Holy Mackrel

This year will carry the tradition further when Dennis Mackrel, former drummer with the Count Basie Big Band, will perform during the orchestra’s season opener on Saturday, Oct. 25, 8 p.m., at the Mulroy Civic Center’s Carrier Theater, 411 Montgomery St. Mackrel chatted with the The New Times on Oct. 17, sharing his perspective on the modern state of jazz.

Dennis Mackrel: The former Count Basie drummer will be
featured during the Central New York Jazz Orchestra’s opening concert
this week.

Mackrel, 46, began his career as a skin-hitter at the unbelievable age of 2, which in turn led to performances with Las Vegas jazz groups throughout his late teens and early 20s. Through his association with jazz vocalist Joe Williams, Mackrel was recommended to sit on Count Basie’s drum throne in 1983, a fact that greatly expanded Mackrel’s jazz vocabulary, as well as his notoriety within the world of jazz. After Basie’s passing in 1984, Mackrel continued to tour with the group until 1987. Now a seasoned music educator as well as a sought-after arranger, Mackrel continues to perform with big band groups throughout the country, while additionally focusing on drum clinics and other programs for aspiring musicians.

“We had never had a drummer as a guest artist in the past,” explains Larry Luttinger, himself a drummer as well as executive director of the CNYJO. “We had investigated having Louie Bellson {in the past}, but he became ill {before he had a chance to perform with the orchestra}. We thought it was time that we tried this new format. I’ll be switching to {auxiliary} percussion for the second half of the concert. I met Dennis last summer for the first time at the Sackets Harbor Jazz Fest. He has been on our short list for some time.”

Tickets for the Dennis Mackrel concert are $20, $25 and $28, with a $5 student discount available. Upcoming CNYJO concerts will include performances with Nicole Henry on Sunday, Feb. 8, 4 p.m., at the Hotel Syracuse’s Persian Terrace Ballroom, 500 S. Warren St.; Michael Philip Mossman on Saturday, March 28, 8 p.m., at the Civic Center’s Carrier Theater, 411 Montgomery St.; and a tribute to Thad and Mel with Gary Smulyan on Saturday, May 16, 8 p.m., also at the Carrier Theater. Call 435-2121 or visit www.cnyjazz.org for future ticket prices and additional concert information.

Q: Can you tell me a little about where you came from? 

 

A: It’s real complicated. My father was in the {U.S.} Air Force, so what that means is I was born in Omaha, Neb., but when you’re in the military you relocate every three to four years. I think we were in Omaha for maybe three years, and then I’ve lived everywhere from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Anchorage, Alaska, to Sacramento, Calif. When people ask me where I’m from I say the West Coast.

Q: Is it true that you started playing drums at age 2?

A: That’s correct. Basically, I grew up in a family where there was music playing from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. My parents were very big jazz fans, so there was always something going on. Usually what would happen is I would either start beating on the couch or singing or doing something, and my mother says I was about 2 when she started noticing me playing with chopsticks that my father had gotten me when he went to Japan. So she somehow connected that to meaning I was supposed to be a drummer.

Q: I spoke with jazz and jam band drummer Poogie Bell {who has played with Erykah Badu, Herbie Hancock and Victor Wooten} in February. Bell had also started when he was basically a toddler. Do you have any perspective on why very young children are drawn to the drums?

 

A: Everybody feels rhythm inside, and it’s a natural thing to tap your foot or to move in some way. I think other instruments are a little bit more complicated. For example, just to blow into something, like a horn or a saxophone, you actually have to go out at get a horn or a saxophone. Anybody can pick up a stick and start beating on the ground, so it’s a very accessible instrument. If you don’t play the drums per se, whether it’s shaking your hand or beating on the coffee table or something like that, you’re still going to be able to get some sound. So I think the drum is a good instrument to start on; just look around your house and you can find something that’s going to make a sound.

 

Q: What was your path in terms of becoming a professional and learning and developing discipline as a drummer?

