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| Phil Lasley , c. 1995 |
Musicians generally fall in love with music at an early age. While still children they realize, or sense, that music is their companion and best friend and the medium through which they communicate most effectively.
In many households “musician” is considered an undesirable occupation, one which parents hope their children will avoid. In Phelbert “Phil” Lasley III’s home everyone created music. His sister Nettie played piano and sang, and both of his brothers Larry and Ben played piano; Larry also played alto sax. Ben played professionally, was a sharp dresser, and carried himself with dignity and confidence, traits which made a strong impression on young Phil. Phil’s parents encouraged their children’s interest in music.
“I wanted to be a musician from the time I was four or five years old,” Phil recalls. “At first, I wanted to be a piano player because my mother played. She could really play the blues. She worked at after-hour joints around Detroit.”
Phil’s dad owned an alto sax, and on Saturdays he and his cousin Robert would sit around the kitchen and play their horns. Phil was seduced by the sound of the saxophone and decided it was the instrument he most wanted to play. Phil ‘borrowed’ his dad’s horn after school and practiced on the sly for several months before being caught. His dad was impressed by Phil’s obvious talent, and arranged for lessons.
Lasley started selling “Jet” magazine door-to-door and delivering newspapers in his ‘hood and earned enough money to buy his first alto.
Lasley, born March 27, 1940, caught the end of Detroit’s golden era of jazz, and he heard many great musicians like Barry Harris and Yusef Lateef before they left town. His near East side neighborhood was adjacent to Paradise Valley, Detroit's black business/entertainment area, which was steeped in music.
Lasley ushers a visitor into his small, comfortable apartment located near the Wayne State University campus in midtown Detroit. He gestures around the living room. “Reminds you of New York, don’t it?” There are pictures and paintings on the walls. Some of the paintings are Lasley originals – soft-toned water colors with lines of black ink that twist and turn over the paper. Phil’s Selmer saxophone lies atop a pile of manuscript paper on a nearby table, assembled and ready to play. He spends most of his day practicing and, sometimes, recycling notes and ideas into fresh melodies (which defines jazz, almost).
Phil began composing music about thirty years ago during his first stay in Manhattan. “I wrote a song for Hank Mobley. Hank and I hung out, and he gave me the music to a number he had recorded with Charles Davis and Cedar Walton, “Early Morning Stroll.” So I wrote “Henry Earl Spirit” for him.”
Two of Phil’s compositions, “Nkenge’s Blues”, dedicated to community activist Nkenge Zola, and “Lady T Diana”, written for his then-partner, Trudy, were in the Teddy Harris Quartet band book. Another number, “Maman Pov’re”, reflects his disgust with Michigan’s then-current (1992) political leaders. “This piece is about suffering,” he says. “This woman is twenty-seven, homeless, with two kids. She and one of the kids have muscular dystrophy. I really feel her pain. If (then-Governor John) Engler had any decency at all, he would’ve waited until warmer weather to cut off her payments.” Lasley slowly shakes his head. “During Engler’s next life, he’ll probably come back as a poor Black guy living in the Brewster Projects.” Phil throws his head back and laughs, relishing the thought.
A compact man of average height and build, Lasley always looks sharp on the bandstand. He has a lot of presence and projects a royal aura, as though he had been a knight or Lord in a previous life. His face is animated and he smiles easily. Lasley is part American Indian and he’s an Aries. Phil has the maniacal Aries personality, and is subject to sudden bursts of energy. This is most noticeable when he plays, but he’s always overflowing with stories, gossip and warmth – he’s a regular guy with extraordinary talent.
Phil’s solos are energetic, intense and full of feeling. His tone is round and full, sometimes slightly sharp (like Jackie McLean’s, another influence), other times tender and yearning. During his most animated flights, the tone is coarser and thick, reminiscent of the great “Jump” alto players of the forties who were Phil’s early heroes: Tab Smith, Earl Bostic, and Louis Jordan. “Those guys had a lot of ‘balls’ to their sound. And, each guy had his individual sound and style.”
Once Phil heard Charlie Parker, he forsook all others and followed Bird: “Bird had it all.”
