The Dave Holland Interview

Interview with Jazz Bassist Dave Holland from The Tompkins Weekly

Jazz bassist Dave Holland has played with many of the luminaries of the music—such as Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk—in his forty-five year career. He is not a musician that sits still and rests on his past accomplishments, however. He’s always looking for new musicians and sounds to bring his ideas to light. His current group, The Overtone Quartet, is no exception. This group features saxophonist Chris Potter, widely considered to be one of the most influential players on the instrument today. In addition, the band is composed of the outstanding players Jason Moran on piano and Eric Harland on drums. The band will be playing on October 4th as part of the Cornell Concert Series. This performance is an amazing opportunity to see a jazz legend who still pushes himself and surrounds himself with world-class players. I was fortunate to get the opportunity to talk with Dave Holland by phone last week.

Tompkins Weekly: You got your start in the US in 1968, playing with Miles Davis. What was it like to play with him in groups that included Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJonhette—huge players in Jazz?

Dave Holland: Well, it was really a pretty extraordinary opportunity for me to come to America at the age of twenty-one and join Miles Davis’s group. It was an extraordinary chance for me to come to America, which I’d planned on doing anyway, but I didn’t think I would come with a gig of that magnitude in my pocket. So it was pretty extraordinary . . . and a little overwhelming. Of course, just coming to America was somewhat of a cultural shock. Even though we speak the same language, British culture and American culture is very different. And politically there was a lot going on in ’68 and so it was pretty much an overload of new experiences and new things to understand and take in. And a part of that, of course, was to learn how to work with Miles and the group and to make a contribution.

TW: What was the jazz scene like growing up in the UK?

DH: My experiences there were really, really good. I moved to London in ’64 and prior to that I hadn’t done a lot of jazz playing. I’d worked more in rock and roll bands. I turned professional when I was fifteen, but I’d been in a band since I was thirteen. And then I started playing acoustic bass, just practicing at home when I was fifteen or sixteen, and practicing with records. But I didn’t really start performing jazz until I moved to London. And it was a really healthy scene in London in the ’60s and it got even healthier in 1966 when there was a club opened called The Old Place, which was the old location of the Ronnie Scott Club, after he’d moved it to the new place where he’s at now. He let us use that club for rehearsals and several nights a week of putting on music. All the young musicians in London had a wonderful venue to work in and to develop and to have as a meeting place. So a lot of things happened during that period that were wonderful—a lot of creative energy going on and different schools of thought for areas and directions of music. And I was right in the middle of it all. As well as going to conservatory during the day and studying classical music as well, as a student.

TW: What drew you to the bass?

DH: You know . . . it was probably circumstances. I was in my first band when I was thirteen and it had three guitars and a drummer and a singer. And we decided we needed a bass player. And I volunteered. And as soon as I started, I got a bass guitar and I started playing, and I loved it right away. I just felt something about the character of the instrument, and you know, I was mostly just a chord player, a rhythm player as a guitarist, and this was just more interesting and it suited me and my personality. And then I got started, of course, listening to bass players and I eventually found some great jazz bass players to listen to and that’s really what propelled me into working on the acoustic bass and to study jazz.

TW: Who do you consider to be your influences?

DH: The early influence were really Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. They were, you know, my first jazz records. They were records I bought because . . . I went to look for some Ray Brown records because I’d seen his name in the polls and knew that he was highly regarded and I thought, I’ll go and check that out. And while I was at the record store I found some LPs with a picture of a bass player on the front and he’d made two records and it was Leroy Vinnegar. And I bought those two records and that was my starting collection for records to practice with.

TW: What was it like to play on seminal recordings such as “In A Silent Way” and “Bitches Brew?” "Bitches Brew" was such a game changer when it came out.

DH: Yeah, you know all the recordings in that period I was with Miles, we sort of did in the periods when we were in New York, between touring. And Miles would usually call a recording session at some point during the time we were in New York. And we didn’t know which record was going to go down. We didn’t necessarily record all the music for a particular record at once. He had an ongoing access to the recording studio with Columbia [Records] and we just went in and did whatever he had on his mind at the time. Sometimes we’d just go in a play a couple of things and spend an afternoon in the studio, sometimes three days. So when you say the albums it was more just working on recording and recording ideas that Miles had and then they would eventually be selected and be put together for an album. There was quite a lot of editing that went on and post-production work on the recordings.

TW: What are the musical standouts in your career?

DH: Well, you know, I have to sort of think about what I’m doing today as much as anything. I feel extraordinarily privileged to be in a position to be doing my own projects and also doing the projects I occasionally do with other people. Obviously the things that stand out and are memorable are working with Miles, with Monk [Thelonious Monk], with Betty Carter . . . and Sam Rivers, Anthony Braxton. I’ve had some great associations over the last forty-five years. Jack DeJohnette has been a great friend and companion and associate in the music. So the list goes on. I hate making lists because I always forget people. But over a long period of time I’ve had some great experiences. But I pretty much value a lot the things I’m doing at the moment. And for the last fourteen years, thirteen going on fourteen, I’ve had a quintet that’s been extraordinarily productive and creatively positive. And that still continues. And then I’ve had several other projects I’ve started—a big band project that started in 2000, which we did two Grammy winning records with. And my most recent recording, which will be out within the next month or so is an octet. I did a sextet recording last year. So all these projects are the things I feel so fortunate to do—things that are relevant to me at the moment.

