Lewis Nash: A DownBeat Feature From 2006, WKCR interviews from 2005 and 2006, and WKCR Musician Shows from 1993 and 1996

This post on the master drummer Lewis Nash contains the text of a DownBeat article that it was my honor to write about him in 2006, and a pair of WKCR interviews from that year and from 2005, and WKCR Musician Shows from 1993 and 1996. The 1996 Musician Show was a good one.

 

Lewis Nash (Downbeat Article):

Midway through a late Friday set at a half-full Village Vanguard during the dog days of July, Lewis Nash stated a medium-slow groove on the brushes as 83-year-old trumpeter Joe Wilder improvised six lovely choruses on Hoagy Carmichael’s “Rockin’ Chair.” It followed a series of songbook tunes and blues, and Nash could easily have settled for keeping time. But he was not, as the saying goes, merely “digging coal.” Instead, on each cycle through the form, Nash executed a different pattern and timbre on the snare drum, imperturbably articulating the beat with crisp precision. The back-of-the-bar patrons might not have noticed the subtlety and ingenuity of Nash’s design, but Wilder did, and he tossed his drummer a nod and a broad smile as he lowered his horn.

It was not an anomalous moment. As Andrew Cyrille noted several years ago in a 5-star Blindfold Test evaluation, Nash, now 47, has “dotted all the i’s while coming up with some great inventions in the traditional style of jazz.” After remarking that “all the great brush players like Kenny Clarke, Ed Thigpen and Philly Joe Jones would have to give kudos to that playing,” Cyrille added, “Lewis is working very hard on the drums to make sure that we all remember whence we came and also what’s happening on the contemporary scene.”

If the vocabulary of the aforementioned masters and a timeline’s worth of hardcore swingers stretching from Max Roach to Edward Blackwell is encoded in Nash’s rhythmic DNA, so are ideas drawn from drumset abstractionists like Cyrille and Jerome Cooper, dance-infused grooves from the funk and R&B that Nash played in his pre-jazz years, and a bracing array of Afro-Caribbean meters. He weaves them together smoothly, conveying tried-and-true swing and Latin rhythms with idiomatic authority. Then he tweaks them, working with a full complement of pitches and intervals across the drumset to animate his beats, displacing figures normally articulated on one component and playing them on another, positioning his phrases to suit the overall architecture of each piece.

Nash titled his 1989 debut album Rhythm Is My Business [Alfa/Evidence], and continues to use the motto. The self-description is apt. He was one of New York’s busiest drummers in the ‘80s, building his reputation on prestigious gigs with Betty Carter, Ron Carter, Sonny Rollins, Branford Marsalis, Don Pullen, and George Adams, and cementing it during a ten-year run with the Tommy Flanagan Trio. As the ‘90s progressed, Nash became an A-list freelancer, building a 300-plus album resume that includes Grammy-winners by McCoy Tyner (Illuminations), Nancy Wilson (R.S.V.P.), and Joe Henderson (Big Band); Gerald Wilson’s 2003 Grammy nominated New York, New Sound; important recordings by both Carters, Joe Lovano, Jim Hall, Horace Silver, Russell Malone and Regina Carter; and a slew of equilaterally oriented trios with Flanagan and such lustrous keyboard talents as Roland Hanna, Don Friedman, Kenny Drew, Jr., and Cyrus Chestnut.

“I am thrust into different situations day in and day out with people who may have completely different musical objectives and viewpoints,” Nash said last December from his Hudson Valley home. “I try to bring the same seriousness to each situation. If there’s written music, and time allows, I put the chart under a microscope. If you don’t assimilate the basic character of the piece, you can’t use your interpretative skills to be creative—you’ll still be hung up on how to get from this place to the coda.”

At the time, Nash was decompressing from a week in Osaka with a quartet of Japanese mainstreamers. That occurred not long after a one-nighter in Noumea, New Caledonia, with a pair of Hammond B3 organists, two weeks after he brought his own quartet to Taichung, Taiwan, for a four-night run. He was preparing for a week-long New Year’s engagement in Orvieto, Italy, to be followed by a three-day jaunt to Uruguay with pianist-composer Cedar Walton, an increasingly frequent employer.

“When you are rooted, you don’t have to be afraid to try new things,” Nash said. “You’re manipulating time, beat, phrase, and timbre within a continuity of groove and feeling, so when the timbres change, people may not know exactly what you’re doing, but they know something feels and sounds different than in the previous chorus. I try for subtle transitions. There has to be a certain sense of freedom, of not the commonplace. Sometimes a little craziness is necessary to break through.”

In a recent conversation, saxophonist Steve Wilson, Nash’s partner on a dozen or so speculative improv duo concerts since 2003, observed that Nash’s attitude that a form is less a ball-and-chain than an opportunity to stretch boundaries makes his tonal personality a first cousin to that of Billy Higgins, who suited the needs of such antipodal stylists as Walton and Ornette Coleman with equal effectiveness while always sounding like himself.

“Higgins was always listening, and that’s how it is with Lewis,” Wilson said. “He’s deeply aware of everything happening on the bandstand, and he addresses the entire legacy of jazz and the drums—all the way back to all the way forward. Everything he does is out of the logic of where the line is going.”

Since 2000, no leader has collaborated more frequently with Nash than Lovano, both on his bop-to-free nonet and his more recent freedom-within-structure quartet with Hank Jones. “Lewis’ rhythmic attack is precise, but his phrases are lyrical, not just patterns that you play over,” Lovano said. “If I say something in a melodic phrase, he will answer and say something back at whatever tempo. His approach is refined, but his playing makes you want to jump out of your seat; it’s a force of nature, but that force changes on every piece.”

Tommy Campbell, like Nash a Sonny Rollins alumnus, remarks on his encyclopedic command of the lexicon. “Lewis makes the most intellectual and technical things sound so natural and effortless that you forget about what it takes to play it,” said Campbell. “He uses so many different degrees of character on one groove or style. For example, he must have 20 ways to play a shuffle. He does all the little things, too. For example, he never makes unwanted sounds when he’s changing from sticks to brushes to mallets. In 20-plus years I’ve never seen him miss or muff a beat. He can go from soloing to the groove as fast as anyone. It seems he’s always in both places; it’s all one thing for him.”

“Lewis will stay right in the pocket, while doing some of the most creative stuff being played,” affirmed bassist Peter Washington, Nash’s long-time partner in Flanagan’s trio. “A lot of guys feel swinging and grooving holds them back. To him, it sets him free!”

[BREAK]

“I don’t know if I made a conscious effort to be adaptable,” Nash said. “I always played in a way that I felt would add flavor and variety rather than bring all the attention to me. I’m looking for the beauty in my instrument. There’s beauty in power as well. But a lot of sounds are available to utilize. People hear the tonal detail and clarity, and they tell me that my approach is like a percussionist in the symphony. But my concept comes out of hard-swinging jazz. I try to interject the energy and swagger of funky rhythms into swinging, straight-ahead music—although when you play the rhythms of R&B and hip-hop on a drumset tuned for playing jazz, the sound is not the same.”

Nash came to hardcore jazz rather late in the game. As a teenager he played football (cornerback) and played drums for fun in dance bands around Phoenix, Arizona, his home town, before catching the jazz bug.

“My mother listened to a lot of blues—B.B. King and Muddy Waters and so on,” Nash said in July. A T-Bone Walker jump blues on the car stereo cosigned the statement. “I was less attracted to Rock elements in the drumming of Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette with Miles, and other guys who played fusion, than to the funkier, danceable things. My influences went from James Brown’s drummers or the feeling of Al Green’s Stax records to the people who laid the foundation in jazz drumming. Fusion influences came later, as my knowledge of music increased, whereas that’s the first stuff some people from my age group got into.

“R&B wasn’t played as loud and hard in the ‘60s and ‘70s. More guys played time on the ride cymbal, like in jazz. Once disco and a certain period of funk became prominent, everything was on the hi-hats, and the bass drums and everything else got a fatter, heavier sound that you wouldn’t normally play in a jazz context, so the genres started to separate sonically.”

During the disco era, Nash, who majored in broadcast journalism at Arizona State, was a fixture on the sparse Phoenix jazz scene, playing in local rhythm sections with hired gun saxophonists like Sonny Stitt and Art Pepper. He led his own combo, and wore bells on his ankles in a duo with saxophonist Allan Chase that opened for acts like Old and New Dreams, Sun Ra, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

On the strength of a grant to study drums with Max Roach and a concurrent phone call to audition with Betty Carter, who hired him on the spot, Nash moved to Brooklyn in the winter of 1980-81. There he joined a talented crop of young drummers who included Kenny Washington, Marvin “Smitty” Smith, Jeff Watts, and Ralph Peterson.

“We had a lot of leeway to pursue our individual approaches,” Nash said. “For instance, Art Blakey or Jimmy Cobb might influence how you kept time on the ride cymbal, while at the same time you’d study the solo concept of Max or Elvin. The major innovators from the ‘40s through the ‘60s dealt with a true swinging jazz conception that wasn’t terribly influenced by rhythm-and-blues, and didn’t drastically change that approach. But the advent of genre grooves from soul and funk and R&B, and the greater visibility of Latin and Afro-Cuban elements, caused the concept to adapt from the swinging, triplet-based ride cymbal feeling to a less linear straight-eighth feeling.”

Ensconced in New York, Nash refined his approach, going to clubs to watch Higgins, Elvin Jones, Art Blakey, Arthur Taylor, Billy Hart, Victor Lewis and Freddie Waits, figuring out which techniques to use and which to discard. On the road with Betty Carter from 1981-84 and as an ongoing member of Ron Carter’s two-bass quintet and nonet for the subsequent decade, he found tough-love laboratories in which to apply his discoveries.

The singer insisted on precisely calibrated tempos and feels, but took great pains to discourage her young accompanists from playing sets by rote.

“My whole time with Betty, at every rehearsal, she stressed not to lean on clichés, to search for something fresh to play,” Nash recalled. “You knew you couldn’t go on automatic pilot; she’d turn and say, ‘You already played that; play something else.’ You’d be on edge, wondering what change of pace is coming.”

“Ron likes to use a lot of different colors,” he continued, adding that he considers the bassist a primary mentor. “He taught me a lot about tuning, and on some of his music I could be more percussionistic, and utilize finger cymbals, wind chimes and castanets. Steve Kroon often was playing percussion, and I incorporated what Steve did into my drumset.”

“Betty told me that he read music very well,” Carter said. “One thing to his advantage is that he plays the form. Many drummers don’t. I had Lewis take up vibes, to help him visualize the piano keyboard when he soloed. He did very well. He started to study composition, wrote some nice melodies, and expanded his view of the drums as more melodic than they normally are thought to be.”

“I tune the intervals wide enough to give the impression of melodic movement up or down a scale when I play a fill,” Nash elaborated. “I like to interject phrases not just to fill space, but to continue articulating the line I just heard the soloist play. If it’s a horn player taking a breath, I’m almost thinking of continuing his linear thought process until he returns the horn to his mouth, and maybe inspire his rhythmic direction.”

During the ‘80s, while Nash was refining these ideas, Marvin “Smitty” Smith developed ways to make complex meters flow with Steve Coleman and Dave Holland. Jeff Watts began to merge the rhythms of timba with the patterns of Elvin Jones. Ralph Peterson, Carl Allen and Herlin Riley layered New Orleans streetbeats into swing feels. Younger drummers went to their gigs, copied them, and mainstreamed each vocabulary increment into next-generation argot. With the exception of a year of steady touring with Branford Marsalis, Nash played with established, older musicians “with one foot in the history of the music,” and interacted less frequently with his peer group.

“I wanted to immerse myself in the lineage, to interact with movers and shakers in the music from further back,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t going to lose my desire to be creative or forget how to explore.”

Some think that Nash’s impact on the younger branches of the drum tree is less pronounced than it ought to be.

“Most of the younger drummers weren’t in the audience when Roland Hanna and Ron Carter and Tommy Flanagan were playing,” Washington said. “But on every level, Lewis brought something to the drums as unique as the guys who played with Branford and Wynton or M-Base.”

“Once critics hop on a guy’s bandwagon, young drummers looking for someone to listen to will go that way,” Carter said. “Lewis isn’t flashy or domineering in the negative way that drummers can be. I can’t think of another drummer in any age category who plays brushes so well. Not many read as well as he does, and even fewer know how to tune the drums. But critics are less aware of these aspects, and they don’t tune into Lewis when they talk about drummers who are important and can take the drum scene another step, unfortunately for them and for the history of the drums.”

“My influence would have more to do with the sound of the instrument and the clarity of execution than any stylistic development,” Nash remarked, and younger drummers agree.

“Lewis can play with authority like Elvin Jones and also the way Vernell Fournier played with Ahmad Jamal,” said Yellowjackets drummer Marcus Baylor, a former Nash student. “That’s a lot of ground to cover. He’s the most musical drummer of our time period, one of the musical drummers ever.”

“A lot of situations that I play in cause Lewis to pop into my mind,” said Kendrick Scott. “I’ve studied his playing so much that I think, ‘Oh, what would Lewis play right here? It would probably be perfect.’”

[BREAK]

“We’re not supposed to stay where Tommy was,” Nash said during a January engagement at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Coca, where a quartet under his leadership—Washington, pianist Renee Rosnes and vibraphonist Steve Nelson—was performing Flanagan-associated repertoire. “He gave us a carpet and said, ‘Okay, I’m giving you these tools; now what are you going to do with them?’

“Tommy didn’t necessarily want me to play in a way that was reminiscent of the ‘40s or ‘50s or ‘60s. He wanted me to play with him right now—which was the ‘90s. He was an open book. When I did things that come out of developments more recent than you might associate with his roots, he’d look up and I’d see him smile and his eyes gleam. If you remain open moment to moment with all your intelligence and skills, and don’t preconceive or predirect where you’re going, that’s as fresh and modern as you can be, whatever style you’re playing.”

In 1998, Nash decided that it was time to augment his numerous opportunities “to interject my ideas and musical viewpoint in groups where I’m a sideman” and construct a context to allow him “complete freedom to express what I feel.” He organized a septet, and booked himself into the Village Vanguard, the first of several Vanguard combos of various sizes, comprised of long-time associates and talented youngbloods. Building on his yearly Vanguard gig, he’s expanded his activity, and in 2003 and 2004 recorded the Japan-market CDs It Don’t Mean A Thing and Stompin’ At The Savoy, with Washington, Nelson, and pianist Jeb Patton. As of this writing, his 2007 calendar includes 10 weeks as a leader.

During the JVC Festival in June, Nash played the Vanguard with a quintet comprising Wilson, Washington, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, and pianist Gerald Clayton. The less-traveled repertoire, spanning the ‘60s through the ‘80s, included well-wrought tunes by Walter Davis, Jr. (“Pranayama”), Don Pullen (“Sing Me A Song Everlasting”), Thad Jones (“Ain’t Nothin’ Nu”), Kenny Barron (“New York Attitude”), James Williams (“Alter Ego”), and Johnny Mandel (“I Never Told You”). Nash emceed and took a couple of drum features. Otherwise, he gave the soloists much rein, swung mightily, and functioned, as Washington noted, “as the same supportive, musical drummer.”

“Everything depends on how daring you want to be,” he said. “Parameters exist in any musical situation, and they force you to get the most from the least. You try not to limit yourself to ‘this is how you’re supposed to play this kind of music.’ You jump in, let your ears dictate, and keep all options on the table. I might borrow some sound or approach from an avant garde context that works in the middle of trading fours on a blues. Sound can cross genres and styles. It’s just a sound. It’s your job to figure out how to use that sound tastefully and in context. The more things you’ve done, the more you’ll be able to interject something new.”

————

Lewis Nash (WKCR, December 1, 2005) – re Nash-Wilson duo at Sweet Rhythm:

TP: [MUSIC: McCoy Tyner-Lewis Nash duo]

Duets. Lewis records so much and in so many different contexts and situations, that doing an hour on your work is like looking for the needle in the haystack. You’ll be quite present in NYC area in December and directly after the New York. Next week at Dizzy’s Room with Donal Fox and George Mraz. The following week is week one of Cedar Walton’s annual fortnight at the Village Vanguard with Roy & David. Then Umbria with Joe Locke. Then at Dizzy’s Room on January 10th with Flanagan tribute, with Renee, Peter & Steve Nelson. Frequent associates.

How did the duo project with Steve Wilson come to pass? You go back a ways, and you a few records with him on Criss-Cross in the early ‘90s.

LEWIS: That’s correct. Steve and I have played through the years in various situations. As far as the duo format, I enjoy that with the horns, and, as we just heard on the cut with me and McCoy Tyner, with the piano, and I’ve done duo with organ, of course, duo with guitar even. The duo situation is a challenge in many ways. In other ways, it’s pretty much just like any other time you go to play music. You deal with certain repertoire or whatever, with one another musician, and you try to make music as best you can interacting with that person.

TP: But this is a working duo, of sorts, and a duo you’ve both chosen to stick with. It’s not a one-off situation.

LEWIS: That’s right. Steve came to mind for me when I was thinking about doing this as someone I enjoyed playing with, number one, and also someone whom I felt I’d have a nice working rapport with musically for a number of reasons, not least of which is that his time is so great. So when someone has really good time internally, you can try a lot of different things which don’t necessarily have to spell out where you are metrically or in a form. A lot of times, Steve and I come out at the right place as if it just happened naturally. I don’t have to worry about making sure that I mark time for him when we’re playing. He’s one of the musicians I enjoy playing with in any situation, but particularly in the duo.

TP: How would it differ than playing in a rhythm section with Peter Washington or George Mraz, two of the master jazz bassists on the planet?

LEWIS: First of all, there’s a lot more space without the chordal instrument being there. How that would differ from a bass and drum situation is that the sound of Steve’s instrument, of course, won’t be in that bass range, to fill out some of that range I’ll often play different patterns or motifs between the low toms and the bass drum, things like that, to give some weight and low-end sound to the duo. Sometimes Steve will even play bass-type lines, whether walking or harmonically in the bass range. We basically try to give as much of a feeling of arrangement and orchestration as we can with the two instruments.

TP: You mentioned to me that your duo playing goes back to college days when you attended Arizona State University, where one of your fellow underclassmen was the saxophonist Allan Chase, who now runs the jazz department at New England Conservatory. I think you mentioned that you and he would open up as a duo for groups like Old and New Dreams, the Art Ensemble of Chicago…

LEWIS: Mmm-hmm. Sun Ra.

TP: George Adams and Don Pullen. So not all your fans may know that you have roots in that direction as well as creating modern extensions and variations on the masters of jazz lifeblood, Kenny Clarke and Max Roach. People who played with those people appreciate your playing for your ability to put your own spin on what they did in an idiomatic manner, but they don’t necessarily know about that other aspect of your tonal personality.

LEWIS: Well, those were interesting times. It’s before I moved to New York. I was still going to college. It was a good time and a good place for me to experiment with some different things, and Allan Chase and I had a duo, and we played around Phoenix. We opened for those people you mentioned, groups like that. That’s when I first met Ed Blackwell, when he came to Phoenix, playing with Old and New Dreams. I met the guys in the Art Ensemble of Chicago. I was always open to fresh things. Even though, as you mentioned, a lot of fans and listeners may not be aware of that experience I’ve had in that realm, still I always try to bring, even to the more conventional (for want of a better word) situations I play in…I always try to bring a feeling of freshness and openness to those situations that you might expect in a more open musical situation.

TP: One thing that might also be surprising to some people is that you came to hardcore jazz fairly late in the game. You weren’t a teenage student of every record of Art Blakey and Philly Joe Jones. It didn’t really happen until college.

LEWIS: Right. In my high school years I was playing a lot of R&B, Funk, Earth, Wind & Fire, James Brown type stuff, and I was playing football and playing sports, and being a jazz musician was the furthest thing from my mind.

TP: Is there any connection between the way you developed—not starting early, but learning rudiments, time, vibe, etc.?

LEWIS: You know, I wonder. I don’t know if I can say with any certainty. But the fact that it was always something I did for fun and I never thought in those earlier days about “this is what I want to do for a living, this is what drives me, this is what I’m here to do”—I didn’t have those thoughts. I was a broadcast journalism major, and my mentor…I didn’t know him, but Max Robinson, who used to be on ABC News, the first African-American anchor. I wanted to do things like that, and follow in those footsteps. But the music started to rope me in.

TP: When did it start to become apparent to you that you were going to become a musician and not a voice?

LEWIS: I’m a voice on the drums, I hope. But I had a professor at Arizona State whose name is Charles Argersinger. He still teaches in Washington State now. One day he pulled me aside in the hallway at Arizona State, and he asked me point-blank: “Lewis, you’re not a music major, are you.” “No.” “You’re not planning to go into music as a career, are you?” “Nope.” He said, “I think you’re making a mistake.”

TP: Why did he think that? Did he say?

LEWIS: He didn’t really spell it out, but I assume he’d heard a lot of young musicians and people he felt had potential or didn’t have potential, and he probably… He did say that “‘I think you’re someone who could go somewhere in this, and you should think about it.”

TP: What qualities were people hearing at that time? You were playing in Phoenix in rhythm section, behind Art Pepper or Sonny Stitt. What were those experiences like? Were they harsh? Were they supportive?

LEWIS: They were demanding, but not harsh. I met Sonny Stitt on the stage. I played a week. We had no rehearsal, we just came in as the local rhythm section. Of course, he used to do that all the time. The first tune he counted off I think was Cherokee at some breakneck, ridiculously fast tempo, and that was, “Hello, I’m Sonny Stitt.” Those kinds of experiences for a young musician…it’s great. It just throws you right into the fire.

TP: As far as learning the correct tone… Were you thinking by that time of the way Max Roach might be handling this situation, or Billy Higgins, or Philly Joe Jones, or Shadow Wilson, etc.? Were you trying to bring any of that vocabulary to bear by that time?

LEWIS: Definitely.

TP: How did you do that without seeing them? Drums is kind of a visual instrument, isn’t it? You have to learn to put your body in position to make transitions and so on.

LEWIS: That’s true. I didn’t have very much exposure to these great drummers—I should say none—in terms of watching them. I didn’t see any of the great names drumming-wise… Actually, that’s not true. I did see and hear Dannie Richmond with Mingus in the late ‘70s, and Blackwell. But Max and Elvin, Tony Williams, until I came to New York, I didn’t have a chance to observe them up-close, the way we do, putting them under the microscope and watching every little thing they do.

TP: How did you pick up vocabulary?

LEWIS: What I heard on the records, I tried to emulate and find the best way to reproduce those kinds of sounds and phrases, and hope that what I came up with was close.

TP: you came out of Phoenix with Betty Carter, didn’t you.

LEWIS: Yes, I did. Another into-the-fire type situation. Freddie Waits actually recommended me to her. I had met him. He came through Phoenix with the Billy Taylor Trio.

TP: I recall you saying that she was very specific and precise about tempos and feels, but wanted you to be creative within those parameters.

LEWIS: That’s very correct. It’s a good way of putting it. She knew exactly what she wanted, and sometimes we didn’t quite know how to give her that in the best way, but we’d try to find it. It was a challenge to play with her at that stage of my career. It was probably the best thing for me then.

TP: The same could be said for a number of musicians in your generation who came up in that tough-love crucible that was the Betty Carter band.

[MUSIC: “Stomping At the Savoy”; “Tickle-Toe”; then with Celtic Jazz Collective, w/ Paddy Keenan on bagpipes]

TP: You were saying that part of the appeal of performing with Steve Wilson is his musicality, his time. You both share a quality of being extremely well-grounded in the fundamentals. He plays a lot of big band sections, studio things, but when it comes to improvising and doing something creative, he’s completely prepared to do that as well. You’re a few years older, but coming out of similar experiences. Last year, there was a month when you did a weekly duo at Sweet Rhythm. How did it evolve from beginning to end.

LEWIS: Each time we did it, of course, you build on the previous time in terms of ideas, the way things evolve musically. That was good for us, because we’re both busy doing so many other things, and we have a limited amount of time that we can dedicate to the duo projects. So when we had that string of performances, that really helped us to solidify the sound we heard for the duo at that time.

TP: Did the sound evolve over the month, or did it remain on the template on which it began?

LEWIS: I don’t know if the sound evolved, but the way that we approached probably became freer than when we first started. We’re still trying to find that happy medium, that balance between freedom and the opposite of that…

TP: Freedom and form, or whatever it is. You’re the kind of musician who’s able to find freedom within form in situations that other people might handle by rote. You take those fundamentals and you always seem to find a new twist or some vocabulary of your own. How much do you work on that off the bandstand? How much comes to you when you’re on the bandstand?

LEWIS: I would say that a lot of it comes while you’re on the bandstand in the middle of the moment. But you have to be daring, brave enough to take a chance in a particular situation where it’s easy to play it safe. I’m always trying to make whatever I play be logical. Just because it’s logical doesn’t mean it has to be corny or rote. But some of the most creative things done in a musical situation I think can be considered logically a part of what’s going on without them being done over and over again or something common.

TP: But you play on a lot of one-off sessions. You might not have played with the person before. You might be seeing the music for the first time. A lot of money is at stake—studio time. How do you keep both processes going, the imperative of trying to do something to at least satisfy even yourself that you’re not doing it the way it was done before, but also fulfilling the function? Is it a process of logic really?

LEWIS: It really is. I think so. I can think of many recording sessions where just what you mentioned is the case. You’re seeing the music for the first time. You’re probably not going to play it again after that live, it’s just for this recording, but maybe the music is challenging in certain ways, maybe form-wise or changing meters or something you’re just not familiar with, or maybe it’s musicians who you don’t play with all the time, so you’re still trying to establish the kind of rapport in the studio playing. So when you have these kinds of challenges, you always fall back on your basic musicianship. For horn players, it might be: Am I playing in tune? Am I reading this part correctly? Am I making these changes? And so on. For me in the rhythm section: “Am I setting up the figures, or am I making the transitions in the music smooth enough so there’s a certain flow where the other musicians can do whatever it is they need to do? Am I helping make sure that everyone who’s playing feels a certain comfort zone that allows them to play to the best of their ability? Is the time feel steady? Am I helping them to feel whatever changes might be going on in the music to the best of my ability from the drums?

TP: A lot of people in jazz particularly, when improvising on their instruments, think of other instruments. Trumpeters think of saxophones, that sort of thing. In that regard, I’ll bring up a comment I once read from Max Roach, which is that you don’t play melody on the drums, you play rhythmic designs on the drums, which is a slightly different thing, and almost gives the illusion of melody. I don’t know if you would subscribe to that statement or not. But one characteristic of your tonal personality is that you play rhythmic designs within the flow of a moment. Can you talk about creating in that way?

LEWIS: The melodic impression comes from the fact the rhythmic variations that may be played on the drumset give the feeling of a melodic line in the way the rhythms are put together. Every melody has a rhythmic component. So when you’re expressing yourself in phrases which have the same types of rhythmic components that melodic lines have, then you’re going to give the impression that you’re playing a melody. But this kind of linear approach to playing the drums of which Max Roach was the founding father in the music is something that really attracts me. It’s something I like to do or attempt to do. I’m always trying to find a way to keep that approach to playing the drums somehow involved in the evolution of the music, so that’s not just thrown away or thrown out as something that was done in the past, but it’s being made to find a contemporary way… I don’t know if that’s the best way of putting it. But a way of today’s creative jazz playing or creative improvising, utilizing that approach to the drums as well as all the other ones.

TP: Try to parse that a bit. By “today’s approach to the drums,” are you talking about incorporating the way drummers play in contemporary dance-oriented music, or the broader rhythmic palette that’s more commonly available to jazz drummers now?

LEWIS: I mean that in the sense that a lot of other influences have become a part of playing this music, influences from the various so-called world musics, and also in terms of the more recent developments in drumming going back to the ‘60s and ‘70s with Tony Williams and Elvin and Roy Haynes, who has been a part of it, it seems like, forever—and still is. That kind of freshness, without losing the approach of that linear style. I guess always trying to find a way to keep that as a part of the equation.

TP: Playing 100-150 gigs a year with Tommy Flanagan for ten years, and many gigs over a long period with Ron Carter, would be a very good way of honing those skills and that sensibility.

LEWIS: I would say so, yes. And all of the recording sessions as well. Because there you have a chance to hear back right away things that you try, and you can go in and listen and say, “Oh, okay, that didn’t come out quite like I wanted it to; I can go back and try a different thing again.” So being in the studio a lot has been helpful in refining or defining whatever it is I’m trying to do.

[MUSIC: From Sea Changes, “Verdandi”; Love Letters, NTB]

TP: You’ve done five-six dates for Japan with this group (Chestnut-Mraz-Nash), and performed about a month ago at Dizzy’s Room with them. By the way, wasn’t Elvin Jones the drummer on the original performance of Verdandi, which Tommy Flanagan made a staple of his ‘90s repertoire. With Manhattan Trinity, it’s a configuration put together for the studio that becomes a working group. It must be very different when you do it live.

LEWIS: Yes. Especially since we hadn’t really established a live group personality yet. Everything had been done in the studio.

TP: And the producer gives you the tune list and tells you to do something with it.

LEWIS: Yes. But given the level of musicianship with Cyrus and George, we could pretty much do whatever we wanted and make it work. So it’s a great situation to be part of.

TP: We were talking about being creative and fulfilling the function in the studio. We’ll play now one Grammy-winner and one Grammy-nominee record that Lewis was part of. You performed on Nancy Wilson’s RSVP this year, which won the 2005 Jazz Vocal Grammy, and you appeared on Gerald Wilson’s 2004 Grammy-nominated date, New York Sound.

[MUSIC: Nancy Wilson, “I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart”; Gerald Wilson, “Jeri,” from In My Time]

TP: Since 1998, you’ve been leading ensembles of varying sizes—septets, quintets, quartets, trios, been in the Vanguard, been at Dizzy’s at the Kaplan Playhouse. No records yet, though. Only a couple of dates with trios for the Japanese market on somewhat circumscribed repertoire. It seems every year that you’re doing more and more, gradually building up repertoire and a base of concerts on which other people can draw in recognizing you as a bandleader. What are your aspirations in this regard?
LEWIS: I think they are never-ending for someone who desires to continue to grow musically. I think about various things I’d like to do every day that I haven’t done yet. Wearing the bandleader hat takes a lot of work and takes a lot of time and effort, but it’s worthwhile to watch things come to fruition that began as just an idea or a thought. With that in mind, I’d like to do a lot more things in the future. Nothing specific comes to mind right now, but we have unlimited possibilities.

[MUSIC: Diaspora, from Blues for Marcus]

[END OF CONVERSATION]

———-

Lewis Nash (WKCR, June 26, 2006):

[MUSIC: Kenny Drew Trio, Apasionata]

TP: That featured one of the most prominent drum-bass combinations of our time, Lewis Nash and Peter Washington, who’ve been playing on bandstands countless during the ‘90s with Tommy Flanagan, and are performing together this week in the Lewis Nash Quintet at the Village Vanguard. Since 1999, when you first seriously undertook leading groups and performing out with them… This will be your second group-leader gig this year on New York bandstands. You were at Dizzy’s Room in January. You’ve played often with a septet, and lately a trio as well with Steve Nelson and Peter Washington, and a duo with Steve Wilson. Is this quintet a new band for you?

LEWIS: The newness this week is basically having Gerald Clayton on piano. In the past, generally it’s been Mulgrew Miller or Renee Rosnes or no piano, and others on occasion. But Gerald is a fantastic young musician who is certainly going to make a name for himself. Many people are aware that he’s the son of bassist-arranger John Clayton.

TP: New repertoire this week?

LEWIS: A few things. We do have all this various repertoire in a soup, and each night, depending on the vibe or feeling, I decide whether we’re going to play it or not. Basically, this week is not so much about new repertoire, although I generally like to do a gig in town when I do have something new to offer. But I didn’t want to let a whole year go by without playing at the Vanguard. So this week really is about our creativity on the stage in the moment no matter what we play, because there won’t be any incredible unveilings of new material.

TP: Do you approach your role, your performance in any different manner when you’re leading a group versus playing as a sideman? Does your point of view become the guiding flow for the performances when you’re leading the group? Although of course, it would in other ways when you’re a sideman.

LEWIS: Of course, since it’s more or less my musical vision in that sense, I am providing some direction for how I want it to go pacing-wise and all of that. But I am actually trying to allow everyone else to establish a direction without dictating where I feel it should go. I don’t like that kind of dictatorial way of approaching it from a bandleading standpoint. I like to be open to the input from everyone else. So while I am selecting the set and the pieces, and kind of deciding how long they’re going to be and all that, I just give some basic parameters and then let everybody go where it’s going to go.

TP: You’ve also developed a circle of people around you, good friends with busy schedules who’ve made time to play on your gigs and help develop the sound of your band.

LEWIS: You bring to mind several things to me. For me, I was listening to and enjoying Bill [Stewart]’s interview on the way here, and some of the things you were talking about… As a sideman, I have a lot of different varieties of things that I’m really happy to do, and fortunate to be able to do. So I get a lot of different looks and feels, musically speaking, from all these different things I’m doing, so when I come to do my thing, I can bring elements of those various things to mind. But also, I don’t feel like I have to necessarily explore some of the other things that I explore in other situations to greater depth just because it’s my situation. I might feel like I can do some other things. And those things may change each time I play live as a leader. But I’m so satisfied that I don’t feel a need to explore so many different varieties of things in my own situation. I can concentrate on certain things.

TP: Has being a leader evolved your own drum technique or sense of flow as a drummer? Do you find that you do certain things that are idiosyncratic to you more readily than you would in sideman situations? Ways of hitting beats…

LEWIS: Not so much now. Maybe in the earlier years of deciding to do things as a leader, that might have been the case. But I’m not even sure then how much it was the case. Because so much of how I approach the instrument and how I approach making music with people is consistent, no matter what. So whereas there may be things I’m less apt to do in one situation versus another because of the type of music or the style or whatever, I think generally there is a consistent thread that you can hear running through everything. I can tell it’s me. Whether it’s a piece of music that’s quirky and out, or if it’s a piece of music that’s straight down the middle, swinging, I know how I touch the drums, I can hear that same consistency throughout that. I think that’s an important thing.

TP: You went out with Betty Carter in 1981. So you’ve been a working professional New York musician for 25 years. There’s 25 years of musical history that you’re part of now. In an overall sense, what are some of the salient things you’ve seen change in the musical ideas people are articulating now vis-a-vis 1981, when you came up. There are continuities, but it’s a very different world.

LEWIS: You could say that in many respects. I’m not sure I’d be the best arbiter of that. I came here in 1980 the first time, and I was going around to hear as much music as I could possibly hear. At the same time, I was taking some lessons with Freddie Waits. There were certain guys who were working quite a bit. Billy Hart seemed to be everywhere in those days; he was playing every week somewhere, or it seemed like two different places a night at times! Some of the greats were still leading bands—Woody Shaw, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, Betty Carter (whose band I was in). There were these kind of iconic leaders who were still around, and young guys wanted to be in their bands and hone their craft and whatnot. For me, I tried to bring a certain sensibility to the music. When I got here to play with Betty, before that in Arizona, I had been playing a lot of different things with people who’d come through town—Sonny Stitt and people like that when they’d pick up a rhythm section—but I also had an ear to the more exploratory things. I had a duo with saxophonist Allan Chase, and we opened concerts in Phoenix—before I even moved to New York—for Old And New Dreams, which is how I met Ed Blackwell and Dewey and Don and Charlie Haden. Then we opened for the Art Ensemble of Chicago, we opened for Sun Ra., playing this duo. I had bells on my ankles. We were doing a lot of interesting and exploratory things. So I always had an ear to those kinds of things. But what I realized was that I didn’t want to marginalize myself… I don’t know if that’s really the right way of putting it. But I wanted to take advantage of whatever I could get from the people who had been the movers and shakers in the music further back, the Betty Carters and Ron Carters and Tommy Flanagans and people like that. I didn’t want to not be able to associate myself with that lineage.

TP: You didn’t want to cut yourself off.

LEWIS: No. So I felt like, okay, at some point in the future, I can always… I’m not going to lose my desire to be creative, I’m not going to forget how to explore. So I wanted to make sure I immersed myself in where the music was coming from to such an extent that I had an opportunity to interact with these great players. So over time, I have fortunately been able to do that. People like Horace Silver and McCoy and all these different people I’ve played with, all of that has contributed to whatever it is I’m offering as a bandleader, I hope.

TP: Another thing I touched on a little earlier with Bill, we were discussing about the ways in which over the last 15 years odd meters and world rhythmic structures have become more part of the musical vernacular rather than slightly more exotic, as it was in the ‘80s. From your perspective, as someone who became established during the ‘80s, before people like Danilo Perez and Ed Simon came to town, and when Steve Coleman was just starting to deal with the things he did with Dave Holland… How do you see those developments affecting the rhythmic template of jazz these days? Has that changed a lot?

LEWIS: I think it’s just become more of a wide palette, I guess. The stuff has always been there, people have been exploring things from Max and Brubeck and various people in the ‘50s, and there’s already a precedent in world music. So I think the foundation was already laid for people to explore a lot of different things, whether it’s odd meters, whether it’s interesting and different harmonic ideas or structural things with tunes that are not necessarily 32-bar song forms of AABA. People have been exploring a lot of different things for a long time. What you have to learn how to do is incorporate all of it, and not be afraid of any challenges, and then also not be afraid to be basic, too. You can be complicated and simple, and both things work. Also, everyone has a different thing to contribute to this thing. We’re not all supposed to do the same thing.

TP: Did anything new happen in the last 15 years? How would say the sound of jazz in 2006… If you’d left the planet in 1990, came back now, and hadn’t heard any jazz since, what changes would you discern?

LEWIS: I leave the planet on a regular basis, but I do come back. You know, Ted, I really never think of it in those terms. But I suppose the same way there’s new technologies… If you left the planet, came back 15 years later, and the Internet. So I imagine for your ear, yes, but when you’re in it, you can’t hear or observe the changes so clearly, I guess. It might be like if you go away and come back home and see someone who was an adolescent when you left, and when you come back they’re grown up but it’s the same person. That probably didn’t answer your question.

TP: It didn’t, but that’s fine. As Charlie Parker once said immortally on that video, “music speaks louder than words.” In 2003-04, or maybe in 2004-05 you did a few recordings for M&I, the Japanese label…

[MUSIC: “Tico, Tico”]

What’s it like to play so much with the same bass player? You’ve played a lot with George Mraz over the years, with Christian McBride and Ron Carter. But the names Washington and Nash go together in a certain interesting way. How has it evolved?

LEWIS: There are certain vibes that you feel from musicians when you play with them for the first time. Even though I’ve played with a lot of different bass players, as you’ve mentioned, the special rapport I have with Peter… I have a special rapport with the other guys you mentioned as well. But with Peter, I don’t have to worry about whether he’s going to be doing what I need him to do to make everything come across like I’d like it to. You were asking me if I’m thinking about the directions of how things are progressing as we’re playing with my group. With Peter as the bass anchor, there are certain things I know are going to be in place, and I don’t have to worry about those things. They are unspoken things. It’s telepathic almost. So it’s kind of a comfort zone, a comfort level having him there that allows me to feel free to do a lot of things that I might not attempt.

TP: Can you name what a couple of those things might be?

LEWIS: He can sense when I’m orchestrating things a certain way and breaking the time, exactly what to do to keep the forward momentum of the time going, so it doesn’t seem like we both pulled the rug out from under everyone else. In other words, we kind of share the duties of keeping the forward propulsion of the music going. Also, sometimes I can just look to him and nod if I want to change the feel, and he knows to go wherever I’m trying to make it go. His ears are wide open. He picks great notes in his walking bass lines. I’m often keying off of the bass for the harmonic structure and framework of the tune much more than the piano comping or something like singing the tune in my head. I’m more focused on the movement of the bassline.

TP: I recall reading Max Roach saying that there’s no such thing as melodic drums, but there is such a thing as rhythmic design, and people sometimes confuse rhythmic design for playing melody on the drums. You seem always to be very conscious of rhythmic design within the forward motion. How has that concept evolved for you?

LEWIS: That rhythmic design that Max was talking about, in the sense he’s speaking about the melodic interpretation… Another word I’ve heard for it is linear. I tune the drums in a way that the intervals are wide enough that it can give the impression of melodic movement. If I play certain fills, and the drums are extremely close in the tuning, you don’t get the sense of separation and you don’t get the sense of movement up or down a scale. So if I tune the drums at wider intervals, then it seems to give more of an impression that I’m playing some types of melodic things. I like to interject phrases that are not just drum fills, but maybe necessarily a continuation of the line I might have heard the soloist just playing, except I’m articulating it on the drums, so when he takes a breath (if it’s a horn player), I’m almost thinking in terms of continuing his linear thought process on the drums until he puts the horn back to his mouth, and maybe inspire him to go rhythmically in one direction or another, rather than just a drum fill for the sake of filling space and very drum-oriented—I might make it more linear.

TP: Let me repeat a couple of questions I asked Bill Stewart before. I asked him early on in his career how aware he was of the history of the drums in reference to his own development, and, if he emulated other iconic drummers, who some of those drummers might have been. That led to asking him at what point he got beyond those influences and began to assimilate them into his own thing.

LEWIS: Of course, anyone who gets involved in this music at the drums is going to have to go through a certain group of players if they’re really going to say that they’ve studied the music and the history of jazz drumming. For me, in my earliest development, before I really started playing jazz, I was playing a lot of R&B and funk, and that’s pretty much what I was playing. So I wasn’t as… Coming from an R&B, funk and blues… My mother used to listen to a lot of blues—B.B. King and Muddy Waters and that stuff. Coming from that kind of background, I wasn’t necessarily as attracted to the Rock elements, the fusion stuff so much. Even though I could appreciate the drumming aspects of Tony and Billy Cobham and the guys who played in the fusion genre, I was more attracted to the funkier, danceable things at that time, in those earlier years. Then once I became aware of people like Max Roach and Roy Haynes and Philly Joe Jones, Elvin, Jimmy Cobb, and all the various people, then I started to explore the possibilities of that approach to playing the drums. So my influences went from James Brown’s drummers and the Stax records, Al Green and that whole feel, to the guys I just mentioned in straight-ahead jazz, Kenny Clarke and those people who laid the foundation in jazz drumming. So in a way, I have less of the influences of, say, the fusion era, like Tony and Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette with Miles, in that context. That stuff actually came later rather than earlier, whereas for some guys that’s some of the first stuff they got into. Whereas for me, I got into the other stuff, and then I kind of backtracked. With my knowledge of music being a little greater, than I think I was able to appreciate and assimilate more of the elements of the more modern players…

TP: How would you assimilate vocabulary? Playing along with records and trying to replicate the style?

LEWIS: Yeah. Playing along. Because then you turn it up loud, or you have headphones and you’re playing along, and you can almost interject yourself into the band, in a sense. That’s one way of beginning to assimilating some of the vocabulary, just playing along.

TP: Were a lot of these guys coming through your town?

LEWIS: No, not that many people came through Phoenix. I didn’t see much.

TP: Probably you’d heard Ed Blackwell before you opened for Old & New Dreams.

LEWIS: Yes.

TP: But seeing him probably put a whole different spin on what he was doing.

LEWIS: Definitely. But I didn’t get to see that many great players. Only towards the end, before I eventually came to New York in the late ‘70s… As I mentioned earlier, Sonny Stitt came through town and I played with him, and I’d meet and see other people that way. I heard Tony Williams with VSOP I think in ‘78 or ‘79. Yeah, I began to see and hear a few people like that. But coming to New York and being able to sit in the front row of the Vanguard to watch and listen to Elvin, yeah, there wasn’t anything like that going on in Phoenix, I’m afraid.

TP: Many young aspirants will be sitting in the catbird seat or the Vanguard this week, and get there when the doors open at 8:15 to get a bird’s eye view of Lewis Nash and quintet… This puts you together with Billy Hart, who as you said was playing everywhere when you came to town… Dark Shadows.

[MUSIC: “Dark Shadows:; Ray Bryant (RRB), “Glory, Glory”; Hannibal-George Adams, Cry]

We heard Lewis getting into a very African conception of the trapset. I think you said you heard Sunny Ade’s talking drummers and were trying to get that quality, as well as Edward Blackwell. And it doesn’t get any more fundamental than Glory, Glory.

We’ll hear recordings Lewis made with several people who recently passed on. Jackie McLean, and John Hicks, with whom you performed on three Joe Lovano nonet recordings. Did you ever record trio with John?

LEWIS: I didn’t record trio with John, but I made gigs in trio with him. He brought something special to any situation. But in the Lovano dates and in the nonet, John was such an integral part of the sound of that group.

TP: That nonet gig is an interesting one, because there’s lots of room for you to roam and travel rhythmically and sonics to weave in and out of. Since Lovano himself likes to play drums… Unfortunately, the only tracks that are applicable are 10-16 minutes…

[MUSIC: w/ Jackie McLean, “Little Melonae”]

LEWIS: It was an interesting date, because I think that may have been the first time that Jackie and Junko met, in the studio. Of course, that happens quite often in jazz anyway. I remember it very well, because I remember someone in the studio mentioning something about intonation, probably someone associated with the label, some peripheral person, and I remember hearing Jackie say, “I’ve played out of tune my whole life; why should I start playing in tune NOW?” I thought that was the funniest thing I had… It was tongue-in-cheek, it was just everything. It lightened up the session and allowed us just to go ahead and play. It was a funny comment.

TP: When you hear Lewis Nash, you’ll be hearing someone who’s embodied the experiences of playing on a regular basis, at one point or another, for ten years with Tommy Flanagan, on many occasions with Tommy Flanagan’s good friend Sonny Rollins, with Ron Carter for years, with Betty Carter, with McCoy Tyner, with Don Pullen, and with just about every significant musician who made a mark on jazz from the 1940s on up, and even going to a date with Doc Cheatham and Benny Carter and Hank Jones. All those experiences are encoded in Lewis’ playing and performance and presentation in one manner or another, and you should not miss him when he’s leading a band.

[MUSIC: w/ McCoy Tyner from Illuminations, The Chase]

 

************

Lewis Nash (Musician Shows, Feb. 10, 1993 and August 21, 1996):

1993

[Lewis Nash, “106 Nix”; Tommy Flanagan Trio, “Something Borrowed, Something Blue”-Mraz-Burrell-Nash; Jimmy Heath, “Gingerbread Boy”; Art Blakey, “Wee-Dot”-Clifford Brown, Lou Donaldson, Curley Russell, Horace Silver]

TP: We’ll go into depth on some of the drummers who influenced you as a drummer developing your style and sound. And “Wee-Dot”…

LEWIS: That, of course, was the great, the one-and-only Art Blakey, who’s been such an influence on so many drummers. That record was I think the third jazz record that I ever bought with my own money. Even now, when I listen to it, it takes me back to that time when it was really fresh and I was hearing it for the first time and really tuning in to what Art Blakey’s playing was all about.

TP: I gather you didn’t tune into jazz until you were a freshman at college.

LEWIS: When I was in high school, during the junior and senior years, I played in an ensemble that played… They called it a jazz band. Stage band. Those school situations. Without really any prior knowledge. But I had been playing the drums for a while, and a guy who was in the band said they needed a drummer. I went, and I didn’t really know much, except I had heard TING, TING, TA-DING — I’d heard the ride cymbal pattern. But really no knowledge of any jazz history or anything. There happened to be a good teacher there who would bring tapes and records to school. But it still didn’t really reach out and grab me the way it did later.

TP: what were you listening to then?

LEWIS: I was listening to a lot of R&B in high school, and funk stuff – James Brown… At the time I was in school, it was between 1972 and 1976. So you had Kool and the Gang type groups, and Earth Wind & Fire, Parliament, that kind of stuff. Of course, before that, at home, when I was growing up, I heard stuff from Motown and of course James Brown and Stax and all that Memphis…

TP: That’s what your parents are into? Are they jazz fans?

LEWIS: no, there was no jazz in the house. Really. A lot of blues. My mother liked the Blues – B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Lowell Fulsom, I can remember a lot of those records. Johnnie Taylor. People like that. And a lot of gospel music. But not really any jazz.

TP: Were you playing drums, though?

LEWIS: I was playing the drums. I started, I was about 10 years old.

TP: Were you playing with your friends…

LEWIS: Garage-type bands, I guess you could say that. But I was playing in school with the concert band, marching band, that kind of stuff.

TP: So you developed a fundamental technique.

LEWIS: Exactly, and I started learning to read. Actually in the 4th grade I started, playing the snare drum at school.

TP: So when you got to college and were introduced to jazz, it was with somewhat of a clean slate, but yet you had this fundamental technique.

LEWIS: In other words, in high school when I was playing, it was a jazz group and we played what could be called jazz tunes, but I wasn’t personally drawn to it as much as I was later. Why, I don’t know. You never know why certain things are. But later, I was drawn to it with a vengeance.

TP: You’ve told an interesting story about your introduction to jazz, which would be a good one to share, I think.

LEWIS: Maybe you’re talking about the story in the record store. But I’ll backtrack a little bit before that. The first jazz album that I ever owned was a gift to me. At the time I was playing high school football, and I had a good game, so my brother-in-law said…

TP: What was your position?

LEWIS: I was a defensive back. Safety. So I had a good game, and he said, “I want to treat you to something.” So we went to the record store. He knew I liked music. I was looking up on the wall, and I saw this record cover with this guy looking hip, his face, you know, and I saw there was a song on there called “Killer Joe.” The only thing I knew about it was that we had played it. I didn’t know anything at this time about Benny Golson or the original Killer Joe or anything like that. It was a song that I remembered from stage band, that we played. And I remember on the music…this is an interesting aside… On the stage band music it said to play “swing a la Philly Joe.” I remember asking the band director who was Philly Joe. He told me and everything, but it didn’t really click in yet.

So I said, “‘Killer Joe’ – maybe I’ll get this record.” It was Quincy Jones, Walking in Space, and on there were Grady Tate, Ray Brown, Hubert Laws, a lot of different musicians. This was the first jazz record that I owned. After that, the first one that I bought with my own money… It was later; I was a freshman in college. I went to the record store. This is when you could get records for $3 apiece, or $2-something on sale. Anyway, I went in and the sales-person was someone I recognized from Arizona State, in the jazz department. He was a saxophone player. His name is Allan Chase. I said, “Allan, can you recommend something for me to listen to?” He went right over to the John Coltrane section and said, “Have you heard this?” He held up Blue Trane. He explained that the drummer was Philly Joe Jones, so here’s that Philly Joe again.

I get it, I take it home, and I’m in love with this record now. So I go back again. “Allan, I want some more stuff like that.” So he realizes I’m checking out Philly Joe, so he gets Milestones and Round About Midnight for the two Miles Davis disks. I take those home, and I listen to those, and I fall in love with those. Then I go back again, and I want something like that but different, or something like that I probably said to him. So he recommended Art Blakey at Birdland, Volumes 1 & 2, which was my introduction to Art Blakey.

TP: Did you then try to emulate that?

LEWIS: Well, of course. I started trying to figure out how these drummers were doing what they were doing, and how they got the music to feel so good and how they got to swing so hard, and how they got the sound they got out of the drums. Of course, it was a recorded sound, but you could tell from the records that they were really taking care of business. So I definitely emulated at that early stage as much as possible.

TP: But you weren’t able to see…

LEWIS: No.

TP: A lot of musicians have a sort of visual continuity; you get up under someone and watch how they do it. But your early process was picking apart and analyzing recordings.

LEWIS: Well, in Phoenix, Arizona, there wasn’t very much to see in terms of the name people especially. There were some people playing there. But even at that point…I mean, I’d never been to a jazz club; I’d never been to a club, period. I was a late-comer to the whole thing.

I started listening to the records first, before I heard any really serious jazz being played on any level live. I’m kind of glad, because I don’t know what I would have heard first there. But there were actually some good musicians there who helped me, which we can talk about later.

TP: First, though, we’ll hear a solo from a James Brown record that’s dear to your heart.

LEWIS: This was the first drum solo, period, of any kind of music that I tried to learn. I don’t know exactly the year, but it’s the James Brown band doing “Soul Pride.”

[James Brown-Clyde Stubblefield, “Soul Pride”]

LEWIS: As I said, that was the first drum solo I ever learned. I listened to a lot of James Brown in that early period. We’d have dances in elementary school, and most of the stuff that would get the kids up to dance the quickest was the James Brown stuff.

At this time I was listening to some other drumming. The Meters and the drummer with them, whose nickname is Zigaboo. He used to play some interesting rhythms, and the sound of his drums. His snare drum sounded more like a really tight tom-tom. It was almost wasn’t a snare sound. It was like a field drum type sound or something. Anyway, those rhythms he played were really hip and funky, and I listened to a lot of that stuff during this period, too. Of course, not forget the standard R&B stuff, because I wasn’t listening to any jazz then.

TP: Were you listening to the drummers as well as the general sound?

LEWIS: I was focusing on the drums. I was playing the drums at the time, and I was trying to figure out how to do what they did and get the same sounds and all that.

TP: Any world music, African music?

LEWIS: Not at that time?

