Courtesy of Steve Wilson






Stretch

A CONVERSATION WITH STEVE WILSON


NINA YOUNG: When you're at a dinner party, how do you introduce yourself-jazz musician, bandleader, musical Renaissance man?

STEVE WILSON: (Laughing) I'd say none of the above. I try not to tell people I'm a musician unless they ask, simply because I want to be seen as the person first. Ultimately, the person you are is what you bring to the music. I'm interested in people, what they are, what they're in tune to, what they're connected to. That affects me; it's a way of connecting with people. It gives me an idea of who may be a potential listener, who a potential music enthusiast might be. I try to get an unjaded point of view in either direction and go from there. But again, the person you are is what you bring to the music, and I try to get people to see that first.


NY: How do people usually react when, after you get to know them, you tell them that you're a musician?

STEVE WILSON: Usually with a great deal of fascination, based on the assumption that most people don't have a musician or an artist in their family. Even though, I have found that, more often than not, if they look long enough, there's someone there. There might be a novice pianist or a vocalist, or someone that's been involved in the creative arts. Usually, they're fascinated because the first thing they want to know is, "Oh, is this what you really do for a living?" "Wow, you play the saxophone. So what's your job?" That kind of thing, that kind of reaction. At that point, I'm happy to talk about it. This is my profession and this is what I've been doing for a long time, just like anybody else, and I love what I do.


NY: On your web site, you said that the real purpose of being a musician is to develop your own voice and to leave a unique legacy. How do you think that you as a musician have developed your voice, and what kind of legacy will you be leaving?

STEVE WILSON: Well, it's still a work in progress, as I like to call it. I'm still searching for that voice. After 27 years of playing, I feel like I'm beginning to hone in on the voice. It's been a long journey because this journey's taken me to a lot of different musical places. Everything from marching band in high school to wind band, to garage R&B funk bands when I was a teenager, to college and formal private classical study-flute, oboe, and saxophone, and big bands, and there's even more. All of that, all of those experiences are shaping my voice and my sound and my concept. I feel like an important milestone that I've been able to get to in the last two or three years. From working with people like Leon Parker and Ralph Peterson and Dave Holland and Chick Corea, I've been able to bring all of these different experiences into the musical fold, and that's something that I've tried to bring forth in this latest recording, Passages. First of all, I've been able to acknowledge all of these experiences and then put them all into my sound and my musical concept. I think that, after 27 years, this is the beginning.


NY: Who was it that opened up your mind to so many musical possibilities?

STEVE WILSON: Actually, it was kind of by default because, growing up in the Sixties and Seventies-times have changed. I hear a wide variety of music growing up because my father was a music enthusiast, had a lot of different kinds of music lying around the house. He sang in a male spiritual choir, so I would get to hear them perform live. And around the house, he had records by Miles Davis, Ahmad Jamal, James Brown, all the Motown stuff. Of course, when I was a kid, I used to watch the Beatles cartoon every Saturday. And growing up in the seventies, when I started to play, it was a very fertile period for R&B music and pop music in general because you had all these different bands. There was such a great diversity in pop music to draw from. Wow, I could name a hundred names just sitting here. Hanging out with my peers, we looked at all that stuff, we checked it all out. It was part of our daily musical diet. I'd go home to practice and I'd be listening to jazz fusion-Mahavishnu, Brecker Brothers, Grover Washington-so all the way through my teen years, there was always such a variety to draw from. It was a time of experimentation, musically speaking as well. Miles Davis had disbanded the classic quintet of the sixties, and pursued more of an electronic direction. I got a bit of that. I didn't really get into it until later, but still. I remember when I was growing up, one of the major jazz festivals on the east coast was in my home town of Hamford, Virginia. It brought in Miles during that Bitches Brew period. On the pop music scene, there was a lot of musical experimentation taking place. Of course, Chick Corea had started doing Return to Forever, so I was checking that out, and all the exponents of that. I got more into the bebop after this stuff. I had gotten more into the fusion and the funk stuff, and found that that led me to checking out John Coltrane and Charlie Parker. The friends of my father's had been turning me on to Sarah Vaughan and Count Basie and Duke Ellington. "Wow, you like music, huh? Well, this is some stuff you've really got to check out." Even though I'd heard a bit of it growing up in the house, I'd never really investigated it until my later teen years at the urging of my elders. I then discovered that, "Oh, now I see that this has been an evolution." It began to set me in the right direction. Definitely, growing up in the seventies was very fortunate. Even though a lot of people will say, "No man, it was a lot of junk and disco," it's all subjective. I think that it was a very interesting time, culturally. I mean, the seventies are in style again. Here we are with people wearing bell bottoms and afros, and I kind of laugh at it sometimes because I walk around the East Village and I think, "I did this 25 years ago." I think it's a testament to the monuments that that period has left us, culturally speaking. The one thing I love about it, musically, pop music especially, is that it wasn't such a producer-oriented music like the Eighties turned out to be, and now the nineties, where it's all about the producer. At least in the Seventies, it was still about the artist. Look at Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind, and Fire. One note, one phrase, and you know it's him. Marvin Gaye, too. Now, you put on a new record, you have to listen to it four or five times to figure out who it is because everything sounds the same. It's the cookie-cutter approach. I think the age of individualism and individuality was still there [in the Seventies], [individuality] was still the priority of the music.


