Interviews:

Jazz Portugal

Le Génie d' Ari! (in French .pdf)

www.citizenjazz.com (in French)

www.citypaper.net

www.percussions.org (in French)

MODERN DRUMMER INTERVIEW MAY 2004
Ari Hoenig
Time Traveling With
A Rising Jazz Star
by Bill Milkowski
On the bandstand in any setting, drummer Ari Hoenig is a study of intense focus and deep listening. A remarkably inventive, swinging drummer with a playful penchant for metric modulation and subdivision, you can almost hear his brain whirring as he dissects another rhythm, bringing his laser-sharp skills to bear on cutting up beats in endlessly hip variations. And while the sheer math involved in the process may seem daunting, Hoenig reacts so quickly, so intuitively, that he flows effortlessly with the music, making it seem all so organic and strictly in the moment.

Closing his eyes while flashing an agony-ecstasy grimace behind the kit, Hoenig creates the illusion of speeding up or slowing down tempos while maintaining a steady swinging pulse underneath. It’s a neat rhythmic trick, the drumming equivalent of juggling three balls, then four, then five.
               
Hoenig’s gifts—an infinite capacity to drive a band with his own kinetic pulse and slick, precision fills…improvising and interacting fearlessly on the kit…seamlessly shifting gears on a dime—are prized among bandleaders who put a premium on improvisation. This is why Hoenig finds himself in the enviable position of being one of the workingest drummers around, a hot commodity in the most competitive jazz scene on earth.
               
On any given night, the Philadelphia native and Brooklyn resident might be seen plying his highly developed skills in any number of bands. Currently Hoenig alternates between gigs with saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Kenny Werner, guitarist Wayne Krantz, pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, saxophonist Seamus Blake, and pianist Dave Kikoski. He also leads his own quartet. And in each context, he’s positively killing—always elevating the proceedings with boundless energy, total empathy, and daring ideas.
               
A product of the Philly club scene, Hoenig made a leap in development while attending North Texas State from 1992 to 1995. There he gigged and recorded with the school’s famed One O’Clock Lab Band and also began to experiment with playing melodies on the kit. He has since honed this concept to a high art on two startling self-produced solo drum recordings, 1999’s Time Travels and 2003’s The Life Of A Day. Both are available through his Web site, www.arihoenig.com.
               
Transferring to New Jersey’s William Paterson College, where he studied with The Village Vanguard Orchestra’s resident drummer, John Riley, gave Hoenig proximity to make the eventual leap to New York, which he did during the summer of 1996. Soon after arriving in town, he connected with mandolinist Jamie Masefield of The Jazz Mandolin Project. Hoenig put in three years with the JMP. During that time the group toured relentlessly on the jam-band circuit and recorded 2000’s Xenoblast (Blue Note) and the self-produced follow-up, After Dinner Jams.
               
Another important and early connection after moving to New York was the French pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, a gifted pyrotechnician who also shared Hoenig’s love of metric modulation, risk-taking, and playful sense of spontaneous combustion on the bandstand. As a member of Pilc’s dynamic trio (along with the French bass virtuoso Francois Moutin), Hoenig has made four highly acclaimed records, including 2002’s collection of radically rearranged jazz staples, Welcome Home, and 2003’s ambitious offering of Pilc originals, Cardinal Points, both on the Dreyfus Jazz label. (For some of Ari’s best playing in this acrobatic piano trio, check out “Ari’s Mode” and the title track from Cardinal Points, along with their playfully irreverent renditions of Miles Davis’s “So What,” Duke Ellington’s “I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good” and “Solitude,” John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-A-Ning,” and the jazz standard “Stella By Starlight” from Welcome Home.)
               
Hoenig has simultaneously been a fixture in Kenny Werner’s empathetic piano trio with bassist Johannes Weidenmueller, appearing on 2000’s Beauty Secrets (RCA Victor), 2001’s Form And Fantasy, and 2002’s aptly titled Beat Degeneration (Sunnyside). (For some excellent examples of Ari’s playing in that piano trio, check out “Nardis,” “Amonkst,” and “Time Remembered” from Form And Fantasy as well as “Trio Imitation,” “Yump,” and the title track from Beat Degeneration.)
               
