The Burning Ambulance Podcast Returns!
Pianist Ethan Iverson on his new album and much more
The last episode of the Burning Ambulance Podcast was released in December 2022. I interviewed Walter Chaw, film critic and author of a book on director Walter Hill that you really should read. Then 2023 happened. I moved across the country, I wrote a book — In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor, coming to a bookstore near you this summer — I started a new job, and basically had no time to continue the podcast. But now that I’m settled in, it’s coming back! I’m not sure how many episodes I’ll put out this year. Maybe 10, maybe fewer. I only have one more interview booked at the moment. But one way or another, we’re back.
This episode features an interview with pianist Ethan Iverson. He’s probably still best known for his long tenure in the Bad Plus, but he’s been on his own since 2017, works regularly with jazz legends, and was releasing music under his own name going all the way back to 1993. He’s got a new album out this month, Technically Acceptable, his second release for Blue Note following 2022’s Every Note is True. That album featured Larry Grenadier on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums; this one has Thomas Morgan on bass and Kush Abadey on drums. But it also features a 15-minute, three-movement, through-composed piano sonata, the first such piece to ever appear on a Blue Note release.
We talk about the new album, about his approach to composition and to playing, about older jazz styles and about McCoy Tyner as a “before and after” world-changing force within jazz, about Cecil Taylor, about fellow modern pianists (Aaron Parks, Aaron Diehl, Jeb Patton, Jason Moran), and much more. I think you’ll enjoy hearing our conversation; I enjoyed having it. The podcast also has a new theme, which I built in Logic. Anyway, here’s the link; go listen.
Here are a few excerpts from our conversation, edited for clarity, as they say.
So yeah, let’s start with the new record. How has your playing evolved since your last record? What are you better at in 2023?
Well, I certainly regard my playing, composing and everything else as a process. I turned 50 this year and there are — many of my favorite musicians seem to know exactly what they were doing by 20 or 25 or 30, you know, 35, it starts to feel like you’re getting old to be getting it together. But I have to say, in all honesty, Phil, that I’m just at the beginning of sorting out a lot of my technique and concepts. So the last record with Jack DeJohnette and Larry Grenadier, you know, just in terms of dealing with the instrument and the compositional side of things, I think it was the best I could do at the time. But honestly, I do think Technically Acceptable is better. The title’s, you know, it’s trying to be a joke. You know, it’s definitely self-deprecating. It’s a quote from a book. Many of my titles are quotes from books. And I’ve been debating going into this interview, should I reveal the book and the quote? And I actually still don’t have a hard ruling on it. But The Purity of the Turf with Ron Carter and Nasheet [Waits], that was from P.G. Wodehouse. My record with Lee Konitz, Costumes are Mandatory, that's a quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And now, Technically Acceptable is from a very, very big bestseller. But I checked, and you can’t really Google it easily, so. I guess I’ll leave it for a superfan to find on their own sometime. The first Bad Plus record was that kind of thing. These are the Vistas. That was Reid Anderson’s suggestion, and it was a line from American Movie, that documentary.
So how did you choose the players on this record and what goes into that decisionmaking? Like, obviously, when you can get somebody that’s, like, a legend to play with you…I remember I talked to Jeremy Pelt and he said, you know, I booked Ron Carter for an album because I could, so you did your last record with Larry Grenadier and Jack DeJohnette. So why did you choose the guys on the new record? What did you want from them? What did they bring? You know, talk me through it.
