An Interview with trumpeter/composer Russell Gunn as he releases "Get It How You Live"

Russell Gunn (photo credit unknown)

The jazz trumpeter Russell Gunn has become an Atlanta institution since arriving here back in September of 1998. He was born in Chicago, but he moved and was raised by his father in East St. Louis, MO. which he considers his hometown. Born in 1971, he is a child of the hip-hop era and so it's no wonder why the music of that era still influences a part of the music he creates. He developed his chops touring with acts like soul singer Johnnie Taylor and doing a stint playing jazz on cruise lines in the Caribbean. 

After being spotted by the saxophonist Oliver Lake, Gunn made his way to the capital of the jazz world-New York City-as part of Lake’s group. With his unconventional hi-hop attire, a formidable technique and a burning desire to create, Gunn found his talents once again recognized by another jazz luminary, Wynton Marsalis. He was chosen to become part of Marsalis’ Blood on the Fields Orchestra where he distinguished himself as a young lion who brought a youthful perspective to the traditional music Marsalis was trying to preserve. He eventually became a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. In the mid to late nineteen-nineties he was enlisted by Branford Marsalis for his crossover group Buckshot Le Fonque. Besides his work in the jazz realm, his trumpet can be heard backing contemporary artists as diverse a Lou Reed, Cee-Low, Maxwell and D’Angelo.

Since his first album, Young Gunn, released in 1994, he has made fifteen recordings as a leader, two of which- Ethnomusicology Vol 1 and Ethnomusicology Vol 2- were nominated for a Grammy.

I have personally seen Gunn play at various music venues around Atlanta. He is a consummate musician, serious about his art. Gunn is always engaging and committed to  every performance no matter what the size of the audience. Fittingly, his group ceremoniously played the last set of music at Sam Yi’s celebrated jazz club, Churchill Grounds, an Atlanta institution for twenty years, back on July 31, 2016.

On July 13, 2018, Russell Gunn released his latest and most ambitious project to date, his Royal Krunk Jazz Orchestra’s album-Get it Like You Live  on Ropeadope records. The album is the culmination of a Gunn's accumulated musical acumen.  On it he pursues his vision of incorporating elements of contemporary soul, rock and hi-hop influences with the jazz aesthetic of improvisation, all in a big-band format. Gunn whipped his nineteen-piece orchestra into recording form during a several week residency at the jazz club St James Live in East Atlanta. He wrote and arranged over thirty pieces of music for the band before settling on his best nine for inclusion on the recording. The album includes the voice and music of the neo-soul singer Dionne Farris, who adds another dimension to Gunn's bevy of some of Atlanta’s finest musicians.

We caught up to Russell at his home in Atlanta via telephone on June 12, 2018 as he was between gigs touring with the bassist Marcus Miller.  Notes on Jazz  discussed his personal  history, influences, his musical philosophy, his recent work with the bassist Marcus Miller and his most recent album.

NOJ:    You were born in Chicago and grew up in East St.  Louis Mo.  When did you make that move to East St. Louis?

RG: We moved to East St. Louis in 1979. My parents got divorced so I moved with my dad.

NOJ: East St. Louis is where you started to mature?

RG: Exactly.

NOJ: You started trumpet at the age of ten, but I read somewhere that you were initially interested I the drums. Is that correct?

RG: I did start to play the trumpet at ten, but drums have always been my passion instrument. I consider myself- I’m not a drummer- but in my heart, I’m definitely a drummer. That’s why drummers in my band hate my ass, because it’s hard to play drums for me. Drums have always been the foundation for everything. But that’s a little off the point. When I was ten I wanted to play the saxophone first, because the songs on the radio had saxophone solos, so that’s what attracted me. I was going to play saxophone when the opportunity came up at age ten and the only reason that I played trumpet is because my best friend at the time-we were going to play music together-he wanted to play the trumpet he said, “Hey man why don’t you play the trumpet.” So, I really didn’t care, I just wanted to do something musical so that’s what happened.

NOJ: Does he still play trumpet?

RG: No. He was a soldier and he moved that way.

NOJ: What was it like growing up in East St. Louis for you?

RG: Man, it was great, Besides the obvious glaring negative things about East St. Louis-especially in the eighties, which are completely true for the most part-I mean I loved it. Of course, when your nine or ten years old, when you’re a kid, being a kid, no matter where you live is just fun. I still have friends for life.

High school was a little challenging because of all the problems that East St. Louis had. There were three high schools in East St. Louis at the time. There is only one now. I went to the high school completely on the other side of town, because I wanted to be in the band at that school. So that meant that I didn’t go to high school with most of my elementary and junior high school friends.

Just like Chicago, East St. Louis was always divided by the gangs that were local to where you lived in the city. So, I grew up with a bunch of friends that were a certain way and then I had to ride the bus to the high school across town which was a completely different thing than what I had grown up with. When I look back at it, it wasn’t that bad. It was sort of the pre-crack days, so the only problems in East St. Louis for kids was the gang problem. Don’t get me wrong, that was a big problem, but that was the only main problem. If you took care of yourself and watched your back that way, if you had friends that took care of you, you’d be ok. I had a lot of friends and we still look out for each other even to this day. Overall, I love East St. Louis with all my heart. Outside of Atlanta, to me there is no better place, where the quality of the people that live there is so genuine.

NOJ: That must have been difficult to have to go all the way across town on bus to another district, away from your friends, so that you could pursue music. You must have been driven by somebody or inspired by someone or just driven by yourself ?  Which was it?

