Interviewing musicians is usually a multi-step course of. You attain out to a advertising rep who units up a time slot for a Q&A, after which you’ve gotten X variety of minutes to converse with somebody who’s squeezing you in between different interviews. Prior to the interview, you put together some questions.
There are different situations, nonetheless. Like this, instance: At 9 o’clock one morning, in a pre-caffeinated state, you’re ready in your first cup of espresso to chill down at a desk in a lodge when a well known musician you acknowledge begins strolling previous you.
Which is what occurred to me at this 12 months’s AXPONA.
The musician I assumed I acknowledged is a keyboardist, arranger, and producer who had an outsized presence on the CTI label throughout its heyday, is massive in Japan, has received two Grammys and been nominated for 18 others, recorded the theme track to Taxi, has been sampled by numerous hiphop artists, nonetheless excursions all over the world, and is at present recording for an audiophile label.
In different phrases, Bob James—however simply to be on the protected aspect I checked his title tag. Later that morning James was slated to signal his newest Evosound launch, Feel Like Makin’ Live, so it made sense that he was wandering across the constructing. So have been 9 thousand different folks, nonetheless, so the percentages of us bumping into one another have been slim.
I requested him if he’d like to speak for a minute, and we ended up chatting for 45 minutes. I informed him it appeared apropos he was attending the occasion, as he definitely is not any stranger to the audiophile group. Going again to an early interval in James’ profession, Rudy Van Gelder engineered many albums on CTI that concerned James as a frontrunner or contributor. To leap ahead just a few a long time, Evosound is an audiophile label based mostly in Hong Kong. As we began to speak, Bob James made it clear that he was conversant in The Absolute Sound, which is sensible, contemplating his dedication to good sound.
Our chat was fairly informal, and there have been instances when he requested me questions—about TAS, about AXPONA, about my report assortment. It seems each of us are vinyl lovers, and he even confirmed me a photograph of his report assortment, which is now housed in some custom-designed cabinets in his dwelling in Michigan. When I requested what he’d been as much as these days, James, who’s now 83, made it clear that he’s been doing fairly a little bit of touring.
“Unlike what I’d have anticipated at my age—most individuals take into consideration retirement or taking it simple, however music is my life,” he defined. “And I like performing. And whereas I’ve the vitality and the willingness to do it—it looks as if I say ‘Yes’ to issues extra usually than I did even up to now. So I’m doing loads of touring. I’ve a really younger band that performs with me. I like the problem of attempting to maintain up with them.”
His ideas then turned to AXPONA.
“I like studying issues about the best way different individuals are experiencing music,” he stated, and he spoke positively about “a complete trade like this, a conference like this, that’s dedicated to all of the totally different ways in which music will be heard in a extra life like method.”
He was interested in my function because the music editor of The Absolute Sound, and I informed him about that. His response?
“As you have been describing your world, I used to be realizing that primarily what I need to do is cry,” he stated. “You see, I’ve to confess to you that I’m now sporting listening to aids, and {that a} very basic a part of this world makes me unhappy as a result of I can’t recognize it. I get it, and there was a time in my life once I would have been having a freakish unbelievable time on this constructing. I’d have been going utterly nuts, and I’d have been talky talky talky about each side of it. Now that could be a reminiscence in my life.”
Needless to say, his decline in listening to has affected his recording course of.
“We have to talk a double language and now we have to translate for one another,” he stated about recording engineers. “I inform them what I would like him to make the music sound like though, once I’m going to be listening again to it, I received’t be capable of talk immediately in the best way that I’d have.
“I nonetheless need the music to sound good. That’s what I would like, however the very primary essence of it’s humbling, and that’s why I need to cry.”
But, I stated, his musicianship hasn’t diminished. After knocking on wooden, James stated, “I’m hanging in there. I’m hanging in there with the music and piano music, and a piano participant performs it along with his fingers, and his mind’s telling how loud to play every be aware. And if he’s enjoying Mozart, he’s received to play a sure means, jazz a sure means, a blue million issues.
