By Chris Slawecki

Ronnie Laws: Smooth Jazzman or Troubled Man?

Ronnie Laws' soulful, easy-flowing soprano saxophone playing seems a direct representation of his gentlemanly, articulate personality. One of the multi-talented musical Laws family, which also includes vocalist sisters Debra and Eloise, and flutist-saxophonist brother Hubert, Ronnie first charted more than twenty years ago with "Always There" from Pressure Sensitive, his 1975 debut for the Blue Note label, and continued a string of succesful albums for several other labels before recently returning to Blue Note.

Yet we all know that still waters can run very deep. Laws' first album back on Blue Note pays tribute to one of the biggest bad-ass tenor sax players ever, the late Eddie Harris, who passed away this past November from kidney disease and cancer. Harris's instrumental version of the theme to the hit film Exodus was the first gold record by a "jazz" performer, he composed the enduring "Freedom Jazz Dance," was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace the advent of electronic instruments in jazz, and recorded several albums both with pianist Les McCann and as a solo artist which helped establish the down'n'dirty, swinging genre called soul-jazz.

(Several of these albums, most notably their joint Swiss Movement and Second Movement , but also McCann's Live at Montreux and Harris' E.H. Live In The U.K. -- recorded with the likes of Jeff Beck, Steve Winwood, and Chris Squire and Alan White of Yes -- near single-handedly dropped jazz on me overnight when I discovered them during the days of my college radio show.)

"He was one of my earliest influences and we played on some of the same shows," Laws begins to explain. "I always liked the fact that he wasn't inhibited by some of his contemporaries, that he always maintained his own style, something that could be identified. He told me, 'Don't pay attention to the critics. Just be yourself.' That was encouraging."

For the moment, Laws' "being himself" includes crackling, hip-tugging versions of Harris' most popular numbers, including "Listen Here," "Cold Duck Time," the aforementioned "Freedom Jazz Dance" and the one non-original with which Harris is most associated, Gene McDaniels' "Compared To What". "These are the songs that I grew up listening to," he continues. "They became my personal favorites. I'm also hoping these are the songs that the general public would most instantly recognize."

Laws' plans also include a live performance of several of the tunes from Tribute at a free show on Sunday June 22nd (at Wiggins Park in nearby Camden, N.J.) to help close the Philadelphia Mellon-PSFS Jazz Festival, being held in honor of Philly's hometown piano legend McCoy Tyner. Laws talked about Philadelphia's own silky saxman Grover Washington Jr., Harris and plenty of other things in an interview with All About Jazz.

How do you consider Philadelphia as a town for Ronnie Laws' music?

"Actually, I've always had a huge response, a good response from Philadelphia audiences, and they've always shown me a lot of respect and appreciation as well as support. So Philadelphia's one of the cities that has always supported me, and I really do, it's an understatement to say, that I appreciate that. I sincerely do."

Do you think that maybe an audience in Philadelphia might compare you to a saxophone player with which they might be a little more familiar, Grover Washington, Jr. Do you two compare at all?

"I think it's a regional thing; coming from the part of the country that I grew up in, and I'm not really familiar with where Grover is originally from (Buffalo, NY). Traditionally, there's always been a distinctive sound associated with Texas horn players, saxophone players in particular. And so, I think the difference is really in the concept and in approaching the instrument; I think Grover has always had more of like a smooth quality in his sound, and my sound's always been a little more slightly hard-edged."

Are you representative on soprano as sort of a 'step-brother' to the robust'Texas tenor' sound, or doesn't that style really translate to the soprano?

"I don't think it really translates to the soprano. I think moreso the tenor than anything. And I do play alto, I just haven't played it in quite awhile and also I'm pretty well-versed on flute. But predominantly I've been more expressive on soprano as my dominant instrument, and occasionally tenor. I just think it's the overall concept, the Texas saxophonists have always been known for that big sound, y'know? And so, I think it permeates not only the tenor but also in the whole approach to playing any instrument, really."

Did you have to modify your personal style to play an album of Eddie Harris tunes?

"I really didn't have to that much. Because that was one of the things that I appreciated about Eddie Harris was his overall approach and concept in playing jazz and expressing himself. So it was like an immediate attraction for me, an influence rather, when I first heard his music, because I really related to what he was expressing and how he approached playing saxophone."

Do you remember the first Eddie Harris tune you heard?

"It was 'Listen Here.' I was in Houston, Texas, I was...actually, I had just started dating my wife, we were sixteen years old and I'll never forget it. I was over at her house, and it just came across on radio, and it just blew me away, you know."

Are you playing selections from the Eddie Harris tribute release in your current live set?

"Oh, yeah, at least three selections from that album -- and the rest is going to be, you know, Ronnie Laws material." (chuckles)

Your one absolute favorite song on the tribute would be, the track you're perhaps the most proud of?

"I have two, actually, I like "Boogie Woogie Bossa Nova" and "Hip-Hoppin'." And "Listen Here," is, you know, sort of like an understatement listing that as one of my favorites, really. So I'd have to list three as opposed to one."

