Buddy Collette Interview by Monk Rowe - 2/13/1999 - Los Angeles, CA 

The great Buddy Collette , I'll never forget meeting & talking with Buddy at the memorial for Eddie Harris ( Fall '96 ) many notables there that day . Teddy Edwards , Ronald Muldrow , Horace Silver , Bobby Blevins . Even jazz DJ , Chuck Niles . I remain thankfull for these Monk interviews , very enlightening .

Buddy was such a wonderful person My very first session in Hollywood in 1969, for Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Buddy was sitting next to me. I ended up studying with Buddy. He was always generous with his time. I wrote a couple solo pieces that Buddy played with my big band in the early 70's. The consummate professional.

I knew Collette when he was the artist in residence at Cal State University at Los Angeles, around 1972. It was a very exciting time musically, being in Hollywood when all the Blaxploitation movies were being made and and people like Quincy Jones were becoming celebrities. Collette provided so much first person history of all these artists he is talking about here. He was also responsible for merging the white and Black musicians' unions, which allowed the Black musicians to also get in on the lucrative studio jobs. He said that was the only way to get stability for them, because playing different clubs on the road didn't pay that much, no matter how popular you were. He was very encouraging, but I knew I'd make a better surgeon than musician, so I went to medical school, lol.

Wow. Absolutely love Monk's interviews. He is sensitive to the interviewee and asks interesting open questions. Unlike some interviewers he is not interested in the sound of his own voice. As for Buddy Collette... What a fascinating man and a superb musician. Thank you Mr Rowe for preserving these invaluable oral histories.

I miss my great Grandpa a whole lot... He was truly an amazing man.

It's amazing how much ice was in that glass--and Buddy enjoyed every crunch. But seriously, another great , interesting and insightful interview produced by Monk. Thoroughly enjoyed!

Wow

This is my uncle