhere, right?) & Knauer/Johnston Studio. It was the last time I saw any of John’s kids.” [ Kirk Silsbee Email 4jan13 ]
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet — in the AlterKnit Lounge, Knitting Factory, 7021 Hollywood Boulevard
2000 — April 6
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet — @ Broad Center,
Claremont Colleges, in quintet w/Vinny Golia, Wayne Peet, Roberto
Miranda, Alex Cline — recording exists — performed “Portraits Suite” and
selections from “Sideman Suite”
2000 — September 19
Oliver Lake’s band Trio 3 records Bobby’s
composition “Crooked Blues” in NYC for their cd ENCOUNTER (Passin’ Thru
Records 41212) — Andrew Cyrille, drums; Reggie Workman, bass
2000 — September 21Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Rocco, Bel Air
2000 — November 3
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA
2001 — March 14
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet recording session Newzone Studio, Los Angeles — engineered by Wayne Peet — demo session — short versions with short solos if any for grant proposal — 4 Bradford compostions: 1) “Comin’ On” (5:04) 2) “A Little Pain” (5:17) 3) “Side Steps” (4:59) 4) “Crooked Blues” (5:40) total time: 21:13 ————– w/ Ken Rosser(guitar), Chuck Manning (tenor), Roberto Miranda(bass), William Jeffrey(drums), BB(cornet)
2001 — April 14
Concert recording released as Don
Preston’s cd ASYMMETRICAL CONSTRUCT (Brain Records) in trio: Bobby
Bradford, cornet; Don Preston, keyboards; Elliott Levin, tenor sax,
flute, poetry — Los Angeles [Email from Elliott Levin 1jan2o12] — this was one of the last concerts Don Preston produced in his New Music series for the Downtown Playhouse
2001 — July 20 Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA
2002 — January 26
Ken Filiano records BB’s composition
“Woman” for his cd of solo bass recitals SUBVENIRE (Nine Winds 223) at
Wayne Peet’s Newzone Studios, Los Angeles
2002 — February 15Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Downtown Playhouse w/Vinny Golia in the band
2002 — May 27
Jayne Cortez’s Firespitters @ Vision
Festival 2002 NYC — BB rehearsed with them on May 26 at Harmolodic
Studios and it is these two tracks that appear on Jayne’s cd BORDERS OF
DISORDERLY TIME
2002 — June
Recipient of the prestigious Ralph Story
Service Award “presented annually to an outstanding faculty member of
Pasadena City College who has made significant contributions to the
field of education, the college, and the community” — Those who lived in
Southern California during the 50s and 60s and 70s know Frank Story as
radio & television journalist & talk show host, newsman,
commentator on California lifestyles & folkways — elsewhere he is
famous for being the host on the $64,000 Question
2002 — August 23
BB Mo’tet at Los Angeles County Museum —
they performed BB’s “Suite: A Portrait of Duke Ellington” (unissued)
although, much of this concert was released on BB’s Waterboy Records
imprint as LIVE AT LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM — Roberto Miranda, Don
Preston, Michael Vlatkovich, Ken Rosser, Chuck Manning, William Jeffrey
2002 — October 6
Performance at Asian American Jazz
Festival 2002 at Locus 1640 Post, Japantown, San Francisco, in trio with
Francis Wong, tenor saxophone & flute; and William Roper, tuba
& percussion
2002 — October 7
records spontaneous composition trios w/
William Roper and Francis Wong results in cd PURPLE GUMS (Asian Improv
64) — San Francisco State University, Creative Arts Studio
2002 — November 7
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Oakwood School,
Los Angeles — w/ Vinny Golia, Michael Vlatkovich, Don Preston, Roberto
Miranda, Alex Cline
2002— Hi Mark- I think I first met Bobby in 1995 when I hired his quintet to play at the Penofin Jazz Festival in May of that year. I first played with Bobby in 1997. Michael Vlatkovich had composed a piece for 5 horns and Bobby and I were in that group. I believe the other horns were probably Jim Knodle on trumpet and Troy Grugett on bari. This was at the Penofin Jazz Festival in May. I didn’t play my music with Bobby until a few years later, probably in 2002. We recorded The Blue Rims in December 2002 after playing a gig in Portland. Best, Rich Halley [ Email 4july2o12]
* And Bobby has played each successive
year at the annual Penofin Jazz Festival, Potter Valley, California,
most usually with Rich Halley, but on a couple years with his Mo’tet
2003 — February 21
performs as member of William Roper’s Hot
Water Cornbread trio w/ Chris Garcia at Armory Center for the Arts,
Pasadena, California.
“The Armory Center for the Arts presents William Roper’s new trio Hot Water Cornbread in a program celebrating Black History Month.
Tubaist William Roper’s trio, that includes the legendary Bobby
Bradford on cornet and Christopher Garcia on percussion will present a
program of music and spoken word relating directly to the African
American experience. The group will perform music by Charles Mingus,
Glenn Horiuchi, Duke Ellington, Joseph Mitchell, William Roper and
engage in some spontaneous creation. Text works by Langston Hughes,
Myron O’Higgins and Lewis Allen will be woven into the music. Special
guest Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick will perform William Roper’s Poem for Emmett Till for solo cello.”
The trio performed solos & trios. Bobby played “Come Sunday” solo.
Go to William Roper’s website for a momentous photo of Bobby & William. http://roperarts.com/htc.html2003 — February 27
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet — @ Rocco’s, 1076
Lillian Way, Hollywood — BB, cornet; Vinny Golia, soprano & baritone
sax; Michael Stephens, drums; Dave Culwell, bass, Michael Vlatkovich,
trombone — recording by Mark Weber exists — SET ONE: Comin’ On; Woman; A
Little Pain; Li’l Sister SET TWO: Ornate; Sho Nuff Blues; Sidesteps;
Have You Seen Sideman?; Umby
2003 — March 10
trio performance: Tom Heasley, tuba; BB,
cornet; Ken Rosser, guitar — Line Space Line, Griffith Park Boulevard
(at Sunset Blvd), Los Angeles
2003 — May 2Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA
2003 — June 9
Bobby Bradford & Vinny Golia perform 2
sets of duets at Line Space Line, Los Angeles — recorded by Jeremy
Drake — “Woman,” “Room 408,” “Circle,” “Sidesteps,” etc — “Woman”
appears on cd MIDNIGHT PACIFIC AIRWAVES as a bonus track
2003 — June 26 or 27?
Vinny Golia Quartet recording session in
Lisbon, Portugal, released as cd SFUMATO w/ Alex Cline, Ken Filiano, BB
(this session was definitely just prior to the Coimba festival)
2003 — June 28
Bobby Bradford-Vinny Golia Quartet play
Jazz Ao Centro, Encontros Internacionais de Coimba 2003 (International
Jazz Meeting — large festival), Coimbra, Portugal — w/ Alex Cline,
bateria; Ken Filiano, contrabixo; Bobby Bradford, tompeta; Vinny Golia,
saxofone soprano, sopranino, clarinete, clarinete baixo, flauta, flauta
de madiera e flauta baixo
2003 — September 20 @ 2pm
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet plays Monterey Jazz
Festival — Chuck Manning tenor; Roberto Miranda, bass; Ken Rosser,
guitar; and probably William Jeffrey, drums — BB has played Monterey
three times, twice with his own band, and once with Kimara Dixon in trio
with India Cooke (violin) — and the other time with the Mo’tet, was
previous to 2003, he had Vinny Golia (Don Preston and Michael Vlatkovich
report that they have never played Monterey with BB) — the MJF archive
is at Stanford University but it is unorganized at present and no real
data available, at least, on-line, for Bradford’s appearances
2003 — October 5Frankfurt Jazz Festival concert — The Grandmothers and The Strings Of Invention, with special guest Bobby Bradford ( video ) Napoleon Murphy Brock: lead vocals, alto & tenor saxophones, flute, Bunk Gardner: tenor sax, bassoon, soprano sax, flute, Roy Estrada: bass, pachuco falsettos, operatic madness, Don Preston: piano, keyboards, electronics, vocals, Ken Rosser: electric guitar, stunt guitar, loud guitar, Christopher Garcia: drumset, marimba, percussion, vocals, special guest: Bobby Bradford: trumpet. The Strings of Invention: Julia Barto: violin, Jansen Volkers: violin, Mike Rutledge: viola, Stephan Braun: cello
“Albert Mangelsdorff was there and spoke to Bradford and the Band” [Email from Chris Garcia 2dec12](Mangelsdorff d. July 25, 2005)
Set List: intro (in German) * Pound for a
Brown * Oh No * More Trouble * Harder Babies * Sweet 50 * 20 Small
Cigars * Amsterdam – Blues for All * Carolina Hardcore Extacy * A Motor
or Something Different * Frankie`s Not Around * Idiot Bastard Son *
Montana * Memorial BBQ * Stolen Moments * Village of the Sun * outro (in
German)
2003 — October 24
Purple Gums — Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival at Hot House, 31 E. Balboa, Chicago
2003 — November 21
The San Francisco Bay Area clarinet
ensemble Clarinet Thing, formed by Beth Custer in 1990, records at the
Jazz House, Berkeley, California, a version of Bobby’s tune “Song of the
Unsung” (arranged by Ben Goldberg) for their cd AGONY PIPES AND MISERY
STICKS (BC Records 6) released in 2005 — this track possibly from a
concert dedicated to Bobby Bradford’s compositions — the five
clarinetists are: Sheldon Brown, Ralph Carney, Beth Custer, Ben
Goldberg, Peter Josheff, playing Eb, Bb, bass, and contrabass clarinets.
2004 — April 4
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet appears as quintet
at Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque — Chuck Manning, Michael
Vlatkovich, Roberto Miranda, William Jeffrey — recording by Manny
Rettinger exists a couple tunes from this performance appear on cd
ALBUZERXQUE Vols. 23 & 28
2004 — April 30
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA — only member I can verify presently is William Jeffrey
2005
trumpeter Scotty Barnhart publishes his
book THE WORLD OF JAZZ TRUMPET (Hal Leonard Corp., 2005) with Chapter
II:10 being a sit-down conversation with Bobby. *Scotty Barnhart became
Director of The Legendary Count Basie Orchestra in September 2o13,
taking over from Dennis Mackrel.
2005 — April 23 BOBBY BRADFORD QUINTET/SEXTET
College Hall Chapel, Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, Vermont —- Bobby (cornet), Chuck Manning (tenor saxophone), Claire Arenius (drums), Eugene Uman (piano), Jamie MacDonald (bass), John La Rouche (harmonica) — *Recording exists —- Good audience
SET ONE
1. Crooked Blues — which BB explains was his spin-off after studying
Straight No Chaser and he called originally it Crooked With Ice (17:30)
2. A Little Pain (14:00)
3. She/Woman (21:00)
SET TWO (disk 2)
1. Sidesteps (16:15)
2. Have You Seen Sideman? (15:20)
3. Sho Nuff Blues [Bb blues] (10:20)
4. Comin’ On (15:40)
5. Ashes [BB sings intro: “Stone cold dead in de market . . .” with a Tinidad accent — band plays calypso] (6:30)
**Bobby & Chuck flew out from California and the rhythm section was a pick-up band, of which Bobby already knew the bassist and the harmonica player from California
***concert produced by John LaRouche. “John La Rouche I met at PCC and he played in the combo…his dad owned a jaguar that he got from Chet Baker and I think he lived in Upland!!” –email BB > MW 23apr2o17
**** “Stone Cold Dead in the Market (He Had it Coming)” was a 1946 hit for Louis Jordan & His Tympani Five w/ Ella Fitzgerald (recorded Oct. 15, 1945 for Decca) — Louis Jordan loomed large in Bobby’s sphere of influences when he was a teenager
2005 — August 5
FONT at Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th
Street, NYC — Bobby Bradford Mo’tet with Mark Dresser & Ken Filiano,
basses, and Marty Ehrlich, reeds — this evening was recorded off the
soundboard –tunes they performed “Woman”(beginning missing–3:18), “A
Little Pain”(8:30), “Crooked Blues”(12:47), “Comin’ On”(15:07) and
“Sidesteps”(10:55) — all compositions by Bradford — FONT = Festival Of
New Trumpet, an organization under the direction of trumpeter Dave
Douglas
2005 — October 27
trio called Purple Gums: Francis Wong, Bobby, William Roper at Club Tropical, 8641 Washington Blvd, Culver City, California
2005 — October 29Purple Gums at Rosalie & Alba’s Performance Gallery, 1417 W. 8th Street, San Pedro
2005 — December
Eldridge Bruz Freeman dies — (b. August 11, 1921 Chicago)
2006 — January 27
Nels Cline Group plays music of Andrew
Hill — The Palms Playhouse, Winters, California — this must be the gig
Bobby remembers as east of the Bay Area driving through corn fields and
evening bumper traffic, he said it was strange to be stuck in traffic
jam when all you could see was cornfields for miles in every direction
2006 — January 30
Nels Cline Group plays music of Andrew
Hill — Yoshi’s, Oakland — Ben Goldberg, Andrea Parkins, Scott Amendola,
Devin Hoff, Nels, and Bobby
2006 — February 3
Nels Cline Group plays music of Andrew Hill — Club Tropical, Culver City, California —
2006 — February 3 & 4“The only live New Monastery gig I ever played on was the first one at the Club Tropical here in Culver City. I commandeered Scott Amendola’s floor tom on “Compulsion!” for the most part. Somewhere there’s video evidence of this.” — Alex Cline [ email 23dec2o12 ]
recording session for Nels Cline NEW
MONASTERY A View Into The Music of Andrew Hill — then a California tour,
and a gig in NYC — same ensemble as previous plus Alex Cline
2006 — April 9
Purple Gums w/ guest Erika
Duke-Kirkpatrick (cello) at Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Luckman Intimate
Theatre, Cal State Los Angeles, as part of series Interactive Jazz
Experience
2006 — April 10
Purple Gums — film studios of Portable
Universe — host & producer David Witham — Episode 95 “Improvisation
as a Subversive Act” (29:01 minutes of tremendous footage) Long Beach,
CA
2006 — August 26
brass trio formed by William Roper
called: Wachet auf! performed at The Armory Center for the Arts,
Pasadena — William Roper, tuba; Bobby, cornet; Michael Vlatkovich,
trombone
2006 — October 8
attends concert of the duo called SOUND at Ford Amphitheatre, L.A. — Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, solos & duets
2006 — Oct 29
Nels Cline Group performs sextet versions
of Andrew Hill’s music at Herbst Theatre as part of 24th annual San
Francisco Jazz Festival
2006 — November 20
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at the Athenaeum,
Claremont McKenna College — William Jeffrey, Michael Vlatkovich, Roberto
Miranda, Don Preston, Ken Rosser, Chuck Manning, BB
2007 — March 29
Nels Cline Ensemble: New Monastery: Music
of Andrew Hill plays Jazz Standard, NYC — Ben Goldberg, Andrea Parkins,
Scott Amendola, Devin Hoff, Nels Cline, Bobby Bradford ( blogsite of
jazyjef has this as March 3?) click here for a video
2007 — April 20
Purple Gums perform at San Francisco
State University — 1pm & 8pm — Knuth Hall, Creative Arts Building,
as part of ImprovisAsians – A World of Jazz in a Week
2007 — July 3
recording session: Vinny Golia Quartet w/Ken Filiano & Alex Cline > cd TAKE YOUR TIME (Relative Pitch Records 1003
2007 — beginning in May?
