Brad Shepik Blindfolded

Ryan Burns

Ryan Burns is a keyboard player, jazz educator from Seattle, WA.

Recent articles (6 total)

Published: May 15, 2004

NYC-based, Seattle-raised guitarist rates tracks by Metheny/Coleman, Chris Potter, Wes Montgomery, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Miles Davis.

"Listen To This!" is relative to the popular "Blindfold Test" of Down Beat Magazine, with the added element of a musician-to-musician interview, as inspired by Drummer Art Taylor's book Notes and Tones (Da Capo 0526). The "blindfolded" featured artist is asked to identify the players and tunes they are listening to, as well as rate each performance on a scale of 1-5 stars.

Guitarist/Composer Brad Shepik was born in Walla Walla, Washington in 1966 and raised in Seattle. His first clear experience of being enthralled by music was hearing the Beatles' Abbey Road at the age of 5. At around 10 years old he began playing his father's guitar. He played guitar and saxophone in school bands and attended Cornish College of the Arts for two-and-a-half years, where he studied with Jerry Granelli, Julian Priester, Dave Peck, James Knapp, Dave Peterson and Ralph Towner.

In 1990 Shepik moved to New York, diving head first into the music scene. He quickly met like-minded musicians and became involved in the creation of several groups to form the nucleus of a loose collective of improvising musicians who were into experimenting and playing each other's music, as well as different folk music, including Balkan and Eastern European music. Out of this environment was born numerous groups which Shepik continues to perform with today, including Dave Douglas' Tiny Bell Trio, Matt Darriau's Paradox Trio, Pachora, and Joey Baron's Killer Joey. In 1991, guitarist Bill Frisell recommended Shepik to veteran drummer Paul Motian for his Electric Be Bop Band, which Shepik toured and recorded with for five years.

Shepik's own projects include the Brad Shepik Group (ex-Commuters) with two records on the Songlines label, and the Brad Shepik Trio with Scott Colley (bass) and Tom Rainey (drums), which has been recording on Knitting Factory records. The Brad Shepik Trio paid a visit to Seattle last year, performing at Tula's during the Earshot Jazz Festival, and Shepik recently returned as a sideman, performing with Mr. Lucky at The Tractor Tavern in Ballard. During this last visit, Shepik sat down for his first ever Blindfold Test.

Artist: Pat Metheny/Ornette Coleman
Track: "Song X"
Recording: Song X (Geffen 1986)
Personnel: Pat Metheny, guitar; Charlie Haden, bass; Jack DeJohnette, drums Composer: Ornette Coleman

Brad Shepik: It's Song X. Pat Metheny. Can you turn it up louder? I like how they're just playing the whole time. It's like there's no solo really at the beginning, then there's a guitar solo. But that first part is really the most interesting part for me.

All About Jazz: The collective improvisation?

BS: Yeah. You can hear everything. It's cool. The guitar solo's like a little interlude and then back into the collective. Oh yeah. Is this "Endangered Species"? Is this that tune?

AAJ: It's "Song X."

BS: Yeah. That's great. I had that record when it came out. I listened to it a lot. I played tunes from that record. Still sounds great. It's amazing. It sounds, you know, full on joy. Great. I like the guitar sound too. It's not a sound that he used a whole lot on his records but there's some stuff like "Off Ramp" where he used that guitar sound. The bridge position pick-up of that synthesizer guitar that he used to play—it's great. He sounds amazing.

AAJ: Did you learn a lot from playing those tunes?

BS: Definitely. You know, I'm still learning from listening to it. It's been years since I listened to this record, but yeah. Learning the tunes and just trying to play them.

AAJ: I noticed when you play your tune "PM," it goes into that group thing—

BS: The collective thing? How the collective thing sounds depends on who's playing. It depends on the mix of how everybody's listening and what their tastes are and everything. So you get a different result every time with different players. For me, learning this stuff when I first heard it 20 years ago, it wasn't really the concept, it was just like "Wow!" just this indescribable fondness for the sound of it. Just attraction, you know? And then later you start to analyze it as the years go by. Why and how, and how to replicate it. But in the beginning it's just like, the sounds of the saxophone, and I can't really describe it. It's intense but it sounds like joyful music to me.

Artist: Chris Potter
Track: "Fishy"
Recording: Vertigo (Concord, 1998)
Personnel: Chris Potter, tenor sax; Kurt Rosenwinkel, guitar; Scott Colley, bass; Billy Drummond, drums Composer: Chris Potter

BS: It sounds like Chris Potter, one of his tunes. So it's probably Scofield or Adam Rogers playing, I haven't heard the guitar yet. It might be Kurt, 'cause he did a record with him too. Yeah, that's Kurt. It's probably that record Vertigo. Yeah, it's Kurt Rosenwinkel. It's cool. That's an old record. That's almost 10 years old I think, but you can hear Chris has been—where he came from, you know. I like his approach to composing. He always tries to do something a little different. It's great. Kurt, you can hear where he's coming from now, too. He's a great guitarist. I think it's probably Doug Weiss on bass or Scott Colley, Bill Stewart on drums.

View All 1 2 3 Next »