By Josef Woodard
By now, pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba has been embraced in the jazz world, internationally, as one of the boldest players of the day. He lives with his family in Florida, a short but politically huge distance from his homeland of Cuba, and he frequents New York and all the usual pathways of the itinerant jazz musician of global repute. But the virtuoso musician has taken a unique journey from the land of his birth to his current status as an American-based world citizen.
Born in Havana in 1963, Rubalcaba is the son of a well-known musician, and the young prodigy had already been to Europe when bassist Charlie Haden invited him up to the Montreal Jazz Festival in 1989. At the time, Haden was being treated to a week-long invitational series at the festival, and he effectively introduced him to North American audiences. Haden had met Rubalcaba while playing in Cuba in ’96 and was determined to bring him north, but diplomatic restrictions kept Rubalcaba out of the U.S., until 1993.
Here, most agreed, was an astonishing pianist, who could dazzle with density, but also had an intense musical core and the bearings of a cerebral, classical-trained player who also proudly projects his Cuban musical heritage. Years later, after many recording projects and settings, Rubalcaba began to show the powers of maturity and poetic gentleness.
The Haden connection continued on and off through the ‘90s, and reached a new pinnacle in 2001, with the Haden/Rubalcaba collaboration, Nocturne. Here, Rubalcaba’s familiarity with Latin American music, specifically the bolero, and also Cuban and other Latin American musicians, was put to good use on a slow-burning album which also beautifully showcased Rubalcaba’s lyricism.
On his own discography, on the Blue Note label, Rubalcaba has explored many directions, rather than follow a predictable jazz path. His albums range from purely acoustic work to dabbling in electronics and work with different-sized groups. He can also play a mean solo concert, a setting in which his quiet ferocity, on a good night, is the most liberated of all. He consented to an interview recently before one such solo show, in Santa Barbara, California. That concert, in just over an hour’s time, covered a broad, rich world of musical ideas, maturely woven. There’s no doubt by now that Rubalcaba is one of the best there is.
Jazz Hot : Your album SuperNova, which came out in 2001, was an especially strong album. In the past, you have pursued different directions with different records, while this one brings those directions together in a cohesive way. Was that the idea behind that project?
Maybe. I think the album reflects many years of work, and different periods of my career. It was also the first time, since I’d been living here in the United States, that I was able to work regularly with musicians as a regular group. It wasn’t the situation where I would play with certain musicians in the studio and then other musicians live. Ignacio had been playing with me for five years. Carlos Henriquez, the bass player then, had been with me for two or three years. So we had the chance to be around playing together. We knew each other well. That made a big difference.
To bring somebody to the studio you’d never played with before, it is never the same. I’m talking about great musicians. Everybody can do a great job, individually, but not as a group. I’m looking for both things. I’m looking for the result as a group and as a performer, each one individually. The only way to get a group result is spending time with the same people. I think that was a factor in what made that album good.
It’s an important factor for the next record, as well. Ignacio is still working with me. The bass player has been playing with me for two years, Armando Gola, who toured with me last year a lot, in the United States, Europe, Japan, South America, everywhere. We’ve spent a lot of hours rehearsing, not only here, but also when we are on tour and have a day off, we always look for a place to rehearse. You can see the result after that kind of work. Everybody knows each other. Everybody understands what they’re doing and the conception of the music becomes very strong.
Do you have another one in the works?
We are working on a new one right now, rehearsing. I’m trying to put everything together. But we’re playing all these gigs now and I’m introducing a few of the new songs. I want to change the system. Normally in jazz, people go into the studio, record, and then play the music live. The problem is that, three or four months after that, when you have been playing that music for awhile, you can listen again what you did months earlier. After playing it for awhile, you can play it more fluidly, more relaxed, and more focused and objective in the conception of that music.
Normally, you cannot do that in the studio when you play the music for the first time. You cannot play really relaxed. Everything is not totally fluid. What I want to do now is to play the music as much as I can before we go into the studio. I think the result will be much better.
You do some beautiful playing on the latest Pat Martino album, Think Tank - a fitting title, given the cerebral nature of the playing. Was there a good sense of simpatico with him?
At first, I was very happy when he called me to do that. I thought it was a big chance to enjoy making music with him, and also to learn about his playing, his music, everything about him. Also, I learned about the other musicians - Joe Lovano, Christian McBride, Lewis Nash. It was an amazing thing to be a part of. There’s no question of that. We had a good time in the studio. We spent two days rehearsing. He sent the music three weeks before the recording session. We spent two or three days in the studio, and at that time, I was playing every night at the Iridium club in New York. It was good.
