Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Julian Lage/Don Was

Transcript

Julian Lage/Don Was · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. We occasionally feel the emails and dms from Broken
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Record listeners telling us who they'd like to hear on
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the program. The past handful of years, one name has
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: come up more than others, Julian Lage. Now, if you're
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: not part of the Converted, not a member of one
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: of his devoted legions of fans, that may come as
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: a surprise to you. But if you get the chance
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: to spend some time with his music after listening to
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: this episode, I have just one word for you, welcome.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Julian's path and music has been as unique as his gifts.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: He picked up the guitar at five years old and
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: quickly became obsessed with the instrument. That obsession and what
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: must have been some level of innate abilities, led to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: his designation as a child prodigy, and as you'll hear,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to play live on stage with Carlos Santana
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: at eight and live on a Grammy telecast at thirteen.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: But it's his development as an artist over the course
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: of four albums and four years on Blue Note that's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: most impressive to me. His album Speak to Me came
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: out earlier this year and is impressionistic in its beauty
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: rather than prodigious, often quiet rather than flashy. For the
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: last episode in our series celebrating the creative legacy of
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Blue Note Records over eighty five years, Don Was and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I spoke with Julian Lage in front of a live
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: audience at the Blue Note Club in New York. We
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: talked about his upbringing as a prodigy, about writing and
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: recording his new album, and about his unique approach to
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: learning and playing guitar. Oh and he plays for us too.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: This is Broken Record Liner Notes for the digital Age.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I'm justin Richman. Here's Don Was and myself in the
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Blue Note in New York with Julian Lage. See the
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: full video version of this episode go to YouTube dot
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: com slash Broken Record Podcast.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: How are you my friend?
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Good?
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So, thank you for doing this.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I mam my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Oh Man, your new record is gorgeous record for gorgeous.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate that it really is.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: But I think Donn and I have talked about maybe
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: starting a little further back.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: You say wherever you want, I'm all yours.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I watched a little bit of Jewels at eight Did
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: you really yea the whole the whole thing is not.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: No, I don't I don't even know how to find it.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Their little little excerpts up there. Yeah, and you get
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: such a such a unique blend of real sweetness and
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: unbelievable talent. I don't know, have you. This is a
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: movie that was made when he was.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Years old old.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, someone shot? Who shot? Who made it?
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: It's a director named Mark Becker, and he was he
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: was at Stanford as a film student, and he had this.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: It's kind of interesting because it wasn't it really wasn't
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: about me. He just wanted a movie about a young
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: musician or talented person who is straddling the worlds of
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: childhood and some sort of skill. And so he called
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: us to do it, and my parents and I said no,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: absolutely not, you know, because I really keep in mind,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: I'd only been playing guitar for two years. I wasn't
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: like an established musician. But he heard of me through some
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: channel who knows what, and came. He was very persistent,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: and eventually we said, well, hey, this is clearly more
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: about you than about me, and that's kind of good
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: in a way. So that's why we proceeded. But yes,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: there was this film made.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: You're clearly a child prodigy, and there must be an
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: incredible set of expectations and pressures that go along with that.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Sure, absolutely, How.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Did you deal with that?
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Well, it's so cool that you frame it that way,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: because I think so often there's something blinding about really anybody,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: but especially young people when they exhibit any propensity. Is that, yeah, there,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: you get blinded by that. It's dazzling, and you don't
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: It's easy to forget that there's emotional infrastructure that needs
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: to be built and supported, and just to even understand
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: your own progress and understand your worth is not maybe
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: tied to your progress. And in some parts of life
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: you might be really advanced, other parts of life, you're
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: really at the beginning. All these considerations. I think they
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: reveal themselves, but it's easier to see that when you
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: have a supporting family or teachers or community. Now. At
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: the time, I remember getting a lot of attention, but
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: I never once felt overwhelmed by it, and I attribute
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: that to my parents. They were when my father was
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: a young boy, he was a bit of He was
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: a child prodigy as a visual artist, and he had
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: a one man show in southern California and we used
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: to have letters from you know, he'd send a portrait
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: to Jacqueline Kennedy and he'd get a letter back saying
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: thank you, or Norman Rockwell, and so I think he
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: saw and at certain points he got older, he decided
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: not to pursue art because I think that part of
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: it freaked him out, is what I imagine. So when
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: it came to me, I think there was already a
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: certain defensive barrier. No one could really get to me.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: As a kid, I practiced a lot. I did my thing.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Every so often, I'd come up for air, but I
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: didn't I was unbothered by it. Now, as I became
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: more of an adult, I could see it in the
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: rear view beer a little differently. And I think what
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: helped me was that I didn't make a record under
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: my own name until I was about twenty one twenty two.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: So from five until twenty two, I was just a
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: guy practicing guitar, playing people's bands, and it was great.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I think I needed that many years to just kind
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: of develop, and then when I hit it, I really
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: hit it strong. The last thing I'll say about that,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: I know I've said it before in other forums, but
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I'm of the generation right before the Internet being so
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: prevalent in young people's lives. So there was a documentary
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: made about me, but there was no YouTube, There was
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: no clips of me anywhere, so I was a secret.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: What went out was very even in the documentary, I
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: don't actually play guitar in it, which is interesting. I
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: don't play. There's a moment where I play a scale,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: but that's kind of wild to think of that that
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: I'm not playing, you know, I could that could be,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: it could be all bogus for all anyone knows. But
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: thank god I didn't, you know, so I don't even
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: know what I sounded like at that age.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Really, you sounded awesome. You were playing.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: For a second, that's all I knew that that was
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the whole riff.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that's one of one of the things
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: about child prodigies is that I've seen a lot of that,
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: you know, but very few make the transition into being
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: adult artists. Yeah, and I think that, you know, they
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: a lot of them can do an eagle soul perfectly,
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: you know, and that's amazing to see a young kid
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: do that. But I didn't sinse even when I heard
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: you whatever you did in the It didn't sound like
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: anybody else. You weren't copying Eric Clappin or anything. You had.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: You had a voice, and I think that's you. That's
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: the rarest thing is development of your own voice.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Right well, I do, I do believe that, especially from
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: where I sit now. I was talking to my wife
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Margaret about this just was it last night. But my father,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: both my parents possessed this ability to be They're fans
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: of art and music and life right this, and so
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: they would talk about things I remember as a kid,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: and they would analyze people, Uh not in the way of, Okay,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: this person's great, you should be like them, but they
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: would say, this artist must think this way about themselves
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: in order to get this result that you're hearing, you
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: know what I mean. It's very new. As a kid,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: we would listen to Jim Hall or something just because
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: it was in the house that those records. I just
