Burning Ambulance Podcast

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Eddie Palmieri Sep 13, 2018

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Episode 25 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with pianist Eddie Palmieri. Palmieri is a legendary figure: His composition "Azúcar" is a landmark in Latin music history. It’s over nine minutes long, with extended instrumental solos, a pioneering Latin jazz number that’s part of the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. He was also awarded the first Grammy for Latin music for his album The Sun of Latin Music. He’s been a supporter of a variety of political causes during his career, and in the late '60s and early '70s did a lot of shows in prisons, including recording an album at Sing Sing and another one at the University of Puerto Rico in the heat of political unrest there.

In this interview, we talk about a broad range of subjects, including many of his classic records, his troubles within the music industry over the years, his thoughts on Latin music’s future, his love of jazz, and much much more.

Tia Fuller Aug 30, 2018

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Episode 24 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with saxophonist and educator Tia Fuller. Fuller is originally from Colorado, and comes from a musical family: her parents had a group called Fuller Sound, her brother Ashton is a drummer, and her sister Shamie Royston is a pianist who's married to drummer Rudy Royston. She’s recorded five albums as a leader, and has worked with trumpeter Sean Jones, vocalists Nancy Wilson and Diane Reeves, and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington. She has also worked with Esperanza Spalding, and was the saxophonist in Beyoncé’s 10-member, all-female touring band for four years, something we talk about a lot in this interview.

In addition to recording and playing shows, Fuller is an educator – she’s got a masters degree in jazz education and teaches at Berklee in Boston. That’s something else we talk about in this interview, because she was there for the controversy at Berklee last year, where several members of their faculty were let go after accusations of sexual misconduct. So we talk about that, and about what she teaches and how she relates to her own students, about her experience working with the collective We Have Voice, which is organizing to combat inequality and harassment in the jazz scene, and much more.

Nicole Mitchell Aug 16, 2018

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Episode 23 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with flutist and composer Nicole Mitchell. Mitchell is originally from Syracuse, New York, but she grew up in California and eventually went to college in the Midwest, where she became an important figure on the Chicago jazz scene. In fact, she eventually became the first female president of the AACM there. Her primary group is called the Black Earth Ensemble, which has a fluctuating membership but Tomeka Reid is one of the core members – Tomeka was featured on episode 7 of this podcast, back in January, and spoke about working with Nicole and how important it was to her development as an artist, so we’re getting the other side of the story in this episode.

In addition to the Black Earth Ensemble, Mitchell has led a lot of one-off groups, and been a part of other people’s projects – she’s in some of Anthony Braxton’s large ensembles, she’s been part of several of Rob Mazurek’s groups including the Exploding Star Orchestra and its offshoot projects, she’s in the Indigo Trio with Harrison Bankhead and Hamid Drake. But she’s really made a tremendous impact as a leader, creating music that covers a broad spectrum from jazz to modern composition to theatrical pieces and multimedia presentations, collaborating with and paying tribute to writers – as you’ll hear in this conversation, texts are hugely important to her, even when the music itself is instrumental. Last year, her album Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds got a tremendous amount of critical acclaim – it combines violin, cello, guitar and percussion with traditional Japanese instruments to create a sound that’s both ancient and modern at once, and really is unlike anything else I’ve ever heard.

We don't agree about everything, and you'll hear some interesting back-and-forth in this conversation about a variety of issues, from the audience for hardcore improvised music to how young artists should navigate the industry. I really enjoyed speaking with her, and I hope you'll enjoy this episode.

Regina Carter Aug 02, 2018

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Episode 22 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with violinist Regina Carter. She's one of the best known jazz violinists in the world, as well as a MacArthur fellow and a Grammy nominee. She’s originally from Detroit, and she got her start in an all-female group called Straight Ahead. From there, she moved to New York, joined the String Trio of New York with guitarist James Emery and bassist John Lindberg, and also started making solo records starting in 1995. She’s made 10 albums in all, including one that was a duo with pianist Kenny Barron. She’s worked with a broad range of musicians including Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Oliver Lake, Madeline Peyroux, Steve Turre, Terri Lyne Carrington, and James Carter, who’s also her cousin.

Winning a Macarthur fellowship in 2006 has allowed her to work on some really interesting projects without having to convince a label of their value beforehand. Southern Comfort was an album that explored Appalachian and southern roots music as a way of tracing her own family’s history, and her latest album, Accentuate the Positive, which came out last year, was a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, but it doesn’t feature the songs you’d expect. A lot of the pieces are obscure, and as a consequence she doesn’t really feel the need to perform them in a way that the listener might identify with Ella Fitzgerald.

