In his own words Red Holloway

In his own words Red Holloway

Date Posted: May 06 2008

Written By: Chicago Jazz

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James W. "Red" Holloway was born in Helena, Arkansas on May 31, 1927 to a mother who played piano and a father who played violin. At the age of five, he and his mother moved to Chicago, where he graduated from DuSable High School and attended the Conservatory of Music.

During grade school, Holloway played banjo and harmonica in school bands. His first musical instrument, a tenor sax, was given to him by his stepfather when he was twelve years old. During high school, he was in the DuSable big band, where he sat next to fellow classmate and reedman Johnny Griffin. At sixteen and while still in school, he was hired for his first professional engagement by bassist Gene Wright, who later went on to become a member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Holloway played with Wright's Big Band for three years at the Parkway Ballroom. When Holloway was nineteen, he joined the Army, where he became bandmaster for the U.S. Fifth Army Band.

After completing his military service, Holloway returned to Chicago and played with Yusef Lateef and Dexter Gordon, among others. In 1948 he was asked by blues vocalist Roosevelt Sykes to join Sykes' U.S. Road Tour. During this time, other bluesmen heard him and subsequently hired him, including Nat "Lotsa Poppa" Towles, Willie Dixon, Junior Parker, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Lloyd Price, John Mayall, and B.B. King. Because of these associations, Holloway became typecast, perhaps unfairly, as primarily a blues player.

During the fifties, Holloway continued playing in the Chicago area with such notables as Billie Holiday, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Ben Webster, Jimmy Rushing, Arthur Prysock, Dakota Station, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Wardell Gray, Sonny Rollins, Red Rodney, Lester Young, Joe Williams, Redd Foxx, Aretha Franklin, and many others. During this same period, he also played road tours with Danny Overbee, Sonny Stitt, Memphis Slim, Lefty Bates, and Lionel Hampton.

The public finally became aware of Holloway during the sixties as a result of his association with organist, "Brother" Jack McDuff. Another member of this band was guitarist George Benson. The band was together from 1963 to 1966 and performed road tours in the States as well as concerts in Europe. Holloway recorded several albums with McDuff on Prestige, including the hit single, "Rock Candy."

In 1967 Holloway moved to Los Angeles and in 1969 became the coordinator of talent and member of the house band at the famed Parisian Room. This association lasted for the next fifteen years and saw him hire virtually everyone who was anyone in the world of jazz and blues. He quit as talent coordinator for the Parisian Room after his request for a cost-of-living raise was denied. The club closed eight months later. During his tenure at the Parisian Room, he took occasional breaks for European, South American, and Japanese tours. From 1977 to 1982, he and altoist Sonny Stitt became a duo and cut two records on Catalyst: Forecast and Partners—Sonny and Red. In fact, it was Stitt who encouraged Holloway to take up the alto saxophone, believing that anyone who could also play clarinet, flute, piccolo, piano, bass, drums, and violin could probably master yet another instrument. Stitt was right, and Holloway is equally proficient on both tenor and alto. In The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies, Leonard Feather wrote, "Holloway is capable of generating great excitement with his big sound and hard-driving, mainstream-modern style."

