The Matt Jorgensen Interview

Drummer and Record Label Entrepreneur Matt Jorgensen is a Seattle native who lived in New York for a number of years before moving back and settling in Shoreline, Washington. I've known Jorgensen for over a decade, and since my arrival in the Pacific Northwest, we've gotten many opportunities to work together. I also got to record for his label, Origin Records, which is one of the best indie jazz labels in the world. I recently sat down with Jorgensen to talk about how he got started and his thoughts on music and the jazz biz.

GC: What are your earliest memories of music?

MJ: I started out playing piano in the first grade. My mom always wanted to play and we had one at home. Then there was a kid who would babysit me when I was around 8 and he would bring over records or browse my parents’ collection. My mom had lots of Beatles records and the White Album was my first musical exploration. I’d  listen to side after side, transfixed. High school was the next musical era for me. Freshman year I started drum lessons with John Bishop.The next year, I began playing in marching band, concert band and formed a rock band with my friends.

GC: How did you get into Jazz?

MJ: My senior year of high school they started a jazz band at the school. I can't lie, it was awful and I  later, he went to the New School and convinced me to go with him.

didn't really know what I was doing. The summer between high school and college, my Dad signed me up for a Tuesday night community big band at Shoreline Community College where I was planning on attending that Fall. I went to the first rehearsal only able to play a swing beat and that was it. The band director Jeff Sizer came to and said, “I can pretty much tell you don't know what's going on.” He summed up, from a director’s standpoint, how to play big band drums in 4 minutes. I called John Bishop for a crash-course lesson on reading big band charts and spent the summer practicing. In the fall, I auditioned for the big band [for music majors] and got in. I met a bunch of musicians; one of them was bassist Tom Abbs. A year and a half

GC: If you decide to go to the New School, people there KNOW they're going to be a jazz musician or at least try. Where in your short amount of time did you KNOW you wanted to do that for your life? Or did you have no other option like the rest of us?

MJ: Looking back on it, I don’t really know. It’s funny, I've always been really driven on certain things and music became one of those things. And it slowly became what I did.

GC: That was your identity.

MJ: Yeah, I don’t know if it was set yet though. My friend Tom went to New York and I tagged along because that sounded like fun. I auditioned for both William Patterson and the New School but was waitlisted for both. I already committed to moving to New York though and Tom got an apartment on 30th and Lexington. I moved there two weeks before the term started at the New School and showed up to update my address. Fortunately, a spot had opened up and they let me in. When I went in for auditions at the school, I got placed in one of the higher up combos. The summer between my audition and the start of school I had started to figure out what I was doing on the drums. Then meeting all the great students at school, playing in groups, it was exciting and new. After a while it [music] was just what I did.

GC: You didn't graduate?

MJ: No. I had a certain amount of money saved up and I knew if I went there part time, I could get through two years before it ran out. My mission in school was to meet people, play, and be in the city. I knew when I was about to go that I wasn't going to graduate. Then I stayed in New York, played gigs and took odd jobs.

GC: How long were you in NY?

MJ: 10 years from 1992-2002.

GC: And we never played together.

MJ: No, that was after I moved back to Seattle. Pretty much everyone I work with now on gigs, with Origin or the [Ballard Jazz] Festival, I met during the time I was in New York and the New School. I've always said to kids who are in school that you need to meet people and be active because throughout your career you maintain relationships with all these people.

GC: Do you regret not having a bachelor's degree? Do you think it's important?

MJ: Part of me wishes I had finished, but I don't teach and I don't envision myself teaching. I'm not going to get fired from Origin Records for not having a Bachelor's degree! But, if it was my kid, I'd say, “Yeah, you should finish.” But everyone will have their own path. One of my friends wanted to be a musician and when he was young his mantra was, “do anything possible you can to be a musician.” For him that translated into living as cheaply as possible and doing whatever it took to get by and keep making music. Since school is so expensive now, I don’t think it matters if you go to one of the most expensive schools. I went to Shoreline Community College for two years first, which had an incredible music department. If it wasn't for the band director, Jeff Sizer, I wouldn't have a career in music. He showed me so much.

GC: Let's talk about drumming. The first things I hear when I listen to you play is Philly Joe, Jimmy Cobb, and Bill Stewart. Who are your top 5 drum heroes?

MJ: Everyone you mentioned are my heroes. If you asked me top 5 of yesteryear it would be Philly Joe, Jimmy Cobb, Elvin, Tony Williams, and Arthur Taylor. If you asked me today it would be Bill Stewart, and Brian Blade. Also, I've listened to a lot of John Bonham and Keith Moon-

GC: And you've listened to a lot of Ringo Starr.

MJ: [Laughs].  Bernard Purdie and  Motown records. The big thing for me, which didn't happen in Seattle but did in New York, was that people hung out and listened to records. As a drummer, it's important to listen to as much as you can. People who play chordal instruments learn the changes, while drummers learn the arrangements and song forms. So if you're playing Moment's Notice, which version of the first two bars are you going to play? And knowing the different arrangements on different records by different guys is important. I was lucky enough that John Bishop was my instructor in Seattle. Before I moved to New York, I read an interview with Kenny Washington in Modern Drummer about him being a hardass as a teacher. I looked at the New School faculty and saw he was on the list. My first semester there I called him up told him I wanted to take lessons from him. People told me that I was crazy and that he was super tough. Kenny was really cool but very demanding that you do the work and listen to the records. He has an amazing record collection and an encyclopedic mind. But what stuck me was that he was teaching me what John Bishop had been teaching me, I just wasn’t ready for it yet.

