107: Wycliffe Gordon with Sean Jones

In this episode of Jazz Cruises Conversations, recorded live on the recent Journey of Jazz cruise, trumpeter and educator Sean Jones interviews fellow brassman Wycliffe Gordon about his remarkable life and storied career in music. Jones and Gordon share a similar background, both having Georgia roots and musical beginnings in the church and gospel tradition. The conversation covers Wycliffe Gordon's formative years, his pivotal experiences playing with Wynton Marsalis, and his successful solo career.

Key Takeaways

• Early Musical Roots: Wycliffe Gordon grew up in rural Georgia, in towns like Wesboro and Augusta. His father played and studied classical music, using a reel-to-reel recorder to play music by composers like Beethoven, Mozart, Schuman, and Schubert. His introduction to hearing live music was primarily through the church, where his father played the piano and organ.
• The Trombone and Jazz: Gordon was introduced to the trombone in the seventh grade (age 12). His fundamental musical syntax is rooted in the church. His introduction to jazz came around age 13 or 14 from a five-record compilation set, likely on Columbia or CBS, called an "anthology of jazz, 10 sides," which spanned from early slave chants to modern jazz. He was captivated by the music of Louis Armstrong, particularly the tune "Keyhole Blues".
• High School Experience: Wycliffe Gordon participated in the McDonald's All-American High School band in the summer of 1984, his senior year. This experience offered him many "firsts," including his first time on an airplane and his first trip to New York. His future wife was also in that band, as one of the two participants from Kentucky.
• Work with Wynton Marsalis: Gordon was the seventh member to join Wynton Marsalis’s Septet. Later, he was part of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JALCO), having first dibs on a spot when the Septet disbanded in 1995.
• Transition to Solo Career and Education: He left Wynton's band to pursue other things, including a teaching position at Michigan State. He started his own record company because a Blue Note executive told him that the "trombone just doesn't sell".
• The Wynton Tip: Wycliffe recounts the story of meeting Wynton Marsalis during a workshop at Florida A&M, where Marsalis was impressed by his ability to quickly generate a riff based on the call-and-response tradition of the church. This led to a brief trial gig in Texas, where he was initially sent home for not being ready, but returned after dedicated practice, eventually leading to his first recording with Marsalis on Crescent City Christmas Card in 1989.
• Multi-Instrumentalism: Gordon discusses playing various trombones (tenor, bass, alto) and the slide trumpet, emphasizing that the one he likes most is the one he is playing at the time. Sean Jones highlights that Wycliffe is also an amazing trumpet player, citing his tribute album, Hello Pops.
• Education Philosophy: When asked about encouraging fundamentals and individuality in students, Wycliffe and Sean Jones discuss the challenge of engaging young people and fostering accountability and critical thinking skills. Sean Jones shares a story about vulnerability and emotional expression with students in the National Youth Orchestra of Jazz (NYO

• Listen to more episodes of Jazz Cruises Conversations on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. The back catalog contains more than a hundred interviews from past sailings.
• Theme Music: Provided by Marcus Miller from his song "High Life" on his album Aphrodesia on Blue Note.

Transcript

This is a transcript of Episode 107 of Jazz Cruises Conversations, featuring an interview with Wycliffe Gordon by Sean Jones, recorded on the recent Journey of Jazz cruise.

Host Lee Mergner Hi, welcome to Jazz Cruisers Conversations. I'm your host, Lee Mergner. This week's episode features yet another interview from the recent journey of jazz cruise. Shawn Jones talked with fellow brassman Wycliffe Gordon about his storied life in music. The two share a common background growing up in the church and Wliffe talked about his earliest experiences playing music in his hometowns of Westboro and Augusta, Georgia. And he explained how his introduction to jazz came from hearing a compilation of jazz greats. Shawn asked him about his experience playing in the McDonald's High School All-Star band. And Wliffe also talked about his time with Winton Marcel from both the Sept and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Sean then turned to the audience for their questions for Wycliffe. So I hope you enjoyed the conversation and the give and take with the audience.

