MF: Joshua, you've had the unique, maybe disorienting, priveledge of being thrust into the spotlight of jazz attention and criticism. Have you found this difficult?

JR: There are difficult aspects to having a lot of attention focused on you. I mean, when it first started to happen, I just wasn't ready for it. I don't think anyone is ready for it unless they grew up with it. I far from grew up with it. One of the first emotions that I remember feeling strongly when I started to get a lot of attention is guilt. The guilt came from a sense that "Who am I to deserve this? There have been so many great jazz musicians before me who are so much more deserving of this. So many musicians who have struggled their whole lives and never have been able to have even this much attention. Who am I to steal the spotlight?" And that feeling that I had lasted for a good year. Even while I was stepping into the spotlight and dealing with the attention and doing the interviews and dealing with the publicity and beginning to build a career as a leader. I was still feeling that. That feeling gradually dissapated. And the reason it did is that I started to realize that the music business is not in any way a meritocracy. It's not about deserts. You don't become famous or become recognized because you deserve to as an artist. Hopefully, your success will ultimately be due to your music. And I believe that ultimately, my music has been the backbone of my success. But, being hyped and being a media commodity has very little to do with the soul of your music, with the substance of your art. That's something that I knew all of my life, but still I had to realize that for myself. I'm not saying this to knock down my music, because I believe in my music. But I also believe in a lot of other people's music who have not had the kind of success or attention that I've had. Once I realized that, I realized that there was nothing productive about carrying around the guilt of being successful. The best thing, the only thing, that I could do was take the great luck I've been handed and try to make the most of it and be the best musician that I could be. I don't mean to sound like an Army commercial. To try to help call attention, insofar as I could, to other musicians who may not have had that kind of luck.

MF: On the other hand, you've also had to play the straw man to a lot of arguments about what's right and what's wrong with jazz today.

JR: Sure. And there has been a lot of backlash against me. People have set me up as the figurehead for a lot of things that I don't feel I stand for. There are a couple of other things I wanted to say about the whole attention issue. Dealing with the guilt was the first thing. After that, it simply becomes for me an ongoing process of making sure that the world of attention, media, and publicity lies firmly outside of the world of my music. I have to draw and very thick, strong line, between my life as a media commodity, or as a businessman, and my life as a musician. And they can coexist, but the way they coexist is by making sure that all the business stuff is kept away from the music. You decide what you want to do as a musician, what moves you as a musician, what you need to do as a musician. And then, once you know that, or once you think you know that, you ask, "How can I structure my career, my business, so that I am able to do that?"

MF: A lot of attention has been showered on very young musicians lately. There seems to be a strong desire in the media to paint these developing artists as representative of a style. Do you feel that you've been pigeon-holed that way?

JR: I think that some people have [pigeon-holed me]. I think that different people have seen me in different ways. That's a good thing. I've never seen myself as representing any one thing except for maybe a love of all sorts of music. If anything, I want to be seen as that-- "a focused eclectic." But I think that certain people have represented me as being the prototypical, even architypal, young lion. Which is something that I never think I've stood for. The idea of a young lion in jazz has been of a clean-cut, well-dressed, conservative, backward looking acoustic jazz musician. This is something that I've never thought of myself as being. Yes, I'm young. I'm not dirty. Someone could make the argument that I'm clean-cut. But in no way do I consider myself a traditionalist in the sense that I'm trying to revive an old tradition, or trying to recapture the spirit of bygone era. For me, music is about playing what you feel, and what your experiencing in the "here and now." It's about the present more than it's about the past or the future. I have listened to the music that's come before me. I think that every musician has. The most innovative, revolutionary, musicians have been influenced by the music that came before them. But I'm not a conservative. I'm not a traditionalist.

MF: What elements of your music do you think these critics have pointed to?

