LIKE ALL CREATIVE ARTISTS, PIANIST AND COMPOSER JEAN-MICHEL PILC HAS BEEN CHOMPING AT THE BIT.
SIDELINED DUE TO THE COVID LOCKDOWN, PILC HAS FINALLY BEEN LET AND SET LOOSE. HE’S RELEASED A PAIR OF ALBUMS RECENTLY, NOTABLY A TRIO ALBUM (“LIVE IN MONTREAL”) WITH A RELATIVELY NEW TRIO TEAM, AS WELL AS TAKING PART IN A RHYTHM SECTION WITH TENOR SAXIST XOSE MIGUELES.
MOSTLY KNOWN FOR HIS ‘CLASSIC’ TRIO WORK WITH DRUMMER ARI HOENIG AND BASSIST FRANCOIS MOUTIN, PILC HAS BEEN MIXING AND MATCHING HIS FORMATS, USING THE TIME OF SOLITUDE TO LOOK FOR NEW WAYS TO REFLECT IS CREATIVELY RESTLESS MIND.
PILC HAS ALWAYS MADE LOS ANGELES A REGULAR PART OF HIS ITINERARY, SO I STARTED THE CONVERSATION BY SHOWING HIM SOME ADVERTISMENTS OF HIS SHOWS AT THE LATE, GREAT JAZZ CLUB, THE JAZZ BAKERY.
WE HAD A CHANCE TO CATCH UP WITH PILC, STILL LIVING IN MONTREAL, AND LOOKING FOR A WAY TO START TOURING AGAIN. AS WITH HIS MUSIC, HIS CONVERSATIONAL STYLE WAS FRESH, ERUDITE AND CREATIVE.
ARE YOU READY TO START TOURING AGAIN, NOW THAT THE LOCKDOWNS ARE ENDING?
I just tested positive for COVID, so I’m running around cancelling a lot of things because I’m confined for five days.
HERE ARE SOME CARDS TO JAR YOUR MEMORY, TWO DIFFERENT TRIOS AT THE JAZZ BAKERY WHEN THINGS WERE MORE OPEN. YOUR RECENT ALBUM IS A “LIVE” ALBUM AS WELL, YET AGAIN WITH A DIFFERENT TRIO.
AS A LEADER/PIANIST, HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR A TRIO TO REALLY “GEL” AND SATISFY YOU THAT YOU HAVE BECOME A TRUE UNIT?
Two to three seconds.
It’s like in real life when you fall in love with someone; it can take a month, it may take a year, or it takes just a second. Music works exactly the same way ; music is about love.
I wrote a book called It’s About Music, and it is about the “art” and “heart” of improvisation. In it, I make a parallel between love and music, but I’m not the only or first one to do that. The book opens with a quote by Ray Bradbury that says, when you do it with love, it is like an explosion. An explosion can happen in one second, but it can also take much longer. It depends. You can fall in love, but it takes time because you’re coming out of another relationship because your brain or heart worked in a certain way at that time. Or you can have what they call “love at first sight” which happens immediately.
With music it’s exactly the same; you have people with whom you play, and after just half a second, you’re like “Whoa!”
When I jammed with Ari Hoenig for the first time at Smalls in 1994, he was 21; he looked like a baby. I started playing a tune, and I didn’t see him; he was to my back. I didn’t know who was playing the drums . I didn’t see him; he could have been a black guy or a young woman. But all I knew was that I started playing and it was like “Whoa-This is different. ”
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It’s like in real life when you fall in love with someone; it can take a month, it may take a year, or it takes just a second. Music works exactly the same way ; music is about love”
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I then looked at him and he was in no way what I imagined him to be. He looked like an angel. I fell in love with his playing immediately. We were in step.
In some other cases I’ve played with people and it took a longer time to find something. With some groups you can get better with time and with others it’s the opposite; starts with freshness, but after a month or two you discover that it isn’t going to work.
There is no rule. Music is like life; as soon as you put up the rule, you’re going to run into the exception.