TW: I saw you in 1990 at the Boston Globe Jazz Festival with Pat Metheny, Jack DeJohnette, and Herbie Hancock.

DH: I remember that.

TW: It was great. I’d just graduated from High School. Is there anyone you haven’t collaborated with that you would like to?

DH: Well there’s a lot of people that I haven’t played with, you know, but I’m pretty happy with what’s going on right now.

TW: Many of your bands as a leader have used saxophone—Steve Wilson, Steve Coleman, and now Chris Potter—as the lead voice. Are you particularly drawn to the saxophone as a voice?

DH: It works in some groups. It has more to do with the players, is generally why I use the instrument rather than the instrument itself, although that has something to do with it. I’m much more interested in finding musicians whose approach I like, and who I feel would be somebody that we could work well together, and who are good listeners. and have the reference points in their music that seem to work in the kind of approaches that I’m taking in the music. So that’s my primary thing and, of course, the sextet record last year, “Pass It On,” had three horns—Trumpet, Saxophone, and Trombone—as did my first quintet that I started in ’82. So it’s not something that’s always the case, but I can see how you can look at my work and say how there’s a lot of saxophone lead players there. But it hasn’t been so much a conscious thing as I have people who I admire and I want to be part of the music.

TW: Your recent groups have included a quintet, sextet, quartet, and big band. Do you approach writing and arranging differently depending on the make up of the group?

DH: It factors in very much with composing and arranging because when you have a particular size group you have to consider the sound of the group and the instrumentation. And, of course, the personalities of the musicians and accommodating those in the music and finding musical vehicles for them to play, which will really give them the full opportunity to use their creative ideas. So I take into consideration a lot who I’m writing for and certainly the instrumentation of the group suggests certain ways to use the groups. In a quartet setting it’s more bare bones and the music can be written with a lot of space to be filled in by the players. And when you start to work with larger groups—quintets, sextets, octets, and big bands—then you, I like to anyway, take advantage of the orchestrational possibilities that those groups offer and to write passages using that instrumentation—backgrounds, and transition passages or what ever comes to mind. So it does influence my writing, what size group I’m writing for.

TW: Your band consists of some of the best young players in jazz. Do you feel you have a role in working with younger musicians?

DH: I think it’s a role that has been in the music ever since the beginning. You know, it’s a generational thing. I benefited from it as a young musician. It’s part of the tradition, that young players have a chance to develop in a larger group. Also, the older players have a chance to plug into the new ideas that the younger players are bringing to the table and the energy that they’re bringing in. So it’s a very mutually beneficial situation. And, as I said, it’s been a part of the tradition from the early days when King Oliver invited Louis Armstrong to his band.

TW: For your Cornell Concert, Steve Nelson on vibes is filling in for piano. Is there a difference in the band switching those instruments?

DH: Certainly I’m going to be selecting music for the concert that will really utilize, to the full extent, the potential of what Steve brings with him as a musician and with the sound he makes on the instrument. Certain compositions will be written specifically for piano. Other compositions I’ve written in the past, I’ve written for Steve Nelson to play and utilize the vibes and marimba, which are quite unique sounding instruments and give a unique sound to the group. So in that respect, obviously, the change of the player is one thing and the change of instrument is another. We’ll be selecting music that will suite the instrumentation that we’re bringing.

TW: Who is inspiring you now? Who are you listening to that’s really getting you excited?

DH: Well, one of the things I’m listening to is flamenco music because I’ve been involved in a Flamenco project for the last two years. We just finished recording it earlier this year. It was with some Spanish Gypsy musicians. Pepe Habichuela is the sort of main guitarist and patriarch of the family. And so I’ve been listening to quite a lot to Flamenco music, going back to the early recordings in the ’20s and ’30s, to educate myself and to learn about that music.

I listen to a wide range of things. I was listening to [Duke] Ellington last night. I listen to contemporary music—rap and hip hop and R&B. I listen to jazz, of course, classical music, world music. I’m just a music fan and I like to listen to a broad range of music. Sometimes I’m not listening to anything. I’m just keeping my ears clear of really sitting down and listening to music. For one reason or another, that’s how it is sometimes. So at different periods I’ll be listening to different things.

TW: Great. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.

DH: You’re very welcome. See you at the concert.

TW: You bet. I’m excited to be there.

DH: Great. Thank You Very Much.

Bjorkestra

You have to give Travis Sullivan credit. It takes not only vision, but no small amount of courage to take the music of a much beloved and genre-bending performer and arrange it for a new musical setting. And a new setting, indeed, it is. Sullivan has taken Bjork’s music and re-arranged it for an 18-piece jazz band—The Bjorkestra.

Although Bjorketra’s debut album, Enjoy!, was just released January 22 on Koch Records, the band has around since 2004. As for Travis Sullivan, he has been a part of the New York City Jazz scene for the past decade—performing with the likes of Joe Williams and Clark Terry. He released his debut solo album, As We Speak, in 1999 to excellent reviews. Not too bad for a guy from a small town in New Hampshire.

