Q&A: Berkeley Breathed (pt. 2)

Here’s the rest of my 1982 interview with cartoonist Berke Breathed. Mark your calendars: Volume One of the complete “Bloom County” collection is due out in October.

DAVID MILLS: You do some political suff in “Bloom County,” like on James Watt or the nuclear issue, but you don’t do a whole lot about President Reagan directly. How come?

BERKELY BREATHED: There’s more to the world than politics. And there’s so much political commentary in the world right now – and in this country right now – it’s almost overwhelming.

It’s almost an easy shot. So I don’t find political figures as such good material for “Bloom County.” ... I mean, everyone’s screaming about Reagan right now. It’s not going to help if I do too.

MILLS: There’s nothing about drugs in “Bloom County.” Is that a topic you won’t write about?

BREATHED: For two reasons, I would really shy away from having any commentary on drugs. One is that it’s an old subject.

Drugs are not a social happening any more, basically. Whatever they are, they’re not intertwined with any social upheaval like they were in the ’60s. It was almost a social statement to be taking drugs, so it was almost worthy to talk about.

But Christ, nowadays all you hear about them is people dying from them. So the only thing I would say about drugs is that they’re basically pretty much out of vogue and I see little merit in them.

If I’m going to be doing a strip where it can be influencing people, I think it’s not wise nowadays to have any characters taking drugs, even if you’re making a negative comment on them. ...

It’s just not an issue any more.

MILLS: What has been the most controversial topic you’ve dealt with?

BREATHED: No doubt about it: Prince Charles and Lady Di. It’s definitely an untouchable subject as far as a great many people in the world think – like with the pope – for some reason.

I find that funny by itself, that basically these two people in the world who have absolutely no responsibilities are considered above almost everything, including any satirical comment.

MILLS: If anything, you’ll go down in comics history for having presented the first handicapped regular character, Cutter John.

BREATHED: I’m getting a Disability Awareness Award from the Paralyzed Veterans of America in Oklahoma City for that character, so I’m very proud of him.

MILLS: What made you think to have a character in a wheelchair?

BREATHED: No big deal. Being someone who appreciates good characters, in a novel or a comic strip or whatever, it just seemed like an interesting thing to explore – someone’s perspective from a wheelchair.

But I have no great claims to any humanitarian reasons for doing it. It just seemed a good idea to present a disabled person as somebody that could function independent of his disability, without making a major statement on his disability every time he appeared, such as most TV shows seem to do.

MILLS: How do the animals fit in? I mean, some days the strip is very realistic...

BREATHED: Sure, and then you see a bear and a rabbit sitting there talking to everybody. That just reflects my attraction to a little bit of fantasy. A strip can get too dry if it’s reflecting real life too much.

I think it makes it a little more interesting to throw in something that just absolutely shouldn’t be there in realistic terms. Otherwise, why do a comic strip? Why not throw in a talking penguin, for Christ’s sake?

MILLS: Why is it that, after “Doonesbury” broke the mold, there haven’t been other strips like “Bloom County,” with a very contemporary sense of humor?

BREATHED: I haven’t the slightest idea. As I said, I think the people with more to offer than others head elsewhere. And certainly I would too if I had a chance.

Comics are obviously not my first love, and there are other things to do. But I don’t know.

I think if more people realized how much freedom they had on the comics page and the magnitude of its potential and communicative powers, there might be more of a draw to talented people.

What has been done in the last 10 years except “Garfield” that’s gotten any attention at all? And 10 years is a long time for there to be a drought in any artistic area. ...

If the artist had more control, I think you’d find better quality on the comics page. But the syndicates keep the artist as pretty much employees, and they mold their product, just to be able to sell easily and not to upset anybody and to keep the money rolling in. So you find little experimentation.

Although I must admit that, now that I’m looking, I’m seeing a lot more avant-garde humor on the comic page, especially in one-panel strips. Like “The Far Side” and “Guindon.” That’s good to see.

My God, the stuff that’s usually been in those one-panel strips for 50 years has been pretty bad. I mean, “Dennis the Menace” is fine, but it’s time to move on.

MILLS: How much of your time does it take to do “Bloom County”?

BREATHED: I work about five days out of the month.

MILLS: What do you do with the rest of your time?

BREATHED: Work on other projects. Compose music, all sorts of things. Travel.

MILLS: Do you write?

BREATHED: I would like to think that I will in the future. But not at the moment.

MILLS: How long do you plan to keep the strip going?

BREATHED: I won’t say. But I would make this comment: A wise comic-strip artist should realize that there is a life span to a comic strip, and it’s not meant to be immortal.

The reason some strips have died such inglorious deaths in the past, such as “Li’l Abner” and “Pogo” – almost embarrassing demises – is because somebody thought it would be worthwhile to carry on either after the death of the original artist, or after the strip had just fulfilled its potential. To squeeze as much money out of it as possible....

I realize that it’s tough for an artist, after developing a strip for five or 10 years, to decide to cut it. But I think a comparison can be made to good television shows.

If you notice, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” got out of it before it started decaying. They’re taking “M*A*S*H” off the air. It’s still a big hit, but they realize they can’t continue it.

There’s going to be so much you can do. And when you go beyond that invisible line, you start getting old, stale, out of date. ...

I mean, look what Al Capp did. He continued his strip for so long, he continued his ways of thinking right into the middle of the liberal ’60s, and it killed him – almost literally and figuratively.

He should have cut the strip off at its peak, or right after he detected its decline.

MILLS: When you’re through with “Bloom County,” what area do you want to get into?

BREATHED: Oh, I’ve got some ideas, but I wouldn’t say. All I would say is that I admire film and television a great deal. ...

I mean, for me to create a batch of characters and let people get to know them, it takes at least a year, unless I’ve got extremely simple strips.

But I’ve got 25 characters, and to get their story across to anybody, it takes drawing strips every day for an entire year, while I could do it in two hours in a movie.

It’s an extremely slow medium, frustratingly slow, and something that would probably keep me from staying in it for too long.

Q&A: Berkeley Breathed (pt. 1)

If we were to carve a Mount Rushmore in honor of cartoonists who brought hipness to the funny pages... there’d be no debate about which four.

Garry Trudeau. Berke Breathed. Bill Watterson. Aaron McGruder.

Trudeau revolutionized comic strips during the 1970s with “Doonesbury.” The ’90s belonged to Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes.” In this decade, McGruder’s “Boondocks” was the bomb.

But do you remember “Bloom County”? That one was blazing hot in the ’80s.

Berkeley Breathed ended “Bloom County” in 1989. But a Sunday spin-off strip, “Opus,” ran from 2003 to 2008. (And there was “Outland” in between.)

Nowadays, Breathed creates children’s books and is trying to get something cooking in the movie business. But I look around the internets and see that plenty of folks are still feeling “Bloom County.”

Matter fact, the entire run of “Bloom County” is being republished in book form, starting in October.

Breathed is often described as a “reclusive” guy who rarely gives interviews. Well... I interviewed him by phone in 1982, when I was in college. (I briefly published a campus magazine called This Magazine).

I’m posting an edited transcript, for the benefit of all Berke Breathed fans online. Part 1 covers his general view of the daily funnies; Part 2 will focus more on “Bloom County.”

At the time we talked, Breathed was 25 years old... just three years out of the University of Texas, where he’d created a comic strip called “The Academia Waltz.”

DAVID MILLS: Back in college, what did you figure you’d be doing now, three years after graduation?

BERKELEY BREATHED: Probably up in the Tibetan mountains taking pictures for National Geographic.

MILLS: Do you have any formal training in drawing?

BREATHED: I don’t have any art background. I’ve always just drawn for fun. And in college, it became a tool for this.

I’m more of a writer than an artist. I mean, there’s not that much art involved in drawing a comic strip, especially nowadays.

MILLS: Yeah?

BREATHED: Well, look at them. They’re drawn terribly.

That’s the only criticism I would have of comic strips nowadays. I wouldn’t say anything other than the fact that since the days of “Li’l Abner” and “Pogo” and such, the artistry in comic strips has declined rather depressingly.

MILLS: Do you think the comics pages are now more of a forum for writing, then?

BREATHED: To tell you the truth, there’s not that much about the comics page even worth talking about. I don’t read it. I never have.

MILLS: Even now you don’t read the funnies?

BREATHED: There’s nothing to read. What am I going to read? “Blondie”? You know? This stuff is 50 years old.

MILLS: When “Bloom County” first started, people noticed a striking similarity in style with “Doonesbury.” Was “Doonesbury” an influence?

BREATHED: Sure. Obviously it was. I probably wouldn’t have gotten the idea not to use those ridiculous word balloons without seeing that he didn’t have to.

In college I was exposed to “Doonesbury” because it was on the editorial page every day. But before then, anything close to comics that I really read were Feiffer and underground comics, and they had an influence on me as well.

Some people might think that “Doonesbury” is the only strip that’s influenced me. But I would say that editorial cartoons have influenced me more than anything else, at least in drawing style.

