Earl Klugh
Interview by Bill Piburn

On May 21st, 2005,
I had the great pleasure of spending the day with Earl Klugh.

While most know this Grammy-winning artist from his highly successful smooth jazz recordings, he is also one of the greatest solo players to have ever picked up the instrument. His new recording, Naked Guitar, is an example of solo playing at its pinnacle. As we sat down, Earl picked up my guitar and began to play. It was spellbinding. He held the guitar throughout the entire interview. His love of the instrument and communication through it is so inspiring - thanks Earl!

You changed keys a couple times, when you do that are you thinking numerically about the changes or is it all an ear thing?
For me it's just an ear thing because I don't have time to click the numbers through.

Has it always been that way for you?
No, I had to work on it. I listened a lot to Bill Evans and he was forever changing keys. There's one album he did where all he did was play the Barbra Streisand song "People"; he kept modulating in different ways and he must have played it in ten or twelve keys! What really struck me was that all the keys he harmonized in different ways and all the harmonies were so advanced; it wasn't like he was struggling because he was in another key. I thought about it and said I've got to gain a mastery of harmony. Of course the guitar has some inherent things that get in the way. [Earl begins to play "It Could Happen To You" in several keys.] You see it's like being a piano player. It's like the song "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing." I love that melody but on the surface it's kind of simple so you've got to dig for chords. [Earl plays an amazing version and begins to laugh.]

It's not as easy as you make it out to be [laughter].
But it is! For instance if you're playing on a C chord, there are a lot of places I know I can go [Earl plays]. A lot of times I use the flat fives, but on the lower strings, it makes it denser. A lot of people would play it up an octave. It's just experimenting and trying to expand the chords. Once you do it, you start to think along those lines. I had to figure out what I was after instead of doing what everyone else was doing. I'd just re-harmonize it. You know, it's just sitting there [laughter]. It's almost like a feel type of thing, it becomes part of your personal vocabulary and that's what I do for my solo playing. Whether it was Chet, Georg Van Eps or Lenny Breau, they all played chords differently and it is not necessarily how I do it now. You find things that sound good and record it in your memory bank, and then you play it instead of playing the regular stuff. A lot of what I've learned has been on the bandstand listening to a lot of jazz piano players. You begin to hear that movement in a song and in time you gain the knowledge.

You credit Bill Evans as being a big influence.
Yes, his playing always made so much sense. To me there was always structure in the way he formed chords. He didn't just throw a chord out; there was a logical movement to the chords that I could hear and emulate to some extent on the guitar. Certainly the piano is different, but for me, it's more about the concept. I'm not worried about playing the exact notes he was playing. It was the way he was able to communicate to me and how beautiful the inner voices were.

For me it's more impressive on the guitar since you're really becoming a one-handed piano player [laughter].
Yes, but over time you don't really think about it. The other thing is that you have to really get familiar with the song. Once I learn the tune, I don't give it any thought. I have never played Cole Porter's tune "I Love You." I'm trying to work it out so I've got multiple voicings through everything [Earl plays]. It's not under my fingers yet but over the course of the next week or so, I'll look at the possible harmonies and substitutions and places to play them. Once I'm comfortable, I'll be able to play it.

How did you develop your knowledge of harmony?
For me it was just all by ear because if I could hear the movement, that's all I needed and I couldn't find anything that could get me to the point of playing like this that was written down. For me it was just finding things and spending time linking it together. For a long time I couldn't modulate, so I figured I've got to learn to be able to do this. Playing in jazz groups, I was used to playing in Bb, Ab and F but only as an accompaniment. Part of the beauty of the guitar is the use of open strings but if you're not using open strings, you're not limited to what key to play in. In saying that, I do also play in guitar keys because there is a beauty to that which is unique.

Don't you think there are certain keys that the guitar responds to better?
Oh yes, for sure. When I'm playing anything like my Caribbean pieces I always do them in A or E or A minor and E minor. It just sings on the guitar better but it's different for a lot of the jazz and pop tunes. For a while I'd try to learn a lot of those Venezuelan waltzes but they are very specific and unless you play them a lot, you forget them. So I'd write something like them. [Earl plays an original based on Lauro's Venezuelan Waltzes.]

