Below is the complete (transcribed) text from an interview with Harry Carney. Taken from the June 1961 issue of Jazz Journal Magazine. The text was generated from a PDF of a scan of the article so there may be some oddities throughout. You can also download the scan below. Enjoy!
-Andrew
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“Harry Carney’s musical career and his long, unbroken association with Duke Ellington are unique in jazz. The staunch loyalty they bespeak is perhaps even more impressive when it is remembered that for three decades Harry has been the outstanding exponent of the baritone saxophone. The story that follows, drawn from conversations with him, should ;own, quite clearly how modest and conscientious a musician he is. His understatements and avoidance of theatrical exaggeration may detract front his stature in the eyes of newcomers, but most readers will be aware of his great contribution to jazz as a whole and to the Ellington orchestra in particular. Like that orchestra, Harry has a sound that has never been equaled for warmth and richness. it is at once a foundation that supports and a resonance that permeates the entire ensemble. With one note—like Armstrong, Hawkins, Bechet and Hodges—he can make his identity known and establish his lines of communication. The tone, in this case, is the man. Harry is big, generous, warns, expansive, tolerant, considerate and consistent. There is nothing hasty and nothing petty about him—S.D.
HARRY CARNEY
talks to
Stanley DanceI began playing piano at the age of six—taking piano lessons. that s! It seemed as though every kid in the neighbour-hood could play piano by ear, and here I was going every Saturday, religiously taking lessons, and practising, but if you took the music away from me I couldn’t play a thing. That went on until I was eleven or twelve, during which time I played student recitals—nothing but the classics. I couldn’t get away from the classics to save my life, and I was pretty disgusted with myself. My brother was two years younger, but he seemed to have more of a natural talent for piano. He had no training whatsoever, but he would sit down and really start playing. I was the person who was amazed—when my brother sat down to play piano! Then there was a schoolmate of mine at that time, Leonard Withers, who was wonderful on piano, too. He had long fingers that would stretch a tenth and give a good rocking rhythm in the bass, something I couldn’t do through the construction of my fingers. He and my brother would be playing jazz, the popular tunes of the day, but not me. I remember Dardanella in particular.
I belonged to a juvenile society and during the year we would have several functions. One of the members was Buster Tolliver, a fine musician. (He’s still on the scene, writing for shows. He used to do the writing for a lot of Billy Rose’s extravaganzas.) At our dances, he would play piano during the first half and clarinet after the intermission. He always seemed to be surrounded by the girls when he got through playing clarinet. and by now I had reached an age when was conscious of the girls, so I thought maybe the clarinet would be the means of attracting them to me. So Buster advised me about how to acquire a clarinet.
I joined a Knights of Pythias band in Boston when I was thirteen. They had an instructor who taught all the instruments in the band, and he taught me for the very nominal rate of fifty cents a lesson, the bend furnishing the instrument. Al: alarming the whole neighbourhood with my practising, son., body thought I was a good clarinet player and started offer.: me jobs.
My first influences were Buster Bailey with Fletcher Henderson and Don Murray with Jean Goldkette. As a brash kid. always wanted to play faster than anyone on clarinet, are both Buster and Don Murray were great technicians. bad I didn’t stick with them! Perhaps I’d be a clarinet today. Buster has always sounded to me like a perfect man for the symphony, and on those up-tempo numbers with Fletcher he always showed what a well-schooled musician he was. There was a lot of study behind his playing. I heard some things he did with Alec Wilder and woodwinds on records some time ago, and they convinced me that he’d be very able as a symphony clarinettist. The way he cares for his instrument, always cleaning it after a set. also shows good training. Back in the old days, the wood of the instrument didn’t have treatment like it gets today, and consequently if you weren’t careful you were likely to wind up with a crack in the clarinet. That was why we were so careful to use a swab and oil in the old days. Moisture gets into the wood, and changes in temperature, between the room and the street. particularly in colder weather, were dangerous. I didn’t take up bass clarinet until many years later, about 1944. I never heard Buster Bailey play it. He usually has just the regular B-Flat clarinet, but have to go down and talk to him about it, and get some much-needed ideas.
