Eddie Marshall - Drummer, Composer, Arranger, Educator

Eric Muhler: How are things going?

Eddie Marshall: You wouldn't believe it! I don't make any money. I don't know why I'm so busy! (Laughter) It's like those big CEO's put out as much energy as I do and they make a million dollars!

Eric: The CEO's? They make more than a million.

Eddie: That shows you where I am!

Eric: When were you born?

Eddie: April 13, 1938.

Eric: And where?

Eddie: Springfield, Massachusetts.

Eric: When did you come to California?

Eddie: 1967.

Eric: When did you start playing music?

Eddie: 1967. No! (Laughter) I started playing the piano, I mean taking lessons, when I was eight. Just like a kid. And I did that until I was fourteen.

Eric: Classical music?

Eddie: Um hmm. And then I started playing drums at fourteen. I had been playing drums with my father. He's a piano player. And my mother was a piano player. And my Aunt Vicky is still a piano player. And everybody had a piano. My Aunt Mandy had a piano. Everybody had a piano and I don't know why. We lived in this really, what would be considered a poor neighborhood, not poor in spirit, certainly, but not financially that rich. Anyhow, so we'd always have the rehearsals and as soon as the drummer got off the drums I'd jump on there. Because I'd sit there watching, I was always fascinated. I was watching the foot going. I love the piano, I especially love Brahms and Beethoven because those were easy pieces to learn; they were really pretty, but the drums fascinated me and they played the brushes. So from the time I was conscious of doing that, when I was nine or ten, by the time I was fourteen, I could really do it. Because he would get off the drums longer and longer, I think he had a drinking problem or something, (Laughter) 'cause that's how I ended up getting my first gig! This guy was playing in my dad's band and he was a young cat, all sharp and sh*t, he could really, really, play, but he'd go off in the bathroom…I don't know what he was doing! But I had a longer and longer time. Then I could actually really do it. I didn't have a set of drums I could play. His wife filed a suit against him, and in those days there was no recourse except to run; either pay alimony or get out of town. He chose to get out of town. He left his drum set, he got out so fast. He left the drum set at our house, and then my dad's stuck! He's got a job on Saturday night at Westover Field, which was the Air Force Base near Springfield. He had all those kind of jobs like that. No drummer. But it's a Base and I can't go on there, but I said "Dad, I can do this," and I could. Because you only had to know three different beats. You had to go fast or slow. Jazz, schmazz, I didn't care nothing about jazz. I liked Little Richard. (Laughter) But he says, "I'll pay you $15", that was a high-paying gig back in the fifties. I was making about $8 a week on my paper route. I'll never forget it…how fast I quit that paper route. (Laughter) Because once I started working I was working all the time. I was still in Junior High School.

Eric: This was mostly with your Dad?

Eddie: Yeah. My Dad and my Uncle. Most of those jobs you played the brushes for a ballad, you played the sticks for an up-tempo, and you played a Latin beat, and the Latin beat was always (demonstrates by tapping on the microphone a very basic Latin beat) …and if it was a samba (plays the exact same beat twice as fast) It was always the same thing! (Laughter)

Eric: It was like a drum machine…just hit the tempo button.

Eddie: Yeah, yeah, that was it! So that's how I started playing drums. My Dad's band was this really square-ass band (Laughter) and he hated it too, but he made a living. That's how he made a living. He wrote arrangements. He had a day job but he always played music and wrote music. So he's doing all these arrangements for singers and Glenn Miller kind of stuff because that's what people danced to in those days. But my Uncle Cookie had an R&B band and I joined that band. I played with my Dad for about three or four gigs after that and then Cookie says, "You know, I'll make sure he…" - and here I am, I'm about fifteen years old, fourteen actually when I started, and I'm working in these clubs down in the North end of Springfield, there was clubs all over the place and you would work four nights, Thursday right through Sunday. So I worked those clubs and then at sixteen my Dad said, "Why don't you take some lessons?" And I said "Oh mmmaaannnn!" First I hedged about it and then at that same time my Uncle Roddie got drafted into the army and he was a big jazz fan. He always wanted me to play jazz music anyhow, and I couldn't stand it. And I said "Oh my God! What are you talking about!?" Because all I'd heard…when I grew up I heard…we were over-saturated with it. We would hear Louis Jordan, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, of course Nat King Cole, Ella…you know all black artists. That's the way I grew up in a black neighborhood. So I liked it but it was…I just liked the R&B stuff. The closest I came to liking jazz was a guy named Earl Bostic. He was a killer alto player who played R&B type stuff and that's what my Uncle Cookie was, an R&B player along with ballads. We played in all these funky clubs all over. The roughest guy in the neighborhood was assigned to come and get me after the gig. That was it. I was brought home. Then when my Uncle Roddy got drafted and left me these jazz records, I switched over night! He had Charlie Parker With Strings, Milestones, and Max Roach. Max Roach and Bud Powell, and I was gone.

