…at ZirZamin in NYC

June 2012

BBJaze: I’m here talking to Vignola and Raniolo—two outstanding guitar players—and I’m wondering if the best indicator of a person’s potential to do well as a guitarist is whether that person has Italian ancestry. What’s going on with Italian men and the guitar?

FV: Well, there’s a long history of mandolin playing and guitar playing—

VR: You play in Italy, and after the show there’s a big party, everybody’s drinking wine—

FV: Everybody gets a guitar out.

VR: They open up the restaurant, the chef cooks, and we all sing songs.

FV: And everybody gets a guitar out.

BBJaze: And plays an AC/DC tribute set?

FV: They sing Rolling Stones songs, and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

BBJaze: Sounds like Fellini movies are actually not surreal.

VR: They also sing the traditional Italian folk songs.

FV: Oh yeah…Mama…and they really sing it. If you think about it, Eddie Lang—Italian; Joe Pass—Italian; Tony Mottola—Italian; Tony Gutuso—Italian; Al Caiola, Bucky Pizzarelli…

BBJaze: John Paisano, Pat Martino, Jimmy Bruno…

FV: Frank Gambale, Mike Stern—well, no. But he plays like an Italian.

BBJaze: That’s what he and Chico Marx have in common.  But you really are Italian–and you’re basically known as a jazz player, but you’ve obviously been influenced by a diversity of genres. Are you a jazz player? What is jazz to you, anyway?

FV: Jazz was a musical form that came to the forefront in the late teens/early twenties based on blues and popular song. It was dance music. That was the thing to do during the war, to go hear music and to dance. All the early big bands were dance bands. Benny Goodman and bands like that used to travel around and play dance halls. Now you have bebop, you have this, you have that—that’s why Vinny and I don’t even call ourselves jazz guitar players. Has jazz influenced us? Of course. But so has folk music, so has rock music, so has classical music, so has Bulgarian music and Cuban music, French music, Italian music…

BBJaze: Why do you suppose that so many different kinds of music get the “jazz” label attached to them?

FV: Because people have to attach it to something. Maybe some marketing genius said that if we call it smooth jazz it’ll be cooler, something like that—now we have a brand we can market.

BBJaze: It’s interesting to call it a marketable brand, because it doesn’t seem like Americans—and I’m generalizing here, of course—really appreciate jazz. It’s no longer what we could call “popular music.” In other parts of the world, it seems that there’s a greater appreciation for the form.

FV: Yeah, grade school kids in Switzerland know who Louis Armstrong is.

BBJaze: Why is that?

FV: Because they study American jazz, American music—jazz and blues. It’s the same in Japan, too. I know players who go to Estonia and sell out auditoriums. But there’s a lot of people who love jazz in America. Our demographic is forty to…forty to death, I say, and those people grew up in the fifties and sixties, and when we play songs that everybody knows, influenced by jazz, we can capture a wide variety of music lovers who love what we do, including jazz guitar players.

BBJaze: I have the sense that in some ways jazz can be off-putting to people.

FV: That’s why we don’t call ourselves jazz guitar players—people think they’re going to be bored, that we’re going to be an introverted act. And we’re the last thing from an introverted act.

BBJaze: You guys do a good show. I brought a friend of mine to see you a couple weeks ago, and he said you were the best guitar duo he had ever seen.

FV: That’s what we are—a guitar duo. It’s not a couple of jazz guitar players. That’s what I love about working with Vinny. He auditioned for me seven years ago on the electric bass for a project I was working on, more of a rock project, and I heard him play guitar and I thought this is great, this guy’s a musician, he was born to do this. He didn’t mind driving to Atlanta, doing a gig, and driving home. He loved it—

BBJaze: Do you still love it, Vinny?

VR: [laughing] Well, it gives me a purpose.

BBJaze: You guys have a lot of humor in your show…

FV: I’m a big fan of Louis Armstrong, I’m a big fan of Victor Borge, of Dean Martin, of Sinatra, of George Carlin—I’m a big fan of entertainers, the way they command a stage. I’m a big fan of Les Paul. I don’t know if you ever heard him play—

BBJaze: I did see him play, during the Fat Tuesday years.

FV: Here’s a guy who was all about the audience. So we’ve developed these little routines, a little dance move. If people have seen us before, they ask if we’re going to do the dance—not “are you gonna play ‘How High the Moon,’ but ‘are you gonna do the dance?’”

BBJaze: It’s fun.

FV: It’s fun.

BBJaze: Vinny was telling me that you do that dance just to make sure that he doesn’t drink before the show.

VR: I was just kidding.

FV: When we’re in Italy we stumble a little doing the dance move, because they drink wine all day long.

BBJaze: The dance move and the humor in general is interesting to me because you’re playing these incredibly difficult arrangements and you make it look effortless—

FV: While we’re standing on one leg…

BBJaze: Sure, why not? You can play effortlessly, so what should you do? Force yourself to sweat and make it look like you’re struggling? On the other hand, maybe you should, in order not to be cruel to other musicians—most of them, I’d say—who can’t play so effortlessly.

FV: Well, there’s a certain amount of concentration that goes into it. But I think people need to be entertained. I’ve been to a lot of concerts given by great guitar players, but very few of them have held my interest for the whole sixty minutes if the musician doesn’t have a rapport with the audience. We enjoy doing that.

VR: In the end, it comes down to entertainment. Music is a beautiful art form, but you have to entertain. People have to have a good time at the show.

FV: It’s not about us. The audience likes to hear songs they know. Maybe we’ll slip a few originals or obscure tunes in there, but I would say that the audience knows 90% of our material. Everyone knows Beethoven’s Fifth.

BBJaze: You start your set with “Stardust,” right?

FV: Yeah, usually. We will tonight.

BBJaze: On a personal note, I have never been able to hum that tune. Why not?

FV: I don’t know, but if you can’t sing it, you can’t play it. You want to practice it? [starts humming “Stardust”]

VR: [joins in]

FV: Come on! [continues humming]

BBJaze: [reddens]

FV: It’s important to be able to sing it, or you can’t play it.

BBJaze: What about when you solo? Do you hear the notes of a solo just before you play them?

FV: Yeah, but like I said 95% of our stuff is arranged, so we play the same thing every show. We have 150 songs that we have these intricate arrangements for. With the duo, we don’t really take solos. Maybe once in awhile—

VR: Maybe we’ll play something a little differently—

FV: That’s the jazz element of what we do.

BBJaze: You raise an interesting point about the improvisational nature of jazz. Would you say that improvisation is part and parcel of the music? We were talking about Benny Goodman and big bands before, and that music is arranged, but it’s still jazz.

FV: There is a little improvisation in there, but don’t forget that jazz was about the popular song. Big band arrangements are beautiful arrangements of popular songs of the day.

BBJaze: Variations of popular songs—

FV: Yeah, you know, a new Gershwin song would come out and all the jazz artists would have their rendition of it. It’s when they got into bebop that they started extending the solos and it became a kind of whole other thing. I love that style of music, too, even though it’s not something I play, but that’s where real soloing comes in.

BBJaze: Is part of playing jazz putting a personal stamp on an established piece of music?

FV: Yeah, absolutely.

BBJaze: That makes it sort of interesting that jazz is a collaborative form as well.

FV: It sure is.

BBJaze: Obviously you guys share musical tastes, but is there any place in which your tastes diverge?

VR: We did grow up with different styles of music, but I don’t think our tastes diverge. We both like good music.

BBJaze: Is there any kind of music that you guys don’t like?

FV: I’d have to think about that.

BBJaze: This is a BBJaze exclusive!

FV: I’m not crazy about the pop music of today. And I know why I don’t like it—because there’s no performance anymore. It’s all about the technology—which is brilliant, don’t get me wrong—but when I grew up listening to records, these were actual performances. They may have done things to it and added a part here and there, but there was a core great performance, whether it was “Killing Me Softly” or the Beatles or the Stones or Led Zeppelin or Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong. There was such a “wow” element—what a great instrumentalist or what a great vocalist. It doesn’t happen that way, for me, in pop music anymore.

VR: It seems like there are no live instruments.

FV: If I had to say I don’t like an era of music, it’s the current era.

BBJaze: What about rap music? Is that music? Is it more of a culture?

FV: I’ll tell you what. I heard a group that was one of the first rap groups that a guy named Joel Dorn produced. They did one record, one tour, and they hated each other. And they performed at Lincoln Center, first time in, like thirty years. Black Heat was the name of the band. I’m telling you, these guys played all that rap stuff, and they were seventy year-old men, but it was so good—they were really doing it. These guys were so hip. My kids and my wife went to an Usher concert, and I couldn’t imagine it. My one son said that he couldn’t enjoy it, even with ear plugs.

BBJaze: That happened to me at an Allman Brothers concert. By the end of the show there was no stuffing left in my seat because it was all in my ears.

FV: I’m not putting it down, it is what it is. I heard a tape recently of Whitney Houston, just her singing in the studio. I think she could have been the last great vocalist. Perfect pitch, soul—and this was just her singing by herself in the studio. Usually those things reveal how poor singers really are. And that’s what I don’t like about this current era of pop.

BBJaze: The music is inauthentic.

FV: Even in a lot of the jazz records you hear, you can just tell they’re heavily edited.

BBJaze: That’s what pisses me off about smooth jazz, by the way. If you take away the computerized drum track, you’d actually have some pretty good stuff.

FV: The drum track? It’s not even drums, it’s electronic drums.

BBJaze: That’s what I mean. If you get rid of that track, the musicianship is great.

FV: But if you look at the top of the field—who started the genre: George Benson. There’s a guy that performs 150% every night he plays. So, again, it’s the performance.

BBJaze: Have you ever heard him sing “Stardust”?

FV: Yeah, I’ve heard him sing everything from five feet away.

VR: All this technology makes the live music more appreciated.

FV: That’s why I think we’re having some success and are able to stay in it. How many other guitar duos do you know that actually work more than once a month and also stick together long enough to actually build up a following? It’s thrilling to me what Vinny and I are doing together.

BBJaze: It is, but there aren’t many people who can do what you guys do. There are lots of guitar duos—go to any open mic night. But too many of them play out of tune and are very into it and have no idea of the cacophony they’re producing.

FV: That’s a different level.

BBJaze: Sure. I would attribute your success and longevity to the level of your playing.

FV: Level of playing, yes—

VR: And being out there. The willingness to play when there are opportunities.

FV: The willingness to fly to Dusseldorf and drive down to the south of Italy.

VR: And making recordings, and Frank does a lot of online lessons—just getting out there any way we can, letting people know that we’re doing this.