That was great! What's it called?
It doesn't have a name [laughs].

Will you record that?
Oh yes, actually I put things down all the time in my studio so I can remember them.

Next time you do a solo record, don't wait so long.
Oh no, that's actually the good and the bad about the music business because now I'm looking at doing one every year or two because I don't think they really compete with anything else. I would love it if more guys would do solo guitar, guys like Pat Metheny and Lee Ritenour, who can play in all those styles. It's really an overlooked thing, mainly because of record sales and keeping companies happy. But you know the interesting thing is that my first solo album sold very well. It's not the immediate gratification that companies want because they want to sell 150,000 copies in six months to a year. But we sold at least 150,000 in the States and at least that much worldwide. It took ten years but still, that's three hundred thousand records.

Solo records don't get outdated like band recordings.
Right! Solo is the only stuff that won't get outdated even fifty or a hundred years from now. A lot of the tunes don't get outdated but performances sure do. I'm looking from this point on to really do more music that focuses on just the playing. It's what I enjoy doing and that's what I'm going to focus on. I look at Lenny Breau; he died so young, he should have been making two or three records a year. He had a unique perspective that would have been passed on in such a bigger way for everyone. Chet was documented in a lot of ways but I still could have used a few more solo records from him too. Chet really put the guitar in front. I think more solo recordings are needed.

A lot of young people today really don't know what the guitar's potential is as a solo instrument.
Yes, with the whole rock thing kids aren't aware of players like Johnny Smith or even Chet. It's interesting...once in a while I'll get together with young players and they'll say, "Yeah, I've heard of Chet," and I'll say, well that's not good enough, you need to have some Chet Atkins records!

What advice would you give young people that may want to move in the direction you've taken?
I'll tell you what got me really going - besides Chet's early records - was an album by George Van Eps called Soliloquy. That really opened my eyes to counter motion. I would learn it bar by bar. Because he was playing a 7-string, I would learn it down in the lower register and then move it up [Earl begins to play "Cute" from the Van Eps recording]. He was a person who made me aware that there was this whole other thing going on. It's records like that kids should listen to. I was also inspired by Johnny Smith even though it's a different thing. Laurindo Almeida had an album called Broadway Solo Guitar, he was a fascinating player. He had another album called Sueno where he played "Laura," it was very modernistic and when you hear the guitar played that way, it opens up your ears to all the possibilities. When I first heard it, I thought, I can hear the song; it's very mutated but still very beautiful. You start by just being able to play those chords, but more importantly, how does it fit together? What's the language? It's endlessly fascinating. The whole thing in jazz, as far as single lines, was the guys would always tell me, "Don't listen to the guitar players, listen to the horn players, they're way more advanced." Then I started listening to tonal centers and where they played against the chords. I wasn't so concerned on playing their phrase or notes, although I did try to learn how to phrase by listening. I'd say, "Well, I know my scales; so let's see what type of tonal centers they're using on "All The Things You Are" or "Body and Soul." I'd think, "Are they playing each change?" "Are they playing over central things?" "What are they doing the second time around?"

Who were some of the horn players that inspired you?
Well the initial guys were the lyrical players, like Paul Desmond. He could improvise and he could swing but he played things people could relate to. Wes Montgomery was like that, Jim Hall also. Johnny Smith was certainly like that and so was Kenny Burrell. Other horn players that influenced me were Freddy Hubbard and Lee Morgan. That's who influenced me first. Later I got into Dexter Gordon and Charlie Parker. Not so much because they were lyrical, they had their own side to that, but you get into the technical side of it - where can you go with these scales? I never wanted to be this monster jazz player, I just wanted to learn the language so I could be a better guitar player, not necessarily a jazz guitar player. It's just like the stuff you're hearing here, it adds to your vocabulary of playing music. I guess a lot of it couldn't be called jazz, but jazz was and is a very advanced language, and when you can add it to your repertoire, it gives you the vocabulary to express yourself - more notes! [Laughter].

