Earl Klugh Before This He Wasn’T Playing Much More Than Six Instrument.” and He Was Right
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ISSUE #32 MMUSICMAG.COM ISSUE #32 MMUSICMAG.COM MUSICIAN Feel like a one-man band playing solo? on Bonanza—not the theme music but the ESSENTIAL KLUGH That’s exactly it. I started doing that after I Spanish guitar. I looked at that and said, graduated high school, while I was playing “This is something different.” in lounges and clubs around Detroit. During Finger Paintings, 1978 my earlier years I got a Bill Evans album, and Chet Atkins was your main influence. Klugh came into his own that really opened my eyes. I said, “He’s When I first heard Chet’s records it was on this early session doing pretty much the same thing I’m doing eye-opening. Chet was an artist who was released on Blue Note except on piano.” I had a chance before he very versatile, and an amazing player. He Records. Fusion-lite, it died to have a conversation with him. was really fun to watch and learn from. I features several notable must have bought a dozen Chet Atkins contributors—Lee Ritenour, Dave Grusin—and, How do you transpose to guitar? albums over the summer one year, and I’d while characteristically sweet and silky, it’s a In my mind I visualize it as left hand and stay in the house and practice. I was only a tad more aggressive and experimental than right hand. Of course it’s really not that, but fair student in school so I figured I’d better Klugh’s later output. it’s what I’m trying to do. It’s interesting to find something to excel at. When I met Chet me because there are not that many notes he was amazed that I was playing a nylon- One on One, 1979 there at all. I only have a six-note instrument, string guitar exclusively—but he encouraged Those who weren’t aware but when I started listening to Bill Evans, me in that direction. He said, “That’s your of Earl Klugh before this he wasn’t playing much more than six instrument.” And he was right. Chet was million-selling album soon notes at any given time—probably less. If always guarded about what he would say, discovered his skills as he you understand the harmony of the song, but when we’d get together, I always learned teamed with like-minded it will sound like more—you’ll have a bass something from him. keyboardist Bob James for the first of two collaborations. A consummate smooth jazz What’d you learn from George Benson? effort, it also boasts impeccable bass playing We were on the road for real. We had a from Ron Carter and spot-on drumming by ‘I love the drum kit in the back seat, an electric bass, Harvey Mason. a keyboard and guitars—all in the car. We emotions music were playing small but nice places. It was Collaboration, 1987 a whole different era back then—I’m talking When Klugh was starting T anner Photography about the early 1970s. I learned a lot during out in the early ’70s, evokes, and the those years, mainly things outside of music. George Benson mentored After 1973, I left George’s band and started him and took him on the stories it tells.’ playing with [pianist] George Shearing. His road. But until this pairing guitar player fell out, and I showed up with they’d never recorded together as equals. note or two, high notes, and you can create my nylon-string. George [who was blind] Although the electronic percussion and keys a lot more than you think. After I got into was listening to me and said, “Earl, what sound dated and bleed some of the warmth, that mode, it took me several years before is that you’re playing?” I said, “It’s a guitar.” there are still plenty of sparks between the EARL KLUGH I felt comfortable with what I was doing. He said, “What kind of guitar?” I said, “It’s two musicians. Sometimes it gets a little complicated. a classical guitar.” He said, “Oh, really. Well, Going it alone with an inventive take on the music he loves keep playing.” Solo Guitar, 1989 How do you arrange cover songs? On the first and arguably By Jeff Tamarkin I never know going in how I’m going to play How’d you develop your own style? best of his solo guitar it. I just try to remember how the original I started really dissecting the guitar, trying releases, Klugh turned EARL KLUGH HAS WORKED IN MANY FORMATS IN MORE dynamic touch and keen sense of arrangement to each number, still recorded song went, how they broke it to emulate Bill Evans with my bass notes to the Great American than four decades, playing in duos, trios, even with orchestras, fine-tuning the holistic approach that he traces back to his teens, down. Sometimes I’ll follow that path, and and my clusters. Over time you get very Songbook, applying his but he always returns to the solo album. Alone with his acoustic when he got his start accompanying jazz pros like saxophonist Yusef sometimes I’ll change it completely. There comfortable and try to find different ways cultured counterpoint to such cornerstone guitar is how the jazz master feels he can best express himself. Lateef and guitarist George Benson. “I love the emotions music are some songs I really enjoy, and want to to play the same thing, and that is sometimes tunes as “The Way You Look Tonight” and “There’s a definite focus on the instrument itself,” he says. “I’ve evokes, and the stories it tells,” says Klugh, 60. “No matter the genre come up with interesting arrangements. So I a lesson by itself. I’d play a song and say, “Someday My Prince Will Come.” Klugh adapted my playing so that I play bass, chords and melody, in or style, I can always find something to enjoy.” start with the actual tune and start modifying “That sounds good. Now let me play it embraces and explores these familiar melodies, that order. I enjoy a challenge, and it’s a real challenge when you Klugh has since recorded more than 30 albums, including it. Then I figure out whether it’s going to another way. Now let me play it in this key.” offering them a new freshness. play contrapuntal stuff. But I’m one of those players who wants to 23 Top 10s—with five landing in the top spot on Billboard’s Jazz be a standard delivery of a piece or if I’m I would spend hour after hour doing that. You hear the whole guitar.” Album chart. He’s also earned 12 Grammy nominations, and a win going to take liberties in the melody. Some have to be pretty devoted. I think I found my The Best of Earl Klugh, Klugh showcases his solo skills on his latest effort, HandPicked, for 1979’s platinum-selling breakout album One on One with Bob songs I strip down all the way, like “Cast sound by the time I did my [1978’s] Finger 1998 save for appearances from three high-profile guests: Bill Frisell, Vince James. The Detroit native is always busy on the road, including Your Fate to the Wind.” But it works by itself Paintings, and then [1979’s] Heart String Klugh spent much of Gill and Jake Shimabukuro. Klugh takes on material as diverse as the special events such as when Eric Clapton taps him—as he has three because the melody is so gorgeous. To me, was the one that really took off. I started the 1980s and ’90s Beatles’ “If I Fell,” Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight,” and Vince times so far—for his Crossroads Guitar Festival, or when Klugh takes it’s more challenging to do an arrangement making a career for myself. recording for Warner Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” as well as four of his own on hosting duties each November for the popular Weekend of Jazz of someone else’s song. Bros., and he produced new compositions. Klugh brings his distinctive clear-as-a-bell tone, event on South Carolina’s Kiawah Island. How did One on One come about? more than enough for a top-notch Why play nylon-string acoustic guitars? I was opening for Bob James for about three compilation. This generous 15-track sampler I always liked the sound of the classical weeks, and after a couple of nights we got provides a fine cross section of stylings ‘What I’m really looking for now is a way to find new guitar. I know it sounds silly now but years done early and were hanging out. Bob had preferred by Klugh, tilted heavily toward his avenues, to put different genres together.’ ago the first guitar music I ever heard was the idea of playing some songs together. original compositions. 60 61 M mag 32.indd 60 1/13/14 3:53 PM M mag 32.indd 61 1/12/14 10:01 PM ISSUE #32 MMUSICMAG.COM ISSUE #32 MMUSICMAG.COM MUSICIAN Barry Brecheisen/WireImage At the 2010 Crossroads Guitar Festival, Bridgeview, Ill. ‘I’d play a song and say, “That sounds TOOLS OF THE TRADE good. Now let me play it another way.”’ Earl Klugh plays one kind of guitar—the nylon-string acoustic—but owns a lot of That’s how it happened. He was playing some What do fans not know? them.