Carol Kaye Interview

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Bruno Chaza
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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 1989Message Bruno Chaza »

Thanks to Carol Kaye for this beautiful moment
Bruno Chaza
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It’s so interesting to hear musicians discuss their feelings, memories, hopes, projects, motivations (what pushes them forward, what makes them work), their likes and dislikes.

Yes Bruno, I think it's very important to know what about a musician, how they get their careers going, the things they think about. Most will never reveal much tho', it's the nature of the musician I think....they're afraid to say things "with words", things they'd rather say in their music I believe. You have good questions.

What were the critical aspects of your musical development (other musicians, specific books, getting to know a standard, a personal revelation, a certain practice method, etc.)?
I grew up very very poor, my parents divorced and we didn't have much before and so my Dad skipped the state and Mom and I got nothing...so had to work since I was 9 years old, we both worked cleaning apartments, babysitting anything to survive. I'd sing around the apartment and so my Mom, God Bless her saved up pennies and (when I was 13) through a traveling salesman, bought me a cheap steel guitar complete with a few lessons for $10.00 and I found something I could "do that made me feel good". I also stuttered, and was picked on in school by kids in the housing projects for being "smart" in school, I got good grades in spite of the disability..so life wasn't very easy back then, and music made me feel good, plus after 3 mos. free lessons by a guitar teacher soon (age of 14), I was able to make money playing gigs and also teaching...believe me, being able to EAT because I could play music was a very big incentive to play music.

· If I want to go out and buy a CD of yours tomorrow, what do you recommend I listen to?

<that's a tough one to answer, there's many of the studio things I did that yes, I'm proud of (much of what we cut was just surf-rock, good grooves but no not our "favorite music")...probably "Feelin' Alright" by Joe Cocker, "I Don't Need No Doctor" and other cuts by Ray Charles, "The Way We Were" by Barbra Streisand, and lots of the TV show theme music like Mission Impossible, Kojac, Streets Of San Francisco, McCloud, MASH, It Takes A Theif, Ironside, Room 222, the first Bill Cosby TV show (approx. 1969-1970), and some of the hits like with Andy Williams, Lou Rawls, some of the Beach Boys things I liked, Mel Torme things, OC Smith, "The In Crowd" hit with Dobie Gray, there's many recordings I particularly like, can't say a "favorite" no. Being a jazz musician, I never listen to that stuff anymore except on rare occasion. Once you cut it all, you forget it and go on and later on, you're able to play the music you only want to play.

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· Are there still musicians that you listen to who give you strength and energy? Could you talk about that?

I was originally a jazz musician (like most of the studio musicians) and so yes, that music always inspires me, especially listening to the late great Sonny Stitt. I love some classical music too.

· Could you tell us something about your recent projets ?
I'm working on a film project, a jazz tutor that will soon be out on DVD. I have an album project (on bass) coming up with a big star, with music I particularly like but can't reveal the name of the singer yet (they told me not to just yet), she's a great singer, and I look forward to it all. I only work occasionally and only on record dates or film calls I like to do. There's not the work at all anymore in the Hollywood studios there once was for anyone....and I've been out playing some jazz guitar also (again, I was originally a jazz guitarist in the 1950s). Also my Documentary "First Lady Of Bass" has been shown in parts of Europe 3x and about to be shown in Canada...and elsewhere. There's more about to happen which I cannot reveal yet, it's an exciting year so far.

· What basses do you play ?

In the studios and live, I ONLY use the great Ibanez SRX700...as usual, I only have 2 basses. Studio musicians here are not into collecting, and you only have what you need, plus a spare. I know elsewhere they have a multitude of basses, but I get versatile sounds from one bass, like we've always done out here and see no need to get an arsenal of basses...I work enough as it is. The Ibanez I feel completely comfortable with since they added more meat to their necks...even with my small hands I need meat to the hand won't cramp while playing and the Ibanez is quality through and through and now with a perfect neck, it's terrific. I will never change the pickups either, (I only use the neck pickup)...the generic pickups are great, natural-sounding, and get the Fender sounds I want and also the great jazz sounds I love. With the great Thomastik Jazz Flats, I get great sounds (also with my muting and picking technique close to the end of the neck with a flat wrist).

· Do you have a favorite one or do you practise different instruments according to styles and functions ?

