THIS IS THE FOURTH OF OUR BEST OF 23 REVIEW OF INTERVIEWS: If you’ve been following Cultural Attaché for even a small amount of time, you know how much I love singer Cécile McLorin Salvant. We’re happy to say we finally have an interview with this three-time Grammy Award winner (who also happens to have a nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album for her most recent release, Ghost Song)!

Those three Grammy Awards came for three albums in a row: For One to Love, Dreams and Daggers and The Window. Might it be four-in-a-row? The New York Times called it “her most revealing and rewarding album yet.” I love the album and had the privilege of seeing Salvant in back-to-back performances at the Blue Note in New York City in September. Salvant is truly a once-in-a-generation artist.

She is currently on tour across the United States. Her next show is at Royce Hall on Thursday, January 26th as part of CAP UCLA’s season. She’ll be at the Mondavi Center in Davis on January 27th; Bing Concert Hall at Stanford on January 28th; the Stewart Theatre in Raleigh, NC on February 2nd and Knight Concert Hall in Miami on February 3rd (where her special guest is the Christian Sands Trio).

For her full itinerary, please go here.

Here is my interview with Salvant which was conducted via e-mail.

During the pandemic you were reading Marcel Proust, particularly In Search of Lost Time. In the fifth volume he writes, “The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is..” Do you agree with him and how does that perspective align itself with how you choose, hear and perform music?

I love that quote!!!! Beautiful. I absolutely agree with this.

The pandemic negated the opportunity for LA audiences to see and hear Ogresse. What does the future hold for that work and will you record it or turn it into a fully produced musical/show?

We’re making it into an animated feature length film. It’s already recorded but we’re animating it now with a team in Europe. [Salvant will be performing Ogresse on February 24th and 25th at the Walker Art Center in Milwaukee.]  

Five years ago you gave an interview to ArtsDesk.com where you said, “Visual art is the most important thing to me.” At that time you weren’t sure if that passion for visual arts influenced your music adding, “probably, but not in a way that I can tell.” Has your perspective on that changed since 2018? Do works like Ogresse and/or the art that Nonesuch released with Ghost Song provide examples of some blending of your passions?

Yes! My perspective often changes though! Lately I’ve been trying to approach making music with the same playfulness I feel when I draw.

I first became aware of you when Bryan Ferry closed for you at the Hollywood Bowl in August of 2017. It’s a night I won’t ever forget. I’ve since seen you at much smaller venues. What role does a given venue play in the concerts you give?

My favorite venues to play are clubs! I like to be really close to a small packed audience. I want it to feel like I’m spilling secrets. But it’s always exhilarating and a little bit scary to be in front of a vast crowd like at the Hollywood Bowl!

Sometimes Aaron Diehl is your pianist and other times it is Sullivan Fortner. What does each pianist bring to you and your music? Are there tangible differences for you that influence the way you make music and present it live with each of them?

There are a few others I’ve been playing with over the years. Everyone adds different elements and colors to the music, they bring their tastes, their approaches even their feel to it. It’s the same with every instrument in the band. I often unknowingly pick my repertoire based on who’s playing.

In the concerts I’ve attended there seems to be a semblance of spontaneity in the set lists. What role does fluidity play in each performance? How much does an audience play a role in what you choose to sing at a given concert?

That’s another that changes based on the band. If I’m playing duo with Sullivan there’s often no setlist and it really depends on the moment. The audience plays a bit of a role if they choose to! Some audiences feel quiet, or more reserved. They play less of a role. When they participate a bit more, are reactive, they play a much bigger role to where the set will go.

Music from Broadway musicals used to top the record charts. It’s been a long time since that happened. Yet your passion for musicals is undeniable. The first song on your first album, Cécile, comes from an obscure 1930 musical, Lew Leslie’s International Revue (Exactly Like You). You seem almost childlike in your appreciation for these songs. How and when did that passion for get ignited in you and what role will that material play as you move forward throughout your career?

I’m not sure it’s a childlike quality, it’s more that I love theater and acting. I love operas too, which to me aren’t much different from musicals. I love songs that flow from a character dealing with a specific context.

Like pianist Brad Mehldau and others, you had a background in classical music but switched to jazz (though I heard you sing Baroque music at the Blue Note in NY in September). How does your classical background inform your approach to jazz?

This is a tough question to answer because I try to get away from genres. Genres like jazz and classical are too broad in my opinion. Jazz is extremely fragmented, it encompasses so much different music. Even baroque and early music have such fragmented, different styles within them. There were differences in the music based on cities! Even tuning was based on location.

I think everything I’ve studied informs what I do in some way. In conservatory, I got to learn the aria Medea sings when she goes back and forth between wanting to kill her children for vengeance and wanting to protect them. I think learning that and other songs, learning a bit about baroque dance, studying tap dance for a month in high school, learning the basics of reading figured bass on a harpsichord, all this informs my desire to find a way to approach music in a more open way, with less boundaries.

