By Jason West

Let’s get one thing straight right off: My interview is with Jeff Johnson the jazz bassist, not Jeff Johnson the new-age vocalist/keyboardist. As of Sept. 1 ’99, the All Music guide has a profile for the new-age Jeff, but leaves off the jazz Jeff—erroneously combining their recordings.

Yet jazz survives—often underground—and with Johnson in town, the Seattle scene has been thriving for the last ten years. Each time I hear him play bass he shows me something new. Needless to say, speaking with him at length was an honor.

Jeff’s selected discography can be found at the conclusion of the interview, along with a link to his new CD, “Free.”

Jason West: How long have you smoked cigarettes?

Jeff Johnson: Since I was 12 years old. I’m 44 now so let’s see...

JW: Have you ever tried to quit?

JJ: Oh yeah. I’ve quit a couple times.

JW: That’s cool.

JJ: But I missed ‘em.

JW: Yeah, that’s what I hear.

JJ: It fills spaces.

JW: So did you work on the gum?

JJ: Yeah, I’ve tried that. There’s one thing that somebody told me about: Zyban. A friend of mine has had success with Zyban--had no craving at all.

JW: Is that a patch, or a pill, or what?

JJ: A pill.

JW: Hmmm....So I was looking at your bio and it mentions that you grew up playing in Minneapolis and then got this gig with Philly Joe Jones, which is pretty heavy. How did that happen?

JJ: Yeah, a friend of mine named Paul Lagos, drummer from LA was a student of Philly Joe’s for a long time when he was livin’ in the east. So Paul led me down this path toward Philly Joe. He called him up one day, he said, ‘Look man, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna call Philly Joe.’ He handed my the phone after he had talked to him for a while. I was like twenty years old, right...stammering...it’s like, ‘Yeah man, uh, if you, you know, if I could ever come and play,’ I says, ‘you know, I’d pay my way out there. I’ll come out, even if I could just do a night with you.’ And Paul had said, kinda, ‘Yeah, this cat you know, I dig him.’ So a couple weeks later this guy came up to me and said, ‘Philly Joe asked me to come out and hear you play.’ This guy, I had no idea who he was. He wasn’t a musician as far as I could tell and he wasn’t anybody that I had ever met before. So I said, well, great...great, you know, he’s got a spy. And then a couple weeks after that Joe says, ‘Well, can you make it? Can you come out?’ He said we’ll do a month worth of gigs around the east coast and see what goes on. So I stayed at his apartment in Philadelphia with him and his wife Eloise, and did several months worth of gigs. And then I went up to New York and was hanging around in New York for several more months, almost a year.

JW: That’s pretty incredible. So that must have been in the 70’s?

JJ: Yeah, it was like 1975. And the loft scene was going in New York, you know.

JW: The loft scene...

JJ: Sam Rivers had a club called Rivbea’s and everybody played there. Hal (Galper) recorded there; played there. It was an after hours kind of thing, so people would show up there. Dave Holland would be there. Jay Clayton. The first time I ever saw Jay Clayton [Seattle vocalist] was out there.

JW: So you were in New York. Did you hang out there?

JJ: Yeah, I played some gigs with Philly, and I did some gigs with...I did some real unusual stuff at that time, working in New York. I did some gigs with Sunny Murray. I was playing alot of avant-garde music.

JW: Uh huh...

JJ: I didn’t last long in New York at that point in time because the gigs started fading off with Philly Joe, and he was getting on into some other stuff, and there wasn’t that much for me to do there; I wasn’t connected. So I split. I split and went back home for a minute. And I just started wandering.

JW: You traveled the country?

JJ: Wherever I heard there was something going on in a city--here’s a gig in Atlanta, or there’s a gig in Miami--a cruise ship gig for a month...

JW: So you had a tiny network through acquaintances, club owners?

JJ: People that I knew. If I had friends that had moved to other cites, I’d go out and hang out with them, play with them. I started creating a network. That’s what I was doing most of the time, that’s kinda one of the reasons why I’m sort of an obscure character up to this point, ‘cause I’ve been around alot, but I’ve never established an identity in the jazz world. I’ve always been a side man, you know, this and that. I was here for a while, you know. Sometimes I’d call musicians and go back and play, hang out. Minneapolis. Texas. There was a whole lot of cities around Texas.

JW: In the south and the east?

