Paul Carlon
Jazzing It Up With Latin Soul
Artist Interview by: Susan Frances
March 2008 - Cha-cha, bossa nova, mambo, conga, mariachi, salsa, rumba, and flamenco, may all be familiar to you as descriptions of Latin rhythms, but saxophonist Paul Carlon has taken his music much deeper into the inner circles of the Latin world. Whether he is composing music as a backup musician for another recording artist or with his Octet, a jazz quartet, or the group that has given him name recognition since the early ‘90s, Grupo los Santos, Paul Carlon is enamored with all music that possesses Latin soul rooted in dance, folk and jazz. He has visited such countries in Latin America as Brazil, Cuba, and Columbia and returned home to New York City with much more than a few exotic relics.
“Brazil is the place in Latin America where I've spent the most time,” he conveys. “Its people, culture, and music have had a huge impact on me in both a personal and creative sense. There's a feeling in Brazilian music, which of course reflects the people that you don't get from any other music anywhere in the world. That laid-back thing that comes out in bossa nova, or that incredible joy that comes across in samba or maracatu, or that profound quality of lament that you hear in some of the music of the Northeast like forro.
But he admits, “Cuba has probably influenced me more deeply in a musical sense because of the deep spirituality of the folkloric - Yoruban traditions. Plus, rumba is just so go(sh)damned funky! When Grupo los Santos went to Cuba, the first or second day we were there, we were at a festival of folkloric music and there were three groups playing. The first group was incredible. We asked who they were and were told, ‘Oh, just some guys from the neighborhood.’ The second group, Yoruba Andabo, was even better, though we were unfamiliar with them at the time. After Yoruba Andabo played, I thought it couldn't get any better, because they were just too good. But it was one of those situations where the energy just gets more and more intense, because the final group was Clave y Guaguancó, and when they started playing, I literally thought I was going to explode. It was the most intense musical experience I've ever had as an audience member. Being part of that progression of groups that day, each one rising to the challenge of taking the music to a little higher place.”
He cites, “Colombia is the place I probably know the least about out of these three, though I've become enamored of many of the styles of music there such as cumbia and porro. The Colombian people were beautiful and I had a great time there. I hope to return for a longer period of time.”
These melodic textures and rhythmic patterns have greatly influenced Carlon’s playing in Grupo los Santos, evident in the group’s latest disc Lo Que Somos Lo Que Sea, which was released on Deep Tone Records on January 2007. Carlon reveals about the making of the album, “In recording Lo Que Somos Lo Que Sea, we wanted to focus on our original material and to raise the band's profile to get the word out about our group in a way we hadn't done before. We all pretty much motivate each other in this group. Beaver (drummer – William Bausch) and I are doing the majority of the songwriting, but the music continues to be rewritten and reworked at rehearsals and gigs, and in the minivan on road tours,” he indicates, “so the creative process is very much an ongoing one.”
“For instance,” he specifies, “this past weekend we did a short trip to Vermont and Boston. The last tune we played on the last gig was ‘Weird Latin,’ one of my first attempts at writing a clave-based tune, and one we've been playing for years. Well, we did something on that last gig that had never happened before - we played the 4/4 and 6/8 versions of the song simultaneously, rather than switching back and forth for four or eight measures. That was wild enough, but on the ride back to New York, Sunday night, Pete (Smith - guitarist) and Dave (Ambrosio - bassist), who were sitting in the front seats of the van, started to mess with the song even more. Singing two or three or four measures in one feel, and then switching back and playing with the phrasing. I was dozing in the backseat, at one point I woke up, maybe an hour later, and heard them still at it, which they'd been doing nonstop! That's pretty much how we approach any material we're playing - as a collective effort.”
Grupo los Santos is a band whose members – Paul Carlon, William Bausch, Dave Ambrosio, and Pete Smith are linked by their love of music flavored with Latin fringes. Carlon discusses how Grupo los Santos formed. “I originally met Beaver and Pete, briefly, in Boston around 1989 or '90, at a jam session at a restaurant called the Lai Lai. The two of them have been tight for years since meeting at Oberlin in the mid 80's. After I moved to New York City in 1991, I ran into Beaver at a concert at the New School. This must have been in '92 or '93. He had just moved to the city. Beaver's been a really important factor energy-wise, in the development of los Santos. It was he who called me after our New School meeting, wanting to get together and play. It was Beaver who called me to play a gig at a place in Queens called, I think, the Village Gate. It was an old jazz club Coltrane and a lot of other greats had played back in the day. Beaver called me and Pete Smith for the gig and that was the start of our years of playing together.”
