Jazz Veteran

Jazz Veteran

Date Posted: November 01 2007

Written By: Michael Jeffers

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Nick Schneider is rated as one of the top bass players in Chicago. He has performed with such greats as Randy Brecker, Eddie Higgins, the Buddy Rich Big Band, Johnny Frigo, Frank D'Rone, Teddy Wilson, and the Tonight Show Band, and has toured the United States and Europe. While in the service he also spent time touring Asia, including performances in the jungles of Vietnam. Schneider sees jazz as America's art form, and recognizes the importance of passing on the tradition of jazz and the arts to young people. Throughout his career he has dedicated himself to educating younger players. Schneider currently is on the faculty at Shell Lake Arts Center in Shell Lake, Wisconsin. For the past twenty-one years he has spent six weeks each summer educating young musicians not just about music, but about the practical business side of music that Schneider feels is sorely lacking in most education venues. He also finds time to run a private teaching studio. Schneider has put together an extensive listening and playing clinic designed for the beginner as well as the advanced player. and he is also a member of the Arts Center Collective, a septet of musicians residing primarily in the upper Midwest. The Arts Center Jazz Collective performs a series of clinics and concerts. The group not only has an abundance of professional performance experience but they are also well known educators who are devoted to passing the rich traditions of jazz on to up and coming musicians. Additionally, Schneider is a member of the Bruce Oscar Trio, which for over a decade has hosted a series of jam sessions, designed at giving musicians, especially beginners, the chance to learn and play with professional musicians. One of Chicago's "first-call" bass players, Schneider recently sat down with Chicago Jazz Magazine and shared his thoughts on the state of jazz and behind-the-scene stories of what it's like being a jobbing musician.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did you end up in Chicago?

Nick Schneider: I was born here. I never left, except for military service, and shortly after I got out of the service, when I lived in San Francisco for a while.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Did you start playing bass at an early age?

Schneider: Switched from drums. I played piano-took piano lessons-and then I switched to drums when I was maybe thirteen.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Where did you grow up?

Schneider: I grew up on the Southeast Side of Chicago, Burnside was the neighborhood. Messed around, played a little accordion and piano. The Chicago Park District used to sponsor accordion classes, and they had all different kinds of accordions-they had the smaller ones with the high-pitched alto, tenor and they had a bass accordion. The guy said, "Hey, since you're so big, you'll play that one." So, I wound up playing the bass accordion. We used to have accordion choirs back in the early fifties. I was also studying and playing piano at the same time.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Was that at your school or was it private?

Schneider: The piano lessons were private, but the accordion choir was at the Chicago Park District. And then right after that came the guitar thing you know, Elvis. But before that, it was the accordion in Chicago! [laughs]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Did you come from a musical family?

Schneider: No, not really. My sisters played piano. My father bought a piano and made us all take piano lessons, which was a blessing in disguise as I look back at it. I didn't want to take piano lessons but since he bought a piano and paid 700 dollars for it, he said everybody here is going to take piano lessons. The only one that skated on that one was my mother. [laughter] We had maybe three different piano teachers. We didn't think to call up the Chicago Conservatory or get somebody from the symphony. We lived on the Southeast Side so we would get a neighborhood teacher. I had this one lady, her name was Mrs. Peterson. She was very cool, because one day she said, "You're going to have to come back here at eleven o'clock in the morning on Sunday. I have surprise for you." There were maybe ten or twelve of us students, and she brought us to the Civic Opera House. We took the bus and the train downtown and walked from there. That was the first time I saw an opera-I was maybe ten. So there's some great teachers out there. We would probably have never gone to the opera, being from the neighborhood. She also brought us to the symphony. She was a good teacher, mostly classical: with the metronome and playing scales.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: When did you get involved with jazz?

Schneider: In high school. I went to Chicago Vocational on the Southeast Side. There wasn't any jazz band or jazz teaching at that time-it was the late fifties. Jack DeJohnette was the drummer in our band-he played marching band drums, I played bass fiddle in the combo. Even then he could play anything. I think at that particular point he was maybe only fourteen or fifteen, a freshman in high school. He could play bass both left-handed and right-handed, and he could play drums either left-handed or right-handed, and could play piano of course. He was great. There were a lot of talented musicians in that time period.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Did you hang around with Jack?

Schneider: Well, we were in the band together, but as soon as he graduated, he was in New York. Next thing I know, I pick up a paper-he was seventeen or eighteen-and he was with Miles Davis. He was already playing with some heavy hitters at that point, like Eddy Harris. Actually, I got a chance to play with Eddy too, because Eddy lived kind of in my neighborhood. I worked a couple of dates with him at the In Time Lounge on Cottage Grove. We had a high school quartet and we worked at Mr. Lucky's in Stony Island. They raided the joint one day.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: They raided the club?!

