Culture
Meet New Duke: Brian Q. Torff on Everything Ellington
Brian Q.Torff, Jazz bassist and New Duke director spoke to TGNR about their project: introducing Duke Ellington’s sound to a new generation.
Meet Brian Q. Torff, professional Jazz Bassist, Professor of Music and Jazz at Fairfield University, author of the book In Love With Voices: A Jazz Memoir, creator of such acclaimed albums as Life In East Bumblepuck and Workin’ On A Baseline, as well as a longtime ambassador of Jazz. Mr. Torff met with TGNR’s Paul K. DiCostanzo to discuss as Director, his ongoing musical ensemble, New Duke. Their composition is a project bringing the work of Duke Ellington to the 21st century, and doing so by using Ellington’s championed approach of constant experimentation with new compositions of Ellington’s legendary music.
Mr. Torff discusses the legend Duke Ellington himself, as well as the soul of Jazz in the 21st century. New Duke is performing at Fairfield University televised for CBS on 12/24/2017, at 11:35pm EST.
Brian Q. Torff, professional bassist.
TGNR: I am here with Brian Torff, Professor of Music and Jazz at Fairfield University, and longtime jazz musician, and we’re discussing his project “New Duke,” and the monumental figure in jazz, Duke Ellington. Thank you for being here, and thank you for meeting me, Brian.
Brian Torff: My pleasure.
TGNR: Now when you go into the figure Duke Ellington, there are any number of ways you can go. First I want to ask, why now?
BT: In 2011 at Fairfield University my colleague Dr. Laura Nash got a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities. That was to put on a two-week workshop on the life of Duke Ellington, for teachers who qualify for this, K-12. So we got all kinds of teachers involved. English, math, science, music, and they came to Fairfield University. We lectured, gave talks and tours on the life of Ellington; because there are so many facets of Ellington’s life as you know, that it can apply to a lot of different disciplines. And I said, well we’ve got to have some music, but you can’t duplicate Duke Ellington. Its just one of those things you just can’t do.
So I said, why don’t we do this: let’s put a band together, a smaller group, most of them core faculty at Fairfield, and let’s do Ellington’s music, but in a new way. Because its exactly what Ellington would be doing if he was still alive. He didn’t have one arrangement of “Take The A-Train,” he had seven. Y’know what I mean? He was constantly changing up things. She liked the idea, and I put the band together, and I love to compose, and arrange music. So it was a joy for me, and they’re great players, and it was a good experience. That was level one of this.
Then some time passed and we did it again in 2014, I was starting at that point to write and going back to my original roots that I grew up with in Chicago of Blues and Rock. I basically grew up on three main elements: The Beatles, James Brown, and Blood Sweat And Tears.
TGNR: That’s a heck of a combination.
BT: Those were my influences, and so I thought I don’t understand why in Jazz, which I love and have been playing for over 40 years, why we must have this kind of elitist attitude that basically says, “If you grew up on that music, that’s fine, but leave it alone. Leave it in the past.” Y’know, so I thought, I don’t want to leave it in the past, I want to draw on what I grew up with. So I then started to change the arrangements for New Duke to instead of just doing updated Ellington, to now do mashups-Ellington. So therefore, I would take a Ellington piece like “Rock Skippin at the Blue Note” but I would put “I Feel Free” by Cream in front of it and “Happy” by Pharrell Williams at the end of it.
Now this is sacrilege for many people in Jazz. For me, its absolutely natural from what I grew up with. I grew up with a fusion, a hyphen between every style of music that you can imagine; to me, that’s always the joy of music. So, ‘why now?’ because I am at a point in my career where I play a lot of mainstream wonderful jazz, whether it be with the Django Rheinhart group, or George Shearing, or Eroll Garner, Mary-Lou Williams, and I’m proud of all of it. But its time for me to put a stamp on a different direction that is not only mine… but a holistic idea about what I think Jazz is, which is an umbrella term. It’s something that brings in Rock and Hip-Hop, and Funk, and all these kind of things.
When we do a concert on the basis of updated Ellington-mashups, with new music that I write, which very much comes out of that for a lack of a better term, “Jazz-Rock” fushion-ish period of the late 60’s, early 70’s. But it is a new lyrical context. In other words, it’s not a tribute band, it’s not nostalgia. It’s writing about lyric content of whats going on today, but using that as a form.
