Julian Lage/Don Was

We occasionally field emails and DMs from Broken Record listeners telling us who they’d like to hear on the program. The past handful of years, one name has come up more than others: Julian Lage. Now, if you’re not part of the converted, not a member of one of his devoted legion of fans that may come as a surprise. But if you get the chance to spend some time with his music after listening to this episode… I have one word for you: welcome.

Julian’s path in music has been as unique as his gifts. He picked up the guitar at five years old and quickly became obsessed with the instrument. That obsession and what must be some level of innate abilities led to his designation as a “child prodigy” and, as you’ll hear, the opportunity to play live on stage with Carlos Santana live at eight and live on a Grammy telecast at 13.

But it’s his development as an artist, over the course of four albums in four years on Blue Note that’s most impressive. His album Speak to Me came out earlier this year and is impressionistic in its beauty rather than prodigious, often quiet, rather than flashy.

For the last episode in our series celebrating the creative legacy of Blue Note Records over 85 years, Don Was and I spoke with Julian Lage in front of a live audience at the Blue Note club in NYC. We talked about his upbringing as a prodigy, about the writing and recording of his new album and about his unique approach to learning and playing guitar. Oh, and he plays a little too.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Julian Lage songs HERE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. We occasionally feel the emails and dms from Broken
Record listeners telling us who they'd like to hear on
the program. The past handful of years, one name has
come up more than others, Julian Lage. Now, if you're
not part of the Converted, not a member of one
of his devoted legions of fans, that may come as

(00:35):
a surprise to you. But if you get the chance
to spend some time with his music after listening to
this episode, I have just one word for you, welcome.
Julian's path and music has been as unique as his gifts.
He picked up the guitar at five years old and
quickly became obsessed with the instrument. That obsession and what
must have been some level of innate abilities, led to
his designation as a child prodigy, and as you'll hear,

(00:58):
the opportunity to play live on stage with Carlos Santana
at eight and live on a Grammy telecast at thirteen.
But it's his development as an artist over the course
of four albums and four years on Blue Note that's
most impressive to me. His album Speak to Me came
out earlier this year and is impressionistic in its beauty
rather than prodigious, often quiet rather than flashy. For the

(01:19):
last episode in our series celebrating the creative legacy of
Blue Note Records over eighty five years, Don Was and
I spoke with Julian Lage in front of a live
audience at the Blue Note Club in New York. We
talked about his upbringing as a prodigy, about writing and
recording his new album, and about his unique approach to
learning and playing guitar. Oh and he plays for us too.

(01:42):
This is Broken Record Liner Notes for the digital Age.
I'm justin Richman. Here's Don Was and myself in the
Blue Note in New York with Julian Lage. See the
full video version of this episode go to YouTube dot
com slash Broken Record Podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
How are you my friend?

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Good?

Speaker 1 (02:03):
So, thank you for doing this.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I mam my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Oh Man, your new record is gorgeous record for gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Thank you. I appreciate that it really is.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
But I think Donn and I have talked about maybe
starting a little further back.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
You say wherever you want, I'm all yours.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
I watched a little bit of Jewels at eight Did
you really yea the whole the whole thing is not.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
No, I don't I don't even know how to find it.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Their little little excerpts up there. Yeah, and you get
such a such a unique blend of real sweetness and
unbelievable talent. I don't know, have you. This is a
movie that was made when he was.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Years old old.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, someone shot? Who shot? Who made it?

Speaker 2 (02:54):
It's a director named Mark Becker, and he was he
was at Stanford as a film student, and he had this.
It's kind of interesting because it wasn't it really wasn't
about me. He just wanted a movie about a young
musician or talented person who is straddling the worlds of
childhood and some sort of skill. And so he called

(03:15):
us to do it, and my parents and I said no,
absolutely not, you know, because I really keep in mind,
I'd only been playing guitar for two years. I wasn't
like an established musician. But he heard of me through some
channel who knows what, and came. He was very persistent,
and eventually we said, well, hey, this is clearly more
about you than about me, and that's kind of good
in a way. So that's why we proceeded. But yes,

(03:36):
there was this film made.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
You're clearly a child prodigy, and there must be an
incredible set of expectations and pressures that go along with that.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Sure, absolutely, How.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Did you deal with that?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Well, it's so cool that you frame it that way,
because I think so often there's something blinding about really anybody,
but especially young people when they exhibit any propensity. Is that, yeah, there,
you get blinded by that. It's dazzling, and you don't
It's easy to forget that there's emotional infrastructure that needs
to be built and supported, and just to even understand

(04:19):
your own progress and understand your worth is not maybe
tied to your progress. And in some parts of life
you might be really advanced, other parts of life, you're
really at the beginning. All these considerations. I think they
reveal themselves, but it's easier to see that when you
have a supporting family or teachers or community. Now. At
the time, I remember getting a lot of attention, but

(04:41):
I never once felt overwhelmed by it, and I attribute
that to my parents. They were when my father was
a young boy, he was a bit of He was
a child prodigy as a visual artist, and he had
a one man show in southern California and we used
to have letters from you know, he'd send a portrait
to Jacqueline Kennedy and he'd get a letter back saying
thank you, or Norman Rockwell, and so I think he

(05:01):
saw and at certain points he got older, he decided
not to pursue art because I think that part of
it freaked him out, is what I imagine. So when
it came to me, I think there was already a
certain defensive barrier. No one could really get to me.
As a kid, I practiced a lot. I did my thing.
Every so often, I'd come up for air, but I
didn't I was unbothered by it. Now, as I became

(05:25):
more of an adult, I could see it in the
rear view beer a little differently. And I think what
helped me was that I didn't make a record under
my own name until I was about twenty one twenty two.
So from five until twenty two, I was just a
guy practicing guitar, playing people's bands, and it was great.
I think I needed that many years to just kind

(05:46):
of develop, and then when I hit it, I really
hit it strong. The last thing I'll say about that,
I know I've said it before in other forums, but
I'm of the generation right before the Internet being so
prevalent in young people's lives. So there was a documentary
made about me, but there was no YouTube, There was
no clips of me anywhere, so I was a secret.