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet plays first
Friday(s) of the month at Cafe 322 in Sierra Madre (first gig I have
recorded is July 6, 2007) — (two other evenings exist on recordings:
February 1, 2008, and April 4, 2008) — as well as a smattering of
Tuesdays in 2008 and then a hiatus during 2009 resuming in 2010 with
Wednesdays and some Fridays until Cafe 322 closes down April 29, 2012 —
besides his regular Mo’tet 7-piece configuration during these years,
saxophonist Michael Session substituted one or two evenings at Cafe 322
2007 — July 6
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Cafe 322 — Ken
Rosser, Roberto Miranda, Michael Vlatkovich, Don Preston, William
Jeffrey, Chuck Manning, and Dick Woods (alto) sitting in, and poet
Bonnie Barnett reads a Gertrude Stein poem — I recorded this evening on
mini-disk w/ stereo mic — all tunes written by Bobby Bradford except
where noted: “Crooked Blues,” “A Little Pain,” “I Mean You”(Monk),
“Dali,” “A Love Story” (Gertrude Stein, arranged by BB), “Ornate,”
“Winsome”(from the Duke Ellington Suite), “Woman,” “Ashes”
2007 — August
BB joins the group ESP: India Cooke,
violin; Kimara (Alan Dixon) piano, anda conga player ——- at Black New
World performance space, 836 Pine Street, Oakland, California — [thanks
to Charles Smith for this information]
2007 — August 16
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA, 10899 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
2007 — November 15
Bobby Bradford at The Getty Center as part of the 3-day conference
Cote a Cote COAST to COAST: ART and JAZZ in France and California —
other performances this day by Vinny Golia, Ernie Andrews, Jack Sheldon,
Bud Shank, Rene Urtreger, Ron Stout, Les McCann — Bobby & Vinny
used the same rhythm section all the leaders used: Jeff Hamilton, bass;
and Gerry Gibbs (Terry’s son), drums
2008 — January 10 & 17
telephone conversations over Live radio concerning the music of
Ornette Coleman on KUNM Albuquerque 89.9FM w/ Host Mark Weber (BB has
appeared in interview on this radio show previously: April 8, 2004;
August 22, 2007; February 28, 2008; February 5, 2009; August 20, 2009;
June 16, 2011 — all of these are archived at UCLA)
2008 — February 1
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Cafe 322 — Ken Rosser, Roberto Miranda,
Michael Vlatkovich, Don Preston, Chris Garcia, Chuck Manning — I
recorded this evening on mini-disk w/ stereo mic
2008 — February 9
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet — UCSB MultiCultural Center Theater, Santa
Barbara, California — Michael Vlatkovich, Chuck Manning, Chris Garcia,
Don Preston, Putter Smith, BB
2008 — February 14
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet — Little Bridges Auditorium, Claremont Colleges
2008 — March 7, Friday
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Cafe 322 — Chuck
Manning, tenor & soprano (Many of these Mo’tet dates for Cafe 322
were found on Chuck Manning’s website so I can only verify that he was
on the gig)
2008 — April 4
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Cafe 322 — Chris Garcia, Michael Vlatkovich,
Ken Rosser, Putter Smith (not his first time subbing in this band), Don
Preston, Chuck Manning — Bobby performed his relatively new tune
“Freeway” this night and we caught it on tape (ie. mini-disk, actually)
2008 — April 16, Wednesday
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Cafe 322 — Chuck Manning, et al.
2008 — May 10
Bobby joins Frode Gjerstad’s Totale Circulasione Orchestra for the
first time — 15-piece ensemble “celebration of free improvised music,”
says Frode — Stavanger, Norway (Frode’s hometown) released on cd as OPEN
PORT
2008 — May 29, Thursday
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Harbeson Hall, Pasadena City College w/ Chuck Manning
2008 — June 6
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Cafe 322 — Don Preston, Ken Rosser, Roberto
Miguel Miranda, Christopher Garcia, Chuck Manning, Michael Pierre
Vlatkovich — 8:30pm
2008 — June 7 at 1pm
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Los Olivos Jazz, Los Olivos, California w/ Chuck Manning
2008 — July 16
Bobby with Frode Gjerstad’s Totale Circulasione Orchestra — gig at a
club called Reknes in Molde, Norway, as part of the annual Molde Jazz
Festival — released as cd REKNES
2008 — August 15
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at LACMA
2008 — September 5
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Cafe 322 w/ Chuck Manning, tenor & soprano
2008 — October 3
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Cafe 322 w/ Chuck Manning, tenor & soprano
2008 — November 11, Tuesday
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Cafe 322 w/ Chuck Manning
2009 — February 14
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Little Bridges Auditorium, Claremont
Colleges — Don Preston, Roberto Miranda, William Jeffrey, Ken Rosser,
Michael Vlatkovich, Chuck Manning
2009 — April 4
Performs as member of Don Preston’s PRISM at Sound Pasadena Music
Center, 1509 Mission Street, with Don Preston, piano, EFX, & text;
Harry Scorzo, violin; William Roper, tuba; — a Zoom recording exists
2009 — May 15
16th annual Penofin Jazz Festival, Potter Valley, northern California
— Bobby and the Rich Halley Quartet workshop for school kids
2009 — May 16
Rich Halley Quartet w/ Clyde Reed, Carson
Halley, BB perform at 1:45pm Saturday according to the program — also,
this day at the festival is poet Dottie Grossman/Jim Knodle (Vlatkovich
had prior gig commitment); Jeff Parker Trio; poet Dan Raphael with Rich
& Carson Halley; and Craig Taborn Trio
2009 — June 15
special guest with William Parker Quartet
+ 3 at Angel Orensanz Foundation, 172 Norfolk Street, NYC w/ Quartet:
WP, Rob Brown, Hamid Drake, Lewis Barnes + Billy Bang & James
Spaulding — recording by Steven Schmidt exists — afterwards, the
promoter Patricia Nicholson asked Bobby if he’d conduct the jam session
(a good old-fashioned Texas jam session) to end the Vision Festival this
year. Alto saxophonist Nick Lyons participated in the jam session, a
graduate of the Oberlin music program, as well as further studies with
Connie Crothers. I asked him about this event:
2009 —- June 15“There was something going on at Angel Orensanz Foundation which was followed by a jam session at the Local 269, a small divey bar at 269 Houston Street that at the time was regularly hosting Vision Festival-associated musicians and has a small bandstand area. Connie and I ran into each other at the Orensanz Foundation and decided to go over to the jam together. Here’s a partial lineup that I remember: Henry Grimes, bass; Michael Wimberly, drums; Sabir Mateen, tenor; Patrick Brennan, alto. My memory is that there was no piano. There was a group of seven or eight total standing in a semi-circle in front of the drums, mostly horns, with Henry Grimes on the stage left end, and I stood between him [BB] and Sabir Mateen. I just don’t remember for sure the others. Afterwards, Connie introduced me to Bobby Bradford and the three of us stood and mostly the two of them talked, but Bobby said a few things to me which I don’t really remember, other than I do remember he was very encouraging and sweet.” [Nick S. Lyons email 25jan13]*Bobby opened the jam session with himself in duet with Henry Grimes for about twenty minutes with two of BB’s tunes: “Woman” and “Comin’ On” — no rehearsal, “No more than twenty words were spoken between us, I showed him the music, and after he looked over Woman he said That’s a bad tune, man, and that was it and he played marvelously like he’d been playing those tunes for years” — BB suggested that chiming bass ostinato that he uses sometimes on Woman “BOOM bing BOOM bing Boom Bing….” I had mentioned what a great walker Henry is (after catching him with Connie Crothers at The Stone, 20aug14) and BB pointed out that Henry is not only a great walker but he is also accomplished at walking in a free context where there are no changes. BB added that “the superbad walkers” are Percy Heath, Sam Jones, “and that guy here in L.A. who was in prison for so many years, Leroy Vinnegar.” Adding that Percy Heath once approached Mingus for some lessons and Mingus enthused: IF you teach me how to walk on the blues the way you do then we’re even. [telcon 9sept14]*Additionally from Nick Lyons: “Local 269 has since closed, it was at 269 Houston Street at the corner of Suffolk . . . . There was a blues at the end of the night where Henry played bass. I stood between him and Sabir Mateen and there was a whole line of horn players. I was so thrilled to be playing with Henry, and to be playing a swinging blues was especially incredible. He looked at me and nodded with a little smile after I played (wow).” [email 11sept14]
William Parker Septet at New York City Vision Festival XIV, Orensanz Center – concert w/ Bobby Bradford (cornet), William Parker (bass), Hamid Drake (drums), Bob Brown (alto), Lewis Barnes (trumpet), Billy Bang (violin), James Spaulding (alto) —– released as Disk 5 on box set WOOD FLUTE SONGS (AUM-084)—- Recorded by Steve Schmidt
2009 — July 21
Chuck Nessa re-issues in a 2-CD set his
two separate LP albums Bobby Bradford with John Stevens and the
Spontaneous Music Ensemble (Nessa 17/18). “This was the first and only
cd issue. The cd masters were created from the original session tapes — 5
reels. My original vinyl productions were issued in December of 1980
(volume 1) and August of 1985 (volume 2). The session was originally
done for Alan Bates (Black Lion / Freedom) and I purchased the masters
from him.” — Chuck Nessa (email 6may14)
— Bates only released one album of a projected two album set, but the
second volume never came out although Max Harrison had already written
liner notes, of which Chuck combined both sets of liner notes for this
2-CD release (Max Harrison is one of the great craftsmen of liner
notes). Chuck adds, “The time delay between my 2 lps was the result of
Bates misplacing the master for Norway. It was finally discovered in one
of Bates’ closets thanks to my good friend Donald Clarke who was living
in England at the time. He kept going ’round and bugging Bates.” Chuck
re-sequenced the tracks for his releases. In my collection I have an LP
copy of Bates’ first volume released on Trio for the Japanese market.
2009 — October 1-4
Festival of New Trumpet residency where he was awarded with the 2009
FONT award. At the Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th Street, NYC curated by
Dave Douglas — BB only performed the last two nights: Bobby Bradford
Quintet (Oct. 3) w/ David Murray, Marty Ehrlich, Andrew Cyrille, Mark
Dresser; and (Oct.4) w/ Octet: Marty Ehrlich, Benny Powell, Baikida
Carroll, James Weidman, Andrew Cyrille, Mark Helias, David Murray —
Recording exists for October 4 — Ornette came to the performance!