TP: We’ll move now to a set featuring Philly Joe Jones. “Two Bass Hits” is from the first Miles Davis record you heard. What was your impression on that first listen? [END OF SIDE 1]

LEWIS: [BEGINNING OF SIDE 2] …spent some time sitting down at the instrument and becoming a master of it. It felt great. It sounded like he was thinking about what he was playing. All of those things. I was completely taken. So for me, his solos and the stuff that he did behind other people’s solos was pretty much the peak of jazz drumming. Of course, I hadn’t heard that much at this time, but I figured how could anything be better than this? Anyway, I think we were talking about the things from Milestones that I liked the most. “Billy Boy” is one, of course, and the other one is “Two Bass Hit.”

[MUSIC: Miles Davis 6, “Two Bass Hit”; Miles-Coltrane 5-“I Could Write a Book”; Coltrane-“Lazy Bird”-1957]

LEWIS: That was from the first jazz record that I ever bought with my own money. It’s Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, John Coltrane, Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, who we’re focusing on as a big influence on not only me but I’m sure ever other jazz drummer out there in some way.

But before that we heard “I Could Write A Book” from the Relaxing record, which featured Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe.

We could do a whole show on Philly Joe’s influence on me. There’s the stuff he did with Tadd Dameron, “Stop, Look, Listen,” that kind of stuff. With Hank Mobley, there’s Workout. I could go on and on with all the great things he’s done on record.

TP: Next we’ll hear Max Roach, primarily with Clifford Brown.

LEWIS: Of course, I’d heard his name before, going back to when I still didn’t know that much. Of course, the record which I had listened to with Art Blakey, Live at Birdland, featured Clifford Brown. So I wanted to get some more stuff with Clifford Brown because I thought his playing was great and I wanted to hear some more of it. So I was told — I’m not sure by whom, maybe Allen at the record store or someone else — about the Clifford Brown and Max Roach group, and that they had a lot of sides out and I should check out some of those. So that was my introduction to the group with Clifford Brown and Max Roach.

TP: What was your initial impression of Max?

LEWIS: How could he play solos like that, that made so much sense and were so creative? That was probably the first thing. His drums were tuned in such a way that they just flowed; they had a melodic thing about them. Also, how could he play so fast? Those were probably the first things that I thought?

[MUSIC: Max Roach-Clifford Brown, “Daahoud”; Max solo, “For Big Sid”; “The Drum Also Waltzes”-Drums Unlimited; Bird-Max, “Au Privave”]

TP: One thing we can say is that Max Roach turned the drumset into a concert instrument within the jazz framework.

LEWIS: Right. The things that Max did, we could probably safely say that they grew out of things that were done before, of course, by Big Sid Catlett and Kenny Clarke and drummers who were before him, and Max brought the soloing concept to another level, at least in terms of the way he approached the drum solos. He, probably more than anyone else during that period, put the drums in the forefront as a solo instrument.

TP: You’re a situation where you have to play styles from different periods, What’s it like for you to play in a pre-bebop context vis-a-vis the modernist drum context? Do you think of it that way?

LEWIS: I don’t consciously try to play, say, in a manner that’s pre-bebop, for example, for want of a better way to say it. The way that we play now can work with the older musicians because it’s an extension, and it’s not separate from it. As long as you’re aware of the tune and you’re aware of what the soloist is playing, and you’re interacting with them, then it really isn’t too out of character to just play the way we know as modern drumming, stuff that came out of bebop, with someone like a Benny Carter… It works. Max, as a matter of fact, came out of Benny Carter’s band.

Through Max… We heard Bird just a moment ago. We’re going back to this period when I was absorbing all this new information, and I wasn’t really yet aware of the chronological history of how things developed in the music. By listening to Max Roach with Clifford Brown, and then buying some more Max Roach records, and reading a little bit and finding out that he’d been playing with Bird in the 40s, I got to Bird through Max, in a strange kind of way.

TP: Freshman year of college, you’re a jazz neophyte. Talk about where you’d progressed with your jazz education by the time you were a senior.

LEWIS: I had been really listening a lot… By the time I got to that point, I’d met some musicians who were actually making a living playing jazz. And some of those people loaned me records, and they told me what things I should be listening for and listening to and that kind of thing. I spent a lot of time staying up late, just listening to records and trying to absorb about the music as I could. So I really went on a kind of accelerated learning process during that period.

TP: Were you playing in any jazz bands in college? Did that start then?

LEWIS: Yes. My first professional gig was with a guitar player who I just saw the other night, as a matter of fact. His name is Jerry Byrd, and he was in town with Freddy Cole. I think he’s originally from Pittsburgh. Anyway, he’s a guitar player who at the time was living in Phoenix. I think I was18 or something like that. I was in college at the time. He’d asked some of the musicians if there was a drummer at the school who they thought could handle this gig that he had, and they recommended me, and that was my first professional gig – with him. He played in a kind of Wes Montgomery style, I guess you could say. That was the beginning of my professional jazz gigging experience.

TP: And although Phoenix wasn’t a center of any kind, there were places to play.

LEWIS: Yes, there were a few places to play.

TP: Did you wind up being a regular in the Phoenix clubs?

LEWIS: Yes.

TP: Who are some people who came through that you had a chance to work with, and some of the musicians on the local scene?

LEWIS: As far as who was there in Phoenix, there were 3 or 4 people who were really important to me. I mentioned Jerry Byrd, who was my first gig. Then he recommended me after that gig to another musician, a pianist named Charles Lewis, who is still there playing. Charles I worked with for a couple of years. He was important because he was the first person to… I’d go to his house for rehearsal, and he would let me work out things on rehearsal and on the gig that ordinarily many leaders might not have the patience for. In other words, I’m taking a solo, and it’s meandering and going nowhere on the gig, and he’d just let me kind of find my way out of it, back to the tune or whatever. He was really patient with letting me figure out what it is I should be doing at the drums in his group. We played a lot of straight-ahead music and also some Latin things. He was the first person to loan me records of Tito Puente and Larry Harlow and Eddie Palmieri. He would comp with his left hand on the Afro-Cuban type stuff and he’d play timbales with his right.

TP: So you were able to get a broad range of rhythmic experience. Were other musicians passing through town?

LEWIS: A few. First, I mentioned Charles and Jerry Byrd. Prince Shell was another, a pianist and arranger who used to lend me records to take home and make a copy of and bring back. He would sit down with me and have me listen to all different kinds of music. This is when I first started to listen to any other world music, whether it’s Egyptian music or music from South America or music from Africa. He was the first person I saw who had these different kinds of musics on record, and I would make tapes of different things. Of course, he had all the jazz things.

TP: Did you find you were able to incorporate that into what you were doing?

LEWIS: Not at that time, no.

TP: Next we’ll hear Kenny Clarke, represented by one selection. In all histories of jazz, observers talk about what Kenny Clarke and Max Roach did. But please put it in your own words…how Kenny Clarke and Max Roach opened up the beat.

LEWIS: It’s interesting to me… I’m sure the people who were around before Kenny Clarke and Max Roach did what they did would have their perspective. But for me, listening to this first and then going back and hearing what, say, Jo Jones and Sid Catlett and Cozy Cole, etc., did before this, is a different way of hearing it, I guess. In any case, the drummers began to lighten up on the bass drum considerably, and in some cases not play it all except for accents. The left hand started to be more active in comping in a way that was interactive with the soloist, and also interactive within the context…

[END OF SIDE 2]

TP: What did this do to the overall sound of the jazz ensemble?

LEWIS: It probably made it have a more open and freer sound and feeling, I’m sure. The soloists felt freer because the rhythm wasn’t locking them in as much. But it was still present and still swinging. The thing about the bass drum, what a lot of drummers…what we call “feathering” the bass drum now… We still play it, but it’s very light and it’s felt more than it’s heard, as opposed to in the 30s, when they were really playing it hard.

TP: I think certain drummers during the 40s and 50s who combined both the prebop and bebop styles, like Shadow Wilson or Osie Johnson, who generated incredible swing.

LEWIS: That’s right. You can’t categorize these things too particularly. Because there’s a lot of drummers who cover a lot of different ground and who fit into a lot of different situations.

TP: It’s perhaps a cliche or redundant to say this, but this music is really a continuum and styles meld into each other and overlap.

[MUSIC: Miles-Klook, “Walkin’”; Miles-Cobb, “Ah-Leu-Cha” and “No Blues”]

TP: Lewis, you said that you used to practice to “No Blues,” that you wore out several copies putting on Wynton Kelly’s solo. You know that solo very well.

LEWIS: I used to put on Wynton Kelly’s solos from this double record set, from Friday and Saturday night. This band was swinging so hard and Wynton Kelly’s solos were so great, I would just put them on over and over again and set up a ride cymbal and try to ride…play along — and I would play along with it, and make an attempt to get the feeling that he and Jimmy Cobb and Paul Chambers had in the rhythm section.

TP: A few words about Jimmy Cobb.

LEWIS: He was a very big influence on my approach to the ride cymbal feeling, and just the intensity, I guess you could say of the ride cymbal. I like to try to emulate the way he fit in particular with Paul Chambers. The ride cymbal pattern and the bass player walking can fit together in such a way that it’s like one – and it swings so hard. So I was really influenced heavily by Jimmy Cobb’s approach to the ride cymbal.

TP: Paul Chambers has been a prominent presence on this Musician Show, appearing on many of the tracks. You were speaking before about bassists – Paul Chambers, Sam Jones – and the idea of the rhythm section.

LEWIS: Speaking of the bass players, we heard Paul Chambers with Philly Joe and here with Jimmy Cobb – and we’re going to hear him again. It’s so important… As I was acquainted with the music early on, I started to see that the same names would start popping up on all these records, and the things that I liked the most, that I felt were really swinging the most, would generally have either one or two or all three of the same people on something else that I thought would have the same feeling. That would be Art Blakey with Paul Chambers or Philly Joe with Paul Chambers or Jimmy Cobb with Paul Chambers, or George Duvivier or Sam Jones… All the great bass players and drummers just could find a way to lock up with each other. As far as the things that influenced me in particular, there always seems to be a lot of Paul Chambers involved, with whatever drummer.

TP: But within the rhythm section, it’s not only the drummer; it’s the three in conjunction…

LEWIS: Working together. With Red Garland… Each of the pianists and bassists and drummers would bring something of their own,something different and unique to each situation. Always with that feeling, though – the real feeling of what jazz is all about.

TP: Many of our audience may be wondering where Art Blakey is. Here he comes. For reasons of time, we’ll take Art Blakey outside the Jazz Messengers, and hear him on two dates as a “sideman,” although of course he shapes the piece.

LEWIS: We’ll start with something from Hank Mobley’s Soul Station, which is one of my favorite records. This is Hank Mobley with Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Art Blakey – “Dig Dis.”

[SIDE 4]

[MUSIC: Hank Mobley, Dig Dis; Miles Davis-Cannonball, “Somethin’ Else”]

LEWIS: The great Art Blakey on drums. Those were great examples of how Art… I mean, Art is known for so much — for solos, for all of his intensity, and for his power. But he could settle into a groove with the best, and not have to do a whole lot of really ferocious, and just swing.

TP: And also shape the focus and flow of the piece through what he’s doing in an unerringly correct way.

LEWIS: The one and only.

TP: When d id you first see the Messengers and Art Blakey?

LEWIS: I first saw Art Blakey in 1979. If I’m not mistaken, the band at that time was Billy Pierce, Charles Fambrough, Valery Ponomarov and Bobby Watson. My mouth was open after watching him do what he did.

TP: By now, you’d been involved in jazz for a while. You were post-neophyte.

LEWIS: Yes. That was the first time I came to New York. I wasn’t here to live yet. I came during the summer-time; I was studying with Fr4eddie Waits. So I went to hear as much music as I could hear, and I heard him then.

TP: Around 1979, were you just getting out of college?

LEWIS: Mmm-hmm. I went back to Phoenix, and then I moved to New York finally in 1981, in the spring, the late spring, when I joined Betty Carter.

TP: How did she… She heard you in Phoenix? Somebody hipped her to you?

LEWIS: Freddie Waits recommended me to her. I came and played for her, and that was the beginning of a four-year relationship.

TP: I guess that was your opportunity to get into the post-graduate nuances it seems musicians need to have.

LEWIS: Just to be around the great musicians, so you can absorb what’s really going on. You couldn’t do that in Phoenix. Once in a while… You asked me about this earlier, but I didn’t really elaborate about who I’d played with passing through Phoenix. I had a chance to work a week with Sonny Stitt. I worked also with Jimmy Witherspoon. Johnny Coles came through. Not very frequently, but every so often there’d be groups coming through, and I had a chance to play.

Working with Sonny Stitt for a week was…I think I was 18 or 19… It was great. We met on the bandstand. “Hello, young man.” Then he stomped off “Cherokee” or something, really fast, and that was the beginning of the night.

TP: At the end of the night, you mentioned before, “Young man, you sounded good.”

LEWIS: Yeah, you know, I’m sure he was being cordial, being nice and encouraging. Anyway, I did have a chance to do that a few times. But once I came to New York, I was able…

TP: Next up is music with Roy Haynes.

LEWIS: Roy Haynes to me is perpetually modern. He was modern in the 40s, he’s modern now. I don’t know how he does it, but he just stays on the edge, and his playing is always great to my ear. To me, he had a certain spark that maybe a lot of people liked playing with him for that very reason. He had a way of really lighting up, getting things going, stoking the fires, or whatever kind of adjectives you want to use…

TP: Without necessarily being loud either.

LEWIS: No. He could play trio. He could play large groups. He could play with singers, as he did with Sarah.

TP: Drummers have so many different functions to play. Your current situation is a case in point. Last week, you’re playing behind a 12-piece group, playing Dizzy Gillespie forcefully, propelling the band. This week you’re with the Tommy Flanagan Trio. The following week you’ll remain at the Vanguard with Mulgrew Miller and Peter Washington. Can you speak about the different necessities, so to speak, when you’re working in those situations?

LEWIS: The thing last week with the 12-piece big band: First of all, you’ve got the 9 horns, and we had a strong trumpet section, with Faddis and Roy Hargrove and Claudio Roditi. That music required a really wide dynamic range and sensibility to play. Trio playing requires that as well. But you’re not going to get a trio to sound like a 12-piece band. I tuned my drums a little bit deeper to get some weight for the big band. I think I played with the sticks that were a little bit heavier, not all the time but some of the time. Conceptually, it’s not that much different. The idea is to swing and to color the music, and whatever is required in terms of that, and to make the accents and set up the band so that the horns come in in the right fashion, and really, like I was saying, be a sparkplug or the initiator of the feeling. That’s the same no matter what context.

It’s just a little more heavily weighted with the big band, I guess, and there’s more people up there so you have a lot of different ideas of where the time is. So the time function is a little more important maybe in the big band, in the sense that I have to make sure that everyone is hearing clearly what’s going on, and that everyone comes in when they’re supposed to, based on where my beat is, or the beat that the bass player and I are establishing.

TP: Do you do a different accompaniment for each player as you familiarize yourself during the week. I remember Art Blakey with the Messengers would give everyone a personalized backing.

LEWIS: That may be true to a certain extent. I think certain players make you feel a certain way if you’re playing behind them, the way they approach their solo, and after you get to know how a player does that, you can expect a certain feeling to come about when this person is playing and you’re playing behind them. Maybe some soloists will make you want to play a lot more, and some will want to make you play a lot less behind them, depending on what they hear at the moment. So that’s true, yes.

[Roy Haynes, “Snap, Crackle” (1963-Rahsaan, Flanagan, Henry Grimes); Haynes-Chambers-Newborn, “Sugar Roy”–PC, Phineas Newborn, Roy Haynes-1958]

LEWIS: I’d intended to bring a tape that had some things I listened to early before I even became aware of the jazz tradition…

TP: We would have heard Parliament, Stax-Volt…

LEWIS: I’m sure some folks will be happy they didn’t hear all that. But in any case, I wanted to play some of those things — the gospel stuff that I heard around the house, the blues and the early stuff. There wasn’t really any jazz around the house, but one of my older sisters had joined the Columbia Record Club, so they sent her a copy of Miles Smiles. I think that might be the first time I put on anything by Miles Davis. I don’t remember how old I was, 12 or something, I don’t know…

TP: So you actually heard Tony Williams first.

LEWIS: I mean, I put it on and I took it off, because I didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t make any sense out of it. I think “Orbits” is on it…

TP: “Footprints,” too.

LEWIS: Maybe if I had put on one of those. But I don’t know. I wasn’t ready for it.

TP: You were ready when you were ready. We’ve focused primarily on five drummers…

LEWIS: The ones who were an initial influence on me in my outlook on drumming. But there’s so many other ones who helped shape this way that I look at playing the drums. For example, Art Taylor, who played on countless recordings, and one that comes to mind that I bought earlier on was “Giant Steps,” and I heard “Countdown” with him, and that made me want to go and buy other things that he played on. Then there was Louis Hayes with Horace Silver and all other different situations with Cannonball, etc., who was a big influence on my approach. Vernell Fournier with Ahmad Jamal. Ed Thigpen – I heard stuff earlier on with Oscar Peterson Trio. Ed Blackwell. Also Roy Brooks (mentioning Horace Silver). Frankie Dunlop with Monk and Ben Riley with Monk and with other situations (Ben Riley I heard with Lockjaw Davis). I also heard with Lockjaw, on some of the organ groups, Arthur Edgehill and Al Harewood – some of the hardest swinging stuff with the organ and tenor. Tony Williams. We’ve just touched on a few. But the ones we talked the most about tonight were the ones who were instrumental in getting me interested in even doing this.

TP: We’ll conclude with (a) something featuring Billy Higgins…

LEWIS: Billy Higgins, definitely one of my influences, who I’m sure everyone recognizes as one of the greatest jazz drummers we have today.

[MUSIC: Bobby Hutcherson, “La Alhambra” – 1981-McCoy-Higgins-Herbie Lewis; Nash-Mulgrew-Nelson, “Monk’s Dream”]

1996

[MUSIC: Lewis Nash, “Let Me Try”-1988]

TP: Today we’ll be interspersing recent recordings with Lewis, who is one of the most recorded of contemporary jazz drummers, and by people who have influenced him and whom he admires. A few words about your ideas in selecting the material tonight.

LEWIS: I wanted first of all to bring some of the things are best representative of what I’m doing now, today. That includes things by the Tommy Flanagan Trio, who I’ve been working with for the past five years, different things with all different size groups, from big band and trio, and I’ve tried to bring a variety of things style-wise that represent what I’ve been doing the past few years.

[MUSIC: Jackie McLean-Junko Onishi-Lewis, “Little Melonae”-1996; Lew Tabackin, “Wise One”-I’ll Be Seeing You-Concord-1992; Horace Silver, “Serenade To A Teakettle”-THE HARDBOP GRANDBOP, 1996]

TP: Three tracks from recent recordings featuring Lewis Nash, all showcasing different aspects of his sound and approach, and showcasing the versatility, creativity and precision that make him one of today’s most in-demand drummers.

Before we get to the first set of influences, let’s talk about the beginnings of Lewis Nash, the drummer. You came up in an area that isn’t exactly a hotbed of jazz, although I know there was someone. What was your first inkling of jazz music and that there is such a thing as jazz drumming?

LEWIS: Well, you’re right. Phoenix, Arizona, was not at that time, nor is it now, a hotbed of jazz activity. But once I started to play, there were people who were able to guide me and give me some direction. But the earliest memory I have of just playing the drums comes from stories that my parents and my older sisters tell me about me banging on the pots and pans in the kitchen, and putting together different sizes of cardboard boxes to get different sounds. I don’t remember much of that. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember any of that. I was probably 3 or 4 years old – 5 maybe. In any case, they tell me that’s what happened.

I do remember joining the elementary school band in the 4th grade, really based on watching a guy do a roll, and I knew that I didn’t really know how to do that. It sounded so nice, and I wanted to know how to do that. He said, “You should join the band and you’ll learn how to do this.” So I did. So from the 4th grade on through all of my schooling, I played in some sort of organized musical situation in schools.

TP: Did you have good instructors?

LEWIS: Very good, as a matter of fact. From the very beginning, I had teachers who stressed “practice-practice-practice.” So learning the rudiments…In drumming we have what we call the 13 essential rudiments, but it’s actually 26, and infinite amount of variations on all of those. But you’ve heard the terminology “paradiddle,” “5-stroke roll” — all those things are important to first just being able to articulate different stickings. When I say ‘stickings,’ for those of you who are not drummers, it’s just combinations of strokes with the two hands – double strokes, singles, etc. So I learned at an early age to practice and practice and practice.

TP: And got your 26 rudiments…

LEWIS: I’m still working on those.

TP: Can you recite them off… No, we won’t do that to you now. When did you start playing in little ensembles then, outside of say school marching band or whatever?

LEWIS: In a jazz sense, I didn’t really play until high school.

TP: Before that you were doing?

LEWIS: R&B. Funk stuff. The first bands I played in on a regular basis when I was in high school were bands covering tunes by groups like the Commodores and Earth, Wind & Fire and James Brown, people like that.

TP: Were you checking out Maurice White’s style, or the drummers who played with James Brown, and try to get some of that sound, make it idiomatic and personal?

LEWIS: Most definitely. The Meters. That stuff I remember from my childhood. I didn’t really begin to listen to jazz in the way that we listen — the way musicians listen, trying to assimilate and learn from the music that we’re hearing — until I was in college. I guess in a certain sense, I’m a latecomer to that way of listening. Before that, I was basically playing R&B and Funk, and I didn’t really have any idea that I’d be a professional musician.

TP: do you mean in high school you were trying to replicate the styles rather than put your own personality into it.

LEWIS: Right.

TP: You were an athlete, weren’t you?

LEWIS: I was a football player in high school, and track as well. Believe it or not.

TP: I believe it. How about a few words of elaboration? What was your position?

LEWIS: I played free safety. I was captain of the football team in high school. Most people can’t believe that when I tell them that now, based on my… I’m not 230 pounds and 6’5″. But I had fun doing it.

TP: How about track?

LEWIS: I ran… At that time we weren’t thinking metrically. It’s 400 meters now. But I ran the 440-yard dash, or run they used to call it. I had a pretty decent time.

TP: There’s some pain involved in that particular event.

LEWIS: Definitely. When you round that last curve.

TP: So the discipline that you applied also, I take it, went into your athletics as well.

LEWIS: I would think so.

TP: Does one have to be athletic to be a good drummer, do you think? I’ve heard some drummers talk about what they do as a form of dance or positioning to be set up to do the things they need to do.

LEWIS: I think to a certain degree that’s very true. You have to have stamina in order to do this. When guys are taking strings of 10 horn players taking solos, the bass player and drummer is back there still digging away through all of that. So it doesn’t require a certain amount of stamina and athleticism to do it.

TP: So through high school you’re not dabbling in music, but not really considering it as your life’s work. You get to college, and what happens?

LEWIS: Well, I got to college, and I started to… Of course, I was taking electives in the Music Department at Arizona State, where I went to college. All of this time, because I’ve been involved in playing the drums and playing music in school for so long, it just seemed so natural for me to continue to play, although I wasn’t looking at it as a career objective at all. But what happened was, several of the people in the Music Department would ask me why I wasn’t a music major and why I wasn’t thinking of pursuing music as a career. I had never thought of it. I didn’t have anyone in my family who was a musician. I didn’t really know anyone personally who made their living playing music. So it really never occurred to me that I could do that, or that I should do that. Plus, I had an academic scholarship, and I was trying to keep my grades up and all that.

TP: What was your major when you got to college?

LEWIS: When I first got there, I was a broadcasting major, believe it or not. Then I switched to marketing in the business school. What happened was, some of the local groups heard me play in the college jazz ensemble, so one of the local pianists asked me to play some gigs with him, and the word started to get around that there’s a guy who plays fairly decent over at the college, and I started to get more gigs. Then I started to learn from some of these players who were from other places. Some of the guys were from Chicago or from Philadelphia, and maybe they were in the Air Force or just happened to end up in Phoenix for whatever reason. So they would recommend things to me to listen to, who to listen to, and how to listen. That’s how that started.

TP: We’ll hear some of those things, beginning with Jimmy Cobb with Miles Davis. He was and is very much respected for the cleanness of his articulation, the articulation of every stroke. I know musicians refer about this when they speak of you. What did you glean from him?

LEWIS: Jimmy Cobb impressed upon me that the ride cymbal itself… Aside from all the other things he was doing on the drums, when I would put on this particular cut we’re going to hear, or anything from this record, which is Miles Davis In Person: Live, Friday and Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk, Jimmy Cobb’s cymbal beat would pull me in and I would just zero in on it. I used put on this and just play along with it with the ride cymbal, just so I could try to emulate what he’s doing. I still am, actually. But really, talk about clean, articulate and a deep groove, that’s a perfect example.

[MUSIC: Miles-Mobley-Kelly-Chambers-Cobb, “If I Were a Bell”-Blackhawk-1961; Miles-PJJ, “No Blues (Blues #2)”; Miles-Sonny-Klook, “Airegin”-1954]

TP: These tracks offered a great contrast for how different drummers can influence a rhythm section, or indeed the sound of the whole band. You were talking about the different groove – which is ineffable, yet I know you can articulate this – that was attained by Jimmy Cobb and Philly Joe Jones. The whole character of the ensemble is different.

LEWIS: As you said, it’s sometimes difficult to articulate the subtle differences like that. But when you’re dealing with two great drummers, like Philly Joe and Jimmy Cobb, they played with the same group of musicians and brought their own color, shall I say, to it. Their own approach, their own sense of swing, their own sense of dynamics. Both of them made the group sound incredible.

TP: One thing I hear, which I’ll run by you and then take lumps… Philly Joe Jones is all angles, commentary, signifying, pushing, prodding; Jimmy Cobb has more of an even throughline in the groove all the time…

LEWIS: Again, you run into the problem of how to define these things. I can see what you’re saying, although in certain instances Philly Joe would just play in the way you describe how Jimmy Cobb would play – and vice-versa. They had so much variance in the way they approached the drum.

TP: You articulated some incisive characteristics of Jimmy Cobb. A few words about what characterized Philly Joe Jones as a drummer, and specifically what you garnered from him.

LEWIS: For me personally, I liked Philly Joe’s interaction with the group in the sense that his snare drum accents would be varied in dynamic level. He would play really subtle things, and then he would play a rimshot at just the right place. But more importantly than that, his technique was very clean and articulate, which I tended to like more, at the time I was listening to the two of them… When I wanted to focus on my soloing and phrasing and sticking, things like that, I would listen a lot more to Philly Joe’s phrasing. I think that he influenced me quite a bit the way he got around the drums, I guess would be the way I’d say it.

TP: We concluded the set with a track featuring Kenny Clarke – please encapsulate.

LEWIS: Kenny Clarke’s ride cymbal is probably for me one of the most identifiable sounds in jazz history. If I hear a recording and he’s on it, right away, just from the sound of that ride cymbal, I can tell that it’s him. The reason is the kind of forward momentum that it has. It’s constantly pushing… You almost don’t hear the in-between beats. You hear the quarter-note pulse. He’s articulating everything in between, but each of the quarter notes is evenly placed. Consequently it gives that forward momentum. He’s not leaning heavily on 2-or-4 in the ride cymbal or 1-or-3 – they’re really even. That gives a certain push to the music, the way he articulated.

TP: On the first two tracks, the bassist was Paul Chambers. Can you speak a bit to the way the drums and bass interlock?

LEWIS: A very important thing. I often say to young drummers, or drummers with less experience playing, that one of the best ways to figure out what to play and what not to play is to play with great bass players. You can say the same thing to young bass players. If they play with a great drummer, or a drummer plays with a great bassist, all of a sudden things become really clear if you do it on a regular basis, without even much verbal dialogue. Because this person has been doing this for so long, and in with such a high quality of players that it just tells you what to leave out and what to keep in. What we call the hookup between the drummer and bassist is very important. Nothing else is going to take off if that’s not hooked up. If the drummer and bassist are feeling the beat in different places and it sounds like it, nobody else in the band is going to feel comfortable.

TP: When we left off your biography, you’re in college, getting your chops together and your feet wet, as it were, in the desert, in jazz music. Let’s discuss the events that to your becoming a professional drummer. Did the decision come suddenly to you, or did it gradually seem like the logical thing to do?

LEWIS: More like that. As I said, I started to get calls from different professional musicians around the city, and they continually were asking me what I planned to do with music. I really didn’t have any plans with music. I planned to do something else. I didn’t really know what else then. But enough musicians who had the kind of knowledge that I respected, and also who I felt had my best interests at heart, continued to tell me that I should really seriously consider thinking about music as a career choice, based on my abilities and potential. At some point, I suppose I started to listen more closely and I started to think about that. Really, even at the time I came to New York, I still hadn’t wholeheartedly… Well, not at the time I came but just before I came to New York, I was still going back and forth about what I should do. I think I had decided that I wanted to play music, and I knew I wanted to come to New York and see what was going on. But being in Phoenix and having never been to New York, it was vague about what to expect.

Actually, the first time I came was in 1979. And at that time, I was studying with Freddie Waits, who had come through Arizona with Billy Taylor’s trio and I heard him there. We established a rapport and I stayed in touch with him. So I came and studied in the summer of 1979. I went back to Phoenix. After that, having come to New York and experienced that, then I knew. After that, there was no doubt what I had to do. So it was just a matter of preparation to come back. What happened was, Freddie Waits recommended me to Betty Carter, so I came back to work with Betty.

TP: Did you come after Clifford Barbaro?

LEWIS: No. Kenny Washington and then Greg Bandy.

TP: What became apparent to you in studying with Freddie Waits in New York that you had to do to prepare yourself to be a New York musician?

LEWIS: There was a certain kind of intensity that I hadn’t really experienced. When I came in 1979, I went out to the clubs. I went to the Vanguard to see Elvin. I sat right in the front. I was of course like run over by a freight train – there was so much power and so much finesse, too. I heard him play brushes live for the first time. I couldn’t believe it, what a great brush player Elvin was, because I’d always associated him with the sticks, of course. Although there are examples of his playing brushes on record, it was hearing it live that really made me realize what a master of the brushes he was.

I had a chance to hear so many different players. The thing that really hit me was how intense it was. It doesn’t mean that it was too serious. I mean, the guys were having fun. But there was just a certain head that the guys got into when they went onstage to play the music. I realized that even though we’re enjoying it, it’s a serious business, and you have to be serious about your art form and you have to be serious about your instrument. So I went back to Phoenix with all of that in mind, and thinking, ok, I have to get back here at some point.

TP: You had a very thorough apprenticeship with Betty Carter, who’s nurtured many of our strongest younger musicians for several generations.

LEWIS: Right. From 1980 to 1984 I was with Betty. It was one of the best things that could have happened to me at that time in my life.

TP: How does she impart information to a drummer? She incorporates a lot of dynamics in her phrasing and in her tonality. What was it like to adjust to that?

LEWIS: One of the first things she talked about, even in the first rehearsal I ever did with her, was color. She said watch her for color. By that, she was talking about the dynamic changes. Maybe she’d want a sudden shift in dynamics from extremely soft to extremely loud in a couple of beats. I always had to keep my eye on her for direction where she wanted the music to go. It wouldn’t be the same every night. So I learned about the spontaneity involved from working with her. And she loves to groove, definitely, so I really had a chance to figure out what it means to establish a deep groove. I had help, of course. Curtis Lundy was playing bass at the time when I was in the band. I played with several different pianists in her group – Khalid Moss, Benny Green. But she always stressed the fact that she didn’t want things to sound the same, or she didn’t want us to start thinking in cliches. Always searching for something different. I think she still approaches it that way. She probably always will.

TP: Lewis works in many situations, but he’s been the steady drummer in the Tommy Flanagan Trio for five-six years now. We’ll hear a preview of the most recent Tommy Flanagan Trio… [etc.] Speaking of bassists, I guess you and Peter Washington have developed a strong rapport over the years as well.

LEWIS: Definitely. I can’t say enough good things about playing with Peter Washington over the past several years, with Tommy and all the other different groups. So yes, we’ve established quite a rapport.

TP: Talk a bit about the dynamics of playing in different groups? What specifically do you have to pay attention to when you’re playing in the trio?

LEWIS: Well, in the trio, I think you have right away a wider range of possibilities available. Because the sound, the air space I guess you could say, is not filled with other instruments. You have no horn players. You have no other chordal instrument. So the piano trio has a lot of flexibility with that dynamic range. You can play extremely soft. If I lay out somewhere, it gives another texture. This could apply to any other group, too, as well, but especially in the trio. When I change cymbals, for example… We do that in all situations. But in a trio, it seems to stand out more.

TP: In the Tommy Flanagan Trio, how responsive is he to the drummer, and how much does he lead you in terms of what you play?

LEWIS: There’s a whole lot going on there. I love playing with Tommy. I don’t see how any drummer could not enjoy playing with Tommy. The reason I say that is because rhythmically Tommy grew out of the Bud Powell school. Of course, he’s a lot more than that. But I’m just saying that to say that the rhythmic sense is really keen, and he hears drums immediately. If I play something that he likes in comping, he’ll either…he doesn’t have to play exactly what I play, but he could answer it in a certain way, which he does, or he’ll play something equally rhythmically interesting for me to react to. People continually make comments to us about the rapport between the drums and piano, which I think is a great observation and a great to our listening abilities.

TP: I think you and Peter Washington need to devote all your focus and attention, because he will change tunes or play introductions that take you in unexpected directions.

LEWIS: No question.

TP: We’ll hear “Verdandi.” It was a feature for Elvin Jones on its original issue, from 1957.

[MUSIC: Tommy Flanagan 3, “Verdandi”-Sea-Changes-1996; TF3, “Let’s”; Oscar Peterson-Ray Brown-Lewis, “St. Tropez”; Ray Bryant-Ray Brown-Lewis, “Dr. Freezee”–Double RB-1996]

LEWIS: “Verdandi” has another title, “Mean Streets.” actually, all of the drummers who played with Tommy have played that feature with him – Arthur Taylor, Kenny Washington. It’s a staple of his repertoire.

TP: This doesn’t seem to happen so often with drummers as, let’s say, with a tenor player who has to play “Body and Soul” or an alto player playing a Charlie Parker tune. In emulating the drum solo repertoire, you have to find a different path, a different tack. Talk about the challenges.

LEWIS: hmm. You’re right. I guess there isn’t a particular tune that you have to play on the drums necessarily. But I suppose… You’re talking about soloing in particular?

TP: particularly in emulating a solo that’s part of the drum canon.

LEWIS: In general, you have to study the phrasing of a great soloist in order to emulate it. For me, in the modern sense of soloing (when I say “modern,” I’m talking about from the 40s up to now) there’s a certain linear approach. Some people might call it melodic, and some people might say they hear melodies when you play this way. But that’s just to differentiate from a rudimental approach, let’s say, the way drummers were playing in the 30s – a lot of snare drum technique and things like that. Then, when you get further into the 40s with Max Roach and Kenny Clarke and Denzil Best and Shadow Wilson, people like that, even before that with Big Sid Catlett and people like that…it changed that rudimental approach to drumming to something more lyrical. I think most of us today base our styles, where we might be trying to evolve personally, on that approach rather than the snare rudimental way of playing.

TP: Do you think that the term “melodic drumming” is an accurate term? Does one play melodies on the drums. Max Roach is known for playing this way, but he’s also been quoted denying that he plays melodic drums, but rather plays developmentally on rhythmic patterns.

LEWIS: Right. I think probably the reason that’s said is because we have a limited amount of tones available at the drumset. We don’t have 88 keys and we can’t really play chords. So maybe that’s what he’s talking about. But I think you can give the effect of a melodic statement. But it’s a rhythm instrument. So when all is said and done, we are dealing with rhythmic variation of different pitches.

TP: Let’s talk also about the unique aspect of the trap drums. Have you studied much hand drums, for instance?

LEWIS: No, I haven’t actually. Just a little bit, but not very much.

TP: Perhaps it seems like a rudimentary question, but can you talk about the challenge of creatiing a unified whole out of what’s indeed an assemblage of separate components?

LEWIS: As you know, the instrument that I play evolved here in the United States, and it had its start in…guys would put together different pieces, from, say, a marching bass drum and a snare, and just suspend the cymbal in a certain way. That evolved eventually into what we call the modern drumset. The way we look at it today, or the way I like to look at it, is as one instrument. So oftentimes, when I’m practicing, I try to make the parts, my two hands and my two feet, contribute to one whole rhythmic motion. As you can see, it’s difficult to say in certain terms exactly what it is that we’re doing. But I think you want a unified whole to come from these four parts, and the four parts can play four different dynamic levels at the same time, or they can even play four different rhythms at the same time. They can play high and low tones, and that gives a different feeling. Ed Blackwell was someone who I used to watch with such admiration doing that kind of thing.

TP: Almost motionless, too.

LEWIS: Yes. He sat down one time and was showing me: “Your right foot does this, and your left foot does this, and your right hand this and left hand that.” There are books about four-way coordination and four-way independence. But it’s one thing to play something out of a book, and it’s a whole other thing to play something that makes somebody want to dance, and it’s still demonstrating this four-way coordination and independence. It’s really coordination. It’s not really complete independence, I don’t think. It’s not operating independently. They are co-dependent in a certain way.

TP: Back to the two features for you in that last set, “Verdandi” and “Dr. Freezee,” are those notatable, strictly. You’re a fully trained musician, who reads music. In learning those solos, is it by ear or do you notate what they’re doing?

LEWIS: It’s both. You can transcribe drum solos. It’s been done. I’ve done it, and there are people who are very good at doing that. I’ve had some of my solos transcribed, but it’s really hard to play them back because you’re playing spontaneously at the time you play it, and somebody puts it in front of you to play, it’s kind of a shock to see that… The first thing out of your mouth is, “Is that what I played?” It’s a challenge even to play your own ideas when they’re written down. But yes, all of those things can be notated.

TP: In the next set, we’ll return to influences, turning to Max Roach, who more than any drummer has turned the art of playing trap drums into an art form, particularly through his amazing solos. Some of those solos were first premiered on a mid-60s recording for Atlantic called Drums Unlimited, and we’ll hear “Big Sid,” dedicated to Sid Catlett.

LEWIS: My first introduction to Max’s playing was I believe the quintet with Clifford Brown and Sonny Rollins, “Daahoud” and all of those tunes. It really was a pleasure to hear somebody phrase and be creative on the drums in a solo context like that. I hadn’t really heard it done that way before, at the time I first heard it. He was a major, major influence on my whole approach to soloing on the drums, as he was on Philly Joe, and his own contemporaries, and all of us through the whole lineage.

[MUSIC: Max Roach solo, “For Big Sid”-1965; Art Blakey & Messengers, “Mosaic”; Jamal-Crosby-Fournier, “What’s New”]

TP: When “What’s New” came on, after the thunder and sturm und drang of “Mosaic,” Lewis was saying, “Yes, shhhtttt….”

LEWIS: I really enjoy listening to Vernell for a few different reasons. One I’d have to say is his touch. Here we go again with one of those terms that could mean a lot of different things. But the way he touched the drums in that trio with Ahmad Jamal is like artwork to me, especially the use of the brushes. It’s just a classic sound. It’s a way of playing the drums which is…the groove is deep, yet there’s lots of color, there’s lots of space, there’s definition, it’s not wishy-washy but it’s still light and airy at the same time. Or, he could play heavily when he needed to. He’s one of the guys who you really feel the bass drum; when he accents something, it has weight to it. I always liked the way Vernell used the bass drum in that trio as well. Those are a couple of things I like about it.

TP: I think one aspect of New Orleans drummer is the emphatic integration of the bass drum into the kit, which probably comes from the function of the bass drum in parade drumming. Idris Muhammad has described his concept as deriving from standing between the bass drummers in the marching bands in New Orleans.

LEWIS: Right. Idris is another drummer who, when you hear him play, you feel the weight of the beat. I remember the first time I heard him play, I could feel his ride cymbal in my chest. It’s that kind of weightiness to the beat. And the groove is first and foremost with most of the drummers who are out of New Orleans, and especially in those days…and even now.

Another thing about Vernell is that Ahmad would change direction pretty quickly, and it seemed like nothing passed him by. Even though he was just basically playing time, the little subtle things that he would do are really the things that caught my ear in that trio.

TP: Art Blakey also got a low sound from the drums, a heavy sound, though never ponderous, of course. “Mosaic” is one of many classics by the Messengers, and millions of words have been uttered about Art Blakey. What are yours?

LEWIS: Well, he’s probably the first… Actually, the first time I went to the record store with my own money to buy a jazz record, it was Art Blakey. Is that true… Well, near the first time. I think I might have gotten Milestones or Round About Midnight first. But somewhere in that very beginning stage, when I first started to buy records, I bought Live at Birdland with Clifford Brown, Lou Donaldson, that group, and right away I said “Wherever this style came from, I love it and I need to buy some more of this.” So I went back to the record store and said to the salesman… You have to remember, at this time it’s all new to me. I am trying to figure out what’s going on. The guy who worked in the record store happened to be going to college with me. His name is Allen Chase…

TP: Who is a distinguished, and is currently Chairman of the Jazz Faculty at New England Conservatory.

LEWIS: That’s right. We went to school at the same time. The first time I went in there, he asked, “Do you know who Philly Joe Jones is?” and “Do you have any John Coltrane records?” I said “no.” I wasn’t really familiar. I’m in college at this time already. It’s kind of a late start. But that’s what it was…the first one I bought was Blue Trane. Philly Joe was on there, and Trane of course, Curtis Fuller, Lee Morgan, Kenny Drew. I went back and I said, “I want some more of this kind of music,” so he recommended to me with Philly Joe Milestones and Round About Midnight. Then I went back again and he said, “Ok, a different drummer; try this one, Art Blakey” – and it was those Live at Birdland sessions. It was a good thing he knew what he was talking about. The salesman can lead you astray sometimes.

For all the times I heard Art on record, I didn’t really feel the impact until I actually saw him and heard him live. It was really overwhelming to watch him and hear him and just feel what he could do with the music. One of my biggest influences of all time is Art Blakey. He could mold young musicians, could make inexperienced musicians sound experienced. He could make a boring chart sound exciting. He could just do all of that. There’s recordings of Art where he doesn’t necessarily play as hard as…you know, with all of that ferociousness that we attribute to him. There’s a Hank Mobley record called Soul Station that’s Art Blakey, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Hank, and Art plays some really subtle things on there. He just grooves, stays down pretty…

TP: He was a real link as well to what you described as the premodern sound of drums. He kept the primal essence of a big band drummer like Chick Webb with the modern phrasing and vocabulary.

LEWIS: Right.

TP: Can you speak a bit to the utility to a contemporary drummer of the pre-war styles of drumming. You were distinguishing before between one as more rudimentary oriented and the other being more complex and linear. For example, when listening to Sid Catlett, Baby Dodds, Chick Webb, Jimmy Crawford, other top drummers of the period, what do you take from it and how does it filter into what you do?

LEWIS: Let me think. Those drummers played for dancers a lot, probably most of the time. They knew how to make someone just leap out of their seat onto the dance floor, because the groove and the feeling and the propulsion was just so…

TP: Chorus lines, too.

LEWIS: Exactly. I guess if there’s anything I would get from them aside from the great beat that they had, it was just the ability to make music feel a certain way so that people would want to dance or clap their hands or shout or whatever. In a certain sense, we’ve gotten so involved in ourselves in terms of our chops and how creative we’re being and all of this, and we forget to make people feel something. That doesn’t mean that we have to simplify everything. We can still be complex and still be creative and all that. But around the world, people still love to dance. I don’t think that’s ever going to stop.

TP: Sometimes they’re dancing to drum machines.

LEWIS: Well, that’s too bad.

TP: But the drum machine will never replace a jazz drummer.

LEWIS: It sure won’t replace Art Blakey; that’s for sure.

TP: The next two tracks feature the rhythm section of Mulgrew Miller, Christian McBride and Lewis Nash, who function like a well-oiled machine as the cliche goes. First is from Hand In Hand, Mulgrew’s 1993 recording for Novus – “Leilani’s Leap” with Kenny Garrett on alto saxophone; and Steve Nelson on vibraphone.

[MUSIC: Mulgrew, “Leilani’s Leap”; Lovano-Mulgrew-McBride-Nash, “Little Willie Leaps”; Eddie Henderson, “Dark Shadows”; JALC with Lewis, “Things To Come”]]

TP: “Dark Shadows” featured the double drums of Lewis on left channel and Billy Hart in the right, with Eddie Henderson on trumpet, Kevin Hays and Ed Howard…

Let’s talk about playing lucidly at the tempo on “Little Willie Leaps.” One thing about the 1940s and bebop is that tempos like that have not been played before or even since. Once Roy Haynes was up here with his son Graham, and I asked Graham if he had a question, and he asked, “How did you play those tempos?” So that’s the question. Playing something logically, lucidly, organized, like that.

LEWIS: Well, I don’t know if there’s one secret; there’s probably a couple. I played tempos that fast when I first came to New York and played with Betty Carter. So I got a jump start, so to speak, on those. Betty would take things at breakneck tempos like that, and then all of a sudden she’d be at a ballad so slow, as Kenny Washington likes to say, you could go out for a cup of coffee in between beats. She had all the extremes. So I had a lot of practice playing at those tempos. Also, another person who likes to play those kind of breakneck tempos is George Coleman. You have to not take it so seriously. I find that if I smile…just take your mind off the fact that it’s moving along that quickly. I know a lot of people are probably saying, “Yeah, sure.” But it really involves trying to relax the rest of your body. Not so much your hand and your arm that are playing the tempo, but the rest of you. Not letting your shoulders tense up. Breathe. Don’t hold your breath.

TP: Is that the case for all tempos? To what extent now are you counting or actually thinking specifically about the rudiments of what you’re doing?

LEWIS: You start to feel the tempos. Max used to play tempos like that, and even faster, and Sonny Rollins. In those days I guess it was something everybody did. Not many people do it these days. But you don’t really count. You have to feel where the pulsation is. At those tempos you can’t be counting 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4. It’s like you feel certain parts of the pulse, and you keep the momentum going, and you keep a certain cycle of pulse going, I guess would be a way of saying it. Remember the forward momentum I was talking about with Kenny Clarke? The same thing. At this tempo, you have to keep the momentum moving forward. With those hits that were going on in that “Things To Come” that we heard, the horn players all had to have great time in order to execute like that – and they did. That’s another thing. Everyone has to have great time, not just the drummer.

TP: The drummer helps, though.

LEWIS: Definitely.

TP: The track featuring you and Billy Hart together shows some of the delights and difficulties of jazz in the studio. You’d be hard-pressed to think of two more imaginative drummers than Lewis and Billy Hart, with contrasting styles, but across a wide range. You went in the studio and were presented with the music and had to figure out what to do on the spot.

LEWIS: Right.

TP: So in that situation, you didn’t have an opportunity to work with the music for a few days and get something going.

LEWIS: That happens quite often in the studio. Even if you have a rehearsal a couple of days before, if it’s not a working group… All of us who play could give examples of how a piece of music has evolved over a period of a tour for several weeks or even several months of playing music, from where it was when you first got the piece of music. So oftentimes, a studio version of music hasn’t evolved to the place where it’s going to be. Miles Davis’ group in the 60s with Ron Carter and Herbie and Tony and Wayne is a perfect example of how the music could evolve through playing live. If you listen to some of the things at the Plugged Nickel sessions, that music that they played and played on subsequent nights; after they’d played it a certain way, the next night they’d add something else, take something else away. That’s across the board with all groups and all pieces of music.

TP: Yet, being a contemporary in our day and age, with the marketplace being what it is for recordings and the type of travel you have to do, you’re faced with that situation a lot — going into a studio and being presented with music to play. How do you stay fresh and creative in a situation like that?

LEWIS: You have to be daring. And to be daring in the studio is really a trip, because oftentimes, in order to make something work, you have to play much more simply than you might have thought after… You play something, and you go in the booth and listen to the playback, and you say, “Hmm, I’m playing too busily here” or “I’m playing too much in there; I should leave more space.” So it’s an editing process that goes on. But even doing that, we don’t want to make the music boring and too much the same. So you have to carry with you a spirit of daring, to try things, because that’s what we’re supposed to be doing. The sound of surprise, and this creative thing that we’re supposed to be carrying on is to do something that hasn’t been done quite that way. Maybe not everything, but something out of a piece of music has to…

TP: Having internalized hundreds of thousands of different sticking and timbral combinations, you come up with variants just by dint of having played so often.

LEWIS: Right. I think one thing that helps in the studio is the level of the musicians involved, and the comfort level they have with each other also allows… Even if it’s the first time and they haven’t played the music on the road, it allows for a lot more freedom and creativity because the trust factor is there.

TP: Speaking of a live band, a superior recent document of same are the two Joe Lovano Quartet recordings, both taken late during a week at the Vanguard. On “Little Willie Leaps’ you did some rather extended exchanges with Joe, and you were mentioning that people don’t necessarily realize the demands that are placed on a rhythm section. You once related to me a story from the days you were playing with Sonny Rollins, that someone timed you playing about 40 minutes of exchanges with him at some point.

LEWIS: We played fours at least 30-35 minutes; someone timed it close to 40. It’s the first time I’d ever done that, and especially on that level with somebody like Sonny. I would think to myself every time we’d get to a four…we were exchanging fours, and after a while, after maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes, I felt like I couldn’t come up anything…I wasn’t thinking of anything new to play — and just when that thought would come to my mind, Sonny would play something rhythmically that would lead me to something else to play. So the guys out front can definitely be a big inspiration to us in playing the drums.

TP: Lewis could not let a Musician Show without presenting music by Arthur Taylor and Elvin Jones, both with John Coltrane, who could take 40-minute solos himself in the band with Elvin.

LEWIS: I really miss A.T., and I’m sure the whole jazz community does. I feel fortunate I had a chance to listen to him many, many times live. The last time that I recall here in New York, I actually was on my way somewhere else and I had to get there, and I stopped in for one set and I ended up staying all night and I never got to the place I was going because he was playing so great. One of the greats of all time.

[MUSIC: John Coltrane-Flanagan-Chambers-AT, “Countdown”; Coltrane 4-Elvin, “Liberia”]

LEWIS: Those rolling triplets. Elvin is one of my favorites of all time. The feeling is just like a drum ensemble in complete agreement with each other. I don’t have words to describe it. It’s just a great feeling listening to Elvin play. You have to pay attention. You’ll get lost listening to Elvin if you’re trying to count and everything, because sometimes you can’t count. You just have to feel where his pulse is coming from. I’ve seen horn players start looking at each other, like, “Where are we?” Because it’s complex, but it’s really simple at the same time in a certain sense. By “simple” I mean direct. Not uncomplicated, but direct. Elvin states the beat. Tommy Flanagan talks to me a lot…well, he doesn’t talk to me a lot, but I’ve asked him, and he told me how he likes playing with Elvin. There’s a certain feeling he… It’s one of those things again; here we go again. It’s hard to really say why. It’s just a certain feeling that he gives that probably allows Tommy or whoever it is who likes playing with Elvin to be more themselves.

I think that’s probably part of the art of accompaniment, or the reason why people like to play with you. Not so much that they like what you play (I’m sure that is a big part of it), but you playing with them allows them to play the way they like to play.

TP: It’s as though your individual stamp creates a dynamic space or aura that gives whatever is going on its particular vibration.

LEWIS: For sure.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to play things by all my favorites. I’m influenced by so many people, including my peers, who of course we can’t get to. But Frankie Dunlap, Frank Butler, Billy Higgins, Ben Riley, Charlie Persip, Connie Kay, Mickey Roker, Tony Williams, and names I haven’t called who I’m sure play a big part in my whole outlook on this thing. I’d like to thank all of them.

TP: We’ll conclude with a duo by Lewis and Kevin Mahogany, emulating the drums with his voice, on “Confirmation” on Double Rainbow.

[MUSIC: Lewis-Kevin Mahogany, “Confirmation”]

[END OF CONVERSATION]

For Danilo Pérez’s 50th Birthday, an Uncut Blindfold Test From 2001 and a WKCR Interview from 1993

Best of birthdays to Danilo Pérez, pianist-composer-educator-humanitarian, who turns 50 today. I’ve posted the uncut proceedings of a DownBeat Blindfold Test that we did in 2001, and the transcript of a WKCR Musicians Show that Danilo did with me in 1993, around the release of his eponymous debut album. I’ve also linked to DownBeat features I’ve written about Danilo that were published, respectively, in 2010 and 2014.

 

Danilo Perez (Blindfold Test – Raw Copy) – (3-29-01):

1. John Lewis, “One! Of Parker’s Moods,” EVOLUTION II (Atlantic, 2000). (George Mraz, bass; Lewis Nash, drums) – (5 stars)

Man, it’s like the blues told by somebody who really was there. Ain’t nobody… He’s got a classical sound, too, but it’s jazz. I only know one guy who can play like that, with quoting some Bird things — John Lewis. Man, that’s BAD! Is that John? What record is that? [The latest.] Oh my goodness, you would have got me. But the sound is a vocal sound, man, in his playing, and minimalistic to the end, with so much clarity. I wish I could one day play half that good man. Check that out. He’s just so clear. The sound. [And you know the tune.] This is Bird, “Parker’s Mood.” 5 stars definitely. This is just so clear. I hit it! That was a great example of clarity and right to the point. The phrases are all…it was all clear. The phrasing, man. It was the piano being played, but I could hear the humming, the vocal quality to the music.

