Ted Nash Interview

Bio:
Best known for his associations with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Jazz Composers Collective, and his own inventive groups, composer and multi-instrumentalist Ted Nash enjoys an extraordinary career as a performer, conductor, composer, arranger, and educator, receiving high praise from both critics and audiences worldwide.

DownBeat Magazine recognized Ted as a Rising Star in the alto saxophone category in 2004, 2005, and 2006 as well as a Rising Star in the tenor saxophone category in 2003, 2004, and 2005. Still Evolved made the Best CD list in 2003 and the Best Jazz Album list in 2004.
Ted's television appearances have included the Grammy Awards, the PBS special documentary "Swingin' with the Duke," and several Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

In the Loop is Ted's third album on Palmetto Records and his second with Still Evolved. James Hale spoke of this band: "Small group interplay this good should always bring a smile to your face." Marcus Printup, trumpet; Ben Allison, bass; Frank Kimbrough, piano; and Matt Wilson, drums all make return appearances.

Their first CD on Palmetto, Still Evolved, was selected as Top 10 of the Year by the New Yorker and made many other national best-of lists. Ted accepted a SESAC National Performance Activity Award for the success of the CD on the radio -- it reached the #1 position on both the CMJ and JazzWeek charts. Tad Hendrickson called Still Evolved "A good one for those thirsty for new bebop that simmers." Like Still Evolved, In the Loop promises to be "filled with plenty of little surprises." (John Frederick Moore, Jazziz)

Ted's recent projects include collaborations with The Augusta Ballet, Zenon Dance Company, and the Orquestra Jazz Sinfonica in Sao Paulo, all for whom he wrote original works as well as appeared as a featured soloist. His groups perform in New York at the Village Vanguard, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, the Jazz Standard, and tour in Europe, South America, and the United States.

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Rick Holland/JR247: Ted, welcome to JR247. We appreciate you taking some time for us.
My first question, you’ve been in and around the Jazz business since you were a young guy. Can you explain the impact your Father, (Dick Nash) had on you and your music, and how he may have laid the foundation in your musical life?

Ted Nash: The first thing I can say is that I was lucky to have such supportive parents. They were very responsive when I expressed interest in something, especially with regard to music. When I came home from summer camp one day talking about the clarinet one of the fellow campers had, how cool it was, not only did my father run out and rent me one, but he called the band director at my junior high school and asked him if I could join the concert band, even though I could barely put the thing together. When I came home from high school one day talking about a teacher I heard about named Charlie Shoemake, who was teaching jazz improvisation, my dad found out how to get in touch with him, and set up weekly lessons for me. I don’t mean to paint a picture of someone who is pushy - a stage father or whatever. He wasn’t that at all. I never felt pressured.

I remember one day my father grabbed my brother Bill, who played trumpet and later guitar, and me, and said “we’re going to play some blues today.” I think I was about thirteen, and had never improvised. He said “just play what you feel.” We spent the next 45 minutes jamming along with a Billy Taylor record. (I worked with Billy Taylor for the first time almost 25 years later, and got to tell him this story.)

One thing about my father and mother both is that they are so passionate about music. My mother was a singer, and they both just love jazz. We had these jam sessions at the house, usually late at night during parties, and people came out to play, and people hung out to listen. As a teenager I got to play with people like Sonny Criss, Andy Simpkins, Dave MacKay, Joey Baron, Oscar Castro-Neves, Carmen McRae, and Louie Bellson.

JR247: Ted, I’ve always loved your musical sensibilities. You play with a marvelous harmonic sense with very musical phrasing. Who were some of the musicians who shaped your musical direction? Can you mention and also talk about Charlie Shoemake and his early musical foundations?

TN: When I started studying with Charlie, I was fourteen, and I was still trying to get it together on the saxophone. He taught a method that combined memorizing solos by people like Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, Sonny Rollins and Bud Powell, and learning from a very organized system of chords and the scales that worked with them. It took me a few months to get it (he used to come out of the room, kiss his wife Sandi, and say “I don’t know about this one...” But once I did, I couldn’t wait to get home from school to work on it. I used to copy the solos to the point I would even match the vibratos of the player -- the same speed and width. I can still play some of those solos I learned 30 years ago. Well, by time I was sixteen I could play somewhat convincing be-bob solos.

Needless to say, the two years of lessons with Charlie exposed me to some of the most important foundations in jazz. I identified particularly with Sonny Rollins and Hank Mobley during this time. Their lines were so melodic and rich, and poetic. I love Sonny’s humor. I guess I was mostly drawn to hard bop in the beginning, but later appreciated Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Warne Marsh, Joe Henderson, Michael Brecker, Bob Berg, and my uncle Ted Nash -- a lot of different types of players. It was a while later, in my twenties, that I went back to discover greats like Coleman Hawkins, Gene Ammons and Lockjaw Davis.