I met up with Regina Carter at NJPAC’s All-Female Jazz Residency, a week-long program for students from 14-25 in Newark, New Jersey. She was the artistic director, taking over from Geri Allen, who founded the program but who passed away suddenly a little over a year ago, in June 2017. The residency combines lectures and seminars with rehearsals and master classes, so that the women who are taking part learn from each other as well as from people who are already making careers in jazz. And it goes beyond music, as we talk about in this interview – they also learn about branding yourself and maintaining a social media presence, about what radio expects from an artist and how to make an impression on journalists and DJs, and other things that will allow them to become professionals and avoid pitfalls in their careers.

I had originally planned for this to be a joint interview with Regina Carter, saxophonist Tia Fuller, and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, all of whom participated in the residency, but it wound up just being a conversation with Ms. Carter. I think it’s really interesting, though, and she’s got a lot to say not only about her music but about the residency and the state of the jazz business, so I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Jeremy Pelt Jul 19, 2018

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Episode 21 of the Burning Ambulance podcast - we're adults now! - features an interview with trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, who’s been on the scene more or less since the dawn of the 21st century. He made his first album as a leader in 2002, but he really broke out of the pack in 2008, when he formed a quintet with JD Allen on tenor sax, Danny Grissett on piano, the late Dwayne Burno on bass, and Gerald Cleaver on drums. He made four albums with that group – November in 2008, Men of Honor in 2010, The Talented Mr. Pelt in 2011, and Soul in 2012 – and they’re all terrific. That was where I started listening to him – the first album I heard was The Talented Mr. Pelt, and I went backward immediately and checked out Men of Honor and November, and Soul. I interviewed him for Burning Ambulance in 2011, and have written about him a lot on the site in the years since, because he makes an album a year, and they're always worth hearing.

After that quintet broke up, he started experimenting, changing up the musicians he was working with on every album. He made two records that went in more of an electronic, fusion-ish direction, Water and Earth and Face Forward, Jeremy; then he made a record with two drummers, Tales, Musings and Other Reveries; then he made a quartet record, #jiveculture, with Danny Grissett back on piano and Ron Carter on bass, and Billy Drummond, who’d also played on Tales, on drums. And in the last couple of years, he’s formed a new band, centered around his partnership with Victor Gould. He played on Gould’s album Clockwork, and then brought him into his band for the album Make Noise, from last year, and this new live album.

That’s not all he’s got going on, though. Jeremy Pelt is on about a half dozen records coming out in 2018. He’s on saxophonist Wayne Escoffery’s new record Vortex; he’s on three tracks from organist Jared Gold’s new album Reemergence; he’s part of the band on Don’t Play With Love, a collection of pieces composed by Prince's father, John L. Nelson; he and saxophonist Jim Snidero recorded a tribute to Cannonball Adderley called Jubilation; and he’s a member of the Black Art Jazz Collective along with Wayne Escoffery, and they just released their second album, Armor of Pride. This is one of the longest episodes of the podcast - almost 80 minutes - because Jeremy Pelt has a lot to say, and it's all worth hearing.

Buster Williams Jul 05, 2018

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Episode 20 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with bassist Buster Williams.

Buster Williams is a jazz MVP like very few others. He got his start in the late Fifties; his first studio dates were in 1961, with Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, and he’s appeared on literally hundreds of records since. When I was researching this interview, I was going through his catalog on Discogs, and as you’ll hear, there are a whole bunch of albums he did in the Sixties that they don’t even have listed. He’s played with Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Herbie Hancock, the Jazz Crusaders, and a bunch of different singers. He’s played bass on so many records, he’s even on some where a different bassist is the leader – he’s made a couple of albums with Ron Carter. He doesn’t record very often as a leader, but when he does the music is always fantastic. The reason he stays in the back is, he really views his role as a supportive member of the ensemble to be crucial. He’s trying to provide a bottom end, and feed harmonies to the horns and the piano, and especially a singer. What he has to say about working with singers in this interview really fascinated me, and I hope you’ll find it as interesting as I did.

I’m gonna be honest, I really feel like I learned a tremendous amount about how jazz works by talking to Buster Williams. I can’t read music, I can’t really play any instruments, but I found what he had to say about how a group should work together, and what his role is, extremely enlightening, and it’s probably going to change the way I listen going forward. I’m thrilled I had the opportunity to have this conversation with him, and I hope you'll enjoy listening to it.

Norwegian Jazz Jun 21, 2018

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Episode 19 of the Burning Ambulance podcast tells the story of host Phil Freeman's recent trip to Bergen, Norway to attend the annual Nutshell jazz showcase, and includes interviews with percussionist Erland Dahlen, drummer Gard Nilssen, and saxophonist André Roligheten.

