Jazz Saxophone at it's best, Walter Smith III "TWIO"

Walter Smith III TWIO Whirlwind Records 

Houston born Walter Smith III is now a West Coast based, no nonsense tenor saxophonist who is amongst the leading voices on his instrument. I have been following his work since I first heard him on his Live in Paris from 2009 and later on Ambrose Akinmusire’s When the Heart Emerges Glistening from 2011. At the time he was a strong ensemble player who worked particularly well with trumpet players like Terrence Blanchard, Christian Scott, Sean Jones and Ambrose Akinmusire on a front line.

On his latest effort Twio (think of Elmer Fudd saying trio), soon to be released on February 9, 2018, his playing as a leader has matured and become more confident. He is joined on six of the nine songs on the album, by the plucky bass of Harish Raghavan and the percolating drums of Eric Harland. For the other four songs Harland remains on traps while the bass chair is taken over by the ubiquitous jazz ambassador and uber-bassist Christian McBride. On two of the songs Smith is joined by the second tenor saxophone of Joshua Redman. As the saxophonist has said in his promo materials, the songs were chosen to be more accessible and are about community and having fun. It seems with Twio he has accomplished what he set out to do.

The set starts off with a loping version of Monk’s “Ask Me Now.”  Smith’s bold tenor sound starts off with Raghavan’s brash bass out front and deliberate in its steadfast march as Harland playfully, dances around the rhythm. It’s Smith’s smooth, lustrous tone that is front and center here, as he works the melody with a marvelous sense of confident mastery. His explorations, especially when he solos alone, naked with his horn with no background rhythm section for support, are marvelously free and inventive.

On the Jerome Kern standard “Nobody Else But Me” we hear some intuitive interplay between Raghavan and Smith as the freewheeling Harland mixes it up. Smith’s sax has a loose limber feel to it both within the melody line and when he delves into some quicker paced harmonic explorations, yet he always seems to maintain the core melodic line of the song when he is playing. He has a knack of keeping the listener always engaged even when he improvises.

The cowboy inspired “On the Trail” finds bassist McBride, his big round bass and his signature stutter step, double-time lines leading the drive.  Harland is more in the pocket on this song and we are treated to the dual tenor saxophone line of Smith and Joshua Redman. The song brings back memories of Sonny Rollins venture into cowboy songs with his Way Out West album. While neither saxophonist has quite the same big, biting sound of Rollins, they each have their own identifiable sound and play off the other with great dexterity and purpose. After alternating the melody between them, the two saxophonists offer their own take on the melody before trading licks in a friendly exchange of ideas;  a fine addition to the tradition of tenor saxophone sparring matches by the two young titans.

The C. Fischer ballad “We’ll Be Together Again” is played as a saxophone and drum duo. We hear an unusual metronomic drum entrance by Harland that has the cadence of a slow strip. Smith’s round Dexter Gordon-like tenor rings through the melody with a mellifluous warmth that is quite sensuous as Harland adds percussive accents around the slow tempo beat.

McBride and Harland return for the Sammy Fain classic “I’ll Be Seeing You.”  Smith’s languorous saxophone states the melody solo before McBride’s buoyant bass and Harland’s traps enter. At about the two minutes mark the group picks up the pace and turns it into a medium tempo swinger with McBride’s bass leading the charge. A fleet fingered bass solo gets you snapping your fingers before Smith returns and restates the melody with a nuanced sensitivity that is compelling.

On Wayne Shorter’s “Adam’s Apple” bassist Raghavan returns providing a throbbing backdrop. The trio takes on a more modern feel, with Smith winding his sinewy way through the composition and finding some common ground with Harland who is given an extended solo that crackles with energy.

Perhaps the most moving performance on this album is Smith’s poignant portrayal on Jimmy Rowles “The Peacocks.”  Smith correctly chooses a slow, languorous approach to this brooding song. His saxophone is beautifully nuanced and emotive as Raghavan’s bass down holds the bottom and Harland’s active traps swirl and shimmer beneath. The song has been in the repertoire of many a jazz great because of its haunting melody and it’s potential as a vehicle for expression. Here the thirty-seven-year old Smith makes it his own with a quiet confidence that is mature beyond his age.

Another perennial favorite is Gigi Gryce’s “Social Call” which starts off with Smith simply stating the melody line and playing a jaunty duet with a walking bass of McBride. Smith’s unadorned saxophone is a joy of fluidity and clarity and with McBride’s musical bass the two make wonderful music on this amusing Gryce classic.

The finale reunites the two saxophone voices of Redman and Smith in a unison chorus of Smith’s original composition “Contrafact,” a song based on "Like Someone in Love" in five meter. The two weave each other’s voices into an aural tapestry that is both willowy and colorful. McBride and Harland create a rumbling underbody over which the two saxophonists take turns finding common harmonic ground. It offers the listener a chance to compare the two saxophonists’ approach to improvising, which except for tone and attack have more similarities than differences. McBride offers a dazzling display of dexterity on his short but potent solo before the two saxophonists return to unison playing that is quite impressive in its precision.

Interview w/ Pianist Christian Sands and His Latest Release "Reach"

Christian Sands is a twenty-seven year old pianist who hails from New Haven, Connecticut. His work  with drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. in Grammy Award winning bassist  Christian McBride’s  trio, has already garnered him wide spread recognition.  Together these three musicians re-wrote what we came to expect from a piano jazz trio. A sophisticated, extremely intuitive trio that brought a jois de vivre to everything they played-from a re-imagining of a well-worn standard, to breathing new life into an improvised version of a contemporary pop song.  Although the trio was led and anchored by McBride,  Sands dazzled audiences with his silky, polished facility and his locked-in sense of swing that manifested itself in a myriad of styles that he commands.

The young man has been attempting to play the piano since he was a toddler trying to reach the keyboard, and started formal lessons at the age of four.  Classically trained, he found himself all too often distracted by his desire to improvise on the classics. He was directed by a teacher to jazz studies, and eventually met Dr. Billy Taylor at a summer jazz program at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, who became a mentor and took the young Sands under his wing.  Besides studying masters like Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson and Dr. Taylor, Sands has also studied with two young lions of contemporary piano, Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer and cites them all as inspirational.

Sands will be playing for two nights, Friday and Saturday June 9 and 10^th this weekend at the Velvet Note in Alpharetta in support of his latest album Reach. Notes on Jazz caught up with Sands via telephone Friday afternoon June 9, 2017.

NOJ: I understand you have some ties to Atlanta can you speak to that for our hometown fans?

CS: Yeah, it’s my mother’s side of the family. My mother is originally from Augusta- Waynesboro GA. All the family is down there, but I have a few cousins and a few family members that have moved to Atlanta, so that is where the Atlanta connection comes from.

NOJ: So what do you think of the Atlanta music scene?

CS: It’s great, I know a few musicians who come from here like (drummer) Terreon Gulley and (vocalist) Avery Sunshine. I actually spoke to her yesterday on the phone. We were going in opposite directions – she was going to the airport and I was coming in from there.  We were trying to link up but couldn’t make it work. The music scene is awesome down here. Just growing up and listening to hip-hop, Atlanta’s hip-hop scene is amazing; the whole Georgia connection is incredible. Georgia is in the bloodstream of my music and in me too.