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: remember having those conversations with my father saying that, oh,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: he must have a an acceptance of his own sense
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: of humor and phrasing, because that that's what I'm getting
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: from this. And I took it for granted, but I
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: realized it's really rare. Usually we kind of say, well,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: we people become icons, and then it's very it becomes
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: almost impossible to develop a voice because you just aren't
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: that person. Your body doesn't work that way, your brain
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: doesn't work that way, your heart doesn't work that way.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: You didn't have those parents, you know. But I think
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: everything was broken down is if you can understand your
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: relationship to yourself, you'll be you'll have access to what
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: you can offer most genuinely. And for that, I'm so
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: grateful and I think that is the root of kind
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: of developing a voice on an instrument. Also, I'm a
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: terrible mimic. I couldn't sound like anyone if I tried,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: and I tried, I really remember no. I really my
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: wife on that. She's a brilliant. She can hear something,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: repeat it, make it her own. I you know, I
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: really can't. And it's good. It's a good handicapped.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: That tradition you're talking about though, of like there's icons
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: and then that you kind of steep yourself in them
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and so to become like them and then maybe hopefully
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: for lucky, find your voice after. That'sicularly strong tradition in guitar.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Unless sure, young young people learning guitar and playing guitar.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Oh my god? Yeah, did you have moments early on
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: with that? I mean, were you did you have at
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: any point, even if it was a traditional, traditional, more
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: traditional trajectory of like I'm learning the blues now now transitioning.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Well, well, I consider myself, it's a great question. I
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: consider myself such a history nut, you know, or maybe
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: more accurately, I believe I find great support in knowing
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: that I'm far from the only person doing this. You know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: it was here before me. I'll be here when I'm dead,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: So I'm just passing through, you know. So uh, yes,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I think there were times where I would investigate history,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: you know. Okay, I really want to understand t Bone Walker,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: and I really want to understand Muddy Waters. And I'm
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: not going to learn what they do, but I'm just gonna,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: I guess, cultivate a certain reverence through listening, playing along
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: with records, same with jazz, same with different musicians. But
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I was always under the belief I remember so vividly
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: thinking that here's my dream. I want us to be
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: right where I am with you right now. This truly
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: is my dream with all of you, and I want
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: to be myself, being a part of a creative project.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: That's what I want, and I recognize that in order
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: to do that and feel comfortable, I need to deal
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: with a lot of things that are really no one
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: else's business. And that's that's scales, that's theory, that's the
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: understanding the guitar. I need to get this sort and
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: so that our time isn't spent kind of being distracted
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: by something I'm not I don't have together. That was
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: always my view, So I remember practicing and acquiring information
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: from that perspective. I got to acquire a lot so
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: that I can just be available emotionally, because we all
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: know that when you're just inundated with stuff you have
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: to learn, and like you're saying these towering icons over us,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: you can't. You're fumbling to just get through. And that's
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: that can really plummet your sense of self, you know,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: And I just I just need to nix that in
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: the butt. There are things that are knowable on the guitar,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: and there's the good stuff is the unknowable stuff, but
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: there are noble things. I know where the notes are,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: and I know how to hold a pick.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And can you explain what the noble versus unknowable show.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: There's absolutely it's it's a little bit I feel silly
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: doing in front of all you guys. But you know,
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: even knowing where the pitches are on the instrument, I've
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: always felt like that's massively overlooked. Okay, you have, you
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: have all these seas there, and unless I change something
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: about the tuning or take a string off, those notes
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: will be there for me. Now what I've found, and
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: that's true of every all twelve pitches. What I've found, though,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: is there are so many hurdles as guitar players we
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: get into. I was there for a long time that
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: are attributed to knowing thirty percent of the neck fifty.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: But I know where three of the seas are. I don't.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: I really shouldn't go up there, I should go over
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: here instead. That's a very simple example of kind of
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: doing your homework as far is just map it out,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: not with a system. It takes a week, you know it,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: it really does. Always I felt about it. Another example
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: of it, I've had a fastening. You're really interested in this, Yeah, well,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I I've been fascinated by this, this thing about mastery
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: on the guitar, right because we're all interested all of
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: the super you know, you see the people go wow,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: they seem really good. They know something I don't. And
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I feel that all the time with my heroes. However,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: there are things. There's when you're good at something, there's
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: there's attributes that also kick in. Like if you're you
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: can use a fork and have a conversation, that means
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: you probably know how to use a fork. There are
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: these like okay, there's a bandwidth for other things. So
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: I remember, as a young person, younger person, I was
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: really thinking about that on the guitar. What despite all
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: the things I know, I don't know what's something I
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: can do that I just feel I could do in
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: my sleep. You can wake me up at three in
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: the morning with a fire extinguishure in my face. They do,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: and I'd say, okay, I can do it. And a
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: really good example would be probably playing a C major chord.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: You know the reason I say that, I probably learned
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: it really early on. And when I do it, I
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: can talk and do it. I can breathe and do it.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: I can I don't feel I'm not really I feel good.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I feel good and I can do it. Now to me,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: that's somewhat of a litmus test. That's a metric for
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: what it's like to have a mastery over a little
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: domain on the instrument. Now, the next thing would be
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: to tackle something that I have less of that experience with.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: So if I would do that and then i'd work
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: on I don't know what, I'd work on something difficult,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: and immediately I would just say, what has left me?
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I can't really breathe when I'm doing it. I'm really anxious,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of fumbling my tone, okay, dipped, Okay, so
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: let me go back to the reset. And I would
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: be ridiculous if you saw me, But I would keep
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: going back to that kind of touchstone. Wow, And if
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: you do it enough, you know how to For me,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: at least, I felt like I was able to get
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: those difficult things to feel good in a way that
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I had faith in. It's very hard to have faith
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: in that you're good at something if you if you're
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: not used to that good feeling. Do you know what
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: I mean?
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of interesting. So it's it's you knew
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: you had the hard thing when the hard thing kind of.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Felt felt like the thing that I considered good not
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: what someone else considered good feeling.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's funny to say that because I'm not
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: terribly stubborn, So it's not like it's not a This
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: isn't a protest, you know, I really don't have a
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: dog in the race. It just made sense to me,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: and I think that's how my father looked at teaching
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: me guitar when I when I started too. It's all
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: from him, you know.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: That's an incredible way to That's a really sophisticated way
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: of approaching guitar that my parents are deep.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: But it's it's beautiful because I have seen it pop
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: up in others. You see this, you see that. It's
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: the same with our health. You have to know when
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: you felt good, to know when you don't feel good, right,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: you have to kind of you have to. It's a
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: play of oppositions.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: With a touchstone champ. I mean, what, for instance, what
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: always be the seed?