After moving to New York at age 18, my influences shifted to the musicians with whom I was playing. For example, for ten years I sat between Dick Oatts and Joe Lovano in the Mel Lewis Band. They both had a tremendous impact on my development.

JR247:  Can you talk about how composing has had an impact on you as a player? You had masters such as Louie Bellson recording your tunes when you were only 17 years of age. How do you believe this has influenced the way you improvise?

My association with Mel Lewis is probably one of the most important in my life. As I said earlier, playing with these great musicians was very inspiring.

The first group of compositions that really felt successful for me was the music I wrote for a group that later became my “Double Quartet.” The beautiful thing is that growing as a composer and a player seem to go hand-in-hand. It was during this period we were putting on the Collective concerts that I also felt like I developed a more personal way of playing.

JR247: I’d like to talk about some of your recordings featuring your writing, leading up to your most current release “In The Loop”. Let’s start with I believe your first as a leader, entitled “Conception”. Knowing you had written Tristemente, and performed with legends Blue Mitchell and Louie Bellson at this time in your life. What do you feel you really learned from musicians like these and how did it penetrate your musicality?

TN: Playing with Louie Bellson and Blue Mitchell was amazing. They were both such sweet and supportive people. No ego. I look back at that time as completely carefree. I just played what I wanted and it seemed easy.  After recording “Raincheck” with them on Concord Jazz, label-owner Carl Jefferson asked me to do my first solo album. I had just recently moved to New York and it was kicking me in the butt. I had lost a lot of momentum and confidence that I had developed being kind of the “wiz-kid” in LA. New Yorkers didn’t care how young I was, who I played with, who my dad was, just if I had paid my dues or not. It was as if there was this big line that went around the block, and they asked me to get in it.

So when Carl Jefferson visited New York, he invited me to come down to the Vanguard to hang out and sit in with Scott Hamilton and Buddy Tate, which I did. The next day, he asked me to drop by the hotel and talk things over. He was staying at the Waldorf, and I went up to his room. He sat in the chair like he owned the hotel, and when I told him I didn’t feel ready to do my first record, he said I was just being intellectual. So I agreed and we made Conception. I was 19.  But I got a little away from your question. Playing with musicians like these, like Louie, who played with Duke Ellington in the 40s, and Blue who did so many great Blue Note recordings, and played with people like Joe Henderson, was like being connected to the past -- being in touch with those who shaped the beginning of this amazing music. They were the way of seeing backward and forward at the same time.

JR247: What is it like working for band leaders Gerry Mulligan, Dave Samuels and Mel Lewis in the years to come?

TN: Gerry Mulligan was great - so committed. He had a much bigger ego than others I had worked with, and rehearsals could be painful at times. But it was always about the music -- playing it the best we could for him. I never felt threatened or frustrated, as I did when I played with Benny Goodman. There was something about Benny that just made you scared all the time. But that’s a topic for another article.

My association with Mel Lewis is probably one of the most important in my life. As I said earlier, playing with these great musicians was very inspiring. We had a great saxophone section -- Gary Smulyan, Ralph Lalama, Dick Oatts, Joe Lovano and myself. Bob Brookmeyer was the Musical Director in 1981 when I joined, and he was amazing -- really stretching into some new territories. I think there was resistance by some members of the band, who preferred Thad Jones’ sensibility, and I am pretty sure that was difficult for Bob. He didn’t feel the band was 100% with him. But that didn’t stop him from being loyal to the direction he was hearing. I learned a lot from that. He left the band a couple years after I joined. I later studied with him at the BMI Composers Workshop, along with Manny Albam. Mel was the most swinging drummer I ever played with, and he was open to the music going really far out, if it made sense. I loved playing with him, and miss him. I recently heard Jeff Hamilton play, and he comes close to getting that very relaxed and open sound that Mel had.

JR247: Let’s move to another major work and recording, “Rhyme and Reason” which featured a recording of a String quartet and led to a double quartet recording. What was your inspiration and some of the outcomes of this project?

TN: This was the first recording I made that was a result of a Collective concert. A lot of the music on this is inspired by and dedicated to children, particularly my daughters Lisa and Emily, who make a cameo appearance on the track “Rhyme,” reading some nursery rhymes in the background. I also titled “Sisters” for them.
With this music I was also combining aspects of contemporary classical music with jazz. I love Berg, and Bartok, and studied their scores to some degree. Not that this music approaches what they were dealing with from a technically point of view -- it is more my intuitive reaction to their great music.

JR247:  I love Odeon, I mean, what a cool sound. What a great orchestration! Wycliffe is so cool playing on the bottom of this ensemble (Bone and Tuba), and accordion is showing up everywhere in the Jazz world these days!! (Maybe the influence of South American musical idioms) Can you talk about how this project was conceived and how your vision for this music was realized?

