- [Announcer] This program is made possible in part by a grant from Alexander and Carole Anne Nakeff and by, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

(jazz music) - You can't tell the story of jazz in America without also telling the story of jazz from Detroit.

There are just too many musicians that have come from here that have made too big an impact.

And the list of great musicians from here just goes on and on and on all the way up to present day.

I don't think the Detroit jazz musicians have gotten their due as a group until you put all of these musicians together.

You don't really realize how profound an impact that the city has had on the course of modern and contemporary jazz.

- And if you just look at the list of artists and you're a jazz fan, it's like, wow, all these guys are from Detroit?

- I mean, you can't pick up a record that was made on the East Coast between, say, 1955 and 1970 and not run into one, two, three, sometimes four or more musicians that are from Detroit.

(jazz music) - Have a look at the records and find out that, well, Donald Byrd is from Detroit.

Oh, Tommy Flanagan, the great pianist, is from Detroit.

Oh, wow, the Jonas Brothers, Alan Jones, Hank Johnson and Thad Jones and someone like Ron Carter, who was someone who has really been a mentor to me, probably the most recorded bass player in the history of jazz is right here from Ferndale.

(camera flicks) - People don't realize the importance of Detroit jazz.

You know, of course, you got New Orleans, you got New York, but then there's Detroit, (chuckles) you know, and it's just a little different.

You know, it's a little different.

The expectation is higher.

When you say that you from Detroit, they expect you to be a bad ass.

(jazz music) - Why is it just out of all cities would have, because I mean, it's out the way.

And why is it that it became the music center.

And I was talking to some people today.

Actually, I was saying that when somebody wants to say, sit down and write to history, they will find out that this town has been doing more talent and musicians than any other city in America.

On a one-on-one basis.

- Now when you- - You got more people come out and they try to get into music entertain the feeling any place in the world.

(jazz music) - Jazz is an expression of African-American culture.

By 1950, 300,000 or so African-Americans were living in Detroit.

It's about 16% of the population.

You have to remember Detroit, you know, the 20th century in 1950, we're the fifth largest city in the country with 1.85 million people.

- Afro Americans coming from the south.

You know, they was running from field.

(laughs) Oh, this we can work the factory.

There's a death, oh, that's like heaven, you know.

And they're getting a steady paycheck and the paycheck after a while became really substantial.

So this became like one of the first middle classes.

You know, it was built from the auto industry being a had good insurance, good pensions.

They couldn't do any wrong.

(laughs) - The center of black life in Detroit in those days was Paradise Valley.

There were scores of restaurants, clubs, hotels, providing opportunities for live music and for musicians to make a living.

And, you know, musicians could work here and stay here and thrive here.

And those neighborhoods just walking down the street, you could hear blues and jazz seeping out of windows.

This sort of thick haze of blues and swing just kind of would settle on street corners.

There was classical music in the community.

Gospel music in the community.

Detroit was a center for all kinds of musical activity.

You can't underestimate the way in which this culture was saturated with music.

And jazz is an expression of all of that.

- These places were significant and that it created a space for the African American community, for musicians, for doctors, for lawyers, for families.

This was a place that was ours, something that was near and dear to the hearts of people.

It was a domain.

- The named musicians were working around here.

I'm talking about like Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and those, they would live in Detroit.

And we'll go to New York to record and then come back and work, work, work the reason.

- The Bluebird is where Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis and others would come to play in the late 1940s, and they play with the local talent who kept up with them.

In fact, inspired them.

And, you know, they brought this energy.

(jazz music) - A lot of folks, you know, actually left Detroit for New York when, you know, they destroyed basically, you know, Paradise Valley to build the freeway.

(cars engine roaring) You know, Hastings Street, you know, there are little pieces of it left, but that's it.

And so, you know, they just they they took it all away.

- When the guys from Detroit began migrating east and into the late 1950s, they immediately began working and recording with the top musicians in jazz.

I mean, Paul Chambers leaves Detroit and he's working with Dizzy Gillespie almost immediately.

And in a minute, he's working with Miles Davis in the most important jazz group of the day.

Kenny Burrell is recording immediately.

Tommy Flanagan is in New York for a month.

In early 1956, and immediately he's working and recording with Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins.

So, you know, there's this migration that happens of great Detroit jazz musicians and soon they are popping up on every recording imaginable.

- What I've found is that to have these great musicians come from our town gave us as the generation coming behind them, first of all, gave us huge goals, because what is said to us is that it's really possible that you can come from here and you can be trained in the community tradition and go out and bring this music to the world.

- That not only incubated musicians, it also created an audience, because one of the things that you'll hear from all the musicians who come from all over the country to play in Detroit is how great the audiences are here.

- Detroit has the best listening audiences and some of the most knowledgeable jazz audiences in the country.