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: It could be anything sometimes, but you have to go
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: and go to something that you would It feels too
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: simple to be legitimate. This is one of my favorites.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: You know, once it feels as once something difficult feels
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: as comfortable as just strong me a guitar open with nothing.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: That's when we're kind of getting close to a sense
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: of feeling masterful. It's it's certainly been working in a
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: nice way, and I and maybe it'll change, you know.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Do you have variations, you know on different days, like
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: something seem harder.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, one hundred, that's such a good point. Yeah, there,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: there's I feel that in the realm of time, feel
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: like I noticed it. Depending on the season, you know,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, some things will just feel
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: not accessible. I can't settle into this beat, or I can,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: but it's going to take me an hour and then
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: I can feel it. Other days they'll okay, there's I
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: can kind of access that physically too. I'm not a
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: big believer at this point, least in warming up on
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: the instrument, like it was a time where I did.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Speaking just from my own experience, I think there's kind
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: of a I like the way I sound when I'm
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: not warmed up. Sometimes yeah, I trip over my hand,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: but I also have to deal with that like a
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: human being rather than just oh this feels great, I
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: can do anything I want. So I would say it
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: does change as far as the physical time feel, I
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: like a lot of playing, a lot of improvised music.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: So usually the cures just start playing. You and I
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: have talked about this done before, about the kind of
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: the just the virtuous world of playing longer. You know,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: if you're looking for I want to sit down, play
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: for five minutes and be amazing, that's great. But what
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: if you sit down for forty five minutes, an hour,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: two hours, three hours and you don't stop. You will
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: hit walls and you also, my experience, resolve them musically
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: rather than divorcing them from the act of playing. And
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: so usually when something's off, I just play more.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: I've heard that you'll play like ninety minutes sometimes over
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: just the same changes.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, Oh you get so it's kind of yeah, sick
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: of yourself, and then you get happy, and then you
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: get it. It's a journey, you know. But long form
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: playing has been become a big that's a big part
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: of my life. And if I don't have the time
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: for that lately, I'm okay, just not playing. Do something
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: else long form, do you know, Just be alive long
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: for you know, but just try not to break every
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: part of life into these little kind of life hacker moments.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: There's a great line in Jewels that day where your
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: dad's talking and he's talking about people saying, well, don't
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: make him practice all the time. He said, no, I
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: try to make him stop.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: It was true, like you have to really stop. It's
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: been eight hours, you know. It's funny like that.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Though.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: I feel lucky because I teach a lot, not much lately,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: but I've taught a lot culturally speak. There is so
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: much pressure nowadays in the educational system that I remember
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: even as a kid, it wasn't the same. And I
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: really have looked back on it. Play all day because
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: it's fun was kind of okay, but I've noticed that
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: rhetoric is not the same. And if you see young, well,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: that's great that you can play, but you can't just play.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: You've got to be working on something and you have
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: to that has to be something that you can show
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: to other people, so we can tell you if you're
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: getting better or not. I somehow avoided all of that. Yeah,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: that's good, So I feel lucky.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: After fare in school, you went to berkeleye age.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: I went to Berkeley College of Music. I loved it. Well,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: at first I didn't, and then I loved it. You know,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: as a teenager, I started playing with Gary Burton and.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Before you were at before, yeah, before.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: I was there, so I but Gary used to be
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: you know, the he ran that school for so many
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: years and he's a part of it for fifty years.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: So it wasn't a big leap to say, well, when
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: I get old enough, I want to go there. Gary's
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: kind of my guy. So I went and I did
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: the thing, Okay, go up to the class whatever, and
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: I really didn't like it. I was kind of miserable
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: for the first semester, and by no one's doing other
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: than my own. I realized that I'd gone from being
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: in this musical space to music school, which we all
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: those who are familiar with any kind of art school,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: they kind of they have to make it such that
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: you're that everyone has accessed information. So you go from
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: being the special person in your community, you know, to
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: being one of thousands. You go from being the person
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: your bedroomho's learning songs because you're just fascinated too. I've
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: got homework now and I haven't touched the guitar in
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: a month. I thought something's off, you know, So I
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: called the president of the school, Roger Brown, who I
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: really adore, right to the top. I just said, look,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I don't want always say anyone. Sime. You're so so
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: gracious to let me be here, but I'm going to
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: tell you this isn't for me, and I'm going to
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: move on. And he he I left that at a voicemail.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: I realized now he called me back, a'mbout tim and
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: to say he said, Julian Jillie, what is up? But
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: I said, well, here's the deal. I know if I
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: I can cultivate what I'm doing already, there's jazz guitar
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: pass there's all I want to get my butt kicked
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: with what I don't know? He said, what is it?
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: I said, classical composition, classical piano, really deeply get into counterpoint,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: and study with Mick Goodrick, you know, the master. And
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: he said, we will figure this out. And I ostensibly
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: became wrapped up in something they were rebuilding, which is
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: what they call an artist diploma program. Juilliard's got a
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: lot of schools have them. It's kind of like a
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: master's degree. And he said, we'll frame it academically so
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: that your last, you know, ten years of touring with
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Gary Burton. We'll consider that like an undergrad now, but
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: you have to tell us what you want to get
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: out of this. And I said, I want to make
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: my first record. That's my final and I need about
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: three years to study before I want to make the record.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: And it's just, you know, it's all the stuff is low.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: It's not life or death. And they also had an
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: open mind, but I took it very seriously. I studied
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: with them. I did everything we said I would do,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: including making my first record sounding point Wow. And I
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: loved it. And there were other students who I hipped
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: to this program because they were coming in that and
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: they needed something similar, so it was a good thing
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: for all. I thought it was really cool, really cool.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more from Don was and
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Me in conversation with Julian lash We're back with Julian Lage.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: How did you connect with Gary?
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: He saw me on the Grammys. I was playing on
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: this telecast back in two thousand and two thousand and one,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: and they had this moment took thirty seconds of kids
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: playing jazz, you know, and I was one of the kids.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Similar to the documentary we spoke of earlier. I was
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: invited and said no because I had no interest in it,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: and they were really persistent, and I said, okay, okay,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: so do the thing. And I got a letter maybe
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: a week after it was televised from Gary and he said,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: my name is Gary Burton. I was in the audience
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: that night. I've got a gig at the TED conference
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: in six months. And back in those days, it was
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: always it was not what it's become. It was a
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: little different. It was in Monterey, California, in this hotel
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: and it was small and very still very exclusive, and
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: they hired Gary to do a thing about intergenerational something
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: or other and I was the younger generation, so he said,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: you want to be my younger generation for this. I
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: was sure, you know, and it went so well that
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: he asked me to then do a cruise on the
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Queen Elizabeth too, you know, the one from New York
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: to London, which had it was great they would have
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't know if they still do
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: it with these jazz festivals. And it was Gary's band,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Tommy Flanagan's trio, Bud Shank. It was fabulous. Terrible experience
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: on the cruise because we hit a storm, but like
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: fifty foot seas and a piano was rolling off the stage.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: I'm talking bad. We got through it. Here we are,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: but but it went so well that Gary Gary was
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: basically laying out these CRUs you know, if this goes well,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: then I'll ask you to do this if this goes well.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: And then after that he basically we should make a record,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: and then that started the wow about a decade straight
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: of working together. So you made a Gary's record, I
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: mean Gary's record shortly after that, which was I forget
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: the name of it, but it was with with Makoto
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Zone and James Genis and Clarence.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Pan it was. It was great.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: And then he started some of this Generation's band, which
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: is some other younger musicians, and then we did another
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: few records. It was so impactful. I mean, Gary Burton
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: is is the maestro.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: How surreal were these more? I mean not only like
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: you know, doing a jazz festival and the Queen Elizabeth
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: too joining Gary Burne's band, and but then you know,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: playing like you skipped over, but just being invited down
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to Grammy's telecast at that age must have been insane.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: And I saw an amazing clip of you at nine
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: oh playing Maggot Brain with Carlo. It was wild that
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: not only you're playing with Carlos Santana at that age,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: but then you're playing Maggot Brain.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like amazing.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: They're not like, you know, you're kind, I appreciate corny,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: They're like good, You're like, whoa, I appreciate that.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't I don't know the first
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know how any of this. I don't know,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: but I I I have to say I sound so.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, I feel silly saying this, but I'm saying
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: unless I do believe those were different times, and I
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: think there's a different version of it now. But the
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Santana thing, my father worked at Fog City Diner in
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: San Francisco, and he had someone came in who is
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: using friends with and he said, I know Santana and
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I heard your son's playing guitar. They're friends. My dad
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: said yeah, and he said, well he's Santana's playing at
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: the wherever in two weeks. You should just show up.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: You know, they usually usually they get there by two pm.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: That's all the information we had. So we got in
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: the car and we drove there and showed up at
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: two pm.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Were you worried that you're gonna bell.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: The funny thing about it this is would have been
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: when I was seven and we drove, we pull up,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: go back, stay okay. This is also before nine to
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: eleven too. I mean there there's big cultural things. Were
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: just a little no, you really go Okay, that's where's
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: where's Carlos? He's in that room. Okay, So my parents
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: I knock on the door and he said, oh, you're
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: the kid I heard about. Come in and we sat
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: and we played. And that night he that was the
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: night where it was Jeff Beck and him, we're doing
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: this tour, but check this out. The best part of
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: that to me was he said, do you want to
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: play tonight? And my parents and I just kind of
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: intuitively you looked at each other. No, I didn't come
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: to I didn't come to play in front of twenty
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: thousand people. I came to meet the master. That that's
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: that's the point. Yeah, And he said, well, no worries,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: we'll enjoy the show. And if you're we come here
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: every year, so when we come back, you should just
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: come again and bring guitar. So great. So, with no communication,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: a year later, almost to the date, we drove up,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: got there too, knocked on the door, you know, he said,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: oh you Pat, you came. Do you have a guitar
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: this time?
