The Headhunters first received national attention in the 1970s as a result of their connection with and contribution to jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock's groundbreaking work melding jazz, funk, soul, rock and other popular musics together. Over 30 years later, they are touring and still producing original music, this time without Hancock. Mike Clark, drummer for the group since their second album (1974's Thrust), has been responsible for innovations in people's perceptions of and approaches to rhythm and drum playing, and is one of the most widely sampled drummers in the world.
"It feels great that people like your work enough to want to make it part of their work," Clark says. At the same time, however, many popular artists who have incorporated recordings of his playing into their own tracks have not paid him-or even asked-for the privilege. "I'm from the school of musicians that actually play," Clark remarks, "it's called 'live' ... [Still,] I'm glad that even though they stole it, they liked it, and it brought more attention to me, which helps me financially and helps me to continue to create and to bring new stuff to the world of music and culture."
According to Clark, every member of the Headhunters is coming from a similar place in terms of their perception of themselves and each other. "My music comes from the roots up, meaning that I'm a student of the music and history: where it came from ... where the music that I love and am a part of came from, and the artists that made it. I'd say now my role is to pass on the information that I feel that I've gleaned-and that I feel is accurate-to the next group of people and to whoever's willing to listen and to whoever can hear it and is capable of understanding it. And in a group, I think it's a similar activity ... [We] are really trying our best to bring forth what we consider to be culturally the high road. [I'm] not saying that we're the best cats or the top of the food chain or divorced from ego, but ... there is a lot of history on the bandstand in [the Headhunters], and what makes it a special event for me is the history and the amount of contribution that every guy in this band has made."
Clark says that Hancock taught him the Buddhist chant, "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo," and that by chanting that, one can achieve all of one's dreams. "I was a young man, and if I heard of anything that said I could achieve all of my dreams, I wanted to know all about it right away, because I had a million dreams, and I'm not a particularly suspicious person, so I just thought, 'Sure, I'll check it out.'"
When the recording session for the track "Actual Proof" on the album Thrust came around, the producer (who had received a very basic knowledge of drumming in school) asked Clark to play a very "basic, unhip" rhythm. "I said, 'Look, I really don't want to play that. I think I have a better scheme,' and he got very mad at me," Clark recollects. "Rather than me getting mad back, I thought, 'This is an assignment for this [chanting] that I'm hearing all about from Herbie Hancock.'" Clark excused himself for a few minutes, snuck into another studio, and chanted. "I said, 'Okay, everybody's going to hear me on this record, and if I play a pedestrian beat like this man wants me to play, then they're going to think that this is who I am creatively.' The Buddhist practice is based on something called 'Actual Proof'-you get what you chant for-so ... being that the other tracks were also kind of pedestrian and this was my one chance to show my stuff, I chanted that on this track, I would be immortalized in jazz throughout history. I was young," Clark qualifies, "so that was my prayer." After chanting alone for several minutes, Clark says that he went back into the studio and (nicely) asked the producer to let them try playing it once their way, and if they could not get it in one take, they would play it the way he told them to. "He laughed at me, because it was a very difficult piece, and he said that nobody could play that piece in one take, because we hadn't really rehearsed it, and especially the way (we wanted) to play it, it was too complicated. I said, 'Please, give us a chance. If you're right, we'll all know within the first four bars.'" The group got the track in one take, and Clark is credited with a drumming innovation on the track, as well. The piece, originally titled something else, was changed to "Actual Proof" in honor of Clark's accomplishment. "When Herbie saw my inner change," Clark reflects, "and saw that it had affected the environment that strongly, he changed the name of it ... When the piece was over, everybody was giving me high-fives and hugging me in the studio and going, 'Michael, that was brilliant.' And [the producer] then came up to me and said, 'Thank you for arguing with me, and making me see what you were thinking. This is one of the finest things I've ever been a part of.'"
Incidentally, Clark is the only white member of the Headhunters, and experienced firsthand the breakdown of racial barriers in popular music in the 1960s and especially the 1970s.
