Photo by Pamela Parker
Courtesy of Matt Balitsaris

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH MATT BALITSARIS


I rarely make predictions. I don't have a crystal ball and I don't even know where to buy tarot cards. But I will say that Palmetto, in the next decade, will become "the" label. Much like Alfred Lion did with Blue Note, Matt Balitsaris has signed on a core of superb musicians (Matt Wilson, David Berkman, Larry Goldings, Ben Allison, Rick Margitza, and Joel Frahm) and is generating a buzz that is loud enough to demand respect from the majors. Pretty impressive for a label that is no older than my nephew (he's ten). So I had to see what Matt was rubbing to get that kind of luck and get me some of that. Here he is, unedited and in his own words.


FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.

MATT BALITSARIS: Well, Fred, it was all a big, fat accident (laughing).


FJ: As all good things are.

MATT BALITSARIS: That's the truth. Originally, it was, to go back even further than that, back in the early '80s, I had a band called C'est What and we launched ourselves by putting our own record out. Subsequently, we had deals on a number of other labels, Passport (Balance) and Palo Alto Jazz (Eight Stories). Anyway, about the end of the '80s, that band was sort of going by the way and I had a new band and it worked before, so I thought I would do a self-release record and try to generate some interest that way. So the first release was a record of my then current band, which was called Loose Shoes. It got a fair amount of airplay and so forth. I started to get the feeling that I could get distribution for that record if I had a catalog and as it happened I had the rights to a number of things that I had worked on or produced over the few years previous to that and so I started putting that stuff out and created a little catalog and started to get distribution. It just sort of started to grow, and at the time, because it sort of evolved in that way, it didn't have a whole lot of focus. We put out a lot of different kinds of records and different types of music and we continue now to narrow the focus of the label to be more exclusively jazz and all that, well, that's a pretty broad thing in it of itself. That's sort of how the label started and the name was something that I pulled out of the air. Actually, the origin of the name Palmetto was simply that I had just prior to that had two solo records on another label and both of them had had this palm motif on the cover, so I was in this palm mode and so Palmetto was easy. I thought it would be a name that would also conjure up a visual image of a logo and would just be like something that people would feel like they had heard before and in fact, it was. From day one, people were always telling me, "Oh, yeah, I've heard of Palmetto." When in fact I knew they hadn't. It worked on that level.


FJ: What is the label's mission statement?

MATT BALITSARIS: Well, I think despite its haphazard origin, I think from the outset, the idea was to try and promote music and artists that were sort of on the fringe of things, who weren't necessarily right down the middle of the plate as far as any given format was concerned. What I look for now when we're looking at new artists is people who are in some ways sort of expanding the vocabulary of the music, in a musical way. The case and point would be two artists who I feel like really have answered that criteria are Matt Wilson and Ben Allison, who use instruments in varied and different ways and also in Matt's case, sometimes he, case and point is the use of an auctioneer in a piece of jazz music to draw the correlation between what an auctioneer does and musical improvisation. It's that kind of playful expansion of the vocabulary of music and jazz. If that's coherent, that's our mission statement.


FJ: How long has Palmetto been around?

MATT BALITSARIS: I think I put that first record out in '92. To be honest, Fred, the label didn't really gel and didn't seem like a real serious entity until '94,'95. Up until that time, I was looking to bail anytime. It still occurs to me to be quite honest with you (laughing).


FJ: You really had your coming out party last year and now the label is really making a name for itself.

MATT BALITSARIS: Yeah, that's the way it feels to us. We're coming to the end of the year and looking back and we certainly feel like, I have to say, a lot of the reason for that has to do with, in late '98, we hired a couple of people in the office who've made a huge difference in terms of creating awareness for the label. There is a guy named Terry Coen (Vice President of Promotions), who works in the office and primarily works radio. He just totally lifted us to another level. It's a symbiosis. I think we put out a lot of good records this year. We've been around kind of beating our heads against it and I think we are finally starting to break out. We have a core of people working in our office, who really care about it and know what they're doing. I think that is what held us back a lot early on was when I was really running the company because I didn't have a clue. I hired Pat Rustici (Executive Vice President and General Manager) to run the office and that alone took us up about five notches. Pat has hired a couple of people who have really made a big difference.