RG: Well I had to go to that school because I wanted to be in that band. There was a teacher, his name was Ron Carter, not the famous bass player, but the band program leader. He took the time to make sure that he gave us a place to be, gave us some outlets in music, gave us some outlooks on life that we might not normally have been exposed to. In those days, high school bands were still kind of good. In every city there was a high school where the athletes go because the athletic program is really top notch there.  I went to the high school where the music program and the track program were really the best. The high school where I was supposed to go, East St. Louis High School, was known for its football program. It had some of the best high school football teams in America for a long time, they still have a great program, but I had to be in the school with the best band. I had an older cousin who was in that band, he was a trumpet player. He was there, he was the king. I just needed to be a part of that.

It wasn’t easy. Trust me, sixty-thirty every morning, me and my best friend, waiting there at the bus stop- rain, sleet or snow-to get to the other side of town. We would leave there after practicing, sometimes 10 or 11 pm at night, which was a real problem. That high school was surrounded on four sides by the housing projects, it wasn’t fun after you get out of band practice, to be from the other side and to have to navigate that neighborhood. But it was worth it.

NOJ: What high school did you attend?

RG: It was Lincoln High School. (This music program is famous for being where Miles Davis was a student.)

NOJ: Was their music program well known around the area?

RG: I think the program was well known around the world.  It was really, special. It was a straight up public high school. A straight up ghetto-ass public high school. I only say that because the only other schools that aspiring musicians could go to, that were really, even close to being on our level or better than us, were like Dallas Arts Magnet High School, where Roy Hargrove went to- that was an Arts Magnet High School. Philadelphia Performing Arts High School, where Christian McBride, “Lil” John Roberts, Joey Defrancesco all those kids went together was another place. Those are all Arts schools. Lincoln High School was the only truly public school where the music program and musicianship was even close to that caliber. It wasn’t even comparable because we didn’t have any of the resources (that they had), so it was super special for us, and that’s why we have so much pride to be from where we are from.

NOJ: So, your bandleader at Lincoln, Ron Carter, was obviously an early influence and you mentioned your older trumpet playing cousin, Anthony Wiggins,who was looked up to by everyone. Is there anybody else that you can point to that you can say strongly influenced you to wanting to continue this path despite all to the hardships?

RG: I must say that I didn’t consider any of this to be a hardship at the time. Looking back on it you can see what it was. The way I grew up, my father was a phone man. He was the guy that you see outside climbing telephone poles, fixing your phone service. My dad made sure we lived above our means. I didn’t have to live in an environment where I had to worry about shit happening outside of my house.

NOJ: That’s quite a gift to give a child.

RG: Yeah. My dad was the oldest boy of eleven kids. They were poor. My father was poor, poor, like one pair of pants poor, like not eating poor and he was abused by his deranged stepfather. My father made sure that his kids wouldn’t have to deal with any of that and I try to do the same for my children. I sometimes live way above my means(laughing), so my kids don’t even have a hint of what it means to be that kind of poor or even the level that I experienced when I was growing up.

To get back to your question about early mentors, beside Mr. Carter and my older cousin, I soon became focused on what I wanted to do and so I didn’t need anyone else to motivate me when it came to my music. I was already going for it. I was living as if this was what I was going to be doing right now.

NOJ: Did you get a chance to study classical music or have classical music training?

RG: No, not at all. In East St. Louis you could start learning music in the fourth grade, at about age ten, but the only thing they would have is what was called musical specialists. These were people who had basic knowledge of some instruments and they could help the kids with basic flute, trumpet or saxophone or whatever. We didn’t have anybody that could teach us instruments. I’m self-taught most of my friends were eventually self-taught unless you were luck enough that your band director played the same instrument that you were playing. Then you may have been able to get better tutelage on the instrument, but for most of us they showed you the basics, like how to make a sound on your instrument, but basically you had to figure the rest out on your own.

NOJ: So, after High School, what did you do to develop your chops? What was your training program for yourself?

RG: My training program was sitting in a room with a cassette player, rewinding Clifford Brown all day and all night. That’s how I learned how to play.

NOJ: Not to shabby a role model.

Clifford Brown ( photo credit unknown)

"My training program was sitting in a room with a cassette player, rewinding Clifford Brown all day and all night."

RG: That was the only way to learn. That’s why I don’t teach, because I developed completely bad habits playing the trumpet, because I taught myself how to play. Just now, at forty-seven years old, am I becoming a better trumpet player because of all the on the job (training), the hard work I had to put in to develop with no formal training. If I had been giving the opportunity to have learned correctly when I was younger there is no doubt I would be one hundred times better than I am now. I am just now getting to the point where I’m able to play the trumpet comfortably without doing any damage to myself.

NOJ: Talk about the necessity to be able to read music.

RG: That depends on what you want to do. What are your goals? What are your desires?  Who do you want to play with? For somebody who wants to be diverse and have multiple opportunities, being able to read is of the utmost importance. But you don’t have to be able to read anything. There is a saying, there are those who if you threw fly shit on a notation page and they could read it no problem. You don’t have to read to that level to play music. A basic understanding of reading music helps but a lot of musicians don’t read. Some great ones don’t read at all. I played in the pop world and the R & B world for a long time, a lot of those guys can’t read, but they are still able to make music.  Music is based on sound, understanding sound and being able to convey sound, that is what makes it happen.

NOJ: In previous interviews you have credited the Russian classical composer Peter Tchaikovsky, the jazz bassist/composer Charles Mingus and the saxophonist Benny Golson with all being strong influences on you. They could all read and notate music. You have formed your own big band and have been able to create your own sound and arrangements for your ensembles. How have you been able to overcome the obvious disadvantage you have compared to your idols?