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Okay, And then that's the video you saw.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: But so there and it was surreal. But also I
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: don't think I was in an environment that hyped anything up.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: It also didn't push me down. And I've known people
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: who have that figure in their life who says, you know,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: don't get too comfortable, kid, this is gonna you still
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: got to prepare. There was none of that good cop,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: bad cop mind stuff. It was religious, just like I
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: don't know, just respond, be present and music at the
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: end of the day, as we all know, is a
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: healing force of the universe. It's it's the sub what
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: we're talking about is very generous, it's very loving, it's
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: very supportive, and it protects us. I believe that to myself.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: But that's why I looked to I mean, these cats.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: And as a young person I was, I was around
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: people who were talking about what was behind the door,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: you know, being around Higgins, being around Billy Hart, being
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: around Charles Lloyd. I mean, it was I I knew
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: that it wasn't just it wasn't your hands moving it's
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: this other thing, and it's it's it's for for all
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: of us. It's not just for the for few, you know,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: it's it's it's here to make us happy and healthier.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: So I would say that's a backdrop that probably informs
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: all of this. So the Grammys, it is what it was, wonderful,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: is fine. It got us here today, and that's kind
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: of all I can say.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: If you do all that when you're younger, does it
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: make you a little more fearless as an adult?
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: I think it can. I think there's two ways you
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: can go. In my case, I think it it let
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: the air out of the tire in a good way
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: to say, you know, you can. There's varying degrees of success.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: As you look at it, you see, you know, but
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, if you're in a
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: room with people sharing in the same thing, you're all
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: kind of equals in that moment. And I think it
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: cut down on a lot of the intimidation of I
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: should I can't do that, or I can't play that venue,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't be on the stage because I have no experience.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: So I do think there's been that's carried me through
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: say you know, Hey, we're all. We're all just we're
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: just all kind of circulating in the same world. Now
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: I've seen it go the other way, where when you're
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: around at a young age, you feel like if you
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: do anything that's not the Grammys, that's not major, if
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: it doesn't garner a ton of attention, then you failed.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: I don't believe that for myself, but I feel for
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: those who do, because that's you must feel like, Hey,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: i was playing for twenty thousand people. Now I'm playing
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: for one hundred peop trying to get my band off
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: the ground, and no one cares because they don't know
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: theyn't heard it yet. That's that's a that's unsettling.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but worth it. You know.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Another thing that strikes me is that guitar playing can
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: be really solitary pursuit, so very solitary, to the point
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: where you know it can be you cannot know how
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: to play with other people? Yeah as well, yes, did
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: were you playing with other people? Because I mean that's
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: something you do also very well? It was it a
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: thing of us keeping it to yourself and in your room,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: but play.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: With I would look for every drummer in my community
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: who I knew was into jazz and play duets with them. Okay,
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: then all the bass players won't play duets with them.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Every gig I could get, playing restaurant gigs, play with
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: my teacher. My teacher, Randy Vincent was hugely influential my playing.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: And Randy and I study with him from when I
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: was about eight years old, so I was about twelve,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: so five years and I had two three hour lessons
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: a week for five years, and so right that was
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: just like sit down and a lot of that was
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: just playing duets. And as we know, playing duets is
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: it's the best training because it really is a conversation
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: and it's about supporting the other person, and you know,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: can I can I be there for this person who
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: I revere in respect? It's it's it's it's kind of
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: terrifying but wonderful. So I do come from a tradition
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: of learning, which is very experiential. You play with people,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: you find out what didn't work, you go home, you
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: take your vitamins, and you come back. You know, that's
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: kind of the deal. But I played so much with drummer.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: I was always looking for that, like I understood that
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: I wanted to be a guitar player that was empathetic
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: to other instruments because just because I can do it
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean it's with the it's in the best interest
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: of the band, right and everybody else has to deal
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: with the same thing too. It's been somehow guitar education.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: You have to kind of be reminded.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Extra the culture around it.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: There's a culture around it that is a little bit
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: of this top dog. Everyone caters to that, and we
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: all know that's not really the case, and the best
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: players do it do it all. You know. We were
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: talking about Richards earlier, and it's like Keith has that
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: thing where there's nothing more compelling than watching him and
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: hearing him play. And when you hear him play, everyone
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: else sounds better while he's playing, and that that's the
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: magic trick that I'm obsessed with. How do you lift
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: the band? That's what Duke Ellington was doing, That's what
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: count basically, that's what everyone's really doing to me.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Well, and I feel like, so on your new record
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Speak to Me that I alluded to earlier, how great
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: it was. There's songs on there like Omission, Much of Us,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: like Pure Groove. Yeah, it is almost Keith Richard's style,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: and yeah.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: I'm the rhythm guitar player for that track, and there's
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: a melody embedded, but it's but it's subliminal. It's it's
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: it's totally baked into the center. Yeah, that's a cool
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: example of that.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: How does that?
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: How did you let me see if I play that's? Uh,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: that's that's that's the sentiment, that's the whole tune. You know. Uh,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: it's cool, It's it's really cool.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: It's really so, it feels really good.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: It feels really good. So I have an you know
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: that that I I humble pie on that one. I
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: I that was the a section of a longer song
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: and I'd written it in kind of a writing sprint.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: I was writing all these tunes and you know, like
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: lots of dozens and dozens pencil and paper kind of SATs,
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: write one throat and then I and I I threw
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: it out because I it wasn't done. And then Joe Henry,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: who produced the record. This is on the last day
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: of the recording, I was driving in the session with
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Margaret and I was saying, you know, there was that
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: song that's not finished and it's probably a bad idea
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: for me to try to finish this song right now,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: isn't it. And she was like, well, no, just you
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: kind of have you have other things on your plate.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: You have to finish the record. I don't think you
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: need more. But and so I showed Joe when we
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: got there, and I said, well, here's the first part
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: and it needs the next part. And as you know,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: from a place of such clarity and experienced, Joe said,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: how about you don't finish it and you just loop that?
