Jeff Berlin made his mark in the 1970s as one of the leading bassists on the fusion scene, playing with Billy Cobham, John McLaughlin, the Brecker Brothers, Pat Metheney, Bill Frisell and many others. His technical proficiency on the instrument led to a successful session career and a tenure touring and recording with Yes. While he was best known for his work in the fusion and prog-rock fields, he racked up impressive credits in pop, rock and R&B, establishing himself as an electric bass soloist without peer.

In addition to his playing career, Berlin is a dedicated music educator, the founder of the Players School of Music in Clearwater, Florida, and a columnist for Bass Player Magazine. He's also a bright, funny guy who was well worth getting up early to chat with (time zones are the writer's worst enemy). His latest release, In Harmony's Way, has been released on his own M.A.J. Records. We started our conversation with him expressing appreciation for my review of the disc in the August edition of Cosmik. If you missed it, it was an unmitigated, and well deserved, rave....

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Berlin: I believe so much in the CD. I put everything I had as a musician into this one record and it's inspired me to do the next one and do it better. I feel like I'm in my best musical period, so I'm glad it reflected in this, I really am.

Cosmik: It's interesting that you would think this is your best musical period, considering your resume. You've played with so many in progressive rock and fusion. This one is probably more straight ahead jazz than anything else in your background. Is that what you've always wanted to, or something you've recently come to?

Berlin: I've been playing jazz since the middle seventies, but as a career, I had this reputation as sort of a technically proficient bass player, especially in the seventies when there was only Jaco Pastorious, Stanley Clarke and myself. There was no one else, really, who had so-called "technique." I mean, Larry Graham was maybe the first slap bass player, and there was another slap bass player who would have been as big as anybody, but who died unfortunately, named Doug Rauch. He played with Cobham. Astonishing bass player. But there was nobody then, in that era, who had technique, so my rep became as sort of one of the chops oriented bass players, so that was the way my music seemed to go. There's always a good thing in having a reputation in a certain way, but there's also a bad thing. The good thing is that I got sort of famous for my abilities on bass and influenced a lot of bass players, but the bad thing was that there was a whole end of music that I was exiled from, because of my reputation as a technical bass player. I could rarely play a good solid rock record, I wasn't used very much in jazz, I wasn't used very much in R&B. I mean, I have a lot of loves in music, but I basically could only play fusion. So as a leader, I guess I also stuck with that on my earlier CDs, but this one, since I've been playing jazz for something like 30 years, I said this is the time I'm going to do exactly what I want to do, because it's such an important element of my life.

Cosmik: You don't usually find the bass player as the leader in a trio situation. It puts you in pretty elite company. Usually, you look for the piano player's name, and you have a pretty great pianist here, but you don't always play bass like a bass player. In fact, not very often on this album. When you need a more traditional bass role, the pianist moves to a stand up.

Berlin: That's because he's a master upright bass player as well as a master pianist. That's Richard Drexler, and the time where I was going to carry the melody, and I think Miroslav Vitous did this, and Stanley Clarke did this, where they used an electric bass player to play the bottom while they, as electric bass players, would play the top. I thought, you know, Richard's such a master, why not let Richard play upright when the sound won't conflict with mine. Like, in the first tune, I wanted to put myself in the guitar role, only because I've practiced and 'shedded and played for I don't know how many years to be melodic on this instrument. We bass players really are not melodic, due to the symmetry of the strings, I think. EADG. And even on six strings, it's still a low B and a high C, it's still in fourths. You really can't get, easily, a variety of tonal possibilities like you can on a clarinet, on a saxophone, on a piano, on a guitar. I'm more melodic on piano or guitar than I am on bass, but on bass I had to work at it, because melodic playing really isn't available to bass players unless you seek it out. So I've worked very hard, and I think what I've come up with is utterly and totally brand new for this instrument, even beyond the CD. I can't wait for the next one, you know what I'm saying?

Cosmik: When you say it, I can't wait for the next one because I agree that you have come up with something new. As I say, you don't play like a bass player on this one....