Charles Mingus, Benny Golson and Peter Tchaikovsky

RG: Those are my favorite three, but for different reasons. Mingus has always been one of my idols because of the kind of person he was, in addition to his being such a great musician. Some musicians can just be assholes and they don’t have anything to back it up. Well Mingus was one of the greatest of all times and he was a complete asshole. Because his only desire was for the music to be conveyed in a sincere way. One of the problems he recognized is that when you as a conductor/composer use musicians that play individually at a high level, the musicians often won’t give themselves up to intent of the composer. They need to submit themselves to the will and direction that the composer has envisioned for them. That’s why bands don’t work out a lot of the time. They call it creative differences. Instead of just going with the flow, believing in the composer and allowing themselves to be directed and see what the results will be, they create disruption.

For example, I am in (the bassist) Marcus Miller’s band and there is no time when I’m like telling him   “Why don’t we try to do something like this.” I’m there to learn from the lineage that he comes from and I ‘m a pupil of his, even though I’m in my mid-forties, I’m in his band. I’m there to absorb what he knows and what he has learned by being in other bands and leading his own bands

.

NOJ: What about Tchaikovsky? What is it about his music that is so inspiring to you?

RG: Tchaikovsky, now your talking about my number one favorite. The man had the greatest sense of melody of anybody that I have ever listened to. He maybe the only musician that people are so familiar with his music that they can sing it and not even know its was his music, like the theme to The Nutcracker or Romeo and Juliet. His sense of melody really opened my eyes to the concept of being an artist and what it means to be a global artist. Art comes from everywhere. A lot of Black musicians could never conceive that an old white Russian musician could write such memorable melodies.  If Stevie Wonder wrote those melodies, then brothers would be fawning all over them, acknowledging how they could see how brilliant his tunes were. But for me, it is not just the melodies- his melodies are so strong that we all can cling to that- but it’s also his sense of rhythm and counter-melody that made his work so special to me. My favorite composition is the last one he did before he killed himself, it was called Pathetique. If the story is correct, Mr. Tchaikovsky was a gay man who was in love with the son of a person of stature, something that society wouldn’t tolerate.

NOJ: He was heartbroken? So many great songs seem to come from inner turmoil.

RG: Its like anything. There are parts of our brain and parts of our insides that aren’t accessible until we get to a certain place. It’s like taking drugs maybe, like taking LSD to access different parts of your brain that you can’t normally access, or when heightened emotion enters. That condition can also impact you into otherwise inaccessible states. Like when a mother sees her child under a car and can summon super strength to lift the car off her child.

NOJ: I have done several interviews with notable jazz musicians over the years and I remember asking the one-time Coltrane pianist Steve Kuhn what is it that makes certain songs like “Blue & Green,” which I have heard you deconstruct and reassemble on more than once occasion, so durable and compelling? His answer was “Melody, melody, melody.” Some artist eschew melody completely. What are your boundaries when it comes to melody?

"I have one simple rule. If the shit doesn’t have a melody, then it’s not a f@#king song.Melody, like beauty, is subjective to the listener."

RG: I have one simple rule. If the shit doesn’t have a melody, then it’s not a fucking song. You can have the greatest rhythmic motion and it can feel good rhymically, blah, blah blah. If there is no melody, then you just have beat. Likewise, if you don’t have something rhythmic that kind of brings it together, then it’s a little incomplete. I think you can be complete with just the melody, but I don’t think you can be complete in a purely rhythmic motif. Melody, like beauty, is subjective to the listener. What constitutes a beautiful melody to one person may not to another, and I am very aware of it. I know my opinion doesn’t matter to everybody or is the last word. I just know if the melody doesn’t sound and feel right then for me there is nothing there.

NOJ: As a child of the seventies and the eighties you were experiencing the introduction of hip hop and rap music onto the scene. What is it about these distinct genres that appeals to you. A lot this music is predominantly driven by rhythmic, drone-like constructions. That would seem to be contradictory to your take on melody and yet you are known to be a pioneer in cross pollinating jazz with rap and hip hop. Can you explain how that works?

RG: Let’s backup a bit. I come from a time when rap was in its infancy. I think it’s important to know that for me that was a cultural thing. It came from a cultural basis that included a bunch of different things not just rap music. Rap music is one part of a cultural experience that included dancing- which was break dancing-the music part-which was DJ’-ing,- it included art -Grafitti- and included a style of dress- the oversized drooping pants, the turned around cap- which was the way we dressed. All those things inclusively made up that culture that we used to call hip-hop. What they now call hip-hop  is basically the rap music element which in popular media is the least cultured part of it.

NOJ: You think they are too profane and too centered on overt materialism? I admit to not getting the hype around most rap.

RG: That maybe what you hear, but that’s not it, that’s not everything. What you hear in the media, in the mainstream is really, not what it’s all about. So, if you make a blanket statement about condemning the music just based on what you are told, without doing any research on your own, then your just as guilty as the people that you are blaming for making music that appeals to a lower standard. You just can’t generalize.

As it’s related back to me, hip hop was a complete culture. It included all the elements-dance, DJ music, Graffiti art and a style of dress- not just the music, the one moniker of the culture. Yes, I am a melody guy, but hip -hop rhythm is what drives me, it drives my insides. It’s all African music, African drums at heart. There is test I do when I hear a beat. I always try to divide it into three and see if it relates to the African beat.

"...to me, hip hop was a complete culture. It included all the elements-dance, DJ music, Graffiti art and a style of dress- not just the music, ..."

NOJ: You believe that rap music has a cultural link to heritage, more based on the diaspora of the West African drumming tradition?