Stay Lucky got the chance recently to talk with Travis Sullivan about The Bjorkestra and his career.

Stay Lucky: So, New Hampshire doesn’t seem like it would be the hotbed of jazz. When did you start studying music and what kind of music scene was there where you grew up?

Travis Sullivan: I started playing saxophone when I was 10 and piano a couple of years later. I didn’t get interested in jazz until I was about 16 years old. The band director at my high school was a drummer and Berklee School of Music graduate. He would stay after school with me and some other students and we would play songs from The Real Book and some of his original tunes. That was where I got my first introduction to playing standards and improvising.

It was at The University of New Hampshire that I really started to get a more “serious” education in jazz performance. Although I was working on getting my B.S. in Biochemistry, the music department took me under it’s wing and the last couple of years there I played lead alto sax in the UNH big band. I was very lucky to be at UNH at that time, because there were several other students that were very serious about studying jazz and were great players too. Also, Clark Terry is an adjunct professor at UNH, so he would visit a couple of times every semester to do workshops. He would bring great jazz artists with him like Phil Woods, Snooky Young, Frank Wess, and James Williams. Kenny Werner also did several workshops there too, right around the time he was writing “Effortless Mastery.” He was a big influence on me.

As far as the jazz music scene in the southern New Hampsire area, there are a small number of dedicated and talented musicians around. It’s also close enough to Boston so that you don’t have to drive too far to hear great music too.

SL: Where did the initial idea for The Bjorkestra come from?

TS: It started with having the idea to arrange one of Bjork’s songs, “Hyperballad,” for a big band that I was playing with that was led by a Scandinavian jazz singer. This was back in 1998, and I was just getting into Bjork’s music. I never finished the arrangement for that band. It wasn’t until about four years later that it was completed. From there I decided I was going to write a song cycle for big band and vocals, with Bjork’s music as the central thematic material. I never imagined ten years ago when I wrote the first notes of the “Hyperballad” arrangement that it would lead me on this course with The Bjorkestra!

SL: How have you selected the songs to arrange?

TS: The selection has been more or less intuitive and has depended on a several factors. Of course it has to be a song I like, but also I have to be able to imagine what I can do with it in putting it into a big band context. My choices have also depended upon varying the style, tempo, and mood of The Bjorkestra’s repertoire as much as I can. I have also made choices based on what I want to learn about arranging, and have selected songs that I have believed that through my reworking of them will teach me more about the craft.

SL: How do you get started with arranging one of Bjork’s songs.

TS: There hasn’t been any single approach. It’s all based on what my initial impulse/reaction to the song I’ve selected, so it’s been different for every arrangement. However, I have found it useful to strip down the song to it’s bare minimum, musically speaking – and have created lead sheets with just melody and harmony, and then built it up from there. That way I can approach the arrangement the same way I would arrange a jazz standard. Also, it has given me a great appreciation for the inventiveness and genius of Bjork. I’ve found her songs stand on their own without the production and the techno grooves.

SL: Is there a difference in your approach in the arrangement due to whether or not the piece will be instrumental or have vocals?

TS: I think that there’s a little bit more freedom in the writing the instrumental arrangements. When writing a vocal arrangement you really need to be careful to write figures that are going to complement the vocal line and not get in the way. Frequently I find myself writing something for the horns behind the vocals and then eliminating some or all of the material later on. There are a few more choices that can be made when the vocals are out of the picture–you can increase the complexity of the writing to some degree.

SL: As a follow up, how did you find Becca Stevens. She has such a great voice. Was it a challenge to find a singer that could take on Bjork’s tunes, without mimicking her style?

TS: Becca was recommended to me by one of the musicians in The Bjorkestra who had her as a student at The New School. It was a little bit of challenge to find the right singer for this role, only because I didn’t know what I wanted when I was writing the arrangements. I had always thought of each arrangement as a sort of sound canvas, and the vocals were to be another color in that canvas. Of course, when you take the music off of the page and into performance, the importance of having the right vocalist becomes paramount. It was more important for me to find a singer that could hang in the big band context, which meant having a good understanding of form and being able to sight sing as well as being a strong reader in general. The fact that Becca has assimilated Bjork like a traditional jazz singer has assimilated Billy Holiday is the icing on the cake.

SL: Do you try to directly recreate the sounds from the original songs, or do you take the notes and the rhythms and consciously arrange them in a new way? “Cocoon” is a good example. The original starts with very electronic sounds and beats. Can you walk us through your approach?

TS: Every arrangement has been approached differently. I’ve drawn upon both Bjork’s studio and live recordings as source material. Sometimes the arrangement becomes a strong vehicle for improvisation and is greatly expanded upon from the original Bjork version, which is the case for our version of “Army of Me.” In the case of “Pluto,” I departed from the original tone of Bjork’s version all together and changed it to a bossy nova that evolves into the techno of the Bjork track. We also do a couple of songs that are more or less straight re-orchestrations of the original.