When I interviewed Johnny Smith he said he didn't think of himself as a jazz player, and [the late] Ted Greene recently told me the same thing. How do you feel about it?
I'm right there; I think of myself as a guitar player. I'm aware of the jazz side of things but a lot of things go into it and jazz is a part of that. It would be hard to play really great pop music if you don't know how to play jazz, because jazz is part of the American landscape. But what drew me to the guitar in the first place was the South American stuff and the sound of the nylon string guitar.

Did you start by playing the nylon string?
Yes, I never wanted to play electric guitar. When I was fourteen or fifteen and first heard Chet, I got a Gretsch. It was interesting but it just wasn't going to be my instrument, too many years already on the nylon string. I had the Gretsch and a few years later I got a Johnny Smith, so I was covered [laughter].

Do you still have that guitar?
Yes.

It's worth some money now.
Oh yeah!

You should get Johnny to sign it.
I just saw Johnny a few weeks ago. We do a festival every year in Colorado Springs and he comes out and sits through the show, then we sit out in the hallway and have a couple drinks. I've got a good picture of us from last year where we're smiling and then we've got the other picture where we're toasting [laughter]. He's so much fun. We do the show over at the Broadmoor, he used to play there. I just met Johnny for the first time last year and people were telling me, "Don't ask him to play, he won't like that." I had heard he doesn't play; but I didn't know what that meant, as far as to what degree. He told me, "I don't play at all. I put it under the bed and I haven't looked at it in twenty years." How can anybody put down the instrument, considering the amount of time and devotion it takes to do what he did? The last time I was there he gave me a card that said, Johnny Smith and there was a whole list of things that said retired, retired, retired and then it came to pilot and it said active! I thought no, I don't think so! [Laughter]

I think he was flying until just a couple years ago. As far as the guitar, he told me he had done all that he wanted to accomplish.
That's what he told me also. I've learned so much from him and Chet. You know Chet was such a larger than life figure and he was such a humble man. The way he lived his life was so humble. I remember when George Benson went to Nashville to record with Chet in the later '80s. I saw George sometime after that and he said, "Man, it was great to spend time with Chet; he really knows what's important in life." If you're a guitar player and you're still active and still in it, that's what it's about. How you deal with people and treat them; I learned a lot from Chet. I remember once I pretended I was sick so I could stay home and watch Chet on the Mike Douglas show. My mom looked in the TV guide and said, "You're not sick!" [laughter] I said, "But Mom, Chet's on TV."

Did she let you stay home?
Oh yes, she did.

Good for her.
Exactly!

I've noticed that many of your records are dedicated to her and your brother.
Yes, she passed about four or five years ago now. That was hard for me. It is part of what got me to move down here. She had emphysema and the last couple of years weren't good. Even though I was traveling, I wanted to be close, so that between my brother and me, we could keep a good eye on her. After she passed, I moved to Atlanta and it's been good for me. It's close to Nashville and I've got friends up there like Paul (McGill) and Darryl (Dybka). I haven't gotten up there too much yet. Chet tried to get me to move to Nashville back in the '80s.

He wanted to steal a few of your licks [laughter].
No, he didn't need any licks [laughter].

How did you meet Chet for the first time?
I was beginning to work on my fourth album and I got the nerve to ask my manager to contact Chet to see if he would play something with me. To my surprise, he did! So we got together and worked on a couple tunes. He was such a nice guy.

Was that when you recorded "Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues"?
Yes, it was in 1978. After that, he would have me down to record from time to time. We recorded at his home studio.

Did you play the parts live?
Yes, sitting right across from each other.

Were you nervous?
Oh yes! But after that, I never was again. One time, after we had been out to lunch, he asked me, "What do you want to do now?" I said I didn't know. Chet said, "Let's go back to my house. I've got some old movies." So anyway, we went back and watched Laurel and Hardy episodes. [Laughter] It was funny; but I thought of all the things I could be doing with Chet Atkins right now! [Laughter] We had fun.

