By Matt Rand

Often audacious, free-wheeling and fun, the music of the Maneris never ceases to challenge the ear. And for them, it's never contradiction, because, for them, music doesn't need to commit to being either academic or pop. For them, music is about curiosity and communication. Joe, the elder Maneri, wrote the book on microtonality (literally), and his son Mat has changed the way the jazz world listens to the violin and the viola. They recently shared a conversation with All About Jazz.

ALL ABOUT JAZZ: A lot of experimental music relies on a seemingly constant unresolved tension, and I don't hear that in your music. It's surprisingly calm for music that's as far outside as it is, particularly on Going to Church. Is that something intentional?

JOE MANERI: Well, I think the other music that you're speaking of, notice where you could say "the other music," often people do say that, they say, "You're so far out but yet you don't seem to be screaming all the time." And I think it's because we are so far out that we don't have to scream about it.

MAT MANERI: I'd (laughs) I'd like to add to that. I don't really believe in free music, and I think what you're talking about, this experimental stuff, is more free based, or whatever. So I think, yeah we're not working with music in front of us, but we work very hard to create our own standard of what the melody against time against counterpoint against harmony is. And even though we're pushing that and playing new notes, or new systems, or new melodies, it's still very based in a tradition of music, and there's still a very strong time feeling. It may not be heard or understood by the audience, or even by the musicians at points, but there's a very strong base to what we're doing.

JM: When we first started rehearsing our group at the very beginning, there was an element of, let's say, line, that had a kind of expression, happy, sad, furious, upset, angry, so forth, and, it was a language that was new. But yet it had a linear thing to it that almost felt like a song or something. At least we felt it was like a song. While we composed, we automatically sensed that something about the line we were doing was finished, so we went to another groove, if you will. And when that was finished we thought maybe another groove, and then something later on came back to the beginning. And, while we rehearsed in the very very beginning, we formed a kind of, a, melodic, harmonic and form style of a music that was not, eh, ordinary. It sounds, as people call it, avant-garde, and we knew it did, but for us, for our ears, we were hearing the actual abstraction of the thing we were doing. So from that, it became, like Mat says, composing. So we were, we were like "Up, oodih oo ah ah," okay?

AAJ: Yeah.

JM: And we rememembered it, "Eendu up, een, oodih ah ah," and we knew that was a statement or a motive or something. And we'd blow all these different things.

MM: We were listening to Going to Church last night, actually, my father and I, and at the end of it my father said, "That's Dixieland." And I really think that in a lot of ways, it's coming from a Dixieland form, everybody blowing lines together in a very comfortable way, because we understand the form underneath.

JM: That session was the first playing for all of us together, I think that the three newest players, Barre and, and Roy and Matt Shipp, absolutely knew what Mat and I did. They knew our language very well, and they have shown me and Mat a tremndous respect. I'm very overwhelmed; they treat me like King Maneri or something, so that already there's a high respect musicianship-wise. And I know Matt Shipp since he was a kid, so there's a high respect for him as well on our side. So I think this high respect plays a part, don't you think Mat?

MM: Sure.

JM: There was nobody in that band that felt higher or lower. From the start there was a feeling like this was an all-star band.

MM: Yeah.

JM: I think that record's so cool because everyone played what they want to play. They didn't say, "I must to do this because I'm with Maneri," or "I must do this because I'm Matt Shipp." Everything seemed just, "I must do this because it's going to work." I think that's a nice miracle.

MM: A special occasion.

JM: It's like when you hear Coleman Hawkins with Lester Young. I love those records because there's always something a little fresh, but you don't hear them as an ongoing thing.

AAJ: Joe, I know you teach at the New England Conservatory and you've developed a system of microtonality. Do you use that when you play?

JM: I use it personally when I feel comfortable. It's a very difficult new language, so I feel I use it a lot, if you want to call it a lot, but actually it's very little. It doesn't really have a voice yet.

MM: For instance, I think when my father composes in written music, he composes in microtones. Like most people use 12 tones, you know--

JM: I use 72!

MM: But you don't usually go around saying, you know, this composer writes with 12 tones. He's just a composer. So now in improvisation, there are different levels of how much we use microtones or not, but a mistake people often make is, "Oh the Microtonalists, the Maneris are going to be playing." And our improvisation -- it's like saying "Ornette [Coleman] the Microtonalist," because he's always out of tune, and he's always making things sharp and it's on purpose. But nobody calls him "the Microtonalist." We're more aware of the microtones we can use and emulate and manipulate, but I don't think it's to the point where we can consider it, like, microtonal jazz.

JM: I teach microtones. So one day a guy came along and he took a solo by Louie Armstrong, and he notated it, because Louie Armstrong, and most jazzers play microtones, but they didn't call it that. They gave it inflection: they might go a little higher on the note, or lower. So the guy notated the whole system according to the notational system we have. And then we all tried to play it, and we really got a tremendous kick out of it because it sounded like Louie. So we're that aware, but we're not totally sure that if we play all these notes we'll know exactly what's going to happen right on the spot. So I personally become a little more careful. I don't want to just throw them around any old way.

AAJ: So, do you Mat, do you use a lot of that system? Did Joe teach you?

MM: I don't claim to be anywhere near as informed as my father with microtones. I have his book, and I've read through it several times. I've actually performed several microtonal pieces. But I'm more comfortable performing it in a classical setting, whereas most of my improv is really based on intuition, just on the experience of playing with certain people over 20 years now.

AAJ: When you were growing up, did you learn a lot from him?

MM: Through osmosis. It wasn't formally taught to me, but Joe was working on it so much when I was growing up. I tried to help him build a microtonal keyboard, and I was very interested in that. But it wasn't something I pursued in an academic way.

AAJ: Did you ever feel like you had to rebel against him, like blasting Western tonal music around the house?

MM: Um, n-- I mean I had to rebel against my father like any normal son would.

AAJ: But it didn't make you get into conventional music or anything.

MM: No, I mean I listened to punk and rock and hip hop. But at the same time I knew the weakness of the things we were listening to; you can't lie to yourself. I still enjoy stuff that my father would never listen to, and of course it's a huge generation thing, just like my father can enjoy Benny Goodman more than I can. I can listen to the new Eminem record and say, "Man this production is killing," but it's basic and it's stupid. But I'll get something out of it.

AAJ: Do you think you could get something out of any kind of music?

MM: Any music that's trying to put a spin on something or is performed well or produced well. I don't care what kind of music it is, though when you get into the pop world, there's obviously different levels of pop. Like it's really hard to find something of value like in an N'Sync record or something.

AAJ: Come on, that's my favorite group.

MM: Justin is kind of cute, but you know what I mean. In this world, I can't help it, I turn on the radio and all you're going to hear is 99.999% shit. So you look for something that's good in that. The other day I was listening to the radio and some Norah Jones single came on, I think it's being pushed heavily now. And I'm thinking "Alright, it's produced really well, the feel is cool, she's actually controlling her voice." I'll get into it for a second, and then on a second listen it's not all that, but you have to learn to get into what you can get into.

JM: Well for instance, Mat influenced me quite a bit. Now when I first heard David Bowie, I wasn't ready to listen and Mat said, "Oh come on, I want you to listen to it some more." And he'd sit me down and play the record, because he knew that I would probably hear things -- because his sophistication in hearing was far more than mine. So then all of a sudden I sit down and I say "Oh I see what you mean. Oh this guy's cool." And also Blood, Sweat and Tears many years ago, they were a level up for me. Yeah, their creativity was a bit more cool for me.

AAJ: So when did you guys start playing together?

MM: I played with him when I was 15, and we started playing out in clubs and stuff. But it wasn't until 1989 or 90 when we started the Joe Maneri Quartet and made it a serious working group.

AAJ: In your music, I hear between you two a kind of sympathy, or ear or something. You hear each other and pick up on what you hear so well. Is it in the genes? Or is it just from being around each other so long?

