The Elmont Online Podcast
The Elmont Online Podcast
T.K. Blue, Jazz saxophonist and flautist discuss post COVID-19 Jazz club scene and more with host, Aubrey Phillips
A riveting conversation with world renowned Jazz saxophonist / flautist and educator, T.K. Blue. Visit his website at http://www.tkblue.com. T.K. Blue discusses his childhood, his New York, Paris and Africa years.
The conversations ends with a brief excerpt of "Ancestral Callings" from T.K. Blue's "Follow the North Star" which was released on March 17, 2008.
Welcome to the Elmont online podcast. I'm Aubrey Phillips. It's day 52 of New York on pause. Physical distancing has worked and everyone is anxious to go. Governor Cuomo has thoughtfully extended the stay at home order until June 13. Some regions are permitted to begin phase one of reopening New York. Let's hope New Yorkers don't fall into a false sense of security. Or worse, revert to a me ism that puts others at risk. The governor's easing of New York on pause is not an invitation for you to hit fast forward. As of May 12 Elmont has 1220 documented COVID-19 cases, just east Hemstead has 2039 cases. Freeport is now north of 1400 cases, Valley Stream and Uniondale report more than 1000 cases each. But there's good news. The rate of increase has slowed. TEOP is beginning a series on jazz. The podcast explores the impact of COVID-19 on jazz performers, and begins a conversation and where we as jazz fans go next. The small club scene is threatened. We kick off the series with a conversation with world renowned jazz saxophonist, flautist and educator, T.K. Blue. I'll be right back with the conversation. You're listening to the Elmont Online podcast. I'm Aubrey Phillips. T.K. Blue welcome to the Elmont Online Podcast. You know, you're no stranger to the Elmont community since you performed for us in 2012 at the Elmont Public Library, right? That's correct. During the Black History Month celebration, and then again in 2017 at St. John's United Methodist Church. So, on behalf of the community, we welcome you back to Elmont.
T.K. Blue :Well, I'm glad, it's good to be able to do this for the Elmont podcast and my pleasure Aubrey to speak with you, especially in these challenging times that we have in front of us.
Aubrey Phillips :I know exactly what you mean. You know, I'm a big fan of jazz, and you probably know that already. And one of the things that has come to mind is this notion of what's going to happen post COVID-19 as it relates to the place, I love to enjoy jazz, and that is in those small clubs.
T.K. Blue :Well, we have a huge dilemma in front of us to begin with myself along with I mean just about every other musician that I know have been affected adversely with this virus to me. I literally had a tour lined up in Europe, and I was supposed to leave on March 16th for Paris, and I'm just probably one of 100,000 musicians who had a lot of work, and then things were cancelled. So this is undoubtedly, probably the most catastrophic time period that I can ever remember in my life. In fact, I was just telling somebody, I'm 67, two things that have happened never in my wildest wildest imagination would think would occur on this planet and one was the election of an African American president, which I never thought would happen in my lifetime. I see, you see, and the second thing is what we're dealing with right now. For the last eight weeks, whatever is a complete shutdown, yes, of the planet, and especially in terms of arts and entertainment, no music, nowhere on the planet live in front of people to help heal people. Music, as all the arts are poetry, dance, theatre, drama, all of the arts are sacred, because they are the spiritual nourishment for our souls. They keep us sane, keep us grounded, they keep us spiritually connected to the Creator, and they keep us spiritually connected to each other. So when you take that away, it has very profound negative consequences in society as a whole. Now going forward, from this point forward as far as being going to hear music clubs are playing in clubs, believe me, we all as musicians want to get back to that to earn a living. We want to play for people. Right now for me, I'm not even so much concerned about money, as I am about just sharing the love through music, and helping people to heal because some of the people have been lost, yes, to this crisis. So many musicians.
Aubrey Phillips :I know I'm a big fan of the Marsalis clan, oh yeah of course, and I know that according to the records, it appears as though that Ellis Marsalis was among the first of our friends to go.
