hey everybody I'm Rick biato Brad mdo stands as a beacon of innovation in the Jazz World intertwining the richness of classical music with the spontaneity of jazz to create a sound uniquely his own with a career spanning over three decades mow has carved out a niche for himself not just as a Pianist of exceptional skill and depth but also as a composer who likes to explore and blend genres his ability to transverse musical Landscapes from The Works of Bach to the songs of radio head has not only garnered him critical Acclaim but also a dedicated following in this interview we delve into Brad's creative process has approached to blending different musical traditions and his thoughts on the evolution of jazz needless to say I'm a huge fan of Brad's music Here's my interview Brad welcome thank you thanks it's such an honor to have you here I saw you play last night in Athens one of the things I wanted to talk to you about we talked about it for a minute before is that that you play a lot of contemporary music or contemporary I would say to your lifetime right and historically radio head you played Neil Young Bob Dylan you played The Beatles you play played Elliot Smith on my way home I started thinking well is that like the American song book that jazz players of the past play and I don't want to lump you into being a jazz player to me I think of you as an improviser what is this song book that you're playing or is it is it no song book yeah it would probably be a personal song book um a personal Canon if you will you know of of things that have impacted me a lot of them are early on in a kind of formative you know those first experiences you have with music where something really hits you um and then and then seeped into my musical identity and with a lot of that stuff um there was a little lag because I got into jazz when I was adolescent and put that aside and became kind of a jazz snob for a while and then um I had kind of it just happened I wound up being in La um when I was 26 lived there for about 5 years and was going to This Place Largo where John Bryan had a regular gig and I was hanging out with singer songwriters like Elliot Smith was playing there all the time Fiona Apple Ricky Lee Jones and hearing them cover a Beatles tune the way we would play a C Porter tune in New York and and seeing and and hearing that music again rediscovering it and also discovering some new stuff from that period that I didn't know it then found a way to seep into what I was doing I started doing a lot of it solo and bringing some of those things in for trio so it happened kind of intuitively but I think if I had to say what what makes it a song book in its own a lot of it um that would differentiate immediately from what we call the American song book is guitars you know a lot of these songs were written on guitars and what I seem to be attracted to over and over again is doing open stringy guitar stuff and just trying to put that on the piano or strumming things you know finger picking things um and just wanting to do that on the piano and and so that comes out and of course then it's a different thing cuz some piano you approximate those things by the types of figures that you play yeah yeah like I mean for instance uh so last night I think I did as an encore um Mother Nature's Son yeah um and you know I listen to that I don't think I'm playing exactly but [Music] it's or you know I've played black bird a lot as so right away you can you're going to correct me if I'm wrong but there's an open string that's making all this so rich and beautiful here it's G an open yeah and it's in the middle which is really special and sometimes it gets really nice crunchy yes a lot of harmonic movement but that as a basis um and then with this it's on the bottom it's the D for Mother Nature's Son um so it just feels good on piano and then it also connects to a lot of other music it connects right back to to Bach and what they would call a pedal point or an organ pedal where there's this and Brahms loved it too you know and a lot of so so when I hear that stuff for me it's oh this feels like you know radio head for me can feel like Brams you know or you know it all it all starts connecting together you can you talk about how Jazz standards that you would have played back when you were a kid right and then these songs that you're playing now how they have a different harmonic structure right and maybe demonstrate if you were to take a jazz standard and talk about the types of chord progressions that you would have versus songs that are rock songs that you cover well let's say if we were if we were sticking with Mother Nature's Son such a great tune so in a way I might a jazz player might hear that and say it's simpler because it's [Music] just and then if I move to a jazz tune let's say I love you uh maybe I'll try to do it in the same key and D so actually sometimes what I get a little stuck in with jazz is the way there's here we have have a half diminished two going to a five playing very simple versions of the chord but just to show that jazz in this kind of American song book frame we're in is here's a chord here's another chord and here's another chord and it's expedient and kind of a pragmatic way to get a group of people improvising in a specific setting of here's the chord changes and they call them changes you know but when we're in the vibe of um [Music] um how am I going to make a chord chart on that right I can but it's going to look really wonky it's going to be a bunch of Slash chords with a g on it and and then it's okay that's here's a C major Triad here's something like a is it do we call this a C sharp half diminish no it's just it's just two tones and then this is kind of G major over G major 7 over but actually what makes it so beautiful of course is the specific voicing the the choices of notes and the lack of notes The Emptiness this nice architecture of the of the shapes of the chords themselves and the the melodic voice leading what we call this is doing this going up chromatically this has a nice little Melody so a chord chart might tell some information but it won't do justice as to what makes the tune tick and then that leads to the next discussion is how will I blow on that I'm not going to be able to blow on it maybe or it's going to be a waste of time to try to blow on the changes I'm going to have to have some other interaction with the tune than I do with the American song book thing which is going to be you [Music] know you know I I could really open that up and and if I'm in the rain you know what what Bill Evans and then later Keith and all these great pianists but I can really get into voice leading and go further but I'm still going to have those chords moving along which are an expedient way for the bass player to play so we can all play together in this way that is a little more and I'm not knocking Jazz but I'm just saying that might be a way just to answer to the question of how the American song book that we use we're going to have to use these other more contemporary guitar kind of pop music we're going to have to use the information in a different to improvise in a different way which will probably be more singular I listen to two of the tracks that were just released with you and Chris Potter and Brian blade and John patatuchi oh yeah great great so and I noticed that your comping is different you use more Triads and things things like that more than you would have comped maybe 20 years ago that interesting do you notice the difference or do you have you even thought about that it could be the factor of what I find a challenge playing with with a monster like like Chris Potter who um it's sort of like how sunny Rollins didn't use piano players too much right because it's almost the feeling I get is he didn't need them so Chris is is covering so much harmonic material um in in the solo itself it's all there you know it the melody is there and the harmony it's all in the line yes and it's very dense so maybe what you want to find when when you're comping with him is that he doesn't need your support he doesn't need you to fill him out but maybe something that's key in the phrase or the chord or the tune that might give it more of a a story to tell in that sense you know so that probably means uh less notes not as Den in practice it's just like with Charlie Parker you take away the music everything is there you know what the progression is like in Bach you don't like I mean Bach is kind of the model right the model because it's like if we've got let's [Music] say or maybe the most famous that everyone