SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SUMMER/FALL, 2017
VOLUME FOUR NUMBER THREE
ESPERANZA SPALDING
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
JAZZMEIA HORN
(August 12-18)
ROY HAYNES
ROY HAYNES
(August 19-25)
MCCOY TYNER
(August 26-September 1)
AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE
(September 2-8)
AARON DIEHL
(September 9-15)
CECILE MCLORIN SALVANT
(September 16-22)
REGGIE WORKMAN
(September 23-29)
ANDREW CYRILLE
(September 30-October 6)
BARRY HARRIS
(October 7-13)
MARQUIS HILL
(October 14-20)
HERBIE NICHOLS
(October 21-27)
GREG OSBY
(October 28-November 3)
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/greg-osby-mn0000156900/biography
Greg Osby
(b. August 3, 1960)
Artist Biography by Jason Ankeny
Post-bop saxophonist Greg Osby was born April 3, 1960 in St. Louis, playing in a series of R&B, funk, and blues units throughout his teen years before attending Howard University. Upon graduating from the Berklee School of Music, he settled in New York City and went on to play behind Jack DeJohnette, Andrew Hill, Herbie Hancock, and Muhal Richard Abrams; during the mid-'80s, Osby also served alongside Steve Coleman, Geri Allen, Gary Thomas, and Cassandra Wilson as a member of the renowned M-Base Collective. Making his solo debut with 1987's Sound Theatre, Osby went on to record several sets for the JMT label, also earning notice for his impressive contributions to Hill's 1989 date, Eternal Spirit, and its follow-up But Not Farewell; with 1990's Man-Talk for Moderns, Vol. X, he cut his first headling session for Blue Note, with subsequent efforts for the company (including 1993's 3-D Lifestyles and 1995's Black Book), pioneering a distinctive fusion of jazz and hip-hop. While 1996's Art Forum captured the saxophonist in an acoustic setting, Osby continues exploring new avenues with each successive release, capturing the improvisational intensity of his live dates with 1999's Banned in New York and reuniting with Hill and fellow elder statesman Jim Hill for the following year's The Invisible Hand. 2001's Symbols of Light (A Solution) was a varied effort that witnessed him teaming with a string quartet, while the next year's Inner Circle was an older recording of sessions that featured a knockout version of Bjork's "All Neon Like." Osby teamed with pianist Marc Copland for 2003's Round and Round, while St. Louis Shoes was released that same year on Blue Note. Also released on Blue Note was 2005's Channel Three, which saw Osby working with drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts and bassist Matt Brewer. In 2008, Osby released 9 Levels, his first recording on his own Inner Circle Music label.
Greg Osby
Saxophonist, composer, producer and educator Greg Osby has made an indelible mark on contemporary jazz as a leader of his own ensembles and as a guest artist with other acclaimed jazz groups fo the past 20 years. Notable for his insightful and innovative approach to composition and performance of original jazz music, Osby is a shining beacon among the current generation of jazz musicians. He has earned numerous awards and critical acclaim for his recorded works and passionate live performances.
Born and raised in St. Louis, Greg Osby began his professional music career in 1975, after three years of private studies on clarinet, flute and alto saxophone. Coming from a vibrant and musical city, Osby showed an early interest in the performing arts and spent his years in secondary school with a heavy involvement in Blues and Jazz groups. In 1978 Osby furthered his musical education at Howard University where he majored in Jazz Studies. He continued his studies at the Berklee College of Music from 1980 to 1983.
Upon relocating to New York, Osby quickly established himself as a notable and in demand sideman for artists as varied as Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, Jack DeJohnette, Andrew Hill, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jim Hall and Jaki Byard as well as with many ethnic and new music ensembles in the New York area.
In 1985 Osby was invited to tour with Jack DeJohnette's innovative group, “Special Edition”. It was as a member of this ensemble Osby was able to fine tune the more challenging aspects of his conception in an open ended, no holds barred musical situation. Says Osby, “My musical thinking for performance and composition advanced by light years as Jack was open to my input and was very encouraging in pushing me to to maintain a steady flow of experimentation. It marked a major turning point in my development as an artist.” In 1987, Osby signed his first recording deal with an obscure German label , JMT (Jazz Music Today). With this situation, he felt that he was finally able to document life as he saw it through music. He had free creative reign to do whatever he liked. He recorded four CD titles for that label. Osby signed with Blue Note Records in 1990 and has since recorded fourteen recordings for that label as a leader. From the pulse of the streets and the language of a generation, Osby has sketched numerous musical essays set to a contemporary score using the improvisational nature of Jazz as the connecting thread.
On Public, his new live recording on Blue Note, Osby is joined by special guests Nicholas Payton - trumpet, Robert Hurst - bass, Rodney Green - drums, and a newcomer to the international jazz scene, pianist Megumi Yonezawa.
The alto saxophonist Greg Osby has routinely been assessed over the last 20 years as a jazz progressive, the sort of musician who constantly pushes forward. In postbop terms that’s high praise, and a kind of trap. It respects the intent of innovation but places a premium on the results, devaluing any effort that isn’t a bridge to new terrain.
Mr. Osby, 48, understands the conundrum; he has seen it work both for and against him. But to his credit he no longer seems to pay much heed to outside expectations. When he introduces an expressive new band, like the one appearing at the Village Vanguard this week, he can afford to let it speak for itself.
On Tuesday, in the first set of what Mr. Osby described as a debut performance, the ensemble — with Sara Serpa on vocals, Mike Pinto on vibraphone, Nir Felder on guitar, Joseph Lepore on bass and Hamir Atwal on drums — created an hourlong suite of dark-hued, drifting, luminous music, with rounded edges offsetting some spidery intervals. The sound of the group reflected not only Mr. Osby’s fully formed aesthetic but also the values of a postmillennial jazz scene, the hybrid-crazy realm in which his younger sidemen operate.
Greg Osby and Sara Serpa performing in the Greg Osby Quintet. Credit Stefan Cohen for The New York Times
So there was an abundance of flowing eighth-note phrases and some dramatic open harmonies. “Tranya,” a ballad by Mr. Pinto, flirted intriguingly with whole-tone scales but preserved the steady undercurrent of a rock tune. “Please Stand By,” which appeared on Mr. Osby’s last Blue Note release, in 2005, featured an Eastern-tinged chant over a one-chord vamp, evoking the frontier era of fusion. And “Truth,” another Osby original, involved a sharp, skipping melody shot through with abstracted funk rhythm.
Mr. Osby has a strong new album, “9 Levels,” on his own new label, Inner Circle. (Now available as a download at innercirclemusic.net, it will soon be issued on CD.) The album features a close facsimile of the current band, with piano standing in for vibraphone; among its more distinctive sonic elements is Ms. Serpa, a bright young Portuguese singer.
Through most of the set Ms. Serpa, who has her own Inner Circle release due out in the fall, sang in airtight unison with Mr. Osby: an impressive feat, given the leaps and syncopations of a tune like “Vertical Hold.” She showed even more composure on her own piece, “Praia,” which overlays a poplike structure with a slaloming melodic line.
The rest of the band performed ably, managing to make an opening set feel only slightly tentative. Naturally, the most graceful presence was Mr. Osby, whose tone has never sounded lighter or more engaging. When he played “I Didn’t Know About You,” a Duke Ellington ballad that he has recorded more than once, he sounded both precise and relaxed, secure in the notion that progress takes any form it chooses.
Biography
Saxophonist, composer, producer and educator Greg Osby has made an indelible mark on contemporary jazz as a leader of his own ensembles and as a guest artist with other acclaimed jazz groups for the past 20 years. Highly regarded for his insightful and innovative approach to composition and performance, Osby is a shining beacon among the current generation of jazz musicians. He has earned numerous awards and critical acclaim for his recorded works and passionate live performances.
Born and reared in St. Louis, Greg Osby began his professional music career in 1975, after three years of private studies on clarinet, flute and alto saxophone. Coming from a vibrant and musical city, Osby showed an early interest in the performing arts and spent his years in secondary school with a heavy involvement in Blues and Jazz groups. In 1978 Osby furthered his musical education at Howard University (Washington, D.C.) where he majored in Jazz Studies. He continued his studies at the Berklee College of Music (Boston, MA) from 1980 to 1983.
Upon relocating to New York in early 1983, Osby quickly established himself as a notable and in demand sideman for artists as varied as Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, Jack DeJohnette, Andrew Hill, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jim Hall and Jaki Byard as well as with many ethnic and new music ensembles in the New York area.
In 1985 Osby was invited to to join Jack DeJohnette's innovative group, "Special Edition". It was as a member of this ensemble Osby was able to fine tune the more challenging aspects of his conception in an open ended, no holds barred musical situation. Says Osby, "My musical thinking for performance and composition advanced by light years as Jack was open to my input and was very encouraging in pushing me to to maintain a steady flow of experimentation. It marked a major turning point in my development as an artist."
In 1987, Osby signed his first recording deal with a new German label , JMT (Jazz Music Today). With this situation, he felt that he was finally able to document life as he saw it through music. He had free creative reign to do whatever he liked. He recorded four CD titles for that label. Osby signed with Blue Note Records in 1990 and recorded fifteen outstanding recordings for that label as a leader. In 2008, Osby launched his own label, "Inner Circle Music", which serves as a platform for many of today's brightest artists. From the pulse of the streets and the language of a generation, Osby has sketched numerous musical essays set to a contemporary score using the improvisational nature of Jazz as the connecting thread.
On "9 Levels", his latest recording on Inner Circle Music, Osby presents his wares in a sextet format and is joined by special guests, Nir Felder, guitar; Adam Birnbaum, piano; Joseph Lepore, bass; Hamir Atwal, drums; and a welcome newcomer to the international jazz scene, vocalist Sara Serpa.
Interviews
My Conversation with Greg Osby
January 1999 -- Part 1 / Part 2
by Fred Jung
Out of all the conversations that I have had with musicians, politicians, three former Presidents, actors, and even one with Mr. Cunningham from 'Happy Days', Greg Osby is by far and away the most outspokenly honest, unabashed individual that I have encountered. I met Osby, initially, at a local club in Los Angeles when he was touring in quintet with Marc Copland, Randy Brecker, and Dennis Chambers. Although we had never met, we spoke in great length about everything but music. I was eager to speak to him again, on a more formal basis, and I got an opportunity to sit down with Osby from his home to talk about his new releases, his career, and his peeves about the jazz industry. Often viciously lambasted by certain members of the press, Osby has managed to persevere and has documented his legacy admirably. The following is an uncensored, unedited portrait of one of today's finest young talents, in his own words. Misunderstood? Maybe, judge for yourself.
FJ: Let's start from the beginning.
GO: Well, I'm from St. Louis and I had an R&B and blues background. That was the kind of stuff I heard. I mean, the closest things to jazz I heard was organ trios and soul jazz, groove oriented jazz. Upon learning how to play the saxophone, around the age of fourteen, I was listening to people like Cannonball Adderley, Grover Washington, Jr., Maceo Parker, Wilton Felder (Jazz Crusaders), people like that, King Curtis, more of the soulful saxophone players. They appealed to me more. A couple of years later, I was introduced to Charlie Parker, more advanced players. And that sparked the real interest, because prior to that it was more of a hobby. I didn't really get into the particulars of jazz until 1978, when I went to Howard University. There, I was introduced to a caliber of players that turned me to the intricacies of the music, before that it was playing for fun.
FJ: You were a student at both Howard University and the Berklee School of Music.
GO: Well, Howard's musical program at the time was pretty underdeveloped at the time, so I did not learn that much about jazz or contemporary music. I learned a lot about classical composition, and choral writing, and counterpoint, and progression, things like that, but it wasn't really accessable to contemporary situations. I was a bit impatient, because there was nothing that I was learning in the classrooms that I could use. So, I visited Berklee during the spring break of my second year and there was a healthy contingent of young players there. I just couldn't wait to get there upon guesting in on a couple of ensembles and playing in a couple of the classrooms. They gave me a scholarship to go there as well.
FJ: You have had the opportunity to play with some heavy players. Who do you feel were most prominent in your development as a musician?
GO: Jack DeJohnette, because he's a real liberal leader. He didn't establish any dictates, 'You must do this. You must do that.' He allowed me to bring my own compositions to develop freely and to openly explore any viable options that I saw necessary. He didn't put any limitations on creativity or direction. So thus, I was able to advance at an accelerated pace. I turned down offers to play with some other groups with established leaders at the time because I found that it would probably stifle my development. They would not have been keen on some of the directions that I wanted to pursue. With Jack, he's legendary for his openness. He was reciprocal with any information. He respected where I was coming from as a young cat. He was respectful of my concepts and my approaches and he wanted to know what was happening so he could address it more accurately. It was the best proving ground that I could recommend for somebody to be with, a leader who is broad minded like that.
Well, Steve Coleman and I are collaborators. We're like best friends. We play the same instrument. M-Base is a collective that Steve Coleman and I started in 1985, out of the need for some kind of a musical situation that young musicians could write and create compositional and improvisational directives. There was no hangout scene in New York at the time when I got to town. There was no real dominating jam session situation where cats could talk shop and exchange information, informally get together once or twice a week amongst ourselves, the people that we pooled and talk about music, talk about music business, talk about production and music presentation, specifics. It was something that we felt was necessary because the music was in retrograde at that point. People were really looking to the past and more concerned with historical values as opposed to pushing the envelope and propelling themselves as a group into the future. Plus, we didn't want to discard any of our resource material that was fundamental in our musical make- up. We all come from R&B and soul music and funk, other types of jazz expression, other types of folk music, and we wanted to incorporate that in a contemporary offering, as opposed to a lot of our peers who just dismissed everything that was a part of their make-up, which we didn't think was honest. That was what that was about. So we pooled a lot of people and wound up with a select group of about fifteen, that included Cassandra Wilson and Geri Allen, Robin Eubanks, myself and Steve, Marvin "Smitty" Smith, Teri Lyne Carrington, and a few others. It worked out really well.
