The Elmont Online Podcast
The Elmont Online Podcast
Elmont Students Protest and a Conversation With Jazz Great Clifton Anderson
Our Podcast monologue highlights remarks by Alicia Munian. Ms Munian is an alumna of Elmont Memorial High School. Her remarks preceded the protest march from Elmont to Valley Stream. The protest was organized in part by Goldie Harrison, Christine Rivera and Erik Blamoville (all members of the Elmont Alumni).
The Conversation is the second in a series of conversations with prominent Jazz musicians. This conversation was recorded earlier and is part one of the a two-part conversation with trombonist, Clifton Anderson.
Mr. Anderson explores the hybrid club possibility and expands the conversation by thinking about the experience from both fan and performer. He also talks about his "first trombone".
Learn more about Clifton Anderson at his website.
Welcome to the Elmont online podcast. I'm Aubrey Phillips. It's day 73 of New York on pause. Physical distancing has worked. Sadly, it's 10 days since the murder of George Floyd and black people who die at significantly higher rates from COVID-19 has had to choose between two public health crises, COVID-19 and state sponsored racism. Today's commentary features Elmont's young voices. TEOP recognizes Goldie Harrison, Christine Rivera, and Erik Blamoville for their respective roles in organizing a peaceful, purposeful demonstration against systemic racism. This, while adhering as best they could, to proper COVID-19 spread prevention strategies. The voice you hear next is Alicia Munian. Miss Munian is an Elmont Memorial High School alumna. She is a thinker. Her academic focus was that of political philosophy.
Alicia Munian :Hello, everyone. My name is Alicia Munian, and I am an alumni of Elmont Memorial High School, a place of beautiful diversity and black excellence - let me repeat that, black excellence. Here we stand today at this point of this place of education, where we learned about the civil rights movement that happened years ago yet here we stand united together, still fighting for the same cause and the face of division to look the enemy and the eyes. This is not the dialogue of black versus white, it is us, we, humanity against racism. When one race suffers, we all suffer. This is a story that started centuries ago: from the time that our ancestors were enslaved; from the times that we were oppressed; from the times that we were silenced from the table; from the socio economic opportunities that we have been barred from; from the unequal places that we start our journeys for success from, this is our chance to talk. This is our chance to express our grievances to the world. There is a movement arising and we are part of it. It is here and now. This has been too long brushed under the table for far too long. This is a time to stand up for what is right, to stand up for the basic principles that every human being deserves. The goal here is human equality, peace and unity. The pain of our brothers and sisters that died because of something as frivolous as a skin that they were born with. Ahmed Aubrey, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, George Floyd...these are not the only ones. Say their names. We must continue to speak their names and tell the world heritage. Until we can look our fellow men in the eyes and truly see each other for what we are...human beings beyond the colors of our skin, all deserving to live a life on this beautiful earth, striving to make the planet a better place than how we entered it so that we can see real change, real shifts into this new world. The power is in our numbers. The power is in our spices of light. The power is in our culture. The power is in our world changing achievement. The power is in our art and dances. The power is in our unique perspectives. The power is in our voices. All the beauty that we bring to this world let it shine. This is our moments of unity. This is our moments of peace. This is our moment of equality and we will not {inaudible} until we are heard, until this is achieved. We will not be silenced any longer. stand up and speak your voice. Our voices will tell the truth of our burden and carry us to equality. There is a light waiting at the end of it. This is the light of human unity. Hold this vision in your hearts and remember what we are working towards. Our collective voices will come together to share the shift in this world. Only the light can drive out the darkness. Let us shine our light on the world and show us the truth of our message. The truth of human unity.
Station Identification :You're listening to the Elmont online podcast. I'm Aubrey Phillips.
Aubrey Phillips :This TEOP jazz series explores the impact of COVID-19 on jazz performers and fans. Our first jazz podcast introduce the possibility of the hybrid club scene. Today we continue the conversation with trombonist composer, educator and producer, Clifton Anderson. Mr. Anderson's first recording as a leader and composer is his 1997 album titled 'Landmarks". We can't wait for his upcoming release, 'Been Down This Road Before'. This is part one of a two part series with Mr. Anderson. I'll be right back with the conversation.
Station Identification :You're listening to the Elmont online podcast. I'm Aubrey Phillips.