so it's an arpeggiation which means it's spelling out a chord that I could play that if I was comping behind Chris I'd play a chord but if it's already there in the line it's doing two things it's giving me the harmony but it's also a nice melody you know so it's kind of both when you're comping for yourself if you have a Bas player do you think about I'll play these notes here and then these other notes might give it the dissonance against it right right and and use the two hands kind of to spell different things I think it varies and it depends on the context and one General thing I could say is if I'm playing uh a ballad or something with more space there's going to be less and it might be really paired down um in term let's say great Johnny Mandel tune where where do you start um so Larry's down here we're in the key of D flat and uh I may just really give I think it's a good exercise when I occasionally teach I try to tell pianists can you find me the two notes that you need to tell the story of this of this tune and the and the harmony um so here we're just on a Triad well first I'll play the first four phrases you here in [Music] context so very simple again I like my um pedal points that pass through the chord so I'm going to keep that d right where it is d flat and now this on a jazz chart we might see um an A flat sus or something and we might be tempted [Music] to which would be cool and maybe that'll fin a play but I like starting from a very simple point and then when it gets to the first 25 we have which is a 25 to the uh g flat major I could go you know and we have a nice natural 9 flat 13 you know I could do it you know like that but maybe what can I just find the notes that only tell that [Music] story it's beautiful so there's my voice leading but yes that's not me I mean that's Bill Evans that's you know all this great thing of you know really voice leading but that might be one thing but then if I'm in a tune where I'm in a blues let's say a total other context and we're getting into something I like to go dense in my left hand as a comping so we have these stock voicings you know that we hear a lot what we call stock voicings on a C7 dominant chord that would be the first chord of a blues I like to put an extra note in there maybe I'll put a sound that I like very much is is putting the sus four right next to the third it's actually something that I picked up from Peter Bernstein when I started started hanging out with him he likes to do these chords on guitar yeah a lot of times they're open strings right there's an open string that that just becomes the fourth you know so then that might sound quite more crunchy is what I like to call it you know and if I'm blowing on a blues there's another one here I've got a sus chord sus 13 but let me just put the root right in there and I'm not going to hear it as a corny root because it's stuck right between the dominant seven and the nine so you just kind of hear it in there and it gives it crunch it's a different texture it's a thicker texture like instead of this that got two extra notes there so it's a lot of us contextual depending on the context you're in and also of course the story you're telling in your solo going back to the ballot I might start out here but by the end of it I might be then let's do something different let's go home and make it quite thick and luxurious and and build to that you know last night when you were playing um Neil Young you played old man I thought that was such a great voice I just I loved what you did with it why that song that's it's such an interesting song and it worked so well the way that you did it I mean it's that thing we were talking about at the beginning it's like this emotional connection of me being like 14 going out and buying Harvest and discovering that record hearing his his voice this this fragile voice that he has um getting drawn into the performance and open strings on guitar there there we go you know the introduction so evocative old man look at my you know and so there's my D again um and just it's like I want to play that I want to feel that on piano and and then as you go along and you try to do that those kind of it poses nice little problem solving things as a Pianist because what I try to do on that and I hope I can do it off the cuff but I'll try to play the guitar part which I'm sure is a bastardization but it's something like this with this little melody in there and then I'll try to do the his Melody while I'm doing that so I'm doing something that we get asked to do all the time in Bach or whatever of of playing figuration and Melody two things you put it all together and you get this nice rich texture sure where there's at least three distinct things going on in a pop tune you know beautiful beautiful when you are playing these extended passages with just the left hand you don't do it in a stride piano way you do it you do it like a classical pianist yeah yeah I think I would say that and and with all respect to the stride tradition I think it's there there's something where I say I'm not going to mess with that because I don't have enough uh technique uh someone who I think is really doing new things uh with stride is Sullivan forner I don't know how much you but he's he's really doing something new with with that language but for me what's hard about stride is this this I'm sort of telling on myself but it's also a lot of romantic classical piano music list chopan a lot of this it freaks me out you know so so this movement of of picking up your hand because I'm afraid I'm going to hit the wrong notes so a lot of what I'm doing in my left hand is holding things and having figuration at the same time so for instance uh I like to play this radio head tune little by little and i' put kind of something a little Baki whatever Beethoven um so here's a nice little minor major thing that they like to do a lot and and I just expanded out and just arpeggiated it and bring the [Music] melody and then add it into the right hand so that that seems to um be easy enough for me to do that that doesn't seem easy Brad that seems very well maybe in terms of something that comes natural yeah which to answer your question in a long-winded way is is no doubt a lot of classical literature it's a lot of Beethoven too and um his piano sonatas and using what's really arpeggiation a lot um in hopefully an imaginative way when you were a kid and taking piano lessons were you forced to practice Yeah but in a really good way I think I think I'm really lucky and I think that has a lot to do with how people uh the kind of musicians they become so I had a great sort of everything musical uh piano who taught me how to play the piano and read music I lived in a small town Bedford New Hampshire started when I was five with this wonderful guy Mel saulin studied with him till I was 10 and had a pretty good grasp on how to read me music and he was hip because he had some kind of what I thought of was a jazz gig but it was probably what we'd call a club date he played in a restaurant he had a Yamaha cp80 and and they played like this masquerade and Isn't She Lovely you know like and um but he'd improvise a little bit in there and I always thought it was so cool I remember getting Goosebumps so he showed me I remember we worked on anything from like we worked on that tune if from bread um we you know like we this one one of these pop song books and we learn tunes of the day whatever and then he'd write in little ornamentation and he'd showed me yeah you could just think to do this and that was nasy an improvisation for me then moved to westart Connecticut in 1980 when I was um 10 and this was all my mom God bless her finding these teachers for me and she found this woman Ruth herwitz who was juliard trained uh was a concert pianist retired and became a um a classical uh te teacher um and um immediately started me like the first week with a Bach Prelude um not that one but the next one in minor the C minor Prelude from book one well ter clavier and a chopan nocturn the nocturn in E Flat Major um and it just so that was the first real classical it wasn't simplified it wasn't a simplified version of it it was real classical music from the composers reading it just changed the whole game for me and she also got me practicing scales we'd go through a scale every week so I learned all the scales and different keys working with different Hannon exercises yeah basic classical um training and and that was a game changer me so even though Mr saulin in in bed for New Hampshire had been great for five years with her I improved in