Eric: How old were you then?

Eddie: By that time I was sixteen or seventeen. So I started taking lessons. And it was basically, I got my chops up and I could read pretty well and after that I didn't realize, I could really read pretty well. I didn't realize that drumming was just on one line, so I would get all these gigs playing in the theatres because nobody could read music. The drummers couldn't read music. They would always have to bring somebody in from New York to Springfield. But they'd say, "We've got this kid in Springfield, he can read!" So all through high school I played in shows, I played in "Music In The Round", I played in these Catskills-type clubs with a singer, dancer, and comedian every night.

Eric: And these gigs were finding you?

Eddie: Oh yeah! They would find me. I just fell into it. I was like the only game in town, actually. (Laughter)

Eric: Did you play in school bands?

Eddie: I had a little jazz band with my good friend we lost, Joe Roccisano; we used to try to have a jazz band in high school. We were good. We'd do assemblies, and stuff like that. Our piano player was actually an accordion player and couldn't play anything with his left hand! (Laughter) He played hip chords but he couldn't add anything to them. And we had a bass player who was actually a polka player so he always played each note twice. (Bum-bum, boom-boom, bum-bum, boom-boom) He played a blues like that. (Continues demonstrating the two-note techniques to much laughter)

Eric: So your early influences were Max Roach and Duke Ellington and Count Basie?

Eddie: I wasn't influenced early. I was influenced much later when I started playing jazz myself by Miles, Bird, and Dizzy's Jazz At The Philharmonic; that's what really got me.

Eric: How about drummers?

Eddie: The only drummers I ever saw in those days, besides the drummers with the big bands (I saw Joe Jones); I liked Gene Krupa. Gene Krupa was like the baddest motherf*cker ever! I was a kid. We didn't have TV. We went to the movies and they'd have the news. That's how you found out "What's going on in America." You'd listen to the radio and see it in the newsreel at the movies. And there's Gene Krupa! Benny Goodman was still really bad in those days and there's Gene Krupa; he was always so happy! And he's swinging so f*ckin' hard! I mean really swingin'! You hear those records with Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton and the cats are playing like fusion! Those heads were so fast and so precise, Hampton's just nailin'! I actually got to take a lesson with him!

Eric: Really!? How old?

Eddie: I was, let me see, I must have been sixteen, seventeen when I was studying with Joe Sefchick. Joe knew him and he said, "How'd you like to get a lesson with Gene Krupa?" I said, "Heck yeah!" Gene Krupa and Cozy Cole had a school in New York at that time, the Gene Krupa-Cozy Cole School of Music. You could go there and - they didn't teach everybody - they had a lot of other teachers, but you could go and actually get a lesson from them. So it was something. He didn't play bebop; he did it with the accents. Really good control of the bass drum. (Demonstrates - dum, dum. dum, dum. dum, dum, dum…) That's what got the people dancing like this! (Demonstrates people jumping up and down) (Laughter) I used to say most white people count on one and three. In fact, most of the world counts on one and three. African music, they're not going…(demonstrates accents on one and three…)…they're going…(demonstrates a two & four accented back beat) …that beat was unceasing! I went to the Jazz Museum in Kansas City where they digitized most of the music of Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Bird and all those people. They redid the recordings where you can actually hear the bass player. You know, when we were kids, you never heard a bass player. I remember asking my dad, "What do you have a bass player for? You never hear him…" (Laughter)

Eric: Did you go somewhere after Springfield before you came to California?

Eddie: Oh yeah…by that time I'd really gotten into jazz music and I tried to get to New York as much as possible. It was only a couple of hours to New York, and I had relatives in New York. So right after High School I moved to New York in 1957.

Eric: Where'd you live?

Eddie: I lived with my Aunt on Eastside Drive for two days. She had two or three kids and a small apartment…

Eric: What neighborhood?

