Tom Varner interview

Interview with Tom Varner
(by producer Frank Tafuri)

Tafuri: Your albums are always an event. Even when people write about them, writers say things like 'Always an adventure.' And each album feels very complete, the pieces fitting together very well. I'm curious about what goes into the process when Tom Varner prepares a new record.

Varner: It's true, I try to have a sweep. Whether I try to have a sweep of the whole work that ends up being on the CD or not, that is what happens. At this point from doing it for so many years (going on nineteen years), automatically I have a big picture with lots of little pictures in the big picture.

Tafuri: It just "comes" to you?

Varner: Well, it's a gradual shaping, sort of "order out of chaos" basically, like a sculpture that's being formed out of a big block of something that has no form. It usually takes a couple of years. And within those two years, I'm gathering the material that's reflecting in many ways where I'm at during that two-year period of my life and then shaping it with as much clarity as I can once it's that final product.

Tafuri: And then you get to a sort of "critical mass" and that's it?

Varner: Right! It's true. It's like "Okay, it's time!" And that has been the process, though I almost see Swimming as the third part of a trilogy. The Mystery of Compassion, Martian Heartache, and now Swimming are in this long, three-part, seven-year journey and the American Songs Project [The Window Up Above on New World] was a little "side trip" in the middle.

Tafuri: How do you see as a suite? How do they fit together?

Varner: Not that I tried hard, but they all seem to be this autobiographical journey. (I normally can't write anything that can't seem to be some sort of autobiographical journey, which I think most good music is.)

Tafuri: You said each of your projects is a reflection of where you're at at that time, ergo, autobiographical.

Varner: In that way, this new project became that just as much, if not more. I think of, in that way, this new project became that just as much, if not more. I think of Mystery of Compassion much more as a sort of spiritual search. I think of Martian Heartache as much more of reflecting that alienation when you're in the middle of the spiritual search and you're still struggling and you're in the thick of it. And Swimming is a little bit more of a sense of resolution, a sense of less struggle and a little be more of having arrived at the end of a journey, but of course with a lot more journeys ahead. There seems to be that trilogy to them.

Tafuri: Is this an on-going series? The way you're talking about it, it sounds like this is a trilogy and something's coming to an end. Or maybe it signals the end of something and the start of something else?

Varner: It does. Only in the last year did it dawn on me that this is a trilogy, a big project with a big picture in three parts. And I don't know what the next thing is. I really don't. But it does feel like there's a sense of closure or resolution with it. I think —and we can get more specific with some of the pieces on it —it's a reflection of how my life has changed so much in the last two years. I've gone from being single and living alone in one room (the sort of "starving artist" lifestyle) now to being married and having moved and having much more of a sense of resolution in other aspects of my life, in a good way, and looking back at all the processes and struggles that contributed to those changes (without sounding too pretentious or "touchy-feely").

Tafuri: It's interesting because you say your records are a reflection of where you are at a particular point in time, that they're autobiographical and can't help but reflect your life state. One thing that that shows up in your records is what I'll call "biblical themes." Even in The Window Up Above, you had several church hymns; that was much more of a kind of American focus, but it's a common theme, and here in Swimming we have actually two tracks like that.

Varner: That's true. I guess it's reflected my interest in the last few years in exploring religion, and the role it has in the world, and how it intersects with history. I've always been interested in the first century, and that upheaval of the Roman Empire, and the early, first 200 years of Christianity —it became almost a humorous way to play with those themes and how they intersect with a jazz musician in 1999. Now —I have serious historical and spiritual interests in these ideas, but I also have this secret love of the tacky Hollywood —we call them "swords and sandals" —Bible movies. It's like a private soap opera interest [laughter]. So it's with the humor of that, as well as the dead seriousness of serving God through music. Period. As serious as that. I like to have the music incorporate how we can laugh at Yvonne DeCarlo as the Pharaoh's wife, and the seriousness of making the best music you can possibly make. So it sort of incorporates all of those things. In these three CDs there's always been humor and then those serious aspects as well.

Tafuri: In a way, the fact that you have that kind of dichotomy of the serious aspect and the humorous aspect kind of reflects where Tom Varner is —I mean Tom Varner's roots out of the Plains States, out of Missouri, and then the more East Coast sensibility.

Varner: Right. I could add to that that the background was —even though I was born and raised in New Jersey, my parents were both from a small town in Missouri and were very religious, and I went to church every week as a kid —that real Protestant American thing. Now looking back, it had its pluses and minuses, but I'm glad I did it. A lot of us, we go away from that in our twenties, and then we come back in maybe our late thirties, and we find new meaning. I try to reflect those new meanings in the music.

Tafuri: Well that's definitely one of the themes that's come through. I think it's interesting that this album is the first album in a while that doesn't have a James Brown-influenced kind of funk thing to it. It's kind of been channeled into a different…?

Varner: I never thought of it on Mystery of Compassion, but I guess "$1000 Hat" gets pretty funky, that's for sure. It just came out that way —that's funny.

Tafuri: You said that the music gets to a point, you collect things up to where you have to make a record, you hit that critical mass, but I think the origins of Swimming are a little different, aren't they?

Varner: The critical mass at this point was building up in my head, but the great bulk of the CD, the music came pouring out in one month, when last August/September 1998, I was a guest at the Blue Mountain Center, this wonderful arts colony way up in the Adirondack mountains. So I had a month to get away from the daily grind in New York City to just practice, compose, listen to music, and read. And swim in this beautiful crystal-clear lake, and it was heaven, let me tell you. While I was there, every day swimming in this beautiful lake, but then every day working at composing new music, "Swimming" grew out of that. At first, it was so funny, it started as a much more reflective, softer, almost New Age piece, which horrified me.