I use the Ibanez slab-body guitar with special pickup, the Humbucker by Seymour Duncan (again the neck pickup ONLY for fine thick bassy jazz sounds), the Ibanez I use is the RG321 and with the George Benson flatwound jazz strings, the Seymour Duncan pickup, the great Ibanez guitar that is considered to be a "rock" guitar, because of its quality, it becomes a GREAT jazz guitar. I've played in clubs, playing some jazz soloing on it, and guitarists would walk in with their $5,000 acoustic-elec. guitars and their mouths would drop ....because....they could NOT get as good of a jazz sound as I could with a $350.00 guitar set up right for fine jazz. The sounds are phenomenal. Ibanez is the ONLY company I love absolutely, they listen to musicians and have integrity to put out quality instruments right off the line, quality that lasts. Their bass pickups are IT for fine versatile bass sounds, I don't need anything but their Ibanez generic pickups in the bass...but for jazz, yes I need the Duncan pickup which they use by the way in many of their acoustic-elec. guitars. Excellent!

· Is your student’s musical experiment only with Jazz ?

I only really teach Jazz now, I used to teach everything and occasionally I'll make an exception. I've taught music (except for the very busy 1960s studio years) since 1949...and so I don't have the patience I once had in teaching..which is why I only teach Jazz, the only music of my choice to play (outside of studio work that is also of my choosing). I teach only professional musicians and some fly in from Europe for lessons, and it's nice to see dedication to learn the right jazz, not the dumb note-scale stuff (you can't play fine jazz soloing with note-scales)....they all need the chordal pattern system I teach...I played jazz with the finest jazz legends around LA, especially in the black nightclubs in the 1950s and I teach the way everyone played fine jazz improv back then. You can't learn to play fine jazz with the terrible ear-killing note-scales commonly taught now by the ex-rocker musicians...and they aren't in contact with the fine older jazz musicians to have the experience to teach...but slowly the dedicated ones are learning chordal progressions and sub-chords to teach jazz with, buying my tutors on it too -- sometimes you run across an older jazz musician teaching here and there. It's the same theory: chordal.

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I've trained many in the past in how to create soul playing, boogaloo funky lines, pop-rock-blues-motown types of lines yes...there's an exclusive theory on that, something not generally known to the public, about the rhythmic uses of certain notes...but everyone gets it very well with all the lines in my many books.

· Do you feel you have made yours keys in your musical journey, a special way to play a chord or chord’s groups ? Shortly speaking what were your ways to make technique fade away from freedom of playing ?
It's important to get the proper education to learn how to play, it's a process that takes time and I've seen many a former student go on to become famous for their quality playing but it takes time. You learn, practice, jam with others, do a few gigs, learn more, jam more, do more gigs, and slowly you get the experience you need for most anything.

Learning jazz also makes the process all work well...as it's the most complex and creative style to learn and then you can play any style you want to very well with the right attitude of being a "fine professional musician, no matter the style of music". It's called being reliable, not doing drugs nor too much drinking either. None of our group of 1960s studio musicians did drugs nor had a drinking problem. We come from a time when we all thought doing drugs was STUPID (and still think that)...we could invent and cut a hit album in 6 hours no problem.

And yes, most of us were wellschooled in chords, you had to be to play Standards, with all the chords there...that helps to develop your ear...and we all had experience with playing either jazz and/or in big bands too, years of experience before ever doing studio work...the music education of the 1940s and 1950s was chordally which is missing today. And so many drugs around, who are they trying to impress with drugs?! It's all so stupid and plus, a person can never learn to play music while on drugs...to work with someone on drugs, you have to "carry them"....they rush on cocaine and drag on pot...etc. and then drag you down with *their" conning lifestyle too if you ever be friendly to them - uh-uh, leave the druggies alone in their own stupidness and go and do your music with a clear head, it's great that way and happy.

I never "planned" on anything, just things happened and it was always about supporting my growing family. I simply married the wrong men (a drunk, a businessman who hurt my earlier children, and another drunk/idiot) so I had to raise my 3 children alone...and to do that I had work in the studios and was grateful for the work and especially playing bass when someone didn't show up at Capitol Records....I got to play, invent what I wanted to invent on bass and quickly became #1 call on bass in 1963-64 then....it was easier to play rock on bass, then on guitar. I had been playing 12-string guitar, all kinds of different guitar parts on hit records since 1957 and didn't enjoy turning my jazz guitar into a rock idiom at all....but playing bass made it easier and sort of fun here and there too, playing my own invented lines. I never wanted to do studio work, I always just wanted to play live jazz but the money was in studio work and so everyone who played well did studio work and it was wonderful to work with all of them, all good guys, great talents. I lived in a time when you were lucky to eat, and didn't have the luxury of choices, but it all worked out for the best - taking care of your children is top priority. Jazz simply didn't pay anyone well enough to raise a family on.

· Could you describe a typical week in your life (your interactions with other musicians, your courses, rehearsals, practice)?
Once you play in the studios, say 12-14-16 hours a day, what time is there to "practice"? You're always playing...you come to a certain high level of playing (and studio work was not jazz...it was a business), and you don't practice. You need to practice yes, if you're playing jazz or other complex music but in recording, none of us played anywhere near our former level of jazz musicianship, you don't need to "practice" at all and in fact, when I'd finally get home...I'd tell the kids, "Shut off the radio, I can't stand to hear another note of music" you're playing so much music 6-7 days a week year and year out just recording you quickly get burned out of hearing any kind of music. I'm probably one of the very few of the 100s of us studio musicians that listens to any kind of music today. Usually you walk into someone's house, it's dead quiet....it's hard for the public to understand this but they didn't have to play music 12 hours a day for years every day of the week!
A usual day in the 1960s early 1970s was: get up 7AM quickly eat something, take a shower and go the movie studio to cut a film score all day long 8 to 5PM. Go home for quick bite to eat and then start record date at 8PM to 11PM (or later usually) sometimes you don't get home until 1AM as it goes in to overtime. And yes, you will take a commercial you have to record from 6 to 7PM so there's no ptime to go home to dinner, you grab a quick bite and it's on to the 8PM call...this on a daily basis, and sometimes I'd hire a "stand-by" if any one of those dates went overtime so the standby could be at the next date to play until I got there 10-15 mintes late.
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You could NEVER be late for the date, as Union rules were that if and when it went into overtime, you would pay for all the overtime which amounted to 1,000s of dollars then..you could NEVER be late. I had a cartage company carry around 1 of my 4 amps to set up at the studio, I'd run in with my bass, my amp would be turned on and I'd plug into and quickly tune up and ready to play, pencil in hand for writing down any licks I'd think of to play or for any changes in any music. In the early 1960s, we all had to do our own head arrangements, sometimes writing out our own chord charts as some singer would play guitar or piano and sing....then slowly arrangers started writing chord charts and a few lines but all the record companies and producers relied heavily on our group of 50-60 studio musicians (called the "clique") for our own ideas to make the arrangements sound better - this all started to be more music to read about 1965-66...but they still needed us to add our own lines over that. It was always easy for us experience mostly jazz musicians to invent lines, we did that every night playing jazz, always inventing knowing what made the music sound good, putting frameworks around the sometimes just so-so singers and belive me, those tunes as a rule were not all that great back then -- the framework we created made the singer sound good, made the tune sound good.

Plus we all had excellent engineers in those times...engineers who all walked in the studio to listen to our sounds (you learn how to mute to get excellent sounds in studio work, that also works playing live too) and faithfully reproduced the very sounds we got in the room...such was the integrity of the engineers back then...they didn't use (or have to use) any EQ or compression etc. That's why that music sounds so potent.

Did I get tired? Yes, all of us lived on 5-6 hours sleep most of the time for years in the heavy-duty studio work and would be on edge from drinking all the coffee to stay awake with too. Several producers (for no reason but experimenting in the booth) would do 25-30 or more takes...it wasn't because of musicians, it was because of THEM trying to learn the producing as they went along...

musicians could get a hit take in 1-2 takes but we'd sit and wait for this and that, hence all the cigarettes and coffee drinking to stay away...and everyone would get punch and then the humor 1-line funny things were said...you'd sit there laughing on the inside at all the nutty things we'd say in the studio waiting to play HARD on a take..you always played 3-4 times harder in the studio than ever live....we were afraid the business would collapse and we'd be out of work next year...so we took "every date" we could and invented and played HARD to keep the business going.

We knew our names were NOT getting on the album covers...our group was cutting everyone's hit records but with no credits and trade magazine lying about "who played on the records"..it was important to have the fantasy that those cute guys in the group played on their own recordings...NO they didn't! It was all a big LIE and so we all knew that, and knew to keep going as it would all fail someday if the truth got out about us cutting ALL the hits for all the groups. It finally did fail in the 1970s when the younger musicians used drugs, it took months to cut an album and then the synthesizer took over, but most of us were playing just film scores and TV shows by that time, there were no drugs there.

· What is your preferred ensemble – the trio or the quartet? Do you think a certain ensemble works best or does it depend on your mood?
No preference...if the musicians are good, you can easily plan with any amount of musicians and it'll be great.

· Along the same line, do you have a favorite tempo? What keys do you like to play in?

No preference. Standards which is where Jazz was born, are usually written in flat keys to accommodate the horns and reeds which need flat keys.

· Do you consider the bass as a rhythm instrument or do you also find appeal in freeform soloing and chord-playing?
I don't use bass in any way but being the foundation instrument of the band or combo. I know others sometimes (not really the top pro's tho' - they'll solo in jazz yes, but in a combo setting) use it a solo instrument, that's fine...whatever.