Eddie: The FDR Apartments on the Lower East Side. Way downtown! (Laughter) Do you know the FDR Apartments?

Eric: I don't know those apartments but I'm familiar with the neighborhood.

Eddie: I stayed there two or three days, and then I got a room at the Y for another two days, then I got an apartment on 50th and 8th Avenue, and a job. New York was happenin', you know? All this stuff was happening in a couple of week's time. I got a job as a messenger at an ad service. Modern Ad Service on 46th Street. I got my job and a place to live and was taking lessons at the Manhattan School of Music, and mainly just doing that and practicing. I didn't really know anybody in New York except for my relatives. I just did that. I had this background in printing. Even as a small kid, my Uncle had a printing shop. I'm thankful now because I get Social Security because of my work record as a kid. Since I was twelve I worked in my Uncle's printing shop.

Eric: This was not the musician Uncle?

Eddie: No…so because of my background I could always get jobs in New York. Then I hooked up with a buddy of mine who just got out of the army and he had the GI Bill and he went to this school called the Harnett School of Music on 42nd Street, and he said, "You ought to come and start taking music here…" and it was so lax in those days that I just went there for free! (Laughing) Getting grades and everything! I went there for almost two years! Mainly because I liked harmony and theory, I didn't do drums there. They had guys like Bill Evans come in there and teach some times, and Horace Silver. This was the late fifties and there were these groups that were always trying to get students to come to their meetings. They wanted to get liberal-typed minded people to come to their meetings. I'll never forget, one of these groups was going to have this panel, and Horace Silver and all these people are supposed to be on the panel. So we get there and it's some kind of Socialist group and they say, "Sorry, Mr. Silver can't be here today." (Laughter) So that's the kind of stuff I did. I'd get so discouraged because in Springfield I was a big deal, but in New York City I was like, "Oh My God!!" Everything was so dynamic, bigger than life…like a paradiddle in New York was a PARADIDDLE!!! (Laughter) With ATTITUDE! I remember going to the clubs and listening to the guys play and…I used to play in the school and listen to the guys play in the school, and they were pretty good too, but I didn't really start playing until I met Toshiko (Akiyoshi). Charlie Mariano and Toshiko. By then I was playing, I could play. I just didn't know what to do with the stuff. I didn't know many people. But after I started playing with them I never looked back. And I still play with them. I'm playing with Toshiko next week. She's my oldest friend. I've known her since I was eighteen.

Eric: Wow! That's remarkable! So if I'm doing the math right you're in the neighborhood of…

Eddie: …sixty-five.

Eric: …and minus eighteen is…forty-seven years you've been friends?

Eddie: Um hmm…

Eric: That's remarkable!

Eddie: Yup! She's known me through all my wives…(Laughter)

Eric: I didn't realize there'd been a number of wives.

Eddie: Oh yeah!

Eric: I can leave that out if you want me to.

Eddie: Oh, they're all great people.

Eric: Are your kids from different mothers?

Eddie: Yeah. I have three by my second wife, Sundance, and two of those kids are musicians, and one son, David, whose a graphic artist in Boston, by my first wife. He's the oldest. He's actually almost as old as I am. It's amazing how that happens! He's in his forties! Jesus! (Laughter) And then I have my step-kid Reevan? And Gabriel, who passed away, is Sue's adopted son.

Eric: How many is that, again?

Eddie: Actually my natural children are five boys and then my two step- children.

Eric: Time for a subject change, here. Who do you listen to now?

Eddie: Oh, man! Billy Killston, he's a drummer with Dave Holland's group. Remember Dave Holland the bass player? I'm terrible with names.

Eric: Other instruments as well.

Eddie: I like John Scofield on guitar. Branford Marsalis is a very exciting player. Terry-Lynn Carrington is a young woman who plays drums. She's one of the top five drummers in the country. I don't know where she's from but she's playing with Herbie Hancock now. She's played with Wayne Shorter. Of course, I love Wayne Shorter… and Herbie! There are so many people out there!… It's hard not to leave out…Billy Hart! I'm always partial to drummers. (Laughter) Chick Corea…

Eric: Those are the people who you listen to now…?

Eddie: Keith Jarrett.

Eric: So you like Keith Jarrett?

Eddie: I love Keith Jarrett.

Eric: So do I. Bill (Bell) didn't mention him yesterday in his interview.

