Did you know very
well, I yeah,
I just read in your book last week
that he was training the
older brother and sister who were
classically trained, always
heard.
Now, that's just that's
true.
It was true Eric Garner
had a fantastic ear and he
was one of the I replaced him with
the slam, the group I was just describing
slams to a trio which became
a quartet when I joined.
And, uh, um,
Errol had a hit.
He had a hit on Laurer
the way he learned Laura was the
Don bias and went to see the movie.
He loved the tune.
So he went out and bought a piano, uh,
sheet of music with the,
uh, tune on it and
came back and handed it all notes.
And I can't read that. So Don sat down at
the piano and picked it up and
taught her how to play Laura, and
that was his first big hit.
But, uh, eral
had a very interesting attitude, which I
think, uh, sums up what many
jazz musicians think.
Um, I was standing out in front of three
deuces one night with Earl and,
uh, um, several other pianists,
I think Hank Jones and several other
people who were working on the street at
the time. And we were just talking
I was between sets and this guy came
up and he wanted to ingratiate himself in
the group.
So he wanted to do it at Harold's
expense.
So he said to Earl, how do you
feel standing here with all
of these guys here that can read music?
And so Earl drew himself up to his
full five feet.
He was about this tall and has four or
five feet and says, nobody hears you.
Well, thank you very much.
You have been a very fine
audience.
I've enjoyed, uh, talking
to you and performing for you.
And I'd like to thank these two
gentlemen. Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Before you go, I want one thing I learned
on the radio, you have to do a
commercial. This is the book that the
lady was talking about.
And the only reason I'm plugging the book
I brought along just in case I
wanted to plug it in anyway.
The only reason this is a history of
jazz. You don't have to be a piano player
to understand it or to read it.
I would hope that all of those of you
who are musicians would write a
book like this from your perspective.
One of the problems that I have with
the things that are written on jazz
is that they have been written in the
second person.
They have been written by people who are
not, generally speaking, musicians and
who are trying to the best of their
ability to second
guess many of the people
that they are writing about.
Therefore, when I listen when I
read books on Charlie Parker, the two
books that are out, when I read the
couple of books out on Miles Davis, those
are not the musicians that I know.
I see nothing in Lady Sings the Blues
that that reminds me or that really gets
to the essence of what Billie Holiday was
about from my perspective now.
I think if Billie had written
that book with someone else and
or had written it down or talked it into
a tape recorder or whatever,
it would have been a different kind of
book now.
Uh, so I would hope
that all of you who will
become musicians will write from
your own experience what the music is
about, because at least in that way,
we'll have a better documentation of the
truth than what we have today.