six months more than I had you know everything changed I developed a technique and uh and musical knowledge of how to play and and that started seeping in you know right away what are things that you practiced later on or what do you practice now do you do you actually warm up and practice scales arpeggios things like that not so much um specifically but but sometimes uh if I am improvising for fun I will find my way into something that I want to do and can't do that's the way I might practice for instance I was working on I've always wanted to do something with Lucy and the sky with diamonds okay um but the problem is I everything you know that's got everything that's so beautiful what we got to talk about plagal cadences so there's one in there specifically the plagal Cades with a minor four to Major one which is Beatles it's so much great pop music yes but so I love this part of the tune but I never know what to do I can't find a way to do that without just sounding like a straight cover of the tune right which is not so but I've been trying to do things with this and so I might practice um ways that I can open up that open that up harmonically so I've been practicing putting it in my right hand maybe I'll first start improvising trying to I don't know if we call this reharmonizing it but let's say put some different base Motion in there work from that what these little shell notes suggest but go from there maybe that's nice to make it a sort of B minor 7 you know [Music] and you know um oh how could that be hip well then try to parse that out a little bit um so that's kind of practicing it's kind of practicing slash ear training slash improvising slash working up a tune for a gig right so maybe practicing becomes more of a um what's the word where you integrate when you try to integrate everything into one act kind of what I'm shooting for in life and General is to like make the practicing uh part of everything else growing as a musician or even to jump out and go out on that limb to grow as a human being like all at the same time you know if that's possible so practicing isn't a discret experience as a means to an end thing of like I want to get better at this not that I have anything against that and it doesn't have its place it's just I don't know if if that even works for me anymore you know maybe the age I'm at to get very specific about you know so I want to talk about your I'm the walrus version which I think is absolutely beautiful so one of the things about that song is that there's really no minor chords in it yet JN does all these beautiful blue notes and this is such a part of your style is your use of Blue Notes of Blues that that to me is like when I hear that that's Brad mow is that a song that you played for or is that just something that you thought about for that record yeah I mean I want to stay with her because I'm very intrigued at what you're saying about the major chords I mean yeah and also this um it's the introduction and it's uh and then it comes back as an interlude yeah like you say all just major Triads and then what's more we have a little whole tone scale um and we're kind of not far away from WC R friend you know um and then on top of that you know so you mean [Music] like and he's he's doing that great thing that a singer can do where pianist can't is like is this a c or is it the blue third or is it so you can sort of say that fine I I think it's an interesting discussion because again for me it's where the feeling of Blues of black American music of all this stuff where that's coming from where they were coming from and the feeling of wherever John Lennon you know but then what it evokes in me as a listener I relate it to French music from the turn of the 20th century somebody else must just think like oh that's weird and maybe John lennin just found it sort of on the piano you know and he does play piano on it that's that's so he must have written it on the piano yeah but with that tune and a few other John lennin Tunes there's a kind of um almost a naivity about the the harmony the way it's when you go to Paul there's this voice leading there's there's all these you know um with John Lennon it's sort of like yeah and then the ending also when he's playing the melody he goes from F major to B major and he's doing the sharp four to the third right and then he becomes the root to the flat 7even of the B that trone movement is so odd yeah yeah yeah but it's so natural I always think to myself how do you come up with this stuff you start this song b a GF e and then D and then the verse starts on a it's like what yeah to me it's why the Beatles are you know it's what talk about in in just art more General is this kind of wonderful weirdness yes there's a weirdness that makes it unusual but that's actually what makes it Timeless is that it's unusual and then that weirdness mixes with the thing that then we come to know it as familiar it's kind of weird and homebased at the same time you know that's what that music is for everybody you know he also goes in the middle to that D sus that D sus4 chord and then up to the E The Voice leading of it is just so unusual and beautiful and Brilliant y y yeah really beautiful voice leading it's true but the uh the ending of the song so the bass is going one way and it's and again to me there's a naive about it because it could be something John Lennon was having a good time and he just started say well what if I go this way with one hand you know and so you get [Music] this as sending Dorian exactly it's Dorian descending it's descending right so one has the flat six uh and one one has the natural six and maybe you could argue wonky that that's because the leading tone pulls me to this more a and why he did that I don't know because it's on the it's on the C chord he plays that F sharp which is so interesting he plays the E on the D chord which is beautiful and then the FP on the C chord and then the G on the B chord yeah yeah it's just so weird yeah yeah yeah when you play The Melody of that it sounds the verse part just sounds like so much like you it's like God that's such a perfect song for you one of the things I noticed last night that we talked about when you first came in today is Hey Joe that you uh that you played that it's this series of plagal cadences right let's say we start on C you get C then G then D then a then e so it's like a 41 4 one and then that becomes four so it's sort of a NeverEnding plagal and and that opened up so many possibilities it it absolutely blew me away thanks if I could get you to play a little bit of that that would be amazing well also what's great is that opening guitar ref you know oh yeah which I hear a lot in another tune I love to [Music] play you know walking down that pentatonic I love that that's beautiful we just live there in that in that world but you know so there's a nice you know Blues Hendrix E major guitar open string Blues um but what I like playing in this tune is to find something that's between um something more triatic and not Blues as its basis um something more maybe more informed by classical music um or sort of singer songwriter uh joany at the piano blue kind of vibe [Music] maybe working more with you know uh you know just little sus um resolutions within each chord sort of singer songwriter world and then mixing that with where it comes from which is this sort of Blues thing and and how can those things kind of inter you [Music] know well when I'm getting into improvising I'm going into that arpeggiation world we were talking about and one thing I did with that yesterday and I've been trying to do I've been trying to work a lot on uh groups of five against four so here I'm just in sort of call those 16th noes so my right hand is now doing one 2 3 4 5 1 and I'll try to keep my lift and then eventually cut loose and where I wind up a lot with that is the sort of cascading arpeggiating five tuplets maybe try to bring out a little Melody within the figuration like a little game you can play on that radio head tune it's a melody in its own right it's the base of the tune but it's also part of the arpeggiation like I wouldn't have to accident it would just be but if I want to bring it out there it is um great thing that you encounter in a lot of classical literature where they tell you that in the in the chart you know they tell you they write it as the eighth note that's in the figuration and they also rewrite it as a half note or whatever and and to me that's something that can be worked on for the rest that's the kind of stuff I work on when I'm practicing is voicing like bringing