“Playing Duke’s Music is for a Jazz player an historical homage one must pay.” – John Fumasoli of New Duke & The Jones Factor
TGNR: Let’s venture from the present to the past, because the approach you’re describing evokes a very specific time in history, specifically Prohibition. When Prohibition was passed, the Speakeasy was born and Jazz was its kissing cousin. The approach you’re describing is how Jazz went from a novelty to an art form, and Ellington had everything to do with that. If you could channel him personally, what do you think his marching orders to you would be now?
BT: Be yourself. Be authentic. Thats what Duke represented. He embraced all kinds of music from around the world, but in his band he was very insistent on doing original arrangements. Even when he did someone else’s material, he never bought a stock arrangement in his life. It was always coming from his band, or Billy Strahorn, or somebody’s camp, and I think he would basically say, “go forward, and do the music you believe in that way you feel it.” Thats all we can do.
TGNR: Duke Ellington was such an interesting figure, especially in his time. When Edward Kennedy Ellington was born into a middle-class African-American family in Washington D.C., his mother in particular took a unique approach to him in that time, which was to say, “you’re special.” I believe it was a combination of his father and some close friends that turned his name from Edward to Duke. He built himself an empire, an incredible legacy out of nothing. What about this man’s life in particular: his incredible charisma, amazing determination, somebody who in every way embodied the American dream, what in particular do you personally want the Millennial generation to take from his life, and how he chose to live?
BT: There is so much there, that’s a wonderful question Paul. I think there is so much to learn from Ellington’s life – as there is from any great artist, whether it’s Picasso… whoever it happens to be. But I think the main thing is that when I teach Duke Ellington, and I have to admit I learned a lot more about Duke Ellington as teacher then I did a young musician because I knew his work, I knew his compositions, but I didn’t know very much about the man. So my learning about Duke Ellington came later on.
Later on he says, “You basically live in search of the melody.” I thought, that’s it! That is it! You live in search of the melody! You never stop searching for it. So where Ellington could be resting on his laurels, traipsing around as a star, he’s sitting at the piano working. I find that so inspiring. I try to live by that ideal.
There’s a wonderful moment, in a movie called, On The Road With Duke Ellington. It basically just follows him from getting an honorary doctorate at Yale to traipsing around the country. And there is a marvelous scene in it where the concert’s over with, there’s just stage lights on, the stage hands are just carrying down everything, and Ellington is sitting there at the piano, and he’s playing and working on his next composition. And they can hardly tear him away from the piano. He then is shown getting on the bus to get to the next engagement. Later on he says, “You basically live in search of the melody.” I thought, that’s it! That is it! You live in search of the melody! You never stop searching for it. So where Ellington could be resting on his laurels, traipsing around as a star, he’s sitting at the piano working. I find that so inspiring. I try to live by that ideal.
TGNR: There was a very interesting story about Duke Ellington, from when he had only recently come to Manhattan, and he was with a “Cutting Contest” pianist, one that took a shine to him. They both would take a lot of Taxi rides getting to and fro around the city, and one time they were riding through Central Park, and Ellington asked his companion for advice about what to do because he wasn’t satisfied with what he already accomplished. He had done a fair amount at that point, ending up a member of a notable band, and even landed a spot at a popular club in Times Square. This fellow said that he thought he should go to a conservatory to hone his sound, but Duke didn’t feel he had time for it. To which his mentor basically said: think of the logical option, dismiss it, and do it your own way. How does that apply to Brian Torff, the man sitting before me today?
BT: I believe it was Will Marion Cook who said that. I am basically trying to do something that doesn’t fit. I am putting together a horn band, that has really been out of vogue for a really long time, and put it in a contemporary context, using arrangements that are very much hand-crafted, they’re not of the present era – we’re not making it like we’re making a pop record. These are real musicians, playing real instruments, interacting. That went out of style a long time ago. So what I am basically doing is saying I realize this is probably not a tactful commercial venture, but I’ve never had one. I’ve never been involved in that. So my feeling is that it’s honest, and it’s me, and it’s truthful, and I will see it through to wherever it can lead me. But it’s not contrived. Its not looking at what Miley says, or what the latest Hip-Hop feud is about, that’s another world. I get my inspiration from Ellington, Dylan, people I feel have substance to their work, because even though I will never be as famous as any of those people, I would rather be known as someone who had a body of work with a certain amount of integrity and honesty.