While more recent gigs with guitarist Wayne Krantz and saxophonist Joshua Redman may be hard-hitting and tending toward the groove-oriented side, Ari’s playing in that context is no less creative, challenging, and interactive than in his acoustic piano-trio settings. Leading his own band (with Pilc on piano, Matt Penman on bass, and Jacques Schwarz-Bart on tenor sax) has also allowed the drummer to develop his compositional chops. His first recording as a leader with this highly charged quartet, The Painter (Smalls Records), features a number of Ari originals that reveal a mature sense of harmony and compositional integrity as well as a deft touch with brushes and sticks. This live recording of a recent gig at the Fat Cat, located in the heart of New York’s West Village, also includes oblique extrapolations on Thelonious Monk’s “I Mean You” and George Gershwin’s “Summertime,” both highlighted by Ari’s show-stopping melodic drum solos.
               
An open-minded multi-instrumentalist, Hoenig composes at his home in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn on piano and even moonlights as a synth player on a regular Monday night hip-hop gig in the East Village. We spoke to the drummer-composer just a couple of hours prior to a rehearsal with Joshua Redman’s Elastic Band in preparation for a gig later that evening at the Fat Cat.
 
MD: You were immersed in classical piano training as a child. How did you switch to drums and become interested in jazz?
Ari: I started with classical piano when I was eight and did that for maybe five or six years. But I didn’t really enjoy it. I would try to learn everything by ear instead of by reading it. I guess the lessons were too stringent for me, especially at that young an age. So I ended up quitting piano, and when I was twelve my parents let me choose my own instrument, so I chose to play the drums. Rhythm was something that attracted me. As a little kid I was always banging on things. I have a picture of myself when I was three or four playing a little conga drum, which I still have. Anyway, when I was thirteen, I was basically figuring out how to play with the sticks, just getting started. I was listening to a lot of rock ’n’ roll and Top-40 stuff on the radio, and then at some point I began realizing that I could duplicate the grooves that were being played on the radio, which was a cool revelation. Then just before high school, I began attending a youth music program at the Clef Club, where I began learning jazz standards and playing with other kids my age. That really got me interested in playing jazz.

MD: You never pursued a rock direction as a drummer?
Ari: I did, at the same time. I was in rock bands in Philly. In fact, the first time I was ever in a studio was for a heavy metal recording when I was sixteen or seventeen—I used a double bass drum pedal and the whole thing. The band was called Shades Of Night. The guy who played guitar and bass, Brendan McClannahan, was a childhood friend of mine. We wrote a bunch of tunes and went in the studio and did this recording. I still listen to it sometimes. I still like it too. And then shortly after that I made a jazz recording.

MD: You went to North Texas State from ’92 to ’95. What was that experience like for you?
Ari: It was excellent. I learned a lot there. I realized what I really needed to do at that point was listen to a whole bunch of different music and immerse myself in it, as well as play along to it. And I did that to everything from Tower Of Power to Oscar Peterson to Thelonious Monk records. I just went through all the stuff that people told me to check out that I hadn’t really gotten into up to that point. In everything I found something that improved my playing, something that I could take mental or physical notes from.
               
I would play along to these records over and over, maybe playing along to the same record every day for a week. I learned so much from doing that. It was a process of really getting to know how music works and how interaction works in all kinds of different settings—jazz, R&B, funk, and any kind of music I wanted to play.
               
The result of that was, when I would do a session, I’d have all of these different ideas to draw from. Depending on what the other guys were playing, I could somehow relate it in my head to other things and easily find something that complemented it. Of course, this is all in a subconscious way. It’s not what I’m actually thinking when I’m playing.

MD: At North Texas State you played and recorded with The One O’Clock Lab Band, and you also gigged around Denton. Then after three years you decided to go to William Paterson College in New Jersey. Why?
Ari: I transferred because I wanted to move to New York. And I also wanted to study with John Riley, who I had had been hearing about. But more than actually studying with John was the idea of moving to the New York area. I knew that’s what I had to do at some point. I ended up going to Paterson for a semester before dropping most of my academic classes, which weren’t so good anyway. I kept some ensembles and stayed up there at Paterson for a while, but then I moved to the city a year later. I had already been doing a lot of gigs in Philly when I would go home from school on breaks. And that helped me build confidence to finally make the move to New York.