T.K. Blue :Well yeah, well actually, the first the first one that I was aware of who passed from this virus was actually the pianist Mike Longo, I see, who played with dizzy, right, and a whole bunch of people. Ellis was shortly after and also around that early period of fatalities was Manu Dibango. oh, who I played with when I lived in Paris, and ah, people may not be familiar with Manu Dibango who hails from Cameroon. He was 86 and he had a huge hit back in the 70s called Soul Makossa, and Michael Jackson sampled some of that music on his Off The Wall album without permission, they had to go to court. oh wow, and Manu won. He won a considerable amount of money, you know, but yeah, it's been pretty catastrophic. So I don't know the answer to your question when we will get back to the norm because there's so many things involved. You got social distance, you got, you know that there's no cure, there's no vaccine, right. How do you navigate these things in a club which is a crowded area? Normally jazz clubs are usually based on packing people in and also you've got to remember jazz clubs, especially here in New York City is based on tourism. Yes. If you did a consensus then you would find that the majority of people that go to clubs in New York City, especially the very expensive ones, like the Blue Note, right, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, things like that, Jazz Standard, Village Vanguard, they're mostly tourists. So if you don't have, if you don't, if you don't have tourism, and then you have the third factor, you have the possibility of catching this, which could be a fatal disease, you have to social distance, you have the spacing in jazz clubs, the tourism, then you gotta also factor that many people across, of course, abroad as well don't have money. Many people are unemployed, absolutely, so you know, if you don't have disposable funds, how are you going to go spend $40 or $50 to hear a jazz artist. I think things are going to be, I want us to remain optimistic, and I will remain optimistic. I'm praying every day that some things will turn around, and some things do give me hope. I spoke with a good friend of mine in Paris this morning, and he was telling me, because he's like you, he's a jazz fan as well. He said, you know, as soon as clubs do open back up, even if there is some risk factors involved, he's still going to go because he loves the music, and he wants to support the music. Then he said also, which made a good point,is that in Europe, especially in France, they embrace the concept that you know, life is a risk. You can't have a risk free life. So you can't say I'm not going to go to any clubs until I have a cure or vaccine or something. I mean, you know, life is, it is what it is. So when you can get hit by a car just walking outside your house, never know what will happen. You know, I'm going to remain optimistic, but I think as best if I'm hard pressed, I don't think the club scene is going to come back around until late fall, or early next year.
Aubrey Phillips :You see, that's what I am thinking. And for the very simple reason that if you have to do social distancing, these clubs are relatively small clubs. So, literally, you're going to have half the number of people legally allowed in the club, for instance. and half the income. Right. It's a conundrum. It really is.
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Aubrey Phillips :You're listening to the Elmont Online podcast. I'm Aubrey Phillips.
T.K. Blue :I was going to mention though the one saving grace in that scenario would be if a club can be aligned on the internet, where you have some live some people, like you said, not not a lot because you have social distance and then you're also streaming online for a very minimum fee, like say, five bucks or something, and if you get a thousand, two thousand people to tune in, it can work. So to me, that would probably be the best scenario, I think,
Aubrey Phillips :Yes, because I suspect that because, you know, jazz is so interactive, that playing to an empty field, for instance, as they're attempting to do with baseball as it comes back sort of have baseball but no fans, I don't know how that will affect the music scene if we were to try something like that, for instance,
T.K. Blue :It's tough man, any way you slice it. mm-hmm.
Aubrey Phillips :it is. So listen, I am I'm going to ask you a couple of questions because I don't know how many people in my audience knows you. So as I started going through your bio, I said, my goodness, there's no way I can actually talk to him about all of this. So I broke it into about three or four sections. Okay, and I'm going to call them the early years. Okay, so in the early years, yeah, of course you were born in New York City and your your heritage is Caribbean, Trinidadian, and Jamaican.
