"It has to feel good......"

Mulgrew Miller has always been one of my favorite jazz pianists. I've heard him in so many settings: trio, quartet, with singers. I've heard him with musicians who were very traditional, and musicians who very very modern. Miller seems to always approach every situation in a tasteful way; he fits right in, and somehow finds just the right amount of energy to make the music complete. I saw this video on Facebook and had to post it.

It's fascinating to me because everything Miller says is actually pretty obvious. However, it's easier said than done. Many things in our world are obvious, and yet how many of us ignore the obvious every day for our entire lives? (For example: I want to lose weight= diet and exercise...so obvious, and yet how many of us don't do it? And the list goes on and on....) I wish I had more chances to work with students on comping, and I mean beyond the nuts and bolts of form and voicings. That stuff is important as well. But beyond that, much of it is philosophical.

Mulgrew Miller is one of the best examples of legendary-musician-turned-jazz-educator. Because of his vast experience, everything he says comes from the real world of jazz. It's not merely theoretical. My inclination is that comping has to be developed by playing with people. It's interesting that Miller is saying that you should actually practice it abstractly-on your own- before you get to the gig. I think this makes a ton of sense. The idea is that you should have a base of "laying it down" so that it swings, or whatever you are trying to do, and it "feels good". I think having a good "feel", whether comping or soloing, is one of the most important things you should have as a jazz musician. This might mean the difference between work and no work. I believe that my initial success as a pianist was not because of my technique( I had little) or repertoire( I had even less). It was because I had a knack for making it "feel" like jazz.

The big question is, HOW do you make it feel good? Well, for starters, listen to the great compers: Wynton Kelly, Red Garland, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Kenny Kirkland, Mulgrew Miller, Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Cedar Walton, Horace Silver. Listen to how they provide harmony and create rhythm, and where do they leave space and how do they fill in the spaces. How do they help the soloist without getting in the way. Maybe play along with them on recordings.

The next step is to find what works for you. And that depends on your taste, and it also depends on who your are playing with. Some people want, or may actually NEED, for you to lay it down in a strong way. Others might want you to play very little. Some maybe not at all. Piano can be omnipresent or superfluous, or everything in between. It's a constant journey to find the right balance. It's a combination of trying to read the mind of the soloist, and "make them feel comfortable", as Professor Miller said, and using your own judgement.

I remember when I realized how important comping is to a pianist's career. I went down from Baltimore to Washington D.C. to sit in with saxophonist Paul Carr at a club called Takoma Station. I sat in on a rhythm changes tune. I guess I was in a listening mood, because I felt I should listen before I played. Carr played a lot of notes, but when he left a space, I played one chord, let it ring, and then listened again. I barely comped at all. Carr came up to me after the tune and exclaimed, "Wow, I LOVE your comping!" He then hired me for a bunch of gigs. Well, they say "less is more." But you have to figure it out for yourself. I'm still trying to figure it out as well. That's the great thing about this music; you are never done learning.

JEN Conference Part II, Electric Boogaloo

I'm safely back in Portland after a whirlwind trip to Atlanta for the Jazz Education Network Conference. Although half of the time I was not in the best physical or mental condition; I flew through the night from PDX, arrived in Atlanta at 6:30 AM with no sleep, couldn't get into my room at the Hyatt until 10 AM, and then really didn't get a chance to nap because I didn't want to miss the conference. ( I think I'm still not 100 percent recovered!)

In a previous post, I compared the JEN conference to the IAJE (International Association of Jazz Educators), and lamented that attending the IAJE always seemed like an overwhelming shmooze-a-thon. Every musician you talk to would always be looking over your shoulder, checking to see if there is someone in the industry who can help you with your career! Well, this was much less of that. I actually had focused conversations with everyone that I saw. It's always nice to see old friends and to make new ones.

It's impossible to go to every event at a convention such as this. They seemed to have 4 or 5 different seminars or performances every hour. You either have to pick one or run around the hotel like a madman to all the different rooms. I didn't get to see as much as I would have liked. I did see enough to be inspired; I think Jazz Education is still alive and well. It was nice to see a lot of young, enthusiastic young players.

In fact, the first thing I heard after I finished my breakfast was the American Music Program, which is a jazz band based in Oregon for middle, high, and some college students. The program is led by Thara Memory, who has received accolades for mentoring jazz star Esperanza Spalding. I heard them play some Duke Ellington and Thad Jones charts; boy, were they swinging! (I found out later that the drummer is only in middle school!) I was impressed not only because they played all of the charts from memory, but also because they somehow had the money for an entire big band to fly from Portland to Atlanta!

I snuck into a few clinics; one was giving by a guy named Matt Falker called "Jazz Piano Voicings for Beginners." Another clinic led by Matthew Pivec was called "It's Not Just Scales and Chords: Equipping Your Beginning Improvisors with Tools of Expression." Pivic demonstrated some easy concepts, taken from the jazz solos of major artists, which beginners could use right away to make creative solos. It's always nice to see other other educators are approaching the teaching of jazz.

Now it was 10 AM, and I was now able to get into my room. Instead of going to sleep, like a normal person, I went down to the Exhibitor's hall to look at merchandise. After spending a great deal of my own money on the trip to Atlanta, I had very little intention of making any purchases. However, it's always fun to browse. I tried a nice Roy Benson pocket trumpet. I stopped by the Chuck Sher booth, and had a nice conversation with both Sher and the great pianist and educator Mark Levine.