“Cocoon” is a good example because it contains a little bit of everything in terms of my approach to arranging Bjork’s music. When I decided to tackle an arrangement from Vespertine I heard a lot of possibilities in “Cocoon.” First, I changed the meter to ¾ rather than the original 4/4 for a couple of reasons: it almost sounded like Bjork was phrasing the melody in 3, and also because I heard the potential for a re-harmonization of the melody to reference the waltz “Someday My Prince Will Come.” This is also a little bit of tone painting for those familiar with the lyric of this song.

As I was writing this arrangement, several other ideas came to me because of the mood that was developing, and I wanted to include some free improvisation. I was influenced by Jim McNeely’s writing, somewhat, when I included the unaccompanied piano solo. I also used Bjork’s high-pitched vocal melody near the end of the song as a jumping off point for a free tenor sax/trombone solo. The ending of the arrangement expands on the “for a boy” section of the Bjork version and has an orchestral, Vince Mendoza sort of vibe.

SL: There are some other jazz performers who are known for taking rock music, for lack of a better term, and re-imagining it in a jazz context. Brad Mehldau’s Radiohead covers and The Bad Plus taking on Nirvana are a couple of well-known examples. Do you feel as though there is a connection between these performers and what you are taking on with The Bjorkestra?

TS: The Bjorkestra was conceived as a work unto itself, a song cycle for big band and vocals more or less, and I think that is where there is a departure from jazz artists that play covers of rock/pop music. The connection lies in that the modern jazz artists you mentioned are seeking to expand the language of jazz rather than continue to regurgitate the same music that was already played (and played with much more originality and passion!) forty years ago.

SL: On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are the traditionalist jazz musicians—those who don’t like this blending of genres. What kind of reactions have you gotten from these or any other musicians?

TS: Jazz musicians are starving for new music, and The Bjorkestra has been met with a great deal of enthusiasm with all of the musicians that I’ve approached for their involvement with this project. That has been true not only with the NYC based musicians, but also the contracted artists that we’ve used on the U.S. West Coast, the South, and in Europe as well.

With the traditional jazz establishment—and by that I mean Lincoln Center and so called “pure” jazz clubs—I feel like we don’t even fall on their radar as of yet. Rock clubs and spaces with more eclectic programming have been far more receptive to booking The Bjorkestra.

Regardless, we are performing at The Jazz Standard in February as part of our CD release celebration, and I’m hoping that our success at this venue will start to open up opportunities at other jazz performance venues. I think it’s only a matter of time, because The Bjorkestra, like it or not, plays jazz!

SL: Other musicians who are not regular members of the band, such as Kurt Rosenwinkel and
Ben Monder, have been sitting in. What has this been like? Does it change the arrangements at all? Is there anyone you would really like to have sit in?

TS: It’s been a fantastic experience having some distinguished artists sit in with us. I had Ben Monder come in and record a solo on “Army of Me” and he sent it in a different direction with some crazy sounds that he used. Kurt played on “Hunter” at a Knitting Factory performance and it was very cool to hear his sound integrated with the band. Tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin also played an entire show with us once, and he tore into an unaccompanied tenor solo on “Cocoon” that sounded like a modern classical saxophone etude – it was amazing!

Having these artists play with us though doesn’t necessarily change the arrangements, but their performance does contribute to overall vibe and energy of what’s going on in the moment.

There are several people that I’d like to have sit in with us: Dave Douglas, Matmos, and Zeena Parkins would all be great. At the top of the list though, of course, is Bjork herself!

SL: Of course The Bjorkestra isn’t your only project. Tell us about some of your other work.

TS: I play saxophone in several other projects in which I am a leader or sideman. The Casual Sextet is my band that plays some interesting music and features some excellent musicians, including Rez Abbasi and Janek Gwizdala on bass. I also co-lead an electric jazz group called Identity Crisis with The Bjorkestra drummer Joe Abbatantuono that has been playing around NYC here and there. I play in bassist Danny Zanker’s Anti-Elevator Mission, which plays Middle Eastern jazz/fusion, and we just released a CD last year with that band, and I also play with The Sean Nowell Firewerks Quintet, who just had a release on Posi-Tone Records last year. Other than that, I’m playing and sitting in with whoever I can, learning, and trying to absorb as much of the New York experience as I can possibly handle!

SL: New York is really happening right now. Is there anyone you dig down there that has not made it onto the radar of those who live outside NYC?

TS: Yes. There are several artists that are known in NYC but are not on people’s radars outside of NYC. The first one that comes to mind in Daniel Carter, who is a brilliant multi-instrumentalist (he plays, alto & tenor sax, clarinet, flute, and trumpet) is a free improviser. He’s in his 60′s now and although he is well known in the underground jazz world in NYC, he’s not as well known elsewhere. Also, there are a couple of large ensembles that I really love listening to – The Delphian Jazz Orchestra and The Pedro Girardo Jazz Orchestra are both very unique and innovative bands. I imagine that one reason they are not known elsewhere has a lot to do with their size – it’s very difficult economically to take a big band on the road. Other artists that I think deserve wider recognition are Rich Perry, who is one of the tenor sax players with the Monday Night Village Vanguard Orchestra and is a brilliant soloist. Also, Art Hirahara (the pianist for the Bjorkestra as well) is someone that blows everyone away with his playing, and isn’t that well known outside of NYC.

SL: Well Travis, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. It’s been a pleasure.

