1. Intent

What is your music about?
I think music responds to who we are now. It’s so difficult to describe your own music. I like all kinds of music, and I’m always looking for fresh sounds. I have always admired the spiritual intent, and how it allows you to enter a place that you otherwise wouldn’t get to, and that’s very special. There’s a sense of mystery about all beautiful music. It forces you to question where it comes from. I have always found this intriguing. If you’re ever completely in the moment in your own time, you are eternal. I hope my music achieves that.

Would you classify your music as experimental?
I improvise and like to mix new sounds, but don’t see my music as experimental per se. My roots are jazz and rock. I’m drawn to gypsy cultures…Afro-Cuban, North Indian, and Spanish and Turkish, and influences from these cultures broaden my approach to jazz. There’s a lot of struggle with the definition of jazz and how, as artists, we fit into classification. As Duke Ellington used to say, ‘I don’t play jazz, I play Duke Ellington.’ Cecil Taylor used to say the same thing. I simply respond to the sounds that I hear. I’m always listening. My latest CD, Reincarnation explores how vinyl and spoken word riff with a Turkish saz and acoustic guitar sounds.

Your performances are really about being in the moment. How?
I remember my impression when performing with Amandio Cabral at a coffee shop in North Beach. I was 15 years old. Cabral was exquisite…from Cape Verde, wore Neru jackets and played Bossa Nova. I’d go down to the store and jam. We played with Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete. We could really feel the audience there, and respond to their choices. This is an essential part of being in the moment.
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2. Roots

Your CD "The Search" draws on Flamenco musical tradition. How did that develop?
Even as a child I was curious about flamenco rhythms and melodies, and while studying composition with David Le Roy Smith at the age of 11, we learned modes. It was important for me to gain awareness of different kinds of music. I’ve listened to the great players all my life, but I only began studying Flamenco more seriously a few years ago upon meeting Jason McGuire. Jason is an amazing player and a great teacher. Flamenco rhythm is similar to North Indian in that the more you study the more you realize the rhythm’s complexity and subtlety. I think some of the most creative modern music is from Spain. Flamenco guitars are very light and the strings are closer to the frets, creating a marvelous buzz or ‘growl’. The only genuine flamenco torque on The Search is the song ‘Nuno’, which is more or less a taranta. I’m glad the spirit somehow shines through.

How did you acquire a taste for North Indian Classical music?
In 1966 in San Francisco, I liked to go to hear Ravi Shankar. North Indian classical has 12 and 16 beat accents. It occurred to me that I could blend it with Flamenco. I believe that the hand gestures in flamenco dance originate from India, as do the rhythms. There were two major migrations of the gypsies across Europe to North Africa. What intrigues me is the way in which certain cultural sounds can integrate and form new patterns that inspire new sounds.

What were some of your first musical experiences?
I am told that I started to play the piano around four years old. I loved using the pedals, but I didn’t really know how to play. I wanted to learn to read music, and my parents thought I was too young for lessons, so I began reading my mother’s standards for ‘Cocktails for Two’.

By the time I was ten, the Beatles came along, and I was hooked with the first album. I wanted to play guitar like most people at that time…it was cool. So, I got a paper route, and saved money to buy my first guitar. I took lessons from David Le Roy Smith. He was 21 at the time, and wore velvet Beatle boots, black jeans, had widow’s peak hair like Elvis. He was a bebopper.

The 60s the rock-n-roll scene was altered with the emergence of the Beatles. What spurred your interest further into Jazz at the time?
I had read somewhere that George Harrison was into Chet Atkins, and I was curious to know more. I think I was eleven. I remember one Saturday afternoon I was thumbing through the Jazz section at Portals of Music (one of my local music stores in San Francisco) and I came across Men at Work by Kenny Burrell, recorded in 1959, I believe. I was taken by the cover, which was simply a guitar out in the rain in New York…the image was so edgy, urban, and maybe even had hints of Afro-American influence. I bought it sound unheard. For me, it was beyond the Beatles. I simply had to explore this music further.

