Jazz artist finds the NEW.
April 25th 2008 22:58
Signature Tune
What a musician does with his brain when he comes up with some new ideas is very relevant to jazz, and it's wonderful how he draws on the classics.
This is a long article and the link is above, but it is not difficult reading and when you have the time I feel sure you will enjoy it.
Throughout his career Mr. Catherine, 65, has moved fluidly through jazz styles: from the Gypsy swing of Django Reinhardt to the bebop of Charlie Parker, the fleet-fingered groove of Wes Montgomery to the Brazilian bossa nova of Antonio Carlos Jobim. For a brief time in the mid-1970s, he even made the modern jazz prodigy's requisite foray into fusion, with the Dutch prog-rock band Focus.
On the sublime "Guitars Two" Mr. Catherine incorporates all of those influences and more. It's his first album as a solo artist; his nearly 20 previous records were all made with backing groups. Each of the album's 13 tracks features Mr. Catherine accompanying himself on two or more overdubbed guitar parts -- a technique first used by guitar innovator Les Paul in the 1940s and '50s and taken to artistic heights by pianist Bill Evans on his 1963 masterpiece "Conversations with Myself." Performing alone in concert, Mr. Catherine plays multiple guitar parts using sampling technology that allows him to create backing patterns and then improvise over them.
Mr. Catherine says he is always listening for new influences, from classical music to today's pop charts -- everything from Stravinsky to Paul McCartney's acclaimed recent solo album "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard" to Danny Elfman's theme music for "Desperate Housewives."
Born in London in 1942 (his father a wounded Belgian soldier, his mother from a middle-class British family of musicians), Mr. Catherine moved to Belgium with his parents after World War II. Like so many others before and after him, he took up the guitar after hearing a Django record, and by the age of 18 was touring Europe in various jazz ensembles.
His concert schedule takes him all over Europe, and on April 26 he returns to Belgium to celebrate the release of "Guitars Two" in a solo performance at Brussels' Flagey Studio 4 concert hall (see a full schedule at www.philipcatherine.com).
While two of his guitars occupied the living-room sofa, we sat down at the dining table over coffee and cookies for a chat with Mr. Catherine in his downtown Brussels flat.
Why did it take you so long to make a record as a solo artist?
Actually, I tried to make an album like that in 1975, called "Guitars." I started recording some tunes alone, and then there were these two wonderful musicians who were just in Brussels for a few days, and I didn't want to miss having them on the record. A bass player and a drummer from Philadelphia, John Lee and Gerry Brown. Just to give you an idea, Gerry Brown is now the drummer for Stevie Wonder. So the concept of that album quickly changed from a solo album. Finally 33 years later I can get back to this project.
All this time, then, you've obviously favored the dynamics of playing in a group, of working with other musicians.
Absolutely. But I enjoy both, because I've always recorded demos alone. I'm very grateful to have the flexibility to work with others, and to work alone. I can work in different categories: either as a leader, or as a sideman or as a co-leader. Music is always music, but I live it differently.
Which of those roles do you find the most challenging?
It depends. The difficulties are different. If I have to play a session with somebody else, I can be scared because I might think, "Wow, will I be able to play what the person wants? Will I like it?" If I don't like something it's a little disturbing because then I feel dishonest with myself. If it's something I can play but I don't like it, it's a drag. Playing alone, like I did for this record -- I was alone with a sound engineer most of the time in the studio -- I was also very scared. I would record one or two tunes and say, "I like it, yeah, but is it OK?"
It's difficult to trust completely your own self. It takes time and maturity for that, and maybe I don't have it yet.
Is this album your "Conversations with Myself"?
Yes. On most tunes there are two guitars. There's never one guitar alone. In one tune, called "Pendulum," there are many guitars. That's the only one where I did quite a lot of overdubbing. On that song there's a guitar solo which I did on the first take. It's really an improvisation. Once I had the basic tracks I made a long solo, and I was surprised by the solo because it wasn't prepared. My solos on the album were never prepared. So a part of the composition occurred during the recording of this album. I had the tunes prepared -- most of the time, though I even changed some ideas while I was recording -- and the solos are spontaneous. Because that's a rule I impose on myself, to improvise.
Do you replicate those solos when you perform the tunes live?
No. I have a loop station, and I have nothing prepared before the concert on it. I come with empty tracks. Then I play a part, I press a button, I hear what I just played, and I play on top of it. It's not always the comping [backing chords] I play first. I could do the melody and then play the comping after. It depends. I'm really happy doing this because I think it's different from what other guitar players do.