Aubrey Phillips :We have on the phone with us today, jazz trombonist Clifton Anderson. Mr. Anderson welcome to the Elmont Online Podcast.
Clifton Anderson :How are you Aubrey? It's a pleasure to be with you this afternoon.
Aubrey Phillips :Well, it's a pleasure having you. We're trying on the Elmont Online Podcast to explore this scene that you and I participate in, you as a performer, composer, and me as a fan, and that is the small jazz club scene. But before we get to the small jazz club scene and how COVID-19 may have affected it, I just want to ask you a little bit about how you're doing? How's the family doing now that we've gone through some eight weeks of New York on pause? How are you?
Clifton Anderson :Well, you know, thank you for asking. Everybody's doing okay. We're just trying to get acclimated into this different type of lifestyle, you know, not really going out too often, and making sure that we're appropriately protected with our masks and our gloves and whatever else we need, eyewear, whatever else we have to do depending on how involved we're getting with people.
Aubrey Phillips :Absolutely. It has to be troubling for someone like yourself who is not only accustomed to but essentially thrives in small environments with many, many people coming up to you shaking your hand etc. I am going to just jump right into our conversation. The last time I saw you perform it was at a very beautiful small club, essentially upstate New York, at least from where I live. {laughter} And it was enjoyable. It was everything that small clubs are. And it dawned on me now that we may be approaching a time when regulations regarding the number of people that can be assembled in any given space will be reduced, I am wondering how is that going to affect you both economically and musically? So I'm listening.
Clifton Anderson :Well, I think if my memory serves me correctly, I think that club, that was up in Peekskill, I think where...
Aubrey Phillips :That is correct.
Clifton Anderson :...where I saw your last I bet. And I love, actually I love playing at that particular venue because it's intimate. It's very intimate and the owners of that establishment, they're true music lovers, and they show a lot of respect for that particular kind of music that i'm involved in. So as always, I like to play there. I don't play there for the money. I play there just for the joy of playing to a very receptive, and I would say for the most part, an informed audience. [Aubrey: "Ah ha"] You know, I have a following up there. So whenever I perform there I mean, the people know my music, and before I go on, a lot of times, they'll ask you to play a particular, one of my particular songs that they know. So it's it's always great to play in a small venue like that. I mean, the interaction, the energy that you can get from the audience is very immediate. [Aubrey: "Right, right"] And it's a different experience for those of us who are performers. You get an immediate, a very Immediate kind of feedback. However, playing in small venues like that we can't really make a living. [Aubrey: "Correct"] So I do it anyway because I love to be that close to people and get that kind of energy from, as often as I can, you know, [Aubrey: "Right, right"] The size of the venues very for me. I played, like that club, [Aubrey: "Um hm"] which, for your listeners who might not know, that place holds about, I would say about maybe 70 people at the maximum. [Aubrey: "That's correct, um hm"] But usually, for me, I have to play in places that hold at least 100, maybe 150, 100-200 people in terms of the club size... [Aubrey: "Right"] ...usually to be able to make any kind of real money at all. [Aubrey: "Right"] And then there are the concert halls, the performing arts centers usually hold about, maybe about 300-500 people... [Aubrey: "Right"] and the concert halls of course are larger. We go up to maybe 800 to could be up to 2000 people. [Aubrey: "Aha, okay"] You don't get the same immediate kind of, you do get it, but it's a different kind of energy. You're not so close to the people, so you don't get it right away, you have to be a little bit more discerning, to feel out an audience and to get a response and to know that you really engaged, that the audience is really engaged with you when you start when you're playing those larger rooms. [Aubrey: "Right"] So, which is why we have to do it, because of course, we make a lot more money. [Aubrey: "Correct"] . But the kind of immediate gratification is a little bit different. You know, when you're on the stage when you're actually performing. I shouldn't call it gratification, I should actually call it, it's more of like a conversation, you know, [Aubrey: "Aha"] even though, even though the audience is not speaking, you're having, you're having a rapport with them.
Aubrey Phillips :Absolutely. There is that conversation that you're having just, just based on body language, etc. [Clifton: "Yeah"]. Yes. I love the small club. So one of the things that interests me and people like me is this idea that the small club experience and our first podcast on this issue we spoke to performer T.K. Blue and he raised the notion of a hybrid small club. Essentially fewer people in the club, but maybe with an online component to the experience, and I've sort of mulled that over and I'm thinking, you know the thing that you just said about working in larger venues, then that begins to sort of seep into or be infused into the small club experience, because now it's a smaller space, less people, but then you have this online experience. I just think that might be interesting, but as a performer, would you be open to that kind of a hybrid solution for smaller venues?