JR: I think that they've pointed to the fact that in a very general sense, a lot of the music I've played bears a strong resemblence to the jazz of the forties through the sixties. I've been very heavily influenced by bebop, swing, hard bop, and modal. That's been a great influence on me. And I've explored that influence very heavily in my music. I have two points about that. First, one of the great things about jazz music is that you can play music in a style from any period and still make it completely contemporary. That's because the most important aspect of jazz music is improvisation. Through improvisation, you're playing your emotions, your feelings, your experiences of the moment. So you could play a tune that was written fifty or sixty years ago and make it contemporary through your improvisation. You can play music which is loosely based in the bebop style, created forty years ago, and make it modern through your personality. Ultimately, when you're improvising, you're playing yourself. That's one point. The other point is that I am a young musician and I'm evolving. What I did three years ago is not what I'm doing now, and what I'm doing now, I won't be doing five years from now. It's natural that as a musician grows older and matures, their music is going to mature. Their identity is going to come forward. In terms of being recognized as an original voice and being an innovator, that will come with time. I do have my own voice, but I'll have more of my own voice five years from now. Just like I have more of my own voice now than I did when I first hit the scene. That's a natural process.

MF: Yeah. A lot of people forget that people like John Coltrane and Miles Davis didn't really strike out on their own until their mid-thirties.

JR: Right. And you can listen to Coltrane in the late forties or the early fifties and you can still hear his identity. But that identity wasn't fully formed. That identity went through so many transformations. What we consider the "quintessential" Coltrane sound, if there is one, wasn't formed until the early sixties.

MF: In some way, our conception of Coltrane is an artifact of hindsight.

JR: Yeah. To me innovation and originality are natural things. They are not things which have to be forced. As long as a musician concentrates on trying to play honestly, with the feelings and emotions he has inside of him, his music will be original.

MF: Many of today's musicians have been formally trained and they've looked to that era of jazz between the forties and sixties to develop their technique. It's become part of learning how to play an instrument. Do you think that that has created a common style, "a generation?" And if so, has there been any departure from the past?

JR: There's no way that I can generalize on how my generation as a group has drawn from or departed from the past. Every musician is an individual. And every musician's relationship to the past will be uniquely their own. So I can't talk about that. It's not so much about making a case for how my generation relates to the past. That's not the issue. The issue is recognizing in each individual musician what their individual sound is. Take someone like Roy Hargrove. We're from the same generation. He's someone who's also been pegged as a young lion. But, I can turn on the radio, and in four notes I know it's him. That, to me, is the mark of an individual. I'd like to believe the same about myself. People have told me that they can recognize me immediately, even when I'm playing within what people would call the "hard bop" style. So, if you can put on a CD, or turn on the radio, and recognize someone's sound, then there's your individual. There's your departure from the past right there. That's your originality. Wynton Marsalis has taken a lot of abuse for being the staunch neo-traditionalist. Granted, he's brought a lot of that upon himself because of some of the comments he's made. Regardless of what he's said, I can recognize him instantly. I like his sound. Some people don't. You may not like his sound. But for all the things that have been said about him, there's no question that he has his own sound. That's where you start to make the case. It's not about saying "OK in this way, my generation has departed from the past." It's about looking at individual musicians and saying "Do they have unique voices?"

MF: Is it wrong to see a group of musicians as a single, unitary force?

JR: I've never believed in treating music as a linear evolution. You can tell that story of jazz up to a point. You can say, "the beboppers advanced harmonically and rhythmically on the music of the swing era. After that modality started to break down some of those innovations..." You can string together a historical evolution of jazz up to a point. But past the point of what people like to call "free jazz," where jazz musicians did away with predetermined harmonic and rhythmic structures, after that point where do you go? You can't necessarily make a case for whatever comes after that as being a linear advance. Once you've broken down all the barriers, what more can you break down? But that's not to say that innovation can't continue. It's just that you can't see that innovation in the same linear terms. You may have to see it in more post-modern terms. And I don't want to go too far into explaining that. In a certain sense, you can say that the boundaries have been charted, but there's so much space in between that can be developed. We can take elements of so many things that have been hinted at and synthesize them to create an original voice and do something innovative. I don't see jazz in linear terms, which I think a lot of critics and writers have done. If you do see jazz in those terms, you're forced to make the case that nothing new has happened in jazz since the late sixties. But if you see jazz as an expanding sphere, then you can make a case for jazz continuing to be innovative. In my opinion, if you look at rock and roll in linear terms, then you can't talk about rock and roll being innovative past the early seventies. But, I think that there are a lot of innovative bands out there, even though they're borrowing from things that happened twenty years ago.