TGNR: Ellington has nearly 1,000 compositions/pieces credited to him in his career. You could quite literally have a set list where you never use the same music twice. As the director, why do you choose the pieces you choose?
BT: That’s a great question. I am looking to do a number of things, and it depends on our audience too because they all differ. For example, when we do a concert like one we have coming up next week, it’s called Music For Youth. It’s for music students playing in the area, and what we will do at that concert is we will play some of the updated arrangements of Duke Ellington, explain why Ellington’s important, connect him to other forms of music and make a connection to forms of music like Rock and Roll, and Hip Hip. Then we’ll do some mash-ups, where we will show that Ellington’s music is not an old history lesson and dust it off. It applies to other things that you hear today. Then we will say, now we will do some original music and we’ll take this further in our own way. So that’s how we choose set lists.
Who’s our audience? What are we trying to accomplish? If you are dealing with someone who is high-school age, they don’t know that much about Duke Ellington. They don’t even know that much about music of the 60’s and 70’s. We say, let’s play some music you may have heard before. Maybe you’ve heard some Stevie Wonder, let’s play some of that, let’s see if it can be part of a larger thing. So that’s what we’re really trying to do. We’re trying to communicate and bring the audience into what we’re doing. It’s not standing apart in an elitist sort of way and saying, “well, this is it, and if you’re hip enough and you dig it, great. If you don’t, that’s okay too.”
TGNR: You’re abolishing the country club mentality.
BT: Absolutely! Absolutely. Unfortunately, and it’s interesting you use that term, modern jazz became almost as elitist as the very thing it disdained. It disdained the country club, it disdained racism, all this kind of stuff. It, for the most part, was African-Americans and Jews playing this style music, yet then became the hipper-than-thou art form. It still created great music, but at a certain severing of that connection between the audience, dance floor and what they were doing. I didn’t grow up with that. I grew up with music that was wonderful, and highly complex, but accessible. So I think I am still trying to bridge those gaps.
TGNR: When you look at who Duke Ellington was and what he means, he is truly a shinning figure in terms of what it means to be an American. How do you believe Ellington’s legacy can inform the racial discourse of the nation today?
BT: Ellington was never elitist. One of my favorite quotes of his was- a reporter asked him, “Duke, do you do the music of your people?” To which he said, “All people are my people.” What Duke truly realized was that he was an American, and that while his race was important, he was part of a bigger picture.
Duke showed that one can always demonstrate a demeanor of respect and integrity, and he had an enigmatic aloofness that went with that. I think that when you look back then – once again- looking back at a body of work, and being impressed and inspired by it. As opposed to saying ‘well, this is problematic.’ Ellington is not problematic. He is strictly inspiring. I think that every work is brilliant. He was always in search of the melody, and always put in the sweat ahead of everything else.
TGNR: Ellington was quoted as saying, “You have to find a way of saying something without saying it.” Based on your scholarly work and study of the man, how do you feel Ellington accomplished that particular ethos?
BT: Well Ellington didn’t lecture people, he didn’t proselytize. He’s actually a man of relatively few words, and when said they were very discretely put. Sometimes a little too much. So, I think what Ellington did was lead by example.
TGNR: The only kind of leadership…
BT: Yes, he basically wrote “Black, Brown, and Beige.” He didn’t have to say, ‘ah look, this is what this means!’ He didn’t really have to do that any more than a song-writer like Bob Dylan has to give a discourse on what Masters of War means. When you do that, you ruin it. You ruin it. Ellington says, ‘its on the wall, you figure it out.’
TGNR: Historians are often fond of saying, ‘nothing in history is inevitable.’ With that in mind, how do you interpret the events of the 1917-1920 period? As a historian of Jazz, how do you see Jazz evolving from a novelty to an art form at that time, in your mind? How would you explain that history? How it made that transition, and why it could at that time? Putting aside the broad strokes of the opportunity through birth of the Speakeasy, and accompanying hot music with enjoying an illicit pastime.
