PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF RICHARD DUNCAN.
m
Richard Irving III at the piano.
“That’s good Bobby,” he said, looking
at me and smiling. “It’s important
to have an appreciation of classical
music. Its like a gold mine, with
certain composers, you know what
I mean? Like Ravel, Schoenberg and
some things of Rachmaninoff. I mean,
he and so many of those Russian
composers were a motherfucker when
it came to harmony… counterpoint,
you know, implied harmony.”
“Wow,” I said, truly impressed. “I’m not
aware of all of them, but I definitely
wanna check’um out. I’ll have to write
down the names.”
“I’ll give’um to you later, I just wanted
to say that Bobby, but go on.”
“Yeah, his contemporary style turned
me on to keyboards and so I begged
my dad for an organ and he got
me a little Emenee toy pipe organ.
It sounded more like an accordion
with a two-octave range. The first
melody I taught myself to play was the
most familiar song I knew, “The StarSpangled Banner.” Eventually I figured
out the bass part to add to the melody.
I guess this began my theoretical sense
of how the bass tones defined chords,
without really knowing how to explain
what I was doing. So, I began to pay
more close attention to organ players
and soon discovered Jimmy Smith.
He completely blew my mind… but,
his technique was way over my head
at that time.
“Oh yeah Bobby… shit, they must have
made the Hammond organ just for
Jimmy,” Miles said smiling. “Jimmy
Smith was a motherfucka, man!
“Yeah, I loved him, too. But when I first
heard him he was way over my head.
But I remember once, my grandmother,
on my mother’s side, took us to this
old dingy church where the minister,
Elder Bacon, played a heavy-handed
bluesy piano style. I tried to copy
him, but I couldn’t figure out what
he was doing. Then there was St. Paul
Church of God in Christ around the
corner… they had two musicians,
Samuel Hawkins, an older gentleman
who played organ and piano in a more
traditional southern style, and Stevie
Harrison, in his early twenties, who
sounded exactly like Jimmy Smith. I
asked him to show me some riffs. He
wasn’t much help because, you know,
what he did was like breathing to him.
And he didn’t have the language to
explain it so I could understand. He’d
say, ‘Like hey, just do this and this...’
His fingers moved in patterns I could
see but it was too fast to hold on to.
Anyway, Mr. Hawkins saw my interest
and invited me to come join the
Robert Taylor Park District Drum and
Bugle Corps. He was the director.
Most kids wanted to play drums, but
beating on something with a stick
didn’t turn me on.”
10
“Well, the first song I remember singing
in glee club was ‘Put On A Happy Face’
from the musical Bye Bye Birdie.
I started to become more aware of the
variety of different music styles. Just
across the street from our apartment
was Omega Baptist Church, where my
mother liked to go on some Sundays.
Jessie Dixon, the famous gospel singer
played the Hammond organ there.”
“Oh yeah? I know who is.” Miles said,
recognizing who Dixon was.
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