Your mother has described you as an intellectual (The New Yorker 2017). You’ve talked a lot about your instincts. How and where do your instincts meet up with your intellect and vice-versa?

I don’t identify as an intellectual! I can be a nerd for the things that I love. And I study and research and learn about the history of those things. But following my instincts is very important to me. Sometimes too much research can get in the way of that.

In an interview with Ethan Iverson you bring up a point, this was in relation to Bessie Smith, where you said, “at first I guess it sounds very the same when you don’t know how to listen.” What is the audience responsibility in listening? How much does technology and the need for videos and photos get in the way of your ability to communicate with an audience and their ability to listen? Is the fine art of listening a dying art?

It’s changing the way we communicate. We have more access than ever to all kinds of music and yet our attention span is very low. But I think people are feeling a bit over-saturated so there might be a countercurrent to that soon. I also really admire the way this younger generation coming up can find whatever they connect with, regardless of era or popularity, online. Listening will have to change whether we like it or not! But it’s always been changing. It changed already when the first compositions were notated on paper, when people began having access to records, when music videos started to gain popularity, and so on.

Nonesuch Records alluded in an email last week to a new album coming out this spring. What can you tell me about this new recording?

It will be all in French! About a half woman half snake.

If you could talk to the teenager who had a mohawk, was listening to Dave Matthews Band and Soundgarden before moving to France, what would you say to her about the artist you’ve become and the artist you want to be as you move forward in your career?

I probably wouldn’t say anything about that if I could talk to the teenager I was!!

I’d probably just stare. But I’ll say to you that I feel really lucky for everything that I’ve been able to do, and I’m very excited to keep making my arts and crafts, which is how I like to think of what I do (otherwise you get too precious about it all).

Main Photo: Cécile McLorin Salvant at the Blue Note in New York (Photo by Craig L. Byrd)

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In these recordings, and on the album (from Nonesuch Records), Mehldau performs selections from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and new compositions he wrote that were inspired by them. Each of the videos showcases one particular composition by Bach with one or more compositions by Mehldau.

It is jazz. It is classical. It is all of it together. And I found this to be quite emotionally satisfying in our trying times. It’s also the kind of music that allows you to let go and become almost meditative.

This performance took place on April 2, 2018 at the Grande Salle Pierre Boulez of the Philharmonie de Paris and some of them include improvisations done in performance unique to this particular concert.

Here are all five videos for you in order. Enjoy!

Part One: Brad Mehldau performs the C# Major Prelude from Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and his own Three Pieces After Bach: I. Rondo

Brad Mehldau performs the C Major Prelude from Book II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and an improvised response live in Part 2.

Brad Mehldau performs the G Minor Fugue from Book II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and his own Three Pieces After Bach: II. Ostinato

Brad Mehldau performs the D Minor Prelude from Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and his own Three Pieces After Bach: III. Toccata

Brad Mehldau performs the E-Flat Major Prelude from Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and his own improvised response live

What did you think of After Bach Live? Leave a comment and let us know!

Photo of Brad Mehldau by Michael Wilson/Courtesy of IMNWorld.com

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Just over a week ago I spoke with Iyer by phone about the versatility of his career, his forays into classical music and how music can change not just an audience, but an artist as well.

You perform in a variety of configurations including a sextet in May at the Soraya. Here you’ll either be solo or part of a trio. What does switching that up allow you to do as an artist?

Playing solo is an on-going space of experimentation and expression and it’s unfiltered for any piano composer. It is what we do. I think a lot of this, for those who are part of this lineage of creative music-making, is we like to challenge ourselves in different formats, instrumentations, the possibility for sound and also just working with different individuals who have their own ideas and sounds they bring to the table. A lot of it is about that conversation and thinking about what we can do together and finding ways to build together and unify and synchronize and ways to express different emotions.

You told NPR in 2017 that the “reason we’re on this planet as individuals is to express and reflect the moment we’re in.” The world seems more chaotic than it was two years ago. How is that changing your relationship to your music and what you want to express with it?

It seems more chaotic, I’m not sure it is honestly. Which is not to say that’s not overstating today, but maybe we were understating it yesterday. I kind of think of American history as chaotic and tumultuous and full of horrific things. When you think of the legacy of music making, particularly traditions of music making and experimental practices of music making that came out of the Afro-American culture and communities, it was often expressing something beautiful in the face of something terrible. That’s kind of the tradition we’re in. It doesn’t feel all that different than it has been considering all of that. When you really think about how this music was born in the face of terror and oppression, yet it was still somehow majestic and transcendent and alive. That’s kind of how I stabilize myself in all of this.

