This podcast will feature interviews done by Jonathan Freilich with notable figures that relate in some way to the current vibrancy of the New Orleans music scene and community. It seeks to form a dialogue between ideas and motivations behind the music and the relationship of those ideas to the sound artifact being presented. The podcast will also address what the state of understanding is in audiences and whether understanding is relevant to the "success" of the musical artwork. Older interviews and further information can be found at www.jonathanfreilich.com
Tagged with: new orleans music
Here is an interview I have been meaning to get to for years. Tony is a rare case in a city of sidemen. He is one of the last people around standing without a prop and performing for people. He sounds great and commands much attention. He also does a lot of different work with different bands.
In this interview,, Tony Green talks about his most recent project, his first project and a great deal in between.
Listening to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly; earliest music appreciations; the way ideas move through the 40s; song rejection; mcmurray talks of songs with the 40s; mother-in-law; how the music makes people react; Ebola? (too soon?); lifestyle descriptions in the songs; Morning 40 style; Funkadelic; the olfactory sense; discovering Nirvana and liberation by record store; Josh and binaural beats; Scully’s other material outside the 40s; whether the band broke up because of problems between Scully and Josh; how members have come in and out of the band; financing of recordings; how the music has changed over the years; songs about age; prog rock math rock vs. minimal type etceteras; josh expresses himself.
how the 40s met; starting to write songs; experience of New Orleans; relationship between origins and musical content; Irving Berlin; the Rough 7 and backup singers; The beginning of the Morning 40 Federation; the first 40s tour and delusions of grandeur; the Attack Family; the concept behind the 40s; what was appealing to Scully about the band; I Aint Really Alright; subconscious access to material; dangers of becoming formulaic; Scully’s function; traditional music as a binding factor
Part 1- Tinnitus; working with Meschiya Lake; what makes a jazz player and why he feels he is not really a jazz player; interest in world music that relates to early jazz; 'Best of' record to be put out by Van Dyke Parks; Choro, Ragtime, Musette, and Tom's re-usage of the forms for improvisation; being from St. Louis and University experiences; forays into music journalism; the problems in rock journalism; Tom's music background; examples of his brother's musicality; being uncomfortable with pop music; affection for Brazilian pop music; Tom's process of composing in vernacular forms; Tom's harmonic language and process of deriving form.
Dan Oestreicher first hit the radar for this writer when he presented himself at a Naked Orchestra show at the Mermaid lounge and made clear that he should be playing with the group. He did that for the rest of that evening and for a long time afterward.
He played with many of the most forward thinking New Orleans musicians and frequently he is there right when they are looking the most forward. This includes the The Other Planets, The Magnetic Ear, 3 now 4, James Singleton, Irvin Mayfield's New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Roger Lewis's Baritone quintet (where Dan is playing Bass sax instead of his more heard, Bari sax,) The Naked Orchestra, The Jonathan Freilich group, his own group- The Diesel Combustion Orchestra, and more. He is seen playing some tuba and really tends to go very deep when he is exploring anything, but especially music. He also knows a good deal about saxophone lore and trade as well as the other end of the spectrum, analog synthesis.
As he is in Trombone Shorty's band, touring constantly, he is in a unique position to discuss the current meanings and associations in the idea of New Orleans music (if there is really such a thing at all) and improvisation. His perspectives are well informed and if nothing at all show a blazing mind for inquiry and a fearless and healthy statement of opinion. He could go anywhere from here. If you were into horse racing you might see him listed in the racing form as one to watch.
...Look to the end for heated debate.
Part 1- What Dan is up to now; the Roger Lewis baritone sax quartet+ bass sax; Roger, Tony, tim green, calvin johnson, shannon powell; jazzfest as a showcase for acts that aren’t playing around very much; “the guardians of the vault”; playing with Trombone Shorty and the perception of New Orleans in the world; ponderings about why Trombone Shorty is the current poster child for New Orleans music; the limitations of the idea of New Orleans music; bandleader, Trombone Shorty; Dan’s other musical lives in the past; New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and peoples’ perception of that in relation to the New Orleans music categorization; more on the liberations and restraints of being identified as a New Orleans musician; jazz in academia; musical priorities; the position of precise execution in the New Orleans instrument player’s aesthetic; brass bands and depth of rehearsal- Hot 8 Brass Band; Soul Rebels Brass Band.
Part 4- what happened when he got to New Orleans; falling into what he was trying to get away from; on the other hand...; punkfunk scene dying in New York and the reasons; getting into New Orleans and the beat and syncopation; hitting some hard times in New Orleans and leaving for a while- Ithaca; problems with the music press in New Orleans-suppressing innovation; insoucience; desire to push the limits; studying with Andrew Cyrille; more jazz pondering; the failure of imagination; bitter-sweet New Orleans; separating marketing from music; inspiring ideals embodied in jazz; where he is going now.