TN: Again, another Collective creation. In some ways this band combines several things that I was either uncomfortable with (the accordion) or not that familiar with (tango). I wanted to get a different sound, and started with the tuba. I played a lot with Wycliffe in the LCJO, and he started bringing the tuba on gigs, and we would fool around aback stage, playing tunes, and I loved how he could create grooves, or walk like a bass.
Miri Ben-Ari was Odeon’s first violinist. She played on the Double Quartet record, and just tore the fiddle up. For a chordal instrument, at first I considered the guitar. Then I remembered playing Three Penny Opera with the great accordionist Bill Schimmel a few years before, and was intrigued by this instrument, which could be a whole orchestra in a box. Especially the way he plays it. Like he invented it. I went over to his apartment and said “show me what the accordion can do.” In about five minutes he went from the tango, to a medley of Henry Mancini themes, to Giant Steps. I play a lot of clarinet in the group, an instrument I love playing but wasn’t that comfortable improvising on, but sometimes you just have to embrace those things that used to make you run away.  I started really investigating the tango after a trip to Argentina. I went to a late night tango “school,” which was more like a club, and these very elegant older ladies in all black and perfect hair took me to the dance floor and showed me the eight step basic pattern. I learned three things that night: I don’t speak Spanish, I am not a great dancer, and I love the tango.

Getz used to say he didn’t want to hear the reed. But when he played I swear I do hear a reediness. But for him it was the bright, buzziness he avoided.

JR247: I love the fact you challenge yourself with different musical projects at the same time, and throughout your career. Talk about the three or four different ensembles you lead, and how this impacts your music?

TN: Well, having different ensembles allows me to express many different things. Sometimes when I get called to do a concert, I can’t decide which band I want to use. But some outside influence usually decides that, like who is available, what the venue is about, if I have a good clarinet reed. I suppose it’s like food: some days you crave pizza, and other days sushi. Well, I don’t have Italian or Japanese bands, but you know what I mean. Also, I hear different drummers for different music. When I get the Double Quartet together I hear the way Tim Horner plays. When Still Evolved hits, I am feeling Matt Wilson.
One thing about some of these bands, is that they are very orchestration- or instrument-based, and allow a little less room for open improvisation. I sometimes love playing free, without music, charts, arrangements, backgrounds, codas and all that. I think my next recording is going to be a trio with bass and drums.

JR247: How important is selecting the right players for the music? I know this may sound like a silly question, but I’d like for you to explain the process of how you conceive the music and select the best players to perform it. Could you elaborate on this?

TN: Well, after we formed the Collective, we all played in each other’s groups, because we didn’t have money to pay people, and we would all do it free. Plus, we loved the way each other played, how we could play in these different bands with different leaders, and although it would be basically the same musicians, the outcome would be totally different. Slowly, we brought into the fold other players, and the groups became less narcissistic. I joke that the only way I could have a band without Ben Allison on bass was to have a band without a bass in it (Odeon).
Sometimes having the right chemistry is just as important as having players with great ability. There are a lot of great trumpet players, but when Marcus and I play there’s something magical that happens. This is really apparent on “In the Loop.” I have a great vibe with Matt Wilson. It just seems to work, and can go anywhere at any time. We did a concert the other night at Merkin Hall, just a duet, and we had so much fun. We played a piece, and pretended it was a new modern composition, you know “serious music.” We had the guy come out and set up music stands, and we even put on jackets. Of course, we were just making it up, but I am sure some people in the audience believed were were playing some new commission, or something. At the end of the piece, we held up what looked like our music, but it was a big sign that said “we made all this up.” I guess our musical point was that totally free music can still be organized, even if it’s improvised. But the main thing is that we were having fun, and so was the audience.

JR247: Your newest release, can you talk about the CD’s focus, choice of personnel? BTW, I love your personnel, great rhythm section, they’re all great listeners and Marcus is such a nice trumpet player.

TN: Well, with “In the Loop” I reconvened my Still Evolved band. With this recording I wanted to focus on something earthy and bluesy, rhythmic and open. It has elements of swing, blues, and mainstream, without (in my opinion) being any of these really. It’s just what it is. Critics always want to categorize things -- they call Still Evolved my post-bop group, or whatever, which sort of makes me laugh, because I never really think of it like that. Just a bunch of players whose playing I love, bringing their insight and intuition to music I wrote. If it swings, great. If it goes out, great. As long as it’s organic, I am open to wherever the journey takes us.

JR247:  What are some of the plans you have for this current release? Is the band going to do some touring? If so, there a schedule posted on the internet for people to find?

TN: We just did a trio concert the other night with Frank Kimbrough and Rufus Reid, playing some music from the new CD. Still Evolved, the full quintet, will play Dizzy’s in New York October 17-22, and we will be touring on the West Coast in early November, and hopefully a few gigs in the Midwest in December. Information will be available on my web site.

