Interview recorded September 1987, by Alex Albright for a UNC-TV documentary on "Pitch a Boogie Woogie," a black-cast musical comedy featurette that was made in Greenville, NC in 1947 by Lord-Warner Pictures, also of Greenville. The documentary, "Boogie in Black and White," contains the complete film and snippets of interviews with Donaldson and most of the other soundtrack musicians. Donaldson, who grew up in Badin, NC, was a student at North Carolina A & T College in Greensboro at the time, and as he explains in this interview, not a regular member of the Rhythm Vets, who had been hired by director/producer John Warner to supply the soundtrack music.
The Rhythm Vets were all Navy veterans of World War II. Some had been in B1, a 44-piece regimental band comprised of the first African Americans to serve in the modern Navy at rank other than messman. The others, like Donaldson, were veterans of what has become known collectively as the Great Lakes Experience, which was centered around Camp Robert Smalls in Chicago and which functioned as the first, though informal, "school of music" for blacks in the Navy. After training at Camp Smalls, Donaldson was stationed with a Navy band at Beeville, Texas and at New Orleans. He returned to A & T after the war and graduated before striking out for New York in 1950. Also heard asking questions at the end of the interview is Susan Massengale, who directed the UNC-TV documentary.
The interview was recorded in the lobby of a motel on Grove Street in Fayetteville. Donaldson chuckled several times about the location, preferring to call it "Groove Street," like an announcer: "Here we are on Groove Street." Off-camera, he also explained that for a jazzman the difference in "groove" and "grave" was critical: It's true, he agreed, that finding the right groove was essential, but if you couldn't find your way out, it would become your grave. Donaldson was in Fayetteville for a performance with his quartet at a local jazz club owned and operated by Jesse F. Williams.
Негізгі бет Interview with Lou Donaldson
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