Andrew Hill. Well, he called me, I guess he heard about me through the grapevine or he heard a recording. I don't know really how he got in touch. He was seeking out someone who had an alternative approach, as opposed to a real traditional and stock approach to navigating through music. It was like hand and glove because I had been a long time fan of his. I didn't even know how to access him or how to reach him at all. I've learned a lot from him. He's been one of my private mentors. He is very informative and very generous and liberal with his information as well. And those are the kind of people I gravitate to, that don't horde information, but that encourage growth through the exchange of information. He's as open to the reception of information as he is with giving it. Generationally speaking, that's very rare. A lot of people of other generations, they are reluctant to be that free with a lot of young cats today, who they consider a threats. When I got to New York, they considered a lot of young cats just on the scene as being responsible with taking their jobs. So I was really happy to work with him.
FJ: You made a reference to your experience with more traditional musicians and their stubbornness to truly aid in a younger musician's growth. Take a moment and why don't you elaborate on that.
GO: I think it is detrimental to the growth of the individual in need, because we don't have a lot of group situations where young players can apprentice themselves with established elders, to go out on the road and learn how to be a man, learn about life and learn about the business. So you have to suffer the school of hard knocks with your peers. We have groups of youngsters who are tripping over one another because they have to go through it, as opposed to asking somebody about it and getting the knowledge first hand and circumventing certain pitfalls. I'm part of the last generation of musicians who was able to play with a lot of established giants. I played with Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, and Woody Shaw, Muhal Richard Abrams, Lester Bowie, Jon Faddis, McCoy Tyner, and the list goes on and on. I was able to play with a lot of people, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland. Now, it's at a point where I'm in that gray area and a lot of these young players that come to town are seeking me out because there are no groups left. Betty Carter just passed away. Art Blakey isn't around anymore. There aren't any cats from the previous generation that are cultivating the talents and the abilities of these younger players.
FJ: So where do those younger musicians get that knowledge, or will they get it at all?
GO: Well, they come to me fully prepared instrumentally speaking. They can play their instruments a lot better. It's remarkably better than the better players that came to town when I first came to town because there's so much access now, so much intellectual access. We have CD's. We have DVD's. We have VCR's. All this stuff wasn't really available when I came to town. We have computers. We have the internet. So people can become more proficient a lot more rapidly. Still, there's that seasoning that they're not getting because they're largely trained in college. It's an academic experience that they have. They don't have that one on one continuity with audiences, learning how to captivate audiences, how to pace a set. Their compositions lack a certain grit and a soul that was prevalent when I came up. I came up in it. From 1974-1978 I played in all these R&B bands and blues bands in St. Louis. The average guy in the band, his age was like thirty-five, between thirty-five and forty-five. So I was like a young blood with all these cats. I learned the ropes first hand, so by the time I arrived in New York, I was a seasoned veteran pretty much. I have playing professionally since I was fourteen. But, a lot of young cats now, they just don't have it. They're awkward in front of the microphone. They're awkward in front of people and their progress is a retarded kind of growth. It could be remedied if there were a lot more elders accepting young players, but a lot of elders choose to play with their peers.
FJ: Why do you think that is?
GO: Because they're more comfortable and there's a big difference in the sound. There's a big difference in the sound. Younger players lack the meat and potatoes experience and it doesn't come forth in their playing, in their art. They are just going to have to figure out another way. It's kind of like the bebop revolution, a lot of those players in the early 1940's, they were dismissed by their elders. They had to band amongst themselves and come up with a new interpretation and a new format. That's what we tried to do with M-Base. We still do it to a large degree, but it has become a lot more difficult because everyone has their own personal accounts to deal with. Back in the time when we first started the whole collective, no one had a record deal, but now Cassandra is the great diva of jazz and Steve and I are busy with our own accounts.
FJ: Your unique approach to your music has been very maligned by the jazz media, has that kind of negative press effected you?
GO: Right, but that's not going to stop me. That's just people's personal taste and their inability to allow for change. These are people that are probably, painfully right wing and conservative, and they just can't take anything that's variable.
FJ: What do you think 'they' are afraid of?
GO: They're afraid of change. People are fearful of the unknown. That's just a fact, historically speaking, when something unknown is presented to people, they either want to rid the world of it or suppress it, stop it at its source. When people are confronted with things that are unknown, they have to challenge their intellect. They have to use their framework of reference, and if it's shallow, well then they have to actually do some work and do some research, and a lot of people are too lazy. That includes a lot of journalists. They use stock terms. They use the same lexicons when they describe things, so the quickest thing to do is dismiss it, rather than to say it sounds like something that I don't know what it sounds like, therefore I'm going to have to educate myself. It almost belittles their knowledge and their intellect. A lot of people have the audacity to criticize my liner notes. How dare me, a lowly musician try to have an intellectual discourse about music. You just play your music and let that be that. I have fought off recording engineers who are aghast that I know, that I can talk shop in the studio, on their own turf. They don't appreciate that. It's compartmentalization. People want you to stay in like a certain bag so they can label you. America is classic with that. They get caught up in fads and everything, and when it runs its course, then they discard it and they come up with a new thing. They don't want somebody to come up with something that has credence or has value, firmly based in something that's logic and is well grounding and challenging. God forbid. I don't subscribe to complacency or expectations. I go through great, whatever measures necessary to make my music sound as personal as I am. I'm an individual. My music shouldn't sound like every other saxophone player and I shouldn't present myself in an environment that's reflective of common tastes, or whatever. I'm hopeful that people will be drawn to the elements inherent in my music, but I can't compromise my art, water it down just to make it palpable, because I have to live with it. I don't want to look back at my track record twenty years from now and say I did albums so I could get a good review or I could get five stars in some publications. I did this. No, I won't be happy with myself then. Everyone that I admire, they took even bigger lumps than I take, so I think I'm on the right path. I think that if critics start liking me too much, then I must be doing wrong.
FJ: Then is the current state of jazz suppressing to you?
GO: No. People will be suppressed if they have a suppressive state of mind. You have to be oblivious to obstacles. It's just part of my nature to be defiant. I just won't succumb to people that are small minded, that are narrow in their vision and in their scope. They possess an inability to accept change and things that are different. These are people that subscribe to fads and trends and the flavor of the month. I don't even want to pander to those types of people, because that's not my mindset. It never was my prospective. I'm into something that is hopefully artistic, that has validity, truism, will sound as fresh as it does today, something that is particularly timeless. That's what I'm looking for, timelessness in my music.
FJ: What ingredients do you need in order to make music timeless?
GO: Elements that are, I don't want to say classic elements, elements that don't date themselves. Using famous people on your record. Using sidemen that everybody else uses. When I get a band together, I want to get a band of people that are individuals, in it of themselves, so that it gives the music a totality of individualism, as opposed to getting the hot young players, or the hot, new young lions, or the young Turks, and all that kind of stuff. I'm not interested in that. I want cats that will take my lead, my blueprint and make better music out of it than I could give them directives towards, as opposed to a cat that will paint by the numbers, connect the dots. That's not even art. I'm just following the lead, the stepping stones, stepping up on the stepping stones and the building blocks presented to me by the people that I hold dear as giants of the music, preceding through my musical life and through my music course, as they did and not as people who are 'popular', or at the top of the charts, or media friendly, or whatever. These people, their music is largely unchallenging to me. It's uninteresting and sedentary. It doesn't even contain any elements that are provocative or conceptually they're not even different from anyone else. It's like pop music. It's disposable. Most of it, to me, is a waste of a record deal. I know cats that play on the subway or play on the street, they play a lot hipper than 95% of the people that have record deals because they're walking parrots or mynah birds, so they pattern themselves after somebody famous, and that's why they become famous. I pattern myself after people that are famous now, but who were scorned in their time. They took lumps and they made hefty sacrifices to do something that was original and unique. You take history, Fred, and that's just the way it is. People that we recognize as trendsetters and people that changed the course of whatever art, they were provocateurs. They didn't care what people thought. I may not be the richest cat in the world. I may not work as much, and I definitely don't have the media profile, and it's hard for me to get bookings to this day, but I emerge from my gigs happy, knowing that I wasn't doing a tap dance with a black face, coon shining, and shining people's shoes, and singing 'Mammy.' I'm just making an inference, Fred. I mean, musically speaking, I just can't do that.
FJ: So do you feel when Joe Henderson does a recording of 'Porgy & Bess,' he is bowing down to that pressure?
GO: Yes, right, because he was influenced and swayed by the A & R staff at his label. He is a classical example of an icon in jazz, who has an impressive catalog of his own, and he's doing the music of somebody else, and that's when he gets a Grammy. So what do they do, they follow that up with another record, and think he got another Grammy or something. So given that formulaic approach, everybody's trying to do that, these concept records, or these songbook records, or stuff like that. That's stock. I think he had a lot more to offer as a composer, but a lot of people want to take the easy road. That's a disappointment to me as well, because I know he has a lot to say.
FJ: You just stated that you are having a difficult time getting gigs, why do you think that is?
GO: That's because the music is so challenging that people, see, Fred, we're in a culture right now, that largely people have the attention span of a flea. They won't sit down and listen to something that contains any alien elements. I don't feel my music is that alien, it's just that, it's just personal. They can't refer my music to somebody in their record collection, or somebody at the top of the Billboard charts, or somebody that possibly plays at the Lincoln Center, or something. They say, 'Well, he's out or he's avant-garde, and I don't know what that is.' We have all these quick images out on videos, and people want quick gratification and they look at a review in the New York Times or something like that and they say, 'I guess I'll go see that because it got a good review.' They're not recognizing that the writer may have been paid off, or they may have bought him some dinner or something, or gave him a whole bunch of CD's, or whatever. There's all kinds of ways to get good reviews, and it's not necessarily because that which is being reviewed is worthy of a good review. There's like a whole sub-system in music, or the music scene in New York and a lot of people that are highly regarded as fine and dandy by the media, most of the musicians don't give them a blink, especially the older cats, because they say, 'He's building a career on sounding like so and so, name your musician, or he sounds just like so and so. His rhetoric is reflective of the writings and the teachings of so and so. I know it and I can show you the quote.' I'm not interested in any of that. I would rather sleep nights knowing that all my conceptualizing and all my studying and everything, the realization of that in the group and on recordings is sound. Once I can do that, then I'm happy. I don't need twelve cars. Hell, Fred, you can only drive one at a time. As long as I have a roof, and air conditioning in the summertime, and food on my plate, I'm cool. I don't need all that other stuff. That's no reflection of the art. That's a reflection of how sound it is. Like I said, to make a long story short, I want to sleep nights, and not build a career off of stealing someone else's concepts. If I wanted to do that, I'd be a rapper.
FJ: You have mentioned your obvious distaste for the current crop of media, do you think the music would be better served if the media elements were to disappear?
GO: I just think that there just needs to be a more sound alliance between the media and their subject matter. They need to do a little bit more music research and be a little more honorable to their profession, by calling cats up and asking them what went into the making of the music, and what are you working on, and what are you reading, and what's going on. I don't particularly like your record, but can you tell me what's happening. And then if the review is negative, then at least the cat will have done some homework. I don't try to write music in the style of someone without, at least, trying to extract particulars from that type of recording. I'm not going to write some Baroque music and never listen to Baroque music, and yet, say, 'Yes, it sounds like Baroque music.' I really want to know. So, how in the world can you be a writer and write about Greg Osby and you never even talked to Greg Osby! You don't even know Greg Osby and you just like making suppositions and conclusions based upon what you think it is. That's inaccurate. That's inaccurate documentation of, it's a falsehood. And then, to make matters worse, now it's documented. It's hardcopy for posterity to refer to, so now they are referring to misinformation, and so that gets perpetuated. That stunts the growth of students and anybody seeking out, all because the cat that wrote this article was too lazy to call somebody and ask him what went into the music.
My Conversation with Greg Osby
January 1999 -- Part 2 / Part 1
by Fred Jung
FJ: Let's talk about your two latest outings, 'Zero' and 'Banned In New York'.
GO: The cats on 'Zero' are, pretty much, part of my touring band. Too many people do these all-star bands and stuff to try and sell records and get bookings. Then when they do the gigs they show up with some cats that nobody knows and the audience is upset, and rightfully so. I'd rather get some cats that are capable, and hungry, and eager to learn, and glad to be there. I don't want these jaded veterans on the scene who won't follow my directives and answer every request with, 'Man, you know who I am? I played with so and so and I've been on the scene for forty years!' I don't have time for that, playing Father Goose. And secondly, the concept of the recording is a blissfulness that one experiences when you're in a group and everything happens for the right reasons and happens at the right time. And that happens when you have a touring band, because there's like a kinetic energy that's shared with everybody, a telepathy. Cats go places with you and sometimes they proceed you. It's just the greatest situation, rather than have a group of all-star cats and everybody's trying to be hotshots, and nobody's listening, and everybody wants to flirt with the chicks in the front row, so they're not really making music, they are just trying to bring attention to themselves. The drummers are playing too loud and the bass players are playing the wrong stuff because they're distracted. The piano player is playing too many chords because this chick crossed her legs. I would rather have a group of cats who want to be there. So, 'Zero' is the term that I use for the zone that one enters into when everything is happening for the right reasons and all the mechanics in music are working. All the particulars and the variables in the music are being used by the cats as blueprints, as opposed to me writing a whole bunch of conceptual music and the cats just play straight bebop licks. That's not only a total copout but that's not what I was aiming for. It's, kind of, an offshoot of a Zen concept, where you reach a total state of emptiness. You have an empty palette where you are able to access all of your knowledge and all of your information, without any diversions or obstacles that sometimes happens when you have cats in the band that aren't listening.
