Teo Macero – Working With Various Artists – Part 2
There are a couple of more stories that I’d like to talk about in relationship to Miles’ and my relationship. He came to the studio, as I said earlier, maybe 4 or 5 times. And this one time he came to listen to something in one of the editing rooms. There was a telephone outside of the editing room. The phone rang and I went out and picked it up. I heard the voice so I knew it was Jack Whittemore, Miles’ manager. And he said, “Miles?” (Teo disguises his voice as Miles to Jack) “Yeah, what you want?” He said, “Look, I got a gig in Boston for you. Pays twenty-five hundred.” “I said fuck it!” (slams the phone, laughs) Then about ten minutes later, the phone rings again. I pick up the phone outside the, (imitates Miles again) “I said what you want Jack?” He said, “Look Miles, I called up the people up there in Boston. They’re willing to give you five thousand.” “I said tell them to fuck off!” (slams the phone again, laughs) I hung up again. You can print the blurb.
Well, the phone rang for the third time. I pick up the phone (as Miles) “Jack, you’re a pain in the ass.” He says, “Miles, they want you up there so badly they’re willing to give you seventy-five hundred!” I said, “Book it you white motherfucker!” (bursts out laughing)
Working with Mingus was another one. He would storm out of the studio. He did it a couple of times and then he’d walk out on 30th Street and turn around after he’d packed up his bass and come back in and unzip his bag and start playing. I mean, working with Mingus was a lot of fun and I played with him for a long time over the course of maybe about 7-8 years, maybe even longer. And that’s one of the reasons why I became a producer. Because I was making ten dollars a night one a week or once every two weeks. I thought there outta be a better way to make a living. Anyway, we made some great records with Charlie Mingus. Our own Mingus dynasty… when my children hear music. And these were all great things. And if he didn’t like something in one of the musicians would do, he’d say “Take it out!” I’d say, “Yeah, I’d already planned to do that.”
I remember doing a concert with him at Lincoln Center. I had booked the truck, the recording truck and just before we were getting ready to go on, nobody could conduct. Nobody could conduct the goddamned music! I’m saying, you know, I’m the producer. This is going to be total disaster. I said to Mingus, “Look it, I’m going to conduct it.” And we had Bill Cosby on the program, a great collection of jazz musicians.
I said, okay, I want to conduct. Meantime I get a pair of earphones on. I talk to the truck. Laughs I said, “I hope you’ve got everything.” I said, “Before we go on I want to make sure that everything’s working.” So Mingus comes over to me and says “I need 12-14 bars.” I says “You’re out of your goddamned mind, Charlie!” He says, “I want you to write it, NOW! Before the concert.” Laughs incredulously. “Are you INSANE!?” I said, “Geez!, I don’t know what to do!” I did. So I started writing like a bandit. I said, “I need an opening for the concerto.” I said, “Holy Jesus, where’s the original first page?” He shows me the first page so I said “okay”. So I write 16 bars. You know I made it very simple, and it’s on the record. And we did this backstage as we’re getting ready to go out there and I’m saying “I don’t even believe all of this.” I call the truck, I said, “You got everything ready? You better put everything you’ve got on him.” I says, “I’m going to head up to the podium and get started here.” And the guard backstage says “Hey, you two guys.” He says, “Get out! Get on stage!” I says, “You’re talking to the artists!” Laughs. He didn’t give a damn who the hell we were. So I go out there and I’m trying to get the music in order and I’m saying, “holy…” and Mingus never had an idea of taping the scores. You know, sometimes I don’t do that but taping the score page one through page 30. So I’m looking at the scores and it says on page two, it says, go back to page one, bar five. Laughs. I said, “Holy Jesus Christ, am I gonna make it?” As I’m conducting, the music goes all over the stage.
Interviewer: Where you there?
Oh? You’ve got to ask somebody! The music goes all over the stage and meantime I’m conducting like crazy! I try to figure out who the hell is coming in next but one thing, we made the opening. I grab up the music and we put on one helluva concert. And at the end of the concert I almost collapsed. I called the truck, the recording truck. I said, “Do you have all of that?” He said, “Teo, we got every note. Every goddamn note. Even the paper going on the floor.” But it was fun! I enjoyed it! I’m sure John remembers having fun with some of the artists. But I like working with creative people. They were really great. You know, and when you’ve got somebody like Mingus or Monk. Monk was even funnier! He’d never show up on time for a session. He’d be an hour and a half late and we’d finish an hour early! Now how do you figure that?
He’d walk in and he’d see the piano there and I might be sitting at the keyboard and he’d look at me kinda funny like because when he wasn’t there I’d write little pieces of music and play it with the group. And he’d walk in and see it and I’d get up immediately and I’d run in the control booth and we I’d say “put the machines on”. We’d start recording. He would sit down. Because we had a balance. We were all set to go and we would record for an hour. Maybe an hour. And then he’d walk away. Meantime, we got 7 numbers in the can or maybe eight.