When I first heard your name it was when you were with George Benson's band. Can you tell me how you hooked up with him?
Sure. I was still in high school when I met George. He used to play three times a year at a place in Detroit called Baker's Keyboard Lounge. All the jazz greats of the time like Oscar Peterson and Sonny Stitt would play there. When George would come through, he would do ten nights there - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, off Monday and then play Tuesday through Sunday. So I got to meet him. We'd get together during the day and play a little from time to time. He was fascinated that I was playing the classical guitar and was trying to play other types of music on it. George can analyze whatever anyone is playing just by watching, "Play that again," it's kind of scary. He can extract whatever he needs. At that time I was nowhere near the player I am now, but he was very encouraging. I was going towards these things and he'd show me by example; you know he was a self-taught player. He listened a lot to Charlie Parker and he extracted a lot of that stuff. He was on a whole other level; especially at that time, before he became really famous and started singing. His playing was totally ridiculous. I got a chance to hear that and experience it firsthand. What I really learned was that this is not a game; you can't be just a decent player, you've got to go for it or give it up. I knew I could never play like him, in that style, but whatever I did, I'd better be damn good at it if I wanted to make a living [laughter]. So we'd get together and work out a few things and I'd come in the club and sit in. After I graduated from high school, I enrolled at Michigan State but that all changed when I got a chance to play in George's band. I worked with his band for about a year and three months. It really put my feet to the fire. I learned so much about how the business was going to be and, at that time, jazz was in a low period. I saw that it was going to be hard but I knew that this is what I wanted to do. I owe George a lot and quite honestly, he alerted the record company to my existence.

So he helped you launch your own career?
Absolutely! I went back to Michigan after I had worked with a couple other groups and I started to write my own tunes and started doing demo tapes. By the time I went out to California to talk to the record company, they were already somewhat aware of me. At that time the record companies were healthy, it was a good time; jazz sales were good, not high, but good. I signed in December of '75 with Blue Note Records and by May or June of that year George had the big hit with "Breezin'." Between that, Grover Washington, David Sanborn and the records Bob James was doing at the time, sales were very good. That whole area of music was exploding. You ride the wave of what it is at the time. I came into recording at the time when records were selling ten times what they are now. You know, I never experienced anything other than that for a good fifteen to eighteen years before copying and all this stuff changed the industry severely. I'm quite fortunate; I had a real good ride and went to a lot of places.

You were lucky to build your career at the high point of the pop jazz style.
Yes, right now I wouldn't know how to break in. You know, back then, you had major record companies that would stick with you for a few records; it took about three records. By 1979, I was selling three hundred thousand copies, by today's standard that's a lot for a guitarist with no singing.

What company is your new record with?
It's licensed and distributed by Koch Entertainment. They have great distribution and they're a very forward thinking company. I can make the records that I want to make and that's the only reason for me to make a recording at this point. I've been fortunate to do what I've wanted all of my career, because in the older days, if you were a jazz artist, you were under the radar and you did pretty much what you wanted to do. You weren't scrutinized like someone who was selling five million records. Now companies have so many expectations and, quite honestly, many companies have gone away, especially in the instrumental world.

But you have a large fan base from all those years.
Yes, I'm very fortunate.

I'd like to ask you about your right hand technique.
Ok, [Earl begins to play single lines] I was never able to get the i - m thing going. For me, it doesn't work for jazz lines; it's just too staccato, although some guys are just amazing.

Do you give any thought to your right hand scale technique?
No, not anymore, my focus is on what's happening in the left hand. My right hand is not even there for me, I don't give it any thought. [Earl plays some runs.]

That looks like a three-fingered pattern.
Yeah, this is a pattern of m-i-p going up and p-i-m going back down. In a slower line, I keep the fingers in position.

So if the line starts on the first string, you most likely will start with the ring finger, second string with the middle, etc.
Yeah, but like I said, I never think at all about my right hand.

Really you're improvising not only the left hand but also the right.
That's right. I'm not saying there's no pattern to it and that someone else might not learn from analyzing it; I just don't think about it.

Another right hand technique I'd like to ask about is that famous arpeggio technique of yours - you know the one. It's a combination of an arpeggio and a raking technique with the ring finger.
Yes, it has as much to do with the chord as it does the right hand because, if you do it on a plain chord like a C, there is nothing to it [Earl demonstrates] but, if you do it on a chord like this, it sounds great [Earl demonstrates with a richer sounding chord].

It's definitely one of your trademarks.
A lot of people tell me that, but it wasn't planned, it's just something I do.