BT: It was the liberal educating of America. It was an America at that time that was extremely naive. Then suddenly there was a black migration. Entering places like Chicago and New York, and they bring this music with them. What that music did was not solve our racial problems, but it introduced us to each other. By introducing us to each other, without placing a moral lesson there, it put us on the road to becoming a better version of ourselves in a democracy. Of course, as you know, we’re still trying to work through that now. But it got us started, it got us onto the turnpike, and got us going.
TGNR: Say Duke Ellington had been born in 2007, and did so under similar/parallel circumstances within a modern context. Would he have succeeded? If so, how would it have looked? How would he have done it? Given that he was known for his ingenuity, making opportunities, a singular charisma, and being such a hard worker.
BT: The game has completely changed now, Paul. So, its a great question, but a very hard one. He would have had a very different life, and very different career since what was in place then is no longer in place. It’s completely changed.
TGNR: Could you elaborate?
BT: Back in those days you performed live all the time. You played for dancing, you played for popular music. You’re lucky if you’re recorded. If you got on the radio, and if you had an original sound, you maybe had a career that would start to open up. So the opportunities were very much live music oriented. We still have live music today, but it has changed. So we produce music in a totally different way now. Not everybody, but most people do. The game has changed to the point where, yes- there is still music with integrity, but its harder and harder to shine through.
Though remember Ellington was a good businessman. He probably would have been a hip-hop producer, a mogul. With his kind of talent today, he would not have said, ‘let’s put a big-band together.’ He wouldn’t have done that. He would have found another way, using the materials of the day to get through.
TGNR: But he would have still found a way?
BT: I think someone who is that talented, whether its him or Stevie Wonder, or whoever it happens to be, is going to take what they have, and they’re going to mine it. They’re going to dig. The tools just change. Though the process of creation is really kind of the same.
TGNR: Say Duke Ellington was sitting at the table with us now. He is in his prime, though also knowing of all the events in the world since his passing. Really the ultimate hypothetical question here: If you could ask Duke Ellington one question as Brian Torff the Jazz musician, the Professor, the historian. What one question would you ask him, right now?
BT: That’s tough… I don’t think I would ask him a question. The reason I wouldn’t ask him a question is because I think his life and his work speak for itself. It is so vivid that I couldn’t think of a question I would ask that wouldn’t sound stupid, because I think its all there.
I wouldn’t say, ‘Hey Duke! How’d you work those saxophones in there?’ I just don’t think I would. I think what’s important is that the life example is so vivid, so clear, that I would just want to shake his hand! I don’t think I would really need to do more than that. Anymore than you go up to a writer that you admire and say, ‘Y’know, Hemingway… how come you…’ Right?
TGNR: I totally understand.
TGNR: Where do you think Jazz is going?
BT: I think there is a bigger question, I never know where anything is going. I think, ‘where’s our culture going?’
TGNR: I understand prophecy is one of life’s less fruitful endeavors, but in this case I defer to your expertise. By all means…
BT: I think there will always be a wellspring of creative artists doing interesting material. I think that we’re in some kind of a vortex in the industry. Structures have collapsed, but that doesn’t have much to do with the music. The music will continue. It will continue to grow, take on different influences, and it will still be meaningful throughout the world. It won’t have the kind of numbers that pop-music does, even Rock music doesn’t have the numbers that pop-music does, and that’s O.K.
I don’t see myself as a preservationist, because I don’t think something that’s great needs to be preserved. It just needs to be carried on with honesty and hard work.
TGNR: As both a musician and teacher, a very interesting combination of things, you get to relay a lifetime of unique experiences to people who are young, and don’t have that many experiences themselves. In your career, and to your students, once they have handed in their final at the end of the semester, and go on to the next thing, what’s the message you want them to take from your time with them?
BT: When the course is over, I still want them to go on and live a full life. That no matter what it is they end up doing, they still incorporate the arts into it for themselves, and for their children. The arts are there as a metaphor for their own lives, and you can give them that. Give them the spark that will eventually make them pick up this book, or go to this concert, buy this recording, so they can take that and pass it on to their children.
If they do that, I have succeeded. I won’t bat 1.000, it won’t work that way. I feel that giving them the gift that we’re studying whatever it happens to be, Ellington for example, his life is a metaphor for what you can do. A metaphor for what is inside you. Are you going to be Duke Ellington? No. You’re going to be you. But maybe this can guide you towards whatever realization that may be. You try.
