Interview of Larry Bunker

1.1. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE ONE MARCH 6, 2003

CLINE

Today is March 6, 2003. I’m in the home of Larry Bunker, up here in this beautiful hill overlooking Griffith Park and parts of Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles. The way I can start is to say good morning.

BUNKER

Good morning.

CLINE

Thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview. As always, we start at the beginning in these oral histories. I want to just start out by asking you, first of all, where you were born.

BUNKER

In Long Beach, California. The family lived in Compton at the time, but my mom elected to go to a hospital in Long Beach. I was raised in Compton until, oh, the age of four, four and a half, five, probably. We moved up into adjacent downtown Los Angeles and kind of moved into Hollywood, bounced around a little bit here and there. Went to a couple of schools in the Hollywood area, and then went to grammar school at Van Ness Avenue [Elementary] School, which I drive by all the time. Even to this day, it’s still standing there. Van Ness, just south of Melrose [Avenue]. Was there in the fourth grade. We moved to what is now called South Central L.A., Forty-seventh Street between Vermont [Avenue] and Normandie [Avenue], in 1937, because I had my ninth birthday there.

CLINE

Before you go any further, when were you born, exactly?

BUNKER

1928. November 1928. November 4th.

CLINE

And who were your parents?

BUNKER

My father was a man named Frank Sumner Bunker. My mom was Clara Josephine Bunker. Dad was twenty years older than my mother, so he was almost like a grandfather to me, so far as our relationship. He was an essentially self-taught man, brilliant. Had had an erratic childhood. Had been raised by his grandparents up in the Central Valley in California. He’d been born in San Francisco, but his grandparents had a ranch in Stockton, someplace like that. I don’t know that much about his childhood and his early background. I do know that his grandparents provided for his education. He was all set to go to Stanford University, and had never managed money before, had never had any kind of adult responsibilities, because they’d been almost like farmers. He went for his first year at Stanford and then he came home on summer vacation, he said, “Well, I’ll need some more money,” and they said, “The money you got was it. That was it. That was what we had provided for your education.” So he bounced around. He did a variety of things. Had a penchant for engineering, had a gift for mathematics. I remember one time my older brother was taking trigonometry in high school, and Dad was helping him with some of the problems, and he didn’t have to refer to the trig books. Now, if you can believe that. Sines, cosines, and tangents, and all of that stuff, he had committed to memory. It was amazing.

CLINE

I’m a total math dunce, so I can’t comprehend that at all.

BUNKER

Yes. I mean, numbers to five decimal places, you know. [Snaps fingers] Just had them. But I don’t know how involved you want to get. His story was very interesting. He bounced around in a variety of areas, learned how to cook, made a living as a cook for a while. Ended up in the merchant marine and was on merchant ships all over the place. He ended up in the South China Sea doing maintenance work on the ship and was down in the engine room, and there was some kind of a terrible accident, and he got caught up between drive shafts and bulkheads and things, and was damn near killed; broken leg, broken arms; compressed fractures of the skull, eyeball hanging out by an optic nerve, all of that stuff. At that time, apparently, whenever this was, maybe in the teens or the twenties, they couldn’t take him off the ship, embargoed in the South China Sea. All they could do is like patch him together as best they could with whatever rudimentary medical care they had, and wait until the ship sailed back to San Francisco. They put him in Letterman General Hospital up there, and had to break all of the bones that had been broken. You know, they just went through unbelievable shit. But he survived that. Met my mom. My mom’s people were from Ohio, and she had been in Long Beach, going to Normal School. She was studying to be a teacher. And they met and married, and here I am. [laughs]

CLINE

Do you know how they met?

BUNKER

No, I don’t, not really.

CLINE

They met down here, though.

BUNKER

Oh yes. By that time he was living, I believe, in southern California.

CLINE

You mentioned your older brother. You had a sibling?

BUNKER

Yes. He’s six years older [George Bunker]. He lives up in Clearfield, Utah, which is outside of the other city that is not Salt Lake City.

CLINE

Provo?

BUNKER

No. It’s a little further north.

CLINE

I’m blanking.

BUNKER

Yes, me too. The one amazing thing about my dad that I’ve always remembered was that he was enormously interested in aeronautical engineering, and I remember before the P-38 fighter plane was developed, that he made a model for my brother. It was a wingspan about like that [gestures], that could have been a prototype for the P-38. That kind of airplane did not exist, and he came up with something like that. The war was starting to happen. Mobilization was going on, of industry in southern California, and there were people that were in the shipbuilding industry that were also involved in aircraft manufacture, that wanted my dad to be part of these companies. He’d been working as a draftsman; he’d been working as a patent developer and designer in developing machines to do a variety of things, and they wanted him in their industry. He could not, because his birth records had been destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake, so he could not actually prove his American citizenship, even though we are eleventh-generation in this country from England. I mean, I’ve got books to attest to that. But they said, “The rules are the rules. I know you need him and you need his brains and his expertise, but we can’t allow it.” So he just ended up— Actually, he died just within a month of Pearl Harbor, just a month or two after my thirteenth birthday. But he never got to participate in all of that, even though he had talent that was sorely needed, an intuitive kind of talent that would not mean anything today. I mean, fifty years later the engineering, the technology that exists today, you know, everything he knew he had pretty much taught himself, with no education. Just one of those kind of guys.

CLINE

Wow. Amazing. And other siblings?

BUNKER

No, just the brother.

CLINE

So he was obviously considerably older, probably a lot older than any of your other friends’ parents.

BUNKER

Oh yes, yes. Actually, you know, I mean, in retrospect, he was a Victorian, because he’d been born in Victorian times, still before the turn of the century, before 1900. I never can remember when his birthday was. It was shortly after the Civil War.

CLINE

Interesting.

BUNKER

But I mean, he was a Victorian and had Victorian attitudes, and I mean, it was, “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” and you don’t talk back and you do what you’re told, you know. I was raised under that. That’s okay.

CLINE

So you are now living in the Los Angeles area. You’re a young person; you’re going to elementary school. You mentioned Van Ness Elementary School. What was the neighborhood like? Can you describe it?

BUNKER

Well, let me see. The Hollywood neighborhood, we lived in some kind of a court. We managed to get out of there. I believe they bought a house on Windsor Avenue, which is just a couple of blocks south of the Paramount [Pictures] lot. We lived there for about a year. It was a nice neighborhood. I was already starting to fool around with music. I wanted to play the drums. I could have possibly had some kind of attention deficit disorder, although who ever heard of that? Because I would always drive the teachers crazy, drumming on the table, go up to the blackboard to do a problem and be tapping with the chalk. Finally, one teacher called my mom and said, “You’ve got to get this kid a drum. Get him something. He’s driving us crazy,” you know. It was unconscious on my part; I wasn’t even aware of doing it.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

So I got a pair of drumsticks, and somebody came to the school once a week and said, “Hold the sticks this way,” and I seemed to somehow have a knowledge of rhythmic notation. I seemed to know what those things meant. At a later time I ended up being able to read music, and never did study music. The note relationships, the intervallic relationships somehow worked for me, you know.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

Some kind of intuitive thing.

CLINE

[laughs] Bizarre. Amazing.

BUNKER

So, by the age of seven I was banging on drumsticks and things. Didn’t have a drum.

CLINE

Was there music in your growing-up in the house?

BUNKER

Yes. My older brother was a fan of the music of the day, and the music of the day was Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and Jimmy Lunceford and Count Basie and Duke Ellington and Kay Kayser, and stupid stuff but good stuff, and that was what played on the radio, and there were disc jockeys that played that all day long. We had a wind-up Victrola, but mostly it was listening to music on the radio, and there was, for me and for my tastes, developing tastes, music that entranced me. In retrospect, I’ve heard radio broadcasts of that era of the hit songs and the nonsense in the pop doggerel, you know, and I thought, Jesus Christ, I thought that was good. I thought that was hip. But I did when I was eight and nine and ten years old, you know.

CLINE

Of course.

BUNKER

You learn, hopefully. So that all went along. We moved down to south of USC [University of Southern California], into a bigger house. Pop was commuting, with no freeways, down to Compton or Long Beach every day. The Depression was really on, you know, ’39, ’40, ’41, in through there. We were operating a rooming house. We had this big three-bedroom house with a variety of other rooms and so forth, my brother, there was a family of four of us, and we squeezed ourselves into the smallest spaces that we could, and rented out the bedrooms. Pop would make that trek, come home, groceries would have been bought, and then he’d set about cooking. At one point we had eleven people living in the house and thirteen people eating there. And I was the dishwasher. [laughs]

CLINE

Lucky you.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Did your brother also play any instruments or just listen to the music?

BUNKER

He just listened to music. He was an avid fan; he always has been and remains so today. He did not seem to have the kind of coordination that enabled him to try to play the piano. He could not play a C-scale with both hands simultaneously, you know. I mean, he knew how the fingering went and how this fingering went, but to combine the two was just kind of beyond him. He had great mechanical ability, inherited that aspect of my dad, but just never was able to bring off any kind of musical thing. But it wasn’t important to him.

CLINE

What was your relationship with your brother like?

BUNKER

Hideous until I got to be about thirteen. [mutual laughter] We fought, we fought, we fought. But, I mean, I had an old man that pushed me around and told me what to do, and I wasn’t going to take any shit from him pushing me around and telling me what to do, so we fought a lot. But it wasn’t until he was in the service and getting ready to go to the South Pacific, that we kind of reconciled all that. He was home on leave and took me to the Hollywood Palladium to see Benny Goodman’s band, and that was a big turning point for us.

CLINE

Before we get to that, what can you say about your mother and her background, and your relationship with her?

BUNKER

She tended to be a little bit passive. She didn’t work. She had enough to do, trying to look after us and look after the house. She didn’t drive, which for some reason she had been frightened of that when she was a young woman, and just had to depend on other people, you know. My brother did quite a bit of that. My dad did that until he passed away. My brother did it, and then he went in the service. I finally was able to talk her into getting some kind of car. She was a good, kind, gentle soul. She tended to be passive with the old man. I mean, he was a very dominating figure. He was big, a big guy, you know, weighed 230, [2]40 pounds, about six-two or six-three.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

And he had contracted a skin disorder at one point, probably in the twenties or thirties, that’s called Erysiphales, and it creates terrible rashes, and only on the face.

CLINE

Oh, wow.

BUNKER

Nowhere else on his body. But shaving became such a pain for him, that he finally just grew a full-face beard. So he had the Hiram Walker kind of whiskers, you know, and his bald head. Mom was very supportive. This whole thing of my wanting to get into music and trying to practice and trying to do stuff, she totally supported that.

CLINE

What about Dad?

BUNKER

He had no objections to it. I mean, you know, he was busting his ass and killing himself, really, to keep us with a roof over our heads, and talk of going to college, talk of career this and career options, those were concepts that didn’t exist sixty years ago, you know. If they did, they didn’t in my family. Mom had had some college, but it was mostly along the lines of training to be a teacher, and she went to what was called Normal School. In fact, she did end up going for a while down at City College.

CLINE

Which used to be the old Normal School before it was the original UCLA campus. [Telephone rings.]

CLINE

Let’s pause for a moment. [tape recorder off]

CLINE

All right. We’re back. We’re talking about the Normal School.

BUNKER

Let me see. Let me see. You know, from the ninth birthday on, until thirteen, when my dad passed away, was just day-in, day-out drudgery, going to school, coming home, being around, available. I didn’t get to play a lot, and I kind of resented it, but the folks really made me understand that we all had work to do, you know. It was tough times. I became a roller skating fanatic. I became very good at it. I never was good at ice skating, but a roller rink opened up in the neighborhood and I became very good at that, and spent a lot of time there. Continued on playing around with trying to figure out some kind of thing with the drums. We didn’t have money for that. I mean, I had cardboard boxes and apple boxes and pie pans nailed together on a thing like a hi-hat, you know, some kind of— And a lot of times I set that stuff out in the back yard, and the Victrola was out there, and I’d wind that up and play “Not So Quiet, Please” with Buddy Rich and Tommy Dorsey’s band, you know, just all kind of stuff like that.

CLINE

Wow. Was there any music in your school, any kind of a program or anything like that?

BUNKER

In the grammar school that I ended up going to when we moved into that house down on Normandie Avenue—that school is still there too—they did have some kind of little music program, and I was enrolled in that. I had a very interesting teacher, whose name was Mrs. Freese. I mean, you know, what did we have, two or three violin players, maybe a clarinet player. I don’t know if anybody played a brass instrument. I can’t remember. But we used to have this music that we would play, and I was the only percussionist. So I started making up the parts to play with this music that I was hearing. I had a written part, but I didn’t have anything like a score, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to figure that out. But improvisation was what I wanted to do, and she encouraged it.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

She said, “That’s just fine. That sounds good. Go ahead and do whatever it is you want to do.” And she’d conduct these dozen kids and so forth, and we might have been playing some kind of little Mozart thing or a little Haydn thing or “Fingal’s Cave,” you know. Who knows? And without having heard that music at all, I just improvised the stuff. But I always remembered that one time she had a meeting with my mother and she said, “Do something with this kid.” She said, “He’s got more talent in his little finger than I’ve got in my whole body.”

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

“So, encourage that and do something.” And she did. So Mom was very supportive of that. Pop had no objections to it. George was probably either doing a paper route or trying to get a car running, or maybe trying to get laid, you know. [laughs] I mean, he could have cared less. When there’s a six-year difference and, like, you’re nine, ten, eleven, and your brother’s a teenager, you know, it can be difficult. And I didn’t make it easy. So we ran this boardinghouse, and Mom worked just doing everything she could, you know, around the house to do that. After Pop died, then she had to get out and get a job, and ended up at some kind of state fire marshal’s office, some kind of clerical work, you know.

CLINE

What was your mom’s name?

BUNKER

Clara. Clara J.

CLINE

And I wanted to ask one question before we get away too far from your father. This incredibly traumatic accident that he experienced and with all the medical attention that he had to wait to receive, and had all his bones rebroken and all that, did he have lingering effects of this physically that he had to contend with?

BUNKER

He did limp a little bit. One of the legs had been shortened. Compound fractures, you know, the bones were all coming through the lower leg, because that had been caught up between this propeller shaft and a bulkhead, and then as the boat rocked, the propeller shaft was doing this [indicates rocking back and forth], and it just kind of mashed the bone. He had a lingering condition that may have been in the optic lobe of his brain, because he’d had this compressed fracture. He had limited vision in the eye that had come out, and he could not tolerate watching motion pictures. He loved the movies, but couldn’t watch them because his brain would register each frame. The fact that thirty frames a second doubled with the cloverleaf of a projecting machine makes it so that your retina retains an image, and that makes everything smooth. That smoothes it all out. He had lost that ability, so to him, he saw every frame going by, and it’s like they jiggled down this way. He’d put up with it for about half an hour and then he’d have to go out in the lobby and have a cigarette. He couldn’t stand it, you know.

CLINE

Amazing.

BUNKER

Outside of that, though, he functioned. He functioned very well. He was a raconteur, used to love to sit up at the dining table and hold court with all the roomers, the guys that lived in the house.

CLINE

So how did his death affect you?

BUNKER

It didn’t hit me hard at first. It didn’t really hit me until we actually went to the funeral, and then apparently I just went berserk. You know, I suddenly realized that I had lost this guy. We were never close. It was difficult for him to express feelings and emotions, and I guess because of the Victorian background, that whole thing, you know. I never had any feeling of rivalry between my brother and myself, as far as his affections were concerned. I don’t know that he— I remember being horrified one time when the old man was a little bit juiced and they ended up in the back yard having a fist fight. George was maybe seventeen, eighteen years old at that point, and they had a fight about something. I don’t remember if George knocked him down or if Pop knocked George down, you know. Mom was out there screaming and hollering and trying to get in the middle of it. That’s the only time I ever saw anything like that. He would mete out punishment, but I’ve always felt that he was an inordinately fair man. If there were constraints on my behavior or if I did something that I wasn’t supposed to do, I’d get the shit kicked out of me, but he always made sure— You know, he said, “We’ve never talked about this before. That is something that you’re not supposed to do. Do you understand?” “Yes, I do.” “Don’t tell me you understand if you don’t, only if you understand.” “Yes, I do.” “And you know you’re never to do that again,” whatever it was. And then if I proceeded to do it again, I’d get the shit beat out of me. But not for the first time. If I really didn’t know that that was not acceptable behavior, you know, he’d say, “Okay. That’s once.” [mutual laughter] But I used to get razor straps and belts and switches and stuff. That was the way people raised kids at that time, and, you know, there was no idea of, like, “You hit me one more time and I’ll take your ass to court,” which can happen today. I’ve had friends have their teenage sons say that to them, you know.

CLINE

So you’re thirteen and now he’s gone.

BUNKER

Now he’s gone.

CLINE

And Mom’s got to work.

BUNKER

And Mom’s looking for a job, and I’m just getting into Manual Arts High School. Now, I could back up. The grammar school thing happened. I went from grammar school to Foshay [Junior High School], which is now the Foshay Learning Center, but it was just a regular junior high school. I became enamored of the saxophone. So I rented a saxophone from the music department at the school, and took the thing home. There was a fingering chart, and it was either an alto or maybe even a C-melody, for that matter. I don’t think it was a tenor. So I fooled around with that for about a week, and then I went back to school and the teacher put me in the band. I was playing saxophone in the band, and I was playing drums in like what they had, some kind of little symphony orchestra. Prior to this time, at a theater raffle at a neighborhood theater, I had put a ticket stub in the glass bowl, and a couple of weeks later somebody knocked on the door and they said, “We had this raffle at the theater and you have won an accordion.” “Well, shoot. I’ll take it.” Well, the hitch is, you have to sign up for lessons at twenty-five cents a pop, or fifteen cents a pop, whatever it was. So I went ahead and did that, and, I mean, I was playing “Over the Waves” and little stupid things, you know, but reading this music and learning the buttons and learning what a major and a minor and a seventh and a diminished was, and all of that. That quickly wore off; I was not interested in the accordion for much longer. We had a piano. It was like a May Company upright. It had been a player piano at one time and then all the player mechanism had been removed from it. My mom had been besotted with music. She came from a very strict family, and she was the oldest. Once she got home from school, there were too many responsibilities for her to have time to fritter her time away playing music, so there was no music.

CLINE

I see.

BUNKER

And when she and Pop married, she said, “We’re going to raise a family, but before we do, I’m going to make you a deal. We’re going to have a piano in the house, so that if the kids want to study music, they’ll be able to.” He said, “A deal.” So that was the way it was. So there was always a piano, and I started fooling around with the piano by the age of six or seven, listening to records, listening to the music that was on the radio, figuring out how to play an Earl “Fatha” Hines piano solo.

CLINE

Really.

BUNKER

And at a later time, Nat [King] Cole, and just trying to figure out how do you do that, you know. By the time my voice started to change, when I was in junior high school, I sang in a choir. There was quite a bit of music. There was a choir and the band and the little orchestra. I don’t remember how much time a week was devoted to that, but it was there. And at home I’d take care of my chores, do my stuff, maybe do a little homework, and practice. Everything was self-taught. I taught myself to play the saxophone; I taught myself to play the drums; I taught myself to play the piano, not well, because piano was always kind of a hobby with me, and it’s been that way to this day.

CLINE

Although you played the vibraphone, which obviously there was a little help there from the piano, I would assume.

BUNKER

Oh yes, absolutely. But I mean, that didn’t come till I was twenty, twenty-one years old, and it was just applying two different techniques to another instrument, you know, hand-eye coordination and the knowledge of how to improvise and what chord changes were, because by that time I knew that stuff, you know.

CLINE

I think we can imagine what kind of music you were playing in the school orchestra or singing in the choir, but what were you playing in the band where you were playing saxophone?

BUNKER

Again, it was almost like a football band; it was marches and stuff like that. There was no such thing as sophisticated as the kind of programs they have, band programs that they have now. That didn’t come into being until long after I was out of school and out of the army, really. That started down in Denton, Texas, with those guys. Up to that time, in high school we had some kind of little dance band and we played Spud Murphy stocks, who is still alive and well in Hollywood.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And it was terrible. It was just terrible. [mutual laughter] I don’t really remember what the band played in junior high school. I didn’t continue on playing the saxophone when I got to high school, for some reason. There was music. I was in a choir for a while, or the Glee Club, and took orchestra. It was so dreadful that I couldn’t stand it. And I had a harmony teacher, Mrs. Snow. I guess by this time the fact that my dad was gone and my discipline figure was gone, you know, Mom didn’t come down on me hard. She let me have kind of free rein, I think. She let me go through a little bit of a wild period. I didn’t get wild, but just being able to say no to somebody, you know. So I said no to the teacher. She wanted me to do the exercises a certain way, in a prescribed manner, and I thought I knew better, so I would do these exercises in my own way, all very Stan Kenton oriented. Hideous, hideous, now that I think back. And she said, “That’s very interesting, but that’s not what I asked you to do. F.” And she just kept giving me failing grades, you know. But she was also a social studies teacher, and she failed me in one of my social studies classes because I didn’t turn in the homework. I said, “I know the material. I passed the test.” “Once again, you didn’t do what I told you to do. F.” So I went back and redid whatever the eleventh grade social studies was, from the teacher that was reputedly the toughest one in school, and did absolutely everything she said, and got As. And then I went back to Mrs. Snow, threw the report card on the desk, and I said, “There,” you know, “cunt.” [laughs]

CLINE

Ouch. Whoa.

BUNKER

But the distaste that I had from the way that some of the coursework was being taught, and the fact that the orchestra was so bad, I finally dropped out of music and changed my major to science. “Just get me out of here.” I had no inkling of going to college. I had no desire to go to college. I wanted to play, and my whole focus was aimed at that. I was already a member of the union. The war had been on. I was fourteen years old when I joined the union and was starting to work some casuals around, you know, hotels down by MacArthur Park, and taking the streetcar, taking a set of drums on the streetcar. That stuff, you know.

CLINE

How did you get your drums?

BUNKER

That was a set of drums that my brother bought for me. He came back from the service and he showed up at the house with a bass drum and a hi-hat stand and a couple of cymbals. And I had a snare drum and I had copped a field drum from the high school band and turned it into a tom, a floor tom. So, you know, here was this polyglot weird hybrid. I didn’t have a real set of drums until after I got out of high school, and at that point, that was when I was going into the service and my mom took a loan on an insurance policy and we bought a used set of Slingerlands, Radio King Slingerlands, from some guy in the union. The union at that time was still down on Georgia Street, downtown in the meatcutters [union] building.

CLINE

What year would this be about, then?

BUNKER

’45, ’46.

CLINE

So there were still two unions in L.A. at that point.

BUNKER

Yes. I was totally even unaware of that. Interestingly, the school that I went to, Manual Arts, at that time the student body was probably about a third black, a third white, and a third whatever else was left over, the Asian kids. There was a big Asian population at that time, and all the Japanese kids had come back from the concentration camps. I was mortified when that happened. I went to school one day at Foshay and all my Japanese friends were gone, just vanished. There were a few Korean kids and a few Chinese kids, but the vast majority of the Asian population at the school at that time was Japanese, and they had just been pulled out by the roots and sent away. I couldn’t understand it. Getting back to my mother, when it came time for me to go to junior high school, the dividing line between John Muir Junior High School and Foshay was like right down the middle of our street. My best friend at the time was a kid who was from Missouri. His father was a plumber. His mother was a redneck. He was supposed to go to Foshay, and they said, “Absolutely not. He’s not going to go to school with them niggers,” blah, blah, blah, “and have to drink out of the same drinking fountain,” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I was heartbroken, because he was my best friend. And I said, “But I just want you to go to Foshay.” I talked to my mom about it. I said, “What should we do? What should I do? Should I try to go to Muir? Because I want to go where Jimmy goes.” And he was kind of the alpha male between the two of us, the dominant person in the friendship. She said, “Well, I’ll leave that up to you. What do you think? What do you think would be best?” I said, “The way they talk about the colored guys, that’s not right, is it?” She said, “No, it’s not.” And I said, “I kind of feel like I ought to go where I’m supposed to go.” She said, “I think that’s your decision to make.” She said, “I’d be very proud of you if you did the right thing.” But that was her. Probably any sense of fair play, social justice, and all that, that I ever required I got from her, because that’s the way she was. [Cries] That’s amazing. I haven’t thought of her in quite a while. But in that house where we lived, there had been kind of an invisible line around Figueroa [Street], Hoover [Street], south of Santa Barbara [Avenue], which is now Martin Luther King Boulevard. Manual Arts is around Forty-Third Street on Vermont Avenue. There were no blacks living west of Hoover, certainly Vermont, not further than that, but gradually the boundaries were changing. The unseen, unenforceable, but, nevertheless, real boundaries were altering, and people were moving. People were moving west. The [Second World] War was over, or about to be over. In ’51, ’52, ’53, I had come back, had been in the service, I’d been married, I had split up from that lady, and had moved back into the old rooming house. Somebody came to the house one day, asked to speak to my mom, and I called her. This guy was from some kind of neighborhood committee, and he said, “I just wanted to remind you that when you look at your title deed, to observe the CC and Rs [Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions] that are in the title deed, which has to do with—,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

CLINE

Housing covenants.

BUNKER

Yes. And she looked at him and she said, “Sir, you’re trespassing on my property. Get off my property.” I was thrilled. I was thrilled, because by this time most of my friends were black and musicians. A woman that I was going with was black. I’ve been heavily invested in that all my life. In fact, my current wife of twenty years, twenty-three years, that lady over there, as is our daughter.

CLINE

Let’s take a moment. I’m going to turn the tape over before it runs out.

BUNKER

Okay.

CLINE

Thanks.

1.2. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE TWO MARCH 6, 2003

CLINE

Okay. We’re back. You were talking about your neighborhood when you lived south of USC [University of Southern California], what you called the rooming house, and you were talking about the housing covenants a bit and the way the neighborhoods were divided up racially, which started to change as the housing covenants started to be abolished. Of course, back then the West Side was Western Avenue, and things were moving closer in that direction; the African American population was moving over toward Western.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Before that started to happen, of course, you were mixing with different races at schools at Foshay and later at Manual Arts, but how would you describe the neighborhood that you were living in down there?

BUNKER

The particular neighborhood that I was in was lily-white, lily-white at that time, during the school years. I think it gradually started to change because when I came back from the service in 1951, I lived in that house with my mother and other itinerant musicians. It became a musicians’ rooming house. God almighty, the guys that went through there. Victor Feldman lived there for a while; Rolf Ericson lived there for a while; Walter Benton lived there for a while. I don’t remember whatever happened to him, but I had gone to high school with Walter. He was a tenor player. Somebody told me once, I think, that when Max Roach and Clifford Brown were looking for a tenor player, they auditioned Walter and Harold Land, and Harold Land got the gig. But Walter was apparently that good. I lost contact with him. He didn’t manifest that kind of ability when he was sixteen, seventeen years old, but then who does, you know. I’m sure I didn’t either.

CLINE

And speaking of which didn’t you tell me, when we did our pre-interview, that one of your classmates at Foshay was Eric Dolphy?

BUNKER

Yes, yes.

CLINE

How was he sounding at that point?

BUNKER

He was just a clarinet player. I don’t know how interested he was in jazz. I think he played in the band, and so he just read music, you know. We didn’t have any kind of a swingband in junior high school, so it was just whatever that band music was at that time. But he went on to, I think either Poly [Los Angeles Polytechnic High School] or Dorsey [High School], and I went to Manual. We lived in different areas. In high school there may have been an occasional black friend that came by the house. The house was really kind of funny at that point; a whole side of the house had been rented out to a family, an Indonesian family. They had a three-bedroom home with a dining room and a living room and kitchen and the whole thing, and Mom and I had just kind of squeezed into a back portion. My brother had built a kitchen for her and a back room, and we were there.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

The Indonesian family were— I forget when the whole Sukarno thing happened and when the Indonesians threw the Dutch out, but these were people that were essentially Dutch and Indonesian, a mixture, and Mom had gotten involved with them. She was a Methodist and she’d gotten involved with them through the church. So there were these various people, but we hardly had any contact with them, you know. They had their own thing that they did. The guy worked in a bank, but he was like a Dutch Indonesian and was made persona non grata, so he took his family out of there and immigrated to the States. But there were the occasional— You know, later on, from ’51 until 1960, when I got married the second time, I lived in that house, so now at this point there was a set of drums and a vibraphone in the living room, as well as the piano, and some kind of a record player, and music going on and on and on and on forever, you know. We had two or three drummers living there, and a saxophone player and trumpet players, piano players, and guys in and out, you know. But my mother was amazing. I remember once her walking into—We had just gotten some new record. I can’t remember; I’ll just have to make up. I can’t remember who it was. But she came wandering into the living room and she was standing there, listening and listening, and a bunch of us were sitting around, hanging out on the couch and everything. She said, “Is that that new Sonny Rollins album?” And the guys all fell down. They said, “Whose mother knows about Sonny Rollins?” She nailed it. Somehow she knew what that was, you know.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

But, I mean, she was responsible for me going to a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at the old Philharmonic Auditorium, getting me in down there; going to Billy Berg’s in Hollywood to see [Charlie] “Bird” [Parker] when I was still in high school, because I couldn’t have gone in there by myself. I could have faked it; I looked mature for my age, and deep voice. But we took the streetcar and got up there, you know. She took me around to places like that and saw to it that I was able to pursue this thing as much as I could, you know, as limited as the means were, as limited as the money was, the whole thing. Amazing.

CLINE

What did the neighbors think of all this that was going on in your lily-white neighborhood?

BUNKER

Oh, god, they were threatening to call the police. I had to sign agreements with the people that I wouldn’t play at this time or that time or the other time, and, “Isn’t there someplace you can move that shit to the other side of the house?” You know. I was accused of driving some member of the family to death one time, you know. Nice neighbors.

CLINE

Wow. You obviously had African Americans coming around in the neighborhood then. How did that go over? Not to mention having Indonesians living there.

BUNKER

It wasn’t a lot of it. It wasn’t a lot of it. That was probably still the high school days. Then later when people were coming over, I didn’t give a shit. Mom said, “Whatever,” you know. “Your friends are your friends. Your friends are my friends.” Times were changing, finally. Not much, but they were changing. I still remember the shock of my life when I was in the service in 1947, ending up down in Virginia at basic training, and finally getting a pass and going on leave, and seeing the “white” and “colored” drinking fountains and restrooms and stuff. At least we didn’t have that out here, you know. That did not exist. But it sure existed there, and I just said, “Jesus Christ almighty. They’re still fighting the Civil War.”

CLINE

Wow. I’m leading up to the service portion here, but I wanted to ask you, too, since you went to Manual Arts and said you reached a point where you wanted to just do science, why science?

BUNKER

I think I’d had enough coursework that would fit into that program already, without having to make anything up. I had some language and I had English and social studies, and a couple of times I had tried to take some kind of shop. I ended up taking home economics because I just didn’t want to be in the body shop or deal with the jocks, you know. I got pressed into a little bit of athletics that I really didn’t have any heart for. I was big for my age, so I was forced to play football, and I hated it. I had no eyes, just no desire to be involved in that, and I didn’t want to be in the football band. I mean, really a loner. Really a fucking lone wolf. Didn’t make friends well. Had a few friends, but not many.

CLINE

Were most of them also musically inclined?

BUNKER

One guy was. One guy was a trumpet player. And every time I tried to play football, I’d get stepped on the hands, and every time he tried to play football, he’d get kicked in the mouth. You know. [laughs]

CLINE

Right. [laughs] Note to self: abandon this pursuit immediately. Yes. So you were fairly alienated in high school.

BUNKER

Yes. Not to the degree that kids are today. I mean, I read stories and hear things, and hear the stuff that goes on in the schools, and you think, Jesus Christ, how do you survive being a teenager these days? I wasn’t traumatized like that. Some of it probably was my own doing. You know, I was ill at ease, kind of awkward, kind of gawky, and interested in music and obsessed with music, and that at a time when you were really suspect in that kind of culture if you were interested in music. That somehow made you a little swishy, a little gay, maybe. Who knows. “You don’t want to play football; you don’t want to run track; you don’t want to be a basketball player; you don’t want to punch people out after school.” “No, I’m not interested in that.” “Well, then you must be a faggot.” I mean, that was not ever said, but that was such an attitude. And it wasn’t until I just said, “I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. I’ll do what I have to do.” In fact, Mrs. Snow, the teacher that flunked me in my harmony stuff, said that with the coursework that I was taking at that time, and the singing voice that I had developed, she said, “If you do what you need to do to meet college requirements, I could get you a scholarship to ‘SC to study voice.” And I said, “I have no interest in that.”

CLINE

You must have been a bass. [laughs]

BUNKER

Yes. But I said, “I have absolutely no interest in that, and I could care less.” And it wasn’t until much, much later that I ever entertained any thoughts about higher education, possibly going to a conservatory. But even at the time that I thought about that, I said I’d never heard of a percussion major, and I don’t know that they existed until into the fifties. Certainly the jazz programs didn’t exist.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

So, you know, it’s up to me to teach myself to do what I’m going to do, which was what I hoped to do.

CLINE

So you went into the military.

BUNKER

Yes. The draft was still on. This was 1946. I had just graduated from high school. I was seventeen. They were going to continue drafting, and the GI Bill was going off in September or October of that year. I tried to find some kind of a day gig. I was sweeping floors in a factory, loading boxcars with sacks of flour, and totally equipped, you know, for life at large. Couldn’t get any kind of work, even though I was a member of the union. Couldn’t find any kind of work as a musician. I approached my mom and I said, “They’re going to keep drafting people,” and you don’t know how long it’s for. It’s for an indeterminate period. You can join the army and get your commitment done in a year and a half and get some GI Bill. I said, “Why don’t I just go ahead and do that, and get that shit out of the way.” She said, “You think that’s something you want to do?” I said, “Yeah, because I’m just standing around, waiting for the phone to ring, and it’s not ringing. I’m not making any money and I’m not having a good time. I could get some kind of benefit out of it; maybe I could get to play with some people,” because I wasn’t even playing with anybody. So she had to sign up to allow me to do that, because I was under age. You could sign up at eighteen, but I was not eighteen yet. So she agreed; she thought it was a good idea. So I did that. Went in the army. Ended up back in Camp Lee, Virginia, which became Fort Lee. Took basic there. Went to military band school, and then they were starting about six other band schools within the army, within the continental thing. I thought about going to Fort Dix, because they were opening a school there. I said I’d be near New York; that would be interesting. But they were also opening one in Monterey [California], and I had experienced a little bit of winter weather in Virginia, and I said, “I don’t know whether I want to go to New York or not. How badly do I want that?” I said, “I’m young enough. Let me go out to California. I’ll be closer to Mom. I can get home on the weekends from time to time and get this stuff done with.” Went into the band at Ford Ord, California, and ended up doing what the band does. We also had a training program and it was part of the cadre for that training program. There was also a big band that was active up there, seventeen-piece band, with charts by Pete Rugolo and Bill Russo and a whole bunch of other people, and a fabulous Soldiers’ Club that sat out on the beach, on the sand dunes, that had been built by Joe Stillwell when he had been commandant of that base. I was playing drums in the jazz band and playing piano with a whole bunch of combos, you know, Officers’ Club, Non-Com [non-commissioned officers] Club, this, that, and the other. So I was finally getting to play music, and I was playing drums and piano. [interruption]

BUNKER

And so all of that passed very uneventfully. Started trying to do a little writing, because I’d become enamored of that, and had captive people, people that clearly had nothing else to do. They had to be around until five o’clock, you know. So, just part of the continuing self-education process.

CLINE

So you weren’t playing saxophone anymore?

BUNKER

No, no.

CLINE

You gave that up pretty quickly?

BUNKER

Yes. But it’s an interesting thing, the fingering keyboard for the saxophone keyboard became so ingrained, just from the little that I did it, that many times, to this day, if I’m trying to figure out a melodic line, I can visualize most easily that way, rather than visualizing the piano keyboard or the vibraphone keyboard, and I’ll go [demonstrates], no, no, no, and something about that musculature will knock it into place.

CLINE

Interesting.

BUNKER

And that was having never developed any kind of chops, really, any kind of skill.

CLINE

Do you suppose it’s in some way connected, especially melodically, to the fact that you’re using your breath and you’re hearing a sound that’s more vocal in that way? It’s connecting in a different way than just the mechanics of pushing your fingers down.

BUNKER

Yes. The instruments that I do play all don’t give you a tactile feedback. The piano does a little bit. The vibe hardly does. And so many other instruments. I mean, you watch people. I’ve watched trumpet players, you know, [mimics horn fingering].

CLINE

Right. Moving their fingers.

BUNKER

They’re thinking of something and trying to nail something down. They’ll do that. It’s kinesthetic, I guess.

CLINE

Interesting.

BUNKER

So, for me it’s like whatever works.

CLINE

I wanted to ask you, when you were growing up and your mother was encouraging you musically, you said that you were going to thinks like jazz concerts and jazz clubs. You mentioned Billy Berg’s. Do you remember some of the venues that you went to? For example, did you ever go down to Central Avenue, go into any of those places?

BUNKER

I did go down there. I’m trying to remember if I was still in high school. I think I was. I remember I had a bicycle. I rode my bike down there. Now, at some point I had a car, but there always seemed to be problems with it. It was some kind of an old Model A [Ford] that I’d talked my mom into buying, so that I’d be able to take her places. But I did go on Central Avenue on a few occasions, and I don’t remember which particular clubs they were. I know that I got into my best suit and had a little moustache going, was trying to look a lot older than sixteen, and talking my way into bars. But it could have been the Club Alabam, could have been— A lot of those names have drifted way back into the past. I found that I was hardly ever over there once I came back in ’51, but in ’51 when I came back from the service and from living up in the Salinas and Monterey area, I started to work. Howard Rumsey hired me to play drums at the Lighthouse, and I was hanging with Hampton Hawes and Sonny Criss and Teddy Edwards and those guys, and they were hiring me to— Most of the time Larance Marable was their drummer, but they were hiring me to play vibes. So I was kind of moving around in those circles as a vibraphone player and working as a drummer.

CLINE

What was your impression of Central Avenue when you went down there as a teenager?

BUNKER

Tacky, you know, just funky. I did not seem to have any fear of any kind of consequence of that, I guess just because of the people, the black people that I had known and associated with, kids that I’d grown up with at school and later made friends with, that there was anything to be feared. When I got into Foshay, there had been a lot of rumbles between gangs of kids, and after school I’d see— I remember seeing some guys get stomped on, from the time of the zoot suit [riots] shit that was going on downtown with the Mexican kids, and I said, “Jesus Christ, get me out of here. Let me just get past this mob and get home,” you know. But, overall, Central Avenue, I didn’t seem to have any fear of personal safety, anything like that. It didn’t seem to enter into the equation, you know.

CLINE

Do you have any impressions of the music that you heard? Do you remember any of that?

BUNKER

Not that much. I mean, there might be people like Slim Gaillard and like that, you know. I remember mostly it was up in Hollywood if I heard any music that was happening. I remember seeing Art Tatum once at some club on Hollywood Boulevard. No recollection of what the name of the place was. But along around where Musso & Frank’s is now, where a couple of those streets are, music was happening around. There was a big supper club down on Figueroa near Manchester [Avenue], and actually I think Ella [Fitzgerald] worked there, and I’m trying to remember if Nat Cole even worked there before all of that explosion happened with him.

CLINE

He was still playing piano.

BUNKER

Yes. I worked in that place for a while as part of a house trio, and then that expanded when they put in a revue, you know.

CLINE

So some of the clubs in Hollywood, you mentioned Billy Berg’s. Do you remember any of the other clubs from that area?

