July 7, 2024 • 29 mins
#141. Ron talks with sax legend Bill Evans about playing with Miles Davis, building a fanbase in Europe, wearing bandanas, getting help from MTF, and living in New York City in the '80s.This episode is sponsored by DistroKid. Get 30% off your membership at distrokid.com/vip/independentmindedSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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(00:04):
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You're the one that should be worried. You're a freak. You're reading for
Big Trouble scolls, amazing pocats,run Stall, amazing pos talking to people,
(01:42):
make on music, tugging their projects, making them sames runy skulls,
those amazing podcasts. He's helping themabout just by making them talk shit.
(02:07):
They even use. I was worriedNashville, Tennessee. What the hell am
(02:30):
I doing here? Oh? Really, it's been three and a half years
now, and I still might aswell live on mars. I don't like
country music mostly, I got littleinterest in pop. Mostly. I'm a
middle aged dude who plays synth waveand metal, writes the occasional piano rock
song, and otherwise makes podcasts fora living. Everyone's moving to Nashville,
(02:55):
But what's my excuse? We're Nashvilleand I ever a good fit in the
first place. Maybe Bill Evans canhelp. One of the reasons is the
weather's a little better than the Northeast. Agreed. I like the airport.
Agreed. We just wanted to checkout something different, you know, I
mean, I've been in the Northeastfor a long time. Me too.
We lived just north of New YorkCity for years. It was a renovated
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farmhouse. It was beautiful, itwas up in the woods. It was
a long driveway, and we geta lot of snow, and I was
just tired of din with snow.And I have to go to airports all
the time. So if we geta forecast of fourteen inches by eight o'clock
in the morning and I'm supposed tomeet a car to go to the airport,
that's not happening too. You've gotto Bill Evans is always going to
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the airport because Bill Evans is aperforming machine, a world class saxophonist and
music producer who's been on the scenesince he was twenty one. Music is
something I'd do, but it doesn'tdefine me. It's not everything I do.
And there are musicians that that's allthey do, that is what defines
them. I'm not that guy.I love music and it's a big part
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of me, but it's not everythingin life. It's an interesting take for
a cat that's toured all over theworld and with legends Miles Davis, John
McLachlan, Herbie Hancock and Mick Jaggerto name a few. Bill's still exploring
the world as a pioneering band leaderand via collaborations with other big names on
the jazz scene. I started onpiano when I was like six years old,
never stopped, and then I playedclarinet for a couple of years and
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through high school. But I startedsaxophone at the same time in seventh grade.
So I mean then I got wayinto saxophone. And to make a
long story short, I was consumedwith it when I was a teenager.
I used to play at holiday innsenas soon as I could drive, playing
piano and backing up singers and stuff. But I'd also go and listen to
music downtown Chicago and hear jazz,you know, and here the different saxophone
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players that I was tour on record. It was a great time for me
to just continuously study and play thesaxophone. And I never thought about is
this what I want to do fora living. It's just what I always
did. Bill would continue doing justwhat he does while studying at William Patterson
University, located in one of America'sjazz hotbeds. Believe it already, Yeah,
(05:25):
it's late, got a long heightto Jersey for me close enough,
and I was going to the cityall the time. It was a great
introduction to what the world was allabout with jazz, and so I'd go
and sit in with a lot ofdifferent people. I'd play with Elvin Jones
and Art Blakey, anybody I couldfor the experience, so that when I
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finally did get a chance to playwith Miles, I had a little bit
of experience, if that means anything. Music may not be everything for Bill,
but it seems he's been thinking aboutnothing else ever since he started.
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It wasn't a question. I rememberJoe Henderson, the famous saxophone player.
I went to a j Abersall clinicfor a number of years when I was
a kid, and Joe Henderson happenedto be the instructor in the group.
And a person came up to himand said, I was thinking about whether
I go into music or I geta business degree and go into business,
and I can't figure out what todo. And his answer was definitely a
business degree. And I looked athim and I thought, Wow, why
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did you say that. He said, if they're thinking about not doing it,
they're not going to do it.The people that do this, they
don't have to ask that question.If you have to ask the question,
it's over. If you have abackup plan, that's your plan. Working
alongside Miles Davis, Bill began tohone his skill, expand his musical palette,
and develop what would become a trademark. Look, I'm curious if you
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could give me a small synopsis ofthe origin story of the Bill Evans bandana.
I only wore it when I firststarted playing in the row with Miles
all the lights in. I mean, I've never been in that situation,
and I wear contact lenses at thetime, and it was burning my eyes.
And Miles said, well, whydon't you just get a headband?
I want great idea. So Ibought like a tennis headband, you know,
made out of like terry cloth orsomething. And that didn't look good.
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That was terrible. And I thought, all right, I'll just get
a you know, a regular neckerchiefor whatever, and I'll just roll it
up and put it on my head. So I purely did it for reasons
of sweat. I didn't want thesweat to go in my eyes and sting
my eyes because then I couldn't seehim. And it was painful. My
eyes would be really red. Andthen one time we did a tour in
Japan just a few years later,and it was cool outside some live concerts
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and I didn't wear it, andthe Japanese were saying, oh, what's
the reason for not wearing the bandana? Is it the music? Is that
you feel differently about what you're whatyou're playing? I said, are you
kidding me? I said, it'scool outside and I'm not swarming as much.
So I thought, all right,I'm just gonna put it on every
night and don't worry about it.That's basically how would happened. And now
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I own a bandana company that makesme millions of dollars every year, and
it's in forty six countries and alot of the famous tennis players are using
my bandana. And yeah, it'sbeen very successfully. I make more money
selling bandanas than playing music. Iwas going to ask if you had kind
of developed your own brand of bandannas, but you have a whole company.
