Jazz Monthly.com Interview with eric mariienthal

“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Eric Marienthal

Smitty: Well, I’m totally excited about my next guest here at JazzMonthly.com. He has been a mainstay in this format for many years, with an extraordinary vibe, and one of the great guys in this business. You know him from spectacular projects such as “Easy Street”, “Sweet Talk”, “Street Dance”, as well as some excellent collaborations with some of the great musicians around the world—Chick Corea, The Rippingtons, David Benoit, Patti Austin, Gregg Karukas—and now he’s created a great new solo album. It is called Just Around the Corner and you must pick up this record. Please welcome Peak recording artist, the remarkable Mr. Eric Marienthal. Hey Eric, how are ya, my friend?

Eric Marienthal (EM): Well, man, after that introduction I’m doing a lot better. (Both laugh.)

Smitty: Man, thank you. You know, this is a powerful album you’ve done. I mean, this is great stuff. And rightly so, with your experience and your career and the mean cats you have on this record with you too, as well.

EM: Well, thanks. Yeah, I was very lucky. Funny, you know, it wasn’t really planned as far as—I mean, I knew which direction I wanted to go with this record, but as far as who to be involved with in terms of producing or writing, I wasn’t quite sure. And I was on a plane with Brian Culbertson—I was playing with him and his band—and we were sitting next to each other and just kind of on a lark I looked over at him and said “Hey, man, would you consider producing my next record?” I just kind of threw it out there. And he said “Yeah, man, definitely. Well, tell you what, when we get back from this trip, why don’t you come over and let’s start writing and see what happens?” And we did and I presented it to Peak Records and they were thrilled about the idea, and working with Brian is always great and he was just so fantastic on this record and the record turned out exactly how I hoped and envisioned that it would, so I’m really excited about it.

Smitty: Wow, things like that seem to happen for you, because I remember back in, what, ’86, when there you were, having a good time in Orange County, and along comes Chick Corea and the next 10 years was just a mind-blowing experience for you.

EM: Well, yeah, and we’re actually playing still to this day. We’re actually playing quite a lot next month, with Chick Corea and the Electric Band, and yeah, that’s just, I mean, every time I’m on stage—this is like now we’re into our twenty-first year of that band—but every time we play together, I look across the stage and I still get giddy about the fact that there’s Chick Corea. He’s just such a hero of mine still. And yeah, so it’s been an ongoing great, great honor for me to be in that band.

Smitty: Yeah, man, and you’ve been in some other great bands. I mean, you spent some time with The Rippingtons and you’ve collaborated with so many great musicians, and I know, just listening to you over the years, man, that kind of career and experience day in and day out, year after year, has such a powerful effect on you.

EM: Well, no question about it. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to play with a lot of great musicians, no question, and you’re right, it’s a great learning experience. When you go out and play for people, it’s important to recognize the fact that you are performing, that people have paid money to come and see you. You have to acknowledge that people are there, but the bottom line is that the music has got to be right and you can’t get up there and just go through the motions. People are smart. They know the difference between a good musician and someone who’s just kind of going through the motions and kind of had maybe some luck and aren’t working as hard or whatever, but the great thing about having played with Chick or with The Yellowjackets or Lee Ritenour—a lot of the great musicians who I really respect—people really love it when you acknowledge them, but also it’s obvious that you’ve worked hard on your musical side and that you’re putting it across.

Smitty: Yes indeed, man, and in some ways you’ve been a quiet assassin. You know, 21 years, I had to sort of reflect on that for a couple of minutes because, wow, you’ve accomplished so much and in some ways it seems like it’s only been 10 years, you know?

EM: Yeah, it does. It feels shorter than 21 years, especially with Chick, you know? Hey, and it’s not always fun to get on and off an airplane, that’s for sure.

Smitty: Yes.

EM: But playing, you know, like Phil Woods always says, you know, he’s got me to play for free; it’s the traveling that they’ve gotta pay him for.

