January 25–February 1, 2001

20 questions

Bob Dorough

by a.d. amorosi

At 77, Bob Dorough feels way younger than you. Up early every morning in his Mount Bethel, PA, home, the Arkansas native singer/pianist/composer with a syrupy rasp of a voice, playfully prickly fingers and a lexicon of clever phrases, is more prodigious now than ever. Since 1997, Dorough has released Right on My Way Home with Joe Lovano and Christian McBride, a live Who’s on First with sardonic pal Dave Frishberg and Too Much Coffee Man, all for Blue Note. Not to mention reissues of his first record, 1956’s Devil May Care (Rhino), 1966’s Just About Everything (Evidence) and various configurations of Schoolhouse Rock, the ’70s educational cartoon series for which he served as musical director and songwriter. All this is merely gravy for Dorough — who came of age in the bop era, gigging with Allen Ginsberg, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and later with Tom Rapp, Lenny Bruce, Sugar Ray Robinson and the Fugs.

It’s 6 a.m. and you’re up doing an interview. How do you stay young? What’s your regimen?

The earlier the better. I take all the vitamins you’d expect without being religious about it. I just started taking flax seed oil — good for the membranes and the nerves. I’m a half-assed vegetarian. Moderation is a tenet. And music keeps me young, too.

You’ve released three albums in four years. Up to that point, you’d released seven records in 40 years.

I’ve always had fans. They just had a harder time finding me. [laughs] They’d always ask, "Don’t you have any records?" I put out my own records, pressing them and such. Now I make a record a year under contract.… But I must say, I might not have written the newer tunes if it wasn’t for a recording contract [with Blue Note]. If I see a gig, writing stimulates my juices. That’s how Bach wound up putting out so much music — he had a job in a church. I guess I’m a lazy guy.

How the heck did you hook up with people like The Fugs, Tom Rapp and Spanky & Our Gang?

Ah my rock ’n’ roll period [laughs]. I had been working with Chad Mitchell, accompanying him doing Jacques Brel songs. I quit to become a cabaret singer. But between that I had to work, make a living. Playing any music at all was always better than waiting tables. I brought a jazz joie de vivre that appealed to them, so…

You’re used to being a solo act. What was it like doing the live thing at the Jazz Bakery with Frishberg?

We’ve known each other since the ’60s when I heard Dave at the Half Note in L.A. We started writing together soon after. We had a sponsor. We thought we’d be Rodgers and Hart, writing silly Broadway trash. We didn’t write much. I came up with kinda Pop Art songs based on found notes and letters. It’s a strange relationship. I don’t need him and he doesn’t need me. When we work together, we never really get our rocks off. We simply don’t need it.

How the hell did you wind up moving from Manhattan during the Bop Age to Mount Bethel?

I came to New York fresh from college at North Texas U; I had friends who would send me daily reports on Miles ’n’ Monk from 52nd St. I got to the Big Apple right when Bop was at the end of its cycle [laughs] but I still got to play with Diz and Bird. Anyway, I played all over, did the LA thing with Spanky, lived in upstate New York and I needed a job. So a friend of mine in the Poconos offered me a job at the Mount Airy Lodge, a honeymoon haven. They wanted us to play dances, but we snuck some jazz in there. I began to dig the environment. We even turned it into a jazz center. We have a hot jazz community up here: Al Cohn, Herbie Green. Buddy Jones. It reminds me of where I grew up in Arkansas.

Bob Dorough will perform on Fri., Jan. 26, at Alex’s Jazz Underground, 27 South 21st Street, 215-988-9255, www.jazzunderground.net.