I wasn’t prepared for their serenity when I visited them recently. And the serenity did not prepare me for the avid interest they have in everything around them. By any criteria, the Carneys are among the youngest people in jazz.

That amuses Carney because, after 33 years as a Duke Ellington sideman, he is running into a second generation of listeners. “Kids come up to me and say, ‘Mom and Dad said to say hello to you.’ Almost always they add, ‘We thought you’d be an old man.’”

If you browse along Carney’s bookshelves, you find a catholic selection: The Power of Positive Thinking, The Prayers of Peter Marshall, Hot Discography, The Invisible Man, Mein Kampf, Marjorie Morningstar, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Star Money, Appointment in Samara, The Little Price &mdash all interspersed with the many DownBeat plaques he has won.

But Carney’s main relaxation is music. He has most of the Ellington records, a few others and an extensive classical collection. “I like to listen to the legitimate reed players so that I don’t get too far away from first base,” he said. He has the same trouble most of us have in finding a favorite record: “I’ve been meaning to catalog what I’ve got, but I never get around to it.”

Lack of time is a major problem. The Ellington band practically never sits still. Yet Carney says that this is the reason he’s stayed with the band so long.

“There was always something going on,” he said. “The music never sits still, either. Duke is always experimenting. Even today. I’ll call him up and his wife will answer the phone. You can hear Duke banging the piano in the background. He’s still rushing into rehearsals with new music. He’s always anxious to hear what he’s written, and so are we.”

Talking about Duke’s playing brought up the subject of a proposed solo concert by Ellington. “It would be most interesting,” Carney said. “I’ve heard him do that kind of thing for hours after a job or when he’s supposed to be resting in his hotel suite.”

That, in turn, turned on the reminiscences. “You know, I began on piano when I was 6. I never was any good. I took the lessons and had to practice like a demon, but my brother, who never studied, could sit right down and play.”

Several years ago, Carney said the real reason he began playing reed instruments was that he noticed how the girls flocked around a clarinetist in a Boston club. He discovered that by joining the Knights of Pythias band, he could get a clarinet for free.

About the time he met Johnny Hodges (in the 7th grade), he switched to alto. “I found it easier to get a better sound,” he recalled. “Johnny and I used to listen to records together. I copied Sidney Bechet, Joe Smith of the Fletcher Henderson Band and Coleman Hawkins. He was my ideal. He still is.”

In 1927, Carney moved to New York. “Those were the days, even when I wasn’t working. I’d go to Mexico’s on 131st Street and listen all night. They’d have all-piano nights. You’d get Duke and Art Tatum and Seminole, lots of others, all in one night. I remember they even had tuba nights. You could hardly move around in the place for all that hardware.”

Just 17, he had played with a half-dozen groups by the time he met Ellington on the street and was hired for a tour through New England. He’s never been out of the Ellington reed section since. On that tour, he tried a baritone saxophone for the first time, liked the sound and added it to his collection of instruments. He carries baritone, bass clarinet and clarinet nowadays, but he used to carry alto, soprano and flute as well. The latter is the only one he regrets giving up, but the lack of a practice mate made it impossible for him to remain proficient on it.

Carney is often referred to as the father of the baritone—as Coleman Hawkins is of tenor. But he claims to have been influenced by Joe Garland, Toby Hardwicke and, again, Hawkins. Strangely enough, what influenced his sound most was the sound that Adrian Rollini got from the bass saxophone.

There the reminiscences stopped. Carney preferred to talk about other people:

“I remember when Pepper Adams’ mother used to bring him to dances the band played in Rochester. He used to stand in front of the band for hours. You know, that’s one of the things I miss. I don’t have much time to listen to musicians outside of the band. That’s especially so now, because there are so few places where kids can play. I do hear a bit, though, and I’m pleased with most of it. I don’t care what era it comes from. I heard Thelonious Monk and Edmond Hall the last time we were in Boston. Music is only good or bad. That’s all I worry about.”

We listened then to Carney’s Verve record (it has been reissued under the title Mood For Boy And Girl). He said he’d like to record again, “with a whole baritone section. But you can’t find enough rehearsal time, and I wouldn’t want to do it if it wasn’t going to be done right.”

The rightness of things is very important to him, which certainly explains his pre-eminence. But the insistence is tempered by a realistic philosophy. “There are so many things you can do,” he said, “and so many you just can’t do, no matter how hard you try. I remember one time when I was really bothered by a mouthpiece problem. You can get into an amazing panic over that if you’re a reed man. Finally, I sat myself down, talked to myself and went back to the mouthpiece I had been using. It worked out.”

These days Carney is most pleased with his comfortable apartment, when he can get there (“my wife doesn’t travel with me any more; the road is tough enough on a man”), his glistening Imperial (“the guys in the band are always kidding Duke because he doesn’t like to fly, but he can go to sleep in my car at the speed I drive”) and, of course, the Ellington band. He’ll be with it, he says, as long as he’s “qualified.” He couldn’t get away from it (“I live with it more than I do with my own family”).

Has it been worth it? “I still look forward to going to work each night.”

Mrs. Carney agreed. A man can’t ask for much more than a good job, an interesting life, acclaim and respect, his own business (he owns a music publishing firm, Release Music) and a good hobby (she showed some excellent color shots Harry had taken of Gerry Mulligan and Zoot Sims). She interrupted herself to get me some cough drops. “That’s the way she is,” Harry complained in mock aggravation. “Every time I sneeze, she’s got the medicine out.”

A man can’t ask for much more. Carney has it. He deserves it. It pleases your sense of justice. Harry Carney is a titled human—a Gentleman of Jazz. DB