Interviews - Lorber

On the day I interviewed Jeff, he had appeared on the “Good Day Atlanta” TV show and I asked him if that was a rare thing, because jazz musicians in the UK aren’t seen on TV too often.

JL I’ve been doing this for close to thirty years. During those thirty years I’ve been on TV quite a few times. Lately it’s become more difficult to get on TV because especially on the bigger shows, late-night shows that really have a huge audience, they use the music and the artists to bring in a younger audience. They go for people who are at the top of the pop charts. I’m not really sure why I was lucky enough to get on the show today, but it was great and I have done it on several occasions.

I really appreciate the chance to use a huge medium like television to let people know what I’m doing.

I then asked Jeff where the title of the new CD ‘Heard That’ came from, because I’d read about how he arrived at the jokey title of his previous CD ‘He Had a Hat’.

JL It wasn’t anything terribly deep at all. Rex (Rideout) and I were in the studio and I can’t remember who came up with the title – it might have been me. We thought it was a catchy title. Quincy Jones used it a long time ago on one of his records.

The record has a certain kind of energy – it has a certain kind of freshness and that title represents it a bit. For the cover, we typed the title into a web browser and an image similar to that came up and we thought it was kind of funny – so we decided to go with it.

In my notes I’d written “very addictive” and “very groovy” to describe the album (released 30^th September 2008 in the US). As I had my advance copy I’d played it hard and picked out ‘The Bomb’ and ‘Take Control’ as two favourite songs. I asked Jeff to describe the sound he got on this album.

JL Well, we went out to capture some of the sound of early albums by the Jeff Lorber Fusion, like ‘Water Sign’ and ‘Wizard Island’ and also the sound of ‘80’s R&B in general. More specifically, the Brothers Johnson, Chic, Pleasure, Rene and Angela, one of my all-time favourites – these were the influences we were going after.

When Rex and I got together to do this, that’s what we talked about. And at least three songs use little pieces of old Jeff Lorber Fusion songs as musical material that we build upon to write new songs.

They have some of that old-school flavour but at the same time they have new melodies and new rhythms that hopefully reflect my growth as a songwriter and as an improviser. It was really fun to work with Rex, to learn his approach – how he writes and how he produces and plays. It reflects all those things. There’s a pretty strong blues influence on a couple of things also.

I felt ‘Wizard Island’ was a good reference point, partly because it was the first Jeff Lorber album I ever owned but more because ‘Wizard Island’ had a tightness and technicality to it compared with the new CD’s much looser feel. I also felt like an old-school feeling was something more and more artists were trying to capture now.

JL Well, we had a very high bar to reach because the other groups who were out at the time that we were making ‘Wizard Island’ were Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, Tony Williams’ Lifetime, Patrice Rushen, Chick Corea and The Crusaders.

Actually when we worked on the ‘Wizard Island’ album, we worked in the same studio that the Crusaders were in. The two other bands used the Hollywood Sound studio a lot were The Crusaders and Earth, Wind & Fire. So from that standpoint, for young musicians, we didn’t think we were terribly competent and these were our heroes. Here we were in the same studio with the same engineer. Rik Pekkonen who recorded ‘Wizard Island’ had recorded all of those great Crusaders albums.

I remember we were in an Italian restaurant near the studios that was very legendary, called Martoni’s, and I asked Rik, who was the unofficial co-producer I guess, “how do you think we’re doing?”. This was after recording for a day or two. Rik told us he didn’t think it sounded too great (laughs).

It was a sort of wake-up call because we were at the beginning of the recording process and for him to tell me that made me re-evaluate everything we were doing. I think we ended up re-recording a bunch of stuff and trying to make it even better using his input. That’s one reason it was so tight. It was as tight and precise as we could get.

Back in those days I used to record solos of myself playing. I would write them out – I was so concerned about the record that I wouldn’t always improvise. Sometimes I’d write one out to make sure it would be fantastic. Nowadays I would never do that because I’m more mature as a musician. My approach to everything I’m doing is trying to have fun, trying to keep the vibe and just make it feel really good.