And you talk to any touring jazz musician and they'll tell you that when you play in Detroit, you've got to really bring it because Detroiters know what they're listening to, 'cause it's been built into the culture here for so long.

- There's always been sophisticated because these people could sing out solos.

Bless their heart.

In other words, in the 50s, we played these ideas and whatnot and put on the records and they were good, come to the gigs expecting to hear those same ideas.

And they would singing them to you, people do (indistinct), And I say, yeah, you've got it.

(laughs) - And one of the first things we like to call up is a young man, I mean, a young man.

So Senate and they're taking place as well as such a young age.

But we have a young man named Rodney Whitaker in here some place I saw him earlier, Rodney?

The he is.

(audience clapping) Young basses.

(audience clapping) Young man.

- They are they're good to young musicians, they really encourage you to play.

I mean, if you did if you weren't practicing, you hadn't had your act together.

The audience would take care of you.

They tend to know what the level of good is and what the level of bad is.

And you have like a window of time to get your act together.

But then the audiences in Detroit will pull you to decide and say, "Look, will you come sit in with these cats?

"Make sure you wear a coat.

"You know, you just don't wear blue jeans on stage."

So they're kind of like when you're a young musician, they nurture you.

They you get to a certain age and you're not listening to them, and their like, "Come here let me talk to you, "Boy, didn't I tell you not to dress like you know."

And it's very parental, but it's great for me to have grown up in front of an audience like that.

That's very knowledgeable.

It made it easy to play anywhere else.

(jazz music) - Detroit has always been a weekend time.

No, no, man, this giant economy was giant, this big economy.

People would be parting, you know.

And that's where clubs will really make their money.

- To be a musician in Detroit was a viable occupation.

And if you were an African-American kid and other kinds of opportunities were denied, you have opportunities for kids to learn in school to practice after school (chuckles) and then to get work at night and to sustain themselves.

- I know my opportunity in terms of me getting a job with the symphony was not that great.

You know, I want to learn that skill, that would support me.

I wanna learn how to write a big band like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Quinceo, Dizzy Gillespie, you know, 'cause we teach in each other.

- Somebody like Barry Harris, for instance, whose talent was great enough that he could have left at any point in the 1950s and gone to New York.

He's here for so long because he's able to work and because he's here for so long, the impact is magnified because he's able to train several successive generations of students.

- Barry Harris, who is probably the greatest jazz teacher on the planet, you know, was really the one.

And everybody would go to Barry's house.

And Barry described himself to me once as he was just a skinny little kid who was always sitting at the piano.

And he mentored so many folks, John Coltrane, Miles, everybody would go to his house because he was this kid who was always sitting at the piano.

And teaching theory.

- Is like jazz, like a kind of like a small community, you know, subculture type thing.

Everybody knows the progress of the development of the young folks.

We always did this particular genre, always kept up with young people because energy always comes from young people and the ideas, although the knowledge is from the older folks.

- There's rigger and in the community, the community education school here.

The rigger is that there is expectations that you will learn the music, that you will execute.

- And you don't realize it till you go other places.

How blessed it is to be working in Detroit.

The level of musicianship is just strong here in Detroit.

I mean, not only the level of musicianship, but the knowledge of the songs.

I mean, you can call a song and everybody knows it, you know, and knows the right changes.

- There's a traditions that are very African centered, like respecting your elders.

And I think those things to me are really very precious.

And they are the things that really make the community what it is.

- You know, Barry's lessons also went beyond music.

Charles McPherson, alto saxophone player, tells a story about when Charles was 15, 16 years old, he was going over, had begun going over to Barry's house to study.

One day Barry saw that he had his report card and Barry said, "Charles, I see you have your report card.

"Can I see that?"

And Charles says, "Yeah, sure."

So he gives it to him and Barry looks at the report card, kind of furrows his brow and he looks up at Charles and he says, well, I see you've got all C's here.

And Charles sort of offhandedly says, "Well, yeah, I guess I'm just average."

And Barry really lit into him.

And he said, "Look, man, you cannot be average "and play this music.

"Your heroes Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, "Dizzy Gillespie, Felonious Monk, these are not average men.

"You've got to get it together."

And Charles says that talk really changed his life.

He shaped up, started reading, made the honor roll.

We should remember that the lessons of people like Barry Harris and teachers, music teachers sometimes go way beyond music.

- All the skills that you learn in jazz, you could run a Fortune 500 company 'cause you had to deal with so many personalities and you have to accept the independent mind and thinking and openness of other people to be able to play.

And in order to play with another person, perform with another person, you have to evaluate and negotiate all the time.

Sometimes when I'm playing with a drummer, they're not going to play in my time.

So they just kind of play.

They're the boss.

So I can fight against that.

And if I fight against that, the music doesn't sound good.

But if I agree, I have to, like, let go of my ego and agree.

And this debt negotiation happens in the first three minutes of the gig.

