(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)

Lawrence Peryer: First of all, it's been a joy spending time with the record and having an excuse to go back into the catalog. I'm really curious about the decision to revisit some of your own songbook on the new record. The version of "Summer Solstice" is such a scorcher. I put them back to back, which I'm sure is not the most original idea.

What I came away with was that I heard 50 years of musical development. The two versions of the same song seem to reflect not only where you're at and where you were at, but everything in between—a little bit more hard driving, a little bit more of the funk back in the music, and certainly the rock influence. What was going on there for you?

Azar Lawrence: This album is supposed to answer some of the questions we would get when we would sell CDs at a performance. The first question usually asked is, "Are these the songs that we heard tonight? Is this the music that we heard tonight?" I wanted to answer that question.

So this is a compilation of material that we play. I have another set of material, too, that we've added in the New Sky album. This is pretty much the meat of what would be some of the regular material on this record, just like a live album. We tried to make it as forthcoming as we could in terms of the solos, to give people a taste of that.

There's going to be another album that starts to explore the other side, the funky side. My approach to music is that whatever music I'm playing, I feel rhythmically that it all starts from an Afro-rhythmic place, even the Brazilian kind of thing. So I want to be authentic. Whatever type of music we are playing and have incorporated into our show is authentic.

When you hear a Brazilian rhythmic thing, you get to feel that that's the thing. The sambas are the sambas. They're not half sambas, they're not almost a samba—they're an actual samba. That's one of the thoughts we explore musically, and then, of course, the jazz repertoire, wherever that's being heard.

We didn't really swing on any of these. When you do hear a swing, it's the swing that has been experimented on and explored with the great Elvin Jones. That's where I come out of. I lived two and a half years with Elvin before I was with McCoy, five years, but then I went back with Elvin after a short period with Miles.

It was a good period. Did the record live at Carnegie. I learned a lot from Miles in the short time. Musically, we're trying to explore the authenticness of each particular genre that we exhibit.

LP: Over your career, you've been in so many different contexts and so many different roles, and I'm really intrigued by your role in the Cookers. What I'm most interested in is how you show up as a bandleader versus how you show up when you're walking into an existing thing, somebody else's thing. What do you have to suppress? Do you have to say, "Oh man, I'm just here, I'm a hired hand, I've got to keep my mouth shut"?

What's that like as a player who clearly has his own musical ideas and vision?

Azar: Well, that's interesting you said that. George Cables and I have worked together. In fact, before any of my so-called career started bearing fruit, there was a group with Woody Shaw, George Cables, Larry Gales (who was the bass player from Monk), Candy Finch (the drummer who had been five years with Dizzy Gillespie), and myself. We used to play after hours at a so-called L.B. West on 54th Street.

At the same time I was working with the Watts 103rd Street Band, and also with Eric Burdon from the Animals, as he started the group War, and so we did a recording.

I don't know if you know a little bit about Los Angeles, but where the Guitar Center is located on Sunset used to be called Far Out Productions, and that's where Eric Burdon, the producers, and the management of Far Out Productions existed. When I went to play there with Eric, I was surprised, because it was a giant warehouse and there was a huge truck in there.

Actually, that was the truck that was used to record Woodstock. And Eric owned it, of course. That's what we used. It had video capabilities, and that's what we recorded. So the same George Cables and I had worked together before on a couple of occasions. I think George, and then Eddie Henderson and I, had performed together not only with Elvin but on a couple of things with McCoy.

Cecil McBee several years ago graced me with his presence. He was my favorite bass player for years and still is one of my favorite bass players. Cecil came and played with me at the North Sea Jazz Festival when I had my quintet there. Billy Hart played with McCoy in one of our bands, and we played together. He had Buster Williams for a number of years with McCoy.

As a matter of fact, David Weiss joined my group just for a couple of performances on the West Coast. Eddie Henderson—I'd stayed at his beautiful A-frame house in the Oakland Hills, and he came down and stayed at my parents' house on a couple of occasions. So it's family.

LP: There are a few things you've touched on in the time we've already spent talking that sort of dance around the theme of the lineage, and the Cookers to me really represent that. And then you're talking about playing with Woody Shaw—these people and your interactions with them. That's the lineage of this music, going back the better part of half a century or more now.