Stanley Crouch, also, and Connie Crothers, and Richard Tabnik! — I heard
a story about how these gigs were nearly sold out with lines outside
around the block waiting for the next set and that Bobby went out and
individually greeted the fans of his music who were willing to wait
2009 — April 4
performs as member of Don Preston’s PRISM at South Pasadena Music
Center with Harry Scorzo, violin, William Roper, tuba, and Don on
keyboards and EFX, Bobby on cornet — most of this evening recorded by
Harry on his Zoom — also, Don has a video copy of this event
2009 — September 6
recording session for cd LIVE IN L.A.
chamber trio w/ Mark Dresser, and Glenn Ferris who was visiting from
Paris, and Mark drove up from San Diego — tremendous music — recorded at
Bruce Fowler’s home in the Valley (they like the acoustics there) —
there is a YouTube showing some of this session — CD released on Clean
Feed — Link to video of the session performing “Purge” is here…
2010 — January 30
short U.S. tour with Frode Gjerstad’s Circulasione Totale Orchestra —
Philadelphia at International House, 3701 Chestunt Street — 12-piece
multi-national free jazz ensemble — ( I read somewhere that “Free jazz
is the new Dixieland” — I like it ) — BB, cornet; Frode, sax &
clarinets; Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, bass; Anders Hana, electric guitar;
Lasse Marhaug, electronics; Sabir Mateen, tenor sax, clarinets, flute;
Louis Moholo-Moholo, drums; Borre Molstad, tuba; Paal Nilssen-Love,
drums; Keven Norton, vibes; Morten J. Olsen, electronics, drums; Nick
Stephens, bass — performing here as part of their series: Anti Jazz The
New Thing Revisited
2010 — January 31
Circulasione Totale Orchestra (same band as previous) — Barnevelder Movement Arts Complex, 2201 Preston Street, Houston, Texas
2010 — February 17, Wednesday
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Cafe 322 w/ Chuck Manning, tenor & soprano saxophones
2010 — April
hernia operation that warranted a little bit of caution in playing the cornet for almost a year
2010 — April 27
Pomona College Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Bobby Bradford — Lyman Hall
2010 — June 20
Mosaic Records releases a monumental (nearly) complete 3-cd set of
The Complete Revelation Sessions comprising the two albums Bobby &
John recorded for that label 1969-1972 as well as almost two hours of
previously unreleased material — released on the Mosaic Select series as
#36
2010 — August 20
Mo’tet at Los Angeles County Museum of Art — Chuck Manning, tenor;
Roberto Miranda,bass; Vinny Golia, baritone; Don Preston, piano; Chris
Garcia, drums, Bobby Bradford, cornet
2010 — November 11
BB as member of trio with Frode Gjerstad and Paal Nilssen-Love — at
Klub Dragon in Poznan, Poland — recording released on cd as DRAGON2010 — November 13
Bobby Bradford Quartet
Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London Jazz Festival
Bobby Bradford (cornet), Frode Gjerstad (clarinet), Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (bass), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums)
* five pieces were performed –as yet unknown titles
2010 —- November 17* five pieces were performed –as yet unknown titles
Bobby Bradford-Frode Gjerstad Quartet at Kampenjazz, Oslo, Norway — Bradford (cornet), Frode (alto sax & clarinet), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums), Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (bass) —– released on vinyl LP in 2012 as KAMPEN (NoBusiness Records) in an edition of 300 copies [if anyone knows where I can acquire a copy please let me know] with tracks > Side A: 1. “This Is” 2. “A Live” Side B: 1. “Recording From” 2. “Kampen, Oslo”
2010 — December 5
Rich Halley Quartet at Open Gate Theater, Eagle Rock — BB, Carson
Halley, Clyde Reed (This Pacific North Coast band travels south for an
exhibition of what they’ve been doing in Portland and Vancouver) — Bobby
knows Rich’s son Carson from his student days at Claremont Colleges
where he was in Bobby’s stage band
2011 — January 22
Elliott Levin Quintet — concert &
live recording session at Alvas Showroom, Los Angeles — Elliott Levin,
tenor sax, flute, poetry; Don Preston, piano and electronics; Bobby
Bradford, cornet; Nick Rosen, bass; David Hurley, drums — to be issued
on Porter Records, Madison, Wisconsin
2011 — Feb 3, 4, 5
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet @ The Red Cat Theatre, Disney Hall, Bunker
Hill, Los Angeles — backing the artist George Herms — Christopher
Garcia, Michael Vlatkovich, Vinny Golia, Robert Miranda, Don Preston,
Ken Rosser, Bobby Bradford — Mr Herms is very much a Los Angeles hipster
who finds his vision within the cast-off junk of a decadent society and
drags it into art galleries for us to ponder, he had a large metal
spiral staircase with flaked paint he connected to a crane while the
band played and hoisted it into the air, he sort of wandered around
rearranging pieces of dreck and so forth, it was marvelous
2011 — February 9-11
Bradford Mo’tet — three performances in three days backing poet
Robert Pinsky in Los Angeles — produced by Steven Isoardi — Wednesday @
Oakwood High School; Thursday @ the Armand Hammer Museum on Wilshire (a
board recording possibly exists, BB says they spent 2 hours on
soundcheck); Friday @ Century City Chamber of Commerce (only played
about 45 minutes — a video recording exists — Mo’tet was quartet of BB,
Chris Garcia, Vinny Golia, Roberto Miranda *BB says Tom Williamson
showed up at the Hammer gig “wearing a big apple cap”
2011 — March 9
BB with Circulasione Totale Orchestra — performance in Oslo, Norway
2011 — April 26
Bobby leading his Pomona College Jazz
Ensemble “in music from across the jazz spectrum” — the last time he
presented this stage band after 37 years — Lyman Hall, Thatcher Music
Building — BB continues teaching History of Jazz at Pomona
2012 — March 7
Bobby Bradford Quintet — La Sierra
University Alumni Center, 11500 Pierce Street, Riverside, California —
BB, cornet; Henry Franklin, bass; Christopher Garcia, drums; Vinny
Golia, woodwinds; Cathleen Pineda, piano, subbing for Don Preston, a
graduate of Cal Arts, Bobby said,
“She jumped right in like she’d been with me forever, just wonderful” [telcon w/BB 22dec12]
2012 — Friday, April 27
A Jazz Tribute to Bobby Bradford with the Pomona College Jazz
Ensemble under the direction of Bobby Rodriguez, with guests Lolly
Allen, vibes; Cathlene Pineda, piano; Roberto Miranda, bass; Kenny
Elliott, drums — performing the music of Bobby Bradford, Quentin Jones,
and Bobby Rodriguez — Lyman Hall, Thatcher Music Building, 340 N.
College Avenue, Claremont, California
2012 — April 28
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at 39th annual Kohoutek Festival at Pitzer
College, Claremont — Roberto Miranda, Vinny Golia, Michael Vlatkovich,
Wayne Peet, Ken Rosser, William Jeffrey — afternoon concert outside on a
sunny day
2012 — May 12
performs with Rich Halley 5 at the annual Penofin Jazz Festival
(private festival by invitation) with Michael Vlatkovich, trombone,
Carson Halley, drums, Clyde Reed, bass, and Rich on tenor sax — Bobby
played trumpet on this date (his cornet in need of repair)
2012 — May 13
Bobby gives commencement speech at Pomona College for David Murray
(class of ’77), who received Honorary Doctorate of Music & Letters
(Murray went to Pomona a year and a half before departing for NYC in
March 1975 > Link to Bobby & David’s speech click here…
2012 — June 13
cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum records a
sparkling version of Bobby’s composition “Comin’ On” with his trio Book
Of Three — John Hebert, bass; Gerald Cleaver, drums — released on their
Relative Pitch Records cd CONTINUUM(2012)
2012 — September 19
BB goes into Newzone Studio in Santa
Monica (technically it’s L.A. but it’s the Santa Monica part of L.A. —
personally, I don’t understand how the address is Los Angeles — MW) —-
to record his cornet solo for David Murray’s tune “The Graduate” for
Murray’s album BE MY MONSTER LOVE w/ vocalists Macy Gray & Gregory
Porter & his Infinity Quartet (released June 2o13) — Bobby does 4
takes to the track Murray sent him, 3 choruses each (BB’s solo comes in
after the tenor solo) (Murray picked take 2) — engineered by Wayne Peet —
the title refers to David receiving Honorary Doctorate from Pomona
College (see May 13, 2012 entry) and says that he constructed the
composition using parts of two of Bradford’s blues tunes:
“Woodshedetude” and “Crooked Blues” —- This constitutes the only time in
BB’s career that he had done an overdub on anything, and that’s because
Murray recorded this album in Silver Springs, Maryland, and Paris,
France, and New Orleans. (Bobby has done something somewhat on the order
of overdubs for John Rapson’s 1995 project released as DANCE &
ORATIONS but that was a different intent, where Rapson purposefully
composed the music to be played over the top of Anthony Braxton
snippets, quite an amazing record)(As well, BB did overdubs on David
Ornette Cherry’s record THE END OF A CENTURY — see Summer 1998 entry)
2012 — October 1
William Hardy, founder of Revelation Records passes — BB had remained
friends with William over the years and kept in touch via telephone —
William lived in Gainesville, Florida
2012 — October 6
Symposium: “Honoring and Breaking with Lineage” at Redcat Theater,
Walt Disney Concert Hall Complex, Bunker Hill, Los Angeles — Greg Burk,
moderator; Ruth Price, panelist; Bobby Bradford, panelist; Steven
Isoardi, panelist; Ambrose Akinmusire, panelist — as part of the Angel
City Jazz Festival 2012
2012 — October 7
guest with the Mark Dresser Quintet at John Anson Ford Theatre
quintet: Michael Sarin(drums), MD(bass), Marty Ehrlich(alto sax &
clarinet), Denman Maroney(piano) as part of the Angel City Jazz Festival
2012
2012 — October 16
BB is asked to speak to the Tuesday Afternoon Academy at Scripps
College, Claremont Colleges, in honor of artist & Scripps professor
Samella Lewis, on the subject: “Some Thoughts on Jazz Greats” as
background to the panorama of Ms Lewis’ subject matter in her work
2013 — March 3, Sunday 7pm
Hafez Modirzadeh Quartet performs on the
Open Gate Theatre series (in it’s 16th year under the direction of Will
Salmon & Alex Cline) at Center for the Arts, 2225 Colorado Blvd,
Eagle Rock, Southern California — Mark Dresser, bass; Alex Cline,
drumset; Bobby Bradford, cornet; and Hafez Modirzadeh, alto saxophone —
(Hafez traveled down from San Francisco where he teaches at SF State
University) — they performed: 1) “Fade to Green”/”Steadfast” (Hafez
arrangement of two Alex Cline tunes superimposed on one another) — 2)
“Facet5/17″(Hafez) — 3) “For Bradford” (Dresser) — 4) “Song for the
Unsung” (BB) — This concert was a double-bill shared with the duo of
Phillip Greenleaf (reeds) and Nick Tamburro (percussion) — Mark Dresser
said [Email 6mar13] “We played a
tune by each of us. Bobby had come from another gig playing with
dancers, I had driven up from San Diego.” Alex said [Email 5mar13]
“It went well. Big fun! Hafez played mainly tenor until recently, he
played alto on the gig, on which he seems to be concentrating nowadays.”
BB told Kirk Silsbee [Glendale News-Press 2mar13]
“I heard him up north in 2007 and I thought: He’s really on Ornette’s
case — a terrific player — all over the horn. And I can count on one
thumb the players who can really get to what Ornette is all about.”
Hafez told Kirk [op.cit.] “It’s a
great honor for me that Bobby wants to play this gig. With musicians
like Bobby, Mark, and Alex, the music is almost secondary, I don’t have
to give it much thought. Their spirits are so rich in the common
humanity that it’s affirming. We give each other courage.” This event
was recorded by Hafez.
2013 — Sunday 3pm March 10
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Little Bridges
Auditorium, Claremont Colleges — Chuck Manning, tenor & soprano
saxes; Michael Vlatkovich, trombone & percussion; Bobby Bradford,
cornet & percussion & all arrangements & compositions; Don
Preston, grand piano; Chris Garcia, drums; Ken Rosser, guitar; Roberto
Miranda, bass. The Mo’tet played a full hour and twenty minutes, one
long set, and then were called back for an encore. Little Bridges was
full to capacity in the regular seating and up above in the mezzanine
there were people. Bobby said he thought maybe they had been directed to
the wrong concert. Even James Kousakis (saxophonist on BB’s LOST IN
L.A. album) showed up, who now lives in Alhambra. Michael Vlatkovich
said Bobby brought a new tune to their repertoire. I asked BB about this
and he explained how Little Bridges is more of a concert hall for
string music and solo pianos and opera, that horns and drums are a
little boomy in there. So, he wrote out a sheet he called “Sound Search”
— a piece of music designed for the band to ascertain the sound
qualities of the room — long tones, whole notes, over-lapped — the music
had no barre lines and the sax, trombone, and guitar, played the long
tones over-lapping each other while the rhythm section played
percussion: BB on his Buddhist brass bowl, Chris on rattles and various,
Don on triangle, and Roberto on percussion until he picked up his bass
and began the opening strains of “A Little Pain,” which they sequed
into. I asked if “Sound Search” was an actual composition and BB said”
“Yes and no.” This opening was followed by: “Umby” – “Have You See
Sideman” – “Ornate” – “Nostalgia in Times Square” (that the band sings —
Bradford’s lyrics) Michael said it was a good audience, good listeners.