(06:08):
What went out was very even in the documentary, I
don't actually play guitar in it, which is interesting. I
don't play. There's a moment where I play a scale,
but that's kind of wild to think of that that
I'm not playing, you know, I could that could be,
it could be all bogus for all anyone knows. But
thank god I didn't, you know, so I don't even
know what I sounded like at that age.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Really, you sounded awesome. You were playing.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
For a second, that's all I knew that that was
the whole riff.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Well, I think that's one of one of the things
about child prodigies is that I've seen a lot of that,
you know, but very few make the transition into being
adult artists. Yeah, and I think that, you know, they
a lot of them can do an eagle soul perfectly,

(06:57):
you know, and that's amazing to see a young kid
do that. But I didn't sinse even when I heard
you whatever you did in the It didn't sound like
anybody else. You weren't copying Eric Clappin or anything. You had.
You had a voice, and I think that's you. That's
the rarest thing is development of your own voice.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Right well, I do, I do believe that, especially from
where I sit now. I was talking to my wife
Margaret about this just was it last night. But my father,
both my parents possessed this ability to be They're fans
of art and music and life right this, and so
they would talk about things I remember as a kid,
and they would analyze people, Uh not in the way of, Okay,

(07:42):
this person's great, you should be like them, but they
would say, this artist must think this way about themselves
in order to get this result that you're hearing, you
know what I mean. It's very new. As a kid,
we would listen to Jim Hall or something just because
it was in the house that those records. I just
remember having those conversations with my father saying that, oh,

(08:03):
he must have a an acceptance of his own sense
of humor and phrasing, because that that's what I'm getting
from this. And I took it for granted, but I
realized it's really rare. Usually we kind of say, well,
we people become icons, and then it's very it becomes
almost impossible to develop a voice because you just aren't
that person. Your body doesn't work that way, your brain

(08:25):
doesn't work that way, your heart doesn't work that way.
You didn't have those parents, you know. But I think
everything was broken down is if you can understand your
relationship to yourself, you'll be you'll have access to what
you can offer most genuinely. And for that, I'm so
grateful and I think that is the root of kind
of developing a voice on an instrument. Also, I'm a
terrible mimic. I couldn't sound like anyone if I tried,

(08:46):
and I tried, I really remember no. I really my
wife on that. She's a brilliant. She can hear something,
repeat it, make it her own. I you know, I
really can't. And it's good. It's a good handicapped.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
That tradition you're talking about though, of like there's icons
and then that you kind of steep yourself in them
and so to become like them and then maybe hopefully
for lucky, find your voice after. That'sicularly strong tradition in guitar.
Unless sure, young young people learning guitar and playing guitar.
Oh my god? Yeah, did you have moments early on
with that? I mean, were you did you have at
any point, even if it was a traditional, traditional, more

(09:24):
traditional trajectory of like I'm learning the blues now now transitioning.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Well, well, I consider myself, it's a great question. I
consider myself such a history nut, you know, or maybe
more accurately, I believe I find great support in knowing
that I'm far from the only person doing this. You know,
it was here before me. I'll be here when I'm dead,
So I'm just passing through, you know. So uh, yes,
I think there were times where I would investigate history,

(09:51):
you know. Okay, I really want to understand t Bone Walker,
and I really want to understand Muddy Waters. And I'm
not going to learn what they do, but I'm just gonna,
I guess, cultivate a certain reverence through listening, playing along
with records, same with jazz, same with different musicians. But
I was always under the belief I remember so vividly
thinking that here's my dream. I want us to be

(10:13):
right where I am with you right now. This truly
is my dream with all of you, and I want
to be myself, being a part of a creative project.
That's what I want, and I recognize that in order
to do that and feel comfortable, I need to deal
with a lot of things that are really no one
else's business. And that's that's scales, that's theory, that's the

(10:35):
understanding the guitar. I need to get this sort and
so that our time isn't spent kind of being distracted
by something I'm not I don't have together. That was
always my view, So I remember practicing and acquiring information
from that perspective. I got to acquire a lot so
that I can just be available emotionally, because we all
know that when you're just inundated with stuff you have

(10:56):
to learn, and like you're saying these towering icons over us,
you can't. You're fumbling to just get through. And that's
that can really plummet your sense of self, you know,
And I just I just need to nix that in
the butt. There are things that are knowable on the guitar,
and there's the good stuff is the unknowable stuff, but
there are noble things. I know where the notes are,

(11:17):
and I know how to hold a pick.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
And can you explain what the noble versus unknowable show.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
There's absolutely it's it's a little bit I feel silly
doing in front of all you guys. But you know,
even knowing where the pitches are on the instrument, I've
always felt like that's massively overlooked. Okay, you have, you
have all these seas there, and unless I change something

(11:42):
about the tuning or take a string off, those notes
will be there for me. Now what I've found, and
that's true of every all twelve pitches. What I've found, though,
is there are so many hurdles as guitar players we
get into. I was there for a long time that
are attributed to knowing thirty percent of the neck fifty.
But I know where three of the seas are. I don't.
I really shouldn't go up there, I should go over

(12:03):
here instead. That's a very simple example of kind of
doing your homework as far is just map it out,
not with a system. It takes a week, you know it,
it really does. Always I felt about it. Another example
of it, I've had a fastening. You're really interested in this, Yeah, well,

(12:27):
I I've been fascinated by this, this thing about mastery
on the guitar, right because we're all interested all of
the super you know, you see the people go wow,
they seem really good. They know something I don't. And
I feel that all the time with my heroes. However,
there are things. There's when you're good at something, there's
there's attributes that also kick in. Like if you're you

(12:48):
can use a fork and have a conversation, that means
you probably know how to use a fork. There are
these like okay, there's a bandwidth for other things. So
I remember, as a young person, younger person, I was
really thinking about that on the guitar. What despite all
the things I know, I don't know what's something I
can do that I just feel I could do in
my sleep. You can wake me up at three in
the morning with a fire extinguishure in my face. They do,

(13:09):
and I'd say, okay, I can do it. And a
really good example would be probably playing a C major chord.
You know the reason I say that, I probably learned
it really early on. And when I do it, I
can talk and do it. I can breathe and do it.
I can I don't feel I'm not really I feel good.
I feel good and I can do it. Now to me,
that's somewhat of a litmus test. That's a metric for

(13:31):
what it's like to have a mastery over a little
domain on the instrument. Now, the next thing would be
to tackle something that I have less of that experience with.
So if I would do that and then i'd work
on I don't know what, I'd work on something difficult,
and immediately I would just say, what has left me?
I can't really breathe when I'm doing it. I'm really anxious,

(13:52):
I'm kind of fumbling my tone, okay, dipped, Okay, so
let me go back to the reset. And I would
be ridiculous if you saw me, But I would keep
going back to that kind of touchstone. Wow, And if
you do it enough, you know how to For me,
at least, I felt like I was able to get
those difficult things to feel good in a way that
I had faith in. It's very hard to have faith

(14:16):
in that you're good at something if you if you're
not used to that good feeling. Do you know what
I mean?

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, it's kind of interesting. So it's it's you knew
you had the hard thing when the hard thing kind of.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Felt felt like the thing that I considered good not
what someone else considered good feeling.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, And it's funny to say that because I'm not
terribly stubborn, So it's not like it's not a This
isn't a protest, you know, I really don't have a
dog in the race. It just made sense to me,
and I think that's how my father looked at teaching
me guitar when I when I started too. It's all
from him, you know.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
That's an incredible way to That's a really sophisticated way
of approaching guitar that my parents are deep.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
But it's it's beautiful because I have seen it pop
up in others. You see this, you see that. It's
the same with our health. You have to know when
you felt good, to know when you don't feel good, right,
you have to kind of you have to. It's a
play of oppositions.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
With a touchstone champ. I mean, what, for instance, what
always be the seed?