And going back to Monk, even longer. How aware are you of the lineage, of your role in it? How do you think about it without getting caught up or self-conscious about it? How do you think about this music?

Azar: I don't observe it or think about it, because I am it. You know what I'm saying? I don't think of it objectively, because I am this. It has emerged from within my being.

I've realized and accepted and participated in my own unfoldment in terms of it. It starts back with my mother, who was a fabulous pianist herself and a sixth-grade teacher, coming from Oklahoma. Her teacher told her that if she wanted to pursue being a professional pianist, he would fail her, so she was able to express a lot of that through me.

My older brother was a great artist. We both played violin. He was five years older than me, and I was five years old when I played violin in the USC Junior Orchestra. When I first joined McCoy Tyner, there was a bigger impact than when I was with Elvin, for some reason. When we played at the Vanguard, there was a line out the door.

Billy told me, "Yeah, man, a lot of these guys are musicians trying to see who it is that McCoy would skip over." All these guys, great guys, waiting in line for the gig, to pick somebody from the country. That's what they called me—that was my nickname for a minute. Los Angeles is a country town compared to this big city.

So they were trying to say, "Who is this guy that they brought from the country and skipped over all of us?" The beautiful part is, he said, "Well, somebody's got to be your family out here. I guess I'll take you on." And that's how Billy Hart and I have been friends for 50 years or more.

LP: That's beautiful. I'm a McCoy guy—McCoy's important to me as an artist. Something that's intrigued me about him is that he never went electric in that era, when everybody else was experimenting with either electric instruments or electronics as a form of innovation. His innovation seemed to be more around arrangement, harmony, and certainly rhythm. I'm curious if you have any insight into that.

Was it even something you would have talked about? What's the why behind that, to the extent you know?

Azar: One time they didn't have a piano for him. All they had was an electric piano. So you can imagine the condition of that piano after we finished. (laughter)

LP: Well, what was left of it, with that left hand.

Azar: Yeah, the left hand, on more than one occasion. But one comes to mind in Germany. We were playing a ball during the time that the Atlantis album had come out, and he and I were doing "My One and Only Love" as a duet. While he was playing his solo, he did one little run—boom. And when he hit that little note, three strings busted that barely missed me.

His tone, his touch—three bass strings popped, and I just got out of the way. I think he was doing enough. He was exploring the full value of the acoustic piano, which had not been quite taken to that level. Before we go to electronics, let's see who has explored the core value of the acoustic instrument.

And I think McCoy Tyner's name would have to be there, in terms of this particular genre—progressive jazz, or whatever one would like to call it. This particular music that we're playing, we also like to refer to it as Black classical music. From that particular standpoint, I think he explored it to his heights, before one would explore going to electronics.

He played with Ike and Tina Turner for a moment. He was a funkateer—he could get busy. And I had worked with the Watts 103rd Street Band, and for a little short time with Ike and Tina, with the Revue. I own up to my funkiness.

LP: You don't strike me as somebody that hides from the funk.

Azar: No, that's right. That's a good thing there.

LP: Unlike a lot of other players in the jazz space, we acknowledge and talk pretty openly about your growing up with rock and your immersion in rock music. Growing up listening to the Beach Boys and being a surfer kid, that's pretty far from the spiritual jazz scene. How does a kid hanging out in Southern California, into sun and fun, become the player you became?

Azar: Well, interesting enough, my mother used to practice every day when she would put me down for a nap. I remember hearing Beethoven, Bach, and all that kind of stuff when I was going to sleep, that young. In fact, a few years ago, a friend of mine that I grew up with reminded me.

She said, "Yeah, your mother used to say, 'No, he can't come out and play until he's practiced. He hasn't practiced.'" I had to practice. Then, of course, it got me, and I feel funny if I don't practice. Billy Hart some years ago told me one time, he said, "Yeah, you don't feel like a man." If you practice—how can you go out in the world if you haven't practiced? I said, "That's true." I don't want to feel like that, less than a man.

LP: To this day, you still practice?

Azar: Oh, absolutely. You can tell somebody that does. Albert Dailey, the great Albert Dailey, graced me with his presence.

We became friends. He was always telling me, "You can tell the difference between those that study and those who have not studied." You can tell the difference, and certainly between somebody that practices and doesn't practice.

