IF YOU’VE ONLY SEEN BILLY CHILDS PERFORM ONCE, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HIS MUSICAL WORLD
BEING AN ANGELENO, I HAVE HAD THE ADVANTAGE OF BEING ABLE TO HAVE SEEN HIM IN MUSICAL ENVIRONS RANGING FROM STRAIGHT-AHEAD POST BOP TO CHAMBER JAZZ TO PLUGGED IN FUSION, WITH CHILDS SOUNDING LIKE EACH ONE IS HIS COMFORT FOOD.
THROUGH THE PAST FEW YEARS, HIS CATALOGUE HAS INCLUDED PROJECTS RANGING FROM A CELEBRATION OF LAURA NYRO, SAMBA, STRINGS AND FORWARD THINKING POST BOP. HIS LATEST ALBUM, THE WINDS OF CHANGE, IS ALMOST A THROWBACK TO HIS EARLY DAYS WITH FREDDIE HUBBARD, ALBEIT WITH THE FERTILE IDEAS FROM TRUMPETER AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE
WE HAD A CHANCE TO CATCH UP WITH CHILDS, WHO IS A VITAL PART OF THE LOS ANGELES SCENE, JUST ON THE CUSP OF A TOUR ACROSS THE STATES. AS WITH HIS MUSIC, WE FOUND HIM ENGAGING AND MULITIFACETED
WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON WAYNE SHORTER, WHO RECENTLY LEFT US?
I didn’t know him, as I did Brian Blade, John Patitucci, Danilo Perez or Larry Klein, but my interaction with him was that we knew each other. I really revered him, and yet he acknowledged to me that I could compose. I wish I knew him more than I did, but I knew him enough to be touched by his genius and his humanity.
He played on my Laura Nyro album.
He came over to Larry’s (Klein) studio, and played on the track “Upstairs By A Chinese Lamp” that Esperanza Spalding had sung on. He just played beautifully with his soprano sax.
Afterwards, we all went to dinner at a Brazilian restaurant, with his wife, Luciana Souza and Larry. It was a great experience.
DID YOU SEE HIM WITH ANY OF HIS OWN BANDS?
I saw him with Weather Report, but not the “classic” Weather Report.
I still saw a great Weather Report; it was with Omar Hakim and Victor Bailey at the Hollywood Bowl. It wasn’t the greatest experience because it was one of those Playboy Jazz Festivals where everyone is eating their box lunch and talking.
I also remember going to the Berkeley Jazz Festival back I was 13-14 when my sister went to UC Berkeley. It was there that I saw the Miles Davis Quintet with Wayne Shorter
The Berkeley theater was a cool place to hear jazz. My whole family went; my mom kept commenting on Miles’ clothes. (laughs)
I thought that the music was strange and weird. It was kind of too much for my 13 year old mind to ingest.
I’ve seen his group with Patitucci, Blade and Perez a lot.
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“The Berkeley Theater was a cool place to hear jazz. My whole family went; my mom kept commenting on Miles’ clothes. (laughs)”
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ONE THING ABOUT YOUR CAREER THAT IS SO IMPRESSIVE IS YOUR VERSATILITY. I’VE SEEN YOU IN ACOUSTIC MODERN, WITH A CHAMBER BAND AND EVEN PLUGGED IN. IF YOU WERE A BASEBALL PLAYER, YOU’D BE A UTILITY PLAYER!
Kind of like Chris Taylor! (laughs)
YOUR FIRST LOVE SEEMS TO BE ACOUSTIC
My first professional jazz gig was with JJ Johnson, who had Nat Adderley as well on the front line. The rhythm section was myself, Tony Dumas on bass, and JJ’s son Kevin on drums. I was 19 when I first started rehearsing with them, and 20 when we did the tour.
But I had started playing piano seriously when I was 14, so I had only been playing for 5 years when I started with JJ Johnson.
DID YOUR MUSICAL EDUCATION AT USC PREPARE YOU FOR A GIG LIKE THAT
No! (laughs)
I had a next door neighbor (with whom I’m still very close friends) named Leon Bisquera. He was a few years older than I. He played jazz, and introduced me to Herbie Hancock, and all kinds of things I hadn’t known about.
