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Meet Claiborne Ray
I considered all the radio singers carefully when I was about four and told my mother that I wanted to sing like Ella Fitzgerald, not Rosemary Clooney or Doris Day. She had to break it to me that it wasn’t that easy.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am a retired newspaper editor; my last and best job was 10 years as the deputy obituary editor at the New York Times. I love English history and literature, cats, and staying up late (which, according to my mother, began in infancy). I was born in Clinton, Iowa, not far from
Bix Beiderbecke
cornet1903 - 1931
Etta Jones
vocalsb.1928
Bubber Miley
trumpet1903 - 1932
My father was a chemical engineer and safety expert from Tennessee who played E flat alto horn. My mother was an ex-rodeo queen from Wyoming and a classical musician; starting in early childhood, she practiced an hour on the violin and an hour on the piano every morning before breakfast, at her mother's insistence. She earned a degree in music education from Northwestern, where she was a music school classmate of Kay Davis, but said she wouldn't have known her, as she was "only a singer," whereas Mother was a musician! She was a music teacher and junior high band director before she married my father, and returned to teaching years later, sometimes subbing for my band director when I was in high school. She was cursed with perfect pitch, and loved classical music, but told me as a child that most jazz musicians could easily play classical charts, while only a few classical players could swing.
My childhood was idyllic. We were in the middle of the middle class, living in a three-bedroom Cape Cod cottage in a nice town. But having seen Chicago as a very young child, I longed for the big city and the bright lights, so after studying modern European history at Vassar, I moved to brownstone Brooklyn in 1968, when it was still affordable, and got a job at a small financial paper.
You come by your love of music honestly.
My grandmother and her sister were both fine pianists, sent by train twice a month to Denver from their tiny hometown, so they could have lessons from a student of a student of Liszt. That grandmother, who married a rancher, played those left-hand Ravel pieces for fun, while her sister, who married a farmer, sneaked out of the house to play with a ragtime band at roadhouses before World War I, and ran a successful music studio in her basement for about seven decades. They both played for silent movies. I have my grandmother's pocket diary from 1913 and it lists all their gigs at theaters and dances. What's more, they played far into their last years, with my grandmother playing the organ at the Wyoming State Retirement Center in Basin, into her hundredth year. And my father's sister supported herself as a choral singer in New York for half a century. My mother's oldest brother was a virtuoso violinist who played with the Denver symphony when he was about seven, but he died in a wreck at 18. My surviving uncle went to the Naval Academy before he took over the family ranch, but played the viola for the rest of his life. As for me, I quit piano lessons in fourth grade, sick to death of the simplified version of "To a Wild Rose," but later I got to be pretty good on flute and piccolo. I also sang in the church choir but had a hard time holding a part if it wasn't the melody. I played in the marching and symphonic bands in high school, made the all-state band once, had serious lessons from Claude Monteux at Vassar—subsidized by my grandmother—and finally gave it up in early 1969, because I had to earn a living. But I still know enough music to know the way it ought to sound.What's your earliest memory of music?
In my early childhood, people like
Louis Armstrong
trumpet and vocals1901 - 1971
Ella Fitzgerald
vocals1917 - 1996
Nat King Cole
piano and vocals1919 - 1965
Count Basie
piano1904 - 1984
Les Paul
guitar, electric1915 - 2009
How old were you when you got your first record?
My great aunt's basement music studio is where I learned every popular song beginning with Victor Herbert, and first heard recordings of Nat King Cole,
Teddy Wilson
piano1912 - 1986
Fats Waller
piano1904 - 1943
The first LP I bought with my own money was "Duet," by Doris Day and Andre Previn, from the 99-cent rack at the drug store, when I was in high school. The CD version has extra tracks. The second one was a jazz version of all the Mancini tunes from "Peter Gunn." Then I fell in love with Bossa Nova and sent off for an imported record of Os Cariocas doing a bunch of Brazilian hits. The next one was the
Skitch Henderson
b.1918What was the first concert you ever attended?
