By Jason West

While visiting Boston last year, Seattle pianist and composer, Pax Wallace gave a tape of his original compositions to legendary jazz drummer/composer, Bob Moses. Moses, who has played with the finest names in jazz, liked the tape well enough to suggest some gigs and a recording date. That date is set for August 31st at Ironwood Studios in Seattle.

On August 20th I interviewed Mr. Wallace at his Seattle residence. When I first arrived at his door, I could clearly hear the chromatic runs of a piano furiously being practiced. After repeated loud knocking, and a few shouts, Mr. Wallace did finally answer the door, smiling and glad to see me, and we began our scheduled interview:

JW: Last year Bob Moses heard your compositions and liked them enough to suggest a recording. That recording will take place on August 31rst, here in Seattle. How many tunes do you plan to record? How many of those are yours?

PW: I’ve narrowed it down to 12 tunes. We may or may not record all of them, but the majority are mine.

JW: You’re relatively unknown, even among local musicians, and now you’ll be recording with Bob Moses, who is very well known. Do you consider this your big break?

PW: Well, uh, I make no bones about it: it’s a real important event for me. I don’t know if it’s a break. It’s an opportunity. You know, in jazz, I don’t know what a big break is. It’s a labor of love, I think, for all of us. I get to make a CD with great players.

JW: Mentally and physically, how have you been preparing?

PW: I’ve been practicing like a dog; and at this point in my life it’s really important for me to continue working hard. My compositions are really challenging, and, you know, I’m really honored to be playing with these guys, so I think the music will be in good hands.

JW: Bob Moses is an eclectic, multi-cultural artist. He’s played with a wide range of players in a wide range of settings. His approach to drumming is very open-minded--at times using tree twigs as drumsticks—and consistently bringing something different to the music. What do you anticipate from him with regard to your compositions?

PW: I completely trust Bob Moses’ aesthetic judgment, his artistic inclinations, and his creative vocabulary. Whatever he comes up with in the moment, I’m sure will be treated as the absolutely correct decision by all the musicians in the band. You know, that’s what jazz is: a fluid interchange, a fluid medium. I expect him to bring a degree of unexpectedness and a dynamism to the compositions, and light up the whole band. He has a buoyancy about him--all great drummers do. It’s a real warm energy that he gives off when he plays with people.

JW: Describe the other members of the quintet.

PW: I’ll start with Charles Pillow, who I can’t describe. I’ve heard his recordings. At this point I’ve never played with him. I’ve hear him on Chuck Bergeron’s CD’s and I’m quite impressed with his playing.

Chuck Bergeron is a rock-solid powerhouse. He’s just an amazing bassist with an uncanny time-feel, combined with a very hip melodic conception, which makes him a very good composer.

JW: Yeah, I dig his compositions.

PW: Yeah. Chuck is producing the CD. Chuck is, along with Jim, they’re my mentors--and Bob Moses--all three of these guys are my mentors. I’m really learning a lot and appreciate their help.

JW: You studied with a trumpet player, Jim Knapp, at Cornish College of the Arts...

PW: Jim Knapp is one of the most brilliant musical minds. I learned an awful lot from him at school. His quiet presence, as a person, has been very instructive--how to go about being a jazz musician, a creative jazz musician--and that’s really important to me. You know, no matter how great someone plays, if they’ve got a really thick trip--if they’ve got a lot of ego and attitude to contend with--it’s almost not worth it no matter how well they play, and uh, I just don’t feel any of that from any of the people involved in this.

What I think about Knapp is that he’s the perfect trumpet player for my vision. My musical vision is I think probably based on listening to Miles most of my life. I don’t hear the trumpet as a power-forward instrument. I hear the trumpet as a coloristic, subtle force in my music. I love Kenny Wheeler, and trumpet players like Jim Knapp, who are subtle and lyrical. So Charles Pillow, the tenor player, I see more as a power-forward, like Coltrane and Miles... These guys scare me shitless, man, they’re great players. I’m looking forward to it.

JW: Of the Bob Moses stuff, what have you listened to?

PW: Oh, man, know you’re pinning me down. I haven’t heard enough. I remember Jim Knapp sitting us down at Cornish, in his composition class, and we all listened to “When Elephants Dream of Music.” That had just come out and I remember thinking, “What an incredible compilation of music!” It was very natural, very organic, very unexpected, creative music. Actually, my first experience with Bob Moses’ music was listening to Steve Kuhn album called “Non-Fiction.” That was always a favorite of mine. I noticed right off the bat, his cymbal work. It’s some beautiful, loosey-goosey, non-rudimental jazz cymbal work. It’s very musical.

JW: Do you consider yourself a composer first, and piano player second?

PW: Well, not by choice, but I think it’s the truth. You know, you work on your faults, right? My piano playing has always lagged behind. It’s just the truth, I don’t know what to say about it. I’m working hard. It’s the only answer. My piano playing is so linked up with who I am as a composer, and how I enter and think about the world of music, that it is inconceivable for me to separate the two. But, ultimately, yes, I am a composer first.

JW: Your compositions utilize lyric melodies and complex, oblique harmonies to suggest curious, original impressions. I find your music to be both challenging and sensitive, especially the ballads. Can you describe that place where you are coming from.

PW: Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, and Bill Evans--these people are my gods. Gil Evans, too, although I probably have a lot more to learn in that particular area (laughter). You know, it’s just the more you know, the more you know you don’t know. The whole idea is an infinite ocean of possibilities. It’s a very humbling thing, man...Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, and Wayne Shorter provided...somehow I plundered their music and pulled things out of each one.

JW: You demand a lot from yourself. Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?

PW: No. Not at all. Maybe a perfectionist would never consider themselves a perfectionist because they’re too busy perfecting things? (Laughter) But no. I think I’m more of a macroscope. You perfect things with a microscope. What keeps me going is the macroscope of who and what I am as a composer. So I keep trying to get a big picture, the biggest picture possible. I work hard, and I hope I’m up to snuff, you know. I always have questions about that. I think I have, quite frankly, a lot of insecurity about my piano playing. And I think just about any pianist who has been working hard has something to show me, and I’m really open to that, more and more the older I get. There’s just no more room for anything but open-minded, eager attention to what the world has to show you. But, um, regarding being a perfectionist, I think a lot of people might see me that way if they were looking at my compositions. I don’t see myself that way.

JW: In the past you’ve mentioned that most musicians struggle to play your compositions. They are discouraged by the complexity of form and harmonic progression. Has this criticism been difficult for you to accept? How do you deal with it?

PW: Everybody’s journey is different. You have to stay true to the journey that you’re on, if you’re clear that you are on it, you know. Ultimately, if you take your inquiry far enough, it leads you into increasingly profound realizations of humility, increasingly profound realizations of the importance of simplicity. Any inquiry eventually turns to everything. That’s what the Zen Buddhists say, doing flower arranging holds up the whole universe, it becomes the whole cosmos. So being a musician, ultimately what we are trying to do is disappear into the music. When you disappear into the music, I feel like what happens is that, as a musician, you are being played. Like when a dancer is being danced. You’re not saying, “I’m up here playing a bunch of shit that I’ve practiced.” You’re being played. The notes that are coming out are being channeled through you. It could be the same set of notes played in a way that is totally profound, versus you sitting in a practice room banging shit out. It’s not about that--It’s about opening yourself up so that you can channel that river of creativity.

JW: Is there anything that you’d like to say?

PW: Woof! Woof! You know, I’m having fun, finally. And it’s taken me until 38. I’m just feeling happier and sillier. And I feel really grateful to have the opportunity to participate in the last living art music that I’m aware of, at least in Western culture, which is jazz.