Joe Gransden |
In this part two of our two part interview we learn about Joe's take on several iconic trumpet players, how he met the actor Clint Eastwood, his work with the smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G., the balance between work and family, his work as a big band leader, his acting ambition and his future projects.
NOJ: What intrigues me is how you guys keep the tightness of a great big band when you obviously don’t get a chance to practice together on a regular basis. It is not like the old days when the bands traveled together for months at a time and lived and eat and slept together as a unit. How does this work now?
JG: In the old days the bands were like a family. It was
in many respects a very difficult life. I know what you are talking about though, even when
I started this band seven year ago, how difficult it could be to try to keep a group
together, get practice space, manage a sound system and run around and book
gigs. So that is why I got the gig at John Scatena’s Café 290 on the first and
third Monday every month. We get paid a little bit, we play in front of a live
audience which is good for the nerves, and we can try out new stuff. Wes
Funderbunk, who plays lead trombone, arranges most of our charts, although some of the other guys are now arranging also. If I was going
to do this gig I wanted to do it on a Monday night, like they do in New York, which is usually when nobody has a gig. So that
is our chance, twice a month to rehearse. If we crash and burn once in a while
the crowd is so great we all just laugh and have a wonderful time. We get a
thirty minute warm up before the show and we can get a lot accomplished in
thirty minutes so it works. John Scatena has been extremely helpful and he has stuck
with us all this time.
NOJ: How do the economics of a big band work in today’s
market which is generally unkind economically to musicians?
JG: Not very well.
It is very difficult. I know Harry Connick Jr's band is down to five horns and
he can charge pretty much what he wants. It is very difficult to have sixteen
to eighteen musicians plus stage assistance to put a big band on the road. It would
be almost impossible without a big name like Michael Buble or Harry Connick
Jr. or whoever tit is that can demand enough
money to pay the guys. On the other hand in a local setting like the Southeast
it is doable. It is doable to go to South Florida for one night and get paid
enough to make it worthwhile. But
economically, if I was smart, it would be more economically viable with a six-piece band, but I also do
that also, so the big band is something special.
If people want the big band for an event there are few people doing
that.
NOJ: Are you playing weddings with the big band?
JG: Sure, we play a lot of concerts now. It used to be
ten percent concerts and the rest would be corporate parties and weddings now
it is like fifty percent concerts. We play at performing art centers, at clubs like the Blue
Note. So no one else is really doing what we do in the South east.
NOJ: The
trombonist Wes Funderburk has been the principal arranger for your big band
music. How and where did you meet Wes and how did he start arranging for the
large ensemble?
JG: I met Wes
years ago at Georgia State University. We played in the jazz band there and
played in countless settings over the years. We have always been friends and he
has always been a talented arranger, but he really started to pour it on more in
the early two thousand’s . With this band, as much as I wanted to play the
stock arrangements of the old days to kind of pay tribute to that sound, I also wanted the band to have it’s own sounds. Since I don’t arrange for big bands, I
had the option of going to someone who was well known for arranging or getting a guy that is in the band, who knows the abilities of each musician, who
knows my abilities as a singer and a musician and who can arrange. That is why I said Wes you
got to be the guy. He loved it. Early on, the first three or four years, he was
writing like crazy and I would go over his house twice a week saying “yeah I
love that," or "take that out, I can’t sing that.” Now he knows me so well that and
I know him so well , we have such a great working relationship that all I have
to do is say is I need an arrangement on this tune, with this tempo, this beat
and he doesn’t have to ask me anything its always just right.
Wes Funderburk
NOJ: Did Wes have any mentors and if not who does he pattern
himself after as an arranger?
JD: I know he
loves Nelson Riddle, Billy May, but I really never had a long conversation with
him about that. As a trombone player he loves JJ Johnson, Bill Watrous.
Nelson Riddle and Frank Sinatra
NOJ: Do you want to pursue composing more of your own music
or is that something that doesn’t interest you?
JG: It is on my
plate. It does interest me, I just have to make the time for it. I do want to record an album of all originals
in the next couple of years. I have written a handful of songs. I don’t focus
on that and sometimes I am bothered by that, but I have had many musicians say
to me you can’t do everything.
