SKF NOTE: One of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard in a long time. Thank you, Blake Tyson. This version of Not Far from Here is included in the Percussive Arts Society’s 2016 In Memoriam Tribute video – which is where I first heard the song. I was looking for biographies of certain legitimate percussionists to link to in my recent Freddie Gruber post, and Blake Tyson’s melody/mood grabbed my full attention.
Here is a link to Blake Tyson’s album, Firefish.
SKF NOTE: This interview happened in 1983 at Jimmy Webb‘s home in upstate New York. The full transcript, from which I copied this segment, was my source for a short profile published in Mix magazine.
Jimmy Webb remains one of my favorite songwriters. I am pleased to pass along unpublished parts of our 1983 that should be a value to songwriters and other musicians.
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Scott K Fish: Do you feel your songs are too demanding?
Jimmy Webb: Well, I just do what I do. I don’t ever sit down to write a song that’s more complicated than someone else’s. I just do what I do.
I don’t like three chord changes. This thing that I do has to be interesting to me. It has to be fun for me to do, or I’d be doing something else. Usually when I sit down and write a song I amuse myself. And if the end result is that it’s more complicated than someone else’s song, then that’s just the way it is.
Because, basically, I’m just doing what I like to do, and what turns me on. I like interesting changes.
Maybe, even though I’m not always successful, I like to do something with a lyric that’s maybe a little different. I don’t like to write the same things that I’ve written before, or that other people have written. I always set some kind of a goal of originality when I sit down, to some degree or another. Even though I say, “This tune may come out being similar to a Randy Newman song. Or, if I know that the way a tune is shaping up, it’s going to be similar to a Burt Bacharach tune of a few years back.
But if I feel that happening, I will immediately start altering it,and changing it, to a sufficient degree that I’m happy with its originality. That’s the only way I can work.
I could never be happy if I thought I really was just copying somebody else. Shamelessly doing it, let’s say. “I don’t care. This is going to be a hit.” That’s real hard for me to do.
Sometimes I think that hurts me, because I think it drives me out of some of the more obvious simple approaches to the listener. And so, sometimes I actually hurt my chances of commercial success because I don’t just let the thing progress in an obvious and expected way.
I think a lot of hits are hits because they do exactly what they’re supposed to do. They do exactly what you expect them to do. They follow a certain path – and that’s what the listener wants to hear. When it happens, there’s this magic chemical reaction: “Yeah, I like that. Why do I like that?” Well, because it’s a path. It’s easier to walk down a road than it is to hike through the woods.
But, I don’t care because that’s the way I do it, and that’s the way I always will do it. Because it’s the only way I can have any fun doing it.
I’m not a songwriter just to make money.
– end –
SKF NOTE: This week I digitized my 35-year old interview with musician Jim Gordon. The interview back story — including the less-than-optimum circumstances under which it took place – is described in my blog post of Jim Gordon‘s Modern Drummer interview.
The Recoton audiocassette shown in this YouTube is my photo of the actual Jim Gordon interview cassette. Thank God for the Audacity app that enabled me to make my conversation with Jim Gordon audible.
Earlier in the interview, JIm said he listened to a lot of records as kid, and his preference was rock drumming. Knowing he had an active career as a studio player, I asked Jim if jazz drumming was an influence. That’s where this excerpt begins.
SKF NOTE: Excerpt #2 from my interview with Freddie Gruber in Buddy Rich’s NYC apartment circa 1983-84. Freddie was speaking about “legitimate” percussionists he’d studied with: Morris Goldenberg, Fred Albright, and Henry Adler. I asked if any of what he learned from those teachers was not valid for his, Freddie Gruber’s, own teaching practice.
“All of the things that they did were valid,” said Freddie.
Since his own playing seems mostly concerned with jazz ( “and bands,” Freddie interjected), why didn’t he study with jazz drummers?
This interview excerpt is Freddie’s answer to that question.
SKF NOTE: A favorite moment from my interviews with the great drummer Frankie Dunlop. Now, for the first time, listeners can hear Frankie’s impersonation of Charles Mingus as Frankie describes a moment on The Half Note bandstand drumming with Mingus.
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SKF NOTE: Leafing this morning, July 13, 2019, through my original edited version of my Frankie Dunlop interview, I came across this edited version of the full conversation in the YouTube video posted here.
If nothing else, the two versions give readers an idea of how bits-and-pieces of normal conversation — the spoken word — are left behind when editing the written words for reader clarity.
Scott K Fish: How did you get in Mingus’s band? What happened to Dannie Richmond?
Frankie Dunlop: This was for a job in Washington, DC. Dannie couldn’t make it. I knew that I was basically filling in for Dannie. But I knew that if Mingus liked my work, later on I might be recommended for other jobs — which did happen. Mingus recommended me to Sonny Rollins, who I did go with.
But playing with Mingus was an experience. It kept me together.
I remember one time when I was playing with Mingus at The Half Note. We were in the middle of a tune like Salt Peanuts, and Mingus says, “Hey, Frankie. Keep playing. I got to go over here and talk to Joe.”
Joe [Termini] owned The Half Note.
Well, the tempo was way upstairs and I wasn’t adjusted to playing that fast anyhow. I’d just gotten into New York.
Playing at that tempo was bad enough with the bass. Here I was with just a piano player.
Mingus finally comes back on the bandstand after several minutes, picked up his bass and starts playing. Same tune.
He turns to me and says, “Hey, man. Hey, Frankie. The tempo has gone down, man! That’s not the tempo I started.”
And I guess it had gone down. I was scuffling.
He didn’t tell me about that because he disliked me. If he didn’t think I could have made the gig, he wouldn’t have hired me. But Mingus was such a perfectionist, that the things the average musician or bandleader would say, “To hell” with, he wouldn’t let it slide.
All of the geniuses are like that. They may be eccentric, but deep down inside they’re concerned about their music. Monk, Mingus, Rollins, Miles Davis — they didn’t want any substitutions, nothing second-hand for what it was really supposed to be.
I’m glad I came up under the guiding light of those cats.
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