FRED BOUCHARD: Roy and I have been reminiscing about the Celebrity Club. The old log cabin club in Providence, Rhode Island, where, when I was a kid, I would try to sneak in with my teenage friends, and catch people like Dinah Washington and Maynard Ferguson and Roy played there with Ella. 

ROY HAYNES: I played there with Ella. 

FRED BOUCHARD: And Ella was she was all uptight. 

ROY HAYNES: Well, you know, working with Ella was-- you know I played with the three greatest vocalists, I think. And Ella was the hardest. She worked hard, you know, she would sing "Flying Home" and do a lot of choruses, and scat and that whole thing. So, you know, I could handle it, but it wasn't particularly that easy. But it was enjoyable. Do you want me to tell that story about when the organ group came in? I'd rather not tell that again. [chuckles] 

FRED BOUCHARD: That's okay. No, we won't go there. But we are extremely grateful to have Mr. Roy Haynes as our guest today for the Berklee Oral History Project. Particularly since he's been in town here at Harvard as an artist in residence for the Harvard University Jazz Band, courtesy of Tom Everett, and he's received a Humanitarian Award from Berklee just a few weeks ago. He's about to get a Jazz Boston award tonight to kick off Boston Jazz Week. He's an honored native son, and the world's greatest living drummer. The drum major who became a major drummer. 

ROY HAYNES: [laughs] You realized I was a drum major, huh? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yeah I looked it up. When you did that interview with Ira Gitler. 

ROY HAYNES: Ira Gitler, yeah James P. Timilty School: That's where I was a drum major. 

FRED BOUCHARD: I really would like you to talk about your very early career, to make the link with Boston, Berklee, and the jazz world. If we can go back to growing up with your family, in Roxbury, the Barbados roots. Was there a Barbados community? 

ROY HAYNES: Nah. No, it was a loose community where I lived. It was like the U.N. I had all kind of people around. I lived beside Irish people on one side andFrench Canadian and Jewish synagogue across the street, so I learned early how to get along with people. And to understand people, you know. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Did you hear the French Canadian fiddle music or stuff in the synagogue? 

ROY HAYNES: I heard all Broadway shows every Sunday. The lady would play piano and sing every Sunday, it was like a concert there. I heard a lot of the Gershwin in fact, on the radio in Boston. On the radio stations you heard everything: Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Billie Holiday even. They used to have something -- I forget what station it was called -- The 9:20 Club. This was in the very early forties, and they would be on from afternoon till evening, and their theme song for closing, was Benny Goodman's "Goodbye". I think that is the name of it [Sings melody]. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Gordon Jenkins wrote that, I think. 

ROY HAYNES: Who wrote it? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Gordon Jenkins. 

ROY HAYNES: Gordon Jenkins. You're pretty up! 

FRED BOUCHARD: I'm trying, I'm trying. 

ROY HAYNES: Ah, you get some points 

FRED BOUCHARD: That was probably something on 920 AM. 

ROY HAYNES: Oh, you mean radio. Yes. I thought you meant 9:20 in the morning AM! [chuckles] 

FRED BOUCHARD: The radio was on at your house, the record player was going also, your brother 

ROY HAYNES: Well, yeah, that was a little later. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Oh, that was later. 

ROY HAYNES: 'Cause my brother, the oldest one who was born in Barbados, that was Douglas, he was a roadie with Blanche Calloway, that's Cab's sister. So he'd be in New York a lot, and he would always come back and tell me what happened at the Savoy Bar when they would have the bands battle, like Lionel Hampton's band maybe, and Basie's Band, something like that. He knew all the stuff. He knew the people, so I learned a lot through him even before I was thinking about going to New York. In fact, the first drum sticks I picked up were his. He had some drum sticks, he went to English High. 

FRED BOUCHARD: And later on he went to the [New England] Conservatory? 

ROY HAYNES: After he got out of the service, he went to New England. But when he got out of the service he was ruined. The army messed him up. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Okay, we don't wanna go there. 

ROY HAYNES: Please. [chuckles] 

FRED BOUCHARD: Who were your inspirations on drums at home? Did you... 

ROY HAYNES: What do you mean 'at home'? 

FRED BOUCHARD: In Boston, just a kid coming up. 

ROY HAYNES: Well, the street I lived on, there were two other drummers. Bobby Donaldson, was probably a year or two older than myself. You heard of Bobby Donaldson? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yes, I have. He worked with Edmond Hall at the Cafe Society around 1950. 

ROY HAYNES: Oh really? He was great. 

FRED BOUCHARD: He was three years older than you. 

ROY HAYNES: There were a lot on that street, Haskins Street, there were a lot of musicians, seemingly. And then naturally you heard about Herbert right? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yes. 

ROY HAYNES: That was the guy that was with James V. Sharp [James Reese]. That was the guy that, ah, it happened right here in Boston... he killed him.. stabbed him with a knife. You know about that, huh? 

FRED BOUCHARD: No, I don't know that part. 

ROY HAYNES: Really? I found that out during Ken Burns' five episodes. I think it was the second episode, they were talking about James V. Sharp [James Reese] and his drummer had stabbed him, and when they said his drummer's name, it blew my mind, man. That's the man that lived right across the street from me. My father was a friend of his, and got me to take a couple drum lessons from him. That's the first time I'd ever heard "Poppa Daddy" -- "Momma Daddy," rather. [taps rhythm.] 

FRED BOUCHARD: This is from Herbie Wright? 

ROY HAYNES: From Herbie Wright, yes. 

FRED BOUCHARD: And did you study with also with Bobby Donaldson? 

