BA Podcast #80: Rufus Reid!
The legendary bassist and educator speaks
First things first: My wife has updated her website. Her album cover designs (for every Burning Ambulance Music release and a slew of titles on ESP-Disk’) can be seen here, and she’s available to design album covers, books, or whatever else you’ve got at very reasonable rates, so get in touch.
Also: I wrote three reviews of recent Godflesh albums for the Shfl: A World Lit Only By Fire, Post Self, and Purge.
I put the Burning Ambulance Podcast on pause at the end of 2022, for a variety of reasons (I moved across the country, I wrote a book — In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor, coming to a bookstore near you this summer — I started a new job). But now that I’m settled in, it’s back! The first episode of this current “season” featured a conversation with pianist Ethan Iverson, and this month I’m talking to bassist Rufus Reid. Click here to listen.
Reid is an extremely important figure in modern jazz. He’s always been someone who’s had one foot in the mainstream and one in the avant-garde — he did a lot of work with soul jazz and jazz-funk saxophonist Eddie Harris in the early 1970s, before joining Dexter Gordon’s band when Gordon made his famous US comeback after years in Europe. He was also part of Andrew Hill’s band in the late ’80s, and has done a ton of straightahead records. But he was a member of Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition in the early ’80s, too, and he was one of the four bassists on Henry Threadgill’s X-75 album, and he played on Muhal Richard Abrams’ Things To Come From Those Now Gone, and he even played with Anthony Braxton on the two volumes of Seven Standards 1985, with Hank Jones on piano and Victor Lewis on drums. He was also a member of the World Bass Violin Ensemble, which was a group of six bassists that made one album for Black Saint in 1984.
Reid has also done a lot of work as a leader. He’s made a string of albums in collaboration with drummer Akira Tana and various other musicians; he’s done bass duo albums with Michael Moore; and he’s led the Out Front trio with pianist Steve Allee and drummer Duduka Da Fonseca. In 2014, he released Quiet Pride: the Elizabeth Catlett Project, an album that featured a total of 19 instrumentalists and a singer all paying tribute to a sculptor whose work focused on the Black female experience in America. Reid is also an educator and the author of The Evolving Bassist, a book originally published in 1974 that’s still a standard text for bassists.
In this interview, we talk about Reid’s work with Eddie Harris, with Dexter Gordon, with Henry Threadgill, and with his own ensembles. We talk about a six-CD set he made with Frank Kimbrough a few years ago, recording all of Thelonious Monk’s compositions. We talk about his approach to the instrument, and about his new album, It’s the Nights I Like, which is a duo collaboration with pianist Sullivan Fortner. This was a really enjoyable and informative conversation, and I think you’ll come away from it with a new or perhaps a renewed appreciation for someone who’s been a major figure in jazz for 50 years and isn’t stopping yet. Here’s the link to listen.
Here’s a short excerpt from our conversation, edited for clarity, as they say.
Now, some of the earliest professional stuff that I saw for you was, you did a lot of work with Eddie Harris in the early ’70s. So kind of tell me how you got that gig and what sticks with you about that experience.
Well, I finally got out of the military, and I began to really get into the bass. Truly big time. And after I got out of the military, I sold my trumpet and bought a bass. And then I said, Okay, I need to go to school. And I applied to some colleges and universities, and I was able to get into Northwestern University. And that’s where Eddie Harris lived. But I fell in love with his music when I was in the military, particularly in Japan, because my last two years in the military was in Japan, and I saw unbelievable musical ensembles. I saw Duke Ellington’s band for the first time, Modern Jazz Quartet, and Horace Parlan and Philly Joe, Buddy Rich and Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook. And I said, Wow, this is what I got to do. But I knew I needed to get a teacher. So by the time I got out of the military, I went up to Seattle because my brother lived there and allowed me to kind of get myself together. And I went, studied at Olympia College, junior college. And I started taking lessons on the bass from this guy James Harnett from the Seattle Symphony. And he prepared me for these auditions, but Chicago, I was told that Eddie Harris lived in Chicago. And of course, Chicago ended up being where I went because that was the only place I could make money playing and go to school. And of course, little did I know at that time, Chicago was the place. And I got a chance to play a lot, and grow a lot. And Eddie Harris, I did get a chance to meet him, and he — I said, man, I really love your music and hope to get a chance to play with you. And one of the things I love about him was that he said, Well, you’re in school right now, aren’t you? I said, yes. He says, Well, why don’t you go ahead and finish and get your piece of paper and if I’m still out here trying to do this, and you still want to play, we’ll talk then. And I’ll never forget that, because he was concerned about me fulfilling my education. And eventually I did get the chance to play with him. And even to this day, I think, he’s one of the most influential individuals in my whole career. He taught us a lot of things, not only the music, because he was an incredible musician, and unfortunately, a lot of people don’t really know how serious a musician he really was because he became more popular with some of the funky pop stuff that was going on the time. But this guy could play anything, any tempo. He played piano like McCoy Tyner. He could play...he wrote all kinds of music. And he was a serious improviser, and, but he was business all the way. And it was unbelievable to have him as my first professional boss. So I feel very, very fortunate to have met him and played with him and got as much from him as I have.
Yeah, because that’s the thing, when you’re coming up like that, you know, you learn the music, but you also learn how to run a band, and stuff like that.
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, he was — all he did say to us was, really interesting, was he says, I don’t care what you do on your own private life, he said, but I’d like you to be on time, and I want you to be able to play, you know, and I think that was the operative word at that time. Like a lot of the guys were stretching out, were smoking pot or doing drugs or whatever, and he could care less about it as long as you could play. And if you couldn’t, then he didn’t need you, you know, and that was really, really great. He paid us on time. He paid us when he said he was going to pay us. And I learned a lot of business about him because he paid us a check. But it wasn’t his name on the check. It was a company name or something. And that was my first time of understanding, Oh, what is that? You know, and he had his publishing company with his books. That was another situation. And so I learned a lot from him, a great deal, in addition to the music. And he’s the one that actually talked me into writing my own method book for the bass. And, because I was complaining, I was — Ray Brown, I had his book, and I was talking about his book to a lot of young players. And I said, he doesn’t even know I helped sell 25 of his books. And Eddie Harris said, Well, why don’t you write your own book? And I said, Get out of here. What are you talking about? So that was very incredible information at the time. And the book is still out here. But he did tell us, tell me, I had to do two things. I had to finish the book, because most people don’t finish what they start. And and then he says, I need you to own it. And at that time, I had not known how profound that statement was. But we still own it and haven’t given it away. And I’m unbelievably grateful to that information.
Go listen to the whole thing, and I’ll see you next week!