Sean Jones everyone. It is great to see you all here. Yeah, we hope you've had a wonderful morning. Everybody hydrated? All right, good. There are several ways to do that. And dehydrate. But we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about and talk with one of the greatest trombonist in human history. And that is the great YF Gordon.

Wycliffe Gordon Hello everybody. I say good morning. It's still morning for us jazz musicians, but technically it's afternoon. So good afternoon to everybody. Thank you all for being here.

Sean Jones Yeah. Con It's great to be here with you. I'm going to ask a few questions uh to uh brother Wycliffe and these are just some questions that I've been curious about. We've known each other for a while and I just want to ask I want to Larry King you a little bit if you will. Is that all right? And then I'll open the floor up for questions and Jim is somewhere around here who will be uh sending the mic around. But the first question I have is um It's about your upbringing. I know that we have similar upbringings. Actually, a little fun fact that you all may or may not know. We were born on the same day around the same time, 10 years apart.

Wycliffe Gordon Who's twin by 10?

Sean Jones He's older. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Age-wise, chronologically, I am. But, you know, terms of wisdom, he's a lot older than.

Wycliffe Gordon I don't know about that. I don't know about that. But, you know, we we both share roots in the gospel tradition. In fact, we're both we both have uh Georgia roots. My family is from Way Cross, which is a little bit further south, but I didn't grow up there. You grew up in Georgia. What was it like growing up? And and did you bring the instrument to church and play the instrument much in church or did you play a lot of organ and piano and sing? And was it a mix of it all?

Wycliffe Gordon Uh, well, I definitely didn't sing. Um, But um so a little bit about my musical um introduction. My father played and studied classical music but his practical application his opportunity to perform he played in churches. So the way cross where his roots are mine and both of them are very country. And when I say country I'm not talking about land mass as it pertains to it's it's a way of life and a way of being. Matter of fact when I was my first um professional gig, grill gig, playing with Winter Marcales. They used to call me country and I don't know if they meant that. I think they meant it as a compliment. Anyway, um but very rural. So, we we grew up in the country on a dirt road. And without getting into all of those details, my musical um experience first came from my dad had an upright uh grand piano, which I still have. We He left us on on this side in 1997, but he had a realtoreal recorder on top of that that played classical piano music. Everything from Beethoven, Mozart, Schuman, Schubert, you know, those kinds of things. And he wired put speakers in in the bedrooms and in all the rooms in the house. So that's what we heard at home other than when you turn the radio and you would hear like country music. But that was my introduction um to music.

hearing music live was in church. where they uh my dad played piano in organ and uh there wasn't many musicians in our hometown. So he played for three or four different churches. But anyway, that's what I heard and that was my introduction to music. That was the sound that um that has formulated me in the way that I hear music. I don't care whether I'm studying classical, jazz, But the um the the the not not the style but just the syntax in music if you will with with which I hear music. It comes out of the church. So um you know this and you know brother Jones asked me did I sing in the choir? No. The last thing I wanted to do was to sing in the um choir.

But when when we moved from Wesboro to Augusta we joined the church and a friend of mine hadn't started playing the horn yet but had a bass. And you know, my dad tried to get us to take piano lessons when we were younger because he gave piano lessons. But it was hard in the country when you your friends are outside playing.... So he didn't make us take lessons, but my mom had the um you know, made it where we could take lessons later. So at age 11, I did take piano. Age 12, Um my brother got his first trombone, went to junior high school, and you could take up to three electives. He got in band, came home with a trombone one day as band director said, "All boys want to play trumpets or saxopones or drums." Nobody really wants to play the trombone. We don't we don't really pick that. I guess it kind of, you know, chooses us because it's hard to do.