I am not sure how old I might have been when we started going to the community concerts at the junior high school auditorium. Third or fourth grade, maybe. My father was the one who made sure the piano there was tuned. The whole family went, except for my infant brother. I enjoyed it a lot! My mother made sure I asked pianist Ruth Slenczynska and violist William Primrose for their autographs. (Slenczynska is still alive, I believe. We used to keep track of these things when I was in the obituary department.) And I vividly remember going all the way (17 miles) to Augusta, Georgia, to hear the Boston Pops with Arthur Fiedler.Was there one album or experience that was your doorway to jazz?
Jazz was just pop music, as far as I was concerned, and I liked what I liked without necessarily recognizing it as jazz. Basically, I shared my parents' tastes, especially players from their college years, like
Benny Goodman
clarinet1909 - 1986
Jimmie Lunceford
composer / conductor1902 - 1947
Zoot Sims
saxophone, tenor1925 - 1985
Al Cohn
saxophone, tenor1925 - 1988
Jimmy Rushing
vocals1903 - 1972
How long have you been going out to hear live music?
I have been going out for live music since I was in college, but then it was usually for classical music. I got to hear Arthur Rubenstein in Newark that way and spent some time in the Family Circle at the old Metropolitan Opera House. The weekend of my junior prom, however, I was on a double date with a friend whose date was a "townie," and after the dance, we all went to a dive bar near the river in Poughkeepsie that had an organ trio. It felt a little risky but I had a great time.After those heady nights at the Half Note, I spent several years with no time, no money, and no jazz-loving companions. And then when I joined the Times and had money in my pocket again, I had to work nights for years. Everything fell into place in the early-1980s. I finally had daytime hours, usually with a late starting time, and I found friends who loved jazz too. I heard
Maxine Sullivan
vocals1911 - 1987
Scott Hamilton
saxophone, tenorb.1954
In about 1985, at the dawn of the age of Internet research, I did a search for "Count Basie" and "died," looking for his exact date of death. The search also returned a couple of dozen great jazz musicians who had played with him and pre-deceased him, and I realized that a generation of swing musicians was dying off. That's when I started a systematic campaign to hear people I didn't want to miss.
You became a big fan of jazz cruises and jazz parties.
Friends in the travel business gave me a coupon for a big, fat discount on a cruise on the SS Norway, with
Mel Torme
vocals1925 - 1999
Clark Terry
trumpet1920 - 2015
It turns out that was the second in a series of jazz cruises run by Hank O'Neal and Shelley Shier of HOSS Inc., and there were several dozen more jazz stars on board, including
Kenny Davern
clarinet1935 - 2006
Eddie Higgins
piano1932 - 2009
Major Holley
bass, acoustic1924 - 1990
Buddy Tate
saxophone, tenorb.1913
Joe Williams
vocals1918 - 1999
Sarah Vaughan
vocals1924 - 1990
I made some great friends on that first cruise, including the girlfriend of one of the musicians. When we got back to New York, she as good as ordered me to start going out to hear jazz as often as I could. She and her friends got me invited to my first jazz party, the one that used to be held at the Camelback Mountain resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, and then the original jazz party, Dick Gibson's Labor Day weekend marathon in Denver Through the years, jazz parties and friends lured me to Detroit; Minneapolis; Newport, California; Santa Fe; Bern, Switzerland; and Nice, among other places.
A group of us middle-aged jazz fans started going out very, very regularly.
Major Holley
bass, acoustic1924 - 1990
How often do you go out to hear live music?
Before the 2020 shutdown, I went very often, almost too often to admit, though not as often as in the mid-1980s, when I sometimes went out 10 nights in a row and frequently did a triple-header. That's when Bradley's was open till 3 a.m., as I recall; and, after all, I didn't have to start work at the Times until the afternoon. Now I have one untrustworthy knee, and too many of my favorite clubs are in basements: the Vanguard, Smalls Jazz Club, Mezzrow the cabaret room at Birdland, the Jazz Standard, etc. Don't get around much anymore. But even on a reduced schedule, I seldom skipped a week. My last triple header was on Sunday, March 1, of 2020:Marty Elkins
vocals
George Coleman
saxophone, tenorb.1935
Michael Kanan
pianoOver the years, it became a sad joke among my friends that I would go to see some famous player or singer or tap dancer (another kind of percussion), enjoy them just once, and then they died. The list is ominous:
Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis
saxophone, tenor1922 - 1986
Mary Osborne
guitar1921 - 1992
Tiny Grimes
guitar1916 - 1989
Emily Remler
guitar1957 - 1990
Martha Raye
vocals1916 - 1994
What is it about live music that makes it so special for you?