Since Stitt's untimely death in 1982, Holloway has spent most of his time touring the States and Europe, either as a single or with his own band. He is now in partnership with trumpeter Clark Terry, with whom he has recorded on both Concord and Delox.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Where were you born?
Red Holloway: Helena, Arkansas.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: But you moved to Chicago at an early age with your family.
Holloway: Yeah, my mother brought me to Chicago when I was about five.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Were your parents musical?
Holloway: Well, my mother played piano and my father was a violin player.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Were they professionals?
Holloway: Oh no, my mother played at the church, and I never saw my father till I was twenty. I was living in Chicago and I saw him when I was twenty.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Were you living on the South Side?
Holloway: Yeah.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Where did you go to school?
Holloway: Edmund Burke. And I went to Carter School for maybe a year, but I went to Edmund Burke the rest of the time. Then I went to DuSable High School.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Tell us about your high school experience, musically speaking.
Holloway: Well let's see, Johnny Griffin, he played alto sitting right next to me in the high school band, and in 1945 when he graduated, he left and went with Lionel Hampton. Captain Walter Dyett was the music director at DuSable.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What instrument were you playing at the time?
Holloway: I was playing tenor saxophone. I had a little band in grammar school, which was a harmonica band.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Do you remember how you ended up choosing the tenor sax?
Holloway: Well actually my stepfather—he was the one that had a saxophone. I had been playing the piano because that's what my mother played. And I didn't really care for piano, but you know how that goes—you have to do what your mama says! [hearty laughter] So my stepfather, he couldn't play, so one day he asked me, "Boy, do you want this horn?" I said, "Yes sir," and I was still in grade school at the time, grammar school. I had been trying to teach myself, but then I went to DuSable the next year and I joined the band.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: At the high school?
Holloway: At DuSable playing at the band. That was in the forties, I imagine you weren't around in the forties, and in the forties, it was tough times. What I mean when I say "tough times" is that people were making, oh, five and twelve dollars a week. Some made fourteen, but that was really good salary. That was a good salary. A streetcar was a nickel and taxis was a dime—to turn the corner fifteen cents—the newspaper was three cents. So things were cheap. I wanted to be an amateur boxer so I ran about five miles a day five days a week for ten years. My friend in school, who was Johnny Bratton, fought Kid Galavan from Cuba for the championship, but I was just an amateur. I was in the Boy Scouts and they'd teach you self-defense; that's how I started. Anyway, I was hired by Eugene Wright—he was with Brubeck—he was his bass player. Yeah, Eugene Wright had a big band called the Dukes of Swing in Chicago, and he hired me to play in the band when I was sixteen. And I played with his band until 1946 when I was drafted. I joined his band in 1943, and we were making six dollars a night and we were working three nights a week. I had a suit made for twenty-dollars and fifty cents!

Chicago Jazz Magazine: That sounds like good money for the time.
Holloway: That's three nights a week, that's eighteen dollars—that's big money. And most people working were making five, ten, twelve—if you were making fifteen dollars a week you were making a lot of money.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: And you were only a teenager.
Holloway: Yeah, and I was making eighteen dollars. And that's what made me decide I wanted to be a musician. [laughter]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Well, obviously it turned out to be a good decision. When you were in the Army did you do anything musically?
Holloway: Yeah, in fact I had a letter from Captain Dyett to get in the band, but the sergeant thought I was trying to get out of training so I had to go through the training. And then one of the fellows in the band in the army found out that I could play and they transferred me to the band. Then let's see, I was at Fort Sheridan and then I left Fort Sheridan and went to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. From there I went to Aberdeen proving grounds in Maryland.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Right after the army you came back to Chicago. How did you get work and what did you do?
Holloway: When I came back to Chicago—that was in '47—my mother and Roosevelt Sykes, who was a blues piano player and singer, they went to school together, so he was visiting her one day and he saw that I had a saxophone and he asked if I could play it. And I said yeah, and so he sat down to the piano and he played some blues and I played with him. So he hired me to go out on the road. I went out in 1948 for a year with him.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Over the next several years you played with a lot of blues players.
Holloway: Yeah.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: B.B. King was one of them; Junior Parker, and Willie Dixon—they are primarily known as blues players.
Holloway: Yeah, but I played jazz before I went to the service, I played jazz with Eugene Wright's big band, I played jazz with different jobs, but blues players hired me because I could play the blues. And once you get labeled as a blues player you don't get many jazz gigs.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Do you think that hurt your career at all?
Holloway: I don't think so. As a matter of fact, if you can't play the blues you can't play good jazz. John Coltrane played with Eddie Vinson and Earl Bostic, and when he played one note you could hear the blues in his tone. I always think that the best jazz players have bluesy sounds—you know, being able to emphasize the notes and to kind of bend them—to play with feeling in other words.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: We've heard that all blues is jazz but not all jazz is blues.
Holloway: Oh, that's true. [laughs] Well, you know in today's market when most people play a pretty song they play with such a hard tone they hardly use any dynamics, they just play it loud and hard instead of trying to have a beautiful tone.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Do you agree with those who say today's jazz is all about playing hard, fast and high?
Holloway: That's right. That is so true and it is so sad.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What was it like being on the road in the late forties and fifties?
Holloway: Oh, it was rough let me tell you. I couldn't check into a hotel, there was no hotels for black folks. You'd go to a town and you'd have to stay with church people or usually you'd have to stay in people's houses—Mr. Jones, I can take two over here. Henrietta, I can take in one over here—stuff like that. It was rough… but the food was good! [laughs] But the living conditions were horrible. In fact, I remember going to North Dakota: we had to change clothes behind tombstones in the graveyard. Pretty, pretty bad.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: And were you still making good money when you were on the road?
Holloway: Not as good as I was when I was living at home, because we had double expense. I was out on the road and I was married too. And that didn't cover everything.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: And your wife was back home at the time?
Holloway: Well, sometimes my wife traveled with me all over. Roosevelt had one of those airline vans, and it had those big-ass four-doors on each side—and that's the way we traveled. And during that period Roosevelt had a seven-piece band and so we traveled and I took my wife out on the road—Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi. And my first wife was an American Indian, and I remember going through Texas. My wife had long black hair, so the police had stopped us. We were sitting in the back and the police had stopped us because they thought they saw a white woman riding in the back.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Uh oh.
Holloway: Because she had long pretty hair. And they stopped us just to see—you know? So they thought they'd give you a hard time about it. Well, a lot of times they'd just seen the hair—they didn't see the face until they stopped the car. And I mean it was rough down South.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: That must have been tough.
Holloway: Everybody gave me problems. All of them! [laughs]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You came back to Chicago after that, right?
Holloway: I came back in 1949. And my friends Red Higgins and Johnny Griffin used to play together. And Red Higgins and I went to Omaha together. We had friend who was a drummer, named Fred Hooper. We were The Three H's—Holloway, Higgins, and Hooper. Hooper was the drummer and Higgins played trumpet. We were all in the Boy Scouts together!