BBJaze: Are you going to be doing the duo for the long term?

FV: Yeah, absolutely.

BBJaze: You’ve worked with lots of different people and played many styles of music. Is there anything you haven’t done professionally that you want to do?

FV: Collaborate with George Benson. At Carnegie Hall.

BBJaze: That’s very specific.

FV: Absolutely. It’s gonna happen. It’s just a matter of when.

BBJaze: I going to camp out at the box office right now. Thanks, guys.

Learn more at frankvignola.com and vinnyraniolo.com

June 2011

BBJaze:  You recently did Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble.

JH:  Yeah, it was great.

BBJaze:  That’s in Woodstock.

JH:  Right.

BBJaze:  Is there any reason for the average person to go to Woodstock?  I have the feeling that tourists go there because they actually think that everyone who goes there jams with Levon Helm.

JH:  I doubt that.

BBJaze:  I bet if you took a survey of people who want to visit Woodstock, most of them believe that Levon Helm and Bob Dylan and Crosby, Stills, and Nash are just sitting around on a stoop, waiting to jam with them.

JH:  I think people are nostalgic about the Woodstock concert.

BBJaze:  That’s my point.

JH:  You wouldn’t go Yasgur’s farm, to the field…

BBJaze:  Ah, but you would.  I actually have friends who went to the field and photographed themselves standing in front of the field—which is nothing but a field.  It may have been the wrong field, or even a painting of a field, but who would know the difference?  Is Woodstock a nice town, at least?

JH:  It is a nice town.  You don’t see too many chain stores there.  There are some nice stores, some head shops—

BBJaze:  Selling overpriced peace signs.

JH:  You do get that.  Have you been to Asheville, North Carolina?

BBJaze:  I haven’t, but I think my living room couch was manufactured there.

JH:  Well, it’s a bit like Woodstock.  People are drawn to Woodstock because of the people who live there.  There’s a history and a community there, sort of a hippie locale in the ‘60’s, and it’s sort of stayed that way.

BBJaze:  I will take it upon myself to find out why people go to Woodstock, and what they expect to find there.  I will get to the bottom of this.  Mark my words.  But I should also admit that I myself have considered visiting Woodstock, and only because I have the feeling that I would have found myself jamming with Levon Helm.  But you actually got to do that—you got to live the dream…

JH:  It was amazing.  Levon is so gracious and so exuberant.  He’s one of the greatest living drummers.

BBJaze:  Who are your favorite artists?

JH:  If you’re talking about desert island discs, I’d say Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Ravel, Mozart, Bach, Coltrane, Miles, the Beatles might make it, maybe Joni Mitchell.

BBJaze:  No guitar players?

JH:  I’m not a huge fan of guitar music.

BBJaze:  That’s interesting, especially given that you’ve got one of the best guitar gigs on the planet playing with Steely Dan.

JH:  Well, it means that I can show up on the Steely Dan gig and not be thinking like a guitar player.  You need people showing up on gigs thinking like musicians, not like instrumentalists.  You’ll do a better job on the gig if you pay attention to what the whole sound needs.  I was never one of those people who fell in love with an instrument.  I fell in love with music.

BBJaze:  Do you consider yourself a rock player?  A jazz player?

JH:  I usually put the hybrid label on it—

BBJaze:  You’re like a Prius—

JH:  I play rock, folk, jazz, blues—most American music styles of the last 75 years or so…

BBJaze:  It’s clear from your playing that you have diverse tastes in music.

JH:  I’ve always been a fan of different kinds of music, and any kind of music that I loved I just had to figure it out, to find out what made it tick.  It wasn’t even necessarily that I wanted to play it perfectly, but there was just a sort of need to know about it.  To this day, I still think of myself as a better listener than anything else.

BBJaze:  You’ve got three solo albums out.  The first one, The Complete Rhyming Dictionary, dates back almost twenty years.  That album was primarily instrumental, and it has a distinctly different sound from the two that have followed it.  Your more recent solo material is tune-oriented rather than guitar-oriented.

JH:  I consider them completely different sides of my playing.  The Complete Rhyming Dictionary was a sort of summing up of the work that I had been doing at that time.  It was a genre represented perhaps best by Weather Report.  In fact, two Weather Report veterans played on my album—Victor Bailey on bass and Peter Erskine on drums.  I had been doing a lot of work and a lot of writing in that genre—this was before the smooth jazz thing was starting to rear its ugly head—

BBJaze:  You won’t find the Weather Report on the Weather Channel.

JH:  That’s right.  Weather Report had everything—amazing compositions, and really strong personalities all playing great, but whereas sometimes projects don’t gel when you have too many stars, in this case, the sum is greater than the parts.  And The Complete Rhyming Dictionary was the closing of the chapter of my work in that field.

BBJaze:  When you say “that field”…

JH:  This was New York between about ’86 and ’92, and I did a lot of work with my close friend [current Steely Dan keyboardist] Jim Beard, and we played a lot of sessions with people like the Brecker brothers, [saxophonist] Bill Evans, Bob Berg—people working in that Weather Report-informed electric jazz style.

BBJaze:  And you were writing music all that time?

JH:  Yeah, lots. BBJaze:  And the stuff you wrote during that time is the material on The Complete Rhyming Dictionary?

JH:  Yeah, they’re all my tunes.  I was able to get a budget to do a record, and I put my nose to the grindstone and started writing more, and I think I did a pretty solid job of producing a Weather Report vibe with a guitar in the center, as the lead instrument.  When that record was done, I was happy with it, and I can still listen to it today without wincing.  And then I thought, “Do I want to make a career out of this, and try to go on the road and book a band doing this music, and try to sell it to clubs in Europe and Japan?”  It seemed like such a daunting task…

BBJaze:  Did you ever think of calling the Weather Channel?

JH:  Hmmm…

BBJaze:  This may sound crazy, especially to non-musicians, but some of the Weather Channel music is really good.

JH:  [Sigh]

BBJaze:  Seriously.  Get rid of the drum machine, and you’ve got a groovin’ bass and guitar…

JH:  Right.  It’s probably Chuck Loeb—fantastic guitar player.  I just don’t love the whole sheen of it.

BBJaze:  It’s got to be about working and making money.  Why is a guy like George Benson, who is a gifted and serious jazz musician, known mostly as a pop balladeer?  He probably doesn’t think too much about that while he’s sitting in his mansion in Hawaii.

JH:  He’s the best living jazz guitar player I can think of…

BBJaze:  George Benson is?

JH:  Fuck yes.  Oh man, nobody can play like that.

BBJaze:  Do I have to edit out “fuck”? JH:  He’s unbelievable.  Who plays with that effortlessness?  With that kind of lyricism?   George Benson is, hands down, my favorite living guitar player.

BBJaze:  I was thinking about asking you who your favorite guitar player is, but that sort of question can be difficult or uncomfortable to answer.

JH:  I’ve just volunteered it.

BBJaze:  It’s interesting that you don’t play like that.

JH:  I can’t.  I’ve transcribed so much of his work, and I can do a pretty good imitation, but it’s not my first language.  My first language is blues and rock guitar.

BBJaze:  Which is clear on your most recent solo recordings.  There’s a big change from The Complete Rhyming Dictionary to the material on Like So and Shine (Shine Shine).  It’s not even an evolution in the music—

JH:  No, not an evolution—it’s a retreat.

BBJaze:  You made a deliberate decision to do something different.

JH:  Absolutely.

BBJaze:  You described your first album as having a Weather Report vibe with a guitar as the lead instrument.  How would you describe your more recent music?

JH:  Well, even as far back as the late ‘80’s when I was playing a lot in the electric jazz style, I had been playing with two musicians—a drummer named Frank Pagano and a bass player named Dennis Espantman—in a band where we were playing in bars, mostly blues as well as some cover tunes—some Bob Marley, some Beatles, some Stones—mostly stuff that we wanted to do—and over the course of three or four years that evolved into a songwriting venture, and we started recording it and making demos, and we basically got nowhere with it.  But we wrote a lot of songs.  And we put it on hold, but periodically we’d come back to it and write more tunes and play more gigs, and I loved it.  It was a lot of fun.  And I soon realized that this was my favorite vehicle for improvising—and I didn’t think it would be at first, because the music was simple, and I thought “how am I going to play on this?”  But because there was no keyboard player, there was so much room.

BBJaze:  You find yourself at this point in an interesting situation, in a kind of dichotomy where on the one hand you’re playing with Steely Dan, whose music is carefully arranged and so you’ve got to be careful to play your part exactly—

JH:  Right.  You can’t let your concentration flag for even a second.

BBJaze:  But at the same time your solo gig is basically a power trio, which gives you lots of freedom to improvise and experiment. JH:  But we do have to arrange things pretty carefully, especially because it’s only three people.  If you’re one third of the band, there’s a lot more riding on your choices.  But that’s when the guitar gets to be fun.

BBJaze:  I was surprised when I saw your band, because I expected less rock and pop—

JH:  And more jazz.

BBJaze:  More jazz and funk, more groove-oriented stuff.

JH:  It’s not that at all.

BBJaze:  I expected a guitar-centric power trio, but your music is really tune-oriented, not jam-oriented.  It reminded me in some ways of when I saw Albert Lee last year.  I expected a lot of jamming, and there was some of that, but he seemed much more interested in playing tunes than playing notes.

JH:  That surprises me about Albert Lee, but it warms my heart.  When I released Like So in 2000, people were very surprised because they expected shredder-style guitar playing, but the album has a kind of singer-songwriter vibe that betrays my earlier influences like the Beatles, the Stones, maybe Elvis Costello, Tom Petty.  It sounds more like a classic rock record.  The songs I write tend to be like the songs I fell in love with as a kid.  I listened to the Beatles and the Stones and Zeppelin and The Who, but also Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor—I fell in love with all that stuff.  I had a kind of dilemma—people see me as a guitar player because they knew me from Steely Dan or Boz Skaggs, and yet what I do naturally comes out like the stuff I grew up listening to.

BBJaze:  So you’re expressing yourself on Like So and Shine (Shine Shine) in the most comfortable way.

JH:  It’s a kind of evening-out of all my influences in the sense that I can play the kind of blues that listened to when I developed a passion for it, but there’s room for some of the things I’ve learned about arranging, and there’s also room for my jazz training, because it’s so free with the three of us—there’s no keyboard player—

BBJaze:  There’s a lot of harmonic space.

JH:  Yeah.  And I know that comes through to people who are savvy about that kind of stuff.  But also, we’re still doing good songs—we were really fussy about the songs we chose to put on Like So and Shine (Shine Shine).  We’re also trying to make the lyrics bar-friendly and concert-friendly, so during live shows people can laugh along with us and enjoy the tunes.