In January the Los Angeles Philharmonic gave the world premiere of your work Crisis Modes. Later this season pianist Brad Mehldau is having the US premiere of his piano concerto with the LA Phil. What is the shift in our culture that makes it possible for these works to be commissioned and performed?

Maybe the question is what is it about the classical world that makes them want to enlist people who are ostensibly outside that world – which is a fiction to begin with. To have this notion of outside and inside. Why did they call [the program at the  LA Philharmonic where Crisis Modes had its debut] The Edge of Jazz? My answer is because it would sell tickets. In terms of musicians writing for different formats and ensembles, there’s nothing new about it. It’s just that these networks are starting, maybe, to pay more attention to each other. 

You have to see it as these different systems or networks or businesses because it’s not really talent. When you use a name like classical or jazz, it’s not telling you anything about the music. Those labels convey no information about the content or aesthetics. It says more “this is for these people.” Genre names are business terms and categories. They refer to specific channels of funding and networks of power and they don’t refer to artists.

When I interviewed you in 2014 you told me that the most rewarding thing about creating music is that “it can illicit some kind of change in all of us.” How has your music changed you over those five  years?

Well it is change. When you create something, when you bring something new into the world, then you are part of that change. You are someone new. You are made new through that process. I guess the idea for me is to keep pushing myself into new challenges where I have to rise to it and grow and become something new and hear something new. That’s the idea. It’s not just for its own sake and entertainment value. It’s kind of, I think, I experience it almost like a spiritual practice. It’s a way of being constructive with the energy around you and moving forward into it rather than being passive and destructive.

For tickets at Mr. Musichead Gallery go here.

For tickets for the shows at Samueli Theatre go here.

Main photo by Lynne Harty. All images courtesy of Vijay-Iyer.com

The post Vijay Iyer Eschews Labels appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Friday:

Brad Mehldau and Chris Tile at The Theatre at the Ace Hotel (Season opening event for CAP UCLA). Check out my interview with Brad about collaboration elsewhere on these pages)

Avishai Cohen Quartet at the bluewhale (also Saturday night) Check out my interview with Avishai elsewhere on these pages.

Saturday:

Big Night at the Kirk Douglas Theatre (Opening night) a new comedy by Paul Rudnick (“In and Out”)

Amadeus Live at the Valley Performing Arts Center (live accompaniment of Mozart’s beautiful music performed here by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra)

Coco Peru’s Taming of the Tension at the Renberg Theater (Saturday and Sunday)

All weekend:

Of course, you can always try to go see a little musical called Hamilton at the Pantages Theatre…if you can get tickets. (If you can, you should. It really is that good.)

The post This Weekend in Los Angeles appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Mehldau has released 28 albums as a bandleader or soloist since his first recording, Introducing Brad Mehldau, was released in 1995. He’s had multiple recordings under the banner of The Art of the Trio, and has collaborated with such diverse artists as Pat Metheney, Renée Fleming, Joshua Redman and Anne Sofie von Otter.

I recently had a chance, via e-mail, to ask Mr. Mehldau about the nature of collaboration, this particular collaboration and to look back on his career-to-date.

When you are contemplating potential collaborators how do you decide with whom you’d like to record/perform?

 It has to be someone who I think will challenge me musically – I don’t want it to be coasting. At the same time, there has to be the sense ahead of time of, “This person and I will find common ground.”

More importantly, how do you know the desired collaboration will yield interesting results? When does the idea of collaboration get surpassed by the realization of that collaboration? Or how do you know it isn’t going to work?

I’ve never had it not work – but that’s just me speaking, others might feel differently. I know some people are not crazy about some of my collaborations, but appreciate them nevertheless taking the time to listen. I think I know ahead of time if it really won’t work. It’s always yielded interesting results for me when I’ve collaborated with other musicians but – is it interesting for the audience? I think it becomes exciting for the audience when they sense that the sum is more than the parts – that something new is happening that could not have been predicted. And frankly, that is also a surprise for me when it happens – if I could plan it, it might be easier, but then it also wouldn’t have the magic.

If you look at some of your collaborators, Anne Sofia von Otter, Pat Metheny, Renée Fleming – what did those experiences have in common, if anything, with your most recent collaboration with Chris Thile?

 Common ground. Lots of working out together – with all of them, that meant fantastic conversations about music – about that common ground. Of course the common ground was different with each of them, but not necessarily what you would expect. With Anne Sofie we hooked up on French chanson singers from the 1960’s, Chris and I talked about Bach a lot.

What inspired you most about the possibility of collaborating with Chris Thile prior to your 2013 gigs?

Several things, but at least two: First, I knew from hearing and seeing him that he is a true improviser – and that is what I like to do a lot. Second, his singing really affects me, and I was excited about the idea of making music with that kind of vocal expression.