FJ: Give me a brief rundown of the artists that are on the label.

MATT BALITSARIS: Oh, geez, I'll leave somebody out and I will feel terrible about it. Actually, I will try and work backwards. I'm finishing a record right now with Rick Margitza.


FJ: Good saxophone player.

MATT BALITSARIS: Yeah, saxophonist. That will come out sometime next year. That is our first record with Rick.


FJ: I am glad he finally found another label.

MATT BALITSARIS: Yeah, well, he had a record out on Challenge, I think. He's had a couple of records out since he had the Blue Note deal, but I don't think they've been widely distributed. Actually, the one I heard was actually a great record. I was really glad we were able to get Rick. I think we spent a fair amount of time with championing artists who haven't had, young guys who don't have much of a recorded history and track record in that world. That's a hard thing to, that's a very uphill battle getting somebody known through press and radio. I think having young cats like Rick and Larry Goldings' record that we just put out earlier this year, they give us a couple of young guys who have had a lot of exposure and are known in the marketplace, but are still young, vital newcomers in a sense, even though they've had numerous records out on their own name. I also am in the process of finishing a record with Andrew Hill, who is a whole other kind of very creative guy. We ended up signing Andrew, basically because we were, I think one of the things that we've also pursued in view of the fact that we have so many developing artists is we wanted to tap into some older, more established artists to represent the kind of thing that we're doing among the younger players and that's why we did the record with Dewey Redman and that's sort of where Andrew falls, as well as one of these very seminal, creative forces from an era that is the context for all the younger artists that we have. I think that is true of the record we did with Cecil McBee. Cecil's writing and work as a bandleader isn't that well known, but it is definitely the kind of stuff we do. It ties in with, it's amazing what a small world it is once you start going between different ensembles. We did Matt Wilson's first record and Larry Goldings and Cecil McBee and Dewey Redman were all on that record. We've subsequently done records with all of those guys. David Berkman was on Cecil's record and we've subsequently done David's record. It all kind of grows out of things in a very organic way.


FJ: A writer colleague of mine commented on how much he enjoyed Handmade, but more importantly how impressed he was with the liner notes written by one of only a handful of writers I read, Jim Macnie of the Village Voice.

MATT BALITSARIS: Yes, and I do have to say that it's a record that really is for me, every now and then, I'll do a record like this where you're working on it and there's a lot of manipulating and editing and stuff that goes on and it's a live to two track recording and so you don't really know what you've got until the very end. And when we finally finished the mastering session and we sat down to actually listen to that record, I was just like, "Wow, this is a record that I would have coveted in college." I would have listened to it everyday. It had this sound and this atmosphere that is really what makes a record special. If I made a list of my ten favorite records, I think all of them would be more identified by a certain sound and atmosphere that they created, than by any particular solos that are on it or by the playing. Certain records define an era like Kind of Blue (Columbia), Miles Smiles (Columbia), or the early Weather Report records. They become an entity in it of themselves, independent of the songs that are on them. I really feel, in a way, that David's record somehow did that without me being aware of it, which was very cool.


FJ: Saxophonist Joel Frahm is yet another fine player on Palmetto.

MATT BALITSARIS: Yeah, we'll be doing new records with David and Joel early next year. I think David's in January and Joel's isn't due out until March.


FJ: Joel's Sorry No Decaf was one of my top picks this year.

MATT BALITSARIS: Oh, good. That was another one. Joel's record, that was like six hours of studio time. It was one of these magical, they walk in, they set up, and almost everything is one take, maybe two and there are hardly any edits. That sort of magical thing that happens when you have a bunch of players that play together a lot. I think we had the same experience with the Ellington tribute record (The Other Side of Ellington) in a certain way, although that was a slightly expanded group and some of those guys hadn't necessarily played with each other a lot.