BBJaze:  Do you ever see yourself putting together another electric jazz band?

JH:  I wouldn’t rule anything out.  I look at a guy  like John Scofield, and he’s got a different project every six months or something like that, and he’s got integrity…So who knows?

BBJaze:  Are you a Scofield fan?

JH:  I am.

BBJaze:  I admire him, but sometimes it sounds to me like his playing gets away from him, if that makes any sense.

JH:  I have a term for that:  Beginner chic.

BBJaze:  Is this an exclusive?  BBJaze is always looking for exclusives.

JH:  “Beginner chic” is what Coltrane did on the Ballads record, it’s what Neil Young does all the time when he plays rock guitar, it’s what Scofield has a touch of, I think.  And I love it.  All these guys are too experienced to sound like beginners, but what they learned after having been at it for a long time is to take away all the trappings of polish and shine and accomplishment, and to reduce it to the purest expression so that it sounds raw.  It’s what happens when you’re capable of playing much better than you let on.  And “better” is in quotes, because beginner chic, when used correctly, actually is better.  When Neil Young plays that one note solo on Southern Man, that’s beginner chic.

BBJaze:  Are you sure Neil Young is capable of playing better than that?

JH:  Of course he is.

BBJaze:  Hmmm…

JH:  He knows what’s beautiful about beginner chic.  It’s not fooling anyone, there’s nothing duplicitous about it—beginner chic is an aesthetic choice, a beautiful one.  It’s playing what the tune needs at that moment.  There’s a pure and folky quality about it.

BBJaze:  Is there also a kind of artifice about it?

JH:  Well, I wouldn’t say it’s insincere, but maybe there is a kind of artifice involved.  It’s totally self-conscious.  Listen to Coltrane’s Ballads.  When Trane picked keys for those melodies, he picked keys that were too high for the horn, and it made him have to play notes that were too high to sound slick and savvy.  It reminds me a lot of blues guitar players who actually achieve that sound without being self-conscious.  That’s why I can’t be a real blues guitar player—because they’re so horribly earnest.  It’s awful.

BBJaze:  Interesting…

JH:  It occurred to me today because I heard [Steely Dan’s Walter Becker] talking about blues guitar players, and he was talking very sincerely about it—

BBJaze:  Really?  The guys from Steely Dan are capable of being sincere?

JH:  Walter was talking earnestly about blues guitar players—he was talking to Donald, and I only heard part of the conversation—but he was talking about blues guitar players and comparing them critically, and it occurred to me that that might have missed the point.  Walter is brilliant, the smartest guy I’ve ever met—

BBJaze:  Until tonight.

JH:  He’s more brilliant than you.  Sorry.

BBJaze:  But he’s not as handsome.

JH:  Maybe not.

BBJaze:  Small comfort.  At any rate, you’re skeptical about being too scientific or even too serious when it comes to assessing the relative merits of blues players?

JH:  There’s some usefulness in the critical point of view, but there’s a danger in it, too.  What you don’t want to do is have a point of view that makes you miss acknowledging and appreciating the joy that goes into the act of making art.

BBJaze:  That actually sounded like an earnest statement.  If you’d like, when I transcribe this conversation I can punctuate it in such a way that your statement would seem less earnest…But I think I agree with your thoughts about the danger of letting the “critical self” get carried away.  Take a guy like Albert King, who literally plays only five notes.  The critical self might disparage him for that limitation, but that would overlook the charismatic and even beautiful quality of his playing.  It’s almost like being critical is beside the point.

JH:  I’m not sure I’d agree.  If I were to bring my most critical self when listening to Albert King, in every important way I’d respond positively.  I think it’s great.

BBJaze:  I guess I like to be surprised when I listen to music, to not hear things that I’ve heard so many times before.

JH:   Well, you might not get that with Albert King.

BBJaze:  I enjoy your playing—I’ve heard you play some pretty cool stuff, and you pass my test for critical listening.

JH:  I’m glad about that.

BBJaze:  Well, nobody should feel too honored when I approve of them.

JH:  I can see why.

Learn more at jonherington.com 

The trouble is, beer really has come to be regarded in our culture the way that Zeus and his bizarre family were regarded by the ancient Greeks.  We do acknowledge that the analogy between beer and the Greek gods has at least one positive implication: to the ancients, the gods were a significant presence in daily life.  BBJaze commends this because we believe that beer should play a significant role in our daily lives.  But we also see a cautionary tale in this analogy.

While the gods were an integral part of daily life in ancient Greece, they were also objects of worship, which meant that they were a familiar presence but at the same time distant and mysterious, viewed with suspicion and fear.  Alienation of this sort is a common effect of worship—and it seems to be what’s happening with beer in our own culture.  The way that we celebrate beer these days more closely resembles idolatry than appreciation.  Drinking beer doesn’t simply make us glad; it makes us ecstatic, like an electric eel in a tank full of light bulbs.  We have come to believe that beer is other-worldly—something that mystifies rather than satisfies.  This is why BBJaze cautions against the indiscriminate and self-contented celebration that has come to define the popular attitude toward beer in recent decades.

The problem really isn’t that we celebrate beer too often, but that we’ve made it too special.

Consider the following description of an IPA from a recent “beer-appreciation” event:  A venerable and florid nose with overtones of jasmine and sawgrass, and a white, silky head.  Is this describing a beverage or a retired gardener?  This is no way to talk about beer.  Now consider the following text from a 1905 Schlitz ad:  When a patient is weak, the doctor says ‘Drink Beer.’  Now this is appropriate—and very revealing.  For one, we see beer referred to in practical terms, as something that served a useful purpose.  We also see that in 1905 cold remedies were much more fun than they are today.  The point is that a century ago beer was a respected and valuable part of daily life.  And this is how we believe that beer should be regarded today.

But it’s not.  Several decades ago things began to go awry.  In a 1981 Schlitz ad, we see an image of a cool-guy skier careening down a powdery mountainside, while the caption declares that Behind every Schlitz is a man who knows his beer.  What is that supposed to mean?  Are we to believe that this man is actually skiing behind a can of beer?  The ad makes little sense.  The only thing we know for certain is that from one Schlitz ad to the other we see a cultural shift in the way of thinking about beer from “drink beer and you’ll be well” to “drink beer and you’ll be cool.”

The advertising industry may be in part to blame, but that’s not the whole story.  John P. Arnold’s landmark 1911 book, Origin and History of Beer and Brewing, was the first comprehensive historical study of the role of beer in human societies, and although it’s an informative and useful book, it also represents, albeit inadvertantly, the first tumble down the slippery slope that is our current predicament.  Paradoxically, as the book sought to explore the role of beer in normal life, it plucked its subject from the realm of the normal and placed it in the realm of the “special,” presenting an everyday beverage as something worthy of inquiry and reflection.  Nevertheless, Arnold’s book need not have led to the modern-day mystification of beer.  In fact, it’s a substantial book that filled a significant void in historical studies.  What’s largely to blame for our mis-appreciation of beer is our own frivolous, fame-obsessed, and sound bite-oriented culture.

Arnold’s book was a serious and detailed examination of beer history.  Compare that with the gratuitous, decontextualized “information” BBJaze found during a recent web search:  Noah had beer on the ark; Sumerian and Egyptian kings recorded beer recipes; Hammurabi wrote about beer in his “Code”; Confucius said, “An oppressive government is more to be feared than an tiger, or a beer”; Plato said, “He is wise man who invented beer”; Queen Victoria chimed in, too: “Give my people plenty of beer, good beer, and cheap beer, and you will have no revolution among them.”  Gilgamesh drank beer!  So did Ben Franklin…!

Of course, this information is intended to convey the idea that beer has been important to great civilizations.  But what it really shows is the importance that our own culture places on being famous.  Because we admire fame so much, beer fans simply like to see beer associated with famous people.  For instance, if we were wondering about the role of beer in biblical times, we’re supposed to be satisfied by simply finding out that Noah had beer on the ark.  Sadly, however, this tells us little about the meaning of beer in Noah’s world.  If Noah took two of everything onto the ark—elephants, chipmunks, etc.—does that mean that he also took two beers?  (If so, Noah grossly underestimated the duration of the flood.)  We can conclude very little, but that doesn’t seem to bother us.  We’re happy to have the myth that beer was onboard Noah’s ark.  The fact that this information—this sound bite—conveys no real sense of history is satisfactory in a culture—our own—that has little interest in knowledge and meaning, and this coincides with the modern-day view of beer as famous, sexy, and special.

A serious investigation of beer history would reveal that beer has been universally significant not because it was special, but because it was most ordinary.  Plato may have said “He was a wise man who invented beer,” but he probably announced this in the same way that he would say “Fetch my sandals.”  (Plato’s information was wrong, anyway; it was a married man who invented beer.)  As for Confucius, we admit that we don’t understand his point, but we won’t diss him because he has a really cool name and we’d like to see it make a comeback.  (Wouldn’t you like to hear people say, “Confucius, hand me the remote” or “Confucius, we’re out of toilet paper”?)  But we do understand Queen Victoria’s point.  To her courtiers, she may have meant “make sure that everyone is too drunk to figure out that I’m not really in charge,” but the implication is clear: if the beer stops flowing, people will get angry.  Beer was very much a part of daily life in Victorian times—so ordinary, in fact, that people would have been more likely to notice its absence than its presence.

In other words, what we really need to understand about beer is that it has traditionally been taken for granted.  In using the phrase “taken for granted,” we don’t mean to suggest that people didn’t used to care about beer.  The point is that people cared about beer the way they cared about air, as a natural part of their lives, as something so ordinary that it was invisible to them.  Of course we know that air is literally invisible, unless you are in downtown Beijing or in a gym locker room, but we mean to make the point that air—like beer, traditionally—is so ubiquitous and essential in daily life that people simply expect to have it and are unmoved by its presence. When was the last time you heard someone say, “Boy I can’t wait until I get home from work so I can kick back and grab a noseful of O2”?  In the same way, it would traditionally have seemed strange for someone to make beer seem so exquisite and special.  Beer was not so much a reward for a workday completed as a constant and indispensable companion during the workday itself.

