A lot of people don’t realize why myself and drummer record producer Norman Connors are dear friends today. Firstly, he was with me on my gig when he met his first wife. His self don’t even remember. I remember cause he was lucky to catch her,lol. I was sitting back with nobody. Also, we were the youngest drummers on the New York Jazz scene right after John Coltrane died. I knew all of John’s drummers and was gonna try and steal their job if John hadn’t died.
They were both my buddy’s and helped take care of my broke ace. My buddys drummers Rasheed Ali and Sonny Murry were the last drummers to play with John Coltrane. Well at least I got to play once with John’s wife Alice Coltrane. I don’t know if I could have whipped Elvin Jones ever though,lol. I did sit in on his drums one time. Also, I did get to play and record with many of Johns predecessors including Pharaoh Sanders, Sonny Simmons and Albert Ayler. I wrote Pharaohs biggest song ever. Norman’s name is on the tune also because he made me write the hook. “AS YOU ARE” written for John Coltrane.
I left New York shortly after I was picked to play with Miles Davis’s main man saxman Jackie McClean’s band which everyone said would have lead me to Miles band. Now I don’t think me and Miles would have made it, lol. Short story!
There were very few gigs in New York and I was dang near starving to death. I declared at 19 to come home to my momma. When I got home I continued to play my drums, but I went back to my second love, playing the piano and composing song lyrics.
Today Norman is really watching after me. I have four songs on his new forthcoming album entitled, “ROYALTY”. My song “Magazine Girl” sung by former 4th year American Idol contestant Donnie Williams is the opening song on his new record. Norman is also in the process of potentially recording vocalist Nora Jones. She ain’t sung yet but they’ve spent a lot of money already recording 3 songs for Nora. Norman says Nora absolutely loves six of my songs. We’ll see! I’m too old to hold my breath. Ain’t got much left. Plus sucking in too much air may kill you these days. I live near Chevron.