Insider Interview: Grant Gordy Plugs In

We’re often asked where and how we find our stories, and it’s never easy to answer. Most stories find us, frankly, and some of them find us in absurdly indirect, roundabout ways. Take this story, for example: back in January, Matt Munisteri was in town, playing guitar for Kat Edmonson for a few nights at Jazz Alley. After the last set one of those nights, Matt and I chatted at the bar, somewhat aimlessly, making idle chit-chat, frankly, talking about the club, possibly flirting with the bartender, when I mentioned I’d be back at the club in a couple weeks to see the amazing Peter Bernstein, with Bill Steward and Larry Goldings, which prompted Matt to mention that Grant Gordy had recently told him something like, “Peter Bernstein might be my favorite guitar player.” Ding! A bell chimed in my head, and I resolved to ask Grant if he’d like to interview Peter Bernstein for us.

Grant did (and has, look for the story in a future issue), and, oh, by the way, Grant had Peter on his mind because, as it happens, he was getting ready to go into the studio to make his first record leading his “electric” trio.

You’re all Insiders here, so, chances are you’re familiar with Grant. He was featured in Issue 40; publisher Jason Verlinde interviewed him in 2016 for our website; he’s been a guest on our podcast with Joe K. Walsh, who also performed with Grant at our second Fretboard Summit; and we’ve shared videos of Grant performing solo, in duet with Joe, and in trio with Joe and Danny Barnes. But, in all of these various guises, Grant has been presented as an acoustic musician, invariably playing his ‘44 Martin 000-18. If you follow Grant on the social media, you might spot an occasional plug for an electric trio gig, but surely you can forgive me if news of this recording project caught me off guard and piqued my curiosity to a degree that I just had to talk to him about it some more. We’re pleased to share the (slightly) edited results of that conversation with you below.

Fretboard Journal: Have you been playing electric all along? 

Grant Gordy: Like all 13 year-old kids who pick up a guitar, I was pretty interested in Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton, but, also, I grew up hearing bluegrass, you know? Tony Rice and Doc Watson, of course. I heard my dad playing around the house so I had exposure to acoustic music.

My first guitar was an acoustic guitar, but at some point, pretty early on, I got my hands on a solidbody, Strat-style electric, and I was really into that, trying to learn how to play blues licks. But once I became more serious about playing, later on in my teenage years and into my earlier twenties, I definitely was focused more on flatpicking, more on acoustic guitar, and that was when I really discovered, or sort of rediscovered Tony Rice, and David Grisman's music and all that stuff that was so meaningful and inspiring to me.

It’s a project to try to figure out how to play acoustic guitar, but I think an important factor also was that I did that pretty logical transition of getting from, sort of the progressive bluegrass stuff, or “new acoustic” music, and then becoming interested in swing and early jazz. Of course you hear about Django, and for a lot of people that's such a natural progression because, because it's string music, you know? It's jazz and swing, and it’s other kinds of harmony but it's still pretty accessible. It’s aesthetically accessible if you're into acoustic music. It's easy to understand in some ways, in a really visceral way.

FJ: It definitely seems like just the Grisman connection, as much as it's mandolin-centric, in some ways he's a “jazz” player…

GG: Yeah, yeah. His whole aesthetic is so informed by that music…he’ll be the first guy to tell you how much, even now, he still listens to Django all the time, but he also was really into Eric Dolphy and Wes Montgomery and Coltrane. 

You just go along and you learn more about music, and I was always interested in the harmony anyway, even in my own little kinda self-exploring way. I was interested in what happens when you move the chord around, and how does it change.

I’m kind of digressing, but, I started to get more interested in like straight-ahead jazz and I realized that, number one, if you're gonna try to transcribe West Montgomery stuff, or try to play jazz gigs, it's probably good to actually play an electric guitar. 