Tafuri: Now you're talking about the tune ["Swimming"], as opposed to the album.

Varner: Right, the actual melody. As it developed, it became the song that opens the CD. But it was, rather than reflecting all the horrible sturm und drang struggles of Tom Varner, it was much more that wonderful, just taking a break, working on your music, but swimming in this cool wonderful Adirondack lake —almost as a transcendent experience. Later I realized swimming, as in life, against the tide, and then sometimes learning to swim with the tide…

Tafuri: It definitely works on a couple different levels. It's interesting that you used the word "transcendent" —not to draw too many parallels —but maybe that's reflective of the fact that you see these three albums as a trilogy; maybe now you're moving on to somewhere else, wherever that may be. One of the tunes that really intrigued me, because I actually ended up not hearing the music until the session, is "Pantoum." To me it sounds kind of Persian, I guess.

Varner: It's funny —one of the ways in which I took advantage of the arts colony, was that I brought a bunch of counterpoint and orchestration books, thinking 'Okay, this is my chance to learn, go back and do a little studying…' and one of the things I was reading was Walter Piston's famous Counterpoint, which is one of the standards, and Piston talked about "the melodic curve." So I did some exercises with specific melodies in specific shapes. Then I thought, "Wow, some of them have a little bit of a Middle Eastern feel to them, some of them not," but at the same time at the colony were writers, poets, painters, and one of the poetry readings of one of the fellow artists there, who happened to be a poet, she was explaining this poetry form, which is lines in groups of four, but in the next stanza, what were lines 2 and 4 become lines 1 and 3. So it's a structure for poetry, but I thought 'Aha!' —my little Piston exercises, with this poetry form, will make a really nice piece. I immediately heard it with the varying orchestration, two saxes, or horn and sax, and varying it in that way. "Pantoum" is that poetry form, the type of structure.

Tafuri: Do you know where it's from?

Varner: I don't —I looked it up in the dictionary, and it was conflicting: some thought Indonesia, some thought France. It seemed to be a mystery. But it was a result of these various disciplines at this art colony coming together that gave me a nice little push. And of course, I was off and running —I didn't do any more of the Piston counterpoint [laughter]. But I needed a little push.

Tafuri: Well, sometimes that little inspiration is enough to do it. The tunes on this album, except for two sort of minis we have, and the Feldman minis which we'll get to in a minute, are really extended forms, which is in some ways a little bit of a departure for you, I think. I mean, you've written extended forms, but like on Martian Heartache, for instance, you did these little musical interludes throughout.

Varner: Right, right... On those other two CDs there were some pieces with a lot of structure, but for SwimmingI wanted to work with structure but not worry so much about where it led. If the piece ends up being a little bit longer, so be it, rather than worrying about it being quite such a structured, tight form. As a result, we have a couple of tunes that are a little longer on Swimming. I guess I wanted to work with some of those types of structural variations, a self-invented mixing of styles in an interesting structure, but let it be more organic this time. That's the difference. Not quite so cut-and-paste —let the structure flow a little bit more, and see where it led. Maybe I had the luxury of it, or maybe it's just where I'm at now.

Tafuri: Is that part of the reason why you picked two saxophonists who are in some ways, both sonically and from a performance standpoint, quite different, in Tony Malaby and Steve Wilson? In other words, to sort of fill in the space you're allowing now in your structures?

Varner: I immediately —even at that arts colony —I immediately heard the sound of Steve Wilson and Tony Malaby —even then. Imagining their sounds inspired me to work on a lot of the music. By the way, everything on the CD was composed at the Blue Mountain Center, except for "Samuel", "Maybe Yes", "OmniTone" and "Chicago." Everything else was written there. I didn't think of their sound as it dealt specifically with the structure of music, (although maybe I did), but I did think specifically about how different they were, and how it would make a really nice contrast with each other —Steve being so wonderfully angular and sometimes tart, and sometimes a really nice mix of the cerebral with the passionate, and would take my music in a different way —I just wanted to do something very different.

Tafuri: There's that transcendence again.

Varner: Right. Take it to a place it hasn't been. Tony, with his mix of wonderful, "straight-ahead" jazz chops and free jazz chops and wonderful sound that I knew would blend great with the horn —thinking about how he might approach this music inspired me to move forward with it.

Tafuri: Did you have any idea that one portion of "Samuel Gets the Call" was going so sound so Stan Getz-like?

Varner: No, well, "Samuel" has such a funny evolution. I wrote that several months earlier for a concert at the New School of the Jazz Composers Collective. Tony was on that concert, and I specifically wrote that as a vehicle for him, with an extended intro —basically, a tenor sax feature framed by something very different on either end. It really worked. I knew that it would be a very lush and almost "sexy" tenor sax feature where Tony could go crazy or be restrained, however he wanted, but with this contrasting, much more spacey, beginning and end to the piece. Quickly after I wrote the piece —and, again, we come back to the Bible stories (and I had just been reading the great Bible stories of Samuel, the great prophet, and Eli) —I realized (if you wanted to be ridiculously programmatic) it could be seen in this "ark" of an Old Testament Bible story. Again, with humor, but maybe something more, because at the beginning the horns do this thing that's just like God speaking to this little boy in a temple ("SAHM-uuuul! SAHM-uuuuul!"). In the French horn solo, Samuel's hearing the word of God. In the tenor sax solo, Samuel is growing up and is helping shape the tribes of Israel to get their act together because they're kinda messin' up. And, in the shout chorus, without wanting to sound sacrilegious, the tribes of Israel are all falling down with all their problems and the bass solo in the end is the transition to the new reign of David, basically it's this transition to David taking over. And the fade is: Samuel is gone and David is now the new king. So, it's kind of ridiculous and, with a little bit of humor, it made me realize that in addition to a sexy feature for the tenor sax solo, it's this sexy Bible story [laughs].

