Interviewing musicians is usually a multi-step course of. You attain out to a advertising and marketing rep who units up a time slot for a Q&A, after which you will have 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 resort when unexpectedly a well known musician you acknowledge begins strolling previous you.
Which is what occurred to me at this yr’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 large in Japan, has gained two Grammys and been nominated for 18 others, recorded the theme tune to Taxi, has been sampled by numerous hiphop artists, nonetheless excursions all over the world, and is at the moment recording for an audiophile label.
In different phrases, Bob James—however simply to be on the protected facet I checked his identify 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 had been 9 thousand different folks, nonetheless, so the chances of us bumping into one another had been slim.
I requested him if he’d like to speak for a minute, and we ended up chatting for 45 minutes. I instructed him it appeared apropos he was attending the occasion, as he actually isn’t any stranger to the audiophile neighborhood. 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 a couple of 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 acquainted with The Absolute Sound, which is smart, contemplating his dedication to good sound.
Our chat was fairly informal, and there have been occasions 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 residence 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 straightforward, however music is my life,” he defined. “And I really 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 really like the problem of making an attempt to maintain up with them.”
His ideas then turned to AXPONA.
“I really 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 completely different ways in which music will be heard in a extra life like method.”
He was interested by my function because the music editor of The Absolute Sound, and I instructed him about that. His response?
“As you had been describing your world, I used to be realizing that primarily what I wish to do is cry,” he stated. “You see, I’ve to confess to you that I’m now carrying listening to aids, and {that a} very basic a part of this world makes me unhappy as a result of I can’t admire it. I get it, and there was a time in my life after I would have been having a freakish unbelievable time on this constructing. I’d have been going fully nuts, and I’d have been talky talky talky about each side of it. Now that may 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 need him to make the music sound like although, after I’m going to be listening again to it, I gained’t be capable of talk straight in the best way that I’d have.
“I nonetheless need the music to sound good. That’s what I need, however the very fundamental essence of it’s humbling, and that’s why I wish 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 together with his fingers, and his mind’s telling how loud to play every word. And if he’s taking part in Mozart, he’s acquired to play a sure method, jazz a sure method, 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 favor the tone of the Fazioli, I favor the Steinway, and I favor exhausting motion or gentle 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 possibly 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 after I go to the piano now, I’m trusting my fingers with a lifetime of whether or not this word goes to be a 34 velocity or a 35. My buddies that take heed to me are telling me that I’m nonetheless taking part in piano the best way I used to although 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 live shows.
But you didn’t play rock live shows, I stated.
“No, however in my subject, yr by yr 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 career has gotten louder, louder, louder.”
I requested him about Japan, the place he has lengthy been a extremely revered artist.
“I’ve a protracted historical past there,” he stated, “each audio and music and all the pieces, and I’m pleased that it’s a Japanese firm that I’m representing as we speak. Evosound has been nice to me by way of presenting my music in a high-end audio neighborhood and having the records be demo records for high-end. Ashley Whitfield, the president, may be very excited about having an artist on his label who makes music that may be very usually recognized with high-end audio.”
Although our dialog concerned, at occasions, 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 instructed him that when I’ve a devoted vinyl listening session at residence, I are likely to favor small-group acoustic jazz, and I requested what he most well-liked in that scenario.
“Because my world is taking part in the stuff that you just talked about, at residence fairly often I take heed to classical music,” James stated. “That’s my pastime as a result of that’s much less my actual world. When I’m listening to jazz, I’m in all probability going to be essential.”
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 varied factors that weekend.
“That’s Stan Getz’s son proper there,” I instructed James.
“You’re kidding,” James stated. “I produced Stan Getz and performed with Stan Getz many occasions.”
Nick Getz appears to be like 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 appeared a complete lot his son does now. (Talk about déjà vu.) Bob James instructed Nick Getz about working together 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 tools as attainable, I began to course of our dialog that morning. Due to listening to loss, this veteran musician now not will get the total expertise when he performs and records, however his dedication to music stays steadfast and he finds a strategy to make it work. At an occasion the place distractions had been quite a few and alternatives to replicate had been few, that message didn’t get misplaced.
The publish You Never Know Who You’ll Run Into at AXPONA: A Chance Encounter with Bob James appeared first on The Absolute Sound.