Well, after about a year of clarinet, I learnt that saxophone was much easier. Clarinet is more difficult, but the kids are doing so much on saxophone nowadays that often I wonder. Alto was what I was interested in and I had to convince my mother that I should have one. Neither my father nor my mother played an instrument. Dad liked the operas, always went to them during the season, and he used to like to sing around the house. He was pretty familiar with the spirituals, too. But it was my mother who had to be convinced about the alto, and fortunately she went along with me, and we secured it. Now I felt the influence of Sidney Bechet and Johnny Hodges. Johnny and I used to live a few doors apart and we’d listen to all the records together. Some people began to think I could really play saxophone because I played it so loudly, and after-school jobs started to come in. I worked several spots in Boston with small groups, but in the meantime I heard so many bands from New York City that I knew I must get there to talk with musicians, and maybe get a chance to blow with some of them.
This time I had to convince my mother that I was entitled to a vacation in New York, and I went there with Charlie Holmes. (Charlie used to sound like Johnny, because that was the accepted alto style in those days and everyone was trying to borrow ideas from Johnny and get his sound.) My first job was playing in the relief group at the Savoy ballroom on one of those big nights when they had a masquerade ball. The dance would start early and run all night. so they had three bands, and I was in the third. My good friend, Johnny Hodges, was in the Chick Webb band at the time, and it was through Johnny I met the contractor for the relief band, who in turn had a job coming up at a place called The Bamboo Inn. I got the contractor to call my mother and explain to her that everything would be all right. It wasn’t long before she arrived on the scene, by surmise, to see what her dear, tender son was doing! She allowed me to stay a little longer.
This was. I think. in April 1927. Duke was working at The Kentucky Club and on his night off he would come to The Bamboo Inn. The food was good. I was told, but I couldn’t afford it. of course. We thought we had a very good band and I worked there three months until the place burned down. Shortly after that. I bumped into Duke one afternoon on Seventh Avenue and he asked what I was doing. I told him T was lust lobbing around and he asked me if I would like to go with him on a trip up to Boston. Of course. Boston was my hometown and I’d been away three months—three months away from home cooking and listening to my mother give me the devil—and I was a bit homesick. To return with Ellington. already famous. was something to look forward to. so I didn’t hesitate to say “yes”. That’s how I joined the band, and we played up there during the summer for the Shribman brothers. Charlie and Sy, who gave and lent so much to up-and-coming bands at that time.
After we finished the three months up there, mostly one-nighters, I was supposed to have returned to school, but Duke has always been a fluent talker and he out-talked my mother and got permission for me to stay with the band. When we talk about it now, my mother wilt tell me that if I had joined the Army I would have been retired by nowt But there were no papers signed when I joined Duke. He was to be a kind of guardian to me when I left Boston for the Big City at the age of seventeen. He was pretty well known by then, but it seemed a big deal to my parents and they thought I would end up being too taken by the fast city of New York—too taken for my age, that is. ‘But it didn’t turn out like that. Duke is a great fellow, and a great friend of mine, and it has not only been an education being with him, but also a great pleasure. At times, I’ve been ashamed to take the money!
Duke had just augmented from six to eight pieces. Rudy Jackson was playing clarinet and tenor and I was playing clarinet and alto, and both of us were striving for the “hot” clarinet chair. Lots of times during the evening you would hear nothing but clarinets from the reed section, so I decided to try baritone to give more variety. I was on good terms with an instrument company and they allowed me to take a baritone out. On the job that night, Duke and everyone seemed to think it was quite good. My greatest kick with the instrument, which then seemed so much bigger than me, was that I was able to fill it and make some noise with it. I enjoyed the tone of it and I started to give is sonic serious study, and I’ve been carrying it around ever since.
