Jonas Hellborg – https://www.abstractlogix.com/

Over the last 30 years, Jonas Hellborg has simultaneously defied and defined what it means to be an electric bass player. In the 21st century, he is doing more of the same. As one of the most iconoclastic musicians experimenting with the bottom frequencies, Hellborg has seemingly never been at a loss for ideas or direction.

From his new approach to the bass (aside from Spinal Tap, who else had the balls to play a double-neck bass?) with John McLaughlin’s third Mahavishnu Orchestra, to his groundbreaking work with virtuosos Shawn Lane and Jeff Sipe, through his current focus with drumming maestros Selvaganesh, Ranjit Barot and freak guitarist Mattias IA Eklundh, Hellborg has always found ways to innovate within the confines of composition, improvisation and technique. But try to ask him where he is consciously going in his journey and you are likely to get an answer that is at once hazy yet steadfast. He struggles to define what the music is, but is confident in his approach, which is, at the moment, centered on his guitar trio.

Due to editorial guidelines the full interview wasn’t published in the May issue of Performer Magazine Abstact Logix now presents Jonas’ full perspective from January 2010.

On Current Projects: I’m just dealing with a bunch of different musicians. It’s all a network of people. Of course the center core of the Indian music thing for me is Selvaganesh, who I’ve been working with for ten or 20 years.

On the Genesis of Indo-fusion Projects: I played with John Mclaughlin, was a huge fan of Shakti, and the person I admired most in Shakti was Vikku. And I never got to meet him when I was playing with John. I was at a Frankfurt music trade show about 15 years ago and I heard about Vikku’s son. I was really excited and I wanted to meet him and hook it up and he wanted to meet me also, but we could never get it together. I think it was like 1991 or something like that I came back to Paris where I was living at the time…it must have been 1995 or ‘96. Somebody calls me up and says Zakir is playing today and Selvaganesh is playing with him, so I went to the gig and we met after the gig in Paris and from then on we started playing together. Selvaganesh is the center figure in my whole connection with India and Indian music and through him I met Ranjit Barot and I really love how Ranjit plays the drums because he is a kit drummer and he knows all the classical Indian stuff but isn’t trying to make it sound Indian. He just uses it in kind of jazz or fusion kind of language. So if you just listen to it casually you wouldn’t even know it is Indian stuff, it would just sound like this intricate incredible stuff. But it being Indian, it makes me able to approach it that way or to understand it that way and integrate with it. So what comes out is not all Indian sounding but it elevates the jazz language to a much higher level.

On Mattias Eklundh: After Shawn [Lane] the only guitarist who interested me was Mattias Eklundh because he has also an incredible capacity and a totally different approach to how he’s doing stuff. And a vast knowledge of music.
What unites them is that they both know all music. With Shawn, I could play classical music, and with Mattias I can play classical music. With Shawn I could play Indian music, with Mattias I can play Indian music. With Shawn I could play rock n’ roll music, with Mattias I can play rock n’ roll music. It’s the same sort of relationship which covers all the musical territories necessary. And my instrument, my ensemble is the guitar trio and it has been since I was a kid. It’s my natural environment in which to play music. This is just a continuation of that work. We tried the Art Metal thing because we wanted more architectural kind of project so we tried to do that. But when it comes to just playing, just blowing, that environment is the easiest for me to handle, to deal with, so we went back to the trio format.

The Art Metal thing was much more about structure, about compositions. This is about improvisation. It’s a whole different thing.

He covers music on a level on which I am comfortable with. If I ask about string quartets to understand what that is have heard that and be familiar with that. I can’t start by explaining who Bela Bartok was if I want to go that stylistic direction or approach. And if I say rock I can’t start by explaining that approach or what that is. I can’t educate people who I am playing with. I need someone to come to the table and give me something. I don’t want to play with my students. I want people who can challenge me and elevate me to the next level.

I do not want to revisit places I’ve already been.

On Composition: At the heart of this is me; it’s what I do and what I’m comfortable with. I play bass. I will continue to play bass. I’m not going to switch to tuba all of a sudden. I know how to deal with the trio. It’s like you say you write for string quartet as an instrument as you write for piano as an instrument. I write for guitar trio as an instrument in the same way. We’re not doing the same thing we did with Shawn. There is a whole new set of ideas and knowledge that has come at this point in my life. My understanding of Indian music is deeper, my understanding of life is deeper, my understanding of classical music is deeper. Everything has gone to another level. [I’m] not taking anything away from what I did with Shawn which was great, but this is another time and another approach and has another depth to it.

I look at it like this. For some people they could look at something as a certain style of music. For me that is not valid because it’s basically based on the instrumentation always. If you hear a certain piece of music played by a string quartet they will say classical music. If you give the same music to Megadeth it will be heavy metal. But it might be the same notes being played. So what is the style? Is it the instrumentation? So I can’t really discuss style or stylistics. To me, that’s fashion. And I’m not dealing with fashion. I’m dealing with music. The parameters and knowledge and human implications of what music and musical sources are. I learn with all types of interaction I have with other human beings and that comes out in my music. It’s about substance, not about style. It’s about content.

If I meet somebody, I want to interact, discuss, synergize and find something I didn’t know before. I’m not here to lecture anybody or tell anybody about life. I’m here to learn, not to teach. I’m not going to tell anybody what anything is. I’m not going to try to push my answers to the questions of life down anybody’s throat. I’m just exploring, experiencing, learning and studying. And that’s what these meetings are. It’s not about telling anybody how great I am. If somebody gets something out of what I do, I’m very happy, but I don’t see it like I invented anything or created anything, because whatever comes through me, I’m just a mirror reflecting the light that has already come down through the centuries. It’s coming from this mirror to that mirror and it’s just reflecting. It’s just a different angle.

On Selvaganesh / Carnatic Rhythm: Selvaganesh and I have the duets. And we’ve never done a duet album yet. We’re working on it. That includes me developing my bass playing to a new level and a new standard. I’m working very hard on that.

Selvaganesh understands western music very well and western drumming. He can play a groove like a motherfucker. He can really hit it. We westerners think of pulse and then stuff that falls within the pulse beat. Indian rhythms consist of musical phrases that make up the totality of a whole. And it’s not about the bar. It’s about the whole periodic movement that might be repeated or not be repeated.

On Jazz: If you just play rehashed Charlie Parker or Coltrane licks, what’s the bloody point? If you are going to do it, write some new chord changes and go somewhere else. Don’t play fucking “Stella by Starlight.” That’s not now. It has nothing to do with now. You have to understand harmony, tonality, and of course you have to study that stuff, but jazz or bebop is just one expression that is very bound into certain time aspects and social situations that aren’t valid anymore. Here we have a song that is not normally a very intelligent harmonic composition anyway, it’s just the bloody same ii-V progression in eternity over and over again. As soon as you learn to play over ii-V-I progression, you can put those building blocks and go doopie doopie doopie doopie forever. What’s the fucking point? This doesn’t make any sense. So you have to be smarter than that. If you go back in time and study Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and study harmony for real. Then all of that (jazz) harmony is rubbish—it’s useless. Take something out of that history, make it modern, make it today, and do something that hasn’t been done. Then wow, great. Modern Jazz pedagogy is totally fucked. I can explain all that stuff on one page. All that stuff you go to Berklee for four years to learn I can explain on one page. But I don’t because everybody should figure it out for themselves because there’s nothing to it. It’s empty.