Unfortunately, the thing I really didn’t like was the sound, especially the piano. I already told this to Pat Martino and his people. There are a lot of great musicians there, and I was expecting good sound and mixing and everything. But maybe there was a different conception about mixing. I think it’s not only the balance, but the quality of the sound of the instruments. Especially with the piano, there were two or three tracks I didn’t like, which made me feel sad about it.
You usually produce your own records, don’t you? Is it important for you to pay close attention to those fine details?
It is. It’s important for the music, not only for me. When we say “production,” we have to think about all those details. You have to be careful with the level of playing, of sequence, everything is important. Sometimes, you can have wonderful music, and if you don’t make a good sequence, it won’t produce the same impact on listeners. You have to make good decisions in the balance and mixing.
I really think that musicians should take care of all those details, not only the music and playing. It’s the same thing when you go to the theater: it is very important to get good acoustics, because it will really affect the way the people receive the music you are producing. In this case, it’s the same. You have to pay attention to everything.
This is not a concert hall. We’re talking about a recording studio. Maybe you cannot find perfect acoustics in all the concert halls that you play in. The most important thing is the performance and your music. But when you go into the studio, this is another world, another mission. We should pay attention to all the things that make possible a great album. That’s the reason you see in the Grammies and other music awards having different categories for sound engineers, production, and other things involved in the production.
So I was very surprised when I heard the Pat Martino album. It’s good music, with good players, but I’m not happy with the sound.
Part of your conception over the years has involved carefully maintaining an eclectic approach. Mainstream jazz and Cuban aspects and your classical background come through. Has that idea been constantly evolving since you were a young musician in Cuba?
Yes. The training was totally classical. I developed because of my relationship with my father, brothers, uncles, the whole family, many of them are musicians. Other have been painters, dancers, people involved with the arts. In my house, I got the opportunity to see great musicians, friends of my father’s. They used to come to our house to play or rehearse or just talk about music.
At that time, I was a kid and I no idea about how important the life and the spirit was. I was just watching at that time. But it was a big influence in my life. I had an opportunity to play and listen to all the most important parts of traditional music in Cuba - rumba, guaguancos, boleros, cha cha cha, classical music, folk music, all types. Classical training came early, and then when I was about 12 or 13 years old, I got hooked up with jazz improvisation and jazz musicians.
We can say that these three things have played important roles in my life as a professional musician.
When you were 13, did jazz loom large in your mind, as the area you wanted to pursue with your life?
Well, the first encounter was very intense, because I found a different way to express myself through the music. At that moment, I had a lot of references in classical music and folk music, but not about jazz. What happened with the classical school is that they force you to play music, repeating the same conception and style and idea of established performers from years and years ago. It is very difficult to move out of that conceptions. They don’t let you move to different conceptions in playing Bach, Mozart or European composers.
So that was the situation in Cuba? That’s a common problem in the larger classical world.
I think so. We had a very big influence from the Russians at that time. A lot of Russian teachers were in Cuba at that time, giving classes. It was part of the contribution to the Cuban revolution and the government.
On the other side, the popular Cuban music also gives you the opportunity to improvise, to add a little bit of your own conception to the music. You have a space to improvise. It’s not with the same with the form. The sections to improvise in are really small. You don’t have a long, harmonious link. Sometimes, there are little sections where you can say something, or play something. But at that time, I already knew something about the Cuban tradition of chords. That, to me, was a very important experience, because I found a different way, a different language, different chords. I was in love with that.
When I was in my 20s, and even before, I tried to understand the deep relationship between Cuban music and American music, in many ways - harmonies, melodies, among other factors. There is a really big collaboration between the music of both countries. For example, there were people like Frank Emilio, Peruchin Jr., Bebo Valdes, of course, Chucho (Valdes), Emiliano Salvador, Guillermo Rubalcaba - my father - among other important names for Cuban music.
At that time, I understood the influence they had from different periods of American jazz. There was a lot of influence from Art Tatum, Dave Brubeck, McCoy Tyner, and with the young generation in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Chick (Corea), Herbie (Hancock).
And Keith Jarrett?
Keith Jarrett, less. He was not popular in Cuba until he started to do those records with his Standards Trio. Not many people knew about Keith. He was not as popular as Chick or Herbie or McCoy or Bill Evans. That changed my vision of how to play. There were more options to listen. It was not only Cuban popular music. I discovered another spectrum within music.
What about in your own experience: who were the pianists you listened closely to?
It depended a lot on the opportunity. For the people had the opportunity to go outside the country, for sure, you had the chance to buy some records and get copies of records from friends living outside of Cuba. It was difficult to get information about music in the United States. The reason, as we know, is politics and diplomacy.
