Lance Hayward on Piano, Alan Greenspan on Sax

Plus, My Accidental Musical Tribute to the People of Ukraine

Lance Hayward. Photo by Claudia Marx, c.1986-87

For a quiet Sunday, some correspondence about jazz, the Federal Reserve, and a surprising connection between the two. In the Lagniappe section: how I accidentally composed an orchestral work dedicated to the courageous people of Ukraine.

In January, I wrote about my encounter with jazz pianist Lance Hayward, back in the 1980s. The short recap is this: Hayward was a blind Afro-Bermudian who regularly accompanied Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Marvin Gaye, and other greats. For many years, he had a regular gig at the Village Corner in New York City, which I frequented in the 80s. The only time we ever spoke, I asked whether he might play any of three songs I was experimenting with for my own piano playing. One was Doris Day’s “The Secret Love,” and the other two, which I’ve forgotten, were also kind of, well … Doris Day-ish. From his expression, I didn’t think Hayward was pleased by my request, but he played not one, but all three in sequence—magnificently. I thanked him afterward, but he seemed deep in thought and still showed no outward pleasure. However, maybe six months later, I went back to the Village Corner and, at some point, out of the blue, Hayward played all three songs, in the same sequence. So I guessed that he had liked my requests, after all.

Lance Hayward and Claudia Marx. Photo from Claudia Marx, 1983.

After I published my article in January, I sent it to Claudia Marx, who has been director of the Lance Hayward Singers since Hayward died in 1991. Claudia sent back a wonderfully gracious response that gave insight into Hayward’s internal processes in improvising music and led us circuitously to a discussion of how Alan Greenspan’s career as chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers (1974-1977) and chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (1987-2006) resulted from his earlier role as a saxophone player in a notable swing band. We’ll get to Greenspan a bit later, but Claudia’s first email began as follows:

… I did read the Lance Hayward story. It’s perfect. Totally Lance. And to clear up what seems like a 25-30 year uncomfortable memory on your part, I am CERTAIN Lance was not displeased by your 3-song request. Believe me, he was not shy about just politely saying “No” if he didn’t want to play something. He liked “Secret Love,” and probably was just instantly trying to plan how he would put the songs together into a medley. He had extraordinary facility with key modulations, coming up with segues from one piece to another that would musically make sense, etc. I think he probably just began a plan as soon as your request left your lips as to how he would put the songs together. And then, I have a feeling he was pleased with the way he worked it out, and kept it in his repertoire. 

I told her that I would have understood if he didn’t like the songs—that when I used to play gigs in the 1970s, I constantly received requests to play “Feelings” and “Tie a Yellow Ribbon round the Ole Oak Tree,” and never once played either of them. No telling how many tips I lost by pretending I had never heard of either song. (I recently discovered that “Yellow Ribbon” was first offered to Ringo Starr, but Al Steckler of Apple Records told the composers they should be “ashamed” of the song and sent them away.)

I then asked Claudia how she came to direct his chorus, and she responded:

Knowing Lance was like getting a Ph.D. in jazz. It was constant learning. In his straightforward way of communicating, he would just say things that would open up doors if one’s mind was receptive. When he decided to begin a chorus (he had led an all-male choir for quite a few years in Bermuda before moving here), he and I began enlisting voices from people we knew, people we already knew could sing. Then, since this was way before computers or computer programs made for music notation, he began building a sort of library of charts for the chorus—and he dictated them to me. I wrote down every arrangement, one quarter note and eighth rest at a time! It was a monumental job, and as a by-product, I also was very close to his musical thinking, obviously. I understood his musical intentions with each arrangement. So when he died, since everyone wanted to continue with it, and even though I had zero interest in leading any group, I was the most logical person to take it over. The musical magic he created right from the beginning engendered a joy that still exists in this group.

He would be very happy that all these years later, you still remember your own enjoyment listening to him play. That would please him.  And by the way, the owner of the Village Corner just died within the last year. I think he was 90 or 91 years old. Jim Smith.

Alan Greenspan. Photo in public domain from Wikimedia Commons.

That last sentence led to our discussion of Alan Greenspan, the longtime presidential advisor and Federal Reserve chairman. Claudia’s friend Jim Smith was, I’m almost sure, the reason I first started frequenting the Village Corner. I was a bank economist in the Wall Street area, and a colleague mentioned that he knew a fellow who had worked with Alan Greenspan’s financial firm but decided he would rather own a jazz club. My friend is long-dead, so I can’t ask him whether I’m remembering this correctly. However, Jim Smith’s obituary mentioned that he was a member of the inner circle of author and philosopher Ayn Rand. Greenspan was also a Rand acolyte for a while, and the other members of the circle referred to him as “The Undertaker” because of the stiff, formal image for which he would later be famous. Anyway—the Rand connection in Smith’s obit suggests that he was, indeed, my friend’s friend and my entrée to the Village Corner.