T.K. Blue :By the way if you heard the news today in Trinidad just elected their first female Prime Minister. I'm so happy about that. It's wonderful.
Aubrey Phillips :It's time, you know, we're there. I keep reminding myself that. So tell us a little bit about how you got started in music generally.
T.K. Blue :Well, you I grew up in Long Island and not far from Elmont I went to Malverne, and I started playing flute in high school. I had several scholarships, and I wound up taking the one in New York University. I had a full scholarship, Martin Luther King scholarship. And I was immersed in music at that time and also thinking about going into the medical field more in psychology, psychiatry. So I was pre med initially, and I actually completed my major after two years for psychology, so my guidance counselor at NYU said 'You might as well double major. What else are you interested in?' and I said music. So that's why I wanted to major in music and being in New York City was a fantastic opportunity because I had a chance to study with all the great masters of jazz, because they all taught in New York at various institutions like Jazzmobile.
Aubrey Phillips :Right, I saw that but you know, I want to ask you a little bit about your experience with Billy Mitchell. And the reason that he pops up at me is of course, he's from Long Island here, right here in Rockville Center, or at least he lived here in Rockville Center, [T.K. Blue: "Right. He lived in Lakeview"] on his passing. right on the border there. I can remember, some people have an impact on me and I remember when he passed, and then I saw that he was a part of your early years. [T.K. Blue: "Oh yeah, definitely"] And maybe you can tell us a little something about Billy Mitchell.
T.K. Blue :Well Billy was from Detroit, Billy, yeah he's originally from Detroit. I grew up down the street from him. He used to chase me from the front of his house as a little nappy headed kid. You know, get out of here, making all that noise. Go play stickball down at your end of the block, you know. But as I, when I got older and I started getting interested in music he helped me quite a bit. I met many people at his house. I met the great Melba Liston who was a great trombonist and arranger who arranged for Randy Weston and Melba was actually teaching at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica [Aubrey:: "I see"] at that time. So Billy was a very profound influence on me and I studied with him in New York City, at an organization downtown called the Henry Street Settlement. [Aubrey: "Yes"]. It was run by a great basist, who's still with us today Mr. Paul West who's also Caribbean a lot of Caribbeans in this country [Aubrey: "A loy of Caribbeans, yes"] Yeah. Paul, Paul is Virgin Islands. He's from Virgin Islands. He was a director, Billy was my saxophone teacher, and he was a great musician. Great. Great performer, a great improviser. And I was really happy to study with him.
Aubrey Phillips :Absolutely. So then you moved on, you establish a career in New York?
T.K. Blue :Well, being in New York and like I said, I got my bachelor's in liberal arts, music, and psychology, and I went to Columbia. I got a full scholarship there. I got my master's in music education. And by that time, in the 70s, I was really, in college, I really made up my mind that I wanted to be a musician. [Aubrey: " I see"] And I wound up, you know, being in New York City, jamming with a lot of musicians going to jam sessions, going to many organizations to study jazz interactions. Was another place in Harlem, well not Harlem but actually uptown Manhattan not far from the Museum of Natural History [Aubrey: "Right"] and there I studied with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef, Joe Newman. and then there was also the Muse in Brooklyn [Aubrey: "Right"] that was run by Reggie Workman. [Aubrey: "Oh, wow"] and I studied with him there. So New York was a fantastic place. It's somewhere on my travels I wound up meeting a bass player who was working with a musician from South Africa named Ndikho Xaba. He was a Zulu from South Africa who was exiled because of apartheid. [Aubrey: "Of Course"]. He was here in America and I wound up playing with with him and through him I met the great South African pianists, Abdullah Ibrahim, who was who was known as 'Dollar Brand' at that time. [Aubrey: "Yes"] and that was my first major gig. I got with him in 1977 through 1980 and the rest is...you can go on my website, www.tkblue.com because from there, I moved to Paris and then I started working with Randy Weston and, you know, I did some things with Archie Shepp, Sam Rivers, Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Scott. So you know it just kind of branched into different things. but I will say this, that in my early years it was very influential for my career that I moved to Paris in my 20s, where I spent almost nine years living in Paris learning the language, learning the language traveling to Africa, recording, performing. It was an eye opening experience for me that I will always cherish [Aubrey: "Absolutely"] and remember.