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did you get the nickname "Red"?
Holloway: At that time I had red hair.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: And were you playing clubs in Chicago at that time?
Holloway: Oh yeah, we played the Parkway Ballroom when I was at school and then we played at the Pershing Hotel.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What was the Chicago club scene like back in the fifties?
Holloway: Oh, the club scene was great. Like at the Club DeLisa, where I played, they had about a thousand-seater club! Red Saunders and his band played there—he had about nine pieces and they played for the shows. Let's see, I'm trying to think of this fellow—Sammy Dyer was the coordinator of the dancers and the show at Club DeLisa. And there was a guy, Sonny—you probably know him as "Sun Ra," but his name is Sonny Blount—and he wrote all the music for the shows, and I used to play with him for a while. And Al Smith, a friend of ours—he was a bass player—and he would put together a lot of musicians for recording. I played with Chess Records when they started. Well, actually when it started off it wasn't Chess Records, it was Aristocrats.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Those were some of the great old Chicago record labels.
Holloway: Yeah, but they had to change the name to Chess. I recorded with a lot of different singers, and I recorded with the Flamingos, and the Moonglows—their first session. That was with the Chance Recording Company.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You've played with a lot of singers over the years, especially early on. Two years ago you toured with Kevin Mahogany.
Holloway: Oh yeah, yeah. I still play with Kevin whenever we can get a gig. Last year we were together at the Playboy Jazz Festival.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Do you have a preference of working with singers?
Holloway: Well, I follow the money! [laughs] Yeah, I've recorded with Ruth Brown and Etta James and a lot of them.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Didn't you work with Billie Holiday?
Holloway: Yeah in Chicago, I never recorded it though.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What was Billie like to work with?
Holloway: Oh, she was a nice person and she was easy to work with. She was a nice woman.
Actually, Al Smith had this band and she was playing another club in the Pershing Hotel—they had two clubs, the Pershing Lounge and then they had the Beige Room, and that's one of the places where I worked with her. We did a few gigs around Chicago, but she was really at the Pershing Hotel at that time, and with that rotten husband of hers. Well, he was a pimp! But she was very nice.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You must have been exposed to a lot of drug use at that time.
Holloway: Oh yeah, yeah. Well I think one time I tried—what was it I tried—I don't know if it was heroin or cocaine. It wasn't cocaine because that wasn't popular at that time. Yeah, reefers and heroin was the thing. I smoked reefers, but I tried… it must have been heroin. And I was so sick, I said, "Oh Lord, if I make it over this I promise you I will never do this again." So I never used anything like that again. I smoked a reefer, that's about it.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: That turned out to be a blessing.
Holloway: [laughs] Let me tell you! I smoked reefer—let's see, maybe twice. The second time it was so powerful the reefer was so strong that I ran down 55th Street. I ran down the wrong direction for about two blocks; the police had to turn around because I was running against the traffic. And they took me to the hospital [laughs]… Just from smoking a reefer!

