Part 2

How much potential for something “new” is there still in jazz? What could this “new” look like?

The first part of this question is easy, plenty! Jazz music is constantly evolving alongside the rest of the musical world. As long as music as a whole continues to change and grow, jazz musicians will continue to bring those new ideas into their perspectives.

As for what that “new” could look like, that question is tougher. I can’t predict the future, but I do have some thoughts on where I would like to see the music go (or at least some of the directions).

Over the past decade or so, there have been a lot of interesting developments in rhythm within jazz, and that is a category that I would like to see further explored. Jazz and progressive metal music seem to be crossing over between one another more frequently, and I find that development to be really exciting!

The clearest example is, of course, the recent work of pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan, which has really inspired me.



I’m also deeply moved by the work of people like Jon Hatamiya and Nathan Parker Smith, both composers who also straddle these two musical styles.

[Read our Tigran Hamasyan interview]

For many artists, life-changing musical experiences take place live. How do you see that yourself? & How, would you say are your live performances and your recording projects connected at the moment? How do they mutually influence and feed off each other?  

This sentiment is definitely true for me, and I see my group as a live band first rather than a recording band. I put a lot of effort into maintaining that live feel on my record, even though I obviously didn’t shy away from making additions to the recorded album that could only be done in the studio.

For example, it was very important to me that the trio of bass, drums, and guitar played together live before any other tracking, like layering, was done. I’m not interested in simply tracking individual parts to a grid and want to maintain the organic ebb and flow of a live performance in my recordings. Additionally, many moments in the record simply had to be captured live, rather than pre-planned to a click and then layered after the fact.

A good example of this is the solo section in my tune “Brooding”, which began as an open, free time section where the soloist (saxophonist Rex Gregory) was dictating where the chords would change with his phrases.

Another interesting example of the relationship between live performance and studio performance occurs in my tune “Duck//Rabbit”. As I had mentioned earlier, there is a section in this tune that is completely free. The bassist, Tim Carey, decided to pedal on a low E for the duration of the improvisation, and I improvised a progression of upper structure triads over that pedal tone.

Long after we recorded the trio, when I was recording overdubs, I transcribed what I had improvised in that section and ended up doubling it on acoustic guitar. It was a really cool musical moment that I think blurs the lines between spontaneous and more typical composition!       

Ímprovisation is obviously an essential element of jazz, but I would assume that just like composition, it is transforming. How do you feel has the role of improvisation changed in jazz?

I think that the classic jazz standard structure of improvising has become less common in more modern jazz works.

Rather than the entire band going around and improvising on the whole form and then playing the head out, I hear a lot of composers using improvising as another tool in their toolbelt to create interesting and dramatic musical moments within more complex arrangements. Soloists may be given sets of changes that are entirely separate from the changes on the head, or improvising may be used as a transition between sections.

I’m particularly interested in giving improvisers more freedom rather than tying them down to a specific set of chord changes. On my tune “Mercurial”, there is a section that asks the soloist to simply improvise around the note Db while a flurry of chords pass by at lightning speed. In this case, I wasn’t interested in the soloist hitting all of the chord changes, but helping to create a feeling of intensity and dissonance for that section.    

On the other hand, I find that using a more common form (such as something you might encounter in a jazz standard) can be a nice way to ground things when other elements of the composition are more out there. That idea is something that I have heard in Allan Holdsworth’s work, and I think that it’s very effective there.

While many of Allan’s tunes engage with some challenging harmonic and melodic ideas, the forms are often quite familiar. I think it gives the listener something to latch onto, and it’s a philosophy that I’ve brought into my writing.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to improvisation?

Like anyone who has been playing for a long time, my improvising is a patchwork of many different concepts that have interested me over the years.

It’s difficult to point to any one concept that stands above the rest, but the use of upper harmonic structures when deriving melodic material is certainly up there. I have long been influenced by John Coltrane’s “sheets of sound” approach to improvising in this regard.

On a similar note, McCoy Tyner and his use of pentatonic scales is something that I have studied very deeply.   

Are there approaches, artists, festivals, labels, spaces or anyone/-thing else out there who you feel deserve a shout out for taking jazz into the future?

Orenda Records is the label that I’m releasing Chronostasis through, and I couldn’t be more grateful to be working with them. Dan Rosenboom has been super supportive throughout the process of putting this record out, and his approach to keeping power in the hands of the artists is inspiring.

Orenda is doing great work and is showcasing some truly amazing artists. I strongly encourage anyone reading to go and check out their catalogue!

The Montreux Festival intends to preserve its archive of recordings for future generations. Do you personally feels it's important that everything should remain available forever - or is there something to be said for letting beautiful moments pass and linger in the memories of those that experienced them?

I think that preserving and archiving everything that we can is a good thing.

While I agree that there is something indescribably beautiful about attending a performance that won’t be preserved, I don’t think that feeling is necessarily lost by recording the performance. Listening to or even watching a live performance after the fact will never be the same as watching it in person. The majority of the most influential recordings to me personally are from live performances that occurred long before I was born, and I’m glad those recordings have been preserved.

That being said, I won’t pretend that my experience listening to those records is in any way comparable to attending the performances in person. The beautiful moments will pass regardless of whether we record them, I think.