Aubrey Phillips :Absolutely. You know, I was in preparation for my conversation with you. I was actually looking up some of the people that you worked with, and you mentioned, Abdullah Ibrahim, and he has this beautiful quote, and I want to say it to you, and then I'd like you to tell me what that means to you.
Commercial :You have questions about the 2020 census, and we have answers. Let's go to caller #1: Well, what is it? Good question. It's a simple questionnaire that counts everyone living at your address on April 1. Next caller: So why should I take it? Because it guides how billions and funding gets used each year for things like clinics, fire stations, public transit, and so much more. Caller #3: go ahead. What's it has to do with representation? Well, you're state's population determines the number of seats it has in the US House of Representatives for the next 10 years. Next: How do you take it? Just look for an invitation in the mail starting March 2020. Then complete it online by phone or by mail. Let's go to our final caller: Is my information safe. Yes, it can't be shared with anyone. It's the law. Thanks for joining us. And don't forget to shape your future. Start here. Learn more at www.2020census.gov.
Station Identification :You're listening to the Elmont online podcast. I'm Aubrey Phillips.
Aubrey Phillips :Abdullah Ibrahim has this beautiful quote and he said at one point, he says "jazz music opens you, to you. It opens you to yourself..." and I thought what a quote.
T.K. Blue :Well, yeah, I take that. I take that too. Yeah, jazz music is very introspective music. Yes, that will aid you in going inside and dealing with your inner feelings and aspirations in the thought process. It's a very deeply spiritual music. And I know for Abdullah, it's extremely spiritual music when he performs like most musicians, [Aubrey: "Right"] It's like a prayer. You know, because you are opening yourself up to the Creator and same thing with Randy Watson. In fact, I played with Randy for almost 38 years. And I always used to ask him, can we played this song or that song and he always point to the sky, meaning I don't know what I'm gonna play, it depends on what the Creator inspires me at that moment. [Aubrey: I see"] so yeah.
Aubrey Phillips :It's wonderful talking to you because there is something about your career that that I think I'm spiritually or at least somehow there's some karmic connection with with you. I was reading again, another another one of your great you just mentioned him, Dr. Weston. And he had made this statement that, you know, he basically was saying, like "no Africa, no jazz, no blues...", essentially no music. And I thought how powerful a statement that is. I don't know if you know, but I used to be the president of my local school board here in Long Island in Elmont, and at the time, the superintendent of schools was a woman by the name of Dr. Maria Palandra. And we started in an elementary school jazz band and exposed our young children to the jazz greats. My theory was Listen, you know, my kids are going home and they're not necessarily listening to Beethoven, they're probably listening to, to Duke Ellington or something. So let's expand the music they play and that they live with, to the music that they may be living with. And she was very open to it and we ended up with this wonderful jazz band that really accelerated the life of the children that were involved in it. And then I noticed that wait a minute, you did the same thing at LIU Post. You really moved jazz into some prominence in that in that environment. And I noticed that you work with children from elementary school all the way through graduate school. So there is this kind of kinship that I have with that. And is there something in your background that you could point to that says this is the thing this is why I do this because I love the intergenerational play of your music. And I also love the intergenerational play of just your experience. And you always have this reverence for those that came before you.
