John Abercrombie JazzHeaven.com Interview

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John Abercrombie InterviewFalk Willis from JazzHeaven.com interviews Guitar Legend John Abercrombie

Falk: Hello everybody! It’s my pleasure and honor to have John Abercrombie here on the line with us. Welcome John!

John: Thank you, it’s good to be here.

Falk: So, let’s get right to it.Can you give us a little background of how you got to pick the guitar and your musical upbringing?

John: Oh well, the guitar has always been an incredibly popular instrument, even when I was a kid. So what really drew me to the guitar was 50's rock and roll. When I was about 13 years old or so I would listen to the kind of music that all teenagers would listen to: Chuck Berry and Fats Domino and Elvis Presley, and all the music that was popular at that time. And, of course, everything had guitar.Guitar has always been a pretty major instrument in all music, especially rock music. So that was what first attracted me to the guitar. And I think from hearing somebody like Chuck Berry, I started to copy some of his things and learned some of his songs by ear.And then a friend of mine played me some jazz guitar. He played me Barney Kessel, which was the first jazz guitar player I ever heard on record or anywhere. And I heard a real connection between the music I was listening to, like Chuck Berry, and Barney Kessel, because Barney was a very bluesy, soulful player. So it wasn’t very hard for me to go from listening to Chuck Berry to Barney Kessel. I just realized that what Barney was doing was a lot more sophisticated and required a lot more knowledge, so I was immediately attracted to it. And I think that was the turning point. When I heard Barney Kessel, I said “I wanna learn jazz guitar”. And I just went from there.

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In those days, it was very difficult to find someone to study with because there wasn’t that much interest in jazz. We really didn’t have schools like you have now. The only school that existed was Berklee, and I found out about it and sent an application and got accepted because they accepted just about everybody.There really wasn’t a requirement. You didn’t have to audition. You just had to have the money, which was very inexpensive at the time.

Falk: How old were you when you picked up the guitar in the first place?

John: I was probably around 12 or 13, in my early teens.

Falk: And then you switched to jazz when you were how old?

John: Well, I started to get interested in jazz when I was about maybe 15, 16 years old, and I took some lessons privately with teachers around my hometown. And I was fortunate enough to have a couple of guys who liked jazz guitar. They didn’t really teach it that much, but they knew a little bit about it, and they knew some chord voicings and some little tunes. I learned how to play Tenderly and Misty. Those are the first two songs I ever learned. And I learned them just note and chord. I just memorized them. The teacher would show them to me, and I memorized them. And after that I realized I wanted to learn more about this kind of music. So I applied to Berklee, and went to there when I was about 17. Directly from High School, and right to Berklee.

Falk: Wow, very young!

John: Yeah, 1962. So I was either almost 17 or I had just turned 17. So I went to music school, and began to study there with a wonderful teacher named Jack Peterson who is still alive and living in Arizona now. But he started the guitar program at Berklee, and he went to North Texas State and started a program there and then he went to Florida and started one there. So he was really one of the first guys to start making the guitar a more legitimate instrument in schools. I went to Berklee in 1962, mostly because it was the only school you could go to, and study guitar. The major music schools, like Juilliard and Mannes, didn’t even accept guitar, not even classical guitar. It was an instrument that nobody wanted anything to do with. But Berklee did, because it was involved in Jazz, and only Jazz at that time. So it was really my only choice. I went to Berklee, and I was really glad I did because it was a very small school, maybe 200 students at that time, and I had a great guitar teacher. I had wonderful instructors. And because it was very small, you had contact with everyone. You could speak to all the teachers, you knew all the other students,