MILLS: You mention “Doonesbury” being on the editorial page. Don’t a few papers also run “Bloom County” on the editorial page?

BREATHED: Where have you seen that?

MILLS: I don’t remember exactly which paper, but I have seen “Bloom County” on the editorial page.

BREATHED: That’s too bad. That’s a real drag.

MILLS: This is news to you?

BREATHED: Well, I know that it happens sometimes. I never see the newspapers that I’m printed in.

It is too bad. It’s just a chickening out of the paper. For some reason, there’s this unwritten rule that you can’t say anything relevant or intelligent on the comics page or it upsets everybody. So they feel it’s safe to put it on the editorial page.

Well, that’s silly because the most famous and the most classic of all strips through the history of comics have always been socially commentative and politically reflective. They were just doing it in a little more subtle manner.

I think the papers are just being weenies about the whole thing.

MILLS: Is it true that papers won’t let you write about a couple living together outside of marriage?

BREATHED: That’s just more my syndicate. The comic strips are kind of new to my syndicate. They normally syndicate writers.

And sometimes they don’t agree with me as to what is perfectly permissible with most of the editors out there. And we’ve had some conflicts before, but we basically don’t anymore.

In the beginning, I couldn’t put the term “living together” in the strip, which we had problems over. But I don’t think that would happen now.

MILLS: Are there some topics that you yourself would not write about, even if you had free rein?

BREATHED: The only thing I’m not doing that I could if I was still in college doing cartoons – if this doesn’t sound frivolous – there would be more indirect sexual content. But nothing that could be construed as dirty.

Just the fact that I’m supposed to ignore that people have romantic relationships in this world is a little bit silly for the comics page.

But that’s the way it is, and I’ve accepted that. And I knew about it going into the business.

Basically, I can pretty much do what I want. Other people throughout comic history have paved the way for this kind of material. It would be a lot tougher if they hadn’t been there first.

MILLS: Let’s get back to the comics page. What do you think the daily comics should be?

BREATHED: ... I would expect to see more raw talent on the page. It doesn’t seem to be an area that people who have a great deal to offer – literarily or artistically – head to. I think they go in other directions.

Besides the quality stuff that is there – obviously there are some good cartoons – on the whole you’ve got a lot of cartoons left over from 50 years ago that syndicates are still trying to pump life into.

A lot of the new people coming up have no reason – artistically and in other ways – no reason to be there. They should be doing other things.

It’s not that hard to have a hit strip. All you have to do is come up with the right formula and one or two characters that are easily identifiable to a specific and esoteric group in society, and you can develop quite a following without even having to be very funny.

I guess you can tell I don’t have a great deal of respect for the comic strip as it exists now.... The comic pages have just not ever demanded a great deal of excellence.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Q&A: Johnny Griffin

Tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin is one of the last living pioneers of bebop. Bay Area jazz writer Andrew Gilbert interviewed him by phone in 1999. Mr. Griffin spoke from his home in the French countryside.

I am pleased to present their conversation here.

Griffin has recorded with Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Chet Baker and Wes Montgomery, to name just a few. To understand how he earned a rep as “the world’s fastest saxophonist,” put your ear to “It’s All Right With Me” from his 1956 Blue Note album, “Introducing Johnny Griffin.” I’m streaming that track on my Vox audio stash. Click here to listen.

ANDREW GILBERT: You went from playing in Capt. Walter Dyett’s DuSable High School big band in Chicago to sitting in Lionel Hampton’s saxophone section next to Arnett Cobb. That’s pretty heady stuff for a 17-year-old.

JOHNNY GRIFFIN: You have to remember, our school would always be up amongst the leaders in the school contests in the state of Illinois. And this is playing classical music, mostly little black kids.

I’m just showing you Capt. Dyett would take these kids off the street and take care of business. He didn’t want you to waste his time. If you were a drag, he would mince no words, going through some terrible language, and he might throw his baton at your head.

But his courses were fantastic. He transcribed arrangements from Ellington and Lunceford or whoever. He was a father-like figure to us. Very stern, no nonsense, a real disciplinarian, but fair. The man was fair.

GILBERT: When Hamp recruited you for the band, you were playing alto. How did you end up on tenor?

GRIFFIN: Well, I graduated from school on Thursday, and on Sunday I was at the theater on the stage jamming with Arnett Cobb. I joined the band and the next week, when I was walking on the stage in Toledo, Ohio, I still had my alto. And the late Gladys Hampton said, “Junior, where’s your tenor saxophone? You’re playing tenor in this band.”

That’s what I wanted to play anyway, so I had to go back to Chicago to find a tenor, and I did, an old Conn, and I rejoined the band two days later.

GILBERT: Did you try to establish a reputation as the fastest tenor?

GRIFFIN: No, I think that started with a journalist. I remember I read one of those first articles, calling me the fastest tenor in the west. See, we would have these jam sessions all the time, and I think it was mainly the nervous energy I had.

I still like to play fast, but I like to play ballads too. And nobody’s interested in me playing ballads. But it doesn’t bother me one way or another. The main thing for me is the music itself and the musicians I’m playing with. And the acceptance of the public at large.

GILBERT: Your most famous stint with Monk was at the Five Spot in 1958 when you replaced Coltrane in his quartet. But you had been friends for years before. When did you first meet?

GRIFFIN: I met Monk in 1948, through Elmo Hope and Bud Powell. Those three pianists were like my higher education.

Joe Morris and I needed a pianist for our band, and Bennie Harris, the trumpeter, said he knew this little cat up in the Bronx, Elmo Hope. With Elmo you automatically gained Bud and Thelonious, because they were like the three musketeers. They adopted me and really threw me into the New York jazz society.

Monk and I met up later when I got out of the military and was back in Chicago in 1955. Wilbur Ware called me up and said Monk was at the Beehive and needed a sax player. I didn’t even know he was in town. I went over there and played with him for a week and it was like old times.

GILBERT: The documentary “Straight No Chaser” portrayed Monk as withdrawn and distant, sort of the archetypical weird genius. Does that jibe with the person you knew?

GRIFFIN: My relationship with Thelonious was one of having fun. We’d hang out, go to Art Blakey’s house after the gig and sit up and argue all night about anything.

Thelonious was himself 100 percent, and I loved him. I loved his music, I loved playing with him and I loved his sense of humor. People always look at Monk, saying he was so weird. That’s bullshit. If Monk didn’t know you, he always had that look, like a black king. Like Jomo Kenyatta. But under that demeanor was a comedian.

He wouldn’t have long conversations. While a musician was running off his mouth, blah blah blah, Monk would wait for everything to get quiet, and he would say two or three words and destroy everything that had happened conversationally. Just shoot it down and walk away.

And everybody’d be looking at his back as he walked away – “What was that?”

GILBERT: Your sessions with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis are some of the great tenor duels on record. What made your partnership with Jaws so effective?

GRIFFIN: He had a completely different way of playing than I did. I was amazed at what he could do. He was doing things I would never have thought of trying because he played so unorthodox that he made it his own.

At certain times we were supposed to be having these battles, but it could never be like a cutting contest, like I would have with Sonny Stitt or Wardell [Gray], because we played so differently.

GILBERT: After years of living in Paris, was it hard getting used to the chateau lifestyle out in the country?

GRIFFIN: When I left Paris in 1973, I went to a little village outside Rotterdam, and that kind of got me into the country. I liked getting out of hotel rooms and apartments.

Then when I moved back to France I had some French friends who lived over in the southwest above Bordeaux. I liked it out here with the farmers and the space. Good wine and good food, and it’s peaceful. ...

When I got to Europe, the treatment that I received was so fresh. They gave us the same respect classical musicians have in America. The Europeans have studied your life. They can tell you where you went to school, who you played with. The Japanese too.

Americans take jazz for granted. I mean, when you say “jazz” to the average American, they think you’re talking about the Utah basketball team, or some house of prostitution in New Orleans. They never really see it as an art form, not the majority.

So when I came here, I got addicted to the feel. And here I am in the middle of France, still addicted.

A conversation with Cornel West, 1993 (pt. 2)

[What follows is drawn from an article I wrote for the Washington Post in 1993.]

Cornel West was raised in a segregated, working-class neighborhood of Sacramento, Calif., the son of a schoolteacher and a civil servant. “All-black world,” he recalls. “Black music, black love, black care, black joy. It was a wonderful world, actually. Indescribable world.”

His grandfather had been a Baptist minister for 40 years in Oklahoma, so the black church was “fundamental” to his growing up. “I loved to go to church, man.” West’s brown eyes brighten as his syntax relaxes.

“One, you had the best music in the world. Sly Stone used to play the organ for us,” he says, “so we had some serious music, man. He didn’t stay a long time, he went to San Francisco right away. But he used to be there.”

And there was Sunday school, where “we’d have serious discussions.... Why is there so much suffering in the world? How come black people catchin’ so much hell?”