TGNR: Clearly you’re immensely focused in directing New Duke. As you are incorporating the Ellington method, I can’t imagine your thinking would delve too far from that. Though Ellington was always one to look forward. Not to invoke a pun here, but what do you think will be the next base line you’re going to be working on?
BT: I love that because they would ask Ellington, “What’s your favorite song?” He wrote thousands and he would answer: “The one I’m working on now.” I really like that answer because as a composer, that’s exactly how it works, Paul. Whatever you’re working on now, because before I came over here, before I got your text message, I was working on a tune called Bad Fedoras. It is basically a send off on hipsters, very Frank Zappa, and I’m immersed in that right now. That’s the base line I’m working on now, and I tend to work from the bottom up, not the top down.
So if I were a singer song writer I’d be there, like James Taylor or Bob Dylan, playing a song and playing chords. Or if I was Billy Joel or Elton John or Stevie wonder type guy, I’d be singing a song at the piano, and I do use the piano, but that’s not the way I work. I work from the baseline up. That’s the construction of the house.
TGNR: Of course.
BT: I get a great baseline and then everything goes up from there.
TGNR: One stone at a time.
BT: Exactly.
TGNR: I’m talking to a life long musician. When it comes to major life decisions and choice of careers, most people will give a lot of what they consider pragmatic advice that is complete unsolicited. Clearly at some point you found you had a passion for music. You loved the bass in particular. What are some of the most encouraging and helpful things anyone told you at the beginning of your lifetime pursuit? Also, what was some of the most interesting detractors that tried to steer you away from this life?
BT: Well first of all, I cannot really think of serious detractors. My mother was right behind me. I’m sure she was worried about her son and a career in music, but she never showed it. So she helped me. When I got to Boston, to Berkley College of Music, I had a bass teacher who said to me when I first decided to go to New York, “When you go to New York be careful, but don’t be too careful.” I thought that was a wonderful thing to say. Basically he’s saying there’s some risk involved in this, but go! Go! I had a bass instructor, Orin O’Brien in the New York Philharmonic. A marvelous teacher! She said to me, “Before you become an artist you must become a professional.” That was great advice.
TGNR: That is incredible!
BT: So I was lucky to have a number of people who were not only supportive, but they were intuitive to what I might need at that particular time. The rest of it is seat of your pants. You’re on your own.
TGNR: I’m sure you have at least seen, or you may be a fan of The Blues Brothers movies. They make the second movie in 1998, there’s obviously no John Belushi, and part of the new equation is an added orphan boy raised in the same orphanage as Jake and Elwood.
At one point in the film Elwood is mentoring him… well, really kidnapping him! Though doing so in Elwood’s very ethically minded view and pseudo-intellectual way, while also on the lam. Though he is also being very grounded in the sense of being a blues musician because that’s his true and only passion in life. Elwood says to him, “No pharmaceutical product could ever equal the rush you get when the band hits that groove; the people are dancin’, and shoutin’, and swayin’, and the house is rockin’!”
How would describe what is largely an ineffable human experience from a musicians stand point? For that matter, what do you feel is the most memorable performance in your career thus far?
BT: Oh that’s a tough one. First of all that statement is right. There is nothing like it. I don’t think you even have to have a perfect night. There’s something about the joy of making music that is a gift.
I was just talking about this last night with Dave Childs. We were saying, “We’re really lucky. We’re really lucky that we can experience this. People can go a lifetime and never experience anything like it.” So I consider it a great gift and there’s something magical about it. It is still hard work. I think that it’s like living in search of the melody, and in search of the next performance. The next performance that will hopefully takes us somewhere, and if we’re lucky we will take the audience with us. That’s really what its about.
TGNR: Are you familiar with with term, “The Thousand Yard Stare?”
BT: No.
TGNR: It has military origins. Many times it has to do with those who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Though it does have other applications. It is a moment in time where one is so transfixed looking off in the distance, because they’re complete ensconced in the flow of their own thinking.
What was one performance so memorable, so meaningful, that if you sat back and thought about that experience it would bring back every detail, almost as if you’re reliving it again in the peace of your own company and thoughts?
