Interviews

Q: You recently completed recording your first album, "Salmon Up!", to be released this Winter on Point14 Records.  The album features eight original compositions and one cleverly reworked standard, Gershwin's "How Long Has This Been Going On?"  Can you describe your concept for the music, the duality of your role as composer and performer, and your choice to include this one standard?

A: I think most improvising musicians reject the distinction between composer and performer, at least as that distinction is traditionally made in the context of European art music, and it was certainly in thisspirit that I approached this record.  I composed the music knowing that ultimately the recordings and performances would be the artistic artifacts rather than the scores.  This, however, is nothing more than a description of how improvised music functions; it is not a description of my concept personally.  If we are talking about my personal style, I think it is safest to let the music speak for itself, but I can say that I hoped the music would be unpredictable and would not sound like it takes itself too seriously.   As for How Long Has This Been Going On? I thought that I'd take the liberty at the midpoint of the album of giving voice to the question that most listeners were probably asking by then.  That's a joke, but I did intend it to be sort of a palate cleanser in between the first half of the album and the second, which actually comprises a suite of three pieces (Wheesh, Swarmoosh, and Kapoosh).

Q: You say that you aspire on this album to create music that doesn't take itself too seriously, and yet you are engaged in the pursuit of a graduate degree in music composition.  And the music itself is meticulously crafted and rehearsed.  This is a prominent feature in your music, the tension between 'serious' musicianship and an ardent awareness of the silliness inherent in the entire enterprise of playing music.  In a genre where albums are often given nauseatingly earnest titles, yours is entitled "Salmon Up".  Can you elaborate on this fondness for the whimsical and the role of irony in your music?

A: I'm not sure that the world of academic music necessarily must be the world of music that takes itself too seriously.  And I do believe that some music is rightfully taken very seriously.  But your question is really about the silliness of the titles in contrast with the meticulousness of the music.  I think that today's jazz music is a little confused, generally, about titles; how programmatic to make them, how literal, etc.  My approach (and it's not mine alone) is just one reaction to that confusion, with earnestness and sentimentality representing the opposite approach.

Q: Along the lines of program music, yours spans a range on this album - from Vashti, a song about the character from the Jewish Book of Esther to Salmon Up and the Suite, songs which seem to clearly emanate from purely musical ideas with names coming later.  Do you notice any differences between the music you write with a specific context in mind and those ideas that are purely visceral?  

A: I wouldn't call Vashti program music; it's just a song (it does have lyrics) written for Vashti, the largely ignored (non-Jewish) heroine of the Esther narrative.  So, yes, it does have non-musical origins in a way that the rest of the music on the record does not.  And the music itself is also different from what is found on the rest of the record, but I think this is more a function of its having been written for voice than its underlying concept.  Also, I wouldn't parse the music on this album in terms of what is 'visceral' and what is not - I think that's the wrong word.  A more accurate distinction is that seven pieces were written for piano trio, and one for voice.

Q: A lot of musicians record an album with the idea that they'll use it to book a tour, or that they'll tour to promote the album.  You, however, decided to record just before heading off to Santa Cruz to begin work on a graduate degree in composition.  What motivated you to record now and what are your future plans for live performance?

A: The fact that I knew I was going to have to leave new york for my graduate degree hastened the process of putting the record together, but other than that Salmon Up has nothing to do with my geographic location.  Like any musician, I want my music to have as large an audience as possible - both as a recording and in live performance.  Even though I'm in school for composition, I'm trying to keep performance as large a part of my life as I can.  A large scale tour will probably have to wait until I'm done here, but there are plenty of excellent venues all over California that I'm hoping will have me before I leave.

Q: Tell me about your new band, the Lucas Pino "No Net" Nonet.  How did you settle upon the instrumentation, how long have you all been playing together, what terrain are you hoping to explore?

A: The "No Net" Nonet is a group I actually had aspirations of putting together long before I arrived in New York City. At the time, I had specific people in mind for the group, and that helped determine the instrumentation. It was initially about getting these people all playing with each other, and although the personnel has changed since our inception, the idea is the same - put together my favorite players into a band and write for them. 

Q: The writing - that's what really grabbed me when I first heard you at the Local 269.  The band strikes me as very compositionally driven.  And, unusually for a large ensemble, many of the band's members contribute.   Can you talk a bit about the writing - what Glenn Zaleski,  Rafal Sarnecki, Nick Finzer, Alex Lore and you yourself bring to the table as composers? There seems to be a distinct band sound, and yet you maintain your individual voices both as composers and players. Can you describe the tension between individualism and collectivism and how it's employed to effect in the nonet?

A: You're correct. I've encouraged members of the ensemble to write. Improvisation and composition are firmly connected; they are the same action in two different tenses. That being the case, listening to our band you hear each artist from two different perspectives. I believe it's a deeper listening experience.  I think each of the members that have contributed so far, have written wonderful tunes. Each tune fills a musical need for the band. We do have differing styles of writing. I believe that vision that the rhythm section has ties the tunes together more than anything else. I can always depend on the horn section to execute their parts, so most of the variables belong to rhythm section's comping. Putting Glenn, Colin and Desmond together is a creative force.  Individualism is the sound. It creates a mosaic that makes up the whole - what our band sounds like. I trust the musicians to make the "correct" musical decisions for themselves as well as the band. 

