Guillermo E. Brown: Freedom of Music

AAJ: Get personal for me. What is your musical relationship with William [Parker] or Matthew [Shipp]? How do you feel different when you're playing with them?

GEB: You know, the way I play with Wilber Morris is very different frow how I play with William.

AAJ: Can you put it into words?

GEB: I dunno. It's a special place. It's not really... I can't... it's not something I can explain. It's a hard question. I'm not sure I'm answering it.

AAJ: Maybe more of a visceral thing you know in the moment, but not something to theorize about or whatever.

GEB: [Repeats to himself: How does my playing change?] It's a constant stream and exchange of information. Constantly, constantly, constantly shifting and moving. Whereas in other ensembles I might be... I might have to be more... I dunno. It's a special connection you have with bass players and the ones you like to play with. William [Parker] being one, and then Keith Witty, the guy I've got playing on my record. We've developed to the place where it's almost visceral, that you know I'm going to drop out, or I need you to hold on here. You hold the rhythm here, and I'll hold it after I'm done with this flourish or whatever it's going to be... now that I got that out, you do what you need to do. And we constantly shift back and forth. Yeah, but it's a highly rhythmic sensibility. It's an inner propulsion. You're outlining the pulse.

The pulse might be like, [rapid-fire] "buh buh buh buh buh buh buh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh g-ney g-ney g-ney duh duh duh duh nuh nuh nuh nuh..." You know, that's my view of what's going on inside.

But all you might hear from me is "ssshhhhh!," where you might hear "wuh wuh wuh wuh wuh " from William. And then he might drop out: "bummmmm bummmmmm."

And then David is going, [long, impossible-to-transcribe high-register tenor frenzy]. And Matthew's just outlining with banging chords: "bow! bang! boom!," swinging "guh-guh-GUH." Then we go into an up-tempo swing thing, "ning-ning-ning-ning." You really play the pulse. And then you don't.

AAJ: It sounds like you're always trying to stay ahead of the pulse in some way.

GEB: Right. Forward. It's definitely not static. It's always moving forward. Even if it's a pulse Latin groove, it's always pushing over the top of it. Pushing it, then you can stretch it out. Pushing it, stretch it out, drop it.

Does that help?

AAJ: It's funny. You resorted to music to explain it to me, so that speaks for you. That's fair.

GEB: [Laughs.]

AAJ: Where's the project with the Ware Quartet headed?

GEB: I'm just very happy and honored and I have my eyes and ears open with that group. Just taking in as much information as I can.

Audience, Culture, and Perspective

AAJ: So you play in Europe quite a bit. What's it like over there, with the audience? Things are quite different with music in Europe, right?

GEB: The arts are funded by the government. And then as an extension of that history, corporations fund the arts (in a different way). And then it's a continuation of the European cultural/economic exchange. De facto, because of that history, the audience is there, and they're there to listen, and they're open in a different way. Because performing arts are just treated in a different way there. It's a cultural issue in how the performing arts are received and transmitted and marketed to an audience. But I've felt similarly at the huge Knitting Factory festival thing we did opening for Max [Roach] and Cecil [Taylor] as I have in Europe. The people who are going to come out for this music? They're going to come out. They're going to be there. They're hard core. Because we don't tour that much in the States, when we do tour, heads are there. Heads are ready. When we went to the west coast, the Santa Cruz show was pretty well attended. Everything else was good.

But they [the Europeans] have what we have here, as well...

AAJ: Because we export it.

GEB: Exactly. But they have their own versions of that. The Swedish pop machine. That what Britney's first record was all about—Swedish pop. And they can really funk it up, man! Jesus Christ! I definitely like the Neptunes' "Slave for You" much better. (I just like that, as an aside.)

But I like to be on the page with the audience. If we're in Austria or Germany or whatever and there's this little old lady in the front going berserk... Or we're in Spain and we're in this black box theater where the whole audience was surrounding us... and it was the last show of one of the tours. You know, when you're doing the last show, everyone wants to get home; everyone wants to play well. And then, this combination of circumstances flowing together was great! You're just at the top of your game and everything is just coming out easily. You know, the Blue Note wasn't like that.

