On 20 March 1991 Harold McMillan (BFT) interviewed James Polk (JP) at his home on Auburn Hill Drive in Austin, Texas on videotape.

BFT: Tell us a little bit of your personal history.

JP: Well, my personal history. I got started playing in high school -- not really jazz but playing music professionally -- started when I was in high school. Guys like Tim Pickard, who lives here in Austin, Texas now, was an inspiration to me.

A guy by the name of Pottee Haywood -- he got the name Pottee because he had a fat stomach. And I can understand; I can relate now, you know what I mean? I understand he lives in San Antonio; I guess he's still in San Antonio, if he's living. Well, when I was in high school I used to pass by his house, and he'd be listening to this strange type of music that I didn't know anything about at that time. I would slow up as I passed by his house on my way to get me a hotdog during my lunch break at school. And he would see me pass by there quite often, so he stopped me one day and said, "Say, say, little old dude, I hear you slowing up, see you slowing up listening to this music. You like what you hear?" I told him, "I like it, but it's kind of strange and I didn't know what it was. What is it?" So he told me, "That's progressive jazz!" So we struck up on a relationship. And I would stop by there quite often during the week and during my lunch time, lunch break, and sit and listen to the people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie. And he introduced me to these kind of people.

Of course, I was playing R&B with some bands around town in Corpus Christi, Texas at this time, because rock and roll wasn't that big then, but we were playing it. But white folks hadn't called it "rock and roll" yet, you know, because it was something that we were playing. Anyway, but anyway he told me that if I wanted to learn how to play that type of music that he was listening to, go to Sam Huston [College]. And I found out that Sam Huston was located in Austin, Texas. So, I was all bent on coming to Sam Huston, because I wanted to learn to play that type of music. So, when I graduated high school and did a little short stint in the service, then I came to Austin to go to Sam Huston. By that time it was Huston-Tillotson [College]. So when I got here it was Huston-Tillotson and that was in the late '50s.

There were a lot of bands around Austin then. Blues Boy Hubbard and the Jets were playing up at Charlie's Playhouse. There were a lot of other bands all around town, and a lot of jazz musicians were here. Dewey Redmond, who eventually started playing with Arnette Coleman, was teaching down in Bastrop, Texas. Yes.

BFT: I didn't know that.

JP: He was Band Director in Bastrop. There was James Jordan who became Arnette's personal manager, was Band Instructor in Columbus, Texas at the time. And, I mean for black band directors, that was the day and age of black band directors. I mean they were sprinkled around everywhere! That was before schools really decided to totally integrate. They hadn't reached that point here in Austin. So, there were still a lot of black band directors out on the scene, which incidentally now is a dying breed. You don't have very few, even in the state of Texas as we speak. But it was flourishing during that time and a lot of good musicians were here during that time, and consequently there was a lot of music playing.

The black neighborhoods were still flourishing. You know, you had a lot of black clubs in the black neighborhoods which we don't have now. You had community leaders. You had people in the black neighborhoods that were leaders, that people looked up to and respected. You had musicians in the area, in the neighborhood that people looked up to and respected, and wanted to pattern themselves after. So consequently, we had that feeder group thing happening. It was filtering down to the younger people. And it was good. A lot of clubs; a lot of good music; places to go; jam sessions on Sunday; lot of things happening on the weekend. Austin has always been a weekend town; but there were a lot of places to go, and a lot of good music. And that's how things really were happening during the late '50s here in Austin, Texas. And I would imagine it was happening the same way all over the place.

BFT: You came here as a student and there already was a scene happening. How did you break in? How long did it take you to break in?

JP: Well, that was interesting. I came here as a student, not knowing a whole lot about jazz or even a whole lot about music, period. I played some blues and stuff that we learned when we were in high school, but on the campus, on H-T's campus, there was a group on campus of students and musicians who lived in the dormitory on campus. Basically, most of them were from Dallas, so I hooked in with these guys. In fact, my roommate was the drummer for the group; his name was Bob Stuart, who is now the program director for KNOK in Fort Worth. Yeah. So Bob was my roommate. I was sort of like the handy man. When somebody couldn't make the gig, they would ask me to do it. So that's the way it got started. Bob got sick and couldn't play drums; the doctor took him off drums for a while; so, I learned how to play drums, because they were there in my room. So I would practice on drums. The gig didn't fold. We made the gigs because I played the drums. Then the bass player's mother or somebody in his family got sick, and he had to go back to Dallas. So he left his bass here, and so, I learned how to play bass. Took the bass up in the room and learned how to play that. So we made the gigs, you know. And when the piano player couldn't make it, John Porter, who lives in Fort Worth, couldn't make the gigs on piano, I learned a few tunes on piano and started making gigs.