NOJ: The sound of a truly well-oiled big band is like no
other. You are taken yours to the Blue Note Jazz Club in NYC next week July 11,
2016 . I know it’s not your first time there, but it must be exciting to be
given the opportunity to play this famous club once again. Tell us about the
whole experience.
JG: It is an amazing
experience. This will be our fourth time so the unknown factor has sort of been
removed. Every time we play the club for some reason we follow The Dizzy
Gillespie All Star Big Band, they play Tuesday through Saturday and then we
play Monday. So we have big shoes when
we go up there. Actually playing at the club is unbelievable. You get on that
stage and you realize the history of that place, everybody has been on that
stage. When you get here you think oh it’s a little club, but then you go in the
dressing room and you think who else has been in this dressing room? You get on
that stage and they announce your name and New York City so it’s always a great crowd. The
house is usually big and they turn the lights on and it’s a feeling of magic
and energy that is hard to explain. For us, we work so hard with this big
band, it’s like a retreat, once a year..
NOJ: I guess it’s almost
like validation of some sort.
JG: Yeah I think it is. We are playing the Blue Note, they are asking us to play this place. They know the financial risk. They know it is hard for us. They have given
me the option bringing in a smaller group, but they love the big band. We fly
up, we go to dinner in Little Italy, it is just an awesome experience.
NOJ: It seems like
you have generally avoided teaching as a supplement to your musical career? Do you teach
now?
JG: I do teach.
I teach privately at my studio at my house. I have between five to eight
students a week. I only
take very serious musicians, mostly take jazz trumpet players and I enjoy
it. I always said that I
wasn’t going to let teaching get in the way of my performing. My wife who is a
great flute player is
one hundred percent dedicated to the education of her students, that is what
she wants to do. If
she was offered to play principal flute in some symphony I am sure she would
say no. She would
much rather help kids further their education musically. It’s not that I don’t
want to help kids
further their education, but it is just that my brain is wired to want to be on
stage. As far a later in
life would I be interested in teaching, I think I would be for sure.
NOJ: As if your musical endeavors are not enough you are
also pursuing a career in acting. How did that come
about?
JG: It was
actually at the Blue Note. When I first met Clint Eastwood everybody started
razzing me saying
you are going to start make movies. On many occasions, because
he liked Chet Baker so much and knew him, I asked him if he had ever
considered making a movie about Chet’s life? He said he definitely
would be interested, but that he had never seen a screen play that he liked. So myself and two
other people wrote a screen play about Chet’s life. It took us two years and
right about
when we were ready to present it. this movie with Ethan Hawke comes out so that
was that.
Back to
the Blue Note, it was about three years ago. A guy came up to me after the
show, he was getting
ready to start a movie and asked me had I ever done any acting. So I said yeah,
I totally lied. So
I went to Jersey somewhere and took a screen test for this movie. He didn’t
give me the part, but he did say I think you can do
this. Go back to Atlanta for six months and take some acting lessons,
study and come back. I did just that. I studied with Shannon Eubanks, great
actor, great coach.
So I went back six months later and re-did the screen test and he gave me the
part. It was a great
movie and I was going to play the part of the best friend of the lead actor,
and I had tons of lines
and a lot of scenes. I was going to be very much over my head. But the film ran
into financial and
ownership problems, and unfortunately, to this day, the movie was never made. It is still on
hold.
NOJ: Tell us how you got introduced to Clint Eastwood and
where that relationship has taken you?
Joe Gransden and Clint Eastwood
JG: Clint I met
maybe thirteen years ago. I have a friend in town who has produced a few of my cds. He loved
my music and would tell me that I needed to get my music in front of people in
the entertainment business. He told me to write a letter to Clint Eastwood
and that he would get it to him. I
thought he was crazy, but I did what he asked and sent a copy of one of the cds
my friend helped
produce. About a month later I got a
call from Clint’s wife who said they had received the letter
and the cd and that they would love for me to come to Carmel and play a party
that they had
coming up. I fly there and picked up
some local musicians from the area to play at this member
party for his golf club. I stayed an extra two days and played golf with Clint
and hung out and we
talked about Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker.
