Lyle Mays -

The Nature of Instinct

Artist Interview by: Mike Brannon

What if you were to look beyond the obvious of what you normally do each day, and
learned to see beyond? What if your mind and ears were always open, yet you
stayed deeply focused and unwavering from your concentration on the moment?

Lyle Mays pulled that which was not obvious and created the improvised
compositions of his long awaited new album, "Solo - Improvisations for Expanded
Piano." At the same time, Mays has accomplished what he has always done with the
Pat Metheny Group: surprised us, baffled, mystified, intrigued and inspired us.

Extremely intelligent, articulate, insightful and thoughtful in nature, yet with energy,
soul and a quirky sense of humor, Mays is also principled. This is evident in his
attitude about the absence of the monumental works of Weather Report and others
from the recent Ken Burn's Jazz documentary, which overlooked all of jazz guitar
[save Wes and Jim Hall] the organ groups, the avant-garde, fusion and the 1970’s
altogether.

Listening to Mays, you hear the strains and references of the contrapuntal music
tradition of Europe, while using the unconventional context of high energy and real-
time improvisation. All the traditional techniques, far older than the jazz idiom with
which he is most closely associated, are continuously reworked, re-invented and
used to great effect in the PMG [hey, long hair is still long hair].

Upon hearing Mays latest album, it will come as no surprise that his interests extend
beyond music, least of all his interest in architecture [particularly Frank Lloyd Wright],
having designed his sister's home. The similarity in his creation of both abstract
design and structure is clear. This is what Mays is all about: creating structure from
the new, to the old and back again. It's all relative. Mays makes it very clear that you
can get to and from anywhere, doing it in an imaginative way.

Though an integral part of the Pat Metheny Group for over a generation, Lyle Mays'
primary focus remains in composition and arrangement, sifting for what's new and
unusual and presenting it in ever more creative ways. While Metheny is the obvious
predominant force in the group, it's Mays and the band’s setting that supports
Metheny’s brilliance, allowing PMG to shine as well as it does. Vice versa, it's
symbiotic as the best, most lasting, and timeless collaborations.

Some of the most talented and underrated composers and improvisers remain so,
partly due to the lack of a need to strive for attention, in a business where that could
easily keep a career from even starting. Between the endless touring and thinking
outside the box with the PMG, Mays recently managed to release his fourth solo
recording, which is truly a solo piano excursion. Yet in its own way, it is as ambitious
an album as Mays has done to date. It’s anything but a traditional piano album, as it
was mostly improvised. At times there are as many as a hundred tracks flowing in
and out of the audible range, yet what is heard is the central instrument with
influences ranging from Evans and Jarrett to Stravinsky, Ravel and Berg, as only
Mays could direct.

May’s first self-titled album remains a testament to creativity and nuance in the
pursuit of evocation of mood and imagery. The casting of impressionists Bill Frisell,
Billy Drews and others was almost as much a part of the compositional process for
this music as the scores themselves. They were trusted to carry out a very unique
and specific vision. With Frisell again employed as foil, this continued into Mays’ next
release, “Street Dreams,” where Lyle really shines in the extensions and answers of
what the first release posed and promised.

This brings us to “Fictionary,” Mays’ previous release with the interactive brilliance of
Jack Dejohnette and Marc Johnson, as untraditional a trio recording, as you are
likely to find. Finally, “Solo,” a somewhat misunderstood recording of brilliance,
release, exposure, confrontation and dark beauty, where Mays allows psyche and
sensibility, soul vs. symmetry, and precision to travel across the keyboard in an
improvised, real-time journey of personal discovery.

Among the other notable projects Lyle has been involved with are the score to
“Falcon and the Snowman,” Steve Swallow’s ‘Home,” Rickie Lee Jones’ “Girl at Her
Volcano,” and Eberhard Weber’s, “Later That Evening.”

Currently Mays and Metheny are sequestered away in New York writing for the
sessions that will form the next Pat Metheny Group album [with new drummer
Antonio Sanchez]. The expected street date is summer 2002, with a support tour to
follow.

JazzReview: I was surprised you're out in LA. How’s that working out for you?

Lyle Mays: Well, it’s beautiful out here and I'm lovin’ it.

JazzReview: Yeah? How long has it been?

Lyle Mays: It's been about over three years now, close to four.

JazzReview: How much a part of what you do is instinct would you say?

Lyle Mays: Ah...one of the best questions anyone's asked me. It gets down to the
nature of instinct and how we train ourselves. I don't think we're born with musical
instincts. I think we need to be exposed to things, study things, and have musical
experience, before the word ‘instinct’ even applies. So, what I've said in the past is
that I kind of view soloing or composition, or any musical endeavor, like withdrawing
from a bank account. The more that you invested over the years, the bigger the
withdrawal you can make when it comes time to make that withdrawal.

JazzReview: That’s a good analogy.

Lyle Mays: So having said that, there's a fair amount of instinct going on, especially
in improvisation, because it’s instantaneous…almost a thinking in real time. You
might be able to think a fraction of a second ahead of what you play, but that's about
it. So I'd say in improvisation, instinct is a huge part, but it’s with the caveat I
mentioned before.

JazzReview: I guess I've heard it said that that some of the better improvisers in
Jazz history supposedly were said to have been thinking way ahead.

Lyle Mays: Well, the great chess grandmaster, Emanual Lasker, was once asked
how many moves he thought ahead and his answer was wonderful. He said, ‘just
one, but it’s always the best one.’

JazzReview: [laughs]

Lyle Mays: I love that!

JazzReview: It’s perfect.

Lyle Mays: It kind of debunks the notion that deep thought is somehow so advanced
in time.

JazzReview: I was going to ask you about your influences. You've mentioned Jarrett,
Evans, Chick, Herbie, Paul Bley...McGlaughlin, Zappa, Stravinsky, Bartok. How have
they affected your sound and conception? How have they each made an impression
on you?

