JAM, III: Scott LaFaro on "Crazeology" & Bill Evans on Scott LaFaro

Every weekday this month I'll be posting new content in observance of Jazz Appreciation Month (J.A.M.), so-designated by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History beginning in 2001. International Jazz Day, so-designated by UNESCO in partnership with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, is on the last day of April, the 30th; it was first celebrated in 2012. Debating the relative merits of designating specific days or months for celebrating heritages, traditions, and the like aside, Jazz Appreciation Month is at the very least an excuse to dig into some material that I've been interested in for a while on the blog. 

Yesterday's installment discussed the John Coltrane Quartet's performance of "I Want To Talk About You" (sans cadenza) on April 2, 1965 at the Half Note. Monday's will feature Gerry Mulligan and Charlie Rouse, born exactly three years apart on April 6.

If you enjoy the content on this blog, please consider supporting my band's homegrown effort to get our record through the final stages of mastering and production. It's all recorded—you can listen to it now!—but we just need a bit more help to get to the finish line. We appreciate it. </self-promotion over>

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I was recently reacquainted with the bass playing of Scott LaFaro, born on this day 79 years ago, when my roommate played For Real! (1958) for me, the last record Hampton Hawes did before going to jail for heroin possession until his miraculous pardon from President Kennedy in '63 (the whole story is in his essential, colorful 1974 memoir, Raise Up Off Me, which also includes a facsimile of the pardon). It's a straight West Coast bebop record, which an older bassist referred to as "that record where Scott LaFaro plays with all black musicians" (Hawes plus the perennially underrated Harold Land on saxophone and Frank Butler on drums). 


The first thing to hit you on this recording is LaFaro's bass sound: resonant, woody, and direct. This was before he began playing with Evans, and the vibe he brings to the band is an interesting contrast to Hawes's favorite regular bassist, Red Mitchell, who is also technically impeccable but in some ways more restrained than LaFaro, whose aggressive, independent lines adumbrate the mode of playing he made famous with Bill Evans. Two choruses on Benny Harris's "Crazeology," following Land and Hawes:
Scott LaFaro on "Crazeology" from "For Real!" - 1

Scott LaFaro on "Crazeology" from "For Real!" - 2
C
Bb
Eb

LaFaro was 22 at the time of this recording, just a couple weeks shy of his 23rd birthday. He would have been 79 today. Other early statements that have appeared on this blog: "Byrdlike," Freddie Hubbard (23); "Wee-Dot," Clifford Brown (23); "Dig," Sonny Rollins (21); "If," Woody Shaw (20); "Always," Stan Getz (18).


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On a recent trip to Princeton Record Exchange, I dropped a few dollars on a 2009 novelty CD called Pieces of Jade, which compiles a variety of LaFaro miscellanea, including a 1961 trio performance with Pete LaRoca and Don Friedman, a 22-minute long rehearsal tape with Bill Evans working out "My Foolish Heart" (the change in the fourth bar becomes a topic of extended discussion, including different voicing options where Evans tries out a whole lot of different voice-leading paths, even mentioning something about stacking "two diminished chords"), and a 1966 interview with Bill Evans conducted by one George Klabin, president of Resonance Records, which released this compilation.

The sudden passing of LaFaro 10 days after the recorded Bill Evans Trio Vanguard performances was a deep blow to Evans. I'm not too familiar with the literature on Evans, but I suspect that he preferred not to talk too much about LaFaro in the following years. In his interview with Klabin, though, he does talk at length about his relationship with the bassist. An early impression of LaFaro:
He was overplaying his instrument, he was trying to let out so much at once that he wasn’t really getting anything together in any organized way, it was just bubbling over. Everything was bubbling out and it was too much. He was falling over himself and tripping over himself, you know, with the intensity of trying to get out what he was trying to get out, but you could definitely hear what was there, and I think that any perceptive person that had musical ears knew that this was a very unique and exceptional talent.    
He adds that the two shared a similar approach to practicing, which was more a matter of sudden inspiration and long stretches of intense practicing, rather than steady, regular routine:
I think that his approach to the bass was a beautiful thing to see. We roomed together many times when we were traveling, and I would say that we have a similar approach in that I never sit at the piano unless I just walk to it and sit down and play, and Scott never picked up the bass unless he just walked over and picked it up. It wasn’t one of those things like it’s three o’ clock and now I’m going to play for an hour. He would just pick it up and get involved, with maybe one particular figure or one particular type of cross fingering or cross string fingering or double stop or quadruple stop or whatever, and he would just work it and work it and work it, and he would develop an insight and would force himself farther into his intuitive insight into the hidden mechanics, the secret mechanics of stringed instruments.  
His approach to the bass was this total approach. It was not a studied approach; it was a total encompassing, enveloping approach where he seemed to master a whole area so that…I don’t know, it’s difficult to explain, but his technique was built through fire, as some kind of a spark in him which took over, and he would just grab the bass and just work and work and work and lay it down.
Near the end of the interview, Evans briefly touches on how he's coped with the loss of his dear friend and collaborator:
I just can’t comprehend death, and there’s no way for me to evaluate it or to speak about it because I just can’t comprehend it. As far as I’m concerned, he’s alive. I mean, I knew him, and when I think about him I think about him as alive and he’s not here right this moment, that’s all, but I can’t comprehend death.
More on LaFaro: "Game Changer: How Scott LaFaro Rewrote The Rules of Jazz Bass" (BassPlayer)

