Peggy Lee II
This interview with Peggy Lee was conducted by email during March 2023..
Tony Reif: The Peggy Lee Band is your longest-standing ensemble, established in 1998 as a sextet and more or less maintaining the original instrumentation with one major change, the addition of tenor sax and a second guitar (Ron Samworth) in 2007 (the band’s second record, from 2002, also includes marimba). Since then I believe the personnel has remained the same. You’ve also worked with many of these musicians in other formations over the years: in your large-group projects Film in Music (with Dylan van der Schyff, André Lachance, Ron Samworth) and Echo Painting (with Jon Bentley, Brad Turner, Dylan van der Schyff), and in the co-led trio Waxwing (Jon Bentley, Tony Wilson) as well as in bands led by Ron Samworth (Talking Pictures) and Tony Wilson (Tony Wilson Sextet). However, the Peggy Lee Band’s last record was in 2012. What prompted you to create a new book of compositions for this band and bring it back together after some years of relative inactivity? And while writing did you think of the band more like a well-loved, well-fitting glove or more like a challenge to try some different approaches (or a bit of both)?
Peggy Lee: Much of this music was written at our family cottage in Ontario after my parents had passed away. The cottage was built by my father and we spent every summer there as kids. There was and still is no electricity or running water. As I grew older I would spend less and less time up there, but on this occasion I had a nice stretch of time to write and reflect, which I did with the aid of an acoustic guitar. My long-standing band seemed like the right vehicle for this music as they had all known my parents and my parents loved them.
I think that returning to a familiar sound may have been part of the impetus, but each musician has been busy working on their own music over the years so it’s also interesting to see how the sound has evolved on its own.
TR: There are certain qualities that make your groups sound different from other large jazz groups – particular combinations I think of melody/harmony and colours/textures, how pieces develop and move between more composed/inside and freer sections, how the musicians extend and express in their own ways what you present them with, the emotional warmth of so much of your music, and probably lots of other things that I haven’t thought of. Specifically in terms of this record, is there anything you’d like to say about what inspires your style as a composer? Do you have a set of structural models or “templates” you’ve developed that serve as a starting point for new pieces? Do you write for particular musicians (as Ellington did?) or more for the possibilities of the instrumentation (as, say, Gil Evans probably mostly did, outside of his collaborations with Miles)?
PL: It’s always my preference to write for particular musicians. Knowing their sounds and their voices as improvisors helps shape the pieces. The process usually begins with just picking up an instrument and finding a path. Environmental sounds can play a part as well. In the case of this music, there was a lot of wind and water lapping on the shore which I enjoyed.
TR: How do you think of your own role as leader and as a soloist in this band?
PL: In most cases I prepare the music as thoroughly as I can, knowing that there will be limited rehearsal time. But once we start to play together I am very open to suggestions that will improve the sound and/or structures. Soloing for me is not a priority in this band. I’d rather hear the others do their thing.
TR: As producer of this record, what was Dylan’s role in getting it made? Did the two of you discuss the music much before and during the recording, or was he more concerned with technical issues and getting good takes (taking some of the weight off you to concentrate on the music-making)?
PL: There were a few discussions about the music ahead of time and then Dylan was key in managing the setup of the session and guiding some of the improvised pieces. And then after the recording, he went through all the material to find good takes and to do any necessary editing.
TR: The record is dedicated to your parents, “with gratitude and love to the lives of Douglas and Jocelyn Lee”. Were they an important influence on you becoming a musician?
PL: My parents were not musicians themselves but when three of the four of their children pursued music professionally they could not have been more supportive. And when I ventured into improvisation and more experimental forms, they were equally on board.
I will add that not all of the music was written at the family cabin. “Justice / Honour” came directly in response to George Floyd’s murder in 2020 and so I feel that human decency is also a theme of this music and one which I connect to my parents.
TR: On this record as well as on Echo Painting you included a cover of a song by The Band – on the former it was Robbie Robertson’s “The Unfaithful Servant” (sung by Robin Holcomb) and here it’s an instrumental version of Robertson and Richard Manuel’s “Whispering Pines”. What drew you to these particular songs? As a Canadian, do you feel your music has some connections with American roots music, maybe even going back to the 19th century?
PL: Well, I’ve spent a long time listening to The Band and these were just two songs that I loved that I felt could work. “Whispering Pines” also seemed to fit well within the environment of music written in the woods.