TS: Excellent questions man. I enjoyed answering them!

The mary Lorson Interview

Mary Lorson has been playing music for a long time. Longer than many who’ve seen here gigging around Ithaca might even know. She’s also more widely known. In the 1990s, she was the frontwoman and songwriter, along with her partner Billy Coté, for Madder Rose. The band released four albums, toured extensively, and played some very large festivals including Glastonbury. And thanks to the wonder of the internet, you can view some of their performances and videos on YouTube.
Since Madder Rose, Mary Lorson has been very busy. In 2000, she formed Saint Low and they released three albums. 2008 brought us the Piano Creeps with Billy Coté and Kathy Ziegler. She and Coté have also composed several film scores, including “What Remains: The Life and Art of Sally Mann” for HBO.

Now Mary Lorson has a new band that you can check out at three upcoming local shows. The first is on May 17 at The Rongovian Embassy (8 PM). The second takes place at Felicia’s Atomic Lounge on May 24 (& PM) and the third on May 30 at The Lost Dog Lounge (10 PM).

And in between all of this music activity Mary Lorson is a mom and a teacher. Tompkins Weekly recently got the chance to ask her some questions about music, her career, and more.

Tompkins Weekly: You’ve played some really big shows, such as Glastonbury Festival, when you were in Madder Rose. Now you play much more intimate gigs. Do you approach these differently?

Mary Lorson: Certainly–everything’s different these days. Back then there was So much influence and pressure from so many other people. These days it’s just me and the people I’m playing with and the audience, most of whose faces are familiar to me, and the whole experience is a part of a creative process, rather than being about the product.  It’s funny that you know about those big festival gigs that Madder Rose did, because recently a friend discovered those on YouTube and told me they’d watched them; when I peevishly checked them out myself, I felt like I was watching someone else.  I was so stressed out then that I  barely remember those big gigs.   These days gigs are so much fun because every one is a special occasion for me.

TW: Do you have a favorite place you’ve played?

ML: Many!  Gigs in Europe are fun because the clubowners feed you well and people really listen, especially Germany and Sweden. I love to play in New York City because it’s like a homecoming. I love playing at ABC Cafe even though every time I play there I wish someone would donate a better piano. The Lost Dog would be great if they had a piano. Felicia’s is really the most comfy gig there is: it’s not too late, and you can look everyone in the eye.

TW: Let’s talk music industry. Madder Rose was on Atlantic, a major label. How did this come together and were you able to avoid the major label pitfalls that so many bands fell into?

ML: Madder Rose got signed early on–somehow an Atlantic A&R guy heard of us and liked it.  Which pitfalls did we avoid, exactly….?

TW: Are you on a label now?

ML: I put out the first three Saint Low albums on Cooking Vinyl in England but am not affiliated with a label at present.

TW: What keeps you writing and playing?

ML: It’s really just what my brain does. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I have no intention of stopping and can’t really imagine what life would be like without creativity. It gives me such energy and fun and hope.

TW: How about influences?

ML: Pretty much everyone influences me–other artists, life experiences, friendships, stories from the newspaper, my family, nature.  Everything in life is worth paying attention to, if you can manage it without becoming too exhausted.

TW: You have a six year old. How do you manage to balance the creative life with parenthood?

ML: That’s pretty tricky.  My son is not thrilled when I drift off into my music head while he’s in the room; when he was a toddler and I’d play the piano, he’d alternate between dancing along and screaming at me to stop playing. The best quote I’ve heard on this is from Tom Waits, who asserted that having a family and a career is like owning two dogs that hate each other and trying to walk them at the same time every day.  But I adore my kid and he knows it and I’m pretty sure he’ll end up doing something creative with his life, so hopefully he’ll understand the way we are as he heads into his own journey.

TW: When did you start playing? You said you taught yourself piano. How about guitar?

ML: I started playing piano at around 8, and started singing around then too. I bought a crappy acoustic when I was 18 and took lessons from a jazz guitarist but my axe was too painful to play. I didn’t start spending any real time with the guitar until my mid twenties, and couldn’t afford to buy a guitar until Madder Rose signed to Atlantic! I bought the mauve Tele I still sport today!

TW: How about lyrics? When did you start writing? And are there any writers, musical or otherwisw, who’ve been a real influence?

ML: I started keeping a journal at a very young age, not realizing what could come of it but keeping it up consistently. That’s where the lyrics, scenes, and story ideas are generated; anything I choose to develop I cull from the notebooks.  I always loved Fitzgerald and MFK Fisher in the early days, and am sure I’m influenced by everything else I’ve read more than I can even say.  But in college I was writing dramatic stuff–plays and screenplays, and have written three screenplays since school, so it’s the scene and the character I’ve spent most of my time on. Consequently my lyrics are really lines of dialogue–not sure if that’s apparent or not, but that’s the way they work in my head.

TW: YouTube is so fun. What was the deal with all the baby dolls in videos in the 90s. Madder Rose used them in one of its videos.


ML: We did, didn’t we! I think in the “Swim” video? I don’t know! But we built all the other moving things in that video and had a lot of fun with it—a bunch of art school geeks with a budget!

TW: How do you feel about being compared to other bands? Madder Rose was often compared to Velvet Underground.

