Lenore Raphael: A Swinging Invitation
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I tell you were I do love to go, is wine country, I love Monterey, Carmel. I love that area.
And now I love Vancouver. We were staying Cole Harbor; we played at The Cellar.
When in New York, Lenore Raphael plays on weekend evenings at Strada 57 on 57 East. Sometime with a bass player and sometimes on her own, Lenore has brought live jazz into a popular Italian eatery mid-town.
In Toronto, for the IAJE Conference we met up with Lenore Raphael. As a special guest of Jazz Wines, Lenore will play a tribute to one of her greatest influences, Oscar Peterson.
We spoke to her about how Oscar influenced her life and how it can all change in a New York minute.
Why is the IAJE is important?
I believe it’s one of the few ways that we can keep young people involved in jazz and jazz education.
What do you want the young musicians to take away from it?
They hear the masters playing. The spirit of people supporting each other in jazz is not present in any other music. I find that people in jazz music really support and help each other.
Why? What is it about jazz?
The music itself. It’s the kind of music where everybody has to do their part to make the music work. I work with a trio all the time. But, I also go around the country and play with people I’ve never played with before. It’s part of my job to make the music work as a co-operative effort.
When you are playing with musicians you have never played with before, how do you improvise?
Listening. If there is one thing that people can come away with from this or any jazz experience, it is learning how to listen and really understand. When you are improvising with new people, you don’t get a lot of time to understand where the feel of the music is.
I was just up in Vancouver playing and there is a regional difference wherever you go—in the way musicians feel things. And, the pace is different.
In New York the pace is, well I don’t have to tell you, the New York minute is true. And if you go anywhere else in the country the pace slows down a little bit.
So jazz picks up a regional pulse?
Definitely. Somebody once said to me, while I was playing in Florida – I’m going to get you a New York type of bass player. And, I said ‘what’s that?’
He said, “New York has a definite feel.”
Jazz brings its place with it. But it’s also a tie with the past and right now?
Exactly and what happens in this moment isn’t what is going to happen in the next moment. Which is probably why I love it. It’s unpredictable.
When you were talking about listening, I was thinking for the most part people don’t listen. Not just in music, but in life, in conversations.
Yes, and I think people are reluctant to say – what do you mean by that? Everything is open to interpretation. And people don’t slow down enough to listen to say ‘am I getting it?’ We are in a hurry these days.
We were talking to Jeff Coffin. He said that improvisation is revolutionary—you are always reinventing yourself.
Yes, and music. You can play the same tune but you will never play the same way twice, ever. It was what’s happening in the moment and you can’t recreate that moment.
And what do you think it takes to be revolutionary?
I think part of it is understanding yourself. I’m not the same person I was six months ago because my life experience has been different. So, naturally, whatever happened to me is going to affect my music.
And, I think jazz musician are always looking to grow, and expand. How can I dig deeper into who I am to find out what the next thing is?
I don’t play anything the way I did five years ago or ten years ago. It’s a whole different thing.
And so it takes self-reflection?
Oh, yeah.
How do you balance that self-reflection – or aware of your own limitation—with the confidence you need to play?
It’s hard. I have to admit it’s really difficult.
What I do is remember there is an audience. And, because there is an audience listening. The feedback from the audience helps me in terms of my level of confidence.
it’s that one perfect note...that’s as good as ten other notes
You were going to be a teacher.
Correct.
But you listen to Oscar Peterson and there was a watershed moment for you.
That was the change. I was always improvising and playing jazz. But, the defining moment was when I was listening to him.
I felt where he was coming from, and I tried to adapt what he was doing into my style.
I read that you played Oscar’s albums over and over for years. How did you keep going before you had much acclaim or success?
It was fun for me. I wore holes in the records literally, playing over and over. It was so great to play along with them.
And that kept you inspired?
Oh yeah, for years. It still does. Just hearing him play. I thought, “I really want to play like that or get as close to it as I can.”
At the time it was mostly copying. That’s how it is with musicians. You just start copying who you admire.
When you’ve been copying, how do you know it’s time to go off and create your own?
I don’t think you consciously do that. I think it’s something that just evolves, where you have absorbed all that. Then all of a sudden you sit down and you think, ‘I’m doing my own thing. Well look at that’.
I get a kick when people say, ‘I heard something and I knew it was you right away’. Because, that’s what you want. You want to develop your own style.
When you started did you find mentors that helped you along in that way?
Yes, definitely. I studied with Barry Harris. He was just wonderful.
I remember the first time I did a workshop in New York and I was playing a scale. And, he looked at me and scratched his head and said “yeah I wish I could do it that fast.”
Playing fast and technically at that point was the most important thing. It isn’t anymore.
What’s important to you now?
Emotion. Getting the real emotion of what the songs about and what it means to me. It doesn’t necessarily mean playing a lot of notes.
I was talking to pianist, Beegie Adair, about when you’re young and playing as many notes as you can. But, as you get older you find a restraint that is more profound.
Definitely. You get more in touch with what you’re playing and your self.
Someone said, “I love your spaces as much as I love what you play.” It gives people time to breathe and think.
It’s the same with writing you are always looking to use fewer words.
If you can find that perfect word it that says ten. And for me it’s that one perfect note that says ten—that’s as good as ten other notes. And the masters, people like Miles Davis or Chet Baker, they could do that.
They said so much with so little.
Some people don’t need to tell you everything they know. But when they do speak, they add something important.
Right. ‘This is who I am’.
‘I don’t need to prove anything to you’.
That’s where I’ve gotten to, thank goodness. I don’t have to prove anything to you really. You get to the point, you say, ‘this is what I do’. When you get to that point I think the audience does respond. They see it in you.
And musicians that are a little older, we see younger and younger audiences. How do you reach 20 and 30 year olds who really don’t have the knowledge of the music that came before?
It’s the emotional thing that’s so universal. If you can get that into your music nobody can miss that – even if they don’t understand what the improvisational work is. The emotional thing is totally universal.
You can leave the audience feeling something. You’ve touched them. And, I think that’s universal.
Who should we talk to next?
Harry Allen. He’s a wonderful saxophone player, I’ve known him since he was 18. He’s just evolved so much; he’s great.