The Lasley family moved frequently during Phil’s youth. He attended schools on both the east and west sides of the city, including McMichael and Grisel Junior high schools. At Grisel, he met future Detroit jazz stars pianist Kenny Cox and drummers Ike Daney and George Davidson. They too had decided jazz was their way, and they were eager to learn. “We used to hang out at Joe Brazil’s house(1),” Phil recalls. “We’d sit on the front porch and bug the older musicians.” Older musicians’ helping younger musicians is the Detroit way, and Phil learned many valuable lessons from the established players. Phil’s friend Donald Walden, two years his senior, pulled his coat to an important fact. “I thought Bird was reading everything he played,” Lasley chuckles. Walden, then studying with bebop doyen Barry Harris and already a good improviser, told Phil what was happening with Bird and schooled him on chords.
Phil progressed rapidly and soon got his first gig, at age fifteen, for the Pingree Mother’s Club. Shortly after high school, he began working full time as a musician with the Ralph Kirk Quartet, made up of Phil and three friends. “We had a gig at the Spot Bar(2), near Klein’s Show Bar(3) , near Klein’s Show Bar on Twelfth Street,” he recalled. “They had what seemed like the highest bandstand in the world. From there, we went to the Garfield Lounge. We also worked after hours at the Stinson Hotel.” One night at the Stinson, pianist Billy Taylor and his trio came in after their gig. The guys liked Phil’s sound, and encouraged him to “try New York, man.”
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Teddy Harris, electric piano Lottie “The Body” Claiborne, Mistress of Ceremonies Rod Hicks, electric bass Lawrence Williams, drums Phil Lasley, alto sax
BoMac’s Lounge, c. 1994 |
Never one to shy away from a challenge, Lasley and the quartet’s drummer pooled their resources, got two Greyhound bus tickets, and left within a week. “I was eighteen years old, and had more heart than brains,” Phil recalls with a grin. Manhattan was teeming with musical energy and Lasley sampled the rich fare, or as much of it as he could with his remaining $10. He established a toehold in the loft scene, performing with younger musicians who played “edge stuff”, like pianist Cecil Taylor and drummer Sonny Murray – demanding music which many listeners found difficult to understand. Lasley heard, admired, and became friendly with John Coltrane, too. Phil attempted to capture ‘Trane’s concept on his alto.
One memorable job found Phil in an all-star band that included bassist Wendell Marshall, trombonist Al Grey, french horn player (and fellow Detroiter) Julius Watkins, cornetist Thad Jones, and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster. “I was in over my head,” Lasley recalls with a smile, “and, I had to ride on the bus from New York to Pittsburgh seated next to Ben Webster!” Webster, nicknamed “The Brute”, had an aggressive side to his personality which could unnerve those who didn’t know him well. Their conversation went something like this:
Ben: What are you doing here, boy?
Phil: I’m a musician
Ben: (loudly) Hey! You fellows hear that? He’s a MUSICIAN! What do you play, boy??
Phil: Saxophone
Ben: (loudly) you fellows hear that?? He plays SAXOPHONE! You play TENOR SAXOPHONE, boy???
Phil: (loudly) NO! NO! NO!
Once Webster heard Lasley play, he lightened up a bit. Ben could play decent stride piano, and he showed Phil how to improvise on the changes to American popular tunes of the 1920s and 1930s.
Jobs such as this were the exceptions. Most of the gigs, like much of the music in New York, were aimed at a general audience, not jazz aficionados. Phil worked mainly with back-up bands used to accompany pop acts. He joined vocalist Chuck Jackson’s band, led by tenor saxophonist Bobby Scott, in 1962 and remained nearly six years. Lasley got his first taste of life on the road, and he learned much from it. “We lived out of suitcases,” he remembers. “Nine months a year in the States, and winters in the Caribbean.” Lest one think that it was a boring gig, Lasley is quick to point out that he was given many solo spots. The band was featured each set, and there was new music to learn every week for the various acts which toured with the show, acts which today seem surreal.
“We had all kinds of acts with us. Little dogs in dresses, dance teams, stuff like that. (Comic) Flip Wilson toured with us once. One of the funniest acts was a female impersonator named Chickie Horne. Wore an evening gown, tennis shoes, and a huge bra. He would bounce basketballs and catch them in the bra while he sang “Everyday I Have The Blues.” Just imagine…Everyday….WHOP! Everyday…WHOP!