I remember a jazz radio program, every night from Monday to Friday, at 11 p.m. It was a half-hour. The person in charge of that program was very popular with people who liked jazz, whose name was Horacio Hernandez. He was the father of the drummer who lives here now, Horacio (“El Negro”) Hernandez. He used to promote music from the ‘50s and before, and a little bit from the ‘60s. The only material he had was everything he could put together from before the revolution in Cuba.
After the early ‘60s, it was impossible to get more information and updates about music, especially jazz in the United States. We used to listen to that program all the time and we heard a lot about Monk, about Herbie, about Dizzy, Charlie Parker, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson. People like this. He played a little bit of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, a little bit of Miles. But very few records. We couldn’t say we knew the whole careers and productions of those musicians. It was very limited.
The first time I went outside of Cuba was in 1980, when I was 17 years old. I went to Panama and Colombia. In 1983, at 20, I went to Africa and Paris, with the Aragon Orchestre. I had the opportunity to get some materials, records by Bill Evans and other things. The next time was in 1985, when I was the bandleader and went to the North Sea Jazz Festival with my septet. That was a chance to get more information about what was happening at that time in the world. We could spend our knowledge about the jazz music and about everything, because we were able to travel.
Right now, I think the situation is kind of different for the jazz musicians in Cuba. They have more ability to get information and keep in touch with what we are doing herein the United States. They have more options to travel around. It’s a little bit better than when I was living there.
In 1991, I moved to Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. I was there for six years, and after that, I moved here, where I have been for seven years.
There remains the question of whether limited access to culture piques the curiosity and makes an artist grow stronger. Eastern European artists, musicians and writers behind the Iron Curtain were denied the kind of flood of information in the west, but found their own way. Did that happen with you, to some degree? Is that the positive aspect?
Yes, that’s the positive side to that drama (laughs). It is a drama. There are two sides to this drama. The curiosity, as you say, may be more intense. We may have great ambitions to know, to learn, to discover, to practice, to dream, to do everything to be better and to be competitive with the rest of the world. I think that’s the good side.
We have an attitude that we were looking for something that we couldn’t reach inside of our country. Or maybe it’s something that we can’t say or pronounce inside of our country. So we were looking all the time express ourselves at a very high level. We had to say something which is a big truth.
We had a very good training in Cuba. Even when the schools that are totally classical, you can be disappointed in some of the conceptions and the way that they educate, but on the other side, you have to appreciate that it’s a solid school. They give to you a lot of tools to make music, be technically prepared. It’s a good training, with good discipline. When you get out of the school, you feel prepared as a professional. There are a lot of things, not only as a musician, but on the intellectual side. They really give you a lot of good training.
As in general, in life, everything is not black and white. There are a lot of things where you can say `I didn’t like this,’ but on the other side, you can appreciate what you gain. I always want to express everything, not only one side. You can say `well, I didn’t like this or that, but I also got this or that.’ I want to express what I think has to be changed, but I also want to promote all the good things that I’ve received.
It was encouraging to see Nocturne get recognition and a Grammy, but of course, that was sort of a side trip for you. That project deals specifically with the tradition of boleros. Your own music has a more progressive agenda in your own work, wouldn’t you say?
Yes, fortunately. The problem with my back and my neck are the result of my traveling and working a lot, but I cannot complain. This is what I want to do. I put all my energy into making what I love. I create and play music. I’m never totally happy about what I did yesterday. Every day that I wake up, I’m looking to see if I can improve myself, to change things to make me a more balanced person and creative musician. I’m happy about that.
You will always see problems. If you are alive, you have to count the problems and happiness, at the same time. But I always want to see a good side, a clean side, the positive side. It’s the only way to be ready and fight with good decisions in the bad moments.
Even when I am not totally agreeing with what people say about what I’m doing as a musician, I always accept what others say. I always want to listen to what other people think and how they receive my music and my presence, every time I go onstage. Of course, I have my own concepts of how to do things. But you have to be open to receive opinions. For sure, in those opinions, you can always find a new window to see things in a different way.
This is what I want, to have the opportunity every day, every moment, to play and promote what I do, get a space to compose, to get in touch with people and musicians, and with my family.
We are not talking about big things. We’re talking about small things that are very deep. I’m not talking about being famous. I feel that there’s a tremendous between being famous and getting recognition. Since the first moment that I sat down in front of the piano, I was not waiting for the recognition. I was looking, first, to enjoy what I’m doing and be totally sure this is what I want to do. That’s the reason I spend hours and hours practicing, listening to music, reading, rehearsing, preparing myself. That’s the only way to convince people about your conception of how to make music, how to play.