Tafuri: And so how is it that you would have the French horn become the voice of God [laughs]?

Varner: Hmm... Let's just say it's Samuel struggling with the voice of God. [laughs]. Similar to thinking of the story of Samuel, while I was at that arts colony, I was reading the biography of Paul by A N Wilson. It's a fascinating picture of the first century and that willful, almost "strident," urgent sense of Paul saying "Okay, if I'm coming to Rome, I'm coming to Rome, if you're gonna chop my head off, go ahead and chop it off, baby!" —although A N Wilson thinks maybe Paul lived to be a happy old man in Spain. (We don't really know what actually happened to Paul.) That [piece "Paul Goes to Rome"] had to do with the sense of apocalypse and (again) transcendence. But, at the same time, I was working with a famous counterpoint book by the famous Johann Fux whose books Mozart and Beethoven and Haydn worked with when they were kids. The first line of "Paul Goes to Rome" was a practice of a counterpoint exercise, following the guidelines of Johann Fux. I also wanted to give some credit to my friend the Swiss trumpet player Peter Schärli because, after I wrote the piece, I realized this sounds quite a bit like a beautiful requiem piece that Peter wrote for a movie soundtrack in Switzerland that I played on, that the great Glenn Ferris solos over. I wanted to give a little tip of the hat to Peter, though it certainly wasn't a conscious thing. It's almost like a figured bass [thing]; if you write one, they all sound a lot like that.

Tafuri: Well your music —you say 'if you wanna get ridiculous and make it programmatic' —is very cinematic.

Varner: Right, but I've never consciously tried to think "Here, I'm gonna make music that sounds like it would be for a movie," yet, often, because I like to play with little contrasting elements and quick changes of texture, it comes out that way. It comes out in a real "narrative." I think it's partly because I've gotten away from the head-solo-solo-solo-head- over-and-out routine more in the last ten years.

Tafuri: It's sort of like Mingus' music is: you're writing colors. And that's why it's such a kick to listen to pieces like "Chicago Interlude."

Varner: Now that was written for a band I played with in Chicago with Rudy Mahanthapa and Ryan Schultz and specifically written for an alto to solo as a little two-minute interlude in a jazz club in Chicago with bass trumpet, French horn, and alto. That piece has grown and evolved. It's been done by George Schuller's Orange Then Blue with [trumpeter] Herb Robertson soloing over it. And now on this version —actually inspired by Herb Robertson —I thought "Let me take over the solo." It's just one of those little pieces written in haste when I just needed something extra and yet, as sometimes happens, one of the things you're most proud of.

Tafuri: Cinematic in other ways, too, in some of your other pieces. I love the ending of "Strident." It's like —and you said it first, though I heard it, too —the "shrieks" in Bernard Herriman's score to Psycho —

Varner: —the shrieking Psycho strings, it's true. Now that piece evolved out of the main bass line that starts with just the tenor, the horn, and the bass. It grew out of that. Then I thought to myself "Man, this is like an in-your-face strident-and-yet-with-a-little-humor-but-with-more-urgent —I kept trying to re-title the piece... So, "Strident" it remained because it stayed urgent and strident from the beginning to the end. I remembered imagining, when I was writing the piece, those last four beats and just laughing out loud, thinking "Wow! That'll be one really, really exciting, but really hilarious sort of crazy, loopy ending to this crazy, loopy piece" basically. It almost wrote itself, although it tortured me for a little while. But then I immediately heard that I needed a fourth voice to carry the counterline, so that there are two "teams" of equal partners.

Tafuri: Well, talking about "crazy, loopy" and "cinematic" and "scenes" and "stories," how about those Seven Miniatures for Mark Feldman? I know that back on Mystery of Compassion you had that extended feature for Mark Feldman, "The Well," and now we have Seven Miniatures for Mark Feldman, I believe subtitled "Mark Goes to the Circus"?

Varner: There are a few subtitles in there —and the listener can tell which is which: "Mark Goes to the Circus," "Mark Becomes an Astronaut," "Mark Goes Back to the Circus," "Mark Remembers a Nashville Gig"... You see, at that arts colony, I was at a block with some of the other pieces and I was listening to these Ligetíminiatures for woodwind quintet (some of the most beautiful things I'd heard in a long time), and I though "Ah! (it just hit me) I wanna do some little, miniature vehicles for Mark Feldman where each one touches on something different that would just let Mark do whatever the hell he wants."

Tafuri: How did you pick Mark Feldman? I mean, he's not a regular member of your bands...

Varner: No, but I wanted a contrast with the rest of the record with the violin. I remembered how much I loved what he did on "The Well" on The Mystery of Compassion. I wanted to make a (perhaps) updated contribution or another sort of "chamber music side trip" on the CD, and I knew Mark was the man for that. Maybe as a counterweight to the heaviness of the tenor sax and the horn and the bass and the drums, I wanted little "diversions." They're not meant to be taken like heavy, heavy music, but with Mark's humor and virtuosity, they just carry the day.