RG: It all manifests itself in different ways. As an African, an African descendant, that lives in you. It will manifest itself in different ways. I’ll give you an example. When I was in elementary school, when a teacher would leave the room, one of the boys would start a beat on his desk and then the others would all join in adding their own beats. What do you have there? You have an African drum circle manifesting itself in East St. Louis, Missouri. Out of nowhere. Nobody knows why, it just is. So that rhythm always finds a way to express itself. Rhythmically, what we have today, even with the shit that we hear on today’s popular radio that we can’t stand lyrically, underneath it all that is a rhythm that we all feel and love in a certain way, because it’s that same inherent rhythm that is manifesting itself.  We can get past on whatever is going on in society; boys feeling a certain way about life, about how badly people are treated and how unfair life can be, we need to get past that shit because that comes and goes. But that rhythm is always going to be with you in your DNA. And that’s why my music is both of those things. I am a melody writer, but I am pulled rhythmically from that African drumming tradition.

NOJ: During your career you have played with some impressive artists from Oliver Lake, to Branford Marsalis to Wynton and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Then you diverted from that more traditional trajectory and started going on your own into hard bop, integrating contemporary sounds into your music. Is this the direction you expected to take?

RG: Yeah. Since in high school I was always on that path. When I made Ethnomusicology Vol 1 in 1998, I had already thought of that material in 1988. I just didn’t have the musical tools to develop that stuff. I started to develop the musical tools I needed once I moved to New York. I started to learn how to put things together, but conceptually it had been there since the late eighties.

NOJ: Wynton is known as being a jazz purist. Did he influence you, if at all?

RG: Now here is a beautiful thing. Here is a beautiful lesson in musicianship. I was in Jazz at Lincoln Center (Orchestra) before it was called Jazz at Lincoln Center It was called the Wynton Marsalis Big Band. I was hired personally by him. You know all these arguments that are going on now in the public eye. Wynton and I had these very same conversations, with the same differences, twenty years ago, only they were in private. Our differences never stopped him from having me in his band because I spoke the language and was able to deal with what they wanted me to deal with. We could have the most personal differences all day long, and we did, many, many times. I was a kid coming straight out of East St. Louis onto the scene in New York. My hair was braided, I dressed just like all the kids in the nineties, giant ass pants, giant ass coats and shit, my nose was pierced. There was no way you could tell the difference between me as a working musician at Jazz at Lincoln Center and any other twenty-something walking the streets of New York at the time. The only way you would know the difference was when I sat down and took my trumpet out to play, and that’s the only thing that really mattered to Wynton.

NOJ: You got nominated for two Grammy awards and then you were dropped by your label, Atlantic at the time. How does an artist deal with that kind of roller coaster ride and what keeps you from just throwing your hands up, scratching your head and questioning why you are doing this?

RG: This is what I do. I would be a liar if I didn’t say that things like that hurt me sometimes. Of course, they do, because it not only kind of demoralizes you but it fucks with how you make a living. If you in the “life” (laughing) which is what I like to call it (the life of a professional musician), then you are in it for better or worse. I don’t teach. I don’t give lessons. I write songs and I play the trumpet and that takes me wherever it’s going to take me right now. When I get a little older maybe I’ll feel different. Maybe somebody will offer me something that I will like oh shit ok.

NOJ: You just came off a tour with bassist Marcus Miller. Was that satisfying?

RG: Man, that is completely satisfying. For me it’s very important to be in his band right now. There are very few opportunities like that left. To be a part of a band, especially at my age, where I’m still in the student role and I can still learn. But to play with someone who played with someone that I wish I could’ve have played with.

NOJ: Miles?

RG: Yeah. Bands don’t really exit like that anymore on that level. When there is one person who has that kind of lineage who works as much as he works. For me its very important. I don’t think its by accident. I am a universe believer. I believe you will always be put in situations because that’s what you asked for or that’s what you want.

NOJ: How did the connection with Marcus happen?

Russell Gunn and Marcus Miller

RG: Man, it’s the craziest thing. Now this is one of the weirdest things that have ever happened to me. A few years ago, maybe a year and a half ago, my oldest sister passed away. I was in East St. Louis, at the funeral and I was about to go inside. I was in the car and Marcus texted me. I don’t know what he was doing, he was changing up the band, and I had always wanted to be in his band and for whatever reason he never called me until that day and I have been in the band ever since. Quite honestly, right now the trumpet duties in his band are kind of split between me and another trumpet player, Marquis Hill from Chicago. That’s how that happened. The crazy thing is when I started to tell people I’m about to go out on tour playing with Marcus. They all started saying “Damn man, it’s about time.”

NOJ: It is about time that you’ve have gotten this kind of recognition.

RG: Everything that Marcus needs in a trumpet player, that is exactly what I am. All the Miles music, all the contemporary music, not to say I’m a great trumpet player, but that thing -to be in his band -is exactly what I’m about. I’m positive that my development as a trumpet player has led me to this point, that now joining his band I am able to give him what he needs without any kind of real tutelage. I think it works for him it’s a really great thing. I love playing in the band.

NOJ: Who is in the band now?

RG: This band is very, very young. He has a great young piano player named Brett Williams who will be doing some things soon. His alto player is Alex Han. Alex was nominated for a Grammy last year, first record, first time out of the gate. His drummer is Alex Bailey who is a roommate of Alex Han when they were in college.

NOJ: You have one of Atlanta’s most exciting and innovative big band, The Royal Krunk Jazz Orchestra. Tell us the genesis of this band and where did the name Krunk come from?

RG: The Krunk Jazz Orchestra is basically everything I have been working towards finally coming together. This is what I’ve always been, I have always been a band leader. I’ve always written for a larger ensemble, although I’ve never written for a big band before. But I’ve always written for larger ensembles on most of my recordings. This was always the direction I was going in.

The word “Krunk” is an Atlanta word. There are a couple of definitions and I’ll give you the PG definition. It’s when you are in a heightened excited state.

"The Krunk Jazz Orchestra is basically everything I have been working towards finally coming together. This was always the direction I was going in."

NOJ : Agitated?