He me “Cantaloupe Island” on the piano; those were my first real piano lessons. Because he knew jazz and I didn’t, I noticed that when he would play, his fingers just seemed like they went where they were supposed to go to make it sound really good. I didn’t understand how he knew how to do that
He told me that he took lessons from a guy named Herb Mickman , so I started taking jazz lessons from him. He used to sometimes play bass with Bill Evans 737 in New York, but he moved to LA and started teaching. He played piano, too.
He taught me Bill Evans’ voicings, and some Oscar Peterson and Monty Alexander things. That was my training in jazz.
I also took piano lessons from a school in Los Angeles which is now called the Colburn School, but before was just a community school associated with USC. It was K-12, for people who had a musical aptitude. It was something that you took in addition to going to regular school.
That’s where I meet Larry Klein, and my theory teacher who changed my life. Between all of that I got a good training.
But back in the 70s, your training in jazz would be just doing jazz gigs.
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“I noticed that when (Herbie Hancock) would play, his fingers just seemed like they went where they were supposed to go to make it sound really good. I didn’t understand how he knew how to do that”
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THAT WAS AVAILABLE IN LA BACK THEN. HOW HAS THAT GIG SCENE CHANGED OVER THE YEARS?
Basically, your jazz education has moved from the streets and into the schools.
How you got an education in jazz is that you would just start playing gigs in this multitude of jazz clubs. Someone would hear about you, and the word would get around that way. Someone would call you, and you’d start doing gigs, and start climbing up the “jazz ladder” to play with people.
There was no internet to connect everybody, so that meant that people had to go out and hear you. The only way to hear new music was on the radio or go out and see it. The was no streaming or anything.
That’s how you got a reputation
Now, you get a doctorate or something
A lot of people who are really good players have actually graduated college and gotten degrees in jazz. You can get a doctorate or Masters in something and so it’s like classical music now.
With Youtube and the almost scientific way and accuracy, people are being taught how to play like someone else, such as Bud Powell or Art Tatum. Kids now know what to practice for, and how to practice it with an almost clinical scientific precision. They sound really good when they graduate and there’s a lot really incredible players now. But there are less clubs and venues in which to play it.
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“Back in the 70s, your training in jazz would be just doing jazz gigs. Basically, your jazz education has moved from the streets and into the schools”
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THAT CAN BE A STRUGGLE FOR ONE JUST STARTING OUT.
But the more creative players,the ones that make it in the jazz world are the ones that are going to school
HOW ABOUT YOUR “GRADUATE WORK” WITH FREDDIE HUBBARD AND LARRY KLEIN?
(chuckles)
Being in that situation with Freddie Hubbard really taught me how to refine my potential as a jazz musician.
JJ Johnson was with someone from the bebop era, so he played stuff that was pretty straight ahead. At that period, JJ had been wanting to a lot of film and TV writing, so he was focused on that.
The tour that I did with JJ in 1977 was him returning to playing. So, he wasn’t out there pounding the pavement to play gigs all of the time. The things he was doing was not cutting edge, so we were doing things like a “So What” type song called “Why Not” and “Rhythm” changes at a medium tempo n1418 and stuff like that.
But Freddie was right at the height of his playing abilities.
When I joined him, he was about 40, and at that age he’d had all of the experience of playing with everyone you could think of, but he still had all of the physical strength of his youth.
He was playing with a tsunami of ideas when I joined him, so I got the brunt of all of that incredible imagination and melodic invention.
Larry Klein was an incredible bass player, playing both upright and electric. Larry is why I got the gig; he suggested me to Freddie. I owe Larry big time for that
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“With Youtube and the almost scientific way and accuracy, people are being taught how to play like someone else, such as Bud Powell or Art Tatum. Kids now know what to practice for, and how to practice it with an almost clinical scientific precision. They sound really good when they graduate and there’s a lot really incredible players now. But there are less clubs and venues in which to play it.”
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HOW LONG WERE YOU WITH HUBBARD?
I played with Freddie for six years, even after Larry left. After my career started developing I parted was with Larry, but I always kept a good relationship with him. I never missed an opportunity to thank him for having me in the band, because he didn’t have to have me in it. He was following that legacy of Art Blakey, who viewed his band as a learning ground for young musicians.
That’s what Freddie was doing with me.
There were some times where I had no business being on stage with him (laughs). But, he endured my comping because he wanted me to stay in the band.
When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he’d just come over to me and say, “Lay out”. So I would lay out, but then he would allow me to sneak back in .
He was very patient; naturally with all of the bravado and hubris that he had, and was very famous for, he was actually a very kind person.