Speaker 2 (15:10):
It could be anything sometimes, but you have to go
and go to something that you would It feels too
simple to be legitimate. This is one of my favorites.
You know, once it feels as once something difficult feels
as comfortable as just strong me a guitar open with nothing.
That's when we're kind of getting close to a sense
of feeling masterful. It's it's certainly been working in a

(15:31):
nice way, and I and maybe it'll change, you know.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Do you have variations, you know on different days, like
something seem harder.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Oh, one hundred, that's such a good point. Yeah, there,
there's I feel that in the realm of time, feel
like I noticed it. Depending on the season, you know,
a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, some things will just feel
not accessible. I can't settle into this beat, or I can,
but it's going to take me an hour and then
I can feel it. Other days they'll okay, there's I

(16:02):
can kind of access that physically too. I'm not a
big believer at this point, least in warming up on
the instrument, like it was a time where I did.
Speaking just from my own experience, I think there's kind
of a I like the way I sound when I'm
not warmed up. Sometimes yeah, I trip over my hand,

(16:22):
but I also have to deal with that like a
human being rather than just oh this feels great, I
can do anything I want. So I would say it
does change as far as the physical time feel, I
like a lot of playing, a lot of improvised music.
So usually the cures just start playing. You and I

(16:43):
have talked about this done before, about the kind of
the just the virtuous world of playing longer. You know,
if you're looking for I want to sit down, play
for five minutes and be amazing, that's great. But what
if you sit down for forty five minutes, an hour,
two hours, three hours and you don't stop. You will
hit walls and you also, my experience, resolve them musically

(17:03):
rather than divorcing them from the act of playing. And
so usually when something's off, I just play more.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
I've heard that you'll play like ninety minutes sometimes over
just the same changes.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Absolutely, Oh you get so it's kind of yeah, sick
of yourself, and then you get happy, and then you
get it. It's a journey, you know. But long form
playing has been become a big that's a big part
of my life. And if I don't have the time
for that lately, I'm okay, just not playing. Do something
else long form, do you know, Just be alive long

(17:33):
for you know, but just try not to break every
part of life into these little kind of life hacker moments.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
There's a great line in Jewels that day where your
dad's talking and he's talking about people saying, well, don't
make him practice all the time. He said, no, I
try to make him stop.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
It was true, like you have to really stop. It's
been eight hours, you know. It's funny like that.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
Though.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
I feel lucky because I teach a lot, not much lately,
but I've taught a lot culturally speak. There is so
much pressure nowadays in the educational system that I remember
even as a kid, it wasn't the same. And I
really have looked back on it. Play all day because
it's fun was kind of okay, but I've noticed that
rhetoric is not the same. And if you see young, well,

(18:24):
that's great that you can play, but you can't just play.
You've got to be working on something and you have
to that has to be something that you can show
to other people, so we can tell you if you're
getting better or not. I somehow avoided all of that. Yeah,
that's good, So I feel lucky.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
After fare in school, you went to berkeleye age.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
I went to Berkeley College of Music. I loved it. Well,
at first I didn't, and then I loved it. You know,
as a teenager, I started playing with Gary Burton and.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
Before you were at before, yeah, before.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
I was there, so I but Gary used to be
you know, the he ran that school for so many
years and he's a part of it for fifty years.
So it wasn't a big leap to say, well, when
I get old enough, I want to go there. Gary's
kind of my guy. So I went and I did
the thing, Okay, go up to the class whatever, and
I really didn't like it. I was kind of miserable

(19:12):
for the first semester, and by no one's doing other
than my own. I realized that I'd gone from being
in this musical space to music school, which we all
those who are familiar with any kind of art school,
they kind of they have to make it such that
you're that everyone has accessed information. So you go from

(19:33):
being the special person in your community, you know, to
being one of thousands. You go from being the person
your bedroomho's learning songs because you're just fascinated too. I've
got homework now and I haven't touched the guitar in
a month. I thought something's off, you know, So I
called the president of the school, Roger Brown, who I
really adore, right to the top. I just said, look,
I don't want always say anyone. Sime. You're so so

(19:54):
gracious to let me be here, but I'm going to
tell you this isn't for me, and I'm going to
move on. And he he I left that at a voicemail.
I realized now he called me back, a'mbout tim and
to say he said, Julian Jillie, what is up? But
I said, well, here's the deal. I know if I
I can cultivate what I'm doing already, there's jazz guitar
pass there's all I want to get my butt kicked

(20:14):
with what I don't know? He said, what is it?
I said, classical composition, classical piano, really deeply get into counterpoint,
and study with Mick Goodrick, you know, the master. And
he said, we will figure this out. And I ostensibly
became wrapped up in something they were rebuilding, which is
what they call an artist diploma program. Juilliard's got a

(20:35):
lot of schools have them. It's kind of like a
master's degree. And he said, we'll frame it academically so
that your last, you know, ten years of touring with
Gary Burton. We'll consider that like an undergrad now, but
you have to tell us what you want to get
out of this. And I said, I want to make
my first record. That's my final and I need about
three years to study before I want to make the record.
And it's just, you know, it's all the stuff is low.

(20:56):
It's not life or death. And they also had an
open mind, but I took it very seriously. I studied
with them. I did everything we said I would do,
including making my first record sounding point Wow. And I
loved it. And there were other students who I hipped
to this program because they were coming in that and
they needed something similar, so it was a good thing
for all. I thought it was really cool, really cool.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
We'll be right back with more from Don was and
Me in conversation with Julian lash We're back with Julian Lage.
How did you connect with Gary?

Speaker 2 (21:33):
He saw me on the Grammys. I was playing on
this telecast back in two thousand and two thousand and one,
and they had this moment took thirty seconds of kids
playing jazz, you know, and I was one of the kids.
Similar to the documentary we spoke of earlier. I was
invited and said no because I had no interest in it,
and they were really persistent, and I said, okay, okay,
so do the thing. And I got a letter maybe

(21:55):
a week after it was televised from Gary and he said,
my name is Gary Burton. I was in the audience
that night. I've got a gig at the TED conference
in six months. And back in those days, it was
always it was not what it's become. It was a
little different. It was in Monterey, California, in this hotel
and it was small and very still very exclusive, and
they hired Gary to do a thing about intergenerational something

(22:19):
or other and I was the younger generation, so he said,
you want to be my younger generation for this. I
was sure, you know, and it went so well that
he asked me to then do a cruise on the
Queen Elizabeth too, you know, the one from New York
to London, which had it was great they would have
I don't think. I don't know if they still do
it with these jazz festivals. And it was Gary's band,
Tommy Flanagan's trio, Bud Shank. It was fabulous. Terrible experience

(22:44):
on the cruise because we hit a storm, but like
fifty foot seas and a piano was rolling off the stage.
I'm talking bad. We got through it. Here we are,
but but it went so well that Gary Gary was
basically laying out these CRUs you know, if this goes well,
then I'll ask you to do this if this goes well.
And then after that he basically we should make a record,
and then that started the wow about a decade straight

(23:04):
of working together. So you made a Gary's record, I
mean Gary's record shortly after that, which was I forget
the name of it, but it was with with Makoto
Zone and James Genis and Clarence.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Pan it was. It was great.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
And then he started some of this Generation's band, which
is some other younger musicians, and then we did another
few records. It was so impactful. I mean, Gary Burton
is is the maestro.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
How surreal were these more? I mean not only like
you know, doing a jazz festival and the Queen Elizabeth
too joining Gary Burne's band, and but then you know,
playing like you skipped over, but just being invited down
to Grammy's telecast at that age must have been insane.
And I saw an amazing clip of you at nine
oh playing Maggot Brain with Carlo. It was wild that

