courtesy of Tim Hagans






Blue Note Records

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH TIM HAGANS


I remember the first time I spoke with Tim Hagans, how gentle and elegant he was. It was well in my youth and I was as wet behind the ears as one can be, but Hagans was very patient, understanding, and spoke from the heart. I have been a biased fan long before and ever since. But even still, his Audible Architechture is a classic if Blue Note ever had one. It is a crime that it has been deleted and I am beginning the campaign now, since Election 2000 has finally come to a close, to re-issue the trumpeter's finest hour. So get on the bus now. Room is limited and once seats are full, you are shit out of luck. Enjoy folks. As always, Hagans is unedited and in his own words.

FRED JUNG: There is a segment of the populous that believes that art should not be a government funded institution, but rather a privately supported one.

TIM HAGANS: If you leave this up to the individual, first of all, Fred, there aren't that many individuals that are going to support art in this country, even though it can be a tax right off. I just don't think that there are that many generous people that are going to support art. Whether it is painting, whether it is dance music, if you don't have the true weirdos out there, pushing the envelope, then it has a reverse effect. The whole art world implodes and it just becomes the mainstream. So I think if you leave it up to the individual, first of all, you are leaving it up to individuals that have money to give to the arts and usually, not usually, and this is a stereotype and I try to avoid stereotypes, but usually, the people with a lot of money tend to be a little bit more conservative. It may be completely false what I just said, but there are cases where you have got billionaires that are going to donate to the arts and they just want it to be the weirdest thing in the whole world. So I think tax money, in Europe anyway, is really helpful. It is put to good use. It expands the audience for not just, pop supports itself, this expands the audience for all sorts of art forms that are not geared towards the lowest common denominator appreciation factor.

FJ: Let's play pretend for a moment and step into my parallel universe. I am a wealthy internet mogul and I give you a blank check to do with as you wish, what are some projects you would back?

TIM HAGANS: Wow, you know, Fred, I have never been confronted with the situation so I need a second to think (laughing). Wow. Well, one thing that people do is that they start a label and they record people that haven't been recorded, kind of a philanthropic undertaking. That could be a consideration to spread the wealth to people that may not get a chance with some of the mainstream ways of doing things. On a kind of a footnote, I feel incredibly lucky that I am affiliated with Blue Note because that is corporate jazz and they do appreciate the weirdos on that label. Another thing, just to take the money and take my favorite musicians and make the world's most incredible project. That could also be a possibility, a complete inward expenditure. I don't know, Fred. I would have to think about it a little more.

FJ: Who would you record?

TIM HAGANS: Well, I would say, gosh, first coming to mind would be a great tenor saxophone player, Rich Perry. He has played Thad (Thad Jones) and Mel (Mel Lewis) and records for Steeplechase. Here is somebody that has a completely different melodic voice and definitely needs to be heard because he is kind of an underground cult figure amongst saxophone players. He is in Maria Schneider's band. Other people, it is kind of like the "talent deserving wider recognition" category. Some of these people are already recording for smaller labels, Matt Wilson, the great drummer. I think Marc Copland is maybe the most original piano player to come along in a long time, harmonically, melodically. Of course, these are people that I have played a lot with.

FJ: I implore Blue Note to reissue this back into circulation, but Audible Architechture, an album you recorded in the mid-90s is superb.

TIM HAGANS: Oh, thanks, Fred. That has kind of become a cult thing. I know people are burning it and sending it around. Yeah, I appreciate your compliments, Fred and I am sorry that it was deleted from the catalog. They have a policy that if it doesn't sell a certain amount of copies in a certain amount of time, then they crush the CDs.

FJ: I weep at the thought.

TIM HAGANS: Right, right. One thing I have learned from dealing with a major record company is not to take anything personally at all. It is not against me or how I play. It is just policy. Having that idea, it is a lot easier to deal with everything in the music world.

FJ: How does a traditional jazz musician, in his forties, get into drum and bass, electronica? It is certainly not the norm.

TIM HAGANS: No, (laughing) I think that is too bad actually. I have kind of been waiting for drum and bass, as well as listening to the jazz records from the Sixties. I was totally into rock and roll and funk music and bands like Blood, Sweat & Tears, at the same time, Grand Funk Railroad and the James Gang, Sly & the Family Stones. These are all records that I have listened to a million times and played the trumpet along with. And then of course, all the Miles electric records I bought pretty much as they came out. The late Sixties was when I started buying jazz records. I bought older records, but I also bought new records that were coming out. Although that is not drum and bass, it is very open-minded music. When Herbie's (Herbie Hancock) record, Future Shock, came out, I flipped. I couldn't believe it because the rhythmic thing is so strong and that is what I've been craving for years and years, is to have an incredibly strong rhythmic thing happening behind me because I need that to play the way I play. When I started listening to drum and bass and hearing it on television commercials and Belden (Bob Belden) was giving me records to check out and I thought, "Man, this is it. It makes me feel like playing."

