A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH GREG OSBY

(2004)


FRED JUNG: Was Public time for another live record?

GREG OSBY: I actually wanted to further document this special group from the St. Louis Shoes project. The recording came out so good itself, I wanted to do it live - without all the trimmings, announcements to the audience, extra measures taken during the mix, reverbs and effects. They re-characterize the piece so it doesn't even sound like a live recording. You can barely hear the audience. They filter out a lot of the noise and the audience participation. I wanted it to be another snapshot of a live recording.


FJ: With the critical celebration of St. Louis Shoes, is the Osby bandwagon at capacity?

GREG OSBY: The reception is something I can't predict or judge or anticipate. I just can't be concerned with that when I do these projects. I present them and hope that the people who like what I do and who expect something creative, hopefully, these people respond to it and alert others. I don't read reviews with the aspiration that I should represent the music or change things to fit a certain level of acceptance. I'm just happy that people got the point. It seems that it is happening a lot more frequently now, that people are expecting a high level of concept and aptitude and progression of the music. I try to present things that are not familiar, but I don't want to alienate people with highbrow artifices that nobody can get with but myself. That is so self-indulgent. You have to recognize that the music is for the people.


FJ: So you have the public ear.

GREG OSBY: It is still difficult. I find that a lot of younger students and young patrons of the music, they get it a lot more readily because they're open. They listen to hip-hop. They are of a digital age. They've learned to expect new breakthroughs. They are used to things like that. But there are a lot of moldy figs out there, primarily a lot of promoters and agents and people like that, who are still apprehensive about booking my band because of what their perception of the music is. They still have this visualization of what the music sounds like based on a context they may have seen me in a long time ago. It is still very difficult to get bookings in this country. When I see people who don't have the track record or who don't modify their environment each time out, they are basically doing the same thing, which plays into the hands of right-wing conservatism. It is still a struggle in this country to get the band out there. It is still moving at a sloth's pace in this country and I don't understand it. In Europe, I can tour at will. The people love it and the fan base expands with each visit. But in the United States, people are so conservative and so backwards in their thinking.


FJ: Ironic that a music defined by its liberalism would be so old guard and traditionalistic.

GREG OSBY: I don't know what to attribute that to. The easy villain is Wynton Marsalis, but he is not the culprit. He has done a great many things for this music as far as people being aware of it and jazz education. I commend him for a lot of things that he's done. Musicians themselves are to blame. People get on their high horse and get complacent. As opposed to them getting off their ass and work and conceptualize and come out with something new that would give a charge to the scene, they continue to play the same venues and do, basically, the same recording over and over again. That's been a steady complaint of mine. People don't want to push themselves. So they do the same recording, but with different covers and titles. And they always work, get top billing, and good payment, but how many young people are they drawing? How provocative is the music they're presenting?


FJ: People are still dismissing you over M-Base? Something you did twenty years ago?

GREG OSBY: Let me tell you. In order for me to do most gigs in the United States, as opposed to them recognizing that I'm somebody who has been around for over twenty years with an honorable track record, I have to practically beg for the gigs as if I was a brand new artist. I can never do a real tour because people have it in their minds that the music is avant-garde or hip-hop. They are still hanging on to that. So they play it safe and get somebody that is playing jazz that doesn't change. A lot of people don't read Downbeat. They don't read Jazz Times or All About Jazz. They don't know who is doing what. They just don't know.


FJ: Without the conduit of clubs, how, as an artist, do you get the word out?

GREG OSBY: I have the internet and other types of access to thank people for being aware of the music. These are people that seek things out. They take it upon themselves to avail themselves of that type of information. I have request upon request from people to bring my band in, but these aren't the people that book bands. These are fans. I don't know what to do at this point.


FJ: Are you bored?

GREG OSBY: I have taken measures in my career from the very beginning to circumvent boredom. That means to be always heavily involved in a variety of situations or contexts so that I can feed off the aptitude or presentations of other artists. It can push me and make me delve into the deepest accesses of my artistry or it will expose something that I need to work on. People that spin their wheels playing in the same groups with the same people for years and years, that is treading water. That is really treading water. Where is the creativity? Where is the artistry in that? A lot of jazz-heads and a lot of people that support classical music are very compartmentalized in their thinking. So that is why I have to check other things out. Yeah, I'm bored. I'm bored, not with what I'm doing, but with what I am hearing.


FJ: And the future?

GREG OSBY: That's a good question. Of course, I have a lot of things on the burner. I have this organ group that I've been talking about for a while. I don't know if it's the right time to do that because I have to consider my ability to present things live. My working group, which is incredible, will be the next documentation because I have to document these young people. Nobody has ever heard of them, but they will be the giants of tomorrow. It will be a return to what I do best, present myself in an environment of original music, something highly conceptualized, but acceptable. I have a lot of things up my sleeve.


Fred Jung is the Editor-In-Chief and is Wang Chunging tonight. Comments? Email Him