MF: Yeah, I've heard that argument made before, that one of the defining features of current music is that musicians are treating past idioms as a pallette from which to draw ideas. I guess the idea is that today's musicians are not just resurrecting a past linneage, but are synthesizing ideas from the past and in so doing, creating something new.

JR: Right.

MF: But I've heard yet another perspective; it came up in a conversation I had the other day. A friend of mine suggested that throughout the history of jazz there have been single individuals around whom groups of musicians have rallied. Examples would be Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis. He suggested he history of jazz from this perspective might be understood as movement of spheres of influence from one individual to another. The point is that since the late sixties, that phenomenon has not happened. There hasn't been a central figure. How do you react to that version of jazz history?

JR: It's an interesting argument, but I have a couple of problems with it. One is that I think that a musician's popularity or charisma at the time they are playing is not the best gauge of their worth or originality. I made this point earlier, your popularity and your contribution to the music are two separate things, that even holds for your popularity among your peers. It is a gauge, but trying to make an argument for the health of a music or the health of a style of music based on looking at who people are rallying around can be dangerous. I think that you could probably go back and find musicians who were rallied around 'back in the day' who later have not been dismissed, but who have also not been considered historically significant. I can think of some names, but I'd rather not name them. I don't like to get negative. But I think that anyone can look back on jazz history and find groups of individuals who were hugely influential in their time but forgotten later. Who were just a fad. The other thing is that there are some people who are influential today. But I'm hesitant to get into that because I think that part of the problem is that so many people feel that there has to be a leader-- the best trumpeter, the best saxophone player, the most important musician of his or her generation. The music isn't about hierarchies. That whole attitude just plays into the hype. It becomes like "we need to find those one or two jazz musicians who are the leaders." I just think that's dangerous. It closes opportunities to promising musicians. Yeah, Coltrane was a leader and figurehead and one of the most revolutionary jazz musicians of his time, but there were other saxophone players at the time that were just as innovative and just as revolutionary in their own way. Take someone like Joe Henderson, who now 25 years later is being recognized for what he was doing while Coltrane was around. That's a perfect example of the historical revisions that happen. So you can't look at the scene today and say "Well there're no Coltranes or Miles Davises and therefore the music is shot." A lot of people don't realize that at the time, Coltrane and Miles-- even at the height of their creativity-- weren't the Coltrane and Miles that we think of today. I would just say that given time, you will see the same things being said about the importance of musicians today that is said about Miles and Coltrane. I'm not saying that we're as great as them, but you'll see the same focus and rallying once we get some hindsight.

MF: Yeah look, Coltrane turned to peers like Eric Dolphy for inspiration and ideas. It's easy to write the fiction that Trane was the center of the jazz universe, but there's always a lot of mutual influence and cross-breeding going on.

JR: Right. Also people tend to forget at any given time musicians are being rallied around by one group while they're being knocked down by another. There's always controversy going on. There's never unanimity on a single musician. There's debate. So now, everyone agrees that Bird and Miles and Trane were brilliant innovators. No one would say that they weren't great. But at the time, there was huge controversy. I was reading some old reviews of Coltrane records in Downbeat and records that are seen as absolute classics like Crescent or Ballads, records that are seen as unassailable today, were knocked down in their day. I think history has a way of clearing up controversy, especially after people die. I hate be dark about it, but that's the way it's been.

MF: O.K., let's switch gears here. Let's talk about the development of your style, where you're coming from. Where did you get your start in music.

