American Recorder Magazine
An Interview with Jazz Recorder Player Eddie Marshall
by Frances Feldon. This interview first appeared in the January 2005 issue of American Recorder and is used with their kind permission.
Though few and far between, jazz and pop music recorder players have been an important voice in recent American music history for almost 40 years. The intention of this series is to introduce them to the wider community of recorder players who are mostly familiar with early music.
I have found that, although jazz recorder players are proponents and practitioners of a different idiom, they share the same passion for recorder and recorder playing that you and I do. They are amazing performers and deserve to be better known to the recorder-playing world. They are all interesting people as well, and I hope you enjoy getting to know them and their music, as I have.
I first became interested in jazz around the age of 13. I would listen to the all-jazz station in Los Angeles, CA, with a little earphone plugged into my transistor radio, late at night in bed when I was supposed to be asleep. At that time, I was a modern flute player in high school. We had a wonderful music program, run by a fantastic teacher and jazz musician named John Magruder, who inspired me greatly and was very definitely one of my mentors. As well as being a high school music teacher, he was a jazz sax/wind doubler (playing flutes and clarinets as well as saxophones) active in the Southern California jazz scene. He performed with notables such as Don Ellis, a great composer, bandleader and jazz innovator to whom I enjoyed listening. I also bought records by jazz flutist Hubert Laws.
I was then, and now remain primarily, a classical musician. I was amazed by fellow students' jazz compositions for our high school dance band, and was just generally wowed by the mystique and prowess of jazz musicians.
That appreciation and fervor for listening has remained with me to this day. What could be more natural than for me to seek out jazz and pop music recorder players?
Another of my mentors, LaNoue Davenport, began not as a recorder player, but as a jazz trumpeter. Alas, I never heard LaNoue play jazz recorder.
Since becoming interested in finding jazz and pop recorder players, I've discovered several in the U.S., sometimes under completely random circumstances. A percussionist from New York with whom I play a lot of music once invited me to lunch with another drummer while I was in Buffalo, NY. This drummer happened to be a well-known band leader and arranger who used to play with a 1960s folk rock group. When I asked him if he knew of any jazz or pop recorder players, he said, "As a matter of fact, I know this guy...," and turned me on to a most interesting and friendly rock recorder player, who will be the focus of the next installment in this series.
One of my students, a jazz bass player, knows a fellow in New York City with whom he has remained friends since high school. The friend is a jazz trombonist and recorder player who actually played recorder with Duke Ellington in the early 1970s, and his activities will be the focus of a further installment in the series.
Another of my students, an avid jazz listener, knew about Eddie Marshall and brought me one of his recordings. Since that time, everybody to whom I've talked who is knowledgeable about the topic of American jazz and pop recorder players has mentioned Marshall. He is known and admired by several other players, including Joel Levine and Pete Rose, who will be interviewed in yet another installment of this series.
Marshall is a drummer, recorder player, bandleader—and, as Dmitry Matheny wrote for the San Francisco Jazz Festival, "a living legend of the San Francisco jazz scene. He has a resume that reads like a modern jazz honor roll, including long-term stints with Stan Getz, Bobby Hutcherson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Bobby McFerrin, and additional collaborations with the likes of Freddie Hubbard, Jon Hendricks, Dexter Gordon, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The winner of the first annual San Francisco, CA, JAZZ Beacon Award in 2000 for his lifelong service to the Bay Area jazz community, Mr. Marshall has dazzled audiences with his own ensembles, including the seminal jazz-fusion band Fourth Way and his current group, Holy Mischief."
Derek Richardson also wrote in Down Beat: "If in the last [35] years a fan on the West Coast has missed seeing Eddie Marshall behind a set of drums, it can't be blamed on lack of opportunities. He has single-handedly done his part to keep jazz alive and swing this side of the Rockies."
Dreams That Dance: A Suite, Marshall's new composition in which he is featured on jazz recorder, had its world premiere at the November 2004 San Francisco Jazz Festival at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The composition was created with generous support from Chamber Music America's New Works Creation and Presentation Program, and funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Marshall's Holy Mischief Ensemble (Marshall on drums/recorder; Peter Barshay, bass; Leonard Thompson, piano; Anthony Blea, violin; Malecio Magdaluyo and John Santos, percussion), next presents Dreams That Dance: A Suite, at The Bach Society in El Granada, CA on January 16, 4:30 p.m. For ticket information, call 650-726-4143 or visit the The Bach Society Website.