Once, at the Apollo Theater in New York, one of Chickie’s balls took a bad bounce and he missed the catch. He misjudged the stage while chasing the ball and ran into a wall. Broke his ankle. Trooper that he was, Chickie finished the number before he collapsed and yelled for help.” Phil chuckles at the memory. “Like they say, ‘there’s no business like show business’
This is a lighter moment of what was often a hard and at times dangerous livelihood.
The pressure was especially intense for people of color in the early 1960s. The civil rights movement was in full swing and the south became a focal point for confrontations with the KKK and local constabularies. Beatings and murders of black folks were common. Touring bands were easy targets for violence and overt racism. Phil hadn’t spent any time down south, and he was shocked by the hatred.
“Young white girls at dances would ask for our autographs. Their boyfriends would wait for us outside and try to run us down with their cars. It’s one thing to read about that shit, but to experience it...” Phil’s voice trails off and he winces. “Another time, we were staying at the Atlanta Hilton. My roommate and I went to use the pool, which was crowded. We had the whole thing to ourselves before we’d swum one lap. That’s a strange feeling, man. How can you deal with that shit and stay sober?”
The experiences elevated Lasley’s political consciousness, and he decided that “art and music are political statements: You play what you experience.”
Many musicians took narcotics to counteract the stress, and Phi fell into the habit around 1961. “Dope was cheap, easy to get, and it was part of the scene,” Lasley recalls. “We tried anything that would keep us playing….almost everybody was using drugs.” He fell afoul of the law and did a year on Riker’s Island. Locked up, separated from his music, surrounded by violent felons, Phil vowed he’d never again use narcotics. Sticking by such a decision takes mettle, but Lasley’s resolve has never wavered.
Around 1967, Phil wanted a change of musical scene and he left the Jackson band. Motown Records was actively courting them, and finally made a generous offer to Phil and two colleagues, which they accepted; their acceptance effectively broke up the band. Soon after arriving in Detroit, Phil realized that the Motown deal wasn’t as sweet as he’d thought. “They had some very funny business practices at Motown that I didn’t like at all. Nobody got any money, not even the stars.” Lasley hung on for a year and change, then joined Aretha Franklin’s band, which was bound for New York.
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| Gallert and Lasley, November 1996. |
Lasley found a very different scene compared to his first visit in 1958. The entertainers with whom Phil had worked were inactive. Some had died. The “Chitlin’ Circuit”, that venerable string of clubs and theaters which had supported much of the black entertainment industry, had fizzled out. “The days of show bands had come and gone,” Phil recalled. “I worked with Sam Rivers, Tommy Turrentine, Walter Bishop, and various Latin bands.”
Phil started the Jazz Studies department and taught at the Greenwich House of Music. He and Trudy (who’d moved from Detroit) managed Omar’s, a jazz club in Greenwich Village. Lasley worked steadily but they scuffled to survive in Manhattan.
Phil and Trudy returned to Detroit in 1981. Things weren’t much better in his hometown, but the tempo was slower – “more relaxed”, Phil thought. Lasley gigged around town using his entire arsenal of instruments: alto, tenor and soprano saxes and flute. He toyed with the idea of playing the sopranino – he dug the sound – but realized his hands were full with the other four instruments. In order to support his family (now including a daughter, Nagira), Phil took day jobs and played at night. “I worked as a janitor for $5.00 an hour,” he snorts. “$195 a week, before taxes! Who can live on that? If I play jazz, at least I’m happy. And if I make $195, it’s in one night, not one week!”