ROY HAYNES: I didn't study with Bobby, no, but he was around. He played with the band Tasker Crosson, that's when he was very popular in Boston. 

FRED BOUCHARD: I remember that name. Sabby Lewis mentioned him. 

ROY HAYNES: Oh yeah, he was very popular during the day. Maybe the same period that Malcolm X was around here. Yeah. 

FRED BOUCHARD: So you got to see Bobby Donaldson play. 

ROY HAYNES: He lived on my street. I used to see him all the time. I used to see him, you know, just hanging out. But he moved there later and didn't stay. People were moving in and out, except the people that owned their houses, they would stay there a long time. 

FRED BOUCHARD: What did Herbie Wright teach you, I mean he taught you the "Momma Daddy" thing. 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah. 

FRED BOUCHARD: And, some other rudiments? 

ROY HAYNES: No, that's all I can remember any of. But there was a band that used to come around, I think they were from South Carolina, somewhere in the south. They used to come to the Roxbury section in the thirties, the late thirties, I think it was an orphanage band. And Louis Armstrong mentioned that band, too. I don't know if he played with them. And one time when they came to my street, Herbie Wright was listening to them, and they all got excited and said, "Herbie's going up to get his drum!" They had a snare drum, that they could put around their neck, that you could play outside. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Like a little street second line thing. 

ROY HAYNES: Exactly. So Herbie, he was very popular, I didn't realize that he was that famous during the time. Until Ken Burns. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yeah, great. So, your brother turned you on to Jo Jones with the Basie band. Is that true? 

ROY HAYNES: He brought me, Jo Jones reminded me about this, which I had forgotten about. Jo Jones would say to me at times,"Your brother brought you to me! You little chuckle head!" That's the word that Jo Jones would use. He'd called everybody a chuckle head. He'd say, "You little chuckle head! Your brother brought you to me with your school books." It's pretty wild. But the time I really remember Jo Jones was the RKO Theater. I was still at the Roxbury Memorial High School and they were there for the week. The first day I went to the theater, I told him I was Jo Jones' son, and I got it in, and I stayed practically the whole week, just hanging out with 'em. That was before he was called "Papa Jo." So, I was ahead of my time that way. 

FRED BOUCHARD: He was your spiritual father? 

ROY HAYNES: Well, you know, they told me that I look like him, anyhow. They used to tell me that--the players that were aware of him. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Well, he certainly had the bald head for most of his career. 

ROY HAYNES: Well, no, this time he had a little hair. Back in the 40s. He had a little hair. 

FRED BOUCHARD: He definitely had a sassy attitude, and style. 

ROY HAYNES: Describe that attitude again. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Sassy. 

ROY HAYNES: Ah sassy... style of playing? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Personality and playing. Snappy hi hat work. 

ROY HAYNES: He was a great guy. 

FRED BOUCHARD: What did you learn from him? 

ROY HAYNES: What did I learn from him? I probably learned more than I could describe. You know, he was the first one, he used to play the hi-hat and turn it around. [demonstrating rhythms] So he was the first one turning the beats on the thing around -- to me. And then his approach-- he didn't play like he was rudimental. He just sounded so good. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Never louder than he needed to be but tremendous direction and impetus. 

ROY HAYNES: I had the nerve one time in New York. He was living near the Apollo Theater at a hotel at this time and somebody had taken my bass drum from me, they borrowed it supposedly, I guess they pawned it, and I didn't have it, and I am going to an Apollo. So I went down to Jo to borrow his bass drum -- I had a lot of nerve right? He let me take it, but his bass drum was open. It would ring, it wasn't muffled the way a lot of drummers muffle their drum set, and I couldn't really handle that, especially at the Apollo. It would be: boom boom boom. You'd have to know how to feather that bass drum. 

FRED BOUCHARD: In other words play it with a very light touch. 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah, except for your accents! You know, of course. 

FRED BOUCHARD: So you mean that one side of the drum was open. 

ROY HAYNES: I don't know, you know it sounded and it felt like they were both open. Nothing, you know, on the head. They used to have in those days, something you put right on the hoop of your bass drum, a muffler. And then you could tighten them. I think I had one of those, but not at that time. Instead of today, they put blankets inside the bass drums, you know. A lot of the rock drummers do all of that stuff now. That deadens the sound. It sounds to me like I'm playing a dead drum. Who wants to play with a dead drum? They get a dead sound. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Keep all those nice little edges and nuances. 

ROY HAYNES: It's the way to handle it. I may have learned some of that by playing Jo Jones' open bass drum. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Sweet. Light on the foot and light on the hands. 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yeah I remember, yeah. [laughs] 

ROY HAYNES: What did you remember? You laughed! 

FRED BOUCHARD: No, I remember there was something that you said in the Ben Ratliff interview. He said, "Swing hard?" You said, "No, I didn't swing hard I swung light, you know?" 

ROY HAYNES: [laughs] 

FRED BOUCHARD: Playing with Sarah, things like that. 

ROY HAYNES: Oh, of course! Sarah, man... I was light as can be. And slow ballads -- that was the slowest ballads I ever played was with Sarah. So I had a taste of all of that. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Let's get back to Boston for a minute. You went to the Boston Conservatory for a while? 

ROY HAYNES: Some while, that would have been 1944 [1942], I'm thinking. The year before I left. 

FRED BOUCHARD: What did Carl Ludwig teach you? 

ROY HAYNES: "Rrrump!...Rrrump!" [mimics drumming] He would say it like that. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Is that a paradiddle? 

ROY HAYNES: What does that sound like to you, Tom? 

TOM EVERETT: It sounds like a part of a five-stroke roll or some kind of a ruff. 