The live recording 'Banned In New York' is the Greg Osby band in its natural element, live as it is with people no paying attention, people not applauding, people talking through the music. I just wanted to capture that as it is, as opposed to a stage situation, where you tell the audience that you're recording so they applaud with a lot more zeal, and they're overexcited, just because they know it's being recorded. I didn't even tell the band that it was being recorded because when musicians see the red record light go on they tense up and do things they normally wouldn't do, or they mess up a lot because they just get uptight. I wanted to capture it as it was, true to form. I wanted a low fi recording, so we recorded it on a mini-disc player on the table, right in front of the bandstand. It's an ambient recording with all the natural sounds, the cash register ringing and the waitresses dropping glasses. There was a table of businessmen talking and ignoring us, and some guy bringing his wife and it was their anniversary and she's drunk and she's laughing. There was one drunk guy in the back and he was like the only guy applauding. And it was like this, 'Ya, you sound great.' And that's what happens at jazz shows. It's not like rock and roll where people are in droves and it's just like a wave, stadiums and stuff. Jazz shows are maybe two people listening out of twenty in attendance.
FJ: With all the background noise, was it an editing nightmare?
GO: No. It was actually pretty much as it was. I just had to go and spruce it up a bit sonically, but I have this seemless set that I do. I don't really stop. We do a lot of segue-ways and we metamorphose from one song into another without announcement and without me telling jokes. To me that's a musicians way of saying that they don't have enough music prepared or they're just stalling, trying to get their wind back. 'This next tune, I wrote about my dog. He was such a cute puppy.' The older cats say, 'Back in '48, me and my wife went down to Miami. We went fishing and I got stung by a jellyfish and this song is about my stinging big toe. I hope you like it.' That's not funny and it's not even important or pertinent to the music. Miles didn't talk and they made a whole lot of music. All I do is announce the cats at the end. That's all people need to know. They don't need to know the titles. This isn't radio. I'm not an announcer. (Greg starts to do an imitation of a radio announcer). 'Right now, we're gonna play a selection from Greg Osby's 'Zero' CD and this is a wonderful recording with Jason Moran on piano and it's like an hour and ten minutes.' All this information, like liner note information, and it's like, who cares! That's the problem I have with radio too, they talk too much. 'This is a wonderful, swinging little ditty and it reminds me of 'My Wild Irish Rose'. I think their efforts would have been better served had he not used Jackie McLean and had he used Sonny Stitt. I figure that would have been a better choice.' They put all their opinions into it and it's like, man, just play the damn record, would you! When I go see these musicians and they're just talking too much or telling jokes and saying, 'How you feeling out there?' I mean, come on. Are you Jackie Gleason or what? So the recording reflects a Greg Osby set. Some people may think I'm an asshole, but I just want to make music and do things right. I just hope people enjoy it. That's the best I can do.
FJ: Any touring plans for the new albums?
GO: We always have tour plans. We had a tour scheduled for August, but that was cancelled. I had to cancel, because I had too many open dates that I couldn't fill. We may have a date and it might be two or three days off, because a lot of the promoters and people out there wouldn't respond in good enough time. I had been working on that tour for, like, six to eight months, and it cost me a whole lot of money in faxes, and emails, and sending out press packages, and CD's, and promotional materials, only for people to tell me that they didn't have any dates open. I was like, 'You could have told me that eight months ago!' People losing things. 'Sent another package.' 'I've already sent you, like, two!' 'Well it was misplaced.' Click. People wanted me to do door gigs, play for the door. 'Man, I'm almost forty years old, you want to play for the door.' So I just couldn't afford to keep the band in a hotel for three or four days until the next gig. I mean, it's one thing to come back from a tour and break even, at least I didn't loose money, but to have to kick money out of my pocket is, like, paying, that's like buying a tour. It just didn't work out.
FJ: Is arranging a tour that much harder on the West Coast than it is on the East Coast?
GO: Yes, because it's more spread out. Especially from the upper northeast sector, I mean, from D. C. to Boston there's tons and tons of colleges and you can drive, do that drive in less than eight hours. From New York to Philadelphia is an hour and a half. From D. C. to New York is three hours, three and a half hours. On the West Coast, you can find yourself in a ravine with the van turned upside down, with the wheels spinning, trying to make the next gig. It's lengthy.
FJ: Do you like playing the college circuit?
GO: I was trying to get in there, but unfortunately a lot of people that book the colleges are students and they look at Billboard or Gavin, whatever those music charts, whatever. They look to see who is on top of it and they don't see my name so they don't want to book it. They just book the same people. So it boils down to who is popular, once again. Who is media friendly, or who talks. Most of the time people do interviews, they don't talk the way I talk. They say all the right things. It's love and peace, and everything's beautiful, and I love everybody, and I want everybody to love my music, and thank you. God bless you. I love you. I love everybody too, but I also say I want to be an individual and I want my music to sound different and I don't want to sound like anybody else. They don't want to hear that, because it's like, they think, 'You're an upstart.' No, not an upstart, I just want sound like, when I talk I don't want to talk like somebody. I don't want to sound like Chris Rock when I talk, 'Hey, what up!' I want to sound like Greg Osby, so I don't want my music to sound like Steve Coleman. I don't want it to sound like Kenny Garrett. Is that so odd? I don't think so.
FJ: What are you listening to right now?
GO: I'm listening to a whole lot of stuff. I'm listening to, in particular, the complete recordings of Don Byas, the complete Mosaic recordings of Herbie Nichols. I'm listening to a lot of Ben Webster. I'm studying his vibrato. I'm listening to this Paul Gonsalves collection that I have. What else? A variety of pop music, George Michael, Bjork, a little hip hop here and there. It's really diverse. It can change just like that. I don't set out to listen to just jazz. It's whatever catches my fancy.
FJ: What inspires Greg Osby?
GO: Individuals. People that aren't afraid to express themselves, not to a degree where they're offensive to others or it's just totally inappropriate, but people who have studied and who have formulated things and who come up with a concept and a presentation that is reflective of higher learning. It's studied and scientific and it contains a certain degree of intellectualism. That's the problem that I have. People always say that Greg Osby music doesn't make any reference to the blues or this and that or whatever, but I've lived the blues. I'm from the ghetto. I don't have to play the blues on my record to know the blues. I'm Black. What more do you want? Do I have to be Mr. Bojangles to play the blues? That's the problem I have. They think that Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker were idiots. These cats were very intelligent and the music was very intelligent. These people alienated people in their day. Duke Ellington got scathing reviews by critics. Charlie Parker and John Coltrane and everybody else that I like, they were dogged, so I think I'm in good company. I just look for people that go the extra mile.
FJ: Describe yourself in one word.
GO: Curious.
FJ: Elaborate on that for me.
GO: Because, I want to know. I'm really frustrated when I'm confronted with things that I don't know, so I have to dissect them and extract the particulars, and the stylistic characteristics, framework, make-up. I want to know. If there's something of value then I probably can extract it and incorporate it in my own work and thus it will just be a compound. It will fortify what I'm doing. It's really ignorant to listen to everything as a fan and say, 'Yes, that's really nice,' when there's something of value there. In every situation that I'm in, I try to be a fan of it, as well as listening to it analytically and ingest the material. I discard the excess, but I try to use something of value.
FJ: What's in the future for Greg Osby?
GO: More variance and more study. I want to do a record with voices and strings. I probably won't ever be able to perform it live. I don't get those kinds of gigs, but I'd like to document it. I'd like to document all that I can. This 'Banned In New York' being released in December, less than six months after the one that proceeded it, because one recording a year isn't enough for a jazz artist. Jazz is sold on volume and availability and accessability, as opposed to some big media build up. People will gravitate toward your art in their own time. No amount of hype will make them hear it any better. They can have all these grandiose ads in all these publications and upon the first listen, people may not get it at all. Many recordings warrant repeated listening, because it's just too much to comprehend at once.
FJ: At the conclusion of your career, what would you like your musical legacy to be?
GO: I would like people to think that here's a man who didn't repeat himself, who was always searching, who was always looking for the missing element, or the next phase, in constant transition, in constant growth and in progression. That's all that I can offer. If it's touted great or trend setting or phenomenal, that's a judgement I can't launch. I just hope that it's recognized as something that's honest or earnest.
Greg Osby: 9 Levels
August 16, 2008
AllAboutJazz
After ending a sixteen year tenure with Blue Note Records, leaving his signature as one of the most forward thinking, outspoken, and at times misunderstood artists in contemporary jazz, saxophonist/composer Greg Osby returns with 9 Levels, the first release on his new Inner Circle Music label.
The music which is based upon Osby's perspective on the Zen like principles of "The 9 Levels of Humanity," personifies the artist: geometric time signatures, hip modernistic imprints, blues and bop touches and some new surprises, delivered with the usual high level of musicianship. The sharp movements of Osby's horn and music are intact but the recording speaks of a freshness that is free from the constraints of normal conventions and is articulated by a new band of rising artists who are poised to leave their own marks.
Osby has many times surrounded himself and nurtured emerging talent (pianist Jason Moran, drummer Rodney Green, singer Joan Osborne, to name a few) and this new group of bright leaders is no exception.
Joseph Lepore (bass) and Hamir Atwal (drums) create the robust rhythm section that admirably handles the labyrinthine changes and deep grooves in "Principle" or the swing bop backbone in "Truth." Dual-chorded ensembles can be tricky at times but here, Adam Birnbaum (piano) and Nir Felder (guitar) deliver the goods with great aplomb by comping, soloing, and filling in the creative gaps with total ease.
The sextet's sixth element is found in the unique vocals of singer Sara Serpa from Lisboa, Portugal. Her voice a finely tuned instrument, serious scattin' on "Truth," choral phrases on "Humility" or wordless touches like a painter's brushstrokes on canvass on the lovely abstract piece "Tolerance."
Continued surprises are found in two non-Osby pieces, "Less Tension Please" and "Two of One." The former has a mix of European classic-like overtones and where each band member contributes beautifully; the later with rustic sounds of Felder's slide guitar and Serpa's soothing lyrics.
The complexity of Osby is found in his music—searching, trying new things, and fighting conformity. Even within individual compositions there is constant flux as heard in the stunning works "Innocence" and "Optimism"(which also contains a nice hidden track). Similar to any art-form, some will or will not appreciate or comprehend it. But for Osby fans and those seeking more than just the usual, 9 Levels is a welcome return of a conceptualist who is in constant pursuit of new ideas.
Track Listing: Principle; Tolerance; Humility; Truth; Less Tension Please; Resilience; Two Of One; Innocence; Optimism.
Personnel: Greg Osby: alto and soprano saxophones; Sara Serpa: voice; Adam Birnbaum: piano; Nir Felder: guitar; Joseph Lepore: bass; Hamir Atwal: drums.
Title: 9 Levels | Year Released: 2008 | Record Label: Inner Circle Music
Greg Osby: Inner Circle
August 1, 2002
AllAboutJazz
Jazz fans searching for a quintessential forward-thinking artist should look no further than the musical musings of Mr. Greg Osby. He's an artist who will not be satisfied with the status quo. Distinguished as an alto saxophone stylist, his voice is unique and easily recognizable among the masses. His recordings of the past few years have all been modern exercises in jazz music that are entertaining, cerebral, and illuminating. As any successful visionary, he has surrounded himself with like-minded individuals who continue to push the envelope of jazz; such as piano extraordinaire Jason Moran and vibraphonist Stefon Harris. His previous recording Symbols of Light (A Solution), which implemented a string quartet into his eclectic mix, was one of 2001's top jazz picks.
Inner Circle continues on the same high level that Osby has been operating at throughout his career. His music is progressively expanding into new boundaries on the ubiquitous jazz theme. It swings, grooves and moves with a distinctive style. The recording features Osby originals with covers by Euro-Pop sensation Bjork and famous bassist Charles Mingus. The title Inner Circle could easily refer to one of the tightest set of young musicians paving the jazz path today. The musicians have been featured on recordings by Jason Moran and Stefon Harris. Bassist Taurus Mateen and drummer Eric Harland comprise one of the most dynamic and talented rhythm sections on the scene today. Osby and Moran have formed a unique and wonderful symbiosis over the past few years that allows for freedom and expression with wide possibilities. Stefon Harris' vibe work just keeps getting better. All the compositons are creative with odd patterns and complex arrangements that never leave the listener too far, and will also encourage a deeper appreciation for the art form. The many highlights include the circuitous and hypnotic "Fragment Decoding" and the brilliant "Inner Circle Principle" with its memorable solos expressed by each musician. With Osby at the helm, one can only anticipate the next move in his forward progression.
Another top pick for 2002.
Track Listing: 1:Entruption 2:Stride Logic 3:Diary Of The Same Dream 4:Equalatogram 5:All Neon Like 6:Fragmatic Decoding 7:The Inner Circle Principle 8:Sons Of The Confidential 9:Self-Portrait In Three Colors
Personnel: Greg Osby: Alto Saxophone; Jason Moran: Piano Stefon Harris: Vibraphone; Tarus Mateen: Bass; Eric Harland: Drums
Title: Inner Circle | Year Released: 2002 | Record Label: Blue Note Records
Greg Osby: Saxophone “Griot”
May 17, 2016
AllAboutJazz
The griot is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet and/or musician, a repository of oral tradition who is often seen as a societal leader. Saxophonist Greg Osby recently was excited to meet some griots on his travels. While he is originally from St. Louis, he himself is a griot in many senses of the word. As Peter Margasak said in Jazz Times as early as 2000, "Greg Osby has quietly become one of the most potent, complete and important saxophonists in jazz." That reputation continues to this day, and he has become a force in all aspects of the jazz scene, exploring possibilities and genres, mentoring younger musicians, and jump starting a successful record company, Inner Circle Music.