Bobby was very pleased with how the band played. A recording exists,
done by the concert hall sound techs.
**Vinyl LP released in 2016 in edition of 500 copies titled LIVE AT
THE OPEN GATE (NoBusiness Records NBLP-96) with track titles: A1.
“Steadfast”(Cline) A2. “Facet 5” (Modirzadeh) A3. “Facet 17”
(Modirzadeh) A4. “Dresser Only” (Dresser) B1. “For Bradford”(Dresser)
B2. “HA BB”(Bradford/Modirzadeh) B3. “Song for the Unsung”(BB) B4.
“Reprise” (Bradford/Modirzadeh/Dresser/Cline)
2013 — April 27
Bobby is asked to give a talk as part of Jazz Appreciation Month — Allendale Branch Library, Pasadena, 1130 S. Marengo Avenue
2013 — May 18-19
BB with the Rich Halley Quartet — Penofin
Jazz Festival, Potter Valley, Mendocino County, California. BB had to
cancel his participation this year at Potter Valley because of medical
emergency in the family.
2013 — June 21
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at Norton Simon
Museum (new theater space inside)(not the sculpture garden as previously
arranged — but wow, what a GREAT sculpture garden!) — this Mo’tet
consists of: Bobby on cornet; Roberto Miranda, bass; Vinny Golia,
soprano & baritone saxophones; Tina Raymond, drums; Cathleen Pineda,
keyboard — telcon w/BB 23june13 says
the gig went very well, very well attended, and that he’s very pleased
with how the band played — set list: “Woman — or She, or whatever I
called it that day” – “A Little Pain” – “Umby” – “Comin’ On” – “Have You
Seen Sideman?” – “Crooked Blues”. *They were contracted to play an hour
and they probably played 65 minutes. No recording was made, that he
knows of. A Sunday afternoon concert. The first jazz concert at Norton
Simon, usually they have classical string quartets and suchlike. Tom
Williamson showed up!
2013 — July 16 The album FLIGHT FOR FOUR re-issued on CD by International Phonograph
2013 — August 9
Friday evening 6-8pm ——- Bobby Bradford
Mo’tet –Live at Los Angeles County Museum of Art aka LACMA — concert
director: Mitch Glickman. Bobby — cornet & vocals; Chuck Manning —
tenor sax (soprano on “Woman”); Michael Vlatkovich — trombone; Ken
Rosser — guitar (1978 Gibson ES-335); Chris Garcia — drums; Don Preston —
(1963 Steinway) grand piano; Roberto Miranda — string bass. *Recorded
by Mark Weber on mini-disk AND also recorded by the museum off the
soundboard for broadcast at a later date on KJAZ.
FIRST SET: 1. Sound Search/A Little Pain 2. Umby 3. Woman 4. Bosom of Abraham
SECOND SET: 1. I Mean You (Monk) w/
Little Richard lick interpolated (BB says how this tune has always
seemed like old-time R&B to him, so for fun he added that little
lick to his arrangement — “Lightnin Hopkins plays that lick” ) 2.
Sidesteps 3. Crooked Blues
*on “Woman” the vocal that BB sings is an old field hollar:Hey, Lookit here, man** All tunes composed by Bobby Bradford except “I Mean You”
Don’t you know
Your back won’t hold it
And your neck won’t go
*** More than 500 people in attendance, a wonderful night on Wilshire Blvd
2014
March tour of U.S. with the
Bradford-Gjerstad Quartet — BB, cornet; Frode Gjerstad, alto sax;
Ingebrigt Haaker Flaten, acoustic bass; Frank Rosaly, drums.
- March 23 — Austin, Texas at the Victory Grill, 1104 E. 11th Street
- March 24 — Dallas, Texas at Beefhaus, 833 Exposition Avenue
- March 25 — Houston, Texas at MECA, 1900 Kane Street
- March 26 — Detroit, Michigan at Trinosophes, 1464 Gratiot
- March 27 — Buffalo, New York at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, 341Delaware Avenue
- March 29 — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at Philadelphia Art Alliance, 251 S. 18th Street. Selections from this concert released on 12-inch vinyl LP called THE DELAWARE RIVER (NoBusiness Records NBLP-87)
- March 30 — Baltimore, Maryland at the Windup Space, 12 W. North Avenue
NOTE:
Bobby’s first gig on tour with Frode Gjerstad will be Sunday evening
March 23 in Austin at Victory Grill coincidently where BB heard &
met Ornette for the first time so many years ago when everybody convened
in Austin for Charles Moffett’s wedding — Ornette played, and Leo
Wright played alto (BB and he were room mates at college at this time,
and Leo was just beginning on flute), and Marcus Adams, tenor saxophone
“Baaad tenor player from San Antonio, he later joined the church and
only played church music after that”
Nowadays the Victory Grill has a little jazz & blues festival every year they call “Kenny Dorham’s Backyard”
KD’s mother lived only 3 or 4 blocks from
the Victory in the East End neighborhood of Austin, lived there most of
her life, until she passed on, and was KD’s last residence in Austin
before heading out to NYC circa 1945—
Bobby said, “Man, I didn’t get up there
and play I just sat in the front row and listened. Ornette was already
doing some of the things he would later develop.” [telcon 15march2o14]
The repertoire on this tour was entirely
spontaneously improvised music. No written music or tunes or
pre-arranged set-ups. The performances at Houston, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore were recorded. Dave Ballou and Michael Formanek were in
attendance at the Baltimore engagement, afterwards they all went out to a
restaurant for a little something to eat, Frode’s trio and Bradford,
and at table Dave said to Bobby that he didn’t expect to hear so much
bebop, and Bobby said, “That’s where I come from, that’s what I grew up
with.”
2014 — March
Martin Davidson re-issues John Carter
& Bobby Bradford TANDEM — duets from 1979 & 1982 (Emanem 5024)
in a remastered improved 2-cd set.
2014 — March 16
Bobby goes to hear and visit with pianist
Connie Crothers at The Blue Whale jazz club in Little Tokyo sector of
downtown Los Angeles (they met a few years earlier when BB played The
Jazz Standard in 2007 — see March 29, 2007 entry — and then also at BB’s
2009 FONT Award gig, again in NYC) — Connie on California tour in duet
with tenor saxophonist Jessica Jones in a very rare appearance for CC in
L.A., if not the very first time she’s played there.
2014 — May 24
vocalist Patti Littlefield and guitarist
Michael Anthony record BB’s lyrics to “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” (Mingus) at
Studio 725, Albuquerque — produced & engineer’d by Mark Weber
2014 — July 19
Bobby celebrates his 80th birthday at his
home with a gathering of invited guests, Kirk Silsbee, Tom Williamson,
Steve & Jeanette Isoardi, Bonnie Barnett, Dick Wood, Vinny Golia,
Michael Vlatkovich (who gave him the biography on Fats Navarro by
Petersen & Rehak), (we sent the new bio on Tadd Dameron by Paul
Combs), two of his sons and a grandson, Roberto & Debra Miranda,
Chuck Manning, the neighbor across the street who is a life-long
resident of Altadena, some of his students and some friends of his wife
Lisa (Don Preston and Chris Garcia were on tour in Europe with the
Grandmothers). . . . Food was chicken & ribs, various salads, beans,
rice, macaroni & cheese casarole, etc.
2014 — July 20 Charlie Haden memorial in Hollywood — private gathering at actor Jack Black’s home on Los Feliz Blvd (Mr Black is married to Charlie’s daughter Tanya, one of the triplets) — Bobby was asked to say a few words, as was Maurice Jackson (professor Georgetown University, DC), and Putter Smith (who often subbed for Charlie at Cal Arts over the years), and Pat Metheny spoke and played a solo guitar dedication, among a few others (Charlie died July 11 — aged 76)
2014 — September 22
Monday 8pm —— The Bobby Bradford Quartet:
BB, cornet & compositions & arrangements; Vinny Golia, reeds;
Tina Raymond, drums; Zephyr Avalon, bass —– a 50-minute set:
1. “You Know” (BB organized a little ostinato for the bass, “because we only had one rehearsal, it was just a little 4-bar figure that I just made up.” I said, “That’s still composing.” And Bobby averred, “Well, yes, but I didn’t get out my little green visor and roll up my sleeves and labor under a hot lamp all night like Gershwin.”
2. “Woman”
3. “Hello Dali”
4. “Sidesteps”
5. VG & BB duet — clarinet & cornet — “based obliquely on one of John’s tunes ‘And She Speaks'” —- they used John Carter’s first phrase to launch into playing.
1. “You Know” (BB organized a little ostinato for the bass, “because we only had one rehearsal, it was just a little 4-bar figure that I just made up.” I said, “That’s still composing.” And Bobby averred, “Well, yes, but I didn’t get out my little green visor and roll up my sleeves and labor under a hot lamp all night like Gershwin.”
2. “Woman”
3. “Hello Dali”
4. “Sidesteps”
5. VG & BB duet — clarinet & cornet — “based obliquely on one of John’s tunes ‘And She Speaks'” —- they used John Carter’s first phrase to launch into playing.
This gig was at Blue Whale, 123 Astronaut
E S Onizuka Street #301, Los Angeles, as part of the Angel City Jazz
Festival —– this night was 3 sets. The BB Quartet was 2nd set. Opening
set was duo from San Francisco: Steve Adams (woodwinds & laptop)
& bass player Scott Walton (who, coincidentally, plays on BB’s 1986
record ONE NIGHT STAND) —— 3rd set was a Vinny Golia Septet sans BB. [telcon w/ BB — 26sept2o14]
*Steven Isoardi writes: “Bobby and Vinny were great Monday night as part of the Angel City Jazz Fest. Two beating as one….” [email 9/24.2o14]
*Recording exists. Vinny engaged a professional engineer to record this concert.
2014 — Monday afternoon October 6
BB & Vinny Golia perform for David
Roitstein’s Jazz Forum class at Cal Arts —– 2-4pm ——— they played in
duet and quartet with Tina Raymond, drums, and Zephyr Avalon, bass —– BB
played cornet and VG played soprano saxophone on “She,” “Comin’ On,”
“Sidesteps,” and “Hello Dali” ———- “The duo was a piece Bob and I played
based on an idea of fifths. Bobby sounded great as usual.” [Email from Vinny 7oct2o14]
2014 — October 21
Nessa Records official release of cd
SILVER CORNET by the Bradford/Gjerstad Quartet (Nessa NCD-36) — I love
the name of this: Silver Cornet — Chuck Nessa says the name suggested by
Frode —- three tracks of spontaneously composed improvisations from the
Spring 2014 tour — derived from recordings of the March 30th concert in
Baltimore.
2014 — November 2
2-5pm concert Sunday —- Bobby Bradford
Mo’tet performs for Mimi Melnick’s Double M Jazz Salon at the Mayme A.
Clayton Library & Museum, 4130 Overland Avenue, Culver City,
California — pre-concert interview discussion with BB by Jeffrey Winston
at 1:30 —– Mo’tet: BB(cornet), Chuck Manning (saxophones), Michael
Vlatkovich(trombone), Ken Rosser(guitar), Don Preston(piano), Roberto
Miranda(bass), Chris Garcia(drumset) —-FIRST SET all compositions by BB:
1.”Woman” (aka “She”) 2. “A Little Pain” 3. “Umby” 4. “Bosom of
Abraham” 5. “Sidesteps” SECOND SET all compositions by John Carter: 6.
“Evening Prayer” from CASTLES OF GHANA 7. “Sunday Afternoon Jazz Society
Blues” 8. “In a Pretty Place” with Vinny on clarinet entire second set
——– BB has the charts for CASTLES OF GHANA so he adjusted a few things
for “Evening Prayer” having Ken play the violin parts, and he sketched
out a tenor saxophone part to cover the bass clarinet parts in the
original —- the Salon is continuing at this new location in memoriam of
the late Mimi Melnick —– BB engaged Wayne Peet to record the concert on
tracks, so a mix in the works . . .
2014 — November 9
Sunday 6-7pm — The Obihiro Cowboys ”
帯広カウボーイ ” perform spontaneously improvised compositions for Jazz Vespers
service at Northridge Methodist Church, 9650 Reseda Blvd, Northridge,
California —– Bobby Bradford, cornet; Michael Vlatkovich, trombone;
William Roper, brass bass horns, bovine body parts and crustacea; Joseph
Mitchell, drums. Video (dvd) of concert exists.
2015 — Sunday, January 11
Ingebrigt Haker Flaten doing a duet tour
plays this bookstore in the town next to Altadena where Bradford lives —
Ingebrigt on upright bass, and Kjell Nordeson on vibraphone &
drumset (“a Swedish guy now living in San Diego”–BB) — Bobby sits in for
one tune (Ingebright asked him to bring his cornet) — Pop Hop, 5002
York Blvd, Eagle Rock(technically L.A. 90042) — Ingebrigt is Norwegian
presently residing in Austin, Texas.