I’d heard Coleman Hawkins often by then. Every time Fletcher Henderson came to Boston, I’d always be down front, under Hawkins, listening. To my mind, he could do no wrong. I think he did play some baritone then, but it was his tenor that inspired me. I admired his tone and facility on the instrument, and I said. “Gee, if l could make the baritone sound like that, I’d really have something.” So I was always trying to play like Hawk on the baritone.
After coming back to New York with the Ellington band, I used to go into record stores and listen to records made by the small hands. In those days, on recordings, the main thing was who could play most intricate break. Breaks were very popular. and that was where the improvisation was. Often, the introduction and endings to records were really long, four bar breaks. Or there’d be a two-bar break and the hand would hit a chord. I think the first time I heard Adrian Rollini was on a record of Ida by Red Nichols. He was my next influence after Hawk, because now I tried to give the baritone something of the bass saxophone sound. I tried to make the upper register sound like Coleman Hawkins and the lower register like Adrian Rollini. And I always strove for a .good tone. That had been drummed into my head when I was taking clarinet lessons. Later, when I took alto lessons, it was always hammered home that if I played one note, I should play it with a good tone. I’ve always adhered to that and I’m very glad my teachers made me see the importance of good tone.
Bubber Miley contributed a lot in those early days. He had a wonderful sense of humour, but you had to know him to detect whether he was being serious or not. He always gave the impression of being very serious, but the surprising thing was the wee.’ he would crack up when something funny was said. He was always serious, though, about his playing before other musicians. He wanted them to know he was a great trumpet player, and he was a man who liked to battle. He and Tricky Sam got great pleasure from playing something together in harmony that came off well. They were always blowing for each other and getting ideas together for what they were going to play. It was wonderful watching the two of them working and hearing the sounds they got from those plungers. What they created has stayed with us as a major part of Ellington music. But there were quite a few other growling trumpet players. of course. In the Charlie Johnson band, besides Sidney De Paris, Jabbo used to do a wonderful job growling, as well as fanning with a derby. Bobby Stark, with Chick Webb. was good at it, too, and so was Frankie Newton when be was with Lloyd and Cecil Scott. Frankie was a good all-round trumpet player, for that matter. And Ward Pinkett could growl. At that time, it was part of the trumpet’s role to carry around the mute and the plunger. It got so that there were growling specialists who really studied growling technique. I mustn’t forget to mention Cootie. Of all the growl trumpets, he was the one with the power.
And there were other trends. Everyone was very conscious of Paul Whiteman in the late ’20s. He made a lady out of jazz and everybody wanted to have those lush and plush introductions that bordered on the symphonic side. On Sunday nights at the Cotton Club, what we called the big-time musicians then, those who worked for Whiteman, 101“111 !once; and Ben Pollack, and made the small-group jazz records—they used to come up. If they sat in front of us, we’d become very self-conscious, because we knew they were great players. We’d hear so much about Dix, and we’d hear him on records, so we looked at him with awe, although he sat in with the band.
As Duke’s band grew and new members injected thee, personalities, he was inspired to write. He was always a great compiler, and one of the guys’ ideas would suggest something else to him. The Cotton Club was WU first big job after I joined, and the band become suddenly inspired because we were asked to do so many remote broadcasts, we were all young and proud and we thought we were doing a great job.
Immediately after our early broadcasts, about 6 or 7 in the evening we’d run on down to the corner of 13Ist and Seventh, where all the musicians used to hang out and get their reactions. In the beginning, a lot of them made us feel like crying. they were so critical, but finally the band began to go great guns, and then it was a pleasure to go down to the corner, not only after broadcasts, hut after we got through working. too. Sometimes we’d stay tip all night listening to the praise, but when we did a had broadcast, that would be the night we’d get some sleep.