FJ: Major labels are more inclined to put together so called all-star bands that would otherwise never play together and put them in a context that is unfamiliar to them and the music, obviously, has a tendency to reflect that. Palmetto's creed has been more organic.

MATT BALITSARIS: Yeah, I think one of the things that I feel like we're drawing on in the model that ECM did in the '70s and '80s, where you had a core group of musicians who played on a lot of records together and in each other's projects and they formed a scene all their own because they interacted with each other in that way. We're a little different, certainly musically. It's inevitable that you are going to make a record and often, those guys won't be available as an ensemble necessarily to do a tour just because everybody in the world is a freelancer. Try as you might as a bandleader, it's hard to keep the same ensemble, the same unit at all times. Even the guys that have been most successful at that, still had to sub out different chairs for different gigs because somebody's unavailable and it can't be helped. At the same time, I think that kind of throwing a bunch of players together produces really sterile recordings. Particularly in jazz, where it is not an overdubbing situation, dependent on what happens in the moment and what people are playing. There's a difference if you have guys that are familiar with one another, even if they are not necessarily familiar with the music, but are familiar with how each other tend to interpret things. It's just an enormous, enormous difference. That was the case on the Ellington record that we did this year, where nothing was rehearsed. Nobody even talked much about the tunes. Everybody knew who was bringing in what tunes, but nobody had any preconceptions. We made that record in seven or eight hours just drawing on the fact that these guys really played together a lot. If I go see a band or if I listen to a record, it's much more important for me to walk away from it going, "Wow, that was really great music," than it is to walk away from it going, "That guy played great solos or played really fast." And you're only going to get really great music if the people actually have that rapport. To the extent of whatever possible, I'd rather have a working band come play, than throw a bunch of ringers on a date and hope it comes together. It's sometimes nice if you can get a couple of names to play on their record, but you have to be judicious about that because you know that guy is not going to take these heavy guys out to play a fifty dollar gig downtown.


FJ: Larry and Rick are both widely known outside of the New York scene, but guys like Joel and David have never been out to the West Coast with their own bands. There must be a reality there that has to concern you about getting them a more national public awareness.

MATT BALITSARIS: We have a lot of artists that haven't hit the West Coast. I think we're, as a label, just sort of reaching the point now, where we can start signing people who are less than developing artists. In order to establish an identity, we had to tap, it was sort of a two-edged sword. I wanted to find a good network of young, creative players to champion the label. At the same time, we couldn't right off the bat sign a whole bunch of people who were quite well known because they were just going to look at us and go, "Who are you?" So now we have achieved a reputation for doing good things and being fair with our artists and not cheating them and stuff like that and making good records and supporting them. Now, better known artists are starting to come to us and show interest. It's hard, Fred. As well as David and Joel's records did in terms of getting attention or even the Medicine Wheel (Ben Allison). Ben had had records out before as a solo artist, but Medicine Wheel doesn't get out and tour that much and certainly to my knowledge, hasn't been to the West Coast.


FJ: No.

MATT BALITSARIS: I don't even think Matt's had his band to the West Coast and they tour quite a bit. It takes time to develop people to that extent and we have to be judicious on how we spend money. The important thing too is that we see them growing.


FJ: What are the release dates for the Andrew Hill record and the Rick Margitza?

MATT BALITSARIS: I know Andrew is going to come out in March. It's his current working band, which is just a tremendous band, Billy Drummond on drums, Scott Colley on bass, Marty Ehrlich on alto sax, Ron Horton on trumpet, and Greg Tardy on tenor. It's deep, deep music, Fred. It is some heavy stuff. Andrew was one of the best experiences I've very had. As a person and as a musician, he's just one of the sweetest guys I've ever worked with. He was so into it and so aware. After the session, because again, it was another one day marathon, we had probably about three and a half hours of music to listen to figure out how we were going to make a record out of it. Coming to it as a producer, even though I have got the charts and I can read the charts and I can follow the tape, it's such deep music that it is really hard to assimilate it all and figure out how you are going to set it up and that sort of thing. He was just totally together through the whole thing and I really think that it is a great record. It's very challenging music. It's Andrew Hill.