 

A: The first thing is that you’ve got to have an advocate. That’s the one thing. Mine was my mother, and I figure she was the one who noted I was drumming all over the house. She believed that when God gives you children your job is to get what they need. So she literally would like take me to different clubs and take me to meet older musicians and say, “This is my son, and he wants to play drums,” and I was very fortunate in that in all of the places I’ve lived all of the older musicians recognized that my desire to play music was genuine and very sincere. So they would go completely out of their way to let me sit on a gig and watch them.

I remember I was maybe 8 or 9, and my mom would take me to jazz clubs late at night, and she would talk to the club owner and say, “He’s my son. He’s not here to drink and do anything wrong. I’m going to sit right here with him, but he just wants to be around the music.” So we would sit there and it would be 10 at night. Now that I’m a parent I understand the heat she must have had from other grown-ups, looking at this little kid late at night. But she recognized that in order to get a concept of music, you have to hear. You’ve got to be around it. I was really fortunate, like I said, that all the other players were very giving to show me or tell me something.

 

Q: One of the components of your background is having played with the Count Basie Big Band. How did that come to be?

 

A: I was his last drummer. In my 11th grade year of high school we moved to Las Vegas. I graduated high school there and went to the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. Fortunately, Joe Williams, the great singer, also lived in Vegas, and Joe was another one of those great advocates, and even though he lived in town he would come to the school concerts just to hang out and hear the musicians. He was always very accessible in terms of just talking to us. Anyway, he was always in constant contact with Basie, because he would sing with them over the years. When a drum chair opened up he said, “Listen, I know this guy.” He’s the one that recommended me to Basie, and it was just based on his recommendation alone. They called me up and said, “Listen, would you be interested in playing with the band?,” and I said, well, sure.

 

Q: What was it like being around Basie and playing with him at the time?

 

A: There’s a lot of feelings I had about it. The first thing was that there are musicians, and then there are kind of like real icons or legends. It was kind of like halfway shock and fear, and then at the same time he’s such a disarming, down-to-earth guy he made you feel really at home. It’s kind of like having this legend as your grandfather, and he was always really nice to me. He was never someone who would talk down to you, and he really made me feel very comfortable. At the same time I remember at the first rehearsal I really didn’t even know what to call him: Mr. Basie or Sir or Count or what. He was larger than life.

Q: What did you get out the experience of playing with the Basie band, even having played with the group after Basie passed away? 

 

A: You know, some people go to Harvard or Princeton. I went to Basie. It really is a complete and total institution for higher learning. I learned everything from how to travel and how to dress, to how to conduct myself in various situations. Musically, that band would play in Carnegie Hall one night, and we would play in a high school gym the next. We really got a good foundation in terms of how to adjust to different rooms and different audiences. It’s a complete and total learning experience. If nothing else, just being around great musicians who are so much older than you, it really was an education. {I learned} even what luggage to buy. It goes on and on.

Q: I understand that you are also a teacher, and now you host a lot of drum clinics. Are there things you in turn get out of teaching your students?

 

A: From being as young as I was in the Basie Band – and, like I said, when I joined I was 20 – {Basie} understood that process of going in to a situation and being exposed to different ideas and different personalities, and really getting your brain blown open, being exposed to so many different things. I think from being as young as I was and going through that process – and it really was a serious learning curve being on that band – it’s something that I’ve never really forgotten, and it helped to understand how great it is to be a student. Even though I’d been playing in big bands for a while, there was nothing that could really prepare me for the sheer amount of music. You can’t prepare for that experience.

When I go to school I still really enjoy being in the situation of total music, and that’s kind of how the Basie Band would work. We would play so many different kinds of music. One day we would play with Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan at recording sessions. They would pass out music. All of the different components that music students will go through as far as learning new music and doing things for the first time I went through that with them. It really does help me to remember how fun education can be.

Q: You played drums on Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan recordings at the time?

