Photo of Peter Bernstein, Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart by Till Bronner
When we divided the labour a while ago, my Doug Fischer snagged the assignment to chat with guitarist Peter Bernstein. Lucky guy, that Doug! I would have loved to chat to Bernstein about how he became the remarkably swinging and tasty player that he is and about that dazzling trio that includes organist Larry Goldings and drummer Bill Stewart and which plays Friday in the NAC Studio.
Here’s the transcript of Doug’s chat with Bernstein:
Q: I’ve been looking at the way you guys are listed, not just at the Ottawa festival but elsewhere, and it always seems different. Sometimes it’s alphabetical — Bernstein, Goldings, Stewart — sometimes it’s the Larry Goldings Organ Trio, sometimes it is the Peter Bernstein Trio with Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart. Same three guys, different billings. What’s that about — does it make any difference to the music?
A: (Laughs) Really it’s a matter of who calls the most tunes, who looks after the microphone. In most cases, it’s Larry unless I’ve arranged the gig. But it’s always pretty democratic. It depends on what we want to play. The (live) record we did at Small’s was listed as Bernstein, Goldings, Stewart but it really was a pretty equal thing in terms of choosing the tunes. The arrangements vary, depending. And a few times it’s been listed under Bill’s name. Once it was videotaped that way.
But he has never announced a set from the microphone. That’s Larry or me, depending on who got the gig. I get the gig, I get the mic, that’s the way it works (laughs). It’s really no big thing.
Q: So you play roughly the same repertoire each time, or songs from the repertoire you’ve built over time, no matter whose name is on the marquee?
A: Yeah, mostly. I have a gig coming up at the Vanguard (in New York) in November and I’ll be trying out some of my new tunes there. That happens when one of us has some new things we want to work out on stage. But generally what we play is based on how we feel, and that takes into account all three of us. That’s true of everything we do. If someone brings in a new tune, we all have to sign off on how it’s played, not just the guy whose tune it is. You know, it’s been many, many years since we’ve sat down and had what you’d call a proper rehearsal. Usually we test things out at a sound check. We’ve circulated the tune beforehand a lot of the time. But it’s hard to find the time to sit down together because we’re all so busy. But we get into the tunes and if we like how it works out when we play, especially when we’re on the road, we keep the tunes. When we get bored with them, when we think we might have worked them over pretty thoroughly, you know, then they don’t get played for a while, or even permanently.
Q: You’ve been playing together, off and on, now for about two decades. What’s the secret to keeping it fresh? There are the new tunes, of course, but I’m thinking more of the general vibe among the three of you?
A: Well, new tunes are one thing. But mostly we keep trying to get better. I think any jazz musicians will say that. And, you know, we don’t play together that often — if we get 20 gigs in a year, that’s good year for us — so that’s hardly like slugging it out for, you know, three months on the road and really starting to feel burnout at the end of that kind of time together. We never really burn out because we’re not together all that often. And when we are together, we kind of think of it as something special so we work hard to get better and don’t get tired of the tunes and what we can do with them.
Q: What does the organ trio setup do for you as a guitarist — say, compared to the more traditional guitar/bass/drums setup, or even in a quartet with, maybe a horn or a piano?
A: You know, it really depends more on who is playing the instruments that what the instruments are. If you have a three-way conversation with, let’s say, a middle-age woman and an older man and a conversation with a teenage girl and a guy in his 30s, those conversations are going to be different. But they all involve three people. I’ve played with a lot of organ players, they are all different, have different styles that kind of open different opportunities for a guitar player. I feel really comfortable with Larry. One thing I will say is that when you play with an organ player, the bass and the melody, or whatever, are being played by the same person — they’re powered by the same brain. So it’s me trying to follow that, or playing against that. I love comping in an organ setting because it’s like following that one mind, melodically and harmonically. And then rhythmically, you are dealing with the drummer, too, of course. When you play with a horn player, the guitarist often fills the piano role. But this is a very different thing. I like the one mind, trying to get inside where it is going. One fewer person to keep track of (laughs). Also with the organ you can really play a lot of different types of tunes if the guy knows how to control the instrument. It’s great for ballads, for the blues, whatever. It has a lot of orchestral possibilities, that’s the thing about it. I will say that is nice not to have an organ sometimes, all the electricity that it gives off. But Larry really has control of things, he is full of surprises and he is always trying to expand the organ’s possibilities. He is very creative with styles, with voicings. And for the size of the sound that an organ can give off, Larry gives me a lot of space, I never feel the kind of heaviness you can get. It’s all about listening.
Q: You’ve kind of become the go-to guitarist for organ players.
