An Interview with Joe McPhee, Multi-Instrumental Warrior

[This interview originally appeared in Austinist, 2012] Saxophonist and trumpeter Joe McPhee was born in Miami in 1939, and has been on the recording and performing scene internationally since 1967 when he made his debut as a sideman on brass multi-instrumentalist Clifford Thornton’s (1939-1989) LP Freedom and Unity. But McPhee has lived outside of the epicenter of modern jazz, preferring his hometown of Poughkeepsie, NY to the Boroughs and working for many years in a bearing factory while leading a separate life as a world-renowned instrumentalist and composer, recording a slew of albums on the Swiss label Hat Hut (which was started in 1975 to present his music). His home country has become more aware of his work over the past couple of decades, and in addition to a variety of combo and solo recordings, he’s also worked extensively with German reedman Peter Brötzmann, Chicago reedman Ken Vandermark, Upstate New York drummer Chris Corsano, and the Scandinavian power trio The Thing (Mats Gustafsson, reeds; Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, bass; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums).

Photos copyright Peter Gannushkin/downtownmusic.net

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So for starters, how did you get hooked up with The Thing?

I met Mats for the first time in 1997 in Chicago when I was invited to join the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet. Mats had been a fan of my music for a long time, so we got to play together, and after that he suggested that I join with him and the guys from The Thing at some point. In 2002 I was invited to Norway for concerts in Oslo, and we had a tour that subsequently went all the way to Croatia. That was the beginning of our collaboration.

As you’ve worked together over the past decade, how has that developed? I think of The Thing as often inviting collaborators, so it’s as much a question for them as it is for you, but as it’s become semi-regular, does it bleed into your own work, or do you keep things separate?

I keep it separate. For example, I’ve been with Trio X [with Dominic Duval, bass; Jay Rosen, drums] for about fourteen years, and the music there is quite different. Mats and the Thing come out of punk rock, Albert Ayler and Don Cherry, whereas Trio X is more along the lines of a traditional American jazz outfit, though we take that material and pull it apart, so in that sense it’s not that dissimilar. It’s another direction, though.

I was also curious what doors had been opened that might not have otherwise been opened? With The Thing, they’ve been able to cross genres and attract different audiences for the music. I’d assume it would translate to your work as well, though of course you’ve been performing and recording in Europe for decades.

Well, in 2005 The Thing and I worked with this punk rock band called The Cato Salsa Experience, and we had a tour in Norway of rock venues that gave us (and me) a predominately different audience to deal with. Some people were familiar with the music of Albert Ayler and so forth, but there were a lot of people coming from the rock side of things and there was a big discovery thing going on there. 

But early on in my career, I played in a group called The Soul Project, which had a Hammond B3, guitar, a drummer and vibraphonist, and so on. We were doing things like soul and dance music, and so playing [in a groove] wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to me.

That was some of the stuff that was going on up around Vassar and Poughkeepsie with Ernie Bostic, right?

Yeah, right. 

It’s interesting to me because I was into punk rock before I discovered and heard the music of Ayler and John Coltrane. It seemed like such a logical transition, where things that didn’t go far enough for me in rock music – I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but I picked up Ayler’s Bells and Spiritual Unity thinking they looked really cool, and put on the records and was blown away. That changed everything.

That was exactly my experience. The first time I saw and heard that music, I went through the roof. 

Wasn’t Donald Ayler [trumpeter, Albert Ayler’s brother and frequent collaborator] in the record store when you first heard the music?

Yes, yes he was.

I’ve gone back and forth with this and done a lot of thinking about the Aylers’ music, and how the language is still an important part of the landscape of this music. Obviously you’ve created your own sound world and a huge body of work over the past forty years, but Albert Ayler seems to be something or someone that’s near and dear to your music. Could you talk about that a bit?

The thing that attracted me straight away was his sound – it was so huge, and that was the main reason I wanted to play the saxophone. There were other musicians too, like Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman who I was into, but it was the sound and passion of Albert’s music that really grabbed me. Two days after borrowing a tenor, I went off to play with Ernie Bostic and those guys, and they said “please, don’t come back with that thing!” They let me play my trumpet, but not the saxophone. A year later, I would wear these mechanic’s coveralls, white shirt and a bow tie, big round sunglasses and sit in front while they had jam sessions. For a year I didn’t play the saxophone with them, and then when I made my first record for CjR, Underground Railroad (1969), I hired them to play on it. They were right – I shouldn’t have done it then, but I did anyway. 