· Where do you think Coltrane’s experiment with two basses in one band could lead music?
Two basses have forever been used in things...it was common in early recordings to use both acoustic and elec. bass in recordings before I came along and played with a pick in 1963 and accidently took the place of 2 basses on most of the recording dates..I could get the sounds of both basses on elec. bass.

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About 2-bass parts, I had some interesting things to play with Ray Brown on some Quincy Jones film scores and so we cut some sides featuring 2 basses playing soulful type of stuff...sounded good, those sides are now on "Carol Kaye: Bass" and for awhile was pirated as "picking up on the E string" (I don't get one penny from that stolen recording so please don't buy it, it's a pirate recording...you can get the right sounds, better sounds on my "Carol Kaye: Bass" CD)...has those sides with Ray Brown on it, interesting funky music. I don't have any opinion on Coltrane's use of 2 basses.

· What advice would you give to young musicians reading this?

Learn your chordal notes, study and practice 1 hour a day (only 2 hours a day if it's jazz, NO MORE...the brain simply doesn't work past 2 hours and don't do thing by rote) ..with the right materials to study you learn a LOT and do a LOT with 1 hour a day practice, it's the quality of practice, not especially the quantity of practice that gets you there. Don't use drugs...why do that? Only losers use drugs and crawl into their own little fantasy world...enjoy playing music with good musicians, don't be around druggies, leave them alone in their game world...go for the music, play great and things happen, opportunities always present themselves if you prepare for it. Have integrity to NOT be late to work, always answer the phone, be responsible and you will be successful it's a guarantee if you practice, become a good experienced musician.

· Do you think there are any solutions to the crisis in the recording industry, the struggle of those who try to make a living as musicians, and the digitalization of music?

First of all, I applaud the digital world...there's so much you can do with it, it's a fine technology if used right. It's just all shifting around as to where the work is these days. I see a ton of work that private bands are doing playing Standards, enjoying good musicianship, excellent respect, and good money, it's in the private sector not especially in the nightclubs these days. And opportunity because of the web has shifted more to the public sector too...I think there's more opportunity than ever you have to promote your own products, play colleges, sell your own CDs, and that's where it's at I believe. The old days are long-gone and yes there's still an industry but not much of one...it's more important to better your musicianship, better your personality by having the right attitude (no drugs!), and getting along, helping others like night-club owners make money so you can make money....
stop thinking of "being a star"! That's a carefuly crafted image done for BUSINESS...it's NOT REAL..so stop thinking it's real and get down to real business of playing good for the money...it's like the ads of people advertising their "get rich quick" things...if you're really rich you don't have those schemes...it's all for business that phony "star" trip....stay away from people who are "trying to be stars" too...they're not in their right minds. The "real stars" are very low-key and worked themselves UP by being good.

· Do you think the internet can provide a forum for a musical counter-culture or open new possilbities for musicians, or do you think the web will alienate us even more?
I have no idea but it's a good tool to sell your CDs if you've got a little following of your live gigs as a band to start with.


· Without getting into a deeply philosophical debate, do you think musicians have something to say about the world’s troubles: global warming, conflicts, economic struggles?

I'd says yes. I applaud Sting's dedication to our environment, we're more in-tune with the world on a very deep level because of our music playing and feeling...it's a very deep unspoken level of communication and "we're in touch" I do believe ...we feel the pains of the animals and birds, and the suffering...and it's good that musicians do as much as they can to help.
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Once we trash this world, we all can't pick up and go live on Mars...it's our home and to treat our home and the helpless animals birds and fish the way we're treating them, the fuana, the trees, and formerly clean water this way is a crime against God...we were given life on this planet and we should protect it from the evils especially against the evils of the oil industry! And other energies, sure the basis of OUR economies, what a crime, that eat up and destroy our world. THis is a problem our children are faced with very soon when they grow up...I have faith in people being good and solving these huge issues, but it looks pretty bad today doesn't it?!

· Please feel free to add whatever questions you think I should have asked.

Because of the looming world-wide crisis of our planet's natural resources being under attack so much, it should be the responsibility of ALL musicians to stop using drugs,get a clear head and stop hiding from it all....we CAN make a difference. Straighten up and take pride in the body and mind God gave you, stop trying to destroy it...don't pamper yourself, go out and play good music, express your real feelings in the music and know your life has a real purpose, a useful purpose to contribute something of your God-given talents to make the world a better place...once you concentrate on something bigger than yourself, you find purpose and happiness in your endeavors. And you help make the world a better place too. We always knew in the studio work, if we played good, the money would always come and it did...go with that.

Carol Kaye

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EdD
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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 1990Message EdD »

Salut,

C'est elle qui a joué pas mal de Motown, non?
Une legende de la basse :wink: c'est un peu grâce à elle que j'ai choisi la basse, plutot que la guitare (bien que je gratte un petit peu) ou la batterie.