(23:50):
not only you're playing with Carlos Santana at that age,
but then you're playing Maggot Brain.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Yeah, like amazing.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
They're not like, you know, you're kind, I appreciate corny,
They're like good, You're like, whoa, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
I don't know. I don't I don't know the first
I don't know how any of this. I don't know,
but I I I have to say I sound so.
I mean, I feel silly saying this, but I'm saying
unless I do believe those were different times, and I
think there's a different version of it now. But the
Santana thing, my father worked at Fog City Diner in
San Francisco, and he had someone came in who is

(24:25):
using friends with and he said, I know Santana and
I heard your son's playing guitar. They're friends. My dad
said yeah, and he said, well he's Santana's playing at
the wherever in two weeks. You should just show up.
You know, they usually usually they get there by two pm.
That's all the information we had. So we got in
the car and we drove there and showed up at
two pm.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Were you worried that you're gonna bell.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
The funny thing about it this is would have been
when I was seven and we drove, we pull up,
go back, stay okay. This is also before nine to
eleven too. I mean there there's big cultural things. Were
just a little no, you really go Okay, that's where's
where's Carlos? He's in that room. Okay, So my parents
I knock on the door and he said, oh, you're
the kid I heard about. Come in and we sat

(25:06):
and we played. And that night he that was the
night where it was Jeff Beck and him, we're doing
this tour, but check this out. The best part of
that to me was he said, do you want to
play tonight? And my parents and I just kind of
intuitively you looked at each other. No, I didn't come
to I didn't come to play in front of twenty

(25:27):
thousand people. I came to meet the master. That that's
that's the point. Yeah, And he said, well, no worries,
we'll enjoy the show. And if you're we come here
every year, so when we come back, you should just
come again and bring guitar. So great. So, with no communication,
a year later, almost to the date, we drove up,
got there too, knocked on the door, you know, he said,
oh you Pat, you came. Do you have a guitar

(25:48):
this time?

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Okay, And then that's the video you saw.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
But so there and it was surreal. But also I
don't think I was in an environment that hyped anything up.
It also didn't push me down. And I've known people
who have that figure in their life who says, you know,
don't get too comfortable, kid, this is gonna you still
got to prepare. There was none of that good cop,
bad cop mind stuff. It was religious, just like I

(26:12):
don't know, just respond, be present and music at the
end of the day, as we all know, is a
healing force of the universe. It's it's the sub what
we're talking about is very generous, it's very loving, it's
very supportive, and it protects us. I believe that to myself.
But that's why I looked to I mean, these cats.
And as a young person I was, I was around

(26:32):
people who were talking about what was behind the door,
you know, being around Higgins, being around Billy Hart, being
around Charles Lloyd. I mean, it was I I knew
that it wasn't just it wasn't your hands moving it's
this other thing, and it's it's it's for for all
of us. It's not just for the for few, you know,
it's it's it's here to make us happy and healthier.

(26:53):
So I would say that's a backdrop that probably informs
all of this. So the Grammys, it is what it was, wonderful,
is fine. It got us here today, and that's kind
of all I can say.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
If you do all that when you're younger, does it
make you a little more fearless as an adult?

Speaker 2 (27:10):
I think it can. I think there's two ways you
can go. In my case, I think it it let
the air out of the tire in a good way
to say, you know, you can. There's varying degrees of success.
As you look at it, you see, you know, but
at the end of the day, if you're in a
room with people sharing in the same thing, you're all
kind of equals in that moment. And I think it
cut down on a lot of the intimidation of I

(27:32):
should I can't do that, or I can't play that venue,
I shouldn't be on the stage because I have no experience.
So I do think there's been that's carried me through
say you know, Hey, we're all. We're all just we're
just all kind of circulating in the same world. Now
I've seen it go the other way, where when you're
around at a young age, you feel like if you
do anything that's not the Grammys, that's not major, if
it doesn't garner a ton of attention, then you failed.

(27:56):
I don't believe that for myself, but I feel for
those who do, because that's you must feel like, Hey,
i was playing for twenty thousand people. Now I'm playing
for one hundred peop trying to get my band off
the ground, and no one cares because they don't know
theyn't heard it yet. That's that's a that's unsettling.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Yeah, yeah, but worth it. You know.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Another thing that strikes me is that guitar playing can
be really solitary pursuit, so very solitary, to the point
where you know it can be you cannot know how
to play with other people? Yeah as well, yes, did
were you playing with other people? Because I mean that's
something you do also very well? It was it a
thing of us keeping it to yourself and in your room,

(28:37):
but play.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
With I would look for every drummer in my community
who I knew was into jazz and play duets with them. Okay,
then all the bass players won't play duets with them.
Every gig I could get, playing restaurant gigs, play with
my teacher. My teacher, Randy Vincent was hugely influential my playing.
And Randy and I study with him from when I
was about eight years old, so I was about twelve,

(28:58):
so five years and I had two three hour lessons
a week for five years, and so right that was
just like sit down and a lot of that was
just playing duets. And as we know, playing duets is
it's the best training because it really is a conversation
and it's about supporting the other person, and you know,

(29:18):
can I can I be there for this person who
I revere in respect? It's it's it's it's kind of
terrifying but wonderful. So I do come from a tradition
of learning, which is very experiential. You play with people,
you find out what didn't work, you go home, you
take your vitamins, and you come back. You know, that's
kind of the deal. But I played so much with drummer.
I was always looking for that, like I understood that

(29:39):
I wanted to be a guitar player that was empathetic
to other instruments because just because I can do it
doesn't mean it's with the it's in the best interest
of the band, right and everybody else has to deal
with the same thing too. It's been somehow guitar education.
You have to kind of be reminded.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Extra the culture around it.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
There's a culture around it that is a little bit
of this top dog. Everyone caters to that, and we
all know that's not really the case, and the best
players do it do it all. You know. We were
talking about Richards earlier, and it's like Keith has that
thing where there's nothing more compelling than watching him and
hearing him play. And when you hear him play, everyone

(30:19):
else sounds better while he's playing, and that that's the
magic trick that I'm obsessed with. How do you lift
the band? That's what Duke Ellington was doing, That's what
count basically, that's what everyone's really doing to me.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Well, and I feel like, so on your new record
Speak to Me that I alluded to earlier, how great
it was. There's songs on there like Omission, Much of Us,
like Pure Groove. Yeah, it is almost Keith Richard's style,
and yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
I'm the rhythm guitar player for that track, and there's
a melody embedded, but it's but it's subliminal. It's it's
it's totally baked into the center. Yeah, that's a cool
example of that.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
How does that?