JR: I started playing music pretty much the day I was born. I love music. I grew up around music, not with my father, since I never lived with my father. But, my mother loved music, she loved all kinds of music: jazz, classical, rock, African, Indian, soul, R&B, everything, you name it. She had music playing in the house from the day I was born-- very ecclectic taste. And she took me to concerts. I remember seeing Indonesian "gamalan,"which is a kind xylophone, very early on. I remember seeing Indian music concerts early, African music concerts. I remember going to jazz concerts early. So, I was exposed to all kinds of music at a very early age. And I always had a desire to make music, even before I played any instrument. I would always be drumming out music on chairs and tables. My mom tells a story: when I was two or three, I came back from a "gamalan" concert and lined up all the pots and pans in the house. I had my knives and forks, and was playing my own version of the xylophone! This was before I played any instrument. So I was into making music before I played any kind of instrument. The first instrument I ever studied-- quote/unquote "studied"-- was an Indian drum, a clay pot from South India called the "gathra." When I was five years old, my mom took me to this place called The Center for World Music in Berkeley, California, which is where I grew up. It was basically a place that offered introductory courses in all sorts of music and dance from all over the world to people of any ages. So I was in classes with fifty-five year olds and I was five years old. First, I started with that Indian drum, and then I switched to another Indian drum called the "merdungram." And don't ask me how to spell these words, I barely remember how to pronounce them! The first Western instrument that I played was the recorder. I played a little piano, and I taught myself a little guitar. Basically, I took a few recorder lessons and a few piano lessons, but for most of these instruments, I taught myself. Then, in the fourth grade I started playing clarinet and in fifth grade, I started playing saxophone.

MF: When did you start your lessons on saxophone?

JR: I never took lessons on the saxophone. I took clarinet lessons on and off from fourth grade until maybe sixth grade. And then I gave up the clarinet by the ninth. I never had formal saxophone lessons. I took a couple. I remember taking one lesson when I was thirteen from this guy that was eighteen, I took a couple of lessons when I was in Boston. I've taken maybe three lessons over the years. Most of it was self-taught. The saxophone, from a purely technical standpoint, is not a difficult instrument to teach yourself to play, especially if you've played another wind instrument. My teachers were the records-- listening to Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, and Ben Webster.

MF: So who were your earliest influences on record?

JR: Definitely John Coltrane. I remember listening to A Love Supreme from very early on. That was one of my mother's favorite records. My father's records were around the house. Cannonball Adderley. Ornette's records were around. A little bit later, around when I started playing the saxophone, I discovered Sonny Rollins. From the point I discovered him, he became my favorite saxophone player, to the extent that I had a favorite. I discovered Dexter Gordon around that time, too. Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter came a little later in high school. Ben Webster, Lester Young, and Gene Ammons, came around the time I got to college. I was listening to Charlie Parker early on, but I didn't really, really, get into him until later on in high school, too. I was more into Cannonball Adderley, I think probably because of the quality of the recordings.

MF: It's clear that Sonny Rollins plays an important role in your style. In what way would you say you've absorbed his influence?

JR: I think, more than anything else, it's in his approach to improvisation. The thing that always attracted me to Sonny Rollins was that he managed to be completely spontaneous as an improvisor, and yet also remain very, very structured. He is able to play his feelings of the moment, but play them in a way that makes sense over time. There's a logic to his improvisation, but it's an emotional logic. You always get the feeling that Sonny Rollins is telling you a story when he plays. His improvisations have a sense of time and space, and a development, a meaningful development. The beginning relates to the middle, which relates to the end. I think that that, more than anything else, is his lasting influence on me. One more thing, if you want to get more specific, is that some of the rhythmic and melodic ideas that I use bear his imprint. My ides bear a lot of people's imprints. But for me, what sets Rollins apart from the others as my greatest influence is his approach to improvisation, that combination of sponteneity and structure.

MF: Yeah, every phrase seems to have been set up in the one before.

JR: Exactly, and at the same time there's nothing that sounds premeditated about it. It's an apparent paradox, but that paradox is the heart and soul of jazz music.

MF: You mentioned Ornette Coleman as another influence. Where does he fit into your style?

JR: More than anything else, through the strength of melody in his music. To me, everything that Ornette Coleman plays is melodic. It's funny, a lot of people tell me that they can't get into Ornette Coleman because they don't hear the melody. But I think it's that they don' hear the melody in the context that their used to hearing it in. It's not melody in the context of recognizable harmony. The thing about Ornette is that he was able to make very strong melodic statements in any harmonic context, and often in the absence of a predetermined harmonic context. The way that his music has influenced me the most is in the idea that a strong melody can work, and make sense, and be beautiful, even if it goes against the conventional rules of harmony. Through Ornette's influence, I've learned to feel comfortable playing things that are strong melodically but that would clash against the harmony on paper. You know, things that have no direct, logical relationship to the harmony, but that work because the melodies connect to one another. I learned from Ornette that if you hear it, if you hear it and it's melodic, then it will work no matter what it is.

