Roland Kirk- jazz activism

[sgcim]

I did a gig with a tenor player who was a protege of Roland Kirk way back when, and he told me about the time they were in the audience of the Dick Cavett Show, and they refused to let the show go on unless Cavett promised to have jazz musicians featured on the show.

Cavett entered into a dialogue with Kirk, and agreed to feature some jazz people in the future.

This sax player thinks that Kirk's type of jazz activism is needed today. What sez you?

[flat5]

I heard that Cavett had security remove Kirk from the studio.

Am I wrong?

[colinmce]

iirc, Cavett talked to him as described above. I think he was removed from the Tonight Show, but I don't quite remember. I'm not seeing much info online, but this is discussed at length in Wilmer's As Serious As Your Life.

[JSngry]

I think it was Merv who kicked him out.

[paul secor]

Kirk and some others - I recall Archie Shepp - played for about three minutes on the Ed Sullivan show.

I saw it and it didn't give me the impression that it would have any influence on anything. And I don't believe that it did.

Activism comes in different forms. In that case, it had no effect, at least as far as I could tell.

[JSngry]

It was called The Jazz And People's Movement. Lee Morgan was involved too. Mingus played on the Sullivan spot as well.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Well, I've got to say, that interview with Lee Morgan was crap.

If he wanted jazz to be an elite music, he shouldn't have been arguing for it to be pushed on Merv Griffin type shows. And he should have known well that jazz WASN'T an elite music in 1972. The following artists had albums on the pop or R&B charts in 1972:

Billie Holiday

Brian Auger

Buddy Rich

Cannonball Adderley (2)

Chase

Chuck Mangione

David Newman

David T walker

Doc Severinson

Eddie Harris (2)

Esther Phillips (2)

Fred Wesley

Freddie Hubbard

Funk Inc

Gene Ammons

Grant Green

Grover Washington Jr (2)

Hank Crawford

Herbie Mann

(Jazz) Crusaders (2)

John McLaughlin (3)

Johnny 'Hammond' Smith (3)

King Curtis

Les McCann (2)

Lou Rawls (2)

Luis Gasca

Miles Davis (2)

Nancy Wilson

Nite-liters

Quincy Jones (2)

Ramsey Lewis

Sarah Vaughn

Stan Kenton

Stanley Turrentine

Weather Report

Plus, less hard core records (?) by

Bobby Short

Buddy Miles (2)

If

John Mayall (Jazz blues fusion)

Ray Charles (4)

Sergio Mendes

Tower of Power

If Morgan and the others had had any sense of how to really make an argument stick, they'd have said, 'Look, jazz is fucking popular. So you go and put jazz on, because the people out there like it.' No, I want it to be an elite music, so it'll be supported by whoever supports classical music. Well, Lee, that's what you've fucking got now, with Lincoln Centre. Are you turning in your grave?

MG

[sgcim]

Well said, Magnificent One- "be careful what you wish for..."

I have fond memories of watching Rhassan destroy a chair(!) on the WNET program "Soul" somewhere around 1970(?).

I always wondered, 'what up wit dat?'

[robertoart]

Well those shows - Cavett, Douglas etc. certainly had intellectual and creative pretensions. Especially in the Radicalized world of the late Sixties/Early Seventies. Whole shows were devoted to the most elite of public creative types. So Morgan is far from speaking bullshit. If your talking exclusively about a 'pop-comedy talk show' like Carson, MG, you might have a point.

Who's Merv anyway? Is he that bloke Kramer turned into a turkey on Seinfeld?

It would have been pretty good to have a great Network TV performance clip or ten from most of those people in your list MG.

Blue Mitchell and band on Cavett?

Didn't Blue Mitchell end up playing with John Mayall in his Fusion projects around this time?

[JSngry]

Who's Merv anyway?

Edited December 22, 2012 by JSngry

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Well those shows - Cavett, Douglas etc. certainly had intellectual and creative pretensions. Especially in the Radicalized world of the late Sixties/Early Seventies. Whole shows were devoted to the most elite of public creative types. So Morgan is far from speaking bullshit. If your talking exclusively about a 'pop-comedy talk show' like Carson, MG, you might have a point.

Who's Merv anyway? Is he that bloke Kramer turned into a turkey on Seinfeld?

