J.D. Considine: You’re undoubtedly aware that Led Zeppelin is seen by many as the godparents of heavy metal — do you think that what you do, or did then, could accurately be called “heavy metal”?
Robert Plant: No. Take the first album — Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, Your Time is Gonna Come, How Many More Times— that was not heavy metal. There was nothing heavy about that at all. You listen to How Many More Times, which is really borrowed from the blues, anyway. The kind of dynamics in the middle of that, or Jimmy [Page] using the wah-wah pedal on some of the parts, or Bonzo [John Bonham] aping him with the cymbals, or stuff like that — it was neat. Bonzo was twenty years old when he did that and it was neat. And it wasn’t an insult to people’s integrity and sophistication. It was ethereal in places. Dazed And Confused too. The musicianship was such that people could go off on tangents and create passages that were compelling. They were skull-crashing in a way. But it wasn’t through sheer, brute volume. It was the way it was played. It’s a distinct difference.
Source: Robert Plant: Life in a Lighter Led Zeppelin, by J.D. Considine, Musician December 1983
SKF NOTE: A summer night, driving top down in a convertible with friends on Long Island’s south shore. To my left, the distant sky is lit up and the sound of killer snare drumming is reaching my ears in a stream of sound sometimes soft, sometimes loud. As if a someone with his hand on a stereo volume knob is turning the sound up, down, up, down.
But the killer snare drumming is unmistakably live. There is a band playing somewhere. Let’s go find it.
So my friends and I steer the convertible along strange roads, following the light and sound until we reach a municipal park full of people listening to four musicians in concert. Collectively they are the JPJ Quartet with Budd Johnson on saxophones, Bill Pemberton on bass, Dill Jones on piano, and sitting behind a beautiful four-piece silver sparkle set of Slingerland drums: Oliver Jackson.
I was thinking just this morning of the JPJ Quartet. They impressed me so much — especially Oliver Jackson — that I bought their album recorded live at Montreaux. The good news: what the JPJ Quartet played at Montreaux was what they were playing on Long Island. The bad news: Mr. Jackson’s drum solo on Oliver’s Twist was poorly edited on the album. The full solo, it appears, is restored on the JPJ Quartet’s reissue on the Storyville label.
“In one van,” says Barbara Borden. “All of us and all our stuff.” “All of us” means the jazz quintet Alive!. Ms. Borden is the group’s drumset player.
“You came out from the West Coast in a van?” I double-check.
“That’s right,” says Ms. Borden. To which Alive! percussionist Carolyn Brandy adds, “And we’re going back in a van!“
I remember liking Alive!‘s 1981 album, Call It Jazz, but as of this writing, I do not recall the specifics of how I came to interview Alive!‘s drummers for a Modern Drummer feature. No matter. I enjoyed meeting both women, and I’m very glad to see both are still playing individually and with Alive!.
One thing I remember vividly. I approached this as an interview with two drummers. Not two female drummers. After all, I never approached interviews with, say, Neil Peart and Frankie Dunlop, as interviews with male drummers. In the ebb and flow of all my interviews, if the conversation turned to matters specific to men or women — so be it. Other than that, I focused on the music and the musicians.
Here is an excerpt from the Alive! interview.
Scott K Fish: Did you ever have friends that you played in bands with when you were growing up that quit playing music when you kept on?
Barbara Borden: Mm hm.
SKF: What was the difference between you?
BB: Well, a lot of times people get into trappings. For example, they may have a family. A lot of people go out and find out what it really takes to be a musician and don’t want to deal with it.
Playing on the stage is about five percent of it. The other is hauling instruments, practicing, dealing with business, dealing with your own emotional self, and the other band members. There’s so much involved. It’s a constant challenge.
Then, your creativity is out there. You’re always open for a lot of criticism. Some people find that very difficult and want to find a very quiet nook and hang out. When your kids are in school and you have that quiet nook. The school provides that very reassuring type of situation. But when you get out in the big world, there’s a lot to contend with.
The other part is — and I think this is true for all of us in the band — at some point we drifted away from things for a while and felt that we had to do other things.
Our singer was an actress for many years. Then she got back to singing and that’s what she wants to do now. Sometimes people want to be creative people and might do a few different happenings like that: Be a musician for a while, then do drama for a while. I know a lot of drummers who are very good singers. From the back of the band to the front of the band. I think it’s a matter of following your heart. Our piano player is writing a song about how sometimes you wonder if you should have taken the other way.
SKF: Do you ever think about that?