MF: On "Wish" you played with three musicians who have all played with Ornette Coleman. Was that set up on purpose?

JR: Yeah. But, it wasn't necessarily that I wanted to get musicians who'd played with Ornette Coleman. I wanted to play with some master musicians, great older musicians who would kick my ass. I wanted to basically take a lesson and make a record at the same time! But there are so many great rhythm sections out there. I would have loved to play with McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones; with Herbie, Ron and Tony; so many. But I was drawn to that group of musicians because of their connection with Ornette, and their connection with my father. It was their ability to play any sort of music, even if it's very inside music, music with simple, strong harmonies, and still float over it and make it free. And I think that something that we accomplished with that record. We don't play anything which is structurally a free-jazz piece. We play some tunes which have very standard jazz harmonies. But I feel, that we were able to approach it from the standpoint of freedom-- in a very free way with regard to melody, harmony and rhythm. So yeah, their mutual connection with Ornette was part of the reason why I wanted to play with them.

MF: And with that in mind, what made you choose "Turnaround" as the one Ornette composition to record?

JR: I don't remember why. It's funny, because I opened the record with that, but it wasn't a tune I was planning to play. In fact, I think it was either a rehearsal or a studio, but we were just jamming. We may not even have rehearsed it.

MF: I have another question about that session. You chose to record with Pat Metheny. Whereas your regular working quartets have always featured pianists, you chose to work with a guitarist on this session.

JR: Actually, my regular working band has a guitar now.

MF: Really?

JR: Yeah, I added a guitar and expanded to a quintet.

MF: Well, what has drawn you to add a guitar to your lineup?

JR: Well, I should answer that question in two parts. In the context of guitar as the only harmonic instrument-- which was the context for "Wish"-- it allows your to have a harmonic instrument and to have that feeling of harmony, but in a much more open way. The chords that a guitarist plays are not nearly as locked down or defined as the chords that a pianist plays. That's probably because guitarists play fewer notes in their chords. But, it's also in the sound of the instrument. Playing in a guitar quartet gives you something of the harmonic definition of playing in a piano quartet with something of the freedom of playing in a trio setting. I've always dug playing in a trio setting, just saxophone, bass, and drums. Someday I'll do a record like that. But you know, a guitar quartet is somewhere in the middle. And that's why I wanted to do that for "Wish." I wanted to have that kind of freedom. In the context of guitar and piano in the same band, there's a whole other sound. There, the guitar can act as a strong melodic instrument, almost like having another horn player in the band. I can write, and we can play melodies, counter-melodies, and harmonized melodies. That can give a lot more richness and substance to the melodic character of what you're doing with the band. But, guitar can also act as a rhythm-section instrument. Texturally, in terms of color and rhythms, the guitar can help to expand what the group is doing. Specifically, in the group I'm working with now, we're starting to get into different grooves, other than straight ahead 4/4 time. And because of that, having a different instrument like the guitar to help bring out those other grooves is really great.

MF: You were in another band which put the guitar to a unique task-- The Electric Bebop Band. What was the greatest challenge for you in that band?

JR: I enjoyed playing Paul Motian very much. It was a great honor and I love his music. But, working with that band was tough. We were playing music from a period that I was very familiar with. It was very close to my soul. We were playing it in a way that was a lot different from the way it was originally played. Which was the point, but there were times that I felt that we were losing the spirit of that music. And then there were times when I felt that we really had the spirit of that music. I mean, when you're playing other people's music, music that was written before you, I believe that you have to strike a balance between bringing your own original identity to that music and not trying to recapture what others did, and at the time remaining true to the spirit of that music. As an obvious example, I wouldn't want to hear a funk version of "A Love Supreme." Now I'm sure it could be done, and it maybe has been done. I'm sure it could be done with quality and integrity. I'm almost sure, though I wouldn't know 'til I heard it, but I'm almost sure that there would be no way to capture the essence of that material in that context. And at times I felt the same about the way we were playing in that band. But at other times I felt that we did capture it. So, the challenge with that, as the challenge with any music of the past, is striking that balance. When I was playing with that band, some nights we succeeded, and some nights we failed. The successes and failures are totally subjective. What I considered a failure, other people in the band might have seen as a success, and vice versa. It's a tough thing, but you shouldn't shrink from the challenge. Now, I haven't heard the band lately, but I've heard from people whose taste I share, that these days, the band has a much stronger identity.