BUNKER

That was still when I was in high school. Transportation was difficult. Money was difficult. Entrée was difficult. Three years later, I was back and working.

CLINE

What about going to hear Bird at Billy Berg’s? What do you remember about that?

BUNKER

I think I went once, but they used to have it air-feed. They used to have remotes from their fifteen minutes or half hour on radio.

CLINE

Live broadcasts, yes.

BUNKER

So that’s when I got to hear those guys, Dizzy [Gillespie], Bird, Ray Brown, Al Haig, probably Stan Levey, and I don’t remember if Milt Jackson was with them at that time or not. At that time I only knew what a vibraphone was. I knew who Lionel Hampton was. I knew who Red Norvo was. Other than that, the vibraphone was a total blank to me. Being a percussionist was a total blank; I didn’t know what a percussionist was, really. But I was living in the Salinas area and married to that first wife, and I got a gig with an organ trio. We were going to work at this strip joint in Monterey, and the guy whose name I can’t even remember said to me, “I’ve heard you play the piano. You’re playing drums for me. You must play the vibes.” I said, “No, I don’t.” He said, “Well, would you like to?” I said, “Shit, I don’t know.” You know. He said, “I’ll tell you what.” We were just starting like a weekend gig. We were going to work three-day weekends for a while. He said, “I’ve got an old vibe at home in the garage. Why don’t you take it home and work on a couple of tunes. It shouldn’t be that hard.” I said, “Okay.” So I went by his house, and he had this old crapola Leedy, Leedy thing like a tabletop that sat about this high, you know, because they were built for the pit drummers, so that the guy could play seated behind a set of drums and you didn’t have to stand up. Like timpani that tilted, the same situation, still you could pedal. So I took the thing home and got the cobwebs off of it, figured out how to put it together, and spent a couple of three days just trying to play some scales on it. I said, “How the hell do you do that?” Did arpeggios, did studies and so forth, you know, trying to get used to crossing hands. So went to work that Friday night, put the drums up, put the vibes up, we played the first set, and the guy said, “Okay, well, have you got a tune worked out? What do you want to play?” “I don’t have anything worked out. What do you want to play?” And he said, “Oh, is it like that?” [mutual laughter] You know. I said, “Well, you know.” So we played some ballad and I played a couple of choruses, to rousing applause, and we finished the setup and we got off the stand. And guys were coming up and saying, “Jesus Christ, Larry. I didn’t know you played the vibes. How long have you been playing the vibes?” I said, “About three days.” But that started that.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

If that hadn’t happened, who knows, we wouldn’t be sitting here.

CLINE

That’s right.

BUNKER

We wouldn’t be sitting here.

CLINE

Interesting.

BUNKER

Just one thing led to another. But that triggered my interest in Milt Jackson. When I heard Milt, I said, “Okay, now, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.” I heard Cal Fjader a little bit when Cal was still the drummer with the Dave Brubeck Trio in San Francisco, and he was playing drums and vibes, and they were broadcasting from some radio station up there in San Francisco. So I used to hear that. I didn’t care for the way he played. But Milt turned me totally around. He made me want to play the instrument, and I spent a lot of time finally reaching the conclusion that I was never going to sound like him, because nobody’s ever going to sound like him.

CLINE

Indeed. So when you came back from the military, you came back to L.A. Things had changed, the neighborhood was changing, the music scene was changing.

BUNKER

Yep.

CLINE

What exactly were the most noticeable and impressive changes that you found that you were being affected by upon returning?

BUNKER

On a totally personal level, just being accepted as a musician. I had gone over on Central Avenue one time, I think I was home on furlough, I was the hot shot drummer in Monterey County, you know, as far as all of that was concerned, because the military band, we were doing broadcasts, we were doing little runouts and doing concerts here and there, and had this elaborate book, this custom book of music at a time when people didn’t have that yet, you know, ’47. ’46, ’47, ’48. And talked my way onto the bandstand at some jam session on Central Avenue, and we played about two or three choruses of whatever it was, and they put me off the bandstand. “Get the fuck lost. Come back when you learn how to play,” you know. That’ll kind of make you— That’ll sit you up and make you wonder.

CLINE

Makes an impression, yes.

BUNKER

So I didn’t try that anymore for a while, but then suddenly when I was working, some of the same guys that put me off the bandstand, a couple of years later at the Lighthouse, “I remember that name. I remember he was one of them that said, ‘Get the fuck lost.’” How much of that might have been any animosity because I was white or animosity just because I couldn’t play, I don’t know. I think I played better than that. But anyway, being accepted by the musicians that I respected was probably the most important thing, and actually starting to make a living.

CLINE

Who were some of those musicians?

BUNKER

Hampton Hawes; Sonny Criss; Teddy Edwards; a bass player that played with them a lot, named Roger Alderson. I don’t know what ever happened to him.

CLINE

His name, I don’t believe has come up at all.

BUNKER

Yes. Larance Marable, who I just recently reconnected with after God knows how many, many, many years.

CLINE

We did an interview with him for the Central Avenue [Sounds] series.

BUNKER

I got to know him some, and then he went through periods of jail time and not being on the scene, and now he’s been back on the scene for many, many years. We did an album project together, and he sounded wonderful. It was like we looked at each other and I said, “Larance?” He said, “Larry?” And, you know, it was like thirty years or more since we’d seen each other; just paths had not crossed.

CLINE

Wow. Amazing.

BUNKER

And gradually there were other musicians. Al Haig had moved out here. He was living here for a while. A bass player named Harry Babisin was around, doing a lot of things, making records and having a record company, or at least a record label, and putting together jam sessions down in Culver City or Inglewood someplace.

CLINE

What was the record label, do you remember?

BUNKER

I don’t remember. I think he and Roy Harte had that together. I don’t know if Roy is around still. I pass by on Santa Monica Boulevard and it does not look like Drum City is there anymore.

CLINE

No, I don’t think it is.

BUNKER

It looked like a used car lot.

CLINE

So you were starting to play more with some of the people who were really playing at this point.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And you were playing both drums and vibraphone then?

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

You mentioned Milt Jackson in relation to the vibraphone. When you were inspired to play the drums and were teaching yourself and going through all that, who were some of the drummers who you most were influenced by and wanted to perhaps emulate?

BUNKER

Oh, my god, it goes clear back to Chick Webb, because his records were playing on the radio. Whoever the drummer was with the Jimmie Lunceford band [Jimmy Crawford]. Was that O’Neal Spencer or was O’Neal Spencer with Andy Kirk and the Clouds of Joy? I don’t remember. But I mean, everybody from Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, naturally. Chick Webb, even before. Jo Jones. I didn’t care for Sonny Greer, and at that time he was still with Duke’s band.

CLINE

Right. And he was certainly a multi percussionist in that band.

BUNKER

Yes. But those were the guys, until I was in my middle teens, that really were the influences on me, made me want to play, and then all of a sudden, you know—

CLINE

Bebop.

BUNKER

Bebop happens.

CLINE

And you heard some of this live, so let’s return for a moment to Billy Berg’s. How did that go down with you? What was that experience like?

BUNKER

I was enthralled with Dizzy. I couldn’t quite understand Bird, because he played so out of tune. And then one day it suddenly all kind of locked into place and I went— You know when you get flashing light bulbs and shit that happens. And I’ve had a few of those in my life that I’ve always treasured, just those epiphanies. I don’t know of any better word for it, when you hate something or you can’t understand it, and suddenly you blink your eyes and it’s there.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

It all of a sudden just made sense. It all made sense, the ferociousness of that playing. I got to play with him once, and it was sometime in the fifties. He was in town and he was appearing at the Five Four Ballroom, and Billy Berg owned that place, too. I think Larance was playing drums. It was local rhythm section, and a piano player whom I knew casually, but I can’t remember his name. Apparently they were playing a tune that Bird wanted to play, and he didn’t know the changes. He didn’t know the tune. I heard, “Larry! Larry! Larry!” And I looked up and it was Marable. He says, “You know this tune, don’t you?” I said, “Yeah.” “Get up here!” So they shoved the black kid off the piano and put me down there, you know.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

And change of attitude. I didn’t try to do anything; I just comped. I mean, Bird didn’t need that, you know. There was no necessity for that, but I guess they felt that it was necessary, you know. So I did get to play with him once. It was only that one little thing, and then that was the end of that. But most of my recollections of the Billy Berg thing were from the broadcasts, because it seemed like it was every evening during the period that they were there.

CLINE

The tempi, if nothing else, must have been pretty overwhelming, I would think.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

So now I take it you wanted to be a bebop drummer.

BUNKER

Yep. Absolutely.

CLINE

And then who became your role models?

BUNKER

Max [Roach]. Within a few years, Philly Joe [Jones]. Within a few more years, Elvin [Jones]. Within a few more years, Tony Williams. All of those guys, those guys with the dancing magic that they could do.

CLINE

Did you listen to Roy Haynes much?

BUNKER

Not as much as the other guys. I listened to him some, and I know that I have drummer friends who say that Roy was the guy; Roy was the man and it continues to be him to this day. I haven’t heard him in the longest time. But snap, crackle, and pop.

CLINE

Right. Exactly.

BUNKER

After being flabbergasted by all that, I said, “Well, nobody will ever do anything like that again,” and then Tony came along, seventeen years old, and just tore all that up, tore it up. I never could understand how he did what he did. I mean, by that time I was so far removed from bebop, I was a studio musician playing the xylophone and the bongos and timpani and vibraphone, a little snare drum, you know, other things.

CLINE

Right. But returning briefly, now it’s the early fifties. You’re playing in Los Angeles. You’re a jazz guy. You’re gigging. Where are you playing?

BUNKER

The Lighthouse for a while. I worked there about six months. Then I left and went on the road with Billy May’s band. I’d always wanted to play with a big band, and I’d never gotten the chance to. It wasn’t exactly my kind of music, but I said, “I need the gig.” So there were restaurants that were happening. I remember working. There was a restaurant in Glendale, where I worked with like a guitar trio, playing vibes. I think the guitar player was somebody named Goldberg, and the bass player was a gypsy named Iggy Shivek, who was a notorious junkie and a drug dealer and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Luckily for me, I mean, I got into a period of heavy drinking, but I never got into drugs. I was starting to see friends dropping like flies, and I said, “I think that the best thing is not to even know what that’s like.”

CLINE

Good move.

BUNKER

I was working at the Lighthouse with Hampton Hawes, and I had to go to his parents’ house, so the Reverend Hawes would be there, and collect him and get him into the car, and then stop for a fix on the way, and on and on and on and on. And I just said, “That’s not anything that I want to be connected with.”

CLINE

So you saw a lot of that going on at that point?

BUNKER

Yes. Worked with Art Pepper for a while out at— Was it called the Surf Club? It was on Sixth [Street] and St. Andrew’s [Place], and the band was Hampton, Joe Mondragon, myself, and Art, and Art never got there, could never get there anywhere near on time. Always came in with some lame excuse. He was a fucking rat. He was just an unpleasant, ratty kind of guy. A good player, but— Yes, yes, yes. But places like that. Got to do some jam sessions with Dex [Dexter Gordon] and Wardell [Gray]. Wardell had finally come off the road from [Count] Basie’s band. And a place on Eighth Street behind the Ambassador Hotel. I think it was the Tiffany. I think it was the Tiffany. So, playing in there. Starting to work a little bit at the Hague. That was happening. By ’53, I believe, either ’52 or ’53, I joined Gerry Mulligan and the quartet, and replaced Chico Hamilton.

CLINE

Did you know Chico before then?

BUNKER

Just very casually, very casually. I’d heard him play. I wasn’t crazy about the way he played, but Gerry was. That’s what counts.

CLINE

Right. Before we go into that, I wanted to ask about the Lighthouse a little bit. What was your impression of the Lighthouse at the time?

BUNKER

The Sundays were backbreaking, because it was twelve hours long.

CLINE

Two [o’clock] to two [o’clock], I hear.

BUNKER

Yes. [Whistles] Boy. I was working there— I think we were working like a trio format when “Hamp” [Hampton Hawes] was there. It was Hamp, Howard Rumsey, and myself, just a trio, maybe Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then all of the horn players and everybody would come in on Sunday, and it’d just be a marathon. But I was getting to play, and hating Howard.

CLINE

Not your favorite bassist to play with.

BUNKER

No, no. I mean, a super nice guy, as nice as you could be, and the fact that he’s still around and still doing his things, and actually, don’t include that in printed thing, because nobody would ever understand that. Howard was responsible for my career starting in this town. He gave me a chance to play. I played on a Sunday session, the last set, after being farted off week after week after week after week, but I’d been told that’s what you do. You go and you— You know. I played the last set, and he turned to me and he said, “Don’t go away.” This was in nineteen early, early ’51. And he said, “You got a Local 47 card?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “You want to go to work?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “You’re hired.” And he fired Larance Marable just because Larance would throw drum sticks at him, you know, I mean, just, “Play some time, motherfucker.” And Howard would be on his springboard, that plywood thing, and back and forth and doing all that. So, it’s like he fired Larance for me to take his place, which really surprised me, because I liked the way Larance played. I said, “Fine,” you know. And that brought me to the attention of all of the other people that came through there and the audience that came through there. I mean, I run into people to this day that say, “I remember seeing you at the Lighthouse.” And that’s fifty years ago. Fifty years ago. [laughs]

CLINE

I’m going to actually stop this tape because it’s about to run out, but do you feel like you want to go a little bit more, or do you want to pick up next time with this particular period? Because we can go either way.

BUNKER

We can break it off now and maybe go a little longer the next time.

CLINE

Okay. I want to pick up with more about the Lighthouse and more about your playing with Gerry Mulligan and others in the fifties.

BUNKER

Yes. Okay.

CLINE

Okay?

BUNKER

Sure.

CLINE

Thank you very much for today.

1.3. TAPE NUMBER: II, SIDE ONE MARCH 13, 2003

CLINE

All right. Today is March 13th, 2003, and once again here, Alex Cline with Larry Bunker, at his home on what appears to be an inordinately sort of hazy day. You can’t see downtown today, but the sun is popping out. It’s a nice morning. Good morning.

BUNKER

Good morning.

CLINE

We’re going to continue from where we left off last time, but as is traditional with these sorts of processes, I’m going to ask you some follow-up questions about the material we covered last week. One of the first things I wanted to ask you about was, you were talking about pivotal musical experiences you’d had as a youngster, in the audience, that is. We talked about going to Bill Berg’s and particularly hearing the live broadcasts from there of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. But you also mentioned that due to the good graces and support of your mother [Clara Josephine Bunker], you heard, number one, Benny Goodman at the Hollywood Palladium. Could you talk about what that experience was like, describe that a little bit?

BUNKER

And actually although she was alive and I was living with her at the time, I was, I guess, I may have been in junior high school, I may have finally been in high school, I don’t remember the year. No, I would have been in junior high school, because my brother [George Bunker] took me to the Palladium. There again, I don’t know that I would have been able to go in, because of my age. He’s six years older. He had a car and was driving, and that was the easy way to get there. That was very interesting. I’d never been to the Palladium. I’d never really been to a dance hall like that. I only remember two people that were in the band. Louie Bellson was the drummer, and that was right around the time when he had won some kind of a drum contest and ended up landing the job with Benny Goodman, or getting the job with Benny Goodman somehow came out of that, you know. God, I don’t know how old he was. I don’t know how much older than me he is. I’m seventy-four. But, you know, he was probably seventeen, eighteen, maybe nineteen years old at the time. And Peggy Lee was still in the band, was a singer. Other than that, I don’t have any idea who any of the players were still during the [Second World] War. It was a chance to hear one of the great swingbands, live in all their glory, so I had a really good time. I could have been thirteen, fourteen years old, I suppose, you know. It just made me want to do that all the more.

CLINE

Some people who saw swingbands back then for the first time describe it in terms that I think people would reserve for rock bands particularly during the sixties when there was a certain amount of newness to the experience for a lot of people, the experience of the power of the bands, the freight-train-like intensity of it. Was it like that for you?

BUNKER

Yes, and in subsequent years, as I got older, any disposable income that I had went to the Orpheum Theatre downtown, because that’s where the bands played, and that was just the highlight of the week or the two weeks, whatever it was. I remember seeing Stan Kenton there. Woody Herman’s band. But I’d go and see any band. I saw Alvino Rey. It didn’t matter, you know. Ina Ray Hutton and her Clouds of— Whatever. [Melodears]. Bobby Sherwood. As long as it was a big band, it didn’t seem to matter to me. It was that experience, not how good the music actually was. Some of the bands were amazingly dumb, but that’s as far as the charts were concerned. They still had good musicians. The musicians were good. But for me, the thrill was you sit through a movie and selected short subjects, this, that, and the other, and these curtains would close, and then the projector would come on, and it would be a big animated thing that would go, “And now,” and a voice announcing whatever band it was, and you’d start to hear their theme song, from behind the curtains. Then layers and layers and layers of curtains would open, and the bandstand moved forward, and it was heartstopping. It was just heartstopping. I was just— I said, “Fuck. I’ve got to be part of that. I have to do that. That’s what I want to do with my life if I can figure out some way to do it,” you know, to be able to make a living doing that.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

So that was exciting, you know, to hear Woody’s band come out.

CLINE

Do you remember any of the musicians with Woody Herman and Stan Kenton at the time, which bands those would have been?

BUNKER

Probably at that time it would have been like Vido Musso, that period that he was with the band, prior to Shelly [Manne]. Maybe Ralph Collier. Ralph Collier played drums with that band for a while. Anita [O’Day]. You know, I knew a lot of the guys later, but that was by the fifties, and the band was receiving a lot more prominence. And, of course, knew the guys that were in the band, a lot of them who then left the band to settle here, you know.

CLINE

Both bands, both Woody Herman and Stan’s band.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

You also mentioned that you had gone to see the Jazz at the Philharmonic performance at the old L.A. Philharmonic Auditorium.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Can you describe that experience a bit and tell us who was playing?

BUNKER

It may have been Flip Phillips. I think the one concert that I saw, Lee Young was playing drums. I didn’t care for him particularly. Tommy Todd may have been a piano player. This was all before the Ray Brown, Oscar Peterson, Buddy Rich period. Those guys were with Norman [Granz] later. This would probably still have been in the forties. I was probably still in high school, maybe just out, maybe in the service and in town on a furlough or something, you know. I don’t really recall. I went to one or two of those things. I didn’t care for it that much. I was getting more into the bebop thing, and some of the players didn’t appeal to me all that much. But any chance to hear live music, whatever money it took, how I could afford it, because I wasn’t constantly going and doing those things; I just didn’t have the money for it, you know. But occasionally.

CLINE

Especially when you’re younger, it’s harder.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And, of course, swing music was also dance music. Did you engage in any dancing during these events?

BUNKER

No.

CLINE

You just listened?

BUNKER

Just listened. Just listened. I never did care about dancing that much, and a few little dances I ever did play, I was always involved with schlepping the drums wherever, and then schlepping the drums out, and trying to make out with a girl seemed to be sort of out of the question, you know.

CLINE

[laughs] Yes, the famous Lester Young story of why he gave up the drums [story refers to Lester Young abandoning the drums because it made it so difficult to hook up with women on gigs]. [mutual laughter] Did you know any of the other Young family members? Lester. You mentioned Lee Young.

BUNKER

No, never did. Never did. Never met Lester. I got to hear him with [Count] Basie’s band when he came out of the service and they were at the Orpheum Theatre, and old Jo Jones was playing drums. Probably it was still Charlie Fowlkes playing baritone, that huge, enormous man, you know. As far as any of the others, Earl Warren was the lead alto player at that time. I didn’t know any of the trombone or trumpet players, I don’t think.

CLINE

Since occasionally when you’ve mentioned people, and you just mentioned Lee Young and said you didn’t particularly care for his playing, can you describe at all what it was that may have particularly interested or attracted you about drummers when you were formulating your own style and your own vision of your own playing?

BUNKER

Something just made me want to play the drums. I mean, it seemed to be ingrained in me from so early on, that that’s what I wanted to do. As I had mentioned, playing the piano and kind of teaching myself things about harmony and so forth was something that came very naturally and easily for me, but I never did particularly want to be a piano player. And that used to amaze people. They’d say, “Jesus. You can play,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. “Why don’t you want to play the piano?” I said, “It doesn’t appeal to me. I want to hit those things,” you know. [laughs]

CLINE

What was it about certain drummers you think that appealed to you more than others?

BUNKER

Well, probably the first guy that really captured my interest was Gene Krupa, and, of course, he was thrust into all that prominence with the Benny Goodman band, and was the first drummer that that had really happened to. I guess it had happened, even prior to him, with Chuck Webb, but it’s like Chick, at that time, had not become like a household name as Gene became. Gene was thrust into all of that spotlight with Benny Goodman, and he was very obviously attracted to it, very much the showman, very much the show-off, you know, spotlights and images cast upon the back of the bandstand, and all of that. He probably was the first one that really appealed. Buddy Rich, certainly, just because the blazing way that he played. He was staggering. I mean, you know, from the time he was “Baby Traps.” I didn’t hear of him or know anything about him until he came on the scene with Artie Shaw’s band, but again it was that same sort of thing was happening. There’s be short subjects at the movies, with ten- or fifteen-minute two-reel whatever things those were, and seeing him play, and I went, “Jesus Christ. How do you do that?” You know. Just trying to figure out how he played so fast.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

Never did. I don’t think anybody ever did. But with the whole transition to the bebop thing, you know, it was fascinating to see Jo Jones, because I’d heard of him and I heard the records on the radio all those years, and all of the Kansas City stuff, you know, that very unique way of playing he had. So, all of that. I said, “That’s what I want to do. That’s how I want to play.” I don’t believe that I ever had any kind of honest creative spark for playing the drums; it was all pretty much imitative. It was all what I drew from other people. You know, some guys come out of the womb just roaring with whatever that is. I mean, Charlie Parker. Jesus Christ, you know. You hear some of the early, early records, the Jay McShann things, and you can hear him trying to formulate exactly what it is he wants to do, but I mean you can hear the genesis of it there. And Dizzy. Dizzy, the same way. You can hear Roy Eldridge in very early, early days, but yet he’s trying to break away from that. He’s trying to get someplace else from that. [John] Coltrane, same thing. To me, Dexter Gordon and some of the Texas school of playing in early “Trane.” I was amazed one time how— I heard a record on the radio one day, and I said, “Boy, that sure sounds like early ‘Trane.’” And what it was, was Dexter Gordon trying to play like “Trane,” after “Dex” had already been an early influence, I’m sure, on Coltrane. So the cross-pollinization, you know, that would happen.

CLINE

Right. This actually is getting right into the territory that I want to discuss, and one of the things is, you mentioned just a moment ago that you were more imitative, that that this is evidently how you learned to play. Can you describe the process by which you actually figured out how to do what you had to do on the drums? For example, did you have anybody who you were close with who were showing you anything, or was this totally on your own, just by watching people?

BUNKER

Totally on my own. Totally on my own. I remember one time I had thought maybe it would be a good idea to take lessons. I had some kind of a book, a method book, that I had probably gotten in grammar school, you know, which listed rudiments and little reading exercises, and the kind of stuff that existed at that time, you know, the Haskell Harr method, and Gene Krupa had a book which was about that thick [gestures], and Buddy Rich had a book, and it was all the same material, the same typography, the same drill, you know, just somebody’s name got pasted on it. And I went through that stuff, and I said, “Well, that’s not really going to teach me anything.” But there were no musicians around that I could meet and got to know. I decided that I should take a lesson, so we found— My mom, I guess, must have looked up music teachers in the phone book. Got on the streetcar and went to see this guy, with my little drum sticks and my book. I have no recollection of how old I was. But met the man, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, little introductory this, that, and the other. He took out a piece of music paper and he drew a quarter-note on the staff, quarter-note with a stem. He said, “Play that for me.” I said, “Really?” He said, “Yeah. Play it.” [hits his thigh with his hand] He said, “Take him away. He has no talent.” I said, “Asshole. Given the information that you’ve given me, it didn’t say roll; it didn’t give a tempo; it didn’t say anything. It was a quarter-note.”

CLINE

Didn’t even say it if was a long or a short phrase.

BUNKER

It was just a quarter-note. It could have been a sixty-fourth-note. Some guys like to write like that, you know, for the xylophone, because that’s about how long the notes last, depending on the tempo. So, you know, I looked at my mom and she looked at me, and she said, “Let’s get out of here.” You know.

CLINE

[laughs] What was he looking for?

BUNKER

I have no idea.

CLINE

He just didn’t want to teach you.

BUNKER

You know. But I guess I was still accustomed to the authority of my father and not questioning adults, so I didn’t really question him. I just made up my mind that he was a total asshole. I didn’t tell him that, you know. So that was pretty much the extent of my musical training.

CLINE

[laughs] And what about something that has recently had somewhat of a resurgence of interest, that was a real necessary art at the time, and something that I think a lot of young drummers struggle with, which is the brushes. Did you learn the brushes the same way?

BUNKER

Yes. I’ve been complimented very highly on that aspect of my playing by a lot of people, but any finesse that really came about from that was a lot of practicing at home. This was, by now, as an adult, I never cared— I only played the brushes out of necessity when I was playing with bands or in a group. I had a friend— And this is going into the fifties, when my mom made that house into a rooming house for musicians. She got that whole other side of the house back from other people. I had a friend, who’s no longer living, named Gene Gammage. Gene was a drummer. He was from, I think, Atlanta. Gene was one of those incredibly natural kind of players. His only claim to fame was that he played for a short time, was one of the first drummers that worked with Oscar Peterson, and then lived in New York, worked around, bartended, worked at Bradley’s, worked at a few other places, accompanied singers. But he’d been a magician when he was a kid, prestidigitation, cards, I mean really card lunatic, could do stuff. And he had that kind of coordination, that kind of kinesthetic skill. He got hooked on the drums; he started playing the drums. In six months’ time, he had ferocious chops, ferocious, all totally self-taught. He gave up being a magician; he wanted to be a drummer. So he lived in my mom’s house and, like I say, we had set of drums and, at this point, a vibraphone as well as a piano in the living room. And we used to practice playing the brushes. He could play fast as a son of a bitch, and it was like, “How fast can you play?” Well, this preceded tape recorders. This was at a time when you bought 45s, 45-inch EPs, and put them up on the Girard turntable and set the speed to 78. So you could get blazing tempos, you know. Blazing tempos. Sounded funny as hell. But we sat there and we practiced on magazines or on telephone books and so forth, and had cutting contests with each other, and just— It was weightlifting, really, to develop those kind of chops, you know. But all of that was a result of those kinds of things and the kind of thing you do when you’re a kid. If you’re lucky enough that you’re doing some work and you don’t have a day gig, then you spend your days practicing. And that’s what I was doing.

CLINE

Did you also develop with something that I think now is considered a challenge for people, although, of course, it was what was happening then, how you develop the swing feel, is this something that came naturally to you?

BUNKER

It came natural. Came naturally. That’s the way the music was played, you know, and every drummer, you became aware of how differently the guy sounded on record, because there was the most minute dissection of a record, you know. I mean, getting to a certain place and listening to something and practically wearing the record out, you know. There was kind of a seminal recording that Count Basie’s band made in early fifties, called “Queer Street,” and an amazing chart. I don’t know who wrote that arrangement. The style of writing was totally different than anything his band had ever played, and totally different than anything anybody’s band was playing. There’s a two-bar drum fill on there that was played by Shadow Wilson, that is one of the classic drum breaks of all time. Absolute classic drum break. And where it came from, I have no idea. But I wore that record out, learning to play that, you know.

CLINE

Wow. And you mentioned that your brother was able to assist in getting you an actual set of drums after your sort of what you called polyglot kit.

BUNKER

Pots and pans and stuff, yes.

CLINE

What was that drum set, your first drum set?

BUNKER

I had a snare drum that had been bought at a local music store. I think it was later than the very first drum that I ever had. It was probably a twenty-two-inch, maybe a twenty-four-inch single-tension bass drum, white paint on it. The small tomtom to go up on the bass drum was a wartime Ludwig or a Slingerland, which had wooden lugs. They had metal inserts in there for the tension rods to go into, but the lugs were actually like rosewood.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

The floor tom was a field drum that I stole from my high school, and took the snares off, and had some kind of a fold-up tripod stand for it, and my big right cymbal was a thirteen-inch Zildjian.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

And got some hi-hats someplace. So that was the drum kit. But, I mean, he presented most of that to me when he came back from the service. He’d been in the South Pacific, in the Airborne Engineers, jumping out of airplanes.

CLINE

And this actually— Since you mention that, this is one of my questions. You were separated from your brother; he was in the Pacific theater, I take it.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Can you describe what that was like for you and your family, having him in that sort of really, I’d imagine, frightening situation?

BUNKER

Scared. Scared all the time. Worried, you know. I had lost my dad, and I had grown up enough to somehow establish some kind of relationship with my older brother, and then I was suddenly scared of losing him. Mom had gotten a job, and I was going to high school and trying to figure out my life, you know.

CLINE

Did you think that the war might continue and you might get drafted and see action?

BUNKER

I don’t know that it was a big concern. It wasn’t until I was about seventeen when I actually did enlist in the service, and then the war was over. Hiroshima had happened. War in the Pacific war concluded. War in Europe had wound down. So that the prospects were getting back to some kind of normalcy, you know. The economy was booming because of the wartime thing, and the Depression was, to all extents and purposes, over with.

CLINE

You were between wars.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

You lucked out.

BUNKER

Yes. Boy, did I.

CLINE

And also you had just mentioned a moment ago that you had a vibraphone in the house at this point as well. What was your first vibraphone?

BUNKER

One that I still have. It was a Musser. I was living in the Monterey Bay [California] area at the time. I was married, had had a son, and that was falling into the toilet. I think I’d mentioned before the experience of working with this organ trio.

CLINE

Yes, and getting the little Leedy vibe.

BUNKER

Yes, the little Leedy vibe. I knew that it had become time for me to get the hell out of there. I was separated from the lady, and ended up working with like a cocktail lounge quartet—piano, bass, drums, tenor—at some hotel in Monterey, and the guy found out that I could play the vibes a little bit. I needed to get a vibraphone, so I went to a music store in Monterey, and here was this big black and gold lovely- looking thing, you know. It was a Musser, Century 75. I still have that thing down in the warehouse. It’s very beat, but it was a good instrument. So that was the first vibe, and with that, then I set about trying to teach myself how to play that.

CLINE

Right. And how did you do that? You mentioned, before, you had to work on arpeggios and learning to cross hands and all those complications, basically learning how to aim. [Bunker laughs.] Was that just another—

BUNKER

That was pretty much it.

CLINE

Practice.

BUNKER

A lot of practicing. I came to understand that you were expected to be able to play four-mallet chords.

CLINE

Right. That was getting there. [laughs]

BUNKER

I couldn’t quite figure that out, so when I first started, it was three mallets, one on the left and two on the right, but at least make some kind of chord sounds. And somebody showed me how to hold the sticks; I don’t remember who.

CLINE

Wow. So, at the time that you were beginning to play more, you’d returned from Monterey. You were back in L.A. in the early fifties.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

You were playing now jazz gigs on both drum set and vibraphone.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Was there one that you were being hired to play more than the other? What was the percentage like?

BUNKER

I think it was primarily drums. I think it was more drums than the vibes, but the vibes did figure into it, and it just kind of depended on what came up, what was available, you know. People seemed to like the way I played the drums. There were gigs that came about where they wanted me to do both. That posed a transportation problem, but at least by this time I had a car that I was old enough to drive, and had a license and could afford it, you know.

CLINE

And before I forget about it, since you mentioned seeing Benny Goodman’s band with Louis Bellson earlier, I wanted to ask you, first off, since you mentioned the influence of Gene Krupa, were you disappointed not to be seeing Gene Krupa?

BUNKER

Oh, by this time Gene probably had his own band and had been away from Benny. I’m sure I had seen him at the Orpheum Theatre.

CLINE

You had already seen him then.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And was Louie using two bass drums at that point?

BUNKER

I think so. It seems to me that he was. That was pretty much his early trademark.

CLINE

Right. Interesting. And what was your reaction?

BUNKER

Fierce chops, you know, just all of that amazing finger control thing that he apparently got from Murray Spivak.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

I’ll tell you in confidence that I’ve never been a big fan of Louie’s. To me, Louie has essentially played the same drum solo for fifty years, and there again, it’s absolutely blazing, blazing chops, and for me emotionally what it boils down to is, so what?

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

I’ve never heard that spark of greatness in him. A fabulous technician, nice, nice man, but so what.

CLINE

And also when you were learning to play the drum set, you were also imposing the transition on yourself by moving from the swingband style into the bebop style. Is this just another situation where imitation was the way you dealt with this?

BUNKER

Yes. Absolutely.

CLINE

Was there anything you can say about the adjustments that you had to make from the swing style to the bebop style?

BUNKER

By this time, here and there was a smattering of books. Oh, Christ, what is the guy’s name who pioneered all of those books and exercises in independence coordination?

CLINE

Jim Chapin?

BUNKER

Yes. So, you know, Jimmy Chapin had a book out [Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer]. So I bought the book and I said, “Uh-huh. I see.” But spent a lot of time trying to learn how to play the bass drum, snare drum, licks, while you were keeping the time going, because you didn’t do that when you were playing swingband drums, you know. It was another thing. Either playing lead-ins or fills or little— You know. And it was just a lot of time spent trying to figure that stuff out, you know. And actually, when I was in the service, that was all starting, because by now it was 1947, late ’46, all of ’47, early ’48, that I was in the service, and so when I didn’t have anything to do, I had decided that I was going to correct my grip. I never did try to play matched grip. That started in England, you know, and nobody was doing that here. But there was still a dearth of exercise material, so I just wrote exercises for myself and said, “What if I did this? What if I did that? What if I—.” You know. I was trying to get a lot of the rudiments together, because I’d never really practiced the rudiments. And I said, “I understand what you’re supposed to know how to do those and what their names are,” you know. And started making up exercises out of that stuff, but displacing things, or changing the sticking, or changing, if you were going to play a double paradiddle, put the diddle on the down beat or on the second and third eighth-note or the third and fourth eighth-note, and get used to trying to stick things that way. I’d seen exercises like that in a George [Lawrence] Stone book [Accents and Rebounds]. I’d gotten the Stone book and I said, “Well, this is just child’s play,” until I tried to do the exercises exactly the way he said to do them, you know, play so many iterations of this and move to this line, and you step on your dick. [Cline laughs.] You just couldn’t make the transition. And just spent an inordinate amount of time that way, because I said, you know, you’ve got to have the independence, you’ve got to have the coordination. Started working on things of “What if I did this instead of that?” Or, “What if I played [sings eighth-notes with accents on the upbeats] instead of [sings eighth-notes with accents on the downbeats]?” You know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And worked on that kind of stuff. But again, it was just really teaching myself how to do it, you know. [tape recorder off]

CLINE

Okay. We’re back. I wanted to ask you that since you were somewhat unique in playing melodic instruments and the drums, in fact, simultaneously, so to speak, is there anything about your knowledge of melodic instruments that you think affected the way you thought about playing the drums or heard the drums?

BUNKER

I would certainly think so. I know that I’ve never done any teaching. On a few rare occasions, I did maybe a little coaching with people, and found out that I didn’t feel suited to it and didn’t particularly— It wasn’t anything I was interested in doing. I didn’t need to do it for the money, you know. A lot of people teach because that’s how they make their living. But I would have people say things like, “Well, how is it you always know where you are?” You know. I guess they think that you have to be playing a melody instrument or something related to a rhythm instrument or something, to have that sense of where you are if you’re playing song-form things. I said that’s just always been totally natural. I’ve always, always had that sense of where it is. I mean, I can remember that from being very, very, very young. I’ve never been one to play extended drum solos free-form; that doesn’t appeal to me. Again, Louie Bellson can do that so much better than I can, you know. And always because of playing jazz, anytime that I would play a solo, in my mind it was the form of whatever the song was, and that’s not hard, because most tunes are twenty-two bars long, you know, in AABA form or ABA or whatever, or blues. But I remember when I was playing with Clare Fischer, Clare played a lot of material of his own. And we had a rehearsal and there was this tune that he had written, and I kind of knew it, but I hadn’t really committed it to memory yet and I hadn’t really thought about the form. So we’re rehearsing and I’m playing, and I’m playing along and playing along, and finally suddenly I just stopped and I said, “Wait a minute. When we get to the bridge, how long is the bridge?” Because it was an odd form. It was an odd number of bars in the piece, and it may have even been one of the things that we did in something other than 4/4, like it was in 7/[4] or 5/[4]. And I said, “I can’t play, because I don’t know where I am in the piece.” And he felt that was one of the most amazing things that anybody had ever said to him, and he said, for a drummer to say that, you know. But I mean, I really couldn’t play, because I didn’t know where I was in the song. So that has always been of primary importance to me. I know that as I developed as a vibraphone player I would find myself breathing in the phrases that I would play, as if I were blowing a horn, and I don’t know how that came to me, to do something to do, but I found that it went better. The cohesiveness of a line worked better for me if I thought in those terms, in actually breathing, even though there’s no connection, you know, between the steam table, as I call it. [mutual laughter]

CLINE

Right. I’m going to turn the tape over so that we don’t lose any of your thoughts due to negligence.

1.4. TAPE NUMBER: II, SIDE TWO MARCH 13, 2003

CLINE

Okay. Everything appears to be back in working order. Do you think your awareness of playing actual melodies affected the actual material that you played particularly in solos on the drums?

BUNKER

I’m sorry. Ask me that again.

CLINE

I guess there’s another way of asking it. Would you consider your approach as a soloist on the drum set to be influenced in any way by your melodic knowledge? Would it be a melodic style, for example?

BUNKER

Yes, yes, I think so. I think so.

CLINE

Was this something that you also gravitated to in other drummers that influenced you, perhaps, a melodic sort of approach? Or do you think it was something fairly unique to the way you were hearing the drums?

BUNKER

Well, it’s a hard one to answer. Soloistically— Jesus. I don’t know. I know that it has affected me, thinking melodically. I’m sure that sort of thing has affected other drummers. I don’t know whether— The guys who I used to listen to the solos, particularly, a lot were Philly Joe [Jones], although he was very drumistic, very rudiment oriented. You could hear that he spent a lot of time doing that sort of thing. Shelly [Manne] was an amazing drummer in that respect, and Shelly was another guy, I think— He started playing when he was a teenager and was working in six months. He was working after he had been playing the drums for six months’ time, and then went in the Coast Guard. I remember once saying to Jerry Goldsmith something about Shelly, because Jerry used him until he [Shelly] died, and Jerry loved his playing. I said something to him; I guess what it boiled down to was that Shelly really could barely play the drums. And Jerry said, “What in the hell are you talking about?” I said, “Well, hear me out.” I mean, his chops were so bad in so many ways, and yet he made more music with the drum set than virtually anybody I’d ever heard. I said, “You can’t listen to him for chops. You have to listen for the music that he makes with the drums.” And to me, that was really true. He was amazing that way.

CLINE

Definitely. A lot of drummers talk about a main influence on them in terms of hearing soloing in a more melodic sort of way was Max Roach. Would you say that that was correct?

BUNKER

I think so. I think so.

CLINE

I hear that as being different from the way you’re thinking of playing melodically.

BUNKER

Yes. I copped very few licks from Max. I enjoyed his playing. I heard him a lot. He lived out here for six, eight months, and I got to hear him quite a bit during that time when he was at the Lighthouse and then later when he formed the group [the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet] with Clifford Brown and Harold [Land]. I got to know him slightly; never did really hang out with him. I got quite a bit of bad black vibe from him, and I said, “Fine. You think of me however you wish. That’s your business.”

