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Peter Wockner's interview with pianist Barney McAll 15
Peter Wockner's interview with pianist Barney McAll 15 th October 2007 Peter Wockner: You're album Mother of Dreams and Secrets [MODAS] came to bear…
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th
October 2007
Peter Wockner:
You’re album
Mother of Dreams and Secrets
[MODAS] came to bear fruit by recording the rhythms remotely, but authentically in the heart of Cuba and then having the melodies juxtaposed in New York. Is any of this
‘layering’ happening in your new album with Kurt Rosenwinkle and if so
how will this translate to live performances in Australia?
Barney McAll:
This new album “Flashbacks,” is more live with the layering happening on the fly in the studio… I did add some textural stuff to it but its more about playing in the moment with the whole band. There are some rhythmic layers I may have enhanced after the fact as well but not to the extent I did on MODAS. This new CD is a different animal but I really like what it appears to be. As far as playing the material live, its going to be a lot of fun and will translate well… hopefully it will have the same effect that the MODAS stuff did which is that people relate to the rhythmic foundation and want to tap their feet as… well as their brains…
PW:
You’ve been working with Kurt Rosenwinkel for some years now. What is it about his playing that fits with the sound you are trying to create?
BM:
Well I toured Kurt’s “Heartcore” album with him and before that I worked with him in a few situations in NY, but I have always found his sound to be a statement relating to the present moment. When I would go to hear Kurt I would often be moved, emotionally as well as amazed with his virtuosity…why was that? What moves people musically anyway? Why do you get goose bumps? its hard to say , its so subjective but I personally am moved by Kurt’s music. Kurt and Mark Turner (Tenor Sax) very consciously set out to develop their own language and they have embarked upon an original journey that I can relate to and that I aspire to. I remember reading an interview with Timbaland where he was saying that he and Missy Elliot took years to find and refine their own sound…and wouldn’t stop until they had…
Gary Bartz told me that when he was learning his instrument it was only about creating an individual sound and copying was frowned upon. Miles Davis said that he felt sorry for those people still re-hashing what he did in the 60s and that they were like folk musicians confined to playing in museums and “local as a mofo”. Miles said “a man can’t go back into his mother’s womb” …Long and short of it is that Kurt has such a beautiful and distinctive sound of his own
and his sense of music has influenced me so much…he really gets to the core of his music…so I’m just stoked to have him interpret my music, maybe some of it will rub off!
PW:
Yes a leading Sydney based pianist recently told me how much he was influenced by the guitarist James Muller; not only for his playing but also for his compositional talent. The guitar has really moved to the forefront of jazz hasn’tit?
BM:
I don’t know about the guitar but certain guitarists!…for sure.
PW:
The National Jazz Awards have become an important jazz institution
in Australia. You’re success at the National Jazz Awards 17 years ago
was one of your first major stepping stones. In hindsight, how
important was that win in cementing the early stages of your career?
BM:
Competitions are tragic in some ways because they’re so merciless…
especially since music can be so unpredictable with what comes to you on a certain day…so I was just glad I won on the day and it gave me enough money to study and hang out in NY. It gave me confidence too and I suppose confidence can create motivation. It’s interesting how much music has changed since that first competition, I was really impressed with last years piano competition because It seemed to me that the Australian players had so much individuality to their playing whereas it feels like when I did the competition, there was more blatant plagiarism.
PW:
In reviewing your last album ‘Vivid’ in 2006, I proposed that it would also appeal to followers of that poorly chosen term ‘World Music’. Has the inclusion of more regional music in ‘Mother’ and ‘Vivid’ widened your audience?
BM:
I don’t know about that…sometimes I wonder about audiences anywhere these days. I feel like it’s hard to be noticed on a radar screen that is completely covered in green blips…no blip brighter than another…thanks to myspace and youtube and illegal downloading and everyone’s home CD making kits… I certainly didn’t set out to widen my audience by delving into other cultural musics, I just starting hearing things that way… and ideally I would like to create another radar screen, a fresh one. Maybe I should start a website called
ourspace.com
that funnels its advertising monies to each artist on the site?…because I feel like sites like myspace are destructive …as well as… sort of useful. Sort of.
They are certainly destructive in the way they destroy focus and act as a narcissistic and convenient decoy from stuff that’s going on in our world today, the immense corruption seems to be looked over. Sorry, I’m getting off track here but I just read an article in Harpers by Naomi Klein called disaster capitalism
which I would highly recommend. That’s it, off my soapbox. Getting back to your actual question! I do enjoy playing this new music myself and I suppose that enjoyment translates to audiences…I’ve certainly gotten very positive responses from those last two recordings…and I feel like I’m finding my way with each new recording.
PW:
You raise an interesting point in relation to these networking sites. Are you saying that they are contributing to the lack of personal contact between people or even reducing live music audience levels?