ROY HAYNES: A ruff! 

FRED BOUCHARD: So you picked up that? What was he like to work with? 

ROY HAYNES: Who to work with... you mean Carl? 

FRED BOUCHARD: I mean study with. 

ROY HAYNES: Well, I only studied a short while. I could read better then than I can now. That's weird, huh? I used to play with Phil Edmund. Did you ever hear of Phil Edmund? 

FRED BOUCHARD: You mentioned him yesterday at lunch. He's a trumpet player. 

ROY HAYNES: Trumpet player. 

FRED BOUCHARD: He worked on the Vineyard with him, when you got the letter from 

ROY HAYNES: Yes, I was working with him a lot. I was working at Little Dixie for quite a while. Little Dixie turned over later to Wally's. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yeah, okay. 

ROY HAYNES: I had to play for dancing girls and that whole thing in there. I mean, shake dancers. That's what was happening. So anyhow, Phil Edmund had a band, he had an alto player, himself on trumpet, I don't know if we had a trombone, piano, bass, and drums. I think there may have been another horn in there. Alto and a tenor, it was alto and a tenor. He had some very intricate arrangements. I'm surprised you never heard of him. 

FRED BOUCHARD: No, I've heard of him, I just haven't heard the music.. 

ROY HAYNES: He was from the Cape; his real name was Felix Barbosa, but he changed it to Phil Edmund. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Okay, yeah. 

ROY HAYNES: I was working with him. I was a teenager, but I was working with him. It was enjoyable, and he had very tough arrangements. Walter Cisco, I didn't see his name in that. He was an alto player, he used to sing too, a good looking guy. Phil used to sing, Phil Edmund, he was kind of a good, he was a player, he was a heavy good player. 

FRED BOUCHARD: His style was swing? 

ROY HAYNES: Swing. His arrangements reminded me of Jimmie Lunceford. Paul Gonsalves -- that's who he came to Boston with, Phil Edmund, before he played with anybody. Cause they were all from the Cape [Cod] area, you know. 

FRED BOUCHARD: So when Duke [Ellington] did one of his periodic raids, he found Gonsalves in Boston? 

ROY HAYNES: I don't know where he found him. He could have. 'Cause he was popular as hell, man. He was very popular when he came out. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Gonsalves was from down my way. He was from Pawtucket. 

ROY HAYNES: That's where he was from -- Pawtucket. But it's close, on your way to Cape Cod. In Pawtucket they have a lot of Portuguese there, and that's what he was. A Portuguese. Not, ah, what do they call a Portuguese from Cape Cod? It's different. It's not the same as being from Portugal. I forget what they are called. 

FRED BOUCHARD: A lot of 'em are Cape Verdeans. 

ROY HAYNES: Cape Verdeans, exactly. That's what Phil Edmund was, Cape Verdean. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Ah huh, he wrote all these intricate charts that sounded like Lunceford. 

ROY HAYNES: Well, it reminded me of Lunceford. They had a lot of chopped up stuff that the drummer would have to play. You know. 

FRED BOUCHARD: You had to read all this stuff. 

ROY HAYNES: Most of it was, yeah. I definitely had to count bars and, you know, follow that. 

FRED BOUCHARD: That's great skill building.... 

ROY HAYNES: I wasn't really good at that, but I was probably better then at concentrating on that stuff. I had to get my own style. Holding the drumsticks wrong and that whole thing, which has made me an individual. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Were you playing brushes back that far? 

ROY HAYNES: You had to play brushes in those days man. Brushes were popular. Today a lot of youngsters, they don't want no brushes. Well, we had a lot of people singing ballads, there was a war on during that period, a lot of love songs. So, you can't play sticks with a ballad: you can, but it's not gonna fit. 

FRED BOUCHARD: No, no. Moving along with some of the other bands that you worked with in the Boston area. I see names like Tom Brown the guitarist. 

ROY HAYNES: Tom Brown, and Hillary Rose, the pianist; we used to play together. Tom lived in my neighborhood, he used to love -- what's the guy that played with, he died in his twenties, he played with Benny Goodman? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Charlie Christian. 

ROY HAYNES: Charlie Christian; he loved Charlie Christian, had all the records. We used to play some of the same songs, and he was a talented guy. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Great sound. Was that a looser kind of gig, was it more like jamming? 

ROY HAYNES: It was more like jamming, but in those days we played standards. So, you know, you play the melody, and then you improvise, and then you go back to the melody. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Tin Pan Alley charts. Musical show charts. 

ROY HAYNES: You know what they used to have in those days? You could go to one of the music stores and buy the music. Whatever the latest song was out. 

FRED BOUCHARD: 10-cent sheet music right? 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah, you could just buy, you know 

FRED BOUCHARD: My mother used to sell that stuff at The Outlet in Providence. 

ROY HAYNES: Really? 

FRED BOUCHARD: But she couldn't play, she had to get someone to play 

ROY HAYNES: So you know about those sheets, sheet music. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yeah. 

ROY HAYNES: All the standard songs that would come out 

FRED BOUCHARD: They were popular. 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah, very popular. So, it wasn't, you know, even though you were jamming, it didn't sound like you were just jamming. It sounded like arrangements. Stock arrangements. That's what the band used to play also. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Then you take a couple of choruses on it and trade fours on it, etcetera. 

ROY HAYNES: We didn't trade fours much in those days. No. That started with the Basie Band with Lester Young. I don't know if they called it that then. Then Bird started doing that, but that, when I was here in Boston, that wasn't happening. We weren't doing that, that I can remember. 