Smitty: (Laughs). Well, besides your incredible musicianship and being one of the great guys that everybody loves in this format and beyond, you’ve given back and I always say that that’s one of the most beautiful things that a musician can do because I know for the past ten years you’ve done some wonderful work with an annual fund raising concert in Orange County. Talk a little bit about that and what that’s meant for you.

EM: Yeah, the organization is called High Hopes and it’s a head injury recovery center, and I got involved—actually, next summer will be our tenth annual concert—and thank God I don’t have any friends or family members who are brain injured, but the director is a good friend of mine and so he asked me all those years ago if I would consider doing a benefit concert, and so over the years we’ve raised now just about a million dollars, and the concert takes place every summer, usually it’s at the end of July at the Hyatt Newporter in Newport Beach, California, and I always have my band but also a lot of guest artists. This year Peter White was there, we’ve had Lee Ritenour and Brian Culbertson and Patti Austin, Rick Braun, David Benoit a bunch of times, Jeff Lorber. I mean, you name ‘em, we’ve had a lot of people over the years. And it’s been an honor to be able to put together something that benefits such a worthy cause.

Smitty: Yeah, that’s a beautiful thing. When I think about what a rigorous job you have in terms of being on the road and then trying to deal with your family and then you make time for these kind of worthy causes, I think that’s a totally admirable thing, it really is.

EM: Well, thank you. I appreciate that, Smitty.

Smitty: Yes indeed, my friend. Now this record, man, I want to talk about this record Just Around the Corner. When I first got the record and I started to listen, first off I said, “Man, this is different.” It has such a flow and I tried to describe it in one word and I said “This record is exciting.” It has that exciting vibe to it and I just love the feel of this record, man, and what you did with it, along with those great guys that you mentioned earlier like Brian Culbertson and Jeff Lorber. Talk about what it was like when you started to write and what you were feeling.

EM: Yeah, well, first of all, thanks, man, I really appreciate that. This was the first record for me in a long time that I really thought about a particular direction and a particular focus for the whole record. My background is pretty jazzy, quite frankly, and so I like to play a lot of different kinds of music and for the last several records I think, to the records’ detriment, those records were a little eclectic. For instance, my last record, Got You Covered, was a collection of cover tunes, but there was some jazz, some straight ahead jazz and some contemporary stuff and a lot of stuff in between and, yeah, I think it’s important that when people listen to a record, there’s gotta be a clear focus, and on this record I wrote or at least co-wrote every song on it and we did all the writing at the same time, not the same week or anything, but we didn’t like write a tune in December and then write the next one in June and the next one in October.

Smitty: Right.

EM: I mean, we had a real vibe going and a flow going, and I very much by design just wanted the focus of the record to be consistent and it came out that way. I’m really proud of the way it turned out, mostly because the end product was very much what I had thought to do originally.

Smitty: Yeah, I think when you’re writing with a degree of succession like that and while you had that vibe, not to wait so long is great because you’re still in that same feel of what you want and where you want to go, and I think that’s beautiful and you can tell that this didn’t take two years, you know what I mean?

EM: Well, yeah, you’re right. I mean, a lot of times just the kind of scheduling between you and the other players, it does take a minute, unfortunately. It would be great if you could just sit down and devote every minute to your record. You could be done in a month and that would be a wonderful thing.

Smitty: True.

EM: So it does take a bit, but I tell you, working with Brian was fantastic. He’s got a great studio and he’s just a very, very focused guy and he’s young. I don’t know how old he is, but he’s a young guy and he’s got a ton of energy and he just called me today. He’s working on a great new record right now himself that I guess I’m going to do some things on, and I can’t say enough good things about Brian. He really helped tremendously.

Smitty: Yeah, he’s a bad boy. (Both laugh.)

EM: Bad…he’s a bad one.

Smitty: Yeah. Well, let me mention one of the songs that I love….“Blue Water” is the bomb. Wow, that’s a great track, man.