everybody was on a first name basis. It was just a very intimate setting. So that’s where I started to really get interested in, and learn more about what this music was about. And that’s when I realized how hard it was, too. I mean, I realized it wasn’t like playing Chuck Berry. It took a lot more study. So I just threw myself into it and began to learn and I also played with a lot of local musicians. I think that’s always the big part of playing any music. It’s actually doing it. You can study it, but when you really do it, then it's different. It becomes more real to you, and I think that was the turning point for me. Hearing Barney Kessel, going to Berklee, and studying with these wonderful instructors and then I just went from there. When I outgrew Boston, I had to either come to New York or stay in Boston. So I decided to come to New York. This was the late 60s… I had met Michael and Randy Brecker when I was working in Boston. They heard me play and they invited me to come down to New York and audition for a band called Dreams which was sort of a jazz rock fusion band, very much like Blood, Sweat & Tears, but more adventurous. So I went to New York and I got the gig and for a while I was commuting between Boston and New York. I would stay in New York and play with them and then I began to meet more musicians there. And in 1970 I received an offer to go and join Chico Hamilton’s band, and he had a steady gig in New York at that time, which was very unusual. He had four or five nights a week in a club on Park Avenue. And the gig afforded me enough money to be able to actually move to New York. So I moved with my girlfriend at the time, and we moved into the Lower East Side of Manhattan. And then I became a New York musician. I never went back to Boston. From there I just started meeting different people. It was the early 70s and I did a lot of recordings. I would call them bad fusion recordings. None of them were particularly great. It was just that there was a lot of work at that time for somebody that could play some jazz and could use a wah-wah pedal and a fuzztone. So I found myself in the studios all the time, recording with all kinds of people. Once I did that I was becoming established as a pseudo jazz or jazz rock player. And then in the early 70s, around 73 or so, I met the ECM people. I met Manfred Eicher from ECM. A that time I was playing with Jack DeJohnette’s band, and Dave Holland a little bit. Manfred asked me to record, so I did a recording that came out in 1974 called Timeless with Jack DeJohnette and Jan Hammer playing keyboards, and mostly Hammond organ. That was another turning point because then I began to become a leader and I started to write music a little more, and develop a different stage in my career. I wasn’t working for somebody else all the time now. I became known as a guitar player who writes songs and has a concept. I think that was one of the big turning points, meeting with ECM, because it established me, my own personality, more.



Falk: And for how many years, before that, had you been a sideman, so to speak, mostly?

John: I’ve been a sideman since I went to Berklee in 1962. So from about 1965 or so, I was a sideman. I played in organ trios. My first real jazz gig was with an organist named Johnny Hammond Smith. He used Hammond as his middle name. There was a very popular jazz guitarist, Johnny Smith, and of course there was the great organist, Jimmy Smith, and Johnny didn’t want to be confused with these people, so he gave himself a middle name of the organ, Hammond. So that was actually my first real jazz gig where I actually had to go to a club and play every night. And I went from there directly to playing with Mike and Randy Brecker and this band Dreams, which was a very large jump, because the Organ Trio was pretty much straight ahead blues and standard tunes. And with the Breckers, it was jazz rock fusion. I mean there were no standard tunes, and it was, well, not bad music. It was quite a change; very shocking. But it was the kind of music people were playing at the time and it actually got me into the New York scene a little bit more. And then from there I met with Billy Cobham’s band later in the early 70s, which also had Mike and Randy Brecker in it, but it was Billy’s band. So I did that kind of music probably for about five years. And then I hooked up with Jack DeJohnette, and I met Manfred Eicher and then my music started to change. What I wanted to play changed. I started to come back more into the tradition a little bit. I began to play some more abstract things, too, with Jack DeJohnette and Dave Holland. We had a cooperative trio called Gateway which was…

Falk: …amazing. (laughs)

John: Pretty strange, you know. Very far out group, especially for that time. I mean it sounded like nothing else. I’ve had a lot of changes in how I play. And I find the older I get, I actually go even more into the tradition. Not just playing standard tunes, but, I mean, that’s how I learned. And I still know a lot of standard songs. When I practice, that’s what I practice. I practice improvising over standard forms because I find that that for me that's the thing that will never change. That’s the basic foundation for everything I hear. So in a capsule, that kind of covers exactly what I do.

Falk: Very interesting.

John: That’s what I’ve been working on.

Falk: So, with ECM, that’s well over 30 years now then.



John: Yeah, that’s quite incredible, if you think about it. And that also has to do with ECM and Manfred Eicher, because, they are very loyal people… and when they like your music, you just keep recording for them. I mean they don’t ever let somebody go, usually. People will leave and go elsewhere. But I think most musicians, like myself, and Jan Garbarek and, obviously, Keith Jarrett, and the people that have started recording for Manfred very early on are still with him. So I think that really says something about the connection to Manfred and the ECM Label. It’s sort of a family. We don’t hang out together, but... I think loyalty is a good word. It’s a certain loyalty and trust that develops, recording for somebody that long. So, I think it’s a great situation. I mean, otherwise, I would be changing labels every year. And I know a lot of people who do that, and now a lot of people are doing their own recordings, and have their own little companies. But I would always stay with ECM because I think it’s the best deal around. I mean, you get beautiful recordings, a lot of attention to detail. You get great artwork, and you get great distribution. And you’re able to do music that’s not normal. You don’t have to play standard songs or fit into a certain kind of a format. You’re encouraged to write your own music and experiment.