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“(Freddie Hubbard) was playing with a tsunami of ideas when I joined him, so I got the brunt of all of that incredible imagination and melodic invention”
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DID HE OR JJ JOHNSON GIVE YOU ANY MUSICAL OR CAREER ADVICE?
JJ never gave me any musical advice directly.
Freddie one time said “quite playing solos like a piano player, doing scales from top to bottom. Think more like a horn player, going in the middle, so your line has shape”. I remember that one.
LET’S GO THOUGH SOME OF YOUR WIDE RANGING GIGS. YOU PLUGGED IN WITH ALAN HOLDSWORTH. WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?
I was born in 1957, so when I was 14 and just getting my musical voice and figuring out what I liked, I heard Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and also The Mahavishnu Orchestra and later Return to Forever and of course Bitches Brew.
There was this incredible confluence of different genres. There was “jazz-rock”, there was “progressive rock”. Leonard Bernstein wrote a Mass that had electric guitars with a symphony orchestra.
Laura Nyro had all of theses genres blended into her music as well, so the music that I grew up with was everything, and nobody called it anything; it was just the music that I needed to do.
Being a young guy, I was heavily influenced by the muscularity and complexity of progressive rock and fusion. That music is in my system, and it comes out in a lot of my music.
I play it at The Baked Potato a lot. I have group with a Spoken Word artist, a guy named Paul Calderon. He’s a poet, and we’re a kind of power trio with Rhodes, electric bass and drums. We’re called Prophecy.
It’s an electric situation; I’ve been using Christian Euman on drums on just about everything, in both the electric and jazz situation. Other times there will be Eric Harland, Brian Blade or Ari Hoenig.
I’ve never been on to get overly involved with keyboards and sounds, like a Joe Zawinul, Jan Hammer, or Keith Emerson with a keyboard orchestra sound. It’s more of a cursory relationship with keyboards. But I’ve gotten way into the Rhodes.
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“There were some times where I had no business being on stage with (Freddie Hubbard) . But, he endured my comping because he wanted me to stay in the band. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he’d just come over to me and say, “Lay out”. So I would lay out, but then he would allow me to sneak back in”
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WHAT DOES IT DO THAT THE PIANO CAN’T DO?
The Rhodes has an incredible percussive-like bell sound that just the piano doesn’t have. Every note feels fatter and rounder. It takes up more space than a piano
YOU ALSO DID WORK WITH JD SOUTHER, WHO’S ASSOCIATED WITH THE EAGLES
That was a Larry Klein thing. He asked me to do some arrangements.
I hadn’t even heard of him until Larry asked me to do the arrangements
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“I was heavily influenced by the muscularity and complexity of progressive rock and fusion. That music is in my system, and it comes out in a lot of my music”
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ARRANGING IS ANOTHER PART OF YOUR REPERTOIRE, SUCH AS WITH DIANNE REEVES.
All of that work with Dianne Reeves, for the Laura Nyro project, Chris Botti or JD Souther are all under the same “arranging” heading, but they couldn’t be more different.
I didn’t treat Dianne like JD Souther at all.
The JD Souther thing was just me augmenting the songs that he had already wrote. The classic term is “sweetening”; taking what he wrote and putting strings on it and put it in a fancy dress.
With Dianne, it was a true collaboration where she had a vision, and she was very specific. The vision happened to coincide with things that I find very interesting to do.
She wanted more of a deconstruction type of attitude. Each song had a different story that she was trying to tell.
For example, “Speak Low” was a sultry, breathy, seductive type of song. “Fascinating Rhythm” had ties to African shifting meters. “Send In The Clowns” was like a dramatic Broadway epic type of thing, as was “Obsession”. Each song had a specific “thing” that we talked about. It was more operatic.
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“Laura Nyro had all of theses genres blended into her music as well, so the music that I grew up with was everything, and nobody called it anything; it was just the music that I needed to do”
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IN ANOTHER VEIN, YOUR ALBUM AUTUMN IN MOVING PICTURES IS A CHAMBER PIECE FOR JAZZ
We played a lot of that with “Smitty Smith” at The Red Cat. That was a hybrid.
I’ve always been interested in the coming together at a dna level of European classical and American classical music, jazz.
My way into that was through chamber music, but also with the nucleus of the group being piano, guitar and harp, these three string instruments that can sound impressionistic. That was my way in.
