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As music floated into the studio from another room perhaps fifty feet and three doors away, I tried to make myself invisible. I had gotten myself into a nice situation and I was going to enjoy it. Just a few feet away from me stood Robert Drasnin - Bob, to his friends, though they use both names interchangeably as if Bob is the guy and Robert is the legend who, over the decades, has played sax, flute and clarinet with everyone from Red Norvo to Tommy Dorsey to Skip Heller. Hearing him play full tilt, when you can't hear the other instruments because they've closed the doors, sealed the room and taken measures to make sure no other noises are present, is an unforgettable experience. Some time later, the tomb was unsealed, Bob left and Skip Heller replaced him. I'm no rookie when it comes to recording studios, but this was my first jazz session, and I have to tell you, it's a mind blower. Being in stealth mode while individuals do overdubs is an amazing experience, but the real eye opener is when you sit in the middle of the room with everyone present and playing at once. Now that's flyin' first class.Skip Heller's career path has no map. The man has done a little of everything, and he's done it all well, creating a catalog that is the definition of musical diversity. This is why critics who try to categorize him usually stutter badly and then implode. Country folk exotica jazz artists are just everywhere these days, don't you find? Just when you think you've got him pegged, he moves in a different direction, and it might take you a moment to get on board, but you should know by now that it's gonna be good. Fake Book's organ-based jazz seems so perfect that it's hard to imagine any further evolution, but don't ever count on that.
Right now, however, it's time for the Fake Book tour, hopefully coming to your city soon. We'll post a schedule for you at the end of the interview and keep you updated. Skip sat down with me a few days before the tour got under way to discuss this latest stage in his evolution, as well as new chapters just beginning to be written.
Cosmik: We did the last interview in September of 2002, when Career Suicide was new and Homegoing wasn't quite out yet. The band has evolved a lot since then.
Skip: Yeah, that's really just the result of going on the road and discovering different players. We played Seattle and I asked a friend of mine, "Hey, who's a really good B3 [Hammond B3 organ] player in town, and he got a couple of numbers for me. I called this fellow named Joe Doria and we just hit it right off. I asked Joe "Okay, which drummer should we get?" He said John [Wicks]. So we put a gig together and Bob Drasnin and I flew up to play with those guys, and it felt good right off the bat.
Cosmik: Which gig was that?
Skip: That was the Sunset Tavern, October 5th, 2002, the week that Homegoing came out. After playing with those guys just once I said "Okay, let's make this a regular going concern," which we did. I flew up the following March and we recorded that gig, which turned out to be The Battle In Seattle...
Cosmik: So you went by yourself that time, without Bob, and played with Joe and John as a trio.
Skip: Right. Then we did a kind of mini-tour of the Northwest in May. At the end of that we recorded Fake Book. So the evolution, really, was discovering this wonderful rhythm section that was already playing together a lot and was kind of looking at the music the same way I was. Just one of those chance, happy things, but I'm old enough now to know an opportunity like that when I see it.
Cosmik: What was Robert's reaction?
Skip: Pretty much the same as mine. Like "Wow, these guys are great!" He didn't take any convincing.
Cosmik: I didn't think he would.
Skip: Well, he was not enamored of the organ when I first put the organ band together, but I think that had more to do with who the organist was at the time. He's warmed up to the instrument terrifically as a result of playing with Joe, and as a result of playing down here with this guy called Wayne Peet, my regular L.A. organ player. Wayne's absolutely fantastic. He's a much different organ player than Joe is, but he's great. So it keeps the music fresh.
Cosmik: Was the chemistry there right away with Joe and John?Skip: Yeah, I mean in the rehearsal we kind of fell into each other's way of playing very easily. I didn't really have to give anybody very much in the way of direction. They had had the music and CDs of the tunes we were going to play, and they actually got together and had a rehearsal before I got there, so they had figured out a way to play it and make it work even before we got to the rehearsal. A musician's technique and his ability to hear different things is wonderful, but there's nothing quite as comforting as guys who are just conscientious about making sure the music sounds good.
Cosmik: When you say they had CDs of the music, do you mean CDs of original versions, or burns of your arrangements?
Skip: The very first time, I sent them a folder of music, and 80% of it was stuff that I had recorded.
Cosmik: So your own arrangements were automatically there.
Skip: Right. The other 20% were things I hadn't recorded, but I didn't stray too far away from the arrangements that had been recorded, like the Stevie Wonder song "Fun Day." Nothing really difficult there. It's not like I was pulling out 1970s Frank Zappa music.
Cosmik: Though knowing you I'd guess you'd be tempted.
Skip: Yeah, I would. [Laughs.] I still am. I still think about it.
Cosmik: You play with these people in different configurations, as a trio and then with Bob as a quartet. What are the main differences for you? Does it feel like two different bands completely? Do you approach it that way?
Skip: It's not like it's two different bands completely, it's just that in a trio you don't have to do anything to maintain intimacy, because there are just three of you. Everybody really has to be involved no matter who's taking the solo. But the minute you put a fourth person in there you have to invent ways to keep the intimacy going. To get a fourth person in there and still make everything feel as flexible as it can be when there are only three people playing the music, first of all you really need to be able to trust that fourth person.