Tafuri: I played some of those for different musicians who've been by and some friends of mine and one of the musicians commented on one of those cuts and said "Who's playing synthesizer?" for those long horn beds which are very effective.

Varner: Very interesting. Nope, there're just plain, ol' winds playing background.

Tafuri: On that instrumentation vein, is there a reason why your albums usually don't have piano on them? (I don't even think any of them have piano on them.)

Varner: Only one, Jazz French Horn, which is yet-to-be-released, which I hope some day will be released on CD. Anyway, my original inspiration to have a band of my own was Don Cherry's Complete Communion, the Blue Note LP. That old record made me think "Okay, now I wanna be a band leader." So that, combined with Ornette Coleman's work and other kind of "free" jazz from the '60s as well as a host of other things, inspired me to get it together to be a band leader. Then, at the same time, it was so difficult in those early years to make the French horn really project and be articulate as a real jazz instrument, I liked the clarity of just the bass and drums and another sax. And then I just sort of stuck with it.

Varner: Jazz French Horn is one of the greatest records I ever did. It was with Kenny Barron, so I was very pleased. And I might go back [to having a piano on my albums].

Tafuri: Well, when you were in Europe last fall, didn't you do some duos with piano?

Varner: Yes, I have a special project in the works which was a series of duos with four different, great Swiss pianists. So, I have no problem working with the piano, my albums just sort of happened that way. In the last ten years, the records —Long Night Big Day, The Mystery of Compassion, Martian Heartache —have all been much more with combining modern chamber music with jazz (whether straight-ahead jazz or free jazz). I guess I've had enough colors to work with which became (almost) my paintbrush; two or three or four horns and bass and drums became almost a kind of "vocabulary." But in the future, there might be more piano. Who knows?

Tafuri: And regarding "vocabulary," I haven't asked you necessarily about titles because I feel if a composer or artist wants to talk about where a title came from then that's there business. But I do want to ask you about "Maybe Yes..."

Varner: Now that goes back to some of the things we were talking about earlier about the whole CD. Again, at the risk of sounded ridiculously pretentious, "Maybe Yes..." is also about the artist's question "Is it possible to be a searching, creative artist and not be a tortured, searching, creative artist?" In other words, is it possible to be a good artist doing good work and perhaps have a little bit an easier time of it? In other words, can I be happy, can I be married, can I have a slightly nicer home, and have a lot of good things in my life and keep doing music? Now, there are many musicians who, obviously, are able to do that, and there are many musicians or creative artists who are not able to do that. I was finally to that point where the answer to that question was "maybe yes."

Tafuri: Except there's an ellipsis at the end...

Varner: Right, but at least it's "Maybe Yes..." as opposed to "Maybe No..." And the piece has that feeling. The intro is the question, then literally "going through the changes" with the mix of chamber music and "straight-ahead" jazz (sometimes jumping in at a different tempo then jumping out of that), then the ending working with a theme from the beginning with much more of a sense of resolution of "Yes, yes, I can do this."

Tafuri: So you're thinking through the question (or the statement, whatever it happens to be) in the piece?

Varner: It's kind of like that, yeah. And again, not to sound ridiculous, but it's almost like "Billie versus Ella," "Bird versus Diz." Can you be a deeply profound artist and be happy, or do you have to be a deeply profound artist and be tortured? Happy? "Maybe Yes..." [laughs]. It's corny to put it in words and, yet, somehow musically that's what that piece is about. And one could just think of the piece totally in the abstract and dig it because Tom Rainey is incredible —keeping us all together with this mix of chamber music and fast 4/4; there are very few drummers who can do that which such precision and such swing (as he also does on "Strident" with all those little time changes) and keep it burning at the same time. I'm amazed, when I listen back, at how great he is at that.

Tafuri: Every time I listen to this record I hear something new and different and beautiful come out of it. To change the subject here, I'd like to ask you a totally off-the-wall question (since you've said the word "ridiculous" a bunch of times). If somebody called you from some (let's say) big music synchronization agency or music contracting agency in Hollywood and said "Tom, all of Hollywood wants you to make music, and here are a whole bunch of different scripts, why don't you pick one?" What kind of movie would you like to write music for?

Varner: Ooooh.... Good question! [Long pause.] Hmmm... Something that combined politics, religion, and sex ... and love. Something that combined politics, spiritual search, intrigue, and love.

Tafuri: Sounds to me like Godfather III.

Varner: Right! and I'm not even Italian. Or something that has mystery (but not a stock mystery), something that has a mysterious feel to it and awe. Something that combined mystery and awe and also a fascinating structure like Citizen Kane or most Fellini.

Tafuri: Are there any films you've watched and heard or thought about hearing your own music?

Varner: Some of the Mamet movies, The Spanish Prisoner, and House of Cards. And then, on a way other place, the great, great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky who did one of the greatest movies ever made called Andrei Rublev about a Russian icon painter in the 15th century. It's incredible. And he did another science fiction thing called Solaris which is incredible, too.

Tafuri: So, short of that scoring gig, what do you think's up next in store for Tom Varner?

Varner: I would love to actually work with this quintet [snickers]. At some point in the future I might like to write for slightly bigger combinations —not a big band, but maybe a special piece for ten. I'd also like to explore things that are much less composed, in fact. I'm going to be doing a little gig coming up with Ellery Eskelin, Mark Dresser, and Mat Manieri which will be much more sound exploration and improvisation. I'm looking forward to that, too. I'd like to keep juggling composing for my regular group, keep playing in situations where things are more improvised and exploring sounds, and [keep] thinking about writing for larger ensembles.