In today’s world, we tend to notice when beer is present, not absent, because we expect it to be absent.  So when it is present, we hoot and holler or we ogle and drool.  The disappearance of beer from daily life has infantilized us.  That’s because in limiting the role of beer in daily life, we’re defying thousands of years of civilized behavior, and we’re denying our instincts.  Unfortunately, denying our instincts is largely what our politically correct culture demands of us.  This is not to say that all politically correct behavior is unwelcome, but somehow casually drinking beer throughout the day was perversely grouped together with genuinely disturbing activities, such as hitting on your friend’s grandmother.  Why, really, has drinking beer become unacceptable as a part of the daily routine?  We don’t know, but we hope that historians of the future will someday view this as a remarkable cultural and historical aberration—and will deliver lectures about it while drinking beer.

We must recognize the danger of marginalizing beer, of removing it from the public square and relegating it to the sphere of leisure and recreation and “specialness.”  What’s at stake is the very survival of beer itself.  In the developed world, which is where we at BBJaze like to believe we live, beer consumption has been on the decline for decades, and that trend will only accelerate unless beer drinkers take back the public square.  Those among you who will say that beer appreciation events, like tastings and festivals, are doing precisely this are mistaken.  Such events, by themselves, have the opposite effect insofar as they reinforce the idea of beer as something rather unordinary, as a curiosity to be celebrated and revered.  Such events monumentalize beer.  And when something is monumentalized, it means it has become peculiar and old-fashioned.

Do we want our grandchildren to one day find themselves visiting the National Beer Monument in Washington D.C., standing before a 12 foot-tall bronze cast of a beer can and a marble sculpture of a fat abdomen, reading about how beer had once been instrumental in the development of the civilized world?  Certainly not.  Beer must be de-monumentalized.  It must be taken for granted.  It must become so ordinary that we fail even to notice it.  It must be forgotten in order to be fully appreciated.

Here’s the point, ultimately, that we want to make about beer: Drink it, don’t think it.

How’s that for a sound bite?

Philadelphia, PA

November 2009

Filed by: Lewis Dribblin

Monk’s Cafe was packed.  And I was a little pissed.  More so disappointed.  I had been looking forward to going to Monk’s since it had become a minor legend for its sizeable and thoughtful selection of Belgian beer as well as for its cozy atmosphere.  Earlier that day, I was online examining the menu, and it took me a good half-hour to choose which appetizer and entrée I would have, paired with what beers.  But the place was packed—no place to eat, no place even to stand—and the thick wall of people surrounding the bars (there are two, as far as I could tell) meant that only a contortionist, a very tall contortionist with a long reach, could have gotten to the beer.  I’m just barely tall enough to get on a ride at Disneyland, and I have trouble putting my socks on.

So my friend Stephen and I improvised a Plan B: the Nodding Head Brewery and Restaurant, which sits on Sansom Street somewhere between 10^th and 20^th.  I didn’t mind walking around until we found it because I was wearing comfortable shoes.  But I had been there before, I knew the beer was good, and I knew that it was fairly close to my final destination: Chris’ Jazz Café to see Mike Stern.

The menu at the Nodding Head was extensive but fairly ordinary, unlike the more creative and Euro-tinged menu at Monk’s.  However, everything on the menu at Monk’s seemed to be inspired by recipes devised during the Middle Ages, when folks were less sensitive than we are today to issues such as heart disease and obesity.  Yes, I had been in the mood for an authentic-style Belgian combination of sweet (the beer) and savory (the food), but I figured I could make things work at the Nodding Head.  As it happens, they serve a pretty good French Dip, and since France is close to Belgium, I thought this would be a good substitute for the Belgian steak sandwich I had intended to have at Monk’s.  Yes, I know that the French Dip wasn’t invented in France, but by same token Belgium isn’t a real country.

As for what to do about that Belgian beer I had been looking forward to, it so happened that the Nodding Head was serving up its own take on a Belgian beer, the Egress Quatro. (I’m not sure I’ve spelled this correctly.  “Quatro” may have had two “t’s.”  I’m sure I saw two “t’s” at some point, but by the time I left the bar I was seeing double, which means there were four “s’s” in “egress,” so I’m dividing by two.)  It was advertised as a Belgian beer that was distinctly hoppy in flavor.  A hoppy Belgian beer?  I’m not a beer technician, so I don’t know much about the use of hops in Belgian-beer brewing.  But I do know that Belgian beer tastes sweet to me, and I also know that hops are bitter.  I wondered how this combo would taste, and I wondered briefly whether Egress Quatro could actually be called a Belgian beer—before remembering, again, that Belgium isn’t an actual country.  Still, I didn’t know what to make of the idea of a hoppy Belgian beer.  I acknowledge that I might be revealing an embarrassing lack of beer knowledge, but so be it.  I couldn’t ever remember tasting a Belgian beer that was not predominantly sweet; certainly I had never tasted one that prominently featured the piney bitterness of hops.  But I was in the mood for something Belgian–something other than waffles–so I kept an open mind.

As it turned out, the Egress Quatro was really good.  Really, really good.  The hops took away the sweetness that sometimes overpowers even the best of Belgian beers, and the Belgian-style sweetness moderated the bitterness of the hops.  I don’t want to get carried away here, but I think it was one of the best beers I’ve ever had.  As I drank glass-after-glass, I became lost in a dream world, in a Belgian candy forest populated by pine and citrus trees.  That’s a silly description, I know, but keep in mind that I had been drinking—and the beer’s flavor was really too complex to describe, much like Belgium itself.  And while I may joke around about Belgium, I never joke about beer.  It was excellent, and it really did put me in a dream world.  There was also a gnome in my dream, and he was eating a French dip off of my plate.  The gnome looked a lot like Stephen, now that I think about it.

I eventually arrived at Chris’.  I don’t remember how, but I did.  I remember thinking to myself only two things: “Man, are my shoes comfortable” and “Should I have enjoyed the Egress Quatro as much as I did?”  Yes, it was a delicious concoction, but was it an assault on the integrity of Belgian-style brewing?  The fact that Belgium is not really a country was of little comfort.  I was desperately trying—and failing—to make sense of the meaning of a hoppy Belgian beer.

Mike Stern, as expected, was awesome.  He’s one of greatest guitarists ever.  There’s also a sort of crazy-guru quality about him, and since I was still in a piney-Belgian-candy-forest haze, I somehow came to believe that he could help me make sense of my beer quandary.  So I caught up with him during the set break and explained my issue.  And he said, “Hoppy Belgian beer—why not!”  In five words, Stern had explained to me the meaning of Egress Quatro.  I would rest peacefully that night.

I left Chris’ and somehow found my way to my hotel room.  And as I drifted off to sleep, I remembered a Belgian joke that a Dutchman had told me a long time ago: Why does a Belgian take a brick and a match to bed with him?  He throws the brick at the light bulb then lights the match to make sure he hit it.

Belgian jokes—why not?

Buenos Aires, Argentina

September, 2009

Filed by:  Doug Rosen

The jazz scene in Buenos Aires is a complete nightmare.  Since arriving here in Buenos Aires, I’ve gone to three different jazz concerts, and they’ve all stunk.  One took place in a neighborhood where they rob you, another took place in the basement of a hotel, and the other took place in a subway station.  Where else could they think to have a concert?  In a men’s room?  From what I can tell, there is only one “club” club.  That’s to say, a club specifically dedicated to jazz, the so-called “Thelonius Club.”  It was there that I went first to hear the original pieces of the Mariano Otero Quinteto, led by Mariano Otero, one of Argentina’s foremost and well-regarded bass players and one of the leaders of the “Nuevo Jazz Argentina” movement.

The first thing that happened was that nothing happened:  he was supposed to start playing at 9:30 and instead started at 10:16.  Once he got started, however, I noticed that although he was the “leader,” he never took a solo.  He just stared upwards and moved his lips around, trying to simulate some kind of constant orgasm that he was receiving through his music. The trumpet and alto sax were the only ones doing anything.  And by “anything,” that’s exactly what I mean.  There was no coordination.  It sounded like each and every member of the band was playing out of their ass.  It was truly incredible.  It was like Otero held a casting call for a jazz band, selected the first four people who showed up, gave each of them an instrument, and told them to blow into it.  There was no melody line at all, nothing in the least bit discernible.  Just a bunch of disorder and grating noise.  And it was loud.  Very loud.  The trumpet player kept aiming the hole of the horn directly into the microphone at point-blank range like he was trying to swallow it.  It was horrible.  They sounded worse than a 4^th grade band’s first rehearsal.

What most confounded me is that although the evening was an absolute disgrace, everyone sat transfixed and enraptured.  The critics love him.  He gets rave reviews.  The place was packed.  At the end of the night, everyone kept shouting, “Otra!  Otra!”  (Another!  Another!)  I have absolutely no idea how he gets away with it.  “Jazz! Jazz!”  This is not jazz.  This is the kind of stuff that keeps Tylenol in business.

My ears still ringing, a week later I went to the Voyeur Jazz Club, located in the basement of a luxurious hotel in Buenos Aires’s wealthy Recoleta neighborhood, to see a guitarist duo do an homage to Tom Jobim.  It was a dinner and concert.  I would love to comment more about this particular evening, but there was a group of obnoxious people at another table behind us who wouldn’t shut up, and I couldn’t hear a thing.

After that, I took advantage of all that the city has to offer by attending the “Jazz en el Subte” series, which endeavored to celebrate jazz by gathering different bands and having them play in a four hour festival in different subway stops around the city.

At four o’clock on a sunny Sunday afternoon, as I walked down the steps of the subway and heard the saxophones of the Sotavento Jazz Band playing Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing,” I wondered why I didn’t walk back up the steps.  It was right at the moment when a musician decided to take a solo on the bridge.  For some reason he decided to hook in to a riff evocative of Arabic music and just kept playing it over and over until his face turned red.  Then he sat down, and while the next soloist without the faintest sense of time or rhythm tried to randomly blow out a series of notes at the lowest register of his instrument, the original soloist and I happened to make eye contact.  Then he suddenly turned away and started moving his body to the beat of the music, trying to give the impression that he was “into it,” although not in a manner as flagrantly insecure as Mariano Otero.  The reason I kept my gaze fixed on this particular musician was because, apart from his complete inability to depart from a premeditated and inappropriate riff, his head looked exactly like that of my father’s former law partner.  During the next solo, a train came by.

The next group up was the “Tango Jazz Quartet.”  This time, I knew better.  As soon as I saw four guys arrive with scruff, long hair, and accordions, I got up from the subway floor that I was sitting on and went across the street to the McDonald’s, where I was at least able to give some leftover breadsticks to an indigenous woman standing next to the door with her calloused palm open.

