Chris Brubeck Interview

All right we're here with Chris BRUBECK And Chris you're getting ready to play this afternoon at the Palma song Vineyard. You're playing with your current group. Actually I'm playing with my father's group and my current group I play with but I'm not playing in my father's group who is in that group today. Randy Jones is the drummer and David piano of course and an old associate of days from when they were both students of various Meo the first composer who was in residence in World War Two and shortly thereafter as a refugee from France. And that that's Derry's meo and is a composer and Bill Smith is a clarinetist from Canada. No he apparently there's two Bill Smith. There's probably lots of Bill's mother like Bob Jones is how many bills a professor of Composition at University of Washington in Seattle. Then you also have your own group you're going to be playing in the area soon you'll be in Santa Cruz and Wright will be going to Denver 29 September 29. And that group includes includes my brother Dan Brubeck and drums and

he used to play with David Me My other brother Darrius and he sort of like he went straight from high school and on the road. He went through a period of saying well I don't see what else there is in life besides being a doer. And so he's done a number of different things as lots of different kinds of jobs he was playing with a guitar as Roy Buchanan you know a lot of guys and even the best blues guitar as he did that he was something for a Levon Helm in the band for a couple years. So he's my brothers from Woodstock So he's you know hangs out with all those kinds of guys and he's been playing with the German biplane and Carl Berger and so we've been doing this for about three years with a pianist and a liver and you know who I just did Danny and I think he's such a great player that we go to great lengths to try to keep this group happening to get his music over to the public because he's a total amazing player in my book. Is this the first time you come out with that group the West Coast. Yeah it is and he's a first time and we're looking forward to that I mean we got to the point of realizing that basically to try to make a living as jazz musicians.

If you don't want to spend the rest of your life playing Misty in a cocktail lounge. You know you've got to really make the whole world the place that you might play because there really aren't that many places to just make a living in one place. You know you've got to just look at the whole place. You know it's just a psychological barrier. I mean you fly over to England you fly to Germany you know of course in Europe American jazz is more revered and there are more places to play and it's a you know typically Well like you know the Russian band comes here and there's a lot of press about that and American groups over there. Well actually preceding you is your new record too you want to talk about that a little bit. How long when was that actually recorded it was recorded about a year ago and it's taken it's been a process to get that out where it was going to be on a different label and then I was just a matter of luck you know and timing that. And I talk to Herb Wong who heads the Black Hawk records early in the game. But he said he was doing a company said well he should just tape you know and see

what you think. So he was excited about it and went for it. It's interesting record I think because. You know I don't know. I should ask you could maybe I notice a covered lot of territory. Yeah it does I mean it's like it's like it's not like fusion in this one it's that most fusion which has incredible musicians all ends up sounding a bit like David Sanborn to me. You know and I think David Sanborn is great but the whole Fusion all you knew thing when David Sanborn really. Yeah right. You know and it's like you know there seems like there's hundreds of of them you know doing that well done so for you guys that like David Sam weren't you probably won't like us because we don't sound like that or maybe you will because it's refreshing. Well besides I'm having a sax player. We're just going to do a direction where we were doing pure jazz performances as a trio. And then afterwards we'd sit back and say oh that's really nice but you know since it's not live and you don't have the visual thing happening. It's a different medium let's look at recording as a different medium and then for me it's like I play trombone

also. And it's really hard to play electric bass and trombone at once life. So yeah so I think this is this is a record of all I'll put some trombone on and then we started putting like a couple melody and solos and we said what about a choir would sound like so we did four or five tracks of that and then Andy who is pretty much a purist but also has incredible synthesizer player. When you get him into the situation I sort of twisted his arm a little bit calculating that just trite you might have tons of pretties and wailing away and we had my brother Dan was able to use these exotic percussion instruments like water gongs. And also to squeeze drums from Africa all these things that we just said what the heck we'll go for it it's a record it's deeper it's sort of a kind of record that we made with the idea of you you put on headphones and go for it kind of thing. Well this isn't your first experience with recording either. You've done some material with your dad. Yeah. And there was an album with both of your brothers to before wasn't there.