I've posted a rough transcript of the interview below (PDF here):


Interview with Bill Evans (by George Klabin, 1966)



George Klabin: Bill, first of all I’d like to just ask you how you first met Scott LaFaro.
Bill Evans: Let me see. My first meeting with Scott was at a rehearsal of Chet Baker’s in August about three years before I met him again, and then we got together with the trio and we were playing some rather strange music for what you would think of Chet Baker, at least. And I remember I was very impressed with Scott at that time for having a very long tone, and the depth of his tone and his time, I never forgot him. He impressed me as a large person. It’s a funny thing because as I got to know him, the more I got to know him, the more I realized that he wasn’t as large physically as I had thought at my first impression, but because of the way he played the bass and the sound he got and everything, for some reason I felt that he was a large person and he wasn’t that large, physically. That was the first time I met him. 
Following that, I met him, I believe he sat in at the Composer, when I had a trio there for a while, and here I heard this tremendous talent that was trying to do everything at once. He was overplaying his instrument, he was trying to let out so much at once that he wasn’t really getting anything together in any organized way, it was just bubbling over. Everything was bubbling out and it was too much. He was falling over himself and tripping over himself, you know, with the intensity of trying to get out what he was trying to get out, but you could definitely hear what was there, and I think that any perceptive person that had musical ears knew that this was a very unique and exceptional talent. 
Following that, he was working near where I worked when I worked at Basin Street East opposite Benny Goodman at one time, and at that time I had just began my own trio with Jimmy Garrison and Kenny Dennis. And because of conditions on the job, that trio broke up and by the end of the job, Scott had come into the job and expressed an interest in building and developing as a trio, which is the thing that we needed. We needed people that were interested in each other, so that we could spend a year or two years just growing without any verbal ambitions, just allowing the music to grow and allowing our talents to merge in a very natural way, so he expressed that interest, so Paul Motian [“moh-tee-enn”], who I had known through other jobs and so forth, was also on that job and he was interested and that was what happened. We went from there and it was rather a struggle for a couple of years. We didn’t get too much work, but the trio did develop amazingly because even our first record, which was made only after about five weeks work with the trio, you’ll hear interplay—that is the Portrait in Jazz record, on Riverside—you’ll hear a type of interplay and things which we discovered and I’ve discovered in the record, which are surprising to me today after such a short time together.
GK: How many records did you make with Scott LaFaro?
BE: Let’s see, the Portrait and Explorations and the two Village Vanguard albums.
GK: Two?
BE: Yeah, that is the Waltz for Debby, was made at the same time so that’s four albums. I guess that’s all.
GK: And then, of course, came his demise just shortly after, wasn’t it?
BE: Yeah, right. I’m very, very grateful we recorded those last two albums at the Vanguard, which were the last hours that we played together because those two weeks at the Vanguard, we definitely had arrived at something. Every set was satisfying during those two weeks, which was something we had never experienced during the two and a half years or three years that we had played together, and I would say that what you hear on those records is at least the minimum standard of those two weeks. We were quite dissatisfied and yet, when we heard the tapes, we were quite excited because we heard that there was a lot happening, but during those two weeks we had some really marvelous moments and I’m so grateful that we did record them because Scott is heard to good advantage on those records, I think.
GK: He certainly is.
BE: That’s the marvelous thing about a true group, because a true group grows together in a sympathetic way musically to the point where the music exists at a level which is not at a level of awareness of the musicians themselves. The Explorations album, for instance, I wasn’t going to release. We had a very, very bad feeling within the group that night for reasons which I won’t bother to explain now, but we were very independent of each other and yet the music itself was in sympathy, and you can hear all of this. I’ve learned to love that album, even though I felt at the time we made it that I wouldn’t release it because I felt that it just wasn’t happening.
GK: Would that be partly because you can’t listen to the overall sound while you’re playing? It’s sort of impossible to completely hear everything as a whole and also to concentrate on what you want to say personally.
BE: It’s just such a complex relationship and such a quick relationship, and it passes moment by moment by moment, so that no one could be aware of it and manage it. Therefore, it has to exist at a deeper level, at a level of unconscious ability, and you build this ability through years and years and years of dedicating yourself through hours and hours every day of dedicating yourself to this particular art.
GK: I see.