— “MW, Correction!! I actually played one of my trumpets. Nobody noticed and I didnt say a word! BB (Ha Ha)” [email BB to MW 15jan15]
2015 — January 21-23 — “MW, Correction!! I actually played one of my trumpets. Nobody noticed and I didnt say a word! BB (Ha Ha)” [email BB to MW 15jan15]
BB Artist in Residence at Cal Arts meets
with the late Charlie Haden’s class “The Spirituality of Improvisation” —
Wednesday both daytime & evening classes, and Thursday & Friday
daytime classes (Haden’s name for this class has been retained by the
administration)
2015 — March 2
Tom Williamson of New Art Jazz Ensemble passed away — he lived in the Phillips Ranch neighborhood of Pomona, California
2015 — March 24
Tuesday evening gig downtown Los Angeles
in Little Tokyo — double-bill: Bobby Bradford Quartet and the Vinny
Golia Sextet ——- BB Quartet: Zephyr Avalon, bass; Tina Raymond, drums;
Vinny Golia, baritone & soprano saxes; BB, cornet — at the Blue
Whale, 123 Astronaut E. S. Onizuka Street. They played 1) “Comin’ On” 2)
“She” 3) “A Little Pain” 4) “Hello Dali” 5) and closed the set with a
duo w/ VG “Variations on a theme by John Carter (Come Softly)”
2015 — April 14
Darktree Records, Paris, France, releases
on CD the November 17, 1975 concert recordings of Bobby Bradford – John
Carter Quintet under the title NO U TURN
2015 — June 11Ornette dies in NYC age 85
2015 — June 21
The Obihiro Cowboys: Bobby Bradford,
cornet; Michael Vlatkovich, trombone; William Roper, low horns &
bovine body parts; Joseph Mitchell, percussion — 9pm to midnight at The
Blue Whale, downtown Los Angeles. The opening set was by Alternate
Angles (Dwight Trible, vocals; Carlos Nino, percussion; Maia, flute;
Shalyn, tibetan bowls, didgeridoo, percussion, vocals) and it was
astounding, they really got into the zone —— at the break I told
Bradford in jest, “Man, you’re in trouble Bobby you got to follow that
scene, whew.” And Dwight chimed in, “Oh no, we just prepared a nice
comfy bed for them to come in and lay down.” All of us laughing.
2015 — August 14
Saturday evening at LACMA with new
9-piece band BB is calling Tete-a-Tete: Vinny Golia, baritone sax &
bass clarinet; Brian Walsh, tenor sax & bass clarinet; Cathlene
Pineda, grand piano; Zephyr Avalon, string bass; William Roper, tuba,
low brass, gongs & spontaneous poetry; Tina Raymond, drums; and
besides himself on cornet, another trumpeter: Josh Aguiar; and Dwight
Trible vocals on BB’s lyrics to “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” and “Nostalgia in
Times Square” —- two sets — over 700 people in attendance —- other
tunes: “She” (with both bass clarinets simultaneous), the blues “Umby,”
and “A Little Pain,” and others. Recording exists. (NOTE that the first
time BB used the name Tete-a-Tete was informally at his gig August 5,
2005)
2015 — September 25
LP vinyl album released on NoBusiness Records called THE DELAWARE
RIVER (NBLP 87) in a limited edition of 400 copies from the Philadelphia
concert of Bobby Bradford-Frode Gjerstad Quartet March 2014 U.S. tour —
recorded by Eugene Law2015 — October 19 Monday
Day Two of Cadence Improvised Music Festival at The Blue Whale — Bobby in duet with Vinny Golia as the 3rd Set — (Opening set: “Jamaica Suite” a story about Herbie Nichols, text by Steve Swallow, introductory text by Roswell Rudd, read by David Haney w/ musical accompaniment; 2nd Set: George Haslam in assorted duos & trios) — Bertrand Gastaud of Darktree Records visiting from Paris in attendance.
BB & VG played 4 pieces: 1) “She”(BB) 2) a spontaneously improvised piece 3) “Petals”(John Carter) 4) “Side Steps”(BB) and Tina Raymond sat in on drums on this number (she was there with the band that played the 2nd set)
2015 — December 17
Rudolph Ashland Porter passes away in Los Angeles
2o16 — February 2, Tuesday 8pm
BB in duet with Vinny Golia at The Loft, 9500 Gilman Drive, San Diego 92093 California (on the campus of Cal State University at San Diego in the student center) ——- BB, cornet & vocals; Vinny, Bb & bass-clarinets, soprano & baritone saxophones —– performed
1. She
2. Hello Dali
3. Comin’ On
4. Side Steps
5. a blues with BB vocalizing “Hey lookah heah man dontch you know?” [email BB to MW 5feb16]
*Mark Dresser was advertised to join the duet but “I was under the weather and couldn’t make it” [email from MD to MW 6feb16] ——
on a double bill w/ Ecosono Ensemble featuring Glen Whitehead (trumpet & laptop) and Matthew Burtner (soprano sax & “interactive media” probably laptop computer)
2016 — February 28
Obihiro Cowboys (William Roper, Michael Vlatkovich, Joseph Mitchell, Bobby Bradford) 7:30 at Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th Street (at Olympic) in Santa Monica
2016 — March 18
Purple Gums (William Roper, tuba; BB, cornet; Francis Wong, saxophones) in San Francisco as part of the 6-day ImprovisAsians 2016: Sounding Unity In the Pursuit of Narrative conference — 10:30am Master Class in room 152 Creative Arts Building at San Francisco State University
2016 — March 18
Purple Gums Short Performance — 1:10pm in Knuth Hall, SFSU w/ guests Lenora Lee (dancer/choreographer) and Genny Lim (poetry) “carrying on the tradition of making music in the moment”
2016 — March 19
Purple Gums (“full length performance”) 2pm at Tateuchi Auditorium, Sutter YWCA Building, 1830 Sutter Street, San Francisco Japantown 94115 — with special guests Lenora Lee and Genny Lim
2o16 — Wednesday 6-7pm March 30
The Bobby Bradford-Hafez Modirzadeh Quartet at Arms Music Center 3, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts — Presented by Jason Robinson and the Music Department of Amherst College — Bobby said this was a small room and somewhat informal so that during Q & A with the audience Bobby demonstrated a line that Ornette had wrote years ago (1961-1962) that he never recorded and could never figure how to resolve it — It’s a little 8-bar phrase “that is pure Ornette, it’s so simple, until you start to analyze it, and typical of Ornette it’s brilliant even as it breaks all the rules, I’ll have to show you someday on the piano what I mean) — So, Bobby had suggested a little 2-bar ending and Ornette said: Yeh, let’s use that. So, for demonstration purposes the BB-HM Qrt went ahead and played it, and BB named it, “So?” in reference to something else that had come up during the Q&A. Bobby says if he ever records it he’ll call it “Variations on a Theme by Ornette Coleman.” They also played: “Bayraktar” by Hafez; “Silhouette” by Ken Filiano; “She” by BB; and “Wadsworth Falls” by royal hartigan. Bradford–cornet; Hafez Modirzadeh–saxophones; Ken Filiano–bass; royal hartigan–drums *Recorded professionally by Dan Richardson. BB said he saw film cameras, also, on tripods, and hand-helds.
2016 — Thursday evening 8pm March 31
concert at Bezanson Recital Hall, University of Massachusetts Amherst — presented by Magic Triangle Jazz Series —
The Bobby Bradford-Hafez Modirzadeh Quartet, as previous — one set — Opened with:
1. “She” (BB)
and the rest not necessarily in this order:
2. “Bayraktar” (Hafez Modirzadeh)
3. “Silhouette” (Ken Filiano)
4. “Wadsworth Falls” (royal hartigan)
5. “So?”
and ended with
6. “Ashes” (BB)
*Recorded professionally by Dan Richardson. BB said he saw film cameras, also.
** Released on vinyl Lp in 2o17 in edition of 500 copies — titled LIVE AT THE MAGIC TRIANGLE (NoBusiness Records NBLP108)
2016 — Saturday afternoon April 16
outdoors at Walker Beach on the campus of Claremont Colleges — Bobby Bradford Mo’tet: Don Preston (piano), Chris Garcia (drums), Dion Sorrel (bass), Chuck Manning (tenor sax), BB (cornet) —- They played:
1) Straight No Chaser
2) Solar
3) Umbi
4) Ashes
5) Body & Soul
6) She
7) Blue Bossa
2016 —- Friday September 2
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at World Stage, (new location, across the street from the original location) 4321 Degnan Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90008 from 9 – 11:30pm —- Don Preston, piano; Chuck Manning, saxophone; Michael Vlatkovich, trombone; Christopher Garcia, drums; and Henry Franklin subbing for Roberto Miranda on bass ——– All Bradford compositions except the Monk:
1. Umby
2. She
3. Sidesteps
4. Ashes
5. Hello Dali
6. Well You Needn’t (Monk)
7. A Little Pain
2016 — October 22
Saturday night @ 8:00pm — BOBBY BRADFORD MO’TET at Orange Country Center for Contemporary Art in the Santa Ana Artist’s Village, Santa Ana, California, on the occasion of the exhibition PIPE DREAMS: GEORGE HERMS assemblages — a fundraiser for the artist-run alternative space Herms helped create —- Bobby Bradford – cornet; Henry Franklin – bass; Chuck Manning – saxophone; Theo Saunders – piano; Michael Vlatkovich – trombone; Chris Garcia- drumset —- They played: 1) She 2) Umby 3) A Little Pain 4) Solar (Miles) 5) Side Steps 6) Ashes (all compositions by BB except #4) *It was recorded by Bobby’s son Keith
Notes from Chris Garcia’s journal:2017 — Tour of Europe — January & February
MONDAY REHEARSAL
BOBBY BRADFORD MO’TET
(playing the original American contraption)
Bobby counts off the tune and everybody
comes in like clockwork
tight as can be
he stops the band and says,
“let’s do this again but this time come in staggered
entrances and we will meet here”
he says pointing to the page
he counts it off
melodies come in swirling around and
wrapping around each other
one on top of the other
sometimes the pulse of the melodies is consistent,
sometimes it isn’t
all things at once and every melody and
every instrument is as equal as the next
then we get to the SPOT,
and everything locks into place
and the music is off and running
no hand signals
no pointing to the page
no aural direction of any kind
there are some short improvs and the tune
ends the way it starts
the silence settles
and Bobby says with a smile in his voice,
“Anybody can play together”…………………
This tour was originally to be The Bobby Bradford-Vinny Golia Quartet w/ Bernard Santacruz (bass) and Cristiano Calcagnile (drums) for nine dates across Europe but at the last minute BB wasn’t feeling well (nothing serious) and had to postpone his involvement, so Vinny continued on in trio format — January 29 at Parazzar, Brugge, Belgium; January 30 at La Malterie, Lille, France; February 1 at Atelier Polonceau Thomas-Roudeix, Paris, France; February 2 at Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Netherlands; February 3 at Piano Terra, Milano, Italy, with guest Massimo Falascone (alto sax); February 4 at Spezia Festival, Trevozzo, Piacenza, Italy; February 7 at Centro d’Arte degli Studenti del’Universita di Padova, Padove, Italy; and February 8 at Porgy & Bess, Vienna, Austria
2017 — 9pm Sunday January 15
Hafez Modirzadeh w/ Bobby Bradford at the Blue Whale in quartet with Roberto Miranda (bass) and Vijay Anderson (drums) —- They played:
1. “The Blessing” (Ornette)
2. “Raphael” (R. Miranda)
3. “Almost Not Crazy” (Vijay Anderson)
4. “Crooked Blues” (BB)
2017 — January 16
evening concert at Vortex Immersion Dome, 450 South Bixel, a little west of downtown Los Angeles near 5th Street — The Silverscreen Sextet under the direction of drummer Vijay Anderson, w/ Hafez Modirzadeh(saxophone); Vinny Golia (woodwinds); Bobby Bradford (cornet); William Roper (tuba); Roberto Miranda (bass) — performing “Song from The Insidewalk” an immersive audio-visual composition/improvisation on the historical spaces and contrasting cultures of Los Angeles with full-dome visuals projected by artist Tim Hix
2017 — Thursday February 23
Purple Gums (William Roper–tuba; Francis Wong–saxophones; Bobby Bradford–cornet; guest artist: Lenora Lee–dance) —- perform for 2 afternoon classes at University of California Irvine — 12:30 and 3:30, a jazz history class and a Jazz improvisation class — 4002 Mesa Road, Irvine, California
2017 — Thursday February 23
Purple Gums (guest: Lenora Lee–dance) concert in Room 218 UC Irvine Music & Media Building at 7pm
2017 — Friday February 24
Purple Gums (guests: Melody Takata–taiko; Lenora Lee–dance) concert at UC Riverside, The Barn (theater), 900 University Avenue, Riverside, California at 12noon – 2pm
2017 — Saturday February 25
Purple Gums (guests: Melody Takata–taiko; Lenora Lee–dance) concert in Little Tokyo in remembrance of composer & community activist Glenn Horiuchi (1955-2000) at Far East Lounge, 353 E. 1st Street, Los Angeles at 2pm
2017 — Sunday February 26
Purple Gums (guest: Brad Dutz–percussion) recording session at Brad Dutz Studios, 7732 Apperson Street, Tujunga, California
2017 — Monday February 27
Purple Gums (guest: Lenora Lee–dance) performance at Cal Arts, 24700 McBean Parkway, Valencia, California at 2pm
2o17 — March 27
Arthur Blythe died — complications of Parkinson’s Disease — Lancaster, California in the Mojave Desert, age 76
2017 — Thursday March 30
Evening concert with the Bobby Bradford-Vinny Golia Quartet at Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque, New Mexico w/ Tina Raymond (drums) and David Tranchina (bass)
(Bobby was Live in-studio guest on KUNM noon Thursday jazz show with MW — we discussed Bird, Ornette, the origins of Free Jazz, Wardell Gray, Max Roach, Lester Young, Vinny Golia and the quartet)
SET ONE
1. “Woman” (BB) –ss *BB quotes Gershwin’s “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'”
2. “Hello Dali” (BB) — as
3. “Winterset” (VG) — ts/flute
4. “Sidesteps” (BB) –ss
SET TWO
1. “Hello to Mrs Minifield” (VG) — as
2. “Comin’ On” (BB) — ss
3. “Pirouettes & Star People” (VG) — ts
4. encore — (TR & DT out) just alto sax & cornet “Room 408” (BB)
* Vinny brought soprano, alto, tenor saxophones + C flute Tunes of Vinny’s they had brought but ran out of time to play: “So Close to Where You Live” and “Tenorphonicity”. Recording exists — recorded from 11 tracks taken off the soundboard by Steven Schmidt — (the soundman was Kirk Brown)– The quartet rehearsed at Bobby & Lisa’s place in Altadena the Sunday afternoon before the trip out to New Mexico
2o17 — March 31
Diamanda Galas performs Bradford’s composition “She” on her Spring tour of U.S. —- on this song she performs solo accompanying herself on piano and wordless vocals —–March 31 (Seattle @ Neptune), April 5 (Los Angeles @ Cathedral of St Vibiana), April 8 (San Francisco @ The Masonic), April 11 (New Orleans @ Joy Theater), April 14 (Austin, Texas @ Paramount Theater), April 17 (Chicago @ Thalia Hall) * Bobby & Lisa Bradford attended the Los Angeles performance
2017 — August 2
This note from Kirk Silsbee to Mark Weber >
Documentary filmmaker Don McGlynn (he did the Dexter Gordon and Teddy Edwards docs and many more) is in town and he’s shooting for his new movie on bebop. Yesterday [2aug2o17] I drove to 3219 S. Central Avenue, the site of the old Jack’s Basket Room. McGlynn’s cameras caught Professor Bradford, Steve Isoardi, Ken Poston, Mark Cantor and yours truly–sitting in a semi-circle, talking about bebop. Hotter than an oven in that sweatbox but it sure was fun. Wish you could’ve been there.