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Bruno Chaza
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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 1996Message Bruno Chaza »

Absolutely
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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 2147Message nanookanono »

Salut chers bassistes forumeurs,

Je me suis attelé à un rude chantier, c'est la traduction de l'article de Carol Kaye ... j'ai 8 pages dans Word (taille des caractère 12) :w1i: j'en suis qu'à la page 4, et je peux vous annoncer qu'elle ne s'est pas moqué de nous, car c'est passionnant. Elle n'a pas ménagé ses efforts pour vraiment bien expliquer plein de détails pédagogiques sur la basse et la musique. :sourir:

J'ai été aussi m'inscrire et laisser un message de remerciements sur son forum qui est très intéressant. la plupart des posts sont des questions techniques sur les standards et ça donne l'impression que Carol est une encyclopédie vivante du Jazz. :respect: .

Hier vers 14h, je lui ai demandé ses souvenirs des séances avec Frank Zappa, et aussi des explications sur l'évolution de son implication dans les arrangements des morceaux qu'elle a joué en studio.

Ce matin il y avait la réponse... et ça m'en fait une page de plus à traduire :mrgreen: mais c'est parce qu'elle devait partir d'urgence au travail!!
Pour ceux qui lisent l'anglais aller voir là : http://www.carolkaye.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1103

Bruno, elle t'envoie ses meilleurs souhaits et à tout le monde aussi, et elle dit que cet après midi elle viendra poster sur le forum.
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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 2148Message Thomas »

Trop classe cette Bass-Lady...
Voilà quelqu'un qui a su rester abordable malgré le succés
Un grand merci à toi Nanook, grâce à ton excellent travail tu nous permets de nous enrichir, ça c'est de la solidarité ! :wink: Respect
Carol Kaye

Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 2149Message Carol Kaye »

Thank-you to Bruno, a wonderful person for his nice thoughts and to nanook for his post on my Forum also, thank-you. I wish I could speak French, it's a beautiful language, to wish you all love and blessings for playing good music. I was asked about Frank Zappa. Yes, I played guitar, 12-string guitar on his first 2 lps...most of the cuts of his first 2 lps. He played rock guitar leads on those cuts. Was a good man to work for, very nice guy, wrote some great music.

I got to make up parts of 12-string guitar. Tommy Tedesco also played guitar and Dennis Budimer (fine jazz guitarist) played guitar also. He used his own bassist and drummer. Frank was very straight, no drugs and he drank coffee like we did in the studios. In the studio work in the 1960s , there were mostly jazz musicians and big-band musicians 50-60 of us who cut a majority of the hit recordings. We were raising our children at that time and studio work paid well (Jazz didn't pay very good for anyone tho' it was very popular music, 100s of nighclubs mostly jazz in LA in the 1950s but one by one, rock and roll took over the nightclubs, and so we did studio work which paid well and had good respect, was a good professional - it was strictly business but we wanted to put out the best musical product possible and made up our musical parts late 1950s and early 1960s.

Back to Frank Zappa. Because I was a mother raising 3 children, I saw the lyrics finally and told Frank I couldn't record for him because I was a mother and didn't like the lyrics. He understood and we remained friends and there were other jazz musicians who also played with him (George Duke etc.) on the road who had high praise for him too. He was a good many, great talent and we all admired him for his music. He was truly a gifted person, and I felt terrible when he died of cancer.

About studio work. Record dates didn't have much music earlyp 1960s and slowly had more written arrangements, 1963-64 on...I accidently played Fender Bass when the bassist didn't show up on a record date in 1963 at Capitol Records, and made up my bass parts - played doubletime boogaloo (funk) parts, sort of Latin beats for the rock and roll and it was more fun to play than guitar, and soon became #1 call bassist with most record companies. Worked day and night, had a live-in dutch lady to take care of my kids (divorced with 3 children so I had to work hard to support them). And loved working with our group of recording musicians...they were good guys, and we worked hard to put out the hits for all the rock groups (see credits on my website www.carolkaye.com Library guitar hits, bass hits). It was just a job, but good to play music day and night, except some of the surf rock which got to be boring.

The guys smoked cigarettes and drank a lot of coffee (I drank coffee) to stay awake as the producers in the booth experimented with sounds, - it was easy to play simple music, but you had to have recording instruments and amps, and have fine technique and good creative ideas to record behind singers and songs, helping them to get hit records, so yes it was good work but you had to also play very hard, very strong to get good powerful sounds as we knew that some of the songs and singers were not especially very good....it was our job to make them all sound good.