And that was a lot of sessions around town, too. Dad Jones, who still lives here in Austin, Texas used to have a club up on 12th Street and Chicon called the Flamingo Club, which every Wednesday night they had "College Night" there; and they would allow the college students to come in on Wednesday nights; and they would cater to only college students on Wednesday nights. So, we used to have a jam session there on Wednesday nights -- and college students and college musicians and everything. So, it was a lot of mingling there: a lot of intermingling of musicians and things, and it got to be pretty big. So that was an outlet for us to learn tunes, to experiment with playing, you know. And we had our built-in guinea pigs. 'Cause college students at that time, whatever you did was cool, oooh, just fine! It was a way for them to get away from the campus, and a chance to drink a little beer, you know. Let their hair down. So we had a good time.

Of course, there was always somewhere on Sunday afternoons or Sunday evenings to have jam sessions, that guys could go play. Marcel Haywood, who is a very profound architect in San Antonio this day, was a student at University of Texas at the time, and he was head of the jazz movement out there. And we would have caucuses over at UT about jazz sessions. Dick Goodwin was a student at UT at the time, that was before they even had a jazz format or a jazz program over there. Dick Goodwin was the one who started the jazz program at UT. And he was a student! And we played a lot together. And we went all over, not only at H-T but at UT, and did stuff over there and played stuff like that.

And there were a lot of clubs out on the Drag [Guadalupe Street near UT/Austin] that were popular and catered to that kind of music. Of course, this was the beginning of the beatnik era. And everybody was being cool, you know? Everybody was being laid back and cool. You had a place out there called the ID. It was a cute little quaint club: you didn't have, they didn't have any tables and chairs in there; they had big throw pillows, you know, and people would come and sit down on the floor land listen to the band, and somebody recite poetry in the corner, and drink espresso coffee. A lot of coffee houses. They were all sprinkled all up and down. I can't even remember their names. They were sprinkled all around. They were very popular, and it also gave musicians an outlet to play music, you know, 'cause it seemed like being just a little bit on the outside was in, you know what I mean.

Freedom of expression and all was really in, even in poetry, in music, in personalities. And just so you know the general characteristics of the young people growing up at the time, anything that was against the establishment was the idea. Not to be confined, you know, to be able to have that freedom of expression; to be able to say it musically; to be able to say it through poetry or whatever. And it was a lot of fun, I can say that. Of course, this was also the time of the civil rights movement. The black people were trying to get a voice and trying to have their views and things heard. So all of this was intertwined together. Which made for an interesting time, believe me! Lots of everything happening here and there. Yes, there was. Yeah.

BFT: Do you feel that atmosphere is here now in 1991?

JP: No! I really don't. Not like that. Not like that. I guess because I lived through that era, I know what that was back then.

It's hard to put my finger on what type of atmosphere is that's here now. Musically speaking, Austin doesn't have enough venues that will cater to the musicians to express themselves and the type of music they want to perform. In other words -- of course, as you can probably tell by now -- that jazz is one of my favorites, my pet peeve, jazz music. I love all sorts of music, but jazz is one of my favorites. For instance, there is only two, where we have so called two major jazz clubs here in Austin, right now. One is the Top of the Marc, the other is one, just recently opened about two-and-a-half months ago, is the Elephant. Yeah. Other than that, there are no other clubs in town that are specifically jazz clubs.

Now, even Top of the Marc has changed its format somewhat. It is not totally a jazz club. So you don't have enough venues for those type of musicians to vent, you know, that type of music they create, and to perform it. It's nothing worse to a musician than to create music and not hear it performed, you know. There's a lot of country and western places here. There's a lot of rock and roll places here; some blues places. But it seems like there should be an equal balance. We're one of the only cities in this nation, I think, that has music liaison category devised within the city structure, of the city. That we've appointed somebody to that position, Bob Meyers. Seems like he should have a little more latitude in voicing the views of the musicians, and not let it be lop-sided. I'm sure there are some people here that would enjoy jazz music that would come and participate in that type of format, other than the just two venues. Because there are a lot more musicians than there are people going around to enjoy it. And Bob made a good statement the other day. He said, "There are more square pegs than there are round holes for them to go in."

BFT: Are things different now in the creative community, in terms of jazz music specifically? Seems to be a lot of people creating and not able to get their stuff out in the public...

JP: Yeah, and I don't know what the solution to that is. I sort of got a handle on it as far as jazz music is concerned. You just have to de-ignorize people. That's one of my favorite words.

BFT: What does de-ignorize mean?

JP: De-ignorize? Well, it means to... It means to expose more people to the art form.

As you know, this type of music is the only creation that the United States or America has given to music that we can say "we donated this" art form. This is the only art form that we've given. And we are letting it slide through our fingers, just like we let everything else, you know. And essentially, it was a black creation, a black art form, and black people have totally lost it. I hate to see that happen.