Falk: And did Manfred Eicher have any real say in what the record’s gonna be like or it’s basically, he trusts you, and you do whatever you wanna do?

John: You don’t do everything you wanna do. I mean, you do, but it’s also, he is a producer, so he’ll hear things and try to make suggestions and guide you maybe in certain directions. And sometimes you agree, and sometimes, you disagree, like with any producer. So you do have a lot of freedom, but he also has things he likes and dislikes. He doesn’t want me to play a lot of traditional stuff. He knows I can do it, but that’s not what he wants on the label. So in that sense, that encouraged me to write my own music. So when I recorded for Manfred, I wouldn’t wanna just go in and play “Stella by Starlight”, although I’ve done it. I’ve recorded a live album with Marc Johnson and Peter Erskine, where we did “Stella by Starlight” and “Beautiful Love” and “Alice in Wonderland” and….

Falk: I own it. It’s great.

John: Yeah, and so he’s probably accepting of that side of me. But that’s not what I wanna present totally, when I record. So I think I’m in pretty good agreement with Manfred most of the time.

Falk: It’s kind of a segue, this long, consistent thing with ECM, that also strikes me with your bands. You seem to be one of the few people that keeps the same group of musicians together for long periods of time. And you do it



with various groups, one after another. Can you talk about that a little bit, how that’s important and how that matters to you?

John: Well, it’s important to me because I think, obviously, if a band stays together... You know, if you go back into the 1950s or 60s. I mean, especially the bands I used to hear. Miles Davis' band or Bill Evans' Trio, or John Coltrane's Quartet. Sometimes people would change in the band, of course, but the band would remain kind of the same and you really have a chance to develop something. If you’re always playing with different people and doing special projects, which is very interesting sometimes, it can be fantastic… but it also doesn’t give you a chance to develop a real rapport and a band sound, and develop a certain kind of music. And I always like to keep bands together as long as I can. My first band was a quartet with a great pianist, Richie Beirach, wonderful bassist, George Mraz, and a drummer who is in California now, Peter Donald. And we did three Vinyl Records for ECM. I think only one is available on CD. And that band stayed together for about four or five years. And then I changed and had a trio with Peter Erskine and Marc Johnson, which did, I think, four albums for ECM. And that stayed together for about five or six years. And then I had an organ trio with Adam Nussbaum and Dan Wall, which did four albums for ECM. And that stayed together. It seems like there’s a pattern developing, you know. I keep bands for about between four to six years. And then sometimes I think it’s time to not end the band, but maybe start something new. And if you can keep the old band going for some things, it’s nice. My current band is with Mark Feldman and Joey Baron, and Marc Johnson. And that’s been together for about five or six years now, so….

Falk: So it’s about time… (laughs)

John: It’s getting close to that time. But I think we plan to do one more recording in the fall, sometime. And then it would probably be time to look for a new band. (laughs) But I would still like to keep that band, you know. I mean, if the band did well and everybody still wants to play, then there’s always an opportunity to work with that band, and play concerts and clubs. Because that’s what I like to do, to have options, if I can. Because sometimes if I play with the band with Mark Feldman, it’s a not a free band at all, but it’s a pretty loosely structured band, and we play mostly my music. And if I play with Adam Nussbaum and an organ player, we would tend to play things that would be not straight ahead, but it could be a little more in the tradition. So I find that I need to do all these things to be satisfied. I need to play very experimental music. I need to play very traditional music. I need to play my own songs. I have all these needs. I couldn’t just do one thing. I think most musicians I know are kind of like that. Most of the



people you would associate with me, like Scofield or Metheny, or these people. They’re always doing different things. If you look at John Scofield, he’ll go and play in trio with Bill Stewart and Steve Swallow, which has been going on for many years now. But he also has his jam bands. So I think we all try and keep as many things going as we can, because it makes it easier to work if you present different things sometimes. And we all have these needs to play different kinds of music from a little more traditional, to off the wall, to whatever. It’s just the thing we have. I think that’s more indicative of a player of my generation, and a little bit younger. I think the older players tended to play one way for their whole lives. Once they reached a certain level, they just always played in these kind of bands, they didn’t try different things. But at that time, I don’t think there was a lot of mixing up of music. Jazz was pretty much jazz, and rock was something you did to make money. But nowadays the music is so mixed, it’s so eclectic. And I think we are all a part of that generation that wants to be eclectic… that likes to do different things. And I think that’s important.

Falk: And obviously you manage to keep some of the very, very best musicians on this planet together for long times. So that’s impressive. They are all very busy.