WITH THE TWO GIGS AT THE BAKERY, YOU KEPT ARI HOENIG. DID HE HAVE “RIGHT OF FIRST REFUSAL” WHEN IT CAME TO WHO THE B ASSIST WOULD BE?
It’s much more simple than that; it’s like life.
We played with Francois Moutin because it was our trio, and it still is, by the way. We’re going to play in New York in June, and we’ll play in Chicago. But we’re not called “The Jean-Michel Trio” anymore; It’s under our three names, which I prefer.
We still play together. It’s a unit that doesn’t sound like anything else.
On that particular gig with Dan Lutz: at the time Francois was doing his own project in France. So, we two decided to do a project when we had that gig in LA, and Ari said he knew a very good bass player there. I told him I trusted him, so he called Dan Lutz, so it’s much less formal than you think.
It’s like life; there are a lot of accidents. Like, “I’d like you to have dinner with this friend” and you hit it off. Like the movie When Harry Met Sally. Some chance encounters work and some don’t .
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“Music is like life; as soon as you put up the rule, you’re going to run into the exception”
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YOUR LATEST ALBUM IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TRIO. HOW DID IT COME ABOUT AND WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO RECORD IT?
We didn’t plan to release it.
I started playing with Jim and Remi-Jean very quickly after I moved to Montreal in 2015. I felt like that trio had a potential; it was the kind of love story that takes a little bit of time.
Both of them knew the trio with Francois and Ari. Many times when I start playing with other people, they have that trio in their head; it’s not always such a good thing because they’re trying to emulate it. , or they’re intimidated by it in a way, by the way we interacted together. They start to play like Francois a little bit, or like Ari. It’s like that. But they are obviously much better than just imitators; I’m making it simple.
Again, it’s like when you fall in love; sometimes you have someone else in your head. (laughs)
So, we played together a few times, and there was an evolution that was very deep. We discovered ways of playing together that was really not the way of the older trio. But then came the pandemic, and this and that and we didn’t play for quite awhile.
So, when the confinement ended, I called them and said “let’s do something”. We have a beautiful club here in Montreal called Diese Onze and I recorded it because I record a lot of my gigs anyway. It was just a gig; It was just one of our performances in Montreal, but the thing that night was special. I could feel it, there was very special.
Maybe because we hadn’t played together in awhile; maybe because after the confinement we had this need for music. Maybe, maybe, maybe; we’ll never know. There was a particular vibe.
When I listened to the tape I felt the same vibe. It was different,
I had already recorded this trio quite a few times, but this particular performance was emotionally different in a way that I really, really liked. So I decided to put it out.
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“I had already recorded this trio quite a few times, but this particular performance was emotionally different in a way that I really, really liked. So I decided to put it out”
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IN RETROSPECT OF THE ENERGY OF COMING OUT OF THE LOCKDOWN, WAS THERE ANYTHING YOU PARICTULARLY LEARNED FROM THAT TIME?
Nothing! (laughs). I’m kidding, but I’m not kidding.
I’m 61, and sometimes the older I get them less I feel I know about myself. When you’re young, you think “Oh, I have to know myself” and now I think that I’m dumber in some ways than when I was 20.
You don’t really learn; you change. By being confined by our sphere, you’re thinking more than usual; you’re not as busy. When you’re busy you tend not to think too much because you’re busy, you don’t have time to think.
Not being busy, you had time to think a lot, but I don’t think you’re really improving in understanding yourself. Some people may disagree with me, with all the spirituality and the Dalai Lama and religion, but I tend to think that we do the best we can. That is the conclusion of what I learned; we do the best we can. What we do as the best that we can on that one moment won’t be the best we can one year later, because we’ve changed.
I can feel that a lot in my playing; I can feel that in my life and thinking . Sometimes I wake up in the morning and think “who am I?” It’s so different from just yesterday. I have to get used to myself again.
I like to see music like that. Many people like to control their music too much; it’s like going to the restaurant with always the same menu. When I step on stage, I’m new; it’s like zero again, and it goes from there . That particular night it was especially true.
