Jazz Monthly: You do have some great people along with you. Alan Pasqua who of course played with everyone from Tony Williams, to Michael Brecker, Santana and Peter Erskine of course. We all know him from Weather Report and just a great session drummer. Tom Warrington, the bass player, he worked with everyone from Stan Getz to Freddie Hubbard to even Buddy Rich. Did it feel like it was almost inevitable? Like it was just “screaming” out for you to go into the studio to kind of capture what you and Kate did live?
MI: Yes, it was like I mentioned earlier. When you put yourself out there in a particular musical scenario, and it really clicks… when there’s improvisation involved, especially when you’re doing this sort of improvisational conversation; you want to document it. You want to explore it. You know, these things don’t often come along. These “marriages” that just click and gel so easily… yea, so it was almost we had to do this just find time in our schedule and do this.
Once you step on board, the inspiration just keeps going. The record really inspired us. We are planning the next phase of all of this, and we’re looking at maybe starting in Australia – but there’s no restrictions on what we might do. We are going to do a remix contest on this and we’re looking to do some releases of remixes of contest winners. I may do a couple of remixes, so by the time we’re touring we might be able to take this out as a double tiered show – a hint of the original rendition and back and forth to a more modernized rendition of these songs also. We’re really looking at this in the most creative way possible and to just keep this inspiration and excitement building.
Jazz Monthly: Mark, this is such a great CD! When you discussed with Kate about doing an album of standards such as we mentioned, you each compiled a list of your own favorite songs, as I understand it. You compared notes and lots of the same songs were on your list and Kate's list, right?
MI: Exactly! That’s the sort of thing that kept happening. We’d say, “Well we know we love this music”…. but all right now I'm going to really bare my soul to her and say “Well what I really loved about this song was the way Nancy Wilson did it on this record,” and then she would say “I have that record I've worn that record out I'm on my fourth copy of that.” We really had a mutual admiration not only with the song, but the particular way they’ve been interpreted. So, when it came time to put arrangements together and find the approaches to these songs… it was not difficult; it was not like we had to search around. You could tell we were totally on the same wave length, and that inspired me as the arranger to push a little bit and find effective fresh approaches to each song.
Jazz Monthly: Absolutely. These are more than just torch songs. Some of them as you know, kind of rip your heart out, but the interplay between Kate and you… it wasn’t all dark either. Its not just about “lost love” is the best way I can describe it; it’s like softly powerful. Sometime you came in through the “back door” to some of these songs; you didn’t hit people over the heads. You know what I mean?
MI: I do, I do. You know Kate came up with this word “Bittersweet,” and I think that for a single word it sort of sums up the over all emotion. There’s moments when it’s sweet – there are moments when it’s very dark and bitter. Over all, it is just that lovely duality… the beautiful sadness… that duality of “There are rough times and there are beautiful times.” The main thing is that… you are living! You’re experiencing! That is what we really wanted to communicate, because this is some of the greatest music ever written. You really just have to go in there with your respect for that music. If you just have that point, “I'm communicating what has already been said so beautifully – I just have to make sure I raise it to the highest level I can.” It just flowed effortlessly.
Jazz Monthly: When I first hit play on my CD player and right away “My One and Only Love, which of course Jazz fans will know, came on. The thing that you did great, Mark –speaking of your arrangements… there was no intro. It was an immediate start record. I was struck by that. It was very effective and it worked! The song was off and running and there you were… right?
MI: Absolutely, and that’s one of the reasons we put it there right up front. It’s one of the reasons I arranged it that way. In fact, it just starts off with Kate and I, and the base. It’s just to say this is a duo record. This is about two people conversing on, and with this material. There is a good chance you’ll know all of it; good chance you love all of it. We are going to converse with each other and with you, through this material. I just felt those opening four bars communicated that whole idea, therefore the album could just open up for you and you could see it through that eye. It would be that much more effective.
Jazz Monthly: Absolutely. So beautifully honed. Kate kind of handed you the first bridge, and you took it into the second verse. The thing I was struck by was that there was no overplaying. Beautiful imagery – and of course we must mention Peter, Tom and Alan. They played with such control.
MI: We talked about that, and we tried a couple of different approaches, especially with Alan because Alan is such a gorgeous, gorgeous piano player – not only as a soloist and as a trio player, but also as an accompanist. I knew that with him we could explore different styles of accompaniments. In fact, in a couple of the tunes I said, “Alright let’s go ten degrees more outside on this… or ten degrees more heavier… take it thirty percent lighter and let’s see where that goes. You could speak in sort of philosophical generalities like that and they would respond – and respond so beautifully. I think we found for each tune that certain tunes have more interactions and certain tunes have almost none. The tune is almost stripped down to the barest bone.
Jazz Monthly: Cause what do you have to prove Mark? You have nothing to prove!
MI: Well, that’s it! It’s like you say, “All the masters and the giants have reordered these songs.” So I felt the best respect we could do here is show the beauty of the material and show that we can converse on this material.
Jazz Monthly: Absolutely.
MI: There was no effort to make a chop fest or to make this a virtuosic performance, only virtuosic in the artistry… in a way that the tunes are interpreted. Kate sums it up very well in the EPK interview that we did, cause she said it was a revelation to her at one point, and that the real test of this and the real challenge of this was not what you were going to sing… but what you weren’t going to sing.
Jazz Monthly: Beautifully said. One of my favorite tunes on here is Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer’s great song “Skylark.” Again Mark, you taking the first bridge and I'm saying “Oh wow” then you take it into the 2nd verse again. That really worked quite effectively. At the end just when you thought that the performance was over, you came on and tagged it… you took it to the end.
MI: That’s one of the other things that we experimented with. Just changing up the forms and breaking the mold of, “Well the singer is going to sing the first time through the song, then the horn player is going to play a solo, then well go back…” I mean we have about eleven songs. There’s got to be ways that we can break this up so that the strength of this thing is the “conversation.” So sometimes I start… sometimes Kate starts… as you pointed out we split the songs and places that you wouldn’t normally think of splitting the songs. Sometimes Kate sings it once in one key and then I sing it in another key. Just try to break it up so that it gives, again the beauty of the material and the conversational aspect of our interpretation.