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: And I said, sure, you know, and and it was.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: It was beautiful because I realized that, Yeah, I think,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: at least to me, what I get excited about with
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: that song is the real drama reveals itself. Once you've
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: gone into this kind of tantric thing, it needs time
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: to get you kind of worked up. And had I
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: committed to my stipulation that no, I insist there's more
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: to be written, it just would have been a different drama,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: you know, And I'm so glad it wasn't that. There's
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: also something very kinesthetically physically pleasing about playing a song
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: where you know, I'm not trying to play just a
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: single note. I can kind of throw my weight into
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: the rhythm yeah, and the strumming and the Richie Havens
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: ode he had all all things are and so yeah,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: that but that that that's kind of song that. Yeah,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Jim Hall used to love Richie Havens. You would talk
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: about him a lot, you know. Oh yeah, because Jim
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I can't do it, you know, Jim had the Yeah,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: this guy, I wish I could do it like him,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: and he'd do with a lighter pick and and uh,
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: but I would ask him about it. He's, oh, Richie Havens,
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: it's all it's all Richie, you know. Like of course, what.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: Was Richie Havens was like an open eto I think
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: so it was.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Some sort of open tuning that he could, you know,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: then access with his thumb right and and that. And
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I got the sense he used Well,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't speculate. That's not my area. But I'm not
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: sure how he held the pick. But he was lighter
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: than this one, is my guess. But yeah, so that's
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: part of the joy of it, I guess.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Did you have a second section in mind for that song?
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I did. I don't remember it now, probably because it
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: wasn't terribly I remember talking to John Zorn about that.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: I was I was working on something just like like that.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: I said, uh, well, he just I just I just
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: can't seem to recall it because it's not coming together.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: And he was the one who gave me permission. He said,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: you can you can say it's not good and just
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: drop it. You don't have to be a hero and
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: like make it work. Yes, yeah, And I said, in
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: a way that was so sweet, it wasn't you just
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: kind of don't make it about you not being good.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: He's just I said, it's just not killing. Go do
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: something killing. And then okay, you know, fine, yes, sir.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Uh so yeah that but that song came out well
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: and it was nice because it also parlayed into the
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: band sounding great, amazing. He's so good and so anyway,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: that's right, that's what.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: We're going for. You hook up with hojge.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: That's a cool thing, very you know, happenstance. But it's
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: at this point Jorge Rotter, who I just think is
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: the greatest in the world. You know, we've been playing
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: together sixteen years pretty consistently. And we met at Stanford
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Jazz Workshop and I was teaching and he was visiting
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: a friend and we got put in a room a
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: coke closet, basically because Peter Burnstein was there that day
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: and we were all in a Peter you know, as
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: I still am, and they said, get rhythm, get everyone,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: we're gonna play a session. And it was me and
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: our friend Ben Roseth, Jorgey and Peter and we just
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: hit it off. Played instead. That felt great, and uh
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: so we would play duets. We started a band. Then
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Jorge joined Gary Burton's band, and then Jorge became part
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: of my trio. He was he was always a part
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: of it. He became part of this new configuration. And
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: then he became a part of Nell's Klein's band that
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: we did for Blueo that record do we record with Scott?
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: But then we went on tour with you with me? Yeah, no,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: I was with it. It was an Nels kind four
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: and then Horre and I both kind of joined Zorn's
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Worlds and then we became a part of the new
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Masadic quartet. So and apart from us just being complete,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: you know, completely connected, we've shared a lot of our
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: musical development together. There's no one else I've been through
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: so many projects with by my side, and uh it's
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: it's pretty remarkable.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: But you knew from the beginning. Then I knew from
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: the beginning the time.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Safe, you know, I think there's I think I think
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: safety is a big thing where you feel like you
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: can kind of go for something, you know that someone's
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: got your back. But also I think another part of
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: it with Hore is that we touched the string differently
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: but kind of similarly. We obviously him with a double
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: bass move the guitar, but there's a I do think
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: we share a similar belief that we deal with obstacles
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: kind of similarly. It's there there's kind of a the
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: only and I don't know, I could be wrong, but
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: I think we both see any kind of virtuosity as
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: a means towards emotional expression. So you it's like what
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: I'm saying about Boar, you developed these skills him on
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: the basis is unbelievably great, and yet you're never hit
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: with anything other than the emotional impact first and then
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: as addressed and go oh my god, and how did
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: he do that? But I think just that shared kind
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: of esthetic has kind of carried you know, you can
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: be daring, you can be amazing, can be virtuosis, you
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: can be fast, you can be you know, you can
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: be evil, and evil you can, but you always go
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: I think I love most about it is that he
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: will He'll always go for the attempt and he lands it,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: but he'll he that that exhilaration is so seductive and
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: it's just and I'm not saying on fast music. It
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: can be on a ballad, but there's the sense that
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: we're gonna we're gonna jump off the cliff and I
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: don't know if the parachute's gonna open, And so it's
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: been nice to have that energy follows through all these pride.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Do you ever write with him with him?
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Not really, it's kind of understood that that's not our domain,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: but I should say this, I do write with him
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: in the sense that I will write thirty songs, forty songs,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: just a bunch of stuff, and then the first place
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: I go is to his house and we play them
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: all and we see how it hits us. And he's
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: a massive part of the music you hear because of that.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: So he's a part of the editing, he's part of
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: the sequence of the records, he's a part of everything.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Jorge is integral and there are things we have definitely
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: co written, but I think it's I mean, all fairness,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: anything we've ever recorded together in mine is the He
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: deserves credit for it sounding the way it is on
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: a compositional level, but it's usually not because we started together.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: One of the tunes on your new record that sounds
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: like virtuosic, if that's a word, but again, kind of
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: like Omissions has a great feel too. Is vanishing points?
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's yeah, that's this one.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Listen, I'll say a little bit and then the theme
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: is fa that's the that's the architecture.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: After this last break. While the rest of Down was
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: and me in conversation with Julian Lage, here's the rest
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: of our conversation with Juliana.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: How do you even write something like that?
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Man?
