John Patitucci - Laying it down Line By Line
The last thirty years in jazz have seen the rise of many exceptional electric bassists leading, most obviously, with Jaco Pastorius and followed by dozens of equally adept players, yet few have managed to combine both the electric and upright acoustic bass in the way that John Patitucci has.
John PatitucciMaking his debut with legendary jazz keyboard player Chick Corea aged just 25, beginning a ten year stint in both Corea's Elektric and Acoustik bands, Patitucci pioneered, (alongside bass icon Anthony Jackson) the use of the 6-string electric bass, an instrument that has the same range as the tenor saxophone and can produce both very low and very high notes thus allowing the player a much greater expressive range than before. Yet this added number of notes would be nothing without a wealth of musicianship to guide them and this is where Patitucci goes way beyond the realms of the purely innovative, into the pantheon of the all time great musicians in jazz.
His record as a sideman has always been within the very top draw in jazz, including Michael Brecker, Joe Lovano, Branford Marsalis, Chris Potter, Mark Turner, and Tim Ries, and pianists Danilo Perez and Brad Mehldau, currently he's part of the phenomenal quartet lead by Wayne Shorter in which he plays double bass and makes an invaluable contribution as a top level improviser. While he also played with a just about every major name in serious jazz he's also developed a very accomplished body of work as a solo artist which he adds to with his latest CD for Concord records, Line By Line, an album that draws together both his electric and acoustic bass playing but also his deep knowledge of classical music and adventurous modern jazz featuring a trio completed by incredible drummer Brian Blade and cutting edge virtuoso guitarist Adam Rogers.
This year Patitucci also performed on an astonishing project entitled Scorched alongside long time friend and contemporary, guitarist John Scofield, whose work was rearranged by composer Marc Anthony Turnage for a 35-piece orchestra. At concerts in London and across Europe it was a truly incredible sight and sound to witness a jazz trio and massive orchestra seamlessly interacting as one hue ensemble • the musical language of jazz lifted into the stratosphere by the Scottish Symphony orchestra.
Recently back in London for the International Jazz Festival, once again with Wayne Shorter, Brian Blade and pianist Danilo Perez, Patitucci was on top form with this quartet, surely one of the greatest in jazz today, they delivered another jaw-dropping performance. John took time out to speak to me about all of his side projects, and the new album Line By Line in a revealing and passionate interview.
Let's talk about this amazing project called 'Scorched' that you have been involved with and how it's quiet an unusual piece in how it combines classical and jazz so seamlessly.
JP Mark Anthony Turnage is phenomenal. One thing you have to understand about him, I don't know how many people know of him, I mean he's already well known in London, but I think what a lot of people don't understand is that a lot of the older and really established composers that I really respect and love him! I mean (Toru) Takemitsu, the famous Japanese composer, took a lot of interest in him and got him commissions because he believed in him, and Hans Werner Henze the famous German composer took him under his wing, he also studied with Gunther Schuller and all these heavy people, they believed in Mark! He's also only a year younger than me, so I really respected first of all his, orchestration knowledge. His knowledge of the orchestra and how to get sounds out of it, and not just all the great classical composers that he's obviously studied with and that he's learned, by working very hard to achieve the colours that they got into their music. But he's also huge fan of jazz, which most of the guys that really know the orchestration, in modern classical music and have really put themselves in that world, usually know very little about jazz, or their interest in it is such that they appreciate everything about it, but they couldn't tell you all about Gil Evans; Mark knows all that stuff.
John PatitucciYou got a nice solo spot with the orchestra too; quite a unique opportunity for a six-string electric bassist to play with a 35-piece orchestra wasn't it?
JP And that given my history it is not something that is brand new to me because while I did the Heart Of The Bass, that was to my knowledge the first time ever that anyone ever recorded concerto for the six-string bass; any serious piece for the electric bass too, of any number of strings. It was also the only piece that existed that I know of that existed at that time for both six-string electric, and also had that Arco movement for double bass in the middle - the slow movement - it's a bowed movement, so the player has to play both. So that's something that we did almost fifteen years ago - it was the early 90s when that came out.
You've been working extensively with Wayne Shorter, he's had such a huge creative resurgence, what's it like working with him?
JP It's up there with playing with Miles, he's a genius. There's only one Wayne! He's a brilliant composer and orchestrator, and his music is on such a deep level, and spiritually he's such a wonderful guy. He's inspired us to go beyond to try and be really in the moment, and that band is just an incredible improvising machine. We've been together now for six years and we just got a Grammy for Beyond The Sound Barrier, the live record that is the latest album we’ve done. When you play with Wayne it really cuts through, it's so deep, you know you can't play cliches, you can't play things you've worked out, I don't like to play licks anyway. I've played with him on and off since about 1986, when I met him on that 'Chick, Wayne and Al' tour, which featured Corea, Wayne and Al Di Meola, and that tour was in 86 and then I played on Phantom Navigator. We started to play here and there over the years although my main commitment was to Chick, it was the opposite situation to what we have now, where my main commitment is to Wayne. So now it's the opposite it's very hard to schedule things with Chick because I am very committed to Wayne and my own stuff.
Where are you at personally with your music at the moment?
JP Well, on Line By Line I'm always trying to integrate both instruments, and it started from the idea of trying to make a trio record with Adam Rogers on guitar, a virtuoso at electric and acoustic, and also classical guitar. So the record is Brian Blade, Adam and myself, but then there are three tunes with Chris Potter on tenor sax, which are an acoustic quartet, which I'm really excited about, of various tunes that I wrote with some very counterpoint-orientated stuff, with a lot of blowing. Then we did a version of 'Evidence' a Thelonious Monk tune, with six-string bass, Adam played Tele (laughs) and we got rootsy; it's a throwback to when funk was more liquid, like James Brown-ish the way Brian plays it, but it's not heavy-handed. It's also reminiscent of the way Herbie played funk, with the Headhunters. Then we also did this tune called 'The Root' which is very African sounding, with the African guitar style and that also feature Brian, that's also on six-string bass. I also did a solo six-string chord-melody piece that will end the record, I also did a solo acoustic bass tune called 'Jesus on the Mainline', which I got from a Fred McDowell record which is very Delta Blues. We also have some tunes that I am about to record in a few weeks with strings, one is the 'Theme and Variations' with the six-string with the string quintet, then there's two pieces with bass and string quartet. One of them I think I'm going to do with the bowed the other one I'm thinking of using six-strings. There's going to be quite a bit of six-string on this record, it's almost half and half. There's also an original by Adam Rogers with the classical guitar, acoustic bass and the drums, I also recorded with the bowed acoustic bass a duet with Adam that's a famous Spanish piece by Manuel Defia called 'Nana' a famous melody you'll probably recognize when you hear it, which is just bowed acoustic bass and classical guitar.
Text © Mike Flynn