Lyle Mays: Well again, some caveats. In the past I've often been asked which piano
players influenced me and I'd glad you broadened this out. In the past I think it was a
mistake to simply answer which piano players have influenced me because that’s
such a small part of the influence. I would say I'm influence by improvised thought
and also compositional thought. I listen to a whole lot of classical music, so I mean
it’s probably such a broad question. I'm not sure I can answer it or do justice to it in
just this one phone call. Suffice it to say that I've been influenced by a lot of things,
not just playing. I don’t think of my jazz playing as coming from a player's kind of
standpoint. I'm trying to always think more compositionally.

JazzReview: I've heard you say that you never set out to be a player, per se.

Lyle Mays: Yeah, and I still don’t, in a sense that I don’t practice playing like an
athletic event. I try to keep the mind in shape. I try to keep the flow from the mind to
the hands in some kind of shape. I'm a little afraid of practicing certain things for fear
that it would come out when I went to improvise, and that wouldn't really be what I
was thinking at that moment. It would be some kind of habit or something.

JazzReview: I'm sure there are a lot of players that would be afraid of the opposite,
that what they practice wouldn't come out.

Lyle Mays: Well, I'm not advocating it. It works for me, you know [laughs]. I don't feel
right telling people not to practice, I guess.

JazzReview: It seems like you're more interested in keeping the mental aspect sharp
than just going through the rote licks with your fingers all the time.

Lyle Mays: And I seem to be very lucky in that, you know. The hands usually
respond.

JazzReview: Yeah, well I guess everything coming from the mind anyway. If you
think that way then that tells the fingers what to do. What do you tend to listen to
these days? You mentioned the classical.

Lyle Mays: Yeah, unfortunately nothing current. There’s very little out there, although
Oregon’s got a very interesting record out they did with an orchestra in Moscow. I
tend to like [laughs] projects in general. Plus, I'm really a fan of Paul McCandless.

JazzReview: Sure. I know you did a record with him.

Lyle Mays: Yeah, I think he’s a really thoughtful player…a very interesting musical
soul. I used to listen to a fair amount of Brazilian music, but I feel like modern
Brazilian music has gotten too Americanized. It’s kind of lost its charm for me, as
opposed to the early Milton (Nascimento) stuff.

JazzReview: It’s gotten kind of homogeneity with all the American groups co-opting
it.

Lyle Mays: Yeah, its kind of interesting. I mean there are still some very talented
players down there, but I'm not as much of a fan as I was. I guess I keep going back
to Brahms, Bach, Stravinsky, Ravel, and Debussy.

JazzReview: Bartok.

Lyle Mays: Bartok, Berg. Love Berg’s music, especially the violin concerto, but I have
this disc network system and they have one of the greatest jazz radio stations I've
ever heard. They play a lot of Blue Note era stuff completely without commercial
interruption…no DJ. It’s just one hip cut after another. I take lot of pleasure in that.

JazzReview: I live on that stuff.

Lyle Mays: Well, you should check it out on a personal level. I mean it’s really the
greatest jazz radio station ever, plus on the screen while the music is playing, they
show the artist, the record, the label, the title…I forget. It’s really pretty hip.

JazzReview: I did an interview with Pat a long time ago and he mentioned that he
will tend to start a piece, and of course, you may finish it. That may be a real generic
way of describing how you work, then arranging and orchestrating them. Do you still
work this way?

Lyle Mays: What I've said in the past is that the way we work together keeps
evolving, keeps changing. It’s kind of hard to pin down. We've tried everything from
sitting together to write, to going off into other rooms or each one trying to come up
with everything. [laughs] We've done a little bit of everything, I guess. What doesn’t
work is sitting down together and saying, ‘ok, we're gonna write something together.’
What seems to happen is, one or the other has to come up with a mood or a melody
or some defining sort of musical nugget that is really the main element of the piece.
Then we can each add details later. But that impulse for the piece, the sort of reason
for being, its’ Ming, [laughs] its’ thing, whatever…has to come from one or the other.

JazzReview: So did you tend to bring these to each other? Just kind of play them off
tapes or the Synclavier? How does that work?

Lyle Mays: Yeah, we both tend to make sequencer demos, real rough of an idea and
usually not too complete, so that they can be really finished later. Like I say, we’ve
tried everything. We've tried all sorts of things.

JazzReview: I think it’s attributed to Picasso saying, ‘try everything, but only once.’ I
don’t know if you’ve heard that one. I kind of like that.

Lyle Mays: [laughs] That’s very interesting, certainly good advice.

JazzReview: How do you go about composing music for yourself? Is it any different?

Lyle Mays: Oh, I wish I knew. [laughs]

JazzReview: You can still say that. You can still put it that way.

Lyle Mays: Oh yeah. At some level its mysterious to me, but I guess it’s kind of a
two-stage process. There’s kind of the dreaming and the editing, and I think you
have to be good at both to write music. You have to let your mind go so those
unexpected thoughts can come in, but you also have to be able to recognize what's
good about a thought. Throw out what’s not, expand on what’s good, and find
continuations. I guess in that kind of general way that’s the way I go about writing.
I'm not sure I said anything.

JazzReview: Yeah, you did actually. You've said before that basically you're never
going to write again. I think a lot of writers say that. I think they feel that terror you’re
talking about.

Lyle Mays: Well, I think, yeah, I've heard that too and I think its because its such a
mysterious process. We really can’t codify it.

JazzReview: But why all that self doubt? I mean, how much material do you have to
amass before you stop feeling that way each time you sit down?

Lyle Mays: Well, let’s clarify it a little bit. I'm not scared that I can’t come up with
anything anymore.

JazzReview: - Well, I mean, up to your [minimum] standards.

Lyle Mays: - Yeah, that it wouldn’t be up to my standards.