Bebop think bebop is tradition and I would say no, it’s not. Bebop comes out of the crossroads between western classical music and the black tradition which I would say is an African tradition, which has to do with gospel which is a cross between European and African music, going back which is traceable back to African music. And so there’s that tradition of course. But even Duke Ellington studied western classical music to make his compositions. If you are really getting into that, his compositions and his arrangements, there you go. Then you have something worthwhile to study. But study it, and OK, play it for educational purposes, but you don’t have to recreate it.

On Expression: I think all expressions are valid. Having said all that, I can totally contradict myself by saying whatever you feel to express yourself is who you are and what you should do. So if you feel very strongly that you should play doopie doopie doop then that’s who you are and I cannot criticize that. I am not here to tell anybody what they should do.

On Style: Wayne Shorter is the god. He’s amazing. Because it’s music. It’s beyond stylistic. And Keith Jarrett does everything I am criticizing. He’s playing “Autumn Leaves” and whatever, and what he’s doing is unbelievable. It’s amazing. But it’s not doopie doopie doop. When he plays it’s composition. There is intelligence. There is continuity. There is cross reference. He doesn’t just play a bunch of phrases stacked on each other. He starts and from the point where he starts to where he stops playing. There is a thread. He builds a house. He builds a cathedral. It is improvisation on the level of the great Indian masters. That’s what they do. It’s not, “Now I play this lick, then I play that lick, then I play that lick.” No. It’s music created in the mind in time, in consciousness, in continuity.

If you give up formulated music, you can actually attract normal people. Because when you have a click of people, let’s say you have the fusion click. Then you start to set rules for what is fusion. If you have the jazz click, you start to set rules for what is jazz. And if you just let that go and you actually deal with human, general human tastes in music, what actually moves you and you get away from the whole concept of, “Is it stylistically this music or that music?” then you will actually attract people who are not in your field. Keith Jarrett, case in point. People will not listen to [imitates traditional jazz]. But they will listen to Keith Jarrett because he’s making music. What he does goes beyond styles. You can take someone like Stevie Wonder. He’s an R&B guy, but everybody loves Stevie Wonder. Why? Because he goes beyond that. And whatever level you are on, if you actually don’t cut any kind of musical parameter or resource of your world, just because you are this or that, which is what stylistic ideas do, they confine you. Then you will deal with music as it is. It’s just like food. They talk about fusion food. I don’t like the term, but the fact is I have Indian spices in my pantry. So when I make an omelette, I get something out and I put it in there and it tastes good.

If you decide to be in a small neighborhood and stay there all your life, that’s what you do, and that’s fine. That’s just another choice. But if you live in the modern world, the global world, you are encountering all these things. You just deal with it. But do whatever you like. You take it and you use it. Whatever is in your culture. But they key concept for me is not to confine yourself just because it’s supposed to be that way.

On Meaning In Music: In order to be a fulfilled human being…I don’t want to use terms like spiritual because it kind of gets out of the subject. But in order to function as a human being, you have to be able to focus. You have to be able to center. Some people are into religion. They pray or they meditate or they do this and that. Music is such a thing. It’s a discipline and you use it for the purpose of focusing your mental, your spiritual activity in one direction and become whole. And as you do that you will get more and more capacity as a musician. But if you can express what you need to express with just a very limited vocabulary, you can still do that. It’s not about the vocabulary. It’s not about how many words you can use; it’s about what you can say.

I don’t want people to admire me, and I don’t want to admire people. We are all the same. We all have basically the same capacity. I admire Gandhi. When you think about what Gandhi did it’s unbelievable. Everybody can learn a scale and everybody can practice forever, but it’s the other thing. But really, it’s a quest for truth. It’s sort of encapsulated in what Thelonious Monk said: “The true definition of a genius is one who is most like himself.” It starts and ends there. And when you are really in tune with yourself—and this is where the discipline comes in, and you really express yourself truthfully and powerfully, then people will say, “Oh wow. That’s amazing.” And it doesn’t matter if you do with two notes or a fugue or a really intricate rag, or whatever it is. It’s the same thing. It’s the spirit. When are you open and clear and innocent like a child, that’s when it really hits you. And that’s why somebody like Wayne is so powerful. Because he really does that.

Buy

Itunes-note Amazon Bandcamp

Jonas Hellborg: Defining The Jazz Raj

February 22, 2014

Maestro composer, bassist and engineer Jonas Hellborg is back in 2014 with what he says is his best album yet aptly called “The Jazz Raj”, an exceptional musical statement with Indian undertones featuring Swedish Guitarist Mattias Eklundh and Indian Drum Phenom Ranjit Barot who has been making international news for the past few years as the drummer for John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension. Not just “The Jazz Raj”, but fans have been treated with a double dose of music from Hellborg with a remastered release of his seminal solo album, “The Silent Life” , originally released in 1994.

AbLx: Jonas, you have had a significant absence from releasing music since Art Metal which was about six years ago. Where have you been ?

JH: I have been working on music, including working on records; I just did not feel ready with anything until now. I do have several other projects that I am working on including a duet record with Selvaganesh Vinayakram. That one we have recorded maybe three times already but I think we will record it again.

I have also built a new recording studio going back to analog tape but taking it to the extreme. For those who understand it, I now have an 8 track 2 Studer A800 and a 2 track 1 Studer A80 (courtesy of JRF Magnetics). If that means nothing to you, I can only describe it as the magic and sound fidelity of tape with the low noise and distortion we are used to from digital. Also I have some electronics in the studio I have been working on for a long time. I am as well in close contact with Rupert Neve Designs. I used some of their EQs and mic preamps on these records and I am looking forward to getting more involved with them and their gear.

AbLx: Your new album “The Jazz Raj” features Mattias Eklundh and Ranjit Barot. How did that come about?

JH: I think that this is the best record I have done so far in my life. That is a popular statement to make as you release a record. I do not think however that I have ever said that before and I don’t remember ever being so content about a record before. Particularly about my own playing on it.

Me and Mattias have been collaborating now for a good number of years. And just like with Shawn, we have tried to expand the vocabulary of bass, guitar and drums as a musical ensemble. A few years back we did a performance of the Beethoven triple concerto with Patrik Jablonski doing the piano part and Hans Ek conducting the VÄSTERÅS SINFONIETTA. We have done duets and trios and all kind of stuff over the years, with many different drummers, just as I did with Shawn.

I guess it is a thread in my musical work, this treating bass and guitar as one grand instrument. It was very prominent in what I did with John McLaughlin and in groups with Shawn, Mattias, and Buckethead. I have also furthered my studies of how to integrate Indian music with western music here for “The Jazz Raj” record, primarily dealing with the opportunities the tonal structure of certain ragas give when treated as western tonalities. Some of the modes we are using have 4 semitones in a row; quite unorthodox for a western tonality, but I don’t think the sound will strike you as odd. It actually gives birth to very beautiful melodies and chords.

AbLx: Did you guys record “The Jazz Raj” live in the same room? Was it a live setup in-studio with some post production?

JH: Me and Ranjit played together in his studio in Mumbai. But then I replaced bass tracks as the compositions evolved. That happened over several years. Me and Mattias met several times and worked long distance as well for the recording of the Bass and Guitar and working out arrangements, solos, etc.

AbLx: What qualities did Ranjit bring to “The Jazz Raj” sessions?

