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Go-Go Marc, Cary On! An Indigenous Person Tells his Story
Phil DiPietro
Phil wishes he was a musician (well, he is one, but he wishes he were a good one) but he's not frustrated by it. He's frustrated with a lot of other aspects of the so-called biz. Therefore, he's excited by independently released jazz.There was a guy there, Mr. Shad. He had fingers...each one was like a thumb. His fingers could barely fit between the keys, but he could play stride ! He was one of my teachers, so big and large. Just HUGE like an oaf kind of guy. He tuned the pianos. Anyway, he took a serious interest in me and taught me how to play "Tenderly" and a bunch of other standards.
I had so many people along the way that just appreciated the fact that I wanted to do something with my life. The guy across the street-his name was Keith Jensen. It started from when I rode motorcycles. Anything they could do for me they did. This is a white family...we were the only black family on this block at this point. When his sons got tired of their motorcycles, Keith would see me putting together motorcycles and he'd just give me an old one. He'd say, "You ride that." I was going to become a motocross racer. I can still ride. I like to ride dirt bikes, not street bikes. When I decided I wanted to play piano, he gave me my first one- a Wurlitzer. He had a man staying with him for a while, a blind pianist named Vernon. Vernon played every standard. He played all the George Shearing style stuff. He heard me play, so every day I'd sit and watch him play and then I'd play. He'd say, "It's getting' better. Your touch is nice.. I like your touch." As my ideas started to grow he'd say , "Your ears are getting' big." So of course, he could hear all the new things in my development. So I had people like this who were inspirational, who were key in my development process.
AAJ: It sounds like a fairytale. It's almost like, is it the people or is it you? Are they reaching out or are you the one doing the attracting?
MC: Exactly. You attract it. You really do. It's like I tell my kids. If you put your energy into something or focus into it, that focus is a light. It shines and people that are looking for the light will be attracted to it. When you focus there's an energy there's a glow and things come to you. You attract things or you go to them yourself. You find yourself right there. If you didn't have that energy you could be very close to an inspiring person but never find that common bond. As soon as that person knows you're into something they're into then there's that bond to grow from. Just like us... sitting here.
So basically, by the time I got out of the program, played at the White House and got into Duke Ellington, I was like the Duke Ellington School mascot in a way. Whenever there was a performance I was one of the star people. My ideas and goals put me in a situation where people wanted me to represent the school. I played with Meshell Ndegeocello there, the great bassist. We played all the way through high school together. We never played in a band outside of school but...actually we played together on Roy's record ( Rh Factor ).We're on the same two tracks.
AAJ: She just keeps pullin' great players out of DC. Like Raymond Angry.
MC: Raymond . That's a young man that was attracted to my success, or what looked like success, you know, an he would come around, and to this day Raymond and I are good friends. I was kind of like, not someone to look up to but like, an example, or a model. Like if I do X, Y and Z then maybe I can be in that zone.
AAJ: It's interesting because, personally, I see you as out in front on a lot of things, not only as a player, but in trends in the music.
MC: I kind of pioneered a couple things, you know- if you look at dates and the timeline. I was in Roy's band (Roy Hargrove) for a long time and he has been talking about this Rh Factor concept from '91. But because he's on a major label, they assigned him this classification as jazz trumpeter.
AAJ: Straight ahead.
MC: That is just so limiting . We're not in the '40s, you know what I mean. The straight-ahead lifestyle is not now. It's great that we can do this music to the level that it's acceptable but it's nothin' like what these cats were doin'. It's different. It's got all the roots and the foundation but we could never do what they did because that time period had everything in it. It's like a capsule. There were clubs, the environment was that, the culture was feeding off of this. Now, when you say jazz, people have got to go way back and then come forward. In a way, it's like saying, "You ignore what you came up with, what your generation and your culture grew up with ... Earth, Wind and Fire, the Go-Go, the Hip-hop...forget about all that! Concentrate on doin' these standards and we're going to try to keep this thing alive using you. In a way it's kind of boring, but the industry has changed a little bit. Now, a cat like Roy is able to that record, but that's way after like, I started doin' this. I can only attribute that to the fact that I had the freedom to do it. If I was signed to a major label as a jazz pianist doing a trio and stuff... then what?
AAJ: But that's how you started.
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