Part 1

Name: Joshua Zubot
Occupation: Violinist, composer, improviser
Nationality: Canadian
Current release: Joshua Zubot's Josh Zubot Strings, featuring Jesse Zubot, James Meger, Meredith Bates, and Peggy Lee, is out via Drip Audio.
Recommendations: I am proud of two recent albums that I am involved in:
One is my debut album Josh Zubot Strings feature a great string quintet from Vancouver. All my compositions with musicians Peggy Lee, Meredith Bates, James Meger, Jesse Zubot and myself. I am lucky to continue my string adventures with these cutting edge Vancouver string musicians!
Second is the album by Darius Jones called fLuXkit Vancouver (ist suite but sacred). All Darius’s compositions featuring again Vancouver strings of Peggy Lee, James Meger Jesse Zubot and myself with Gerald Cleaver and Darius.

[Read our Gerald Cleaver interview]

If you enjoyed this Joshua Zubot interview and would like to stay up to date on his music and current live dates, visit him on Instagram, and Facebook.
 


Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in improvisation?

Yes, I grew up on a farm in a very remote part of Saskatchewan (Province in Canada). My parents were full time farmers but my father was also a musician and my mother was a visual artist.

When my dad built the farmhouse he made sure there was a music room. From an early age my dad, brother and myself would go in and start improvising music. Not really free improv exactly but we would just play music. I guess improvisation started at a young age and continued.

I was also taking western classical musical instruction in Medicine Hat, closest city to the farm, but this had nothing to do with improvisation. My dad was listening to a lot of blues/jazz music so I was hearing improvisation from an early age.

When did you first consciously start getting interested in musical improvisation? Which artists, teachers, albums or performances involving prominent use of improvisation captured your imagination in the beginning?

In my mid teenage years I became more aware of improvisation in jazz music and slowly started to try things with my violin.

My brother moved away for his music studies and I was getting influenced by what he would be playing and learning. After I graduated high school I moved away from the farm and landed in Calgary, Alberta to start classical studies. But really I was mostly into jazz music like Coltrane, Frisell, Scofield, Ornette Coleman, Monk. Classical studies was not doing it for me artistically so I joined a folk group and toured the world for 5 years.



During this touring period I was getting more into the avant garde. I found magazines like the Wire and Signal to Noise for knowledge. When I was touring through major cities I would seek out underground venues that had experimental music. For example like in Chicago I found the Empty Bottle or Velvet Lounge and other venues (can’t remember) to see groups like, Chicago Underground Trio / Fred Anderson / Ken Vandermark. Or in New York at the Stone, Knitting Factory etc.



Being a string player I would have to say there are a few mentors / collaborators I really owe a lot to. When I was in Montreal I had the opportunity to learn and collaborate with Malcolm Goldstein. He is an innovator for graphic score New Music compositions that incorporates improvisation and is also an amazing violin improvisor.



Tristan Honsinger is another innovator string player who I met in Montreal and continued to record numerous albums and tour many times with in North America and Europe. I feel very lucky to have been able to talk, learn and perform with these two artists who, you could say, were very important sound creators on their instruments in improvised music.



I have seen so many great performances that moved me emotionally throughout my life but one that comes back to mind was hearing Evan Parker perform a solo set at Casa del Popolo in Montreal. It is a fairly small amazing venue and that night it was super packed. Like you could not move. He started and immediately had everyone at his disposal. I don’t know what it was that night. Maybe the combination of his circular breathing multiphonics/harmonics that filled the room combined with the energy of everyone wanting and accepting the frequencies being put into the air.

This was not at the beginning but in my younger career, myself, Ellwood Epps, Philippe Lauzier and Pierres Yves Martel started a weekly improvising series in Montreal called Mardi Spaghetti. I co-curated and performed there for 8 Years up until I moved away to Vancouver. I look at this as being huge learning curve in my improvising. Both as a performer and listener!

Tell me about your instrument and/or tools, please. What made you seek it out, what makes it “your” instrument, and what are some of the most important aspects of playing it?

I have been playing a violin made by Aristide Cavalli from 1923 made in Cremona Italy. 100 years old this year! I got it while preparing to go to university and needed an upgrade.

This has been my main violin since 1995/96 so we have been together for quite some time. I am still figuring it out though. It is a strong instrument with bright tones and its sound is slowly maturing over the years. Recently I have been using a viola bow made by a Montreal luthier Zacharie Rodrigue. I really like the bow and thought why not try it out with my violin.

I am very comfortable to play my violin the way I need to play it. Playing traditional written music to folk music to experimental music using all sorts of bow strokes all over the strings, making percussive sounds and rhythms with my bow and hands, playing amplified, etc. There are many sound creations that can be explored in improvising with an acoustic instrument. I am still searching for new sounds. Some times they suddenly pop out of no where and I am like, yes ... the search continues!!!

I guess I can also call an array of efx pedals as my instruments. I do have a core that I use. They are the line 6 delay / rat distortion / wayhuge oscillator / strymon big sky reverb / digitech whammy and my volume pedal. Other pedals will come in and out but these are my go to pedals for louder gigs. I also love my Carr Viceroy amp. Oh and I do love my Neumann KM 84 when performing acoustic sets for the live front of house sound.

How would you describe your own relationship with your instrument – is it an extension of your self/body, a partner and companion, a creative catalyst, a challenge to be overcome, something else entirely?

I see it as an extension of my expression. I can express my feelings and creativity through the sound of the violin.

It is definitely a partner. The relationship is ongoing. I am still learning a lot from the instrument. Sometimes I really like the sound and playability and things are going well. Sometimes I wonder what is going on with it, is it mad or sad?

I do like that we are aging together and that I get to see all its new little marks or worn varnish changing over time.

Derek Bailey defined improvising as the search for material which is endlessly transformable. What kind of materials have turned to be particularly transformable and stimulating for you?

I guess the simple aesthetic of new sounds or notated lines coming out of my instrument(s) and also the possibilities of developing small compositions of motifs within improvisations.

I like the ... “in between” ... where improvisations can be left totally free, like you almost forget in the moment what is happening. But then I also like when you might hear what is happening around you and try to compose something in the middle of what is happening.

Most likely this “supposedly composition” will never be played again at another performance. So is that a transformable improvisation or a transformable composition?