You may listen to Marshall's accomplished jazz recorder playing on his latest CD, Holy Mischief. It may be purchased through his web site by e-mail, or by phoning 415-821-4890. Two songs on this CD feature Marshall on recorder. The first, Monsieur de Charles, was written for one of his sons, and the second, Dreams that Dance, is a title thought up by his wife Sue to describe the happy mood of the tune. He also "stole the title away" and gave it to his new work because it evokes the feeling he wants to convey.
Now, meet Eddie Marshall!
Frances Feldon: Do you know of any other jazz recorder players?
Eddie Marshall: There is a gentleman in San Francisco who plays jazz recorder named Art Maxwell, but there's not very many.
The first time I heard a recorder used in a jazz recording was Keith Jarrett in the '60s, early '70s. He's playing piano and some recorder. That was probably the only other person I'd heard playing recorder. Until about 25 years ago, I'd never even heard another person playing the recorder.
I got the recorder as a gift when I was 16. It was a tenor recorder, I'll never forget it—it was in the Montgomery Ward catalogue, I think in 1953 or something like that, and it was $35. My mom said I can have anything in the catalogue that was below $40. And I didn't have any idea; I had a little penny whistle I used to play, one of those little plastic ones.
Frances Feldon: No clothes, no shoes, nothing like that; you went for the recorder.
Eddie Marshall: No, no, no—and I'm a drummer; I've been playing drums professionally since I was 14, with various family bands.
Anyhow, I always wanted to play [the recorder]. There's something about the sound of flutes and woodwind instruments, it's just so calming to me. And when I got that tenor, I mean, it was such a large stretch, I couldn't even hardly play it. In fact, it sat around for a year before I even touched it. I just thought totally, "Oh, this is not going to work."
But then I started playing it when I moved to New York City; I was 17 or 18. I was one of these guys [laughs] that was totally dedicated to music, so I had no friends. I just worked my little day job, I got off at five and I practiced my drums, and then I practiced my recorder, in a room right off of Times Square.
But still I hadn't really heard any other recorder players, so I started to develop my own tone. I didn't know what it was supposed to sound like, anyhow, and I wanted it to sound jazzy—you know, 'cause the first things I did were to copy jazz songs that I could play. I figured out the scales and everything like that, and I got so I could play very good by ear, just copying what I heard on the records.
All the time I was also going to school in New York, and studying harmony and theory and stuff like that. I would practice the same scales that the guys do on the clarinets—you know, I'd do everything in every key. And still I hadn't really heard anybody play the recorder.
When I got married, my wife was into Baroque music. I asked her, "What kind of music do you like?" She said, "Well, I like Vivaldi." And I'd heard of Vivaldi, but not for recorders, so I said, "OK, let's get a couple of CDs," and we got one—Frans Brüggen, I even have it with me, Frans Brüggen's Italian Sonatas. Well, I was despondent for about three years [laughs]. I didn't know you could play [recorder like that].
I've always loved Mozart, and I was thinking he was like a big city writer, the Count Basie of his day. I mean his music was so lively—it 's really urban music, I feel. But this Baroque music, it's like dancing [sings rhythms]. Then you read the history of it—in fact, these people were really jamming. It was really like party music, it wasn't staid at all.
Frans Brüggen came to San Francisco, way over 15 years ago. He played at Grace Cathedral, just on soprano, he wouldn't allow any amplification. You should have heard it; it was just mind-blowing. And of course I went up and got his CDs.
And then I started going to all the Philharmonia [Baroque Orchestra] concerts with recorder—and who was there: Marion Verbruggen. And that really got me to study it. I went up to her [laughs]— I never do this, I've been in the presence of Muhammed Ali, all those [cats], everybody; I did go up to Miles Davis because I was on the same concert with him. But first of all, Marion's playin' Vivaldi and Sammartini. She's got on these leather pants, and she's got this spiked hair, and she's standing there like this [demonstrates]. She's groovin' like, "zaratatata" [sings syllables quick as machine gun fire] and she'd whup these things, "dadiddleup-dadiddleup-datakalalup" [again]. She's so rockin', I mean movin' like this— in classical music; it just blew my mind. She'd probably remember me, I was the only black person at all those concerts. I asked her, "Do you do all this [with] triple tonguing?" 'Cause I wanted to know. Her fingers move so fast!