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

“And if there’s a problem, that’s your problem.” I wouldn’t have a problem with it, you know. You were asking about influences. I had mentioned when I was still in high school that I had become an enormous fan of the Woody Herman band and the old Herd, before the first Herd, when Dave Tough was still in the band. Dave became ill and declined in his health. He was replaced by Don Lamond. I used to hear the radio broadcasts that they did for Wildroot, and I hated the way Don played, hated the way he played. I said, “Jesus Christ.”

CLINE

What about it? Why did you hate it?

BUNKER

His drums were very floppy and sloppy-sounding. The snare drum was really very wide open. This is all before plastic heads; just calf heads and so forth. This is sometime in the middle forties. I was so accustomed to the way Davey played, and this guy was nothing like Davey. Couldn’t figure it out. Then there was a short regrouping, and now suddenly we had the first Herd, with Stan Getz, Herbie Stewart, Al Cohn, and Bill Harris, Shorty [Rogers], different trumpet players. And Don suddenly was tuning his drums very differently, but I still didn’t like the way he played. I went downtown and saw the band at the Million Dollar Theatre. They changed venue from the Orpheum to the Million Dollar. Then I went to a ballroom in [Pacific] Ocean Park. Was it the Aragon? The Aragon Ballroom? I think that was it, on the pier at [Pacific] Ocean Park. Of course, the pier’s not even there anymore.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And the band was roaring. In the midst of saying to myself, “I’ve got to figure out how I can get up to Woody Herman and say, ‘You’ve got to give me a chance to do that, because this guy cannot play,’” you know, the arrogance of youth, probably all of seventeen years old at the time, and right smack in the middle of something, Don played some shit and I went, “Oh. That’s what he’s doing.” A big light bulb went on and I spun around 180 degrees, 1800 degrees, and he became my hero. He absolutely changed the way I thought about the drums, the way I played them, the way I even approached them.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

And I can’t begin to tell you what it was that caused that to happen. Just something. Suddenly his time feeling clicked in. Suddenly the sound of the drums clicked in. The shit that he was playing just made all the sense in the world, and the way he approached playing with that band. It turned me totally around. Pretty much up to that time, most of the big band drummers that I liked were— I mean, I’d heard guys with the swingbands that were around, aside from the locomotive that Buddy Rich was in any of those bands, and I can’t even remember who any of the drummers were, you know. Jack Sperling with Les Brown. Dick Shanahan with Les Brown. You know, dumb bands like Ralph Marteri and Charlie Spivak and this, that, and the other, the drummer Moe [Maurice] Purtill with the Glenn Miller band, for chrissake, going back that far. They had kind of a set formula way of playing. And Don was totally outside of that. It wasn’t until another couple of years later I’d been hearing about Tiny Kahn, and I saw Tiny Kahn with Charlie Barnett’s band. I was up in northern California. I think I saw him in San Francisco, San Francisco or Oakland. But I’d been hearing about Tiny, and I understood that he was also an arranger and he was doing studio work in New York. I heard him with that band and I said, “Okay. Now I get it. Now I get what they’re talking about.” He was directly responsible for Mel Lewis and now Jeff Hamilton. Jeff Hamilton is an absolute killer drummer for me. His time feeling is so gorgeous. His sound is so gorgeous. The feel is just— You know. But Jeff came out of Mel, and Mel was the son of Tiny Kahn. There may have been some guys that influenced Tiny, and I’m sure there were. Maybe some of the black guys, Lunceford and Basie’s band, and this, that, and the other. Whether that came out of Jo Jones, I don’t think so. I don’t know where Tiny came from. Anyway, Don was an enormously influential player for me, and in later years I got to know him a little bit. We became kind of phone pals. Every couple of years I’ll call him up. He’s eighty-some-odd years old, still alive and well down in Florida, still playing.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

He’s had both hips replaced. Last time I talked to him, he sounded kind of old. His voice was starting to sound like an old man. But I hear he’s still doing it.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

And he was very appreciative of me. He complimented me highly. He said, “I’ve been hearing all these years all that shit that you’ve been doing,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know. Nice as he can be. Nice as he can be. And he and Jeff have apparently an ongoing very long, long, good relationship.

CLINE

You don’t hear much about Don Lamond. And it’s interesting, because, of course, Dave Tough was Shelly’s big role model.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

The drummer before him. So the lineage continues.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

I added on here to ask you about Don Lamond, because you had mentioned him. You mentioned the racial thing a moment ago in connection with Max Roach, and also the Lighthouse, and these are two areas I want to hit on. While you were playing in L.A., getting cranked up into the regular jazz scene, you clearly were playing with musicians who were both black and white, and at that time there were, as we mentioned earlier, two unions in Los Angeles, the [American Federation of Musicians] Local 47 for the white musicians and the [Local] 767 for the black musicians.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Then in the fifties there was a movement to amalgamate the two unions.

BUNKER

Right.

CLINE

What are your recollections of that?

BUNKER

At the time, I was barely aware of the fact that there was a second union. I was a member of the union. I had joined the union in the forties when I was fourteen years old, during the war. But I had not thought about the idea that there was a second union. The musicians union was in a building that was down on Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles, and it was part of, I think they called it, the meatcutters union. That’s where I had gone for my audition to give them my little $20 or whatever it was , and play a paradiddle with the drum sticks, you know, and the guy said, “You’re in.”

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

So at some point in the fifties, there was this movement afoot, and also to get the union into Hollywood, and I remember that petitions were circulating. I said, “That’s exactly as it should be. I’ll sign this.’ In fact, one of the people that handed me a petition to sign and he said, “Here, motherfucker. Sign this,” was Charles Mingus. [mutual laughter]

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

I knew him very, very casually. He was at the time with Red Norvo. He and Tal Farlow had that trio and were working clubs around town and restaurants, and I got to know Red a little bit and I got to know Mingus a little bit. I think probably one of the most meaningful exchanges I ever had with him, aside from that, was in later years playing in New York at Birdland, and running into him in the kitchen. I think he was just there as a guest; he wasn’t playing. But he had gotten to know Art Pepper, and Art was in and out of the joint and going through his things, and he said, “Is Art Pepper still alive?” I said, “As far as I know. The last I heard, he was.” He said, “Is he still doing that shit to himself? Tell him that I said he can stop doing that now. It’s no longer hip.” [mutual laughter]

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

That was sometime in the fifties. I don’t remember when it was, whether I was working with Maynard [Ferguson]’s band at Birdland or whether I was with Georgie Auld on the road someplace, you know.

CLINE

So do you remember anything else about the movement to amalgamate the unions?

BUNKER

No, not really. It’s just that it seemed like, you know, it was, to me, a stupid idea to have both.

CLINE

You weren’t part of any actual movement or you didn’t participate in any activities?

BUNKER

Not really. Just sign some petitions and agreed that it should happen, you know. The guys I knew, there was hardly ever any talk about going down on Central Avenue, which I guess there was some building down there that was probably an old converted house, I imagine, like so many things were. I knew Sonny [Criss]; I knew Teddy Edwards; I knew Hamp [Hampton Hawes]. I’m trying to remember if— I don’t know that I ever played with either Art or Addison Farmer. I knew of them. Occasionally I was playing with like Gerry [Gerald] Wiggins and guys like that, you know. But that was up in Hollywood or here and there. The Lighthouse was, mercifully, pretty much integrated with all of that. I don’t remember there being that many black people in the audience, but as far as the bandstand was concerned, that was happening. I remember working out in Glendale—this was early fifties—and hearing that some black musician that was working out there got rousted around just because it was after dark and he wasn’t supposed to be in Glendale after dark. I said, “That’s fucking insane, you know. That’s insane in this day and age.” It was still going on, but I guess I was just oblivious to it because most of the guys that I hung out with at that point were the black guys. These were the people that I played with and these were the people that were my friends.

CLINE

You had mentioned that even when you were younger, you, I think you used the term “went with” an African American woman.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

How did that go down in the neighborhood, considering how things were back then?

BUNKER

It seemed like it went down okay, because the people that I knew knew her, and it was a very clandestine relationship. She was married, she had kids, her husband was a policeman, and so, you know, very low profile.

CLINE

I’m sure.

BUNKER

She’s no longer living. She was a little older than me. But as far as being out socially, that was all very discreet and in the ‘hood, which was up like around Jefferson and Western [Avenue] and up in that area of town. That’s where she lived. So nobody really seemed to look askance. I think that sometimes she felt a draft from people. But, I mean, in hindsight, when I read about things and going back to the fifties and realizing how much of that did exist here, certainly, certainly existed in many other parts of the country, but apparently happened more here than I was even aware of. I could have just been kind of floating along in my little musical world and not paying too much attention to societal situations, you know.

CLINE

Did the music scene seem pretty harmonious, as far as that went, among the musicians?

BUNKER

I think so. I think so. Probably the most disharmony came when Ornette Coleman showed up, just because people suddenly were saying it’s the new “Bird,” and others were saying, “You’re fucking crazy. That guy can’t play.” And I was of that opinion. I’d never been a fan of Ornette’s. I’ve heard a few pieces of music that he’s played that, to me, were kind of charming, but he never did kill me, you know. It was just this funny guy with the white plastic alto that came from Texas or Oklahoma, wherever he was from.

CLINE

Texas, yes. Were you familiar with, or did you know or play with any people who became the members of his band, Don Cherry or Charlie Haden?

BUNKER

No. Ed Blackwell was one of his drummers.

CLINE

Right. And Billy Higgins.

BUNKER

I never did really get to know Billy. I like Billy’s playing. Billy had that wonderful dancing time. He became very, very well known for that. But I never really got to know Billy. Heard him mostly on record. I got to the point where I was not going to clubs and hearing a lot of music; either the work schedule, being married, and changing tastes. And when I did go to hear groups, it was mostly whoever the big headline guys in bands were that were playing in clubs in L.A., you know. Certainly go to see Miles [Davis] in all of those incarnations. Horace Silver. Art Blakey. I remember seeing Art Blakey. The first time I ever saw him was, he was the drummer in Buddy DeFranco’s band. He and Kenny Drew and Eugene Wright, later of the Dave Brubeck thing, had a band that was working some strip joint down on Hollywood on Cahuenga Boulevard, you know. I actually met Art then and got to know him a little bit, hung out with him, went to see Cinerama with him. We sat there going like [adopts wide-eyed, open-mouthed facial expression], “God, what is that?” [mutual laughter] This is Cinerama.

CLINE

Right. And I just drove by it on the way here.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Still there. Art Blakey. Did you enjoy his playing?

BUNKER

Yes. Just all piss and vinegar, all fire, just [makes ferocious, growling sound], you know. No chops. No chops at all, but it didn’t matter. He had that fire, you know.

CLINE

To return to the subject of the Lighthouse now, Howard Rumsey got you the gig at the Lighthouse.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

You said the bands were pretty integrated, as a rule.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

We talked about the brutal schedule on Sundays particularly.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And you mentioned the audience a little bit. How can you describe sort of the ambiance and what the scene was like at the Lighthouse when it was really the happening place in the area?

BUNKER

By this time, that whole exodus of players had come off of Woody and Stan’s band and were settling in the [San Fernando] Valley and taking turns working at the Lighthouse, and the whole Shorty Rogers, Jimmy Giuffre, Bud Shank, Bob Cooper thing was happening, and the West Coast cool, which didn’t appeal to me all that much. I played with all of those guys. I recorded with all of those guys. I really wanted to be like a New York player, and probably this was where all of the finesse with the brushes came from, because nobody wanted me to play with sticks. You don’t play with sticks with these guys; you play brushes.

CLINE

Interesting. Yet some of those old Lighthouse records, it’s sort of pretty high intensity, hard bop performances.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Compared to the reputation that seems to follow it around, it’s kind of tame.

BUNKER

Because by this time, too, ’52 had happened, and I had played with Gerry Mulligan and Chet [Baker] for about six months. I took Chico [Hamilton]’s place and then finished out the gig at the Haig, and then they got busted and jailed and one thing and another, you know.

CLINE

I’m going to ask about that in a minute.

BUNKER

And I still cannot, to this day, remember the chronology of all that and how it happened and when it happened, and who went to jail and who didn’t. I’ve heard conflicting reports about all of that from people, and they say, “Well, you were there.” I say, “Yeah, and I don’t remember.” I came in, I made my ninety bucks a week, and did what I was told, and let it go at that.

CLINE

But before we get to Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, more about the Lighthouse. Can you describe the scene for us a bit, the kind of people who went there? I know they served Chinese food, things like that. It’s near the beach, obviously, in Hermosa Beach.

BUNKER

It smelled like the beach. [Cline laughs.] No, I mean, you know, there was always sand on the floor, wet, damp sand underfoot. John Levine was the owner, kind of a loud, rambunctious guy. He was okay. He was good. He was good to us. It was a very white crowd.

CLINE

Young? Old? Male? Female?

BUNKER

Probably twenties to thirties, to even forties, good mix of men and women. Enthusiastic. They liked the music and they showed it very much. They were very enthusiastic. There was this seating arrangement that they had set up, where it was almost like communal tables. How the hell was it? The bandstand was right in the middle of the room, up against the west wall, but it wasn’t booths. The bar was on that side, back door, and the johns were back there. Front door was up this way. But these— They weren’t tables, but they weren’t booths. It was like these rows of platforms that you could lean your elbow on, like almost communal tables. Airplane seating, you know, that kind of went around this way. I guess they were able to shoehorn a whole bunch of people in there with the seating that way, rather than having tables that took up space or booths that did that. There may have been a booth or two, some booths back along the back wall someplace. And then upstairs was the band room.

CLINE

Which was about as big as a closet, as I recall.

BUNKER

Yes, yes. Is it still there?

CLINE

It’s still there. It’s the Lighthouse Café. It’s mostly a restaurant that I guess does have live music, but it’s not a jazz club, really, since Rudy Onderwyzer sold it, whenever that was, a long time ago.

BUNKER

Who sold it?

CLINE

Rudy Onderwyzer, the guy who took it over.

BUNKER

Did Rudy have that?

CLINE

He ran the Lighthouse after the heyday was over. He was booking at Shelly’s. Yes, he ran the Lighthouse.

BUNKER

I didn’t know that. That’s weird.

CLINE

He sold it to open a club in Marina del Rey called Hop Singh’s, which didn’t last too long.

BUNKER

I remember Hop Singh’s, because I remember that going on. I played down there a couple of times. I worked down there with Mike Melvoin and Jim Hughart, and then played with Bob Florence’s band down there one night, the only time Bob ever hired me. I was hired and fired right away. But I think that was after Nick Ceroli had passed. Boy, he could play. He was a good drummer, good drummer. He sounded fabulous with that band. So anyway, yes, it was very pleasant down there.

CLINE

About how long were you ensconced there?

BUNKER

Six or eight months. I’m trying to remember. Did Howard let me go to get one of the other guys, or did I quit? God, I can’t remember. The end of ’51, early ’52. I may have left to go on the road with Billy May band, and by that time I don’t remember when Max came in. Stan Levey came in for a while, and then Shelly.

CLINE

Stan Levey replaced Max, I know.

BUNKER

And then I guess Shelly must have replaced Stan.

CLINE

Yes. So you realized your ambition to play in a big band by taking the gig with Billy May’s band.

BUNKER

Yes, which really was not exactly my cup of tea, with the sweeping saxophones and all that, but, you know, it was something that I’d really always wanted to do, so I took that opportunity to do that.

CLINE

And then we enter the period where you were playing with Gerry Mulligan.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

We want to talk about that. You remember how you got that gig?

BUNKER

It seemed that I had played a jam session or two with him. I had met him. I certainly knew who he was, because all of the Birth of the Cool things had come out in the late forties, you know, that whole Miles tentet idea.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

So I knew who he was from his having worked with Claude Thornhill, sessions and things. I don’t know if I’d heard Chet yet. Probably the trumpet player that was most known around town was Jack Sheldon. I knew Jack before I knew Chet. So the group was a smashing success at the Haig, Bob Whitlock and Chico. Chico had to leave. He had a wife and kids, and he usually worked for Lena Horne, and it was time for him to go back out on the road with her and make a living, you know. So I think Gerry kind of auditioned me, and I got the gig. There wasn’t apparently a lot of searching for somebody.

CLINE

Your style is very different from Chico’s.

BUNKER

Yes. Very, very.

CLINE

Chico perhaps could be described as a more eccentric player. Any views on what— Well, did you have any feelings— I mean, did you feel like you had to fill an expectation on Mulligan’s part?

BUNKER

No, no. I’d heard the records. I had the records. I heard the band. Pianoless quartet, interesting. I just set about playing the way I felt like playing. Other than telling me, “Not so loud,” you know, and, “Listen,” that was his whole mantra, was, “We have to listen, listen to each other,” listen this, listen that, but I pretty much set about playing the way I felt like playing, and didn’t try to do what Chico did, you know.

CLINE

That wasn’t difficult for you? You didn’t feel any pressure?

BUNKER

No, no.

CLINE

Before I get more into the Mulligan thing, I wanted to ask you, since you mentioned all these horn players and now you’ve mentioned the “Not so loud” factor from Gerry Mulligan, were there any notable musicians that you played with at the Lighthouse, that you wanted to talk about? Anybody who, for example, allowed you to play really the way you wanted to play and weren’t always telling you to play brushes? Or any memorable people sitting in or anything like that?

BUNKER

No, not really. The guys that I played with, it was very early on in the Lighthouse thing, and there were just the Sunday marathons. When I was there, it was like Thursday, Friday, Saturday was rhythm section night, was Hampton Hawes and Howard and myself, and maybe occasionally somebody would sit in. But that wasn’t happening that much, and the whole star-studded thing happened when all of the guys came in off of Kenton’s band and Woody’s band. I’m trying to think of the only other trumpet player I can remember that was any kind of great shakes, was Stu Williamson. Stu was around at that point. It was mostly saxophone players, you know, “Coop” [Bob Cooper], Bud Shank, Art Pepper, whenever he could get there.

CLINE

How much of a sense did you have of Howard Rumsey’s musical directorship in the way thing s went?

BUNKER

Well, he stood on his springboard, this platform, plywood platform that he liked to stand on, and he just called tunes. Later, when Shorty and “Giuff” [Jimmy Giuffre] and Coop started to be there, then it was like they were supplying original material. I guess Howard just would kind of count things off, you know, sometimes. The other guys seemed to be almost the titular leaders of the group, you know, and Howard would just be kind of looking around.

CLINE

Did you get a sense that he had a lot of influence in the direction of how that all evolved over there at the Lighthouse?

BUNKER

No, I don’t think so. I think he probably just left that in the hands of the guys that were doing that, you know.

CLINE

Okay. So when did Chet Baker enter the picture now?

BUNKER

It was ’52 or ’53, and I can’t remember exactly when it was that I joined the group. My feeling was that it was maybe late ’52. By that time I’d already been out on the road with Georgie Auld. We traveled, just he and I, and picked up the bass players and so forth. I was playing the drums and vibes with him. I remember we worked in Chicago. He hired a drummer, a guy he knew there, and I just played vibes, at the old Blue Note. I think the bass player was Johnny Frigo, who’s still alive and around and still playing, who was a very capable bass player, but he was known mostly as a jazz violinist. We worked in St. Paul, and Lou Levy played piano. Lou married a woman whose family was in the medical supply business, I think, so he was living in St. Paul and doing up a lot, you know. Worked in Philadelphia, some place on the North Side and another place on the South Side. I think that’s where I first heard Philly Joe, I believe. But this was probably all in ’52, and by late ’52 or early ’53, then I joined the Mulligan group. That just lasted about six months, but did a few albums. Then after the group disbanded, I did an album or two with Chet. I never traveled with Chet; I just recorded with him. His drummer at that time was a fellow named Bob Neel, N-E-E-L, who apparently just recently passed away. I think he ended up in the real estate business. Pretty good player. I forget if Carson [Smith] played with him. That’s when he and Russ Freeman got together. But Chet was amazing. Chet was absolutely an amazing player. He was a rotten fucking human being, just really, just an impossible juvenile delinquent, you know. Because, I mean, I used to see him kick his wife. He was married to a lovely blonde lady named Charlene, and he’d kick her ass in a second, you know, physically I mean. We’d take a ten-minute break that would turn into twenty, thirty minutes, and he’d be out in the parking lot behind the Haig with somebody [points to his crotch] taking care of that, you know.

CLINE

Servicing him.

BUNKER

Just a bad guy, but, god, what a player. What a player, you know. How that kind of lyricism and beauty can come out of that corrupt a soul, I don’t know, but there it is. Stan Getz personified.

CLINE

Is there anything more you’d like to say about Gerry Mulligan, working for him, what he was like?

BUNKER

I tried to get to know him; he wouldn’t allow it. He just was very standoffish. I think that he was an extremely bright man. I think that he was totally aware that he was an extremely bright man, and had, to me, those kind of conflicts going on. But I made my attempts. I was not into drugs, and they were, and that puts up— You know, if you don’t participate, if you’re not part of that little inner cliquey group, then you’re on the outside. And I chose not to be involved in that. I drank. I drank, and I ended up drinking excessively for many, many years. I like to say that I got an entire lifetime’s worth of boozing done in fifteen years, you know. Did that and then straightened up my act and went on, because I saw where it was leading. But as far as drugs, scared to death of them.

CLINE

Did you feel pressured by anyone to inbibe?

BUNKER

No, not really. I mean, a few times I smoked a little grass, I’d be with some people, and la, da, da, da, da. But as far as trying anything hard, I just said, “Not me.” And I never felt pressed, like, “You ain’t hip if you ain’t doing this,” you know. “Here, have some of this.” That just didn’t really seem to come about, thankfully.

CLINE

Yes. When did the drinking period start?

BUNKER

Early fifties, and lasted until about ’67.

CLINE

You were able to play, though? You were able to function.

BUNKER

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

CLINE

Interesting.

BUNKER

Functioned quite well behind it.

CLINE

Okay. After the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, the Chet Baker experience and recording with Chet and all that, what did you move on to from there during the fifties?

BUNKER

Was hired by Barney Kessel to play drums on the Bob Crosby television show. Bob Crosby had had a radio show up to this time, and he switched over to— He was, I guess, with CBS [Columbia Broadcasting System], but they switched to the television format. Television City had just been built on Beverly [Boulevard] and Fairfax [Avenue], and so the show went in there. The band was Barney was the leader; Arnold Ross was the piano player; bass player was a fellow named Morty Corb, who was more known as a Dixieland player, but this was Bob Crosby and his Bobcats. Tenor player was Eddie Miller; trumpet player was Ray Lynn, whom I had only known of as having been in Artie Shaw’s band. And that was it. So it was five-day-a-week, half-hour network television show that actually paid some real money, and I jumped into that and I said, “Shit, yeah.” What else am I going to do? That lasted about six months, and then I got a call from Jimmy Rowles, who had become one of my very favorite piano players, to go to [Las] Vegas with Peggy Lee. So then I entered into a period of playing for her and accompanying singers. Went back to Vegas, at the Sands, with Billy Eckstine, watched him kind of integrate the Sands Hotel, you know.

CLINE

Yes. Las Vegas was a very segregated town.

BUNKER

Oh, god. You know, Louis Armstrong had worked up there and rather than go through coming in the back door and doing all that shit, he went over on the west side and stayed over there, and stayed back in the kitchen. Nat [King] Cole was making some inroads. Billy was making some inroads; at least he got to stay in a penthouse suite at the place, and he managed to get accommodations for Bobby Tucker, who was his pianist at the time. Bobby’s barely darker than me, but with Negroid features and freckles and reddish hair, you know. But he got to stay in a motel that was probably owned by the Sands, that was next door. He didn’t have to go over on the west side. So things were changing a little bit. So I worked up there with “B” [Eckstine]. That was easy. Nice guy, fun, and I had always enjoyed his band, that big band that he had with Bird and “Diz” [Dizzy Gillespie]. Christ almighty, out of tune, out of tune like a bitch, but, boy, it was hot. It was a hot band.

CLINE

Okay. Do you want to continue a little bit more?

BUNKER

Sure, we can.

CLINE

Okay, because I’m going to change tape so we don’t run into a problem. We’ll take a break.

1.5. TAPE NUMBER: III, SIDE ONE MARCH 13, 2003

CLINE

Okay. This is tape number three. It’s March 13th, 2003, continuing the interview with Larry Bunker. So you’re doing some gigs in [Las] Vegas, you were working with Billy Eckstine, Peggy Lee, singers, various things like that, moving through the fifties now. How can you describe Los Angeles during the fifties at this point?

BUNKER

It had to have been extremely different than what it is now. I mean, I drive by places in Hollywood and I say, “What used to be there,” where the main branch of the Bank of America is. Can’t remember. [Wallach’s] Music City was across the street. They tore that down and built a stupid mall. They’ve torn that down and now they’re putting up something else. NBC [National Broadcasting Company] was across the street, their television studios, and the recording studios were where that Great Western [Bank] is now, which had been Home Savings [and Loan]. All of that was torn down when they built the NBC Burbank studios. On the southeast corner was a drive-in. I used to go there and get hamburgers and french fries and read science fiction during the day, you know, and then go out and play at night. Just slower, slower. Stop signs still were wigwags, you know, the big silver thing, and one arm would come out and say “Stop,” and then the other arm would come out and say “Go.” I don’t remember when they finally took out the streetcar tracks. They still had the red car driving on Hollywood Boulevard.

CLINE

So we can have buses.

BUNKER

The Hollywood Freeway ended out by Universal [Pictures]; that was the end of it. And it had not become the 101 yet. So if you wanted to go anyplace beyond Lankershim [Boulevard] in the [San Fernando] Valley, it was all surface streets. There were a few clubs out in the Valley. Larry Potter’s Supper Club, whatever that was. I remember doing Monday night jam sessions out there. A place or two in Burbank, someplace up on Lankerskim Boulevard. That’s where I used to play with Jack Sheldon. I don’t remember the name of it. But, you know, by ’53, Gerry [Mulligan] was over. ’53, the [Bob] Crosby show. ’54, doing Peggy Lee, this, that, and the other. And by this time I was starting to work in studios.

CLINE

Right. This is where I’m heading.

BUNKER

Yes, because I had done my first motion picture. I’d done a few record dates, mostly jazz things, but I actually did my first motion picture call in ’52.

CLINE

That’s pretty early.

BUNKER

That’s pretty early.

CLINE

Apparently some studio people used to go down and listen at the Lighthouse, and this is the way some of those guys got into the studios. How did you get invited to play in a studio call?

BUNKER

The very first call was from a man named Phil Coggin. Phil was the contractor of the staff orchestra at Paramount Pictures. He was an old Russian viola player who ended up here, ended up in that position, and they were going to be doing a source music cue that Franz Waxman had written, that required vibraphone and possibly some improvisation. Now, they had staff musicians that probably could have done that, and there were other vibraphone players in town that certainly had been working and were better known, but apparently Phil’s instructions were to get a jazz player, because maybe there was some improvisation. And the other guys didn’t really improvise. So he started checking around and he asked some people, and somebody said, “Well, I saw this kid down at the Haig playing with somebody,” you know, on Monday night or a Tuesday night. Not with Gerry. This was actually before then. So he called me up and he said, blah, blah, blah, “You can play the vibraphone?” “Yeah.” “You play that boop beep, or whatever they call it?” [laughs] Nice grandfatherly old Russian gentleman. And I said, “Yes, I do.” “Well, let me give you this call.” So he gave me a call for whatever it was, and then he called back a few hours later and he said, “Well, you must play the drums, too, don’t you?” I said, “Oh yeah.” “Well, let me give you some more of these calls.” I ended up with like eleven percussion, doing soundtrack for this movie, because this was the cinema predecessor to Hogan’s Heroes, which I also would have done—

CLINE

Stalag 17.

BUNKER

Yes, Stalag 17 . So I went in there, and the guy in charge of the percussion section, his name was Bernie Mattenson, nice old guy. He’d been with like Ted Weems’ orchestra and come up through vaudeville and played everything. Played drum set. He was a timpani player, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He was very nice to me. But I think, you know, there were some other guys that were with other orchestras, and I remember that Dick Shanahan was on the call, Alvin Stoller may have been on the call, and a couple of guys that were on staff at Paramount [Pictures]. Anyway, so, you know, he handed me a bass drum beater and said, “Go over and hit that.” I just kept my eyes open and my mouth shut, you know, tried not to make any mistakes. So it came time to do this source music, which was a day or two later, and luckily I’d been there and had this piece of music that was about four pages long, that was all four-mallet chords.

CLINE

Whoa.

BUNKER

Which I was really not that comfortable with yet. And the sixteen bars of ad lib somewhere in the middle of all of that. So I got a chance to pretty much woodshed it and memorize it, so I didn’t step all over myself, you know, when the time came, because I was really in over my head. I had no business in the world being there, but I was stuck in it and it came off okay. And the next thing I know, Phil Coggin is calling me to work. Early, early television was starting, and then starting to do things at Review, which became Universal, doing shows with Benny Carter and a guy named Stanley Wilson, who was head of the music department at Universal, and just little pictures that were going on. Stuff out in Culver City, you know, My Little Margie , stupid little half-hour comedic shows, but being thrown in there, thrown in there, thrown in there. And MGM [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer] doing, all of a sudden, pictures with Leith Stevens, who did The Wild Ones , the Marlon Brando thing.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

Somewhere along in there I hooked up with Johnny Mandel. He hired me to do things, and I played vibes for him. I play vibes for him to this day, fifty years later. When he did I Want To Live, Susan Hayward, some story of some woman who murdered her husband or something. So that just all started to happen, you know, plus club work at night, and gradually, gradually the fifties were kind of rolling to a close. Maynard Ferguson had been on the staff orchestra at Paramount when he left Stan Kenton. He married and had adopted a stepdaughter, and he was getting tired of it. He was getting tired of all of that. He was busy day and night because everybody said, “We’ve got to have all that. We’ve got to have—.”

CLINE

Those high notes.

BUNKER

The altimissimo playing. He put a band together, had charts by Manny Album and a few Bill Holman things, but he put a smallish band together and worked at Birdland, made a record, came back out, decided that he wanted to be a band leader, and he had Mel Lewis. Mel was here by this time. Mel had come through town with Tex Benecke’s band, which is where I first met him, he and Buddy Clark, and then he went with Stan Kenton for a while, and it’s the best that band ever sounded, you know, and they were doing a lot of Bill Holman charts, and that was the best music that he’d ever had to play. But Mel had settled here, so Maynard put this band together that was three trumpets, two trombones, four saxophones, and a rhythm section. They were working around town, and they worked at a place on the corner of Hollywood [Boulevard] and Western [Avenue] that was not Jazz City. Jazz City was on the south side of the street. This was on the north. There’s a taco stand there now. It’ll come to me. Mel didn’t want to go on the road. He played with the band, but he didn’t want to leave town. He was just getting himself established. He hit on me, “Would you like to work on the band?” And I said, “I think I’d better do that, because I may not have a chance to do it again.” You know, the bands were in decline. Woody [Herman] had worked with a quintet or sextet. [Count] Basie had worked with a sextet. Stan had shut the band down. You know, the big band thing was virtually gone. I said, “If I don’t do that pretty soon, the opportunity is going to be gone.” I said, “I’m not married, living at home with my mother [Clara Josephine Bunker]. I’ve got no nut; I’ve got a car. Got what instruments I need.” I was starting to collect percussion equipment because I saw that handwriting on the wall. So I went out for about six months with Maynard’s band. We toured the East; worked Birdland a lot; worked in Philly a lot; worked in beach cities in New Jersey; worked Boston, summertime. And did that about as long as I could stand to do it, and then wired my mom, “Take out a loan on my insurance policy so I can get a new set of tires for my car,” because I was traveling, handling my own instruments, and driving my own car. We didn’t have a bus. We didn’t have a band boy.

CLINE

Oh, wow.

BUNKER

Maynard was about to the point where he could afford to have a band boy, and instead, he hired Irene Kral, and, boy, was I pissed off. I was really pissed off. Although she became a friend, a dear friend. She married one of the trumpet players in the band [Joe Burnett]. So I got a set of tires and drove back to Los Angeles, and that was the end of my— Well, almost the end of my road experience. This was, by this time, late ’57. ’58, ’59, ’60 went by without any real incident. There I was really pretty much establishing myself as a studio player. I was beginning to think of myself as a studio player. I was working nights. By 1960, the [Shelly’s] Manne-Hole had opened, and I had become friends with Shelly [Manne] and I was recording with all of those guys, with Shorty [Rogers] and Bud [Shank] and doing stuff for— I keep thinking that the name of the record company is Everest, and I don’t think it is, because Everest was essentially a classical—

CLINE

Yes, a budget classical label.

BUNKER

But a guy named Red Clyde came out here and did a ton of recording, was in the studio every day, you know, and this was at the height of the whole West Coast thing that was happening, and I was one of those people. The drummers really were Shelly, Mel, myself, Stan Levey, and that was pretty much it. And then the other guy was Alvin Stoller and Irv Cottler and those guys, who were really primarily studio players, you know. And Alvin didn’t get hired that much for any jazz-oriented things. He did a lot of Capitol recording for the Capitol artists, and was a good player. I’d first seen him— He had to take Buddy Rich’s place with Tommy Dorsey’s band. That was not an easy follow.

CLINE

No.

BUNKER

But that pretty well, you know, was gigs here and there, here and there, here and there, but primarily working days and going in that direction.

CLINE

How did you like that direction?

BUNKER

I liked it. I was learning things all the time. I had taken a gig at a little club in Hollywood that doesn’t exist anymore, with Bobby Short. I needed a job; I needed to make some money. This very kind of campy saloon singer, I’d heard him. I said, “Well, is that something you want to do?” Well, not really, but what the hell, you know. It’ll pay the rent. So I took the gig with him. I had to audition, and auditioned for him. He loved the way I played, but he said, “Now, the critical thing is, do you play conga drums?” I said, “No.” “Well, if you’re going to do the gig, you’ve got to play the conga drums.” I said, “I don’t want to play the conga drums.” I said, “I don’t know how to play the conga drums.” Here we go again.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

He said, “Go down to the drum shop and get some kind of a conga drum and just make believe that you can do it.” He said, “It’s part of my act. I have to do that every set. So if you’re going to play for me and you want the job, you’ve got to do that.” I said, “Okay.” So I went to Drum City, and, you know, at that time the conga drums were still like a pickle barrel, and these heads that were nailed on. They didn’t have tunable hardware; that just was starting to come into being. So I went and got a conga drum and shucked and jived my way through some of that, and got interested in Latin music as a result of that, because again, one of the radio stations that played jazz—and it was probably still an AM station—had a disc jockey named Lionel “Chico” Sesma. So he was playing all of this music with “El Rey de Timbal,” and I was hearing Tito Puente. And all I knew about Latin music up to that point was Xavier Cugat and some of the Mexican bands, the Mexican swingbands. I’m trying to think. Andy Russell, who was a singer and had a band. And there’s another guy that was billed as like the Glenn Miller of Mexico; I can’t even think of his name now. But that’s all I knew about Latin music, when I heard those things. All of a sudden I heard Tito Puente and I said, “Holy Christ. Wait a minute.” Now, right around that time was probably when I went back east with Maynard’s band, and we were working at Birdland. And up the street from Birdland was a place I believe called the Palladium, a second-floor dance hall, and Tito’s band was playing there. I went up to hear that, and I said, “Holy shit. It’s a whole other brand-new thing.” Music I did not know about, I’d never considered before. It was like Count Basie’s band with a Latin rhythm section.

CLINE

[laughs] Right.

BUNKER

Really, I mean, that’s kind of how he patterned it, you know, big brass section and trombones and saxophones and all of that. No conjunto , no nice polite quintet or anything. To me, the only thing that was really missing was a kick drum down at the bottom of all that. But when Tito played the timbales , it was insane. And I saw that band with Potato [Valdez], Mongo Santamaria, Willie Bobo, who was a utility percussionist in the band, and a kind of rotating cadre of guys, and I just went [whistles], “Good lord, what is this?” And the chicks were insane. Oh, my god, you know. [laughs] Amazing. Amazing. But that generated my interest in Latin music, so there I was with Bobby Short, making records with him and playing this café music, this funny stuff that he still does. God, how old is he by now?

CLINE

I have no idea.

BUNKER

Ageless. Nice guy. Nice guy. And never made a pass. [Cline laughs.] You know.

CLINE

Yes.

BUNKER

I’m sure he knew that I was—

CLINE

You weren’t his type.

BUNKER

I didn’t bend that way.

CLINE

[laughs] Interesting.

BUNKER

And didn’t embarrass either of us.

CLINE

Did you ever harbor the dream of making it as a jazz musician in New York?

BUNKER

I certainly did. I thought about it and thought about it. I had done the Perry Como show when I’d gone back there sometime in the fifties with Peggy [Lee], and we were on some kind of a tour. I had guys ask me, “You’re Larry Bunker,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. “And you play the vibes and you play the drums, and you’re very good. If you would like to stay here, I can see to it that you can get a [American Federation of Musicians union] card.” And I thought about it. But something about New York just put me off. Don’t know what it was. And I had harbored the feelings of wanting to be back there and wanting to be the next hot thing, you know, and I said, “It’s going well in California, and I’m sleeping in my own bed and not on the road, not really, except for a minute,” and that began to have an appeal for me, and that balanced, I think, the need to try to be the next hot thing. I think I also knew in my own mind that I was not going to be the next hot thing, you know. I was hearing Elvin Jones.

CLINE

Yes, by then.

BUNKER

By then. And Tony Williams was about to burst on the scene. I said, “God, I wish it was within me to be one of those guys, but it’s not.” I just kind of knew in my own heart where my abilities were and what I was really capable of doing, and not, and made that choice.

CLINE

Before we finish up here, there are a couple of things I wanted to follow up on that you mentioned earlier. You obviously played a lot at the Haig. Is there anything about that club that you can share, that you can describe for us, or anything memorable about it? Characteristics?

BUNKER

It was just a funky old craftsman kind of house that, you know, interior walls had been knocked down and it had been turned into this saloon, which was licensed, I think, to hold fifty-five or sixty people, and typical craftsman style, you know, with the big riverstone supports that held up the roof, and a walkway that went down to the sidewalk. John Bennett was one of the owners, and he had a partner named Marvin something. I don’t remember Marvin’s last name. But they actually were willing to enforce Gerry Mulligan’s dictums that it be quiet, and they had a cash cow on their hands. They had this hit group. They had standing room only, lines out the door, down the street, every night, and if Gerry said, “Be quiet,” they said, “Be quiet.” They would tell the customers— I had never seen that before. John was a little kind of nerdy-looking guy, had frizzy brown hair, kind of sucked his teeth and sniffed a lot, blinked his eyes a lot, but he seemed like a nice guy. Marv was dashing handsome, beautifully cut suit, starched shirts, kind of a bald head, very pink, tanned ladies’ man for sure, but I mean, they really enforced those rules and made sure that we could play and do what we were there to do, and that was a revelation. Most other clubs, it was just rowdy time.

CLINE

Anything else you wanted to say about it?

BUNKER

That was it for the Haig. Other than that, it was nondescript, you know.

CLINE

By then most of the jazz is happening in the Hollywood area pretty much?