But it seems like you had your own approach by then, too. To me it seemed like a very patient and open music that you’d found, or that had found you. Your voice was already clarifying.

Well, it frightened people – bass players, one in particular, walked off the stand and refused to play because they thought it wasn’t real music. There’s a recording on Hat Hut called Live at WBAI Free Music Store [Joe McPhee & Survival Unit II with Clifford Thornton], and you’ll notice there’s no bass player on it. The next year after that we were doing a program on PBS, so our drummer Harold E. Smith said, “I’ve got this bass player, a 21-year-old kid, he’s phenomenal.” I said ‘no, I don’t want him. I’m too tired of bass players telling me they don’t want to play.’ It was Stanley Clarke! I refused him – so that was the way that went. 

I’ve always been fascinated by [brass multi-instrumentalist and composer] Clifford Thornton and his work, and you’re doing a program related to his music at this year’s Vision Festival. Could you talk a bit about his importance to you? I know we’re talking a lot about other people in relation to your work and maybe that’s not so hip [laughs] but it all comes from somewhere…

Clifford was the first person who ever gave me a piece of written jazz music. I was listening to things and playing trumpet at the time, and he gave me “Four” by Miles Davis. I was a big Miles fan, and Clifford was around and helped me a lot, mentored me and introduced me to people in New York City. He also invited me for the first recording I was on, Freedom and Unity [Third World, 1967] the day after Coltrane’s funeral. We were rehearsing in a Manhattan apartment. I was alone playing my trumpet, and there was a knock on the door. It was Ornette, and he had a trumpet in his hand. He said, “I heard you playing; why don’t you try this one? I’ve got to go away, so when you’re done with it just put it in the room across the hall.” I didn’t know what to do – I took it and played a few notes on it, and thought ‘I can’t do this.’ When he left I went and put it back. 

During that week, Coltrane had died and we were scheduled to have a recording on Saturday. Ornette came by and asked if I was going to the funeral. I said ‘well, I’ve only been here a few days and I don’t have any good clothes.’ He said, “you don’t need clothes, you just go.” I was at the funeral and heard Ornette’s trio perform and Ayler’s quartet, and I was standing outside when everybody came out of the church. Ornette was with [drummers] Billy Higgins and Harold Avent, and he said, “hey, we’re going to Long Island to the graveside. Do you want to come with us?” So we got into a limousine and went off to Long Island, and we got stuck in traffic. The service had ended when we got there, so it was just me, Ornette, Billy and Harold at the graveside, which was extraordinary. That night I went to the Village Vanguard to watch him play; that day I was like this groupie, carrying his horn and following him to a chicken joint on Seventh Avenue. The next day I go to the recording and who’s the bass player? Jimmy Garrison [Coltrane’s bassist]! This was totally beyond the pale, and Clifford Thornton was the guy who put me into that.

Didn’t you acquire some of his instruments, too, after he passed?

Well, I have his valve trombone. On the WBAI concert, he’s playing baritone horn because his valve trombone was stolen. I was with him when he bought the instrument, so I knew what it looked like – it was a very compact valve trombone, not like what Bob Brookmeyer played. It has a unique look, and it has Wurzburg, Germany written on it. Later, I was in New York looking for a valve trombone, and this guy said on the phone “yeah, I’ve got this German horn.” I went to look at it and I knew it was Clifford’s horn. I also know that I’m the only person other than Clifford that could have identified it. I called him – he was in Switzerland and I was going there – and I said ‘does the number 872 mean anything to you?’ And he said “why?” I said ‘it’s the number on your valve trombone – I know because I’m holding it right now. Do you want me to bring it to you?’ He said “no, I’ve got another one now – you keep it.” So I’ve been playing it ever since. There’s a recording of duos with [trombonist] Jeb Bishop where I play it. It’s called The Brass City, on Okka Disk (1999).

