The most recent night of Harlem
Speaks, October 6, 2005, presented drum master Roy Haynes
in a discussion with fellow drummer Lewis Nash that captivated
and thrilled the rapt audience at the offices of the Jazz
Museum in Harlem. Much as when on drums, Haynes was at the
center of a swirling discussion that swung from his early
days growing up in Boston, to coming to New York 60 years
ago to play with the Luis Russell at the Savoy Ballroom
onto remembrances of the exhilaration of performing with
a cross-section of the eternal pantheon of jazz . . . Louis
Armstrong, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughn, Thelonious
Monk, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Chick Corea, and
John Coltrane, to name a few.
He reminisced about hanging with the fraternity
of musicians on 127th and St. Nicholas Avenue back in the
'50s; he explained why he viewed Sarah and Ella as so musically
and vocally talented that they were "one of the guys."
Haynes recounted the quickness and acuity of Charlie Parker's
mind on the bandstand, and the drummers he admired while
carving his own place in the annals of jazz. When he was
asked what he thought about today's popular music, he paused
. . shook his head . . . looked up, saying "Now some
of rap is hip . . . yet some of it is hop!"
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