JH: Ranjit is exceptional in the sense that he is a western drum kit player (even though he is Indian) who has a full grasp on the Indian rhythm knowledge and wisdom. When he plays his implementation of the Indian rhythm ideas are not clumsy as they often are when western drummers are trying to do “takadimi’s”.

The music flows and there is a flow ideas that are indeed native to the drum kit and that fits with what the Guitar and the Bass are doing. This is a record I wanted to do since I first met and played with Ranjit

AbLx: Did any particular ragas provide inspiration for “The Jazz Raj”?

JH: Yes, mainly South Indian ones, I will release a text on what ragas and how they are used shortly.

AbLx: At the same time as “The Jazz Raj”, we get a double bonus from you with the reissue of “The Silent Life”, which you originally released in 1994. Why did you decide to reissue it?

JH: “The Silent Life” was recorded over three days in December 1990 in the studio I used to own together with Bill Laswell in New York, Greenpoint Studios.

It was basically 3 one-hour performances in the studio, largely improvised. The sound that we created on the record back then was very much of its time with exaggerated low end and a lot of reverb. Listening to the original recordings it just sounded so direct and beautiful without all that processing. Then listening back, I realized I did not any longer agree with the picks of songs and the order they had on the record so I spent a long time just listening and reevaluating the music. In the end I just ended up with the first day’s recording straight-up, only editing out some false starts and noises.

AbLx: How has your playing changed over the years, and where are you musically today?

JH: That I could not tell you in words. I am as involved in learning and playing music as I have been for the last 45 years. It is like human society; there is great change and no change at the same time.

AbLx: A very memorable part of your career is the years with Shawn Lane in the nineties and John McLaughlin in the eighties. How do you remember the periods with those two guitar players?

JH: Two very different situations. I was playing with John doing his music. Shawn was playing with me doing essentially my music. With John I mainly wanted to learn from my hero. With Shawn I had very developed concepts of what the music would be and how it should be played, but that did not happen out of a vacuum all of a sudden. After playing with John, and before the groups with Shawn, I had two trios with bass, keyboards and drums; one with brothers Anders and Jens Johansson and one with Aydin Esen and Kenwood Dennard. I was also heavily involved with western classical music, both transcribing and playing and writing for various ensembles. A lot of the musical direction implemented in the various things I did while Shawn was playing with me came from those projects. And a much more important collaboration for me is my work with Selvaganesh. It is through him and his family I have learned a lot of what I know about Indian Music. See, I was always a great fan of Selvaganesh’s dad Vikku, who was in the original Shakti. And Selva is who ties together the music I did with John and what happened after.

Going back to John, that was a massive experience. I was fresh out of nowhere pretty much playing with a musician I had idolized since I was 14. I was just trying to absorb as much as I could and figure things out. I am very grateful for that time; thank you John!

AbLx: Do you have anything deep in your closet with Shawn Lane that the world has not heard yet?

JH: Yes.

ABLX: Can you let us in about it ?

JH: I recorded a lot of performances during the time with Shawn. What felt relevant at the time was released on record. If I find something that really adds something meaningful artistically I will release it but as for now I think we have a good representation of the work we did released already.

ABLX: Was there ever anything recorded with you, Shawn and Ginger Baker ?

JH: No never was, I had the intention but it was never possible.

AbLx: We had heard that you might have some music recorded with Debashish Bhattacharya ? Can you give us a peek into that?

JH: That is yet another project that might or might not see the light of day at some point.

AbLx: Tell us about the new Hellborg amp.

JH: Well, there is no new Hellborg amp. That was done 7-8 years ago, so I guess that is not central in my mind at the moment.

Ablx: What is your association with Warwick ?

JH: Hans Peter Wilfer who owns Warwick is a great friend. I have designed a number of Bass Amps for him. In essence the whole range that Warwick sells at the moment are of my design.

AbLx: Are you touring the new record?

JH: Well, see, here my thinking differs from the norm. I release records as works of art, not as products that need promoting. I play concerts as an expression of my art; it is not really a commercial enterprise. So yes, I will play concerts if the interest is there. But it is not for the purpose of promoting a record. Normally for me, the record comes after the tour, as a result of it. Live is where the music is being developed and hopefully recorded. The record is a record of the concerts.

Ablx: Listened to any new music lately ?

JH: Yes I listen to new music every day and rediscovering old music. As I mature I seem to gravitate to old Masters like J.S. Bach and S. Balachander.

AbLx: Do we ever see you back playing with Jeff Sipe again ?

JH: I would love to play with Jeff again, he is one of my favorite musicians.

Ablx: Thanks for time Jonas. Its great to have you back and all the best for the future. Hoping to see you perform with Ranjit and Mattias

Latest album

Latest NEWS

Please Subscribe your mail to get notification from AbstractLogix.

Facebook-f

Twitter

Instagram

Youtube

Copyright © 2021 ABSTRACT LOGIX

Facebook-f

Twitter

Instagram

Youtube

Copyright © 2021 ABSTRACT LOGIX

Jonas Hellborg – New Beginnings

March 2, 2006

Jonas Hellborg has appeared on Abstract Logix a few times in the past. It has been quite a while that we have had an in depth conversation with him. Probably the last time we spoke was when Shawn Lane was still alive. “Kali’s Son” is the new record from Jonas with V.Selvaganesh and progressive Sitarist Niladri Kumar. Hellborg is back with a power trio and another record is on the works.

AL: It’s hard to believe that more than two years have passed by since the death of Shawn Lane. How do you reflect back on your friendship, the musical relationship on stage and off stage and what are some of your experiences that make you move forward and make music in newer concepts?

JH: Shawn was my brother, it was more than friendship. The musical bit was just a small part of our bond. We had a huge influence on each other and developed ideas in between us that you finally would not know where it came from originally. It is a hard thing to define because it was at the same time very complex and simple and was of real direct benefit for only him and me. The music we made together, as a result, is there for everybody who wants to make it their own. that is our surface our contact with the world. The testimony of a great friendship.

AL: It’s unfortunate the some musicians don’t reach a wider commercial success until they die. Jaco was a prime example , and it seems that Shawn is such as well. What’s regrettable is that there are not enough recordings of Shawn available commercially. Do you think Bardo records might release some music of you and Shawn in the future. If so , what can we expect?

JH: I don’t really subscribe to commercial success as an important factor in life. (Pretty obvious). So I do not find it regrettable. The same could be said for Bach, Monk, Parker, Mozart and the list goes on. I have always maintained that what artists do is leave footprints in the sand. We don’t need to judge or evaluate. At best it is what it is. It will somehow tell about the generalities and specifics of one individuals existence. If it touches someone else, wonderful. If it touches a hundred thousand, equally wonderful, because it is still individual experiences. It exposes, touches, relates to, and deals with our common spirit. It is how we tap into the great unifying power. We all have our own back door.

Shawn left a lot of music floating around the planet, it does not matter if it is commercially available or not. He made his footprints. They are there and won’t go away for a long time. He touched the people he touched and some more will be added. What ever happens now won’t benefit him anymore. The people who did not experience him first hand will not. Those who did have sweet memories. He lived a beautiful life in a very compact span. He was a link, not the whole chain. He was one very powerful aspect of the Music(s) that he was part of. Let’s celebrate what he was and not regret what did not happen. I cherish the memories of Shawn but that moment has passed. He will always be present in my music because our cooperation was long and intense.

