Mike Longo
‘Look, man, it’s like the people’s spirit is free.'”
JC: You were born in Ohio, and your father was a bass player and your mother played organ and piano. When were you sure you wanted to be a professional musician?
Mike Longo (ML): Actually, I started playing at three, and I sort of recall my mother showing me some basic triad harmony on the piano. ..I started lessons at four. She did teach me some stuff at the beginning. I guess you could say she was my first teacher. I think I was 12 years old when I won a contest playing boogie woogie in Ft. Lauderdale. I was in the movie theatre with a friend. There was a cartoon called “Little Toot.” The sound track was Freddy Martin’s band with Jack Fina playing piano. He was playing “Flight of the Bumblebee” against the boogie woogie bass in the left hand. As I was watching the film, I was memorizing what he was playing in his left hand. …I had my own version of it. Then one day, I was walking by the Florida Theatre and I saw a poster that said, Talent Contest 1stPrize, $15. [At the time] I was playing little league baseball. I didn’t have a mitt. The mitt cost $13. I went in and played my version of the boogie woogie and won. Eight weeks later, they had a grand finale contest with the eight weeks of winners competing for the grand prize. My mother made me learn the original version from the movie, and I won the big contest. That’s when I started to read books about the music business, the beginning of the 7thgrade. When I went back to school, they voted me the Class President. And I said, ‘Hey man, maybe I should think about this as a career.’ I started reading books about the music business, at 12. I was in 9thgrade at Ft. Lauderdale High School [and was in the] High School Dance Band. They had a very large music program, band, chorus, and what they called the dance band. I met a talented trumpet player and drummer, and my first gig was at this dance center playing on the weekends for dancing. Then my father started hiring me for his band, the club date band. In the 9thgrade I was able to buy a car. It wasn’t jazz work per se, it was playing dance music. My dad had a jazz leaning, so some of the stuff, you could call it–jazz.
I started playing with Cannonball when I was in 10thgrade. [At the time things were segregated.] The black High School was Dillard High. He was the band director at Dillard High and he wasn’t famous yet. He was unknown, but he was playing like he played, trying to supplement his income by playing gigs. This jazz DJ asked me, ‘Would you mind playing with a Negro?’ I said ‘No, of course not.’ He hired me to play with Cannon at a jam session held in a Youth Center in Hollywood Florida. My jaw hit the floor when I heard [Cannonball] him play. I told my father about him and he said to hire him. [At the time] they were dedicating the new Gateway shopping Center and it was the first gig That Cannonball played with my father’s band. We were the first mixed band in Ft. Lauderdale’s history. Cannonball played “Stars Fell on Alabama.” We were out near the beach and everybody started dancing. He melted everybody’s heart. My dad started using him regularly after that.
Pick Gordon [Cannonball’s regular piano player] got busted while they were playing at a club called Porky’s, the same one depicted in the movies of the 70s and 80s. Cannonball called my mother, “Mrs. Longo, would you let young Mike come finish out the week with us?” My mother consented and that was my first real jazz gig in a club. He later got me a gig on an R&B band. We were playing the chitlin circuit up and down south Florida. [The leader of the band was] Harold Ferguson. During the day he was a shoe shine guy. But at night he was a trumpet player. He had an R&B Band. Cannonball worked for him and he got me the gig.
My dad was also in the produce business. He owned a produce company that serviced the hotels, restaurants and country clubs. He was a member of this country club, so they were his customers. They hired his band to play for a dance there. We played the first set [at the country club]. The Maitre’ D said, ‘We have a table for the band to eat at.’ After we placed our orders, the guy came over and said, ‘The colored boy will have to eat in the kitchen.’ My dad threw his napkin down, got up and said, “We’ll all go eat in the kitchen. And you can take my membership and shove it up your ass!” From that point on Cannonball loved my father. That same night, the whole dance floor was filled up. A redneck came up and said, ‘We can’t dance to your music.’ My dad said, ‘Well what do you think all of these other people are doing? Go home and practice!’
JC: Were you an only child?
ML: I have a younger sister who’s a tap dancer. Now she lives in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
JC: You graduated Western Kentucky University? Did that help you?