John: Yeah, well, I think people like to have a band that they feel they belong to for sometime. Because there's a certain kind of security on that. Not financial by any means, but there’s a certain musical comfort in knowing the music and knowing the musicians. So if I go out and play with one of my bands, like my Organ Trio or the Quartet with Mark Feldman, even if we don’t play for six months or a year, we can just arrive at the venue and tune up, play a few songs and we start right where we left off. There’s a familiar feeling amongst musicians and the music, so that you can get right into it.

Falk: Any thoughts on your next project, what that’s gonna be?

John: The next one, I think, will be one more version of the Violin Quartet. We may be changing bass players because Marc Johnson is incredibly busy working with his wife, Eliane Elias. And they’re working all the time, and we spoke and decided that maybe the best thing would be for me to find another bassist to fill that place in my band, which is very difficult because Marc is just absolutely one of a kind. But I have somebody already lined up. So that’s that… I’m just gonna continue and probably, gonna do another project like that. And I do have some ideas for future projects. I wanted to do a project that’s been on my mind for quite a while, with Steve Swallow and a wonderful drummer, Pete La Roca, who doesn’t play that much anymore. But these guys were part of a band that I used to listen to



as a kid. Art Farmer had a wonderful quartet with Steve Swallow, Jim Hall and Pete La Roca. And they did about three records that I’m familiar with. And I used to see that band actually quite a bit live because they stayed together for quite a while. And they used to play in Boston when I was a kid, so I got to hear them play. So my idea for one project would be to get Steve and Pete La Roca. I’ve already spoken to them and they’re totally into doing it. And then probably use a really good trumpet player, like Kenny Wheeler. Somebody that I feel comfortable with. And just write some very nice, simple songs, and make it sort of a tribute to that band and that time of music. Because there was a quality in that band that I find missing in a lot of music now. There was an interplay and a sense of playing together that I thought was very special. Some of the bands had that, when I was listening to bands as a young musician, and I think musicians have lost a little bit of that. They don’t play the same way anymore. They are more like amazing soloists now. But sometimes they don’t get that same kind of feeling of group playing. That’s important to me, so I wanted to make a tribute to that at some point.

Falk: Interesting. And your interest in changing styles and how your playing evolved, how did that come about? Who were your first influences? Did you sound like certain people in the very beginning? And how did you end up developing your own thing?

John: I suppose I did sound somewhat like other people in the beginning but it probably was a little bit of everybody. I loved Wes Montgomery, I loved Jim Hall, those two mainly. But also, when I was young, I heard George Benson and Pat Martino play, with organ bands. And, of course, I was playing with an organ band, so I was very influenced by their playing. So I think I tried for some years to play like everybody. I wanted to imitate Pat Martino or George Benson, but it was too hard, you know. And also, it didn’t feel right. So I think, at a certain point, I just started to play the way I play. It was just a coming together of a lot of different influences. And I was always encouraged to play what I heard. Not always be thinking about the technique of what I play, but trying to FEEL the music and play what I heard and felt and develop an approach to play. Not necessarily a style, but an approach. And I think that’s what I eventually did. I have a way I play now. I mean, people say “How did you find your voice?” And I say “Well, I don’t know if I found my voice, but I did find a way to play.” I found an approach to improvising that works for me, and it’s very hard to describe. It’s just using everything anyone else uses. It’s the knowledge of theory and harmony and how things sound. Being able to pick and choose good notes, trying to create a sort of a statement when you play, instead of just playing a bunch of scales. But yet, I know all the scales, too. I know what the theory is, but the theory is only theory. When you really hear



someone play, then you’re hearing music. So that’s what I’ve always tried to do. I play off the top of my head a lot. I try to listen and follow my ideas logically, so I can develop ideas and not just play a string of scales over chords. Because to me, it’s something you have to know, but you have to know how to use it. So I’ve always played a lot by ear and intuition and instinct. When you put all those things together, you arrive at a way to play. And I think that’s what I’ve finally come to. And I’m always trying to change that. I’m always thinking about how I can play differently, how I can play better.

Falk: And what are you listening to now? What’s inspiring you, that you hear and go “that’s an interesting direction that I would like to incorporate into my thing”?