"I lived in Oakland ... so I saw Huey Newton and all those guys, and I witnessed the police beating up African-Americans. I saw this with my own eyes. The reason I lived there was because Paul Jackson, the bassist in Herbie's band, and I have been best friends since I was 19 years old. So his dad got us a place together because we were both young guys starting out ... So I was witnessing a lot of things that I would have never seen before had I not moved in with Paul, and I was really outraged about what I was seeing, and about all the lies the government was telling..." Also, at the same time, Clark points out that in those days, "black consciousness ... was really rising ... and America was becoming aware of African- Americans' taste in clothes, music, what they liked and didn't like, and also the needs of the black community: what was being addressed and ... how they were being treated as citizens ... began to filter through into white America and other Americas."
"Paul and I were a musical team, and so our bands were usually predominantly black through his friends, and mixed with the occasional white guy other than myself....We'd try to mix it up...the musicians that could play the best were the ones that we would get. That was my experience, and that lasted years, so when I met Herbie, I was quite comfortable, as far as who I was. I didn't feel I had to try to be someone I wasn't, or that I had to affect a 'black-sounding'-whatever that means-type of talking, or any kind of bullshit. I was just kind of myself, and the friendship between Paul and I was so strong that nobody dared challenge it. However, there were some other people in the band who didn't see it that way; they had problems with the fact that I was white, and I learned to stand up for myself and also love those guys back, who felt that way, and understand why they felt that way the best that I could...and to this day, we're all serious family."
"And at the same time, it was this tremendous growing experience, being with those guys, because it wasn't all beautiful just because Paul and I were friends; I definitely got some flak for it. However, musically, how I fit in was being myself. It seems like the thing I came up with, the thing I was doing with my drumming, fit in perfectly with this band, and does to this day. Nobody ever gave me a hard time about playing, but there were some uncomfortable moments ... where I had to really look carefully at myself and figure out who I was. It made a man out of me, and it's the best experience a young guy could ever have, playing in that situation at that time period, because ... it made me a strong person and a world person; I mean, I can talk with anybody and be comfortable with them. I didn't have to adjust any of my personality to fit in the situation; what I had to do was accept the good part of my life, and not denigrate myself because I was a white person ... I couldn't be of any value as an artist if I punished myself mentally or spiritually because of that situation. .. I'm grateful that I had the experience to deal with that and develop myself. I wish everybody in this country could do that."
"Music really reflects what's going on in society, but it can also really affect what's going on ... Music is a strong force, and so that means that I want to be at my best, and the other guys in the band do, as well," Clark observes, also explaining that "especially with music like [the Headhunters] play, [which] is intellectually stimulating, there is a tapestry of souls going on as far as we're communicating with each other musically and intertwining each others' lives through musical conversation. And the music is funky, so the body gets a good sensation, as well. So you get it from the neck down and the neck up, and that's pretty much what our music is about. And so the more we can groove people and make them feel good, it just makes for a better feeling for people."
*****
Originally Published June 16, 2005, Buzz Weekly (Champaign-Urbana, Illinois)
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Showing posts with label jazz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jazz. Show all posts
Monday, February 2, 2009
Freedom, not "free jazz" (An Interview with Ear Doctor)
With a repertoire comprised of original tunes with quirky melodies and a live show that frequently incorporates the sounds of siren-whistle and gong, Ear Doctor is not exactly your typical jazz combo. And they wouldn't have it any other way. Jerry Shelato (tuba) comments that "We've all heard the standards, and we all know how the famous recordings of them sound and how people tend to play them-and to sort of ape them, almost-and that's not even an element of what we do."
The group known as Ear Doctor was formed in 1998 and consisted of three musicians: Shelato, Dan Honnold (saxophone) and Tom Paynter (keyboards, flute).
"[At first] we had no drummer," Paynter remarks, making his bandmates chuckle. "We decided that we needed a drummer soon after that." Although Ear Doctor's drum seat has the most personnel changes, it is regularly filled by Jeff Magby or Mark McKnight. The band lineup also includes Ben Taylor (bass), who also does the sound recording for the group. "The three of us have been playing together since the early '90s," Paynter comments about Shelato and Honnold, "that's 10 or 15 years of hanging out, listening to similar things, playing out things while we're listening, and playing together-not only onstage, but in different formats." All three are actively involved in the local music scene, including Paynter's radio show "Mellifluous Cacophony" on WEFT 90.1 FM, Shelato's performance in professional ensembles, and Honnold's work as a concert piano technician for the University of Illinois. As Honnold observes, "I think it was kind of a no-brainer for all of us to become musicians."