And so we have to at some point humble ourselves to the music.

So if the drummer is feeling better than me, I go with them.

But generally, if I'm making it feel better than them they go with me.

And so that's a negotiation that you have to do in real time.

(jazz music) I've been in meetings with people where people have their way to think about it.

And I say, what, let me hear your perspective.

And sometimes they win me over, but sometimes I'm able to sway them, what I'm thinking, because I listen to them.

And being a bass player, you're in the middle of everything.

So you have to listen.

Listening is the key to leadership because it doesn't have to be your idea.

It just has to be a good idea.

(jazz music) - For the current generation, the mentor was Marcus Belgrave.

(jazz music) - You couldn't come through the (indistinct) without Marcus Belgrave having some influence.

I mean, we figured at one point that Marcus probably touched five generations of musicians.

He's not from here.

He was touring with Ray Charles.

- He heard that there was a guy in Detroit that could run circles around any trumpet players Thad Jones, so he came here to find out who that was.

And ended up being Motown, you know, trumpeter.

He could make in one recording session working for Motown what he made with Ray for a whole week.

His philosophy was that the solo is not as important as the ensemble.

You know, it was about how you can make everyone sound good.

When he got on stage, all of a sudden everybody played as an ensemble.

You know, the horns were together.

Everybody was just connected.

- People like Wendell Harrison, Marcus Belgrave and Harold McKinney, who were my mentors when I was coming up.

They were teaching young people that, you know, the age of 13 and 14 how to play jazz.

And so that was that was really where I started learning.

Marcus was the kind of person that would always make you work a little higher than where you were.

And that's really one of the important things that someone does when you teach someone, you have to teach them a little higher than they are.

So we were always striving to work up to the material that he was giving us.

You know, always striving to get to that point where we could master that.

Then as soon as we thought we pretty much had that mastered he would throw something else us that was even harder.

- The lesson with Marcus wasn't a one-hour lesson.

It was about eight hours.

And that lesson consisted of hanging out with him.

Having him dropped little bits of knowledge on you while you were eating, while you were doing this, while you were running around.

So it's not just, the sit down and play and teach, you know, it's what you learn from being around the masters.

I couldn't go anywhere without somebody coming up to me and saying, you know, "Marcus gave me my first gig."

You know, "Marcus introduced me to da, da, da, da, da."

Marcus did this, you know, and people want to share that love.

You know, I think the legacy is a legacy of love, you know.

And that's what's trickling down.

I like to tell his story.

(jazz music) - I think in Detroit, education is important.

I had a neighbor who saw me carrying a bass home from school and gave me two records.

He gave me Miles Davis "Seven Steps to Heaven" where Ron Carter on bass.

And he gave me John Coltrane, "Soul Train".

And with Paul Chambers playing bass.

And I sat up all night listening to those two records.

And he told me both of these guys went to Cass Tech.

You know, maybe one day you can go to Cass Tech.

And it excited me.

And I realized that being a jazz bass player that evening, I would be a part of a legacy.

- In the first half of the 20th century, Detroit had the most incredible music programs in public schools.

The public schools in Detroit were integrated by law.

And so even though that there were housing discrimination and other kinds of factors that were pushing toward segregation, the fact that the schools here were integrated meant that African-American kids got opportunities at some of the best schools, including Cass Tech, which was Arts Magnet School and so many great musicians.

- High school was like college back in those days in the 50s and 60s, you know, with the level of education degree was up.

(jazz music) - [Man] These great music education programs trained all these kids to play their instruments in the European classical tradition, and they learn really, they learn theory.

They learn how to play their instruments at a really high level.

- You know, you got to study the classics because these are European instruments that we play.

As new European methodology, (chuckles) till we get it, that makes us play these estimates.

You know me.

So we've got to play these instruments.

Figure out what makes them tick, (laughs) how to get the good side out it and how to make them speak.

(jazz music) Now I have to get the instruments.

The more you learn the facilities, obviously, the more you can do a jazz, because when you go to jazz, you don't wanna think about instruments involved, it's all about ideas.

You know, the thing about playing is, you know, when I play idea did not think about the saxophone.

I'm thinking, well, a note these notes and I'm thinking about reflections in a sound that create emotions and spirit and ignite dreams and stuff.

I don't have time to think about the instrument, boy, (chuckles) you know.

That's like my hand or arm, or foot or toe.

The instrument comes to the anatomy and pass through you.

So that's how I came up.

(chuckles) - [Marion] When I was an elementary school, Detroit Public Schools had a very, really rich and full music program, instrumental music program.

And they like they let us take whatever instruments we wanted.

- Growing up in Detroit public schools, I was always pretty good in school, a good student.

And I was always encouraged, like, you should be a lawyer.

You should be a doctor.

You should do that kind of thing.

But really, I wanted to be Paul Chambers.