I always played a little bit on the side, but it definitely became a thing I tried to have as part of my bag. And also, as I became a working musician I started relying on playing gigs, and electric was definitely part of it, too. I wasn't only playing bluegrass gigs, playing around town when I used to live in Colorado. In fact, the first band I ever officially joined, we just played bar gigs and stuff, but it was a country, kind of honky tonk/western swing band, and I played archtop, sometimes, and also I would play a Tele. I’d do little, kind of western swing harmony licks with the pedal steel player and I learned a lot about that kind of music. There's a lot of cross-over in all these kinds of music.

So it's always been part of my world professionally, and I tried, as much as I could, to go to jam sessions and learn and practice standards, you know, and hang out with jazz musicians and… kind of familiarize myself with that repertoire. Sometimes it feels like I've always kind of lived this double life where I'm so interested in jazz but, you know, most jazz musicians I meet, that are my age and even older, usually if they're playing on a professional level they went to college somewhere, or they went to jazz school, and I didn’t really have that experience. It was all really  kinda driven from my own like motivation and interest in the music. 

FJ: You have been doing electric guitar trio gigs in New York City, at least recently, the last couple of years…

GG: Yeah, and especially once I started to listen to a lot of the great modern players that are some of my heroes, people that arey busy working in New York and all over the world, I realized because that's a format that people do a lot, and I became really interested in that. So people like Kurt Rosenwinkel was definitely a pretty big influence and then, and then some younger guys like Lage Lund and Gilad Hekselman and Jonathan Kreisberg were all people that I heard playing in that format. They kind of do that, that modern thing, you know, the sort of post-Lenny Breau thing where you're kind of comping for yourself like a piano player, kinda breaking the guitar up into multiple voices rather than just, like, okay, I'm either playing chords or I'm taking a solo. It's kind of a little more, smeared out into multiple things and that really inspired me.

FJ: Who's in the, the recording group that you're working with?

GG: The drummer is actually a guy I've known for a long time. His name is Alwyn Robinson and I met him when I think he was still in college, in Colorado. Our paths crossed a little bit while we were out there. I think we did like a recording session together, kind of a jazz session that never really got released and then we played both as sidemen on somebody's record together. I remember at the time he was getting called by like Ron Miles to play gigs. You’ve probably got something going on if Ron is hiring you for gigs. His current kind of main road gig is with Leftover Salmon

The bassist is this guy Aiden O’Donnell, who I actually met initially through Daryl [Anger] because he would sub gigs years ago in Mr Sun, and eventually he ended up joining the band. Aiden is an Old School, like straight ahead, totally fantastic jazz bassist. He’s been playing with Steve Kuhn, touring in his trio.

It's been really cool to kind of start to formulate that connection with each other. We spend a lot of time on the road together nerding out over weird recordings. You know ,a lot of times, it's easy to go in with a group of people that you've played with a lot, and you're kind of relying on the magic of your shared chemistry and you can lean on that a little bit. If I went and made a duo record with Joe tomorrow, without a lot of preparation, we could probably come up with something listenable, just 'cause we've played so much together, but, as far as this actual trio, we've played together very little, so I'm more relying on just the fact that I really love them as players. There’s a lot of wonderful sort of mystery in it. We'll just have to see what happens in the moment

FJ: Have there been rehearsals getting ready for these sessions, or is it more just discussing what materials gonna be covered and then coming in and, and ripping it?

GG: It's been a bit of both, I've had a couple sectionals. They both live quite close to me in Brooklyn, but Alwyn's on the road a lot with Leftover Salmon, so Aiden and I have been getting together he’s helping me work out some of the material. And I've got together just with Alwyn as well. But, actually, we’re going in to track on Tuesday and we have the first rehearsal with us all playing together on Monday. 

FJ: Wow.

GG: The idea is, hopefully we'll all be a little bit familiar with the material going in and just, you know, give it the old once over while we're in the same room, and then kinda rely on our ears and our instincts.

FJ: The material you've chosen for this recording, are there originals, or are there standards or…?