It doesn’t mean that I’m totally convinced that my truth is the only truth, but it is mine. I have to defend that, doing what I’m doing, which is learning, listening, watching, looking, acting, rehearsing.
Was Nocturne a special project for you to be involved with? Was it significant both in connection with your own heritage and also your connection with Charlie Haden?
I remember in 1988 or ’89, Charlie and I were talking about doing a ballad record. I found that we had something in common, in playing ballads. This is something coming from a long time ago. We wanted to do something very smooth and slow and melodic, harmonically idle.
Finally, I mentioned to him that I had some CDs with boleros, the Cuban ballads, that I would like to send to him and see how he felt about them. I did and he called me right back and said `this is amazing. I definitely want to do that as soon as possible.’ I sent to him maybe 22 different boleros, and I told him to choose some that he liked. He chose ten or eleven, and it was magic, because I liked the same ones.
We decided to do it in Miami, because some of the musicians were living here. Ignacio is living here. I’m living just close to Miami, and the violin player, Federico Britos Ruiz, is living in Miami, too. So it was easiest to get everybody here.
I’m happy about that record. It’s a little bit nostalgic, because it reminds me of when I was a kid. I was listening to that music when I was a kid, on the radio and in my house and in live performances. I remember all the great singers in Cuba, and my father playing that music. To me, it was like making a tribute to those people, this older generation in Cuba.
They are not only Cuban boleros - there are Mexican boleros, too. But between Cuba and Mexico, there has been a great musical relationship for a long time. I think it was a great opportunity to show the people in the world, in the United States and every part of the world, that that music exists. When people think about or talk about Latin music, they think about dance music. They cannot believe that there were composers doing deep music with great harmony and melody and great texts. I think it’s very important.
One of the nice things about this album is that it really shows a soft side of your musicality. You’re such a versatile and virtuosic pianist, and on this one, you really pare down to a simpler style, in a more peaceful way. Was that an intention of yours?
Sometimes, I think we have to develop our capacity, like an actor does, in order to be in context with the objectives of the project. This is music where you have to be very clear about the tradition of how to play that music. My relation with tradition is to know very well the tradition in order to change the tradition. But I was very clear that that was the way to play that music, other than something different.
Also, I tried to be in relation to the conception of the music that I’m playing. I just played in the way I thought was the most convincing.
Charlie called it a “serene intensity,” which seems like a nice way to put it. He was also saying that the other musicians followed that lead, emotionally.
Yeah. I think each one came to the studio to play - David, Joe Lovano, Federico, Charlie, even Pat, although he did his part in New York - and they were very focused on the work, and intense. I would like to say something about Ignacio (Berroa), the drummer. I think it’s very difficult for a drummer, for more than an hour, to play in that way. He is a very musical drummer, something you don’t always find. But I think he did exactly what he had to do, to be part of the group without any complication, supporting melody and harmony, and that’s great.
You’re working on a new project with Haden. Can you tell me about that?
That’s a nice record. He called me. We received a package of compositions by the Mexican composer Jose Sabre Marroquin. One of the tunes from Nocturne is by him. His daughter lives in Texas. We went there to play with the Nocturne band, and she went to the concert. Afterwards, she came backstage and gave Charlie a package of a lot of music by her father, music that not many people knew existed. We discovered that this was some great music, and we decided to do this project, which is 80% or 90% music by this composer.
I think it’s going to be a very beautiful record. It’s Charlie and Joe Lovano again and Ignacio on drums. There’s an amazing trumpet player, Mike Rodriguez, who is living in New York but whose father is from Cuba. There’s another young player from Puerto Rico, Miguel Zenon, playing alto saxophone on the album, and myself.
Let’s see what happens. I think it’s beautiful music. I did some arrangement. I would say this is kind of an extension of Nocturne.
There has been a real boom in terms of interest in Cuban music around the world, just in the last few years. Of course, the success of Buena Vista Social Club has a lot to do with that. Is that satisfying for you to see?
Some door has been opened in the last few years. Talking about that is talking a little bit about politics, you know. People around the world have been able to see something that happened in Cuba too many years ago, for example, Campay Segundo or the Afro-Cuban All-Stars, all that kind of stuff. That was very much on the top of popularity, famous in Cuba in the ‘40s and ‘50s, even in the ‘60s.