Beginning with the formation of the M-Base Collective with Steve Coleman in the 1980s, Osby has been helping musicians come together to develop new approaches and to advance their cause. He is a perennial seeker of knowledge, not only about music, but about diverse subjects from restoring collectors' items to spiritual teachings. He uses his knowledge to push the envelope of jazz. In those respects, he is a griot par excellence, and in this interview he candidly discusses his musical development with astute observations and strong views on what he and the music are all about.
All About Jazz: A couple of warm-up questions. First, the desert island question: please give us a few recordings that you would take to that desert island.
Greg Osby: Off the top of my head, maybe Charles Mingus' Mingus Ah Um (Columbia, 1959). Duke Ellington, Indigos (Columbia, 1958). Thelonious Monk, Underground (Columbia, 1968). Shirley Horn, Here's to Life (Verve, 1992. Betty Carter, The Audience (Verve, 1980). I could go on forever, actually...
AAJ: Any classical music that you especially like?
GO: I do love Erik Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Ibert. Also Alexander Scriabin. I enjoy the progressions and motives that are utilized in French-infused classical music.
AAJ: If you were in a big city, and there was a lot of jazz going on, who are some of the musicians and groups you'd grab a chance to hear?
GO: To be honest, I would be more inclined towards catching the younger players. They best represent the idea of music being put together from the large numbers of historical building blocks that we have available to us now. Some of my current favorites are Logan Richardson, Godwin Lewis, Jaleel Shaw on alto saxophone, Ambrose Akinmusire, Adam O'Farrill on trumpet, Walter Smith III, Melissa Aldana, Ben Wendel, Tivon Pennicott, Troy Roberts on tenor sax, Aaron Parks, Christian Li, Victor Gould, Matt Mitchell, Gerald Clayton, John Chin on piano, Matt Brewer, Linda May Han Oh, Ben Williams on bass, Lage Lund, Mike Moreno on guitar, Sara Serpa, Gretchen Parlato on vocals, Eric Harland, Jonathan Blake, Tommy Crane, Marcus Gilmore on drums, younger people like that. Far too many to mention, really. I applaud their fearlessness and their ability to channel their influences into an identifiable platform -music that is representative of our times. There are others who promote and practice traditional values, which is also great, but for my own personal preference, I like to hear music that is a representation and expression of the world as an artist experiences it—while it's happening.
Early Roots
AAJ: Let's go back to your youth. You grew up in St. Louis, a city that plays an important role in the history of jazz. What was your life there like as a kid, and especially the musical influences?
GO: I enjoyed typical inner city radio-oriented listening, with healthy dosages of James Brown, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding, Ike and Tina Turner. Lots of soul music, funk and R&B. In the sixth grade, I was able to get my hands on a clarinet when there was an opening in the junior high school band. I chose the clarinet over the trombone, and I took to it quite rapidly. I learned the fingerings, how to develop a tone, how to play little melodies on it in a very short time. And I couldn't get enough of it.
AAJ: Did you have a teacher at that time?
GO: My clarinet teacher was actually a trumpeter by the name of Fred Irby III, who is now (and has been for the past 42 years) the director of the Jazz Ensemble and Coordinator of Instrumental Music at Howard University in Washington, DC. He was working on his music education graduate degree back then and made his rounds on the public school circuit, doing student teaching. He was very inspiring. But outside of that, I've never really had any formal instrumental music lessons in my entire life. I may have had some great advice and personal coaching, but no regular or legitimate lessons as such. It's interesting to hear myself say that because I've never really thought about it very much until now.
AAJ: At what point did you learn to read music?
GO: I learned to read music right way somewhat, but it wasn't methodical, it was largely intuitive. So, of course there were bound to be issues. Back then I had a lot of shortcomings in my musical education that weren't corrected until I got to the university level. I started playing clarinet in 1972, and a year later I got my hands on an alto saxophone. At that time, I soon found myself playing in lightweight blues bands and in soul band horn sections. By 14, I was playing with grown men in their 30s and 40s, so it was a very healthy environment and apprenticeship situation for someone who was as enthusiastic as I was about learning how to play. The older players looked out for me. They advised me on the ins and outs of captivating an audience, being funky and soulful, dealing with properties of music that stimulated movement and dancing. It was great that I could learn on the job and get paid for it, but my formal education was still lacking in terms of musical references, harmony, and theory. I was basically playing by ear.
AAJ: Were you interested in jazz around that time?
GO: Not quite yet. In 1974, I started high school, and was in a soul R&B band in St. Louis, and a year later guitarist Kelvyn Bell, who now lives in New York, joined the band that I was in and he gave me a Charlie Parker live bootleg recording in which Bird was playing bebop at blistering tempos. Parker was masterfully playing songs like "Hot House," "BeBop" and "Barbados," and I was mystified. I was completely stunned by his ability to express
himself on that level. I had no idea that people could play that way on the saxophone. So I tried to extract as much as I could from those recordings by just listening and copying, again pretty much on my own. I've been a lone wolf for the greater part of my career.
AAJ: What do you mean when you say you're a lone wolf?
GO: I tend to pursue things on my own. My curiosity motivates me to seek things out, analyze them and I would then come up with my own systems of identification and labeling. I had my own personal lexicon, my own vocabulary, my own notational system. I knew nothing really, but I would get to a piano and write things out in a way that made sense to me. It was very rudimentary.
AAJ: I'd say you were very independent, not so much a loner.
GO: Well, I rejected a lot of things, too. I always wanted to dance to the beat of my own drum. I never liked to go with trends because doing so didn't require any creativity. I thought about many things differently. I embraced a different set of values of my own contrivance. Hard-headed is another word for it! [Laughter.] It's come to serve me well, but it's also boxed me into a corner on many a day because being unconventional has its hazards in a world where conformity is the norm.
Getting back to my early listening, during that time my mother worked at a record distribution company in St. Louis, a really big warehouse, and they would get shipments of recordings from all of the major labels, and in turn they would distribute them to the big chain and retail stores around town. So every day, my mother would come home with an armload of discontinued items; cutouts, overstock and unsold returns. So, we had a record collection to die for. We literally lived amongst mountains of vinyl recordings! We'd stack the spindle on the record player with six or more records, and they would include, say, Jimmy Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Wilson Pickett, Jr. Walker, various classical recordings, Bob Dylan, John Coltrane, The Jackson Five, the Beatles, and the Osmond Brothers. We, quite literally, played and listened to everything.
AAJ: Did your mother enjoy the music as much as you did?
GO: Absolutely. Her favorites were Sam Cooke, Bobby Womack, Gladys Knight, Curtis Mayfield, Jackie Wilson, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Bobby "Blue" Bland, and so on. Mostly Soul and Blues.
AAJ: Was she a single parent?
GO: Yes, and I really appreciated her efforts to keep everything together, domestically speaking, so I did my best to keep out of trouble in the streets. I found activities that would occupy my time, like visual arts and music, which helped to fashion my perspectives on life and how I might fit into the grand scheme of things. The street culture in my neighborhood was both seductive and unsavory, to say the least. I saw things that young people should never see, and I saw them up close, face-to-face, and with a great deal of frequency, to the point where I became desensitized to them. I became indifferent in a way, and it affected how I reacted to and viewed things. Fortunately, I was smart and ambitious enough to recognize the folly of participation in some of the neighborhood's various "activities."
AAJ: So you never got into the drug culture.
GO: No, not at all. I was more of a regular reader at the library, and I often would travel to the other side of town to read and check out books because, it wasn't considered a good look to be seen coming out of the local library! We often did stupid things or pretended like we didn't enjoy school or didn't want to excel in order to not be targeted by the "bad" guys on the block. It was ridiculous, and I'm sure it still happens.
AAJ: What was the interracial climate was like at that time in St. Louis?
GO: At the time, I didn't even know the definition of interracial! There was no mixing and up to that point, all of the people I knew or encountered were black, as was my entire environment. I only saw white people on TV or in the movies. In fact, I didn't actually have a white friend until I was twenty years old, when I transferred from Howard University to Berklee College of Music in Boston. I experienced real culture shock when I had to actually relate to white musicians, teachers and such. Growing up in an all-black community was great in terms of being exposed to culture, identity, soul and blues, but it was debilitating in terms of social interchange.
AAJ: So, at that time, you were in high school, you took up alto sax, and began working some gigs with the more mature musicians. What was your next move after high school?
GO: Fred Irby III, who was my mentor in junior high, later visited my high school with his big band that he then (and now) directed at Howard University in DC. I heard them up close and was transfixed, because I'd never seen a big band before. I was blown away. Before that, I never had thought of pursuing music as a career, but Fred took me aside and proposed that after I graduated from high school, he would arrange a scholarship for me to go to Howard. That really motivated me to take the music more seriously so I could be prepared for music studies in college. It wasn't simply a fun pastime anymore.
AAJ: What happened when you got to Howard University?
Inspirations at the Berklee College of Music
GO: On the very first day of orientation, I met trumpeter Wallace Roney, tenor saxophonist Gary Thomas, pianist Geri Allen, and a few other players who also went on to great careers. During the audition process, they put some music charts in front of me, and I froze, because I wasn't a good sight reader at all. But I was a quick study, and soon got into the swing of things. I was learning and progressing very rapidly because I had an overwhelming enthusiasm for acquiring information. However, after a while I got restless and frustrated because I felt that I needed more than I could get at that school. So during my second year at Howard, I visited Berklee College in Boston during spring break. I sat in on some jam sessions with other guys who were all my age, but they were playing things that I wasn't yet familiar with. There were people like alto saxophonists Donald Harrison and Walter Beasley, tenor saxophonists Jean Toussaint and Don Aliquo. Branford Marsalis was also there, but he played alto exclusively at the time. Drummer Cindy Blackman, bassist Victor Bailey, guitarist Kevin Eubanks, and drummers Jeff "Tain" Watts and Marvin "Smitty" Smith. There were many more and I was very impressed by their abilities and energy.
AAJ: What a lineup! And they were all students at the time?
GO: Yes, they were all students or associates of the college. I thought, this is where I need to be! At Berklee, they were jamming all evening—every day, whereas at Howard, it was really difficult to find a complete group to play with. Also, while checking out Berklee, I sat in on some classes, in particular two performance ensembles taught by tenor saxophonist George Garzone, and one by alto saxophonist Bob Mover. It was a very inspiring trip.
So, after my visit to Berklee, someone from the school contacted me and offered me a scholarship. Since I got a free ride to go there, it was onward to Boston. And it was a big culture shock, because it was a very diverse city and college, and for the first time, I felt like a member of a minority group. There were even international students there. I'd never been around Europeans or even Asian people. That was in 1980 in Boston.
AAJ: What was the musical culture like at that time?
GO: It was quite a vibrant scene. There were a number of clubs, places to perform where you could work things out or regularly hear more experienced musicians play. Bob Mover, James Williams, Jerry Bergonzi, Mike Stern, Bill Pierce, George Garzone, guys like that played a lot in the Boston area. Garzone had a group called the Fringe that played at a place called The Willow in Somerville. There was (and still is) a club called Wally's, where I fronted an organ trio. I could write arrangements or call any song in any key at any tempo, so it was a great place to apply what I'd learned in school in front of a live audience, at my own pace.
AAJ: What sort of music were you playing at that time?
GO: We were playing primarily standards, but we could also closely check out a guy like George Garzone who was very adventuresome and experimental. Branford Marsalis liked a lot of what Wayne Shorter and Miles Davis were doing. I liked Ornette Coleman and Cannonball Adderley a lot. And I really appreciated that there was an incredible degree of exchange and sharing in our peer group. Players weren't smugly putting each other down or coveting information. We were coaching each other, and it was very supportive. Back then, we gave a lot to each other and as a result, one person's discoveries were to the benefit of everyone. I miss that atmosphere.
AAJ: You had a noteworthy teacher at Berklee named Andy McGhee. What was he like, and how did he influence you?
GO: There were a number of very knowledgeable teachers who influenced me, for example, Joe Viola, who was a technician, a "saxophone guru" so to speak. But I preferred to study with Andy McGhee because he was more hands on and more fatherly. He watched over me, and helped me to identify and hone the more unique characteristics of my playing. I guess he recognized my desire and latent, underlying musical personality. He observed me carefully, and we had frequent conversations—on and off the clock. At times, it was like going to a shrink! I would tell him a lot about what I was thinking and feeling. Then, he would sit at the piano and accompany me. He told me to stand in the far corner of the room, because he wanted me to fill the room with my sound and to simulate a broader, tenor saxophone direction on my alto sax, because some alto saxophonists sound screechy, like nails on a chalkboard. He suggested that I incorporate tenor sax logic into my playing. He felt that a lot of alto saxophonists sounded thin and undeveloped, and he wanted me to be more vibrant and more enveloping with my sound.
