Go-Go Marc, Cary On! An Indigenous Person Tells his Story

Phil wishes he was a musician (well, he is one, but he wishes he were a good one) but he's not frustrated by it. He's frustrated with a lot of other aspects of the so-called biz. Therefore, he's excited by independently released jazz.

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Published: May 27, 2004

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MC: It's so vast, man. Edie Palmieri, McCoy, Duke, Walter Davis, Jr., Bud Powell, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Herbie, and Chick were some of the people accessible to me in the library of music my father had. I rotated these cats constantly and checked out what is was I really liked about them, including compositionally. I tried to translate that into something particular to me. Each of the things I liked about them, I identified as something I'd like to do and re-identified it within myself, basically.

Composition-wise, I can't really relate my stuff directly to anybody-the songs just come to me, in a way. I think I'm kind of a conduit. There's no direct sources, but you can hear the influences of all those people.

One of the most influential people to me just by what he was able to accomplish was Herbie. He was an example of someone who had done some of the things I wanted to do and obviously, who grew up listening to other music besides Miles and all the cats he went on to work with, and exposed himself to more things. Culturally, I identify myself with Don Pullen, because he dealt with his native roots too. So, in terms of modeling myself after someone, there's a little bit of Don Pullen and Herbie, and then the sophistication of Ellington, in a way, are the things I'd like to be identified as part of my character.

Improvisation-wise, I'm very influenced by musicians other than piano-like Miles. See, I like the breath-I like using air. You rarely hear me doing a run-on sentence. You hear pianists with lots of facility, but I find myself breathing for guys who go on and on. If they keep going, I can't listen to it.

AAJ: I notice that in your playing. And it makes the chops displays all that more effective.

MC: Exactly! Because I choose. It's got a lot to do with what's going on rhythmically for me. I work so much off of rhythm, that if the rhythm ain't right I'd rather play solo. I can play drums so I can feel when shit ain't right. I can never say, "This is what I'm going to do no matter what happens." I'm very moment-to-moment with my stuff. There are times when I'm able to do amazing things if the rhythm is right. In fact, that's been one of my obstacles - I haven't been able to bypass that - I can't do it. It's not innate in me to say, "F the rhythm section- I'm just gonna go!" You can hear cats doin' that and you get a certain feeling from that— like, "Wow! He's incredible-but incredible over what?" I mean the thought process when you're playing with more than one person is so intertwined.

I hate to use the word jazz but let's say we're talking about the same thing. That art form itself, you almost have to be like, some supercomputer. You're making so many conscious decisions... and subconscious. Music is time, so whether you're counting to yourself or feeling the duration of time -you dig - you're still dealing with it. When you're dealing with improvisation you're composing on the spot. You're trying to make that improvisation sound like a composition, sound full, like a conscious stream of thought. You're not necessarily thinking about each note that you play, although if you break it down you really are. The other thing is, you can't really enjoy what you're doing and do all of that at the same time. That's where the practicing comes in. There's a certain thing called repetition and you develop things you can access-randomly access- but all of that is relative to the keys you play in or choose not to play in. If you're going to make any kind of traditional sense and also be innovative you have be definitely reaching from the tradition, while looking ahead while being totally in the moment. You're dealing with time in a heavy way. Then each note is vibrating in rhythm-so many cycles per second. So, when you're choosing a note you're choosing a rhythm. If you break it down, it really becomes phenomenal that it actually can happen the way it does. That's why they say this is one of the greatest musics because not only are you doing that, you are doing it in conjunction with four or five other people. So it's five computers running simultaneously.

AAJ: And that's just in 4:4 right?

MC: Yeah! (laughs). Terreon's got a great tune in 17:16. Short-long, short- long, short-long, short-short-long. Short-long, short- long, short-long , short-short-long. Like an ethnic feel. You try to improvise over that. That's not innate. 4:4 is innate.

AAJ: So if you gave a talk at a music school, I assume you'd talk more about rhythm than chord substitutions.

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