Music Writing by Carson Arnold
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I first met Bill Heine last summer while my parents and I were staying with our close friend and poet, Janine Pommy Vega, at her home near Woodstock, New York. Bill stopped by the following afternoon to shoot some photographs of Janine for a painting, and it was here he and I let the afternoon blossom for two hours in her garden, rambling about Charlie Parker and Ralph Vaughn Williams, where we agreed, soon, we'd do this again. As he was leaving, poet Andy Clausen remarked in the driveway, "Ah man, he's black magic, people came to him for all sorts of strange things." I was interested. After he left, we were all sitting in Janine's small kitchen eating bread, where she reached over and gave me his phone number, a look in her eyes saying that this guy was a dear friend.
It's true you'll find his and Janine's name drawn numerously if you flip through any page of Herbert Huncke's memoirs and journals in The Herbert Huncke Reader, where therein, he's portrayed as an infamous friend and gobbler of New York City's underground that emerged through the street jive of music, poetry, dope, and jazz; shedding the evocative minds of Janine, Huncke, and the rest of the wheeling Beat generation. Bop to any jazz night-club back then and you'd either find Bill skinning his drums on-stage with the likes of Charlie Parker or merely devouring the scene with a grin, book, or paint brush-- rumors even whisper Dylan had a notorious lyric after Bill's hustling allegro. At 74, over the phone he might tell you such gossip is bullshit-- his house spread to the floor with flutes, books, and music, where on any given day he might slowly hop in his car and paint a splashing image of the Catskills, conditioned to his view from the drivers seat (my type of incidental art, an entire album is indeed filled with these lovely, tender works). Besides the admirable mentions by Huncke and other various plateaus to his name, I had no clue to the man's wonder until we talked that afternoon, and once again on the phone, where I was almost surprised that he remembered me, as though expecting my call for months. The conversation shifted the scale of an hour as we made arrangements for the next time we'd meet-- this time with music in hand. His casual tone and smile reminds me a bit of Art Blakey, resembling the exposed rhythm of a drummer, a street, a note of living humanity, riding the weight of life that keeps on going:
Bill Heine: This might interest you, I found some tapes. Here, I'll read some: Uh, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Sarah Vaughn. Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Zoot Zims, Dizzy Gillespie. You have all those?
Carson Arnold: Yeah, I do, at least what I can. I like Sarah Vaughn's record, In The Lonely Hours. That's great one...I just found a whole bunch of Haydn symphonies for a few bucks. You play any music when you wake up in the morning?
BH: Yeah, I play William Byrd's Mass For Four Voices, you heard that one?
CA: It's a great one. I wanted to talk to you about your drumming days.
BH: Yeah, I started when I was about...twelve years old. In was during the war {WWII}, we were stationed at an air force base {Bill had previously told me that his family would be notified about bombings before everybody else}. It was before Civil Rights, and there were Count Basie, boogie-woogie players would come there. But they would play in the gym. The black soldiers would be down at the bottom and the white officers would be up on the balcony. So I got to hear some great music, and started playing then when I got a set of drums. I had a jazz band in military school-- it was a pretty good band actually. Then after that I went east in '47 and started playing in a band at military bases. And then when I went to school in Washington D.C. I didn't play at all, I just listened. When I went to New York I started playing clubs. 1952 started playing. Clubs like The Open Door...the...god, I can't think of the names. I was playing dinner tables. Zoot Sims, Bill Moore, Larry Young of course, Ronnie Singer {?}, the guitar player-- they're all gone, all dead now.
CA: What about Charlie Parker?
BH: That came when I was at The Open Door in a house band, they hired him. That's what he was doing then-- going around and playing with house bands, not always, but in New York. So I got to play with him then. Quite a few times I hung out with him, a bit when he was sick staying in that place across from The Bohemia, that was another great place. It was in a rooming house and he had terrible ulcers, and god knows what else. He had a friend or valise, a black Muslim, we were good friends and would hang out with him. He was terrible pain and we gave him tea medicine or heroin, or he would get it. Lots of pain. We went on a cab ride with him once when his daughter died, and we kept circling around the hospital. Eventually he went to Birdland trying to get some money, had trouble. It's ironic, the place is named after him and he's having trouble getting money.
CA: How was it playing with him?
