Urbie Green discusses his early influences

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Urbie Green discusses the need for original style

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Urbie Green on working with a big band

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Q: “Your career has been quite a wide one. As you point out, you had your own big band – was there much work with that or was it just a recording group?”

A: “Well, I worked around the New York area with it quite a lot for a couple of years or so. And then we had our big break. We were booked in The Birdland. I forgot what year it was. And I think it was the second night there, they had this terrible thing happen. The manager of the place, Irving Levy, who was Morris Levy's brother, he used to have a record company. Anyway, he was murdered right in front of our ... while we were performing on the stand, a big fight going on and the next thing we knew he was laying dead back behind bandstand. He had been knifed, so they closed the place down. That was the end of the big band thing.”