Original subtitles

[traffic whooshing]

[horns honking]

[drums tapping]

[people chattering]

- Hey, man!

- Man, how you doin' bro?

Hey man, wow!

[quiet tuning music] [people chattering]

- Jacques was always a friend of Dizzy Gillespie,

big friend, and that's how, you know, we got together

because I was playing with Dizzy a lot.

We got to meet under those circumstances,

me traveling, him coming around,

and when I played,

in Switzerland.

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

- Always see Jacques around,

and then I would see him in the States

when he'd come over here.

He was a good friend of my friend, Moody,

James Moody and all of us.

He's been a friend of jazz for maybe, I don't know,

30, 40 years.

So we all know Jacques.

- [Interviewer] So that's why he's so respected

by the musicians.

- This is true.

He respects the music and vice versa.

We respect him,

because he's a good guy and he supports the music

in one way or the other.

He had some watches with some musicians' names made

and things like that when nobody else

was doing anything like that.

So he's a very important man to the music of jazz.

[sign clacking]

- [Man] One, two, three, four.

[slow jazz piano music]

♪

[radio static crackling]

[upbeat jazz music]

[car engine revving]

- [Announcer] Time for jazz.

Willis Conover with the Voice of America Jazz Hour.

[speaking in foreign language]

[upbeat jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[car engine whirring]

[slow jazz trumpet music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[slow jazz trumpet music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[slow jazz trumpet music]

[traffic whirring]

- How you doing, man? [laughing]

How you doing?

- [Jacques] Very well.

- Good.

- We don't see you.

- I wanna see the inside. [laughing]

- I'm little bit like you.

You know, we're losing what is most important for.

[Randy laughing]

- [Woman] Where's your son?

- Huh, I'm losing, I'm losing in the ears.

- Yeah.

- I always try to remember that Snooky.

Snooky played on the band, you know, for years

without hearing anything!

- [laughing] How do you do that?

- How do you do that?

[both laughing]

- When I had my club in Tangier,

the African Rhythms Club,

Jacques came in.

And he had a tape recorder about this big, you know.

And he taped my son and I playing on this little machine.

This 1969, you know.

And I was amazed.

Then during this period,

I got to know how much he loved jazz music.

In 1985, when they had Randy Weston week in Brooklyn,

and put together a big band,

Melba Liston conducted her arrangements of my music.

And, it was great because we,

the whole week, was Randy Weston's week.

We played for handicapped children.

We played with a smaller group.

We did concerts, it was wonderful.

So Jacques was there.

And Jacques arranged for us to take the big band

to Switzerland to do the same program that we did here.

- For the first time in the history

of the Montreux Jazz Festival,

it was not a commercial sponsor, but a jazz fan

who had to have the headliner, Randy Weston,

and his big band on stage tonight.

And we are very grateful to Mr. Muyal to make this possible.

Thank you.

[audience applauding]

Now, of course, let's welcome the one and only,

Randy Weston!

Randy Weston, African Rhythm Orchestra!

[audience applauding]

For the first time in 11 years back to Montreux.

Been too long overdue, thank you.

[exotic jazz music]

- He's like a, kind of a magic man, you know.

He shows up in all these different places.

I can't tell you how many places that I performed,

he would show up, he would come.

One of the sad things for me was, when I played in Paris,

me and Max Roach, did a duo,

Jacques came from Switzerland as always, you know.

And I put his name, in fact, my wife's name,

on the list, but somehow they lost the list.

So he couldn't even get in to come and hear the concert.

I've been to his home many times.

Stayed over at his house many times.

His wife, Claire, cooked beautiful food for us.

I have never seen anybody love our music

more than Jacques Muyal.

[upbeat jazz piano music]

[quick jazz piano music]

- Jacques Muyal, he loved the music so much,

said he was walking down the street in Tangier

and he saw Idrees Sulieman.

Now Idrees Sulieman's a great musician, great musician,

but mostly only musicians know him.

He never got to be really well-known,

but he's one of the first to create

what they call bebop music.

He's one of the originals.

So who saw him, Jacques Muyal.

And Jacques Muyal called his name and he was in shock.

The pianist, whose name was Jamil.

The piano's name was Oscar Denard.

Oscar Denard played with Lionel Hampton's band

about three years, a master pianist,

but Hamp would take all the solos.

So you'd have to really realize how great he was.

So Jacques was one of the few

to record Oscar Denard on piano.

[slow jazz piano music]

[speaking in foreign language]

The world is so,

commercial is the word I wanna use.

But everything now is sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell.

And the young people are not getting the information

about this music, you know.

And what better man than Jacques Muyal,

because he loves the music, he's been with the greats.

Who he hasn't been with, I can't imagine.

It's extremely important, yeah,

because, like for me, with my book,

whole idea is we have to document for our grandchildren.

Not for us, you see.

So if you do a documentary on Jacques Muyal,

young people look at love in the pure state,

because when you love this music, that's it.

There's no compromise.

[aircraft engine roaring]

[speaking in foreign language]

[slow jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[upbeat jazz trumpet music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

- [Interviewer] I'll take a scotch.

- Notre Dame, what is this?

Product of, produce of France.

- [Interviewer] Good, that's wine.

- Know what that is?

[speaking in foreign language]

[interviewer laughing]

[Dizzy spitting]

- [laughing] I'm not supposed to be drinking alcohol.