Back then I was really trying to prove myself. What we were after was perfection technically. Now I’m not really after that – of course I’d like to have as much of that as we can get (laughs) within reason. Now my aim is to make music that feels really great, has inspiration and has some of the looseness you were talking about. That’s what I really go after…

The feeling of guys having a really good time and no feeling of things being forced. Where the whole record feels like it’s coming out effortlessly and easily.

Other bands like the Dixie Dregs and Yellowjackets were approaching their music in a similar way – writing music of high technical complexity and playing it with incredible accuracy and technical skill was the goal, rather than what I’m talking about now, which is a record you can just put on and enjoy listening to.

It’s not that different. I still value great playing and imaginative writing in terms of melody, harmony and soloing. Hopefully little surprises where you take the form and you do little solos and melodies and do unusual things with the orchestration.

It seems that ‘Wizard Island’ really is a good reference point and shows just how much Jeff’s music has changed, now that he has nothing to prove…

JL (laughing) oh, that’s not true – just something different to prove. Another difference is that we were a band. A bunch of guys from Portland, Oregon – none of them well known or famous. We were just a local band. When I make records now I’m working with the cream of the crop of L.A. sessions so that’s a big difference right there too.

That’s another reason why we felt the pressure to show we could play because no-one had the reputation of being an accomplished musician at that point.

I wanted to make the point about the quality of musicianship here by giving the example of bassist Alex Al who has played on sessions produced by Jeff, for Eric Marienthal for example.

JL Well there are two reasons why Alex sounds good: first he’s an amazing, wonderful musician – no question about that. Second: when I write music, basslines are very important. I very often write basslines that are a challenge for bass players – lines that really allow a talented player like Alex to show what he’s made of.

I used to play bass actually, when I was in 5^th or 6^th grade. For about 6 0r 7 years I played acoustic bass. We were talking earlier about bands like Pleasure, The Brothers Johnson and Chic – all bass-driven. The clever, inventive basslines are the most memorable things about a lot of those songs. I always like building songs like that…

I could relate to that easily. The first Pleasure song I heard, the magnificent ‘Glide’ is a perfect example of a song built around a (great) bassline.

JL By the way, I still work a lot with Nate Phillips. He’s a personal friend of mine. In fact I planned to have Nate play on a part of the record. We were in a hurry so we stuck with the synth bass on a lot of the songs but I love working with Nate. He’s a great friend and an amazing player.

I’d been playing the Jeff Lorber Fusion album ‘Galaxian’ earlier in the day and I noticed that Pleasure’s guitar player Marlon McClain had appeared on that record – so the association with that band goes back a long way…

JL Yeah, that band was fantastic. We were really close. The ‘Water Sign’ album had Dennis Springer who was a member of Pleasure. He played beautifully on that album. We were all close together, living in Portland, being part of that scene. And we’re still close – I’m still in touch with Marlon and Nate. I still like to work with them when I can.

I’d noticed that Jeff was credited on the new CD as playing bass and guitar on a couple of songs. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen him credited like that before…

JL Well, the bass is synth bass. I’ve played guitar on a lot of my records and a lot of my productions but often (laughs) it gets replaced by other guitar players who are better than I am. Rex let me get away with playing a lot of guitar on this album. I love playing guitar, I really enjoy it. I’m not so accomplished but I’m a pretty good blues and rhythm player. I can come up with some funky little parts so he let led me slide by on a couple of songs.

When I co-produce with a guy like Rex, I really respect him and take advantage of his input so I let him make the decisions about what gets to stay and what doesn’t. If I didn’t do that, why bother, I could produce the record myself.

Jeff does a great cover of the Amy Winehouse song ‘Rehab’ on the new CD and he really makes his mark on it – you forget it’s not the original almost. I asked him what was behind that choice of song?