2. Michel Camilo, “Night In Tunisia,” THRU MY EYES (Tropijazz, 1997) (Patitucci, bass; Horacio Hernandez, drums) – (3-1/2 stars)

[AFTER IT’S OVER] Wow, that’s definitely “Night In Tunisia.” There’s a lot of energy on it. Sometimes it didn’t flow as good for me. It reminded me in parts of somebody who I met in Panama many years ago; just a couple of parts, not everything, but he had a couple of things that remind me of one of my heroes, but he wasn’t as flowing as I was used to hearing him playing — Jorge Dalto. It definitely wasn’t Emiliano. There were some parts where I couldn’t tell really who it was. It was a nice version of “Night In Tunisia.” It was a nice combination of lines with… It was a great attempt to say certain things, but it didn’t… 3-1/2 stars. [AFTER] It didn’t flow as well for me. He was actually trying for something different in this. I couldn’t recognize Michel. He was trying some different stuff, and that’s probably the most positive thing about it that he was trying some different stuff. He wasn’t doing the octave runs and all the things that are Michel’s trademark. He was doing something totally different, which I feel is the true essence of jazz.

3. Jorge Dalto, “Avenida Buenos Aires,” LATIN JAZZ: LIVE FROM SOUNDSCAPE (DIW, 1981/1997) – (4 stars)

That sounds like Jorge. It’s one of those rare occasions where he was caught up in a very open sound, very improvised. He’s got traces of a lot of history there. I really enjoy it. I have to give it 4 for the tuning of the piano! But wow, it’s so beautiful. You can hear the whole Pan-American approach to the piano. He brought a lot of dimension to this. When I was listening to this, I could hear New York and I could hear also Los Andes. He managed to play in a way that gives you an organic ride from New York City, with that element of energy in his playing, and kills, too, all the way to the Indians and playing the little flute sonata, which was a part that he did. Right here you’re stopped in the traffic from the airport to Manhattan! He was storyteller, man. Wow, amazing.

4. Joe Zawinul, “Two Lines,” WORLD TOUR (Zebra, 1998) – (4 stars)

This has definitely been influenced by Weather Report. There’s no doubt about it. Let me keep listening. I can hear that whole Joe Zawinul-Wayne Shorter school, definitely. [AFTER] Definitely. That’s one of the newest groups. To me that’s the essence of being a creative force, to be able to stamp. You can hear the stamp right there. We were just so spoiled to the Weather Report thing, but he’s trying definitely for new things on this one. You can’t help but to think on the great group that he had with Wayne Shorter and Jaco and the group that they put together. Just because that has been such an inspiration on how to make a sound; really, the sound he gets from the keyboards is masterful. It’s different than he used to, but still you can hear that voice in there. I would definitely give 4 stars to the Master Zawinul.

5. David Kikoski, “Water,” ALMOST TWILIGHT (Criss Cross, 1999) – (John Patitucci, bass; Jeff Watts, drums) – (4 stars)

This reminds me of Joey Calderazzo a bit. But it’s got some rhythm things, really interesting stuff. I can recognize the drums — Tain definitely. And Patitucci? The piano reminds me of Joey a little bit. Oh, do you know who that could be? That could be my brother, Kikoski. That’s it. That’s what it is. I know Dave a long time, and he’s a truly underrated musician. We’ve come a long way together. Yeah, that’s the sound I was hearing. It’s got that McCoy thing, that Herbie thing, but it’s definitely Dave; I can definitely hear that rhythmically. I haven’t listened to him as much as I used to. He changed, too, a lot. There’s some nice stuff he’s mixed between Herbie, floating the line with the pentatonic stuff, and he’s making some real interesting rhythmic stuff, mixing up the Latin thing and different rhythms — really open playing. Four stars. Oh my goodness. I said, “I KNOW that sound.”

6. Barry Harris, “I’ll Keep Loving You,” I’M OLD FASHIONED (Alfa, 1998) (George Mraz, bass; Leroy Williams, drums) – (5 stars)

It’s somebody who knows about Bud! It’s not Bud, but somebody who knows about that shit. Nice recording. In the progressions, a lot of the runs he plays… This sounds like an original to me, but with the standard vibe. It’s really well-done. How he got to that minor-VII flat-V reminded me a lot of the way Barry Harris would do it. You almost got me because it’s a recent recording. The piano sounds so good! I’ll definitely give 5 stars to this. I know this tune. Is it Dizzy’s? [AFTER] Oh, that’s very nice. Yeah, he put something else on that one. It’s the way he got to that chord and the mastery of the idiom. He’s playing it from the heart. That’s HIM. The sound of the instrument is a very fresh, new recording. Is that relatively new? It sounds so beautiful.

7. Kenny Kirkland, “Chance,” KENNY KIRKLAND (GRP, 1991) – (5 stars)

That’s an incredible coincidence! [In the first second you said…] That’s Kenny. That’s what I was listening to when I woke up, this tune. This is amazing, man. I haven’t listened to that record since it came out. And this morning I just took it out, and as I was listening, I was crying. There was something spiritual about it. The whole tune, the whole record… What he’s doing with the harmonies, they are very unpredictable. They’re coming out of that school, that Herbie-Wayne type of writing. Not writing tunes, but compositions really. A great influence to me in the way he played the piano. He had no barriers or borders. He encompasses the whole history. I remember so many amazing moments when I started hearing him live, with his energy and rhythmic ideas and the interaction between them in the band with Branford. He’ll be remembered forever. And it’s an incredible spiritual awakening that this morning I got up thinking about him, and you played that, and that’s what I was playing. That’s deep. I miss him. I really do. I miss his power. 5 stars. The only recording he left as a leader, but it encompasses a lot. A lot of ground. A great inspiration for us.

8. McCoy Tyner (solo), “Sweet and Lovely,” JAZZ ROOTS (Telarc, 2000) – (5 stars)

McCoy Tyner. There’s only one guy who can play like that. I’m trying to think of the tune. [SINGS MELODY] Where do I know this tune from? Jon Hendricks taught me a lot of these tunes; we used to play it with the repertory. Because I didn’t know any of this very well. Ah, it’s “Sweet and Lovely.” Art Tatum did a version of this. It’s great to hear McCoy play solo. [McCOY MAKES A RUN] Oh my goodness. I don’t know how to say anything that hasn’t been said. When I hear that, I can hear the true essence of African drums and the true essence of Afro-American piano being played. It’s like coming out of that school, like Monk, for example, that even if they play a scale or a device used by classical musicians, like Debussy, whole-tone or whatever, it doesn’t sound Classical. There is an African-American sound. His own unparalleled sense of time. He’s in really top form here. McCoy is one of the guys who makes you struggle trying to figure out what he’s doing. His thing is like you can’t really figure it out. He’s a force, a powerful force when he plays piano. That’s why I say you feel on this piano a bursting of energy coming out. Definitely 5 stars. It’s so great hearing McCoy play solo.

9. Emiliano Salvador, “Preludio Y Vision & Nueva Vision,” NUEVA VISION (Qbadisc, 1978/1995).

Another out of tune piano. [AFTER HORNS ENTER] Emiliano Salvador. This is a classic. This is the band with Arturo and Paquito. This is one of the big influences. I did a record called “The Journey” and I dedicated one tune to him. Man, it’s so great, the way you had McCoy, and you can hear the influence of McCoy in his playing. I don’t know how he got it, man. He was from Puerto Padre. But truly understanding of the essence of jazz. You can hear it in his music. He’s one of my favorites as far as coming from Latin America and mixing up all this… That’s Bobby Carcasses singing. This is a classic record. It’s a model for everybody, called “Nueva Vision.” [AFTER] Paquito told me many stories about him, about how he was able to play swing on drums and really understanding jazz element. He was able to cross over from Latin to Jazz in an incredibly organic way. For me he has been a big influence, and for me, this is a record that should be on your shelf. Another thing I was going to say is that he really understood the essence of how to mix worlds in a very organic way. I can hear a Woody Shaw influence in there, and McCoy definitely, and Paquito said even Roy Haynes on his drumming. And nobody understands how he got all of that. It’s unfortunate how he never got to play or never got known among the American artists. He was ahead of his time, playing different meters, too. He was into that. A big-big influence.

10. Edward Simon, “Colega,” EDWARD SIMON (Kokopelli, 1995) (Simon, piano; Mark Turner, tenor sax; Larry Grenadier, bass; Adam Cruz, drums) – (5 stars)

That’s Mark Turner. The way it started at first, I thought it was the whole school that we developed with David, the whole way of playing the bass against the rhythms and all the harmony. There’s just one more cat that I think it would be… Oh ,that’s my brother, Ed Simon. He dedicated this tune to me. It’s called “Colega.” There’s a whole school of playing the bass and the clave and all of that. Really, I’m so honored that he did that for me. I think I heard this once or twice a long time ago when it came out. [Do you know who the bass and drummer are?] [LISTENS FOR LAST 3 MINUTES] No. Oh, Larry! That’s my people, man! Sorry. Totally killing! It’s been a force in the whole crossover thing with being able to break and bridge all these stereotypes about Latinos playing straight-ahead, and I’m proud of Ed for being so honest about what he does and being all about the music. A true inspiration. We came out together and I love him dearly for all he does. I don’t listen to him as much as I used to, just because he’s such a strong force in his music that I want to keep focusing on what I am doing. But I am aware. And as soon as he started playing, I knew it was him. Ed Simon is part of the whole force of Latinos breaking and reaching up to play straight-ahead. He’s just so in-tune with the music. There’s a lot of honesty in his playing. I’m biased because I’m a good friend, but I really admire him. He happens to be a great source of inspiration. For Ed, and especially for that tune, 5 stars! I have to write something for him, too.

11. Uri Caine, “Stain,” BLUE WAIL (Winter&Winter, 1997) (James Genus, bass; Ralph Peterson, drums) – (4-1/2 stars)

This is an interesting mixture of new and old there. An interesting mixture of what is reminiscent and moving forward that is interesting to me. I recognize a blues essence, a blues sound, and I am trying to figure out… [LAUGHS] It’s great to see that… See, that’s like playing with the sound of the blues… There’s a rhythmic language that reminds me… There’s one guy who can do that, who has that language — Marcus Roberts maybe. No? Another guy is maybe Joey Calderazzo. [AFTER] Oh my goodness, I didn’t get it. The drummer sounded a little like Tain sometimes. Somebody in that vein? Somebody I know very well probably. I wasn’t paying attention to him. I was just blown away by the piano. One thing I appreciate about this is that there was a mixture of reminiscent and moving forward. Very interesting. I was really stimulated by the traveling. Definitely 4-1/2. There was a Kenny Kirkland influence there, of course, in the beginning actually

12. Papo Lucca/Sonora Poncena, “Cappucino”  ON THE RIGHT TRACK (Inca, 1988) (Chick Corea, composer) – (5 stars)

You’re trying to trick me, but you ain’t gonna trick me with this, because that’s my hero. Let me make sure before I say it. Oh, huge time! If it’s not Papo ,I don’t know who it is. That’s a very unusual recording, and I don’t know it. But that’s one of my mentors. He was a big influence in the beginning. He’s the guy who introduced me to all the new tumbaos and montunos he was doing, but also mixing it up with… You can hear he’s taking from jazz here and there, listening to Oscar Peterson. I don’t know the tune. It’s interesting. It’s great. I recognize the sound and the voicings with the horns. He’s got a very peculiar way of harmonizing. I owe him a lot. The way he plays the time, it’s a very huge… It’s deep. He sounds in control all the time, too. Very mature playing. I think he’s truly an underrated musician. I’ve got to give Papo 5 stars. That’s my man. It’s a tricky one, because it’s got that Papo sound, but also because of Chick’s tune there is this contemporary environment for him that you usually don’t hear Papo play in normally. That’s where you’re trying to trick me!

13. Eliane Elias/Herbie Hancock, “The Way You Look Tonight,” [Eliane Elias, SOLOS AND DUETS (Blue Note, 1994)] – (5 stars)

I hear Herbie Hancock. They’re going for a journey, man. They’re going for a ride. I don’t know who the second pianist is yet. I heard at Birdland the other day someone I haven’t listened to for so long, and this reminds me of that — Eliane Elias. [You did it!] Yeah? Just to feel that sound and the personality coming through. I’m blown away. This is beautiful. They took a journey, they took a ride together. When you hear music like this, what can you say? They’re just taking you for a ride. Wow! This is a great lesson in duo piano. I’m really proud of her. And obviously, as you know, Herbie has been an influence on all of us. I didn’t get that there were two different persons at the beginning; it sounded so integral. That’s the beauty about music, when it’s connected. It could become a one (?) dimension. They discovered a lot of places in that. I don’t know this recording. Wow, it’s beautiful. I definitely want to get it. But I heard her at Birdland one night recently, and she was totally in control. Such a beautiful player. Beautiful music. The technique with the essence of music becomes one. You’re not aware of how much she can play. It’s just music. And Herbie, what can you say about him? Herbie is like a river, an endless amount of ideas and creativity.. And when you think you know what he’s going to do, he’ll trick you, he’ll turn it around. I admire him a lot. He’s definitely an incredible inspiration. I feel strange giving a rating to this stuff. This wouldn’t even belong in 5 stars; it goes beyond that! I This is some really beautiful playing. Amazing.

A lot of the tunes… On radio in Panama, they didn’t announce the tunes. I didn’t learn English until I came here, so a lot of the tunes I know by the sound or by the melody, or I know it in Spanish. I’ve learned a lot of lyrics hanging out with Roy Haynes. He knows a lot of tunes. Sometimes, when I’ve played certain melodies, he’ll say “that doesn’t go like that; the lyrics go like this.” It’s been an incredible experience. Being around Jon Hendricks, too. They taught me a lot.

14. Marcus Roberts, “Groove Until You Move”, IN HONOR OF DUKE (Columbia, 1999) (w/Antonio Sanchez, drums; Jason Marsalis, perc.) – (5 stars)

Two years ago I had an incredible experience in Seattle, playing at the Jazz Alley opposite Marcus. That was a great week for me as sharing. A lot of these guys are very serious and loving with the music, and sharing… That’s definitely the sound. I remember that sound. I don’t what recording it is, but there’s a blues quality to it, there’s a Latin tinge to this, a connection to the sound that has that same feeling as the other piece you played me — the past and the future. [Who is the drummer?] That’s coming from our school, the way we plays time, so that’s got to be Antonio. It’s the way we deal with the rhythms. Oh, that’s the record he did with him. It’s definitely killing. Marcus’ association with Antonio came from that week. It was an incredible week. That was the first time I used Essiet, and Marcus would be there listening every set. He’d never heard me before. He was very giving; he just cracked me up. I learned so much in that week. He’s calling me mid-day, “What you doing?” “I’m practicing!” He was very competitive that whole week in a very healthy way, in a way that was about love. I remember him at the end of the week saying “We brought a lot of gumbo for you guys, but you guys brought 200 pounds of rice-and beans.” He was so funny. That’s totally killing. I can her the sound of the blues with the Latin… The whole history. That connection with the Latin tinge. That’s one thing that should be clear by now, that Latin Jazz shouldn’t be Latin Jazz like just another thing, that there is also Latin Jazz. When Jazz is called “Jazz,” it already implies having the Latin tinge. 5 stars.

15. Eddie Palmieri, “Dona Tere”, VORTEX (RMM, 1996) – (5 stars)

I’m hearing Eddie; it has Eddie’s energy on it. That humor in his playing, too. If it’s not Eddie, I don’t know who it is. Is that Conrad Herwig playing trombone? And Donald and maybe Brian Lynch. Killing! It’s a very unusual Eddie, though. I’m so used to hearing him live with the electric, and it’s great to hear him play acoustic. And there’s a laid-back feeling, too, very relaxed. also, he’s playing more harmony than normal, and he’s doing so many different things, where he’s keeping one hand going and the left hand going… Wow! It’s great to see that he can change. He’s been doing something different, definitely. There is a subtle quality to Eddie’s playing here that I don’t usually appreciate when you hear him on the electric piano. Really beautiful. The way he created a sound between Monk and his McCoy kind of voices made it definitely a recognizable sound. The way he orchestrated horns, too. The way he plays also traditional things — six, then all of a sudden a four-four thing, then back to traditional tumbao. I think the star rating for Eddie doesn’t really belong; he’s a star by himself…! You can’t give Eddie… Especially the fact that he’s trying to do something new, that he’s going for something different. But since we have to…5 stars.

 

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Danilo Perez,WKCR Musician Show (6-9-93):

Q: You’re playing at Bradley’s this week with a quartet that has two different configurations, two different saxophonists.

DP: Yeah, we started on Monday with David Sanchez on tenor, and then Larry Grenadier on bass and Dan Rieser on drums. And today through Saturday, Mr. George Garzone on tenor.

Q: Now, he’s an associate of yours from Boston for a long time.

DP: Right.

Q: And a lot of your career in the United States has been located… It’s been sort of a center of operations for you.

DP: In Boston, yeah. Just because I moved there… That was one of my first places I moved to. But actually, I’ve moved so much that New York also has been… I’ve been around here a lot.

Q: I’d like to talk a little bit about your record [Danilo Perez [RCA]) before we get into the Musician Show aspect of playing music that’s influenced you and giving a window on you as a musician. There’s a wide range of material that goes from your origins in Panama to the work in Jazz that you do today. Tell us a little bit about how you came to the selections on the record.

DP: Actually, the record represents my influences that I’ve had from since I was a child, from my father singing, playing me boleros and Latin music, to Dizzy Gillespie, you know, and to Paquito, to Tom Harrell… I chose the tunes to represent every part of America, like South America, then you’ve got Argentina, you’ve got Brazil, you’ve got Panama, then you’ve got Cuba, and then you’ve got North America which his a… If there is a name for the record, it would probably be “This Is My America” or “Interior Caribe,” which is a way to look in at Caribbean things, but knowing that in the… You can see it. You have to really listen to and hear that it’s being influenced by Caribbean. You know what I’m saying? I mean, it’s not so obvious.

Q: When you were coming up as a young musician, were you exposed to a broad range of Caribbean music, or specific styles in Panama?

DP: Oh yeah. The first thing I learned was the clave, the percussion. My father gave me the bongos when I was two years old; at three I was already playing bongos. And I started playing Classical music when I was eight years old. But my training with my father was mostly old Cuban records, Sonora Matancera, Papo Lucca, Peruchin, until I was like 16-17. But at the same time, there was a neighbor of mine in my neighborhood, who used to play records by Freddie and Stanley Turrentine. And I didn’t know who they were; I was just enjoying it every time he played it. So I didn’t know what was that. But since I was like 7 or 8, I’ve been listening in a way, very partial, but also a little bit of that…

Q: Is your father a musician?

DP: My father is a singer, yeah. And he used to sing around. Actually, I got him out of being retired to go back and sing so I could play with him!

Q: What kind of bands was he…? Was he fronting bands as a singer?

DP: Yeah. Latin, Boleros, Salsa. My father is what is called, like, a sonero, which is sort of like an improviser, because he improvised mostly words and melodies on his part. So it’s a little bit jazzy, the concept. It’s like a Benny More type of thing, sonero, you know.

[ETC.]

Q: …we’ll hear “Alfonsina Y El Mar.” Forgive my pronunciation.

DP: No, that was great. This is a tune written by a woman that…you know, it’s sort of like a love story. She killed herself walking through the sea. She was a great writer, Alfonsina. And it’s a very famous and very historical tune in Argentina. So I thought it would make a great representation of what South America is.

[MUSIC]

That was “Alfonsina Y El Mar,” from Argentina. It’s a composition by Ariel Ramirez and Félix Luna. You could hear that we… That’s the mood of the record, you know, which was a really low-key, really relaxed and meditation type record…

Q: A smoldering mood on your record.

DP: That’s right.

Q: We’re speaking with Danilo Pérez on the Musician Show. Again, Danilo is at Bradley’s this week, and I guess beginning tonight it’s the quartet that features George Garzone on saxophone, Larry Grenadier on bass, and Dan Rieser.

DP: This is a quartet that’s been working now. We’ve been working together for two months now, so we’re trying to get that group type of vibe.

Q: Is it the same sort of variety of material that’s on this record?

DP: Definitely. And we do also a lot of, like, standards but arranged in a different way. Last night James Williams was there, and he was happy. He’s a great cat. He was, like, “I’m leaving after this tune because I’ve got to go home” — and he stayed all night, man. So that was a real compliment.

Q: Is he someone that you ran into in Boston?

DP: Well, James and I…you know, one day when… Donald Brown was my teacher at Berklee, and a couple of times James gave me a lesson when he subbed for Donald. And there has always been like a really great vibe from that; you know, you have a little school going on there, which is great — Mulgrew and Donald Brown… I learned a lot about the music just seeing him play, and then getting to talk with him and asking him questions and stuff like that.

Q: We’ll next get into a set of Latin piano, and I take it this is the music that you really cut your teeth on…

DP: That’s the music that influenced me since I was probably four years old until I was 14, 15 years old.

Q: You were playing Classical piano. Were you also playing gigs where you did things besides Classical?

DP: Yeah, I started playing a lot… You know, it’s a funny story, because I used to play bongos with my father, and one time the piano player, who used to make the arrangements and was a great friend of my father, he’d get up and ask me to come and play so he could hear the band. And then I sat in and played, and I was really working… That was kind of new, those tumbaos that he was playing. And everybody in the band was like, “Yeah, stay there!” From then on I started playing piano, yeah.

Q: Would you say the piano and the drum is related in any way?

DP: Oh yeah. Well, see, because I started playing percussion, I relate to the piano. In Latin music, the piano is a very percussive instrument, and you have to play like a conga, like the timbales, like the bongos — you’ve got to know all of that to really… The piano actually is like a guajiro(?); it’s doing the work of the tres. And you’ve got to try to imitate the string sound [CON-KI-CON, CO-CO-CON-KI-KI-CON…]. You don’t play so much, you know, looking for chords to play. You’ve got to make a groove going on and just, like, you know, kill it. It’s like Funk, you know; it’s like playing…

Q: The whole rhythm section is really that way, because the bass in Latin music is very drum-like.

DP: Yeah. Everybody has to have this feeling for… You’ve got to know what the timbales does, what the conga does, what everybody does, how to phrase, and then how to really play your tumbao, your guajiros, you know.

Q: And the rhythms of each genre are very specific rhythms.

DP: Right. The bass is doing… The basic thing that it comes from is from the son montuno. That’s the base of everything. And the bass used to… In the old times the bass used to go like PUM-PI-PUM, BE-BE, PUM-PI-PUM, BE-BE-PUM-PI-PUM, and the piano was GUM-TI-GUM, DUM, GUM-TILI-KON-KON, GUM-TI-KON-KON-KON… [CLAPS AND SINGS RHYTHM] Then by the time the pieces started to get more contemporary, and they said, “Don’t play so much,” they’d say [SINGS RHYTHM, LEAVES OUT BEATS], and then more and more it was starting to get more mixed… We’re going to get there with how do you mix all of that son montuno with different…with guarachas…how it’s starting to take it from all different sequences for different rhythms, and to get to the point now which is actually playing 6/8, which is the African thing on 4/4, what they call songo(?) now.

Q: Is this very easy to apply to your playing in a jazz situation?

DP: Well, at first it was difficult, because the way we phrase is the way we talk. The Latin musicians, the Latin… We speak very, like, “oh-yeah-man…” [RAPID FIRE] — that’s the way kind of we phrase. We phrase like POP-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA, PA-PA-PA, PA-PA-PA-DE-DE-DE-DUP-PA-PA. And the Jazz music is a language…the brothers don’t speak like that. They talk, “Hey, man, what’s happening, man, you know, hey, cool.” And that’s the way they play. They slink through the things, like VROOM, DU-DE-DE-LADLE, DU-DU-BUDDLIE-DU-LADLE… They slink, while we go PA-PA-PA…

Q: More behind the beat.

DP: Right. And it’s not perfect. That’s what makes it so beautiful. It’s the way they talk. So that still takes me a while to get used to when I’m playing. I learned a lot with Dizzy, and with Jon Hendricks. He started to teach me a lot about how think as a singer, and then trying to phrase that way, so I don’t sound like I was always on top of the beat.

Q: We’ll talk more about Dizzy Gillespie and your experiences with him later. But let’s talk about each of the pianists who we’re about to hear on this set.

DP: All right, we’re going to start with Papo Lucca. Before Papo, I was checking out Lino Frías, who was the pianist for the Sonora Matancera, and Eddie Palmieri when he got that famous thing, “Puerto Rico,” then Peruchin, “Bilongo”.

We’re going to start with Papo, because Papo for me made the transition from Latin piano to kind of like… That’s when I wanted to learn his solo. Because he sort of took Bud Powell, a little bit of Bud Powell, a little Bebop lines, and put it into Latin rhythms. Until that time I never heard anybody doing that, really, playing lines on… So after I heard Papo, that’s when I started to think, “Where did he get that from?” Then people were telling me, “Yeah, you’ve got to check out Bud Powell,” and that’s how I made the transition.
Now you’re going to hear a famous solo Papo Lucca did, “Sin Tu Carino,” with Ruben Blades, one of Ruben’s beautiful hits.

[MUSIC: Papo Lucca/Ruben Blades: “Sin Tu Carino”; Eddie Palmieri, “Puerto Rico”; Peruchin, “Bilongo”

“Bilongo” was with Peruchin on the piano and Richard Egües on the flute. That usually has a vocalist, but they did an instrumental there. If you notice the similarities between Latin pianists, they’re all playing percussion — that’s real important. The other thing is that you hear the octave is very predominant. I’m not so sure why. But one thing is to try to imitate the tres, because the tres is tuned in an octave, how you get that octave sound. The other reason was at that time also there was no electric pianos, so it sort of built up from the same concept that McCoy had to play like fourths so he could get a big sound, that could be heard. So Latin pianists developed that way of playing so they could themselves, that they could be able to hear… And that developed the octave playing.
You hear a lot of, like, rhythms going on, like KA-KA-KA-KA-KA, K0-KI, KO-KI, KO-KI…[SINGS BASIC RHYTHM]. You hear that in the three of them. You hear Papo, where he put a little bit of blues on it; he was running, like, some blues chords on it. Eddie’s left hand is very different from everybody else, because he’s doing like IN-CHIN,IN-CHIN, CHIN-CHIN-CHIN-CHIN, in the (?) beat, and the bass going TUM-DE-DE, DE-DUM, DUM-DUM-CHIN-CHIN-CHIN-CHIN-CHIN-CHIN… — all beat. And then the right hand is going [REPEATS FIRST RHYTHM] That’s really hard to do and to make it feel right. So that was Eddie’s trademark.

Q: A few words about Peruchin and his meaning in the piano continuum.

DP: Well, Peruchin was like the virtuoso of Latin… He brought the piano to another level, because he played the piano so well. He was a trained conservatory virtuoso, you know — and he plays the piano. So people would be dancing and stuff like that, and when the piano solo came, people would stop dancing and come to listen to him because he was so amazing. He wasn’t the… Usually on the piano solo, things get… people get talking. He was a show-stopper every time he took a piano solo. I remember my father told me, like, people would just go to listen to him, just to hear his piano solo, because he… I mean, he had like… He was one of the first ones who started doing embellishment, like playing over the tempo and then going [SINGS BLAZING PIANO RUN] — that kind of stuff over the piano. I mean, he had such a technique, that it was so easy… So people would be dancing, and when Peruchin came and played a solo, people stopped and would go around the piano and hear what he was doing. He was like the favorite… My father said that every time he was playing, he would go to see him just to see his solo, be with him playing his solo.

Q: Did Peruchin stay in Cuba after 1960?

DP: He was in Cuba for a long time, then he moved to Panama. He was in Panama also… I don’t know where else he was. I mean, he did like a little tour. But I know he was in Panama for a while, because he developed a little school in Panama of people playing like him. In those times in Panama, there was a lot of Cubans… Benny More used to come a lot, Perez Prado used to come a lot to Panama. So there’s a guy in Panama who plays just like him, like Peruchin, you know; he got everything from him.

Q: Who were your teachers as far as piano goes?

DP: In Panama? My teacher was a woman from Chile by the name of Cecilia Nunez. And then the records.

Q: But you learned the rudiments and the technique of piano, and then learned the vernacular music, so to speak, by yourself.

DP: Yeah. There was nobody really teaching me anything, you know, like how to do things. You just bought the records and listened to them.

Q: And you had a good critic in your father.

DP: Oh yeah! My father actually made me transcribe the piano solos, you know, like Papo, Peruchin… Peruchin was too hard for me to transcribe, because those octave things were so difficult…

Q: What was your father’s training? How did he get started in music? And what’s his name, by the way?

DP: My father is Danilo Pérez. He never really had a training, like a conservatory or anything. But he grew up in a family where they all…like, they were singers and trumpet players. So my father grew up and played with the best bands in Panama, like played with Armando(?) Bossa, which was one of the best bands around Central America, Latin America. He played with them, he played with many, many bands. Actually, he was a self-taught musician. And he just has a… This kind of music for him is, like…

Q: Natural.

DP: Natural. That’s it. The clave and the sonero and improvisation… Just the jumping around and, you know, improvising, that’s second nature to him.

Q: And he’s still playing and you’re now working with him.

DP: Yeah. Well, sometimes we get together and play.

Q: You’ve got to bring him up to the States.

DP: Yeah, we will. We will. I’m planning to do a record, actually, because I want him to do… We want to do some stuff together.

Q: [ETC.] The next set will start with something by Peruchin from a recording called The Incendiary Piano of Peruchin, with the great Cuban drummer Guillermo Barreto, who died a couple of years ago, Cachaito on bass, and also a percussion section. Tell us about what we’re going to hear.

DP: Cachaito is another guy who also changed the bass. He is Cachao’s nephew or his son, I don’t know. Cachaito is related, I know that. Tata Güines is probably one of the innovators of the congas. You see people like Giovanni Hidalgo coming out of the Tata Güines school, you know. Guillermo Barretto also is one of the pioneers of playing the drums, and you know, bringing the percussion into the group. So what you’re going to hear is a set-up for many of the things that are happening right now in the Latin thing, and I am happy that they are putting it out on the records right now, because people can see that there is a tradition to this, and it’s not like they just got together… There’s a whole tradition to it.

See, Peruchin was an innovator, too, and also an innovator was Perez Prado. Perez Prado to me was to Latin music what Thelonious Monk was to Jazz; kind of like really crazy and had a concept, and went for it.

Q: I’ve been listening to Benny More’s recordings with his band in the late 1940’s. You hear bits that sound like the vocabulary of Ellington or the Dizzy Gillespie band, and then it goes into a whole different place.

DP: Yeah. Well, that’s the street vocabulary type of thing. Because he used to sell fruits on the street, and then in order to sell the fruit he had to say “Mango with papaya with…”, and make it go together… How do you say it when they go together, like the rhythm… I don’t know. You say “Papaya porque atawaga(?)” or something like that, things that go together with the ending. He used to do that. All the fruits. Mango, papaya and all the things he had, and improvise on all of them, you know. And that’s how he got his sonero. And there is a guy right now doing that, Gilberto Santa Rosa, who took a lot of stuff off him.

But Benny More… And the music at that time, because of the political situation in Cuba, he was very, very much together. If you hear some old recordings, you’ll hear, like, for example, Fernando Alvarez singing with a string group, and it sounds like the same kind of strings that were accompanying Charlie Parker and Strings. You hear a lot of similarities, even in the kind of tunes, the boleros… They have some harmonic movement that also the Jazz tunes, the standards had at that time. Havana, Cuba, was a really open island, so you had musicians back and forth…

Q: Everybody was coming in, so there was a lot of interchange.

DP: Oh yeah.

[MUSIC: Peruchin: “La Mulata Rumbera”; Sonora Matancera: “Besito de Loco”; Peruchin: “All the Things You Are”; Sonora Poncena: “Nica’s Dream Mambo”]

Q: That was quite a set you programmed.

DP: Uh-huh! You liked that, eh?

Q: Papo Lucca.

DP: Yeah, that’s one of the giants. They’re all giants in their own… You see how they take one thing and make it their own thing. You see Papo playing changes. There’s definitely some influence there, the way he voiced the chords also. He took that, you could tell he took that from the Jazz idiom in the way he played the changes on “Nica’s Dream” with Sonora Poncena.

Q: Each has their own way of playing tumbao.

DP: Yes, definitely. Each one of them… You have to do a lot with the accent, where they accent the…where they hear the upbeats, and where you hear the off-beat, too, and the way they play the left hand. Usually people here in America don’t pay attention to the left hand. They do basically the same thing with the left hand and the right hand. And there is more to that than just… You’ve got to kind of hear the different percussion and the different…the conga, the clave, to make the left hand be playing kind of like something else, but implying other…you know, implying the whole rhythm section.

Q: So in a sense, the tumbao implies giving the instrument the quality of the drum.

DP: Exactly. I mean, the drums, not really. The percussion. The bongos, the campana, the sensero(?), the timbales, trying to hear all of that. If you leave Papo alone or Eddie alone with that, they’ll groove you to death! Because they’re playing so much little things. Not like KON-KI-KON-KON-KOO…it’s not just that any more. It’s like [SINGS COMPLEX  RHYTHM] You’re hearing all of that.

Q: And it’s all on the piano.

DP: It’s all on the piano. It’s all on the piano, man, by itself. And every time it’s different. People think it’s always the same. No, every time it changes. [MIXES TWO RHYTHMS THAT HE SANG] You know, it changes. But you have to really know and pay attention to really hear this. So what I would like to play, you know, is how the three of them that you just played influenced me into getting my own…

[ETC.]

“Besito de Loco” by Sonora Poncena featured Lino Freires(?) on piano. He did not have a solo, but you could hear the tres. I mean, he was a very, very swinging piano player.

Another pianist we’re missing, I know the people that are listening are going to be… There’s a bunch of them that we’re missing. But these are the ones that influenced me the most. Rubén González, which I couldn’t find any tape or anything; it’s hard to find. But he was the pianist for the Aragon Orchestra for a long time. He actually influenced Papo Lucca very much. He’s actually probably Papo’s big influence.

Q: Now we’ll hear a selection on which you perform, again on which the audience can hear how you’ve been influenced and created your own way….

DP: Yeah. I took all the things from Papo, little things from Eddie, and mixed it up with the Jazz thing, with the changes thing. And how I started playing tumbaos, in this sort of like KON-KI-KON-KI-LE-KONKA, I say KOM-PI-LE-KOM-PI, KON-KI-LE-KON-KI… It’s like more off-beat. Once you hear it two or three times, you know after the fourth time who is playing the tumbao. Because tumbaos are very personal if you really work on it and try to get your own tumbao. So this is a record with Charlie Sepulveda, his first recording, “Tid-Bits.”

[MUSIC]

Q: …David Sanchez, tenor saxophone; Arturo Perez and Danilo Perez trading off on electric and acoustic piano.

DP: Arturo was playing electric and I was playing acoustic piano. But you could hear the… Like, the original way of playing tumbao like that was… [SINGS RHYTHM], and I say [SINGS MODULATED RHYTHM], with the 6/8 also in-between and the off-beat. Instead of going KIN-KU-KO-KIN-KI, I say KIN-KU-KO-KIN-KI, KU-DU-KO, KI-KI-KI, and you actually get like one beat, a little bit more. It sounds like I am off, you know!

Q: [ETC.] We’ll now move into the music of Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie, and show some ways how Latin rhythms were integrated into the jazz idiom. Danilo had some first-hand experience, of course, having played with Dizzy for about two years…

DP: Three years.

Q: …and having studied Bud Powell’s music. When were you first exposed to Bud Powell?

DP: When I was 18 years old. I think it was 1986. That was the first time that I heard Bud Powell. It was with that record, Live At Massey Hall, with Dizzy and Charlie and Max Roach and Charles Mingus. It was incredible, man. I mean, when the piano solo came, I couldn’t believe somebody could even just go… I mean, he just killed it. I mean, after Dizzy and Charlie played, it had to be somebody like Bud. He just killed it. I mean, he was playing phrasings like Charlie was playing, [SINGS LINE]… It was incredible. And that was the first time. Then I started getting, you know, most of his records. I’ve been trying to find the original… You know, the things you’ve got there, I’d like to have the original LP’s…

[END OF CASSETTE SIDE]

Q: …a classically trained pianist and a competition winner and so forth. Have you been able to go back to some of his sources and some of the earlier Jazz piano styles at this point?

DP: From Bud, you mean, or from somebody else?

Q: Well, before Bud, the people he was listening to.

DP: Well, there’s a lot, like Dizzy told me… Basically, a lot of the training he got, actually… I mean, the way he practiced, Dizzy told me, he used to play… He liked Bach a lot. He was a Bach maniac. He practiced a lot of that to get that fluidity. Actually, when you hear him playing the lines also, you can hear… I mean, I can hear The Well-Tempered Clavier, you know, the way he played. I could hear Monk, too. He definitely was influenced by Monk. I mean, to me. I don’t know if I’m maybe wrong…

Q: I think that’s true.

DP: There is this thing… I think he was very influenced also by…. I don’t know who he was influenced by, I’m not so sure, but Charlie Parker, definitely… The way he phrased in the piano was very new to the way everybody was phrasing. He was really phrasing like a horn player, actually.

Q: On this set, we’ll hear Bud Powell and Monk and Dizzy Gillespie. For you, coming out of a Latin experience, does it fit very naturally into that concept of playing?

DP: Well, if you think about it, they have the same principle, which is rhythm. The rhythm is quite different, in a way, but they’re rhythmical. They say, DU-BA-DU-DU-DOOM, DU-DIDDLE-DIDDLE, DU-BE-DAY-DA-DEEDLE. And in our Latin, we were all based actually in rhythms. That’s what is so appealing right away, the way they play the rhythms. It’s really interesting how they phrase.
What I said to you… What is hard for us is to really learn how to lay back. We have a hard time with that. I mean, I find myself having a hard time, because the way that our music is, it’s so on top that we have a hard time to lay back. So that’s the first thing we’ve got to learn. But as far as the concept, playing rhythms, it’s pretty… It’s not the same playing the Latin and also playing that, but the principle of playing the rhythm and make it swing and making grooves like you just heard Pappo do, and Eddie and those guys is the same principle, which is very African, where the rhythm is really important.

Q: Let’s hear one of the most famous performances in the history of Jazz, Bud Powell’s “Un Poco Loco”…

DP: Oh my God!

[MUSIC: Bud Powell, “Un Poco Loco,” 1953 (Blue Note); Monk, “Evidence,” (Griffin-Malik-Haynes, 1958.]

There are many reasons why these records should be played and should be a part of your library, definitely. But one of the things… Like, first of all, you hear… Like, the thing that attracted me the most to Bud was, of course, his concept of playing, but the lines, the way he wades into the chords like a horn player, and the phrasing, that was really appealing to me the first time I heard it. I said, “Man, that sounds like a horn playing on the piano.”

And then when I heard Monk, I mean, the way he played was completely contrast. He played like a composer, you know, and he’d build up a tune. The thing that was so appealing to me there was that when I tried to sit down and copy Monk, it would not sound right! Because I had to sit down and transcribe not just the melody and the rhythms, but the harmony, the way he voiced the chords, you know. Because he may call it E-flat, Major 7th, but that’s a… I mean, there’s thousands of ways to play E-flat Major 7th — and Monk got his own way to play that chord. And I was so inspired to see that…I mean, he… There has been arguments for many years about, you know, his technique and, you know… But I think Monk’s technique is killing. Because the way to play like him, you have to learn how he gets that sound out of the piano, and really sit down and work on it, while if you want to play like somebody else, usually it’s more or less the same type of way, usually the touch and… People like Bill and many great pianists had a great touch, but they always related to the Western tradition. But with Monk, he just brought… It was like a Varese-ian type of thing. He just brought the usual sound, man… And really, if you want… I mean, for me, if I want to try… You know, I’ve been checking out Monk more and more now, just because he don’t play… I mean, you take his melody part, [SINGS “EVIDENCE”: BONK-BEH-BERRRWW!!], and then he’s playing like shapes and colors and, you know, like he’s playing… I mean, he’s playing so advanced that you could see and hear on the records… When the sax player finished, they were going, “Yeah!!” and when he finished playing, they were going, “Ahem, ahem.” I mean, they had no idea what was happening!

I mean, he was so just so advanced. The way he played over the tune, he was playing his composition. He didn’t really blow over the tune. He’d make another tune out of his tune and put in like a B section and a C section and an interlude, and you could hear…kind of like an orchestrator, you know. Which I think he got… To me he got kind of that from Duke, I mean, definitely that kind of concept, like playing chords and then playing, like, a suddenly abrupt line — VRROOM, and then RING-RING-RING. Like playing colors, you know.

He’s amazing. And I could that influence in many people. Like McCoy. You can hear definitely McCoy influenced by Monk on Live At Newport, where he plays a blues there, and you could hear he’s definitely… And then Chick and then Herbie… Man, everybody’s been influenced by Monk, just the way he plays — it’s amazing.

Q: His musical world is so complete unto itself.

DP: It’s complete. I mean, you have to learn the melodies because… Actually, the thing also about Monk is the rhythm in the melodies. If you check out Rumba Para Monk, that Jerry Gonzalez did, you can hear that… I mean, those rhythms really work well with the clave. For some reason, he got like the clave. I mean, it was always there, in all…mostly all his tunes. And you could definitely put Latin rhythms to it. So that’s another attraction to me in Monk, his concept of displacing the rhythm. Instead of going, like, POP-PE, he goes POP-PE-E-A-PO-PE… You think that’s the downbeat. That’s not the downbeat sometimes. That’s your beat. He’s another bar ahead, or… Even in “Blue Monk” you can hear it. That tune, when I heard it first, I said, “Something’s wrong with that.” Or even “Jackie-Ing.” You hear that… [SINGS REFRAIN OF ‘JACKIE-ING’] He knew… I mean, I don’t know…

Well, you said it while we’ve been talking about it. His work was complete, very complete. It’s not just like harmonies and then E-flat Major 7th and then a melody, and then you play Monk all your life. No, you got to sit down and work, check how he voices. He’s really something else.

Q: What did Dizzy Gillespie say to you about Monk that you can remember during your time with him?

DP: Well, Dizzy told me one thing… Because I asked him about Bud and Monk and all those guys. He said that the first time that Monk would play around, they were all like kind of, you know, “This guy’s crazy, man.” I mean, actually that was his device. And then the more they got to hear him… Actually, he taught Dizzy a lot. I mean, actually the Minor 7th Flat 5 chord was taught to Dizzy by Monk. That’s why he used it everywhere, after he practiced with it… You can hear it in the intro of “Round Midnight” at the coda, you can hear it on the end of “Con Alma,” you can hear it in “Woody’n’ You” — you could hear that Minor 7th, Flat 5 chord all over. Because that was what Monk taught him.

But he said… I mean, the way he played was like a little kid, you know; it was like a humorous thing. And I said, “Well, you got that, too.” And he said, “Well, I guess we all got it then!” But you see, there is a humor and there is, like, a happy feeling…

Q: With Monk it always seems like he’s discovering something every time he plays.

DP: Discovering, right! He always comes up with something you never expected. And the way he’d get to the stuff, you’d say “How the hell did he get there?”

Q: Danilo Perez worked for several years with Dizzy Gillespie.. [ETC.] Dizzy Gillespie system of music was also complete unto itself, and I think this was made very clear to people who maybe didn’t realize it, during that week at the Village Vanguard, when Slide Hampton brought the band in and did the arrangements. Because the arrangements were so idiomatic and so true to the spirit of Dizzy Gillespie, that they really brought out that flavor in a lot of ways.

DP: Yes. Well, that’s a really great band, man. It’s fantastic. I wish sometimes, you know, when I heard… The experience I got sometimes is that people sometimes, you know, don’t relate…you know, the media, the audience in a certain way… Because was always, like, a funny and human and very humorous…and sometimes they… I mean, Dizzy, every time that I remember when he put his trumpet in his mouth, he just played music, man. I mean, he may be laughing and dancing and stuff, but I mean, don’t confuse that… When he put the trumpet up, he always played; he got deep into the music and played great, man. And sometimes they… You know, there’s a certain thing about looking at Dizzy like a humorous… You know what I mean? But, no! He was dead serious.

The thing about Dizzy was not just the musical thing, which is a gift, and I think he’s definitely one of the geniuses of this century, but his humanity. The whole time I was with him, I never saw him… A couple of times I saw him mad, but I never saw.. Dizzy was a great human being. I mean, really uplifting all the time.

Q: Well, one thing about Dizzy Gillespie, among his many musical qualities, was that he really was the first American musician to codify Latin rhythms into a Jazz structure, and brought Chano Pozo over from Cuba. He always had an affinity for the Latin sound and Latin rhythms, and taught it to many American musicians.

DP: Right. Do you know who got him into that, the first…?

Q: Mario Bauza.

DP: Yeah, who got him the gig. So Mario is actually probably the guilty one for that Carnegie Hall concert… Mario also got him his first gig with Cab Calloway, playing with Cab Calloway’s band.

Q: But he had his way of assimilating it and bringing it into…

DP: Because if you hear him playing Jazz, his rhythm is very interesting. So he was really drawn into the rhythm aspect right away once he heard Latin music. I think Chano, of course, brought a lot of the traditional thing then.

Q: Well, let’s hear a location recording from the Salle Pleyel in Paris in 1948, the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band in full flower. This features a lengthy duo between Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo on “Cubana Be, Cubana Bop” by George Russell.

[ETC., MUSIC (Oscar Peterson/Dizzy Duo, “Con Alma)]

As Danilo mentioned a little while ago, we could spend a couple of days with Dizzy. Indeed, WKCR has done so several times in the last few years. But the music we’re playing during this show, the music that’s influenced Danilo and so many other musicians, is so vast and the scope of these musicians I don’t think is always appreciated by contemporaries…

DP: Right.

Q: It takes a long time. They think, “Well, he’s great,” but I think it’s sometimes hard to realize how complete and how deep the scope was of what certain musicians were doing while they were doing it.

DP: Right. Like, Dizzy, he got that rhythm…the rhythmic aspect with the melody, and the harmonic also… He found the weirdest notes to put in a chord and make it work. That’s a concept. I mean, he was a conceptualist. It’s not about notes or anything. He was playing a… I mean, the way he would shape his solos was just amazing. So free, at the same time so strong. He had all the ingredients for anybody from any kind of culture to just go and fall in love with that. Because he knew how to play… [SINGS DIZZY LINE]…you know… He’s got that freedom to… like, waving like a snake. That’s what I thought of when I first heard him. It sounds like a bunch of snakes, you know, rolling through the chords.

It’s funny, because sometimes when I… The first lesson I remember I got from Dizzy was, like, “Don’t play so many notes in the chord.” And I’d say, “Wow.” And he’d say, “You know why?” I’d say, “Why?” He’d say, “Because then I weave my thing into it.” You know, it was so obvious. That’s when he mentioned to me to approach the piano in a way like Monk does, or… But he kind of taught me that with the piano you can fall into the mistake of playing too many notes in the chord, and instead of playing two, play one… And then when you open up, it really makes a balance. You know, just balancing out, like an orchestrator.

Q: Well, that’s the quality you mentioned in Monk also, of playing a complete composition within the improvisation and always discovering something.

DP: Mmm-hmm.

Q: Dizzy played long, bravura, complex passages, but they always had a function…had an end. Everything was done for a reason.

DP: Right. And even if it wasn’t related to the chord in that moment, for example, it was related to the idea that he played before or the one that he was going to play. You know what I’m saying? I mean, he was always aware of what he’d play and where it was going, and the shape of the stuff that he was…

Q: Well, I think in retrospect, that may be one thing that Miles Davis learned from Dizzy Gillespie, was how to find the right note and how to play with the incredible economy that he was so famous for, as well as the rhythmic thrust. And we’re about to hear one of Miles’ thousands of performances that we could hear to elaborate on that point. You wanted “All Of You” from the 1964 Philharmonic Hall concert.

DP: Oh, this record… I wore this record down. Well, this record, when I heard it… The pleasure of being a musician that can create and make people get into your boat and just disappear for a while… I mean, those guys really went in a boat. This was actually the first time I heard Herbie Hancock play, and he had all the ingredients that I really like from all the things that we just heard, from the Latin rhythm aspect, the Swing, the complex ideas, the feel of the chord, you know, the Classical approach… He is one of my major influences, definitely. [ETC.]

[MUSIC]

DP: They breathe together, man. They’re all playing, and nobody’s getting in the way — I mean, to me. And it’s just exciting to me to see how they all became a one mind type of thing, you know. And Herbie’s things here… Like, the comping is so beautiful, and the way he voiced the chords, and the space, and the rhythm that he got with Tony — I mean, he’s just amazing, man.

Q: When did you first hear these recordings?

DP: To tell you the truth, the first time I heard this was… The first time I really got into… Which I am really behind on material, but I’m doing my best! But it was 1986. 1986 was the first time that I really got to it. Before that was all the other things we have been talking about. And the (?) had a couple of things from other people, but never…

Q: Is that when you came to the States?

DP: Yes.

Q: Let’s do quickly your biography, say, from leaving Panama to now.

DP: Okay, a quick biography. I started with my father playing percussion, but music wasn’t my life. It was electronics. I was studying electronics until I was 18. By that time I did a lot of things in the music world in Panama, but it was never…nothing really… It was not going to be a career or nothing. I never had a dream to play with Dizzy or be doing what I’m doing.

When I got here, I got a scholarship to go to Indiana and play Classical Music. Then I heard Chick Corea playing Jazz and then playing a Mozart concerto, and I really liked the Jazz part — and I really didn’t know what he did. So that was actually the first thing. Then I got actually my first recording. And I had already heard Papo Lucca playing before, which I was really into what he was doing. Then I made a transition, man. I said, “That’s what I want to play. I want to play Jazz.”

Then actually, my first year I was at Berklee, I met Donald Brown, which was definitely a big influence on me, and Herb Pomeroy, and also a little bit of James Williams who I got to meet. Then came the gig with Jon Hendricks, who was like my teacher. He’d say, “No, no, no. This is about Swing, about Thelonious Monk, about Bud Powell, about Horace Silver” — and he just changed my whole thing around.

Q: So you’ve had very good teachers and people to train you.

DP: Oh, yes.

Q: And you’ve been very fortunate, or fortune as the result of ability, in terms of people you’ve come in contact with who have shown you how to focus…

DP: Oh yes. Donald Brown recommended me to Jon Hendricks, and I worked with Jon Hendricks for two years. And that was my school to learn the basics of what the music really meant. And he was there with them, so he knew exactly what was happening, and he knows exactly…

I heard Herbie on My Funny Valentine in 1986. That’s like seven years ago now.

Q: Well, I know that if you studied with Donald Brown and James Williams, you would have been listening to Phineas Newborn!

DP: Oh, yes. Definitely. They’re coming from definitely that school. But listen, I haven’t really got into now… But I’m just getting into in the last couple of years more and more music of this. I listen to it a lot and I sit down, and I think that it’s just great. I mean, it’s a problem in this period that it just… It’s never a problem to get related to it right away. Definitely, Donald Brown and James, you know, Phineas Newborn! I’m just getting into Phineas, into Erroll Garner now. I want to really study those traditional things so I can apply that with my background in Latin rhythms and bring up some fresh ideas. But I don’t believe in just going from what I know right now. I have to go back. Erroll Garner is another favorite of mine, and also Phineas Newborn — the double-hand thing that he does.

And also the Classical aspect, bringing Classical music into Jazz. The thing you’re going to hear is “Lush Life” by Billy Strayhorn. The intro he does in that is the “Sonatine in F-Sharp Major” by Ravel. Which shows you that there was no limit to what the music really was…I mean, it is. There’s just two kinds of music, good and bad. And he does the intro of Ravel, and then goes into “Lush Life,” and you don’t even know that he did that. I mean, fantastic.

[MUSIC: P. Newborn, “Lush Life,” A World Of Piano, 1961; K. Jarrett “All the Things You Are,” (Intro)

DP: That intro — oh my God! You could hear a whole bunch of stuff at once, man. I can hear also that he’s improvising; you could hear it natural… And that’s really hard to do, to get to that creative point. The way he plays, I mean, I could hear danzones. Actually, in a way there’s a Latin influence, you know, in the way he’s playing subdivisions… It’s really hard to get, you know. And the way he was playing rhythms and playing the theme. Because you hear the theme almost the whole time, but you’re hearing it turned around all the time. Wow.

Q: So both those pieces really showed very creative ways of incorporating a Western Classical background in Jazz…

DP: Exactly.

Q: …and doing it in an idiomatic manner.

DP: Exactly. I mean, you hear Phineas using Ravel, and it’s just so beautiful the way he slipped through that and just getting to the theme of “Lush Life.” You couldn’t even tell; he’s just so beautiful.