Frances Feldon: Let's get back to you. You're also a fabulous drummer. What is it that's so special about the recorder for you, and what is it about the recorder that's distinctive from drums and serves your musical voice?
Eddie Marshall: See, I started composing music really early. I was always encouraged by my band members, whatever serious band I was in. So [playing recorder] was for writing music. I could just pick out tunes. I played piano for years before I played drums, so I had a sense of melody. My dad was a piano player.
Playing the drums was just a kid thing to do. When my dad had rehearsals and there was a drummer, I would get on the drums as soon as the guy got off—as early as 10 years old, I would do that—so by the time I was 14, I had a pretty good hang of it.
But I wasn't really serious about music; I was tired of taking piano lessons. I wanted to do something else. Drums were just a way to make a living when you're 14, other than doing my paper route! [Laughs] As soon as I started playing the drums, the paper route was over.
I really got quite good; my dad was one of these people, if you played anything, you had to take lessons. So even though I knew how to play drums, I had to take the drum lessons. There was just no way about it, which was good—because then, my last two years of high school, I had all these jobs from the union.
Oh, you had to join the union too; that was another thing my dad always stressed, join the union. And they would have these auditions for bands going out on the road with a play or something. I was only 16, but I knew how to read really well. So I would always get these jobs—in the summer, you know, these tent shows [where] I'm playing the drums in the band. Then I got really serious about it, and that's when I moved to New York.
Frances Feldon: What do you think it is about recorder that allows you to express yourself differently from drums?
Eddie Marshall: Well, first and mainly, because it's a melodic instrument; and secondly, because jazz is based on improvising. I travel a lot, so if I'm stuck in the hotel room, for instance, and I can't practice my drums—maybe I'll take a pair of sticks and practice on a pillow, or something like that. But with recorder, I can play it anywhere. I take it with me everywhere. I have two in my car, so if I'm stuck in traffic, I just play my recorder.
I like [being able to do] that, and I developed a sound [in the hotel room]. This is how I developed a sound— because, not knowing how a recorder was supposed to sound, I tried to make it sound more like a flute. In the hotel room, I'd find a corner. [Picks up recorder and plays some improvised jazz riffs.]
But the thing is, I developed this tone that's not a purely recorder tone, because there's a lot of air in my tone; it's like the "shhh"— there's that thing going. But I'll tell you one thing—Marion, if I could get that tone! Her sound is strong and clear.... [But] you can't just ask people. I would have to buy her dinner, I would have taken her to lunch, anything [laughs]. I hadn't really ever felt [so in awe of] a person before, to tell you the truth.
Frances Feldon: Here's a comment that I hope will make you feel really good: your improvisation, facility and sense of what you can do is impressively facile and complicated.
Eddie Marshall: The thing is, I've [always] played jazz music; jazz music is complicated enough anyhow. I mean, the fact that you stay with an instrument—I was always totally aware of the limitations of the recorder, or what I then thought were its "so-called" limitations. It's easy for jazz players to say, "Well, you know these instruments, they're difficult to play."
Most of the [jazz] concerts are in E major, or maybe they're in a specific scale. A pop song maybe involves two or four chords, and at least three or four scales. But that's just an excuse that we jazz musicians use for the fact that all classical players can play everything in every key. I mean, they can play their scales. That's all you really, really need, I feel.
For most jazz musicians, we study classical music so we can first learn the instrument, and then learn the scales, learn how to facilitate yourself with this instrument. What you do with that, it's a personal matter, but [that's] the least you should have...
But then pop music is another world— it's basically like folk music, like my grandfather played. My grandfather played guitar, what he called the blues, but it was primitive, primitive! But he didn't have to go to school to learn how to play! [Laughs] There were certain things you played, you know. In a way, it was sort of limited, you would think—but boy oh boy, it was the growth of great music.