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You were running on foot?!
Holloway: Yeah, you know I ran—I ran five miles a day, but I had been drinking. I was working at a parking lot part-time and I had been drinking hot Coca-Cola and then I went and smoked this reefer. Boy, oh boy, that really taught me a lesson—I would use no more dope!

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Did you lose any of your friends?
Holloway: Oh, yes indeed.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Tell us about your relationship with Ben Webster. He was known as a bad boy.
Holloway: Oh, Ben—he was a sweetheart. I mean, he was such a big buildup—but when he'd get to drinking he would kind of get obnoxious. [laughs] But what a talent! Oh, let me tell you, he was really—he had such a beautiful sound and he was a helluva piano player, too. He played a fine piano. I remember he called me "June Bug."

Chicago Jazz Magazine: June Bug?
Holloway: Oh, you know, everybody has a name, like when you don't remember people's name. Like if you can't remember the drummer's name, Hey drumski, or the trombone player, Hey boneski—you give a person a nickname. But he always called me June Bug because I was young. I was in my twenties, and I would always bring scotch, and he would always say, "Hey June Bug, pour me a little smile." [laughs]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Early in your career who helped shape your playing and helped you grow as a musician?
Holloway: Sonny Stitt.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: That turned out to be a long and successful musical relationship.
Holloway: Yeah, that was in 1944 when we met. I always liked the way he sounded. Sometimes he didn't have a horn and I would let him use mine, but I would always go with him to the gig. So we became friends, and during the fifties when I had a band and he had come to Chicago he would sit in. And I would take my band out with him on the road. And we became good friends. Later on, when I was running a nightclub, the Parisian, I hired him. I was hiring all different players: James Moody, Johnny Hartman, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey. I hired everyone, because I ran the club for fifteen years.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: The Parisian was in Los Angeles?
Holloway: Yeah. So anyway I ran into Pat Britt, who at that time was kind of running a record label. He wanted to know if I could get Sonny to record for him. I talked to Sonny, and Sonny said, "Yeah, if the money's right" he could record for anybody. [laughs] So we did the recording session—it was called Forecast: Sonny and Red. And I try not to be a critic of the LP. So after that, Ray Brown, the bass player, hired us for a gig and to go to different clubs. He became kind of our agent. We were together until Sonny died in '82.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You met Sonny in high school, right?
Holloway: Yeah. He wasn't going to high school. I met him when I was in high school.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: He was a bit older, wasn't he?
Holloway: He wasn't going to DuSable. Might have been a few years older—I haven't really thought about it.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did you meet?
Holloway: Well, when he would come to town to play—I think he was with Tiny Bradshaw or somebody. I think it was Tiny Bradshaw's band. And in Chicago they had jam sessions every Monday morning. After the practice band at Club DeLisa, about six or seven clubs would have jam sessions. Starting Monday around nine o'clock in the morning going till Wednesday—so anybody's in town would come by. So this club, Club DeLisa, held a thousand people, and whoever was in town—Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, any of the big stars—they would come to Club DeLisa. This was a place that was run by Italians, and all of your famous gangsters would be at Club DeLisa. And you could bring your own bottle, but you'd have to buy their ice. And the ice would cost you, like, a quarter a cube. [laughs]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: That's how they got you—the ice!
Holloway: And the cube wasn't that big, so you had to have at least three or four cubes with your bottle! [laughs] So they made money all kinds of ways!

