One of the things I’ve wanted to do with the blog is not only put up articles about my peers but also put up interviews with some of the people who have inspired us to make music.
I sat down with guitarist Carl Morgan a few weeks ago to come up with the following series of questions to ask Sydney based Guitarist James Muller.
Here’s what he said:
What motivates you to keep practicing/disciplining yourself to continue working on furthering your craft?
A lot of it is being inspired by other musicians, especially my contemporaries and the new-breed. I get jealous sometimes when I hear my friends sounding better than me. Ha. I don’t want to be left behind sounding old and lame! Also, I get bored playing the same old stuff.
What are some of the ways you’ve approached working on time/feel?
Mainly, it’s just something I’m always aware of rather than working on specific things. I’m more conscious of time than harmony or melody. It’s the most important component of jazz, I think. I play little rhythmic games when I practise – usually just picking a tempo and then subdividing the beat in different ways. I like going up and down through quavers, quaver triplets, semiquavers, semiquaver quintuplets and semiquaver sextuplets. Then I try and mix them all up randomly. Also, dividing regular quavers/semiquavers into odd groupings 3/5/6/7/9 etc… All of these things really help your basic 4/4 playing. Feel, is different. It’s harder to work on. I listen to players with great feels and try and analyse what it is that makes their feel great. Usually, it’s about the way they accent certain notes and where the lay on the beat, but it’s also the shape of the melodic line itself that makes it feel groovy or not. I don’t think you can play any old bunch of notes and make it swing, no matter how good your time feel is. The way the notes are arranged is really important (and the rests too!). It’s taken me a long time to figure that out…
What are some of the key aspects that you feel are most important for younger aspiring musicians to work on?
If you’re a pianist or guitarist – COMPING. I’ve only really just started to get into that. What a fool I’ve been. It’s so important to learn how to do well. Transcribe comping as well as solos…
Business skills! I’m not kidding. I still have no idea with that stuff and I really regret not learning more about it. Hopefully it’s not too late.
Are there any bands or musicians (of any genre) you’ve recently discovered that are challenging or inspiring you to think differently about music and improvisation? If so, what aspects and/or ideas have you drawn from them?
At the moment I’m on an Allan Holdsworth kick. He is a real genius. Listening to him has totally reinvigorated my practising. The way he constructs lines and chords is incredible and completely unique and I think everyone should be checking him out. He’s as heavy as Coltrane, I think. He has changed music. Sean Wayland is a constant source of inspiration. Simon Barker has some great views on music and life. I guess I haven’t “recently discovered” these guys technically speaking. All of these guys are really methodical about the way they practise and learn. I have always been really erratic and just noodled for practise which I guess works to a certain degree but it’s time for me to actually start thinking about precisely what I want.
How has living in Australia affected your development as a musician?
That’s hard. I could be nasty and say “adversely”. There is some incredible talent here and Australia it’s a wonderful place to live but I can’t help thinking we all (jazz musos) would be better off living in the US or Europe. We would be better players and might be a lot better off financially, certainly artistically. It’s not the musicians’ fault really. The more I think about it the darker I get about the way we are viewed by the general public over here. Still, there are many worse places to be.
You recently completed a tour with Sean Wayland’s band featuring Mark Guilliana. Can you tell us about your history with Sean and some of the highlights of the projects of his that you’ve been involved in?
Sean started booking me for gigs in 1997, a year or so after I moved to Sydney from Adelaide. Soon after I was in pretty well all of his subsequent groups right up until he left to live in NY. I’m not sure why he kept me on. I think initially he was impressed with my playing but later it became just as much about having a friend around that respected his music/vision. I think that’s a big part of why I played on his most recent US recordings. I think having another Aussie around experiencing these great rhythm sections and horn players is important to him. It’s great for me!! It’s been amazing to watch Sean develop so consistently over the years. He is one of the great thinkers and problem-solvers in music today, I think. As far as highlights go, the most exciting/fun gigs I did were when Sean brought out Jochen Rueckert and Matt Penman from NY in 2002. That was my first taste of a top-notch modern American rhythm section and I was in HEAVEN! I have recordings of those gigs. Really great experience. I did a couple of gigs at the 55 bar with Sean in 2007 with some great players – Will Vinson, Orlando La Fleming, Henry Cole, Rudy Royston. Matt Clohesy – they were awesome fun too. As soon as I get in the studio though, I can’t enjoy myself. Playing with Keith Carlock, Tim Lebvre and Adam Rogers on the Pistachio CD was great but I couldn’t relax. I wish we did a gig. There were Aussie highlights too – recording with Sean, Nick McBride and Brett Hirst in “the shed” – Sean’s old house in Jarrett St, Leichhardt. My amp was in Nick’s car in the driveway, turned up to 11, Brett was with the double bass in the bathroom and Nick in sean’s bedroom. The only way sean could communicate with the other guys was to speak “live” arrangement instructions into a microphone which came out on the recording! It actually sounded pretty good!!
What are you working on right now?
Chords. Trying to comp better. Trying to remove other people’s licks from my playing..it’s EMBARRASSING when I hear myself do it these days. It will stop!!
5 questions in 30 seconds
Favourite Youtube Video :
Best live gig you’ve seen: John Scofield with Larry Goldings, Dennis Irwin and Bill Stewart @ The Basement Jan 1995.