John: I don’t really hear it quite like that. I listen to less music now than I ever did. I actually spend more time just practicing and not listening to too many people. But I do some teaching and I learn some things just by listening to my students play. And they also play me things. They will bring in their iPod, and they’ll have all these different musicians on there. So I get to hear a lot, especially guitar players. Yesterday my student played me something by Jonathan Kreisberg and something by another guy, I can’t remember his name. He’s a young guy who just graduated from the New School. I can’t remember his name, it’s kind of a funny name like something that would be very hard to remember. I think he was Israeli. So I’ll hear these guys play and that will influence me. But I don’t go out and buy their records and sit down and copy anything. I just hear a sound. For example, I like Kurt Rosenwinkel. Most of the time, I think he’s a really tremendous player. But not only a player. I think his playing and his writing seem so connected. I find him to be the most interesting of a lot of the new guys because he seems like he really has an idea, a complete idea, about how to make music. He writes songs, and his improvisations seem like they are coming from the songs. They are very related. So he’s actually been the guy I’ve listened to a little bit more in the last couple of years. But I don’t have any of his records. But I do I enjoy listening to him. Something about his concept would be interesting to incorporate. You know, I’ve already gotten influenced by his writing. But I don’t really sit around and listen and try to translate or transcribe things. Well, I never did really very much.

Falk: Interesting. And do you have any interest in playing with other guitar players?

John: I like to do it. I don’t do it very much, though. I play with some friends sometimes, but I don’t have any particular interest in playing with another



guitar player. I’m not against it, but it wouldn’t be my first choice. I’d rather play with just a trio or a quartet. I like playing with organ very much. I think most guitar players do, because the sound of the guitar and the organ together kind of complement each other, much more than maybe guitar and piano. So I always like to play with good organ players. And maybe if someone played electric piano, that could be interesting some time.

Falk: Quickly back to the whole practice thing. So if you had l an hour or two and would practice, what’s the regimen or the structure of what would you devote your time to?

John: Well, I think, at this point there’s not as much structure like you would view structure. It’s more just pick up the guitar and I sit down and I start to play. And I play things that I’ve played before, and I might work on phrases. That would be my main approach. I might play a phrase that I played a million times, and I’ll play it a hundred more times. And I’ll sit down and play this phrase, and then maybe I’ll come up with a new phrase. And so I’ll take that phrase and I’ll isolate it and I’ll play it. I’ll play it in different keys. I’ll transpose it. I’ll change some notes in it. I might devote part of my practicing to trying to find some interesting voice leading of chords. I might practice playing over a standard song a little bit, and make it like it was live. Keep the tempo in my head and start to play. And then the other part of my practicing is usually not really practicing the guitar, but writing. I’ll actually try to come up with some ideas and write three to four bars or eight bars of music. So it’s usually practicing phrases, maybe improvising over a tune that I already know. And some of it’s technical, some of it I might actually just be to try to play really fast, or something. I might just say “Okay, now I’m gonna play some really fast lines.” And I would just practice playing until they sound really good to me. But I don’t sit down and really just practice scales or patterns particularly. I just try to play things that I know and things that are more personal to me. I don’t open a book. I don’t usually read what I practice. I don’t read a series of exercises or I don’t have a book of transcribed solos or patterns. I don’t really wanna do that. I think I have enough vocabulary now that I can just play what I play and try and develop that and just do it better. Make it more interesting, and make it more clear what I’m playing. Clarity is really important to me. Everything I play, I want it to be clear to me. Because I think if you’re really clear with yourself, then you communicate that to an audience. And then your job is done, if you can really communicate what you’re doing. If they don’t get it then, it’s not your fault. Like Charlie Parker said, you have to please yourself. And then, hopefully, people along the way get pleased also. But my main objective is to please myself and to respond to the other musicians I’m playing with. So they feel I’m playing



with them, and I feel I want them to play with me. I don’t want to feel like I’m just a soloist in front of a band.

Falk: Right. I mean that’s something that I think is so characteristic for you, that you are not just a soloist guy but you obviously have a much larger conception than that.

John: Yeah. I think for all of the players that I really listen to. I mean they could be good soloists. They all were amazing soloists, but I think they all played within a band. I always got that feeling from the music I heard when I was a student in the 60s. And I listened to so much music then. I listened to recordings and I had the opportunity in Boston to go to a club called The Jazz Workshop and listen to music for free, because the people knew me, because I worked in another club that wasn’t connected to the jazz club. So I could walk in and hear Thelonious Monk or Coltrane or Bill Evans or Wes Montgomery, or anybody I wanted to hear. And I didn’t have to pay any money. It was a great learning experience. So I think, the people I listened to back then formed my ideas.

Falk: How important is your equipment to you? If you lost all your stuff while traveling and you came to the club and there is a guitar and an amp, could you still get the John Abercrombie tone and sound?