FJ: I wouldn't expect anything less from Andrew Hill.

MATT BALITSARIS: There are things that are almost orchestral about it. It's really, really amazing.


FJ: Andrew Hill is a pillar to this music. Point of Departure is quintessential progressive music. And it's been well over 35 years since its originally release. You must sleep very at night to be able to give a new generation an opportunity to experience the music of an Andrew Hill or a Dewey Redman.

MATT BALITSARIS: That was kind of the impious for us calling Andrew. It is rewarding in the sense that I called Andrew out of the blue. He didn't know who the hell I was or who we were, and yet he asked around and came back and said, "Yeah, I'll make a record with you." At first he was a little dubious about it, but his response was that people told him we were where he should make a record. That to me, kind of felt like we had arrived. Aside from that, one of the main reasons we called Andrew was we were aware that he hadn't been making too many records and we were looking for somebody that fit out profile and that would give context to the other artists that we have. So to find him receptive to the idea of making a record and open to working with a label like us. Even though we have been making progress, we're not exactly where you might expect him to show up. The same was true with Dewey. Dewey was more of a case of having Matt Wilson in his band. Dewey was aware of us because of that and Dewey is so supportive of Matt. We were forging this relationship for a while. It's tremendously gratifying to be able to work with these guys.


FJ: You must sleep very well at night.

MATT BALITSARIS: (Laughing) It's also an education to see how they approach music. Particularly those two guys, who approach it really differently. As a guy from my generation, who learned most of his jazz initially in college, I've approached it from a different point of view. To be able to get inside their heads as to see how they hear and see the music and what's essential to them in terms of a performance is really an education.


FJ: And Rick's release?

MATT BALITSARIS: Rick has a very romantic style that this record puts forward really well. It's him and Joey Calderazzo on piano and Scott Colley on bass. This one, I am still in the middle of it, so it's kind of hard for me to characterize it, except to say, my hope is that it is an artist coming of age for Rick. I think he had a few records on Blue Note that went in a couple of different directions and as we approached this one, one of the things that we talked about, it's a similar conversation to the one I had with Larry Goldings. I felt the same about his Warner Brothers records, that they were sort of touching a lot of basis on those records and not really giving those guys a chance to achieve a perceived identity.


FJ: Rick is a fundamentally sound ballader.

MATT BALITSARIS: That's kind of my thinking. If we only hear Rick just play the melodies, we're going to love it.


FJ: What is the goal for Palmetto in the next century?

MATT BALITSARIS: Survive (laughing).


FJ: That is honest.

MATT BALITSARIS: That's going to be true for jazz, always. Because it is what it is, it's not for everybody. With new technologies and the proliferation of some labels and releases, there's so much more wonderful music out there available and yet it's that much harder to make anyone notice you. I think the challenge to us and our philosophy thus far has been to place our bets on a lot of really strong, reasonably young players that we think are going to help become the cats for the next twenty years or so and build a reputation that if you see our name on it, you know it's something good, even though you might not understand it.


FJ: What is the greatest challenge for the music?

MATT BALITSARIS: That's a good question. I think it could be, as marketing becomes much more focused. Now you have smooth jazz and you have Gavin jazz and you have CMJ jazz. You have these three different types, to use the radio format as just an example, these three very exclusive from one another types of jazz that are out there. It forces labels in many cases to try and steer things artistically. I think the danger is that the marketing of the music starts to influence what the music is. I think that has already happened in a lot of ways. It's really unfortunate, but it's reality. You can't deny it. The sad thing is that there is a lot of great music that has nowhere to be heard and not that many places for it to be performed so how does it survive. I'm not really sure.


Fred Jung is Jazz Weekly's Editor-In-Chief and part-time Navy SEAL. Comments?  Email Fred.