Yeah. Yeah, I've got twentysix people working for me every day that
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are making bandanas. I couldn't findany Bill Evans bandanas online, so maybe
Billy's yank in my chain. Thissax player's always been an anomaly. Instead
of pedaling his pieces on stages acrossthe US, he's taking his music and
his bandmates overseas and with intention.I made the choice back in the early
nineties when I put my band togetherto concentrate on Europe, which is where
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I was mainly playing, and Iwas doing one hundred and twenty five dates
a year, building it up inall the different countries, putting a record
out and doing promo tours, presstours, and you know, as in
any business, it's like mathematics.The more you play some more, the
more people get to know you,the more you'll play there Again, we
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just waited down as this is asong that I was able to record with
Miles Davis back in the early eightieswhen I was his age. I like
this little nursery vine type song,and I said, that's going to be
great. I said, we'll see. This is called Jean Pierre. The
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audiences in Europe, these people,many of them have said I've heard you
twenty or thirty times with your group, So you've got a core audience that's
can continue to come. And thenyou have in the States a lot of
different clubs that say, man,I can't believe we haven't had you at
this club. Our club has hadeverybody, we haven't had you. We
wanted to make this work, butfinancially it may not work because no one
knows exactly what's going to happen.And so as I get older, I'm
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not consumed by trying to say,oh, I have to make it in
all these different clubs in the States. I've been fortunate a lot of them
I have played and it's been successful. But it's not urgent for me anymore,
you know what I mean. Andit's kind of a shame because I
put together some pretty amazing bands thatthe States doesn't get to hear, and
I get a lot of emails fromfans that say, I can't believe it.
(10:22):
I mean, I'm seeing these YouTubevideos, I'm seeing this schedule of
yours. Are you ever going tocome to la again? Are you ever
going to come to Seattle again?Are you ever going to come to Chicago
again? The jazz musician, notoriousfor following his artistic sensibilities first and foremost,
puts it before everything, the commerce, the fans. I'll do two
or three European tours. This year, I'll go to Japan. I'll do
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a couple of things in Brazil.But you know, people will say,
but you're not going to play theWest coast of New York, And I'm
like not at this point, No, it's not that Bill Evans isn't a
people pleaser. When you've been atit for four plus decades, the goalposts
change. The experience begins to outweighthe expectations of filling a club or a
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cash register. The company you keep, in Bill's case, known quantities like
Keith Carlock, John Medeski, andFelix Pastorius becomes paramount. You pick and
choose your next adventure. With allthat in mind, I want to play.
I want the music to be happening. I want the bands to be
happening. I keep it simple likethat. Always great bands, always good
records, and the audiences that comeand hear us. I appreciate what we
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do. A younger Bill Evans cuthis teeth in and around the urban jungle
of New York City when I wasjust a baby. It's an era I
often romanticize from a safe distance.The gritty, grungey graffiti train New York
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notoriously portrayed in movies like Death Wish, The Taking a Pelm one, two
three, and The Warriors. AndI was fortunate because when I first moved
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there, Dave Leabman introduced me toMiles Davis, and then part of what
I did was seeing Miles every dayand also just playing with different musicians all
the time. And that's what itwas. And I think it's different now.
I don't think it's as easy foryoung players to do what we did
forty years ago. Number One,they can't afford to live in Manhattan.
I had a big loft on twentyeighth and seventh Avenue and another one at
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twenty seventh and sixth, and wehad musicians over all the time, so
we were playing constantly. In nineteeneighty eighty one, eighty two, eighty
three, the times when I waswith Miles and the times I was with
John McLaughlin, we were still playingall the time. And then I moved
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to the Upper West Side on seventyfifth in Columbus, which I really liked.
It was more like a neighborhood asopposed to a transient insane asylum.
In Chelsea at the time, alot more musicians back then, net were
able to hang out, a lotmore clubs to play at. It was
just a really good time in NewYork musically. I was playing with a
lot of the time with Gil Evans'sband in Sweet Basil on Seventh Avenue,
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Bleek Here it was a little moredangerous, but you know, we got
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used to it. I got roblinsin the subway. I walk around and
I'm scared that somebody's gonna attack me, take something from me, or you
know anything. I'm really scared.The subway is towrible. And then they
grew up with the said. BillEvans is a genre inventor. His band
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Soulgrass was a breakaway new fusion ofjazz and American roots music, blending the
banjo, fiddle, mandolin, anddobro. Bill put the best musicians from
jazz and Americana together, and intwenty fourteen he released Live in Moscow,
a performance of the band sold outUS State Department sponsored tours of Russia.
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It's just one of many choices Bill'smade that have kept him returning to Europe.
