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JACK MCDUFF: All she hired was organ groups. She kept us working. And she asked me one day-- I was playing with Willis Jackson. She said, why don't you get your own band?

SPEAKER: Now, who is this who said this to you?

JACK MCDUFF: Her name was Birdie, Birdie Dunlap.

SPEAKER: And she ran the Hurricane?

JACK MCDUFF: She ran the Hurricane then. I never did have trios because a trio was considered organ, drums, and guitar. That's all they wanted. But I always wanted a horn with my band because, yeah, by that time, I had learned how to write a little bit. So having a saxophone would give me something to write for.

And then I always used the guitar to play with the saxophone. Not necessarily unison with the saxophone, different parts that fit. In other words, they could conversate, if I can use that word, together.

And I started right off the bat with four-- everybody else was using three. Everybody else were using three. I always used four. And man, the stuff got to be sounding so good that everybody then was trying to copy the adding the saxophone to their group.

But let me tell you something, man. It's not just a point of just telling him, come on up here and play. It depends on how you employ him, yeah? See, I use the saxophone-- the guitar to play harmony with the saxophone like the trumpet players use the saxophone. You understand?

SPEAKER: Mm-hmm.

JACK MCDUFF: For harmony. Only thing I use a guitar, for the harmony. You could play too, but I got things that would-- arrangements from A to Z. Harmony. Harmony parts, man. George Benson was playing them, and all them good guys, man. They could play the hell out of them parts, man. You understand?

SPEAKER: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

JACK MCDUFF: So that's how I got my writing thing going.

SPEAKER: And that was what made your band distinctive from other organ-based bands, was the four pieces.

JACK MCDUFF: Right.

SPEAKER: Yeah. Interesting.

JACK MCDUFF: And at the same time, it sound like a big orchestra, man, because I use wide open organ at times. No holds barred. And I had a drummer, Joe Dukes, man. You heard of him?

SPEAKER: Mm-hmm.

JACK MCDUFF: Oh, man. He made the band sound like Buddy Rich band, I tell you.

SPEAKER: Well, when did you start recording?

JACK MCDUFF: I was in Willis Jackson's band. So that means '59, during the time I was with Willis Jackson. And this is getting on up to the '60s. And by now, people are asking me, how would you like to make a record? I remember my first record was called Brother Jack. Oh, it was awful. [CHUCKLES]

SPEAKER: When you did need to find a new musician, where did you find him, and what were you looking for?

JACK MCDUFF: Well, look here. Let me tell you something, man. Everybody loved my band so well that if I was to say-- like in this case, it was Don Gardner. He was another one of the groups, in the small group organ thing. And Don Gardner needed a guitar player. Man, he called all over and found George Benson, you hear? And I'm in Pittsburgh, and that's where George is from.

And one night, somebody come in and say, hey, man, I'm George Benson. I said, yeah, how you doing? But then he couldn't go because he owed child support and they was fixing to put him in jail on Monday. So I gave him $50 or something like that, something to go pay his court thing with, and he come back, he could go on the road with me. And we going on the road now.

SPEAKER: And then subsequently, I mean, George Benson, a lot of people know about George Benson because he became a pop star.

JACK MCDUFF: Yeah. Yeah. Well, when he left me, that's when that happened. He left me because-- he used to tell me he could sing, but I never asked him to sing except on one something. It was the end of the-- "wish I knew." You remember that song?

And on the very end, he said, "darling, please save your love for me." He sang real high. That's why I didn't like for him to sing, because he sang real high, man, like a girl. Know what I mean?

SPEAKER: Yeah.

JACK MCDUFF: And that was his first and last thing in the song with me. And when he got his own band, he had Lonnie Smith, and he had a good band instrumental, Ronnie Cuber. It was an instrumental band. And the next thing I know, man, he's talking about-- (SINGING) [INAUDIBLE] we spent one day here. In this blue house, we lived. We ain't looking for words.

I said, well, look at this. And people said, who is that? Man, they thought it was Stevie Wonder. That must be Stevie Wonder. And it was George Benson. From then, he sold more records than has ever been sold by a so-called jazz artist, man.

SPEAKER: Yeah, and that's interesting to me because-- was he doing something that was very different from what he'd been doing in your band, other than the singing?

JACK MCDUFF: Yeah.

SPEAKER: It was pretty different?

JACK MCDUFF: Yeah.

SPEAKER: Yeah.

JACK MCDUFF: It was a rockish type thing. It was rhythmic. It's rhythmic. More rhythmic. It wasn't so much notes that [VOCALIZING]. It was just more like, [VOCALIZING]. It was rhythmic, and it fit right in that hip-hop bag.

He come along at the right time. Man, I was-- so checks that he has gotten from the record company, one of them was $233,000 at one time. Do you hear me?

SPEAKER: Did you feel any envy of all that huge success?

JACK MCDUFF: Not even until today, till this very minute. I just talked to him last week. He is the nicest man I've ever seen.