With jazz, you can count on hearing something that has never been heard before and will never be heard again.What are the elements of an amazing concert?
Every performance is different, and you never know when it will be special, when the players will catch fire from each other, or when a soloist will be inspired. Several players have told me over the years that they don't know when that magic will happen and that in fact it seems to come from someplace outside them. The first time I heard
Tommy Flanagan
piano1930 - 2001
What is the most trouble you've gone to to get to a jazz performance?
The farthest I have traveled and the most effort I put in would probably be the several times I went to the Grande Parade du Jazz de Nice, beginning in the summer of 1986, when George Wein was still in charge. There weren't many direct flights, so I usually had to take a train from Paris or Lyons; the hotel rooms were expensive; the packed city bus was the only practical way to get to Les Jardins de Cimiez; I had to remember to bring extra change and stand in line for the public bathrooms; and it took me a while to get smart enough to bring along my own folding chair.Is there one performance that got away that you still regret having missed?
Late in his career
Jimmy Rowles
piano1918 - 1996
If you could go back in time and hear one of the jazz legends perform live, who would it be?
Louis Armstrong lived well into my adulthood and I could have gone to hear him several times, but I never made it. I thought he would always be there. In a way, he always will be, but I wish I could have been in the same room with him. I missed
Duke Ellington
piano1899 - 1974
What makes a great jazz club?
I miss Zinno because of the relaxed atmosphere and the great food, and I miss the old Half Note because it was my first jazz club and every note was new. It had a great jukebox, on which I discovered
Wes Montgomery
guitar1923 - 1968
Pre-quarantine, which club(s) were you most regularly to be found at?
Birdland, Mezzrow, Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, the Village Vanguard, Smoke Jazz & Supper Club, the Kitano, Smalls, the Jazz Standard, 55 Bar.Is there a club that's no longer around that you miss the most?
Zinno. It was the kind of place where you would run into Ram Ramirez, co-composer of "Lover Man"; Pepe Romero, who was a big fan of
Gene Bertoncini
guitarb.1937
John Bunch
piano1921 - 2010
Ray Bryant
piano1931 - 2011
Milt Hinton
bass, acoustic1910 - 2000
Ruby Braff
cornet1927 - 2003
Junior Mance
piano1928 - 2021
Joe Temperley
saxophone1929 - 2016
Jane Nossette Jarvis
b.1915
Benny Green
pianob.1963
Tal Farlow
guitar1921 - 1998
The runner up would be Bradley's. It's where I first heard Tommy Flanagan, not long after he quit touring with Ella Fitzgerald. I can still remember that he played "A Bitty Ditty" and "Raincheck" that night.
Do you have a favorite jazz anecdote?
When we were all hanging out almost every night at Zinno and I was still getting to know the players, one night a curly-haired young man sauntered in, said nothing to anyone, sat down and casually started playing the piano while the band was on a break. Some nerve, I thought, just walking in like that. It was Monty Alexander.How do you discover new artists?
I always ask the other musicians about who they have heard or enjoyed playing with. That's how I initially learned about
Ehud Asherie
pianob.1979
Gerald Clayton
piano
Wycliffe Gordon
tromboneb.1967
Anat Cohen
clarinetb.1975
Rosanno Sportiello
piano
Bill Charlap
pianob.1966
Renee Rosnes
pianob.1962
Vinyl, CDs, MP3s, streaming?
CD's and radio. My vinyl collection is gathering dust because I need a new belt for the turntable. I don't think my friends are getting any money or fame through streaming services. I do find YouTube handy when I want to sample someone I've just heard of, or someone I'd forgotten about.If you were a professional musician, which instrument would you play?
The piano, because it would let me play with just about everyone else.What's your desert island disc?
Just one? Maybe Benny Goodman's 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall.What do you think keeps jazz alive and thriving?
Waves and waves of young people who just get it, and seemed to have absorbed every lesson from the ones who came before. Also, I buy all the CDs and I could build a second Great Wall of China with them, so I will take a little credit, too.Finish this sentence: Life without music would be...
Unbearably lonely.Tags
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