I've been on a quest trying to discover different approaches to long tones and techniques of filling up the instrument chromatically. One of the people I was close with had been close with Freddie Hubbard. We were playing tennis and he was telling me some of the techniques, but also in the conversations it comes up that not everybody can do long tones mentally. Of course they can, but some people don't do them. They have other techniques that they use, and they sound very good.

But for me, I'm just an old-school guy. The traditional approach, for instance, is long tones, scales, chord tones—all the different approaches to cover the capabilities of an individual expressing themselves through music, and of course through saxophone.

LP: You mentioned earlier you played violin. When you were young, you were exposed to your mom playing piano. What is it about the saxophone for you? What was it about it when you first got it in your hands, and what's kept you engaged with it for a lifetime?

Azar: I was a singer also. I used to sing with my mother when I was in her class. We would do those performances at the school.

I would sing and she would play piano. But as I got older, my voice dropped. I was also playing violin, and not only was I tired of hearing "Oh, he's a sissy"—you know how little kids taunt you—but my voice had changed and my hearing had changed. So I was considering whether to go to viola.

I knew I didn't want to go to cello, because I already had to carry around a saxophone. Now I'm going to carry this big old thing? No, I didn't want to do that. My father was very much the individual that would get something done. My mother was behind me musically.

One of her kids was going to be a musician. We moved up into Baldwin Hills before President Kennedy was assassinated. Baldwin Hills was, and still is, pretty elite. Ray Charles lived there. Nancy Wilson. My father's friend used to come by and lay out by our pool and bring his flute, and that was nice.

But one day he came by and had brought an alto saxophone, and when he played that, I was like, "Oh, wait a minute, Danny. That's it. That's what I'm looking for. That's the song." He said, "Well, let's go get one." Later on I found out that for the money we paid for that horn, we could have flown to New York and had a week of hotel paid. We paid top dollar. So anyway, that's how I got the first instrument.

LP: You started with a Selmer?

Azar: I did. I'll tell you, my father didn't play. He was like, "What's the best? What do we have to get? Let's get the best one." He happened to have the right connections in terms of friends. Isn't that beautiful?

LP: That's really beautiful.

Azar: Yeah. So never downplay—my father wore on this.

LP: Speaking of relationships, I'm curious about the friendship you developed with Pharoah Sanders, and of course how you've come to include "The Creator Has a Master Plan" on this new record. My impression, just from reading about your relationship with Pharoah, is that it seems like something different than just a musician revering another musician.

Azar: Oh yeah.

LP: I'm curious to hear what that relationship was about and what it meant to you.

Azar: Interesting enough, I had connected via Horace Tapscott, the Pan-Afrikan People's Arkestra, and through them I met the Straughter brothers, Ray and Ernest Straughter.

Also, I met a guy named Reggie Golson, Benny Golson's son, and all of these individuals were connected to Pharoah Sanders.

Pharoah used to come when he would play at the Lighthouse. I ended up being in his company. This is way back—I was still playing alto saxophone. We shared a spiritual understanding, some of the more spiritual concepts, even dietary, vegetarianism, all these types of things, trying to prepare oneself to be receptive to the voice within you, your own spirituality, your own inner self.

Become acquainted with your own self. To know thyself. I used to come to a spiritual community that I lived at. We called it the Sun, because the numerical value of the numbers of the address worked out to be the number of the Sun. Those of us who were studying together at the Aquarian Spiritual Center, under the direction of Dr. Alfred Ligon—so all that tied into the connection with Pharoah.

We had a long relationship due to the spiritual connection: like-mindedness, one mind, the God mind, all those types of concepts. Then, of course, I got connected to Elvin Jones via Reggie Golson, who became my best friend. We used to jump the fence over at the high school.

LP: Statute of limitations is well behind us.

Azar: Exactly. They can't come. Next thing you know, I'm on the road with Elvin and I'm starting to bump into Pharoah. We would go see him at Concerts by the Sea, at the Lighthouse, any time he was in town, and talk. He was fond of us, the Straughter brothers, myself.

And of course Reggie—everybody that was anybody knew Benny Golson's son. Benny used to tell me that Reggie knew Duke Ellington better than he did, because Reggie used to tell me how he would go on the bus with Duke when they traveled. Pharoah and I became even closer over the years.