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	Interview with Tom Varner (by producer Frank Tafuri) Tafuri: Your albums are always an event. Even when people write about them, writers say things like 'Always an adventure.' And each album feels very complete, the pieces fitting together very well. I'm curious about what goes into the process when Tom Varner prepares a new record. Varner: It's true, I try to have a sweep. Whether I try to have a sweep of the whole work that ends up being on the CD or not, that is what happens. At this point from doing it for so many years (going on nineteen years), automatically I have a big picture with lots of little pictures in the big picture. Tafuri: It just "comes" to you? Varner: Well, it's a gradual shaping, sort of "order out of chaos" basically, like a sculpture that's being formed out of a big block of something that has no form. It usually takes a couple of years. And within those two years, I'm gathering the material that's reflecting in many ways where I'm at during that two-year period of my life and then shaping it with as much clarity as I can once it's that final product. Tafuri: And then you get to a sort of "critical mass" and that's it? Varner: Right! It's true. It's like "Okay, it's time!" And that has been the process, though I almost see Swimming as the third part of a trilogy. The Mystery of Compassion, Martian Heartache, and now Swimming are in this long, three-part, seven-year journey and the American Songs Project [The Window Up Above on New World] was a little "side trip" in the middle. Tafuri: How do you see as a suite? How do they fit together? Varner: Not that I tried hard, but they all seem to be this autobiographical journey. (I normally can't write anything that can't seem to be some sort of autobiographical journey, which I think most good music is.) Tafuri: You said each of your projects is a reflection of where you're at at that time, ergo, autobiographical. Varner: In that way, this new project became that just as much, if not more. I think of, in that way, this new project became that just as much, if not more. I think of Mystery of Compassion much more as a sort of spiritual search. I think of Martian Heartache as much more of reflecting that alienation when you're in the middle of the spiritual search and you're still struggling and you're in the thick of it. And Swimming is a little bit more of a sense of resolution, a sense of less struggle and a little be more of having arrived at the end of a journey, but of course with a lot more journeys ahead. There seems to be that trilogy to them. Tafuri: Is this an on-going series? The way you're talking about it, it sounds like this is a trilogy and something's coming to an end. Or maybe it signals the end of something and the start of something else? Varner: It does. Only in the last year did it dawn on me that this is a trilogy, a big project with a big picture in three parts. And I don't know what the next thing is. I really don't. But it does feel like there's a sense of closure or resolution with it. I think —and we can get more specific with some of the pieces on it —it's a reflection of how my life has changed so much in the last two years. I've gone from being single and living alone in one room (the sort of "starving artist" lifestyle) now to being married and having moved and having much more of a sense of resolution in other aspects of my life, in a good way, and looking back at all the processes and struggles that contributed to those changes (without sounding too pretentious or "touchy-feely"). Tafuri: It's interesting because you say your records are a reflection of where you are at a particular point in time, that they're autobiographical and can't help but reflect your life state. One thing that that shows up in your records is what I'll call "biblical themes." Even in The Window Up Above, you had several church hymns; that was much more of a kind of American focus, but it's a common theme, and here in Swimming we have actually two tracks like that. Varner: That's true. I guess it's reflected my interest in the last few years in exploring religion, and the role it has in the world, and how it intersects with history. I've always been interested in the first century, and that upheaval of the Roman Empire, and the early, first 200 years of Christianity —it became almost a humorous way to play with those themes and how they intersect with a jazz musician in 1999. Now —I have serious historical and spiritual interests in these ideas, but I also have this secret love of the tacky Hollywood —we call them "swords and sandals" —Bible movies. It's like a private soap opera interest [laughter]. So it's with the humor of that, as well as the dead seriousness of serving God through music. Period. As serious as that. I like to have the music incorporate how we can laugh at Yvonne DeCarlo as the Pharaoh's wife, and the seriousness of making the best music you can possibly make. So it sort of incorporates all of those things. In these three CDs there's always been humor and then those serious aspects as well. Tafuri: In a way, the fact that you have that kind of dichotomy of the serious aspect and the humorous aspect kind of reflects where Tom Varner is —I mean Tom Varner's roots out of the Plains States, out of Missouri, and then the more East Coast sensibility. Varner: Right. I could add to that that the background was —even though I was born and raised in New Jersey, my parents were both from a small town in Missouri and were very religious, and I went to church every week as a kid —that real Protestant American thing. Now looking back, it had its pluses and minuses, but I'm glad I did it. A lot of us, we go away from that in our twenties, and then we come back in maybe our late thirties, and we find new meaning. I try to reflect those new meanings in the music. Tafuri: Well that's definitely one of the themes that's come through. I think it's interesting that this album is the first album in a while that doesn't have a James Brown-influenced kind of funk thing to it. It's kind of been channeled into a different…? Varner: I never thought of it on Mystery of Compassion, but I guess "$1000 Hat" gets pretty funky, that's for sure. It just came out that way —that's funny. Tafuri: You said that the music gets to a point, you collect things up to where you have to make a record, you hit that critical mass, but I think the origins of Swimming are a little different, aren't they? Varner: The critical mass at this point was building up in my head, but the great bulk of the CD, the music came pouring out in one month, when last August/September 