 

A: Not exactly. When the Basie Band would work with singers, sometimes our rhythm section would play, sometimes we wouldn’t, and usually what happens in those situations is that most of the singers would have their own complete rhythm section. So I would basically sit to the side and watch. I did play with Carmen McCray. I played with Diane Schuur when she played with us. Tony Bennett had his own drummer. I would just sit there and learn, but it really would depend on the singer that we would play with. As far as the educational situation, what you thought you knew is being challenged by watching it really happen, and then you get a chance to sit there and analyze it and figure things out. Basie was the greatest teacher, because he gave me the luxury of giving me time to check things out, to work things out and to figure it out for myself. 

Q: Can you tell me a little about being involved with a production of Charles Mingus’ Epitaph {a two-hour long jazz composition, famously performed posthumously in 1989}?

A: When they first starting doing it, I wasn’t involved in the original production. They had several productions of it. I think the original was here in New York City at Lincoln Center. When they premiered it on the West Coast I did it out there.

Nicole Henry: The jazz vocalist will continue the CNYJO’s concert series in Feb.

 

Q: Did you enjoy working on the music, or was it challenging?

A: I enjoyed it. As I was saying, the whole education thing, being put in situations where you’re constantly being challenged – Epitaph was something completely unusual, just in terms of the instrumentation. If I remember, we had two or three bass players. It wasn’t like a big band: It was like an orchestra. It was so large it was almost overwhelming, but the thing about it which is great about Mingus music is that the people they had called, the personalities, were amazing. I think Carl Saunders was in the San Francisco production of this. Gunther Schuller - I’ve worked with Gunter on a number of projects in Germary on WDR {the WDR Radio Big Band from Cologne, Germany}. When you work with people of that caliber, you’re going to learn something. It wasn’t like a big band or like a musical form like we had kind of been used to. It was a complete different departure from reality.

Q: Do you think jazz is migrating in some ways to the world of academia?

 

A: I can see that, and I believe that it has kind of gone from one setting to another. A lot of it is the way you think about it in terms of music as communication. You’re going to find that like-minded people will get together in a situation, and that’s kind of where you can exchange ideas. There was a time when I was growing up where you could listen to a player and you could tell what city they were from. If you look at John Coltrane or Jimmy Heath there was a whole big Philadelphia contingent, and there was like {Thelonious} Monk and Max {Roach}, the New York guys, LA guys, Chicago guys, Detroit guys -- Dan Jones, Tommy Flannigan – they basically were centers where musicians could come together.

If you think about how things have changed, most bands would get a lot of musicians from schools, because that was where a lot of like-minded people would concentrate, and it wasn’t so much a question of geography. I think schools have naturally become a place where musicians congregate because of all the music programs. If you remember all the big bands who were on the road, from Woody Herman to Buddy Rich, a lot of those guys were Eastern guys or North Texas guys or from the University of Florida, and that became, I think, the next logical place instead of Minton’s {Playhouse} uptown in New York or Philly or Detroit. So it seems like a logical and a natural progression, which I think is a good thing.

Q: Perhaps the shift toward academia has happened because jazz music has become more rich and complicated. 

 

A: Music has been complicated forever. I don’t think anything has really changed in terms of music becoming more complicated, or more difficult to play. The thing that seems to be most complicated for me is being in a place where you can actually have the time to be around music, and not have to worry about paying your bills. The one thing I love about teaching and being around schools is that students are in an environment where they really don’t have much else to do but concentrate on what they’re there to do. It’s not like you have to work your 12 hours a day just to be able to pay your rent.

For example, in New York it’s getting harder and harder just to live, which makes it harder and harder to take the time to study your music. If things don’t change, people won’t go to the places to hear music and be around like-minded people.

Q: Have you done any special preparations for your show with the Central New York Jazz Orchestra?