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“Like the movie When Harry Met Sally. Some chance encounters work and some don’t “
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YOU’VE DONE SOME WORK FOR FILM AS WELL. HOW DIFFERENT IS YOUR APPROACH?
I had one experience with film that was a disaster, but I don’t think that it was my fault. That was a long time ago. I haven’t done much film work…
But there was an opposite experience: a guy named Bastien Dupriez did a movie of my music of a George Gershwin tune, “Liza”. The guy really liked my take on that Gershwin tune and he did an animation of it. It was fantastic; I think it is better this way, as I wouldn’t have been enabled to have put the music to what he did.
To me, composition is a kind of slow improvisation. Ideas come to me. Iphones are great; I get an idea and I can put it into the phone, and then I sit at the piano and work it out . But usually the idea is pretty clear. This is pretty similar to what happens in improvisation except that you write it down.
Many of my recent tunes are improvisations, it’s like “Oh, this sounds good” and I’ll write it down or put the recorder on piano. I keep improvising, and two days later I’ll listen to it, just notate it and I’ll have a tune. I’m an improvisor even when it comes to composition
I compose from improvisations; these days I’m doing a couple of solo projects for which I got a couple of grants. Every week I record myself doing complete improvisations. The more I do that, the more they sound like compositions. Some of them could be notated or arranged. That’s something that I’ve discovered over the years
When you look at Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt…those guys were conductors, pianists, improvisors and composers. Everything. And now everything is separated. I’m not a *conductor because I’ve never done it and don’t have the technique, but I do see myself as a pianist, improvisor and composer. It’s the same essence.
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“What we do as the best that we can on that one moment won’t be the best we can one year later, because we’ve changed”
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HOW DID WORKING FOR HARRY BELAFONTE PREPARE YOU FOR WHERE YOU ARE TODAY IN YOUR CAREER
I don’t think “prepare” is the right word.
He taught me a lot; a lot about professionalism, how to be a professional.
He taught me a lot about precision, because you can’t BS the music when you’re with someone like that. When you’re improvising (plays some cacophonic notes), it’s easy to make it “easy”.
He taught me a lot in terms of presence. Harry Belafonte had that “thing” that when he stepped on stage, you’d say “WHEW”. You had to look at him. There was a radiation, an aura.
It’s good to have ‘presence’ as a jazz musician, but you can’t manufacture it. But, you can get inspired by someone like that my presence on stage has improved over the years seeing someone like him. It’s important to be more poised and be presenting something. It’s a lesson in professionalism and presentation.
One last thing about Harry Belafonte-he sings one note and you know that it’s him. He reminds me of Miles Davis. When he sang or talk in that voice “Deo” it was like Miles.
A completely personal sound is fantastic. For a pianist it’s challenging because we have an instrument that is impersonal. But still, with Keith Jarrett, Oscar Peterson or Art Tatum, one note and you know it’s them.
He was very good at being able to put his personality into the music very directly.
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“I’m an improvisor even when it comes to composition”
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YOU’VE PLAYED WITH SOME BIG NAMES LIKE ROY HAYNES, MICHAEL BRECKER AND RICHARD BONA. DID ANY OF THESE GIGS INTIMIDATE YOU?
I don’t think that the notoriety of the musicians I play with has anything to do with the importance of the gigs. I did a recording with Richard Bona, and the late Michael Brecker was there and we did something together, and it was fantastic.
I wouldn’t say that because the musicians are more well know it becomes more important or a baptism by fire.
I don’t see music that way. If you see it that way it becomes more of a competition or a challenge. You think “I’m going to play with this guy, now I have to blah blah blah”
I tended to be like that when I was younger, like “I’m going to show these guys”. It’s like The Olympic Games of Jazz. It’s always existed as in all of those old jam sessions between Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Fats Navarro and stuff. Trumpet competitions where everybody is trying to kill everybody. I like those sessions and trying to kill everybody! (laughs) It can be inspiring.
But at the end of the day I realize that it’s very limited. When you step on stage, you have to put yourself at the service of the music; you have to forget who you are.