1998, I was a guest at the Blue Mountain Center, this wonderful arts colony way up in the Adirondack mountains. So I had a month to get away from the daily grind in New York City to just practice, compose, listen to music, and read. And swim in this beautiful crystal-clear lake, and it was heaven, let me tell you. While I was there, every day swimming in this beautiful lake, but then every day working at composing new music, "Swimming" grew out of that. At first, it was so funny, it started as a much more reflective, softer, almost New Age piece, which horrified me. Tafuri: Now you're talking about the tune ["Swimming"], as opposed to the album. Varner: Right, the actual melody. As it developed, it became the song that opens the CD. But it was, rather than reflecting all the horrible sturm und drang struggles of Tom Varner, it was much more that wonderful, just taking a break, working on your music, but swimming in this cool wonderful Adirondack lake —almost as a transcendent experience. Later I realized swimming, as in life, against the tide, and then sometimes learning to swim with the tide… Tafuri: It definitely works on a couple different levels. It's interesting that you used the word "transcendent" —not to draw too many parallels —but maybe that's reflective of the fact that you see these three albums as a trilogy; maybe now you're moving on to somewhere else, wherever that may be. One of the tunes that really intrigued me, because I actually ended up not hearing the music until the session, is "Pantoum." To me it sounds kind of Persian, I guess. Varner: It's funny —one of the ways in which I took advantage of the arts colony, was that I brought a bunch of counterpoint and orchestration books, thinking 'Okay, this is my chance to learn, go back and do a little studying…' and one of the things I was reading was Walter Piston's famous Counterpoint, which is one of the standards, and Piston talked about "the melodic curve." So I did some exercises with specific melodies in specific shapes. Then I thought, "Wow, some of them have a little bit of a Middle Eastern feel to them, some of them not," but at the same time at the colony were writers, poets, painters, and one of the poetry readings of one of the fellow artists there, who happened to be a poet, she was explaining this poetry form, which is lines in groups of four, but in the next stanza, what were lines 2 and 4 become lines 1 and 3. So it's a structure for poetry, but I thought 'Aha!' —my little Piston exercises, with this poetry form, will make a really nice piece. I immediately heard it with the varying orchestration, two saxes, or horn and sax, and varying it in that way. "Pantoum" is that poetry form, the type of structure. Tafuri: Do you know where it's from? Varner: I don't —I looked it up in the dictionary, and it was conflicting: some thought Indonesia, some thought France. It seemed to be a mystery. But it was a result of these various disciplines at this art colony coming together that gave me a nice little push. And of course, I was off and running —I didn't do any more of the Piston counterpoint [laughter]. But I needed a little push. Tafuri: Well, sometimes that little inspiration is enough to do it. The tunes on this album, except for two sort of minis we have, and the Feldman minis which we'll get to in a minute, are really extended forms, which is in some ways a little bit of a departure for you, I think. I mean, you've written extended forms, but like on Martian Heartache, for instance, you did these little musical interludes throughout. Varner: Right, right... On those other two CDs there were some pieces with a lot of structure, but for SwimmingI wanted to work with structure but not worry so much about where it led. If the piece ends up being a little bit longer, so be it, rather than worrying about it being quite such a structured, tight form. As a result, we have a couple of tunes that are a little longer on Swimming. I guess I wanted to work with some of those types of structural variations, a self-invented mixing of styles in an interesting structure, but let it be more organic this time. That's the difference. Not quite so cut-and-paste —let the structure flow a little bit more, and see where it led. Maybe I had the luxury of it, or maybe it's just where I'm at now. Tafuri: Is that part of the reason why you picked two saxophonists who are in some ways, both sonically and from a performance standpoint, quite different, in Tony Malaby and Steve Wilson? In other words, to sort of fill in the space you're allowing now in your structures? Varner: I immediately —even at that arts colony —I immediately heard the sound of Steve Wilson and Tony Malaby —even then. Imagining their sounds inspired me to work on a lot of the music. By the way, everything on the CD was composed at the Blue Mountain Center, except for "Samuel", "Maybe Yes", "OmniTone" and "Chicago." Everything else was written there. I didn't think of their sound as it dealt specifically with the structure of music, (although maybe I did), but I did think specifically about how different they were, and how it would make a really nice contrast with each other —Steve being so wonderfully angular and sometimes tart, and sometimes a really nice mix of the cerebral with the passionate, and would take my music in a different way —I just wanted to do something very different. Tafuri: There's that transcendence again. Varner: Right. Take it to a place it hasn't been. Tony, with his mix of wonderful, "straight-ahead" jazz chops and free jazz chops and wonderful sound that I knew would blend great with the horn —thinking about how he might approach this music inspired me to move forward with it. Tafuri: Did you have any idea that one portion of "Samuel Gets the Call" was going so sound so Stan Getz-like? Varner: No, well, "Samuel" has such a funny evolution. I wrote that several months earlier for a concert at the New School of the Jazz Composers Collective. Tony was on that concert, and I specifically wrote that as a vehicle for him, with an extended intro —basically, a tenor sax feature framed by something very different on either end. It really worked. I knew that it would be a very lush and almost "sexy" tenor sax feature where Tony could go crazy or be restrained, however he wanted, but with this contrasting, much more spacey, beginning and end to the piece. Quickly after I wrote the piece —and, again, we come back to the Bible stories (and I had just been reading the great Bible stories of Samuel, the great prophet, and Eli) —I realized (if you wanted to be ridiculously programmatic) it could be seen in this "ark" of