SPEAKER: How did they start to call you Captain?

JACK MCDUFF: Well, see, they always called me Brother. I told you, that was my first record. Remember, I told you, the one I used to walk around and look at on the couch?

SPEAKER: Yeah.

JACK MCDUFF: The name of that album was Brother Jack. And then I like to wear them caps, the yacht caps. The reason I wore them, because I used to wear a pompadour. A pompadour is when your hair is set up tall in the front. And that cap set up high enough like this that it didn't mash it down. That was my main reason for wearing them. It didn't mash my pompadour down.

And then after a while, people-- oh boy, I was out in California. I used to go in a place in California when I got off in LA to jam. And he played out there. He used to say-- when I come in one night, he said, look out, Captain Jack. I said, I'll be damned. Captain Jack. I kind of liked it. [CHUCKLES] And that's been Captain ever since, man.

SPEAKER: So when did Minnesota become your home base?

JACK MCDUFF: Well, I was coming here, man, from New York, and that's 1,200 miles from New York to Minneapolis. And I'd drive all the way out here. We played at the Artist's Quarters, and this lady here would be sitting, looking, at the bar.

A post was right to my left. To see around that post, I had to either lean back or lean forward. And every time I would lean back to look around that post, she'd be leaning back the other way, looking at me. [LAUGHS] So we finally leaned it together. We got it.

SPEAKER: When did you get married?

JACK MCDUFF: Well, actually, a couple of years ago, I was taking the full out in New York, messing around, messing up. You know what I mean? So she said, man, why don't you just move on up here? Because we had been seeing each other then. So why don't you just move on up here? I said, nah, I can't leave New York. You can't leave New York. What's wrong with you?

She said, if you don't come here, I'm coming there. And I know anyway, I didn't want her to be in New York. No way. So I moved here. And that was the best move I ever made in my life.

SPEAKER: Now, why do you say that?

JACK MCDUFF: Hey, man, I got paid. I'm back full-time musician. I ain't goofing around.

SPEAKER: Now, Minnesota, I think, has a reputation nationally as being a pretty white bread kind of place. And that's partly culturally, but also because it's mostly white people living in Minnesota.

JACK MCDUFF: That's right.

SPEAKER: Now, what's your read on that, and how has that affected you?

JACK MCDUFF: Well, now, I always have said this, that the Blacks here aren't really Black. They're white-raised it seems. They got a little white mixed in with them. Now, I don't know whether that's bad or good, but they've got it there.

SPEAKER: How so?

JACK MCDUFF: Well, hey, man, there's one Black restaurant here to eat. Now, that one Black restaurant cooks chitlins, greens, smothered pork chops, candied yams, black-eyed peas, cornbread. You understand?

Now, kids don't eat that kind of stuff. No way. Black or white, they don't eat that kind of stuff, the easier foods. But that's old folks like me. That's my kind of food. But at least, I could go get it when I wanted to. You can't here.

SPEAKER: Nowadays, I mean, when-- you living right here in the middle of Minneapolis, when you see young kids, and I'm thinking particularly of young Black kids on the street in Minneapolis, does it remind you of when you were growing up, or do you stop and--

JACK MCDUFF: No. Well, see--

SPEAKER: --talk to these kids?

JACK MCDUFF: --it wasn't like that when we was growing up.

SPEAKER: Yeah.

JACK MCDUFF: Man, we saw a gun laying on the ground, we scared to pick it up. You know what I mean? Might go off.

SPEAKER: [CHUCKLES]

JACK MCDUFF: You know what I'm saying? Listen, everybody was mad. And nobody was mad at each other then. There was no cliques and no, I intend to be bad. I intend to do this, god damn it. It wasn't like that then. Man, you call the old folks, yes, ma'am, and, no, ma'am. You know what I'm saying?

The police to you then was-- look at him. I remember, we had the first Black policeman in Champaign, Al Rivers. And we used to go walk downtown to look and see him. He's a manager, like everybody else. We stand around looking at him like, look at him. Look at him.

And we go by-- he knew us, but we speak just to get to say something to him. "Hello, Mr. Rivers." "Hi, Jack." "How are you doing?" "All right." "Oh, look at him. What is that-- [INAUDIBLE] talking to the police, boy." That's the attitude then.

SPEAKER: For kids nowadays, does music offer the same opportunity to change their circumstances, do you think?

JACK MCDUFF: Well, it offers more in a lot of cases because, man, listen, nobody was teaching us. Even your parents weren't particular about you being a musician. If I'd asked my daddy for $3 for a music lesson, he'd have beat me to death. [CHUCKLES] You know what I mean? $3 for a music lesson? You gotta be kidding. Like, they used to tell me when I was little, like, why don't you get a real job? [CHUCKLES]

SPEAKER: And today then, music has a more-- it's more legitimate.

JACK MCDUFF: Yeah, it's a real job now.

[MUSIC PLAYING]