To Be Beyond: A Conversation with Tisziji Muñoz and Paul Shaffer on ‘Quantum Blues’

Scholarly analyses of the Blues tend to emphasize a specific style born of the African American experience, developed from spirituals, field hollers, and work songs. They focus on twelve-bar chord progressions with flatted notes and call and response. However, such narrowly defined conceptualizations of the Blues miss the music’s full significance. The great Blues masters often took a much broader view of their craft, one that gets to the heart of their creation. Willie Dixon – the most influential artist after Muddy Waters to shape the sound of modern Chicago Blues – stated that “The Blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling, and understanding.” Or as B.B. King noted, “People all over the world have problems. And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.” It is perseverance through difficult times, not a fixation on compositional form, that gives the Blues its strength and resilience. It is the emotional appeal that creates a language that can be understood across all of humanity. It also makes Quantum Blues (Ropeadope, 2025) by Tisziji Muñoz, Paul Shaffer, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and Will Calhoun such a powerful recording.

Created live in the moment, Quantum Blues relies on its intentional lack of preplanning to avoid academic preconceptions. The music unfolds naturally, relying fully on emotional connections instead of specific notes or structures. The result is a music whose influences unexpectedly come from around the globe, including drawing in hues of Indian Carnatic music on “Swami Lama Blues” and a taste of the ethereal beyond on “Heavenly Voices Blues.” The sheer breadth of the recording is a testament to not only the skills of the artists involved but also their openness to an artistic force greater than themselves. Key too, is the group’s diversity.

Having worked together in several configurations since 1969, it is easy to assume that Muñoz and Shaffer approach music similarly. But their careers brought them to very different ends. An exponent of the spiritually minded elements of avant-garde music,  Muñoz has forged a path of deep reflection on the significance of music. Across recordings under his own name and his works with Pharaoh Sanders, Rashied Ali, and McCoy Tyner, the guitarist has become an underrecognized legend of avant-garde music, one with a dedicated though fairly esoteric – in terms of the broader cultural zeitgeist -following. In stark contrast, Shaffer has brought his talents to the mainstream of popular art. Almost as much a comedian and actor as a musician, when the keyboardist was not cracking jokes with David Letterman for over thirty years, he played with some of the best musicians in the world, including Miles Davis, George Clinton, and Earl Scruggs. He is the only band member to become a cast member on Saturday Night Live, was one half of a legendary duo with Bill Murray, and served as the first musical director for the Blues Brothers. Shaffer was also an executive in This is Spinal Tap (Embassy, 1984) and was almost cast as the Seinfeld character later known as George Costanza. And yet, the avant-garde legend and pop culture icon find common ground in the former’s philosophical perspectives, even if the exact way they approach music differs. It appears it is the power of music itself that matters more than the circumstances in which it is presented.

To the already distinctive perspectives of Muñoz’s free mastery and Shaffer’s approachability, Quantum Blues adds the metal-tinged edginess of Living Colour’s Will Calhoun on drums and the avant-funk heavy groove of Jamaaladeen Tacuma’s bass. Together, the quartet produces a record that shoots you into the stratosphere even as it underscores our shared humanity. While Quantum Blues rewards deeper and increased listening, there is an undeniable element to the work that can just be felt. And, sometimes, that feeling can say more than words or theories ever can. We sat down with Muñoz and Shaffer to discuss the origins of Quantum Blues and its cosmic meaning. You can also read more about the album in Jim Hynes’ insightful review.

PostGenre: You first met in the Summer of 1969, almost fifty-six years ago.

Paul Shaffer: I believe so. 

PG: How do you feel that how you communicate musically has changed the most over the last fifty-six years?

PS: Wow. Tisziji, my guru, what do you say? 

Tisziji Muñoz: It’s gotten better. And much more facilitating in terms of the intuitive function of creativity. 