FJ: I am assuming you have not been frequenting raves in the desert.

TIM HAGANS: No, I have to admit. I would like to play at some though. Definitely. We were on tour this past summer and we played a disco in Istanbul as part of the jazz festival with the live band from the record that is coming out next month and it was incredible. People were dancing. They were screaming. Some people were sitting around listening. But we had DJ Kingsize on that tour and that cat had everybody dancing and then Bob and I could just play our weird, melodic, Charlie Parker influenced eighth notes on top of that and people loved it.

FJ: The studio verison, Animation - Imagination, has been on the market for a while now.

TIM HAGANS: Right, about a year and a half.

FJ: What was the initial reception?

TIM HAGANS: Most people flipped over it because it was what they had been waiting for. I think that is what Bob and I were hoping. It is just as much Bob's record as it is mine. He produced it and played on it. He is really the genius behind the whole thing.

FJ: Congratulations on the Grammy nod.

TIM HAGANS: Oh, thank you, Fred. It was a total surprise. I think a lot of people were angry that we were included.

FJ: Fuck 'em.

TIM HAGANS: (Laughing) It is so much different. I have read some websites from some smooth jazz guys that thought it was sacrilege. I didn't know you could have a sacrilege against smooth jazz. They definitely thought that this was going over the line. It is not a smooth jazz record. They wanted to see more of their heroes nominated. David Sanborn and Bob James were really the only ones. Bob and myself, we are a little bit more different than the normal smooth jazz thing.

FJ: And the live concert recording, Re-Animation is much the same.

TIM HAGANS: It was at the Montreal Jazz Festival last summer, 1999. When the festival people heard Animation that came out in January of '99, they wanted us to play at the festival and Bob and I had been talking about how we could do live gigs. Basically, when we recorded Animation, it was like playing live in the studio. There was no overdubbing on that record. Everything was pretty much first or second takes. In the mastering, we did some clipping a little bit, but it sounds like it may have taken a month to record that record and really all we did was go in and play free and after three or four days, we had a record. So we knew we could do it live too because that is basically the way we played in the studio.

FJ: The band sounds better live.

TIM HAGANS: Well, I think we can create that energy that you crave from live jazz groups, which is what we did this past summer on the tour, is we kind of proved to ourselves that we could create that energy live that maybe in the studio, even a project like this is heavy into the programmed drums and wild playing still might come off better live.

FJ: Any tour plans?

TIM HAGANS: Well, we're still trying. We went out this summer. It is a sextet when it is on the road and it is not too big and we are hoping that the size of it is counteracted by the audience's appeal. We are talking to bookers that are not the traditional jazz people, but people that are going to get us into alternative venues where we can play for a younger audience and still the jazz people that consider us a jazz band because that is what we are. We are an improvising music band. We just have a different rhythmic thing going on. But those people and the young people that come out to hear us will counteract the fact that it is a larger band and not a piano trio or quartet. I really believe that there is a huge audience appeal. And with the live record coming out, it is kind of our proof that we can do this concept live. Also, every concert we do is completely different. Every time we play, we play these tunes different. We play other tunes and it is free electronica. You can come hear us five nights in a row and you will hear a completely different thing every time. To me, growing up in the Sixties listening to those influences that I mentioned earlier, that is what this music, improvised music, is all about.

FJ: Freddie Hubbard is one of the forgotten giants of this music. Along with Marcus Printup, you did a recording based on Hubbard themes, Hub Songs.

TIM HAGANS: For me, Freddie has always been the epitome of trumpet playing. I think if at all he is forgotten, it is a generational thing because anybody that came up and was listening to jazz before the mid-Eighties knows that nobody can touch Freddie as far as that thing that he does. In my opinion, it was Miles, who I consider was more than a trumpet player. He is some kind of surreal figure. But Freddie, as far as just nuts and bolts trumpet playing, it just doesn't get any better. I think the people from my generation and maybe ten years younger, knows that that was the epitome. Everybody has been trying to get close to that energy and failing miserably (laughing). But it is something to live for. Every day you get up and think, "I'm going to try to play as good as Freddie was playing in 1969." It gives you something to live for (laughing).

FJ: Have you reached that level?

TIM HAGANS: No, not at all. I'm forty-six, but I still feel like I am eighteen. This music can keep you young or it can kill you and I'm trying to look for the things that keep me young.

FJ: You are pushing the envelope.

TIM HAGANS: We're trying.

Fred Jung is Jazz Weekly's Editor-In-Chief and an XFL cheerleader. Comments?  Email Fred.