What do jazz cats talk about between sets? Conversations With listened in as acclaimed young trumpeter Nicholas Payton (Kansas City soundtrack) rapped with trumpeter Antonio Gambrell (a young player-about-town), while they gigged at the Funky Butt (don't ask) in New Orleans. Sitting outside the club on The Big Easy's notorious Rampart Street, the pair took a break and shot the breeze. Through an open window, the club's juke box was heard churning out Louis Armstrong's Heebee Geebies. Passersby eased down the avenue.

So who ya been listening to lately?

I been listening to Freddy Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Wayne Shorter.

What record?

Uh, actually I just got this record yesterday, The Body and The Soul [The Body and the Soul, Freddie Hubbard and His Orchestra -- Session 2, March 11 (Impulse)].

Oh yeah that's bad... with Wayne Shorter.

I checked it out. I been listenin' to Freddie Hubbard, a track called Aries.

Yeah, Yeah, and Thermo. The command Freddy Hubbard has over his instrument is really incredible.

I know man, I'm just amazed by the sensitivity...
Yeah....he plays so relaxed... it's powerful...

...trips me out. The way he handles the horn... a lot of control. It's very apparent that he's conscious of the way he wants to sound, he's not just playing, not just a guy with a lot of technique. He's sensitive in his ballad playing. It comes through in his tone.

He's one of my favorites.

I can tell, man, I can tell. Sometimes you almost sound exactly like him, it trips me out.

What Woody Shaw you been listening to?

On Cape Verdean, man, with Horace Silver. [Horace Silver Quintet -- Cape Verdean Blues (Bluenote)]

You outta see if you can get the Mosaic recording [Rosewood - The Complete CBS Studio Recordings of Woody Shaw], that's like some of his jammin stuff.

What label?

Mosaic released it. It's not through Columbia, but it's all of his studio recordings he did with Columbia. There are a couple of live albums, but they aren't on there.

Oh, yeah, I went to the Louisiana Music Track once and I ordered that. The guy said he was going to call me. I had the money, you know? But he didn't call me. I don't have the money now.

(They laugh)

I ordered it through them too, it took about a week. But if you can get it, it is really bad.

I like his concept of playing, the melody is really subtle. You have to really listen to the way he sets up his themes. I really like that sound you know, it's very open, to me, you know?

Yeah, I have a bootleg tape of him I don't know where it is though. (laughs)

What time is it?

It's sometime in the 70's...plays piano. Well he's not playing piano, its a cat playing.. It sounds like it's from the seventies.

What period do you think was peak for him?

Mmmm..It's hard to say. I don't really like to say when another artist's peak is, you know a lot of people say: well this is the best. But he may feel different. It's basically what you liked. I thought his most productive period, my opinion, is the stuff he did like late 70's, same stuff like on the Columbia recordings, for me that's some of his baddest.
(Pause, car rolls by and Wes Anderson's The Black Cat plays on the juke box)

You ever check out Fats Navarro?

I heard this rumor that he never really trained, never had lessons.

I don't know, but he had a superb command over the instrument so obviously he put in a lot of practice. His tone is a nice fat tone.

Is that why they called him Fat Girl?

Nah he was... he was big. He had a high pitched voice that's why they called him the Fat Girl. (Everybody laughs) There's also some other stories I heard about why they called him Fat Girl, but I'm not going to say that on tape.

I get afraid when I listen to Clifford Brown.

Man I got some stuff. You ever heard this stuff Live at the Bee Hive? [Clifford Brown and Max Roach Live at the Bee Hive (Columbia)] This stuff is like, I dare to say , badder than any of the studio stuff he did. I mean just to hear him live, live.

Completely different.

I mean they do a Cherokee, man, thats like (snaps fingers quickly) like right up here. He's like on it. I mean clean. And clear. He's not messing around he's really playing. All kinda of stuff. I mean if you heard that it would turn you on to a whole kinda different vibe. Cuz he sounds great on recordings, but the stuff in the studio is played a lot more conservatively. But live? On a gig? It's like a whole 'nother thing. Unbelievable.

He's scary live.

I've yet to hear, to me, somebody play more trumpet than Clifford Brown.

Yeah...(pause) What're you trying to do when you're choosing musicians, like for a group?

