Warren Hill
November 2005
Interviewed by Harvey Cline
Between cruising the ocean’s blue, releasing new material and launching a record label, saxophonist Warren Hill took time recently to chat with Smooth Views:
Smooth Views (SV): The new disc has been out for a few weeks now, and was reviewed in our October edition of Smooth Views. How has it been received by the fans and media so far?
Warren Hill (WH): Very well. You know I’m always taking chances with my records and try to stretch myself beyond being complacent. People are really digging the songs. The thing about the record is that everyone has different favorite songs on there. So to me that’s a good sign, and that I did something right. There’s nothing worse than people liking one song on your record. We had so much fun making this record and the whole process, and so far so good. Maybe people just don’t give me the bad reviews.
SV: I’ve noticed that here is a mix of cover songs as well as new material. How tough was it to keep the balance and decide what to put on the new disc?
WH: Well it’s interesting. There’s a couple of these songs, in fact three of the covers out of four, that have been part of my live show, some for a longer period than others. “Come Together” is actually something that I started covering back in the early nineties. I played it in some shows, and a couple of tours. Then I stopped playing it for a long time and slowly brought it back. I said to myself , “I gotta once and for all record this darn thing” because I’ve been playing it so much. “Play That Funky Music” is the same thing. It’s been part of my show for the last year and a half. “Low Rider” as well, because it’s one of those tunes that pops in and out whenever you’re finished doing gigs. It’s one of those ones that everybody knows. So if you’re running out of material or people want to hear more or you get another encore you say “hey, lets do “Low Rider” and you go out there and jam on the thing. That one’s been around for a while. “Back At One” is the only one that I’ve actually never performed live. It’s such a brand new recording. I’m a huge Brian McKnight fan. I think he writes beautiful melodies and songs. Of course my wife is a big fan too. So that one’s kind of for her as well.
SV: You kick it off with a funky little tune named after your home town of Toronto. How did this one get chosen for the opener, and what was the inspiration for it?
WH: I named it Toronto because I was in Toronto when I wrote it. I was staying at my parents’ place. I think I had a gig of some sort and I remember practicing my saxophone in the living room and this melody came to mind and I started jamming on it as I was practicing, and I always carry a little Dictaphone around with me, and just sort of threw it down on the Dictaphone. When I am composing it’s odd where I come up with these ideas. It may be skiing on a mountain and sitting on a chair lift. I remember writing one song doing that. So I always say where I am when I come up with a song and of course here I am, sitting in my parent’s living room and here is a song idea. So then when I go back and compile a record and finish writing I go through these tapes and sort of weed out all the stuff that I think I must have been on some sort of hallucinogenic when I came up with it. And somewhere in there, there is actually some good material so this is one of them. Toronto is a very exciting city. I think it’s one of the top cities in North America. I did grow up there and I am still a Canadian citizen. So there is a certain amount of paying some homage to my home town.
SV: So, how did it become the opener?
WH: On the CD there is no particular song that is called pop jazz and I think that "Toronto," if you are thinking of Toronto, symbolizes that terminology the best. And when you first put the record on it lets you know the shape of things that are coming on the record. For me overall it is a funkier up beat record. There are a couple of ballads: “Still in Love,” “Back at One,” a couple of mellow songs, but for the most part I would say from looking at my past CDs this one is a little more high energy.
SV: I think so too. I go walking a lot and I always take the disk with me and I kick it off with “Toronto” and I am really into the walk when that one is finished. A great one to open with by the way.
WH: Very cool.
SV: You mentioned “Still in Love” that is one of my favorites on the disk. There is a lot of emotion and I understand it is also your first single. Can you tell us a little bit more about this one?
WH: This was written for my wife to celebrate our 10th anniversary. I have written many songs for her in the past that usually have some sort of significance. I wrote “Our First Dance” way back in the second CD after we were engaged. It was the first song at our wedding. I wrote a song called “Tamara” for her on my third that played as she walked down the aisle. Then I have written songs for my daughter and so on and so forth. But with this one, when I am composing she sometimes is walking by the studio and will poke her head in and give a thumbs up or thumbs down on some things. This is one where she poked it in and said, “that one is for me.”
SV: She knows how to pick the good ones.
WH: It was funny because she really didn’t have to say it cause I had already intended on it being that. I guess when you are working and living under the same roof it kind of hard to keep any secrets.
SV: I know what you mean. There is a part where you do a modulation down about ¾ of the way through you know where I am talking about. It goes da, da, da, da. It sounds like you ought to go up another fifth or so.
WH: You mean where the saxophone breaks?
SV: Yeah. I want to try that. I keep following that down and go oops he didn’t go up. You mentioned “Play That Funky Music,” and I know you got Brian Culbertson and Jeff Golub on that one. Did you record that live? If you did, how much fun was that for you?
WH: Sorry to take out the mystique. I guess it would be nice to make up some story.
SV: Yeah I could just see the three of you jamming on this one.
WH: Yeah, we will probably have to do that on my cruise because we will all be together on there. In fact, this record was made very piece meal because the co-producer, Andre Berry, lives in Los Angeles. l live in Boulder and I don’t know if you noticed but of course Golub lived in New York, and the Harris brothers are in New York. Most of the other guests are in L.A. Basically when I fly out to L.A for some shows I would get with Andre and we would do some recording then and I recorded a lot of my own parts just here in my studio here in Boulder. Jeff recorded his own parts on this one from his studio in New York and Culby was actually on the road with Andre on the college tour here in Chicago and he ran into a studio in Chicago that had a B-3 and recorded on that tune.
