Can two different types of songs happen at once, and not clash, but complement each other?
On "Northern Shuffle" — the second track on his new album, Speak to Me — Julian Lage is trying to do just that.
Therein, his rhythm section of bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King mostly lay back — and Lage and saxophonist Levon Henry go to town.
"You have a shuffle feel, but then you have these somewhat irrational bursts of all the rubato things," guitarist and composer Lage tells GRAMMY.com from his home in New Jersey. "It's almost like a Paul Motian tune mixed in with a blues. That's a cool study of two different worlds somehow coming together."
These cross-currents make Speak to Me come alive. The six-time GRAMMY nominee's first three albums for Blue Note Records — 2021's Squint, 2022's View with a Room and 2023's The Layers — stuck with a narrower aesthetic, and winningly so.
"I actively tried to limit the scope of the last handful of records I've made so that it would be — let's say, electric guitar trio-dominant," Lage explains.
But on Speak to Me, which arrived March 1, Lage merges his universe with others' — that of innovative pianist Kris Davis, woodwind maestro Levon Henry and keyboard extraordinaire Patrick Warren. Plus, he doesn't solely pick electric or acoustic — like Neil Young, and other greats of both instruments, he splits the difference.
From opener "Hymnal" to closer "Nothing Happens Here," Davis, Henry and Warren flow along with Lage's working trio, where Roeder and King comprise the base of the triangle.
"It's just six people playing and listening and responding, and that's it. That's the record," Lage glows. "That was a beautiful thing about this particular group of people — that they were looking at it from an improvisational point of view, not a worker bee point of view."
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Last time I saw you play, you were accompanying Kris Davis at the Village Vanguard. Can you start by talking about your creative relationship with her?
I'm glad you were at that show. That turned out to be a nice record — Kris's band.
Kris and I met through our mutual friend, [writer, poet and record producer] David Breskin. This was years ago. She did a record [in 2016] called Duopoly. I hadn't played with Kris and didn't know Kris. I knew of her.
So, David said, "Kris is making this record." And he played a part in it. He said, "Let's just book the session. You come by and record a couple of duo songs and see how they go."
It really was an immediate connection. And it was just fun and beautiful. Those songs ended up on the record and then, every six months, eight months, we would find ourselves in a situation where we would play some duo shows.
And then, as she put together that week at the Vanguard, I was so honored to be invited to be in the band and then make that record. As we were getting Speak to Me together, and I was thinking of who to include, who to invite, it just seemed like this natural progression to ask Kris to come into the album and merge our worlds.
And I'm so glad she was a part of it. She's incredible.
Can you talk about how the rest of the Speak to Me contributors constellated?
Well, on the record, it's Dave King on drums and Jorge Roeder on bass, and Patrick Warren on keyboards, Levon Henry on woodwinds, and Kris on piano. Jorge and Dave comprise what has been my working trio for several years.
So, that's the center of the ensemble. And then Patrick and Levon and Kris — as Joe Henry would call it — create these weather systems that pass through the frame at any given moment.
It is important to me — to all of us — that they didn't feel like they're interlopers in the working trio. Because that's a danger you run into when you have a new ensemble mixing with a more established band.
And much to our delight, that's not at all what happened. Everyone created a space and held a space for it to become something unique in and of itself. Not a trio plus, but a genuine sextet or quintet at times. And it's all orchestration. What I like about it is it stems from improvisation, so no one has parts.
What was going on in your musical life that engendered this freewheeling spirit?
[Long pause, sigh] I don't know! [Chuckles]
I like writing songs a lot. And for a recording, in the past at least, I've written a lot more than we use. I have just a fascination with exhausting everything you can think of, and then I like that approach. And then once the cast is in place, editing out the pieces that don't feel like they celebrate the nature of those players. Really focusing on the pieces that endear themselves to this particular group.
And at the time, what I noticed was: a lot of the music I was writing was spiritual in nature, in the sense that a lot of them were refrains. They weren't rhythm changes; they weren't modern jazz tunes.
You hear that on something like "Nothing Happens Here," or "Hymnal," or "Speak To Me," or "South Mountain." A lot of these tunes could be played as rolling, rubato pieces; they could have a groove. They could be really any number of things.
So, an answer to your question: I think that what was going on for me at that time — evidently, just from what I hear on the record — is looking for music that has a certain amount of clarity and also a lot of space around it. That's the music that I needed to play, I needed to hear and be a part of just for my own sanity. I feel like I wrote the music to calm my own system down — or to nurture it, to maybe be more accurate.