FRED BOUCHARD: What are some of the clubs that you recall playing in when you were a teenager? 

ROY HAYNES: What were some of the clubs? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yeah. Some that you played. 

ROY HAYNES: Where I worked, or just? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yeah, where you worked or hung out. 

ROY HAYNES: Art's Grill. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Ort. 

ROY HAYNES: You ever hear of Art's Grill? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Ort. 

ROY HAYNES: Izzy Ort? You knew about it him, huh? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yeah. 

ROY HAYNES: They used to start 1 o'clock in the afternoon till 1'o clock at night. 

FRED BOUCHARD: The businessman's lunch. Businessmen's lunch kinda thing, like ah 

ROY HAYNES: Is that what it was? It wasn't called that though, was it? 

FRED BOUCHARD: No. 

ROY HAYNES: Like I said. Man all of these sailors. All of these girls would be there. If there's sailors, there's girls, and a lot of the places Downtown Boston was like that. Soldiers, too. But mainly sailors for some reason. 

FRED BOUCHARD: So you worked at Izzy Ort's? 

ROY HAYNES: I used to play there. With Tom Brown and Hilary Rose. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Cool. 

ROY HAYNES: We would be like the intermission band. They had shows, they had dancing girls, singers, that whole thing. They had an upstairs where they would have shows. Everything. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Wow. 

ROY HAYNES: Boston to me, was very exciting in those days. Had a lot going on. Downtown, the Savoy Bar. The Savoy was originally on Columbus Ave. I don't know if you were aware of that. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yeah. 

ROY HAYNES: Then it moved to Mass Ave. In the later 40s. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Was it as big as The Savoy in New York? 

ROY HAYNES: The Savoy in New York was a dance hall. These Savoys were clubs. Night clubs. So they were a bit smaller. 

FRED BOUCHARD: So they had a small dance floor and maybe a bunch of tables. 

ROY HAYNES: They didn't have dance floors at either Savoy here in Boston. Only listening. 

FRED BOUCHARD: OK. 

ROY HAYNES: Little Dixie had a dance floor, though. Yeah. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Where was that? 

ROY HAYNES: I told you, that was the place that became Wally's later. So it's on Mass Avenue near Columbus Avenue. There used to be a drug store on the corner. Teenager I was, I'd be in there all night drinking malted milks [chuckles], and the girl that used to wait on me she looked all pretty you know, and she'd always fix me a nice malted milk. I didn't drink. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Sweet. Did he have a jukebox in there? 

ROY HAYNES: In where? 

FRED BOUCHARD: In the drug store. 

ROY HAYNES: No, they had a jukebox in Wally's, Little Dixie as it was. There was a little bar on the side. And... from, four or five o'-clock in the afternoon you couldn't get in there, because they had the Duke Ellington records on the jukebox, all the greatest records. It'd be piled with the people waiting for the numbers to come out. They'd be like this. [puts hands together] 

FRED BOUCHARD: Waiting for the numbers. 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah man. That was like New York then. Even before I had been to New York, that area reminded me of what I heard about New York. Columbus and Mass Ave. It was like Harlem. 

FRED BOUCHARD: A jumping corner there. 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah. 

FRED BOUCHARD: What about Pete Brown, the alto player? Where did you work with him? 

ROY HAYNES: Ah, Savoy, when The Savoy had moved to Massachusetts Ave. That's where I played with him, every time he would come there. In fact, he was the one who wanted me to go to New York. He kept saying he was gonna get a gig in New York. Lloyd Trotman We played with Pete Brown together. In fact, Lloyd and I did a lot of gigs together. We were the same age. I noticed you had his name, Ernie, his brother the pianistand Stanley, another pianist 

FRED BOUCHARD: These are just names, some of these guys are just names to me. I mean don't have any background on them. 

ROY HAYNES: Well, let me tell you this, Ernie Trotman, I think, he had went to New York and played with somebody, he was like a big name then. I don't know who it was that he'd played with in New York. If he had went to New York during that period, he played with somebody! You know. I think he was also in a poll, I don't know if it was a Downbeat poll or something back in those days. So we looked up to him. He was a talented guy. It was three brothers and he was the oldest brother. Ray Perry: I saw his name, I saw his name. He was with Lionel Hampton. He played alto saxophone and violin. He was big-time. 

FRED BOUCHARD: That's a fascinating double. It's like Ray Nance, or something. You know, being able to play fiddle and horn. 

ROY HAYNES: Exactly, and there were three brothers there. One brother played tenor saxophone, that was Joe Perry. The other brother played drums: that was Bay Perry, B-a-y, Baysley I think his name was but they call him Bay. He may still be living upstate New York some place. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Your paths crossed with these guys? 

ROY HAYNES: Oh yeah, Bay and I we were very close. In fact, Bay was one of the guys, when I started I was this teenage guy so naturally some of the older drummers were like, "Oh, here comes this young teenage guy again." You know. You know that feeling: till then we got closer afterwards. But growing up in Boston, it was so strict, some of the guys in the band would like say to me, "A drummer is supposed to be felt and not heard." You know that's almost impossible, you know. They'd just give me a hard time. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Wow. That is a lot to ask! 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah well, I learned something from that [chuckles]. 

FRED BOUCHARD: 'Cause you, you were doing that later with Sarah, with going brushin' on all those ballads. 

ROY HAYNES: Well you still can be heard, you can be felt too. But for a while, even in New York, the writers and journalists would say, "Roy Haynes, a tasty drummer." You ever read that about me? 

FRED BOUCHARD: I sure did. 