I have spoken to some people. Even with blues... I have spoken to some people. I would like to create some kind of a bandwagon to have people to jump on it. In conjunction with the AISD [Austin Independent School District], National Endowment of the Arts, Texas Commission of the Arts, or any other funding organization that can throw some money into the pile and have musicians...put some musicians to work on short-long term basis, in other words during the school year, to have musicians who go to the public schools over here. We could target the elementary schools, the middle schools and the junior high schools -- and the AISD first -- and go to all these schools twice a week maybe, or three times a month maybe, or whatever good program works for us. And to have musicians to go and perform this type of music and give clinics to young kids. Because they are not exposed to it. They are not exposed to it. And you don't expect people to know anything if they've never been exposed to it. So, if they are exposed to it at a young tender age when they are gullible to just all kinds of areas to a lot of things, then you expose them to it. And those that take a liking to it, it will stick with them and they can develop in that area if they like. But at least they'll have the option to choose, which they don't have that option now, because we are not even giving it to them! And this is a problem. I swear it is a problem.

I'm involved in the university now, and the type of music we have in the universities, which I stand on a soapbox and pitch a holy bitch, is that we are teaching music that was played 2-, 3-, 400 years ago. We hail these composers that composed music back then, which is good. I'm not saying turn our back on what they have done: what they did was good. They set good patterns for us. But I don't think we should just stay in that rut where they are. We should be able to come out of that rut. We should have some kind of creativity. Why do we have to stay there and be something that musicians 2- or 300 years ago... They were being creative, because it was new to them. But I mean it's 400 years later! Where's the newness now!

BFT: They were avant garde at the time.

JP: They were the avant garde at the time. They were not afraid to step out and say, "OK, this is what I'm doing." And it seemed like the mass of the people accepted the arts a whole lot better than they do now. I guess this is why in Europe music and the arts are accepted so much more so than in this country. We don't accept the arts and we don't patronize the arts like people in Europe do. And it's a shame. Because we do not give it to them when they are here. I don't care what the music is, you need to give it to them. And classical music is not the only thing. It's not the only art form. I mean, when you leave here and get in your car to go where you are going, I guarantee you classical music is not what you are going to hear. Not most of the time. It's some form of popular music. Well, if the popular music is being played everywhere we go... We go in supermarkets; we go in the malls; we go in the doctors office, the dentist's office; we go all over the place that they have piped in muzak -- it's popular music! What are we keeping it from these people for? I mean, what are we saving it for?

BFT: How did you get this attitude. How did your folks... Did they tell you don't be listening to that blues? That's drunk old men's music!

JP: No, my people did not. My mother and father did not. I came from a musical family. My mother was a Music major. My father was a jack-leg musician, you know, piano player: played the stride and barrel house piano, which I never learned. 'Wish I could have. But anyway, they didn't tell me not to listen to this type of music because it was bad.

My dad didn't necessarily want me to play music in nightclubs because he didn't want me to start doing that so young. 'Cause he knew what it was, 'cause he did it. But he finally consented to let me do it anyway. I told him at the time, "Dad, you instilled your values in me; at some given point in time you've got to trust me. What do you think you've taught me. I've listened to you. just because somebody else is out there wallowing in the mud doesn't mean I'm going to go jump in there behind them just because they are doing it. I've got a brain myself." So, he finally said, "OK son, you put it like that, all right." And from that point on I played professional music.

I started playing professional when I was about 13, in a blues band. Well of course, this guy named Mr. Butler came by my house. Mr. Butler was a tenor saxophone player, real heavy voice, came by and he said "Polk, let that boy go play some music." And he told me "Say, Butler, I don't want this boy over there 'round all that whiskey and stuff like that." He said "Oh, Polk, I'm going to take care of that boy! He's just like a son of mine." My dad said "OK, I'm going to let him go with you, Butler." And the very first thing when we got to the club, Mr. Butler pulled out a little old tink of whiskey and said "Hey, boy, have a drink." I said "No, no, Mr. Butler, I appreciate that." Yeah, that tickled me! That was the first thing he did.

Anyway, I didn't get that kind of stuff from my parents 'cause they gave me a better foundation than that. They... They informed me and let me know that you've got some of everything out there. You got some of all kind of people. Music doesn't make the person; the person makes the music. You know what I mean? The person creates the music. I guess what I'm saying is music doesn't make a person be a certain way. Just because a person likes rhythm-and-blues means that... You know? Or jazz means that he's going to be a junky. Quite often there has been a stigmatism associated with jazz musicians and blues musicians that if you go into that type of music then you are going to be a drug addict. Naw. That doesn't mean that. So we need to get away from that. That's what I mean about de-ignorizing.