John: Well, it wouldn’t be what you are used to hearing on recordings, and it wouldn’t be what I like. But, yeah, I’m sure if I had time to set up the guitar and put strings on that felt comfortable and play with the amp for a while, I could play. And you could still hear me, but it wouldn’t sound exactly the same. I think that would happen with any of us, because we all rely a bit on our own guitars or maybe some piece of equipment that helps us get a sound. In my case, I have a very small multi-effects unit, that’s no longer made anymore, but it was made by Boss. It’s called an SE-50, and it’s just a little half-rack space box that has chorus, delay, reverb and it's got a bunch of other stuff that I don’t use, like compression and distortion and what-have-you, and I don’t use that. But that box is very important to me. I'd love to have that because then I could get the reverb that I’m used to. And that’s the most important thing to me, to have some kind of reverb. And I like to play through two amplifiers when it’s possible. I like to have a stereo set up which has become pretty common over the years. A lot of guitar players like to play through two amps, it just makes the sound more wide. It’s just a nicer sound. It's actually more natural to play through two amps. I think Allan Holdsworth said one time, “We hear with both ears you know.” And that’s absolutely true, we hear in stereo. We hear things coming from the left and the right. So when you’re playing, if you hear from the left and the right, it almost seems more natural to me than



hearing from one speaker. But I could walk into a club and as long as the guitar was decent and the amplifier worked, I could play and I would sound like myself. But the sound of the amps and the guitar would be different. It would be more straight and simple. Because I like to have a slightly effected sound. Not much, just a little. I’ve noticed over the years, I use less and less of the effects. I just have a very small amount of chorus in my guitar, you almost can’t hear it. And then I have a little bit of delay which you almost can’t hear. And then I have a little bit of reverb. And I kind of mix the three things together in this unit and that always gives me the sound I want and I always carry that with me, wherever I go. It’s like people carrying their computer. I really feel like this is part of the sound. The strange thing with electric guitar is, and I always talk about this when I do clinics, you have to realize that the place the guitar player hears the sound from is not from the instrument as much. He feels the instrument, but he hears the sound coming from a speaker behind him or next to him, or two speakers, or whatever. So, when you hear the sound, you’re really hearing what’s coming from a speaker and an amplifier, and maybe a small effect or something. So, it’s really different than a saxophone player, a trumpet player or bass player or piano player... all the other instruments. There you have this immediate sense of your sound without being amplified. But the electric guitar must be amplified, or it has no sound. And even a big Archtop Guitar needs to be amplified. But with an Archtop, if you’re playing very quietly, like Jim Hall... Jim, actually, I know, feels the sound coming off the guitar because he’s still hearing a part of the acoustic quality of the guitar. But for most of us, we don’t play that quiet, we play a little bit louder. So by the time we hear our sound, we’re not even hearing the guitar that much. We’re hearing the amplifier and the processing. So that’s very important to me. I realized the guitar player’s sound is not only from the instrument. A modern guitar player. In the old days, it came maybe more off the guitar. The guitar was actually more important in the old days. If a good Gibson was a good guitar, everybody wanted to play Gibson because they made the best guitars for playing jazz. But nowadays, you can play jazz and it doesn’t matter what you play on. You can play on a Stratocaster and it’s fine. But you’ll never hear the sound of a Stratocaster until you plug it in...

Falk: And what’s your current preference of amps and guitar you’re using?

John: have quite a few guitars. I had a lot of guitars years ago, and then I had this very unfortunate house fire about five years ago, and I lost of most of my instruments. But since then, I’ve managed to regroup a lot of them. I’ve got more. So the main guitar I’ve used for about the last five years or more is made by a company called Brian Moore Guitars. They’re a small company that is in Poughkeepsie, New York, which is up half an hour up



north from me. And the one I’ve been playing mostly looks like a small Les Paul with F-Holes. It’s some kind of a spruce top and an ebony finger board and it’s got a Piezo pickup built into the bridge. And it also has midi if I wanted, but I don’t use the midi at all. And I find it to be just a very versatile guitar. It’s got a five-way switch like a Telecaster or a Stratocaster, and it’s just a very good instrument. So that’s the main instrument I’ve been using. But I’ve been trying other instruments. I have a beautiful Roger Sadowsky Archtop, a very small one. It's his newest model. I’ve been playing that sometimes. I have another nice guitar made by a California maker named Jim Mapson, which is a bigger archtop, which I don’t take out of the house very much. And recently I acquired a guitar from a German maker who wants to send me this guitar. I tried it in Basel, when I was in Switzerland, and I liked it a lot. It may actually arrive today or tomorrow, and it looks like a Fender Tele, but it has F-Holes. So it’s kind of open. Beautiful guitar. I played it on the gig over there and it didn’t sound like a telecaster at all. If anything, it sounded like a Jazz Guitar. It has a big, fat, warm, neck pick-up sound. So I’m gonna be trying that guitar hopefully later today. And I have more guitars, but those are the main ones I’m playing right now.