The music is sound. If I send this sound to another civilization in another galaxy, they won’t care who the musician is, they will just care about the sound
When I listen to recordings by old musicians on the stereo that are long dead, or I’ve never met, they touch me so much. But I don’t know anything about that person; I will never know that person about what he or she eats or drinks, or what they look like, but the sound goes straight to my heart. I know the person through that music. That’s how I see music these days.
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“He taught me a lot in terms of presence. Harry Belafonte had that “thing” that when he stepped on stage, you’d say “WHEW”. You had to look at him. There was a radiation, an aura.”
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IT’S THE SAME WITH THE SAXOPHONE. HOW DO YOU GET PAST THE SOUND OF LESTER YOUNG?
It’s like what the famous piano player Artur Rubinstein said, “Every genius is a world in himself”. If you get too deep, you can’t escape them anymore.
I almost made that mistake when I was younger. I wanted to play like this guy, or like that guy. I would imitate them, but after a few days I’d catch my self and think “Oops, that’s too much gravitation; I need to escape”.
A good way to escape is to gravitate toward someone completely different. I would go from Monk to Bill Evans to Oscar, and I’d imitate them
I always tell my students “What is important is not transcription, it’s imitation”. You imitate your parents, and that’s how you learn. But once you’ve imitated someone, switch to someone else.
It’s like food; it has to be balanced; you don’t eat only sugar.
So you go into your ‘Bill Evans’ period and imitate him a little bit. So now, let’s go to Monk.
I used to do something interesting; I’d imitate Monk playing “Giant Steps”. The good thing is that it never existed, so I’d have to invent the Monkish version of “Giant Steps” . And then I’d imitate Bill Evans playing Monk’s “Ruby My Dear” which never existed either. That’s a great nourishment.
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“When you step on stage, you have to put yourself at the service of the music; you have to forget who you are”
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SO THAT’S WHAT YOU TEACH YOUR STUDENTS. WHAT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT THING FOR THEM TO TAKE IN AND INTERNALIZE?
This may sound vicious, but the hardest thing for my students to learn is to become self taught.
What that means is that they come to the school and they are under the impression that you’re going to give them all they need to be a jazz musician.
I’m self taught; I never went to a jazz school. I saved a lot of money by the way (laughs)
What I say to my students is “What I’m telling you in the lesson is 5%. If you come to see me play “live” at a gig, that’s up to 10-20%. But, what you do at home, by yourself, completely forgetting about my existence, discovering new music, listening to recordings, tapping and singing with recordings, and then going to your instrument and trying to what you’ve heard , that’s now up to 98% “
That is what’s the most difficult for them, because they think that jazz is a discipline that you learn in a school. Schools can help you as a way to structure your work. But your work is your work; it cannot be someone else’s work.
That is difficult for them. Many have problems with rhythm. They don’t feel the form or they don’t swing. That’s pretty much unteachable , so I have a couple of exercises like tapping and talking at the same time.
But rhythm is going to come by playing with other musicians, playing to recordings or listening to ***someone like Ella Fitzgerald and tapping along, singing along and singing plus tapping along. Music is physical; no one can teach you how to walk.
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“composition is a kind of slow improvisation”
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IT’S LIKE GOING TO SCHOOL TO BECOME A DOCTOR. YOU MAY LEARN NOW TO PASS THE BOARDS, BUT HAVE YOU LEARNED TO MAKE SICK PEOPLE WELL
Yes, it’s a mysterious process. It’s not going to come from someone else. That is difficult to convey.
WHAT DO YOU LISTEN FOR WHEN LISTENING TO A PIANO PLAYER?
The music. It doesn’t have to be a piano, by the way.
I used to listen to all of the technical stuff and this arpeggio here and this and that. There is that harmony, as when I first heard Bill Evans and those voicings.
But at the end of the day, when I listen to music I ask myself if it moved me. Does it do something to me? Does it touch me? Does something happen?
If I listen to a pianist and something happens, then he’s not a pianist to me; he’s a musician. If I listen and nothing happens, then he becomes a pianist.
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“This may sound vicious, but the hardest thing for my students to learn is to become self taught”
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WHAT THREE BOOKS WOULD YOU LIKE PEOPLE TO READ.