Aren’t you arranging some of Thornton’s music for the Vision Festival?

Actually, I’m calling it Playing in the Gardens of Harlem in reference to the JCOA recording that he did. I was a part of the group in its early rehearsals, and of course this was the mid-70s so we were in the gas crisis and you could only get gas on odd or even days depending on your plate number. I was working at the time and I had to sneak away and try to make rehearsals; there was one that Clifford couldn’t make because of the gas issue, and when the recording date came up I couldn’t make it. There is a recording of the first rehearsal that I’m on, and I have a copy taken from the master tapes, which are at WKCR in New York. 

I used to work as an intern at the Museum of Modern Art archives, and I was working with the museum’s strike papers. One of the clippings I was organizing also had a reference to the JCOA open rehearsals for The Gardens of Harlem, so I copied it and I keep it with my copy of the album. Perhaps that was one of the rehearsals you attended.

Ben Young had a program at WKCR where he put together a bunch of interviews with him, and I’d like to do something with that.

Congratulations on receiving the Lifetime Achievement award from the Vision Festival, by the way – this is recognition that you’ve done and contributed so much to the development of the language. And I hope that it has some effect on the working environment, too. How long have you been part of the festival?

I was present at the first one – the idea was impressive, and it seemed incredible that this was happening in the United States. In fact, Trio X was created after the third Vision Festival. It was first called the Joe McPhee Trio, and due to time constraints we were only able to play for about twenty minutes. Immediately afterwards we went to Bob Rusch’s Cadence studios to record. We didn’t have a name for the group, and I think the next day there was a post online somewhere that said of us “not a bad band, but we’ll probably never hear from them again.” So that’s what the X was about – it was standing for the unknown, and we’ve played in several Vision Festivals since then. 

I know you work in so many different contexts that it’s kind of hard to think of you having a “regular band,” but is Trio X the main one at this stage?

Yes, it is. Dominic Duval called me from the road one day while traveling with Jay Rosen, and he had heard a recording I did with the violinist David Prentice. He said, “I’m a bassist and I’d love to play with you!” I said ‘that’s terrific but I don’t have a band.’ I took down his name and said I’d call him if something came up. There was a concert at the Knitting Factory that was celebrating the birthday of John Coltrane, and Jay and the saxophonist Joe Giardullo were part of it, so I asked Dominic to join us. That set us off, in a way.

It’s funny to think that bass players wouldn’t play with you at one point, because now I associate you with some truly great bass partnerships. It’s come full circle in an ironic way.

It is ironic; in the beginning, it threatened their work and they didn’t want to go in that direction. 

You’ve also done those duos with Ingebrigt – could you talk about those?

Ingebrigt is a fantastic player – he’s full of energy, has a great sense of humor, and is a pleasure to be around. In 2007 we were in Chicago for the tenth anniversary of the Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, and he asked me if I wanted to record some duets. Blue Chicago Blues (Clean Feed) came out of that, and then last year we made a follow up that became Brooklyn DNA. After the tour with The Thing, he and I are going to play some duos in Slovenia. It’s a wonderful opportunity and we’re able to capitalize on it.

You’ve lived in Poughkeepsie throughout – did you live in the city at all?

No, I’ve never really lived in the city – I’ve lived in Poughkeepsie all my life, though I was born in Miami. I taught at Vassar from 1969 to 1971 or ’72, and worked a regular job as well.

You’ve done all these recordings and worked in Europe, yet you also had this day gig where your peers probably weren’t aware of what you were doing on your “days off.” It’s fascinating, and yet you were probably also able to do things on your own terms away from the rat race, which was probably a positive thing.

Yeah, that’s part of it. I was working in a factory, but that also allowed me – since nobody knew what I was doing – when the factory closed for two weeks I would keep working and accrue vacation time. I could go to Europe and play over there, and people would ask me when I came back what I’d been doing. I told them I was playing jazz festivals in Europe, and they said “well if you’re that good, what are you doing working here?” So I can make enough money for the next one, of course… and they asked if they could hear what I did, and I said ‘oh sure!’ and gave them copies of an album. That was a big mistake because they’d say, “people actually pay you to play shit like that?” That was the end of that! 