Berlin: In parts I do and in parts I don't. Obviously I won't play bass like a bass player on "This Is Your Brain On Jazz," because I have the melody and I have the first solo. Afterward, on Gary's (vibraphonist Gary Burton) solos, I played bass and just tried to make it a little more interesting. I still believe my job is to be supportive. In fact, as I get older, I'm convinced that that's the job of all bass players, but there's a trick to that, and the trick is that a bass player, I think the first responsibility is to the rhythm section, and to support it, but how you do that is your style, you follow? If I stick to the responsibility of being a bass player, which in general means play the root, if I can stick to the responsibility of playing the chord of the song and support the other soloists and the other comping musicians, how I do it is my style. Nobody can say I'm not playing bass, they'll just say I'm playing bass but it sounds like Jeff. That's the goal, I think, of all musicians, to sound like themselves but also do their job on the instrument they've chosen, and play their job in the role they're supposed to play it, but to sound like themselves.

Cosmik: That supportive role for bass has not typically involved taking the melodic line.

Berlin: It's rare. Jaco Pastorious did it and got famous. Stanley Clarke did it and got famous. Not a solo, but a melody. It's not in our history, even to today.

Cosmik: Right. When I think of bass players I listened to when I first started listening to jazz, great players like Paul Chambers or Ray Brown, they would play solos, but they weren't particularly melodic, and they were usually short. They were expected to get back to that walking line as quick as they could.

Berlin: As a sideman, that probably was the norm. But the beautiful thing about music is that it never stays still. That is the greatest gift that all musicians should be thankful for, that music never stays where it is. If music changes, we are obliged to change with it in some capacity, and that's the exploratory nature of music. This is why those who can grow in music stay in it for the rest of their lives and those who can't have to give it up. That's the cruelty of music, as well. Music changes and players who can't change with it have a hard uphill battle in front of them. Music is beautiful and cruel, and I'm not just being philosophical here. Music is one of the great joys in the universe, and one of the cruel ironies of it is that if you don't go with it, you're screwed. You can't stay in this industry. You can't stay in music at all, except to stay home and jam, which isn't a bad idea either, but you can't stay in the contemporary end of it.

Cosmik: To take one of the songs from the CD as an example, "Runaway Train" is a song where you take a more traditional bass line, except it's a very different sound for bass, partly because of the impressive speed you have on the instrument.

Berlin: Good for you for noticing what we talked about earlier, which is I took a traditional role but I played a bass sound that is not familiar, therefore it might be my style. That's exactly my point. On "Runaway Train," I just played a simple ostinato bass line, that repeats forever and ever and ever. But where it came from is my desire not to slap, because I'm sick and tired of slap bass. I'm totally up to here with it. Because of that, I thought I could find something different on the instrument that was not played before. And I did! I came up with a little ostinato rhythm, not earth shatteringly unique, but certainly with enough of a kind of power behind it to compose a whole song around it. There is your example of something that is traditionally supportive, and totally non-traditional in its sound and its playing concept, because the way I play it is completely unnatural to bass players. I don't use the tip of my finger only. I flip up from the bottom and snap the string in a completely odd way with the fingernails on my right hand. So it's just a completely strange, odd little even, you know what I mean?

Cosmik: The finger picking bass player...

Berlin: Well sure, we're all fingerpickers, I suppose, except guys like Steve Swallow or Anthony Jackson, who pick. At the same time, I didn't do this particular tune the way that one typically does a fingerpicking thing. It's completely new, completely original, to me, at least. Therefore, I take credit for it and I'm happy to show it to anyone I know. I mean, anyone that would hear it, I suppose, would say there's something engine-like about it, and that's exactly what I wanted. Then stick the genius of Dave Leibman and Richard Drexler and Mike Stern over the top. It's one of my favorite tunes on this CD.

Cosmik: It's fascinating. Bass players, for the most part, don't seem to be searching for new sounds, and I don't think that most people who hire bass players particularly want them to. You just about have to be the leader to get away with this, don't you?

