All About Jazz Interview

This interview was conducted via email by Allen J. Huotari for the All About Jazz website in September, 1999.


Q1: Downbeat magazine recently named you as one of "25 musicians under 40" to watch for. Do you find this recognition daunting or intimidating ? (i.e., to live up to the "burden of potential"?)

Daunting or intimidating? No, I'm just glad to have been chosen. (By the way, I just turned 40 last August). As you might guess there are many under 40 musicians out there who could have been mentioned in that piece. My music making process is wholly unaffected by what gets written in a magazine, good or bad. I try always to stay in touch with the pure feeling I had at age 10 that motivated me to become a musician for no other reason than I loved it.

As for magazines in general I feel that the whole paradigm of music criticism is based largely upon subjective means. Subjective comments masquerading as definitive objective reality is something that's imbedded in our everyday speech and is largely taken for granted by most of us. Think of all the polls and comments about the "best" recording, best saxophonist, composer or bandleader. When folks think they are being open minded and above all this they tend to quote Duke Ellington by saying that there's only two kinds of music, good and bad. Well, I don't even believe in that. Who's to say what's good and what's bad? There's never been any kind of consensus on that issue yet I still hear these kinds of platitudes almost every day. For me, everyone has something to offer. It all boils down to value judgments which are relative and fluid within the context of the time, place and persons making them yet we still read criticism that is written as if there was an objective reality in the music for all time. At best we can talk about what we hear in music and our preferences and opinions therein but keep in mind that we are almost always talking about ourselves at these times. The right to have and voice an opinion is fundamental but we should realize that opinions are not nearly as valuable as insight. Insight does not necessarily dictate, but rather opens our perspective on something so that we may perceive it in new and different ways.

This relativity that I refer to does not mean that I would consider Coltrane for example any more or less a great musician with the passing of time or circumstances, just that I do not need to impose a concept of greatness on his music for me to get something from it. His music is something I receive not impose my will on. There are of course practical issues that may warrant making distinctions between musicians and musics, such as what ought to get taught in a school curriculum or what might deserve financial support. In these cases I would not say that a particular music needs to be supported or taught because it's great but it needs to be supported or taught because of certain specific qualities which will have a strong enough value to warrant doing so at this time, possibly so as not to be lost. In this way we do not devalue other music nor do we put one music up at the expense of another. We simply make the practical choices necessary as a society and realize that they are simply limited issues not the big picture.

Sometimes people confer greatness on a person or say that they are the best because of the degree of influence that person has had on others. This is tricky because it's a compelling idea to say that the fact that one person's vision can resonate with so many people must make it great. I would caution against this however since not only do we quickly get bogged down in the idea of mass popularity versus art, which is ultimately a misleading paradigm, but it also tends to devalue the work of less influential musicians. If Albert Ayler is as important to me as Ben Webster should I reject my feelings and defer to those who would say "but Ayler is not part of the canon"? If the music of Conlon Nancarrow or Harry Partch is as important to me as that of Arnold Schoenberg should I forget that and align myself with the academy? I say forget the history books and lead with your heart. I certainly recognize and respect the qualities and differences of each of these examples but I'd rather approach this from the point of view that there are certain qualities that attract me to all of them. So what are those qualities that all music has in common?

It's taken awhile to disabuse myself of the notion of hierarchies and objective ideals in music. I try to find something of value in everything I hear or at least be comfortable enough to be neutral and realize that maybe I'm not in the mood for this right now. I get more out of music (and life) this way. It was as if I had been holding myself back from a fuller experience of music by virtue of the fact that I was spending so much intellectual energy in maintaining the idea that some things were intrinsically greater than others. I have to mention that a big part of the catalyst for this was WFMU freeform radio out of New Jersey. They play anything and everything from so called high culture to horrible and objectionable trash. Sometimes horrible and objectionable trash sounds...well, great! Disorienting 20 minute sets of music from all times places and motivations became like extended blindfold tests and forced me to reassess many biases I had developed.

Q2: Let's go way back for a moment. Graham Connah suggested that I ask you about The Left Bank Jazz Society concert series. Would you please explain to the AAJ readers what this was and how it has influenced you?

