Iconic bassist tells FBPO how he went from the top of the jazz world to losing everything, then back to the top!
Exclusive interview with FBPO’s Jon Liebman
July 30, 2012
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Henry Grimes attended the Mastbaum School and Juilliard. As a young man in the ’50s and ’60s, Henry performed and/or toured with a number of R&B and soul musicians, including Willis “Gator Tail” Jackson, Arnett Cobb, “Bullmoose” Jackson and “Little” Willie John. After discovering jazz, Grimes eventually performed, toured and recorded with many great jazz musicians of the time, including Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Haynes, Lee Konitz, Steve Lacy, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, McCoy Tyner and many others.
Sadly, after a West Coast trip to work with Al Jarreau and Jon Hendricks went awry, Henry’s bass was damaged, and he was forced to sell it for a small sum, after which he faded away from the music world. For more than three decades, Henry lived a tiny rented hotel room, working as a manual laborer, custodian and maintenance man, all the while writing many volumes of hand-written poetry.
Upon being discovered by a Georgia social worker in 2002, Henry was given a bass by William Parker, whereupon a period of ferocious woodshedding ensued, leading to Henry’s reemergence into the music scene. After a period of playing concerts around the Los Angeles area, Henry made a triumphant return to New York City in 2003 to perform in the Vision Festival.
Since then, Henry has enjoyed a career resurgence, having performed and toured with many music icons, such as Roscoe Mitchell, David Murray, Marc Ribot, Wadada Leo Smith, Cecil Taylor and many others. He has also held several residencies and provided workshops and master classes at Berklee College of Music, Buffalo Academy for Visual & Performing Arts, Cal Arts, Humber College, New England Conservatory of Music, University of Michigan and other major campuses throughout the world. Henry can be heard on more than eighty-five recordings on various labels, including Atlantic, Blue Note, Columbia, Impulse, Prestige, Riverside and Verve. Grimes currently lives and teaches in New York City.
FBPO: How would you describe your musical upbringing?
HG: Both my parents were road musicians before I was born, but they gave up music – I don’t know exactly why – and become restaurant workers before I arrived. In junior high school, I took up the violin after I attended my older sister’s high school graduation and heard the all-girl high school orchestra, which inspired me to play the violin. After that, I went to a very special high school in Philadelphia, Mastbaum Technical School, where students in the music program were required to master five instruments in order to graduate. I played bass, violin, tuba, English horn, and tympani. After I graduated from Mastbaum, I went to Juilliard for almost three years, playing double bass with the opera orchestra.
FBPO: What made you decide to settle on the bass?
HG: Of the five instruments I learned to play, I chose the bass because I fell in love with the instrument and the sound and how it made me feel while playing it. Also, I thought I had the best chance to make a living playing the bass because everyone needs a good bass player!
FBPO: Was that before or after you learned to play violin?
HG: This was after I learned to play the violin. The violin was my first instrument.
FBPO: Who were your influences as young student of bass?
HG: Probably the main ones were Jimmy Blanton, Ray Brown, Paul Chambers, Israel Crosby, Percy Heath, Jimmy Garrison and Charles Mingus. Also, my classical bass teacher at Juilliard, the great Fred Zimmermann, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic. But I respect and admire everyone who plays music from the heart and I learn from them all.
FBPO: Philadelphia has such a rich musical heritage. How would you say growing up in Philly influenced you musically?
HG: Musicians were all around me there when I was coming up, getting together to create new music and study music from before, sharing ideas and exploring musical developments, going from club to club to listen and try to sit in. It was a very exciting time and place for a young boy who had fallen in love with music.
FBPO: You seemed to be having a successful career as a jazz bass player until it suddenly came to a screeching halt. Exactly what happened?
HG: Clarence Becton and I drove across the country and through the desert to get to San Francisco, where we had gigs lined up with Jon Hendricks and Al Jarreau. Clarence had a small car and inside the car were Clarence, who was driving, my dog and I. Clarence’s drums were in the back seat and my bass was strapped to the roof. My bass got baked going through the desert for three days. After we got to California, it gradually began to develop cracks and I couldn’t keep it in tune any more. I took it to a repairman, but he said it would cost a lot of money to have it repaired and I didn’t have that much money. So I sold it to the repairman, believing I could get it back someday when I got some money together. But that never happened.
FBPO: Your life was certainly very different after that. What were you doing all those years away from music?
HG: I worked as a janitor and maintenance man and day laborer. I also spent many hours in the library, studying literature and writing poetry, short stories and metaphysical ideas. I have around ninety notebooks at home with my writings from those times. I still continue to write today.
FBPO: Thirty-five years is an awfully long time to have been out of the music world! How did you get back into it?
HG: A Georgia social worker named Marshall Marrotte found me in 2002 and William Parker sent me Olive Oil, my beautiful green bass. Several other people helped me get back to the beginnings of playing again, first in Los Angeles for a few months, then in New York, where I’ve been since early 2003. And I am very happy about that!
FBPO: Did you ever really give up on music, or did you believe, deep down, that one day you would be back?
HG: I never gave up on music, not for a minute. You could say I was absent for a long time, but I always believed I would be back one day. I just couldn’t see the way to get there, but I knew it would happen.