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What did Sonny teach you that made a difference in your playing?
Holloway: Well he taught me how to kind of put my lines together and how to make extensions to my playing you know to extend solos and stuff like that. And he taught me how to play alto.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Was there a big difference moving from tenor to alto?
Holloway: I play both. No, you just have to think in a different key, that's all. If the tenor is in D then the alto is in A. So you just have to think in a different key.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Since you've played so many other instruments, that probably wasn't a tough transition for you.
Holloway: Well, it was slightly because I hadn't played an alto, and after you've played tenor most of your life you think of things in a tenor key. But it really wasn't that hard, you just have to get accustomed to the sound.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: When you look back on your career was there ever a big break?
Holloway: A big break, well I don't know about a big break, but I played with Lionel Hamilton for a minute and played with Jack McDuff. That was one of the things that helped me—helped people know a little more about me.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: It helped put you on the map. What year would that have been?
Holloway: Well, I worked with Lloyd Price first. But I mean when you worked with Lloyd Price the band didn't get much publicity. But in '63 was when that happened, because that's when I joined Jack McDuff. And I joined him in Chicago at the—what's the name of that hotel on 53rd and Cottage Grove? I think it's still there too. The Strand Hotel. McKie Fitzhugh was a radio announcer and he had the club. He was a disc jockey. You probably wasn't around during the days of him and Al Benson, who was another disc jockey.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: When you were with Jack McDuff wasn't George Benson also in that band?
Holloway: Yeah, he was there before I got there.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Did you end up working with George Benson other than with Jack?
Holloway: Well, George recorded with me a few times, but no, I stayed with Jack. George left before I did and I left maybe six months after he did. And the only other time I worked with George was at the North Sea Festival, and that was in 1988. I packed up my stuff and worked with George's band.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Sort of a reunion concert.
Holloway: Yeah.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: The gig with McDuff was high profile, wasn't it?
Holloway: Well, we had a hit. The hit was in '63, which was "Rock Candy." And after that we were more or less one of the hottest organ groups in America.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did that change your life in tangible terms? Was there a lot more money coming in, more gig offers?
Holloway: Well, there was a lot more gig offers, but not more money. There was more money for McDuff, but not for us. But it was okay, I guess.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What prompted you to make the move from Chicago to L.A.? That came in the late sixties?
Holloway: Well, actually I got sick of cold weather. I lived in New York for almost ten years and I just got sick of being cold in the wintertime. I came to California for the first time with Bill Dogett, the organ player. And it was so nice, and I had relatives here so I said, "Hell, that's where I need to be—in California." When I left McDuff, I moved to Los Angeles. I left Chicago for New York in about '61. I mean, I left in '57, but when I left for good I moved to New York with Lloyd Price, I had a job. I worked with his band from ‘61 up until '63 when I joined Mac. I had joined Bill Dogett before I got with Mac. I had been with Bill about three months, but I had recorded with McDuff when I was with Lloyd Price. So when I got out here on the West Coast with Bill Dogett that's when I discovered the good weather. And that's when I heard the record that we did live in the Front Room in New Jersey, "Rock Candy," was a hit. So McDuff's manager called me and I joined McDuff in Chicago at the Strand Hotel.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: And when you moved to L.A. you got the gig at the Parisian Room?
Holloway: Well, I moved to L.A., on September the 29th, 1967. My aunt and uncle owned this motel and apartment—they lived right across the street from the Parisian Room, where on Monday night they'd have a jam session. So I went over there and jammed and I was offered a job. So I played in the band there for about four or five months. Then the organ player kind of took the job from the drummer—it was the drummer's job. So the organ player took it from the drummer and then he tried to hire me, but I didn't take it—I went somewhere else. Then the organ player was working on the Sonny and Cher Show, so a lot of times he wouldn't be there. So the owners were looking for somebody else, and they happened to see me and asked me if I'd be interested. And I said, "Yeah, but I want some money; I don't want no scale." So I stayed there for fifteen years.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: That's a nice long run.
Holloway: Well, at first I was doing all local entertainment and all the comedians. I used a lot of the black comedians you see in the movies today. Arsenio Hall, I gave him his first job. [laughs] And then of course they moved on. But I was there for fifteen years. Then I quit because I couldn't get a cost of living raise.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: But it's still a nice long run for a club gig.
Holloway: Oh, I think so too.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: So that puts you at about the early eighties.
Holloway: Well, I quit July the fourth, 1982.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Did your leaving have anything to do with Sonny's death?
Holloway: Well, he had cancer of the lymph glands, but he didn't know it. But he had something on his chin—so he had it cut off and he kept bleeding. And we were supposed to be over in London at the Club 100. And what happened is that Art Pepper was supposed to go to Japan, but he died. And they asked Sonny if he would go in Art Pepper's place. So Sonny went to Tokyo and I went to Club 100 by myself. But after about six or seven days he collapsed because, like I say, he had cancer of the lymph glands. So he came back home, not realizing he had cancer. His wife put him in the hospital, where he died.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: It must have been a difficult period for you.
Holloway: Yeah, it was kind of rough—you've been playing with a person for a long time. I've known him since I met him in '44; and I met Gene Ammons in ‘45.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You had two forty-year friendships there.
Holloway: Well, I met Gene Ammon's father, Albert Ammons first—he and Roosevelt Sykes were good friends. Ammons was a pretty wicked player and Roosevelt Sykes of course was a blues-singing piano player. I met all the blues players and all the blues singers, so that's how I became classed as a blues player.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Do you consider yourself primarily a jazz player with a blues emphasis?
Holloway: My emphasis is more in the blues and I do play jazz. I played with Dizzy Gillespie and Clark Terry and Al Grey and a lot of the jazz players.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You're still playing with Clark Terry.
Holloway: Yeah, as a matter of fact we just played together in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did you hook up with Clark?
Holloway: Well I was playing the ship every year, the Norway. And Clark's partner had died—his partner played alto—and so his lady friend suggested that the two of us get together. So Clark talked to me and asked me what I thought about it, and I said yeah that would be fine. So we started working together. And we went all over Europe and the Mediterranean, and had a lot of gigs all over the world. Used to play at the Blackstone for Joe Segal, but we since had a falling out. Did he ever open his new club yet?