JazzReview: But, then there is writer’s block, too.

Lyle Mays: That’s true. It’s a very real thing. I mean, there are some times when I've
committed to a project and I've sat down to start it and nothing comes. I'll just sit at
my rig [laughs] and put in the time, you know. I know I'm going to have to come up
with it, try different things. I guess at some point there’s no substitution for just
sticking to it.

JazzReview: Do you ever find yourself just thinking ‘I just gotta get out, go see a
movie or take a walk,’ or something?

Lyle Mays: Oh sure, there’s times when that’s helpful, but you know, there’s a trap
there too because you could end up just constantly distracting yourself. [laughs]

JazzReview: I know. It’s a balance.

Lyle Mays: Yeah, at some point you have to go back to the business of coming up
with something. It’s a fascinating thing, you know? I don't know.

JazzReview: Was “Falcon and the Snowman” Pat and your first score?

Lyle Mays: Of any significance, yes.

JazzReview: What was that experience like for you both?

Lyle Mays: I was scared to death.

JazzReview: It’s incredible.

Lyle Mays: Oh, well, thank you. I've been afraid at times that it was a bit too musical
and might’ve distracted at times from the story.

JazzReview: That’s a strange thing to say.

Lyle Mays: Too complete, maybe, musically.

JazzReview: Did you think distracting? Is that what you’re saying?

Lyle Mays: I was afraid. People haven’t really said that but, you know, we tried to
make every little cue also tell a musical story, as well as fit with the scene.

JazzReview: I think that’s a big point of the scoring.

Lyle Mays: Well, there’s also a time for music that doesn’t really tell a story. It’s just
part of the story being told.

JazzReview: You don't want to give something away in advance, sure.

Lyle Mays: Or tell a conflicting story. There is a danger there, but in general it was a
fascinating experience. The first thing I did on my old Apple computer when we
started work was to write a program that converted musical tempos into SMPTE
duration’s and frames. So I could, you know. We could figure out how long a cue had
to be. Now there’s commercial software that does it.

JazzReview: Of course, and you developed it...no, just kidding. [laughs]

Lyle Mays: No [laughs]. I’m not Al Gore. I didn't invent the Internet.

JazzReview: [laughs] Does that mean you’re not a Democrat?

Lyle Mays: [laughs] I leave politics completely out of music. But, to complete the
answer to your question, it was really hard work, really kind of stimulating work and
an opportunity to use some forces that, up until then, I hadn’t really been able to use.
Writing for that boy’s choir was a really interesting experience.

JazzReview: I mean stylistically, you guys have really gotten around now.

Lyle Mays: Well, you know, we have wide ranging interests.

JazzReview: I think that’s real important. Why do you think you were approached for
that project, having not done something that large, or of that nature up to that point?

Lyle Mays: Well, I would just say hats off to Schelsinger for having the courage to
hire these two kids, unproven.

JazzReview: I'm sure he saw something.

Lyle Mays: He’s very smart about using music like in 'Cowboys.’ Who can forget that
haunting theme?

JazzReview: Absolutely. I think what’s really rare and impressive in what you do is
something that many soloists in jazz don't do…which for them is, sublimate the ego
where you sometimes say you will not go for the second solo, in lieu of new musical
material.

Lyle Mays: Well, I guess my motivation for it is concern for the listener. It makes for a
more interesting musical experience, not a string of solo…my one criticism of
traditional jazz these days. I guess when it was first developed it made sense. You
know, people had things to say and you wanted to hear what each person had to
say. But now, yeah, forty/fifty years down the road, its like, let's find some new
models, folks! That was then, this is now.

JazzReview: Right. No, I think it makes a lot of sense and I'm surprised more people
aren’t doing it. I've heard Michael Brecker do it and very few others. Mike Stern…
those kinds of guys, where they'll actually add some material between soloists,
change the key, and put more thought into the structure and journey.

Lyle Mays: Yeah. I mean, when you think about a piece like, "Are You Going with
Me?” it has nothing to do with the traditional jazz form.

JazzReview: Right.
Lyle Mays: If you tried to play that tune with a jazz band, it would sound ridiculous.
[laughs] The whole point is it’s a Bolero-like build. So anyway, I’ve always been
interested in putting some different kinds of form into the jazz environment, and I
think on ‘Imaginary Day’ it’s kind of the pinnacle of that. It’s fairly ambitious.

JazzReview: On your own record, "Fictionary," you did ‘Falling Grace.’ I thought that
was such a great choice. Besides the strong melody and emotional impact of a tune
like that, are you attracted to the circular through the composition aspect? Did that
have anything to do with it?

Lyle Mays: Well, I'm a huge fan of Steve Swallow.

JazzReview: Of course. Apparently that’s the first tune he ever wrote. [sic] That’s
what I've heard. (Steve Swallow confirmed ‘Falling Grace’ was his second tune)

Lyle Mays: Really? Hmm. I’ve never heard that. If that’s true, it’s incredible! I
remember my first tune. [laughs] No one else will!

JazzReview: Well, I try not to remember my first one [laughs]...first ten or twenty.

Lyle Mays: But, I love the form of ‘Falling Grace.’ Also the internal logic of the chord
changes. I mean, there are references. It’s like there’s development within just the
piece itself. Ideas get developed just in the flow of the chord changes. I find that very
stimulating, and the fact that it’s an attempt to be a modern tune. It’s not a throwback
tune. It’s not trying to be like early jazz. It is, what it is. As a matter of fact, I was
trying to say that the whole record of ‘Fictionary’ is not retro, not be-bop. This was
trying to write modern tunes in a straight-eighth style to be played in the traditional
trio format. But, I don't want to make a traditional trio record.

JazzReview: Right. And looking at it, Dejohnette and all, it looks like a traditional trio
format, but not the way you treated it.