GC: Do you think that some of the trends in jazz education are leading kids away from listening to records and having things under their belt to execute? Do you think jazz is moving away from that [listening] tradition? Is there a way to move jazz forward without chucking the tradition away?

MJ: I think there are different ways to approach it, depending on what instrument you play. As a horn player, you're usually out front leading groups. As a rhythm section player, you're hired by a lot of different people to be a sideman and you need to be familiar with a lot of music history as well as different ways of playing. It's tough because there's so much music to check out and you need to do it or else you limit yourself to only playing certain gigs. I've done a gig where it's bebop one night and the next night is John McLaughlin fusion stuff where I was playing like Billy Cobham. You need to move from gig to gig; I personally like to be able to play the music in a way that would be appropriate. There's no real substitute to listening and checking out the music. It’s like explaining a foreign language, right? You can learn French from a book but until you hear it spoken, you're not going do it right. You can learn music by the numbers, but until you hear someone else and see them play- that's the most important part. When I was in New York, Arthur Taylor, Max Roach and Elvin Jones were still alive and I got to see how they execute things I've heard on records and that always gave me new things to practice.

GC: You also said you've been inspired by fellow-students like Joe Strasser, who was maybe more advanced than you at the time. Do you think it's really important to draw inspiration from the people around you?

MJ: When I got to the New School I was just amazed at the level of drummers and I also realized there was a lot I needed to learn. My first semester I show up and there was Joe Strasser, Stefen Schatz, Ali Jackson, Chad Taylor, Brian Floody, and I think Adam Cruz was there or he had just left. But there was always a cool vibe between everyone. I remember hanging at Strasser's place and talking drums while listening to records I'd never heard. Watching Strasser and seeing how he comp'd was different than what I was doing, so I applied what he and others were doing and it opened up my playing. I also took a couple of lessons with Bill Stewart - he’s so creative how he works an idea to the infinite possibilities and he got me thinking more creatively.

GC: Do you miss New York?

MJ: Certain parts for sure. I like going back and playing but I knew after I’d been there for just a couple weeks that I wouldn't be there forever. It changes you. There are certain things I miss, but there are a bunch of ex-New Yorkers in Seattle and we commiserate. The thing I miss is the consistent high level of playing. You’re also able to call some of your musical heroes to see if they want to play a session. You have to be the best all the time there, or else there are people who will take your gig out from under you. When everyone is of such high caliber, it naturally brings you up to that level.

GC: Ok so you came back to Seattle and what happened then?

MJ: In 1997 John Bishop started Origin Records when there were five different projects he was involved with where he both played drums and was designing the album cover. He decided to put the recordings under one record label. I was talking to him on the phone and told him I was getting into building websites. At the time, I had a project that I was doing with saxophonist Alex Graham, pianist Whitney Ash, and Gary Wang on bass. We had a CD we were going to put out and I traded doing the cover art [with John] for doing the website and that was the start of my involvement with Origin Records.

By 2002 the label was building a lot of momentum. I moved back to Seattle and we got our first office. John and I were doing everything for the label and in 2003 we started the Ballard Jazz Festival. From there we've been doing the same thing every day and everything keeps growing.

GC: How do you balance the music with the entrepreneurship? You were saying last night that it's a new thing for musicians to be doing everything. How do you negotiate that?

MJ: We started doing everything for ourselves because no one would do it for us. I think the balance for us is we do what it takes to make the music happen. If guys are coming through town, I usually help set up some gigs and make a tour happen. We had an opportunity in front of us with an organization that wanted to put money behind the Ballard Jazz Fest and we reverse engineered what it would take to make the festival happen. Once things get going for us, it’s hard to stop. I don’t know if I truly have balance between the two but I do the record label and festival stuff to be able to make music. For me there’s no real line between the business or music side, it all goes hand-in-hand.

GC: Do you think that’s the way of the future for all musicians?

MJ: Unfortunately I do and I tend to think that’s not a good thing. There are people that have specialties in all kinds of things. Look at Spike Wilner who is an amazing piano player and had the opportunity of taking over Small’s. What he’s done with it is great. Not all of us can do all of those things well.

GC: Or do them well. I know for myself, sometimes it’s like I need to slow down and focus on one thing but it’s life in the 21^st century. You can kiss goodbye the idea that you can do anything well because there’s so many things that need to get done.  And nobody is going to do them but you.

MJ: Yeah and I think the danger in that is you’re going to burnout. For years there were record labels and radio promoters and now that’s all fallen on independent artists. Those artists don’t necessarily have all the experience or know how to do it. Fortunately with Origin, we have 16 years of experience and we know how to get from point A to point B. There has been a lot of frustration along the way, as well as success, but I feel fortunate to have John Bishop to share the burden of the business side.

GC: When you and I were coming up, everything was compartmentalized. I came up at a time where people that put out their own records were seen as going around the system and couldn’t get on a label. It telegraphed that they couldn’t make it in the real world. Now, no matter how good you are, from bottom up, it’s a completely different story. Sonny Rollins has his own label. Artists you’d never think would have to do [independently release] are. With me, coming from this era and transitioning to the new era it’s hard to catch the new paradigm. If you present this new paradigm to young musicians from the jump, do you think that will yield better results?