When you and Chris first performed at the Bowery Ballroom in 2013, you had an eclectic mix of songs in the 90 minute set. How did you select the songs for inclusion on this album and how do they reflect each of your personal and shared sensibilities?

We both like to write, so that’s reflected – there is a good deal of worked out material from both of us, which is always kind of a statement of purpose: “This is me as a composer;” in this case, it’s: “This is me composing for mandolin/piano/voice”, which is less than usual in terms of orchestration. The cover choices reflect those common interests – for interest, a mutual admiration for Elliot Smith.

In the NY Times review of the 2013 gig, Nate Chinen commented that you “rarely entered competitive airspace – an easy trap in this sort of setting as Chick Corea and Béla Fleck might attest.” What are the positive and negative aspects of competition for a musician?

It’s a cliché phrase, but there is a bit of “healthy competition” that works to push you further and not coast on an idea that might more easily come out. You can hear that when we trade back and forth on “Don’t Think Twice…” The negative I guess would be if folks stop listening to each other because of that competitive spirit. I haven’t felt that with Chris.

You are doing a rather limited tour for this project in the US. Why was it important to include Los Angeles as one of the few stops? What does LA mean to you today?

I lived in LA for 5 years, 1995-2000, and enjoyed the whole ride. I was influenced by the music I heard there, particularly at Largo (when it was on Fairfax across from Canter’s): People like Elliot Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Fiona Apple, and last but not least Jon Brion, wno led the troops. It was a fantastic time and place for music and I got in there a bit and it rubbed off on me. Chris also has all of that in his musical DNA. No doubt there’s a bunch of hip new stuff going on in LA that I’m not aware of. Some of my favorite musicians these days live there, like Louis Cole. He is LA for me in the best sense – like Brian Wilson was decades ago. Dreaming, possibility, expanse, right beyond the noise and illusion.

In the movie La La Land, Ryan Gosling’s character laments that jazz is dying and no on cares. Do you agree with that position?

It’s the eternal question. No, and it doesn’t even smell funny, ha ha!

In your Jazz Times Magazine article, “Ideology, Burgers and Beer” you reflect on a word game you played with friends. I’d like to offer a variation of that game for your comment: How would you compare early Brad Mehldau to present day Brad Mehldau? What observations do you have of the direction your music has taken you over the years since “Introducing Brad Mehldau” was released?

Hmmm…early me to present day me. I guess I would take present day – the game there was that you’d have to make a choice, right; you can’t equivocate? But I do notice that other people like my earlier stuff. For me, listening to myself, I perceive that I’ve refined some mannerisms and let go of some affectations that bug me when I listen back to older stuff.

The post Two Are Better Than One: Jazz Pianist Brad Mehldau on Collaboration appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

“I’ve never sung with Nick or them before, but it’s a great orchestra,” von Otter says during a break in rehearsals. “It’s very easy making music together, and it’s been a long time coming. I wish I could have done something sooner.” Joining von Otter for the show is countertenor Andreas Scholl, a pairing that dictated which of Handel’s arias and duets would end up in the concert. “I was in touch with Andreas about what we could do together,” von Otter says. “Andreas thought it would be nice to not have just Baroque. The idea came to include Pärt because he has performed a lot at Walt Disney Concert Hall. And I had recently worked with Caroline Shaw on a piece of hers. I asked if she’d like to write another piece with this ensemble in mind. She loved that idea, and she did very quickly. We rehearsed it, and it is beautiful.”

Von Otter is the rare singer who finds herself at home with all styles of music. “I think I get turned on by many, many composers,” she says. “I always feel very at home in Baroque music, and pop music has its roots in Baroque, I would say. I just did a disc of contemporary music from jazz, pop, and classical. John Adams very evidently has gotten a lot of influence from pop music. Conversely, Sting, Elvis Costello, and Kate Bush have been influenced by classical music.”

Though von Otter has performed in operas all around the world, she has yet to receive an invitation to perform with LA Opera. “I would love that,” she says. “It’s a big house and a big hall. My voice is considered a bit small for big American houses where opera is concerned, but if anything came up in Los Angeles, I’d come in an instant.”

Von Otter, who just turned 61 on Monday, knows that more of her career is behind her rather than in front of her. “I know already that my opportunities will decrease little by little,” she says. “It’s still going very well. My planning isn’t so far into the future as it used to be. I can see the end coming, but I don’t know when. Fortunately I like to do master classes. I have a hard time not making music, but, through teaching others, I get turned on myself. It feels a bit melancholy, but it is just life. We’re all going to die. Our voices are going to stop. I’m happy I’ve had such a nice long career and it ain’t over yet.”

Photograph by Mats Bäcker

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