13 QUESTION METHOD: ANTHONY WILSON

Anthony Wilson—a guitarist known for his imagination, maturity, and depth, and a composer/arranger whose love for jazz tradition and equal willingness to take risks are hallmarks of his skillful, inspired work—is one of the leading jazz musicians of his generation. He has recorded eight solo albums since 1997, including his Grammy-nominated debut.

1. Which was the first record you bought with your own money?
Wow, I'm not sure—I'm not sure when I started getting what I can really consider "my own money"! But I guess during summers in middle school and high school I had part-time jobs, and I started doing gigs in about 9th grade, so some money must have come my way then. I guess I would say that Prince's Purple Rain, Bob Dylan's Infidels, or Miles Davis' We Want Miles were among my first solo purchases.

Before the age of 12 or 13, I would have needed a lot of disposable cash to satisfy my musical curiosity. However, my mom was willing to take me to the old Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard from time to time, where I convinced her to buy me hit records of the day—such as Randy Newman's Little Criminals and Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. And she herself has impeccable taste in music and a great collection of her own, so I spent countless hours during those years, alone at the turntable, wearing out her Beatles, Stones, Dylan, The Band, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and Steely Dan records. A little later, I dove into her stash of Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Wes Montgomery, Sarah Vaughan, and so many others.

2. Which was the last record you bought with your own money?
Who buys records these days?? Oh, that's jaded—cynical. Actually, recently I bought Eduardo Mateo's Mateo Solo Bien Se Lame and Guillermo Klein's Domador de Huellas. So much incredible music comes from South America! And I buy lots of old vinyl—especially Brazilian. But I must say that I do love these internet algorithmic systems—like last.fm—that start recommending music for you based on an "artist channel" that you set up. Through my Tortoise channel on last.fm I've recently heard and loved artists like David Grubbs, Stereolab, Gastr del Sol and Sam Prekop—without spending a penny. And the other day, as a friend of mine was surfing music on youtube, I heard some Minimal dance music that really caught my attention from an artist named Matias Aguayo..

3. What was the first solo you learned from a record — and can you still play it?
During the summer after 8th grade, I learned snippets from George Benson's solo on "Hi Fly," from Dexter Gordon's album Gotham City. The same summer, I also learned snippets of Cannonball Adderley's solo on "All Blues," and two full Wes Montgomery solos ("End of a Love Affair" and "Round Midnight") from his organ trio album The Wes Montgomery Trio. And sure, I go back to those solos—especially Wes'—all the time. "Round Midnight" is simply a masterpiece.

4. Which recording of your own (or as a sideman) are you most proud of, and why?
I've been thinking a lot about how happy I was with Power of Nine, recorded with my working nonet in 2006. The ensemble just clicked in a beautiful way during the two days of recording, and the actual sonics of the album are exceptional. Everybody took amazing solos that furthered what I was trying to do in my compositions. The music is very personal, and I feel that the moods, rhythms, sonorities, harmonies, melodies, and structures that it contains have a congruence with the state of mind I was in during that period of time and with the way I want to tell stories with music. I really like the way that my guitars sound, and am happy with my own improvisations. I'm determined to record a new collection of quite intense, highly energetic music with my nonet by early 2012.

5. What's the difference between playing live and playing in a studio?
Live, you only get one chance. So you play in a committed way. You may be nervous, your hands may be shaking, you may be sweating like a dog, but you've gotta play from the downbeat to the end of the show. But playing in the studio is problematic, because while people are going for perfection, at the same time they always have the luxury of being able to think in the back of their mind, "Well, if I don't get it right on this take, I can always do it over or fix it." So, OK, you worked for 9 hours, 9 days, 9 years, and got a "perfect" performance. "Perfect," maybe so, but listeners have nothing to get involved with. Perfection, of the kind that people usually seek, is not involving. It's boring. But, knowing this, for some reason, many musicians still don't say, "Forget it, I'm not going for perfection here, I'm just going to play this take as if my life depended on it." And so we have lots of dull records. Nobody cares that you didn't like your solo or your vocal and that you wanted to keep trying it until you made everybody in the studio want to kill you. Freshness, energy, discovery—mistakes, even!—and the sense that this might be the only time I ever get to play this piece—that's what makes a great record. I love the records of Steely Dan, but I would never argue to anyone that those records sound more committed and alive than the great Studio One sides, or more bristling with energy and blood and guts and groove than the great sides of James Brown. Let's be serious here. That's the kind of perfection we want.

6. What's the difference between a good gig and a bad gig?
Well, in one respect I really feel that it's not for me to judge. For example, I might play a show that I think was "bad," and later—say, if it was recorded—hear it back and notice all kinds of interesting things that I played that didn't quite come off but that I want to explore further in my practice. Sometimes the growing edge in my playing—the place where there's some potential for breakthroughs—rides the border between what I think sounds "good" and what I think sounds "bad." Thinking that I sound "good" might be just my way of staying comfortably within the realm of what I've previously mastered. Likewise, I might think I sound "bad" when I actually went for something that doesn't yet come naturally, either in my hearing or my execution. The point is being open, simply playing, and dispensing with an after-attachment to whether it was good or bad. This might help open the field for fresh and surprising things to happen when I play. Having said that, I do think there is a way to know if a gig was good or bad. Was I listening? And were my bandmates listening? Presence or absence of attentive listening can be the thing that really makes the difference between a good and bad gig.