Then, like I said, I'm on a quest—what and how people are doing their long tones, their thoughts about that. I was teaching at UCLA, where I shared a lot of that information. Billy Harper gave me some information about that which was quite helpful, that he picked up from Ornette Coleman. All of those types of things played into the same kind of approach to Pharoah.

Pharoah and I got very, very close. During the pandemic, I would go by, bring him some food. I'd call: "Hey man, do you want something over there?" "Well, I would like some Thai food today." I just so happened to know nice Thai places. I'd go pick up some food. And during the pandemic, he went out his back door at night, stepped off the step wrong, and broke his hip.

That's what happened. And of course, when you're up in age and break a bone like that—a hip, though. Oh my gosh.

LP: The hip is often the decline, right? It's the start of the decline for a lot of older people.

Azar: Oh yeah. I would hear about him giving certain people mouthpieces. He had tons of them, but he knew each one and what each one could accomplish.

One day he said, "Man, wait a minute. I've got something for you." He went upstairs, came back down, and he had a gift bag with a ribbon on it and everything. And humbly he gave me this mouthpiece. I was like, "Oh, thank you." Wow.

LP: Do you use it?

Azar: Well, not all the time. For a long time I wasn't able to manipulate it like I would like to, because I've played as long as I have. It's not as easy as we think, as you start to get older.

LP: And the relationship with the mouthpiece—that's the connection in a very literal way. It's where the body and the breath and the instrument all come together.

Azar: Being a former skateboard expert, not only did I break my arm, but—

LP: Knocked out some teeth.

Azar: Yeah. Yeah, man.

LP: Oh my goodness.

Azar: So Pharoah—in fact, I was with him the night before he passed away.

LP: Oh, wow.

Azar: I brought him some food, and I guess somebody else had too. They were trying to get him to walk. I didn't feel good about the fact that he'd gone to Europe for that concert, in his condition.

I thought that was a little rough. They were walking him back and forth, walking him back and forth. They thought they were doing the best thing they could for him. He gave me a handshake and looked me in the eyes, and it was like he was saying goodbye. And that night, or early the next morning, he took flight.

LP: That's incredible.

Azar: Isn't that something?

LP: Tell me about "The Creator Has a Master Plan." It plays as tribute, not simply a cover. It seems beyond maybe even an interpretation. Hearing you talk about the spiritual relationship, and the interest that you shared in personal development with him, that gives me a new reading on hearing the recording. I wonder if you could tell me about your decision to include that on the record.

Azar: I think, like you said, it was not so much a cover. It boils down to a tribute, a medium for the expression of the love I had for Pharoah and our friendship. And just to be able to think that you can do that—I mean, play a song and behind Pharoah set. To think that you can do it.

To have permission within your own self, that you think you qualify to do it. But not only that—I thought it was something that needed to be paid tribute to, the principle of a great man. And I studied with him. Every question I asked, I was like, "Well, what was Trane playing?" And he was like, "Okay, we was doing this, that, we was playing this, that." He was exposing some good things.

LP: It is really incredible to think about the lineage of guys that emerged in that post-Coltrane era—whether it was Liebman, obviously you, the people who were right in the aftermath of the impact Trane made—the fact that you had this sort of direct transmission through people like McCoy and Elvin and Pharoah. It strikes me as very powerful, not only musically. I know that all musicians learn things from each other on and off the bandstand, and I'm so intrigued by that element of your relationship with those people, to be so almost close to the source.

Just the impact Coltrane had on music, and obviously on horn players and musicians, and how they think—you got about as close to the source as you could get.

Azar: Yeah, I must admit that I did. I never heard it live. The closest I got was when I was with McCoy. We were at the Top of the Gate and Elvin was at the Vanguard, and McCoy said, "Hey man, it's Elvin's birthday. Let's run over to the Vanguard on a break." I said, "Okay." We walked down the steps, and he went straight to the piano through the crowd, to the left side of the Vanguard. And I noticed that Jimmy Garrison, who I didn't know at that time yet, was at the bar, and somebody else was sitting in on bass, and this guy named Jazzbo was playing saxophone.

Elvin was playing. Next thing you know, McCoy took his right hand and placed it on the piano, and the guy took his right hand off. And the next thing you know, McCoy was sitting down at the piano. Well, Jimmy sees that and goes up to the bandstand to get his bass back, and the guy was trying to hold on to it.