ML: Graduating? Actually, I know now after all these years that education is not about learning, but about learning how to learn. You couldn’t major in jazz back then. I had to major in classical piano. I was playing one or two recitals a semester. Then I had to play a senior recital. I played a Chopin Ballade, a Hindemith Sonata, and a 6 movement Bach suite. It took me whole year to memorize and practice. [I did] the C# minor Etude on a recital the previous year. Going through the process of working out that music, playing Chopin and Hindemith helped me with my instrument, my mastery of the instrument– from playing all that music. There was a teacher Claude Rose. He had a class that was 3 hours a day in ear training and dictation. I spent 4 years in his class. That helped in terms of voice leading and harmony.
I had a gig there, five nights a week in a club called “The Boots and Saddle.” It burned to the ground in Bowling Green where the college was located. The drummer was Pete Helmintoller from Ft. Lauderdale who had followed me to college there. He was the same drummer who played with me and Cannonball on the chitlin circuit. He went back in the burning building to get his drums, and I went back in to get him; we had to crawl on the floor. We escaped the fire. I paid my own way through college playing gigs.
[After The Boots and Sadle burned down I worked with] Hank ”Sugarfoot” Garland, famous at the Grand Ol Opry. He was a closet be bopper though and had an after hours gig at the Carousel Club in Printer’s Alley in Nashville. That club is depicted in the movie about his life. I played my whole senior year over there, working weekends. I was (also) working with Carl Garvin. He had a small big band. He was a jazz trumpet player. He was playing dances and things like that.
JC: You were playing at the Embers West and Roy Eldridge brought Dizzy Gillespie to hear you?
ML: Actually my first gig in NY was at the Metropole.
They had 6 bands a day working there. I was a young guy, working afternoons and nights. From 2:00 in the afternoon until 8:00 PM and from 10:00 PM-4:00 AM at night. [In the day with]Tony Parenti, and at night Henry Red Allen. Dizzy was playing at the Modern Jazz Room upstairs, and on his break he’d have to go by us. Chuck Carley, a bassist from Ft. Lauderdale, called me and asked me if I saw the International Musician Magazine. He said, ‘Dizzy’s talking about you.’ Dizzy mentioned me [in the interview]. After I studied with Oscar Peterson we were playing at the Embers East. Dizzy was the headliner. I was playing between Dizzy’s sets. Dizzy heard me play and mouthed the words, “I love you.” I was playing at the Embers West two years later with Paul Chambers opposite Roy Eldridge and on his break Roy went and got Dizzy, and said, ‘You got to come by and hear this piano player.’ Dizzy came by, called me the next day and hired me.
JC: How many years working with him?
ML: Nine years straight full time. And for the rest of his life on a part-time basis. Sometimes we’d go on tour, just he and I, like once we went on a tour of Germany, Austria, Sicily. Other times he’d call for similar things with just him and me. I went to Japan, with Paul West and Dizzy in 1987, and we played with Japanese musicians. He had the Dream Band and I was the pianist. I kept working with him all the way up until his death in 1992.
JC: How did you learn from Dizzy?
ML: Dizzy was a messenger, aside from being a genius. He organically changed music. He discovered a new musical language that took jazz to another level. To this day, people have not figured out what he was doing. They have figured out the notes that were played. They can’t figure out the concept that produced the notes in the first place. I have a DVD series out, The Rhythmic Nature of Jazz, based on what I learned from Dizzy. Our website is called Jazzbeat.com. His concept was a revelation; he uncovered an organic change in music. My stuff on the DVD, the African drumming, he took and did something with that. They’re now using it in the school system in Connecticut. A psychotherapist is using it and has claimed to have cured bipolar disorder with it. I pointed out to him, in my 26 year my association with Dizzy, I never say Dizzy Gillespie depressed, ever. A creature of joy. He would get angry but that would pass in two seconds. He had a love and zest for life that was unbelievable. To be in his presence and play with him was pure magic.
He was tight with my family. He adopted my family and would call my mom and dad frequently from the road. He referred to my mother as, “mama.” For about 20 years he was a frequent house-guest at their home in Florida. He said he couldn’t relax any place like he could there. They had an acre of ground. He loved to pick the fruit from the trees and eat it. And they had a swimming pool.
[My mother] You know what she would do? We would have the whole band stay there when we played in that area. Everybody would come home at a different hours of the night. Whenever they came in, [he had James Moody, Paul West, Candy Finch, Dizzy and me] she [my mother] would wake up and cook them breakfast. Dizzy bought a silver tray for her as a gift and had it engraved saying “from your sons, Dizzy, Paul Candy, Moody and …oops! Mike.”
JC: What led to your belief in Bahai? Is there a relationship?