MM: Well, it's certainly in the genes for sure. But beyond that, you grow with somebody, you play with them for 15-20 years, and if you don't really get good by then with such a strong pairing, then you got a problem. There's no denying that when you work with somebody a really long time, you can really grow and push each other and get inside their head. You can assimilate that when playing with somebody that you don't play with that much, but when you really work with somebody a long, long period, the years go by, you've done hundreds of gigs -- of course we've become strong together. We better be, you know.

AAJ: When you're playing within a larger group, say on Going to Church, do you feel like a pair within that group?

MM: I'm very aware of what Joe and I are doing together, but I think, knowing that it's a larger group with different elements going on, both of us are going to try to work as an ensemble. This is the first time we've named a group the Maneri Ensemble. It's usually been the Mat Maneri Group, or the Joe Maneri this, this and this. This was definitely something we wanted to present as an ensemble of strong players, definitely a collective. And with the fact that Joe and I are a strong pairing, the Maneri Ensemble just seemed appropriate. But I wouldn't say that we feel separated from the other four people at all. We're really working with the drums, the piano and the trumpet, weaving in and out toward each other, trying to make the overall composition viable.

AAJ: As performers, you both have a distinct energy that you bring to the stage. What do you think the relationship is between the performer and the audience?

MM: Well, there's no denying it, that when an audience is with you and you feel it, suddenly all the practicing and all the ideas you had and things you could do become less relevant, and you push yourself to a better level. You just don't play like that in your basement or your living room. You can in a certain way, but there's something to be said for just really communicating with people that raises the-- your brain functions are moving faster, you're just more aware of everything that's going on, it just raises the level for sure. The other thing, though, is sometimes you get an audience that had a bad day, or maybe it's a small audience, or maybe it's cold in the room, or whatever, and then, you really feel the need to communicate with them, and try to form some kind of bond or healing, a connection with them because they're there. You're there for them. The whole point of being a performer is to play for people, whether it's two or three people in the audience or 5,000.

AAJ: Joe, when I've seen you perform, you were singing, you were moving around. You were rooted at the center of the stage, and it was very shamanic. Where's that coming from?

JM: I think it's really coming from, from jazz. It really comes from Louie Armstrong, Louie Prima, in the old days, and all the scat singers. I started out playing with a quartet, and I was a scat singer, I used to sing "Isyouis or Isyouain't My Baby," stuff like that. The voice seems to say something you can't say on the horn sometimes. I sensed all of a sudden my voice wanted to scream out, and now I can't play at least one night without singing something.

AAJ: That's interesting because a lot of musicians will hold that back as much as they can, and only go through their instrument.

JM: People like when a person steps out into something that doesn't seem to be their thing. And, of course, my age and my appearance, probably it doesn't look like this is the kind of person I am.

MM: But also your age and appearance, it can also let you get away with shit like that. Whereas if I suddenly started rocking around and singing like that, I'd probably be laughed off stage.

JM: (laughing) That's a possibility.

AAJ: But you do have an energy to your performance. With Club D'Elf in particular, I've seen you trying to turn a jazz audience into more of what a rock audience might be, to get a kind of reaction you wouldn't normally get from a jazz audience.