MD: What kind of gigs did you play in Philly?
Ari: All the clubs—jazz gigs and rock gigs. I played with [organist] Shirley Scott when I was in college. We’d play every Monday night for a while at this place called The Blue Note, and she took me on tour sometimes when Mickey Rocker couldn’t make it.  I also played with [pianist] Orrin Evans. We played together when I was in high school. We always had a trio. Jimmy Bruno, who’s a great guitar player from Philly, is also someone I played with during high school. Playing with him was really exciting.

MD: You mentioned that it was at North Texas State that you started experimenting with playing melody on the kit.
Ari: Yeah, I first got the idea from a drummer named Earl Harvin, a guy down there who I used to listen to a lot. He had gone to North Texas State, but he was out of school at that point and was playing on the Dallas scene. He was just someone I really loved to see play—a very melodic and musical drummer. He didn’t necessarily do a lot of exact pitches the way I’m doing them now, but I got the idea to begin experimenting with that concept from watching him.

MD: Was he playing with his elbow up on the skins and manually pushing the heads to get different pitches?
Ari: He would deal with pitch relation, less so with exact pitches, but he would convey the same point. And from watching him I realized that if you tune your drums a certain way you can actually have real pitches and play tunes. Around the same time I was studying with Ed Soph, who was having his students play Charlie Parker tunes from the Omni book. That gave me the idea: “Why don’t I try to play the exact pitches of this Parker tune?” And Ed was wide open to it: “Great idea. Go for it!”
               
Right around that time I had to play a student recital, and we played the Bird tune “Confirmation.” That’s when I decided to learn the exact pitches of the head. It’s a hard tune to learn, especially on a kit with just two toms. But I worked it out and ended up starting off the tune at this recital by playing the melody on the drums. So “Confirmation” was kind of the ass-kicker for this whole melodic approach to the kit that I developed.
               
I worked out a system of notating how to go about it, how many notes you can get out of each drum, and so forth. I never really worked out a definite tuning pattern, because it can differ for different tunes. And it’s a very intuitive process anyway. I don’t even think about it most of the time, I just have a good relative pitch so I kind of know where things are at and how much pressure to apply to the heads.

MD: You’ve developed this melodic approach to an incredibly high level with your two solo drum records.
Ari: Well, the first one, Time Travels, was pretty much improvised in the studio. I was touring with The Jazz Mandolin Project at the time, and they said that I could bring a CD on the road to sell at gigs, but they didn’t want competition from another band CD. So I decided to go into a studio and improvise a solo drum project based on some of these tunes that I had worked out. So it wasn’t a planned thing at all. On the second record, The Life Of A Day, I decided to make it more produced. I had a little more time to experiment with vocals and effects on some of the tunes, which was kind of for my own fun and education.

MD: And you do this melodic playing on the kit in live situations?
Ari: Sure. Some of the stuff is worked out ahead of time, but mostly it’s improvised. And sometimes I’ll go out on a limb and not know where the pitches are, and I’ll just totally fall on my ass [laughs], which is fine. That does happen once in a while, because I play a lot of rental drumsets when I’m out on tour. So often I’ll just tap the drums to know where they’re at pitch-wise before I go into a solo. It’s almost like being a timpani player in an orchestra.

MD: Do you play the same basic kit in both band and solo drum situations? Or do you augment your regular kit for the solo thing with a piccolo snare or other-pitched drums?
Ari: Never. I’m kind of a purist when it comes to that. I could get ten toms together and have each one tuned to a different pitch and play melodies that way, but to me there just doesn’t seem to be much of a point to do that. The creative part comes from limiting yourself to a few pieces of gear. Plus, living in New York, you want to carry as little as possible to a gig. It’s almost hipper to bring less. The smaller the set the better.
               