AL: It seems that after Shawn passed away, you have had some short lived musical experiences, performing with Paul Hanson, Jeff Sipe in a trio concept and a few others. Now your new trio has experimental hard edged axeman Mattias IA Eklundh and Hungarian kit man Zoltan Csörsz. Could you tell us about your new trio, what can fans expect musically and where would you like the new Jonas Hellborg trio to go?

JH: Jeff is the greatest drummer in the world. My personal opinion. We made a very unique statement with the trio with Shawn in it. I am very careful with that legacy. To play with a bassoon player seemed to me far enough removed from that legacy to be valid. And it still does. However it ended up too close for me to be comfortable. I will happily play with both Jeff and Paul separate or together but the music has to go somewhere else for it to be meaningful to me. Now with the new trio I feel possibilities of virgin territory to be explored. What it will be I can not tell you, not even after the fact, I can only go there, someone else has to give it a name. It will be different.

AL: You seem to be quite excited about your new drummer Zoltan Csörsz. In your musical career you have performed with Jeff Sipe, Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, Trilok Gurtu, Selvaganesh. How does Zoltan fit into your music?

JH: We blend well, just like with Jeff, it’s effortless. It just fits. Other than that it will speak for itself given time.

AL: You sound very excited about the new trio . I remember you making a statement after Shawn passed away I am probably not going to play with a guitar player again . It’s welcoming that Matthias is in the core of the new trio. Your thoughts and feelings on yet again how the fellow Swede made you change your mind ?

JH: I said the same thing after Johnny Mac. then I met Shawn, now its Mattias.

AL: With your new trio, you have been playing the tunes that you have written in the past. Are you planning on writing new material with Mattias ? Any chance of any recordings in the future ?

JH: We are currently writing and recording a new Album

AL: You have played with two of my favorite guitar players, John McLaughlin and Shawn Lane. They were both involved with playing Western compositions as well as Eastern Music. How do you look at both of them from a musical standpoint?

JH: Two very powerful and different musicians. I don’t know what to say on this one, music speaks for itself. For both these gentleman music took place in different rooms. It was found in different spaces occupied different social standing, spoke different language, created different priorities, yet there was a thread of similarity in the musical persona. To that mystery I don’t find the answer. But I guess I am not trying too hard. Both are very important to me and I have great affection for them.

AL: If I am not mistaken the first Hellborg trio had Kenwood Dennard on drums and the great pianist Aydin Esen. Has this trio ever been recorded professionally? We don’t seem to know much about the music from that period. Can you reflect back?

JH: That was a great trio that never really gelled. Probably my fault stemming from my inexperience as a bandleader and therefore not giving my 2 compadres enough space for input. Both are amazing, Kenwood – I can’t say enough great things about and Aydin, I would rate as the greatest Piano player in the world next to Keith JARRETT. I just wish he would do some straight up acoustic piano records, any format. His understanding of Jazz, European art music i.e. classical contemporary whatever you want to call it is rivaled by no one and if he would just get the format of his music matured and presented right he would be the greatest hands down.

AL: “Kali’s Son” was your new recording in 2005, featuring some refreshing new music from progressive sitarist Niladri Kumar and Selvaganesh . How did the music and the record happen?

JH: Everybody in India was talking about Niladri, so I wanted to check him out. My way of doing that is to play music together…and we did. For me, Selva is musical water…without him I will not survive.

AL: “Kali’s Son” is an indirect reference to Shri Ramakrishna, the Indian Saint from West Bengal. I know John McLaughlin is a follower of his as well. How did his teachings impact you spiritually and musically?

JH: I am not a follower of any one guru in particular. I think there is a massive fog out there, intelligently explaining the human condition and experience, Shri Ramakrishna is part of that. There are many angles and many languages to explain the great collective / individual / non-ego journey that we travel through in life. The more perspectives you collect, the freer you become. Shri Ramakrishna was very free.

AL: Jonas, it almost seems that you are running parallel musical lives. You have been experimenting Indo-West sounds with “Kali’s Son” and now your new trio features European musicians who musically are probably unaware of Eastern Music. Where do you want to go musically? Are your parallel musical directions a reflection of who you are?

JH: No, it is all the same. My new buddies are aware and becoming more aware. When I met Shawn he did not know too much about Indian Music. I turned him on to some and then he exploded and bought every cassette in every Indian food mart in Memphis. But personally I don’t really care where it’s from or what it’s called. In India you have people like Zakir, Vikku, Selva, Shrinivas, Bismillah Khan, greats and then you have musicians who don’t need to be mentioned. It’s the same everywhere.

In the modern world we are mixing more and more and that fuels the race to the moon. The first time I went to India it was unfamiliar, now it’s home. Everywhere on this planet is home, one just has to get used to it. And music is the same. I can not tell things apart anymore.

AL: I recently saw you perform with Hindustani Slide guitarist Debashish Bhattacharya and tabla maestro Tanmoy Bose. Is that something musically you want to pursue as a recording endeavor or a touring unit?

JH: It will be continued, I like both of them very much. We are still finding the unique identity this cooperation deserves. Soon.

AL: Jonas I have seen you perform many times. It occurs to me that you have a very strong musical presence. Do you ever feel inclined to perform material where the music is written by someone else and you sit back and fill in the spaces; more of a supporting bass act?

JH: That is a very multilayered question. I do play music composed by others. I played Bach, Bartok, Stravinsky, Sweelink. Sometimes, actually – a lot of the time, I sit back and fill in the spaces. And the trio with Jeff and Shawn was all about a supporting bass role. I might have a strong presence but a lot of what I do in life and in music is to support others to help them be themselves.

AL: It seems that too many records are being released today, since recording and releasing records are relatively easy things to do today. Do you think that it is inadvertently hurting music?

JH: Reflection of the times we live in. Music is not holy. We live a life of human interaction. The form it takes need not to be controlled by prejudice. I can not say that this form is good that is bad. I can say I don’t like this, and that would largely be colored by my cultural background. If someone is doing something, I would like to believe it comes from some kind of passion and that is what matters. What I, or someone else, may think of it does not really matter. It’s about the passion, remember Joseph Campbell, Follow you bliss.

AL: You mentioned to me a while ago that you are interested in a much more accessible type of music , in the lines of what Talvin Singh or other Asian underground musicians are trying to attempt. The music could be serious yet exciting for someone who might want to hear it in a rave or a disco. Have you given any more thought to this lately?

JH: Well I say a lot of things, sometimes too much. I guess that made sense to me when I said it. It sure doesn’t right now. Maybe tomorrow.

AL: Jonas, you have been achieved quite a bit musically, where do you see yourself in the future?

JH: I am not really focused on where I am going. All my energy is going in to experiencing what happens now. That is why I might be a bit disorganized about concerts and outputs of recorded material and all. The way I look at it is…… Lots of wills are influencing the progress of the world. I don’t want to lock myself INTO some kind of plan or structure that would stop me from doing what seems to be right when it happens. So future telling………not my forte.

Photos: Jonas Hellborg, www.jonashellborg.com, www.bardorecords.com

Latest album

Latest NEWS

Please Subscribe your mail to get notification from AbstractLogix.