Q: Well, I think if there’s one thing our program has demonstrated, Danilo, it’s that Jazz has so much more scope than is immediately apparent to people, and keeps revealing new depths, new layers. And we’re seeing with you a pianist Classically trained and dealing with the tradition of Latin piano without even much exposure to Jazz until the age of 19 who is able to perform with Dizzy Gillespie, Tom Harrell, Ray Drummond and many other artists, and perform idiomatically, and deal with the music. And the music that you’ve selected really shows the broad range of sources that goes into creating Jazz music.

DP: You know, there is two things. For me, it is very important, that assimilation of music… And to see somebody like Dizzy, who was one of the founders of this…you know, importance to the fact that there is just two kinds of music. He never really pulled any type of things that… Actually, the things that he even didn’t like, he always told me, “You can learn from that, too. Even if you don’t like it, you can learn from it. Because there’s always something to learn from.” And I always try to keep that in my mind, and I always will. You know, just Phineas and all those guys, that’s something nobody’s got to force you to do. Since I heard that, I just say, “Wow, I love this. This is amazing. I mean, this is great. It’s coming from another planet.” I don’t know from where, but definitely coming from another planet, it’s so beautiful, and this music… It’s as great as hearing Vladimir Ashkenazy playing Chopin, or hearing Mauricio Pollini playing, or Vladimir Horowitz playing Scriabin. It has the same depth. And that’s what I’m looking for, is how deep…how good and how… — the vibrations, you know.

There is always something to learn from everything. Definitely, nowadays, I think there are a lot of Jazz musicians that recognize that. Especially Dizzy started recognizing that before. A lot of them recognize the fact that, you know, if you bring out different elements from another culture, it will enhance what you’ve got. Because that’s what Jazz really has been, has been changing.

And the beautiful thing about all the things we are listening to is that they all have their personality. You know, Bud had his own, Monk had his own personality, and when we listen to Dizzy he’s got his own personality, and even the early works, like… We have a lot that we didn’t play that are favorites of mine. Chick developed his personality, McCoy developed a personality, Bill Evans developed his personality. They all developed by studying really hard, and disciplining themselves to what came before. And I think Latin music, like Papo Lucca and Eddie Palmieri, they all have the personality. That’s why to me they are really important, all of them.

[MUSIC: Danilo Perez, “Serenata”]

This is a composition of Carlos Franzetti. It’s a mixture of danzon, and in between you can hear a little bit of Ravel, and also a little bit of Monk in between, just a really tiny bit, but you can hear it definitely in the back — and the Western influence with the Latin rhythm.

For Joe Lovano’s 63rd Birthday, A Jazziz Feature From 2000, a Pair of WKCR Interviews from 1989 and 1995, and His “Baker’s Dozen” John Coltrane Selections From 2009, and Three Liner Notes

Best of birthdays to Joe Lovano, who turns 63 today. I’ve been fortunate to have many opportunities to write about Joe and to speak with him, and am sharing a few of these in this post. First is a long feature for Jazziz in 2000. There follow a pair of WKCR interviews, one the proceedings of a Musicians Show in 1989, the second of a 5-hour Jazz Profiles show in 1995 — much interesting information in both. Then comes the an interview conducted for the “Baker’s Dozen” feature on the much missed website, http://www.jazz.com — Joe discusses 13 essential John Coltrane tracks. Then come three liner notes. Joe gave me my first liner note opportunity in 1995 when Blue Note released his seminal date, Quartets: Live at the Village Vanguard. Subsequently, I wrote the notes for On This Day: Live at the Vanguard and the debut recording of his still ongoing group, Us Five, titled Folk Art.

 

Joe Lovano (Jazziz):

He isn’t brash, he doesn’t profile, but Joe Lovano isn’t the type to blend into the background either. When he strolls into the dressing room and exchanges greetings with Paul Motian and Bill Frisell, the mood instantly lifts. Lovano’s last performance with the drummer and guitarist, his partners for 20 years in Motian’s trio, was last together eight months earlier in Rome. Now, they’re about to take the stage at Caramoor, an elegantly landscaped arts center set on a former estate in the middle of Westchester horse country, to conclude a remarkable afternoon of music that’s featured the Sam Rivers Trio and Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron in duet.

Lovano has a ruddy tan, his salt-specked goatee-moustache is trim; he’s casually dapper in blue circular shades, a bebopper’s straw beret with alternating zig-zag stripes of white and sea blue, and a silk violet short-sleeved shirt with black markings resembling musical notes draping a burly torso. As greetings are exchanged, he assembles his silver tenor and begins to warm up, effortlessly filling the room from the first breath.

A few hours before, in this same room, Chris Potter, fresh from a turbulent tenor solo with Hilton Ruiz’ band, came upstairs to say hello. I reminded him of a comment of his — that Lovano’s influence on his generation of saxophonists is so pervasive that he, Potter, is making a concerted effort not to sound like him. “That’s absolutely true,” he replied.

“What you said to Chris is funny,” Motian remarked once Potter dashed back to the stage.

“I was just in Manchester, England, and as I walked into the club, I heard a saxophone over the sound system. I said, ‘Oh, that’s Joe Lovano.’ The sound engineer who was playing the CD said, ‘No, it’s not.’ I said, ‘You can’t tell me that’s not Lovano. Lovano has been playing with me for twenty years. I know when it’s Joe. All he has to do is play two notes. I know it’s Joe.’ It wasn’t Joe.” He laughs. “I couldn’t believe it. It’s an English guy. I don’t remember his name.”

“That’s far out,” Frisell said.

“It is,” Motian shot back. “I stole the CD. After I got home, I played it; it doesn’t sound like Joe. But at that moment, I thought it was Joe. And I hear lots of other saxophone players now who sound like Joe, which I didn’t when I first met him. He sounds better now than he did then, but not that much better. He sounded good then.”

Lovano sounds good on improvisational flights to the music’s outer partials with Motian and Frisell, I thought, and he sounds just as good on, say, the inspired and thoroughly idiomatic solo he took on “How High The Moon” for a record with the Ray Brown Trio a few years back. After I said something to that effect, Motian jumped in.

“Do you know why he can do that? It’s very simple. He’s a good musician. He has a lot of experience. He played with Woody Herman and other big bands, with the organ trios, all these different groups, he can read anything, plays all the reed instruments.

“Early when the trio was first forming, we had a gig in Cleveland, and we stayed overnight at Lovano’s home, with his parents. His mom cooked up this great food. I’m sitting on the couch with Joe’s father, who says to me, ‘You know, Paul, I’m an official at the local musicians union here in Cleveland; you have to give me $8.’ So I gave it to him! And he gave me his card, which later I gave to Joe after his father passed. Up on the wall of the living room is a picture of Joe in the crib, a couple of months old, but also in the crib with him there’s a fucking saxophone! So check that influence out. That’s the thing about Joe. It just comes naturally to him.”

“He’s natural, but he works his ass off, too,” Frisell added.

In his alchemical ability to play any style — play it convincingly and retain his unmistakable identity — Lovano is the model of what today’s savviest young improvisers strive to attain. Part of the mystique involves his big, furry sound. It’s a sound that tenorist Eric Alexander, an ’80s student of Lovano’s at William Patterson College, describes as “ultra-breathy, broader and darker just about than any tone I’ve ever heard on the saxophone.” He continues, “A lot of younger saxophonists have been excited and enthralled by that sound and tried to approximate it. It’s very personal, almost eccentric. If it were 1965, and you heard that sound, it would be shocking — you wouldn’t have heard a tenor sound like that. He doesn’t sound like any of the legendary cats tone-wise. Also, the way Joe organizes his notes and phrases and shapes his lines disguises what he does. There’s clarity, but the way he outlines the harmony is almost intentionally nebulous. It sounds like I’m being critical, and I’m not; I hear that rubbing off on a lot of younger saxophonists.”

Ever since he came off the road with Woody Herman twenty years ago, Lovano developed that sound on a wild mix of jobs, not least with Motian’s Trio. He played a vast range of charts with the Mel Lewis Orchestra [1980-1992], Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, and the Carla Bley Orchestra. He worked frequently with Elvin Jones, in a remarkable quintet with Tom Harrell, in a two-tenor quintet with African drums led by bassist Ray Drummond, and, earned widespread visibility in John Scofield’s immensely popular quartet. He co-led a voice-and-woodwinds ensemble with his wife Judi Silvano, played in a European freebop combo with bassist Henri Texier and drummer Aldo Romano, and in a quartet led by Japanese avant pianist Yosuke Yamashita. One night in 1994 he spent an evening scratch improvising a series of memorable duets and trios with Evan Parker and Borah Bergman.

Blue Note signed Lovano in 1990; he’s responded with eleven albums, each different from the one before, all of which have extended his musical vocabulary. Most of these recordings incorporate musicians — Jones, Ed Blackwell, Jack DeJohnette, Al Foster, Lewis Nash, Billy Hart, Charlie Haden, Dave Holland — who, as he puts it, “play beyond technique with a sensibility of freeness.” Lovano also has collaborated with open-minded arrangers like Gunther Schuller and Manny Albam. Axiomatic as it may seem today that improvisers should experience the full range of contexts — from the most functional blues to the most intense abstraction — this was hardly the norm in the mid-’80s, when Lovano began to make his mark.

“I never said, ‘I dig this, I don’t dig that,'” Lovano emphasizes. “I’ve always lived in the different, let’s say, camps in the music. I’ve tried to be free, tried to develop my technique through the years so I could execute ideas freely and to develop ideas within the personnel in the band. I don’t come at the saxophone with one attitude all the time, which has helped develop my approach in playing a lot of different kinds of music.”

You can hear how independent-minded thirty-something tenor players like Mark Turner, Seamus Blake, Chris Cheek, Donny McCaslin and Joshua Redman have investigated Lovano’s capacious timbre and open approach to harmony on their way to finding a sound. “I don’t know any tenor player of my generation who doesn’t love Joe Lovano and hasn’t been profoundly influenced by him,” says Redman, who in June performed in San Francisco with Lovano, Wayne Shorter and Branford Marsalis. Redman was a recently matriculated Harvard underclassman when he first heard Lovano at a small Boston club on the urging of a tenor saxophonist friend. “I was completely blown away,” Redman relates. “You could hear the entire tradition of the tenor saxophone, but he had synthesized it all in a completely natural, organic and personal way, and he sounded completely modern and incredibly soulful and spirited.”

Redman has since shared numerous bandstands with Lovano, whose admiration for Dewey Redman, Josh’s father, is no secret. “Of the group of tenor players who came up in the ’70s,” Redman continues, “Joe completely embraced the modernism that came out of Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter and Ornette Coleman, but with a sound which goes beyond that and in some ways reaches further back. There’s a humanism in his sound that maybe was lacking in other guys from the post-Coltrane era. I mean sound in the larger conception — the notes he plays, his rhythmic and harmonic conception, his melody. It’s his personality.”

Lovano’s peers and elders appreciate his willingness to aim for paths untrodden in an era when the weight of the tradition intimidated so many to fall back on the tried-and-true. “What I personally dig about Joe,” says the bassist Christian McBride, who most recently played with Lovano in the initial iteration of Grand Slam, a quartet that the tenorist co-leads with guitarist Jim Hall, “is that he’s not afraid at all. He always plays with what I’d call ‘careful abandon.’ I always have been a little dumbfounded as to why one morning we woke up and Joe Lovano became this really major person on the jazz scene, because I always thought he was one of the best tenor saxophonists of all time.”

Before Grand Slam formed, Jim Hall — a native Clevelander who played with Lovano’s Uncle Carl in high school and hung out in the one-chair barbershop Lovano’s father owned in Cleveland to supplement his income as a musician — brought Lovano onto several mid-90s Telarc dates; these involved complex chord changes and intricate charts. “Joe just gobbled them up,” Hall says. “He dives into things and assumes he’s going to come out on his feet; you can put almost anything in front of him. I first heard him with the Mel Lewis band at the Vanguard, and I was impressed with him the same way I am now. He was completely loose and confident. He just sounded so confident, so completely comfortable when he’d stand up to play his solo, no matter how complicated the chart was. There was no feeling of hesitation; he just would do it.”

“Joe goes toe-to-toe with people,” says Greg Osby. The saxophonist collaborated with Lovano for last year’s Friendly Fire (Blue Note), a well-wrought hypermodern jam session which commingles Lovano’s working trio of bassist Cameron Brown and the iconic New Orleans drummer Idris Muhammad, with Osby and pianist Jason Moran. “He’s spontaneous and inventive, and he doesn’t play licks. He incorporates alternate fingerings or choking on the mouthpiece or tonguing techniques to create shadings and colors — he gobbles up the notes. He knows how to embrace the sound. That comes from listening to people play the blues, and listening to singers, how they bend notes.”

It seems each of Lovano’s colleagues finds something different to appreciate in his approach. Cameron Brown has grounded the space between Lovano and Muhammad at least a couple of hundred times in the last two years. “Joe reminds me of Don Cherry,” says the bassist, who worked extensively with Archie Shepp, George Adams and Dewey Redman earlier in his career. “Both of them are always aware that music can be magic, that something special can happen at any moment, which puts the music at a different level.”

In fact, Lovano appears to know how to create a space where personalities can blend and set off sparks in any performance situation. As Motian implied, his father began to teach his oldest son how to crack the codes of such ritual shortly after he began to walk, in a manner not so dissimilar to the way griot families in oral societies pass along information. Lovano likes to emphasize that his projects emanate from personal history, a subject he discusses with obvious enthusiasm.

Lovano’s grandparents were born in Sicily, and settled in Cleveland, Ohio, in the early part of the 1900s. Three of his uncles were working musicians. Uncle Nick, now 85, who was a dance band tenor player (he played in the saxophone section in the Sammy Watkins Big Band, which Dean Martin sang with when he was discovered) and a used car salesman, told him that his grandfather was in the Masons, who encouraged their children to play instruments so they could play for their parties and meetings. Lovano assumes that his father, Tony, got into music from hearing his older brother play. Uncle Joe played “more wedding band style tenor saxophone — all standard songs.” Tony Lovano was next, and he and his younger brother Carl, who played trumpet, came of age during the Bop era — Lovano has a recording of them playing Dizzy Gillespie’s “Dizzy Atmosphere.”

“We lived with my grandparents until I was 5 or 6 years old,” Lovano recalls. “It was a festive atmosphere, with music all the time. I heard reel-to-reel tapes of parties where my grandmother’s brother, Jim, played mandolin and sang arias and Italian folk songs. My Dad would practice in a big bathroom on the second floor; I’d listen to him all the time, and the sound of the saxophone captured me completely from when I was crawling around the pad. I had my first alto saxophone when I was 5 or 6. A year or two later the drummer my Dad was playing with bought a new drumset and gave me his drums, which I set up in my room. My Dad gave me a wonderful opportunity to explore by giving me horns and letting me have his record collection to destroy as a kid — and I went through all his records. I had a lot of favorite players when I was really young. I mean, I knew about Sonny Stitt and Rahsaan Roland Kirk when I was in fifth and sixth grade, and I knew their playing.”

Lovano’s ideas about playing the saxophone were marked early on by his intense involvement with the drums. “I felt a little pressure playing saxophone,” he says. “My Dad played with me on all my lessons, and I was trying to have him dig me. Then I would sit at the drums and have fun. As I developed more on the saxophone, I heard the solos that Max Roach played with Charlie Parker, and realized he was playing some of the same phrases and melodies as Bird. As I learned the melodies, I’d practice them on the drums as well. I’d learn all the solos that Philly Joe Jones played on a record. It opened up my awareness to be involved not only in what I’m articulating on my horn, but to try to be part of what everybody else is playing.”

Tony Lovano, who went by the nickname “Big T,” was the most advanced player in his family; as Lovano recalls, “he was a real hipster; by the late ’40s he was seriously involved in the scene.” He didn’t travel much — Lovano recalls a tour with a trio led by Nat Cole’s brother Ike — but he worked all over Cleveland, playing gutbucket, walk-the-bar saxophone in rhythm-and-blues and jump bands, leading organ trios (by the ’60s, his East Cleveland barber shop, now with two chairs, had a Hammond B3), doing jam sessions, playing in supper clubs for listeners. “He was aware of all music, and especially the music of the Fifties and Sixties,” Lovano says. “That was his generation. Tadd Dameron and Freddie Webster were from Cleveland, so were [trumpeters] Benny Bailey and Bill Hardman and [guitarist] Bill DeArango, who he was real close to, and later Albert Ayler and Bobby Few. He was coming out of the Illinois Jacquet and Gene Ammons school of playing, but he loved Lester Young, and had a beautiful ballad approach, too. He played by ear, and he created melody all the time. That was his thing.”

Through his father, Lovano internalized the notion that mastery of function is the fount of invention. “My Dad always had integrated bands with the best musicians in town,” Lovano states, “and the organ players and drummers and bassists and guitarists he played with became my teachers. My main goal was to sit in, so I had to learn the tunes they were playing, sometimes on the spot; I had to figure out how to play in certain keys and maneuver through tag endings. I had to memorize everything.”

Once Lovano could drive, he got his union card, and began to take on weekend wedding and dance gigs that his father got calls for but couldn’t get to, leading bands with musicians Tony Lovano’s age. “That gave me confidence about playing with older guys,” Lovano says. “My Dad taught me to survive out here as a musician, to be able to take a gig and get called back a second time! He always stressed the technical things. He encouraged me to learn clarinet and flute, which helped me later to function in Woody Herman’s band and in the Mel Lewis Orchestra. He prepared me to sit in saxophone sections by bringing me around to hear the bands he played in; soon I was playing in rehearsal bands, trying to read and integrate my sound within the band sound. That prepared me to feed off of people, to blend my tone with other tones so the sound doesn’t stick out — to find other ways to listen.

“Music was my trade. But jazz music was always art to me, too. As a teenager I played on dances in Motown type bands, and I was one of the only cats who could solo. I thought the AM, Top-40 type music at the time was sad! They didn’t play like Sonny Stitt and they didn’t sound anything like Miles. There was no art in the way they played. When I was a kid, I felt I was studying sophisticated, incredible music, listening to Lester Young and trying to execute Charlie Parker’s melodies.”

Lovano earned enough money to pay his tuition at Berklee, where he enrolled in 1971, and immediately impressed his peer group. “I loved the way he sounded then, when he was 18 years old,” John Scofield relates. “Everyone was trying to play jazz and bebop tunes, more modern things, like Coltrane and Miles from the ’60s, even some Bitches Brew type of action and Herbie Hancock kind of fusion, and free music. Coltrane was the pervasive sound on tenor saxophone, but Joe was digging into some other stuff. Joe had the same quality then that he has now, only less developed — great time and a lush sound that echoes the tenor players I liked from older records, a commitment to improvising and swinging hard, and a high standard of musicality, a strength of purpose and focus.”

Berklee became Lovano’s finishing school. He immediately caught the attention of hard-to-please instructors John LaPorta and Gary Burton; in Burton’s advanced ensemble class, he analyzed for the first time the music of Wayne Shorter, Steve Swallow, Carla Bley, and Chick Corea — “tunes I’d heard before but never really played, with different forms and more deceptive resolutions in the harmony, more polychords, different rhythmic feelings within the music,” Lovano says. “That class opened me up to the future.”

Tony Lovano had a heart attack that December; Joe flew home to finish his father’s five-night-a-week organ trio gig, and remained to help support the family. He returned to Berklee nine months later, completed one more semester, then let school slide to join the fray, eventually receiving an Honorary Doctorate in 1998. He spent the next few years shuttling between Boston and Cleveland. In Boston, he would crash “for weeks and months at a time” with friends Billy Drewes and Steve Slagle at a loft atop an office building where well-attended sessions began after work and ended in the wee hours. He did gigs around town with bands like the just-formed Fringe with George Garzone, “playing open, freer, creative music, making enough bread to survive and practice and play.”

In Cleveland he collaborated with local wildmen like DeArango, Ernie Krivda, Abraham Laboriel and Jamey Haddad, and led rhythm sections at a room called the Smiling Dog opposite people like Stan Getz and Pharaoh Sanders. Brother Jack McDuff and Lonnie Smith took him on the road for some chitlin’ circuit hits; his solo on Smith’s “Afrodisia” [Groove Merchant, 1974] became a rotation staple in mid-’90s English Acid Jazz. Both McDuff and Smith frequently came through New York, and the young tenorman spent off-hours making the rounds, sitting in and being seen at rooms like Ali’s Alley, the Tin Palace, Studio Rivbea and Boomer’s. He moved to New York in the spring of 1976, got gigs with Chet Baker uptown and with the venturesome pianist Albert Dailey downtown, and received a call that August to fly to St. Louis and join Woody Herman’s Fortieth Anniversary band.

“Woody loved Joe, because he came up from a real jazz environment as opposed to colleges, where most of the cats in the band came from,” says Bob Belden, who replaced Lovano on tenor in the band in 1979. “He was the first cat I met who had it together as a jazz musician; to me, he was always the essence and the spirit of Jazz. Woody hadn’t had a natural player like that in some time.” Lovano spent the next two-and-a-half years touring the world as Herman’s primary tenor soloist, playing charts by the likes of Ralph Burns, Sammy Nestico, Jimmy Jones and Frank Foster, backing singers like Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine, Joe Williams, Mel Torme, Tony Bennett on occasion.

When Lovano reflects on that time, he remembers the lessons he soaked up. “Sitting in those saxophone sections, accompanying those great voices influenced the way I play lead parts,” he says, “feeling like I’m the vocalist out front, but as the saxophonist. I had a chance to play with and stand next to Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, Al Cohn, Jimmy Giuffre, Flip Phillips, and Don Lamond. It gave me confidence to find my own voice in this music, to feed off the music I’m playing and the feeling of the players I’m with at the moment, to create something within what’s going on around me, always with my own ideas — not copying the way other cats played, but trying to play in the idiom and in the feeling of the beat and harmonic structure of whatever tune we’re in.”

After a pause, he adds: “A few weeks ago Wayne Shorter told me something that opened some doors, and it’s reverberating in me. He said, ‘Man, don’t let the gatekeepers hold you back.’ There are a lot of different ways to look at that.”

Actually, there are a lot of different ways to experience Joe Lovano’s music. He’s participated in a staggering range of high-profile work during his 47th year. A rundown of the past year’s activity includes: gigs with Herbie Hancock’s Quartet; a collective quintet with McCoy Tyner, Bobby Hutcherson and Billy Higgins; another, quartet with John Scofield, Dave Holland and Al Foster; several three-tenor summits with Michael Brecker and Dave Liebman; work with Grand Slam and the Friendly Fire Quintet; touring with a group culled from the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra to perform Duke Ellington’s small band music; recording as a guest with Abbey Lincoln and Flip Phillips, two tunes on a festschrift for Roland Kirk, and a pivotal solo in Bob Belden’s forthcoming symphonic suite “Black Dahlia.” Also, in various venues around New York, he worked with a series of trios — Brown and Muhammad; pianist Ken Werner and harmonica legend Toots Thielemans; woodwindist Billy Drewes and trapsetter Joey Baron; trumpeter Dave Douglas (his former student at NYU) and bassist Mark Dresser.

Lovano assembled those trios to frame his full arsenal of woodwinds and percussion for four 6-hour sessions over two intense days in the studio last April, then cherrypicked from them to create forthcoming Trios: Edition Two, a document that blends as-one industrial strength declamations by the working trio, harmonic tone poems with Werner and Thielemans, nuanced free improvs with Drewes and Baron, and finely honed sound exploring with Douglas and Dresser — it places him squarely in the camp of free-thinking improvisers.

The album follows 52nd Street Themes, for which Lovano rounded up an ensemble of first-call New York improvisers with whom he shared long-standing personal histories, and deployed them in configurations ranging from duo to nonet. 52nd Street Themes is an idiomatic paean to Clevelander’s Tadd Dameron, who of all composers associated with bebop most personifies romanticism, and an homage to the “blowing” ethos of Charlie Parker. Willie Smith, a Dameron protege who led Cleveland rehearsal bands that Tony Lovano played in and brought his son to hear, arranged much of the music. Everyone in the band has a tone with personality; in tune with the music’s history, they play with the edgy spirit we associate with the years of innovation that followed World War Two.

Lovano especially, who throws down one passionate tenor declamation after another with that wispy, driving voice and unfailing melodic intent. He offers a beautifully constructed à cappella intro to the title track, Thelonious Monk’s jagged “I Got Rhythm” variation. He soars operatically over a Dameronesque arrangement of “Embraceable You” and engages long-time tenor chums Ralph Lalama and George Garzone in spirited conversation on “Charlie Chan,” a variant on the 1947 version of “Milestones” on which Bird played tenor sax. Lovano makes you hear the spaces between the notes on a vibrato-drenched rubato reading of Billy Strayhorn’s “Passion Flower” in duo with pianist John Hicks; he addresses Fred Lacey’s “Theme For Ernie” at a quicker clip than John Coltrane’s famous 1958 version, yet hews unfailingly to the yearning lyric-blue essence of the tune; he flies like the wind with Dennis Irwin and Lewis Nash on a racehorse reading of Dameron’s “The Scene Is Clean.”

“All the cats in the period between the ’40s and the ’50s had solid footing growing up in their hometowns and basically being the strongest force in their area,” Lovano says. “They were a magnet to players on every other instrument to play with and learn from, but they were also learning from everybody who came through town. Those influences were strong, because during that period everybody was traveling. They did a lot of jam sessions, and their sounds were big and strong, because they had to stand up there and be heard. It was really a nightclub world, and it was an acoustic world.” That’s the world Lovano was born to, and the ethos that sustains him as he navigates the present and looks to the future.

Lovano shares that he’s writing an extended piece called “Mediterranean Waters,” an effort to channel “the feelings and energy from the Middle East, North Africa and southern Europe from ancient times.” He notes, “I’m trying to write things that have a Folk feeling, music before swing, without a walking bass. Music that has an openness in it. Oriental music, Balinese music, African music, folk music from Sicily. In a certain way, Jazz is folk music, too. It’s music of the people, of the time. Ornette Coleman’s music is very folky to me. Don Cherry’s music. Old and New Dreams. They played with a certain kind of feeling, not just in one style or another. It’s when players don’t have to play a role on their instrument.”

Back at Caramoor, on a serene summer afternoon in Westchester, the Paul Motian Trio is in synch from the moment they hit the stage. They feel each other out with “Monk’s Dream,” stir the juices on a wild Motian original. Motian pulls out his brushes for an aching rubato version of “Good Morning Heartache.” With Steve Lacy looking on from the wings, Lovano guides his tenor into that distinctive altisimmo range, shaping lines of pure melody that could have come from a soprano horn over Frisell’s sparse, polychromatic chords. Most bands would lift the tempo, but not this one; Motian kicks off a slow, floating blues on which Lovano and Frisell weave a collective ending that makes you wonder how they got there. Then Frisell initiates an abstract intro that morphs into “Body and Soul.” Lovano pulls the iconic tenor tune into time, rocking to an unerring inner clock, ascending again into that preternaturally sweet soaring voice. The audience explodes from rapt silence.

The ritual fulfilled, the generations spanned, Lovano tips his horn, and leaves the stage with his smiling partners, ready for the next encounter…which will be that evening, when he locks bebop horns with James Moody and Phil Woods on “Au Privave,” “My Little Suede Shoes” and “Confirmation” during several hours of inspired jamming.

A few weeks later, before a whooping packed house in the Old Office, in the sub-basement of the Knitting Factory, Lovano joins master drummers Andrew Cyrille and Billy Hart for an 80-minute set of impromptu free improvisation. Shaping his lines in an unfailingly interactive way, carving drum-like phrases, he creates melodies on the spot from the top to the bottom of the horn, avoiding licks almost completely. It’s a stunning performance. Maybe it will be the starting point for Trios: Edition Three.

[-30-]

Joe Lovano (WKCR Profile, 1-22-95):

[MUSIC: Lovano/Redman, “Web Of Fire” (1993); Motian/Lovano/ Frisell, “But Not For Me” (1988); Lovano/Petrucciani/ Holland/Blackwell, “Portrait Of Jenny” (1990); Lovano/M. Miller, “Laura” (1993); Motian/Lovano/Haden/Frisell, “My Heart Belongs To Daddy” (1989); Lovano/G. Schuller, “Crepuscule With Nellie” (1994); Motian/Lovano/Frisell, “Reflections” (1988); Lovano/K. Werner, “Duke Ellington’s Sound Of Love” (1988); Lovano/G. Schuller, “Peggy’s Blue Skylight” (1994)]

TP: Listening to your music during the first hour, I’m struck both by the range of strategies you use in approaching similar material and the range of situations in which you function effectively and idiomatically. It seems almost axiomatic that improvisers should have this ability, and yet it doesn’t seem that widely practiced.

JL: There’s a lot of mysteries in music, especially in Jazz. For me, I grew up in a real creative musical scene in Cleveland, and played with a lot of different players of my Dad’s generation. My Dad, Tony Lovano, played tenor, and was always playing with great players on organ and rhythm section players, and I learned how to play by playing with all the cats that he was playing with. It really prepared me for what I’m doing now.

As far as material that I play and approach, I let the different people and personalities I play with completely feed my ideas. I just try to react to who I’m around. When I play a standard or a Thelonious Monk composition with, let’s say, Paul Motian and Bill Frisell, there’s a certain atmosphere and a feeling to draw from, but if I play that same tune with, let’s say, Mulgrew Miller, Christian McBride and Lewis Nash, the tempo is different and the whole energy on the stage is different. It’s really a challenge to play the same material in new ways with different people. The tempos that you play really create that mood, and also the different keys that you might play a tune in from time to time would create a whole different atmosphere for playing.

TP: Let’s talk a little bit about the scene in Cleveland when you were coming up, and your father’s milieu. I guess music must have been imbued in you from the cradle. There’s a photograph in one of your recent albums of your mother tickling your chin, and next to you is an alto saxophone that’s bigger than you are.

JL: I always grew up with the sound of the saxophone around me, and my father played all the time around the house. I used to listen to him practice all the time, and the sound of the saxophone just captured me completely from when I was crawling around the pad. From a kid, I just wanted to create that sound myself. The sound of the horn was the first thing that I wanted to play. Of course, later I started to actually learn about the notes on the horn. My Dad gave me a wonderful opportunity to explore by giving me horns and letting me have his record collection to destroy as a kid — and I went through all his records. I had a lot of favorite players when I was really young. I mean, I knew about Sonny Stitt and Rahsaan Roland Kirk when I was in fifth and sixth grade, and I knew their playing.

TP: Did you also have a chance to see them or meet them when they came through Cleveland?

JL: I did, yeah. When I was a teenager, 14-15 years old, a couple of clubs were happening in Cleveland, the East Town Motel and another club called Sirrah(?) House that my Dad used to play a lot. Alternate weeks, James Moody would come through, or Sonny Stitt, Dizzy Gillespie, Rahsaan, Jimmy Smith, Shirley Scott with Harold Vick. I had a chance to go to those clubs all the time, because they knew me, and I could go in and just sit in the corner or whatever.

I had a chance to meet Moody and Stitt and all those cats when I was a teenager, but hear them in the room, you know. When I first heard Dizzy in the room, heard his tone, after knowing his sound from the records, man, it really turned me on! So I realized at an early age about the different personalities in Jazz, not just the technique of playing a horn, but just the personality that can come through your instrument, and that’s what I always strived for as a young player.

TP: Cleveland has its own niche in the continuum of Jazz.

JL: Oh, yeah. From the Bebop period, Tadd Dameron, Benny Bailey, Bill Hardman, Freddie Webster were cats my Dad knew and kind of grew up under. Benny Bailey and my Dad were contemporaries, and so were Jim Hall and Bill DeArango, and also the tenor player Joe Alexander, who was one of the legendary figures that I’d never heard or met. He passed away, I think, in 1970 or something. But he was a good friend of my Dad’s, and they used to play together all the time. Bobby Few was from Cleveland, Albert Ayler was from Cleveland.

TP: Was your father open to that as well?

JL: Oh, yeah. Bobby Few played some of his first gigs with my Dad in Cleveland. I had never known that, but I saw Bobby recently in Paris, where he’s been living since the Sixties, playing with Steve Lacy and different people, and he told me that one of his first gigs was with my Dad. That was probably during the early Sixties, I’d say.

My Dad was real aware of all of music, and especially the music of the Fifties and Sixties. That was his generation. He had heard Charlie Parker and Miles play together when they came through Cleveland, Max Roach, heard Lester Young play in Cleveland. He was really on the scene. He told those stories all the time.

TP: What was his sound like?

JL: Well, he was coming out of the Illinois Jacquet school of playing, “Flying Home” and all those kinds of tunes. But he had a beautiful ballad approach, too, and he loved Lester Young as well. So I think his earlier playing reflected that more. As time went on, he got a harder kind of sound. He had a lot of different sides of his playing. But he definitely was coming out of the Gene Ammons approach.

I met Gene Ammons once. In 1970 or 1971, Jug came and played at this club, Sirrah(?) House, and my Dad took me to see him. We went in the kitchen, in the dressing room, and Jug and my Dad embraced like they were old friends. I guess my Dad had played at a jam session with him once or something, years before. It was incredible, man; I couldn’t believe it. I got Jug’s autograph. Hearing him play that night really turned me around. Amina Claudine Myers actually was playing organ with him at the time. Jug had a Varitone saxophone, which is an electric kind of hook-up on your horn, which my Dad had just gotten. He played a lot of organ gigs, a lot of organ trios, and with the Varitone you didn’t need a P.A. system, you didn’t need anything. You had this amplifier that really matched the sound of the Leslie speaker. I’ll never forget that night.

TP: Well, it sounds like your openness towards styles and musical situations is an extension of what you picked up from your father.

JL: Oh yeah, for sure. My Dad was a barber, too. He had a business and raised a family, and never really traveled that much. He toured a little bit. His trio played behind Ike Cole, Nat King Cole’s brother, for a while, and they toured the Midwest, went out to Denver, Colorado and did some gigs. He was on the road a little bit, although that was actually later, in the mid-Seventies. But mainly, he played around Cleveland.

He was a serious fan of the music, too, which really was great for me. I’m a serious fan of the music and the different players, too. I love to go out and hear people play all the time, and I’m trying to always check out everybody.

TP: Was there ever a time when you didn’t think you were going to be a musician?

JL: I don’t think so. No. As a teenager, I was really very involved in trying to get myself together and play. You know, I went to Berklee School of Music after I graduated high school in ’71, and I paid my way to school from all the money I’d made playing gigs in high school. My Dad was always working, five or six nights a week. So he got called for a lot of jobs that he couldn’t do, and he would basically send me. I was playing supper club type settings, weddings, and all kinds of different gigs. But all of the things I did at that time were with rhythm sections and one horn, and basically, I played all the melodies and songs. Very few gigs had, like, a stand-up singer that I had to accompany.

TP: Were you playing tenor?

JL: Yeah, usually tenor. I also started to play flute during those years. Flute became my first real double at that time. The beautiful thing was that I was studying standard tunes, and when I would go to a gig and play with musicians in his generation who were in the rhythm section, I would call the tunes and count the tempo off, and so forth. So I learned how to lead a gig and pace a set. My Dad taught me how to read an audience, too; if I was playing in a club where there was dancing, to play the right tempos, to find the tunes that people are going to dig. I was studying Bebop and those kinds of tunes, but usually we would just play standards when I played those gigs.

TP: So at that time your range of influences pretty much encompassed Bebop, or was it more expansive than that?

JL: I’d say at that time it was completely the Bebop school, for sure. My Dad was listening to records like Kulu Se Mama of Coltrane, he had A Love Supreme and those records, and I was completely into early Miles, and Miles with Coltrane, and Sonny Stitt, and those kind of records. But he never said anything to me like, “Man, listen to this; this is what’s happening now.” He let me discover everything myself. He was really generous with that approach.

Stitt was my first real love on record. My Dad had a lot of Stitt’s records, too, and I would just practice along with the records all the time, on saxophone and on drums, and try to learn the tunes and get next to what was happening. Stitt had a personality that he could play either tenor or alto and sound like a different player, in a way. He was playing from the same knowledge and wisdom and expression, but he really got into the different sounds that were happening on the different horns — and that influenced me from a real young age.

I had the great fortune of meeting Sonny Stitt a bunch of times. He used to come through Cleveland, but not like Coltrane and other cats who really had their own bands. Sonny never really was known as a bandleader. I mean, he toured the world always pretty much as a solo artist, and would play with rhythm sections wherever he went. In his era, he could really do that, and work a lot. But I think he was kind of frustrated in that world. I had a chance to hang out with him and sit with him a lot of times in clubs on breaks and stuff, and he was great. He was a real teacher. He’d look at you and ask you how many holes on your horn, and how many C’s can you hit. He’d start asking you questions right away. It was an education to be around Sonny.

I also had a chance to sit in with him a few times in different groups in Cleveland, with organ trios. One time he came in with Milt Jackson, and they played with a Cleveland rhythm section, I was playing in a group opposite them, and Sonny asked me to sit in with them one of the nights. It was a real thrill just to be on the stand with the cat, because he would take you through the changes, boy.

Coltrane and Stitt were definitely two of my first loves on the instrument, and I loved the music they played. I absorbed the two of them throughout their whole careers, all the different records and different periods. I was more familiar with Coltrane-with-Miles and the Prestige Coltrane for most of my young life, when Sonny Stitt was my favorite player. Then I really got involved with Coltrane’s more modern Impulse records, and once I started to get more familiar with those, it changed my concept of rhythm and the role of not just playing soloist-rhythm section. The way Sonny Stitt played, and in that whole period, you really played off the rhythm section. Your rhythm section was there to support everything you did. Whereas on some of Coltrane’s later records, it was a more collective, conversational kind of playing, and everybody fed off each other more. Elvin Jones or Roy Haynes with Trane were playing, like, the same rhythms, they were playing the same kind of phrasing. Hearing that approach to music opened up my concept, and gave my own music a lot more direction.

I also loved Hank Mobley’s playing from his records, the things he did with Coltrane together, all the things with Miles, and his own records. He was one of the first saxophonists whose tunes I really started to appreciate. All his tunes were so beautiful. At a certain time as a young player you’re so into just trying to play what everybody else is playing, and then you realize that trying to create your own music is part of it, too! That hit me. Hank Mobley was one of the first saxophone composers, both he and Wayne Shorter, who really influenced me a lot.

The trumpet was another important instrument for me in my young developing, because of its attack and a certain something that I really loved. I think I would have been a trumpet player if I’d had a different chance to do something. I just always associated with the trumpet and the rhythm. Lee Morgan and Miles were my two real favorite trumpet players. I used to listen a lot to Lee Morgan on all the Blue Note records, and things with Jimmy Smith — a lot of different things. Lee’s sound and his rhythm really got to me.

TP: Was anyone else besides your father teaching you any kind of theory when you were in Cleveland? Or did that begin at Berklee?

JL: My Dad really was my main teacher. All the theory and everything that I had studied up until I went to Berklee was with my Dad. I would say that was like the most formal.

Now, there was an organ player, Eddie Bacchus, who is still around Cleveland, a great, beautiful player. I learned a lot from Eddie, just talking to him and hanging out and checking out the harmonies that he played. Eddie is one of those legendary cats, man, who played with everyone who would come through during that certain period when there were a lot of gigs, man, and you could work six nights a week, and play two and three weeks in each town. He worked a lot with Lou Donaldson, James Moody, Sonny Stitt and Rahsaan, and a lot of cats during that one period, and he used to work a lot with Joe Alexander around Cleveland. Eddie is something else, man. He is still very active around Cleveland.

There was a cat named Lindsay Tough. There was another organ player, too, named William Dowland whose nickname was Paul Bunyan. He was this huge guy, like seven foot tall, and he played with my Dad a lot. He was great, man! He told me what records to check out. He was originally a trombone player, and he told me about the Miles records with J.J. and those things…

A few different drummers were around. Tony Haynes, Ralph Jackson, a drummer who plays with Duke Jenkins, who’s an organ player out there. Val Kent, a young drummer who was offered the gig with Stan Getz and a lot of different people when he came through town. There was a drummer around named Fats Heard who ended up playing with Erroll Garner, I think. Fats Heard in the Fifties and the Sixties would play with everybody who would come through town.

And there was Lawrence “Jacktown” Jackson, who passed away this last year. He was a beautiful drummer, man, and one of the first real Bebop drummers that I ever played with, you know, when I was 16 or 17 years old. Jacktown was from Detroit, and grew up with Elvin Jones and Pepper Adams and Tommy Flanagan and everyone, and moved to Cleveland probably in the late Fifties or so. I mean, I met him when I was in high school. My father told me stories about him, like when Miles’ group when come through town, Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones, those cats would stay at Jacktown’s house. They were all buddies. So there were a lot of cats in Cleveland during those days who played with everybody.

Hanging with my Dad’s friends was really like a school. They got me into going out, checking out different records. And I had some friends in my generation at the same time that were always hanging out with me, and coming to gigs and listening to my Dad playing. We would go buy records, man, and check out everybody.

TP: In a lot of ways, your experience hearkens back to an earlier generation, when musicians learned on the gig, when people started working earlier and so forth. And it’s one of the things that other musicians remark upon with you, as combining the spontaneity of an ear player with a command of music theory and an ability to do the heavy reading, such as on the Rush Hour CD.

JL: Well, I learned by ear first, for sure. I never considered myself a great reader, until I started to actually go and play with some saxophone sections in some big bands, and actually sit down and learn about how to play with interpretation, and not just read the notes. That also came from my Dad. He played in some big bands and rehearsal bands that he used to bring me to and I would check out.

There was an alto player in Cleveland named Willie Smith, who was an incredible writer and player — not the famous Willie Smith that everybody knows. Willie lived in Detroit for a while. He wrote a lot of arrangements for some early Motown dates, and did a lot of things. He also grew up with Benny Bailey and everybody, a real Bop player. Willie and I actually went on the road with Jack McDuff together in 1975.

We both played a weekend with Jack at this club called the Smiling Dog Saloon in Cleveland. Jack was traveling with two tenor players, David Young on tenor and Bill Cody, and he was picking up an alto and a baritone player in each town, and they would play. So they came to Cleveland, and on Friday and Saturday night they needed a baritone player and an alto player. Ron Kozak, who lives in New York now, a multi-reed player, was playing baritone, and couldn’t play the weekend, he had another gig — and asked me if I wanted to do it. I had a baritone that my Dad got me, and I was fooling around on it, but I had never played a gig on baritone before, so I was a little reluctant. Then I listened to them play a set and it was swinging like crazy. Joe Dukes was on drums and Eric Johnson was on guitar, a beautiful guitar player; David Young sounded incredible on tenor, he sounded so beautiful! So after their set I said to myself, “Okay, I’ll play; I’ll do it.” So I went home, and I practiced the baritone for two days, and found some reeds, and played the weekend, and we had a really nice time. About a week or two later, McDuff called me to join his band. So I went out to join him in Indianapolis, and I stayed with him for, I don’t know, about six months or something.

This happened right at the same time I was working with Lonnie Smith a lot, and I had recorded a record with Lonnie for the Groove Merchant label in 1974. That was the first time I came to New York and went in the studio. George Benson played on it, and Ben Riley was on drums, and Jamey Haddad was also on drums on some tunes, a real close friend from Cleveland who is in New York now, who is working with Dave Liebman and some different bands — a beautiful percussionist. It was funny, because I was on the road with Jack when Lonnie’s record came out, and it was playing on all the stations — it was kind of a far-out thing. The first times I came to New York to play were in 1974 and 1975 with Lonnie and Jack.

TP: Apparently one track from that session, “Apex,” is a staple of British Acid Jazz.

JL: I was hanging out with Courtney Pine one night in Europe, we’d played a festival together, and he told me that he knew my whole solo on this tune. I couldn’t believe it. He said they’re playing it in all the Acid Jazz clubs, and dancing to it, and everybody sings all the solos.

TP: Let’s do a chronology taking you from Berklee to your several years with Woody Herman in the Seventies.

JL: Well, the very first time I really did any kind of touring was 1973, when I played a six-week stint on the road with Tom Jones, the Pop singer. They were towards the end of a huge tour, like a six-month tour. Now, the saxophone section were all friends of mine from Boston, including George Garzone, a great tenor saxophone player who is starting to do a lot of things today, and recording, and he’s been teaching at Mannes School of Music, he’s been teaching at New England Conservatory in Boston for years. He’s really a fabulous player, and he and I go way back together, to the early Seventies. Something went down, and one of the tenor players split the last six weeks of this huge tour. So I got a call to join the band. So I flew out to Las Vegas, and started at Caesar’s Palace for two weeks, with this big band and string section and chorus, playing behind Tom Jones. I kind of had a little solo chair, so I had to do little solos and stuff. That was the first time I really worked in a large ensemble like that.

I moved to New York in 1976, and got the gig with Woody’s band a couple of months after I came to town…

TP: First, let’s talk about New York in 1976, and what a young musician coming in with some experience could hope to do and find.

JL: I had been coming to New York a little bit with Lonnie Smith, playing some trio gigs around with Billy Hart on drums. And in 1975 I came to New York with Jack McDuff, and we played the Kool Jazz Festival at Carnegie Hall, and toured with the Organ Summit with Jimmy Smith’s trio. Also on it were Shirley Scott and Harold Vick and Eddie Gladden, Shirley’s trio at that time, which was really great, man. For me, that was like the highlight of that whole tour that we did. We were on some gigs together in Philadelphia and here in New York. Larry Young had a band at that time, a bigger group that was more of a Fusion type group. Touring and playing with those guys was kind of wild. We did maybe five or six concerts together, with McDuff’s band with the saxophone section. That saxophone section was one of the first ones I played in that was really a Jazz band, where we were improvising and playing a lot of things.

So when I came to New York in May of ’76, I had been here a few times. I had already gone to some jam sessions and met Albert Dailey, and started to meet a lot of the players that I still play with today. Adam Nussbaum, for example; we met back then. Dennis Irwin was playing with Albert Dailey. When I came to town, I got a couple of gigs, and I was playing with Albert and with Carter Jefferson, another great saxophone player, and Harold White was the drummer. When I first came, I was just going around and sitting in with people. Rashied Ali had his club happening, Ali’s Alley down in Soho, and I went down there and sat in with Rashied. I was just going around and trying not only to be heard, but to play with some people that I loved.

TP: Studio Rivbea and the Tin Palace were in full swing.

JL: Studio Rivbea was happening. I went there many times, and heard Braxton play, and Sam Rivers and Dave Holland. It was before I had met Dave or anybody. The Tin Palace was a great scene, and I used to go there and play jam sessions all the time with Monty Waters, a great alto saxophone player. I first played with Woody Shaw there. There was a lot happening in New York then, in the late Seventies.

TP: What was your response when you first heard people like Braxton, or the Midwest musicians who were dealing with extended forms and different strategies?

JL: Well, I had heard them on record before I came to New York, some early ECM recordings. The first time I think I heard Anthony play was on Dave Holland’s record, Conference Of The Birds, which was one of my favorite records at the time, when it came out. I really loved hearing and trying to learn more open-formed type pieces. That was really an extension of the music that I was used to hearing from Coltrane or Archie Shepp, the first kind of freer playing music, the music that really developed from the Ornette Coleman band with Don Cherry and Blackwell and Charlie, and Miles’ band with Wayne and Herbie and Tony Williams and Ron Carter, Coltrane’s quartet. For me, all those bands, and the players that were in all those groups. was the music that really inspired me to develop a more open concept about improvising.

TP: Let’s elaborate on that a little more. I think one thing that’s not immediately apparent to the audience is that musicians are subject to a wide range of influences that don’t necessarily come out within a given situation, and so it’s very easy to pigeonhole people.

JL: Yes.

TP: So you’re playing these tenor-organ gigs, but you’re also listening to a lot of other things…

JL: …at the same time. Exactly. It was really inspiring to know that these players, like Dave Holland and Paul Motian and Charlie Haden… Man, these cats were on the scene, and I always aspired to play with them. I was trying to get myself together musically, so I could play with them — never dreaming that I would. You know what I mean? And as time went on, I really put myself in different positions to meet them and sit in and play and be heard, and things just developed to a point where I was starting to explore music with them. One thing that’s so beautiful about Jazz is that as a young player, if you’re really open and you listen and you dig all these different things, you can put yourself in a lot of different settings that will really enhance your concepts. So you don’t have to stay in one place. That was my dream, was always to play in a lot of different situations.

Also, my Dad always stressed, “Look, you have to be versatile so you can pay the rent.” He taught me clarinet, and wanted me to play flute, and be able to play in bands, and to be able to take any gig that came up. He always instilled that in me. So from an early age, I was kind of studying a lot of different dimensions of improvising and playing my instruments with those goals in mind.

TP: I guess the big bands are one of the great teachers of discipline to a young musician, and particularly in terms of playing for a function or a situation.

JL: For sure. I moved to New York in May of ’76; in August I got the gig with Woody, and went on the road, and stayed with him, like, until the beginning of ’79. So for about two-and-a-half years I was on the road. My first tours to Europe were with Woody. It was my first celebrated gig, like, at that level as a soloist. And I had a chance to play for a week with Sarah Vaughan once. We played behind Billy Eckstine once for a week. I played with Tony Bennett a number of times. I had a chance to play within some ensembles and to play orchestrations behind some incredible voices in music. We played with Joe Williams, too. I learned a lot, man, just playing in those settings, not even as a soloist. Just sitting there and playing these arrangements behind Sarah Vaughan was incredible, man.

TP: So the impact of a big band is extra-musical.

JL: Oh, definitely, for sure. And those experiences for me with Woody were incredible. That year was Woody’s fortieth anniversary year as well as a leader. So there was this huge concert at Carnegie Hall that was recorded on RCA that had all the big stars that had played with Woody through the years. So I had a chance to play and stand next to Zoot Sims and Stan Getz and Al Cohn, Jimmy Giuffre, Flip Phillips, as well, as Chubby Jackson and Don Lamond and Jimmy Rowles. I played “Early Autumn” with Stan Getz at the microphone, playing my part with him playing lead. It really taught me a lot about sound, and it gave me a lot of confidence to find my own voice in this music.

TP: After that ended, you played for years with the Mel Lewis Orchestra. You joined shortly after Thad Jones’ departure.

JL: When I left Woody at the beginning of ’79, it was right around then that Thad had left New York and moved to Denmark. So I joined Mel’s band right after Thad had split, and it had become the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Bob Brookmeyer was back in New York and writing a lot of new music for the band, and started to work on some new concepts and different things, and he and Mel kind of added to the whole beautiful history of the book of the Thad-and-Mel band. That was right when I joined the band, in 1980.

TP: Throughout your tenure the band became a sort of laboratory and workshop for some of the most talented writers in New York, building up the huge book that it has to this day.

JL: That it has today, that’s right. I only recently left the band, I’d say in 1992 or something. After Mel passed away, I stayed in the band maybe another year-and-a-half or something. Then I’ve been just getting pretty busy as a leader, and I wanted to open my chair up for other people to experience that incredible music. When I came in, it was definitely challenging to sit in that band and play this incredible music of Thad’s that I had known from records. Thad wrote everything for the personnel in that band; he just didn’t write charts and bring them in. He wrote for specific people and for a specific record date. Brookmeyer did, too. In a way, my concept about writing and recording has developed from that experience playing with them.

Just playing with Mel alone was incredible. He was so consistent, man, and loved to play, and would feed every solo. He would play behind, like, ten solos in a row, and where some cats would be, “oh, no, not somebody else!” Mel would take on all comers, and like, he would start everybody’s new solo with a complete fresh sound — on a different cymbal, on a different energy. Mel was an amazing improviser and a beautiful musician as an accompanying drummer. Not only in a big band setting, even though he’s really most known for his big band work. But Mel played with a big band like it was a quartet. The horns were the piano, bass and drums, and the soloist. Or it was a trio to him, in a way. If it was an ensemble playing, it was like the band was the piano, and bass and drums. So he created this incredible intimacy within a big band in a way that not many drummers do.

TP: In the liner notes for your 1988 release Village Rhythm, Mel Lewis made the comment that your being a drummer, and a rather proficient one, was a great help to you as a tenor player because you’re able to play strings of notes and land exactly where you’re supposed to. Have you been playing drums along with tenor all this time as well?

JL: Well, I started playing drums when I was a kid, too. One of the drummers who was playing with my Dad (I don’t know how old I was, I was maybe 7 or 8 years old), he got a new drum set, and gave my Dad his drums to give to me. He showed up one day with this huge set of drums, like a 24-inch bass drum — a set from the Forties, you know. So as a kid, I had drums around me all the time. I have pictures of me playing those drums. And as I was starting to really learn melodies on the saxophone, I would just practice them on the drums as well. At the time there was no pressure to play the drums — when I was a kid. I felt a little more under pressure on saxophone; I was studying with my Dad, I was trying to learn everything and play and have him dig me. But then I would just sit at the drums and have fun. It was a real release, you know.

So that’s how I first started. As I developed more on the saxophone, and I started really studying records and hearing Max Roach and Philly Joe Jones, Max especially, the solos that Max would play with Charlie Parker, I realized he was playing some of the same phrases and melodies that Bird was playing. So I started to try to practice what I was learning on the saxophone on the drums. I learned all the solos, like, that Philly Joe would play on a record or whatever. I would try to really be with the rhythm completely. I think that studying like that when I was that young gave me a sense of time, and studying the saxophone the way I did, the harmonic approach and the rhythmic approach together, gave me a lot to work on and to work for as a young player.