JJ: Yeah, for some reason I gravitated toward the south. I went to Atlanta, and then I started, I really wanted to go to the west coast and check it out, so I made a couple little short hops out to LA, but I got kinda hung up in the middle--I ended up in Texas for awhile, and Oklahoma--that’s where I met my wife. These guys from New Jersey were in Oklahoma City, a pianist named Charlie Giggliotti, and Charlie was a pretty good piano player. They had this club and they hired me to go down and be in the house band. Charlie would bring in national-name cats and they’d play with us, so Chet Baker came, or Charlie Rouse, Dexter Gordon, you know, we all had a chance to play--at least a little bit--with these guys, Lew Tabackin, Barney Kessel. There were actually quite a number who came through there. That’s where I first heard Hal Galper.

JW: Is that when you hooked up with Hal and started playing with him?

JJ: No, years later I hooked up with him. I hooked up with Hal at Pt. Townsend [Jazz Festival, Pt. Townsend, WA] out here.

JW: Right. Well, I guess it was in ‘91 that you settled in Seattle?

JJ: April ‘90.

JW: OK, and soon after that you played with Hal at Pt Townsend?

JJ: In ‘93 I did the festival. ‘93 I went out and played, and Bud Shank was kinda drawing straws. He said, ‘Do you want to play with Hal?’ and I said sure. So Hal and I and Dean Hodges had a 20 minute-30 minute rehearsal and did a set of tunes, and Hal and I had a great time. A few months later he came to Jazz Alley with his trio, you know, and I thought, ‘I’m going to go out and say hello to Hal.’ He had sent me a tape of the concert, and all it said on there was “We Bad.” And as soon as I saw him at Jazz Alley he says, ‘Yeah man, I’ve been checkin’ this stuff out. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but would you be interested in doing it if it came up?’ So like a month later he called me and asked me to join the trio--and it’s been six years. That’s kinda jumpin’ ahead.

JW: Well let’s fill in that time: Did you continue to wander up until then?

JJ: Yeah.

JW: Throughout the south?

JJ: Austin, and then I did a few trips on my own, where I’d go out and play a month or two. My wife and I, we’ve been married 17 years--

JW: What’s your wife’s name?

JJ: Marcy. She’s been a major part of why, in the last ten years, I’ve come out again--try to make some moves, you know. I was kinda content being a hermit, you know, but Marcy’s been a great force in everything that I’ve done since I’ve known her because she always, not so much encourages me to play--she knows I’m going to take care of that--but she always has made room for whatever I’ve wanted to do. I’ve told her, you know, I’m going to go to LA for a couple of months, or something like that, you know, just hang out and play--she’s always been OK with it. She’s not one of those people who sits home waiting, with no life of her own. It takes a special kind of person to deal with somebody who’s traveling around all the time.

JW: So you were able to travel around up until moving to Seattle?

JJ: Mm Hm, and for some reason we’ve stayed here. It tells me that I like it here, because I’ve never stayed anywhere this long, even my hometown. (Laughter) Seattle has got something. I like it. My wife likes it. There’s an aesthetic beauty that is nothing like the mid-west industrial towns that I grew up in. Everywhere you turn there’s some kind of vista.

JW: Well what is--I’m curious about Minneapolis--is that an industrial town?

JJ: Yeah, it’s a river-town on the Mississippi. It was an agricultural center. Alot of jazz musicians ended up living there because they came up river, you know. The guy who taught me--really got me on track--is this guy, Irv Williams. He’s in his 70’s now; he’s still alive, playin’ around. But Irv had come up from St. Louis, and he had been on the road with Dinah Washington, and Billy Eckstine, and he had this gig I was tellin’ you about earlier that Billy Wallace had. Irv was the saxophone player on that gig in the Hilton hotel in St. Paul.

JW: Yeah, OK.

JJ: And when Billy Wallace left, he turned that gig over to Irv Williams. And these were some of the very best musicians in the area--it was like the coveted thing to do, you know. So I got in there. We played seven nights a week for two years.

JW: Really?--Seven nights a week!

JJ: I think I had maybe, two or three days off the whole time.

JW: So what was it that, you know Irv--I guess he really helped you.

JJ: He taught me all these beautiful standards. Minneapolis was a great school. I didn’t realize what a great school it was until I left for New York and I heard so much really mediocre stuff. It surprised me. There was some great stuff, but I realized the cats in Minneapolis had a high standard. So Irv was one of those people that had a beautiful sound--I can still hear it in my head--he could play a ballad like no other. And he was one of many, many people that took me under their wing. So I was lucky--I got to apprentice with some musicians who were right there, you know, they prepared you. They didn’t give you a clue of what you had to do. It was like gettin’ dumped into deep water, and learning how to swim--which was the best thing in the world I think, that could have ever happened. Scary, man. Scary, alot of the time. You felt inadequate. You were inadequate. (Laughter) You know what I mean, but then eventually, you realize, you can play in any key, the distances stay the same. Think about intervals. So these guys taught me how to do that stuff--play in all keys--just by makin’ me do it.