At that point, I shared with Claudia the history of Greenspan, music, and economics. As a young man, he was a talented musician who, for a time, attended The Juilliard School—one of the world’s finest colleges of music. In 1944, he became a saxophonist and clarinetist with the Henry Jerome band. Some websites claim that he played with the much-higher-profile Woody Herman band, but that’s apparently false. One blogger asked Greenspan whether he played with Herman, and Greenspan responded, “No, but I played sax with those who played in the Woody Herman band.” One of those he played alongside was the legendary Stan Getz, and he concluded that he would never be as good as Getz. (For a glimpse into the sacrifice and gifts inherent in reaching such altitudes in music, watch the 2014 film Whiplash—which I just saw for the first time.) A 2007 New York Times piece said:

[Greenspan] was a sideman, rather than a soloist. Among his fellow musicians he became known as the band’s resident intellectual, the clarinetist who could also fill out his bandmates’ income tax forms for them. Between sets, when they disappeared into the green room—”which would quickly fill with the smell of tobacco and pot,” Mr. Greenspan recalls—he read books about business.

He apparently decided he had a better chance of reaching the top in finance than in music, so his career turned in that direction.

In 1968, Leonard Garment was an advisor and future White House Counsel to Richard Nixon. Garment had, in fact, been a saxophonist and clarinetist with the Woody Herman band. During Nixon’s successful run for the presidency, Garment told Nixon that he had played music long before with a guy who was now an economist, and he thought Nixon would like him. (Nixon, himself, was a passably decent pianist.) They hit it off, and Greenspan became a key domestic-policy advisor to Nixon, which positioned him to chair the Council of Economic Advisers under Gerald Ford and the Federal Reserve under Presidents Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43.

Another turn in the story: I told Claudia that while studying at Columbia in the 1980s, it was said by some folks in the Economics Department that Greenspan occasionally sat in on sax with Woody Allen’s dixieland band at Michael’s Pub in Manhattan. I’ve never found any evidence of that on the web, so if anyone out there knows whether it’s true, I’d love to hear from you.

And finally, from 1989 till 2002, I worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond (Virginia). One time, while working there, I was asked to play piano for a cocktail reception for Greenspan, who was visiting. Knowing his musical past, I was excited to have the gig. I did the performance, but the chatter of the crowd was so loud that I don’t think he heard a single note of my playing. I could barely hear myself. Ah, well.

Next, on to Ukraine …

Accidental Dedication: Music to Honor the People of Ukraine

In April 2022, I set out to compose a strident march for strings and winds. (Click on the link above to hear it.) After finishing it, I closed my eyes and listened to the recording in order to think of a title. Out of nowhere, the word “Magnificatum” crossed my mind. I studied Latin long ago but wasn’t exactly sure that this was, in fact a Latin word. Google Translate confirmed its existence, but rather than meaning “magnificent,” as I had assumed, it actually means “magnified.” (Common root words.)

I figured there must be a good quote using the word, and a search immediately brought up Daniel 8:10 from the Biblia Vulgata (Latin Vulgate Bible), which translates (in the King James Version) as:

And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.

This is part of a fearsome, apocalyptic vision Daniel had of a one-horned goat destroying a far more powerful two-horned ram. The Book of Daniel, almost certainly written in the 2nd century BCE, purports to be about Nebuchadnezzar II, 6^th century BCE king of Babylonia. The Greek king when Daniel was written, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, ruled the Seleucid Empire and was poised to demolish Jewish worship in Jerusalem. To criticize Antiochus would have been suicidal, but one could freely mock a foreign and long-dead Nebuchadnezzar. Some contemporary readers, however, would have recognized the allegorical nature of the book and its true target—Antiochus. A little over a month into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this passage reminded me of the defiant Ukrainians and the bloody mire into which Vladimir Putin had thrust his much larger army. And thus, I dedicated my song “to the courageous people of Ukraine.”

All that remained was for me to find an accompanying piece of art from my wife. Her “Autumn Glow” was meant to represent a fiery sunset through the trees in Alexandria, Virginia. But the searing orange sky also looked like the battlefield scenes pummeling the television screen at the time I composed this piece. I hadn’t set out to write anything about Ukraine, but there it was.

Хай щастить Україні.

Robert F. Graboyes is president of RFG Counterpoint, LLC in Alexandria, Virginia. An economist, journalist, and musician, he holds five degrees, including a PhD in economics from Columbia University. An award-winning professor, in 2014, he received the Reason Foundation’s Bastiat Prize for Journalism. His music compositions are at YouTube.com/@RFGraboyes/videos.