Lyle Mays: I think part of that was the compositional framework.

JazzReview: Right. And your conception of what you’ve described before, in that
you’re thinking larger compositions, more extended type things. I think that came
across in that record, where it wouldn’t have in a lot of trios where they’re just blowin’
changes.

Lyle Mays: Yeah, take for example a piece like, ‘Lincoln Reviews his Notes.’ It’s a
very different kind of sense playing...rubato interspersed with a steady beat and very
interactive playing. I mean, you can follow the form, but it’s a very free interpretation
of it. I was trying to stretch things a little bit, I guess.

JazzReview: I think one of my favorite recordings period, is actually your first one
with Bill Frisell. From the very first piece, you get a sense of freedom and
expansiveness in the way the pieces unfold. You get a sense that they can go
anywhere and that they’re timeless. I don't know how to better describe it.

Lyle Mays: Those are very kind words.

JazzReview: Thank you. It’s very inspiring to listen to.

Lyle Mays: It’s a sentimental favorite of mine, too. I think there’s an element of luck in
that album in that particular sense. It came together as a band very quickly with very
little rehearsal and still to this day, it sounds like a band, not just some guys that got
together to make a record. I can only thank the stars for that, ‘cause that doesn't
happen very often. [laughs]

JazzReview: Was there much rehearsal?

Lyle Mays: There was enough for me to really get my ideas across about the
dynamic shape of the piece and the stylistic kind of areas that I wanted to explore.
But, those are very talented people. It took very little time to get those ideas across.
So, I guess they were pretty specific rehearsals and not really overly long.

JazzReview: You really seem to have an affinity for guitarists...Frisell and Pat, I
guess Pat and Frisell especially. Is it the kind of blend with strings that makes it work
for you?

Lyle Mays: I would say that Pat and Bill are two of the most non-guitarlike guitar
players. They really transcend their instruments. What I'm drawn to is that they're not
guitar players. They're much more than that. They can color music. Their sonorities
are so different than the average guitar, so I guess I'm not putting down guitar, I'm
just saying, its not so much the nature of guitar, it’s what individuals do with it.

JazzReview: They happen to play guitar.

Lyle Mays: And, yeah, they're great musicians; they happen to play guitar.

JazzReview: That's true. How did you pick the players for that record? I mean, did
you say to yourself, 'this has to be Bill Frisell or it has to be someone who can get
these sounds that are in my head?’

Lyle Mays: Well, I knew I wanted to use Frisell because I was just such a fan and I
thought that his sensibilities would be perfect for the music. But after that, Steve
Cantor, who's listed as the producer on the record, did a lot of great things and talked
a lot over the music and suggested a bunch of them. Of course I wanted to use my
friend, Marc Johnson, who I've been playing with since North Texas, and who I think
has played everything I've ever written [laughs] at some point or another. Except the
stuff with Pat, but I mean stuff I've written on my own. So, Steve Cantor really kind of
put that ensemble together. He has real gift for envisioning what people would sound
interesting together.

JazzReview: Yeah, its amazing when you get a team behind the scenes and in the
studio all working together so well to produce something like that. I mean, they had
to, I would say. The new record, the 'Solo' record you mentioned, it’s the most honest
thing you've done.

Lyle Mays: Yes, I have said that and I'm not sure how people interpret it. [laughs]
JazzReview: Yeah, I was just going to ask what is the importance of honesty to you,
musically and personally. How does it manifest in your life and music?

Lyle Mays: I don’t think it has a big part. I mean, the actual root of the word ‘art,’ is
‘artifice.’ At times you want to make something that isn’t you, something that's
beyond you. I don't know if that's dishonest, but I'm not a big fan of just raw honesty.
I'm not really bragging about the record being honest, you know. I don't think it’s
necessarily a virtue. It just happened to strike me when I listened to it, as
biographical. So, I'm probably getting more of that honesty out of it than other
people. From another angle, it’s very honest in that its what I was thinking at the
time.

There's no additional musical material other than the overdubbed solo on the last
piece, but again, that was what I was thinking at the time. It’s also honest in that it’s a
solo project, but using the instrument as I've come to see it, the acoustic piano
combined with the synth world. I felt it was me performing on my instrument and
along those lines, a solo piano record wouldn't have been as honest because I'm not
really just a piano player. I don't devote my time to that.

JazzReview: Well, at least in the sense that you didn't pre-compose a lot of material
and then re-create it. I guess in that sense being in the moment, anything in the
moment, would be considered more honest I suppose.

Lyle Mays: Yeah, there's a number of ways of looking at it.

JazzReview: Why has it been so long since your previous release...just other
projects?

Lyle Mays: Well, I personally need lots of time between these grueling PMG records
and world tours.

JazzReview: [laughs] Yeah.

Lyle Mays: There are times when I finish with a tour and I'm just exhausted. Plus, I
don't quite see the virtue in just being busy all the time. I've a lot of other interests
and I guess I don't feel a particular pressure to have a career. I'm just interested in
exploring music, and I'm not gonna do it at the pace that maybe some people expect.

JazzReview: Do you feel that most of that can be satisfied within the PMG: your
ability to express yourself?

Lyle Mays: Well, certainly a lot of can be satisfied within the PMG because there’s so
much variety. Also I've had something to do with the structure and the notes that
we're playing, so I feel like there's a part of me whenever we perform. Yeah, it
satisfies quite a lot. There's the potential for reaching far more people playing with
the PMG than if I would tour on my own.

JazzReview: Absolutely. Have you done that much?

Lyle Mays: I've done, I think, just a handful of tours. I did some quartet, acoustic
quartet tours after "Fictionary" came out.

JazzReview: Who was on that?