MJ: If you’re teaching music business in a college course with a textbook that’s more than 2-3yrs old, you’re teaching useless info. Things are changing all the time and I don’t know where things are going to be filtering out in the next couple of years. I don’t know if everyone can do it all. Sometimes I just want to write tunes or play the drums and not do all of this other crap. But you can’t now. I don’t know what the answer is. Part of it goes into technology. You can pay $5 a month for Spotify or $0 for Spotify and have commercials. As musicians, we should have conversations about giving away our music for fractions of pennies. Overall, the amount of money we’ve gotten paid has gone down and the infrastructure has gone away. Is that good? These things are not set in stone and there are discussions about royalties. If Spotify can charge $5 a month for music, then as musicians we should decide what a fair wage is and demand it. I think the future is obviously in flux and it’s changing week by week, month by month. If we’re churning out these kids in jazz school and not making them aware of what the future has in store for them, we’re doing them a disservice. Music business class in college needs to be rewritten every year. But I also think kids need to know that while there are a lot of avenues to market yourself, I keep coming back to rule number one: sound good on your instrument and do everything possible to make the music happen. 

The Jim Rotondi Interview

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 I recently had the good fortune to do a mini-tour with Jim Rotondi, one of the great jazz trumpeters. I have admired his playing since first hearing him in the 90's at Augie's and with the group One For All. Rotondi is trained in the old school; he knows a lot of tunes, is serious about playing changes and swinging. We played some standards that I have not played in a while; we also played some of his originals which were fun as well. After hanging with Rotondi for the week, I decided that it would be great to interview him for jazztruth.

GC: We're here with Jim Rotondi, one of the great trumpet players in jazz. He's spent many years in NY and is now in Europe, living part time in Graz, Austria, and where in France?

JR:  The city is called Clermont-Ferrand, it's in the dead center of France, about 3hrs south of Paris.

GC: Can you tell me, because I know you're from Butte, MT., how did you get into music and when did you decide that you wanted to be a jazz musician?

JR: I grew up as the youngest of five kids and we always grew up with music in the house. My

mom was a piano teacher and she wanted all of us to have music lessons, but insisted on not teaching us because she wanted to separate family and music endeavor. The way it went down in our family was that my mother was the musical inspiration and my father enforced all the rules. All of us were strongly encouraged to take piano lessons, and if we didn't want to take piano lessons, it was kind of a problem. My siblings and I took piano lessons until about high school. Along the way, we had the option to take up another instrument if we wanted to. I wanted to be in some kind of musical group where I was with other people, rather than practicing solo piano. And that's how I got into the trumpet. I started playing piano at the age of 8 and started the trumpet at12.

Now sort of briefly speaking about the musical community in Butte, Montana, there really wasn't one. My initial exposure was from public radio and a buddy of mine in junior high had the Clifford Brown and Max Roach vinyl set. He was also a trumpet player and he let me take it home for a few weeks and it completely blew my mind. Any trumpet player that hears Clifford Brown for the first time, more or less, has to be overwhelmed.

GC: I had the same feeling.

JR: I finished high school and always had the vision to get the hell out of Montana as soon as possible. You also asked, how did I arrive at the decision that I wanted to be a jazz musician and make that my life calling? That didn't happen actually until a few years after graduating high school. Ironically, my father enforced the rules that we had to take piano lessons, but when I decided to become a musician, it backfired on him. He didn't want me to be a professional musician and was upset when I told him I was going to the University of North Texas to study music. Like most fathers, he wanted to know that I'll have security. 

Anyway, I was hesitant the first two years after high school when I was in college at U of O in Eugene, OR. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was enrolled in a bunch of courses that I was not going to in favor of practicing the trumpet. I was practicing more than some of the music majors there and always listening to music with my older brother in our apartment. I'll never forget, I was listening to an Inner City record of Dexter Gordon called “Bouncin' with Dex, ” with Billy Higgins and Tete Montoliu. They were swinging like a mofo and I just looked at my brother and said, “You know what man, I'm outta here. Next fall I'll be going to a music school.” It happened like that.

GC: Wow, Interesting. So you went to UNT?

JR: Yep and I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in 1985.

GC: Did you go to NY right after that?

JR: No I didn't. I didn't have any bread. Since my dad was ambivalent towards me becoming a musician, I made it a point of pride to not ask him for money. I figured I'm gonna have to do a gig or some kind of job. North Texas is the kind of institution that is contacted by a lot of professionals for young student recruits. I got a call from a cruise ship and I did that for a year to save bread. After that I moved to NY in 1987.

GC: When you got to NY, how did you get started?

JR: I met some contacts on that ship that were really valuable. One of those contacts was Richie Vitale,  a great bebop trumpet player and another guy was a keyboard player named George Whitty. When I got to NY, I called them as well as a bunch of other people saying that I'm in town and went to a ton of jam sessions. I forget who recommended me to go on a tour of an off Broadway show, but it was an R&B review show happening at the Village Gate.  I went and auditioned, got the gig, and within months of moving to New York, I was on the road. It lasted about 5 months off and on though. But that was the start of road gigs that got me out of the city til about 1992. I went on the road with the Artie Shaw Big Band and was called to do the Ray Charles thing in 1991. Basically, my musical subsistence at that point was either going on the road or doing wedding/ bar mitzvah type gigs.