And that type of writing lends itself well to freedom, and to everybody contributing whatever they contribute. Almost more in the spirit of Carla Bley or somebody, who writes these incredible pieces where the architecture is so fluorescent, but it's also invisible. Like you're left with just, What are the players contributing? So, I think this is healing music.
Can you think of any records in the overall jazz canon that acted as a prototype, or an archetype, for what you're doing on Speak to Me?
Let me frame it this way, perhaps: my true nature really is split between acoustic guitar and electric guitar. That's a simple divide.
And so, the main thing for me on this record was just not shutting out that other world. Not shutting out the acoustic in favor of the electric, and not shutting out the electric guitar for the acoustic, and the way the band responds around each instrument is so distinct.
So, you get a lot of mileage out of just shifting the guitar — because everyone's touch also shifts, and also their decisions shift. And instead of tenor saxophone with the electric guitar songs, there's clarinet with the acoustic.
As far as records in the jazz canon, the real prototype and archetype is the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Probably him the most, but also Count Basie — or any larger jazz ensemble where the whole point is that you can use variety and surprise to give a sense of innovation, but it's always held together by the songs.
In many respects, Speak to Me, as a record, is more aligned with an older era of jazz just by its variety — which isn't that varied, as things go. For me, it is. But if you listen to it enough, you realize, Oh, it is just one band. It's one statement. It's just different chapters in one story.
So, I would definitely look to Billy Strayhorn and Duke as huge influences for this album.
I love "Omission." It makes me feel like I'm riding through the Hollywood Hills listening to Blue or something. How did you dig into that aesthetic so believably?
I was trying to write a song for Charlie Watts, basically, is what was going through my head. And although I'm aware of Laurel Canyon and that sound, it wasn't…
Not that I'm saying you were actively trying to do that!
Oh, no, no, no, I took no [umbrage with that]. Even I hear it, and I'm like, Holy cow, that sounds like that, too!
But going into it, I was really mesmerized by Charlie — his beat on "Loving Cup." So, I was playing these different songs that fit to that beat. But frankly, because I had no desire to really reference something that overtly, I scratched the song from the record date.
We were in the studio for about two and a half days. On the first day, we did most of it. On the second day, we basically finished it. And then at some point, I talked to Joe and I just said, "I don't think this is good for the record, but I have this melody stuck in my head." And he said, "Well, just start playing it and we'll figure it out." So, then, he played it and everyone played a part, and that was it.
In a lot of ways, it's as much a surprise to me as anyone, how that presents. And it's funny, because I've since played that song live without an acoustic guitar in a jazz trio format as a completely different piece, and it's equally exciting to me. Because it's about the theme to me, more than the treatment.
But that record just so happened to capture that particular treatment, which is cool. I love that that happened, but it wasn't terribly deliberate, is all I can say.
Can you talk about tunes like "Northern Shuffle" and "76," where you get playful and dig into the blues in a subtly irreverent way? Blues is intrinsic to jazz, as we all know, but this is a different thing.
It is, really. It's part of the music. And also, those are shuffles. The shuffle feels are even more specific once you're in the world of jazz. And I love them, and Dave King plays shuffles better than anyone. They're just amazing.
I'd say "Northern Shuffle" is a cool example of really two songs happening at once. You have a shuffle feel, but then you have these somewhat irrational bursts of all the rubato things. It's almost like a Paul Motian tune mixed in with a blues. That's a cool study of two different worlds somehow coming together.
And I started as a blues guitar player, so pointedly that it feels only appropriate. "76" is similar. That's a little bit more straightforward in terms of the feel, but then you have Kris Davis playing on it in this way that brings in the world of avant-garde in a different way.
So, yeah, it's just a play of oppositional things in a way that to us as a band, aren't that dissimilar. The avant-garde, improvised music and blues is one thing. So those songs are about that.
But it's nice that they have a tinge of just a different aesthetic, a different growl. But because they're coming from the space of improvised music, they make sense with the other songs too.
The first time I interviewed you, it was around the time of Squint. You said something that stuck with me — that when you watch old videos of yourself, you almost feel like you were better then, because you weren't thinking about it as much. What's the state of your thinking on that?
Well, I appreciate that sentiment still. I think often as a younger player, it's easy to look to the future and go, Well, this isn't good, but down the road, I'll be good. It's baked into any practicing musician's mind.
But often, in my experience, when I look back at older stuff or I listen back, I can hear the person. Despite my insecurities or desires to get better, there was always somebody there, you know what I mean? There's someone there.
And maybe with some perspective and time, I can just appreciate that person and go, "Wow, way to go. Yeah, you didn't possess what you possess now, but who cares? You were doing that thing that you did at that time." So it's more just an appreciation for it than anything.
So, I do feel that when I hear things — absolutely.
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