That's a lot of frequent flyer miles, a lot of stages, a
lot of jet lag, regardless ofhow tired you are when you play and
you're on stage, it wipes itall out. You're completely wide awake from
feeling good for that two hours andthen you just completely collapsed. Bill and
(15:16):
I connected thanks to the folks atthe Musician's Treatment Foundation. Bill's in killer
shape. He eats right, getshis rest, but the wear and tear
on his body, the travel luggingin those gearcases all over the world,
and of course the performances ultimately takea physical toll. Well, it's been
amazing. I met Alton Baron,the surgeon, who has become a really
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good close friend of mine, andhe started telling me about this idea years
ago, about this music treatment foundationto help musicians that didn't have insurance,
that guitar player, saxophone players,whomever have a problem with their arms or
shoulder or hand. Because he wasrunning into a lot of musicians that weren't
covered by insurance that he wanted tohelp the music going and he realized this
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is a void that he could fillto help musicians out. And it's grown
and I've done a few benefits forhim, one with Steve lukather band that
we had together, and then Iflew to Austin and me and Mike Stern
did another benefit for him, andthen there was one in Nashville last year
that we did, and I've broughtin the great Mats Mutski from Germany as
a phenomenal singer. It also takepart and it raises money to help pay
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for very necessary operations to keep themplaying music. It's a genuine grassroots effort
that continues to expand thanks to dedicatedsurgeons and artists like Bill, Elvis Costello,
Zz Tops, Billy Gibbons and manyothers. And Alton has been very
philanthropic and very giving for his timeand his efforts to help so many musicians.
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Without him, it would have beena very difficult thing for them.
So it's not just doing an operationand helping them feel better. It allows
them to keep playing music. Andso that's one of the reasons I take
part in it, and so manymusicusicians have offered their services to be a
part of it because it's a greatthing, you know what I mean.
Everybody loves music, but if musicianscan't use their hands or their shoulders or
whatever, their world stops. BillEvans never stops. Just look at his
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discography, his tour history. Withhelp from Doctor Baron and MTF. Bill's
been able to keep going and going. It's touring, That's what touring is
all about. And you know sometimesduring the Soulgrass band, when I had
fiddled banjo, drums, bass,I mean, we were doing some pretty
hard tours and there's a lot ofyoung guys in the band, and I
tell them, you know, there'sa lot of really good bass players and
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guitar players and working ups right nowthat are waiting for you to be too
tired to go on the road becausethey want your gig. Is that your
motivator? I mean, listen,how many people I mean, every college,
every institution producing thousands of young playersthat their goal is to travel and
tour of them and they want toget on the road. And there's you
(18:11):
can count him in your left hand. How many bands actually do that.
It's this sort of attitude that separatesthe contenders from the pretenders. It's not
a choice, it's not a hobby, it's a mission. What I tell
people is you have to be agood person. You have to play your
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butt off, you have to learnthe music, and you have to get
along with people. Because if youdon't. There's one hundred guys that are
graduating from Berkeley this year that do. And even if he's your best friend
and he plays the same instrument,don't kidch yourself. He wants your gig
if you have it, because everybody'spracticing just as hard as everyone else,
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and they feel deep down they deservethat gig. So I mean, it's
not easy, and I feel areyoung musicians today because it's difficult. It's
really difficult. On the other hand, of musicians and the young players that
want to play and that's all theywant to do, they'll make it happen
somehow. But I give them creditbecause they have to have a lot of
(19:14):
perseverance. Perseverance. Bill knows alot about that too. He's set to
release his twenty seventh solo album thissummer. Never mind all the collaborations,
the guest spots, This dude's outputis outrageous. All my records are all
so much to them, are sodifferent because I can't sort of do the
same one again. My taste changesall the time. My soulo grass thing
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I had banjo and with Bayla Fleckplayed and Jerry Douglass and all these great
Nashville guys that I'd never really heardof. But I liked Americana music with
the saxophone, so I thought,I'm inspired, I want to do this.
Before that, I was doing somethingwith Lesli Can this sort of like
soul music kind of thing with jazz. I wasn't influenced by any particular soul
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jazz thing. I just heard thesegrooves in my head, and I thought,
I'm going to get guys that playthat kind of thing with my music.
But then in the nineties, Iheard in the early nineties rappers doing
more freestyle rap on music that haschords, more contemporary. No one was
really doing that. No one wasdoing that. And when the hardcore street
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rerap didn't do anything for me,I mean, five years before that,
I would have said, there's nochance in hell I'm going to never do
anything like this. But I startedto hear the way they're putting the words
vocally, and I started to hearharmony with it, and they're doing more
creative stuff than the jazz guys forme. So I started writing this stuff
and I did this record called Push. I did this record called Escape.
I did live in Europe and Ibrought rappers, and I brought this stuff
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on the road in Europe and webuilt this thing up. We had two
tour buses. I mean, wewere playing some huge audiences with this concept.
And it was exciting to see thesedifferent concepts start from an idea in
my head to all of a sudden, this visualization up here, it it
is now, people are digging it, here's the band, here's the music
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that to me is exciting. Youknow, about a year and a half
ago, I thought what would Iwrite if it was going to be the
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last record? And I wanted tobe the last record? But what would
you write if someone said, allright, here it is, what are
you going to do? And thenit became obvious to me. I sat
down and started writing music, andI had this woodwind sounds, and I
had these ideas of who I wantedto play on it. I had Victor
Wooten, Carl Lock, Wolfgang Hofner, Simon as lander by Lafleck, Till
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Brunner, a great trumpet player fromGermany, a bunch of great musicians,
and John Medeski plays on it.And it came out exactly as I wanted
and exactly like I heard in myhead. I could listen to each song
and love the music and listen toit over and over, and so it's
an exciting thing to go from projectto project over the years, and he
is inspired on each project. It'snever been the easy road ever. I
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mean, when you change your conceptand you start doing something that's new,
then you know you're sort of likegoing to another audience, going then going
to another audience, and you know, it's never been an easy way to
do it. But it's not likethere's a choice. It's how I do
it. That's how I'm built.So for this short period of time when
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we're on the planet, I'm goingto try to play the music I want
to play the best I can havefun doing it. Call it a day.