Lyle Mays: Marc Johnson, of course, on bass and Mark Walker on drums; a very
talented drummer; used to live in Chicago. He's on the ‘Oregon’ record. Wonderful
drummer. People are just starting to find out who he is…very smart drummer. He's
the kind of drummer that can call out the chord changes to a tune…if the bass player
or the piano player doesn't know. [laughs]

JazzReview: Well, that's annoying.

Lyle Mays: [laughs] But, it’s a demonstration of his musical knowledge.

JazzReview: Oh yeah, I'm kidding. Who else?

Lyle Mays: And my good friend, Bob Sheppard…tenor and a bunch of other
instruments. He's a great doubler. He gets calls for symphonic clarinet dates, you
know, in the studios. He's a great, great doubler.

JazzReview: Did any of that get recorded? Any plans for that?

Lyle Mays: There weren’t plans to record it. It was really just to go out and play some
jazz, yeah.

JazzReview: Why the 'Expanded' piano...for this record?

Lyle Mays: Well, Pat came up with that title and I thought it was a pretty clever way
of letting people know that the notes you're hearing are all coming from the piano. I
didn't add any counter lines, any additional harmony. What you're hearing is what I
improvised ...and the piano is at the core of it, but the sonic environment is much
different than solo piano. It’s larger, there’s more detail, there’s more stuff. I hope
people feel there's a connotation of 'improved piano,' or something. I thought that it
was a clever way of packing a lot of information into a few words. I also kind of liked
the two-part nature of the title. It almost reminded me of an academic work; they all
seem to have two titles. [laughs] I like that it kind of tipped the listener off that maybe
this wasn't just a lark.

JazzReview: There's a Jarrett piece that Vie always liked. I’m sure you’ve probably
played this tune: 'Memories of Tomorrow' [Part 2c on 'Koln Concert']? I can really
hear you doing something like that. Aside from "Falling Grace", do you ever consider
doing more contemporary standards like that?

Lyle Mays: - Not much. I mean, "Falling Grace" was a real, you know, anomaly,
actually. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with playing modern standards and I don’t
think there’s deliberateness on my part to not play modern standards, but you know.
I’m really more interested in exploring what I can come up with. I just love
composition.
JazzReview: Right. I’m sure that that would be pretty endless in itself. Do you do all
the sound design for your recordings?

Lyle Mays: Yes and no. I mean, all the sort of prepared piano samples...the real
sound-effecty things were things that I made from samples that I had recorded out in
LA. There are times when I'll use a commercial patch on a synth, but I usually alter it
in some way.

JazzReview: No one else is actually making any for you.

Lyle Mays: No, no, I can still program. I learned how to do that back in the Oberhiem
four-voice days, you know, Prophet 5? There were no patches, you had to do your
own programming.

JazzReview: What are you using as far as your current equipment setup? Is the
Synclavier still involved...the M-1 (Korg)?

Lyle Mays: I think Pat has finally given up on the Synclavier [laughs].

JazzReview: Really?

Lyle Mays: I would work with Pat's for those records. For instance, on my first record
there's no Synclavier. I guess, it’s a tricky question because by the time this comes
out my rig might've changed. I'll tell you what it was for the last project.

JazzReview: Why don’t we do that?

Lyle Mays: OK. The whole system is run by an Apple computer Studio Vision that is
going to change, cause Opcode's out of business. So, I'm gonna have to switch
[laughs] platforms. That was just sort of the command center. And the main
controlling keyboard when I work at MIDI studios is the Kurzweil 2500. I also use a
Kurzweil 2000, a Roland JX-10 and an old dinosaur, the Korg DW-8000.

JazzReview: You're kidding?

Lyle Mays: Which died on the last day of dumping synths to tape and I frantically
programmed new pad sounds with the studio clock running.

JazzReview: [laughs]

Lyle Mays: There’s a rack with a Wavestation...the E-4, fully loaded and the 2080
and the Roland sampler I stopped using. I just didn’t like the interface...the sound
quality that much, but this could all change.

JazzReview: Right. I'm thinking of a gig I saw you guys do quite a few years ago. It
was at Nightstage, Cambridge, MA. It was unusual in the sense that you played the
music before it was recorded. I think Pat said that was the only time that ever
happened. How was that experience?
Lyle Mays: What time period are you talking about here?

JazzReview: Mid-80's.

Lyle Mays: Well, in the early 80's we would always take music on the road before we
recorded it. It evolved on the road. The form that you hear, for instance, on 'San
Lorenzo', on the white album, it developed on the road. It just kind of evolved as we
played it.

JazzReview: I think it was specifically set up to do this. One of the tunes, I think was
supposed to be called 'China' and it changed names when it got to the record.

Lyle Mays: That would've been before ‘Letter from Home?

JazzReview: Yeah, that’s right.

Lyle Mays: Starting with around the time of 'First Circle,' we started doing more
complete composing before we'd go on the road…mainly because we were getting
heavily involved with sequencers, drum machines and trying to integrate that
technology. And to do that, you have to nail down the form [laughs].

JazzReview: Absolutely.

Lyle Mays: You have to be complete if you’re going to use any kind of additional
track. But then...it kind of forced our hand...I think, for me to put out sequencers. I
think it’s a very good idea to take stuff on the road before it’s recorded. So, there’s
nothing wrong with that idea. It’s just that we forced to stop doing that due to
technology.

JazzReview: Yeah. Right. I can understand that. The classical aspect that you take
to the jazz format: interludes, segues, extended endings and all that, propelling it,
adding drama to it, opening a piece up and taking it to an unexpected place. Do you
hear anyone else, really doing that in jazz very much?

Lyle Mays: Not as much as I would like. Maybe it’s just something personal to me. I
don't know.

JazzReview: Do you get people talking about that...I mean, do people mention it?

Lyle Mays: Yeah, there are a few people that have been affected by that. The first
that comes to mind is Billy Childs, and he's a great guy. I really admire his ambition.
He's not content to make like just simple music. He's also a composer. He's written
chamber pieces. So maybe it takes some of that kind of background to really think
more compositionally in jazz. But, there's other players who simply want to play and
don’t want to be hindered by elaborate forms. There are arguments on both sides.

