by Luke Stewart
Editorial board

Over the course of the next few months, Transparent Productions will host a number of cutting-edge performances at Bohemian Caverns, all of which will comprise the winter/spring season of its ongoing “Sundays at 7 at the Caverns” series.

This Sunday, Feb. 19, features a show from saxophonist Tim Berne, who in recent decades has been a trailblazer on New York’s downtown scene – along with Andrea Parkins (who kicked off the Transparent season last Sunday), John Zorn and others. Berne is known equally for his compositional prowess and his deft instrumental mastery. On saxophone, he can be laconic and dark, or cutting and quick as tumbling rocks. Whether as a sideman or as a leader, Berne is always in the company of some of the world’s finest improvisers, from the legendary saxophonist Julius Hemphill to contemporary heavyweights like bassist Michael Formanek and pianist Craig Taborn. Berne also is a strong manager, founding two of his own labels – one while he was still in his 20s, only a few years after starting to play music.

Joining Berne on Sunday is his new ensemble, Snakeoil, a bass-less quartet that features still other prominent figures in the international creative music community. The band’s sound is open, with intricate compositions centered on interesting, polyrhythmic passages of improvisation. Multi-reedist Oscar Noriega is a respected improviser in New York City; Matt Mitchell is making a name for himself as a go-to pianist with a great sensitivity for improvisation and composition; and drummer Ches Smith is known as one of the most versatile musicians on the scene.

Berne himself has emerged as simply one of the most celebrated and respected creative musicians in the world, and these days he keeps an insanely busy schedule. Still, he found the time recently to speak to me about his musical development, and the New York scene. Here’s what he had to say.

CapitalBop: Tell us a bit about yourself, and your background as a musician.

Tim Berne: I’m Tim Berne, I play saxophone.

I started playing when I was 19 or 20. I was in college in Oregon when I sort of happened onto an alto saxophone and started messing around with it, then I came to New York. The first lessons I ever took were with Anthony Braxton. I took three lessons. Then I switched over to Julius Hemphill when Anthony became very busy. I studied with Julius formally and informally for several years. We became good friends and I was with him quite a bit.

I was a stone beginner when I started with Anthony and Julius. Before that, I was listening to quite a bit of their music, and a lot of other music. Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson. I was in to McCoy Tyner’s groups. And I was lucky enough to see all these bands play in the early ’70s in upstate New York. So I was really into the music, and playing the saxophone wasn’t a huge stretch. I was an avid fan. Both Braxton and Julius were really important to me, so I figured that the only way I was going to stick with it was to take lessons. So those guys popped into my head….

I met Braxton briefly, and he actually wrote me a letter. We had a tiny little relationship. Braxton gave me Julius’ number. I thought Julius was living out West, so when I found out he was in Brooklyn, that was great. I also took lessons from others over the years – studying with Les Scott, who was from St. Louis and taught people like Oliver Lake and was also in the New York Philharmonic part-time. I studied with Jimmy Giuffre when I was at NYU, so there was a lot of different stuff going on the first four or five years.

CB: How did you learn the fundamentals of the instrument, studying with all these players who were already so advanced?

TB: I went in there backwards. The one thing that Julius drove home was the importance of your tone, so I would spend an hour a day on long tones, and that’s a pretty fundamental thing. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing bebop or anything, that’s the core. So I was really lucky that that happened to me right at the beginning.

I started writing music almost the first year I started playing, just by being naïve. Julius was quite supportive, never said you can’t do it or don’t do it. Even Giuffre to a certain extent was surprised that I was writing music. So I had a certain knack to some things. Then the real traditional stuff, it took me a while to get my head around it. Not because I wasn’t interested; it was just a real alien concept to me, how to learn that. I listened to it all the time, I heard all these guys like Sonny Rollins play live. I was a real fan of all kinds of music, so it wasn’t like I was segregated in my listening. It just so happened that when I started playing, these were the guys I studied with.

Braxton was very traditional in what he was teaching me. It wasn’t like they were saying, “Yeah, man, play that free shit.” Those guys could play anything. It’s just kind of a place to start; and gradually as I started playing with more people, as I became a sideman, I started learning all these other things and fitting that in.

CB: Just as you were rising on the New York scene, Wynton and Branford Marsalis came about and started to reassert the importance of so-called traditional jazz. How did you view them and their message?

TB: I didn’t notice it. Obviously, I was aware of the Marsalis thing because there was so much press about it, but it was more like gossip. For me, I haven’t really met too many musicians I didn’t get along with, from whatever school…. I think good musicians recognize good music, and the really serious musicians don’t really care what the school is.

Some of that’s just protecting your turf, or being a little bit bitter because you don’t have a lot of work, so you take it out on somebody else. But face to face, I don’t notice a lot of that stuff, and I didn’t then. But obviously I wasn’t bumping into Wynton. I did know Branford a bit. So some of that is exaggerated. A lot of people I play with – like Michael Formanek, who I’ve been playing with for 20 or 30 years, Tom Rainey – these guys have done thousands of jazz gigs. Formanek played with Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, you name it. And these are the people I play with all the time. There aren’t that many good musicians who separate these things the way that people think they do.

And New York I find to be a really friendly place, in terms of the music scene – like, excessively friendly. I have a lot of European musician friends who come over here and they’re shocked at how cool it is compared to where they come from. I know that there’s stuff that’s written about, but I’m pretty confident that I could get along with any of those guys. We may not agree on what we like musically, but we’re all serious about it and that’s all that matters. I might be naïve about it, but there’s not really a whole lot to fight over. There’s a few people making a lot of money and the rest are sort of downstairs somewhere. So if you’re doing it for the money maybe then you’re bitter and so forth. If you’re just into music, I don’t really see that stuff being an issue.

I don’t know why there was so much press about it. I guess because somebody young came in to town and was successful quite quickly. But I’m not trying to be Wynton Marsalis, I’m not trying to play at Lincoln Center, so it’s not that relevant to me. I’m not trying to play at Carnegie Hall. I like playing in clubs. I understand what my position is musically. I’m not trying to please everyone. I’m aware that some people think this music is weird. It’s a little disappointing that it gets classified. There are some narrow classifications that are pretty misleading. Other than that, that world is pretty alien to me, and I’m not even sure I want to be in that world. So he can have it.

I’m sure if I was sitting around in my 50s back in the ’80s – like some of those guys who weren’t that successful but who were quite brilliant – yeah, I would be pissed too, probably. It does get magnified, though. I remember doing interviews over in England, and people are like, “What do you think of M-BASE, what do you think of Wynton, what do you think of John Zorn?” Trying to start some shit where it doesn’t really exist because you aren’t over here. You aren’t in the middle of it. Then you go to these festivals and you see the camaraderie and you see people hanging out. I met all kinds of people who are legends to me, and they’re just like normal people. They’re like, “Oh yeah, that was cool,” or “I’m not sure about that.” But not evil about it most of the time.

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Transparent Productions’ winter/spring season will include the following performances:

• Tim Berne’s Snakeoil – Feb. 19
• The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble – Feb. 23 (note: special Thursday show)
• Eri Yamamoto Trio – March 18
• Bill Cole’s Untempered Ensemble – April 1
• Jason Hwang / Edge – April 22
• Darius Jones Piano Quartet – May 20

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