Eddie: All piano players hate him! (Laughter)

Eric: I don't hate him! I'm a piano player! (Laughter)

Eddie: I actually don't know what there is to hate. He may have a funny attitude…

Eric: He does have a funny attitude and a strange stage presence as well…

Eddie: Yeah! Jack DeJohnette, he's another one.

Eric: Gotta love him!

Eddie: Great!

Eric: That's who Bill compared you to, actually.

Eddie: Well, that's an honor. (More laughing)

Eric: It works both ways. Do you prefer live gigs or recording?

Eddie: I prefer live gigs.

Eric: Do you teach?

Eddie: Um hmm.

Eric: Private lessons, or…?

Eddie: Mostly private lessons and I also teach a combo at the Jazz School in Berkeley.

Eric: So what's your favorite live performance format for a band? What's your ideal grouping?

Eddie: Well, I still have…most of my writing is still for trumpet, saxophone and rhythm section.

Eric: So quintet, classic quintet?

Eddie: Umm hmm…but it all depends because then I have another groove where I like guitar, you know, electric bass, electric piano and maybe two horns. I have a lot of tunes that have percussion. I like stuff like that, too.

Eric: So do you do those kinds of gigs?

Eddie: Umm hmm. I'm getting ready to do a concert. I have a grant, a composer's grant. I'm doing a concert. It's tentatively going to be called How I Got From There To Here. Most of the tunes start off with a quartet that I have. Recorder, violin, cello, and percussion. Sometimes piano. The tunes start off with either solo recorder and build up and lead to a vamp where the bigger quartet comes in playing the same tune but with a different emphasis. Maybe instead of being as baroque as the first piece it generates into something that might be a funk beat or a Latin or a straight ahead jazz thing. I've written four pieces like that.

Eric: When's the concert?

Eddie: October. I'm busy writing now.

Eric: So you do a lot of different formats and different styles of music and you're kind of one of the founders of one of the legendary fusion bands, The Fourth Way…

Eddie: Well that's what it is. I don't know if you'd call it fusion, but it's not bebop music! There are some straight ahead things but there's not really…first of all it's hard to really find people who are really into bebop music. When I was a kid my Dad was so into swing music and I couldn't really stand it. It's not that I couldn't stand it; I just didn't really want to do it. Bebop is like that in a way…it's certainly a wonderful form of music and a very important part of music in the transitional sense for jazz, but it's not the end all. It's just one part of it. And it will always be an influence on my music. But I had five boys so I couldn't help but be influenced by modern music. Hip Hop, Rolling Stones, you know, I said "Shut up!" to all kinds of music! "Turn that sh*t down!" (Laughter) Country Western, Prince, it didn't make any difference. But up to the point where I said "turn that sh*t down" I was clearly listening to it! (Laughter) (Musing to himself) "What's that drummer doing?" I remember challenging Al, one of my kids is a drummer, and he was always programming these beats. I'd say "What are you programming that sh*t for? You're NOT going to be able to play it! How are you going to play that?" I couldn't see how anybody could play it. And he could actually play it! (Laughter)

Eric: So did you try to learn it?

Eddie: Heck, yeah! But there was one of them I never did get! A number of years ago there was a Prince CD…I actually brought the first Prince record into our house because this buddy of mine had heard of Prince, he was a sound man, and he said, "Hey Eddie! There's this young kid from somewhere, and he's playing everything! He's doing all the singing…" I was interested in that kind of stuff because Stevie Wonder was doing records where he played everything. But this was new and different because here was a black kid (I assumed at the time) and he's playing all this hip stuff, he's playing it all himself, everything, all the voices. So I brought it home and my kids just got knocked out by it. Then a little while later he was famous! But then I'd tell my kids, "That stuff's cool but did you ever see the Isley Brothers! The Isley Brothers are my idea of the epitomized funk! If you ever saw them in person it was just lights out. They were just so much better than all the other groups. They were just amazing! The presence and the energy…

Eric: Do you go out and see a lot of groups? See a lot of shows?

Eddie: I worked with Dionne Warwick for a while back in the sixties and I got to play a lot of those R & B shows. And we'd play our stuff and a lot of times these acts would be opening for Dionne. Some times they were just big shows with Wilson Pickett, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder… I did that for two years. Mike Nock and me! Mike was the piano player for Dionne for a while.

Eric: Was this after you had come to the Bay Area?

Eddie: No, we all came out here from New York.

Eric: So when you played with her you were still in New York? What prompted the move to the Bay Area?

