The Steve Kuhn Interview

I had just come to New York and I was working with Kenny Dorham in the fall of 1959. I heard John (Coltrane) wanted to form his own quartet and leave Miles. Out of the blue I got his number and called him. I said, "I know you don't know who I am. I'm currently working with Kenny Durham but I would love it if we could get together and maybe play a little and talk about the music." He didn't say yay or nay, a couple of weeks later he called me and he had rented a little rehearsal studio about a block and a half from my hotel and we met there in a tiny room and an upright piano. We played some of his music and talked. That was it for then and didn't hear anything until he called me a week later and said, "I'd like you to come out to my house in Hollis Queens for dinner." I took the subway out there and he picked me up at the train. We had a lovely dinner that Naima made. We talked and played a little more and he drove me back to my hotel in New York. He said nothing and then about a week later he called and said, "would $125 a week be okay to start." He had a job at "The Jazz Gallery" in downtown Manhattan on the lower east side. He was hired for four weeks initially and then they kept extending it two weeks, two weeks. He was there a total of 26 weeks in a row which is unheard of. A half a year playing in the same place, six nights a week. I was privileged to work with him for two of those months. Then McCoy Tyner joined the band. I later found out that McCoy was his first choice but he was contractually bound to "The Jazztet" at the time and he couldn't get free until that particular time. To be experiencing the absolute joy of the audience. It would be like a church meeting, after his solos they would literally stand up and give him standing ovations in the middle of the song. Pete LaRoca was the drummer and Steve David was the bassist. I was still trying to find my own voice when I was working with Coltrane. I was not really happy with my own playing, I'd say to him, "is there something I'm doing that you don't like or is there something you'd like me to do that I'm not doing. His words were, "I respect you too much as a musician to tell you how to play."