A Conversation with The Rippingtons’ Russ Freeman – HuffPost 7.11.14
Mike Ragogna: Russ, you recorded your new album Fountain Of Youth with vintage equipment. Why?
Russ Freeman: I’m always looking for textures to feature and try to get a sonic reality, a sonic palette. In constructing the sonic palette I came across the idea: I have such a great guitar collection and I just kind of pick and choose what’s needed for the color at the moment, that’s always been my approach, but I somehow got in front of it. Through my travels I picked up some interesting instruments and started playing some other string instruments and started thinking, “What if I started featuring all these things?” At the time I I didn’t really know how all the instruments would blend in terms of creating a real point-source focus but I was really pleased when I started recording with instruments like the ukulele, that are typically used for other things. Or pedal steel, all of these beautiful instruments I have, I’m just really happy with how they sonically blended together.
MR: Were there any instruments that spoke to you more than others?
RF: Yeah, I was really surprised by the two I just mentioned. The ukulele, I had no idea how useful of an instrument that is. It’s a melody instrument. And I actually learned how to use the pedal steel, I’ve got a ten-string version, there’s also a twelve-string version and it’s a completely different kind of instrument than I’ve ever played, but I’ve always heard it and always loved the sound of it. I’m just really pleased by how I was able to blend that in. Of course they’re all great, you fall in love with these instruments and as they age — some of them have been with me thirty or forty years — you just kind of fall in love with them all over again.
MR: It seems that this album expanded on The Rippington’s sound. Did you predict that would happen as you added these layers?
RF: I didn’t know how it was going to work. Actually, I was concerned that as you add all of these things together you never know what the mix is going to be. It’s like a recipe of food, you can add the wrong spices or overpower with one flavor or another. I just went with my instincts, really, and tried to use the right instrument at the right time.
MR: One of the instruments you used is the bağlama, the sitar-like instrument on “Rivers Of Gold.” It makes the piece seem like it’s world music.
RF: Oh absolutely. I picked that instrument up in Istanbul. My wife and I spent months travelling. There’s an entire street in Istanbul that’s just lined with instrument shops that feature all their hand-carved instruments. It’s something you don’t really see in our country anymore, you know? They’re still featuring these ethnic instruments from their cultures. I thought that was really cool, so I picked one up. It was harder to play than I thought it would be. It’s not a very huge instrument but it’s oddly shaped and it has seven strings. It was great, I just loved the challenge of trying to incorporate that completely different cultural sound into our music. I think that’s always a challenge as we try to cross-breed these influences, and that’s what makes it so interesting.
MR: And you’re also cross-breeding genres, like what happened when you added the pedal steel on “Sun King” and “Rivers Of Gold.”
RF: It’s funny, I can’t really take credit for being the first to use that, David Gilmour artfully used the pedal steel throughout his work. It’s typically known as an instrument that’s in country music, but it’s an incredibly useful and beautiful-sounding instrument, so kudos to him for having used that in rock in a very memorable way. I was inspired by his idea to say, “Maybe I can take the pedal steel outside of its normal vocabulary and try to put it into Rippingtons-land.”
MR: Did the instruments inspire the composition and the arrangements or was it vice versa?
RF: It’s triggered with the visual references. I always come up with a concept first; it really helps me to visualize a concept, Fountain Of Youth for me specifically. I created a painting, the artwork on the CD, that could help me visualize. All the sounds and all the instruments and all the melodies spring from an original idea. That seems to be the way I work the best.
MR: Did any of these instruments then effect the arrangements? Did you have to change anything up to fit the sonics or the vibe of the vintage instrument?
RF: I’ll give you an example. You were talking about the bağlama; I started playing it and I had seen how the instrument was approached by Turkish players, it’s all very interpretive to tuning, so I tuned it up and started playing it and got a vibe going. Then I had played some other guitars that were electric, so to answer your question they just happened to be playing at the same time on the track and I said, “Wow, these actually sound cool together.” I hadn’t had the idea to do it that way, I was going to isolate one and then go into another, but I started playing them at the same time and I said, “Wow, this is different.” So I kept that arrangement. Sometimes happy accidents occur. They’re mash-ups, really.
MR: Is this a possible future path for The Rippingtons?