GC: So cut to 1991-92, Augie's was happening.  Were you on that scene?

JR: Augie's was happening before that, Joe Farnsworth was giving weekends in 1989. In and around all the things I've been talking about, I was doing that too. It's an outstanding experience as you know from doing similar gigs. Joe was visionary with that gig because he could have had just one steady group every weekend, but he used this opportunity to play with cats he didn't normally get the chance to play with. It was through this that I met Junior Cook and Cecil Payne, Charles Davis,  and a host of other saxophone players. John Patton and Eddie Gladden used to come play when Joe couldn't do it.

GC: So, you were going on the road and you would do this?

JR: Yeah, a big point of contention was that Joe wanted me to reserve my weekends for his gig, but I had wedding gigs and I had to pay my rent.

GC: Did you feel a difference between playing with Ray Charles versus a jazz gig at Augie's?

JR: Playing with Ray Charles, for me, was a jazz gig. I was a featured soloist, and he wanted all of us to play. he had arrangements in his book that had Trane changes. He actually tested us to see if we had it together. It was a blowing gig whether you liked it or not. He had a great book; Quincy Jones, Ernie Wilkins, and all these great cats wrote for him.

GC: How long were you with Ray Charles?

JR: About a year and a half. I did one tour which was 7 months and at the end of it, I did a bunch of stuff with him but was not officially in the group.

GC: How did One for All get started?

JR: One for All got started through Joe Farnsworth Augie's thing. It came together piece by piece. Joe and Eric Alexander went to school at William Patterson. Joe got the gig at Augie's and when he wasn't hiring other cats, we were doing it as a quintet. John Webber was always on that scene too and was playing most of those gigs. One for All officially came together because I got a weekend at Smalls. I had been talking to David Hazeltine. At the time he was living with Brian Lynch in Chinatown. We all thought that David and Brian were a package deal because they played a lot with each other, but Dave started asking us to come over for sessions when Brian was out of town. We found out Dave had arrangements ready to go for a sextet. Joe knows Steve Davis because Joe's from Massachusetts and Steve is from Hartford. The whole band played together for the first time at Small's in 1992 or 93 I think. Then we tried to doing that sextet all the time. The first time that personnel recorded was on Steve's album Dig Deep. Six months later we did our first for Sharp Nine.

GC: What's the status of One for All?

JR: It's harder since I don't live in the US anymore and it's never been an easy band to book. Eric Alexander skyrocketed in popularity in 10 yrs. There was some contention that people would perceive it as Eric Alexander and One for All. We as the group wanted to keep it as a co-operative, but Eric's other band was working more than we were. I think it's unfortunate because we could've done a lot more.

GC: At some point you started pursuing teaching gigs and you won the position at the Graz Conservatory?

JR: I'm going into my fourth year.

GC: Did you think of yourself as an educator?

JR: No, definitely not. The first two jobs I had, I didn't seek out, they came to me. John Thaddeus and Todd Coolman both sounded me for an adjunct gig at SUNY Purchase and I was there for 10 years. The year before I left town, I was on the faculty for Rutgers University. I didn't think of myself as a teacher but when they asked me to do it, I thought I would try it. Being a teacher crystallizes what you do because if you can't clearly explain what to do, then you really don't understand it. I felt like I had to get it together so I could show students what I was doing and to help them with what they wanted to do. It took me a minute, but after a while I fell into a groove for teaching.

GC: how would you describe your way to teaching jazz?

JR: My philosophy about improvising on the trumpet is that it's a unique study because improvising eliminates the concept of pacing. You don't know exactly how long you're going to play. When I deal on the technical side with students, I always talk to them about that. I also tell them think about things that are substitutes to pacing so they don't blow out their chops right away. I have exercises that I do that are technical but also can be musical phrases that deal with harmonic sequence. We work a lot at the keyboard, a lot of ear training, study language a number of ways such as transcription and listening.

GC: What strikes me about your playing is that the music comes through. I think the best jazz musicians transcend the instrument. Have you always had that?

JR:I wasn't one of those natural guys. There was a period in my development early on when I was in NY where I sought out specific technical advice for the problems I was having. For me, it has taken me a while and I was really fortunate to have some technique oriented teachers that have helped me a lot. Going back to how I teach, I talk a lot about transcending the physical difficulty of the instrument and being musical.

GC: I personally am into a lot of different types of music and now that I teach history, I'm more fascinated with the old and with what things people consider new but are now technically old. How do address the notion of musicians or students rejecting the past completely as if it never happened? What's your opinion?

JR: I think jazz music has always favored innovation but key principles from the previous generation's music were retained.  What you mention, sometimes appears to be change at the expense of all else. Young people are always going to be young,  they're going to want to change the world, conquer it, and do their own thing. I dig that and I think that's very important in young people and that keeps us young. As a teacher, I don't want to fight that, but rather balance that. My responsibility as an older musician who knows a bit of that stuff is to get them into what has already happened.

GC: Do you think Europe will be the center of jazz? Do you think that NY will lose its claim to being the place that everyone feels like they need to go?

JR: I do not, and I say that as a European musician now. I think Europeans have their take on the music which is unique. I'm not sure there's anything strong enough to lay claim as the capital of music.