 

A: No. I’ve spoken with {CNYJO musical director and trombonist} Bret Zvacek, and I’ve sent him arrangements. We spoke a couple of weeks ago, and we kind of talked about what we want to do. We prepared in that way. The band has been rehearsing, but I have not been, and I’ll see them the day of the concert.

Q: And then you’ll do one rehearsal in the afternoon?

 

A: Pretty much. Like I said, the band has been preparing, and I’ll just kind of come in and run down everything and then go from there.

Q: You’re the head of the Manhattan Symphony Jazz Orchestra?

A: Yes, that’s my band, a labor of love for years. The first rehearsal we had was back in 1982, and it’s more of a chance to get together with my friends here {in New York City} and to stay connected to New York, because for me as a professional musician I’m usually on the road all the time, and I have to go out to work, and do this clinic or whatever. I started that band because I wanted to be around like-minded players who would inspire me, and players I would learn something from.

I called it the Manhattan Symphony, because the Dennis Mackrel Big Band sounded like a stupid name, and also because we were based in Manhattan. When you think of the definition of the word “symphony” it was like bringing different musical elements together, the end result being something different. When I first came to New York that really amazed me, which is why I’m still here. I would pass out a piece of music, and even though I had written it and I had a clear idea of what it would sound like, it would always sound different, because they interpreted it in a way. They always would bring their own individual flavor to the music, and it would come out. It was much more than I originally had conceived. It wasn’t something I felt like I could put my name on, because when the band would play it wouldn’t be me: It would be them.

Q: What is it like being the leader of a band and a drummer for a band at the same time?

 

A: Well, that’s an interesting question. When you talk about it in terms of being the drummer of a group I can speak on that level. As far as being the leader of a group, you know, leaders do different things. Some leaders are leaders because they organize everything. Some leaders are leaders because musically they have a direction that they take {the band} musically. I think it’s a great advantage to play drums and be the leader of a group, especially in a big band. Drums are really one of the instruments that can affect change, dynamically or time-wise, just the very essence of the music. If you play loud, they’re going to play loud. If you play soft, they’re going to play soft. It’s a great privilege being able to do it, but at the same time I don’t really see myself as the leader. I don’t know if I’m contradicting myself, but you’re so inside of the music it’s like you’re pulling them some place.

Q: Did Larry Luttinger have any advice for taking over his band?

 

A: You know, he didn’t say anything like that. At the same time, drummers have this real kindred spirit in that he doesn’t have to say anything. I don’t believe he would have asked me to do this if he didn’t think I would take good care of his band.

Q: Are you working on any future recording projects?

 

What I’ve been involved in quite a bit, not so much from a drumming standpoint but as an arranger, is a project with the great saxophonist Billy Harper. He’s going to do some work with a jazz orchestra from Finland called Umo--in Finnish it’s some big, long name I can’t even begin to say--and he’ll be doing some recording for them next year, and I’ll be working on some arrangements for him. I just did some things for Frank Wess who has an octet, so I find myself more often writing arrangements for people.

As far as drum-wise, there’s always something that comes through. It’s funny. Drums I kind of look at as my day job, so I’ve got work with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra next month; they’re going to do some concerts and workshops in Iowa. I just got back from Oberlin Conservatory, doing some master classes and working with the drummers down there. So there’s always something going on.

I am really looking forward to working with the {CNYJO}. I had met Larry briefly, and I have {previously} worked with Rick Montalbano. We did a record together {the 2000 release Jazz Life (The Orchard)} with a saxophone player named Monk Rowe, who teaches at Hamilton College. Rick’s a great musician, and it would be great to see him again, but I recently had a chance to work with some of the musicians upstate. I played a concert up in Potsdam {at the Crane School of Music}, and the level of musicianship is very, very high as is their love of the music. They’re very, very sincere about what they’re doing. So I’m really looking forward to playing with the band.

Larry Luttinger: The executive director and drummer of the CNYJO (pictured winning a 2008 Syracuse New Times Syracuse Area Music Hall of Fame Award) will get his band in gear during his group’s upcoming concert series.