that out without cheating with the petal mhm without making it too loud and then okay now I've got it but I can still articulate here and you know those things can really be practiced on for uh control Dynamic control you know going back to the pleo thing I'm in that five tuplet Zone maybe I'll start changing uh something that KY Werner one of my teachers was great he would talk about changing the function of the cord um he had it more in a jazz standard context but maybe in this I've still got my bass motion it's still a c chord A G cord and a deep but maybe I'm going to change the nature of the chord the function so here I'll do it the first time just the way it usually is and then start to change the kind of chord it is maybe put a little aolan vibe in the and then do some voice leading within that on each chord so those kind of things but still in this but still really with the basis of this um the tune as five chords right it's that thing that's that's the whole tune you know Brad you're killing me that you don't play a little bit more there because that was absolutely beautiful and if you would expand upon it for a minute I would be sure I would be unbelievably [Music] psyched [Music] when you went to to that one spot when you changed the E7 to the E altered it was beautiful yeah yeah so then then it's like oh it's time to maybe put a different you know and then that leads nice again to the C maybe do some stuff in the core wow that's beautiful there's a quote when I interviewed Vinnie cudu who's an old friend of mine and I I said Vinnie told me about flow and he goes thought is the enemy of flow and I was like wow it's like a great little hi coup kind of that's that to me when I hear this that you are not thinking you're just in the moment yeah is that a good description of it sure in the moment I think I always make the distinction there there's an intellectual process that's going on and sometimes we go too far in talking about flow and we disavow all the intellect that's taking place but it's taking place in this other tier where we're not thinking of it in real time it's sort of going on and the intellect has taken place at some other point in practicing and listening and wonking out and you know what's that Harmony you know and then it's all in there and then it comes out it's not me and it's a very sacred kind of thing and it's sort of everything and and that's where I find God that's where I would talk about those kind of idea however you put that it's something that's greater and you see it when you watch a great athlete or when you watch a basketball team and it's like the guy who's about to get the pass he sort of knows it before like they're moving together and they're almost one step ahead you know those kind of things can happen in improvisation and uh and you can't will it so sometimes it's more on than other times you know do you find that it's more difficult to play songs that have a simpler harmonic structure like old man versus playing all the things you are or Stella By Starlight the harmonic progression kind of tells you where to go or Rhythm changes or whatever well I think usually the simpler like we're talking about a Hy it's sort of that's an approach that's usually for solo mhm um and the thing about solo is that then I don't need well most of the time that's a bass player to try to read my mind when I'm all going to say goes that to that other weird and then he'd have to catch it really fast he or she and it's easier to be open harmonically and formally as well because if I'm playing solo and I want to I'm hanging out in that V but I just want to hang out on E major for a while and have this fun thing with the point if I try to explain it to somebody you know you get that person who wants to be in on what you're doing you've just gone to the Vanguard and you've heard a set of Joe leano and they kind of say something like yeah well I heard them they played all the things you are and then uh were they just kind of going for it after that because it sounded like there was something and all you really have to explain to someone is well it's like theme and variations it's like they're they're using the structure of the tune but they're not playing the melody anymore but then they're using the Harmony and the form of that should be easy enough to explain but you you probably not surprised that how hard it is even to explain that because then the next question is what's the harmony what does harmony mean actually you know what do you mean by Form you know so actually you know the the the Jazz game you know the basic uh entrylevel thing that students are learning how to do you know in high school if they try to learn how to blow on a blues is pretty hard to explain to someone but what it is to answer your question is it's a very expedient way to get a conversation started in a group setting and then go all so standards are easier with playing with other people and um and if you're going to play one of these Tunes I think like a pop tune that's more vampy and has less harmonic movement um it's going to be maybe for me it has to be some musicians who I'm really really interested in playing with and I know that we can do something more than just jamming out and descending into something that might be a trivialization of the tune and just like you know playing Blues over it or what you know or something or doing something different with it you know when I interviewed uh Gary Burton I talked to him about this harmonic language that a lot of the ECM artists use the triatic things Triads over Bas notes things like that then I asked Pat maeni this and I asked Keith Jarrett this and there's a uh language that you could say ornette Coleman I mean uh Keith talked about that that um uh Charlie Hayden yep that is based out of the Midwest kind that has a himym likee a lot of the things are himlike kind of yeah when I hear you play your I mean your music is so diverse I mean you have records where you cover Rush songs and stuff which we we'll get to a second did you ever think about that when you listened to those records back then that that they have a certain language I think it's because it was so early for me uh a few formative ECM records that I didn't have it for anything to be different from okay and what would be those records for example um definitely you talk about Keith Breman laain that that was a triple LP record for me I got on my 13th birthday from this other kid I don't know how he knew about Keith Jarett but was a Super H gift and at that point I was was um still studying with Miss herwitz um was starting to get interested in jazz I was in my middle school jazz band but only knew a few records I knew Oscar Peterson because my dad's friend was a jazz fan so I had Oscar Peterson playing duo with Joe Pass one of those killing Pablo records where he's doing a lot of stride oh man and he's playing with just that phenomenal feeling of Swing so I had that in my ear yep um and then cult train my favorite things and that was about it and then this Keith Jarrett record um and I heard it and I I know Keith would probably be annoyed at this but I related it to other music that I knew that was piano music but I didn't know a lot of piano music so I related his kind of beautiful free willing triadic piano stuff to Billy Joel because Billy Joel was my guy you know and and Billy Joel I just like like early Billy Joel like [Music] um uh no I'm going to forget it but street life serator I don't know if you know that record gorgeous piano playing on that record and Turn Style is in his first record and I was also into this Windam Hill stuff remember Windam Hill record course now a lot of those probably don't hold up so much they're kind of repetitive but I loveed George Winston and I had just been to see him in Hartford and I loved the way he played in this modal style that was very it kind of took me off into this dream world then I heard the Keith and what I heard was this kind of world but then going into this other Zone that that was transcendental and I didn't have the word for it yet but it took me on this journey it was epic you know um and then shortly after that a year later actually I guess I was 12 then when I was 13 then I heard uh travels I shouldn't tell on myself but I was I was with a friend and he had an older friend who probably wasn't wise but he gave me a hit of masculine pure masculine and I heard that as I was really entering the peak of the trip and heard are you going with me mhm and his solo on the Roland yeah and then it was like that was one of those sort of outer body experiences