AAJ: Good thinking for them to hire you, huh.

GEB: Yeah.

AAJ: When I talked with David [Ware] he described that he wants to reach the audience with a higher spiritual message and help them achieve an emotional climax...

GEB: Well, I'm in a different place, just because I'm younger and I have some other statements to make. But I did grow up in the church and I do know a little bit about that...

AAJ: Yes, yes, yes. A couple other things I'm curious about. You mentioned Cecil Taylor. He has an interesting rhythmic sense.

GEB: Right, right. I saw some Cecil Taylor on PBS when I was a kid, and it changed the way I thought about stuff. I was like, "what is this?"

AAJ: It didn't frighten you?

GEB: No. I was just trying to figure out what was going on. You know, and I understood it, but then I was like, "why is this guy sweating so much?" But now it's clear. Now it's clear. But those are the kinds of things that just kind of shape your development.

Future Visions: "It's All Interconnected"

AAJ: Another thing. The important question here is: how do you feel different about leading a project versus participating in someone else's?

GEB: I think when you're leading a project, you can get your ideas out more than you... you just get your ideas out in a different way. I mean, you can still hear the same ideas that I'm trying to get through with David [Ware]. But now with my record it's more established. And with my own group, I can make my statement on the state of my feelings about music at this point. And with a mixture of experiences and cultures and musicians (and ages)... it's like Daniel [Carter] and the younger musicians, in a way...

AAJ: He's hip to it.

GEB: Oh yeah. It's an opportunity that I see to be able to make a statement.

AAJ: What is that statement? Can you put it into words?

GEB: That statement is that this is a world of rhythm. This is a world of drum-ing. Understanding the technology is not in any way... coming to terms with Heavy Weather and Dark Unto Themselves... these worlds came together at the same time, and they live in the same space. They live in me and they live in others as well. And people don't listen to music in a bubble. Nobody listens to just this or that. This is very much a reality for me and others too, I know, who've come up through all of this information and have been dealing with technology on a visceral level. Like: an Apple IIc is your friend. An Apple IIe is your bud! BASIC, moving to make the little shape go into a square... Atari is like... I had this piece when I was at Wesleyan that was called, "I learned to play kalimba? from Nintendo." That is it. It's not a joke. I told Jay Hoggard the title of it. You know, he has a very traditional sensibility. He's very Ellington-school and beautiful. But his son plays Nintendo! And listens to Nas! And he's telling his son who Nas's father is. This kid is younger than me. But this is what we're dealing with here.

What it is: the sound of the drum. The changes in technology that have affected the way we receive and process cultural products, music being my point of access for this. Like the shift from mono to stereo...

AAJ: Quantum leap, really.

GEB: Yeah. Or like stereo miking to independent drum miking...

AAJ: Is this a golden age of sorts for the marriage of technology and music?

GEB: I think that we're in an age where recording and music technology have come together. They used to be separate, and now you have the line between musician, engineer, and producer very much skewed (and it continues to be). And technology has changed access, too. It's true! You know, Napster and all of this, and sampled CDs, and the DJ? The line between the producer and this is just a click away. It's just a license away. Ownership of a soul or a vibe or a feeling is not even... it's visceral, it's in your head or in cyberspace. The whole inter-cultural economic structure that has been built up is (really) simply about what we have come to know as race, technology, culture, and economics. And I'm kind of working through that. That's my vision, how I see things. From the drum-mers perspective. And when you see a lot of the changes in music over time. Especially the popular music over the last century to the present: it's a continuing connection between rhythmic sensibilities, drumming styles, and technology... from ragtime to the roaring '20s, to Louis Armstrong, to big band swing, (an economic shift) to bebop, (a studio shift) to bebop...

AAJ: And that's about when jazz stopped being popular music.