JazzReview: Sure. I think it gets to the root of a person's personality, musically or

personally.

Lyle Mays: I would agree.

JazzReview: You mentioned Stravinsky would avoid the seduction of the sound of
the piano by deadening the strings.

Lyle Mays: I found that interesting, that story.

JazzReview: Yeah. I'd never heard that before I read it in a previous interview that
you'd done.

Lyle Mays: He was also suspicious of strings: the lushness. He wrote a lot of things
without strings. A lot of the string writing is not the soaring, romantic classical
orchestra sound. It’s starker.

JazzReview: Right. I think he was kind of rebelling against with percussion and
different things.

Lyle Mays: Mmm! Anyway, I actually tried that very technique when I was writing a
piece, a chamber piece for violin and marimba. I wanted a little less resonance from
the piano. You know, I wanted to just hear the notes, just pure notes and get away
from the very thing that Stravinsky said, the seductiveness; what word he actually
used, the concept is clear.

JazzReview: Right, yeah. I think that word says it all. I mean, we can all get seduced
by whatever instrument just does it for us.

Lyle Mays: Well, the nature of seduction is dangerous in music all the time. If you
start falling in love with what you're doing you can lose the critical facilities [laughs]
necessary to do good editing, you know? It’s an interesting word.

JazzReview: It really is. It has a lot of facets to it. I like your idea of fulfilling, or not,
and manipulation expectations. You mentioned your tune "Slink" (Lyle Mays 1986)
and the drum ending, you know, referring to that. And I've always thought that was
what jazz is pretty much all about. If it loses its element of surprise, it’s probably not
meeting its criteria that I've always felt it should have…that improvisation normally
does. You know like when you mention a formulaic thing where you have head-solo-
head for 50 years? That gets kind of stale.

Lyle Mays: Unfortunately. I mean, in the hands of great players, it'll never be stale
because everything they play is just worth listening to.

JazzReview: Ninety to ninety-five percent of the records I have are that they'll always
be exciting and have those moments that knock you out.

Lyle Mays: But, sometimes it’s not possible to improvise those moments. Sometimes
they have to be designed.

JazzReview: Yeah. I suppose so. It’s a balance.

Lyle Mays: If you want to do some tempo change or anything that requires the group
moving as a unit.
JazzReview: Right. Where they can't all be thinking telepathically.

Lyle Mays: Yeah. You can't try that kind of stuff, you'd have train wrecks constantly.

JazzReview: True. I guess as a group works more together, more of those moments
happen, but still like you say, a lot of it has to be designed, because otherwise some
things will never happen.

Lyle Mays: Or, you know, some things are impossible to improvise. That’s what one
of the pleasures of doing the last record I did was. I could do those very kinds of
surprise moves because there was no band that had to follow it.

JazzReview: Right. Exactly. I mean, sometimes you can pare a band down to where
its just you playing or just a drum line of some sort. I guess layering and extracting
instruments can really help with that. You know, where you don't have so much going
on and then you can re-layer or rebuild.

Lyle Mays: But their kind of two different areas. I mean, yes there are great
improvising bands that do constantly surprise and entertain us in those ways, but
there's other kinds of compositional moves that have nothing to do with what a band
can accomplish during improvisation. They're two different areas.

JazzReview: They have to be written. How do you go about getting such a huge
sound from a small group context? I'm referring to your group with Pat.

Lyle Mays: Well there are a lot of tracks going on, [laughs] so at some point I'm not
sure it’s a small group.

JazzReview: But, you do take it live as well, with its 7 guys.

Lyle Mays: It’s been 7 for the past few years. I'm not sure how much the audience
hears but there are additional tracks playing...live. Sequenced tracks. Also, there are
times I'm triggering stuff from the MIDI piano. So, it looks like I’m just playing the
piano, but you're hearing a brass section or whatever. We'll use any trick we can
[laughs]. It feels like a modern big band at times.

JazzReview: It really does. I guess it also has to do with some of your background
musicians playing quite a few instruments and switching off a lot. That probably
helps with that.

Lyle Mays: That's definitely a group effort. And it’s also an attitude. We wanted it to
sound big and that may have evolved from just playing big venues where being
intimate wasn’t, didn't, quite feel appropriate.

JazzReview: There are times when in the middle of a performance, where it could be
Pat just playing his guitar.

Lyle Mays: Oh, sure.

JazzReview: Which is incredible. I mean, its like one venue can be many venues. All
of a sudden you're in a small jazz club or something, except you don’t hear all the
clinking glasses and everything. So, that’s kind of cool.

Lyle Mays: But you know, just to bring up a point on the other side of things, an issue
like the tuning of the drums or the size of the bass drum or whatever. There's a
whole lot that you have to decide ahead of time and that precludes a lot of the
intimate kind of jazz playing. We have the wrong instruments for it.

JazzReview: Right. True. You can kind of approximate certain things, I suppose.

Lyle Mays: But it’s not a satisfying version of it. Also, at the volume level that is
necessary for big venues, certain intimate things don't feel right. A solo instrument is
one thing, but it’s hard to get an intimate group feeling. Maybe not impossible, but its
difficult to get an intimate group feeling given the nature of the sheer amount of
amplification going on.

JazzReview: Exactly. I was going to ask you about the over-the-barline ideas that
you'd mentioned that came from Brahms.

Lyle Mays: Oh, a lot of people. Stravinsky just kind of reinvented the concept of bar
lines. I'm not sure there's any rhyme or reason at times [laughs].

JazzReview: Right. I'm surprised how much stuff is written in 4/4 when it sounds
anything but...that you guys do. I guess it has to do with accenting and so on, where
you're implying other things.