I used to play gigs without a hi-hat. My left knee was in really bad shape at one time, and I physically couldn’t play the hi-hat. So I would do gigs with a ride cymbal, a snare drum, and a bass drum—and sometimes even without a bass drum—and I just loved it. It almost made me play better somehow. I would feel as if the music would be swinging harder that way, where I’d be able to concentrate on the ride. That’s really what propels the music—snare and ride. The hi-hat can propel the music too, but it can also be a crutch to fall back on. So discarding it for a time really helped me with my right hand and to be able to pinpoint the groove.
               
That’s something I tell my students to do: Sit down at the drums and compose a piece of music right off the bat, anything you want, but only using one instrument. In other words, use just a cymbal, a drum, or a hi-hat, and come up with all the sounds you can think of. Then get out of that and do whatever you want to rhythmically and form-wise. You can create everything with just one or two sounds if you want to. That’s when the most creative stuff happens. I played a gig once where I forgot to bring a snare drum—but I ended up loving that gig!

MD: Looking back on your development as a player, what things came naturally for you and what things did you have to work hard on?
Ari: When I was in high school, I was kind of at the mercy of my teachers. One of my teachers at the time, Carl Mottola, had me doing a lot of technique and reading exercises. He was in control of my development. I was sixteen years old and he was saying, “This is what you should do,” and so I did that. It wasn’t about being creative or coming up with any of your own stuff. It was strictly by-the-book training.
               
It wasn’t until later that I started to discover things on my own—how music sounds, how deep it can be, and how deep a groove can be. That was definitely something I had to work on myself through practicing, and I still do it. I’m still very conscious of those things every time I play. I’m thinking about how it feels, I’m thinking about tempos, I’m thinking about, “Does this really feel good? Do I want to get up and dance to this? Is it that funky or is it swinging that hard?”
               
I remember going to sessions at North Texas State and repeating to myself over and over, “Play musically, play musically, play musically. That’s the most important thing. Just go in there and play music.” So that’s something I was consciously working on all of the time. That didn’t come so naturally to me at first.
               
The thing is, in order to get past technique, you need to have a firm knowledge of it, and that’s what I was lucky enough to get from all of my lessons with Carl. By the time I went to college, I didn’t have to think about technique so much. And I really haven’t practiced technique since, I mean in terms of rudiments or anything like that. I don’t really need to do that anymore to make the statement I want to make.

MD: How did you hook up with Jean-Michel Pilc?
Ari: I sat in with him at Small’s around the end of ’95, and it was memorable. He wasn’t playing the gig; he was sitting in too. I felt a connection with him right away. I didn’t really know who he was, but what I did know was that he was playing the kind of music I wanted to pursue. So I tried to get sessions with him right away, but he had another band at the time. Then about six months later, he finally hired me for his trio.

MD: Your regular gig with Wayne Krantz [on Thursday nights at the 55 Bar in New York] shows your capacity for playing backbeat as loudly as anyone, something very different from your piano trio gigs.
Ari: It’s funny, I’ve been playing so-called straight or acoustic-style jazz about ninety-five percent of the time over the last five or six years. And suddenly I was thrown this Wayne Krantz gig, which involves a heavier approach. And now I’m also playing with Joshua Redman, which is a hard-hitting groove gig.
               
You can get a certain amount of emotional satisfaction from playing hard. There can be a lot of emotion there. And that’s something I don’t get a chance to do that often with either Kenny [Werner] or Jean-Michel [Pilc]. It’s a whole other thing that I get into on the bandstand with them. It’s more about vibing with the other players, as opposed to playing so physically. But I love doing both, and I don’t think that I’d want to stop either one at any time.

MD: Are you playing the same kit on all of your gigs?
Ari: I play a bigger bass drum with Wayne Krantz—a Yamaha 18"—but I play the same toms and snare. I’m not necessarily so specific about what kind of drums I use, just about how I set them up. Mostly, though, I play a Ludwig 16" bass drum, which is a floor tom that used to belong to Ed Blackwell. It has a deep tone with a nice ring to it. I play it with almost everyone except Wayne. I’ll play an 18" bass drum with Josh, but the way I’ll set it up will be with more of a thud.