So anyway, I begged my parents until they um got one and this was my introduction to the instrument. Once I learned uh start practicing and learning to play then I would play in church but it was not where that was not where I kind of lived. We lived in the band room. We had marching band concert band and um called it stage band back then but that was my introduction. Shortly after I was 13, 14, um I had a great aunt to pass away and amongst the things that were bequeathed to our family was a five record collection set of jazz. That was my introduction to jazz. It was um I think it may have been Columbia or CBS I'm not sure, but it was called an anthology of jazz, 10 sides, uh, starting from early slave chants through the modern jazz of that period. For me, that meant I remember Sunonny Rollins quartet, Sunonny Moon for Two, Count Basy, Big Band, you know, one bass hit or two bass hit. But of all the music that I that was in that compilation that Lewis Armstrong kind of hit me, it was a tune they played called Keyhole Blues. I loved to listen to music that sound like the instruments we played. And I kind of fell in love with that, the music of New Orleans.

When you grow up in church, church is just church. Sometimes after a certain level of um development, we may get hired to play in church services at other churches. And this was good for me cuz I played in this Episcopal church, I think it was. All I remember is we were playing cuz at my church, we ain't going home no time soon. We're playing they had a handbell choir like oh this is nice... and then you know before I knew it people was they stood up and they were leaving. I said, "man I never been in church where they took a break". I said, "mama I want to go to this church". But it was the music of the church, that kind of music we did yesterday that kept me grounded the whole time I was on the road throughout my career on the bus. I go to the back of the bus I put on the Florida man choir or the Georgia mass choir so in the back in the back of the bus in our lounge it would always be um church.

Sean Jones Oh that's great. And you know um so when you started playing when you were younger did you get introduced to it in public school like fifth grade, sixth grade?

Wycliffe Gordon Um trombone. Seventh grade.

Sean Jones Seventh grade.

Wycliffe Gordon Yeah. Um what happened was in first grade um you know we heard the marching band at my um Queensboro so country we had one elementary school, one junior high school, one high school and one private school. And um they had a an army band that come to our school to perform for the kids. I was like man the first time I heard a big band I don't know what they were playing in the mood or something and they demonstrated instruments. I remember First time I heard a trumpet live. I said, "Okay, that's the sound from my church teachings." I said, "That's the sound or the instrument that blew down Walter Jericho."

Sean Jones That's right. Don't forget.

Wycliffe Gordon Okay. Yeah. Cool. And I think Sean helped blow it down. But anyway, um and then had a piano, but I heard piano all my life. Then the bass he was playing electric bass like I was like, "Oh man, I like that." And then the drummer started playing and like I was like, "That's it. That's my calling." And I went home and told my parents, I said, "I want a drum set." They were like, "Absolutely not." She said, "Y'all make enough noise around this house as it is." So anyway, it was um you know, 12 12 uh 13 I was introduced to band music and then you know, jazz.

Sean Jones No, that's a that's a great answer because I wanted to talk a little bit about the uh McDonald's uh Dream Band and your experiences in high school. It seems like education also played an important role in those opportunities. Can you just talk about that influence on your time on you at the time and who some of the people that you met in some of those bands?

Wycliffe Gordon Sure. Um yeah, so called the McDonald's All-American High School band. I can't talk about it without talking about my band director, Mr. Butler Riches. He used to tell me when I signed up for the all county band, the district band, all state band, he would always say, "Cliff, you can do it, Cliff." I don't know if he knew that he gave me the um the ability to think that I couldn't do anything. So sometimes when I was working on something on a trombone... I said, "You can't do it on trombone?" So I practiced and practiced. So Mr. But my high school band director, I I have to credit him with that because it was something that I didn't think about.

Sean Jones No, just the influence of the some of the people you met in the McDonald's Dreamland band... But the importance of teachers is something I like to uh focus on at times. Give it up for the teachers, y'all. Tell us about that band. I know there were some very special people in that band with you as well.

Wycliffe Gordon Amen. Well, yeah. That was for me, the McDonald's All-American High School band. I um participated, which was um the summer 19 84, my my senior year. They choose uh two students from each state, but they have to put a band together. So there were 12 trombones nine tener trombones and three bass trombones. I was tener trombone number nine. I made the band, but I was at the bottom of the. There were two guys from Georgia that year, me and a friend of mine named Stan Wilkerson, and then two guys from New York, um Bob Leon and and and Todd Larry. They had these recordings I I never heard cuz all I had was that one five record collection set out of jazz.

There were, you know, guys in the band, um, you know, like Kenny Ram, some of those guys are they're playing, he plays with Lincoln Center, um, jazz or some some of the guys went on to play with, um, major orchestras. We were the first band to tour and our first stop was somewhere in Philadelphia and Maynard Ferguson was uh, it was a concert with him. My wife and I talk about because we were both in that band. She was one of the two from Kentucky. She played trumpet classical.

In that band I that was a I don't want to say it was a wakeup call. It was um it was something I had a chance to see something. I was around great musicians all in high school. It was just something else that made me want to push, to practice, to get better. On that tour, we started in Philadelphia. We wound up down in Georgia again, having only been in Georgia. We were in um Savannah and we're at breakfast and we had like eggs and grits and you know what I grew up on. So some of the guys from Arizona and from New your that was like, "where's these?" "said what what are these um that they're grits?" ... I was like what do you mean man they they grits who don't who doesn't know what grits are? Well apparently you know folks had had home fries and whatnot. The thing is it was it was it was a world of new experiences for me.

I was like it was I was like a sponge. We did the Jerry Lewis teleathon. That was big you know it was humongous because we flew out to Las Vegas and do that and it's the first time was on television. There was a lot of firsts. And that band is the first time I was on an airplane. The first time I went to New York. Dion Parson's another good friend of mine of ours. He was in the band. He used to be a trombone player, but he played bass drum and the um McDonald's band and coming from St. Thomas. We were in New York getting ready for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and he didn't have any winter clothes. But the people in the McDonald's... they bought him a coat, they got, you know, they they took care of him. It was just a great experience.

Sean Jones it's awesome. Yes. Now, I'm going to ask just a couple more questions because I'd love to open the floor up for your questions. You are one of the most soughtafter side persons... and also a leader. We all know his work with Went Marcellis both in the Sept and the Big Band. How difficult was it for you to maintain that balance?

Wycliffe Gordon Maintain a balance. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Playing in that band was great. Particularly the septet. It was a septet at first. And you know, it was I was the seventh member to join. So I was kind of at the bottom of the totem pole, which means I had to learn new music, get my playing together. We always talked about the music. That's one thing I miss about that band that I rarely see in any other band situation that I've been in.

Then in 1995 when he disbanded and started the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and all of us that were in his band, we had first dibs. After years being in the band... it came a time where I love being in the band... but I had other things I I wanted to do. And then a situation came where I said, you know what? My first teaching job was at Michigan State, and I'd gone there just to do master classes and workshops. All things I kind of developed um and being in Winton's band cuz he would let me go with him.

One of the cons would be everybody thought that we would think like winter and it's like yeah they used to some people call us winter nights. I said but I have my own um brain now. I said I said I'll get there. Now it was tricky because I had to take a flight after midnight and I said man but I it was my opportunity to do something other than that. It was with Simon Rattle and I think Bobby Watson was another guest and I wanted to do things.

So for the first three years... They say oh we love Wagliff but we'll see him with Winston like I'm not with them anymore. Eventually people knew that I was, you know, available. So I started playing at colleges and universities. And then I wanted to record. And then record companies would approach me. One in particular I remember was Bluenote. Bruce Lunal was the um exe. He he was the head of Bluenote at that time. I said, "Well, I like to record a record." My concept was I like classical, um, gospel and jazz. I wanted to do what it was that I liked.

And what he told me uh was something I never forget. He said, "Well, you know, why that's good, but trombone just doesn't sell." I said, "Trombone doesn't sell?" But those are kind of things that I dealt with and when you're dealing with record companies. I was recording for no hire and which was in Germany and then crisscross which was in, you know, Holland. I started writing in here music and I said, "Well, they can't really work it out." So, I started my own record company.

Sean Jones That's amazing. I do want to say that one of the things I love about you, Big Bro, is that there are no barriers to your playing. You do it all. We were we a couple years ago, we were in Battle Creek, Michigan, and who do I see over there on the other side of the stage was Y Clef Gordon. We were doing an all classical brass band for like four days. It's just an example of the possibilities that we can do. But uh Jim is around and we have some and Oh yes. So uh we're going to take some questions real quick. wave your raise your hand if you have a question for W Cleff Gordon or a comment.

Audience Questions

Audience Member 1 (The Wynton Tip) Um, thank you guys for choosing the profession to go in. Why Cliff? Some years ago when Winon came to your school to do a workshop and he gave you he gave you a tip. Will you share with us the tip that he gave you? And I think the following year he called you and asked you if you wanted to record with him.

Wycliffe Gordon Yeah. That's pretty close. He um came during my sophomore year at Florida&M. Scotty Barnhart, who's now the music director for the Count Basic Orchestra, was in school with me. He he comes to the school and it's the first time everybody showed up for rehearsal. And he said, "Um, yeah, I want he want to give us a test." He said well rhythm section play a blues and I want somebody on each section to come up with a riff. Well for me that was easy having gone to church listening the call and response. So it was like bing and I was just like doo just some some something some something simple that I can give to the trombone players. They got that before the first course ended. Then I started harmonizing. After about the third or fourth chorus he cut the band off and I re leaned down to pick a pencil or something up off the floor and I sat back up and all the trombone players were pointing at me. He said he just kind of looked at me I'm going to talk to you later and I didn't really think anything of it.

Later on, uh Marcus Roberts, who played piano with him, lived in Tallahassee. He called me one night and on my job I was working Pizza Hut. Marcus said he called. He said, "Wenton wants you to come to um play a gig in Texas in two weeks." I was playing electric bass in the funk band, dancing, having a good time doing the butt. Um, so I went to Texas, uh Caravan of Dreams. I wasn't ready, though. So, I got sent back home. But between he and Marcus, they gave me three or four sheets on both sides, two columns on each side. When you get a chance, buy this record. Check out this record. Then he called me back to play Blues Alley later on that year. I started practicing. He invited me to play on this CD called Crescent City Christmas card.

At the end of that session, that was 1989. He said, "Well, well, you give me a call." On my birthday, May 29, 19 um 1989, I called him. He said, "Give my manager a call." My first gig was um June 6 in um Charleston, South Carolina, the Spato Festival. Three or four days later, we're down in Aruba. And it was at that time he said, "Um, well, do you want to stay out here for a little while and play?" And I thought about it for all of about 10 seconds. I said I said yeah. So began my career playing at that level which led to teaching everything in education uh composing arranging the exposure. The school is on bricks and mortar ain't going nowhere. So I can come back and I can come back and do that. And that that's that's that's how that happened.

Audience Member 2 (Trombone Voices) I never knew I love the trombone. It's a wonderful instrument, but I didn't know that there were uh voices to it like the saxophone. So if You can explain the voices uh the soprano and and bass. Which one do you play and which one do you like the most?

Wycliffe Gordon I play all of them. One that I like the most is the one I'm playing at that time. The one you see me on stage with most of the time, that's my tenor trombone, but I have a bass trombone f attachment. I have an alto trombone, but I don't ever really have a use for playing that unless I'm playing classical music. That little one soprano... it's a slide trumpet. The one I'm most familiar with is the one that I've spent the most time with, and that's my tenor trombone. I try to tell my students that from time all the time once you learn the mechanics of an instrument then it's time to make music.

Sean Jones I have to say brother Wycliffe is also an amazing trumpet player if you don't know that check out his records uh was a tribute to Pops, right?