NOJ: You have been playing piano from the age of about four years old from what I have read. Were you trained classically when you first took lessons?

CS:  I started playing piano when I was about one or two, I started lessons at four. It’s kind of difficult to find a teacher for a four year old. I was originally classically trained, doing Suzuki piano, playing Chopin and Mozart and that kind of repertoire. Then I went to jazz studies when I was about seven years old.

NOJ: Did any of the classical composers really ring true to you?

CS: Mozart. Really because of the story of Mozart .I heard how young he was when he started. I kind of identified with that because I was young at the same time. As a child you think you can identify because you are both five or six or seven. That’s the vibe, that’s what I was hearing myself as.

NOJ: Do you still listen to classical music?

CS: Oh yeah, all the time. I ‘am heavily into Scriban, but since college I have loved Erik Satie. I absolutely love Satie, because of his use of simplicity and depth at the same time. He has got this dark beauty in his writing. I love Ravel and Debussy of course. You talk about colors and textures, the shaping of music, is absolutely incredible. I am still a fan of Mozart, almost anytime I hear any Mozart or any of the operas come on the radio, I am listening. I’m a big fan of Puccini as well.

NOJ: So how did you change direction from classical to jazz?

CS: I always liked to create. I liked to improvise, so when I was younger I would take the songs that I was learning-Bach, Chopin or Mozart- and I would improvise on the etudes, improvise on some of the patterns that they had. In classical you’re not supposed to do that, so I would get in trouble all the time. I would just take a solo and do one chorus and I would change the keys, my teacher finally got tired of telling me not to do that anymore, so she ended up telling my parents to put me into jazz studies. So that’s when I started those studies and I was seven.

NOJ: You took lessons with Billy Taylor?

Dr. Billy Taylor

CS: Well not just yet. I took lessons from Dr. Taylor at maybe fourteen years old. It was absolutely incredible. I started out meeting him at the Jazz in July Program at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I actually teach there now, this is my third year teaching at the program. It’s actually awesome to be there. It’s a two week program and I was supposed to do just one week, but I fell in love with the program and fell in love with Dr. Taylor. He liked my playing and asked if I could stay the second week and so I did. Everywhere he went I went.

NOJ: What is the most influential thing Dr. Taylor did for you as a pianist?

CS: The most influential thing that I can say Dr. Taylor talked about (with me) was honesty in music. A lot of people don’t talk about that. He talked about why people sound the way they sound. It wasn’t because they were trying to develop concepts or something like that; it was because they were a product of their environment. He talked about bringing the audience with you. Build your audience to the point that they know exactly where you are going.  If you want to play avant-garde, for example, build into that. He was a master of literally breaking down music. He would tell you what’s going to happen in the form. He would tell you who is going to solo here. He would tell you what kind of groove you were going to hear-(on a composition) maybe from swing groove to Latin groove on the bridge. What is the bridge? Well, the bridge is the middle section of the song. He would take the time to explain all the parts before he would actually perform it.

NOJ: So if I understand what you are saying, structure was essentially is what you took away from his teaching?

CS: Yeah, just the way to play music in an honest way.

NOJ: Meaning what? Coming from your heart? Coming from your soul?

CS: Yrs coming from your heart and coming from your soul, but just coming from where you have come from. Coming from what you have experienced in your life.

NOJ: You also took lessons from Jason Moran. Compare what you got from Jason as opposed to what you got from Dr. Taylor.

CS: Jason was amazing. My studies with him and Dr. Taylor overlapped for about a year. Studying with both of them was so good for me because I learned so much about the history of piano. Dr. Taylor was around when modern jazz piano was being developed. He being a protégé of Art Tatum all the way to him being around to see guys like Jason Moran, was just a tremendous breadth of experience. Jason talked about pianists that a lot of other people didn’t talk about, like Paul Bley, Herbie Nichols, Andrew Hill and Jaki Byard. Jaki and Andrew were both Jason’s teacher so he came from that. What Jason taught me was the way to create. Jason was all about creation, all about challenging my creativity. We never worked on repertoire; it was always we worked on creativity.

NOJ: Can you elaborate and explain how he would do that?

Jason Moran

CS: Jason would have a two hour lesson and within that lesson we would just improvise and play off each other. Maybe one goal would be to try not to repeat ourselves for the entire session, or try to play the full two hours without stopping and see how far we got. Continuously just moving in all directions, -almost like water-pushing envelopes and pushing different ideas, trying to see how creative we could be.

NOJ: Was this exercise played within a song format or was it free?

CS: Not necessarily, sometimes it would be or develop into a song. Sometimes it would be free form; sometimes it would just be segments or just vamps or just anything. That was the great thing about Jason, anything was game.Literally, it could be playing inside the piano for two hours and seeing what kind of sounds we could get out of it.

NOJ: So if I can distill this a little bit for myself; Billy was structure and honesty and Jason gave you freedom and creativity. Is that fair?

CS: Yeah perfect.

NOJ:  You also took lessons with Vijay Iyer, what did he bring to the table for you?

CS: Vijay was very similar to Jason, except Vijay was in a way very much structured like Dr. Taylor. He would say creation was good, but it had to be purposeful. So he would like to write something, for say the drums to specifically play. He was more into through composing. It was the creativity with less manipulation of the creativity within through composed pieces.

NOJ:  Within Iyer’s format he still allows his trio to improvise?

CS: Yes, but a lot of it is based on things that are already written, which is interesting. So the drum groove that Marcus Gilmore might play is written there, but then within that he will make a variation of what is already written.  Vijay is all about textures as well. When I mean textures, I mean, I compare his music to like (the game cube) Tetris. You have the block and you can move its parts side to side and up and down. His music is very sequential. He taught me how to take patterns and textures in ways that it’s either the melody or the harmony or the rhythm. Each piece had multiple functions. It works out because he is an engineer so it makes perfect sense.

Kenya Revisited  Bobby Sanabria's Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra

NOJ: You were on the Grammy nominated 2009 recording Kenya Revisited Live when you were with Bobby Sanabria’s Manhattan School of Music Jazz Band. This, by the way, was a great, great album. Tell us about that experience.