It would have been pretty good to have a great Network TV performance clip or ten from most of those people in your list MG.

Blue Mitchell and band on Cavett?

Didn't Blue Mitchell end up playing with John Mayall in his Fusion projects around this time?

I don't watch US TV, so I could well be wrong, but I've always understood that the shows being talked about were the US equivalent of our British chat shows.

MG

[JSngry]

https://www.youtube.com/user/mervgriffinshow

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

lee couldnt envision in '72 that his conception of jazz as more elite skin to symphonies, etc, would backfire to lincoln center. thats not what lee meant. what lee was dreaming of never really happened, it mutated into lincoln center.

Edited December 23, 2012 by chewy

[robertoart]

lee couldnt envision in '72 that his conception of jazz as more elite skin to symphonies, etc, would backfire to lincoln center. thats not what lee meant. what lee was dreaming of never really happened, it mutated into lincoln center.

Spot on.

[flat5]

Thing is, Kirk was perfect for TV. He was visually interesting and different. Unique actually, and his music was great.

Wait...he was not middle class enough. Never mind.

[robertoart]

Well those shows - Cavett, Douglas etc. certainly had intellectual and creative pretensions. Especially in the Radicalized world of the late Sixties/Early Seventies. Whole shows were devoted to the most elite of public creative types. So Morgan is far from speaking bullshit. If your talking exclusively about a 'pop-comedy talk show' like Carson, MG, you might have a point.

Who's Merv anyway? Is he that bloke Kramer turned into a turkey on Seinfeld?

It would have been pretty good to have a great Network TV performance clip or ten from most of those people in your list MG.

Blue Mitchell and band on Cavett?

Didn't Blue Mitchell end up playing with John Mayall in his Fusion projects around this time?

I don't watch US TV, so I could well be wrong, but I've always understood that the shows being talked about were the US equivalent of our British chat shows.

MG

Even in a David Frost/Parkinson world, Jazz musicians must have felt double outsiders in a world that feited Classical music or anyone with Classical leanings (Zappa?) in hushed tones and reverence.

Cavett (I know less about Douglas, but I believe his show was coming from a similar place) devoted much time to Filmakers, Writers, The Intellectual side of Pop Music etc. It would be entirely justified of Lee Morgan, Kirk and everyone else to feel excluded and slighted in an intellectual media that was interested in and celebrated people like Cassavetes, Bogdanovich, Welles, the Ono-Lennons and Ray Charles. Or African American Boxers and Comedians (mostly).

Edited December 23, 2012 by freelancer

[robertoart]

https://www.youtube....mervgriffinshow

And look what I found!

It had to be Jim Hall.

[Teasing the Korean]

I don't watch US TV, so I could well be wrong, but I've always understood that the shows being talked about were the US equivalent of our British chat shows.

MG

Here's a quick rundown, from my perspective:

You had Dick Cavett on the one side of the spectrum and Merv on the other. Dick Cavett's show had a decidedly pseudo-intellectual air, not unlike the Playboy interviews of that period. An entire show was often devoted to one or two guests. He would have guests like Gore Vidal, William F. Buckley, etc.

On the other side of the spectrum, you had Merv, who was total schlock, but still managed to have guests such as Orson Welles, Andy Warhol and Brother Theodore.

Between the two extremes, you had Tom Snyder, Mike Douglas and Johnny Carson. Snyder tried to shoot for a Cavett-esque approach and occasionally came close to achieving it. Douglas and Carson were more toward the entertainment side of the spectrum. Douglass occasionally ventured into Cavettesque territory.

Edited December 24, 2012 by Teasing the Korean

[flat5]

Merv once had James Brown on the show and James sang 'Day By Day'. It was very good.

Merv was a smart guy but was almost all business.

[Teasing the Korean]

I should add that the nature and style of the questions had a huge effect on the tone and quality of the interviews. Merv tended to ask obvious questions that were often constructed to elicit a "yes" or "no" answer, hardly the stuff of great conversation. Dick Cavett asked very thoughtful, probing questions. Carson was a very natural conversationalist. Tom Snyder was all over the map. He could come off as unintentionally comical, but occasionally asked the right questions, as with his Lennon interview.

[JSngry]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2jGPixE1sQ