ROY HAYNES: My wife used to get at it: "Why are they always calling you a tasty drummer?" [laughs] You know, so. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Somebody else said that: "You made the band secure, but weary!" Like you keep 'em on the edge of their seat. 

ROY HAYNES: I hadn't read that like that but it could've been true. Which band was this, any band? 

FRED BOUCHARD: I can't remember which one it was. In another place Charlie Mingus said that you "suggest the beat". 

ROY HAYNES: "Suggest the beat!", I love that! That's a heck of an expression. "Suggest the beat!" 'Cause I always play the beat. But I figure, everyone should have the beat within them. But a lot of people don't. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Um hmm. 

ROY HAYNES: When you play with someone that has the beat in them, it's easier for you. You can go where you want to go, and make statements that you want to make. But if you play someone where you gotta say -- boom boom boom -- oh, man! I don't wanna play with them. I can't express my feeling at all. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Paquito said that. I did a blindfold test with Paquito D' Rivera. 

ROY HAYNES: Oh yeah? 

FRED BOUCHARD: He said, "I hate a lot of drummers. They are always getting in your face and they mess up my nice flow of ideas." 

ROY HAYNES: I can very well understand him saying something like that. He's a busy guy. He's a busy guy. I think I played in a band with his father in Cuba. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Whoa! Tell me about that! 

ROY HAYNES: I didn't know it was his father. He told me later. I was in Cuba, with Sarah Vaughan when Batista was there. There were two clubs. The Tropicana, I forget the name of the other one. Nat King Cole was at one and we were at the other. We stayed there maybe a couple a weeks. 

FRED BOUCHARD: The Copacabana maybe? 

ROY HAYNES: It was kinda strange, 'cause we all had to stay in the hotel in one room. Not Sarah, but the trio. 

FRED BOUCHARD: What was it like playing with a Cuban combo line? 

ROY HAYNES: Well we just used them for certain numbers. You know, Sarah had the big band arrangements. So he was in that band. In that band they could play some shows. They were great musicians in Cuba. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Amazing. I was down there in the 90's on a festival thing. I saw Chucho workin' it at a school for some kids. The instruments were falling apart. These kids were playing their asses off. It was extraordinary. 

ROY HAYNES: That's something. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Anyway, maybe you could tell us a little bit about working with Well, I got a note here that said you worked at Savoy with Sidney Bechet. 

ROY HAYNES: Ah .. That was the new Savoy. Not the one on Columbus Ave. That was the one on Mass Ave. He played there a lot. In fact I met Bunk Johnson playing there with him. 

FRED BOUCHARD: He was a regular in town. 

ROY HAYNES: I'd had to play one night with Sidney. I forgot about that but I was reminded by, what is the bass player that played with Louis Armstrong late in his career? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Played with who? 

ROY HAYNES: With Louis Armstrong. The bass player. He was here in the Navy. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Arvell Shaw. 

ROY HAYNES: Arvell Shaw. He was about a year older than me. You know he was in the Navy here in Boston back in the early 40s. We were friends then. So he always reminded me about the time when we played together with Sidney Bechet. I'd forgotten about it. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Wow, man, what a great sound he had. 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah, Bunk Johnson was with him during that period. He used to come to the Savoy a lot. The one that was on Mass Ave. During those days they had what they called the Harvard Jazz Society thing, during that period. A lot of them would come to the Savoy. You'd see those girls with their bangs. Their haircuts with the bangs in the front I guess that was the look that some of the young girls had during that period. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Flapper kind of a thing. Like a flapper? 

ROY HAYNES: That style. You know, they had a bang, cut straight. Was that a Harvard thing back in the day? 

TOM EVERETT: I don't know. 

ROY HAYNES: Maybe you gotta do some research. 

FRED BOUCHARD: I always thought that was kinda sexy. 

ROY HAYNES: Well, maybe that is what I was trying to say. [Laughter] It was nice that Sidney would come, and Sidney always looked immaculate, the way he was dressed. He wouldn't say much, he would always just come in. He had the gray hair and would come in, looking like a professor, you know, walking fast. Bunk Johnson, he was looking the opposite. He was looking at the ladies. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Was this a shift in style playing with these guys? I mean this is not swing, this is maybe a little more New Orleans sound or Dixie. 

ROY HAYNES: Now, Boston had a lot of that. In fact, there was a place called the Ken Club. K-E-N. That was one of my first gigs, I was playing there with Frankie Newton. I was still a teenager. That was Warrington and Tremont St. A downstairs place. That wasn't far from the RKO Theater. I remember when Gene Krupa would come to the RKO Theater, Roy Eldridge would be with him. And after the theater he would come to the Ken Club and sit in. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Nice! 

ROY HAYNES: And he told me many years later, you know, after I had arrived in New York. He couldn't wait to come and jam with me. Isn't that something? I said, "I'm glad you didn't tell me that when I was younger." I'd be hard to get along with. You know, 'cause Gene Krupa was supposed to be the number one drummer. 

FRED BOUCHARD: That's when Krupa had the big band and Anita O'Day was singing with them. 

ROY HAYNES: Krupa had the big band, yeah, that's right. 

FRED BOUCHARD: '42-43....wow! "Let Me Off Uptown" ! 

ROY HAYNES: That's right. 

FRED BOUCHARD: That's great. 

ROY HAYNES: So a lot of those things were happening. I was becoming popular as a teenager. In fact even with Sabby Lewis: you heard of Joe Booker... Joe Booker could swing! He could swing that band! At one point they were going to New York. I don't know if they were going to battle of the bands or something, 'cause they were known as Sabby Lewis's Savoy Sultans. And in New York they had a Savoy Sultans, also. They had the Original Savoy Sultans that would play at the Savoy. So I don't know if the band was going to New York to battle that band or they were just going. So anyhowthe word that the guys would say in the band, "In order to make the band really sound good, keep Joe Booker laughing." If Joe Booker is laughing and smiling that band is gonna swing! 