CS:  Bobby Sanabria is quite an individual. He is an amazing person and an amazing band leader. The majority of the students in the band were seniors or master’s students. That year myself, I think Jake Goldbas the drummer was in that band, and there were a few other freshmen in that band. The fact that he could take like five freshmen and the upperclassmen and turn us into this machine, and what a machine; it’s incredible and even Bobby said that was the best band he ever had. Then to be nominated for a Grammy was absolutely an incredible experience. I got to learn more about Latin music. I grew up playing it in New Haven and also Hartford CT. They are both big Latin scenes. I grew up playing in different Latin ensembles like a Latin Jazz Ensemble or a Brazilian Jazz Ensemble. The first Latin pianist I was introduced to was Chucho Valdez and then Gonzalo Rubalcaba after that. There are so many cats that can play that. I first got into Chucho and for me he was like a combination of Oscar Peterson and McCoy Tyner. But he had this heavy, heavy rhythmic feel. Both of them are heavy rhythmically and both are virtuosos. So listening to that was incredible.  My senior year in high school I also started playing with Los Hombres Caliente out of New Orleans with Bill Summers and Irvin Mayfield. They were heavily into Latin influence, but also Creole music. That was the first band I ever went out on tour with. Being a fan of Bill Summers from Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters days, I was already hooked into that, and Irvin Mayfield just played a pile of trumpet. That’s when I joined Bobby Sanabria, being in that band I learned so much. One of the things I learned was how to play intensely. You heard that band, how to play with so much force and a lot of passion, because you hear Bobby just yelling and screaming. He would point and you and tell you to solo, and you have no chord changes or nothing and you have got to play something. Again creativity, but also just passion, and playing with fire. That’s how I describe playing with Bobby, playing with fire.

NOJ: You played with Christian McBride for several years in a remarkable trio (with drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.) what did you personally get from that experience with Christian?

CS: Similar to Dr.Taylor, just the honesty of music, because with Christian his music is him. Away from the stage he is this big personality with this big laugh and this big smile and this loving personality, and that’s what his music is. His music reflects that personality. So one of the things that I learned while I was with him was just how to be yourself in music. How to truly be you, and how the music should reflect you, because that is what he is all about. It should reflect everyone (in the band), but it mostly reflects him. He probably learned that from Freddie Hubbard, or all the people he has played with, because when you listen to Freddie Hubbard it’s unapologetic, it’s in your face. One thing I learned from McBride is how to be yourself in music and also I learned just how to play for people, instead of musicians. He is such a virtuoso that he can play anything.

NOJ: But he is also a bit of a showman, right?

CS: Yeah he is a bit of a showman, how to entertain people. When musicians come up to your gig, they know what you’re doing already, but the people don’t. It’s all about how you feel, how people feel. So we will play a Motown or Jackson Five tune or like we recorded that Rolls Royce tune “Car Wash.” So I’ve learned not everyone is a jazz lover or aficionado, but they are all music lovers. So play music, so that is what I learned from him.

NOJ: That gets us back to that Dr. Taylor statement about how do you try to bring your audience along with you without compromising yourself and your own musical integrity?

CS: Exactly.

NOJ:  It is always an issue for club owners and promoters of this music, who want to preserve the tradition and the legacy but struggle with maintaining an audience. What was Dr. Taylor’s solution to this problem of bringing your audience along with you?

CS: It’s funny, because Dr. Taylor just loved all music. Because we would sit down and have conversations about Mary Lou Williams and the next conversation would be about the Roots or A Tribe Called Quest. He knew them, especially the Roots. They recorded “I Wish I Knew How It Feels to be Free” with John Legend and I asked him about that recording and he knew it and he told me he loved what they did with it. His thing was that music is supposed to evolve. Music is supposed to be a documentation of what life is (at any given time.)  I have had a lot of conversations about where jazz going is or what jazz is. Is hip hop jazz or should it be straight ahead, or big band or traditional?I’m a product of both. For me jazz is supposed to evolve, but you should evolve from the knowledge of where you have come from.

NOJ: I understand what you’re saying and people like Nicholas Payton have their own ideas about jazz and the word and what it all means, and if the word has any relevance anymore.

CS: Yeah, I totally understand where Payton is coming from too. I feel that jazz is still there because that is where all the music comes from. So either you call it all jazz or you don’t call it anything at all. So Nick is saying let’s not call it that anymore.

NOJ: To me jazz is like an umbrella. It takes in so much and maybe you don’t like the word, or some kind of outdated connotation or where it came from, but it has served its purpose. The music has widened its reach out all over the world.  I don’t know of any other music that is so universally loved and even cherished in all parts of the world as jazz. It has become so inclusive under the banner of “jazz,” that for us to label the word as some kind of problem I don’t think is very helpful.

CS: I understand what he is saying; there is just different ways of saying it. What he is saying is that the word is bad. What I ‘am saying is take the word away, the genre is like the root of all music today. It comes from the blues, it comes from classical music, it comes from classical harmony, it comes from African songs, it comes from field songs from slavery, and it comes from early French music which had a swing to it. It’s actually very interesting, other music was relatively straight and then French music had a bounce to it.  When you hear older musicians play jazz or you listen to older recordings, even the blues records like Blind Willie Johnson or you listen to these early classical recordings it’s all related. But jazz is a direct mirror from American history. Today it sounds the way it sounds because it has absorbed so many different parts, views and conditions of the American experience. It’s so broad because America is so broad culturally. That’s why it sounds like it does. So either you call it jazz or call it all jazz or you don’t call it jazz and instead don’t name it anything. Somebody once said if everything is art there is no art. So if everything is jazz then there is no jazz. It’s kind of like the way you want to take it. Nick is kind of saying don’t call it jazz call it Black American Music or Black African music because it is, and it is that, but it is also a lot of other things .

NOJ: You have played with McBride and Thomas Fonnesbaek and Ben Williams all different bass players. How does playing with these different bassists differ for you as a pianist?

CS: It’s funny because if I wasn’t a pianist I would either be a trumpet player or a bass player. I love melody and I love how trumpet and bass can manipulate melody, it’s very much the closest thing to the voice that you have.

NOJ:  The trumpet definitely is like a voice, I don’t know about the bass?

CS: The bass is like a voice because you can bend notes and manipulate notes like a voice. So that’s how I viewed it like that. I love the bass and I grew up playing with a lot of bassists. I grew up playing with Nat Reeves and Rufus Reid, Phil Bowler, Jeff Fuller. I definitely played with Jeff every day. Christian McBride, Thomas Fonnesbaek, Ben Williams, John Clayton, and Derrick Hodge the list goes on and on.

NOJ: I’ve noticed that you have played several children’s songs in your repertoire. You’ve played “Pure Imagination” from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; you’ve played “If Your Happy and You Know It” another children’s song and now on your latest album you do “Somewhere Out There” from the animated feature An American Tail. What is it about these happy children’s songs that give you so much inspiration?

CS: That’s because that is what gave me inspiration as a child and gave me inspiration to play. I know I am not the only one who has had inspiration from these songs, because this is a memory from my childhood and who I am today. These movies were part of my experience and a part of my generation too. To play them is also reaching to audience members and to people who have gone through that experience as well.  I can talk to somebody about Willie Wonka and say “I said good day sir” and people can remember that scene and identify with it.  Or I can talk about Fievel from An American Tail and people who know that movie can relate .Many peoples childhood or many people who have children can all relate, so it’s part of the American culture and American life.

NOJ: The three times I’ve seen you perform; you have always dressed very nattily, always in suit and a tie. How did this fascination with clothes come about and how does the way you dress affect the way you play?