The Left Bank Jazz Society (LBJS) was an organization that started in the '60s and presented top name jazz artists in concert every Sunday from 5pm to 9pm at a place called the Famous Ballroom in downtown Baltimore. The audience was mixed and the atmosphere was like an indoor picnic. Folks brought their own food and booze and you could also buy beer and soul food. I saw Woody Shaw's group, Phil Woods, Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition and many others. Sonny Stitt played there a lot, Sun Ra's Arkestra was there many times. I've spoken to quite a number of musicians who played there and they all tell me that that was one of their favorite places to play.

The LBJS presented primarily mainstream jazz. Keep in mind that during the '70s many of these so called mainstream cats were still alive and playing great and there was less of the overblown antagonism between mainstream and avant garde that we have today, at least among us younger musicians coming up at that time. Still I realized that a lot of folks still had trouble with more avant garde music, they just didn't like the sound. But Jack DeJohnette's concert for example really impressed me. The band started out at a very high energy level and sustained it unwavering over two or three long sets but what was really impressive was how they held the audience. I remember Chico Freeman (subbing for David Murray) honking away at the bottom of his horn totally possessed by some unseen force while I watched a middle-aged woman from the neighborhood get up on her feet and yell "Yea! Go baby!" That showed me that this music did have the potential to connect to all sorts people and that maybe I could reasonably expect to be able to do that myself.

By the way, I posted a concert listing of the LBJS on my website from '66 to '68 and it reads like a who's who of jazz from that time.

Q3: Your first recording was as a member of the Mikel Rouse Broken Consort (A LINCOLN PORTRAIT, Cuneiform, rec. 1985, rel. 1988). Although this recording was not jazz, could you please elaborate on the circumstances that led to your involvement with this project? What did you learn from this experience that has persisted with you in your career?

Yes, that was my first recording and I played only soprano saxophone on it. The music was not at all jazz related and in fact there was no improvisation in it at all. That experience became something of a catalyst for me in terms of getting my rhythmic conception together. I underestimated the project when I first saw the music since the individual parts looked quite simple. It was at the first rehearsal when we tried to put the varying parts together that I realized what I had gotten into. Mikel writes these very long rhythmic patterns that sound quite independent from each other at first listening. It takes a long time for the various strands to rejoin (and create signposts) before veering off again but over time I began to be able to hear it and keep track of all the parts while listening and playing. It was tough though, we used to rehearse 3 days a week for months just to do one gig. It wasn't until later that I realized that my rhythmic conception and skills had been so strengthened that I was able to play literally anything in an improvising context and simultaneously keep track of the form and tempo of the music. Playing with strong polyrhythmic drummers over the years also gave me the opportunity to develop my current ideas about independence in music.

Rather than treat a song or compositional form as a vehicle to go away from and come back to I realized that with the right musicians we could all improvise our own new parts concurrently with the song or compositional form in mind and the result would be very different that if we had simply improvised freely. That's different than stretching the music or playing in and out or even playing completely out. It's about creating a whole new texture with the tunes or compositions. And it doesn't matter whether the audience knows what the tune is since the idea is to hear it as it's own composition anyway. Most folks can't tell what the tune is by hearing the changes alone anyway so in the end what does it matter? Many musicians get caught in a trap of playing against something that's in their head (that the audience cannot hear) and they stop listening to what they are actually playing and evaluating whether that's stands on it's own or not. I realized from the beginning that I needed to listen to myself while playing as a listener not always as a player in order to make this strategy work.

Q4-5: Two follow ups please: You mentioned in previous correspondence that you abandoned the soprano sax after this recording. Why?

It had nothing to do with that recording it was simply an issue of whether I wanted to pursue playing a variety of woodwinds (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones as well as flute, alto flute and clarinet) or stick with the horn that I started on and loved well beyond all the others. I chose the later since I felt that developing a voice on all those instruments was a much greater task than I had the time or inclination to do. The tenor is really the only instrument that I wanted to play, in fact really needed to play. I liked the others and was told by my teachers that if I had wanted I could have pursued classical clarinet but as much as I loved doing that it wasn't nearly as much as I loved playing the tenor.

