At the age of 84 Toots Thielemans
has lived through much of the history of jazz. You can hear it in his playing.
From plaintive blues, through swinging rhythms, to the be-bop boldness of his
improvisations, Thielemans has absorbed it all. The Belgium native
speaks six languages, but none are as powerful as his seventh: harmonica.
Thielemans will be sharing the
stage with keyboard virtuoso Kenny Werner at the Eastman Theatre during the
Rochester International Jazz Festival.
In a wide-ranging discussion with City Newspaper, Thielemans sometimes breaks into song to illustrate a
point. He speaks with humility about the ironies and world-shaking
contingencies that shaped his life and career.
“I wouldn’t be the same person if it were not for that blue
note that came from Africa via America,”
says Thielemans. “Imagine if there had been no
slavery. No Louis Armstrong, no Billie Holiday, no Lester Young, no Charlie
Parker. They would be Africans. They were contaminated by Western music. It’s
dangerous to speak like that but it’s true.”
Thielemans‘ first role model was an accordion
player who passed the hat for change every Sunday in the Brussels café operated by Thielemans’
parents. In his crib, 3-year-old Jean (his real name) mimicked the squeezebox
motions with a shoebox until his father bought him a cardboard accordion.
Later, the records of pioneering harmonica player Larry Adler inspired him to
buy his first harmonica.
It was another earth-shaking event, the German invasion of Belgium during
World War II, that exposed Thielemans
to American jazz. At the time he was 18, studying mathematics and planning to
become a teacher. He was horrified to see his Jewish schoolmates going into
hiding or being picked up and sent to labor camps.
One byproduct of the war was an influx of jazz into Belgium. Music
by Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington and others became
available. Thielemans couldn’t resist a nearby record
store where he recalls the proprietor saying, “‘Jean, you must buy this record:
Louis Armstrong et les Mills Brothers.'”
He won a guitar by betting a friend that he could figure out
a Fats Waller tune in 10 minutes. When he bought some 78rpm records by Gypsy
guitarist Django Reinhardt he began his real studies.
“You know the phonograph you have to wind up and change the
needle? I still have it in our house in Brussels,”
says Thielemans. He taught himself to read music from
a Duke Ellington folio that included “Sophisticated Lady,” “It Don’t Mean a
Thing,” “The Mooch” and “Drop Me Off in Harlem.”
“To me it was exotic,” says Thielemans.
“In my little room in Belgium. I learned the
guitar from the 78s of Django and the grammar of jazz
from the piano folio of Duke. Then Django played in Brussels. It was amazing.
I put the harmonica away and tried to become a guitarist. I became a decent
one, too.”
After liberation came the explosion of be-bop. Thielemans started to play in officers’ clubs and make a
little money. As for his education: “A combination — I got sick and music
taking over — I flunked at university the first year.”
During the war Thielemans visited
an uncle in Miami.
Jazz photographer Bill Gottlieb heard him jamming and took him to 52nd Street in New York, where he sat
in on guitar with J.J. Johnson, Hank Jones and Howard McGhee. The great bebop
agent, Billy Shaw, was there. Thielemans recounts
their conversation:
“‘Hey, you’re good. Where you from?’
‘I’m from Brussels.’
‘I know, that’s in Copenhagen.'”
Back in Belgium, Thielemans sent Shaw some records he had made. One of them
ended up on the record player of Benny Goodman, leading to a European tour with
Goodman’s septet in 1950.
After moving to the United
States in 1952 Thielemans lived
another dream, playing with Charlie Parker’s All Stars in Philadelphia. “The All Stars were Miles, Milt
Jackson and me. [Parker] was very hospitable to me, he even asked me to share
his dressing room. Here I am sharing the dressing room with my guru. Right
after that I got a steady job with George Shearing. Five years, the only steady
job I ever had.”
Although he was a good guitarist, Thielemans
began to attract attention with his more unique instrument, the harmonica. He
made a Columbia
recording in 1954 and there was no turning back.
Aside from his virtuosic playing, Thielemans
wrote one of the greatest jazz standards, “Bluesette.”
“It was fate; in France
they say fatalité,”
he explains. In 1962, in Brussels,
I wound up sharing the dressing room with [jazz violinist] StephaneGrappelli. I tuned my guitar, I swear to you, and the
chords of “Bluesette” come out. Stephane
says, ‘It’s beautiful, Toots.’ I said, ‘Stephane, you
inspire me, you don’t realize.’
“I called it ‘Bluet,’ the French
name for the corn flower in the summer,” Thielemans
continues. “I go back to Sweden
with that song. The ‘s’ was added by a producer there.
He said, ‘It’s blues, no?’ I tried it on harmonica; it was not the right
feeling. I did it with the guitar and whistle and take four was the good one.”
(Thielemans sings his brilliant improvised melody
that distinguished that seminal track.)
You don’t have to be a jazz aficionado to know the music of Toots Thielemans.
His harmonica enhanced the soundtrack of Midnight
Cowboy and his whistle livened up the memorable Old Spice commercials.
Generations of children have grown up hearing his harmonica on the Sesame
Street theme song.
Lately, the accolades are piling up. In January Thielemans was awarded the “Diploma de Excelência”
by Brazilian Minister of Culture (and jazz artist) Gilberto Gil. And in March
he was honored at a Carnegie Hall concert where luminaries like Herbie Hancock and Joe Lovano
paid tribute to him. Thielemans’ joined the
performers on harmonica.
“It’s a very fragile instrument – little reeds — but what
the harmonica can do, it can almost speak. When I play a Jacques Brel song, I play the words. A saxophone cannot do that,”
he says.
In recent years inner ear problems have hampered his
whistling skills and a stroke has slowed down his left hand, but Thielemans is still going strong.
“I’m not complaining — I’m still here,” he says.
Still here, indeed. Every year, Thielemans is a shoe-in to be at or near the top of the
Down Beat Critics and Reader’s Polls under “Miscellaneous Instrument.” Perhaps
legendary trumpeter Clifford Brown said it best: “The way you play the
harmonica, they shouldn’t call it a miscellaneous instrument.”
Thielemans takes it a step
further: “I play a miscellaneous instrument, but I’m not a miscellaneous
musician. It’s not because you play a Stradivarius that you’re a great
musician.”
The Toots Thielemans/Kenny Werner
Duo and the McCoy Tyner Trio play at the Eastman Theatre, 26 Gibbs Street, on Wednesday, June 14,
at 8 p.m., as part of the Rochester International Jazz Festival. $27.50-$50.
www.rochesterjazz.com.
This article appears in May 31 – Jun 6, 2006.