BH: Oh, it was wonderful. The sound, very unique. His breath, his dexterity. He didn't jump around the stage or even tap his foot, the only thing he moved was his fingers. Just standing there, his posture, and he was incredibly strong. I saw him in a fight once and he knocked the guy right down. Some marine at least fifty pounds heavier. He had incredible endurance and could go for days. Not much sleep, not much food, and was in terrible pain, which is mostly why he took the heroin. I don't think he ever got high, he did it 'cuz he was in such pain. There were many lofts that had jam sessions, and he would appear there. I would run into him at places like that.
CA: How were you living at this point?
BH: I was living the same way he was. From place to place. Things were intense then, no one ever thought about it; going from place to place. There weren't crash pads-- there were plenty of people who would put you up.
CA: You were telling me about Lester Young once.
BH: Lester didn't appear much. He appeared once at the Bohemia and a little later at the Half Note. You don't really get it on the records as much as you do in person, what a great sound he had. You could see right away he had a tremendous ear. Memorized all his solos. Lou Poser imitated him in that way {titling his saxophone}. Every tune he had ever written he had been playing since he was a teenager. In the south, traveling in tent shows, gospel groups. Then hit Kansas City, and eventually Count Basie. But there was other bands. Kansas City was wide open; mafia ties with everybody; drugs. That was a big town for drugs-- cocaine, heroin, everything. That movie that Altman put out, Kansas City, it's exaggerated, but it's all pretty true. There was about eighty or ninety places that had music open all night, and all the big bands would go there, and all the white bands who came through would come and listen. Benny Goodman. {Lester} didn't like crowds too much and was living at the Albion Hotel in New York, I think that was the name. People would visit him there.
CA: Did you visit him?
BH: I came once and he wasn't there. I didn't really meet him until the Bohemian. At the Five Spot he use to go into the kitchen and smoke grass, I witnessed that. Ginsberg came in and actually did a prostration to him. I stayed in the city. I did go out once, only to New Jersey with a trumpet player.
CA: What do you remember most about these jazz clubs, you know?
BH: It was completely free and open. They're all gone now, but they were wonderful. No one made any money except the mafia-- it was mostly mafia owned. It was before Civil Rights-- black musicians would have trouble, especially on 52nd street, that's why they came downtown, they didn't have trouble as much, except with the police. The mafia took Bud Powell on a ride once to try and scare him. Told him they were gonna break his hands, that kind of stuff. He was beat up once in Atlantic City, and was hit on the head so hard he was never the same after that they say. He wound up getting shock treat, oh man. Somehow survived it, that's when he went to Paris.
CA: How many nights would you be playing?
BH: Every night. Either in a loft, a session some place, or at the Open Door or Bohemia. A couple of clubs on Christopher Street. Arthur's Tavern was one. Bill Moore had a permanent gig there, playing five dollars a night with all the beer you could drink. I saw great sessions there.
CA: Was Art Blakey coming around there?
BH: Oh, yeah, Art Blakey. I never saw him except at the Open Door and at the Bohemia...and Birdland, and a loft some place. One time the police came to his apartment, knocked on his door, and he said who is it? And they said the police. So then he called the police and said "someone's trying to rob me" {laughs}. The police came and he had to get rid of everything before they searched the place.
CA: And you had trouble with the police.
BH: Yeah. A few times. Six months or ninety days or something. There wasn't much place for musicians, especially if they were arrested with any kind of a drug. That was only the bad part. Eighty percent of the time it was great, terrific. Saw everybody-- Clifford Brown, Dizzy Gillespie. Ronny Singer, great guitar player from Chicago. He had a suicide pact with his girlfriend, and they took a lot of barbiturates and died in one of the hotels in the Village. Everything was wonderful, and then Coltrane started to appear, playing mostly in the clubs around there. I thought he was the best before, ironically, he got his own group. For some reason, I don't know why. But he was very badly hooked then, maybe that was it. He was great, sometimes he wouldn't appear for a set, although they all did that.
CA: And Ornette Coleman would be coming around then.
BH: Ornette Coleman would be coming around with that wonderful bass player...
CA: Charlie Haden.
BH: Yeah. The two drummers were great, and Don Cherry.
CA: Billy Higgins.
BH: Yeah, he was the drummer I was thinking of. And they played around mostly in lofts, made great recordings. But no one got rich.
CA: You get money?