ML: It was weird being compared to other bands, but I suppose it’s inevitable. In terms of the VU, that was a rather stunning, intimidating comparison. But I suppose if there are any similarities between those two groups, one might say that they were borne of a kind of casual urban aesthetic which was not over-worked; the sound produced was simply what happened when these rather different individuals came together—simplicity was revered and a certain kind of cool comfort zone was achieved.

TW: You’ve done some multimedia work, for lack of a better term. Can you tell me about this?

ML: I love working outside the usual songwriting box, and intend to do more. Billy and I scored a documentary on the photographer Sally Mann. We got hired for this after having done every film or tv scoring gig we could get our hands on, and we really enjoy that work. We both write a lot of music and would love to spend more time applying the ideas to other projects.

TW: You have a lot of projects going on: Piano creeps, solo. And now, you have a new band. Can you talk about that?

ML: Yes, I do—The Piano Creeps was really a one-off project, a distillation of our collaborations with Kathy Ziegler. I miss her terribly on every level and I’m glad we did that project but when I think about it, it just reminds me of how much I miss my bud!

The new band includes Leah Houghtaling and Amelia Sauter of Felicia’s Atomic Lounge/BlackEyedSusies fame, Joel Blizzard of Thousands of One, and my longtime vocal compatriot Jen Middaugh. We’re having a great time playing together.  On a parallel plane, I’m writing a play with music based on the career of Eva Tanguay, who was a major vaudeville star in her day. So there are two circles going on, which overlap a bit (what’s the mathematical term for that again? I can see it in my mind?) because the band plays some of the songs from the play—it’s all a bit vintage-y at this point: ragtime/Scott Joplin, Satie, Barber . . . theatrical, 20th century, innocent but a little heady too . . .

TW: Who are you listening to now that you’re digging?

ML: I’m not listening as much as I would like to; there are a million new records every year and I buy maybe three. My head is so busy that when I listen, I usually put on the classical station.

The Delata Spirit Interview

Delta Spirit released one of my favorite albums of last year. They fit into that amorphous rock, folk, Americana milieu. That isn’t to say they’re derivative, because they aren’t. From the first notes of “Ode To Sunshine,” the band’s debut on Rounder Records, it shows us its—well—spirit of music. Recorded live in a cabin, the San Diego-based band has produced one of the most immediate and best sounding albums of 2008. No studio trickery, just great musicians playing excellent songs. I got the chance to ask bass player and co-founder Jonathan Jameson some questions.

Tompkins Weekly: You recorded “Ode to Sunshine” live in a cabin in the desert. You can really tell that it’s live. And it’s great. Why did you choose this approach to recording the album?

Jonathan Jameson: It was free and far enough away from distraction. It was just what we needed. Not too comfortable, no TV, no fast food. We had each other, our songs, some books, a couple friends, Trader Joes dumpster food, old crow and enough apple pie for the rest of my life.

TW: There are a few outros on the album, such as on “Children.” You don’t hear this too much in rock and roll. Why do you use them?

JJ: Hip hop does a better job of making an album sound like an album as opposed to a random collection of songs. We followed suit.

TW: “Ode to Sunshine” was on a lot of Best of 2008 lists—including mine—and especially among bloggers. Do you think this scene helped spread the word about the band?

JJ: I’m sure and thank you. To be honest I think it was mostly us touring like psychos. Maybe I just say that to justify the fact that I have lost all my friends outside of this band. Ha!

TW: You’re on Rounder Records, which is great. Did you always think you’d be on a label? Especially considering the change in the music industry ion the last several years.

JJ: We originally released the album ourselves. Eventually we decided that we needed distribution and a little help. If we were a little more responsible it may have worked on our own. They have done an excellent job though.

TW: Sort of related to this. How do you feel about posting music online?

JJ: I have never really made money from music so I don’t know the difference. I just hope more and more people keep showing up to see us! So far it has been a perfectly paced slow build and I am grateful for it.

TW: You all formed in San Diego, how’s the music scene there?

JJ: Home is more like vacation than ground zero. It’s a lovely vacation spot and the radio has recently been great to us. There have always been strange and great bands from San Diego. I have a hard time describing how I feel about San Diego.

TW: I haven’t heard the band live yet, but from clips I’ve seen, you show seems like it is going to be great. How do you put your live shows together?

JJ: A few disjointed practices and then trial and error touring. We should get a choreographer.

TW: What bands or artists are you digging?

JJ: I can’t stop listening to Cass McCombs and the new Randy Newman. I listen to a lot of Byzantine and Russian chant too. It is nice to hear music that is not made in any way for money, success or fame. True music is just that, an outpouring of the heart. Every once in a while I still need a good pop chorus though.

The Bela Fleck Interview

The official title of the annual happening that takes place at the Trumansburg Fairgrounds every July is the Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance. But, hey, we’re from here, so we just call it Grassroots. Need I say more for you to generally know what to expect? I think not. The specifics of this year’s festival are a different matter, though, and do need a little further description.