MD: Does your cymbal setup change from gig to gig?
Ari: It does. Again, it changes mainly with Wayne Krantz. Generally I’ll use an old Zildjian A on the right, and I’ll sometimes use a Zildjian Left Side ride with rivets on the left. But with Wayne I’m using a cymbal that Zildjian recently gave me, a 20" K Constantinople High Definition ride. That’s just killing for that gig. It’s a louder, thicker cymbal that has more definition.

MD: Tell us about the workshops you’ve been doing with bassist Johannes Weidenmueller.
Ari: We’ve done master classes in Amsterdam, Paris, and New York, and we’re planning to release a video from one of those classes. Basically, these workshops are about metric modulation, odd meters, rhythmic displacement, uneven groupings of notes, and polyrhythms. I feel that these are things that are somewhat unique in my playing. I guess I first got turned on to the concept from hearing Jeff “Tain” Watts, who was a big influence on me. Since then I’ve heard it in a lot of other places.
It’s about dealing with short or long cycles and putting them over obvious forms, like a blues in four or rhythm changes in four or any jazz tune that you’re going to play. It’s about taking a note, like a quarter note for instance, and dissecting it. And it depends on how many times you want to dissect it—three times would be triplets, four times would be 16th notes, and so on.
               
Our version of “Stella” on Welcome Home is a good example of what I’m talking about, where it sounds like it kind of speeds up. That has to do with the metric modulation that we’re creating on that tune—playing something in 4/4 but making it feel like it’s faster and in 3/4 or slower and in 5/4, or making it feel like the time is somewhere else. In a way, it’s like taking a microscope to the rhythm and picking it apart.
               
One of the reasons Jean-Michel Pilc and I hook up as well as we do is because we both think about music in this way. Coming up with ideas about these kinds of groupings is the easy part; internalizing them is the deeper process. It’s a mathematical thing, really. It’s creating an illusion through time and rhythm.



Interview by Zach Burd:

I thought we’d start with some early history. Your mom is a professional violinist, if I remember correctly?
Yes, actually both my parents are musicians. My father is a singer and choral conductor.

Please describe the musical experiences you had as a child. What was it like growing up around professional musicians?
Music was a constant thing, just like waking up in the morning.
It was always going on in some way or another. My parents and grandparents were always encouraging anything I did musically.

Why the drums?
My two first instruments were the violin and the piano, but I always felt like someone was looking over my shoulder to make sure I was doing it right. Drums were the only instrument they knew nothing about so at age twelve I became a drummer.

Who were the primary encouragers of your musical growth before you went to college?
Besides my family, I would have to say the city of Philadelphia as a whole. All City Jazz Band and Orchestra is how I met others my age in the city who were playing jazz. People like Lovett Hines, Bill Whitaker, John Simon and George W. Russell who unselfishly gave their time to support and nurture young musicians. Also, Settlement Music School sponsored by Rohm and Haus. Even the state of Pennsylvania through Governors School for the Arts, which was a state sponsored arts camp for 16 and 17 year olds. I took advantage of all the free programs I could find.

Were there ever musical expectations placed on you as a child?
I’m sure there were but it never bothered me or hindered my development.

At what time in your life did you decide that you wanted to focus on music as a potential career?
One day during my junior year of High School they had something called Career day. The point of it was to start us thinking about the career we wanted to have. It was then that I realized I would be a professional musician. That decision was met with some skepticism by the guidance counselor who insisted I have a backup plan. My backup plan was to own and run a fresh fruit juice and smoothie store (something I still plan on doing someday)

What teachers have you studied with? When? What were some of the most valuable things you learned from each of them? What types of practice routines did you follow from the time you began playing music until you left for college?
My first teachers in Philly were Ken Miller and Rob Zollman. Rob would give me a new tune to play along with every week. From Motown, to the Meters, to Steve Miller. He was a very musical teacher. He had a band that I worked for as a rodie / sound man when I was 15. Every night he’d let me play a couple of tunes too. Later in High school I studied with Carl Mottola. With him my lessons were very structured. We mostly worked from books. I think what helped me most weren’t the books themselves but the structured routine he had me follow. I came back every week wanting to nail all of his assignments and impress him with the work I had done.