Mark Levine

During the two days I was in Atlanta, I saw two really great clinics. One was given by trumpeter and educator Michael Mossman, entitled "Get Your (Ensemble's) Groove On!" Mossman talked about clave, and tips on how to get young rhythm sections to play latin grooves in a more authentic fashion. Drummer Carl Allen gave a wonderful clinic about how important the ride cymbal is to jazz. Allen played recorded examples of different jazz drumming legends( in a sort of blindfold test fashion....I guessed pretty well...) and talked about the subtle differences in their approach to the ride cymbal beat. It was cool to see drumming legend Joe Chambers(who has an AMAZING ride cymbal beat) sitting in on the clinic.

Earl MacDonald, David Valdez, and I gave a panel discussion  called "Blogging With A Purpose." We had a decent turnout, although Dave Liebman was giving a clinic at exactly the same time, so I'm sure that was where most people ended up. However, our presentation went well. In fact, I actually learned much about the technical aspects of blogging from MacDonald and Valdez. Saxophonist and historical expert Loren Schoenberg happened to attend the panel discussion, and he gave me some great feedback.

Antonio Hart

I heard some nice groups; I heard Antonio Hart play with a wonderful student group from Chicago High School of the Arts. I also heard the University of Manitoba faculty ensemble (I used to teach there) which featured bassist Steve Kirby, guitarist Larry Roy, trumpeter Derrick Gardner, saxophonist Craig Bailey, pianist Will Bonness, Quincy Davis on drums, and vocalist Anna-Lisa Kirby. I was extremely impressed with the overall  sound of the band. The U of M band, billed as the Northern Alternative, has the luxury of performing at a jam session(they called it the Wednesday Night Hang when I was there) every week; there is no substitute for this regularity. Furthermore, I was especially enthralled by Will Bonness' virtuosic abilities.

I wish I had gotten to hear more music. I also wish I had gotten to PLAY! (It's quite odd for me to travel somewhere and not touch an instrument of any kind.) I had some nice conversations with friends new and old; I met Bobby Brown, one of my favorite guitar players. We ended up talking about our kids, mostly. And I spoke at length with Davey Yarborough, saxophonist and beloved educator from Washington D.C. ( He was there to accept the John LaPorta Jazz Educator Of The Year Award.)

I had a really great time at JEN. I think it's a welcome replacement to the IAJE Convention. I still think that these things tend to be too expensive, especially when you consider how much flights and hotels cost these days. Still, I think I would go in the future. Hopefully I'll get to play as well as present next time....

And Jack DeJohnette is…?

This was written two months ago for a jazz magazine published in Oregon. I recently recorded a trio record with Jack DeJohnette and bassist  Larry Grenadier. While listening to the rough mixes, I remembered this article and thought it might be worth reprinting here.

A few years ago, a classical musician asked me about my professional activities beyond teaching. I proudly mentioned that I had recently been touring with drummer Jack DeJohnette. "And he is…?" was the reply. I was slightly caught off guard; Jack DeJohnette, at least to jazz musicians, is as known as almost any other major figure in jazz. Indeed, he's a direct link to jazz history; From Baby Dodds to Sid Catlett to "Papa" Jo Jones to Max Roach to "Philly" Joe Jones to Tony Williams to Elvin Jones, Jack DeJohnette is the next logical name on the list. If you say "Jack" to a jazz drummer, he knows exactly what you are talking about.

I thought for a moment and answered; "Jack DeJohnette is …uh....the Yo-Yo Ma of jazz drumming." "Ah! I see," responded my classical comrade. At least, for the moment, I impressed someone with my affiliation. Now that I think about it, I think comparing Jack DeJohnette to Yo-Yo Ma actually falls short. If you were to draw a correlation between jazz instrumentalists and classical musicians, you would have to think bigger. I would say that DeJohnette should be compared to one of the great composers, like Debussy, or Stravinsky. I justify this by saying that DeJohnette truly has his own "language" of drumming. Yo Yo Ma, while one of the great performers on the cello, still, at the end of the day, plays other people's notes and rhythms and dynamics. DeJohnette, with his through composed, constantly evolving, conversational, interpretive drumming, has created a new way to play music that transcends drums.

Jack DeJohnette's drumming style is in some ways enigmatic, because his sound is immediately identifiable;

 and yet, there are few DeJohnette "clones." This is because DeJohnette's entire conception of music is very spontaneous. You can hear many young drummers play these days and you can say, "Oh, he's playing a "Philly" Joe Jones lick," or "That's an Elvin Jones lick." DeJohnette's playing is more of a philosophy with few preconceived notions. And yet I insist that he has influenced a generation of drummers as well as non-drummers. Again, if you say to a jazz drummer, “play like Jack,” you will get them to play a certain way.

Part of the trick is that Jack DeJohnette began his musical career as a jazz pianist; in fact, we was already doing gigs on piano in Chicago when he decided to switch to drums as his main instrument. (DeJohnette is well documented as a pianist on a recording entitled “ The Jack DeJohnette Piano Album”, which I had on vinyl years ago.) I believe that jazz drumming is perhaps different from other types of drumming because there is so much more of a need for the drummer to “shape” the music as well as keep time. Therefore, the more a jazz drummer knows about melody, form, harmony, and musical emotion, the better they can “shape” the performance. DeJohnette is always listening to what people are playing and supporting soloists and band members with relevant musical commentary. (I remember years ago, saxophonist Gary Thomas told me why he loved playing with Jack so much. “He never lets you down.” Another way of saying this would be that he follows a soloists intensity with complete dedication, as if it were his own solo that he was accompanying.)