I know that most of what you play is improvised but do you read music?
Yes, I do, from my days of playing piano, and certainly the classical pieces. But I never really learned what I play through books, it's really all self-taught. At different points in time, I try to get up on my sight-reading; I do all right, then I stop doing it. What a lot of guys in my band do and what I have done is just take lead sheets and read them. I remain perpetually rusty at it. I did have a year and a half that I was doing all these classical pieces and part of that was to work on my reading.

Some people have developed sight-reading to a fine art.
Yes, I admire that so much about John Williams. To take terribly difficult music, interpret, and record it on the spot is amazing. Obviously to do that you have to spend all that time working on it. It's like when I tell you about my formulas I've worked out, there is no thought to it anymore because I've spent so many years and hours doing it, it's ingrained.

It's all about where you put your time.
You can't do everything in one lifetime.

You've expressed an interest in doing more solo recordings and concerts. Tell me about that.
Well, I do a lot of trio stuff but I also do some solo playing in the shows as well. There's just not enough of it out there. The stuff I did on my earlier albums with electric piano and electric bass now, some thirty years later, there are a lot of other people doing the same thing. I just want to do something different. When I was doing that, I was the only guy. I just want to move on to some new territory.

Now we're seeing Earl Klugh imitators like we have seen with Chet for years.
That's right.

Are you more into the acoustic bass sound now?
I'm enjoying that but I'll tell you what's interesting to me - if I'm working without electric instruments, then to me the acoustic bass has a natural tonality that is an extension of the acoustic guitar. So for me, the acoustic guitar - minus the other electric instruments - just doesn't work with the electric bass.

Tell me about some of your guitars.
I have several guitars built by Paul McGill in all kinds of configurations that I use. I used one of his on the earlier solo record and on the new recording, along with a few others.

I was hanging around Paul's shop when he was building the resonator for you.
Oh yeah, I used that guitar on my album Move.

Tell me about some of your other guitars.
I have a couple older guitars made by David Rubio. He passed several years ago. He built several guitars for Julian Bream back in the '60s. Back when I'd go to New York, those guitars would surface from time to time in the shops but most of them were pretty battered. So finally I bought one that wasn't in very good shape and had it reconstructed. A few years later I found one in pretty good shape. I had a friend in Michigan who had a guitar store at the time and he helped me locate David Rubio and I sent it to him. He totally redid the instrument. This was in '97. He even stamped the guitar inside. It says, "Restored by David Rubio." I also have a couple instruments made by Manuel Valasquez, one that I used on my first albums. One was built in 1959 and the other in '70. They're both older spruce-top guitars; they both sound great. The one made in '70 is still full volume loud. The one from '59 has a great sound but it seems that, passed a certain age, it changes into something else. It's great to record with, but I don't think a concert player would use it. I've got a beautiful sounding guitar made by Mikhail Robert, he's out of Canada. Recently I was in South Africa and got a guitar from Marc Maingard; he's a really fine maker.

Tell me about your Langejans signature model.
I use it when I'm doing the band things with electric keyboards and bass. It works well in that situation and it holds up well when I'm on the road. When I play in the trio with acoustic bass, I use my McGill.

Which guitars did you use on the new album?
I used Paul's guitar, a Rubio and I used the old Valasquez and the Mikhail Robert.

Did you use different guitars for any particular reason?
No, you see I did it over a period of four months and whatever one I was playing at that time got used; it was really unplanned. On some level maybe it will make the record a little more varied. My last record was done in three days so there's really no time to get used to another guitar.

Tell me about your home studio.
I've got Pro Tools HD and it's set up where you can work it from the console. This was my first project so I worked with my friend Bert Elliot, who helped me learn Pro Tools and worked with me to make sure mic placements were right and the levels were good. He hung in there and spent a good deal of time with me.

What about mics?
That's interesting, Bert had several vintage mics. He had this Calrec mic that is a big stereo mic normally used to record orchestras and we also used Schep and Neumann mics.