NY: Do you find that it's harder on you now with the "packaged" musician?

STEVE WILSON: That's a good question. In some respects, yes, because now, what has happened is that a lot of the pop music mentality has seeped over into the jazz business. Which means that if you don't fit a certain profile, you won't get promoted. I've talked with many elder musicians, and many of the musicians in my peer group, and if you don't fit the profile of being under 25 or over 65, [record companies] can't seem to find the right kind of novelty package to put you in, unless you seem very eclectic. The other side effect is that the apprentice system has been deteriorating, which has always been the way that this music has grown and evolved. The way it's always been is that as a younger player, you would get a gig or spend a great deal of time with your elders and learn from them. Now, that system is being dismantled by way of the industry because [record companies] are giving young musicians deals before they're ready to be leaders, before they've had a chance to evolve as artists, as human beings, to further their artistic statement. The other musicians, who are reaching their musical peaks, a lot of them are getting ignored, finding it more and more difficult to get work or get recorded or get documented, so it forces them to be more creative in how we approach the business, because it's totally been redefined now. That is the direct result of the pop music mentality and also because of the corporatization of the music. Verve, for instance, is the subsidiary of Polygram, which is owned by Seagram. And I was just reading an article in the New York Times that Seagram is getting ready to be bought by a French holding company [Vivendi] that has nothing to do with music. This music is not based on dollars and cents. This music is based on artistic development, evolution, and hard work, and it has its own set of needs. We all understand it's a business, but most of these people who are running these corporations don't have any idea about the history of this music and how it got to where it is, and why it has become a global music. We definitely feel the effects of that, in short.


NY: Would you rather have fame and fortune after having sold out, or be the ignored innovator that you are?

STEVE WILSON: That's a constant challenge, to bring together commerce and art. Quite honestly, I don't know which way to answer, because I'm like anyone else. I would like to have a comfortable life and would like to provide my son with a decent future and education. I know I've worked hard, along with the vast majority of us in this business, and we certainly would like to reap the financial rewards of it. I don't feel the need to be rich, so to speak, but I would like to be in a position to finance my art and to support my peers. It's probably an impossible question to answer in terms of either/or. I do believe that both can coexist. Hey, look, we live in a capitalist society. There's room for it all.


NY: Let's talk about your new album, Passages.

STEVE WILSON: It's mostly original works. We did ten tunes, and nine out of the ten are original pieces. Our pianist, Bruce Barth, who's been on the scene quite a while now, and we've been working together for over ten years, he contributed a tune called "Lexter," which actually closes the CD. This is the first documentation of what I consider to be a working band. We've all worked together in various combinations over the past several years, in particular, Bruce and I have been working for over ten years now. We arrived on the scene at about the same time. He was well established in the Boston area as a performing educator before he came to New York. Ed Howard has been on the New York scene for a long time. He played with Roy Haynes for 15 years and Clifford Jordan. His apprenticeship is really solid. Adam Cruz and I worked together with Leon Parker's group, the Charles Mingus Big Band. I've had this group in mind for a couple years now, to be the core band. This is the first time that I've been able to document the core working group, so it's significant in that manner, and also significant of bringing all of my musical directions and experiences into the fold. That's something I've been looking to do for a long time. I think I've hinted at doing it on some of my other recordings, but this is the first time I've made a conscious decision to do that. I wanted the artist to know where I've come from, musically speaking, and that I'm one of inclusion, I like to include all of those things because I believe all of those things have validity. I believe all of those things come from somewhere. Why not bring that to the music? It's been a very conscious decision to do that with this recording. If there was any agenda involved, that was it: to record the working band and to present my total self, musically.


NY: And do you feel satisfied that you've accomplished that?

STEVE WILSON: Definitely, yeah. As I was writing the music for this record, much of it flowed very naturally. I did get writer's block several times, which happens to most of us, but as this record began to take shape, as I began to hear it in my head, as I began to look at it on paper, I went, "Yeah, I'm getting it all in there." I was very happy about that, because I don't feel that it's forced. This is something that I've been meaning to do all this time.


