Jeff Lorber has established himself as one of the most influential musicians in the realm of contemporary jazz, with a body of work that spans over thirty years and includes his solo projects, production, arranging, songwriting and even remixing dance pop hits. His first band, Jeff Lorber Fusion, was one of the first wave of contemporary jazz bands to garner mainstream attention. Spanning the late 70's and mid 80's it featured prominent musicans from the upper west coast as well as guest shots from heavies like Chick Corea and Joe Farrell, Larry Carlton, Nathan East, and Ronnie Laws. He dropped the “Fusion” word and returned with a series of hit albums as a soloist. Now he is singlehandedly bringing bringing Fusion – the word and the genre – back with an energized, potent collection of songs on last year's Now is the Time, and his 2012 release, Galaxy. Lorber and his collaborator Jimmy Haslip, who I talked to a few years ago, are part of a group of ageless musicians who will continue to grow and bring new ideas to the table. In conversation they both have this boundless enthusiasm and an energy that is best described as eternally youthful. Passionate, knowlegable and lots of fun to talk to!

SmoothViews (SV): I got an advance copy of this album and I was stunned from start to finish. It was like you and this band brought back a sound and a vibe that has been missing for almost 20 years and put it right back on the map in 2012. You had a body of work before the smooth jazz thing happened, then you spent some time doing session work and producing other artists, then you had a lot of hits within the smooth jazz framework but there were always songs on your albums that expanded on the older stuff and gave a glimpse of what you are doing now. Especially on He Had a Hat, which in retrospect seems like a prelude to this.
Jeff Lorber (JL): That was definitely my most experimental record in terms of working with more jazz and straightahead influences.  Since the beginning with my first album, I have always done music that is melodic. So when smooth jazz came on the scene it was a melodic type of music and what I was doing fit pretty well even when it was jazzier or funky. Of course when smooth jazz started out there was a greater variety of music being played.

SV: Yeah, it originally focused on melody and tight songs but the variety was there. Sad that it changed over time.
JL: When people ask me about smooth jazz I feel like there is obviously stuff to complain about but what gets overlooked is that it really allowed a lot of instrumental musicians to get heard. Without that platform they would not have been. That's what was fantastic about it and what is really missed with the way the format has declined.

SV: And before “smooth” there was “contemporary,” and before that there was fusion.
JL:  Musical terms go in and out of fashion. When I started my band we were mostly doing gigs around the Portland area and I called the band Jeff Lorber Fusion because most of the bands that were playing in the area were doing rock or country rock and it was kind of a way of letting people know what they were in for (laughs). This is gonna be something different, this is going to be fusion music so you better watch out (laughs). Sort of like truth in advertising. Then at some point what happened to a lot of musical styles happened to that word and the style it represents.

SV: It was something of a backlash, or at least a switch in direction away from it.
JL: It sort of got a bad name and I dropped it because I felt like my music was growing and developing and going past it. Then recently I decided to pick it up again because I feel like it fits what I am doing. I think it's back in fashion again, at least for what I am doing.

SV: I came into instrumental music with fusion.  I was working at a record store and doing a fusion show on my college station and it seemed like the backlash came from some bands getting showy and bombastic and playing loud and fast for the sake of playing loud and fast.
JL: It is just like anything else. Record companies were getting successful with it. The big name bands were selling records. They were going gold with these bands, so they were signing anything that sounded like that. It was like any musical genre that gets overloaded. There was too much of it, too much of it wasn't very good, so people got tired of it and moved on to other stuff.

SV: Actually what evolved out of it going into the early 80's was a jazzy style that was more melodic and commercial sounding and intersected with R&B, pop, and rock more than hard rock and progressive jazz. You heard a lot of sax on pop records and that sound fed instrumental music too.
JL: The early fusion music were bands like Tony Williams Lifetime, what Miles Davis was doing, Mahavishnu, Chick Corea, they were a little wilder. Then next generation, which is where I was, were groups like Spyro Gyra, Pat Metheny Group, Tom Scott and the L.A. Express, were more melodic. At the same time I think some of the experiments that the first generation instituted were incorporated into what the second generation was doing. Artists like Pat Metheny Group and some of the others were doing a lot more extended compositional ideas kind of like what Weather Report had done before, like putting the melody in the bass or having compositions that would last three or four minutes before the improvisation would start.  We were all experimenting with sounds and with studio techniques and some of what came out of that was easier for the audiences to relate to than the more avant garde music the first generation did. 