Clifton Anderson :Well, yes, we may have to be open to that whether we like it or not {laughter} at this point. You know, it's very interesting, because I played, there's another small room that I played, and I don't even know if they're still doing the jazz series, but it was a town in New York right next to Nyack, New York called Piermont. There's a blues club that's there and it a very well known blues club. Been there for many, many years. A lot of blues artists have come through there. There's not a big place, [Aubrey: "Right"] and I have a friend who's a jazz musician actually, that started presenting jazz music there. And he had me there a few times and he had a lot of really great jazz musicians come through there as well. Wallace Roney, the late great Wallace Roney played there. [Aubrey: "Wow"] a lot of other a lot of other people. And the first time I played there, it was interesting because I drew a lot of people. [Aubrey: "Uh huh"] and the promoter. he was saying, "Man, you had more people than anybody who's been in here..." and so I mean, it wasn't like sold out or anything, it was crowded you know... [Aubrey: "Right, right"]. but that was nice to know. and the audience was very receptive and everything. And then I came back another time and I had, this particular night that I played there the second time, cause this kind of is leading to your question. [Aubrey: "Go ahead"] We got there and the band, we had a very nice rapport amongst the musicians this particular night and I had, I had a drummer that had been working with me at the time for quite a bit and two other musicians that had started, younger guys, that started playing with me. [Aubrey: "Right"] and so when we came on to the bandstand to play, you know, we/I looked out on an audience and there were like five people in audience. So wow man, you know, like nobody turned up. Nobody came out tonight?[Aubrey:"You're in your living room"] last time, yeah, like last time we played there, there was you know, the place was pretty crowded. [Aubrey:"Right"] So you know, my feeling is like, it doesn't matter to me what number of people are in a club. I'm there to to do something that's going to be special for that night that's it. You only get one shot. [Aubrey:"Exactly"] And that's the, that music that happens is never going to really happen again that way so you got to try as an artist, you go for it, you go for the very best that you can deliver in that moment. [Aubrey:"Right"] And so you know, we always play. my uncle would say, you know, like when he was young everybody would just plays as if that was their last job and they were ever going to play. [Aubrey:"Exactly"] That's how you have to...and that's how we played. So I call the first tune which was a very up tempo tune. and I realized that these guys had a lot of fun with it, and I said, you know, I realized that these guys just wanted to play fast the whole night. They just want to play up tempo all night. [Aubrey:"Uh huh"] So that's what we did and we did it pretty well. The band sounded pretty good and everybody was really playing was in it. and it was a kind of a unique experience and the audience, the five people that were in the audience were completely blown away. And one of the guys actually ended up becoming a friend of mine and started following me around to all my different jobs videotaping me and some of that videotape content is up online now. And he became like this long term fans, lifelong fan of mine, along with a couple of the other people that were at that particular show. And like I said it only five people in the whole place.
Aubrey Phillips :Right, you know that's the experience that I often seek just as a fan. I know I love talking to jazz musicians. I love talking to people in general, but with musicians, there is this connection. There is this dance that occurs between the audience and the performers that the fewer fans there are, the more advantageous it is to the fan... [Clifton:"Yeah, yeah, yeah"] you know, so I get that experience. I like that.
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Aubrey Phillips :That's interesting. So back to this notion of the hybrid solution. You, you're okay with maybe having that become part of the model for jazz performances going forward?