BH: I don't know. Who knows. People in the lofts that are still alive today? Nobody! A guy named Paul Beatty. He was a painter, and had a loft on the corner of 4th Street and third avenue. There was constant music there all the time. I don't think there was anybody who didn't come there at one time or another. Including Milt Jackson, and the bass player for the Modern Jazz Quartet, Percy Heath. And then there was another loft on West Street.
CA: And then when did you get out of New York?
BH: I went into exile as I call it around 1980. Nothing was going on much. There was a little place on 4th Street that I use to go down and play at; mostly sessions which were great.
CA: What was Birdland like?
BH: I only liked Birdland for the music. Otherwise it was kind of...It was very relaxed, but most times I was there, there was only about ten or twenty people there.
CA: How comfortable were white and black people together?
BH: I'd say it was about half and half. There was never any huge crowds but sometimes they were good. Who was that jazz scat singer? God, what's wrong with my memory today?
CA: Billy Eckstine?
BH: No. He was great, but he was already in Vegas by that point. Billy Holiday was around but never saw her. I had a friend who use to see her. At that time she was gonna be ending up at Bellview dead, arrested on her deathbed. Which is all true. Dinah Washington was at the Vanguard a lot. She use to come in with a fur coat on and a white Cadillac, and the owner of the club use to wonder where she got all her money. He never asked her, but she was probably dealing.
CA: Where would all the jazz guys get their drugs? Would there be a few people they would go to?
BH: Oh, someone would come in, or someone would appear, go to a corner and get them. Always around. Carmine Street was one of the places, and in the West Side, 8th avenue.
CA: Why did you go into exile?
BH: When the rent went up, and we moved to the Tibetan Monastery in Wappingers Falls. Eventually moved to Walden across the river. Beacon for a while, then here. I played at Joshua's a few times with a good group. I was playing piano by then. I still play drums, but when you play piano, especially by yourself, it's better.
CA: Did you ever deal with John Cage at all?
BH: When I was student in Washington D.C, yes. Merce Cunningham taught at the school. He use to come there and perform with his radios {laughs}. Taught how to make the prepared piano with paper clips and screws without ruining it, yeah. In the school there was some jazz, but not much. Mostly alumni from Black Mountain. A few poets.
CA: Did you have any books that were published?
BH: Oh, very few, I think Janine has one somewhere.
CA: When did you meet Herbert Huncke?
BH: Oh, Huncke. The jazz period was over by the time I knew him. Oh, wait a minute, when Janine had a place on 6th Street, Huncke and I lived there. Nobody ever played there, a lot of musicians came there to get their drugs. There was stuff happening there, but I was so involved with drugs I didn't have time for anything else. I never knew he was a writer, though, except Janine mentioned he was a writer, and he had this little notebook. And I didn't know his name was Herbert either, it was "Huncke". And Janine was very quiet then, quite beautiful, she was thinner then than she is now. Didn't start writing until a year later. When she met Fernando.
CA: And how did you encounter Janine?
BH: I met her through Ginsberg. I was going out into a blizzard and was walking up 2nd Street with a ski mask on, and ran into him, she was there with Peter {Orlovsky}. And then later she was living with a girl. I remember Huncke or somebody was sick-- junk sick-- and went down there to give him a shot of speed, and Janine was there, and I guess that's how I got to know her. Eventually we moved to 6th Street. Wonderful experience. She was working at a public library then.
CA: And were doing painting like you were doing now?
BH: Yeah, mostly small stuff, much different than what I'm doing now. Music then? Nothing. Well, I was learning to play this flute. Early sixties-- oh wait, there was some. I had a place on 12th Street, met all these young kids that mostly played guitar, and they were all from California. It wasn't until '68 that I met them all again in Haight-Ashbury, but originally they were all in the lower East Side. I went to Woodstock and stayed there for a year. Janine, as you know, went to Europe with Fernando {Vega}, and he died of some overdose of some kind. She's an incredible survivor-- very strong, and somehow made it.
CA: How was that painting that you did of Janine-- the photograph you took?
BH: Oh, I haven't gotten the photographs back yet. But I'll do it. I use to do some of those. I did a lot of portraits of Erin Black, she's sort of a recluse, a painter.
CA: You were telling me you paint your pictures from your car, right?
BH: Very often from the driver's side. I would go and pick the spots, and if it was possible, I would get out, but if not, I would do it right from the window-- and it gave you a very good view. I've found some great spots where you can see some great things just from the car. Go right to the edge of the Hudson, which is close by, I go there a lot. A lot of animals and roads. I had a friend who I use to do it with; we'd go everywhere, all through the Catskills, out to Cherry Valley, everywhere. The Catskills are one of the greatest places on earth if you really get into it.
