New Release: Luka Kuplowsky and the Ryokan band
How can I possibly sleep? Not well apparently. So I find myself back blogging for the first time since the MySpace era circa 2004.
Happy release day to my dear friend and long time collaborator Luka Kuplowsky. Luke shared his thoughts on the album here. I am no poet, so I will refrain from talking about that side of things. But, as Jason Moran pointed out by putting music to Adrian Piper’s words, “Artists Ought to be writing about what they do”.
What I do is play the bass, sort of. I think what I mostly do is try and encourage the musicians around me to make more art, take their art seriously, engage in the process without hesitation, and do my best to be present to the art making process. What that looks like practically is a push towards rehearsing, workshopping, making records, and being intentional about playing new music live before recording.
Last week I gave Nick Fraser a ride home from our gig with the Brodie West Quintet at the CMC (another band where we all wish could rehearse more). During our car ride home we brought up the preparation vs no preparation debate. In jazz/improvised music both camps exist, there is the off the cuff ‘first take’/ ad-hoc approach that maybe(?) started being idealized thanks to the lore surrounding the work of Miles Davis post 1963, I’m not totally sure where it came from. None the less, during our conversation we brought up the stories about Ornette and Don rehearsing heads for hours and Billy Higgins famously correcting peoples perception about what was happening in that band. For what its worth, my perspective, those were all bands who were playing 2-3 sets a night for weeks on end. So the illusion that that music had no development is just that, an illusion. Miles was on the road touring with Tony, Ron, Herbie, and Wayne. Sure they weren’t playing Nefertitti live, but they were developing a sound, musical relationships, and thats most of the work right? Most of the music I love, I’m pretty sure it spent hundreds of hours in the lab cooking before it was ready. In a podcast I’m working on about Barre Phillips, Barre recounts going to Jimmy Guiffre’s house weekly for a couple years to session and develop ideas. Arthur Russell likely made 20 versions of each of his best songs before he settled on the final ones we heard. The biggest difference from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s till now is that we are not presented with the opportunity to play 14 sets a week as a band for 3 weeks in a row before we record. What we have is rehearsal, so we gotta do the best with what we have. (Is this a pointed rant at people who don’t like to rehearse? maybe, sorry, why don’t you like to rehearse?). Look I get it, Astral Weeks is amazing, but those were also some of the greatest musicians of all time. For the rest of us mere mortals, to me it feels foolish to think we can achieve the same.
There is of course the other side of this argument, over cooking it, and ya that can lead to some bad music too. No doubt. ProTools perfection culture can really kill a vibe.
Okay old jazz(?) guy rant over, back to Luka. What I loved the most about making this record was the process leading up to the recording. It started with a gig a the Belljar cafe on Dundas Street maybe 2 years before we recorded (we recorded Sept 2020). We recorded a demo with Matthew Bailey in his short lived studio behind Ring Music on Harbord shortly after that first gig then continued to play this music live along side Luka’s other music for the next two years, documented of course by Joe Strutt. Par for the course I know, nothing special. I’m getting to that. The pandemic of course happened, Luka gets the recording grant (thank you Canada Council for the Arts). We have a small window when things were “open” to make the record, so we find a way to rehearse summer of 2020. We rehearse as a trio (Luka, Evan and I) on my front porch as much as we can, I use a boombox as a small PA and we play though all the music working out the details best we could. I wish I had a picture of those rehearsals to show you, some of my fondest pandemic memories.
So as loose as this album sounds, and it sounds loose lets be real here. I just want it to be known that there is intention and care behind that looseness.
p.s. to be fair, finding a place to rehearse in Toronto is impossible. Thats a whole other problem for another blog.