Or the time the drummer didn’t show up. I got this on tape somewhere. I’m still trying to find it. The guy was in Philadelphia, with no tubs. He didn’t bring his tubs. Didn’t ship his tubs, his drum setup. And Mingus, I had the engineer plug in the phone line into the machine. The recording machine. And I’ve got this on tape somewhere. But the dialogue that when between Monk and this drummer was unreal. Unreal! I mean, I can’t even put this on tape! I mean, I could do it for my friends in a closed room. Padded cell or something like that. But to tell the story outwardly, it was very funny but he cursed this guy up and down. But he was such a remarkable guy to work with, I never worried. And I remember working with him in California and I’m sitting at the piano. I’m not a piano player. I tried so hard to be a piano player but I’m not. And I said “Monk, you know this tune?” “No.” I said, “Well, here are the notes. Here are the chords.” I said to the engineers, “play that back so he can hear it”. These were outtakes. So this is how we made a solo piano album.
Now what they did later, they thought that these were outtakes. They sure were outtakes because they had nothing to do with what we finally put down. And when he finally played these tunes it was absolutely gorgeous. But somebody along the line thought that this was a discovery and they put out these rehearsal tapes and called them the outtakes and put them into a record called Twelve Alternate Takes Of These Tunes. And it just broke my heart. And I’m still angry at the guy for being that stupid because he should have known better.
Maybe. But working with Monk was a really great time because we did a television show together! God, it was about 25, 30 years ago. It will come to me somewhere along the line.
The sound of jazz? (voice off camera)
Yeah, jazz. It was the Tonight Show. Steve Allen! Steve Allen.
I was the guy to put the band together. So we had Mingus in the band. We had Eddie Burke. We had Danny Richards. We had, oh, I can’t think of… we had Mingus and myself and Monk. I think that was the band. And maybe Art Farmer. Now, I called a rehearsal at one of the studios in town. Nobody showed up. The only people that showed up was Charlie Mingus, myself, and the trombone player. And meantime I’m looking out the window and who do I see on 52nd street smoking a joint was Monk. I says, “Oh my God! We’re going to get arrested! We’ll all be pulled in!” I rushed downstairs. I got him, put him into a cab and got the other guys. I said “Take this guy to the NBC studio. Studio C or whatever it was”, I says. “Get him inside!” And I paid the guy, I don’t know, maybe I gave him ten bucks. I said, “Just drive him over there!” And he drove him over there. And they put us in the basement with no piano, no drums.
I said, “Look it, let’s go over the routine.” He said “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.” And he started (motions with hands as if he were playing a piano). There’s no piano there. He’s like imagining there’s a piano and Mingus is trying to play some bass and the trombone person is “Look it man, I gotta go, I’ve got a gig. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding! You mean you took a gig today?” He says, “Yeah, I needed the money.” I says, “Oh, go ahead. We’re trying to work out a routine.” So we’re in this basement. I don’t know if it was a toilet or what it was. It was some ungodly place.
Finally they said “Okay! The Thelonous Monk Band on the stage! Monk, Monk, Monk band on stage!” So we go up and they mark us all off and they say, “Where’s the trombone player?” I said, “He’ll be here later.” He said, “What’s he doing?” I said, “Well, he’s working.” I said, okay (claps, hums melody) we do a number and the band is really having a lot of fun. I mean, it was really cooking with those guys, absent of the trombone player.
The producer runs up on the stage. “Stop. Stop. Stop!” We’re now into five minutes. He said, “Man!” He said, “Look it. Two and a half minutes, that’s it!” I said, “Okay, okay, thank you. We’ll cut it down. I said, “Monk, we’ll do the opening chorus. And someone will play 8 bars, 8 bars, 8 bars and then maybe a little more Monk and then out.” So we did that. We ran it down once, the guys said okay. He said “What are you going to do?” I said, “Well, we’re going to do one of his most famous ones.” He said, “Okay.” “It’s a ballad.” And the guy comes up on the stage screaming at me. Saying, “What they hell do you think you’re doing here?” He said, “This is not a rest home, we don’t need ballads!” He said, “You’ve got to do something else!” I says, “But this is one of the biggest numbers in Monk’s repertoire, Ruby, My Dear.” And I says, “You know, look it, we’ll cut it down.”
Now there’s a film of this. I don’t know if I still have it or not. So we do it and at the end of the program, before we went on stage, we sort of rested a little bit. All of the sudden it was show time and they called the band up. Meantime we’re up there resting. So we do our bit. And we come to Ruby, My Dear and Steve Allen comes out and he says, “Monk, for the millions in the listening audience, can you tell us all about this style?” And Monk looks at me and I look at him and he grunts for about thirty seconds. Steven Allen says, “I thought you were going to say that Theleonous. Thank you very much. And we do the last effort. And then after that he chases Steve Allen around the studio to get his $300! Now we got paid thirty bucks a piece! He’s chasing Steve Allen up the ramp, down the ramp, down the ladder, and finally Steve Allen took out $300 and paid him off. I says, “You know, I’m sorry about this Mr. Allen. Maybe the guy just needed the money, you know. So far as we’re concerned. You can have your people take care of it through the union.” And I just left. Laughs.
But it was always fun to work with and working with him at Birdland… I remember working with him on a Monday night and we had the same kind of band and Monk, he was spry. Man, he was ready! Goddamn man. He sat at the piano and he was going too, he was doing his number. And the band, oh man, (sings)… we were having one helluva time! And then we’d break for intermission. Monk was a half an hour late for the second set and there were three set. So finally the third set I don’t think he showed up. We’re doing it without a piano player. I’m saying, “Geez, what are we doing!?” I don’t know if I ever found him after that. Laughs.