Who were some of players you played with during this time who really helped you get your basics together?
I was in a jazz trio with guys my age, Orrin Evans–piano, Kevin Arthur-bass as well as many rock bands. My first time in the studio was with a metal band. Actually, not really a band it was just myself, and Brendan McClanahan who did the guitar and bass parts. We wrote all the music together. Instrumental Metal. It turned out great. We called it Shades of Night. I was also able to do some playing with some local pros at that time such as Jimi Bruno and Grover Washington Jr. I have to mention a really amazing orchestra I was a part of then called the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra conducted by Maestro Primaverra. I was one of four percussionists in the Orchestra and one of the less experienced. I watched and learned.

In high school there was a time when your practice routine was limited by the neighbors’ complaints and court orders. What was that all about!? Did you find a way to maximally utilize your time? Did you spend a lot of your non-playing time listening intensively to music?
Not really at that point. I didn’t figure out how to do that until much later. There was a time where I couldn’t practice after 430pm I often got home from school at that time so I went and got a pad set but that was too loud too. My neighbor was a lawyer and she sued to have me quit playing altogether. She won. My mother was very supportive, she even went to court to defend me but nevertheless that day I moved in with my dad.

Was there ever a period where you took timpani and mallets seriously and considered going the classical route?
The reason I stayed away from that route is that whenever I was to perform in a classical setting I got nervous. I didn’t feel that playing any other music. Improvisation is such a big part of what I do-- reacting in the moment. Classical music simply wasn’t as fun for me. It didn’t have the "game" aspect to it.

What do you mean game aspect?
Parts of music are like a game—the rules being, the rhythm and form of a tune. The game is to not get lost and maybe even to push the music to the edge of losing others. It offers a certain excitement but not depth to the music. Nonetheless it’s fun, and keeps you on your toes thus earning the word game. To this day I would almost always rather play standards, tunes that everyone one knows, than through composed pieces.

You were given scholarship to University of North Texas and studied with Ed Soph your first semester. Did you apply to or consider attending any other schools? How did you finally choose UNT?
I applied to Manhattan School of Music, University of Miami and North Texas. I attended the summer program at MSM for a week and decided that was my first choice for college. After writing a killing essay and a good audition I didn’t get in. Somehow that didn’t discourage me, it just made me work harder. I got good scholarships to U Miami and UNT. I chose North Texas because it had the most diverse music program. I think I have a much broader knowledge of music because of it. There I learned about straight ahead jazz, big band, fusion, hip hop, funk and rock. I even played in concert band for a semester. Not to mention the percussion department the there was so great. I took classes in the music of Africa, Brazil and Indonesia.

What were some of the musical elements that Ed addressed in your lessons?
At the time I didn’t know much about Ed Soph. In my lessons at first and throughout he concentrated on changing my bad habits but I think I was too stubborn. One major thing that Ed showed me was how to play with brushes using matched grip. I show the same thing to my students now. I learned as much if not more from Ed just watching him play. He’s a motherfucker of a player.

Who else affected your development during your time in Texas?
Most of my learning there wasn’t formal. I went to check out a lot of great drummers who I met there. Andrew Grifith, Jim White, Keith Carlock and the one who I learned the most from was Earl Harvin. I swear I followed that guy around. Even if he were playing in Dallas, an hour away, I’d find a friend with a car to take me. The other students at UNT were so open to sharing ideas and playing sessions. They were also so positive about music. I remember going to play sessions thinking, play musically, play musically, play musically. I’d recommend the school to any musician, especially drummers.

How did you spend your summers?
I would go to Philly every summer. By then I was starting to work a lot there. I Also started lessons with Ralph Peterson who lived there at the time.

What did you do in your lessons with Ralph?
Ralph would play trumpet and I’d play drums. We’d play tunes and work on having a dialogue with each other. Call and response, that sort of thing. He really kicked my ass. His influence on me as a teacher and player is huge.