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Bill Evans is Independent Music Royalty.Almost all of his records have been
released on indies and upstarts small bootslabels designed to shine a light on unheralded
talent. Most of all, Billruns the business of Bill. He's used
as forty plus years on the roadas currency. I mean, I've been
producing the last number of records myself. I pay for it, I get
(23:12):
the guys, and so the wholething, you know, I'll do tours,
this and that, and when Ido a record, I write it
and I produce it and I payfor it myself. And that's kind of
what everybody's been doing. There's notmany labels now. You want to kind
of own your own record because that'swhere you have the power in your career.
With the fact that records aren't sellinga ton for most people. If
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you give your music away to alabel, they own it. They'll do
a little bit of promotion, they'lltry to sell it for the first few
months, and then guess what,after the first few months, it's not
yours anymore. It's theirs. Youcan't do anything else with it. They
own it. Their catalog that they'rebuilding up with different artists is theirs.
I own most of my catalog now. I bought a lot of my records
back when I could years ago.Smart thing. There's so much media now.
(24:02):
It's such a different world now,and there's so many everybody's got a
home studio. Everybody can put outa record. There's thousands of things coming
out, So you have to keepit simple. You have to make the
music as best you can that representsyou, keep your playing ability at the
highest level. That you can,but I don't know. I mean,
all I can tell young musicians isif this is what you want to do,
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and this is what you really wantedto do, just do it.
A lot of the best bands inthe world are not even put together yet.
I like the fact that there's allthese hybrids of music where people are
blending different kinds of jazz together withother kinds of music. I've always done
that my whole career. To me, that's fun and it's the only way
that jazz is going to evolve.But what a lot of these guys that
understand is jazz it was invented fromother combinations of music. It was from
(24:45):
people taking a chance to put musictogether which created jazz. It wasn't to
continue to create straight ahead mainstream jazzand then stop. You know, you
get the hardcorees and all kinds ofmusic, whether it's bluegrass, country or
jazz, that want to keep itwhat it is, keep what's familiar.
Well, that's not how music's goingto grow. That's not who I am.
Bill Evans keeps mixing it up.You could have just been a side
(25:07):
man, collected his fee and movedon to the next gig. Instead,
he takes the more challenging road,and he's content to be in the driver's
seat. You get all the pressure, you get all the anxiety, you
get everything that goes with it.On the other hand, you know,
you get all the positive stuff,like you know, feeling you're playing your
music at night, you're calling theshots of what you do, which gets
(25:29):
you off the most, you know. But yeah, you're the one that's
in control, you know. Asa sideman, they just call it there.
You got to put the tour together. You just say, you know,
send me my plane ticket. That'seasy. But I mean, you
know, for six to seven monthsbefore that, I'm constantly in touch with
the agent that's booking the tour.We're making a lot of decisions. There's
so much more involved, and toa lot of people that's too much for
(25:51):
him, or they just don't haveanything to say as a leader. They
just want to play solos. Andthat's okay too. I mean, some
great players out there that just don'twant to go out and do any thing
but play other people's music. Andthere's nothing wrong with that at all,
thank god, right, because they'reneeded by guys like you. Absolutely,
man, there's a mystique to music. There's the more pragmatic side of it
(26:22):
too, practice and professionalism. Billhas all of it in spades. There's
no magic pill for success in theindustry. Like most of the guests on
Independent Minded, Bill seems less concernedwith that part of it than he is
with the art of it. Itis what it is, you know.
You do the best record you canwith the musicians that you're liking it,
you know, and then you doit again and again, and even after
(26:49):
twenty seven albums, Bill Evans isalways looking to do more. Once upon
a time he was a young dudetaking cues from the masters. Now he's
the master, spreading the joy ofjazz alongside as all star friends and sharing
the wealth with the next generation ofindependent minded artists. I'm always interested in
exploring new players I've never played with. Especially what I like about young players
(27:11):
is there's this excitement inspiration. They'renot jaded at all, they haven't been
on a million stages, and theycan play their butt off. So my
big thing for me in the nextnumber of years is to start incorporating more
of those guys into the band totour wise, and I would also love
to put a band of all youngguys together for a summer festival tour and
tell all the festivals, this isthe future of your music and your festival.
(27:33):
And I'll name it something, andI'll make some calls to different some
of the different schools or in someof the different cities, and I'll say,
you know, tell me about thebaddest bass player, drummer, keyboard
player, guitar player between eighteen andtwenty. And try to break in some
new players to the audiences, becausewithout new players out there getting a chance
to be in front of these people, what chance are they going to have
(27:56):
to grow? Find out more aboutthe new album Who I Am, check
(28:26):
out tour dates and Bill's full discographyat Bill Evanssachs dot com. And if
you're a musician in need of orthopedichelp or you just want to support the
cause, you can find out moreabout Musicians Treatment Foundation at MTF USA dot
org. Big big thanks to Billfor the time and the great conversation,
(28:48):
Irene Chang Samino at MTF for connectingus, and of course a big old
bear hug to you, loyal podcastlistener. You're still here. If you're
a newbie, you can support IndependentMind it's simply by subscribing and door leaving
a kind review for the podcast onApple Podcasts and Spotify. If you're an
independent artist interested in being featured onthe podcast, send me an email Ron
(29:11):
at baldfreak dot com and you canfollow along on social media at Baldfreak Music
and at baldfreak dot com slash podcast, independent mind and it's a bald Freak
Music production. And me, I'mstill Ron Scalzo
Stop. Guess who's keeping the lightson here on the independent mind at podcast
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You're the one that should be worried. You're a freak. You're reading for
Big Trouble scolls, amazing pocats,run Stall, amazing pos talking to people,
(01:42):
make on music, tugging their projects, making them sames runy skulls,
those amazing podcasts. He's helping themabout just by making them talk shit.