Speaker 2 (30:57):
How did you let me see if I play that's? Uh,

(31:32):
that's that's that's the sentiment, that's the whole tune. You know. Uh,
it's cool, It's it's really cool.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
It's really so, it feels really good.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
It feels really good. So I have an you know
that that I I humble pie on that one. I
I that was the a section of a longer song
and I'd written it in kind of a writing sprint.
I was writing all these tunes and you know, like
lots of dozens and dozens pencil and paper kind of SATs,
write one throat and then I and I I threw

(32:04):
it out because I it wasn't done. And then Joe Henry,
who produced the record. This is on the last day
of the recording, I was driving in the session with
Margaret and I was saying, you know, there was that
song that's not finished and it's probably a bad idea
for me to try to finish this song right now,
isn't it. And she was like, well, no, just you
kind of have you have other things on your plate.
You have to finish the record. I don't think you

(32:26):
need more. But and so I showed Joe when we
got there, and I said, well, here's the first part
and it needs the next part. And as you know,
from a place of such clarity and experienced, Joe said,
how about you don't finish it and you just loop that?
And I said, sure, you know, and and it was.

(32:46):
It was beautiful because I realized that, Yeah, I think,
at least to me, what I get excited about with
that song is the real drama reveals itself. Once you've
gone into this kind of tantric thing, it needs time
to get you kind of worked up. And had I
committed to my stipulation that no, I insist there's more
to be written, it just would have been a different drama,

(33:08):
you know, And I'm so glad it wasn't that. There's
also something very kinesthetically physically pleasing about playing a song
where you know, I'm not trying to play just a
single note. I can kind of throw my weight into
the rhythm yeah, and the strumming and the Richie Havens
ode he had all all things are and so yeah,

(33:30):
that but that that that's kind of song that. Yeah,
Jim Hall used to love Richie Havens. You would talk
about him a lot, you know. Oh yeah, because Jim
I can't do it, you know, Jim had the Yeah,
this guy, I wish I could do it like him,
and he'd do with a lighter pick and and uh,
but I would ask him about it. He's, oh, Richie Havens,

(33:50):
it's all it's all Richie, you know. Like of course, what.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Was Richie Havens was like an open eto I think
so it was.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Some sort of open tuning that he could, you know,
then access with his thumb right and and that. And
I don't know if I got the sense he used Well,
I shouldn't speculate. That's not my area. But I'm not
sure how he held the pick. But he was lighter
than this one, is my guess. But yeah, so that's
part of the joy of it, I guess.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
Did you have a second section in mind for that song?

Speaker 2 (34:17):
I did. I don't remember it now, probably because it
wasn't terribly I remember talking to John Zorn about that.
I was I was working on something just like like that.
I said, uh, well, he just I just I just
can't seem to recall it because it's not coming together.
And he was the one who gave me permission. He said,
you can you can say it's not good and just

(34:37):
drop it. You don't have to be a hero and
like make it work. Yes, yeah, And I said, in
a way that was so sweet, it wasn't you just
kind of don't make it about you not being good.
He's just I said, it's just not killing. Go do
something killing. And then okay, you know, fine, yes, sir.
Uh so yeah that but that song came out well
and it was nice because it also parlayed into the

(34:59):
band sounding great, amazing. He's so good and so anyway,
that's right, that's what.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
We're going for. You hook up with hojge.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
That's a cool thing, very you know, happenstance. But it's
at this point Jorge Rotter, who I just think is
the greatest in the world. You know, we've been playing
together sixteen years pretty consistently. And we met at Stanford
Jazz Workshop and I was teaching and he was visiting
a friend and we got put in a room a
coke closet, basically because Peter Burnstein was there that day

(35:33):
and we were all in a Peter you know, as
I still am, and they said, get rhythm, get everyone,
we're gonna play a session. And it was me and
our friend Ben Roseth, Jorgey and Peter and we just
hit it off. Played instead. That felt great, and uh
so we would play duets. We started a band. Then

(35:53):
Jorge joined Gary Burton's band, and then Jorge became part
of my trio. He was he was always a part
of it. He became part of this new configuration. And
then he became a part of Nell's Klein's band that
we did for Blueo that record do we record with Scott?
But then we went on tour with you with me? Yeah, no,
I was with it. It was an Nels kind four

(36:16):
and then Horre and I both kind of joined Zorn's
Worlds and then we became a part of the new
Masadic quartet. So and apart from us just being complete,
you know, completely connected, we've shared a lot of our
musical development together. There's no one else I've been through
so many projects with by my side, and uh it's
it's pretty remarkable.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
But you knew from the beginning. Then I knew from
the beginning the time.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Safe, you know, I think there's I think I think
safety is a big thing where you feel like you
can kind of go for something, you know that someone's
got your back. But also I think another part of
it with Hore is that we touched the string differently
but kind of similarly. We obviously him with a double
bass move the guitar, but there's a I do think
we share a similar belief that we deal with obstacles

(37:05):
kind of similarly. It's there there's kind of a the
only and I don't know, I could be wrong, but
I think we both see any kind of virtuosity as
a means towards emotional expression. So you it's like what
I'm saying about Boar, you developed these skills him on
the basis is unbelievably great, and yet you're never hit

(37:28):
with anything other than the emotional impact first and then
as addressed and go oh my god, and how did
he do that? But I think just that shared kind
of esthetic has kind of carried you know, you can
be daring, you can be amazing, can be virtuosis, you
can be fast, you can be you know, you can
be evil, and evil you can, but you always go
I think I love most about it is that he

(37:48):
will He'll always go for the attempt and he lands it,
but he'll he that that exhilaration is so seductive and
it's just and I'm not saying on fast music. It
can be on a ballad, but there's the sense that
we're gonna we're gonna jump off the cliff and I
don't know if the parachute's gonna open, And so it's
been nice to have that energy follows through all these pride.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Do you ever write with him with him?

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Not really, it's kind of understood that that's not our domain,
but I should say this, I do write with him
in the sense that I will write thirty songs, forty songs,
just a bunch of stuff, and then the first place
I go is to his house and we play them
all and we see how it hits us. And he's
a massive part of the music you hear because of that.

(38:31):
So he's a part of the editing, he's part of
the sequence of the records, he's a part of everything.
Jorge is integral and there are things we have definitely
co written, but I think it's I mean, all fairness,
anything we've ever recorded together in mine is the He
deserves credit for it sounding the way it is on
a compositional level, but it's usually not because we started together.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
One of the tunes on your new record that sounds
like virtuosic, if that's a word, but again, kind of
like Omissions has a great feel too. Is vanishing points?
Oh yeah, that's yeah, that's this one.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Listen, I'll say a little bit and then the theme
is fa that's the that's the architecture.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
After this last break. While the rest of Down was
and me in conversation with Julian Lage, here's the rest
of our conversation with Juliana.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
How do you even write something like that?

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Man?

Speaker 3 (41:12):
I don't even.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
I don't know. I'm trying to remember that one. To me,
that's such an ode to Carlo Blea. You know, it
kind of feels like a liberation music orchestra song. There's
something blunts about this parallel movement. It's almost it's like
it's it's it's so, it's just it's just so, I

(41:40):
don't know what it is normal in a way, it's not.
It's not terribly clever. It's just this sounds cool. Bam
bam bam bam bamp and and there's something about it
where I think it's juxtaposed with this very elegant, almost
kind of folklore sounding melody. And I think when I
say folklore, I think I think of it even as
reprids me certain Italian music's or in Jewish music's certain.