It just so happened that the Sacramento branch of the Black Panther Party was headquartered next to his church. So Cornel and his older brother, Clifton, on Saturdays after usher practice and also on Sundays, would engage the Panthers in debate on the street.

“They were the ones who started raising [the issue of] the distribution of wealth when I was 13,” West says. “I’ve been asking the same question ever since. See, I learned it from Huey, and Bobby.”

West admired the Panthers greatly. “Any time you get young black people who are willing to die for a freedom struggle, you’ve got something serious.” But he never felt he could join them because “they had such a hostility toward religion,” he says.

“They used to have the ‘handkerchief-head nigger of the week,’ and it was always a preacher.

“I could resonate with that because I knew a lot of preachers were, in fact, not doing the right thing – not treating people right, taking money and so forth. But I knew there was a whole host of preachers who were loving the people, struggling with the people.

“So we used to fight over this,” he says. The Panthers “were gettin’ with what Marx said about religion. I said, ‘Marx can kiss my black behind! I know the Lord.’ You know?” West flashes a huge, gap-toothed smile.

“It was ironic. One thing I liked about the Panthers was, they appreciated black music. Which is something that I think the Nation of Islam is deeply in need of. You can’t have no movement among black people without a hymnal or some music, see. And the Panthers liked music.

“And I would tell ’em, ‘Look, you’re sitting up here listening to Aretha, and it ain’t no ’Retha without the church! She’s the Queen of Soul because she’s rooted in a tradition where folk learn how to moan and groan and sing at levels of artistic craftsmanship that’s damn near unprecedented in the modern world!’

“And they would say, ‘Well, that’s an interesting way of putting it, Brother West.’ I’d say, ‘Put the record back on, shoooot...’ ” He laughs, bringing a pencil-thin cigar to his lips.

The peculiar synthesis of church kid and revolutionary persisted within West – a “creative tension,” he likes to say – throughout his undergraduate years at Harvard, which he attended on a partial academic scholarship.

While studying philosophy, literature and Near Eastern languages (so as to examine the origins of Christianity), he helped run the Black Panthers’ local prison outreach and breakfast programs.

Today, West remains an activist as well as a thinker. “I spend most of my time with multiracial progressive groups,” he says, such as those affiliated with the Long Island, N.Y.-based Industrial Areas Foundation, founded in 1940 by Saul Alinsky.

Cornel West also lives two months out of each year in Africa. In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, specifically. His wife, Elleni Gebre Amlak, whom he met while teaching at Yale, happens to come from a prominent Ethiopian family.

West says 2,500 people attended their wedding in Addis Ababa. For the Coptic ceremony, West was given an honorary Amharic name: Ficre Selassie, “Spirit of Love.”

“The link between people of African descent here and Ethiopians in my case, but Africans in general, is very important to me,” he says. “For me, it is very different than the imaginary notions of Africa that you often get among Afrocentric folks. Because many – not all, but many – have much more romantic, idealized conceptions of Africa.

“Whereas when I go back home – my second home in Addis Ababa – you’re dealing with just actual human beings. Who do have a rich culture, who do have a grand civilization, but also are involved in tremendous struggles. Against tyrants, against corrupt leadership, against soil erosion, against the [International Monetary Fund] and the World Bank and a whole host of other forces that impinge upon the life chances of African brothers and sisters on the continent.”

What Prof. West has seen in Ethiopia seems to confirm his analysis of race in America. There, “you have a people never been colonized by Europeans,” he says. “Which means they’ve never had white-supremacist tricks played on their minds. Which means that they’ve never doubted their humanity.

“Which means they’re tremendously self-confident. They just assume that they’re not just human but they’re great, they’re capable of anything.

“For we Africans who have had white-supremacist tricks played on our minds, we got to deal with self-love and self-respect and self-affirmation,” West says softly. “Those are fundamental issues in our lives. Because it’s hard to love oneself in a white-supremacist society. It’s hard to trust one another. But they don’t have those kinds of battles.

“So when I go back home to Addis Ababa, I think, ‘Dang, this is the way black people could conceive of themselves if Europeans had left us alone.’ ”

A conversation with Cornel West, 1993 (pt. 1)

[I wrote about Prof. Cornel West for the Washington Post in 1993, upon his emergence as a public intellectual, a 40-year-old “prophetic” voice of the left. What follows is drawn from my original article.]

His bony fingers are holding a pencil-thin British cigar. A watch chain glints against his three-piece suit, the kind of suit that tightly wraps his lean body whenever you see him.

Chunky ornaments hold together his wide white shirt cuffs. His Afro belongs in a memory. His beard is Malcolm’s. It all seems part of a proudly cultivated personal style: Cornel West, the Sporty Intellectual.

But this isn’t really seeing him, here in this cramped office on the Princeton University campus. You have to see Prof. West on his feet, working a crowd.

Like inside Vertigo Books in downtown Washington. There he stood on a Sunday afternoon, the place packed with women, men, black, white, all mature and serious-looking, some sitting on folded legs. All looking to the man in the three-piece suit.

He told them someone had complained recently that he was distracting from the “black freedom struggle” by taking up gender issues.

Cornel West put on a puzzled face and pondered aloud: “Well, black women have been as black as black men” – there were scattered chuckles. A second later, he cocked his head and smiled, his voice sharper: “Of course, on a more basic level, he’s talkin’ about my mama!”

West said he’s also been criticized for condemning homophobia in the black community. He was dead serious here, his forehead scrunched, his words finely enunciated. “Can you imagine black culture without a James Baldwin? Unimaginable! At least to me. Without Audre Lorde? My Gawd!”

Then he offered a sly half-smile and a stage whisper: “Without a whole lot of brothers playing the organ in churches?”

They drank him in. West talked about redistributing America’s goodies, talked about how 90 percent of us are scratching and scrambling over 14 percent of the wealth. “Those are huge crumbs, but they’re crumbs!” He bemoaned the “weakness,” the “marginality” of the American left.

But then West started talking about the spirit... about love, about affectionate touching. “We need to write books about the decline of gentleness, kindness,” he said. “When I was growing up in the black community, I got touched all the time. I liked it!”

Invoking within the space of minutes the names of Marcus Garvey and Marvin Gaye, Fannie Lou Hamer and Mahalia Jackson, Toni Morrison and George Clinton, West is a whirling synthesis. Old-school radical and old-school preacher. Ivy League heavyweight and brother from around the way.

Behind his desk at Princeton, Prof. West listens attentively as I relate a picture of modern black collegiate life:

It was a celebration of Malcolm X’s birthday on the campus of Howard University. There was a lot of “revolutionary poetry” and pan-Africanist posturing in traditional garb. Lots of trendy greetings (“Hotep”), self-satisfied ritual, and guys chewing on licorice sticks. It was state-of-the-moment cultural Afrocentrism.

And when one of the hosts, a student leader from the University of the District of Columbia, told a rambling story about a Korean dry cleaner ripping off a black customer, he slid into a rant – “A Korean! A nasty, stinking, slant-eyed, parasitic Korean!” – and nobody objected.

It was a scene custom-made for Cornel West’s critique of Afrocentrism.

“What you saw there was a very narrow, truncated, myopic – and sounds also quite xenophobic – version of black nationalist tradition,” says West, hand on chin. “We’re living in a moment in which groups feel as if they have to close ranks. In which there’s an inward-looking disposition rather than an outward-looking one. So it’s very, very difficult to build bridges.

“And those of us like myself who are intent on building bridges,” he continues, “we have to acknowledge that there are reasons why people are becoming more and more narrow-minded. ...

“We’ve got levels of social misery, we’ve got death, disease and destruction ravaging black America. And most of the white elites... they haven’t really given a damn,” West says.

“As long as there is profound pessimism in the black community about the capacity of white persons to respond humanely, there’s going to be black nationalism around.”

At Princeton, this place of old stone, quiet grass and overwhelming whiteness, the Afrocentric movement has little appeal to students, according to West. In large part that’s because the Afro-American studies program, which he runs, presents “a much broader and cosmopolitan and international view of what it means to be African in the New World.”

He mentions one member of his faculty, the acclaimed novelist Toni Morrison, who – along with Alice Walker and such scholars as bell hooks and Patricia Williams – represents what West calls “a very strong black womanist movement, a crucial alternative for black intellectuals, both men and women.”

And then, “you do have a democratic-left alternative that’s also there,” as exemplified by Cornel West himself. “It’s just not as visible” among black activists nationally.

That’s because Afrocentric scholars, by sheer virtue of their Afrocentrism, are looked upon as warrior-heroes by many young black people. So while the mainstream media may hype him as “the hot black intellectual of the moment,” Prof. West knows he hasn’t won the hearts and minds of African-American students.

“The young folks certainly read me,” he says. “Partly because I’m in direct debate with a number of these [Afrocentric] figures. I’ve debated Leonard Jeffries many times, I’ve debated Molefi Asante many times. So I’m in on the conversation.

“[But] I represent a strand of the black freedom struggle that, these days, is very much cutting against the grain. You talk about an all-embracing moral vision, you talk about an analysis that highlights class and gender as well as race, and sexual orientation and ecology. To try to be synthetic and synoptic in that way is very much cutting against the grain.

