THE OLD SAYING GOES, “YOU CAN TAKE THE GIRL OUT OF THE FARM, BUT YOU CAN NEVER TAKE THE FARM OUT OF THE GIRL.” WHILE MAKING A NAME FOR HERSELF, AND WINNING A FEW GRAMMY’S AND OTHER AWARDS ALONG THE WAY, AS ONE OF JAZZ’S MOST IMPORTANT COMPOSER, ARRANGER AND BIG BAND LEADER, MARIA SCHNEIDER BRINGS TO THE MUSICAL TABLE QUALITIES THAT ONLY A LIFE FROM THE MID-WEST CAN DELIVER. HARD WORK, TENACITY, A SENSE OF COMMUNITY AND AN INQUISITIVENESS ABOUT LIFE ARE ALL CHARACTER TRAITS THAT MS. SCHNEIDER PICKED UP FROM HER UPBRINGING IN THE PRAIRIES OF MINNESOTA.
HER LATEST ALBUM, THE THOMPSOM FIELDS, IS AN HOMAGE TO THAT UPBRINGING, MIXING HER NASCENT EDUCATION FROM THE LAND OF JUDY GARLAND AND SPAM WITH THE HONING OF HER SKILLS WITH MASTERS GIL EVANS AND BOB BROOKMEYER.
WE RECENTLY CAUGHT UP WITH MARIA, WHO EXUDES AND EXHIBITS ALL OF THE QUALITIES OF MID WESTERN CHARM AND FERVENCY WITH EACH ANSWER
HOW DID MINNESOTA BECOME A “JAZZ MECCA” FOR YOU?
That’s very funny! It was because of this magnificent teacher that I had in my home town. It’s funny; I’ve just had a lot of my archival music and everything all from school and childhood in this big storage facility and I just recently moved it. We just got a house in the country and I got a nice and dry basement. So, I can’t afford this storage facility anymore; I’m going to move this stuff. And, I found my first music writing notebook from my piano teacher.
I always thought I started when I was five. I discovered I started when I was six because it says on my first writing notebook “Maria’s First Piano Lesson” which my piano teacher wrote in.
This woman was from Chicago. She was an amazing stride pianist and classical pianist. The only reason that she moved to this little farm town in Southwest Minnesota was that her daughter lived there. She also had a son and husband, but they both died of cancer in one month. So, she went to live with her daughter and give up Chicago to start teaching piano lessons.
But what was amazing to me when I look at these notebooks (I think she studied pedagogy) is that she taught me piano and music more than just “piano.” She was very much like Dorothy Donnegan’s style. They were about the same age and were both from Chicago. At the time that I knew Mrs. Butler I didn’t know about Donnegan, but I would bet my bottom buck that they knew each other.
These music notebooks confirmed everything that I remember. I remember my first lesson, because the date is in there. She played a major triad on the piano and sang “Bright the Day” and would then play a minor triad and sing “Dark the Night.” She explained how everything in music has a feeling and something behind it called “music theory.” She wanted me to understand why the music that I play feels the way it feels and how it is constructed. So, when I play it, I’m not just punching notes and that I’m feeling the construction of the music logically as I play it. Starting somewhere, going away and then something making you feel that you have to come back around and plant yourself back at home.
So, she would play “Here We Go…Up the Hill…Back again…Home” to show the chords moving up the hill and then bringing you back home. It was really a cute way to teach me and yet underneath it is really profound.
She encouraged me to write music; she taught me not just classical music, but also popular. We’d take some old song like “Ja-Da” and she’d help me work out a stride piano version. And yes, I didn’t get a huge history of jazz from her and when I went away to college I was missing a foundation, not even realizing that jazz was evolving. But the foundation I got from here was really the most important kind.
How does music work? Why does it feel the way it feels? I think that’s the reason I “break rules” without feeling like a rebel. It’s because I didn’t grow up amidst a tradition; I got this smattering of exposure to a lot of kinds of music with a solid underpinning of theory. As a result, the underpinning of the harmonic and melodic development of the music is what matters to me. Not the labels. Not the label or “genre” and all of that, which is secondary. I didn’t grow up with something expected of me. I grew up …the extreme contrast to me being a Wynton Marsalis, who grew up in the hotbed of jazz with his father who was so studied and strong and could teach in a historic kind of way with all that history around you. I was the opposite, and we are products of where we come from and what we’re exposed to. I was very lucky there. If Mrs. Butler hadn’t come along I probably would have become an ornithologist!