On your solo CD as well as frequently in live performances you play melodies on the drums and cymbals with far greater accuracy than other players I've heard. Did these ideas come out naturally and/ or did you shed all the bends and tunings, etc. in a practice room? Who are some of the musicians that inspired these ideas?
Checking out Earl showed me the importance of melody, even as a drummer. I remember when I first came up with the idea to get definite pitches out of the drums. I was so exited about the possibilities. The first tune I learned on the drums was confirmation. That definitely took some shedding. After that I actually developed a system of notation for getting pitches out of a four piece kit. You can get 3 notes (4 with the elbow) out of both the toms and 5 out of the snare. I started running scales but ran into some trouble between the floor and rack tom. Later I just got kind of a general sense of how much pressure to apply for what interval. That, and a good sense of relative pitch and I could play most basic melodies on the spot. I was able to really explore this kind of approach in both of my solo drum records. Much of the second, which will be out soon, is me, taking requests in the studio.

Do you play music for yourself or the listener? What are your goals for the former, the latter or both?
Of course I want people to like my music but when it comes down to it, I play for myself and the musicians with me. I remember one time I was with Jean Michel, playing at a club uptown called Prohibition. Halfway through the first set, the manager came to us and asked us to stop. He told us he would pay us as long as we stopped and didn’t play a second set. I, however, loved the music that night and so I left happy and fulfilled. I’ve had many of the opposite cases where people liked the music but I didn’t. Then I leave unfulfilled. .

One of my favorite things about your playing is your use of odd-note groupings over the bar-line, metric modulations (implied and real) and other polymetric concepts. A lot of guys do it, but when you do it really 'cooks'. When 'Tain and Vinnie play similar things the music usually becomes dense or just plain weird feeling. When you do it there's a great groove in the new feel that makes it sound so much less technical. What do you think the difference is? How can a musician develop these skills? How do you develop the sensitivity to use these ideas at the right times: (i.e., How do you approach playing with players who's time concepts are advanced versus players who aren't used to that sound)?
Ok, answering the last question first. I try to play what fits with the situation. Listening to a lot of different music has helped me instinctively know what to play and when. I don’t care if the musicians I’m playing with have an advanced rhythmic knowledge as long as they can swing. That’s much more important to me. As far as metric modulation is concerned, Tain has influenced this side of my playing a great deal. He was the first one I heard that I had to really concentrate on the form and actually count along to what he was playing. I remember in high school checking out "live at blues alley" and counting my ass off, then getting lost and starting again. His playing never stuck me as feeling weird or too dense but when I do it, it probably sounds less technical because it is. I can’t hang technically with Vinnie or Tain but I can think up some unique ideas to make the time sound like it’s going by at different times. Metric modulations, polyrhythms, this stuff is like candy to me. Thinking up new ideas is so much fun. That stuff is endless. For musicians wanting to develop their rhythmic ear, I recommend writing it out first. Some people are scared to write out ideas because they think they’ll play it like it was written everytime. Nothing is farther from the truth. The more ideas you can hear and knowledge you have, the better.

Along those same lines (in a more general sense), so much of what you do is incredibly advanced technically, but comes out so musically. How did you go about developing the technical proficiency to execute your ideas without losing sight of the real purpose of musical expression? So many drummers get stuck here!
I’m not really sure. It just happened. I can’t execute many of my ideas. The hardest part is to develop is the musical part. I’m talking about the part of you that cries while listening to music, the part that is emotionally entangled with every note. If that is there already, I mean if it’s really there, then you practice rudiments, coordination, time etc… If it’s there, it’ll come out. How I don’t lose sight of musical expression is simple. That’s what music is. Nothing else. If you’re thinking about stickings while you’re playing a gig than something’s wrong.

Can you describe the mental/ physical process of hearing sound in time, singing a part, and expressing ideas that feed the music? MAN this is a huge question- I don't know how to say what I mean here... help me out! I'm asking about the flow of music and finding the groove…
I think what you may be talking about is what I call being in the music. It has a lot to do with concentration but much of it is quite mysterious. Why do you do feel good one night and bad the next even when playing with the same band at the same club? I also call it a vibe. I picture something like an invisible blanket dropping down and hovering over the band. It can take you over and make you a part of it or maybe not that day. Why? I don’t know. How do you channel that energy to work for you? I don’t know. Could it have to do with the crowd, the temperature? what you ate for dinner? the lack or plethora of cute girls watching you play? In my experience, No! It’s a mystery.