(02:07):
They even use. I was worriedNashville, Tennessee. What the hell am
(02:30):
I doing here? Oh? Really, it's been three and a half years
now, and I still might aswell live on mars. I don't like
country music mostly, I got littleinterest in pop. Mostly. I'm a
middle aged dude who plays synth waveand metal, writes the occasional piano rock
song, and otherwise makes podcasts fora living. Everyone's moving to Nashville,
(02:55):
But what's my excuse? We're Nashvilleand I ever a good fit in the
first place. Maybe Bill Evans canhelp. One of the reasons is the
weather's a little better than the Northeast. Agreed. I like the airport.
Agreed. We just wanted to checkout something different, you know, I
mean, I've been in the Northeastfor a long time. Me too.
We lived just north of New YorkCity for years. It was a renovated
(03:19):
farmhouse. It was beautiful, itwas up in the woods. It was
a long driveway, and we geta lot of snow, and I was
just tired of din with snow.And I have to go to airports all
the time. So if we geta forecast of fourteen inches by eight o'clock
in the morning and I'm supposed tomeet a car to go to the airport,
that's not happening too. You've gotto Bill Evans is always going to
(03:53):
the airport because Bill Evans is aperforming machine, a world class saxophonist and
music producer who's been on the scenesince he was twenty one. Music is
something I'd do, but it doesn'tdefine me. It's not everything I do.
And there are musicians that that's allthey do, that is what defines
them. I'm not that guy.I love music and it's a big part
(04:14):
of me, but it's not everythingin life. It's an interesting take for
a cat that's toured all over theworld and with legends Miles Davis, John
McLachlan, Herbie Hancock and Mick Jaggerto name a few. Bill's still exploring
the world as a pioneering band leaderand via collaborations with other big names on
the jazz scene. I started onpiano when I was like six years old,
never stopped, and then I playedclarinet for a couple of years and
(04:38):
through high school. But I startedsaxophone at the same time in seventh grade.
So I mean then I got wayinto saxophone. And to make a
long story short, I was consumedwith it when I was a teenager.
I used to play at holiday innsenas soon as I could drive, playing
piano and backing up singers and stuff. But I'd also go and listen to
music downtown Chicago and hear jazz,you know, and here the different saxophone
(04:59):
players that I was tour on record. It was a great time for me
to just continuously study and play thesaxophone. And I never thought about is
this what I want to do fora living. It's just what I always
did. Bill would continue doing justwhat he does while studying at William Patterson
University, located in one of America'sjazz hotbeds. Believe it already, Yeah,
(05:25):
it's late, got a long heightto Jersey for me close enough,
and I was going to the cityall the time. It was a great
introduction to what the world was allabout with jazz, and so I'd go
and sit in with a lot ofdifferent people. I'd play with Elvin Jones
and Art Blakey, anybody I couldfor the experience, so that when I
(05:50):
finally did get a chance to playwith Miles, I had a little bit
of experience, if that means anything. Music may not be everything for Bill,
but it seems he's been thinking aboutnothing else ever since he started.
(06:10):
It wasn't a question. I rememberJoe Henderson, the famous saxophone player.
I went to a j Abersall clinicfor a number of years when I was
a kid, and Joe Henderson happenedto be the instructor in the group.
And a person came up to himand said, I was thinking about whether
I go into music or I geta business degree and go into business,
and I can't figure out what todo. And his answer was definitely a
business degree. And I looked athim and I thought, Wow, why
(06:31):
did you say that. He said, if they're thinking about not doing it,
they're not going to do it.The people that do this, they
don't have to ask that question.If you have to ask the question,
it's over. If you have abackup plan, that's your plan. Working
alongside Miles Davis, Bill began tohone his skill, expand his musical palette,
and develop what would become a trademark. Look, I'm curious if you
(06:56):
could give me a small synopsis ofthe origin story of the Bill Evans bandana.
I only wore it when I firststarted playing in the row with Miles
all the lights in. I mean, I've never been in that situation,
and I wear contact lenses at thetime, and it was burning my eyes.
And Miles said, well, whydon't you just get a headband?
I want great idea. So Ibought like a tennis headband, you know,
made out of like terry cloth orsomething. And that didn't look good.
(07:18):
That was terrible. And I thought, all right, I'll just get
a you know, a regular neckerchiefor whatever, and I'll just roll it
up and put it on my head. So I purely did it for reasons
of sweat. I didn't want thesweat to go in my eyes and sting
my eyes because then I couldn't seehim. And it was painful. My
eyes would be really red. Andthen one time we did a tour in
Japan just a few years later,and it was cool outside some live concerts
(07:41):
and I didn't wear it, andthe Japanese were saying, oh, what's
the reason for not wearing the bandana? Is it the music? Is that
you feel differently about what you're whatyou're playing? I said, are you
kidding me? I said, it'scool outside and I'm not swarming as much.
So I thought, all right,I'm just gonna put it on every
night and don't worry about it.That's basically how would happened. And now
(08:03):
I own a bandana company that makesme millions of dollars every year, and
it's in forty six countries and alot of the famous tennis players are using
my bandana. And yeah, it'sbeen very successfully. I make more money
selling bandanas than playing music. Iwas going to ask if you had kind
of developed your own brand of bandannas, but you have a whole company.