He adds, “Those two got me into bassist Phil Bowler's band, which was a great experience. Beaver, Pete and I have played in jazz groups, funk bands, rock groups, wedding bands, you name it, so we've got a lot of shared history together. Beaver's been into Latin music almost since the time I met him, and it was he who initially turned me and Pete onto a lot of great Latin groups and styles. So we went along playing together in various contexts, including my old quartet, until around '98 when Beaver got us a weekly gig at a place called El Taller Latinoamericano, a Spanish school and Latino cultural center on the Upper West Side.”
He explains, “‘El Taller’ means ‘the workshop’ in Spanish. We played there with various bassists but mainly with the original Santos bassist Nicholas Walker, for about a year or so. As time went on, we focused more and more on music from Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, etc., incorporating the American jazz styles we had grown up on into the mix.”
He tells, “We released our first CD, Noches en el Taller (Nights in the Workshop), in 2000. Dave Ambrosio came into the picture a little later…After playing with various new bassists, we settled on Dave as a replacement, and he has been with us ever since. Dave has been a very important force in the group. He's got a good head on his shoulders and is a very seasoned musician. He is able to navigate between laying down the fundamental bass role, which is so important to the music we play, and interacting with whatever's going on improvisationally. For the past few years, he's also been studying the Bata drum tradition and we've been incorporating his expertise with Bata into our live shows.”
He expresses, “We're basically a band that has developed a strong reputation in New York among musicians and fans, and that has done some touring and played a few festivals, but that has stayed mostly below the radar of the general jazz media.”
He notes, “Live audiences respond very well to Grupo los Santos. We have a lot of fun onstage. We're high energy but also dynamic and we like to involve the audience in what's going one. We take the music seriously, but we don't take ourselves too seriously and audiences love that. Lately, Beaver and Pete have been developing kind of a comedy routine with both of them having vocal mics. It's all very unplanned and comes out of their offbeat sense of humor. We're pretty much all completely out of our minds, so it's like a never-ending comedy show when we're together.”
Presently playing shows with Grupo los Santos, Carlon provides, “We've been playing mostly the new material lately, though we will mix in some older material depending on how the mood strikes us. We also like to keep some of the old Cuban standards in our repertoire, because we love playing them and I think also to show how important they've been to our evolution. Basically we've moved over the years from playing mostly son montuno, 2-3 clave-based material to mostly rumba and 6/8, 3-2 clave material.”
Performing in Grupo los Santos has given Paul Carlon the chance to use his creative energy as a saxophone player as well meeting a number of incredibly talented artists like Juan Pablo Torres. Carlon narrates how the group hooked up with Torres, “JP Torres heard us playing at El Taller and hired us pretty much on the spot to play with him. This was a heady time for us. We were playing with JP and working on our own material, and there was a real feeling of momentum in the group.”
He remembers, “Bernardo Palombo, who runs El Taller, was a friend of JP and had told him about us. I think JP was looking to meet American musicians who were into Cuban music and we were lucky enough to fit the bill. We then started working once a week with JP at a place called the Hard Grove Cafe in Jersey City. We also did some concerts with him including at Town Hall, which was a real high point for all of us as it was a concert of Cuban all stars. Andy Gonzalez, Horacio ‘El Negro’ Hernandez, Jose Fajardo, and Paquito Hechevarria.”
He gushes, “We were all a little shell shocked to be onstage with these giants. JP had chosen us to open the concert, as he wanted to show the breadth of Cuban music, so the pressure was on to represent ourselves well.”
He recollects, “JP then hired us to be on (his album) Together Again, which was another mind-blowing situation, again, a record of all stars. I mean, the horn section was Brian Lynch, Diego Urcola, Mario Rivera, Steve Turre, Robin Eubanks, Bob Stewart, the list goes on and on. El Negro was on it with Giovanni Hidalgo. Unbelievable! Two other huge names on the record - Arturo Sandoval and Chucho Valdes did not record in New York but in Miami and Havana, so we didn't get to meet them, but the experience of recording the CD was fantastic nonetheless.”
