Edgar Meyer

Edgar Meyer

MULTI-TRACK EDGAR MEYER

The Ultimate Collaborator Overdubs a One-Man Band
To grasp the range of composer and bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer, just list the musicians he's performed with. From banjo whiz Béla Fleck and dobro legend Jerry Douglas to classical luminaries like Yo-Yo Ma and Joshua Bell, Meyer has friends across the musical map. What makes his latest album unusual is not that it's a solo effort featuring his own compositions -- he's recorded Bach's cello suites on his bass before, and CDs of his scores have been released by musicians such as Hilary Hahn and the Emerson String Quartet. But on this self-titled album he collaborates only with himself, composing and performing all the parts and mixing them together using the technique of digital overdubbing. It's not just the bass that he plays, however. Meyer gathered a clutch of instruments including piano, banjo, and mandolin -- tallying 277 strings in all -- in his home studio, where he made the album. With sources as diverse as Bill Evans and Stevie Wonder to cite as inspiration, plus his own unique blend of bluegrass, jazz, and classical influences, the result adds up to some remarkable listening. Barnes & Noble.com's EJ Johnson reached Meyer by phone while he was in New York City to talk about his new CD, his life-long passion for the piano, and more.

Barnes & Noble.com: Let's start with the basics: Exactly which instruments do you play on this record? I lost count reading your liner notes.

Edgar Meyer: Let's see: Bass, piano, dobro, banjo, guitar, mandolin, viola da gamba.

B&N.com: That's an interesting mix.

EM: Well, it's just what I had around. In some cases I would take one instrument and overdub it a lot of times. I would try not to do that with the bass or the piano to give those instruments a little bit more personality, and they also tended to be more central characters in the music, since those are instruments I am more specialized in, especially the bass.

B&N.com: Actually, you are best known as a bass player, so it might be a surprise to some listeners that you sound so solid on all these instruments, especially the piano. I certainly didn't know you had such strong keyboard chops, like on the track "Roundabout."

EM: When I'm not overwhelmed with other work, I'll play piano a couple of hours a day. I get tremendous pleasure from it. It's the perfect complement to the double bass in many ways; you can improvise counterpoint at the piano, and you can do harmony and things that you just can't do on the bass. Additionally, as a classical music person, the bass is not involved in much great repertoire outside of the orchestra, so being able to play the piano is a real window.

B&N.com: You also use Jerry Douglas's dobro on "Roundabout," which is a nifty tidbit. How'd that come about?

EM: Jerry was on my first record in '85, and he and I have been very close friends since then. After that first band, Strength in Numbers, stopped playing, he and I played with Russ Barenberg in a trio for ten years, so I stood next to that dobro for a long time. Jerry's got like 30 dobros; I don't even know what his deal is right now, but I'm keeping that one at my house, and he's happy for it to be there. There ain't nobody like him; he is a very, very wonderful musician.

B&N.com: You recorded this album entirely at your home with digital overdubbing. Is that a process you've used before?

EM: In this exact manner, no. From the get-go I've always loved computers and music; from the time I got out of college I kept up with every last music program that came out and always bought them all. So it's a long-term interest, but having the room [at home] gave me the opportunity to do some things I haven't been able to do before.

B&N.com: In your liner notes, you begin with a poignant story about your father and his mother's piano. I wonder if you would recount that?

EM: Sure. My father grew up on a farm, and his mother died when he was eight, and as one would expect, that was an incredibly sad thing for him; I'd say it was the defining event in his life. She was from the city and a little frail, frankly, as I would be too if I had six children, but she played classical music on the piano. When I was in elementary school, they brought the piano from the farm over to our house, and it's still there. It's nothing special -- an upright from Chicago -- but it was a piano. I'd been playing bass for a few years, but for me that was the most exciting thing in the world. There's a degree of that excitement now, even, for me with the piano. One of the first piano books that I spent a lot of time with was Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, and I had the copy that had been my grandmother's. The paper was turning to ash. I still have it around; it's an absolute treasure to me.

B&N.com: It's interesting you mention that, because you describe the first track, "First Things First," as a "song without words."

EM: Yes. You could say that in a more flip way and just call it a pop song. It is literally a "song without words" in that it is a vocal line, and that is the main substance of the song.

B&N.com: To me, it has a kind of wistful feeling of remembrance, perhaps, and that makes me wonder if any of these pieces were inspired by memories, like that one of your grandmother's piano.

EM: Well, you know, I'm evasive on questions like that, and one of the reasons I'm evasive is because I don't know the answer. That stuff all kind of mixes up in your brain and it's hard to pull it apart. Sometimes there's a real direct connect -- this song, this feeling -- but sometimes it's a lot grayer than that.

B&N.com: Throughout the program, you insert brief interludes that you describe as "palate cleansers." Maybe this is a stretch, but that reminded me of the promenades in Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

EM: Oh, absolutely; that's not a stretch.

B&N.com: Well, that got me to thinking: Do you see this album as in some way one long composition, or are they just a bunch of neat pieces that you strung together?

EM: The answer is, both are correct points of view. There's definitely a lot of concern for the whole, but at the same time, some things were written independently, too. It was loosely done, but with some feeling for the whole at all points.

B&N.com: You're also known for you collaborations, of course -- with Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O'Connor on Appalachian Journey, for example. How much has this album been influenced by your collaborative work?

EM: It's influenced tremendously. I have had the pleasure of working with a lot of truly remarkable musicians, and I have learned a lot of things and been inspired by these people. For instance, I'm always very aware in this recording of trying to evoke the feeling of people playing together. For example, on "First Things First" I recorded the piano first and then recorded the bass over it, but then there were places where I thought the bass should lead, and I would go back and rerecord the piano following the bass. If you listen, you should feel at some points a switch in who's leading who.

B&N.com: How much of a challenge is that?

EM: It a challenge! On the other hand, it wasn't that much of a challenge, because from playing together, you get very used to listening to each other very carefully. In the groups of people that I play with, that's a skill that is prized very, very highly -- the ability to do whatever it takes to make the group come alive. Listening is a huge part of it, but there are several other dimensions to "whatever it takes to make the group sound good." And so for years, it's been apparent to me that an in-depth and lifelong study of just that is worthwhile.

B&N.com: It sounds like you're describing this solo album as an odd kind of collaboration.

EM: There's a degree of that. There's a record that I haven't heard but I'd love to hear, which is the one that Bill Evans did by himself. I was very inspired by the Stevie Wonder records that he did by himself, Innervisions and Music of My Mind. In fact, I think of those as a higher class of what I'm doing. That's remarkably inspired stuff, and I'm literally doing the same things, in terms of being evocative of people playing together. He grew up with all these people and all these bands, and he just brought that to the table along with a whole lot of other things.

B&N.com: You've written a lot of ensemble music, too, such as your Violin Concerto for Hilary Hahn and the new piece you've composed for Joshua Bell. I wonder, have you ever thought of writing for orchestra? A symphony, perhaps?

EM: I'm not headed that way. I do have four pieces right now that I play that involve bass with orchestra -- two of them are for bass alone with orchestra, and a couple of double concertos. I'm actually 90 percent interested in writing for the bass. These excursions for Josh and Hilary are extremely important to me, but it's the kind of thing I'll do every few years. I'm more interested in solo voices; I don't know if I'm more interested -- I think I feel more confident. I think I can still bring enough things from my particular mix of being a player and a writer, and my confidence with the solo voice, to bridge that gap.

March, 2006
EJ Johnson