My next purchase was a John Coltrane/Kenny Burrell album that had been recorded a couple of years earlier…it was kind of middle-period Coltrane. From there, I was hooked on Jazz. I couldn’t turn back. I gravitated from Coltrane to Miles Davis, all the way back into Charlie Parker. By the time I reached high school, my idols were Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, Kenny Burrell, John Coltrane and Miles Davis.
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3. Inspiration

Artists rely on the inspiration of what peers and ancestors have created to further evolve their own style. How much do you think we take from others and from where are original ideas generated?
Influences are funny. Charlie Parker always said he was very influenced by Tommy Dorsey. He loved his sound. What are you going to say to that? I played for Chico Hamilton in New York, and Chico said, ‘You remind me of another guitar player of mine, Gabor Szabo.’ It’s not that I would go out and learn the licks, but just the spiritual intent, because Gabor was trying to take you someplace. He was also a great collective improviser.

As a kid, there were a couple of solos by Jerry Miller on the Moby Grape record that I found to be brilliant. I could play them for you now. There’s a kind of major 9th slur on the end of one of the tunes that I’ve turned into a signature thing.

The 60s along with San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury scene was an explosive time creatively, and I guess this period influenced my work. From San Francisco to London to New York, musicians were beginning to meld both rock and jazz. I remember seeing a show at the Fillmore West headlining B.B. King, with Albert King as the second act, and opening act Charles Lloyd Quintet (with Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett and Gabor Szabo on guitar). You could see Cream or Jimi Hendrix with Manitas de Plata as the opening act. Jazz and rock boundaries were blurring which later was reflected in my style.

When I was 16, we used to sneak into El Matador to see Kenny Burrell, and if you were a young musician, the kindly management would let you through to watch. Several times I noticed that Carlos Santana had his entire band there to listen. What a brilliant thing to have done, to marry salsa rhythms and harmonies to rock guitar. I’ve also explored rhythm and patterns in African, Afro-Cuban, Indian-Gypsy and Afro-American music. I’m told that Gershwin understood Afro-American rhythm. While in my teens, I used to love listening to Art Blakey’s recording of 20 hand drummers from Burundi. The beat was deeply rooted and resounded with me. I mix these influences with classical harmonies and modes.

It’s an interesting dilemma when you love music from different cultures, and you incorporate them with the intent of keeping what’s vital and real about them; and yet, bringing yourself into the composition, you bring something new to it, an interpretation.
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4. Improvisation

How does improvisation work into your compositions? When do you know that you’ve captured the right balance?
My music has always had a loose improvisational structure, which I prefer. Through Ralph Gleason’s writings I learned to appreciate the loose structures that Duke Ellington would write for his soloists…a piece would be designed for how Johnny Hodges liked to solo for instance. I try to do this, even in a looser jam format. As a band, we’re developing a vocabulary between what I’ve written and each musician’s choice of how to play. In the space provided, a serendipity of the moment emerges.
To find balance, improvisation has to have space to grow, to morph into something new. Word has it that Miles Davis used to say to John Coltrane, ‘You know, I pay you to practice onstage,’ basically telling him what a good gig he had. The best way to refine our language together as a group is through performing.
The Grateful Dead had the nerve to play something completely different every night…even if they fell on their faces at times. And yet, by so doing, they would stumble on some magic every so often. The fact that they managed to garner such commercial success is a wonderful testament to what can happen if you keep doing what you believe in.

How did you discover what improvisation asks of the musician?
I studied under Michael Lorimer (a student of Andres Segovia) for a while. He was a master teacher, but experienced stage fright. I was struck by how this limited his performance, and I began to improvise along with his playing. Often with improvisation, you’re naked up there. How you feel is open for everyone to see, and you have to cope with that. When I listen to my recordings later, I hear how I felt at the time of the recording.
Kai Eckhardt has performed with me enough so that we have developed a visceral musical vocabulary when improvising. In the midst of recording THE SEARCH together, we realized that it was difficult to decipher the difference between the bass and the guitar, and that the music sounded as one instrument. There was a magical connection with our language.

Is there a part of you that wishes to create more structured compositions?
I’d like to know what would happen if Gorecki wrote a concerto. I had approached Philip Glass about writing a concerto with me, but in the end, he said, ‘I’m just a keyboard guy, Greg.’ I’m still interested in creating something that becomes profound, happy, sad…all the elements together. Possibly some improvisational piece would be included. I’ve also thought of creating a requiem.