As I write this, I am waiting at the gate of my flight from Heathrow to New York City (the second of three legs back to Portland. I started this morning in Tbilisi, flew 5 hours to London, found out my flight was cancelled, and resigned myself to a later flight and a 24 hour layover in New York as my only option), as we just finished a two week tour which was mostly in the U.K., but also included Poland and Georgia. I’m thinking back to some of the great musical moments we had as a band. But it’s also interesting to observe DeJohnette off the bandstand as well as on. Jack is extremely fit for a 70 year old man; occasionally I find myself lengthening my stride to keep up with him as we walk through airport terminals. Jack is intellectually agile as well; on the road in Europe, he’s rarely without a copy of the International Herald Tribune. We talk politics as much as music.Of course, when it comes to music, Jack is into anything and everything from European classical to Indian to Blues to Bebop. He knows a lot of songs from a wide variety genres; you might catch him singing Beatles tunes or Motown classics during a sound check. Furthermore, Jack always seems to be genuinely curious about new music and younger players(which is probably how I got in the band…)

I see this energy and open minded awareness manifesting itself on the bandstand every gig. DeJohnette is pretty easy going as a person, but as soon as he sits at the drums, you know something important is about to happen. You know that when the music starts, he won’t “let you down.” And the nifty thing is that DeJohnette can be really super intense without being overly loud. (One of the many unique things about DeJohnette’s approach is his use of “dry” ride cymbals. His ride cymbals don’t have what we call a “washy” sound, where even after the cymbal is struck, there is still a lot of ringing tone. This actually cuts the onstage volume by a huge margin, and it actually makes it easier forDeJohnette, as well as the other musicians onstage, to hear the music without everything getting washed out.

As a bandleader, DeJohnette leads much like Miles Davis and other Miles alumni who became bandleaders: hire great musicians and let them play how they play. DeJohnette rarely gives musical direction. If jazz musicians are already playing on a high level, why not let them play? Obviously, this approach won’t work for every situation. But think about it; why would Miles Davis tell Wanye Shorter how to play? I believe that the less that’s spoken, the more comfortable musicians will feel; therefore, you’ll get the most out of them.

Since I started playing in DeJohnette’s band, many musicians have asked me, “what does it feel like to play with Jack?” I think it’s a great question, because how music “feels” really gets to the heart of the matter. It’s also possibly the most intangible part of music and art. DeJohnette has a time feel which is very consistent, yet also flexible. He’s got one of the deepest pockets, and yet it’s not metronomic or predictable. How would I teach a student drummer to play this way? I haven’t figured that out yet. ( I remember when I was teaching the drum students at the University of Manitoba. I was assigning them the Alan Dawson Rudiment Ritual and page 38 of the Ted Reed book. Then I played a week with DeJohnette at Birdland. I remember thinking that I needed to completely revamp my approach to teaching drums.

But getting back to the question: what does it feel like to play with JackDeJohnette? It feels like magic. It feels extraordinary. It feels like you are floating on air. It feels like you can play anything. It feels like the walls of musical limitation have dissapeared. It feels like you want to sing and clap and dance. It feels like a runner’s high, or maybe some other type of high. If you were tired before you got onstage, you suddenly have energy. It feels like you’re on top of the world.

We played in Cambridge last week. Backstage, right before the show, Jackmade a comment that we should “try to take shorter solos.” I jokingly said, “ Why don’t you try to play worse?” I got a good laugh with that, but it’s true. Time flies when you are having fun, or playing with great musicians. When we play concerts, 2 hours feels like 10 minutes. You never want to stop.

JEN Conference 2013 Part 1

Some of you probably remember the IAJE, otherwise known as the International Association of Jazz Educators. They put on a convention every year in various locations around the U.S. I performed and participated in many of them throughout the years. Unfortunately, the IAJE as an organization went belly up due to some controversial mismanagement( or so I heard). Something has popped up to replace it: JEN, or Jazz Education Network. I'm heading down to their convention, a 4 day affair at the Atlanta Hyatt Regency. It appears to be more education oriented than the IAJE, which was a nice mix of education and performance related events.

My memories of the IAJE in New York, which was probably the last time I attended, my biggest impression was that it was a real shmooze-fest. It seemed like a networking bonanza; it was hard to focus on any one person, because within seconds, someone you hadn't seen in years would pop into your field of vision. What in one sense could be like being a jazz kid in a jazz candy store could easily after a few hours become a sensory overload. (At least for me, I'm more of an introvert. I'm sure some people feast on the social explosion like a smorgasbord....)

I'll be part of a panel on Jazz Blogging, joined by Earl MacDonald and David Valdez, both equally formidable bloggers. Hopefully, it will make for an interesting discussion. I'm curious to see what motivates others to blog. I think I mostly do it for myself, but admittedly, it is cool to know that I have regular readers. I'm trying to keep this thing going, despite the distractions of full time University teaching, touring, and parenting.

We'll be there in The Learning Center at 1pm on Saturday. I hope to see you there! And I'm excited to report on my observations of the JEN Conference 2013. Here is a link to the schedule:
http://www.jazzednet.org/1/en/2013_Conference_Schedule

The Marvin Sewell Interview Part 2

GC: Would you say that playing with Cassandra is probably your most steady, high-profile gig?

MS: Yeah, and I got a lot of mileage out of that gig.

GC: This was over ten years, right?