For me number one is the communication between the musicians. First of all when I'm looking to work with a group of musicians, first of all I look for people who are willing enough to subdue their... you know basically guys who are willing to submit themselves to working with other people and not be very egotistical about it like worrying about how many solos they're gonna get, or thinking on the individualistic plane. More so, thinking of group projects. That's what I like about working with the group I've got now. Ummm, it's just I found a group of guys who, really, their whole purpose is everybody wants to help each other. It's not about how I'm playin', but more so, how can I help everyone else sound good, how can we sound together, you know, as a unit.
(A pretty woman and a glammed-up transvestite shimmy by unnoticed by the musicians.)
To me that's something that's really lost nowadays. Everybody's out for themselves, you know, like play their solos, play twenty minutes and get off, you know what I mean, it's not a group effort. It's all about: I'm in the spotlight. Now that I'm finished... you know, whatever. They don't have consideration for other musicians. But that's really what I'm working towards, really dealing with the group concept more in depth so that it gets to the point of, you know, that if someone puts on one of my recordings it's not so much: Oh that's Nicholas Payton or blah, blah, blah, but that's that group of musicians. Like when you hear Horace Silver's records you know that's his band. Or Art Blakey. The band has got certain sound. You know what I mean? The group.
(Same pretty woman slinks past with purpose. The musicians pay no mind. Billie Holiday's Foolin' Myself plays on the juke box)
And then you can pick out individuals too, but they sounded as a unit. Like Herbie, Ron and Tony. You know that was a unit. And all of them are great musicians in their own respect, but, you know what I mean, the musicians able to suppress their own individualistic needs in order to function together well, I mean that's a great achievement.

Nick, before you were good, if you were ever "ungood", how did you practice? Do you have any particular points for mastering an instrument.

I mean I don't consider myself mastering at this point. I'm still... I'm still trying to learn. It's a funny thing, there's no way really I could say. If you asked everybody how they practice, how they learn, everybody will come up with a different answer. Cuz I had to find out the way it was best for me to work. And that's sort of what you gotta do. I mean, you know, you have certain goals. First you have to set certain goals, things you need, things you wanna work on and know what those things are.

For you it's...?

I mean for instance I wanted to be able play over the changes a certain way. So, first of all I tried to be associated with or listen to recordings of guys who were playing the way that I wanted to play. And not necessarily copy their styles verbatim or deal with it on that level, but just...just to be around or be associated with people who would play that way.
(Pretty girl by prowls again: "How y'all doin'?" NP: "Hi how yer doin'.)
So that's what I would do first. Then after that, you know, you have to find out what's the way to go. I mean for me, I didn't want to deal with any method books. I didn't want to go that way or, you know, learn patterns and all that kinda stuff. I wanted to be able to play where I could really hear what's going on musically and not really deal with cliches and all that kinda stuff. I wanted to be able to hear and think creatively. Also like, you know, a lot of people transcribe solos and whatnot. I did some of that. I never really transcribed a whole lot of solos. For me it was more important, like even with the solos that I learned, it's was important to know verbatim what they play, but most important to me was I wanted to get behind the horn of the musician who was playing. I wanted get behind the instrument to think: well why did Miles play this here? What was he thinking? Is there anything the bass player played Miles was inspired by? The whole surrounding, not just: o.k. he played such and such a note over an F7. Because that's not applicable to anything but that. So when you see an F7 chord and you're only thinking: o.k. well this is how he did it, you're only looking at it from a theoretical approach of what he's doing. I wanted to go beyond that, so if somebody said: Play like Miles 1955, I could try to play in that style without necessarily playing anything he exactly played. I wanted to understand the concept which he was playing through, not necessarily copy verbatim phrasing and patterns that he did. Now on a very basic level you have to learn that way. It's like learning your ABC's or something. That's the building blocks of spelling words. So you have to go through that tedious amount of practicing to get to the fun of where that's not an issue anymore and then you can go past that. But, I mean, the bottom line is basically practicing, especially at first. It is doing a lot of boring tedious things you don't really want to do. You know, it's not fun. You know what I mean? You want to get to the level where you're playing and everything, but there's so many things you have to work on on a certain level.
(Drunk fan interrupts: "There's no escape" NP: "What's up? How yer doin'?" Shakes fan's hand: "alright.")

Did you study with Benko? [ Ron Benko, trumpet instructor at Payton's alma mater NOCCA in New Orleans].

Yeah, I did for a little while but at that time I really wasn't serious. You could ask him, I used to be late for lessons all the time. I'd see him coming and I'd duck out of the way. I mean I did it for awhile but I had to find what I wanted to do. And a lot of times definitely you don't always make the right decision and you learn from your mistakes. I'm sure there was a lot of information I could have benefitted from then. I could have benefitted from his knowledge, but I was young and a lot of times you don't really want to do that.