TWO OTHER PEOPLE YOU STUDIED UNDER WERE NOT EXACTLY FOLLOWERS OF TRENDS; GIL EVANS AND BOB BROOKMEYER
That was a great opportunity. I was first attracted to Gil Evans and Bob Brookmeyer’s music and they are the reason I became a jazz composer. I also loved Thad Jones and Duke Ellington, anything the Mel Lewis band did, anything the Basie band did. But, to me, there was a depth of expression that was more than excitement that could bring you to tears. That is what I heard in Gil’s music. And Bob this subtlety, this space and nuance, gentleness and melding of genres without trying to do it. He was “Third Stream” without being called “Third Stream.” He was swimming in his own stream. Everything that he loved came out in his music.
And Brookmeyer-he had all the sophistication of development that a classical composer would have. The development of a piece over time where it’s not just a song and it’s repeated in different ways in kind of a theme and variations. It was a whole piece coming out of a germ of an idea, not necessarily a song. That intense skill he had of developing in a jazz context really appealed to me because I had been studying all of this sophisticated development of classical music. So, the idea of breaking out of the idea that jazz was just basically theme and variations was very expansive to me.
So, they were both interesting in different ways. Also, they were both in subtle ways deeply in respect of each other and were also slightly intimidated by each other.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
Intimidated might be a strong word, but I don’t think so. Because, I was studying with Bob when I was working with Gil; working with Gil when I was studying with Bob. When I would talk to Bob about Gil there was this deferential way Bob would say how elegant Gil was. He deeply admired what Gil had achieved and that kind of nuance and expression was not so prevalent in Bob’s music.
But Gil also expressed to me how deeply intelligent , learned and disciplined that Brookmeyer was, and he expressed to me how he wasn’t like that in an almost apologetic way. Which wasn’t true, because Gil was always in the library studying music, but he just wasn’t “schooled.” But Bob was mostly self taught too.
SO, YOU HAVE ALL THIS EDUCATION AND VISION FOR A BIG BAND. HOW DO YOU MAKE IT WORK?
(silence)
DID YOU UNDERSTAND MY QUESTION?
Did you notice my silence? (laughs)”Where do I begin to tell the story?”
There are so many aspects to it. Going back a little bit. When I was back at the University of Minnesota I was studying classical music and my composition teacher, who was a student of (Paul) Hindemith, said to me, ”You are so influenced by jazz; why don’t you go watch the big band rehearse and write for them?” So I started watching and I took some lessons with somebody in the band and somebody in town, just flailing and trying, but I got a couple opportunities to write.
I went to grad school, and got so into it at the University of Miami and Eastman (School of Music). When I left grad school, I already had this small library of big band music that I had written in school, because that’s the jazz format that is in every school in the USA and Europe. So when I moved to New York and wanted to start a band, a big band seemed like a logical choice.
Then, when I had my own band and recorded, people started to come and hear the band, and they would invite me to come and work with their big bands! Before I knew it, what seemed like the stupidest economic choice on the planet ended up actually making me a living because it’s such a common formation for a jazz musical group. If I had written for a smaller group (which I really wanted to) with bassoon, French horn, viola and accordion, I would have had a handful of concerts. Maybe it could have been “highly acclaimed” and sought after and I would have won a MacArthur Award, but I would have had very few chances to have my music played.
So what everyone says is economically the poorest choice actually became an okay choice. I would say that now it is getting harder because a lot of the radio big bands in Europe are losing their funding and Europe is having a rough time right now, and that is largely where I was making my living.
YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GET MANY GIGS IN ATHENS RIGHT NOW
Not in Athens or anywhere. It’s very rough. The hard thing is touring. I’m putting together a tour for this November, but it was cancelled because they lost the funding. It happened last February a week before we left. If somebody cancels a contract like that in Europe, what are you going to do? Sue them? My agent even asked “What does this contract even mean?” It’s kind of unenforceable; it’s sort of a good faith agreement. I’m not going to go around suing organizations in Europe.
It’s difficult, but I’ve been really lucky that my music has been well reviewed and received. But the key thing that has allowed me to make my living was the life changing aspect when ArtistShare started.
HOW ABOUT COMING TO THE WEST COAST WITH YOUR BIG BAND
I gotta tell you. It’s a little tough. I don’t know if I can bring my band to Los Angeles anymore. I brought my band out to Ojai 2 years ago, but the tax laws there are just awful! If I bring my band there, of course I have to pay state taxes, but then you have to file every year after that, and you have to pay a minimum tax every year of $800.