I think the people around the world have had a lot of opportunity to see that at the moment in Cuba. We know that the problem between Cuba and politics and everything. Now, this is the moment to show the people how many incredible musicians we have from this generation, but I’m afraid that people still don’t know too much about (more contemporary) Cuban music. The people have to learn what happened with the innovations in the ‘70s and the ‘80s, but everybody’s focused on that music from the ‘40s and the ‘50s. Still, there is a big gap, and people don’t know what was the music at that time. I hope that these other generations, including me, have not to wait for 40 more years to be part of the knowledge of the world.
But at the same time, it’s great for those musicians at least have the opportunity at the end of their life to demonstrate their talent, creativity and everything. I hope also that this is not only a fashion, but is more important attention.
It certainly is true that Cuba has produced a lot of great music, and musicians. There is something about the cultural soil that produces that musical richness?
It’s a great place, even with all the contradictions and all the problems that exist there, with economics, politics and ideas, ideologies and everything, it’s a great, deep country, with very big creativity in music, and in art in general.
To me, it’s a privilege to be part of the art of that great country, to be part of my generation, to be part of the family that I have. I have kept in contact with all my Cuban roots for many years. It’s a privilege to get a group formation, and a school formation. It’s sad that the people, even with this great background in art and music, have too many limitations to live there. I think we’re starting to see that something new must come into being. There has to be more opportunity for the people.
People around the world cannot imagine how many great musicians live there, how many great artists live there, how good the art is in Cuba. I hope that the future will be more clear, better.
It seems that you’re not just interested in being comfortable and complacent. Is it critical for you to keep pushing forward?
Certainly.
Reginald VEAL
By Josef Woodard
Reginald Veal : I am born on November 5, 1963, Reginald Eddie that my middle name, Swing Doom is my nickname. When I was with Wynton we had all nicknames in the band. Wynton nickname is Scame, Wes Anderson was Warm Daddy
What kind of family are you from ?
All my family is from New Orleans or Louisiana. I was born in Chicago, my mama was visiting Chicago at the moment
Do you know the story of your family ?
I don’t know the total history I know my mama, father he died early when she was a kid. So I only know my grand mother my mama’s mama, and I knew my grand grand mother, her mother. On my dad side I knew his mother and his father. They told little bit about some things but you know nothing very significant. My mother taught in NO public school for thirty years, she was a teacher and my father he did a construction work for a company called … I have two brothers and one sister. My sister is the older, one brother is older and I have a younger brother. I’m in the middle. I went to Southern University as a matter of fact, me and Wes Anderson. We studied with Alvin Batiste. There is a jazz program over there so we had people like Dizzy Gillespie come here, Michael Carvin, Jimmy Heath, Nat Adderley. They come playing with the band, doing workshops. Only music.
The first time I pick up the bass I was about eight but it wasn’t an acoustic bass. I started playing on piano at about eight and at the same time my dad brought me an electric bass and I didn’t pick up the acoustic bass until 20. I was playing trombone too and I started playing trombone at 7th or 8th grade of junior high school. I was auditioned for NOCA on trombone not bass and I made it. I choose the bass because I know that if I wanted to participate in jazz music I had to play the acoustic bass, because that is THE instrument for the music, that’s the standard.
It is a physical pleasure to play jazz music with acoustic bass ?
Physically it’s difficult too. It’s one of the instruments you have to be physical, you have to have a certain size, a certain strength and everything else to play. It’s physical, but it’s a physical pleasure too I will say.
When did you discovered the jazz music in the beginning ?
I was aware of jazz music very early on, grewing up in NO because of my parents and being exposed to different types of music in NO, I was aware of it, being younger and growing up in a certain area and having other types of music being played, I was into that. I played the electric bass and trombone, I was playing the music that was common at the time when you play electric bass : Earth Wind an Fire, r’n’b stuff and gospel. I grew up in a Baptist church. I played a little piano at the church, not every sunday, but I used to play a little piano sometimes, I played bass in church sometimes
I supposed the gospel tradition is very important for you.
Yes. I think anything you get when you’re growing up is important. I check up all type of music but I come from gospel, r’n’b, pop that kind of things so, I can have all of that.
Part of blues and gospel in your music ?
For me it’s all connected. Gospel has a lot of the blues in it and jazz is coming from gospel music because gospel and spirituals were first in our community, then came jazz. A time period where you sit into jazz music had to have a part of that in the music and that the part of blues too.
My mother she give me piano lessons very early then I got a professor, she was a piano player, she was able to sing in a choir, my dad had a singing group and he plays guitar. When you grow in NO you have to play an instrument because the school system, there is all kind of bands down there. There are street bands, marching bands, you would take an instrument at an early age. That’s a way of life. If you go to school anywhere round the world, some schools they don’t even have a music program. In NO you get to school, you wanna play clarinet, we have a band, you wanna play drums, you wanna play trombone, it’s like that.