and I don't think it was the the drugs as much but that but cemented something in my consciousness of um with Pat again it was the harmony it wasn't it it was something that I related to rock but also this dreamy world of the triatic stuff that I didn't have a name for it um and this intensity level this kind of ecstasy those made huge impression on me you know and and really that's some Pat records and some Keith solo are just a big part they really seeped in early on so and I'm sure they're in me you know on the travels record um that solo is his are you going with me solo on there is amazing Pat's phrasing is almost impossible to copy nobody and but his sense of Melody how he will play a phrase that suggests another phrase right and he's just able to do that time and time again I know you did a couple records with Pat and played with him what do you think about his phrasing and that his his sense of Melody well you described it very well in in the sense of uh how one very melodic beautiful thing which which could kind of be its own entity then leads to the next thing and then what we have is and nothing original in my language choice but storytelling and Pat and I talked about that pretty quickly as soon as you know just that that's what we valued in the music we loved was the sense of in your Solo in your solo over the changes you know in the normative Jazz thing that a lot of the music we wrote was kind of in that mode um you know the value of telling a story you know you know so so it's it's the melodic strength in itself but it's also point A to point B where it takes you from the beginning to the end um miles you know miles so what you know why why is that record so iconic you know it's the sound the swing all these different things but but miles is solo with such Simplicity it's like this story and and where you leave the space you know and and you know sentences and phrases and um but then with Pat it's really uh you we talking about the way he could sort of negotiate the Triads through those kind of changes it's it's just very much a case of that's his voice you know and and that's I think what everybody wants to to have a voice that's just your own you know then it's like you're called to do that because it is you you know I mean that's really he said such a strong identity you know when I interviewed Pat he made made a h funny statement true St he said compared to Bach we all suck that is funny Bach has come up in so many interviews whether it's sting I mean almost everyone that I've interviewed brings up Bach obviously you made a record where you did um was that a commission things on that record uh let's see was it a Comm yeah it was commissioned the there's in fact there's three pieces that were commissioned three pieces after Bach there's two that are on that record and I'm happy to say there's another release after BO 2 coming out in May that will have the last one so then they were those written pieces were combined with uh some of box music himself and some improvisations of mix tell me about your relationship with Bach's music oh man I don't want to sound stupid because as soon as you start talking about Bach even like what Pat said it's like you don't want to sound like an idiot because it's so high you know and also so many people have opinions about Bach and about you know what's right and what's Orthodox and and what's not it's very interesting as a piano player it's really so challenging because there's nowhere to hide is how I would put it and I guess a lot of music is like that but but really very much with Bach um because of the content of it you you really aren't called to use the damper pedal to help out your phrasing and so it makes you even more aware of your tendency to do that you have to have absolute control over voicing what I was talking about about being able to manipulate the dynamic in every finger the way you want to bring out a Melody while another Melody is going on um and then also articulation where that's regarded so if you're dealing with um a even a three-part fugue you have so many things you have to be working you have to be working on articulation on Dynamic control um and all these things just to even get in to be playing it right MH so a lot of what Bach has been for me for years studying mostly is preludes and fugues those two books um couple of the English Suites few other things has just been feeling like I can play it right but there's another level which is of course um trying to make something musically beautiful out of it you know um so it's very daunting you know because it's it's so hard in that respect is it hard to believe that some someone like Bach actually existed and he wrote all this music it's like uh it's like Leonardo you know it's like Leonardo da Vinci it's like a few people who come along and they're a point in history also historically where there are fulcrum where there the summation and the apotheosis of one tradition which was um polyphonic vocal music and this a contrapuntal you know with all these kind of rules that he broke he either he either solidified them or made them a little different so he so he reaches a summation of a polyphonic tradition and then he opens it up to something that's going to be more Harmony but he's both because the next thing that happens after Bach eventually in in classicism is you get you know this is doing this and it's great but you're getting something that's also a lot of jazz it's here's my Harmony yeah here's my changes yep and here's my melody and with Bach they actually they're interfused the Harmony and the melody are one and and and nobody ever kind of does it like that again you know so yeah it's really we are all dumb in whatever fat said you know there there's something to that you know he said it so matter of factly he was just kind of out of the blue he like well compared to Bach we all suck yeah I can picture F say that yeah yeah that's great there are certain certain things that are rights of Passage and Jazz right playing Rhythm changes y I used to used to tell people that um well how do you tell the difference between a jazz player and a fusion player just have them play Rhythm changes and then you move up and eventually you get to the Giant Steps and countdown and that's kind of the Pinnacle of of jazz Harmony or maybe the maybe that's running the gauntlet of of the skill of the improviser the Jazz improviser to be able to improvise over those kind of cord changes right right that modulate constantly changes changes as such yeah because even even countdown it's still dealing with those same kind of changes minor seven you know it's not into the world that then we get into with when Wayne's writing for Miles where these are really different more complex you know more comple Harmon yeah like mod and more complex yeah that's a really interesting intersection there so you go from cold train right and then you have Wayne almost at the same time a couple years later M you know Giant Steps 1960 then you get to speak no evil that record yeah Jazz Harmony changed because of why why did it change there in the 60s from from the cold train yeah to these other kinds of sounds is it just they were searching for things what do you what do you think about that I think it's it's that thing where a lot of it's just originality and genius but certainly you can see it in the figure of John colrain himself in the trajectory in a short time of these records he made and and for me the one that's so inspiring is the Run of records that I think maybe you know correct me if I'm wrong were made in in a few sessions maybe over a two week period That's col Train sound col train plays the blues but so then he's got let's say on c train sound he's got a standard the Knight has a thousand eyes so he's already taken it from this and now it's pedal point but still we're in that Harmony but there's something here that's already looking forward to where he's going to go in a few years which is going to be big chunks of pedal points and but then it's going to be as it goes on it's going to be it's going to be more his sound it's going to be more modal over pedal points and then he gets to the bridge and you know but he's going to put some Giant Steps in there so he's doing that he's he's at this Tipping Point he's starting to finds it's so exciting to hear those records like the culain blaze of Blues is it's got this I think that's Mr day maybe so it's the blues and it really feels like the blues but it's something Mixel Odeon and the other thing I love about this this record is McCoy Tiner who for me is like the great