Fortunately or unfortunately, there’s nearly always been a better clarinettist in the hand, and I left the clarinet up to him. After Barney Bigard joined, I continued to do a few solos. I admire Barney’s great facility, imagination and big tone. He remembered so many things the New Orleans clarinets used to do that there was always something for me to he listening and paying attention to. As the baritone became my specialty, my clarinet playing sounded poor to me in comparison with his. Today we have Jimmy Hamilton and Russell Procope, both of them fine clarinet players. with different styles. The style of Jimmy Hamilton is the kind of clarinet I’d like to be able to play. He’s a real clarinet player. very facile, with a beautiful tone, and another one who could do a very good job in symphony. Procope has taken over a lot of Barney’s things.
The Albert system generally seems to result in a bigger tone than the Boehm. .The Boehm has so much auxiliary fingering that its possible you can do more with it. but there’s a new, improved Albert system which also has auxiliary fingering, and which both Procope and Barney use. I used Albert to begin with, but changed to Boehm because of Buster Bailey. There was a time after Barney joined the band when I was so impressed by his fullness of sound that I went back to Albert, but I found I had been playing Boehm too long to leave it. Fazola used Albert, but I think Albert Nicholas is a Boehm man. He tries for and gets that New Orleans bigness out of it. Jimmie Noone was an Albert man. Goodman and Artie Show were Boehm. of course.
When we left the Cotton Club, we went on a tour of one-nighters across the country, arriving in Los Angeles to make the picture with Amos ‘n’ Andy. in which we played Three Little Words, Ring Dern Bells and Old Man Blues. This was the era of Irving Mills and he was pretty sharp. He’d go along with anything that stood a chance on records. In fact, he even used to sing with our band. Around this time. some of the things on records become pretty big, which resulted in a new style for the band. When Duke first started writing for the baritone, I wanted to impress everyone with the idea that the baritone was necessary. and I very much wanted to remain part of that sax section. There was so much competition in our reed section that I had to work hard. I liked the hand and was always afraid of being fired! That was one school I enjoyed and didn’t want to be expelled from.
The Missourians had been using a baritone sax when lee followed them into the Cotton Club. Even in bands with altos and two tenors, there was always someone who could double on baritone. Sax sections were also using clarinets and sopranos, usually in trios. The baritone was usually a double until five-piece reed sections became the normal thing, and mostly it was an alto player who doubled. The sound of sax sections was very light at the beginning of the ’30s. The lead was usually a big-toned alto, and the other saxes more or loss stayed under him He would have good phrasing and expression the big sound. I think the George “Fathead” Thonies style of alto playing had a lot to do with the Mc Kinney’s sound, but when Don Rodman joined that band his was a strong influence. Otto Hardwicke played lead for Duke until 1 joined lie came hack when we went into the Cotton Club, and I went from first alto to third alto,
Luceford used to feature his sax section more as a section than Duke did. Willie Smith was largely responsible for the sound of the Lunceford reeds and on records they had more presence than ours, but I don’t believe they had the power of Ellington’s. We only played against then once, in Philadelphia. as I recall. It was a very interesting battle. There had been much controversy about the respective merits of the two bands. but on this occasion I’m happy to say the Ellington band came off the better. Lunceford featured growling trumpets. a varied programme of music, and be was very entertaining. He played quite a few of Duke’s numbers and he would come up with versions of some of Duke’s record hits, like “Rose Room”. They did some marvellous things on records and I think I was always amongst the first to buy their new releases. Jock Carruthers was a very good man on baritone. and then there were Willie Smith on alto and Joe Thomas on tenor.
We always said in the battling days that Chick Webb’s was the greatest battling band, and when Charlie Buchanan was at the Savoy he always saw to it that every new band hitting town battled with Chick Webb. Chick was a very competitive musician and he liked to battle. He would always prepare for a battle with a lot of new arrangements and rehearsals.
But my band was Fletcher Henderson’s. I can remember times when we battled with it in its prime and came away dejected. We battled with Smack several times at the Savoy, but one night in Detroit I’ll never forget. They played numbers in which Coleman Hawkins was heavily featured, and Hawkins cut the whole Ellington band by himself. Then there was the Charlie Johnson band that used to play down in Small’s Paradise_ There was a wealth of good musicians in that band—Benny Carter, Jimmie Harrison, Jabbo Smith, and a wonderful drummer, George Stafford. There were really some bands around in those days.