I think the very first time I discovered early NO music like Louis Armstrong and that kind of things. I was 7 or 8, I will hear it all around. When I started getting older that I started hearing other musics like Miles Davis and that kind of things.
Music of Louis Armstrong and music of Miles Davis is the same music for you ?
No because that’s probably part of the reason why I really didn’t get into jazz music totally, modern jazz music. I like it, I heard it but I could not understand it technically. You know it’s like being able to say a sentence but not being able to read it. It sounded a little unorganised to me, I didn’t know what it was even I liked it. I didn’t really get into it until I was to high school when I started to try to figure out what is this.
It’s more difficult the music of Louis Armstrong or the music of Miles Davis ?
It’s more difficult Miles Davis back then. I can much being identify with Louis Armstrong back then in early NO music than I could with Miles Davis or anything else, modern jazz.
Did you know the name of other old musicians of before and around the period of Louis Armstrong ? Freddie Keppard, Buddy Bolden, King Oliver ?
I did know them by name, sometimes if my dad had a record or something I would look out the name, but I won’t remember, I was not connected. I was just a kid. Yes They were familiar but I didn’t like know them. I could hear somebody and say oh that’s Baby Dodds.
When you began to play music you play piano, trombone and after the bass. What is the reference of the musician in the jazz music for you when You are twenty ?
I remember Ellis Marsalis given me a cassette tape and it was Oscar Peterson, Ed Thigpen and NHOP and I was listening to things like that and I started going on, I started listening Miles Davis Kind of Blue, John Coltrane, Ben Webster, all of the greats. So I had many references. But being a bass player I had also to break it down and listen bass players. So I started from the beginning, the earliest bass players I can find Wellman Braud, Pops Foster, Jimmy Blanton. These are my references but they happened over a period of time.
But it’s different from Jimmy garrison because when I hear you I heard sometimes Jimmy Garrison because your sound is the sound of traditional Jimmy Garrison, but it’s different this tradition from the tradition of Charles Mingus, of Ray Brown. Why did you choose the sound of the tradition of Jimmy Garrison ?
I not necessarily chose the tradition of Jimmy Garrison, I love his playing, I really didn’t choose him. It’s natural. I think it’s a certain period when I started playing. I was listening to Ron Carter a lot and guys say Man I hear Ron carter in your playing, then there was a period when I was listening to Paul Chambers, and the guys said Man I hear Paul Chambers in your sound. There was a period I listened to Charles Mingus and they say you sound like Charles Mingus, you got some of those qualities. So it’s a matter of listening to a man a lot of time, it just become a part of you, it become a part of your music, their tradition and in what they have layed down and hopefully you can roll all that in your ball and you can become yourself. But I think a lot of times you may hear the Jimmy Garrison influence a lot in my playing simply because when a bass player did the things he did, he was very innovator, you can easily identify that. Paul Chambers and Ray Brown, I can identify their playing too but I think Jimmy Garrison was playing the bass differently from anybody. He took a lot of chance, he had a particular style of his own as no one else.
When do you began to play professionally ?
My first professional gig was with Ellis Marsalis. May be about 21 or I may have played a professional gig on trombone in a street parade in NO and I was 16-17.
When you leave NO at what age ?
At the age 26, no 23 I think it was.
You prefer to live in NY than NO ?
It’s not a problem with a big city, NO was Ok, but NY was where is scene was. I needed to be there. I had no problem with NY, I was cherious, I was enthousiastic, I wanted to see every thing, so that was the place to go. Everybody that wanted really play jazz at that time he moved to NY. That was where the scene was at that time. I can’t necessarily say I would do that today because I don’t really know about the scene, but back then I knew that the scene was in NY, you have to be in No if you wanted to play.
NO is the birth place of jazz but I guess, but NY is the capital of jazz.
Yes it’s the mecca of jazz ?
There is so many clubs in NY
With what musicians did you work in your carreer ?
After Ellis no one is more important. After moving I worked with a lot of people that you’ve never heard I was in NY scraping, playing with different musicians some of them I even forgot their names. Million of guys from NY are jazz musicians, they hear you at a jam session and they call you for a gig, they may be a teacher doing a day time and he plays jazz at night. So those gigs were very important too I learned a lot. My first important gig being in NY was with Terence Blanchard and Donald Harrison, and in between I played with Pharoah Sanders, Art Blakey call me for a gig, I went to the gig and it was cancelled and he still pay me. I played with different people but shortly after that I played with Wynton and here I am several years later.
What is the circonstance of your work with Wynton ?