I was also thinking a lot about Ravel, and I wanted to make the music sound like that. French Impressionism was a big influence in the conception of that music.
We performed it also at the Blue Whale.
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“I’ve always been interested in the coming together at a dna level of European classical and American classical music, jazz”
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AND YOUR LAURA NYRO TRIBUTE, MAP TO THE TREASURE, REVEALED A WHOLE DIFFERENT SIDE OF YOU.
That album was a heightened version of what I did with Dianne. Larry and I really put our heads together and figured out a kind of story line.
There were three tunes that I felt simply had to be on the album. Those were “Map to the Treasure”, ****“New York Tendaberry” and “Gibsom Street”. The visions that those songs imparted were very strong throughout my whole life, so I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
The other ones Larry and I talked about had us select the tunes and then cast them with various singers. We put our heads together on that. I then wrote the arrangements.
AND WITH YOUR MODERN JAZZ ALBUMS, YOU’VE ALSO WON A GRAMMY, FOR REBIRTH IN 2017, YOU SHIFT INTO DIFFERENT GEARS.
Early in my career, my first album was with the Windham Hill label.
It’s a travesty that those albums are out of print, because if you want to understand how I got to my jazz chamber situation…I was trying to write jazz chamber back then.
His April Touch (1991) and Twilight Is Upon Us (1989) are chamber pieces. I treated the jazz quartet of piano/bass/drums/saxophone like they were a string quartet. I wanted to write music as intricate and involved as if I were writing for a string quartet.
But those albums are out of print, and you can’t know that; it seems like all of a sudden I just arrived at jazz chamber music.
I had been doing all of these lofty projects, composing classical commissions, writing music for my jazz *****chamber thing and doing arrangements for Laura Nyro. I had kind of gotten away from writing and playing in a small group situation, so I wanted to do that.
I had won this award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters the same time I won the Doris Duke award (2013-15). I took that money and just recorded Rebirth myself, with people I wanted to record with, like Hans Glawishnig, Eric Harland , Steve Wilson, Rogerio Boccato, Alicio Olatuja and Ido Meshulam.
We recorded that, shopped it to record labels, and Mack Avenue said, “Yeah! We like this!”
The album as things like “Backwards Bop” and “Starry Night” go way back to my first album in 1988.
I wanted to reintroduce those tunes
YOUR MOST RECENT ALBUM IS MODERN POST BOP WITH THE BEST OF THE YOUNGER ARTISTS, AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE, AS WELL AS OLD FRIENDS LIKE SCOTT COLLEY AND BRIAN BLADE.
I don’t look at it as “classic post bop”, as its more conceptually inspired by the Kenny Wheeler album Gnu High. It’s more of an ECM-type sound.
Especially the title cut, but the album was inspired by two great noir movie themes, Taxi Driver and Chinatown.
I wanted a very confrontational album. I wanted something where it’s still intricately composed, but I wanted these guys because they are incredible at taking something and turning it into their own thing, a new thing. I wanted that element in there.
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“I treated the jazz quartet of piano/bass/drums/saxophone like they were a string quartet. I wanted to write music as intricate and involved as if I were writing for a string quartet”
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SONGS LIKE CHICK COREA’S “CRYSTAL SILENCE” IS CHAMBER ORIENTED
Yes, it’s ballad with a lot of space
WITH ALL OF THESE VARIOUS STYLES AND POSIITONS, LIKE CHRIS TAYLOR, IS ANY OF THEM MORE OF YOUR “COMFORT POSITION”?
Lately I’ve been composing a lot; I’ve been writing large ensembles. I’ve written a violin concerto, a saxophone concerto.
I’m touring right now with a piece that I wrote for a string orchestra and jazz trio. I wrote a piece for a big band and orchestra with (trumpeter) Terell Stafford and (saxophonist) Dick Oatts. I’m about to write a choral piece, so I guess I’ve been composing a lot
DOES COMPOSING HELP CREATE YOUR OWN SOUND ON PIANO, OR IS IT VICE VERSA?
Too much composing doesn’t, but just enough does.
I’ve been literally drowning in commissions. For the past 1 ½-2 years I’ve had something that has always had a deadline.
Therefore, you can’t get on a regular routine of practicing because the bandwidth in your mind can only take so much; you can’t be thinking “I have to keep practicing” when you’re constantly saying to yourself “I have to come up with a new idea”
WHAT DO YOU LISTEN FOR WHEN YOU HEAR A PIANO PLAYER, AND DO YOU HAVE ANY PET PEEVES?