“But that’s also true if you’re in the white community,” West says. “To talk about patriarchy and homophobia and to talk about white supremacy – cutting against the grain.

“In fact, most white Americans have probably forgotten about their own anti-racist tradition, going back to John Brown, Elijah Lovejoy. So that shows you how this notion of closing ranks, and not accenting the best of one’s tradition, is at work not just in the black community.”

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Q&A: McCoy Tyner (pt. 2)

Finally, I present the rest of a 2004 conversation between the great pianist McCoy Tyner and jazz writer Andrew Gilbert. (Here’s the first part.)

Also, on my Vox blog I’m streaming “Contemplation” from Tyner’s classic 1967 Blue Note LP, “The Real McCoy.”

And the very best treat of all: Click here to see young Mr. Tyner with the John Coltrane Quartet playing “Afro Blue” on television in 1963. Hot damn!

ANDREW GILBERT: You were doing a fair amount of composing when you were with Coltrane. Did you ever try to get your tunes into the band’s book?

McCOY TYNER: John did one of my songs. But the thing is, I didn’t want to get into that, “Why don’t you do my songs?” (chuckles) I was there to learn and to appreciate, and I was eager to find out what he had in mind.

He was on sort of a mission musically, especially after he left Miles and had his own band. John had his own ideas and his own vision, and I wanted to see what that was and see what I could contribute to that music. I wasn’t prepared to submit my music to him.

He did do a couple though. We recorded my tune “Aisha” that I wrote for my wife.... He was very generous when it came to stuff about that, but I never forced it. I was there to learn. I was a student and I wanted to graduate. (laughs)

GILBERT: Tracking the development of the quartet’s sound, it seems like the band was perpetually experimenting, trying out new ideas to see where they might lead.

TYNER: John was like a scientist in a laboratory. He was always thinking of something else and experimenting. He definitely had a spiritual/scientific approach to music, constantly searching, developing.

He would bring a song in and I’d really like it, and the next day I’d say, “How about that song we played last night?” And he’d say, “Well, I kind of put that way.”

But there were songs we’d always play – “My Favorite Things,” “Chim Chim Cheree,” “I Want To Talk About You.” He always had his favorites. I just loved his commitment to the music. He was so committed and hard-working. It was such a monumental experience being in that environment for that many years, almost six years. So much got done, because of the commitment.

When the leadership is committed, the tendency is to go along and try to learn as much as you can. It was a wonderful place to grow up.

GILBERT: Your first albums were for Bob Thiele at Impulse. But it seems like you really came into your own at Blue Note.

TYNER: Bob Thiele got me started. He said, “Look, why don’t you start recording under your own name?” That’s a good idea. So I owe that to Bob. I was ready. ... I’d made all these recordings with John and it was time for me to do my own thing too, and I think Bob sensed that.

I wanted to express a different side of me, of my musical personality, because I didn’t want it to sound like the Coltrane Quartet minus Coltrane. Jimmy [Garrison] and Elvin [Jones] were on one thing that I did. Another had Roy Haynes and different people.

When I went up to sign with Impulse I met the head of ABC; Impulse was a subsidiary of it. I met the head of the company. He said, “We’re glad to have you here. If you have any problems or anything you want to discuss, let me know.”

I forget the guy’s name right now, but it was different then. The record industry wasn’t as profit-motivated as it is now. They had plenty of room for the jazz catalogue and they promoted jazz.

GILBERT: Was it a difficult decision to leave Coltrane in 1965?

TYNER: It was a bit of a struggle. I figured John was moving in a very personal direction. At the same time, I was very committed to what I wanted to do. I did a lot of recording for Blue Note during that time. I recorded with Stanley Turrentine, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson.

But what I loved about Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff, they were special people. They were from Europe and they loved the music. They liked their position. Nobody told them what to do. If Alfred likes you, you’ve got a record date.

He had groups that made money for him. Art Blakey had some hits, and he loved Horace Silver. There were always some guys making money for the label. He could afford to have some guys leaning in a different kind of direction.

GILBERT: You’ve been incorporating Brazilian and Afro-Cuban rhythms in your music for years. I understand you were drawn to this kind of music when you were growing up in Philly.

TYNER: What happened is I took an avid interest in ethnic music, in African music, music from the Middle East, music from Latin America. I’ve always been interested in that. I was also affiliated with a dance school, and of course they had everything, from ballet to African dancing.

And then a guy came from Ghana and he taught African drumming to me and some of my friends. I used to play a little conga drum myself, but not very well. I used to mess around with it, but it was too tough on the hands. But the drummer from Ghana taught the guy who was playing in my junior high R&B band, so it was like a little cultural experience there in my home town.

We were doing everything, we were playing jazz classics by Dizzy, Bird and Bud Powell, Thelonious, and all of the sudden this was introduced.

GILBERT: It makes me think about you and John Coltrane and they way Indian music was incorporated into the some of the Quartet’s tunes.

TYNER: Actually, in 1961 I met Ravi Shankar, he had just come to America. And we were supposed to do a record with Coltrane’s band and Ravi, but it didn’t take place. The tabla player was showing Elvin some stuff, we had gotten that far.

We did do the song “India” live at the Vanguard, and that was sort of based on the music he was interested in from India.

GILBERT: It’s a really interesting time right now in terms of the merging of jazz and Afro-Caribbean music, with David Sanchez, Danilo Perez, Ed Simon and all the Cuban and Latin American players who are so deeply versed in both traditions.

TYNER: Yeah, I call them hermanos, brothers, because it’s a very strong interchange culturally between jazz and Latin music. The key is the African roots, and the fact that we have had experience with European music.

There’s the distinction between salsa and jazz, but the musicians can come together and play because the roots are basically the same, we just dealt with it differently through the Caribbean, South and Central America and the U.S.

But Dizzy started a lot of that tradition in the ’40s when he brought Chano Pozo from Cuba. Machito and Bird did a thing together, Duke Ellington had Juan Tizol and Paul Gonsalves. So, you know, there’s always been that camaraderie and that integration.

GILBERT: I wish we had more time to talk about your great Milestone albums and your big band. Thanks for your time. ... It’s always so inspiring to see you perform.

TYNER: It’s been a wonderful journey, and it still continues to be. I’m looking ahead. When I write songs, they’re inspired by what’s going on now. There’s always something to express. Music changes over the years and that’s good. It’s good to keep your ears open and not just be stuck in 1965. Try to move on and keep creating and writing new songs for yourself. Keep that kind of energy going on inside.

Q&A: McCoy Tyner (pt. 1)

McCoy Tyner has been one of the top pianists in jazz for the past half-century. He was the youngest member of John Coltrane’s classic quartet, and he is still going strong.

Tyner’s trio will tour Europe later this month. His most recent album, “Illuminations,” earned him a Grammy Award in 2005.

Jazz writer Andrew Gilbert interviewed Mr. Tyner in January 2004 in San Francisco. I am grateful to present that interview here.

(The photograph above is copyright © 1973 Gisle Hannemyr, and is used under a Creative Commons license.)

ANDREW GILBERT: You were born and raised in Philadelphia. How did the city shape you as a musician?

McCOY TYNER: It’s a very provincial town, but at the same time it’s a sizable city with a very rich cultural heritage. Historically, George Washington lived there, and the American flag was made there.

It was the official end of the Underground Railroad. The Quakers really helped black people escaping from the South and actually hid them under the floor and everywhere else where you could think. They were real Christians. They really believed in what they were doing. The African Methodist Church was set up in Philadelphia.

It was a very important place, and it was a wonderful place for people who were disenfranchised to set up something that represented them. I enjoyed growing up there. I think a lot of the guys that I talk to, we all kind of agree, it was just kind of a family oriented town. If you didn’t get your information growing up there, I don’t know how you did... you know what I mean? I really enjoyed it.

GILBERT: As a teenager you started hanging out with the Powell brothers, Bud and Richie, which must have been pretty heavy for a young piano player.

TYNER: I never actually saw them together. I met Richie when he was with Max Roach and Clifford Brown and they came through Philadelphia. The Powell family was from Willow Grove, Penn., and Richie got an apartment around the corner from my mother’s beauty shop.

When I was 14 she bought me a piano, a console spinet, between an upright and a regular spinet, and it was in her shop because that was the biggest room in the house. She would come home sometimes with a client, and she’d say, “Go ahead and play.”

Sometimes we’d have a small band in there and all of the sudden a bunch of guys would show up and it would become like a big band in her shop, and ladies would be getting their hair done patting their feet. We’d call a jam session and people would come from all over the city. Not just my house, Mickey Roker’s house in South Philly too.

We’d get these odd requests from tough guys in the neighborhood – “Can you play this song? And if you can’t, don’t come by.”