So what to expect at Grassroots 2009? Well, first off, you’ll find the great performers that play the festival every year. Sim Redmond Band, Donna the Buffalo, The Horseflies, and other great local performers such as Thousands of One, Hank Roberts, Kevin Kinsella, Jennie Stearns, Samite, and Mary Lorson will all be there. Just on its own, this is a killer group of musicians to get to see. But in total there are going to be 70+ groups playing at Grassroots between July 16 and 19—many of whom music fans would have to work pretty hard to see otherwise. And as with every year, there are going to be a couple of killer headliners. This year it’s the super-tight soul band Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings on Friday and banjo legend Bela Fleck solo and with Oumou Sangaré and her band on Saturday.

Tompkins Weeklyrecently got the chance to ask Bela Fleck some questions about his music, career, and most recent (and fabulous) album, “Throw Down Your Heart, Tales From The Acoustic Planet, Africa Sessions.”
Tompkins Weekly: What first drew you to the banjo?
Bela Fleck: I first heard it on the Beverly Hillbillies, and the sound blew my mind. I was growing up in New York City during the 60s folk boom, so there was banjo around, once I became aware of it.

TW: Your career has been so diverse, who are your influences?

BF: My influences include Earl Scruggs, Tony Trischka and all the great banjoists as well as many jazz players and classical composers, and musicians from around the world—Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, Mile Davis, Chick Corea to name a few.

TW: How do you define your style?

BF: If I describe myself to a stranger, I say that I play banjo in unconventional settings such as jazz and classical music. Although I have a solid bluegrass schooling, the things that might set me apart would have to include a certain flexibility and daring. Also having a solid technique allows me to present my ideas with confidence.

TW: How did the new album, “Throw Down Your Heart” come about?

BF: I have wanted to go to Africa for a long time, to research the roots of the banjo. I also wanted to throw myself into a musically dangerous situation that I would have to rise to. And I have been loving acoustic traditional African music for a good while. In 2005 my group Bela Fleck and the Flecktones went on hiatus and I had the time to do something ambitious and time consuming.

TW: How was it recorded?

BF: We did much of the recording on location in town centers, outdoors, and in people’s homes, occasionally in recording studios, too. We had two small multi track recorders and mikes and we made some pretty amazing recordings in primitive situations, no power etc.

TW: How did you pick the musicians you recorded with?

BF: Some I picked before I went, and some I chose when I went to Africa. We always left a few days open for the unknown to have its way with us. Some of these unplanned sessions became highlights.

TW: “Throw Down Your Heart” is such a great image. What does it mean to you?

BF: Throw Down Your Heart is the literal translation for the town of Bagamoyo in Tanzania. This was where slaves were processed on their way east to the Arab
Countries. When the slaves saw the sea and the ships, they realized they would never see their homes again and ‘threw down their hearts’ in this place . . .
It is a haunting name, and very sad. When I used it for the project, I liked the power of it, and also the way it could have a variety of meanings, depending on the interpretation. I for instance ‘threw down my heart’ for African music, which could mean I fell in love with it.

TW: You made a documentary about your musical journey in Africa that led to the making of “Throw Down Your Heart.” Can you please talk about that?

BF: Yes. The album and the film are complimentary. There is some overlap, but the album is much more than a soundtrack, with much additional material, and the film is much more than a ‘making of’ doc. They each have their own point of view.

TW: For your show at The Grass Roots Festival, you’ll be playing solo and then joined by Oumou Sangaré and her band. This is a departure from your most widely know work with the Flecktones. How has it been to make this transition?

BF: I have performed now with several African artists since the making of the project. Recently I did a run of dates with the kora great Toumani Diabate, which was incredible. Earlier this year I had 4 artists over and we did several weeks of theatres in the US.

In January I did a concert with Oumou in Glasgow Scotland, our first and only one so far (at the time of this interview). Oumou is one of my favorite artists of all time, and I look forward to performing with her and also just watching her perform!

She very rarely tours in the US and I can’t encourage everyone enough to come and see her perform. The festival will be our 6th show, so I feel certain we will know what we are doing together!

TW: Who are you listening to now?

BF: Check out a great new performer called Sarah Jarosz. She is great. I am listening to a lot of Indian music, due to my new friend Zakir Hussain’s influence. We will be playing together this year as well. In my iPod right now are Oscar Peterson and Stan Getz, Norman Blake and Tony Rice, and the new Dave Mathews album.

TW: Thanks Bela!

The Samantha Crain Interview

One of the artists that I’ve been really excited about over the past year or so is Samantha Crain and her band The Midnight Shivers. In 2008, the band released a very, very good EP, “The River.” This got the buzz going for them and they made a lot of year-end best of lists. This April they released “Songs In The Night.” This truly excellent album has been getting a huge amount of play on my iPod. And fortunately for us, Samantha Crain and her band played the GrassRoots festival on Sunday at 4 PM. Led by Singer and songwriter, Samantha Crain, this is a band that’s taking their time and building a fan base. They play an infectious, melody driven blend of folk, alt-country, and rock all built around the songs and voice of Samantha Crain. Keep an eye on them because they seemed to be heading for great things. Tompkins Weekly was fortunate and got the chance to talk with Samantha Crain a few weeks before the GrassRoots festival took place.

Tompkins Weekly: You’re from Oklahoma. Did you grow up rural or urban?