I joigned the band in 87 but before that in 85, Wynton call me to NY to do a gig because his bass player couldn’t make the gig and I made the gig with Wynton for the first time. But I wasn’t in the band.
But you play other music ?
When I joigned Wynton’s band, his type of musician was very popular, he is a great musician so he is a very successful musician, so he is one of the few musicians that when he has band he works, he is really working. When you be in his band you make a commitment, it’s a relationship, you could be in his band and play with other people, you don’t have time to play with other people, because he is so busy and so demanding, you have to work with him. So when I joigned the band I made a commitment and I worked with him. However in 94, we have being on the road so long, I have to do some other things and in my life too because we were on the road all the time. And I wanted to do some things with music too with the bass. Bass players like ray Brown, Peter Washington have solos because they started off gigs with people like Hank Jones, of course they let them solo. I didn’t had a chance to work on my solo with Wynton Marsalis. So there were several reasons I wanted to leave the band. When I leaved the band, the band kept going, in leaving it I took a little break and I thought I was come back to the band, but they broke up. So during this time, in order to play, I was playing with different people, his brother Branford, his father, Cassandra Wilson, Dianna Reeves, several musicians. The he get position at the Lincoln Center, the artistic director. He called me again, so I went started doing that, but then we weren’t doing the septet, we were doing the Lincoln Center big band. He did that, then they started to make some changes, we weren’t working, I left that situation and that gave me the opportunity to start to play with some people again. When I was in his band I made commitment to play with him, when I leave the band I have the opportunity to play with other people. Technically it is band, but not really. That’s not like the band we had, the band we were on the road with. I almost consider myself as a freelance.
What is your opinion on the importance of Lincoln Center jazz Orchestra for a young musician like you ?
Oh I think it’s very important, any institution is important. It keeps the music going, it keeps the music visible and with an institution like that you can actually have things that you will have like a group, I will say like Mile Davis or even now today Kenny Garrett or Roy Hargrove. They can educate people, young and old, institution has the ability to do that. They have concerts, children programs. The important is to educate people.
And you think it’s important for the young musician to have a king of conservatory of the tradition ?
Absolutely. And that’s pretty much what they are trying to do. When you say conservatory, there are many music schools, stuff like that but then again to have an institution which perform with professional musicians, professional teachers are in places like Berkley. You have professional musicians in Carnegy Hall Jazz Band like in Lincoln Center Jazz Band, Count Basie Band.
When you play the jazz music at the school at the university do you think that you have the same experience as of a musician who teach the music in the band only ?
I think it’s a great education when you can work with the working musicians. I would say colleges when you have the working teacher you be so surprise by their knowledge and ability to play and even import music and different things to you so that you learn. Some of them are very sad, not all of them, so you can’t get the type of education that you need, compete or to be great out here as a musician a lot of times, it’s a waste of time. For of all the important is to be able to play, it’s very important. Now if you want to go to college to get some theoretical stuff like harmony, whatever, may be that great for somebody to teach you that. But if you want to play jazz music you need to learn how to play, and part of this experience is playing, being on the bandstand. In addition, the working musician can give you so much knowledge and information about their experience of being on the road and the nature of the business, clubs opposed to theatres and halls and how you play, and history of the music.
You have children ?
Yes three, a girl and two boys.
Your children study the music ?
They are very young now. My daughter is just turning eight, my son is turning 7 and my little one turned 4. They started, they love music, my daughter plays piano and I bought my son a drumset, and my little one is doing different things, but you can see than he is musically inclined.
You prefer they discover music by themselves or by musical education ?
I prefer musical education. It’s natural for them to hear jazz music but I believe we should educate them.
I studied classical music too, not in depth. One of my teacher was the principal bassist in the NO symphony Orchestra, Steve Wise and I studied and also played with orchestras, and during summer times at the University like UNO and when I went to college I studied with classical teachers too, I studied how bowing.
Important to have classical background ?
Absolutely because the technique of the bass for the last end and for bowing is based on classical music. They aren’t any jazz musician that started by playing the bass and formulated a standard technique to use. For jazz music you can formulate your own technique with the right hand, because in classical music when you play pizzicato it’s only (il chante) bloum, bloum bloum, but in jazz music you pizzicato all the time you can’t afford to come up with that yourself. At least in classical music there are positions, the positions on the bass that you learned, how to hold the hand on the neck, you can’t go on with your own thing and figure where the notes are.
How many records you direct as your name ?
I have one record, “Blues and Spiritual”
I see that you played with many many female singers. You like to play with the voice ? Why ?