Schneider: Yeah, they raided the joint. There was a little gambling going on, so they raided the joint. They were going to lock us up. [laughs] I said, "I'm not leaving unless I can take my bass." And that was kind of a pain in the ass to get in the paddy wagon, so they let us go. [laughter] You know, right around that same time, I got involved with gypsies. My mother's Hungarian, and we were in the A&P Supermarket one day and she was talking to this guy in Hungarian, and he said that his bass player was sick. And she said, "My son's a bass player." At that particular point I really didn't know how to play bass. I was taking piano, but I knew how to tune a bass and I could play maybe a half of a scale on it; but I knew where "D" was. [laughs] So he says, "Okay, have him ready on Saturday morning at eleven o'clock-black suit and white shirt. I'm going to pick him up." I didn't know what to practice or what to play and the gypsy guy kept saying, "Don't worry about it, don't worry about it." They picked me up in a station wagon with the wood on the side, and there were four or five guys in there all dressed in black with fedoras on. I come running out of the front door and he says, "What are you doing with that?" And I said, "It's my bass," and he said, "No, no, put it back in the house. We've got a bass for you to play." So I get in the car with my overcoat on-it's snowing-we take off and what we're doing that day is playing funerals at people's homes. The bass had a little canvas case on it. He says, "Take it off outside." I said, "But it's snowing." He said, "Take it off outside." So we hit the door playing and I don't know what to play, so the guy says, "Play 'D,' play the open D string for awhile." [laughs] So we strolled around and sat in the house a little bit-and there's the coffin in there, of course. I don't know if you can do that anymore-I think it's against the law to have somebody laid out at their house. Anyway, people started putting money in the bass-dollar bills, five dollar bills, twenty dollar bills, and I'm like, Okay! One lady wanted to put some coins in there, like silver dollars, and the leader said, "Oh no, no. No coins-only paper." [laughs]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: So that's why he wanted you to use his bass instead of yours.

Schneider: Yeah. So after this gig I'm wondering how we are going to get the money out of that bass. Then we go to another one-we drive all the way from the South Side to the North Side, same thing. You know how when it snows in Chicago they block off the parking spaces for you with chairs? Well, they had a guy standing out there and we pulled right in the front-that was part of the deal. So we unload the station wagon and we run up to, like, the fourth floor and I did that same thing. But now I've graduated from playing on just a "D," to an A-string. And now the bass is starting to get heavier. [laughter]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: So how did you get all that money out of the bass?

Schneider: Well, we did another gig after that, and at that point it's probably about one o'clock in the morning. We go to the back of a tavern on the South Side in Roseland and pulled into the back of in alley and took the bass out. And there was a trap door in the back of the bass, and he had a key, of course. So he put the bass on a pool table in the back-the joint was closed. Then we all went out to the front part and we had drinks. Of course I wasn't drinking then. And then he called us in one by one, and he had an envelope for us. I came home with a little more than three hundred dollars. Chicago Jazz Magazine: At fourteen years old! Schneider: My old man worked in a steel mill. Even with overtime he wouldn't make over 125 bucks a week. So I figured, hey, if it's going to be like this, I want to be a bass player! [laughter]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: When did you decide you wanted to do that full time? Was it that night?

Schneider: Probably right after that. I started playing less piano and more bass. With my piano playing I did some classical pieces and I could play a few jazz tunes. I was into jazz voicings, but I did go to a jazz piano teacher and he made me play an Alan Swain method, which was popular back then: root and seventh in the left hand, and third and the fifth and maybe the melody note in the right hand. He made me play "All the Things You Are." That changed my life-that tune with the jazz voicings. I had to wiggle my way through that thing and it was real difficult at first, but pretty soon I got the hang of it and I learned about the chord groups and stuff. And it helped. Everybody should take piano lessons if they're a bass player.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What were you listening to at home? What kind of music did you play?

Schneider: I was always listening to jazz. I heard Charlie Parker I think when I was eight years old.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Was he among your favorites at that time?

Schneider: Yeah, I used to love to listen to Charlie Parker, Duke, Armstrong, Monk, Basie, Goodman, Miles-you could turn on the radio and dig Daddy-O Daley on the AM station. He played everyone! There were also record stores on the South Side that you could go to. One of the bigger record stores was actually at 87th and Cottage. All the kids from high school used to go to Polk Brothers. They had a hell of record collection. Now the Jazz Record Mart is one of the few left in town.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: They had a record department at Polk Brothers, the appliance store?

Schneider: Yeah. LPs for, like, three-fifty or two dollars-it was great. But then we had places in Chicago where you could go hear live jazz, too. Places like the Bird House on Dearborn, just a little north of Division. No booze; they had vending machines. You know, that may come back. Think about it: no bartender, no liquor license. Of course, people used to smuggle in a little taste. But that's a great concept: you pay a cover, you go in, somebody seats you and then the show starts. In addition to the Bird House there was Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase, and the Brass Rail. Back then all the clubs ran sets five nights a week.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Didn't you spend time in the service?

Schneider: Actually, they wanted you to register for the draft before you were eighteen. Well, I had a chance to talk to an Army Recruiter and he said, "If you go in we can get you an audition

The entire interview with Nick Schneider can be read in the November/December 2007 issue of Chicago Jazz Magazine. If you are not a subscriber you can subscribe by clicking here! For only $14.95 you will receive 6 copies of Chicago Jazz Magazine Plus you will also receive a FREE Chicago Jazz Compilation CD.

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