But you know, Poughkeepsie is close enough to the city without having all the stress of it; I can get to the airport and come back and look at the trees and the natural beauty. I almost never get to play here, and people have no idea what I do. There was a piece in the New York Times recently and I’m being interviewed for the Wall Street Journal of all places, but the paper here knows nothing about all of this stuff, and that’s good. 

There are quite a lot of artists and musicians living Upstate – Ossining named a city after [guitarist] Sonny Sharrock, and [trumpeter] Ted Daniel and [pianist] Mike Kull are up there.

Yeah, Mike is up here – I spoke to him recently, though I haven’t heard him in a while and we haven’t played together in many years. [pianist] Marilyn Crispell is up here, and Jack DeJohnette is as well. A lot of people are up in Woodstock, and [composer] Pauline Oliveros is in Troy… 

Being a little afield from the city gives you highly reflective space in order to work, though I suppose you’re traveling enough that you might not be home to relax as much. 

It seems like I’m away, but I’m home a lot! [laughs] Right now it’s feast or famine, and I’m away a lot this summer, but from last November to last March, I didn’t have any work. It was worrisome, and you know, the scene changes – the recording industry is nothing like it was when Hat Hut and CjR started back in the 1970s. It’s just a big mystery. In New York City there are fewer places to play.

You had the ideal situation of a label that would release and curate your work to a pretty amazing degree with Hat Hut, and also with CjR though that was shorter-lived. 

Well, actually CjR made it possible for Hat Hut to exist, because the first Hat Hut record was Black Magic Man, which came out of that Nation Time session (CjR #2). They dovetailed, and now with Corbett vs. Dempsey releasing CDs of my early solo things that were only out on vinyl – Glasses and Variations on a Blue Line/’Round Midnight – and I presume there’s more to come from that relationship. The concert that produced Nation Time was actually a two-day event, a concert and a whole day of recording, and I’ve got all of those tapes. Eventually the whole thing will come out.

I’ve got that two-disc Live at Vassar 1970, as well as the sound collage stuff [Sound on Sound], which is really interesting.

That was never supposed to come out – those were in my basement for over forty years, and Corbett heard them and said that they absolutely should be issued.

I guess it’s like a painter’s studies for larger works – when a retrospective comes together, the studies are exhibited alongside the finished work. The painter may never have intended them to be seen, but looking back over the whole career, they are more relevant.

Yeah, they give you another perspective and flesh things out – they give you a view of someone’s development, which I think is interesting.

That set allowed me to think differently about your solo work as well as the work you did with [electronic artist] John Snyder – I could see that in context. At the same time, it seems quite far removed from your solo music at present, because it has been so refined over the years and has become quite concentrated. It’s interesting to see how the solos have been presented, in these ultra-specific, dedicated instrumental albums – for example, the recent ones on Roaratorio. Is that still a going concern as far as documentation and performance?

Yes, I want to do a solo trumpet thing that will fill out a missing link. I’m working on that, as well as some other ideas I’d like to deal with. One thing that has been missing since about 1977 is a duet with Steve Lacy. Just before Graphics came out, I had a back to back solo concert with [soprano saxophonist] Steve Lacy in Basel. I played first, and then he played, and it was his first time in Basel. At the end of my section and before he did his solo pieces, he said “oh, we should do something together, too.” I said ‘great – I’ve just blown everything I can think of,’ with trumpet and tenor and soprano, and it was very loud and over the top. Steve comes on and starts playing, and it’s just beautiful. I was thinking to myself ‘what am I going to do, because the tenor is too loud and the trumpet’s too shrill, and I shouldn’t have the nerve to play the soprano. But it was time for me to come in, so I grabbed the soprano and we started to play. After the end of it, I couldn’t play my cassette of the concert – from 1977 until Steve died in 2004, I wouldn’t listen to it and I thought ‘now I’ve done it – I’ve embarrassed myself, my family, and everyone else.’ Finally I put it on and thought ‘huh, that interesting – this really worked.’ I gave it to James Lindbloom [of Roaratorio] and he’s going to put it out as a single-sided LP, because it’s about twenty-five minutes of music. People always wondered why Steve’s LP, Clinkers (Hat Hut), was so short – it was because he stopped and we played together. So this is another missing link. 