Looking back, do you regret anything that maybe didn't make the cut? Is there a song that isn't on here that now you maybe look back and wish you had recorded?

"Not really, no. I was very selective in the ones that I absolutely wanted to do; obviously there were a whole lot of other cuts that I really could have included, but this was like a real novelty kind of an album, because it was basically the selections that I most desired to do, as well as the ones that I knew the public would really appreciate as well. He had so many albums, so it's just hard to pinpoint the ones that were excluded, because his catalog was so broad."

What's your favorite Eddie Harris album, if you had to pick one?

"The one, the very first one for me was with "Listen Here," The Electrifying Eddie Harris."

Finally, where does Ronnie Laws go from a Tribute To Eddie Harris?

"Well, actually I'm starting another project in the studio, and I'm doing Carnegie Hall on the 21st of June, and an extensive amount of touring in Europe starting in September, so I really have my hands full. And I'll be doing some stuff in Jamaica and the islands. So I've been getting a lot of requests for festivals from all over the country now, so this has been a good thing." "And moreso, I did it to contribute to Eddie Harris' fund for the expenses, medical and so forth, that he incurred just before he passed away. It was a little overwhelming. So it was just from one musician to another, expressing appreciation for all he's given to me, it was the least I could do for him. And I expressed that to him, weeks before he passed away, personally."

What weren't you asked that you really want to make sure that people think about when they read this interview?

"Well, I guess we could talk about the state of radio. Because it's just, unfortunately, it's just very disappointing. And I'm not speaking for myself, because I, thankfully, do get...I don't know if the record's being played in Philadelphia that much, but, what is being portrayed as "smooth jazz" is very, very disappointing."

"The programming has a lot to be desired. It's just very, very...it's just disheartening. Even the artists that they are perpetrating on the public under the disguise of "jazz" or "smooth" or whatever you want to call it, "smooth jazz," "hard jazz," I don't know, but, it's not representative of the music historically." "And a lot of people say, 'Well, Ronnie, how can you say that? Because your music is not in the purist form of jazz.' And that's not true. Because if you look at the elements that I play, even though I did employ different elements of funk, or whatever, the components of jazz were always there, the improvisational aspects of it, the hard edge, all of that, all of those elements were in there. At least it was musically challenging to listen to." "That's been my thing for the last ten years. I'm always running into people, well-known entertainers and stars, known from movies and films, that will meet me at the airport or whatever -- I had an incident just a couple of weeks ago; the comedian guy whose show is opposite Martin, the tall guy, you know who I'm talking about, he has his own sitcom and everything, anyway he comes up to me (I was at the counter) and he says, 'I know you, you're Ronnie Laws, aren't you?' So I said yeah and he said, 'Man, let me just tell you - you got me through college. The horn that you play, let me just rub the case, man. You have no idea what your music did for me when I was in school.'" "Now, I get that all the time. I do. And that's a reflection of how music affects people. The stuff that's happening today...it's so...watered-down, it's almost in the form of muzak, elevator music. And it's just so disheartening, and I am really almost embarrassed to say that I don't even LISTEN to radio. I mean, not music programming; I listen to talk radio for my entertainment, you know, and that's real sad."

For someone whose job is supposed to be staying on top of things, I can't stand to listen to much radio either.

"It's just so disappointing, it really is. It's as though they cannot reach a happy medium. It's either one extreme or the other - it's either just straight-ahead, which is very cool, I love that, you know, or it's under the disguise of "smooth jazz," which is a component of, really, R'n'B artists. It's a disservice to not only the demographics of the people who are listening, but to the younger audience, who are they are not educating historically as to the real proponents of the music - the Herbie Hancocks and the Miles and the Grover Washingtons as well as myself. All of these people are being totally effaced. And to me it's almost tantamount to a criminal act. And it's not by accident, it's by design, I really feel that."

And it's not just music either, unfortunately, it's also in politics and other forms of entertainment like television - the pre-eminence of the lowest common denominator.

"But, you know, the positive part of this is what we're doing right now - in a subtle way and in a very deliberate way, it's a way to educate and to expose the issue, so that it will breed discussion. And when people start talking about it, then they start bringing about solutions to rectifying it or correcting to bring about solutions to whatever it is." "But anyway, this is a thing that I'm very sensitive toward right now. And it isn't just affecting me, I'm looking toward my peers, other people that it's affecting, that aren't even getting airplay because of some group that is designing who should be listened to. And I don't know if you're aware of that, but it IS happening." "Interviews like this, I've done at least twenty in the past few weeks. And I've made this a very serious issue, and I'm not a very politically-oriented person at all, and I'm usually very neutral in regards to political issues, but when it begins to affect culturally what's going on, I feel a responsibility there and I feel it's necessary for me to speak up. If artists like me don't do that, that I feel that we're being irresponsible. We're not being keepers of the flame. Silence is complicity."