Facebook-f

Twitter

Instagram

Youtube

Copyright © 2021 ABSTRACT LOGIX

Facebook-f

Twitter

Instagram

Youtube

Copyright © 2021 ABSTRACT LOGIX

Jonas Hellborg Interview

January 8, 2005

Swedish bass monster Jonas Hellborg burst onto the international scene in the mid 1980s with John McLaughlin’s reconstituted Mahavishnu band, which included drummer Danny Gottlieb, keyboardist Mitch Forman and saxophonist Bill Evans. Following two recordings with that band (1984’s “Mahavishnu” on Warner Bros. and 1986’s “Adventures in Radioland” on Relativity), Hellborg began playing in a more intimate, highly interactive trio setting with McLaughlin and percussion master Trilok Gurtu. Then, in 1988, Hellborg and McLaughlin toured briefly as a duo, providing many sparks as well as moments of intimate, near-telepathic communication along the way. (Sadly, no official recorded document has ever been released of either the McLaughlin-Hellborg-Gurtu trio or the McLaughlin-Hellborg duo).

Since parting ways with McLaughlin in 1989, Hellborg has quietly gone about the business of creating provocative and noteworthy new works for his own independent labels. Under the auspices of Day Eight Music (DEM) he delved into the nuance and rich resonance of his Wechter acoustic bass guitar on 1991’s startling solo bass project, “A Silent Life”, which allowed him to explore to the hilt his inimitable use of chords on the bass, his awesome slap technique (marked by a profusion of thumbed triplets) and his uncannily lyrical single note facility. There followed a rash of similarly ambitious recordings on DEM, including Hellborg’s intimate and alluring duet project with frame drum master Glen Velez (1995’s Ars Moriende), an organ trio outing with fellow Swedes Anders and Jens Johansson (1994’s e) and two thrashing, jam-oriented power trio outings — 1995’s “Abstract Logic” with the late fire-breathing guitar shredder Shawn Lane and drummer Kofi (Ginger’s son) Baker and 1996’s hellacious “Temporal Analogue of Paradise” with guitarist Lane and drummer Apt. Q-258 (aka Jeff Sipe).

After forming his Bardo label in 1997, Hellborg continued the power trio path with Lane and Sipe on “Time Is The Enemy” and the particularly aggressive live offering Personae, which featured some of the most mind-boggling six-string work this side of Allan Holdsworth, Scott Henderson, Eric Johnson and Frank Gambale. That period that Shawn and Sipe and I played together was really fruitful, Jonas recalls. It was less than two years but we did four records during that time.

A decided departure from that blatantly electrified fuzoid path was Hellborg’s zen-like acoustic project “Aram of the Two Rivers” (recorded live in Damascus with a crew of master musicians from Syria and released in 1999) and the mesmerizing “Good People in Times of Evil”, an adventurous East-meets-West hybrid recorded in 2000 which featured Hellborg and guitar partner Lane in the company of master Indian percussionist (and current member of McLaughlin’s Remember Shakti band) Selvaganesh Vinayakram on kanjeera. For me, this fascination with Indian music goes all the way back to when I was a young teenage hippie listening to Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha, said Jonas. There’s no question that the more challenging music I’ve ever played is the Indian stuff. And for me it’s South Indian more than North Indian. The South Indian stuff is much more hardcore and raw, which appeals to me.

Hellborg’s “Icon”, released in 2003 on Bardo, was marked by further investigation into the complex Indian rhythms and rags involving some remarkably challenging and precise exchanges between the bassist, guitarist Lane, kanjeera player Selvaganesh and his brothers Umashankar on ghatam and Umamahesh on vocals. It’s another step in the same direction, said Hellborg at the time of the cd’s release. The music is more composed than the previous record. Of course, there is room for stretching out on solos. But all the heads and really intricate time signatures played in unison are all written out in the tradition of Indian drum compositions.

The level of intense interplay and deep groove that the four achieve on Icon ’s four extended tracks is nothing short of breathtaking, particularly on the opening track Anchor, when Selvaganesh and Umashankar launch into their astounding displays of konokol (the traditional rhythmically-disciplined, lightning fast vocal exchanges that sound to American jazz ears like a South Indian version of Jon Hendricks and Eddie Jefferson in a cutting contest). And when Lane’s electric guitar shifts from swirling psychedelia (Anchor) to sustained legato lines reminiscent of violinist L. Shankar (Vehicle) to heavy-duty distortion-laced crunch (Mirror), this East-meets-West hybrid sounds more like Shakti meets Led Zeppelin.

With “Icon”, Hellborg’s longstanding chemistry with Lane, the Memphis-based guitar wiz and former child prodigy, continued to blossom. The thing with Shawn and me is how we can cover so much territory effortlessly…all the different influences from jazz and fusion and Indian music and classical music, said Jonas. And the key to our collaboration is that it doesn’t stop growing. We always work on new ideas and develop stuff and we always feed new influences to each other. Shawn was hugely influenced by meeting and playing with the Indians. And he’s really going places now. What he’s doing with all the Indian articulation and ornamentation on the guitar is absolutely incredible.

That rapid progress was cut short with Lane’s death on September 26, 2003 (at age 40) from pulmonary fibrosis (heart malfunction) which was brought on by his longstanding condition of rheumatoid arthritis. Shortly after Lane’s funeral in Memphis, Hellborg said, I think Shawn was the greatest electric guitar player ever. I think what is the central point in his playing from the beginning, is that he went beyond the clichés, from the first moment. Even when he was with Black Oak Arkansas he was totally into Charlie Parker and Art Tatum, and he applied all that to guitar playing. He would be playing with a rock band and put Art Tatum-styled solos on top of ‘Jim Dandy To The Rescue.’ He was not limited by the physically reality of a guitar at all. Everything was like totally fluid…from his musical ideas to the sound…there was nothing in the way that would actually stop him. And he had a depth and width of musical knowledge that was second to none. He knew about western classical music and classical Indian music and jazz and rock and he could just pick up the guitar and play anything at any point, and he still had a voice. He was not only a supreme emulator of stuff he was into, he had a voice. He really was a phenomenon and he evolved at an incredible pace.

Hellborg last toured with Shawn Lane in February of 2003 when they had a triumphant swing through India. In January of 2004, Jonas participated in a memorial concert for Shawn in Bombay. Last year, he released the DVD “Paris” on Bardo, which captured Jonas and Shawn in a May 2001 concert with the Vinayakram brothers at the New Morning in the City of Lights.

I spoke to Jonas in his favorite meeting place, the Cafe Reggio located just below his New York apartment in the heart of Greenwich Village. The interview took place shortly after an adventurous impromptu gig he played at Tonic with guitarists Henry Kaiser and Dom Minasi and drummer Lukas Lygetti.

BM: This might be a strange place to start but since I’m doing an updated edition of my book on Jaco Pastorius (“JACO: The Extraordinary And Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius”, Backbeat Books), I’d like to get some personal testimony from you. Tell me about your first meeting with Jaco.

JH: It was really interesting. It was in Sweden. I had just gotten the gig with John (in Mahavishnu) and Jaco was playing there with his Word of Mouth sextet with Mike Stern and Kenwood Dennard. Anyway, backstage I was introduced to Jaco and he knew about me already. And it was utter chaos backstage…total lunacy. Everybody was drunk and stoned…total mayhem. But at one point Jaco took me to the side and we went in another room and sat down and boom!…in a second he was totally sane, sober, normal, sharp. And we talked for like an hour about music and bass playing. And he was absolutely sober the whole time. You wouldn’t know that he was crazy Jaco. And he was not the egocentric obnoxious guy that he sometimes appeared to be when he was acting crazy. He was genuine, thoughtful, nice, very friendly. But at the moment he left the room and returned to the other scene, he switched personas again. He was like a showman, like the David Lee Roth of bass playing. It was weird. And that happened a few times. Just about every time I met him he would be acting like a crazy lunatic and then when we talked he would switch into sane mode and would be totally sober and talk intelligently about music. And as soon as we finished our conversation…boom!…he was back into his behavior again. I don’t know what that means.