RG: No, not agitated at all. It’s a happy excitement. Like when you go to a social party and you see someone having a really good time. You would say “Yeah, that person right there is Krunk.” Its that sensibility, not anything negative at all.

NOJ: Is there a sexual connotation to it?

RG: No, not at all. It’s just being in a super excited, fun state of mind.

NOJ: Is it like being euphoric and care free?

RG:  Euphoric yeah, I guess. The name came about- I did a record called Krunk Jazz- Bionic - Julie Dexter was singing on it. I had her listening to some of the early cuts and she was in a car listening when a kid came up to her car window and said, “That sounds like some “Krunk” Jazz to me.” And that’s how the name was born. Kids always tell the truth.

NOJ: You always wanted to be a big band leader, even though you never studied composition or arrangement or had the rest of that formal training. You somehow managed to find a way to accomplish what you needed for this big band.

RG:  All through trial and error. Arranging is one thing, orchestration is whole different thing. Musical knowledge is acquired by study, but you can learn it by trial and error, which is what I’ve done. I hired Wes Funderburk, a local trombone player and great arranger, to write the very first charts that I had. I arranged three or four on the record. I’m still getting better, I’m working on my next one now. What I learn from the last one, I’m taking to the next project.

NOJ: This debut release of the Royal Krunk Orchestra is titled Get It How You Live, which will be released on Ropeadope Records on July 13, 2018. Tell us what you mean by the title?

The Royal Krunk Jazz Orchestra's Get it How You Live  Ropesdope  RAD-430

RG: Its just like everything we have been talking about. Get it How You Live is another saying, a Black saying, that has a simple meaning. To put it in the most layman of terms it means to represent yourself how you really are, in a genuine way.

NOJ: I would call that authentic.  I have to say, you are one of the most authentic musicians I have ever seen. When you play you leave it all out there. I’ve seen you explore a song like “Blue and Green” on several occasions and you always seem to find something new to say when playing it. What is it about a song like that, so compelling that an artist like you can always find a thread that he can explore and make it all his own?

RG: In a small group setting, again for me everything is just sound. In a small group setting it is even more important to deal with the sound as opposed to doing the simple math. As a “jazz” musician you can do simple math to play almost any of these songs just by using mathematical equations. There is a bebop equation that you relate to the notes in the bebop language. If you understand the math and can put air through the instrument you can play. But everyone plays Charlie Parker ‘s music but they don’t sound like Bird. Or they play Trane’s music, but they don’t sound like Trane, because there is the other part to it. It comes from that other place that we really don’t understand yet. When you get to this level, there was a time when everything I did was based on some formulaic approach, but that’s just maturation as a musician. Everyone matures at a different rate, which is very important for young musicians to know.  If anyone reads this, and they are frustrated, I think it’s important for young musicians, no matter how much adoration you may get as a youth, you must realize that the truth is most musicians don’t fully develop until later.

NOJ: It’s also about living, isn’t it? A musician has to "live" experiences to be able to bring those experiences authentically into his or her music.

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  Russell Gunn (photo by Ralph A. Miriello)

RG: Yeah, it’s like the martial arts, you can know all the form and clarity and you can spar and can even get some success in achieving a black belt, but until you are there, and you have to fight, and you really develop those instincts and that sixth sense of what your opponent is going to do you haven’t really mastered your art.

As a musician, once you start really playing, then you start dealing with the sounds not notes, then you and the drummer can start to react together. Then the piano player might play something a little out there and you may hear something that can lead you into an area that is different then where you were thinking before. That is just a maturation period. Trust me, I don’t consider myself to be great or even good by any stretch of the imagination. I always felt that “jazz” musicians have over a hundred years of recorded music to stand on, and we should be as good or better than all of those musicians that came before us, because we have all of that history to study and practice and hopefully go beyond.

NOJ: That’s a very ambitious goal. Can you imagine being better than Louis Armstrong or Clifford Brown or Woody Shaw?

RG: Well Louis Armstrong is the greatest. But listen they were all better than people that came before them. You’re talking about these people that learned the history and the tradition and took it a step further. That’s what we all should be doing. We should have mastered what they did and moved on.

NOJ: On the new album you teamed up with the neo-soul singer Dionne Farris and worked out some of her material with your big band. How did this collaboration come about?

Dionne Farris and Russell Gunn (photo credit unknown)

RG: I started working with Dionne a few years ago. It was crazy. When I played in Branford’s (Marsalis) band, we were recording, I think his second record and it might have been about the same time she was a huge pop star and she came by the studio. I hadn’t seen her all those years until one day she came into Churchill Grounds and was playing with my percussionist Ali Barr. We caught up and reconnected. I was going to do a gig at Churchill and I thought it might be nice to do a collaboration with her. She wanted to learn and wanted to sing and get into the genre a little more. So, we had this gig coming up, and you know, there is no doubt about how well she can sing. She’s amazing. Just singing as a “jazz” singer is a little bit different from what she had been doing. She wanted me to send her a bunch of jazz songs that I thought she would be able to sing well, but hen I thought, why don’t I take her material and arrange it in a way that we would all be comfortable. Basically, extend across the aisle for each other and that’s what I did and that’s how the relationship started. She’s been there ever since. She is my go to girl.

NOJ: What’s next for you?

RG: I just got home yesterday from a Jamaican tour and I am on my way out in the morning to Europe for about ten days. Then I come home for a couple of days before I go back out to Europe again with Marcus Miller for another month. Then I come home for a bit, my record will be out by then, and hopefully we can come home and see what we can make happen with this band.

NOJ: Are you planning on touring with the Royal Krunk Orchestra, if not nationally then locally?

Russell Gunn and his Royal Krunk Jazz Orchestra 

RG: I plan on touring with the big band if I can, I just have to make it happen.