CS:   The dressing is Sand’s men thing. My grandfather dressed up, my father dressed up, my brother dresses up, my uncles. So, all the Sand’s men were pretty dapper. I guess it is a family thing. I don’t always wear a suit sometimes I just wear a tee shirt, but the majority of the time I wear something nice anyway. It’s kind of empowering in a way. To dress up and have, not a uniform, but something that sets you apart from the listener that is coming to see you. At the same time I also dress up, on an African American side of it, because I want to show African American boys that you don’t have to just have baggy pants to be a rapper. You could totally wear a suit and still convey a message. So it’s a message thing too.

NOJ: How does it affect the way you play?

CS: Well it used to affect the way I played. When I wore a suit I tried to play more elegantly, as opposed to when I wear something less dressy when I play more rugged and raw, but now I just play.

NOJ:  You dedicated two of the songs on your latest album to pianists. One to Chick Corea called “Armando’s Song” and one to Bud Powell’s called “Bud’s Tune.”  Tell us about those influences and why you wanted to do this?

CS: I listened to Chick as a kid, but not intently, because I grew up listening to Fats Waller and Ahmad Jamal and a lot of Herbie (Hancock), but I didn’t really listen to Chick as a kid intently. Later as an adult I really started listen to him and kind of understanding what he was doing. I listened to him with the Latin piano, because he has articulation with his rhythm .Later on, I really got into listening to pianists and trying to figure what they did that made them who they were. Then with Chick it was more about his compositions. Where he came from, the way he articulated and where the Spanish thing came from. McBride started working with Chick, and there was a lot of Chick material and we would actually practice some Chick tunes for sound check or play some on the bandstand. Then I got a chance to meet him, and he was such a nice and gracious guy. So I just wanted to write a tune. I was really listening to him a lot at the time, trying to understand what he was doing compositionally.

NOJ: But you don’t feel he is an influence on you?

CS He is, but he’s not. He is, because I love the way he plays in time. He has a similar way, as do a lot of Latin players, of playing very structured, but then loosening it. It is almost like breathing. The way Chick plays, he will play very much on the beat and then he will play these phrases and then go back to the beat and then he will leave some space. It’s very, very incredible. I would say he is definitely an influence, but a later influence.

NOJ: What about Bud Powell?

CS:  If you go to Chick you got to go to Bud and McCoy. He was another guy that I got into later on, because I grew up listening to Monk. Monk was the guys for me, the end all, be all. Thelonious Monk.

NOJ: That’s funny because he was a great composer, but some say not a greatest pianist.

CS:  Right, but something about his compositions made him the greatest pianist on his music. Monk had this wittiness, he was just funny. Listening to Bud was similar, but Bud was faster. Bud was a little more stylistic, more suave.

NOJ: Well Bud came directly from the (Art) Tatum school, right?

CS: Exactly, right they both did. They were different translations of Tatum. Dr. Taylor would tell the story of Monk listening to Tatum and Monk actually sounded like Tatum at one point.  So someone would tell Monk, we already have a Tatum so you have to do your own thing. The Monkism was already there in his playing, but like when you hear some of his flurries that‘s a Tatum line. “Round Midnight” was written after an arrangement that Tatum played of “Body and Soul," it was inspired by that. When you hear that version you can understand where it came from. Monk had the harmony thing and Bud had the linear ideas. So if you take Bud, he has all these little slips and they change keys and dexterity. So Bud was another influence on me as to how to play time, how to play up-tempo, but also how to play in different pockets.

 NOJ: You haven’t mentioned Bill Evans. How, if at all did Evans playing influence you?

CS: Bill Evans just because of his clarity. Each note was just ringing. When he played he was so clear and so patient and he was an honest player. I heard him on some interviews telling people how he was still working on things and you’re saying to yourself how is that possible that you (Bill Evans) are still working, what are you working on, it’s so beautiful.

NOJ: Many people consider Bill to be one of the most honest, sincere players who ever played. He bore his soul every time he sat at that keyboard. It was like he was playing with no clothes on; he left himself out there naked to the world.

CS: That’s really what I liked about his playing. Honesty and he has patience about his playing that I really like.

NOJ: What living artist would you most like to play with if you had a chance?

CS: Wayne Shorter. That’s the guy for me it’s Wayne.

NOJ: Well Wayne is one of the best jazz composers in the last fifty years, for sure.

CS:  I don’t even feel like he is playing jazz anymore. It’s hard to describe. I don’t even think he is playing music anymore, it is just got its own identity now. Its expressions and gestures; it’s coming from a different place. It’s not coming from this scale or this sound there, it is coming from how he breathes into the horn and whatever comes out, comes out. It is just him. You talk about honest music, it’s just Wayne. It sounds like science fiction.

NOJ: If you had to choose one pianist that most represents where you want to be stylistically who would that be?

CS: That’s hard, but probably Jason Moran or Chucho Valdes. I’d say Jason, because creatively he is in a place by himself. He is creating his own palette, sort of like Cecil Taylor did.  When I was studying with Jason he would send in incredible subs like Fred Hersch, Ethan Iverson, Mathew Shipp and Gonzalo Rubalcaba so you got it all. That expressionism that Jason and Cecil and Mathew have makes sense if you understand where they are coming from. They have created their own scales, and the scales are not derived from one note, it can be a chord, but to them it's like one note. It’s strange and different and it’s totally their own.

Jason is coming more of a fine artist perspective, where his music is coming from skateboarders or paintings or words and voices and installations and multi-media presentations. I love that and I want to do more of that. At the same time I also want to represent America and where I am from like Chucho is doing with Cuban Music. So that’s why I say Chucho. He has this staple of what Cuban music is all about, but he also has a very specific style and sound. He is very much the ambassador of Cuban music, just like Danilo Perez is the representative of Panamanian music. They represent all the good and all the musicality and all the studying and the history of their music. So eventually, I want to do that as well, like Chucho is doing and at the same time continue to push it forward.

Chucho Valdes

NOJ: What is your go-to song, when you have the crowd in the palm of your hand, and at the end of the night all you want to leave them with is something really special that you can dig into?

CS:  Recently it actually been “L.O.V.E.” the Nat King Cole kind of thing. Everybody understands love or some form of it and right now that’s the go-to song for me. We can kind of go anywhere with it and people can understand the concept of it.

NOJ: What contemporary musicians are doing the most interesting music and what is it that grabs you about what they are doing?

CS: Nicholas Payton and Christian Scott because they have taken what Miles did and are pushing it into different boundaries. I’m a big Miles fan.  I think Miles would have still been doing this had he still been here, but somebody has to do it so those two guys. Kendrick Lamar, because as far as words go, as far as rhythms go, he is totally doing something that musicians in general are not doing.  He brought the idea of theater back to the music. Things have prologues and transitional sections in his music, so he is really doing something different.  Chance the rapper. What I like about him, he is so honest with his music, and he is always sounding like he is just having a ball; so much fun.  He is coming from Gospel music and jazz and he is putting it all into his music. Sometimes it doesn’t all work out, but you kind of appreciate the attempt.  Wayne Shorter is still doing it. He is beyond music. My brother and I are big Star War fans and Wayne is our Yoda. He just exists and tells us things in riddles and we just have to figure out what they mean. Wayne is incredible compositionally and as a playing artist he is just amazing.