NY: Your music has been described as swing, R&B, Afro-Cuban, Latin, funky, jazz. Is there one thing that can describe Steve Wilson's music?

STEVE WILSON: Hopefully "good." (Laughing) Duke Ellington said that there are only two kinds of music, the good kind and the other kind. And Duke was still evolving until the very end, and so was Miles, and I think that's what made them two of the greatest bandleaders of the twentieth century. They were constantly evolving. I've been able to take the cue from working with Dave Holland and Chick Corea, particularly, because they've never put boundaries on their music. They bring it all in, and they encourage you to bring it in when you're working as a side player. I'm certainly aiming to do the same thing. I don't think there's any one word to describe it, and some of the record industry people won't be too happy about that, because they're always looking to put a label on you. The foundation that we're working from is mainly a jazz foundation. I'm not really a jazz baby, so to speak, so much as I would have loved to have come up during the forties and thirties and fifties, because I'm so fascinated with that era of music. But hey, I'm from the sixties and seventies, and I have to bring that there too.


NY: What's the difference, to you, between being a bandleader and being a side player?

STEVE WILSON: Well, as a bandleader, there's much more responsibility. It's kind of like you're piloting the vessel. You want to create a situation for a band to be able to trust each other, to create a real chemistry. Many times, they bring ideas to the music that you, as a leader, would never think about. They are the ones that you are trusting with your concept. You have to be open enough to allow them to bring what they have. You don't want to become a dictator, you can lay the sketchwork, the framework, the foundation, and then surround yourself with people who can build on that, who are really in tune and trust each other. As a side player, what you do is not worry about a lot of the business aspects. It's not your responsibility to make that happen, even though it is your responsibility to know about it. It's not the same kind of pressure because it's not necessarily your name that the presenters are putting stock into, or the record companies are putting stock into. But at the same time, you have the responsibility to bring that music, which you are a part of, to agree to get the most out of it, and try to get involved with it and bring the concept to fruition and be as supportive as you can to the bandleader. There is a responsibility to do that, if you really want that music to happen, if you really want to get what you deserve out of it. So there's definitely some difference there, but I like both because one feeds the other. Being a sideman in so many different groups has allowed me to learn how these different bandleaders approached their music, how they approached their business and their relationship with their band, and I have probably taken something from all of them in learning that process. I feel very fortunate to have been a part of an apprentice system.


NY: What do you think you would have done in life had you not gotten involved in music?

STEVE WILSON: My first vocational choice was to be in social work because it involved being in touch with people. As I got a little older, I realized that it can take on a number of other directions. In a way, what we do now as artists is social work because we're out there, we're sharing with people. It is about communication. It is about touching people. It is about enlightening, uplifting and healing. So it all goes hand in hand. In a way, I feel like I'm still doing my social work.


NY: Is there anything more you want to do?

STEVE WILSON: Oh, yeah. Artistically, there are so many things I would like to do. I would like to record with a large ensemble, maybe with strings. One project that's been in the back of my mind for about four or five years now and I'm hoping to make it happen, is to record with a brass ensemble, because I love that sound. There're some different collaborations, for instance, I would love to do something on the line of what Prince is doing. I've been a fan of Prince for a few years now and I think he's a very creative individual. I love playing funk.


NY: What's up with his name? Is it an identity crisis?

STEVE WILSON: I know part of that was by design because of his relationship with Warner Brothers records. I think it was part of asserting himself as an independent artist. I'm gathering this from everything I've read about him and seen in interviews. At the very least, it certainly keeps people interested in what he's doing, it's a marketing tool. (Laughing) Maybe [his name is] just part of his marketing genius. He's a very creative artist. There's just a whole slew of jazz giants that I would love to play with that I haven't worked with yet. Ron Carter, Roy Haynes-it's endless. There're constantly new artists appearing on the scene. I'm just trying to keep my ears open and trying to see what strikes a chord with me and have that to be a direct influence. Mainly, the whole goal is to keep evolving, to keep going.


NY: Could you give all of us three words that describe Steve Wilson?

STEVE WILSON: I've never thought about it that way. Real. With me, it's very basic. I believe in being real, being true to self. Humble. I'm constantly humbled by the vastness of the world and of music and of humanity. Let's see. Optimistic. I do believe that we have a lot of potential as a human race and that we've only begun to touch on our potential, so I'm optimistic that we'll get there.


This is Nina Young's first interview for Jazz Weekly. Comments?  Email Us.