GEB: Exactly. And from there to Quincy Jones, to him taking his experiences in his early work as a musician and then transferring that to marketable cultural material. And continuing that shift back and forth.

AAJ: So who's your audience here, with Soul at the Hands of the Machine (other than yourself, obviously)?

GEB: Ummm... [pauses] There's so many things on the record, so people can take away so much. Some of the things on the record you might not hear. For example, people who dig Latin music can totally take something away from the record. People who dig DJ-based music can take something away from the record. People who dig a post-rock thing. People who dig a jazz thing, both free jazz or more straight-ahead jazz... a world thing. It's open, it's flexible. And maybe that might be problematic in how it is received...

AAJ: Bottom line is it's "free." That's what you're getting at.

GEB: Yeah, it is free. It's a new conception of free—or my conception of free. It's freedom. Freedom of music, only constrained by whatever system we put on top of it. Obviously it's constrained by that, but hopefully it will be picked up by people who share the same vision. Or maybe don't, and then realize that they do. I think college kids will totally dig the record. Some more open-minded straight-ahead fans, or free jazz fans will like it.

I don't know, because I'm seeing it from a musician's perspective. Like Roy Campbell goes uptown and plays a straight-ahead gig. I've done gigs with him where we only do R&B and funk tunes. You know what I mean? It's hard to say because I'm in the middle of it. I'm like a nerd on it. I think it's open, and you can hear it as a lot of different things: a jazz record, or a beats record, or somewhere in between, or a world music record...

AAJ: Sounds sort of like Matthew Shipp's recent Nu Bop record. That one has a lot of range, too. It's been real popular among college kids.

GEB: I think the Phish set, or people who dig Medeski Martin & Wood, will get something out of it too.

AAJ: Now that you've made your statement with this project, what are you actively working on for the future... what are you learning and building, and where are you directing your energies. What's the forecast?

GEB: I have a trio that's totally improv rock, I call it "Harriet Tubman Jr...."Root Strata, with Morgan Michael Craft (guitar) and Shahzad Ismaily (bass). I have that, and I have the soul band (which will develop and change).

I have that, and I have the Soul band (Soul at the Hands of the Machine) which will develop and change. I have this new electro conducted-improv thing I'm working on (Breuklen Tek Orchestra.) I have some other more dance-based concepts I'm working on, like a hip hop thing. It's really a matter of sensibilities and tempo and beats-per-minute, really. I'm working on a post-Latin freestyle thing, definitely getting deep into the old Fania All-Stars. I'm definitely going to be working on more vocal-oriented stuff, both writing for other vocalists and looking at the possibilities for doing it myself. I'm going to start my own label called Melanine Harmonique.

Working through that. And I'm doing this programming thing (Max/MSP),through a grant at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, so I'm going to be continually uncovering that. Getting my Master's, working through it.

AAJ: Getting your Master's?

GEB: I'm going to get a Masters, probably an MFA, in sound art, something like that. I need to keep the options open. And academia also opens you up for a whole other set of experiences, in the future... Right now, being in the thick of it... You know, I'm going to have a family, and I need to give them the kind of experience that I had growing up.

I'm pushing. I'm on the edge right now, working through it. Trying to get out there, and I'm trying to put out the information. I'm putting out the call, and I'm waiting to hear back, you know what I mean? Hopefully we can move forward from here.

AAJ: Well, you're young in the big world of music.

GEB: I'm excited to see how it shifts. And the whole ownership of music issue is interesting to me now. Like Final Scratch, the thing that Richie Hawtin is endorsing right now. He's got all the MP3's on the computer. And the needle is reading like he's manipulating a piece of vinyl, but it's a special piece of vinyl connected to the computer....

But there's also a lot on the horizon in terms of the theater component. Sooner it might play out in costuming and visual elements of the performing of this group.

AAJ: Like the Art Ensemble of Chicago?

GEB: Yeah, but tech-ed out. Like Sun Ra and P-Funk and Art Ensemble, but it's now. It's all interconnected.

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