He touts, “Juan Pablo Torres was a master musician, one of the greatest I've known. He was I would say one of the top five trombonists in the world, in any genre, while he was alive, as well as being a tremendous arranger and a brilliant composer.”
He proclaims, “Working with JP was a constant creative challenge. He had tremendous musical ability, an unconquerable groove, and serious trombone chops. He liked to solo first when Grupo los Santos played with him, so I always had to follow him, which was tough because he played more on the trombone than I could play on the saxophone. And saxophonists are supposed to be able to play a lot of stuff! But he had the rare ability to get the audience involved and excited and shouting, without watering down the music any. So to follow that you had to come up with something.”
Grupo los Santos’ material did not go unnoticed as they were featured in Ivan Acosta's film Como se Forma una Rumba, which was shown at Lincoln Center in 2001. It’s a project, which Carlon is very proud to have been in, even though he did not learn about it until after the showing at Lincoln Center. “The presence of Grupo los Santos, and myself, in Ivan's film came out of our participation in JP Torres' Town Hall concert. The film is a documentary about various aspects of Cuban music. Ivan was one of the producers of the Town Hall concert and had the rehearsals and concert filmed. We didn't even know we were in the film until Pete Smith, Beaver, and Max Pollak went to Latin Beat 2001 at the Lincoln Center just because the Latin theme interested them. I was out of town at that point and missed it, but they told me later they were sitting there in the audience watching the film, and all of a sudden here comes Max on the screen and Pete says, ‘Hey Max, isn't that you?’ Then here comes Pete on the screen and Max says, ‘Hey Pete, isn't that you!’”
Torres may have given Grupo los Santos the chance to reach a wider audience, but tap-dancer Max Pollak has greatly enhanced the quartet’s live shows as Carlon philosophizes, “Well, Max was beamed down here from another planet to give the message of Rumba-tap to us poor ignorant mortals.”
He reminisces, “I met him, in his current incarnation, while playing in the house band for a tap jam session at the old Deanna's, a little place on 7th Street off of Avenue A in the East Village. This was around 1992 or '93. Max is one of my oldest and closest friends here in New York. We have performed together in countless circumstances, traveled together, even lived together at one point before he got married. Back then, Max hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of Latin music. He was doing strictly rhythm tap with the other great hoofers that were around then like Tamango and Roxane Butterfly. Jimmy Slyde would come by sometimes, and of course, the peerless Buster Brown would be hanging like a 19-year old.”
Carlon comments, “Buster was an incredible artist, and he would hang out late at night well into his 70's and 80's. ‘Beaver’ Bausch turned Max onto Latin material, as he has in various ways with all of the members of Grupo los Santos, and Max took it from there and reinvented himself, becoming the unique artist he is today. I remember during the time we lived together, Max was starting to work out some of his basic solutions to the problem of how does one play the roles of an entire Cuban rhythm section on one's body. And I remember, specifically, a duo gig we did at The Cooler, which was one of the first clubs to open in the meatpacking district. Max was playing a cowbell and dancing at the same time and started to sing as well. I thought he was going to start self-levitating! I was completely floored as I'd never seen him do that before, so after the gig I told him, ‘Max, what the f--- was that crazy sh*t you were doing?’ and he said, ‘I don't know, that's the first time that ever happened!’”
Carlon surmises, “Max adds a level of visual/rhythmic/body integration to the music that, like the work of a lot of innovators, I think has yet to be fully understood by the general listening audience. He's one in a million and having him there onstage with us just feels like the music is complete in all dimensions.”
To understand the musician whom Paul Carlon has become today, one must refer to the beginning stages of his life, when his biggest influences were his family. “Both of my brothers and my sister played instruments at one time or another and all were quite good at it. My brother Dave and sister Meg played in youth symphonies in Syracuse. My mother, Joan Carlon, is a visual artist, still very much active. Both my parents encouraged us to pursue our dreams, so that in itself, has been very important. Growing up with an artist in the house, I was always surrounded by my mother's paintings and drawings, so it seemed very normal. At a fairly young age I realized that she was like me, that there really was no separation between music and art, and that the way I thought, how my mind worked, was very similar to how hers worked in relation to the arts.”