Eddie: I came out here with Dionne Warwick…how long have we been talking?

Eric: Thirty-five minutes…not even…

Eddie: Jesus! My life's almost over! (Laughter) I came out here with my second wife Sundance…I must say Dionne was a wonderful person to work with because a lot of the time she'd just pay for my wife to come along with us. Because we traveled all the time. And she would even pay us when we weren't traveling, which was even better! Sometimes we'd be off for two or three weeks. We were playing all over the place, but each tour would end up coming to California. Sundance was pregnant at the time, really pregnant. But I was getting tired of it anyway. Playing Burt Bacharach tunes was really great; it was the reason we all stayed on the band because it was really beautiful music. What a contrast between Anyone That Had A Heart and Wilson Pickett yellin' and screaming! The audience was open for that in those days. Anyhow, she did the record Do You Know the Way to San Jose. She comes in to rehearsal with this record and she's crackin' up herself, "You guys have got to hear this! I don't know what made me do this." It was so sappy! I said, "If this song ever gets famous and we have to play this every night, I'm out of here!" I was just joking in a way because I was sure it could never become a hit, but it did become a hit and every night I was playing this dopey song. What a joke. All these R & B players playing this sappy tune. So Sundance was about to have the kid and so we decided to just stay out here. Billy Higgins was a good friend of mine who lived in LA and he told me how to get a place. We did that and it was cool. We had our baby but I couldn't work! It was such a contrast between New York and LA. I enjoyed it. I had a place with a swimming pool. I was living on 81st and Amsterdam in New York. (Laughter) The weather in LA was always nice, but it was a town for recording people and that was not happening for me. I stayed there a year, and I was going to go back to New York when Mike Nock called and said, "Hey Eddie, I'm in San Francisco. We're going to start this group, The Fourth Way; it'll be a "co-op" group. There's this guy Michael White who wants to do it." We didn't really have a bass player yet. I said, "Ah shit…" I really wanted to get back to New York, but I always loved playing with Mike Nock, in fact I'm trying to hook something up with him now. We're going to play in Australia. We used to have a super trio in New York. It was Mike, me, and Cecil McBee on bass. It was a great trio and I wanted to get that going again. So I came out here and we started The Fourth Way and it actually started happening! I actually could make a living. In those days that's how I judged success. If I could make a living, fine, if I couldn't I'd just move on. That really did well. It was right at the time that Bill Graham was happening. He took an interest in us. We opened up for a lot of different acts, Grateful Dead, and a whole bunch of them.

Eric: I know Mike Nock played with John Handy back in the sixties also. Did you do any of those gigs?

Eddie: I did a couple of them with John.

Eric: You didn't happen to do one at the UC Jazz Festival in Berkeley in 1967 did you? That was a fabulous quintet.

Eddie: Probably did! John hated me for years because he figured that I broke up the quintet. I said, "Hey man, I came out here to play a gig…" No, we're friends now, besides he's more upset with Mike than me because he always felt that Mike should have stayed with his group. I never did understand what that dynamic was, but they didn't get along that well. (Laughter)

Eric: Do you have a special affinity for trio playing?

Eddie: Yeah…certainly playing with piano trios, but I like playing with saxophone alone in a trio, just saxophone, bass and drums. I love piano trios, especially when there's an arrangement. When it's thought out and it doesn't just sound like a jam session. There's Keith (Jarrett) more than any of them; the piano players that I really like. He's the only one who can really play standards. Keith can go up there and he can really play standards. There no elaborate arrangement. I was talking to Jackie (DeJohnette) and he gets up there and he just starts playing. They don't even know an order half the time. He just starts playing. You notice he always plays the same songs, but I have every Keith Jarrett record ever made, trio records, anyhow. I can hear him play Bye Bye Blackbird twelve times in a row. The only piano player that affects me the same way is Bud Powell. He could play chorus after chorus of rhythm changes and just keep building…(shows a steadily increasing arc with his hand)…not like modern people. We have many peaks and dips in modern music. It's gradually building in intensity and builds up…that's the art of it.

Eric: You like that kind of building up that Keith Jarrett does, huh?

