Part 4: Gary Bartz, Benny Green, Mulgrew Miller talk about working with Art Blakey
These interviews were done for Musician magazine in February, 1991
Gary Bartz
What Art did was give you confidence in yourself that you are a musician, because if you can come in and play after people like Clifford Brown and others who’ve gone through his band, you know you’ve reached a certain plateau in your musicianship. But he didn’t allow you to get a big head; he made you realize that you’re just a man. For example, one night after I had been with the band for about six months, he hands me the mike and says, “Make the announcements.” And he left. I’m a very shy person and all of a sudden I’m gonna speak in public! I couldn’t even remember Art Blakey’s name! He got me over my fear of the microphone, and I learned how to have a rapport with the audience.
I got to know Monk working with Art because they were good friends and Monk used to come in all the time when we worked. Seeing those two together was a trip. They were like Heckyll and Jekyll. Monk used to pick Art up after the gigs in his big car, and they would go off to the Baroness’s place.
I began to really grown up in Art’s band. But I noticed that, in every band that he ever had, he would plant seeds of doubt. If a sax player came by, he would ask him to join the band in front of you, and the person who was in would say, “I guess I’m out.” You start thinking ahead: you’re not always gonna be in the band. I guess in essence he’s letting you know that even though now you’ve got a gig, you can’t stagnate.
One time, in 1966, we had come back to New York from a gig in Cincinnati, and all that week we were hearing advertisements on the radio for Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers at the Jazzmobile. “Well, we know where we’re working.” So we went up there. We could hear music from all the way down the block. And there was the Jazzmobile moving down the street, with Art and a whole new band!
I feel like I’ve lost another father. He was family. I guess that’s what he meant most of all to music: he brought us together, he made us all one family, because we all worked with Art, including Miles. I never got fired with Art; he would just hire other people in my place, and he would call me when he needed me so I felt like I was always in the band, like I never left the Messengers. Unless he fired you and never called you back, you were always a Messenger.
Mulgrew Miller (Aug13, 1955- May 29, 2013) RIP
I’ve never seen a mature man, by which I mean a senior citizen, with that kind of vitality. There was nothing old about Art Blakey.
Benny Green
Art Blakey has always been my favorite musician because of the feeling he projects through his drums into the listener. When I first got on the bandstand with Art, I was terrified, because I’d been listening to his records and going to see the band for years, and he was this great figure that I looked up to. When I walked on the bandstand, Art looked at me. And the look he had in his eyes said so much: It said that he’d seen the look in my eyes so many times before, over so many years, and that he wanted me to have confidence, because he chose me and I wasn’t the first musician he’d chosen, and I wasn’t gonna be the last, and we were on the bandstand to make music for the people. He said so much with just his eyes, he inspired me in a very large way to play; he inspired me for life.
One of the things Art taught me about playing music is that you should never let what is happening in your personal life be a detriment to your performance. If you’re going through any personal changes, when you step on the bandstand you need to leave all your mortal drudgeries aside, and remember that you’re there to help the people who have come to hear you forget whatever may be happening in their lives that needs soothing. Art taught me that the spirit of the music can not only restore lost emotions in the listener, it can allow the listener to feel things they’ve never had a chance to experience before.
Copyright ©️ Karen Bennett, 1991, 2023
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