GC: I think so too. Some people might say you have to go to NY or Berlin but another person might not have the same experience.

JR: I still feel like there's an energy in NY that doesn't exist in any other city.

GC: I totally agree. Especially with the music. Whether anybody's working or not, when you play with cats from NY, you just feel it immediately, it's different. It's hard to get that from other places.

JR: When you go back, there's a little bit of a letdown. I don't want to be hypercritical because I'm in that community. I have a group I work with now that contains a lot of former students. One of the things I work with them, especially rhythm section members is maintaining energy. They always want to have some energy and drop it down, and I don't think that's necessary. It's more important to maintain an energy level.

GC: What was it like working with Harold Mabern?

JR: Great, [laughs] speaking of energy. He's in his late 70s now, I guess. I worked with him about a month ago. He has more energy than any one musician I've ever played with. The qualities I love in him aside from his energy is his knowledge of material. He taught me a lot of things that I teach now about harmony and substitutions. He's a selfless mentor.

GC: Do you think knowing tunes is a lost art?

JR: Yes, absolutely.

GC: How do you feel about that?

JR: I don't like it. I think studying tunes like that informs your ideas on composing. Students want to write tunes without having studied those song forms and harmonic sequences, and it doesn't work. They don't know it and they're not qualified yet to write. I can think of a million reasons to study all that music and not one reason to not study it.

GC: Do you have anything new coming up?

JR: My most recent recording (Hard Hittin' at the Bird's Eye) came out a few months ago on the Sharp Nine label. I'm hoping to record my electric group from Austria next fall or spring. I'm excited about these guys because it's an opportunity for me to write in a new way. It's different than anything I've done before.

GC: I've already heard this story, and I couldn't stop laughing. If you can tell the story....

JR: What happened was when I recorded my first album as a bandleader on the Criss Cross label and it's called Introducing Jim Rotondi. I guess for some people, my name is not the easiest to pronounce.

GC: Where does your name come from?

JR: It's Italian, my grandfather was from Naples. So, there was a certain radio DJ in the NY area back in the 90s that had an evening program. The DJ featured some clips of my album, but he had difficulty pronouncing my name and would always say, “That's music from brand new artist Jeb Rodonti.” I hadn't heard it myself, but people kept on telling me that the DJ was calling me Jeb Rodonti. I listened it one night and called the studio at a time when the music was playing so I could talk to the DJ. I told him thanks for playing my new record and how important that is for me. I tried telling him my name isn't Jeb Rodonti, it's Jim Rotondi. The DJ responded, “Man, I don't know who you really are, but I'm looking at the CD right now and it says Jeb Rodonti.”

GC: [laughs] Ok Jim, or should I say Jeb Rodonti, Ill be sure to spell your name right…. 

http://www.jimrotondi.com/

5 Times In One Night

Crepuscule With Portland

The PDX Jazz Festival is still happening. Last year, I was doing one of the many Jazz Conversations with the great George Cables, and we were talking about hearing music in New York; I wanted to make sure that the Portland folks understood that as impressive as the sheer number of acts during the PDX festival seems to be, this is what New York is like every night of the week! It's great to be here in Portland with so much going on. I amazed myself when I told somebody that I was going to five events in one evening in Portland! Although Portland has a jazz scene which is impressive for a city of it's size, and it is arguably more happening than many other cities, it's still not like New York. Be that as it may, the PDX Festival combines the big stars along with the local musicians fairly well, in a way that shows that there is a lot of potential here to get closer to the feeling of having a year round scene ( as opposed to feeling like it's just two months in February.)

I had to step out of town for a minute earlier in the week. Immediately after teaching my Jazz History class, I drove to Seattle to perform for two nights in a row with Buster Williams and Something More(which humorously was announced the first night as "Something New!") featuring Cindy Blackman-Santana, Julian Preister, and Benny Maupin. I always have fun playing with Buster

Cindy Blackman-Santana

Williams; the band used to include Steve Wilson on alto and Lenny White on drums, so this incarnation was somewhat different, but in a refreshingly good way. (After the second night, I made my escape back to Portland, keeping myself awake on the 3 hour drive back by listening to three contrasting selections: Method Man's "Tical," Rush's "2112", and comedian Aziz Ansari's "Dangerously Delicious.")

This past Friday was hectic in a great way; the festivities began with a "Jazz Conversation" with pianist Helen Sung in our 75 Recital Hall at Portland State University. I've known Sung for over a decade, and it's delightful to see the success she has had as a sideperson as well as a bandleader. The interview was quite informative, and there were some excellent questions from our students. Normally, the Jazz Conversations don't include performing, but I wanted to try a duo with Sung, and it turned out to be a good idea; we jammed on an impromptu version of "Woody N' You". (I hope to have that interview transcribed and it will appear in a future jazztruth post.)

Later that day, I went down to the Hilton and in the bar of Porta Terra was a duo featuring saxophonist Nicole Glover and bassist Jon Lakey. They are two of my best students; normally, they sound really great, but what struck me was that this evening they seemed to have a really intense rapport, more so than usual. It was nice that they invited me up to sit in; I happened to have my trusty melodica with me. Lakey and Glover are graduating this year; I look forward to seeing them transition into becoming real professionals, whether it be in Portland or elsewhere.