GG: I've kind of made a concerted effort to be pretty centered on  jazz standards. Some of the tunes are not really well known standards, but, I kind of figure like.. Okay if I'm gonna make this kind of a statement I wanna make a jazz record. I might as well play tunes you know, not try to write anything new. So there's a kind of obscure Billy Strayhorn, kind of spooky ballad, called “Strange Feeling” that I've been working on for a while. That's kinda nice 'cause it's not a real well known one, and then there's that wonderful ballad, “Old Folks,” and a Bud Powell rhythm changes, one of those tricky bebop tunes.

FJ: What's been your approach to arranging?

GG: It's been kind of a mixed bag. There's some kinda general guidelines for how things can unfold naturally, arrangement-wise, certain kind of tags everybody knows, certain musical customs. Some of that we can just rely on, and then there's some stuff that I've worked up a little bit more. I'm trying not to overthink it or make it too much of a proscriptive thing, whereas, a lot of times when I write original acoustic music, sort of in the more or less post-David Grisman vein, I tend to really do arrangements and, you know, think about how the dynamics are gonna work on certain sections and that kind of thing. I'm trying a little bit more to let this sort of unfold in the hands of the musicians, and let the songs kinda speak for themselves as much as possible, let the group dynamics, do some of that work. But, that said, I’ve worked up a couple little ensemble intros for some of the tunes, but I’m not trying to lean too heavily on arranging for this.

FJ: Is there anything that you're taking in a new direction, turning anything uptempo into a ballad, or vice versa, or are the ballads are gonna be ballads and the rhythm tunes rhythm tunes?

GG: Well, in that Billy Strayhorn tune, every recording I've heard of it is pretty much just a ballad, but I've decided to put in sort of an uptempo solo section that I thought might be a nice little feature, a nice little change of pace from... it's almost like a dirge or something you know, it's a spooky song. I’m doing that tune “How Deep Is The Ocean,” but doing that more as a straight eight kind of deal, so that it will be a little bit of a change of pace. But some of it you know I'm really trying to just play jazz, you know. There's such a high bar for this music, you know. So much has been said and done already and I certainly can't raise the bar, but it feels good to just try to do something to honor this music that I care about so much. 

Genres are pretty meaningless. I mean traditions are a thing, for sure, but genre just doesn't really mean that much. For me there’s that funny thing of kind of living all of the time in this world of flatpicking guitar and, even as much as I tend to bring in a lot of the harmony and aesthetic of improvisational music into acoustic music, to really make a concerted effort to play something more in the tradition of this other kind of music, I'm really trying to honor that as much as possible and still be myself. So as a result, I'm making myself pretty anxious in the process. 

FJ: This talking about it hasn't been cathartic and helping you loosen up about it at all?

GG: I think it is, yeah sure. I mean it's more, just, if I listen to what Metheny or Kurt Rosewinkel might do on some tune, I'm never gonna be able to do that, you know? But I can at least try to figure out what might I be able to say on whatever the tune is and kind of be okay with that. So there's a good lesson there just about being one’s self, and it might be myself in, like, slightly different, slightly different clothing than I usually wear, but it’s still me. Hopefully.

FJ: The thing that popped into my head when you said you didn't think you'd necessarily be raising the bar was, well, you can grab onto the bar and pull yourself up and sit on the bar, and you know, make the bar your own kind of thing.

GG: Yeah. Just kinda rest there for a while. Belly up to the bar for a little bit.

FJ: On a different note, you’re playing that Hofner Jazzica, right?

GG: Yeah. The greatest named guitar in the history of the world.

FJ: And you'll be playing that through a Henriksen?

GG: That's right I've got the Hendriksen... I can't even remember what the thing is called, but they've been around for a while. I think of it as being sort like a Polytone. I’ve had it for years now. I'm pretty happy with the way that sounds and, and then just a couple little effects just to kind of, just deepen things out or kind of round things out a little bit. Nothing too crazy.