(42:03):
There's just that's whatever. That's my projection, and a tune
like that, it's very hard to stop writing, you know,
because for me, it's like, well, it's not in time,
there's not really a progression that we blow over. And
so that's a tune that, you know, I kept putting
at the bottom of the pile. I wouldn't really show

(42:24):
it anyone because I don't do what you tell anyone
to do on that, you know, I got, I seem
to have it covered and it does this thing emotionally
and I don't really have any more directive. So but
as I showed it to Dave King and Joe wrote
to my trio, they they were they they pointed out
what what I think is. Obviously, of course there's something
to do, you just I'm just not dictating their part

(42:45):
it's a very inviting tune. And uh but that parallel
motion fun. That's all that, you know. I just keep
coming back to Stravinsky and know all these things in
bar talk. There's these movements and how you use it
as everything.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
But did that just burst out of you in one
sitting or did you go a section at a time.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
I think I want to say that it was It
was kind of a combination of both. It was an
improvisation probably that I'm pretty fastidious about writing things on
a big piece of manuscript paper. And when doing and
doing that, you see these kind of the sections are

(43:25):
just laid out like a storyboard. And so I remember
with that one kind of moving them around a lot.
You know, is this the begin or do we save that?
Is this the first thing that happens? Is this the
first thing? So I just remember toilet like kind of
putting them in different orders until it got a trajectory.
But I improvise a lot and record and then transcribe it.

(43:46):
That's a big thing, you know, I will. And with
this record, I was, you know what I was really
on a side twombly kick. I was looking at a
lot of side twombly art as one of my father's
favorite artists, and I had this book of my father's
I was looking at it, and so I would spend
a lot of time looking at an image, improvising and
recording it and then going back and kind of seeing

(44:07):
if anything emerged that was There's a tune on the
record called two and one, So yeah, uh, that's that's

(44:39):
that's just that's an improvisation that I Okay, I write
it down, and and it's what's interesting to me is
that I don't think writing down makes it more significant.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
You know.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
You can write down a piece of garbage, you know too,
and you just go, oh, that was a lot of
work for nothing. But there is something noticeable in that tune,
and listening back with that, I that wouldn't have occurred
to me to pay something that way if I was
looking at a piece of paper, you know, and then
you write it down and it looked to me. I
looked at the chart the other day and it still
looks like something I never would have written. And that's

(45:12):
so cool, you know, But it takes time to say, no,
I'm going to write everything, and kind of how.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Long are you improvising before something like that comes out?

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Well, I suppose it depends that wasn't terribly long, you know,
not long, probably as long as it took to just
play and then stop, so a minute, you know, But
I improvise in those chunks a lot for that reason.
I believe that, you know. One of the great lessons
I learned was from alouding Matthew w A Matthew wonderful

(45:43):
composer who I studied with only once as a kid,
and he wrote a bunch of very important books, the
short version of stories that at an early age when
I studied with him, he encouraged me to improvise one
minute compositions a lot. Wow, and here's the quick version
of it, because it's quite expansive. But he would I

(46:03):
came to myself, I'm trying to develop my voice and
understand how to be a composer. And he said, well,
here's what you do, is you improvise a song. So
we're not just saying you're not just playing around, you're
trying to okay, at thirty seconds, you're at the middle
at forty five seconds a year near the end, he said,
I want you to do this with a timer and
a recorder. That was before I phone side now he said,

(46:25):
I want you to do ten of these a day
for a week and don't listen to them until the
week is up. And I sold anything else, he said, no,
just try to create a narrative. Create a narrative, and
do not listen to them. At the end of the week,
you have seventy minutes. It's like a stop you know,
it's like stop animation, or seventy minutes of you improvising compositionally.

(46:46):
And he said, I want you to listen to that
and basically make two lists. On one list, write down
everything you notice about it, and on the other side
of list everything you'd like to develop or further. And man,
the first time I did this, I think I saved
up twelve days worth or fourteen days. I had one
hundred and forty minutes of me playing solo guitar, which
was I never would have done at that time if

(47:07):
I hadn't done it one minute a time. What I
thought was cool about it was I heard trends, your
trends in your music. I was playing all these D
major chords and I playing all this country music. I
would I thought I was a beboffer.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Man.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
I don't know what I played all these like languid mail.
I mean, stuff that I didn't relate to, but it
didn't lie. I had, you know, here here I was.
And that that got me thinking that every time you improvise,
you are kind of stating your language. It's not like
I'm gonna wiggle around until something happens. You you you
are you so just kind of s and that that

(47:41):
I think that makes it so it's less of a
you just be yourself on record.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
How did you respond to that information? Was it.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
Country?

Speaker 2 (47:49):
So that's that started all my That kind of pushed
me into all the the stuff I was doing with
in my own music that was probably more Americana leaning.
I didn't feel as bad about using open strings. I
didn't feel all those tropes. I was just like, holy cow,
I'm this kid from California who grew up around this music.
Of course, of course that's what comes out. I just
was blind to. So I I endorsed it, you know,

(48:11):
I reinforced it. I wrote that way, and I started
a band around this old quintet. I started playing with
Chris Eldridge, start playing with Christely, So it was it
was good, you know, and that interesting. So anyways, so
all to say when you're in front, I think you know,
I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
It's probably did you have did you walk away? With songs?

Speaker 1 (48:30):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (48:31):
So many songs, so many songs. It's just a matter
of kind of picking him out. Well that's this thing,
or a lot of that. And I did another big
batch in that I did this for years, you know,
five years of the straight led to a solo record
I made called World's Fair and that was all improvisations
basically that I just like took out and then put
on wow, put up.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Do you still do whatever?

Speaker 2 (48:53):
I do it a lot less less systematically.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
You know.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
I wasn't feeling well recently for a little while, and
then I kind of got my strength back to play.
And all I do is I just in my room
and improvise these things. I record them and I just
it's great. It's it's really healing to do it. And
then I've and some songs are growing out of it already,
so it's kind of cool. You know.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
Comedy one more time?

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah, okay, ten, it's my favorite thing in the world.
You're going to set a time or let's just say
for ease, we'll say voice memo.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
You know app.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
You press start, you begin playing, and you begin playing
as if it's a song that you know, but you're
just playing it now, right, it's kind of make believe.
You want to keep your eye on the clock because
at about thirty seconds, this is your this is your
last exit, you know before you're so if you want
anything to change, you can do it there. At about
forty five to fifty seconds, you want to cought be

(49:48):
conscientiously trying to bring it in for landing. You don't
want the buzzer to go off and be startled. And
you would do this ten times a day, but not
one after another. So maybe you do it and you
go do something, come back to another, do it. You
are actively trying to get a snapshot, getting like your

(50:09):
blood work done. Musically, you're trying to get your labs done,
and you do, but you just don't open it up
till the end. And when you listen to it, you
put it in iTunes or something so you can listen
to it uninterrupted, and so you forget where the minutes
started and where it ended, and you do it on
shuffle things like that. Isn't that cool?