“Then it begins to return into your world the place there’s a microphone and there’s an engineer. ‘How do you translate that?’ But even earlier than you get there, there are all these different variables—the piano itself, is it a Yamaha or a Steinway or is it a Fazioli? You can have one million conversations about that. ‘I choose the tone of the Fazioli, I choose the Steinway, and I choose laborious motion or smooth motion,’ however all of these issues are associated to what they sound like, and I say humbly to you—within the 70s I used to be so deeply into the distinction between a Yamaha and a Steinway and a Chickering and a Baldwin and doubtless on a blindfold check I may say, ‘That’s a Baldwin or that’s a Chickering or that’s a Casio.’ I knew the subtlety of the piano tone. I don’t have that any extra. But I’ve the reminiscence of it.”
“The essence of it, the world of it’s nonetheless my life, and once I go to the piano now, I’m trusting my fingers with a lifetime of whether or not this be aware goes to be a 34 velocity or a 35. My mates that take heed to me are telling me that I’m nonetheless enjoying piano the best way I used to though I’m not listening to a Steinway versus a Fazioli, I’m listening to a reminiscence of it.”
Understandably, James suggested me to keep away from rock concert events.
But you didn’t play rock concert events, I stated.
“No, however in my subject, 12 months by 12 months I may really feel the engineers, they went louder, louder, louder,” James stated. “I fought it so long as I may, however general, stage quantity in each occupation has gotten louder, louder, louder.”
I requested him about Japan, the place he has lengthy been a extremely revered artist.
“I’ve an extended historical past there,” he stated, “each audio and music and every little thing, and I’m completely happy that it’s a Japanese firm that I’m representing right now. Evosound has been nice to me when it comes to presenting my music in a high-end audio group and having the records be demo records for high-end. Ashley Whitfield, the president, could be very all in favour of having an artist on his label who makes music that could be very usually recognized with high-end audio.”
Although our dialog concerned, at instances, a good quantity of soul-searching, there was as a lot humor as there was gravitas, and our entire dialog handed in a light-hearted method. Repeatedly we talked in geeky record-collector phrases about our love for vinyl. I informed him that when I’ve a devoted vinyl listening session at dwelling, I are likely to favor small-group acoustic jazz, and I requested what he most well-liked in that state of affairs.
“Because my world is enjoying the stuff that you simply talked about, at dwelling fairly often I take heed to classical music,” James stated. “That’s my interest as a result of that’s much less my actual world. When I’m listening to jazz, I’m most likely going to be important.”
Suddenly our dialog took an sudden flip, as Nick Getz, the son of tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, walked previous us. Along with Abey Fonn, Nick mentioned the upcoming 1-Step of Getz/Gilberto launch at AXPONA at numerous factors that weekend.
“That’s Stan Getz’s son proper there,” I informed James.
“You’re kidding,” James stated. “I produced Stan Getz and performed with Stan Getz many instances.”
Nick Getz seems to be quite a bit like his father—similar hair, face, and construct, and he even feels like him when he talks—and it was nice enjoyable introducing him to somebody who labored with Stan when he seemed a complete lot his son does now. (Talk about déjà vu.) Bob James informed Nick Getz about working along with his father and the way a lot respect he had for him as a musician, and Nick was clearly touched by that.
After Bob James disappeared into the mass of individuals hoping to listen to as a lot high-end gear as doable, I began to course of our dialog that morning. Due to listening to loss, this veteran musician not will get the total expertise when he performs and records, however his dedication to music stays steadfast and he finds a technique to make it work. At an occasion the place distractions have been quite a few and alternatives to mirror have been few, that message didn’t get misplaced.
The put up You Never Know Who You’ll Run Into at AXPONA: A Chance Encounter with Bob James appeared first on The Absolute Sound.
