A Conversation with Tim Hagans

This interview was first published at All About Jazz on December 1998.

We spoke with Tim Hagans at Los Angeles's Jazz Bakery in January of this year for his last Blue Note release, a tribute to Freddie Hubbard entitled Hubsongs with fellow trumpeter Marcus Printup. He informed me that he was planning on releasing a drum and bass album. I was fascinated by his vision and his candor, since in today's current jazz climate, it could have brought on strong criticism and pose a great risk to his blossoming career. We put it in the back of our heads, but we honestly never thought anything would come of it. So were we ever surprised to get a copy of his new recording Animation/Imagination, his first and hopefully not last drum and bass endeavor. We got a chance to have an encore conversation with the forty four-year-old horn player, who has played alongside Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Joe Lovano, and Dexter Gordon. He spoke candidly about his new adventures, his future, and other fascinating insights on his music. This is an uncut, unedited, look at one of the most underrated trumpeters today, in his own words.

All About Jazz Your new release Animation/Imagination is a drum and bass recording, arguably the first of its kind. How did that project develop and why do a drum and bass recording at this stage in your career?

Tim Hagans: I love the drums and the rhythm. I guess when I say the drums, I'm really talking about the drums and not exclude the cymbals, but it's the drums that really turn on the fire so to say. When I started listening to the drum and bass concept, which I really starting listening hard to maybe a year ago, and when we spoke in January, that was all I was listening to. I just flipped over it. Bob Belden, the producer on this recording sent me some records, and the one I really enjoyed the most was a Bill Laswell record called Oscillations. To me it's like how I've been trying to find a drummer that would play that constant, heartbeat rhythm without a lot of changing of the groove. Just to keep a constant, steady, hard driving rhythm so I can play eighth notes over it. So when I started listening to drum and bass, that's what I heard. I said I can play with this and it will feel great. Talking with Bob Belden, we didn't do a really hard core drum and bass record, it's a lot more then that. There's a lot of improvisation, as I'm sure you've heard. There are a lot of colors that you don't hear on the normal drum and bass record. So this is kind of a combination of playing free and playing that came out of that Miles rhythm section, multi-keyboard sounds type thing with a real modern beat to it. I'm hearing drum and bass on Volkswagen commercials now. I think it is the sound of the times.

AAJ: What kind of statement are you trying to make with this album and are you intimidated that it may offend jazz purists?

TH: I think jazz needs to be more open minded in the nineties. Definitely, that's the political statement with this record, is that you can have the main ingredients of jazz, you know, improvisation, hard driving rhythms, composition, complete freedom. It can take the form of this kind of rhythmic thing, which is closer to a rock type thing than a jazz thing. I'm hoping that it appeals to many different groups of listeners. But, I'm prepared and totally aware that it may turn off some of the hard-core jazz listeners. But, those are the people that probably wouldn't go out and buy Audible Architecture anyway, because even that's going to be too weird.

AAJ: Will you be touring for the album?

TH: Bob and I are discussing it. We're trying to figure out how we can pull it off. We need two live drummers actually. We don't want to go out and play along with the tapes we used for this recording. That would be kind of like jazz karaoke. So we're discussing how we can go out and what drummers to use. Billy Kilson's on the record, he's the one live drummer playing along with the tapes. We need somebody like him and if he's not available, then there's some other people I'm thinking about. We need somebody who could play like a drum machine. So, we'll see. Bob and I are talking about it. Definitely.

AAJ: How important is it for you to constantly move forward musically?

TH: It's very important. For me that's just kind of my musical personality, although I'm always referring back to my idols and the history. The Hubsongs record, the tribute to Freddie Hubbard, was definitely not so much a forward looking thing, but more of a tribute to somebody who himself has always looked forward. We picked tunes from maybe one of his greatest periods in the sixties, where he was really pushing the envelope. But, for that music to be played in the nineties, it was maybe not so forward thinking. So I like to do a variety of things, but left up to my own devices, I think I'm trying to push the envelope. I think that's just my musical personality. I'm always trying to play something I've never played before, no matter what the context, whether it's a Freddie Hubbard tune from the sixties or a recording like this, or a gig playing any type of material. When I breathe in, I have no idea what I'm going to play until I start to blow the air through the horn. That's where I think the suspense in improvisation comes from is those spit second, last second decisions on what to play. I think a lot of the younger musicians, and this is an observation not a criticism, but I think it's hard to figure out what the next step is, and rather than take a chance blindfolded and jump off a cliff, it's easier to try to create something within an approved style. That's what I think has been going on the last fifteen years basically.

AAJ: Freddie Hubbard was in the studio with you for Hubsongs. What was the response you received from him?