The Broken Consort was an unconventionally instrumented trio (keyboards, bass, sax). Since then you've been involved in a number of unconventional trio lineups: with Joey Baron in Barondown (drums, sax, trombone), your own recordings THE SUN DIED (sax, guitar, drums) and FIGURE OF SPEECH (sax, tuba, percussion), and your four recordings with Andrea Parkins and Jim Black (sax, accordion/sampler, drums). In retrospect, is all of this coincidence or did your early work with Broken Consort lead you to favor working in "oddball" trio situations? Please elaborate.

I never really thought of the Broken Consort as an unconventional instrumentation. Even though there is no drummer on the recording there is drum machine programing that gives it something of a conventional electric jazz texture although the music was anything but conventional. When we started doing live gigs with that band Michael hired a drummer to play all the parts that had originally been programmed for drum machine. Bill Tesar came in and did an incredible job playing these things that were completely alien to the "natural" way of playing drums. He made it sound great though, very original. I would tell my jazz drummer buddies to come by and they'd just sit there kind of stupefied like "how does he do that?" or even "WHY does he do that?!?"

My interest in unconventional instrumentation began later on with my involvement with Baron Down and my own "Figure of Speech" project. I realized that these new environments had a big effect on how I played the saxophone and in fact forced me to play differently. That's something that gets a little lost in the scheme of jazz education I think. Not being afraid to do something that's fucked up or even make mistakes. That's much more interesting to me than reproducing a music like jazz in a "correct" fashion.

Another factor regarding unusual instrumentations has to do with my feelings about rhythm sections. This is often the defining factor between groups that I participate in. By rhythm section I generally mean piano-bass-drums or guitar-bass-drums or even just bass and drums. Of course it's all about how the instruments are played and the type of relationships between them that actually determine whether the band operates like a rhythm section with soloists or a group of improvisers whose roles and functions are fluid. I generally prefer the later. I hate to be forced into a role as soloist over top of other players. It's fun to solo that way sometimes and I love to play over a great groove or time feel but I hate having no choice about it. Even in more fluid jazz situations there seems to be this tendency between the bass and drums to gratuitously go into rhythm section mode leaving me on my own and often feeling quite alienated by the experience. It's as if nothing I play is going to have any real affect on the music because they are simply going to play time no matter what I do. Playing time and breaking up time is not the only way to think about improvisation even in jazz. Sometimes I'll get a drummer who hears me break up time and thinks I want them to do so also when in fact maybe I don't. Or perhaps the reverse happens and I go into time and the drummer or bass player follows me unthinkingly. It takes playing together for awhile and plenty of discussion about each other's intents and desires to make this work for me otherwise the music really tends to go towards "been there, done that" after awhile. Many players, jazz players in particular, don't like to talk about the music too much with each other as if that might be tedious or have a negative effect on the music somehow. That couldn't be further from the truth for me. Otherwise we get into ruts and habits and miss the opportunity to make something fresh. Hence my desire to play in bands that are not oriented this way. Bands in which it's not any one person's job to make the time, play the melody, play the harmony, solo, whatever. We all do it which leads to a different type of interaction. Trios have always been interesting to me fore this reason.

Q6: Your earliest recording and group that most AAJ readers may be familiar with is JOINT VENTURE (Enja, 1988) with Paul Smoker (trumpet), Drew Gress (bass), and Phil Haynes (drums). Again, what did you learn in this environment that has persisted with you in your career?

Joint Venture was a cooperative. I guess I learned a lot about writing for a band and recording during that time. We all wrote for the group and we would also manipulate each other's tunes to some degree to try to give it our own personal character as a band. I also learned a little about how to handle interpersonal issues within an ensemble. Co-ops can be tough. When everything is clicking they can offer something more than the sum of their parts but mostly it's a lot of work. At some point I realized it didn't have to be that hard to make music.

Joint Venture was sort of a refinement of and somewhat an extension of lot of music that we felt had stopped developing some time ago and needed to be re-addressed. It almost had a classic sound even as we were pushing the boundaries. It's maybe the only band I've heard with that instrumentation (piano-less) that has explored harmonic territory to the degree we did. On the surface it might sound a little like free jazz but if you listen into the music a bit you can hear what was unique about that band. The compositions were varied which also gave the group something of an orchestral or sometimes symphonic sound. I really loved it and still think those records sound strong and very fresh but eventually I stopped hearing things for my sound in the group and began pursuing other things.

