Joe McPhee Interview

Michael Anton Parker

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Joe McPhee Interview

Published: June 16, 2005

AAJ: Actually, when you play with Dominic Duval and Jay Rosen, they're definitely not stating the beat; it really feels like you're equal partners, and you know, not worrying about any sort of background/foreground...

JM: No, that's true—that's exactly it. And in fact if Jay wants to play something that has a beat and wants to lock in on that, that's fine; we can deal with that; I mean that's a part of all what's going on, and it's all material to be used in the whole process, and that's fine; I don't have a problem with that.

AAJ: These two records [In the Spirit and No Greater Love] are really self-explanatory; from the first note it connects you with something that is more familiar than a lot of the other music that you play; it connects you with like sort of the larger community that you live in, where you have a lot of people who may not have an interest in the more exploratory music you do, but these harmonies, these tunes that...

JM: Well, some of the melodies that are familiar would catch your attention; for example, we play a Monk tune or something like that, people say "oh yeah", you know, there are people who just collect Monk tunes, who don't care what it sounds like, just collect them and stuff like that. Well, this, melodically—it was a quieter way of playing; it was an area of music that—ballads and blues and stuff like that—I love playing ballads. If you're a so-called Free musician or Free Jazz musician, you don't very often hear a lot of modulation; things are usually at a certain level, a certain tempo, a certain whatever— perception of whatever speed is about, and playing 8 billion notes and so on like that, but you can't hide in these things; you cannot hide in a ballad; either you can play or you can't, you know, and things at slower and that are melodic, and a lot of blats and bleeps and all like this are considered to be very modern and very in, and very chic or whatever, but it's only a part of what the whole spectrum of the music thing is as far as I'm concerned, and if you're playing melodically, some people would be ready to just as well dismiss you as if you're playing the other stuff. But if it makes you feel something; it moves from one place; you've gotta feel something; you cannot be indifferent to it, you know; it makes you feel something, then that's fine. And if people say "oh well, we lost you know because you did that", too bad; I don't know what I'm going to do next time.

The Bluette [Mcphee, Joe Giardullo, Dominic Duval, Michael Bisio] played at the Vision Festival in May—music's totally different—very very energized and so on—the same people, but we'd just come off a tour, this Albert Ayler project tour in France, so Michael and Dominic had bonded; they had locked up, so it was really great, and Joe [Giardullo] was just leaving that evening to go to Poland, with some friends over there, so he was up and so on like that, and I think it's interesting. Also, the fact that Joe plays flutes; I think his flute playing is extraordinary, and that gives another dimension to this music. In fact, Bob Rusch was not terribly enamored of the flute, and made some disparaging remarks [chuckling]; for example, he made this joke—he said "you know the definition of a hole- in-one?"—he said this to Joe—he said "no, whaddya mean, a hole-in-one?"—cause Joe's a golfer—he said "what's your definition?'—he said "it's when you take the flute and throw it in the toilet and it never hits the other sides." [much laughter] "Whoa! What?" Not only that, when I said Joe Giardullo's on the recording session, he said "Uh, what does he play?". I said "flute." First time I invited Joe to come to CIMP was the first recording with Evan Parker and Evan's trio and so on like that; I was invited and there was only a few people invited and there was just gonna be guests, and Bob said "bring an instrument; maybe you can play or something", and I said "yeah, and I'd also like to bring my friend Joe Giardullo", and he says [with immediacy] "nope, can't bring him"—"uh, okay, I won't bring him". [laughter] So then I said "Joe's on this"—"What does he play?" "Flute." "No, no flutes; I'm not interested in flutes, so it came to do it and he said "what's the instrumentation?"; I said "two basses—Michael Bisio, Dominic Duval, Joe Giardullo, and me"—"Giardullo—what's he gonna do?"—"He's gonna play"—"ahh, I don't know about that"—"he's playing, okay—he's ON THE GIG! [laughter]. And he said, "so, fine", and we joked and carried on—he likes Joe—it's fine; he makes no more disparaging remarks about the flute, except, you know, he's a pain-in-the-ass sometime and he just wants to needle you [laughing].

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