Ear Doctor's sound is, to say the least, a bit out-of-the-ordinary. Aside from the strangeness of many of their melodies, their walking bass lines are doubled on tuba and are played on that instrument using non-standard brass performance technique. "I'm also playing jazz on the tuba, as opposed to playing 'The Tuba' in jazz," Shelato points out. "[You have to] serve the tune, not the horn." The band admits that their sound often eludes proper description, but "in terms of sonic similitude," Paynter says that Ear Doctor's sound has an affinity for groups such as the Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop, Sun Ra and the NRG Ensemble. As far as being an avant-garde, "free" group, all three firmly deny this as a popular misconception. "There are aspects of the sound, there are elements of [it] that are more abrasive or that may evoke that sort of a '60s energy-jazz type of thing," Honnold says, but, Shelato adds, Ear Doctor's music is "more freedom than it is Free Jazz; I mean, 'free jazz' has a very specific connotation, and it's more freedom within what it is [that] we do. That's not to say that we never play free; we just don't often do it for other people to consume."
Although they have a so-called "modern" sound, their music actually follows fairly traditional jazz performance practice, albeit in unconventional ways. "We play within pretty traditional forms, so ... it's pretty straight-ahead-looking music," says Paynter, who has written most of the group's music. "It's not just coming from left field or something, although when you hear [an Ear Doctor] song, it wouldn't necessarily sound like [for example] a blues; it is, harmonically and [in terms of] number of measures-it's just got a very strange melody .... one of the ways that I compose a lot of my stuff is just to sort of stretch the tradition until it almost becomes something different; but there's still an audible link to what has come before."
Paynter comments that although the head-solo-head form of most of their songs is the norm, "the one thing we do ... to try to muddle that is interact and play during other people's solos. So, like, if Dan's playing a solo, it doesn't have to be like a bebop idea of a solo where [the rhythm section is] just kind of laying down a framework, and he's blowing over it; it's more interactive. I might hear something he plays and interject something that would spur him a different way because while there is a fair amount notated in a very detailed way [in our music], there is much that is not notated and that can't be notated."
When soloing, Honnold says that "the most important thing to me ... is to be able to express yourself. You can kind of tell in my playing that I don't have the skills of your average jazz musician; I've never been very motivated to acquire them. If I can say what I want to say, and it's something new and different, then I'm always pretty pleased with that. I'm not a big fan of the kind of jazz improvisers where there's a real kind of cut-and-paste approach, where they're cutting and pasting phrases and ideas that they've previously memorized. I do not like that, and I try really hard not to do that .... If I catch myself repeating a pattern, I try to change it by the end of the pattern."
With respect to their live show, Paynter hopes that people pick up on the fact that "we're cooperating, and sharing, and doing it well, and having a good time as we do it. Whether they remember any of the music is another thing, and maybe a little bit too much to ask on the first hearing, but I think it's more of an impression of the way that the musicians are interacting in the band that's interesting."
Honnold adds, "I always hope that people will hear something interesting that they'd never heard before. And like what Tom said [about music we like], hopefully it's something that people will consider warranting repeated listenings....I hope that people hear [us] and want to hear [us] again, either because they really liked it, or they kinda-sorta liked it and know that there's probably something more that they could grab next time."
"I've always noticed that the people who are not regular jazz fans seem to enjoy us more than the real hardcore jazz fans .... we get a lot of positive feedback from students and people who may not have ever even heard jazz and who probably don't even consider us jazz. I always thought that that was interesting," Honnold reflects. "[I don't think that] a lot of the people who come to see us regularly are coming to see us for the jazz. I think they're coming to see us for the originality of it."
Ear Doctor will be appearing tonight (May 5) at Zorba's. They will be joined in this show by Jay Ferguson on drums.