BUNKER

Yes. How the Haig came into being there I don’t know, but it was on Kenmore [Avenue], directly across from the Ambassador Hotel. On the other side of the Ambassador Hotel was either the Peacock Lane or the Peacock Alley, and whichever one that one was, was what the name of the other place in Hollywood was, where the taco stand is now, where I worked with Maynard’s band. It was either the Peacock Lane or the Peacock Alley. Also playing in there with groups, also a guy named Lenny Bruce, you know. Lenny was coming on the scene at that time. Anyway, so Stan Getz would be in town with Bob Brookmeyer, and Bob was turning people around. And they’d come over and sit in at the Haig, and that’s where I first heard Pete Jolly. Pete had just come to town from Arizona, I think he’s from. Howard Roberts was a player that was around at the time, making some noise. I worked a lot of those kind of gigs with Barney Kessel, with Conte Candoli. Conte was in town by that time. And I loved “Count.” He was a bitch. He could really play. Barney wasn’t a lot of fun, but, you know, he was a big name. He was a big star, and you get a gig and there it is. But anyway, all of that with the fifties was coming to a close, and I was back home, off the road, and not playing for singers anymore, except records.

CLINE

You also mentioned Jimmy Rowles. Is there anything you wanted to say about Jimmy before we finish?

BUNKER

One of the most unique musicians that has ever walked the face of the earth, an absolute original. To me there has never been anybody that came remotely close to the way he played, and a lot of people didn’t really understand what he was and what he was doing. An amazing player. Amazing. I think the only person that I can think of that had been an influence on him was probably Duke Ellington. I hear smidgens of Duke in Jimmy’s playing, but as far as his feel, the melodic sense, his harmonic sense, the sound he could get out of any piano, any piano, I’d hear him play a C-13 and I’d have to go over and look at his hands to see what he did, because I said, “How does it sound like that?” And you’d look, and there was nothing strange going on, no funny doubling or leaving things out or any of that. He had a very unusual way of playing. His hands, he had enormous reach this way [between the thumb and the little finger]. And I’ve got a bad finger that got broken a couple of years ago. But most of the time when piano players play and comp, if they play, you know, a major seventh, a minor seventh, or an octave, they’ll play the top note with their thumb. That’s an easy reach. Jimmy’s hands were so stretched that he played those always with his little finger and his index finger, so he could play root, fifth, major seventh, tenth, which he did all the time, which just having that many notes and he’d lay that in there, and do it in D-flat, where it’s a much further stretch for the thumb to get to the F-natural, you know, from the D-flat, and he just had this spidery, crablike thing that he could do at the keyboard. I loved him. I loved him dearly. Amazing player. I got to play with him quite a bit, quite a bit.

CLINE

Okay. Well, I think that will do it for today. I’d like to pick up with the beginning of the sixties next time, talk a little bit more about the studio work, maybe a little more about Shelly Manne and the Manne-Hole, and the whole West Coast thing, where that went.

BUNKER

Yes, and we’ll get into my period with Bill Evans at that time.

CLINE

I was going to say, and we’re heading into the Bill Evans period now, which is obviously key. So, thank you very much for today, and we’ll continue when we reschedule.

1.6. TAPE NUMBER: IV, SIDE ONE MARCH 27, 2003

CLINE

Okay. Today we now know for sure is March 27th, 2003. This is tape number four, in the third session with Larry Bunker. I’m Alex Cline. It’s an exceptionally windy Thursday morning here in Mr. Bunker’s home on the hill. Good morning.

BUNKER

Morning.

CLINE

I wanted to follow up with a few items from last time, before we head into the late fifties and into the sixties. Some of the things I wanted to ask seem maybe a little bit somewhat trivial, but one of the things I wanted to ask, we talked a lot about the various swingbands that you used to regularly go see at the Orpheum Theatre, and we talked a lot about the whole influence of swingbands on your musical development, and some of the drummers that you heard and some of the bands. I wanted to know that since it’s very common for people who are particularly active listeners during that era to have a preferred band or bands, I wanted to know if you had a favorite swingband, the one that you really were influenced by especially.

BUNKER

Woody Herman, primarily, and this would be like at the beginning of the First Herd, you know, Bill Harris, Flip Phillips, Pete Candoli, those people, Davey Tough, and then, of course, Don Lamond, whom we talked about, replacing Davey, but still with that same band, the same personnel. Then the formation of I guess what was called the First Herd, which was the Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, you know, that lineup.

CLINE

The “four brothers.”

BUNKER

Yes, the “four brothers” thing. That and probably Count Basie. I listened to [Stan] Kenton a lot. It took me a long time to outgrow that, because in later years I realized how kind of really pretentious and overblown all of that was, but it was so different than anything else that was going on at the time, and to an immature mind, it was easy to be captivated by that. So those were PX the real, real favorites, but, I mean, I would listen to anybody. As long as it was fifteen, sixteen guys playing for dancing, that was where my heart was.

CLINE

And we talked a bit about your first drum set, and we talked a bit about the transition from the swing style to the bebop style. I have to assume that at some point along the way here you got a different drum set.

BUNKER

Oh yes. I had had that drum set that my brother [George Bunker] gave me, I guess it was when he came back from the South Pacific once the [Second World] War was over, and he had been furloughed home. I don’t remember when he came home, but it was before Japan surrendered. He’d been wounded, not seriously, but enough so that it was time to be rotated home and all of that. So he came back in ’44, maybe very early ’45, so that’s when he showed up with a bass drum and a couple of cymbals and a tomtom, you know. Once I graduated from high school, which was in June of ’46, I was seventeen years old, and I couldn’t get anything going. I’d been in a number of the [American Federation of Musicians, Local 47] union since I was fourteen or fifteen, but there was no work. Sweeping floors in a factory someplace, and trying to figure out how the hell you go about meeting other musicians and getting something going. I couldn’t seem to get anything happening, which is, you know, pounding the pavements. I guess I may have mentioned that the hostilities were over, but a declaration of peace had not really happened yet. They were still drafting people for an indeterminate amount of time, and the GI Bill was going to go off in September of ’46. I talked to my mom [Clara Josephine Bunker]. I said, “What do you think? Should I just go on and enlist in the service and get that done with?” Because if you enlisted, you could go in for a year and a half. Guaranteed eighteen months. And she agreed with that. Somewhere along in there I’d seen an ad for a set of Slingerland drums, Radio Kings, at the union on the bulletin board or something. Have no recollection of what they cost, but I’m sure it was— You know, Radio Kings, Gene Krupa model, snare drum, rack tom, floor tom. It was probably a twenty-four-inch bass drum, and some stands stuff. I don’t remember if there were any cymbals. It may have even been a complete set of drums for a couple hundred bucks. So she took a loan on her insurance policy and got the drums, and went into the service and took those drums with me. So that was the first real honest-to-God— That’s a very lengthy answer to a short question.

CLINE

It’s okay.

BUNKER

But it was that, that got me past the pawn shop stuff that my brother found for me. Actual matching set of white pearl real honest-to-God professional drums, you know.

CLINE

Right. Which we would now covet as being vintage.

BUNKER

Oh yes.

CLINE

When you then got involved in playing bebop, did you go to a smaller bass drum?

BUNKER

I waited a little while. I replaced that drum set sometime in the mid-fifties, and I switched over to Ludwig and got smaller drums, and I was starting to work. You know, the first work that I was doing, when I went to the Lighthouse, that was that Radio King set of drums that I had, and the guys were really looking at the size of the bass drum. “Are you kidding?” [laughs] Because all of a sudden twenty-twos and even here and there a twenty was starting to show up, you know. Nobody was really tuning their bass drums that high. Nobody was really going for like a Tony Williams or a Jack DeJohnette sound, like a sixteen- or an eighteen-inch floor tom lying on its side with a pedal attached to it, you know. That came later, which made sense because it got the drum up out of the frequency range of the bass, so that you didn’t just muddy the bass. It was a separate voice, and it was much, much, much higher than what bass drums were at that time, when they started to be called kick drums. I still hate that term.

CLINE

I despise that term. [mutual laughter] Also, since we were talking about swingbands, you toured later with Maynard Ferguson’s big band.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

You talked a little bit about the somewhat arduous nature of the touring experience, but you didn’t go into much detail about some of the people in the band, and there are a couple of people in particular that I thought were rather interesting who were in that band. You mentioned Irene Kral.

BUNKER

Yes. When we left town, Joe Maini was the lead alto player, whom I had played with quite a bit and knew. There’s a tenor player that had been a friend of Maynard’s, who was an arranger, not highly skilled, but competent, named Willy Mayden. Anthony Ortega was on the band, “Batman.”

CLINE

Right. He’s one of the people I wanted to bring up, because we have an interview with him in our series.

BUNKER

That’ll be great.

CLINE

Yes. He’s one of the people that has been really overlooked, I think.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

What was it like working with Batman?

BUNKER

[gestures with his hands as though they are a bird in flight, and whistles eerily]. [mutual laughter] He is sweet as can possibly be. He’s a nice, nice man. He’s just kind of out there, you know, and I can’t really elucidate in what way that is, you know. Bob Burgess was on the band, Bobby Burgess, trombone player. There were two trombones. I don’t remember who somebody else was. Trumpets were Ed Leddy, who was an amazing player from Washington, D.C., who ended up giving up music and going into psychology. I don’t know what that was about. But a brilliant lead trumpet player. Joe Burnett was second trumpet, and he was the guy that married Irene Kral, and their daughter is a gifted cellist, works in town; Jody Burnett. A guy named Tom Slaney; I don’t know where he came from. They had three trumpets and then, of course, Maynard. Bass player. We had a couple of bass players. We weren’t blessed with strong ones. And a piano player’s name escapes me at the moment.

CLINE

Was it Bobby Timmons?

BUNKER

Bobby came later. Bobby replaced the guy that left town here, because Maynard took the band essentially from here, and when we got to New York, Joe Maini couldn’t work with the band because he had been busted in New York and couldn’t get a police card, and they were still adhering to that archaism. A guy named Jimmy Ford took Joe’s place and worked with the band. I guess he was living in New York, and it seemed that he was from Texas. He was a wild lunatic kind of an off-the-wall player. Baritone players. A black fellow named Tate Houston. I don’t know whatever happened to him. He was a good player. So this was ’57. We had a kind of integrated band. I think the original bass player, whose name I can’t remember, was from here and was a black guy also. And, you know, we worked the eastern seaboard. We were in and out of Birdland a lot, so we were working opposite the Hi-Lo’s, which were still an active touring group. That’s where I met Clare Fischer, when Clare was with the group, playing piano with them at Birdland. Worked in Boston; worked in Atlantic City; up and down, up and down the coast, just, you know, kept at that for— I mean, we’d worked out way across the country doing one-nighters, essentially, and I was playing drums and vibes, and setting up my own drums and vibes.

CLINE

Schlepping the whole shebang.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

But I did that for about six months and I said, “I think that’s enough.” I got to fulfill that wish, you know, to play with an almost big band. It was one short in each section, so three trumpets, two trombones, four saxes, and a girl singer.

CLINE

And by then you were already doing studio work out here.

BUNKER

Oh yes. I’d been doing that since ’52, ’53, you know. In fact, when Mel Lewis said he did not want to go and would I have eyes to do it, I said, “I’d better do this because I don’t know if I’m ever going to have a chance to do it again,” either because of my own economics and the fragility of the big band business. It was virtually nonexistent.

CLINE

You described the initial experience you had playing in the studios and how you felt like you were actually— I think the words you used were that you had no business being there. [Bunker laughs.] How did you adjust over time to more and more studio calls and their demands?

BUNKER

Well, it seemed like I kept being thrust into situations that I was kind of prepared for, not eminently prepared for, but somewhat. There was a man named Dave Klein, who was the older brother of Manny Klein, who was a legendary trumpet player in town, who was one of the big contractors. He was a contractor for Columbia Pictures, which had a staff orchestra at that time, still, and independent records, contracting for Decca [Records] and those groups, and Capitol [Records], on and on and on. Word got around, and, you know, I could play the vibraphone, I could play the drums and the kind of pop music that was going on at the time, and he had been a musician. I think he was a violinist. I just got the distinct feeling that every time I got a call from him it was for something that was a little more advanced than what I did before. I just had that feeling. I never talked with him about it. I never became particularly friendly with him. He was kind of a gruff man and stayed to himself. But each situation that I was thrust into, it seemed like there were a little bit more, and it was just like he was kind of finding out, which is what I think a really good contractor does. It’s not like you’re suddenly the new hot guy. And you don’t know what he can play, you don’t know what his abilities are and what the limits of his abilities are. And there were contractors at that time that were all musicians or ex-musicians, and had been active in that field and knew how to evaluate a player’s ability. And I think for their own reputations and for the reputation of an up-and-coming player, that that’s what they did, because that’s the way it worked, unlike today. [mutual laughter] There are many people that have ended up as being music contractors that had no musical background; either they’re secretaries or CPAs or maybe failed attorneys or whatever, but backed into it from that end of the business and have to rely totally on the judgment of trusted colleagues to tell them who’s good and who’s not.

CLINE

Indeed. And I imagine this also involved having to learn, or at least encounter more and more instruments that were new to you.

BUNKER

Yes. Exactly, because I had started acquiring instruments. I know that the first time I ever played a xylophone was at Decca Records, and it was like there was a xylophone in the storage room, and instead of it being on vibes, they wanted it to be on xylophone, and they said, “Well, you play xylophone, don’t you?” I said, “Oh, yeah, sure.” I didn’t even own a pair of xylophone sticks, but luckily there were some in the instrument, you know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And the balls-out egotism of youth, you know, like you jump off the building because you can’t get hurt because you’re young. You don’t know any better.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And I kept jumping off of those buildings in the studio and somehow landing on my feet, you know, and they’d say, “Oh, god, that’s great. You can do that. You can do that.” And I’d related earlier the experience of working with Bobby Short and getting involved in playing hand percussion and Latin instruments and so forth, and suddenly becoming enthralled with that.

CLINE

Yes. Right.

BUNKER

And when I’d worked with Peggy Lee, she always had a conga drummer. I mean, it was from Jack Costanzo to Chino Pozo, who was a cousin of Chano Pozo’s, and then she ended up with a wonderful player and a guy, named Carlos Mejilla, who apparently took his own life over some family kind of things. But we had worked together with Peggy, and one day he took me aside and he said, “Okay, you play good enough, you should have some good instruments,” and then he set me up with the very beginnings of the people that were here in town that were going to manufacture stuff like that, Gon Bops and Mariano Bobadilla and those people, and custom-made a pair of drums for me out of black walnut, and had Bobadilla make the hardware. It was just the beginnings of the wrench-tuned hardware. And from that I learned to play the conga drums. I still have those drums, and a lot of guys really like those drums. It’s possible now, you know, a lot of people, Toca and a lot of other people, make superb instruments, but at that time it was almost like you had to get them custom-made. They just didn’t exist. Pine barrels and some hardware stuck on there, and that was it, you know.

CLINE

Yes.

BUNKER

So I got a set of bells and I got a marimba someplace, kept watching the newspaper. I was single, I was living at home with my mother and I was starting to acquire instruments. Bought a pair of used timpani.

CLINE

I was about to ask. What about timpani? How did you get into learning how to get the pedal thing together?

BUNKER

Well, that took awhile, but during all of that fifties, even into the sixties, probably into the seventies, I didn’t play the timps that much. I had some drums, and I acquired more and more because I kept seeing that you had to have a lot, you know. I know that the standard complement for a symphony orchestra is four drums, maybe five, depending upon the literature. But I kept working studio calls where most of the time I did not play timpani, but I was working with other guys that did, and saw that it was pedal, pedal, pedal. The writers wrote whatever they felt like writing. They thought that anything was possible. They’d write you parts that you’d ideally have to play on a KAT, a MIDI [musical instrumental digital interface] controller, into a sampler, you know, but that didn’t come along until a lot later. Gradually my interests changed, and I guess sometime in the eighties I started paying more attention to the instruments and getting better drums, kind of reworking things. At the time, I guess it was in the eighties when Alan Ferguson and Jack Elliott formed what they referred to as “the Orchestra.” It underwent a lot of metamorphosis. It’s now the Hank [Henry] Mancini [Institute] Orchestra, or it’s something else. But they called it the Orchestra, then they called it the New American Orchestra, and then they renamed it something else, and now I think, after Jack passed away, it’s into another incarnation. I did a concert out at UCLA last year with them. But the percussion section was going to be Emil [Richards], Joe Porcaro, myself, a lady named Judy Chilnick, who had been a friend and colleague of Jack’s from Hart Conservatory back in, I think, New Haven, Connecticut [Hartford]. There would have been a rotating stable of drummers, depending upon who wanted what, you know, whether it was John Guerin or Harvey Mason or Steve Schaeffer. If you’re going to do a concert, you have whoever you want, you know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

Because we got all these guys. And Emil just said, “You play timps.” [mutual laughter] So I started playing timps and started playing in that context, and it was the first time that I’d really done that much, because I didn’t play timps that much in the studios. A lot of it was Lou Singer. At [Twentieth Century[-Fox [Film Corporation] it was a man named Hal Reese, who was ancient at that time, but could play. He had been at [Walt] Disney [Productions]; he’d worked on Fantasia . He ended up at the Fox studios, and he was still on call there even after the studio orchestra ceased to exist. He waited until he was in his eighties to retire.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

Very generous man. He always treated me with the utmost respect, didn’t call me “kid,” and kept kind of pushing me out there. Instead of hogging the difficult xylophone parts, he gave me the difficult xylophone parts. So it was almost like a mentoring thing that went on. One or two guys were paranoid with jealousy if they saw talent that maybe they didn’t have or couldn’t approximate and they’d step on you some kind of way, but there was only a couple of guys that were that way. Everybody else was really warm and wonderful, and ready to give advice, ready to help. “How do you do that?” You know. And tell you, and give you the right answer, not the wrong answer. [mutual laughter]

CLINE

Did you get many opportunities to play drum set in the way that you had grown accustomed?

BUNKER

Yes, because there was more and more of that happening. Once Shelly [Manne] came into town, I had a little brief window of opportunity there as a bridge from the older guys to the younger players. Johnny Mandel was starting to do films. It wasn’t long before Mancini was coming on the scene. These kinds of composers that insisted on people from the dance band world being in the orchestra even added to the studio orchestras. That was happening. Because the studio orchestras didn’t go out of existence until 1957, so that after that, then every orchestra that was called was essentially a freelance orchestra.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

But Mancini insisted on his players. I mean, Lionel Newman wanted to like salt the orchestra with every single person that had been on staff, and he’d say, “I’ll tell you what. You can have your string section, but I’ve got to have my brass. I’ve got to have my woodwinds. I’ve got to have my trumpets and my French horn players.” And just absolutely insisted on it, and apparently had enough clout that he was able to bring that off and tell the head of the music department of a major studio, you know, ‘If I don’t get that, I’m not doing the film.” So that pushed a whole lot of the guys from the dance band world into that very situation, and all of them were capable of doing the work. I mean, I used to be amazed. I’d say, “Where did these guys learn to play in all these time signatures and play all of this weird-ass music?” Somewhere in their background. Because I hadn’t had that kind of training. I was scuffling with that, you know. But with the kind of training that they’d all had, with classical, and then you didn’t realize how many of these guys had gone through Juilliard [School] or Curtis [Institute of Music] or Peabody [Conservatory] or some other place, you know, and had had strong classical backgrounds and then went into dance bands.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

So they had that to draw on.

CLINE

Right. And then when Shelly came to town—

BUNKER

When Shelly came to town, I’d had that little brief opportunity, window of opportunity to establish myself as a drummer. He immediately pretty much glommed on all the work, and what he wasn’t getting, Mel Lewis got, you know, because Mel had left Stan Kenton’s band as well. Stan Levey was around. But I mean, Shelly got the bulk of it. Shelly was the big name, and the Down Beat and Metronome poll winner, and the strong personality and strong player, and just immediately created an entire world of work for himself, you know. So that’s when we became friends, because I worked with him all the time as a percussionist. I mean, I had the opportunity to see all of the guys that played and how they played. I’ve worked with Hal Blaine forever on the beginning rock and roll days, and Earl Palmer and those guys, and knew who felt good to play with, knew who didn’t feel good to play with, from my point of view, you know. Mel Lewis was probably the most amazingly comfortable guy to play with. Shelly was a different thing, but I mean, there was a musicality to his playing that was very different in the sound of the drums. He always got a gorgeous sound out of his drums, and tape loved those drums. The microphone just captured that, and it went to tape, and you’d listen back and say, “Why can’t I get that sound? Why can’t I get that sound?”

CLINE

Yes. He also became the drummer who sort of personified the whole West Coast scene here.

BUNKER

Exactly.

CLINE

And you said that you got to the point where you worked with him a lot, you got to know him well. What else can you say about Shelly as a musician and as a person, and how do you assess now, all these years later, his influence on the music scene here and beyond?

BUNKER

He is still talked about today. He is revered today. There’s a cadre of older guys that got to know him and played with him, and if you go to lunch with four or five guys of a certain age, somehow or the other his name will come up, whether it’s the sense of humor, what he played, the bands that he had, the recordings that he did, you know. He will never be forgotten. The last time— Well, it’s gone now; they don’t even have it anymore that I know of, but the last time they rebuilt the scoring stage out at Universal [Pictures], they redid the drum booth and there was a plaque on the wall outside, with some musical notes and something, and the drum booth, the new drum booth, was dedicated to Shelly after he died. I don’t know if that’s there anymore.

CLINE

And he, of course, kept his studio career and his jazz career going.

BUNKER

Yes, right to the end.

CLINE

And eventually even opened up a club, which we’re going to talk about shortly. One of the things I wanted to ask, just before we get too far past this time period, you had mentioned, when we were talking about people on the scene, last time you had mentioned Ornette Coleman as somebody who clearly didn’t impress you particularly. I wanted to ask you if you specifically saw Ornette or his band playing in the area, and what you remember about that.

BUNKER

When he first came to town, I used to see him because he was frequenting the jam session scene, and he had this white plastic alto saxophone. An awful lot of people said, “What is that?” I think I saw the band a time or two. I said, “I don’t need to see them, because I don’t care for that.” It didn’t appeal to me.

CLINE

Do you remember where you saw them, by any chance?

BUNKER

Someplace down like in what is now called South Central L.A., down like in clubs on Figueroa [Street] or Central Avenue or Broadway, down in there someplace around Manchester [Avenue]. There were some clubs that were down Florence [Avenue], Manchester, Broadway, Figueroa, down in that area. There was a club, I can’t remember if it was called the Zebra Lounge, where I saw [John] Coltrane’s band, and it was down there someplace. But in the late fifties, early sixties, the only other time that I think I heard Ornette play was at the Village Vanguard, and it had to be during the time that I was with Bill [Evans], sometime in the sixties, and he had started playing the violin. Now, why I ended up there, I don’t know, because I said, “I’m not going to change my mind about that music and about the way he plays.” He gets a lot of press. Leonard Bernstein was in the club and enthralled with all of that. I said, “Lenny, that’s bullshit.” [laughs] “You’re out club-hopping and being hip, is what you’re doing.” But Ornette— That wasn’t any kind of music that particularly appealed to me.

CLINE

I just wondered, because you hear these tales of when he used to sit in with people and get kind of thrown off the bandstand. [Bunker laughs.] Do you remember if he had his kind of unkempt, sort of overgrown mass of hair? I guess he had quite a unique look at one point as well; everybody knew when he came around.

BUNKER

It seems like I did see him with Donald Cherry a couple of times. I don’t remember if the drummer was Ed Blackwell. I know Charlie Haden played with him a lot, but I don’t know that he played with him in the earlier days.

CLINE

And Bobby Bradford played with him early on, as well. Okay. I just wanted to get quite clear on that. One of the things that—

BUNKER

You know, just to close out that whole period, I don’t remember when it was, but I did get to play with Ben Webster a few times, and Ben was very nice and very cool. Did get to play with Oscar Pettiford a few times. Gerry [Gerald] Wiggins, quite a bit. Gerry’s got to be as old as salt at this point.

CLINE

He’s still playing.

BUNKER

And still playing. That, and then the whole exodus of the Woody Herman, Stan Kenton band people that became the naissance of the West Coast cool style thing, you know. Played with all those guys.

CLINE

Right. And Shelly opened a club, Shelly’s Manne-Hole.

BUNKER

1960.

CLINE

Right. And that, of course, became one of the premier venues for jazz music in the area. What do you remember about Shelly’s Manne-Hole, particularly in the early days?

BUNKER

Being in there all the time, because if you were going to go see Miles [Davis], Miles was working there, Horace Silver was working there, [Julian] “Cannonball” [Adderly] was working there. You know, the major acts now had a place in Los Angeles to go to, where they could come for a week or ten days or two weeks. So I was in there all the time. And when he didn’t have major people, then it was a place for the local guys to play, and that was one of the first places that I remember where there’d be a different band every night, and then Shelly’s band would work the weekends.

CLINE

That’s right. Yes.

BUNKER

And so I was in there frequently as a player, and over a ten-year period it became almost a home away from home. Funky, funny, silly place, but it seemed like the acoustics were good, the hamburgers were good, the prices were fair, and, you know, “Shell” had a good ten-year run with that joint. A lot of people, when he had to charge an admission for somebody like Miles, people would piss and moan about all the money that Shelly was making. Well, all the money was coming in and going to Miles, you know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

Because Miles didn’t show up out here without shipping his Ferrari, and somebody had to pay for that, you know. So it was the customers at the door. He had a very good contract with Columbia Records at that time, but, I mean, as best I remember it, he didn’t drive the car out here; he shipped it out.

CLINE

Wow. Fascinating.

BUNKER

He did like to live large, and had the means with which to do it.

CLINE

Yes. What do you remember about some of the locals who played there? I know that you played there, and we’re getting up to the Bill Evans story here, but do you remember—

BUNKER

Clare Fischer frequently. Singers sometimes worked there with Irene on occasion. Ruth Price was very popular there. Shelly liked her. And Irene was really, truly an amazing singer, truly amazing singer. Paul Horn had a quintet that worked there frequently, and I worked in there playing both drums and vibes with him, depending upon the situation. Bud Shank. Any number of people. Probably Stu Williamson, trumpet player, Claude [Williamson]’s brother. Worked in there with Zoot on a couple of occasions. That was toward the later sixties. God, who all? Frank Morgan was— Well, I don’t know if Frank was around. Frank apparently had been a bad boy and he did some time, and when that was, when he was off the scene, because I don’t think I ever played with Frank. I’d known of him from when he was quite young, but somehow our paths never crossed. I never happened to play in a group of his. Ralph Peña, played with him there. A wonderful bass player whose name I’m not thinking of, a white guy. Albert Stinson. I played in there with him. I don’t remember who with. He was a bitch, and then he killed himself. Drug OD, wasn’t it?

CLINE

I don’t remember now, but, yes, he died young.

BUNKER

Yes. Another brilliant talent snuffed out.

CLINE

Yes.

BUNKER

Played in there with Joe Maini a lot. This was certainly after Maynard. But he was kind of a regular in there. Lunatic, but, boy, could he play. Goddamn, he could play.

CLINE

In this period that we’re talking about here, you got the gig that was one of the most visible gigs, probably, that you’ve had in terms of the international jazz world, which is with the great jazz pianist Bill Evans.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Can you sort of trace the genesis of that particular experience?

BUNKER

Bill had exploded on the scene with the Everybody Digs Bill Evans album, and one of the ones he did with Miles in ’59, I think it was, whether it was Kind of Blue, Sort of Blue, whichever.

CLINE

Kind of Blue, yes.

BUNKER

And I was dumbstruck. I mean, I had never paid that kind of attention to a piano player before. Prior, I had heard Horace Silver a lot, Bobby Timmns, John Lewis with the MJQ [Modern Jazz Quartet], and la-da-la-da-la-da, but I mean, this guy, you know— I never was a big fan of Oscar Peterson’s, and if I would dare say that to a pianist, they would want to like break my knuckles, because for them Oscar was a god.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

But I said, “He doesn’t touch my heart.”

CLINE

Right. A lot of chops.

BUNKER

All the chops in the world, but so what. But Bill suddenly just tore my head off. I found myself listening to nothing but him. I took everything off the turntable. I was still living at home with my mother, and listening to that music, listening to that music. He finally came to L.A. in, I believe, ’62, for the first time. Scotty [Scott LaFaro] was gone, and it seems me that he showed up by himself. Paul Motian had had a commitment, and he didn’t come with a bass player. I think he played with Red Mitchell; I’m not positive. But he came to the Manne-Hole and Shelly played with him a little bit when he was there. Most of the time he wasn’t there. So they played as a duo. Chuck Israels had had a commitment. Chuck was playing with him at the time, but he couldn’t come out for this gig. He came out toward the end of it. All of this, I’m hoping it’s accurate. There’s hardly anybody to confirm it with. But I was in there most nights, listening. One evening I was there and Clare Fischer was there. Clare knew Chuck Israels, and the story that I’d heard, or read, was that Clare approached Chuck and said, “See the guy sitting down at the end of the bar?” A kind of elegantly dressed, bearded guy, watching intently. And Chuck said, “Yeah.” Clare said, “I think it would be very interesting if you invited him to sit in with you guys.” And Chuck said, “Oh, really?” “Yeah.” “Okay.” So they invited me to sit in, and I played a set with them. I felt like that [holds hand out to indicate quivering nervousness], and yet I was completely comfortable, maybe because I’d been listening to him so long and I had absorbed his way of thinking so much, that it’s almost like I could anticipate what he was going to play. I knew what he was going to play as he played it. They invited me to finish out the gig, which was another couple of weeks, and I antagonized a few people because I had record dates for most of those nights and I canceled all of them.

CLINE

Oh, wow.

BUNKER

And the guy said, “You can’t—.” I said, “Listen. I’m sorry. I won’t be there.” “You can’t cancel without giving the—,” you know. I said, “I’m going to go to RCA and play this stupid Hawaiian music and not play with Bill? Shit,” you know. Within a year he came back and invited me to join the group. We recorded, brought in equipment, recorded there. I was married at the time, and I spoke to the lady about it. I said, “Jesus, should I go or not go?” Because now I’m a full-blown studio musician.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

Had a mortgage, had a house, on and on. No kids. She was an eminently practical woman. She said, “I wouldn’t dare suggest to you what you do with your life and your career. That’s for you to decide, even though I’m involved.” But she said, “I think, knowing how you feel about him, that if you didn’t do that, you would hate yourself the rest of your life.”

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And I said, “I’ll send for you.” [mutual laughter]

CLINE

Okay. I’m going to fast-forward this so that we don’t miss anything. We’ll pause for a moment.

1.7. TAPE NUMBER: IV, SIDE TWO MARCH 27, 2003

CLINE

Everything appears to be in working order.

BUNKER

Okay.

CLINE

So on that first experience that you had playing with Bill Evans, when you sat in and said you felt comfortable, even though maybe a little adrenalized, well, first off, let me say that— Let me start over. He had this what was now considered a classic, very famous trio just prior to this time, with Paul Motian and Scott LaFaro. That era was over. Scott LaFaro was no longer with us. In some ways, similar to the situation you had coming in with Gerry Mulligan, you were now going to replace a drummer who I would have to say was stylistically very different.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And I was also reminded of what you were saying last time, about Shelly Manne and his technique, or perhaps slight deficiency of technique, in that Paul is another guy who is certainly not the kind of player you would say is loaded with chops.

BUNKER

No. [laughs]

CLINE

Let’s put it that way. And yet really fit into the music and helped create an identity for that trio that was indelible. Did you deal with that precedent at all, or did you just, as you did with the Gerry Mulligan gig, just sit down and play your way?

BUNKER

Straight ahead. Went straight ahead. Because I said, “I don’t play the way he plays and I’m not playing with a bass player that plays the way Scotty did.”

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

Chuck, to me, was an okay player.

CLINE

Right. With a very unenviable pair of shoes to step into, yes.

BUNKER

Yes. You know, I mean, he really had the hot seat to walk into. And I was surprised; I would have thought that either Gary Peacock or somebody like Steve Swallow, who I think were around at that time, and Bill had heard and Bill had maybe even played with, but maybe he—

CLINE

Yes, actually Gary did play with Bill briefly.

BUNKER

Yes, but somehow that either didn’t work, as far as chemistry, or they didn’t want to be involved. Who knows.

CLINE

Gary was off into playing more avant-garde stuff at that point.

BUNKER

Yes. And Steve.

CLINE

Yes, I know. That would be it. [laughs]

BUNKER

But anyway, Chuck was an okay player, but he certainly didn’t play like Scotty, and I didn’t see any reason to try to emulate the way Paul played. I didn’t play the way he played, and was interested in doing my own thing.

CLINE

How did you like the way Paul played in that group?

BUNKER

In that group and with Scotty, that’s the defining sound of the group, you know. It really kind of defined the way that was. In retrospect, a lot of the recordings I did, I never did really care for the way I played with him. A lot of people seemed to think it was truly wonderful, but I became very critical of my own playing. I liked the way Marty Morell sounded with him, and Marty was there for many, many years. I didn’t hear enough of the group with Elliot Zigmund. There was another guy that was there briefly after I left, two drummers, and then Marty and Eddie Gomez were there for a lengthy period. I loved the way Joe LaBarbera played with him.

CLINE

I did, too.

BUNKER

Joe and—

CLINE

Marc Johnson.

BUNKER

And Marc Johnson really sounded wonderful with him.

CLINE

But in retrospect, you weren’t that happy with your playing?

BUNKER

Not really. Not really. I don’t know why.

CLINE

Don’t know why?

BUNKER

Just— [mutual laughter]

CLINE

Well, it’s interesting, because you’re more of a driving player than Paul, and Bill, of course, had also recorded in a trio earlier with Paul Chambers and Philly Joe [Jones].

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And I would have to place you somewhere between, say, Paul and Philly Joe in that regard. Bill even later played with Jack DeJohnette, which is another hard-driving kind of player. But historically, of course, so much attention has been placed on those earlier recordings of Paul and LaFaro, and yet I think that the quality of those recordings from the period you played with Bill are overlooked, undeservedly, I think. Do you have any feelings about the music beyond your own playing now, since you’ve covered that, now that you look back on it and see it in context of a whole musician’s career?

BUNKER

Well, the first things that we did when I joined him were done live. That’s the Manne-Hole. There were two or three nights and he picked what he wanted to release from that. Later, after his death, all the rest of it got released, the stuff that he absolutely did not want released.

CLINE

That’s what happens.

BUNKER

And that’s the way that cookie goes.

CLINE

Yes.

BUNKER

We did record— I think probably the best thing I did with him was the Trio ’65, and that was done at Rudy van Gelder’s in New Jersey. The version of “Nardis” that we did, I’ve been told by guys and drummers, they said, you know, it’s hellacious and heroic and “Where the hell did that come from?” and on and on and on. I was very flattered one time when I first got to be friendly with Jeff Hamilton. He had found a CD of that in Japan. And I think portable CD players were happening by then, and so he played it on the plane trip coming back from Japan, and he said, “Don’t you know that the drum solo in ‘Nardis’ is required listening and practice with all of my students?”

CLINE

Oh, wow. [mutual laughter]

BUNKER

And that coming from the guy I consider one of the best jazz drummers that’s around today. So, you know, that was very flattering. There’s bootleg stuff from France and from Sweden and all like that, but the quality is terrible, and those were back in my drinking days, and the less heard, the better off, you know.

CLINE

Of course, a lot has been said or revealed or at least discussed about Bill Evans not just as a musician, but his various personal problems and things. What was it like working with and touring with Bill Evans as a person, as well as a musician?

BUNKER

It was painful. It was painful to see what he was doing to himself. Although, I related one incident to a friend over the weekend, when I first joined Bill in ’63, I had an Aston-Martin, not the James Bond version, but an earlier iteration of that car. Great-looking thing, British racing green, white leather upholstery, chrome muffler sticking out the back, an aluminum body. You know, this whole thing. That was my car.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

We were working, and one night Bill pulled me aside and he said, “I have to make a run downtown. Could you take me down there?” And I went, “Oh, Christ. What do I do? I don’t want to say no, but I don’t want to say yes, because I’ve got a hunch what it is.”

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And it wasn’t down the street or around the corner; it was downtown. I ran him downtown, in fear and trembling, because I said, “We could both be busted, and there goes the car.” Drove back. It was a lengthy intermission, because we were working at the Manne-Hole. Drove back, parked the car, and I finally screwed up the nerve, I said, “Bill, please don’t ever ask me to do that again.” He said, “You got it.” And he never did. He never did intrude that aspect of his life into my personal space, because I drank, but I didn’t do any kind of drugs, and he would certainly be aware of that. We never did generate any kind of friendship. I tried to get next to him, spend some time with him, but he really had a wall up. His daily life, his personal life, it seemed that it consisted of scoring, and how he did all that and how he managed that, there are always people around to help you do that, you know, when you’re traveling and no wheels and really not that much money, you know. But it always seemed that there were people ready to write a prescription for something or show up with something, and like that. As I say, it was painful, but it wasn’t like he inflicted that on me, and I don’t think on Chuck either. He took care of those needs his own way, and only occasionally he’d either get some bad stuff or hurt himself. He apparently loved to shoot himself in the hands, because that’s why his hands were so grossly enormous-looking, puffy and swollen and all that. There was one story that had gone around, that he’d hurt himself, he’d shot himself in the right hand. And he was left-handed. But he was working at the Vanguard and the hand was useless; he couldn’t move it. He played the whole gig with his left hand, and a lot of people weren’t even aware that that had transpired. He somehow was able to pull that off. But when I finally left in ’65, we had come back from a European tour, been to London, Ronnie Scott’s, we’d been to the Golden Circe in Stockholm, we’d done radio broadcasts at Radio Fusion in Paris and around, and played the Café Au Go-Go in New York, had been there six weeks, a long gig.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

And worked out way back across the country, Oklahoma City, I think, and we may have worked at Shelly’s and then we went up to the Trident in Sausalito, a beautiful club that was right on a pier, right on a wharf overlooking the ocean. Sailboats would just come up and tie up, and you could look out the window and eat dinner and listen to the Bill Evans Trio. He hurt himself again, either in the hand or his hepatitis had started to kick up, because he had gotten to the point where he needed ten, twelve hours of bed rest a day. His liver was that far shot.

CLINE

Already.

BUNKER

I mean, he wasn’t on dialysis, but if he got twelve hours of rest a day, that worked for him. So he couldn’t show up for work, and the owner called Jimmy Rowles and flew Jimmy up, and we played a couple of nights. But then it was like, “You’re fired. The band is fired.” Bill couldn’t fulfill his obligations. That was at the point where I’d been on the road with him for about a year and a half, and I just said, “Okay, that’s enough. I don’t need to do this anymore.” So I packed up the Aston-Martin and drove back to L.A. I saw him from time to time. I’d go down and see him on a very limited basis at the Manne-Hole. By this time he had Eddie Gomez and Andy. No. Marty. Marty Morell. But Bill would always insist that I sit in, and I didn’t want to. I just didn’t feel— I said, “I’ve played with him. I’ve said what I’m going to say with him,” and I didn’t particularly care for Marty’s drums. He made them sound wonderful, but, you know.

CLINE

I know.

BUNKER

And you know how that thing is. You of all people know. To keep from getting pressed into playing, I just stopped going, you know. So it had been a long, long, long time before I ever saw him again. I don’t recall that I did. I never saw him play with Marc and Joe. Bought records and listened to them, but said, “That part of my life is gone, it’s over with. I did that,” you know.

CLINE

And now it’s the mid-sixties. I wanted to catch up with what’s going on with your family. You went at some point from living at your mom’s to remarrying?

BUNKER

I married. I had been married when I was just in the army. That ended. I married in 1960, no children, a lady who— That ended in 1972. Nothing dramatic; just busy working a lot, making money, putting some away.

CLINE

Where did you move to when you got married?

BUNKER

Up in Laurel Canyon, up off of Wonderland and then Wonderland Park Avenue, back up into the hills in that area, and lived right across the street from Clare Fischer and right next door to Conte Candoli, who was my next-door neighbor. [mutual laughter]

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

Had a little house and this piano [points to piano in the room], and just, you know, life goes on. Down at the Manne-Hole a lot, doing a lot of record dates, doing a lot of pictures, and just living that kind of lifestyle.