Phil worked for nearly a year in the Teddy Harris Quartet at BoMac’s Lounge in downtown Detroit, “The Friendliest Place In Town”, which offered jam sessions on Thursday, a big band on Sunday evening, and Teddy’s band on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Harris (1934 – 2005) was a veteran Motown musician, leader of the New Breed BeBop Society Orchestra (a significant training ground for young musicians), a good pianist and saxophonist. He’d “made his bones” on tenor with the Modern Moods Quintet back in the day, but now focused solely on piano & soprano sax. Rod Hicks played bass, his warm sound anchoring the band. Like Harris, Hicks worked with bluesman Paul Butterfield in the late sixties. Drummer Lawrence Williams (1937 – 2006) was simply amazing. A composer, painter and Gemini, every lick Lawrence hit flavored and propelled the music, often to stellar places. Several of Lawrence’s more ambitious pieces, like “Number 9” were in the bandbook. When that group started cookin’ people stopped drinkin’. They stared and listened…Teddy’s group completely changed the nightclub dynamic from “have a few drinks, listen to the band” into a visceral, spiritual experience…serious jazz followers filtered in, gradually displacing the regulars; the owners grumbled about the reduced bar tariffs – too much listening, not enough drinking. It was a hell of a gig while it lasted.
After BoMac’s, Phil spent a summer doing landscaping work with his longtime friend, bassist Ray McKinney, who was also scuffling. He’d always liked gardening, which made landscaping (or “landscraping” as McKinney called it) tolerable. Phil had an occasional saxophone student, but found to his chagrin that younger folks were often unwilling to put forth the necessary time and effort to master, or at least come to grips with, the saxophone.
Lasley’s goal has always been simple: earn a living playing music – his music. He’s led various bands since his return from New York, among them, Fire!, his five-piece band that appeared regularly at the Montreux-Detroit Jazz Festival (now the Detroit International Jazz Festival) during the mid-1980s. Most bands at the Jazz Festival work about once a year…at the jazz festival, a fact which makes Phil shake his head and reiterate what most jazz followers know: European and Japanese audiences support jazz far more than the U.S. Phil occasionally works in Amsterdam with pianist Rein de Graf and marvels at the reception – a crowd of jazz fans met him at the airport during his last visit. It’s events like that which prove to Lasley that the road to steady employment leads abroad. “All I need,” he insists, “is a piece of land to grow my own food, some privacy, and the opportunity to send my kids to college. That’s all I want.” It takes some effort to picture Phil tending a row of corn, but, hey, Bird went through a similar phase.
The phone rings, and it’s a call for Lasley’s daughter Nagira, who isn’t home. “Boy, I’m glad I’m not growing up now,” says Lasley as he lights a cigarette. Kids today don’t know what it’s like to grow up without drugs and guns in their schools. When I grew up, if you had a beef with someone, you fought, and the next day you were friends. Nowadays, you blow the other guy away. Kid’s don’t think they have a worthwhile future. I had a kid tell me, ‘I can do ten years and be out by the time I’m twenty-seven.’ That scares me.” Phil leans back in his chair and exhales deeply.
Now sixty-six, Phil Lasley has mellowed somewhat. He’s a little thicker around the waist and has less hair. He’s come to grips with Diabetes and sporadic age-related aches & pains.
He always practices for hours every day, honing his chops, pushing his creativity, infrequently sitting in around town or snagging a sporadic gig in the private sector. In the meantime he works in the Detroit Public School System with drummer George Davidson, trying his best to interest pre-teen students in the art of making music. It’s often frustrating, but Phil, ever the optimist, recounts with relish the small successes he’s had.
The conversation turns to Hollywood, and the seemingly permanent stereotype of A Jazz Musician: Drugs, suffering for His Art, unable to form permanent attachments. “Just once I’d like to see them make a movie about the real life of a jazz musician, like the French did with Round Midnight. Not a guy who chases women and does drugs, but a guy with a family who’s trying to make it every day. The sacrifices he makes. The integrity he has. That’s what jazz is all about: integrity. Integrity and love.”
He smiles, yawns and stretches; the interview is over. As Lasley shows his visitor to the door, they walk past the artwork-covered walls. Phil looks around and smiles. “Kinda reminds you of New York, don’t it?”
Phil Lasley is featured on the June/July 2006 Detroit JazzStage podcast that is available at www.jazzstage.us
1. Brazil’s house, located on Fleming Street on Detroit’s northeast side, was the scene of nonstop jam sessions. Visiting musicians, like John Coltrane, would drop by to jam.(back)
2. 8606 12th Street.(back)
3. 8540 12th Street. (back)