Yeah. Yeah, I've got twentysix people working for me every day that
(08:24):
are making bandanas. I couldn't findany Bill Evans bandanas online, so maybe
Billy's yank in my chain. Thissax player's always been an anomaly. Instead
of pedaling his pieces on stages acrossthe US, he's taking his music and
his bandmates overseas and with intention.I made the choice back in the early
nineties when I put my band togetherto concentrate on Europe, which is where
(08:46):
I was mainly playing, and Iwas doing one hundred and twenty five dates
a year, building it up inall the different countries, putting a record
out and doing promo tours, presstours, and you know, as in
any business, it's like mathematics.The more you play some more, the
more people get to know you,the more you'll play there Again, we
(09:09):
just waited down as this is asong that I was able to record with
Miles Davis back in the early eightieswhen I was his age. I like
this little nursery vine type song,and I said, that's going to be
great. I said, we'll see. This is called Jean Pierre. The
(09:39):
audiences in Europe, these people,many of them have said I've heard you
twenty or thirty times with your group, So you've got a core audience that's
can continue to come. And thenyou have in the States a lot of
different clubs that say, man,I can't believe we haven't had you at
this club. Our club has hadeverybody, we haven't had you. We
wanted to make this work, butfinancially it may not work because no one
knows exactly what's going to happen.And so as I get older, I'm
(10:01):
not consumed by trying to say,oh, I have to make it in
all these different clubs in the States. I've been fortunate a lot of them
I have played and it's been successful. But it's not urgent for me anymore,
you know what I mean. Andit's kind of a shame because I
put together some pretty amazing bands thatthe States doesn't get to hear, and
I get a lot of emails fromfans that say, I can't believe it.
(10:22):
I mean, I'm seeing these YouTubevideos, I'm seeing this schedule of
yours. Are you ever going tocome to la again? Are you ever
going to come to Seattle again?Are you ever going to come to Chicago
again? The jazz musician, notoriousfor following his artistic sensibilities first and foremost,
puts it before everything, the commerce, the fans. I'll do two
or three European tours. This year, I'll go to Japan. I'll do
(10:45):
a couple of things in Brazil.But you know, people will say,
but you're not going to play theWest coast of New York, And I'm
like not at this point, No, it's not that Bill Evans isn't a
people pleaser. When you've been atit for four plus decades, the goalposts
change. The experience begins to outweighthe expectations of filling a club or a
(11:09):
cash register. The company you keep, in Bill's case, known quantities like
Keith Carlock, John Medeski, andFelix Pastorius becomes paramount. You pick and
choose your next adventure. With allthat in mind, I want to play.
I want the music to be happening. I want the bands to be
happening. I keep it simple likethat. Always great bands, always good
records, and the audiences that comeand hear us. I appreciate what we
(11:33):
do. A younger Bill Evans cuthis teeth in and around the urban jungle
of New York City when I wasjust a baby. It's an era I
often romanticize from a safe distance.The gritty, grungey graffiti train New York
(11:56):
notoriously portrayed in movies like Death Wish, The Taking a Pelm one, two
three, and The Warriors. AndI was fortunate because when I first moved
(12:18):
there, Dave Leabman introduced me toMiles Davis, and then part of what
I did was seeing Miles every dayand also just playing with different musicians all
the time. And that's what itwas. And I think it's different now.
I don't think it's as easy foryoung players to do what we did
forty years ago. Number One,they can't afford to live in Manhattan.
I had a big loft on twentyeighth and seventh Avenue and another one at
(12:41):
twenty seventh and sixth, and wehad musicians over all the time, so
we were playing constantly. In nineteeneighty eighty one, eighty two, eighty
three, the times when I waswith Miles and the times I was with
John McLaughlin, we were still playingall the time. And then I moved
(13:01):
to the Upper West Side on seventyfifth in Columbus, which I really liked.
It was more like a neighborhood asopposed to a transient insane asylum.
In Chelsea at the time, alot more musicians back then, net were
able to hang out, a lotmore clubs to play at. It was
just a really good time in NewYork musically. I was playing with a
lot of the time with Gil Evans'sband in Sweet Basil on Seventh Avenue,
(13:24):
Bleek Here it was a little moredangerous, but you know, we got
(13:46):
used to it. I got roblinsin the subway. I walk around and
I'm scared that somebody's gonna attack me, take something from me, or you
know anything. I'm really scared.The subway is towrible. And then they
grew up with the said. BillEvans is a genre inventor. His band
(14:16):
Soulgrass was a breakaway new fusion ofjazz and American roots music, blending the
banjo, fiddle, mandolin, anddobro. Bill put the best musicians from
jazz and Americana together, and intwenty fourteen he released Live in Moscow,
a performance of the band sold outUS State Department sponsored tours of Russia.
(14:43):
It's just one of many choices Bill'smade that have kept him returning to Europe.
That's a lot of frequent flyer miles, a lot of stages, a
lot of jet lag, regardless ofhow tired you are when you play and
you're on stage, it wipes itall out. You're completely wide awake from
feeling good for that two hours andthen you just completely collapsed. Bill and
(15:16):
I connected thanks to the folks atthe Musician's Treatment Foundation. Bill's in killer
shape. He eats right, getshis rest, but the wear and tear
on his body, the travel luggingin those gearcases all over the world,
and of course the performances ultimately takea physical toll. Well, it's been
amazing. I met Alton Baron,the surgeon, who has become a really
(15:37):
good close friend of mine, andhe started telling me about this idea years
ago, about this music treatment foundationto help musicians that didn't have insurance,
that guitar player, saxophone players,whomever have a problem with their arms or
shoulder or hand. Because he wasrunning into a lot of musicians that weren't
covered by insurance that he wanted tohelp the music going and he realized this
(16:03):
is a void that he could fillto help musicians out. And it's grown
and I've done a few benefits forhim, one with Steve lukather band that
we had together, and then Iflew to Austin and me and Mike Stern
did another benefit for him, andthen there was one in Nashville last year
that we did, and I've broughtin the great Mats Mutski from Germany as
a phenomenal singer. It also takepart and it raises money to help pay
(16:26):
for very necessary operations to keep themplaying music. It's a genuine grassroots effort
that continues to expand thanks to dedicatedsurgeons and artists like Bill, Elvis Costello,
Zz Tops, Billy Gibbons and manyothers. And Alton has been very
philanthropic and very giving for his timeand his efforts to help so many musicians.