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: I don't even.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm trying to remember that one. To me,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: that's such an ode to Carlo Blea. You know, it
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: kind of feels like a liberation music orchestra song. There's
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: something blunts about this parallel movement. It's almost it's like
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: it's it's it's so, it's just it's just so, I
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: don't know what it is normal in a way, it's not.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: It's not terribly clever. It's just this sounds cool. Bam
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: bam bam bam bamp and and there's something about it
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: where I think it's juxtaposed with this very elegant, almost
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: kind of folklore sounding melody. And I think when I
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: say folklore, I think I think of it even as
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: reprids me certain Italian music's or in Jewish music's certain.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: There's just that's whatever. That's my projection, and a tune
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: like that, it's very hard to stop writing, you know,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: because for me, it's like, well, it's not in time,
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: there's not really a progression that we blow over. And
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: so that's a tune that, you know, I kept putting
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: at the bottom of the pile. I wouldn't really show
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: it anyone because I don't do what you tell anyone
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: to do on that, you know, I got, I seem
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: to have it covered and it does this thing emotionally
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: and I don't really have any more directive. So but
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: as I showed it to Dave King and Joe wrote
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: to my trio, they they were they they pointed out
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: what what I think is. Obviously, of course there's something
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: to do, you just I'm just not dictating their part
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: it's a very inviting tune. And uh but that parallel
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: motion fun. That's all that, you know. I just keep
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: coming back to Stravinsky and know all these things in
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: bar talk. There's these movements and how you use it
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: as everything.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: But did that just burst out of you in one
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: sitting or did you go a section at a time.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: I think I want to say that it was It
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: was kind of a combination of both. It was an
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: improvisation probably that I'm pretty fastidious about writing things on
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: a big piece of manuscript paper. And when doing and
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: doing that, you see these kind of the sections are
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: just laid out like a storyboard. And so I remember
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: with that one kind of moving them around a lot.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: You know, is this the begin or do we save that?
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: Is this the first thing that happens? Is this the
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: first thing? So I just remember toilet like kind of
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: putting them in different orders until it got a trajectory.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: But I improvise a lot and record and then transcribe it.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: That's a big thing, you know, I will. And with
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: this record, I was, you know what I was really
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: on a side twombly kick. I was looking at a
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: lot of side twombly art as one of my father's
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: favorite artists, and I had this book of my father's
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: I was looking at it, and so I would spend
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: a lot of time looking at an image, improvising and
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: recording it and then going back and kind of seeing
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: if anything emerged that was There's a tune on the
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: record called two and one, So yeah, uh, that's that's
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: that's just that's an improvisation that I Okay, I write
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: it down, and and it's what's interesting to me is
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: that I don't think writing down makes it more significant.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: You can write down a piece of garbage, you know too,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: and you just go, oh, that was a lot of
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: work for nothing. But there is something noticeable in that tune,
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: and listening back with that, I that wouldn't have occurred
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: to me to pay something that way if I was
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: looking at a piece of paper, you know, and then
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: you write it down and it looked to me. I
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: looked at the chart the other day and it still
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: looks like something I never would have written. And that's
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: so cool, you know, But it takes time to say, no,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: I'm going to write everything, and kind of how.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Long are you improvising before something like that comes out?
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Well, I suppose it depends that wasn't terribly long, you know,
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: not long, probably as long as it took to just
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: play and then stop, so a minute, you know, But
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: I improvise in those chunks a lot for that reason.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: I believe that, you know. One of the great lessons
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I learned was from alouding Matthew w A Matthew wonderful
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: composer who I studied with only once as a kid,
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: and he wrote a bunch of very important books, the
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: short version of stories that at an early age when
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: I studied with him, he encouraged me to improvise one
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: minute compositions a lot. Wow, and here's the quick version
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: of it, because it's quite expansive. But he would I
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: came to myself, I'm trying to develop my voice and
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: understand how to be a composer. And he said, well,
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: here's what you do, is you improvise a song. So
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: we're not just saying you're not just playing around, you're
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: trying to okay, at thirty seconds, you're at the middle
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: at forty five seconds a year near the end, he said,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: I want you to do this with a timer and
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: a recorder. That was before I phone side now he said,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: I want you to do ten of these a day
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: for a week and don't listen to them until the
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: week is up. And I sold anything else, he said, no,
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: just try to create a narrative. Create a narrative, and
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: do not listen to them. At the end of the week,
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: you have seventy minutes. It's like a stop you know,
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: it's like stop animation, or seventy minutes of you improvising compositionally.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: And he said, I want you to listen to that
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: and basically make two lists. On one list, write down
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: everything you notice about it, and on the other side
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: of list everything you'd like to develop or further. And man,
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: the first time I did this, I think I saved
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: up twelve days worth or fourteen days. I had one
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: hundred and forty minutes of me playing solo guitar, which
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: was I never would have done at that time if
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I hadn't done it one minute a time. What I
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: thought was cool about it was I heard trends, your
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: trends in your music. I was playing all these D
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: major chords and I playing all this country music. I
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: would I thought I was a beboffer.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know what I played all these like languid mail.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, stuff that I didn't relate to, but it
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: didn't lie. I had, you know, here here I was.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: And that that got me thinking that every time you improvise,
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: you are kind of stating your language. It's not like
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna wiggle around until something happens. You you you
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: are you so just kind of s and that that
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: I think that makes it so it's less of a
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: you just be yourself on record.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: How did you respond to that information? Was it.
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: Country?
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: So that's that started all my That kind of pushed
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: me into all the the stuff I was doing with
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: in my own music that was probably more Americana leaning.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: I didn't feel as bad about using open strings. I
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: didn't feel all those tropes. I was just like, holy cow,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: I'm this kid from California who grew up around this music.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Of course, of course that's what comes out. I just
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: was blind to. So I I endorsed it, you know,
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: I reinforced it. I wrote that way, and I started
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: a band around this old quintet. I started playing with
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Chris Eldridge, start playing with Christely, So it was it
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: was good, you know, and that interesting. So anyways, so
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: all to say when you're in front, I think you know,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: It's probably did you have did you walk away? With songs?
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: So many songs, so many songs. It's just a matter
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: of kind of picking him out. Well that's this thing,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: or a lot of that. And I did another big
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: batch in that I did this for years, you know,
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: five years of the straight led to a solo record
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: I made called World's Fair and that was all improvisations
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: basically that I just like took out and then put
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: on wow, put up.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: Do you still do whatever?
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: I do it a lot less less systematically.
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: I wasn't feeling well recently for a little while, and
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: then I kind of got my strength back to play.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: And all I do is I just in my room
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: and improvise these things. I record them and I just
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: it's great. It's it's really healing to do it. And
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: then I've and some songs are growing out of it already,
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: so it's kind of cool. You know.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Comedy one more time?
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, ten, it's my favorite thing in the world.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: You're going to set a time or let's just say
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: for ease, we'll say voice memo.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: You know app.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: You press start, you begin playing, and you begin playing
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: as if it's a song that you know, but you're
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: just playing it now, right, it's kind of make believe.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: You want to keep your eye on the clock because
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: at about thirty seconds, this is your this is your
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: last exit, you know before you're so if you want
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: anything to change, you can do it there. At about
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: forty five to fifty seconds, you want to cought be
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: conscientiously trying to bring it in for landing. You don't
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: want the buzzer to go off and be startled. And
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: you would do this ten times a day, but not
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: one after another. So maybe you do it and you
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: go do something, come back to another, do it. You
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: are actively trying to get a snapshot, getting like your
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: blood work done. Musically, you're trying to get your labs done,
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: and you do, but you just don't open it up
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: till the end. And when you listen to it, you
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: put it in iTunes or something so you can listen
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: to it uninterrupted, and so you forget where the minutes
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: started and where it ended, and you do it on
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: shuffle things like that. Isn't that cool?