EM: Well, thanks. I appreciate it. That was the first tune that Brian and I wrote, and it’s funny because a lot of the songs on the record we wrote like the whole thing just sort of flowed. In fact, the last tune on the record is a duet and we wrote the whole thing and recorded it and we were ready to mix maybe four or five hours after we just sat down to start writing. It was just pretty much a duet and that was the idea of that song. But “Blue Water” was kind of like a painting where you have a little idea here and you put that down and you have a little idea here and you put that down, and you add little bits here and there, and it was really fun to work on because we could just sort of see it grow. It was like watching a plant. You water it and you both kind of watch it pop up, you know?

Smitty: Yeah, man. Well, that’s a great way to get the party started because it’s exciting. I know I go back to that word, but I think that’s what fans will feel when they listen to this record because you mentioned Brian having a lot of energy. That song has just a plethora of energy and it sets the tone for the rest of the record.

EM: Yeah, well, thank you. And we also we worked really hard beyond the compositions. That’s one thing I have never done on any of my records. From a production standpoint, we really tried to keep it pretty modern. There’s an edge to the production of this record where it’s fun, I think, when you listen to studio records to listen to a song five times in a row and each time pick out something a little different, a little harmony here or a little effect there or something different. And that’s what we tried to do and I think really accomplished on this whole record in general, was to just create fun things. Ear candy, we call it. New things to listen to and to creep out.

Smitty: Yeah, and you did that, man. You definitely accomplished that. And another one of my favorites is “Open Road.”

EM: (Chuckles.)

Smitty: It’s vintage Eric Marienthal with a twist, you know?

EM: Oh, thanks. The funny story about that track, we were recording and we had all along intended to have a guitar on the track and the guy who we had lined up to come play we were just having a hard time getting hold of and he was a little busy and this and that, and so we thought, you know, we’ve gotta get this done, and he said “You know, Ray Parker Jr. lives right down the street and I know him, he was on my last tour,” Brian said, “Let’s give him a call.” And so we called Ray Parker Jr. and he said “You know what? I’d love to come over, but you gotta do it right now” and we said “We’re here, man,” and he said “Great, I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He literally shows up on the studio doorstep with his guitar in one hand and his amp in the other hand and he sits down and we said, hey, and talked for a minute, but we got him set up and he played one pass through. I mean, at the end of the story he ended up playing some more tracks so we had the choices, but man, his first pass is just so killer. No written music, just kinda opened his ear. I mean, that one track could be just like a guitar play along, you know, learn these licks and you’ll have a great career as a guitar player. (Both laugh.)

Smitty: Well, that’s gotta be exciting for you as well. When you get that kind of groove in the studio spontaneously and on the first pass, it just excites you to another level with your writing and everything from that point sometimes, you know?

EM: Yeah, definitely, and like I say, this record….I’m really excited about it and just the whole process was fun and exciting, and so every time we’d get to work, we just had a great feeling about it because we just kinda knew that it was gonna be a good one, and every time something like that would happen, where like the Ray Parker Jr. bit or Paul Brown was involved. He did some mixing on the record and actually ended up playing quite a lot.

Smitty: Yeah, that’s right.

EM: That’s actually a funny bit too because he mixed a couple of tunes and he said “I hear a little acoustic guitar here” and he plays an acoustic guitar. He goes “I hear some tambourine” and he picked up his tambourine and started playing, and it’s so funny. He’s such a great producer and engineer, so it was neat to get him to do both.

Smitty: Yeah, well, man, you had such a stacked deck with producing and engineering because, I mean, you’ve got Jeff Lorber, Brian Culbertson and Paul Brown. You could’ve all fallen asleep and this would’ve turned out great, you know? (Both laugh.) You know what I’m saying? You really went out and grabbed some talented guys to accompany you with this project.

EM: Yeah.

Smitty: And I can’t say enough about the mind-blowing sax lines that you laid down on this record for example….“21 Ocean Front,” which I think is just, man, the title just fits the music like a glove, you know?

