Percy France Memorial Website

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Dan Gould said:

A ood example of the missing information is that it has been said by about every musician asked that they 'heard' Percy spent time at Riker's Island, the (especially now) infamous NYC jail. But nobody seems to know what put him there.

The usual suspect, probably,?

[Dan Gould]

46 minutes ago, JSngry said:

The usual suspect, probably,?

That's the presumption, or perhaps drug-related theft?  Bill Doggett said on the WKCR memorial broadcast that 

"Everybody that met Percy loved him. Now some of the things that happened later on in his life people didn't necessarily like, but Percy as an individual was a beautiful person."

That suggests to me it wasn't a stretch for possession.

He was well liked. Everybody that met Percy loved him. You know, some of the things that happened later on in his life people didn't necessarily like, but Percy as an individual was a beautiful person. A wonderful man, a wonderful friend, a wonderful musician.

[Dan Gould]

 

[clifford_thornton]

Neloms sounds great on this clip, wow!

[Dan Gould]

Same engagement, a week later, last time bebop this time "Idaho".

 

 

Edited January 26 by Dan Gould

[Dan Gould]

I reached out to the Vandy Librarian about an updated spreadsheet of recordings ... and got a list of interviews, four of which were of Percy France or about him.  Something to look forward to! (Not to mention 6 or more performance tapes I didn't recognize as already uploaded).

Well ... a day later three of the four were released and I am excited by this one in particular, it's about three hours of Percy spinning records and talking about the music, plus an interview with Schaap that I suspect is the longest known interview especially in the absence of any recorded evidence of an interview Allen Lowe told me he had conducted once.

https://aviary.library.vanderbilt.edu/collections/2137/collection_resources/141198

Jazz Alternatives: Percy France musician host (9/26/1979)

[Dan Gould]

 

 

[Dan Gould]

Vanderbilt uploaded the Max Roach interview segment from the Percy France Memorial broadcast and with a little bit of editing I've adopted it into this Remembrance which I will be adding to the website:

 

“Percy France for us embodied what this music was all about as far as the musician was concerned. It’s really a performer’s music and the great performers are the ones who make the history of the music and Percy was certainly one of those.  You don’t hear playing like that today, you just don’t, you don’t hear that. It came from that school that embodied people like Coleman Hawkins and Duke Ellington and Don Byas – some of the greatest musicians that this country has produced. And Percy was certainly one of those.  When I heard Percy on saxophone, it made me smile. Percy could blow anybody off the stand but he had the humility that wasn’t weak, it was strong. He was a nice human being and you got that from him, and heard it in his playing.

 

Remember that old spiritual “He Never Said a Mumblin’ Word” no matter what was done to him he never complained about what was going on with himself personally. He was always encouraging whenever I came up to see him where he was playing – kind of a smiling personality.”

[Dan Gould]

August 25 1985 there was an impromptu jam session during a West End Day broadcast on WKCR, bringing Percy France together with Bill Wurtzel and Ali Ryerson:

 

 

 

 

[JSngry]

How do Percy and Lockjaw line up chronologically?

[Dan Gould]

Lock was six years older (1922 vs 1928), started recording about two years earlier (1947 vs 1949).

 

[JSngry]

Ok, they definitely seem to have been breathing some of the same air as far as saxophone mechanics go. Fascinating, as not very many others have!

[Dan Gould]

55 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Ok, they definitely seem to have been breathing some of the same air as far as saxophone mechanics go. Fascinating, as not very many others have!

I haven't cross-referenced influences between the two of them ... but becoming musicians in that time frame - both oriented mostly toward swing. They were both born in NYC.

[JSngry]

My guess would by Byas and or Ben. They both founds ways of doing that "sound as sound thing" to some extent, in the way that Percy and especially Lock did.

Breathing the same air!

[Dan Gould]

Byas and Webster were two of the people Percy named in the interview segment of the "Musician Host" show that I linked above.

I don't know for sure who Lockjaw would have named or if he was ever asked that kind of question. 

[JSngry]

Apparently he was a BIG Ben admirer.