JL It was very controversial between me and my manager and Rex Rideout because it doesn’t really represent the record particularly. The rest of the record is original music. This song’s got a little bit of a boogaloo vibe but I thought it would be fun to do because the song’s based on a Wurlitzer piano figure. It’s got a really nice bluesy figure.

You know a lot of songs out there don’t work for piano as cover songs. Piano doesn’t have the expressive ability of a saxophone. You can’t bend notes – it doesn’t have that sort of vocal sound. Things that work with a piano have to be very rhythmic – almost like Morse code or something. I rarely do cover songs but one I did a few years ago was the Chaka Khan song ‘Ain’t Nobody’. That has a great, syncopated melody line and that was pretty successful for me.

So it turns out that ‘Rehab’ was a pretty good choice. People do know the song and when I’ve been playing it live it’s been getting a great response so I’m glad about it. It’s an obvious attempt at getting some airplay, doing something somewhat commercial but it’s fun and it’s pretty happy with the way it turned out. It’s one of those things we did spontaneously at the last minute – the little 8-note guitar part is something that I put on there. When we play it live we really extend it and jam on it.

Jeff had mentioned the Wurlitzer specifically. I’d listened to a lot of Jeff’s music while I was preparing the interview and appreciated that he uses a lot keyboards, so I asked him which was his favourite.

JL The Rhodes that I have in my studio is a fantastic-sounding Rhodes and I really love it. Somewhere between that and my piano. Earlier on in my career I was into using a lot of synthesizer sounds and trying to be real creative with that. As I get older, my musical voice has become a little bit more traditional. It’s pretty much the Rhodes and the piano with the occasional appearance of the mini-Moog and the Wurlitzer – that’s pretty much it. I play a little B3 here and there, just a little flavour – I love that too. I’ve become a little bit of a traditionalist and I would say those are my favourite keyboard sounds.

I talked about songs influenced by places an artist has travelled, such as Wizard Island (Oregon), Iguassu Falls (Brazil) and California’s Pacific Coast Highway. I asked how the place an artist lives affect the way they write.

JL Everything I experience has an effect and over the last year I’ve been to Eastern Europe quite a bit which has been really exciting. I really enjoy the process of travelling and seeing other cultures. That can be pretty inspirational in terms of giving you ideas about writing and things that you’re excited about.

The thing about Los Angeles that’s fantastic is the talent. There are just so many great musicians there and that’s what I love about it and the collaborations on the last couple of records, writing and producing, with Rex Rideout and Bobby Colomby, those have been really fun. Experiences where I learn and grow – that’s pretty much what I like to do now – to find somebody like that, who I really respect and that I feel I can learn from and to make a record with that person and learn and grow as a result of that. And L.A. is a place that just attracts that kind of talent.

Moving on to live work, Jeff has been touring in the USA as part of the ‘Guitars and Saxes’ tour with Peter White and Gerald Albright. I asked him how he got into that.

JL We’re all managed by the same management company, Chapman Management and they usually put that whole package together. So even though I’m not a guitar or sax player they threw me into it and it’s really been fun.

I’ve known Gerald for years – he played in my band in the early 80’s. And Jeff (Golub) I don’t know quite as well but we have worked together on numerous occasions. Peter I never worked with before but I found out he and I are very similar in one way, which is we both love music so much and are thinking about it all the time. We both have a pretty encyclopaedic knowledge of all kinds of trivia about all kinds of music. So that’s one thing I found out about Peter, that we’re sort of kindred spirits.

Jeff had mentioned the number of artists from the Smooth Jazz world who are concentrated around the Los Angeles area. Numerous times while planning the interview I’d read about Jeff being described as “a pioneer of the Smooth Jazz format”, so I asked Jeff for his summing-up of the state of smooth jazz in 2008.