Cosmik: If you can't trust Robert Drasnin who can you trust?
Skip: Yeah, exactly. Another thing is just finding ways to lead the rhythm section behind that fourth person. That's a lot of what my job is. To put it in basketball terms, you've got to approach it as if you're the point guard.
Cosmik: You're saying you've got to run the floor and set up the other guys. It's about assists.
Skip: When it's my solo, I have to step up and shoot, obviously, but when it's the organ player's solo or when it's the horn player's solo, I'm always trying to do everything I can to make sure they've got a clean shot.
Cosmik: Leave it to an L.A. Sparks fanatic to devise that system of bandleading.
Skip: I really do think of it that way. Point guard!
Cosmik: Hey, it makes sense. I've seen both configurations of the band playing live, and when you play as a trio it seems like there's a kind of muscular energy to it, like a power, a pace that's a different kind of energy. When I see you playing as a quartet, it's more like a classic jazz show, more nuanced... I'm looking for a word I can't seem to find here...
Skip: It's more streamlined.
Cosmik: Thank you. With the quartet I find myself thinking "Wow, that was great. Wow, THAT was great...", like showcases, as opposed to watching the trio where it's POW, energy coming at you.
Skip: The thing with the trio is, because there are only three guys, you can play it a little more fast and loose. That's pretty much what we do. If something goes really, really wrong, you can pull it out a lot more easily. Whereas when it's four people, everyone's job is a little more defined. There are certain things you lose when only three guys are on the bandstand, though. One is the textural variety. Then it becomes "Well, is the guitar going to play the melody, or is the organ going to play the melody" as opposed to "Well, is going to be clarinet or alto saxophone? Or clarinet and guitar in unison?" The pallet gets a hell of a lot wider, which means as an arranger I can exercise more options.
Cosmik: You used the word "textural." That's definitely a word I'd have used to describe the quartet if I could have found it a minute ago. That's a big difference between the trio and the quartet.
Skip: Yeah, and of the two, I'll tell ya, I think if I were a listener I'd prefer the quartet.
Cosmik: I like both, for different reasons, and when I'm in different moods.
Skip: I'm glad people do. But if I only had money for one record, I'd go with the quartet just because of the variety.
Cosmik: If I only had money for one record, I'd mourn the loss of the Battle In Seattle [trio record], but I'd have to go quartet too, because you've gotta have Drasnin.
[Pictured: Robert Drasnin]Skip: When you have a player like that... First of all, he's just a fantastic player. Secondly, he represents something that's not going to come out of me or come out of Joe as naturally, which is being the product of an earlier school of jazz. I really feel like everything in the course of a piece of music is very well represented between the three of us. Bob is definitely that perfect "early-50s be bop coming out of Johnny Hodges" sort of player, Joe is definitely... Joe is Joe. [Laughs.] Joe has all the traditional organ stuff, but he also has this push that I don't hear too many organists that have a push like that. Then there's me, and I'm the guy who bats cleanup, in a way. I'm like "Okay, what haven't they done? Okay, now I know where to go, because this aspect hasn't been pointed out." Because I really do try to make sure that when you go from one solo to the next, you want the color of the surface to change. Maybe Bob will play something a little darker, then Joe will play something bright yellow, then I've got to find another color to paint. So I really think if I had to make a choice between the two I'd go with the quartet because more is represented, arrangement-wise and sound-wise. There are less limitations with that fourth guy in there.
Cosmik: I bet there are times, though, when the trio is just what you need.
Skip: There is this part of me that just likes sweating it, you know? Just absolutely...
Cosmik: Slugging it out?
Skip: Yeah. There's nothing like that grudge match [laughs] thing that happens. I really enjoy that. I love it.
Cosmik: And you've got pictures of three great fighters on the cover of The Battle in Seattle. It fits. I figure you must have named that after the fact, from what the experience on the bandstand was like.
Skip: It was partially that, but it was partly because, as a kid, I always loved Ali. You had the Thrilla in Manila, the Rumble in the Jungle, you know... And I was jokingly referring to that one as The Battle in Seattle.
Cosmik: Battle was recorded in a small club, intimate setting, very happy audience, before you three had played together much at all, and you nailed it. It all came together just right. First of all, under those circumstances, what made you think of putting out a live CD at that point?
Skip: I wanted to record [the show] just so I could have a recording of it, and John Wicks knew Clint Fisher, who recorded it for us. A few weeks later he sent me the discs of the entire performance. Both sets. Some of it was good. Not all of it, because we were mostly playing songs we'd never played before. I brought a whole bunch of tunes to Seattle, we rehearsed them that day, and that was it. I knew we weren't gonna roll sevens for the whole game. When I got the discs back, like I say, some stuff was pretty good and I was going to put it up on the web site, but we got all these e-mails from people saying things like "I would love it if you could make me a disc of that show. I was there, I saw that guy recording it, and I would love to buy a disc if you could burn me one." We were making plans to go back up there in May, and it dawned on me that I had never recorded with that band, officially, and I wouldn't have anything to sell at the gigs that would reflect what the people in the room were actually hearing. So I said "Well, why don't I just do a short run of this?" And it was totally economically feasible.