BT: I think its hard after thousands of performances, because its almost like, ‘what’s your favorite song?’ Its a hard thing to answer. Though I do remember performing in a church in Roxbury with Mary Lou Williams. Roxbury is a very tough section of Boston. We were playing for Mass, and her manager was a Jesuit priest. This is all in my book. He was giving the sermon portion of the Mass, and I wasn’t playing. She was playing alone, and she was playing these very haunting spiritual chords. I just felt a chill, and I felt like.. the ages were right there in the room.
I had never experienced that before, or since. It was just one woman playing the piano, but the way the air changed and filled up was like nothing I had ever experienced in music. I don’t know what I can say about that other than that I know that it happened. I know that I experienced it.
TGNR: You mentioned to me earlier a wonderful quote, “you have to be a professional first.” There is an old saying that I learned from a personal guru of mine, who is also a long time Zen Buddhist. I once asked him, “what is it like to be enlightened?” He immediately had a hardy laugh! He said, “Before you’re enlightened, you chop wood and carry water. After you reach enlightenment, you chop wood and carry water.” So in effect nothing has changed, yet everything has changed.
In this case you’re a professional, and becoming a musician is your enlightenment. At what point did you first feel that Brain Torff became a professional musician?
BT: That’s such a poignant prophecy. Its exactly as you just described it, you keep doing the work. It doesn’t have to do with the status of the work.
My first real professional engagement was when I was 20 years old. It was at Carnegie Hall with Cleo Laine. Yet I cannot say that I had arrived, and now I’m a professional because I knew there was so much to learn. So I am not sure I can answer that, Paul. I am still learning to be a professional, and still learning what that’s about. I don’t think you ever really completely arrive. I am still learning what that really means.
TGNR: You had mentioned you were very fortunate to have a close network of support in your career. Had you ever encountered a memorable unsolicited detractor? Or should a young musician ever encounter such an experience, what would you suggest they say to repay the favor?
BT: People are going to say negative things about you. I get a lot of glowing reviews, and I get reviews that aren’t very nice about my playing. You really don’t like it, but the fact is you can pull out any artist, and you will find people say some really nasty things. You don’t stop them, you keep going because you feel good.
Basically you have to say, ‘Is there anything here I can learn from?’ ‘Is there any truth in this?’ ‘Is there anything that I need to think about in this?’ You try to be honest and then go on. You just go on. Sometimes you have to disregard, and sometimes you need to listen.
TGNR: Who is your greatest non-musical influence? What figures have become the most influential in your decision making process, and you leading the life you choose to live?
BT: Outside of my parents who were a strong role model for what they did, I think I have always been an Americanist. I was always inspired by Lincoln. I was always inspired by Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird. I was always inspired by that kind of character. I think whenever somebodies shows that sort of integrity I have always found that really inspiring and something that I like to try to emulate.
TGNR: Take yourself today, and if you were to converse with the young man that was first heading off to Berkley, based on what you know now, what would you tell him?
BT: “Be careful, but don’t be too careful!”
TGNR: Regarding a Jesuit university, and I am obviously very biased as an alumni of Loyola Chicago, it was a very special experience specifically for the undergraduates. We experienced the product of what Ignatius of Loyola initiated; essentially the beginning of the Western model of education. What about Fairfield University and the Jesuit Order did you find so appealing, as opposed to anywhere else you could have possibly taught?
BT: Well, I am an educational back-door man.
TGNR: How would you define that?
BT: Do you know what a back-door man is? It’s not the nicest term. The husband would leave, and the other guy would enter through the back door.
TGNR: I got it.
BT: In a way, I kind of came in the backdoor. I went to Fairfield at a time where they were teaching virtually no courses in American popular music. So they gave me the keys to the car and said you take off, and I did. I began with a Jazz ensemble curriculum and basically said we have to tell the whole story. Not just the European side. One thing lead to another, and here I am teaching Jazz, and Rock, and all this kind of stuff.
I really respect the emphasis on education and on the mind. I am half Jewish, and that background is also one I feel is very much inside me. Even though I am not terribly religious or spiritual.
TGNR: In my experience, I found the modern Jesuits to be very inclusive.