(16:47):
Without him, it would have beena very difficult thing for them.
So it's not just doing an operationand helping them feel better. It allows
them to keep playing music. Andso that's one of the reasons I take
part in it, and so manymusicusicians have offered their services to be a
part of it because it's a greatthing, you know what I mean.
Everybody loves music, but if musicianscan't use their hands or their shoulders or
whatever, their world stops. BillEvans never stops. Just look at his
(17:26):
discography, his tour history. Withhelp from Doctor Baron and MTF. Bill's
been able to keep going and going. It's touring, That's what touring is
all about. And you know sometimesduring the Soulgrass band, when I had
fiddled banjo, drums, bass,I mean, we were doing some pretty
hard tours and there's a lot ofyoung guys in the band, and I
tell them, you know, there'sa lot of really good bass players and
(17:48):
guitar players and working ups right nowthat are waiting for you to be too
tired to go on the road becausethey want your gig. Is that your
motivator? I mean, listen,how many people I mean, every college,
every institution producing thousands of young playersthat their goal is to travel and
tour of them and they want toget on the road. And there's you
(18:11):
can count him in your left hand. How many bands actually do that.
It's this sort of attitude that separatesthe contenders from the pretenders. It's not
a choice, it's not a hobby, it's a mission. What I tell
people is you have to be agood person. You have to play your
(18:33):
butt off, you have to learnthe music, and you have to get
along with people. Because if youdon't. There's one hundred guys that are
graduating from Berkeley this year that do. And even if he's your best friend
and he plays the same instrument,don't kidch yourself. He wants your gig
if you have it, because everybody'spracticing just as hard as everyone else,
(18:53):
and they feel deep down they deservethat gig. So I mean, it's
not easy, and I feel areyoung musicians today because it's difficult. It's
really difficult. On the other hand, of musicians and the young players that
want to play and that's all theywant to do, they'll make it happen
somehow. But I give them creditbecause they have to have a lot of
(19:14):
perseverance. Perseverance. Bill knows alot about that too. He's set to
release his twenty seventh solo album thissummer. Never mind all the collaborations,
the guest spots, This dude's outputis outrageous. All my records are all
so much to them, are sodifferent because I can't sort of do the
same one again. My taste changesall the time. My soulo grass thing
(19:37):
I had banjo and with Bayla Fleckplayed and Jerry Douglass and all these great
Nashville guys that I'd never really heardof. But I liked Americana music with
the saxophone, so I thought,I'm inspired, I want to do this.
Before that, I was doing somethingwith Lesli Can this sort of like
soul music kind of thing with jazz. I wasn't influenced by any particular soul
(19:57):
jazz thing. I just heard thesegrooves in my head, and I thought,
I'm going to get guys that playthat kind of thing with my music.
But then in the nineties, Iheard in the early nineties rappers doing
more freestyle rap on music that haschords, more contemporary. No one was
really doing that. No one wasdoing that. And when the hardcore street
(20:18):
rerap didn't do anything for me,I mean, five years before that,
I would have said, there's nochance in hell I'm going to never do
anything like this. But I startedto hear the way they're putting the words
vocally, and I started to hearharmony with it, and they're doing more
creative stuff than the jazz guys forme. So I started writing this stuff
and I did this record called Push. I did this record called Escape.
I did live in Europe and Ibrought rappers, and I brought this stuff
(20:41):
on the road in Europe and webuilt this thing up. We had two
tour buses. I mean, wewere playing some huge audiences with this concept.
And it was exciting to see thesedifferent concepts start from an idea in
my head to all of a sudden, this visualization up here, it it
is now, people are digging it, here's the band, here's the music
(21:02):
that to me is exciting. Youknow, about a year and a half
ago, I thought what would Iwrite if it was going to be the
(21:22):
last record? And I wanted tobe the last record? But what would
you write if someone said, allright, here it is, what are
you going to do? And thenit became obvious to me. I sat
down and started writing music, andI had this woodwind sounds, and I
had these ideas of who I wantedto play on it. I had Victor
Wooten, Carl Lock, Wolfgang Hofner, Simon as lander by Lafleck, Till
(21:42):
Brunner, a great trumpet player fromGermany, a bunch of great musicians,
and John Medeski plays on it.And it came out exactly as I wanted
and exactly like I heard in myhead. I could listen to each song
and love the music and listen toit over and over, and so it's
an exciting thing to go from projectto project over the years, and he
is inspired on each project. It'snever been the easy road ever. I
(22:06):
mean, when you change your conceptand you start doing something that's new,
then you know you're sort of likegoing to another audience, going then going
to another audience, and you know, it's never been an easy way to
do it. But it's not likethere's a choice. It's how I do
it. That's how I'm built.So for this short period of time when
(22:30):
we're on the planet, I'm goingto try to play the music I want
to play the best I can havefun doing it. Call it a day.