JW: It sounds like a high standard, definitely.

JJ: It was great. Better than going to school, you know, and I was getting paid for it.

JW: Do you know anything about Irv’s background? Where did he come up?

JJ: Well, he came up--he was born in the ‘20s. I think he comes from the same town Miles Davis is from, East St. Louis--but Irv’s center was essentially St. Louis.

JW: And he came up river, right?

JJ: Yeah, and he had a family, you know. After he was done going on the road--he had enough of all that--he came up north. There was kind of a highway of guys. Chicago had guys that would gravitate up there, too. The big cities in the mid-west were great music towns, years ago. Chicago still is. Minneapolis is too, in a way. Back then they had the touring groups, like Count Basie, Duke Ellington--all those people would be comin’ to the ballrooms and doing that thing, you know. And there were a lot more after-hours joints then, a lot more activity with musicians comin’ through from out of town. Cities don’t see quite as much as that movement now.

JW: It sounds like a great community.

JJ: It was heavy. It was heavy. You know, you’d get this guy--and this guy would be coming from Kansas City--and Arnett Cobb who was going to be in town, and we’d all be going to hear him, or Ben Webster. You know, he’d just show up, and play with some local cats, or the U of M or something. Really, it was jumpin’; there was inspiring stuff. And for a young white kid, you know, I was just enthralled with it all--I wanted my identity to be included.

JW: Let me ask you about your impressions of music then, as a kid, coming up with these guys in Minneapolis, compared to now. I mean, obviously you’ve been playing music 20-some years, since you first started, and your impressions and feelings about music must have changed and evolved.

JJ: Oh yeah, yeah. Well, when I was a kid, see, I heard the Beatles, and the Beatles were it. I was about six years old, seven years old--I can’t remember--but I had an AM radio, and I loved pop music. I loved all that music; singing along with it, pretending to play guitar with it, and all that stuff, you know. But the Beatles really turned me out--I truly wanted to play music--I wanted to be a musician. I saw them in their glory--how popular they were--at that time it appealed to me to be famous like that, you know. It was strictly greedy, in those terms--wanting fame and fortune for yourself, to be above and beyond, that kind of thing. And so I played guitar. I started out--I had two sides to me--the guitar was self-taught and it was cool, but at the same time I tried playing saxophones and clarinet and never really liking it.

JW: Really, you experimented playing other instruments?

JJ: I didn’t like the formal structure. It was just too confining, you know, but I had this other path on the guitar, so I played in the garage bands of the day. I played pop music, rock music, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix came around and every guitar player wanted to do what Jimi was able to do. The blues cats: B.B. King, Mike Bloomfield was one, Eric Clapton--all these guys were having a powerful influence us as kids, little kids, you know. And when the Beatles did this kind of psychedelic time, you know it was the sixties--that music was powerful, and the events of the time were powerful. Vietnam. My number came up in the last draft, you know, so...I was definite about not wanting to go--I wasn’t going to go to Vietnam, no matter what anybody said. I was ready to go to Canada. You see there was all this stuff going on. And I had to go to the shrink, Phew! I don’t think you need to print any of that. That got really out. (Laughter) Anyway, they finally refused me. They finally decided that I was a high risk to the military. (Laughter) But I won’t go into what I did to make ‘em believe that. Anyway, it was this kind of climate. In high school I played with a trombone player who was into jazz, and he had John Coltrane records and stuff, and I didn’t really know too much about it. My dad had Louis Armstrong records, and Jonah Jones, Nat Cole, and stuff like that around the house, so I wasn’t a stranger to that kind of music--Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, those kinds of people--but I never really picked up on that or fell in love with it then, you know. There were tunes that Louis Armstrong did that I liked, and I played once in a while, but my heart wasn’t there. But anyway, this trombone player turned me on to this other music, this jazz music. I didn’t start hearing jazz with Charlie Parker or those early guys. The big bands--I didn’t know anything from that. I started out hearing Wes Montgomery and John Coltrane, those are the two artists, and I was a guitar player still so I became interested in the jazz guitar players like Kenny Burrell. Lenny Brow was a guy from Canada that used to come down to Minneapolis--legendary, beautiful guitar player. He’s dead now, but he had an influence, an impact. There were great guitar players in Minneapolis. Billy Rogers was in Minneapolis for awhile

JW: Let me...when you first started hittin’ the jazz...I guess that’s where you’re at now so I should shut my mouth and just let you talk.