*****
Originally Published May 5, 2005, Buzz Weekly (Champaign-Urbana, Illinois)
Article Link
The group known as Ear Doctor was formed in 1998 and consisted of three musicians: Shelato, Dan Honnold (saxophone) and Tom Paynter (keyboards, flute).
"[At first] we had no drummer," Paynter remarks, making his bandmates chuckle. "We decided that we needed a drummer soon after that." Although Ear Doctor's drum seat has the most personnel changes, it is regularly filled by Jeff Magby or Mark McKnight. The band lineup also includes Ben Taylor (bass), who also does the sound recording for the group. "The three of us have been playing together since the early '90s," Paynter comments about Shelato and Honnold, "that's 10 or 15 years of hanging out, listening to similar things, playing out things while we're listening, and playing together-not only onstage, but in different formats." All three are actively involved in the local music scene, including Paynter's radio show "Mellifluous Cacophony" on WEFT 90.1 FM, Shelato's performance in professional ensembles, and Honnold's work as a concert piano technician for the University of Illinois. As Honnold observes, "I think it was kind of a no-brainer for all of us to become musicians."
Ear Doctor's sound is, to say the least, a bit out-of-the-ordinary. Aside from the strangeness of many of their melodies, their walking bass lines are doubled on tuba and are played on that instrument using non-standard brass performance technique. "I'm also playing jazz on the tuba, as opposed to playing 'The Tuba' in jazz," Shelato points out. "[You have to] serve the tune, not the horn." The band admits that their sound often eludes proper description, but "in terms of sonic similitude," Paynter says that Ear Doctor's sound has an affinity for groups such as the Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop, Sun Ra and the NRG Ensemble. As far as being an avant-garde, "free" group, all three firmly deny this as a popular misconception. "There are aspects of the sound, there are elements of [it] that are more abrasive or that may evoke that sort of a '60s energy-jazz type of thing," Honnold says, but, Shelato adds, Ear Doctor's music is "more freedom than it is Free Jazz; I mean, 'free jazz' has a very specific connotation, and it's more freedom within what it is [that] we do. That's not to say that we never play free; we just don't often do it for other people to consume."
Although they have a so-called "modern" sound, their music actually follows fairly traditional jazz performance practice, albeit in unconventional ways. "We play within pretty traditional forms, so ... it's pretty straight-ahead-looking music," says Paynter, who has written most of the group's music. "It's not just coming from left field or something, although when you hear [an Ear Doctor] song, it wouldn't necessarily sound like [for example] a blues; it is, harmonically and [in terms of] number of measures-it's just got a very strange melody .... one of the ways that I compose a lot of my stuff is just to sort of stretch the tradition until it almost becomes something different; but there's still an audible link to what has come before."
Paynter comments that although the head-solo-head form of most of their songs is the norm, "the one thing we do ... to try to muddle that is interact and play during other people's solos. So, like, if Dan's playing a solo, it doesn't have to be like a bebop idea of a solo where [the rhythm section is] just kind of laying down a framework, and he's blowing over it; it's more interactive. I might hear something he plays and interject something that would spur him a different way because while there is a fair amount notated in a very detailed way [in our music], there is much that is not notated and that can't be notated."
When soloing, Honnold says that "the most important thing to me ... is to be able to express yourself. You can kind of tell in my playing that I don't have the skills of your average jazz musician; I've never been very motivated to acquire them. If I can say what I want to say, and it's something new and different, then I'm always pretty pleased with that. I'm not a big fan of the kind of jazz improvisers where there's a real kind of cut-and-paste approach, where they're cutting and pasting phrases and ideas that they've previously memorized. I do not like that, and I try really hard not to do that .... If I catch myself repeating a pattern, I try to change it by the end of the pattern."
With respect to their live show, Paynter hopes that people pick up on the fact that "we're cooperating, and sharing, and doing it well, and having a good time as we do it. Whether they remember any of the music is another thing, and maybe a little bit too much to ask on the first hearing, but I think it's more of an impression of the way that the musicians are interacting in the band that's interesting."
Honnold adds, "I always hope that people will hear something interesting that they'd never heard before. And like what Tom said [about music we like], hopefully it's something that people will consider warranting repeated listenings....I hope that people hear [us] and want to hear [us] again, either because they really liked it, or they kinda-sorta liked it and know that there's probably something more that they could grab next time."