influence and it's these records and it's before he does this before he was into playing all the fourth voicing and he played right he did totally different vocabulary yeah it's thirds right yes and it's softer and it's yes and and then it's interesting because he kind of leaves it and then he goes on and he finds this fourth thing and it's great but yeah so I think that's just this progression that that that happened uh in a few singular musicians you know and to see how it's concurrent with Wayne and what he he's doing and the way he's writing and and and Miles as a stylistic innovator as this figure who sort of was very good at keeping his own identity but surrounding himself with these very Visionary people allows it to happen he has the balls to say yeah no that's it it's just going to be D minor for 16 bars and then just go up half step to E flat minor and you know you can even just play this scale if you want you know and that's so fun to hear how Cannonball gets in there and you know he's trying to trying to slam in progress and then col train is discovering something new like literally you know it's yeah and then it all unfolds uh in pretty quick time you know yeah all that all that stuff happened in such a short period of time yeah amazing right I uh one of my favorite records um McCoy record The Real McCoy where he plays a passion dance and that's uh Elvin and Ron and uh Joe right yeah I asked Ron when I when I interviewed him I asked I asked him you know what's the difference between playing with McCoy Tiner and Herby Hancock or what's the difference between playing with got see this is this already been put this one I got to say was there between playing with Tony Williams and Elvin Jones yeah I mean how many people could really speak to that yeah and he had some really interesting um insights into that but Real McCoy on that tune passion dance that particular Rhythm Section I what's what's interesting is that you have a combination of the kind of half cold trains thing and then you have Joe and then you have Ron who's in miles you know in the the quintet of the 60s right and that's one of the most swinging records and they're just playing you know that thing thing is just playing like over F yeah over F over FSS what whatever y when I talk to rock players like oh I don't get Jazz I don't get Jazz and I like like listen to this yeah because that's as rock as you could possibly be McCoy and that that group and that record that tune even is so rock yeah so heavy right do you mean the um the sort of aggressiveness performance and a lot lot of people don't think of jazz as being aggressive but that's yeah it's so aggressive sounding yeah yeah yeah something about that is is is H it's like the Pinnacle even the it starts out with an Elven Phil That Tune and is really compressed the the drum room mics cuz it's bleeding into everything right right right right and it just sounds like lead Zeppelin to me totally when I hear that sounds like Le Zeppelin but then in the soloing and in the there's a then there's this other thing because I like to do that aggressivity comparison but there's going to be a thing that then when it gets to Elum when he's there's also this depth of subtlety and finesse that jazz kind of wins in that regard you know as great as bonom was and the natural way they play and the way they're something that kind of got lost in rock at some point the beat got smaller you know the kind of dick wagging thing that they have the way they have a Groove Together the way it's a big beat you know is is Al it's it's a nice overlay that you have in the 60s you know and then you've got Mitch Mitchell you know kind of doing this thing that sometimes more it's kind of like oh it's kind of Tony Vibes you know right which is a different kind of beat you know okay you're a big rush fan you love love progressive rock yeah but rush in particular you made a recording you do Tom Sawyer you do a number of Jacob's lad number of rush rush tunes on your version of Tom Sawyer is is who's singing yeah yeah he he came in and a like the next day I was I had another singer in mind and and they backed out and Chris like yeah I'll do that so he had no preparation but he knew the tune cuz he did yeah incredibly found something on it right yes now where you go in that tune you kind of start with the song but then you take it way out yeah in a in a beautiful way but in a very heavy way what was your inspiration for that why that why Rush well I guess what we did on that tune is that then it goes and it's kind of 78 or 74 however and and then there's always a bar that lurches that's one less beat or so we just took that rhythmic basis and then I wrote something else in there which was kind of the idea of that to honor their tune and and then do something different that would sort of be a little bit what that whole record is about um is sort of maximalist Prague like let's take this as far as it can go and and you know so then got a little wonky wrote out some specific things um to push it but that tune you know we were talking about I think were we talking about open strings on guitar yeah you know so I heard that tune I remember I was 10 years old I think when the record came out and you know was you know so I was in I'm like yeah cuz I was listening to Van Halen to their first two records I was listening to DC I was into Hard Rock and then all of a sudden it strips down and it's and I you know take me away to some dream kind of world you know dreamy music that's what I started to call it and well there's our open string and it's an e you know so that kind of more dreamy World um yeah very mist mysterious I think a year later I discovered an Rand I was reading the Fountain Head and I kind of understood how there was something about this kind of individ individualistic thing uh so it was sort of a political Awakening as well you know talking about Tom Sawyer I knew the book you know so it was also kind of this picture of this badass kid around you know my age you know like somebody like so the whole package you know I was in and then I went back and discovered um other records are theirs uh sort of back chronologically permanent waves hemispheres farewell the Kings um and I got up as far as signals and I loved that record and my first band was a cover band it was a duo with a drummer and we did a cover of subdivisions um you know and then and then after that as I continue I I don't know those records as well because then I became a jazz snob okay talk about becoming a jazz snob because so many Jazz musicians refer to themselves as going through a period of being a Jazz snob yeah why and the ones who don't still are cuz that happens too you know and they're like I don't listen okay why is that a thing why is the term Jazz snob I used that about myself when I was a jazz musician I would I went through a period where I was a jazz snob and I always use that term as well can you not become a jazz musician without going through a period of becoming a jazz snob I wonder that's a good question I mean I guess if you're calling yourself a jazz snob you're most likely being ironic because you have some sense that it's not good to be a snob so you're going to say I was a jazz or I'm a bit of a jazz snob and it refers maybe in its in its worst manifestation as an actual disdain for other kinds of music because you think they don't rise up to Jazz um which I guess you you know you certainly have that with classical music snobs but you have punk rock snobs Absolut and you have prag snobs you know and so so you have these people who somehow have gotten into the idea that because uh their music is so deep that somehow it makes other stuff less deep you know which is kind of just an error in thinking or even logic you know it can't be you know um but I think the thing of of being a snob for a while is that you need to see why something is so great and why it is great just what we were talking about you know the you know the the McCoy solo starts and all of a sudden it's gone from this bombastic thing and and then they're just tipping and it's so refined and it and it's and there's so much information going on but there's the there's a looseness and there's this kind of badass thing going on and this ethos of the whole thing then you go back to houses of the Holy and you're like you know so so you become a so that's what happened to me you know was I was listening to all this great rock and roll and when was the Jazz snot period and when did you kind of come out of it kind of like 15 15 16 you know and I still hung out with kids I only had a few