BM: And you did that one recording with him (1985’s “Down By Law”, which Bill Laswell produced).

JH: Oh, you mean the Deadline thing? No, we never met at that time. We did play on the same track but on different days. We just happened to be on the same record. But we did play once together around that time at a little club called 5&10 No Exaggeration down in SoHo. I was staying around the corner at the time and I just walked by and saw a sign on the door: Tonight! Jaco Pastorius. And I thought, Oh, shit! So I walked in and he recognized me and invited me up to play.

BM: That wasn’t a particularly good period for him….

JH: Oh, I’ll tell you…that night was the best I ever heard him play. He was playing with Delmar and this blind piano player (Mike Gerber). And I’m not sure if I just walked in at the very perfect moment or what, but what he was playing in that moment was beautiful. It was really, really insanely beautiful.

BM: I remember seeing him in those times…he could pull it together every once in a while and surprise everybody with how good he sounded.

JH: Yeah, I think it’s sort of just like getting the chemical balance just right — not too much and not without, then everything works.

BM: Was Jaco someone you admired when you were coming up in Sweden?

JH: I hated him (laughs). No, of course, when he first came out I dug him. He shocked me when I first saw him with Weather Report. He was unbelievably great.

BM: Jaco was such a heavy influence on so many people at that time, almost in a negative sense. But then you came out with a wholly different approach to the bass where you took the chordal approach and explored the whole slapping technique in a deep sense. That was really unprecedented at a time when everybody was playing fretless and trying to sound like Jaco.

JH: Yeah, yeah. I guess I was already formed by the time Jaco was known to me, so it was too late to be that heavily influenced by him. And besides, his playing was so different. I would never think about playing the way he does. And really, the only great lesson to learn from him is you gotta be yourself. You know, he was himself. He came out of that whole r&b experience coming up as a young musician, and he was very honest to who he was as a human being and as a musician and where he came from and what he liked. I think that is a little piece of information and piece of knowledge that you really need to have. It’s what you like. He was totally about what made him feel good. He played the lines that turned him on…it’s that simple. He dug those things he did. And a lot of people seem to be doing stuff they think they are supposed to be playing rather than just unabashedly enjoying themselves while playing. Music is there to be enjoyed, it’s that simple. You don’t have to be pretentious or prestigious about it. It’s not about whether you can play this sort of music or that sort of music in ultra-super speed or whatever. It’s just a matter of…if it feels good, it’s good. And that’s it.

BM: Jaco pretty much played the same way from the time he was a teenager — just refining those same lines, those grooves, that feel. He, of course, had lots of embellishments and expanded on it but the foundation of what he did all through those years was already there when he was a teenager and he kept playing The Chicken and those funk lines right up until the end. But you, on the other hand, keep changing your course radically, it seems. You had a period where you played with a very harsh, distorted sound…your kind of punk phase. Then you got into wholly different vocabularies — the chording thing, the slap thing. And now when I watch the “Paris” DVD or hear those last few records with Shawn and Selvaganesh, you are deeply into a whole different world. It seems like you keep reinventing yourself in a certain way.

JH: Yeah, I think that a big difference is I’m not really into having a career. I make a decent enough living from what I do. I don’t need to be more rich or famous or anything like that. I don’t really feel the need to focus on that, which means that I’m more into just exploring and seeing what comes. I feel like if I do the same thing again I’m wasting my life. I’m like an eternal researcher of music and that’s why I’m moving into different territories all the time. Because I want to explore and I want to get something out of it.

BM: Do you think that your playing was a lot busier when you were younger and first coming up?

JH: Yeah, that’s just a question of maturing. When you’re 20-something, you have something to prove to the world. But when you’re 46, it’s not that important anymore.

BM: Let’s talk about where you’re at now. Obviously, losing Shawn Lane was a devastating blow. How do you rebound from such a huge loss? Where do you go now?

JH: I still don’t know. It’s been a year and I still haven’t sunk into a new project that I really want to pursue with the same kind of depth. I’m trying different things and…I’m not broaching it, actually. It will happen by itself. Right now I don’t have one project that I’m really that intense with or a single direction that I’m pursuing. I have one new project that seems promising, though. I went to Istanbul and played with (pianist) Aydin Essen and (drummer) Gary Husband. Aydin and I had a group together in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s with (drummer) Kenwood Dennard. He’s a fabulous player, extraordinary. I have never met a musician with so much musical capacity as he has. I mean, he has perfect pitch and he hears absolutely everything and he can do anything. I think my only comment about him is that he’s got so much that he has a hard time deciding what to do. It’s difficult for people to follow him sometimes because he goes from one territory to the other in just a few seconds. But we are definitely going to be doing some more things together. Meanwhile, Gary and I tried to put together another trio for a gig in India with Allan Holdsworth, but that fell through for some mysterious reason. Anyway, there’s this other guitar player named Steve Topping who is taking his place for that. He’s a really interesting player. I heard some of his music and it really opens up a whole new bunch of possibilities and capacities that probably hasn’t been there with anybody I’ve played with before. Because he’s very well versed in modern classical music, which is something I’m really interested in. Shawn was in one sense, but not so much on a theoretical end as Steve seems to be. So I think this could be interesting and may develop into something. We’re going to go to India and do a tour and see what happens. But there is a possibility for it to be something. There are two things that really interest me with this band. One thing is that because Gary reads well we can actually really play extended composition. That is, we can play pieces that are entirely composed, which is a great thing and not very common with improvisors that you can do that well. And also, I want to develop new formulas of improvisation that are not based on chord structures or modal jams but has more to do with structures of phrases and other basis for composition that is not normally pursued in improvisation. And Steve is familiar with 12-tone music. He’s studied that kind of stuff too. That’s a rare thing to have two people who know that kind of stuff, so we can actually start to implement that Shoenberg type stuff in the context of modern improvisation. When I say this, it might sound like it’s going to be terribly Avant Garde or something…that it’s going to sound like some weird stuff. But that’s not the point. The point is that you are not locked down to very tight, simplistic structural forms like you are when you have a sequence of chords that you’re playing over and that you have to repeat over and over again. That’s a very strict form. Or if you have an open-ended modal form, which is just a head and then free jamming and then a head…that’s also kind like a kind of very dumb, simplistic form. What I’m talking about is where the form is actually structured by everything you’re playing…everything is in relation to the phrase that came before it and it develops in that way. So you can create new forms that are much more interesting. And it sounds like music. It doesn’t have to sound like weird noise that nobody can listen to.

BM: It sounds like fugues, in a certain way.

JH: There you go! That’s a perfect example. Read counterpoint, actually.

BM: I remember at one point a few years ago you were saying that you and Shawn were practicing some Bach pieces that you were planning to record as a duo. Did that ever happen?

JH: We never actually recorded any of it but we did work on it.

BM: Was he well versed in reading?