Berlin: Yes, you do, and that's a very good point. The only place that I've discovered, after the years I've been in music, the only place one really can do what they want to do is on their record or in their band. Outside of having a group or being the leader, it's next to impossible to play what you play unless you're hired to do what you do. Because almost every time there's a producer or another bandleader who will tell you what they want. And you know something? They're absolutely entitled to get from you what they want. That's what they're hiring you for, that's what they're paying you for. That's the majority of music. Most music is music for hire, anyway.

Cosmik: You certainly did your time on the LA session scene, where it's a commercial in the morning and a soundtrack later and somebody's new record after that.

Berlin: That is correct.

Cosmik: The last thing I want you to do if you're cutting an ad for my car lot is to draw more attention to your proficiency on the bass than to the beauty of my fenders and bumpers...

Berlin: You're 100% right, and I'll tell you where there's a reward in that. I once did a K-Mart commercial, and everytime they play a commercial you get a royalty check. So I used to go down to the union and collect my royalty checks, and next to me was Anthony Jackson, and Steve Gadd was in this line, and the Brecker brothers were over there, and we were all collecting our checks for the jingles we'd do, because commercials were good income for little musical stress. Anyway, I did this K-Mart commercial, and I tallied up my royalties. The commercial I played was two bars of music, total, and I collected over $14,000 for that.

Cosmik: $7000 a bar! I hope you can make that off this album!

Berlin: That's a true story. I earned over $14,000 for two bars of bass. And the reason that's a reasonable reward is that the bass I played was two half notes, eighth, quarter, eighth, quarter and a quarter note rest.

Cosmik: And for $14,000 you were willing to let them tell you exactly what to do.

Berlin: You're darn right, man. I'm a musician. If I'm a leader, I'm going to be the one to call my musical shots, but believe me, I have my price. I will play for pay because I'm a musician, but I'm also in business. This is called the music business. I can't see anything anything wrong with supplying what they want from me. You can make a lot of money in music if you can give the leader what they want, exactly the way they want it, and do it with a smile and a good attitude. There's a lot of money in this industry, and I have children, and I have a business, and I have to take care of my bills. I see nothing wrong in doing the job that I'm hired to do as a musician. As a musician, I know I'm qualified to give anybody anything, anywhere, under any circumstances. If I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't be in this industry with the kind of zeal I'm in it with.

Look, I did Zappa, you know what I mean? I did Zappa's band for a short time, and he gave me a chart once, and told me to learn it, and Steve Vai came over and helped me out because I didn't know how to read the stuff. He gave me a few hints and then I understood. A week later I went back to the rehearsal, I broke out the music, and we started playing. Frank stopped it immediately and said "What are you playing?" and I said "I'm playing this part you gave to me." It was "Pedro's Dowry." And he looked at it and "Oh man," he says "I gave you the guitar part by accident." So I learned the guitar part, in treble clef, and learned it in a couple days well enough to function in his band. So what are they going to show me now, to complicate my musical life, or give me any kind of tsoris. It's a Yiddish word, means give me a headache. I'm happy with that. It's nice at my age that I don't have to sweat it anymore. And I'm happy with giving a job. They want a job, they got it. As a leader, it's my ball game. It's my ball, and I call the rules, as any leader will.

Cosmik: As a leader you give those around you a lot of room and a lot of respect. Let's talk about the players on the album. I wasn't familiar with Richard Drexler, your pianist.

Berlin: Richard is one of the finest jazz pianists I know. He lives in Clearwater, he does gigs in Clearwater. He's one of the most used pianist in this area, and also one of the most used bass players in the area. Richard and I met, and I heard his playing, and one of the things I most admire about musicians is their harmonic concepts, their harmonic depth. Richard is so rich in tonality and harmony that I wanted to record with him right away. I'm as fortunate as can be. We're in a band, we're making a group and we're gonna play. He is utterly special, a composer, an arranger, one of the finest pianists. He's done a million gigs with a million jazz artists. He's just a very quiet, kind of quirky guy, big beard, wears a lot of jewelry around his neck. He's one of the sweetest most talented musicians I know.