Lyle Mays: Yeah or patterns or all sorts of things...bass lines. People were always
asking, you know, when we first did "So May it Secretly Begin" what was the time
signature? We just laughed: 4/4, you know [laughs].

JazzReview: Yeah. But you can see what they were saying.

Lyle Mays: I think they heard the...sure, in that particular piece, the bass movement.
The rhythm of the bass movement I'm sure draws the people's ears to the irregular
kind of flow and they're not sure what it is. But, on the other hand, "First Circle" does
have a little different kind of time signature. We called it 22/8.

JazzReview: [laughs]

Lyle Mays: You could think of it as a bar of 12 and a bar of 10. But especially in my
playing I'm very interested in the over the bar line notion because it tends to keep the
flow going, and I'm just interested in it. My ears find it interesting.

JazzReview: Right. On the first records who's idea was it to have you have an
autoharp there?

Lyle Mays: It was Pat's idea. He called me up on the phone - back in the early days -
and started strumming this Autoharp that he had tuned to an open chord. And he
was just like 'dig that, man!' [laughs] It was like, all those strings!
JazzReview: Uh huh [laughs].

Lyle Mays: It’s a very guitar player kind of idea, to get all those strings vibrating in a
chord.

JazzReview: Sympathetic strings, yeah. That resonance.

Lyle Mays: Another friend of ours suggested a Naval issue submarine detector.

JazzReview: [laughs].

Lyle Mays: Called it a hockey puck because that’s exactly what it looked like. And
that was how we amplified the autoharps.

JazzReview: It was a transducer of some sort?

Lyle Mays: I guess. I don’t know about that stuff. But, you know, it was a different era
of technology back then.

JazzReview: You guys had some pretty eclectic connections there of some sort.
[laughs] Interesting characters.

Lyle Mays: Yeah, I actually know a rocket scientist...I actually know a brain surgeon.
Some interesting connections.

JazzReview: [laughs] That is interesting. I think that's kind of cool that we don't get
so insulated into what we do that we can't interact with people from vastly different
disciplines.

Lyle Mays: Yeah. At one point I had a former NASA physicist. He had a doctorate in
particle physics and he was over working on the Ring in Switzerland. He designed a
MIDI interface for the 4-voice before any were commercially available. Yeah, it was
very hip. It had some features that interfaces don't have anymore, like registers that
you could load up and play back in random order triggered by key presses. It was
really patched together technology because it wasn’t off the shelf, it was, you know,
custom.

JazzReview: That's really hip. Yeah, it is.

Lyle Mays: Actually, I kind of …you brought up the Synclavier before. It's kind of sad
to see the Synclavier kind of go away because that was such an ambitious
instrument.

JazzReview: I know.

Lyle Mays: And it was designed for high-end users. And these days I don’t see any
product that's specifically aimed at the high-end user. I mean, everyone’s trying to.
Like the networks, everyone's seeking the same audience, the same broad
audience.
JazzReview: I know. I guess maybe that's why they weren’t able to stay in business.
I'm amazed that Pat was able to hold onto the product so long. You know, as
ambitious as he is, that he was able to get that much use out of one product.

Lyle Mays: Well, it just sounded so good!

JazzReview: It had the 4 partials at once, I guess, right?

Lyle Mays: Well, far beyond that, the circuitry, the quality of the components, the
speed of the computer, I mean there was so much that was just high quality about it.

JazzReview: So he just completely let it go? It's not being supported at all? I thought
they (New England Digital) would reorganized in some way; the engineers.

Lyle Mays: I think. Yeah, there was a concerted effort to keep it going for quite
awhile. I think that they reorganized. I will say that some of the commercially
available products out there have gotten up to the level sonically of the Synclavier
and the computer interfaces are far better now. I think the technology kind of caught
up.

JazzReview: So, you didn’t really use the Synclavier very much?

Lyle Mays: Yeah, I did quite a bit of work on the Synclavier. But again, it was kind of
a love/hate relationship. It was an ungainly [laughs] instrument to use at times, but in
the end worth it, you know. It was state of the art when we started using it and that
was one thing that was kind of fun about it.

JazzReview: I heard that it could be kind of temperamental live with temperature and
humidity changes, dragging it around, and all that kind of thing.

Lyle Mays: Yeah [laughs].

JazzReview: In a word, yeah, right?

Lyle Mays: In a word.

JazzReview: There's a quote here of yours: "every situation demands that you re-
examine yourself as far as composition, and what it is that you think you do." This is,
I guess, just for you maybe. I just thought that was really interesting in that it breaks
again with expectations and allows for surprise and keeping an open mind.

Lyle Mays: Yeah, and I think that thought is very much influenced by what I've read
of Stravinsky. I think he was very much interested in re-inventing the wheel every
time he sat down to write. I found that one of the stimulating things about his output
is that there's a vast difference between "The Firebird,” "The Rite of Spring,"
"Petrushka," and all the new classical stuff. It’s just that he did re-invent himself, and
in broad ways, three different times. I mean, at the end of his life he was kind of a
12-tone guy.
JazzReview: Absolutely. Obviously he's had a lot of influence on you.

Lyle Mays: It's just such stimulating music. It's unique. It's uncopyable [sic].

JazzReview: Anything that you keep going back to that's been around that long, just
ends up being timeless and not dated. Kind of like your new record. People are
saying how much, on each successive listening, that they're hearing more things.
You obviously put a lot of work into that, into getting that on there. I think that all the
highest art really that can be said about it.

Lyle Mays: Well, detail is important and it may be an element. It may be a quality of
art that's necessary for us to come back to. I'm not sure what makes something
timeless. I mean, it's kind of like you can't predict what's going to be popular and you
can't predict what's going to be timeless. Almost by definition, you have to wait 'til a
hundred years go by or something.

JazzReview: And then you can't benefit from it anyway. Then again, should we be
thinking about pandering to trends and all?