TH: He really liked it. He was there at the sessions and then I saw him in L. A. when we played at the Jazz Bakery, and he thought it was great. I didn't hear any criticism. I think he was honored and flattered that we chose his music and asked him to be part of the project. Hopefully anyway.

AAJ: Let's talk about the release you have out on Double-Time Jazz called Future North with the Norrbotten Big Band.

TH: Norrbotten is the top quarter geographically speaking of Sweden. It starts about two hundred miles below the Arctic Circle and stretches all the way up until the world ends up there. This is a government-supported big band, but it's not a radio band. It's more of a touring, performing organization, specifically for the people that live in the top quarter of Sweden. I became the artistic director for that band about three years ago. I lived in Sweden for about five years in the seventies and they, referring to the band, were changing leaders. The composer that they had before that was starting to work a lot in Germany and other parts of Europe, so they decided to bring somebody else in. Out of the blue, they called me because of my contacts in Sweden and I have played there quite a bit. They knew that I wrote big band arrangements and that I have done a lot of leading of different bands in Europe as a guest soloist. So I have been going there about eight times a year for the last three years. We do a variety of projects with a lot of different soloists, but this album that came out on Double-Time is the music that I wrote for the band and myself, as a soloist in the band.

AAJ: You have touched on it, but elaborate for me, how important is it for a young artist to develop his or her own voice?

TH: I think that is the main goal with playing this kind of music, whether you call it jazz or improvised music. This is the one kind of music where your own personality can come through the most. It's completely up to you, how you want to sound, and the reason I moved to New York was because I played the trumpet a little bit different than most mainstream trumpet players and I knew in New York there would be a place for the way I play. I think a lot of younger players are maybe a little afraid that once they establish that voice, or find out how individual that voice is that they may not be able to work. So they opt to follow the path of some other proven trumpet player. I think you probably end up working more if you have your own thing to say, because when somebody wants that sound there's only one person they can get it from. I think it's really important and that's the point of playing this music. The personal gratification that you get and the music that you give to the listener is on a much higher level if you are playing your own stuff instead of somebody else's. But it is extremely hard to do and the universities are doing their best to teach it, but I did a lot of clinics and I find that that's the one area that's really hard to teach and really hard to get a grasp on.

AAJ: You have taught at both the University of Cincinnati and at the Berklee School of Music, what is the primary lesson you convey to your students?

TH: Finding your own voice is the most important musical thing, but on a spiritual level, I always remind them and talk about keeping a positive attitude and not let the business and what people say deter you from finding your own voice. I had a lot of people when I was searching for this voice that I now feel that I have a little bit of a grasp on, when I was searching for this voice, maybe my chops weren't as good as they are now, I went through an ombisure change. In earlier years, I was playing wrong and I couldn't present that voice technically on the trumpet. I couldn't play what I was hearing, just because of technical problems. A lot of people told me I should give up, that I should play the piano, I should teach, instead of play. I got a lot of negative comments, but I just kind of blocked all of this out because I knew that if I could fix my chops somehow, I could develop this voice better. I ran into a lot of walls and a lot of people telling me I should play like Clifford Brown. I just ignored all that. That's what I also tell them, that if you have a direction, just keep working on that direction. And I'm a good example because I didn't sign with Blue Note until I was almost forty years old. To Blue Note's credit, they're not solely into signing younger musicians. So I'm kind of an example because I was somebody that was in relevant obscurity for the first forty years.

AAJ: How do you feel about the state of jazz today?

TH: As a listener myself, I try to keep the perspective that what I hear is not necessarily what I'm going to see at a live concert, so I'm never disappointed. I think the disappointment comes when you assume somebody's going to be there and they are not. I think the record companies know that youth sells and they try to make records as youth oriented as possible, even though it might be forty and fifty year olds actually buying the records. The record companies try to keep the bands pretty young. I think it's just a marketing concept. I also think the jazz record labels, in the last fifteen years, has used an MTV type marketing approach with formulas, and youth being one of those formulas. In the jazz world it's much more creative and on a higher artistic level, so it doesn't always work. What works for the pop world doesn't always work in the jazz world.

AAJ: What inspires you?

TH: I've got three kids and just being around that much youth and energy tends to keep you young. Also, I'm looking at three college educations too, so I'm inspired by the fact that I need to keep working. That in a way, is a business decision that makes me make a record like this, because I realize that if I want to keep doing what I'm doing and not fill out that McDonalds application or more realistically maybe teach full time at a college. I have to pursue this voice that I have that I don't think anybody else has. I listen to other trumpet players, and I love all the trumpet players I listen to, but I don't hear anybody that sounds exactly like me. They all sound different from each other too. The inspiration comes when I look at my kids, that I have to keep doing what I'm doing. That helps to remind me that I have to be an individual and that their future depends on me getting my voice across to the general public. That will keep you busy for a few years, doing that.