Danny Gottlieb is an industry icon in a large way. He was Pat Metheney's drummer for many years and I used to play with Pat and Danny, and I used to play with Pat Martino with Danny. So Danny and I have played together for years. Actually, I did a gig with Larry Coryell, with two Indian guys, Larry, myself and Danny Gottlieb, and Danny played two bars of music and I swear it's the truth, I heard Danny go b'ding, b'ding, b'ding, b'ding and I said "This is the drummer for my CD." He is just remarkable. Great time, great feel. We had a thing where it got sort of confused, and Danny just backed out of the sound picture, he stopped playing gently and he was sort of doing colors as soon as the feel started to feel nice. We were doing Indian music, so it got a little funny for us Westerners, you know. And Danny stopped playing gently, and made it musical, played little fills, and when the time came back in the group, he joined in again. What a mature musical way to conduct himself! I knew this was the man for me. I sound better when I play with Danny Gottlieb.

Cosmik: And you have some pretty noteworthy soloists joining in. There's Dave Liebman, who has a song named after him on the album....

Berlin: Liebman was in Miles Davis' band, then joined up with Elvin Jones, and I met Dave in the seventies and we played together, in a band with George Benson, Tony Williams was on drums, and Lenny White, and I was the bass player...

Cosmik: Good band!

Berlin: It was all New York guys at the time, before anybody got real famous, at least from George's point, because he's obviously the most famous of everybody. Then we lost touch, then he sent me his book, which is my new bible. It's the book I practice out of all the time. It's called "A Chromatic Approach To Jazz Harmony And Melody." This book is still the fundamentally most impactful educational study that I've ever pursued. It's hands down the most thought provoking peice of educational literature I've ever read. So I was getting ready to record and I said, "Gosh, I've got to get with Dave again," and I invited him and he played. And listen to this guy. He is utterly alone in his greatness in his tonality sense.

Cosmik: I'll be honest with you, I'm about done with soprano sax. Most of the music the instrument is used for these days is not music I choose to classify as jazz. So it's always a joy to hear someone who realizes the possiblilities of the instrument, and he clearly does.

Berlin: I think Dave shares the spot with Wayne Shorter as the two number one soprano sax players in the world. That's my feeling about both of them. And Dave is alone in his unbelievable approach to the horn. I'm gratified that he lifted my music higher than I thought it could be, and I'm grateful and honored that he would play with me.

Cosmik: And Mike Stern is someone else you've known for a long time.

Berlin: I've known Mike for many years, and Mike is, for me, the balance between Hendrix and Joe Pass. Because of his love for rock and blues and his dedication to jazz, I thought he was going to do something very special for the CD, and he did. His solos are as rocked out as you can get, screaming loud when we recorded them, and playing jazz on top of it. It's the true jazz-rock combination. For me, I can't think of another guitarist I could have had to get the results that I got. Mike is utterly special. Another Miles veteran, now leading his own band.

Cosmik: Then there's Gary Burton. It had to be a treat to have him on the album.

Berlin: A treat, an honor, I still can't believe it. Gary, out of all these musicians, may be the one that emotionally is the most satisfying for me to have on this CD. I knew Gary in '72, when I went to Berklee. I was so in awe of him, of the utter freedom he had on his instrument, to play the music that he played. And he never stopped getting better! I heard records for years, I'd go see him play whenever he came around, and to have him on this record is the height of my musical coups. By getting a guy of his musical ability and musical stature to play for me. I love him deeply, I think he's a wonderful guy. I'm thrilled that he played on the record and that he played so beautifully.

Cosmik: You know you've arrived when you can say "Gary Burton is my sideman!"

Berlin: Isn't that a beautiful thing to say?

Cosmik: If it weren't true, it would be awfully damned arrogant to imagine.

Berlin: (laughing) "Hey Gary, tune up those vibes before we record, will ya?"

Cosmik: "Would you get this right!"

Berlin: "What do you need four mallets for? Lionel Hampton only has two!" We send emails every once in a while. He's into odd jokes, and odd humor, and I'm into it, so every once in a while I'll get a really goofy joke and send it off to him.

Cosmik: I can't imagine you not having a sense of humor, Jeff. When I first saw the title of the CD, In Harmony's Way, I knew you at least had a tolerance for a pun...