I'm kind of thinking about what you were saying earlier, about musicians communicating within the group. Sometimes in New Orleans somebody will come and sit in and try to play modal and the rest of the band is playing the blues and you know it's just not clicking good.

If we all talked at the same time nobody could understand anybody. You have to know when to leave space, when to play and just because you're the soloist doesn't mean you have to play all the time.

I guess it's like we are all doing now, talking and listening and understanding each other.

I know a lot of pianists you'll talk to 'em and you know these horn players who play all these long lines and don't ever leave space. You don't leave space for the pianist to come, you don't leave space for the drummer to do anything. You're just playing. You're so self-absorbed and for me that's boring. I don't wanna hear somebody playing a twenty minute solo, playing the same stuff over and over again and not interacting with anybody. I mean a lot of people trip off Coltrane and what he did you know, but he utilized space, he's communicating with the musicians and he knew how to pace himself you know, over a certain period of time to build up to a climax. That's important.
(Miles Davis' So What plays on the juke box)

I'm hearing a lot of blues now, listening for a lot of blues coming out of the music. As far as communicating musicians, as far as the phrasing, I think the blues is really as important as ever. I know sometimes when I'm hearin' a piano and the piano comes in and tries to take the band someplace and the horn player's still doing something else, he's still not here or doing something totally different. What I listen for is when one soloist comes in and turns the whole band to a different rhythm. And especially with the drums, the drum sounds can turn it all around...

That's a funny thing, because the thing is to try to change it to where its different, a different perspective, but at the same time building upon what is already established. You don't wanna let all the intensity go every time somebody else solos.

That's boring.

It's like just starting over. You know what I mean?

Yeah by the end of the second chorus it's loud.

Yeah.

(Word is sent that it is time to play the second set. The trumpeters adjourn to the stage where they continue their conversation in a slightly different idiom.)
Catch Antonio Gambrell around New Orleans with Mas Mamones, Nicholas Payton will be on tour with the Kansas City band. His release on Verve, Gumbo Nouveau is reviewed here.