Q7: November sees the release of FIVE OTHER PIECES (+2) your fourth recording with Andrea Parkins and Jim Black and the group's third for hatOLOGY. How does this new cd differ from the previous ones? Other than instrumentation/personnel, it what ways is it similar to its predecessors?

This one is mostly cover tunes; Mahavishnu, Tristano, Gershwin, Coltrane and others. The previous recordings were all my compositions (with the exception of "The Inflated Tear" by Rahsaan Roland Kirk on "One Great Day...". We're still exploring various strategies for improvisation just as we always have.

Q8: In other interviews you've mentioned the conscious and deliberate effort to avoid the group from repeating itself and in treating each composition as a new, distinct entity. In view of this aesthetic, do you view the band's work to date as "progressing"? I suppose another way of asking this question might be whether you perceive that the developmental process is progressing (evolving, maturing) as opposed to the music itself necessarily progressing (improving)? (Naturally, this all depends on what is meant by "progress" in an artistic sense, but I'll leave that open to subjective definition)

I don't think we progress as much as we change. I have certain ideas I want to document and then we move on. I sometimes realize while on tour that much of the music is not as open to development to the degree that most jazz generally is. It's not like having material that develops over time within a generally fixed framework of improvising. It certainly changes over time but after a certain point the parameters I have originally set up begin to move and at some point it's not what I wanted anymore and I have to leave it and write new stuff with new ideas and new parameters. When I listen back to my older records I realize that we captured something that's now gone. We couldn't do it better now, only differently.

Q9: As a follow up, and if it's possible to answer this, what do you think you've learned and/or accomplished with Ms. Parkins and Mr. Black that you could not have learned and/or accomplished with anyone else?

Well, I've discovered a few practical issues about what I think works and what doesn't in terms of the results I'm going for. But I've also learned that with some flexibility oftentimes the best things are those that are unexpected, trying to go for one thing and getting another. I've taken that further and realized that by asking musicians to do something they are not quite comfortable with it can throw us into another area and the results are sometimes about something we weren't even trying for. Furthermore I wouldn't be able to get those results by direct means. It's almost like a setup in which I'm misleading the band into thinking we're trying to do one thing but wind up doing something else. It's tricky sometimes as it can take them awhile to actually hear what they are doing as opposed to what they think they are trying to do and of course if they are too uncomfortable it gets a little artificial.

As far as what I've learned though, it's hard to say. I don't want to accrue knowledge from one set of circumstances and try to apply it to everything else, that would lead to rigidity. I always want to be flexible and open and avoid developing rules. The more I know, the less I know, something like that.

Q10: In other interviews you've indicated the intent to explore an expanded lineup. You recently performed with Joe Daley (tuba) and Erik Friedlander (cello) as augmentation to yourself, Ms. Parkins, and Mr. Black. Were you satisfied and/or encouraged with the results of this show? Why or why not?

Yes, I was definitely satisfied with the results. I really enjoyed being in the middle of all that warm deep sound. I have a couple of challenges with respect to the upcoming recording though. We spent most of our rehearsal time dealing with the written material and sculpting the arrangements but the concert was really the first chance we had to deal with the improvisation on these pieces. As with just about all of my music, the improvisation is not necessarily a development of the written (although in this case it may be a bit more in that direction) but an independent and hopefully contrasting element of equal weight which changes the character of the written music somewhat. This type of strategy works very well for me in smaller settings when we must infer more than is actually there. In larger settings I must really work had to get the improvisation on equal footing since the nature of the written material in a larger group often becomes more obvious and weighty.

Q11: In addition to Mr. Black, you've been fortunate to have recently recorded and/or performed with some excellent drummers: Han Bennink, Gerry Hemingway, Joey Baron. What have you learned from working with these musicians?

I've been conscious of the fact that I've been very fortunate to work with these folks and further that I seem to have a special relationship or rapport with drummers although I'm a little unsure why. I've learned from many musicians but to try and answer your question I'll offer a little bit about each drummer you mentioned. In most cases the issues were already known to me but each of these musicians either reminded me or showed me in a slightly different way that which I thought I already knew.