Lyle Mays: In that sense Pat agrees with me here, too. We're both strongly opposed
to jumping on to any current trends. We never used wah-wah pedals, you know. I
didn’t do Synth solos with the pitch wheel, like a cat's tail pulled. That's what it
sounds like to me now, you know, twenty years later. At the time it sounded like the
hip thing, but now certain disco beats or whatever sound so in the past. It think the
group's music has worn rather well.

JazzReview: I think so too

Lyle Mays: Because of that conscious effort to stay away from the current trends.

JazzReview: You can kind of extrapolate into the future, ten, twenty, thirty years,
whatever, and listen to this music and still enjoy it on the same levels.

Lyle Mays: Yeah. I don’t think there's anything, you know, there's no real comment on
today’s culture. I mean in my solo record, its references are as much to the classical
output as any current jazz player, more so, maybe.

JazzReview: I think because it’s more conceptual than of the time. On one side it
harks back to your classical training, but it’s also got an abstract element, as well, so
it sounds new.

Lyle Mays: Well that may be another kind of, how can I say this, speaking of what
makes something timeless. It may have to do with internal logic. In any field,
architecture, painting, whatever, if there's an internal logic, things relate to each
other. They make sense with each other and that might be another contributing
factor. Or maybe the absence of that maybe will insure that it won't be timeless.

JazzReview: It may just resonate psychologically with a greater proportion of people.

Lyle Mays: So, if you're simply using the world beat of the moment and there's no
real deeper compositional thought going on, that's going to sound dated in twenty
years. I can almost guarantee it! [laughs]

JazzReview: How do you go about finding the balance between the endless
tweaking that you've described yourself doing to the spark of an originally inspired
moment?

Lyle Mays: Oh, I can't find the balance. I'm not happy with how long it took me to get
the synth sounds whipped into shape for this last record…very frustrating at times.

JazzReview: Do you ever get frustrated with yourself, in the sense that you think,
“can't I let this go, kind of thing?” You and Pat seem to balance each other out that
way when you write tunes together.

Lyle Mays: I think we kind of egg each other on [laughs] to be more obsessed.

JazzReview: But you're very productive, I mean, that's the final result. It's almost as if
you blend together to become one great composer, not that you aren’t individually,
but very effective together.

Lyle Mays: Well, getting back to the original question of endless tweaking. It’s a real
problem for me. I'm not satisfied with the current level of technology. I don’t think
synths a very sophisticated instrument. Yet, I'm in an era where I can’t imagine
ignoring them. They're here. I feel obligated to see what kind of musical use I can get
out of them, but I can’t find a balance.

JazzReview: What will have to happen to them, as far as you're concerned? What's
going to have to happen to technology before you feel that it’s just very intuitive, that
it’s working with you and not just distracting you with its interface?

Lyle Mays: Oh, a number of things. When you walk up to a piano, you don’t have to
turn it on [laughs]. If you play.

JazzReview: So, basically we need to get you a clapper for all your rig.

Lyle Mays: It’s more immediate [laughs] and it’s also more responsive. There’s so
much more nuance that a human can give to a good instrument than can be
captured with the current MIDI standards.

JazzReview: Because it’s direct. It’s acoustic, yeah.

Lyle Mays: You know, the incremental nature of dynamics just doesn’t model what
humans are capable of, but a bigger problem is the way notes interact. If you play
one note on a piano and then play two notes on together on a piano you’re not just
getting those two notes. You’re getting a combination, the interaction of those two
notes, which is then a third sound. And, there are no synths that I know of that
changes the sound. It wouldn’t even have to model the real world, but for instance, if
it could change the sonic world with different amount of notes being played, that
would make the synth more interesting. At this point I have to do that kind of thing in
my sequencer with cross fading and tweaking different elements of, say, an interval
on two different tracks to get different movement. There's a lot of movement in real
acoustic music and there's no movement of the sound in the synth world. That’s a
big one for me. I don’t know when that’s going to change, but that would be a giant
step forward.

JazzReview: Sure. I was surprised when mentioned going to Mad Hatter to use the
piano, but it sounds like you didn’t really play it conventionally. You just pulled
samples off it.

Lyle Mays: Exactly. I didn’t play a note the whole time. I was tossing things into it,
scraping the strings, banging on it, just getting as many kinds of samples of raw
material that I could, then hopefully work with later.

JazzReview: Was it because it was that piano.

Lyle Mays: No, any piano. For the idiotic [laughs] stuff I was doing, you know?

JazzReview: Yeah, didn’t even have to be in tune.

Lyle Mays: Yeah. The funniest part of the story is that they asked me to sign the
piano afterwards.

JazzReview: Right.

Lyle Mays: I tell everybody they forced me to do it.

JazzReview: [laughs] That’s great.

Lyle Mays: It wasn’t my idea. It was ludicrous, but if you see my signature on that
famous piano, it wasn’t really me 'playing' the piano.

JazzReview: Right. Well I guess you'll always have that disclaimer, right?

Lyle Mays: Oh, yeah [laughs].

JazzReview: Thanks for your time, Lyle. All the best to you.

Lyle Mays: My pleasure.

Lyle currently has four solo recordings out: "Lyle Mays" [Geffen 1986], "Street
Dreams" Geffen 1988], "Fictionary" [Geffen 1993] and this years "Solo: Expanded
Piano". As a sideman he has notable recordings are with Paul McCandless,
Eberhard Weber and Steve Swallow.

JazzReview writer, Mike Brannon, is guitarist/writer for the award-winning Synergy

Group. The latest release is "Barcodes" w/ members of King Crimson and Grammy-
winning Bela Fleck & the Flecktones. The follow-up, "Later", w/ special guests,
Harvie S [Swartz], Paul Wertico, Bob Berg and others TBA will be released in fall '02.