Then I went back and gave the “Debra Dixon con 4” group a chance.  They actually weren’t too bad.  But again, I noticed that it was all show.  The longer they could hold a note, the more seemingly difficult to play, the more randomly placed, the more times they could play a riff over and over, the redder their faces got, the more they appeared to be “into it”—these were the things that frustratingly seemed to most please the crowd.  The musicians were doing things that they thought they should be doing, instead of truly being engaged, including the old trick of whispering and laughing and smiling smugly to each other at the end of a song, as if sharing some kind of inside joke.

One of the concertgoers in the subway stop “Estacion Jose Hernandez” informed me that there is an “Escuela de Jazz” (Jazz School), that meets every Sunday in a coffee shop.  In addition to my wallet, I will also be bringing a chair.

New Orleans, LA

December, 2009

Filed by: Lewis Dribblin

Friday

7:28 a.m.

The airport

I’m at the terminal of my hometown airport waiting to board the plane.  I’m reading a magazine article which explains that schadenfreude is not a German invention.  According to the article, there’s an ancient Arabic term, shamata, that means precisely the same thing: the pleasure that one derives from another’s misfortune.  In fact, I’m sure that schadenfreude is one of the oldest concepts in the history of humankind, and scientists will probably show us one day that the second-ever man to get married inspired this feeling in the first-ever man to get married.  But characterizing schadenfreude as a cruel and selfish feeling misses the point; the truth is, human suffering is most meaningful when it is communal.  Those who experience schadenfreude are able to do so only because they, too, have suffered.  Fundamentally, schadenfreude is about empathy, not spite.  And it is with this (rather humanitarian, I must add) notion that I, a married man, am on my way to New Orleans to attend a friend’s wedding.

Schadenfreude is not all that I anticipate, however.  I’m a jazz fan, so I’m mostly going to New Orleans for the music.  What’s better than listening to jazz in the city that gave us Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, and Louis Armstrong?  This was a post-Katrina trip, of course, but I’d read that the French Quarter had recovered nearly completely and that the music scene on Bourbon Street was thriving.

I’m a little disappointed that I can only go for one night; I have to be home tomorrow to babysit while my wife spends the evening with some friends who are visiting from out of town.  With my time limited to one day and one night, I’ll have to work quickly—and I’ve also figured out a way to skip the wedding ceremony so that I can maximize the time I’ll have for what is guaranteed to be an awesome jazz experience.  I’ve arranged to have Phil, an old friend from college who is doing a teaching stint in New Orleans, pick me up at the airport.  His driving is unsteady and extremely slow, so it’s not likely that he’ll get me to the hotel in enough time to meet the limo-bus that’s taking the wedding party to the church in the suburbs for the ceremony.  My plan is to skip the ceremony and meet the wedding party back in French Quarter for the reception— after I explore New Orleans jazz on my own.

The plane is boarding now.  I’ll finish reading about schadenfreude later.

Friday   

10:32 a.m.

The other airport

I arrive at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.  I think it’s cool that the airport is named after Louis Armstrong.  I’m in the men’s room now and the hand dryer is out of service and there are no towels.  It’s a good thing Satchmo is not around to see this. At least I know that I’m in New Orleans—jazz is playing through the P.A. system as I blot my hands on my pants.

10:33 a.m.

I’m looking at a plaque hanging on the wall that thanks people with names like Kernan “Skip” Hand on behalf of the city of Kenner.  The city of Kenner?  It turns out that the New Orleans airport is not actually in New Orleans, but in Kenner: a city distinguished by the airport and its high percentage of prominent citizens with funny names.

11:08 a.m.

I wait for Phil outside the baggage area, and a chorus of angry horns notifies me that he’s near.

1:31 p.m.

Phil’s car

1½ hours later and we’ve managed to make it to the city, 11 miles from the airport.  My plan is working perfectly, but my nerves are frayed and my underwear is soaked with what I hope is sweat.  I ask Phil to take me to a Chase bank where I can cash a check so that I have money for the weekend.  It’s payday, the bank will be packed, and this will be a brilliant waste of time.  Payday y’all!  Awrite! (New Orleans slang)

2:42 p.m.

Outside the bank

Southern efficiency gets me out of the bank in just over an hour. I feel bad that Phil has had to wait outside for me all this time, but it turns out that he’s still trying to parallel park the car.

3:15 p.m.

Phil’s car

We’re not running late enough, so I ask Phil to take me to see Katrina damage.  It’s devastating, still bad after four years.  Phil tells me that the French Quarter has almost no visible damage.  Phil thinks we’ve seen enough, but I ask him to drive me around for just a few minutes longer…

4:37 p.m.

The French Quarter M———— Hotel

Phil drops me off.  As he pulls away, he swerves to avoid a potted plant and runs over some unattended luggage.

The timing is perfect—the bus taking the wedding guests to the suburbs for the ceremony was scheduled to leave at 4:30—I’ve missed it (too bad!!)—so I’ll have at least a few hours to myself before everyone is back in the Quarter for the reception.

4:38 p.m.

I enter the hotel lobby and find the entire wedding party is there.  They had gathered at 4:30 to wait for the bus, which leaves at 4:45.  I fumble with some excuses about how my flight was delayed and Phil’s driving was terrible, etc., but they insist that they’ll hold the bus for me until I can change and get back downstairs.  I make up the embarrassing excuse that I need to take Immodium so that I can be okay to make it to the reception.  Now mine will be the butt of jokes all night.

5:02 p.m.

The French Quarter

I freshen up as quickly as possible, and now I’m out in the city.  Which way to Bourbon Street!

5:03 p.m.

The streets are deserted and the clubs aren’t open yet.  Just waiting for some tumbleweed to blow past.

7:15 p.m.

After spending two hours in the art galleries that pack the French Quarter—which were pretty good, actually—I head over to the E——— Restaurant for the wedding reception.  I’m early.  I see that the there’s going to be a dixieland band playing at the wedding.  I heave a sigh of relief.  This will be the first jazz music I’ve heard since the men’s room in Kenner.

9:20 p.m.

Banquet Room The E——— Restaurant

The jokes about my stomach condition are bad, but the food’s good and the band is good.  And customarily lively.  They’re doing the New Orleans version of a conga line.  As they pass me, the leader/trumpet player points to me and shouts out “Barry Manilow!  Barry Manilow!”  To be clear, I’m not Barry Manilow.  Nor do I care to believe that I look like him.  The closest I come is looking like what Barbra Streisand would look like if she were a man.  But whose business is that?  Why is he singling me out for an insult?  What the f—?

11:07 p.m.

Everyone’s getting ready to leave now.  It turns out that—customarily—the band is going to parade the wedding party down the street to the M———— Hotel.  We’ve got a few minutes, though, so I talk to the trumpet player in order to show that there are no hard feelings.  I don’t even mention the Manilow incident.  I really just want to talk to him because he’s a local.  I want to know what’s going on with music in the city.  Did a lot of musicians leave after Katrina?  Is there still a lively jazz scene here?

11:09 p.m.

The trumpet player is now insisting that I tip the band.  I ask him if the band got paid for playing tonight (yes) and tell him that tips are optional and that I didn’t see anyone tipping the band.  I ask him why he’s only asking me for a tip, not anyone else.

11:11 p.m.

He’s very persistent, and I’m forced to give him $5.  I got mugged by the band leader at my friend’s wedding.

11:23 p.m.

The street

The band is leading the procession down the street to the hotel.  Shouting loud enough so that the whole band can hear, I tell them that I gave the trumpet player $25 and to make sure that he gives each of them their $5 share.  The trumpet player is in the middle of a solo, but it’s clear from his extraordinarily puffed-out cheeks that he’s furious at me.

11:30 p.m.

Well, the party’s officially over, but many of the wedding guests are planning to go out in the city.  I’m going to go with them, I think.  And now I notice that we’ll be merging with a great rush of people who don’t appear to have  jazz, or anything else, on their minds.  The French Quarter looks like the day after Thanksgiving at Walmart.  There’s a lot of people, a lot of shouting, a lot of noise, a lot lights, and a lot of energy.  New Orleans is a lively, late, and loud town.  A rock and roll town, it seems.  If you want to hear jazz, you may need to spend some time in the airport men’s room.  In Kenner.

Saturday   

8:53 a.m.

The hotel lobby

Phil was supposed to pick me up 53 minutes ago to take me to the airport.  My wife is going to be pissed.  I pull out my magazine and continue reading about schadenfreude.  Someone, somewhere is feeling it right about now.

February, 2011

BBJaze: You’re Joe Sixpack, but you’re also a beer connoisseur. How can you be both an everyman and a connoisseur?

JSix: Primarily because beer is an everyman’s drink. It’s an affordable luxury, something that just about anyone can enjoy. The difference between a crappy beer and a great beer is about 30 cents per bottle. There’s no reason why the common man can’t enjoy a good beer. Wine is much more expensive, and a lot of people, including myself, don’t understand the esoteric differences between different types of wine, but the flavor profile of beer is so wide and varied—most people can appreciate the distinction between a hoppy ale and a malty double bock.

BBJaze: True enough, but isn’t “Joe Sixpack” a plain-old Bud drinker who doesn’t get off his recliner except for emergencies?

JSix: That’s probably because he has six-pack right next to the recliner.

BBJaze: But is that you? It seems like you’ve got interests other than TV watching. Do you get off the recliner?

JSix: Not as much as I should—I’m trying to lose a few pounds. But I think even the most stereotypical proletarian has higher aspirations for his life, and great beer fits into that.

BBJaze: It’s interesting that you’re using Marxist language. I can’t remember which Marx brother was fond of the term “proletarian”—Karlo, maybe—but I do know that he believed in universal brotherhood.  Is there such a thing as a universal beer, one that you could call an “all the time” beer, a beer that’s appropriate for all occasions and all palettes, a beer that a person would never tire of drinking?

JSix: That’s a great question. Let’s see…

BBJaze: I’m afraid the answer will be Budweiser.

JSix: The answer is “beer.” The question should be “Is there a drink that can be enjoyed on all occasions?” And the answer is beer.

BBJaze: I agree with you that beer is, or at least should be, a universal beverage. But do you think our society has been making beer too precious?

JSix: I make that case all the time. I call it the “winofication” of beer.

BBJaze: What exactly is “winofication”?

JSix: It’s beer looking to achieve what wine has gotten. Wine has a prestige that beer wishes it had, and that prestige is manifested in things like corked bottles, expensive bottles, the whole pairing with food…I’m not opposed to any of those things, but what I’m saying is when that becomes the whole raison d’être of beer, then it’s wrong. Because what beer really should be, primarily, is an opportunity to kick back and relax and enjoy, without any of the other “add-ons.” For one, I worry about the price of beer going up too much, and I also believe that one of beer’s great benefits is that it is so universal, while wine is not—so why is beer striving for a smaller and smaller market?