SV: I am surprised he didn’t have one in his hotel room that night or something.
WH: A lot of the stuff was done in hotel rooms as well. Surprisingly, with Ron Reinhardt all of his parts were recorded in Palms Springs in a hotel room.It is amazing what you can do now with technology.
SV: I just talked with Earl Klugh last month and he told me that they would record parts and email to the other artist and email them back and then play them.It has completely changed.It is unbelievable what it is now.
WH: I would never email a final part but when Andre, and I would be working on songs he would send me rough mixes of things for me to play my sax to, and he would just email those over, and as I would be working on my parts he would want to hear updated versions of what I was doing, so I just sent him stuff. But when it got time to actual compiling all the master parts and everything we don’t use email for that.We definitely stick them in the mail and on a CD or we hand deliver it to each other and do it that way. There is a certain point where you just can’t trust technology.
SV: On “Virgin Gorda” I keep hearing a noise or like two beats in the left speaker. What is going on there?
WH: That is just ambient noise. It is intentional.
SV: I figured it was after about the fifth time I heard that.
WH: Yeah, with chill music and that sort of thing you get a lot of that stuff which is not necessarily musical but is just creates a certain vibe. We wanted to do something because it is a very simple of melody and the vibe of the song is Virgin Gorda, obviously named after the island in the Caribbean, but if you listen closely there is a whole bunch of stuff in there.
SV: Yeah, I took the headphones off the first time and we were sitting on the deck listening to it Sunday night and I said listen to this and it freaked my daughter out and it just kept coming on and on and I said listen again. At first they thought it was me but after a while you know it was the CD. Do you have a favorite tune yet on the CD?
WH: One that stands out to me is, I really like the horn stuff that the Harris brothers did. So the songs that they are on really stand out to me. In particular “Funky Music” and “Come Together.”I think they did some incredibly cool stuff on there and then the way it was complemented with what I did on my sax.I am a big fan of “Still In Love” obviously because I did write it for my wife and I play it live at my shows and we really stretch it out and open up the solo and I do a big improvisation on there.The one that I do like a lot and I think it is because it was more of a challenge for me is “Bridge in the Gap,” the last tune on the CD.For any jazz buffs out there they recognize that we go into the cord changes of “Giant Steps” in the middle of a song.So it is basically this sort of acid groove, kind of funky groove going on, and suddenly we just take a left turn and go into “Giant Steps.”I like the way that one came out. It is very modern yet it sort of pays homage to Coltrane, who I was definitely studying quite a bit of. I don’t play like that now but I certainly studied much of that music and I just was really excited about taking the challenge to sort of throw giant steps on to a “smooth or pop jazz record.”
SV: Well, that one holds it’s own very well and could have even started off the whole disk I think. It was that strong.
WH: Yeah, I remember you said that in your review.That was really cool. Actually there was a company thatI endorsed that has a compilation of a CD for their artists.When I sent them the CD that was the song that they picked out for the compilation.So I think sax players can really respond to that tune.
SV: So let’s talk about the new label for a few minutes.Tell us about the new concept behind the new record label that you and your wife have launched.
WH: Initially it is your normal type of independent label.We have distributed it through Native Language records out of California so we are in all the normal retail stores and we are doing the normal route of printing CDs and shipping them out and doing all that.The second phase of the label though; is my vision really where I think music or the distribution is heading and I am working on formulating a membership site.We have popjazz.com right now where you can buy individual downloads of the songs or mail order the CD that sort of thing but I am trying to morph that into something that is more of an experience for people.I do believe it can almost be a real time experience, especially if you get into simulcast and things like that.But it is a place where the membership portal is just to service my biggest fans so to speak.It is not necessarily a fan club.It is more of a place where people that dig the music that I am doing and want to know more about that,and want to hear things like live recordings and out takes from the studio. There are all kinds of that stuff that just sort of stays in a vault somewhere.
SV: That would be things they could purchase.
WH: Behind the scenes videos, access to the best seating at my concerts.There is sort of a wealth of things you can do with the power of the internet.It is an amazing thing and you can really get in touch a lot closer to your fans. Not just on here, but globally because it is the kind of thing that really has no physical boundaries.So that is what we are working on.It is really easy to describe the concept, it is another thing to get it accomplished. It is a heck of a lot of work so we are still in the formulating stage of that now.
SV: Just doing the framework and knowing what you need to do and go after it.
WH: Yeah, we have a lot of framework in place. To launch something like this, the user friendly aspect of it is the highest of importance because I know not all my fans are as tech savvy as we think they might be. I think a lot of us take the internet and the whole computer digital experience for granted.For those of us that have been doing it for so long, when you run into someone that really isn’t well versed on a computer you kind of scratch your head and how can you not know about a computer.But it is true there are a lot of people that don’t.They would rather read a book than surf the net. Read a book and listen to a Warren Hill CD.So the important thing is to make sure that I am not forgetting them. I am trying to create an experience for people that are into this kind of stuff, and at the same time I have to also respect that there are people that just want to buy my CDs and listen to the music.
SV: And go to the shows.
WH: It is a balance and it has been a lot of work but it really is a labor of love because I do like to create music but I also like to create on other levels as well.To me this is just another way to express creativity.