“My first significant memory of music is more of hearing than of playing,” he responds. “I must have been in the 3rd grade and I heard a saxophone on the radio. I remember the sound being very mysterious. I wanted to know what it was about, to know how that sound was made and how I could make it.”
He recalls, “In the 4th grade, they only offered cello and violin lessons, so I started on cello, which my older sister played. I'm afraid I didn't much like it - carrying it on the school bus was a drag, and I was only doing it to be playing something. By the time the 5th grade rolled around I was interested in the trumpet, but the music teacher said my teeth weren't straight enough so I went with the saxophone. I still remember the first day I brought home the rental instrument they'd given me at school. I sat in my parent’s living room and played it and the sound was like the sound of unknown possibilities. I'll never forget how I felt that day. I try to reconnect with that feeling now, because it was the feeling of freedom.”
He claims, “I'm a combination of tutored and self-taught. My first important teacher was Joe Procopio, the music teacher in my public school from junior high through high school. Joe's an incredible musician, a child prodigy and multi-instrumentalist who played a helluv a lot of saxophone. I owe pretty much everything to Joe's encouragement and enthusiasm. He started me playing a little piano as well, and flute. I still think about things he taught me.”
One such lesson, he reflects, was learning to feel comfortable with improvising series. “I had to get used to improvisation. I started hearing this more in stage band and eventually was more or less thrown into it by Mr. Procopio, kind of a sink or swim situation. His main intent, I think, was to get us over the hump of being nervous about it. He wanted us to play by ear, to trust our instincts.”
Carlon acknowledges, “There weren't many opportunities in my small town to play jazz outside of school.”
His first exposure to rock-star fanaticism came while in high school, when he played in a band with his friends. “In high school, I started playing with some other guys from school. We put together a band, a rock band, in which I originally played saxophone and keyboards. Since we didn't have a lead singer I started covering the vocals during rehearsals, and by default, became our lead singer. We had a battle of the bands my senior year. This wasn't something that happened regularly, but was something I think initiated by the students as there were a couple of bands at that time. Most of what the band I was in did was classic rock covers. We entered the battle of the bands and won!” He glows.
He observes, “I think mostly because we played to the crowd, which was dominated by the girls in the senior class who had come out to cheer us on. I remember feeling high for several days after that. I had been performing by that time for three or four years, but had never felt that kind of rush. It was one of the things that really decided me on being a performer. We ended up gigging around with that band, mostly playing parties and school dances, but I left by the end of senior year because I wanted to play the saxophone, not be a lead singer, and I wanted to play music that was more suited to the sax.”
He resumes, “Later on, I studied with George Garzone and Bob Mintzer. In between I've figured it out like everyone else, through listening to my peers and through a lot of transcribing of solos and songs. Beyond high school and a couple of college courses, I pretty much avoided music schools until returning to City College in 2003 to do a Master's. I was very non-academic in how I learned music. I did study theory with my saxophone teachers and a little with guitarist Steve Brown, but mostly I've put the pieces together by doing and by sitting at the piano. When I came to New York in 1991, I spent one semester at Manhattan School of Music, but it was expensive and I felt that what I wanted to learn was going to come from the streets, not from an institution, so I left.”
He chronicles, “In the mid-90's I spent a lot of time hanging at the then newly opened Smalls in New York City. During a period of about a year and a half to two years, I'd go to the late-night jam sessions anywhere from two to four or five times a week. Staying up til 7 or 8 in the morning, hanging and listening to other musicians and generally getting the sh*t scared out of me by all the talent and energy happening there. I listened to older musicians who were playing there like Frank Hewitt, Jimmy Lovelace, Charles Davis, and Harry Whitaker. These were the older heads we all looked up to and still do! Frank Hewitt, an incredible piano player, had a regular gig at Small's with Lovelace, Ari Roland, and Charles Davis that I would go to every week for months on end because they were the masters of the language of bebop and of swing. Joe Magnarelli would be there a lot, and then there was the circle of younger musicians I was hanging with like James Hurt, Sherman Irby, Alvester Garnett, and Greg Tardy.”
He remarks, “These were all brilliant musicians from whom I learned a lot. James Hurt in particular, was someone who had a huge impact on me with his unorthodox harmonic sense and structure. I had a quartet at the time with Hurt, John Benitez and either Dana Murray or Alvester on drums. It was crazy because these guys were so good. I learned more about music, the real make-you-work-hard-and-sweat kind of learning, during that period of my life than at probably any other time. I also learned how to hang at competitive jam sessions and how to just do your own thing under pressure. It was like a crucible, and when you came out the other side you'd been changed by the experience.”