BBJaze: Why is wine less universal than beer?

JSix: Because it costs more. And also because it’s a lot more difficult for people to taste subtle differences in types of wine than it is for them to taste those differences in beer. It’s ironic that part of the blame for the winofication of beer should be laid on people like myself who spend an awful lot of time talking about these mostly esoteric beers that no one will ever get to drink. The problem is, it’s become this whole cult thing where people want to be able to say that they drank a certain type of rare beer, where there are lines forming outside of restaurants so that people can get a taste. And I hate that, because beer should never be about standing in line—unless you’re at an Eagles game, of course.

BBJaze: One of the books you’ve written is called Joe Sixpack’s Philly Beer Guide: A Reporter’s Notes on the Best Beer-Drinking City in America. Other than being able to stand in line at an Eagles game, what makes Philly the best beer-drinking city in America?

JSix: We have an unrivalled tradition of beer in this city. William Penn was making beer in this city—

BBJaze: He was? Did he brew it from oatmeal?

JSix: If he didn’t he should have. He was making beer in the 17th century. This city was really the first professional beer capital of the whole country. George Washington wrote letters praising the quality of the porters that were made in this city and said that drinking a Philadelphia porter was the greatest gesture that somebody could make as an American. And we also have a really great diversity of beer styles. Ever since the microbrewing revolution, various areas have become known for specific types of beer. The west coast is known, for instance, for really hoppy beers. And we have those beers. The thing that I’ve noticed when I go to the west coast, and especially in the northwest, is that they’re very parochial about their beer—which is a nice thing, but they basically only drink their own beer, and they have no recognition that there’s great beer being made somewhere else. Philadelphia was behind the curve initially on all those great microbrews, in terms of breweries. We don’t have as many breweries here, but we were drinking all those beers. So we make our own great beers, but we drink everyone else’s great beer, too. And then you toss in the whole Belgian beer scene in Philadelphia—we were so far ahead of the curve on Belgians. And beyond all of those things, the one thing we have in Philly that no other city can match is an amazing inventory of great neighborhood beer bars.

BBJaze: What’s the worst beer city in America?

JSix:  I’d say Dallas.

BBJaze: Dallas?

JSix: Among the cities I’ve visited, it’s Dallas.

BBJaze: What about Washington, D.C.?

JSix: It’s gotten better. There are a few good places, but not many.

BBJaze: Mostly what you find in D.C. are large granite buildings dedicated to people like J. Edgar Hoover.

JSix: D.C. is not a good beer city—that’s true—but Dallas is even worse. There’s nothing there. First of all, downtown Dallas is completely empty at night. Maybe there are roadhouses out on the periphery, but downtown Dallas is dead at night. The south mostly sucks for beer, and southern brewers will tell you that, too.

BBJaze: If you were stranded on a deserted island or, worse, somewhere down south, is there one beer you’d like to have with you?

JSix: Everybody asks that. What I tell them is read my column next week, because it changes every week. If I could only have one kind of beer for the rest of my life, it would be something I’d brew myself. If I could bring a bottle to the desert island, it would be a bottle-conditioned beer that had a live yeast in it so that I could start my first beers.

BBJaze: So the answer is “fresh beer.” That’s a great answer. What would it take for you to drink a Bud?

JSix: One of the things that happened for me this past year was that one of my favorite bars in the city, McGillin’s Old Ale House—which is the oldest bar in the city—had their 150th anniversary last year. It was a wonderful event, the family that owns it are just wonderful people, and they brought in the Clydesdales for the event, and I put on a tuxedo and my wife put on a really nice dress, and they invited me to climb on top of the beer wagon—

BBJaze: With a top hat?

JSix: No, I couldn’t find a top hat. But I will say that climbing on top of those beer wagons is not easy at all. It’s one of the reasons I started to try to lose a little weight—

BBJaze: Because the Clydesdales couldn’t pull you?

JSix: That would be pretty bad. No, those wagons don’t have steps, they have rungs, and I was wearing hard shoes and it was hard to get up there, but once I got up there they gave me a Bud. You can’t be sitting on top of the Clydesdales and not be drinking a Bud. It’s just a fact of life. And they took a photo of me up there. I’m not sure if they did it for blackmail purposes…

BBJaze: So you would only drink Budweiser on a special occasion?

JSix: I’ll taste it once in awhile, but it doesn’t make any sense for me to drink it professionally, because I’ve had enough Budweiser in my life, and I don’t need to waste a beer drinking opportunity on a beer that I’ve had a thousand times before, and, honestly, I don’t hold much respect for the flavor of it. I do want to point out that a lot of brewers I know really do respect that beer because of how well it’s made.

BBJaze: I thought we were talking about Budweiser.

JSix: Well, it’s about consistency and purity.

BBJaze: Just because the Budweiser employees are required to wear shower caps…Isn’t that stuff made with rice?

JSix: Right, but it’s good rice.

BBJaze: But that puts the beer in violation of the German Beer Purity Law, does it not?

JSix: Absolutely, but the German beer purity law is a whole problem in itself. No one in the world right now is looking to Germany for examples of how to brew great beers. They’re old school. Some microbrewers may respect what German brewers are doing, but they don’t look to Germany for new ideas. I love German beer, but it’s not at all innovative. It’s great partly because they’re tradition-bound and partly because they’re excellent brewers, but I wouldn’t consider them artists. I’d consider them technicians.

BBJaze: Yes, Germans are very precise.

JSix: Personally, I wouldn’t want to live in Germany. I’ve visited Germany several times, and it’s a pain in the ass to go there. You do get a lot of great beer—German beer in Germany in unbelievably great. But you only get a few styles of beer in the whole country: a lager, a helles, a wheat beer, and maybe in season you get a bock. And that’s it. There’s no such thing as a hoppy ale, there’s no such thing as a stout or a porter. When I come back from Germany, there’s nothing I want more than a hoppy ale.

BBJaze: That’s why I think the beer purity law is ridiculous.

JSix: What do you think is ridiculous about it?

BBJaze: Well, as you’ve pointed out, it has really restricted creativity in brewing, and that’s probably why Germany lags behind America in terms of the flavor palette of their beer…

JSix: Right, but on the other hand, they’re not making any Miller Lite in Germany.

BBJaze: True, but I really don’t see why any German brewer would take pride in sticking to the old law these days. I can imagine that in 1516 the law may have been enacted for hygienic purposes or something like that, sort of like the kosher laws—

JSix: Haven’t they evolved?

BBJaze: I’m not sure, but I do know that many Jews think it’s okay to eat pork as long as it’s in Chinese food.

JSix: Well…

BBJaze: I guess the issue with the purity law is that it restricts choice—but maybe too much is a bad thing. How many microbreweries are there in the U.S.?

JSix: About 1600.

BBJaze: And they each produce about ten beers or so?

JSix: A conservative estimate would be that there are about 20,000 microbrews available.

BBJaze: Do you think that so many choices can be oppressive for the consumer?

JSix: A lot of people say it is. It’s certainly hard for me, because I’m sort of expected to taste all those beers and tell people what they’re like, and I can’t do it anymore.

BBJaze: You poor guy.

JSix: Too much choice is more of a problem for people who have to sell the beer than it is for me as a person who has to write about it. But really, most of those beers are not available to most people. Your store with a reasonably good selection of beer will only have about a hundred brands.

BBJaze: Are you excited by the home brew movement? Do you think that we’re going back to the future when everybody used to brew their own beer?

JSix: Well, about 300 years ago brewing was becoming centralized. By the early 1700’s people were drinking at taverns and inns, so they didn’t have to brew their own. But if you go way back, it’s true that everyone had to drink their own beer. And the thing that I always point out is that it was women who were making beer back then. It wasn’t until the Middle Ages that men were doing the brewing—it’s just another thing that men took away from women.

BBJaze: That’s going to shock the average Bud drinker. Well, why aren’t there more women these days brewing beer?

JSix: Part of it is that women have shied away from beer as a beverage for themselves.

BBJaze: It’s not dainty enough?

JSix: My theory, and I’m going to stand by this—

BBJaze: Is this an exclusive? A BBJaze exclusive?

JSix: No. I don’t know if I’ve ever written about this, but I’ve said it before…

BBJaze: Well, if it’s not a BBJaze exclusive, I’m not that interested anymore.

JSix: Here’s the deal: For a lot of people, their first taste of beer is in college. Guys would go to fraternity parties and get shitfaced, and they would drag their girlfriends there, and the girls would drink the beer because they’d be with their boyfriends and they’d have to drink it. And eventually they’d get disgusted with their drunken boyfriends, and they would associate beer with a bad time—

BBJaze: With the smell of socks and dirty underwear—

JSix: Guys, on the other hand, love it, of course. I still love the smell of stale beer—

 BBJaze: And I still love the smell of dirty underwear.

JSix: So because of their bad associations with beer, women migrated to wine. And I’ve given up on trying to convince women to give up their wine. If that’s what they like, then fine—who am I to tell them what to drink? It’s amazing to me. I do a lot of free samplings, where I give out free beer. I give people free beer, and I’ve been in places where a woman has a wine glass in front of her, and I say “Look, I’ve got this free beer, would you taste it” and she’ll say “I don’t like beer, I won’t try it.” That has happened so many times, I’ve given up.

BBJaze: Maybe you could explain that beer provides essential nutrition.

JSix: Well, it’s more than just essential nutrition. There is the buzz factor, and we should never ignore that. And I think wine does actually ignore it sometimes. There’s alcohol in the stuff, and people like to get buzzed. And we shouldn’t deny that. People have been getting buzzed for millennia, and we shouldn’t forget that part of beer. It is fun to get a buzz.

BBJaze: I think that should be the final word.

Don Russell, a.k.a. Joe Sixpack, writes a weekly column for the Philadelphia Daily News and is the author of Joe Sixpack’s Philly Beer Guide: A Reporter’s Notes on the Best Beer-Drinking City in America and Christmas Beer:  The Cheeriest, Tastiest, and Most Unusual Holiday Brews.  Learn more at joesixpack.net.

Washington, D.C. 

January, 2011

Filed by: Lewis Dribblin

 The “D.C.” in “Washington D.C.” can stand for any number of things: “Decadent Capital,” “Debt Crisis,” “Doesn’t Care.”  For me it’s, “Drink Crap” and “Damned Cretins.”