JR247: Ted, can you talk about your approach to sound? It has great focus and center, and lends itself to your improvisations.

TN: I have been using the same tenor mouthpiece since I was 17, which may in some ways add to the intimacy I feel when I am playing. The tenor sax I play used to belong to my uncle, and it has an unusual sound -- not too aggressive, or loud. It’s a Selmer, a Jimmy Dorsey model, and it is a little quirky, but I like that. Lately, I have realized that your sound is bigger and warmer if you don’t play full volume, particularly on a recording. So I have been trying to play at a lower volume level in general, and to let the sound resonate and vibrate a little more naturally. Sound is very important to me. If I don’t like the way I sound, maybe because of the reed that day, or the acoustics or sound system in a particular place, then I usually don’t feel good playing. There’s a certain feeling you get when everything is just right -- not too bright, not dull, round and inviting, that is like getting back into the bathtub after you’ve dashed out of the bathroom to answer the phone or whatever. I actually don’t think I have ever done that. I would let the answering machine get it. But that’s a topic for another article. Sound is so personal. Getz used to say he didn’t want to hear the reed. But when he played I swear I do hear a reediness. But for him it was the bright, buzziness he avoided. That to him was the sound of the reed. But regardless, his sound is so personal, that it can only be Stan Getz.

JR247:  Can you also talk about your approach to practice and preparation for gigs, tours, concerts, etc.?

TN: Again, getting the right sound, having the right reed, is very important. Sometimes, before making a recording, I’ll focus on a particular area of my playing I think isn’t as strong as I would like it to be. Like the altissimo register. One summer I was on tour with the LCJO and brought my tenor with me (I play alto in the big band), and had it in the hotel room, and just practiced mainly in the upper register, working on expanding my range, feeling more comfortable up there. When I got back to New York and recorded the CD I actually didn’t use the upper register as much as I thought I would, but it was there more when I wanted it. But that just proves that you should never preconceive what outcome you want. Attachment to ideas always leads to disappointment. Coming into this last recording, “In the Loop,” I really thought I was going to play a lot of horn. I got that very human temptation of wanting to impress people with how much shit I can play, how much “horn I am dealing with,” etc., but when I got in the studio, and we were playing, it didn’t feel natural for me to play a lot of notes to make the statement I wanted. Maybe it was the nature of the music, or the way other were playing, but I really wasn’t hearing that way of playing, and I am glad I didn’t try to force it to go in that direction.
Before gigs, I try to not think much about the music itself, but just warm up in a way that helps me to feel as connected to the instrument as possible, to help it be as much an extension of my physical self as possible.

JR247: Are you teaching anywhere? Do you teach privately? If so, what are some specific goals you have with your students?

TN: I do clinics and workshops when I tour. It is something I love to do, something I feel is very important, a way of giving back. I love the passion I see in the students from all over the world. Their thirst to learn, and to play. I do a little private teaching, but not on too regular a basis, mainly because of my traveling.  I always try to respond to the needs of the player. I never teach different students the same way. Sometimes I have players who come to me with a lot of expression and freedom, but who have more limitation in terms of their harmonic knowledge, and I will focus on that. Other players will have a lot of technical ability, and understanding of chords and scales, but are trapped in the language, and can’t get out.
That’s what I love. Everyone hears so differently. For me the teaching experience is one of give and take. It’s a one way street, like “I am the teacher they are the student.” No, we are really both learning, both teaching. I remember when I subbed for Dick Oatts for a couple semesters at Manhattan School of Music, and Chris Potter was one of my students. By then he really had an idea of how to play, what he wanted, and I didn’t want to get in the way of that. It was clear he didn’t need me to tell him what to do. But there was still a lot we did. We took turns, one at the piano, the other on sax, and would play, then after a little while we would jump up and change, reversing the role.  At some point I want to design a whole program. But that is the topic for another article.


JR247:  Ted, I’m asking everyone this next question, what is your take on the state of jazz, and what are some things the jazz community needs to do to keep this a viable art form?

TN: I think it starts with the players. To maintain an audience we need to make music that people want to hear. I don’t mean to sell out, think commercially, but play music that is engaging. We can draw people in if we are doing something that makes sense, that is organic, that communicates feeling and thoughts, and that is played with a high level of ideas and intelligence. A lot of what musicians play pushes people away. I am not talking about anything to do with styles. I am talking about the intent, and connectedness that the musicians feel, that those listening can understand, because it is alive. It can be the outest shit, or the most traditional, but if it is really happening, there will be people who want to hear it. It’s really up to the musicians to uphold a standard that has been set by the great players who have come before us.

JR247: Thanks for spending quality time with us. I really appreciate the originality of your music and wish you continued success!!

For more information on the music of Ted Nash, please visit:TedNash.com