7. What's the difference between a good guitar and a bad guitar?
The simple answer is that a good guitar is gonna get you where you need to go musically with the least wear and tear, both physically and mentally. It sings, it rings, it makes you and the other people in the room feel good. A bad guitar you'll just be struggling with. You can't stop struggling with it. And the people listening can hear that. Having said that, there are some guitars that you struggle to do almost anything on, and then suddenly you find that this one is perfect and just sings when you slap a capo on the 7th fret and play a kind of high-strung strumming part, or that this other one has this deep tone and makes you more able to play your favorite Elizabeth Cotten or Joni Mitchell song. Well, then, that's a good guitar. And there's also this—what's a good guitar for me might not be a good guitar for you. You may love that Rickenbacker 12-string in the corner, and write your best songs on it. And I may put it down as soon as I pick it up. So go ahead, Roger McGuinn, keep with that Ricky. It's a good guitar.

8. You play electric and acoustic. Do you approach the two differently?
For me, more and more, the dividing line between the two is disappearing. They feel similar. I love that when playing electric guitar, the interdependence between hands, guitar electronics, and the amp is a matrix that is constantly addressed. That's how you get your tone. It's fun to push or caress the amp and make it respond to the guitar's electronics and your attack. But without lots of sound processing, the whole process has ended up for me being pretty similar to playing an acoustic guitar. Playing electric these days, I mostly play through a small 1965 Princeton Reverb amp, with very little "makeup"—sometimes not even reverb—and simply try to make the sound and sustain and attack and vibrato that I want with my hands. Whatever I play—for better or worse!—just goes to the amp and comes out of the speaker. In that way, playing acoustic and electric guitar for me these days has become more similar than different.

9. Do you sound more like yourself on acoustic or electric?
My shortest answer. I think I probably sound like myself on either one.

10. Do you sound like yourself on other people's guitars?
I think so, yes. Sometimes I pick up a friend's guitar -- maybe a friend whose sound I really love -- and the guitar sounds completely different than when that friend plays it. So much is in the hands, right? But one thing I love is how somebody else's guitar will inspire me to play different things than I would normally. I guess -- in the realm of sound or touch or our vocabulary -- one never escapes oneself, which definitely shouldn't be considered a negative! The problem is trying to be someone else. That never works!

11. Which living artist would you like to collaborate with, and why?
Charles Lloyd and I once talked about doing an album with my arrangements for him as a soloist with orchestra. For me, that would be a dream come true. Also, as either a guitarist or arranger, I would love the opportunity to work with some of my Brazilian heroes such as Rosa Passos, Sergio Santos, Chico Buarque, and Lo Borges.

12. Which dead artist (music, or other arts) would you like to have collaborated with, and why?
I would like to have known and played with Ed Blackwell and Elvin Jones; studied with Marty Paich, Billy May, Billy Strayhorn, and Gil Evans; to have had the chance to play duo with Joe Pass; to have gotten to do sessions with Harry Nilsson and Judee Sill; and to have been able to record with Roy DuNann and Rudy Van Gelder as engineers.

13. What's your latest project about?
There are actually two projects that are out this year (2012). Both are self-released on my own label, Goat Hill Recordings.

The first is Campo Belo, recorded in Brazil with three of my favorite musicians on earth—André Mehmari on piano, Edu Ribeiro on drums, and Guto Wirtti on bass. It's a grouping of my own songs, not particularly "Brazilian" in style or nature, but infused with the rhythmic and expressive sensibilities that is encoded in these musicians and the Brazilian cultural DNA, sensibilities that I find extremely inspiring and refreshing.

The other is the 4 Seasons guitar-quartet live recording I recorded in April 2011 at the Metropolitan Museum. It was a concert in conjunction with the Met's Guitar Heroes exhibit focusing on the work of the great Italian-American, New York-based luthiers John D'Angelico, James D'Aquisto, and John Monteleone. The original 4-movement suite that we recorded is basically a chamber music piece for modern acoustic archtop guitars, though I could imagine it played on any combination of guitars. Still, it was extremely exciting to compose specifically for the 4 Seasons guitars built by John Monteleone, as well as for specific guitarists—myself, Julian Lage, Steve Cardenas, and Chico Pinheiro. What is the project "about"? It's about guitar all the way—lots of melody, and fascinating sonorities! About the interrelationships that get set up when beautiful sounding guitars rotate movement-by-movement around a circle of creative players, in a structured compositional environment where there's still room for lots of improvisation. The record is great to listen to and to see (we were able to do a wonderful video recording of the concert), and those who love "guitar porn" will definitely want this joint CD/DVD. And it has that quality I talked about before. We had one chance to play this music. It was a live concert. Nobody could go back to fix anything. So concentration, energy, communication, and discovery remained at the heart of it, and I think make for a really involving, fresh, and alive recording.