MM: Oh, for sure. I mean, look, the jazz audience is so small right now, and so boring generally. And you see it, you know, like you see Medeski Martin and Wood on the cover of jazz magazines, like "the hottest jazz group around," and they're playing jam band stuff. All those guys are obviously well rooted in jazz, so it's obviously working. And, you know, Matt Shipp is now doing records with DJ Spooky. Everybody's trying to find a way to hit a bigger audience, not to dumb the music down, but actually for the musicians to kind of smarten up, and not get so puritanical. So if I find myself as a sideman in a situation like that, I'm not going to shy away from it. I like to have fun. (laughs) Also I think the music that Joe and I do that's not as pop or whatever, is just as accessible if people understood that well-played music is well-played music. It becomes a matter of familiarity, and I think people who take the time to, say, listen to classical music and modern classical, the more you hear it, the more simple it sounds. People are more familiar with a straight ahead hip hop beat than -- even nowadays people wouldn't be as familiar with Elvin Jones playing. But I think they should be and I think they should take it to the next level and hear that once you're familiar with it, it starts sounding very normal. There was a recent review of Going to Church where the guy starts his review saying it sounds very uncomfortable, or like a drunk person can't get his words out, or like a lumbering elephant (laughs). But by the end of the review, he's like, "The more you listen to it, it's like the most original blues playing I've ever heard." And I think that was his first step to saying, "Oh this is just a normal musical language like any other, it's just that I wasn't as familiar with it the first listen."

AAJ: So when you use sounds like distortion on your violin, which comes up on your new Thirsty Ear release [Sustain], is there something you're looking to express that you can't in a more traditional setting?

MM: Absolutely not. But what it does do is, I think it makes it easier for people to hear, a little more accessible to people, that's all it is. When you put something [in] that makes the sound more recognizable, or it sounds like it's not a classical violinist anymore, or it's not just avant-garde notes because it has a distortion pedal or a wah-wah, it becomes like "Woah, the notes are actually the same." I've always had this problem because right off the bat I'm playing violin in a genre that just doesn't have a violinist. I think if I were playing the same notes on a saxophone, people might be more readily, "Oh that's what he's doing, it's not all that new -- it is new, but it's not so out of the picture." I'm still playing the same kind of figures like I would do on the acoustic viola.

AAJ: Craig Taborn plays with you on Sustain, and it sounds like your playing fits together real well. How do you feel working with him?

MM: I feel fantastic. For many years, I refused really hiring a pianist in my group. There's several reasons, one is that there's something really strict about the keys, you know, they're not going to be microtones, obviously. So it becomes so rigidly obvious what is being played against what I'm doing that it was always hard for me to kind of express these new ideas that I had been working on. Now as soon as I started working with Craig [Taborn], he had this kind of sensitivity of harmony and phrasing and colorization, you know he'd play on the Wurlitzer or Rhodes and get different sounds out of a piano, that it was really refreshing. He's become my number one call as a harmonic instrument.

AAJ: How is recording different from performing for you?

MM: Most of the recordings we do, it's a different artform. We play differently in recording studios. And I don't want to shy away from that, I actually enjoy a different element, because we're just the band now in a room with some microphones. So it becomes much more of a personal thing now that you want to capture on tape, so you're maybe a little bit more cautious, or you're molding it in a way that it can be something that can be listened to over and over again, and kind of show yourself in them gradually. Whereas live, you don't necessarily go for that as much, and you're kind of just letting it all out.

AAJ: And with two very different recordings [Going to Church on AUM Fidelity, Sustain on Thirsty Ear] coming out in the near future, where do you see your music going from here?

MM: Seeing somebody like Joe, who's 75 now, grow every night and try new things, and take the music seriously every night, not like just presenting what we've done -- it's a philosophy I really want to adopt.

JM: That's my excitement. When I start a gig, I'm jumping out of my skin. I can't wait until I start playing that night because I sense something's going to come out that I never did. At my age, you get more courage, because you know time is short, so you think screw it man, I'm going to try it anyway. On my latest album with Mat and Barre Phillips [Going to Church], I managed to finally get something that sounded a cross between the saxophone and the clarinet. And it's only about maybe a minute long or a minute more, but that minute to me is the whole album, because I finally found a sound to make on the clarinet that's neither [clarinet, alto sax, nor tenor sax]. It sounds like a new horn.

AAJ: Do you think you'll be able to catch that again?

JM: Oh yeah, now I know how to do it.

Going To Church
AUM Fidelity
2002

Reviews By
Nils Jacobson
Glenn Astarita

This interview first appeared in the November 2002 issue of All About Jazz: New York. Photography by Enid Farber. Copyright 2002.