2017 – October 8
@ Battery Books, Pasadena, California (curated by Rich West) a trio of BB (cornet), Vinny Golia (woodwinds), and David Tranchina (bass) performed ——— Great photos by Roch Doran (see FB)
2017 — October 14
Bobby Bradford – Vinny Golia Quartet w/ BB(cornet), Vinny(saxes), Dave Tranchina(bass), Tina Raymond(drums) as part of 10th Annual Jazz & Beat Festival at John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 First Street, Davis, California, at U.C. Davis (the city of Davis is 11 miles west of Sacramento) — performed at 7:30 — they played
1) Woman
2) Winterset (Vinny’s tune)
3) Sidesteps
4) Comin’ On
5) and a totally spontaneous free piece (BB sang the “Hey Looka Heah Man” song within the improvisation)
*No recording was made
2018 — Thursday evening January 4
an ensemble assembled by Elliott Levin (poetry/woodwinds) w/ Marshall Allen and Bobby at Zebulon, 2478 Fletcher Drive, Los Angeles 90039 —- With the delays that day in flights from Philadelphia due to snow storms both Marshall and Elliott didn’t arrive at LAX until late and missed the first set —— BB had asked Chuck Manning to bring along his horn just in case (Chuck had been planning to witness this historic meeting) —— Bobby didn’t know the bassist or drummer (Elliott’s choice) and so the first set started at 10pm with Bobby Bradford (cornet), Chuck Manning (tenor), Don Preston (keyboards), JP Maramba (bass), and Ryan Sawyer (drums) —– They played: 1) “A Call For All Demons” superimposed on top of “Woman” 2) “Comin’ On” 3) “Well You Needn’t” 4) “Straight No Chaser” — not necessarily in that order — doubtful if it was recorded —- Set 2 started at 11:30 with Chuck sitting out, and Marshall Allen on alto saxophone & EVI (Electronic Valve Instrument — a variety of eewee, ie. EWI), and Elliott Levin (poetry and woodwinds) —- They played one long uninterrupted spontaneous set, with no discussion previous to mountain the stage: just pure free jazz
2018 — MLK Day Monday evening January 15
BB is sideman in a multi-media production & group assembled by Bay Area drummer & composer Vijay Anderson called Invisible Visible at The Handbag Factory, 1336 S. Grand Avenue, near downtown Los Angeles 90015 —– Evening opened at 6pm with a panel discussion with BB, Vinny Golia, Roberto Miranda on the panel and Charles Sharpe as moderator on the topic of Martin Luther King and civil rights and the relationship with jazz: “courage . . . tenacity . . . creativity . . . love,” BB wrote, and “while we played they projected on a screen behind us MLK events, L.A. scenes and a mixed bag of art and artists. Good show but poorly attended…..Lots of homeless encampments nearby.” [email BB > MW 18jan2o18] Ensemble hit at 7pm: Bobby Bradford (cornet), Vinny Golia (woodwinds), William Roper (tuba), Hafez Modirzadeh (woodwinds), Roberto Miranda (bass), Vijay Anderson (drums/compostions), Tim Hix (video projections)
2o18 — February 3
Ndugu Chancler passes away — prostate cancer, age 65, in Los Angeles —- Ndugu was on Bobby & John’s 1972 album SECRETS (Revelation) —- among hundreds of records he appears on
2o18 — Saturday 8pm February 17
Bobby Bradford plays with Elevated Mantra (Will Alexander, piano; Lester McFarland, elec-bass; Mark Pino, drums) at Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd, Venice Beach 90291 — Bobby says: “mostly playing mute, plunger, etc, back-ups for poet Will Alexander . . . . then about 30 minutes of Will at piano doing a kind of vamp with the group . . . . totally free but not quite as the vamp kept us grounded.” [email BB > MW 26feb2o18]
2o18 — February 23
8pm show —- double-bill w/ Jeff Parker New Breed (from Chicago) and TRIO, which was Bobby Bradford (cornet), Vinny Golia (woodwinds), Mark Dresser (string bass) — at the Loft, University of California, San Diego —- Trio played 1) “She”(BB) 2) “Winterset”(VG) 3) “For Bradford”(MD) 4) “Comin’ On”(BB) 5) completely spontaneous piece —- Trio played first, followed by guitarist Jeff Parker’s group
2o18 —- Sunday 2pm April 8
at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica, 1220 2nd Street, Santa Monica, California —- Bradford played on this 2nd day of performances of The Unwrinkled Ear Festival of Improvised Music, produced by Andrew Choate : First Set: trio of Evan Parker (reeds), Roscoe Mitchell (reeds), and Bobby Bradford (cornet) ///// Second Set: quintet: add Sten Sandell (piano & church organ), and Kjell Nordeson (vibes, drumset & percussion) both from Sweden although one of them now lives in San Diego —– BB said “We knocked it out of the park!! Great space …really great sound…great audience.” [email to MW 4/12/2o18] —- The concert was recorded and video taped. Bobby said that John Litweiler attended the concert, in town visiting family in Santa Monica, so I wrote John and asked what his thoughts were > “Mark, that Bradford-Mitchell-Parker trio set was certainly the best event of the year, or probably the decade. The close exchanges, the listening, the challenging, the great creativity of the 3, the way Bobby sort of prevented the 2 sax players from getting into their obsessions – what vivid musical personalities. All 3 were at their very best, which is saying something, since in recent years every now and then they’ve recorded some of the best music of their lives. I heard it was recorded but am not holding my breath waiting for a cd to appear. The Sunday concert was the trio, then Sten Standell solo, then a quartet of the 2 saxists and the Swedes – Bradford made it into a quintet. —— Cheers, John” [JL email to MW 4/16/2o18]
2o18 — May 4
Bobby Bradford Mo’tet at the World Stage, Los Angeles —- Theo Saunders(piano), Henry Franklin(bass), Chuck Manning(tenor), BB(cornet), Michael Vlatkovich (trombone), Yo Yo Morales (drums) —- performed: 1) Umby 2) A Little Pain 3) Broken Shadows(Ornette) 4) She 5) Hello Dali 6) Straight No Chaser (Monk) ——- all compositions by BB unless otherwise noted —- BB comments “Terrific drummer!!!” [email to MW May 8, 2o18] — No known recording —- I asked Michael Vlatkovich’s opinion of the date: “Regarding the concert, I am always surprised by the enthusiasm of the audiences at Bobby’s concerts. We don’t play too Out for the room.” [MPV email > MW May8, 2o18]
2o18 — early afternoon of Monday June 11
at Wayne Peet’s Killzone Studios in Santa Monica —- BB records in trio with Michael Vlatkovich (trombone & little instruments), William Roper (tuba & percussion & didgeridoo), and Mark Weber (poetry) for cd NIGHT RIDERS —- 7 pieces recorded with this format
2o18 —- Friday 6pm June 15
BOBBY BRADFORD MO’TET at LACMA __ Bradford (cornet), Henry Franklin (bass), Michael Vlatkovich (trombone), Chuck Manning (tenor), Yayo Morales (drums), Theo Saunders (piano): FIRST SET 1) “Broken Shadows”(Ornette)(8:00) 2) “Ornate” (11:20) 3) “Crooked Blues” (17:40) 4) “She” (14:15) SECOND SET 5) “Hello Dali” (13:20) 6) “A Little Pain” (11:45) *BB quotes “Caravan” in his solo 7) “Side Steps” (10:00) ————-Recorded by Mark Weber on mini-disk with AT822 mike set up under the PA system———-There is also a recording done from the soundboard—-Concert produced by Mitch Glickman, who also interviewed BB prior to concert to be broadcast on KJZZ “KJazz” 88.1fm Sunday 7-9pm July 1 interspersed with the concert broadcast ***Yayo Morales is new in town and was brought to Bobby’s attention by Henry Franklin — Yayo was born in Bolivia and spent his first 20 years there, then to Madrid for 23 years and marriage, and now L.A. with his wife, a tremendous jazz drummer ++++ All tunes composed by Bobby Bradford except for the first number of the concert. There were 350 serious listeners in seats and another 100 or 200 people milling about — (It’s an outdoor free summer event so people are there for various reasons) —– The Mo’tet rehearsed at Bobby’s studio in Altadena the Monday before the gig —- Bobby wanted to use the same group as his gig at World Stage May 4 that was so successful —- (Chris Garcia & Don Preston were out on tour with the Grande Mothers) —-
2018 — 9pm Tuesday June 26
An Evening with Elliott Levin, Zebulon Cafe, 2478 Fletcher Drive, Los Angeles — “EL & the Eclectic Elders of Improvisation” includes: Don Preston (Steinway), Bobby Bradford (cornet), Anders Swanson (bass), Chris Garcia (drums), Elliott Levin (tenor sax, poetry, flute) —- Elliott in town from Philadelphia performs with Angelinos —- all spontaneous free jazz, except the last number of the evening — two long sets — the last thing they did was Ornette’s “Lonely Woman” wove together with BB’s “She” —- “Good crowd, very attentive” –BB email > MW [6/29/2o18]
2o18 — 7:30pm Thursday June 28
Soundwaves Concert at Santa Monica Public Library, 601 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica CA —— same group as June 26 with the addition of Jeff Schwartz sitting in on bass
2018 – July 28
Bobby Bradford Brass N Bass as part of the Outsound 17th Annual New Music Summit in San Francisco: Community Music Center, 544 Capp Street in the Mission District —– produced by (saxophonist) Rent Romus and (bassist) Bill Noertker ——- This evening was a double bill with Marilyn Crispell quartet —– Bobby was asked by former student at PCC to do a presentation, so, as things go, and flights were too expensive Bobby decided to drive up from Altadena, and his wife Lisa requested that I go along to assist in driving (we went up I-5 and came back I-101) —- Bill assembled the musicians and the concept: 2 cornets + 2 bass, all under Bobby’s direction/arrangements and his music: They rehearsed at 11am for an hour & a quarter at Local 6 Musician’s Union, 116 – 9th Street, San Francisco (I recorded most of the rehearsal after the first piece was so good I scrambled to set up my microphone) —– Concert started off with a short panel discussion with the musicians, music began, to a packed house, at 8: Theo Padouvas & Bobby on identical cornets (silver Schilke model XA-1) with Scott Walton and Bill Noertker, contrabasses —— They played four numbers: 1) Woman 2) Comin’ On 3) Hello Dali 4) spontaneous free piece ———– Concert was recorded on 3 different rigs —- This concert was so good I’m hoping it makes it to CD someday —Mark Weber
2o18 —- Saturday evening of September 23
Purple Gums performs on the second day of 2-day event Panorama Creative Music Summit hosted by Bakersfield College Performing Arts Dept & Jazz Studies Dept (trumpeter Kris Tiner is a teacher there)(Vinny Golia had a group play on Friday) —- Purple Gums: William Roper (tuba & low horns & percussion & monologues), Bobby (cornet & song & percussion), Francis Wong (tenor saxophone) —- one long 50 minute spontaneous improvisation, BB says at one point William sang “When You’re Smiling” and somewhere before the bridge he (BB) broke in and sang some of “I’m in the mood for love” —- a recording exists —- “a very nice room” BB said (Simonsen Performing Arts Center) — There was a panel discussion earlier at 5:30 w/ Vinny, Bobby, William, Francis Wong, Kris Tiner, and Ottum.
