A FIRESIDE
CHAT WITH ROBIN EUBANKS
Known more for being the brother of Tonight Show musical director Kevin
Eubanks, Robin has enjoyed relative mainstream obscurity. That's the kind
of bullshit world we live in these days I guess. In my world, Robin is
not an up and comer. He's a been there, done that. Having played with
numerous players, most notably Dave Holland's quintet, the trombonist
has also released more than a handful of albums as a leader. But not until
now has Robin released one from his own label, Robin Eubanks Music, entitled
Get 2 It. I wanted to know why, so I asked. As always, I bring it to you
unedited and in his own words.
FRED JUNG: Why form a label?
ROBIN EUBANKS: None of the other labels wanted to do it. And ultimately
and more importantly, I wanted to control, own my own music. I just got
tired of the record companies owning product and your hard work and your
stuff is like a catalog number to them and they don't really care about
it. Record companies control and own your music and you're just a catalog
number to them. They don't care. They're not putting in any time or investment
into it. It is just another iron they throw in the fire and they see if
it gets hot or not with a minimal amount of input from them. Obviously,
I'm going to be much more concerned my music and my product that I own
than they would be about it. They take it out of print if they want to.
They can do anything. I mean, I can't even get the old masters of the
stuff that they don't sell anymore. It's ridiculous. The biggest thing
about the record companies is it is like a big slave plantation kind of
thing.
FJ: That reference is guarded ground.
ROBIN EUBANKS: Well, they give you money to do a recording and then before
they pay you any royalties on the recording, you have to pay them back
the money that they put out, for you to make something that they own.
It's like you paying off your car and then the dealer still owns your
car. The whole system is just lopsided, but the technology and the advent
of the internet and home studios and everything makes it more viable now
for musicians to own their own music and distribute it and do everything.
The other part of it is you don't have to sell as many records or CDs
to make money. On a normal record contract, you may get nine or ten cents
for each recording that they sell. Then you've got to pay them the money
back that they put into the record, that it cost to make the record before
you get to even see that. When you do it yourself, if you sell it for
even ten dollars, obviously, after your cost, you get that ten dollars.
You sell it at your gigs or whatever you're doing. You just make a much
more higher percentage back.
FJ: What's been the biggest challenge?
ROBIN EUBANKS: The distribution thing, but it's only been out a couple
weeks now. I hired a promo company and a radio promotion thing and so
that's kicking in. It's fine. Bottom line to me is that it is a no loose
situation. Even if it takes twenty years to make the money back, I still
own the music and it will eventually make money. Whereas, the old way,
you still don't own the music. The record companies have it out of print
and you're still not making any money.
FJ: Will you feature other artists on your label?
ROBIN EUBANKS: I don't know, Fred. I haven't even thought that far about
it. Let's just see how this one goes. If other people want to do it, but
they can do it themselves. I wouldn't rule that out, but it's not what
I'm looking to do at this point. I'm just investing in myself. The other
part of it was that I was just looking at, watching the stock market and
everything and I invested a lot of money last year on tech stocks and
stuff and took a bath.
FJ: I rode Priceline and Yahoo down to fifty-two week lows.
ROBIN EUBANKS: Well, I lost most of that money too. At this point, those
shares aren't worth half of what they were before. So I figured if I can
invest in Cisco Systems, I can invest in myself. I can't do any worse
than they did, that's for sure. I poured lots of money into them last
year. I could have put that money into myself. That's what I decided to
do and I own the recording and own the music. Musicians are starting to
work together. The only thing we really needed, musicians needed record
companies before was to put up the capital. It saves a little bit of money
and working with the musicians, we do barter systems, some of us. They'll
do my record for little to no money and I'll do the same for them, so
we help each other out. It builds a tighter community amongst the musicians
and it's not as competitive because you sense that we're all in this together.
People would be surprised how much camaraderie there is amongst the musicians.
For instance, a very good friend of ours had a death in the family, a
very tragic death, and I was really proud that a lot of musicians sent
emails and everybody rallied and donated some money to help them out.
It was very touching to see the kind of support that the musicians did
for this guy. That kind of stuff happens on a lot of different levels.
I'm not saying that that doesn't happen in other forms of music. I was
just pleasantly surprised that other musicians would dig into their pockets
to help somebody out like that.
FJ: Is the trombone a forgotten instrument?
ROBIN EUBANKS: Not totally sure. At one point, it was very popular in
a more commercial type of jazz, I guess, during the swing era with Dorsey
and Glenn Miller. They were the bandleaders and they were very popular.
I think, maybe because of the style of music had changed and the trombone
is so hard to play that only cats like J.J. and a handful of other people
were able to keep up with the saxophones and trumpets technically. The
other part of it, I actually put on the musicians themselves. The trombone
is a very difficult instrument to play. There are a lot of former trombone
players that play other instruments. You'd be surprised at the list, Fred.
Nobody cares about that. They want to hear you play so if you choose to
play the trombone, you're actually choosing a difficult path for yourself
and you may have to work harder than other players do to be able to play
the same kind of music or the same lines and things. That comes with the
instrument and you're going to have to accept that and deal with it and
stand up to that challenge. Otherwise, people aren't going to want to
hear it. I'm attempting to do that and I think J.J. and Slide and a few
other people have done it. In a way, J.J. is passing the mantle onto us.
He set very high standards for us to live up to. I think that's part of
the problem. The trombonist themselves, we have to assume some responsibility
for it.
FJ: Why did you pick it up?
