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Earconnector talks to Jeff Williams
Have you chosen the drums or the drums you? Can you describe your relationship to the drums?
One of my earliest memories is seeing a drummer on TV. Although I was only three at the time it was a defining moment. I was viewing this image on a tiny screen, television was still in its infancy as well, but the impact was huge. In the part of Ohio where we were living at the time there was a large Polish community and polka variety shows were popular. Ordinary people danced to the music in ballroom fashion and it had the feeling of a casual party. Aside from thinking the drum set was the greatest idea ever, it was also clear to me that the drummer was responsible for the merriment motivating the dancers. It was joyful. That marked the beginning of a phase of finding things in the kitchen to bang on for hours. A few years later I was given a toy set for Christmas and preceded to break all of the heads within minutes, a memorable tragedy.
My father borrowed a set of drums from a friend when I was about seven, which were in disrepair and sounded so awful that I wondered if my obsession was misguided. It also didn’t help that playing them required coordination I lacked. When the drums were reclaimed a pair of sticks and brushes remained. I found that the brushes worked quite well on a cardboard box and, after my dad taught me a basic brush stroke, I began playing along with records. My parents shared an interest in jazz and had begun to build a bit of a library, so I was able to pick albums I liked and learn every nuance. Upon returning from school each day I would put on Miles Davis’ “Workin” or “Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing” and become immersed, pretending that I was performing with the group, and, particularly with Jamal’s live recordings, imagine I was in the club. It was so absorbing that I went somewhere else, to a place that I was intent on inhabiting one day.
I gained a kind of experience playing along with records, and enough exposure to some very fine music that I became opinionated, a condition especially unattractive in the young. My parents insisted that I take lessons when they agreed to buy me a snare drum at age eight, but I had seen the prospective teacher play and had not been impressed. He was not in Philly Joe Jones’ league at all. Of course he had some notion of starting me at the beginning with half notes, quarter notes, right-left, right-left, instead of allowing me to show him what I could already do. I was appalled. So much so that one day as I was practising, in a fit of frustration, I jammed a stick through the head.
That was that. I returned to my cardboard box for the next four years. (No one seemed to realize that the head could be replaced.) It wasn’t until age twelve that I had a drum set and it would be another six years before I had any more formal lessons, though I would receive plenty of pointers after my mother began to pursue a singing career in New York in my ninth year. There I would have the opportunity to see and meet many of those I had listened to for years.
I used to find it difficult to work on technical aspects outside of a musical context and was more concerned with how the drums function within an ensemble. Drum solos, for example, were not a point of interest, Philly Joe fours and eights being an exception because of his architectural genius. Over the years I’ve come to appreciate what can be generated by the drums alone and how the individual voices can be used to create musical content. My relationship to the drums began as a very private experience granting entry to another world, one that would eventually become my life. If I don’t play for a length of time I’m not quite right. The relationship is primary.
Can you describe the sound you’re looking for?
To what extent has your playing changed, or remained constant, over the years?
The sound is a combination of everything I’ve liked from what I’ve ever heard. Sound is the first thing I notice. It’s what attracted me to Philly Joe and Vernell Fournier early on. The words open, full, warm, deep, rich convey some of what I’m after. Having urgency, intensity, an ability to transport one’s voice and personality into the instrument so that it’s instantly recognizable. The process can involve simply not getting the sound you don’t want. It’s important to blend well with the other instruments, creating sounds that are musically complimentary. The drums can also come to the forefront. Listening intently will tell me what to do next, how to address the cymbal, what tone to extract from the snare.
After amassing some amount of drumming syntax from playing along with records I began doing gigs in Ohio with accomplished musicians in their forties when I was fourteen. We played standards. I was able to do little more than play good time and swing with them, much as I had been entertaining myself at home playing with albums. It was controlled and very good experience. When I moved to New York to begin my career at twenty-one I was more than ready to stretch out. I had been influenced greatly by seeing Tony Williams and Jack DeJohnette play with Miles and had incorporated this more aggressive aspect into my concept. But it was raw and I was frequently swept away by the intensity, volume, and density of what I was attempting. Working with Stan Getz a year later I was introduced to the idea of playing with intensity at a low volume, but the concept would take years, and some time with Lee Konitz, to realize. At the same time, with Dave Liebman’s Lookout Farm, I couldn’t be too aggressive or too loud. I could try everything in an interactive sense and play with as much power as could be mustered.