Frances Feldon: I've been listening to this fellow named Terry Kirkman, who played with The Association (the rock group known for their close-harmony singing and original symphonic-like arrangements in the mid-1960s). He played recorder on some of their big hits, like Along Comes Mary—it's very folk-like, very modal, but I love it, it's fantastic.
Eddie Marshall: I suddenly got discouraged, playing in public. I play at weddings and stuff like this—a lot of people will get recorder and acoustic guitar, so I'd play a lot of standards [on recorder]. I've always known a lot of standards, age-appropriate standards [laughs]—anything by Cole Porter or Gershwin, anything by Big D [Duke Ellington], or any of the other American writers, I know. And I play a little bit and improvise on it, so basically that's the music I play [on recorder] in public.
I use the recorder mainly for composing. I can play the piano up to a point, enough to put the chords down and stuff like that, but I can't sustain a melody. I can't go: [picks up his recorder and plays lovely improvised jazz tune]. On the piano, you know, I'd go: "da-da, da-da, dada" [sings]—and then I'd make a mistake.
Making up melodies [on the recorder], it's so close to you; this recorder, the sound is so close to you.
On the piano, it's coming from somewhere else. Even on my drums, it's coming from over there somewhere. [The recorder sound] feels like it's going right through my jaw and everything, right to my ear.
That's another thing; the recorder is famous for being out of pitch. You can overblow it [easily], you have to blow it really [carefully]. I have some recorders that are really flat, and I can't adjust them.
This one is a really good one, a friend sold me this; it's a French recorder, and I got it a couple of years ago. I'm still [getting used to it]. [Plays]
This is pretty good, but some of them, you have to really concentrate to play it on pitch, especially when you start really going. [Plays fast passage.] It's really hard to get that low F. [To demonstrate, plays low F again with lots of chiff for accent; and then, beginning with a minor harmonic flourish upwards, keeps going with more fast finger work, doing a short riff that starts to go around the circle of fifths and then stops.] Everything is really difficult with this thing [laughs].
Frances Feldon: Are you thinking of any particular syllables when you're tonguing, or do you just do it?
Eddie Marshall: No, I just do it, and I do it so often— I really, really listen. [Plays slurred chromatic mordent-like passage over three turns of circle of fifth chords, then plays same passage staccato] I know I don't want that. [Demonstrates same passage legato] A lot of it's just repetition, doing it over and over.
Pullquote: This recorder, the sound is so close to you. On the piano, it's coming from somewhere else. Even on my drums, it's coming from over there somewhere.
Frances Feldon: Do you think at all vocally—like what you might do if you were scatting, but just doing that into the recorder?
Eddie Marshall: If I scat something, it's not really true pitch. I've never been able to, like, be on a bicycle ride and hum [a melody], and be able to get back home and write it down. If I just sit in a room and just practice a scale or something [riffs on scale]—I'll do all the scales in triplets maybe [same scale in triplets, leading into lovely melody]. So if I just went home, I'd say, "OK, where can that go to?" and it would involve the piano.
See, already I can hear 10,000 things going on [laughs], because then it moves to another feeling [plays more energetic, rhythmic, dotted passage] or some little figure like that. Usually that's what you do.
I have computers and everything [for writing music]. [Laughs] Sometimes if you're just sitting at the piano, and you run this chord progression—we all reinvent the wheel, let's face it. But harmony is so vast, and rhythm is so vast, you can always come up with a little rhythmic twist, or harmonic twist, or a melodic twist, and you put in the time frames. It's just a wonderful thing. It keeps you young for a long, long time [laughs].
Frances Feldon: Speaking of little twists, have you ever had any special experiences on the recorder?
Eddie Marshall: [Laughs] Always a special experience! The main special one, the first thing, is not hearing yourself. I finally think I've solved [that], not being able to hear myself— because I like to play with jazz groups, I will sit in someplace and play. [When you can't hear yourself] you tend to overblow.
It's a different thing; sometimes I think I'll know a song, it'll be a song that I've heard since I was a kid. I think I'll know it, but don't really know it. It's not like I'm playing the drums, now I'm playing the melody. I'm just so conscious of the melodies now. The worst thing that can happen is if I just blow a melody. The improvising I can do—it's probably the easiest part, just making things up.
