Wayne Horvitz (I)

This interview with Wayne Horvitz was conducted by email during April 2006.

Tony Reif: You’ve composed for classical ensembles such string orchestra, string quartet, and various other chamber ensembles, sometimes with electronics and/or improvising soloist (Bill Frisell, Eyvind Kang, Peggy Lee), although always presented in a “contemporary classical” context of some kind. Then there are your “jazz” groups – some of which, like Sweeter Than the Day, also have a certain classical feel about them even though the instrumentation (piano/guitar/bass/drums) is more traditionally jazzy. The Gravitas Quartet could fall on either side of this (admittedly artificial and arbitrary) divide. It’s a drummerless improvising chamber ensemble, and there is quite a lot of improvising going on, not just solos but duets and group improvisation. So here’s my question: how does your writing and arranging for this ensemble differ from your writing for Sweeter Than the Day (or the Four plus One Ensemble) on the one hand, and “classical” chamber music groups on the other? And how much did you think about these particular players when you were composing?

Wayne Horvitz: Well I think it really splits the difference. A lot of the structures are similar to ones I might use with the Four plus One Ensemble or even my group with Butch Morris and Bobby Previte from the late 80s. That being said, the actual written material, at least in some cases, is really notated as if I was writing for a classical ensemble, both in terms of the content and compositional technique. They are really miniatures with places for improvisations.

TR: A lot of the tunes in the Sweeter Than the Day book are in 3/4, and there are some waltzes here too. What is it about triple time that fascinates you? Do you also compose sometimes in 5, 7 etc.?

WH: I wouldn’t say fascinates me, just seems to happen a lot. I don’t write much in so-called “odd time signatures” in the sense that I will write a piece in 11/8. A good deal of my music has changing time signatures, in fact most of it. Even the more groove oriented music of Zony Mash often had an odd bar here or there, most folk music and plenty of “simple” pop tunes have the occasional bar of 2/4 or 3/8, but I have never really been interested in playing over 5/4 vamps or the like.

TR: There are certain melodic and harmonic qualities to your tunes that seem to stamp them as yours and no one else’s. Yet you’re drawing on the same harmonic systems and relationships as other jazz and classical composers. Can you talk a bit about how your pieces come to be? Do you keep a notebook of ideas? Do you sometimes start with just a snatch of melody or a particular chord progression that interests you? Or do you usually start when you have more melodic material and/or a plan for the form? Once you have an idea or group of ideas, how do you typically develop them into a piece? Do you tend to work things out deliberately or more “intuitively?” And how do you know if it’s good? Does it resonate with you emotionally, or does that come out in performance? Could you talk more specifically about a few of the pieces on this record, where they “came” from and what challenges or satisfactions were involved in working them up for and with the Gravitas Quartet?

WH: I have to say all of the above. Usually what gets me to write is a deadline – to be frank. A composer has a job like anyone else and we go to work each day and make new music. I don’t really keep a notebook, but when I have a new project I often have a lot of ideas at once so I jot them down quickly and then go back and work them through. Sometimes it’s as simple as “I need to write a piece that features Peggy” so clearly my language is inspired partly by her playing. Other times I am fooling with a melodic or harmonic device and I work from there. Sometimes I get inspired by a little loop or sound that comes up on the computer, although not so much in this music. Other times I take inspiration from a riff in someone else’s music – for example the Pigpen tune “V as in Victim” was inspired by a riff on a tune by Los Lobos on the album Kiko – not that you would ever recognize it in the end. “L.B.” started out when I was fooling around with a harmonic device in a song from West Side Story (hence the title) – but once it developed I doubt most people would notice it. Simply put, if one thing isn’t working -– I try another.

TR: To get away from composition for a moment, has your approach to playing piano been affected at all by working with this group?

WH: Probably the opposite, this group really came out of my desire to find a context for the way I have been developing my piano playing in the last five years.

TR: On this record you play synth on two pieces and both piano and synth on a third (“Between Here and Heaven”). I’m pretty sure you’ve done this before (in the Four plus One Ensemble?), and it’s certainly not an uncommon thing to do, but I’m interested in how you think about these two instruments, both from a compositional and improvisational point of view, and how they can (or sometimes can’t?) work together.

WH: I’ve been using this combination since my first CD on Soul Note – some order, long understood with Butch Morris and William Parker.

Actually a lot of my early experimentation with electronics was processing amplified piano, and to be frank I stopped doing that because I got tired of getting under the piano in dirty lofts in NYC and attaching the pick-ups. Later, with the Four plus One Ensemble, Tucker Martine would mike the piano and process it, which was fantastic. I would say that my piano playing has not informed my electronics playing too much – I often play electronics without much reference to my piano technique…however the opposite is not true. I think electronics sometimes do inform my piano playing – certain sonic spaces I try to create at the piano.

TR: Finally, what’s next for this group? I’m sure a tour is in the offing in any case, but do you see keeping it together for a number of years like Sweeter Than the Day or do you have other chamber jazz groups you want to try out?

WH: I really have three things I would like to pursue in the next five years: some larger pieces for orchestra that I am beginning to develop, continuing to play with Sweeter Than the Day, which at this point really takes care of itself, and developing this new project, the Gravitas Quartet.