JL “Smooth Jazz” is a very unfortunate term. When it first started din the 80’s it was OK but I prefer the term contemporary jazz or something else, I’m not sure what. On the other hand, what’s great about it is that it generally describes a radio format that exists here in the U.S. And if it weren’t for that radio format, all of artists would have a real tough time getting our music heard. It’s pretty much the only place where instrumental artists can get played. So from that standpoint I’m very happy about the Smooth Jazz format – I’m very happy that the stations exist, so it’s a way I can get my music heard, I can get the word out about a new record.

And it definitely helps as far as touring and performing with people. There are still quite a few people here who like to go out and hear this music live and see the musicians. I think of guys that I work with like Gerald Albright, Kirk Whalum or Rick Braun as guys who work in the Smooth Jazz marketplace but can all play bebop - well. These are jazz musicians period, they’re not ‘smooth jazz’ musicians. And I like to think of myself that way too – I’m a jazz musician who’s playing a contemporary form of jazz, the same way that jazz musicians throughout the history of jazz have always created new styles.

So in a way it’s no different from what Charlie Parker was doing or all the fantastic innovations that Miles Davis did. I’m not trying to put myself on that level, I’m just trying to draw the comparison. It’s a type of music that has evolved and incorporated new ideas in terms of forms, in terms of recording techniques, in terms of harmony, structure, you name it. It uses things that it can find to grow and stay relevant.

Having been at the Capital JazzFest in 1999 I’d seen Jeff play live and could appreciate the difference between what he delivers in front of a live audience and what I hear on the records. The same was true for other artists like those he just mentioned.

I then asked Jeff, after all the great artists he’s produced such as Michael Franks, Art Porter and Eric Marienthal, is there anyone he didn’t work with yet but he’d like to work with.

JL Well, I’d like to get a chance to work with artists who are more on the pop side of things, like Seal or Sade or Sting, somebody like that. I love Sting’s music – working with him would be a dream. I’ve been lucky to work with so many great artists. When I’m in there producing somebody like Michael Franks or Art Porter – I can never forget working with him – he was one of the greatest, what a wonderful talent. What a tragedy about his death at a young age.

It’s just such a pleasure to be in the studio and listen to these guys create. When I listen to them play, I’m their biggest fan and all I want to do is help them achieve their vision of making the best record that they can make.

And it’s quite a responsibility and it’s something that I really enjoy. Actually right now I’m getting back into it more and more. I’m enjoying spending more time in the studio writing and producing after having done quite a bit of live playing over the last couple of years.

Jeff’s just indicated which direction he’s currently headed so I finished by asking him what comes next. I asked would we hear more of the type of acoustic playing featured on ‘He Had a Hat’…

JL I’m very proud of that record and it’s one of my favourites I’ve ever made, probably the most ambitious record that I’ve made. Unfortunately, as far as sales went, it didn’t do that great. So this record was more of an R&B funky record, which I think a lot of my fans really like. So (laughs) I’m hoping they’re going to like this one more. At the same time, I’m still playing a lot of that ‘He Had a Hat’ album, songs like ‘Anthem for a New America’, ‘Surreptitious’, the title track, ‘Hudson’ – I love playing those songs.

If I get a chance, I’m going to work with Bobby Colomby again and we’re going to make another record like that again some day.

I told Jeff he could count me among the people loving the sound of the new CD.

JL Thanks – I’ve spent some time around London and I know how much they enjoy great R&B-based music and funky music. In some ways, they’re bigger fans and they appreciate it more than people do in the United States – hopefully they’ll feel that way about this record.

I told Jeff that there would be no-one happier than me if the success of the record was such that he would end up playing in Europe, maybe even in England…

JL Well, there’s nothing confirmed but I may be over there at the beginning of December with Eric Marienthal, Paul Jackson Jr., Ricky Lawson and Kyle Eastwood playing some dates around Scandinavia and possibly Spain.

As a long-time fan, I wished Jeff all the best for that venture and on behalf of Smooth & Soul wished him success with the new CD and with that night’s show.

JL Thank you! Feel free to stay in touch and thanks for calling.