Milt Hinton, it's good to see you again. And in this month of September, Minnesotans remember one of their sons that went overseas. His name is Oscar Pettiford, and together you, with Ray Brown, have shared the legacy of the bass via Jimmy Blanton all the way down the line. We just wanted, Ray Brown and I, wanted to really say hello to the people here in Minnesota and to pay tribute to the great jazz bass player.
Oscar Pettiford. I spoke about him and Ray Brown spoke about him. He was one of the most creative jazz bass players ever existed. And we were just thrilled to be here and we figured it was fitting and proper that we should pay tribute. And a master like Ray Brown, the guru as we call him of bass players, he's a guru.
And he was so agreeable with this kind of thing. And so we played one of Oscar Pettiford's songs. And the audience really appreciated it. But it's so nice being here at this wonderful jazz festival here. Without a doubt, it's really one of the finest ones we ever played.
And I'm very fortunate to play very many of them here in the States. And this one is always a joy to come to Minnesota. The crowds, the audiences here are the most receptive, they're most attentive. And they get the most out of a musician when you want to listen because if we're playing and you listen, we figure we got to do our very best.
Milton Hinton, certainly we're blessed to have you all here and you know when I think about it, you made an observation about Oscar Pettiford's contribution to the art of the bass. You've made your contribution, Ray Brown his, and back in time Jimmy Blanton moving it forward. What did you see and observe in Oscar's playing that intrigued you?
freedom of his playing, the freedom of him playing. Not academic. I don't know whether Oscar ever even studied at all, but he had it in his heart to play and whatever he wanted to say, he could say it. And that's the prime requisite of any musician, be able to take an instrument and say what you want to say with it. My teacher told me years ago, that's the hardest thing for you to do is your instrument is going to challenge you for the rest of your life because you can think of beautiful things to say.
But if you can get that instrument to sound, you're really doing something. So we strive for that, to try to be able to play what we can think. And you know you can think of beautiful songs. If you can only play what you can think of. And this is a challenge, and Oscar Pettiford was able to do that.
He was a happy, free-thinking person, free-witted. He had no inhibitions about what he wanted to do, and with his two hands he could do it. And that is...
That's true honesty. In this month of September in the year 1991, remembering with the astute observations of a scholar, a musician, a photographer, and an author, the Judge Milt Hinton, thank you so much for those observations concerning Oscar Pettiford. Thank you very much.
It's lovely being with you. I appreciate this. In the 90s, September 1991, Minneapolis, the city of lakes, and it's the month when we remember for Minnesotans the bassist Oscar Pettiford.
And seated to my left and to my right are the two giants of the bass. On my left is Milt Hinton, on my right is Ray Brown. And gentlemen, I guess what I really want to ask you is...
As we remember Oscar Pettiford, going back to your early days when you were all coming up together on the scene. What did you see and hear in Oscar's approach to the instrument that caught your ear and your eye? Ray? Well, first of all, I met Oscar's sister before I met Oscar.
And I was playing with her in Pittsburgh. I was a little young bass player. And she said, you know... I got a little brother that plays the bass. Say he plays good but he won't learn how to read, you know?
I had no idea, you know, her name was Leah. Leah Pettiford. I didn't meet Oscar until I was with Dizzy. Now I knew him of course by reputation.
And he was a monster, you know. And one night I was playing with Dizzy at the Spotlight in New York. And I happened to look up and there's a guy standing over there with a raincoat on against the wall, watching the band. It was Oscar Bennett.
I froze. I just went into a freeze. Why is this?
What year? No, I'm saying why did you freeze? Well, if you had any idea, the esteem that...
you have for guys that are your idols, it's a natural thing that will happen to you, you know, and it happens to all of us. I froze when I first met him, you know. I used to go down and see him backstage at the Strad.
in theater. He had his Samanda book out practicing in between. You remember that judge? Yeah.
And I used to go ask him to help me with the bow and you know. So he was you know he helped all of us young guys. I mean Pettiford and I were a little younger than the judge you know. So the judge was one of our idols you know. I idolized both of these guys but Pettiford was just a supreme soloist.
I mean I loved the way he played. solos, you know. One of my favorites, you know. Thank you very much, Ray. Well, Miltie, a postscript from you on the same thought.
Well, I just mentioned a minute ago that I met a... Oscar in 1937 and this is pretty decent. And I saw the natural talent that he has.
He hadn't studied with anyone. He just picked up the bass and he just played whatever he wanted to play. And it was amazing to do that because I had this, as Ray just mentioned, I'm around now with the books and the bow, studying, Samantha. And anything he wanted to play, he just played it. He just played it and that's amazing and that's true talent.
That's what you call NA talent, to be able to do that. And the happiness with which he did it. He didn't think about what position he was in or what it was.
He just played those notes that he wanted to play. And we're still playing some of those things now, which is very nice for him. And Ray, I told you just a minute ago, Ray, we call every career bass player, I saw him do what he's done.
I've become the greatest bass player that ever lived. I saw him practice. I saw him work at this.
And I just saw this thing happen day by day. I can remember, I'll tell you one particular story, Ray. I can tell you, we were down in Florida, Miami, Florida. Years ago, I wasn't missing a year. But you and I were walking down the street.
We used to meet on 2nd Avenue and go by some joint and just practice every afternoon. And we walked by one place one day. And as we stopped by there, it was during the daytime, there was no music supposed to be going on, but we had a band in the back practicing.
And Ray stopped me and put me on the stage and said, wait, let's hear these guys. We couldn't even see them. They were back in the dark, and we were listening. And we had this bass player.
Ray said, he almost had a cigar box. It was so bad, you couldn't hear much sound out of him. But his time was impeccable.
Ray said to me, we're going to hear more about this guy. And I said, yeah. And that trumpet player sounds pretty good, too.
He said, yeah, man, it sure does. And the guitar player is great. It turned out to be the bass player was Sam Jones, which replaced Ray Brown when Ray Brown went to someplace else, but Oscar Peterson.
The trumpet player was Lou Mitchell. Do you remember that? The guitar player's name was Eric Mitchell and he was an excellent guitar player but unfortunately he got in a lot of trouble and so he never got to finish his career.
And the saxophone player was named Burdine. He was too good looking, I think the ladies confiscated him. We've looked through this kind of thing because he's always been in search of new talent. And everywhere we were he'd look around and see who's around. And it's so wonderful to be here with him now.
Well, you know, tonight was kind of special because years ago when we were all busy, Milt and I never got to play together, you know? And it's been great because we played together at UCLA, you know? And now we take the time. to do some things together and it's great you know yeah it's good yeah he and I and John Clayton did a show I wish I had on film I just I kicked myself every time I didn't bring the cameras in there for that show you know it was so gorgeous it was really lovely you know.
Well Middle Hinton and Ray Brown thank you so much for reminiscing backstage here so appreciate it's a privilege in this month September 1991.