JH: Shawn couldn’t read, he played strictly by ear. And that is actually what held him back. If he could’ve read, then we could’ve just sat down and played the stuff. But now since Steve does read, it might open up some possibilities that we could do stuff like that.

BM: That gig you played with Henry Kaiser the other night at Tonic…was that just a one-off deal or is that another new project that you’re pursuing?

JH: No, that was strictly an improv thing that he put together. The thing about Henry, I really love who he is, what he does, and that he is. And I admire the balancing power he has on the improvising community in general. He really is that strong kind of magnetic figure that you need for it not to get too bogged down in its own self importance. And you know, I would do stuff with Henry anywhere, anytime. He has the right kind of self distance to what he’s doing. And at the same time, he takes it seriously, which is really great. So if he calls me to do something, I’ll do it…for basically no money. He’s one of the few people I would just go and play with just because I know it’s always going to be interesting.

BM: I thought the music really developed organically over the course of two sets.

JH: Yeah, and for me, even if it hadn’t, it’s still a thing worth pursuing. It’s just a statement being made that it is possible to do stuff without being too preconceived or speculative about it. And I’m really happy about the fact that it was Dom Minasi instead of (U.K. guitarist) Ray Russell, who was originally supposed to be there. Because that would’ve been a much more serious type thing where we would’ve had to play his songs. But the way it turned out it was more like, OK, what can we do? And what does it mean to do this? It was a good night.

BM: We in the audience really got the sense that you were finding the music on the bandstand. And at some point it really gelled and took off collectively. That was interesting to watch.

JH: Exactly. That’s what’s needed more today…people not being too preconceived about what they’re supposed to be.

BM: What other projects are you pursuing?

JH: I’m still working on the classical stuff with traditional Western classical musicians. And that’s been going on now for over ten years. It still hasn’t quite happened the way I want it to happen in order to make it like an official thing and actually record with it.

BM: When you play that music is it strictly an acoustic bass?

JH: Yeah, and I actually just had both of my acoustic instruments fixed up and refurbished, so they’re starting to sound really good now. I’m starting a new series of explorations, particularly with this cello player that I’ve been doing this with for a long time named Felix Fan. He has a festival out in California called Muzik3, where I went to play with Vikku and Shrinivas last summer. It’s a classical music crossover festival that he’s been running for seven years now.

BM: These are bass-cello duets?

JH: We do that but we’re also looking to work with other musicians. And it’s still just experimental. We’re trying to find a platform that works for that.

BM: And that’s a separate vehicle from this stuff you’re talking about doing with Steve Topping?

JH: Yeah, that would be applying classical composition on a fusion trio. This is actually playing with classical musicians but finding a new way of writing and improvising. I did one performance with the group Bang On A Can in California in March, playing a Terry Riley piece, which was kind of interesting to see how that works. I’m thinking about how you can formulate a message for people who don’t improvise to actually improvise, to give them a palette of options to play. And that’s basically what we’re doing right now with Felix…between the two of us, structuring out something that is not a written composition but actually presents these options where you can go here and do this or do that. It’s not like a score that’s written out, it’s just a palette of opportunities and possibilities that can be used.

BM: And you’re still working with Selvaganesh?

JH: Oh yeah, we have a different group which is me, Selva and the sitar player called Niladri Kumar, who is from the same garana as Ravi Shankar. And the interesting thing about Niladri is he plays electric sitar with stomp boxes and different effects. And he plays chords on the sitar. He has classical training. He’s a big star as a classical Indian musician also. His Dad is a big classical sitarist also. But this is something more experimental that we’re doing together.

BM: Given that your nature is exploring and you’re constantly coming up with these new projects, you probably find it preposterous when musicians go back and do retrospectives of their career. You wouldn’t go back and do old material or revisit some situation that you did 15-20 years ago?

JH: Sure I would. And I don’t have a problem with any of that. It’s all valid. We’re all just simple human beings. Again, whatever feels good is right. I don’t have any rules that musicians have to go on and on and on, continually coming up with new stuff. Certainly there are lots of things I would definitely consider doing again. Like one thing that never got recorded and I think it would be great if this could happen would be to do a duet thing with John (McLaughlin) again. Because I think that had a lot of potential. Some concerts were really good and I think at this point we might be able to go somewhere very different with it.

BM: And you didn’t have your acoustic bass guitar before.

JH: That’s one thing. That would add a different texture to it. But also, I’ve been through my own journey now. When I was playing with John, I was very much under his spell. I mean, that was like the only important thing that I had ever done at that point. And I hadn’t really developed my own thing.

BM: Some of the trio stuff was recorded with you and John and Trilok, wasn’t it?

JH: Yeah, but for me that already got locked into a totally different thing. It didn’t have the freedom of just the two. There is always a balance between being a complete ensemble and having the freedom. If you’re alone you can go absolutely anywhere. If you’re two, you can still go a lot of places. If three, you still have possibilities but every person you add kind of locks it down into a certain thing. And with somebody as strong as Trilok in terms of his personality and his concept of playing and everything, it becomes a certain thing that you can’t really escape. And with John, with just the two of us…of course, it was totally dominated by his musical persona but we could go in lots of spaces within what that was, in terms of his history and also other things that he enjoyed playing. For example, we did a lot of Brazilian stuff, which I know John loves. And that has never really come out in a big way. We did a piece by Hermeto Pascoal, and some other beautiful stuff, just beautiful melodies. And sometimes we would just play a beautiful song like that without soloing on it, which is a great idea.

BM: Do you think this will eventually happen, that you and John will get back together at some point?

JH: I have no idea. It could happen. It could also not happen. But talking about things to revisit…yeah, I would definitely do that. I would also go back and do something with Ginger Baker again, absolutely. (They recorded “Middle Passage” in 1990 for the Axiom label and “Unseen Rain” in 1992 for Day Eight Music).

BM: What’s Ginger up to these days?

JH: Oh, the big news is a Cream reunion that’s coming up — one week at the Royal Albert Hall in London as part of Clapton’s 60th birthday celebration.

BM: Can you make an assessment of your own development as a player? How have you evolved as a player? Are you still making discoveries on the instrument? Are you still woodshedding?

JH: Yeah, yeah. You know, it seems like I’m still trying to do the same thing that I did on my first record (“The Bassic Thing” released in 1981 on Day Eight Music). And I probably have gotten a little bit better at it over the years. The sound I’m trying to get is still the sound I was trying to get back then, but I’m a lot closer to it now. You know, I really feel that music being filtered through the instrument or what the instrument allows to come through. I hear a lot of music and I want to play a lot of music but the instrument only allows a certain amount to actually come through because of the physical limitations, and you have to represent it with limited capacities, which is great because it creates something different…something that is not intentional…something that is just the result of the idea and what actually comes out. But I guess it’s like whatever you didn’t intend…it’s the thing where you can’t be the judge of what you are doing. You just do what you do and it comes out and then it’s not yours anymore.

BM: Speaking in technical terms about the bass, you didn’t exactly invent the whole thumb / slap approach, but you certainly took it to a high level. Now people like Victor Wooten and others are being feted for that same technique that you innovated 20 years ago.

JH: Yeah. Well, the funny thing about that was…once the idea was introduced to me, just from hearing it or seeing it, I could do all that. It was not something that I actually practiced a lot or tried to develop. It was just that when I got the idea of, OK, you can play with your thumb…slap and pop and stuff, it was a natural thing for me. I’m sure it was the same thing for Jaco. His style of playing just came naturally to him. That was just the way he played. And for me, that was just the way I played.