Falk: And in terms of favorite amps?

John: I don’t really have any real favorite amplifier. I kinda gave up on trying to take anything with me on the road. I used to have sort of a power amp and a pre-amp setup. I had a Walter Woods Power Amp which is made by a guy in California. And I used to use some Mesa Boogie Triaxis preamp. And I would take that setup on the road with me with my little reverb, and I would rent speakers. But I found that if I would have problems with that, if something broke down, nobody could fix it. So I decided at one point that I would just take amplifiers, whatever they had. The amplifiers I would get most of the time were those Roland JC 120s. And when I first played through them I didn’t like them. I thought they were just very bright and very harsh and not warm enough for me. But I just started playing through them all the time, because every gig I would go to, I’d see Roland Jazz Chorus, so I got used to them. And now I’m so used to them that they are actually one of the amps I prefer. Sometimes, I’d get Mesa Boogie, sometimes I see if they have Mesa Boogie Mark 3, I think they’re called, or Mark 4. I like those amps. When they’re in good shape, those are quite nice amps. So those are my kind of amps of choice. Some Fenders I like. I don’t like the new Fenders. I don’t like the new Fenders Twins or Deluxes, because I find the only thing they have is power. They have no tone, whatsoever. Especially on the upper register. When you play on the upper register of the guitar, it just sounds so hard. I like amplifiers that breathe. So that when you play a note, it just sounds like the note. I don’t like the



amplifier to be really aggressive. I don’t like aggressive speakers. I don’t like JVL Speakers at all. I like the old Fender speakers. I like something that, when you play through it, they’re almost on the verge of distorting, but they don’t distort. That’s my favorite sound. I like the sound to be very warm and very natural. So, basically Roland amps, Mesa Boogie and some Fenders. I like the Fenders they made with red knobs. I don’t know what they call those but the knobs were red. It’s a Fender Twin but they didn’t look like Fender Twins, they looked different. I like those, I think because they don’t sound like a Fender… (laughs)

Falk: Actually, one quick question back to guitarists. One of our members on the site had a question. Denny Charles from the UK, and he wanted to ask, if you were on a budget of £500, what jazz guitar would you buy?

John: £500? That would be almost like a thousand dollars, or $800-900, I think. Well, these Brian Moore guitars. There are some that are made here in the States, and then there are some that are made in Korea or Japan. I forget what the model number is, but they make one that looks like a Les Paul. I think it’s called the DC-1, that’s the model number. The ones they make here in the States are very expensive. But the ones they made in Japan or Korea were very inexpensive. They were around $700-800. And I thought that those were really nice. I would recommend one of those. Also, D’Angelico is making a lot of really nice instruments. They sent me a solid-body guitar to try, which would be a little more expensive than what he’s talking about. In dollars, it might be around $1100 or $1200. But that’s still very cheap for a very good guitar. They really make some nice instruments. So, I would say maybe the Brian Moore or D’Angelico. In the old days, I would say Ibanez, but I don’t know what Ibanez is making now. So I couldn’t advise him about Ibanez. Ibanez always made very affordable guitars that were great. I played one for years. It was an Ibanez Artist, if you could find an old Ibanez Artist. I actually bought one from Ebay, and I bought it for $500, and it’s totally fine. Great little guitar. Little solid body, double cut-away solid body, it’s called The Artist. Or the John Scofield model that John plays. Those are nice guitars. That’s what I’d recommend. Other than that, I don’t know too much about what’s available.

Falk: Fair enough. And actually Denny had another question which was unrelated and that’s, “Do you have a tune that you think just about sums up what jazz guitar is all about. Mine is Johnny Smith playing 'Moonlight in Vermont'.”

John: That’s a hard question because there are so many. I would say Wes Montgomery playing on the album Boss Guitar. Anything from Boss Guitar,



which was one of Wes’ records. It was just an organ trio record, with an organist named Melvin Rhyne and Jimmy Cobb. And there’s a version of Besame Mucho, it’s tremendous. But I would say anything from that record. And something maybe by Jim Hall, but I can’t really think of any particular tune. But, again, I would refer him to an album. I would say from an album called Jim Hall Live. That was a trio recording with Don Thompson, a Canadian bass player, and Terry Clark, a Canadian drummer. That album’s gonna be at least 25 years old. But that whole record is one of my favorite jazz guitar records. Anything from those albums I would consider the perfect jazz guitar.