With Jim I've learned perhaps more than with anyone else that timekeeping, even while the drummer may play patterns that are the language of timekeeping, is everyone's job. With Han there's a very direct impulse between what he feels and what he plays. He doesn't get too caught up in the idea of how he should play but simply goes for what he hears. With Gerry I've learned that there's still a lot of room to develop new vocabulary as an improviser. Gerry always surprises me with the depth and sophistication with which he plays and his language is and continues to be unique. With Joey I've learned a lot about how to run a band and be professional. Joey conducts himself in an exemplary manner on the bandstand and never lets issues musical or otherwise distract him from his purpose there which is to play music. I've seen other leaders let circumstances upset them to the point that their relationship to the audience and or the concert promoters gets ugly. I've been pushed towards that myself a few times (it's tough out there) and yet Joey has consistently demonstrated that all that B.S. need not get in the way. I admire that a great deal. Musically I've learned a lot about roles and functions in Joey's band and also how to get straight to the essence of a musical statement, stripping away all the fluff and making the most potent statement possible. Oh, and he also showed me how how to smile and have fun on the bandstand.

Q12: As a follow up, what do you think they've learned from you?

You'd really have to ask them. Jim has alluded to the fact that he hears music differently since being in my band and I'm flattered by that but I don't really concentrate so much on what other musicians might learn from me but more about challenging myself by playing with them.

Q13: You recently performed in Willisau, Switzerland with Barondown. The day after this performance, someone was offering to trade a tape of this show on one of the listservs I subscribe to. In general, how do you feel about fan taping?

I really don't dig it at all. I'm of the opinion that a studio recording is the best medium to capture what I do. A studio recording is it's own entity and I like to take advantage of that fact. A great sounding gig does not always translate to a great sounding recording. A live performance needs to be interesting one time but a recording of that event must be interesting on repeated listening. Music that speaks well in live performance may not always have the same impact on recording since the proportions between overall shape and content are perceived much differently over the course of repeated listening, often exposing and exaggerating technical and structural weaknesses that were irrelevant in the live performance.

I also wonder about how audiences affect the way I play and whether that's really what I want to document. Simply put, they are two different experiences and I feel that I should be the one to choose how I will document that performance not someone in the audience who happens to own a tape recorder. In these situations I have no control over the recorded sound (which is really in the realm of creative decision making) yet people will hear this and make judgments about my music based on it. It's a little like someone coming up behind a painter and taking a picture of the painting and then passing it around as an example of that persons work. Either come to the concert or buy the CD but don't distort my work.

Q14: Clearly you seem to find value in the Internet (your website, agreeing to this interview). As the technology progresses (e.g., economical high speed connectivity) do you have any plans to take further advantage of the Internet in either artistic or commercial fashions if not both?

I don't know. I don't get so excited by the prospect of downloading music, graphics and text that as being the next big thing. For me the best thing about the net is email and basic web pages that have a good deal of real content which usually means text. I had an extensive discussion on the newsgroup rec.music.bluenote about all the talk surrounding the internet and how it's supposedly going to take over the music business and liberate us artists. I take a more balanced approach. I think the Internet will make a fine additional option for those who are interested in that but all the hype about the end of the music business as we know it really bugs me. I want more choices, not less. I don't think that the fundamental dynamic that exists currently will likely be changed too much. We already have a healthy independent scene and I don't see the internet as replacing that or becoming some panacea for the evils of the music business.

Q15: You were recently blessed with the birth of a son. Do you think that creativity can be learned or taught? If so, what approaches might you consider undertaking with your young one?

Creativity can certainly be fostered and enhanced if I'm lucky I'll pay attention and be open enough to have my creativity fostered and enhanced by him. Adults can learn a great deal from children. My aim will be to help him retain the creativity and openness he's been born with.

Q16: In conclusion, what can we expect from you in 2000 and beyond?

Can't say for sure. I'd like to be able to find a way to apply what I do to other mediums. I love to tour and make records but I'm craving something more and I don't quite know what it is yet...

-finé


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