Anyway, Richie Powell got an apartment around the corner from me, but I didn’t actually see him once he got the apartment because he was on the road with Max and Brownie. But Bud was staying there for a while until he went to Europe. My mother’s shop had those big windows, and once I was practicing and I looked around and Bud was standing outside listening. Oh my God!

GILBERT: Were there any veteran players who really helped you break into the scene?

TYNER: We had the older guys who would take you under their wings. That’s how I learned. I had a seven-piece R&B band, and we actually won a talent show at the Uptown Theatre. I had just started writing and I wrote some songs that never had an ending. “When am I going to end this thing?” It was a nice band, good guys.

Some of the older musicians heard me, and they liked the choice of tunes. That’s when I first started listening to Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Diz, Monk. At that time Thelonious and Bud were my main influences.

GILBERT: Would you say your most important early experience was with trumpeter and bandleader Cal Massey?

TYNER: That’s how I met John Coltrane, through Cal. He was a composer and he wrote “Fiesta for Bird” and a lot of other great tunes, and I was in his band for a while.

That’s how I actually had a chance to meet Max Roach after Brownie and Richie died. Max came through and needed a piano player but I only worked with him a day. I just got out of high school and I didn’t want to go on the road, not then.

Cal was a major guy in Philly. He’d put on these amazing shows. He’d have a singer, a band, a guy riding a tricycle, a tap dancer. You name it, he had it. Coming up he played in circuses for a long time. He brought that experience to the table. He’d been around a lot of the major bebop players. Working with him was nice. Me and Jimmy Garrison and Tootie Heath and a guy named Clarence Sharp – we called him “C Sharp” – were all in Cal’s band.

GILBERT: So how did you and Coltrane first meet?

TYNER: I knew who John was but I’d never met him. And Cal invited him to one of our matinees. We were finishing up our engagement and the club owner asked John if he could come in and play the next week. He was home on sabbatical. It was during the mid-’50s. He’d been with Miles Davis and he came home to stay with his mom. He went back with Miles later, when Miles had Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans with him.

Anyway, John asked Cal’s rhythm section if we wanted to make the gig with him. “Sure.” Ever since then John was like a big brother to me. I was 17 years old at the time. I’d go sit on his mom’s porch and he was writing “Giant Steps” and all those songs. I wanted to record them, but he said, “Oh you’re too young.” No, he didn’t say that. But he had Tommy Flanagan and he did a great job. So three years later I was in his band.

GILBERT: That must have been a long three years.

TYNER: Well, I had a commitment. John would come to Philadelphia when he wasn’t working with Miles, and I’d work with him, and there was a verbal agreement that whenever he left Miles I would work with him. It took him so long because every time he’d want to leave, Miles would offer him more money or something to make him stay.

I was stuck in Philadelphia, and when Benny Golson came through he liked my music. He said, “Look, I’m going to San Francisco, you want to come out there?” I had never been that far away from home. I was in my late teens.

He said, “Art Farmer and I are going to form a band, would you like to be in the band?” I said I would, but when John leaves Miles, I’ve gotta go. I told them up front. That’s when we did “Killer Joe,” which was a big hit for the band.

I was with them about seven months, and then John left Miles and he said, “What do you want to do?” I was 20 years old and I had to make all these major decisions. But I did promise him and I wanted to be with him. That’s the band I wanted to be in. After that it was just… making history.

GILBERT: The classic quartet with you and Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones didn’t take shape immediately though.

TYNER: Right, it took a while to come up with that personnel. Elvin came in first, then Jimmy came in. John envisioned this.

I had heard of Elvin, but I had never sat down and listened to him. I knew his brothers Hank and I had heard Thad, but John told me this guy Elvin Jones is really amazing. We had a lot of trouble coming up with drummers before. Pete La Roca was in the band, Billy Higgins was with us for a while, a couple of other guys. Elvin came in the band and we knew that was it.

On bass, my brother-in-law Steve Davis was the first and he did “My Favorite Things,” then Reggie Workman and then Jimmy, and that was the magic combination – Jimmy and Elvin.

I was the young kid on the block. (laughs) Like at the end of sets, Elvin and Jimmy would have a little taste, and Elvin would look at me to see what I had and I’d say, “Give me a double orange juice!” (laughs) He’d watch me like a hawk. There was a very brotherly feeling in that band.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Q&A: Yancey Arias

Good-looking fellow, that Yancey, huh? Let me tell you, he’s good people too. I got to know him during the making of “Kingpin.” The game of poker kept us in each other’s orbit since then.

Yancey Arias is part of a generation of Hispanic actors born in the 1970s and now making its mark in Hollywood with a wide range of movie and TV roles. Actors such as Michael Peña, Jacob Vargas, Freddie Rodriguez, Adam Rodriguez, Kirk Acevedo, Vincent Laresca and Enrique Murciano.

Born in New York to a Colombian father and a Puerto Rican mother, Arias started off as a singer, auditioning for the Latino boy band Menudo at age 12. He was signed to another boy band, Fuego, but it never got off the ground.

Al Pacino’s performance in “Scarface” made such an impression on young Yancey, he decided to try acting. By 14, he was attending Stagedoor Manor, a theater camp in the Catskills whose alumni also include Robert Downey, Jr., Natalie Portman and Zach Braff.

In July, Arias will begin work on “Fire Bay,” a feature film about the Bay of Pigs invasion, in which he plays an exiled Cuban doctor. We had a conversation over lunch a couple of weeks ago...

DAVID MILLS: In the early to mid ’80s, it seems to me that music was an easier path in entertainment than acting. Edward James Olmos and Jimmy Smits were about all you could look at in terms of television. What did you see in TV or movies that made you think you could make a living as an actor?

YANCEY ARIAS: Esai Morales in “Bad Boys,” with Sean Penn. Those two, their conflict together in jail – I just said, “You know what? I can do that. Absolutely. I can do movies. That’s me. I could be the tough guy, I could be the good guy, whatever.”

Watching Esai at his young age... I was in that age range where I could play his younger brother. And there were a couple of Hispanics in that aside from Esai; “Well, I could’ve played that part.” But I wasn’t in L.A., I was in New York. I was just a kid.

After Esai was “La Bamba.” By that point, I was 15. I was the age of Ritchie Valens when he was taking off in his career. I was already singing, doing shows, I had a manager already. I was in the mix. When that movie came out, I went nuts. I was like, “He looks like me! I sing! What the hell? How come I didn’t get an audition?” And I saw that movie, like, 10 times.

When I saw that movie, I was like, “That’s it.” My overall goal one day is to be able to combine my music and my acting in one movie. And it better be a damn good movie, because I’m not just gonna do any movie to do it.

Then “Mambo Kings” came out. You had Antonio Banderas doing his thing. And I’m like aaargh! The lion roar came out. All of these, again, L.A. decisions. I knew that I had to build a strong foundation before I went to L.A. ...

But those are the films and people that quickly sparked in me the need and the fire to make sure that I’m on top of my game at all points.

MILLS: I get the feeling that things are better today than they’ve ever been for Latino actors. Am I wrong?

ARIAS: Things are better, and things are not better. Things are better because now, if you’re an actor, whatever color you are – Asian, Hispanic, black, white, blue, green – if you’ve done some really good work and proven yourself, you will be considered for a role.

Will you get the job? That’s where politics comes into play: How many Hispanics are already in the show? What is the number of people so there can be a color-friendly palette in front of the camera? Do you have three Caucasian actors, one black actor and one Hispanic actor? Do you have two Hispanic actors? Suddenly it’s a different show if you have a certain amount of Latinos in the show, or blacks in the show, you understand? So the politics plays its role.

But at least now, the power of the work that you’ve done before starts to stand on its own in a way that they want you to come in and test for projects.

MILLS: Even if the role is not specifically written as Hispanic?

ARIAS: Especially if the role is not specifically written. They don’t know what they want. You just go in and you do your thing and hopefully you’re the best actor for the job.

In the past, even if it was non-specific, there was no way a Hispanic [would get the part]. It was white or black, there was no in between. No room for Asians, no room for Hispanics. It was either/or.

MILLS: That’s what the ’90s were like.

ARIAS: Today, it’s broader. And I love that. Gives us a shot. At least a shot.

MILLS: Are the types of roles changing? Part of that has to just be a function of being in your thirties.

ARIAS: The types of roles definitely have changed. I’m playing more doctors, more important figures, FBI agents. I think that’s a true sign of the times. Before, we were always the drug dealers, in the ’80s, or the cleaning man or the doorman.

But you know what? Nowadays, even if you’re playing a doorman or a janitor, nowadays that storyline is thicker, and it shows other facets of who that person is, like I played in “Walkout.”

MILLS: Now here’s something that, unless you’re Latin, people don’t really know about. But I’m curious about the color lines in the Latin community. You are considered dark?

ARIAS: Right. To some people I’m considered dark, to some people I’m considered very light. I’m right in between. I’m coffee and milk.

What happens is, a lot of times, for me, I’m either too light or too dark for a certain role.

MILLS: How do they let you know that? Or how do you know that?