But after spending a few years in an apprenticeship role as a saxophonist in jazz clubs throughout New York City, he returned to school attending City College to further develop his musical talents. “Probably my most concentrated period of institutional study was at City College. It felt strange being in a music department after avoiding it for so long, and after having been out doing it as a professional musician in New York City for twelve years. What I learned there were methods, mostly of arranging and composition. I didn't go there expecting to be taught how to compose, that's something you carry within you, and I'd already been doing it for a long time at that point. But I did learn an enormous amount from two very important mentors: Mike Holober and David del Tredici. My lessons with Mike have been of singular importance to all the writing I've done for my Octet since studying with him.”
He asserts, “Studying with David (del Tredici) was incredibly intense. His teaching style is not for everyone. He's old school and will take it out of your hide if he thinks you're half-stepping. But he's absolutely brilliant, like a genius-level kind of cat, and I can't really put into words what I absorbed from him. It was that mind-opening. He would sit at the piano and extemporaneously come up with seven different possibilities for how you could deal with a musical idea, all of them extraordinary.”
Coming to New York City also gave Paul Carlon the impetus to try his hand at composing original material. “I had written some blues heads and tunes based on ‘I Got Rhythm’ when I was in my early twenties, but it wasn't until after I came to New York City a couple of years later that I really started to try to write more original song forms. The first one, I remember really feeling was something more individual was a song called ‘Rain for Wayne’ that I wrote in around 1993 for a demo tape. I can't really say what the initial inspiration was for writing my own music. It seems odd considering how important composing is to me now, but I don't remember it being a really pressing urge.”
He intones, “When I was younger, I never considered wanting to compose. I wanted to be a tenor player and that was it. The whole thing just kind of steadily built on itself over the years as I began to write for my quartet, then for Phil Bowler's group, then for Grupo los Santos. It's really only been in the last eight or nine years that I came to realize how much of an important part of my life composing is.”
“The inspiration,” he claims, “I think is pretty much the same now as it's been all along. The ideas just come from somewhere else, maybe connected to something inside of me, but basically they just spring into my head and I try to write them down. I don't question it, and there's no judgment on it until maybe later on when it starts to take a more finished form. That's for the original material, when I get inspired to write an arrangement of someone else's song. It's usually because the song calls to me in some insistent way, captures my imagination and makes me want to get inside of it and understand why.”
“With writing,” he admits, “I don't keep to a specific schedule. The problem really is finding time to finish whatever projects or compositions I'm working on, which generally means more than one at any given time. Occasionally, if I haven't been writing for a while, I'll start something on the piano just to be writing, but that hasn't been an issue for a few years now. But I would recommend it as a good method for developing one's writing skills, because it's all about being able to accurately transmit what you're hearing to other musicians. And the more you do it, the better you'll be at it.”
He relates, “For me the process of writing is a bit like being in a fever - it's cathartic and intense and it's hard for me to rest until a piece or section of a piece is finished. When inspiration hits, I generally don't think about harmony at all, or whether something fits or not. I just try to hear as clearly as possible whatever's in my mind, so that I can sit down at the piano and work it out.”
He examines, “My practice routine is based on rudiments and fundamentals. For instance, I always start with long tones, just playing every note on the horn and holding it, sometimes playing in fourths or half steps or whatever I'm into at that moment. But always playing long tones because it's the only way to get the depth of sound I'm after. That's my foundation. I also focus on playing the overtone series, intonation, and articulation. Lately, I've also been returning to transcribing solos, after not doing it for a long time. I usually spend a certain amount of time playing in front of a mirror so that I can check my embouchure, see whether it's moving, etc.”
He imparts, “I've been into yoga for quite a while and before that had studied in particular the science of yogic breathing, so my whole breathing approach comes out of that. Mainly it's about deep breathing and being aware of your breath.”