EM: The inspiration for that track, actually, 21 Ocean Front is a restaurant where I met my wife, where we met 26-7 years ago, and as we were writing, it became clear that it was kind of, maybe a little, oh, I don’t know if it’s a romantic track. I was gonna say romantic. I don’t know if it’s romantic, but just had sort of a, kind of in that world kind of vibe, and just thought about her a lot as we were writing and especially as I was playing it. I thought, you know, this’ll be the right title and it fits from a title standpoint, but the story is a cool one too.

Smitty: Yeah, and “Your Move,” man, what a track.

EM: Well, thank you. That’s one of the ones that I wrote with Lorber. Jeff and I, we actually got back from a really nice tour in Europe just a few days ago, as a matter of fact.

Smitty: Nice.

EM: And he’s been involved in almost every record I’ve done. Jeff Lorber practically invented smooth jazz.

Smitty: Yeah.

EM: He’s one of the founding fathers, right?

Smitty: Yes he is.

EM: He’s great. He’s an absolute mad scientist genius.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

EM: And he plays everything. He plays guitar, he plays drums, he plays bass, he obviously plays keyboards. I mean, he’s just a wild man.

Smitty: Yeah. Well, yeah, he’s the Schiznick, you know? (Both laugh.) Yeah, that’s a name I gave him years ago and it’s just stuck.

EM: That’s good.

Smitty: Yeah, it just kinda stuck, you know? And you got my boy Dave Weckl on there, man, on that track “Your Move.”

EM: Yeah, Dave is in the Electric Band with me and so over all these years we’ve become super good friends and Dave is just one of the preeminent drummers in the world.

Smitty: Oh yeah.

EM: And it’s just so cool to have such a huge drum god as a good buddy who I can just call and say “Hey, Dave, you’re playing on my record. You have no choice.” (Both laugh.) “I’ll be over tomorrow.”

Smitty: Yeah.

EM: Yeah, he’s a great guy. He was actually on this tour that we did with Jeff in Europe and it’s always great to hang with Dave.

Smitty: Yeah, great guy. Man, and I guess Paul must’ve heard some acoustic guitar on this track or something, right? (Laughs.)

EM: He sure did, yeah. Actually, on that track it’s both Jeff and Paul playing guitars.

Smitty: Yeah. How ‘bout that?

EM: Yeah, that’s a combination you don’t see on too many records.

Smitty: Yeah, I was gonna say that’s rare there, man.

EM: There you go. You heard it here first. (Both laugh.)

Smitty: Wow, well, I gotta tell you, Eric, just sitting next to Brian Culbertson and you said “Hey, how would you like to produce my next record?” Think about the opportunity that you may have for someone to say that to you, you know? You’re sitting next to someone who says “Hey, Eric, how would you like to do this on my next record?” I think that is one of the ultimate compliments of a musician, for someone to just casually say something like that and really mean it and then make it happen. I think that’s a beautiful thing.

EM: Yeah, it’s one of the cool things about the jazz community of musicians, quite frankly, is that it’s—it really is a brotherhood. I mean, people really enjoy playing in different configurations of bands together. From a business standpoint you go out and play with collaborations. In fact, I’m out right now with Chuck Loeb, great guitar player.

Smitty: Yeah.

EM: But it’s really more about the music and it’s just so much fun to play with different musicians and not just play, but write and produce and do different things musically, and it’s just one of the great joys about being a musician, getting to know the people on a friendship level but through music.

Smitty: Yeah. Are you ever without music? Man, I think you live and breathe music 24/7. (Laughs.)

EM: Yeah. Well, you know, like you mentioned, I have my family and we have two great kids who are actually both in college now, so family is obviously more important than anything, but music is part of that and music is a big part of my family. Both my kids are musicians and my wife plays the radio. (Both laugh.) She likes music. She doesn’t play it, but she likes it a lot. She’d better.

Smitty: Well, that helps. (Both laugh.)