Cosmik: Yeah, these days it's surprisingly easy to do that, isn't it?Skip: Yes it is. Stan Ridgeway told me about a place called Lonely Records in Flagstaff, Arizona, and I said "What's the turnaround time for a [short run]," and he said "Three weeks." Okay, great! We just put the thing together and sold it. It wasn't even like it was a real record. It was more like "Here's a recording of the band." We didn't even publicize it or anything.
Cosmik: And yet I see reviews of it out there on the web, and everybody seems to have the same high opinion of it. It's got warmth and power and it swings like mad.
Skip: Yeah well, you know... the stuff that came off well that particular night came off very well. And the train wrecks? Boy! They were big train wrecks. But the stuff that came off well I was totally happy with. The tunes that are on the album are pretty much in order. "Sometimes It Snows In April" was the first song we played, "Freddie The Freeloader" was like fourth or fifth, then "Arrivederci, Roma" was the last song of the first set. If you listen closely to "Sometimes It Snows In April," you can hear us sniffing each other out, and you can hear, in "Freddie The Freeloader," that things are just progressively clicking in so that by the time we get to "Arrivederci, Roma" it's...
Cosmik: Full flight free for all.
Skip: I really remember that performance, when we were playing, because it was like "any second now something's gonna blow."
Cosmik: [Laughs] Whole thing's gonna fly off the rails.
Skip: Yeah, something like that. We're at this one part in Joe's solo where all of a sudden we started playing this thing as if it was an arrangement in the tune, except... we hadn't. [Laughs.] It wasn't like that. We didn't even come across it that way in rehearsal. It was like "Okay, if we can just keep this together!"
Cosmik: Sounds perfect from the outside. I really like what you did on the guitar on that tune. That was some dynamite playing.
Skip: Thank you. If anyone asks me if there's one piece of guitar playing I would point to as what I really sound like on a good night, I would probably point to that performance. That was just one of those happy... Hey, that one just worked. That was just dumb luck there.
Cosmik: Yeah, dumb luck. I've seen and heard you pull off that kind of thing several times now.
Skip: Yeah, but I'm saying on that tune of all things, because we'd never played it before, and not a b-flat blues or something that I had done a million times.
Cosmik: Okay then. Just checkin' ya, Skip, because you're not so good at taking credit. I remember when you played the Battle in Seattle concert and you told me Doria and Wicks kicked you all over the stage. Then I got the CD and heard your playing on there and I was thinking it might take an intervention or something.
Skip: Hey, I didn't say I didn't kick back, but boy, I walked out of there with some serious bruises and shit! [Laughs.] But as I said, you're only hearing 35% of the performance on that CD.
Cosmik: And I wasn't at that show, but I was at the next few shows you played in Seattle, so tell me this: were these "train wrecks" you mention still happening by the next Seattle show? I'm asking to see if an outsider can hear a damned train wreck, because I didn't hear any.
Skip: No, because I didn't bring anything to the bandstand that we hadn't played together before, and also, at that point we knew we were going to be playing together more, so just the way we played was a little more conscientious. I was no longer like "the visitor."
Cosmik: Now it was "the band."Skip: Yeah, it was like "Okay, this is one of our things that we do. Cool." As a result it definitely had a little more silliness about it, which I don't think is a bad thing. A little lighter. Another thing was, frankly, from having to master Battle in Seattle, I really had to listen back to how those two were playing with me a lot, so I had a much better idea of how to steer. Just listening to how Joe steers me or how John steers me and how I was steering back, what things worked, what did each respond to. When you get to listen to the tune over and over while you're mastering, you really can isolate the points. I'm not saying you can go back and recreate magic, I'm just talking about utilitarian things, like "Aha! Joe really likes to bounce off this kind of a rhythm," or "This happens if I play a chord voicing this way." Whatever it might be. It gave me a little more to work with.
Cosmik: You've only done a "short run" of Battle in Seattle. How many copies does that mean there are floating around out there?
Skip: A hundred-something.
Cosmik: There are only a hundred or so copies of this killer live jazz album. That's either a sad jazz story or a really cool record collecting story.
Skip: You know, at some point it'll be part of something bigger. In the meantime, it was just kind of a supplement, because look at it this way: if you look at the distance from Homegoing to Fake Book, there's obviously a stop somewhere. [Laughs.] Those two records are pretty far apart from one another. I kind of look at Battle in Seattle as being a way station. I refer to it as "the supplementary release." That to me is really what it is; it's not an album so much as an update.
Cosmik: That brings us up to the new release, Fake Book. I have every one of your CDs, and yeah, it's apples and oranges to compare this one to your work in other styles, but I really think Fake Book is the warmest sounding and most exciting sounding. What do you see as the main differences between Fake Book and your previous albums?
Skip: First of all, the fact that the music was worked out in front of audiences before we recorded the album made a difference. That never happened before. Except for my very first record, but everybody's very first record is what they've been playing for years in bars. So this was the first time I ever approached it as "Let's take these songs, we'll play them [live], and then decide what the best stuff was and record those songs." So that's the first thing. I think the rhythm section is absolutely the best I've ever played with, and that's something. That's as good a rhythm section as I could have dreamt up. If you had said "Okay Skip, unlimited budget for any organist and drummer you want," I would pick them.