Clifton Anderson :Yeah. I think that temporarily, it may solve a couple of issues because first of all, I think the music will be different if there's no audience at all. [Aubrey:"Yeah"] It will be different than if they're even if the audience is small. If there are 20 people in a, 10-20 people in a club [Aubrey: "Right"] that will make the music different than if there's nobody there at all. [Aubrey: "Of course"] you know, and I say that because performers that we do feed off of a live audience. [Aubrey: "Right"] There is something that we get from a live audience. I've had the opportunity to perform on some of the largest stages on the planet and some of the smallest so I've run the total gamut [Aubrey: "Right"] And I've done performances in front of maybe 8000 people where I came out with, not none of my own name, but with my uncle. [Aubrey: "Uh huh"] We would come out on the stage, and we've had to stand there for about 10 minutes before we played a note. Because the people were yelling and screaming [Aubrey: "Of course"] and doing stuff for about 10 minutes before we can even play it now a note. [Aubrey: "Right"] And so when you feel that as an artist getting ready to perform that already ignites something in you that's very special, that might not have been there otherwise you know. [Aubrey: "Right"] It can take the music someplace else. There's always, whenever you throw a different spice in the pot {laughter} it's gonna change, it doesn't necessarily make it better or worse, but it might take it in a different direction, [Aubrey: "Right"] that will be just like unique you know. [Aubrey: "Yes"] So it's the same, so that's the idea, it's like, you know, I think we need to have some people in the audience because if we just do like a streaming thing where the band is up there and just playing, I don't know that every musician will be as inspired...
Aubrey Phillips :That I think...
Clifton Anderson :Yeah, as if they have some people in the audience.
Aubrey Phillips :...As if there are people there, yeah, And you know it's interesting about that experience, right, because I attend almost every year, I attend one of the jazz festivals, either the Newport Jazz Festival or something to that effect. So I get it, because even that as large as it is, it's still small, still gives you that feeling of warmth, and there's still some very nice interaction and play with the audience. Oh, that's great. So I'm going to move on to a different part of this conversation. I'm going to ask you to tell us a little bit about your first trombone. My first trombone? Yes. {Laughter}
Clifton Anderson :{Now let me see, can I remember that far back? {laughter}
Aubrey Phillips :I'll tell you why I asked that question before you answer. Because the person that gave it to you cost me a lot of money in a wonderful way, so we'll get to that. Yes. Tell us a little bit about, because I know that that was some influence on you.
Clifton Anderson :Well, I've told this story before. My mother took me to the movies to see ah, maybe it was Van Dyck, I think I don't remember who starred this movie now but it was 'The Music Man'. And there was a scene in the movie where they had a parade and the parade, they played this song '76 Trombones'. They showed these trombones and everybody's like at the side waving and, you know, so I was seven years old, and I told my mother, I want to play that. I come from a musical family, so everybody had to play an instrument in my family. So it was just at a certain age, you had to stake your claim, like, what instrument are you going to play? Now what do you want to play? So I told my mother, I said, well, I want to play that instrument. So my mother told my uncle, who for your listeners who may not know is the legendary jazz artist, Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus. She told my uncle that I wanted to play the trombone. And he went and bought me my first trombone. And I had that instrument. I was seven years old. I mean, I started fooling around on it when I used to knock it up against the wall. You know, you were little kids, you know, but I had the instrument and I was playing it and my mother took me to that particular horn. I don't remember what brand that horn was. I cannot remember. I could look at it now, but I can't remember what the brand was. It was. It was a good horn though. But it wasn't like a King or a Conn trombone or a Bach. It wasn't one of those major brands. But I had it and my mother took me for a lesson and the very first lesson that I took the teacher told me to take the horn out, and I was able to put it together. You know, I was already fooling around with it at home, right? But I was small. I was only seven years old. So I had to bounce the slide and I went out on the positions, I had to put it on my foot to hold it up. [Aubrey: "Right"] I couldn't reach all the way out, you know {Laughter} but he told me to blow and the first note that I blew, he told my mother he said, 'your son has a special talent for this instrument. You should make sure that he takes lessons on this instrument'. She said well why? He said because he can get a really really beautiful sound on this and this is like a very hard instrument to just pick up and get a good sound on he said most children who pick up this instrument and blow it it doesn't sound very good. {Laughter} But he said he already has a sound [Aubrey: "Wow"] on the instrument. [Aubrey: "Wow"] That's how it started off. [Aubrey: "That's the story"] but that born that my uncle got me, that first horn was stolen. [Aubrey: "Hmmm"] Unfortunately, we had a robbery of our home in the early, I think was in the early 70s, and that horn was in the house, and they took, I had two phones actually and they stole both of them.
Aubrey Phillips :If only, I hope, I hope whoever stole that actually understands what they have.
Clifton Anderson :{Laughter} But I'm sorry I didn't have it. I got another one shortly thereafter just continue from there you know.
Aubrey Phillips :Yes.
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Aubrey Phillips :Thank you for listening. Between now and the next time we meet. Be safe. I'm Aubrey Phillips. Transcribed by https://otter.ai