2o18 —- September 27
A video portrait
Events
Fanfares & Arhoolies
Landing Safely In Africa, ver. 3
Land Ob Cotton
“Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them.” – Richard Strauss
2o18 — Thursday October 4
BB as member of the Silverscreen Sextet on a double bill with Satoko Fujii Trio (w/ Kappa Maki & Yoshi Shutto) at World Stage, 4321 Degnan Blvd, LA, as part of Angel City Jazz Festival —– a one-hour presentation non-stop music with improvised solos as seques into & between Vijay’s compositions – sextet: Roberto Miranda (bass), William Roper (tuba & spoken word), BB (cornet), Vinny Golia (woodwinds), Hafez Modirzadeh (woodwinds), Vijay Anderson (drums/compositions), Tim Hicks (video projections) —- Vijay recorded the event
2o18 —- Sunday November 4
Purple Gums perform at Open Gate, Eagle Rock (produced by Alex Cline) — video exists – They open with a few measures of “Get Happy” —- one continuous improvised 50-minute set
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Assistance from jazz scholars who contributed to this research and to whom I am greatly indebted: Kirk Silsbee, Steven Isoardi, Tad Hershorn, Alex Cline, Mark Dresser, John Breckow, Mike Johnston, Elliott Levin, William Roper, Chuck Manning, Jeff Schlanger, Don Preston, Cal Haines (photographic rehabilitation), and Janet Simon (effulgency). And Bobby Bradford for his example.
listen to Bobby Bradford, Mark Dresser and Glenn Ferris | In My Dream from their recording Live in LA while zapping through the following picture gallery. Recorded in September 2009 in the house of Bruce Fowler, Woodland Hills, California, USA. Recorded by Glenn Ferris. Mixed and Mastered by Dré Pallemaerts at 52 creations, Mechelen, Belgium in May 2011. Produced by Mark Dresser, Glenn Ferris and Bobby Bradford. Executive production by Trem Azul. Design and artwork by Travassos.
The classic album Self Determination Music is finally back in circulation
by Peter Margasak
3.13.15
As anyone who regularly visits this space knows, I'm a huge fan of the music created by the LA jazz musicians John Carter and Bobby Bradford, whether together or on their own. In the summer of 2013 the great Chicago reissue label International Phonograph put the classic 1969 Flying Dutchman release Flight for Four (performed by a quartet led by Carter and Bradford) back into circulation, featuring a beautiful restoration of the original artwork within a lovely cardboard package. But most of that particular release had been previously issued on a CD (as was another album reissued by International Phonograph, by fellow LA titan Horace Tapscott). The second album Carter and Bradford made for Bob Thiele's label, however, has never been available on disc—until now.
A few weeks ago the British imprint BGP reissued the 1970 album Self Determination Music, and although the packaging and new liner notes are generic, the music is so wonderful that I don't care. For this recording the quartet—which also includes drummer Bruz Freeman, a former Chicagoan and brother to Von and George, and bassist Tom Williamson—was expanded to a quintet with the addition of second bassist Henry Franklin, giving the music an impressively knotty, spindly low end and an extra blast of propulsion. But as usual the real thrill is the work of the ebullient front line, which was in the thick of putting its own spin on the sound of Ornette Coleman—an icon whom Bradford had played with, both before Self Determination Music and later for the sessions that produced Broken Shadows. Carter wrote three of the four pieces, with Bradford composing "The Eyes of the Storm," an aptly titled burner with extended multilinear solos on which the highly attuned rapport of the horn players couldn't be more obvious.
Carter's moody ballad "Loneliness" mixes up the timbre, with Freeman opening the piece with terse xylophone figures over bowed basslines and the muted braid of Carter's flute and Bradford's cornet, the latter of which set the tone before the simmering melody rolls in like a bank of fog. Bradford, playing with a mute, shows off his most tender, lyric side, with Carter shadowing him with gauzy, liquid flute shapes. The high-velocity closer "Encounter" deftly shows off Bradford's agility at a breakneck tempo, pushing into the horn's upper register without losing control of his tart, tuneful phrasing, while Carter delivers a jagged tenor solo that demonstrates there was already far more to his game than Coleman's strain of free jazz, at times sounding closer to Sam Rivers or John Tchicai. Below you can hear the opening track, Carter's "The Sunday Afternoon Jazz Blues Society," which he rerecorded as "Sunday Afternoon Jazz Society Blues" for his great 1989 album with Bradford called Comin' On (Hat Art). I first heard it on the later album, and its spirited, chirping melody has never left me—hearing this version was like running into an old friend.
https://www.facebook.com/TheUnwrinkledEarConcertSeries/posts/an-excerpt-from-an-interview-of-bobby-bradford-conducted-by-will-alexander-at-be/2102551499759262/
An excerpt from an interview of Bobby Bradford conducted by Will Alexander at Beyond Baroque February, 2018. Come see Bobby play at the festival this weekend. https://www.facebook.com/events/167281897258450/
Will Alexander: Your resilience is so amazing. All the cities you’ve worked in; I was thinking about, early on - the situation in Dallas, and LA, and New York.
Bobby Bradford: Yes. Though I was born in Mississippi. My family moved to Texas when I was about…eleven. And I didn’t start playing the trumpet until…my first year in High School. See, we didn’t have a middle school - for me High School was nine, ten, eleven, twelve. And grade school went to eight. So I started in ninth grade - it was the first time I started dealing with a brass instrument. So most of my early training is based in my childhood in Texas. In fact, after High School I went off to college in Texas. This was a period when all the schools were still segregated, and I went to a little black Methodist school in Austin, Texas. ‘Called, Sam Huston. And oddly enough there’d be two Methodist schools in one little town, Austin; that doesn’t make any sense! But finally the two schools merged. One was Tillotson - it was originally a girls school but then, finally, coed. So, it is now, and still standing, Huston-Tilitson University in Austin, Texas. And so all of my early years, up until High School and the first couple years in college, were in Texas.
Will Alexander: When you came to Los Angeles, you were fully formed.
Bobby Bradford: Well, I was fully formed in terms of love for the music, but a lot needed to be learned. Ornette Coleman who was one of the important jazz figures of the twentieth-century, I met this guy, in Texas but I didn’t actually play with him until we ran into each other again in Los Angeles.
Audience: What year was it?
Bobby Bradford: You mean the first meeting?
Audience: In Los Angeles.
Bobby Bradford: In Los Angeles, it was 1953. I played with him in Los Angeles around town in 1953 and ’54, just before I got drafted. In fact, he and I both used to work as stock boys at Bullock’s. 7th and Hill, in Downtown LA, in 1953 and ’54. Then I got drafted and I left Los Angeles. I was gone for almost four-years.
Audience: You met Ornette in Dallas?
Bobby Bradford: No, I actually met Ornette in Austin! Ornette Coleman came to Austin, Texas, to be the best man in another person’s wedding, which had nothing to do with the music. If you keep up with Ornette Coleman’s music, while I was in the band and even after I left the band, he had a drummer named Charles Moffett. Well, Moffett was a senior at this little school I went to, Sam Huston, and he and Ornette are childhood friends! So, when Moffett got ready to get married, he invited Ornette Coleman to come to Austin, Texas, as the best man at his wedding. And so Ornette showed up. Well, everybody had heard about this guy; this kind of gunfighter mentality, with Jazz musicians. A real gunslinger, wears a long hairdo, blow everybody off the stand! So, after the wedding - I’m sure the bride loved this - we were gonna have a big jam session. So, instead of having a regular buffet, they wanted to play with Ornette Coleman, so they had a big jam session. Ornette had his saxophone. We had hear about this guy; a wild player from Fort Worth, Texas.
Audience: What year was this?
Bobby Bradford: This would be 1952. The fall of 1952. He comes to the college, they have they wedding, and then we meet at a little place called the Victory Grill, which is actually still in Austin, with a plaque outside, decorations all the same - checkered table cloths and a lamp hanging on a long string… It’s just like that now! That’s the way it was then. They had rented the place to have the buffet and all that in connection with the wedding, but then they had this jam session. And, so, Ornette got up on the bandstand, and there were a couple of saxophone players who were there who were also seniors in the band at the time who were ready to get up there and shoot it out!
Audience: Cutting Sessions!
Bobby Bradford: That’s right. That’s what they call it. You get up on the bandstand, you may get your head cut, and it’s not the barber shop. Which means, you got blown off the bandstand by somebody of superior skills. I’m quick to add, this alto saxophone player who was up there with Ornette Coleman, I don’t think he really got his head cut. What Ornette did was so different, that it really blew everybody away. This was Leo Wright, a bad alto saxophone player from Wichita-Falls, Texas, who later went on to great fame and acclaim with Dizzy Gillespie. But, you know, when we got back to the dorm after this all settled down, you know, Leo and I were roommates, and he said, I just refuse to believe that this mezzo-forte out-blew me! I’m substituting mezzo-forte, for the other word. I said, I don’t know that he out-blew you, I said, he was doing some stuff and nobody knew what it was. See, what Ornette Coleman was doing at the time…everybody up there, they were playing standards, they weren’t playing free-jazz, we didn’t know what that was. But he was already extending the improvisation to things that had nothing to do with the chord. Well, he managed to maintain the song-form. See, we’d be playing a twelve-bar blues, and it turns around every twelve bars. So, sometimes he would take and idea, and with complete disregard for what the chords were, he would continue to play what he wanted to play. A lot of people said, this guys a fraud. He’s just playing like that because he can’t play the chord progressions. He said, I know the chords, I played a couple of the chords, but I have something else I want to play here. This is what I have to do to say what I wanna say. For a lot of people, the reaction was, you can’t play like Charlie Parker.
Will Alexander: Tell us about the 14-Bar…
Bobby Bradford: Oh, yes. Ornette Coleman has this tune that’s fourteen-bars, and he called it the blues! And, so, he would sometimes play it when we were in Los Angeles. And they guys would say, hey, the blues is twelve-bars, he’d say, I know that, but that’s not what I want to do! A lot of people say the reason you do that is because you just can’t deal with the forms, anybody can break the form. He is saying, I don’t conform to the form just because it’s there. I get an idea, and I let the idea expand upon itself. A lot of people’d say, hogwash - it would be like somebody saying to Vincent Van Gogh, my, your drawing is really crude. He’d say, Yeah, but, I’m a painter.
An excerpt from an interview of Bobby Bradford conducted by Will Alexander at Beyond Baroque February, 2018. Come see Bobby play at the festival this weekend. https://www.facebook.com/events/167281897258450/
Will Alexander: Your resilience is so amazing. All the cities you’ve worked in; I was thinking about, early on - the situation in Dallas, and LA, and New York.
Bobby Bradford: Yes. Though I was born in Mississippi. My family moved to Texas when I was about…eleven. And I didn’t start playing the trumpet until…my first year in High School. See, we didn’t have a middle school - for me High School was nine, ten, eleven, twelve. And grade school went to eight. So I started in ninth grade - it was the first time I started dealing with a brass instrument. So most of my early training is based in my childhood in Texas. In fact, after High School I went off to college in Texas. This was a period when all the schools were still segregated, and I went to a little black Methodist school in Austin, Texas. ‘Called, Sam Huston. And oddly enough there’d be two Methodist schools in one little town, Austin; that doesn’t make any sense! But finally the two schools merged. One was Tillotson - it was originally a girls school but then, finally, coed. So, it is now, and still standing, Huston-Tilitson University in Austin, Texas. And so all of my early years, up until High School and the first couple years in college, were in Texas.
Will Alexander: When you came to Los Angeles, you were fully formed.
Bobby Bradford: Well, I was fully formed in terms of love for the music, but a lot needed to be learned. Ornette Coleman who was one of the important jazz figures of the twentieth-century, I met this guy, in Texas but I didn’t actually play with him until we ran into each other again in Los Angeles.
Audience: What year was it?
Bobby Bradford: You mean the first meeting?
Audience: In Los Angeles.
Bobby Bradford: In Los Angeles, it was 1953. I played with him in Los Angeles around town in 1953 and ’54, just before I got drafted. In fact, he and I both used to work as stock boys at Bullock’s. 7th and Hill, in Downtown LA, in 1953 and ’54. Then I got drafted and I left Los Angeles. I was gone for almost four-years.
Audience: You met Ornette in Dallas?