Best gig you’ve played: Hmm Sean Wayland, Matt Penman, Jochen Rueckert @ Coogee Beach Jan 2002
Current favourite album: Allan Holdsworth “The Sixteen Men Of Tain”
Where can we see you play next? Feb 6 @ the Walsh Bay Jazz Festival and Mar5/6 @ 505.
Later,
Eamon (and Carl)
P.S check out James Muller at www.jamesmuller.com
jenno89
E.Dilla
The Dilworths Blog 
Such a terrific interview with James. He says what he thinks. It’s great to see him acknowledge a master like Allan Holdsworth, a personal favourite of mine so overlooked in the jazz Pantheon. “As heavy as Coltrane”? Big call, but good on you mate for having the guts to make it if that’s the way you hear it (given that many jazz guardians would howl you down for daring to have an opinion that is not commonplace).
Just want to clarify.
James’ opinion that Holdsworth=Coltrane is certainly debatable and one does not have to agree. I don’t agree fully myself though I see where he’s coming from. In terms of pushing forward pure linear virtuosity into new polytonal/polyrhythmic vocabularies and territories I think Holdsworth is arguably comparable to Coltrane and it’s remarkable he is so under-recognised in the jazz world (of course it’s for no other reason than his “fusion” sound I’d bet). I just don’t think Holdsworth is as spiritually “heavy” as Coltrane (please don’t ask what I mean by “spiritual”, life’s too short).
What I meant to attempt to bring into disrepute were ad hominem attacks on people for simply having the gall to hold “controversial” opinions that are often surprisingly innocuous if deconstructed, rather than simply debating the opinions. You see it all the time not just in the jazz world (Wynton Marsalis prime victim) but also in the political world (and the Left is no exception, on the contrary!) or the world of ideas generally.
It’s sometimes as if surely the most basic and inalienable freedom of all – the freedom to think for oneself – is itself under attack. Orwell should have taught us that “thought crime” is no crime at all, but sometimes you’d think otherwise!
Hi Mark
I totally stand by my Holdsworth = Coltrane comment. I’m surprised you very quickly glossed over your “spiritual” statement and didn’t offer an explanation. I personally despise terms like “spiritual”, “organic” and “swinging” etc. As descriptive terms they mean nothing to me. Allan Holdsworth has done much more than further music technically. His music is as deep as Coltrane’s or as anyone else’s. Does “spiritual” have religious connotations? I really think people have a problem embracing our contemporary jazz musicians because they don’t belong to the “golden” era of jazz. Is Bill Evans a much better/deeper player than Brad Mehldau? Is Elvin Jones really THAT much greater than Jeff Watts, Bill Stewart or Brian Blade? Why after 1970 are there apparently no “greats” in jazz? I don’t get it.
I should add – I’m not having a go at you, Mark. Just interested to hear your side..
Well, re your second comment: since I’m sure you noted that I said I loved the interview, agreed with you about Holdsworth and largely about Holsworth/Coltrane and spent some time defending preemptively your freedom to hold your own opinion from what I anticipated might be some outraged bods and adding in of course our friendship and 13-year musical collaboration I kind of assumed you weren’t having a go at me, but thanks for clarifying it…. 🙂
I didn’t mean to gloss over my “spiritual” point. My thoughts in that area might take up too much space and hijack the blog, so I thought twice about elaborating. But if you read “spiritual” as “lyrical” that’d be close as a kind of potted elaboration.
If you feel that Holdsworth equals Coltrane in a more across the board way (not in just *many* ways as I feel, and by the way “Sixteen Men of Tain” is one of my favourite albums by anybody) I respect your opinion. I also respect your right to despise the term “spiritual” and I’m sorry for inadvertantly subjecting you to it!
My views don’t lead to the idea that there are no “greats” in jazz after 1970 as you seem to imply though. I have gone on record several times as saying James Muller is exactly that: a post 1970 jazz great. No, actually I’ve said more than that. In my Facebook profile I said you were to my mind the greatest jazz musician EVER, certainly in terms of pure invention and excitement. So there.
Hey one more point.
I didn’t mean to imply that Holdsworth was merely a “technical” player. Perhaps unwisely I spoke of what he does in purely technical terms, but taking for granted that he is a motherfucker and not a mere technician I took it as read what he does technically serves a deeper purpose, is just a means to an end.
I reckon you do everything Holdsworth does, but are much more lyrical, actually really fucking lyrical! That fills in the dimension that I feel Coltrane has over Holdsworth. But puts *you* up there with Coltrane in my mind.
So I personally would embrace the idea that Muller is as heavy as Coltrane a little more readily than Holdsworth equals Coltrane. Hope you don’t mind me disagreeing a little 😉
Damn! I’ve deactivated Facebook but can see I am going to have to stay away from blogs too, too time-consuming! And I love discussions too much but boy they deplete practise time coz the computer’s near the piano 🙂
But – you said you were interested in what I think, and I need to clarify this: in what I say about you, Holdsworth and Coltrane I’m not just talking about *playing*. I’m talking about *writing* too. That’s an important part of it.
Thanks James for sharing your thoughts with us on thus blog. Wish I saw/heard the Coogee gig!