I listen to see who they are, I don’t listen for anything. I’m not looking for something; I’m trying to see where they are coming from.
The things that I like are when people have worked hard to be clear as to what is in their mind. That’s the best thing to shoot for when you’re playing piano, or any instrument.
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“The things that I like are when people have worked hard to be clear as to what is in their mind. That’s the best thing to shoot for when you’re playing piano, or any instrument”
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WHAT MUSICIAN, LIVING OR DEAD, WOULD YOU PAY $1000 TO SEE PERFORM?
I’m sorry that I never met John Coltrane. I would have loved to have met him.
I wouldn’t have asked him anything; I would have just sat there and listened. If I sat there long enough probably would get the answers to all of the questions I would have asked.
ANY SPECIFIC PERIOD OF HIS PLAYING?
I love every period. One of my favorite Coltrane albums is Transition. I love what he’s doing there.
ANYONE IN WORLD HISTORY THAT YOU’D LOVE TO SIT DOWN WITH FOR AN EVENING AND PICK HIS OR HER BRAIN?
He’s still alive, and I’d love to sit down with Barack Obama.
Someone who I find interesting is John Brown. He was an abolitionist in the extreme sense of the word. He felt so compelled to abolish slavery because he felt that it was morally wrong, and an insult to God, that he was willing to kill people in front of their families.
I wonder what brought him to that.
Here’s Harper’s Ferry, “Let’s go steal some guns, take a gang of people and go into the Pentagon and steal some guns”. It wasn’t going to happen!! (laughs)
I’d also like to add Octacia Butler to the conversation list, because of the way that she thinks.
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“you can’t be thinking “I have to keep practicing” when you’re constantly saying to yourself ‘I have to come up with a new idea’”
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YOU HAVE A VERY INQUISITIVE MIND. HAS THERE BEEN A PHILOSOPHY OR RELIGION OR BOOK YOU’VE READ THAT HAS MOTIVATED YOU TO CREATE YOUR WORLDVIEW?
No.
I have read a lot of stuff
The philosophy in a lot of science fiction books, like ones by Octavia Butler.3957 Because of her thoughts.
WHAT IS THE BEST ADVICE THAT YOUR FAMILY GAVE YOU?
It wasn’t advice that they said to me; it was an example by doing.
They emphasized to just keep a persistent work ethic.
I think that if you’re born with talent, and you don’t work to develop it, it’s a terrible waste.
Who knows what happens before you’re born or after you’re dead, so you have this one shot to develop your talent, and it’s a waste if you’re too lazy to do your work.
Are you going to work to develop what you have that’s been given to you by some Unseen Force that you don’t know about? Not everybody else has this talent.
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“I think that if you’re born with talent, and you don’t work to develop it, it’s a terrible waste. Who knows what happens before you’re born or after you’re dead, so you have this one shot to develop your talent, and it’s a waste if you’re too lazy to do your work”
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WHAT GIVES YOU THE MOST JOY?
There are many things that give me joy. I can’t answer one specific thing; there are too many.
WHAT FUTURE GOALS DO YOU HAVE?
You know how people so many times will say “ I’ve made it”, or “I’m trying to make it” as though there is a level to reach. You’ve “made it”, now what? As if you’re living in “The Land of Having Made It”.
You have to realize that the whole thing is a journey which doesn’t stop. It’s not a place that I’m trying to get to, and once I get there I can chill out.
What I’m going to be doing is simply the same thing that I’m doing now
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“You have to realize that the whole thing is a journey which doesn’t stop. It’s not a place that I’m trying to get to, and once I get there I can chill out”
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WHEN YOU’RE TAKING IN A BILLY CHILDS ALBUM, OR SITTING AT ONE OF HIS SHOWS, REMEMBER THAT WHAT YOU HEAR IS ONLY ONE COLOR OF CHILD’S BROAD MUSICAL PALATE. AS CHILDS MENTIONED, IT’S LIKE SEEING A DODGER PLAYING AT ONLY ONE POSITION, WHEN YOU KNOW HE CAN STAR SOMEWHERE ELSE ON THE FIELD AS WELL. GET A SEASON TICKET TO CHILD’S MUSIC AND HEAR HIM AS AN ALL STAR IN EVERY POSITION!