He knew them back in the day, and it was great.
We really hit it off in the sense that we both were into this music. That
turned into many subsequent appearances at various functions for him and people he knew. I got to play along with Glen Campbell and Huey Lewis
and Kenny G. That’s how I meet Kenny G. When the gig was over Kenny liked my
playing and asked me to come to his house in Malibu and
write a smooth jazz record together. At the time, I was more
of a purist. The next day I was playing golf with Clint and told him that Kenny
G wanted me to do
a record with him and I asked him should I do it? He told me “What are you
nuts, of course.”
So that’s how I got to work with Kenny G. We did this record called Close to My Heart. Since then I have been friends
with Kenny. Clint has influenced my career so much.
NOJ: How did you
overcome the reticence that you must have had to play this formulaic smooth
jazz that
Kenny is so famous for?
JG: There were a number of reasons. One was it
gave me a chance to be on a major stage. Secondly I liked him. He was a wonderful person to be
around. I was hanging out with him a little while at his house in
Malibu and the guy is an amazing musician. I’d play him little riffs that I
picked from listening to Freddie
or someone, and if he liked it he would listen to it and pick it right up.
These were the same
things that took me months to pick up. So I could see he
was a talented musician. Whether you’re a
fan of his or not, the guy can play a melody. He has found a niche for himself
and over a hundred million people have bought his records, so a lot more like him then
don’t. I love him. When I
get to play with him and his band it’s so professionally done. I am fully aware that when I play
this music it’s not the same as when I play really swinging jazz, but that’s
true of a lot of pop music.
Kenny G and Joe Gransden
I’m
working on a pop song that is coming out soon, with the smaller section of my
big band. Kipper
Jones wrote this song for me it’s a great tune it’s called “Go Getta.” I think
it could be a hit for
us, but when we were recording this song, it was different from my usual gig. It
was like what
you’re talking about, maybe a bit more formulaic, more about let’s put the chorus here, or how can
we make this a hit, or this section is too long for people’s attention. It was very little about
creating and improvising in the studio and I didn’t take this as being a
negative thing. What we were doing was a different side of music. Kenny G is the top of this side
and Wynton Marsalis is the top of the other side and you can’t really compare
those two musicians because they are both great at what they do.
NOJ: What new projects do have coming up after the Blue Note
gig?
JG: As I said, the biggest thing is getting this pop tune
out ,“Go Getta,” and releasing it at the right time and possibly
producing a small, short video for it. We just converted from paper charts to
all electronic
charts on individual foot operated I pads for the big band. That was a huge
project that has taken six
months to get it where it is.
I also want to be a recording with the big band
in the studio with a live
audience, maybe thirty or forty people and I want to record the music like the
old day. The big band and
me right there in front of this audience. It might even make this a “Go Fund Me”
type project. We
as musicians are always working in and out of the studios, but I think it would
be cool for some of the
people who like the band and want to contribute to this project to get a chance to experience the recording studio atmosphere.
It is a lot of pressure to have to sing and play live on a record it because
there are no retakes, but
I think we are ready for it.
NOJ: Got any anxious thoughts about the Blue Note gig?
JG: I have one. I ‘m going home after this to
practice this new song that Clifford Brown wrote for his wife. It
is called “La Rue” it is a ballad that Clifford wrote and this guy Rich Pullen
wrote the lyrics to it
and it has never been played. Bobby Shew turned Pullen on to me and he thinks I
would be perfect
to sing this. It is a Clifford Brown melody which is to say it is a trumpet
melody and it is difficult
to sing. It’s a beautiful ballad so I’ll do my best, but we will premiere it at
the Blue Note so I’m a little revved up about that.
NOJ: Any words of wisdom for any up and coming musicians
who may be reading this?
JG: The most important thing as a musician is
putting in the time early, practicing so that the technique
is second nature and do the homework to listen to what came before you. If you
love it, you have
got to pursue it. Also learn to sight read well. The musicians that work the
most are the musicians
that can sight read the best.
NOJ: Thanks Joe and good luck at the Blue Note.
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