Chicago Jazz Magazine: It hasn't opened yet, but it's in the South Loop at Dearborn Station, near Printer's Row. It's supposed to be opening in the next couple months.
Holloway: Like I said, we all had a falling out, so Joe doesn't hire me or doesn't hire Clark Terry. [reluctant chuckles]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: But you will be coming to Chicago in June for the Blues Festival. Have you ever been on the Chicago Jazz Festival on Labor Day weekend?
Holloway: Not on my own. Not as a headliner. The only time I was there was when I was with Horace Silver, so that must mean I could play some jazz or otherwise I wouldn't be playing with his band! [laughs] I recorded with Horace. In fact, me, James Moody, Branford Marsalis, and Rickey Woodard, and Eddie Harris, we all recorded on the same session with Horace Silver for Pencil Packin' Papa.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Good group. Do you think that maybe one of the reasons you haven't been on a Chicago Jazz Fest is because you are considered to be a blues player?
Holloway: Could be. Yeah, I guess they don't think I can play nothing else but blues. [laughs]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: We know better don't we?
Holloway: Well I do! [laughs]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You've had a long and great career. Is there something that you haven't done yet or that you're hoping to do?
Holloway: Well, it would be nice if I made some real money! [laughs] I'm hoping to do that before I die! [laughs] I've been paid fair, but I mean real money, like all these rock stars. I was with John Mayall about three years and I got paid! In fact he paid more money than anybody that I worked with.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: And when was that?
Holloway: That would have been '72, '73, '74. And then I came back and worked with him again in '76. I recorded with him maybe a year ago.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What were you primarily doing throughout the eighties and nineties?
Holloway: I have a quartet—and I was playing with my quartet. We played a lot overseas. You know, there's no money around in L.A., so I have to try and go overseas to make any money. I mean, it's not a lot of money but at least it's a steady job for a month or two. And it's way better than it is over here.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Can you tell the difference in the audiences overseas versus those in the United States?
Holloway: Oh yes. They love the music in Europe. And something that they do over there that they don't do over here, is they play the boogie-woogie. Every place you go, they play the boogie-woogie. And most of the musicians are so square that they don't know that the boogie-woogie is hip! It's not hip music here—we can't play that shit! [laughs] But I saw Axel Zwingenberger—it's just drums, bass, and himself on piano playing the boogie-woogie—and they had two thousand people in the hall!