Learning yogic breathing must be working wonders for Paul Carlon because he is not only playing the saxophone for Grupo los Santos, but additionally for the Paul Carlon Octet. The Octet began as a side project that has taken a life of its own after having released the group’s debut CD Other Tongues a few years back. Carlon explains how the project began. “I had been hearing more orchestral-type things in my head for a while but lacked an outlet for them. Around 2000 or 2001 my mother was working on a multi-media piece called ‘Where is Home,’ based on themes of forced immigration and what happens to people's lives when they are forced to leave their home countries and come to the U.S. for economic, political or personal reasons. She wanted to have a kind of soundtrack for the piece which would be played in the background when the piece was being exhibited, and asked me to write something for it. I got a group together and recorded the ‘Where is Home’ suite, and that was the beginning of my Octet.”
He elates, “Eventually we put on a couple of live performances of the piece, incorporating music, the dance of Max Pollak, and my mother's tapestry-like visual art pieces. We did this at El Taller in NYC and at a gallery called the Delevan Center in Syracuse. At the same time I was booking gigs for the band to do its own thing at various venues in New York. Initially, I was adapting pieces I'd already written for other groups, but I soon began to hear new ideas written with the Octet in mind and it went from there.”
“It's kind of a running joke now,” he revels, “the Octet is rarely just eight people anymore, because I've usually got a vocalist and often Max as well on the live shows. The idea to have a vocalist began with the ‘Where is Home’ suite, where I've got one piece that's written for wordless vocal. This is a format I'm particularly fascinated with. Ileana Santamaria was a featured vocalist with the group for a couple of years. During the time, I was also Musical Director for her group. In 2007, I started working with vocalist Christelle Durandy, who will be on our upcoming CD. She's a relatively recent arrival to New York and is just fabulous. I'm very happy to have her in the group.”
He supplies, “Other Tongues is our first album. I'd been wanting to record the group for a while, and getting this first CD out there was really an amazing experience, and a learning experience since I'm doing it independently. I love having a group this size play my music and I love being on the road with these guys. They really are a phenomenally talented bunch! Everyone in the group is also very much a team player and contributes in myriad ways, large and small, to keeping the project as a whole functional. But the scheduling hassles can be a nightmare with so many in-demand players!”
Surprisingly, Paul Carlon is pressing forward with his Octet investing in more recording time with the group for an upcoming album that is due out in the summer of 2008. He admits, “I don't want to say too much because I'm afraid of jinxing it, but things so far have been turning out quite well in the run-up to the recording in March. Running a band this size you've got to take the ever-present setbacks and scheduling conflicts in stride, and it can get frustrating. What's been great about this time around is that we had two road trips in 2007. And have two more coming up so far in 2008. And we've been able to play the music on the road and work out the kinks, make the music real and get our heads out of the charts. So a lot of great things are happening music-wise, and the band's feeling very relaxed about it all.”
When discussing the differences between the Paul Carlon Octet and Grupo los Santos’ compositions, Carlon proclaims, “I would describe the Octet's music as looking at roots music through a jazz lens, or sometimes an orchestral jazz lens.” He then remarks, “With Grupo los Santos, I would also say we are looking at roots music through a jazz lens.”
He expands about Grupo los Santos, “But the fact that we've been together for ten years, and that before even that, Pete Smith, Beaver Bausch, and I played in various jazz, funk, and wedding bands for about five or six years, means that we've got a level of group interaction that feels very natural from the inside. Things can change in a heartbeat when we're playing onstage if someone gets a new idea, plays it and the rest of us just seem to coalesce around it and build it into an instant new arrangement. To us, it's very natural and intuitive and basically is just the way we like to play and to talk to each other onstage, and to have fun. Half the time what sounds like mind-reading is just us making a mess of the music and playing through it and recovering anyway! There is an enormous amount of trust in the band, which means everyone can take a lot of chances and not worry about crushing the groove.”
For his final analysis, he concludes, “So I'd say that basically the difference between the Octet and Grupo los Santos is that the Octet is my baby, a project that I tend to act somewhat like a shepherd with in terms of watching over the flock, while Grupo los Santos is a collective of four musicians who all bring different elements to the mix. We make all the decisions together and no one tries to direct the music too much or control what path it might take.”