Because I think that for me when … You hear something and you sing it even if you’re not a musician, that’s the easiest way to do it. So you try to play almost like a vocalist, you try to make it sound like a vocalist, that’s the most human thing. To me that’s so close to an instrument, the natural instrument and … with it is just a feeling of that support being a bass player is a wonderful musical experience. And also if you play with a lot of jazz artists wherever you have to get the lyrics of the songs or new songs that you don’t know.
I need to support, that’s my role, I understand my role very very well.
How do you project you career and jazz music in twenty years ?
Jazz would always be around, there’s no doubt, but it is very difficult to say where it would be. I think at a certain period things usely as a circle. I don’t think jazz is very popular these days, true jazz, traditional jazz. But things are like a circle and in 20 years at some point there will be some one coming and play the music.
Do you think it’s possible for musician to play jazz music in 20 years ?
Of course.
What is the important part of your career in the music that you have ?
Every experience that I had was important. Being in church, listening to people sing, listening to the musicians play, being in NO, but I would say the most important was with Ellis Marsalis because that’s my foundation. An important man, important musician, an important teacher, mentor, everything. A great man. Unselfish. When you are kid if you don’t have good parents, if you don’t have someone that is nurturing you and taking you in the right direction, as you get older if you don’t wanna be messed up, you gonna have to figure something out of yourself. That’s what I was. Ellis took me and I’m fortunate and lucky that I had someone with integrity and he showed me and directed me in the right direction, he showed me and taught all of this is about. And I know how fortunate I was knowing him, being able to exist in this time with him.
Ellis was not know in Europe ?
First of all many great people are not known. Technically I’m not known. You may know me, some jazz people may know me but walking in the street no one knows me. I don’t think that that really matters about. For them to know you, for them to benefit is good. Popularity contest, a commercialism don’t really matters so much. He is what he is doing because he wants to do it. Those who know they know.
When these in the period of Paul Chambers, nobody knows Paul Chambers. He is not very knew by the popular.
That’s how it is sometimes. Lot of great people are not known. It depends on what you feel, it depends on what you’re doing, but that happens all the time. There are people that are very important just being in the world he is. There are great musicians in NO that would blow you mind and nobody knows about that. Because whatever the circumstances they are not out there, you don’t know about them for whatever reason, but they are great.
What is your conception of the life of a musician as Charles Mingus ?
In his mind he knew he was a great musician. You have to do what you do because you love it, because you have a passion of it … you don’t need to do it. It’s not the incentive, the incentive is the love for it. If I was here in Paris playing, if I could make a living in making jazz music or music in general, I’ll be home somewhere playing because I love it, I have a passion for it. So that would happen I mean. I look at Charles Mingus career, I look at many many people that I feel should be very very successful, however you define success : if they gonna give you money, yes ; you gonna make you popular, yes ; you gonna be on television, yes ; if you gonna be known as a great musician, yes. But it doesn”t happen, only for certain people. For some it’s not merited, I don’t think they worked it. How can you take a musician like Wynton Marsalis who has studied for years and years and really own his craft, really took a stand to play jazz music, (it’s not easy to do it, have a band and go on the road). How can you compare that with a musician who is a rapper, who had to study nothing, the machines put out some sounds and they are popular, making million of dollars, making a great life style. This is ridiculous, but it is how it is, not only in America but all around the world. People look at Wynton Marsalis and don’t that he is great, some people do but they think that Michael Jackson is just as great as Wynton Marsalis. It’s about the love and passion you have for a type of work, a type of study and the substance of it. Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Ben Webster, Duke Ellington. In everything that you have in life, you have to educate yourself and goes beyond. With other forms of music, you don’t really have to do that, so the study in the art work is very limited. It’s good to be able to do that because Wynton Marsalis know who he is, he wanna be working. So I guess as long as you can work, Charles Mingus he worked, he had a career, lots of bass players of that time don’t have the kind of career that he had. He is known as a composer, a bassist, a great musician and his name is still living now : Mingus big band and stuff like that. People like Ray Brown, even if they are know, they don’t have the type of popularity that Charles Mingus had. To me he had a great career. In reference to myself I look what I’m doing out here and playing and existing in the world now, that really doesn’t matter because I’m not really doing this for that.
What is your project for your life and do you want in the future be the director of an orchestra
No I don’t want to do that. I have some things I want to do first. It’s difficult to be a leader or a conductor, whatever you call it in any situation. That’s a serious responsability that weights on your shoulder, yes very difficult. I don’t say that I can’t handle it ..Any time you be the leader of anything it’s difficult.
You use the word orchestra and now you say band. I would like to have some kind of a band. I don’t want to start an orchestra right now, it would something small first.