Berlin: This record became the biggest pun of them all, and what a great title. I have to confess, I'm as thrilled with the titles of my CDs as I am with my CDs. I mean, the last one, Taking Notes. Is there anything cleverer? I can't tell you how happy I am that that's the name of my CD. And then this one, In Harmony's Way, is another clever little thing. I like puns. I think it's attractive, and witty, and shares a joke with people that are into listening to the music and saying, I get the joke. And the best pun of them all is Richard Drexler's title for his song.

Cosmik: I was going to say. I turned it over and halfway down the track list is "Liebman On A Jet Plane." I mean, it takes a certain amount of courage to put that in print...

Berlin: (Laughs) Well, since I've never been that concerned about what people think, courage isn't really an issue here. I've not really ever done things to try to get approval. When I get it, I'm thrilled beyond thrilled. If they don't dig it, well, I got a letter, I won't mention the guy's name, but he's a full, deep, superstar jazz bass player, upright player. And he hated my record because he says it's not true jazz. And I looked at his email, I read it, and said, well, too bad for him. Because everybody else seems to really dig it. So it's not really much courage. We did "Liebman On A Jet Plane," "This Is Your Brain On Jazz," "Reggae Ricardo." They're funny titles, aren't they?

Cosmik: They are funny titles, but it's interesting that you'd get that comment about "real" jazz, because I was expecting much more a fusion album when I played it, and I thought it was in very much a straight ahead album. I guess there are still traditionalists that resist the electric bass.

Berlin: Oh yes. That was one of those guys.

Cosmik: And there's a school of jazz that thinks of the music as being a fossilized repertiore, but if there's any hope for the music, for those of us who love jazz, it's in growth, it's in stretching, and you've done that. I, for one, appreciate it.

Berlin: Look, if jazz doesn't grow we'd all be sounding like Louis Armstrong circa 1920. You take the elements and use the elements in the era you happen to be in. If you're in the 2000's, the music is going to sound like this. You can use the past, and learn from the past, and repeat the past. I mean, we still play Beethoven's symphonies in concerts, but the halls are acoustic masterpieces, and the orchestras are nearly twice as big as the ones Beethoven used. Music evolves, and things change. You can take from the past and use it in the present. There's no reason you shouldn't. You can also take from the past and stay in the past, and even that has historical meaning. There's a group in England that does Shakespeare plays in the old English. You can barely understand it, but it is an interesting kind of representation of a Shakespeare play. Then some guy will take Shakespeare and put it on the streets of New York City. I've seen that, you know. So why not? The arts are not sedentary. They don't stay in one place, they move.

Purists are, in one way, very important to music, because they are the keepers of the flame. So we need them. We utterly need hard core, narrow minded, pure directional thinking people, so that the true traditional end of music is not polluted or changed. Charlie Haden once said "There is no electric bass. There is only upright bass." And a bunch of my electric friends went "Why's he saying this?" and I told them that from his perspective he speaks the truth, and we need a traditionalist. We must have a traditionalist saying that there's no way except for this way to go, because other people aren't going to go there anyway. There's going to be a sustaining and retaining of the old, and there's going to be a use of the new, and that's what makes music great, because there's both sides.

Cosmik: It's kind of astonishing to hear Charlie Haden being put in the status of traditionalist, when not that long ago he was part of a movement that upset the jazz apple cart completely, not with an electric instrument, but with what he did with an acoustic one.

Berlin: Well, he may have changed his mind now, it was ten or twelve years ago, I think it was something in Downbeat that I read. But at the time he said it, he may have been of a movement in change in music, but he was a traditionalist in the instruments he used to change it. People are rarely 100% one way or the other. I might say I will never go to a five string or a six string, unless they pay me enough to use a five string, and sometimes I am a prostitute. And I'm a good whore, I'll do a good job. But I'm a four string player. I will not buy a five for myself, and I will not buy a six for myself. So I'm a traditionalist. At the same time, I might do it through a whole new bank of amps and a whole new concept of music. In one way, I might stick to my traditional beliefs and in another way, whatever comes, comes. Heck, I'll go with it.