They invited me to play at Disney Concert Hall, and I said I can’t do it. I can’t pay $800 a year for the next six years that I don’t play in California
YOU KEEP THE SAME MUSICIANS (FRANK KIMBROUG AND DON MCCASLIN) FOR ALL OF YOUR RECORDINGS. THEY MUST HAVE THE SAME VISION AS YOU DO
We all enjoy each other creatively. There is a lot of mutual respect in both directions that makes it fulfilling for all of us, so we keep going!
YOU’RE A BIG PROPONENT OF OWNING YOUR MATERIAL. WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF BEING WITH A COOPERATIVE LIKE ARTISTSHARE, AS OPPOSED TO HAVING YOUR OWN LABEL, OR BEING WITH A “BIG” LABEL, OR BEING ON SPOTIFY?
For me, there is a zero “con” and a thousand “pros.” It allows me to connect with my fans and share more than just music. I get to do videos, and if you buy something from my site or register your card that comes with the cd you are enabled to see a host of things that I share about the making of my music. So I’ve connected with a lot of people . A lot of people will write to me about seeing something.
I know who my fans are; everyone who ordered Concert in the Garden (which was my first Grammy winning cd), right now if I record one of those songs in a concert I wanted everyone to hear a solo that Rich Perry made (and paid Perry for the solo), I could upload that solo to the site, write to all those people who specifically ordered that album and say “Hey guys, here’s a little gift I want to give you.” I send it to just those people, and just those people get it. It’s very specific; it enables me to connect with fans and know who they are in a way that nothing else does.
If you sell in a record store, you don’t know who’s buying your music. It’s here, it’s gone; it’s a one shot deal. This enables me to establish something that gives people depth and interest on other levels. A lot of these people become so interested that maybe they want to commission a piece of music. Maybe they want to become a higher level participant and have more of a connection to the musicians in the band and come to a recording session. There are some people on this planet that have the money and want to help and be a bigger part of the music world. They went into a business but always wished they had been a musician or had participated in music in a bigger way, and it gives them a chance to do something like that. And it lets me give them something more than just the feeling that they are giving a handout.
Artistshare doesn’t make me feel like I’m on a street corner with an empty can, but I can say, “Hey, everybody, you can get this cd here, but I’m also going to give you more than you could ever get than just buying a cd at a store or just download it on the internet.” And because all of the middlemen are cut out, I own my own work. I make the lion’s share of the profit based on growth, not based on
“after the distributor, after the record store, after the record company…” I call my own shots; I set my own price point. If I want to raise the price of a record $2 because of expenses, I can do that. I’m driving my own ship.
The music industry right now is completely the opposite. These other companies say,”We’ll give you 70%” and I say “70% of what?” A musician shouldn’t have to be vulnerable to Pandora, Spodify and Youtube and their CEOs who get $20 million dollars a year. It’s absurd.
YOU SOUND LIKE SOMEONE WHO GREW UP IN A FARM IN MINNESOTA BECAUSE YOU’RE SO PRACTICAL.
Absolutely. Let’s get the power back in the hands of the artists. Whenever I do clinics and speak to students I tell them “Don’t give up ownership of your work.” But these publishers all come to the artists with these attractive offers. “I’ll give you $100,000 advance for your whole catalogue” and some musician that’s never owned a couch or an iphone is very vulnerable to something like that.
HOW DO PEOPLE BECOME GOLD, SILVER AND BRONZE PARTICIPANTS?
Through the web site and just getting the word out. If I’m doing a new project I’ll send out an email to the whole kit and caboodle of everyone who’s ever signed up or gotten something from us. I write to them all and say “We’re doing a record and you can pre-order it and you can become a gold, silver or bronze participant or even an executive producer. Here are the perks and what you get.” It’s pretty fun!
I had a record release gig and a few of those bronze, silver and gold people were able to come. We had a little get together. It was very fun to see the guys in the band meeting these people. They met the designer of the cd . It was really great, and I think that they enjoy having that contact. I enjoy meeting with them too.
WAS IT A BIG CULTURE SHOCK COMING FROM “MINNESOTA NICE” TO “WHAT’S IT TO YA” NEW YORK?
