Several years ago I began to take note of what for all intents and purposes appeared to be a rather edgy, kind of moveable feast of presentations at different New York club venues. The first thing that caught my attention was the impressive roster of younger artists who participated in these gigs; then I was struck by the hybridized nature of these presentations, the fact that stylistic borders were clearly and purposely blurred.

The overall operation for these events was the Revive Music Group. Curiosity led me to reach out and find out who was behind these fresh presentations. One Friday afternoon several years ago, prior to one of our Tribeca Performing Arts Center series presentations I stopped by a coffee shop just below 14th Street and met the impressive young woman who was behind this whole Revive thing, one Meghan Stablile. She’s still going strong, and coming up with fresh ideas all along the way. Just to get caught up on her background and current events surrounding Revive Music Group, some questions were clearly in order. And just how does an inquisitive girl from Dover, New Hampshire, via Texas, get so wrapped up in the care & presentation of creative music?

Just to refresh our readers on Revive Music Group, let’s go back to the organization’s origins and provide some context to your original intent and activities.

Meghan Stabile: I’ve always said that Revive Music Group began during my years at Berklee College of Music, but now I realize that it began when I first learned I could sing; this was around 7 or 8-years old. I remember singing to anyone and anything that would listen. It was my first love and it became an obsession, but later also a fear. There was not one day that went by that I did not sing or wish to sing in front of millions. A few years later – on my 14th birthday – my aunt gave me a guitar and I wrote my first song with it that very day. Singing, playing, performing and writing were an everyday thing for me. There was nothing else in the world that I wanted to do except to sing and perform. My aunt would bring me to local bars where in between Motley Crue and Joe Cocker playing from the jukebox, I would get up and perform. Performing was a great outlet, but my musical curiosity was deepening and growing. I was severely confined as a product of my environment. There was nothing around me that I could relate to musically. My chords were grungy, but my voice was soulful. Television and radio were my only source to music churning out things like Top 40 lists and MTV. That’s it. I could find maybe one classical station, but jazz was nonexistent.

Fast forward to 2003 when Berklee welcomed me into their community. My first semester was full of curiosity and eagerness. I was incredibly intrigued by everything around me. There I was in a big city filled with amazing musicians; I loved it! I remember walking through the hallways of the practice rooms at Berklee and hearing the crazy mixture of scales and exercises being practiced all at the same time. I was submersed in awe of this melting pot of musicians.

Friends kept mentioning this jazz club down the street; it was the spot where everyone was going to play. This club was the historic Wally’s Jazz Cafe. I thought to myself, ‘Get a job there so you can be in it,’ and once I got the job, boy was I in it! This was now 2004, and the regular musicians performing on the nights I worked there were Sam Kininger (Soulive, Lettuce), Nikki Glaspie (Beyonce, Dumstafunk), Louis Cato (Marcus Miller), Masayuki Hirano (Talib Kweli, Eve, Bilal), Igmar Thomas (Esperanza Spalding), Brian “Raydar” Ellis (Berklee professor), and Esperanza Spalding. I could name 20 more that have gone on to play with major recording artists. These were my peers, the people that inspired me the most in the beginning. They were more than my friends, they were also my teachers and my source of inspiration at that time.

It was at that time that I began to go through a transformation. Between the intense exposure from school and seeing it in action nightly at Wally’s, I became obsessed! I wanted to know everything: how, why, when, who, what… But at the same time a question that nagged at me the most and would later prove to be a crucial part of our purpose to this day was, “Why am I just finding out about this? Why is this music – the most beautiful and complex forms of music – so confined? Why did I have to come here to find it and why was it not readily available to me?” I asked all sorts of questions and finding the answers is what would lead me on the journey of starting Revive Music.

How have your perspectives changed since you started Revive?

At the time of its inception, jazz was our main focus. The exposure of this amazing music to more than just a community of fellow musicians, or what was presumed to be a dying audience, was paramount. In 2005 the idea of hip-hop and jazz came more into play for various reasons. I had not always been a fan of hip-hop. In the early to mid-90s I was more into grunge and rock, and then later it was Tupac, Biggie, and Jay-Z. I was listening to most of what was in my face rather than digging for anything new at the time.

So in 2005 Berklee had a slew of ensembles that you could sign up for; this is when I was introduced to the Jazz/Hip-Hop Orchestra (JHO) led by Angelamia Bachemin. This was an ensemble of 15-20 musicians taking hip-hop songs and re-imagining them live with a full orchestra. Though it was a “class,” it was done tastefully and creatively. The Jazz/Hip-Hop Orchestra was at the time, a new innovative way to combine these two genres of music. Even though it was not that long ago, you have to remember that this was already a time of resurgence. The collaboration between both genres is not a new thing at all. A lot of people think and assume that we are doing the same thing that’s already been done, and to me that way of thinking is what limits any evolution. The terms jazz or hip-hop don’t define the music. People have to categorize things to understand it and it’s just not that simply put. You can’t put everything in a box and categorize it. It’s music, and damn good music at that!

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, countless producers were sampling jazz records. DJ’s and musicians were collaborating in concert and jazz musicians were rocking on hip-hop records. The concept itself is not new. What was new is how the next generation would translate and interpret the concept. This is an evolution of the concept itself, incubating itself over time through influence, experience and the artists’ fundamental ability. It is in their nature and DNA. When it’s done from a genuine place then it’s done right and when it’s done right there’s no denying what it is.

Now everyone sees this resurgence taking place. I’ve had this exact conversation over and over with hundreds of different people in the industry and we have all come to the same conclusion. We are in a time of renewal, a restoration and a revival so to speak. I named my company Revive da Live, now known as Revive Music Group, for a reason.

I was always in preparation for a new project. Before I really even knew exactly what I was doing, I knew I had to begin with just one show. That one show led to another and so on to where I am now. No one can ever enjoy the true value of a sound without experiencing it and no one can experience it if they don’t know it exists. They can’t know it exists if someone isn’t out there showing them. This is what I do on a daily basis. This has become by life’s mission.

How do you go about engaging musicians and venues for your programs?

In the beginning it was very difficult. Venue owners and managers didn’t take me seriously. To them I was just a college kid trying to do a school project or something. Being a woman didn’t help much either. I learned how to play my cards in this business but being “in” the business was way more valuable than being fresh out of college. I took on a bunch of internships, one at Def Jam, and a few at different booking agencies and management companies. I started meeting important people and through them I would meet very important people. Some would become great friends and colleagues later on. I made sure I knew all the right people in each scene and each field even beyond the jazz realm. I also made sure they all knew me and what I was doing. Whether they took me serious or not, I knew I would see them again and our conversations would be very different. With all of that said, I think it was very important the way I approached people. I am extremely passionate about my work and what I was trying to achieve. I made that known and I was very serious about it. I didn’t just talk about it; I was doing everything I said I was going to do. When you put that serious foot down, people pay attention.

Engaging the musicians was much easier. I was already among them. Most were my friends already. When musicians from Berklee move to NYC, they eventually become a part of the scene. Anytime I approached a musician with an idea, most of the time they’d be super into it. Musicians approached me with ideas too. It was collaborative. Many of the concepts that were developed by myself or other Revive contributors were concerts built by musicians for musicians. I chose to put my own musical creativity aside and use it to develop concepts for shows that would later lead me to be a creative consultant for many notable and longstanding institutions in the music business.

Our concert ideas are innovative and new and through these concerts, I have met many incredible musicians. Robert Glasper and Chris Dave were definitely two musicians that opened many doors for me. Robert attended our first Revive show in NYC in February of 2007 and then asked me to produce a concert with him in April. That’s when I met Chris Dave and soon after went on to manage Chris for almost 3 years. Through him, I met tons of musicians from all over the world. The need for managing and booking was huge. I was just getting started myself so it was a good way to begin building careers.

I ended up building a name for myself on the management and booking side working with bands such as The Real Live Show, Igmar Thomas & The Cypher, Sonnymoon, and Chris Dave. I also did a lot work for The Robert Glasper Experiment on the side. We all knew that band was going to be huge; it was only a matter of time. I am thankful to have collaborated with them on many projects over the years.

We’ve talked about at least one potential opportunity to take your Revive activities on the road. Is that a real goal of yours or do you prefer to remain NYC-centric?

NYC is my home and it’s a prominent home for jazz and live music. We launch many of our concerts here. They say if you can have a successful show in NYC, then you can have one anywhere and that has proven to be correct. Our concerts are sought after by festivals, performing arts centers and venues worldwide. One concert we spent 3 years developing was our Roy Ayers and Pete Rock concept. We produced this for the first time at Harlem Stage on April of 2010 with The Robert Glasper Experiment, Pete Rock and Stefon Harris. Roy Ayers attended and performed later in the evening. A few weeks later I was contacted by the Jazz a la Villette Festival in Paris. We ended up bringing the show there later in the year to a 1500+ audience. It was a truly amazing experience.

We are happy to have great partnerships in NYC with venues such as Harlem Stage, Le Poisson Rouge, DROM, Zinc Bar, Smalls Jazz Club, Blue Note Jazz Club and organizations such as the City Parks Foundation and Jazzmobile who help bring our concerts to The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival and Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival respectively. Every year we produce a stage in partnership with one of the cities largest festivals, The Winter JazzFest headed by BOOM Collective & Search & Restore. We are proud to be among the cities top presenters, producers and promoters in our field. I could not have imagined this in 2007 when venues didn’t give me the time of day, but hey, now they all do!

Be it in NYC or anywhere else, we develop concerts that deserve to be produced in every city around the world. Bringing it back to our mission, the focus is on the exposure of new ideas in music and the exposure of music beyond what is readily available to people. We are still serving this purpose to bring great music to people all over the world and providing a platform for great artists and musicians to create through their own artistic expression.

We continue to develop and produce creative concerts here in NYC and work on partnering and producing them with festivals worldwide. One day, I would love to do a touring festival, much like Rock the Bells but with all live bands and all innovative musical ideas. I do believe that everything being done will eventually lead us there.

Ultimately how do you see Revive evolving, both in terms of your message and your activities?

It’s honestly quite crazy to talk about our growth because it happened so quickly. I never knew I was going to get heavy into management and booking but it turns out that had a huge purpose in the development of our concerts and our advocacy for musicians. I never knew I would be a partner in building a leading jazz website and online platform for musicians but again, it turns out that it was a part of a larger purpose for Revive in general. All of the shows, all of the hard work, all of the developments, partnerships, meetings, headaches, sleepless nights (which are not over) have all led to this day and this moment where it has all come together for a grander meaning. It all makes sense now.

We started with our concerts, we developed an online platform to promote the musicians and now there is a third arena that ties this all together to further promote the music. This is what we’ll be launching next year with our largest partnership to date.

This is the next generation of jazz music and I look forward to sharing it with audiences around the world.

How to catch up on the Revive Music Group? http://www.revivalist.okayplayer.com

For the Washington City Paper’s expansive reporting on the current general manager/programming grid changes controversy that continues to percolate over WPFW, the Washington, DC metro region’s erstwhile Pacifica station and bastion of “Jazz & Justice” follow the link below.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/43566/the-airing-of-grievances-can-wpfw-modernize-while-remaining-dcs/

As we detailed in last week’s IE post, radio station WPFW, the Pacifica Radio Network outlet serving the Washington, DC metro region at 89.3 FM and streaming live at http://www.wpfw.org, has been embroiled in a program schedule controversy the likes of which our station has never experienced. As with any all-volunteer programmer, community radio station, there are indeed times when either programming changes and alterations, or further programmer training is required. WPFW is not exempt from that equation; and to be honest there were programs and programmers on our weekly schedule that could certainly have used some refreshing or re-training. I’ve been a WPFW programmer for over 23 years and I cannot tell you how long it has been since we’ve had any sense of thorough, substantive program & programmer evaluation process, much less training towards better programming practices. Program and programmer quality control has been virtually non-existant for well over five years now. It is true that as certain programming has grown tired and stale around the edges or in a handful of cases practically useless, quite frankly for some of our most severe critics our beloved station has slipped inexorably into irrelevance as a result. That’s the plain truth.

But how are programmers supposed to improve when management offers nothing in the way of formal program/programmer evaluation, training or quality control measures? Despite these disparities, WPFW has solidly remained the DC area’s station for “Jazz & Justice”, just as our motto suggests. Along with that motto is a fierce sense of pride among its programmers as our station has been the beacon for jazz radio in the DC area for the past three decades, particularly so with the demise of the area’s other jazz outlet WDCU (the erstwhile “Jazz 90”), which was quite unceremoniously sold to CSpan Radio by its charter-holder, the DC government, in the early 90s (the majority of ‘DCU’s programmers – like Rusty Hassan pictured below, and Candy Shannon mentioned in this editorial – found convenient refuge at WPFW).

L to R: Veteran WPFW jazz programmers Willard Jenkins, Askia Muhammad, Rusty Hassan, Larry Appelbaum

The number of true jazzologists on WPFW’s airways has been impressive for many years, despite the fact that the station has been burdened by a lean bottom line which is currently bleeding red ink, and beset with either ill-equipped management or management lacking true vision; and currently both factors have slipped down to the incompetent level where it concerns current station management. Not to mention the fact that current station management’s sole response to the red ink bath is to mount yet another community-straining on-air pledge drive.

How else, other than sheer management incompetence, to explain last week’s rollout of a drastic new program schedule grid mere days before the new schedule’s Monday, December 3 launch? Last week witnessed the sorry specter of programmers arriving at the station to do their shows, only to be told upon arrival that they were either being summarily dismissed (no ‘thanks for the memories’) from their programs, or at best their shows were either being re-jiggered or shifted to a new, unfamiliar time slot. In one case, the Monday evening jazz show host Brother Ah (french horn player Robert Northern to you longtime jazz heads familiar with the horn sections that graced such classics as Thelonious Monk‘s big band sessions, Miles Davis‘ classic “Miles Ahead”, or John Coltrane‘s “Africa Brass”) was informed that his 11/26 show would be his last in that time slot, by telephone on his way to the studio! Brother Ah was also given a take-it-or-leave it new time slot of Wednesdays 10pm-midnight. Personal circumstances prohibited his taking on that new slot, so he was in effect simply out… at least for the moment.

As these changes were rolled out anecdotally to each of our programmers, community outrage began to build steadily as news leaked out; but NO ONE had yet to see the new program grid! For many years I hosted the Friday Afternoon Drivetime jazz slot, 4-6pm on Friday evenings. When we left temporarily in ’07 for New Orleans, so that Suzan Jenkins could launch the then-new Thelonious Monk Institute graduate studies program and take a visiting professorship, both at Loyola University in New Orleans (since relocated once again, this time to UCLA – a subject that might require a book to detail its own Institute peccadillos), community radio being what it is, I lost my place in the pecking order. Upon our return in fall ’08, I was soon offered a new program slot, 5-8am on Thursdays, part of the station’s Morning Jazz strip. (I digress here for a moment to mention that the M-F Morning Jazz strip also included such station stalwarts as journalist Askia Muhammad and Katea Stitt, daughter of Sonny.) The new program schedule grid totally exorcised the Morning Jazz strip, with Askia and Katea (who also happens to be the station’s Music Director) now totally out as music programmers, Friday host Lady Myrrh relegated to an overnight graveyard show shift (which I’m not even sure she accepted), and the two guys who alternated hosting on Monday mornings also booted to the overnight graveyard. When the now-former program director (finally feeling the intense heat of community scrutiny, and fearing that he would forever be linked to the current station management incompetence, he tendered his resignation on 12/3) informed me that I was out as of my last scheduled show on Thursday, November 29, he later offered me the new 7-10pm jazz show on Monday evenings.

With Katea Stitt at last summer’s loft jazz event

Community reaction to this at best clumsy, at worst outrageous and disruptive program schedule change, has been furious. Last Friday, November 30 there was a community rally outside the station, followed by weekend community meetings at the Busboys & Poets literary restaurant and Plymouth Congregational Church. The outpouring of rage moved the Local Station Board president to urge the general manager to reinstate a handful of longtime programmers who had either been given the boot or offered untenable new slots. Among the latter was Brother Ah, who was hastily installed in the new Monday 7-10pm Evening Jazz slot. Wait a minute, isn’t that the slot I’d already agreed to take on the new grid? “Yeah,” the now-former program director replied, “but John Hughes has ordered Brother Ah in that slot and you’ve been moved to Wednesdays 10-midnight in the new Night Jazz strip,” I was informed as I was out the door last Friday evening on my way to catch Danilo Perez at the Kennedy Center!

Meantime Askia Muhammad now hosts a new M-F AM news/talk/information with occasional music selections “Morning Brew” show, 6-8am. And Candy Shannon, the very capable show host who took my old Afternoon Drivetime Jazz slot on Fridays 4-6pm? She’s now relegated to once-weekly providing those occasional interlude music selections for “Morning Brew”, along with doing a weekly 5-6am jazz show. The daytime WPFW program grid is now – with the exception of the M-F noon-1pm blues strip – totally news/talk, including the questionable “health” shows hosted by Gary Null M-F 3-4pm, and such mainstream public radio programming that is available elsewhere on the dial as the over-exposed Tavis Smiley and Cornell West, John Hockenberry, NPR’s Michel Martin (shows whose institution has since been placed on hold until further notice; the suggestion from some being that Pacifica simply cannot afford to pay the necessary syndication fees associated with carrying these “national” shows), and Pacifica’s Mitch Jesserich. And that’s part of the community outrage, the critical loss of locally-flavored programming being replaced by tired syndicated porridge.

As usual, the mainstream prints only got it about half right; but here’s what the Washington Post published in the Saturday, December 1 edition:WPFW-FM will undergo radical change to a more mainstream lineup of programming
http://wapo.st/Tyb19N

The upshot of jazz music’s current status on the WPFW airways is that the music has entirely been relegated to after-dark hours M-F, basically 7pm-6am. The highly popular jazz strip Sundays from 9am-7pm has been altered a bit, at the expense of the Latin strip, and at the total elimination of the Brazilian music show. Granted, where jazz radio is concerned, the DC area is still more blessed by the WPFW schedule than most major urban areas are where it concerns terrestrial jazz radio, I’m afraid. But the clumsy, ham-fisted manner in which this new program grid has been rolled out, not to mention the disruption in community listening patterns (the WPFW Facebook page is littered with moaning and outright outrage over the loss of certain programming, most definitely daytime jazz), and by a passive/aggressive general manager who is so thoroughly lacking in proper communication skills, has engendered goodly measures of DC community outrage. And one salient fact must never be overlooked where it concerns WPFW – our station was founded by and with a distinctly African American perspective and flavor, and that has never sat well with either Pacifica or certain forces in the broader community who would just as soon see this bastion of progressive politics cease speaking truth to power.

We’ll keep you abreast of this growing WPFW controversy, with numerous intelligent folks now calling for the general manager’s head on a figurative platter at best; but in the meantime the best place to stay current on this fluid situation is to visit the following web site: http://www.ThePeople4PFW.wordpress.com; pay a visit, voice your choice, and read what the WPFW listening community has to say about yet another way jazz broadcasting is disappearing from the terrestrial airways.

The station where I have produced weekly jazz radio programs for over 23 years now, WPFW 89.3 FM, Pacifica Radio for the Washington, DC metro community, streaming live at http://www.wpfw.org, has sadly joined the ranks of stations across the country which have cast jazz programming aside – or in this case kicked it to the curb – in favor of news/talk/information formats, which are seen as better revenue generators. Long a bastion of left-leaning progressive programming, WPFW has now veered further towards the center and an overall NPR-ization of its airways. In an extremely clumsy and graceless manner, WPFW programmers were informed earlier this week – in some cases as they arrived at the station – that their regularly scheduled programs had either been shifted to new time slots (without any consultation or forewarning whatsoever) or they’d been totally deleted from the new programming paradigm.

Known for many years as “Your station for Jazz & Justice”, all Monday through Friday daytime jazz programming has been deleted. Jazz will now be aired on WPFW M-F from 7:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.; Saturday evenings from 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.; and the traditional Sunday strip from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. (though in fairness, the 9am-noon Sunday show, “G-Strings” with Tom Cole, was always more of a stringed instrument potpourri than a pure jazz show; ditto “The American Songbook” 3-5pm).