The first time we had five saxes was on the record date when we made “Truck in’ ”, a dance that was then very popular. Ben Webster did a solo on that number that became a classic. It was a good sound, an additional voice, and his tone and approach were so good on both ballads and up-tem-po things that he was a sensation. Ben’s interpretations were inspiring to Duke, and he brought new life to a section that had been together a long time. Ben was inspired and he inspired us, so that we worked together and tried to improve the section. We used to rehearse all alone, just the sax section. When you look back, you can see that from the late *20s onwards, every time there was an addition to the band, the new instrumentalist seemed to give Duke new ideas and something to draw from and add in his writing. In the ’30s there were Ivie Anderson and Lawrence Brown. Those in the band who thought they were playing well tried a little harder and did better. Jimmy Blanton and Ben Webster were additional sparks and the tone structure of the band changed a bit. Everyone seemed to think the band was at its best then, but it was still playing well when we were at The Hurricane and The Zanzibar in ’44 and ’46. Later, guys like ‘Willie Smith, Louis Bellson and Clark Terry gave Duke something else to think about.
Another big lift to us was when we first went to England in 1933, to play the London Palladium. That, we thought, was just about the greatest engagement a band could have. To start off with, we were greeted by so many people who knew so much about the band that we were amazed. We couldn’t understand how people in Europe, who heard us only through the medium of records, could know so much about us. They’d ask us who took which solo on this or that tune, and we had to sharpen up so that we could answer halfway intelligently. Another thing was that they knew exactly what they wanted to hear—a great and very pleasant surprise to us.
Since those days, the baritone has come into its own. There were many fine players who were often confined to section roles. Besides Lunceford’s Carruthers, there was Jack Washington with Basie. Omer Simeon played in the Earl Hines band that I enjoyed so much at the Grand Terrace around 1940. It was very thrilling and exciting. There was Haywood Henry with Erskine Hawkins, and Haywood’s my man. I used to listen to Ozzie Nelson’s band on the radio all the time for a very good baritone player who took the hot solo Charlie Biwak. I mustn’t forget that fine musician, Ernie Caceras or Nick Brignola, whom I heard down at the Bohemia in ’58 .I just got through listening to Gerry Mullican a night or so ago, and he really thrilled me. I like Pepper Adams very much, and I can remember his mother bringing him to hear us whenever we played Rochester, New York and he’d stand down front there all night long. I got a big kick out of hearing him do so well. I never heard him, but I was told Coleman Hawkins played fabulous baritone, and I imagine he would do a wonderful job. I’ve been told he plays great piano, but I’ve never heard that either. Charlie Shavers and Ben Webster are both said to play wonderful piano too. For that matter, I don’t know why Paul Gonsalves is so shy about playing guitar because he is marvellous. I was always after Johnny to continue to play soprano, but for some reason he just put the horn down. He really is the soprano player. When he says it’s a hard instrument its because there’s a certain way he wants to play it, and he won’t be satisfied with less.
After riding on the bus for so long, and having to stop and go when someone gave the word, I decided if I had a car I might have a little more freedom. I was tired of being cooped up in a bus with nothing to do but read, and the vibration of the bus made reading a strain on my eyes. Stage lighting doesn’t do your eyes any good either, and the Kleig lights in movies used to be even worse. I’ve always been car crazy, so in 1949 I got a car.
At first it was my intention to make short hops in and around New York and in the Eastern area. Then I found I was enjoying it so much and Duke was riding with me almost every day. That was how it started, until I found I was jumping all over the country. I drove out to Vegas last year. I left New York Sunday night and we were opening Wednesday night. Everybody was saying it couldn’t be done but I made it. Of course, if the weather was bad or if there was a big snow, I’d leave the car here rather than risk being unable to make a night.