NOJ: That is a tough one. The economics of touring with a big band are challenging. How many pieces are in the band?

RG: Nineteen.

NOJ:  The band includes Lee King, Curtis Watson, Daniel Harper, Ali Barr, Darren English and Melvin Jones on trumpets; Derrick Jackson, Saunders Sermons, Derrick White and Tom Gibson on trombones; Akeem Marable, Brian Hogans, Mike Walton, Jamel Mitchell, Eric Fontaine and James Robertson on Saxophones; Che Marshall on drums; Phil Davis on keyboards; Rod Harris Jr. on guitar; Tabari Lake on bass; Ali Barr on percussion; Dionne Farris and Dashill Smith on vocals; and special guest Theo Croker on trumpet on "Sybil's Blues."  Composer, arranged, produced and conducted by Russell Gunn. Some Arrangements by Wes Funderburk.

NOJ: It should be happening. From what I ‘ve heard its different and fresh and I wish you all the luck in the world with it.

RG: Thanks, its all good.

Pianist Kevin Bales 50th Birthday Bash: Bringing Out the Best in Atlanta's Jazz Community

Kevin Bales

What happens when one of the Southeast’s most sought-after jazz pianists- in  jazz parlance “one bad mf of a player”- wants to celebrate turning fifty and invites friends and fans to a birthday bash at a local jazz club/restaurant? You get a spectacular evening of song, camaraderie, and for the pianist, a humbling showering of respect and love that cannot be overstated. That is exactly what happened this past Friday evening at the Mason Tavern, on Clairmont Road in Decatur, when locally based pianist/educator Kevin Bales decided to celebrate his own personal milestone by sharing his music with family, friends, musical contemporaries and members of the Atlanta jazz community.

Tavern operator and jazz impresario Sam Yi-of Churchill Grounds fame- has been presenting jazz at the Tavern for the last five months and so it was no surprise when Bales asked Yi if the restaurant could accommodate his planned two-day birthday celebration.

Bales studied music at University of North Florida where he was mentored by legends saxophonist Bunky Green, bassist Ben Tucker and multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan.  Over the years, he has toured with Green, guitarist Nathen Page and vocalist Rene Marie. His brilliant sideman work can be heard on multiple recordings by Marie (one nominated for a Grammy); on Blue Note with trumpeter Marcus Printup; on records by Green, Sullivan and Page; as well as on recordings with local trumpeters Joe Gransden and Dr. Gordon Vernick. He has also recorded as a leader of his own piano trio and can be seen performing regularly around the Atlanta area. The energetic Bales also maintains a dedicated teaching practice at his studio in Tucker.

This past Friday night was truly special for Bales, he had hired a core rhythm section to play with him for the two nights of celebration; a joyful way to demonstrate and share his love of this music and the importance it has had on his life. The response from fellow musicians who wanted to play with him-celebrate his life of music- was so overwhelming that some who showed up never got a chance to play. No matter, the music was inspiring and the variety of talent was truly broad brushed.

Proprietor Sam Yi introduced the core band members, sometimes failing to find enough superlatives to describe their talents. The drummer Leon Anderson, Jr., now living in Tallahassee, Florida, was a special guest that Bales had summoned up for this gig. Bassist Billy Thorton, guitarist Trey Wright and saxophonist Sam Skelton rounded out the core group.

Sam Skelton

In talking to the pianist before the start of the set, Bales indicated that he had not prepared a set list of songs for the set, preferring to allow the spirit to move him in the right direction. It was a method that bubbled with entusiastic imagination.

They started off with the Victor Young classic “Stella by Starlight.”  Trey Wright, an accomplished guitarist and educator at Kennesaw Satet, took the first solo adding thoughtful, fluid lines to the melody as the rhythm section pushed the pace. The respected saxophonist Sam Skelton, who heads the jazz studies program at Kennesaw, took hold of the song and wrapped it around his fingers, twisting it taut, turning it to his whim before loosening it again, with a dazzling display of powerful virtuosity and control. Bassist Thorton probed the edges of the composition with rhythmic assurance. When Bales took his solo you could see the whirlwind developing. With a cascade of notes pouring out of his electric keyboard, Bales was often so driven to expression that he would elevate off his seat, creating his own tornado of sounds, you could hear the whoosh around him. He was clinging to his keyboard as if he might be spun off by the sheer centrifugal force of his playing. It was just a small glimpse of what was to come. Drummer Anderson seemed to be bidding his time, keeping the pace, but restraining himself at first; getting the lay of the terrain. His reticence was fortunately short-lived, as there were many times during the performance that his playing mesmerized the crowd with its sheer inventiveness.

Trey Wright and Kevin Bales

Bales took to the microphone to thank the full house of patrons for coming out to help him celebrate  this milestone. He acknowledged the presence of his family in the house; his son, daughter and future son-in law were happily all present, but what seemed to make him most nervous was the presence of his mother in the audience. Bales was especially moved by her attendance, intimating that she hadn’t seen him perform in several years. He dutifully dedicated the next song to her, the spiritual “Just A Closer Walk with Thee.”  The hymn, often played at New Orleans funeral services, is known for its gospel roots. It was beautifully rendered by pianist and his band, with drummer Anderson venturing into more creative grounds here.

Leon Anderson Jr.

With so many musicians in attendance, many anxiously waiting to perform in the pianist's honor, the guests started to make their way up to the stage. Two singers, Laura Coyle and Tom Dean, perfromed a few impromptu numbers. Duke Jordan’s "Jordu" was a sung as a duet that featured some deft scatting by both the lyrical Coyle and the raspy Dean, to the audience’s delight. Dean did his own interpretive, off-beat version of the Judy Garland classic “Over the Rainbow” and then the two returned to do a scat version of “Stompin’ at the Savoy.” Bales was at his most animated on this Edgar Sampson classic(made famous by Benny Goodman), tearing up the keyboard, bursts of creativity  pouring out of him like a gush of water from a bursting dam. The audience cheered in appreciation.