My plan was fairly simple: an afternoon pub crawl with some affable cretins beginning near my hotel in the city’s Dupont Circle neighborhood and winding up in Georgetown, where we would see Tuck & Patti’s late set at Blues Alley.  (“A nip and a Tuck & Patti” was my companions’ running joke, as they strolled cluelessly through the streets of Washington in worn-out Reeboks and K-Mart clearance-rack windbreakers.  Damned cretins.)

The afternoon began fortuitously, for just around the corner from my hotel I stumbled upon an unknown gem which seemed to signify that Washington was a beer town: an enormous stone mansion with a plaque identifying the place as “The Brewmaster’s Castle.”  The mansion was built in 1892-1894 by a German immigrant named Christian Heurich, who was one of Washington’s wealthiest citizens and who also happened to be known as the world’s oldest brewer—he was still brewing when he died in 1945, aged 102.  Yes, I know that beer dates back to biblical times and that people back then could live to be 900 or 1000 years old, but it’s fair to say that Heurich was pretty old, at least  by modern standards.

Like its owner, the castle itself was built to last.  Its website, brewmasterscastle.com, explains that the Heurich House was built, unusually for the time, with poured concrete and reinforced steel and was the first fireproof home in Washington.  The website also curiously points out that this claim was never tested because, for safety reasons, none of the mansion’s fifteen fireplaces were ever used.  Heurich also built the nation’s first fireproof brewery, constructed of poured concrete and reinforced steel.  Heurich seems to have made everything from poured concrete and reinforced steel, which may explain why no one drinks Heurich’s Lager anymore—although you could, because none of it has ever been destroyed by fire.

As it happens, just down the street from The Brewmaster’s Castle was a bar called The Fireplace—so called because, like The Brewmaster’s Castle, there was a fireplace inside.  But unlike at The Brewmaster’s Castle, the fireplace there was lit—and so was everyone at the bar.  Incidentally, this turned out to be a gay bar.  I mention this only because I was surprised that I didn’t see any conservative members of Congress there.  Of more immediate concern was the beer selection—more specifically, the lack of it: Bud, Bud Light, Heineken, etc.  No draft beers.  And, apparently, no bottle opener.  To remove the cap from my bottle of mass-market swill, the bartender seemed to have used either his car keys or a Bic lighter.  Then, when I asked for a glass, I was given something that looked like a sippy cup without the lid.  This experience took some of the shine off the pub crawl’s fortuitous start, but I managed to convince myself that this was an aberration.  It should be easy to find good beer in the nation’s capital…

Yes—it should be easy to find good beer in the nation’s capital.  I guess I should have told someone in Washington about this prior to my arrival.  Just about all beer menus were pitifully similar:  Bud, Bud Light, Heineken.  Asked about their microbrew selection, some bartenders would stare blankly.  Others would offer up Heineken. I was beginning to see why so many politicians in Washington are hollering about socialism.

Walking along M Street in Georgetown, I was tempted to step into the Ukrainian Embassy to see if they could hook me up with whatever they were drinking, but then I remembered that I could get the same stuff from the automotive supply shelf at 7-11, and at 7-11 I would not have to pay the attendant a bribe.

My last hope for a quality beer seemed to be the exclusive 1789 Restaurant, but my companions’ apparel doomed our chances of being allowed in.  Damned cretins.  Honestly, I wasn’t really disappointed by this because I had come to expect little of even the ritziest bars in town.  And I was vindicated a little later when a phone call to 1789 Restaurant inquiring about their draft beer selection confirmed my suspicions.  I can’t remember the choices exactly, but they sounded very much like Bud, Bud Light, and Heineken.

When I got to Blues Alley, I looked at the beer menu, and what did I see?  Bud, Bud Light, and Heineken Dark.  Dark indeed.  At that point I was hoping for something that tasted at least as good as a Heurich’s Lager.  At least I was expecting the music to be good.  And, for the first time that day, I was not disappointed.

If you don’t know who Tuck and Patti are (and many people don’t, unfortunately), they’re a husband a wife duo who have been married and performing together for something like thirty years—Tuck on guitar and Patti on vocals.  But they’re not your average guitar/vocal duo, the kind of people you see on open mic night croaking out off-key Beatles tunes with their eyes squeezed shut, the kind of people who insist that musicians who have had lessons can’t play with soul.

Tuck and Patti are master technicians but also very soulful.  Maybe even too soulful, or at least too spiritual.  Throughout the performance, the lady sitting in front of me was standing, bowing, swaying, and swinging her arms, like someone trying to dislodge a wedgie at a tent revival.  But this was only a minor distraction, because Tuck and Patti were too good not to pay attention to.  Among other things, it was amazing how technically precise they were and also how full a sound the two of them produced with just a microphone and a guitar. I think the only electronic effects were a little bit of compression on the guitar and vocals and maybe a volume pedal for the guitar—I don’t even think Tuck played through an amp, just through the PA.  They’re so good at what they do that even those who don’t like their music would at least be able to respect their musicianship.  In fact, during the show I was thinking to myself, “You’d have to be a cretin not to find something to like about Tuck and Patti.”

So it should have come as no surprise that my companions didn’t share my enthusiasm for the performance.  One of them mentioned that the sound was too compressed, complaining that someone should have taken away Tuck and Patti’s “toys.”  This struck me as odd, because not only did Tuck not play through an amp, he didn’t even use a pick.  And then someone suggested that we go out for another beer.  There was nothing left to do at that point except head for the automotive supply shelf at 7-11.  Damned cretins.

February, 2011 

BBJaze:  First, congratulations on thirty years together with the Yellowjackets and also on the band’s new release, Timeline.

RF:  Thank you…

BBJaze:  Of course I want to discuss the band and the CD, but first:  You’re known internationally as a founding member of the Yellowjackets, as a progressive musician and composer, but my sources tell me that you’re also a fan of beer.

RF:    Yeah, I do enjoy beer.  I would say I have a beer a day.  It’s kind of a tradition…what’s a better word?  Habit?

BBJaze:  I’d say when you’re talking about beer drinking, “tradition” is probably a safer word than “habit.”

RF:  Right.

BBJaze:  The Yellowjackets’ performance rider indicates that, if possible, the venue should provide some locally brewed beers.  Is that for your benefit?

RF:  Well, the soundman and myself and Jimmy enjoy beer.  Typically on a nightly basis, when we’re gigging, at some point Jimmy will ask me if I want to split a beer.  We do like to sample locally brewed beers, but I don’t consider myself a connoisseur.

BBJaze:  The Yellowjackets have played all around the world.  Does sampling local beer in the places you’ve played help you to remember those places?  Do you sort of associate a flavor with a place?

RF:    Actually, yes.  When there’s a great beer at a certain place, that place really stands out.  I played a lot in Japan with Sadao Watanabe, and we would travel all over the country, and one of the cities we played was Sapporo.  Sapporo beer in Sapporo—it was incredible.

BBJaze:  When did you first realize that you really liked beer?

RF:  Let me try to remember.  I know I didn’t drink in high school, so it was sometime after that.  My first beergasm—

BBJaze:  Beergasm?  May I quote you on that?

RF:  No.

BBJaze:  So when did you discover your fondness for beer?

RF:  When I was younger, I was really into sports—I loved to play basketball.  And after playing pick-up games with friends for a couple hours, or sometimes all day, we’d be all sweaty and exhausted and we’d go into 7-11 and buy beer.  And when you’re incredibly thirsty and dehydrated—

BBJaze:  There’s nothing like drinking something that will further dehydrate you.

RF:  It’s such a great sensation.

BBJaze:  And now for some music-related questions.  I know that Jimmy has a background in rock music.  Among other projects, he was in a band called Blackjack, which was kind of a rock supergroup.  Bruce Kulick was the guitarist, and the lead singer was, of all people, Michael Bolton.  Whatever happened to that band?  Do you have any idea?

RF:  I don’t know exactly, but Jimmy left Blackjack right around the time the Yellowjackets got their first record deal.

BBJaze:  So Jimmy was playing simultaneously with Blackjack and the Yellowjackets?

RF:  Yeah, actually.

BBJaze:  Did you ever have any interest in playing rock music?

RF:    Not really.  The piano isn’t so much a rock instrument.  The closest I ever came to pop or rock was when I spent a year recording and touring with Joni Mitchell.  It certainly wasn’t rock, but we operated like we were a rock band, playing in stadiums and traveling on a private jet.

BBJaze:  This was the mid-seventies?

RF:  The early eighties.  1983.

BBJaze:  While you were with the Yellowjackets?

RF:  Yeah.  We had done a couple records, Robben [Ford] had just left the band, and this was kind of an interim period.  My wife and I had just had our daughter—

BBJaze:  Oh!  Well congratulations, belatedly, on the birth of your, uh—

RF:  Twenty-eight year-old daughter.

BBJaze:  I have to admit that I don’t own a single Joni Mitchell album, but I’ve certainly heard her music, and I get the impression that she could be called something of a genius…

RF:  Yes, she is.  She defies categorization.  I have great respect for her musicianship and her songwriting and her overall artistry.

BBJaze:  So Joni Mitchell was the closest you’ve ever come to playing rock or pop.  You’re not a fan of pop music at all?

RF:  There are certain groups or artists that I like…if the music has some sophistication.  Sting and Peter Gabriel come to mind.

BBJaze:  Have you ever worked with Sting?

RF:  I did work with him at an event celebrating Brazilian music.  All the artists performed Jobim tunes.

BBJaze:  Jobim, cool.  I love Jobim.  He’s definitely in the pantheon of western popular music composers.  My favorite Jobim tune is “Waters of March.”

RF:  I knew you were going to say that.

BBJaze:  Damn.  Is that everyone’s favorite Jobim tune?

RF:  It’s a tricky song.

BBJaze:  That’s right.  It’s deceptively simple.  Or deceptively difficult.  I never understood that expression.  But you know what I mean—you hear “Waters of March” once and you think it’s a simple song, easy to play…

RF:  Yeah, but it keeps changing.  The harmony is always shifting under this very simple melody.  It’s ingenious.

BBJaze:  Another one of my favorite tunes—and I’m not just saying this because you’re sitting here with me—is your tune “Revelation,” which I first heard on Robben Ford’s Talk to you Daughter album.  It’s definitely one of my favorite recordings of all time.  There are no lyrics, but it’s clearly a gospel tune—

RF:  Right.

BBJaze:  I know that when you were a kid you thought that you’d grow up to play piano in church.

RF:  Yes, that’s right.

BBJaze:  Does gospel music consciously inform your sensibilities as a composer?

RF:  Yeah.  When I was growing up my dad was a choir director.  We were really involved at church.  My mom played piano, as well as violin, and she’d always be playing piano around the house, and the way she played was kind of like the arrangements that were in the hymnals at church—triads, but with sevenths and thirds in the bass…

BBJaze:  So it’s sort of inside of you…

RF:  Sure, you can’t escape it.

