I know that you are intensively touring at the moment. I was wondering if you ever miss the times in which you were practicing by yourself, that immersive feeling that you get when you play all alone, without a pause and without a care in the world:
Oh yeah! I´m definitely way more busy than I ever been in my whole life, and practicing is something I have to do only in between the soundchecks and the shows.
On the other hand, I suppose it must be like a dream that comes true. You are living the musician’s life you were always meant to live. Playing around the world, promoting a record that’s already regarded as a masterpiece.
Yes! It’s what I dreamt about all my own life, since I was a little kid…
Listening to your album “The Epic”, I was thinking how – if compared to the big part of the jazz records that we get to listen nowadays- it seems a very bold statement -in it´s lenght and scope- and a very proud and loud one. It´s also a very demanding record, it grabs the listener and demands his complete attention. For example, when I listen to Change of the Guard -the way in which all the band kicks in the main theme – well, that makes me think that it has the same swagger and power of the first bars of Straight Out Of Compton. Did you plan from the start to make a record of that scale and quality?
Yeah I was definitelly going for something like that. I wanted the music to be like someone breaking through a barrier. In particular, I wrote that song for a generation of musicians out of Los Angeles, like the one of my father and his friends, that never got the chance to express their voice to the world.
Weren’t you scared by the “bigness” of it?
No, I wasn’t. It was fun for me to bring all those musicians together to work on it.
I read that this record was produced as a part of a project in which you and other musicians friends of yours gathered to work collectivelly on each other´s single projects:
Yes, we have a group together. We grew up together, we know each other since we were kids and we got this place that we share and in which we work together. We have a lot of amzing music to share with the world and so, we decided to take a month out of our lives to focus on each other music. It was an important think to do, but it was also difficult.
It’s a very interesting way of working on music, because it’s also very unselfish:
We all belived in each others, we knew the music and the dreams of each other so we wanted to work together. We weren’t using our talents for anyone else in the world except for ourselfs, so we took ‘em up and used them to ease the challenge for each other.
When you say “we”, you mean also your old childhood friend Thundercat right?
Yeah! He was working on his own record, cause he had a record out at that point. He came and played on some stuff for me, some stuff for his brother Roland Bruner, some stuff for Brandon Coleman. He wasn’t one that made the record but he surelly inspired it. When The Golden Age Of Apocalypse came out, that inspired us. We knew at that point where we stood, that we had to start our project.
I suppose Brainfeeder and Flying Lotus in particular played also a role in giving you the change to making it happen. Can you tell us something about your relationship with him and his label?
Since we started up playing together, we had a small group to work on it. Roland Bruner, Thundercat, Cameron Graves and me, and the first gig we did was the John Coltrane Music Competition. We won the competition and Ravi Coltrane came to give the awards and there was this little kid with him, and he was Flying Lotus. So we happend to met back then, and then later on he and Thundercat began making music together. And then during one of their jam sessions, we reconnected. We had a mutual appreciation for our music. In 2010 he asked me If I wanted to make a record for Brainfeeder. He basically let me do whatever I want to do. He let me make the music I want to make, and on the timetable that I want to make it. It took me quite a while to finish it, but it was ok because he just wanted me to elaborate my vision. It was a very healthy process working with him on the creation of my record.
Do you think that Brainfeeder gave you the artistic freedom that maybe other labels would´ve not, trying to bring you to some kind of compromise instead?
Flying Lotus and Brainfeeder are very open-minded, their approach to the records unfortunatelly is not very common. I didn’t really show my music to other labels, so I don’t know how they would’ve reacted to it, but it definitely felt like a unique situation. It was a blessing.
Months ago our site had the pleasure to interview another Brainfeeder’s artist, Jameszoo. In that occasion, since he produced an album very influenced by jazz music, and still without being a traditionally trained jazz musician, I asked him how he deals with the purists of the genre. The traditionalists, “the guards of the gate”, as you called them in “The Epic”. I would like to ask you the same:
That’s a bit of mentality that puts the cart before the horse. The rules and the words that are used to describe music, all the different aspects of it… the so called “traditions”, they come after the music. The music comes first, and then someone comes along and says “Oh, that’s tradition”. To me the real tradition of jazz is self expression, and creativity, and living in the moment. That’s the real spirit and the energy of the music and how you´re doing that. And if you are doing that, how can one tell you that what you are playing is wrong. If you are expressing who you are, if you are playing the music that is rappresentative of who you are, where you are, what you are doing in that moment… How can anyone tell you that is wrong? It’s just what it is. I make the music that I need to make. It speaks to those that it’s supposed to speak to. And if it doesn’t speaks to you, that’s what it is. I don’t think that there is any importance in trying and reproduce what somebody already done. If that’s what you want to do, that’s cool but there’s no necessity for that, there’s no necessity to do whatever everyone else is doing. I think those people are a bit misguided in what the nature of music and jazz is.
That made was also thinking about your collaboration with artists out of the hip hop scene, Kendrick Lamar or Snoop Dogg for example, and since you have an academic, classical musical background, I was wondering how the communication with that kind of artists and you works:
Music and words are sound. When I communicate with someone that understands music, even if they can’t read it write it and aren’t traditionally trained, but they know music like Kendrick or Snoop, I don’t talk to them in technical terms but in musical terms. We use references from some records. We talk about music in a way that is more functional then theoretic. And then, they are both pretty open. They tell you something very particular to do, and they tell you exactly what to do. It works. In the same way as between musicians who don’t speak the same language, but they can communicate musically. Music it´s also a form of communication.
I also read somewhere that you described Snoop as particularly strict band leader:
No, it’s not that he’s particularly strict. It’s only that he hears music in a very detailed way. He has a deep connection with music, he listens to a lot of different music. And when a musician plays his music, he wants to hear it in a very particular way.
I know that you self-released three albums, previously to “The Epic”. I was wondering if in the future there will a chance to listen to them, maybe as re-releases:
The thing is, back then I was touring a lot, and after recording some music I just had this idea to burn a couple of copies to give out to people, to friends. And then there was a record I made that was actually a gift to my grandfathers, and he asked me to make some sort of gospel-jazz record. But he wanted gospel songs with the sound of the electric-era of Miles Davis. So I made that record for him, I actually made one copy to give it to me and suddenly I found out he was burning copies and he was giving them to everybody! I thought “Oh my goodness I gotta better release it!”. I think that one day I would put those records out, it would be interesting. They are also a part of my life.
Is the touring life conducive for your creativity? Are you composing new stuff at the moment? Thinking about new projects?
I actually composed a new piece for one our shows, our last european date, part of the BBC Proms. We will play with an orchestra an I have a new piece for that. Actually working on that on the bus. It’s more difficult, you don’t have the time to get into the zone and into that mind space but, I can do it. I have already composed four or five pieces of music in the last three months. It’s not the most productive time for me, but at the same time I’m creative every night, on the stage.