Was it a matter of what guitar sounded best with what mics?
It was just what sounded good that day; there was no science to it. It was fun to do it that way. Most of the tunes were off the cuff. I'd record them, come back a week later and say, well, I have to do that again or take a different approach on it. Like I said, most of the songs were just off the cuff. The one I knew I wanted to do was "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" and I hadn't come up with an arrangement so, basically, while we were working on the record, I came up with the arrangement. That's like a totally arranged piece and that type of playing, for me, is very inspired by Chet Atkins. It's very much inspired by his concepts, so it's my little tribute to him. I had some fun with some of the songs like the Beatles "I Want To Hold Your Hand" done as a samba. I don't know if you caught that one?

I didn't.
Nobody does! Because I put it in a samba and modified the chords, nobody realizes it's "I Want To Hold Your Hand" [laughter].

Did you think it was disguised?
No, I guess it's because a lot of Beatles tunes have that three chord thing happening and what I did was to modify it to jazz chords and do it like a Jobim tune [laughter]. It's kind of cool.

Will you play some of it for me?
Yeah. [Earl plays]

Now I can hear it! [Laughter]
What's funny is that I thought everybody would get it, then a couple musician friends came by and they said, "Sounds great, what is it?" [Laughter] I thought, man, I'm in trouble on this one [Laughter]

I love all the arrangements on the new record.
Thanks, but the only one that was arranged is "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead," the others are improvised.

You've got to be kidding, that's amazing!
Do you have a practice routine?
I do scales from time to time but just to get a little exercise. I get enough playing done through shows. Recently I did a whole lot of shows and we were doing two ninety-minute sets of playing jazz; a lot of it was up-tempo. That takes care of a lot of it but I do scales at times to clean up my technique. If you don't do that there is a certain edge you lose. I'll watch the news or the Today Show or something and do scales. But most of my practice involves actual situations of actual playing and improvising or learning a song and playing it in various keys, that type of thing. I try to thoroughly learn whatever I'm playing.

When you say scales do you mean true scales or jazz lines based on scales?
Well, I see no reason to do anything other than a scale because it's mainly for my right hand. I'll play jazz lines sometimes just to do it [Earl begins to improvise]. I'll do that just to keep some dexterity and try to keep my ideas going. But a lot of times this stuff is kind of mindless too because, in my case, I'm usually trying to dig in to find chords and substitutions because that's where everything is. You can play these lines but it's like... [Earl plays a chorus of "All The Things You Are"]. I'm way more interested in the harmony. I know the scales but I'm really playing with chords trying to link up all the passages. [Earl plays more on "All The Things You Are."]

Tell me some of your thinking on that.
Well, the first few chords are F min to Bb min to Eb7 to Ab major. You can do it simple by playing out of Ab all the way, but you try to do something that has a little more interest than that, so you can play F min- Bb min to E min to A7 down to Ab. Emin A7 replaces the measure of Eb7. Now you have a more interesting scenario. The next chord is Db but if you do a raised chord (D9) leading into it you can also play over A min leading into Db. That's really what is creating the interest.

So you're using lines to superimpose new harmony over the basic chords.
Correct. You have to follow your ear. I would notice that when George Benson would play, he would always say, "You can play anything against anything." I'd think, "I don't know about that." But it always sounded right when he was doing it. There are things that just work and sound good - over time you find those places.

Did you learn chord-scale relationships?
No, early on, Pat Martino worked on a whole concept of thinking of everything you're playing as a minor scale. That works. I do that if I'm playing G major 7 I think of it as E minor. It's easier for me because I've trained myself like that, because of the information that Pat passed on. If its minor it's already minor, if it's not minor, I change it to minor. An example would be Eb7; I'll think of Bb minor.

So you're thinking of the ii minor chord of the dominant 7 you're playing at the time.
Right.

This is not only over dominant chords.
No, all major or minor chords.

So, if it's a major chord with a major 7th, you play over the relative minor and, if it's a major chord with the lowered 7th, you play over the ii minor.
Correct.

What about altered chords?
If I have a chord with tensions in it like an Ab7 (b5), I'll play Eb minor. It's just an easier way to think than thinking about the flat five. You can do that but it's an easier flow to think of the minor.

So if you were playing a G7 (b5) you would play D minor?
Right.