Next, after Lakey and I met Helen Sung for a quick dinner of Japanese Curry, I headed back to Lincoln Hall 75 for a concert by the Oregon Guitar Quartet. This was not a PDX Jazz event, however, the group is led by the director of the Portland State University School Of Music, Bryan Johanson. A legend in the classical guitar world, Johanson is a prolific composer as well as a virtuoso on his instrument. The concert featured works from the group's latest CD, entitled "World Tour," which features innovative arrangements of folk music from countries like Japan, Russia, Greece, and Zimbabwe. I find the tone of classical guitar extremely soothing, although the arrangements set many different moods, including an extremely daring arrangement of the jazz standard, "My Funny Valentine."

After the concert, I went over to Ivories to check out the Jeff Baker Quintet. Baker is not only a highly skilled jazz vocalist, he's also an extremely passionate educator, and we are proud to say he is a member of our faculty at Portland State University. In fact, this is the second term that we have had a Vocal Jazz program, which is already wildly successful. As a performer, Baker is highly confident, and always features interesting arrangements.There were some great solos from pianist Justin

Jeff Baker

Nielsen, a Boise native who has tons of chops and a great sense of how to accompany a vocalist.

As Baker ended his set with a funky arrangement of "All Blues," I decided to run over to the Mission Theater and catch the end of the Portland Jazz Composer's Ensemble Showcase. I always enjoy hearing drummer and composer Barra Brown's band. The group featured saxophonist Nicole Glover once again, as well as trumpeter Thomas Barber and guitarist Adam Brock. Brown's music is very simple and triadic, although it's interesting to hear Barber play modern jazz lines over the placid chord progressions. Brown's drumming is solid and tasteful, and fits the compositions well.

After their set, I ran back to Ivories for a PDX Festival Jam Session hosted by alto saxophonist and PSU faculty David Valdez. Ivories was packed with a who's who of Portland Jazz; Helen Sung came by, and trumpeter Marcus Printup also showed up fresh off his gig with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. It was a great way to end an exhausting yet inspiring evening of music. Yes, I went to five concerts in one night, not including my jazz conversation with Helen Sung; many are remarking on how jazz seems to be thriving in Portland, and I think this night proves them right. I think Portland is better than many cities in regards to jazz; however, I think we have a ways to go before we realize our true potential. I'm hoping that within the next few years, Portland will become a mecca for jazz and live music and be one of the best places for jazz in the U.S.A., if not the world.

R.I.P. Dwayne Burno

I remember the first time I heard Dwayne Burno playing the bass; it was at Augie's(which is now Smoke) on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. This was the mid 90's. I was very new to New York. Also playing was Dave Kikoski on Hammond Organ( of all things) and Joe Farnsworth was playing drums. (I'm trying to remember who was playing horns-could have been Eric Alexander on tenor and Jim Rotundi on trumpet...) What was amazing to me was that Burno was playing acoustic bass without any amplification and you could hear him just fine. He was driving the band like gangbusters. I remember Burno had a very determined look on his face; indeed, Burno always looked very serious, and his imposingly large frame combined with his intense visage might make you believe that he was completely unapproachable. However, the more I got to know Burno over the years, the more I realized he was a gentle, soft spoken, sweetheart of a guy. This is not to say that he didn't have some very deeply held opinions about jazz and the state of the music, which could result in some very, shall we say,  honest verbiage. Dwayne Burno was a guy who basically didn't like to bullshit; he spoke up about what he believed, and played the music in which he believed.

Burno was indeed the first bassist I played with to really play lines using extensions of the harmony in a very sophisticated way. The first time we worked together was around the same period (early 90's) with a band  trumpeter Kenny Rampton had put together. It was a quintet, and it featured Rampton's original music(Kenny Rampton is another highly underrated musician and composer.) I remember it took me a minute to understand what Burno was doing, because he wouldn't play the roots on the downbeat of each measure. Once I figured it out, the concept was really intriguing to me. I realized later that you can hear this approach from players like Paul Chambers and Ron Carter and many others. I always felt that Burno played great walking lines, great time, and also great solos, which were also harmonically advanced. Burno also seemed to have almost photographic memory, as well as perfect pitch, and also it seemed impossible to stump him when it came to calling standards.

I played with Burno quite a bit in the 90's. When I luckily stumbled into getting the opportunity to record my first CD for Steeplechase in the Fall of 1995, I called Burno and Ralph Peterson on drums.
The CD is called "Activism", and for a trio that hadn't rehearse and for an extremely green 25-year old me, it's really not bad.

Burno also joined me for my sophomore recording date entitled " The Newcomer." (If you haven't heard it, you should check out our version of "Evidence" to hear Burno and drummer Billy Drummond play time at at real "New York" pace! I may post that later.)There were a bunch of other gigs, recordings, and so on. We both played on Ingrid Jensen's "Here on Earth, which featured Gary Bartz and Bill Stewart.

I have to admit, I was oftentimes musically  intimidated by Mr. Burno; when you spend time with someone who is very knowledgeable but also opinionated, you can begin to wonder what they think of you! However, Burno was very supportive, and I even subbed in his band at Small's a few times. Furthermore, we did a European tour together during a time when I was experiencing some personal turmoil; Burno was my support through the entire tour. I don't think I would have made it without his empathy. ( I also remember he played an Ampeg bass on that tour; also, I remember how every time drummer Howard Curtis would play some great licks, Burno would give me a look as if to say, "Man, that was killing!")