Part 3- the fate of the Economy; more on Brendan Gallagher and his writing; the quick story of the rise and fall of Tribe nunzio, a little on Joe Cabral before The Iguanas; how The Mermaid Lounge started (Nov.1994); meeting 3 or 4 people that can make 10 or 12 bands; the sorts of forces that can create a Mermaid Lounge and why that model isn't around anymore; the Mermaid Lounge calendar- "low brow and high end"; how the Mermaid recording studio came about; Clint's ingenuity; about the ending of the Mermaid and the end of a number of clubs with a certain booking ethic; more on Pat Cronin.
WWOZ radio DJ, Michael Dominici had the idea to take some of what has been happening in these interviews and take it onto WWOZ during his radio show. There were time constraints that didn't allow us, with our summer schedules, to do this live so we pre-recorded it on May 28th,2011. Mark Bingham allowed us to do the interview at Piety St. Studios so we sat down for about an hour and discussed a few things pertaining to recording, time perception, thinking of music for now, anachronistic music, and observations on a few other musicians around the scene including Quintron, Ratty Scurvics, Clint Maedgen and others. Other things were touched on too. The conversation ranges from light and humorous to a tinkering with quasi-meta-musico-profundums.
This will probably be quite edited for WWOZ radio broadcast so here is an opportunity to hear it in its entirety.
Michael Dominici is a DJ, a very aware listener and New Orleans lover and culture observer. Cellist,Helen Gillethas been an active professional musician around New Orleans for many years now. Mark Bingham is a renowned record producer, composer, engineer, song writer etc.
Helen and Mark have both been individually interviewed for this series at an earlier time. Both are available from this site on the interviews page.
Jeff Albert is more than a musician. Like a few others interviewed here he has contributed to the New Orleans music scene through the Tuesday Open Ears series at the Blue Nile. The series allows an open forum for a wide variety of musical performance. It is a rare night where one can witness any sort of musical exploration. Through improving the breadth of what is presented he has contributed to the formation of musical groups and associations of musicians that otherwise would not have a place to develop their playing and ideas. It also brings in adventurous groups from outside New Orleans. Jeff has developed his own expression and his self- understanding steadily over the years. He has learned a great deal from his own associations with musicians and gigs and he shares a lot about those experiences here. There is also interesting information about the trombone and electronic music.
More on Jeff and the Open Ears Music Series can be found at www.openearsmusic.org
Part 2- musical aspirations as a starting trombone student; becoming conscious of jazz music; decision to be a musician and go to Loyola University over University of North Texas; J.J. Johnson; Clint Maedgen, Coltrane Live in Japan; studies with Dick Erb; early rewarding professional gig experience in horn sections; Pedro Cruz and latin music scene experiences; the feeling of being a professional musician and enjoyment of the lifestyle; urge for self-expression bubbling to the surface; comfort with computers and meeting John Worthington, the computer guru; becoming aware of the greater relative power of emotional playing; UNO for a masters degree and improving composition; learning strengths and limitations.
Rex Gregory is an extremely talented, but also very disciplined, instrumentalist. He plays with a wide variety of people around town in a number of styles, many of them not fixed genres. Part of this comes from a great talent for getting with the "conversational" style that emerges when groups of players get together to improvise. Basically, he's quick! He's also young (27.) He plays flute, all the saxes, and clarinet and last year he released his first album as a leader, An End To Oblivion. He is very comfortable dealing with ideas both "intellectual" and in music. He enthusiastically tackles areas where he has no understanding and he is quite well read as a result. If you check his blog at http://rexgregory.blogspot.com/ you can see he writes confidently too whether you are in agreement with his opinions or not. I felt this was an entertaining interview because Rex is comfortable with shooting off opinions. His website is at http://rexgregory.com/ The last section of this interview got into some very interesting areas that show a lot of the inner symbolic possibilities that are available in the basic elements of music.
This is the most conversational interview to date.
This conversation happened outdoors so there is some wind noise. On the other hand it seems comfortable and you get the sounds of the Marigny on a pleasant late spring day.
Part 3- The word "Jazz", Duke Ellington, genres, blending in, the state of modern jazz in New Orleans, his record An End to Oblivion, influence of All the rest is noise by Alex Ross, 20th century nihilism(?), why we are in a retrospective age and the retrospective mind frame, the impact of mass communication.