T.K. Blue :Definitely. I mean, absolutely, in fact, that's the title of one of my songs on my latest recording The Rhythms Continue called 'Reverence For Those Who Came Before'. That's exactly, that's exactly the title, exact title. You know, so you hit that one right on the head. [Aubrey: "Right on the head. I didn't even know that"] oh yeah, oh yeah, that's the title "Reference For Those Who Came Before, and I have another song, another title is Faith For Those Who Come After. [Aubrey: "Aha"] So basically, for me what those titles signify in conjunction with what you just said, is, first of all, you have to have reverence for the elders, for the ancestors, for the folks that came before you who pays, who blazed the path for you to follow. [Aubrey: "Yes"] Who made it easy for you to follow, who made the sacrifices, who did the picketing, the marching, the protesting, dying for you to have the right to vote, for you to have the right to live as a free person and to live where you want to pursue your own dream and happiness. So you have to give them their props. And then also, as a jazz artist, I want to know what the music was before I was born and how I can build on it [Aubrey: "Right"] and use the foundation of the tradition and expound, expand on it, which is what I'm trying to do. So taking that a step further, with what Dr. Weston was saying, he came up in the era of extreme racism. discrimination. He was born in 1926 so his generation were not given the right perspective as to where they were from, and what the value of that culture is. So you know he was, he grew up in an era where if you were black, you were told that that was inferior and, and we didn't have any class in the culture, and history, etc. And that's why he says statements like, without Africa, no jazz, no blues, no rock, no funk, no reggae, because when you...with all of these styles of music, you can trace their origins back to the traditional music of Africa. Africa is such a rich, rich continent. And it is so vast, so varied and has given so much beauty to the world, not just in music, but in many, many endeavors, [Aubrey: "of course"] of human life but it's it's never been created. It's always been taken advantage of even untill today [Aubrey: "yes"] even until today, even though we don't have quote, unquote, colonialism in Africa we do have economic colonialism and it's really, it's really a shame and I see it all the time because I go to Africa quite a bit. In fact, I was just in Senegal in West Africa for the whole month of September, last September, and as we're talking now, I would have been leaving next week for Senegal to perform at the St. Louis Jazz Festival [Aubrey: "Oh, wow"] but of course, it got cancelled [Aubrey: "yes"] because of the virus. And these are some of the reasons we're talking about Africa and talking about how much goodness has come out of Africa is some of the pressing attractions for me to stay in Paris, because in Paris in France, you have a lot of folks from Africa, from different countries because France had a lot of colonies in Africa, and consequently, you have to play music and meet brothers and sisters from all over the continent. And as a result, I did my first recording in Paris called Egyptian Oasis, [Aubrey: "Right"] and that record led to me to do Three State Department tours for the US government in Africa. [Aubrey: "in Africa"] Yeah. So it's just a beautiful experience for me.
Aubrey Phillips :Absolutely, and one of the things, and I don't know if you've articulated it as as strongly as I've read it, but Dr. Weston, after spending that many years with him, certainly have had a tremendous influence on you, I'm sure. And I was so happy to know that his work was archived at Harvard.
T.K. Blue :Yeah, yeah, Harvard, yeah, they have his archives and in fact, last November, I went to Harvard to do a lecture on some of the aspects of his archives and some of the repertoire of what we performed towards the latter part of his career.
Aubrey Phillips :Uh-huh. You know, there's one more thing I want to ask you about, and it's this, it's this piece that you did when you were commissioned to write about, some music about the early African American presence in the Hudson Valley, and I was taken aback that you had chosen, you know, Solomon Northup, and you know, 12 Years A Slave as the inspiration for that. So as we as we come to an end of our podcast tonight, tell us a little bit about why that, and what motivated you or what was the spiritual guidance behind that decision?