Because that group lasted a few years my identity as a player began to be defined to myself from that experience. I would then take this aggressive approach to other situations and find that it didn’t fit and that I was overplaying. It would take additional years and all kinds of musical settings to show me other possibilities. Mainly that the music tells you what and how to play. You don’t suffer a loss of identity from these adjustments because you’re still you and you’ll still play the way you play.
Over time comes refinement. I can utilize different elements from many musical experiences, or they are called into play according to the situation. There is often no conscious thought; I just know what is appropriate (at least to my sensibility) and do it automatically. Of course, the vocabulary I’ve been able to assemble over the years is a product of my own taste. There is a certain satisfaction in having one’s own voice, but that can also stifle growth. If anything, I have to let go of this hard-won set of skills and embrace the raw again. Paul Motian comes to mind.
What do you practise? (How?) Do you practise improvising?
Has this developed much over the years? Are you sometimes consciously looking to change the way you play?
What I practise changes constantly, according to need. If I’m playing a great deal, I may not practice at all. Sometimes I just play, picking a tune like “Inner Urge”, outlining the melody with left hand and both feet, utilizing the different pitches of the drums, while playing time on the ride cymbal with my right hand, playing a few choruses concentrating on generating good time, keeping the form, gradually adding to the content of the accompaniment, trading with myself, and finally taking an extended solo over the form.
Usually, during the course of that activity, I’ll have noticed some things that bear scrutiny. Posture, cymbal articulation, accent placement, various inaccuracies and things I’ve attempted that I’m not able to execute. I’ll then turn my attention to each one of these items and slowly work on them.
Lately I’ve been practising odd time signatures, trying to elevate my ability in an area that is an increasingly commonplace requirement. I get ideas from people with whom I work as to where to focus my attention. Often I will have to practise their music in order to play it well when called upon.
I go back to Alan Dawson’s approach to Ted Reed’s “Syncopation” book, which involves all limbs and produces a balancing effect. I often use “Stick Control”, with a practise pad, to maintain the physical acuity of my hands, wrists and arms.
Yet in trying to perfect licks, beats, feels, and phrases there is a danger that you will then impose the results on the gig. What you practise you end up playing. One of the interesting things about Dawson’s method was that his material was not directly transferable. The rudiments and exercises would somehow begin to seep into my playing in a musically applicable form, without conscious thought or imposition.
I don’t practice improvising--I just improvise. There’s a difference I think. My mind is open, allowing the first sound to take me to the next. I’m not interested in results, in getting someplace. I’m interested in discovery, in playing what I don’t know. Sometimes it involves rejecting ingrained responses, not playing the first thing that is at the ready, waiting for what is just behind that. Then some elements can be combined—the known with the new, changing both. It’s fascinating to see what can transpire over half an hour of playing a simple rhythm, how it grows and changes. That’s improvisation too. If anything has changed over the years it’s that I’m more comfortable with this process and can stay with it.
I consciously tried to change the way I played about twenty some years ago. Rather than generating a continuum I saw a way to go from one note to the next. During the same period I was studying Dawson’s method, finally learning the rudiments, developing a proper technique. The continuum approach made me more employable as a sideman, but I was seeking a way out of linear time. If the drummer is stating the beat constantly it’s as if the rest of the band is on training wheels. I found I could pick my spots. Not everyone agrees however.
What is different in jazz today compared to 10, 20 and 30 years ago?
How about forty years ago? I first went to New York in 1960 to spend summers with my mom and was privileged to see a lot of what was going on at the end of this golden age. It was entirely different than today, although the jazz scene was already regarded as being in decline. (There are probably more places in New York where jazz is presented at this moment.) At that time there was a lot of studio work and during the day you would see the top musicians going from session to session, running into each other on the corner, or having a drink at one of the daytime bars like C and D’s. It was warm and there were places to congregate, which fostered lasting relationships and a central community. It was also a time when a residency in a jazz club could run into weeks, if not months.
It the 60’s there were any number of great bands and many of the giants were still walking around. Independent record labels and a network of clubs had made it possible to maintain the same personnel and develop a group sound over several years. In the next decade pop music took an even larger share of the market, the audience for jazz declined further, and many of those who might have kept the thread intact from Bird made a change in direction that was not necessarily evolutionary. The notion of what jazz is began to encompass a broader spectrum, and that became a different evolution, one that still continues. Whereas bebop was once a language few could speak well, it did utilize familiar forms so that the improvisations within those structures were intelligible to the layperson. As jazz widened to include many varieties of improvisation, its definition was stretched considerably and additional demands were placed on the listening public.
