Herbie Nichols radio interview! Compliments Jason Moran....

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Just been made aware of this via Organissimo in the US, an (the only?) extended radio interview with Herbie Nichols, compliments of Jason Moran, who bought some lead sheets and found this CD copy recording with them.
Fascinating. Herbie speaks at c. 11 minutes in after two introductory tracks, his voice very like his music.

http://youtu.be/JgrgpKxT6LQ

[Ian Thumwood]

Thanks for posting that interview. I had never heard HN speak before that. I was quite surprised how inciteful the interviewer was for that time. The interview was disclosed with the lead sheets to "The gig" and "Old 52nd Street Rag" which I have a copy of in the book compiled by Roswell Rudd who was a pupil of Herbie's. It is fascinating hearing his perception of the ability of other musicians and it becomes clear that many of his contemporaries found his music a challenge. Shame that the arrangements for the small group he mentioned have never been recreated and it would be interesting to see if they are still in existence. I know that loads of his manuscripts were destroyed in the flood in the basement where they had been stored.

It is interesting that Nichols talks about arriving at these ideas in the late 1930s - a similar situation with Tadd Dameron who was arranging as early as 1937. For my money Nichols was a maverick and the connection with that generation of musicians who spun out of Ellington's innovations is attested in this interview. Quite interesting to hear him cite Earl Hines as an influence too as I had always considered him to be something of a radical player for his time an someone who still had a modern "edge" to his playing. In my opinion Herbie Nichols was probably the most progressive composer for small jazz groups until the arrival of Wayne Shorter. He was really thinking about form and it was no surprise to see his mentioning of Prokokiev as an influence. There are other pieces in his repertoire dedicated to the likes of Bartok too. Quite interesting how the Classical composers switched him on whereas a lot of pianists of his generation owed more to the likes of Chopin and Debussy.

Shame that Herbie was not asked to perform the piano during this interview and they relied on the Blue Note recordings. Incidentally, Jason Moran and Frank Kimbrough are two musicians involved with the book of Andrew Hill transcriptions I mentioned on another thread.