Tom Dean and Laura Coyle

After  a five-minute jazz-time break that was more like thirty, comedian Jerry Farber took to the microphone had the audience laughing, as he told one of his famous jokes before wishing Kevin a Happy Birthday. 

The second set started when Neal Starkey, a valued mentor that Bales acknowledged was crucial to his development when he first came to Atlanta, took the bass chair for a couple of songs, as tenor saxophonist Mike Walton, a regular member of the Joe Gransden Big Band,  did a stirring, Coltrane-inspired version of Wayne Shorter’s “Black Nile.”

Mike Walton and Neal Starkey

Vocal stylist Virginia Schenck, who has several recordings with Bales accompanying her on piano, did a theatrical version of  the classic “Nature Boy.”  

Pianist Kenny Banks Sr., one of several fellow pianists who showed up to honor Bales, settled into the keyboard, starting a house-stirring Blues, supported by Thorton on bass, and Anderson percolating on drums,  Banks Sr. knows his blues bringing a different level of funk and soul to the keyboard. The rhythm section got into his groove and then saxophonist John Sandfort sat in to give a soulful solo of his own invention.

Trumpeter Russell Gunn, one of Atlanta's premier musicians and a former member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, surprisingly popped in unannounced  for a cameo, after Sandfort’s solo. The fiercely powerful, take no prisoners Gunn, blasted this blues into the stratosphere with a brief but powerful solo that got right to the heart of the song's sentment and had the audience on its feet. The trombonist Saunder Sermens also joined in with a softer, more deliberately paced solo. 

Leon Anderson Jr., Russell Gunn and Billy Thorton

The evening continued with Kevin Smith taking over the bass chair as the Armenian cellist/vocalist, Arpenik Hakobyan sang a sensitive version of the classic “Autumn Leaves.” Pianist and Director of Jazz Studies at Emory University, Gary Motley took over the keyboard from Bales and joined by Anderson, Skelton and Smith did a rousing version of “Close Your Eyes.” The evening closed out, past the midnight witching hour, to the house singing Happy Birthday to Bales, led by his daughter, and with Motley and Bales dueling at the cramped electric keyboard to a roaring finale.

Billy Thorton and Kenny Banks Sr.

Due to time restraints, many musicians who came never had the opportunity to play. I saw Joe Gransden, E.J. Hughes, Nick Rosen, Tia Rix and others all in attendance and support. To say that it was a memorable evening would be an understatement, but clearly the event represented some of the best the Atlanta jazz community has to offer and is a testament to how much love and respect pianist Kevin Bales inspires. 

Kevin Smith, Gary Motley and Kevin Bales

The Last Concert: Atlanta's Jazz Club "Churchill Grounds" Closes its Doors April 1997- July 2016

The window sign at Churchill Grounds

This past Sunday evening, July 31, 2016, the nearly twenty-year run of Atlanta’s longest continuously operating jazz club, Churchill Grounds, came to a glorious but ultimately sobering end. Since April of 1997, when the club first opened its doors, Churchill Grounds has been a labor of love. The name is curiously the combination of two things that Owner Sam Yi loves, Churchill size cigars and coffee grounds. This Atlanta institution was situated adjacent to the Fox Theater at 660 Peachtree NE in downtown Atlanta. Mr. Yi’s admittedly naïve motivation for such an endeavor? Maybe it would be fun to have a place where local musicians could play and you could make a little money providing a platform for the music that you love. Simple and admirable enough, but hardly the kind of business plan that would inspire a flock of financial supporters to your cause. That didn’t seem to bother Yi, a mild mannered business man, who was surprisingly passionate about the music and who decided to live his life immersed in it. On Sunday night, in an emotional farewell, he recounted how this endeavor required that he spend much of his life over the last twenty years at the club, putting in countless hours there, often at the expense of his family. Poignantly looking back over the years it was obvious that given the chance, Yi wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Owner Sam Yi; Billy Thornton on bass and Morgan Guerin on drums

It was his employees who worked there, the musicians who played there and the patrons who respectfully listened there that collectively became his extended family. He thanked them all with an emotion laden goodbye.That family even included two homeless men that became permanent fixtures outside the club’s front door. One of them, “homeless Joe,” offered his own tearful adage from the stage, saying how much he was going to miss seeing Sam and the steady ebb and flow of the club’s patrons. I suspect what Joe will miss most was his visibility. Sam and many patrons didn’t look past Joe, but acknowledged his humanity. They didn’t judge him, but looked at him as a soul who was just down on his luck. They didn’t castigate him as a nuisance, but greeted him with dignity, including him as part of the extended Churchill Grounds family. It was Sam Yi who provided this space where people who recognized the power and inclusiveness of the music were able to congregate and commune with one another.

And of course there was the music; it swung, it bopped hard or it grooved straight ahead, it fused wildly or it whispered softly and it often funked you to the bottom of your soul. The music wasn’t merely entertainment, it was history, it was creativity, it was a social compact and inclusiveness. Churchill Grounds became the go-to place in Atlanta. The place where musicians of all levels, professional and acolyte, could come and practice their skills, hone their craft, commune with each other and connect with their audience. It was the hometown stage for legends like the late Cedar Walton and the venerable Freddie Cole. It was the sometime residency for current standouts like Russell Gunn and Joe Gransden. It was a stop off joint for visiting celebrities like Wynton Marsalis or Harry Connick Jr. It was the proving grounds for a new breed of firebrand like Morgan Guerin, Kenny Banks Jr., the Harper Brothers and Darren English. 