(22:52):
Bill Evans is Independent Music Royalty.Almost all of his records have been
released on indies and upstarts small bootslabels designed to shine a light on unheralded
talent. Most of all, Billruns the business of Bill. He's used
as forty plus years on the roadas currency. I mean, I've been
producing the last number of records myself. I pay for it, I get
(23:12):
the guys, and so the wholething, you know, I'll do tours,
this and that, and when Ido a record, I write it
and I produce it and I payfor it myself. And that's kind of
what everybody's been doing. There's notmany labels now. You want to kind
of own your own record because that'swhere you have the power in your career.
With the fact that records aren't sellinga ton for most people. If
(23:33):
you give your music away to alabel, they own it. They'll do
a little bit of promotion, they'lltry to sell it for the first few
months, and then guess what,after the first few months, it's not
yours anymore. It's theirs. Youcan't do anything else with it. They
own it. Their catalog that they'rebuilding up with different artists is theirs.
I own most of my catalog now. I bought a lot of my records
back when I could years ago.Smart thing. There's so much media now.
(24:02):
It's such a different world now,and there's so many everybody's got a
home studio. Everybody can put outa record. There's thousands of things coming
out, So you have to keepit simple. You have to make the
music as best you can that representsyou, keep your playing ability at the
highest level. That you can,but I don't know. I mean,
all I can tell young musicians isif this is what you want to do,
(24:22):
and this is what you really wantedto do, just do it.
A lot of the best bands inthe world are not even put together yet.
I like the fact that there's allthese hybrids of music where people are
blending different kinds of jazz together withother kinds of music. I've always done
that my whole career. To me, that's fun and it's the only way
that jazz is going to evolve.But what a lot of these guys that
understand is jazz it was invented fromother combinations of music. It was from
(24:45):
people taking a chance to put musictogether which created jazz. It wasn't to
continue to create straight ahead mainstream jazzand then stop. You know, you
get the hardcorees and all kinds ofmusic, whether it's bluegrass, country or
jazz, that want to keep itwhat it is, keep what's familiar.
Well, that's not how music's goingto grow. That's not who I am.
Bill Evans keeps mixing it up.You could have just been a side
(25:07):
man, collected his fee and movedon to the next gig. Instead,
he takes the more challenging road,and he's content to be in the driver's
seat. You get all the pressure, you get all the anxiety, you
get everything that goes with it.On the other hand, you know,
you get all the positive stuff,like you know, feeling you're playing your
music at night, you're calling theshots of what you do, which gets
(25:29):
you off the most, you know. But yeah, you're the one that's
in control, you know. Asa sideman, they just call it there.
You got to put the tour together. You just say, you know,
send me my plane ticket. That'seasy. But I mean, you
know, for six to seven monthsbefore that, I'm constantly in touch with
the agent that's booking the tour.We're making a lot of decisions. There's
so much more involved, and toa lot of people that's too much for
(25:51):
him, or they just don't haveanything to say as a leader. They
just want to play solos. Andthat's okay too. I mean, some
great players out there that just don'twant to go out and do any thing
but play other people's music. Andthere's nothing wrong with that at all,
thank god, right, because they'reneeded by guys like you. Absolutely,
man, there's a mystique to music. There's the more pragmatic side of it
(26:22):
too, practice and professionalism. Billhas all of it in spades. There's
no magic pill for success in theindustry. Like most of the guests on
Independent Minded, Bill seems less concernedwith that part of it than he is
with the art of it. Itis what it is, you know.
You do the best record you canwith the musicians that you're liking it,
you know, and then you doit again and again, and even after
(26:49):
twenty seven albums, Bill Evans isalways looking to do more. Once upon
a time he was a young dudetaking cues from the masters. Now he's
the master, spreading the joy ofjazz alongside as all star friends and sharing
the wealth with the next generation ofindependent minded artists. I'm always interested in
exploring new players I've never played with. Especially what I like about young players
(27:11):
is there's this excitement inspiration. They'renot jaded at all, they haven't been
on a million stages, and theycan play their butt off. So my
big thing for me in the nextnumber of years is to start incorporating more
of those guys into the band totour wise, and I would also love
to put a band of all youngguys together for a summer festival tour and
tell all the festivals, this isthe future of your music and your festival.
(27:33):
And I'll name it something, andI'll make some calls to different some
of the different schools or in someof the different cities, and I'll say,
you know, tell me about thebaddest bass player, drummer, keyboard
player, guitar player between eighteen andtwenty. And try to break in some
new players to the audiences, becausewithout new players out there getting a chance
to be in front of these people, what chance are they going to have
(27:56):
to grow? Find out more aboutthe new album Who I Am, check
(28:26):
out tour dates and Bill's full discographyat Bill Evanssachs dot com. And if
you're a musician in need of orthopedichelp or you just want to support the
cause, you can find out moreabout Musicians Treatment Foundation at MTF USA dot
org. Big big thanks to Billfor the time and the great conversation,
(28:48):
Irene Chang Samino at MTF for connectingus, and of course a big old
bear hug to you, loyal podcastlistener. You're still here. If you're
a newbie, you can support IndependentMind it's simply by subscribing and door leaving
a kind review for the podcast onApple Podcasts and Spotify. If you're an
independent artist interested in being featured onthe podcast, send me an email Ron
(29:11):
at baldfreak dot com and you canfollow along on social media at Baldfreak Music
and at baldfreak dot com slash podcast, independent mind and it's a bald Freak
Music production. And me, I'mstill Ron Scalzo
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