ARIAS: If the script is written about a very Anglo, upper-class Latino family, and the description of the character is “light eyes” and “very WASP-y” or what not, it’s very clear that it’s a light-skinned Hispanic. As I read it, I go, “Why bring me in for this, if that’s the way it’s written?” “Oh, they’re not sure.” “Really?”

They’re not sure because somebody in the team doesn’t know – because they’re not Hispanic themselves, they just love my work. They want to see me do my thing, and I appreciate that. But in terms of the Latino community, everybody pretty much knows that if you’re light-skinned Hispanic or you’re mulata Hispanic – like half black, half white – or if you’re Afro-Hispanic, there is a difference.

Today – [from] the mid-1990s to today in 2007 – amongst the Latino community, there is no class difference any more. You can be any color of the Latino gamut and you can be a powerful person. Back in the day – the ’50s to early ’80s – it wasn’t so.

A lot more light-skinned Hispanics were usually the ones who went to the better schools, who had a better shot at life, and had stronger positions and offices. And the darker Hispanics were usually the working class or lower class. Even inside their own countries, not just in America.

So class has a lot to do with it. And there was discrimination in different countries, in South American countries. Slowly but surely, over the years, that broke apart. I think that America as a country did a very interesting job, through history, in making a statement that all men are created equal. And that resonated to the rest of the world. ...

MILLS: I guess there’s also an element of being able to play the generic ethnic type. I don’t know whether you’ve ever played an American Indian, but Jimmy Smits has.

ARIAS: Oh my God, are you like on a radar with me? Last night, Adam Beach, he’s on a rerun of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” – and he’s a new series regular on that show or one of the “Law & Order” shows. My wife’s like, “You could have totally played that role.”

I’m like, “Yeah, honey, I know.” But here’s the thing. He just finished coming out with “Flags of Our Fathers.” He was in a movie with Nicholas Cage, “Windtalkers.” He’s got this great HBO movie that he did about the American Indian.

I was asked if I was any part American Indian in casting [for] one or two of the projects that I was up against Adam Beach.

And I said to my agent, “I’m an American. I was born here, from immigrant parents. I understand the plight of the American Indian. I’m an actor. And I love research. And I love immersing myself into a role so that I respect that culture. What difference does it make? We’re in a whole new time now. I don’t have to be American Indian to go in for that role. They know my work, let me show them.”

“Oh, they’re very sensitive, the producers of this project, to making sure that they’re American Indian.” “Then don’t send me in. And don’t ask me this again, if they’re that sensitive. I’m sure that they were that sensitive back in the ’80s and ’90s when somebody said, ‘Is that person Latino? Oh, they’re Italian? Oh, they’re Irish? Well, they can look Hispanic.’ ”

MILLS: (laughs) Right.

ARIAS: What is this double standard today? We’re actors. Give us a shot. All I ask is for a shot.

MILLS: You played an Asian on Broadway in “Miss Saigon,” right?

ARIAS: And people mistake me for Asian today.

MILLS: Did anybody complain?

ARIAS: At first. When I first came onto the show, people wanted me to be Asian, have a little bit of Asian, were upset that I was getting that role. You understand? The buzz was in the air. But I had the heart and I had the training far beyond their expectations.

And that first night when I came on, I kid you not, in the wings it was packed with all the rest of the cast members and all the crew, to see if I could pull this off.

And I nailed that performance like nobody’s business. And everybody who had anything to say about the fact that I wasn’t Asian suddenly embraced me, thanked me, loved me, and wanted nothing more but to see me on that stage representing that culture, representing that story.

And over a period of time, collectively, audiences mistook me for Asian all the time. I was a very proud and very happy actor to have been able to give that effect to everybody. Because then I knew for myself that whatever I set my mind to, and research and give myself all the possibilities of that role, I can make people believe in that story.

Q&A: Ice Cube (pt. 2)

Here’s the rest of my 1989 interview with Ice Cube, in which he tells the story of a gig in Detroit that got waaay out of hand...

DAVID MILLS: Was there any element of anticipation that N.W.A. would get a lot of publicity by being extra hard and extra profane and extra violent?

ICE CUBE: Nope, ’cause to us it ain’t extra. If you go onto any kind of playground – elementary – you’ll hear the same words we talk about in our songs. If you turn on any kind of cable TV, you’ll hear the same words.

We didn’t invent no words. We ain’t teaching nobody nothing new when it comes to that. They can’t blame us if their kids use profanity. They can’t blame us for no crime rate in no city, because there’s always been violence and there’s always been crime, wherever there’s people together. ...

Next album, we’re just going to do the record. No press, no nothing.

MILLS: Really? You’re tired of all the media attention?

CUBE: Yeah, to be honest. Ain’t nobody caused no riot and said, “Yo, N.W.A. made me do it.” At our concerts, a little thing happened in Detroit, which was the police’s fault.

MILLS: Tell me about that. Because I talked to your tour promoter here in D.C., and she said N.W.A. had agreed not to perform “Fuck tha Police” onstage because it could incite people. So y’all didn’t perform “Fuck tha Police” until you get to Detroit. Somebody starts singing “Fuck tha Police,” and the promoters stop the show, turn up the house lights and pull y’all off stage.

CUBE: That ain’t the way it happened. For one thing, we ain’t sign no agreement to not do “Fuck tha Police.” My signature, my manager’s signature, or Eazy’s signature ain’t on nothing. They can’t show you that shit.

MILLS: Did you agree verbally not to perform that song?

CUBE: We agreed verbally not to perform the song. [Some venues] didn’t want us to sing “Gangsta, Gangsta” or “Straight Outta Compton” [either]. We was like, “Fuck that.” The kids come to see this shit, you know?

So we go into Detroit, right? It’s our last show of the tour. Twenty thousand people there. Eazy done went platinum, we done went platinum. The show list is De La Soul, Slick Rick, Big Daddy Kane, L.L. Cool J, Eazy-E and N.W.A.

MILLS: Hell of a show.

CUBE: Hell of a show. [But the concert organizers said] “Yo Eazy, man, y’all got to go on second.” We ain’t been in Detroit since the records came out. The last time we were in Detroit, all we had was 12-inches out.

So we’re like, “Second? Why the fuck we got to go second? We been burnin’ ass on this whole tour.” So we’re like, “Yo, man, they’re trying to fuck us, man, putting us on second.”

We usually don’t beef about going on second, but we see everybody else beefin’ and getting their way. Why can’t we beef and get our way, right? Like, “Fuck it, we ain’t going out if we gotta go on second.” ’Cause when we go on, we want everybody to be in there. We don’t want no half shit. Not being big-headed, because this is the first time we ever pulled some shit like this. We usually say, “First or last, we gonna tap that ass.” That’s the motto we got.

So we was like, “Fuck it, man, we should do ‘Fuck tha Police.’ It’s our last show. Let’s just go out with a bang.” Kids was coming to us in the hotel all day – “Yo, man, y’all singin’ ‘Fuck tha Police’?” We say, “Naw.” “Oh man, y’all shouldn’ta come if y’all wasn’t gonna do that!”

Our manager said, “Just go on second, man.” We’re like, “Cool. Straight. Fuck it.” It was an 8:30 show. We was going on at 9 o’clock, so we figured, you know, by 9 o’clock everybody’s in there that is in there.

So we’re backstage. It’s like, “Yo, man, should we do ‘Fuck tha Police’?” Nobody said yeah and nobody said no. Then we heard our cue so they ran up onstage, Ren and Dre and Yella. They go out first. To me, if nobody said yeah and nobody said no, we ain’t gonna do the song. That’s what I’m thinking. “I guess we’re going to do the regular show as planned.”

So it’s my turn to come up there, and I do “Gangsta, Gangsta.” Kids go crazy. After I finish “Gangsta, Gangsta,” after the lights go out and the music cut off, you hear the kids chanting: “Fuck the police! Fuck the police! Fuck the police!”

Then I go into “A Bitch Iz a Bitch.” After I finish that, I stop. “Fuck the police! Fuck the police! Fuck the police!” That’s all you hear the kids chanting.

After that, we went into “Straight Outta Compton.” After we finished that, the same thing: “Fuck the police! Fuck the police!” I went into “I Ain’t the One.” While I was doing “I Ain’t the One,” Ren and Dre was at the turntable talking. So after I finish “I Ain’t the One,” I announce everybody, right?

Now I’m about to go into “Dopeman,” as far as I know. But Ren said, “Wait a minute.” He goes to the front of the stage. He says, “Everybody say, ‘Fuck the police!’ ” They say “Fuck the police!” to the loudest they can.

I looked at Dre; Dre said, “Come in on two.” So I went into the song – “Fuck the police, comin’ straight from the underground...” The place went stupid.

Then we see about 20 motherfuckers from the back trying to bum-rush the front.

MILLS: Just fans or who?

CUBE: Undercover police. They’re in the back of the arena, but they’re throwing chairs out the way to get to the front of the arena. Nobody knows they’re police, not even me.