And I always think of Bill Dixon as the progenitor of solo trumpet music.

He’s one of my big heroes.

It’s interesting to me – when you switched away from the pocket trumpet as your primary horn, going towards the saxophone, it wasn’t that you’d totally left one for the other. But as a non-musician, my first instinct is that going from brass to reeds, from a purely technical standpoint, is a real challenge. I’m curious how the mechanics of that transition would work, and how you’re able to take what I see as very different physical abilities and limitations, and create a playing situation out of it.

Well, my dad was a trumpeter and he wasn’t very happy when I started to play the saxophone. He told me that I’d be a jack of all trades and a master of none. He was a strict disciplinarian and a very good trumpet player – he loved Louis Armstrong, and in fact he looked a bit like him. He would play with a handkerchief over the valves so no one could see what he was doing, and things like that. I thought ‘you know, well, that’s not such a bad thing’ – I took it as a challenge. They’re both sound generators for me; I was never going to play trumpet like Freddie Hubbard or Lee Morgan, though I really loved their music. I thought ‘maybe I’ll just do something else with music,’ and began to move away from straight ahead jazz. When I discovered Bill Dixon’s music, that turned me around too, and I began to do things with the instrument that you’re not supposed to do. I really liked superheroes who could fly straight up without wings, and that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t know what I couldn’t do – I’m not limited by the fact that it’s a trumpet. I know the area where it works and I have these role models who can do all these marvelous, incredible things, so…

Having never played either, my mind wants to say that going from one to the other would be tough, but maybe that’s not true at all. 

I think it’s more difficult for people who have studied one family of instruments for a long time. Children would be better at it, because they have greater imaginations and they’re not limited by what you’re supposed to do. That is, until they’re six years old and get screwed over by the school system… they draw houses with smoke going straight up, green grass and a blue sky, but before that they can make and do anything!

I think about that Peter Brötzmann “Free Jazz und Kinder” recording that they made in Berlin, and I think Don Cherry was involved somehow as well. They presented children with instruments, and they had Brötzmann, Fred Van Hove and Han Bennink as part of it. They just let the kids’ imaginations run wild, and the music is pretty crazy but the idea is genuine.

I’ve not heard the record, but I have had a similar experience. In Switzerland, I was brought in to teach kids, and there was one very affluent group that had all these instruments and traditional education, and they were very happy and so forth. They took me to another school that was “lower class” (whatever that means in Switzerland), and I put my instruments out on the floor and let them play whatever they wanted. I had a conch shell, tenor, trumpet and all this stuff. They said “oh no, don’t let those kids touch them – they’ll break your instruments.” I said, ‘no, I don’t think they will.’ I found out that they had closets full of instruments that they never let the kids play. When there was a coffee break, I told the teachers to take out all the instruments and put them in the middle of the gymnasium. When the kids came out and took one look at the instruments and one look at me, I didn’t understand a word of Swiss German, but – in no time I had an orchestra that was able to take directions, and you should have seen their faces, they had all changed. It was great.

You’ve done a bunch of work with Nameless Sound in Houston schools, too. I’ve witnessed a couple of things, and though everyone is different in how they approach the kids, it’s always been fascinating and rewarding to observe. My music appreciation classes when I was a kid seemed more like an exercise in how not to enjoy music rather than how to enjoy it – I was traumatized enough that I didn’t get back into music until high school.

So, what other projects are on the horizon for you? 

I’m going to Chicago and to the Okka Fest in Milwaukee, and then this tour with The Thing, and then I go to Slovenia for solo and duo concerts with Ingebrigt. Then it’s off to Norway where I’ll play duets with [saxophonist] Evan Parker, and then I meet up with Survival Unit III in Berlin, and after that I’m on the road with [drummer] Chris Corsano for a duo tour in Europe. Then I play the Chicago Jazz Fest in August with Ken Vandermark and there’s a Trio X tour of the Midwest and Northwest after that. Following that, I’m in Europe with the Brötzmann Chicago Tentet.

To me, that sounds like a feast.

Yeah, it is until winter starts and who knows – at the moment it’s a fantastic ride and we’ll just see what happens.