Cosmik: They totally amaze me. And these are guys who were basically unknown.
Skip: Yes, but that seems to be changing.
Cosmik: And rightfully so.
Skip: Yeah, I think so. I kind of look at it this way... To put it on Frank Zappa terms, the difference between Mike Bolger and Joe Doria is like the difference between Don Preston and George Duke. I think Joe is really one of the major guys on that instrument. I haven't heard anybody that sounds just like him.
Cosmik: If Mike is reading this, I hope he's a Don Preston fan.
Skip: Look, there were certain things Mike brought to the job that were handy to have, but you'll notice we pretty much never recorded a 12-bar blues while Mike was in the group, except "Just Keep Lovin Her," and there the solos were kept really short. The bottom line is that what Mike was really good at was the weird, angular type stuff. He really has a terrific gift for playing that kind of thing, but that's not the whole gig, at least not the way I heard it in my head. It was kind of funny that about three or four days before Homegoing came out I played with Joe Doria and John Wicks for the first time, and I knew that was the rhythm section I really should be playing with. Not that anybody was predicting that there was going to be another organ record after Homegoing. Or even that there would be another record in the foreseeable future. The record had just come out. We weren't thinking about what we were going to do in the future because we had the record to deal with right then. To put it in a nutshell, the question of what makes this record better or different, I think the playing is richer because I think the rhythm section is deeper. Also, I didn't write any of the tunes, which automatically gives it a different personality, even though it's me leading the band playing the tunes.
Cosmik: You recorded this in Joe Doria's studio. Was there anything about it that made a difference?
[Pictured: Joe Doria]Skip: Yeah, good sight lines.
Cosmik: Ah. You're talking about being able to work together and see each other.
Skip: Just being able to look at the other players and indicate, facially, anything. That makes a huge difference.
Cosmik: There's a lot of isolation in most studios these days. You guys were all right there.
Skip: We were very fortunate that Joe has a studio set up specifically for the kind of thing that we were going to do, and that he knew his space and equipment very, very well. So I'd say that's a difference.
Cosmik: Hanging out with you guys while you made this record was definitely a career highlight for me. One of the things I'll never forget was sitting there staring in awe, watching Robert Drasnin work. What a great thing that is. Could that ever get to be old hat for you?
Skip: No! Look at it from MY perspective! I get paid to listen to him every night [laughs], and I get to tell him exactly what I want to hear him go to work on... and he does it! Hey, you know, that's pretty nice.
Cosmik: Nice work if you can get it.
Skip: I've heard people say "Well I've really got to wonder about Duke Ellington, man, he was always putting the songwriting royalties into keeping the band on the road." I say "No, his songwriter royalties were going to listening to Paul Gonzales and Johnny Hodges every night."
Cosmik: Nice work if you can afford it.
Skip: Yeah, and it's also like that Woody Allen joke from Casino Royale. "What do you do?" "I help the strippers get dressed for the show." "What's the money?" "Hundred a week." "Well, that's not much." "Yeah, but it's all I can afford."
Cosmik: [Laughs] I definitely see the parallel.
Skip: I feel much the same way. No, it doesn't get old because he keeps inventing new things to do to the material every night. I'm always going to the job going "I wonder what Bob's musical personality is going to be tonight." Sometimes he can be very light and humorous in his playing, and sometimes he can be playing down into the veins of it. Sometimes it's both at once.
Cosmik: There was a moment during one of your shows up here when Bob was playing a solo that had this "Hava Na Gila" light, bounciness to it, and without skipping a beat he changed the tone completely and it turned into something that gave you goosebumps. You know, tears. It was amazing.Skip: Sometimes I have to remind myself not to listen to him a certain way when I'm playing behind him or else I'll just stop playing and listen to him, which wouldn't really do him any good. I've got to support him. But I really love coming to the job and hearing him play every night. It's such a joy for me.
Cosmik: When I was watching him record I was caught up in just doing that, but when I listened to Fake Book I formed the opinion that this is probably the best recording of Robert Drasnin.
Skip: Oh, this is definitely the best recording. The moments that are really the highlights for him I think capture him better than he's ever been captured before. That's counting the Red Norvo records. I think, for instance, his solo on "Chinatown "... If he called me up the next day and said "You know, I don't think I want to record anymore because right there I got what I've been trying to get all my life," I would have said "Okay, can't argue."
Cosmik: Another strong feeling I have, both from Battle and from Fake Book, is that Doria's feet ought to have separate billing as the bass player, because his feet on those pedals makes one of the best bass players in the business. Is he unreal or what?
Skip: Man, he's just got a whole bass program!
Cosmik: What the hell is that? I've heard a lot of guys playing bass on the organ pedals, but none of them replaced a bass player.
Skip: I've never heard anybody who touches the instrument quite the way he does. It's something I almost feel I shouldn't talk about, you know, on a superstition level. It's like if I think about it too much I won't be able to deal with it. [Laughs.]
Cosmik: Man, how many actual bass players have you heard who can swing like that?
Skip: Two! Joey Spampinato from NRBQ and Eugene Wright from Dave Brubeck Quartet, and that's IT!