NOJ: You play some of the Great American Songbook. Do you believe it has run its course?

CS:  No. I don’t think it has run its course, but now it is giving us different ways to think about music for today. I think now, instead of playing them verbatim, they have information about how to put song form together or how to form melodies that really speak to people, because those songs did and they still do. People still relate. So there is something there even though it was written so many years ago.

NOJ: The songbook has amazing durability, but if you could just take the last fifty years, because many of these songs are beyond fifty years old, who would you say are contemporary composers that have created songs that will transcend their period and have the lasting endurance that the American Songbook has had?

CS: Wayne (Shorter), Miles Davis but he played a lot of Wayne’s music.

NOJ: I’m thinking along the lines of more popular music, because jazz often takes popular songs and re-imagines them for their purpose.

CS: That’s a tough question. We live in a time when music is constantly changes, but what is lasting.

NOJ: Well I will give you a few that I think do make it to this level of durability and see whether you agree? Stevie Wonder.

CS: Oh totally yes. Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, probably him more than Prince. Eric Clapton, a lot of his music is blues, but his words and the story he tells. I would have to say Sting.

NOJ: I’m not sure about Clapton but Sting I would agree with you on. I think Paul Simon is enduring and of course Lennon and McCartney. But what about people like Antonio Carlos Jobim?

CS: Jobim’s writing is beautiful and gorgeous, but I think his music has sort of finally, not run its course, but is fading into the background now. It’s a shame because I think his music is absolutely beautiful, it’s given us the tools, like the American songbook, to build off of. But anytime you hear the song the “Girl form Ipanema “everyone knows the song even if they don’t know it is a Jobim song. So, yes you could put him in there.

NOJ: Some other people that you might consider as durable song composers are Carole King’s work or Bob Dylan’s work.

CS: Well yeah and then I would have to say Bob Marley’s work. You talk about love, I’d have to say anytime you talk about love and the betterment of the human condition than that is what stands the test of time. Like Stevie Wonder or Bob Marley or Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell they are talking about all of us together.

NOJ: Tell us about your new album and your upcoming tour and your gig at the Velvet Note.

CS: The new album is called Reach and it’s about reaching out and self discovery; not only for these artists but for the listener.  Finding out who you are or understanding who you have been. So that’s what the whole album is about. I wanted to write music reflecting that search, those questions that I have had and some of the answers that I found. A majority of the compositions are music that I have written for this session and some I wrote way before the session, years ago. The standards that I did include the Bill Wither’s “Use Me” and the song “Somewhere Out There” from An American Tail are songs from my childhood that I have identified with, and I play them for me, but also for people who want to hear something they can relate to, that they remember or that they know. The record is really just a feel good record, it is for people and that is who I dedicate it to.

NOJ: You will be playing tonight Friday June 9th and Saturday June 10^th at the Velvet Note in Alpharetta. Who will be playing with you in the band?

CS: At the Velvet Note, Barry Stevenson will be on bass and my younger brother Ryan Sands on the drums.

NOJ: Good luck with this record and the tour and I’m looking forward to seeing you on Saturday and thank you for spending the time with us.

Check out one of Christian Sands new songs from Reach here

https://soundcloud.com/mackavenue/christian-sands-reach-gangsta-lude

Interview With Bassist Christian McBride as He Brings His "Tip City" Trio to the Variety Theater, Atlanta

Bassist Christian McBride

Forty-four-year-old bass virtuoso Christian McBride was born in the musical city of Philadelphia back in 1972. It didn’t hurt his musical education to have a father, Lee Smith and a great uncle Howard Cooper who both played bass professionally and he acknowledges them as early influences.

In many respects the sounds of the City of Philadelphia was another subliminal McBride influence. The City has a history of the musical tradition. It was a multi-ethnic training ground for early jazz artists like guitarist Eddie Lang and violinist Joe Venuti. Local singing star Ethel Waters was one of the first black female jazz artists to record on Harlem based Black Swan Records. The stable of jazz artists that hail from Philly is a Who’s Who of American jazz – Jimmy, Percy and Albert “Tootie” Health, McCoy Tyner, Clifford Brown, Hank Mobley, Stan Getz, Jimmy Smith, Bobby Timmons, Lee Morgan and of course “Philly” Joe Jones to name a few.

Philadelphia

The tradition is being carried on by the next generation; musicians like Orrin Evans, Stanley Clarke, Uri Caine, Terrell Stafford and of course Christian McBride all hail from the City of Brotherly Love.

Jazz wasn’t McBride’s only influence, just as jazz isn’t Philly’s only music. There was gospel like the Mighty Clouds of Joy. There was the R & B and soul music of the Delphonics, the Stylistics, Teddy Pendergrass, The O’Jays, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes. There was even the more blue-eyed, rock and roll soul of the popular Hall and Oates. Let’s not forget the airwaves. McBride grew up in a generation where the funkmaster bassists like Larry Graham of Sly Stone’s Band and Bootsie Collins with James Brown and George Clinton all made their imprint. Seeing the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra with Yo Yo Mah made for a lasting memory. These disparate sources of musical inspiration all formed the musical psyche of Christian McBride. 

Through hard work and an incredible facility, he has been able to incorporate the whole spectrum of these flavors into his own unique approach to the bass, and in the process, he has attracted a legion of followers that anxiously await his next musical move.

Currently McBride is perhaps the busiest man in jazz. The five time Grammy award winning bassist hosts and produces a NPR/WBGO/JALC sponsored weekly nationally syndicated radio show on Sirius XM radio’s “Jazz Night in America” called “The Low Down: Conversations with Christian.” He is the artistic advisor for the jazz programming at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC.) and has been creatively associated with Jazz Snowmass in Aspen, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, The Newport Jazz Festival and for Jazz at the Los Angeles Philharmonic program.

With all these commitments, it is a wonder he still has time to create and perform music. He is the leader of four distinct groups, his newest trio Tip City, his quintet Inside Straight, his 18 piece Christian Mc Bride Big Band, an experimental group called A Christian McBride Situation and his quartet New Jawn.

McBride’s Tip City will be at Atanta’s Variety Playhouse on April 29, 2017 and features the young pianist Emmett Cohen and the guitarist Dan Wilson. Notes on Jazz caught up to McBride via telephone on April 11, 2017.

NOJ: I am a big fan of your music probably since the late nineteen nineties. It is a daunting task to interview you. I must have gone through- either read or listened to- close to twenty interviews you had and it’s difficult to come up with questions that you haven’t already answered a hundred times. So I’ll try not to repeat what is already on record.

You hail from Philadelphia. We know your father and great uncle played bass and were influences. But there is a deep, across the spectrum wealth Classical, to jazz, to Reggae, to Soul, Rock and R & B and into Hip Hop that make up the Philly Musical experience. Can you share some of your growing up musical experience that are pure Philly?