He emphasized ballad playing for tone development and for grand decision making. He'd often tell me not to play so many notes, to take my time, to tell a story, to think about the lyrics. He had me listen to multiple vocal versions of each song that I played, emphasizing that they were sung before they were played instrumentally. He covered many particulars that you don't usually get introduced to by most teachers. They give you the nuts and bolts and mechanics of musical construction, but they often don't give you the why's, where's and how's, the reasons behind doing certain things. For instance, he would tell me that when I played a gig, I should play to the Exit sign in the back, and then it dawned on me much later that he was telling me to play for the people in the back row -that I should attempt to project and spread my voice to embrace everyone in the entire room.
AAJ: That's a real gem of advice!
GO: Yeah, it was one of those "Old Man on the Mountain" bits of accumulated wisdom.
AAJ: McGhee was a wise man who'd been around.
GO: Oh, yes, he'd been around! He played with Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, and many of the other big bands. He emphasized reading charts, doubling, being reliable and punctual and being a complete musician. It's all right to have your own voice, but when you're called for a gig, you want to be able to fill the bill whether or not you think it's hip. It's up to you to make a living as a working musician. Rent and bills don't care about "hip."
Career Trajectory in New York
AAJ: OK. So you're doing all this learning, jamming, and meeting people. At what point did you feel you were actually embarking on your musical career? Was it when you moved to New York.? GO: The entire time that I was in Boston, I would make bi-weekend or monthly treks to New York. I took a cheap shuttle flight from Boston to Newark. I would hang out, sleep on various floors and sofas. When you're young, you're very adaptable and have boundless amounts of energy. I was fascinated by all the possibilities that New York offered. A lot of questions that I couldn't get answers to in school became more clear. In New York, I could supplement the blackboard-based logic of my teachers with applications by the best musicians. I heard George Coleman, Gary Bartz, Charlie Rouse, George Coleman, Junior Cook, Arthur Blythe, so many players. I went to Bradley's regularly [a small club in Greenwich Village that closed in 1996.—Eds.] There, practically every night I was in the midst of giants who would come there after their gigs. I'd be there, and all of a sudden there'd be Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, and there's Woody Shaw. Freddie Hubbard, Tommy Flanagan, John Hicks, Kenny Barron. Betty Carter would hold court at times. I just couldn't believe it!
And most of these top musicians were very accommodating to me. I've always been the assertive type who would ask a lot of questions. I'd see one of these people in the club, offer to buy them a drink, and I'd ask some questions. I wasn't shy at all, especially since I was aware that I was presented with a rare opportunity to get the truth from the source and not a book. They were usually very nice and impressed that someone my age would be there and even be interested in the music at all. I'd ask questions about their playing, practice routines, details about what led them to play in specific ways, the books and tools they used, and so on. And they enjoyed our dialogue. So I would go back to Boston all charged up with stories and anecdotes. It became clear to me that New York would be my destination.
AAJ: What other musicians did you interact with in New York at that time?
GO: Primarily a drummer named Camille Gainer, a New York native and a good friend was my main running buddy, but I also hung out with a lot of people who never went on to become professional musicians or were simply fans of the music and the scene. My friend Jeff Watts had already made the move from Boston to the city by then, as he was a member of Wynton Marsalis' newly formed quintet. So he showed me around. I frequently hung out with people who would be dismissed as derelicts or junkies, homeless musicians who were strung out on drugs, but despite their condition, they told me a lot. They had seen Coltrane live. They got high with some of the legends. Or they knew Monk personally. They had stories that no one else knew about. So that was also an education. Information is where you find it.
AAJ: What neighborhoods did you hang out in?
GO: Harlem, various locations in Brooklyn, but mostly in the Village, which was the epicenter of jazz activity during that time.
AAJ: When did you begin to feel that you were forming your own "voice," that you had a unique point to make when you played?
GO: At the risk of sounding mildly arrogant, I've always felt that I had a "voice," as unrefined as it remained for a long time. But things didn't begin to feel really solid for me until I was around 35, I'd say.
AAJ: When did you start to think, "I'd like to get my own band together"?
GO: That didn't happen until several years after I'd moved to New York. I wasn't in any rush! I had my own trio in Boston, but we mostly played modified standards. Even when I moved to New York in 1982, I resisted stepping out as a leader as well as offers for record deals that were being presented to me. It was the beginning of the so-called "Young Lions" movement, which, in itself, is a ridiculous term. Many of the major labels were looking for their respective golden goose that would serve as a representative or "face" for them in that movement. They were seeking out musicians who were young, articulate, dressed and played well, etc. I was also being courted heavily. But I knew that I wasn't ready. For one thing, I knew that I didn't have enough life experience behind me to give my music much substance. I still needed some apprenticeship, some time on the road, and I needed to cultivate more of my own expression. I also needed to be taken under the wing of some notables who had the goods that I wanted. So I resisted the record deals. A lot of people who recorded too early and who were thrust into the public eye prematurely were exploited, dissected, and discarded. So I waited until around 1986 before I started to lead bands and record.
AAJ: And some, like Wynton Marsalis, who became great successes, weren't resilient in terms of the progressive ideas that were coming along.
GO: Actually, Wynton was very exploratory when he started out. I appreciated what he was trying to do. But after a certain point, his value system changed, which was his choice. But the work he's been involved in has been admirable, with attention to detail and authenticity, although it doesn't necessarily meet everyone's taste. It's not possible, and no artist should be expected to. But that's the whole problem with these made up "scenes," like the Young Lions. Everyone is put under the same categorical umbrella and are thought to all adhere to the same ideologies, perspectives and career objectives. No one really thinks the same.
AAJ: I think it's really great that you allowed yourself the time to percolate and do the difficult time of apprenticeship and hanging with the other musicians rather than suddenly becoming a rising star.
GO: I was simply being honest with myself, and sparing the public from having to endure my underdeveloped playing and interpretations. Most people don't realize how sad they are. I did.
Steve Coleman and the M-Base Collective
GO: Also, during that time, I engaged with different influences and streams of what was going on. I met Steve Coleman, Cassandra Wilson, Robin Eubanks, Graham Haynes, and reconnected with Geri Allen. I met Steve when I first moved to New York while I was playing at the Village Vanguard with John Faddis. Steve heard about me from someone so he came to check me out. He dropped by with Cassandra Wilson, and then after the gig, we talked for a long time outside, in front of the Vanguard. We talked about our goals, ambitions and what we were trying to do in music, and it was a charge for me to find a kindred spirit.
Steve was doing alternative things, his own things, as opposed to lots of guys who were very retrospective. We talked until the sun came up, went back to our respective apartments, and that afternoon we had another marathon telephone conversation. We talked about possibilities: what if we did this or that? We threw around the idea of starting a musician's collective. We made a list of questions to pose to our musician friends, and the answers we got were very stimulating. I was surprised, because the answers didn't necessarily reflect the way most people played. Some played very traditionally, even though they had very well reasoned and advanced ideas and theories. Steve and I surmised that if some of these new theories were developed and utilized, then the output would mirror the times we lived in more accurately, as opposed to being caught up in the past. We endeavored to establish a contemporary musical language.
AAJ: It must have been an exciting and creative period for you.
GO: It was a very, very inspiring, creative, and extremely fertile period. It was the literal embodiment of exchange, sharing, and healthy, creative prodding from one's peers and I learned a lot from everyone.
AAJ: Often, new developments in the arts happen from people coming together, creating a movement, a new set of principles. Like cubism, bebop. serial composition, method acting, whatever.
GO: Any creative ideal is a composite result of different people contributing their knowledge, discoveries, failures, and inventions. Things happen when creative minds meet, even when they're in opposition to one another. There's always something to be learned.
AAJ: One of the musicians you haven't mentioned at all, yet who you seem to reflect a great deal in your playing is Wayne Shorter.
GO: I hear that a lot. Many journalists have made that reference. I can't relate to that so much. I guess it's because I used to play a lot more soprano saxophone, which he does of course, but I never studied Wayne Shorter in that way. I have never transcribed his solos, never decoded what he was doing. I'm not so influenced by him in an academic sense. He's a career model for me because the bulk of his output, especially now, is very sophisticated and personal. That's what appeals to me about his work.
AAJ: Perhaps it's the inventiveness itself that's similar, always creating new lines and phrases.
GO: Yes, Wayne Shorter is an influence in the sense that I've always admired his ability to create environments in which he can flourish and function effectively within. He organizes his groups so that they stimulate and enhance his playing. Master conceptualists do that very well, like Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk. They innately seek out players who are sometimes considered misfits and put them together to create something wonderful and unique. It takes a visionary to do that. Duke Ellington was exceptional in that way. He wrote customized pieces for various eclectic stylists in his orchestra. Wayne Shorter absolutely does influence me in the way that he assembles his music and his groups.
Defining the Jazz Idiom
AAJ: I have a question for you that has been batted in many contexts. Based on what you've said so far about all the diverse influences you've been exposed to, you might be able to provide an interesting perspective. That is, "What is Jazz?" From the beginning, jazz has been influenced by many different genres; it's been eclectic in that way. But it had the specific African and Caribbean roots as well as in gospel music. Do you think of jazz as a specific idiom, or, in terms of today, it seems that any music that is improvised is called jazz, whatever its roots might be? Klezmer music, music from India, music of all genres from places all around the world, all seem to qualify as jazz. The definition is important to where jazz is heading in the future. What do you think about this issue?
GO: Jazz is a flowing stream that's fed by diverse inlets of influence. It's something that's perpetual, so it has to keep moving. Of course there are historical markers and soundposts when certain things came into the flow, when particular innovations were developed and engaged, or when particular personalities were prominent. But it keeps moving, it's almost like it picks up momentum from these various changes, but it shouldn't stop evolving.
Unfortunately, contemporary improvised music had reached an impasse beyond which we hadn't moved from in quite some time. But I can feel it gaining momentum again, because many hard-thinking young players have grown impatient with "playing nice" and pandering to expectations, so now we find ourselves in the "post-hip hop" generation.
Jazz has gone from Ragtime to Dixieland and swing, to bebop, hard bop, and avant-garde, and fusion, etc. So this is more or less what I call the post-hip hop era. A lot of young players have been introduced to music in snippets or in loops, not necessarily knowing the origins or root source of those compounds and structures. So they listen, respond to and play music in a different way. However, listening to music that is less melodic—the result is that many musicians today have heightened rhythmic sensibilities and are more aware of the potential that rhythmic variation presents.
So for me, jazz is a deeply rooted American-based music that now feeds off a wide variety of global resources. It's come to that. There are many great international players, who not only bring technical expertise, but they also bring their own histories, folklore, traditions, and customs of their respective countries—which helps to broaden the language and increases the possibilities and options available to artists. It's like a chef who brings spices from all over the world to enhance the flavor of his dishes. There are great musicians from Poland, where I was just last week. We have great musicians from India, Central and South America, throughout all of Europe and Asia. They all have older cultures and more extensive histories than we do in the U.S., so they contribute and offer resources that we can all benefit from.
AAJ: The question is whether, given all these diverse influences, there still needs to be something in the jazz idiom that should be preserved, such as the blues and syncopation, or whether all improvised music qualifies as jazz. Some, like Don Byron, argue that music doesn't fit into neat categories: "God doesn't care whether it's jazz or not." Others feel that jazz embodies a certain essence with specific origins.
GO: I don't think it's incumbent upon anyone to express
himself based on others' expectations. No artist is morally or historically obligated to adhere to a vision that is untrue to their goals or personal mission. If a person chooses to play hard bop a la the Jazz Messengers, Hank Mobley, Horace Silver and so on, that's perfectly fine. Or, if he wants to do something entirely different, that's OK too. Musical expression is very personal and so are the tastes and preferences of audiences.
AAJ: You can go well beyond hard bop and still retain specific jazz elements. Ornette Coleman retained key aspects of the blues and the African American experience in his music. Coleman even thought of himself as an extension of Charlie Parker. How important are the roots?
GO: It's interesting that you say that, because I'm reminded of a blindfold test of an associate that I read recently. One of the examples played was a track from a spontaneous improvisational recording and DVD that I did with guitarist John Abercrombie. After listening, my associate said that he wouldn't call it jazz because it didn't swing and have the blues or whatever. (He didn't know that it was me on the track until it was revealed afterward.) I don't think so much in absolute terms in that way, although I do appreciate it when a musician exhibits that he has respectfully studied the foundations and principles of music as it has been presented—either academically or esthetically. But I would never expect someone to maintain those aspects in absolutely everything that they do. I would hope that they would be expansive enough to venture outside of the traditional realm. But even then, I would want to hear the expression of an accomplished and studied musician, despite however they choose to categorize their work.
AAJ: In that respect, I'm thinking of Pablo Picasso's paintings. He was one of the innovators of cubism and abstract art, but only after he mastered all the aspects of the art that preceded him. His earliest paintings are in the tradition of realism and impressionism. He then incorporated them into the new art forms. It sounds like you're very open to new things, but you want them to maintain, respect, and reflect the craftsmanship and the historical development.
GO: If someone wants to express themselves in a fashion that has very little or no precedent, like the way that Picasso painted two eyes on the same side of the head, that's acceptable to me. Some people may not care for it, and that's OK too. When I was younger, if I couldn't hear legitimate chord progressions and forms being exhibited in improvisations or compositions, I would think that it and the players were bullshit. I got that way from trying to please my teachers and by showing that I could play the way they wanted me to. In fact, I later concluded that I was actually victimized by that closed-minded way of institutionalized thinking. When I moved to New York, I had a chance to actually play with some of the people that I had previously dismissed. I learned that even though some of their techniques and methods weren't in the textbooks, it wasn't necessarily wrong. Some of their work couldn't even be accurately notated, but had to be explained or demonstrated.