Falk: Well, we’re almost done here with our time. So I just wanted to ask you a few of random questions. What was your most challenging gig?

John: The most challenging gig I ever had was with McCoy Tyner, probably. There’s a record called “McCoy Tyner Quartets 4 x 4”. It was originally released as a double album. And each side of the record would have a different soloist with McCoy. In the rhythm section was McCoy Tyner and Al Foster on drums, Cecil Mcbee on bass. And one side of the record has Bobby Hutchinson, and one had Freddy Hubbard, and one had a saxophonist named Arthur Blythe, and then the last one had me.

Falk: Good company.

John: Yeah. But I only played in quartet. I didn’t play with those guys. And I played a thing called the Mandolin Guitar. It was really like a small, four-string guitar that Fender made. A Mandolin, but I tuned it like a guitar, so I just put on real skinny guitar strings and tuned it up an octave. It was really more like a soprano guitar. And in some ways, that was the most challenging gig, just because I was so nervous, obviously, playing with McCoy. The other guys I knew a little bit. When I first met him, I was just terrified. He was the nicest and easiest person to work with. But in a way, it was my most challenging gig. Just being in the company of McCoy, trying to play with him... There’s so much history there… I think that made it challenging. The music wasn’t that hard. I only played two songs with him. One was sort of like an Impressions kind of song from McCoy, and the other one was a little tune that I had written that he seemed to like. So we recorded these two songs.

Falk: So it went well?

John: It went really well. If you ever get to hear it, it’s a very dry-sounding recording. You probably wouldn't even know it’s me. The little guitar sounds... Everything sounds very dry. I mean they didn’t put any reverb on



anything. So sonically I don’t like the recording as much. They could have made it sound better but I think the music came out really nice. So, I would say that was probably one of my most challenging things. Either that or playing with an orchestra. I played with the composer Vince Mendoza with the London Symphony once. That was maybe my most challenging gig, in terms of actually having to do something that was very difficult, because it was playing with an orchestra and it was playing parts and taking maybe three short solos on the recording. But that was very challenging because the music was not technically hard but you had to be right on to play with the orchestra. And it was recorded in Abbey Road in London, in the Beatles Studio. And it was the full London Symphony, 90 musicians sitting in this huge room. I was very challenged, and terrified. But once we started to play and I heard the orchestra, I started to relax because the sound was just so incredibly beautiful. But that was actually the most challenging. I thought I might not be able to do it. The thing with McCoy was challenging because it was playing with McCoy and I was very nervous, but the music itself wasn’t that hard. But the feeling was challenging. If a feeling can be challenging, that’s what it was.

Falk: Any other funny anecdotes from your long career?

John: Oh. I’m sure there’s lots of them. The only thing that comes to mind was,I used to work years ago with with the great composer/arranger Gil Evans. I was talking to him one night after a gig and I was saying that I wished I could be a more well-rounded guitar player. I wished I could play better rock and fusion and bebop, and whatever. I wished I could be better at playing different kinds of music. And he just looked at me and he said “to be well-rounded is to be mediocre. Just do what you do and make it is as good as you can.” And he gave me Miles Davis as an example, because they had done so many things together and they were really good friends. And he said “Miles couldn’t play fast and high like Dizzy Gillespie. He couldn’t play technically like the other trumpet players. He had limitations. But he found what he could do, and he just did it the best he possible could. He developed a way to play, an approach, a style, maybe, whatever you wanna call it. Do that! Work on what you do and make it really good. Don’t try to do everything because you’ll fail. And even if you succeed, then you’ll be really mediocre. Because you’ll be able to play a lot of different kinds of music, but you won’t have a personality.” I don’t know if it’s really an anecdote but it was something I’ve always remembered. I always tried to keep that in my memory banks and follow that advice,

Falk: Yeah. I think that was the perfect profound last statement.



John: Yeah, it was profound, especially coming from him, it was very profound. It made a real impact.

Falk: Anything else you’d like to mention.

John: Not that I can think of. If anybody wants to write me, just contact me directly via email. A guitar player having a question or something. I’d like to communicate with more players, but usually I don’t have the time to, because I’m traveling so much.

Falk: So, thank you very much, John, for taking the time. Bye now.

John: Bye, thanks.

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John Abercrombie JazzHeaven.com Interview

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