BM:
Yes , I’m saying that its seems like people are connecting on these sites but in actual fact they create a less ‘nutritious’ text to text relating as opposed to person to person relating. It sort of fractures relationships because it edits out anything you might not want to reveal and you can portray yourself as anything really but this means you don’t have to deal with the truth. I remember where Carl Jung said you have to relate in some way to ten people every day in order to know who you are, to get and accurate sense of self. In his book “the Cult of the Amateur” Andrew Keen sites an example of one myspace band that had literally millions of hits and millions of downloads on youtube and myspace but.. they didn’t make a cent!… and they couldn’t book a tour of their cyber popularity either. That’s amazing to me and telling.
PW:
You’ve composed a considerable amount music for other mediums,
particularly film. How has this influenced your improvisational skills as a pianist?
BM:
Well film writing has helped me to understand further all the myriad of things music can mean, how many possibilities there are for one sound against another, different sounds against certain images…I have been learning a lot about just how much sound can influence perception when melded well with film. I love the three dimensional aspect of film. I’ve always loved the way Wayne Shorter composed for images in his mind or for certain head spaces and I can hear that in his music…he has described these things in interviews and on some of his record or CD covers and you can hear the place he’s composing to or improvising to in a way. I suppose one of the best things about composing with images in mind, or…trying to manifest some dreamscape or memory with your music is that you get away from theory and you are describing something with music and this creates some other flow. This to me is interesting although there’s more than one way to skin a cat of course. Studying counterpoint is also one of them.
PW:
In a city as rich in culture as NYC, do you ever tire or find yourself short on inspiration?
BM
: I feel grateful for all the external stimulus I have had in NY over these years. I am especially grateful for all the wonderful playing experiences I have had and the meeting of these hardcore musician freaks who have shown me just how dedicated you can be. Two words. Ben Monder! I do however feel like going out less and just delving inwards a little more these days. I go out and check some stuff out in NY but not like I used to. I love the energy in NY for sure but it has without a doubt changed here and I think the political situation on a global scale and the new technological extremes we have reached have put creativity itself in a holding pattern for a bit… It feels like poker players waiting for at least someone to show a hand and then a domino effect of creative response will follow. Maybe the 2008 elections in the US will show a hand and things will shift…will a new Miles Davis emerge. Kanye West? I don’t know…This is of course my own weird angle on things but it feels like we are in a transition period, a germination period globally and when whatever finally flowers, we will see what has been growing…NY can also surprise you like no other place. Time moves fast here it seems and next thing you know, everything I just said is irrelevant.
PW:
People have been waiting for years for the next Miles Davis. With the relevance of jazz today, can another influence like Miles emerge and be recognised?
BM:
A new Messiah, I mean Miles Davis doesn’t have to appear in the Jazz world. Jazz seems to have morphed further and further into all sorts of other categorisations anyway, but I believe there could be a new artist with that much influence and well, magic …and that artist could emerge at a crucial time (like now) as a sort of healer shaman freak whose music or art could get us through and be recognised. That’s what Miles did, amongst other great artists. I hope people will always recognise someone like that but as I say it’s more difficult because the radar screen is completely green.
PW:
You’ve been based in New York City now since 1997, what do you
miss about Australia and in indeed the Australian music scene?
BM:
Well I recently did a recording in here in NY with fellow Aussies Steve Magnussen, Julien Wilson and US musicians Jim Black and Mark Helias. Steve, Jules and I pottered about in my basement and experimented with the music they were writing before we rehearsed with Jim and Mark. It was really so much fun to explore with them and we moved this piano I found on the street down there which my American friends refused to do! It was eye opening to be work shopping again with fellow Australians… I don’t know why but it felt really good and they are such top notch players… it was a reminder of my music making in Australia and how that was. I can pinpoint what it is but there is a different kind of freedom I experienced ..When I fly back to OZ, which I’m about to do to make this tour, I always look at the land when we finally fly over dry land…and the land color and everything about it has this …ring of familiarity to it. It’s like that with many people who grew up somewhere and then return I suppose but that sensation is a good way to explain what I miss; it’s my home and you can’t beat it. It just is. There are fewer venues and fewer musicians in Australia obviously but there is a lot of fertile stuff going on in OZ and I’m looking forward to connecting with it all. I will be in OZ from Nov until mid Jan.
PW:
What future plans do you have musically and are you now based in
NYC indefinitely?