For example, during my early New York days, sometimes I would occasionally substitute for Julius Hemphill in the World Saxophone Quartet. Before I performed with them, I really didn't think much of their music. However, when I actually found myself standing next to Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett, and David Murray, and they weren't playing Charlie Parker's Kansas City blues, but yet another vein of blues, I soon realized that I had a lot more to learn! Hamiet Bluiett played around different places in the midwest, and he picked up a lot of nuances that he showed me. Oliver Lake had his own experiences around the new music circuit. Henry Threadgill, Lester Bowie and several others influenced my composing and thinking. Arthur Blythe had another thing going on alto saxophone that opened up my ears. And Julius Hemphill's unique way of composing was also very inspiring. I used to sit and talk with Muhal Richard Abrams for hours when we would tour. Later, I recorded and toured with Andrew Hill and many other great artists. It was all very enlightening, and it sent me off on an entirely new trajectory.
Current Musical Activities, Personal Life, and Guidance for Young Musicians
AAJ: We could have a much longer dialogue about the evolution of your music, but time is pressing, and I want to bring readers up to date on what's happening with you these days. In a previous All About Jazz interview, you focused upon your record company, Inner Circle Music, so let's shift the focus here to your own recent musical efforts and career.
GO: It's been an interesting ride of late. I haven't had a personal recording release since 2008. I've been exceptionally busy organizing and running the label, and have been more active producing, teaching and making guest appearances. I'm on the road a lot, but now I'm doing many so many gigs as a special guest that frankly, I get offered a lot more as a special guest than I do for my own bands! So it's time to step back from that. Also, I'm involved with promoting and coordinating over 50 artists who record for my label, Inner Circle Music. In addition, I'm working on a book, which is going very slowly. And, of course, I never stop composing and working on new ideas. So I have a lot on my plate.
In the next month or two, I'll begin production on my next CD project. It's time to get busy again. The emphasis will be internal development of the compositions themselves, and not necessarily offering lengthy improvisations. I'll be auditioning yet another batch of young musicians to take the journey with me. I'm designing it to be something that is musically captivating and technically challenging but something that the general public can also enjoy. It's been a long time coming.
AAJ: Let's talk a bit about Greg Osby when you're not doing music.
GO: I collect things! I attend auctions, flea markets, thrift stores, yard sales, garage sales, and estate sales. I look for hidden gems and rare finds. I restore them and often give them as gifts. Right now, believe it or not, I'm on a kick of buying vintage suits, hats, and silver jewelry.
AAJ: Miles Davis did that too.
GO: I go for suits from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. Vintage and classic suits. I like the thin ties, the skinny bow ties, tip clips and pins, cufflinks. I like those looks and vibes. I favor musicians who dress more elegantly and look like professionals. Many dress far too casually for my tastes. Performing is about the whole package, a complete presentation. People don't come to see our shows with blindfolds on. Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and all of our predecessors dressed really nicely for their performances. You absolutely will not find a photo or video of them in public or on stage disrespecting themselves nor the art form by wearing "street clothes" in front of a paying public. Not to mention, they did so in an effort to emphasize the fact that they were indeed special, and wanted to be treated with respect. However, I realize that this just isn't a priority issue for many musicians in this "post hip hop" generation. Being casual and comfortable is more of a concern than having a dignified and prepared appearance. But then, it becomes easy to understand why some laypersons don't appreciate the music as an institution of value or high regard. I wouldn't hire a lawyer or go to a doctor if they looked like some musicians that I know. But my expectations are different and it's only my opinion.
AAJ: That's a good point. Today, many jazz guys wear a cheap shirt open at the collar for their gigs, blue jeans, or something like that. By contrast, the Modern Jazz Quartet, in particular, wore the formal attire of classical musicians.
GO: Again, I can't argue with anyone's right of choice. One of my blogs is called Jazz Bums. I would agree that the quality of the music itself is of primary importance, but I think we need to be a bit more respectful in how we present ourselves. We expect anyone in a professional capacity to be properly attired for the job. Why not musicians?
AAJ: What's your family life like?
GO: My family is all over the place, St. Louis, Chicago, the South, west coast. They're not into jazz so much, so I can't relate to them fully on that level, and that's OK. I'm certain that they appreciate one of their own following their muse and sticking with it. Most of my friends are musicians or are in the arts, but I also try to have friends who are into other careers—outside of the business. It keeps me balanced and in touch with what people really think about my music! We talk a lot about cooking, wine, travel, real estate and culture. Absolutely no sports, politics or religious discussions is tolerated. I don't enter in those types of exchanges because arguing over those issues is futile.
AAJ: What about your spirituality? What's your philosophy of life? How do you deal with the big picture?
GO: My ideal logo for life would be an outstretched palm with some seeds in it. Perpetual possibilities. My goal is to continue growing. I'm always looking for new information and resources that fascinate me. There's always this need to demystify and decrypt things I never knew about. Then hopefully I can use what I learn in my own work. Some of it may be very subtle, but there's a great deal that goes into my musical recipes and I enjoy the notion that we all may have different points of view. I'll hear people out about whatever their opinions may be.
AAJ: Do you have a particular spiritual practice or religious faith?
GO: I'm a devout Osby-ist! I'm a practitioner of Osby-ism! [Laughter.]
AAJ: Would you say that you're a seeker after truth?
GO: I do tend to peel back layers in search or deeper meaning or shrouded information. I've investigated many of the major world religions, mostly as a philosophical pursuit. I was a practicing Buddhist for a number of years. I've endured intensive studies in Christianity, Hinduism, Taoism. I study them for personal enlightenment or to attempt to become a better human being and to try to be as giving and open to people as possible. I try not act negatively towards people or to be unnecessarily confrontational or oppositional. I prefer not to practice any particular religion on an ongoing basis, because I find them to be very absolute and the many mystical and abstract references aren't in accordance with my idea of personal growth and development.. Subscribing to ideologies that are inflexible or are intolerant of others' beliefs doesn't fit my way of thinking. But, more power to anyone who finds focus, grounding and peace in them.
AAJ: Do you ever use world mythology or cultural lore in your music?
GO: Definitely. I was in Africa several months ago, and I met many Griots and Chiefs in places like Ghana and the Ivory Coast. I visited the towns and they did libations and induction ceremonies. They gave us names of significance and told us a lot about the spirits and ancestors. It was humbling, incredible, and enlightening in many important ways. However, I'm wary about blatant expressions of unchecked or irresponsible representations of spirituality in my music. I classify that to be reckless and it's not solely what I'm about.
AAJ: One final question. What advice and guidance would you like to offer to young jazz musicians?
GO: "Lifestyle" is a key word here that should be heeded. "Jazz" may also be a word to be more carefully considered. Many young musicians today emerge from universities and conservatories not fully knowing what they're going to face in their careers in terms of obstacles, challenges or even opposition. I would suggest that before they make a move, they should pay repeated visits to wherever it is that they seek to live and work. Check out the climate, the seasons, the available work opportunities, the lifestyle, transportation, the municipal layout, etc. Some areas are more competitive for musicians and artists, some, not so much. New York, for example, is fiercely competitive and is home to thousands of superbly talented musicians, many of whom are out of work. The audiences at jazz clubs can sometimes filled with unemployed virtuosos!
Young musicians should also familiarize themselves with the music business as such. A lot of musicians emerge from college with no social skills, no ability to communicate with an audience, no idea how to negotiate a contract, how to form and direct a band. They have no leadership skills. They don't know how to conduct themselves at gigs. Some don't have much or any live performance experience outside of school ensembles. They should know budgeting and simple economics. They need to know how to work with diverse forms of music and ensembles, how to compose for vocalists, TV, commercial jingles, dance choreography, etc. They also need to know how to use computers, music software and how to do studio recordings: mixing, microphones, etc. Everything!
You've got to wear a multiplicity of professional hats these days and know a little or a lot about many things. You can't just expect to take a metropolis by storm! You need to have a several irons in the fire. You might also have to find and hold down a side job outside of music until your career gains momentum. It's a reality that many artists have and will face.
AAJ: Sounds like you're telling them to keep their feet on the ground, but be imaginative, creative and resourceful. It's tough making a living for a musician today. You really have to plan your career and have clear goals. By the way, just so they know, are you currently taking students?
GO: I don't have a current affiliation with any university, conservatory or music school. But I always entertain a steady stream of private students, mostly international, as it allows me much more scheduling flexibility and I'm not expected to adhere to a dated or pointless curriculum. I prefer to focus on specific problems that each student is facing, as opposed to reviewing material that they can already execute well or have no interest in. My idea is to get to the root of the issues and address them constructively so that they can focus and excel as quickly as possible.
Greg Osby on the audience and musicians who play for themselves
Continuing our dialogue on the audience equation for creative music, which heretofore has focused on the puzzling conundrum of the African American audience, the always thoughtful saxophonist-composer and record label (Inner Circle www.innercirclemusic.com) head Greg Osby weighs in on the audience in general, with a particular emphasis on calling into question musicians who only seem to play for their own self-aggrandizement and that of their peer musicians.
A recent conversation with one of my colleagues was both illuminating and also sad at the same time. My friend, who had just completed a lengthy tour, was lamenting that for the entire duration of the tour, he felt that the audiences just didn’t “get him” or were oblivious or apathetic to his mission as an artist. (“They just weren’t hearing me, Man.”) I attempted to reassure him that we, in improvised music, are often subjected to blank stares and less than ideal responses to much of our proud work that we may have spent a great deal of time developing. Our audience numbers and the amounts of positive feedback are considerably lower than that for other situations that usually have fewer demands on them in terms of sacrifice, intent or pure artistry. This is a fact that we have been conditioned to regard as normal and therefore have accepted.
I have often struggled with this notion myself, given that I have endeavored to be as provocative and progressive with my work as is necessary in order to inspire myself and my bands, as well as to leave the audience with imagery that would be reflective of my full artistic intentions and purpose. Producing experimental, risk-taking music and stretching conceptual parameters has been what my peers and I consider to be quite normal, and we impose very specific expectations on ourselves as well as on each other concerning how things should progress or be constructed. However, what I consider normal and acceptable has often been dismissed as “cerebral, left-of-center, “cutting edge”, and I am often called a maverick or even controversial. Although I understand the need for description, it has dawned on me that these labels, as well as my failure to connect with audiences outside my own artistic indulgences are what, on a broader scale have served to fail the music in terms of “reaching the people on a very basic level.
My current dilemma was more clearly illustrated when I played a few tracks from my latest release “9 Levels” a year ago for my sister in St. Louis. Mind you, my sister has never been one to tactfully withhold her opinion. Although never deliberately malicious, her candor has a sting to it that is often misinterpreted. After listening to said tracks, I wanted her honest overview of what she’d heard. Her response, although jarring, was quite possibly the eye/ear opener that I’d needed, and it was probably necessary that I’d heard it from a loved one as opposed to someone with a questionable agenda. She said that my work sounded like Mad Clown Music, and that it gave her the impression similar to that of a multi-act circus with the sword swallower in one ring, multiples of clowns trying to fit in a small car in the next, acrobats on the flying trapeze and trained seal, lions and elephants – all going on at once. To her, it was impossible for her to focus on any one element because so much information was bombarding her auditory senses at the same time.
At that point, I understood the reasons for the blank looks at concerts, the off-base reviews, the empty seats, the refusal of agents and promoters to book my groups, etc. What has been normal for me is anything but normal for laypersons and even some learned aficionados. It was brought to my attention that in order to make a connection with “the folk”, it is not necessary for musicians to pelt them with layers of stylized content and high concept all the time. Such displays of artistic self-indulgence are best left for schools or audiences that are comprised of primarily students or fellow musicians. We simply have to understand and accept that everyone cannot adequately decipher long-winded barrages of notes and musical content. It would be like going to a restaurant and eating a dish of one’s favorite food that had been over-seasoned with too many ingredients – after a point, it would be impossible to taste the actual food anymore as it’s flavor and intent would have been obscured by the zealous and heavy-handed overkill of too many spices.
One must consider that this is not an easy task for any contemporary improvising musician to carry out, where one’s prowess is judged based on an extreme knowledge and execution of advanced content, knowledge and achievement – all displayed with as much virtuosic flair as possible each time you play. In many music circles, anything less is considered unacceptable. But the fact remains that the only people who actually have consistent positive responses to such pyrotechnics all happen to be other musicians – none who contribute to keeping the bills paid at a venue. Most get in clubs for free and almost never buy CDs anyway. So why then should it be so important for players to play so much, all the time just so your friends can high five each other and remark of how “baad” you are?
Musicians will have to understand, in the scheme of salvaging the remaining support base for the music, that it is no longer acceptable to present music in such a fashion and that the paying public should be their primary concern – not producing music that is designed exclusively for other musicians. We will have to ask ourselves if patrons are responding favorably to well crafted and completely developed works and if they are truly being inspired by the musical stories that are being told? Are they being delivered life-changing impressions through musical organization? Or are they being bombarded with endless run-on sentences of superfluous content, as if in a firing squad where the notes are functioning as sonic bullets? Musicians would do well to produce music with both experienced and uninitiated listeners in mind, and must proceed with the knowledge that not everyone hears as we do. This is not to say that there is no longer room for intellectual excursions and reckless flights of fancy, but artists will have to me mindful of just who their targeted demographic and listener base is, or needs to be. I, for one, have no desire to be subjected to several 15 or 20 minute compositions in a row, lengthy solos, unnecessarily complicated pieces that have no discernable primary melody (yes, I’m guilty) and sullen, meandering pieces that don’t make their point. If I, a veteran musician, can no longer tolerate it, (and neither can my sister…) then I certainly can’t blame paying audiences or booking entities for not responding favorably or supporting such overwhelmingly self-indulgent output as well.
Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans, Ben Webster, Miles Davis, Count Basie, Paul Desmond, Shirley Horn, etc…each made some incredibly profound statements without over saturation. Lesson learned.
https://jazztimes.com/features/greg-osby-out-of-the-woods/
https://jazztimes.com/features/greg-osby-out-of-the-woods/
Greg Osby: Out of the Woods
06/01/2003
See this? It was a young tree the deer killed by eating all the bark. I came home and part of it had fallen near the front door. So I got out the chainsaw and cut the rest down….”
Greg Osby is surveying his domain, a modest parcel of wooded, hilly land a musket-ball’s toss from the Valley Forge National Historic Park west of Philadelphia. On this rustic setting sits the barn-red, two-story house that he is refurbishing. “It’s an upside-down California, meaning the sleeping rooms are on the bottom level and the entertainment and dining areas are on top,” Osby says. It’s all wood and glass and horizontal planes built around a stone chimney; it’s very ’70s.
“I’ve been here for two and a half years now,” he proudly offers, after a 10-year stint in “cul-de-sac suburbia in south New Jersey.” Yes it’s isolated and getting to any gig requires travel, but Osby is down with that.
“My productivity has increased almost tenfold. There are no disturbances here, anytime. It’s the quietest quiet, the darkest dark. I have deer that use my stream that runs along the side of the house as a watering hole. It’s all inspirational, but still if I need the charge, it’s a two-hour drive to Manhattan.”
Osby takes his guest on a walk through his home, pointing out his accomplishments (plastering downstairs, ripping up shag carpeting upstairs), future plans (breaking down a wall to create one large music room) and mentions his past experience with home construction. “In high school, I was a lackey for my mother’s uncle, Uncle Ed. I would ride around with him in his loud orange truck that badly needed a muffler and do various jobs: sheet rocking, demolition, some remodeling.”
Home improvement jobs may tug Osby away from his music and his main ax, but in the context of his new home the alto saxophonist is happy handling any instrument. “When I pull out the hammer or the drill or the hacksaw, or I’m out blowing snow or leaves, it’s therapy for me.”
He opens the door to a wooden deck overlooking the creek, where exactly two houses are within earshot-neighbors who have proven quite welcoming. “I’ll be practicing my alto on the porch, and when I’m done the phone rings: ‘Hey, why’d you stop?'”
Whether in Pennsylvania woods or more familiar venues, Osby has proven reach. Nearing 30 years of professional experience with 13 albums to his credit, he now boasts a dedicated-and growing-listener base. “There’s been a building process from record to record,” remarks Bruce Lundvall, head of Blue Note, Osby’s label since 1990. “He’s someone that sells to a serious jazz audience.”
Serious is as serious does. Osby is known for a strict onstage manner, celebrated for the confident clarity and clipped angularity in his playing and revered for being an iconoclast and stylistic alchemist: transmuting free, funk and bebop influences; sampling new jazz hybrids that use hip-hop, classical and rock; then shifting to new paths of exploration.
If Osby’s consistent at all it’s in his penchant for change. He’s ready to tour a new quintet, with trumpeter Nicholas Payton,
pianist Harold O’Neal, bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Rodney Green. His current to-do list includes: a trio project with Charlie Hunter and B_obby Previte; a group effort with Steve Khan, Jimmy Haslip and Terri Lyne Carrington called New Music Collective; continuing collaborations with Jason Moran in the Greg Osby Four; and new work with Switzerland’s Arbenz brothers, pianist Michael and drummer Florian, in the Arbenz Connexion.
Osby remains as prolific as he is intrepid. “He would like to see Blue Note do things the way they did in the old days with maybe four or five albums a year,” Lundvall laughs. The past few years alone, Osby’s albums have stretched from the lo-fi, live intensity of 1998’s Banned in New York to the pensive, all-star meeting of 2000’s The Invisible Hand (with Andrew Hill and Jim Hall) to the lush sax-and-strings of 2001’s Symbols of Light (A Solution) to the passionate small-group explosions of Inner Circle (recorded in 1999 but shelved until last year).
Yet some still think of him in a static way. “People still may or may not get me,” Osby sighs. “They may have written me off because they heard me at the Knitting Factory playing with some guys that were shouting and screaming and hitting on hubcaps 15 or 20 years ago and forevermore I’ll be an avant-garde downtown guy. Or they may have heard me with the World Saxophone Quartet subbing for Oliver Lake or Julius Hemphill. Or they saw me with Muhal Richard Abrams or with Jack DeJohnette or with the M-Base Collective, and they just can’t let it go.”
But late last year, the self-avowed eclectic acceded to a recording project that could well mark 2003 the year Osby reaches a wider range of ears than ever before. His label is set to release St. Louis Shoes, a thematic album featuring well-known jazz staples like “Summertime,” “St. Louis Blues,” “Shaw Nuff,” the Monk classic “Light Blue” and a dose of Ellingtonia: “The Single Petal of a Rose” and “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo.” The idea of a more mainstream embrace is something Osby is conscious of and amused by. “Hopefully this will frame me in a-I won’t say a more positive scenario, but it’s something that people can get their hooks into.”
Hmmm. Might we be speaking of accessibility?
“Yeah. Accessibility, but by being drawn in unconsciously. The framing is compositions that everyone knows. Then they say, ‘Wow this is really great, but there’s something different about it!’ That’s the whole point. I want to draw people in but they don’t know why. Like lemmings going over the cliff, or something like that….”
Osby’s humor can be disarming, is often self-deprecating and takes some getting used to. It effectively contrasts the stern self-awareness that is his normal carriage, a stance some mistake for being too cold or self-involved. But it also suggests that there’s more going on than mere ego. With an acute ability to articulate his thoughts, Osby speaks as one who spends a lot of time in his own head: questioning and reviewing, developing the tenacity that has guided his career, the strength of his convictions amplifying his words.
Greg Osby grew up awash in music.
“I was very fortunate that my mother worked at a record distribution company when I was young,” the 42-year-old says. “All the labels would send promotional copies and cutouts, so literally on a daily basis she would bring home box loads of everything from Coltrane to Duke Ellington to Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix to Cream to the Doors to Mahalia Jackson to Wilson Pickett to Aretha Franklin to Pharoah Sanders to Count Basie. We just had stacks.
“I was in high school when I really realized what we had. But in the beginning she would bring home these Coltrane records, and I’d say, ‘Look, I don’t want to hear any of that, bring me some Jackson 5!'”
Osby’s musical inclinations blossomed in junior high, despite underfunded ghetto conditions at his school, Soldan, which is “in the heart of St. Louis blackness. We had terrible instruments from the late ’40s and ’50s. They were held together with rubber bands and things.”
He could not be dissuaded, however, motivated by the school’s band instructor, Vernon E. Nashville Jr. “I hung on to every phrase that he said: ‘If you practice hard and you focus, then you can probably get a scholarship and go to school for free!’ I said, ‘Wow, I never really thought about that! I’m playing for fun now and people are dancing, but I could make this a lifestyle! I wouldn’t have to punch a clock! I wouldn’t have to be a pen pusher!'”
With limited instruction but a natural talent, he was soon playing professionally. “After one year of clarinet in seventh grade, I was good enough to play in local funk and blues bands in St. Louis,” Osby says. He then switched to saxophone and found himself “traveling around making money, earning more than many of my teachers in the course of a weekend.”
Osby discovered a local player whose professiona
lism proved a model for the maturing musician.
“[Tenor saxophonist] Willie Akins was the first guy on a professional level that I marveled at. I actually could sit in the front row and just bask in his technique. He was very proficient, very articulate. There was no fat to be trimmed-straightahead jazz. No nonsense and a great guy. He never gave me any lessons, but my lesson was to see this art performed at a very high level at a young age.”
The demand for live entertainment was pervasive and constant then in St. Louis, and Osby always had a job.
“It was from 1975 to 1978 or so, all the guys in the groups were in their 30s or so and I was a kid! And there would be illegal gambling, people playing numbers, all kinds of women. On, say, Saturday afternoon, there would be a matinee from maybe one to five. On some of those afternoons I would play in organ trios. Then there would be some dance or party from maybe eight o’clock to one at night. Then everything would close up. So after hours, from two to seven in the morning, we would cross the bridge to East St. Louis where all the swank houses were, the underground places where they may not have had liquor licenses or sold liquor on Sunday when they weren’t supposed to.
“We were doing blues and soul hits-R&B repertoire. We would open up with a little instrumental jazz-or jazz as we knew it: Grover Washington Jr.’s ‘Mr. Magic’ or Sonny Stitt’s ‘Mr. Bojangles’ or Horace Silver’s ‘Song for My Father.’ Then as the people started drinking and they wanted to dance more, we would have to deal with what was popular at that time: the Commodores’ ‘Brick House’ or ‘Skin Tight’ by the Ohio Players. Or some Earth Wind & Fire pieces ’cause we had horn sections and stuff. Blues too, because a lot of those players would tour with Albert King, B.B. King, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Little Milton.
“Aww man, it was heavy! It was all intuitive-I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I had a tremendous ear. It was a great ride.”
But don’t expect Osby to revisit his R&B years anytime soon.
“It seems when one is requested to do that kind of stuff [now], it’s like taking two steps forward and then 10 backward. You learn a lot of music and to read scores and all this stuff about very advanced techniques and approaches so you can play a song that only has two chords? It’s like a 10-star chef making pigs-in-a-blanket!”
After high school, Osby departed St. Louis and its numerous gigs for Howard University in Washington, D.C. After graduating he went on to study music at Berklee in Boston before setting out on his own course in the Big Apple. Osby arrived in New York City in 1982 to day jobs and nightly jams, and later cofounded the now legendary, Brooklyn-based M-Base collective with Steve Coleman and others. He was also gigging regularly with Ron Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, Jon Faddis and most notably Jack DeJohnette while apprenticing with Andrew Hill and Muhal Richard Abrams. Osby recorded his debut as a leader in 1987 for JMT; he then signed with Blue Note in 1990.
But more than any of the experiences and locales of that long timeline, it’s to St. Louis that Osby’s thoughts still return. The title of his new album is no mere clever wordplay; St. Louis Shoes implies a retracing of his earliest steps that “chronicles my journey from this young curious guy, ambitious guy in St. Louis through whatever I had to do to get to now. I want it to take people on that journey, which is why the CD is bookended with two St. Louis pieces-starting with ‘East St. Louis Toodle-Oo’ and ending with ‘St. Louis Blues.'”
To Osby, the album stands as an overdue tribute to a city of lasting personal-and historical-significance.
“There’s been a lot of talk about Chicago or New York or of course New Orleans, but St. Louis is parallel with all of those cities. There are certain implementations that are exclusive to St. Louis-a style, a vibe, a mood-and they’re still inherent in just about everything that I do. The thing that spawned doing this album right now was a reflection on St. Louis and what it represents in the whole development of this music.”
Still, St. Louis Shoes was not originally Osby’s idea, as he freely admits; it was Lundvall’s. “I’ve always been resistant to doing a standards kind of thing. I don’t like tribute records or songbook records or ‘the music of so and so,’ because they’re not really reflective of who the artist is. I even had my differences with New Directions,” the 1999 Blue Note-sponsored tour and album featuring Osby, Stefon Harris, Jason Moran and Mark Shim that celebrated the label’s 60th anniversary by reworking, often radically, such classics as “The Sidewinder” and “No Room for Squares.”
“We’ve been talking about doing it for a long time,” Lundvall admits. “I’d say, ‘Maybe it’s time to do an album of all standards.'”
To appreciate Osby’s willingness to ignore his own reservations and entertain Blue Note’s wishes is to grasp how well a working relationship between artist and music label can run-that’s usually the exception not the rule, and personal chemistry has a lot to do with it. Osby and Lundvall seem well-matched, equally dedicated and informed. Their own words-spoken separately-reveal how in tune they can be on subjects like:
Creative freedom
Lundvall: “We don’t restrict him, and we’re not pushing him into doing some stupid crossover record or into using a certain producer.”
Osby: “If they consider the artist having things in control, they’re hands-off, and that’s a great policy for me.”
Commercial considerations
Lundvall: “He’s realistic, and not only that, he’s fair. If we’re losing money on something, he will temper his budgets in such a way as to make it work financially. He’s very smart and knows what it means to be on a label where you’re not necessarily paying the bills, you’re not Norah Jones.”
Osby: “Most artists are under the misconception that you’re going to make a lot of money with [album production] advances. My whole motto is, ‘I’ll do music and you sell it,’ as opposed to me doing music that can sell.”
Commitment
Lundvall: “This guy’s making a difference with every record, that’s why we stay with him. Even in the beginning when he did those hip-hop records, we supported that. 3-D Lifestyles didn’t quite work, commercially speaking, but he knew that we were going to stay with him.
Osby: “Memorable projects for modest budgets-I guess that contributes to me having been on Blue Note for 13 years now.
Mutual respect
Lundvall: “Everything that he does, he always looks very sharp, and he’s got a very adventurous sense of where the music should go. I couldn’t be prouder.”
Osby: “Bruce is more than just the company president. He is a true fan of the music, very knowledgeable, very well listened. I couldn’t ask for a better situation.”
Lest the logrolling appear too rosy, it should be noted the relationship was not love at first sight. Though Lundvall was impressed when he first heard Osby performing with Jon Faddis in 1989-“He was playing much more conventionally then but with an edge-every solo he took I said, ‘This guy’s really a player. He’s got a sound'”-Lundvall was less taken by the saxophonist’s serious demeanor. “At first I thought he was going to be big trouble as a personality-nothing but headaches with attitude. You know, the record-company-versus-artist kind of thing.”
Lundvall reports that Osby has consistently defied expectation.