FRED BOUCHARD: [LAUGHS] 

ROY HAYNES: And, so anyhow, at one point Joe, I think, had something in his arm years ago, and he had to go back to the hospital, they had to redo that thing. Sabby called me up at the last minute to play with the band, and I think that was one of the bands. A lot of the bands those days, didn't have drum parts. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Right. 

ROY HAYNES: They didn't have drum parts, and that was one of the bands. So, and I could swing. I was learning a lot from Joe. I used to listen to him a lot. 

FRED BOUCHARD: You'd go catch the gigs even if you weren't playing 'em. 

ROY HAYNES: I would listen to that band yeah, 'cause Joe, he used to knock me out. 

FRED BOUCHARD: What was he doing different, then? 

ROY HAYNES: He was swinging his butt off, that wasn't different. Some guys could really swing and some couldn't. He was one of the ones that could really swing, and I mean make the band sound good. That thing that equipoise that equal disposition Is that how you would describe it? I mean equipoise, I mean something in that. That's part of the way I play: I may go fast, I may go back to the but it is still all in the heartbeat. It's still all in the pocket so to speak. That's the way I play. So, Joe Booker, he had all of that. And he loved Jo Jones as we all did. So anyhow, I'm with this band at the Savoy filling in. And you know, I hadn't had any experience with a band of that size, really. 

FRED BOUCHARD: This is the Savoy Sultans... we're talking 12-14 pieces now? 

ROY HAYNES: No, let's see. This band had trombone, trumpet, I think the trombone player doubled on trumpet if I remember right. Two brass, or two horns and alto, tenor, bass, piano and I think this was all they had. They were a popular band. 

FRED BOUCHARD: So, nine or ten. 

ROY HAYNES: They played on the Fitz Bandwagon. 

FRED BOUCHARD: A little bigger than Barbosa's band. 

ROY HAYNES: Almost the same.. except they had a trombone. Yeah. Barbosa's band didn't have the trombone. So anyway I am getting back to Sabby now. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Please, yeah. 

ROY HAYNES: They played on Fitz Bandwagon. Which was a big thing, you know. That was a radio broadcast. 

FRED BOUCHARD: This is fixed Renatine, that stuff you put in your hair? 

ROY HAYNES: Ah I think so, that was their commercial. So that band, man, that was known as big time. Anyhow, the story I started to tell was: I had to replace Joe for that period. I didn't know that I was only playing 'til Osie Johnson came. They didn't tell me that. I thought I was gonna be there till he came back. So when Osie Johnson came, I had never met him before. You know who Osie Johnson was, yeah? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Sure, yeah. 

ROY HAYNES: He was a tall guy, and he had a big smile. He come in the door, I'm playing, you know, and you know the bandstand at the Savoy was up in the air. So you could see people as they come and go. I see this guy come in, you know, and he's lookin' and he's smiling. I say, "Who the hell is this guy?", and he was the drummer that came from New York, and he sat on the drums. Like I said that didn't have no drum parts; he was reading the trumpet parts. I said, "Oh My God!" I mean man he just jumped up there started looking at the trumpet parts, seeing what was happening and playing the licks. I had never seen that before. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Wow. 

ROY HAYNES: But they started saying, "Yeah, he's so busy tryin' to read that he's not swinging!" So Joe Booker had the swing thing, which I had a little of. So we got on that way. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Did you, ah, did you ever get to go on tour with Sabby Lewis to New York? 

ROY HAYNES: No, I only been played with them that time, maybe for a couple of weeks. I don't tour with them. 

FRED BOUCHARD: He couldn't unseat Panama Francis' band in New York right? Wasn't that Panama Francis' Savoy Sultans, the New York Band. 

ROY HAYNES: Nah, that was much later. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Oh, I'm sorry. 

ROY HAYNES: Al Cooper had the Savoy Sultans. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Who did? 

ROY HAYNES: Al Cooper. A band leader by the name of Al Cooper. Rudy Williams was the alto player. He was very popular then; you probably have never heard of him. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Who? 

ROY HAYNES: Rudy Williams. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Rings a bell. 

ROY HAYNES: The original Savoy Sultans. He was trying to play He had a style of his own, but then when Charlie Parker got popular, he tried to switch over, you know. He was a good alto player. I had a record when I was a teenager by Al Cooper. That was a good band. 

FRED BOUCHARD: You made a statement a little earlier, talking about the switches in style. You said that Boston had a lot of the traditional sounding bands. 

ROY HAYNES: Back in those days! 

FRED BOUCHARD: Back in those days. 

ROY HAYNES: The days I'm talkin' about -- that would have been late thirties going into the very early forties. 

FRED BOUCHARD: And there were a lot of people who appreciated the New Orleans traditions, some of the white guys. 

ROY HAYNES: Mostly people from Harvard and all that. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Ruby Braff, Max Kaminsky. 

ROY HAYNES: Ah, I never heard of Ruby Braff 'till later. Well, wait a minute, there was a tenor player also that used to play with Ruby Braff. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Sam Margolis. 

ROY HAYNES: Sam Margolis! Those two guys could play good together. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Uh huh, yes. But that was in the fifties after you'd already left town. 

ROY HAYNES: Ah.. I think I was familiar with Sam before the fifties. I mean, I left here in 1945. I didn't know he would be good then. Max Kaminsky, what year did he leave Boston? Or do you know? 