ROBIN EUBANKS: Out of curiosity. I was a little kid. I was eight years
old and my mother is a piano teacher and I used to always hear her giving
lessons in the house. I heard piano all the time. On all the other instruments,
you can see how the instrument is being played. It's either figured or
struck. I was in fourth grade and these two students came in to play Christmas
carols. I was looking at this trombone player and he's just moving his
arm back and forth. I was like, "How do you make music just moving
your arm back and forth?" The last day of school, they asked us to
choose an instrument and out of curiosity to try and figure out how it
worked, I chose the trombone.
FJ: Curiosity doesn't last a lifetime.
ROBIN EUBANKS: Well, I was kind of good at it when I was a little kid.
I went back to school the next year and I was in the orchestra and band.
I was just doing it because it was an instrument. Everybody in my family
was playing an instrument. So it wasn't until I started making some money
in high school, playing in bands and things. I was just doing it just
to play music and then I can get paid to play the trombone? Ever since
I was fifteen, I've played and got paid for it. It's the only job I've
ever had. I've never done anything else.
FJ: Being a musician is not an easy lifestyle, particularly with all the
travel that is involved. Add to that the failure of airlines to be on
time and cancellations, it must get unbearable.
ROBIN EUBANKS: Yeah, it's really crazy. In Europe now, we usually travel
on a tour bus, which is really nice. Of course, it takes longer to get
to places, but you don't have to deal with airports and strikes and anything
else that can come up when you're traveling that's a nightmare. That cools
it out a little bit when you get to Europe. Flying can be a real pain.
I would say that's the most rigorous thing.
FJ: Let's touch on your ongoing collaboration with Dave Holland.
ROBIN EUBANKS: I've played with him for almost a year a long time ago,
like in '86 to '87. Then I joined this band about four years ago. After
he broke up the band the first time I joined him, he started working with
Herbie and Hank Jones and Joe Henderson. He's obviously, I hear strengths
and development from when we first played together. I would assume my
playing has improved also from where it was in '86 for sure. It is just
a natural process of working together and studying music and playing.
Working within the current quintet band that we work with, with Dave has
definitely been very gratifying. We realized that it's a very unique situation,
each person in the band and we're trying our best to keep it going and
develop and keep everything moving forward. At this point, it seems to
be doing just that. He just gives us space to do what we want to do. I
would assume he got a lot of that leadership style from Miles. I don't
know. I never played with Miles, but that would be my guess. From dealing
with him in the two different situations, I think he's learned that you
still have to be a leader, but you give people some rope. Plus, each person
in the band contributes materials to the recording. We all write compositions.
That's another thing that helps the band unity and keeps people happy
that they are getting their music presented and played and recorded. The
band is working a lot now and getting very popular on the jazz scene.
It all works.
FJ: Is that laid back approach yours as well?
ROBIN EUBANKS: Yeah, I think I'm very laid back. I don't like babysitting
people. Everybody knows what they have to do. Of course, there are times
when you have to put your foot down and make a decision and that's cool.
I try to be not a taskmaster. The other part of it is that everybody in
my band are friends of mine. A lot of them I've known for over ten years.
FJ: Hard to yell at friends.
ROBIN EUBANKS: Yeah, yeah, they know when I'm pissed though. I'm not a
yelling kind of person, especially when I'm angry. I get quiet (laughing).
FJ: Goals?
ROBIN EUBANKS: Well, I would like to do more recording of my music. I've
played with just about everybody that I want to play with and it is time
for me to present my music in a setting that is conducive for me. Right
now, this band is that, but I'd like to do stuff with larger ensembles,
writing for larger ensembles and leading larger ensembles. I'd also like
to get into film scoring and things like that also. Basically, I would
like to use this five piece band that I'm using now as a core group and
do some larger ensemble things. The other thing that I really enjoy doing
is solo stuff and I've done that several times. Because of the advancements
in technology, I'm able to do this one man band with solo trombone and
electronics presentation. I do it now within my quintet when we perform
live. I do a segment and let the cats get a rest and I just play by myself.
I did a presentation at Oberlin in support of the new CD. I did two hours.
The first hour, I did by myself solo with all the electronics and then
I used some of the students in my improvisation class to play some of
the compositions from the new CD. So it's two different areas that I still
want to delve into.
FJ: Is a record in the works?
ROBIN EUBANKS: I hope so. I tried to do a little bit on this recording,
but I was running into some technical problems so I just put it on hold.
But I am definitely going to do a solo recording. There's no doubt about
that.
FJ: You seem at peace.
ROBIN EUBANKS: I'm a very peaceful person, probably because I'm a Buddhist.
It's all a part of continuing personal development. It's given me major,
major perspective on it. In fact, it's helped me understand who I am as
a unique individual and helped me understand everybody's unique like no
two people have the same fingerprint. No two people have the same karma.
Through practicing Buddhism, I am able to understand my uniqueness and
once you understand your uniqueness, if you put that in musical terms,
then you won't sound like anyone else because you're like no one else.
It just makes it possible for you to really present what it is about you
that is different from everybody. Hopefully, that's the key. Instead of
having everybody sound like Trane or Miles or even J.J. or McCoy and Herbie,
sound like you. Then people will respond to that, when they hear something
unique in your playing. It goes back in the day and how you used to listen
to those old Blue Note recordings. You could hear three notes and you
could tell who that person is. Since there has been more formalized jazz
education, it has gotten to some degree, an assembly line type stuff.
Plug in this lick on this chord. Plug in this lick and you can sound like
Trane. What's wrong with sounding like you?
Fred Jung is the Editor-In-Chief and has chosen door number one and won
a brand new brand. Comments? Email
Him