Most of began movie soundtrack work 1964 on, and I did Pawnbroker, Slender Thread (with Quincy Jones who studied arranging/composing/orchestrating with the Madame there in Paris...he had fond memories of Paris, loved musicians of France etc.) -- Quincy was great to work for, wrote some beautiful music and funky music...wanted me to make up some bass lines too, it was fun to work for Quincy. I cut Mission Impossible for TV about middle of 1960s too, other movies, and TV shows later in the 1960s, MASH, Kojak, Cannon, Streets Of San Francisco, Ironside, Room 222, 1st Bill Cosby show (Hikky Burr with Cosby and Quincy Jones), etc....after all the rock and roll, that music was more fun by then.

Motown moved to LA in 1962-1963, had 2 floors of offices in Sunset-Tower building in Hollywood, and we did some Motown too with Armin Steiner engineering, mainly 4 Tops and Supremes tracks only about 30-40% of Motown, it was started in Detroit but some was done in LA 1963 on that I played bass on (guitar on 1-2 dates - sessions were called "dates" back then, then bass on many - there were 9 bass players in LA who recorded for Motown, first one was Arthur Wright, another guitar player also, nice fellow). We liked to record that music more than the surf rock we also did altho' the Beach Boys music was good with Brian Wilson - but some groups got a little boring sometimes, like Gary Lewis & Playboys, Monkees, Hondels, Marketts, Dino-Desi-Billy, Association, Grass Roots, Jan & Dean (Jan was good to work for), Gary Usher, Simon & Garfunkle, Paul Revere & Raiders...some of that was very very grooving...I liked to work for Joe Cocker (did "Feelin' Alright") and Ray Charles was great to work for, enjoyed his music a lot: "I Don't Need No Doctor", America The Beautiful, Eleanor Rigby, Feel So Bad, Don't Change On Me, Understanding, etc. - great man.

Anyway, I didn't want to brag I just wanted to say hello and wish all musicians well and how much I loved to read about Django too....very interesting new book on "Django", and thanks to a friend in Franch who sent me some CDs of Django's recorded in France...he really was a great musician and the book describes the French people and way of life, it's beautiful. He along with Charlie Christian advanced the guitar to a solo instrument, what it is today....great musicians.

And many of my jazz musician friends who played in France loved it there, you are held in high esteem by American jazz musicians. Thank-you Bruno for this opportunity to post on your good site, as we say in America, "break a leg" - that really means "good luck"...all the best, will come back another time too, merci, Carol Kaye

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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 2151Message nanookanono »

Merci à toi Bruno, tu es une personne merveilleuse pour tes gentilles pensées et à nanook pour son post sur mon forum, merci aussi. Je souhaiterais pouvoir parler français, c'est un langage magnifique, pour vous souhaiter à tous de l'amour et des dons pour jouer de la bonne musique. On m'a posé une question à propos de Frank Zappa. C'est vrai, j'ai joué de la guitare 12 cordes sur ses deux premiers albums;la plupart des prises de ses deux premiers albums. Il a joué les parties de guitare rock leader sur ces prises. C'était un homme bien avec qui travailler, un gars très gentil, il a écrit de la grande musique.

J'ai du réaliser des parties de guitare 12 cordes. Tommy Tedesco aussi a joué de la guitare et Dennis Budimer ( un bon guitariste de Jazz ) a joué de la guitare aussi. Il a employé son propre bassiste et batteur. Frank était très droit, pas de drogue et il buvait le café comme nous dans les studios. Pour le travail de studio dans les années 60, il y avait surtout des musiciens de Jazz et de Big-bands; c'est 50 ou 60 d'entre nous qui avons assuré les prises de la majorité des tubes enregistrés. Nous élevions nos enfants à cette époque et le travail de studio payait bien, (le Jazz ne payait pas très bien pour quiconque, bien que ce fut une musique très populaire, il y avait des centaines de night-clubs la plupart de Jazz à Los Angeles dans les années 50, mais le rock and roll a pris le dessus dans toutes ces salles les unes après les autres. Et alors, nous avons pris le travail de studio qui payait bien et assurait une bonne respectabilité, pour peu qu'on soit bon professionnel. C'était du travail strictement alimentaire, mais nous voulions sortir le meilleur produit musical possible, et nous avons créé nos propres parties à jouer entre la fin des années 50 et le début des 60.

Pour en revenir à Frank Zappa. Comme j'étais une mère élevant trois enfants, j'ai vu les paroles finalement et j'ai dit à Frank que je ne pourrais pas enregistrer pour lui parce que j'étais une mère et que je n'aimais pas les paroles. Il a compris et nous sommes restés amis et il y a eu d'autres musiciens de Jazz qui ont tourné avec lui, (George Duke etc.), sur la route et qui ont eu une haute estime de lui aussi. C'était un homme bien, grand talent et nous l'admirions tous pour sa musique. C'était vraiment une personne douée, et je me suis sentis terriblement mal quand il est mort du cancer.