I hadn't gotten to play with Burno much in recent years. I had heard that he was having kidney problems. Then I saw him in New York at a rehearsal studio, and we had a brief conversation; the kind of "two busy musicians passing like ships in the night" kind of conversation. He mentioned that he had heard my CD called "Blood Pressure" and was impressed. I was really touched by the compliment. Since I was just starting to develop the jazztruth blog, I thought that Burno would make a great interview; indeed, he is the kind of musician I'm truly interested in- ones who are amazingly talented and virtuous and yet for some reason stay off the radar for years. I'm really happy I was able to get this interview for my blog; Burno had a LOT to say on many subjects, so I broke it into Part I and Part II, respectively. It's really quite deep and Burno speaks with absolute candor, to say the least.

The news of Dwayne Burno's sudden death on December 28th has sent shockwaves throughout the Jazz community. Dwayne was way too young to pass like this. It's sad to know that you'll never get to speak with or play music with someone ever again. My heart goes out to his wife and son. I'm particularly saddened and  frustrated with the fact that Burno apparently stockpiled original music and never recorded a CD as a leader. I'm not really sure why at least a small label, if not a larger one, would not have ever approached him, or why they never asked him to do something? It can't be because he never met anyone in the Jazz recording industry? I mean, he played with Betty Carter, Roy Haynes, Donald Harrison, Freddie Hubbard, Benny Golson, and so many more. I suppose that's what makes the video that accompanies the site where you can donate to Burno's family all the more totally heartbreaking; Dwayne was finally going to do a recording, and was starting a Kickstarter campaign.

Although Burno's death is a real tragedy for his family and for the Jazz community, I'm learning something from it. I'm going to appreciate the things I have and the people I know and the time I have on this Earth. I'm going to strive to be a better musician. ( I still have Mp3s Dwayne gave me that I haven't listened to- a ton of Duke Pearson....)I leave you with some clips of Mr. Burno. I'm sorry, Dwayne, that we didn't get to play at least one more gig together. R.I.P.

The Jaleel Shaw Interview

Jaleel Shaw has been one of my favorite young alto players for about a decade. We first played together with the Mingus Band, and we kept in touch over the years. I've worked a few times in his band and he's worked with me a number of times. You might know him from the Roy Haynes group, which he has been working with for a long time. Shaw has that amazing balance of depth and innovation in his sound and his improvisation. He's on my latest CD on the Steeplechase label, entitled "The Facts" and we just finished a great weekend with a quintet at the famed Smalls Jazz Club in New York City. I was glad to catch up with him and get an interview with one of the baddest cats on the New York jazz scene.

GC:OK. What's your earliest memory of music?

JS:Wow! My mom told one of the first movies she took me to see was"The Muppet Movie"
and that I came home and was singing the music days later. I guess that impressed her!
Then she had me in these music theory classes for children around 5 or 6. My mother always had lots of recordings laying around; She checked out a lot of late Trane, Alice Coltrane, Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Ornette Coleman, Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, Prince...
so I heard a lot of that as a kid.

GC: Do you believe that alto is your instrument, and if so, why? Some guys double or triple, but other focus on one. And when did you know that alto was the one?

JS: I originally wanted to play drums and trumpet. I think my mother thought both were too loud! So I ended up picking the saxophone. Maybe she secretly wanted me to play saxophone now that I think of it. There were no saxophones available when I signed up, and I had to start off on clarinet. But a year later, I got an alto sax.
I honestly didn't think of playing anything else for a while. I don't really remember having the opportunity to switch, but I think the alto stuck to me like a glove. I really got into it and started checking out as many alto saxophonists as I could almost immediately.
Today I play soprano as well and I'm really into it. I've been thinking about baritone too. There's something in that sound that I like. But ultimately, I think that alto is a very difficult instrument and I'm still working out my sound and I feel like I'm always trying to find better set ups... better mouthpieces, etc...

GC:Who are your saxophone heroes? Who are your non-saxophone playing musical heroes?

JS:I could be here all day with this one! My first alto saxophone hero was Bobby Watson;
I was really into his playing and compositions and I got to meet him. When he came to Philly,
 he became a close mentor and I still consider him a very close friend. Then, I started checking out lots of Cannonball Adderly, then Sonny Stitt, then Johnny Hodges, Bird, and Lee Konitz.
Of the younger alto saxophonists I was checking out Antonio Hart, Kenny Garrett, Myron Walden.... Since I'm a Philly native, I got to be around Grover Washington Jr, and a man named Byard Lancaster. I was studying with a great saxophonists Robert Landham and Rayburn Wright. I also checked out lots of Maceo Parker.
In terms of non-alto players, I'm a huge fan of Mark Tuner, Chris Potter...I also came up under the wing of Tim Warfield, and got to play with him in Philly. Of course Trane, Sonny, Dexter, Getz, Branford, Lovano....Steve Wilson for alto and soprano
and I'm really into Sam Newsome on soprano.

 

GC:Ok, maybe a few guys who aren't saxophone players who are really big influences?


JS:Oh right! Mulgrew Miller was a big influence...Kurt Rosenwinkel....Mccoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Roy Haynes and Elvin Jones. Lennie Tristano as well as Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan.

GC:When did you know that you wanted music to be your life?