A: Yeah, I have been lucky to play with a lot of great organ players — Lonnie (Dr. Lonnie Smith), Melvin Rhyne, Mike LeDonne, Larry. I got on early on some recordings with Lonnie and that gave me a bit of reputation I guess.
It’s one of the group settings, you know, where you call a guitar player. No need for a bass player. I made some records in that context over the years so I get called. I was lucky to get in with that. It was a great learning experience. Still is.
Q: You are different from a lot of jazz guitarists, of your generation anyway, in that you don’t use a lot of effects. What’s behind that choice? Why not use loops and pedal and the whole sonic palette?
Photo by Gildas Bocl
A: When I was learning about jazz in the mid- and late-’80s, learning the vocabulary and trying to find my own sound, it seemed everybody was playing with vibrato on, that shimmering sound of how jazz guitar sounded then. I was listening to guys who played that way, but I was also listening to Django and Barney Kessel and Jim Hall and Kenny Burrell and Grant Green, Jimmy Raney, all these guys. And what I noticed is that they all used pretty similar equipment but sounded totally different. That came from them as individuals, their concepts, how they played the instrument — that’s how they distinguished themselves, with that kind of diversity.
What I also noticed is that guys like (Mike) Stern and (Pat) Metheny, they all sounded a lot the same, the things they do to their sound kind of covered up their individuality. I thought, you know, I am not going to try to deal with that right now, I am going to try to learn how to play Confirmation, to find a way to enhance the music — just let me learn how to how to play without using reverb and delay. That was deliberate at the time, and then when I was starting out, starting to perform professionally, using effects didn’t seem to be called for in the situations I was playing in. That’s the long answer.
The short answer is — I was, and still am, trying to get my touch together on the instrument. I play around with those things but I don’t use them when I perform. Yet, anyway.
Q: But there is a place for them, right?
A: Oh yes. Many players use them to great effect, especially those players who already had a sound, like Bill Frisell. The sounds is in the way he thinks rather than the way he plays the guitar. The effects, in his case, just enhance the creative stuff going on in his brain, it brings that stuff out. He does that in a great way, and his music is set up around that. That’s why it works for him.
Kurt Rosenwinkel is another one. I’ve been listening to him for 15 years. I’ve played with him and it’s always fun. I look forward to doing it again someday. He’s really created his own voice, you know, he has a really identifiable style and sound. You can always tell it’s him. He’s a major cat. He’s a force.
Q: A lot of guitar players I’ve spoken to over the years says they don’t listen to other guitar players. Or not much, anyway. They say they are more interested in making discoveries to help them enhance their own playing by listening to horn players or pianists or singers — or listening to classical music or folk music. Where are you on this?
A: I listen to guitar players but I am not a “guitarophile.” There are some guitar players who only listen to guitar players. There are some guitar players around New York who only come out to gigs if there is more than one guitar player in the band. I’ve never been one of those guys. I love guitar players but there doesn’t have to be a guitar player for me to enjoy a gig.
In fact, I’d rather listen to a piano player for comping and harmonic stuff. I love horn players. Their phrasing has a lot to do with breath and air, which guitar players don’t have to deal with, but which gives the music a real power. Playing music is not like typing — how many words can you type a minute? It’s not about how many notes you play but how you play them. What horn players do is closer to what I want in a sound and in my playing.
Improvisation is lyrical. I love singers for that reason, too. Listening to non-guitar players has done a lot for my playing, trying to emulate the phrasing of horn players or different people’s harmonic conceptions regardless of their instrument because then you have to translate or adapt it and you have kind of an obstacle to deal with in terms of playing the guitar.
Q: Having said all that, are there contemporary guitar players who captivate you?
A: Among younger guys I love Lage Lund and Mike Moreno. They do really nice things. They are doing their own thing. I like Ed Cherry and Freddie Bryant. There are a lot of good players who just happen to play the guitar. That’s how I look at it.
What’s important for me is to try to get out as often as I can to hear the masters. That’s a connection that is slowing fading away with time. For example, so many drummers never got to hear Billy Higgins live, or Art Blakey. There is no way to really explain what that was like. Records can give you an idea but it’s not the full experience. So I realize it is important to see these guys while I can — that is more important to me that going to, you know, check out whoever the next great new guy is. But if there is a young guy, a guitarist or otherwise, playing on the same gig with me, you know, after I am through or before me, I will usually check them out, especially if people have said I should have them on my radar.
Peter Bernstein, Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart play Friday at 7 pm. in the NAC Studio.
***
More 2013 TD Ottawa Jazz Festival concert previews and reviews are here.