CMB: When I think of my live musical experiences, that make me think of pure Philadelphia, I actually think of venues as opposed to the actual musicians. My uncle, Tony McBride, he used to be a promotions man at WHAT radio, which was one of two black radio stations in Philly. So he took me to every show that came through. From the time, I was maybe four years old, so my mother tells me, I was going with them to see Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight or whoever it was. I remember the venues. We went to the Academy of Music quite a bit. I saw Smokey Robinson there, Wilson Pickett there and of course I saw James Brown there and that just changed my life forever. We went to the Robin Hood Dell quite a bit. There used to be an annual festival called the Gospell-rama and I saw the Mighty Clouds of Joy there. I saw Albertina Walker. Then there was the Valley Forge Music Fair which was a theater in the round. That place was legendary, I am sorry to see it go. It closed many, many years ago.

NOJ: Those experiences are impressionable for a young person growing up.

CMB: Yeah. I saw a lot of R & B and Gospel shows growing up. I saw the Philadelphia Orchestra when I was eleven years old. Our string teacher took a bunch of us down on the trolley. I’ll never forget that. It was just wonderful that we had a teacher that would actually take a group of us on public transportation to go see the Philadelphia Orchestra. Yo Yo Mah was the guest soloist and he played the Haydn Cello concerto in D. That it one of my most vivid memories of seeing live music.

NOJ: That’s very cool.

CMB: I can still remember the piece.

NOJ: So you went to Julliard after attending school in Philadelphia?

CMB: Yes. I only stayed for one year. I started to work pretty quickly after I started school. School started in the beginning of September and I started working with Bobby Watson’s group maybe two weeks later. I wasn’t going on the road, I was just making local gigs with him. It became evident by the end of the school year, that I wasn’t going to be able to keep a good balance of school and professional work. So, I had a long talk with my mother and she said I trust you.

NOJ: Did you take private lessons while you were playing professionally after school?

CMB: Well no, I did not take any private lessons after I left Julliard. Any lessons I did take were impromptu.

NOJ: My first time seeing you perform was 2003 when you were on tour with Pat Metheny and Antonio Sanchez at SUNY Purchase in New York. You three had amazing simpatico, creating a thoroughly engaging conversation at crazy

CMB: I first started working with Pat in 1993. When Joshua Redman’s first solo release came out. It is a little confusing, because Joshua Redman recorded his first two cds at the same time. They kind of staggered the release dates.  The self titled cd Joshua Redman came out first and then less than a year later Wish came out with Pat, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins. When it was time for Joshua to go on the road and promote that album- now you talk about one of the greatest gifts someone could give you- Pat Metheny basically said Josh I’ll lease you my crew, my booking agency and I’ll come on the road as your guest to promote your record.

NOJ: Wow!

CMB: Yeah, but Charlie Haden couldn’t go on the tour so they called me. The minute we finished all the US tour dates under Joshua’s name, the band just reverted back to Pat Metheny’s.  It was the same exact band except he now called it the Pat Metheny’s Special Quartet. That was me, Billy Higgins and Joshua Redman with Pat.

After that I stayed in close touch with Pat. I played with him sporadically, you know a gig here and there. Then he started the trio with me and Antonio exactly ten years later in 2003.

NOJ: That’s when I saw you. You guys were amazing.

Christian McBride, Pat Meheny, Antonio Sanchez

CMB: Thank you, man. That trio stayed together, we played a good six years of gigs maybe even seven.

NOJ: Pat is obviously a virtuoso on his instrument, but he has turned out to be a pretty durable composer also. What did you take away from playing with such a creative force as Pat for all these years?

CMB: I think of Pat along the same lines as Chick Corea, in terms of their both being so prolific. I mean it is hard to compare anyone

(to Chick),if you think of the body of work that Chick has created over all these years. Certainly, Pat is no slouch. I love the fact that he is always challenging himself. He is always coming up with new groups to play with and he is always coming up with new music for those groups. I think that is admirable.

NOJ: I have the album Live at Tonic from 2006. That was a phenomenal, jazz/funk/fusion group and featured some of my favorite musicians including keyboardist Geoff Keezer, saxophonist Ron Blake and one of our local Atlanta homies, badass Terreon Gully on drums. What was the genesis of that group?

CMB: Around 2000, I didn’t really know where I was as a band leader. My first quartet, which I went on the road with after Gettin’ to It , my debut album, came out in 1995. I had Tim Warfield on tenor saxophone. I had a couple of different pianists. I had Anthony Wonsey, I had Joey Calderazzo, Charles Craig, Shedrick Mitchell, but Tim Warfield was always my guy. My drummers were Carl Allen, Gregory Hutchinson and Rodney Green. Between 1995 and 1999 my quartets revolved around those particular players. Tim Warfield left to go with Nicholas Payton’s group. All the rhythm section guys, by that time, had different gigs. Joey Calderazzo went to work with Branford Marsalis and Greg Hutchinson went to work with Joshua Redman and so I was kind of juggling and struggling to find guys that could simply make the gig.

"I decided, what music was I thinking of doing? And what musicians would be best suited to play that music? For me it all starts with the drummer."

The kind of music which I wanted to play, was a hybrid of straight ahead jazz, a little funk, avant garde you know a little bit of everything. Whose is my prototype of a drummer for music like that. The answer, for me was Jeff ‘Tain Watts. I said let me call ‘Tain and ask him for a recommendation, because I know he’s not going to do it, and I wasn’t going to ask him. He is one of my big brothers, I wouldn’t ask him to join my band. I said ,“‘Tain whose is the little you? I need somebody that plays like you basically.”  He said you should hear this guy, he’s been playing with Diane Reeves, he’s a bad dude. His name is Terreon Gulley. I pretty much hired him sight unseen just because of the recommendation from ‘Tain. We met and we played together and I fell in love with him. The hard part was the piano chair. I wanted somebody that loved Joe Zawinul and Keith Emerson just as much as Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson. I though man there really isn’t anybody who can do all that. Only person I could think of was Geoff Keezer. I knew he was playing with Ray Brown. Geoff is somebody I ‘ve know since Julliard, he is dear friend of mine. We all are from the same generation and we all played the same gigs when we moved to New York. After playing with Art Blakey and playing with Ray Brown, I thought, man this is going to be a significant step down in his career, asking him to join my group. But I have to ask him because he is the only person I can think of. I talked to Keezer and he said I’m not working with anybody right now so I would be honored to be in your band. That was the nucleus of putting that group together. When Tim Warfield left to go to play with Nicholas, the other saxophonist that I loved working with was Ron Blake. Ron was just finishing working with Roy Hargrove and so he was available. Before I knew it I had a brand new working band. It was tight, everybody liked each other, and we stayed together for eight years.

We made the Live at Tonic record and we made the Vertical Vision record. Funny how things work out. The Live at Tonic album was supposed to be my second Warner Brothers release and it was going to be Live at Yoshi’s. But I’m glad it worked out, in terms of what that band did, Tonic was the more appropriate place.

NOJ: It was a hipper place for sure.

CMB: Andy Hurwitz from Rope a Dope records said let’s blow it out and invite some special guests. I called up my buddies DJ Logic, Charlie Hunter and Eric Krasno and those were two memorable, memorable nights of music.

