Sometime in 1998 I was attending my first lesson with Whit Browne at Berklee College of Music. I picked Whit as my teacher after an incredibly embarrassing placement audition. Whit was actually one of the professors that auditioned me, and I won’t say I was totally horrible, I just didn’t know what was expected of me. They said, “let’s play a blues” and I played a blues shuffle (a la Freddie King), when what they meant was “play a ‘jazz blues’ ” (a la Oscar Peterson). I fell flat on my face and took the first great shot to my ego of the many that I would receive at Berklee.
Later on, I’m in my first lesson and I’m bright-eyed and excited to be there. Furthermore, I’m nervous as hell. It only takes you a few moments to realize that Whit is exceptionally easy to get along with, but he can tend to come off like a Drill-Sergeant on first impression. Anyway, Whit tells me to get set up while he finishes writing something in his lesson plan. I get my bass out and I plug into this little Fender combo amp he has in his room and I notice the treble knob is missing and cranked almost all the way up. I make a conscious effort to not fiddle with the knobs, I guess, because, I’d heard somewhere that it was rude to mess with someone else’s amp. I suppose I was little gun shy after the placement audition.
So I play a little bit, noodling around, and he jumps up out of his chair and starts yelling at me “That don’t sound like no bass to me, man! Turn that treble down, that’s why I took the knob off!” And he proceeds to lecture me about how “the bass goes boom boom boom” and “they hear ya before they hear ya!” (He was referring to an audiences’ ability to know a good sound from a bad sound regardless of their awareness of the musical content). I attempt to explain that I didn’t turn it up, that it was like that already, but he doesn’t seem to be buying it. To this day I’m not sure if he turned that knob up just to mess with me. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did.
Then we start talking about the way lessons work at Berklee, what he expects of me, proficiency exams, etc. Then we talk about music, my favorite bass players, what kind of stuff I am into, what I know and what I don’t know. At some point there is this exchange:
“Do you play Jazz?”
“Not really. I like Jazz, but I don’t have much experience with it.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, why did you choose me to be your teacher?”
“Well you seemed kind of tough at the audition, and I need someone to kick me in the ass.”
“Well I can do that, but I’m known here as one of the Jazz guys, you don’t play Jazz?”
“No.”
“Do you like Jazz?”
“Yeah I like it, I don’t really know much about it.”
“Well this is a Jazz school. When in Rome you have to make the like the Romans. Have you ever heard of Ray Brown?”
“I’ve heard the name, but I’ve never listened to him.”
“Well, there’s not much we can do this week. If you’ve never heard Jazz I can’t teach you to play it.”
“Ah. Well…”
“Your first assignment is to go buy a Ray Brown CD, listen to it every day. You need to get the sound in your head.”
“Which CD should I buy?”
“Doesn’t matter. You don’t know what the hell you’re listening to anyway.”
And that was the end of the lesson. I hung my head in shame and I walked down Boylston to Tower Records on Mass. Ave (now Virgin Megastore) and I bought Ray Brown - “Something For Lester” (1978, Contemporary Records). It’s still one of my favorite Jazz albums. At the time I remember that I looked at the cover of the CD and I saw Elvin Jones’ name– I’d never heard him– and remembered my neighbor, Tom Arey, a drummer, going on and on about Elvin so I bought the CD because I figured that, if these Ray Brown and Elvin Jones guys were so great that this would be an ok album to buy. I had no idea who Cedar Walton was so I just figured he’d be at least good enough to hang with these other guys.
Jeez. Ignorance is bliss. That seems like forever ago now. I’ve bought hundreds of CD’s since then based on “informed” decisions and I haven’t been nearly as pleased with them as I still am with this one.
Highlights for me: Ray taking the melodies on “Georgia on My Mind” and “Sister Sadie.” Elvin and Ray jamming over the intro of the first track “Ojos De Rojo,” I wasn’t sure if drums were supposed to sound that way or not.. I’d never heard anything like it before. Ray’s solo on “Slippery” makes me smile involountarily.
You know, I think you’ve told me that story a hundred times and it’s still not old. I love when people get excited about music…especially you, Justin. Your face lights up everytime you tell me about your first experience with a certain song, album, artist, type of music that you had never heard before (or maybe never appreciated before). I honestly think that’s why I started (and continued) to hang with you. I’m definitely not a musician, but you know I’m a music fan. Music excites me, and I have definitely learned so much from you. Shortly after I met you, you gave me an impromptu music/bass lesson at like 2AM. You apologized later for boring me and going above my head. In actuality, I understood every word you said (and I don’t think my background in piano had that much to do with it). Also, at that time it was the most invigorated I had been in a long while. Not only were you knowledgeable, but you were passionate about it. That’s one of the things I love about you…you and I can talk about the most mundane things, but it’s exciting because it’s interesting to us.
You’ve probably forgetten about that lesson in bass that you gave me, but I remember it as one of the best times I’ve had with you. So this comment is less about the post you’ve written right now and more about how great of a musician and teacher you are. Anyway, thanks for everything…
you are an asshole. there is no doubt about it. many people perceive you to be that way. however, not in a long time have i encoutered someone so passionate and so honest about something….especially not in a blog. you showed a side of you that not many witness. not a sappy, candy ass side…just a real honest and slightly vulnerable side. man, you made me remember back to when i first heard ‘kind of blue’ and i realized there were words to music whether lyrics were present or not. thank you for this post. and thank God i didn’t have to hear you play back then. i have sensitive ears.
I had a student once approach me about Kind of Blue and he said, “I really like that album, and I’ve had people recommend other Jazz albums but I can’t find anything else like that album.. what do you think?”
I told him he hit the nail right on the head. Tom and I always go back and forth about how Kind of Blue is one of those rare occasions where a record is every bit as good as the critics and the general population think it is. It’s the best selling Jazz album of all time for a reason!
You know, I took a few lessons with Whit in 1978 when I went to Berklee. I could tell you some stories myself before he threw me out. But I’m a better bassist today because of it. My story doesn’t sound much different than yours though. Peace!