And another thing—never play without warming up, have this thing warmed up! That's embarrassing!
Frances Feldon: Here's a question I'm dying to ask you: how do you deal with recorder and microphones?
Eddie Marshall: I did everything! Oh man, I've done everything! I even went and bought a little contact mic. First of all, I didn't want it to touch my recorder, so I had to put tape on it. It would get a sound, but it would just be too "in your face," and then you could actually hear this going [demonstrates the soft popping sound of fingers moving up and down on recorder tone holes].
I did all kinds of things. I did a job with Madeleine Eastman, she's a great jazz singer that lives around here. I played recorder. We did this Brazilian tune, and I played on it, and I figured, "OK, if I have to do it, I'm just going to do it with a regular mic." Now, with my sophisticated self— I didn't have enough money to buy a microphone like she had, it cost three or four hundred dollars—I bought this little power amplifier, and a directional mic. I stand maybe this far away from it [demonstrates]; then I have it going through my tiny little reverb [amplifier], and it sounds great, the best sound I've gotten so far.
Especially for weddings and stuff like that, it's soft. Basically, you're sort of a prisoner to your venue with the recorder. If you can get into a nice place, inside [with] a big sound—I played one time in Grace Cathedral. It was one of the first jazz festival things, Herbie Lewis, myself, a bass player who used to live here. We didn't have any amplification, and man! People were really quiet too; it was really something.
Frances Feldon: With a stationary microphone, you really are a prisoner, because you can't move around.
Eddie Marshall: You are! I know—when I'm playing a solo and I can't help but move around. So my little speaker that I have guides me in—because I just have it mainly for myself, and I can feel when [the sound's] going out.
I'll tell you one thing: being a drummer, everything's always moving around at the same time. To me, it's a great challenge just to stand there—not even tap my foot, just put all my energy into it. And it works better for me every time too.
Frances Feldon: I've tried one of those clarinet mics that you can clamp on, and it has a flexible arm. It's still not ideal.
Eddie Marshall: I just like this thing to be free. I'm sure there are microphones out there, but you're going to have to pay.
I was just thinking, the first recorder I got was called a Golson recorder from the Montgomery Ward catalogue. Twenty years ago, I put a pickup on it, [which changed its acoustics] and I lost [the low C]; it was really annoying.
Frances Feldon: Do you ever find that your instruments clog up too quickly, and what do you do?
Eddie Marshall: Oh, yeah, I always bring two or three different instruments with me. I made my own little stand. My favorite instrument is a recorder that my mother-in-law gave me 25 years ago, and she had it for a long time. It's got the most beautiful tone to it—oh, my God, but it gets wet, and I can only play, like, two songs. Then it gets so wet, it loses notes in the upper register. But boy, for those first two songs! It might be an old Hohner.
Frances Feldon: You've said the only other jazz recorder player you're aware of is Keith Jarrett.
Eddie Marshall: Do you know Art Maxwell? Art Maxwell is one of the characters on this musical scene. Art is a saxophonist, and he has a saxophone quartet that he leads, but he also plays recorder and shakuhachi. We worked together over the years. He's just a real good friend; he started being my friend because he's a bicycle repairman, too. I met him as a bicycle repairman, and then we talked about playing the recorder.
We get together sometimes and play bebop music [high-energy, fast-tempo jazz popular in the 1940s] on the recorder. [He's also an] excellent saxophone and flute player. In fact, if I get another grant— I'm doing a grant now that's going to feature some recorder music—but if I get another one, Art's going to be on it with me. He has a bass recorder. He's just a real collector and everything, and he knows how to play them and reads real well too.
Frances Feldon: At the time when we're talking, you're getting ready for your date [on November 4, 2004] at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which will feature your grant-supported composition featuring recorder in a jazz chamber music sound, during the San Francisco Jazz Festival. Tell us about that.
Eddie Marshall: I've written some music for 'cello, violin, recorder and piano. A lot of the songs I'm going to use on this concert start off with that format and then build into a quintet, and they're all original tunes. I just like that concept.
Another concept I like is something I heard on the radio, some Vivaldi with flute and recorder. And so the concert is going to have some of that.