Cosmik: And he's doing it while playing stuff with his hands that goes completely counter to what his feet are doing.
Skip: Well, he's doing a lot of it with his left hand, actually. Sometimes there's a conspiracy of foot and left hand.
Cosmik: Wow. To me, there's something even more amazing about that. Because I can't walk and chew bubblegum at the same time, you know?
Skip: It's... He's Joe. He's got some special... Joe stuff that I can't say what it is, I can't say what it's not, I just know that it's there.
Cosmik: I think that says it all. He's got some special Joe stuff and nobody else does.
Skip: That's what it is. It's like trying to figure out why someone like Bob Dylan is so much better than four or five other top guys from that time. He just is. He's just got some special way of putting things together that's his. I admire him so much.
Cosmik: The first track on Fake Book, "The Yodel ," is a great track for everybody, but Joe just kicks down the walls.
Skip: Oh man, I had to make some decisions about how I was going to play because Joe and I will come at certain things the same way sometimes, and you know something, of the two of us, I'll let him do the power hitting, because I think he's more powerful than I am on that level.
Cosmik: Aha, we've moved to baseball season now. [Laughs.] So if you're batting cleanup, Joe's batting third.
Skip: Exactly. And Joe and John together, that's just amazing. See, we're sitting here talking about Joe like he's separate from John.
Cosmik: Yeah, I know, it's like they share a brain up there when they're playing. Freakin' amazing to watch.
[Pictured: John Wicks]Skip: Aside from the fact that he's got terrific hands and a terrific brain, in terms of hearing rhythms and all that, he's incredibly moral. You know what I mean? He's a classic case of a player who is enabling everyone around him to do better work. Because the way he backs me is different from the way he backs John is different from the way he backs Bob. This is the one of the reasons why any one of us is having our best moments on record so far.
Cosmik: And like you say, Joe and John have to be said in the same breath. John's drumming is definitely driving some amazing stuff from you guys.
Skip: The fact is John is just as much a factor on why the rest of us sound good on that record as anything. With a player like John you have a much clearer perspective of Joe's playing, and for that matter of Bob's playing and my playing. There's a lot of stuff you can get away with that you can't always excel at, and John just has a way of setting you up so you feel like you're excelling. Which makes you play your part more comfortably and more confidently, and that's one of the best things any musician can bring to the bandstand. The ability to let your team mates think "Wow, I'm going to play well tonight because HE'S here. He's not going to let me fall. He's got my back."
Cosmik: Something I find interesting about John is that he's one of those rare drummers that has what I call "exploding sticks." Like Louis Hayes and Jack DeJohnette, you know? Right at the moment of contact it's like a tiny firecracker goes off in the tip of the drumstick, or like it's electrified and arcing, only John can turn it on and off. I notice that he accents your solos with that sometimes and just drives it along, and I find that amazing.
Skip: Me too. When you hear it after the fact, it sounds like he's doing a lot stuff, but when you're playing on top of it you never get that feeling.
Cosmik: So you're not distracted.
Skip: You're so not distracted, because he just has such a control over the way he's doing it. If you listen to what he's playing behind me on "The Yodel," it's really amazing because he's playing some very complex stuff. There are about five different rhythms happening at once. But the thing that really makes it work is that he's doing it so surreptitiously that I never noticed it. I really felt like I was just kind of playing, but then I hear it after the fact and I said "Holy cats, man! This guy is playing a lot of shit behind me!" It never disrupted what I was doing for a moment.
Cosmik: "The Yodel" is such a great showcase for the band as a whole. And the energy is so perfect for an opener. Did you have that planned from the beginning to be the opening song?
Skip: Yes. That being the opener and "Sophisticated Savage " being the second song, yeah, that was planned out.
Cosmik: The jump from the one to the other, from a high energy Grant Green piece to an exotic Les Baxter piece, is an interesting mood shift. I like the fact that even though you dial up the jazz in "Savage" it still has splashes of the exotic in it.Skip: And it also has this kind of Santana Abraxas kind of thing about it. If I'd been playing the same lines through a fuzz box, it would have sounded like Carlos Santana. But yes, we did have it planned that "The Yodel" would be like the overture, almost, because as a tune it kind of summed up everything I wanted to do with the album. On one hand, it's right out of the 60s organ book, but another part of it addresses certain things that come from an earlier school of jazz playing, which is something I'm profoundly influenced by. And it seemed also like a good way to show off John. I knew Joe was going to rip it open when it came to his solo, but I wanted something that really showed John Wicks in a certain way.
Cosmik: It's the perfect opening song, really. Do you subscribe to the theory that the opening song is crucially important?
Skip: Yes. With every record, the rhythm of the opener is something I'm super careful about, because I realize that the opening of the record is where you can have them in the palm of your hand or you can lose them.
Cosmik: I whine about it in reviews all the time. It sets the tone.