friends um uh Joel FR was a big one a fantastic tener saxophonist and so we were snobs together and um but beyond that I was hanging out with other kids smoking weed going to parties and there was a big kind of Grateful Dead hang so there were a lot of dead heads um so I was hanging out in that scene and I was still hearing a lot of that records but it wasn't really I I didn't yeah I it wasn't I wasn't as into it you know and then there was a bunch of other music going on in the 80s that I totally just thought was ridiculous and sucked it was a lot of really interesting New Wave stuff going on that now I'm going back and discovering um and but I missed it then I didn't have time for it you know a lot of great like cockrock stuff like I'll go back and listen to gun guns and Rose like n now I see why that is you know it's got something you know it's got a fire to it but it was not um on my radar then you know and I really had a reason for it's like it doesn't have depth there's no Harmony you know all the things we're talking about in the way now as to why is something different you know what does it give you that more than it was a framed was like it doesn't have what I need you know it's not deep doesn't go far into something I want to play something off the Jacob's Ladder record the is the is love life deep maybe as his are the world is the is love and life or maybe as his SK are the world is the world is love and life 40 maybe as his guys are the world is the world is love and life for maybe as his SK are the world is the world love and for [Music] May who's singing on that that's um uh he was he was just a little kid and uh a friend of my son my son is Daman that was one of his best buddies Luca okay and he was 11 I think and uh now he talks like this um but I knew he was a good singer because he did a school play with with my son son and and they all sang and I said wow that's a voice um and I always wanted to do something with that kind of a a voice a boy soprano CU it's such a beautiful sound without the vibr and it's something different than a female soprano um so I got him he came with his father who's a classical musician and his father kind of talk him through it and he sang that one and then he sang The Melody of the of the yes tune that ends the record Starship Trooper he has such good pitch yeah yeah yeah the types of voicings that you're playing and the harmony there I love all these these spread Triads and everything that are so rich down to the lower register yeah now is that something that uh this harmonization that you because you're kind of reharmonizing it every time are you just improvising it or or you kind of have an idea what you want to do how do you I think then I did write out the shell of [Music] the I think that's what it is um so I wrote that out in the studio getting an idea it all kind of unfolded first I have him I'm thinking I'm going to plug that into to where it really belongs which is the refrain of Tom Sawyer yeah but oh what if I just Loop him so we got him singing it in two keys and then we just feed that in and then I made this structure and then had it as a chord basis but improvised the performance um so a little of everything there so you would take it you just write out what the chords were yeah yeah set and just nothing more than just e you know there's any logic to that something stepwise doing something I might be but but uh yeah just e f SHP you know and then okay roll tape wonderful uh engineer who did so much for the record um co-produced it really um John Davis over at Bunker sound um you know was able to do a lot of these things in quick time okay let's record that and you know uh and then at the end of the day we'd have all these things okay what happens if we put Luca's voice with this and and because it was during covid the whole record with the exception of a couple things um some a great performance I got to do with um uh with Becca Stevens um in real time piano and voice nothing else was done with two people in a room really a CO everything was over dubs yeah um and not even in the same studio so then we flyed the thing out to Mark Juliana so we were obliged to use click tracks too which I'm not a big fan of so this this record is very much in that you know quantized whatever you call that you know it would have been the choice yeah but you know because what I had was uh I had a big session with a bunch of vocalists booked for April 1st 2020 you know and then it went up in smoke and then I sat around feeling sorry for myself for a while and said well how can I make this happen there was the ability to do some things in a studio with one guy you know wearing masks already in June in Amsterdam so I started doing things with with him um and then eventually got over to New York and started doing it in pieces like that you know and then some things Mark sent his tracks from his house Becka Stevens and a few of the other vocalists uh just recorded them themselves if they had a decent enough preamp and all that so so that's how the record was made you know but then it's cool because I I feel like it led to some another kind of music I wouldn't have made music I wouldn't have come up with some of the loopy stuff that I'm into that then allowed me to improvise in a different way and make a different record sonically very much different than I ever would have made if we were all in one room the loop you took was out of Tom Sawyer was him singing that right that part out of that the world is the world is love as so then um then I made it starting on one I love that now I want to play the actual Tom Sawyer version with Chris [Music] singing mean mean stride today's Tom mean mean Pride [Music] is not for don't put him down as his reserve of quiet defense ring out the [Music] days [Music] what you say about his companies what you say about Society catch the Mist catch the Mist catch the Myst catch the so there's the same sample of Luca brought back and now it's found its home in the tune you now all the syn stuff you do on here for example the synth that entered there is very much like the for sure like the original overheal over right talk about your relationship with synthesizers and because you use synthesizers a lot use use all different textures you not a uh a purist and as a Pianist and things like that use all different types of sounds is is that something that you've always been interested in as well you know when I was being a jazz snob I should have been also learning about Sin you know so my thing with syn is I I um you know talking about analog synthesis you know really working with creating sounds that's what synthesizers means to me you know is the possibility of that there's a Poverty of of knowledge I've had just cuz I I haven't really gone down that another great thing about John Davis um he's pretty Adept with since and there's a number of of people who are I would get in the range of something but then I wouldn't be able to dial back or you know what is that oh that's you know the frequencies to you know but what's happening here you know and then they would find the sound if I explained it to them a little also midi I don't know anything so what what these new Prophet you know the newer synth uh some of they still have the analog guts but they're midi capable and that came in handy for a lot of tracks here where we could do sequencing things with the sound with the oscillation within the midi to get it to match up to something rhythmically which I had the idea but I never would have been able to figure out how to do it you know the problem solving of that uh John was great at that do you know how to use any Daws or do you not do stuff like that like Protools or anything no do you record in Protools though do you typically yeah so I'm I'm pretty old school you know in that sense I uh I don't have a handle on that or or logic really you know I use music writing software because it's expedient and what music software do use yeah yeah um and uh but beyond that I you know my knowledge is pretty thin on on that kind of stuff well Brad if you can figure out sellus you you can figure out anything this particular song that I want to play is one of my favorites of yours we talked about it briefly this is Garden the [Music] garden [Music] you call that the B section right I guess I guess so yeah and then the next will be C I guess right cuz then there's another it's kind of a long yeah yeah the C-section to me [Music] is there's little interlude here yeah the C-section is one of the most beautiful things that I've ever heard I just think it's absolutely this