Some of them are romantic songs, they're not bebop songs. Well, my roots are bebop—you know, I'm a jazz musician and bebop is the music that propels me; in a sense, that's my roots. There are reflections involving the family, the grandkids, just life in general, and travels.
It's going to be like a little suite in three parts. I'm looking forward to it. I keep on changing everything—I've got to stick to the score. Every time I write the parts, I have this guy doing a little bit more.
Almost all these songs, the genesis is from the recorder. In the past I would write the songs, and then sequence them [on computer]. These songs [take their] genesis from the recorder. When I start these songs, it's just a melody, and then I add all the other stuff with the sequencers. I start putting in the 'cello [sings]—"Holy smokes, that sounds pretty good." And then I put in a violin part, and it doesn't sound like a violin per se—but I've had violinists play the parts, and they know how to make it sound like a violin! [Laughs] It just really works.
I wish I had that blinding technique like Marion has; I'd write all this fusion stuff, you know! I play the melodies on the recorder. Even when I'm playing the recorder—in the past, I was writing for a jazz quintet—I have a good idea how my band is going to sound.
[Composing] was the reason for it, not to perform with recorder. But then I started getting a better sound on recorder—what I thought was a better sound—and I figured I could blend with other people. Do you compose?
Frances Feldon: No, but I've done arranging for recorder. I've recently arranged some Gershwin and Ellington tunes for recorder orchestra, and they sound great! It sounds like a little pipe organ.
Eddie Marshall: When I get through being busy, get in touch with me.
Frances Feldon: Will that ever be?
Eddie Marshall: Oh yeah, see, I'm on a big schedule now, probably until the end of the year. Then, you know, it slows down, and it's going to stay slowed down too. I really just want to do this [composing and recorder].
Frances Feldon: I'm going to ask you the [Bay Area all-jazz radio station] KCSM "desert island" question, which is: If you were stranded on a desert island, what three recordings would you choose to have with you?
Eddie Marshall: That's a hard question! There's so much music.
Well, the first thing I would have to have would be a Miles Davis CD. I like the ones with [jazz drummer] Tony Williams on Columbia Records—Gingerbread Man, they had all the ultra-post-bebop tunes.
Then I'd probably have to have some kind of Vivaldi. I would have to have that, because I'd have a recorder with me too— that would be my only instrument.
Then I'd have to have this African drumming CD that's called African Drummers from Senegal. Barunga hange is the name of the style, and, what it is, it's an African drummer who straddles three large conga-like drums, and has bells on his ankles, and he plays for the dancers. He plays all these rhythms for the dancers and the dancers improvise. It is cool!
That'd be it.
Frances Feldon: Do you think that the recorder has any special characteristics that lend it particularly well to jazz?
Eddie Marshall: It's not powerful enough to be a real effective jazz instrument—unless you amplify it.
Now I've got some great things that I've done with the recorder in my studio where I can control the dynamic levels, some funk tunes. It is a unique sound; ballads and sambas, it's really effective.
I play this real high energy music with my band, and, every once in a while, I'll get [on recorder] with the bass player and we'll play a little ballad. It really calms people down, I mean, it's really quite amazing. That's why I get a lot of these wedding gigs. They contact my agent, my wonderful wife. I set up with a guitar player or a bass player in the corner where these guests are arriving for some high-falutin' party or something, and just play. And they say, "Oh, that's so wonderful!"
It's getting so I'm thinking about quitting the drums! Truly! I mean, I'm 66; I have a bad back now; I have to start thinking [laughs]. At some point, it going to start to get really too hard to carry the drums, it really is.
Frances Feldon: That would be a shame, because you're such a great drummer.
Eddie Marshall: Well, I love it too. I have kids that play, and, you know, they can be the great drummers [next] time.
Frances Feldon: So do you think you'll switch over to recorder—of necessity?
Eddie Marshall: Oh, I'm looking forward to it! I figure, if I can spend as much time playing the recorder as I have the drums, boy, I'd really get somewhere with this thing!
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About The Author
Frances Feldon performs chamber music with Flauti Diversi, an ensemble specializing in Baroque/contemporary works, and Danza!, a Renaissance mixed consort. She teaches recorder and Baroque flute privately at her studio in Berkeley, CA, and is a regular conductor and faculty member at recorder workshops throughout North America.