CA: How did that gallery {for your art work} go?
BH: Yeah, I finally did sell some paintings. I sold a painting I did in the 70's. I guess you could call it abstract, or expressionist. The summer before last I did one with a cat, and then one with a river during sunset...or sunrise.
CA: Looking back, you feel good about your life?
BH: Yeah, I don't regret anything, really. No regrets, none. I mean, a lot of stuff was difficult and a lot of pain, but that's the way it is. The way you get off is you don't get off, you vow to stay on and help mankind until everybody is happy again-- which is never. Keep going trying to survive. Like my car broke down-- I've been through this a million times-- transmission, wham. Are Plymouth's any good? I found one.
CA: I think so. I have a Ford. In Huncke's book {The Herbert Huncke Reader} you're described as this "magician", black magic magician.
BH: Oh, that's exaggerated.
CA: What's it mean?
BH: Oh, I met Harry Smith, and he and everyone really influenced me. And I use to go to this bookstore on 4th Avenue, and they had rare books, occult books, books on alchemy and things like that. And I'd get these books and I'd carry them around with me in a sack. Maybe I read a few of them, a few chapters, and so everyone saw me with these books and thought, you know. And I wouldn't talk much I guess, and if I did, it would come out as nonsense most of the time. Huncke's imagination got carried away-- needles can make you do funny things. And so a lot of it he imagined. Though I did have a few experiences which were amazing, where I was studying the Goshiean Spirits-- seventy goshien demons-- who Solomon knew how to control. The book gave you instructions on how to do it and everything, and so I drew this big serpent with the four points for the incense, I recited it and everything (naturally I was young and horny). And I invoked this spirit, Siptry, who appeared on the head of a leopard. And he granted me the power to seduce anybody he wanted. So I invoked him, and in the middle of it-- the incense was burning, the proper thing-- there was a knock on the door. It was a woman with a leopard skin coat on and a hat, and walked in right on by me, went into one of the rooms and made it with by the guys in there. Then left. {laughs} Never tried it again. Figured it could be dangerous. I was on speed, which isn't a good thing to do, except for music...sometimes.
CA: And you were doing a lot of this?
BH: (My hearing is bad, this is a terrible phone.) Speed, yes. Found a connection on the corner of 12th Street and Avenue C. An old man, he was in his nineties in a drugstore. And he could get an ounce of speed in '63 for twelve dollars an ounce. And it was crystal. So we had that connection for a while, and it was very cheap until the law caught notice of it, and in about five years it was gone. No, god, I can't even imagine doing anything like that now.
CA: How did you make your living back then?
BH:...Just by hustling, same way Huncke did. I still do, just with paintings, a different medium. Try not to hurt anybody and you'll be all right. I was good enough, yeah. Huncke was good. Everybody has a low point, he had some low points-- I remember them. When he met Charlie Plymell and he published his first book that turned everything around. He's a weird guy, doesn't talk much, but very nice...Why they're all in Cherry Valley, that's weird.
CA: My, so that whole black-magic stuff was just-
BH: Nah, I read enough to know that it's extremely dangerous. If you curse anybody it comes back on you. Sometimes before it even happens to him, or her, or what. Anger is black-magic enough. You're hurting somebody.
CA: Did you stay in touch with Huncke right up until he died?
BH: Yes, I stayed in touch with Huncke...what happened? Something happened. Oh yeah, we talked for quite a while during the 70's, and then when I went north to the monastery I lost touch with him. And then I was on my way to see him at the Chelsea Hotel, I was going to go that Saturday, and he died that Thursday. We were friends at the end. For a while we weren't, I don't know why, he was so whacked out on cocaine, whooph. He lived to be 81, which is remarkable considering what he did. I have bad knees, that's the only thing that bothers me. And that's from years of walking a million miles in New York City.
copyright 2004 Carson Arnold
H(ear) is an online music column consisting of interviews, articles, and investigations written by Carson Arnold. As a freelance writer for various magazines and liner notes, living in the woods of Vermont with his family, Carson widely encourages one to submit their art, writing or any interesting piece of material that you would like to share. H(ear) is accepting both promos and demos for review or any other valuable music-related subjects. If you wish to make a comment or would like to receive H(ear) weekly by email please contact Carson at [email protected]
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