A propos du travail de studio. Au début des années 60, il n'y avait pas beaucoup de musique prête lors des sessions d'enregistrement, puis petit à petit il y a eu davantage d'arrangements écrits, à partir de 1963-64. Accidentellement j'ai joué de la basse Fender, une fois où le bassiste n'était pas venu sur une date en 1963 à Capitol records, et j'ai créé mes parties de basse, joué des lignes doublées de Boogaloo (Funk), une sorte de rythme Latin pour le rock and roll et c'était plus amusant à jouer que la guitare et rapidement je suis devenue la bassiste numéro 1 appelée en session dans la plupart des compagnies. J'ai travaillé jour et nuit, j'ai du prendre une gouvernante hollandaise pour s'occuper de mes gosses, (j'ai divorcé avec trois enfants, alors j'ai du travailler dur pour les élever). Et j'ai adoré travailler avec notre groupe de musiciens d'enregistrement; c'étaient des gars biens, et nous travaillions dur pour sortir les tubes de tous les groupes de rock, (regardez les accréditations sur mon site web: www.carolkaye.com Library guitar hits, bass hits) Ce n'était qu'un travail, mais c'était bien de jouer de la musique jour et nuit, sauf certains morceaux de surf rock qui ont tendance à devenir ennuyeux.

Les gars fumaient la cigarette et buvaient beaucoup de café ( j'en buvais aussi ) pour rester éveillés pendant que les producteurs expérimentaient des sons derrière la console. C'était facile de jouer de la musique simple, mais il fallait avoir des instruments aptes à l'enregistrement et des amplis, et avoir une bonne technique et de bonnes idées créatives pour enregistrer derrière les chanteurs et les chansons, pour les aider à obtenir des tubes, et donc c'est sûr que c'était du bon travail, mais il fallait aussi jouer très dur, très fort pour obtenir vraiment de bons sons puissants, surtout que nous savions que certaines des chansons et des chanteurs n'étaient pas spécialement très bons. C'était notre boulot de rendre tout ça agréable à entendre.

La plupart du travail pour les musiques de films commença à partir de 1964, et j'ai fait Pawnbroker, Slender Thread (avec Quincy Jones qui avait étudié l'arrangement, la composition et l'orchestration avec la Madame là-bas à Paris * ( voir note en bas du paragraphe),...il avait des souvenirs tendres de Paris, il avait adoré des musiciens de France etc.); C'était bien de travailler pour Quincy, il a écrit de la musique merveilleuse et de la musique funky...Il voulait aussi que je construise des lignes de basse, c'était amusant de travailler pour Quincy. J'ai enregistré aussi "Mission Impossible" pour la télé à peu près au milieu des années 60, et d'autres films, et spectacles télés plus tard dans les années 60, MASH, Kojak, Cannon, Streets Of San Francisco, Ironside, Room 222, le premier Bill Cosby show (Hikky Burr avec Cosby et Quincy Jones), etc....et ensuite tous les "rock and roll", cette musique était plus amusante à cette époque.

Note du traducteur : "Madame là-bas à Paris" ], c'était Nadia Boulanger qui était une grande compositrice française et une autorité incontestée en musique classique à Paris à l'époque, elle a formé les plus grands.

Motown
déménagea à Los Angeles en 1962-1963, il y avait deux étages dans des bureaux de Sunset-Tower building à Hollywood, et nous avons réalisé du Motown aussi, avec Armin Steiner comme ingénieur du son, principalement les pistes des 4 Tops et des Supremes, uniquement 30 à 40% à peu près de la production de Motown. Motown avait démarré à Detroit, mais un peu de la production fut réalisée à LA en 1963, et là dessus j'ai joué la basse, ( la guitare aussi sur une ou deux "dates", -les sessions étaient appelées des dates à l'époque-, et puis la basse sur un bon nombre,- il n'y a eu que neuf bassistes à LA qui ont enregistré pour Motown, le premier était Arthur Wright qui était également guitariste et un bon copain). Nous préférions enregistrer cette musique plutôt que le surf rock que nous faisions aussi. Nous avons réalisé pourtant la musique des Beach Boys qui était bonne avec Brian Wilson. Mais certains groupes devenaient ennuyeux quelques fois comme Gary Lewis & Playboys, Monkees, Hondels, Marketts, Dino-Desi-Billy, Association, Grass Roots, Jan & Dean (c'était bien de travailler avec Jan), Gary Usher, Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Revere & Raiders...certains d'entre eux étaient très très grooving...J'ai aimé travailler pour Joe Cocker (j'ai fait "Feelin' Alright") et c'était bien de travailler avec Ray Charles, j'ai beaucoup apprécié sa musique: "I Don't Need No Doctor", America The Beautiful, Eleanor Rigby, Feel So Bad, Don't Change On Me, Understanding, etc. ; un homme vraiment bien.