AAJ: When you reflect back on your career, who were some of the individuals that aided you most in your development musically and why were their contributions so pivotal to your musical career?

TH: Thad Jones was a big influence and somebody that always told me to just go ahead and blow. He encouraged me, he was one of the first people to encourage me to write. When I was living in Sweden, I worked a lot with him in Denmark with the Danish Radio Band. I wrote some charts for a band that he later started in Denmark, so Thad was big inspiration. He knew what I was looking for. He always has a good word or comments to keep your strength up. Freddie has been the same way. He has always been complementary, even when I met him in 1980 for the first time. He gave me a big hug and said something like, 'What was that? I've never heard anything like that before.' That was eighteen years ago. The list could go on, Bob Belden, for example. In the last ten years, somebody when there's no hope at all, the phone rings and it's Bob telling me to keep doing what I'm doing. And of course, my three girls here.

AAJ: What's in the future for Tim Hagans?

TH: I have lots of ideas. The Blue Note thing is the one thing that may be the most obvious, but the Norrbotten Big Band, I've spent an awful lot of time working on projects with them with different soloists and different bands that we play with, with the big band. I would like to get into more writing, larger works, not just charts. I've started writing for strings. We did a production with the big band and a chamber orchestra in October, and I wrote some music for that. That was very exciting. I want to work more as a composer/arranger and not just for the big band. That's what I want to really concentrate on, as well as continuing with this drum and bass type playing. I don't do this, but I would love to go out with my own group and play clubs, and theatres, and get into more of a performing thing under my own name. I do a lot of sideman things and I led this big band in Sweden, maybe seventy, eighty concerts a year, but it's not my small band.

AAJ: Would you like to do a with strings record?

TH: That would be great. I think combining that with the drum and bass things for something really rhythmic. I would love to do the typical trumpet with strings ballad record. I listen to the one Donald Byrd did with Clare Fischer and Clifford with strings and Bird with strings. It would be great to do that as well. I'd also like to do something that's whacked-out with strings, because they can play anything. It's an amazing instrument.

AAJ: What would you like audiences to take away from your music?

TH: I think, again, it's like a political statement, that if I can go up there and put it on the line and try to play things I've never done before, whether it's on a record or in a performance, that in their lives they can take chances too. I think a lot of people are bored. They do the same job every day and they just do the same things. I think the non-musicians that I talk to that listen to jazz music, improvised music and they don't know anything about music, but they love the energy and they love the fact that they are constantly surprised. They also like the fact that they hear things that they don't like and I think our whole culture is based on giving the partaker something that they like a hundred percent, and I think it's good sometimes to hear something or be a part of something that you don't really like because you learn something about yourself. Hopefully, that inspires people who have never eaten Indian food to drive to that Indian restaurant and eat something they have never eaten before and go home and have great sex, I don't know.

AAJ: Taking the "risks" that you have, what have learned about yourself?

TH: It's just make me stronger. I have much more self-confidence now than I had even four years ago. Before I recorded as a leader, I was never sure if I had something that was valid, because I was always playing on other people's recordings, playing other people's music. It was a lot of fun to see the reaction to the first couple of records I did for Blue Note and since I've been recording a lot with other people like Lovano and Bob Belden, it was interesting to see the reaction. Most of the reaction was positive and even when people say some negative things to me, they are really saying a positive thing, like that was a little weird. They might write that this is not for the weak hearted or mainstream people and I take that as a complement. That's made me stronger and given me more conviction that I can follow my own path. Belden asked me when I first started recording for Blue Note, rather, I asked Belden. I said, 'What should I do?' He said, 'Figure out what Blue Note means to you and then make a record that goes after that concept.' I think a lot of people would think of their favorite Blue Note record and try to copy that record, but I thought Blue Note means to me to take chances. Records like Breaking Point (a 1964 Freddie Hubbard recording), Tony Williams' records, Spring (1965), these where like advanced records, pushing the envelope records. Even though I'm not copying those records, I'm trying to take that concept. That's what Blue Note means to me. Being with that company than maybe some of the other ones is the perfect place for me, because of Bruce Lundvall and everybody that works there is still trying to further that concept of pushing the envelope.

AAJ: At the conclusion of your career, what would you like your legacy to be?

TH: That I never played the same thing twice. It was always a surprise. And also, I think that one thing that we haven't discussed is the humor aspects and the uplifting, joyous parts. Even though some of the stuff I do may be kind of serious, I never want to get to that point where it's like this real angst kind of improvisation. I always want it to be good vibes. So good vibes and surprising harmonic ideas.

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