Q: I like that description of your band as a mosaic.  That's what occurred to me when I heard you playing together.  Take you and Alex for example.  You have such different and personal ideas about time feel - and yet when you play together in rhythmic unison it manages to sound remarkably cohesive without either of you relinquishing that personal conception. Tell me, what's the next step for the "No Net" nonet?  Are you planning to record?  What are your ambitions for the project - if I may wax high school guidance counselor, where would you like to see this band in 5 years?

A: We do have plans to record soon. A recording is an essential part of a working band's portfolio. Aside from documenting where we are now with a record, at the moment our goals are simple: get the band playing as often as possible to expose as many people to what we're offering. In the long run, we're looking for longevity. An ensemble of this size can be impractical today, especially considering we're playing mainly original music and not repertoire that people have heard already.  When groups like this find a way to stay together and grow musically and personally, amazing things happen to the music. I hope that we'll be allowed the privilege to get there. 

Q: Who are some of those groups today - that have stayed together and grown musically?  Which of today's working large ensembles inspire you?

A: The first name that came to mind was Maria Schneider's Jazz Orchestra. They've been playing together for a long time, and you can hear from record to record the evolution of her writing as well as the band's sound. It's wonderful! Paul Motion's large ensemble, the Electric Bebop Band. I'm really into Walt Weiskopf's nonet records right now. Great writing, and monstrous playing. I'm not sure if he plays in that configuration anymore. Guillermo Klein's band, Los Guachos is outstanding. The SF Jazz Collective was a big reason I had the idea to put together a large ensemble. When I was studying in California at the Brubeck Institute I was fascinated with their instrumentation. I tried to copy them exactly, but wound up adding the baritone saxophone and substituting guitar for vibraphone. It was the players I wanted in the band at the time that drove that decision.  

Q: We've talked a lot before about the diminishing audience for instrumental modern jazz, and here you touched upon the apparent impracticality of trying to make a large ensemble economically sustainable - even in the 50s and 60s, keeping a big band afloat was a challenge.  In your opinion, why is so much of the public, including the well-educated and artistically inclined ignoring jazz?

A: To be clear, I'm not sure the jazz audience is diminishing. It could be, but I'm not sure either way. There is a great jazz audience, particularly in New York City. I do think, however, that a large part of that audience are musicians. Jazz education at every level, but particularly in college has created many jazz listeners. The inclination away from jazz for many is about being part of what's popular, and identifying with the national culture. There are great musics aside from jazz. I think the main culprit, the reason why our music is stifled commercially, is because the general American audience has no or little musical education past kindergarden. People generally aren't actively listening to melody or harmony and tend to gravitate to lyrics. I think this is the main reason so many "Pop" acts have gained such prominence without having very much musical merit. 

Q: Regarding musical education, I agree.  Now, the idea of an audience of musicians strikes us as insular.  But a little over a hundred years ago, when there was a greater audience for classical music, the general population was full of amateur musicians.  If you wanted music in your living room, you bought a piano and learned how to play it.  Perhaps hand in hand with the absence of arts education in school, we can blame high fidelity audio and the abundance of more passive forms of entertainment like video games for the decline of musical literacy in the general population?  

Also, while many pop acts rely more heavily on lyrical content and production than melody and harmony, there are always some that effectively capture a large mainstream audience while playing really crafty, thoughtful music.  I think in our parent's generation some of those acts were Paul Simon, the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa.  And I think these acts are invaluable, keeping harmony and melody in the public consciousness.  They also create a well of songs both harmonically rich and recognizable, giving today's improvisers the chance to do what previous generations of jazz musicians did with the Great American Songbook, using popular song as a vehicle for improvisation.  Who do you see today within "Pop" that does have musical merit?

A: I'm not too concerned with popular music. That being said, I like Radiohead and Bjork is always interesting. This isn't really pop, but I like Squarepusher. These are pretty typical answers for a jazz musician from my generation, no surprises here. Quite a few of my peers covering that avenue in terms of influences.  I don't feel like the pop world has gone without being noticed, I just haven't gotten there, yet. That's not what I'm listening to right now. 

Q: Thanks Lucas for taking the time to converse with nyatnight.  Final question, and it's a big and nebulous one, but answer however you see fit.  What is a jazz musician - here, now, in 2011?  What is it that drives you to wake up every day and practice the saxophone? Is jazz an intellectual venture?  Is it a spiritual endeavor?  Is it a craft? How do you see your role in society?

A: Very glad to have the opportunity to converse with you, Zack. I'm not sure what a jazz musician is at this point. It's many different things to many different people. I guess I'm not really concerned about it. I have been searching since I was ten years old, trying to see how I can make myself into something resembling the recordings I first heard, those experiences. There is a distinct feeling you get when you hear something important, especially for the first time. I couldn't describe it. That's why I play. This music took hold of me and continues to determine the direction my life. I hope I'm working toward a role in society where I have the power to make people's live's better. That takes a lifetime of work. I suppose that's why I continue to work at it. To achieve an ability; to help people experience something in the music. That requires a tireless effort from the artist for the duration of their life