CLINE

How did your mom fare over the years?

BUNKER

She did fine.

CLINE

Did she ever remarry or anything?

BUNKER

She did, very briefly, when I was still in high school, to some guy. I didn’t get next to him. I’m trying to remember. It wasn’t like he moved in with us. She did get married, but I don’t recall the guy being around that much, you know. I was also going to school and then into the service. It was probably right around that period. They divorced, and then she remained single until her death in the nineties. She lived to be eighty-four, eight-five. But she had the house on Forty-seventh Street that she and my dad [Frank Sumner Bunker] bought in 1937, stayed there. After I left, she rented the house to a black family, and eventually when it really became time for her to leave there, just the infirmities of age, she sold to them, and I helped her move out to the [San Fernando] Valley someplace. She ended up in Utah with my brother [George Bunker]. My brother and his family had moved up there. He’d apparently never been happy in L.A. He had two daughters, and decided that it was time to go to Clearfield, Utah, which is outside of Ogden, the northern part of the state, and that’s where he is now. He’s eighty, eighty-one. But Mom lived out her days, had little strokes and things.

CLINE

And then you’ve mentioned more than a couple of times your drinking, and this, I guess, was going on through this second marriage and your studio work and this time with Bill Evans and all that was going on. How did you eventually give that up, get that under control?

BUNKER

1967, Leigh [Lee?] and I—her name was Leigh—took a vacation to Europe. I’d been there working, but this time was going to be an absolute vacation. That’s when I bought my car, which I have. It’s out in the garage to this day, thirty-five years ago. Ordered it from an American dealer, took delivery at the factory in Stuttgart, Sindelfingen, and the idea was to go pick up the car and drive around Europe for a couple of months. We had the money, you know. Our mortgage wasn’t that big. We’d been saving money. We didn’t have kids. So there was money in the bank. Picked up the car and drove to Vienna, and four days after I got the car, I got into one of those very European intersections and got nailed by a lady cab driver driving another Mercedes. It was my first absolutely brand-new car, first one. I’d had cars that were supposed to have been new before, but the Aston was supposed to have been new, but it turned out it was very used. The car got torn up, so there went all of the plans for the driving trip of Europe. I got some cracked ribs. She was unhurt. But the car had to go in the shop for the remaining two months of the vacation. So it was train to Rome and then train to Venice and then Florence, because I had already been to the Hungarian embassy in Vienna and got a visa, which was still under tight communist control, because everybody said, “Listen, as long as you’re that close and you’re driving, you’ve got to go to Budapest,” so that was the plan. Well, that’s gone. And driving to Rome and driving to Florence, you know, we were going to drive down into Hungary, and there’s a ferry that you could take across the Adriatic [Sea] to the Italian peninsula, you know, and then drive back up through Italy and then drive through the wine country of France, and then send the car home and fly home. All of that was shot down. So when I got back from all of that trip, things came to a head, and I really knew I had to get the boozing under control, because it was out of control. It hadn’t really been affecting me that much as far as work was concerned. Now it was starting to, and I just said, “Okay.” I went to a shrink for, oh, about a year and a half, and like he said, I don’t know if we’ll ever have an “Aha! That’s why you do that,” or did that, but the thing was, I did quit. So my attitude that I’ve maintained for a long time is that I somehow managed to get an entire lifetime’s worth of boozing done in fifteen years.

CLINE

Right. Wow. Well, good for you, that you were able to quit. A different thing. Also by now, obviously you’re very established in the studios. The jazz world is changing. The music itself is changing.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

I’m guessing the jazz scene here in town was changing as well. How can you describe some of the changes that were happening in the sixties by now, especially from the mid- to the later sixties when things were really starting to move quickly?

BUNKER

The rock and roll thing was happening very heavily. I’m trying to remember when the so-called jazz fusion movement started to happen.

CLINE

That was probably starting around ’70, or ’69, ’70.

BUNKER

Yes. But, you know, the Manne-Hole was still going up until 1970, ’71. Donte’s was going in the Valley, and the Lighthouse was still going on. I remember going to the Lighthouse once or twice to see some groups, and I thought, “Jesus Christ, it feels like I’m driving to San Diego,” you know, just trying to get down there from up here.

CLINE

Yes. True.

BUNKER

And I ended up not going there anymore. I don’t know when Howard [Rumsey] started Concerts by the Sea. Was that probably in the eighties? Late seventies or early eighties.

CLINE

It was in the seventies. Rudy Onderwyzer took over the Lighthouse after Shelly’s closed.

BUNKER

Yes. I went to Concerts by the Sea once, and it was to see a kind of fusion rock and roll jazz band that I can’t remember the name of it now. But there weren’t that many places in Hollywood. There weren’t that many places that were around, and it seemed like Donte’s got the bulk of it. I think Dick Whittinghill’s out in the Valley had a restaurant, and Jimmy Rowles would occasionally play there. But it didn’t seem like bands played there, you know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

It seemed like I was not playing that much jazz. I really kind of walked away from that. The phone was like not ringing a lot for me to play, and it could have been that the music for me and for my taste was just kind of stagnating, you know.

CLINE

What about some of the changes that were happening in the music, with the emergence of so-called free jazz, especially during the tumult of the late sixties, a lot of the stuff that was happening?

BUNKER

I really didn’t care to get into that. I remember there was that whole jazz in poetry thing that had happened in the fifties, and I got sucked into that for a couple of minutes. Then I said, “Either tell your story or play the music, but I’m going to sit here and try to improvise a background score for you spouting—?” Stupid. For me it was just totally stupid and nothing I wanted to be involved in.

CLINE

Right. You had mentioned some of the really influential drumming revolutionaries who had come up by now: Elvin Jones, Tony Williams. What was your feeling about some of the developments as far as the playing of the music was going at this point?

BUNKER

Staggering. Staggering. Elvin was, you know, an absolute revelation. He was an amazing gorilla sitting down behind a set of drums, with total independence of every limb. I mean, when I used to see him with Coltrane, I’d stand behind him, because you could do that at Shelly’s. The bandstand was set up in such a way that there was a path that went around behind the stand, and you could stand behind him and watch him play. And I said, “I don’t believe what I’m seeing.” I’d just stand there and open my eyes as wide as I could, and saw total independence, like it was four guys playing. [laughs] Tony was amazing. Amazing, that sound that he got, that gigantic cymbal, that funny cymbal that he had at that time, and the shit that he was playing. He put me away. Jack DeJohnette, to a certain extent, who was probably more like Tony than anybody else, and followed that same path. He’s a great-ass drummer. And I can’t really think of anybody that has killed me since then, you know, with the exception of Jeff Hamilton. I’ve heard the things that he’s done with the big bands, Bill Holman’s band. And I got to work with him with Diana Krall at the Universal Amphitheater last year, and to hear him in that setting, the rhythm section was Diana, John Clayton was playing bass, Jeff, and guitar player, Gerald Wiggins. Not Gerald Wiggins. Gerald Wilson.

CLINE

Anthony Wilson.

BUNKER

Anthony Wilson, who is a good player, good, good player. Do you know anything about him? Because Gerald is obviously black. Is Anthony an adopted son or his natural son?

CLINE

I believe he’s his natural son, but Gerald’s wife is Mexican, as far as I know. And I don’t know how the gene pool all kind of fell out there.

BUNKER

Yes, because he does not look like he’s descended from a black man. That’s why I wondered if he could be adopted or what.

CLINE

I don’t know the story.

BUNKER

But, you know, with the happenstance of what they used to call mesagination, anything is possible, you know. Look at Halle Berry. If that’s not an argument for combining races, I don’t know what the hell is, you know.

CLINE

Right. And you got to see in person last week, I guess [referring to Bunker’s participation in the orchestra at the seventy-fifth Academy Awards show]. How long did it take for your sort of jazz listening regularity start to wind down? You were working steadily, and also the jazz scene was changing as, I suppose, with the ascendency of rock and roll, it was winding down as well to some degree.

BUNKER

Yes, and I tried to learn how to play a little rock and roll. I used to listen to the radio for some of that, because I figured it was necessary for me to know how to do that, but I wasn’t really getting called to do those kinds of calls.

CLINE

What was your feeling about the music itself?

BUNKER

It’s a paycheck. Paycheck, paycheck. But I mean, I was there when Earl Palmer came to town from New Orleans, and did a lot of early dates with him, and then all of that whole period with Hal Blaine, playing with those guys. Jim Gordon, who may have been a little bit more musical player, because at least Earl started as a jazz drummer. Hal had a pop sensibility to him, played with Patti Page and singers, more than in the jazz idiom. Shelly was around, still. Irv Cottler was still around, playing mostly with [Frank] Sinatra, doing shows. Alvin Stoller was still around. Irv and Alvin were still older guys from another sensibility, from the big band era. I’m trying to think of who some of the other drummers were. Outside of Earl, Hal, and Jim, there weren’t that many guys that I played with that were like the rock and roll drummers at that time. It seemed like that was pretty much it.

CLINE

Hal Blaine probably took care of most of the work single-handedly.

BUNKER

Yes. What’s his name? John Robinson didn’t come along until later—“J.R.”

CLINE

Right. Well, certainly during the seventies and on in there when the pop music industry got bigger and bigger and you started to see more guys, you started to see people like Jim Keltner, and you mentioned John Guerin.

BUNKER

Yes. John had an amazing career there during the sixties and seventies, because he was all over the place. It was like suddenly Hal was out and John was doing everything. I forgot the— He is one of my favorite drummers. He always has been. I don’t know why I didn’t think to mention him. But I mean, he’s one of the few guys that could make sense out of rock and roll and yet still make sense as a jazz drummer, both in a small group and with a band that Mike Barone had, that played at Donte’s every Wednesday night. I was always there every Wednesday, because they just turned the joint out. The charts were great, the players were great. Tom Scott was in the band, Pete Christlieb, good brass section, Alan Broadbent playing a lot of the time, playing piano. I forget who some of the bass players were, probably [Chuck] Berghofer a lot. And John just getting it on, just getting it on.

CLINE

Let’s see how we’re doing here. You also, just before I forget, I wanted to follow up on this. At the end of the session last time, you mentioned that you were playing a gig where on the bill with you was the young Lenny Bruce. Is there anything that you want to add about that before we—

BUNKER

Just that he was amazing. It was just before he rose to some kind of prominence and got his picture in Time magazine and everybody started calling him a “sick comic.” I remember just being absolutely dumbstruck by his mind and what he had to say. Being in a club and seeing, if he happened to use the wrong word, some guy wanting to get up and punch him in the mouth for saying that word in front of his girlfriend or something, you know, those kinds of things. But taking the potshots that he did at the police and at religion and organized religion, you know. What was one of the routines about the guy that was standing back in the back of the room, it was Jesus Christ. He said, “It’s the guy that’s glowing.” [mutual laughter]

CLINE

Yes. Well, they were different times.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And did you get caught up in any way into all the cultural changes that were going on in the sixties and in that whole particular scene?

BUNKER

I wore a beard. I wore my hair long. I bought white shoes and white pants. [mutual laughter] Did all of that, you know.

CLINE

Right. Well, I think what I’d like to do is call it for now, and we’ll continue next time with sort of focusing and maybe finishing out your evolution in the studios here in L.A. and your move away from jazz altogether into your life today. Okay? Does that seem good to you?

BUNKER

That’s fine, yes.

CLINE

Okay. Great. Thank you for today.

1.8. TAPE NUMBER: V, SIDE ONE APRIL 3, 2003

CLINE

Today is April 3rd, 2003. This is Alex Cline interviewing Larry Bunker once again at his home up on the hill next to Griffith Park. Another gorgeous day. Good morning.

BUNKER

Good morning.

CLINE

I wanted to follow up with a few questions that relate to our last session, before heading on into the sixties, seventies, and beyond, and your work in the studios here in L.A. One of the things I wanted to ask you about is relating to your jazz days here in L.A., a couple of things related to this. I actually own a video [Jazz Scene USA: Shelly Manne and Shorty Rogers] that has an episode of a TV show that used to be on, called Jazz Scene USA. It has you playing with Shorty Rogers and his Giants. And for anyone wanting see you in action back then, it’s a good document. Your playing, I think, besides being impressive and excellent, it’s very authoritative and both sensitive and powerful, I think, and shows a little bit of your— Perhaps the ramifications of your experience with playing with some big bands, the way you drive the band, set up figures, play solos pretty aggressively, and with a lot of dynamics. I wanted to, first off, know if you had any feelings about this, since this is now— It’s still out there. People can see it. It shows you in the context of what has become known as the West Coast jazz sort of set, certainly Shorty Rogers being one of the really major figures, as far as that goes. Do you have any feelings about those days, that music, that particular document or anything?

BUNKER

I really don’t recall which particular show that is, or was, because there were a few of them. I think that we did something with some kind of show that Hugh Hefner hosted for a while.

CLINE

Playboy After Dark.

BUNKER

Yes. And there is another video that was hosted by an L.A. disc jockey named Frank Evans. That surfaced not too long ago. I hadn’t seen that.

CLINE

I haven’t seen that.

BUNKER

I’ve been told that there’s one that’s around in which I was playing piano, and I don’t even know what group that was, you know.

CLINE

Wow. This has Lou Levy and Gary Lefevre and Gary Peacock, and you do an arrangement of “Greensleeves,” among other things.

BUNKER

I was wondering who the bass player was, because I know that Ralph Peña played with Shorty various times. I think one album we did was with him. Again, all of this would have been in the sixties, I’m sure.

CLINE

Right. This is ’62.

BUNKER

Yes. Lou, Gary Lefevre, who I just played with about a year ago, for the first time probably since then, you know. [mutual laughter] He came up from San Diego and we did something out in the Valley for a guy that used to be associated with [radio station] KLON, a disc jockey. He has some kind of an annual jazz thing out there, for which I got paid—I was playing vibes—and he stiffed my cartage people. I finally ended up paying them, you know. You love finding out who you don’t work for.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

If it costs you money out of your pocket, then there’s not too much point. Anyway, my feelings about that period, they’re mixed. I was thankful that I was working. I was thankful that I was getting a chance to play. It wasn’t necessarily quite the kind of music that I wanted to play. I wanted to play, really, in a much more aggressive New York style, manner, and ran into a lot of constraints about that, you know. I was getting told to play with brushes a lot.

CLINE

Right. That’s come up, indeed.

BUNKER

I remember working at a club—I don’t remember the name of it; it was on Hollywood Boulevard—I think it was Sardi’s. Hollywood Boulevard just next to Vine [Street]. With Stan Getz. I got a lot of, “Softer, softer, less. Brushes. Don’t play.” You know. This was right after he had gotten out of jail for trying to bust a drugstore for, you know— Something happened there with him. The group was Paul Moore playing piano, and might have been Ralph Peña, and myself. But that was my first real encounter with playing with Stan.

CLINE

How was that?

BUNKER

It was all right.

CLINE

Other than the instructions.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

The limitations.

BUNKER

Later on, in ’65 when I went to Japan with him and Gary Burton, he didn’t give me that much instruction. But on this earlier occasion, you know, he’d been in the joint. He’d done like three months, six months with the county something, and let’s say that his social skills were rusty. But I did see firsthand one of those kind of legendary things that he was always capable of doing, you know, whether it’s apocryphal or not, that when he joined Benny Goodman’s band at the age of seventeen, after about the first four nights he just closed the book; had the book memorized. And there have always been stories of him that relate to that. Johnny Mandel came into the club and he had a tune, 32-bar AABA form, just, you know, straight ahead, but nice changes in a nice melody, and a nice title. It was called “Sterno, Not Pernot.” He had written the thing out, so Stan had to read it and transpose it. Music was up on the piano. And Stan played the head through twice, just eyeballing it, probably the first time for the melody, the next time for really enabling the changes. Then went ahead and played ten choruses, sensational. And when it came time to take it out, he didn’t refer to the music, you know. Now, it was not that complicated a song, but still, you know, still, to nail it after looking at it two times, and then not have to refer back to it, you know. I was definitely impressed with that.

CLINE

That is impressive.

BUNKER

Yes. But anyway, back to your question about the West Coast thing. You know, mixed feelings, just because I really wanted to do an Elvin Jones, you know, and was not allowed to.

CLINE

Right. Right. I mean, I wondered about it when I reviewed the video, because when you get your moments, you come through pretty strong. And I remembered what you were saying about everyone wanting you to play brushes and whatnot, and I thought, well, you know, I can see where the conflict is here. Yes. I know what that’s like.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

One of the things I wanted to ask you about specifically in relation to this is, the name of Gary Peacock has come up in the past, but here you are playing with him. What do you remember about Gary back in those days, when he was just starting out?

BUNKER

I had played in a group that Bud Shank had, where I played piano and vibes, and Scott LaFaro was here, and I did get to play with him in that context. That was before he went back east. Now, this had to have been ’60, ’61. And then Gary Peacock took Scott’s place with that group, and we were just working a night here, a night there, you know, a hotel down in Hollywood, a club in Malibu; around, you know. We weren’t ever— I don’t remember working on a steady basis anyplace, like a week or ten days at a time, you know. May have played at the Manne-Hole; places in the Valley that I don’t even remember, you know. But Gary was a very interesting player. I didn’t get to know him very well, because I only saw him when we did those gigs, and they were, you know, not on any kind of a regular basis. It seemed that— I realized that he would be certainly a player to watch, and he was a fun player to play with. He was already into some kind of macrobiotic diet thing, and going through all kinds of that stuff, you know. He was very intense; very intense guy. Kept kind of to himself, so I never did really get to know him that well.

CLINE

And this made me wonder, watching him play, and certainly even in the context of the performance on this video, aside from the issues we just discussed, relating to your playing, Gary’s soloing gets pretty adventurous, even in the context of that music.

BUNKER

Yes. Well, I think he had come probably under the spell of Scotty and what Scotty was trying to develop, as did an awful lot of bass players. I mean, all of a sudden this multiple picking with two or three fingers at the same time.

CLINE

Right. Right.

BUNKER

I remember at one point Red Mitchell getting into that, and saying how hard it was to do, just talking about, you know, coordinating which fingers are moving here, and moving fingers in a way that you’re not accustomed to here, you know, in order to get what they were doing, plus all of that up into the thumb position stuff, you know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

I know of nobody that was doing anything like that before Scotty. And then after he suddenly showed everybody the way, everybody did it, you know.

CLINE

Right. Drummers and bass players, it’s always the endlessly interesting interaction, the relationship. Most drummers and bass players have favorite drummers or bass players that they like to play with, where there was a great degree of rapport, of comfort, of really hooking up and having the same kind of groove. Were there bass players that felt particularly simpatico with?

BUNKER

Yes. One of the first ones, early guys that I played with, was Joe Mondragon, who had been with Woody [Herman]’s band, and then had become a highly regarded studio player; settled in L.A., lived here, had a place in Glendale where he could have his horses and be the Indian that he was, you know. He was Apache. He was born on a reservation, I believe, and went back to Arizona when he retired from active playing here. He went back to Arizona, New Mexico, and I think whether he moved back onto a reservation— I don’t know whether he did that. But anyway, he was good. He was a very different player. His choice of notes was not always, you know, the best. A bass player that I enjoyed playing with very much was Max Bennett. We worked together. We worked together a lot. We worked with Peggy Lee in the fifties, and he became a very facile studio player, knew every tune, knew all of the correct changes, never played a wrong note, you know. Not a particularly inventive soloist, but, you know, good solid player. Ralph Peña I liked playing with. He was good. It was tragic; he went to Mexico City for something and was in an auto accident that I think permanently damaged one of his arms, and then I forget what he died of. I don’t know if it was— I can’t remember if it was a result of that accident. But finally, when we get into the sixties with Marty Budwig and Chuck Berghofer, then they became kind of the stalwarts, you know, and both of them worked with Shelly [Manne] a lot. Jimmy Bond was a pretty good player, and he gradually drifted out of music and into real estate, at which he’s very successful. He’s probably my age, or almost, by now; full head of white hair, like mine. That’s probably it; probably it. Ray Brown came to town in the late sixties, and as revered as he was, he was hard to play with. I mean—

CLINE

Was he inflexible, or was he—

BUNKER

It’s just that he’d walk right over you. He’d just climb up your back and go out the front door, you know, and there was no stopping him, no holding him back. He just, you know, was— That was Ray. But absolutely magnificent player, you know. And magnetism, the charisma that he had. I remember one time going to see the Oscar Peterson Trio someplace in Hollywood. I think it was at this Sardi’s place. And I said, “Okay. Tonight I’m not going to pay any attention to Ray. I’m going to really listen to Oscar.” And as absolutely incredibly dynamic a player as Oscar was and is, I couldn’t keep my ears off of Ray Brown. He’d go [demonstrates], and jump onto something down on the A-string and just, you know, take the paint off the walls, and do all that without a drummer. And there was just no way to not be riveted by what he was doing, you know.

CLINE

Yes. Another thing I wanted to follow up on, since we’re into the sixties now and we discussed your playing with Bill Evans, I wanted to kind of go back to that a little bit.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Well, since also you mentioned Shelly, and, of course, Shelly played a lot with Ray Brown and somehow seemed to make that work.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Shelly also recorded with Bill Evans.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And I wondered what your impressions were of that. We talked a little bit about Paul Motian. We talked about some of the other drummers who followed you. Marty Morrell; you enjoyed his playing. What were your impressions of Shelly’s work with Bill Evans?

BUNKER

Shelly was Shelly. He played just the way he plays. You know, it didn’t seem to matter. I was not aware of any conscious effort on his part to alter or change the way he plays. He jumped in. And that one album that he did with Bill was— I think Monty was the bass player, wasn’t he?

CLINE

Yes.

BUNKER

Because it was probably after Scott died.

CLINE

Yes, right.

BUNKER

And I guess Bill was just— That was when he was out here, and may have been by himself; whether Red Mitchell played some with him. You know, that first time when he came out, I don’t think that he had settled— I can’t remember now whether he had settled on Chuck Israels as his replacement for Scott, and whether Chuck was here, or Chuck couldn’t come out. I may have said something about Chuck had a prior engagement and Bill just came out by himself, and, of course, that was the time when I sat in with him, because Shelly played drums when he was available to, and whether it was Red Mitchell or possibly Monty, because Red was still in town. That was before he decided that Ronald [W.] Reagan was not his cup of tea, and he fled to Scandinavia.

CLINE

Right. Also I wanted to mention that I went back, and after you mentioned your feelings about your playing with Bill, you said you weren’t too happy with it, but that you preferred the Trio ’65 album, perhaps.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And since I was more familiar with the live Shelly’s recording [Bill Evans Trio at Shelly’s Manne-Hole], I went back and listened to that, and was reminded of so many things that you said, including one of the things that you already brought up this morning, which is I think you probably play with drumsticks on that album maybe a total of three minutes or something. It’s a real brushes extravaganza.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And your opening, the opening piece, called “Israel,” which has a lot of trading with you on the brushes, very, very strong soloing, I think, on your part, especially with the brushes. And I wondered if, when it came to that type of approach, particularly brushes playing, if there was anybody who really influenced your approach, or if this was purely Larry Bunker.

BUNKER

That’s pretty much, pretty much it. I mean, the guys that killed me, the players that killed me were the really strong guys like, you know, maybe Philly Joe [Jones], because he did record with brushes, both with Bill and the stuff with Miles [Davis], and played brushes with Miles and, you know, Red Garland and Paul Chambers. A lot of times they’d do a trio set, or a couple three tunes in a set that were just the trio, “Billy Boy,” on things like that, you know. Philly Joe could just eat you alive with them.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

I don’t know that I’ve ever even heard Elvin play brushes.

CLINE

Yes, he does, with very loud brushes.

BUNKER

Or Tony [Williams], you know. And those were the guys that I was listening to at that time, who just were putting me away. So anything that I developed, it was just out of necessity, because I was told to do it, you know.

CLINE

Yes, I see. Right. But I find it— And I mentioned in an earlier interview how I sort of placed your playing with Bill as somewhere between Philly Joe and Paul Motian, and in fact, I mean, even though it resembles neither of them at times, one of the things I think that’s particularly interesting is that I don’t know if you can trace it all or have any comment on, but is the way you’re using your feet; the bass drum and the hi-hat not in the predictable and sort of typical manner. A lot of contrapuntal, a lot of real four-way independence going on, particularly accenting with the hi-hat and the bass drum. Can you remember what you were thinking about at that point, when you were playing that set?

BUNKER

When I was still coming up, even when I was in the service, and really, you know, like I had said, being self-taught, I held the sticks wrong. I didn’t— You know, I didn’t do any of it right. I played not match grip, because nobody did here—I think I mentioned that before—but conventional grip, and I’m right-handed. But the lack of literature, the lack of practice material meant that I just wrote a lot of exercises for myself, because I knew, you know, I knew that the independence needed to be there. And I think that Jimmy Chapin had a book [ Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer ] out by that time, and I practiced that stuff. I practiced out of a George Lawrence Stone book [ Accents and Rebounds ], when I really found out how hard it was to do it the way he said to do it, you know, the practice regimen. But I just did a lot of study of rudiments, finally, and then started sticking my feet into those things, starting paradiddles or double paradiddles or triple paradiddles somewhere other than right-left-right, you know. Put the diddle anywhere, and be able to think about that and control it, and then stick your feet in, different places. And did a lot of rudimental stuff that way. I had time in the service, and tried to change my grip around to where it looked like in the picture in one of the drum books, you know. Didn’t know anything about finger technique. I’d never heard of Murray Spivak and all of that, you know. Buddy [Rich] was Buddy, with his freakishness. And I guess by that time Louie Bellson had studied with Murray, or whoever— He studied with somebody in New York.

CLINE

Because he did study with Murray Spivak.

BUNKER

Yes, he did study with Murray.

CLINE

But there may have been someone else.

BUNKER

And Murray lived out here.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And was a recording engineer. He ended up being the recording engineer at Twentieth Century-Fox [Film Corporation] Studios for many, many, many years. I always used to feel a little nervous going in there when I had to play a drum solo of any kind, a little solo snare drum part, that Murray’d be up there going, “Uh-uh. How is that?”

CLINE

Yes.

BUNKER

You know, a renowned teacher and player, and deviser. Henry Adler was who I was trying to think of, that Louie, I think, studied with, and first started into that whole finger thing. Got sidetracked. Oh, just—

CLINE

The independence thing, the insertion of the feet.

BUNKER

Yes. And I was just trying to gain some of that, because, you know, I— It seemed like guys just were not terribly inventive with that, and I wanted to incorporate more of that. You know, I used to do a lot of practicing rudiments, right hand and right foot, right hand and left foot, left hand and right foot, you know, and use just the basic rudiments as practice material to do that. And then incorporating these kind of little exercises and off-the-wall things that I was trying to figure out how to do, you know. So it all just evolved by itself.

CLINE

And yet you maintained what I would have to say is a lot of precision in what you were doing as well. You’re not the kind of guy who took it so out you kind of got lost, or were coming out playing, you know, trading fours and having them come out three and a half, or that kind of thing.

BUNKER

Yes. No, I hated that. I hated that. Oh—

CLINE

Very precise.

BUNKER

And if I accidentally stepped on myself from time to time, you know, at work, you’d hear me yelling, because, you know, pissed off with myself.

CLINE

Yes. And one of the things that I had mentioned that I thought the recordings you had done with Bill Evans were perhaps unjustly overlooked because of the natural and deserved attention that recordings with Scott and Paul got, but I think the rapport that you had with Bill is clearly evident. You mentioned that you had absorbed a lot of his music before playing with him, and how you felt that you could really sort of hear what he was going to play before he played it.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And I think that’s really strongly evident, maybe in a way that’s clearer than with a lot of the other drummers who played with him, and yet you weren’t just, you know, playing back what he played. I mean, it’s clearly a situation where you were responding to what you heard him play with, you know, a full degree of comfort and confidence.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And even though you were playing brushes virtually all the time, did things ever open up more? Did you ever get to play more sticks with him, maybe more in live situations?

BUNKER

More in the live situations, and it would depend. It would depend on the venue, where we were, how deep into his thing he was, and how good the piano was. I mean, he could make the most atrocious piano sound just amazing. Usually the pianos were pretty good. We worked in Cincinnati and the guy had a Steinway B, and a— What’s it? A six-foot-eleven piano like this one [points at piano in the room] is. This is a B. And it was just unbelievably bad. The action was atrocious, and it’d hold— It’d stay in tune for an evening and then go out, you know. It needed everything. The guy maintained that he had just spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on this piano, overhauling it in anticipation of Bill coming, you know, and didn’t have another nickel to do anything about it, you know. And Bill had to put up with that, and it was just unbelievably bad, but yet he could still draw his sound out of that instrument. He could still do whatever the magic was that he had, you know, the sonority, that ability to hit one key and you could almost— It was almost like an engineer was turning up a pot. Instead of it fading, it was getting louder, you know. How you do that, I don’t know.

CLINE

I wondered if spending so much time listening to and then playing with Bill Evans, and being around the advancements of his harmonic language and the way he approached the music, had any effect or influence then on your vibraphone-playing.

BUNKER

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.

CLINE

Can you describe any of that in any way?

BUNKER

No, just except to marvel at the ability that he had to construct the kind of lines that he did, you know. Somehow they seemed preordained. You know, they just— You start with a germ of a thought, and pretty soon some kind of internal logic takes over and, you know, there’s predestination. The line has got to go there. There’s an inevitability, to me, with his harmonic thinking and with his melodic thinking. Sure, there were a lot of licks that he devised and perfected over a period of time. Maybe, you know, even today maybe some people might call them clichés. But I mean, there is no player that is totally off-the-wall inventive every bar. That doesn’t exist. Keith Jarrett notwithstanding, you know, with his hour-and-a-half improvised things.

CLINE

Right. The Trio ’65 album is recorded in the legendary Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Can you describe the experience and what that was like, if you have any reflections on what it was that made that particular studio and that engineer so remarkable and desirable in the jazz realm?

BUNKER

Earlier recordings that were done by Rudy [van Gelder]—as I understand it a lot of the Blue Note [Records] stuff and all of that—were done like in his living room, in his house itself. And I believe Rudy was an optician or an optometrist by profession. By the time of Trio ’65, I don’t know when he built the studio, but he built a separate studio on his property; cinderblock, maple floors. I believe it was in kind of a— It was not a rectangular or square building. It may have been five- or six-sided, penta or— Not hexagonal. What is a six-sided figure? Sexagonal?

CLINE

I guess so.

BUNKER

Wood beams for the ceiling, and pitched, a pitched roof that followed the outlines of this building. And Rudy; my recollection of him was— I’ll just say he was a putz. You walk into the control room to listen to a playback, and he didn’t want you to touch anything, I mean not so much as put your hand on a masonite— Not a masonite surface, but you know, the plastic stuff.

CLINE

Formica?

BUNKER

Yes, Formica. It was all black, shiny, patent-leather Formica, and he didn’t want to see a fingerprint on anything.

CLINE

Yes, I heard he was pretty anal.

BUNKER

Yes. He’d come right behind you with a white glove and be wiping, you know. “Don’t stand there. Don’t lean on that. Don’t—.” You know, “Come on. Fuck off.” Really makes for congeniality. [mutual laughter] So that’s what that was about. I think Creed Taylor was involved.

CLINE

Yes. He produced it.

BUNKER

He produced that. I don’t remember anything about him, just that, you know, that was his function. That was his role. And so we did the stuff and then we left. That was the end of it.

CLINE

Okay. Nothing special about the sound there for you, or anything.

BUNKER

I know that the room was very live, because, I mean, there was not a lot of sound-deadening stuff going on, and very little in the way of baffles. He probably had some, but he probably had them over against the wall, and he wanted that cinderblock-wood-wood-floor sound, you know. So that’s what it was, and I mean, that shows up on the album.

CLINE

There’s only one picture that I’ve ever found on any of these older recordings, where you can really see the studio itself, and the way things are mic’d and the way people are set up, and that’s in an old McCoy Tyner Trio record with Roy Haynes and Henry Grimes, and you can actually see them positioned in the room, what the room looks like, what the mic’ing looks like.

BUNKER

Was it this newer room, or—

CLINE

Yes, it’s cinderblock, for sure.

BUNKER

Yes. Yes, okay.

CLINE

And it’s very interesting to contrast it with the way things wound up being done not all that many years later, where everything is so incredibly separated and the sound is very dead—

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

—and just how difficult it is to find, you know, any kind of larger, live room where people can play music simultaneously these days. And yet everyone harkens back nostalgically to the way those records sounded, and how—quote—“natural”—unquote—it sounded, and everything. Do you have any feelings about that at this time, with hindsight?

BUNKER

I don’t remember what kind of mic’ing he did. Chuck was, as far as I remember, using gut strings. He had switched from steel to gut strings. Apparently, there was kind of a movement afoot back in New York, particularly, where bass players were going back to gut. And he probably— I believe he was. He didn’t have any kind of a pickup, so it was all totally acoustic. Piano, probably, too, you know; whatever, Neumanns or— The Neumanns were pretty much the mics to use at that time. I don’t think Sony had yet come out with some of their top-of-the-line studio mic’s. Ended up a lot of those being in— The guys out at Twentieth Century-Fox started using those mic’s when they came out, but when that was, I don’t really remember.

CLINE

Were you using headphones, or not?

BUNKER

I don’t think so, no. Did later, in a lot of work in town.

CLINE

Sure.

BUNKER

But just trying to be able to hear, you know, when you’ve got baffles, baffles, baffles. But I don’t believe we did. I believe it was totally acoustic.

CLINE

You also mentioned, when you were thinking back to your feelings about your playing with Bill Evans, and your sort of overall dissatisfaction with it, one of the things you said is, also, that was in your drinking days. How much of an effect do you think that has either on just your perception of it, because that’s attached to your memory of it, or that it was actually affecting your playing in some way, or your decisions when playing? What influence did that—

BUNKER

I’m sure all of that. I can remember hearing things played back, or playing things back and I’d say, “That,” you know, “that’s not acceptable. That’s getting a little behind the beat,” just sloppiness in the playing, in the execution, and so forth and so on. Probably not aware of that while it was going on, you know, but being aware of it in hindsight. You know, I continued— After I had left Bill, I continued on in that vein until ’67, when it was really starting to affect my musical judgment, my personal judgment, and all of that. And I said, “It’s time to stop doing that.” So I did.

CLINE

And one of the things that I wanted to ask you about also, particularly as it relates to your early studio work during the fifties, is if you experienced or witnessed any marked impact of the [Joseph] McCarthy era in the particular end of the studio scene that you were working in.

BUNKER

I was not that much in the studio scene, but I was very, very aware of it, in the person of Jerry Fielding. At some point I has started to play for Jerry. I don’t know how he heard of me or where he heard of me. He had been doing the Groucho Marx TV show [ You Bet Your Life ] at NBC [National Broadcasting Company]. He happened to have a couple of black guys in his band.

CLINE

Right. Buddy Collette.

BUNKER

Red Callender and Buddy Collette. And NBC was suddenly starting to get some complaints about that, on American Legion stationery. And the next thing you knew—and I didn’t really know Jerry at this point, but I heard about it—he was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee. And my understanding is that he went down there and said, “I’m not answering shit. You have no authority to ask me the questions you’re asking me.” They held him in contempt and blacklisted him.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

Groucho had said, “I’m behind you 100 percent, but take a leave of absence.” Well, Jerry packed a bag and went to Las Vegas and worked up there for a while. He was a conductor in one of the hotels up there. And as far as I know, he did not go to jail for contempt, but they just—

CLINE

Yes, pushed him out of the way.

BUNKER

Shoved, and he never did get that show back, as far as I know. But it was after all of that, when he came back from Vegas and started doing— Because he’d been doing films, and been doing television, and resumed that. But that was the closest any of that came to me. You know, I was a naïve kid. I was not— I was apolitical. And so that was mostly whatever I heard on the radio—I don’t even think I had a television set yet, then—and read in the newspaper. It wasn’t until much later that I actually found out that David Raksin, whose music I loved and played a lot, and liked very much, turned out to be one of the rats. He spilled his guts to the committee. Didn’t know it. He’s still around. He’s in his eighties, almost nineties. He was teaching out at UCLA for the longest time, film scoring, film composition, etc. Charming, charming man, but he sure ratted out some people.

CLINE

Wow. That’s amazing. Dark days.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And before we leave the period of Shelly’s and all that, a place where you spent a lot of time, it sounds like, how would you describe the audience at Shelly’s? What kind of people frequented Shelly’s place?

BUNKER

Great, great. Enthusiastic. Whistled, stamped their feet, cheer, you know.

CLINE

Was there a predominant type of person?

BUNKER

No, I don’t think so. Just kind of a cross-section, you know, a cross-section of, you know— There were probably more black people in there if it was a black band or black artist, but not necessarily. Jazz fans, people that love jazz. And that cuts across a pretty wide spectrum.

CLINE

Right. Was it, would you say, maybe mostly a younger crowd, or was that also mixed?

BUNKER

Well, it would depend on who was performing, who the performers were, you know. I mean, if Miles’ band was in there, you got Miles fans, and if it was [Julian] Cannonball [Adderly]’s band, you got “Cannon’s” fans in. If Victor Feldman went in there with a trio for several nights, waiting for the weekend to come up for Shelly’s band, you’d get his fans, you know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

But don’t let me neglect Victor. Victor was one of the giants in this town, and I miss him to this day. He was a marvelous, marvelous human being, and an insane musician, just incredible.

CLINE

And he played vibes.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Yes. Any comments you as a vibist might have on that aspect of his musicianship?

BUNKER

[whistles] He was amazing. That first album that he did when he came to town and moved in, and was working the Lighthouse, and did an album with Scott LaFaro and Stan Levey, The Arrival of Victor Feldman. I got that fairly recently for a young guitar-player friend to listen to, who didn’t know anything about Victor Feldman, and I said, “The thing is fifty years old, and it’s as fresh today as it was the day that he did it.” He influenced me profoundly. He was profoundly influenced by Milt [Jackson], but he also had his own thing, and I listened to him a lot and tried to cop what I could. He had too much chops. He could play too fast. He could do— He could do crazy things, you know, and make it sound effortless. Brilliant player, brilliant.

CLINE

And also an excellent pianist.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Let’s see how we’re doing here. We’ve got a little bit here. While we’re on the subject of vibraphone, you actually recorded, as a leader, recordings that I’m completely incapable of finding to hear. But I think perhaps at least to me, just as an outsider looking at what information I can come up with about this, it’s rather surprising that you, being a vibraphonist, have a vibraphonist on your recording [title of album is Live at the Manne-Hole], Gary Burton, who must have been quite young at that point.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

What’s the genesis of this idea, and how did that go on?

BUNKER

I had heard of Gary. I believe he was working with George Shearing. He came into the Manne-Hole one night and sat in when I was working there with Paul Horn, playing vibes, and it was staggering. I said, “It’s not possible to play the vibraphone that way.”

CLINE

He’s already doing the four mallets, chording, and all that.

BUNKER

Oh yes. He’d started playing that way. That was the vibraphone technique for him, in his very early twenties. We became friendly. I believe that he invited me to participate in a George Shearing session with an expanded group, like a sextet, a septet, horns and maybe a few strings; not a lot. And he had done the writing. And it was recorded at Capitol [studios]. And then we went to Salt Lake City to do, like, workshops and clinics and performances in Salt Lake City, so we became friends. And I was so struck by his playing, that I just said, you know, “I want to do an album. I’ll be the drummer,” and Bob West, who was a bass player that I had played with, with Clare Fischer around town, and I had heard Mike Wofford in San Diego, and I called him, and I just said, you know, “I don’t have any money, but do you guys want to do this? And if I can sell it, then we make some money.” “Great.” Gary was in town. I think he was staying at my house.

