Ralph Peterson 35th Annual Student Music Awards - Downbeat

the FrinGe
Burton, stuff like that. Then Alan Dawson and
I were the rhythm section for a lot of names that
came through town—Eddie Harris, Herb Ellis
and others. We played with Joe Williams, Toots
Thielemans. It was a much bigger scene in those
days. I’d been playing and traveling a lot. When
I joined The Fringe, I was doing some stuff with
Freddie Hubbard, too. It’s always been like that—
if you have other gigs on the road, you’d go off
and someone else will come in, but that core
group is always there. Most of us teach all day
on a Monday, and you go [to the evening gig] and
that’s your relief.
Let’s talk about the experience of being
in the fringe.
gullotti: The group sound has gotten real
strong by such constant, steady work. We’ve had
some big gigs, real big, so called, but for me,
if we’re playing for 25 or 2,000 people, it’s the
same once you start playing. When I start to play
and we get into our thing, it really doesn’t matter
where or how much of an audience is there, as
long as we can help the music grow. That’s why
for this band, steady employment has been one
of the keys to keeping it together. Now, it’s like
going to a shrink. Monday nights—whew—and
I’m cool for the whole week. I can get everything
out in a non-ego environment, so I can deal with
anything I have to deal with, physically and personally.
It’s very important.
It’s funny—I always said the same
thing about hearing you. I would go
home feeling that everything was
going to be oK.
garzone: Reflex time is really important,
especially when you’re playing free because you
don’t have anything that you’re drawing off of,
except the rhythm of the moment. Sometimes a
lot of that gets missed because people are just
too busy thinking about what they want to play
and then get out. But with these cats, from playing
together so long, the phrasing and breathing
together is what mystifies people. Sometimes
the shit just stops in midair, and you don’t get
that with young bands unless they write music
that sounds free; whereas with those guys,
they’re creating and writing the music right
there. That’s hard to do unless you’ve been playing
together a long time.
Lockwood: It’s a marriage. It’s the same—
you get over those plateaus and dips. There are
certain things you do together and you think,
even after this amount of time, “Wow, how did
that happen?” When you have those kinds of
nights, it’s beyond explanation. We never talk
about anything. For me, that’s the great thing
because I hate rehashing gigs. It’s history, so I’d
rather leave it alone. We’ve gone through a lot
of changes over the years musically. It’s gone to
different areas, and you just play. You become
almost like the audience in a sense because you
don’t know what’s going to happen. It could be
pretty raw sometimes, and it can sound like a
tune. We’re as much the listeners as the audience
38 DoWNBEAt JUNE 2012
in a way. It’s difficult for some people, but I think
if people let themselves go, they can get into it.
the rapport that you guys have seems
effortless. I say “seems” because it’s
from 40 years of gigging together.
garzone: You’ve got to tough it out. It’s not
easy because musical development—to develop
things from nothing—you’ve got to look inside
your soul to find it. Sometimes you’ve got to dig
it out, flush it out, then you work at it and you’re
stuck—and you’re stuck and you’re stuck—and
then all of a sudden, it explodes and then it comes
across. Then you’re cool for another hour. It’s
interesting how many nights I’d go down there
and be so tired from teaching and we’d start
playing and [suddenly] I’d just re-energize. Over
those 40 years of doing that every week after
teaching, it’s a lot of stamina and a lot of input
and output.
Photo session for
the 1989 CD The
Return Of The
Neanderthal Man
What strikes me is the level of commitment
that you’ve all had to the
group for all these years, through all
of life’s challenges. No matter what
else is happening, you guys come
together once a week and do this
thing. It’s extraordinary.
garzone: I think the big thing is that we
all play with enough people and enough groups
to know that this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
When this band is gone, there’s never going to
be another Fringe. What keeps it together is the
fact that we know that if we don’t do it and it
ends, that’s the end of it. I’m not getting on my
horse about it—I’m just saying there’s nothing
like it out there.
I credit The Fringe with helping me to further
what I do and what I’m about. Without that
band and without playing with them, my life and
the way I play would be much different.
Few bands other than the MJQ or the
Rolling Stones have been together [this long].
I’m sure they can attest and agree to what I’m
saying about what you go through when you’ve
been together for 40 years: We’ve experienced
everything, like the deaths of our parents,
divorces, ups and downs within ourselves. But
we still hang because the music is so powerful.
We know it would never break us, and we know
that no matter whom we play with—which is
great, we play with everyone out there—there
would never be anything as powerful as this
force that we have now.
Sometimes this band scares people because
when they go see us play it’s like seeing a reflection
of themselves. It reflects who you really are,
and some people don’t want to know who they
really are for their own reasons. Even myself,
sometimes if I’m not in the right reflection, this
shit brings it right up.
gullotti: The aspect of how we’ve kept this
group together is two main reasons: One, the
friendship. We are really close friends and there’s
no negative ego on the bandstand. Secondly, I’ve
developed my individual voice by way of a collective.
During one period in my career, I had a
lot of styles I could emulate. Someone would say,
“Bob, this is kind of Elvin-ish” or “Bob, this is
kind of Tony-ish.” I was pretty good at emulating
those feels because I studied those guys so much.
At some point, you have to play just yourself and
in your own way: allowing your influences to be
heard without copying.
With The Fringe, I had the opportunity to
develop [without] having to worry about whether
someone liked it or not. If George or John
doesn’t like what I’m playing, they let it be
known musically but without any verbal abuse.
George will put his horn up to my nose and
blow “Wwwwhhhhaaaa” in my face, and I’m
like “OK, I’ll change.” Garzone and I have done
thousands of duets over the years just working on
aspects of the music: “Let’s play some uptempo
until your arm falls off or my lip breaks.” For me,
that’s the main thing about the group—the close
friendship and the fact that we’ve grown individually
because of the collective.
Lockwood: When I first got in there, for
some reason I was playing with a lot of electronics
and stuff. That kind of drifted in a little bit
but it got to be a pain carrying it around. Then
it went almost—I don’t want to say straightahead—but
a little bit more that way. It’s hard
to say, but it went in that zone more. Now, it’s
kind of a mix. It’s constantly changing. There
are certain things we might fall into for a while.
There was a time we were almost playing three
different times running parallel. It wasn’t conscious;
it just evolved. That’s how it felt. When
you know people well, it adds to the mix.
There’s a certain comfort zone. It’s like when
you go home: You know the smells, you know
the food and all that. There’s a certain comfort
to all that—it’s great.
Once I was in Switzerland, and there was
this river. I love swimming and I’m pretty good.