Though Grupo los Santos allows Carlon to use his improvisational skills and abilities to interact with fellow musicians, The Octet furnishes Carlon with the opportunity to compose music that pays homage to musicians whom he greatly admires. “I've got an arrangement of Skip James' ‘Hard Times Killing Floor Blues,’ in which I attempted to capture the spirit of the original vocal recording, the beauty and truth of the sound of James' voice in a Mingus-like, funky and loose horn statement. When I bring a piece of new music to the group, I essentially press play. From that point on, I want the group to interpret, suggest, even change parts sometimes, because a lot of times these guys know better than I do, how to phrase a certain passage or emphasize certain dynamics. I write all the music for the group, but it's the entire band that does the playing. I'm also consciously trying to develop a group where I can write for individual personalities rather than instruments, in the vein of Ellington.”
Carlon’s life is so focused on making music that his constant work on projects has become a way to keep away his fears of falling to the wayside. “I would say that my biggest challenge, from time to time, has been staying in it. Meaning, dealing with the self-doubt that is part of the artistic process of struggle and life. I'm definitely feeling good these days about what's happening for me, but there have been long stretches of time, for instance, most of my 20's, when I was in a way grimly determined to keep going, but feeling a real lack of professional accomplishment and encouragement from the business side of music. Of course how you see yourself has a lot to do with how happy you are doing what you're doing, and I suppose I wasn't helping myself much back in those days in this regard. Trying to be happy every day, to balance the call of one's inner voice with the realities of making a living, is an enormous challenge.”
But Carlon has found enjoyment aside from playing music. “I tend to be obsessive and a workaholic, but more and more I'm reconnecting with things I used to like to do when I was younger that fell by the wayside for one reason or another. I've always enjoyed reading. It could be science fiction if I don't want something heavy, or some kind of deep literature or, lately, history. I also love film and going out in New York to eat or hang with friends. I also love being outdoors. I grew up in a rural spot, and spent a lot of time in the woods, so the desire to be outside never leaves me, though that kind of experience is difficult in New York City.”
One of his favorite pastimes from youth was simply sitting back and listening to music. This has allowed him to look over Latin music’s progression over time and reflect, “Latin music has changed enormously over the years and continues to evolve. ‘Latin’ music of course is a very general term. I tend to think more in terms of the music of specific countries like Cuba, Brazil, Columbia, or Peru. There are incredible things happening in music from Latin America. Musicians, of course, continue to come to New York from everywhere and there are various Latinos here who are doing amazing things like Pedrito Martinez, Yosvany Terry, and Dafnis Prieto. There's also a group of Colombian musicians here who are among the best and brightest of contemporary musicians including two absolutely brilliant minds - Samuel Torres and Edmar Castaneda. Hector Martignon is another Colombian who's making waves. He's been here a bit longer than the other two.”
He purports, “The folkloric music of many of these countries continues to be a source of inspiration for new developments. A good example is the innovation of the timba style in Cuban music. Timba incorporates more of the flavor of the rumba bands than some earlier styles, and the impact of the way the style has revolutionized the role of the bass. The interweaving of the montuno and percussion elements has, I think, yet to be fully disseminated or understood here in the U.S.”
“In terms of compositions,” he comments, “there are things that are timeless such as the work of Pixinguinha or Tom Jobim or Ernesto Lecuona. Some things I hear might sound more characteristic of a certain era. It all depends on what the arranger, composer or producer was focusing on when the recording was made. If they are looking mainly to sell records, for me, there's often more of a chance of the music sounding dated. On the other hand, some music has it all like with Stevie Wonder or Lenine or Djavan.”
Carlon’s stylistics and Latin flavoring has given him the impetus to go where Latin music is played. “I can't really speak for Europe,” he point outs, “but here in the U.S. the main cities for the kind of Latin music I'm into are New York, San Francisco, and Miami. New York is the historical center of Latin music in the U.S., but San Francisco at this point has a much more active scene in Cuban music and has a large Cuban population. Many Cuban musicians also live in Miami. It's one of the places they tend to gravitate towards if they leave Cuba and is similar in climate, but the culture in Miami is of course very different than here in New York. Plus, New York has so many musicians from all over the world so it has a broader talent base in general.”
Paul Carlon’s personality shows himself to be a model pupil, conductor, inventive musician, and true friend to his friends. Balancing all sides to his character has proven to be a challenge, but somehow playing in Grupo los Santos and coordinating his Octet enables him to manage all of these facets with equal time spent on each one.
For more information: www.paulcarlonmusic.com/live/
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