SV:  Which brings us to now. 20 years later and starting with last year's album you are again calling your projects “Jeff Lorber Fusion.”
JL: That came out touring in Europe. The promoters there liked to use that name and we came up with the idea of doing a Jeff Lorber Fusion record. Everybody we talked to seemed to think it was a great idea. We got lots of positive feedback from the label and from musicians.   This album, Galaxy, is kind of like part two, a continuation of Now Is The Time. Jimmy Haslip co-produced and co-wrote a lot of the material. Eric Marienthal is on sax. We were lukcy to get Vinnie Colaiuta on Drums. Dave Weckl is on a few tracks. Paul Jackson Jr. on guitar, and Larry Koontz , who is an amazing guitarist we used on one of the tracks on the other album. We enjoyed working with him so much we brought him back for this one. Michael Thompson, who is well known as a studio musician contributed a lot on this one too. He did the solo on “Big Brother” - that bluesy solo at the end was his.

SV: This is a fabulous band. How did this group come together?
JL:  I've been working with Eric Marienthal for a long time. I used to do a lot of work with Gary Meek but he moved away. Then Eric became available and he's just amazing because musically he's a virtuoso and an unbelievable soloist, and he's really charismatic on stage. He's my favorite sax player to work with. Jimmy and I became friends and started doing more and more work over the last few years. It comes down to who is available too, and luckily both of them have been available for a lot of my live gigs and studio projects. We've become a tight little unit over the last few years.

SV: Jimmy is just amazing, most people know him best from his work with the Yellowjackets but he has worked with a lot of other artists too and he brings so much to the table on so many levels.
JL: I think he is one of the best, if not the best, electric bass players out there and he is such a gifted soloist. He gets to solo quite a bit on this album which he does beautifully in the studio but live is where it really happens for him. He really gets inspired when we play live and when he has an audience to play for he even takes it to a higher level.

SV: It seems like it works that way for most people. The musicians see that the audience wants them to go further and they respond to that. I've never seen a crowd urge a musician to play quieter or calm down (laughs).
JL: I think what happens is that when you are in the studio you have to create that for yourself. Even though the audience isn't there you have to mentally trick yourself into reaching for that place that you get when you do have an audience.

SV: What made you decide that it was time to put out the first new Fusion album? That album seems in retrospect like a tentative exploration of what you are doing on this one. It's a boundary pusher but a little safer to my ears, it felt like the bridge more than the destination compared to this one.
JL: I think that had to do with having Bobby Colomby involved. He co-produced and co-wrote the He Had A Hat album, which was a very jazzy record. But with Now Is The Time he was pushing for Irene B's involvement as a vocalist and generally for a more studio driven sound. He's a brilliant producer and musician, a great musical mind and a real visionary, and it's an honor to work with him but this time we wanted to focus more on the band as a live touring entity. We wanted the sound we got as the instrumental quartet we are when we are on the road. That made it more of a fusion project and more uptempo because that's who we are when we play live.

SV: You have this incredible body of work. You have songs from back in the early 80's that were iconic to people who were into contemporary jazz at the time. You've brought some of these songs back over the years and there are a number of them on the last two albums.  Why did you decide to do that?
JL: When I started out it was me and a bunch of really strong local musicians and we made some nice records that had a great spirit to them. Now I've been living in L.A. For 30 years myself and had the opportunity to revisit these songs with some of the best musicians on the planet, and to do it with all the experience and knowledge I now have about how to produce and arrange. I really felt like I wanted to take another look at some of these songs - to bring them up to date and show a side of them that I didn't get a chance to show on the original version. One song, “The Underground,” is one of my favorite songs to play live so I really wanted to do a version that shows where it has developed over the years. Some songs really evolved, like “The Samba,” where Jimmy came up with this Latin beat that has a really unusual syncopated rhythm and Larry Koontz plays on it.

SV: How did you pick the songs that you wanted to revisit.
JL: They were some of my favorite songs that I knew would hold up to bringing them into the modern era. I was happy to be able to do that to these songs. I don't think all of the songs from back then would hold up as well. We went through those early records really carefully and picked the ones that would work best.

SV: You've got originals on both albums too and the new songs mesh beautifully with the older songs. Don't know if that's a tribute to the timelessness of the older material, how cool the new arrangements are, or just the continuity of your songwriting and arranging skills.
JL: Part of it is because you have the same personnel playing on all the songs and that creates a unified sound for the whole album. Also these songs were specifically picked to fit in with the sound we were going after and the songs we were writing.