What do jazz cats talk about between sets? Conversations With listened in as acclaimed young trumpeter Nicholas Payton (Kansas City soundtrack) rapped with trumpeter Antonio Gambrell (a young player-about-town), while they gigged at the Funky Butt (don't ask) in New Orleans. Sitting outside the club on The Big Easy's notorious Rampart Street, the pair took a break and shot the breeze. Through an open window, the club's juke box was heard churning out Louis Armstrong's Heebee Geebies. Passersby eased down the avenue.
	So who ya been listening to lately?
	I been listening to Freddy Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Wayne Shorter.
	What record?
	Uh, actually I just got this record yesterday, The Body and The Soul [The Body and the Soul, Freddie Hubbard and His Orchestra -- Session 2, March 11 (Impulse)].
	Oh yeah that's bad... with Wayne Shorter.
	I checked it out. I been listenin' to Freddie Hubbard, a track called Aries.
	Yeah, Yeah, and Thermo. The command Freddy Hubbard has over his instrument is really incredible.
	I know man, I'm just amazed by the sensitivity...
	Yeah....he plays so relaxed... it's powerful...
	...trips me out. The way he handles the horn... a lot of control. It's very apparent that he's conscious of the way he wants to sound, he's not just playing, not just a guy with a lot of technique. He's sensitive in his ballad playing. It comes through in his tone.
	He's one of my favorites.
	I can tell, man, I can tell. Sometimes you almost sound exactly like him, it trips me out.
	What Woody Shaw you been listening to?
	On Cape Verdean, man, with Horace Silver. [Horace Silver Quintet -- Cape Verdean Blues (Bluenote)]
	You outta see if you can get the Mosaic recording [Rosewood - The Complete CBS Studio Recordings of Woody Shaw], that's like some of his jammin stuff.
	What label?
	Mosaic released it. It's not through Columbia, but it's all of his studio recordings he did with Columbia. There are a couple of live albums, but they aren't on there.
	Oh, yeah, I went to the Louisiana Music Track once and I ordered that. The guy said he was going to call me. I had the money, you know? But he didn't call me. I don't have the money now.
	(They laugh)
	I ordered it through them too, it took about a week. But if you can get it, it is really bad.
	I like his concept of playing, the melody is really subtle. You have to really listen to the way he sets up his themes. I really like that sound you know, it's very open, to me, you know?
	Yeah, I have a bootleg tape of him I don't know where it is though. (laughs)
	What time is it?
	It's sometime in the 70's...plays piano. Well he's not playing piano, its a cat playing.. It sounds like it's from the seventies.
	What period do you think was peak for him?
	Mmmm..It's hard to say. I don't really like to say when another artist's peak is, you know a lot of people say: well this is the best. But he may feel different. It's basically what you liked. I thought his most productive period, my opinion, is the stuff he did like late 70's, same stuff like on the Columbia recordings, for me that's some of his baddest. (Pause, car rolls by and Wes Anderson's The Black Cat plays on the juke box)
	You ever check out Fats Navarro?
	I heard this rumor that he never really trained, never had lessons.
	I don't know, but he had a superb command over the instrument so obviously he put in a lot of practice. His tone is a nice fat tone.
	Is that why they called him Fat Girl?
	Nah he was... he was big. He had a high pitched voice that's why they called him the Fat Girl. (Everybody laughs) There's also some other stories I heard about why they called him Fat Girl, but I'm not going to say that on tape.
	I get afraid when I listen to Clifford Brown.
	Man I got some stuff. You ever heard this stuff Live at the Bee Hive? [Clifford Brown and Max Roach Live at the Bee Hive (Columbia)] This stuff is like, I dare to say , badder than any of the studio stuff he did. I mean just to hear him live, live.
	Completely different.
	I mean they do a Cherokee, man, thats like (snaps fingers quickly) like right up here. He's like on it. I mean clean. And clear. He's not messing around he's really playing. All kinda of stuff. I mean if you heard that it would turn you on to a whole kinda different vibe. Cuz he sounds great on recordings, but the stuff in the studio is played a lot more conservatively. But live? On a gig? It's like a whole 'nother thing. Unbelievable.
	He's scary live.
	I've yet to hear, to me, somebody play more trumpet than Clifford Brown.
	Yeah...(pause) What're you trying to do when you're choosing musicians, like for a group?
	For me number one is the communication between the musicians. First of all when I'm looking to work with a group of musicians, first of all I look for people who are willing enough to subdue their... you know basically guys who are willing to submit themselves to working with other people and not be very egotistical about it like worrying about how many solos they're gonna get, or thinking on the individualistic plane. More so, thinking of group projects. That's what I like about working with the group I've got now. Ummm, it's just I found a group of guys who, really, their whole purpose is everybody wants to help each other. It's not about how I'm playin', but more so, how can I help everyone else sound good, how can we sound together, you know, as a unit. (A pretty woman and a glammed-up transvestite shimmy by unnoticed by the musicians.) To me that's something that's really lost nowadays. Everybody's out for themselves, you know, like play their solos, play twenty minutes and get off, you know what I mean, it's not a group effort. It's all about: I'm in the spotlight. Now that I'm finished... you know, whatever. They don't have consideration for other musicians. But that's really what I'm working towards, really dealing with the group concept more in depth so that it gets to the point of, you know, that if someone puts on one of my recordings it's not so much: Oh that's Nicholas Payton or blah, blah, blah, but that's that group of musicians. Like when you hear Horace Silver's records you know that's his band. Or Art Blakey. The band has got certain sound. You know what I mean? The group. (Same pretty woman slinks past with purpose. The musicians pay no mind. Billie Holiday's Foolin' Myself plays on the juke box) And then you can pick out individuals too, but they sounded as a unit. Like Herbie, Ron and Tony. You know that was a unit. And all of them are great musicians in their own respect, but, you know what I mean, the musicians able to suppress their own individualistic needs in order to function together well, I mean that's a great achievement.