Yeah. Oh God I mean in terms of this might be my 30th album or something that many one about 10 with Dave and I have been. Two or three with my brothers and Dave and then we did like a direct disk record before compact as was the beginning and the digital thing. The direct disk process was the big audio file thing where they went in the studio it was incredible because you had to record literally the entire side of the album a lot not just the cut but the whole site and it was going directly through the board into the pressers that were you know putting out the mother stampers like it so you'd be like It's 21 minutes of science you be in the 20th minute and you hear cut cut you know the line went down you go oh no. So we did one like that with the family and that turned out to be the biggest seller they ever had direct us. Unfortunately they the guy invested all the money made off of us into other groups and we never got paid. Folks it was a rip. Then we did we did one with Larry Coryell two that way which was it was a lot of fun

and you know I've recorded a lot of different situations. You play a bass and trombone that's kind of unusual. How did that come about. Well I came about 10 to truth and it sounds like a story and it is a story but it is true. Well let's hear the story I went to a gig with my father in Long Island where Louis Armstrong was playing and I just dug them. The vibe you such a great communicator to the horn. And I was interested in trombone. He was talking to me like you would talk to a little kid and you know sort of well you know what do you want to do. You know in Treme Young was playing with the trombone has such a human instrument you know as a lot of laughter and sorrow in it so I said you know well I kind of think I like to play trombone and I kind of had big lips so he looked at me says you know chops for my first big inspiration I think well you know if I said I got the chops for it you know maybe I'll go for this.

So that was the instrument I started in fourth grade and then my older brother taught me how to play guitar and from guitar which I was never a great guitar as I still play you know somewhat for songwriting and stuff like that it was like being bands where everyone played piano and butternuts you need a bass player but you know just bit by bit the whole thing started evolving and you know in those days when I was in school and you can be a bass guitar major or in college or in high school so that the trombone was my legitimate instrument which meant I sent an orchestra and count in less amounts of bars you know third or fourth movement and you go wow. I think they're very very nice. It was like I want people to take this you know counting bars I'm just going to stand up and start playing. It's so funny because with Dave I've done some solo thing we do a lot of things with orchestra you know where I am on a certain tunes I will be the soloist you know and my college conductor you know was conducting the Phoenix orchestra and he said you know he used to sit through my recitals and stuff and grimacing I could see his face he said How come you never used to play like that in school I said no one would let me.

We come from a real musical family does everyone in your family play music. Well I have my older brother Dario is a really good composer arranger keyboard player brother Mike that isn't into music he's one of the few that escaped and then there's me. My sister Kathy is that especially into music and then my brother Danny is a drummer and my youngest brother is Matthew and he is a cellist he went to study with Paris so it was a great world renowned teacher and Yale and he graduated from there he also plays jazz piano. And I've been trying to apply you know all of his classical technique and cello to electric bass which he's starting to do now too. He's going to be a triple threat. So what about your mother. She's really patient. Dave in Iowa so marriage is really a remarkable thing I think because. I don't know if I'm ever going to happen to today because I think it's too much pressure on women to do their own thing and that sort of followed her husband's path. But

she put all of her energy into you know helping with Dave's career and I don't think she ever thought we pressed by it or overshadowed and she's helped him with the lyrics. When he does a major religious work with a choir in Asia Hope research the text. And yet you just you know totally involved you actually managed a for many years and a time but trying to manage six kids all of whom were interested in the arts and there was one point when it was true she was sort of at the end of her tether there where where she was taking as we counted up to each week there were 32 different lessons between the six kids you know of different you know piano teachers from all the different things. So she really devoted herself to doing that in she's quite happy and now the big payoff in all of this. All the kids around the ness that you get to travel with day and scrape this question may be out of sequence but have you dealt with pressure being the son of a musician. For example in front of an audience. Has there