NOJ: Have you ever considered getting that band back together, just for the hell of it?

CMB: Oh yeah. At some point, we will get back together. It’s kind of hard though. The main reason that band broke up was Ron took the job with the Saturday Night Live Band, and that pretty much jams up his Friday and Saturday to work with anyone else but NBC. It’s kind of hard to have a band when one of your main guys can’t work on Friday and Saturdays. Then Geoff Keezer got married and moved to San Diego. Terreon got married and moved to Atlanta. I said oh man, everyone’s leaving me.

ut it worked out, because I think between 2000 and 2008 when that happened, I had that band which we called the CMB band. I was working with Pat’s trio and touring with Sting. There hadn’t been at particular band that I played in that was all acoustic, straight ahead. Kind of what I did when I first moved to town and I missed that. I thought maybe this is a sign that I should try another project and that became Inside Straight.

NOJ: Yeah with Steve Wilson, great player.

It is well documented that Ray Brown was a primary musical influence and a father figure to you. You have his bass, the good one, as I understand it.

CMB: ( Laughing) John Clayton has a good one. We each have a good one.

NOJ: If you were teaching a young student the bass today, what would you tell him to look for in Ray Brown’s playing that is so important to absorb?

Christian McBride and  Ray Brown photo credit unknown

CMB: The feel. The feel and the clarity. As a bassist, particularly an acoustic bassist, I am a stickler for clarity. The bass is a very hard instrument to play with clarity, just because the frequency of the instrument. Especially in jazz. It’s easy   to play out of tune and kind of slip under the radar to the ear. Sometimes notes will run into each other. When there’s drums going and piano going and saxophone going, a lot of what the bass does gets lost. You can still feel the bass but you can’t always hear details of that particular player is playing.

NOJ : So Ray’s clarity is what is really important?

CMB: Yeah. When I listen to Ray Brown playing I hear every single note clear as a bell and they are always in tune, which lets me know his focus never wanes. That’s the first thing I would tell my students.

NOJ: I want to continue that thread and name a few bass players and get your response. What would teach a student was the most important stylistic feature of the playing of a Bootsie Collins or Larry Graham?

CMB:  I would kind of hold off on talking about them to students. To me, Bootsy and Larry Graham were the innovators of the electric bass. I would make sure that my students would understand something a little more simple and basic before I would get them to Boosty and Larry Graham. 

Bootsy Collins photo credit unknown

The story goes, which is true, that the whole time Bootsy was in James Brown’s band, James Brown was always trying to get him to play simpler. He’d say “Bootsy these bass lines that you’re playing are too busy, they move around too much, I just need something simple and in the pocket.” Boostsy would say “yes sir Mr.  Brown” and come up with this complicated but funky bassline, and James Brown would just shake his head. It just meant that Boosty’s talent was so big, not even James Brown could hold him down. As hard as he tried.

I would just tell a student to try to pay attention to the simplicity. The same is true when listening to Ray Brown, because although Ray Brown was a virtuoso, your prime directive as a bassist is to be the best supporting instrument you can be. Play simple and always pay attention to the groove.

NOJ: How about Paul Chambers or Scott LaFaro?

CMB: I think they all have the same qualities that I love in Ray Brown. Paul Chambers had a more relaxed beat than Ray Brown. Ray Brown was always pushing and I kind of like that personally. He always kind of had his foot a little bit on the gas pedal, whereas Paul Chambers was on cruise control, you know what I mean.?

You could set the tempo and he just laid there and the groove was so, so good. He was just as much of a virtuoso as Ray Brown. Had just as big a sound as Ray Brown, his note choices were just as clear as Ray Brown. I think the only difference between the two of them was their beat. Ray was a little more forceful and ahead and Paul Chambers was more right in the middle.

Scott LaFaro, well we all know what his contributions were to the acoustic bass in terms of being a more interactive player, as opposed to just simply being a four to the bar kind of player. Of course, he could do that too. If you listen to very early Scott La Faro recordings, particularly what he did with Hampton Hawes. The album with Harold Land and Frank Butler, For Real it’s called.  He sounds like Ray Brown. Also on Introducing the Victor Feldman Trio with Victor Feldman on piano, Scott LaFaro on bass and Stan Levey on drums.

It’s clear Scott LaFaro knew the basics of what it meant to be a bass player. He could hold it down with the best of them, but then when he got to Bill Evans, he found his perfect musical partner where he didn’t need to be just playing bass lines. He was interacting with Bill Evans quite a bit and his technique was such that he sort of broke the mold. In the sense that every bass player thought “I want to develop my chops too, I want to play fast.” I am sure if Scott La Faro had lived he would have said “Hey guys, learn how to walk first, develop your sound, before you try to play fast.”  

NOJ: With all the many hats that you wear, you have a very serious, kickass big band, which I saw one year at The Caramoor Jazz Festival in 2011. You have written for this band as well as for other large ensembles. 

Most modern big band arrangers like Maria Schneider, Ryan Truesdell, Bob Mintzer or James D’Arcy Argue all have been under the tutelage of a former master arranger like Gil Evans, Gerald Wilson or Bob Brookmeyer.

Who do you consider your mentor when it comes to arranging for a multi-piece ensemble and how did it start for you?

MCB: A lot of people. I think I have gotten a lot of help from everybody that has written for a big band. I’ve spent a lot of time with Jimmy Heath. My big brother John Clayton is one of my biggest heroes. I’ve spent time with Maria, picking her brain about certain things. I love Maria so much because she has a lot of her own great ideas, but also she studied under Gil Evans. She would tell me somethings that Gil told her. 

"You almost physically feel your body change when someone gives you some useful information that you know is going to help you."

Maria and John and the great Patrick Williams, Johnny Mandell and Lalo Schifrin, who I’ve been on the road with many times with his Jazz meets the Orchestra projects. I’ve spent a great deal of time with many great arrangers.Yeah.

NOJ: So you have absorbed all these ideas of different arrangers from your experiences with them?

CMB: Absolutely.

NOJ: Any arranger that you are particularly fond of?

CMB: There is Ellington of course, he goes without saying. But I think the first arranger that I really started to pay attention to was Oliver Nelson.

NOJ: I saw your trio with Christian Sands and Ulysses S. Owens Jr. at a small supper club called Alvin & Friends in New Rochelle, NY back in June of 2014. You were a bit under the weather that night, but somehow you rose to the occasion and that trio was simply mind blowing. What do you have in store for that trio?

CMB: That was a good show, I remember that. That trio is sort of officially non-existent at the moment. Christian is about to embark on his own solo tour.  I am extremely happy for him, he wound up signing a solo deal at Mack Avenue records. His new cd will be released in two weeks in fact. He’s going on the road this year with his own group. I’m just happy to be a part of that young man’s life, because he is a very special guy.

NOJ: The Sands, that’s quite a family. I saw him in New Haven and I think he has a brother who is a helluva drummer.

CMB: That’s right, a younger brother Ryan, who plays drums. The family unit is a tight unit.