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: If you pick up a different guitar there's a whole
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: other thing.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, well, it's funny you say that. Don I feel
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: like my brain is between the electric world and the
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: acoustic world, and within that there's varieties. But the touch
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: is it's different between the two instruments, and I feel,
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm in I'm humbled that by the instrument.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: I need to just play what the guitar sounds good doing.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: Having said that, I tend to rotate only between a couple,
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: you know, mostly guitars that are in tune, so that
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: at least I have a pitch. You know, I don't
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: use I don't play much with effects or anything, but
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: I know that's another world that would probably be quite
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: stimulating if I just wanted to explore it.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: When you're at home and you pick up a guitar,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: do you do you just pick one up instinctually, whether
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: it's acoustic or electric or do you often purpose sweet.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Whichever one I can reach from my chair kind of
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: that's my instine. This one was out. This acoustic that
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: I'm holding was out. So I've been playing more. But
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: there there there was about a month where I was
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: too lazy to get my main telecaster that I play
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: all the time from the from the closet, and so
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: I was playing this other one and it's set up
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: very differently, and it was really inspiring to play that.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I really really believe that so much education
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: about playing comes from the instrument. Not to say, just
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: for clarity sake, that you need an expensive guitar to
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: learn how to be a great player. But you know,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: it's not about me bringing my skills to an instrument.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: It's really about modifying them so that the instrument resonates.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: I picked up a guitar last night. I never really
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: play lately. It was too far away from my reach,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: as I said before, and Margaret was working in the
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: kitchen there and we were just thinking. I was so lovely,
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: and I like, okay. I got out this old tweed
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: champ I used to play religiously and now it just
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: sits next to the tree in the corners. I'm gonna play.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: And I plugged it in and I sounded bad on it.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: I just couldn't get a sound. Everything I played sounded
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: like I had, you know, boxing gloves on. I was
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: just kind of and then but over the course of
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: about thirty minutes it got bitter, and by the end
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: I was playing. It was such it sounded so good.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you because I just chilled out. I touched
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: it the way the guitar wanted to be played and
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: not the way I wanted to play it, and I
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: just said, like, think thinks that was what a lesson
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: I put it down.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: And it's so interesting. That's the opposite sometimes, I mean,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: guess going back to uh sort of the the lineage
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: you get into when you pick up a guitar, these
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: icons as I mean, the stories you hear is like
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Hendrix getting beating the guitar and it's a submission, you know,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: I never use and it's to left hand. It's right handed,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: but he's left hand, and he's just gonna make it work,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: you know. And it's like, but it's but this is
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: not wrong, it's just different. It's it's it's rather, it's
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: just a submission. It's I'm gonna meet it where it's
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: at that guitar.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I that just happens to be my interest. I
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: don't think it's right for necessarily obviously I'm for everybody.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: But but but but there's I think also just a
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: point of clarity too, because you make a great point.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: It's not to count, you know, to to take myself
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: out of the equation and say, I'm just trying to
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: make the guitar sound great. I'm a big part of it,
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: but as far as the marriage of the two, so
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: you're not doing it from a place of I'm no
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: good And as long I just need to as long
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: as the guitar sounds good, it's going to be good.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: I understand that it's just it's just a it's a
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: dialogue between the forces, that's all. And I need to
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: be present for what's coming back. And and uh, and
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: it's funny because we're talking about uh, you know, drummers,
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: bass players, piano players, so all these are instrumentalists who
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: play instruments that aren't their own a lot. This is
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: not a novel concept. You know that you that it's
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: not the I remember I was. I was starting to
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: do this on these some of these shows with Zorn
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: where we fly into someplace for a day and then
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: fly home and can't bring all the equipment, so I
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: just use backline guitars, acoustic electric, it doesn't really matter.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: And I remember doing it and it was so liberating
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: because I started to notice that you don't need you
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: don't need a great instrument to leave space, you don't,
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: you know. And if my main contribution in these bands
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: is what I don't play, and then it doesn't have
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: to be my guitar. So all these things are. I
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: just want to keep coming back to that just for myself,
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: as it's always in service of what the musical act is,
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: and it's it's really it doesn't none of it really matters.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: You just want to be present, but from a guitar
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: playing point of view, from just being getting better at
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: and I like rotating just so I don't get too comfortable.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: If I feel really good on one, I will pick
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: up another to see if if my skills translate, you know,
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: or if it was just because of that one that
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: those strings are just perfectly dead and that's why it sounds.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: Good, you know. Will you switch positions from night to night? Yes,
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: on the same song, Oh completely.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of into like any melody, I don't know
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: how to exemplify it, but I'm a believer of If
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: I seen my left hand down here a lot on
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: this song one night, the next night, I want to
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: see it up here more. And then I want to
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: see it in the middle and just because you don't
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: get me into more problems that I can get out
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: of them. And there's a little bit of a masochistic element,
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: Don't be too comfortable when you were showing us all
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: the different seeds. Oh yes, yeah, yeah, so on my
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: bass anyway, they all have different personalities a.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: Thousand percent there they are, they are you, they're there,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: and then within that you have where you wear on
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: the string. At least my keys on the right hand,
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: I play it, you know, I notice a difference between
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: and then if I move my hand towards the Fredbourg
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: and then as volume goes down. That's my favorite is
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: what happens when you get quiet enough is so in
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: some way it got louder because we all listened, you know,
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: but I played quieter, and to play quieter the big
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: a big thing for me with shifting of tambers has
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: a lot to do with velocity.