SV: You've taken a style that was considered either outdated or out of bounds and made it sound totally 2012 and very accessible.
JL: I think what keeps my music fresh is that I don't try to do everything myself. I like to collaborate. I especially like to collaborate with people who don't do what I do, like Jimmy Haslip plays bass and he approaches things from a real intuitive perspective and brings a whole other world of experience and way of looking at things.  Also, having these musicians on the record who are amazing, world class virtuoso players. You bring them in and for the most part you don't tell them anything, you just let them do their thing and 98% of the time that works perfectly. They hear what is going on and bring their perspective and talent to the party. Take someone like Vinnie Colaiuta - I don't think I've said a word to him about how to approach things. With people like that it usually comes out better when you don't direct them and just let them do what they do. It keeps the music alive and interesting.

SV: There are certain places these melodies go that don't repeat what you have done before but they have a sound that people who listen to you a lot will recognize.
JL: Actually a lot of the way these songs came together had to do with Jimmy's participation as a co-writer because he came up with the development of a lot of the melodies. I tend to write things in a certain way and there were places where I had written something I wasn't crazy about and handed it over to him and he would come up with something that worked. So it was a combination of the two of us.  One thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of variations in some of the songs. In “Galaxy,” for instance, when we've been learning it to play it live there are so many subtle variations that you have to memorize. When we started playing it in the set it was a real challenge to remember it and I even had to read it the first few times we did it. But that is one thing that keeps it interesting.

SV: And keeps  you on your growth edge, which has got to be a tough bar to raise when you get to your level of skill and experience.
JL: To be honest, when I look back at all the records I made I look at the first five albums and there is this kind of steady progression that created a certain kind of focus and identity. Then at some point, I think by the 5th or 6th album, it kind of lost its edge.. It's kind of like aTV show that runs for a long time and seem to run out of ideas. That's why I really value the opportunity to collaborate. I can learn from them and they bring their experience to what I do. I think if I tried to do it myself I might fall into a lot of the same rhythms and chord progressions that I always like to play.

SV: There was a period in the lat 80's and early 90's, between Private Passion and Worth Waiting For where you were writing and producing with other artists and not doing any solo projects. Do you think that taking that time and working with all those musicians kind of ignited the spark again?
JL: One thing that happened is that during that period I was working on a lot of dance music remixes. It was when remixes were the big rage in the early 90's. I didn't even know that much about it when I started but I was lucky enough to get involved with this group of people who were working at a really high level. We were working with artists like New Edition and U2. It was really fun to drive to work and turn on the radio and hear something I had done the week before playing on a big Top 40 station. After a while I got tired of not having creative control and I wanted to express myself more and go from being a session musician to being a producer and solo artist so I started to move in that direction and I've been doing that ever since.

SV: A few months ago I wrote an editorial called “Old Guys and Gals Rule” that was about the fact that most of the artists who have broken out of the smooth mold and put out really original and innovative albums have been over 50 - people like you, Ken Navarro, Acoustic Alchemy, Spyro Gyra, Chieli Minucci, Jeff Golub, and Chris Standring.  I get to hear most of what is coming out and it seems like most of the young artists are playing it safe and sticking to the formula they heard on the radio. I'm wondering if this is because you were around before the restrictions came into play and can tap into that now that we are moving forward again.
JL: I would love to see a bunch of young artists that were really strong come around. I think it is tough for artists in general right now. The people that you mentioned were lucky enough to be around before the cutoff – before record companies stopped having jazz divisions and radio stations stopped playing jazz. We had these things when we were getting our careers going and it is what allowed us to launch our careers. I'm in favor of creativity wherever it comes from. I think one of the big reasons the smooth jazz radio format didn't succeed is that they didn't reach out to younger listeners enough. That doesn't mean they had to play young artists. It just means making it appealing. When I was in Jakarta there were radio stations that played jazz music and were aimed at young people.  There's a big festival in Indonesia at the beginning of March that draws 150,000 people (Java Jazz Festival – www.javajazzfestival.com). It's the biggest jazz festival out there and I would say the average age of the people coming there is about 30.  Younger people like the music, it just needs to be presented in a way that they can relate to.

SV: Speaking of those resources that you mentioned, that structure isn't in place anymore and here you are with a really exciting album that is going to appeal to a lot of people both in and beyond the smooth realm. How do you let people know it's out there and get it heard?
JL: I'm going to do what I always do, which is to tour a lot, promote it, play live as much as I can, talk to all the media people about it and just do everything I can to get it out there. It was released in November in Europe and we did a three week tour all over Europe and it was really successful and well received. I hope the same thing happens here in the US.

SV: I can't imagine it happening any other way. Thanks for the conversation and thanks for being on the frontlines as we take contemporary instrumental music to the next level!

Visit Jeff Lorber's website at www.lorber.com
Galaxy is available for pre-order on Amazon.com: www.amazon.com
If you have a Spotify account you can listen to most of the tracks from Galaxy online:  www.spotify.com