That was kind of the beginning. Then through the years, I’ve always played them. I’ve played gigs on drums. But I would play mainly on jam sessions. I still play every day, and it’s like a part of my day that I just sit down and relax and just have fun and explore things.

TP: That’s your outlet.

JL: Yeah, it’s a real passion. Before “Topsy Turvy” on Rush Hour I had never really recorded like this, in a studio, where I overdubbed the drums. It’s something that I practice at home sometimes. If I’m writing a new tune, I’ll tape myself playing solo tenor, and then I’ll work out rhythm section parts by playing drums with the tune on tape. On “Topsy Turvy” Judi and I played the whole tune as tenor and voice first. We did the head, then she did a solo improvisation unaccompanied, and then I came and did a soprano solo unaccompanied, and then we played the head out. So the whole structure was there, and then I went back and and just laid one track down on the drums, straight across the whole thing, and I laid down the soprano part and the melodies, and then I accompanied her in her solo on the bass clarinet after I had already laid down the drums. So I just kind of played inside it. I had never done that before, but it was a lot of fun.

TP: Let’s explore the the overlap between your tenor style and your drumming proclivities a little more.

JL: Well, I feel kind of free on the drums. I mean, on the saxophone I feel like I can really play what I hear completely, you know. On the drums, I don’t really think. I just kind of play by feel completely. But I’ve had a chance to play with some great drummers, and I’ve learned from everybody I play with. One thing for sure from playing drums, that when I’m soloing on tenor, I have a real awareness of what’s going on around me. And I think practicing drums and playing in rhythm sessions and jam sessions or whatever has opened up my awareness as a soloist on saxophone, to not just be involved in what I’m articulating on my horn, but try to be a part of what everybody else is playing. I think that way of playing developed from studying drums and playing in rhythm sections as I’ve been growing up and learning, too.

TP: Were the two originals on your two recordings with Ed Blackwell written particularly with him in mind?

JL: Oh yeah. I wrote those tunes for him, and to play with him. I had never played “Strength and Courage” with anyone, or the piece “Evolution” on From The Soul. I wrote them knowing I was going to play with Blackwell, and with the expansive concepts that he plays with. I tried to really write some things that we could just hit on. In “Strength and Courage,” for example, he plays all these overlapping rhythms, and he plays some cowbell; explores all the possibilities of his vocabulary on that one tune. I didn’t really direct him in that, but the way I wrote phrases kind of directed the rhythm to go in those directions. He had the most beautiful concepts, and he had this radar that was unbelievable. He would just hit downbeats with you like out of the blue, like just…

Paul Motian is like that. Playing with Paul, the phrasing and different layers of time that happen are uncanny. I sometimes go back and listen to some of the things I’ve done with Paul that just amaze me, how we’re completely together, but we’re improvising very freely.

TP: Well, the Paul Motian Trio with you and Bill Frisell is one of the longest running groups in all of improvised music. 1995 marks fourteen years.

JL: Yes. We both started playing with Paul in 1981, and recorded a lot of different recordings, you know, playing Broadway music and Thelonious Monk’s music, Bill Evans’ music, as well as Paul’s music, which he writes and has some beautiful ideas. It’s been fabulous, man. We’ve been touring pretty extensively every year since 1981, and we’re actually just about to go to Europe next week, for a few weeks, for about an 18-concert tour all over Europe. It’s so beautiful, man, an expansive improvised setting to play with Paul.

TP: How free is it within the course of each performance?

JL: First of all, we have an amazing amount of repertoire that we do. Paul is very free about what he likes to play. He usually picks about ten to fifteen different pieces that we stay with throughout a tour. Then it’s very free to explore different arrangements and different ways of playing them every night.

TP: Frisell is a guitarist who has really extended the sonic and dynamic possibilities of the instrument. I think that can fairly be said.

JL: Oh yeah, Bill is amazing, man. And he’s really about orchestration, too. He just doesn’t play the guitar. He is so into every tone and every note I play. He voices all my notes in what he plays, which gives me a whole range of sounds to draw from as well. The way we all interact with Paul’s rhythm, and the way Paul’s rhythm changes from what we play — I mean, it’s a complete creative setting. In trios, somehow it’s really clear; the clarity is really there. The thing I love about the trio so much, too, is the intimacy that we play with. Sometimes we play, like, at really pianissimo volumes, and we really get next to what each other’s playing. It’s incredible. Bill really brings that out, too. He doesn’t just play like a guitar player. He plays like a pianist or something sometimes, with that kind of dynamic range.

TP: Well, it seems to give you a chance to explore the full dynamic range of the tenor saxophone.

JL: Yes, it does. I only play tenor with the trio, and it’s really great to go on the road and to just play one horn and to focus on one sound. With some other groups that I play in, with my own groups, I’m trying to write for more expanded sounds, using clarinets and flutes and percussion and different things. Maybe because I play only tenor with Paul, I’ve found it’s really fun and different to explore all these other sounds when I’m writing my own music. I think it’s given me a lot of ideas.

TP: Let’s discuss Paul Motian’s very distinctive sense of time and dynamics on the drums.

JL: Paul is a melody player all the way. All the music that he has experienced through the years, playing with the Bill Evans Trio and the things with the Keith Jarrett Quartet with Dewey and Charlie, those were the first things that I knew from records of Paul. I loved his playing, like, immediately. He was someone that was coming from Max Roach in the early days, but yet had his own feeling, and created his own atmospheres when he played. To play with him was a real dream of mine through the years.

I remember the first time I saw him play with Keith in Boston, I think it was in ’71 or ’72, and it was the quartet with Dewey and Charlie. Man, I went every night! Oh, man, it was the most happening quartet I ever saw live. The music just took off, every note everybody played. They were into what each other was playing. And it was maybe the first time I’d watched cats play that played like that. I was used to hearing Stitt and other groups that just played tunes that they’d known and played all their life. Keith’s group, when they played all their original pieces, the way they improvised together, the tempo changes, and just how they were listening constantly to each other, and shaping the music as a group — that was the direction I wanted to go in, right from that moment.

TP: Speaking of the Keith Jarrett Quartet, you’ve credited Dewey Redman as having had a major impact upon your concept of playing.

JL: Yeah. Well, from that time hearing him live, for sure, but also from some recordings that I had of him playing with Elvin Jones in Ornette’s band. He might have been one of the first tenor players I heard play with Elvin that didn’t sound like Coltrane or play in that kind of rhythmic way. He played longer, more open-sounding things with Elvin. Through the years, I’ve had a chance to play with Dewey a lot. With Charlie Haden’s band was really the first time. In 1987 I joined the Liberation Music Orchestra with Dewey. He’s one of those players that you don’t know what he’s going to play next. There’s a lot of magic in his playing.

TP: Universal Language features Jack De Johnette.

JL: He’s another drummer who has these amazing concepts, and hears everything you play, encompasses and circles around every phrase you play, and spells it right out with you. All the tunes on Universal Language were written for that session and for that personnel, to be played with Jack in mind, and with Charlie Haden, Steve Swallow and the rhythm section.

TP: Again, we’re getting back to individuals and personalities…,

JL: Yes.

TP: …which is the essence of improvising.

JL: For sure, man. Also, I think the records that inspired me to try to write and to give me the confidence to try to put things together were a lot of things that Wayne Shorter has done through the years, let’s say, where each record he made, it seemed like he wrote for the personnel that was on that date, and wrote tunes to be played with those cats, with Blakey’s band, or with Elvin Jones in the rhythm section, or things he wrote for Weather Report. Whatever it was, there was a lot of direction in each recording. It never repeated anything. So for each session I am trying to write for the personnel there, and conceptually it’s really happening. It feels beautiful.

Universal Language, with a front line of voice, trumpet and saxophone, was the most expansive ensemble that I’ve been able to work with so far as a leader, and I tried to write some orchestrations that were going to be free for everyone to contribute their own personality, but yet have some kind of structure and form so we had something to grab onto.

TP: I’d like to talk to you more about the dynamics of your style, the most personal thing for a tenor player, which is your sound — so if I start getting on thin ground, just tell me. But you were talking about your father’s sound as being sort of hard-driving, Illinois Jacquet, hard edges on it. Your sound is very rounded. You play a lot in the altissimo register of the tenor, the upper register, with a full sound — although you play the full range of the horn. Talk a little about the evolution of your sound in your mind’s ear.

JL: My sound has gone through a lot of different changes, let’s say, different periods. I know early on I played with a lot harder sound and a lot more, in a way, one-dimensional type sound. On the early recording that I did with Lonnie Smith, I think my sound was only one kind of beam or something, a beam of light, let’s say — it just was one direction. Through the years, in playing with so many different bands, especially large ensembles with Mel Lewis, and Woody Herman’s band, Carla Bley’s band, Charlie Haden Liberation Orchestra, where the music is always changing and there’s different feelings, rhythms and attitudes happening, my sound really went through a lot of changes. Rather than try to sound the same in each group, I would try to fit in in a different way all the time. That started this whole process of trying to open up my sound in a different direction. Through the years it’s definitely gotten wider and bigger, and I think I can play now, like, triple pianissimo with the same fullness that I can play a triple forte with. That range of dynamics, I think, was the key to starting to get my sound together.

TP: In 1994, you performed in some free improvisations with British saxophone master Evan Parker in an event sponsored by WKCR. Has that particular aspect of dealing with the language been a significant part of your experience?

JL: Oh, yeah. For years I’ve focused on improvising very freely with other horn players in duet settings. Billy Drewes and I used to play together years ago in Boston together like that, where we would just improvise and react to each other, and try to create melodies from what each other played. Billy played with us with the Paul Motian Quintet, on our very first quintet recorded on ECM, called Psalm, the first recording I did with Paul. Billy is just one of the players that I’ve explored those possibilities with. Judi Silvano and I do that with soprano voice and saxophones all the time while we’re improvising, and trying to really create melodies from what each other plays, rather than just trying to play what you play.

TP: You and Frisell would seem to do that, too.

JL: Sure. I improvise with that conception with everybody I play with. I try to do that when I’m playing with a rhythm section of Mulgrew Miller, Christian McBride and Lewis Nash, so that I don’t find myself repeating myself. I want to try to feed off of what everybody else plays so I can really explore possibilities in the music. That’s what improvising really is about for me, is creating something new.

TP: So it’s not about style, it’s not about genre, it’s about dialoguing in a situation.

JL: Exactly. Early on for me it was about style and it was about learning my horn, and this and that. But after a while, it shifted into this other place of trying to create something with what’s going on around you, and using your technique and the language of your instrument or whatever to create something different all the time.

So to just improvise in a duet setting with Evan that night was a lot of fun, man. I had known him for a while, and had heard him play a number of different times, some solo performances that were incredible on soprano saxophone and tenor.

I recorded a free improvisation with my Dad on Hometown Sessions [JSL], which I produced with him in 1986, where we were joined by Eddie Bacchus and Jacktown on most of the tracks. He was reading a part, and I was improvising all around his written part. So that was a little different concept about playing with two saxophones. Really, it was like a free-form structure. I was kind of, in a way, directing his notes, like the rhythm that he would play, and he was just kind of following me and letting me improvise between all his notes. I had never really done that before, and that was a trip! My Dad was a real open player, and he was into sounds and melodies and stuff. So it was a trip. Playing duets with my father all through the years really helped me develop a concept and get myself together to do things like that duet with Evan.

TP: Experiencing the inner dynamics of how that music was put together. Let’s hear a set of music focusing on performances of Joe Lovano’s compositions. The first track, “Luna Park,” certainly refers to Cleveland.

JL: The title refers to an amusement park that was across the street from where my grandparents had a house in Cleveland which was called Luna Park. I think it was a very famous park in the Twenties and Thirties, and then it burned down, so I never actually saw this place. When I grew up, there was a big projects complex there. But I had always heard a lot of stories about Luna Park.

This piece is kind of a carnival-type piece, and it features an ensemble that’s a working group, kind of a workshop ensemble that has been playing and doing a lot of stuff since the early Eighties. I recorded this for Blue Note in 1992, but this ensemble and this sound is a working group that I’ve been developing through the years. It features Judy Silvano on soprano voice and Tim Hagans on trumpet, Kenny Werner on piano, this track has Jack DeJohnette on drums, Steve Swallow on electric bass and Charlie Haden on electric and acoustic bass.

TP: There’s a lot of doubling going on in this.

JL: Yeah, there are some different approaches. Like, I wrote for Swallow to play within the rhythm section as an accompanist with chordal passages as well as actual bass parts. On this particular tune, he’s playing like a counter-melody in the front line with us that could almost be like a trombone type part.

[MUSIC: “Luna Park” (1992); Lovano/Redman, “Miss Etta” (1993); Lovano, “Emperor Jones” (1989); Lovano/Cox/ Blackwell, “Straight Ahead” (1990); Lovano/Holland/ Blackwell, “Evolution” (1990); Lovano/Schuller, “Topsy-Turvy” (1994)]

TP: We have cued up two earlier tracks. One is the aforementioned session with Lonnie Smith, and a track featuring Joe and his dad on a self-produced date, Hometown Sessions.

JL: Well, it’s a label that I started, basically, JSL Records. This was the first thing that we produced. It was right after I had recorded for Soul Note. I did this record called Tones, Shapes and Colors, my first solo record as a leader. I went to Cleveland and had a party with my family, and got a studio, and went in the studio and laid some tracks down with my Dad, and Eddie Bacchus on organ and Lawrence “Jacktown” Jackson, who I mentioned before.

[MUSIC: Lonnie Smith, “Apex” (1975); Joe and Tony Lovano, “Now Is The Time” (1986)]

[MUSIC: Mel Lewis Orch., “Interloper” (1986); G. Schuller/ Lovano, “Rush Hour On 23rd Street” (1994)]

TP: You had a chance to be paired with him in the 1988 recording, Monk In Motian.

JL: Well, this recording was the first one that we did for JMT Records. Up until that point, the band had only played original music of Paul’s, and then we had a chance to do this record, and the record company wanted to do more of a theme record. Paul played with Monk a little bit with Scott LaFaro; they did some quartet gigs with Charlie Rouse. And Paul was really into Monk, he’s been into Monk all his life, so he had all these tunes he wanted to do, and we started rehearsing. At first we didn’t know if we were going to just play trio, but when we started to rehearse trio with no bass the music was so beautiful. It was really different. It didn’t sound like we were trying to play the way Monk played these same tunes. So we decided to do it as a trio record. Then Paul brought Dewey in for a few tunes to join us, to play with two saxophones.

[MUSIC: Motian/Lovano/Frisell, “Epistrophy” (1988); “How Deep Is The Ocean”; “Turn Out The Stars” (1990); “One Time Out” (1991)]

TP: The next track we’ll hear comes from a forthcoming release on Blue Note, from a session last summer at the Village Vanguard that paired you with trumpeter Tom Harrell, who you’ve paired with on front lines very successfully for quite a while now, Billy Hart on drums, and Anthony Cox on bass.

JL: It’s a working quartet that we’ve been touring with and doing a lot of different things throughout the last few years. We recorded last March live at the Vanguard, and I am recording this week as well, live at the club, with Mulgrew and Christian and Lewis. They’re going to put out a double-CD package set, Live At The Vanguard, ’94 and ’95. So I’m excited about that.

This quartet played mainly original pieces that week. This week we’re doing a wide range of different compositions by other composers as well.

TP: What was interesting to me about this group when I heard it last year was it seemed a very creative extension of the Ornette Coleman-Don Cherry, or even the Ornette-Dewey Redman Quartet formulation. I guess some of this approach stems from your working with Blackwell for those couple of years in 1990 and ’91.

JL: Yes, playing with Blackwell and all the different groups with Motian have definitely influenced my writing. This quartet brings out a lot of those other sides. To play with just bass and drums and two other horns out front is a whole other energy and a different kind of atmosphere that happens in that. Tom is one of the greatest improvisers in Jazz, I think, and he has a lot of dynamic and amazing sides and personalities in his playing as well. In this particular quartet, I think for the first time he really opens up and plays very free and different.

This tune we’re going to hear is called “Uprising,” and it’s an original of mine that I wrote to play with this group. I play on C-Melody saxophone on this particular cut.

[MUSIC: Lovano/Harrell/Cox/Hart, “Uprising”]

TP: I don’t think anyone has ever quite mastered the technique of circular breathing or overtones the way he has.

JL: He’s phenomenal. He’s something else.

[MUSIC: Joe Lovano/Evan Parker, “Duo” (1994); Joe and Tony Lovano (1987)]

JL: That was a pretty wild piece there. It was exciting to play with Evan. We were into each other’s energy. We were really following each other beautifully. That was pretty far-out.

TP: Well, I think we’ve learned in the last four hours that with Joe Lovano anything is possible, and generally it’s going to work out in an extremely musical form that will then have implications for other activity. We’ve had some sense of the sort of parallel situations that continue to grow, evolve and merge. Thank you for your time, Joe Lovano.

JL: Thank you, Ted. I have to say, WKCR is such an incredible radio station, and all the shows you guys do are really inspiring. I listen to all the shows, and the birthday broadcasts, and the different profiles, and it’s really an honor to have you spend this much time on some of my recorded music.

TP: It’s quite a legacy of music, and I think we have a good three or four decades of creative music-making to come. So we’ll just take this as a signpost of where one of the most creative of the younger group of musicians is at this stage of his career.

[ETC.]

[MUSIC: Schuller/Lovano, “Angel Eyes” (1994); Lovano & Universal Language, “Josie and Rosie” (1992); Lovano/ Blackwell, “Fort Worth” (1991); Lovano/J. Redman, “The Land Of Ephesus” (1993); Yamashita/Lovano, “Kurdish Winds” (1993); Scofield/Lovano, “Comp Out” (1992)]

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Joe Lovano (Musician Show, WKCR, 7-26-89):
[MUSIC: Henri Texier/Lovano (Izlaz), “Golden Horn” (1988); Motian/ Lovano/Frisell, “Evidence” (1988)]

JL: I was born in ’52, so I really began playing and being around the music in the Sixties, around all the different records and things that were coming out during those years. I was really fortunate. My Dad played saxophone and was a beautiful musician, and his record collection was pretty wide when I was a kid, so I was able to hear and really distinguish between sounds and different tones on different instruments. I was able to start to recognize different players from their personality and their tone.

Q: He was a working musician in the Cleveland area.

JL: Yeah, sure. All his life. My Dad grew up with people like Bill Hardman, the trumpet player, Benny Bailey, Tadd Dameron. Tadd actually was a few years older than my Dad, but his brother Cesar Dameron was an alto player who was my Dad’s age, and they used to play a lot. Those years were really great for my Dad because he was really involved in the scene. There’s a lot of cats in New York who are from Cleveland that know my Dad, and I meet people from all around the world that have heard him play — or something. He traveled around a little bit, but he was mainly in the Cleveland scene.

Q: Well, in Cleveland and throughout the Midwest there used to be a thriving Jazz scene — Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis.

JL: There was a circuit. I had a chance to tour with Lonnie Smith, the organist, and Jack McDuff, and a few different groups that played through that chitlin’ circuit, where you played really from New York to St. Louis, through Indianapolis and Cincinnati and all those towns. There were a lot of clubs. I caught a little part of it in 1974 or 1975 when I was like 20 years old. But throughout the ’50s and ’60s there was a real scene through that area.

Q: Joe’s first selection is one by the master, John Coltrane.

JL: This is from a record actually that came out on a reissue package with Roy Haynes on drums, McCoy Tyner, piano, and Jimmy Garrison on bass. It’s called To The Beat Of A Different Drum.

Somehow, my whole life as a player has developed in a strange kind of way around a lot of really great drummers. In the last three or four years, I’ve been really fortunate to be working with Mel Lewis. I’ve been playing with Mel Lewis’ band since 1980, and we play every Monday night at the Village Vanguard. Mel recorded with me on my first solo record as a leader for the Soul Note label, called Tones, Shapes and Colors, and I have a really close working relationship with Mel. As well as Paul Motian, who I’ve been playing with also since 1981. We’ve done a number of records, of which we’ll get to a few later, and also talk about the first times I had heard Paul play with Keith Jarrett and other people, and immediately wanted to be around that rhythm. Also Elvin Jones, who I toured with in 1987 for a two-month tour in Europe, which really was his last major tour as a leader with his own band. I mean, he’s toured with Freddie Hubbard and McCoy Tyner and a few different groups. But playing with Elvin was just an incredible lesson, man.

Q: You play some drums yourself.

JL: Well, I’ve been playing since I was a kid. Part of my whole thing with my Dad is my Dad was my teacher. We studied, we had lessons, but his lessons were he would give me a lot of things to work on, and when I felt like I was ready to present them to him… And he’d be hearing me practicing anyway. He would sometimes come down to the basement in the middle of what I was doing, and correct me or whatever. But it was a real close kind of thing. When I was six or seven years old, the drummer he was working with bought a new set of small drums, and gave his old set to my Dad to give to me. I mean, it was a huge, big bass drum, and all these drums. I have pictures of me playing these drums.

So since I was a kid I really got into the drums. I learned all the solos, like, that Philly Joe would play on a record or whatever. I would try to really be with the rhythm completely. I think that studying like that when I was that young gave me a sense of time, and studying the saxophone the way I did, the harmonic approach and the rhythmic approach together, just really gave me a lot to work on and to work for as a young player. So I know there’s been something about drummers, since I was a kid.

Now I’m starting to record and do some things on drums myself. Recently, just this last week actually, I went into the studio and did a solo-duo project where I laid some tracks down playing bass clarinet, drums and tenor, and then Judi Silverman came in and put some voice parts on some of the things, too, and we really created some rhythm sections. It’s the first time I ever did it. I brought a tape; maybe we could listen to one thing later.

But getting back to this first record, Roy Haynes has always been one of my very favorite musicians. I’ve never had a chance to play with him, but I heard him play a lot. And I really love this record. It was a real fresh… You know, after listening to so much Coltrane Quartet, this was like a little different twist with Roy Haynes on drums.

[MUSIC: Coltrane/Haynes, “Dear Old Stockholm” (1963); Sonny Stitt, “I Never Knew”, “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” (1962)]

JL: Just a little about what Sonny Stitt meant to me. Stitt was my first real love on record. I used to listen to my Dad practice all the time, and the sound of the saxophone just captured me completely from when I was crawling around the pad, you know. My Dad had a lot of Stitt’s records, too, and I would just practice along with the records all the time, on saxophone and on drums, and try to learn the tunes and try to get next to what was happening. His sound on tenor and alto… He had a personality that he could play either horn and sound like a different player, in a way. He was playing from the same knowledge and wisdom and expression, but he really got into the different sounds that were happening on the different horns. And that influenced me from a real young age.

I had the great fortune of meeting Stitt a bunch of times. He used to come through Cleveland, but not like Coltrane and other cats who really had their own bands. Sonny never really was known as a bandleader. I mean, he toured the world always pretty much as a solo artist, and would play with rhythm sections wherever he went. In his era, he could really do that, and work a lot. But he was kind of frustrated in that world, I think. I had a chance to hang out with him and sit with him a lot of times in clubs on breaks and stuff, and he was a great cat. He was a real teacher. He’d look at you and ask you how many holes on your horn, and how many C’s can you hit. He’d start asking you questions right away. It was an education to be around Sonny.

I had a chance to sit in with him a few times, you know, in different groups in Cleveland, with organ trios. One time he came with Milt Jackson, and they played with a Cleveland rhythm section, I was playing in a group opposite them,, and Sonny asked me to sit in with them one of the nights. It was a real thrill, you know, just to be on the stand with the cat, because he would take you through the changes, boy.

Q: Who would be the rhythm sections in Cleveland, by the way?

JL: There were different guys. The organ player who plays on this CD I put out with my Dad, Eddie Bacchus, would play with most everybody that came through town. But there were a couple of other organ players. There was a cat named Lindsay Tough, and this other guy, William Dowland, who everyone used to call Paul Bunyon — he was a real big cat. He used to be a trombone player, actually, when he was younger.

A few different drummers were around. Tony Haynes, Ralph Jackson, a drummer who plays with Duke Jenkins, who’s an organ player out there. Different cats, though. Val Kent, a young drummer. Val could have… He was offered the gig with Stan Getz and a lot of different people when he came through town. There was a drummer there whose name was Fats Heard who ended up playing with Erroll Garner, I think. Fats Heard in the Fifties and the Sixties, he would play with everybody who would come through town. Jacktown, who plays on the CD, Hometown Sessions, that I produced myself, was from Detroit, and grew up with Elvin Jones and Pepper Adams and Tommy Flanagan and everyone, and moved to Cleveland probably in the late Fifties or so. I mean, I met him when I was in high school. But when he was there, my father told me stories, like when Miles’ group when come through town, Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones, those cats would stay at Jacktown’s house. They were all buddies.

So there were a lot of cats in Cleveland during those days who played with everybody.

Q: Hearing John Coltrane and Sonny Stitt together is a very interesting juxtaposition, and one could say they are two very important people in the formation of your own personal style of playing, your approach to line and your approach to sound.

JL: Yeah, Coltrane and Stitt were definitely two of my really first loves on the instrument, as well as the music they played. I absorbed the two of them throughout their whole careers, all the different records and different periods. I was more familiar with more of the Coltrane with Miles and the Prestige Coltrane for most of my young life, and at that same period, Sonny Stitt was really my favorite player. Then I really got involved with Coltrane’s more modern Impulse records. Once I started to really get familiar with those, it changed my concept of rhythm and the role of not just playing soloist-rhythm section. The way Sonny Stitt played, and in that whole period, I mean, you really played off the rhythm section. Your rhythm section was there to support everything you did. Whereas some of Coltrane’s later records, it was more collective, conversational kind of playing, and everybody fed off each other more. Like we were commenting during this tune, “Dear Old Stockholm,” the way Roy Haynes was playing with Trane, they were playing like the same rhythms, they were playing the same kind of phrasing. When I started to really be familiar with that, it really opened up my concept, and gave me a lot more direction in my own music.

Q: We have something cued up by Lee Morgan.

JL: The trumpet was another really important instrument for me in my young developing. I mean, trumpet had an attack and it had a certain thing that I really loved. I think I would have been a trumpet player if I’d had a different chance to do something. I just always associated with the trumpet and the rhythm. Lee Morgan and Miles were my two real favorite trumpet players. I used to listen a lot to Lee Morgan on all the Blue Note records, and things with Jimmy Smith — a lot of different things. Lee’s sound and his rhythm really got to me. The tune we’re playing is from a record that came out much later, in the Eighties, one of the Blue Note Japanese reissues, named The Rajah. It has Hank Mobley on saxophone, Cedar Walton, Paul Chambers and Billy Higgins.

Hank Mobley, too, was… I really loved Hank’s playing from all the records, different things he did with Coltrane together, all the things with Miles, and his own records. He was one of the first ones that I really started to realize how he wrote so much, man…

Q: All those slick, subtle tunes.

JL: Oh, man, all his tunes were so beautiful. At a certain time as a young player, like, you’re so into just trying to play what everybody else is playing, when you realize that to try to create your own music is part of it, too…! That hit me. And Hank Mobley was one of the first saxophone composers, him and Wayne Shorter both, that really influenced me a lot.

[MUSIC: Lee Morgan/H. Mobley/Cedar/PC/Higgins (The Rajah) “Is That So?” (1967); Hank Mobley/D. Byrd/Cedar/R. Carter/ Higgins (Far Away Lands) “No Argument”; Rollins/Philly Joe, “Surrey With the Fringe on Top” (1958)]

JL: When I really discovered Sonny Rollins and started exploring Sonny’s records and his music, it opened up a lot of doors for me melodically and rhythmically. Sonny’s such a master of… He can take any melody and stretch it out, and play so many variations of it to develop his solos. He didn’t just try to play the right notes, let’s say. He tries to explore all the possibilities with the melody and the rhythm that’s happening. For me, he’s a real genius improviser. Philly Joe Jones as well…

Q: You said when you were a kid you copied his solos.

JL: Yeah, Philly Joe was my man as far as the melodies he played. Like, he played the same things that Sonny Rollins or Miles were playing. There’s one record, I think it was Miles’ first record as a leader, with Sonny Rollins and Bird on tenor, with Philly Joe — it’s one of his first records. Man, it’s really smoking. I mean, Philly Joe to me was one of the…

Q: “The Serpent’s Tooth,” “Compulsion”…

JL: Right. “Compulsion” is the piece I’m speaking of. But his driving style melodically as well as his swing just really grabbed me completely when I was a kid. The breaks and things he played on that particular tune always have been with me. That’s why I wanted to play that cut. That record also has Doug Watkins on bass and Wynton Kelly on piano. That date has “Tune Up,” “Namely You”…

I’d like to to get to more tunes on that, but I want to play a couple of other things with Sonny on it first. We’re going to play something from Alfie, which has arrangements by Oliver Nelson. We’re going to play “Alfie’s Theme” from this. This is a real important record for me, too. Because it was Sonny completely out in front of kind of a small big band, and the band just plays parts. It’s a great band. Phil Woods is playing, Danny Bank. Frankie Dunlap is on drums who played a lot with Monk, and in later years played with the Lionel Hampton band quite often. But all his playing with Monk was really a great period for Monk’s music as well, with Frankie Dunlap. Kenny Burrell is on guitar on this, Jimmy Cleveland, J.J. Johnson — it’s a great record. We’re going to hear “Alfie’s Theme” from this.

We’re also going to hear Sonny Rollins playing a solo, unaccompanied version of “It Could Happen to You” from The Sound Of Sonny, which also… Sonny’s playing as a solo instrumentalist and accompanying himself as he’s playing, his freedom and concept also, like, really attracted me, and it taught me a lot about how to practice and how to get next to my own sound.

[MUSIC: Sonny Rollins, “Alfie’s Theme” (1966); Sonny (solo), “It Could Happen To You” (1957); Booker Little/Flanagan/ LaFaro/Haynes, “Minor Suite” (1960)]

JL: This album by Booker Little is one of my favorite Booker Little records, and this particular cut, which he begins with an unaccompanied intro, I find really fantastic. Booker Little is one of those players that I never, of course, had a chance to hear or see live. Freddie Hubbard talked a lot about him. He said Booker scared him more than anybody just because he played so beautifully technically. I think they were on Africa Brass together; they were the two trumpet players on Africa Brass with John Coltrane. It was interesting talking with Freddie about Booker.

[MUSIC: Lovano/Harrell/Werner/Johnson/Motian, “Birds of Springtimes Gone By,” “Dewey Says” (1988), Lovano/Motian/ Frisell, “Someone To Watch Over Me” (1989)]

“Someone To Watch Over Me” is from Motian On Broadway, Volume 1. This record for me was a real breakthrough in recording, just because five out of nine tunes are ballads on this record, and it was real challenging. Playing with Charlie and Paul together with Bill was really a treat.

Q: You’ve been associated with Paul Motian for just about the whole decade.

JL: Yes, when you think about it, time has gone by so fast. We’ve been playing since 1981 together. Paul was rehearsing a group which included Bill on guitar and Mark Johnson on bass. Mark and I knew each other from playing with Woody Herman’s band, and were really close friends. They had been playing with a few saxophone players. Mark spoke with Paul about me, and hooked it up for me to make a rehearsal one day. I went up and played with the quartet, and we’ve been playing ever since.

It’s been really beautiful, because we did some quartet playing and then some quintets, which included Billy Drewes on saxophone and Ed Schuller on bass, as well as Jim Pepper on tenor with Ed on bass. We recorded some really nice albums. One record on ECM called Psalm, which has Billy on it, and then three records on Soul Note with the quintet, The Story Of Maryam, Misterioso and Jack of Clubs — actually I brought The Story of Maryam to play a tune later, with Jim Pepper on saxophone, who is one of my favorite players, a really soulful cat. Then the trio kind of emerged from the quintet, Bill and I and Paul, which we’ve been recording and playing a lot around New York.

“Someone To Watch Over Me” started out as a trio piece, which we played the verse and then the whole song, and then Charlie enters as the guitar solo begins. On this record mainly it’s quartet with Charlie, but there’s a few tunes that are just trio tunes as well.

Before that we played two tunes from my record that just came out on Soul Note label, which also features Paul on drums. Having Paul play in my band, playing my music, has really been exciting for me. It just kind of tied a lot of things together for me and my music, and for our playing together. I feel our communication was really great.

The next thing we’ll hear is some music by Thelonious Monk from a record called It’s Monk’s Time.

Q: Now, the Paul Motian Trio just recorded an album exclusively of Monk’s music.

JL: Right. We’ve been playing a lot of Monk tunes. It’s really nice, because in the trio, of course, there’s no bass, so we’re playing guitar, saxophone and drums, and we’re trying to really feel this music in a different kind of way.

Q: It’s very interesting, though, because you always stay with the chords and the melody.

JL: Oh yeah, we’re into the tunes. Those songs are real beautiful vehicles, and we want to expand on everything that’s there as well as put our own wisdom into the piece. But that was a really fun record date to do. I’ve been playing a lot with Dewey Redman, and actually this tune “Dewey Said” was dedicated to Dewey. It came from some lines or some feelings that I have felt listening to Dewey play. Some of the melodies in the piece kind of developed from listening to Dewey. He’s one of my favorite people. And he actually has a son that plays tenor who I’ve been hearing a lot about, and I’m sure everyone is going to be hearing at some point soon.

Anyway, from Monk’s Time we’ll hear “Lulu’s Back In Town.” In this particular quartet is Butch Warren on bass, Ben Riley on drums, and one of my favorite saxophone players, and someone who passed on recently, but I had a chance to really hang with a few times at the Vanguard and was a beautiful cat, Charlie Rouse.

[MUSIC: Monk, “Lulu’s Back In Town” (1963); Coltrane, “Naima” (1965), Ornette/Dewey/Garrison/Jones “Open To the Public” (1968)]

That was a really inspired take. Elvin Jones is the truth. I mean, after touring with him and being around him every day on a two-month tour, I mean, he’s so intense and ready to play… He has so much fun! Before each gig he’d be like rubbin’ his hand together, “Let’s hear it!” And you could hear it on that take. On every record Elvin pays on. I mean, he comes there to play. He doesn’t fool around at all.

Next we’re going to play something from an album that I’m on with the Paul Motian Trio with Dewey Redman Monk In Motian. I’d just like to say what a pleasure it is to play with Dewey. And I’ve been lucky enough to play in Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra as well with Dewey. It’s always exciting listening to him compose.

Following that, we’ll hear two tunes from a record of mine that’s coming out early next year, with a line-up of a few people who are playing with me tonight and tomorrow night at Club Visiones at Third and MacDougal. This record, Worlds, features my Wind Ensemble, which has Tim Hagans on trumpet, Judi Silverman, voice, Gary Valente, trombone, Paul Motian, drums, Henri Texier, bass, and Bill Frisell on guitar.

[MUSIC: Lovano/Redman/FrisellMotian, “Epistrophy,” Lovano Wind Ens., “Spirit Of The Night,” “Lutetia”]

——–

Joe Lovano’s John Coltrane “Dozens” for http://www.jazz.com (June 12, 2008):
1. Good Bait, (Soultrane) Prestige, w/ Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Arthur Taylor, 100/100.

This was one of the first significant Coltrane recordings, this recording Soultrane, for me, that I lived with as a real young player, and a young listener. That particular tune, Good Bait, was written by Tadd Dameron. I’m originally from Cleveland, Ohio, as well as Tadd. My Dad played with Tadd Dameron. So I learned a lot about music and the whole history of jazz growing up, studying Tadd Dameron’s music, and hearing Coltrane’s incredible, lengthy exploration on “Good Bait” was really inspiring to me, and taught me a lot about how I would have to deal with this music, and learn to play the saxophone. It’s a timeless recording that when I listen to it today, sounds as fresh as when I was a kid.

After studying Coltrane through the years, and being a saxophonist myself, realizing all of the things that you have to deal with to execute your ideas, every stage of the way is a different development period. That period for Coltrane in the mid ‘50s, I think he was probably with Miles at the time, 1956… [That recording was ‘58. And he’d kicked heroin at the time. He did this right after he left Monk.] I see. So that experience and journey to that moment was pretty intense, as far as the study of the music, the saxophone, the people he was playing with. He had come up playing with Tadd Dameron, playing with him in his music, playing with Miles’ band, Dizzy’s band, Johnny Hodges’ band. He was just starting to form a conception about who he was and how he wanted to present himself in the music. There’s another tune on this recording, “I Want To Talk About You,” that he played throughout his lifetime and presented in concert around the world many times. One thing I learned from Coltrane is that he lived with the music that he played, and he was always developing on it throughout his career. [Anything you’d care to say about his style then? Maybe how you see his development with Monk leading him to play those incredibly lucid solos that he did on that record?] One thing, playing with Thelonious Monk got him to be even more articulate than he was doing on his own. His execution, his articulation, his rhythm, his phrasing and ideas were all one. And his tone also, at this period, was really crystallizing. He was fusing together all of the elements of playing music and playing the saxophone. He was a virtuoso on his instrument, and he was really able to communicate his ideas in lengthy open solos, and “Good Bait” is a prime example of him really stretching out and playing through that pilece of music with his own approach.
2. BAGS & TRANE, “Three Little Words” Atlantic, John Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Milt Jackson, vibraphone; Hank Jones, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Connie Kay, drums. (1959) 100/100

It’s incredible to hear Coltrane play on standard songs, and to play with a rhythm section like that, where Hank is very free in the harmonic sequence and is feeding him harmonies and voicings, and Coltrane is taking him places that’s giving him ideas and opening up what he’s playing harmonically as well. To hear Hank Jones and Coltrane together is incredible on this recording, and also, Milt Jackson is one of the most incredible lyrical improvisers in the music, and to hear them balance each other and come off of each other, and play on a tune like “Three Little Words,” and not play too many choruses, a few choruses each, just like really play through the tune and sustain the mood of that tune, was a real beautiful journey on their part, and for me, as a young musician, digging Coltrane playing standards taught me a lot about the repertoire to become a musician in this beautiful world of music we’re in. [So it was less that you were checking out Coltrane’s lines, but more that you were getting a feeling for the pathway of doing this? Or were you checking out the vocabulary?] Well, I was checking out the vocabulary of how they were all playing together. But the one thing that I learned about music listening to Coltrane, no matter what he was playing, was the depth of the repertoire that he knew, and how much ballads and the blues were in everything he played, and how it all related in his solos. He was a soloist of the highest order, no matter what he played, and his focus on the material drove him and fed him ideas. It wasn’t just what he was practicing on his horn, even though that was a big part of the way he played. The music that he played and the people that he played with really gave him direction, and you can hear it when you hear him playing on standards.
3. LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD, “Chasin’ The Trane” (master take), Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; Elvin Jones, drums

All the different versions of “Chasing the Trane” through the years from the live recordings hit that same incredible level of creativity on the blues. This was one of the first pieces that I heard, and didn’t even realize it was a blues, for a long time. It was a whole side of one of the Impulse records, somewhere around 1961. Eric Dolphy comes in on the last note or something, at the very end. Now, of course, later they released all these other Live at the Village Vanguard takes, there’s other takes of “Chasin’ The Trane” where Dolphy plays and McCoy plays. But this particular version, the original that came out on that recording, was one side of a record, just Coltrane’s choruses. He played from start to finish. The first time I heard that, I listened to it all day. I just kept putting the needle back at the beginning of the recording. Then after a while, I realized it was a blues. I was a teenager, and it was something else, man. The energy, the focus, and the swinging, beautiful exploration of Coltrane’s choruses on that—it was really some magic, man. Then moving to New York, playing at the Village Vanguard with the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, and then carrying on into today, presenting my own groups, and recording live there, and feeling the spirits in that room, it goes back to that first time, checking THAT piece out.

[It’s fascinating that he recorded that maybe two years after “Three Little Words” from Bags and Trane, and the sound is so radically different.]

Mmm-hmm. Well, Trane was moving on in his playing and his approach, and becoming a leader, having his own band, focusing totally on what he wanted to play, and that in turn created a lot of ideas of how he was playing. He was always dealing with how he played, as well as what he was playing. He was definitely a dedicated, serious student of the saxophone and of music, but his approach widened through the years on how he was playing and how he was putting things together. We all study the elements in the music, and we all deal with things today that we dealt with on Day One. If you don’t do that, then I don’t think you can really play with the depth of your soul. If it only becomes a technical thing to get around your horn and to execute what you’ve practiced, you’re not really executing your feelings at all. Coltrane went through periods earlier on where he was documented, and was a very technical player. But you hear the evolution of how his feelings came out in his music in every step of the way, and that was a beautiful study also for me through the years. When you study somebody’s whole career on record, someone who recorded as much as he did… He recorded a lot! Hundreds and hundreds of songs through the years. That all came out in his playing at every moment, man, the soulfulness of it all, of his journey.
4. “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes”, COLTRANE’S SOUND

That whole recording is amazing, but “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes,” the form of it, the feelings, the way the rhythm shifted, and his ideas throughout the sequence of the harmonies with the different inflections that Elvin Jones was playing, and the way McCoy comped on that, little pedal points in the bass… It felt like a quartet. It wasn’t just Coltrane soloing over that tune or with a rhythm section. It really was a totally integrated quartet. This is an early record that I recognized that quality of improvising together as a unit. Some of the other things prior to that… Even on “Good Bait,” Coltrane’s playing with the rhythm section. But the interplay and the way they developed ideas and played off each other on “Night Has a Thousand Eyes” was instrumental in my discovery of the approach of playing within the group you’re in, whether you’re playing a solo or not. Also, Elvin’s playing on that. As a young player, I played a lot of drums, and was practicing saxophone and drums at the same time, and playing along with records and trying to hear what was happening. Playing along with that recording on drums taught me everything, man, about form and about following the line and the soloist, and trying to hit a groove, playing ALONG WITH Elvin and McCoy and Coltrane on that recording. That taught me a lot about everything.
5. “Body and Soul” from COLTRANE’S SOUND (Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Steve Davis, bass; Elvin Jones), Atlantic, 1960. 100/100

Studying the tune “Body and Soul” from that same recording. Studying Coleman Hawkins’ version. My Dad played Coleman Hawkins’ solo from that first big hit that he had, and my Dad knew it back and forth. I’d hear him play those lines all the time when I would practice. Hearing Coltrane’s interpretation, and his own perspective and view through his different harmonic sequences of “Giant Steps,” development through modulations and harmonies, and how he incorporated that… In that certain period for Coltrane, he was doing that on a lot of standard songs. The whole “Giant Steps” approach developed through his developing different ways of modulation through harmony. The way he put that together on “Body and Soul” was beautiful. It really taught me a lot about substitution chords, and how to incorporate those things as you’re playing through any given tune, and how it related to the blues as well. It’s one of the most soulful, beautiful versions of that tune. [Dexter Gordon incorporated those changes into his own version of “Body and Soul”] Dexter Gordon did that later on, sure. Dexter gave Coltrane a mouthpiece early on. It might have been the mouthpiece that he was playing on a certain early period with Miles. Well, Coltrane was one of Dexter’s disciples, I think, along with Bird and others. You could hear Dexter in Coltrane’s playing at a certain point, and later you hear Coltrane in Dexter’s playing a lot. That kind of mix teaches you a lot about what an amazing music this is. It’s multigenerational, multicultural. We all influence each other in different ways at different times in our careers and personalities.
6. “Vigil”, KULU SE MAMA (Impulse, 1965) (McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums) 100/100

My Dad had this recording, as he did most of these. So I didn’t have to buy it. He loved KULU SE MAMA. He listened to this all the time. Of course, I grew up in the ‘60s, so I didn’t grow up when these recordings were coming out. They were all released. I was very lucky that my Dad had a hip record collection, and had these records from the different periods of Coltrane. He met Coltrane in the early ‘50s and played a jam session with him in Cleveland. Coltrane was playing alto; he was in town with a blues band. [Didn’t Coltrane stay in Cleveland for a little bit with a guy named Gay Crosse?] Gay Crosse was the blues band that he played with. I think he was a Cleveland cat. During that time, you might stay somewhere for a month or two and play every night. Anyway, they were one year apart; my Dad was born in 1925, and Coltrane in 1926. So they came up in the same generation, the same music. My dad played at this session with Coltrane, and he never forgot that, man. He loved Coltrane’s playing, and met him that time. Through the years, he had all his records. So I grew up with Bags and Trane and Soultrane and Kulu Se Mama and Meditations. But Kulu Se Mama was one that my Dad loved to listen to. This piece, “Vigil,” is just a duet with Elvin. It was so well recorded, it was incredible. When you listened to that down in our basement, on my Dad’s stereo, at forte, it was like they were in the room with you. The sound of the drums and the way they played together was so beautiful and organic. My Dad had a nice stereo with speakers all over the basement, so wherever you were down in our basement it was great sound! That piece really captured me, man, just in a duo. It might have been one of the first times I really heard a saxophone-and-tenor duet on a recording. [Speak a bit as to how Coltrane’s music was different in 1965 than 1961.] Definitely in 1965, when this recording was made, his sound… He was playing more majestic, in a certain way. He seemed to fill the room with his tone in a different way. In the early ‘60s, he was playing through his horn and flying around his horn, and he still filled the room… When I say “filled the room,” I’m talking about when you’re listening; I was never in a room with Coltrane playing live. But in the earlier Coltrane, his sound attacked you, it came at you. As he developed more to the end of his life, his tone was much majestic, and had a much more spiritual and open feeling to it—to me. Even though he was still playing some ferocious, incredible things around his instrument, just his sound was more beautiful than it even had been. It was always beautiful. I always thought he had a beautiful sound. But it was even more beautiful. It comes through on this duet as well.

7. “Venus” (from INTERSTELLAR SPACE, Impulse, 1967] Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Rashied Ali, drums. 100/100

That’s another duet piece with Rashied Ali on drums, who plays brushes on this piece. It’s a ballad like, lyrical, rubato piece, and the way they improvise together is so captivating and beautiful. You hit the Repeat button when it finishes. You want to keep listening to it over and over again. It did that to me. Interstellar Space was a recording I brought home and played for my Dad, which then he really dug, because it was a complete LP of only duets. There are four pieces on it, four planets. Moving to New York in the mid ‘70s, one of the first places I went was Rashied Ali’s club, Ali’s Alley. I’d been playing a little with Albert Dailey, and he told me he was playing a gig with ‘Shied down there, and told me I should come. I went down and ended up sitting in with him that night. It was one of the thrills of my life up until that point, calling home and telling my dad I sat in and played with Rashied Ali! That recording, Interstellar Space, was an important record to me.

[This is towards the end of Coltrane’s life; he’d gone to another place than even on “Vigil.”] “Vigil” had a certain energy and a swing to it, and a certain drive that Elvin and Coltrane hooked up on. “Venus” was maybe a year-and-a-half later. Coltrane was dealing with a new approach to rhythm and flow and playing counterpoint within the rhythm. It was still swinging and still moving in a certain forward motion, but it wasn’t a quarter-note swing type beat. It was a very open beat that gives you a lot of room for expression. In a way, Rashied Ali was playing more like a soloist along with the soloist. But they were finding all kinds of common, beautiful unisons within the counterpoint that they were creating with each other. It’s a way of playing that from that moment on I’ve been trying to develop in my playing. Those directions put me in a path to play with Paul Motian through the years. At that same period in the ‘60s, Paul was also exploring playing a very free approach in his accompaniment on drums, flowing with the soloist and not just playing the beat that everyone expects you to play. Feeling the beat and then improvising with it. Throughout my career I’ve had a chance to play with some of the master drummers in jazz, including Elvin Jones and Rashied Ali and Paul Motian and Jack DeJohnette, Ed Blackwell, Idris Muhammad, Lewis Nash and the cats today, Brian Blade, Al Foster… It’s amazing. When I look back, I projected a lot of those things to happen from this early period, discovering all this diverse music and feelings that were executed by Coltrane and the crowd. That crowd. It all stemmed from Max Roach and Bird and Diz and Monk. But that certain crowd of players, and the way they learned from each other and developed a way of playing just captured me, and I feel really fortunate to be on the scene today and trying to execute my ideas within that world and with that crowd.

8. “Chim-Chim, Cheree” (COLTRANE PLAYS CHIM CHIM CHEREE, Impulse, 1965…) 100/100

It was an amazing version of “Chim, Chim Cheree” on soprano saxophone, the groove of it, the whole interplay, the flow of the quartet. Coltrane, coming off of playing “My Favorite Thing” and having such a success on that, and then playing an interpretation of “Chim, Chim Cheree” so wide-open and exploratory, and just, like, SERIOUS. He wasn’t just playing it to play it. You could feel that he was into exploring what could happen off of that theme, and the way they put it together is just a beautiful, joyous journey and piece of music. Also, this certain period… This was maybe ‘63 or ‘64… [I thought it was 1965.] Could be around ‘64 or ‘65. The way he was playing soprano at that time was… The later records after that, he didn’t play soprano. This was one of the later recordings on soprano, in a way—for a studio date anyway. Man, his sound and his whole approach and focus on that horn on that recording is instrumental in giving me confidence to try to play other instruments and explore the possibilities of different tonal energy that comes off of the horn you play. At that same time, for me, I’d heard James Moody live and Sonny Stitt live and Rahsaan Roland Kirk live… Of course, when I say that same period, when I heard that record and heard those cats live, I was a teenager, 16-17 years old. I was in a room with those guys. Sonny Stitt played alto, and then put it down and played tenor. Moody picked up the flute. Rahsaan played all these horns, not only at the same time, but to play as his voice for the moment. The focus of sound and energy from the instrument came through. I really felt that on “Chim, Chim Cheree” from the record with Coltrane, his focus and his sound and the energy that that instrument gave him, and how he executed ideas off that inspiration.

9. “Father, Son and the Holy Ghost” (MEDITATIONS, Impulse, 1965) 100/100.

That melody, that theme, it’s like a very simple little exercise, in a way. If you broke it down and just played it like a scale, it was a simple, little, beautiful meditation on those intervals and those themes. How he played it through all keys. That was another record that my dad really loved, and he listened to it a lot. I heard it a lot without sitting and listening to it myself. I just heard it played in our house from the basement when my dad would be listening to music. At the time, I was dealing with trying to learn how to play the saxophone, so I was more into Bird and Diz and earlier Coltrane and Sonny with Max, but I was hearing my Dad listen to that record, and this piece in particular, “The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost,” and all of a sudden I found myself practicing a different way without even thinking about—just little simple things on the horn that I was working on, but playing them in different keys, and playing them more peaceful, in a way. Practicing them in a more peaceful way, instead of just running through them technically on the horn. Later, when I reflect on it, I realize that it was kind of subliminal something from that particular recording, the way my dad listened to that record a lot. I mean, he would go down to the basement and put that record on a lot. Maybe because it was totally new music to him. He wasn’t that kind of player, really. He was a real bebopper at heart, a hard-swinging player. But he had a beautiful ballads approach. I don’t know. Something about that record my Dad just loved, and listened to a lot. So I learned a certain way of practicing that came from that recording. Also, just the collectiveness of the way Pharaoh Sanders… Also, Rashied was on that record. It was a double-drummers record with Elvin and Rashied, Jimmy Garrison, McCoy, and Pharaoh. There were some things that were in that approach that have stayed with me, and certain things that I’m trying to develop to this day.

10. “Dear old Stockholm” (Coltrane, McCoy, Garrison, Roy Haynes, NEWPORT ‘63) 100/100

I love this live version of “Dear Old Stockholm” with Roy Haynes on drums, and I listen to it a lot. There’s a certain freshness and different feeling that happens when Coltrane plays with Roy Haynes. His ideas take different shapes rhythmically and melodically. Something’s different there. That also just inspired me to realize that when you play with different people, that creates the music, really. The music within the music comes from the people that you’re playing with at the time. I recognized that at a certain point, and through the years developing with the people that I’ve played with, especially drummers, Ed Blackwell, Billy Higgins and Mel Lewis…realizing you could play the same tune, but when you have a different feeling in the rhythm section, you should play with a different feeling as a soloist. The recordings with Coltrane and Roy Haynes were really instrumental for me recognizing that, and this particular version of “Dear Old Stockholm,” the ending, the way they play over the form, the way they explore… They could have played that all day and night. From start to finish, it’s a joyous, beautiful journey.