De toutes façons, je ne voulais pas me vanter, je voulais juste dire bonjour et souhaiter le meilleur à tous les musiciens, et leur dire aussi combien j'ai adoré lire sur Django; un nouveau livre très intéressant sur Django, et envoyer des remerciements à un ami de France qui m'a envoyé des CDs de Django enregistrés en France. C'était vraiment un grand musicien et le livre décrit le peuple français et le mode de vie, c'est merveilleux. C'est lui avec Charlie Christian qui ont propulsé la guitare comme instrument soliste, ce qu'elle est devenue aujourd'hui à part entière; de grands musiciens.

Et beaucoup de mes amis musiciens de Jazz qui ont joué en France ont adoré y venir. Vous êtes tenus en très haute estime par les musiciens de Jazz américains. Merci Bruno de m'avoir donné cette opportunité de poster ce message sur ton site bien, et comme nous disons en Amérique, "casse toi une jambe" ce qui veut dire en réalité "bonne chance", tous mes meilleurs, je reviendrai une autre fois encore, merci.
Carol Kaye

www.carolkaye.com
Dernière modification par nanookanono le 29 juin 2005, 09:53, modifié 10 fois.
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xumun
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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 2156Message xumun »

cool!!! :D
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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 2159Message madogs »

thanks a lot Carol for your post.

It's great to be linked directly on music history !!!
it's like imagining to be a fly in a studio records in the 60's for exemple...

i wish you all the best, in switzerland we say "tout de bon" with a cute accent... :lol:

hope to read you soon...
...while this time i'm getting back on my english book... :roll:
"le talent c'est d'avoir envie de faire quelque chose, tout le restant, c'est de la sueur." Brel
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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 2161Message EdD »

madogs a écrit :thanks a lot Carol for your post.

It's great to be linked directly on music history !!!
it's like imagining to be a fly in a studio records in the 60's for exemple...

i wish you all the best, in switzerland we say "tout de bon" with a cute accent... :lol:

hope to read you soon...
...while this time i'm getting back on my english book... :roll:
+1, I don't understand some worlds :oops: I have to improve my english :cry:

@+
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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 2163Message Bruno Chaza »

En tous les cas mille merci, pour le travail de Nanook qui en souterrain donne énormément de son temps pour que nous puissions tous avoir une traduction de l'entrevue avec Carol la plus fidèle possible, et mille merci pour Carol car là elle va divulguer moults conseils, pour ceux qui seront lire tranquillement mais aussi entre les lignes, il y a vraiment du grain à moudre bref :respect:
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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 2185Message nanookanono »

Voilà, j'ai complété ci-dessus la traduction du message de Carol, parce que je viens de la terminer.

Il y a des remarques intéressantes sur Zappa, Django, La Motown de LA, et les musiques des tubes de l'époque qui sont tous pratiquement passés par les doigts de Carol. :mrgreen:

L'interview est fini, il ne me reste que le morceau sur Zappa à rajouter. Je viens de l'adresser à Catherine pour éliminer des erreurs éventuelles... elle était prof d'anglais
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Message : # 2189Message Philippe B »

merci manookanono et bravo pour ton trav , manifique
super lady boogaloo bass....
Voila un ouvrage de réference
electrique bass lines n°4 by Carol Kaye
14 of Carol 's Hit records Bass lines
Bonne musique :D
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Message : # 2256Message madogs »

merci bcp

Elle a vraiment pris le temps de bien s'expliquer. C'est très intéressant et à la fois positif puique d'après elle, à force de volonté et d'authenticité, on finira tous pas y arriver...

par contre, a-t-elle eu des difficultés avec la drogue pour en parler autant ?
"le talent c'est d'avoir envie de faire quelque chose, tout le restant, c'est de la sueur." Brel
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Carol Kaye Interview

Message : # 2290Message Thomas »

Je viens de lire l'interview de Carol kaye dans son intégralité et j'ai été profondément touché par son réalisme et son courage !
On peut dire que c'est quelqu'un qui ne vit pas d'impressions mais qui a su retrousser ces manches, c'est d'ailleurs pour cela qu'elle emploi un ton assez incisif et trés droit ( positionnnement par rapport à la drogue, travail de son instrument, considération de soi...).

Elle m'a remis les idées en place par rapport à la pratique de la basse au sens large !

Voilà le témoignage de quelqu'un qui me laisse supposer qu'on ne réussie pas hasard !

Encore bravo Carol pour ce chemin tracé... :w3a:
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