MS: Yeah. I first did a gig with her in 1995. I subbed for Brandon Ross and then in 1996 I did my first tour with her. But prior to that I did a couple of record compilations with her. And then it just kind of went on, on and off, for the next 10-15 years. I learned a lot of stuff playing with her - I developed a lot of stuff. My slide playing, playing in alternate tunings with her, accompanying, more different styles of music from playing with her. Using different sounds, textures, and effects, because she was always open to experimenting and trying new things. One of the great things about her is that she was always open to that and, like Jack, didn’t want the same thing every night. She was looking for something different, and even off the tour I was always investigating new sounds. What new sounds are happening, what can I develop? So it was good. All of that stuff with the tunings, and the slide guitar - I had been working on, but Cassandra’s gig was the vehicle for me to develop it. I remember this saxophone player in Chicago met John Coltrane, and he asked Coltrane what he could do to improve his playing and Coltrane simply said “get a gig.” (laughs) Get you a gig!

GC: That is so true.

MS: I found no matter how much I practice, which is good, there’s still something about playing, when you interact with people and the tempo is swirling around, you get into real time instead of metronomic time. Things change, and you have to make the adjustment. It puts up your chops a little bit, if you’re open to listen.

GC: I think about it sometimes, I compare musical interaction to if you go to a party or something. Or you’re having dinner conversation. How can you practice going to a party?

MS: Exactly.

GC: That’s really interesting. So to my knowledge, you have one record as a leader. Do you have aspirations to do more as a leader, so that we know more about you?

MS: Yeah I would like to, it’s just a matter of time and leader. One of the problems of being a journeyman is time. Your fellow colleagues are journeymen too, and you’re trying to get them together and in the studio. And writing takes up a lot of time, you have to kind of be in it. Sometimes I come up with ideas on the road, and I develop it, and other times tunes write themselves. So I plan on trying to put out a few more things. I have enough music to put out two or three more records. The tunes aren’t necessarily great, but I’m constantly writing and trying to work stuff out. I never even envisioned myself having a band until somebody asks me what my music sounds like. So I started writing, and Jerome Harris has been in my band since it started, and it’s a great ensemble. Joe Barbato, Rachelle Garniez, Satoshi Takeishi, and Jerome Harris. I love that group. And it’s an ensemble. I didn’t want to do the whole Concerto concept, it’s definitely a group with a particular sound. So yeah, hopefully something else can happen, we can go into the studio and record again. We haven’t explored all the possibilities. All the people in the band can do so many different things and it needs to be on wax or mp3, or whatever you call it.

GC: So your next project would be that band. Do you have any inclination to do something kind of orchestrated, more compositional - I had to say classical, but more composed?

MS: Maybe. I’ve always felt myself doing the more composed stuff, because I always wanted to do soundtrack stuff. Or if I was commissioned to write something like that. But yeah, maybe. The more music I learn, I begin to start hearing things, and if I want more specific parts, like a string quartet or string section then yeah, it’s possible. Sure.

GC: And you want to start playing more piano?

MS: Yeah, for a long time I’ve been using piano more as a device to steal ideas. To me I can just very well not play piano and just go to the store and get a record and check out what someone did, but it’s something different when you’re actually playing that music and you can manipulate it. What if I play this? What if I take the middle voicings, and make them louder than the high voices? And you start to hear new things, the little tricks the composers use. A friend of mine suggested that maybe I start doing some accompanying. Classical accompanying, but I want to get into the jazz playing, more jazz piano. I’ve been hanging out with Barry Harris every now and then, and checking out other people’s approaches, trying to get the whole background and history. I know chords and stuff, but I need to know not just these chords but the scales that go with these chords, how they move. The voice leading, not getting lost and finger-tied. I know what to play, I just need to learn how to play it.

GC: That’s interesting because the stuff you play classically is, to me, as much or more technique than you would need to play jazz. That’s about as much chops as I have, to play that Debussy.

MS: I don’t know about that! You know what it is? To me it’s kind of like - I keep making these analogies - it’s kind of like baseball. When a baseball player gets into a slump, people say “man somebody needs to say a particular thing to him to have him get a different appraoch when he steps up to the plate.” And sometimes that’s all it is, you have to change your way of looking at stuff. Maybe I need to do that with piano technique. Because now I work out fingerings and learn these etudes. I have the speed and the agility that I could do the jazz stuff, but there are other things. I just have to figure out, figure out a different way of looking at it. I watch Jack play piano and I think “oh, this is how he moves his hand over” and stuff. So I think I need to hang out with you, just watch piano players do their thing and then that would probably give me more of an idea on how to get around that.

GC: Probably what you should do is get a gig.

(Laugher)

MS: Yeah exactly! There it is!

GC: That’s how I learned!

MS: Dig that. Can you recommend me?

GC: (laughs) I’ll see what I can do. It’s interesting because you talk about baseball. I haven’t followed baseball in many years but when I was a kid I was an Orioles fan, living near Baltimore. My father was one of those diehard Yankees fans. I used to go out in a little field on my street and pretend to play by myself. I was on the Little League team. That’s interesting that you said you were left-handed. What did you want to do, pitch?