Cosmik: There are probably a lot of young players with a notion of what kind of instrument they need that would be surprised that you stick with the four string. I mean, you have your own bass, the Dean Jeff Berlin model, that to a new generation of bass players probably seems like a hide bound, traditional instrument that doesn't have enough tuning keys, and it's named after that old guy...

Berlin: (laughs) Well, that's fair. I am the old guy now. But I'm the old guy who can kick the shit out any young guy on bass, anywhere, anytime. And that's not arrogance. I'm nearly 50 years old and I practice all the time. I've got the Liebman book here, I've got Brecker solos on my stand, I've got transcriptions, and I work full time at the art that I've chosen. Some guys think they're the hot gun and the new thing. I say, stick me in Korn and I'll tear them a new asshole, you know? I will fire them up, and put some power in that band that they've never experienced. And I say that to any rock band, anywhere, anytime. You want to get some flame happening in your group, pop me in it. Because there's things I'll do that they've never imagined can be done on an electric bass. That's not arrogance. That's the pride I feel and the confidence I feel. Because I'm not putting down the rock groups, but there's a lot of guys who think they can play and I say, let me at 'em. Just because of the fact that I practice and play so much, I know that I know some things these guys don't know, and maybe they'd be interested in learning some new aspects of music.

Cosmik: For the last number of years you've devoted as much of your attention to passing along what you know as you have to playing yourself, with the Players School Of Music in Clearwater. You've sparked some controversy with some unorthodox ideas there.

Berlin: To be honest, we're as orthodox as you can get, in some regards. Reading music, practicing on a daily basis, practicing and reading from levels you can do it. In other words, if you can't read, that's where we'll start. Some guys say "What should I practice to prepare to come to your school?" I say, don't practice anything to prepare. If you haven't done it already, you may not know what to do, so don't practice to come here, come here and we'll start from there. We don't use metronomes here, and the reason we don't is that time is not an hourly, click oriented event, time is an internal event. I get more arguements from people on that, that if they would only sit with me for five minutes, I would completely prove the point. But metronomes are not a way to get to have good time. Time is an internal event. The reason I know that, if you go back anywhere in history, to any musician, any tap dancer, any horn player, and you look at the time they put out, the great time, the great feel, it's never come from a metronome. They just played full time.

So we don't use metronomes, we don't use hand grips, we don't use tuners. What we do is, we use an instrument, and music in front of you, and playing with other musicians. Exercises, harmony, ear training, training you as a musician. How can you play what you don't know? How can anybody play what they don't know? They talk about developing their chops, but how do you develop chops on an instrument if you don't have any music to use with those chops. When they say they want to play faster, I say "Play what faster?" They say, "But what if I get a gig and I'm playing on this reading gig and..." and I say "You're not going to get the reading gig. You're preparing for something that's not going to happen for a while yet." So they say "What if I'm playing a gig and my amp blows up?" and I say "If your amp blows out, you stop playing and you walk off the stage." In other words, people prepare for scenarios that probably won't happen, and they prepare for scenarios in their career that they're not qualified to participate in, and I say "Stop that. Just sit down and read these whole notes. That's all you have to do." Because as you get better in music, and get better in reading, and get better in playing, the fringe benefit is that you start to work and start to gig.

Cosmik: I know your opinions about hand grips have upset some people, but there seems to be an obsession with hand strength I don't understand. My editor's eleven year old daughter plays the bass, and if she's strong enough to get the strings against the frets, I don't know how strong you have to be.

Berlin: Playing the bass is not about hand strength. Playing bass is about playing endurance. There is a huge, huge difference. Playing endurance is having the energy to function on your instrument for as long as the music is going on. Now, since most musicians don't play three four hour sets, it's not a problem. What you do is play in your band, play your songs, practice at home. And by playing a little lighter and turning your amp up a little louder, you're going to get more speed, more dexterity, and you're still going to sound as heavy as you want, because heavy sound does not come from hard impact. Heavy sound comes from a certain kind of touch on the instrument coming through a certain kind of gear. It is not about power of the hands, it is about power of your amps and your effects. That's where power comes from. Look at a pianist, light touch. Look at a horn player. Light blowing, concentrated air column and light on the valves. A guitarist, light on the strings. Townshend did that thing, but Townshend is one guy. Everybody else, usually, plucked gently. Look at Chet Atkins. Look at Hendrix! He wasn't a hard plucker, he just did his thing through three Marshall stacks! Playing is not about hand strength. It is about playing endurance and a lighter touch, and if people would get that their playing would be twice as good in half the time.