been a pressure for you to perform and be perceived or interpreted in a certain way. How do you don't with it. You know I remember my brother was asked that question and he gave an answer then I thought that really made a lot of sense. And then I have an answer that my stockings and it makes a lot of sense to me is that one is that I've never had a different father. So I don't have any comparison. You know I got what I got. And that's that's what the deal with I don't know the disadvantage because I can't get out of my life to see. But my brother was saying that the bad part about it is you're not given a real independent chance to fail healthily. I mean like a lot of people saying there's no advancement without risk. And to go out there and really do something wild and then fall on your ass. That ability is sort of taken away from you because you know if you fall on your ass that it's like reflective of some you know big group of musical family also in their house because they maybe expect more things out of you.

Perhaps sometimes earlier earlier on and that can be a growing thing too. With more on your ass and then pick right back up right it is growing and most people take the people to get really good they have to take those risks and just in life and that that sort of is denied you because it can be such a big deal right when people notice to quit you know and there's other things like you do a job and you want to what you're flaying they'll come out and say well I want to here take five you know and I think you know I you know I don't mind playing a tune and played it thousands of times you can't say you don't know what I write I can't say I don't know if I don't know that. But you know it's inappropriate to ask Andy who I hope with time will have a strong as impact music as they did to say OK you know just go ahead and do that and things out of respect to him you know to that but I'm also happy to say we've had people that came up you know it's like when we build our group the Brubeck Laverne trio. Well hopefully that's pretty obvious that it's not Dave because that the Dave Brubeck Quartet you know

and you know we try to make it real clear but still once in a while the people come out geez we thought Dave was going to be here that's what about the tickets you know. And then fortunately what I've heard is that but we're really glad you know we came because we it's different that day but we really like it a lot it's a whole new different thing for us to listen to men who are into it so that always makes me feel a little bit. There's a certain faction that's out there probably thinking like well he's only out there because he's the son you know. So there was a point when I was dealing with that. Fortunately it wasn't said very often. And. You know I know from you know reviews and audience reaction and everything that I'm taking care of business and when it's forced to do and trombone seems to be going over especially well though I only play a couple tunes and then you know what I know also that I play very well with Dave. He's a very different kind of piano player in a lot of pent up piano players don't actually play too many roots with their left hand stuff. It's sort of like when a difference between the older school and new school of piano playing. And so with Dave he could stand there

pounding away and the bass thing and it means you either are with him or you're wrong. So so you know I play with them all the sounds I can anticipate maybe some of the patterns he's going to do. That brings up a question do you find yourself playing differently now that you're in a collaborative group as opposed to basically where you are one of the leaders as opposed to being in situations with your dad or possibly with some other people to where you were a sideman. Oh yeah. In fact I play a lot different and that's one of the reasons I want to play. In the group because you know it's funny as a bass player I mean you're sort of like the tempura player in an Indian group you know. Someone's got to sit there and sort of hold the structure together and play the roots and it's not really the glory gig most of the time you know. And in Dave's group I'm basically I'm playing in a way to make him as comfortable as possible and it's not necessarily the way that makes me as comfortable as possible. So after a while you know you you want an outlet and he's a completely He's almost 180 degrees

different type of player than Dave. So yeah it's a real outlet for me and I get to play a totally different way. And also it's I feel like it's an education because Andy's music is so different. It just calls and total different harmonic demands and time to mean all things different. Do you have some special plans with how you'd like to see your career go. So maybe some of the things you would like to see actualizing fantasies in the next 5 10 years from people you particularly like to play with or anything like that. Well my fantasy is that actually the thing I like doing best is writing songs. And I've had some luck with that. Bobby Womack and paddler Bell recorded one tune of mine and Penny's asked me to write another song for which I have to say that it's been kind of hard to get through to her with her schedule. It is a good tune for. But that's what it's I really like the most I think I sort of got that from my father doing a lot of running my mother writing lyrics a kid comes up and I think I can do both. I mean working on Broadway musicals and