ML: Of course. I became a Baha’i five years after Dizzy declared. At our jazz concert series in New York that takes place every Tuesday we had the theater re-named The John Birks Gillespie Auditorium. It’s not that I’m playing a role in keeping jazz alive in general, but the direction that Dizzy took it in, and the message he had is what I’m trying to preserve. As I said earlier most musicians have figured out the notes but not the concept. Going around it is not going to get it. Stravinsky said, “Musicians have to digest the tradition and the music will take them to another place.” There are elements in Dizzy’s music that haven’t been digested yet. The reason we started the series at the Baha’i Center was because there used to be a loft scene in New York where you could hear jazz at affordable prices. A lot of musicians need exposure and need to play in a NYC venue. We’re trying to support the apprenticeship learning principle. In my band the age group ranges from 20 to 70. Also, we help musicians, you know, in the sense of musicians being able to perform in front of a live audience. It’s one thing to play in jam sessions, and in your house, but it’s not the same as performing live in front of an audience. All the different age groups need exposure and experienceperforming. There’s a lot of rehearsal bands in NY. That don’t mean anything unless you play in front of an audience. We don’t put any restrictions on the musicians whatsoever. We have people playing free jazz, bebop, swing. It’s a place they can try out new charts. They love playing in there. There’s no alcohol, nobody talking, they’ve got the full attention of the audience. Everybody leaves there with a smile on their face.
JC: How long have you had your jazz center?
ML: We’re in our 11thyear. We were trying to get 501© 3 non-profit status but there was so much paperwork and record keeping, it was not practical. It used to be easy to do that, so our lawyer advised us to use Fractured Atlas. They are a company that offers fiscal sponsorships through their 501 C 3.
We started a Kickstarter campaign in 2013 and we raised $19,000 for that season. We also got a grant from the lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
We make nothing, Dottie and I. Whatever comes in the door goes to the players.
JC: Do you ever do Fundraisers?
ML: When Lorraine Gillespie gave us permission to use Dizzy’s name there, we signed a contract not to do anything like that. The Baha’i center is not the place to do something like that. The Baha’is only accept money from its members. It’s Baha’i law.
JC: What is the difference between the apprenticeship method and copying off records to learn jazz?
ML: The main difference is that people do not understand the role that touch plays in playing jazz. You cannot get a touch from a recording. The only way you can get that is to play with someone that has it. You have to experience jazz. You can’t get that from a recording. In that instance you are just experiencing listening to jazz.
When I was playing with Cannonball, I was experiencing comping behind him-it was pulling me into a place. You can’t learn that from a recording. There’s a misconception about that. When playing classical music, you learn the notes Chopin wrote and play it. That principle does not work with jazz. You’re not learning the concept that made the person play the notes with that approach. That concept is expressed through one’s touch. You cannot learn a touch from a recording.
JC: Talk about your new CD that is hitting the charts.
ML: “Step On It”, my latest trio CD with Bob Cranshaw, Lewis Nash and myself. I had made a couple of CDs with Cranshaw and Lewis earlier. One was “Sting like a Bee” that was very popular. Bob Magnuson, the producer, decided to do it again. I went in the studio with Cranshaw and Lewis. We went in and rehearsed two hours and just hit it. Most everything on it was one take.
I made another CD with Ray Mosca and Paul West, my regular trio, called A Celebration of Diz and Miles, [that was popular a few years ago.]
I had a Big band record since that which went up to #7 on the charts called, Live from New York. It was recorded at the Baha’i Center.
JC: Do you still teach privately?
ML: I teach privately when I’m in NY.
JC: How much do you spend on the road?
ML: The weekend, a night here or there. I do a lot of clinics, master class, 2-3 days for that. I did Interlochen for 3 or 4 days; I was at Central Washington University. I did a concert, master class, and a club in Seattle. I did a concert at Butler University, a NJ City College master class. At Western Kentucky, I did a master class and a concert with the symphony orchestra. Prior to that I wrote a Three Movement Suite for Dizzy with the Detroit Symphony, and for James Moody with San Diego Symphony. [And I worked with the] Bowling Green Symphony Orchestra in Kentucky.
I consider myself a servant of the music. Hopefully I allow the music to play me. It’s like the music passes through me, I don’t have a lot to do with it. Dizzy used to say, “The ego is the enemy of this music.” I’ve sort of learned over the years to give up myself to a higher force.
See: Mikelongojazz.com— a blog that has interesting education stuff, film clips of Mike with Dizzy, and James Moody. A very interesting blog.