Ulysses is doing quite a number of different projects with a lot of different people so I don’t know when that trio will ever get back together again. I already know that Christian will be one of those people who will never be out of my life. Even when Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown no longer played together in an actual trio they still played together all the time in various All Star projects and things like that. I see Christian and I doing that.

NOJ: You’ve won five Grammies and been on over 300 hundred recordings as a sideman, thirteen recordings as a leader. What’s missing for you musically? What do you feel you haven’t yet accomplished as a musician?  

CMB: I hope one day to be able to…I feel like I am always composing on the fly. I haven’t really had a chance to sit down and actually focus on writing music that I would like to write for me. I’ve been doing a lot of commercial writing, in terms of like there is a big engagement coming up at NJPAC or Jazz Museum of Harlem or Jazz House Kids and I have to get some arrangements for specific events.

In terms of my own groups, I’d like to maybe once a year go on a writing retreat. I actually spoke to Metheny about that. He said, even when he’s off the road and at home, he can’t write at home, because he has got kids and there is too much going on in his home to concentrate and write. Pat takes a moment where he gets away to his second place and gets to write. I talked to JJ Johnson’s wife and she said JJ used to do that too. I need to go somewhere for like a week and just bang out some new music. I would like to do that one day.

NOJ: They do have artist’s colonies where they allow and subsidized artists of worth who need a place of quiet to work. I know there is one in Connecticut and one in Vermont.

CMB: Yeah. Melissa and I took a vacation on Vancouver Island and the place we stayed, it was beautiful. They call it a Bed and Breakfast, but it was huge. They had a grand piano in middle of the lobby and I thought oh man this is perfect. The perfect atmosphere for me to sit down and write some music. But, you know, I couldn’t use our vacation as a writing retreat. That wouldn’t be fair to Melissa.

NOJ: That would put you in hot water pretty quickly, I think.

CMB: Exactly!

NOJ: You have played bass behind singers like Diana Krall, Queen Latitfah, Sting and I actually got to see you play with Dianne Reeves a couple of years back. How is it different from playing without a singer and is it a format that you like?

CMB: I love playing with great singers. Playing with Dianne is no different than playing with a great instrumentalist. For me Dianne is sort of like the greatest living jazz vocalist. Everything she does is awe inspiring. She is very musical.

 

Dianne Reeves and Christian M

Diana Krall, we both come from the same Ray Brown School. Dee Dee Bridgewater, not only is she a great singer, but she is also one of the great performers I’ve been on stage with. It can get distracting watching her. She’s so bad, she is so badass that I sometimes almost forget it’s my cue. Cyrille Aimee, that young lady is killing it. I love working with her. Man, there are too many people I can name.

NOJ: Speaking of vocalists, I did a recent interview with the fine vocalist Jose James and he told me he was trying to get you to do a record with him in the near future. If Jose is reading this, is that something we can expect?

CMB: That’s my man too. Yes. We have worked quite a bit in the past and I love working with Jose.  I’ve always felt there hasn’t nearly been as many male vocalists that we’ve been excited about as there have been female vocalists. I have been thinking where are all the guys? All the guys that are really kind out there doing it, they all eventually just start to sing R & B. Or they kind of go for some sort of hybrid, which is cool, but I miss somebody like a Joe Williams or….

NOJ: But even Jose is trying to break out of that jazz crooner pigeonhole. His new album is much more R& B and neo soul.

CMB: Even though Jose is not wedded to straight ahead jazz, he can do it so well. It is a pleasure to see a guy with so much diversity. 

Jose and I have a couple of things possibly in the pipeline. We just have to figure out the when, that’s always the hardest part. Jose is one of my favorite musicians in the world. That’s a guy who can go a lot of different ways. I mentioned how I miss the guys, I don’t see a lot of guys out there singing a lot of jazz.  I wrote some big band arrangements for him a couple of years ago, we did a thing at NJPA, and he sang my arrangement of “Moanin’”and oh man he killed it.

NOJ: He had a great album with that Billie Holiday material. When we spoke, he indicated it was a sort of pinnacle for him in the jazz genre.

CMB: Yes, he did. Man, I was so proud of him when he did that record. That was an amazing project.

NOJ: On a philosophical note, you seem very driven, what could you see yourself dedicating the rest of your life to if for some reason you couldn’t play music again?

CMB: Sleep. (Laughs) No education.

"I think it’s important to share your knowledge."

It weirds me out when I meet people who are tight with their information. I know some musicians who don’t want to impart some of the wisdom that they have gotten from older musicians, because they think that someone may take it and it will no longer be special to them specifically anymore if they share it. If I tell you a story or share something with you that Ray Brown told me, then 'am going to be afraid that you’ll take that story and try to make it yours? To me that is sort of selfish.

If I couldn’t play music anymore, then I would dedicate my life to of these young musicians that are coming up. More than I do now.

NOJ:  You’ll be playing with your group Tip City here in Atlanta on April 29, 2017. What do you like or don’t like about playing in Falcon, Braves and Hawks territory?

MCB: (Laughing.) There is nothing that I don’t like about playing in Hawk or Braves land. I hate to see the Braves going through such hard times, but you guys have had such a long run, so maybe I really don’t feel so bad for you.

I know a lot of people in Atlanta, a lot of musicians and I don’t feel like a stranger there.

NOJ: Tell us about Tip City, who is in that band and what we can expect at the concert.

CMB: There is young pianist by the name of Emmett Cohen and the guitarist is Dan Wilson, he plays with Joey DeFrancesco quite a bit. I’m looking forward to working on this new project. A group that is nothing like my previous trio, but also nothing like my New Jawn project either. I like to stay as fresh as possible.

NOJ: What do you expect these young musicians will bring to the table?

CMB: The first time I played with Dan Wilson, he knocked me out. He comes form that lineage of George Benson, Pat Martino, Kenny Burrell school. He’s got such great technique with great ideas and he swings real hard.

Emmett Cohen I sort of watched grow up. He is from the Montclair area and was one of the students that we had at Jazz House Kids. This will be sort of like a good hometown story.

NOJ: I know you are also very involved in your home community of Montclair, New Jersey, where your wife Melissa founded Jazz House Kids, a nationally recognized community based arts organization. Tell us about what you guys do there and how this started?

CMB: She started this fifteen years ago because most of these school, not just in New Jersey, but nationwide, were getting rid of their music programs. She was getting hired to put together musicians to come into public schools in Newark to do some music programs. She realized she should her own organization to put bands together to come into these schools. Next thing she knows Jazz House Kids turns out to be a big hit.

NOJ: That’s very commendable. It’s what we need more of now-a-days as it is clear that the present political climate is not too favorable to promoting the arts in our public education system.

CMB: Between grants and private donations, we are able to keep this thing going qand we serve over a thousand kids in the State of New Jersey during the school year. We have up to two hundred and fifty students come to our summer program. It’s been real fulfilling to watch some of these young people to get to express themselves.

NOJ: Christian, I look forward to seeing you and Tip City at the Variety on Saturday April 29th here in Atlanta and will continue to follow your multi-dimensional career, which I am sure will have a lot of surprises ahead. Thanks for spending the time with us.

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 [RM1]