A view from the drums at Churchill Grounds
photo by organ Guerin

The life of a musician is hard enough in today’s society where the arts in general are valued so poorly. Professional musicians often have to supplement their income by teaching, travelling extensively or taking other work. Churchill Grounds provided that home based waystation for many of Atlanta’s finest jazz musicians. Jazz musicians in particular have chosen a road that becomes ever more challenging in this modern world. Despite jazz being the only recognized original all American art form, the audience for this music has shrunken and grayed dramatically. According to a survey by Nielsens, jazz and classical music sales combined represented just 1.4% of the total music consumed in the United States in 2014. As for digital sales, the likely future of all music distribution- jazz streaming- represented a paltry .3% of the total volume of streamed music. These are sobering statistics for anyone who loves this music, for professional musicians and certainly for the hundreds of music students who are currently enrolled in jazz music educational programs. Needless to say, with such a small audience, the economic viability of presenting this music in a place like Churchill Grounds poses its own challenges.

But what statistics don’t reveal is the fierce loyalty, love and dedication that this music brings to those who embrace it. The spirit, reverence and sense of comradery that is often found within the jazz community as a whole is largely under appreciated by the general public. Jazz is international in its scope. The music remains an international language that bridges the widening gap between peoples of vastly different cultures. Jazz becomes the crucible by which these cultural differences can be annealed into a commonly shared means of communicating with each other in a positive and humanistic way.

The music is often spoken of as music for musicians. That assessment may be partially correct, as it takes a great deal of skill and dedication to play complex improvised music, but it also takes soul, heart and empathy to play it in such a way as it will move the listener.

In this technological age of diminishing attentions, we are less and less likely to immerse ourselves in the musical experience, perhaps because we no longer feel we have the time for such an indulgence. Jazz requires thoughtful listening. The experience is not always best conveyed through listening to recordings- although admittedly the great ones transcend the medium-but when we really listen and participate in the music in a “live” setting the magic of music can spread all over us like a blanket of warm sunshine. An engaged audience becomes an active participant in the creative process. Are we really ready to forego that precious experience? 

Having a venue that can offer musicians and music lovers a chance to experience what it is like to participate in a live jazz performance is crucial to very existence of the art form. That’s why the closing of Churchill Grounds is so distressing.

                                                                 Sam Yi and Russell Gunn

If anyone needed proof positive of the outpouring of love and affection that this music can generate, they should have been at the final few performances at Churchill Grounds. Local musicians and stalwart patrons came in force and solidarity to pay homage to the closing of an Atlanta institution. The City of Atlanta issued a proclamation naming the day Churchill Grounds Day and so did Fulton County, perhaps too little too late.

Kevin Bales, Billy Thornton, Russell Gunn and Morgan Guerin

Local trumpet legend Russell Gunn was the informal musical director of the proceedings when I attended on Sunday night. He was joined by the pianist Kevin Bales, the bassist Billy Thornton and the drummer Morgan Guerin. They played with a palpable intensity in a mostly hard bop style to an appreciate crowd of aficionados and well-wishers. Probably one of the most moving performances of the night was a rendition of the Bill Evan’s classic “Blue in Green.” Mr. Bales sensitive opening led to Mr. Gunn’s poignantly playing the melody on his muted trumpet that evoked memories of Miles Davis, an obvious influence. The young rhythm section was equally impressive.

The players frequently changed throughout the night as each one who came wanted to pay tribute in their own most personal way. At one point the stage was packed with four well known trumpet players-Russell Gunn, Georgia State educator Dr. Gordon Vernick, Joe Gransden and Darren English-in a trumpet show down that was par excellence. The trio section of Bales, Thornton, now with Marlon Patton on drums kept the frantic pace as the four guns had a high powered shoot out.

Here is a partial video of that show down posted on Darren English’s Facebook page: click here

Pianist Kenny Banks Jr. took over the piano chair and improvised on a beautiful rendition of “Con Alma.” His thoughtful ruminations on the melody were captivating. Here is a sample of that performance posted by saxophonist James Patterson. click here

Pianist Gary Motley took the piano chair and lent his elegant swing and facile chops to the proceedings. A seasoned professional as well as the Director of Jazz Studies at Emory University, Motley also accompanied several vocalists with a revolving rhythm section, this one including Craig Shaw on bass and Darren English on drums.

Some of the other artists that performed that night included tenor man Mike Walton, drummer Kenny Bostick, bassist Dishan Harper, trumpeter Terrence Harper, saxophonist James Robinson, flautist Rasheeda Ali and vocalists Laura Coyle and Julie Dexter. My apologies to those who I’ve missed.

Now that the lights are switched off and the doors are shuttered, the best way to describe the proceedings of this last evening at Churchill Grounds is to liken it to a joyous New Orleans style funeral march. A celebration of life not a demonstration of sorrow at the passing. Sam Yi was honored for his years of service, his defense of the cause and his unbridled passion for this music.

Make no mistake, this is a gut check for all of us who live in Atlanta and its surrounds. As a City of six million people can we really afford to lose yet another institution that promotes the arts? Do we really believe that the quality of our lives all comes down to dollars and cents on a ledger sheet?

Mr. Yi has said that he is looking for another venue, a rebirth of Churchill Grounds, hopefully in the near future. We should all hope he succeeds so that Churchill Grounds doesn’t become another distant memory like “Jeff’s Jazz” or “Dante’s Down Under.” Instead of lamenting another lost treasure, let’s all try to make this happen through community activism. You can help by donating to a special go fund me site by clicking here. It seeks to raise seed money to help secure another venue for Mr. Yi and hopefully, with our help. Churchill Grounds closing will be but a temporary blip in its long and illustrious history.