rare [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] the the harmony the melody the way that that the phrases turn around is so satisfying oh did this song come come from just you starting with the synth sound and just kind of making it up or did you actually have a tune in mind like this yeah indeed that was when I got this um um because that's not the um that's not the profit I bought the other syn the ob6 or ob8 ob8 maybe yeah ob8 which is the great thing that um Dave Smith and Tom oberheim collaborated and made this and so it had this trippy sound I didn't mess with that one at all maybe took a little the filter off it but that was a pre-made sound that had this warbly oscillation and it made me want to play so there were a few Tunes on that that were inspired by the sound of the of the synth itself and then the vocal Harmony yeah I mean it's sort of the stuff we were talking about with the with the Hey Joe you know um Coral like voice sing triatic you know it's so beautiful with all the different the the suspensions and it and it goes to so [Music] many you know that kind of movement yeah I love that it's it's really I I can listen to that over and over actually I have listened to it over and over and over cool that uh is another record that came out that was 2019 I think or so 20 2020 2019 I think um you're doing you do you pretty much do a record a year or something like that right yeah yeah about are these things that you're that you're thinking about you're like okay I'm going to do a record this year and I want to be I want it to be this kind of a record are you constantly thinking what am I going to do what what what do I do next I think there's this period with with records especially ones like that that are sort of conceptual or um where there's this gestation period where something's growing but I don't know what it is and then there's this grab bag of stuff and that can be over a year's time before I even start actually going into a studio you know um and then all of the sudden um it occurs to you this could find a shape and when that happens and how that happens uh is very exciting and mysterious um you know the the poet Randa Maria RKA I always come back he talked about in this letters to a young poet um this young poet is writing him you know what is creativity you know and he talks about in in German but he says it's it's this sort of um pregnancy or gestation and birthing so the idea of the metaphor is that when something's growing inside of you uh when you're pregnant with what's going to be your creative outgrowth you actually don't know what's going on there and then when it comes out it's a surprise as much to yourself as it is to the rest of the world you're going to share it and and what that pregnancy is if you if you had to try to not be mysterious about it it's probably just this analg of all these disparate things that don't that aren't together on the face of it you know it's the s sound uh Bach you know Becca Stevens's voice you know all these and and then they come together and then you get this record so that that's always really exciting because it happens there's usually a moment where all of a sudden oh this could be one thing this could be a record how much involvement do you have in the mixing of a record do you have somebody that mixes your records do you listen to them in the car is there somewhere that that you think is your spot you're like okay yeah this is good I like this version of this I mean always try to listen on a good you know the nice stereo setup I have with two speakers the way I've always heard music um and also these days try to hear the MP3 that most likely everybody's going to be um but in these particular projects John mixed the whole thing and he was really it was his baby sonically also when I worked with John Bryan it's been and I've deferred you know John genius yeah and especially with John Bryan it was really his vision um and I didn't always agree with it in terms of this very doctrinaire thing he has with Reverb or lack of um but but I understood that it was part of his whole sound you know um with John Davis I've been able to be a little more have some uh input but most of the time he's thinking of on this whole other level just in terms of drum sound compression I don't even know the question to ask but then I'll be like well this sounds that oh maybe more compression or oh use this mic more you know um for for most of my uh Jazz Trio records I I've worked with a incredible engineer I'm sure you know him James Farber who engineered a lot of my stuff a lot of ECM stuff and uh and not too much to say to him to me usually the roughs sound already really good you know if you're you're playing with other people and they don't like their solo that has to happen all the time right hey can I do another take of that well I like my solo yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it does happen yeah it depends on who's the leader if it's your record if it's my record maybe I'll diplomatically say no your solo sounded great a little maybe you know yeah yeah but I might choose for my solo if it's my record to be honest you know it's kind of a weird thing with with the ja Jazz records because you know you look at Tommy Flanigan on Giant Steps case some point coldron I like my solo yeah tell me let me have another shot I just saw this you know yeah I mean can you imagine no you know when I used to see Tommy Flanigan at Bradley's and sweet basil in the in the ' 80s when I first came to New York he played Giant Steps all the time and he killed it he had this great thing he did with Trio because I think he said I'm going to get this right for the rest of my life you know because he you know so that was kind of a happy Redemption I always thought that being a leader on a jazz session like that it's it's uh you're kind of trying to balance between your per personal performance it's your tunes yeah and uh and then the other people trying to make them happy with what they do I mean I will say that that the I've had this long-standing Trio with with Larry Grenadier on Bas and Jeff Bard on drums and what's great about them is from from my perspective when they have solos they're all really good yeah and actually most of the time they're not complaining they're like yeah that one was cool that one's all right too because it's kind of true you know they they're particular Larry is just so solid all the time you know and and with Jeff I mean they're really seasoned so they know to take an approach of maybe I'll do one approach I'll be more simplistic and stick with this one Motif idea rhythmically and then on the next one more exploratory I say you have two to choose from so you usually do a couple takes of each song yeah usually two no more than three very occasionally one is like that's enough let's not do another one because that and then sequencing of Records is that a is that a big thing and titling for sure yeah yeah sequencing definitely um and I have leaned on um Bob herwitz at nuch for that a bit um where I've thought I had a sequence I always have a sequence I think and then he said nope start with this one he did that uh with Pat and I on the two records we did on nuch usually haven't agreed with him um at the outset but for instance I had a different sequence for this record I did Highway Rider and Bob had the idea to put this tune John Boy in the front and I'm so glad he did but I fought him for 2 days I said no no I've got this other thing that we'll start with this heavy orchestral thing at the beginning and you know but he was right you know so I have to ask this Brad uh do you ever say to your kids you have three kids we talked about that earlier um do you ever say to your kids hey can I play you something yeah and you must do that right almost never really yeah cuz I don't want to drag him down you know I don't want to bore him yeah yeah maybe it's ego though in a different sense maybe I don't want to be disappointed when I see that they won't be interested I'm imagining I'm sort of doing damage control for my ego ahead of time yeah Dad whatever you know like I gotta go you know no but they're not like that they're they're super into music but um uh it's it's very cool how it's just I'm I'm normal for them I'm just one among many you know all this other stuff they listen to it's super cool well I had to ask that Brad Brad it's been such a pleasure to have you here today I know that we've tried to do this two other times and weren't able to I'm so glad thanks for being patient yeah yeah and uh thank you so much pleasure pleasure thank you