Speaker 3 (50:26):
If you pick up a different guitar there's a whole
other thing.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Absolutely, well, it's funny you say that. Don I feel
like my brain is between the electric world and the
acoustic world, and within that there's varieties. But the touch
is it's different between the two instruments, and I feel,
you know, I'm in I'm humbled that by the instrument.
I need to just play what the guitar sounds good doing.
Having said that, I tend to rotate only between a couple,

(50:54):
you know, mostly guitars that are in tune, so that
at least I have a pitch. You know, I don't
use I don't play much with effects or anything, but
I know that's another world that would probably be quite
stimulating if I just wanted to explore it.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
When you're at home and you pick up a guitar,
do you do you just pick one up instinctually, whether
it's acoustic or electric or do you often purpose sweet.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
Whichever one I can reach from my chair kind of
that's my instine. This one was out. This acoustic that
I'm holding was out. So I've been playing more. But
there there there was about a month where I was
too lazy to get my main telecaster that I play
all the time from the from the closet, and so
I was playing this other one and it's set up
very differently, and it was really inspiring to play that.
You know, I really really believe that so much education

(51:38):
about playing comes from the instrument. Not to say, just
for clarity sake, that you need an expensive guitar to
learn how to be a great player. But you know,
it's not about me bringing my skills to an instrument.
It's really about modifying them so that the instrument resonates.
I picked up a guitar last night. I never really
play lately. It was too far away from my reach,

(52:01):
as I said before, and Margaret was working in the
kitchen there and we were just thinking. I was so lovely,
and I like, okay. I got out this old tweed
champ I used to play religiously and now it just
sits next to the tree in the corners. I'm gonna play.
And I plugged it in and I sounded bad on it.
I just couldn't get a sound. Everything I played sounded
like I had, you know, boxing gloves on. I was
just kind of and then but over the course of

(52:23):
about thirty minutes it got bitter, and by the end
I was playing. It was such it sounded so good.
I'm telling you because I just chilled out. I touched
it the way the guitar wanted to be played and
not the way I wanted to play it, and I
just said, like, think thinks that was what a lesson
I put it down.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
And it's so interesting. That's the opposite sometimes, I mean,
guess going back to uh sort of the the lineage
you get into when you pick up a guitar, these
icons as I mean, the stories you hear is like
Hendrix getting beating the guitar and it's a submission, you know,
I never use and it's to left hand. It's right handed,
but he's left hand, and he's just gonna make it work,

(52:58):
you know. And it's like, but it's but this is
not wrong, it's just different. It's it's it's rather, it's
just a submission. It's I'm gonna meet it where it's
at that guitar.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Well, I that just happens to be my interest. I
don't think it's right for necessarily obviously I'm for everybody.
But but but but there's I think also just a
point of clarity too, because you make a great point.
It's not to count, you know, to to take myself
out of the equation and say, I'm just trying to
make the guitar sound great. I'm a big part of it,
but as far as the marriage of the two, so

(53:30):
you're not doing it from a place of I'm no
good And as long I just need to as long
as the guitar sounds good, it's going to be good.
I understand that it's just it's just a it's a
dialogue between the forces, that's all. And I need to
be present for what's coming back. And and uh, and
it's funny because we're talking about uh, you know, drummers,
bass players, piano players, so all these are instrumentalists who

(53:53):
play instruments that aren't their own a lot. This is
not a novel concept. You know that you that it's
not the I remember I was. I was starting to
do this on these some of these shows with Zorn
where we fly into someplace for a day and then
fly home and can't bring all the equipment, so I
just use backline guitars, acoustic electric, it doesn't really matter.
And I remember doing it and it was so liberating
because I started to notice that you don't need you

(54:17):
don't need a great instrument to leave space, you don't,
you know. And if my main contribution in these bands
is what I don't play, and then it doesn't have
to be my guitar. So all these things are. I
just want to keep coming back to that just for myself,
as it's always in service of what the musical act is,
and it's it's really it doesn't none of it really matters.

(54:39):
You just want to be present, but from a guitar
playing point of view, from just being getting better at
and I like rotating just so I don't get too comfortable.
If I feel really good on one, I will pick
up another to see if if my skills translate, you know,
or if it was just because of that one that
those strings are just perfectly dead and that's why it sounds.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
Good, you know. Will you switch positions from night to night? Yes,
on the same song, Oh completely.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
I'm kind of into like any melody, I don't know
how to exemplify it, but I'm a believer of If
I seen my left hand down here a lot on
this song one night, the next night, I want to
see it up here more. And then I want to
see it in the middle and just because you don't
get me into more problems that I can get out
of them. And there's a little bit of a masochistic element,

(55:22):
you know.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
Don't be too comfortable when you were showing us all
the different seeds. Oh yes, yeah, yeah, so on my
bass anyway, they all have different personalities a.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
Thousand percent there they are, they are you, they're there,
and then within that you have where you wear on
the string. At least my keys on the right hand,
I play it, you know, I notice a difference between
and then if I move my hand towards the Fredbourg
and then as volume goes down. That's my favorite is

(55:54):
what happens when you get quiet enough is so in
some way it got louder because we all listened, you know,
but I played quieter, and to play quieter the big
a big thing for me with shifting of tambers has
a lot to do with velocity.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
You know.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
If you want something louder, you play it you you
move through the string faster. If you want to play
it quieter, you move through slower. We're talking incrementally, but
that modulation of playing a fast line but moving through
the strings slowly, that's when you get these kind of
things that are kind of ephemeral, and they just I'm
that very different than I'm actually moving. Quite the temp

(56:35):
of the lines the same, but I'm moving way faster
through it, and I'm and so that those interplays I'm
obsessed with with string instruments, and in the fact that, oh,
this allows me to say by biggest pet peeve, which
is that I feel like there's sometimes there's sometimes a belief,
especially in guitar pedagogy, that the string should sound the same.

(56:57):
They should you should have evenness.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
Right.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
There's a time my life where I hunted that down.
I want everything to be even so you don't, and
and I increasingly I just love that they are not
the same. No two notes are the same. We were
playing in but I loub Leana in Europe with John's
Orange Band. This is like a month ago and like, okay,
we have an hour and seventy five minutes set. First

(57:20):
song by high e string just pops off, say okay, great,
And I'm sitting there and I know no one else
noticed it, and I know no one else really cares too,
and it was so I'm going to play a five
string set. This is great. I've always wanted to, you know.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
And it was so.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Slamming because without this, the e the duplicate and now
they're hardly duplicate since they're two actors apart. But it
just was I just loved it, and it forced me
in all these other areas and Tamberley, I didn't have
access to that thing, that kind of crisp thing, so
you're you know, and I just I don't know.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
So I didn't get in trouble at any point through
the night or no, Nope, I was fine.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
I got out five. If you asked me to do
it again, I would be screwed because I kind of
figured out some ways and.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
Then I I just that was it.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
But but yeah, tambour on an instrument is beautiful on
the guitar especially, and I think the bass too. That's
something is very cognizan enough. He can deal with, especially
with walking lines and different registers, and when the song
needs it, he'll go, you know, things will get intense
and he'll move higher, but on the low strings so
that there's room for me to kind of thunder around

(58:30):
in the basement so to speak, you know, and then
we'll switch places. But what strings you play things on,
that's everything. On the guitar for me.