Isn't it challenging coming up with something different for each performance?
I think it's more new. There are things I do which are not great; I'm not saying they're all great. But there are also things that other guitar players can't do. Some kinds of grooves, color. There are certain grooves, meditations, a lyricism that I'm not able to do when I play with other guitar players. I must confess there are things I can do with other guitar players that I can't do alone -- I don't want to not express my gratitude for what I can learn when I play with somebody else. But the music which comes out is more personal, in a way -- closer to that aspect of Philip Catherine. It's like I have a flame somewhere and I don't want it to die, and for that I have to play alone sometimes.
What musicians have really inspired you?
For guitar, Django Reinhardt -- especially for his incredible sense of improvisation. Every solo he does is a new creation and he finds ideas which are impeccable and beautiful. I'm not talking about the guitar playing of Django Reinhardt; I'm talking about the notes he chooses. I'm very much influenced by piano players like Erroll Garner, somebody whose groove has always inspired me. Of course I love Herbie Hancock, Wynton Kelly, Coltrane -- a beautiful improviser, Chet Baker. But I've learned also by listening to people like Jeff Beck or the guitar player from Queen or the Beatles or Hendrix or Santana. There's a lot of expression which comes out of a way of playing guitar which sometimes I don't hear too much in jazz. I've always been attracted by this way of making the guitar a singing instrument.
Your fellow Belgian Toots Thielemans once said of you -- and of himself -- that you play "jazz with a European accent." What do you think he meant by that?
I don't know. I feel myself a little bit in conflict with these ideas about "European jazz." When I think about what I listen to, very little of it is European -- except for the classical composers, who are European. Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy, Bach, Schubert. I don't use concepts. I don't say I'm European. I don't say I play world music, or anything like that. And I don't say I play modern music. I've noticed that people who say they play modern music usually just play old music. I never heard Coltrane or Charlie Parker pretending to play anything "modern." They were just playing. But you hear some groups that are "avant-garde" and they stick to that idea of nouveauté, which is maybe only in their minds or on their poster.
But don't you agree that there's more enthusiasm for jazz here in Europe than in America, where it was born?
Yes. Toots said something I do agree with. He said that America is the laboratory of jazz and Europe is its market.
Is there still a place for jazz in the iPod era? Are young people still interested in it? Do you see them at your concerts?
I see a growing younger audience for jazz. I can't tell you statistics. But when I started to play professionally, when I was in school, when I was 17, I was already in demand. Why? Because I was the only jazz guitarist in Belgium. They had to phone me. "You have a Belgian guitar player?" "Yeah, we have Philip Catherine, but he's at school. Can you phone him after 4 o'clock?" I was the only one. Toots [the harmonica-player started his career as a guitarist] was in America and René Thomas was in Canada. Today in Belgium there are many more guitarists.
Your albums feature a lot of your own compositions. Do you also like to play standards?
I play a lot of standards. I study the standards every day. If I'm playing with musicians who don't know me and I don't know them, we play standards, of course. I'm not the kind of person who wants only to play his own music. I know a lot of young musicians who do that now and I wonder how they will learn to play music. Because if you do that when you are young, either you are a genius and that's fine, but if you're not you don't have the opportunity to learn something that comes from outside your own brain.
Do you still take guitar lessons?
I'm always trying to learn. I spend hours every day learning how others play. That's my therapy and my discipline. I spend much more time doing that than writing for myself. I listen to records, at half-speed. Instead of studying with books, I study with audio. When I learn the notes by listening, I don't only learn which are the notes, but how they are played. And then I incorporate in my playing the emotions of somebody else. For me, that's important.
I've heard that when you're on tour you'll sometimes find a guitar teacher in a particular city and take a lesson. Is that true?
I used to do that sometimes. Once in New York, I had a couple of days before my plane and so I looked in the newspaper for guitar teachers. There were hundreds of them. So I called about 10 or 20 who weren't free at one day's notice before I found one who was available the next day. He didn't know who the hell I was, of course, and I didn't know who he was, either. I didn't tell him that I was a professional. We played a bit together and he showed me some ideas, which I still use today. At the end of the lesson, he said, "But you play pretty well." I said, "I do what I can."
Link is above - it is from the Wall St Journal.
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At least you put yours on camera. I hide behind the light.