11. “Expression” (Impulse, 1967, Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Garrison, Rashied Ali) 100/100

This is from Coltrane’s last session meant to be released. That tune… In a way, the harmonic sequence, the melody…it’s like a beautiful prayer. That’s something we just recorded with the Saxophone Summit on our latest release, Seraphic Light. Just to play that theme, when you’re playing that theme over and over again, just alone, on the saxophone, and implying some of the harmonies and the roots, it’s like the most beautiful prayer, and it’s a continuous melodic flow that is really something. It’s one of the tunes that Coltrane I don’t think ever really explored that much in concert. It was near the end of his life, and he might have just brought it in for the recording session for the whole group, and they recorded it. Now, of course, him and Alice might have been playing it as a duet, which I would have loved to hear that. When Alice came into the band after McCoy and played with a real harp-like approach, where she was playing the full piano in her accompaniment, it seemed to give Coltrane… In a way, he relaxed and played off of more of the spectrum in the harmonies. He was playing a harp-like approach also at that point, the way he expanded… They always talk about sheets of sound. When you slow that down, it becomes very harp-like, very open. Of course, on the duets, Interstellar Space, which was done in the same month or week, he was playing through things very quick, and flurries of notes throughout the harmony, whereas on “Expression” he kind of stretched them out a little bit. I think we would have heard another side to Coltrane if he’d developed during the years after this. Because his execution on his instrument was so beautiful. He could do whatever he felt and heard. When Alice came into the band, especially on these moments with the quartet… Stellar Regions is another quartet recording from right around that time where they explored many tunes, shorter version of them, that were kind of strung together. Expression was one of the songs I think that inspired a whole way of playing, for me, and a way of playing through harmonies in a free-flowing way, without a quarter-note or metronome-type beat. An open beat, but still moving through a sequence of chords. I learned a lot about trying to approach improvising with that aspect of meter. It’s something I’m just scratching the surface on now.

12. “Impressions” THE 1961 HELSINKI CONCERT (Gambit) FEATURING ERIC DOLPHY (Nov. 22, 1961) (Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; McCoy Tyner, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; Elvin Jones, drums)

I was just on tour with McCoy Tyner in April, and I found this in a record shop in Basel, Switzerland. I never saw it before. There’s a version of “Impressions” that starts the concert that’s at kind of a slower tempo, almost like the tempo they played “So What” at with Miles. It’s amazing. Coltrane’s choruses are so beautiful, just the way they play the theme together and the way Eric answers and plays in the spaces of the melody. Coltrane plays around 9 choruses, then Eric comes in and plays 9 or 10 choruses himself that are some of the most beautiful Eric Dolphy with Coltrane on record. It’s incredible, because I think this was just released now. I never heard it on any other box set from European live recordings with Coltrane. Then Coltrane comes back in, after Dolphy, and plays another 2 or 3 choruses before they take the theme out. So it’s a short version of this tune with no solo by McCoy. It’s just fantastic. It’s some of the most inspired Eric Dolphy after Coltrane plays, and while Coltrane is playing, you can feel that he’s inspired just by having Dolphy on the scene. He hands it over to him in a way where he’s saying, “Okay, man, what have you got to say?” Then when Dolphy ends his chorus, Coltrane has to come in and play again because it’s at this really beautiful place in the whole structure of the piece.

[TALK A BIT ABOUT COLTRANE DIALOGUING WITH OTHER SAXOPHONE PLAYERS]

Coltrane recorded with a lot of different saxophone players. There was a great record with Johnny Griffin and Hank Mobley. There was some stuff with Al Cohn and Zoot Sims and Hank Mobley as a quartet. There’s some stuff with Paul Quinichette and Pepper Adams, Gene Ammons—Coltrane plays alto. Coltrane came up in an era where you played in bands with other saxophone players a lot. Some of it was documented, but I’m sure through the years he was in tons of bands, and many jam sessions and situations where you shape the music together spontaneously right at the moment with other saxophone players. A lot. Of course, with Miles and Cannonball and quintets with Cannonball. Throughout his career, I think he enjoyed, which I do, feeding off of other people, especially if they have a strong personality and ideas and have their own statement. It was great to hear him with Dolphy and have Eric’s voice, not only on alto, but bass clarinet and flute. We’re lucky that they recorded and did some things, a lot more than we ever heard really that were made for release. The recording Olé was beautiful with Freddie Hubbard and Coltrane together. But something like this, which just came out, from that tour, was so fresh! It was recorded in 1961. McCoy Tyner was 22 years old, maybe 23 on that recording. It’s so great to hear the inspiration of how they played together, and how they played off of each other.

13. “Ah-Leu-Cha” (from ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT) (Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Miles Davis, trumpet; Red Garland, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Philly Joe Jones).

The way Coltrane, Miles, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums play on that tune, the little counterpoint on that melody… I think that tune is based on “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Scrapple From the Apple”—I’m pretty sure it was derived from that sequence. But the way it was structured with the little drum-breaks and all these little things, and the way Coltrane played with Philly Joe Jones and Paul Chambers… Of course, we’ve heard many recordings through the years with them together as that combination. That was another feeling in the beat, and the joyous journey in how they were up in each other’s music, and were moving through the harmonies with a certain feeling. They weren’t just playing over chords and playing 32 bars. They were exploring a way of playing together. It was Miles’ group, but this community of players. Someone has to be the leader, to organize things, but it’s really the community of players that make the music. I’m feeling that today in my ensembles, creating situations for the community that I live in. My nonet has a certain repertoire, a certain community of players. We’ve been playing together for years. Now, I’m the leader. I’ve organized and have developed my career to a point to be able to put it together. But it’s the community of players that is making music, too. Each one of my ensembles has been inspired by that particular realization about what is happening on the scene. Miles and Coltrane and Monk and Bird, all their records are about that. It’s a community they were living in, man, and they were living this music together, and you could feel how much they loved to play together. That comes through on this recording, Round About Midnight, with Miles Davis, and that tune, “Ah-Leu-Cha”—but on every tune. For me, that was one of the first records that totally captured me and gave me a lot of ideas, and I wore it out two or three times.

[END OF CONVERSATION]

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Joe Lovano (Quartets: Live At The Village Vanguard) – Blue Note:
The two quartet performances that comprise Live At the Village Vanguard represent the latest installment of Joe Lovano’s ongoing dialogue with the Freedom Principle and the Tradition. 42 years old, at the peak of his powers, where vigor complements wisdom, Lovano is as comfortable playing improvised duos with English Free-Jazz-Master Evan Parker as in-the-pocket bebop with an organ trio. His solos display the spontaneity of an ear player, but behind them is the urbane sophistication of a conservatory-trained musician with twenty years experience interpreting difficult charts in big bands ranging from Woody Herman to Carla Bley. Fully conversant with the harmonic vocabulary of Coltrane, Shorter and beyond, he is able to navigate complex structures with an uncannily relaxed rhythmic facility and big furry sound at the most intense outer partials.

Lovano inherited his open, pragmatic attitude from his father, Cleveland-based tenor saxophonist Tony “Big T” Lovano. Papa Lovano worked a day job as a barber and played every variety of gig at night. Coming up in the 1940’s, Big T looked up to Clevelanders Tadd Dameron and Freddie Webster, played around the city with the likes of Bill De Arango, Jim Hall, Benny Bailey, Joe Alexander and the legendary blind organist Eddie Bacchus. Later, as a main man on the Cleveland scene, he knew and played with outcats Albert Ayler, Frank Wright and Bobby Few in their formative years. The likes of Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, James Moody and Roland Kirk considered him a peer, and he took his son to Cleveland spots like the Smiling Dog or the Sirrah Club to hear their live sound. When young Lovano was practicing to Sonny Stitt records in the family basement, his father had John Coltrane’s “Kulu Se Mama” or “A Love Supreme” on the turntable upstairs.

When Big T was too busy to make a booking, he’d often send his son. “I paid my way to Berklee School of Music from all the money I made playing gigs in high school,” Joe recalls. “I learned all the standard tunes, how to lead a gig and pace a set. My Dad taught me how to read an audience, too; if I was playing in a club where there was dancing, to play the right tempos, to find the tunes that people are going to dig. My Dad always stressed, ‘Look, you have to be versatile so you can pay the rent.’ He taught me clarinet, and wanted me to play flute, and be able to play in bands, and to be able to take any gig that came up. He always instilled that in me. So from an early age, I was studying a lot of different dimensions of improvising and playing my instruments with those goals in mind.”

Tony Lovano’s sound spanned a wide dynamic range, from the alligatory roughness of Illinois Jacquet to the expansive melismas of Lester Young and Ben Webster, and he bequeathed that range to his son. “My sound has gone through a lot of different changes,” says Joe, “or different periods. Early on I played more one-dimensionally, with a harder sound. On my first recording with Lonnie Smith in 1975, my sound was only one beam of light, let’s say, just one direction. Through the years, in playing with so many different bands, especially large ensembles where the music is always changing with different feelings, rhythms and attitudes, rather than try to sound the same in each group, I would try to fit in in a different way all the time. That range of dynamics started the process of trying to open up my sound in a different direction. Through the years it’s definitely gotten wider and bigger, and I think I can play now, say, triple pianissimo with the same fullness as a triple forte.”

A drummer friend of Big T’s gave 7-year-old Joe a set from the 1940’s, including a 24″ bass drum, and Lovano has played those drums for serious relaxation ever since. On saxophone, his phrases consist of long strings of notes disjunctively accented in dialogue with the drums, cliffhanger lines that seem fated to hurtle over the edge, but inevitably land squarely on the one. “Playing drums,” Lovano comments, “opened up my awareness of what’s going on around me when I’m soloing, to not just be involved in what I’m articulating on my horn, but try to be a part of what everybody else is playing.”

Tony Lovano also introduced his son to the revelations of free improvising; they recorded a free duet together on Joe’s self-produced two-tenor date with Big T in 1986. “For years I’ve focused on improvising very freely with other players, like Billy Drewes and Judi Silvano, in duet settings, just to improvise and react to each other, and try to create melodies from what each other played. I’m into performance, I’m into playing with the personalities I play with, and I improvise with everybody from that conception. I want to try to feed off of what everybody else plays so that I don’t find myself being repetitive.”

“For me improvising really is about creating something new,” Joe emphasizes. “Early on it was about style and learning my horn, but after a while it shifted into this other place of trying to create something with what’s going on around you, using your technique and the language of your instrument to create something different all the time.”

The March 1994 set features the powerful unit of Tom Harrell, Anthony Cox and Billy Hart, who had worked together off and on for two years. The most explicit antecedents are Sonny Rollins’ various trio recordings and the Ornette Coleman Quartet, but Lovano also cites John Coltrane’s music and Miles Davis’ various bands as inspirations. “Whether Miles’ group was a quartet or quintet or however big it was, it would come down to a trio sound a lot, the bass, drums and horn. I think that’s the essence in Jazz, and there are certain feelings that happen in that intimate setting.” The music was recorded on the week’s fourth night.

“In a quartet like this, with two horns,” Lovano continues, “you have the opportunity to change the orchestration as you play, to play backgrounds, to cut in on each other, to trade, to create a real ensemble sound as four people. I was able to write some new music and orchestrations that gave everyone freedom, a fresh approach to play together. The collective dialogue was unique, with a lot of explosive energy, and everybody’s attitude and personalities shaped the pieces. I think that’s why the chemistry worked. Each musician is in tune with the history of this music and tries to draw from it in a very personal way.”

Tom Harrell and Lovano have worked in each other’s bands since around 1987, when Lovano recorded Village Rhythm for Soul Note. Known for his exquisite improvising in “harmonic type music with piano or larger groups,” Harrell plays with extraordinary force in the freer setting, spontaneously co-composing arrangements with his horn-mate on every song, conjuring poised melodic sequences on every solo. Listen to the way he mimics the multiphonic burst that concludes Lovano’s solo on “Fort Worth” to segue seamlessly into his statement, or his ravishing solo on “Sail Away.”

Though Lovano first knew bassist Anthony Cox from casual sessions in the late Seventies, they established a real connection with John Scofield’s Quartet in 1989; in 1990-91 Cox worked in Lovano’s trio with Ed Blackwell. “Anthony is versatile and can play very freely within structures and forms and harmonic sequences with imagination and intuition,” Lovano states. “He’s a strong melodic rhythmic player who brings a lot of ideas into the tune, but always drawing from the tune itself. That’s the kind of bass player you need in a trio sounding group such as this.” Hear his leadoff solo on Cleveland composer Emil Boyd’s “Blues Not To Lose,” how he meshes with Billy Hart in articulating theme and variation on the tune’s striking melody.

On Joe’s first gig in New York with organist Lonnie Smith in 1975, Billy Hart played drums; they’ve since collaborated in many venues. “I first heard Billy with Herbie Hancock’s sextet in the early Seventies, and the first time I heard him, man, I wanted to play with him!” Lovano remembers. “In every situation Billy is open and inspired. He tries to get into everyone’s personality, plus he brings in his own incredible energy. In this quartet I wrote some tunes to feature him and let him explode and explore, give him freedom to shift tempos and to play however he wants, to listen and react. I think Billy Hart today is playing fresher than ever.” Hart’s dynamic range and command of timbre complement every beat of the set; hear how he complements Lovano’s trademark pillowed, honey sound on the 12/8 treatment of “Birds From Springtimes Gone By,” his impeccable brushwork on “I Can’t Get Started,” the quiet fire of “Sail Away,” and the controlled fury of every stroke on the Colemanesque “Uprising.”

Volume 2, from January 1995, features the dream team rhythm section of Mulgrew Miller, Christian McBride and Lewis Nash, the pianist, bassist and drummer that any bandleader would want on their gig, in a follow-up to Tenor Legacy, Lovano’s two-tenor collaboration with Joshua Redman for Blue Note.

“I wanted to make a counter-statement to the first quartet,” Lovano says, “and not just be throwing some tunes together. For the Vanguard, I wanted to play some classic things in my own way and in the group’s way, how we play together now. We challenged each other throughout the week on each tune. It didn’t matter what the tempo was or what key it was in or what the tune was. We could have played ‘Happy Birthday’.” Instead, Lovano chose compositions by John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Charles Mingus, a standard by Gordon Jenkins, and an original. As on the March 1994 set, the sequencing represents the actual set order.

Many pianists you talk to cite Mulgrew Miller as their model on the instrument; “one of the most elegant, swinging, tasteful pianists today,” comments Lovano, who met Mulgrew around 1974 when both were students in Boston. “He plays with an inner beauty in his sound and whole flow, and he’s one of the most swinging accompanists around. When he comps, he’s so much a part of what everybody else is playing that you’re not really aware of what he’s playing somehow. He’s so in touch with everything.” His ferocious, idiomatic solo on “Little Willie Leaps” marks a profound accomplishment; the duos with Lovano in the opening and closing verse sections of “This Is All I Ask” are lyric wonders.

At 23 years old, Christian McBride already has established his place in Jazz history for the quality of his tone, his deep center-of-the-note beat, virtuosic bow-work and imaginative soloing. He’s already appeared on about eighty recordings. “Christian is an incredible young musician who is deeply involved in the whole recorded history of music. He knows a lot of tunes, and he memorizes things immediately. You can play anything with him. After the first time through he plays it, SNAP, he knows it, he’s got it, he immediately grabs hold of what’s happening and hits a serious groove from beat one.” Listen to his solos on “Reflections” and “26-2” and his rhythmic interplay with Lewis Nash throughout, and you’ll see what the buzz on him is all about.

“The word ‘elegant’ applies to Lewis Nash’s playing, too,” Joe continues. “He is one of the most tasteful drummers, swings so hard, plays with complete precision with a heavy beat that never gets bombastic — he’s not just banging around. He articulates everything like a horn player, and it’s fun to play with him and interact with his articulation, the way he plays phrases at you and counter-phrases. He’s very clear. You can hear everything he plays like you’re snapping your fingers. It’s beautiful to play with a drummer like that, because you can play tight together.” Note the incredible swing Nash generates on “Lonnie’s Lament” and “Reflections” at the top of the set, or the ingenious 12-bar drum breaks between the melodies and solos of “Sounds of Joy.”

The contrasting styles of the two state-of-the-art drummers evoked different approaches from Lovano. “Lewis plays very differently than Billy,” he comments. “Billy plays really loose and flowing and strong and explosive, and takes big right turns and sharp angles. There’s a lot more angles in Billy’s playing. With Billy you’re listening deeply, and the interaction takes a different shape. You have to be very free as an improviser to create a solo that can shift and change with his accents and tempo. The piano quartet is about swing, and it’s about the rhythm section, the soloists, the tradition of Bebop. It’s really about flow and straight-ahead. They say, ‘Straight ahead and strive for tone.’ That’s the essence of that group. We hit a heavy groove and just sailed with it.”

“I played completely differently with the two groups, in two different attitudes, and I think you can hear that when you listen to each recording. My solos in the quartet with Mulgrew are a lot longer and a lot more involved with playing a solo. In the group with Tom and Billy and Anthony there’s more interplay, a lot more dialogue between all of us. I’ve played in both those schools my whole life, and I love them both.”

The Village Vanguard’s legend was built on performances like the two snapshots presented on this double-CD. Lovano’s intense consciousness of the room’s remarkable Jazzcoustics, “its intimate sound and clarity, like playing in a studio somehow,” began as a teenager, when repeated listenings to the Vanguard recordings by Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans helped deepen his sense of how Jazz should sound. His live connection with the Vanguard began in 1976, the year he moved to New York. He drank in Dexter Gordon’s tone during Homecoming week (“I came home and practiced for hours and hours after hearing Dexter in that room”), sat in with Elvin Jones and Bill Evans. Lovano worked there almost every Monday night during the 1980’s with the Mel Lewis Orchestra, worked week-gigs with Elvin Jones, Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra and the Paul Motian Trio. And since 1991, when Lovano embarked on the leader path as a full-time endeavor, his various groups have been a staple of the Vanguard’s roster.

So recording Joe Lovano at the Village Vanguard was a natural. Rigorous and hot, Live At The Village Vanguard is contemporary Jazz at its finest.

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Joe Lovano (On This Day: At The Vanguard) – Liner Notes:

“I’ve always lived in, let’s say, the different camps in the music,” Joe Lovano told me a few years back. “I’ve tried to develop my technique so I can execute ideas freely and within the personnel of the band and not come at the saxophone or the music with the same attitude all the time.”

That credo accurately describes the ambiance of On This Day (At The Vanguard), recorded on the final night of a week’s residence by Lovano’s nonet at New York’s Village Vanguard. As Lovano is at pains to note, it documents a working band in a continual state of evolution.

“I don’t want a bunch of horn players repeating arrangements that are rehearsed and set in stone,” Lovano says. “I want a band that creates music, with a structure that is secure and solid, but with freedom for everyone’s contribution to take shape and crystallize as we play. All the cats have played in great bands; they’re mature improvisers and serious ensemble players who shape their approach in the moment. This is how we put together our music for every concert. Each performance stands on its own. This is how we’re playing tonight!“

The core of Lovano’s first nonet album, the Grammy-winning 52nd Street Themes, was that branch of bebop gestated by the singular melodies, voicings and harmonic progressions of Tadd Dameron [1917-1965] as filtered through the sensibility of arranger Willie Smith, once a Dameron associate. Three years later, Lovano and his gifted cohort – propelled by the extraordinarily inventive and empathetic drumwork of Lewis Nash – pick up where they left off and stretch the form. The ensemble renders with heart and precision Smith’s luscious arrangements of Dameron’s “Focus” and the classic noir ballad “Laura,” while all members speak their piece on a rollicking “Good Bait” marked by an ebullient shout chorus. “At The Vanguard” is a Lovano-penned stomp (guess the source) with a Monkish connotation, while the leader offers an impassioned, reflective reading of John Coltrane’s “After The Rain,” and ends the set with a mellow quartet fantasia on Billy Strayhorn’s “My Little Brown Book,” made famous by Coltrane on his iconic 1962 encounter with Duke Ellington.

“I grew up with Coltrane’s recordings of these tunes,” Lovano says. “It’s a challenge to try to make them my own and not copy the way he played them.” That Lovano meets the challenge with such a palpably individual voice is attributable to early hands-on encounters with bebop signposts like Dameron’s “Lady Bird” and “Hot House,” a process that launched him along the same path that his heroes followed during formative years while carving out their own inimitable tonal personalities.

“Playing the inner parts and original harmonic structures of Tadd’s music influenced Coltrane’s early tunes,” Lovano states. “Although Coltrane was always moving forward rhythmically and sonically and in everything else, he always dealt with everything he ever studied. Even on the duets with Rashied Ali, he’s still dealing with ‘Giant Steps,’ still dealing with all these things that vibrated in his body. That simple melody on ‘A Love Supreme’ has the same intervals as on ‘Locomotion’ from Blue Train. With people like Coltrane or Miles, their surroundings changed, but what they played came from their entire lives.”

Lovano fully expresses his penchant for eliciting creative dialogue with the jazz lifeblood on the title track, a free kaleidoscopic journey built on a hymn-like 9-note melody [“on-this-day-just-like-a-ny-oth-er”] over an ametric pulse, and a second 8-note theme that echoes the syllables Bil-ly Hig-gins, the late drummer to whom Lovano dedicated the piece, and whose alert, relaxed essence Lewis Nash channels throughout. In their explorative solos, George Garzone, Steve Slagle, Barry Ries, John Hicks and Lovano develop and elaborate upon the shapes and moods, sustaining an emotional core and creating magic.

They embody the notion that the title of this special album refers not only to a snapshot of a work in progress, but to a philosophy of life.

“This music is honest and true,” Lovano says. “You can’t tell lies when you play it, because it’s already been documented. It isn’t just technical, but exists at a beautiful spiritual level also. ‘On This Day’ is about how cats from the inner circle – Coltrane, Monk, Mingus, Miles, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Don Cherry, Ornette, Keith Jarrett, Billy Higgins, Max Roach, Paul Motian, Art Blakey – played with such consistency every time you heard them. Long before I became who I am as a player, they inspired me to develop that attitude to the art of improvising, and also to play with them. They gave me confidence to be myself, to put together an ensemble like this, with so much trust.”

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Liner Notes (Us Five: Folk Art):

It is entirely characteristic of Joe Lovano that he would use his 21st recording for Blue Note, released amidst the fanfare of the label’s seventieth anniversary year, to introduce a new ensemble, Us Five, deploying a fresh approach towards exploring his music.

To be specific, Us Five: Folk Art comprises ten compositions. Lovano plays tenor saxophone, straight alto saxophone, alto clarinet, tarogato, aulochrome, and percussion, joined by James Weidman on piano, Esperanza Spalding on bass, and Otis Brown and Francesco Mela on, to use Lovano’s nomenclature, drums and cymbals. He explores a wide spectrum of “colors, sounds, and feelings,” organizing the flow into passages for quintet, quartets, trios, duos, and solos within the unit, fully exploiting the various rhythm section possibilities that the two-drummer format affords. The better to coax the music onto unexpected routes, Lovano offers his collaborators wide latitude to interpret the raw materials “with freedom to take shape and crystallize as we play.” He himself navigates the fluid terrain with utter authority, consistently projecting the vocalized tone, uncanny time feel, and interactivity that mark his entire Blue Note corpus.

“I’ve always tried to be very free with inside approaches, and to be really in there on freer music, what they call ‘outside,’” says Lovano, noting that the unit, which first convened in the fall of 2007, honed their collective perspective during a week at Manhattan’s Village Vanguard directly before the recording session.

“The music comes out of our individual roots, and the combinations emerge. Francesco Mela is from Cuba; Otis Brown is a real New York drummer; Esperanza has a beautiful lyrical approach; and I love the way James conceives jazz music with blues, gospel, and freer forms. It’s an ongoing study on how to play together with mutual respect and an egoless approach.”

Except for Weidman, whose c.v. includes long stints with Steve Coleman and Cassandra Wilson, Lovano’s new partners are “people who aren’t my generation, haven’t totally developed their approach, are experiencing things for the first time. Everyone has fresh eyes and ears, and this gives me compositional ideas that I had never played with anyone else before. Everybody is on their toes.”

They have to be to keep pace with Lovano. The composer describes the opening track, “Powerhouse,” as “an original harmonic structure that combines things I study and work on all the time—trying to combine the turnarounds and resolutions of Bird and Coltrane in my own way, and working with Ornette Coleman’s harmolodic ideas, changing the meaning of notes as you play them by shifting color and key as you move along.”

Consider how “Folk Art” develops—Lovano states the theme on straight alto saxophone over a polytonal vamp, evolves the flow in configurations that shift from quintet to drum-duo and back to quintet, switches to tenor saxophone as the harmonic material takes a more straightforward direction, and moves to more open-ended polytonal exploration on the final theme. “That approach for me is what jazz is,” Lovano says. “It’s a real folk music, and you can play a multitude of influences from your experiences in the world of music in your improvisation and composition.”

The ebullient ambiance of invention never stops. The spiritual aura of late Coltrane permeates the ballads ‘Wild Beauty’ and ‘Song for Judi,’ the latter—dedicated to Lovano’s wife (“and inspiration”), singer Judi Silvano—containing three different key signatures that prod Lovano to extend and elaborate while also living within the lovely melody. Lovano plays tarogato (he describes the Hungarian folk instrument as “half-clarinet and half soprano saxophone, with many colors and a human voice sound”) on “Drum Song,” and aulochrome (a double soprano saxophone with one keyboard down the center) on “Dibango,” a funky line dedicated to Cameroonian saxophonist-vibraphonist Manu Dibano. He plays alto clarinet on the stately, folkish “Page Four,” and launches the open-form “Ettenro” (“Ornette” spelled backward), on alto saxophone before switching to tenor for a summational statement after Weidman, a force throughout, says his piece.

As do his twenty previous Blue Note albums, Us Five: Folk Art illuminates Lovano’s unique position as an artist who authoritatively deploys the tradition as a tool to point directly to the future.

“Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff wanted cats to find themselves and to realize that they had beautiful original music,” Lovano says of Blue Note’s founding fathers, expressing a sentiment equally applicable to Bruce Lundvall’s quarter-century at the helm. “Carrying on in that tradition of being a player-composer is the legacy of Blue Note for those of us who record for them today.”

[—30—]

For John Patitucci’s 56th Birthday, a 2009 Conversation for www.jazz.com; an Uncut Blindfold Test For Downbeat in 2002; and a “Director’s Cut” Article For DownBeat in 2000

For master bassist and composer John Patitucci’s birthday, here’s a trifecta — an extended conversation in 2009 that appeared on the now-extinct ‘zine http://www.jazz.com; an uncut Downbeat Blindfold Test in 2002; and a “director’s cut” of an article that I wrote about John for Downbeat in 2000.

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John Patitucci (Aug. 12, 2009):
TP: Let’s start with the Remembrance trio project. I read the bio. It started when you were doing a rehearsal at Joe Lovano’s home for Communion back in 2000, and Brad Mehldau wasn’t there for part of a rehearsal, and you liked the feel of the trio.

JP: We were up at Joe’s pad, and it was glorious. He has a high-ceilinged thing in his house upstate. We walked in there, and we just figured, “Oh, let’s do this without the piano and just rehearse.” We started playing and we looked at each other, like, “what…?” It was amazing. You can’t contrive that. I don’t care who it is. It could be all-star people, things that look good on paper, and you get together and the chemistry isn’t quite there, or there’s different conceptions that don’t line up. This was just instantaneous. Ever since then, whenever we saw each other, I’d say, “Man, remember that?” They’d said, “Yeah, I remember that; we’ve got to do…” We’d always talk about, “We’ve got to do a trio thing, we’ve got to do a trio thing.” So finally, I’d been also… I always wanted to do that anyway. Any bass player in jazz, if you ask them, probably would say it’s something that they would be interested in doing, because it just sounds so good to have that air and space in the music. But finally for me…I had been listening, obviously, to Sonny’s records for a while. I’d always loved the one with Elvin Jones and Wilbur Ware, Live at the Village Vanguard, but also the stuff with Max Roach and Oscar Pettiford is just amazing on <i>Freedom Suite</I>. I thought that I’ve waited, I’m going to be 50 this year—maybe this is it. Because I can’t wait forever. I guess my first philosophy was wait til I get a little older, and maybe I’ll have some time to get a little stronger before I attempt to put something… This is a heavy thing for me. With trio, there’s a legacy and a history, and you don’t want to come out of the gate sounding like you’re just doing a retro homage to these great records—even though they’re worthy of all that. But I didn’t feel that I wanted to do something that would be copying, but something that would be in tribute but also trying to add some other colors and personal things, if I could, to add some other things in the mix.

TP: You stated a whole interview’s worth of themes there. You mentioned waiting until you’re strong enough…

JP: Which you can never be.

TP: But for someone of your reputation and experience to say that is interesting. Also, you’re speaking about the overall sound of the record, which is very specifically a hardcore jazz date, with that feel, whereas many of your recordings with Concord have dealt with Afro-Caribbean feels, classical music, numerous configurations. You even mentioned in an earlier bio that some people like one sound within the record, whereas you like variety. You’ll probably contest this assertion.

JP: Yes, it’s interesting you’d say that. I read in some reviews that people didn’t get some of the other sounds on the record. They said it’s a straight-ahead blowing date. One guy said, “This is a humble record, it’s modest,” but the you get to “Scenes From an Opera,” where all of a sudden there’s a string quartet and an alto clarinet, and that’s not like a straight-ahead blowing date at all. That’s another color introduced. You could also argue that not only on “Scenes From An Opera,” but also “Mali” has the West African influence, “Messaien’s Gumbo” there’s New Orleans…

TP: I didn’t say a straight-ahead blowing date. I’m thinking of one sound with three musicians, with whom you blend together all these flavors in a very 21st century way, an organic way that reflects your experience.

JP: But it’s interesting that I had a review that said “this is a simple, straight-ahead record.” I thought, “Did you listen to the same record that I…” I guess because on some of the things we were paying tribute to those things that Sonny did in a very organic way—the way Joe is able to improvise and play with such authority and Brian’s feeling. I understand that. But to me, that’s not the only thing this is.

TP: Let’s talk about putting together the repertoire, the arc of the date. Are most of them recent tunes, written with this date in mind?

JP: I write all year round, every year. I just write. I write classical commissions. I write tunes. I write pieces for piano. I just write as much as I can, within my crazy schedule. I try to remain a work in progress as a composer, trying to compose and expand. However, I did know who I was writing for, for this. So over time, as I gathered things, I knew that it was going to be Brian and Joe. I mean, I knew that years ago, when I decided this is a project that we’re going to do together at some point. Then other things crept in. I kept thinking, and would think, “Oh, this would be good for that.” So as I collected more things, the things that sounded like they would go with this project got lumped into this area over here, which became the record.

Some things were late additions. Like, the piece for Michael Brecker was the result of me, over a year ago… Last baseball season, I sat down in my living room to change the strings on my 6-string bass, because I had to do a gig—and it’s pretty tedious. So I had the game on while I was changing the strings, and as I was tuning up a couple of strings, this drone thing started happening, and I thought, “Wait a minute…” Then, the Yankees were losing, and I turned it off. “Wait a minute; what’s this?” I found this little thing, with these voicings around this open G-string in the middle. Something started happening, and I said, “Wait a minute, I’d better write this down.” I thought maybe this is a little interlude on the record somewhere. Then after I started writing it, I decided, “no, I want to record this. Something is here; I don’t even know what it’s going to become.”

But the interesting that happens, which is part of the recording process that I love, is that I try to approach the recording process, even though I compose things also improvisationally… When we went to do the string octet… My wife and I were going to do the string octet, which was four celli and four basses, and she and I overdubbed them all. We figured, “Ok, we’ll get a baby-sitter, we’ll go to the studio, and we’ll knock out the string octet.” Then I thought, “I’ll try that thing I’m thinking, and see what happens.” But we had the time constraint—the baby-sitter is only a few hours. So we did the string octet, and we were pleased with that, we took our time, made sure everything was right. Then I said, “well, I’ll just give myself a little time on this thing and see if it develops; if it doesn’t develop, I won’t use it.” I brought my piccolo 6-string bass as well (this is for “Remembrance”). I figured, “well, I’ll try it.” So I put the thing down, then I thought, “Let me double it with the regular 6-string bass,” and it sounded like a 12-string guitar. I thought, “Wow, that’s kind of interesting.” Then I put a couple of passes of a sort of recitative melodic statement over it, and that’s when it hit me. It became this really emotional piece, and it felt like Mike. It felt like me trying to process… I don’t want to get too heavy about it. But it definitely spoke to me about something emotional, and I thought, “That’s for Mike.”

TP: When did the “Remembrance” theme become the overriding idea? Because the recording is a suite of homages to various people who have gone.

JP: That happened organically. As the tunes came together, the tunes suggested, “Well, this is really for…” Some of them I had already titled before I knew I was going to do a whole record on this theme. It just happened naturally that a bunch of these tunes… I thought, “Well, that’s what this record is; it’s become this.” Things kept happening. We kept losing more people, and I thought, “wow, I’ve got to make a statement.” But it’s not only that. Like I say in the liner notes, it’s to honor the people that we still have, who are still making strong music, because oftentimes people wait until the person dies, and appreciate them then, which is sad. Now we have people like Sonny who is still creating incredible things, Wayne Shorter obviously, all the people I mentioned there. So it’s also remembering to honor them now, and also remembering to be present. This is something in my spiritual walk, in my growth as a person spiritually that I’m trying to get better at, which I think is a challenge to all of us—to be present in the moment, not worry about the future, not get stuck being always nostalgic about the past and being locked there, and actually be here right in this instant. That’s the way these guys play, too, and that’s the way playing in Wayne’s band is—it’s very present. People are really aware of the time that we have together, and we really try to live it to the fullest and cherish it. I didn’t want it to be a totally mournful thing where people are supposed to get the record and mourn. No, that’s not what this is. You can hear it in the music. It’s a celebration of that inspiration.

TP: Do you see this in any way as a companion date to the previous record, Line by Line, which was primarily a trio with guitar and augmented by Chris Potter? Are there relationships between the two?

JP: I didn’t really think of them that way, no.

TP: You had seen Line by Line as a companion to the previous recordings.

JP: Right. Because it also had expanded orchestration and writing for strings. Line and Line and Songs, Stories and Spirituals were a couplet to me. This was something other… Although it makes sense to me that it came out after Line by Line, because it was time to change up the orchestration. I had done two records where I had written extensively for a little bit expanded formats. I thought I’d pare down and see if, as a composer, I could still make orchestrational colors happen with a more limited number of people. That was a challenge for me. A composer should be able to get orchestrational variety with a couple of instruments or many. Of course, these guys have so many colors that you could put one of them on the stage by themself, and you have a world of color. So I wasn’t really worried about getting enough colors with Joe and Brian.

TP: Before we talk about your simpatico with Brian Blade, with whom you’ve had an ongoing relationship for a decade, talk a bit about your connection to Joe Lovano.

JP: I fell in love with Joe Lovano’s playing when I heard him on John Scofield’s recordings. Sco and I have a history together. I’ve always loved John’s playing. I was a fan. I used to transcribe his stuff when I was in college; John influenced my playing. My brother is a guitarist, so a lot of guitar players influenced my playing on the 6-string bass, because of the way they approached harmony and lines. Wes Montgomery was one that hit me. Pat Martino. Benson, Sco was one of my heroes. I used to see Abercrombie quite a bit, too, in the late ‘70s and ‘80s.

Anyway, Sco’s records with Lovano with Bill Stewart. I love Sco. And we’ve played together quite a bit now; every once in a while, we get together and do something else. Now was a big deal for me, because I used to love that quartet with Joe in it, whether the bassist was Dennis Irwin, or before him Marc Johnson played a little bit, and Charlie Haden played on some of the records… Man, Joe’s playing…man, this guy is amazing. We would run into him on the road and hear him. “Man, this guy, he’s special.” So I had wanted to do something with him for years, and in fact, I probably would have hired him for Now, but I didn’t want it to look like I had just hijacked John Scofield’s band—it was Bill Stewart, John, and if I’d used Joe, it would have been way too much.

TP: Another convergence about this and Line and Line is your use of the electric 6-string. On a lot of the recordings prior to Line by Line you were playing primarily acoustic, and then doing an electric feature at the end of the recital.

JP: Yes, there would be two or three tracks maybe.

TP: But on this record and the previous one, the 6-string electric is more integrally orchestrated into the flow.

JP: When I moved back to New York, I was trying to dispel… Part of the reason why I came back was obviously to play with all these players. As a composer, there’s no better pool of incredible artists than New York for the music I want to write and want to play. But the other part is that I felt I was getting pigeonholed a little bit. Some people would say, “He’s that fusion guy.” What are you talking about? I’ve been playing bebop since I was a teenager, and playing with older musicians, too, who were amazing already in my late teens. So I felt that was a strange thing, and when I moved back to New York I was really excited. What happened was that the stereotype got shattered to the point that people literally would say to me, “Oh, you play electric bass? I didn’t know you did that?”

TP: You told me a story about a woman contractor called you for a gig…

JP: Yeah, a contractor. I said, “What do you want me to bring?” “What do you mean?” I said, “Do you want acoustic bass, electric bass, fretless? What do you want?” She said, “You play electric bass?” I said, “Okay! I guess the stereotype is erased.” I didn’t want to totally cancel out on another part of what I do.

But I also wanted to put a viewpoint out there that’s not often expressed, it seems, that in this music there is a place for the electric bass in a musical way and in an organic way. It doesn’t have to be that when you pick this up, all of a sudden it’s this loud, thrashing, bright kind of edgy sound. It can be a warm, organic kind of thing that really works in the music. Obviously, Steve Swallow has been doing this for many years, asserting this viewpoint. But not many people have that viewpoint with that instrument.

TP:   Observing your musical production this year, how relationships and continuities play out over time. For example, the trio with Jack DeJohnette and Danilo Perez—you recorded and you performed with them. You played with Wayne this summer. You played trio with Roy. You played trio with Ed Simon, which is an important relationship, though less high profile.

JP: I love Ed. He was in my band for quite a while.

TP: Then also this band. So your current musical production gives us ample opportunity to discuss your past. And the trio with Lovano and Brian Blade embodies so many flavors of 21st century jazz. Of the people you’ve played with this year. Wayne Shorter… Well, Wayne Shorter you first played with when you were living in Los Angeles, and played with him periodically…

JP: Since 1986.

TP: Talk about how that experience has evolved.

JP: Early on, when I was playing with him, it was mostly an electric bass gig. We were doing the music from Atlantis, and we’d play some with the acoustic bass, but mostly it was electric, and then we went on the road where oftentimes it was only electric. We were playing very orchestrated music, where the basslines were all massive, incredible. That was fun. But the interesting thing was coming out of… I had started to do stuff, I had done some records of my own and been playing with Chick a lot, and then in 1991 I did a number of weeks with Wayne, including one here in New York at the Blue Note. We’re standing on that small stage together, and I had that 6-string bass, and he’s right next to me. The solos he was playing… A lot of the tunes in those days were really heavily written, but then the solo sections would be open, one chord or something. But the things he would create off that were just staggering. Then he’d turn to me and say, “want some?” It was good for me, because night after night, I had to try to do something after he would chisel one of these granite, monumental solos of doom. Then I didn’t know what to do. I started to feel like my stuff was really trite. I realized I needed to get to a deeper place, because when he plays, he can with one sound destroy you, just emotionally. Just one sound placed in a certain way. One note. I was finding that I needed more of that in my playing. I felt I really wanted to get to the place where I could tell a larger story. It was good for me. Because he was very encouraging. He used to give me a lot of room to blow. He liked the bass to stretch. He would turn to me and say, “Yeah, Paganini—go ahead, go ahead.” He was into it. But it made me realize that not only did I have to learn, how to get deeper… Also, he did it with density, too. That was the thing. He could do it with one note or a million, just like Trane. He could destroy you with one, or his version of sheets of sound, or whatever. You’d be really moved by it. It wasn’t licks. There were no licks. So that was a wakeup call.

Then again, when we started the band in the late ‘90s, I started playing with him again, before Danilo and Brian were in the picture. We did some gigs. He was thinking about doing some expanded form things, and we did…

TP: You did something with the Detroit Symphony, I believe.

JP: We did that. Even before that, we did something for a giant Buddhist festival in Japan. That was a large group, with Terri Lyne and Jim Beard, Shunzo Ohno, David Gilmore—playing a mixture of things. But in the ‘90s, he started calling again, because he knew I’d left Chick to do my own thing. He always used to call me, all through those years… My wife and I had experienced a still-birth the year he lost his wife. So we had talked, and towards the end of the ‘90s, we got together and started… he said, “do you want to do something?” I said, “Look, I’m loose. I’m doing some stuff with my own group. Any time you call, I’m there. Absolutely.” so he knew he had that kind of love and commitment from me. The other stuff evolved over time.

TP: You mentioned to me that you first met Brian Blade on Danilo Perez’ recording date, Suite of the Americas, and you and he have evolved into one of the classic bass-drum pairings over the decade. What qualities contribute to your simpatico, make you such an interesting fit?

JP: Well, we have a lot of shared love of a lot of music, and also experience in terms of spiritual things. The way he was raised, and my love for that type of culture in music from the church, in the African-American tradition, and also my faith and his faith… There’s a lot of things we share. Sometimes you hit it off with somebody, and there’s an immediate click, an immediate connection. You can’t contrive it. It’s hard to put into words. Brian’s a part of my family. What’s interesting is that I could feel that… Before I moved back to New York, I was driving in L.A., and a record came on the radio which I think was him with Josh, and I heard him play. I didn’t know who it was. I freaked out. I said, “Who is that drummer? That’s it.” It just hit me. Like, “That’s the guy I need to work with.” I didn’t know who he was or anything, then I found out… Then I started hearing his name a lot.

TP: He started recording with Joshua in ‘95.

JP: I moved back in ‘96 and it was right before I moved back, so it must have been ‘95 that I heard him on a record, and I almost pulled off the freeway. I remember going to a recording session, and Harvey Mason was on it, and he also was saying, “Have you heard this guy Brian Blade?” I said, “Man, I heard him.” He said, “That’s it.” I said, “That is it.”

TP: What is “that”?

JP: Well, what is that? That is somebody whose spirit on the drums is connected to all the masters. You could easily say he’s connected to Elvin, Max, Roy, DeJohnette, all the guys who have changed the course of jazz drumming and have contributed a voice and a beauty and a power… His musicianship is so unbelievably high, and that’s the one thing that I think separates him from most of the guys. He’s perfectly happy playing next to nothing or as much as you want. He’s got those tools. He can make small sounds. He can make big sounds. He can have a lot of density. He can have absolutely simplicity. He can play any kind of groove you can think of. There’s just not that many guys who you can say even three of those guys about.

TP: I guess one of those guys might be Jack DeJohnette, who was integral in your transition from the West Coast to East, and with whom you did the [tk] project this year.

JP: Our relationship started with Gonzalo on the record, Live in Japan. He was very cool, and from that time on, he was the one who schemed to put me together with Danilo Perez. It was his idea. He introduced us at a record date by Eugene Pay, with Mike Brecker. Danilo came to the studio with David Sanchez, and I met them. Jack said, “Yeah, man, you’d better play together.” He was on it. He heard it.

The trio with Jack, Danilo and I did a really fun week at the Blue Note. When the three of us get together, it’s a whole different relationship. Jack is obviously a force of nature and a very interesting musician for a lot of things. There’s a guy who can play the piano and do all this stuff, but also his connection to Elvin, as well as Haynes… But I hear a lot of connection to Elvin. The swirling nature and the big beat. When I play with him, it reminds me… I didn’t get to play with Elvin; I missed out on that. I often think, well, maybe this is in the direction of what it would feel like to play with Elvin.

TP: In that trio, the grooves were from everywhere, but distilled in a very personal way. You have gone through periods of getting really immersed in Afro-diasporic grooves, particularly a decade ago when you were playing with Giovanni Hidalgo and El Negro and were really deep into presenting those sounds within your own compositions. On the Remembrance project, the grooves are from Africa, from New Orleans, from various aspects of jazz. Can you discuss how your own rhythmic compass has developed over this decade?

JP: One key factor… Before that, back as far as the record Another World, which was a GRP record in the early ‘90s, where I did a lot of collaboration with Armand Sabal-Lecco, who’s from Cameroon…a lot of stuff on that record was very African. I had gotten into Salif Keita when I was with Chick. When we went to Portugal for the first time, we met an African guy from Angola who hipped us to a lot of stuff. Then when Mike Brecker got with Paul Simon and was hanging with all the Cameroonian guys, he introduced me to Armand Sabal-Lecco. Mike was the one who also suggested to me, “Check some of this stuff out; you’d love this”—I got way into it. Before that, I had played with some musicians from South America. I had played with Acuna and Justo Almaria in L.A., and some other people, and a ton of Brazilian guys.

When I got back east, I started delving into more of the Caribbean stuff, the Cuban and Puerto Rican aspects, and also Danilo was a huge factor in my coming to a greater understanding of this music. He would give me rhythmic exercises. He would teach me how to get inside the three. The three is at the center, the 6/8 is at the center of all the music. It’s inside so much stuff. So he would give me little exercises where you could go in and out of the 6/8, within the three, and the pulse would stay the same but you’d be accessing all these different worlds of rhythm. This is what these guys get so great at, and take to such a deep place, where they can… Giovanni and Negro can metrically modulate and do all kinds of things that are so organic and so swinging, deeply… They have a profound understanding of the triple meter, the 6/8, how that can impact the 2 and the 4/4 and big-three. You get into all these multiples of the rhythm. We’ve been talking about that and doing musical exercises for years. He’s helped me deepen my clock with that stuff. It’s profound, how good he is at teaching it, too. He’s phenomenal at that. He understands it very well. He always jokes. He says I taught him how to read chord symbols and some harmonic things like that, but he taught me a world of rhythmic stuff. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a drummer first. I had hand drums, I had bongos and maracas, and I was singing. I loved the drums. I mean, I had the bass, too. But I remember, even after I started playing the bass, I tried to get my dad to let me have a drumset, and he said no. [LAUGHS] So the drums are something that I’ve always revered, too. Danilo, too. Sometimes he jokes around, he sits down at the drumset, and we’ll play together on the soundcheck. He has a great feeling.

TP: Then this summer you also went on the road with Roy Haynes for the first time in a while.

JP: In a while, yes. Danilo and I had been with him, and done quite a few tours and a record in the late ‘90s. Roy was in phenomenal spirits. Obviously, it was a little different, because Danilo burst his Achilles tendon, and he’s been out of commission for a couple of months waiting for it to heal up. Dave Kikoski played, and played well, and Papa Haynes was charging! In high spirits. We did 9 concerts in two weeks.

TP: I get the sense that playing in this trio in the ‘90s was very important for you, in a lot of ways. It came on the heels of your move from L.A. to New York, when you were determined to establish yourself on the acoustic bass, both in the public eye and probably in your own…

JP: I was trying to make a statement, to say: “Look, this is a big part of who I am. It’s not a peripheral kind of thing. It’s not a dalliance. It’s deeply who I am.”

TP: If anyone had any doubts, all they’d need to was listen to that trio. Could you evaluate the experience? Not only did you interact with Danilo, but you got inside the mind of Roy Haynes for a couple of years.

JP: I’d played with a lot of people, but when I played with Haynes it was kind of like swing finishing school. You felt, “Ok, if Haynes likes it, I guess I’m going to be ok.” Because obviously, he’s somebody who’s played with everyone from Louis Armstrong and Bird, Bud Powell, Monk, Coltrane, all these people, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, We Three—you can go on and on and on. For somebody like that to go, “Yeah, it’s feeling good,” then you feel encouraged. “Ok, maybe I have an understanding of this music after all. Obviously, if you play with somebody like that, who’s been connected to all the things that mattered to you coming up, all your heroes, the whole encyclopedia of jazz in one human being, which is what I call Roy Haynes. He is the living, walking, breathing encyclopedia of jazz. So if you can play with him and he likes it, then you can breathe a little easier and enjoy the fact that something you’ve been passionate about all your life makes sense to somebody you really look up to.

TP: One interesting thing about the trio at the time is that the group was so open-ended and triological, rather than a piano trio…

JP: Right, it was more an equal voice trio. He gave us a lot of trust and a lot of space.

TP: it sounds that this attitude filtered into your mutual interaction with Wayne Shorter.

JP: The relationship between Danilo and I is another thing that’s very special. We’re like brothers. We spend a lot of time together in a lot of different circumstances. So for us to be together and working in different circumstances is a source of great joy and excitement. We’ve had a chance to develop a rapport. That was a big deal for me, because after playing with Chick all those years and working some with Herbie, playing with a younger pianist, even younger than myself, somebody who is really a chance-taker and risk-taker like the guys I was used to… It’s hard to find a more adventurous pianist than either Chick or Herbie. Those guys don’t care. They’ll be reckless, which is great, and I learned a lot from that. Danilo is cut from the same cloth. He’s reckless.

TP: You told a story in the Jazz Improv interview about Herbie reharmonizing Roy Hargrove’s ballad…

JP: That was at a rehearsal for the Directions in Music project. We were going into Kuumba for warmup gigs for that tour. It was right after 9/11, too. It was heavy. We got on a plane like a week after. My wife was freaking! “What are you doing?” So we flew out there and rehearsed, and we saw Herbie singlehandedly turn a nice tune into a masterpiece, right before our eyes. He just started sitting there and patiently reworking everything. Mike and I were watching him… He started playing, and he got into it. He’d go, “No, this won’t do,” and then he’s changing…Finally, he looks up at Roy and goes, “Man, I’m sorry. I’m changing your tune; is that ok?” Roy goes, “Man, change all of it! Go ahead!” It was turning into this incredible ballad. He reharmonized it from top to bottom.

TP: I’ve channeled the discussion to people you’re playing with, but the reason we’re having this conversation is because of your own records and the group you’re leading this week, as well as your instrumentalism. So I’d like to talk about bass stuff. Since you’ve been reemphasizing the 6-string more in recent years, can you speak more to how your relationship to that instrument has evolved since you came here determined to have people know you as an acoustic bassist, and then subsequently wanting it to be clear that you do both—that you’re a multi-instrumentalist. When I spoke with you for the bio, you stated that your sound has become brighter, whereas most of your contemporaries strive for a brighter tone.

JP: If you want to speak about preference, just subjectively, I think what happened was this. When Jaco Pastorius hit the scene, he played a jazz bass, which has more of a mid-rangey sound, and people got way into that. Everybody went out and bought a jazz bass, everybody took frets out of their instrument, everybody wanted to be like him. It was interesting, because I loved and respected that so much that at one point I went, “You know what? I’m not doing that. Because nobody’s going to play like that guy.” That was a voice. That was totally unique to me. So I didn’t go that way. I stayed with fretted instruments. Then in ‘85 I wound up finally getting a 6-string bass, because I’d seen what Anthony Jackson was doing, and I decided I’d go far way from the fretless jazz bass thing, which more of a mid-range bass sound, that I wanted a broader sound on both ends. So with the 6-string bass, you had a low B-string, so you could get the 6-string bottom, and then you could go all the way up with the high C-string and get like a tenor saxophone thing going. So that was my idea about doing something else. I knew that I wouldn’t sound like Anthony. Anthony is another very individual voice, very beautiful and very special. So I deliberately took a left turn at that point. Most guys… There was an overwhelming number of guys, especially here in New York… In New York, the whole fusion scene that ensued, it was like you had to play a 4-string jazz bass, otherwise you weren’t accepted. People didn’t even like 5-string and 6-string basses. They’d look at you like “Yucch.” That’s what I heard from younger guys who took up the 6 after I did. They said, “Well, maybe you can get away with it, but they tell us, ‘no, bring the 4-string; you can’t play that in here.’” So interesting. If you wanted to be part of the whole 55 Bar scene in the ‘80s, you had to have a 4-string jazz bass. But I would come into town with Chick or whatever, I’d bring my 6-string, go sit in with Stern and just play my stuff. I wasn’t really bound by that. I was just going, “Well, this is my voice now…” For a while, like a fool, I actually got rid of my old vintage fenders. I just got rid of them!

TP: You’re a stubborn guy. A man of principles.

JP: [LAUGHS] But it was originally out of profound respect. Because I would hear these guys trying to play like Jaco, and I was like, “Boy, that sounds like a really bad imitation.” When you hear the real thing, it’s like “whoa.” Why would you want to sound like a third-rate Jaco Pastorius, when he’s Jaco, and you’re not, and it’s going to remain that way, and nobody is going to play like that again. He was that. That was him. It was very special. It was also at a time, that precise moment when he did what he did… Also speaking about Jaco, what people are sleeping on a lot of times is he was an incredible composer. “Three Views Of A Secret.” Excuse me. That’s a classic. So I have a high regard for him. He’s the one who made the fretless electric bass a voice in the music world. What he did was so lyrical and beautiful. I would say, though, when he walked, the feeling is another zone, a more Caribbean, more fusiony kind of walking. A lot of young guys took him for their model for how to swing and walk, instead of going to check out Ron Carter or Ray Brown.

TP: But over the last few years, after several years of not emphasizing the 6-string electric and now bringing it back into the flow more, how… Are there just subtle things?

JP: Pretty subtle, because I never stopped playing it all these years. I just decided that I wanted to also use it in an organic way and continue growing on that instrument as well, so that I didn’t stop growing on that instrument, and only grow on… Because I’ve spent an enormous amount of time getting back into studying classical music on the acoustic bass—and I still do. I put in so much on that over the last 15-20 years that I wanted to make sure that I just didn’t let that stop. So I’ve been thinking about how I want to sound and do things.

TP: You mentioned your affinity for the drums and your father’s refusal to buy you a drumkit back in the day. Maybe this provides an opening to talk about your formative years. You’re raised in Brooklyn, the East Flatbush area. Large, warm Italian family. Shared a house with your uncle’s family—you’re on one floor, they’re on the other. All the kids are musicians, but the parents weren’t musicians. You got your first electric bass when you were 10. You heard jazz the first time when your grandfather was on some sort of job, and he saw a guy moving out of a brownstone, saw a box of records, asked if he could take them for his grandkids, brought them home, and one of the records was Art Blakey’s Mosaic with (Wayne Shorter again) “Children of the Night.”

