Ray McKinney

The great tenor saxophonist Lester “Pres” Young preferred bassists who, in his words, played plenty of “deep sea divers.” Deep sea divers are low notes, bottom notes, notes with meaty, deep, resonant tones. Pres wanted the bass to anchor the rhythm section, not play on top of it. Ray McKinney’s playing fitted firmly within Pres’ philosophy, for McKinney was a strong section man with a lot of bottom to his sound. Raymond Patterson McKinney was born in Detroit on March 28, 1931, the fourth of ten children born to Bessie and Clarence McKinney. The entire McKinney family was artistically gifted, and most of the children took music lessons from their mother. Ray started on the Ocarina and soon graduated to the piano. “My mother gave me piano lessons,” he recalls. “But I didn’t like her teaching methods. If I made a mistake, she’d rap me on the knuckles. I’d get off the piano bench after that. ‘Get back on that bench’, she’d say. I’d say, ‘no, I’m not gonna do it.’ And I wouldn’t. I was a hard headed little motherfucker.” Ray declared his atheism at age eight. This greatly disturbed his mother, a devout Christian, but she was unable to change Ray’s mind. “I always went in my own direction,” he says. “I didn’t care about the punishment. Following the wheel of truth was more important to me than any punishment they could mete out.” Ray’s mother encouraged him to play the cello, and he took to the instrument immediately. “I used to hear European classical music on the radio, and I dug what the strings were doing. I loved the sound of the cello; it was magic to me. It had the authority other instruments lacked.” The McKinneys struggled to make ends meet during the depression. Ray’s dad was taking drawing classes at Cass Tech after work, but his mom forced him to drop the course after she discovered that nude models posed for the class. “He switched to graphic arts and became a sign painter, which helped our income a lot,” Ray remembers. “Good thing too, ‘cause he started having lots of babies.” Ray’s father had a degree in English from Morehouse College and did not allow his children to speak or write incorrectly. Ray developed a deep love and respect for words and language that blossomed during his years at Northwestern High School. “My English teacher gave us a poem-writing assignment,” he recalls.

“I wrote a hell of a poem. When I wrote it, I knew then that I could write poetry. All of the language preparation at home paid off.” Apparently the preparation paid off too well, for the teacher refused to believe a student had composed the poem. She gave Ray an ‘F’, tore up the poem, and threw it into the wastebasket. “I was so fucking angry,” he remembered. “I stopped writing poems down on paper. I memorized them instead. That was actually better for me, cause I could ‘give’ the poem to more than one chick.” It was during his high school years that Ray was first exposed to jazz. “I heard Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb in 1939. Harold and I went. I also heard Erskine Hawkins, and Jay McShann when he had Bird with him. There was live music in my neighborhood, too. There were bands made up of youngsters who played homemade instruments—pails, brushes, spoons. I mean, they were swingin’! The first bass I ever saw was made from a stick, a bucket and a piece of string. Those bands made me realize that you didn’t need anything but yourself to make music.” The fact that the youngsters played homemade instruments reminds McKinney of the African concept of music. “I am a drum. I come from a drum. The whole of creation sprang from a drum. When the English outlawed drums, the slaves said ‘OK’. And they got around that. Blacks took the Spanish guitar and wedded it to the drum. The banjo is a stringed drum. To me, that personifies the first instrument that helped Blacks adapt. It’s a way of adapting, or making something out of, a handicap. Blacks have always done that. Jazz comes from that.” The band director at Northwestern High School forced Ray to switch from cello to bass. “I didn’t want to play bass,” he stated. “No one wanted to play bass. In the old days, jazz players would generally consider you dumb—‘he can’t play nothin’, give him the bass.’ Before amplification, you didn’t have to hit every note on the head. The main thing was to keep the sonority and rhythmic drive going. But Harold was beginning to play bebop, and the cello didn’t fit too well. I always thought he was in cahoots with the band director.” The bass was coming into it’s own as a solo instrument in big bands by the mid 1940’s, and it became more prominent as bebop quintets came to the fore. Ray, determined to be heard above the Northwestern band, developed his technique. “From the bass drum came this big booming sound, and the bass player had to pull the strings inches off of the finger board to produce a sound which could be heard,” he explains. “The cats called it ‘meatballing’. You had to be a big strong man to play bass before microphones. People who played bass in the early days were a grittier class of people—stevedores, longshoremen. Men who did heavy work. Horn players were usually pimps and barbers—foppish kind of dudes. That seems to still be true today.” Ray was academically gifted, but his passion for music consumed his time and he quit school at age sixteen (1947). He was spending time with like-minded students and other aspiring musicians from his west-side neighborhood. “We used to go over to Maurice Wash’ house,” he remembered. “Claire Rockamore, Barry Harris, Frank Foster, everybody used to go there. We used to spend days, sleepless days, and nights over there. That’s where I developed stamina, playing twelve, eighteen hours at a time. We had a little band, played little gigs. Bebop and swing, and some boogie. Our main thing was bebop. We wanted to play like Bird and Diz.” Ray also spent time at Barry Harris’ house, playing chess and music with Harris. Harris was very serious about his music; according to Ray, “Barry had a ferocity, an intensity, that was almost unhealthy. He would be playing chess and suddenly run over to the piano and start writing music.” McKinney and Harris worked local jobs backing a vocal group in which Harris’ wife Christine was a member. This group recorded at least twenty titles for the New Song label in 1950.