Skip: It doesn't just set the tone, it's also a matter of... are people's ears going to perk up within five seconds of hearing this? "The Yodel" is great because you don't really hear that rhythm, that kind of double-time, New Orleans second-line rhythm very often, so right away that's unusual. And then to have that kind of avid Dixieland horn work in the opening. Just a feeling of a lot of density, a lot of texture going on. Then when it comes time to play the melody everything gets a lot more sparse and clean. "Sophisticated Savage" just seemed like the perfect place to go next. Ironically, "The Yodel" is the first song on the Big John Patten album it comes from, and "Sophisticated Savage" is the second song on the Les Baxter album it comes from. I didn't notice it until after the fact.
Cosmik: Bob's work at the end of "Sophisticated Savage," the layering, just takes the whole thing up another notch. I thought that was incredibly classy.
Skip: It's very nice. His participating on that tune is all written out.
Cosmik: Did you write the charts?
Skip: Yeah, I was thinking "What will give us nice reedy sound you don't hear very often, but that will still make sense? Flute lead with clarinet under it!" That way you can play really high and it won't feel piercing. It was nice to record something of Les', finally.
Cosmik: There are so many Les Baxter songs. How did you happen to pick this one?
Skip: It's one I have wonderful memories of him playing for me, because he knew I liked it so much. So I did have a personal thing about that tune. A lot of these tunes were picked for completely personal reasons. Egocentric though it might be, hey, it's my record.
Cosmik: So then I'll just throw out a guess and say "The Yodel" was chosen specifically because it's a Grant Green song.Skip: Yes. There were two songwriters I absolutely had decided, right off the bat, I was going to represent: Grant Green and Bob Dylan. "The Yodel" I picked because it's a very strange tune. It's a 15-bar blues over a New Orleans second-line rhythm. That's really unusual, so right there that makes it interesting. Secondly, it's not very well known, so I don't really have that fear of people comparing my solo to the Grant Green solo on the original version. Let's face it, people who know the jazz guitar literature really know "Grantstand" or any number of Grant Green songs that are really perfect, and if you know them, almost anyone else doing them is asking for trouble. It's not like the original version missed a spot. Matter of fact, the only guitar player I've heard cover one of the famous Grant tunes and sound great doing it was when Russell Malone covered "Grantstand," but I'm not as brave as Russell Malone. "The Yodel" isn't as well known.
Cosmik: "Arrivederci, Roma " is one of my favorites. The pace is so energizing. Is it as much fun to play as it sounds like, or is it a little like running through a mine field?
Skip: [Laughs.] Well, both. Obviously, you can tell in that performance we were, on the one hand, totally integrated as a unit and then on the other hand each of us was trying to spar with the other guy. So it was both. Part of it was joyous, and part of it was combative. In the best sense, though. Sort of like at the end of Rocky III, when Rocky and Apollo decide to fight alone in the gym, you know? [Laughs.] They love each other, but the bell went off.
Cosmik: It's a smokin' arrangement.
Skip: Well, if you know the Dean Martin version, you know it's usually delivered as a Neapolitan love ballad, and at my Aunt Alma's house, she used to play that song all the time. The album Dino, with all the ballads on it. I just remember hating it as a kid.
Cosmik: Really?!
Skip: Oh yeah! You have to understand that my recollections that are connected with it have everything to do with it. Me, or maybe my little brother and me being at my Aunt Alma's house with nothing to do, and the adults are sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee and speaking Italian. Nothing good on TV, no toys to play with.
Cosmik: Torture for a kid.
Skip: Totally. So when we'd hear Dean Martin, it'd be like our Pavlovian response.
Cosmik: But am I wrong in thinking we've talked about Dean before and you didn't, like, roll into a fetal position? I thought you liked him.
Skip: Oh, as I got older and heard some different stuff I thought "Oh... that's actually pretty good."
Cosmik: I was gonna say... Because I'm all about The Dean, man.Skip: Oh yeah, "Sway" is really good, and a friend of mine's father wrote "Memories Are Made Of This," so that's kind of a nice thing to have somewhere in the extended family. That was written by Terry Gilkyson, who's son is Tony Gilkyson. Tony's amazing. One of the most ridiculously talented human beings in life. But yeah, as I got older I started discovering some non-Italian Dean, and you know, my Aunt Alma died and my uncle Benny died, and I started remembering some of the more positive aspects of being around them at their houses, especially if there was a family gathering where there was a lot of the kids. I decided it would be nice to include "Arrivederci, Roma" for my mom's side of the family.
Cosmik: That's a cool thing.
Skip: Just to remember them.
Cosmik: It works out for you, too, because it turned out to be a very workable tune. But you seem to be able to work out anything. You do "Sometimes It Snows In April " on both The Battle in Seattle and Fake Book. First of all, why don't you tell the nice readers, who might not know, just where it comes from.
Skip: Well that's a Prince song. It's from the soundtrack of Under The Cherry Moon, which is the worst movie with the best soundtrack. That, to me, more than Purple Rain, is when I realized what kind of musical mind he has. Not that I didn't like stuff he'd already done, because I had pretty much everything before that, but on that record he revealed some things about himself, musically, that were just amazing to me at the time, and still are. "Do U Lie" is such an uncharacteristic composition for him, and we could have done that one just as easily. I totally love that album. He was just another guy who I felt I should be doing some of his songs simply because there are enough that I really like, and "Sometimes It Snows In April" just happened to be one that Joe Doria really liked. I actually put some different harmony in there, some chords that aren't in any of the Prince versions, and Joe understood exactly what I was going for.