BT: Yes, yes. The idea of being in the physical body, but also having the mind being consistently developed. So I found that attractive when I started to teach at Fairfield. Social justice is extremely important. Sometimes it can be misused and misguided I think depending on how its being used. Though I think ultimately we ask the bigger questions, and that’s in my teaching. My father was a pro bono civil rights lawyer in the 1950’s in Illinois. Illinois has a history of being one of the most racist places the country has ever known.
So I think that is part of who I am.
When students get me as a teacher, they’re not just getting a course in music. They’re getting a course in American history, race, and politics. I have to bring it all in, because if you don’t you’re missing the picture. You really are. I am passionate about teaching in a holistic way. You can talk about Hendricks, or Dylan, or Miles, or Duke. Though if you don’t examine the context of their lives, you’re missing the picture.
“New Duke is Brian Torff’s vision. His excellent arrangements are challenging, hip, creative, and meaningful. I am really proud to be part of this musical family. I like to think Duke himself would be pleased.” – Darryl Tookes of New Duke, and albums such as “Travels Of An Ordinary Man”, “Red Bird”, and countless other master works.
TGNR: Though the greater aspect of his world view and work is not terribly important to our conversation as a whole, are you familiar with the military historian, political commentator, philosopher, and master of Classical studies, Victor Davis Hanson?
BT: No.
TGNR: Long story short, he is THE master in Classics study. Greek and Roman literature, politics, warfare, the whole deal. He is an authority on that period of human history.
Some time ago he co-authored a book called, “Who Killed Homer: The Demise Of Classical Education And The Recovery Of Greek Wisdom” It was about the lack of teaching the Classics in primary and secondary education. I know this to be true, because I did not encounter Classics studies until I arrived at university.
In my personal experience, music and the curriculum in music prior to the university level I felt it was limited. We learned a lot of holiday related music as it pertained to many religions, and we also experienced a lot of Broadway. These are of true value, no doubt. Yet it is hardly the whole picture.
How do you feel the standard K-12 curriculum can be enhanced beyond the otherwise limited purview of music education today?
BT: Wonderful question. Well, I am 61 years old, so I come from an education background, and I feel that whether it’s back then in my time, or your time, or a younger time, we have totally let down and failed at American culture and its music in terms of K-12. Yes its great to have a marching band, a jazz band, and an orchestra. That’s all wonderful, but we still fail to teach our culture and our heritage. You will play a piece by Duke Ellington in your Jazz band, and no one will say two words about who Duke Ellington was. It was no different in my time.
Muddy Waters lived right in the town right next to us. I grew up in Hinsdale, and Muddy Waters eventually moved out to Westmont. Did we ever talk about Muddy Waters in school? No. Did we ever bring him in to talk to the students? No. So we are a wonderful country that is always creative, but it always devalues culture, devalued our own American voice, and we suffer from social amnesia. It’s never changed. It’s never changed.
So what can I say? Education is very cyclically oriented, so we intensely teach to the test. Math and science! Math and science! You have seen it. Occasionally we hear that music is really good. You have heard it all.
We have created this array of wonderful American art of all kinds. It should be part and parcel of every curriculum in the United States, in addition to every subject we teach. They do it in others counties. You never have to lecture the French about their food, their music, their wine, their art.
TGNR: They lecture you!
BT: Yes! They’re going into the Louvre at the age of two or three years old. I am not exaggerating. So I think we have a lot of re-evaluating of who we are, and what we have done. Because what you just said is important. It’s not until college that you encounter these things. It’s not until college that most of my students realize American music is pretty much black music. You know that, you have a father who is a master student of music.
TGNR: I would say it was part of the mandatory curriculum growing up in that household, among other things…
BT: Exactly, but you have an unusual background.
TGNR: I have unusual parents!
(Laughter)
BT: You do!
So we need to provide that service to our students in this country. So when they come into the world they’re a better audience, more aware individuals of who we are, and what we have done. They shouldn’t have to get it from me in their senior year of college. It shouldn’t take that long. I am sure there are schools that do this to a certain extent, though overall we have done a very poor job of teaching this.
TGNR: There is something from history that I believe you will appreciate as such an accomplished Jazz historian, and one who appreciates that immense menagerie American culture has generated in the 20th century specially.
Historically in totalitarian governments, and for this case we will use an example most people are familiar with; The Third Reich. Nazi Germany strictly outlawed the playing of American Jazz. What was so powerful about it that they found the need to completely outlaw it? Completely forbidding citizens to listen to it, and brutally enforcing that policy.
