Rick Stone (Part 2)

Photo by Chris Drukker

Continuing my email interview with New York guitarist Rick Stone, we talk about a major influence and about what he teaches his students besides the techniques to play jazz.

MFT You spent time earlier in your career studying with Barry Harris. I assume that you learned more than just music?

RS Barry Harris is one of the greatest teachers and human beings that I’ve ever met.  I started going to his classes when I came here in 1982.  Back then he was teaching on Monday night in a loft called the Jazz Forum that was run by trumpeter Mark Morganelli.  Very shortly, Barry got his own place which he called Jazz Cultural Theatre.  It was like a storefront on 8th Avenue between 28th and 29th Street.  Barry taught classes there several nights a week and on other nights there were jam sessions and performances.  It was a real “bebop” scene and I met and got to sit in with a lot of guys there; Tommy Flanagan, Clarence “C” Sharpe, Tommy Turrentine, Junior Cook, Albert Daily, Frank Hewitt, Vernel Fournier, George Braithe, Vincent Herring and many more that I just can’t remember right now. I was introduced to Earl Coleman (who sang with Bird) and wound up doing a lot of copywork for a big-band album Mike Abene was arranging for him.  One night C Sharpe introduced me to Jimmy Robinson who was a trumpeter who had recorded with Dexter Gordon in the 60′s.  I wound up playing in his band every Sunday for two years at the University of the Streets.

The house rhythm section for many of the jam sessions consisted of Kuni Mikami (piano), Kim Clarke (bass) and Craig Haynes (Roy’s son!) on drums.  One night Lionel Hampton came in and I got to sit in with him (Barry was on piano, Kim and Craig were on bass and drums).  Richard Wilkerson was like Barry’s right hand back then, and he used to tape everything on a cassette deck right behind the bandstand, so I know a tape of that night existed, but don’t know where it is now.

Art Blakey contributed a drum set and they started having a late-night session 3 to 7 am on Saturdays (Sundays technically) called “Art Blakey’s Breakfast Jams.”  Art would show up and play sometimes and I remember playing with him and also Jaco Pastorius one night.  Another time these two young kids showed up at about 4am with a guitar and a bass.  It was Ari Roland and William Ash. They were about 12 and 13 years old and had stayed over at Ari’s house and snuck out after his parents were asleep.  Ari’s gone on to play with Betty Carter, Harry Connick Jr., etc. and is a regular fixture on the scene.  William took some lessons with me after.  Now he’s got some CDs out and plays regularly at Small’s.’

I used to do a lot of copywork for Barry’s concerts as well.  Barry seemed to thrive in a semi-chaotic environment and under pressure.  I remember working on parts for one concert with him at the house that used to belong to the Baroness Pannonica “Nica” de Koenigswarter. There were about 5 of us spread around the room copying parts to charts that were often not finished.  Barry was sitting at the piano writing 8-bars of concert score and running it over to the person copying that particular chart, then shifting gears to write 8-bars of a different score.  Sometimes the TV was on during all this!   It was serious, but also playful, like a competition.  He would try to write music faster than several of us could copy.  If you were still working on the last score page when he handed you the next one, he had a big smile on his face!  The beautiful thing was when you’d hear it at the concert, and it all sounded amazing!  He really has a genius mind.

MFT In your teaching and your clinics do you also impart to your students what it is like to live the “Jazz Life”?

RS To be honest, I’m not even sure what that means.  Besides teaching them what they need to know in order to play the instrument, I try to teach them about the players and the jazz tradition, and of course I hope to cultivate in them the same love of the music that I feel.  Sometimes a student will ask me what kind of a living can they make playing jazz, and in all honesty I have to tell them that it’s a fundamentally wrong question to be asking. I usually tell them that a better question would be “how can I play music that I love and still make a living?”  The solution is different for different people.  Lot’s of us teach because at least you get to keep your instrument in your hands all the time.  But I’ve known guys who are great musicians who’ve become doctors, lawyers, computer technicians, and just about anything else. I think if you’ve got the discipline and focus that it takes to learn to play this music, you could pretty much train yourself to do anything.  Which just reminded me of a funny Gary Larson cartoon: In the top frame some musicians are playing “Giant Steps” and one is telling the other “this isn’t brain surgery.”  In the bottom frame a group of brain surgeons have a patient’s skull open and one is saying to the other “this isn’t like trying to play Giant Steps.”

Ultimately, playing the music should be in and of itself, its own reward.  If you don’t have the fire to want to play jazz (or any other) music, no matter what, then I think you should be considering a different career path.  If you’re counting on some monetary reward, you may or may not get it, and if it doesn’t happen, you can grow very bitter. Over the years I’ve run into musicians with that kind of negative attitude and vowed to not become one of them.  C Sharpe once said “bebop is the music that brainwashes the mind into happiness” and that’s not so far from the truth.