BBJaze:  A number of the Yellowjackets’ recordings of your compositions have that gospel feel—

RF:  That’s right…

BBJaze.  But it’s not like you set out to write a gospel tune.

RF:  Not exactly.  But if a song idea comes to you, you have to finish it in the spirit in which it was conceived.

BBJaze:  That’s interesting to hear, because in the Yellowjackets’ genre—jazz fusion, or whatever you want to call it—many times artists have a very scientific approach to composing, with the result, to me, anyway, that the compositions sound disjointed and mechanical, like exercises rather than tunes.  But the Yellowjackets’ compositions, even though they’re technically advanced, are still very melodic.  I think it’s fair to say that they have a “hook.”  And I wonder if the gospel harmonies you’re talking about have something to do with that.

RF:  Maybe that’s true.  The intent is always to explore a new idea, to take something that has some quality of familiarity and give it a twist in some way so that it’s not just delivering another cliché, but not going so far left that it leaves everyone scratching their heads.  We do like nice melodies and harmonies, but we like to twist it around a little bit so that there’s something different about it that you can’t quite put your finger on.

BBJaze:  Do you think that kind of originality helps to explain the Yellowjackets’ longevity?  Does it also have something to do with the personalities of the guys in the band?  I’ve met you all, and you’re incredibly nice guys.

RF:  Yeah, I think the combination of personalities has something to do with it.  There’s an ethos of teamwork, no one is really too concerned about being the star of the band.  We prioritize the music and the band over the individuals in the band.  And we really like what we do, we’re really energized by what we do.

BBJaze:  I think it’s also reasonable to say that your audience can’t really outgrow your music, which is why I was wondering whether you ever had any interest in rock or pop music.  Do you think Jimmy ever feels relieved or even grateful that he didn’t make it big with Blackjack?  If that band had stayed together, they’d probably be playing PBS telethons in Liberace costumes.  But I’m assuming the fact that jazz musicians can go on being cool forever was no part of your calculation when you were a young musician making decisions about your future?

RF:  Really, there was no long-term planning.  I just had to trust myself to make the best decision when it came to having a choice.

BBJaze:  I’m sure you get asked all the time if you have advice for young musicians, so I won’t ask you that.  It seems obvious that the most important thing musicians need to be sure of is that they have talent and discipline, that they know what they’re what they’re doing as musicians.

RF:  That’s right.  I do a lot of teaching, and the band does a fair amount of clinics, and that’s a question that comes up all the time—“What do I do, how do I move to the next step in my career?”—and it seems to me that there’s a lot of focus on career rather than really developing your musicianship.  I always kept the focus on the music and never worried about anything else.  When I had to make decisions about getting a manager, for instance, I’d make sure he was credible, that he was honest, or when it came to signing a record deal I’d make sure it didn’t seem like we were getting screwed, but my energies have always been focused on the music.

BBJaze:  But you’re also good at music.  Have you ever had to be brutally honest with a student who has ambition but lacks talent?

RF:  Well, I have colleagues who will say those things, but I tend to be encouraging, to try to help people—because I could be wrong about somebody’s talent.

BBJaze:  Well, you’re a nice guy, Russ—

RF:  I’ve actually had students from ten years ago who weren’t the most talented people who have come to me recently and said “Man, I was really struggling, and you encouraged me, and I’m really glad I met you.”  Maybe some other teacher could have whipped them into shape—

BBJaze:  In a Germanic sort of way…

RF:  Yeah, but that’s not me.

BBJaze:  So it never occurred to you to try to be a prick?

RF:  No, I can’t do it.  Sorry.  After a few more beers, maybe…

BBJaze:  I’m wondering about the switch in the band from guitar to saxophone, which happened early on.  Was Robben Ford the only guitar player who was ever properly part of the band?

RF:  Actually, we experimented with a couple different guitarists.  Right after Robben left we recorded Mirage-a-Trois, and the guitarist Mike Miller is on that.  He’s a fantastic guitarist—Bill Frisell has been quoted as saying that Mike Miller is his favorite guitarist.  We played with Mike for awhile, but it didn’t really gel the same way it had with Robben.  I’m into sports, so I tend to think of a change in musicians as like a draft, where you’re not drafting for a position, but you’re drafting for the best out there—it doesn’t always matter what they play.  We ran into Mark Russo from the Tower of Power, and Jimmy and I thought, wow, there’s a connection here.  And then when Mark left it was the same with Bob Mintzer.  Mark played alto sax, and Bob plays tenor, coming from a very different place musically, and we welcomed that.

BBJaze:  When Mark left, would you have brought another guitarist into the band at that point, or were you committed to the saxophone?

RF:  At that point I think we really liked saxophone because there’s can be an inherent rub between keyboards and guitar—you’re occupying kind of the same territory.  It can work, and it can be really good, but, selfishly, I was enjoying having all that harmonic space.

BBJaze:  So you could have gone on with guitar as the lead instrument, but you’re happy you went the sax route.

RF:  Yeah, I think so.  But as well as someone’s musicianship, personality matters.  When you spend all that time together, you’ve got to find people you really like and connect with, otherwise it can sour the experience.  I’ve been a sideman in a lot of different bands with guys who were really good musicians, but the personalities didn’t gel, or people had some questionable habits—

BBJaze:  I wonder if that’s what happened to Blackjack.  Though in that case, maybe the band didn’t work because no one had questionable habits.  You can’t have a successful rock band if no one in the group has questionable habits.

RF:  No comment on that.

BBJaze:  What about the trumpet?  Could you see a trumpet player in the Yellowjackets?

RF:  Sure, it’s possible.

BBJaze:  Though there’s something sweeter or more vocal-like about a saxophone.

RF:  Saxophone seems a little sort of closer to the earth, and the trumpet seems closer to the gods.

BBJaze:  There are some other things I want to ask you about, but I know you have to go…

RF:  That’s okay, I’ve got some time.  Beer and conversation—this was a good idea.

BBJaze:  Do you have any frustrations as a musician?  Do you ever wish that you be a better player or a different kind of player or composer?

RF:  Well, there’s always a certain level of dissatisfaction about what you know and what you can do and what you can write.  It can be intimidating when you consider the great history of music and the volume of music that’s been written in all genres, especially, for me, Western orchestral music.  Think about the great masters—Bach, Haydn—and their knowledge of writing for these really large ensembles, or the musicians who can look at a score and hear the music in their head or read an orchestral score like you or I would read a novel.  I’m really in awe of that.  So there is a dissatisfaction about what you know—and that’s good…

BBJaze:  Sure, it’s a healthy dissatisfaction.  Without it, you’re complacent and you can’t improve—

RF:  That’s right.  With the Yellowjackets it’s really cool because we have this ensemble where we can write music and create playing situations for ourselves, and whatever I learn anywhere I can bring to the band and it’s kind of our laboratory, and we can create a song from this musical concept that I’ve discovered.

BBJaze:  Okay, I’m going to get another beer.  Want one?

RF:  No, I’ve got to play tonight—I’m stopping after two.

BBJaze:  I’m wondering about your approach to songwriting.  Do you decide that you want or need to write a song and then sit down and write one, or do your compositions develop more sort of organically?

RF:  Well, deadlines do really act as a motivation to get down to business, but it’s not like I can predict what I’ll have at the end of the day.  About a month before we recorded Timeline, I set out every day to try come up with ideas and try to push songs along.  It’s always difficult at the beginning of the process, but then you kind of get into a rhythm and the ideas flow fairly easily.

BBJaze:  Any surprises on Timeline in terms of the compositions or the personnel?  Does Britney Spears play a trumpet solo?

RF:  There’s one tune with Robben on it.  Since it’s band thirtieth anniversary, we thought it would be nice to bring him back…

BBJaze:  You’ve worked with an amazing number of people over the years, but is there anyone you’d like to work with that you haven’t yet?

RF:  Oh, let’s see.  Yes—

BBJaze:  Yes broke up a long time ago.

RF:  Well, they would be great.  But someone that I greatly admire is the arranger Claus Ogerman, who arranged a lot of the classic Jobim tunes and this amazing Frank Sinatra record of Jobim tunes.

BBJaze:  I like Sinatra a lot.  I get Sinatra.  He’s one of those guys, like Bob Dylan, that you either “get” or you don’t.

RF:  I get both of them.

BBJaze:  I don’t get Dylan—

RF:  Well, it’s his songwriting…

BBJaze:  Well, I don’t get it.  I can’t explain why.  But, for that matter, I don’t get why a lot of people don’t get Sinatra.  That guy could deliver a tune.

RF:  Oh yeah.  Recently I’ve really gotten into two Sinatra records, one of them being what is credited as being one of the first “concept” records—In the Wee Small Hours.  The whole record is amazing.  The orchestrations are by Nelson Riddle.  And when I was in Japan I got this Jobim and Sinatra record, a two-volume CD, one volume arranged by Deodato and the other by Claus Ogerman.  Sinatra’s singing is spectacular—his timing, his phrasing, his pitch, the way he tells the story…amazing.  And in those days, the singer sang live with the band—no pitch correction, no overdubbing.  Sinatra…you know…has  a level of craftsmanship and musicianship that you don’t find very often.

BBJaze:  He’s what you’d call a natural.

RF:  He does everything in the right place—incredible economy and eloquence.  Spectacular.

BBJaze:  So you’d like to work with Ogerman.  Anyone else you can think of?

RF:  Oh, there are so many.  Maybe somebody like Peter Gabriel.  I love his music.

BBJaze:  The Yellowjackets have been together for thirty years now—a long time, obviously.  Not that I hope this would happen, but what would it take for the Yellowjackets to call it quits?  Or can you see the band continuing indefinitely?

RF:  Hmmm.  Maybe if the music wasn’t fun to play anymore…if we felt like we were stagnating…

BBJaze:  What if Jimmy threw a TV out of the hotel window?

RF:  I don’t think he would—

BBJaze:  That might actually put the Yellowjackets at the top of the pop charts.  One last thing:  Tell us something about the Yellowjackets that you don’t want anyone to know.

RF:  Let’s see…

BBJaze:  Post-gig hot tub parties with the Swedish women’s volleyball team?

RF:  No, it’s pretty boring.

The Yellowjackets’ new release, Timeline, celebrates the band’s 30th year recording and touring the world, and it marks the return to the band of longtime drummer Will Kennedy.  Timeline is the band’s first release on their new label, Mack Avenue Records.