an Old Testament Bible story. Again, with humor, but maybe something more, because at the beginning the horns do this thing that's just like God speaking to this little boy in a temple ("SAHM-uuuul! SAHM-uuuuul!"). In the French horn solo, Samuel's hearing the word of God. In the tenor sax solo, Samuel is growing up and is helping shape the tribes of Israel to get their act together because they're kinda messin' up. And, in the shout chorus, without wanting to sound sacrilegious, the tribes of Israel are all falling down with all their problems and the bass solo in the end is the transition to the new reign of David, basically it's this transition to David taking over. And the fade is: Samuel is gone and David is now the new king. So, it's kind of ridiculous and, with a little bit of humor, it made me realize that in addition to a sexy feature for the tenor sax solo, it's this sexy Bible story [laughs]. Tafuri: And so how is it that you would have the French horn become the voice of God [laughs]? Varner: Hmm... Let's just say it's Samuel struggling with the voice of God. [laughs]. Similar to thinking of the story of Samuel, while I was at that arts colony, I was reading the biography of Paul by A N Wilson. It's a fascinating picture of the first century and that willful, almost "strident," urgent sense of Paul saying "Okay, if I'm coming to Rome, I'm coming to Rome, if you're gonna chop my head off, go ahead and chop it off, baby!" —although A N Wilson thinks maybe Paul lived to be a happy old man in Spain. (We don't really know what actually happened to Paul.) That [piece "Paul Goes to Rome"] had to do with the sense of apocalypse and (again) transcendence. But, at the same time, I was working with a famous counterpoint book by the famous Johann Fux whose books Mozart and Beethoven and Haydn worked with when they were kids. The first line of "Paul Goes to Rome" was a practice of a counterpoint exercise, following the guidelines of Johann Fux. I also wanted to give some credit to my friend the Swiss trumpet player Peter Schärli because, after I wrote the piece, I realized this sounds quite a bit like a beautiful requiem piece that Peter wrote for a movie soundtrack in Switzerland that I played on, that the great Glenn Ferris solos over. I wanted to give a little tip of the hat to Peter, though it certainly wasn't a conscious thing. It's almost like a figured bass [thing]; if you write one, they all sound a lot like that. Tafuri: Well your music —you say 'if you wanna get ridiculous and make it programmatic' —is very cinematic. Varner: Right, but I've never consciously tried to think "Here, I'm gonna make music that sounds like it would be for a movie," yet, often, because I like to play with little contrasting elements and quick changes of texture, it comes out that way. It comes out in a real "narrative." I think it's partly because I've gotten away from the head-solo-solo-solo-head- over-and-out routine more in the last ten years. Tafuri: It's sort of like Mingus' music is: you're writing colors. And that's why it's such a kick to listen to pieces like "Chicago Interlude." Varner: Now that was written for a band I played with in Chicago with Rudy Mahanthapa and Ryan Schultz and specifically written for an alto to solo as a little two-minute interlude in a jazz club in Chicago with bass trumpet, French horn, and alto. That piece has grown and evolved. It's been done by George Schuller's Orange Then Blue with [trumpeter] Herb Robertson soloing over it. And now on this version —actually inspired by Herb Robertson —I thought "Let me take over the solo." It's just one of those little pieces written in haste when I just needed something extra and yet, as sometimes happens, one of the things you're most proud of. Tafuri: Cinematic in other ways, too, in some of your other pieces. I love the ending of "Strident." It's like —and you said it first, though I heard it, too —the "shrieks" in Bernard Herriman's score to Psycho — Varner: —the shrieking Psycho strings, it's true. Now that piece evolved out of the main bass line that starts with just the tenor, the horn, and the bass. It grew out of that. Then I thought to myself "Man, this is like an in-your-face strident-and-yet-with-a-little-humor-but-with-more-urgent —I kept trying to re-title the piece... So, "Strident" it remained because it stayed urgent and strident from the beginning to the end. I remembered imagining, when I was writing the piece, those last four beats and just laughing out loud, thinking "Wow! That'll be one really, really exciting, but really hilarious sort of crazy, loopy ending to this crazy, loopy piece" basically. It almost wrote itself, although it tortured me for a little while. But then I immediately heard that I needed a fourth voice to carry the counterline, so that there are two "teams" of equal partners. Tafuri: Well, talking about "crazy, loopy" and "cinematic" and "scenes" and "stories," how about those Seven Miniatures for Mark Feldman? I know that back on Mystery of Compassion you had that extended feature for Mark Feldman, "The Well," and now we have Seven Miniatures for Mark Feldman, I believe subtitled "Mark Goes to the Circus"? Varner: There are a few subtitles in there —and the listener can tell which is which: "Mark Goes to the Circus," "Mark Becomes an Astronaut," "Mark Goes Back to the Circus," "Mark Remembers a Nashville Gig"... You see, at that arts colony, I was at a block with some of the other pieces and I was listening to these Ligetíminiatures for woodwind quintet (some of the most beautiful things I'd heard in a long time), and I though "Ah! (it just hit me) I wanna do some little, miniature vehicles for Mark Feldman where each one touches on something different that would just let Mark do whatever the hell he wants." Tafuri: How did you pick Mark Feldman? I mean, he's not a regular member of your bands... Varner: No, but I wanted a contrast with the rest of the record with the violin. I remembered how much I loved what he did on "The Well" on The Mystery of Compassion. I wanted to make a (perhaps) updated contribution or another sort of "chamber music side trip" on the CD, and I knew Mark was the man for that. Maybe as a counterweight to the heaviness of the tenor sax and the horn and the bass and the drums, I wanted little "diversions." They're not meant to be taken like heavy, heavy music, but with Mark's humor and virtuosity, they just carry the day. Tafuri: I played some of those for different musicians who've been by and some friends of mine and one of the musicians commented on one of those cuts and said "Who's playing synthesizer?" for those long horn