- [Interviewer] Because me, you know.

- Let me put this away.

- [Interviewer] I think you love that part

of the movie, 'Round Midnight.

- [Dizzy] Yeah, when he fell.

- [Interviewer] Yeah, yeah.

How was that part?

- That was something else.

He walked up to the bar.

This guy, this guy walked up to the bar and said,

"I'll have a double cognac."

And he drank it, and he went right down.

Fell right on his face.

And Dexter said, "I'll take the same." [laughing]

That was funny, man, it sounded like that.

[camera clicking]

These are new, I mean, they're old, but they're new

'cause they have never been out of the house.

They never been out of this house.

So the old guy don't give none, I was gonna get a new set.

He said, "No, we don't do that anymore."

- [Interviewer] [laughing] Conscience to see who

hasn't got the experience.

- So I told Louie Bellson, I wanted some drum,

and that's what he did, had these sent.

- [Interviewer] But that leads me to a question,

very important since we're talking drums,

you have, you have invented modern jazz, and--

- I don't know 'bout--

- [Interviewer] Please explain to us, you know,

how much inventions you invented

leading to what we call bebop.

- The generation before us,

the horn players played the horns,

didn't think about the piano.

They played, but with us,

we were trying to get new harmonies.

So you can't get no new harmonies with a,

a single note instrument.

So I figured that out.

I said, well the best thing to do is go to the piano and so,

so our music developed on the piano, the harmonic structure,

developed with the piano.

The rhythmic structure developed from the drums,

from the bass drum, and from the ten o'clock playing this,

trap drum.

And the style, which we think is the most important of all,

Charlie Parker.

[sign clacking]

- [Man] One, two, three, four.

[quick drumming]

[quick jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[quick jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[audience applauding]

[audience members whistling]

[speaking faintly]

- Watch it.

One, two, three.

[scatting quickly]

[upbeat jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[upbeat jazz music]

[group laughing]

[upbeat jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[quick playful trumpet music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[upbeat jazz music]

[upbeat jazz music]

- When I was playing with Dizzy,

with the United Nation Orchestra,

Dizzy had a friend that was traveling,

coming to many of the gigs, and then I realized

that he spoke Spanish also,

and consequently he kind of gravitated

towards all the people that were Spanish-speaking,

including myself, even though it's not my main language,

but it's close enough to Portuguese,

so that we started to hang out and he became friends

with Paquito D'Rivera also.

Then Neilo Miero Rivera, who played saxophone,

and just a fantastic musician,

and that's where the friendship began.

[upbeat jazz music]

- Dizzy was very helpful in my career.

He was very generous.

That man had not even created a great career for himself,

but also for others.

He gave an opportunity to so many people

to develop their own career.

Among the many wonderful thing that happened to me

with Dizzy, was the opportunity to meet Jacques Muyal,

who became a very dear friend,

very close friend of all of us.

[upbeat jazz music]

Being a friend of Dizzy, immediately you become part

of the whole family, not only musicians,

but people who love music like Jacques Muyal.

But among all those guys in that family,

Jacques had a very special place for some reason.

He's very special, very easygoing person,

and he speaks so many languages too.

And had the knowledge of the music and all that.

He's very special.

[speaking in foreign language]

- This is not a good formidable stand,

but this stand that I had it on that night,

it was one of them heavy, heavy stands.

And it was on a stand like this,

guys was on the stage fooling around,

and one pushed the other one back and he fell back,

over it like this, and it just bent, didn't fall.

Because it was going against one of the legs

when he fell back on it, it went against a leg like this.

And these things are sorta fragile.

This, because, sound.

So he fell over it and it bent.

I got back, it was bent.

It was my wife's birthday.

I didn't raise hell.

I played it.

And I liked the sound from,

this sound here,

it's closer to your ear than this sound.

So when you hit the note you hit,

you have to wait a while till it gets around.

So I said, hey I may definitely have a horn made like that.

I had it made from that.

Alright.

- [Interviewer] I heard another story.

- Where?

From one day playing in Chicago and there were--

- I made that up!

The guy took the horn and did like that.

That was a real good gangster story, but it wasn't true.

[speaking in foreign language]

[audience applauding]

- Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

And now from one of our latest Philips albums,

Dizzy on the French Rivera.

[audience laughing]

Recorded live

in Juan-les-Pins, mm-hmm!

[audience laughing]

Shake-a the salt, Daddy, or no more blue!

[scat singing]

[steady drumming]

[upbeat jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[light jazz piano music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[upbeat jazz piano music]

[slow jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[upbeat jazz piano music]

[crowd applauding]

[party horns honking]

- [Kid] Make a big wish!

- [Man] You got a burning permit?

[group laughing]

[group chattering]

- [Woman] Almost, almost!

[crowd cheering]

[party horns honking]

[speaking in foreign language]

[slow saxophone music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[steady jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

- Nah, he start--

[upbeat jazz music]

- Okay.

- [mumbles] is funny as shit.

[speaking in foreign language]

- Musician has a big ego,

and they prefer to think that we are ultra-sufficient.

We are not.

We don't have the club owner, the dealer manager,

the CD producer, we are nothing.

We need the people that love us, you know.

Jacques Muyal is one of those.

[playful jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[upbeat jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[upbeat jazz music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[traffic whirring]

[horns honking]

[slow jazz music]

[audience applauding]

[audience cheering]

[upbeat jazz music]