working on one musical with a guy named Eric Washburn who was a screenplay writer he wrote The Deer Hunter. So like that's going to be a heavy music and that that is going to be the Russian Roulette cancan number anything that you write music for. Yeah. Music and Lyrics. I do a lot of that. I think actually I have a lot of things going a lot of different directions and. I probably would be further along if I only had one thing and just did that. But at this point you know I'm sort of skits in terms of like I really I really love fusion and I really like funk and I like soul music and gospel music and pop music and I write all those things and I like country western and you know and I love jazz and one of the things I was talking to someone else about is that I think maybe more than any other one label like you know rock country jazz jazz there's so many different things in it now it's like really unfair like oh we're talking about like Windham Hill is such a big selling thing. And it's been called jazz. And when George Weston is selling 350000

records that create sort of artificial pressure amongst executives who maybe can't really discern the difference saying oh a good jazz record should sell 300 50000 records and I'm going to wait a minute you know only a few people sold that many like maybe where the reports are that you know it's like where are all these people and I think the people that really like when I'm home aren't really jazz fans. It's a new it's a sort of yes meditation although it's yuppie functional music. It's great if you have it on parties and it really works I'm not trying to be critical of it I'm and I think in generations before this there was other kinds of music that I functioned in that way. But for it to be called jazz it's sort of unfair because it creates sort of an unrealistic demand in people in terms of sales. But there's like you know there's sort of there's Dixieland jazz to his new age stuff is mainstream. There's really been Daryn you know if you can remember Ellis all the rock

bands in a sense it's it's sort of a drag but it's really something it's interesting to note is that George Winston actually is a very fine stride piano player who really let me maybe he'll put on the George plays jelly roll as played on Bob Roseman record recently and that was his function he didn't play new age music he played stride piano company and did a great job. Well that's I guess another thing too is that it is a sort of the David Grisman approach of country Janice intermixing. It's really going for it. But like in my lifetime I mean you know that's a common one the first memory of pop records are like you know late Chuck Berry things and then I remember like the Beach Boys Surfin USA that caught my ear you know I was like oh you know been DO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DO you know every song had those chord changes. I said you know pop music's boring. Then the Beatles came up. You know there was a point when George Harrison was considered the rock guitarist I mean just think now how the level

of playing has come up and these players as they got better you know from from Chuck Berry was great in his own way but he's you know he's not like George Benson. But now the influences and all these guitar players and Eddie Van Halen really is an incredible master of his instrument and the direction that he's going and all these guys a level of musicianship comes up and. And one of the ways that it came up I think a lot of these guys were always interested in jazz because the improvisational lure is so great it's the way you can spontaneously express your feelings you know which is something that's great about jazz. And that's what's great about rock and Jimi Hendrix and the stuff that he did. You know there's a saloon similarity there and is the world is shrinking because of communication. Media and hearing records from the Third World countries and all that it's it's all swirling around everyone's influencing each other. So I think it's real good and I'm glad there's a station like you that plays the music because that actually I think is the biggest problem in the United States today is to have that sort of like there's a big brother thing happening with I don't know the typical listeners aware of this but there's a few

guys that make playlists from you know that maybe will control 50 100 stations. You know one guy's taste becomes the taste of a lot a lot of different things and it's not like the you know the glory days of the 60s you know when you had deejays they could play whatever they want to mix it up. That's something that's sorely missed. I think also that jazz is in a funny phase because classical music is really institutionalized You know everyone knows how to make a living with grants and symphony orchestras and the rich people you know they have an oil well they better give a million to the symphony to you know there's a whole thing. And jazz was the music of the masses like the 30s and 40s and 50s and and sort of lost their status because pop and rock is now. But it's in between it's not quite in that institutionalized and supported place. So in a way this is one of the roughest times hopefully that the Jazz will go through me. But of course everyone's a jazz making a comeback. So I've been playing it and never went away. It does go through transitions or very clearly and I'm sure that with more and more

musicians coming along who have the kind of dedication and interest as you do that it will continue to thrive. So we've been speaking with Chris Brubeck. He fell back on myself there a lot and Chris when we go out and hear you play some music here OK. Well thank you.