Right. So. You know, with the Bad Plus it was three peers who were very strong voices, and we were meeting in the middle. And I still believe that was innovative music, strictly in the sense that no one sounded like that before. And you can recognize us anytime. An older Bad Plus record where I’m playing piano on it. You know, it comes on, you know it’s the Bad Plus. It’s very distinctive. That was always my first agenda, since I was very young. Make music that was fresh. Then I get a little older. I have that surprise success. And what I felt was, I really need to learn how to play jazz. Of course, I was playing jazz, but at the same time, there was a lot of stuff I needed to work on. And so I immediately started trying to get close to Billy Hart, to Paul Motian, to Tootie Heath, to then eventually Ron Carter and then Jack DeJohnette. And each of those occasions, I in a sense am trying to frame them in the best way I can. Several people told me they thought Jack DeJohnette sounded amazing on “The Eternal Verities” and the rest of that record. And I think it’s true. Like, I got some primo Jack DeJohnette, you know, late period Jack is on my record, and so the record’s a success as far as I’m concerned. You might think that these guys sound great on every record, but it’s actually maybe not true. I do think the leader has to have a certain kind of interest and compassion to sort of make it happen the best way. You know, several people told me that Ron Carter on The Purity of the Turf, that that was some of the best Ron they’d heard in recent years. And I don’t know if that’s true or not. Ron’s on about a hundred records a month, but I do know it’s incredible Ron on that record. So at the same time, the greats die off or get less available and at some point I have to sort of stake out a trio with younger people. And so Technically Acceptable is the first one of those in a way, ever, that I’m playing with two people that are younger than me. Now, Thomas Morgan is a true genius and he’s incredibly in-demand, and I don’t know how much longer he’ll be playing with me because he’s a genuine superstar in the world of improvised music. And Kush [Abadey] is also, you know, he’s a regular in the Melissa Aldana Quartet, which is seeming to be one of the busiest groups in jazz. So I can’t really know if this is going to be a working trio for a long time. But what’s true is I have this nice record with them. We’re playing the Vanguard and we’re doing two back-to-back European tours. So this is actually honestly the first time, Phil, that I’m playing with people a bit younger than me, playing my music and sort of going that route.
Do you think that there’s a tipping point where you become the guy that people that young players seek out?
Not yet. We’ll see.
Because if you’re a 20-year-old coming up in jazz school now, you know, if you’re at New England Conservatory or if you’re at Berklee or the New School or whatever, I would imagine that the Bad Plus records would be part of the language, part of the stuff that gets passed from student to student the same way like Kurt Rosenwinkel or Mark Turner or Chris Potter are influences on younger players. You know, I would imagine that your work is probably reaching young jazz nerds.
Well, I’d like to think so, Phil, but I don’t know if that’s true. You know, actually, at the last lesson of the year I taught at NEC, the topic of arranging, like, a modern-day pop tune came up. And I showed something and I sort of confessed, Well, I guess this is the thing I used to to do in the Bad Plus, and the student had never heard of the Bad Plus. He’d been studying with me for two years and had never heard of the Bad Plus. So you just never know, Phil. You know, everything is ephemeral. One thing I should just say about Thomas and Kush is we played a gig. We played a gig at the Jazz Gallery in New York, and I immediately felt chemistry. I didn’t just pick their names because I liked the way they played — we’d actually, there was a little bit of something there. And Kush, I’d heard him at a gig not playing with Melissa. I mean, I’d heard him with Melissa, he sounded great, but I heard him playing like at a jam session, playing the standard repertoire. And the standard repertoire is the hardest thing to do well. It’s the hardest thing to do with personality. It’s, in my opinion, it’s much easier to play this sort of modern-day, thorny, even-eighth-note jazz than to play blues and rhythm changes. So Kush was playing that and I was like, Wow, Kush sounds great doing this. And then I put him on there with Thomas, and I just thought, Okay, this is a vibe. This has jammin’ chemistry. Because he was open to us. Thomas is open to everybody. I don’t think there's a musician Thomas Morgan couldn’t make music with. He could play with a hillbilly band, and he sounded incredible with Masabumi Kikuchi. I mean, this guy’s a true, almost a savant, a perfect musician. Kush is on a scene that I guess I wasn’t sure, maybe, if it would connect easily to me or Thomas, but it was a fit right away, and I'm really looking forward to getting to play with both of them so much next year.
That’s it for now. See you next week!
Cool, will listen!