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: If you want something louder, you play it you you
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: move through the string faster. If you want to play
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: it quieter, you move through slower. We're talking incrementally, but
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: that modulation of playing a fast line but moving through
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: the strings slowly, that's when you get these kind of
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: things that are kind of ephemeral, and they just I'm
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: that very different than I'm actually moving. Quite the temp
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: of the lines the same, but I'm moving way faster
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: through it, and I'm and so that those interplays I'm
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: obsessed with with string instruments, and in the fact that, oh,
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: this allows me to say by biggest pet peeve, which
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: is that I feel like there's sometimes there's sometimes a belief,
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: especially in guitar pedagogy, that the string should sound the same.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: They should you should have evenness.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: There's a time my life where I hunted that down.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: I want everything to be even so you don't, and
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: and I increasingly I just love that they are not
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: the same. No two notes are the same. We were
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: playing in but I loub Leana in Europe with John's
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Orange Band. This is like a month ago and like, okay,
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: we have an hour and seventy five minutes set. First
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: song by high e string just pops off, say okay, great,
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: And I'm sitting there and I know no one else
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: noticed it, and I know no one else really cares too,
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: and it was so I'm going to play a five
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: string set. This is great. I've always wanted to, you know.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: And it was so.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: Slamming because without this, the e the duplicate and now
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: they're hardly duplicate since they're two actors apart. But it
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: just was I just loved it, and it forced me
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: in all these other areas and Tamberley, I didn't have
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: access to that thing, that kind of crisp thing, so
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: you're you know, and I just I don't know.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: So I didn't get in trouble at any point through
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: the night or no, Nope, I was fine.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: I got out five. If you asked me to do
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: it again, I would be screwed because I kind of
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: figured out some ways and.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: Then I I just that was it.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: But but yeah, tambour on an instrument is beautiful on
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: the guitar especially, and I think the bass too. That's
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: something is very cognizan enough. He can deal with, especially
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: with walking lines and different registers, and when the song
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: needs it, he'll go, you know, things will get intense
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: and he'll move higher, but on the low strings so
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: that there's room for me to kind of thunder around
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: in the basement so to speak, you know, and then
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: we'll switch places. But what strings you play things on,
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: that's everything. On the guitar for me.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we were talking before we started this, and then
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: I cut it off because I wanted to talk about it.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: And it kind of ties in the same thing. We're
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: talking about abandonment of set lists. Yes, let's talk about
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: as a gig with Joey.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: Well, you did this, we were on This was not
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: terribly long ago, three months ago, four months ago. The
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: band was myself and Horaey wrote and Joey Barron, the greatest,
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: you know drummer. We just I have such love and
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: respect for Joey and I always have and so to
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: play together is a real dream, you know. And so
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: Jorge and I know our whole repertoire. We know all
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: the songs, and we're cognizant that to bring Joey into
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: the fold, we're not gonna send him a Okay, here's
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: a binder, learn all this stuff and do what No, no, no,
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: we'll come in to you. We'll meet in the middle.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: And so my first thought was, Okay, we'll play standards,
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: we'll play blue well, things that he knows. But as
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: we got to the sound check part of the day
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: and we're playing, I'm realizing that Joey is so present
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: and everything. Hoy and I start to play. I like, well,
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: maybe we could show him this. Within ten seconds, he's
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: playing what I would consider the perfect part to it,
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: and he said, Joey, had you know to Dooley said,
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: I don't, I'm just listening. I'm just listening to you.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: I thought, okay, we're in the deep end. We got
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: to really savor this. So I said, well, okay, I'll
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: write up a set list. And this is the only
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: time the whole day. Joey says, well, can I can
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: I just say something?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Of course, Joey, what do you He says, would you
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: be a verse to no set list? And I said,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: well it's no, it would would no. I've always kind
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: of wanted that to do that, but I'm afraid. And
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: he said, well, just let's just see what happens. Right,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: So we go out on stage and I'm for the
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: only time in reason so I remember shake being shaky,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: you know, I was like a backed room in Portland, Oregon,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: and I was just like, oh no, and okay, I said,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: I would do it. I'm gonna do it. And so
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: we go out and I I just really listened to
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: the room. Okay, where are we And it kind of
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: went against everything that I would typically do, but I said,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: we're gonna play You and the Night in the music
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: kind of fast, which I would never go to that. Okay,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: we do Joey, I mean, okay, kill her next song.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna start this old one I haven't played in
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: fifteen years. But I know Hojoor knows it bam cool.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: And though I was still scared the whole time, when
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: it was all over, I felt this relief of I
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: think that was one of the most honest things I
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: could have offered and that we could have offered. And
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: it also leveled the playing field in a way where
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: it wasn't like we know my tunes, you're sitting it
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: what it was. We have a life of music. We
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: can respond. It's going to be cool. And I haven't
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: looked back since every show did we just did a
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: whole tour, whole European too, a different set every night,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: and with now with Dave and Horey don I love it.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: I love it. You just start playing, you just are
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: playing it. Also, I think it also invites a real
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: consideration of tempos, not like I said, I would play
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: the song third, so I'm going to play it, but like,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: where's the room at? Where's my energy at with this?
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a really important thing to consider
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: because you have to occupy that space for the next five, ten, fifty,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: well whatever long your song is. I felt so much
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: happier every night. I felt so much more ease, less strenuous.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: I wasn't trying to shove something into you know. So anyway,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: it got me thinking differently. But I think it holds
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: hands with the music I like to play to begin with.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: Do you start thinking about what the next song will
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: be before you and the other one?
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: I think it does occur that hey, this is we're
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: here and this something will pop into my mind, But
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: I'm not I don't hold to it too tightly.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: There was a couple of times right yeah, middle of
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: the song, Oh, I know exactly what's gonna come next,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: and then the song ends and you hear the plause
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: and you look around and go, I was wrong, got it.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite things about seeing Neil Young
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: is the same thing. No set list, and so I
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: was like, what's the first song going to be? And
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: sometimes it's like a twenty minute version of like an
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: inca and like half the eye its disappears.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: That's where he's at. You know, we were done. I
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: was speaking to that very point, like I would imagine
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: Neil Young is Neil Young. You're going to get a
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: hit of him on that day, and that's the that's
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: the gift, that's a great gift. We were speaking earlier
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: about this the time. I've been playing with Joe Lovano
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: recently and we were talking a lot about I guess
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: you would call har melodics is a way to say
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: it from Ornette's world or at Coleman's world. But here's
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: the distillation is that at any given moment as players,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: we have access to all tempos. You play faster, you
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: play slower, you have access to all keys depends no
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: matter what the key of the song is. But there
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: there are these matrixes where you can I think all
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: my favorite improvisers, someone like Paul Blay can kind of
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: slip between these dimensions. You know, Keith can do that
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: key chair obviously, Ornett, Don Cherry Charlie can do that.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: And I think I'm at a place in my own
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: development where I'm just fascinated by what is actually the song. Okay,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: we're in the song, but within that I have freedom
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: and I want to exhibit that and I want to
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: challenge it and I don't and end it's I learn
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: a lot doing that. So you can kind of start,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: you can kind of drop what you're saying before. We
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: can drop the needle anywhere. But once you're in, you're
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: in the good stuff. Don't worry. You know it's going
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: to be you're, you're, you're, you're off. There's an offering
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: at play. There's an offering at play always.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: If you're open to it. Would you pay something?
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about this, Yeah, I'll play uh, I'll
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: play you Northern Shuffle. It's gonna ask okay, all I
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: can keep it short to I don't know how Okay,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: right here we go then.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: But the last three.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: But they be the mover, I don't.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: It's past and bird back.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: The h.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: Whoa.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: That's a real different version of that.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: It's different.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: What's amazing that that lick you do, that's like on
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: the record, it sounds almost like a like a Markaball
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: and t Rex.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: That's the choice.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: Like I don't know that anybody.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Else but you would make.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: But it sounds so amazing.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: It's so you have such a distinctive character and personality.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: It's it's unmistakable, man, like you could hear in that
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: this is as good as like a d N A test,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: And that's that's the highest praise I could offer somebody. Man,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: you know, it's it's unlike anybody else. I understand that
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: you listen to stuff and understand the fundamentals of the instrument,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: but you take it someplace where no one else goes
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: and and it's just it's thrilling. Man, it's beautiful.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: That means so much to me.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you both really sort of laughing listening
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: to that too, because a couple of days before I
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: came out here, I was listening to listening to you
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: play solo acoustic on something and I usually play acoustic
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: just in my office and myself, and it was I
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: My kids popped and they're like, we thought you.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: One day.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: That's so cute.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Julian, Hey, thank you Hey.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to be thank you, thank.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: You, thank you, thank you label the club, Yeah, Don Yeah,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: thanks to Julian Lodge for letting Don and I share
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: the stage with him at the Blue Note in New
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: York and while we're at it, thanks so much to
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: the Blue Note for having us. You can hear Julian's
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: new album and Speak to Me, along with our other
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: favorite songs from Julian on a playlist at broken record
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: podcast dot com or in this episode description. You can
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: also watch the whole video of this interview and other
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: recent episodes at YouTube dot com, slash Broken Record podcast,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: engineer is Ben Tolladay. Broken Record is a production of
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin,
• 1:12:07
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• 1:12:22
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• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.