Chicago Jazz Magazine: And what country was that?
Holloway: That was over in Germany.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Where are the best jazz venues in Europe?
Holloway: Well, there's the North Sea Festival over in Holland, and over in Denmark and Sweden and Norway.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: All Scandinavian countries.
Holloway: Yeah. In fact, I was just in Paris a couple of weeks ago and I met a fellow from Morocco who wanted to try and get me to Morocco to play.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: So who's in your band right now?
Holloway: Well, Richard Reid plays bass, Art Hillery is the piano player, and Gerryck King is the drummer; he used to work with Joe Williams. And that's it. They've been with me for about thirty years, the piano and the bass.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Are you all based in L.A.?
Holloway: Yeah, they are. I don't live in L.A. I'm two hundred and twenty-five miles north of L.A.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Now what prompted you to move that far away from L.A.?
Holloway: Well, I like the ocean, but I couldn't afford to live near the water. Years ago I had a boat in Marina del Ray for about ten years. And I like the ocean and I like boating, but I don't have a boat here. I was just saying during that period when I had two or three dollars—when I had a steady job [laughs]—my girlfriend and I bought this thirty-two-foot Chris-Craft powerboat. Then, when I played at the Monterey Jazz Festival, I wanted to come down to see this castle that William Randolph Hearst built. So I came down Highway 1, but the tour was closed. And so there was a little town right next to it, San Simeon—about a four hours' drive from where I lived. So I said, "Oh well, what the heck—let me get a little motel for the night." I even started driving around, and I saw this property and you could see the ocean from where this lot was. So I bought this lot and I've been here ever since. I think it's one of the most beautiful areas in the country.
Holloway: So did William Randolph Hearst.
Holloway: Yeah, well it's still gorgeous.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: So you're living large!
Holloway: Well, I don't know—it was cheap when I moved in! [laughs]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: It's not so cheap anymore?
Holloway: I couldn't afford my house if I had to buy it today!

Chicago Jazz Magazine: So it's been a good investment for you.
Holloway: Well, it was just one of those things where, you know, the good Lord was just looking out for a fool. [laughs]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Do you have any other interests or hobbies other than jazz and blues?
Holloway: I like golf, and I like building little flying airplanes and stuff. I had a scholarship with the Art Institute of Chicago, but I knew I'd never make a nickel in art. I had to think of what was going to make me some money.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You're multi-talented.
Holloway: I don't know about that. It's just one of those things: you have a certain amount of talent that the good Lord gives you and you try to use it.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: It seems like there are a lot of jazz musicians that like to play golf.
Holloway: Yeah. Well you know, that's a good pastime and actually there aren't too many other things that you can do that are so relaxing. Because if you're playing baseball that's not so relaxing.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: That's true. And it's a lot harder to get a baseball game together than it is a golf game!
Holloway: Yeah. [laughs] I like it very much.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Getting back to music for a moment, any thoughts on the state of the music industry and the young players today?
Holloway: Well, the young players today are very good. See, when I was a kid there were no schools for jazz. I went to the Chicago Conservatory on 410 South Michigan, but that was for classical music only. And I'm so sorry there was no jazz, because you had to go to jam sessions in order to learn anything. So that was kind of sad. But all the youngsters, they go to jazz schools and they come out and they can really play. The only thing that I object to is that they take pretty songs and when they're done with them they are no longer pretty. They just play them too hard—with a hard tone—and with a real fast tempo, you know.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You're not alone in that thought.
Holloway: I don't know; I just like pretty music.

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