JJ: Well, that’s kinda how it got started and I heard something else in it. And also, at that time I got offered a gig playing bass in a band, and after hearing jazz guitar players, I didn’t feel very good about my guitar playing. I wanted to go there, and I couldn’t do it, so I decided to just go ahead and take this gig on the bass, and just kind of see what I was going to do--which way things were going--and I started to fall in love with the bass, man. I had a Fender bass, electric, and I played it with two fingers, like I thought you were supposed to do, and I ended up just diggin’ it, you know, it was so simple. It’s even across; it’s even up and down; all the patterns that you play repeat themselves; there’s no stupid B-string in there to through the whole thing off, you know. It was just clean and clear, and I found out that I could hear lines on the bass. I could play lines that I wanted to play on the guitar, and lines that I wanted to play on the saxophone--I could play ‘em on the bass. I picked up on things real quick because it was so simple: I was dealing with hearing the chord, but I was dealing with one note at a time, smaller activities, and apparently my slow brain and thick skull needed this simplicity to get it and connect. So the bass kind of found me. I saw it as a way to just kind of relax and make some money, and it turned out to be a thing. And then I got an upright because there were a couple other bass players in Minneapolis that got uprights. (Laughter) And they said, “Yeah man, you gotta try this, you gotta play this, too.” And I said, “No, I don’t want to play that--it’s too hard; it’s too big.” But then peer pressure, you know, by the time I was nineteen I had one. And a year later I playing with Philly Joe.

JW: You mean there were guys who put peer pressure on you to get a bass?

JJ: There was great competition in Minneapolis. A guy named Billy Peterson and myself were like nearly the same age, he was a couple years older than me, and he was like, he would be doing things, man, he’s a phenomenal musician--great bass player, he actually plays with Steve Miller for a living--but a great jazz player.

JW: Was he playing upright?

JJ: Yeah, yeah, Billy got an upright and I thought, “Oh man, Bill’s playin’ upright. I got to cop an upright.” It was really a competitive spirit about it. I had no interest in playing upright, but I was getting behind, and man, I started to dig the upright. I found a system, a couple of different systems of fingering ‘cause I never took lessons.

JW: Yeah, let’s talk about that.

JJ: I found my own fingerings, you know. They actually have a word for it now; they call it ‘open hand.’ There’s a thing: you’re supposed to play the bass with positions, you know, where you keep everything even, and everything works off a position. Well I had been a guitar player, so I didn’t know anything from positions. Positions are to keep your reference so that you can play good pitch. Well I’ve got a geometry in my head from the guitar going on the bass. So when I started playing solos and stuff, I never thought you had to play positions--I didn’t know what they were. I gradually learned to play with them because they are the logical way to do some things on the bass. But I go between guitar and bass-type fingerings.

JW: I know that one of the classical things they tell you about the bass is to have the ring finger support the pinkie, so there’s really three positions among four fingers, and it’s important to memorize the distance between the intervals.

JJ: So you stay in tune.

JW: Right, but you do it differently.

JJ: I reference it differently. I see the fingerboard as a system--I see geometric shapes, like patterns, almost like constellations. It’s almost a visceral reference that I have with the fingerboard. I’ve created my own sort of exercises, my own pathways that involve this way of fingering. It’s nothing that I intended to do, its developed on its own and evolved.

JW: You never had any lessons, any formal training?

JJ: Not on the bass, no.

JW: You have this thing that you do on the bass where you can play so quickly, you know, you can play a line that a saxophone would play--you’re really moving on those strings, up and down. It’s like a snakey kinda thing you pull. Talk about that.

JJ: Well, you know I think it’s what I wanted to play. Those are the kinds of sounds that I wanted to make, and when you say a saxophone, I think I wanted to sing on the bass. I haven’t listened that much to bass players soloing, I’m not that much interested in that. There’s a few guys I really like the way they play, but I’ve always loved guitar or piano or horns, in particular, like Sonny Rollins and Coltrane. It was there mission that I wanted to link into. So I was studying what they were doing harmonically, listening to their records and playing what I thought they were doing by ear. So I gravitated to what horn players were doing, and I didn’t really listen to the bass at all for ideas, for soloing, so that’s where that comes from. I’m wanting to emulate more of a horn or vocal quality.

JW: It seems like a lot of modern bass players are able to do just that; they’re able to sing on the bas. They’re playing these virtuoso lines.

JJ: Oh yeah. It opened up alot in the fifties, actually. The role of the bass changed entirely. It became a solo instrument.

JW: With Scott LaFaro?

JJ: Scott, and there were guys--every decade had some guys, you know. Stanley Clark, when he came out with Return To Forever, the Chick Corea records they did, Flora Purim and them. Ew man, everybody heard Stanley and went nuts--that dead, nasal sound growlin’ away man, everybody wanted to have that sound--the thinner, the nasalier, the better. Now there’s this thing in the nineties, it’s kind of goin’ back to this darker, warmer sound, and I got drawn into that, too. You know, it was expected then that bass players were going to become that. It wasn’t just and accompanying instrument anymore. It became a real integral part of alot of jazz playing, you know, like you heard Scott and Bill. There’s been this great tradition of bass players and piano players that go way into the stuff, you know, Keith and Gary Peacock--you can name a million of them. Gary Mitchell did alot of beautiful records with cats, duo and trios--amazing stuff.

JW: Mm Hmm. You mentioned that there are some players that you really dig. Name some of these guys.

JJ: Ah yeah, my favorites. Well typically, Scott LaFaro, you can’t help but hear him and be intrigued, you know, and before him, I heard some Jimmy Blanton records that kind of blew me away, and Oscar Pettiford did some things on the bass that were really the precursors.

JW: I got to listen to that.

JJ: Yeah, there’s some really cool, involved bass playing.

JW: You know, I have a Steve Kuhn record with Miroslav Vitous--man oh man!

JJ: Miroslav is one of my very favorite bass players. Miroslav...Charlie Haden I love--he’s got a thing all his own. I love cats who have a thing all there own. Charlie Haden played a duo with Jimmy Rowles in Venice, California one night at this beach club, and it was the most beautiful stuff, aw man. So everytime you hear a bass player that plays good, I love him, you know, I love him. I’ve heard George Mraz play things that are unbelievable, with the bow. I can’t, I don’t do that--I don’t even mess with that; I don’t even get in there. I’ll play the bow when I’m playing some very creative stuff, very kind of freeish kind of stuff, then I’ll try some things, because I’ve found other aspects of the bow that I’m interested in, but as far as legitimate technique on the bow, I have none, you know, so I stay out of there man, and leave it to the other cats. And I never cared for that sing-saw kind of sound that Paul Chambers got bowing solos. He was very incredible at it, don’t get me wrong, but I never wanted to do that, sound like that. It sounds like you’re cutting a tree down or something, I don’t know. I like a more sonic thing, a more legato rather than dig-ga-dig-ga.

JW: I’ve also heard some Orsted Pederson.

JJ: Yeah, another one. European guys, European bassists, they all most inevitably come from a classical background, you know, they grow up--they are six years old with a bow in their hand, and their parents are supportive, the state is very supportive, and they get heavy classical background. They’re the true monsters on the planet. When you’re lookin’ at bass players and you say “Who are the monsters?”--these are the guys, you know, because they know all aspects of it. They come at jazz with a classical bent that’s just so beautiful, and there’s a whole new generation of them--that guy Anders Jarmin, he plays with Charles Lloyd’s group; he also plays in Bobo Stenson’s trio; he and Bobo play with Charles, and they’ve done some things with a drummer, John Christenson--incredible music, with almost a folk-like quality, I don’t know, it’s Scandinavian. There’s a bunch of Scandinavians doing this stuff--maybe I’m being drawn to my natural home--but they’re doing such beautiful stuff. It’s just so different from the American bent on jazz. The European bass players--I think probably if I had to name a bass player who I’m really always wondering what he’s going to do, it’s Miroslav. He’s probably my all time favorite player, and changed me the most. When I heard him, Miroslav had this kind of D’Artagnan style, where he wasn’t afraid to parry and whip it in there and make it dip in, almost like an alto player would do--really scootin around and gettin’ on the edge with it, you know, and trying it, and if it works, maybe. Not so precise, but always this interesting, angular way of getting to it, and I think I’ve tried to assimilate some of that into my own style. Miroslav’s approach to that really had an effect on me, it seemed so passionate. It’s very intriguing what he does all the time, very surprising. I love him. You know, other guys are more precise. I probably like him because I’m not very precise. I’m precise in a sub-division kind of way, but I like to blur the bar lines too; I like to blur the bar lines too; I like to blur the rhythms here and there, play the angles, come in from left field. Miroslav, I’ve always gotten such a great rise out of hearing him play.

JW: Talk more about your approach to playing.

JJ: Nowadays I do have an approach, and it comes from knowing what I like.

JW: When did you develop this?

JJ: It just comes in time. It’s like you’ve lived so long, and you say, ‘Well, I should like this. I’m supposed to like this, or I’m supposed to like that--but I don’t.’ So now I’m willing to admit that I don’t, or I don’t do this well, so I don’t do this. I’m willing to focus on the things that really give me the best advantage by the way I play and by the way I think. So I’m trying to have my playing be closer to the natural way that I am.

JW: It seems like there’s alot of experimentation in what you do--you stretch out--your playing is different all the time.

JJ: To me, the musicians that have been around a while, have some tricks, you know, and when I get together with them and I can tell that I’m going to have freedom with them, then I’ll go there. If I can tell that I can’t go certain places with certain musicians, I won’t go there, because it won’t do the gig any good, it won’t do the music any good. But there are those times when you know you’re completely, you’ve got complete trust in what each other’s going to do---that’s what we’re into here with this trio. Everybody’s falling backwards knowing there’s a net; everybody’s got such a great inner-sense of music that we can take things and stretch them and still retain our place in the form. It’s not free what we’re doing, at all. We’re very much playing forms, but freely.

JW: It seems, not expected, but almost an ingredient of modern jazz to go out, and kind of mess with things. I mean, who wants to hear straight ahead every tune?

JJ: You know, it’s interesting, they use the word tradition alot these days, well, to me--I don’t know, I could be wrong--the tradition of jazz is change. You know, Charlie Parker was not playing bebop because it was traditional to do. They didn’t get out in the sixties because it was a tradition to be out, you know what I mean? This music was moving, moving, moving, and for some reason it went back in time, to catch up with itself, maybe. Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe there was an overlap in generations and it needed to catch back up. But there are some of us who have kept going forward the whole time. To me the tradition of jazz is where the music is going to go, not where it’s going to stay. So, there’s a contradiction in terms about tradition. If somebody asks me, “Well why don’t you play within the tradition?” I don’t say, “I am.” But to them, they might say, “Well how come you can’t play this, like this?” Well, if you play something and make it beautiful enough, make it lyrical enough--try to make it a bridge so that somebody wants to hear it, if it’s a little different, but they still want to hear it because it’s so beautiful that they’re drawn into it: that’s my goal. And that’s the way that these guys play, like Hans plays.

JW: Yeah, Hans. I’ve really enjoyed being in this city and hearing him, just, over the years.

JJ: He’s open, man. He’s a little of everything. He makes you laugh sometimes; he’ll play some goofy lick from Glenn Miller, but it’s masked a little bit, it’s not direct, you know, it’s like something to snicker at. Hans has always got that good surprise thing going, too. Billy Mintz plays--someone best described him one time as like being in the ocean, because Billy is almost like you’re in the swells; you’ve got a life jacket around you and you’re just riding up and down these swells, and there’s time and meter, but there’s also all this other extra-depth perception and motion going on that almost bring what you’re doing into another dimension. You can almost look at what you’re doing from underneath, you know. It’s heard to describe it verbally, but what it feels like when we are playing sometimes is if we’re gone into another dimension where the only thing real is this music, and we’re actually walking around among this music, these forms and sculptures. We’re glancing at them as they go by. You could almost do it with a virtual reality program or something, you could almost set something up where you could get that kind of feeling. You’re actually in the terrain with the music, you know. We spend alot of our lives not able to live in the moment. Playing like this, I crave being in the moment, and the only time I am really, is when I’m playing. My mind might drift a little bit to what I’ve got to do in the morning, for a second, but it always has to pop right back. It’s drawn back into the moment. Whereas most of the time we’re always drawn somewhere other than the moment, the rest of the time. So that’s a part of the music, too. We don’t rehearse. We don’t talk very much. We don’t count off tunes very often. It’s kind of, we want to see what’s going to happen fresh off the mind. So nobody needs to be directed, particularly, you know, nobody needs to be told “play this,” or “play this like this.” You’re there because you’re you--play you. Here’s a sketch, it looks something like this; you can use this or not. And then you trust the player’s ability. So the players themselves actually become the music. To me that’s the most honest, in the moment, Zen kind of way you can possibly be. So that’s the whole concept. The music is nothing; it’s there; it’s already there; it’s easy. It’s the frame of mind that’s difficult to attain, you know. Our gigs are few and far between sometimes, but we’re always somehow conscious--it doesn’t hurt us--in fact in alot of ways I think it makes it more intriguing when we get back together. We always come up with something far different than what we did the last time we were together. like this

JW: That’s amazing that you work so well together.

JJ: Yeah, there’s a handful of guys up here like Randy Porter, John Gross, alot of these characters, Billy Mintz--I met them down in southern California in the eighties when I was wandering around down there, and we’ve all kind of come back together after all these years and we’re puttin’ stuff together now. We started developing alot of these ideas years ago. And there’s another guy here in town who’s a well-kept secret named Tad Britton, a drummer. I met Tad when I was in Oklahoma City, and Tad was like the only cat that I could explore with. Tad and I we hooked up and put together this duo that eventually became Area 51, and Hans just added himself to it--he seemed to understand. But we spent years in this--like being in the desert, like being in Tibet--Oklahoma is like Tibet, man--there’s nothing. There was no influence at all, you know, you don’t want to turn on the radio and hear alot of country music, so you never listened to it--just no influence on you. So Tad and I spent years in this laboratory, and I’ve got over 180 hours of recorded music that we did all through the eighties.

JW: Just you two?

JJ: Yeah, just the two of us. So alot of concepts we found doing that. That was like another school. Luke, you know, the Jedi--I don’t know where it’s going. But Tad Britten is another cat whose creative instincts really influenced me and I really influenced him.

JW: Let me ask you about the other band that you play with alot: Hal Galper’s trio with Steve Ellington. Compare that trio with the one on your new CD.

JJ: Well, the stuff on the recording with Hans and Billy, that’s like a composite of everything I do. With Hal--I’m playing with Hal, so I’m working with Hal’s concept, but he’s so inclusive of me and Steve, that we’re improvisers all the time anyway. So Hal’s doing something that I wouldn’t do--I’m not him; I’m not the piano player; I don’t have his thing in mind, but it’s so comfortable doing that; it’s well within the realm of what I love doing, you know. They’re high-risk takers, and Hal is brilliant. He’s raw in a sense, and visceral, but he’s totally brilliant. I mean on any given night he’ll put down some voicings on you, and he’ll say, “You can have ‘em if you can hear ‘em.” So every night playing with Hal is like school; it’s like going to voicing school. We get things happening together that are incredible. It’s more of an east coast, high-energy thing, so for me it’s like the yin and yang of it--I get to do both. I love that and I love this. But this [the new CD] is coming from me--I’m more of this kind of guy. But I can get up there; I’ve been there; I’ve been in NY, I understand: Let’s jack-up the--get up on the edge of the time and go. So I feel very much a part of what Hal’s doing. I use alot that I’ve learned from Hal. I was wondering what my next level was going to be when I started working with Hal. It was a whole other level of listening. He has taught me a whole other level of listening and awareness of what’s going on around you, you know. In fact it’s hard for me to play in situations where I’m sitting there with people and I realize no one is listening to each other; they’re all just playing a role or reading chords--nobody is actually paying any attention to what anyone else is doing--and it’s just painful now. Before I could kind of tune it out, but since playing with Hal--he demands that you be aware. He sort of wakes you up, “OK, pay attention man, I’ll roll right over you.” So I got the quickening from Hal--very inspiring playing with someone who has worked so long on his own thing. It’s another real advantage to apprenticing again. At 39, when I started working with Hal, I started apprenticing again--it’s beautiful man--it’s like six years of grad school have gone by. I’m real lucky. I’ve been obscure, I’ve had problems in my life that have kept me from getting notoriety, but not any experience that I’ve ever had would I trade. I’ve learned something from the depths of hell. I’ve learned something from the highest peaks, and it all makes up what I am now, and I am so lucky and so grateful all the way around. so

JW: Well, you definitely have traveled alot, and it seems that’s allowed you to pick up alot of different things, whereas if Jeff Johnson had stayed in Minneapolis for most of his life, he probably would have been influenced by just a few guys.

JJ: I’m really grateful to have had the experiences--good and bad--and to be able to go places and not be political. I’m just here to play. We [Hal’s trio] went to Zagreb a couple of years ago and played in Yugoslavia, and the UN was everywhere, you know--guards--and there we were in Zagreb, in this club. The people have no money. No money at all--and they were there every night, four nights, I think, we were at this club. The same people. The same clothes; they had their best clothes on. Somehow they had the money to come and hear. They wanted to be at the event, and jazz was the event. And this old man came up to me--he could barely speak English--and he said, ‘You know, this is Niels’ room.’ I thought he didn’t like me. He said, ‘This is Niels’ room.’ and I said, ‘You mean Niels-Henning?’ He said, ‘Yes. This is Niels’ room.’ and he sat there and he kinda stared at me for a long time, and I didn’t know what was going to happen, and he looked at me, and he kinda smiled and said, ‘but you can come any time.’ It was great, you know. I almost felt like crying. Boy, that came from somewhere deep. This was an old man, you know, and none of them had much--none of them had much. We got alot--even when we’re broke--we got alot. So, you know, things like that, man, change your life.

Jeff’s new trio CD, “Free,” will soon be available at www.originarts.com

Jeff Johnson’s recent selected discography:

1994-"MOMENTUM"w/Jessica Williams Trio
Jazz Focus Records(Can.)-JFCD003
Jessica Williams-Piano
Jeff Johnson-Contra Bass
Dick Berk-Drums

1994-"LIVE AT VARTAN JAZZ"(Denver)w/The Hal Galper Trio
Vartan Jazz Series-VJ001
Hal Galper-Piano
Jeff Johnson-Contra Bass
Steve Ellington-Drums

1994-"A SONG THAT I HEARD"w/Jessica Williams Trio
Hep Records- HEP CD2061
Jessica Williams-Piano
Jeff Johnson-Contra bass
Dick Berk-Drums

1994-"REBOP"w/Hal Galper quartet featuring Jerry Bergonzi
ENJA Records-ENJ 9129 2
Hal Galper-Piano
Jerry Bergonzi-Tenor Sax
Jeff Johnson-Contra Bass
Steve Ellington-Drums
recorded for radio broadcast Lugano,Switzerland

1995-"INVENTIONS"w/Jessica Williams Trio
Jazz Focus Records-JFCD008
Jessica Williams-Piano
Jeff Johnson-Contra bass
Dick Berk-Drums

1996-"JOY"w/Jessica Williams Quartet/Quintet
Jazz Focus Records-JFCD014
Jessica Williams-Piano,whistle,perc.
Jay Thomas-Trumpet,Tenor sax,flute
Hadley Caliman-Tenor sax
Jeff Johnson-Contra bass
Dick Berk&or Mel Brown -Drums,bells

1996-"JESSICA'S BLUES"w/Jessica Williams Quartet
Jazz Focus Records-JFCD018
Jessica Williams-Piano
Jay Thomas-Tenor sax ,Trumpet
Jeff Johnson-Contra bass
Mel Brown-Drums

1997-"CHOKED UP"w/Sharpshooters
Shadow Records SDW018-2
Rick Mandyke/John Goforth-sax samples
Jeff Johnson-Contra bass samples

1997-"FUGUE STATE"w/Hal Galper Trio
Blue Chip Jazz-BC 4005-2
Hal Galper-Piano
Jeff Johnson-Contra bass
Steve Ellington-Drums
ive @Manchester Craftsmen's Guild ,Pitt.PA.

1997-"WALK SPIRIT-TALK SPIRIT"live at Old Town Alehse. /Seattle
Origin Records-Originarts/Origin 82358
Rick Mandyke-Tenor Sax
Hans Teuber-Alto/Tenor sax
Rich Cole-Tenor sax(2&5)
Jeff Johnson-Contra bass
John Bishop-Drums

1997-"NOW......HERE........THIS!"
Origin Records-Originarts/Origin 82357
Rick Mandyke-Tenor Sax
Mike Denny-Guitar
Jeff Johnson-contrabass
John Bishop-Drums

1998-"WISH"w/Kendra Shank Quintet
Jazz Focus Records JFCD028
Kendra Shank-vcl.
Frank Kimbrough-Piano
Jeff Johnson-Contrabass
Hans Teuber-Saxophones,flute
Victor Lewis-Drums
Joe Locke-vibraphone(#8)

1998-"FOREVER"w/Jan Stentz group
MNOP Records /MNOP1013-2
Jan Stentz-vcl.
Bob Nixon-Piano
Jeff Johnson-bass
Dean Hodges-Drums
Chuck Stentz-Tenor Sax(2&3)
Bill Ramsay-Alto sax (6)
Jay Thomas-Trumpet(8)

1998-"SWEET BEAT BLUES"w/Hal Galper trio featuring Carlo Atti
RED Records/RR123277-2CD(Italy)
Carlo Atti-Tenor Sax
Hal Galper-Piano
Jeff Johnson-Contrabasso
Steve Ellington-Drums

1998-"MAYBECK DUETS"w/Hal Galper,Jeff Johnson Duo
Philology Records/Philology W 139.2 (Italy)
Hal Galper-Piano
Jeff Johnson-Contrabass
Produced by Hal Galper/Jeff Johnson

1999-"HERE & NOW"w/Steve Korn sextet(Seattle)
Origin Records 82368
Rod Davis-Tenor sax,Bass Clarinet
Jim Knapp-Trumpet
Dave Peterson-Guitar
Marc Seales-Piano
Jeff Johnson-Contrabass
Steve Korn-Drums

1999 & beyond coming releases:
Hal Galper Quintet w/ Tim Hagans-trpt.-Jerry Bergonzi-Tenor sax.,Jeff
Johnson-bass
Steve Ellington-drums coming fall '99 on Double-Time Jazz Records
projected title:"LET'S CALL THIS THAT" dedicated to Jaki Byard

Jeff Johnson trio w/Hans Teuber -winds ,&Billy Mintz-drums
coming this summer '99 on Origin Records/Originarts
Projected Title: "FREE"
This one recorded live @ Old Town Alehouse ,Seattle Wa. for Doug
Haire/"Sonarchy"
radio broadcast June '98 (Underwritten by Jack Straw Productions)