“That’s sort of the way he is. I think he’s extremely well-grounded and has a terrific dry sense of humor. And he’s always there to surprise people with his playing-he will do things like work with the Grateful Dead, or turn up at a Joni Mitchell tribute concert, as he did a week ago [New York’s Symphony Space, March 24]. You never know what the hell he’s going to come up with!”
Lundvall certainly did not know what to expect once Osby agreed to record a standards album. The choice of tunes was left to the saxophonist, with a slight nudge from his label chief. “I said, ‘Don’t pick the most obvious ones. Pick the ones you feel an affinity for that haven’t been overdone.’
Osby eventually narrowed down a long list of songs, with an eye to balancing old and new, familiar and lesser-known. His final list of nine tunes maintains the historical and emotional range that guided his selection process.
“I wanted to address all facets of jazz performance: ballads, jam tunes, Thelonious Monk repertoire. The colorization, the modes, the rhythm, the jungle, the forcefulness, the pastoral. The album had to be equal parts all of those things. Some are jam-session staples- ‘Bernie’s Tune,’ ‘Summertime,’ ‘Shaw Nuff’-and some are more repertory, like the Ellington pieces.”
Osby-per norm-produced the album himself: securing the sidemen, arranging the studio time, overseeing the final mix. Lundvall was in the dark until he heard the masters. His reaction?
“I immediately called him and said, ‘You are too smart, man!’ Picking jazz standards that are not standards in the way we think about the American songbook. I love what he did with ‘Shaw Nuff,’ and ‘Bernie’s Tune’-something quite different than what we know from the Chet Baker [version]. I think this is an album that does have a chance of selling more records and there’s no compromise to it.”
Normally self-assured, Osby approached St. Louis Shoes with trepidation: “It was the most difficult project that I’ve ever endeavored.” He was concerned with both the influence of others’ compositions on his own playing-“I didn’t want the music to play me; I wanted to play the music”-and his potential effect on the tunes. “I didn’t want to disrespect them or malign them with a lot of Osby-isms, or to obscure them to the point of absurdity.”
Despite initial doubt, Osby became comfortable with the idea that within the definition of “jazz standard” there rests an implied invitation to leave one’s personal stamp. “That’s what music is here for. It’s not cast in stone. Man, everything is malleable. It’s like Play-Doh. It’s not an act of blasphemy to take a well-known work and to modify it to fit your own intentions.” What and how Osby chose to modify is a decision he based on his own “framework of reference [but] not to try and give a projection of something I don’t know anything about. I don’t know anything about 1926.”
Osby is referring to the opening track-Ellington’s ’20s classic “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo”-and adds: “I wasn’t going to try to get in there and be sweet, silky and smooth, bending notes, Hodges-like. It just had to be me. So that automatically changes the dynamic of the song.” Osby singles out the tune as the album-in-miniature: a stylistic, historical joyride that opens true to the tune’s original tempo and mysterioso feel-one that is familiar to early jazz and ’70s rock fans alike: “You’re the fifth or sixth person who has mentioned the Steely Dan version, so I’ll have to check that out.” The tune eventually arrives, Osby says, “at the shout chorus. It’s the high point of the song, but it’s very angular and based upon some numerical and structural applications that aren’t often addressed even in contemporary improvisation: It’s a transcription of my solo, and I wrote it out for both for me and Nicholas [Payton]. So he’s actually playing a Greg Osby solo. It was in very extreme ranges for the trumpet. Like very low, and he has just a great sound. We had to work on that a lot, just so we were breathing in the right places and phrasing and articulating to sound almost as one.”
Payton is perhaps the most unexpected credit on St. Louis Shoes. Normally a headliner in his own right, Payton appears as a full-fledged member of Osby’s group-not just a guest soloist. The trumpeter is known for his signature brawn and New Orleans bluster, so who would have thought of pairing the two, or that Payton would say yes? The saxophonist chuckles: “I definitely adhere to the Miles Davis ideology of bandleading-those very odd assemblages of people [that] shouldn’t have worked!”
Osby recounts their decision to work together.
“We’d never played together at all-it was only a year ago at a benefit for the New York firemen and policemen at Town Hall that I talked to him about it in passing. He said he’d love to and, ‘It’s not often that people get a chance to play on a Greg Osby recording.’ That’s all I needed to hear.
“He’s a perfect foil. We play in tune together. Our phrasing is together. It’s almost as if we have tremendous history, but we don’t. I had Nicholas and one other prominent trumpeter in mind. They knew how to use mutes and how to capture the sensibility of these period pieces. Nicholas, of course, brought that New Orleans sensibility, but he also brought a sense of adventure. I needed an interpreter, somebody who could breathe life into these charts.”
Covering “Shaw Nuff” was intended to showcase Payton. “I had to do something that was the embodiment of the Dizzy Gillespie-Charlie Parker relationship. The trumpet-saxophone frontline is a staple; we had to go at it on a tune like that.”
Osby describes the reasoning and retooling behind other selections.
“‘Bernie’s Tune’ I just remember from a lot of those Jazz at the Philharmonic battles. It was the last piece of the session, which I usually reserve for an improvisation or something looser. With ‘St. Louis Blues,’ the only thing that’s intact now is the melody. I totally reharmonized it and gave it a different feeling, tempo, bass line, progressions, structure. For a while it just felt like I was kissing up to my hometown but now it’s a composition that has these zones that we can really do something with-a lot of meat, a lot of handles to grab onto.”
Osby chose Cassandra Wilson’s “Whirlwind Soldier” and DeJohnette’s “Milton on Ebony” for a distinct quality they shared.
“They’re very intricate and very dense, but they don’t sound that way. That’s a very difficult thing to pull off. Some people write things that are complex and they sound that way. They sound like a beehive, just abundant with activity. But the complexity [of these two songs] is shrouded in something that feels really good. The Cassandra Wilson piece is a very, very intricate and complex piece. Hearing her sing it on her ’89 release Jumpworld you wouldn’t think that it’s as difficult as it is. She has bars of 5, bars of 3, bars of 2, but it just floats. I always loved the piece, but it never fit any of my projects.
“I played with DeJohnette for six years and just loved his work. A lot of drummers write things that are just a couple of rhythms or little repeated phrases. Jack writes compositions. They defined the band and who he is. This is actually a synthesis of two of his tunes: ‘Milton’ and ‘Ebony.’ He’s going to be blown away, because who records DeJohnette’s music?”
Recording “Summertime,” it turns out, was a conscious nod to mid-’60s Coltrane. “That’s one of those pieces that maybe Coltrane would have played for 15 or 20 minutes. We kept it in at five, just to get in and get out and reference that whole feeling-the buildup until we exist inside this whole vortex and then settle down and resolve it. The melody I’m addressing is very loose. I have to actually signal when I want to change the bars so we could maintain that bluesy, gospel, field holler, cotton-picking, summertime thing. It was amazing, the level of contact between me and Nicholas when he comes in with the bridge and provides the release.
“As I was driving to the studio this bass line came into mind. This bass line is an alternative pedal. All of the structures on top of that are changing, but the pedal stays the same. That’s the platform-the bass line that I gave Bob [Hurst]-and I changed some of the structures on top of that and gave that to [pianist] Harold [O’Neal] so he could give us a zone to start.”
After a celebrated five-year run with pianist Jason Moran, who left to lead his own trio, Osby is happy with his new quintet, a mixture of old and new friends. O’Neal is a 21-year-old from Kansas City who was recommended by Andrew Hill. With Hurst, Osby says, “We’ve had some history back in the late ’80s with the M-Base Collective. He’s someone that I’ve admired a long time. He’s very musical, knowledgeable and can bring life to these black dots on manuscript paper. My other choice would have been Scott Colley or people of that caliber. [Drummer] Rodney Green got in my band when he was 18. I saw him in Philadelphia playing with Shirley Scott in 1988 or so. When I met him we had a marathon conversation, and I took him right on the road.
“[With] a lot of people, the first time we play together is on the bandstand. After that I refine it with some rehearsals, but I don’t like to overrehearse things because it kind of anesthetizes things. Things become too clinical and too calculated. I’d rather hear them in the raw element with the wide-eyed curiosity and fear of messing up, and then I’ll refine things.”
Osby’s intention of touring the St. Louis Shoes band is reflected in the arrangements he purposefully created “for a small group that could be replicated live-I wanted to make the band sound as big as possible because there’s only five of us. Hopefully this recording is indicative of that surging of intent”
Touring provides Osby the chance to lead his on-the-road jazz academies-once a common practice, now mostly gone because of economic reasons. In his view, a conscious effort to stay hip about who’s who among the up-and-coming seems as much duty as good scouting practice.
“I just feel obligated to do so because we don’t have Art Blakey anymore, we don’t have a lot of those people who served as pockets of apprenticeship-that earn-while-you-learn, on-the-job training. That’s why I use a lot of young players in my groups. I go out and recruit cats. I’m flooded with tapes and CDs on a daily basis from young people who want to play in my group because they know that they can express themselves.”
He names two young trumpeters who have impressed him of late, both who have performed with Steve Coleman. “There’s this player named Ambrose Akinmusire, a student at the Manhattan School of Music, and also Jonathan Finlayson.”
His sidemen aren’t just students, however; they’re professionals, and Osby says to play with him they have to have “a great deal of desire-almost a killer instinct. I don’t like passivity.”
With Moran’s success as the most high-profile example of Osby’s talent-scouting abilities, the saxophonist has been encouraged to find new players, especially by his label. “It was Greg who kept pushing me to [sign] Jason, and he was totally right,” Lundvall notes. “Then Osby ended up in the production role.”
Being a producer also allows Osby to increase his income (he also teaches and tours often), and it’s a position that Blue Note is happy to accommodate. “I would trust Greg to produce almost any of my serious artists,” Lundvall declares.
Production, touring, teaching-as Osby notes, it’s about art and an ongoing financial regimen. “It’s always this planning thing-working from a budget. I just tried to be frugal and mindful of building something, especially given the choices that I had made as an artist-an eclectic path that wasn’t necessarily the most popular or familiar one. I knew I wouldn’t be the first-called cat so I’d have to have some financial plans.”
All planning begins with a vision, which in Osby’s case began in high school. “Without sounding ridiculous or arrogant, I had a girlfriend and I told her my master plan: By the time I’m 25 I’m going to have visited these places, I’m going to have played with these people and I’m going to have done these things. She always thought that either I was cocky, or so self-assured that I couldn’t fail. People would be like, ‘C’mon man! You might as well just pump gas, as is your destiny.’ I had already, in my mind, played with Andrew Hill, Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner.”
In realizing his dreams, Osby today acknowledges the lessons in music and life he received from his elders, and which he passes on to younger players. “I’d just sit up and listen to them talking, Muhal Richard Abrams or Andrew Hill, people like that. Just asking them questions that sometimes don’t warrant an explicit answer. For instance Andrew, he’s very much into environment-how and where you’re living. He’s very much against that romanticized projection of a musician living in impoverished conditions, playing in smoky clubs and just accepting things. He’d say you should have as much as you think you’re worth, as much as you need to create primo art. He said, ‘Don’t settle. Ask for better. Always request better.'”
Late afternoon light filters through leafless trees in Valley Forge. Osby stretches on his couch, and the conversation drifts back to more domestic matters, like what’s on his home stereo these days. “I listen to a lot of chamber music, small-group contemporary works and classics-a lot of impressionist composition: Messiaen, Bartók, Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy.”
It’s not surprising that Osby’s musical appreciation tends toward a fractured perspective, in light of the restructuring that went into his latest album. “There are fragments of works that I listen to a lot. A lot of times I don’t like the whole thing, only one-and-a-half minutes or so. As a matter of fact, I may tape a segment of a piece and loop it over and over to get the feeling when I’m on the road.”
Restructuring the classics. Reharmonizing venerable standards. Refurbishing an aged house “nobody wanted because it required so much work, but I saw the potential.” They all seem products of the same restless work ethic, all part of a pattern of uncompromising invention. It’s a parallel Osby finds appropriate.
“I consider refurbishment and do-it-yourself projects as therapeutic as writing or working a gem of a composition. It’s kind of a model that I took from DeJohnette living in Woodstock. I wondered how could he be as productive as he is living in that type of environment: trees, wildlife, no ‘hi neighbor’ waves every day.
“People have this misconception that, ‘Oh wow, your music is gonna be filtered with imagery of buttercups and daffodils.’ But I’m a child of the city, it’s not like it washes off. I can go anywhere-Siberia or Antarctica-I still write the same way and think the same way. It’s just that I want to be in an environment where I can do my best. I don’t want to have to blame a certain condition as the hindrance or the obstacle that kept me from reaching my potential.”
Osby suddenly jumps from the couch, moves to the porch and points to a family of deer drinking from the stream below, no more than 10 yards away. He smiles, pleased the local fauna saw fit to oblige his visitor from the city. “I have to wave my arms and yell at them to leave, they’re so used to humans.”
Such are the demands on Osby as he continues to shape his world-away-from-the-world.
With a shout, four white-tailed interlopers disappear into the woods.
Gearbox
Saxophones: Yanagisawa alto A-9930 (silver body, brass keys). Yanagisawa bronze alto A-992. “The bronze is darker and records better but I prefer the silver one for live performances as it cuts and projects more.”
Reeds: Alexander Superial DC #3.5M
Mouthpiece: Vandoren A75 Jumbo Java
Ligature, neckstrap: Fred Lebayle
Microphones: SD Systems wireless
Saxophone maintenance: Bill Singer of SingerLand Productions Inc
THE MUSIC OF GREG OSBY: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH GREG OSBY: