From the October 7, 1976 issue of Down Beat

Mobile, Alabama. It sounds slow and easy with humid summer nights laying on the gulf city like a damp cloth, and azaleas blooming around aging, white-pillar remnants of the South's architectural fling with the Greek Revival.

It's where Urbie Green comes from, and though he left for the road and bands at 16, there's still that relaxed, mellow demeanor stemming from the rural country life around Mobile.

Green is a young looking 50 and reminds you a little of Pat Boone; he has a quiet way bordering on shyness that had to come from the South, not New York City, where he does most of his work these days.

"There were some fine Dixieland players down there," he remembers, "one musician in particular who was a great influence was a cornet player named Bill Lagman. He played somewhat like Bix Beiderbecke; he had a real nice jazz attitude, he wasn't flashy or anything, he was just trying to play good music. He got me off to what I consider a nice start." (Until his death earlier this year, Lagman was the number one bandleader in Mobile, and he'd been holding down that spot since Green's high school days,)

Then there was the radio and records, the sound of the big bands, Tommy Dorsey at first, then others. ..and trombone players Jack Teagarden, Lawrence Brown, J. C. Higginbotham, Jack Jenny, and Trummy Young. And oh yes, two older brothers who played the trombone.

But before the trombone there was the piano: Urbie Green was one of five children and his mother began teaching the kids the piano at a tender age. She didn't know a lot about music-she played by ear-but she knew a few fundamental things about reading.

"It was enough to get us started," said Green. "We practiced by playing the sheet music for the popular songs of the day because we didn't have practice books. That's probably why I never got to be very good on the piano. But it did develop my harmonic sense, I guess. "I'm all for any instrumentalist getting a good legitimate background in music if it is possible," continued Green, who recalled that when he was in school jazz was a dirty word "except to those of us who loved it."

"It wasn't possible to get much music background down in Mobile, I really learned more after I got on the road playing with bands. Before that I used to practice just sitting around trying to improvise or by copying records. But if I were to listen to myself play-as an outsider-I think I would hear people other than trombonists, guys like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker; I think they had a lot to do with shaping the way I am trying to play. I used to listen to Lester Young a great deal, too, but during the late '40s I discovered Charlie Parker. I'd known about Dizzy, but Charlie Parker kind of came out of nowhere for me - there was nothing like him around. I tried to devise some techniques that would permit me to express those kinds of groups of notes.

"The trombone is a weird instrument, it's not like any other instrument, and you have to figure out a lot of sneaky ways to do things; you have that slide to work with, there are no valves or keys, so you have to figure out how to get around and articulate certain types of phrases. The tongue is involved a lot more than on other instruments, and if you don't tongue a lot of notes you'll get a slide from one note to another instead of a separated sound."

Urbie Green was trying to explain what is often so difficult to articulate-his development as a musician, especially a musician playing improvisational music. Music, of course, is a nonverbal art form that is technical, emotional, and often very personal. Describing it is like trying to fill your pockets with smoke.

In the early 1950s, Green emerged in the context of Woody Herman's Third Herd as one of the most influential trombone players around, combining articulate speed-fast clusters of notes-with a beautiful, full warm sound. It was a sound that became a classic model for young players learning the instrument. It still is.

Sound? Green continued to probe his playing, turning it over and over as if he hadn't thought about examining it for a long time. "There are so many things involved, the condition of your lip and so forth, but I think the first thing you have to have is an idea about what you want to sound like-you have to know something about the sound you like before you can produce it.

"I think another thing that was very important for me was singers-good singers. I liked their vibrato-it varies from one musician to another, from no vibrato to fast and medium vibrato. For example, I like Perry Como's vibrato a lot, it's not too fast or too slow it's nice and even.

"Louis Armstrong is one of my favorite vocalists," added Green after a pause. "It wasn't just the sound of his voice but the music he was making with it; he had as natural a phrasing as anybody I ever heard. I like to hear a jazz musician who has a good interpretation of the melody, rather than just his improvisational ability. I think it's important to have a good understanding of the melody of a song. When I'm playing a melody I like to play it as if it could be sung the same way as I was playing the lyrics."

In pursuit of a better sound and control over his instrument, Green spent about a year at the request of the LaBlanc Company designing a Martin trombone. (The previous night working with a trio in a new Chicago nightclub, he had started trying it out. It felt good, he thought.)

"It was a perfect situation," he said about being asked to design a horn, "because I had been looking for something a little larger than what I had been playing. It was also a good opportunity to try out some ideas I had. The instrument (model 4501) has a 500 bore, not too big, not too small, and it's made of very light metal so it feels comfortable to hold. I also experimented with lead pipes in an effort to produce the best kind of tone you could come up with along with response and intonation."

Green has also been experimenting with mouthpieces for the past six years, and now uses a Jet Tone made by Bill Ratzenburger. "He made several different depths-a medium depth cup, one deeper and one shallower-but all of them have the same rim. Most of the time I play the medium, but if I've been off for a few days I use the shallower one until my lip gets back to where I want it. The deeper cup always gives you a nicer low tone with a little rounder sound, while the shallow cup makes the high notes come out easier. Actually, it doesn't hurt my lip to change mouthpieces because they all have the same rim." Green admits that he'd never been inclined to fool around with mouthpieces until he got involved with Jet Tone. Before that he'd been using an old King 28.

Urbie Green says that he doesn't consider himself a full time jazz player. He likes to spend time-as much as possible-with his family on their small Pennsylvania farm. He also does a lot of studio work and school clinics.

"One of the things the kids seem concerned about is how you get into the studios. I really don't want to encourage them to go all out for that because I didn't want to get into them in the first place. I just kind of stumbled into it, it wasn't my ambition to be a studio player, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. "The way I work, I'm able to come and go as I please and keep a lot of other things going. But so many people get tied up there and you never hear from them again-they stop thinking about music. It's so easy to get lazy.

"It's great to play with those guys," said Green turning positive, "in the sense that you go into a date and there are no problems, they just play it down; it's in tune and there are very few takes. In the studio you are not necessarily concerned about being yourself, you just do what they ask as well as you can. I think it's good to have to do something you wouldn't choose to do because playing jazz all the time can be harmful in certain respects. The reason is you are playing only what you want to play rather than something written, and you can get lazy ignoring written music. If you play only what you feel like playing it becomes more difficult to play what you have to play.

"1 think I could just be doing nothing but solo work-playing jazz-but then I'd be traveling all the time and that's no way to raise a family. I enjoy playing clubs," he added, "that's why I still do it, it's fun and it sort of keeps me in shape in that area of music. There's very little jazz involved in studio work, there might be a jazz interpretation or a jazz rock element, but very little solo work. It's mostly very simple music, nothing too difficult, but then every once in a while along comes something rough and you have to be ready."

These days Green has been traveling alone (without a band) when he goes out, often taking his family with him, and picking up the rhythm section wherever he is working. Usually there are no arrangements. "We just hope we start and end together and something interesting happens along the way. It's easier to move around without an organized group, especially when you are not doing that all of the time. Of course, there's nothing like having your own band in some respects, but then playing with different people you don't fall into set routines and patterns. If things are too organized you might lose something."

Urbie has also added a little electronics to his playing to break up the routine. The device is called an "octave voice" and it produces a sound an octave lower, along with the natural note being played. "I don't use it all the time, maybe one number out of a set. I don't like to make too big a deal out of it, but it breaks up the monotony a little bit. When you are the only horn you don't want to bore people to death with the trombone sound all night. A lot of people hate that electronic device, but if you don't overdo it it's okay."

A local music writer hadn't cared for it too much and said so in print. "It's just a little toy," responded Green in defensive irritation. "I'm not crazy about it myself-it's just kind of fun. You have to have some fun with music; some people I think get a little too serious about it. I still love the spirit of a good old Dixieland band myself, and I'd like to see more of that spirit in contemporary music. I don't mean sounding like a Dixieland band, but the attitude of having fun-I like to have fun when I play. You can't get anymore harmonic than the great classical writers anyway; you might get your emotions going a little more, so far as harmonies go. I'm not the most thoroughly schooled musician in the world, but I haven't heard any new notes in years and years. It's the attitude and spirit and emotion you play with that are very very important."

His voice drifted off as if looking for a place to rest. "I guess there are some true artists who don't care whether the audience responds or not," he said finally, "but then you might as well play in your own house and not let anybody hear it.

"I mean I'm a real jazz fan, from Louis Armstrong to Miles and Freddie Hubbard and Dizzy-who is one of my real champs-but I can't say I enjoy any of the new people more than the old ones-I like them all. I don't see anything better about new music or anything better about old music. We're getting real deep here," he said with a self-conscious suddenness, letting the subject slip away.

Over the 30 years or so that Urbie Green has been a professional musician, big bands have been an important part of his music; he's played in them and led them, and two of the most stimulating experiences have been his associations with Gene Krupa's band and Woody's Third Herd. He joined Krupa in 1947 and stayed for four years, then went to Woody Herman and stayed another three years.

"I was one of those guys who used to join a band and stay for awhile," said Green. "It doesn't seem like musicians do that much nowadays. I enjoyed both those bands in different ways. Gene's band was more arranged, while Woody had a lot of head arrangements going. There was a time when Gene's band was really very good, he had some fine players like Don Fagerquist on trumpet-an excellent jazz player-AI Porcino, playing some lead and all the high notes, and Charlie Kennedy. It was a good solid band with good arrangements. There were four trombones too, which was nice.

"The only trouble with the big band was you had 15 guys sitting up there all night long waiting to playa solo, you had to wait too long between solos. I guess that's why a lot of them went out and started their own groups so they'd get a chance to play more. I remember with Woody's band my featured number was Skylark and with Gene Krupa's band I had one on My Silent Love-that was my big spot during the night-but playing the same tune each night was kind of rough."

Urbie eventually went on and formed his own bands and worked in others, often as an addition to Count Basie's trombone section; he led Tommy Dorsey's band for an engagement at the River Boat in New York City; he recently joined Woody again to accompany Frank Sinatra. Over the years he has made about 30 records.

He has just signed a new recording contract with Creed Taylor's CTI records. He had been associated with Taylor years before when Creed was an a&r man for ABC Paramount and Bethlehem, and later worked CTI dates as a sideman on albums by Stanley Turrentine and others. Dave Matthews, yet another Woody Herman graduate, will be doing the writing for Green's new CTI recordings.

"We'll be doing a variety of things, like some old standards with a new twist or some new tunes. It's hard to put a label on the music-trombone music, I guess. If you call it jazz, that word means so many different things to different people; it seems like we need a new term or something, but then I've been saying that for 20 years." Urbie smiled a short, easy smile. "Some say jazz and it means ragtime or Dixieland, and some people say jazz and it means avant garde or the Benny Goodman swing era. I wouldn't mind at all being put in a jazz/rock or disco setting if it is good musically. I'm sure that anything Dave Matthews is involved with would have some good musical quality to it.

"I enjoy different kinds of settings instead of just one thing; I like tunes with good chord progressions to them and I also like just plain old basic blues. I think variety is nice: to play straight-ahead jazz all night could get a little tiresome, like playing bossa novas all night might get a little boring, or jazz/rock all night.

There is a tendency with some groups around today to sound like they are playing the same tune all night; they do a tune and then go into another one and it may be different but the sound ends up the same. It's nice to change the mood and the pacing. There's not much difference in playing Perdido, then going to Shiny Silk Stockings and Take The A Train. The same thing applies to rock material, many groups when they playa ballad can't just leave it a ballad. They have to double it up and before you know it, it's just like the tune they played before. I think pacing a program is very important, whether in a club or while making an album."

Green suddenly remembered another thing that kids in schools ask him about. "One of the hardest questions I get is 'How do you play jazz?' It's a difficult question and I don't think I have come up with a good answer yet. I think it has to do a lot with listening to other people and mostly playing by ear, as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't hurt to get as much harmony and theory as you can, but I think basically it still is playing by ear, playing sounds that you hear rather than something that comes from a mathematical formula."