BM:
I still haven’t decided and I may not have in another ten years… but if the republicans steal another election next year, that will make up my mind for me. I would leave the US to avoid the actualization of Madmax.. There are too many Hummers on the streets as it is. As for future music plans, I would like to get more involved with film writing and I have a number of things on the horizon along those lines. I mostly would like to have some time to practice and develop as a player, but these days that is difficult. I intend to do some private teaching in Australia while I’m there and at the same time get into some composing and shedding. I want to learn to play kalimba as well
BARNEY MCALL Septet – featuring KURT ROSENWINKEL- NOVEMBER ‘07 AUSTRALIA TOUR
One of Australia’s finest and most dynamic jazz practitioners, ex-pat New York based pianist
Barney McAll
, joins forces with one of the world’s great innovative jazz guitarists
Kurt Rosenwinkel
, in a collaborative US/Australia national tour between 1 and 12 November to include Sydney, Wangaratta Festival of Jazz, Brisbane Powerhouse Jazz Weekend, Melbourne and Darwin.
The music of Barney McAll blends Afro Cuban Rhythms and ethereal melodies to create hypnotic, interlocking landscapes of sound.
This Australian tour will also see the CD Release for Barney’s new CD recorded in New York and featuring Kurt Rosenwinkel on guitar.
The touring group’s line-up comprises some of Australia’s best jazz musicians:
Kurt Rosenwinkel
–Guitar - (US)
Barney McAll
- Piano, Chucky - (Aus/US)
Shannon Barnett
– Trombone - (Aus)
Sam Lipman
- Tenor Saxophone - (US/Aus)
Javier Fredes
– Percussion - (Aus)
Phillip Rex
– Bass - (Aus)
Danny Fischer
– Drums - (Aus)
The tour schedule:
Thurs:
1 Nov: Sydney The Basement
Frid/Sat: 2&3 Nov: Wangaratta Festival of Jazz –
Sun: 4 Nov: Brisbane Powerhouse Jazz Weekend -
Wed/Thurs: 7&8 Nov: Melbourne Bennetts Lane -
Sat: 10 Nov: Darwin Entertainment Centre –
“Kurt Rosenwinkel is one of the finest and most creative jazz guitarists playing today”
- John Scofield
” Barney McAll is a musical conjurer of the highest order
”
-CMJ REVIEW
“There was a virtual absence of familiar bop riffs, extended bop harmonies or precise bop rhythms. Instead, Rosenwinkel’s pieces offered turbulent, thickly textured waves of sound, mostly produced by Barney McAll’s impassioned keyboard work”.
- LOS ANGELES TIMES
“McAll displays an immediate feel for each pattern and the stamina to sustain them without sounding automatic. McAll also contributed some of the most successful solos, playfully blending his parts of the arrangements with bleeding voicings and darting accents”
-THE BOSTON GLOBE
About BARNEY MCALL -
Pianist/composer Barney McAll moved to NYC from Australia in 1997 to join Gary Bartz’ band and continues as a member of the Gary Bartz quartet as well as with the Josh Roseman Unit, Fred Wesley and the JB’s and “The Groove Collective” who were nominated for a Grammy this year for “Best Contemporary Jazz Recording ” for their album “People People Music Music”. Barney wrote eight tracks on this recording and continues to compose for film and various other projects as well as lead his own band.
Barney McAll’s tenure in New York has afforded him the opportunity to perform/record/tour with the likes of: Kurt Rosenwinkel, Billy Harper, Jim Black, Maceo Parker, Vincent Herring, Matt Wilson, Bernie Worrell, Ben Monder, Billy Kilson, Charlie Hunter, Kenny Garrett, Vernel Fornier, Mike Clarke, Tim Ries, Marvin Stamm , Badal Roy, Stefon Harris, Wallace Roney, Seamus Blake, Peter Apfelbaum, Andy Bey, David Binney, Jeff Ballard, Louis Hayes, Gerry Gonzales, Mark Turner, Bobby Sanabria, Steve Turre ,The Groove Collective, Rodney Holmes, Jimmy Cobb, Andy Bey, Dave Gilmore, Chris Speed, Reggie Washington, Ben Perowsky, Scott Colly, Adam Rogers, Ron McClure, David Gilmore, Brad Jones, Eddie Henderson, Roy Ayers and Liberty Ellman
“Using space and simplicity, Barney McAll conjures mighty music”
- KEN MICALLEF
Barney’s recent solo CDs include :
VIVID
with Badal Roy, Fred Wesley and Rufus Cappadocia
MOTHER OF DREAMS AND SECRETS
recorded at Egrem Studios Havana, Cuba and nominated as best Jazz CD in the Australian 2006 Bell Awards
RELEASE THE DAY
featuring Joey Baron, Gary Bartz and Kurt Rosenwinkel . Voted in the Top Ten Jazz CDs of the year : Village Voice ‘Pazz and Jop’ Awards, Best Newcomer CD: by Los Angeles Times music critic Don Heckman and was one of the Top Ten CDs of 2003 by CD now music critic Drew Wheeler.
WIDENING CIRCLES
featuring Billy Harper, Vincent Herring and Ben Monder
EXIT
featuring Jimmy Cobb, Vincent Herring, and Dale Barlow