BE: And for that reason, it does exist at that level, so that no matter how you’re feeling—I mean, I’ve played jobs sick and what not—and yet you either play or you don’t play. That seems to be the way it is. We had this understanding from the beginning that we were going to try to stick with this idea and let it develop, and we did, and when we needed to go for other work, we did, but we always returned to this idea. I think that’s the reason that it developed that way because it wasn’t just a practical consideration of trying to make 150 a week or a couple hundred a week and go here and there, and just play a job. It was a thing we were trying to do musically. We agreed on our musical aims and we didn’t try to force the music and we all believed in each other’s talents and that was it. 
GK: What can you say about Scott LaFaro the musician, as far as his approach to the bass went?
BE: I think that his approach to the bass was a beautiful thing to see. We roomed together many times when we were traveling, and I would say that we have a similar approach in that I never sit at the piano unless I just walk to it and sit down and play, and Scott never picked up the bass unless he just walked over and picked it up. It wasn’t one of those things like it’s three o’ clock and now I’m going to play for an hour. He would just pick it up and get involved, with maybe one particular figure or one particular type of cross fingering or cross string fingering or double stop or quadruple stop or whatever, and he would just work it and work it and work it, and he would develop an insight and would force himself farther into his intuitive insight into the hidden mechanics, the secret mechanics of stringed instruments. His approach to the bass was this total approach. It was not a studied approach; it was a total encompassing, enveloping approach where he seemed to master a whole area so that…I don’t know, it’s difficult to explain, but his technique was built through fire, as some kind of a spark in him which took over, and he would just grab the bass and just work and work and work and lay it down. 
Sometimes he would lay the bass down with a quadruple stop that would just resound. He had a marvelous bass and he would just lay it down and let the bass ring and it was a marvelous thing because his sound would just ring and ring and ring. I’ve never heard any sustaining sound in bass that could compare with Scott’s. I read once where somebody said that he had a small tone or something. I just can’t imagine how anybody could say that. He had the largest, longest sound of any bass I’ve ever heard. I approach music through music, and Scott approached music through music, and he allowed his own energies to direct his progress and whatever problem came up at that second was the problem that he wanted to solve and I think it was the right problem for him to solve at that moment. Now, another person might outline problems to solve and maybe that’s their best way, I don’t know, people learn different ways.
GK: I personally think that probably the best way is to play the instrument when you really are inspired and when you feel like playing it and not just be overdisciplined.
BE: Certainly a happier way. I know I’ve never had an unhappy moment at the piano. I never play unless I want to play. When I don’t want to play I just don’t play. Sometimes on a job there are times when you feel like, maybe you don’t want to go up and do the next set, but when I get up there, we do it and it’s still a pleasure, but I mean especially at home, when I’m playing for my own pleasure, I never force myself to sit and play. For instance, right now I’m going through a period that I’ve never experienced in my life. I go sometimes two or three days without touching the piano and it’s never happened to me. I don’t know exactly why, but there’s no use fighting it, I’m just waiting for it to end.
GK: Did Scott ever go through any of these periods?
BE: Not that I know of. In fact, his acceleration of progression, that’s the way he progressed. He didn’t start playing bass until he was 17. He only played bass about six years, I guess, six or seven years, so you could imagine what kind of progress he made, and his progress seemed to accelerate, it became more and more rapid as we look back now, as he approached the time of his death—and I don’t know whether that’s fatalistic or what, I don’t know what would have happened if he had lived because progressing at the rate he was, Lord knows where that talent would have gone. 
GK: His death was certainly one of the greatest losses in the history of jazz.
BE: I mean, I just can’t comprehend death, and there’s no way for me to evaluate it or to speak about it because I just can’t comprehend it. As far as I’m concerned, he’s alive. I mean, I knew him, and when I think about him I think about him as alive and he’s not here right this moment, that’s all, but I can’t comprehend death.
GK: And Scott LaFaro’s death was a physical death, but I think that his spirit will always live on and certainly he’s inspired other bassists who’ve come from his mold, if you can say that.
BE: He’s inspired other instrumentalists as well as other bassists, because he was a constant inspiration to me, constant. He was a completely alive person. Never, never withdrawn or from life or activity or participation. He was always at a high pitch of intensity of living, and in that way he was to me a constant inspiration because if I came in a little bit down or something, well this would life me up *snaps fingers* like that, and that’s the way it went. I guess that’s about all I can say.

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