Jimmy said, "Give me that bass." So next thing you know, the trio was playing, and they were playing "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise." To this day, I've never heard anything like that.

LP: Oh my God.

Azar: Oh boy. Next thing you know, you were in the Amazon forest. All these visual things started popping, just from hearing the music.

Oh man. Later on I wrote a song on one of my albums, "Lost Tribes of Lemuria," which expressed some of the visual things. And by the way, my brother passed away in February.

I was on the phone with his wife, because I was out of town. I had told him that when my mother passed away, I had an experience.

I saw what I believe was the angel of death. He came in, and the music that he brought with him through the window—his vibe was so high, it was music. He looked at me and his mouth opened, and I didn't hear anything. Then he went on through the wall into my mother's room, and when I went in there he was going through the wall toward the street.

So my brother kept saying, "Turn the music up, turn the music up." And his wife was like, "I'm telling him there's no music." And he keeps saying, "Turn the music up." And he passed away. Days later, after my mother's experience, and I couldn't hear it. I had heard a big ankh, which is the key to life, according to the Egyptians.

It's used in meditation. And I imagine—I guess if I had heard that, I would have only heard it. It was my time.

LP: Wow. So it wasn't meant for you at that point? You weren't meant to hear it.

Azar: I couldn't hear it. I didn't hear what he said, but days later I heard it.

LP: Many years ago, I lost a brother as well, and he also died in February. February can be a dark month.

Azar: Yeah, that's true. I always jokingly say, it can't be that bad—everybody's doing it.

LP: And everybody does do it.

Azar: Everybody does do it. So that's how Turn the Music Up came, and some of the artwork. My brother became the artist—he did the Bridge into the New Age album cover, and he did the Summer Solstice album cover, and some of the sketches from Turn the Music Up he had done. And so we used some of those in there too.

LP: That's really beautiful. I'm curious about your role as an educator. You mentioned it earlier, and I wonder if there's one thing in particular that you strive to tell students, something you want to impart that nobody could have told you when you were younger—maybe you couldn't hear it yet. Is there something you try to pass on where you have to question whether the kids can hear it yet, whether they're ready?

Azar: Yeah, there's so much I'm trying to pass on that I didn't know, that I wasn't ready to receive. I'm really just scratching the surface. When I went back with McCoy, he had Jimmy Garrison with him, and Roland Prince, and Jimmy and I became friends. He took me to his apartment, showed me around.

And they told me somewhat about Trane, and what they did, their experience with him. My basic connection with the music that I try to pass on is that I learned how to be ready. When we was on the road with Elvin, I always had to practice, be ready. Now, we was traveling a lot of times, we didn't have a chance to practice.

If you're in the group of McCoy Tyner and he played, he soloed first, and then here you come—people are liable, they're going to go to the concession stand when you come. And then, of course, if you solo first, if you aren't saying something, that's when they go get popcorn. You know what I'm saying?

Better have something to say. I mean, a prolific soloist as McCoy Tyner. And everybody—no one, I'm sure, that was in that group thought they were going to, you know, talking about a country, and that was cut.

LP: You have to have something to say.

Azar: Nobody thought five and a half years I'd be there, because McCoy had his pick of anybody. They're all there.

LP: I mean, he had you and Hart for a minute, right? That's quite an arsenal.

Azar: Yeah, just for a very, very short time. But the majority of the time it was a quartet. Then Guilherme Franco joined, and that's when it was a quintet. And then when I left, Joe Ford—then he went to the quintet. So it was a quartet for the majority of that time. You get a solo after McCoy, you end up saying, somewhere people wonder why they're getting up.

LP: That's so funny.

The first time I saw Pharoah perform live was at the Blue Note with McCoy's trio, and that was such a treat. I saw McCoy so many times over the years, but I was lucky to see Pharoah a few times. The last time I saw him was here in Seattle, and it was a duo. It was him and William Henderson playing piano, and it was so beautiful. So delicate.

Azar: Oh yeah.

LP: Yeah. Really something else.

Azar: I knew William. I kind of grew up knowing him. He was much older, but I knew William very well.

LP: Really something. Well, I love the record, and I appreciate you spending time with me. It's such a treat. You're someone I've wanted to talk to for a while, and I'm so glad we had the opportunity.

Azar: Oh, thank you. Me too, brother. Thank you, man.