Then I’m thinking, “Damn, we done started some shit in here.” I didn’t know what was going on. I’m still singing the song but I’m still looking at ’em, because they leave the lights on in Detroit.

So they’re trying to climb over the barricade. As soon as one tried to climb, I saw his badge. I’m like, “Damn, that’s the police!” But I’m still rappin’. And security is fighting the police because they don’t know they’re police. They just think they’re motherfuckers acting a fool.

While this is going on, we hear two pops. Pop! Pop! So I’m thinking, “Oh shit! The police shootin’ at us!” That’s my first thought. So me and Ren just run off the side of the stage, we run to the back, I change my shirt, and I’m looking for an exit.

By this time, backstage is going crazy. The police is fighting L.L.’s security, police is fighting the building security, just trying to get to us. Our road manger pushes us in a van. “Go to the hotel, pack your shit. The police goin’ crazy. We’re leaving. We’re going to Canada.” So I’m like, “Bet. Let’s go.”

So we get to the hotel and we start packing our shit. We’re ready to break. While we’re taking our shit down to the bus, the lobby is full of police. Full of ’em – “Y’all goin’ to jail.” That’s what the police said.

So... they took us into this little room. All they did was talk to us. They told us they wanted to arrest us onstage to front us off in front of everybody to show that you can’t say “Fuck the police” in Detroit.

MILLS: That’s what they said to you?

CUBE: Yeah. So that was it. They took down our numbers and addresses and said we’d be getting a letter, and if they wanted to prosecute we’d have to send some money back or some old weak bullshit.

So I’m like, “Man, y’all did all this shit...” They did all that just to talk to us and say they didn’t like the record. ...

If we wouldn’t have heard those pops – which sounded like gunshots, but they said some kids were popping firecrackers – if we wouldn’t have heard that shit, we wouldn’t have ran. Yo, when I hear shots, I’m gone. Because you can’t miss a target with a spotlight. (laughs)

MILLS: The police tried to rush the stage just to make a point in front of all the fans that you couldn’t say that in Detroit?

CUBE: Yeah. So they started the fuckin’ riot. They started the trouble. We only had one more verse to go and that song would have been over. Kids didn’t go kill police.

I’m like, “Y’all gonna make the motherfuckers fight because they didn’t get to see Eazy. That’s what y’all gonna do.” So that was the shit that happened, man.

MILLS: But doesn’t that just go to show you? You must have realized something if you had agreed verbally not to do that song in any of the other cities.

CUBE: Some people, they were saying, “If you do the song, y’all never be able to come back to this building again.” So you can’t burn your bridges. But it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. You know, you just do shit spur-of-the-moment. You’ve got to take it how it comes.

MILLS: Does that mean you will never play Detroit again?

CUBE: I don’t know. From what I know, if we can’t play Detroit, the kids’ll come to Saginaw to see us. The hip-hop audience is a loyal audience. I know that for a fact. ...

MILLS: Is there a lesson – What’s the lesson you learned from that whole incident?

CUBE: Have a faster getaway. That’s the only shit I learned. Have a faster getaway. I don’t respect the Detroit police no more than I respect the L.A. police or anybody. Police, they’re just people, just like I’m people.

I told the Detroit police, “Yo, y’all want to do a song called ‘Fuck N.W.A.’? We’ll produce it. We don’t give a fuck.” Nobody wanted to do it, so I’m like, “Well, y’all had your chance.”

Q&A: Ernestine Anderson

I’m pleased to present here an interview with Ernestine Anderson, a singer whose career spans nearly 60 years. Jazz writer Andrew Gilbert talked to Ms. Anderson by phone in August of 2004.

Born in Houston, Anderson toured with the legendary bandleader Johnny Otis in the late 1940s. She recorded a few LPs for Mercury between 1958 and 1960. But her reputation as a solo artist soared with a string of albums in the ’70s and ’80s for the Concord label.

(Click here to hear “Never Make Your Move Too Soon” or here to listen to “Old Folks.” Both are from her 1980 album, “Never Make Your Move Too Soon.”)

Ernestine Anderson is still going strong at age 78. Her most recent CD was the 2003 set “Love Makes the Changes.” And she’ll be performing tomorrow night through Sunday at Jazz at Pearl’s in San Francisco.

Writes Andy Gilbert: “Anderson sings blues with total authority and delivers standards with a salty edge reminiscent of Dinah Washington.”

ANDREW GILBERT: When you first started gaining attention with Johnny Otis, what kind of songs were you singing?

ERNESTINE ANDERSON: I really don’t remember the songs I sang, but they were big-band songs. Johnny Otis had several bands. After the first big band there was another one with Little Esther Phillips on a tour headed by the Ink Spots. It’s hard to remember, it was so long ago.

I actually started in Houston with a band headed by Russell Jacquet. During my earlier days I just seemed to connect to big bands. When I was coming up, singing with a big band was how you learned and honed your craft. You learned how to sing in front of an audience and you learned from the older artist on a show, picking up whatever you could.

GILBERT: Tell me about some of your early influences.

ANDERSON: There were so many, but the earliest one was Ella Fitzgerald. Sarah Vaughan was one of my idols.

Before that, I used to listen to big bands a lot on the radio when I was growing up in Texas. My dad had some kind of radio where you could get broadcasts from far away and I used to hear bands like Erskine Hawkins and Jimmie Lunceford. Billy Eckstine was one of my favorites. There were just so many people and I listened to everybody, including instrumentalists.

In fact, I got so engrossed with Sarah when I first heard her that I tried to sing like her. Then I was told by this person, I should try to find my own identity, that was the only way I was going to have any success in this business. So I stopped listening to singers and just listened to instrumentalists for a couple of years. That’s how I got away from being influenced by other people.

GILBERT: You started gaining some serious national attention when you joined Lionel Hampton’s orchestra in 1952. How did you end up with Hamp?

ANDERSON: Hamp was in town and my husband heard that Betty Carter was leaving the orchestra and that he was looking for a singer. He pushed me to go and audition for the band and I got the job.

I traveled with that band for a year, and it was one of the hottest bands that Lionel ever had, with Art Farmer, Jimmy Cleveland and Gigi Gryce. Quincy Jones was there too and he was writing for the band, and Jimmy Scott was the other singer.

GILBERT: The band may have been hot, but like a lot of Hamp’s vocalists, you didn’t stay with the orchestra for long.

ANDERSON: The band was going to Europe and I decided to stay in New York and go out on my own. I’d done two songs on an album that Gryce put together. Someone heard this album and asked me to go over to Scandinavia with Rolf Ericson, a Swedish trumpet player, and it was wonderful, a great experience. I found out that the Swedish people love jazz. I found that out to be true all over Europe and Asia, every place except our own country.

GILBERT: Right, making it in Sweden doesn’t necessarily open doors back in the States. But you had some help from San Francisco Chronicle critic Ralph Gleason, one of the founders of the Monterey Jazz Festival.

ANDERSON: When I first came back to the U.S. from Sweden, I moved to San Francisco with my first album, which featured a Swedish orchestra – “Hot Cargo” with the Harry Arnold Band. I had an acetate of the date and I played it for some people here in Seattle.

So Maggie Hawthorne, a jazz critic, notified Ralph Gleason, and this man did so much for me. He was responsible for getting it off the ground when I came back from Sweden. He made the Monterey Jazz Festival happen and was responsible for getting an article in Time magazine, which was unheard of in those days for a jazz musician.

GILBERT: You were recording for Mercury through the early 1960s, and then the bottom fell out for jazz musicians. How did you handle the loss of work?

ANDERSON: When rock ’n’ roll became the music of America, I moved to London for two years. In order to keep working I had to leave the country. When I came back, that’s when I joined the Buddhist faith, that kept me going.

I stopped singing for a while. I just didn’t want to go through the hassle of starting all over again. I decided maybe it was time for me to give it up, and that’s what I did. I came home to Seattle.

GILBERT: So what got you back on the bandstand?

ANDERSON: A couple of years later I started getting the desire to sing again. A friend, the bassist Red Kelly, had a club in Tacoma and I used to go up there to sing every weekend for a year, just getting my throat together again.

Another friend had a jazz festival on Vancouver Island, and he asked me to do this gig, and everybody was there – Monk Montgomery, Ray Brown, so many musicians. At the end of it Ray asked me if I was ready to come back and start singing again. I told him I needed a record, I couldn’t just start cold.

He called me a week later and said. “I’ve booked you at the Concord Jazz Festival and they’re going to record you there.” That was my first album after getting back in the business. Ray Brown was responsible for that.

GILBERT: You had a pretty great run with Concord.

ANDERSON: I was with them for 15 years. Carl Jefferson really had his hand on the pulse of the music, the jazz situation, how to record different artists. And once a record was made, he knew how to get behind it and promote it. He was a giant that way. And he was known in the business for making quality records, soundwise and everything. Of course he had one of the greatest engineers, Phil Edwards.

GILBERT: No matter what the setting, your music always swings. But I feel like your audience really loves it when your voice gets a little rough and you start to testify.