MS: Well I wanted to be, like every other kid when I growing up, an outfielder. I liked playing shortstop but I’m left-handed. To me it was an exciting position. What ended my dreams of playing baseball was when I didn’t make the high school team. And guess what that coach said? “If Marvin had tried out as a pitcher, he would have been on my team.” That was the thing that I was good at, I was a good pitcher, but I hated it! And part of the problem is that no one was teaching me how to throw the ball. I was throwing the ball with my arm, my elbow was getting messed up. Nobody was telling me how to throw it. I remember the Chicago Cubs pitcher Ray Burris on one of those programs saying “if you’re a fifteen-year-old kid, you shouldn’t be throwing curveballs, you should be throwing fastballs and change-ups. He said “your arm isn’t developed enough to be throwing that stuff.” And one of the best pitches in baseball is the change-up. If you have a good change-up, that scares the hell out of the batter. If somebody has a good change-up, that’s scary. If somebody would have taught me the basics of pitching instead of just throwing a ball and using my body, maybe I would have been doing something else. Because I was good at it, but I hated pitching. I hated it!

GC: What a shame. I tried to be a pitcher, I think there was just one game where I hit a bunch of batters. I think I had pretty good speed, but I would just choke. I was a catcher for a while but it was hard to find a left-handed catcher’s mitt. So we’d have to drive to New York and look around for one. I sort of just got into different things. But yeah when I was kid I thought maybe I’d play baseball. That’s interesting.

MS: Yeah, the Orioles beat the Sox in ‘83. That was a good team.

GC: Well that was the last time - when was the last time the Orioles were good? The 80’s?

MS: Yeah in ‘83 they took everything I think...I can’t remember. I know they beat the White Sox 3-1.

GC: That was when Earl Weaver was manager, and you had Eddie Murray, Mark Belanger, Jim Palmer.

MS: Eddie Murray man...I would just cringe every time he came up to bat. I was like “aw, shit.”

GC: Since then I haven’t been to the new stadium...Camden Yards? But I used to go to Memorial Stadium a lot, see double headers, but then I just fell out of it, got into a different thing. Alright, I can’t think of any final questions, but this is plenty!

MS: Cool.

The Marvin Sewell Interview Part 1

Marvin Sewell might be the greatest guitarist you've never heard of. I first met Sewell at a recording session in 1995. (Sewell, saxophonist Gary Thomas, and I improvised over hip-hop tracks for two days; these sessions were edited into what become Thomas' "Overkill: Murder In The Worst Degree," an album that we promoted in Europe on tours in 1995 and 1996.) I was struck immediately by Sewell's melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic approach. His improvisation sounded more like a saxophone player than a guitarist. His lines were very angular, and very unpredictable. After touring with the Overkill band a few times, we met again in 1999 for my first tour with Cassandra Wilson. In that setting, Sewell played acoustic guitar with alternate tunings and played a lot of bluesy slide guitar. I was impressed with his versatility. Sewell spent over a decade with legendary vocalist Wilson. Most recently, Sewell and I met up again on a tour of the U.K. with drummer Jack DeJohnette. Again, Sewell's unique approach really bowled me over. I found myself wondering why all guitarists didn't approach music like Sewell. (Also, Sewell, is not too shabby as a pianist; in fact, he easily knows more classical repertoire on piano than I do.)We had a small window of time during our detour to Tbilisi(in Georgia, the former Soviet territory), so I was able to grab an interview. This will run in two parts. Enjoy!

GC: Marvin, how did you get started playing music? Describe some of your earliest musical memories, and how did you go from that to wanting to become a musician?

MS: There was a guy by the name of Wallace Beard, he lived across the street from me and played bass. At the time I was heavily into baseball, wanted to be a professional baseball player. I played baseball every day.
GC: How old were you?

MS: Probably about nine, ten to around thirteen or fourteen. I played baseball every day, watched baseball, knew everything about baseball. I used to really enjoy when the games were delayed by rain. In between that, they would show these clips of professional baseball players giving tips. It’s because growing up in an inner city, a lot of times the problem with playing baseball is not that you’re not good, it’s that you haven’t been trained. You don’t know what to do.

GC: And you’re from Chicago. What part?