Samantha Crain: Laughs. I don’t think there’s any part of Oklahoma that is urban. I grew up in a town; I didn’t grow up in the middle of nowhere. But it’s a small town.

TW: Do you think that had any influence on your music?

SC: Probably. I think more than anything it just influenced me to kind of have more of an imagination. There’s not a whole lot to do around where I grew up, so you’re sort of forced to entertain yourself. And so I think that’s where I started writing little stories and stuff like that. Even as a precursor to songwriting, I was just writing stories a lot.

TW: Yeah, you can see that story sense in songs like “The River.” They’re really story based. Was it a musical family?

SC: No, I got into music later. I was more into sports and stuff growing up. And I got into music when I got into college. And it was really self-motivated. I had to play guitar and decided out of boredom that I was going to teach myself how to play guitar and write songs.

TW: The band is really great. How did you guys meet?

SC: I did a couple of semesters of college and then I kind of quit college and went out to a musicians colony in Martha’s Vineyard and met Steve [Sebastian] who’s our electric guitar player out there. And he was also in that particular program. Jacob [Edwards] who is our drummer was Steve’s roommate in college. And Andy [Tanz who plays bass] was Jacob’s friend from back home. So it was each person who knew somebody who happened to play the instrument that we needed to form this band.

TW: Where did the name The Midnight Shivers come from? It seems really fitting when I think about a song like “ The River.” And I think shiver is even in the lyrics.

SC: Jacob came up with it. He used to sit around and think up band names . . . and I think that was just one of the many and we liked it and just went with it.

TW: It seems like you guys are pretty hot and getting a lot of notice. Does it feel like that to you? And how’s your career tracking?

SC: We are getting a lot of good press. But I don’t know if it has quite translated into show attendance. It’s kind of hard for me to tell because we’ve been opening for bands for the past couple tours. So it’s been a lot of their own fan base. So its kind of hard for me to gauge what our fan base looks like right now. But I don’t expect it to be huge or anything. I mean we’ve only been doing this for like two years. So I figure we still have our dues to pay before any success comes to us—which I’m completely fine with. I don’t want anything easy to come to us because I think we’d just kind of throw it away.

TW: You’re coming to Ithaca to play the GrassRoots Festival and it’s an afternoon set. How do these festival gigs differ from your club gigs?

SC: The main difference with festival gigs that I’ve still not gotten used to is the fact that you can see everybody that you’re playing to. ’Cause club gigs, the lights are usually shining in your face and you know there’s an audience there, but it’s a little less nerve wracking because you can’t see everyone’s eyes and expressions. But at the festival gigs you can see everybody. And there’s also that it’s a completely different atmosphere. You grow really accustomed to playing in a dark sort of place. And you go to these festivals and its like daylight and its windy outside or the stage is wobbly. There’s always something that you have to kind of overcome to play festival gigs. There a lot of fun but it’s just completely different.

TW: Who are you influences?

SC: I, right now, I’m really influenced by a musician named Cass McCombs. He sort of has this mystique about him the same way that Bob Dylan used to be for me. He used to be this really mysterious character and I read all these books and watched all these documentaries and then he sort of lost that god-like quality. And Cass McCombs sort of has that for me right now just because there’s not a lot of information out there about him. He’s just got these amazing records that you can listen to. He doesn’t do interviews with people, so there’s not anything you can read about him. He’s got this mysterious sort of quality that I haven’t been able to find in a long time. Plus his songs are really great.

TW: Was there a difference in the way you approached your two discs? Because the EP was sort of billed as a novel or novella. Did you approach the writing and recording of those differently?

SC: The EP was very deliberate and thought out. I’d been thinking about it . . . that I’d been wanting to do this for a long time. And it was very just planned out and kind of nit-picked over and probably too much time was spent on it. For what it was, it probably had the right amount of attention put to it. “Songs In the Night” was very just off the cuff. We recorded it all live in a room together. The songs weren’t written to be on this album together. They were just songs that I had that I wanted to record and they just happened to fit really well on a record together. There was nothing deliberate or contrived about “Songs In The Night.” It was very much just like we wanted to make a record that sounds like we sound live. And we want to do it in five days. So that’s the biggest difference that the first EP was really planned out and the second one was really just off the cuff and just happened to kind of make itself. We didn’t really have anything to go with . . . I don’t know. It really just created itself, which is something I think is really cool about it. Because there wasn’t a lot of labor put into it. It was just kind of this thing that happened really easily and organically.

TW: Yeah, a lot of the records I’ve liked recently have all been recorded live—and a lot of them in cabins. The Low Anthem and Delta Spirit . . . I mean those bands all recorded live and it just makes a better record I think. There’s some kind of freshness and it does translate through the digital file or whatever.

SC: It just depends on the band. If you’re a vibe-based band like we are, and probably like those bands are, then you have to capture that in the tape or you’ve kind of lost the part of that band. I mean there are some bands that do amazing things just single-tracking stuff. So it just really depends on the band. We just happen to be one of those bands that we have to catch sort of that vibe that’s going on.

TW: Great. So what’s next for you guys?

SC: A lot of touring. That’s pretty much all we’re doing these days.

TW: All right. Thank you very much for taking the time.

SC: No problem.