CLINE

Well, he played with Stan Getz around the early sixties, too, right?

BUNKER

Yes, but that was about ’65. This was still earlier. This was— Well, this was right around the time of the [John F.] Kennedy assassination, which, when was that, ’63?

CLINE

’63, yes.

BUNKER

Yes. So I think it was before I played with Bill.

CLINE

I see.

BUNKER

But I just said, “I want to do that. I’ve got to get this on tape. I’ve got to get this down.” So we brought in Wally Heider, Wally Heider equipment, and Bones Howe was the engineer, and into Shelly’s, and we recorded it. And that was my only— My single solitary only album.

CLINE

Right. Hang on and we’ll pursue this on the other side of the tape, before we lose anything.

BUNKER

Okay.

1.9. TAPE NUMBER: V, SIDE TWO APRIL 3, 2003

CLINE

Okay, we’re back. We were talking about your single solitary album, which was called, by the way—

BUNKER

I think it was just Live at the Manne-Hole. I shopped it around; shopped it around, even during the time when I was, I think, subsequently, later with Bill. I knew Neshui Ertegun from when he was a jazz fan coming to the Hague when— You know, he was the older of the brothers and was going to UCLA. It wasn’t until much later that I met Ahmet [Ertegun], who was actually the younger brother. But Neshui I had met, you know, in the fifties. He was already involved with Atlantic [Records], and he just felt that he would certainly love to do it as a gesture of friendship, having known me, but there was no market for it. And tried here and there; tried one thing or another. Gary Burton, by this time, was living back in New York, and he let me know that somebody had told him that, like, bootleg copies of it were already appearing in Europe.

CLINE

Oh, man. Even back in those days this was going on.

BUNKER

Yes. Somehow it had gotten bootlegged, you know, whether— Because all of this was on tape. It was way, way, way before CDs. But somehow, you know, it got out there. I finally turned it over to a guy named Jackie Mills. Jackie Mills was a record producer, entrepreneur, was a drummer, and his claim to fame was that he had been the drummer with Boyd Raeburn, the Boyd Raeburn band in the forties. Nice guy, honest, and he shopped it around. He finally found somebody to put it out and, you know, I made a nickel. Never even made enough to pay the guys, you know, because I had paid for the recording and all of that stuff. So it ended up that way. When it finally got re-released on CD, the original tapes could not be located, and this whole thing was culled from outtakes that were left over—

CLINE

Oh, really.

BUNKER

—that were with an ex-wife in a box in a garage someplace, you know.

CLINE

I see.

BUNKER

But I mean a Japanese guy approached me and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you know. We went through the whole rigmarole. He did pay me a little money, and I said, “Yeah, sure. Get it out there, released.” Because I mean, any market that it had was by this time gone. Totally gone.

CLINE

Yes, sure.

BUNKER

So when it was finally released on CD in its altered, truncated, not-pristine form, was, oh, probably the very early nineties, you know.

CLINE

Yes. I have seen that it was released in Japan, but I’ve yet to figure out how to actually hear this thing. So, haven’t seen it, couldn’t find it, couldn’t obtain it. But anyway, what was the material on what is now a CD?

BUNKER

Just standards. Mostly standards, a couple of original— A couple, three originals of Gary’s, and like that. Mike Wofford sounded wonderful. Bob West was— I haven’t seen him in thirty or forty years. He was always more interested in being a race driver. He was a kind of— You know, really, really wanted to do that. He was an okay player, but not particularly, you know— He had locked in with Clare for some reason. Clare liked him, and so that’s where I met him and played with him, mostly. But for some reason I went with him, rather than Monty or Berghofer; whether Berghofer was around at that point, still like ’63.

CLINE

Yes. Well, he came into the first band at Shelly’s in ’60, so I guess he must have been around.

BUNKER

Yes. But—

CLINE

Well—

BUNKER

Here it is.

CLINE

There it is, and I still haven’t heard it. [Bunker laughs.] Now that we’re moving into the sixties here, and you’re the full-on studio guy, and the music is— Jazz as a music is changing a lot.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

One of the things that is happening during the sixties is the increasing dominance of rock music, particularly with the British invasion, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, all of that. How did you begin to see the effects of the encroaching dominance of rock and roll on the jazz scene, as it were?

BUNKER

There started to be— I guess it was probably about that time when the guys were starting to think in terms of jazz fusion. I remember seeing Victor Feldman put a band into Donte’s that was interesting. He may have, by this time, had a Fender Rhodes [electric piano], as well as playing piano. That seemed to be the only keyboard that was really happening. The synths [synthesizers] were not really— You know, I mean, the only synth that you could really get at that time, I think, was a Moog, and they were probably monophonic devices.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

So the Fender Rhodes, you know, was launching into popularity. Miles used one.

CLINE

Yes. Joe Zawinul with Cannonball, yes.

BUNKER

And was it Keith Jarrett, I think, that played— It was either Keith Jarrett or Chick Corea played with Miles.

CLINE

Yes, Chick and, well, Zawinul, too. And later Keith Jarrett, absolutely. And Herbie, Herbie Hancock.

BUNKER

Yes, yes. So that was starting to happen. Mike Barone had a big band that worked once a week at Donte’s; roaring band, good band. John Guerin— Killer. Killer. And John was one of the first jazz drummers, to me, that was able to successfully cross over into that. He was enormously busy, carved out a very, very lucrative career doing that. Earl Palmer was a jazz drummer from New Orleans, but I really liked John’s playing better, and I thought of him more as— You know, Earl was almost, well, he was not a Dixieland drummer. He was just a straight-ahead New Orleans drummer that then learned how to do the rock and roll thing, you know. Mike did a lot of charts that capitalized on that, and he never had anybody that played Fender bass [guitar]. His bass players were always upright players. Some of them may have used an amplifier, just to help with that, you know. But he never used a Fender player, not with that band, and that band was active ’67, ’68, ’69, in through there. Tom Scott. Tom Scott was launching into that, you know. Like he’d play exactly the way he played, just on top of like the equivalent of a rock and roll rhythm section. He wasn’t changing his style of playing, necessarily. For better or worse, it continued on, continued on. I didn’t particularly, you know— Except for Mike’s band, and going to see Victor a few times, I didn’t particularly care for that. I mean, I ended up playing it enough as a percussionist, you know, in the studios, you know, on record dates and so forth. I never cared for the Stones. I thought that the Beatles were interesting. I kind of talked myself into liking some of that, you know, but that was about the extent of it. I heard that music a little in Europe, and went to see their movies, just out of curiosity, you know, but didn’t care for it; didn’t like it.

CLINE

And somehow this also plays into the eventual closing of Shelly’s Manne-Hole.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

This is something that you mentioned last time off tape, and I wanted you to describe the experience you had, seeing what I think had to have been one of the first really full-out what we later would call jazz fusion—at that time it was called jazz-rock—bands, the Tony Williams Lifetime.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

You want to describe that?

BUNKER

[In an exaggeratedly high voice, demonstrates.] [Cline laughs.] Oh, Jesus. Tony seemed— He had bigger drums. I’m wondering if he had that yellow Gretsch set that he later on recorded with up at some studio up in Utah or Wyoming someplace. Because he’d always had little drums when he was with Miles. So I guess just that energy that he expended went into bigger toms and a bigger bass drum, and it just was loud. Was done with an electric guitar and a Hammond organ. He pretty much broke the lease for Shelly in that building on Cahuenga [Boulevard]. Wally Heider had studio spaces in that building, more mixdown and re-record facilities, rather, although there were small studios in there, because I recorded in there with the Fifth Dimension, did a couple of albums. They’d be working at night, and Shelly’d be working at night. And, you know, these people would come in, and it was almost the equivalent of knocking on the wall. Like, you know, like, “Jesus Christ, you’ve got to hold it down. You know, we can’t put that much soundproofing in here.” It was bleeding, bleeding through and spoiling takes and so forth. And so I think that Wally was a big enough lessee that he was able to lean on the building management to not renew Shelly’s lease, and Shelly had to close down the Manne-Hole. He said, “Because that’s the wave of the future, that’s the way the bands are going to be,” and whether there was any kind of antagonism between he and Wally, I don’t know. But I mean, you know, Wally was a businessman, and trying to operate these studios. He has his investment in there, and so the Manne-Hole had to move. And that was the end of the Manne-Hole. He moved to an office building in Beverly Hills that was, I think, a restaurant [Tetou] during the day, and then became the Manne-Hole in the evening. And the ambience was all wrong, and the acoustics were not good, and the parking was terrible, and it just, you know— I think it lasted six, eight months, and then Shelly just got together with Rudy [Onderwyzer] and they said, “Time.”

CLINE

Right. Right. And it was the wave of the future, so to speak, and one of the things that started to happen was that the music itself just got louder.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Do you remember the kinds of changes that took place in order to accommodate this change in the music, in terms of, say, your instruments or other instruments?

BUNKER

I kept on playing the same set of drums. I didn’t change.

CLINE

Was it that Ludwig set?

BUNKER

Well, I had a Ludwig set. And then by the time that I had gone with Bill, I’d traded those in for a Gretsch set, which I still have to this day. So those were the drums that I used, and that’s my jazz drum set. I had bought other drums that I used in the studios. I bought a set of Leedys. In ’67 I was going to do the Jerry Lewis television show, and I was hired to play drums. So I got some big drums and a bunch of concert toms, you know, rock toms.

CLINE

The post-Hal Blaine set.

BUNKER

Yes. Hal had made that de rigueur, or created it, really, you know. So I had that kind of a set of drums. And I got the Leedys because Shelly had used Leedys a long time, and his drums always sounded wonderful.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

In fact, he gave me an old set of Leedys when he was getting a new one once. He just gave them to me. And I still have them. They’re back buried in storage. I’ve still got calf heads on them.

CLINE

Amazing.

BUNKER

It was a bronze set, like bronze paint.

CLINE

Oh, really.

BUNKER

And smaller bass drum, 8” by 12” [rack tom], and I think a 14” by 14” [floor tom]. I don’t know if I have the snare drum or not. Doesn’t matter. They were good drums. But in any event, I had the Gretsch drums. You know, the money drums were the big Leedys, for the television show, and the television show was such a joke that I ended up quitting after about six months. It was just— They wouldn’t let us rehearse. We’d rehearse one time through. There’d be mistakes and wrong notes all over in the music. They’d do a take, and then that was it, you know, and recorded in a crappy environment in the NBC studios in Burbank, you know, in a space that was set up with drapes and gobos and stuff. You know, the band sounded like shit. The recording sounded like shit. The music sounded like shit, and after a while, you know. And I’d be a lunatic about that. And finally I just said, “Nah. Don’t need it. Don’t need it. Goodbye.”

CLINE

So were you starting to see the equipment get heavier and bigger?

BUNKER

Yes. That was starting to happen by that time. Yamaha was coming over here and starting to have little seminars and get-togethers with the players, and saying, “How is this? Is this nice? Is this a good hi-hat? Is this a good snare drum stand? Is this a good bass drum pedal?” And the stuff was, you know— And they pretty well started all that. Pearl and Tama and all the rest of them were later. But it seemed that Yamaha was one of the first ones that were starting that. And, you know, you could park your car on some of the cymbal stands, for Christ’s sake.

CLINE

[Laughs] Yes. Yes.

BUNKER

Built like hydraulic lifts. I mean, you know. And, of course, stage presentations and arena shows, and that was starting to happen, so I guess they felt the need to make that stuff that way, you know.

CLINE

Did you feel that drummers, the younger drummers coming up, were all naturally playing louder than—

BUNKER

Oh yes. Yes.

CLINE

And the equipment followed suit, drumsticks, cymbals.

BUNKER

Yes. Thicker, heavier, louder, cruder.

CLINE

How did you feel about these developments?

BUNKER

I felt it was awful. Because there are— There are probably some— I mean, you know, if you look at the Tonight Show or the [Late Night with] David Letterman show, and see some of those guys in contemporary rock bands, I mean, they’re like Olympic athletes, as far as the drummers are concerned. But they’ve got all the finesse of Olympic athletes, you know. One guy that really impressed me a lot—I mean, it was many, many years ago—was Neil Peart with Rush. He could play his dick off. He could really play, and had this—

CLINE

Yes, gigantic—

BUNKER

—you know, humongous drum set. But, you know, after a while, so what? It just— It ceased to be musical to me, you know. I think of the young drummers that are around. Probably the guy— The two guys that impressed me the most were Vinnie Colaiuta and Dave Weckl, because I went to see Dave when he was with Chick Corea. The band was Chick Corea, John Patitucci, and Dave, and they had just done that acoustic album [ Akoustic Band ] and played down at the Palace. And I went with four or five drummer friends. I went and got tickets and we went down, and it’s brilliant, brilliant playing. But he’s a jazz musician, you know. And Vinnie— Vinnie is what Vinnie is. Vinnie is just a freak. [mutual laughter]

CLINE

An aberration.

BUNKER

I don’t know what Vinnie is, except that, you know, nobody can do what he does. He’s just a— You know. But brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I remember I worked with some of my colleagues recently, and reminded them of an incident that happened quite a few years ago. Vinnie hadn’t been around town that long. And we were doing something with James Horner. This was back when I used to still work for James Horner. [Cline laughs.] I was his timpani player for a while in the earlier days of his career. And so we were doing something at RCA, and Vinnie was the drummer. He’d been hired by— You know; I don’t remember who the contractor was, but that’s immaterial. How he ended up on the call I don’t know, because I don’t know whether James knew of him or had heard of him, or whatever. “Get me a drummer.” Donald Williams was on the call; John Williams’ youngest brother; Jerry Williams, the middle brother, both percussionists; a variety of other people. And these were people that had never heard Vinnie before, that had never worked with Vinnie before. And Vinnie was in a drum booth, back in the back of the room. And he is so compulsive, he’s so, such a lunatic, he can’t stop. He just cannot stop. Whether it’s attention deficit disorder or what, it’s— You know. So I guess he thinks that he’s in a booth and he can’t be heard. [mimics the sound of dense, intense, complex drumming] You know, he’s just doing his thing. And Donald and Jerry were like kind of looking in the window and going, “Holy Christ. What is that? Who is this guy?” You know, because they’re both drummers, and good ones. But they said, “That’s— That’s insane, what he’s doing.” And James is trying to make corrections in the string section or something, and finally he’s like, “Wait a minute. Wait. Stop. Who’s doing that? Who is making all that noise? Jesus Christ, we’re trying to work here.” And I said [raises his hand], “It was me!” [mutual laughter] I related that a couple of weeks ago at the Academy Awards, and just— You know. Some of the people had heard the story in the past, and some of the people hadn’t. I said, “You can’t let a moment like that go by. You’ve got to—,” you know.

CLINE

Oh, man. [mutual laughter] So, how did it wind up then? I mean, did he just— I don’t imagine he’s like the guy playing on every, you know, Hollywood soundtrack working these days at all.

BUNKER

Oh no, no, no. No, no. No, he has carved a niche for himself where he plays with people that really want that, you know.

CLINE

Yes, right.

BUNKER

What, he was with Sting for quite a while, and whether he still works with him, I don’t know.

CLINE

No, he doesn’t. No. But, yes, interesting.

BUNKER

I worked an animated cartoon a year or two ago that he was on, and there were some special, like, I guess, battle sequences or fight sequences or something. And it was like, you know, written charts, but all of these spaces blocked out for Vinnie to just do his thing. And that was the scoring, the underscoring for this dramatic animation that was going on.

CLINE

Interesting. So, the music is changing. One of the things I wanted to mention, too, since I mentioned the video earlier; another item that I’ve yet been able to find a copy of, and I actually just asked Chuck Berghofer about it and he doesn’t have a copy of this, is a video that’s somehow been circulating out there of a set at Donte’s that you’re playing with Zoot Sims and Roger Kellaway and Chuck.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

So this is 1970, then. You’re still playing jazz gigs. You’re playing at Donte’s.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Do you remember anything about this, how this came about?

BUNKER

I had played with Zoot, in the Manne-Hole days, on a few occasions, because he would come out by himself. He’s like just the troubadour, and he’d pick up a local rhythm section, you know. A lot of times it’d be Lou Levy and a bass player. So we’d done that a couple of times. He was coming out. He wanted to use Roger [Kellaway], he wanted to use me, and he wanted to use Chuck. Apparently those were his choices. The piano at Donte’s was such a dog that Roger didn’t want to take the gig. He said, “I can’t play that piano.” Whether it was going to be a week or ten days— I don’t think it was two weeks. But I was living in Beverly Hills with another wife. I had this piano, which needed work. It has since been restored. It needed work then, but it was infinitely better than the piano at Donte’s. And so, was this ’70, ’71, in there someplace?

CLINE

I think it said ’70 in the information I was able to find.

BUNKER

Yes. That sounds about right, because I left that house and that wife in 1972. And I called Roger and I said, “I want to do the gig, but I don’t want to do the gig with any other piano player.” And he said, “Well, I can’t deal with the piano.” I said, “Come over.” I invited him. I said, “Come over to my house and play my piano, and if it’s acceptable to you, I’ll have it sent to Donte’s.”

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

He said, “Are you kidding?” I said, “No sir, I am not.” So he came over and walked into this Spanish monstrosity that I had, north of Sunset [Boulevard] in Beverly Hills, and played the piano. He sat down and he played it for five minutes. He said, “If you’re serious, that’ll be just fine.” So I called the piano movers and had them, you know, call Carey [Leverett], and Carey said, “Here’s the deal.” And the club piano was actually a grand. It was a smaller one, and I don’t remember anything about it except that it was just bad. So the piano movers pulled this in, took that one, took the legs off, turned it up on its side and got it over against a wall, and that left enough room for a trio. So that was that gig. I think I have a tape of that someplace around here.

CLINE

I really wanted to see that, and it’s one of those things where, you know, searching for it on the Internet, I finally found a source that said, you know, along with all their catalog of jazz videos, that there it was, listed. And then when you click on it, it says, you know, “Not found or no longer available.” So I don’t know how I’m ever going to find that one, but I would love to see that.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Zoot also played and recorded a lot with Jimmy Rowles, who obviously— Was Jimmy around, and at that point what is he doing?

BUNKER

Yes, he was around. Well, now, he had gone back to New York at some point. He had separated from his wife, whose name I can’t think of now. Stacy [Rowles] was grown, and he had an older son that played guitar a little bit. I don’t know whether he ever followed music. So he may have been back in New York around that time, because he worked at Bradley’s, which was apparently a famous bar, and place like that, and then eventually moved back here. Incidentally, I did mention to Gary Foster about your interest in Jimmy, and it might be certainly worthwhile to give him a call and maybe get together with him, because, you know, his knowledge of Jimmy— His knowledge far exceeds that of anybody else that I could think of, you know, that’s around and active, because they formed a strong bond, a strong friendship. I mean, every time I see Gary, somehow Rowles’ name comes up, you know, because I introduced him to Rowles, and was responsible for Gary playing the first gig with Jimmy, someplace up in Idaho, when he went up with a— He had a gig and put together a band for a one- or two-concert thing, you know. Have no recollection of when that was. Gary would remember. He’d know.

CLINE

Okay. Yes, if the budget wills it, I would be happy to check that out. Speaking of Stacy, do you remember many women jazz players around town when you were coming up, anyone at all?

BUNKER

The one that would come most quickly to mind would be Clora Bryant, a trumpet player, black trumpet player.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

I mean, God, Clora’s got to— seems like I saw her within the last two or three years. She’s got to be in her late seventies. Whether she still plays, I don’t know. But she was around and doing session stuff and all that. The lady trombone player that was—

CLINE

Melba Liston?

BUNKER

Yes. I don’t remember whether she ever lived out here.

CLINE

Yes, she did.

BUNKER

She did? I don’t know that I met her. I knew of her and I’d heard of her. She’d been with Dizzy [Gillespie]’s band. There was a bass player—boy, I’m probably not going to be able to remember her name; I met her in the fifties—that played around a bit. You know, a jazz player, played upright. Vivian? There was a Vivian Guery. Now, was Vivian Guery a guitar player or a vibe player, with George Shearing? Odd, I can’t remember. I don’t know. I have no idea. Then at a later time, Herb Geller’s wife, Lorraine Geller.

CLINE

Oh yes.

BUNKER

Pretty good piano player; pretty good. And she died tragically. She was young. I think it was after she passed away that that’s what prompted Herb to leave and move to Germany, where he lived for thirty-some-odd years, until he retired from that radio band that he was a member of in Hamburg or someplace, and has kind of moved back here now. I always thought it a little strange for a Jewish guy to deliberately move to Germany, you know. But then, you know, my daughter’s African American, and she has done the same thing. And you would think, I don’t— We don’t quite understand it, but that’s how it is, you know.

CLINE

Wow. And then, since we’re on the topic, any other later players that come to mind that you can think of, of note, women who broke into the scene?

BUNKER

Just the ladies that I’ve met that are the studio musicians, and that’s—

CLINE

Right. That’s another thing.

BUNKER

That’s a whole other thing. And they are, Christ, 35, 40 percent of any given orchestra; woodwinds, French horn players. There’s some trumpet players that are around, percussionists, strings galore, all of the harp players. You don’t see— There are hardly any male harp players, except for some early, early classical artists that had stuff written for them, you know; Mario Salzedo and Nicanor [Zabaleta], a Hungarian guy that everybody studied with; a guy that had been with the L.A. Philharmonic [Orchestra] forever and ever and ever, Stanley Chalupka. But that’s about it. All the rest of them have been ladies.

CLINE

Always a lot of female flute players, too.

BUNKER

Oh, yes, yes. Louise Ditullio is the reigning queen of all of that. She is an absolutely brilliant, brilliant player, and has been for— You know, she was one of those people came from a musical family. Her father and her uncle were cellists, and had a sister that was a pianist. And she studied piano and decided that she didn’t want to play the piano; took up the flute, and it seemed like it was within three years she was a member of the L.A. Philharmonic, in her teens, you know. So, one of those.

CLINE

One of those.

BUNKER

And comes from that kind of gene pool, you know; the Italians among us.

CLINE

So at what point did you actually pretty much bow out of the jazz gigs?

BUNKER

It seemed that I was less interested, less interested. I was getting called less and less, you know. Shelly was still one of the most in-demand players here. Mel Lewis had moved back to New York and formed a band [Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra] with Thad [Jones]. John Guerin was doing everything in sight, both the jazz things and studio calls, record dates, and burning the candle at both ends, living, living large.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And loved it, and deserved it, you know. I was getting calls to do that less and less, and it was okay. So it just— The phone didn’t ring for me to do that. It rang less and less, and, like I say, I was interested in other things and doing other things. By the time of the seventies I was trying to salvage a marriage that was going nowhere, and then walked away from it, and ended up getting involved with Brandyn, and within a couple of years of that we bought this house and moved in. And I inherited her daughter, and just— You know, life goes on. The seventies kind of went by as a blur; a lot of work, a lot of— You know. The eighties happened. You know, I would have to get out datebooks to really remember much about the seventies, as far as what went on, what the music was like. And life was getting involved in house stuff, on and on. By the eighties, by ’85, actually, ’84, ’85, I had gone to Europe with Shorty Rogers and done the George Wein festival tours, about eighteen days of one-nighters and stuff. Brutal, brutal.

CLINE

And this was like a West Coast all-stars kind of thing?

BUNKER

Yes, Shorty Rogers and his “midgets,” you know. Band was Shorty, Bud Shank, Bill Perkins playing baritone, Marty Budwig, Pete Jolly, and myself. And I’m sure that the only reason I was there was it was about a year after Shelly passed away. Shelly, I’m sure, would have been invited, you know, because that would have been the— You know, all of the people that would have been involved with Shorty all those years earlier. Didn’t have any fun. Bob Cooper, did I mention that “Coop” was on it?

CLINE

No.

BUNKER

Yes. Bud. You know, so it was the four front line: Shorty, Coop, Bud, and Bill Perkins. And, eh, you know.

CLINE

How did it feel to play that music again?

BUNKER

Old. It was hard to really get interested in it. And, you know, every time, every time I tried to do anything the least bit adventurous, Coop would come to me and complain about the fact that he couldn’t figure out where I was.

CLINE

Oh yes. Right.

BUNKER

You know. And I’ve told a few people that, and they said, “Coop? Are you kidding?” It’s like I’d do— If I crossed a bar line in any kind of a way, it’d just make him stumble, and he couldn’t figure out where the hell I was.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

Listen to the bass player. Listen to the changes, you know.

CLINE

Right. Or internalize it and keep playing.

BUNKER

Yes. And so once again I was being told how to play, you know.

CLINE

Yes. Wow. Did you feel in any way that some of these guys had progressed as players, or had they pretty much stayed the same? Or how did it feel?

BUNKER

I think they had pretty much stayed the same. You know, Pete Jolly is a wonderful player, but he’s absolutely recognizable from the way he was thirty years ago, thirty-five years ago, when he first came to town; forty years ago. Marty was good. Perkins, Bill Perkins, surprisingly enough, even though he was playing, I’m sure, not his favorite horn, was probably one of the most consistently improving and diversifying players of all of them. Bud is Bud. Short played his same little solos, you know. And so I did the tour.

CLINE

Did you find that people remembered you, recognized you?

BUNKER

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Although we played in places, in some places where I had not played when I was over there with Bill; you know, festivals in small towns in Italy and on the Adriatic coast rather than, you know, the other one, the western coast, which is, what, in the Mediterranean, I guess. And we were up in Finland someplace, through Germany and France, and just all of those things, you know. Guys that you knew; you’d pass each other on the road. [Harry] “Sweets” Edison was going that way, and we were coming this way, you know, because that’s how he was making a living. He’d do George Wein stuff over there and in Japan, and then just cool it at home the rest of the year, you know, and do an occasional record date with [Frank] Sinatra or somebody. But by ’85, when that happened, I had gotten interested in the vibe as it was being explored by Mike Manieri, who had devised, or had had some engineering students back east concoct for him some sort of a MIDI [musical instrument digital interface] keyboard, electronic keyboard. He had one instrument that he ended up, had gotten stolen from the [John F.] Kennedy [International] Airport, but he did a couple of albums with it. It was a very interesting sound. It didn’t sound that much like a vibraphone. It kind of looked like a vibraphone. There were amplified vibes that were around, but they weren’t very good. One system used Barcus-Berry pickups, which they had to drill holes in the bar and then epoxy these pickups into the bar, and they sounded crappy. It seemed that Musser was trying to develop something using string gauges that went onto the bar. That didn’t work very well. Deagan had some stuff. They had little mic’s down in the bottom of the resonators, and they sounded crappy. And it wasn’t until a drum shop owner, and later manufacturer, named Ray Ayotte in Canada, in B.C., I believe, in British Columbia, came out with a pickup system, and I went to the Hollywood Bowl [Playboy] Jazz Festival, because I wanted to see— Oh, shit, am I not going to be able to remember his name? Dave Samuels, who was playing vibes with—

CLINE

Was it Spyro Gyra?

BUNKER

Yes. Exactly. I had heard that he was using these pickups that you could put on any vibraphone or marimba, and pick up the sound of the instrument and then do with it what you wanted.

CLINE

Right. Process it.

BUNKER

Process it, run it through tape loops, run it through reverbs, and all of the guitar effects that were starting now to be rack-mounted.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And Manieri did some stuff like that, and I heard Dave Samuels and I said, “That’s for me. Now.” I play the instrument as loud as you want to, without swinging for the fences, you know, which is what you always had to do, and concern yourself with microphones and all that.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

I got a set of those, and then had a rack built, the first of a very expensive hobby. Had my vibe bars, or my vibes set up for that system, and then tried enlisting interest in it from various composers that I work for, because all of this, you know, all of that was happening with the guitar players. The guitar players just were going bananas with all of that stuff, and now synths were really starting to happen, you know.

CLINE

Yes. We were into the digital synthesizer phase at that point.

BUNKER

Yes, by ’85. So, everybody that I’d play that setup for, they’d say, “Jeez, that really sounds loud. That’s lovely, but I don’t need it.” They just wanted the acoustic vibe. And all of that stuff is sitting out in my garage, gathering dust.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

But at that point I launched into a serious pursuit of MIDI and triggers. Emil [Richards] and I had tried to interest some people in developing some kind of a keyboard, you know, the idea being, I don’t want to have to be a keyboard player to play a synthesizer. I’d like to be able to do it from a keyboard that I’m familiar with. Just as it was finally starting to happen that the Lyricon had happened, and there were things that were around so a saxophone player could play, you know— Bill Perkins had been working on that for a long time, but he was an electrical engineer, and he rigged a saxophone up with— It was the goddamndest-looking erector set you ever saw, but he could play a synth or a synth module from it. So that was the idea. We couldn’t interest anybody. Then a guy named Bill Katowski came along and invented the KAT [MIDI mallet keyboard], and came up with the way of doing that. And I’m sure you know what all of that is.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

So, you know, Roland was making the drum—

CLINE

The drum pad.

BUNKER

—the drum pad things.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

So I looked at that as possibly a career extender, you know, because that was becoming so popular and so in demand, and on and on and on and on and on. It passed its lifespan, I’m sure. Went the way of all of those things, you know. One or two guys in town that do anything with that, as far as percussion is concerned. And, you know, that was the end of that. That’s jumping ahead a bit, but as a partial answer to where the music was going and all of that, I looked at that almost with academic interest, and the idea of prolonging the career, although I was certainly plenty busy at that time. What point was I going to make? I came to the realization that I really hated the way it sounded and I hated what it stood for. And by this time, more and more and more of the studio work was being done by guys in a garage, with a bank of synthesizers, which now today, I mean, you can’t watch any kind of a show on television that has live music anymore.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And it just— It turned me off. I ended up with a fifty, sixty-thousand-dollars system, and I’d take it to the studio, and the only guys that would call me for that stuff, called me to do that, and to send everything that I owned. And I’d be the only percussionist. And, you know, the day was a total rat fuck. Just if you had one electronic problem— And they couldn’t wait; they didn’t want to wait; they— You know, on and on and on and on. And one day I remember, you know, it was no fun at all.

CLINE

I think— Hold that story, because I don’t want the tape to run out. I’m going to stick in another tape.

BUNKER

Okay.

1.10. TAPE NUMBER: VI, SIDE ONE APRIL 3, 2003

CLINE

This is Alex Cline interviewing Larry Bunker on April 3rd, 2003. This is tape number six, and we are continuing with Mr. Bunker’s story about his realization, after amassing loads and loads of electronic gear for his vibraphone pursuits.

BUNKER

You know, I’d had these horrendous days, stress-filled days of trying to keep everything together, play the acoustic music, play the electronic music, keep everything running, and one day, I hadn’t used the stuff in about a year, and I got a call to use it from a guy who was just a moron about what it was possible to do and what one person was capable of doing. And I called my cartage people and I said, “Bring the stuff over to the house and set it up in the garage, because I can’t even remember how to turn it on.” [Cline laughs.] You know. And I’d turn on a piece of equipment and I wouldn’t see a screen that I wanted to see, and I’m going through owner’s manuals and operating instructions that I’d forgotten, to see, how do I get down four or five levels to that screen? Almost like a telephone menu, you know. And I just finally said, “It’s never even going to pay for itself.” And that’s when it was like, “I hate what it stands for and I hate the way it sounds, and I just don’t want to be involved in it. So, pass.” So, it’s in deep, deep storage at the warehouse.

CLINE

Yes. So, from the Fender Rhodes [electric piano] to the bass, upright bass pickup, then amplifier to the heavier sticks, cymbals, and hardware, everything starts to change. At this point a lot of the local jazz musicians started to really wonder about the relative health of jazz as a music, or what jazz was in their minds. Obviously, jazz means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And certainly this was before the whole sort of, you know, Wynton Marsalis phase of kind of resurrecting the past and developing some sort of a doctrine about what jazz is. Did you follow any of the developments in jazz music at this point, or were you really immersed in something else altogether?

BUNKER

Pretty much gotten away from it, and most of the players, the younger players that were coming up, I didn’t particularly care for. I’d buy their albums, you know. Wynton’s first album I bought. I think I was more enchanted with the idea of what he was, as an absolutely brilliant classical player, which to me he is. I don’t know of anybody that is better as a classical player. But it didn’t take long for the flash of the jazz to wear off. I seemed to find that there was not much meat on the bones, to me, and for my taste, as what he chose to play, because he can play anything, you know. As for some of the other trumpet players, I was never a terribly big fan of Herbie— Oh, Christ. Freddie Hubbard. Freddie Hubbard, yes. Some of the other guys that are around now, you know, I just don’t follow it. I don’t listen to jazz anymore. Even though I’ve got an electronic, I’ve got a hi-fi rig whereby now I can get [radio station] KLON in Long Beach well. For a long time I couldn’t. And before that it was what is now K-Mozart, when they were the jazz station, when all the guys were—

CLINE

Oh yes. KKGO, and before that it was KBCA.

BUNKER

KKGO, yes. Yes, right. And I just got to the point where I didn’t care about it that much. I didn’t care about their rotation. Maybe once in a while I’d listen. I’d listen when I knew Dick McGarvin was going to be the disc jockey on KLON, because his taste in music corresponds to mine, so I like what he chooses to put on the radio. You know. But Chuck Niles, I, you know— And the other guys, I don’t know. They just— You know. I really discovered classical music ten, fifteen years ago, and that’s virtually all I listen to now, and my education continues. You know, I can get K-Mozart well, and now I can get KUSC with clear fidelity. For a long time I couldn’t, up here. Just too much multi-path and all of that, you know. So that’s what I listen to. The occasional times I hear things that are current jazz, once in a while I’ll hear something, but most of the time, you know, if I never heard Paquito D’Rivera again, it’ll be okay with me.

CLINE

Did you follow the careers, the later developments of any of your sort of heroes from when you were playing the music when you were younger, like Miles [Davis] or any of his sidemen?

BUNKER

Yes. Herbie Hancock has occasionally done brilliant things. But it’s almost like I still want to go back to that original time, to the fifties and the sixties, and hear those guys in that context, you know, when they were just burning, burning. Ron Carter is okay. I understand he can really be an asshole. I’ve never had any dealings with him, but I mean, you know, wanting to order somebody off the bandstand because he was white.

CLINE

Oh yes?

BUNKER

And that kind of thing, you know. We’re still doing that these days?

CLINE

This brings up an interesting question, which I had down here to ask, which is, particularly after the tumult of the sixties, the later sixties, did you start to notice any changes in racial relations among the musicians at the time, or in any other way?

BUNKER

I don’t think so. I don’t think so. In the circles that I traveled in and the people I played with, were essentially white; white Jewish, white Jewish/Italian. It seems like I didn’t play a lot with the black guys, as I had earlier in the fifties. I think it just was a matter of geography or where we lived, where the gigs were, how many gigs there were, you know. It’s like with Harold Land living around town, hardly ever played— I don’t know that I ever did play with him. There’s a black tenor player [Ernie Watts], very much influenced by [John] Coltrane, but he’s probably in his fifties by now, who looks almost Indian. He’s got straight black hair, reminds me of Horace Silver.

CLINE

I’m blanking on who that may be.

BUNKER

Yes. Hardly ever played with. There are no black piano players around that I can think of. There were a couple of guys, but back in the sixties and seventies, who either left town or moved on, or do other things.

CLINE

A lot of the younger African American musicians kind of crossed over into the pop world.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

I guess following the progression of the more—what can I say—lucrative path in certain areas.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Some of the people like Patrice Rushen and some of those people, Ndugu Chancler and people who came out of Watts, basically. So there was that.

BUNKER

Yes. And I recall now that I did do a couple of record dates with her and with Ndugu. You know, I was percussionist. Just, we were all part of the cadre. But it didn’t seem like there was any change in relationships. You know, it’s interesting to me, the fact that my wife [Brandyn ] is African American, and I adopted her daughter after she became an adult, at her insistence.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

She chose me to be her father. You know, she said, “Why didn’t you ever adopt me?” I said, “It never came up.” “Well—,” blah, you know. She had absolutely no relationship with her natural father. They had split up when the baby was six months old. But even with that connection, African Americans are just barely involved in my personal life. That’s just the way it is, you know. Brandyn essentially functions in the white world. Most of her friends are white. She certainly has black friends and all of that, but they’re not an intimate part of our lives. And interestingly, I very, very seldom— Very seldom do we have conversations about all of that, black-white relationships, what’s happening, where it’s going, what it’s going to be like. It’s just that we have other things that concern us, and that’s— You know, I probably— I’ve got a book that I just picked up yesterday, because I’m probably more interested in this stuff than she is.

CLINE

Interracial Intimacies.

BUNKER

Yes. Written by a black writer [Randall Kennedy] who is a Rhodes scholar, served under Thurgood Marshall, and he’s a professor at Harvard Law School. And, you know, I find myself interested in all that, because to me it’s important. It’s an important area of life. But amazingly, Brandyn and I really devote very little time, you know, like to being involved in that. It just doesn’t impinge on us. It’s interesting.

CLINE

Yes. You’re people, too. Human beings. You mentioned Paquito D’Rivera a moment ago, and I wanted to ask you what you did, if anything, to continue your interest in and pursuit of Latin music that you started early on.

BUNKER

Reached a certain point of proficiency with those instruments; didn’t necessarily want to continue on further, further, further. The music, to me, reached a certain point and then kind of leveled off, because I don’t hear that much of it anymore, and I don’t hear anything that really turns my head and makes me want to get back into it. I can play those instruments well enough to do what I do as a percussionist, to make a living. And that’s as far as I was interested in taking it. You know, it’s like Arturo Sandoval is an absolutely insane player. And again, it’s kind of, so what? I’ve played for him. I’ve played with him. I did an album [Dreams Come True] with him. And Bill Conti hired him to do several of the Academy Awards shows as a soloist who would just play— You know, the minute they cut to black for a commercial, sound goes off. Now they want music. A five-minute commercial, they want five minutes of music for the house, entertainment. So there’d be big band charts by Mike Barone and Tom Ranier and various other people, and stuff, and there’d be lengthy trumpet solos by Arturo. And he’d do all of his thing, and at the end of it, you know, you just say, “It ain’t Dizzy [Gillespie]. It ain’t Miles,” you know. [mutual laughter] But whether that’s being an old fart, you know, at this point in my life, I don’t know, you know. It’s just, you can’t help but be amazed at his ability, and yet it’s all marshmallows and whipped cream somehow.

CLINE

You mentioned earlier your feelings about hearing Ornette Coleman back way back when. Did you have any interest in, or did you follow the developments in the so-called avant-garde in jazz in the later sixties? No?

BUNKER

No.

CLINE

People like John Coltrane, whose music went through such a transformation.

BUNKER

Yes. Yes. I remember seeing Archie Shepp once at the [Shelly’s] Manne-Hole, and finally I just stood up in the audience and shouted, “Fraud.”

CLINE

Oh, god.

BUNKER

“Fraud.”

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

I just, you know— It was noise, and not even controlled noise. I mean, I deal with controlled noise. That’s what I do, you know. But to me it wasn’t even that. So I never, you know—Don Ellis and his stuff. I knew a lot of guys that played in those bands, and they loved it and they learned a lot, you know, and they learned to be comfortable in 13[/8].

CLINE

Yes, I played in high school with one of his alums, who led the band that I played in in high school. I learned to be comfortable in 13[/8] as well. But that wasn’t your bag? You weren’t into that?

BUNKER

Not really. No. Playing in 5[/4] and 7[/4] with Clare Fischer was challenge enough, you know.

CLINE

Right. Other than classical music, is there anything you hear these days that does grab you, that isn’t just sort of whipped cream and there’s actually, like, as you said earlier, like, you know, meat on the bones? Anything?