T.K. Blue :Well, a couple of things which is, I'm glad you brought that up. Okay, so first of all, I got a grant from this organization called Tansart, Inc. and they actually do a jazz festival every summer in the Hudson Valley called jazz in the valley. [Aubrey: "Right"] So they gave me some money, and they also aligned with the New York State Council for the Arts. They added some money and they basically wanted me to compose some new music depicting early African American presence in the Hudson Valley area, as right away, a light went off because I remember reading 12 Years A Slave when I was in college. So I said wow. and I remembered that Solomon Northup lived in the Saratoga area in Hudson Valley. So that's how that came about. So I had already read the book, I went back and reread it. And then and then it inspired me to compose the suite, which I did. The suite is entitled Follow the North Star, and it has nine movements and depicts pretty much his life and the trials and tribulations for those who are not familiar with Solomon Northup, he spent 12 years as a slave before he was free. He was captured in 1841 and freed in 1853 [Aubrey: "Right] and they did a movie of course that won the Academy Award category for Best Picture and to my astonishment, some of his ancestors found out about my recording and they contacted me, they found me on the web. And they connected me with the Fox Searchlight Films in LA, who, who distributed the film. [Aubrey: "Right"] So they invited me to come to the premiere in New York City. So I had an opportunity to meet Lupita who won the supporting actress. [Aubrey: "Correct"] I had a chance to meet Chiwetel who played Solomon and I also met the director Steve McQueen in London. So it was fantastic, you know, and the other thing too, I was going to mention why I chose that for this project was, was Solomon was a musician. He played the violin [Aubrey: "Right"] and he played exceptionally well, and the one thing about the film that I wasn't that fond about, it was a brilliant picture not doubt, but I wasn't fond about in the film, where they show us a scene where Solomon breaks the violin out of frustration because in the book, he clearly writes that the violin is what kept him alive. Music is what kept him alive. [Aubrey: "Yes"] And anytime he felt really down, he would play these samba tones on the violin that would give him hope. [Aubrey: "Right"] And to me, that's the reality because without music, black people in America would have perished during the time of slavery. It was too oddness of situation, the adversity that black people faced on a daily basis was tremendous. [Aubrey: "Yes, yes"] So the music is what kept them alive.
Aubrey Phillips :Is what keeps us exactly [T.K.: "Exactly"] I remember going to New Orleans. [T.K.: "Uh huh"] The Jazz spot there and I forgot the name.
T.K. Blue :It slipped my tongue, I know.
Aubrey Phillips :I remember spending some time in there and I as I walked out, I realized two things I realized that the ancestors are with us, and secondly, I realized that oh, I don't have to go to church tomorrow. I just, I just went to church.
T.K. Blue :That's right, that's right, that's right. and that's see, to me, that's what so, right now, so frustrating. Because we as musicians play in public for people, we become one we unify through the sounds of music. I don't know where I'm gonna play because the Creator's passing the inspiration through me, I'm just a vehicle. [Aubrey: "Right"] A vessel and and you all don't know I'm going to play so then we all hear the sounds at the same time, together, in unison we hear everything as it unfolds. And I'm rocking and blowing my horn, you guys are tapping your foot and screaming and we all become one in this celebration. And it's what heals us as people it was brings us together and it's a very spiritual healing because with music you can't smell it, you can't taste it, you can't see it. You can feel it though you feel it in your home. Yes. And it brings people and it brings people together of all races, creeds, colors, nationalities. That's why I love looking into the audience. And I see all colors and shapes of people. Everybody's doing the same thing tapping their foot.
Aubrey Phillips :Tapping their foot and nodding their heads. Absolutely
T.K. Blue :Right, there you go, there you go
Aubrey Phillips :It's what it's about. Well, TK blue. It's been a pleasure having you on the Elmont Online Podcast.
T.K. Blue :Okay, Aubrey, thank you so much for the great work you're doing in the community. But anyway, thank you so much, and we'll be in touch
Aubrey Phillips :The Elmont Online Podcast is brought to you by www.elmont.org where residents go for cutting edge commentary, real time news feeds and more. elmont.org building a stronger community since 1999. Thank you for listening. Between now and the next time we meet, be safe. I'm Aubrey Phillips. Transcribed by https://otter.ai