	Nick, before you were good, if you were ever "ungood", how did you practice? Do you have any particular points for mastering an instrument.
	I mean I don't consider myself mastering at this point. I'm still... I'm still trying to learn. It's a funny thing, there's no way really I could say. If you asked everybody how they practice, how they learn, everybody will come up with a different answer. Cuz I had to find out the way it was best for me to work. And that's sort of what you gotta do. I mean, you know, you have certain goals. First you have to set certain goals, things you need, things you wanna work on and know what those things are.
	For you it's...?
	I mean for instance I wanted to be able play over the changes a certain way. So, first of all I tried to be associated with or listen to recordings of guys who were playing the way that I wanted to play. And not necessarily copy their styles verbatim or deal with it on that level, but just...just to be around or be associated with people who would play that way. (Pretty girl by prowls again: "How y'all doin'?" NP: "Hi how yer doin'.) So that's what I would do first. Then after that, you know, you have to find out what's the way to go. I mean for me, I didn't want to deal with any method books. I didn't want to go that way or, you know, learn patterns and all that kinda stuff. I wanted to be able to play where I could really hear what's going on musically and not really deal with cliches and all that kinda stuff. I wanted to be able to hear and think creatively. Also like, you know, a lot of people transcribe solos and whatnot. I did some of that. I never really transcribed a whole lot of solos. For me it was more important, like even with the solos that I learned, it's was important to know verbatim what they play, but most important to me was I wanted to get behind the horn of the musician who was playing. I wanted get behind the instrument to think: well why did Miles play this here? What was he thinking? Is there anything the bass player played Miles was inspired by? The whole surrounding, not just: o.k. he played such and such a note over an F7. Because that's not applicable to anything but that. So when you see an F7 chord and you're only thinking: o.k. well this is how he did it, you're only looking at it from a theoretical approach of what he's doing. I wanted to go beyond that, so if somebody said: Play like Miles 1955, I could try to play in that style without necessarily playing anything he exactly played. I wanted to understand the concept which he was playing through, not necessarily copy verbatim phrasing and patterns that he did. Now on a very basic level you have to learn that way. It's like learning your ABC's or something. That's the building blocks of spelling words. So you have to go through that tedious amount of practicing to get to the fun of where that's not an issue anymore and then you can go past that. But, I mean, the bottom line is basically practicing, especially at first. It is doing a lot of boring tedious things you don't really want to do. You know, it's not fun. You know what I mean? You want to get to the level where you're playing and everything, but there's so many things you have to work on on a certain level. (Drunk fan interrupts: "There's no escape" NP: "What's up? How yer doin'?" Shakes fan's hand: "alright.")
	Did you study with Benko? [ Ron Benko, trumpet instructor at Payton's alma mater NOCCA in New Orleans].
	Yeah, I did for a little while but at that time I really wasn't serious. You could ask him, I used to be late for lessons all the time. I'd see him coming and I'd duck out of the way. I mean I did it for awhile but I had to find what I wanted to do. And a lot of times definitely you don't always make the right decision and you learn from your mistakes. I'm sure there was a lot of information I could have benefitted from then. I could have benefitted from his knowledge, but I was young and a lot of times you don't really want to do that.
	I'm kind of thinking about what you were saying earlier, about musicians communicating within the group. Sometimes in New Orleans somebody will come and sit in and try to play modal and the rest of the band is playing the blues and you know it's just not clicking good.
	If we all talked at the same time nobody could understand anybody. You have to know when to leave space, when to play and just because you're the soloist doesn't mean you have to play all the time.
	I guess it's like we are all doing now, talking and listening and understanding each other.
	I know a lot of pianists you'll talk to 'em and you know these horn players who play all these long lines and don't ever leave space. You don't leave space for the pianist to come, you don't leave space for the drummer to do anything. You're just playing. You're so self-absorbed and for me that's boring. I don't wanna hear somebody playing a twenty minute solo, playing the same stuff over and over again and not interacting with anybody. I mean a lot of people trip off Coltrane and what he did you know, but he utilized space, he's communicating with the musicians and he knew how to pace himself you know, over a certain period of time to build up to a climax. That's important. (Miles Davis' So What plays on the juke box)
	I'm hearing a lot of blues now, listening for a lot of blues coming out of the music. As far as communicating musicians, as far as the phrasing, I think the blues is really as important as ever. I know sometimes when I'm hearin' a piano and the piano comes in and tries to take the band someplace and the horn player's still doing something else, he's still not here or doing something totally different. What I listen for is when one soloist comes in and turns the whole band to a different rhythm. And especially with the drums, the drum sounds can turn it all around...
	That's a funny thing, because the thing is to try to change it to where its different, a different perspective, but at the same time building upon what is already established. You don't wanna let all the intensity go every time somebody else solos.
	That's boring.
	It's like just starting over. You know what I mean?
	Yeah by the end of the second chorus it's loud.
	Yeah.
(Word is sent that it is time to play the second set. The trumpeters adjourn to the stage where they continue their conversation in a slightly different idiom.) Catch Antonio Gambrell around New Orleans with Mas Mamones, Nicholas Payton will be on tour with the Kansas City band. His release on Verve, Gumbo Nouveau is reviewed here.