And the thing that made me interested in school was jazz.

- The experience of the Detroit public schools is that look, if you invest in public school music education, you can change the world.

And we know that because that's what we did here in Detroit and that's what happened.

(jazz music) - They're the best high school band in this area, and they deserve an opportunity to go out and show people that Detroit turns out other things besides cars.

- [Woman] Barry.

- Yeah, we are (indistinct) time.

(chuckles) - [Lady] We are on our way now to Montreux in Switzerland.

It's going to be about a seven-hour drive.

We should be arriving about 4:00 o'clock this afternoon.

- [Man] When you feel that you're representing the United States, not just a little student from Northwestern High School in Detroit, but bringing a cultural art form that people have created to another people in another situation.

The exchange there was tremendous.

(crowd clapping) - [Man] Ladies and gentlemen, we are the Northwestern High School Jazz Ensemble in Detroit, Michigan.

(crowd clapping) (lady screams) (jazz music) - [Man] You have to remember when you come from a predominantly black society here in our own home, in our own neighborhood and community, and you get a chance to go over and find out what it's like to be in a cosmopolitan atmosphere.

That's an education within itself.

- None of the kids I had before who were just overwhelmed by the performances of the other students, they couldn't believe, first of all, they thought it was a college group.

They didn't know I was a high school group.

And then they thought it was a private school type thing.

That brought them out of public school 'cause their concept of the public school was not the same as ours here.

And when we explained to them what our position was and where the kids came from and that kind of situation we were in here in United States, they were flabbergasted.

But they took the kids to heart.

(jazz music) (audience cheering and clapping) - I wanna tell you how much we appreciate you visiting us down in Eastern France.

- It's the second time you're in Strasbourg.

- Yes.

- And we'd like it to make it so time and because we're very proud of having you from Detroit, Michigan, coming all the way down to Strasbourg, showing the real American music to the French people.

And I think jazz is the only real American music.

And we really appreciate it and hope you come back, because we always enjoy your tour.

- Thank you, we're looking forward to coming back.

- The Detroit public schools continue to have a pretty high level of music education for much longer than people think.

It really continues all the way up until the early 2000s, even though it begun to fray in the 1970s, 80s and 90s as funding decrease in the city fell on hard times.

Still, there were centers of musical excellence in many schools, not all of them, as there used to be.

And that sustained itself all the way up to the early 2000s, at which point the Detroit schools got put under State Emergency Management and all arts program was was cut.

- Like all the music programs.

It's almost 20 years, you know.

- It is sad that the arts and music programs are being cut in public schools because, again, that was the original root of what made Detroit so great.

- Because I have very little interest in school before I started playing jazz.

Jazz sort of like is my pathway to literacy.

It is my everything.

- And even though we've had some years of economic suffering here in the city, that things that are really most important about the city have never really gone away.

Two, one, two, three.

(jazz music) (shouts) (indistinct) That really has to do with the people and the traditions of the folks.

The culture, or the great cultural traditions we have here.

Those things didn't go away just because the city lacked investment.

And so those are the things that I find extremely enriching about living here.

(gentle music) - [Man] It was always been up to us.

It's always been up to us.

I've always thought the real education came from after my jazz education, came from the jazz musician that was performing it every week.

You know, making a living at it.

- [Man] If you're a jazz musician from Detroit, you mentor the next generation.

That's your responsibility.

And the people here take that seriously.

- We was taught you couldn't actually learn the stuff unless you teach it.

You know, that's like a tradition that we had as jazz musicians.

- This adventure's generations deep.

Come back, new crop, excellent rhythm sections, piano, bass, drums, we got horn players.

We have a deep bench that keeps coming up every year because of this interconnectedness.

Because people have a personal connection.

I think it trims the whole thing up.

- [Woman] You're only as strong as your family of musicians that are around you.

- The main thing is if you play, you don't have to.

If you play, if you practice and practice and practice, and you get the passion for your ideas and stuff like that, that's gonna take you.

We just love to play.

We weren't thinking about getting into the business for money.

We just wanted to do this art form.

You know, so that's one reason why, if we was talking about the money the music would be different, we wouldn't have our identity.

They called us like mad music scientist, who was always studying and trying to figure out, who's always chasing notes.

- I think is the most special thing to be a musician from Detroit.

But to be a jazz musician from Detroit is a whole nother level.

And internationally, people see you, they see you.

I'm known as the guy from Detroit.

- There's this continuum relationships and the wellspring of great inspiration that you can continue to have to dig down into Detroit.

There's just endless possibilities of inspiration for music and arts.

- Yes.

(laughs) Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

- [Marion] Yeah, (indistinct) going on.

- Okay.

- So.

- [Man] One, two, one two three.

(jazz music) - [Announcer] This program is made possible in part by a grant from Alexander and Carole Anne Nakeff and by, and viewers like you.

Thank you.