JP: Yeah. I was 8 or 9 when I heard that record. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers with Freddie Hubbard and Wayne Shorter—Jymie Merritt on bass. I didn’t know what it was, but it moved me.

TP: So jazz enters your consciousness.

JP: Right in there. It was a typical Italian Brooklyn experience. Both sets of grandparents were no farther than 15 minutes away in Brooklyn, so we’d hang out a lot. My grandfather, who used to work on roads in Manhattan, came home from a job site one day with a box or two of records one day. He said, “Look, there was his guy who was leaving his brownstone, he was getting out of New York, he was moving, throwing out things.” My grandfather said, “You’re throwing away music?” “Ah, I’m leaving New York.” My grandfather said, “Well, I have some grandsons; you mind if I take these records?”

He didn’t know, but he changed our lives. In addition to <i>Mosaic</i>, there were some of those Wes Montgomery records with Ron and Herbie and Grady Tate. That went in deep. I mean, it just cut through my inability to understand. So when was 12, I decided that I was going to play the bass, and that was it.

When I started playing in Brooklyn…the whole discovery of the instrument… First I was trying to play guitar like my brother. It didn’t feel good. I was trying to learn how to read music and all this stuff, and I just couldn’t play with the pick. I’m left-handed, although I play right-handed. Then my brother put the electric in my hands, and that started to feel really good, and I started to play by ear and learn things off records. By then, it was the ‘60s, so you had the Motown stuff, then you had Hendrix, you had Cream, you had blues, B.B. King and all that—a lot of stuff happening. On the radio you could hear a lot of great stuff—Motown and the Beatles and all these other things. So all that was happening, and then in the house, there were Mario Lanza records, opera records being played—very Italian stuff. A wide mixture. For some reason, we even had a Glenn Campbell record. It was a good record, too, actually, because it had those Jimmy Webb tunes; Jimmy Webb was an incredible songwriter. So all this stuff was happening, and it was just part of the thing. I wasn’t really aware of anything. I was so young and naive. I just knew that I really loved this.

The reason why I didn’t get into anything really organized is because when I was a kid in Brooklyn they had me go to a Catholic school which had no music program. So there was nothing. It was like Miss Petraglia with a beat-up upright piano, who would bring us into a room, and we’d sing songs out of a music book. That was it. We moved to Long Island for about a year-and-a-half before we went to California, and that’s the first time I was in a school with a music program, and that’s where I was getting snare drum lessons for a year, when I said to my Dad, “I want to play the drums, too.” That was nixed. So the snare drum and all that was only about a year of me trying to learn rudiments. But they had a program, so even though I couldn’t really read music… One of my friends was a clarinet player, and he tried to get me learn…I played on one tune with the concert band or something. Then I went to 7th grade at a middle school in Farmingville, Long Island, and they had a program, too. They had an after-school thing. One of the English teachers had a rock band. So I played in that for a minute. Then when we went to California, there was big band in 8th grade, which I played in. I could hardly read music. I’d listen to the tune down once, and then I’d learn it and play along.

That’s when I encounter Chris Pohler, who became my mentor and remains… For this record, he’s the one who sent me a treatise that Messaien wrote called “The Seven Modes of Limited Transposition.” He said, “Check this out; you might find something to mess with.” I found one of those modes, which is Mode 3, which the whole melody of “Messaien’s Gumbo” is based on. So the ongoing relationship… Chris is also the one who challenged me before I did Line by Line and some of those other records… He said, “You’ve been composing all this music, but now I want you to think about challenging yourself to be like the composers, like Bach, who could generate their harmony purely from counterpoint.” So unlike jazz musicians, who plunk down chords and then write a melody, he said, “See if you can incorporate more of that contrapuntalism into your jazz writing.” So Chris has had a lot of great ideas over the years, and he’s a terrific guy. He encouraged me a lot. Got me into taking classical lessons when I was in college and all that.

TP: You were a double bass major at San Francisco State and Long Beach State.

JP: Yes, I was a classical bass major. I was playing in all the jazz groups, too, but my teachers expected me fully to do my recitals and then go do auditions for symphony orchestras.

TP: Your high school years were an interesting time to be in Northern California, in the San Francisco area.

JP: Great.

TP: The Keystone Korner was happening…

JP: I was there many times.

TP: It was a very eclectic scene. You’ve told me that you were into the Art Ensemble and the Sam Rivers Trio, you were into Gary Peacock’s Tales of Another, you had a sort of out jazz band…

JP: I saw McCoy at the Keystone. At Keystone I also saw Art Blakey, and at the Great American Music Hall I saw Thad Jones and Mel Lewis and I also saw the Bill Evans Trio there. When I got down to L.A. is when I got to see the Sam Rivers Trio and those guys at the Lighthouse. I saw Old and New Dreams at Royce Hall, which was incredible.

TP: Where I’m going is that this notion of being attracted to all the different flavors that comprise the mosaic that is the scene at any given time was already in you…

JP: A long time ago.

TP: Even though that may not necessarily have visible to people who were following your career.

JP: Yes. Obviously, I was playing with a lot of people in L.A., a lot of the older guys. But if I wasn’t making records with them, nobody knew who I was.

TP: Three people, among others, who seem to have been consequential to you. Freddie Hubbard, to whom you pay tribute on Remembrance, and who you played with a fair amount. Victor Feldman you played with…

JP: Even more.

TP: And also Joe Farrell. I’m not clear, but was Joe Farrell your bridge to Chick Corea?

JP: In a way, yes. But actually, he was my bridge to Airto and Flora’s band, which was a very important thing for me. Airto taught me a lot about Brazilian music, how to play it, all that stuff. But I used to bug Joe all the time. I’d say, “Man, tell me when Chick is going to have auditions; I really want to play with Chick,” and blah-blah-blah. So I don’t know whether he ever said anything to Chick, because actually I wound up getting the gig with Chick through playing with Victor Feldman at Chick’s house for a Valentine’s Day party that they used to have, and invite a bunch of musicians, have food, and some cats would play. That’s how Chick heard me, playing acoustic bass with Victor Feldman’s trio in his living room.

I have to say that I learned some important things from Joe. When I first started to play with Joe, the band was Tommy Brechtlein and Kei Akagi, and we were all into Trane’s band and all that, and we wanted to just burn all the time. We were totally, like, “Love Supreme” and all the great… That’s what we wanted to do. And Joe, he could burn like crazy! But he used to mess with us, too. He wanted us to be able to do other things, too, so he would mess with us. He’d go up behind the piano player, Kei Akagi, who’d be playing like McCoy, and he’d go, “Kei. Bebop, Kei. Bebop.” He always had that little thing; he was trying to talk like Jaki Byard. Chick told me that later. Apparently, he got that from Jaki Byard, which I didn’t know about til later. But he would tell us little things. Because we wanted to burn! Then he would go, “Ok. ‘Laura.’” [SINGS] “Two-beat, two beat.” We’d have to play like that. We were like, “Aw, Joe, come on, man!” But it was great, because he taught us a lot about how to deal with all the aspects of what we were supposed to be about, not just we’re excited and we want to burn all night.

TP: You were a session player…

JP: Also.

TP: …and a club player… I don’t mean the term pejoratively, but you were a journeyman bass player around L.A. and…

JP: I was very young, man.

TP: How young were you when you started playing professionally on that level? In the Bay Area, or did it happen in L.A.?

JP: In the Bay Area I was starting to play with some good people. But when I got to L.A. is when I started playing with all the older jazz musicians. I moved to L.A. in 1982, and I’d already been playing a little in the clubs before that. By the time I got the gig with Chick, I was only 24-25 years old, but I’d bee playing with a ton of people from 20 through 24.

TP: I’d assume that playing with Chick developed your technique on the electric bass.

JP: Also. And the acoustic bass. You had to. I had played with a lot of other people when I got the gig with Chick, and I felt like my improvising… That was one of the things that I felt was part of my voice, playing over changes and being able to play over chords and be a soloist as well. It was an incredible learning thing when I finally went to play with Chick, and his comping was so intense. I felt like his comping was better than my solo. And he was so fierce. I thought improvising was one of the good things that I could do, but the first time he was comping I thought, “Oh my God, I’ve got to get a lot stronger, man.” His comping was blowing me off the stage! It was way better than what I was playing. I had to get stronger physically, too, to keep up that intensity, because that cat could blow all night.

TP: So Chick Corea gave you that feeling in the ‘80s and Wayne Shorter gave you that feeling in the ‘90s.

JP: Well, yes. I have to say. Even before that, Freddie [Hubbard] in terms being an endless fountain of ideas. I remember playing gigs with Freddie in my twenties, where he would play rhythm changes. Usually you’d think, “when are they going to stop?”—because we’re playing really fast tempos. With him, it was, “I hope he plays another one; what was that?” I would never get tired, because it was just mind-boggling what he could do.

TP: So this whole notion of… I have a quote which I’ll read back: “when I was young, like a lot of naive young musicians, you go, ‘Ok, I want to be the greatest bass player ever.’” Knowing you a bit, I’m sure you did.

JP: Yeah, I did.

TP: “Then you get a little older, and you realize (a) there’s no such thing, (b) there are so many different ways to play and so many guys who bring so much to the table on the music that it’s exciting to check it all out. So somewhere in my teens, I probably realized there wasn’t any such thing, but I still wanted to aim high. I realized there were certain things I wanted to do on the instrument. I want to have freedom and be lyrical. I want to have a really strong foundation, be able to anchor any group that I’m in, but also, when it’s my turn to stretch out I want to contribute.” You also mentioned a wish list of people you wanted to play with.

JP:  Yes. That’s very true.

TP: Now, almost all those things have happened.

JP: Almost. I didn’t get to play with Elvin.

TP: How about Tony Williams?

JP: With Tony a little bit. Tony kept trying to get me on these all-star things. It almost panned out, and then he passed.

TP: Here I want to discuss your identity as a leader. You’ve made these recordings, but I’d assume that the preponderance of your professional activity is still on these sideman situations and less as a leader.

JP: Groups. Group formations. Also lots of sideman still.

TP: One question: When leading a group, do you switch back and forth between identities?

JP: Same person. The nice thing about this particular trio is that I have no stress level being the bandleader. I’m as free as when I’m a sideman with this group. Early on in the process… I started leading bands in 1987. Chick was the one who prodded me to do that. He said, “You’ve got all this music…” First of all, he got me the record deal. I was writing a lot, but he said, “You’re writing all this music; you’ve got to make a record and you’ve got to have a band.” I said, “Do you think so, really?” and he said, “Yeah, absolutely.” He got me the record deal, I did the record, and he said, “You’ve got to put together a band and do more stuff.” Actually, even before that. He had me put together the band even before we made the record. So I was already doing some stuff, but it took me years to get comfortable as a bandleader, because then you’re wearing different hats and you’re concerned about the whole of the music, the business of it, and all that. So for me, the goal is always to be as loose as when I’m when I’m just a sideman and don’t have to worry about all the responsibilities of presenting the music. In recent years, I’m much more comfortable leading bands, because the guys I’m playing with, we’re so close… Like in this situation with the trio, I’m just enjoying myself. I don’t have to worry about anything. Those guys are going to inspire me, they’re going to take the music new places. There’s nothing for me to be concerned about except try to be in the moment with them—and I have to announce a few tunes or whatever, which is nothing. So that is the way I look at it.

I learned a lot about being a bandleader from Chick and Wayne, and their concept, which is you find guys that you enjoy their identity already and then you just turn them loose.

TP: Chick Corea’s approach seems to be project-oriented. He seems to operate with multiple files of activity. He does one thing, that’s a project, it ends, maybe he picks it up in three years, but then he goes on to another project. In each case, he’s putting himself into a different space. Wayne Shorter seems to be operating via a slightly different process.

JP: Although with Chick, we had a band for ten years. For a while, I think Chick was tired of all those projects. When we had the Elektrik Band and the Acoustic Band, he really liked the fact that we had a band that was the same people that could develop over a long track. Even though, yes, he loves doing all kinds of different stuff. He used to tell me, “the reason why I like having a band is because we can develop something over a long…” He said, “I can do projects all my life, all day.” That’s easy for him. If you give him five minutes, he can write a tune, so a project is nothing. He can write a whole library for a project in a couple of days. Just give him the time in front of the piano, and he’s…WHOOSH. So he liked the idea of having a long development phase.

TP: You mentioned that he imprinted in your mind the notion of writing all the time.

JP: Yes, because he was always writing. Also, not being so critical so that you got in the way of the process. He could write a lot. I was really influenced by him in that regard, that whole idea of writing, composing… Like, if you put me in front of the piano, I can enjoy just sitting there and I’ll write something. I might not love it, but I can write something in a complete form. He taught me to turn off the critic inside and just let the stuff flow out. Then you evaluate it. Don’t stop yourself in the middle. Let it all out, write it down as fast as you can, get the ideas out, then you can play with them and see what’s happening.

TP: Did it take a while for you to internalize the notion of turning off the inner critic, or was it not a complex matter?

JP: I’m pretty loose about when I write. I can write quickly and everything. I used to joke with Mike Brecker, because we were the opposite. He’d say, “Man, how do you write so fast? You write all these tunes.” I said, “Yeah, but Mike, I write all these tunes, but one of your tunes is better than ten of mine.” He was very meticulous, and would be like one bar… More the Stravinsky approach.

TP: He suffered over every note.

JP: Yeah. Did I ever tell you the story of Stravinsky at the Hollywood party? True story. Stravinsky at a Hollywood part, some young TV composer comes up to him, “Oh, Mr. Stravinsky…” Stravinsky was being nice. “So, what did you do today, young man?” “Well, I wrote 20 minutes of music.” Stravinsky goes, “Wow, that’s a lot of music. 20 minutes. Hmm.” The young man said, “What did you do today?” Stravinsky said, “Well, I was writing. I wrote 2 bars.” The cat was incredulous. “You’re Stravinsky. You wrote 2 bars?” Stravinsky looked at the guy and said, “Yeah, you should hear those two bars.” So I don’t take the fact that being quick is necessarily always a positive. It can be, because if you let the stuff flow out, sometimes it can get out of the way. Sometimes good things can happen when you just let the flow go, and that’s what I got from Chick. Stuff was just washing out.

TP: When I interviewed Chick Corea, he said that he didn’t get involved in classical music until later…

JP: But he had some classical piano training. Yes, he did. Miss Masullo, in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

TP: Well, thank you for that. But he told that he didn’t study it in depth until later.

JP: Probably. Even though he was taking piano lessons and learning classical music, his dad was a jazz trumpet player, so he was…

TP: and he was gigging, too.

JP: Yeah, Chick was blowing!

TP: But both Chick Corea and Wayne Shorter incorporate those interests very seamlessly into their musical production, no matter how hidden or how overt it might be. I think you said that was a help to you…

JP: It was an encouragement. Wayne was always also encouraging me to write and just expand, be really adventurous in what I would write for. He always liked when I would tell him I was trying to write some expanded music, or I had a commission. “Yeah, that’s it!” He was always encouraging me not to let anybody put me in a box about what I should write and shouldn’t write.

TP: You remarked to me once that you’re straddling different genres, that it’s sort of what used to be called “third stream,” but in a more organic way.

JP: Trying. Those terms are limiting….

TP: Well, you did use the term. But if you can do a third person on yourself….

JP: It’s a hard thing to combine those two, because you have musicians that improvise and then you have musicians that don’t. So how do you incorporate the two things so that the people who don’t improvise can still freely give and be part of a process, and utilize them well, so that they get to do what they do strongly, and then without overwriting, so there’s no space for the guys to create some new stuff and improvise on it. That’s the stuff that we’ve been doing with Wayne, with the orchestra, that I think has worked really well. He writes these beautiful, incredible, massive orchestrations, but there is room for us to interact and stretch out and open up sections. That’s great. So that’s the goal, to incorporate… Some of the commissions that I’ve written, there’s no improvisation at all. It’s a piece of modern music that incorporates some of the harmonic language of jazz without laying on these people who have never improvised in their life, “Ok, now you’ve got to blow.” You write it into the music, and they can deliver, because they’re used to dealing with the printed work. There’s a lot of different methods you can do. If it’s something where I’ve involved playing… Like, Mark Anthony Turnage wrote me a beautiful bass concerto where there’s improvisation and there’s written stuff, but the orchestra just plays what’s written. Yet, he writes so brilliantly, I don’t think they feel like they’re not doing anything.

TP: Also, since moving East, you’ve formed friendships and close affiliations with world-class classical players.

JP: Yes, in my church. Larry Dutton from the Emerson String Quartet.

TP: Playing classical music and improvising require different mindsets. At this point of your evolution, how intertwined are the two processes?

JP: historically, it’s interesting to note that it didn’t used to be that way. There was no division when Bach and those guys were operating. They could improvise fugues, and they were total improvisers. What happened was, as you started to expand numbers, the number of people, it was impossible to do that any more. You had to write things down, because not everybody could improvise. But even in the context of Baroque sonatas, guys would ornament and play on the repeat of the A section—they would add ornaments and do stuff. Some guys still do that. You have harpsichord players that improvise really well. The figured bass, which was the chord changes of that day. So there’s a lot of similarities. But once you got out of the Baroque Era and started getting to the Romantic, then the composer became king, and then it changed. So now you have a situation where many classical musicians don’t know how to improvise at all. There are varying degrees.

I am pretty open to all points on the continuum. It just depends on how you write. You have to know going in what you want to accomplish, and then go for that. If you know what you want to accomplish, then you’ll make the concessions that you need to make in the departments that you need to make them. I wrote a piece, called Lakes, for Ann Schein, who is a phenomenal classical pianist. She’s been around a long time. She was one of Rubinstein’s proteges. She’s so incredible. When she plays a piece, it sounds like she’s improvising. When she plays Chopin, it sounds like she’s making it up. She’s heavy. So for her, I just wrote the piece, knowing that even though she’s playing something that’s completely written-out, she’s going to make it sound like she’s blowing. She recorded it on a record called American Composers, which came out earlier this year. This was a big moment for me. On the same record, you have Elliott Carter, who is 100 this year, and Aaron Copland’s music, and then there’s my piece. Which is hilarious! I was joking with my wife. I said, “Yeah, there’s Carter, Copland, and what’s that? Is that lunch?” Patitucci. Is that with mozzarella on the side or what?

TP: so many different languages operating simultaneously. Not so many musicians out there are as musically multilingual as you are.

JP: I guess you have to really want to be that way. A lot of people just don’t care for that. It’s subjective. They like a certain thing, and that’s what they like. It’s interesting. When I’m with certain people, they like to play a certain way—I like it, too! I like stuff that’s loose. I also like hard-swinging music. I grew up listening to Oscar Peterson, too, so I’m just as comfortable playing… I did a record years ago with Monty Alexander, a tribute to Jilly’s, and it was just down-the-pike swinging. I absolutely love that. But I also like playing in a really open context, and I also like playing with Wayne and with Herbie. All the different in-betweens. It just depends on the kind of music you love to listen to. If you like a lot of different things, then you kind of have to go, “Ok, now I’ve got to learn how to do that,” if you want to play that music. For me, I never get tired of learning new ways to approach the music, because it keeps me excited about it.

TP: over the next couple of months, I noticed from your website, you have a number of gigs for this music, but most of them aren’t with Joe and Brian.

JP: Scheduling is very different.

TP: You’ll be using John Ellis and Marcus Gilmore, which is an interesting trio.

JP: They’re great. George Garzone is making a lot of gigs, too.

TP: But will Marcus Gilmore playing drums mostly?

JP: Yes. There’s one gig also with Teri Lyne Carrington and John Ellis up in Boston in September.

TP: It will sound very different, because this music was composed with Joe Lovano and Brian Blade in mind in certain ways…

JP: Check it out, though. The first time we ran the music before the record, I actually had a couple of gigs with John and Marcus. So they played the music early on. Some of the pieces they saw before Joe and Brian. They were very involved from the beginning, too.

TP: Where I’m going is that for you, as a composer, the ideas of the music have a firm identity outside the personnel that plays it. A lot of jazz music is so personnel-specific, but this is not necessarily the case with you.

JP: Hopefully. Obviously, though, certain kinds of musicians are needed, particularly if you look at the drums in this music. You’ve got to have somebody who can swing, but also somebody who can play some other kinds of grooves—the African stuff, that New Orleans feel. It’s not so easy to find guys who can cover a lot of ground, apart from the singular connection that Brian and I have. That’s something that’s in its own place for me. So after that, it’s another thing. But Marcus Gilmore is a very, very gifted young man.

TP: It puts you in a different position. Rather than playing with peers, so to speak… John Ellis and Marcus Gilmore are superior musicians, but younger musicians.

JP:  Well, I’m old enough to be Marcus’ father. John, not quite.

TP: And you turn 50 this year. There comes a transitional point for musicians… Well, music is a social art, more than the visual arts or writing, and you make a transition from someone who is identified more by working with Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Roy Haynes, and having done some albums, to the preponderance of your activity being a leader, as happened at a certain point with Dave Holland and other people. Is this something you think of consciously? How proactive do you want to be about establishing yourself…

JP: As a bandleader and so on?

TP: I’ll put it this way. Establishing yourself where your own musical vision is the predominant thing. From soup to nuts, as it were.

JP: Well, it has to be tempered with my time with my family, basically. I made a choice a little while back that, yes, I could go and tour as a leader most of the year that I wasn’t doing the other stuff, but then I’d never see my family. So I have to balance it, and that’s what I try to do. That’s also why I took the gig teaching at City College, so that I could choose a little bit more how much I wanted to be gone. There are still, obviously, some things musically that are super-important and I feel I have to do. But I also want to have a presence with my own family. A lot of guys sacrifice that to be a bandleader and make a statement and all that, and that’s great. But I’m not willing to sacrifice me being a good husband and father. That’s sometimes tricky, because it can be frustrating for somebody who’s been recording as long as I have… This is my thirteenth record. I’ve had bands since 1987. Yet, some people who write about the music say, “well, he’s not really a bandleader” or stuff like, “He’s not really a composer; his stuff is not that developed.” I’ve had that attitude thrown at me from time to time, and I think, “wow, is that because I’m not out there all the time with my band, going, ‘this is what I am,’ shouting it from the rooftops, touring like crazy?” Also, when you get to be almost 50, you’re think that you don’t want to go on the road all the time. I like going on the road. It’s great. But I’m not going to do it like I did when I was 25. So those are choices, and those choices have consequences. You’re not as in the public eye, so you’re not going to be poll-winning and all that kind of stuff. That doesn’t happen unless you’re out with your band all the time, saying, “Look, this is my vision.” I still have a vision. It’s a very strong viewpoint, and I don’t feel like I’m not taking it seriously. It’s just that I’m not willing to be on the road 8 months a year to do it. So I have to temper it and do it over a longer period of time, a slower arc, I guess.

TP: there’s something about the road that seems to inhibit R&D. Perhaps it hones a point of view. But when you’re off the road, there’s space… As Corea puts it, the eternal child aspect can perhaps be expressed more readily if you’re not on the road all the time.

JP: Yeah, when you’re on the road all the time, and you’re moving and moving and moving, and doing and doing and doing, there’s not as much… Well, now it’s a little easier to compose, with the computer. But you need time to just be home. And also, it’s nice to be home in a place like New York, because there’s a lot going on. You don’t feel like you came home and there’s nothing happening.

 

TP: How much of your time is teaching, how much is practicing and composing, how much is performing, and how much is parenting?

JP: I don’t even know how to break that down.

TP: You don’t sleep.

JP: Yeah, sometimes you don’t. That’s the drag about when I’m in the semester time. It can be really rough. I have to get up at 6, help the kids get their stuff for school, and then you go and teach on the days that you teach, and the days that you don’t teach you’re trying to practice or write or whatever. Or I go early to get my parking place by the school, then I go in and maybe I’ll practice a little bit before school starts, and then deal with the students. Sometimes when you come home, you’re just burnt. Some days are longer than others. What I do this semester will be coaching two graduate ensembles and two undergraduate ensembles, and 6 or 7 bass students. That means that sometimes one day is heavily loaded. I might have to get there by 7:20 to get my parking place. This semester, school will start at 10 o’clock, so I’ll practice and do some stuff before that, and from 10 to 1 is ensembles, and then private lessons until 5. The other day might be a little shorter. Those are intense days. You have to really be on. Then sometimes, when you come home at night, if you’re working on a particular thing and you’re writing with a deadline, or if you’re working on a piece and you have to practice, you stay up til 2 in the morning. Man, when 6 o’clock rolls around, it’s not fun. Sometimes I just can’t do it. Sometimes I have to do it. I just power down a few espressos, and go down in the basement and work, and pay the price the next day.

TP:  When you’re 55, let’s say, five years from now, do you envision your life breaking down in the same way? Do you expect maybe less sideman work, or…

JP: I don’t know. I know I’ll keep expanding writing and keep expanding as a player, and I’ll continue to write my own music and keep having bands. But I’ll continue to play with Wayne as long as he wants to keep doing it—and other people, too. I’ll continue pursuing the writing things also on the side, and hopefully get a chance to play some concertos with orchestras again, like I’ve had recently. And keep shedding. Writing, shedding… That’s just on the musical side. But there’s also the personal aspects of being involved with my wife and my children and our church. There’s a bunch of stuff going on there, too.

TP: So your roots are firmly in the New York area. You’re from here, you lived West, but it sounds like the West Coast was never quite your vibe…

JP: No. I liked the Bay Area quite a bit. But when I moved south, which is where I spent most of time in California, that wasn’t me. When I came home to the New York area, I felt like, ‘Man, I’m home again; this is great.” They say you can’t go home, but you can.

******

John Patitucci Blindfold Test (2002):
1. Joe Farrell, “Bass Folk Song” (from MOON GERMS, CTI, 1972/2001) (Farrell, flute; Stanley Clarke, bass; Herbie Hancock, electric piano; Jack DeJohnette, drums).

[INSTANTLY] That’s Stanley Clarke. And that’s got to be from the ’70s. This could be the band with Chick and Joe Farrell. That’s what it sounds like — Chick, Joe Farrell, and I’m trying to suss out who the drummer is. Airto was the drummer in that band. Could be. It’s easy to identify Stanley. His sound, and particularly his touch. I grew up hearing a lot of his music. After Ron Carter, Ray Brown and those guys, when I was in my teens, when he came on the scene, someone turned me on to a Chick Corea record, and it blew me away. He’s a very individual voice. This is a nice record. I’m not sure which one it is, unless it’s the first one with the dove flying over the ocean. It’s not an ECM record because of the way it sounds. The recording is different. I like it. It’s great open energy. These guys were playing together a lot. It sounds very free-blowing; they’re just reacting to each other. They’re just vamping out! It’s great. [Do you have stars for it?] I was thinking about that. I don’t really like the idea of stars… [But can you?] I’m going to give everything five. The other thing, too, is I’m kind of anti-criticism. [But we’re talking about your aesthetics.] I can’t do that. It’s like grading… But I can make a lot of comments, which I think are more valuable than trying to, you know, grade papers. Just for the feeling… I’m trying to remember the record. There’s one record Stanley did before the solo album that people know, and this could be that one, which was called The Children of Forever, with Pat Martino and all those guys, but it… I thought the keyboard player was Chick, but now that he’s playing a solo, it sounds like Herbie. If it’s Herbie, that kind of changes thing. But it still sounded like Joe Farrell to me. The drums? I also know that he did some stuff with Tony Williams. The hi-hat is going on all fours; that’s Tonyish. But in this period…it could be Tony. Yes, that’s Herbie, totally. That’s great. I don’t know this record, though. I’m trying to pin down the drums. It has Tonyish elements in it. But in that period, too, a lot of guys were influenced by Tony, like Lenny White and… But if it’s Herbie, it could be Tony, because I know Stanley played with Herbie and Tony, too. In this period of time, in the ’70s, I thought on acoustic bass Stanley was particularly sharp in those days. He sounded really on the top of his game. He was really strong conceptually, and playing with a lot of conviction. And real interesting. Great rhythmically. Everything. They get all the stars! Whatever you want to give them, they get all of them! It’s refreshing. I haven’t heard this vintage of this guys in a while. [AFTER] Oh, it’s Joe’s record. I know the record. I know the tune especially. But I still don’t know who’s playing drums. It was Jack? But I still don’t really… It’s Jack from that period, which is what fooled me. Not as dense as later Jack. But I love all periods of Jack. It sounds fantastic.

2. Ray Drummond, “Miyako” (from The Drummonds, PAS DE TROIS, True Life, 2000) (Drummond, bass; Renee Rosnes, piano; Billy Drummond, drums; Wayne Shorter, composer)

Nice. Those slides… This is a little trickier for me. I don’t know why. It sounds like a Wayne tune, but I can’t remember the name. If not, it’s one that’s really influenced by this 3/4 tune that Wayne wrote. It sounds very influenced by Herbie and that kind of trio playing, but it doesn’t sound like Herbie to me. There’s something different about it. And when the bass player was doing some slides earlier, it sounded like he was influenced by Ron, but it doesn’t sound like Ron to me. [BASS SOLO] It’s not Ron at all. Boy, this is tricky. It’s a woody sound. I like the sound. Nice lines. Mmm, wow. This piano player is familiar to me, but I’m stumped. I almost feel like I’ve played this tune… Whothe heck is this? That’s a Herbieistic lick and everything, but I don’t think it’s Herbie. Beautiful. Real sensitive. Great trio playing. I really like it. I should know who the bass player is. It sounds like the influence of Herbie and Ron and Tony kind of playing in the trio, but I don’t think it was them. [AFTER] It was Wayne’s tune. The Drummonds! I almost guessed Renee at one point. They get all the stars, too. I love that. I should have known it was her. The bass threw me, because I usually can recognize Ray. I love Ray’s playing. Yeah, it was happening.

3. Miroslav Vitous, “Miro’s Bop” (from UNIVERSAL SYNCOPATIONS, ECM, 2003) (Vitous, bass, composer; Chick Corea, piano; Jan Garbarek, tenor saxophone; Jack De Johnette, drums)

That sounds like Chick. That last lick was a Chickie lick right there. And it sounds like Michael Brecker, or somebody influenced by him. Oh, it’s not Mike. Somebody influenced by him, definitely. I thought the bassist might have been Eddie Gomez first, from a little vibrato thing, but then I can’t tell you yet. He hasn’t soloed. It’s a nice sound. The drums sounded very Jack-ish to me right there. But the tenor player is tricky, because it sounds like Michael, but I’m not sure. [I’m sure the tenor player wasn’t influenced by Michael Brecker.] Oh, okay. But that’s Eddie. It sounds like Eddie, with that little… Well, maybe not. Whoo, nice! Oh, wait a minute. That kind of facility; it could be Miroslav Vitous, too. I like it a lot. Okay, contemporary… The saxophone almost sounded Garbarek for a second there. It could be Garbarek. The bass sound… It’s great bass playing. This is not easy. [AFTER] The bass could have been Miro. [It was.] Yes. That would be Miro, Jack, Chick and Garbarek? [Yes.] Because sometimes, in the attack, in the percussiveness, Eddie can get into that kind of thing, too. But the tone was different. It had another thing on it, that Miroslav thing on it. I loved the piece. It was definitely influenced by that Miles kind of thing in the ’60s, with the bursts, and the way the bass was kind of coming in and out. Was that Mountain… No, it’s not Mountain In The Clouds. I don’t know which one it is. [When did it sound like it was done?] It sounded like an ECM recording. It sounded like the ’70s to me. [It’s a brand-new record.] You gotta be kidding! Great. Cool. It definitely has that older feeling, though.

4. Joe Zawinul, “East 12th Street Band” (from FACES AND PLACES, ESC, 2002) (Zawinul, keyboards & vocoder; Richard Bona, bass; Bobby Malach, saxophone; Paco Sery, drums & percssion; Alex Acuna, percussion; Amit Chatterjee, guitar)

I love this. It’s got the African vibe. It could be Zawinul, his thing, just from the sound. Sounds like Zawinul’s band to me. I’m not sure which vintage. Victor Bailey plays like that, but Richard Bona has that kind of vibe, too, with the short notes. They wree both playing all through this time. Victor was in and out of the band, and Richard was in the band for a while. That phrase was Victorish, down at the bottom. But Richard plays like that, too. Very nice. It’s Paco Sery on drums, the African guy. Great vibe. It’s hard to tell which bass player it is. I’ve known Victor for a long time. I think I met him when I was 19. Whether it’s Richard or Victor, it’s great playing. If he takes a solo, I can tell for sure, but I don’t think he will. I’ve heard Richard play some, but that sounds more like Victor to me. I can’t be sure. I’m going to get in trouble with Victor if I guess wrong! “What do you mean? You couldn’t recognize me after all these years?” Post-Jaco. Fantastic. [AFTER] It’s Richard? Fantastic. But there’s a similarity in the approach for sure. [Do you think that approach has to do with their own approach, or with Zawinul’s music?] That’s tricky, because Zawinul was influenced a lot by Jaco’s stuff but also the African stuff, but also the Africans were influenced by Jaco. It’s great playing. When I heard the first groove, I thought of Richard because it was very African, but the more it loosened up and got more jazz, it kind of sounded more like Victor. But Victor has a lot of stuff in him from everywhere, too. So it’s very difficult to pin down. Again, lots of stars.

5. Masada String Trio, “Meholalot” (from THE CIRCLE MAKER: ISSACHAR, Tzadik, 1997) (Mark Feldman, violin; Eric Friedlander, cello; Greg Cohen, bass; John Zorn, composer)

This is great. And it’s fun. There’s a lot of groups popping up like this, acoustic string groups playing more rhythmic music in the last 10-15 years or more. But I’m not familiar with all the… I know the guys around New York, like Mark Feldman is an improvising fiddle player, but I don’t know their styles. I know a little bit of Mark’s playing, but he wasn’t playing solo so much when we’ve played. He plays in Abercrombie’s group, too, but I don’t know it’s him. It’s a guess. I’m just throwing out names of fiddle players who improvise. I like the abandon of it. And the cellist I’ve played with who I know improvises is Eric Friedlander. But I haven’t heard him blow that much. I’ve just played with him, and I know he’s good. He can play. I heard his solo album, which I liked a lot, with Stomu Takeishi, the bass player. I like the idea of the orchestration, too, using the pizzicato rhythmic stuff. The bass player sounds great, but I don’t know who it is. He’s sort of the rock holding it together, and it he sounds really great doing it, too. Nice and woody. Earthy. It’s fun. I like the fact that they’re not playing it safe. It’s tricky with a bow. I do a lot of playing with the bow, so I know. Once you pick up the bow, to put something across rhythmically takes some doing. It’s not easy to do. And they’re just going for it. They’re not safely trying to do it right. They’re just going for it. And I love that. It’s got kind of an Eastern thing happening on it, too, which I dig. I love when they break down to the pizzicato stuff. But I have no idea. [AFTER] So it was Zorn’s stuff. That’s great. I’ve heard some of Zorn’s music before, on WKCR actually. I know Greg Cohen, and he’s a great bass player who has a broad musical scope. All the marbles for them. I think it’s great. I like that they were charging. It’s no prisoners and here we go!

6. Ray Brown, “Stella By Starlight” (from WALK ON, Telarc, 2002) (Ray Brown, bass; Geoffrey Keezer, piano; Karriem Riggins, drums)

[ON INTRO] Beautiful sound, right away. “Stella.” Somebody with a little flexibility on the instrument; right away I can tell you that, by the way he just tossed off a couple of things, musical, without even trying. Somebody who is definitely also… The triplet licks were very Ray Brown-esque. But the sound isn’t…it doesn’t sound like Ray Brown. Just somebody who is, like we all are, influenced by Ray Brown. The sound of the bass is a little different. I’m not going to make a quality judgment on the sound, because I like it. It’s just a different recorded tone. Ray’s been recorded so much, he has a lot of different sounds, but it doesn’t quite sound like Ray to me. The triplets is one aspect of what they’re doing. This is tricky. I feel silly. I can’t tell you who the piano player is. [BASS SOLO] Now we’re going to figure out who this is. He has that flexibility like John Clayton. But I can’t say definitively who that bass player is. The piano player played some interesting harmonic stuff, too. [AFTER] I’m stumped. It was Ray Brown! The sound didn’t sound, to me… I guess I was in the right ballpark. Ray and John Clayton, that’s pretty close. But the sound threw me. He was playing all the licks, but the recorded sound of the bass threw me. Once he played those triplet licks and I said, “Oh, it sounds like Ray…”

7. Steve Swallow, “Ladies Waders” (from THREE GUYS, Enja, 1999) (Swallow, electric bass; Lee Konitz, alto saxophone; Paul Motian, drums)

This is based on “Out of Nowhere.” [BASS SOLO] This is great. From the sound of the bass, it sounds like Swallow. It’s an electric, but it sounds acoustic. And I can hear the pick, because he uses a pick. But it sounds like Swallow; he’s melodic, beautiful, killing… Is the alto player Slagle? I can’t tell you? It almost sounded Ornetteish. Swallow is one of the few electric bass players who sounds like a jazz musician, a real, bona fide jazz musician. All the stars for Mr. Swallow, always. Wait, who is the alto player? Sounds more like Konitz now. That’s crazy! I’m trying to zone in on the drummer now. It could be Motian. Fantastic. Paul Motian, amazing. I love it. It’s just trio, but it sounds huge! I love that. And a very interesting tone. Because Swallow’s tone has evolved over the years on electric. And this is even thicker than before. It’s hard to get a thick tone in that way. He’s got a very special touch and sound because he’s playing with a pick. All the marbles.

8. Ornette Coleman, “Mob Job” (from SOUND MUSEUM: THREE WOMEN, Verve/Harmolodic, 1996) (Coleman, alto saxophone, Charnett Moffett, bass; Geri Allen, piano; Denardo Coleman, drums)

It’s interesting, the rhythmic thing on this one, because they’re trying to imply time without playing it. They don’t have the bass mixed up quite loud enough. It sounds kind of like Eddie, but it’s back there. Bow with some effects on it, too. It’s kind of cool. Oh, wait a minute. Sometimes Charnett does this stuff with the bow with the effects, too. I can’t hear it that well. If it was by proxy, I know Charnett is playing with Ornette now. It could be the reason they’re trying to imply the time without playing it. Denardoish. It could be Ornette. It’s Netman and Ornette and Denardo. But the piano player I can’t hear. All the stars just for the sound of Ornette even. Ornette sounds great. Attitude for days. It’s interesting to hear Ornette play blues like that, sometimes when he gets into that head. Fort Worth! It’s really strong. Whoo! Now the bass sound is coming into focus. He’s coming to the fore. It’s nice and woody, too. But I couldn’t hear that before. I can’t give you a guess on the pianist. Sounds like what happened is the snare drum is mixed very forwrd, and it’s kind of tricky to hear. [AFTER] Geri Allen? She’s fantastic. I like her writing, too.

9. George Mraz, “Up In A Fir Tree (Na Kosate Jedli)” (from MORAVA, Milestone, 2000) (Mraz, bass; Emil Viklicky, piano; Billy Hart, drums; Zuzana Lapcikova, voice, cymbalon)

I know what this record is. It’s unfair, because I was listening to it last month. It’s George Mraz with the Moravian guys. It’s beautiful. It’s a great idea to do this. I love this, that he did something for the homeland. This is really nice. George sounds terrific on this, and he’s really well recorded as well. It’s woody and a nice sound. George was one of the guys that I grew up listening to as well. I listened to Ron and Ray and Sam Jones and Paul Chambers and Percy Heath and all those guys, but then I also listened to Stanley, Eddie, George, Dave Holland, Charlie and Miroslav. He’s sort of in that generation, as the next thing that happened. As a bassist, too, dealing with the instrument, he’s fantastic. His pitch is so beautiful, and he plays beautiful with the bow. On this record, there’s some stuff with the bow that’s happening. Yeah, he sounds terrific. I especially love him in that group with John Abercrombie, the quartet with Richie Beirach and Peter Donald. He was killing in that group. All the stars for George.

10. Trio De Paz, “Baden” (from CAFE, Malandro, 2002) (Nilson Matta, bass, composer; Romero Lubambo, guitar; Duduka DaFonseca, drums)

Beautiful. Is this Trio de Paz? Yeah, Nilson, Romero, and Duduka. They get the serious vibe on it right away. It’s like a switch. Boom! Nilson sounds great on this. As soon as the first bar, Nilson Matta… The swing of that style of playing is immediately evident. Bass players from Brazil understand that the whole essence of samba comes from the surdo drum. That’s where our part comes from, the big drum with the mallet. So that has to be in there. That’s the root of what they’re doing. They might be doing stuff around it, but they know how to make the backbeat of Brazilian music happen. Even though Nilson is doing a lot of hip decoration and all kinds of other stuff, the groove and rootedness is always there. And Duduka sounds amazing. These guys have been playing together a long time. It’s great. There’s an art to doing that on the drums as well; making those beats sound like that. All the stars to the boys from Brazil.

11. Michael Formanek, “Emerger” (from NATURE OF THE BEAST, Enja, 1996) (Formanek, bass; Dave Douglas, trumpet; Steve Swell, trombone; Jim Black, drums)

I like the composition right away. Great drummer. [BASS SOLO] Wow. That’s all written out. That kind of flexibility reminds me of Dave Holland. Not necessarily his sound. And also the freedom. Dave certainly was part of a lot of seminal recordings of some open music that was… A great bass player, too, whoever this guy is. I don’t automatically flash on a name. The trumpet player sounds familiar, but I can’t… It’s kind of Kenny Wheelerish there, but the sound is different. Wow! It almost sounds like it could be European cats. Bugt it’s hard to say that, because there are cats who play with that sensibility here now, and it’s cross-pollinized — almost the Classical way of getting around the horn like that. Nice trombone sound, too. The bass player and drummer sound great together. I’m not sure who it is, though. It could also easily be a night at the Knitting Factory. It sounds Downtownish to me. It could be a lot of guys. There’s some really strong cats like Mark Helias and Drew Gress… But I know it isn’t Drew, because the context isn’t… Another guy is Mark Dresser. I’m guessing, though. [This is a guy who I think you were about two years behind when you were coming up in the Bay Area.] Jay Anderson? Jay was right ahead of me. [AFTER] Mike sounds fantastic. He was playing with Freddie and everything. Was the drummer Joey Baron? Jim Black? He’s great. I know his playing. Formanek sounds incredible on this.

12. Ron Carter, “Blues In The Closet” (from STARDUST, Blue Note, 2001) (Carter, bass; Roland Hanna, piano; Lenny White, drums; Oscar Pettiford, composer)

“Blues In The Closet,” huh? [AFTER FIRST CHORUS] That’s Ron. The lines. The architecture. Even though his sound has gone through various incarnations over the years, but also he’s one of my main… This is modern Ron right here. It’s more of a blended sound now. In the ’60s it was all microphone. Then I got the feeling in the ’70s he got into the pickup and there was a certain sound. This is both kind of put together. Sounds great. He has a great sense of humor, too, when he plays. Nice brush stuff, like Lewis Nash-ish, but it’s not him. Ron made some trio records with Billy Cobham, but that’s not Billy. Harvey Mason? All the stars for Ron.

****

John Patitucci (DownBeat) – 2000:

During John Patitucci’s decade with Chick Corea, when he began to make his mark as a consummate six-string electric and acoustic bass virtuoso, his deep connection to and affinity for jazz’s main stem was somewhat muted. So listeners who think of him solely as a premier Fusion man, fluent and elegant in the electric idiom, may be caught off-guard by the emotional range of the searing compositions and savvy improvisations that mark Patitucci’s three recent acoustic dates for Concord and the mercurial interplay and rooted foundation he imparts to a rampantly imaginative new trio session with Roy Haynes and Danilo Perez (Verve).

A fixture in Los Angeles since 1980, Patitucci left Corea in 1995 to pursue personal projects and plot future directions. In quick succession, he married, and decided to move to New York to begin a family and satisfy creative hungers by plunging headlong into hardcore jazz. “If anybody was really listening, I don’t think I ever sounded ‘West Coast,'” Patitucci remarks from the well-equipped basement studio in his comfortable new home just north of New York City, a half-hour drive from the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, the working-class neighborhood where he spent his first 12 years. While we wait for a pot of orichette and lentils (pasta fagiole — from a family recipe) to reach the proper consistency, Patitucci, who at 40 has the compact muscular frame and focused alertness of a prototype baseball catcher, expresses his disdain for being pigeonholed.

“People labeled me with the term ‘Fusion’ and I resented it,” he says. “I came up in jazz a lot…well, everything from R&B to Classical to free music inspired by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. My major in college was Double Bass Performance, playing Classical music and also in the jazz groups, and from my early days in Los Angeles I played with Victor Feldman, Joe Farrell, Freddie Hubbard, Hubert Laws, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and a lot of other older guys. Though I started on electric bass when I was 10, I didn’t get back into electric until after college, when I realized that I had to get both instruments together to get work. For a while with Chick and on my earlier recordings I played a lot on the six-string bass because it was a new instrument that I wanted to explore. I’ve always been after the line. Either it’s a line that’s interesting, that has shapes and dynamics, flows, is musical and lyrical, or it’s just scales — no matter what speed you play it. I aim high, and there are certain things I want to do on the instrument. I want to have freedom and be lyrical. I want to have a strong foundation and be able to anchor any group that I’m in, and when it’s my turn to stretch out, I want to contribute.”

Patitucci honed those qualities during his productive tenure with Corea. “Whatever label people put on Chick’s music, it was always creative and amazing, and I learned a lot playing with him,” he emphasizes. “He got me a record deal and encouraged me to write. During my last three years I only played in his acoustic groups — the trio and quartet. It was more a practical matter than not wanting to play the electric music. He was very busy, and I didn’t want to do double duty on the touring. I felt I hadn’t shown a huge part of my personality on my records, though I’d been giving hints, and I wanted to experiment and explore and demonstrate some of this other music that I have inside.

“I started to realize that a lot of the people I wanted to play with more extensively were in New York. There are a lot of great players in Los Angeles, but the town is geared towards Pop music and the movies, and there isn’t much support for people who try to reach and stretch. In New York it’s not rose-colored glasses, but there’s an amazing concentration of creative musicians, an actual scene, more than anywhere else in the world. Stylistically and artistically, I always felt like I belonged here; most of the bassists who are my heroes, the diverse musical minds on the instrument — Ron Carter, Ray Brown, Paul Chambers, George Mraz, Scott LaFaro, Dave Holland, Charlie Haden, Mingus, Steve Swallow, Jaco Pastorius — who influenced the way I hear and play lived here. I was more than a little concerned about coming back to the town where my heroes work, and I certainly was respectful of the scene. But I got encouragement from people like Michael Brecker and Jack DeJohnette, who told me I’d be fine. Finally I decided there was no point in waiting any longer, never doing it, then wondering, ‘Boy, maybe I should have tried to go home.’ So I did.”

After moving to New York, Patitucci recorded “One More Angel,” “Now” and “Imprint.” On the latter, which could not have been conceptualized nor executed anywhere else but New York City, Patitucci presents the full scope of his comprehensive aesthetic. He assembles and deploys in a variety of configurations a cast of first-tier improvisers with whom he interacts on a regular basis — young tenorists Chris Potter and Mark Turner, pianists Danilo Perez and John Beasley, trapset masters De Johnette and Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez, and state-of-the-art hand drummer Giovanni Hidalgo. He offers them a set of original compositions that span a capacious terrain of ambiance and groove, from spirit catching drum chant to aria-like ballads, incorporating a flexible template of rhythmic signatures.

“John is able to write simple tunes — simple in a good way,” notes Potter, a veteran of Patitucci’s ensembles since 1993. “Interesting things happen, it zigs when you think it’s going to zag. But it seems he’s learning to pare down to essentials, so that the themes are very memorable, singable melodies, and the way he constructs the changes makes it very open for the soloists. It seems his band concept is to have a clear framework for a tune, and then hire people to do what they do over it. John’s gigs are fun for me because I’m encouraged to explore whatever I’m into; I’m not straitjacketed into one kind of style. He’s a fountain of energy. He wants it to be loose and take off — all the right things. You feel that force behind you when you’re soloing, that he’s on your side — on the music’s side. He’s thinking about the music in a larger way, how to orchestrate it so it’s going somewhere, so it makes sense.”

“The way John is writing is a marriage of Latin and Jazz; you don’t know where one stops and the other ends,” adds Perez, Patitucci’s partner in the Roy Haynes Trio since 1997. “He can paint. He uses all the different styles of music, and can deal in any situation. You can go electric, acoustic, swing, jazz, Latin — it clicks in every situation we’ve worked in. John’s ability to play Latin music is amazing; he isn’t uncomfortable playing on the one-beat, which is the way Latin musicians play. He always takes the musical approach. He has a lot of facility, really great technique, but he doesn’t put it in your face all the time. He knows when to use it and when not to. He isn’t an egotistical player at all. He’s always finding ways to instigate situations, always doing something, always thinking, ‘What can I do to make this better through my function?’ And talk about playing in tune — my God.”

Patitucci stokes the fires throughout the recent bebop-to-the-future Roy Haynes Trio release, switching on a dime from foundational to soloistic functions with relentless intensity and almost devotional consonance. “I’ve played with a ton of different drummers over the years,” he notes, “and I’ve tried to sustain an attitude of keeping the doors wide-open, enjoying everybody’s ideas of playing the drums and molding in and learning from it. I like to try to get inside the rhythm section and lock in with the soloist, without preconceived ideas. I mean, you play the way you play anyway, and hopefully you do find your voice. But it’s so much richer if you’re open to be the catalyst. As the bass player you’re sitting right in the middle of the music. It’s exciting!”

The pasta fagiole is delicious. As dinner winds down, the conversation turns to Patitucci’s Italian heritage. “Culturally I feel very identified with it,” he remarks. “My father was a big opera fan, and played opera records in the house. I think the Italian fascination with the lyrical delivery of a melody definitely influenced my playing. My upbringing gave me an aesthetic of being thankful for certain things, and also the sense of art as something that’s important in the day-to-day aspects of life.”

After dinner, Patitucci peers out the dining room window into the twilight at his snow-blanketed backyard, honing in on the dimly outlined snowman he’d constructed earlier that day with toddler daughter Sachi Grace, an indefatigable 2-year-old who keeps metronomic time on the basement trapset. “Jazz got into my soul when I was so young,” he reflects. “It touched off something in me. I love the improvisational aspect of it, that there’s room for individual expression and the excitement of actually co-creating stuff on the fly. That’s magical. There’s nothing like it, and I wasn’t willing to let go. I had plenty of opportunities in L.A. to go pop, but it didn’t hold me emotionally.

“This is the most exciting time of my life. I love it back east. I’m home again. You can’t make snowmen in California.”

[-30-]

For Lenny White’s 66th Birthday, An Uncut DownBeat Blindfold Test From 2010

For drummer Lenny White’s 66th birthday, here’s the uncut proceedings of a DownBeat Blindfold Test that I conducted with him in May 2010. His remarks were unfiltered and trenchant. We did this in a high-end midtown recording studio, which I mention because of Lenny’s comments on how the positioning of the drums in the mix of several of these recordings affects our perception of what the drummers are doing.

 

Lenny White Blindfold Test (Raw):

1. Roy Haynes, “The Best Thing For You” (LOVE LETTERS, Sony, 2002) (Haynes, drums, Joshua Redman, tenor saxophone; Kenny Barron, piano; Christian McBride, bass)

This is one of the six masters. This is the history of jazz right here—the living history of jazz. Do I have to say who it is? Roy Haynes. He’s the living history of jazz. He’s played with everybody, done everything, and he’s one of my six heroes. The others are Philly Joe, Max, Elvin, Art Blakey, and Tony. It’s Roy Haynes! That’s all you’ve got to say. All the drummers that I named transcend the instrument. They’re not drummers. They are musicians who happen to play drums. Because they have such a unique approach to playing music, they don’t play just drums—they play music, and the drums are the instrument that they use to interpret the music. 9 stars. I’m not even listening to the other cats. No disrespect, but Roy commands such attention when he plays the instrument… Is that Christian on bass? I wasn’t listening to the piano player, so I didn’t hear his solo. Is this Marcus Strickland on tenor? No? I’ve got to tell you a true story with Roy Haynes that helped shape my musical life. Roy Haynes used to have a group that he called the Hip Ensemble, and every night, the last tune he would play on the set would be the Negro National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” At the end, he’d go, BAH-DAH-DOO-DAH, BRRMMM, and he’d play a drum cadenza. He was playing at Slugs’, and he knew I was there, and said BAH-DAH-DOO-DAH, BRRMMM, stopped, and called me up on the stage, and had me play the drum cadenza. That’s all I’ve got to say.