BT: Firstly they termed it, “Judeo-Negroid Music.” They saw it as a threat because it encourages the individual to think for themselves, to improvise, and to encourage the concept of freedom as an ideal in their own lives. That is precisely what a totalitarian regime does not want.
So lets circle back to Ellington. Someone asked Ellington, “can you define American music?” He said, “Freedom in sound.”
TGNR: Yes!
BT: That is what we do. Freedom in sound. It’s no wonder that the Nazi regime had Gestapo officers standing there in the dance hall making sure you didn’t break out into music that encouraged free thinking.
TGNR: In the end, would it be fair to say that based on the nature of Jazz as you described it; a destructive element in a totalitarian society, the encouragement of free thinking, that those elements were ultimate what attracted you to Jazz?
BT: Yes. I think underneath all of that which I couldn’t perceive because I was too young. Though I think I was attracted to it because I like living the life of the improviser. I like not having a set score. I respect classical music, and I admire greatly classic composers. Though I think I need to put my own line on the score. Call it evil, or stubbornness, or rebellion, or whatever it happens to be. I was attracted to Rock, Blues, and Jazz for that reason because I felt like the American experience is one of the improviser.
We imagine the destiny. You’re imagining your destiny as a writer with your website. You’re imagining and realizing your own destiny. That is to me what the American experience is all about. It’s possible if you’re willing to work for it.
TGNR: The way I am going to round this up has to with Ellington, it has to do with you, it has to do with everything. I believe his last credited words were to the effect, “Music was my life, and that’s always what I’ll be remembered for.”
It’s clear that a man like Duke Ellington is one that you have immense reverence for, given your profession and the life that you live. Does Brian Torff retire? Or does he just move on to the next word?
BT: I will never retire! When you love passionately something like music, its your life. Its not a job. Ellington was asked many times, “Are you going to retire?” To which he responded, “Retire to what? I’m sure stagnation ain’t gonna look good on me.”
TGNR: Neither you nor Ellington could tolerate stagnation.
BT: Oh no! So I have this conversation with other people, and they can’t wait to retire. They’re just waiting until 65 comes along, and they can retire. I don’t feel that way at all. I love teaching passionately, I love playing passionately, I love writing. Hearing it played back, or performing it. I may redirect things as I get older, but to me retirement is just not an option when your job is your life.
TGNR: I can certainly understand that.
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TGNR: For the benefit of the reader who may not be familiar with you personally; I want to share an anecdote that my father remembers with great fondness in the countless conversations you had together over many years. If he didn’t ask you 5,000 questions in that time, he did not ask you one.
With great respect and admiration he asked you, “If you were in charge of a major recording label in 1964, and the Beatles had crossed your desk, would you have signed them?”
You sat back and gave it deep thought, and you gave a very honest answer. You said, “No.” I feel with great conviction that answer embodies the sincerity and integrity of the man sitting across the table from me right now. I would like to believe it gives deeper gravity to the reader regarding the wonderful conversation and immense insight you have shared this afternoon.
TGNR: As a rule – because you have been so generous with your time today – and of course promotion, promotion, promotion. Always show the product. Why should the reader come see you perform? Why should they explore your discography of work? Why should they buy your previous published autobiography, as well as your upcoming work? I always like to give the plug.
BT: I think what a composer does and what a writer does is add responsibility. Their responsibility is telling the reader what they should know. That is our job, and this is my job. So I think if someone goes to a New Duke concert, they will not only be entertained and enjoy the night, they will become more informed by the end of it. They might walk away curious and say, ‘Hmmm… I didn’t realize that!’ I’ll go! Its all about the start. Its all about the start, Paul.
When I write, there are better writers than I am, I try to do my best. If I feel that if I have a talent for something, I must shine that light. I must say, ‘look at that!’ ‘Let’s do something about that,’ ‘let’s think about that.’ That is what I have to offer. It isn’t about popularity, or being in vogue, or anything like that. It is my vision.
TGNR: Duke Ellington’s legacy in one sentence? If that’s possible…
BT: He inspired us to do better, and to keep going forward.
TGNR: Awesome. Thank you for your time Brian. It has been a wonderful hour speaking with you.
BT: Absolutely to you Paul. Thank you.