(1) It was through Harris that McKinney met Tommy Flanagan. “One night Barry took us down to the Sudan,(2)” he recalls. “Tommy and Kenny Burrell were working there. He and Kenny made a nice combination. Lots of cats were interested in Tommy, or ‘Tif’ as we called him back then. He had a slick, nimble way of playing. Very hip. Tommy and Barry used to have boogie-woogie contests.” Although they seldom played together, the two men became friends, and there is mutual admiration and respect between them. Ray became a force to be reckoned with on the competitive Detroit scene and he worked with several Detroit piano stars, including Roland “Hack” Hanna. The third member of Hanna’s trio was future Motown drummer William “Benny” Benjamin, and the group settled in at Chic’s Show Bar(3) in 1954 for an extended stay. “We had a hell of a group,” Ray recalled. “We kept the joint packed. Get up there and improvise, sound like we rehearsed it for years. I had a great time with that group.” McKinney listened closely to the many bassists around Detroit, and was especially impressed with Alvin Jackson, Clarence Sherrill and Major “Mule” Holley. He thought Ray Brown was the piece de resistance, and Oscar Pettiford’s solos were beautiful. As direct role models, Ray looked to Tommy Potter and Dillon “Curly” Russell. Both were known for a big sound and steady timekeeping rather than for soloing prowess. Potter and Russell had worked for Charlie Parker and also favor ‘deep sea divers’ in their playing. Ray befriended Paul Chambers and his cousin Doug Watkins, and their playing impressed him. “Paul became the one. Because he bowed a lot. He was very original. Nobody was bowing like that… So was Doug, but he didn’t pursue it as much as Paul did. He (Doug) was a great admirer of Paul’s.” Ray’s eyes were tightly shut when he played, his whole body communicated passion and intensity. He sometimes accompanied himself with deep grunts, a kind of personal conversation with his muse. Ray had a New York attitude and isn’t shy about using it. He was often gruff, had a direct and unpretentious manner. He was very articulate and a great storyteller, a griot. McKinney sometimes gets ideas for written poems while playing. Ray’s written poetry is especially affecting when he reads it aloud, its cadence and word flow is striking. Ray decided to ‘Tackle the Big Apple’ in 1956 and left town with harpist Dorothy Ashby’s group. The gig didn’t last long; Ray was fired after punching Ashby’s husband in the face during an argument. “They took my money, my bass, everything,” he recalled ruefully. “Doug Watkins, who I had started on bass back in Detroit, let me stay with him and got me a bass to use.” Watkins was about to leave pianist Horace Silver’s band and set McKinney up to take his place, but the deal fell through and Ray ended up with a gig washing dishes.(4) Ray worked with a variety of bands during his off-and-on stays in Manhattan, including a multi-month stay with Ghanaian drummer Guy Warren and a reunion with various Detroiters (including Barry Harris) at the Five Spot.(5) He also found work with older musicians, like tenor saxophonist Ben Webster and clarinetist Edmund Hall. “Those older cats liked the way I played,” McKinney remembered. His most significant musical association was with drummer Max Roach. McKinney and Roach first met while Ray was working with Guy Warren. “One night Max and Miles Davis came into the club,” he recalled. “Max dug my playing and tried to hire me, but I knew I wasn’t ready.” McKinney began an intense two-year period of intensive woodshedding – which, for Ray, meant taking breaks from practicing to eat and sleep. He cycled between New York and Detroit and got married, but soon settled in Manhattan on his own. McKinney and Roach met again, and Ray now felt confident enough to accept Max’s offer of employment. He spent over a year with Roach’s 1960 quintet, which comprised tenor saxophonist Walter Benton, trumpeter Booker Little, trombonist Julian Priester, McKinney and Roach. “Max was into different time signatures, like 5/4,” Ray remembered. “And he liked to play fast. He was amazed when he heard me play, because I could keep the tempos, keep up with him. My tempo thing was like greased lightening.” Roach’s group was slated to record for Candid under vocalist Abbey Lincoln’s name in February 1961.(6) Roach added tenor colossus Coleman Hawkins, pianist Mal Waldron and reedman Eric Dolphy to his group. During the date, Charles Mingus arrived with one of his compositions and distributed the music. Hawkins had been drinking and had some difficulty playing the number. “He finally just packed up his horn and his scotch and split,” Ray remembered. Hawk wasn’t the only musician having problems with the music. “I didn’t understand how to play the bass part, which involved bowing tenths,” McKinney explained. “Mingus showed me how to play it, and that was a delicious revelation. But I didn’t dig the overall feel of the piece – it was in ‘free style’, cats going every which way – and I said so. So, they kicked me off the date and brought in Art Davis.” Hawkins returned to the studio later that day and made the date. Mingus’ number was not recorded. Following the death of Booker Little in October 1961, Ray got trumpeter Marcus Belgrave into the band. Marcus left after a Midwest tour and Richard Williams came on board. One night in Baltimore McKinney’s healthy ego came to the fore and he challenged Roach to a ‘tempo duel’. “He acted almost offended, like I was challenging God or something,” McKinney chuckled. “I said, ‘When we go back on the bandstand you set the tempo as fast as you can.’ That shit was so goddam fast, man…I stepped in and raised that motherfucker up. He had to catch up. Not a bead of sweat came off my ass. I had that shit nailed…that was almost a religious experience, an out-of-body thing.” After the duel, the horn players were exhausted and Roach admitted McKinney was “one bad motherfucker.” It was inevitable that two such strong personalities would quarrel, and the situation was exacerbated by Roach’s ongoing struggle to cope with the death of his dear friend Clifford Brown, which brought out erratic behavior and bouts of drinking. “When he was straight, Max was the most beautiful cat in the world,” Ray states. “When he was drinking, Max could be a terror. He’d go ‘out’ and we would sometimes clash.” Ray left the band in 1962, and collaborated with established New York musicians like pianist Red Garland, Yusef Lateef (with whom he recorded ),(7) vocalist Andy Bey and he spent a year with comic Nipsey Russell’s back-up band. Ray also began to experiment with Heroin and developed a partnership with the drug that lasted until 1973. Few addicts are able to break the cycle of drug use, but those who do gain spiritual strength and self knowledge. Ray decamped from Manhattan around 1973 and stayed in Oberlin, Ohio for a short time with his lady-friend Ann, before the two of them settled in San Diego in 1974. There wasn’t much happening jazz-wise and McKinney took up a series of day jobs for the next four years, although he continued to create poetry. Jobs that were monotonous or uninspiring failed to keep Ray’s interest and he quickly moved on. Some jobs were interesting, like calibrating electronic gauges, and McKinney applied himself wholeheartedly. During a visit to Detroit in the late 1960’s Ray thought the time was ripe for a musical regrouping of the McKinneys, and he suggested to Blue Bird Inn owner Clarence Eddins that a McKinney combo would be a sure-fire draw. The band comprised Harold, Ray, Bernard (Kiane Zawadi) on trombone and euphonium, Earl (Shams) on drums and Carol on reeds, with tenor saxophonist Leon Henderson an added starter. The McKinney’s father even painted a sign for the occasion. The band worked the weekend at the ‘Bird and produced some great sounds. In 1968 Ray met his soulmate, Mayumi Porche, outside a club after a gig. “He was leaning against a signpost, wearing a Panama hat,” she remembers. “He looked at me and said, ‘hey, baby, you want to fuck?’ I laughed and said, ‘I don’t know, but give me your number!’” That was the start of a deep and unbroken friendship that continued through numerous relationships and marriages on each side. They joined together (again) in 1992 and seemed well-suited for each other. Mayumi was a deeply compassionate human being with the strength and spirit of a Samurai, equal to the challenge of living with Ray McKinney. She nurtured and cared for McKinney until her death in 2001. Ray was happiest playing music and he got back ‘on the bass’ full time after returning to Detroit in the late 1970’s. There were many opportunities to play, including a nine-year gig at the Gnome restaurant with his brother Harold. They were an excellent duo. Harold had roots in bebop but kept a very eclectic repertoire – he’d go from a Bud Powell number to a show tune (complete with vocal) to a Rag. They fit together like hand and glove. Ray worked steadily until his liver, weakened by Hepatitis C and drug use, gave out in 1997. He is among those lucky few who got a replacement. Unfortunately, the immune-suppression drugs that allowed Ray’s new liver to survive in his body also damaged his kidneys. Ray began dialysis in 2000 and endured treatment three times each week. He also developed Diabetes, and lost a foot to the disease shortly before his death. McKinney didn’t often have the strength to play, but he occasionally sat in at Baker’s Keyboard Lounge. One stimulating experience took place around 1999. Ray’s longtime friend Phil Lasley was fronting a quartet at Baker’s(8) one Saturday night. Ray came in and sat at the musician’s booth near the bandstand. After his first set, Phil came over and cajoled Ray into sitting in – for “just one number – we’ll play a ballad – nice and easy.” Next set, Ray took his position on the bandstand and Phil promptly counted off a blues at a ferocious tempo. Ray sweated bullets but managed to hold his own. After the number Ray acknowledged the applause, carefully walked back to the table, collapsed into his seat, leaned over and said “motherfucker tricked me!”. Ray’s precarious health and his lack of insurance caused his friends concern, and a benefit took place in August, 2000 to raise some cash. Tommy Flanagan flew in from New York to play at the special Cause Celebre and it was a great success. Ray’s last years were unsteady. After Mayumi’s death, Ray’s living situation deteriorated and he eventually moved in with his brother Clarence. His longtime friends Eileen Orr and Phil Lasley helped him manage the detailed care a transplanted liver requires. McKinney ended up in a wheelchair, unable to play his bass but he continued to write poetry. Ray McKinney received a special Lifetime Achievement award during Baker’s Keyboard Lounge 70th anniversary celebration in May, 2004. It was one of Ray’s final public appearances. He died on August 3, 2004, aged 73.