I've got this reverb, actually, it's on loan from my friend Mike Bono, a really wonderful guitar player… 

I was at The Music Emporium last night, talking to those guys about it. One of the guys there, he's like the electric guy... He knows all the gear and stuff and I was trying to talk to him about it, talking to him about the, the craziness of all the variables — it’s a big difference, playing electrics versus acoustics. With an acoustic, as you know, you pick it up and it's kind of what you see is what you get, it's all on what can you pull out with your hands, you know, and the amount of variables with electric guitar, even just dealing with a tone knob, for god's sakes. I mean, if you're someone like me, it's a lot. I've played a lot of electric gigs but it's usually situations where I just kinda plug in and don’t think about it too hard at all. It's about really crafting a sound. 

Anyway, so I was talking to them about all that last night and trying to remember what this reverb pedal was that I'm borrowing. It's pretty nice, it's got like a million different features. And my friend Mike came over and kind of helped me find a really nice setting, and then he saved it as the number one pre-set, so thank God that's all I've gotta do is just click over to number one. [Editor's Note: It was a Source Audio Ventris Dual Reverb.] And then just like a volume pedal. I'm focused so much on. like, how can I like, groove, you know? And play the right notes and not mess up. I wanna try to think about all that other stuff as little as possible so I can focus on grooving.

FJ: Good thinking.

GG: And focus on not getting lost during the drum solo!

FJ: Are they feeling it? Are they sitting there counting beats and bars, or what?

GG: I think it's different things man. I think sometimes it's like clearly they're sitting with a form, [but] I've done gigs where it's clear that the drummer has left the form, and then maybe they look for a little rhythmic section of the melody or something to kind of bring everybody back. But also, I was just listening to a Keith Jarrett Trio record the other day, and they were playing “Bouncing with Bud,” and at the last drum solo, before going back to the melody, he clearly really lost Keith, because Keith — I listened to it five times in a row, and Keith definitely comes in at the wrong time! Apparently even the great Keith Jarrett can get a little thrown.

FJ: Do you play flats or rounds on the Hofner?

GG: Those are round wounds. I played with flatwounds for a pretty good while and then, I don't know, I just don't love the kind of tubby sound that you can get sometimes. Coming from flatpicking, it's set up almost more like an acoustic guitar…

FJ: You got .013s on there?

GG: Yeah .013s. 

I was playing it and there was a real light pick kind of just lying around, on the counter. So I was playing with that and I just started thinking maybe I need to just completely change everything around, switch to a really light pick, and lower my action and just turn way up, and try to completely change my technique… which is really enticing. And then I realized, no, now is not the time to think about doing that!

FJ: Next week. Next week you can do it.

GG: But it is compelling, 'cause it would be nice to be able to get something out of a guitar like that, that's more of like decidedly electric. I feel like when I was younger, when I use to just kinda play blues licks, like I used to... Maybe I just hadn't built up that kind of flat picking hand strength yet… I feel like I use to have more of a touch for electric guitar.

FJ: There aren't a lot of, a lot of guitar players who double in the extremes like you do. And it's a decision to make, you know…

GG: It is and I mean, there's definitely a thing. Actually, before I even moved to New York, I was on tour there with Grisman and I took the occasion of being in town to take a couple of guitar lessons. I took one with Gilad Hekselman, and I remember talking to him about that. He said something like, "Yeah, you know you could sort of have your flatpicking chops, and then your sensitive electric jazz, light chops…” He said it in this funny way, I don't remember exactly what it was but it was a slightly cheeky way to put it but, I think there's something to that. I definitely, as much as I can, try to really remember to lighten things up, let the electronics do more of the work. I’m still pushing some sound out but just trying to be a little more dynamic within the range of what that kind of situation is presenting to you. 

It's really challenging…there are definitely times, if I'm playing gigs like with the drummer, once it starts to get really loud and fast, then it's so easy for me to fall back into the thing that you do with bluegrass, which is, you play harder, You know? It's just like it's so ingrained that that's what you do, even though it's not necessary. That’s a thing I really try to watch out for, [but] I still get kind of caught between those worlds a little bit.

FJ: Does this record have a name yet?

GG: Well, I was thinking about calling it Grant Gordy Lowers Your Standards, but you know, maybe not.

 

  Photos: Luke Norby