EM: But yeah, just like anything else. We’re all really into the things that we like the most, but there certainly has to be a balance and you’ve gotta make sure that balance is in your life, I guess.

Smitty: Absolutely, man. Well, I’ve gotta speak of the liner notes. I love the cover. I think it’s a really cool cover. And thank you for doing a cover, an album cover, that I can read. (Both laugh.) I hear this all the time that fans get certain projects where—and they love to read the liner notes. Trust me, they love to read them and so do I. I mean, it goes back to my days of the LPs. That was part of the experience.

EM: Yeah.

Smitty: And sometimes you get these liner notes where the colors all blend and you’re cross-eyed and you’re trying to read it and the colors don’t contrast enough, and then the text is ultra tiny and small and you can’t read it unless you get some bifocals or a pair of binoculars, so I can’t compliment you enough for keeping it real and keeping it simple, with great photography, and it’s just a beautiful project all around, man.

EM: Well, thanks. Yeah, Peak Records, I think, does just a terrific job with their artwork and with all those kinds of things, like liner notes and all, and I think nowadays that certainly helps so, I mean, most people—I don’t know about most people, but a lot of people certainly buy their music—hopefully buy their music online as opposed to going and getting the hard CD.

Smitty: Yes.

EM: But it benefits musicians more to sell the actual CDs. Quite frankly, you make more money when you sell a CD than when you just sell songs online.

Smitty: I know.

EM: And so if you can make the packaging of a record more appealing so that people are more apt to do it. The hard thing, obviously, is to find a place to go buy a record.

Smitty: Yeah.

EM: It’s ironic when it’s harder and harder to buy a record in stores because there are fewer and fewer stores, but record sales at live gigs is at an all-time high because, obviously, you can actually buy the record, maybe meet the artist and get it signed perhaps or whatever. But if people can actually see your CD, you want them to say “Hey, that looks pretty cool. Hopefully it sounds good, but it looks good. I’ll buy it.” (Both laugh.) “I’ll buy it.”

Smitty: Yeah, and I think you’re right on because the packaging should be the invitation to what’s inside and it should be such a great lead-in to what you’re going to hear, and I think you’ve accomplished that with this, and my compliments to Peak for the great job that they did with this fantastic packaging.

EM: Yeah, cool, thank you.

Smitty: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know what, Eric, I tell you, man, I could go on for the next four hours about this great record, man, and your marvelous career, and thanks for being such a cool cat and doing your thing and doing it well, and I congratulate you on this record and wish you well with it and your tour and the upcoming year of 2008, my friend.

EM: Well, thanks. Right back at you, man, and thank you for all your support with all the musicians. We all love you very much and you’ve been such a great supporter of everybody’s projects. We just think of you very fondly, man, that’s for sure.

Smitty: Well, thank you, man. Don’t make me start sobbing now. (Both laugh.)

EM: “I love you, man!”

Smitty: Yeah, “We love you, man!” Hey, man, thanks again and once again hopefully I’ll catch up with you. I think I did bump into you—I think the last time I saw you was where? Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

EM: That’s right. That’s right, yeah.

Smitty: How ‘bout that?

EM: Well, hey, let’s meet somewhere exotic again.

Smitty: Yeah, I’m all for that!

EM: Let’s go to Hawaii, let’s go to Japan.

Smitty: Yeah, Japan, Italy, France…yeah, I’d love to. We’ll have to work on that. All right, Eric, thanks again, my friend, and hopefully we’ll bump into each other soon and congratulations again on this great record.

EM: Hey, man, thanks so much.

Smitty: All right, we’ve been talking with the fantastic Mr. Eric Marienthal. His great new record is called Just Around the Corner and I’m sure it’s just around the corner from wherever you are. Please pick this one up. I highly recommend it. Eric, thanks again, man, and all the very best.

EM: My pleasure. Thanks, man.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

For More Information Visit www.ericmarienthal.com and www.peakrecords.com