The episode also features live recordings of performances by the groups Bounce Alarm, the Dag Arnesen Trio, Erland Dahlen, and the André Roligheten Quartet. Special thanks to Brit Aksnes, Nina Torske, Aslak Oppeboen, Trude Storheim and Gard Nilssen for organizing everything and being amazing hosts.

David Murray Jun 07, 2018

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Episode 18 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with saxophonist David Murray.

David Murray arrived in New York in the mid-1970s as a student from Pomona College in California, and quickly started playing gigs in the lofts that were hosting most of the really forward-looking music at that time. He can be heard on the Wildflowers compilation, which documented a run of performances at Sam Rivers’ RivBea studio in 1976, and he made his debut album, Flowers For Albert, around the same time, with Olu Dara on trumpet, Fred Hopkins on bass, and Philip Wilson on drums. And since then, he’s made somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred records, and probably more. What makes Murray important, though, is not just his productivity, but his unique voice – he combines old and new school styles in a really striking way, attacking with the whole horn, from the bottom to the top of its range and creating a sound that’s part Ben Webster, part Archie Shepp, and part Albert Ayler, but ultimately unlike anyone else out there. And he’s different from a lot of tenor players in that he doesn’t also play soprano. He plays tenor and bass clarinet, and that’s pretty much it.

In this interview, I’m talking to him about a whole bunch of things. He’s got a new album called Blues For Memo, which we discuss a little bit, and we talk about his political views and how they manifest in his art, about why he’s made as many records as he has, about his creative relationship with Dave Burrell, who I interviewed in episode 15, we talk about his voice on the tenor saxophone, why he likes the octet format, and a lot of other subjects as well. I think it’s a really interesting interview, one I've wanted to do for a long time, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

William Parker & Patricia Nicholson May 24, 2018

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Episode 17 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with bassist William Parker, whose latest album, the 3CD set Voices Fall from the Sky, is out now, and his wife Patricia Nicholson, who runs Arts For Art, the organization that has put on the Vision Festival every year since 1996 and has recently expanded to running additional concert series during the fall and winter.

William Parker has been a crucial figure on the international avant-garde jazz scene since the 1970s. His first recorded appearance was in 1973, backing saxophonist Frank Lowe on the album Black Beings, and he’s made literally hundreds of records since then. He was the bassist in the David S. Ware Quartet for something like 20 years, and continued working with Ware until the saxophonist's death in 2012. He played with Cecil Taylor in the 1980s and 1990s, he was the bassist in Matthew Shipp’s trio for decades, and has played with almost everyone else you’ve ever heard of in this genre of music. As a leader, he’s done everything from solo bass albums to massive orchestral projects. Voices Fall from the Sky showcases his work with vocalists.

Patricia Nicholson is also a hugely important figure to the New York avant-garde jazz scene, because she runs the annual Vision Festival, a massive, weeklong event that gathers amazing musicians from all across the spectrum, from players who’ve been around since the 1960s to people who’ve just made their debut in the last few years and are keeping the spirit of free music alive. She’s also a dancer and choreographer who performs at the festival every year, and she’s just made her debut as a spoken word performer on the album Hope Cries for Justice, a duo performance with Parker.

In this interview, I’m talking to William about what he’s doing musically, and I’m talking to Patricia about her thoughts on dance, and what it takes to run the Vision Festival and all the other programs that the nonprofit Arts For Art, which she leads, put on every year. They’re an extremely ambitious organization working in a city and a cultural environment that offers equal parts apathy and hostility, but what they do is pretty amazing, so I hope you’ll find this conversation as interesting and inspiring as I did.

Dave Holland May 10, 2018

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Episode 16 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with legendary jazz bassist Dave Holland, whose latest album, Uncharted Territories, is out now.

Dave Holland has been a respected and admired figure on the international jazz scene since he began playing in London in 1967. He was recruited to join Miles Davis's band in 1968, and stayed with him until 1970, playing on Filles de Kilimanjaro, In a Silent Way, and Bitches Brew. When he left, he formed Circle with Chick Corea, Anthony Braxton, and Barry Altschul. Holland played extensively with Braxton and Sam Rivers during the early 1970s, and recorded the album Conference of the Birds, a crucial avant-garde document, in 1973 for the ECM label. He later formed the Gateway trio with guitarist John Abercrombie and drummer Jack DeJohnette; led two different quintets, in the 1980s and 1990s/2000s; expanded the latter group to an octet and a big band; and much more. Uncharted Territories features saxophonist Evan Parker, with whom Holland first played in 1968, in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble; keyboardist Craig Taborn; and percussionist Ches Smith. In this interview, he discusses old and new projects, his approach to improvisation, running his own Dare2 label, and much more.

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