Eddie: Yeah. It's a rhythmic and harmonic crescendo they can build while improvising. Bobby Hutcherson is another one that can do that. Just going back to great music I witnessed: Bobby Hutcherson, McCoy Tyner, Jack DeJohnette, and Cecil McBee. They were all over at Yoshi's one night, a couple of nights…Oh my God! Jackie and Bobby…! It was a group that hadn't worked together, but certain individual things that happened, and the chemistry between Bobby and Jackie and then the chemistry between McCoy and Bobby because they just improvised so freely and even if I wasn't a musician it would have been amazing. The parallel thoughts, something… I don't know!

Eric: Right! …Moving on…you played in Europe?

Eddie: Umm hmm...

Eric: And you've played in Japan?

Eddie: Umm hmm…

Eric: All over the world?

Eddie: Umm…Yeah I've played in China, Brazil…

Eric: How did the audiences compare in all these different places?

Eddie: (Eddie laughing) I'll tell you. I went to China with John Jang a pianist and composer from San Francisco, this was like six or seven years ago, and we were in Beijing. You just play for a certain class of people, because they brought us over there and there's all these upper class Chinese people and they would…(mimics ultra-polite and unenthusiastic applause) That's how they showed their appreciation. But if we played something like John's arrangement of a Chinese folk song into a jazz piece and they recognized the melody, then…(Mimics very enthusiastic applause) Of course, in Europe the audiences are always great. I'm going to Japan and Europe this year.

Eric: Who with?

Eddie: With Toshiko. It's going to be interesting to see how the audiences are over there, for me, because the last time I was there it was just at the festivals, and that's always like…a festival anywhere is a joyous occasion! But as far as the audiences in clubs, we don't have any jazz clubs anymore to compare with hardly! (Laughter) Most of the places I work at are places like Bacar unless I'm doing a concert. Well the new Pearl's is pretty good for a listening audience…

Eric: Although Jeff had to kind of slap them into line the other night!

Eddie: At that one table, right, yeah…

Eric: They were sitting right behind me. They always sit right behind me! Finally Jeff told them to shut up and it worked, thank goodness. It never ceases to amaze me! You're right in North Beach. Is there any shortage of bars in North Beach where you can sit and yak all you want without paying a cover charge? But these nincompoops go to a bar with a cover charge for an act and then sit there and ignore the act and yak. Incomprehensible! (Laughter)

Eddie: Yup! (More laughter)

Eric: So duh, you prefer a club where people actually listen to you…

Eddie: Of course.

Eric: So when you gig at a club like Bacar is that just to make a living?

Eddie: It's to make a living but it's also like a paid rehearsal. We play Bacar's two or three times a month, but out of Bacar's we've formed a trio that really a working trio.

Eric: With Bill (Bell) and Jeff (Chambers)?

Eddie: Yeah! It's a trio that's been together for two or three years now.

Eric: I didn't realize it had been that long. It sounds like it, because you guys play so tight…

Eddie: We're really tight! Really, really, tight.

Eric: Who's doing the arranging? Is it mostly Bill?

Eddie: Mostly Bill.

Eric: How do you like working with Bill?

Eddie: I love working with him! The thing about Bill, I would have loved working with him before, but he was such a dedicated teacher! I mean dedicated! He'd go out on the road and some things, but that was his main thing…he was a teacher! He loved his students. He had some really great ones too! He was the type of guy, he'd come up and say, "Hey, man, I got this, it only pays a hundred bucks, you know, but he always could play. So when he retired, I said, "Hey man, I've got this gig over at Bacar's, come on over and do it. So then he started playing with Jeff, and me, and then he got back into playing again. (Laughing)

Eric: So you guys inspired him?

Eddie: We inspired him, but he doesn't really like to play with anybody but us, anyhow.

Eric: Well he's spoiled now! You spoiled him! (Laughing)

Eddie: And he has his choir, so he's happy. He's a happy camper.

Eric: Yeah, he is. How many CD's have you recorded in your own name?

Eddie: Just one. One CD and one album.

Eric: Record album? That vinyl stuff that nobody knows about anymore? (Laughter)

Eddie: Yeah. I don't know if I even have it here. In my own name that's what I've done.

Eric: Really? How come not more?

Eddie: Because…you make records to sell them! (Laughter)

Eric: Not necessarily! (More laughter) Not here in the Bay Area!