So what does it feel like to be in the music?
All my concentration, all I’m feeling and thinking, everything I have is going towards creating music. People ask me about the faces I make while I play. Sometimes they even ask me if I know I’m doing it. The answer is of course no, at least not while I’m playing.
My body is non-existent when I play. Like every other part of me it serves the music. I wouldn’t however recommend this to others as there could and probably will be repercussions from this later on down the road.

Back to your history: Do you ever regret jumping into the professional world before finishing your degree?
Never. I went to college to learn, not for the degree.

When you got to NYC within a year you had some pretty good gigs: Mike Stern, Jazz Mandolin Project. Within three years you had steady good gigs. When you walk into a new environment, do you approach playing any differently than when you've been playing with people for a long time? Conservative versus goin' for it?
When you play with the same people for a long time you create a language with them. Actually it’s more of a dialect of the over all jazz language. Of coarse you’re going to play differently. This isn’t conscious for me though. Consciously I approach playing with everyone the same.

So you found yourself in the middle of NYC with a lot of talent but little foundation, as far as contacts and networking are concerned. Was this period in your life a struggle? How did you establish yourself? What lessons from this period did you find most important? How would you advise other artists trying to make headway in the New York City music scene?
The key is to meet people that are doing what you’re doing. Sounds easy, but for some, this is the hardest part. When I first moved to NY I didn’t know anyone so I went to jam sessions and asked the musicians I liked over to play. They would bring with them other guys I didn’t know. I met so many new people that way. Also, when I first moved to New York I still had a lot of work in Philly and Jersey. That kept me going until I could establish myself and start working in New York. My advise is don’t be shy. If you hear someone you like, talk to them, try to play with them.

Could you discuss some of the most musically rewarding situations you've experienced in the past five years or so? How have the musicians you've worked with shaped the player you've become?
Sure, playing with Shirley Scott’s trio with Arthur Harper; Jean Michel’s trio with Francois Moutin; Joel Frahm’s band at Augies with Johannes Weidenmueller, Aaron Goldberg and Paul Bollenback; any of James Hurt and Jaques Swartz Bart’s projects; JD Walter with Jim Ridl and Dave Leibman; Elizabeth Kontamanu with Jean Michel; Johnathan Kreisburg; Kenny Werner trio with Johannes; other groups involving Wolfgang Muthspiel, Matt Pennman, Mike Stern, Chris Potter, George Colligan, Wayne Krantz, San Yahael, Matt Rey, Richard Bona. I’m a big fan of all these guys. Lately, the music with my new quartet has been very musically rewarding. Jean Michel Pilc a very close collaborator of mine. He has, more than anyone else recently helped shape the musician I’ve become. I think we’ve shaped each other.

Could you talk about your quartet a bit? What kind of musical goals do you have with your band? How did you form? When do you intend to record and on what label?
I’d love to. My quartet is with Jacques Swartz Bart-tenor, Jean Michel Pilc-piano, Matt Penman-bass. I’ve been wanting to have my own band for quite a while and it’s a dream come true. I’m so lucky to have these guys play my music. We’ve mostly been gigging around New York City at places like Jazz Gallery, Fat Cat, 55 Bar etc… It has given me the opportunity to write my own music and perform it. The band is still in the early stages with no record company or booking agent so I’ve been doing all the booking and promotion myself. We do have a recently recorded demo. I believe very strongly in this project.

Besides selling fruit smoothies, what are some of the directions you'd like to go in (musically)? How would you like to see the next 5 years of your career go? What about the next 10? the next 30!? Do you think that way or do you try to just think about the present?
In the years to come, I’d like to work more and more as a leader but not exclusively. Learning about composition and harmony as well as playing and practicing the piano has been very inspiring to me lately. Combining it all together into the quartet is compelling. Someday, I’d like to do some gigs on piano. I don’t really have set goals in a certain amount of time from now. I hope to keep doing what I’m doing now.