2. Jason Marsalis, “Puppet Mischief” (from John Ellis & Double Wide, PUPPET MISCHIEF, Obliq, 2010) (Ellis, tenor saxophone, composer; Marsalis, drums; Brian Coogan, organ; Matt Perrine, sousaphone)

Is it Dave Holland’s band? No? That’s very interesting, because of the use of the tuba, and they can negotiate their way through 7/4 pretty seamlessly. The drummer is playing within the music, doing an admirable job within the music. I haven’t a clue. It’s cool. He’s not getting in the way. You know what’s interesting with the younger guys? I think they’re very technically proficient, but there’s no particular emphasis on a sound—an identifiable sound, whether it’s choice of cymbals, or how they tune their drums, to the point where I say, “Oh, I know who that is” immediately. It sounds great, though. 3 stars.

3. Kendrick Scott, “Short Story” (from REVERENCE, Criss-Cross, 2009) (Scott, drums, composer; Mike Moreno, guitar; Walter Smith, tenor saxophone; Gerald Clayton, piano; Derrick Hodge, bass; Kenny Dorham, composer)

Is it Tain? No. I like it. He’s killing. I like the organic sound of everything. It sounds great. My only problem, sometimes, is how the recordings are today. See, what drives the music is the ride cymbal. A lot of the guys now play more drums than play cymbal. See, I don’t get a sense of the real hard drive with the music with a lot of drums. It got it when they were playing in open 7, but when they started to swing over the changes it didn’t work as well. From that standpoint, I’d like to really hear some hard swinging. 5 stars. Kendrick Scott? A new guy. But when they start to play straight-ahead stuff, it’s a little weird. From another perspective, what music is, is how you break silence.
So when you make a statement, it better be good. If you’re coming back from silence… That’s why it’s a little strange. There’s this flood of music, and then the music has to compete with movies, it has to compete with games. So the emphasis is not on art, like it used to be, or the art has been fragmented.

4. Brian Blade, “Joe Hen” (from John Patitucci, REMEMBRANCE, Concord, 2009) (Blade, drums; John Patitucci, bass, composer; Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone)

John Patitucci, Joe Lovano, and Brian Blade. I don’t know the record, but I know them. It’s ok. 4 stars. I like Brian’s playing. [If I run this entry, it would be nice if I had a little more than “I like Brian’s playing.”] What is it that you want me to say? [Just your response…] Let me ask you what do you think? [Of this piece.] Yes, and Brian’s playing. [Open, interactive piece, Brian’s responding on a dime like he always does…] Everybody that you’ve played me so far has done exactly the same thing. Everybody’s responded and played, and it’s great. The drums sound great. The sound is great. The thing about it is that conceptually…what defines concept, or helps make up concept, is your choice of cymbals, how you tune your drums, and hopefully that will come out in a recording. This is recorded well. The drums sound fantastic. In conjunction with the music, it still sounds great, and all of that. I think it’s great. 4 stars.

5. Dafnis Prieto, “Si o Si” (from SI O SI QUARTET, Dafnison, 2009) (Prieto, drums, composer; Peter Apfelbaum, tenor saxophone; Manuel Valera, piano; Charles Flores, bass)

You’re giving me all these weird time changes. I like this, though. Great composition. Is it the drummer’s composition? Tain? It’s great. I love the composition. It shows that drummers can be musicians, too. That’s why I think I know who it is, but I don’t want to say yet. Is it Jack deJohnette? No? Who is it? Dafnis Prieto? Nice, man. You can tell that he wrote this composition. Very musical. It says something when someone comes here who is not from the United States, and they take their culture and adapt it to jazz. He’s not trying to play jazz; he’s playing jazz within his culture, which is cool. Oh, it’s live. I really like it. Who’s the piano player? [Manuel Valera.] Are they all Latin? [The tenor player isn’t.] It’s killer. Very believable, very honest, and they were going for it. It’s not as much as Roy Haynes, but 6 stars. Whoo!

6. Teri Lynne Carrington, “The Eye Of The Mind” (#2) (from Tineke Postma, THE TRAVELLER, EtceteraNOW, 2009) (Postma, piano, composer; Geri Allen, Fender Rhodes; Scott Colley, bass; Carrington, drums)

Great-sounding recording. Whoever this is has been influenced by Jack. Unless this is Jack. No? Oh, Teri Lynne Carrington. The statement was accurate. I thought it sounded great. It’s kind of hard for me, because I don’t want to sound cynical or jaded, but I have such… The best way that I can explain it is that jazz is not a style of music to me. It’s my heritage. The reason why I say that is that those six heroes I mentioned all took me aside and told me things about how to interpret and represent the music. I got a lot from listening to their records, but it really made sense when they said what they said, when you sat and listened to somebody and they’d say, “Ok, you see that? This is how you make that turnaround.” Or, “You see this? This is what you need to…” Every one of those guys I mentioned actually did that with me. So they gave me their perspective of how to represent the music the right way. That’s why for me it’s a heritage. Everything you’ve played is a very good representation of where the music is today, or where it’s going. But you haven’t played anything yet that was a true sense of swing from the perspective of all of those guys that I named, and all those guys that I named, maybe with the exception of Philly Joe and Buhaina, they took the music from a straight-ahead swing situation, and amped on it, and made it into something else, to what this is right now. But I still haven’t heard that link back to those guys yet. I’ve heard great representations of what the music is today, but with the exception of what I just heard with Teri Lynne, I can’t say where the influences of the drummers have come from. She sounded great. 4 stars. You haven’t played me anything that I did not like and which sounded bad—and was a bad representation. And I would hope you wouldn’t write about either! It’s just from the standpoint that what keeps a music pure is that there’s a source point, and you can trace the lineage from A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and it goes down the line. But when there’s an offshoot that is something that doesn’t have a point on the chain, it becomes something else. Now, it might be totally valid. I’m not saying that nothing else is valid. That’s not what I’m saying. Just that to this point you haven’t played me anything where I can see a link. The reason I haven’t been able to recognize some of the people is because I don’t hear those influences in their playing. When you played me Roy Haynes, I knew who it was in a second.

7. Ali Jackson, “Dali” (from Ted Nash & Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, PORTRAIT IN SEVEN SHADES, JALC, 2010) (Nash, composer; Ali Jackson, drums)

Does anybody play in 4 any more? Not a clue. Don’t know who the band is. It could be Gil Evans—I don’t know. There’s not too much the drummer can do, because he’s playing in odd time, and it’s pretty much arranged—so he’s kind of in handcuffs. Is it a ‘50s or ‘60s recording? [Neither. It’s 2010.] Whoa! I was just thinking of how far back the drums are. [Ali Jackson with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.] That’s really interesting. See how far back the cymbal is? I know Ali, and I like his playing. But this doesn’t represent his sound. They’re probably all great musicians, but there’s no drive. You can’t hear any drive. All you hear is the bass, but the drums have no drive.

8. Ernesto Simpson, “We See” (from Manuel Valera, CURRENTS, MaxJazz 2009) (Valera, piano; James Genus, bass; Simpson, drums; Thelonious Monk, composer)

This must be the piano player’s record. That’s all you can hear. You can’t hear any drums. Well, you can hear the drums, but you don’t hear any cymbals. When was this recorded? A year or two ago? The piano is so out in front, you lose perspective. I spent a week playing with Danilo and Avishai Cohen when he was doing the Panamonk stuff in the ‘90s, and I had a ball. It was great. [Did you play Afro-Caribbean music, salsa, when you were a young guy?] I did a lot. I played in a band called Azteca. I actually did a record called Afro-Cubano Chant with Bob James, Gato Barbieri, Andy Gonzalez, Mike Mainieri, and Steve Berrios, and we did all stuff like that. We played Lonnie Hillyer’s “Tanya” from the Soul Sauce album, Cal Tjader. But I don’t know about this…

9. Cindy Blackman, “Vashkar” (from ANOTHER LIFETIME, 4Q, 2010) (Blackman, drums; Mike Stern, electric guitar; Doug Carn, organ; Benny Rietveld, electric bass; Tony Williams, composer)

This is Cindy Blackman. This is her Tony record. I don’t like the sound of the recording, but I love what Cindy’s playing. The recording is weird. No clarity. Cindy knows how to tune the drums, she has a great choice of drums and everything, but I don’t really get that. It sounds muddled. It sounds like drums and guitar. You’ve got to be able to HEAR the drums. That’s Mike Stern on guitar and Doug Carn on organ. I knew it exactly because I know the music and I knew they made the record. The guitar is way too loud. I’ve been reluctant to do a tribute album for Tony. His playing comes out so much in me, I didn’t think I had to do that. I’m not saying that Cindy shouldn’t have done that; I’m not saying that at all. But I’ve managed just to be able to trace through him and find what I needed to find. And anybody that listens to me play can hear his influence on me. If there’s any negative about this, it’s the sound of the recording. That’s all. 4 stars. It sounds like the snare drum and bass drum in the mix. There’s a whole bunch of stuff she’s playing that you miss. Cindy’s playing some great stuff, but you don’t hear it. Who’s the bass player? [Benny Rietveld.]

10. Paul Motian, “Abacus” (from LOST IN A DREAM, ECM, 2010) (Motian, drums, composer; Chris Potter, tenor saxophone; Jason Moran, piano)

Ringing snare drum. See how far back the bass drum is from the snare drum. These engineers and producers make jazz records try to sound like pop records. Jazz music is ambient music like classical music. You need to hear the air around the instruments, and then you hear it in direct proximity. You don’t hear a first violin louder than the viola. It’s a section. It’s a drumkit; you should always hear the whole kit, not the snare drum louder than something else. Is this a younger guy? [No.] I didn’t think so. It’s Paul Motian, but it sounded like Roy Haynes, from some of the things he did. I liked it. 3 stars.

11. Jeff Watts, “Caddo Bayou” (from John Beasley, POSITOOTLY!, Resonance, 2009) (Beasley, piano, composer; Brian Lynch, trumpet; Bennie Maupin, tenor saxophone; James Genus, bass; Watts, drums)

Finally we have somebody swinging. Same thing, though. The cymbal is not loud enough. The music doesn’t swing if you don’t get… And the guy can be really swinging, but it suffers in the mix. I believe what happens is that guys are set to play, and they’re not content enough to make the band swing just playing the ride cymbal. They want to play a whole bunch of drums, and it overpowers everything. So the producers that make these jazz records bring down the drums because they’re afraid that it’s going to overpower everything. But you miss the ride beat. It doesn’t swing if you don’t hear that. It just sounds like a rolling thing. You hear the bass, but you hear the low end of the bass. You don’t really hear any finger noise. And you hear the soloist way up front. So the rhythm section has this rumbling thing, nondescript. Is this one of them new trumpet players? Now, let me ask you a question. Listening to the drummer, who is his influence? [This sounds more coming out of Tony with Miles than anything else, at least in intention.] No way. Because the stuff Tony played, he played off of a ride cymbal. [Is that from the recording or the actual vocabulary the drummer’s playing?] A little bit of both. I mean, the stuff that Tony played was so intricate, it wasn’t just a rolling thing. There was great coordination between hands and feet, and a ride pattern. It was the cymbal beat which keeps the rhythmic perspective, so that when he played some other stuff, it was really amazing, because he played it against and coordinated with the cymbal beat. This just sounds like it’s a whole bunch of stuff going on, but there’s nothing to keep it focused. I don’t know who it was. 2 stars.

I honestly think that the recording made Tain’s contribution suffer there, because I know he has more of a cymbal ride beat than that, because you couldn’t hear it. That’s what made me say what I say. [This is  illuminating for me. Because so many records sound like this, I’m used to projecting what I hear live onto the record, and it becomes like a ghost sound…] See, the problem is it’s as if you went to a jazz club and heard a classical orchestra, and you got used to that sound, so that when you went back and heard a classical orchestra in a correct auditorium, you’d say, “Wow, that’s really interesting, because I’m used to hearing it in….” One of the things that is important in maintaining the history and giving the right perspective about the music is how you record it. When I listen back to the records I came up listening to, the Blue Note records and Columbia records, it had a sound that we all loved and got used to hearing, and it was a quality sound. It didn’t sound bad. That sounded bad. {Is that because of compression?] I think it’s basically attitude from the producer and the engineer. The engineer gets the sound, but the producer says, “This is the sound that I want,” and the artist usually leaves it up to the producer. Or maybe the artist doesn’t know enough to say, “Hey, let’s use this amount of compression on the piano, let’s use ribbon mikes on the cymbals so we can get a sweeter sound.” They don’t take that impetus or study enough to get a great-sounding record. And if the record doesn’t sound good, how are you going to get what it is you want to get across to people? Today we listen to music on phones! It’s like, “Please!” It’s gotten to that point. So I think basically what made Tain’s sound suffer for me was the way it was mixed.

The reason why I became a producer was out of… I was so disgusted playing on someone’s session, and someone sitting behind a glass telling me to do this, and listen to the sound, and the sound sounded horrible. I said, “Man, I’ve got to think and do my homework to find out what it takes to have a good drum sound, and record it.” If I want to make records, then I’m going to need to know how to make my drum sound. I didn’t want to be at the mercy of someone else, to say, “Ok, that sounds good.” No. So I had to take control.

[These aren’t self-produced recordings, but are independent labels, producers who have a point of view, so I’d suspect they think they’re putting some effort into the sound… For example, Paul Motian is on an ECM record; Manfred Eicher puts out a very curated sound…] Yes, and that sounded eons better than the last one. [But you were critical of the sound on that.] No-no. The point is… Yes, I have my opinion. But that was much more of a representative sound of what the music was like. It was a live recording. He had a very open bass drum, and I don’t know who decided, but some producer decided, “We don’t want to have ringy drums like that, we don’t want the snare drums to ring, so we’ll put tape on it and do this and do that.” Motian probably took control and said, “No, this is my sound, this is what I want to…” That’s why I said I knew it when I heard it. Roy Haynes plays a big open bass drum like that, too.

See, Ted, I just want to go on record as saying that what I say is not gospel. It’s just my perspective on it. When I am asked about it, I say what my perspective is. It took me a while to decide to record a record again, because I had listened to what the landscape was and thought about it and said, “Well, do I really want to make a statement in this particular landscape?” My statement is a lot different than what I just heard. But it’s my statement, and I take pride in how to make my instrument sound and how to mike it and all of that. I would hope that would come out in my recording. That’s why I’m so critical about the sound, because I don’t want great artists to make statements and for them not to be heard—and I’m talking about not to be heard while listening. It’s one thing that you don’t hear the record, but if you don’t hear the statement that they’re making while the record or CD or MP3 is being played…

For John Abercrombie’s 71st Birthday, An Interview From 2012

In recognition of guitarist John Abercrombie’s 71st birthday, here’s an early edit of an interview that I conducted with him in 2012 for a Jazziz article in the Q&A format, framed around the release of his ECM CD Without A Song.  Also of interest might be this earlier post of an uncut Blindfold Test that I conducted with Abercrombie for DownBeat in 2001.

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For most of his half-century career as a professional improviser, John Abercrombie has been known, as he puts it, for “not playing jazz in its purest sense.” Indeed, the 68-year-old guitarist has presented predominantly original music during his 37 years as an ECM artist, most recently on four ambitious CDs in the ’00s by a working quartet on which he shares the front line with polymath violinist Mark Feldman. But on his 2012 ECM release, Within a Song, Abercrombie switches gears with a suite of covers and re-imagined standards that honor formative influences Sonny Rollins, Jim Hall, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and Art Farmer. Master partners Joe Lovano (playing only tenor saxophone), bassist Drew Gress and drummer Joey Baron keep the flow modern and sustain a relaxed but unrelenting attitude of swing.

“It’s a throwback to a pure form of jazz that stopped in the ’60s, when so many influences came in that changed the music forever,” Abercrombie says. He didn’t need to add that he himself has been a game-changer, an instantly recognizable voice among peers and cognoscenti, a key figure in developing a guitar language that could assimilate the various streams that flooded the jazz playing field during the ’70s. He continues to push the envelope in multiple contexts — among them an organ trio with Nussbaum and Gary Versace; ongoing duo connections with pianists Marc Copland and Andy Laverne; and forthcoming work with Gateway, a collective trio with Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette that has convened sporadically since 1975, always with spectacular results.

Midway through August, Abercrombie supported Within A Song with a week at Birdland, convening Lovano, Gress, and drummer Adam Nussbaum for the occasion. A few hours before taking the stage on night three, dressed in the blue workshirt and black jeans that were his evening’s attire, he spoke to Jazziz in the midtown club’s narrow dressing room.

TP: After a decade of writing original music for a working band, what makes this a propitious time to do what might be called an “audio-biography”?

JA: About five years ago, I presented to [ECM producer] Manfred Eicher the idea of a tribute to the Art Farmer Quartet of the ‘60s, which had Jim Hall, Steve Swallow when he still played upright bass, and a couple of drummers, including Pete LaRoca. Manfred thought the idea was fantastic, but things didn’t work out, and I put the whole thing on the shelf. A few years later, I Manfred emailed, asking if I’d ever thought about doing a tribute to someone, like Steve Kuhn had done on his Mostly Coltrane record for ECM with Lovano and Joey. This is very unlike Manfred, who has never been into tribute recordings. I thought about it, and presented the idea of doing something on a period of music, which he liked. If any person permeates the CD as an influence, it’s Jim Hall—he played with Sonny on “Without A Song” and “Where Are You,” with Art Farmer on “Some Time Ago,” and with Bill Evans on “Interplay.”

TP: In recent years, you’ve done standards records with specially convened groups.

JA: I’ve done plenty of that kind of playing, but this was more specific. The Bridge just popped up at me. I play that record for my students in the composition class I teach. I tell them that it’s a composition—the solos are so formed, so thematic and developed. I say, “You couldn’t have written this; nobody could have written the way they improvised.” Improvising is composition, you know.

I first heard it in a record store when I was a kid, about 18 years old. Those were the days when the guy in the front of the store would play you a track, and he put on the first tune, which is “Without A Song.” I guess epiphany is the only word for something that strikes you so strong. I didn’t know musically what was happening, but it sounded so perfect. I said, “I must know what this is and this is really important to me.” That was the strongest reaction I ever had to a piece of music—although Bill Evans always got to me, and I wore out Kind of Blue.

TP: Apart from your leader records for ECM, you’ve recorded as a sideman with so many artists—Enrico Rava, Dave Liebman, Colin Walcott, Ralph Towner, Kenny Wheeler, Barre Phillips, Charles Lloyd. Your sound—or different sounds at different stages—is very identified with ECM’s sonic image.

JA: Different sounds at different stages for sure. I hear some older things, and I don’t even know how I did them—a speedier, more technical kind of playing, as opposed to now. It sounds hard, a bit like “Guitar Hero” stuff. About 15 years ago, I stopped playing with a plectrum, which slowed me down somewhat. You can’t articulate as quickly with the thumb as you can with a pick, which gives you the attack and lets you jump around a lot quicker. I’d always fooled around with playing with my thumb, and I did it on a gig once with Kenny Wheeler. I liked the way it sounded, so I started to get it in the act more, switching between the thumb and the pick. Then I realized I should make a decision because the two sounds are so different, and it sounds too schizophrenic when you switch in mid-solo. Overall, I like the thumb for the warmth of the sound, and the fact that my actual flesh is on the string without a piece of plastic in between.

TP: How did you connect with Manfred Eicher?

JA: In 1970, my girlfriend and I moved from Boston to a little apartment on East 4th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues. I started to meet people, and got a lot of calls to do little record dates. Enrico Rava had moved here, and in 1973, during a brief tour of Italy, we did a record called Katchapari. Somewhere along the line, Manfred heard it. We finally met through Ralph Towner—Manfred would bring a reel-to-reel tape to his apartment on Perry Street and say, “This is the new Eberhard Weber record, called Colors of Chloe.” “Who’s Eberhard Weber?” “Listen.” Then he’d put the tape on, and I’d hear orchestral music by a guy who had overdubbed all these cellos. I flipped out, because everything was so beautiful. Manfred told me he’d heard Katchapari and liked what I did. He asked, “Would you like to record for ECM?” I said that I would, but I didn’t have any original music. Manfred said, “Well, keep it in mind.” He kept hounding me.

I decided to go back to the thing I was most comfortable with. After Berklee, I worked a few years with Johnny Hammond Smith, who I made my first record with. Jan Hammer and I had been roommates in Boston, and I knew he could play anything on organ, and had the synthesizer. He played in a strip joint in Boston, and I’d run down and sit in with him before the strippers came on. I’d recently met Jack DeJohnette and was starting to play in some of his bands. I had a little cassette player with two little speakers. One day I started noodling, and came up with a couple of tunes.

TP: Were you putting this repertoire together with the idea that it was suiting the ECM sound?

JA: No. It was totally where I was at. I thought the record might have more of an organ trio feel, but I should have realized that Jan and Jack weren’t going to sound like Jack McDuff and Joe Dukes on drums. So whole record had a very different feel for the time, but it had nothing to do with what I thought ECM wanted—because I didn’t even really know what they wanted. I was very influenced by some things John McLaughlin had done with Mahavishnu years before, and with Miles on things like In A Silent Way. I wasn’t even sure Manfred would like it, but I took my chance. He loved all of it, the raucous stuff and the ballads. It was a magical recording.

TP: By this point, you were about 30, with a decade as an apprentice under your belt—the organ trios, Dreams, Chico Hamilton, Gato Barbieri, Rava, Billy Cobham. Can you describe your path to the sensibility you articulated on Timeless?

JA: When I went to Berklee, there was no Jazz-Rock. The two hadn’t merged yet. If you played a Rock or rhythm-and-blues gig, you probably were doing it for the money. Not that it wasn’t fun, but it was more like, oh, it’s a gig with a singer and they’re going to play some tune by Marvin Gaye or “Stormy Monday.” In Boston, I joined a rhythm-and-blues band called the Danny Wright Orchestra, with a singer named Erroll McDonald who sang Ray Charles tunes, but we also played jazz, like an arrangement of a Tadd Dameron tune. Danny introduced me to Johnny. I auditioned for him at this really funky club in Boston, and he liked me enough to give gave me the gig. I really was a jazz player at that period. I wasn’t a GOOD jazz player, but that’s all I played. I was actually making my living with Johnny on the chitlin’ circuit, playing standards and blues and some little cover tunes with guitar, organ and drums, and sometimes Houston Person playing tenor.

Everything was in upheaval then. People were taking acid. There was the Vietnam war and civil rights. Everybody was listening to Jimi Hendrix and all this Rock. The organ trio stuff was still my meat and potatoes, but I also liked some of the sounds I was hearing. So I got myself a distortion pedal (we used to call them fuzz tones) and a wah-wah pedal, moved to New York, and said, “Ok, I’m here—plug me in.” I went along with the times. I joined Dreams, with Randy and Mike Brecker and Billy Cobham and Barry Rogers, and they weren’t playing Jazz-jazz. They were playing Jazz-Rock, we used to call it.

After I met Rava, and started to go to Europe, and met Manfred, I started to get thrown in with people who played what they called Free Jazz, or very open kind of music. I didn’t have a lot of role models to play what was being asked of me. McLaughlin had been doing it early on, Coryell and other people had been experimenting, and and there were some wilder people like Sonny Sharrock and Pete Cosey, but there wasn’t a real language set up. So I had to figure things for myself. I grabbed onto every device I had in my arsenal—my knowledge of harmony and the guitar, the few little fuzztones or pieces of gear that I used at the time—and tried to fit in. When I’d play with Jack and Dave Holland, or some other players, I responded to what I was hearing around me, and let the sound of it all teach me what I was supposed to do. Luckily, my instincts were good, and all those years as an apprentice probably helped. My main objective was always to fit into situations, not so concerned about what my music was going to be like or if I had a specific voice. It was “How can I make this work?

TP: You’ve recorded with a number of bands for ECM—the quartet with Richie Beirach, George Mraz and Peter Donald; the trio with Marc Johnson and Peter Erskine; the organ trio with Dan Wall and Adam Nussbaum; more recently your quartet with Mark Feldman and Joey Baron, and a couple of bass players; also Gateway, with Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette. To what degree is a band a book of music, and to what degree is it a collection of personalities?

JA: That’s a good question. It’s more than just a book of music, for sure, but it’s also about what whatever repertoire you’re playing, whether someone else’s as with new band or all original music. A band needs to have an identity. Of course, the personalities who are playing it will give it what it needs. Sometimes cooperative bands where everyone writes a song don’t work as well because people’s ideas are so vastly different.

My first band was with Richie, George, and Peter Donald. George was one of my roommates in Boston. Peter lived in Cambridge, and we did jam sessions and gigs. I met Beirach in New York. We did Dave Liebman’s record, Sweet Hand, and there was a tune, “Dr. Faustus,” that had an open section for me to just go nuts. Every time I’d play a phrase and end up on a note, Beirach would always play the perfect chord underneath me. I said, “How do you this?” He said, “Man, I have perfect pitch.” The quartet was a harmonic band, very architecturally sound, almost like a Frank Lloyd Wright building. It was a wonderful band to play in, but I was looking for something more open, which I got with Marc and Peter. With them, I got immersed in the guitar synthesizer, which some people hated, but it inspired me to write a lot of different kinds of tunes. The end came at Catalina’s in Los Angeles. Back in the dressing room, Erskine said to me, “Are we not men? Do we really need all this other stuff to play music with?” I said, “I agree. Screw this synthesizer stuff. I’m going to whittle down my gear.” I kept one little box that did some sounds, and the rest of it was just guitar. No I’m synth-free. But if I speak to you in five years, I may want to get back into something like that. It keeps you interested. Sometimes just playing the guitar when there’s no one to play off of isn’t that interesting. With the synthesizer you could imagine you were a flutist or violinist or trumpet player, and you might phrase differently, although the sounds were synthetic, never like real instruments.

TP: Has Manfred Eicher ever discouraged you from going in a particular direction?

JA: I had a band when I was living in San Francisco that was mostly L.A.-based. You couldn’t ask for better musicians. I spent a lot of time writing music for them—the only way I can describe it is that it had a kind of optimistic, brighter sound, a slightly more poppish feel. I sent a tape to Manfred and anxiously awaited his response. When he finally called, he said, “John, do you really want to go in this younger direction?” Meaning the music sounded kind of young. More Pat Metheny-influenced. Maybe I was being influenced by hearing Pat.

TP: Might all these projects have existed had you not had a consistent label over all these years?

JA: Probably not, no.

TP: I don’t know whether you’ll accept the idea, but let’s go by the supposition that each of these different bands fits in one way or another into the prevailing currents or zeitgeist, whatever you want to call it, of the time in which they were made.

JA: Ok.

TP: How does this band, this approach fit into what’s going on now?

JA: If you look at everything else that’s going on around, you probably don’t see a lot of it. Of course, lots of people are still playing standard tunes. But the direction of the younger musicians has very little to do with this. They’re doing original compositions, which are harmonically much different than these kind of tunes, and they seem to be experimenting with a lot of very different meters. I hate to use the word “nostalgia,” because I don’t look at it that way, but this kind of straight-up jazz album doesn’t really fit with what’s going on in a lot of ways. You could look at the last few things I did with Mark Feldman and that group, which I consider to be modern jazz, but people might say think it sounds more like chamber music or classical music because of the violin. and the sound of it.

Manfred actually sent me an email not long ago about how much he liked the record, something like, “I think this recording is really needed at this time.” I’m trying to find the right word for it. It’s a tribute to part of the history of jazz. It’s an interpretation. It’s paying homage. It’s coming full circle for sure, starting this way and then going off in all these different places, and then coming back and saying, “well, this really is home, in a way.” Who says you can never go home again? Thomas Wolfe? But in a way, you do go home, though home looks different. You don’t want to go back to the same little room you were in with the pennants on the wall and your mother yelling at you to get up, it’s time for breakfast, you’ve got to get to school, and stop that noise, and get out of the bathroom; let someone else in there once in awhile—we only had one bathroom in the house. But this is a way of going to the musical home.

TP: Do you have any sense of your impact or position in the timeline of guitar playing in this idiom? You’re older than Metheny or Mike Stern or Bill Frisell or John Scofield, who are people you tend to get lumped with, and younger than Grant Green or Jim Hall or Wes Montgomery. So if we’re to look at you in a third-person way, are you a transitional figure?

JA: I’ve thought about it, but I don’t really give it much thought. I’m like a guitar early baby boomer. I was born in ‘44, which means that instead of growing up listening to the Beatles, I grew up listening to Bill Haley and Chuck Berry and Fats Domino. The timeframe when you grow up makes an impact on you. I had first-hand exposure to Monk and Coltrane and Sonny and Miles, a little more direct connection to that than the guys you mentioned. Then, too, I was around in the late ‘60s, when everything exploded—everybody wearing Indian shirts and smoking hash and trying to play different kinds of music. I’m part of the generation that was like, “We don’t want to play bebop; let’s get psychedelic; let’s tune in, drop out.” These other guys grew up after that. So maybe I am some sort of transitional object!

I do know that I opened doors when I started playing this more open-ended stuff in the ‘70s. No other guitar player had really been doing it as visibly as I did, when I was traveling around the world. Sonny Sharrock and Pete Cosey were a little more out than I was. I was playing free with a lot of structural knowledge. I’d come up playing standard tunes and blues, so I knew all these forms. I wasn’t coming out of a vacuum. I had all this jazz background, and then I was thrown into all of this. Can you make music out of this? Can you survive in this oddball environment where there’s no guidelines? I like to think that guitar players might have thought, “wow, that’s pretty free, but it doesn’t sound out there completely; it sounds like it’s coming from someplace.” That’s always been what I like to do. When I play, I kind of listen to myself as if I’m trying to develop something. In a band like this, my playing is a little more inside, for the most part, because of the structures of the pieces. But sometimes when I play with other bands, like Feldman, we get into complete zones of abstraction that can go on for quite a while. I’m very comfortable in that, and I like to experience that.

So I’m a little more multi-kulti in a sense. But as I get older, this full circle thing becomes kind of very important to me. I’ve been through all these weird stages of playing jazz-rock, playing free, trying to incorporate Indian and ethnic influences in the music, using synthesizers. But at the same time I’m still playing “Stella By Starlight.” It’s odd. And I still like to do all this stuff—except for the synthesizers.

[END OF CONVERSATION]

For Cassandra Wilson’s 60th Birthday, a Jazz Times Feature From 2012 and a Downbeat Feature from 2008

To mark the 60th birthday of the great singer Cassandra Wilson, I’m posting a pair of feature articles I’ve had the opportunity to write about her — first a long piece for Jazz Times in 2012, next a feature for Downbeat in 2008.

* * *

 

Cassandra Wilson, ‘Jazz Times’ Article (2012):

On Memorial Day, as afternoon turned to evening and the barbecues wound down in the brownstone back yards next to Complete Music Studios in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights district, Cassandra Wilson convened her band for a five-hour rehearsal to prepare for a one-week run that would launch two days hence in Bergen, Norway, continue in Lviv, Ukraine, and conclude in Moscow. Ensconced in Room 4 of the sprawling converted warehouse, they worked methodically through the set list, postulating frameworks for such older Wilson standbys as “Fragile” and “Time After Time,” and newer repertoire like “Red Guitar” and “Another Country” (both from Wilson’s June release, Another Country [E1]), and a stark, intense arrangement of “The Man I Love” by harmonicist Gregoire Maret, Wilson’s current musical director, and a steady presence in her bands since 2003. They sat in a circle, Maret to Wilson’s left, and then, proceeding clockwise, guitarist Brandon Ross, drummer John Davis, bassist Ben Williams (filling the chair for Reginald Veal, who would join the troupe in Europe, as would percussion Lekan Babaola), and guitarist Marvin Sewell.

The final song was Wilson’s “A Little Warm Death,” which she debuted on New Moon Daughter, her 1995 chart-topper. Wilson was navigating the concluding vamp (“One little warm death/Come have one little warm death with me tonight”), denoting the time feel with gracefully calibrated arm swoops, when, suddenly, she interrupted the flow.

“It’s a lazy rhythm,” Wilson said casually, looking at Davis, a recent addition to the band. Her blondish dreads hung loose, and she wore a diaphanous earth-toned blouse, white capri slacks, gray espadrilles, and clef-shaped earrings. A red Telecaster guitar stood to the right of her chair; a closed Mac-Pro was on the floor to her left. “In Bahia, they’ve got a thing, too, where they’re way behind the beat. Most instrumentalists want you to push it. But most singers, like me, we want to lay back—we’re lazy.” She offhandedly referenced several rappers. “They got some serious swag way behind the beat.”

After a final runthrough of “A Little Warm Death,” Ross asked Wilson to try the Lennon-McCartney song, “Tomorrow Never Knows.” “I don’t really know it yet,” Wilson responded. “Can you sing it?” Ross complied; Wilson listened attentively, smiled encouragingly, beat the rhythm on her knees. “Nice,” she said after Ross’ quick Polaroid of his intentions. While Ross and Davis established the changes and key, she opened the Macbook, and, scrolling with her big toe, talked out the lyrics from the screen. In due time, she closed the computer, sat erect, planted her feet, and claimed possession with a completely realized interpretation, bobbing and weaving within the rhythm, her infinitely flexible contralto conveying nuance and unveiling implication.

“I think they were dropping acid then,” Wilson said dryly after this textbook display of what it means to practice like you play. She exhaled and shook her head. “I’m running out of power.” But she recouped for a stomping “Come Together,” skipping registers with the ease of a bird in flight, even soaring into the soprano range for a quick minute. Then the evening’s work was done.

[BREAK]

“I’ve witnessed that for many years, and it always amazes me,” Maret remarked the next morning on Wilson’s ability to instantly alchemize a song into her own argot. “She has no limits. She goes into the moment, and interacts with whatever the whole ensemble has created for her.”

For Wilson, first and foremost, to be daring is a matter of musicianship. “The gospel that I’m trying to get out is that, ok, it’s fine to have a beautiful voice, but it will be even finer if you are able to communicate with that instrument as a musician,” she said over the phone from her home in Jackson, Mississippi, a week before the rehearsal. “In jazz, I think that is the connection you have to make before you even step foot into that world.”

“Cassandra does things that most singers should do,” Ross confirmed. “She’s more out of the Miles Davis realm of dealing with a melody. In an understated way, she takes things in a direction that doesn’t necessarily give you a lot of extended information, but can change the path of what you’re doing, which makes it can sound wide-open.”

Still, Wilson acknowledges that a certain ineffable, intuitive mojo also shapes her interpretations. Speaking to me several years ago, she analogized it as akin to “trying on clothing, when you walk in the store and find something that really fits; I’ve found a path inside it, a way to sing it that’s true to my life story.”

In a separate conversation, Ross elaborated on that metaphor. “When I was Cassandra’s Music Director,” he said, referencing the years 1993 to 1996, “I always looked at rehearsals as like a fitting session. I get the thing set up, do a tuck here or pin it there, then she’d come in and say, ‘Yeah, let’s go that direction,’ then maybe take a break or be out on some business, and then come back in and hook it up. She doesn’t tell anyone exactly what to do. She lets people find the best things that can be played with her music. Maybe it takes a bit of time to get to that point. But once you get there, it’s magical.”

Time is not an infinitely available commodity on recording sessions, where Wilson, when functioning as her own producer, has occasionally found it problematic to achieve magical results on deadline with a hands-off creative process. “I am probably the worst when it comes to organization,” she told me a week before the rehearsal. “I procrastinate until the last minute to do things. I tend to give musicians too much freedom. I don’t like to tell someone how to play something. I have gotten to the point where I do express my feelings about how I want something translated, But in the past, I’ve been pretty laissez-faire. I just let the music unfold. Sometimes it comes out great, sometimes not so great.”

Perhaps for this reason, Wilson has decided on various occasions to rely on a producer’s vision to create the frame in which she operates. Craig Street oversaw the transitional mid-‘90s recordings Blue Light Til Dawn and New Moon Daughter on which, as Ross states, “she claimed all of her personal experience, and molded it into a statement of who she is as a human being and as an artist,” removing her voice from the plugged-in frames of funk and hip-hop and modern jazz that she had navigated over the previous decade, and placing it in a spare, elemental strings-and-percussion context drawn straight from Mississippi roots, specifically her apprentice years as a singer-guitarist around Jackson, where she was born and raised.

In 2000, after eighteen years in New York, Wilson, needing time off to “get my bearings” and also wanting to keep an eye on her aging mother, began the process of resettling in Jackson. In 2002, she made the 150-mile drive up Highway 61 to Clarksville, to record the nostalgic, self-produced Belly Of The Sun. For most of the aughts she also kept a residence in New Orleans, 185 miles due south; there, in 2008, she made the drumcentric covers date Loverly, a Grammy-winner, and, in 2010, put together the studio segments of Silver Pony, which documented the kinetic mojo her then-constant working band with Sewell, Veal, Babaola, pianist Jonathan Batiste, and drummer Herlin Riley, could generate in live performance.

She stayed in Jackson to make Thunderbird (2004), for which she recruited T-Bone Burnett to conjure a zeitgeist-appropriate version of the blues-and-roots trope that underpins her mature tonal personality. On four Wilson songs, keyboardist Keith Ciancia constructs complex and detailed sonic landscapes—entextured layers of samples, loops, programming, beats, various vocal effects—that serve as couture to her timbre and illuminate the metaphysical subtext of her autobiographical lyrics. They effectively counterpoint less dressed-up vernacular-oriented repertoire to which guitarists Marc Ribot (Burnett’s “Lost”), Keb Mo’ (Willie Dixon’s “I Want To Be Loved”) and Colin Linden (“Red River Valley”) respond with more explicit blues connotations.

Vibrations of place are equally palpable on Another Country [E1], conceived in New Orleans in February 2011 and recorded six months later in Florence, Italy. It’s a joint venture with producer-guitarist Fabrizio Sotti, a son of Padova whose c.v. includes hit tracks by, among others, Dead Presidents, Q-Tip, Tupac, Ghostface Killah, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, as well as several jazz albums with world-class improvisers that feature his luminous sound, impeccable chops, and lyric imagination. Performed by Sotti on acoustic guitar, Julien Labro on accordion, Nicola Sorato on acoustic bass, and Lekan Babalola and Mino Cinelu on percussion, the program, suffused with Mediterranean flavor, includes seven originals, six of them co-composed with Sotti, an extraordinary rendition of “O Sole Mio,” and two solo miniatures by Sotti.

They met in 2003, when Wilson, not thrilled with the fruits of several recording sessions for the follow-up to Belly of The Sun, was looking “to experiment, to find different textures to play with.” Their simpatico was instant. “We became friends quickly,” she recalls. “It was really easy to work with him.”

The end product, Glamoured, to which Wilson contributed five originals and idiosyncratic renditions of Sting’s “Fragile,” Willie Nelson’s “Crazy,” and Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay,” was the singer’s most personal, self-revelatory album of the ‘00s. Seven years later, freed of caretaking responsibilities after her mother’s death the year before, and having fulfilled her obligations to Blue Note, her label since 1993, Wilson found herself again focusing on “constantly playing with and exploring ideas—I felt ready to start writing songs again.” Late in 2010, she and Sotti, with whom she had stayed in touch, began serious talks about a new record. A few months later, around Mardi Gras, they got to work in her French Quarter house.

“For a couple of months, we’d been tossing around ideas, frameworks, and chord progressions or songs, and Fabrizio already had ideas,” Wilson recalls. “I sat at the piano, he’d play and record the changes, and in the process we’d have conversations about how he felt when he wrote the music. From that, a couple of tunes on Another Country—for example, ‘When Will I See You Again’—were formed based on those emotions.

“There is a strong, sympathetic energy between us. Fabrizio is detail-oriented and meticulous. Everything is in place in his universe. His nails are always cut. His guitars are clean. He doesn’t like to touch a guitar whose strings are too old. That organizational side of his personality matches me well. Also, we’re both guitar lovers, and we communicate very well based on that. Through the way he plays his guitar, he’s able to tap into certain basic emotions, places in my memory that are powerful and evocative.”

Armed with a half-dozen or so melodies, Wilson let the information marinate. She gradually conceived lyrics over the next several months, but didn’t complete them until August, when she and Sotti reunited in Florence for a fortnight to make the recording. “Passion,” a tango, is her response to “the beautiful apartment we had in Piazza della Signoria—you’ve got the David there, the museums, the fountains in the street, the balconies, the foot traffic, people eating out.” Wilson relates that she came up with “Almost Twelve”—an idiomatic street samba that Sotti positions as “a modern version of what Gilberto and Ella Fitzgerald did with Abraca Jobim”—after “traveling back from the studio one night, not being able to find our way back to the hotel, and going around in circles in the maze of the old city of Florence for about an hour-and-a-half.”

Wilson adds that she found the melody and the lyric of the title track not long after the idyllic sojourn, while in Woodstock, where she keeps a residence. “I’m still trying to decipher the meaning,” she says. “It’s about experiencing life in different stages and in different times, and experiencing love, and seeing the world through someone else’s eyes, seeing their world—which is what I did when I went to Italy with Fabrizio. I experienced Italy in a totally different light. We tend to identify ourselves as the other whenever we go into a culture. But once you’re inside it, you begin to make a connection.”

Sotti remarks that the songs bear a tone parallel to those of Glamoured, which addressed subjects of love, loss, and betrayal. “It’s a similarly transitional time for her, and these are clearly quite personal, a lot of stories of things she’s actually going through,” Sotti said. “Cassandra’s voice is a unique instrument. She’s an originator, not only in the style she plays, but in the sound of her voice. There aren’t too many other comparable voices out there—prior or after. We respect each other, and trust each other deeply. Either of us could say that something was ready, and we’d follow the other’s lead. It was a total collaboration between two musicians who totally speak the same language. We talked about chord changes, forms, even beyond just the poetry of the words and everything else. There no boundaries, no stigmas of any kind. We just said, ‘Let’s try to write the music we feel now, and do it the best way we can.’”

It was Sotti’s idea to use the accordion, which seals the Mediterranean ambiance. “I associate the instrument with the emotion that the Italians call malinconia,” Wilson said, savoring each syllable. “It’s in the lyric of ‘O Sole Mio.’ Malinconia is melancholy. Saudade is another great word—it’s the same emotion. The Irish love melancholy, too.

“I think I’m a melancholy specialist. It’s a sweet—or bittersweet—emotion. There’s always this condition of the human heart to long for something that it imagines it would need. It’s not a bad feeling. For me, it’s a rich feeling. I think it’s a beautiful part of being human, to have longing, to always search for something, to always seek to make the heart whole.”

[BREAK]

On tour with her band in Italy before her fortnight in Florence, Wilson performed a concert “at some Etruscan ruins or an archaeological dig.” She researched the subject, and found “interesting connections between the Etruscan culture and the Yoruba people—the way they created their courtyards, the architecture, the spiritual stuff.”

She references this connection on the coda of Another Country, a lilting track titled “Olomuroro,” a Yoruba word that directly translates into “one with droopy breasts,” but also denotes a mythological monster who stole a boy’s meal while the boy grew thinner.

“We’re drawing upon the former story,” Wilson said when she stopped laughing. “The song is about the women in the village who come around to care for the children when their parents are not there, because they need feeding, they need milk. The breasts are drooping because they are the breasts of the wet nurse. The Yoruba people don’t have any issues singing about the beauty of big, drooping breasts.”

Herself the mother of a son who is past his majority, Wilson—who draws deep sustenance from Mississippi roots—attends closely to matters of heritage. “The first five years of your life, your personality is formed,” she remarks. “The place where that happens is significant, and it holds a lot of powerful emotional material that you can draw upon.”

It is not surprising that, in the second half of her sixth decade, Wilson would conclude an album of love songs with one that directly signifies a matriarchal world view from an ancestral perspective. Her mother, Mary Fowlkes, was a Ph.D and professor of Spanish at Jackson State; her grandmother, to whom she was particularly close in her own early childhood, was a conjure woman figure.

“Her habits were mysterious and unusual,” Wilson recalls. “She would wear an apron, which had two pockets in which she carried seeds, and had a wonderful smell. I have some of those seeds still. She was a woman who had moved from what would be called rural Mississippi to the city, and she kept a gun. Even in her seventies, she loved to go off into the woods and gather. She was an herbalist. She could make medicines. She used to take a cup and raise it above her head and circle her head three times. Lekan Babaola told me, after I described it to him, that it’s a Yoruba gesture. Three times over the head before leaving something, casting it away.”

Although Wilson hasn’t cast away her Harlem apartment or her New York connections, she states that she is now “out of New Orleans” and spending most of her time in Jackson. “Making this the base has completely turned my thought processes around,” she said. “Instead of thinking about what I need to do in New York to further my career, or to get the message out, or to create the music, I’m doing that here. The way that I look at my career now is based on my community, and the work that I do in this community. I look at this stage of my life as being mine to make, and my decisions are based on what I think my path is.”

Part of that path will include hewing to Abbey Lincoln’s suggestion that “it’s important for singers to write songs about what’s happening in their lives, not to focus on the songs and the stories of other people’s lives. Abbey explained to me that it’s great to sing a standard—and of course, it is, if it’s your own story—but it’s so much more important for you to add to that your story, and to constantly stay in touch with that story, that narrative.”

Towards that end, Wilson states, “I’m going to work on developing a core of musicians to play with, and making sure that core is strong enough to interpret the music on its own. Then, once you get to the live part, you begin to create the other life of the song. The song doesn’t just stay where it is. It has to go through all these permutations and changes. That’s exciting, too, because you can stumble across something else entirely new that then, again, will lead you to the next project. It can be scary. But it’s a good scary.

“I love the mistake, and I love that feeling of stepping out and doing something that will cause a mistake. In order to get to that point, you have to get out of your comfort zone. You can’t continue to make music that engages the audience on the level that you want them to be engaged if you remain in your comfort zone. I change my policy every day. Who knows what’s going to happen next time?”

———–

Cassandra Wilson, Downbeat Critics Poll Article (2008):

“I felt I’d come to an emotional wall,” Cassandra Wilson said over the phone from Jackson, Mississippi, describing her state of mind after completing Thunderbird [Blue Note] her rootsy, quasi-poppish 2006 release, and also explaining in part why her latest, Loverly [Blue Note], comprises ten songbook standards, a Robert Johnson blues, and a Yoruba praise song.

“I couldn’t find my footing,” the 52-year-old singer elaborated. “I’ve decided to backtrack, simplify, learn the blues, REALLY learn the blues. Which is not that simple.” Asked whether her reference point is the hometown version of the blues-as-such or the blues as a world view, she opted for the former. “It’s something more particular to Jackson,” said Wilson, who has spent much time there in recent years tending to her aged mother. “There is a sound here. It’s halfway between the Delta and New Orleans, so it swings.”

“A certain amount of narcissism goes with being a vocalist—a jazz vocalist, or whatever you want to call what I do,” Wilson continued. “Songwriting as well. You have to let go of something in order to take care of people.”

Still, by deciding to wear the producer’s hat on Loverly, after collaborations with Americana guru T-Bone Burnett on Thunderbird and Top-40 (Mariah Carey) craftsman Fabrizio Sotti on Glamoured from 2003, Wilson returned to the methodology that generated both Travelin’ Miles and In The Belly of the Sun, her highly personal cusp of the 21st century releases. As on those occasions, the process was collaborative.

“I don’t really think about categorizing what I do, but going into this project, of course we knew that we were going to revisit standards,” Wilson said. “The treatment came about from a confluence of events.” While mulling a list of “maybe 30-40 songs” generated by Blue Note head Bruce Lundvall, Wilson took input on repertoire selection from bassist Lonnie Plaxico, her one-time musical director, and from Nigerian drummer Lekan Babaola, whose rolling grooves, articulated in synch with trapsman Herlin Riley, frame a complex rhythmic flow that Wilson traverses with surefooted grace. For the first time since Rendezvous, a label-arranged 1997 encounter with Jacky Terrason, she deploys the tonal personality of a pianist—in this case, native Houstonian Jason Moran—to signify on her narratives.

“Lekan stepped up and reminded me about the importance of the drums,” she said. “That’s a no-brainer for me. I’m deeply tied into rhythm, so it made perfect sense to approach these standards with a focus on the rhythmic bed that the music is lying on.”

Several years ago, Moran cut his teeth with Wilson for a brief, unrecorded stint. “I met him through Steve Coleman,” Wilson said. “The way he plays feels great to me. You don’t always find pianists who are strong soloists on their own yet are able to accompany a singer. I’ve worked with pianists where it’s difficult to find a space, but Jason seems to understand my phrasing really well, maybe because his wife is a singer.”

Only the Robert Johnson-composed, Elmore James-associated blues “Dust My Broom” was in Wilson’s repertoire during the months leading up to the August recording date, which made inhabiting the songs, many of them canonical, a tricky proposition. Indeed, for the most part, Wilson has eschewed such fare since Blue Skies, the swinging 1988 recital that placed her in the conversation with such empyrean divas as Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan, and Nancy Wilson.

“Certain songs have been done over and over, and some have definitive versions,” she said. “Unless you completely tear it apart, there’s not much you can do. But certain songs. I don’t care if there’s a definitive version or it’s been done to death. I’ve found a path inside it, a way to sing it that’s true to my life story. Sometimes you know instantly when it feels right. It’s like trying on clothing, when you walk in the store and find something that really fits. I dance in a certain way with it. Musicians in my band have told me I move a certain way when I feel really at ease inside of a song.”

Both as producer and bandleader, Wilson, by her description, embraces a Venus-lets-Mars-think-it’s-in-charge approach. “I’m probably the least proactive leader,” she said. “ I tend to walk away from the musicians. Maybe it has something to do with the way women feel around men—I don’t know why I feel that, but I do. Some sort of male bonding thing happens in jazz when cats come together to work on a project. So I tend to come in and out, disappear, come back, see what’s happening, and just let them flow. I don’t try to direct them. I let the stream find its own way, instead of trying to create its path.”

One such moment occurred on “Til There Was You,” the Meredith Wilson love song made famous by both the Beatles and Frank Sinatra, on which Wilson proceeds through an allusive web of rhythm-timbre comprised of Herlin Riley’s New Orleans streetbeats and Babalola’s hand drum and cowbell, stabbing blues phrases from guitarist Marvin Sewell, and apropos chording from Moran.

“Lonnie asked if I knew it—it was not on the list,” she said. “I started singing, and he said, ‘Yeah, that’s it.’ Then I left the room, and Herlin and Lekan and Lonnie came up with that feel.”

A visit from Babalola to Wilson’s Jackson studio a few months before the recording generated the Afrocentric treatment of “Dust My Broom.” “Lekan said, ‘I want to show you something,’ and asked me to play some blues on the guitar,” Wilson related. “I started playing the regular 12-bar blues, he played rhythms under it, and said, ‘This is sakhara. This is one of the genres of blues music that we have in Nigeria. If had had the drum in Mississippi at that time, and if Robert Johnson were playing with the drummer, I think that he would have been playing this rhythm.’”

African rhythms saturate “Arere,” a Yoruba praise song to Ogun, the warrior god. The word also refers to a tree that emits a powerful, uncontrollable, odor so offensive that a Yoruba proverb cited in the book Rethinking Sexualities in Africa—type “arere” and “Yoruba” into Google Search, and it comes right up—states “any home where a woman is vocal, loud, influential through self-expression, will have the arere tree growing in the courtyard.”

The piece emerged in January 2007, when Wilson and Steve Coleman, her musical mentor and domestic partner during the middle ‘80s, presented a concert at the Stone in Lower Manhattan. The mandate was to create music for the 16 principal Odu, or stations of the human condition, represented in the Ifa system of divination.

“Lekan was going to Nigeria at the time, and I asked if he could get me the song for each major odu,” Wilson recalled. “I didn’t get them on time, so Steve winged it. He took it into Egyptology, made correlations between the numbers, the colors, the directions, the astrological things, went deep into it, and devised a system for the music to be created.

“At the time I met Steve, I wanted to get out of a certain comfort zone, and he encouraged me to do that. He told me that if I could hold my own within his system—cycles of rhythm, hearing cues in the rhythm instead of chords, the layering of rhythms—I would have something else to bring to the standards. He was right about that. I had to develop a certain swagger with his music, to pump myself up, find some confidence, find a way to sing over it that would make sense. I guess that was the very beginning of a distinctive sound that I knew was something that I had that no one else had. When you learn to improvise over odd time signatures, 4/4 becomes very relaxing. You develop a certain elasticity in your phrasing. You can do something outside of the box on the standards, play with it, let it stretch, because you’re always certain about your time.”

Wilson had to call upon that swagger during a March tour of Europe with David Murray, a fellow 1955 baby, who called her to sing two Ishmael Reed lyrics on his own 2007 release, Sacred Ground [JustinTime].

“I thought I’d just get up and do the songs from the record, but David sprang three or four new tunes on me, and I had to learn them quickly,” she said. “The music is very thick, not terribly porous, and there’s always a struggle, a tension inside it. The changes move in strange ways, as do the melodies, and you have [to] weave these complex melodies around this complex environment. I had to rise.”

Wilson expresses even more enthusiasm about her own band, which over the summer will consist of Sewell, Riley, Babalola, bassist Reginald Veal, and the young New Orleans pianist Jonathan Batiste.

“I’m in a working mood,” she said. “I get so excited to go on stage, because it’s a great group of very strong musicians. Everybody has something to bring to the table, when needed, on the stage. Maybe I’m at a point in my life where I feel like I’m hitting my stride.”