The 80’s saw a fragmentation that divided the music further. It was now necessary to differentiate between various styles—straight ahead, fusion, free, downtown, smooth (a term actually coined later), and others, if you were going to accurately describe what it was you were playing, thus relegating yourself to a particular camp. Lacking a common language and direction, jazz going into the 90’s increased its emphasis on the individual concept. Everyone became a composer, much to the chagrin of the listener. The more adventurous individual projects often had little time for development and were presented with the expectation that the form of a composition would be discerned after a brief statement of melody. This branch, the only one seemingly moving forward, became music for musicians.
I remember seeing Wayne Shorter play his music from “Atlantis” on the night the Gulf War began and being struck by the fact that his solos were a commentary on what was happening at that moment. By playing Arabic scales and military cadences, while mimicking rockets and explosions, he was delivering the news of the day, and doing so within an accessibly brilliant compositional framework. Charlie Parker would often quote from a song other than the one he was playing as a way of speaking about his immediate surroundings. This aspect of telling a story, creating a narrative, connecting ideas as well as notes, is what jazz has in common with folk music. In the 60’s hearing a group on several occasions during a long run at a particular venue would be different each time, though the material performed would be the same. The improvisation was in and of the moment. While that’s harder to come by now, I have seen Wayne Krantz and Tony Malaby, among others, seem to channel the subconscious content of an audience and create a collective experience in spite of the relatively abstract nature of their music.
Since jazz is no longer a particular style of music, except in the minds of some, today it is unencumbered by a set of requirements, stylistic or otherwise. Jazz education has become something of an industry and increased knowledge may contribute to the music’s longevity. But jazz also seems more isolated. Are these institutions turning out future players or more jazz educators? If it’s the former, where will they play? Will this music require a support system like the IAJE in order to survive? Jazz’s relevance to a younger audience often seems confined to those artists who embrace rock sensibilities, thus putting themselves in a position to reach those who would never set foot in a jazz club. Although jazz has never appealed to everyone, it has become increasingly off-putting to the ordinary person who feels that he is insufficiently informed, that the learning curve is too steep. While education creates future listeners and supporters, it remains for jazz to seduce the uneducated if it is to extend its reach.
Do you have a particular strategy to stay inspired, or do you proceed naturally absorbed in the music?
I don’t have a strategy nor am I absorbed all the time. Music continually draws me back in. Inspiration can come from revisiting recordings that continue to reveal themselves as my knowledge and awareness increase. Being in touch with my fellow musicians, by playing with and listening to them, are key sources. Hearing someone else’s approach reinforces how vast the possibilities are, how open the terrain remains. Listening to something I haven’t heard can trigger renewed energy or give me a new idea of how to approach something I’ve been working on. And witnessing great drumming sends me to my instrument in search of more from myself.
How important are long-term musical relations to you, or: how important is it to be self-sufficient and independent to play with anyone (and without anyone)?
It would be great if it were possible to sustain long-term musical relations, which to me ideally means being in a band. That was my goal early on and was the model from which came most of the music I loved: Mile’s groups, the Coltrane Quartet, and so many others. I was fortunate to experience some of that in the ‘70s but most of what I’ve done since has been for rather short duration. Very few bands were left and one had to become self-sufficient. It became more like being a part of a pool of musicians from which would be drawn various combinations, under different leadership, for individual projects lasting long enough for a recording and a tour. The people I have known over the years with whom I still play are few and very dear to me. There are also a number of musicians I’ve been playing with for the better part of a decade whom I treasure as well. I wouldn’t know what it’s like not to have the freedom to play with anyone. While I can entertain myself up to a point, I prefer to play with others.
Do you feel part of a particular scene/tribe/aesthetic/planet…?
When you think of New York, what feelings come up?
While others probably would identify me by a few of my associations, I don’t really see myself as part of any particular scene. I’ve had the chance to play in such a variety of situations, spanning several generations and ranging from straight ahead to fusion to free to combinations of all of those and more. That probably means I fall between stylist cracks. I’ve always enjoyed taking on someone’s aesthetic and seeing what I could contribute to it. My own is not confined to a particular school, although my approach to drumming was formed by experiences playing bebop and post-bop early on as I attempted to emulate such influences as Philly Joe, Elvin, Tony, Jack, Roy and so many more. You end up sounding like yourself anyway, leaving it to others to decide what it’s called and where to file it.