MS: Primarily the west side, I grew up in what we used to call a 

 rough part of Chicago called the Lawndale Community or K-Town, its nickname. Then we moved near the suburbs to the Austin area, which is right across the street from Old Park, Illinois. So when we moved to the Austin area there was this guy named Wallace Beard who played bass. He was a really cool guy, had all the girls, great bass player. I wanted to be like him, so I’d hang out with him and learn to play bass. But I’m left-handed, so I learned to take a right-handed bass and play upside down. And then I started hearing cats like Ernie Isley, Jimi Hendrix and I started hearing more stuff on guitar, so I switched to guitar. And Wallace used to play with a lot of gospel bands, basement R&B bands, so I used to go to the rehearsals and hang out and watch the guitar players and see what they were doing, and finally decided that I thought because it would give my parents an incentive to get me a cheaper guitar, I decided to switch and play it on the right side. But that didn’t work. (laughs) My uncle had bought my brother a guitar a few years back, he had bought him a Silvertone that you get from Sears and Rollbuck. They’re worth a little bit of money now, it was a guitar that came with the case and within the case there was an amplifier. So I started messing around with that and hanging around the guitar players at these basement bands, and I was just trying to learn chords and pick up what the rhythm guitar was doing. So I started getting into that and one time I found myself trying to be slick. A cousin of mine gave me a Mel Bay book to check out and then one time I found a book that had thousands and thousands of guitar chords. And it was good, and it was almost like that old saying where a dog chasing a car, and once he catches it he doesn’t know what to do with it. I knew all of these chords, I didn’t know - the book didn’t have any applications. And I learned how to do a lot of that. Somehow I got hooked up with a summer job at Malcolm X Community College and they had a big band. And I started getting into that and I really start going into a jazz stretch, but before that I was into the soul, rock, R&B. Then I heard Stanley Clarke’s record “School Days” and that flipped me out.  At first I didn’t understand it, I thought it was crap, I was like “man, what is this stuff”, you know. And then it kept growing on me, I was like “this is killing!” I had never heard anything like that. Then from that I heard a Duke Ellington record on the radio that flipped me out. I think it was Duke Ellington and Walter Blanton. The bassline tripped me out. I said “what is he doing? Is he playing chords on every note?” and that’s how I really started getting interested in jazz. I used to hang out with this guy, his name was Mike Smith. His name is Adonis now, he’s a house music pioneer. We used to hang out, and he hipped me to a lot of the European fusion cats like Allan Holdsworth, Bill Bruford. But in addition to that, his grandmother used to own a record shop in the 60s. So when she had all these records, she had Giant Steps, Wynton Kelly records - she had everything. Paul Chambers records...”Bass on top”, another record with the headlights on it, I forget the name of it. She had all of these records, all the classic stuff. And that’s how I got exposed to jazz, I was like “wow man, who are these people? I’ve never heard of them!” When I first heard Giant Steps, I didn’t know who I was listening to, I just heard all these colors! What is this, and who are these people? I heard never heard of Charlie Parker, or Dexter Gordon. When I started playing with the Malcom X Community College big band, with the summer job and all, I started learning how to apply some of the stuff that I was doing and “oh, and this is how you hook this up, this is what’s going on”. From there I heard about Charlie Parker and Dizzy. I used to see Dizzy on TV with his cheeks puffed out, but I didn’t know the music, so I started learning about that and it just kind of bloomed. Plus Chicago has a deep history of the blues, so in the background that was going on. There was an old man in my neighborhood that we used to tease “ah man, that cat’s playing that loud blues” and stuff like that. He’d kind of comment and say “one of these days, it’s gonna catch you!” And it did! That sound. I would imagine he was probably listening to people like Lightning Hopkins, Muddy Waters, my uncle was heavily into Howlin’ Wolf and BB King, all of that. So that’s how it all starting coming in, and also I just happened to be walking down Michigan Avenue - Chicago has a rich history of music - and I passed by a Symphony Hall, that’s what it used to be called, I think it’s called Symphony Center. And I saw the names Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and I think Wagner and I didn’t know any better, I said Wagner! (pronouncing the W). So I start looking these guys up in the encyclopedia at home, and I checked out Wagner, thinking “what is this ring cycle thing?” and I started getting interested in that. So it just started blooming after a while, and it kind of started coming together.

GC: So you got into classical music totally on your own?

 

MS: Yeah. Yeah, just out of curiosity. I was just wondering who these people where. I knew Beethoven because there was a commercial band that did a disco version of Beethoven’s 5th...Walter Murphy or whatever?

GC: (sings brief interpretation of Beethoven’s 5th with a disco beat)

MS: (laughs)I wanted to know who these people were, and I really wanted to know that music out of curiosity.

GC: Now what about your parents? Were your parents into music at all?

MS: Not really. My mother liked a lot of gospel music, very much that’s it. Just gospel music. When I started getting records I used to play jazz records and stuff. My mother liked jazz as long as it was played softly. My father was into country music. I remember one time I was heavily into this UFO show. I forget the name of the show, some show in the 70s. And there was this Elvis Presley special that was on TV and I said “oh I’m going to get my father to watch this.” I walk into the room, my father is lying down, his feet twitching to the beat of Elvis Presley with a big smile on his face. My father sort of liked the Country/Western that HE liked, there was a particular record he used to play, I don’t even know who performed it, but it was kind of a silly song. I never really heard my father into people like Howlin’ Wolf or James Brown. All of that stuff came through my brother. James Brown, War, Traffic, all sorts of psychedelic-type stuff, and later The Crusaders, instrumental music. I used to think Shaft was this long, instrumental thing because you didn’t hear any words for a long time. He was into stuff like that. Earth Wind and Fire, things like that. I got exposed to that style of music through him.

GC: So this is mid-70s now?

MS: Yeah. My father did play early on, but -

GC: He played?

MS: He played trumpet, but he wasn’t playing by the time I was born and growing up. I found this out later.

GC: So now you’re going to community college. Were you going to community college, or just involved in the program?

MS: I was involved with the program back in the 70s, they had this thing 

 called CETA jobs. I don’t know what the acronym means, but Ronald Reagan cut that stuff out quick.

GC: Of course.

MS: (laughs) I was involved with that, so I was still in high school. But I was playing with the Malcolm X Community College big band playing guitar, trying to learn how to read and accompany, so I got a lot of direction from a lot of people. There’s a few...I don’t know if too many people know of these guys...Elmer Brown on trumpet, he used to play in Jaco Pastorious’ band. Vincent Carter used to head the big band.

GC: Did you know Lonnie [Plaxico] back then?

MS: No, but I had heard of Lonnie. It’s kind of a funny thing, because this guy O’Donnis was studying with Lonnie, so the information that he was O’Donnis (Mike Smith) was getting from Lonnie, I’d get from him. He’d say “man, Lonnie told me to transcribe this entire Paul Chambers bass line on this Coltrane record”. I said “oh really? dig that” and stuff. So that’s how I basically knew Lonnie indirectly. One time I saw him drop by Michael’s house to get something or pick up something, but I didn’t know him in Chicago. I met him in New York.