ANDERSON: I love jazz, I love all kinds of music. But I really love the blues.

Q&A: Ice Cube (pt. 1)

No doubt about it, one of the most influential albums of the last 20 years was N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton.”

American pop culture is still bedeviled by the commodification of the word “nigga,” and the glamorization of an insanely violent street-gang lifestyle, pioneered by this one rap group.

Meanwhile, N.W.A.’s standout lyricist and rapper – Ice Cube – has moved on to a prosperous Hollywood career as an actor, producer and screenwriter. Who would’ve guessed?

I interviewed Ice Cube by phone in August of 1989, and I was kind of impressed with the young man. I’m happy to present that conversation here, for whatever historical value it may have.

DAVID MILLS: I talked to the head of the national Fraternal Order of Police. They passed a resolution at their convention condemning and boycotting any band that advocates assaults on the police. It originally was aimed at N.W.A. because of “Fuck tha Police.”

The head of that group – he’s a white guy – said: What if he went around saying “Fuck niggers” or stuff about black people that you say about cops? He said that would be crazy, and nobody would stand for it. Is that the way you look at it?

ICE CUBE: Well, black people aren’t public figures like police. Black people aren’t here to serve and protect. So when you get some police out there – We’re not talking about all police, you know. So you’ve got to get that right. We’re not talking about all police.

But there are some police that just don’t give a fuck. They figure they got a gun and a badge and they can treat you any kind of way.

MILLS: But do you make that distinction in the song? Cops think the song advocates assaulting any police officer.

CUBE: Okay, you got to look at the kids now. Just because a kid hears a song, that don’t mean he’s going to take action. A song is a song. Just like if I made a song called, uh, “Fuck Your Mother.” You think the kids are gonna go out and beat up their mother? For a rap song?

MILLS: Uhhh...

CUBE: Kids and police don’t always get along, you know. ’Cause police feel that, since you’re a kid, you don’t know your rights, and they feel like they can treat you, if you’re in a certain neighborhood, any kind of way.

MILLS: What about when it comes to shootin’ ’em?

CUBE: Shootin’ ’em?

MILLS: When Eazy-E says, “Without a gun and a badge, what do you got? A sucker in a uniform waitin’ to get shot by me or another nigger. And with a gat it don’t matter if he’s smaller or bigger.” How does that not make it sound cool to shoot a cop, or to think about shooting cops?

CUBE: Everybody has thought about doing something crazy in their life. Everybody’s been standing in a bank one day and said, “Damn, if I robbed this bank, boy, I’d have a hell of a lot of money.” That got to go through people’s mind. It’s just like getting steam off your chest type of thing.

MILLS: I see. Things that go through your mind, basically.

CUBE: Yeah. It’s like if your girl is messing up. You say, “Man, I’mo kill that bitch.” You’re just saying it. You wouldn’t go out and do it. We’re just talking about how we feel sometimes when we be getting treated a certain way.

Like when we get slammed on the ground – this still happens – get slammed on the ground by a police half your size, and the only thing he got is a gun and a badge. That’s the only thing that’s keeping you from whipping this motherfucker’s ass....

MILLS: But why is he throwing you on the pavement?

CUBE: For the simple fact you won’t let him talk to you any kind of way. ’Cause see, when police talk to me crazy, I talk to ’em crazy right back. I’m like, “Yo, man, all you got is this badge and this gun. And yo, I know what rights I got. Why don’t you just talk to me right and I’ll talk to you right?”

“Oh, you’re a smart-ass, huh?” Then they get you and they try to muscle you. Fuck that.

If something happened in this neighborhood right here that I’m living in, the last person people would call is the police, if they think they’re going to get something done. If somebody got shot around here, the only way they’d call the police is to get a report, because the police ain’t gonna do shit.

MILLS: How come?

CUBE: They don’t give a fuck! They don’t care if niggers kill niggers. They could care less.

MILLS: Well, by listening to your lyrics like “Gangsta, Gangsta,” some people probably think you’re the one who doesn’t give a fuck if niggers kill niggers.

CUBE: No, that’s not the case. I just call it how I see it. If these motherfuckers want to kill up each other, yo, as long as they don’t fuck with me. That’s how I think. Because the shit that’s happening out here is stupid shit. But if you sit up there and say, “Don’t do this” –

See, kids tend to shy away from somebody who’s chastising ’em or telling ’em what to do. They feel like they’re old enough or they’re individuals. You know, their momma tell ’em what to do, teachers tell ’em what to do, people in the community tell ’em what to do, police tell ’em what to do. So when they go to party, they don’t want somebody saying what they already done heard a million times.

So that’s why we don’t take a stand as “Stop the Violence” or “Start the Violence.” We just call ’em like we see ’em. Like in “Gangsta, Gangsta.” Since nobody showed this gang problem from the right point of view, we did the song from the gang member’s point of view.

MILLS: But do you blame people for being upset – adults, parents, community leaders, ministers – for freaking out when they hear that?

CUBE: No, because those type of people, they like to sweep shit under the rug and pretend that shit’s not happening. If nobody talks about it, what is it gonna do, go away?

Like the people of the city of Compton ask us, “Why you guys never say nothing good about Compton?”

MILLS: And what do you say?

CUBE: I say, “Uh, you tell me something good about Compton.” Then they say, “Well, there’s nice residences and nice areas in here.”

Any area is subject to get hit at any time. I call it Vietnam. Any time you stand outside talking to your buddies at night, you’re taking a chance of some fool rolling through and shooting at you.

MILLS: So if that’s the case, and you as a writer – as a creative person and a thinking person – you don’t feel a responsibility to not just tell the story, but to put it in a sort of context so that people know what to do to solve the problem or to deal with the problem?

CUBE: I’m not no crusader here. They always think that if you’re a rapper and you’re a writer, you’ve got the answers. We call ourselves underground street reporters. We just tell it how we see it, nothing more, nothing less.

Here’s why we tell it like it is, with no shorts. ’Cause if the kids see it on the street, it ain’t nobody there to jump in front of them and say, “Wait. That wasn’t the right way to happen.” If a kid is standing outside, some fools roll by and shoot somebody he know, that’s all he see. It ain’t nobody there to justify it or to water that down. That’s what you see.

And if I teach you something you don’t know, I feel that’s positive. ...

MILLS: I still don’t quite know where you’re coming from. Are you guys gangsters? Are you celebrating gangsterism?

CUBE: Naw, that ain’t the case. We just tell the raw facts. They talk about N.W.A. glorifying gangsters when Hollywood’s been doing that for years. But they don’t come down on nothing like that because that’s millions of dollars. When you got a movie like “Scarface,” or a movie talking about Al Capone, and how they glorify them people –

MILLS: But they always get killed in the end. Good always triumphs.

CUBE: You know that don’t always happen. If everybody did records and all we talked about was the joys of life, and on TV all they showed was rainbows and pastel colors and some shit, kid go out and get his head blown off and don’t know why.

It’s a hard life out there, I’m sorry to say. I ain’t the one that made it hard, but I’m the one that lived it. I’m the one that saw or heard about half the shit I’m talking about.

MILLS: So give me an example of some lyrics you wrote that didn’t just tell what was happening but provided some understanding of why it happened. Instead of just saying, “Hey, Ren, let’s start some shit,” and then a fight breaks out because somebody bumps into somebody.

CUBE: See, sometimes I take the raps I do into the first person and just say “me,” because people can relate to it if I say “me” instead of if I say “John Doe”; then, people be like, “How do you know?”

So it’s just how some brothers think out there. They don’t give a fuck. They don’t give a fuck. You gotta watch yourself. That’s why, in the beginning of “Gangsta, Gangsta,” you hear somebody saying, “I wonder what these gangsters are up to now?” Being nosy got his ass shot. “I wonder who they’re fuckin’ with now?” They stop: “You, motherfucker.” (machine-gun noise)

MILLS: And how is the listener supposed to react?

CUBE: The listeners? They’re supposed to listen and like the shit for the simple fact that they see that type of shit all the time.

You know what you got to do? Come down and live in L.A.’s Nickerson Gardens in Watts for one month. If you did that, you would understand all my records. If you lived in Cabrini-Green in Chicago, you would understand all my records. If you lived in Harlem or Brooklyn or the Bronx, you would understand all my records.

MILLS: But when you sell a million records, you’re not just selling to people in Cabrini-Green or Nickerson Gardens. I just had somebody tell me today – she goes to college in Pomona, and white kids will have “Gangsta, Gangsta” pumping out of their dormitory windows.

CUBE: Here’s what kicks in on that. If you watch TV and they say “Iran is fighting Iraq” or “There’s a bombing in Lebanon,” you don’t live there, but you want to know what’s going on.

[Our white fans] might not live it, but they want to know what’s going on, because they’re always told, “Hey, don’t go on this side of town.” “Why?” “They’ll kill you over there.”

So it’s like a fuckin’ docudrama or something. Audio docudrama, that’s what it is.

[TO BE CONTINUED]