BB: There are moments when it gets real difficult and I say, “Oh, boy!” But then I think, “What would I really want to be doing?” I know I’m on the right track still. I think one knows when you’re on the right track. You have this constant energy to do this; putting yourself out there and doing whatever it is. That you’re not bored. That you’e always having met the challenge.
I think that’s a very exciting way to live your life.
SKF: Why do you think you continue, Carolyn?
Carolyn Brandy:I don’t know. It’s fate, isn’t it? I was married for seven years and at that time pitty-pattied around the house and my drums.
SKF: Was your husband a musician?
CB: He played guitar.
We got into a discussion about what makes somebody really succeed and become a great improvisor. What is it? Is it hard work? Is it struggle? Sometimes it boils down to: it’s a gift. Is it ninety-nine percent hard work and one-percent inspiration? Surely it is a lot of hard work. I believe in that ten-percent genius, ninety-percent hard work [adage]. But, like Betty Carter said, you’re not the one to tell yourself that you’re a genius. The people tell you if you’re a genius.
But I don’t know why some people stay in the music business and some fall along the way. If you asked them I don’t think the people would say that they fell along the wayside. They would say, “I chose to do this because….”
Is it the financial situation of being a musician? Because the financial rewards are not guaranteed. That’s for sure.
SKF NOTE: Max Roach had recently played a concert with his M’Boom percussion ensemble on the same bill as the World Saxophone Quartet – a saxophones only group — when I interviewed Max in his Connecticut home in the early 1980s. I told Max Modern Drummer‘s Feature Editor, Rick Mattingly, was at the show and Rick told me, of the two groups, M’Boom was playing more melodic.
“I don’t know about that,”Max smiled, referring to the World Saxophone Quartet as “another courageous group of young musicians who are fantastic instrumentalists as well. Writers and composers,” Max said.
“I notice that the World Saxophone Quartet — they have come up with a way that four people can improvise, four voices can talk at the same time, and say different things, but relate to the same subject — and it sounds very musical,” Max continued.
“When [M’Boom] first began to do this I realized that [the World Saxophone Quartet] had done a lot of listening to each other in order to come up with that combination of things. Because when you listen very carefully to what they’re doing — it’s very transparent. You hear all four of the voices, and they all are going their own way. But they never interfere with any of the other voices. It’s really a revelation.”
Scott K Fish: That’s tough to do.
Max Roach: It is. Well, you have to work with the person for a while.
I know, talking to [Papa] Jo Jones, he commented one day on something like [how] it’s very important about, How does a person develop his own musical personality?
Well, [Papa Jo] says, firstly you have to be in a situation for a few years — in the same musicial setting — so that you can develop your character. Much the same as [an actor in] a play. If somebody gives you a script, and you take this character and you develop that character — that character becomes you now, with the way you deal with that character.
Well, [Papa Jo Jones] was explaining why today there might not be as much individuality among players as there was when he was coming up. You could always tell, “Oh, that’s Sidney Catlett,” or “That’s Krupa,” or “That’s Jo Jones,” or “This is O’Neil Spencer.” You could hear it right away and know. “Oh, I know who that is. That’s this person. Lester Young!”
Well, Jo said these people had an opportunity to work in one situation for a certain amount of time, so they could develop their own music character within that situation.
Then when they left there, then Lester Young had established his musical character so that when he played the first few notes you knew who that was.
Some of the people today can do that because of that. I notice most of the people who have an identifiable, an easily identifiable musical character, are those who are with steady groups and they travel around.
SKF: It’s like a ball team.
MR: Yeah. It’s an interesting idea. You have to be there to play every night and deal with your instrument. And deal with yourself in a situation that allows you a chance to experiment and add and discard, and add and discard — so, finally you come up with something.
Vic Garbarini: [How] does a band like the Stones…keep grounded?
Keith Richards: Maybe the answer is in the nature of the band itself.., that each person in the band in some way grounds the others. If there’s anything that’s stopped us from blowing our loudspeakers, it’s probably each other….
VG: I would imagine that Charlie [Watts] and Bill [Wyman] are a key element in that anchoring mechanism.
KR: Yeah, in that they’re both incredibly down-to-earth sort of people. Charlie, after twenty years, still can’t stand the thought of having to do even the slightest thing that strikes a false note, like smiling at somebody if you don’t want to. He’d rather give them a scowl, so at least it’s honest. Bill and Charlie are very similar in that they keep you grounded because you can’t really be around people like them and strike any false notes musically or personally, because you’ll instantly get locked out of the room. I imagine that if we’d had a couple of totally different guys in their places, we could have collapsed in a very short time.
Source: Keith Richards: The Heart of the Stones, by Vic Garbarini, Musician December 1983
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