Bobby Bradford: No, I actually met Ornette in Austin! Ornette Coleman came to Austin, Texas, to be the best man in another person’s wedding, which had nothing to do with the music. If you keep up with Ornette Coleman’s music, while I was in the band and even after I left the band, he had a drummer named Charles Moffett. Well, Moffett was a senior at this little school I went to, Sam Huston, and he and Ornette are childhood friends! So, when Moffett got ready to get married, he invited Ornette Coleman to come to Austin, Texas, as the best man at his wedding. And so Ornette showed up. Well, everybody had heard about this guy; this kind of gunfighter mentality, with Jazz musicians. A real gunslinger, wears a long hairdo, blow everybody off the stand! So, after the wedding - I’m sure the bride loved this - we were gonna have a big jam session. So, instead of having a regular buffet, they wanted to play with Ornette Coleman, so they had a big jam session. Ornette had his saxophone. We had hear about this guy; a wild player from Fort Worth, Texas.
Audience: What year was this?
Bobby Bradford: This would be 1952. The fall of 1952. He comes to the college, they have they wedding, and then we meet at a little place called the Victory Grill, which is actually still in Austin, with a plaque outside, decorations all the same - checkered table cloths and a lamp hanging on a long string… It’s just like that now! That’s the way it was then. They had rented the place to have the buffet and all that in connection with the wedding, but then they had this jam session. And, so, Ornette got up on the bandstand, and there were a couple of saxophone players who were there who were also seniors in the band at the time who were ready to get up there and shoot it out!
Audience: Cutting Sessions!
Bobby Bradford: That’s right. That’s what they call it. You get up on the bandstand, you may get your head cut, and it’s not the barber shop. Which means, you got blown off the bandstand by somebody of superior skills. I’m quick to add, this alto saxophone player who was up there with Ornette Coleman, I don’t think he really got his head cut. What Ornette did was so different, that it really blew everybody away. This was Leo Wright, a bad alto saxophone player from Wichita-Falls, Texas, who later went on to great fame and acclaim with Dizzy Gillespie. But, you know, when we got back to the dorm after this all settled down, you know, Leo and I were roommates, and he said, I just refuse to believe that this mezzo-forte out-blew me! I’m substituting mezzo-forte, for the other word. I said, I don’t know that he out-blew you, I said, he was doing some stuff and nobody knew what it was. See, what Ornette Coleman was doing at the time…everybody up there, they were playing standards, they weren’t playing free-jazz, we didn’t know what that was. But he was already extending the improvisation to things that had nothing to do with the chord. Well, he managed to maintain the song-form. See, we’d be playing a twelve-bar blues, and it turns around every twelve bars. So, sometimes he would take and idea, and with complete disregard for what the chords were, he would continue to play what he wanted to play. A lot of people said, this guys a fraud. He’s just playing like that because he can’t play the chord progressions. He said, I know the chords, I played a couple of the chords, but I have something else I want to play here. This is what I have to do to say what I wanna say. For a lot of people, the reaction was, you can’t play like Charlie Parker.
Will Alexander: Tell us about the 14-Bar…
Bobby Bradford: Oh, yes. Ornette Coleman has this tune that’s fourteen-bars, and he called it the blues! And, so, he would sometimes play it when we were in Los Angeles. And they guys would say, hey, the blues is twelve-bars, he’d say, I know that, but that’s not what I want to do! A lot of people say the reason you do that is because you just can’t deal with the forms, anybody can break the form. He is saying, I don’t conform to the form just because it’s there. I get an idea, and I let the idea expand upon itself. A lot of people’d say, hogwash - it would be like somebody saying to Vincent Van Gogh, my, your drawing is really crude. He’d say, Yeah, but, I’m a painter.
THE MUSIC OF BOBBY BRADFORD: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH BOBBY BRADFORD
Bobby Lee Bradford (born July 19, 1934) is an American jazz trumpeter, cornetist, bandleader, and composer. He is noted for his work with Ornette Coleman. In October 2009, Bradford became the second recipient of the Festival of New Trumpet Music's Award of Recognition.[1]
After playing in military bands from late 1954 to late 1958,[3] he rejoined Coleman's quartet from 1961 to 1963, which infrequently performed in public, but was indeed recorded under Coleman's Atlantic contract. These tapes were among those many destroyed in the Great Atlantic Vault Fire. Freddie Hubbard acted as Bradford's replacement upon his departure to return to the West Coast and pursue further studies.[4] Bradford soon began a long-running and relatively well-documented association with the clarinetist John Carter, a pairing that brought both increased exposure at international festivals (though the records remain scantily available, when one excludes web rips and bootlegs). Following Carter's death in 1991, Bradford fronted his own ensemble known as The Mo'tet, with which he has continued to perform since. He is the father of drummer Dennis Bradford and jazz vocalist Carmen Bradford.
He holds a B.M. degree from Huston-Tillotson College (now Huston-Tillotson University) in Austin, Texas.[5]
He is an instructor at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California,[6] and Pomona College in Claremont, California.[7]
"FONT :: Festival of the New Trumpet :: Full History." fontmusic.org.
Fred Jung, "A Fireside Chat With Bobby Bradford", Jazz Weekly.
Clifford Allen, "Bobby Bradford: Self-Determination in the Great Basin", All About Jazz.
"Beauty is a Rare Thing," Ornette Coleman Atlantic Collection, liner notes by Robert Palmer et al.; Michelle Mercer, "Jazz West" Archived April 16, 2005, at the Wayback Machine., PCM, Winter 2002, Vol. 39, No. 2.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060901142830/http://bryson.pomona.edu/4d.acgi%24ViewFacultyMember612]]
https://web.archive.org/web/20060907104559/http://www.pasadena.edu/directory/employee-results.cfm?Name=1019126A776E6D0E65650D6D183C
John Carter - Bobby Bradford Quintet, Willisau 1989 - Full
John Carter & Bobby Bradford Quartet - Woman
John Carter & Bobby Bradford Quartet - Call To The Festival
John Carter - Bobby Bradford Quartet - Sticks and Stones
John Carter & Bobby Bradford Quartet - Abstractions For
Bobby Bradford Quartet – "Sidesteps" – Angel City Jazz
Bobby Bradford Trio: Live At Battery Books & Music
John Carter and Bobby Bradford: The New Music
Bobby Bradford Quartet – "She" aka "Woman" – Angel City
bobby bradford's mo'tet – ornate (1984)
Panel Discussion with Bobby Bradford, Roberto Miranda
Bobby Bradford Quartet – "A Little Pain" – Angel City Jazz Festival 2014
Bobby Bradford / Hafez Modirzadeh / Ken Filiano / Royal Hartigan -- Live at the Magic Triangle
Bobby BRADFORD-Mark DRESSER-Glenn FERRIS "PURGE"
Comin' On
Speaking Of: Bobby Bradford - Part 3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Bradford
Bobby Bradford
Bobby Lee Bradford (born July 19, 1934) is an American jazz trumpeter, cornetist, bandleader, and composer. He is noted for his work with Ornette Coleman. In October 2009, Bradford became the second recipient of the Festival of New Trumpet Music's Award of Recognition.[1]
Biography
Bobby Lee Bradford's life began in Mississippi; he and his family then moved to Dallas, Texas, in 1946. He moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1953 where he reunited with Ornette Coleman, whom he had previously known in Texas.[2] Bradford subsequently joined Coleman's ensemble, but was drafted into the U.S. Air Force and replaced by Don Cherry.
After playing in military bands from late 1954 to late 1958,[3] he rejoined Coleman's quartet from 1961 to 1963, which infrequently performed in public, but was indeed recorded under Coleman's Atlantic contract. These tapes were among those many destroyed in the Great Atlantic Vault Fire. Freddie Hubbard acted as Bradford's replacement upon his departure to return to the West Coast and pursue further studies.[4] Bradford soon began a long-running and relatively well-documented association with the clarinetist John Carter, a pairing that brought both increased exposure at international festivals (though the records remain scantily available, when one excludes web rips and bootlegs). Following Carter's death in 1991, Bradford fronted his own ensemble known as The Mo'tet, with which he has continued to perform since. He is the father of drummer Dennis Bradford and jazz vocalist Carmen Bradford.
He holds a B.M. degree from Huston-Tillotson College (now Huston-Tillotson University) in Austin, Texas.[5]
In addition to Coleman, Bradford has performed with Eric Dolphy, Leon "Ndugu" Chancler, Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten, Bob Stewart, Charlie Haden, George Lewis (trombone), James Newton, Frode Gjerstad, Vinny Golia, Paal Nilssen-Love, and David Murray, who was previously a student of his in the 1970s.
He is an instructor at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California,[6] and Pomona College in Claremont, California.[7]
Discography
As leader
- Love's Dream (Emanem, 1975)
- Vols. 1 & 2 with John Stevens (Nessa)
- Bobby Bradford & the Mo'tet Lost in L.A. (Black Saint, 1984)
- One Night Stand with the Frank Sullivan Trio (Soul Note, 1997)
- Purple Gums (Asian Improv, 2003)
- Midnight Pacific Airwaves (Entropy, 2009)
- Live in L.A. with Mark Dresser & Glenn Ferris (Clean Feed, 2011)
- Silver Cornet with Frode Gjerstad, Ingebrigt Haken Flaten, and Frank Rosaly (Nessa, 2014)
As joint leader
- Flight for Four (Flying Dutchman, 1969; as John Carter / Bobby Bradford)
- Self Determination Music (Flying Dutchman, 1970; as John Carter / Bobby Bradford)
- Secrets (Revelation, 1973; as John Carter / Bobby Bradford)
- No U-Turn – Live in Pasadena, 1975 (Dark Tree, 2015; as Bobby Bradford / John Carter Quintet)
- Comin' On (hat ART, 1989; as Bobby Bradford / John Carter Quintet)
- Tandem 1 & 2 (Emanem, 1996; as John Carter & Bobby Bradford
- Reknes (Circulasione Totale, 2009; as Bradford Gjerstad Haker Flaten Nilssen-Love)
- Varistar (Full Bleed Music, 2009; as Bobby Bradford, Tom Heasley, Ken Rosser)
- Kampen (NoBusiness, 2012), as Bobby Bradford, Frode Gjerstad, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, Paal Nilssen-Love)
- Dragon (PNL, 2012; as Bradford, Gjerstad, Nilssen-Love)
As Detail
- Detail Plus (Impetus, 1986)
- Way It Goes/Dance of the Soul (Impetus, 1988) as Detail Plus
- In Time Was (Circulasione Totale, 1990)
As sideman
- Variations on Selected Themes for Jazz (Moers Music, 1979)
- Dauwhe (Black Saint, 1982)
- Night Fire (Black Saint, 1981)
- Castles of Ghana (Gramavision, 1986)
- Dance of the Love Ghosts (Gramavision, 1987)
- Fields (Gramavision, 1988)
- Shadows on a Wall (Gramavision, 1989)
With David Ornette Cherry
- The End Of A Century (Elephant, 1999)
- Open Port (Circulasione Totale, 2008)
With Nels Cline
- New Monastery (Cryptogramophone, 2006)
With Ornette Coleman
- Science Fiction (Columbia, 1971)
- Broken Shadows (Columbia, 1971 [1982])
With Chris Fagan
- Lost Bohemia (Open Minds, 1992)
With Freebop
- Live Tracks (Impetus, 1988)
With Frode Gjerstad Quartet
With Vinny Golia
- Live at the Century City Playhouse - Los Angeles, 1979 (Dark Tree, 2017)
- Compositions For Large Ensemble (Nine Winds Records, 1982)
- Lineage (Nine Winds Records, 1998)
With David Murray
- Murray's Steps (Black Saint, 1983)
- Death of a Sideman (DIW, 1991)
- MX (Red Baron, 1992)
- Be My Monster Love (Motéma, 2013)
With New Art Jazz Ensemble
- Seeking (Revelation Records, 1969)
With William Parker
- Wood Flute Songs (AUM Fidelity, 2013)
With John Rapson
- Dances and Orations (Music & Arts, 1996)
With Thomas Tedesco
- Thomas Tedesco And Ocean (Nimbus West Records, 1981)
With Bob Thiele
- Head Start (Flying Dutchman Records, 1969)
With Michael Vlatkovich
- 9113 (Thankyou Records, 1984)
Bibliography
- Isoardi, Steven L. (2006). The Dark Tree: Jazz and the Community Arts in Los Angeles. The George Gund Foundation Book in African American Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-24591-1
- Litweiler, John (1990). The Freedom Principle: Jazz After 1958. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80377-1
- Dailey, Raleigh. Folklore, Composition, and Free Jazz: The Life and Music of John Carter. Ph.D. dissertation; University of Kentucky, 2007.
References
External links
- Fred Jung, "A Fireside Chat With Bobby Bradford", Jazz Weekly
- Article by Michelle Mercer from Pomona College Magazine Online
- "Bobby Bradford @ 75", Point of Departure: An Online Music Journal
- Bobby Bradford bio from ARTISTdirect site
- Education bio, Pasadena City College
- Images of Bobby Bradford from the Finding Aid for the Mark Weber Jazz Collection 1970 - 2005 in the Online Archive of California. Keyword search on "Bobby Bradford