I’m not a list for a Desert Island kind of guy. As Rubenstein said “A great book is a world unto itself”. Why would I choose three worlds and forget about the other ones?
Something that I read recently that really touched me was Marcel Proust, the French writer, who I started reading for the first time in my life. Some parts are difficult, like the sentences that are five pages long. But there are some fantastically deep things in it. I regret that I didn’t start earlier because it is so deep.
I also like Michel Houellebecq , a more recent French writer. He’s very controversial; some people like him, some hate him.
The first time I read The Old Man and the Sea I was like “WOW”. Or the time I read Martin Eden by Jack London.
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“I used to do something interesting; I’d imitate Monk playing “Giant Steps”. The good thing is that it never existed, so I’d have to invent the Monkish version of “Giant Steps” . And then I’d imitate Bill Evans playing Monk’s “Ruby My Dear” which never existed either. That’s a great nourishment”
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WHO IN WORLD HISTORY WOULD YOU LIKE TO SIT DOWN WITH AND PICK HIS OR HER BRAIN
Well I don’t want to pick any brain, as there then would not be anything left.
But for a few examples, Chopin, Schubert, Bix Beiderbecke, Mozart, Art Tatum…I’d be enchanted to speak with for an evening . Vladimir Horowitz, Oscar Peterson together could be great as they both spoke French.
I wouldn’t pick their brains; I would bask in their presence.
There’s a book I read that told a story when Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke jammed together. I would have loved to have been in that room. How can you p ick their brains, as they were so different? I’d rather have picked their notes!
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“Music is physical; no one can teach you how to walk”
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ANY MUSICIAN LIVING OR DEAD YOU’D PAY $!000 TO SEE?
No. Too expensive
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE PEOPLE TO SAY AT YOUR MEMORIAL SERVICE?
I don’t want to think about that. Nothing. Just have a fondue party, drink and be happy. At my mother’s burial in 2016 I met with my brother and uncle and we spent the whole time telling jokes.
I want people to do that. I don’t want selfies on facebook.
No compliments. If you want to be nice with me, be nice with me before I die.
WHAT GIVES YOU THE MOST JOY?
Many things. My kids, my family, a good concert. I’m French , so good food, good wine, good cheese.
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“If I listen to a pianist and something happens, then he’s not a pianist to me; he’s a musician. If I listen and nothing happens, then he becomes a pianist”
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CAN YOU GET UNPASTURIZED FRENCH CHEESE IN MONTREAL?
It’s pretty much impossible. The cheese here is slightly better than in New York, so it might be. And the unpasteurized is so much better. It’s the same with the French wine; you drink it here and “HOO”. It’s the sulfites, I believe.
ANY FUTURE PROJECTS?
I just did one on Origin Records called Contradiction with Xose Migueles. It’s very good. We toured in Spain and the wine there was very good.
ANY TRIPS TO CALIFORNIA.
I am in the process of trying to come back to the States a bit more. Right now it’s more in the East Coast. The business has taken a big shot with this pandemic. Many agents have just stopped working and don’t want to take any risks. It’s becoming more difficult..
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“I wanted to play like this guy, or like that guy. I would imitate them, but after a few days I’d catch my self and think “’Oops, that’s too much gravitation; I need to escape’”.
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WHETHER IT IS BEING A MUSICIAN, DOCTOR, ACCOUNTANT, CHEF OR HOMEMAKER, EACH OF US EVENTUALLY MUST TAKE ALL OF THE INFLUENCES OF OUR LIVES AND BECOME OUR OWN PERSON. THAT IS THE ESSENCE OF LIFE. YOU DON’T WANT TO SOUND BE AN IMITATION OF SOMEONE, YOU WANT TO BE YOURSELF. PIANIST JEAN-MICHEL PILC IS AT HOME BEING HIMSELF. CHECK OUT HIS LATEST ALBUMS AND YOU WILL HEAR A MAN WHO IS COMFORTABLE IN HIS OWN SKIN, A RARITY THESE DAYS.