MF: If we could backtrack a bit, you mentioned that on your latest album, you were using the guitar to experiment with new grooves. What other ideas went into the album?

JR: Basically, along the lines of what I was saying, the goal of this record is to carry the spirit of improvised acoustic jazz into stylistic territory which isn't conventional to the jazz tradition. That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is we're encorporating rhythmic elements which are not conventional to jazz into our acoustic improvising jazz group. Either way, it's the same thing. We're starting to explore different sorts of rhythms: rhythms that have a back-beat at times; rhythms that have a latin tinge; odd meter rhythms; we're getting away from the 4/4 swing time, although we do play that, too. Basically, it's a jazz record, though a traditionalist might say it's not a jazz record. In my opinion, it's jazz because to me, what defines jazz isn't the stylistic elements, but the improvisational, interactive, spontaneous, spirit with which you approach the music.

MF: And did you do all of the writing for this album?

JR: Yeah.

MF: Are there any compositions that really stand out for you?

JR: It's too early to tell. I mean, all of them and none of them, you know? I feel good about everything we've done. Everything, compositionally, represents something I feel. I had time to write them. These compositions developed over time and I was able to spend time with the ones that needed time in order to get them to sound right. So, I'm happy with them 'cause they're an honest reflection of who I am and where I am. But, I also hate it for those same reasons. It's just like how people can't stand to hear their voice back on a tape recorder, or see themselves on video. It's tough to confront yourself. It's tough to have to measure your successes and your shortcomings. I'm also hyper-critical of my own work. I've already heard it enough times to hate it. The more I hear my own stuff, the more it loses all its magic. All I think is "Aw, I could've done this, or I could've done that!"

MF: But when things do go right, what are the elements that make up a good composition for you?

JR: A good composition should evoke some sort of mood. There should be an emotional basis to every composition. It should stake out some sort of emotional territory. That's what I try to do. That's what I like in a composition, and that's what I try to do with my own music.

MF: Your albums are very balanced in that way. They cover a lot of emotional ground.

JR: That's one thing that I've come to grips with: I'm an eclectic. I like to play with a lot of different colors and textures and I like to play with a lot of different stylistic elements. I believe that I can do that and still remain focused. I think that we were able to do that with this new album. I feel that there is a great focus to it, even while there's quite a lot of eclecticism. That may sound impossible. But to me, it is very focused because the way that the band interacts, the lines of communication between the members of the band, and the way that the band defines itself, stays consistent from tune to tune. The identity of the band, the way we interact, and the way in which we forge our collective identity is well formed and consistent.

MF: One last question. It seems like you've put a lot of thought into charting out a course for this new band. What other new ground would you like to break either personally, or collectively with your current project?

JR: Basically, the way I want to grow, and this is going to sound a bit general, is that I want to continue to dig deeper inside of myself. I want to find new ways to express the feelings, the emotions, the experiences that I have as a person. That's what the music is about for me. I want to develop the resources I need as a musician to express the feelings I have as a human being. And, I want to continue to play with great musicians within my band, outside of my band, as a leader, and as a sideman. I want to continue to play all different sorts of music-- jazz, and also outside of jazz. I've gotten a chance to work with musicians outside of the jazz context which I really enjoyed. I'd like to do more of that. I'm really trying to push the band that I'm playing with into new territory, in a very natural way. I'm not trying to innovate from an intellectual standpoint, but from an emotional and spiritual standpoint. I have a need, as a musician, to find other ways and other environments for improvisation. Because of that, I think it's important to push the band, and to innovate in that way. But I'm not coming from the standpoint of like "OK, I want to innovate. How can I innovate? What's been done? Hmm, theoretically, no one's done a record with tamborine, flute and dijerdoo. So, that's going to be my innovation!" I think that there are musicians out there that actually do that. Their music is innovative, but it doesn't speak to the soul. I think that all truly great innovations come naturally, from the inside. They come because an artist hears something and has an emotional need to experience something new musically. That's where the innovation comes from, and that's where I'll continue to look.

copyright © 1996. Mark Felton.