Cosmik: What grabs you about a rock or pop song that makes you say "This'll work as a jazz tune, I want to do this" when others don't?
Skip: I have no idea. Well, with "Sometimes It Snows In April," what grabs me is the melody and that one really weird chord. It kind of reminded me of Joni Mitchell or something. That melody could have come out of a Methodist hymnal from the 1850s or something. It's just such a beautiful, pure melody. That's what attracted me to that song. But I could never say there's one thing, because there are many things that attract me to different songs.
Cosmik: You follow slow with medium-slow. "April" is tranquil and slow, then "Just Squeeze Me " picks up the pace but not too much, but there's a lot of swing on that tune.
Skip: That's the one tune on the record that, I think we can agree completely, swings in the conventional fashion of swing. I really wanted to get that feeling, because there's something about swinging in that style that's just amazing and wonderful. Do you know of a drummer named Joey Baron?
Cosmik: Raised Pleasure Dot and Down Home? That Joey Baron?
Skip: Yeah. Okay, Joey and I were talking and he said "I think the hardest thing to do on a drum kit is to play four quarter notes on the ride cymbal and make it feel like a Count Basie record." And he's right. You're talking about the distance between technique and knowing music, and he's saying... making four quarter notes swing like a Count Basie record, why is that a feat? And he's right. Not that Joey's ever wrong, but that was right. Oddly enough, though, that tune wasn't planned. I didn't have an arrangement of that. Joe and I were listening to the Johnny Hodges with the Wild Bill Davis Trio album, and he said "Hey, why don't we play this?" I said sure, and it was fun to play, so it worked out.
Cosmik: I have a particular affection for the "Powerhouse " track, because that's the main memory I'll always keep of watching you guys record this album. It was something to see. You guys really put everything you had into it. The main riff is a complex little bastard, and watching you guys nail that was pretty amazing.Skip: It's weird, too, because if you try to play it much slower than that it doesn't feel very good, the way your hand works, and if you play it any faster, it's incomprehensible. That was... [Laughs.] The less said about that, the better.
Cosmik: I was going to ask if this is how it's traditionally done or if you charged it up, but I guess that answers that, huh?
Skip: No, that's about the tempo it has to be at. I have heard versions that are faster, but not that much faster. If you can find the Fresh Air show with Don Byron, they'd obviously been doing it on the road a lot at that point and they're playing it so ungodly fast. And the Ernie Felice version. He's a virtuoso jazz accordion player. For the most part, until we get to the solos, I stuck to what Raymond Scott wrote. It's an amazing composition. There's so much stuff in there that I know works but I can't figure out how. Well, I know that it's working, I know how it's working but I have no idea WHY it's working, because it's not like anything I ever read about in any conventional study of harmony.
Cosmik: During the main riff, it feels like everyone's going full tilt, but it stays cohesive and in the pocket.
Skip: Joe doesn't have to play the melody, so he can concentrate on getting the pocket, and John's job is to play as fast as that is, but make it feel like it's not rushed.
Cosmik: And that's the magic trick. The tough assignment.
Skip: It really is, but he just did it with such ease. With all the props you're giving to the rest of us, it all comes back down to the fact that John knows how to let those things start to happen, and how to prod you into making those things happen. His understanding of how to play with people is pretty profound.
Cosmik: He's fun to watch, both live and in the studio. You don't want to call it stoic because it's not a Charlie Watts kind of thing. It's more like he's just in a relaxed zone, but hearing what you're hearing coming from the kit, it seems like it should look like he's working way harder than it does.
Skip: I can't figure John out in certain ways. There are times he's playing the most laid back stuff in the world and it looks like he's concentrating really, really hard. Other times I hear him making a thunderstorm happen and it looks like his hands are barely moving. He's good at operating at a deep level of concentration.
Cosmik: I found it interesting that you opened with "The Yodel," a high energy tune, and then you almost close with "Powerhouse," another high energy tune, which would have been a kind of power move, but you didn't do that. You closed with a short vocal tune, the Dylan song "The Man In Me ." It almost felt like an encore or a lullaby.
Skip: That's kind of how I felt about it. John had just got engaged at the time we were doing the music, Joe's married, Bob's married, I'm married... It just felt like a place we were all at. I have this thing where I feel the ending should be something that you almost roll credits over. I like records that really take you to a place. You should be cognizant that you're being taken to a place, a place that maybe doesn't really exist. Sort of like Les Baxter; the place where he takes you, it never existed. The dark continent or whatever, his fictional version of it.
Cosmik: Right, it's the MGM Pictures version of the dark continent.Skip: Yes. So my thinking is "At the end of this record, I want something that speaks to the whole feeling," and for some reason that song really stuck with me a lot. I think it's under-appreciated Bob Dylan. The fact that it's on New Morning, which hasn't really been singled out over time as one of his better records, is one thing. It's a record I really enjoy. Also, I think Fake Book is my album, so one of things I have to do is draw attention to certain types of guitar playing I do, and the type of guitar playing that song warranted is something I feel strongly about doing. I didn't do it anywhere else on the record. A little bit on "Monk's Mood," but not quite so much, because there's a certain way you have to play Monk's music. But "The Man In Me" is a song I agree with very much.