GC: So after high school, what did you do?

MS: After high school, I got accepted into Chicago Musical College at Roosevelt University. I got there as a composition major. Which was cool, but I changed my major after a couple years. I’m glad I held that major for about 2-3 years because it gave me some ideas on improvisation and composing, and it got me access to private piano lessons.

GC: Now had you ever played piano before college?

MS: No. The only experience I had playing piano was this one time playing piano at a friends house, and I just start banging on it, just playing notes and pretending. I think I did it for two hours. I didn’t know what the hell I was playing, just hitting stuff and listening to the sounds.

GC: You had never played piano before?

MS: Never, never played piano before. I started my piano formal lessons in college. I took two years of group piano, and then for the next maybe 3-4 years I studied with Felize Gonz. Basically he kind of read the Riot Act to me, he said “if you’re a composer you should be able to do score reading, be a great sightreader, you should be able to play piano. That’s why you’re here.” We were painstakingly trying to read through those Bach chorales. And he had a particular technique of reading through the chorales and stuff, not just all 4 lines. He would have be read just the tenor or the bass, put it in different combinations. So you’d be able to read horizontally, then you put it together vertically. Because I think the chorales are harder to read if you take a couple of lines at a time. It’s because a lot of times with the chorales if you read the whole thing vertically, you can hear what’s going to happen. He had me play in the beginning, my first year, little Bach preludes, stuff out of small parts of music, this book called “Modern Classics” and stuff. I remember learning a Tchaikovsky piece. Little things like that. The following year he gave me a Chopin polonaise to play. The one in C minor. I can distinctly remember having a look on my face like “damn”, and he looked at me and said “you’re not a beginner anymore”. I had asked him, I said that I wanted to hear pieces that interested me. He’s the person who introduced me to Brahms’ music. He gave me pieces out of Opus 116, The Fantasies. To me that’s a great set of pieces to actually learn how to take a theme and actually develop it. All seven pieces are based upon a particular theme, or some type of downward or upward motion or some type of movement or counterpoint or rhythm. All seven pieces. I don’t think any of his sets of shorter pieces are like that except the Fantasies. So it was a great selection. I think that the first piece I learn was Opus 16 No.6, then No.3 which is more difficult, then No.4. Then later I learned the rest of them. They were great pieces to start with and learn about what’s going on. Then I’d play Scriabin preludes, Mozart, and Beethoven, which I had difficulty playing. Things like that, basic piano repertoire.

GC: What kind of things were you writing as a composition major, and did your development on piano affect your writing?

MS: Yeah. Things that I was writing with composition at the time...we were dealing with a lot of rhythm. I was taking a composition class for commercial writing, television commercials and things like that.
So yeah, we were learning how to hook up music with the time code. And they’d do interesting things...they’d say “you could use any rhythm you want, but only four notes. With these four notes, you have to put something together, create something.” So I learned how to do that. The whole aspect of it was that you had to put limitations on yourself. What can you do with this amount of information? How micro can you get with just this amount, instead of having this whole thing and having too many choices? Or they’d give me a series of notes, tell me to take a particular line, whole steps and half steps or whatever, and put it in retrograde and do all sorts of things with it. Also my piano playing helped me with composition because I was learning the classics, like with Brahms and themes. I was studying music history and learning Debussy too, and learning Stravinsky - well, learning about Stravinsky. What they were doing with melody and with chords. Not so much what they were doing with rhythm as far as history, but in the Classical era what they were doing with rhythm and how it was more rhythmically daring that the Romantic era. I learned about sound, how these two notes on these two instruments sound when they play together. How is it voiced, if you do a particular voicing. I learned about taking two different chords and putting them together and seeing what kind of sound that was, and what kind of colors you could get, how you move from one thing to another. Create some type of harmonic movement as well as a melodic movement. Counterpoint and the use of color, use of space. The use of tension, the use of power, the use of lyricism.

GC: So you changed your major?

MS: I changed my major to music business.

GC: Interesting.

MS: (laughs) Yeah, it was interesting. Because it wasn’t what I thought it was. I thought about it would be about the music business, but it was music/business. I had taken a lot of finance classes, I was in the finance club where they gave us money to invest in the market.

GC: Really! Wow!

MS: Yeah, just a small amount.

GC: A million dollars.

MS: (laughs) So that was a small club, I got into that. I had to take a bunch of music education classes. That was kind of hard. But I myself continued taking piano lessons because that was most interesting to me.

GC: What about guitar? Did you take guitar lessons?

MS: I took guitar lessons outside of where I had attended. It seemed like the guitar department at the University was a bit too dogmatic and didn’t take into consideration that students are different people. It was like they had a program no matter what level you were on, they were always going to start you out with the Sor book. Fernando Sor. I had a teacher outisde of that where I was learning classical guitar technique. He was a very good teacher, his name is Dean Nelson. He was a bass player who learned how to play classical guitar. He taught me a lot about trying to create, not just the notes, but trying to create a sound and different timbre and how to orchestrate on the instrument. Try to really deal with music.

GC: Well yeah, that’s what’s been really striking about hearing you play over the past two weeks is that in some ways its not the typical things that I hear from guitar. It seems like, we were talking about instruments being in a box, but I feel like a lot of times with guitar there’s certain things that guitarists tend to do. They have voicings that are everywhere, everyone’s doing these voicings. Again, it could be on any instrument, but would you agree with that? Are you even conscious of that? It just seems like you have a completely different approach than a lot of the guitar players I’ve been around.