beds which are very effective. Varner: Very interesting. Nope, there're just plain, ol' winds playing background. Tafuri: On that instrumentation vein, is there a reason why your albums usually don't have piano on them? (I don't even think any of them have piano on them.) Varner: Only one, Jazz French Horn, which is yet-to-be-released, which I hope some day will be released on CD. Anyway, my original inspiration to have a band of my own was Don Cherry's Complete Communion, the Blue Note LP. That old record made me think "Okay, now I wanna be a band leader." So that, combined with Ornette Coleman's work and other kind of "free" jazz from the '60s as well as a host of other things, inspired me to get it together to be a band leader. Then, at the same time, it was so difficult in those early years to make the French horn really project and be articulate as a real jazz instrument, I liked the clarity of just the bass and drums and another sax. And then I just sort of stuck with it. Varner: Jazz French Horn is one of the greatest records I ever did. It was with Kenny Barron, so I was very pleased. And I might go back [to having a piano on my albums]. Tafuri: Well, when you were in Europe last fall, didn't you do some duos with piano? Varner: Yes, I have a special project in the works which was a series of duos with four different, great Swiss pianists. So, I have no problem working with the piano, my albums just sort of happened that way. In the last ten years, the records —Long Night Big Day, The Mystery of Compassion, Martian Heartache —have all been much more with combining modern chamber music with jazz (whether straight-ahead jazz or free jazz). I guess I've had enough colors to work with which became (almost) my paintbrush; two or three or four horns and bass and drums became almost a kind of "vocabulary." But in the future, there might be more piano. Who knows? Tafuri: And regarding "vocabulary," I haven't asked you necessarily about titles because I feel if a composer or artist wants to talk about where a title came from then that's there business. But I do want to ask you about "Maybe Yes..." Varner: Now that goes back to some of the things we were talking about earlier about the whole CD. Again, at the risk of sounded ridiculously pretentious, "Maybe Yes..." is also about the artist's question "Is it possible to be a searching, creative artist and not be a tortured, searching, creative artist?" In other words, is it possible to be a good artist doing good work and perhaps have a little bit an easier time of it? In other words, can I be happy, can I be married, can I have a slightly nicer home, and have a lot of good things in my life and keep doing music? Now, there are many musicians who, obviously, are able to do that, and there are many musicians or creative artists who are not able to do that. I was finally to that point where the answer to that question was "maybe yes." Tafuri: Except there's an ellipsis at the end... Varner: Right, but at least it's "Maybe Yes..." as opposed to "Maybe No..." And the piece has that feeling. The intro is the question, then literally "going through the changes" with the mix of chamber music and "straight-ahead" jazz (sometimes jumping in at a different tempo then jumping out of that), then the ending working with a theme from the beginning with much more of a sense of resolution of "Yes, yes, I can do this." Tafuri: So you're thinking through the question (or the statement, whatever it happens to be) in the piece? Varner: It's kind of like that, yeah. And again, not to sound ridiculous, but it's almost like "Billie versus Ella," "Bird versus Diz." Can you be a deeply profound artist and be happy, or do you have to be a deeply profound artist and be tortured? Happy? "Maybe Yes..." [laughs]. It's corny to put it in words and, yet, somehow musically that's what that piece is about. And one could just think of the piece totally in the abstract and dig it because Tom Rainey is incredible —keeping us all together with this mix of chamber music and fast 4/4; there are very few drummers who can do that which such precision and such swing (as he also does on "Strident" with all those little time changes) and keep it burning at the same time. I'm amazed, when I listen back, at how great he is at that. Tafuri: Every time I listen to this record I hear something new and different and beautiful come out of it. To change the subject here, I'd like to ask you a totally off-the-wall question (since you've said the word "ridiculous" a bunch of times). If somebody called you from some (let's say) big music synchronization agency or music contracting agency in Hollywood and said "Tom, all of Hollywood wants you to make music, and here are a whole bunch of different scripts, why don't you pick one?" What kind of movie would you like to write music for? Varner: Ooooh.... Good question! [Long pause.] Hmmm... Something that combined politics, religion, and sex ... and love. Something that combined politics, spiritual search, intrigue, and love. Tafuri: Sounds to me like Godfather III. Varner: Right! and I'm not even Italian. Or something that has mystery (but not a stock mystery), something that has a mysterious feel to it and awe. Something that combined mystery and awe and also a fascinating structure like Citizen Kane or most Fellini. Tafuri: Are there any films you've watched and heard or thought about hearing your own music? Varner: Some of the Mamet movies, The Spanish Prisoner, and House of Cards. And then, on a way other place, the great, great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky who did one of the greatest movies ever made called Andrei Rublev about a Russian icon painter in the 15th century. It's incredible. And he did another science fiction thing called Solaris which is incredible, too. Tafuri: So, short of that scoring gig, what do you think's up next in store for Tom Varner? Varner: I would love to actually work with this quintet [snickers]. At some point in the future I might like to write for slightly bigger combinations —not a big band, but maybe a special piece for ten. I'd also like to explore things that are much less composed, in fact. I'm going to be doing a little gig coming up with Ellery Eskelin, Mark Dresser, and Mat Manieri which will be much more sound exploration and improvisation. I'm looking forward to that, too. I'd like to keep juggling composing for my regular group, keep playing in situations where things are more improvised and exploring sounds, and [keep] thinking about writing for larger ensembles. [Visit Tom Varner's website]
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