Cosmik: That song is right in the pocket for you, vocally. Not that Stan Ridgeway isn't fantastic, but why didn't you sing it?
Skip: Well, one of the reasons is because when you sing something, especially when you don't sing very often, which I don't anymore, any time you use the word "I" or the word "Me" people take it to mean "Yep, that guy singing, he feels that way. That's his perspective." There's no room to editorialize. The other reason is that one of the things I really love as a guitar player is backing a singer, and Stan, he's just got such a character to his voice, and he doesn't sound like a rock and roll singer or a blues singer or any other thing. He just sounds like Stan Ridgeway, and that's a pretty amazing thing unto itself. I envy his ability to be the gig. When you're Stan, what's your job? "I'm Stan, that's my job." That's a pretty cool thing to evolve for yourself. I played on his record, and man, he was singing better than he'd ever sung before, so I said "Hey, as long as I'm here, would you mind if we..." "Hey, no problem, pick a song." Great! So we had some different choices, batted them back and forth. It almost became "Husbands and Wives," by Roger Miller.
Cosmik: Seriously? Wow, I think that would have been an odd choice. I don't think it would have had the emotional impact of "The Man In Me."
Skip: Oh, I think it does, but I think the impact is a lot less positive. "Husbands and Wives" would easily make a good jazz waltz, and vocally it really would have been up Stan's alley, but aaaaaah... not the note I wanted to end on. How do I send a much more happy message that "Well, it was great to be here, but now we're going home to our wives," if you know what I mean. There were at least ten cuts just from Dylan that it could have gone to, but "The Man In Me" was, in a way, the most simple, declarative one. And Stan thought it was a great idea, so hey, there y'go. I really love the way he did it.
Cosmik: He's such an unique musician. Must be cool to work with the guy.
Skip: And such an interesting guy to do music with. You show up with your guitar and say "Okay, wonder what it'll be today. Will it be good, or will it just be a bunch of happy accidents until we order a pizza? Who knows!?" [Laughs.] There have been times we've gotten together to play and nothing really good came out of it except the hang was so fun, and there are never enough of those people in life. You never have enough people that you feel like "I don't care if we don't get any work done, as long as we can hang out." Especially out here in Hollywood where everyone is so project-oriented. [Imitates random L.A. phony] "It's a relationship-driven industry. Things tend to happen on a project-by-project..." Bite my chunk!
Cosmik: [Laughs.] That's telling 'em. So you're heading out on the road now. What's the plan?Skip: Some east coast dates, couple dates in the south, the northwest... Not a big "plan" plan, other than make sure the motel rooms are there when we want to check in. Basically, spend three weeks on the road.
Cosmik: Bob's going to be with you all the way, right?
Skip: Yeah, every stop of the way.
Cosmik: But you'll have a different rhythm section in different cities, is that right?
Skip: Well, different regions. There's the east coast rhythm section, then there's the south rhythm section, then there's the northwest rhythm section.
Cosmik: Northwest rhythm section being THE band.
Skip: Except a different drummer. Mike Stone, another one of Joe Doria's guys, so I'm looking forward to that.
Cosmik: Where's John Wicks?
Skip: John moved from Seattle to L.A. just recently, and he feels he should stay put and be here in town.
Cosmik: Does that mean the band has effectively changed?
Skip: I guess it does, but I really don't like to think of it that way. I just kind of think as long as I've got guys who can play the music, the personnel changes don't bother me because it just means the music will change a little bit, and that's always healthy.
Cosmik: This is pretty much how it's always been, really, isn't it. Is this why you seem unfazed about playing with different people in different regions?
Skip: I'm used to it now. It doesn't bother me and it keeps me fresh. As long as the musicians are good, it just gives the music different ways to develop. Plus, this is how I found Joe and John. There might be some guys out there that I don't know about, but I'm about to find out about, who are really something.
Cosmik: I have one more question for you, one I've been wondering about for a while now. Why did you call this album Fake Book?Skip: First of all, I didn't write any of the tunes. A fake book is usually just a compendium of bare-bones sheet music of songs you would play at a club gig or whatever, so this is like my fake book of songs to play on the job. It's not any huge overriding philosophical thing that governs the choices of music, and I'm not trying to put together a unified field theory that places Bob Dylan and Grant Green in accordance with each other. I just happen to like them both. It makes sense to me to play all these songs in a context where they're all among each other. I can't get too high falutin' about it. It's just this book of tunes we played in the bar. If you walk into a bar tonight, chances are there'll be guys with their fake book playing their favorite Wayne Shorter songs, or their favorite Rodgers and Hart, or whatever it is. This one just happens to be mine.
Skip Heller's Tour Schedule:
Mar 11 - Sweet Rhythm, New York, NYMar 13 - Ortlieb's Jazz Haus, Philadelphia, PA
Mar 19 - Satori Sound, Mobile, AL
Mar 20 - Zeigeist, New Orleans, LA
Mar 25 - Mars Bar, Seattle, WA
Mar 26 - Jimmy Mak's, Portland, OR
Mar 27 - Jo Federigo's, Eugene, OR