BM: The same is true for Shawn Lane. His incredible speed and facility was a natural way of playing for him, from the time that he was a teenager.

JH: Exactly. Immediately. When he started playing the guitar as a kid he played like that. And with his double-jointed fingers he could stretch like nobody else can stretch. His fingers were like rubber, they could go anywhere…it’s just like that. He was a natural. And I also think, again, it’s about honesty. What you do is what you do. And you make the best of that. And basically that’s what I did with that whole slap thing when I started out playing back in the ‘70s.

BM: And now that you have matured into the veteran musician that you are, I get more of a sense of you playing music rather than just playing the bass. And it’s not so much about technique anymore at all.

JH: No, it isn’t. It’s not even about me. The whole thing with Shawn and all those records we did, I was pretty much just a bass player. It was about structuring the music rather than making an impressive statement by myself. If you listen to those things we did with Jeff Sipe, for instance, I was just the spoke that kept everything together. I just made sure that they didn’t drift too far away from where it was supposed to be. Sometimes with them I ‘d play real simple bass lines and just make sure to hold it down, and they would just go absolutely nuts around it. And with the Indians my playing was a bit more involved because with Selvaganesh holding things down, I had the capacity to go places and still keep it together because he is so structured and conscious about where everything is. So my playing was a bit more adventurous in that setting. But yeah, it is definitely about the music as a whole rather than any technical aspects.

BM: By running your own label, you’ve gotten an inside look at just how much the record business is changing. Any thoughts on what the future holds for the industry?

JH: Yes, the business side of music is changing drastically. And it’s really interesting because for me it’s come to a point where a label doesn’t even matter anymore. The whole structure is totally changing and I suspect that when people become more and more used to downloads, when there is a clear format for how that is done, how we actually receive this music and enjoy it and play it, when you have machines that actually play downloads rather than cds, then who knows what that’s going to be? It’s really going to be different. What is a label, anyway? It’s someone that takes care of your production and manufacturing of your output. But once you have tools for doing that as an independent artist, you don’t need a label any more. It just becomes part of the process of what you do…you put together this presentation of your art and then it’s up on the internet and that’s it. You don’t have to go to a pressing plant and make the records, you don’t have to employ people, you don’t have to rent studios anymore. You know. It’s unbelievable. 20 years ago to make a record…to actually just record it and get it on tape would cost you 20-30-40 thousand dollars. Today you buy equipment for like one or two thousand dollars and you can do the whole thing at home yourself.

BM: There’s a new company called DiscLive (www.disclive.com) which records live gigs and makes the music immediately available for downloads after the concert. No discs involved at all.

JH: Exactly. And that is something that struck me also with this whole experience of playing with Shawn. Because everything that we have played live is available somewhere. Every single concert we did can be traced and had somehow. And that sort of puts the importance and significance of records a bit out of the picture. Because every time you play now, it’s a record….a document of what you do. So the actual performance becomes as important as it was when there were no records. You’re going to play and that is your meeting with your audience, and that is what counts. It’s back to that point again. It’s not like where you can go off and play a concert and think, Oh, this is going to be a vanishing point in time. It doesn’t really matter. If it’s not happening, people are going to forget about it. No, it’s not like that anymore. It’s actually the opposite. Everything you do on stage now is as important as when you go into a studio and record for an album. And you don’t have to go into the studio because all those documents exist. So again, it becomes more and more about your actual playing…which is making me feel that the act of making music is more important now than the producing of recorded music. There was a time in my career, after I played with John and started thinking about what I was going to do, when the idea of produced recorded music became the focal point for me. That was really what counted. That was really what people would keep and remember of what you had done in your career. But now it’s back to the point where it’s about what I play live. And it’s about how I prepare when I actually do that concert, because that concert is going to be there forever. That’s just a fact of life now. And it’s a thing of beauty. Because actually if it could really get to the point where I wouldn’t even have to think about the recorded part of it…all I do is I play. That’s the ideal. I’m not my own documentary, if you like. I’m not the record-holder of what I did. I’m just a guy who plays the music. And all the other stuff is automatic. And it will be this way eventually. It’s getting to that point.

BM: But for now you still run a label.

JH: Well, yeah…in a technical sense. We’re still bound by the fact that we need to make a living. The only reason why I need to keep on doing the business…the records, the CDs, the label…is to have a livelihood. But if the whole thing changes, where concerts would pay properly and the documentations of them would just be automatically available anyway, that would be fine with me. I don’t care if I make money on the recorded music. I don’t care where I make money. I kind of like the breakdown of copyrights and property rights. I think it’s an absurdity anyway that somebody can own an idea, or own a piece of music or own a recording. I think it should all be available to everybody all the time. It’s just the fact that the people who make the music, just like everybody else, they need to make a living. So make sure that we’re paid enough for the concerts and then make all the documentation of them available. If people can pay $80 for an Eric Clapton concert, why couldn’t they pay something similar to that for something that we play? Why should a jazz concert be only $10 if people can afford to dish out $80 for a pop concert? You know, it’s just in the structure of the promoters that think they can’t do that. But the people who come to hear our music are really passionate about it. I’m sure they would pay proper money for it. And if that was done, then…you know…spread the music, is what I say. If I would have enough gigs around the year in interesting places and for proper money, I would give away my recorded music. Just put it all on a server for download and everybody can have it. That’s it. But as it is right now, I need to eat every day and I need to pay my rent just like everybody else. So at this point, there’s no other solution to it but to sell CDs.

BM: But things are shifting in this direction to where it might down the road be totally different.

JH: I think so. Absolutely totally different. Because the mindset of kids now is…for them it’s natural to download music for nothing. That’s just part of the culture now. I mean, nobody’s going to convince them about the necessity of intellectual property. Because ingrained in their brain stem is that music is something you get for free on the internet. How you gonna change that? Y ou know, it’s just going to be a bunch of old people trying to keep up ridiculous laws. It’s just like pot smoking. People smoke pot and nobody can really understand why it’s still illegal. It makes no sense anymore, absolutely no sense. But that law is still there and it’s just a bunch of old Christian fundamentalists who say, Oh, that’s bad for you. And it’s the same thing with the music. In time, nobody’s going to understand why there is intellectual property laws anymore. And if you look at that, if you think about the possibility of having all great literature, for instance, available free on the internet for download; if any kid in any poor area of the world can actually download Shakespeare’s entire works or Voltaire or whatever, just imagine what that would do for human culture all over the world! If anybody could download all the great Indian writings over time, that would be wonderful. Money stops people from being educated. It’s there. It’s written. It doesn’t cost anything to put it on the internet. Just put it up, let people have it, let people develop. You know? It’s just becoming more clear that intellectual property and copyright laws are to protect the big companies. It’s not to protect individual artists or composers or innovators of art. It’s part of the system to steal people’s life. You know, don’t pay a composer for the music, make them publish their work instead, and then you can make money on their work. That’s how it was done in the beginning — Beethoven, Mozart…they were all slaves to publishers because that was the only way they could make a living. Instead of having them, you know, being paid for what they actually did. You see? But this whole system is going to change…and sooner than later.

Latest album

Latest NEWS

Please Subscribe your mail to get notification from AbstractLogix.

Jonas Hellborg Speaks

November 19, 2003