JS:When I was 12 probably...I came up in a jazz ensemble that was run by a man named Lovette Hines. He's a well known jazz educator in Philly and he's responsible for Christian Mcbride, Joey Defrancesco, Johnathan Blake, Bilal,.. a bunch of people.....and he'd have these rehearsals every Saturday, and we'd all get together and learn standards. I joined that when I 

was around 10 I think. So, being with so many young people that were into the music really helped.It naturally became my life. The kids in the band became my best friends and we'd spend hours on the phone playing records to each other...and we'd perform whenever Mr. Hines had gigs for us.
Have you seen this?

(Jaleel shows me a video)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmmzUP_L0bE

GC:I did see that actually.....


JS: So that was kind of the environment I was in. It was great!


GC:It's actually inspirational because you can see what an educator who cares can do for students and for the preservation of jazz. Without Mr. Hines, maybe we wouldn't have McBride and maybe we wouldn't have YOU!

JS: I honestly don't know how much I'd love music if it wasn't for my mom and Mr. Hines...
Mr. Hines made it fun.

Do you feel like you have a lot to live up to being from Philly? Was it a big deal to move to the New York area?

JS:I honestly think about Philly lineage a lot, especially when I see Christian McBride. That show on that video was one of my first performances. So I've always looked up to him ever since then....and he's amazing....but I mean McCoy came out of Philly, Kurt Rosenwinkle is from Philly, Lee Morgan was from Philly....that alone is insane to me! All of them were great musicians AND great composers. There's definitely a vibe from philly that I'm proud to be part of. I shouldn't say I feel like I have a lot to live up to... I definitely want to do my thing, but I think it's amazing to be from Philly. That energy is amazing.

I used to be afraid of New York ...but once I moved to Boston and experienced that scene, I don't think I was nervous about NY anymore. Boston was intense...there were a lot of great musicians there,most of whom are in NY now. And these cats just kept me on my feet, kept me influenced and motivated, so that fear I had wasn't the same after Boston
I can say that as far as gigs go and my actual future goes, I was scared to death about moving to the city! But things kind of fell into place

GC:Which sideman gigs have been your favorite? Don't feel any pressure to say The George Colligan Quartet!

JS:(Laughs)Someone just asked me a couple days ago! It's really hard for me to pick one

because I'm always thankful to play new music and learn new changes
I'm really into challenges, .even if it means I fall on my face and end up embarrassing myself.
So it's really hard to say....my first gigs were with the Mingus Big Band and the Count Basie Big Band, which were two completely different musical settings.
I couldn't play the things I played with the Mingus Big Band in the Count Basie Big Band and vice versa, of course. I learned so much about time, swinging, and the blues from the Basie Band, and so much about being open and more free in the Mingus Band. With Roy Haynes, I've learned more about playing time. Roy has a more loose ride beat so he's not playing ting ting a ling: he's accenting what I play! So I really had to get my time together. Roy's  always talked about Trane and Bird and how they both had impeccable time.
 
But I've learned something from everyone... I'm playing with Tom Harrell's group "Colors of Dream" now, and to play with Tom, who's so lyrical and melodic is amazing. His phrasing and sense of time... are just.. perfect! I just can't pick a favorite, though. Your session , "The Facts",with the quartet was the first session I did where I went in the studio without a rehearsal... (I don't remember rehearsing... did we?) I was scared to death! But when I listen to it, I realized as much as it was a challenge, there's something fresh about recording music like that... I later read a book about Lee Morgan that spoke about how he did that sort of thing pretty often. I hope to try that someday!

GC:Do you think social media/technology is helping the jazz scene, or hurting , or both?

JS: Maybe a little of both. I often wonder what Trane or Bird would tweet if they were alive now, or if they would even do that sort of thing at all. It's clear that it took lots of time and dedication for them to get where they got ...I mean.... we're talking about days when there were no TVs, and in some situations no phones, certainly no cell phones or smart phones. Now there's so much going on. so many distractions, and sometimes too much information. I wonder how much imagination and mystery is lost. On the plus side, as an independent artist, it's helped me a lot. I've put out two CDs on my own and I know it's REALLY helped to get me out there. You couldn't make a post on your facebook page 50 years ago to let people know your new CD was out. It's amazing that you can do that now.

GC:Any upcoming gigs or projects we should know about? Or past projects which we didn't hear enough about?

JS: I'll be performing at the Charlie Parker Festival on August 24th with my quartet, and at the Philadelphia Art Museum with my group on the 23rd.....oh and with Roy Haynes at the Newport Jazz Festival on Sunday the 4th. I'll be with  EJ Strickland's band at Smoke on the 7th of August.

GC: Do you have any advice for the multitudes of young jazz students who are sitting in practice rooms around the globe, wondering what their next move should be?

JS: I would say practice like crazy, but get out.. go check out the artists you're into and try to get to know them. Ask questions, ask for lessons when cats come in town. I think it's important to get as much information as possible. Learn standards and get out to the sessions when you can AND get together with your friends to play your originals. Start a separate bank account for your recordings and try to put a little bit of what you make into this account if you can. Don't sit around waiting for  record  labels to sign you! Try booking your own gigs and getting venues that may not normally have music to feature your group. I think it's time to try to open the scene up a bit more and try new things and create new opportunities.

http://www.jaleelshaw.com/