New York, my home for over thirty years, remains dear to my heart. I’ve seen many changes since those summers in the 60’s, but it remains the centre of the jazz universe and the place most jazz musicians feel they must inhabit at some point, thus attracting the best from all over the world. The standard is high and great musicianship can be heard every night of the week in multiple locations. Players inspire each other and the music grows, despite limited opportunities, in part from the sheer concentration of talent. And there is still a feeling of community. But, like any local scene, New York can become insular and lose sight of the rest of the world. Things going on in other places are missed or minimized. Musicians coming there shouldn’t have to assimilate to be taken seriously. Having a greater influx of influences from the outside, including increased presentation of jazz artists and groups from abroad in the major clubs, would insure that New York’s status remains real as well as mythological.
How do you go about composing? What kind of thinking goes into it? How do you put your compositions together, how do they come into being?
Writing music came about from playing the piano, which is something I’ve always done, though without any formal training. Having the specific melodic and harmonic elements the drum set can only approximate, the piano fills a need and also gives a perspective on how the drums effect the rest of the band, something I’ve experienced playing piano with my students. Growing up with a piano in the house was important, and I began making up songs to entertain myself at an early age. It wasn’t until one of my tunes was recorded in the late-eighties that I began to think about composition.
After several years of leading a group with set personnel I found the courage to start presenting my music in 1990. By then I had a backlog of material that I had been playing on the piano for years, but putting it on paper was another matter. Fortunately I had help and became better at it, though that aspect remains off-putting.
My compositional approach is to let one sound lead me to the next. It could be a chord, a rhythm, or two or three notes of a potential melody. It’s useful to vary the starting point. The important thing is not to rush the process, not to solve the problem with an easy fix, but to stay with it until something appears that sounds right to my ear. This is not quite like trial and error; I listen so that I can hear where it seems to want to go rather than force a solution.
When the construction is relatively complete I’ll begin soloing on the form. It will take me a while to become proficient enough with the harmony to know whether I’ve found a good vehicle for improvisation. Details will be filled in. Sometimes it will all come together quickly, or it might take years. I rarely write with specific individuals in mind, figuring that if the composition is solid it can be played by any number of people.
I try not to have an agenda, but if I need variety within a body of music for a performance or a recording I’ll set guidelines for composing: a ballad, something in three, a line without chords, and so on. One of my enduring pieces consists of two bars of music in 6/4. The idea was to create a bass figure that could stand on its own while still having rhythmic ambiguity. The bass line provided implications for chordal and melodic counterpoint and within minutes I had a tune. You never know.
When you play does for the most part your intuition guide you, or do you prefer to more actively, perhaps intellectually-conceptually, shape the music as it happens?
I wouldn’t call it intuition exactly, since experience provides a multitude of choices, but as soon as I sit down at the drums I cease thinking in the usual manner. Specific instructions regarding the piece being played, fluctuations in tempo, and other minutia appear as signposts in my mind. Various aspects are monitored but I’m entirely given over to listening. Listening intently tells me what to play. Thinking about what to play or something I want to play will put me outside the music, if only for a second, long enough to break the flow. It also becomes a bad habit.
The moment I might have kicked that habit for good came when I played with Cedar Walton in 1982. It was a thrill to perform “Firm Roots” and many of his other great compositions but what affected me most was how easy it was to play with him. I could do no wrong. All I had to do was listen and everything was perfect. His groove is so solid that it could easily carry ten people. I realised, after all of the practise and absorption of the materials of music, playing in the moment requires a kind of surrender and trust. You’ll actually be okay if you just let yourself do it.
There are times, particularly in very open improvisational situations, when it may be desirable to instigate something. That’s where one’s compositional sense is called upon. By focusing on the flow and continuity of what is transpiring, and staying with it, I’m given a number of choices as to what to do next. The decision made is not a thought, which would take too long to formulate, but a response, a musical reaction based on, you guessed it, listening.
When have you been closest to your true self?
Is there a true self? If there is I’m certainly occupying it more consistently these days. Interacting with demanding types can pull you off your axis as you try to accommodate their needs and requirements. Some leaders enjoy imposing all sorts of things on their sidemen and women, perhaps as compensation for the challenges they face. These things used to affect me, sometimes leading me to think that I had to be someone other than myself. I now see that I am myself, regardless.
That said, I feel most myself when in the midst of a musical situation where the chemistry among the players is creating an inhabitable environment for open expression. And when I’m with my wife Lionel who manages to uncover aspects of life about which I was previously in the dark.
Jeff Williams site You can listen to 2 of Jeff's tracks here
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