FRED BOUCHARD: I don't know. 

ROY HAYNES: You don't know, that's way ahead of your time. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Maybe you could talk about your transition from Boston to New York? You were working with Phil Edmund, and you managed to get the invitation to split. 

ROY HAYNES: From who? 

FRED BOUCHARD: From Luis Russell. 

ROY HAYNES: Yes. You can probably tell the story. 

FRED BOUCHARD: I can't tell it. 

ROY HAYNES: Yes, you can. [laughs] You know, I wanted during that period, 1945, that summer, I was wishing I could play with a big band. Bigger than Phil Edmund's band anyhow, and when I got this special delivery, it was sent to 509 Massachusetts Avenue. I think that was the correct number. That's where the union was. The musician's union, and they knew where I was. I also saw in those names you gave me; Clem Jackson. You know who Clem Jackson was? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Nope. 

ROY HAYNES: He was the Union delegate of 535. You know in Boston we had two Locals. You were aware of that? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yes, I was aware of that, although I don't know much about how things went. 7 for the white guys and 535 for the black guys. 

ROY HAYNES: The numbers you mean? 535 I don't remember the other number. 

FRED BOUCHARD: It was something, a low number. 

ROY HAYNES: So anyhow, 535 was a beautiful building on Mass Avenue; They had upstairs and downstairs and bands would rehearse there. A lot of the big bands when they would come in town, they would stay in that area. There was a place, a rooming house, where there was a restroom and everything, called Mother's Lunch. You ever hear of that? 

FRED BOUCHARD: No. 

ROY HAYNES: Very famous. All the bands, any time a big band was coming from somewhere, black bands I'm talking about, that's where they'd stay mostly. Mother's Lunch. You could meet the bands there because if there was somebody you wanted to see and meet - Mother's Lunch on Columbus Ave. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Was that a rooming house? 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah, and a restaurant. Mother's Lunch. Very famous, man. Duke Ellington, and all the guys, you'd wanna meet them, all the bands coming through. 

FRED BOUCHARD: There were no hotels where black musicians could stay? 

ROY HAYNES: I can't say that for sure. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Somebody mentioned The Bostonian as being one place where you could, but that was later. 

ROY HAYNES: That was later, that was, The Bostonian was. We're talking about the late thirties, early forties. That's the period when I was getting around Boston. Yeah, Boston was quiet certain neighborhoods were great. Like the street I grew up on. I brag about it a lot. It was like the U.N., the people you see and that you heard. Even a funeral, when there would be a Jewish funeral, man, they would come outside right in front of my house and they would do, sound like they were chanting and everything. Oh, man. 

FRED BOUCHARD: What street was this again? 

ROY HAYNES: Haskins Street. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Haskins Street. 

ROY HAYNES: And then we had a Catholic church up on the corner and there was a hill. And the bells would toll on the hour. So, when there was a funeral, the bells would go slower. [Mimics bells] You know, and that was intriguing, to me, to hear that, all of those things. That I witnessed as a youngster growing up. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Um, do you wanna talk about your years in New York? 

ROY HAYNES: No, not particularly. They'd been great. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Your dad played organ in the church. 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah, ah, I guess he did play the organ. I know he used to sing in the choir, and he played the organ. I mean, we grew up with the organ in the house. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Would you go to church with the family? 

ROY HAYNES: No, he did that in Barbados. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Oh, I'm sorry. 

ROY HAYNES: He didn't do that here. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Were there any communal family musical experiences when you were growing up? 

ROY HAYNES: Not really. Every now and then he would play and sing a little bit. He loved the hymns, certain hymns, and holiday time, you know around Christmas time. He knew certain ones that he really loved at Easter Time, you know. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Did Doug ever work in the Boston area, and you could go see him play? 

ROY HAYNES: Doug didn't play much professionally. He played mostly He knew all the records. He knew everything. He was the one who had all the records. Billie Holiday, and all of that stuff, so naturally, when I got a chance to play with Billie Holiday, I don't even know if he was living then. I'm trying to think. I think he had passed by that time. He was the one: he was my inspiration. I would look to him almost like a father. 'Cause he was so very hip, you know. 

FRED BOUCHARD: And he had the experience. 

ROY HAYNES: Well, he had the experience of traveling and being out in the world. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Bringing back those stories to you from working on the road and the bands 

ROY HAYNES: They would come back on a train. He worked on the railroad too after, I think, he was a roadie. They had a nickname for him. They used to call him Suzie Q. 'Cause during that period, late thirties and early forties, they had a dance they would do called the Suzie Q, and he was king for that. He could dance and do all that stuff. Yeah. 

FRED BOUCHARD: When you were a kid living in Boston, did you ever go to New York City? 

ROY HAYNES: The first moments in New York City was when my brother Vin was stationed in New Jersey. They were supposed to go to New York on a furlough. That was the first time I'd been to New York, and we missed him the first week. We went the following week on the train. My father and his wife, who, we gotta end after this, whom I just heard passed away yesterday. Which I gotta deal with 'cause my kids will be here tomorrow. So, I think that's it. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Okay, um, we'll stop it here. This was delightful. Thanks so much for giving us some insight into early Boston jazz history. We know about Alan Dawson, Tony Williams, and Terry Lynn Carrington, but we needed to go to The Man, we need to go to you to get some of that early stuff. 

ROY HAYNES: Alan was a great guy, the last time I saw Alan was at ah, not Wally's 

FRED BOUCHARD: Sandy's Jazz Revival? 