MS: Well...from early on, when I started listening to jazz music...I don’t mean to sound messed up, but the last thing I wanted to sound like was a guitar player. When I heard Joe Henderson, Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley, Bud Powell - I said “that’s what I wanted to sound like.” Much love to the guitar greats, I used to listen to a lot of George Benson, he’s one of my favorites. But it was a conscious effort to listen to him up to a certain point, because I didn’t want to sound like him, or any guy. Because I knew a lot of players that sounded just like Benson or Joe Pass or whoever their favorite was, and or me the way Cannonball or Joe Henderson or Don Byas, the way they phrased, I wanted to spit out stuff like that! Or Bud Powell! I wanted to do that. So I started hanging around cats - there was a disadvantage to that because there were mechanics of the guitar that I was learning until later, but I wanted to see what the piano players were doing, or see how horn players phrase and things like that. It was a conscious effort.  A lot of times guitar is almost like a community. It’s this small community world and people have their favorite guitarist, and this group had their favorite, and it’s very (as Sonny Sharrock said) it’s an insular group. You have this tendency where they listen to each other and therefore everyone sounds alike. I’m not trying to say I’m not anything like them, but sometimes I try to avoid that a little bit.

GC: I think it’s interesting too that this band that we’re currently playing with - you’re playing guitar, but you’re not playing in the way guitarist play. And then you have someone like Don Byron taking the clarinet, Eb clarinet, playing things you don’t hear. That’s already something that a little outside the box. And then the way Jack [DeJohnette] plays is atypical of a lot of drummers, but it’s a very musical way. There are times where I don’t consider myself a pianist because I think I have less - you probably took more piano lessons than I did, in terms of classical repertoire. I just try to play what I hear and I’m influenced because I played trumpet, and so on. So there’s this interesting approach, and do you think - maybe this is a leading question - but do you feel that everyone should approach playing music this way, or improvising? Not necessarily to think in terms of their instrument?

MS: I think it’s important for me, I would say. I think it’s important to think more about playing music. I think you should, and being a musician...because somebody can be a great instrumentalist, but maybe not necessarily be a great musician. You know what I mean?

GC: Yeah!

MS: I think, because I come from a thing where to me it’s all about the ensemble. And of course when it’s your time to shine it’s your time to shine, but the best feeling to me is when the ensemble is creating something, instead of what I call the “Concerto concept”, where you have a blank-faced rhythm section accompanying the soloist. To me what makes people really deal with music is when the ensemble makes it happen. When you really have to deal with music instead of like “I’m going to dial this lick in”, because someone might play something that rhythmically is in a different place, or a different chord, or playing in another key. What you have programmed isn’t necessarily going to work and at that point you have to deal with music and not with mechanics or your licks or whatever. You have to start using your ear and start creating. I think it’s more important. I’d rather be a good musician than a great guitarist. My philosophy is sort of the same as what Andre Previn said. To me, if somebody says “man, that Marvin Sewell is a great musician” that means more to me. As one girlfriend told me, she said “just because a person knows how to type fast doesn’t mean that they’re saying anything when it hits the paper.” So that aspect of it is to me more important. I will admit that I do a few things, like solo guitar stuff, which is cool and I want to develop that more, but that’s not where I have fun. To me the social environment of playing music and connecting with people on stage is the greatest feeling to me. When people have this connection...sometimes it’s good to do your solo thing and to be there but when you have a community of people on stage creating something, and when it’s on, there’s no better feeling than that.

GC: I agree with that. That to me is what makes playing with Jack so special, there’s always this sense of communication which is challenging, because you can never go on autopilot because you never know what’s coming around the corner. The way he plays is so interactive, and it’s not so much a beat as it is a conversation. Constant improvisation, and yet everybody has a place. I think that’s what interesting about the way you approach this gig. I can tell that Jack is excited about it because things that you do with comping, he’s reacting, he’s trying to figure out stuff that works. It’s that stimulation that keeps us alive.

MS: Jack is one of the greatest listeners in music. I can’t tell you the depth...I remember I did a recording with him and I played something...and he just...when you hear him with Keith Jarrett or any other group. I’m sorry to sound “Facebooky”, but I feel blessed! God is good!

(laughter)

It’s a great honor to play with somebody on that level, on that level of listening. The conversations that he has...I listen to him talk, and the amount of knowledge that he has. It’s not in a “I know this” type of way, it just flows out of him. Just like the music that comes out of him. He’s constantly aware of things. I remember one time, when I first did a gig with him. I was so damn nervous. I was on stage with Gary Thomas, Lonnie Plaxico, Michael Caine, and Jack! And I was so nervous that I was kind of facing the band instead of the audience, and I remember Jack came to me, this was years ago, and he said in a loving way, as just a suggestion, “if you notice when I’m playing, you notice sometimes I’ll look up when I do my solo. I’m checking the audience, I’m trying to make a connection to them, make a connection to somebody.” Years ago I heard Arthur Rubenstein say the same thing. Making a connection, because it’s not just about us over here playing it. “It’s just a suggestion”, he said, “why don’t you check that out?” It really helped me, the next concert I felt the energy. Even if it’s just one person, or the aggregate energy of the crowd, the flowing energy. It’s that type of stuff that really helped me. I think playing with Jack in that short amount of time I did really helped me accompany singers, playing with Cassandra [Wilson], and playing with other people. I said “man, this cat really hears everything and is really open”. Playing with him has been an invaluable experience.