BUNKER

Yes. I’ve— Once in a while, if I happen to skip over to KLON, I might hear a snippet of something. And then invariably I have to park the car and wait for them to play five more tunes, and then maybe they’ll say what it was, you know. I suppose they’ve got to be on the Internet by this time. I know the classical stations are, and you can get a program list from them, you know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

What transpired that day. But it seems that it’s usually not enough to grab me that strongly, to try to find out.

CLINE

Do you ever hear your old recordings when you’re flipping through KLON, with like Chet [Baker] or Bill [Evans] or any of these people, Gerry Mulligan?

BUNKER

Sometimes. Sometimes. And I understand that that stuff is still on a lot, because people will tell me, you know. I’ll go to work and they say, “Jeez, I was coming in this morning,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, “and I heard you on KLON,” and la, and on and on and on. And it’ll be something with Bill or with Gerry Mulligan or Shorty [Rogers], you know, and old, old stuff from way, way back. That stuff, some of it’s fifty years old.

CLINE

And how does that make you feel? What do you think?

BUNKER

Well, that’s nice. Nice that people enjoyed it, and, you know. I mean, that’s why you do that, is hope that people will enjoy it. But I’m interested— It’s interesting to me that they still find that so interesting, with all of the stuff that’s gone on, you know. But then it’s like my friend Steve Schaeffer, you know. If it’s sixties Miles, that’s the golden age. That’s the golden time, and the golden bands, and with those guys, you know. I mean, Steve still can’t stop talking about “Philadelphia” [Philly] Joe Jones. He said, “That son of a bitch,” because as much as he loves Elvin and as much as he loves Tony, I mean, it’s Joe Jones. And that’s true. Joe was an absolute killer.

CLINE

Yes. Well, I actually had a whole bunch of stuff that I still want to ask you about your studio work, and we’re kind of pushing the time limit today, of concentration and, you know, human finite mentality here.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

So if you’re up for it, maybe we can schedule one more session and finish up talking about that in more detail.

BUNKER

Okay.

CLINE

And I think that this is perhaps, if it feels good to you, a good place to stop for today.

BUNKER

Okay. Yes.

CLINE

Thank you very much. It’s been great.

BUNKER

Thank you

1.11. TAPE NUMBER: VII, SIDE ONE APRIL 10, 2003

CLINE

This is April 10th, 2003. This is Alex Cline, once again interviewing Larry Bunker at his home on a sunny but hazy day. This is tape number seven. Good morning, once again.

BUNKER

Good morning.

CLINE

As usual, I have some follow-up questions from our last session, and I wanted to point out the listener/reader that you were kind enough to dig into your archives and find copies of both your recording, as a leader, at least the second version of it, which was compiled for CD release, a Japanese release, which is Larry Bunker Quartette, Live at Shelly’s Manne-Hole, and also the Zoot Sims Quartet video [Live at Donte’s] from 1970, filmed at Donte’s. I have listened and I have viewed, and now I can actually ask some more informed and intelligent things about those. So, since it’s the older of the two, let’s start with the Shelly’s Manne-Hole live recording.

BUNKER

Okay.

CLINE

I wanted to ask you last time, what inspired you to put together a quartet with vibraphone and piano? That’s somewhat unusual, other than the Modern Jazz Quartet.

BUNKER

Yes. Just the fact that I had become friends with Gary and we had played together in a few situations. I don’t really remember if he was still actively involved with the George Shearing Quintet. I think he was. We had played together. In that setting I had done an album, the arranging of which he had done. We did it at Capitol Records, and I was hired, you know, as percussionist by Gary [Burton]. But I became enthralled with his playing, and don’t remember when that was. Early sixties. It was before I was with Bill [Evans], I believe, ’62 or '[‘6]3. As I said, you know, we played together and I think we worked a weekend or two at the Manne-Hole, and I was so amazed at what was happening, that I said, “We should record this.” So it wasn’t just a one-shot thing; I think we worked maybe two, three, four weekends, possibly. And so it was like, you know, we hired Wally Heider to bring in sound equipments, mics, and recording stuff. There was room at the Manne-Hole to accommodate that, and got Bones Howe, who was a friend also, very, very, well-known and respected recording engineer in town, to come in and mix the stuff, and just straight ahead. We played mostly standards, some originals of Gary’s. I had heard and played with Mike Wofford, who was still living in San Diego, his home town, at the time, and chose him to be the piano player. I just said, you know, the interaction between the two was rather amazing. So that was it, and that’s my sole, solitary album credit as a leader.

CLINE

Did you ever consider doing more work as band leader?

BUNKER

No, not particularly.

CLINE

No interest?

BUNKER

You know, it’s like somebody would say, “Well, do you want to be a contractor? Would you like to—?” I said, “Paperwork and being on the phone is absolutely of no interest to me. I like to play. I like to play music, and like that.” But the administration, the administrative aspects of it never did appeal to me.

CLINE

There’s some real swinging stuff on this CD, of course. Particularly, I was thinking of pieces like “Stella by Starlight,” you know, “Be My Love,” some of these tunes that are, you know, really happening, I think. And it’s really amazing that Gary already has his signature sound very clearly in place, even at that early stage. Since the CD is made up of alternate takes and outtakes and things, stuff that wasn’t chosen for the actual first release on LP, how do you feel about the recording of what I have to would think then be not primary choices? How does that feel to you?

BUNKER

Well, because the original master tapes were no longer available— I had no idea. They passed through a variety of hands, and the stuff eventually got released on some label. You know, it had been shopped around by Jackie Mills, who was a friend and a record producer and musician, a drummer, and a lot of time had gone by. So there was really— I tried to track down the original tapes, but there was really, I think— Jackie had retired and moved out of state, was living up in Montana or Idaho or someplace. For the material to be released at all, it was going to have to come from the alternate takes, and that was only because they had fallen into my lap. They’d been in a garage at an ex-wife’s place for— You know, since they were originally done. So it was either release it that way, or forget it.

CLINE

Yes, right.

BUNKER

So I thought, well— I listened to it and I said, you know, it’s okay. It’d been so long since I’d heard the original LP, I couldn’t really remember, you know, the choices that were made and the reasons for the choices, because actually, I relied very much on Gary for a lot of that, because he’d had a lot of experience in producing and overseeing production of his own albums. He was under contract to RCA [Records] at the time, had to get RCA’s permission, which was forthcoming. But that was pretty much, you know, how all of that went down.

CLINE

Okay. Another thing I wanted to ask you, which may be the same answer as the band leader question, particularly as you were at times over the last couple of sessions expressing a certain amount of frustration with being told how to play by band leaders, and not maybe always playing exactly the way you wanted to, or exploring the areas that you felt you really wanted to explore on your instrument or in the music, had you ever thought about seizing control of the musical situation for those kinds of reasons? For example, have you ever thought of composing, going that direction, so that you could essentially have the say over the direction of the music?

BUNKER

I entertained those thoughts when I was a lot younger. There again, everything was self-taught. When I got into the service at the age of nineteen, there was a captive band, with a bunch of guys that were confined to the base during the day, and had to practice and had to rehearse, and, you know, had various duties as band members. But we had a dance band, so I tried to teach myself something about writing there, and it was, again, the same situation, you know. There may have been eight bars that were lyrically wonderful and cohesive, and then there’d be eight bars that was dross. But I did that for a while. I did it for a while when I came out of the service; kind of gradually lost interest in it. It was hard work, sitting there picking your brains, bending over a piano stool, you know, and squiggles on the paper. I didn’t pursue that in any depth. I didn’t feel a deep commitment to it. So, as far as seizing the day and having control over my environment, even at that early stage in the sixties, I was already, you know, looking at the possibility of a career as a full-fledged studio musician, rather than as a jazz musician. I was a studio musician who played jazz, is how I have continued to think of myself. And I got a great deal of satisfaction out of doing that. As far as abandoning the studio idea and becoming a band leader, it didn’t mean that much to me. I said, I’m not going to be the second Elvin Jones. I’m not going to be the second Tony Williams, you know. It’s not in the cards for me to be that. And so all of that being dictated to, ceased to have the importance as I got older, than it did when I was younger, you know.

CLINE

And fast-forwarding to your tale of woe about the buildup of MIDI [Musical Instrument Digital Interface] gear and whatnot, the vibraphone, the MIDI keyboard, mallet keyboard, and all that electronic stuff, did the thought ever cross your mind that maybe you could basically take all that stuff and just do your own music with it, rather than wait for a composer to write for it, or even get out and somehow perform with it in some way that you ultimately had control over?

BUNKER

I started getting involved in that stuff in ’85, and I finally really kind of came out of the garage, as it were, with a full-blown system, including sound modules, sampling modules, you know, a Korg M1 [synthesizer], a particular Yamaha keyboard, and all of that, with the capability of, you know, functioning as a synth player, the ability to do that.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

I mean, it started with the idea of being able to play a vibraphone keyboard-related device, so that I didn’t have to be a proficient piano player, because I never was. But that evolved into also having a keyboard, because there are a lot of things you could do that way, that were easier to do than to hit the Mallet KAT, and all of those things. I played around with that quite a bit, and the technology was such that it just all ended up sounding like synth things to me, and I was really aiming and hoping for a more acoustic sound. The technology hadn’t really gotten quite to that point yet. I did a lot of my own sampling. The sample libraries that were out at that time were not all that wonderful. There were a few things, and I used Akai samplers. I didn’t get into the E-Mus, the Emulators. And what was that early— And Kurtzweil. Actually, the Kurtzweil sampling keyboards were not that developed yet, anyway. They were still more synth-based and oscillator-based. It’s just that the stuff that I did, I wasn’t happy with the results, you know.

CLINE

I see. It wasn’t inspiring you to create music, then.

BUNKER

Not really. Not really.

CLINE

Okay.

BUNKER

Like I may have mentioned once before, I reached a certain point where I said to myself, “Who am I kidding? I hate the way this sounds, and I hate what it stands for.”

CLINE

What did it stand for, to you?

BUNKER

Well, it stood for what it eventually became; putting a lot of musicians out of work.

CLINE

Yes. And we’re going to talk about that later today. Going now to the video—and this is an interesting document—Zoot Sims, you, Chuck Berghofer on bass, Roger Kellaway on piano, Live At Donte’s. It’s only twenty-eight minutes of music, but I think it gives a really distinct flavor of what the scene was like there. In a way, Donte’s stepped into the void left by the demise of Shelly’s after a while. It became quite the hangout for the local jazz musicians.

BUNKER

They did overlap, because I was going to Donte’s a lot in the sixties when the Manne-Hole was active.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

The Manne-Hole was ’60 to ’70, ’71, and so there was overlap, but it was a much larger venue, and a full-fledged restaurant, in fact. You know, a lot of people— I’d go there to hear Mike Barone’s band and have dinner, have a couple of drinks and then have dinner, and then wait till the guys pulled the walls down, you know, in the last set.

CLINE

Well, apparently Donte’s started as—Initially the idea was it was going to be just more of a piano room, and it expanded its policy over time, starting in the later sixties, so that during that overlap period that you had there, and then sort of taking over after the demise of Shelly’s as sort of the local haunt. Other than what you just described, in terms of the atmosphere and the clientele, is there any way you can contrast it with Shelly’s, what was different about it?

BUNKER

Mainly that. The acoustics were good. It was a rectangular room, much larger than Shelly’s. I’ve no recollection of how many people it would hold, but I’m sure legally, sixty, seventy, eighty, and the Manne-Hole was not licensed for that size. And the Manne-Hole was a much more oddly shaped room; kind of beat-up piano, but a bandstand big enough to accommodate a big band. It seems that it was virtually all local people that worked there. I don’t recall any of the major traveling bands ever playing there, as they did at the Manne-Hole. Whether they didn’t have the money or didn’t want to get involved, or their booking procedures, however all of that works, I’ve never known and cared. You know, doesn’t involve me. You want me to work? Call me on the phone and I’ll go where it is, you know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

Pleasant place to play. Sunny and Bill McKay were kind of the owners, and Carey Leverett. Carey had been a dancer, and he tended bar a little of the time. Sunny— I used to know her original Iranian name. She had come to the United States as an exchange student and studied art at USC [University of Southern California], and stayed. She might have come—a beautiful woman—might have come from a prominent family, Iranian family. Bill’s American as apple pie. And so they ran the place, and it was comfortable for musicians, comfortable place to play. I used to get into political arguments—I don’t remember about what—with Sunny, and we’d end up walking the bar, you know, sometimes at two-thirty in the morning. But it was fun. It was a nice place.

CLINE

You hung out a lot at Shelly’s and heard a lot of music. Did you spend a lot of time hanging out at Donte’s listening, as well?

BUNKER

Not as much. It was a little further from where I lived, and mostly it was the interest in the Mike Barone big band, because that was a feature there on Wednesday nights for years; years and years and years. The band was hot and, you know, there’d be, like, the cheerleading section that always showed up, all the musicians that loved to come and hear the band. And so that’s when I went, mostly.

CLINE

Did a lot of musicians come to listen there, as well as—

BUNKER

Oh, yes. Yes, yes.

CLINE

It’s interesting to see on the video, sort of to get a sense of the ambiance around the time that it was done. For one thing, I think one of the things that is immediately striking is the shots of the audience profusely smoking, which, of course, nowadays you would not see.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

But also, of course, just, you know, the styles of the time. I mean, you know, you have quite the mod look in this video, and Roger Kellaway looks like one of the Bee Gees, although, of course, there’s Zoot up there, still with his coat and tie and his hair slicked back.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And it looks to me like you’re playing what must have been the Gretsch drum set at this point.

BUNKER

Yes. Right.

CLINE

Although there are some differences, and I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this or thought about it, but, say, compared to the video [Jazz Scene USA: Shelly Manne and Shorty Rogers] of you playing with Shorty Rogers [and his Giants] in ’62, I was curious about a couple of things. One is, it looks to me like you’re holding your sticks farther back toward the end of the stick than you were in the earlier video where you’re holding it somewhat more towards the center. Were you aware of that at all?

BUNKER

No.

CLINE

Oh, okay.

BUNKER

Nothing conscious. Just—

CLINE

I see. And you’re kind of leaning more into the drum set instead of kind of, you know, sitting up very erect, the way you were in Shorty’s video. By 1970, how much jazz gigging were you doing, since you were clearly, like, the major studio guy by then?

BUNKER

Less and less. You know, Shelly was, of course, very active, and got pretty much the lion’s share of that. John Guerin had become very well known, rightfully so. He’s one of my favorite drummers. He just kills me. There’s a pop that he gets that, the time-feel. The whole thing; he’s the whole package, to me. And so I was getting calls less and less to do that sort of thing. It may have been also that the— Well, it was probably later that there was less and less call in the film and television area for drum-set playing. Now, that may not be true. There was a lot of demand for drum-set playing in the seventies, mostly for television, because of the kinds of shows that were being done then, the police things and detectives.

CLINE

I’d say a lot of the Quinn Martin shows and things had lots of drum set and lots of—

BUNKER

Rhythm section.

CLINE

Lot of writing, period, actually, back in those days.

BUNKER

Yes. But it seemed like John and Shelly, particularly, were the guys that were doing most of that, and I’d be there in my supportive role.

CLINE

And by now, Stan Levey had given up playing in the early seventies. And, of course, you have guys like Emil Richards obviously working a lot in those days.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Do you remember who some of the other people were at that point, now that we’re kind of moving into a period where I think a lot of people who started as jazz musicians were probably gigging less and working more in the studios?

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Do you remember who some of those guys would have been by then?

BUNKER

Bud Shank was certainly very active, and I don’t remember when Bud finally decided he wanted to be a nomad and leave. It was quite a few years, because Bud had a very active and successful career as a studio musician. Paul Horn had been doing that, a lesser-known jazz player, and finally moved up to the Pacific Northwest. I don’t know if he lives in Washington or Vancouver, or British Columbia someplace. Guys like Don Fagerquist were still active, and he’d been a jazz trumpet player with the Les Brown band, so that’s where I knew of him from. Dick Nash, who is a phenomenal trombone player. I’ve known Dick for, I guess, fifty years now. We were on Billy Mays’ band together in the very early fifties. Tom Scott was coming on the scene, was young, in his twenties, but coming on the scene as a player and as a writer. Pete Christlieb, who is still active today and is still a blazing player. I’m trying to remember if Toshiko [Akiyoshi]’s band was active around that time, with Lew Tabackin and Toshiko, and the guys that played in that band. But I mean, those were all guys that made their living in the studios, and they’d have a gig once in a while, you know. Charlie Loper, great trombone player; Peter Donald. I was just trying to think. You know, Stu Williamson was doing a lot of studio work; Jimmy Rowles, of course. I remember one of the best things that I ever saw happen— Jimmy played piano for Hank [Henry] Mancini for a long time. We were doing a Mancini album at the old RCA studios in Hollywood, where that film institute [Los Angeles Film School] is now, on Sunset Boulevard. And the concertmaster, the violin concertmaster for Hank, was a Hungarian who’d been an American for a long time, but still, he couldn’t say “winged victory.” It was “vinged wictory,” when he played in the show during the war; Erno Neufeld, who’s still alive and has musician sons. We started to play this tune of Hank’s, and there was like a sixteen-bar introduction for whatever this— It was either a ballad or very slow, medium tempo, just rhythm section, and Jimmy did his customary magic. And we were listening to a playback, and Erno was kind of just sitting there staring off into space, and I went over to the piano and picked up the music and walked over to Erno and showed it to him. And for the first sixteen bars, all it was, was just four-four, a key signature, and some slash marks, and occasional chord symbol. And Erno looked at it and watched it go by, and looked up at me and he said, “How the fuck do they do that? How do you guys do that?” You know, which was, I thought, kind of the response I would get from him, because, you know, he respected that, even though he was a classically trained musician and came from Budapest Conservatory, and then got out of there and ended up in Czechoslovakia before coming to the United States. But he just kind of shook his head and said, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand,” you know. It’s always lovely when that happens, you know, when you see somebody go, “Goddamn,” you know, and appreciate the art of that.

CLINE

Yes, yes. Right. Definitely. You mentioned Bud Shank a moment ago, and you had mentioned in our last session that you played a gig with him that had Scott LaFaro playing bass on it.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

What was that like?

BUNKER

Amazing. The band was, pretty much most of the time was, you know, just one night here, one night there, one night at a club in Malibu, one night at a restaurant in Pasadena, you know. But with Scott, Chuck Flores played drums. I played vibes and just kind of a little rhythm-section piano; Bud and Scott. Now, that was a strange rhythm section in that Chuck was certainly an okay player. He was not a brilliant player, but he was certainly okay, and he had spent some time with Woody Herman’s band, and was kind of a young hot player around town. Didn’t have a lot of chops, but had good feel, got a good sound. And Scott— Those two playing off of each other, and me trying to, you know, just kind of get in the middle someplace and comp a little bit, and play that way, you know, it was fun. It was good. Scott was in the process of turning the bass around, you know. Nobody ever heard anything like that before. I mean, as great a player as Jimmy Blanton was, and as great a player as Ray Brown was, and Oscar Pettiford and those guys, Red Mitchell, who was living here by that time— But still, nobody had taken the bass in that direction in that way, and revolutionized the way of playing it, that I knew of, you know. I’d never heard anything like that. And he was just in his twenties, a young guy.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

So it was an interesting time.

CLINE

Did you ever play any gigs with him where you were playing drums?

BUNKER

No, I don’t believe I ever did. Because it wasn’t too long after that that he left and went back east, because that was probably in the very late fifties that we were doing that.

CLINE

And another thing I wanted to follow up on, since you told the story of the Tony Williams Lifetime as essentially leading to the demise of Shelly’s— You told the story, but you didn’t actually give your impression or reaction to the music itself. What were your feelings about it?

BUNKER

It was just loud. I mean, Tony was amazing, the fact that he could do what he was doing, and as loud as he was doing it. And he was backed by two electronically amplified instruments, the Hammond organ and the guitar. No, he was just an absolutely amazing player to watch and hear. I wasn’t crazy about the music. I did end up listening to quite a bit of fusion music. You know, the other day when I was looking through my old LPs, I said, “There’s a lot of crossover music in there,” that I was buying and listening to during that period. And later in the seventies, particularly, you know, a lot of Chick Corea stuff in his various manifestations of bands, Return to Forever, all of those things; My Spanish Heart. There’s good music in a lot of that, but, for sure, it’s getting into areas of rock and roll combined with jazz, combined with who the hell knows what.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

Some of it I liked. Some of it I just didn’t care for at all, you know. I think I bought one of Tony’s albums, of the Lifetime. Wasn’t there something about legs? Something legs?

CLINE

Million Dollar Legs. Million Dollar Legs is one of the later ones, the second Lifetime group. [Tony Williams] New Lifetime, it was called.

BUNKER

Yes, I think I bought that album, and I was into it some.

CLINE

Yes, by then he was playing, definitely doing the big drums with the big sticks.

BUNKER

Yes, yes. And that was recorded up in the Northwest someplace, in a ranch studio, probably in Idaho or Montana or someplace.

CLINE

Well, he was living in Marin County [California] by that time, I think, too. When you saw him at Shelly’s, did he sing at all?

BUNKER

No.

CLINE

Because, you know, the early Lifetime stuff he had some singing on. He’d actually sing. And that was certainly met with a certain amount of a controversial response.

BUNKER

What flabbergasted me, near the time of his death— And I don’t remember what that was, what caused his death. He was, what, fifty years old, or approaching fifty?

CLINE

He was in his fifties, yes. He died on the operating table. He went in for— He was going in for gall bladder surgery, and yes, complications.

BUNKER

But to find out that he was gay, I said, “That’s amazing, because jazz musicians are not gay.” Now we find out that jazz musicians are, you know; some are.

CLINE

Well, Gary Burton, for example.

BUNKER

Yes. I mean, Gary came out, and when I heard that I just said, “Boy, that explains a lot of things.” Just, you know— And I don’t need to delve into that, but just snippets of Gary’s personality, his attitudes, his behavior in certain instances. I remember one time, I think we were in Japan with Stan Getz, and something happened. We had played a particularly wonderful set, and I got off the bandstand and embraced him, and he just went rigid, just like, “Don’t do that.” And I thought, that’s a strange reaction, because it was genuinely heartfelt on my part, because I’m that way with people. If I’m touched by something that they do, or by them, it’s a lot of touchy-feely, huggy-kissy with me, you know. [Cline laughs.] And he just, he just [gasps and stiffens]; whether that was latent feelings of any kind, or just total repression of any of that, the manifestation of any kind of emotion directed toward a same-sex person. I don’t know, you know.

CLINE

Yes, right.

BUNKER

And I don’t know him well enough to ask him that, and it’s not important to ask him that. It’s something I probably never would, even though I’ve known him as long I have. But it really surprised me with Tony, because I said, “Goddamn, those are the biggest balls I’ve ever seen,” you know, or heard in a player.

CLINE

And yet he also married late in his life, which was interesting. And I don’t know what that was about. But I did meet his wife once, you know, quite a beautiful woman. It’s very interesting. But jazz is still very much not only the dominion of the male, but the dominion of the macho somewhat blatantly heterosexual male.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And you still don’t hear about too many gay jazz musicians coming out. I mean, and there must be more, but I think it’s probably still very much the— Or what do you think? Is it the realm of the—

BUNKER

I think it is the social— I believe Fred Hersch is.

CLINE

Yes, right. He’s come out. Sure.

BUNKER

Whom I don’t know, but is a wonderful player.

CLINE

Definitely.

BUNKER

But just stayed in the closet. Acceptance. Why make waves? Why make problems? You know. What prompted Gary to come out, I don’t know, because he was married. I think he was married twice, and has kids. And so, suddenly, just within the last very few years, where he decided to go public, and it’s a more open time. It’s a more accepting time. There’s been so much, you know. There have been athletes that have come out. Politicians, people that are members of Congress have said, “Okay,” you know. “I can do this. I can effectively serve my community and perform my job and do all that, and that has no bearing on it.”

CLINE

Yes. Do you think there’s a difference between somebody who’s already sort of there? They’re established and then they come out, versus somebody who’s young and still trying to get gigs and get calls, and who may not feel so secure in that way?

BUNKER

I don’t know. I know a lot of gay people, but hardly any of them are jazz musicians. They’re in other areas of life, and I don’t— I’m just thinking. Of all of the studio musicians I’ve know, very, very, very few; a string player, woodwind player. I’m thinking of—I won’t mention her name—a clarinetist, a wonderful classical clarinetist who’s quite in demand in the studios, who recently entered into a lesbian relationship with another colleague. And I thought, “Oh. You mean they’re an item?” Unlikely, but if they’re an item, so be it. Whatever. And I mean, that’s their life and it’s their life to live.

CLINE

And speaking of women, we talked a little bit about the seemingly few number of women jazz musicians who were around when you were on the scene, and certainly relative to the number of women there are playing in the studios, which is a lot greater. What sense, if any, do you have right now for how easy or difficult it is for a woman to break into the jazz world, compared to before?

BUNKER

I think it’s easier now; fewer restrictions. Elaine Elias comes to mind. She’s a wonderful player, from Brazil. There was a woman, JoAnne Brackeen. She was around. I haven’t heard much about her in the last few years, but when she first came on the scene and had her first album, I believe I bought one of hers.

CLINE

Well, she’s from here, too.

BUNKER

Yes. I don’t recall playing the album a lot. I was more curious than anything else, just because, you know, there are so few women that show up in that area.

CLINE

Yes.

BUNKER

Now, there’s a lady; there’s another lady that has come on the scene just in the last couple, three years. I probably won’t remember who she recorded with. She lives back east, pianist, and good.

CLINE

There are quite a few pianists.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

I don’t know why that is particularly, but a lot of them and a lot of good ones. Any other instruments come to mind that—

BUNKER

Not in the jazz sense, you know. I haven’t really heard— I’m not familiar with Stacy Rowles’ playing. I know that she’s very well regarded and very well thought of, and she’s been around and doing that for a long time. She’s in her middle forties, isn’t she? Forty-six, seven years old?

CLINE

Yes, she must be. She’s close to my age.

BUNKER

Saxophone players? You just don’t seem to hear of them. Seemed like some lady came on the scene back east a few years ago and kind of starburst and then who knows, you know.

CLINE

Jane Ira Bloom?

BUNKER

Yes, exactly. Exactly.

CLINE

Yes, soprano saxophone player.

BUNKER

I haven’t heard anything about her for a while. I haven’t heard of any trumpet player. I haven’t heard of any trombone player. Haven’t heard of any bass player. And Terri Lyn Carrington is about the only drummer that comes to mind, and she can play. She can play.

CLINE

And Cindy Blackman is another one.

BUNKER

Her I don’t know.

CLINE

Very Tony-influenced.

BUNKER

Yes. Dick McGarvin is a disc jockey who bounces around from station to station. He gets fired and then he gets rehired, and then they find time slots for him, who’s one of my favorites when I listen to KLON or one of the jazz stations, just because his taste coincides with mine. I remember years and years ago— He killed me the way he did it. Now, I’d have to think a second. He played an album. It was like a trio or quartet album; good players, good material, well recorded. And the drums were just killer. And so after the tune was over, he called out who it was, who the leader was, who the players were, and the last player that he mentioned was the drummer. And he set it up in some kind of a way whereby he was able to say, you know, he says, “Terri Lyn Carrington.” Well, “Terry” is masculine or feminine. So when he said, “Terri Lyn Carrington”, this that and the other, and commented a little bit, because he’s a drummer, as well, himself, and said something about, you know, “however she feels about it.” And I went, “What? What I just heard was a lady drummer?” Because I had not heard that kind of playing from a female before. You know, there were occasional rock and roll drummers in girl groups, and the heavy bashing, but I mean, you know, that takes more endurance than skill, as far as I’m concerned. I said, “That’s amazing,” that she sounded that good.

CLINE

And speaking of drummers, a name that hasn’t come up in our interviews, I wondered if you had heard around town, who was somewhat of a legend and, of course, ended up tragically, was Frank Butler.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Do you remember much about Frank?

BUNKER

I played with Frank and I heard him play a lot. Now, is he still alive, or is he—

CLINE

No.

BUNKER

—no longer?

CLINE

No.

BUNKER

Did he relapse?

CLINE

Oh, yes. It was— Yes.

BUNKER

Yes, because he had kind of cleaned up his act and straightened up.

CLINE

Yes, he didn’t survive.

BUNKER

Wasn’t able to make it stick.

CLINE

No, no.

BUNKER

Frank was around, certainly, by, I think, the late fifties; certainly the early sixties, and playing. He played in a group that Curtis Counce had, bass player. “You get more bounce with Curtis Counce,” which was a lot of the time Carl Perkins playing piano, who was a phenomenon; Curtis, Frank, Jack Sheldon, and I’m trying to remember if Harold Land played with that group. Might have. Worked at the Haig. Worked in the joints in Hollywood. But I did hear Frank play a lot. Frank was a bitch. Frank, very unique, dancing time. I guess the closest I can think of to him would be like a Billy Higgins kind of drummer, whom I hardly ever heard. I only heard Billy mostly on record, because he made millions of them.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

But I never did seem to go to see groups that he played with. No particular reason. But Frank had some trademark things that he did. He’d get a new pair of drumsticks and then go out on the curb and rub the heads off, you know. This was before they had plastic heads. And he’d just file it down to like a pencil point. And played a lot of his drum solos with his hands. Didn’t have plastic heads; it was still calf, so there’d be some roughness and texture. And he’d do things rubbing his fingers across, as well as hitting the drums, patting the drums. And he had a thing that he could do with his fingernails. Did you ever hear that or see that?

CLINE

Well, I never saw him, so if I heard it I may not have—

BUNKER

All of his fingernails came down and kind of bowed over the ends of the fingers, for some reason.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

On both hands. And he had a way of flicking this with both hands, and he’d play rolls [mimics the sound of rolls ending in sharp accents]. But he’d be playing with his hands, and he’d [demonstrates]. He’d do those kind of things, flams and roughs, really, with the fingers.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

It was just wild, and it was loud. I mean, all of a sudden you’d think he had picked up the sticks, and he was doing that with his fingernails.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

But he had beautiful time. Drums always sounded good. He borrowed part of a set of drums from me one time, and I said, “I have a feeling that I’m not going to get these back.” And I was right. I finally cornered him and got a pawn ticket from him, you know; the Philly Joe Jones syndrome.

CLINE

Yes, right. Speaking of Philly Joe, although we’re getting to the end of this tape side here, your tuning on this Live at Shelly’s Manne-Hole record seemed somewhat reflective of Philly Joe, very highly tuned toms cranked way up there. Was that a sound you were going for at that time?

BUNKER

Yes, a little bit. And they were still calf heads on the drums, and whatever time of year it was, the heating or the air conditioner or something, you know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

But I was conscious of that, and they were smaller drums, eight-[inch] by twelve-[inch rack tom-tom] and a fourteen-[inch by fourteen inch floor tom-tom]. Twenty-two-inch bass drum, though; not a twenty. I think it was a twenty— No, I’m not sure. It may have been a twenty. But I never seemed to be able to get that drum up as high as I wanted. A lot of guys could really get a drum up clear out of a string-bass register, you know, so that it didn’t compromise that.

CLINE

Yes. Then you eventually went to an eighteen-[inch bass drum] in order to do that?

BUNKER

I never did bother. I liked the drums, and with the hardware that was available, it put the tom-tom where it was easy for me to reach. And I said, if I do that, then I’ve got to drill more holes or get a console holder or something, you know. I said, it’s fine.

CLINE

So you never went to an eighteen?

BUNKER

No, I never did.

1.12. TAPE NUMBER: VII, SIDE TWO APRIL 10, 2003

CLINE

I was just saying that— I said that Shelly’s video, which was incorrect. It was a video that also had Shelly on it, the one from Jazz Scene USA with Shorty, and the one at Donte’s with Zoot. Both looked like twenty-inch bass drums to me.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Another thing that I wanted to ask you before we get into the studio thing is, you mentioned in our last session, when we were talking about sort of the racial makeup of things and that whole scene, that it was after a while just you and largely white Jewish and Italian guys. [Bunker laughs.] Why do you suppose that is such a common phenomenon? Especially here in town, when you look at a lot of the people who were playing, especially horn players, this amazing profusion of Italians. Any feelings about that?

BUNKER

Well, the Italians among us are numerous, and they come from a gene pool of musical geniuses. They’re, you know— I mean, it’s all over the United States. The predominance of them in the studios is amazing. You know, every time we turn around, there’s somebody of Italian extraction, first generation, second, third generation, people that came over here, you know, whose parents came here at the turn of the century or even a little after. The Jews we don’t even have to talk about. They’re prodigious; they know music; they have music; they study music; they achieve. As a part of their culture and their historic background, it just comes out that way. And the white-bread Caucasians like me kind of bring up the rear. As far as the jazz musicians are concerned, there are not— To me, there are not a lot of guys in Los Angeles. I mean, you know, Oscar Broshear comes to mind; George Bohanon comes to mind; Ernie Watts; Harold Land, before he passed away; Marshal Royal, before he passed away, and I didn’t work with him that much in the studios. He was always involved with the Capp Juggernaut, the [Nat] Pierce-[Frank] Capp Juggernaut band, and doing things like that; Green, Bill [William] Green, who was known more as a very capable and competent woodwind player, and teacher, I think, more than as a jazz player; Jackie Kelso [also known as Kelson]— I’d hardly ever see him. Of course, I would usually see him on a record date. You know, Plas Johnson. I worked with Plas a lot in the rock and roll days, because he was on every rock and roll record there was that was done in this town.

CLINE

Right. Right.

BUNKER

They had to have Plas. You know, just like back east they had to have David Sanborn, or somebody that sounded like him. But Plas kind of set that standard for what was going on in the sixties and seventies. Now, interestingly, you know, the Mike Barone big band, I don’t know that he ever had a black member of the band; I don’t recall. I don’t know why, whether it was just— He had a lot of Italians, you know, because he is Italian, and some Jews, and John Guerin, who is probably of French extraction, from wherever back that was, you know. You’re starting to see a few more African Americans in the studio scene, but people that have come up and had the classical training, rather than teach yourself how to play, which is what mostly has happened with so many of the black jazz musicians. You know, the whole history of that. Kid wants to play the trumpet. He gets a trumpet and teaches himself how to play it. Maybe they had a little money for some lessons, but not that much. And I’m thinking of people, you know, my age and younger, but that were children of the depression. We didn’t have any money for music lessons, you know. We had enough money to get food on the table and that was it. But there was a wonderful bass player that was a member of the L.A. Philharmonic many years ago, named Henry Lewis, who ended up married to the wonderful mezzo-soprano, Marilyn Horne.

CLINE

Oh yes.

BUNKER

They later divorced but they remain friends. He ended up conducting the New Jersey Symphony. He was probably the first black guy that was ever with the L.A. Philharmonic, and he went back to the early or the middle fifties, late fifties, possibly, maybe early sixties, before the Music Center [of Los Angeles County], when they were still down at the old Philharmonic Auditorium, before Zubin [Mehta]. Now there’s a French-horn player in the orchestra, quite a few in the string section; viola and violin. I don’t know that there’s any cellists. The philharmonic orchestras around the country have acquired a preponderance of Asian players, but they have proved enormously adept at being string players, and their training methods are such; whether it’s from the Suzuki method or how that works, I don’t know. But they turn out a lot of amazing string players. So I work with people, a lot of Chinese and a lot of Japanese, some Malay people. I think there’s a Filipino violinist with the [L.A.] Philharmonic. No brass players, other than the one French-horn player, for some reason. Woodwinds from time to time. Three flutes will all be females. You know, it comes and goes; it comes and goes; it comes and goes. But I think more and more, African Americans that are interested in music are coming from families that are affluent enough to be able to afford lessons, but also put the kids in an environment where they hear that kind of music, and that’s what they grow up interested in, you know. If you’re listening to Brahms and Schubert and Mozart and Mahler at home, the chances are you’re not going to gravitate toward Miles [Davis]. You know. You might, but then you might not.

CLINE

Yes, right.

BUNKER

It depends. It’s entirely the environment. And I think the environment for so many, many, many years for so many African American kids was slanted toward jazz, in the big band era. It’s like for me, that’s what I grew up in. I didn’t grow up listening to Mahler and Stravinsky; I grew up listening to Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman, you know, and that’s where my interest in music lay until I was well into advanced adulthood.

CLINE

This actually brings up the subject of jazz education, which is now a big field. There’s a lot of universities just here in the area that have jazz programs that train jazz musicians, so it’s no longer necessarily the teach yourself sort of technique that was tried and true for all the creators and innovators of jazz that are still revered today. Do you have any opinion about what you know of jazz education now, and how different it is from how things once were?

BUNKER

Well, when I was a kid growing up, it was nonexistent, so far as I knew. North Texas State [University] hadn’t happened. To have a jazz band even at the high school level during World War II, you just kind of did it after school. You put it together. You know, you assigned somebody to find the music, to get the music. The music teacher, the band teacher or orchestra teacher usually didn’t have anything to do with it. It was totally an after-hours project, not for credit, and that’s the way it was when I went to high school here. Now I know that it’s an enormous field, and that was all pioneered by North Texas State. And I just saw something recently; there was a photograph of the L.A. [Los Angeles] City College jazz band in one of the union [American Federation of Musicians, Local 47] papers. Now, whether it was the Overture or the federation paper [The International Musician], I don’t remember, but there was a whole big picture. A few of the guys’ names I recognized. Some of them I know today. One guy is a trumpet player that lives down the street from me, who became a songwriter. I guess that was maybe started in the fifties. I know that the schools are there, that they are turning out very proficient players. I’ve hardly ever heard any one of those guys that killed me as a jazz player. They learn their improvisation skills in such a way that, you know, a lot of times it ends up sounding academic. And then you get through with all of that and you say, “Okay. Now where are you going to work?”

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

Because there is no work. There’s no work for those people. The guys that do the one o’clock lab band and these phenomenal bands, they get the charts and they get the players and they get the coaching and the mentoring, and this, that, and the other, and you say, “Yeah. Jesus Christ, they can just play their ass off.” They can’t even get a gig in [Las] Vegas as an ensemble player, because that’s all gone the way of synthesizers and virtual orchestras, and canned and taped, and on and on and on.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

So, I mean it’s great that it’s there, but what purpose it’s serving, I don’t really know. I don’t really know. I went to one of the [International Association of] Jazz Educators conventions down in Anaheim a while back, to play percussion with somebody. I’m trying to remember who it was. It wasn’t Kim Richmond that had the band. One evening’s performance. Herb Geller had still not moved back to town, but he came to the thing and was a featured soloist with whatever this band was, and I can’t even remember. It was an ad hoc, you know; one of those. And I heard all these people play, and I listened to all of this, and there were talks and seminars and things, and I said, “I don’t get it.” And would you ever want to be interested in doing anything like that? No. Teaching is not my cup of tea.

CLINE

What are the chances, you think, given the situation now, musically and in terms of the education, for continuing innovation to take place in jazz music?

BUNKER

I haven’t really heard— You know, I haven’t bought a jazz record in a long time. And who the current hot players are, I really don’t know. I kind of stopped paying attention once we got to Joshua Redman. I know there’s some saxophone players that have come up since him, that are— You’ll read something, you know, or an album review. But I just— I haven’t listened to most of that music. I haven’t heard anything that just really makes me want to go run down to Tower Records and buy it, you know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

So, you know, I’m in that whole thing of listening to Benjamin Britten and John Adams, the classical stuff that has just been putting me away for the last ten years. That seems to be what gets my juices going, you know.

CLINE

And that also hasn’t inspired you to maybe compose a bit yourself?