Eddie: The first one I made I was working with Bobby Hutcherson. It was a long time ago. It was called Dance of the Sun, which was really, really a good album. The second one I made which is a CD I made four or five years ago; I actually made the CD because I wanted to get my tunes on a CD so I could send them to different artists. That was my main purpose for it. Then I said, "I'll just make it and sell them on the gig." And I've done neither! (Laughter) I always forget to bring them on the gig! I can't sell them on Bill's gig because my music's a different type of music. It's a different type of thing altogether. Which is why I never made records. When I got into the business, it wasn't to have a band. The reality of that was brought home to me about five years ago when I had this CD and I was trying to shop it around, and one record company said, "You know, drummer albums hardly ever sell. The last drummer that really sold albums was Art Blakey." And it's true, too. Then he says, "Right now, Roy Haynes, one of the greatest drummers ever, he can't get a record contract." I've always had to make a living playing music, so my idea was to play a lot of different styles and be a real good sideman. That's what I've always tried to do. Even from the git go that was the idea. I wanted to play in Little Richard's band but I didn't want to be Little Richard! (Laughter) I just wanted to be in the band!

Eric: Right! But you do all this composing and arranging and I would think that it would lead you to want to get it produced and recorded if for no other reason than for posterity; so that your music exists in some form more permanent than yourself.

Eddie: Yeah! I've got it all documented on my sequencers! (Laughter) It's all there!

Eric: You'd pick your own sidemen…

Eddie: Well that's what I'm doing with these concerts. They will be recorded.

Eric: In a concert setting so they'll make good concert tapes?

Eddie: Yeah.

Eric: No noise from the bar and all that stuff, right?

Eddie: Yeah.

Eric: Well that would be fabulous!

Eddie: And that's only because I have a grant to do this. I couldn't afford it and I don't know how I'd have the time to put toward it. It's not like I'm a full-time musician. I'm a grandpa. I'm a parent. It's not like, "Hey this guy, he just lives for music!" I live for music when I don't have other responsibilities but there are other things going on in my life. Carpentry, I make furniture.

Eric: Your kidding!?

Eddie: Umm hmm.

Eric: I didn't know that.

Eddie: I'm an avid bicycle rider!

Eric: Road?

Eddie: Yup.

Eric: I'm an avid mountain biker!

Eddie: I have a mountain bike too. I'll show you mine. It's a Marin mountain bike. I was thinking about getting on after this interview and going for a ride.

Eric: But you don't ever ride dirt trails with it?

Eddie: Not much. Yesterday I rode twenty miles. I go up to Crystal Springs to the paved trails around the reservoir. You can go as far as you like, actually.

Eric: I've found biking prevents a lot of bad habits. You can't smoke; you can't drink much, if you want to stay in shape.

Eddie: That's right.

Eric: So obviously you're big into your home studio. Do you use this stuff to show bands how you want tunes to sound?

Eddie: I get a pretty good idea of what stuff is going to sound like. Then I just transfer the parts into a music-writing program.

Eric: Which music sequencer do you use?

Eddie: I use Digital Performer for the sequencing and Finale for the written music parts.

Eric: We've pretty much covered everything by just letting you talk. You've gotten into most of the areas I planned to ask about. Is there something I should have asked you? (Laughter)

Eddie: Well, right now, "What am I doing?"

Eric: Yeah!

Eddie: If you look at my bio I'm working for the Adventures in Music for the SF Symphony. It's a program I've worked with almost since its inception, which was fifteen years ago. That's a program that brings music into the schools. I always have a quintet or a quartet and align it with the curriculum of the school. And now I'm working with Bruce's (Foreman) outfit called Jazz Masters.

Eric: I heard them at the Big Sur Jazz Festival with some of his students.

Eddie: Mine is an after-school program for kids eight to ten years old on Portrero Hill in the projects. It's mostly kids that don't have a chance to play instruments. We have mentors for guitar, bass, drums, and piano. Children that don't have an instrument actually get a chance to play the instrument and the kids that show promise are put in line for lessons.

Eric: Who funds that?

Eddie: It's funded through grants and donations. So doing those programs and preparing for my concert are what I'm doing these days.

Eric: And the concert is the more modern, contemporary type of jazz that you do? Not bop and not trio stuff? It's a quintet, using recorder to open, as you described…?

Eddie: Yeah.

Eric: And it's your music?

Eddie: Yeah.

Eric: And it will get recorded?

Eddie: It will get recorded!

Eric: And we might be able to buy that CD? (Both laughing now)

Eddie: Yeah! If I can get somebody to produce a CD, man, yeah, sure!

Eric: Thanks a lot Eddie; this has been a great interview!