RF: It’s funny you should ask that. I think the band is so well known for its saxophone melodies that when you look back through our catalog I can only count maybe one or two or maybe three instruments where the guitar carried the melody all the way throughout. I’ve always shared it with saxophone and shared it with different instruments. That’s another reason I felt like, “Hey, it’s really time to feature guitar.” I’ve got such a huge arsenal of great sounds. I don’t know if people realize but back before, I did a lot of guitar synthesizer and that had, in the early years, a great influence, too. I kind of abandoned that when the band started touring and we just had these great musicians in the band. I really love having all of these palettes of color available. To me, that’s what they are.
MR: Are there any duet albums or solo material from Russ coming down the pike?
RF: Good question, I’m not sure! I know that the duets are really popular. Fans love seeing the interaction between artists, and we all do. It’s really fun to do those records because you get in the head of somebody else and see how they like to work, and it’s fun to write together. I’ve always really enjoyed doing those. I hope the opportunity comes up to do some more.
MR: Who reaches out to whom when it’s you and David Benoit for instance?
RF: We always reach out to each other, and it’s just really if the opportunity arises, primarily with the labels and scheduling and all the other exterior influences. But I think if you got us in a room we’d both jump at the chance.
MR: Ever consider doing an album loaded with guests?
RF: Not really because I feel like all The Rippingtons are so self-contained. That’s kind of how they group was devised. They are guests. It’s funny, I love having these guys who became my friends, like David Benoit. He was a guest at first and then we started working together in a duet capacity. You never know.
MR: Are you one of those guys who’s constantly in creative mode?
RF: I would say yeah. I’m always trying to grow and learn new things. I think it’s fascinating. That’s what’s great about music, you have to always keep learning.
MR: Jazz has been this fluid conversation that’s always growing and changing. With the integration of R&B and more electronic elements, when someone says the word “jazz” to you these days, what does it mean?
RF: That’s a good question. It’s a really timely question, too, because you mentioned it in the backdrop of the history of the music and yet the future is going to probably have to address technology. That’s another fascinating influence; how we’re using the technology. Really I think it’s all going to come down to elevating vocabulary and combining the musicians. I don’t know the total answer but I do know that I think jazz is going to be influenced by the technology of the future. I guess I should clarify that by saying that one of the great things about technology has been the ability to discover new music, and that’s kind of what I meant by that. Musicians will discover working together and discover other cultural aspects of music. That’s fascinating. We wouldn’t have had that opportunity twenty or thirty years ago, but now we can hear music from all over the world very easily.
MR: The Rippingtons came in a wave with Incognito and Yellowjackets, and it seems like you all benefitted from that surge of “new jazz.” Do you see another jazz wave coming?
RF: I just think that as new artists are coming on the scene, EDM is influencing quite a bit of music. I know that seems like a non-sequiter, but in terms of what I’m seeing and in terms of culture I think that’s kind of what’s happening, and it’s kind of a different vocabulary and we’re not used to that, the instrumentation is different. I don’t know how to specifically answer the chronology of what you’re saying but I think that as new artists appear we’re going to be influenced by their surroundings and their culture. Does that make sense?
MR: Sure and that leads us to my traditional question. What advice do you have for new artists?
RF: My nephew is a really good guitar player and aspiring musician and I see that it’s difficult in this environment although there are new opportunities we never had. But what he’s doing is multimedia and to branch out into new ways would be my best advice.
MR: Does Fountain Of Youth make you…watch this…feel young?
RF: I’m so pleased with it, Mike. I’m just really happy with the way it came out. Every album is a painting where you try to get as close to your vision as possible, and I feel like this is pretty close. So yeah, I feel young again.
MR: What do you think is in The Rippingtons’ future?
RF: I’ve never known the answer to that, and maybe that has been the secret to our longevity: To not have a preconceived idea of what’s next. I know it sounds odd to say that after this amount of time, but I feel like the best thing to do is be open to whatever the correct path would be, so I don’t know.
MR: What do you think is the Rippington’s place in jazz music?
RF: That’s a perception best left to the fans. It’s kind of up to them how the public perceives us. Probably the way they look at us would be different to how I look at my contribution. I always look at it like what I was giving was composition. I’ve focused the most on compositions themselves, not really on the personnel and the band and all that kind of thing. To me, that’s been secondary to trying to create music that I felt would last and would be more compelling. I learned early on that the time-proven instruments are the ones that won’t go away and won’t be out of style in a few years. I’ve really tried to write with those instruments, and those include string instruments, piano, the real instruments. I really try to feature that. That’s another reason why I was trying to make almost a diary of my favorite instruments and try and play them as well as I could.
Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne