Mary Halvorson Interview 2012-12-01 (Part Three)

Secret Keeper, the new duo of Mary Halvorson and Stephen Crump will be playing "Indeterminacies" at Zeitgeist Gallery here in Nashville on Friday, May 10. The event starts at 7:00pm and is FREE and open to the public. In honor of their Nashville debut, here is the full transcript of my interview with Ms. Halvorson which took place on December 1, 2012 at the Blackwell Inn in Columbus, Ohio prior to her quartet gig at the University of Ohio. A drastically edited and rearranged version appeared on Spectrum Culture in January (Part One and Part Two). I am no journalist so I apologize for the rambling (if not totally incoherent) questions. She was actually quite gracious and generous with her time and it was pleasure to talk with her. The full transcript has been posted here over the next few days. Herewith is the Third and final part. Enjoy!

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RC: You’ve mentioned that you like Deerhoof.

MH: I love Deerhoof, yeah.

RC: That’s really interesting, um, because a friend of mine is way into them, he’s into their drummer and you’ve mentioned their guitarist and I was listening to them this week and I was going, you know, I can sort hear it, particularly like during the more rock-oriented stuff, the sort of jagged rhythms—

MH: Uh-hmm and they have two guitarists now which I also really like because they blend in a really interesting way, I mean, interesting orchestration of the guitars.

RC: Yeah, and the whole rhythm of it is very different from most rock music today. What other sorts of music do you like to listen to that people might be surprised by.

MH: Might be surprised…hmmm…[pause]. I listen to all sorts of things. Um. I mean I love a lot of old soul stuff. Um. I listen to a lot of old music [laughs].

RC: Me too!

MH: A lot of old jazz. Um. You know, I’ll check out anything. I mean I also like to try to keep up with what’s happening now, especially in the jazz scene but also you know bands like Deerhoof. Um. I just got the new Frank Ocean CD, which I found really interesting.

RC: Hmmm.

MH: It’s a little bit of a different thing. But, I don’t know. I love Sam Cooke. Um…Yeah, a lot of jazz. I don’t know, it really depends. I don’t have like a regular routine of listening or anything.

RC: Do you collect records?

MH: Some. I don’t have a huge record collection but I, it is my preferred form for listening.

RC: So, vinyl? I was going to ask you about that because the second MAP record is vinyl-only.

MH: Yeah.

RC: And it’s gorgeous!

MH: Yeah, that label is really cool, vinyl label.

RC: I’m kind of surprised to see that is still available, I would think that would be snapped up, you know, right away, but um…

MH: Yeah, I have so many copies of it at home [laughs]. Because, I don’t want to bring it on tour because it’s heavy. You know, so that’s the thing, that’s the problem with vinyl is you don’t want to be carrying it around. So, I rarely sell it so I have all these—I mean, I bring copies to Downtown Music Gallery sometimes because I never sell it.

RC: So, you prefer vinyl to CD?

MH: I love listening to vinyl.

RC: What is it about it you like?

MH: Just the sound, I mean the—it just creates a different feeling, you know, just the sound of the record. The MP3s especially, it’s so, you really lose something.

RC: Yeah, sure.

MH: So I love listening and I inherited my dad’s record player, because he wasn’t listening to it, so he just gave it to me. And he bought it in like 1967, and it still has the original speakers, so there’s something really timeless about that, you know? Technology is changing like every day but you have this record player that still works, sounds great, with the same speakers from that year.

RC: Right, it’s just a needle being dragged through a piece of plastic…

MH: Yeah. Do you listen to it? Do you have a lot of vinyl?

RC: Oh yeah, thousands of records.

MH: Oh wow. I bet. I bet you have a crazy record collection!

RC: [Laughs] Well, I like CDs, too. You know, the thing about CDs that I like is that, you know, pitch is not an issue, it’s always on pitch, and, you know, speed variations don’t make it warble. I love vinyl, but it’s kind of a pain.

MH: It is. But I kind of like those weird quirks sometimes.

RC: Uh-hum.

MH: But it’s nice to have both. I think it’s nice to have both as an option.

RC: Do you find that when you go into the studio and you’ve made your record and when you finally get it in your hand, you’re like it doesn’t quite sound like what we were doing or is it pretty close, or…

MH: Usually it’s pretty close because you’ve monitored at every stage along the way, you know, you’ve been there for the mixing and the mastering and coming up with the order. I feel like if you’re involved with the process, hopefully you’ve gotten it to a point where you’re happy with it. The thing that happens is the process takes so long, you feel like it’s an old record by the time it comes out. That’s the thing about it that I don’t like.

RC: It seems like some things, they get recorded and then it’s years before they ever come out.

MH: Sometimes. I mean, the People record is going to be like that.

RC: I hear there is a new Anti-House record in the can.

MH: Uh-huh.

RC: Will that be on Intakt again? They’re generally pretty timely, it seems.

MH: Yeah, Intakt is a great label.

RC: Yeah.

MH: I have another record coming out on Intakt actually which is a duo with Stephan Crump.

RC: Right – Secret Keeper?

MH: Yeah, that will be out in March or something. But they’ve been great, great people to work with.

RC: Yeah, that Anti-House record is one of my favorite records of all time.

MH: Oh, that’s so cool.

RC: It’s just again that’s one of those bands where it’s like anything could happen, you know?

MH: Um-hm.

RC: And within a very short period of time, anything could happen. It’s interesting to compare that to like the Tom Rainey Trio, which is essentially the same people but the music’s very different.

MH: Yeah, very different. Ingrid is a great composer, I really like what she does.

RC: And a great player, too.

MH: Oh yeah, she’s one of my favorites.

RC: My sense is that the Tom Rainey Trio is more improvised.

MH: It’s entirely improvised.

RC: Oh, it’s entirely improvised, OK. And then Anti-House is quite tightly constructed.

MH: Yeah, again but with spaces for things to happen, but yeah, she writes—her compositions are actually pretty involved and pretty difficult. I usually have to spend a lot of time learning them, which I’m happy to do because I love her music.

RC: So how so, like what makes them difficult?

MH: Rhythmically, there’s a lot of tricky rhythm stuff and also a lot of like big leaps sometimes pitch-wise, so, um, yeah, it sometimes it just takes a lot of coordination and a lot of times there will be tricky rhythm stuff and somebody else will be playing a different tricky rhythm simultaneously but they don’t necessarily line up until a certain point. You know, it’s not like you’re playing against a beat so you have a sense of where you are so it’s also tricky. You have to really learn it.

RC: Well, it sounds so effortless on record and some of the live things I’ve heard.

MH: That’s good! [Laughs] That’s nice.

RC: But maybe that sort of tension is sort of built into it. Like, there’s some music that is, um, I think some of Braxton’s music is like this, where there’s so many complex rhythms going on that it doesn’t really matter if they don’t line up completely.

MH: Right.

RC: That sort of imprecision is sort of a part of what makes the music interesting.

MH: Oh, totally, yeah, I think that is.

RC: So, well the new Anti-House record be similar to the last one? Or will it be moving in a new direction?

MH: I haven’t heard the final version, I’ve only heard drafts of it but I think it’s great, I think it’s going to be really good. The sound is amazing and it’s, the band has been together longer, so there’s kind of more cohesion.

RC: Uh-hm. And is Kris Davis a little more involved on this one?

MH: Yeah, yeah, she’s on I think every track.

RC: You don’t play with pianists very often—

MH: Not very often. I love to, but yeah for some reason it doesn’t seem to happen very often.

RC: Well, I think it’s kind of hard thing, I think, two harmonic instruments like that, it’s hard to get a blend. But she’s really amazing player as well.

MH: Yeah, she’s incredible.

RC: And always seems to know what register to be in and never gets in anyone’s way but yet there’s always a lot going on. So that will be interesting to hear.

MH: Yeah, I’m excited about it.

RC: So this duet with Stephan Crump seems like that’s a recent sort of thing, you started playing together?

MH: Yeah, it’s been about a year and half ago we started getting together playing and recording—he has a studio in his home, a music studio, so we’ve been getting together and just basically recording everything we’ve done. And so we put out an album. And that’s all improvisations, although we’ve been writing compositions, too, so the following record, which will be on Intakt a couple years later is going to be those compositions.

RC: Ah, great! So, what about Thumb Screw, which is you and Michael Formanek and Tomas Fujuwara? So how is that different from like your trio stuff, it’s a guitar/bass/drums trio…

MH: Yeah. It’s funny because I was wondering that too but it feels very different, it just has a very different energy, partly just because Mike and Tomas are such different players than Ches and John and partly because it’s not all my compositions, it’s also their compositions. And I think you write differently for different people, so probably even my compositions are going to be different for that band, for the trio. Somehow, it feels really different. I can’t really articulate how but that’s been interesting to notice. I didn’t know what was going to happen and then once that band started, I was like wow, this is really different than the trio.

RC: That’s really exciting. I’m looking through your list of gigs with all kinds of people, Instant Strangers with Tim Berne—

MH: Oh, that hasn’t played yet, but we’re going to have a gig later in the month.

RC: Mike Reed’s Living By Lanterns….I mean it’s just sort of endless. It’s almost like, um, it’s almost like you’ll play with anybody—no, that sounds awful, I mean—

MH: [laughs] That’s fine!

RC: But it’s not like you’re locked into a “this is my thing.”

MH: Yeah.

RC: It seems like any of these people in this crowd want to get together and do something, you’re there and you’re contributing to what’s required.

MH: I mean it’s sort of a combination, because I like to do a variety of things, um, but then there’s a point where it becomes too much and you feel too scattered, so it’s kind of about finding that balance where you’re doing a lot of things but, I mean, a lot of the times there’s so many things that I want to do that I’ll have to say no to even things I do want to do, just because there’s not enough time.  Or if I feel like I don’t have enough time to practice or compose or things like that, I’ll have to start cutting down. But definitely don’t do anything I don’t want to do. So, there’s just a lot of things I want to do, so it’s a tricky balance, I think.

RC: Anyone that you’d like to play with that you haven’t played with?

MH: Oh, a ton of people. You know, it’s funny, though. I don’t necessarily think of specific people that I want to, I mean there are a ton. I mean I’ll hear someone that I’ve never played with and I think that would be great but I don’t think that far ahead [laughs] so I don’t necessarily think about that.

RC: So I’m guessing you’re pretty well booked well into the future.

MH: Somewhat, yeah. Yeah. But I just kind of take opportunities as they come, you know?

RC: So you’ve made some records on Thirsty Ear, Matt Shipp’s Blue Series—have you worked with Matt at all?

MH: I’ve never worked with Matt. I know him, but, no, I’ve never worked with him.

RC: That could be kind of interesting.

MH: I’m sure that would be great. He’s a great musician, I love his playing.

RC: Um, he comes from more that sort of aggressive, that sort of post-60s avant-garde kind of thing and it would be interesting to hear your take with that. I’m sort of abstractly imagining what that might sound like.

MH: It’s possible it could happen at some point. Who knows?

RC: Um, I should probably let you go. One last question: what do you do for fun when you’re not traveling and playing music.

MH: [laughs] Um, what do I do for fun…I really actually like getting away from music because all my friends, I mean that’s the thing, you get into this thing where all your friends are musicians and you’re playing music and you’re talking about music and it becomes difficult to get away from it. So, I have a few hobbies or things I do: I watch a lot of basketball—

RC: Basketball?

MH: Yeah, so I watch a lot of basketball games. I go swimming. That’s a really nice thing to kind of Zen out, so I do laps at the pool when I’m home. I study astrology so sometimes I’ll read things about that and do astrology-related things.

RC: My wife wanted me to ask you about astrology because we noticed that you’ve said, or intimated that you were into astrology and she’s studied astrology.

MH: Oh, wow, I’ll have to talk to her about it.

RC: So, what’s your sign?

MH: A Libra. Libra sun, Libra rising and there’s Capricorn moon.

RC: We’re both Scorpios, we have the same birthday.

MH: Oh, wow, that’s so interesting. I’ve met like two other couples who share a birthday, or are one day off. That’s very interesting, double Scorpios, very intense

.

RC: Yeah, ‘cuz Scorpios generally can be kind of prickly but we get along great.

MH: Terrific.

RC: Do find the astrological stuff fitting into your music or affect your music or inform what you’re doing musically?

MH: Well, it’s interesting just the way you relate to people, like, um, the band Instant Strangers is a funny example because me and Tim Berne have the same birthday and then Tomas and Stephan, their birthdays are one day off and the angle that our four Suns form is a trine, which is like an easy flow of energy. So there’s kind of, you can see things like that sometimes. I had a band once in college where we had all four elements: earth, air, fire and water, each person in the band was a different element and that was also kind of a cool balance. Also, in my septet, five out of seven of the people are Libras.

RC: Wow.

MH: And I didn’t do that on purpose, that just happened. I tend to be drawn to Libras, I think in some sense, especially musically. Ches is a Libra, Jon Irabagon is a Libra, Ingrid, Jacob Garchik (__), Peter Evans. So there’s, I have a lot of Libras in my life so, but it’s not just about the Sun sign, everyone is a combination of many elements so that, if you look at the big picture, it’s one of those things where the more you know, the more interesting it gets.

RC: Right. Is the opposite true,  that if there’s some sort of tension or you don’t find yourself not getting along that maybe it has to do with sort of astrological issues?

MH: I think it sometimes does, yeah. Although I guess I tend to look more at the charts of people I do get along with [laughs].

RC: Uh-huh. That makes sense. And I just remembered one other question I wanted to ask you: it seems like you were on your way back from Europe when Hurricane Sandy hit. Is that right?

MH: Yeah, I got back like the day before the storm hit.

RC: Were you badly affected by that?

MH: Actually, not really. My area which is Fort Greene, Brooklyn was pretty, relatively unaffected and I feel very lucky because some neighborhoods, I mean, still the Rockaways and Red Hook and some areas are just devastated.

RC: And it shut down public transportation and—

MH: Yeah. I was, for me it was kind of weird, lucky timing because I didn’t have anywhere to be, I’d just gotten back from a five week tour, I was exhausted, I just wanted to stay home. So that’s exactly what I did, I didn’t go anywhere.

RC: Did you have power?

MH: Yeah, they kept kind of flickering but it never went out.

RC: Wow, that’s fortunate.

MH: I mean the winds were like whipping, I have a kind of wind tunnel out my window because I’m in the back of the building and it’s kind of a narrow thing to the next street so the wind was just like whoosh, whipping down alley.

RC: Wow.

MH: Yeah, it was—but everything was fine, really.

RC: I haven’t gotten report from ____, but some of those downtown venues, I think, were affected by it.

MH: You know, I don’t know. _____ told me the Stone was fine, which I was really surprised about because Avenue C, I think, got hit pretty bad although I haven’t been to the Stone since it happened. I know that the Kitchen had a lot of damage, Issue Project Room, I think, had some damage. So, yeah, I mean, it’s tough. A lot of people are really still struggling.

RC: Yeah, it’s horrible. And apparently, it’s just going to get worse and worse.

MH: The gas thing was insane. You couldn’t get gas.

RC: Oh, right.

MH: I mean, I don’t have a car, but even I was trying to get a ride to the airport, things like that. Just, people were waiting in line, the guy who drove me to the airport, he said he waited for gas for 18 hours, he had to wait overnight.

RC: This was to come here?

MH: No, no. Just to get gas in Brooklyn, because there was no gas for cars.

RC: Has it gotten any better recently?

MH: Yeah, now it’s back to normal—but it took like three weeks. It was really hectic [laughs].

RC: Wow. And New York is hectic enough, you know what I mean? You don’t need any more complications.

MH: That’s crazy.

RC: Well, it’s after 4:30, so I should really let you go. I really appreciate this, thank you so much!

MH: Yeah, well, thanks so much for coming, that’s really cool.

RC: Oh, great and, um, I sort of fell into this website thing. They saw my blog and said, hey, you wanna write? So now I’m sort of their heavy metal and avant-garde writer, so—

MH: That’s awesome.

RC: There really isn’t very much jazz on there, but I’m—

MH: And what’s the name of the site?

RC: Oh, Spectrum Culture.

MH: Spectrum Culture, OK.

RC: So my goal is to like bring in more jazz and avant-garde stuff. It’s mostly pop music, so…

MH: Is it based in Nashville?

RC: I think he’s in Portland, Oregon.

MH: Cool.

RC: I don’t think it has a big readership yet, but he has big plans for it—but who knows. I was sort of flattered to be asked to do it because I never really set out to be a writer, much less, you know, interviewing rock stars—

MH: [laughs]

RC: So, I really appreciate it.

MH: Well, cool.

RC: So it will probably be up in a couple of weeks.

MH: Great.

RC: And I’m looking forward to the show tonight.

MH: Yeah, me too! And you said you wanted to take photos? If you do, just tell them I said it was OK if they give any kind of a problem.

RC: OK and I also wanted to ask you for you autograph.

MH: Oh, thanks, sure.

RC: I love the covers on your records, they have like a similar aesthetic. Is that something you set out to do?

MH: Well, that’s actually, the covers are designed by Megan Craig who’s married to Nick Lloyd, who runs Firehouse, she does all the graphic design. So she did this. The other ones that had drawings by my dad, which she then put into color and did the layout, so it was kind of a collaboration between her and my dad. And this one she did all by herself. So basically, she kind of presented me with different directions she was going in and then we kind of went from there. I liked this one.

RC: Oh, they’re beautiful. Well, if you wouldn’t mind signing it, I’d appreciate it.

MH: Yeah. Is your name R-O-D-G-E-R?

RC: Yeah.

MH: OK. I couldn’t remember if it had the D in there.

RC: Oh, you are left handed.

MH: Yep [laughs].

RC: So I understand in Suzuki it doesn’t matter which handed you are, they teach you to play right-handed.

MH: You know, I don’t know, because I picked it up naturally rightie, which is weird.

RC: And you play guitar right-handed.

MH: Yep. But I do, it’s kind of weird, it’s like certain things, like half of sports I would play, like I would play baseball rightie but I would play basketball leftie. You know, I write leftie, eat food leftie, but I play guitar rightie so it’s kind of a weird—

RC: So you’re sort of ambidextrous.

MH: Yeah, I guess so.

RC: Interesting. So I wonder how would it must be like to have your fretting hand be your dominant as opposed to your non-dominant hand.

MH: Well, actually I had to spend a lot of time working on my picking hand because that’s the weaker hand. So I spent years just doing like picking exercises with a metronome just trying to get that hand up to speed because it was weaker. So, I mean I still work a lot on picking stuff.

RC: Wow. Well, you have a very aggressive pick attack—or it can be, not always.

MH: I always wanted, instinctually that’s how I always I would, from the very beginning I think I’ve played like that, for some reason.

RC: Hmm.

MH: I don’t know why [laughs].

RC: Interesting. Well, I feel like I could talk with you for hours but I’m sure you have things to do.

MH: We have to go soundcheck soon, so I’ll probably go get ready for that. Anyway, maybe I’ll talk to you after the show but, yeah, thanks again.

RC: OK, well thank you—I really appreciate it.

MH: Cool, well I’ll see you in a little bit.

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END OF PART THREE.

Mary Halvorson Interview 2012-12-01 (Part Two)

Secret Keeper, the new duo of Mary Halvorson and Stephen Crump will be playing "Indeterminacies" at Zeitgeist Gallery here in Nashville on Friday, May 10. The event starts at 7:00pm and is FREE and open to the public. In honor of their Nashville debut, here is the full transcript of my interview with Ms. Halvorson which took place on December 1, 2012 at the Blackwell Inn in Columbus, Ohio prior to her quartet gig at the University of Ohio. A drastically edited and rearranged version appeared on Spectrum Culture in January (Part One and Part Two). I am no journalist so I apologize for the rambling (if not totally incoherent) questions. She was actually quite gracious and generous with her time and it was pleasure to talk with her. The full transcript will be posted here over the next few days. Herewith is Part Two. Enjoy!

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RC: Um. I’m kind of jumping around, I’m sort of improvising this interview…

MH: That’s great [laughs]. That’s cool.

RC: So you and Jessica Pavone just did a little tour; that was your tenth anniversary?

MH: Uh-huh.

RC: Now, I take it then that was maybe the first thing you did when you came to New York was work with Jessica?

MH: Yeah, it was. She was the first person I met.

RC: Oh, really?

MH: We were neighbors, weirdly enough. It’s funny to be neighbors in New York. We live like a block away from each other.

RC: How funny. And you didn’t meet through Braxton’s group then?

MH: Not through Braxton, but we had mutual friends because, she actually didn’t go to Wesleyan, contrary to what many people think, she went to the Hart School of Music where she was playing with Middletown Creative Orchestra and she would drive down a lot and work with a lot of Wesleyan people. So, we had friends in common, so we did meet through mutual friends.

RC: Now those records are really interesting too because, um, you’ve said it’s like “writing your own folk music.”

MH: Right.

RC: And I know you’ve mentioned Robert Wyatt being a big influence for a while. I hear a lot of sort of Canterbury elements to that music.

MH: Hmm.

RC: Kind of folk-rock, um, it’s not jazz.

MH: Not really. And I think because Jess never studied jazz, she’s coming more from a classical background and she’s also really into a lot of folk music and a lot of chamber music so I think it more takes on that kind of influence. There’s probably some jazz influence there but it’s not that strong.

RC: And maybe not even a lot of improvisation, more through-composed.

MH: Some of them are through-composed and some of them have improvisation.

RC: And the singing is lovely, I love the harmonies and the, and you both have sort of plain voices—I mean that in the best way.

MH: We’re not singers, yeah. So that’s the kind thing that, I kind of like it when you have singing that’s kind of raw, like it’s not polished. Although some polished singers I really love, but it’s kind of, we’re just singing almost not because we’re trying to be singers but because the song requires that, you know what I mean? [laughs]

RC: Uh-huh. Right.

MH: So, we’re just singing. It’s pretty simple, yeah.

RC: It’s beautiful stuff. And so you’ve made three records?

MH: Four actually.

RC: That’s right, the new one on Thirsty Ear makes four.

MH: The new one, yeah, Departure of Reason is the newest one. It’s I think it’s now almost a year old, though.

RC: Uh-huh. Um. Oh yeah, and so then People is another area where you sing as well and it has very much a rock sort of feel.

MH: And that was also another when I left the New School and I was thinking of doing different stuff. I was more interested in rock music around that time and People was probably the second band I formed after the duo with Jess and I was kind of experimenting with having a rock band and then I met Kevin and we just started working on that stuff.

RC: That’s great stuff. And you have a new one coming out.

MH: Theoretically. [laughter]

RC: Theoretically?

MH: It’s been—I couldn’t even tell you what we’ve been through I mean we recorded that, the “new CD,” I think was recorded in like 2009 or something. And we had three different labels kind of screw us over, kind of string us along and say they were going to put it out and be like, oh never mind, and then we’d be back to square one. So we’ve been sitting on it for a long time. But I really like the record, I hope it gets out. We have a plan now which is actually the same label that put out our first two records. It’s funny, we ended circling back around. They weren’t doing stuff for a while and then by the time we’d gotten screwed over enough times, they were ready to put it out again. But Peter Evans did some horn arrangements on it.

RC: Yeah, I saw something about that. That will be interesting.

MH: It’s really cool, I like what he did. And then we have a bass player now, who also sings. So it’s a little different than the other records.

RC: Have you ever thought about adding a rhythm section to what you and Jessica are doing or is it strictly a duo, intimate kind of thing?

MH: I think…yeah, we’ve more thought about it as a duo although we’ve other groups with rhythm sections, like we did that quartet with Devin Hoff and Ches Smith, which did one record and that was a while ago. And we’ve worked with Tomas and Taylor in the 13^th Assembly, so I guess we feel like we have other contexts where we can work with other people and the duo will probably just remain the duo.

RC: Particularly when the singing is going on it’s almost like, if there was a little more heft here, you know, this could almost be like popular music.

MH: [laughs] That’s great.

RC: But maybe that’s something you’re avoiding, you know, doing something overt like that.

MH: Part of the duo in a sense is kind of just a natural extension of our friendship, you know? So we hang out a lot, we spend a lot of time together and then we get together and play music and, it just seems, I guess the idea of adding someone never occurred to us.

RC: It might make it more complicated.

MH: Yeah, because it’s so easy. It’s so easy, you know, it just feels natural. We show up, we have some songs, we’ve rehearsed them. It’s easy schedule. We work really well together in terms of just planning stuff and working on music and so it’s pretty easy.

RC: Yeah, there’s almost no division between like what her material might be and your material, it seems very integrated.

MH: That’s good.

RC: So, you’ve gotten a lot of great press, in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, a big write-up in Downbeat this year—have you had any major labels come knocking on your door wanting you do something?

MH: Actually, I haven’t, you know [laughs].

RC: Maybe that’s a good thing?

MH: Yeah, I mean it’s, you know, I’ve actually been really happy working with Firehouse. That’s been really great. Um, and in a sense I don’t really see a need for it. I mean, it’s like, it’s nice having, I mean I have total control over the music and they do a great job and they also have great insight. In the studio, I mean, Nick is really great in the studio from Firehouse and if I ever have some kind of a question about, oh, I don’t know which track, he always has great opinions. I’m just really comfortable wth them and I really like working with them, so…

RC: Do you like making records?

MH: I love making records.

RC: You do?

MH: Yeah.

RC: I can sort of tell because you have a pretty big discography.

MH: It’s just so nice, recording is such a nice process, I think. I really enjoy it.

RC: Hmm. A lot of jazz people are like, "I don’t like making records…"

MH: Really?

RC: Like, "the bandstand is where it’s at…"

MH: I mean, yeah, I mean probably if I had to choose one, I would be a performer rather than a recording artist.

RC: I don’t hear a lot of difference between you on the bandstand and you on records, particularly with your own band. Maybe because you rehearse you rehearse a lot.

MH: Yeah, well, my band doesn’t rehearse a lot [laughter] but we play a lot of shows. Um, but, I mean, it’s different, there’s a different energy you get in the studio and it’s different than a live show, I mean just to be able to spend time capturing the exact perfect sound for each instrument and to really, the nice thing about recording is the clarity that you’re able to present that can’t always get in a live show. Maybe the sound is bad or maybe one side of the room you can’t hear the guitar, the other side you can’t hear the bass, you know? It’s nice to have, to present something the way you want it heard, with the exact precision, I kind of like that about it.

RC: And it’s great for fans, particularly ones who don’t live in New York, so we get to hear what you’re up to. Um, so…I don’t really want to get into a whole gear discussion but on my humble little blog, I’ve described you as the “most complete guitarist” and what I mean by that is that you, you take advantage of every aspect that the instrument has to offer, you don’t just sort of limit yourself to certain sort of sounds and one of the things I find really interesting is that you know you play that gigantic Guild, which has this big acoustic sound and you incorporate that acoustic sound into your electric sound, you’ll pull the volume back and there’s just the acoustic sound, maybe blend it, with a little bit of distortion with that clean sound and, um, you’re willing to use technology…um…is there a question here? I’m not sure.

MH: [laughs]

RC: Um, well, OK. You mentioned that you got a little sick of the guitar and you went out and got a bunch of effects pedals and sort of worked your way through it.

MH: Yeah, that was when I was at the New School, it’s true, I did do that.

RC: And so what is your feeling about technology?  A lot of guitarists get, you know, they get a huge rack of gear and they bury their sound in effects and you don’t do that, you, you’re basic sound is that acoustic string, that pure sound of the guitar but you’re totally willing to warp that sound.

MH: Um-hm. Yeah, I mean, I think that, obviously every guitar player approaches it differently and it’s just my taste but I really like having a mix of these things. I really like having the acoustic sound of the guitar mixed in because I really feel like that’s a really important aspect of the guitar, the attack of the pick and the sound of the wood. But then you’re having at your disposal an electric guitar so, you know, it’s nice to be able to take advantage of amplifiers and get a tone that you like and feedback and effects, and so but I like that to be balanced and blended. And I’m not saying that’s the only way to do it because I’ve heard plenty of guitarists who maybe have a wall of effects like this, which could be really bad, but if you have great control over that stuff, I’ve heard like Ty Braxton is an example of somebody who has complete control and does amazing things, looping all these effects. And then you get people that don’t have any kind of acoustic element really to their electric guitar, you know, it’s all from the amp. And that can be great, too. But I don’t know. Personally, I just like having that balance and I like to being able to think that if the amp was taken away and all the effects were taken away that the core of the instrument is still there and I could still come up with something. And I kind of think of the effects as like ornaments, like ornamenting or adding something to it.

RC: Yeah because it’s not like you just step on that distortion pedal and like that’s it and you sort use it as an accent or…

MH: Yeah, yeah it’s like something to, just a little something extra to kind of..

.

RC: Does that create a challenge, like in the small venues that you play in New York, you can back off and you can still hear the guitar but on like a bigger stage, that must be a challenge.

MH: Yeah, what I usually do in that situation (and for recording as well) is put a mic on, right in front of the strings, so then if it’s like a big hall or something, they can blend this mic and the mic on the amp and so then when the amp goes off you can still hear just the acoustic. So usually that works and I always record like that, with a mic on the strings and a mic on the amp.

RC: So, I heard a story where you used to tour with the big Guild and your dad built a flight case for it or something, is that right?

MH: [laughs] He’s an architect so he likes doing these really detailed drawings.

RC: He did the drawings…

MH: He didn’t build the case, he did, the company was gonna, because my guitar is such a weird size, it needs like a custom shape. So the flight company required like a detailed—I mean, they were just asking for a few measurements, they were asking, like what’s the length of the body, and the this and how long is the neck. I guess maybe they were asking for 10 measurements or something and my dad said he’d do it. But before I know it, I he’s completely carried away and he’s, I mean, he’s doing, you know, he’s measuring the distance between this and across here and this length and he’s drawing little diagrams. I mean, that’s on the cover of Saturn Sings, you’ve seen it. But it was hilarious, I mean, I can’t imagine what these people thought at the company.

RC: I assume the case was well-made.

MH: It was, I mean, it worked [laughs].

RC: Um, but then like you took it to Europe and the guitar didn’t make it until like the last minute or something.

MH: Yeah, it almost missed a gig once. Um, I mean, there’s a number of reasons why I don’t do it. One is that I travel so much and I’m not that strong [laughs] and I’m really tired and then the thing weighs 50 pounds. It takes up, you know it’s this long—it’s like a coffin, I’m basically carrying around a coffin. You know, so by the end it’s like my muscles are aching and the thing is getting lost and it’s really not good for the wood to be exposed to such cold temperatures. And, in the end, it’s like, it doesn’t even fit in the trunk of a normal sized cab, so it just creates a lot of inconveniences. And so I thought I really need to find something smaller that still has that kind of acoustic quality that I like that I can travel with. So, that’s what I will be playing tonight. But the latest update on that is that I’m having, so OK. So basically, I’m still having problems because I try to carry on my guitar. You’ll see the neck, it’s very small, the guitar I’m playing and I have a little gig bag I carry it on the plane—so but even with that, I mean, you get people telling you you can’t carry it on, I mean, with the airplane restrictions getting worse and worse and it’s really stressful because I’ll show up—I can’t sleep the night before because I’m worried my guitar is not going to make it and there’s really no right answer, you know, I haven’t figured out an answer because it still stresses me out. I have a couple of friends, actually John Hebert is one and Michael Formanek, bass players who’ve had this surgery done on their bass so the neck is removable so they can check the bass, the upright bass, like in a, um, still in like a bass coffin, but without the head so it’s like half the height and then neck goes in a separate little case and then they’re able to bring their instrument to Europe with a little bit more ease. I mean, it’s still a pain in the ass to carry around an upright bass. But I was thinking about it because I’d done a trip with Michael Formanek to California and he brought the bass that way. And I thought, if you can do it to a bass, why can’t you do that to a guitar? And then I thought if I can just put my guitar in a suitcase sized thing and carry it on the plane and I wouldn’t have to worry about anything? And so then I know this guitar builder—I would never do that to my Guild, because I wouldn’t be able to it—but I know this guitar builder who I have a relationship with who has done some repairs for me before, he’s really talented (?) and has built all kinds of insane guitars and he’s really into weird, one-off projects and he said he would build a guitar for me. So we can custom build it from scratch, so everything is custom, you know, from the pickups to the size of the body, everything, and build it with a removable neck, so I can fold up the guitar. And we’re actually going to build it into a suitcase. So we’re going buy suitcase, build the guitar so that it fits into the suitcase and then I can walk on the plane. So this is the new model, my new model of travel.

RC: Oh, wow.

MH: Of course, he has five or six guitars to build before mine so I’m on kind of a waiting list. So it’s going to take a little while.

RC: I was going to ask how long it might be…

MH: I guess it would be two or three years but that’s my plan. And I’ve never had a custom guitar so it could be really cool to work with him to design this instrument from the beginning.

RC: So is it going to be a hollow-body, sort of similar kind of things?

MH: Yeah. I’m going to try to make it look—not look—I’m going to try to make it sound and feel as similar to my Guild as I can, but still, you know, have it fold up.

RC: Wow. I would wonder how the whole tension of the neck and the strings and stuff, is that like inviting intonation problems by taking the neck off and on?

MH: I think this guy would know how to do it. There are companies that are doing this now with guitars, so I’m sure they use different materials or some way where that isn’t a problem. But I trust that this guy will figure out a way so that it will be cool. Supposedly you have a bolt, you know, you fold it over, you don’t even have to take the strings totally off. You loosen the strings, fold the thing and then you bolt it back together and then just tighten the strings.

RC: Wow.

MH: That’s kind of the plan. So we’ll see. I’m very excited about it.

RC: Yeah, because I was wondering, I was looking at gig schedule, you’ve played over 100 gigs this year and you’ve been back and forth to Europe four times. Um, traveling with a guitar must be, like you said, hard.

MH: It’s just stressful and I think anything I can do to make traveling fun [laughs] and not stressful with the amount that I travel, I think it will really help. So, I’m excited about that.

RC: Do you like traveling?

MH: I love it except for that aspect of it, I really do.

RC: That’s good because you travel a lot!

MH: Yeah [laughs]. But just having it, I mean, every day is a fight, you get to one thing and, oh you can’t bring that on, and then you’re fighting with the people, then you might stopped at the check-in gate, you might get stopped up at the actual gate, you might get stopped at security, so it’s all these stages where you’re wondering what’s going happen and fighting with people and it’s just exhausting.

RC: I can only imagine Braxton with all his myriad saxophones.

MH: Oh, yeah, I mean, he told that he used to—I don’t know when this was, when he was very young he went to do a solo show in Europe and I think he brought like 10 horns or something and he just had them in piles—and this was when you could check as much stuff as you want—you just have them in piles, like moving all these horns, you know, out of the airport. I don’t know how—it’s amazing. I don’t know how people do it but, yeah, I’m trying to streamline the process.

RC: So, what brings you to Columbus, Ohio?

MH: Um, this gig? [laughter] Which I’m very excited about because it’s—I’ve played here before but not for maybe five, six years. It’s really nice, I really like being able to travel in the states because most of the work is in Europe and it’s always really great when you get an opportunity to play somewhere in the states because there’s so many interesting cities. It’s just hard, you know, it doesn’t happen that often.

RC: Right. Well, I was going to ask you what would it take to get you to come to Nashville?

MH: [laughs]. I would love to come to Nashville. But, you know, especially with a five-piece band, and you have to get everyone over with the flights and pay everyone, so it it’s not easy to do. And people are so busy, I mean even finding a time when everyone’s free is, I was lucky that this worked out [laughs], everyone was free.

RC: You’ve been playing more in “flyover country,” it seems…

MH: In where?

RC: “Flyover country,” you know, between New York and LA, you know, is “flyover country.”

MH: Yeah, actually I did a gig in—“flyover,” I like that—I did a gig in St. Louis, Missouri and Ann Arbor, Michigan recently and that was amazing, it was so fun.

RC: And 13^th Assembly was in Alabama last year, I think?

MH: Yeah, that’s true, we played at the University of Alabama.

RC: And my wife and I were seriously considering going and for whatever reason it didn’t happen which is why we were like, OK, Columbus, only a six hours away, we’re going!

MH: [laughs] That is so nice, that is so cool you came all this way.

RC: Oh, hey, New York is even further so, um. Well, I don’t know how much time you have?

MH: What time is getting to be?

RC: It’s 4:15?

MH: Definitely until like 4:30. We have to go to sound check afterwards.

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END OF PART TWO.

Mary Halvorson Interview 2012-12-01 (Part One)

Secret Keeper, the new duo of Mary Halvorson and Stephen Crump will be playing "Indeterminacies" at Zeitgeist Gallery here in Nashville on Friday, May 10. The event starts at 7:00pm and is FREE and open to the public. In honor of their Nashville debut, here is the full transcript of my interview with Ms. Halvorson which took place on December 1, 2012 at the Blackwell Inn in Columbus, Ohio prior to her quartet gig at the University of Ohio. A drastically edited and rearranged version appeared on Spectrum Culture in January (Part One and Part Two). I am no journalist so I apologize for the rambling (if not totally incoherent) questions. She was actually quite gracious and generous with her time and it was pleasure to talk with her. The full transcript will be posted here over the next few days. Herewith is Part One. Enjoy!
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On December 1, 2012, Mary Halvorson meets me promptly at 3:30pm in the lobby of the Blackwell Inn at Ohio State University, where her quintet is playing later that evening at the Wexner Center for the Arts. She promptly tells me a mutual friend had instructed her to give me a hard time for being a Deadhead. I visibly wince, thinking I’ve been found out as a fraud: a pathetic rocker seeking communion with new-jazz’s preeminent guitarist. “Actually, I like the Dead,” she admits and tells me her father was way into them. “I remember he cried when Jerry died.” Wow, I did too!

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MH: My dad was a big fan

RC: Really? Interesting. So he was jazz fan as well?

MH: Yeah, yeah he’s a fan of a lot of different stuff but the Dead was a big thing for him.

RC: Ah, interesting. Well, that kind of leads to one of the questions I wanted to ask you: As you probably know, you have a lot of really hardcore fans who follow you around, tape your shows, kind of like Deadheads.

MH: [Laughs] Not quite.

RC: Well, increasingly so. How does that make you feel? Does that make you uneasy or is it flattering?

MH: Um, I mean, it’s amazing, I mean it’s something I never really expected, you know, playing weirder types of music, you know, I mean I you hope people will listen but you know you never really expect it. So if I am able to play for an audience, I am always very thankful for that, so I think it’s a pretty special thing.

RC: You seem to be pretty, um, ah—you don’t seem to mind if people tape your shows and trade them, things like that.

MH: I mean it depends on who it is you know I think it depends on the situation. You know, like my friend, ______, who’s also friends with ______, he’ll tape things and he’ll always ask my permission before he posts them and I really appreciate that. Because what I don’t like is when people end posting these crappy quality, crappy sounding things without asking. So, I just like to be asked but I think you know it’s nice that this stuff is out there.

RC: Well, there’s all kinds of stuff out there from groups that haven’t released any official recordings, which is pretty exciting, like one of the recent things you did with Myra Melford, the Happy Whistlings.

MH: Oh, yeah.

RC: That was really interesting.

MH: With Stomu and Taylor?

RC: Ah, yeah, at Firehouse 12, maybe in May, something like that?

MH: There was something on the internet with that?

RC: No, this was you know that crowd in New York, I think _____ might have taped it.

MH: Oh wow, that’s cool.

RC: I somehow got ahold of it.

MH: I haven’t even heard it. See, that’s what I gather, it’s this whole underground world of tapers which ______ told me about it, I didn’t even know about it really. So I find that fascinating.

RC: Are you familiar with like Dimeadozen or other BitTorrent sites? There’s a lot of your stuff and Braxton’s stuff…

MH: Yeah, that’s amazing. I don’t really go on those sites much, so I guess I’m a little bit ignorant. Occasionally, someone will tell me, oh I found this show of yours posted somewhere. Yeah, it’s basically gotten out of control [laughs]. In a sense.

RC: Is that a good thing or…?

MH: Well, in terms of being able to control what you present. You know, I don’t have much control at this point. It’s basically gone, you know, everything is just there and I guess you just have to hope it’s a good show [laughs] that’s circulating.

RC: Uh-huh. Well, it’s all great that I’ve heard.

MH: Well, that’s nice.

RC: The recording quality maybe is iffy but it’s kind of tough to make a good recording in some situations.

MH: Yeah.

RC: So, like, some of those groups, are they, like Happy Whistlings, is there any intention of keeping that going or making a record? Or are these just sort of one-off things?

MH: Not that I know of because probably since that gig I haven’t heard much from Myra about it. So I think she’s also just busy with other things. I mean it’s quite possible we could reconvene at some point but there aren’t any immediate plans for that.

RC: It was really interesting and kind of different from her usual stuff, a little more out there.

MH: Yeah, I really enjoyed it, I love her composing and obviously her playing. It was fun to get a chance to work with her.

RC: Another group is Thumb Screw? They’ve been pretty active in New York. Any plans to record that band?

MH: That we’re definitely going to record and right now we’re just trying to figure out, you know, which label we’re going to put it out on and when we’re going to record it. But I’d say that’s probably the next project of mine that will get recorded.

RC: Oh, OK, cool.

MH: Aside from the Septet, which I already recorded.

RC: Oh, I was going to ask you about that. So that’s been recorded?

MH: That’s been recorded and that will come out in August hopefully.

RC: Oh, awesome.

MH: Next year. But Thumb Screw is on the radar. We’ve been doing a lot more with that group and we definitely want to record and try to tour.

RC: Now is this your group or Michael Formanek’s group or…?

MH: It’s actually a collective which is really nice. Collectives, they don’t always work, you know, because sometimes you have one person or another that’s doing all the work or it feels kind of uneven or maybe even nobody does anything and then the whole thing just ends up fizzling out. But with Thumb Screw it seems like everyone is pretty equally invested in it which is unusual so there’s a nice balance. We all write for it, we all do work to get gigs for it so it’s been really fun. And both of those guys are both into rehearsing so we’ve actually spent—although we haven’t done that many gigs, maybe four or five gigs—we’ve spent quite a bit of time rehearsing and learning the material, which is awesome.

RC: Oh, that’s great. I read somewhere that you’re really into rehearsing.

MH: I really like to. I mean, I don’t always have time [laughs]. When there’s time and you can get everyone together.

RC: Right, well I was going to ask you, where do make time?

MH: I mean, it helps the music.

RC: Sure.

MH: I mean, the other way to do it is to just book a tour and work it out on stage, which is, you know, especially with my band, these guys are so busy it’s really hard to get everyone together to rehearse. So, often it will just be like, OK, we have this tour booked, we’re gonna go play the music and then it goes from there. So that’s another way of doing it but I do really like it when there’s a chance to rehearse.

RC: Are we going to hear any new music tonight?

MH: Um, a little bit. It’s going to be stuff from, um, mostly stuff from Bending Bridges and then I have two new pieces which I’m going to do kind of as a suite. Possibly an older one depending on time.

RC: OK.

MH: I never really know how long they’re going to end up being [laughs]

RC: That relates to another question I wanted to ask you about is, like what is your practice regimen? First of all how to make time when you’re so busy? And, um, your manager sent me your press kit which was really fascinating. I’d read a lot of that stuff before but this I just found completely fascinating.

MH: Oh, he sent you that? That’s so funny.

RC: I’m sort of a guitar player myself so it was kind of fun to sort of look through this. Is this sort of an example of your practice?

MH: Yeah, that is something that I’ve actually…I go through phases with my practicing and there was a while where I was working on a lot of stuff like this and, um…what is this? Premier Guitar? When they asked me to do a lesson I thought, well, I’ll just do that since it’s something I’ve been working on. Um, and it’s kind of, you know, related to getting to know the fretboard better and an ear-training kind of a thing.

RC: Right.

MH: Which I really like so usually, I mean, it’s just something I came up with. Usually I’ll just come up with something I want to be getting better at and I’ll form an exercise or something like this. I mean, I’ll do this with a million different scales. Sometimes I’ll make up my own scales and sometimes I’ll use scales from that book, um, yeah.

RC: What I find most interesting here is where you’re, where you’ve introduced the open strings.

MH: Oh, yeah.

RC: Um, and then the rhythmic displacement, this is...And I can sort of hear this sort of material in your compositions a little bit.

MH: Uh-hmm.

RC: Not directly. [Pause] Music’s so hard to talking about.

MH: Yeah, yeah.

RC: Yeah, sort of the unusual scales, and the rhythmic displacement and then the open strings, it seems to sort of define your unique style. Which is sort of just interesting about this your’re saying, well you have this raw material, the scale and then, working through it, you start to develop your own.

MH: Right, your own way of doing something with it so you’re not just regurgitating the scale but you’re adding your own thing to it.

RC: And insisting on playing it in all keys in one position so that you’re not just doing grips, you know.

MH: Yeah.

RC: You’re really having to think about the notes.

MH: And that’s a real guitar thing, it’s so easy to just slide up the neck and play the same patterns, so trying to force yourself to be able to move in both directions on the guitar. Um, so, yeah, I mean I practice stuff like that but I, it really goes through phases. I’m really working on that anymore. Not that I’ve completely stopped but I’m kind of working on other things at the moment. But I’ll usually have a year where I’m really into working on one thing as the main thing and then sometimes I’ll do a little bit of other things. But I always try to write my own exercises and create my own things to practice. Like, I very rarely use an exercise book although I really like that Yusef book, but more as source material.

RC: I don’t have this particular book but I imagine it’s sort of like other books that where it’s just the material and not really so much his telling you what to do with it.

MH: Exactly. It’s just so much information. And then he does write little etudes and exercises so it’s also great for sight reading. But the cool thing is you can order it directly from Yusef, he still sells it.

RC: Oh really?

MH: He’s like 92 now, I think.

RC: I didn’t even know he was still alive!

MH: Yeah, he’s still alive and you can order his book from his website and he’ll personally mail you the book. So that’s kind of a nice thing.

RC: Oh, that is cool. Um…so, I wanted to go back a little bit to um…so, you took Suzuki violin starting when you were in second grade.

MH: Yeah.

RC: So that’s really young, you know. I have some friends whose daughter are taking Suzuki piano. I myself didn’t do the Suzuki program, so it’s pretty foreign to me in a way. But it seems to work. It seems to make students progress really quickly.

MH: Uh-huh.

RC: And like with how like reading is not even part of it for a long time, right?

MH: You know, honestly, I don’t remember because I was so young when I did it and I haven’t really looked through any of the Suzuki books probably since then so I don’t really remember.

RC: Hmmm. But you said you didn’t like it.

MH: I mean I guess I liked it for a while. Um, I wasn’t very good at violin, like I, you know, there would be kind of like two-level orchestras and I would always be like in the lower level, like I just, I really kind of really stuck. I would practice and stuff but it just, I didn’t really like playing in orchestras so, I think it just, I wanted to play music but I, after all, it didn’t seem like it was right fit.

RC: Was the repertoire part of it? Did you not really relate to classical so much?

MH: I think so. I think that was part of it. Yeah.

RC: Did you find that when you switched to guitar that the Suzuki training translated to the fretboard?

MH: Oh, definitely. I mean, it was just really helpful to have any kind of musical background. But when I first got a guitar, I was teaching myself out of tablature books, you know, before I started taking lessons. But it was good because I already knew I could read the notes and I knew the rhythm and I knew, so I kind of had a sense of how to go about it even though I didn’t know guitar. And there’s some similarity, you know, it’s vaguely similar to the violin.

RC: A little different tuning…

MH: A little different [laughs]. But there was something familiar, so I think I was able to pick it up way easier than if, I think if I hadn’t played violin I wouldn’t have a clue how to do that on my own.

RC: Uh-huh. So then you went to Wesleyan and at first you were a biology major, right? And then you started taking classes with Anthony Braxton and you said that totally changed everything.

MH: Uh-huh.

RC: Now were you familiar with Braxton’s music at the time?

MH: A little bit. I had, the first record I got of his was in high school. I definitely wasn’t familiar with his whole body of work until I got to Wesleyan.

RC: It’s almost impossible to do, I mean…

MH: Well, I’m still not [laughs].

RC: Right.

MH: The first record I got of Anthony’s actually was a Derek Bailey/Anthony Braxton duo. And I think I got that in high school, because I also really liked Derek Bailey so that was kind of my, um, way in. And then, I, you know, I think the first semester I took a class with him and then I started learning more and more about him.

RC: And so what is a class with Anthony Braxton like? I mean, I tried to read his books and, he’s, he can be a little obscure [laughs].

MH: Uh-hmm. It  took me a year to kind of understand the way he speaks, because it’s so unique and he basically has his own language for how he explains things. So, at first, it was really exciting but also I almost felt I was taking a, you know, a foreign language course or just, it was really a new world for me. Um, he teaches a lot of different classes and I basically just took as many of them as I could. So, taught a class on Sun Ra and Stockhausen, which was like a lecture class.

RC: Wow.

MH: I took one I remember pretty well called the history of the jazz saxophone where he’d just bring in recordings. He’d like go to the record store, buy some CDs and then he’d put them and he’d talk about them and it was amazing just to hear his insight on stuff. Then there was his large ensemble class where you would just go and play and you’d read his music and you’d just dive in and be completely lost. And then, you know, gradually starting to understand the concepts. I mean, that’s how I learned how to sight read. I would take the music from the large ensemble back to the practice room and just try to learn it, you know. I worked on that for about a year, just trying to understand how it worked and then I learned so much from playing in that large ensemble, I did that every year.

RC: Uh-huh. And is that how you wound up joining his group?

MH: Yeah, just through time, you know, working with him in many different contexts. And then once I became a music major, he was like my thesis advisor and I took composition seminars with him and so I just became more involved. There was probably one semester where I was taking three or four classes with him, like my senior year.

RC: That must have been so awesome.

MH: Yeah, it was amazing.

RC: He fascinates me but I find him kind of puzzling at times, particularly the Ghost Trance Music. You know, when he went from the “classic quartet” with Marilyn Crispell and then into the Ghost Trance stuff, I couldn’t follow him there. The straight up-and-down rhythm just seemed so static to me compared to what he’d done before. And I, honestly, I just kind of stopped paying attention for a while and then I think it was the, that London 2004 record that you’re on and I think that, um, when I heard you playing this wild electric guitar [laughter] with Anthony Braxton, that was sort of like, oh, you know, I’ve gotta go back and pay attention to this. And so, I met Andrew Raffo Dewar last year at this thing and he was showing some scores, so I kind of get a sense of how the GTM sort of fits together. But then the Diamond Curtain Wall music and the Falling River Quartet music, the scores are like, paintings?

MH: Yeah, they’re more graphic scores. I mean, they’re kind of paintings but then they have, they do have kind of instructions and pictures and numbers and a lot of lines kind of pointing in directions so there’s some material that you can draw from, but it’s pretty open.

RC: Uh-huh.

MH: It’s way more open than a lot of the other written stuff.

RC: How do you go about interpreting, you know, this watercolor?

MH: Um, kind of intuitively.

RC: Does he tell you, you know, to do this or do that?

MH: No, he doesn’t. And I think that each person interprets it differently, which I think is really a beautiful thing about it.

RC: Uh-huh. Because, like the Diamond Curtain Wall stuff sounds very free but the more you listen to it you realize it’s not really free.

MH: Uh-huh.

RC: And you’ve made some remarks about how, you know, you do a lot of free playing but that you prefer some structure in what you’re doing.

MH: Often I do, yeah, well definitely in my own bands. I like to do both but, yeah, in my own bands I like to have some structure there.

RC: And I’m hearing a little more structure, like you have a recent record out with Weasel Walter and Peter Evans and, compared to the previous record, there seems to be some real composition there that maybe wasn’t there previously.

MH: Yeah, there was no composition on the previous record, so we kind of brought that in just to see what it would sound like.

RC: Interesting. I like both of that stuff, but the composition is a little bit more, something to hold onto.

MH: Yeah, I think so too. I like having that element there because there is still plenty of improvisation happening.

RC: Right. So then in your music, your quintet music, I hear a lot of like 60s-era Blue Note, the more avant side, you know. It kind of swings and you have the horns and, um, it’s quite different from some of the other contexts you work in, it’s more, like overtly jazz.

MH: Uh-huh.

RC: And you’ve said that you’re not ashamed of the jazz label. But when I was coming up there seemed to be a real, like there were a lot of battle lines in jazz, you know, there’s the “out guys” and the “inside guys” and the post-bop people and they never played together and they always kind of sniped at each other and, you know, jazz was always this boys club kind of thing.

MH: Yeah.

RC: And then it seemed like around the turn of the century, like to me when Susie Ibarra when started playing with David S. Ware, things shifted and all of a sudden there’s all these women on the scene.

MH: Uh-huh.

RC: You and Ingrid Laubrock and Kris Davis and, um, the older generation like Myra Melford and Irene Schweitzer were more around and I can’t help but think there is something about the boys club being broken up and women being on the scene has sort of brought this fresh air to jazz.

MH: Uh-huh.

RC: Do you think that’s – I mean, this essentialist, like is there a feminine music or male music, I don’t think that—but it really seems to me like there’s something about having more women in jazz that has really refreshed the whole scene.

MH: Really? Yeah, I mean it’s definitely nice. I feel like it’s diverse in a lot more ways than it used to be. And there’s so many women, I mean there’s a couple times that I’ve gone and done stuff at colleges, there’s so many women, or, you know I taught up at BAM (?) or SIM (?) in New York at these programs, which are high school and college students. And there’s so many more women and that’s great. And that really wasn’t the case when I was growing up, which wasn’t even that long ago, right? But I never really encountered that many women, especially in jazz. So I think it’s really nice and I think things are changing. I mean, you still get, um, it’s still very separated in terms of these little sub-genres of jazz, the straight-people think this stuff is bullshit and then there’s people that anything that isn’t complete avant-garde is bullshit, you know, so there’s this kind of divisions that still happen and I’m not a big fan of that because I think there’s a lot of great music in every sub genre.

RC: Sure.

MH: And there’s a lot of horrible music as well, but if you weed through it, you know, I don’t think there’s like one little type of music that’s “the shit.”

RC: Uh-huh. Is that more from the audiences that sort of splinter like that?

MH: No, it’s the musicians too. I mean, you’ll notice there’s, I mean, it’s natural, of course, that there’s these little, um, you know, I play a lot with Ingrid and Tom, you know, you have these groups that kind of form and some musicians are really open to a lot of different, doing a lot of different things. Jon Irabagon is a great example because he plays a lot of more straight-ahead stuff, he plays really crazy, out stuff [laughs], you know, and everything in between. And I have a lot of respect for that because I think it’s nice to be open to different possibilities and to be able to take influence from different things.  Like even if something isn’t your favorite genre and you go hear someone do that amazing, in an amazing way, you can really learn a lot, so.

RC: Right.

MH: I’m really into that. I think it’s interesting to collaborate with people that are working in different genres.

RC: Yeah, because everyone of your generation, like Taylor Ho Bynum and you and Ingrid, you seem to be very, like anything can happen, like any type of music could happen at any time. It’s really refreshing. The band I played tried to do that and we got a lot of puzzled looks. But now it just seems like that’s just the most natural thing in the world.

MH: A lot of people are doing that because people these days have so many different influences musically, you know, it’s not like you just like jazz. People are being influenced by everything.

RC: Right. And you went the New School, you call it “jazz school,” you went to jazz school you said you really got into that and it killed it for you. I imagine there was a little of that, you know, “All the Things You Are” is where it’s at and…

MH: Yeah, and you have to play it correctly and this is how you’re going to play it and it kind of sucked the life out of it for me, it made it kind of lifeless, you know. But at the same time I did want to learn all that stuff and I wanted to learn the guitar technique, I wanted to learn the scales, I wanted to learn the chords. So I was learning it, which I wanted to do, but in the process it kind of lost something for me. I just needed a break.

RC: And so the first record you released was a MAP, or M-A-P—

MH: Uh-huh, MAP, yeah.

RC: And that’s about as far away from like straight-ahead jazz as you can get.

MH: Yeah.

RC: So was that sort of a reaction to the jazz school thing?

MH: Yeah that was sort of the, yeah, I just sort of wanted to…I guess I was, you know, I was playing compositions, too. I was doing a lot of improvising. I was playing compositions but not standards. And that was kind of what I was taking a break from and a lot of the stuff I was doing was influenced by jazz so that I wasn’t really practicing more traditional jazz and it I do now, actually, practice that stuff because I think it’s a really good way to learn the instrument and I want to be able to apply it, that material into what I’m doing.

RC: Well, there’s almost a kind of psychedelic rock element to that record that was kind of surprising to me but I know Jimi Hendrix was big early influence. And I was thinking about that, and I was like, I don’t really hear a lot of Hendrix in your playing, and I don’t hear a lot of blues, or pentatonic scales, or whammy bars and bending the strings and that sort of things. But the more I thought about it, it’s like, I like Hendrix’s influence in the way you use technology. Not just the distortion but also the warping the sound of the guitar and not being a purist.

MH: Right.

RC: And that you found your own voice, you didn’t just ape Hendrix, which is what a lot of people do.

MH: Right. Right.

RC: What was your first, um, I read somewhere that like your first record was a Beach Boys record. What record was that?

MH: Oh yeah. I had, it was a cassette tape. I was probably five or six years old. I don’t know why I picked up this particular one, but it was Surfin’ USA. [laughter] And I thought I was so cool, I had this little cassette deck and the tape.

RC: How funny! Are the Beach Boys something you still care about?

MH: I love the Beach Boys. I still do. I really don’t know why I got that tape but I really liked it. I mean, that’s not my favorite Beach Boys, but that was what I picked up.

RC: That’s funny. I have a friend who’s really into the Beach Boys and I don’t get it.

MH: You don’t like it? [laughs]

RC: It sounds old-fashioned to me.

MH: That’s funny. I guess I like some stuff that sounds old-fashioned, sometimes I’m into that.

RC: Like I said, I kind of hear that in your quintet. Like, on the surface it’s quite accessible, really.

MH: Some people think. I think some people, you might think so, but I think some people would hear it and be like, “this is totally unlistenable.” [laughter] So I think that’s what’s interesting about it is that it really just depends, you know, on what perspective you’re coming from.

RC: Well, it’s not like ever stay in one place, you know, the head may be sort of swinging and nice jazz harmonies and then something will take a left turn and go over here and it will open up. And you’ve talked about composing so that there’s space for improvisation. How do you go about that, or notating it, or moving from constructed areas to non-constructed areas?

MH: Well, I try to have variety in what types of spaces they are, so some of the spaces will be completely open for improvising but maybe one person might be the soloist but basically all that’s there is we finished that melody, which was “A” and we know we have to get to “B,” which is maybe a pretty different sounding section, so you’re just bridging the gap between those two sections and within that anything can happen. That’s one scenario. Sometimes I have stuff that’s over a form and people are improvising over a form. Even then, um, there’s always the option you could go off that if you want to. Like I never want it to be like people are caged in.

RC: And the form, even if there is a form for that improvisation section, it’s not like you’ve just taken the harmonic structure, head, and sort of like the jazz model where you play changes over and over again and then you come back and play the melody.

MH: Right. It might be vaguely based on that but I’ll, you know, it will be a little different because often it doesn’t go back to that first melody. So maybe it does take some harmonic material from the melody and use it in a different way to a vamp or a form. So sometimes things like that are happening or there will be background lines happening underneath that other people are playing. Or sometimes there’s a duo that’s happening with two instruments, or sometimes it’s a solo. I try to create different structures so it’s not always like, oh, they played the melody and here’s the free section again because I think that gets predictable.

RC: Right.

MH: So I try to have variety and that’s challenging too because you have to think about in the context of a full set, you know, like I have these other songs where everything’s free so I’m going to try to do something maybe where it’s over a structure. And that’s like another challenge, to try to—how can I use that material to create a structure? Because I want this one to be a little more structured than the other things.

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END OF PART ONE.