BUNKER

No, not really. I really feel I don’t have that particular ability, you know. I mean, my god, if I could write something like [Silvestre] Revueltas, you know, [whistles]. But what kind of demented nut he had to have been to come up with some of the stuff that he’s done, you know.

CLINE

Yes, yes. You mentioned the directions and potential careers that are available or not available to young musicians today. Describe for us, in connection with that, if you will, the situation in the studios now, which used to be the big sought-after gig for young musicians who were coming up, here in Los Angeles especially. That was the secure path; difficult to get into, but certainly lucrative if you could get into it and if you were good. Where does that stand now, before we go into looking back at your career there?

BUNKER

I’m working less and less. I’m getting called less and less. I can attribute that to probably a variety of things. It may be that my hair is a little too white. It may be that some certain people figure fifty years is enough. It may be that there’s been a decline in skills. I don’t think so, but then that’s my opinion. But also the nature of the change in the business. It has changed drastically. Whereas there used to be many, many, many people who were responsible for hiring orchestras, there is less and less call for the orchestras. You know, you read in the paper about Hollywood is producing product, as we call it, but it does not seem to involve musicians recording background music for it. More and more of it is being done by synthesizer scores. More and more of it is going to Seattle and other cities around the country; Toronto, you know. All of those places you can buy post-production equipment and you can hire talented people to run the equipment, and there’s a labor pool of very skilled musicians in those places. Seattle’s got a first-rate orchestra [Seattle Symphony]. They’re also scabs; they’re non-union.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And they work for far less money. Since they’re not in the federation, they don’t demand what we call scale.

CLINE

Yes, right.

BUNKER

There are no re-use. Their film scores can be reissued on CDs, and they don’t get a nickel for it. That was their choice.

CLINE

Yes.

BUNKER

But they chose to secede, and so that’s where that is. That’s too bad because, you know, I don’t know how they’re making a living. The question was— Oh. When I do work, I am continually seeing new young people, particularly in the strings, because the conservatories are cranking out those people. And, you know, there’s depth. They’re very good. Brass players, I’ve seen— I’ve seen a couple, three trumpet players come along that are very good; woodwind players. I mean, you’ve still got Malcolm McNabb, who is an absolutely amazing trumpet player, who’s been the premier trumpet player in this town for thirty-some-odd years. But Dave Washburn, who is principal with the L.A. [Los Angeles] Chamber Orchestra, is newer on the scene. He’s a good player. Guy named John Clark; John Lewis. [tape recorder off]

CLINE

Okay. We’re back on.

BUNKER

We’re back on. It seems like those opportunities are there, and for up-and-coming younger players. Here and there, some of the older war-horse players like myself are being farmed out. Not farmed out; that’s not the right expression. But, you know—

CLINE

Phased out?

BUNKER

Retired or turned out to stud. But the opportunities are there. It’s more and younger people being available for less and less work. So, how that bodes for the future of the business, I don’t know. We had kind of a renaissance that was probably started by John Williams, after the advent of Star Wars and Jaws and all of the [Steven] Spielberg blockbuster films that he was involved in, and George Lucas films, that created or re-created the desire on the part of the producing people to have huge orchestras. Orchestras were not that large when I was coming up, you know; fifty, sixty people, maybe; good string section, a complement of winds, horns. But I mean it’s not at all unusual now to walk in on a date and there’s eight French horns, an enormous string section, triple woodwinds. I mean, three bassoons, three flutes, three clarinets, three double-reed oboe, English horns and so forth, you know; plenty of trumpets, plenty of trombones, bass trombone, tuba, and a bunch of percussion. And I think John has been almost single-handedly responsible for that. He created that sound, and people said, “Okay. It costs us a lot of money, but it really helps us to make the picture what we want it to be.” So, they’ve been willing to do that. Sometimes they go to England to do it, and they send John over there. But subsequently, a lot of composers, the younger composers and the less well established, have been able to demand those kind of forces. James Horner, for one, has been able to do that. James Newton Howard usually will have a good-sized orchestra. And Jerry Goldsmith, depending upon his needs, can have huge or not so huge. I just worked on The Matrix Reloaded, which was the sequel to The Matrix, with Don [Davis]—it’ll come to me in a minute—Don, Don, Don, Don. Enormous orchestra. It filled up the stage at Twentieth-Century Fox, and then was going to have a fifty-piece choir on top of that, added separately, you know, through the magic of tape and of ProTools and hard drives and all of that. Don Davis, good composer. Writes hard, hard. Jesus, the music was just endless, endless, endless. But that gets to a thing, though, which might be a next question on your part, is to where the jazz musicians fit into this. And they fit into it less and less frequently. It seems that there has been less and less and less demand for improvisational skills in this music, in the kind of stuff that we’re required to do now, you know. It requires, if you’re lucky, a conservatory background and a lot of practice. But, you know, I never work with a guitar player anymore; usually only on television. Dennis Budimir, who is absolutely a brilliant player and friend of mine, has been for a long, long time, he’s retired, long, ten years before he wanted to be. Was always working. There was always a need for a guitar player. Doesn’t seem to be anymore. You know, back in the days of Mancini and early Johnny Mandel and so forth, there was always Bud, Jack Sheldon, you know, one, two, three players; a rhythm section, invariably, and people with a jazz background that could do all the other stuff, were there. I haven’t done anything with Jack Sheldon, except a panel discussion at a jazz festival, in years, years.

CLINE

So many questions here. One of the things I wanted to ask you about was, since you now listen to a lot of classical music, and so many of the film scores of the past, going all the way right through your whole career, I would have to say, are at times highly influenced, shall we say, if not imitative of a lot of the great composers. Has this in any way affected the way you hear classical music now, when you listen to it?

BUNKER

I don’t know that it does. I’m sure that I’ve heard direct references, direct inferences in some of the scores, to stuff that’s in the repertoire. But for so long I was so unfamiliar with the repertoire that I was not aware of that, that kind of influence. And so many of the guys that I have worked with down through the years, the film composers, tend not to write in any kind of way that is related to the early romantics, the Brahmses, Schuberts, the Schumanns, you know, all of that. Even though they may be very melodic kind of players, there aren’t that many of the film composers that have been like serial composers and done really avant-garde stretch kind of things. You know. They like to use the diatonic scale, and it’s major or minor, and not breaking any big ground. But so much of the time they’re really, you know, they’re going more for sonorities, for textures, for a background feeling, to punch up an image of some kind. I mean, when you get into the really dramatic, dynamic stuff, you know, the big action movies, chase movies, and Jurassic Park, that kind of stuff, you know, then it just gets kind of busy and cacophonous, you know.

CLINE

Right. But you’re not sitting down listening to Bartók or Stravinsky or Britten or somebody, or [Ralph] Vaughn Williams, for example. He became a favorite not too long ago. And just think, you know, you start getting, you know, movie images flashing through your mind. Is this—

BUNKER

No.

CLINE

Oh, that’s good. That’s good. Because I think a lot of younger music listeners, or just people growing up surrounded by the various culture, both popular and high, have their early exposure to the sounds of so-called classical music through movie soundtracks, and I think sometimes it proves to be a stumbling block to get into that music, because they associate it with all this other material, these images, these stories. And that’s kind of a unique and unusual phenomenon. You mentioned some film composers in your last little discussion. Who were some of the really—you can repeat some, but maybe some that you hadn’t mentioned before, of the most memorable composers that you’ve worked for? [brief interruption]

BUNKER

Well, the most memorable— Not the most memorable, but certainly one of the most memorable was my very first film score.

CLINE

Stalag 17.

BUNKER

Which was Stalag 17, in 1952, with Franz Waxman. And I was scared to death. I remember nothing about the music. [mutual laughter] But, now, I didn’t get to work— I may have worked once with Victor Young. I didn’t get to work with Max Steiner, but I did get to work with Hugo Friedhofer, who was orchestrator for a lot of those guys, and a lot of people, the insiders, say really responsible for the success of some of the great iconic film composers, you know, of the past. Didn’t get to work with [Ernest] Korngold. One of the older guys that I did work with— I worked with Bernard Hermann once, on Taxi Driver, which was his last film. But, I mean, these were the old-time Europeans, the guys that had their training in Europe, and thanks to Adolph [Hitler], ended up here.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

But beginning even in the fifties was the influx of the jazz-oriented score. Johnny Mandel came to mind first, and then Mancini. So I started working for John in the fifties, playing his music. And I’ll be doing something with him in a couple of weeks, with Barbra Streisand. So, that relationship continues, you know.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

I’m sure it’s part of a record project, not a film. But I think John and Mancini had a profound influence on the way a lot of that music was done, and brought about the introduction of the jazz-oriented player into the studio, because up to that time there weren’t that many. There were a few guys that had come up through the dance bands. It would be Hank and Mandel that was responsible for Shelly, for instance; for myself; for Joe Maini being on a film call for Johnny Mandel, and his choice of lead alto player, as opposed to any one of a dozen highly, highly skilled, highly competent alto saxophone players, you know. But they weren’t going to give Johnny what Joe could give him.

CLINE

Yes, yes.

BUNKER

So, you know. And getting bass players like Joe Mondragon and Red Mitchell and some of those people into position. May have done a few calls with Joe Comfort, who had been Nat [King] Cole’s bass player, early, early on. And then it just starts going. I worked as a utility percussionist for Jerry Goldsmith for thirty-some-odd years. Did get to work a few times with Al [Alfred] Newman, quite a bit with Lionel [Newman]; all that out at [Twentieth Century-] Fox [Film Corporation]. And then on up to the Oliver Nelson days out at Universal [Pictures], when Stanley Wilson brought him in, one of the first of the black composers, and then Quincy [Jones]. Did pictures out there with “Q.” Memorable, memorable, memorable. Did a lot of pictures with Lalo [Schifrin], and all of that jazz influence that, you know.

CLINE

Right. And he did a lot of TV during the sixties, too.

BUNKER

Yes, sure. Yes. Because I was the original drummer on the original Mission Impossible, and the one with [Mike] Connors.

CLINE

Oh, Mannix.

BUNKER

Mannix, yes.

CLINE

Right. So were you playing the jazz waltz on the theme on Mannix?

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Cool. [laughs] And then up to the present day. Obviously, you mentioned some. You mentioned John Williams, James Newton Howard and James Horner. You mentioned in our earlier session last week that you’re not working for James Horner anymore.

BUNKER

No.

CLINE

Do you care to elucidate? You kind of intimated—

BUNKER

Fired. [Cline laughs.] Just fired, you know. I worked for him— I did the first film that he ever did, and worked for him until one day he just decided he wanted—At this point I’d been playing timpani for him, and did a lot of films playing timpani. Emil was usually there, Emil and myself, depending on how large the orchestra was. When we did Glory, I thought that I did a good job on that. Emil told me that when he saw it in the theater he said, “That’s the best-looking timpani sound I ever heard in my life.” I said, “Well, thank you, babe.” But then he’s a friend, you know. James decided to make a change, and he uses Tom Raney, who is the timpanist with the Pasadena Symphony and the L.A. Chamber Orchestra; sensational musician, and it’s his band. He can, you know— He can do whatever he wants.

CLINE

Sure. Are there some memorably awful experiences that you can briefly describe; memorably negative, in other words?

BUNKER

For me personally, it was probably 1960, ’61, and was doing the original Oceans Eleven with Nelson Riddle, at Warner Bros. And I sailed in there and walked into a xylophone part that I absolutely could not play. And in rehearsing the thing, and in fooling around, this, that, and the other— It was for two players on two different instruments, and it was really meant to be played, and there was no way to shuck it. And I was devastated. I said, “I don’t know what to do.” This was back before we had a guaranteed length of call. They decided to go to dinner and come back. And I went to the contractor and I said, “There is no way that I’m going to be able to play that part today.” I said, “If it was next week and I could take it home, maybe I could woodshed it and get it together, but,” I said, “not today. So you should get on the phone and call Dale Anderson.” And he said, “Oh. Well.” Kurt Wolff was his name, German bookkeeper who ended up the contractor at Warners [Bros. Pictures]. He said, “That’s very good of you to tell me that,” you know. And he got on the phone and Dale was available. And I went to dinner and I came back, because I wanted to see Dale eat that thing alive, which is what he does. You know, he’s a xylophone virtuoso. And without a hair out of place, he just whistled right through that thing. Now, that was devastating to me, because I was touting myself as an all-around mallet player and keyboard player, and so forth and so on, and totally unqualified to be there that day.

CLINE

Wow.

BUNKER

So, you know. But I’ve lucked out. I’ve had that kind of thing happen very, very, very few times. I’ve been fooling them all these years.

CLINE

[laughs] Wow. And you talked a little bit about the evolution of the studio sort of demand, in terms of live, real human beings performing. It seems to be almost exclusively dedicated to the realm of the large Hollywood motion picture soundtrack now. Obviously there was a lot more TV work at one time, and all along there have been what we term record dates. How would you describe the percentage of your work over the years, in terms of film and TV work versus record dates or other studio work?

BUNKER

They were pretty well balanced. Did a lot of records in the early rock and roll days. Stupid stuff, stupid, but, you know, paid the bills.

CLINE

What were you playing, what instrument?

BUNKER

Percussion. Tambourine, shakers, conga drums, bongos, things like that. Occasionally vibes or bells, but mostly like hand percussion.

CLINE

And they would have, say, Hal Blaine playing drums?

BUNKER

Yes. Or Earl Palmer.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

But pretty well balanced. TV. For a while there, I don’t remember if it was in the seventies or even in the eighties, Universal was going like day and night. They had twelve, fourteen, fifteen hours of television on, you know, a week that they were producing. And all of it was scored out at the Universal lot in North Hollywood. And that was, in some ways, not a lot of fun, because the guy that was the contractor for the studio started looking through the cartage bills for the equipment that was going in and out of there, you know, fifteen times a week—percussion sets, drum sets, harps—and sat down with the bean counters, and then he talked to the guy that was kind of his principal player, Lou Singer, to say, “What would it cost us to buy all of that equipment and have it here?” And it probably would have added up to about a year or year and a half’s worth of cartage bills. And then the rest of it, you know. So Lou picked out all of this equipment for us to play, and that’s what you played when you went out there, you know. It took a long time to be able to get them to break down and let you bring your own drum set. I mean, Shelly played the house drums for the longest time; worked there three or four times a week, you know. The instruments were okay, but then it was Lou’s choice of a snare drum, and Lou’s choice of piatti, and Lou’s choice of triangles, and Lou’s choice of timpani.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And I never played timps, because he played the timpani. He saw to that. So, you know, in a way— But that’s the way it is when you’re doing that kind of work.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

It was okay. A lot of crash-and-burn kind of music I can’t even begin to remember. You know, Pete Rugolo did a lot of things out there. Quincy did things. He was doing TV shows as well as theatricals. What’s his— Oliver. Oliver did Six Million Dollar Man . And, trying to remember. Benny Golson never did any writing out there. I never saw him as a player, but he may have done a little. Trombone, trombone, trombone player— J.J. Johnson did quite a bit out there, of television, because he came along more and more and more as a writer. Who else? Who else? Gil Mille. That’s probably a name you never heard of.

CLINE

No, I haven’t.

BUNKER

Yes. But he was a New Yorker—and I don’t know what he played; I think he played saxophone—who had some kind of a rep as a composer. Very oddball kind of writing, but it must have been effective because he did some shows out there. Paramount [Pictures], Paramount, Paramount. Well, Lalo was doing a lot of those shows. But invariably, the TV orchestras were sometimes not a whole lot larger than just an augmented rhythm section; maybe, you know, couple of woodwinds, couple of French horns, maybe one trumpet, a few strings.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And you really had to get into the post-Jaws John Williams thing to get into the larger, larger orchestras. There were some interesting composers. One guy, Lynn Murray, was brilliant, brilliant composer, and used to do a lot of National Geographic shows with him. Another wonderful composer, that just passed away within the last couple of months, was Walter Scharf, who did all of the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He did all kinds of little silly things, but he was really great; funny, funny man, just passed away very recently. Yes, for some reason a whole lot of the giant composers— Miklós Rózsa was one of the guys I was trying to think of earlier, earlier, when I was talking about, you know, Max Steiner and all of those people. Yes, Miklós Rózsa; did some kind of a time machine film with him. He came out of almost virtual retirement and did a few more films as an old man, but good; good music.

CLINE

I’m going to stick in another tape before we lose this.

1.13. TAPE NUMBER: VIII, SIDE ONE APRIL 10, 2003

CLINE

Okay, we’re back on. It’s Alex Cline interviewing Larry Bunker, April 10th, 2003, tape number eight. You were talking about some of the composers who were doing TV work. You mentioned Miklós Rózsa. And I don’t suppose you have any clue as to this, but I’ll ask it anyway. If we were to quantify the amount of work that you’ve done, numbers of films, numbers of TV shows, that sort of thing, do you have any idea? No?

BUNKER

I can make a guess that it’s probably—just film scores—it’s probably about fifteen hundred.

CLINE

Man.

BUNKER

Records, I have no idea. And TV shows, I have no idea. I mean, if I were curious enough, I could go back through my workbooks—

CLINE

Oh, man.

BUNKER

—that go— That I have to 1960; I believe 1960, and just— I mean, I know guys that have done that. You know, it’s a record date; it was a jingle. I didn’t start keeping track of the titles of the films that I’ve done until it turned out that it was a good idea to do it because of a thing that we did called the special payments, where theatrical releases that are released to television, you’d get a subsequent payment for that, you know, based on a lot of factors. You may get a dollar and twenty-five cents; you may get four hundred dollars, you know. And sometimes I’d say, “Wait a minute.” You know, “Did I work on that picture, or did I not work on that picture?” And actually, when I started doing it, it was at a time when it was very, very busy. And you’d get a call for a time slot, and you’d be busy, and you’d turn down a film. And then three or four days later, or maybe a week later, suddenly that conflict would evaporate, and you’d say, “What did I turn down? And what was the name of it?” So at least I started writing down what I turned down, you know.

CLINE

Oh, interesting. Yes.

BUNKER

On the outside chance that maybe you could get back on it. Sometimes if not that much time had elapsed, you could, you know. And then just keeping track of what the film titles were. But, I mean, that would take weeks of work. It doesn’t matter to me that much, you know.

CLINE

Right. Sure.

BUNKER

To say— You know, some guys like to have their résumé right up to date. “I’ve done 1385 films and 12,000 record dates, and—,” you know.

CLINE

Yes. You mentioned jingles, and this is something that obviously was more available as work at one time, perhaps, than it is—

BUNKER

Yes. I haven’t done a jingle in a couple of years. Once in a while there’ll be a product, you know, but just depends on who the writer is, whether it’s for an automobile or a brand of potato chips or what, you know.

CLINE

And as far as record dates go, I mean, you mentioned a lot of these horrible pop records that you did.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

Any record dates that stand out as being particularly wonderful or awful?

BUNKER

I’ve done a few things with [Barbra] Streisand. I’m not a terribly big fan of singers, and her. But, you know, I don’t feel so badly about it that I’m going to say no. Done things with Dave Grusin that I liked very much. There was a direct-to-disc album that we did many years ago. We went to [Lincoln] Mayorga when that was— That preceded the CDs. That was the quality of the time, you know, going direct. Like in the beginnings of records, you went straight to acetates, you know.

CLINE

Cutting straight into a master lacquer, in this case.

BUNKER

Yes. And did some things with him. Did films with him. Did records with him; wonderful, wonderful writer; a great player. Couple of very pleasurable albums were the ones with Natalie Cole a few years ago, the tribute to her father [Nat King Cole], with all of the charts by John Mandel, and some things by Alan Broadbent. Large orchestra and, you know, I was playing mostly vibes. I’ll never forget that, because I walked into Ocean Way Studios down on Sunset Boulevard, and was there kind of early, and getting set up. And most of the rhythm section was in an isolated part of the studio where glass doors could be closed off, so the drum set was in there, vibes were in there, the bass was in there, and I think the piano. But I was in setting up, taking the cover off the vibes and getting ready, and I heard “Unforgettable” with Nat Cole’s voice, and a click track. And I knew that, you know, Natalie Cole was the artist, and I said, “Now, why would there be a click track? What are they up to?” And so it was a very precisely constructed click track that followed the rhythm section on the original orchestration. And when I realized what they were going to do, before I even heard it I got goose bumps, you know, because Nat was one of my— When I said I don’t care for singers, I cared for him, and as a musician, too, as a pianist. That was recorded at Capitol Records, three-track. They hadn’t even gotten to four-track yet. They were doing stereo. They had two-track machines, and I guess Ampex or one of them had developed a three-track machine, where you could record on three tracks, on, I guess, quarter-inch— Whether it was quarter-[inch] or half-inch tape, I don’t remember. I don’t think they had what was called the cell-synch capability, being able to synchronize and record on top. They may have, because they were getting very close to that. So it was recorded in three-track, and he stood in an isolation booth that was just gobos that were positioned out in the studio, with a music stand and a microphone, and the orchestra was scattered around the rest of the room. It was all done live. But they had enough isolation of his voice, where they could get rid of the original orchestra. And so they had put this thing together to allow for her to join. He sang the song, and then she sang, and then they sang together.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

Al Schmidt was the engineer, who’s the legendary engineer in this town. And it was just goosebumpy time. It was really a trip down memory lane. And Natalie was absolutely marvelous. There were a lot of older players there, and it turned out that there were an awful lot of guys there that had recorded with her father. You know, [Harry] “Sweets” [Edison] was on the thing, I think. What’s his name— Conte Candoli. Some of the woodwind players, brass players, string players. And when they saw that she was open to it, everybody was just talking to her about her father. And it turned out to be a very sentimental reminiscence project, you know, because she was doing all songs that were associated with him. And then, of course, the title of the album was that. [tape recorder off]

CLINE

All right.

BUNKER

That whole experience was very pleasurable. I loved doing The Sandpiper with John Mandel, for which “The Shadow of Your Smile” came, and an absolutely gorgeous score, featuring Jack Sheldon on trumpet. It was a Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor film, which was— The film was pretty much unforgettable, or forgettable. But the score was sensational.

CLINE

Wasn’t Howard Roberts the solo guitarist on it?

BUNKER

Could have been, yes. Yes, Howard usually played for John at that time period.

CLINE

If one goes on the Internet, one of the things that Barnes & Noble has the courtesy to do is, they’ll print out a list of anything in print that any artist who has anything to do with anything is on, and I have one for you here. It’s complete with— Some of them have pictures of the covers, but I don’t know how many pages are here. But this is, you know, obviously just a fraction of things you’ve appeared on—

BUNKER

Really.

CLINE

—that are available on CD. Yes. It’s quite long. And just scanning through it you see, you know, everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Bill Evans, to Billie Holiday, to Natalie Cole, to the Monkees, to U2 and, you know.

BUNKER

God.

CLINE

It’s absolutely, you know— Gil Evans; Woody Herman; Chet Baker; Gerry Mulligan; Frank Sinatra; Dizzy Gillespie; and Mel Tormé. It’s endless. And when you look back on the incredible diversity and just quantity, sheer quantity of music, some of which you’ve candidly said you couldn’t stand—

BUNKER

But I did. [laughs]

CLINE

Yes. What stands out for you, in terms of accomplishment? We’ve talked about your career as a jazz musician. Certainly you’ve contributed to the music of people like Bill Evans and a lot of the other great jazz artists. But overall now—because I mean, this is sort of massive in scope when you look at it—overall, what stands out for you, in terms of your own contribution to the music?

BUNKER

Interesting question. Certainly some of the jazz-related things that you just mentioned, on the records. Even though the extent of the contribution is probably not as recognizable or as strong in the film-score area, I would still think that in some instances that had the most substance and was the most satisfying, and purely from the standpoint of remembering how an eighty-, ninety-, hundred-piece orchestra sounds, and being in the middle of it and being a part of it. Boy, if that won’t get your dander up, you know. It’s a whole lot different than being in a rhythm section, sitting in a little funny studio over on Melrose Avenue someplace, playing with Pete Jolly, you know. Not to say that that’s not great, but it’s just a very, very different experience. And so, okay, you’re on a phonograph album in whatever format. You’re playing the drums, and that’s, you know, one of three or four or five pieces. Your contribution is upfront and very easy to recognize. If you’re back in the back of an orchestra, and part of a five-man percussion section, with a hundred-piece orchestra, it’s like nobody knows what that’s about except you and your colleagues and the guys you stand next to, you know. But in a lot of ways that’s even more satisfying.

CLINE

And this would answer my upcoming question, which was, even though you talked about it in the past, do you have any regrets about giving up the jazz concert and recording life?

BUNKER

No. None. None at all. You know, after I played with Bill, I felt like I’ve really done that, and I’ve done it about as well as I’m ever going to be able to do it, with the person with whom I would most like to have done it. So how do you follow that, you know? How do you follow that? I think in a brief conversation I had with Joe LaBarbera after Bill had died, and then he took the gig with Tony Bennett and he played with Tony for quite a while, and, you know, he said, “How do you top that? How do you top playing with Bill? You don’t. So then you go on with your life and you make a living, and you do whatever you need to do.” And he said, “I have no qualms about playing with Tony.” He said, “Playing with Tony could be a drag, but,” he said, “it ain’t ever gonna be Bill.” And he did that, you know.

CLINE

Yes, yes. Right.

BUNKER

So he had a very realistic and, I think, healthy attitude about what came next in his career.

CLINE

Right. Right. How much of an influence do you think playing film scores and things had on your current interest in classical music?

BUNKER

Quite a bit, I’m sure. I’m quite sure just hearing those kind of textures and sonorities, and the writing done by some of the people that are very capable composers, you know, is just— I remember one of my real epiphanies happened in 1960. I had never really heard Bartók. I had heard about Bartók when I was a kid in the service. It had become very hip for the jazz musicians to dig Bartók. All of the guys in the army band that I was with, that were any kind of musicians at all, talked about that. I had just kind of gotten used to Stravinsky and heard some of that music. And a lady that I was married to from ’60 to ’72, who recently passed away, we became romantically involved, and I was at her place one night and smoked a little grass, which I was not accustomed to, and she put on a Bartók string quartet. And I was listening and I said, “That’s interesting. That’s interesting. That’s really fucking interesting.” [mutual laughter] And suddenly light bulbs went off. And I don’t know whether it was something about smoking a little grass that, you know, the doors of perception, all of that idea. And when the thing was over I said, “Do you—? You know, is there more of that?” She said, “Yeah. There are six of them.” “May we?” [Cline laughs.] And she played all of the Bartók string quartets for me. And it was one of the first people I knew that had some kind of a decent sound system, had some kind of J.B. Lansing speakers and an Altec amplifier, and this was all mono, you know, but a tube amplifier, but at least it had some kind of fidelity. And I was entranced. Subsequent times discovered his orchestral works, you know, Bluebeard [The Castle of Duke Bluebeard] and, of course, the Concerto for Orchestra, and all that kind of stuff. But I mean, the same kind of light bulb went on for that as I got when I heard Don Lamond. And suddenly went—bam!—you know. “Now I get it.” And suddenly, all of that whole Bartók thing just fell into place. I said, “Jesus Christ almighty.” I think that was the beginning of it. That was where the interest in classical music started. I had limited appreciation. I liked that. You know, I didn’t care that much about Brahms. I didn’t care that much about Schumann and Schubert and all that stuff. Began to really get an understanding of more contemporary music when I began to appreciate Wagner, who was really a monster in more ways than one, anti-Semite that he was. But the influence that he had on music at his time— And then, of course, crossing into the twentieth century and getting into Mahler and all of the rest of it. And then Sibelius and, you know, on and on and on. Hearing that music made me appreciate the good film composers, and I think the good film composers made me appreciate that. So there was probably a cross-pollenization between the two that just all contributed to my education.

CLINE

Right. And you’ve mentioned a few composers in our interview today. Who are some of your real favorites right now?

BUNKER

Film?

CLINE

No. Just—

BUNKER

Generally.

CLINE

Yes.

BUNKER

I mentioned Silvestre Revueltas earlier. Heard a couple of things that he’s done. I’ve never heard any of those pieces performed live. I’ve heard recordings or broadcasts. [Esa-Pekka] Salonen likes to play that music, and the orchestra [Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra] plays it very well for him.

CLINE

Yes.

BUNKER

Oh, god. John Adams, some pieces; some things I don’t care for. Philip Glass I can’t stand. [Benjamin] Britten. I really have developed a thing for the more contemporaneous British composers, you know, the [Ralph] Vaughn Williams and Britten, and the other guy. I could never remember his name. Ralph Vaughn Williams.

CLINE

Which period are we talking about here? Elgar or—

BUNKER

After Elgar. Twenties, thirties, forties. I think he passed away not too long ago. It’s funny, Mahler, some of Mahler I like and some Mahler, it just sounds like he’s rambling, just kind of rambling on and on and on. Strauss the same way. Some of his stuff is thrilling, and then some of it gets to be kind of diarrhea of the pencil, you know.

CLINE

This is Richard, not Johan?

BUNKER

Yes. [mutual laughter] Yes indeed. Richard. He was amazing, though, for what he did for the timpani, because up to him— Well, he came at the time when reliable pedal timpani were being developed, and they overlapped each other. And when he saw what it was possible to do with the instrument that he loved, he just went nuts. He went nuts with it. And he’s written some timpani parts that are just [whistles]. You know, the “Dance of the Seven Veils” from Salomé, at the very end of that thing. There’s a chromatic thing that comes down from a high A to a D, chromatic, and, you know, you don’t have that many drums. Depending upon your complement of drums, you’re going to use two drums or maybe three, and you’re pedaling, pedaling, pedaling, pedaling. And [sings passage], and he’s just coming down the scale chromatically, you know. And it’s sensational when you hear a recording of that done by a guy that really can fuckin’ play. It’s just hair-raising, you know. I’m sure there’s a lot of— Well, I never did— I didn’t get into Tan Dun. He’s—

CLINE

Oh yes.

BUNKER

I’ve not heard that music, although I know he’s done some film scores, and he’s also been commissioned, and he plays, you know. John Corigliano is good. I’ve got a couple of his things. I haven’t listened to them for a while, but, like, young American composer with a lot of chops. Couple of things I’ve heard by a contemporary English composer, Nicholas Maw, M-A-W, are very good. I don’t know.

CLINE

Well, that’s an interesting selection. So you’re still working; you said less and less.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

When you were, say, at your peak of studio busyness, about how many dates would you characteristically do in a week, do you estimate? Or even in a day.

BUNKER

It always depended. But if a double session would be like two three-hour sessions— At the very busy time, there were still half-hour shows, so you were getting called to work three-hour or three-and-a-half-hour calls. And, you know, I would typically maybe do two three-hour calls a day, plus maybe a record date at night. So it could be as many as— I mean, I never— I didn’t get into the kind of schedule that Hal Blaine had. I don’t know what his record for the number of dates that he did in a week. Anywhere from eight to ten, twelve dates a week, and try to keep the weekend open, you know. So sometimes it’d be three a day. And if you did that five days a week, you could do fifteen. It usually— The week just never filled up quite that way, which was good, because, you know, you don’t have a life, for gosh sake. You don’t get to go have dinner. You don’t get to—

CLINE

Right. Right.

BUNKER

—hang with somebody and hear a concert, hang with your old lady. But in the busy times it’d be ten, eleven, twelve dates a week, probably. I can’t even imagine doing that now. God.

CLINE

Yes, wow. How did that particular life affect, say, downtime, family time, recreational time, and how competitive was the scene in terms of the luxury of not working, let’s say? Could you afford that?

BUNKER

Well, you know, I always seemed to have time to go have dinner—I didn’t have kids—to go hear music, because I spent a lot of time at the Manne-Hole, and Wednesday nights, you know, most of the time at Donte’s in that period, that time frame. And I always felt confident enough in the way my career went, that I could say no to somebody. I mean, I know guys that would get tickets to a concert, or to the opera, or to a ballgame, and they’d get a call for a two-hour jingle, and they’d turn all of that over, because they were afraid to say no to somebody.

CLINE

Sure.

BUNKER

Like I say, I felt confident enough in what I was able to produce and give to the business, that I could say no. And if I had tickets to a concert, I’d say no, because otherwise, you’re never going to go.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

You’re never going to go to the theater. You’re never going to go have a decent dinner at a decent hour. You’re going to get one more hamburger at 11:15, you know. I don’t think that, you know, a person can have a life and not compromise the quality of their life.

CLINE

Right. Was there ever a time when you felt any creative or ethical or philosophical conflict over your choice of career, especially during the jazz versus studio days, and particularly maybe when you were doing some of those awful pop record dates during the sixties?

BUNKER

Not any real ethical conflicts. I remember Victor Feldman one time, who was a very liberal-leaning left-thinking kind of guy, and he was called to do some kind of project, a record date or a film; I don’t remember what it was. I wasn’t involved, but I heard about it. And it turned out that it was political anathema to him. He just said, “I can’t be a part of this, and you have to let me off the call, because I didn’t know what it was going to be.” Whether it was something to do with the Vietnam War or something, could have been. But he just said, “I can’t be a part of that.” And he was ready for whoever the leader or the contractor was, to take him to the union and file charges against him, because it’s like you’re at the date and you know, you are beholden to give them a certain amount of notice, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

And he managed to get off the thing and, you know, certainly lost an account, but he didn’t care about losing the account. It wasn’t anything that he really wanted anyway. So I’ve never been conflicted that way, but then I guess I don’t have those kind of political viewpoints, you know, and hold them that dear. I think I did mention the time when Bill asked me to come and work with him at the club, and I had a string of dates that had been booked, and I just got off of them.

CLINE

Right.

BUNKER

I said, “Screw it. You know, I’m going to play this Hawaiian music for this stupe, and not play with Bill? I’m sorry. Take me to the union.”

CLINE

Yes. Right.

BUNKER

It was just, you know, selfishness on my part. I wanted to do that, and I didn’t want to do that.

CLINE

Did a lot of exposure to bad music ever make you just depressed or bitter?

BUNKER

No, no, no. It’ll be over in a minute.

CLINE

How does a sense of humor help in this kind of situation?

BUNKER

Virtually all the people you’re going to run into have them. Yes, a bunch of funny people that love to laugh.

CLINE

And here you are. You’re still working some. You’ve been doing studio work for fifty years. What do you want to do now? What’s next for you?

BUNKER

Oh, god. I guess keep doing it as long as they’ll have me. And the time will come when they won’t have me, and then I guess I’ll have to figure out what to do with my time. But I’ve got reading that I’ve been trying to catch up on, reading that I’ve never done in my life. I’ve got two encyclopedias over there and I just had some books up on the piano the other day, and my wife [Brandyn] said, “Now, what is this research library that’s going on here?” I said, “I think by what I’m reading in the paper that it’s time for me to understand what the difference is between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.” You’ve got a couple of encyclopedias. There it is, you know. It just depends on how deep you want to plow. And on and on and on. After most of my adult life reading about quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville and discovering America, I figured it’s time to read De Tocqueville. So I found a book in Paris last year and I’m trying to plow through that, you know, his take on what America is about, as a young French aristocrat. And it goes on and on and on, you know. I’d like to continue to live gracefully, and when the time comes, dear God, please, die gracefully. You know.

CLINE

Yes. So, no retirement plans.

BUNKER

No, no.

CLINE

Okay.

BUNKER

I don’t need to worry financially. I am participating in a pension plan from the union [American Federation of Musicians] that is quite generous, and with some little moderation, I don’t really need to work anymore.

CLINE

Do you ever get the hankering to pull out the old Gretsch kit or the Leedy kit, or any of that stuff, and just bang around a little?

BUNKER

No, not really. Not really. I really kind of feel that all of that that I was scheduled to do, I’ve pretty well done.

CLINE

Okay. Is there anything you want to add before we pull the curtain on this?

BUNKER

It’s been an amazing fifty years. It’s been an absolutely amazing fifty-and-counting years, one that I never would have envisioned for myself, you know, from being a kid, a pre-teenager getting caught up in music, and hoping I could figure out a way to do it and make a living at it, not having any idea that that would happen. It’s all been curious happenstance, blind luck, the luck of the draw; falling into situations backwards, totally unprepared for them. And to be able to somehow come up with what was needed just— It’s been amazing; been amazing. And I lived two blocks down the street from Paramount Pictures when I was eight years old, never dreaming that some day I would play in there. And actually, some years later, my first motion picture call would be in that same place.

CLINE

Wow. And you’ve lived in Los Angeles your whole life.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

What do you think of it right now? What are your feelings about L.A. as a city?

BUNKER

Traffic. God, the traffic. The traffic, the traffic, the traffic. I don’t know that there’s any way it can get better, because people want to be here, they want to come here, they want to live here. My daughter, who was almost born and raised here—she was raised here—has chosen to live in Germany. Her German husband came here and said, “My god, why would anybody want to live anywhere else?” You know, he was entranced. But that’s because it was in the middle of the wintertime, and they came from snow and the Black Forest and Stuttgart. Even Stuttgart is, you know, it’s probably better than up in the north. At least it’s kind of South Central Germany.

CLINE

Right. [laughs]

BUNKER

Did you read the thing in the paper, all of that hoopla about they’re going to change the name of South Central to—

CLINE

Yes, to South Los Angeles.

BUNKER

When did they change it to South Central?

CLINE

That’s what I was saying. Was that ever an official designation?

BUNKER

Not that I know of.

CLINE

Not that I know of, either.

BUNKER

It just became—

CLINE

It started sometime after the Watts riots.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

They started calling it South Central, yes.

BUNKER

Because from the time I was nine years old, was in what is now South Central L.A., on Forty-seventh Street between Vermont [Avenue] and Normandie [Avenue]. And, you know, that was never referred to as South Central.

CLINE

Well, you know, when [Richard] Riordan was mayor, all these signs went up around the time of the Democratic [National] Convention, to sort of tell everybody what the neighborhood they were entering was.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

And I don’t remember seeing a lot of these things so clearly defined before. So maybe at some point around there, there became some sort of official designation. But I missed it if it happened.

BUNKER

Yes. You drive down Hillhurst [Avenue] until it becomes Virgil [Avenue], and here and there there’ll be signs up that say, you know, Los Feliz Village. And you drive that way and it says Franklin Hills. What Franklin Hills? You know. It’s Franklin Avenue. And now suddenly it’s—

CLINE

Yes. Or you go over the hill here to the NoHo Artists District in North Hollywood, you know. [Bunker laughs.] I don’t know when that happened either. But, yes, I can’t help you with that one.

BUNKER

In fact, in the article in the paper yesterday, the lady that was trying to foment all of that was referring to her Vermont Square neighborhood. Well, Vermont Square— I lived across the street from Vermont Square, and it was just a little square thing where Budlong [Avenue] came down, and it split and went around, and continued on, and there was a library, which is still there, and streetcar tracks that went down in behind it. But so I guess she lives around there, and she got tired of them referring to it as South Central. [laughs]

CLINE

Yes, it has a negative connotation, supposedly.

BUNKER

Yes.

CLINE

So, anything else?

BUNKER

No, I don’t think so. Pretty well covered it.

CLINE

You’re still here, you’re still playing, and you’re still working, and I hope it continues that way for many years.

BUNKER

Yes, and healthy, you know. Fell down a year and a half ago and broke my hip, but all of that worked okay.

CLINE

Oh, wow.

BUNKER

Had to have the prostate reduced, and that’s all fine. Had knee surgery about seven years ago. That all worked. You know, so—

CLINE

Right. Well, those things’ll make a difference.

BUNKER

I don’t take medicines and I don’t take pills, and I don’t seem to need them. And for that I’m grateful. Just keep on truckin’.

CLINE

That’s right. Amen to that. Thank you very much for being willing to sit down and talk to us about your life.

BUNKER

My pleasure.