ROY HAYNES: No. Anyhow, at the club, they were supposed to have a certain bass drum for me and it wasn't there. I think right after that I left that company. I won't even call a name. We was making jumps and I switched, and I didn't have a pedal and he bought a pedal for me that knocked me out. That's the last time remember us being together. I said it on the microphone, not only was he a great drummer but he was a great person. I knew him as a kid, and when we would go to summer camp. I had this wooden snare drum. My first snare drum. And somebody sent it down the camp for me. The first one to come over and check that drum out was Alan. I didn't even know he was interested in drums at that time, and I was already making some little gigs. Now that you mentioned him, I just thought I would put that in. 

FRED BOUCHARD: We always knew him to be completely a class act. 

ROY HAYNES: He was a good guy. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Tremendous poise, pleasurability, always had a big smile. Like when you see Osie Johnson or Billy Higgins. You know just thoroughly at the top of his game. He even played great vibes. 

ROY HAYNES: Yeah. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Mr. Geniality. Total gentleman. 

ROY HAYNES: I'm glad I said it in front of him. I didn't wait to say it later. You know what I mean? I didn't wait to say it later. [blows on bottle.] 

FRED BOUCHARD: Do you have any reminiscences about Tony Williams? 

ROY HAYNES: Yes One of the first times.. I said I was finished in here.. You got me goin'. You're kinda tricky! 

FRED BOUCHARD: You blew the whistle! 

ROY HAYNES: But Tony, getting back to Tony, I can't leave him out. He listened to Haynes a lot. He didn't want people to say that. He would say it in front of Miles and certain people. A little secret to them, very slick. In fact, things... when he was still living here in Boston, before he'd come to New York. Two things he wanted to do with me and he told me: Go shopping and buy some clothes, and go to the cymbal factory. And that was before he'd come to me. Those were the two things he wanted to do with me. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Where did you get your clothes in Boston? Were you into it when you were, when you were that young? 

ROY HAYNES: I used to go to a place called Wyman & Kramer on Washington St., and somebody noticed. I was having a custom, and they say, "I have a place to bring you to." They brought me here to Cambridge to The Andover Shop where we went the other day! 

FRED BOUCHARD: Charlie Davidson! 

ROY HAYNES: And Charlie, when the article was in Esquire, they guy that wrote the article, you probably know his name. I can't think of what that is, you know his name though. He also would do notes. He did some notes for Miles Davis records, and he was a dresser, this guy. He used to go to The Andover Shop to have stuff made. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Frazier, George Frazier. 

ROY HAYNES: George Frazier, exactly! He would meet me on Broadway someplace, and if my handkerchief was down, he would adjust my handkerchief, that's how slick he was. On Broadway! 

FRED BOUCHARD: Nice. 

ROY HAYNES: That was a nice period. I used to go to New York -- different style of dressing during that time - just to take the train to New York, and buy some ties, and bring 'em back to Boston. A shirt, the type of shirt you wouldn't be able to find in Boston. That's when I was young. 

FRED BOUCHARD: What were you wearing when they shot your picture for the cover of the magazine in Paris? 

ROY HAYNES: What was I wearing? Ah, I was wearing Sarah Vaughan uniforms. 

FRED BOUCHARD: What was that? 

ROY HAYNES: Ah, a dark suit. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Oh, OK. 

ROY HAYNES: That was at a gig I think that was shot. You remember that was Jazz Hot Magazine. I still have the magazine. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Yeah, yeah, I remember the magazine. 

ROY HAYNES: Paris, man, they've always loved me! 

FRED BOUCHARD: They like elegance and class. 

ROY HAYNES: They proved it again, man, just recently. 

FRED BOUCHARD: What do you mean? 

ROY HAYNES: I just got the thing from the government, man. 

FRED BOUCHARD: The Chevalier award. 

ROY HAYNES: Now I got the commander, I had the chevalier first. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Sweet. 

ROY HAYNES: They put me right on the top. Well they did it at a museum. People were there. People that I loved. It was beautiful, and at the museum they were doing a Harlem Renaissance, so I stayed two hours checking that out. It's an exciting place. I love it, man. 

FRED BOUCHARD: Speaking of awards, Tom reminded me that twenty years ago you were on stage with the Phil Wilson Big Band and Dizzy Gillespie was playing, and you came up and did a solo at Berklee, and Terry Lynn Carrington got the first Roy Haynes award from the Boston Jazz Society. 

ROY HAYNES: Wait a minute... what's that again? 

FRED BOUCHARD: Ah, 1990. You were on stage. You came up and got a presentation at Berklee, played a drum solo, and Terry Lynn Carrington got the first Roy Haynes Scholarship to Berklee. 

ROY HAYNES: She really did? That's for sure? I didn't know that she had a Roy Haynes Scholarship! 

FRED BOUCHARD: She got a drum scholarship and you were being honored at Berklee as was Dizzy and Jazz Boston Society, and your brother, Vinny, were involved in that too. 

ROY HAYNES: I don't know if it was Terry Lynn ...are you sure she got it? I didn't know no drummers to get it, that I could think of, um. Branford [Marsalis] I think got it. I thought the first one was Branford. I could be wrong. 

FRED BOUCHARD: I'll check on it. 

ROY HAYNES: And also, Donald Harrison, and he ended up joining me for one. 

FRED BOUCHARD: You're gonna get another award tonight from the Boston Jazz Society. 

ROY HAYNES: Oh, from the Boston Jazz 

FRED BOUCHARD: Oh sorry - Jazz Boston. And ah, there's gonna be some other good things in your future. I know, anyway. Roy Haynes, thank you once again for participating and making our day, making our week here at Harvard and Berklee College of Music. 

ROY HAYNES: Thank you. I enjoyed.