"I've always noticed that the people who are not regular jazz fans seem to enjoy us more than the real hardcore jazz fans .... we get a lot of positive feedback from students and people who may not have ever even heard jazz and who probably don't even consider us jazz. I always thought that that was interesting," Honnold reflects. "[I don't think that] a lot of the people who come to see us regularly are coming to see us for the jazz. I think they're coming to see us for the originality of it."
Ear Doctor will be appearing tonight (May 5) at Zorba's. They will be joined in this show by Jay Ferguson on drums.
*****
Originally Published May 5, 2005, Buzz Weekly (Champaign-Urbana, Illinois)
Article Link
Album Review: Miles Davis, My Funny Valentine (Re-Release)
There are very few people in the world who would disagree that jazz chameleon Miles Davis did not so much play standards as infuse them with a sparkling brilliance in a style that was entirely his own. My Funny Valentine presents a beautifully recorded 1964 concert with tenor saxophonist George Coleman and a rhythm section made up of younger players who have long since made their own marks on the jazz world: Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums, the latter just 18 years old at the time (a point nobody seems to be able to resist making).
Each of the five tracks repackaged here is executed with precision and grace and somehow made to sound effortless in spite of the level of constant, concentrated attention to detail the group evinces. Davis's tone is, as usual, mellow in the midrange and intense without being harsh in the upper levels, and he uses a Harmon mute (something of a trademark sound for Davis) for a good portion of the album, as well. This recording is an example of how great a group of musicians can sound together on a really good night: everything fits together, they feed off of each others' ideas, and the parts all mesh together, weaving in and out of grooves and chord changes.
Of four standards included here, my personal favorite on this album is a caffeinated version of one of Davis's own compositions: the perennial classic "All Blues," which has itself become a staple of the jazz repertoire. Other highlights include Hancock's introspective introductions to "Stella by Starlight" and the title track, Coleman's alternately playful and impassioned solo on "All Of You," as well as the shifts in tone color and rhythm occurring throughout the album that are brought about through Carter's and Williams' interaction. If jazz is primarily a conversation, the five players here are having a lively one and enjoying every minute of it.
The album itself is a one-disc remastered re-release of a 40-year-old LP double record of the same name, and this is its first time appearing on CD as it was on vinyl (there has also been a CD release of this recording that includes bonus material). It includes new liner notes by bassist Ron Carter in addition to the original ones by jazz writer Nat Hentoff. The album is most definitely worth listening to but if you already have another version, this one is not necessary.
*****
Originally Published Feb 24, 2005, Buzz Weekly (Champaign-Urbana, Illinois)
Article Link
Each of the five tracks repackaged here is executed with precision and grace and somehow made to sound effortless in spite of the level of constant, concentrated attention to detail the group evinces. Davis's tone is, as usual, mellow in the midrange and intense without being harsh in the upper levels, and he uses a Harmon mute (something of a trademark sound for Davis) for a good portion of the album, as well. This recording is an example of how great a group of musicians can sound together on a really good night: everything fits together, they feed off of each others' ideas, and the parts all mesh together, weaving in and out of grooves and chord changes.
Of four standards included here, my personal favorite on this album is a caffeinated version of one of Davis's own compositions: the perennial classic "All Blues," which has itself become a staple of the jazz repertoire. Other highlights include Hancock's introspective introductions to "Stella by Starlight" and the title track, Coleman's alternately playful and impassioned solo on "All Of You," as well as the shifts in tone color and rhythm occurring throughout the album that are brought about through Carter's and Williams' interaction. If jazz is primarily a conversation, the five players here are having a lively one and enjoying every minute of it.
The album itself is a one-disc remastered re-release of a 40-year-old LP double record of the same name, and this is its first time appearing on CD as it was on vinyl (there has also been a CD release of this recording that includes bonus material). It includes new liner notes by bassist Ron Carter in addition to the original ones by jazz writer Nat Hentoff. The album is most definitely worth listening to but if you already have another version, this one is not necessary.
*****
Originally Published Feb 24, 2005, Buzz Weekly (Champaign-Urbana, Illinois)
Article Link
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