Wycliffe Gordon Yeah. Hello Pops.

Sean Jones Hello Pops. Excuse me. Hello Pops.

Wycliffe Gordon When I did the record, I was like, man, should I call a uh trumpet player? I just said, but if I do that, then the trumpet player is going to be the center. I said, you know, I'm I'm I'm going to play trumpet. Lewis Armstrong, even though folks didn't like him... he wore Star David around his um neck throughout his career under his shirt because the first family that bought him a trumpet was a Jewish family, Russian immigrant Jewish family, the Carnoskis. He said he never forgot that they fed him because he grew up so poor.

Audience Member 3 (Educating Students) As a retired educator, What I would like to know is how do you encourage your students to develop fundamentals as well as have individuality?

Wycliffe Gordon Well, that's that's that's a good question. I'm just going to give a short answer, but this might be one for my brother Sean. He does this program called, you know, NYO. He would just give nuggets of information, not to say you got to do this, you got to do that. Just something to think about because um nowadays it seems like it's difficult for our young people to pay attention. Pay attention. Yeah. And to develop critical thinking skills.

I always want to tell my students be you know I want you to be account I want you to be accountable. I have to figure out ways I sit up get up just about every morning I'm like man how can I create something that will make it um interesting. I one of my students told me two weeks ago... I said have you been practicing? He said no. He said I'm not good at it. I said, "well you know I think I think when I was your age That's what that's why we practice so that we can get good at it." I said, "You got one more lesson, and if you come in here and tell me you didn't prepare the things that I've given you, then you're going to withdraw from my classroom." True to form, he did that. He said, "Can I come to you from time to time?" I said, "Always, you can always come to me." I said, "I'm I'm I'm going to show you something, but what I'm not going to do is sit up here and wait... where you knowingly... I'm not practicing because they got Tik Tok and he's um on the phone playing video games."

I've um seen this and it's hard for me um in our education system now when they tell us that you can't flunk students or they can't get lower than less than a C or an 80. So that is there's no there's there's no desire for them to say I don't really have to do anything. I'm going to turn I'm going to turn it over to um Sean because even though he's I'm 10 years his senior, he's somebody I really look up to in terms of being a leader. He's in education. He's the head of jazz studies and he's um at Peabody and he's been in education and at Berkeley.

Sean Jones I I'll end by saying this. We had a wonderful moment with the NYOS program out of Carnegie Hall, National Youth Orchestra of Jazz. We had this wonderful moment during the pandemic where these students were just kind of phoning it in... And I just let them know that over the past year, 50 people that I knew died from CO. And I just allowed myself to be vulnerable in that moment. And I said, "You never know when this is your last time and we all as a faculty just made it very real and very personal". Brother Whitecliffe decided to share a very personal story about something that he was going through at the time and we all circled. We got in a circle and when I tell you those people at Carnegie Hall thought we were crazy. We all got in that circle held hands. I said, "Let's all grab hands and wherever you go and whoever you connect to, let's connect to and connect in this moment." And the tears began to flow out of those young people's faces because they needed an opportunity to just release. Sometimes they just need to be the outlet and be invited to emotionally express themselves.

Give it up for the great Wycliffe Gordon. Y'all, thank you'all very much.

Host Lee Mergner (Closing Remarks) Well, I hope you enjoyed that talk. You can really feel the love and respect that Shawn and Wolf have for each other. The 2027 edition of Journey of Jazz will sail January 24th through the 31st, departing from Tampa and spending two days in the birthplace of Jazz New Orleans and then on to Progresso in the Caribbean. I can say that Wycliffe will be aboard Journey of Jazz. Our theme music is by Marcus Miller from his song High Life on his album Aphrodisia on Bluenote. Don't forget to subscribe to Jazz Cruises Conversations, Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcast so you won't miss a single episode. We have more than a hundred interviews in there from past sailings. Thanks for listening.