On most hops, I manage to get into a hotel around noon. We leave after the job and we like to go two hundred miles at least without stopping. Dike always says, “Let’s get some miles under our belt before we stop.” He calls himself “The World’s Greatest Navigator”, and he does have a wonderful knowledge of route and road numbers. He remembers them. Our greatest problem is arriving in a town for some private affair that isn’t advertised. We pull into a gas station and ask, “Where’s the Duke Ellington band playing?” As a rule nobody knows. A lot of times we’ve had to call the newspapers; others we’ve just had to keep on enquiring from policeman and gas stations.
When we get into the mid-west the average hop is about four hundred miles. Sometimes we may go two hundred and fifty, at other times five or six hundred. Duke sleeps occasionally but not as a rule. He’s a very good man to have along. He sits in the front and he does a lot of thinking. He’ll pull out a piece of paper and make notes. We do very little talking but if he thinks I’m getting weary he’ll make conversation so that I don’t fall asleep.
The thing we enjoy most after leaving a job is breakfast and the thought of it. We may both be hungry but still it’s necessary to put this first two hundred miles under our belt. When we go in for breakfast, we look forward to a good meal. We know most of the good eating spots that are open that time of morning. The challenge is always when we hit bad weather. If we make it through we feel we’ve accomplished something.
When we check into a hotel, I go to bed until about 6:30. Most of the jobs run from 9 to 1 a.m. The time we’re on the stand is only a small part of it. When we play a concert that lasts only two hours, and we’re staying in the town, I hate to finish a job and go straight to bed ,I usually stay out to 2 or 3 in the morning. It’s curious how when we play more than a week in one place a kind of boredom sets in. That’s one thing about travelling; it always gives you something to look forward to, even if it’s no more than going to another town to see the people there you know.
We were in Vegas for twelve weeks and we worked until 4 in the morning. There’s just one thing you must do there if you have, shall we say, the urge to speculate. You go around to the places where the musicians and entertainers congregate, and talk and maybe try a few dollars, and watch other people gambling, and before you know it it’s daybreak and the signal for us to go to bed.
Most of us would sleep until maybe 3 in the afternoon, but there’s plenty to do in Vegas. There are wonderful golf courses, a beautiful lake, mountains and scenery. I used to play golf with Jimmy Mundy, and I liked the game so much I guess I overdid it, and I’d be tired when I was going to work. Another thing that was a kick: on our night off (Monday) I’d drive to Los Angeles. It was about three hundred miles. I’d leave after we got through at the Riviera and get to L.A. about 9 in the morning I’d visit with friends and do a little shopping. Often, I’d take my baritone to the repair shop. Because of the dryness of the air in Vegas, I had quite a bit of trouble with the pads shrinking. It’s a desert area after all, and extremely hot and dry, but every place is air-conditioned and quite unlike those we played in in the early days. Then, during the summer, when there was no air-conditioning, they had to throw open the windows because it was so hot and smoky and people and kids would sand around in the street outside listening.
At the Riviera, like most of the places out there, entertainment is not expensive, but to get to it you have to pass through the gambling rooms, and there’s no other way in or out. In the room we played, there was no cover charge and no minimum. It would hold, I guess, about three hundred people. There were two bars and a lot of people would come in, buy drinks, and just stand at the bar. We were a kind of bait to draw people in to the casino. Anyone who doesn’t gamble can go out there and have better entertainment, more of it and more reasonably, than in any other city of the U.S. You get all kinds of people out there. Girls go out as office workers just to see the city, but most of the business comes from Los Angeles and Texas, and from people in the East who want to gamble. The city has spread out a lot since we first went there. There’s a big shopping centre downtown, and from there you drive out a little way to what is known as The Strip, where all the fabulous hotels, night clubs and casinos are located. The casinos being in the hotels. It’s healthy. You rarely find anyone with a cold out there. Except the financial kind, that is.”