We WPFW programmers have been raising the red flags about station mismanagement for over a year. Seems only now, in light of what has been a truly draconian week of program changes, longtime programmers being given the summary boot, and others been shifted to new, unfamiliar time slots, that the community has arisen from its slumber. Over a year ago, early November 2011 to be exact, WPFW programmers issued a public letter of NO CONFIDENCE in station management and began holding public forums to discuss these alarm bells. Below is a link to a telling piece on the current status of WPFW from the December 1, 2012 issue of the Washington Post. As we say in radio-land – stay tuned…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/wpfw-fm-will-undergo-radical-change-to-a-more-mainstream-lineup-of-programming/2012/11/30/ed0583d6-3b34-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html

In January Blue Note will release the latest edition of Joe Lovano’s Us Five journey. Titled “Cross Culture” the release will feature the original Us Five lineup – with the distinctive double trap drums of Francisco Mela and Otis Brown lll, James Weidman on piano, and Esperanza Spalding on bass. Due to the rapid expansion of Ms. Spalding’s burgeoning career as a leader (including recent the recent citation as Jazz Artist of the Year in the 2012 DownBeat Reader’s Poll), Joe has engaged another young Berklee stalwart, Peter Slavov, to alternate the bass chair; and the distinctive guitar voice from Benin, West Africa, Lionel Loueke, appears on several tracks as well.

In preparation for writing the liner notes for “Cross Culture”, I caught the band back in September when they made an impressive 2-night stand at Blues Alley in DC. That was absolutely one of the best sets I’ve seen all year! From witnessing Us Five at Blues Alley – including the hoots & hollers of encouragement from an obviously gassed audience – I can attest that this is one of the finest working bands in the music; and that’s the key – they’re working; they’re actively evolving through performance, and not just rehearsing for the next moment. When considering the live evidence coupled with the evolution of their 3 records, I can attest – this is a true BAND.

Next April 20, Tri-C JazzFest will throw Joe Lovano a 60th birthday bash in Cleveland at the Ohio Theatre (go to the Clients section of this website – www.openskyjazz.com for complete Tri-C JazzFest ’13 details). For that event Joe will augment Us Five with several of our Cleveland homies, including tenor master Ernie Krivda and B-3 ace Eddie Baccus.

Following Us Five’s joyous first set at Blues Alley, I caught up with Joe for some questions about his exciting forthcoming new release “Cross Culture.”

Referring to Us Five you’ve said, “everyone is leading and following.” Is that about the same kind of band philosophy as Joe Zawinul’s declaration at the beginning of Weather Report that “We always solo, we never solo…”?

JL: Yeah, and the concept that they had was a group effort of creating music within the structures of the pieces. For me in my development, that idea and those players like Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Miles, Coltrane, Sonny Rollins… people that brought that element into their approach as bandleaders always influenced me a lot. I found myself in a lot of bands that played with that kind of idea; like Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra for example, the trio with Paul Motian and Bill Frisell… And then developing to the point of playing with Hank Jones, and to record with him and play with him.

[Hank] spoke about this, about following and leading in the same time, and how you accompany and how you feed the soloist ideas and react to them – playing with him in a duo and a quartet setting as well. And that’s why Hank – through the years – every record he’s on, whether its with Cannonball and Miles or Bags & Trane, the way he fed off of the soloist and fed them at the same moment from within the rhythm section… For me, playing with Hank really solidified a lot of things about how to improvise together to create music together.

This particular quintet – Us Five with the double drummer configuration – adds this other element of creativity that happens when we’re playing, whatever kind of piece of music it is, whatever kind of song form or structure or open phrases, to break down into groups that are possible within the quintet; that’s been the idea from the beginning, for me to have a group like this, it wasn’t just to play at the same time, it was to really try to lead and follow. Not just play solos…

Certainly not the standard Head-solos-head format…

Yeah, to really create some inner structures. So within the repertoire you have a band that can be a total new music experience every time through.

It’s interesting the way you will play little almost vignettes of a familiar piece (perhaps a Bird snippet) and then launch into something extended and original.

Right, using themes and events that can happen – musical statements that can lead. Like in this piece that we call “Birdyard”, it’s a free flowing collage of some of Charlie Parker’s themes, and harmonies and structures… but just kind of flowing within the band as we’re moving along. And when the tempo changes and key changes and all those things are spontaneously happening, from listening to each other and trying to put things together. That’s been a really fantastic exploration and something that’s been developing over the last period within this band.

How is it working with largely younger musicians in your band?

As you come up in this music, it’s a multi-generational experience from the beginning. I found myself as the youngest cat in almost every band I was ever in, for years and years. Then as time goes on things evolve and before you know it you’re feeding off these generations – and multi-culturalism also in the music. So that’s been a really fantastic realization.

Is that where the whole aspect of the “Cross Culture” idea came from – what with a multi-generational/multi-cultural crew of musicians making this record?

The personnel definitely has come together with that [in mind], but the whole cross-cultural thing for me has been the international touring that I’ve done – and the collaborations around the world with people since I was 23. My first European tour was with Woody Herman’s band, and sitting in and playing with drummers from Morocco in Berlin, and experiencing all these different elements in the music in Asia and Africa, the Middle East and all over Europe, North and South America… It’s been amazing to travel like that and to go and play with players from those places. And I have a collection of instruments from those places that I’ve collected through the years.

That flute you played this evening is kinda new, right? Where’d that instrument come from?

That’s a beautiful instrument that flute. I got that in Belfast, its African wood and I’ve been playing that one for about the last 8 years or so. But collecting gongs; I have a koto I’ve been playing since the mid-80s when I first went to Hong Kong; African drums, and hand drums and gongs from Asia and the Middle East, from Turkey…

Well we do know you’re a closet drummer.

I’ve been playing drums and involved in that experience and exploration and study since I was real young. My dad played tenor and I guess sometime in the late 50s – I was about five or six years old – and the drummer he was playing with got a new set of drums and gave him his old drums. One day my dad showed up and before I knew it I had a full drum set in my bedroom at my grandmother’s house where we were living at the time. At the same time I was learning melodies on the saxophone and learning the technique of getting around on my horn, I was sitting at the snare drum and the cymbal and trying to play the melodies that I was trying to learn on the saxophone.

So it became a melodic experience on the drums for me at first, until I started to actually play some time and accompany people. But that whole thing about vibrating on flutes and instruments from around the world has been a real meditation for me, from a really early age.

As far as making records, the whole idea of arranging pieces for two drums in an acoustic setting like Us Five, what kind of challenges do you deal with as far as arranging the pieces for a record date?

At the beginning, like “Folk Art,” the first recording that we did, there were a few tunes that had more set arrangements and I wanted to explore playing as a quintet and then breaking down into specific quartets and trios, so in that sense I kinda mapped out a few arrangements for that first recording. That tune “Powerhouse” that starts out that record, had a set form where the drummers played off each chorus and played off of each other’s ideas under one soloist. So to keep a mood and to keep a smoothness – plus be yourself – was a real challenge.

By the time we recorded “Bird Songs” we were touring a lot and on the gigs I was playing Charlie Parker tunes, Coltrane’s tunes, Billy Strayhorn’s music, some Thelonious Monk… I started adding some tunes that I had played with Hank [Jones] within the repertoire of Us Five. All of a sudden different things started to happen when we were playing famous music and playing it within the flavors of who we are as players. I started to re-arrange some things – like to play “Donna Lee” as a ballad, instead of the bright, brisk tune that it always is. And to play “Yardbird Suite” as a hymn; and I wrote a little interlude between choruses that fit into this other kind of rhythm… little things just seemed to happen from playing together a lot.

“Cross Culture” was a lot more spontaneous. I wrote some themes and some inner parts for the bass and guitar, with Lionel in mind, and I let the rhythm happen from within the way I was playing the heads. The tune “In a Spin” is like a whirling dervish. When we first ran it down at the record date, I could tell Otis and Mela weren’t sure – ‘what kind of beat do you want off of this?’ I said play what you feel off of this and I just played these quarter notes, and then it just took off and all of a sudden that was the take. So there was some real spontaneous energy and rhythms that happened from just the way I played the theme.

Within the repertoire of the band I could segue from whatever tune I want to by just playing the feeling of it, and all of a sudden we’re in a new tempo and a new harmony.

On several compositions on “Cross Culture” you switch horns in the middle of the piece. Does that happen spontaneously or is that planned?

That did happen spontaneously on the record. I had a few of the tunes when I just played one specific horn – like the G mezzo soprano on “Journey Within”; the Aulochrome – the double horn – harmonizing on “Modern Man”, a tune that I first played with Ed Blackwell and wrote for him on a recording we made called “One for the Soul.” We played it in duet and I played alto on that tune. There were a few things where I had something specific in mind, there were other tunes where I switched in the middle and instead of playing like one solo after another, I played a couple of times on the same piece at different moments on different horns, and played shorter little statements.

I didn’t look at it as much as a solo as like statements along the way. When you switch horns the timbre and the color changes and all of a sudden it’s like a new moment in the same tune. I’ve been exploring that more and more and with this band it really moves beautifully. Because when I switch horns all of a sudden its like another moment, like a trio moment or another quartet sound, or just a duet moment for a second on another horn. I played the Taragato and then some gongs and log drums and different things.

I noticed that you didn’t go real long with these tunes on this record (averaging 6 minutes).

They’re statements of – you call them tunes, but they’re really like… little events that move right along. Wayne Shorter speaks of some famous tunes of his that others have played; he considers them not finished yet. That’s how I’m starting to feel about my music and especially about the way we’re exploring things in this band.

After the first set at Blues Alley, I sat down with drummer Otis Brown and bassist, Esperanza Spalding to get their take on working with Joe and Us Five.

Talk about playing in Us Five.

Otis Brown lll: [I Otis at the same time as Joe did, at the Monk Institute summer session at Snowmass-Aspen, CO in the summer of ‘99; I was out there with a film crew shooting footage for the old BET Jazz show Jazz Ed TV I used to produce and host]. Man, what can I say… Us Five is from the mind of the genius Joe Lovano [laughs]. He put together some amazing musicians and it’s always a pleasure to play with. We all have relationships outside of Us Five too and we came together… For Mela and I, we were kind of wary, we didn’t know what it was gonna be like, how this was going to work with the two drummers.

I suspect know that’s a work in progress.

OB: It is a work in progress, but it’s always a work in progress. Joe kinda had a concept in mind when we came to it, he kinda had it mapped out – like ‘Mela here, Otis here…’ And now it just happens organically. But in the beginning he had a specific idea in mind and thought that we would be the two right [drummers] to bring it together, and it’s been magical sometimes. Now the way the communication happens, there’s no other band like it – and nothing I’ve ever played in has been like this.

And what’s your take on Us Five?

Esperanza Spalding: What do you want to know? You know what, I’ve been thinking about this since I got your email [laughs]…

So I’m putting you on the spot?

ES: No, I’m not on the spot, I don’t think about it very much, like intellectually; I don’t think about good vocabulary words and stuff… I just really feel it, and that sounds very corny and clichéd, but when I remember this band or think about Joe or this ensemble, I get this feeling and its like such a joyful, excited feeling just about the music that happens. I’m not using my small ego self to think about it very much, honestly.

But the one thing that I did think a while ago – like one of the only cohesive, intelligent things… was the fact that the way the two drummers communicate is very ancient. I was just thinking like ‘wow’, I wonder if Joe was thinking about that when he had the idea of having two drummers talking in that way that they talk.

It really was ancient in one part of that set, where they were communicating in a very African way!

ES: Its like standing between them, Otis says something and Mela’s listening like proactively, and then he says something… and they’re like the pillars of the communication in a way. I just felt like maybe we’re tapping into some very ancient form of communication, like some very pure – not pure in the sense of uncontaminated, but just innate way of communicating. So to have that as the core of all of the phenomenal technical, soulful capacity harmonically, I just think its like the perfect balance. And I notice, like tonight on the first set, the audience gets here and they’re like ‘ok we’re gonna hear Joe and hear some music, so its like a certain level of excitement. And as soon as that first song kicks in, people are like ‘whoa…’ you can feel the energy and the excitement, and the eagerness to hear what the heck is gonna happen next just swell in the room. And then by the end of the set everybody’s is going… people are like really writhing with the excitement of what they just heard. And for all that’s going on that’s like hip, and all the years combined of people working on this music, its almost like something is distilled that’s like the essence of the communication aspect. The communication is sort of a universal thread that makes everyone see the concept; and its something about this band that it has distilled that. I think there’s an element of this ancient communication happening that’s sort of like a distilled thread of universal communication – person-to-person, musician-to-musician, however you want to look at it.

Look for the release of “Cross Culture” on January 22, 2013… Don’t sleep!