I'm guessing you don't buy too much into the chord-scale approach?
No, for me it's too much to think about, it should be more organic than that. You need to know it on some level but it shouldn't be on the level where you're thinking about it! [laughter] There's George Benson and there's Pat Martino. Pat is every bit as accomplished as George but I'm sure he's thinking about all this stuff, he's a great teacher and thinker. George, on the other hand, knows all this stuff, he's aware of it but he's not thinking about it. It's just part of his vocabulary. He's not thinking this mode or that mode.

When you were touring with George did you try to pick his brain?
You know with George it was more organic than that. He didn't think of it in terms of this or that. He knows what he is doing but as far as showing another player, he doesn't think like that. With George, we'd be playing something like "I've Got Rhythm" changes and he'd just start playing anywhere on the neck and he'd work his way back.

So he'd be in the wrong position?
Exactly, and it would sound flawless because he'd resolve it musically not technically [laughter]. I tell you it's crazy stuff. He can definitely hear and adjust better than anyone I've ever known and I was privy to a period in time, when he was thirty years old, when he had it all going. At that point in time I don't think there was anybody close.

Who were some of your other heroes?
I really like Jorge Morel. I loved his pop interpretations and he's written so much great music. I mentioned Bill Evans and I really love the music of Burt Bachrach, Carlos Jobim and Milton Nascimento. I'm also a big fan of Nat King Cole.

What about other piano players?
Art Tatum - he's really fascinating; a level of someone who totally mastered his instrument. At times he sounded like he'd be playing and someone else comes in, down on the lower extremities of the instrument, not even human at times. The interesting thing is that I'll buy magazines and they'll go through the evolution of the piano and he's not even mentioned. He's so dominant he is an evolution all by himself! Everyone else just extracted bits and pieces. He stands alone.

Tell me how you met Bob James and worked with him.
I met Bob around 1977. We met early in my career when my band and I were doing a run up the west coast from San Diego to Seattle. As it turned out, we did a lot of those dates opening for Bob and his band. I had a four-piece but Bob was carrying a larger group with a horn section. We watched each other's bands each night. It just grew from that. We talked between shows and became friends. Bob was getting ready to make a record and asked me to play on it - it was called Touchdown. I played on a couple cuts, it was a very successful recording for Bob. Eventually he thought it would be a good idea to do a duo record. That led to our first record One on One. It was really successful for us. It went gold pretty quick and it won a Grammy. That really changed things and kind of put us into another stratosphere. It came out just after my Heartstrings record that pretty much established me. We've done a lot of dates together and have recorded three records, One on One in '79, Two of a Kind in '82 and Cool in '92. We're good friends, we go up and visit at his place in Traverse City and his place down in Savannah. He's a great guy and a long-time friend. We're always talking about doing things together. As it happens, he's finishing up his new release and just yesterday I was working on one of the cuts. It's really great music, I really enjoy working with Bob. For lack of a better word, he is one of the true geniuses of contemporary jazz. A lot of it can start sounding the same but his music is on a higher plane.

I think that can happen when people imitate.
Right, sometimes that's the case but sadly sometimes it's just what the marketplace will bear. There are a lot of great players but sometimes you can't tell because they're being confined by the restrictions of radio. I try to never judge someone by their record [laughter].

Yeah, they don't want to play themselves out of a career.
Exactly, hopefully everybody does this to say something but when you get an opening it's not a complete opening because you have to make some compromises and I'm well aware and understand that.

Have you ever changed anything because you questioned the commercial appeal?
I can honestly say no. I've come up with ideas for songs that I felt were very commercial, sometimes I've been right and sometimes I've been wrong. Dave Grusin told me long ago that when you record a song, you'd better like it because you're going to be playing it for a long time [laughter]. To my mind because something is commercial it doesn't make it bad, if it's catchy. Sometimes I'll come up with an idea and think, "That's catchy," but by the time I've played it with the band two or three times I'll think, "There's not much to this," and I'll abandon the idea. But a few things have clearly lasted with myself and my audience.

What goals do you have for your own playing?
I just want to keep working and getting better at what I do. For me, that is to play technically better and to be able to put more into the back of my mind so I can play in a more heartfelt manner. I want to write good pieces and just get better. I'll be fifty-two this year and I just want to focus on making some good guitar records while I still have the equipment to do it. You never know how long you have; I'm just aware that I don't have forever.