FBPO: Your career revitalization is nothing short of remarkable. What sort of things have you managed to accomplish since your triumphant return to the music world?
HG: I began playing the violin professionally, which I didn’t do before, though it was my first instrument as a child. I began playing as a leader, which empowers me in many new ways. I also began playing solo concerts and reading my poetry out loud, very liberating experiences every time.
I also began playing with some of the master musicians of today. I’ve held many residencies and started teaching master classes and I started teaching students in my home. I began publishing some of my poems, too. My first published book is called Signs Along the Road.
FBPO: What else is keeping you busy these days?
HG: Having a family life with my wife and her children and our wonderful personal friends; doing a little yoga and jogging a bit each day, so we can stay healthy; going to as many concerts as we can; doing a lot of national and international tours; teaching students, both at home and at schools; and being involved in the thrilling and challenging life of New York City!
FBPO: What else would you like to do that you haven’t accomplished yet?
HG: I’d like to get to Africa, but haven’t made it there yet. And I want to keep on trying to make the world a better place, sparing it from the ravages of this time, doing my best to fill it with love and hope.
FBPO: What would you be if you weren’t a bass player?
HG: This question doesn’t have any meaning to me. I am a bass player and violin player and poet. If I weren’t those things, I wouldn’t be Henry Grimes. I wouldn’t be… at all.
This is Margaret Davis-Grimes, heartbroken and devastated because my beloved husband Henry Grimes left this life in a Harlem nursing home due to a combination of Parkinson’s Disease and Covid-19, the coronavirus. He was 84 years old. Henry was a great double-bassist, violinist, published poet, educator, and illustrator. In the late ’50s and throughout the ’60s, after receiving his music education at the Mastbaum School in Philadelphia and the Juilliard School in New York City, Henry Grimes played acoustic bass with many master jazz musicians of that era, including Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Haynes, Steve Lacy, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Sunny Murray, Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, and McCoy Tyner. Sadly, a trip to the West Coast to work with Jon Hendricks went awry, leaving Henry in downtown Los Angeles at the end of the ’60s with a broken bass he couldn’t pay to repair, so he sold it for a small sum and faded away from the music world. In the worst part of downtown Los Angeles without a bass, a vehicle, or a telephone, he was truly lost. He survived by doing manual labor and redirected his creative powers into writing poetry. Henry was discovered there in 2002 by Marshall Marrotte, a Georgia social worker and fan, and was given a rare olive-green Kay bass by fellow bassist / multi-instrumentalist William Parker, and after only a few weeks of ferocious woodshedding, Henry emerged from his little room to begin playing concerts around Los Angeles. He made a triumphant return to New York City in 2003 to play in the Vision Festival. Since then, Henry Grimes has played some 600 concerts (including many festivals), touring in 30 countries throughout North America, Brazil, Canada, Europe, and Asia, playing and recording with many of this decade’s music heroes, such as Rashied Ali, Marshall Allen, Fred Anderson, Marilyn Crispell, Andrew Cyrille, Bill Dixon, Dave Douglas, Edward “Kidd” Jordan, Roscoe Mitchell, David Murray, Zim Ngqawana, William Parker, Marc Ribot, Wadada Leo Smith, and again, Cecil Taylor. Henry made his professional debut on a second instrument (the violin) at the age of 70, published the first volume of his cosmic poetry, “Signs Along the Road,” and created illustrations to accompany his recent recordings and publications. He has received many honors in recent years, including four Meet the Composer grants and a grant from the Acadia Foundation. He also held a number of recent residencies and offered workshops and master classes on major campuses, including Berklee College of Music, CalArts, Hamilton College, Mills College, New England Conservatory, the University of Gloucestershire at Cheltenham, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and several more. Henry Grimes can be heard on nearly 90 recordings, including a dozen recent ones, on various labels (Atlantic, Ayler Records, Blue Note, Columbia, ESP-Disk, ILK Music, Impulse!, JazzNewYork Productions, Pi Recordings, Porter Records, Prestige, Riverside, Verve). He had been a permanent resident of New York City since 2003. He was and always will be beloved and revered by fellow musicians, music lovers, bandmates, family, friends, and fans everywhere, for all time. Henry’s archives are presently being set up at the New York Library for the Performing Arts on the Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan (NYC) under curator Jonathan Hiam, and once the quarantines are over and it’s safe to gather once again, everyone will be able to view, see, hear, and appreciate the many brilliant artistic endeavors of Henry Grimes on exhibit there. Thank you.
thanks for sharing tthis kind of topic ,i love musical for real and i am also realized with music for long time,I play trumpet for longe time, keep up the good wor thank you
I’m just listening to Thembi by Pharoah Sanders and had to look up the bass player that plays in that incredible opening to “Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt”. Upon reading his biography I was struck by his touching life story. It boggles the mind how a great musician who once performed with giants could lose his instrument and have to give up his vocation. Different times? Too proud to ask for money? Did he not receive royalties from all his past work? In any case, having also read about his passing my condolences to his wife, Mrs. Margaret Davis-Grimes. Sadly another elderly person taken away by awful covid. May his memory be with you.
A powerful and inspirational story, indeed. Thanks for commenting, Miltos.