Speaker 3 (58:38):
Yeah, we were talking before we started this, and then
I cut it off because I wanted to talk about it.
And it kind of ties in the same thing. We're
talking about abandonment of set lists. Yes, let's talk about
as a gig with Joey.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
Well, you did this, we were on This was not
terribly long ago, three months ago, four months ago. The
band was myself and Horaey wrote and Joey Barron, the greatest,
you know drummer. We just I have such love and
respect for Joey and I always have and so to
play together is a real dream, you know. And so
Jorge and I know our whole repertoire. We know all
the songs, and we're cognizant that to bring Joey into

(59:18):
the fold, we're not gonna send him a Okay, here's
a binder, learn all this stuff and do what No, no, no,
we'll come in to you. We'll meet in the middle.
And so my first thought was, Okay, we'll play standards,
we'll play blue well, things that he knows. But as
we got to the sound check part of the day
and we're playing, I'm realizing that Joey is so present
and everything. Hoy and I start to play. I like, well,

(59:40):
maybe we could show him this. Within ten seconds, he's
playing what I would consider the perfect part to it,
and he said, Joey, had you know to Dooley said,
I don't, I'm just listening. I'm just listening to you.
I thought, okay, we're in the deep end. We got
to really savor this. So I said, well, okay, I'll
write up a set list. And this is the only
time the whole day. Joey says, well, can I can
I just say something?

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Of course, Joey, what do you He says, would you
be a verse to no set list? And I said,
well it's no, it would would no. I've always kind
of wanted that to do that, but I'm afraid. And
he said, well, just let's just see what happens. Right,
So we go out on stage and I'm for the
only time in reason so I remember shake being shaky,

(01:00:23):
you know, I was like a backed room in Portland, Oregon,
and I was just like, oh no, and okay, I said,
I would do it. I'm gonna do it. And so
we go out and I I just really listened to
the room. Okay, where are we And it kind of
went against everything that I would typically do, but I said,
we're gonna play You and the Night in the music
kind of fast, which I would never go to that. Okay,

(01:00:43):
we do Joey, I mean, okay, kill her next song.
I'm gonna start this old one I haven't played in
fifteen years. But I know Hojoor knows it bam cool.
And though I was still scared the whole time, when
it was all over, I felt this relief of I
think that was one of the most honest things I
could have offered and that we could have offered. And
it also leveled the playing field in a way where

(01:01:04):
it wasn't like we know my tunes, you're sitting it
what it was. We have a life of music. We
can respond. It's going to be cool. And I haven't
looked back since every show did we just did a
whole tour, whole European too, a different set every night,
and with now with Dave and Horey don I love it.
I love it. You just start playing, you just are

(01:01:26):
playing it. Also, I think it also invites a real
consideration of tempos, not like I said, I would play
the song third, so I'm going to play it, but like,
where's the room at? Where's my energy at with this?
And I think that's a really important thing to consider
because you have to occupy that space for the next five, ten, fifty,
well whatever long your song is. I felt so much

(01:01:48):
happier every night. I felt so much more ease, less strenuous.
I wasn't trying to shove something into you know. So anyway,
it got me thinking differently. But I think it holds
hands with the music I like to play to begin with.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Do you start thinking about what the next song will
be before you and the other one?

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
I think it does occur that hey, this is we're
here and this something will pop into my mind, But
I'm not I don't hold to it too tightly.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
There was a couple of times right yeah, middle of
the song, Oh, I know exactly what's gonna come next,
and then the song ends and you hear the plause
and you look around and go, I was wrong, got it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
That's one of my favorite things about seeing Neil Young
is the same thing. No set list, and so I
was like, what's the first song going to be? And
sometimes it's like a twenty minute version of like an
inca and like half the eye its disappears.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
That's where he's at. You know, we were done. I
was speaking to that very point, like I would imagine
Neil Young is Neil Young. You're going to get a
hit of him on that day, and that's the that's
the gift, that's a great gift. We were speaking earlier
about this the time. I've been playing with Joe Lovano
recently and we were talking a lot about I guess

(01:02:59):
you would call har melodics is a way to say
it from Ornette's world or at Coleman's world. But here's
the distillation is that at any given moment as players,
we have access to all tempos. You play faster, you
play slower, you have access to all keys depends no
matter what the key of the song is. But there
there are these matrixes where you can I think all

(01:03:19):
my favorite improvisers, someone like Paul Blay can kind of
slip between these dimensions. You know, Keith can do that
key chair obviously, Ornett, Don Cherry Charlie can do that.
And I think I'm at a place in my own
development where I'm just fascinated by what is actually the song. Okay,
we're in the song, but within that I have freedom
and I want to exhibit that and I want to

(01:03:41):
challenge it and I don't and end it's I learn
a lot doing that. So you can kind of start,
you can kind of drop what you're saying before. We
can drop the needle anywhere. But once you're in, you're
in the good stuff. Don't worry. You know it's going
to be you're, you're, you're, you're off. There's an offering
at play. There's an offering at play always.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
If you're open to it. Would you pay something?

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
I was thinking about this, Yeah, I'll play uh, I'll
play you Northern Shuffle. It's gonna ask okay, all I
can keep it short to I don't know how Okay,
right here we go then.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
But the last three.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
But they be the mover, I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:06:27):
It's past and bird back.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
The h.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
Whoa.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
That's a real different version of that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
It's different.

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
What's amazing that that lick you do, that's like on
the record, it sounds almost like a like a Markaball
and t Rex.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
That's the choice.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
Like I don't know that anybody.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
Else but you would make.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
But it sounds so amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
It's so you have such a distinctive character and personality.
It's it's unmistakable, man, like you could hear in that
this is as good as like a d N A test,
And that's that's the highest praise I could offer somebody. Man,
you know, it's it's unlike anybody else. I understand that

(01:10:30):
you listen to stuff and understand the fundamentals of the instrument,
but you take it someplace where no one else goes
and and it's just it's thrilling. Man, it's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
That means so much to me.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
Thank you, Thank you both really sort of laughing listening
to that too, because a couple of days before I
came out here, I was listening to listening to you
play solo acoustic on something and I usually play acoustic
just in my office and myself, and it was I
My kids popped and they're like, we thought you.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
One day.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
That's so cute.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
Thank you, Julian, Hey, thank you Hey.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
It's a pleasure to be thank you, thank.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
You, thank you, thank you label the club, Yeah, Don Yeah,
thanks to Julian Lodge for letting Don and I share
the stage with him at the Blue Note in New
York and while we're at it, thanks so much to
the Blue Note for having us. You can hear Julian's
new album and Speak to Me, along with our other

(01:11:33):
favorite songs from Julian on a playlist at broken record
podcast dot com or in this episode description. You can
also watch the whole video of this interview and other
recent episodes at YouTube dot com, slash Broken Record podcast,
and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the
Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at
broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose,

(01:11:56):
with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our
engineer is Ben Tolladay. Broken Record is a production of
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(01:12:18):
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Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.