Cosmik: You continue to practice personally, and critique your own work, but I would think at your level of skill, you wouldn't need to do that except to limber up for a particular job.

Berlin: Limbering up is another goofy concept. People who play always do sound checks. You load in and set up your amps, see if they're working. Does anybody ever actually go into a gig having not touched their instrument for the day? Doing limbering up exercises is just wasting your time, because if you just play some music, you're limbering up and doing your homework at the same time.

Cosmik: Well, that's really what I mean. For instance, if someone came to my house, saw my guitar and asked me to play, if I hadn't picked it up for a week or so it would probably be the second song before it sounded like I actually knew how to play very well.

Berlin: Oh, I understand. I need to play a little bit and get familiar with my instrument. That's why I have Michael Brecker solos, and I play them slowly because I can't play like Michael. I may sound cocky and confident when I talk about other musicians, some of whom I really enjoy. I like a lot of these players out there. I just feel that if sometimes I'd get called by a rock band, I could show them something really amazing. But if I feel confident compared to other musicians, I don't feel confident compared to Gary Burton, Michael Brecker, Wayne Shorter, you know what I mean? Pat Metheney, Herbie Hancock, there's a bunch of musicians that I try to emulate and enter into their area of music, and because of the fact that I'll never have the melodic freedom that a pianist or a guitarist or a horn player will have, in a large way, compared to them I'm ridiculously humbled. Because if I'm cocky next to other rock guitar players or bass players, if these guys ever put themselves into situations next to these guys, they would bury most musicians. That's a kind of interesting mental concept, because if I aim high, I may not get there, but something will come of it.

Cosmik: I think you're getting there.

Berlin: As a bass player, I agree. As a musician, I'm not so sure sometimes. I separate the two.

Cosmik: Well, you expand the range and expectations of the instrument. You're doing something that extends the range of your instrument, in a way that only a couple players of every generation do for their particular instruments.

Berlin: That's very kind of you. You say that I've been critical of my playing. I don't think I've been a good bass player until a couple of years ago. Because I had technique, it made it exciting, but I can't say it was very musical to me. I think I was a bit of a con artist and not much of a musician until about the time of Taking Notes.

Cosmik: I want to talk about one of the settings you've played in before we go. You played with Bill Evans, the pianist. I've got hours and hours of his recordings, but I've never heard him playing, or heard of him playing, with an electric bassist. Can you talk about that?

Berlin: Sure. What happened, I was playing at Storyville, a club in New York, with Toots Theilman, the harmonica player, and he and Bill were going to record. Bill came to watch us play and we chatted and got friendly. He invited me once to the Vanguard to sit in with him, so I did, and I did it on another night. And those two nights made for me the greatest honor of my musical life, that I can say that I was the only electric bassist to play with Bill Evans. And we were going to make a record. He did a radio program with Marian McPartland and talked about me and said we were going to record, but shortly after that, unfortunately, Bill passed away and it was not to be. But what an odd legacy. To have played with Bill Evans and also been asked to join Bill Evans. Think about it, what's weirder in all of music?

But it's like a smorgasboard. It's a huge buffet of music. Grunt, filth, dirt into the ground, volcanic rock and roll, I love it. Sweet, ballad oriented music for people 80 and over, I love it. Showtunes, I love it. Symphonic music, operatic music, I love it. Coltrane jazz, Liebman, I love it. Cream, Ginger Baker, the one drummer I'm dying to play with in this world, I love it. I mean, there's just no end to the joy that music gives me. That's what I live for.

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In Harmony's Way is available only through Jeff's website at http://www.JeffBerlinMusic.com. If you love music, I encourage you to check it out.

Information about the Player's School of Music can be found at http://www.playerschool.com.

(C) 2001 - Shaun Dale