Truthfully, In Minnesota, when I go back, I think that people actually ARE nicer. I know what it’s like to go back to Minnesota and think that it’s all a fake and no one really says what they think. I’ll go back and say to my mother, “You’re paying everyone to be this nice to me. You want me to come back here to live.” Everyone in New York just tells it like it is. Yes, they can be rude, but I like New Yorkers. But I don’t ever remember living in Minnesota and feeling like “I can’t say what I’m really thinking.” People are just more polite.
There is less sarcasm there and less guile. Life is simpler. People are friendly; they may not be as apt to really bring you into their world. There is a bit of a friendliness with a healthy distance. That’s sort of the Scandinavian way.
I’m from a very small town in Minnesota where you can pretty much walk everywhere. I felt that when I came to New York that it was the closest thing to anywhere I had lived in to Windham. Because, when you live in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn or wherever you live, your neighborhood becomes like a little small town. You have certain stores that you frequent. They’re all within walking distance; you can walk to the drug store, the dry cleaners and the grocery store. Your neighborhood becomes your little village, which is very different from living in a house somewhere, driving to a mall or a big box store. To me that feels very isolating. New York does not feel isolating; it’s very warm and like a small town! I love that.
YOU DON’T MISS THE LUTHERAN CHURCHES ON EVERY CORNER?
(laughs) We have a lot of churches around if I need that!
WHAT DO YOU DO FOR INSPIRATION?
I was just telling someone yesterday how deeply disconnected I feel from reading because I’ve just been so busy for so long. I had so many books on different kinds of spirituality that my mother came here one time and she said “Maria. I have to tell you; I look at your book shelf and it’s a little alarming. People are going to come here and think ‘Is this all this woman reads?’” because it was everything from Buddhism to Cabala to Krishna…everything you can imagine.
Everything is such a mystery. I think that faith is wonderful and an amazing thing. I don’t think any religion can have ALL of the answers. I think that life was meant to be a mystery. And yet, there are universal truths.
The whole idea of someone saying “We’re going to kill you because our religion is right” is completely insane. To me, there is joy in the mystery. There is a certain aspect of this life that we should be so serious about, yet at the same time it’s like a crazy riddle.
IT’S LIKE THE GREAT PREACHER CHARLES SPURGEON SAID, “WE ALL WALK WITH A LIMP. EITHER THE “LOVE” LEG IS TOO SHORT, OR THE “TRUTH” LEG IS TOO SHORT. WE NEVER WALK PERFECTLY EVEN, BECAUSE WE’RE NEVER ABLE TO BALANCE LOVE AND TRUTH PERFECTLY IN THIS LIFE. WE’RE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR ONE OR THE OTHER MORE AT ONE TIME, SO WE TEND TO LIMP ALONG IN LIFE.
That’s so true. I love when people can look at religion and can see it in a more broad and loving kind of way.
ANY UPCOMING MUSICAL GOALS
I’ve never made goals. This year was both fun and exhausting because I made this new album. I did a project with David Bowie, and that was rewarding. I hope to do more collaborations. I kind of just put one foot ahead of the next and never look too far ahead.
I’ve never had a vision or goals for my life. It’s all so “way beyond.” I go wrung by wrung on the ladder. When you do that, and do it with a lot of love, hard work and good intentions and keep yourself open to live a life improvisationally…you open myself up to a lot of opportunities.
LIKE FOLLOWING A TRAIL ALONG AN OPEN FIELD IN MINNESOTA
Yeah. I’m glad I’ve lived that way, because if I hadn’t, I never would have found what I have, and it’s way, way better, fun and enriching than anything I could envisioned in any plans.
But then, everyone is different; some are better planners. They might have spun their wheels without strong goals. Each of us has to listen to our inner self as to how we run and work.
AS YOU CAN TELL, MARIA SCHNEIDER IS STILL ON A MUSICAL AND SPIRITUAL PATH. AS ST. AUGUSTINE SAID, ‘OUR HEARTS ARE RESTLESS UNTIL THEY REST WITH THEE.’ MARIA SCHNEIDER TAKES EACH SONIC CHALLENGE LIKE A STROLL ALONG THE NORTH SHORE OF LAKE SUPERIOR, OBSERVING EVERYTHING TO BE LEARNED AND MAKING A SCRAP BOOK OUT OF IT TO PASS IT ON TO OTHERS.
HER SPIRITUAL P ILGRIMAGE IS JUST AS FASCINATING, AND WITH THE SAME PILGRIMAGE, IT IS HOPED THAT SHE WILL FIND THE RIGHT END RESULT SPIRITUALLY AS SHE HAS MUSICALLY. STAY TUNED!