Rex Gregory is an extremely talented, but also very disciplined, instrumentalist. He plays with a wide variety of people around town in a number of styles, many of them not fixed genres. Part of this comes from a great talent for getting with the "conversational" style that emerges when groups of players get together to improvise. Basically, he's quick! He's also young (27.) He plays flute, all the saxes, and clarinet and last year he released his first album as a leader, An End To Oblivion. He is very comfortable dealing with ideas both "intellectual" and in music. He enthusiastically tackles areas where he has no understanding and he is quite well read as a result. If you check his blog at http://rexgregory.blogspot.com/ you can see he writes confidently too whether you are in agreement with his opinions or not. I felt this was an entertaining interview because Rex is comfortable with shooting off opinions. His website is at http://rexgregory.com/ The last section of this interview got into some very interesting areas that show a lot of the inner symbolic possibilities that are available in the basic elements of music.
This conversation happened outdoors so there is some wind noise. On the other hand it seems comfortable and you get the sounds of the Marigny on a pleasant late spring day.
Part 1- Rex talks about getting back to jazz and what he means by jazz, jazz competitions and whether there is a place for competition in music, Beethoven and Viennese classical music.
Coherence creating scenarios, consciousness as a rationalization for pre-conscious mechanisms, music compositional systems as an analogue to the coherence creating system in society, how different coherence scenarios clash and cause difficulty in musical appreciation or communication, coherence and incoherence as a concept in western compositional and how it integrates with other cultures, Pat Carpenter, Schoenberg's concept of the musical idea and organic unity, study and analysis of western musical classics, the heresy of organic unity in the post-modern era, beginning playing experiences, music in his family, affection for the Beatles, family dynamic, influence of Father and his engagement with philosophy.
Part 4- The actual "secret" training to be a producer in LA, "technical" recording versus responding to the situation at hand, what makes a good studio, New Orleans musical myopia, encountering racial division in New Orleans music, Allison Miner, working for Rounder records, reinforcement of bogus New Orleans mythologies, brass bands and the growth of the players in them, why people are interested in Piety St studios, producing now, current ideas, difference between recordings of the past and present, what stands out.
Part 2 continues on to describe being an A&R man at Elektra records, The Doors, Bruce Botnick, The Holy Modal Rounders, Peter Stampfel, Bulgarian music, the marketing of authenticity, initial perceptions of the New Orleans music scene, the move to New York after LA.
Mark Bingham talks in depth about some key times in his life in music. A lot came to light in this interview and, although we have been friends for years, I learned a lot of pieces of information that made sense of some parts of his life and work that I didn't realize.
Mark's contribution to New Orleans's music scene starts back in 1982. Most of this interview deals with stuff earlier than that. Even though it's a long interview and has a lot of information, a lot was left out due to time limitation. Mark is a real good anecdote dropper- very useful in this format and we may get into a 2nd interview to tackle more impressions of the diversity of artists he has worked with.
Part 1 deals with early recording experiments in high school, discovery by the music business, electronic music, early approach to song writing, Los Angeles, university life in Indiana, and association with composer, Iannis Xenakis.
Keyboardist, Brian Coogan, took some time for an interview on the day of the Chazfestival. The interview is in 3 parts.
Phil is one of the most fascinating and innovative instrumentalists from New Orleans. His creativity is not bound by the guitar- he also modifies, or maybe corrects, a lot of what falls in front of him and on him. He even invented and plays a kind of guitar- the guitarp. In an earlier interview, he had talked about style in his playing, his guitar influences, alternate lyrics, new orleans guitar scene history, and converses and hypothesizes about the problems of music business and herd mentality...
...Then the tables suddenly turned... Phil Degruy interviewed Jonathan Freilich about times in the city, guitar, Naked On The Floor, music philosophy, music background, and composition. He demanded the cross-examination!
Phil is one of the most fascinating and innovative instrumentalists from New Orleans. His creativity is not bound by the guitar- he also modifies, or maybe corrects, a lot of what falls in front of him and on him. He even invented and plays a kind of guitar- the guitarp. In an earlier interview, he had talked about style in his playing, his guitar influences, alternate lyrics, new orleans guitar scene history, and converses and hypothesizes about the problems of music business and herd mentality...
...Then the tables suddenly turned... Phil Degruy interviewed Jonathan Freilich about times in the city, guitar, Naked On The Floor, music philosophy, music background, and composition. He demanded the cross-examination!
Phil is one of the most fascinating and innovative instrumentalists from New Orleans. His creativity is not bound by the guitar- he also modifies, or maybe corrects, a lot of what falls in front of him and on him. He even invented and plays a kind of guitar- the guitarp. In an earlier interview, he had talked about style in his playing, his guitar influences, alternate lyrics, new orleans guitar scene history, and converses and hypothesizes about the problems of music business and herd mentality...
...Then the tables suddenly turned... Phil Degruy interviewed Jonathan Freilich about times in the city, guitar, Naked On The Floor, music philosophy, music background, and composition. He demanded the cross-examination!