PS: I think when we met back in that summer of ‘69, I recollect that Tisziji started, if you will, training me right away. I didn’t know it, but I think he may have seen some potential in me to fit the bill as a guy who could fit with him.  And I mean that not solely in a musical sense. We are working with the musical and also the supermusical. 

TM: Mm-hmm. 

PS: And we started playing together in Toronto right away. Sometimes as a duo. Sometimes as part of a little four-piece band. But the whole point was that you need to listen intently and be communicating at all times.

I often tell the story now about how, back then, if I wasn’t doing something right musically, Tisziji knew it immediately. Sometimes, his frustration would be such that he would bring his hand down hard over the strings on his guitar, and I would know that he knew. Oh shit. I had to make sure it didn’t happen again. And so I started learning how to play better, and now it’s almost ESP.  But, through all these years, my intent has just been to try to get closer to this kind of communication so that I can read him. I’m happy to hear him say that it’s gotten better. 

TM: Much better. 

PG: In terms of playing the wrong thing, in a recent interview, Tisziji spoke about silence: “We are breathing silence. We are living silence. We are breathing silence. We are being silence. We are healing silence at the same time. We are giving silence in the form of love to everybody we love.” It seems like you hold silence in supreme regard. And if that’s true, what is the role of sound, and how do you ensure that the sound you’re making is worth interrupting something as important as silence? 

TM: Silence is the source and the manifestation – the materialization- of what it is that we call sound. We are both sound and silence. We are sleeping beings and out-of-the-body as much as we are waking beings. So, it’s rational to be able to bring those two together in the context of what music’s about, because it is silence, and it is sound working conjointly sometimes. Reciprocating, sometimes. And other times it creates the coordination necessary for a piece to be a piece and for music to be what it needs to be. Depending on the genre, depending on the situation. We are both dimensions of light and sound. I welcome that. I appreciate that and have an openness to that because that is our nature. That’s not just philosophical or an opinion. We go to sleep. We vacate the body. And this is important because we have to vacate the sound as well for silence to come in. 

PG: You mentioned genre. In Paul’s memoir, he discusses when the two of you first met and says that you were “way beyond jazz. [You were] improvising to a rhythmic pulse. [You] sent melodies soaring into space. He was playing scales and modes [he] had never heard before.” Do you feel that the imposition of genre norms inhibits the power of music in some way?

TM: Well, let me clarify something here. What we’re talking about is the power of spirit first and foremost. This sense of spirit is a directing force, whether we are playing music or not. Spiritually, means with power, but without presence. So the spiritual is the voodoo aspect of the music, which we can see and hear. And the later music of John Coltrane and some others advance to that level of intuitive creativity, which is the important phase to get to so that you’re being used by the unconscious and the superconscious, as well as being allowed to be conscious in the process. Does that make sense?

PG: So, in other words, you are not just a conduit to a higher power, there’s a personal part in the music that is in action?

TM: We are, yes. We would have to be that higher power, depending on the mode of consciousness. You have the psychological aspects. And there are the superpsychological, or the transcendent aspects, which go into deeper meditation, which is also part of this. Music is different levels of very deep meditation. And, as meditators, what we are doing is not thinking. We’re allowing ourselves to be used by the inner voice or the inner creative power. The inner spirit or the transcendent aspect of our consciousness is part of this process. It would have to be because we are all of it at the same time, as we are none of it. This paradox has to be there because it is a paradoxical reality. I mean, we sleep unconscious, and we awaken fully conscious. We are one or the other, and sometimes we are both. The same applies to music and creativity, in general, whether we’re painters, writers, or what have you. We are here to be used by this intelligence because we are this intelligence, and we’re here to be used by the source of the intelligence. 

It’s something that takes its toll in our kind of music. We deliberately play this kind of open-minded, open-hearted music because it offers us the greatest opportunity to reach the highest level for the people that we’re here to play for and heal. Healing is part of our mission. Our duty to heal others comes primarily from the responsibility we have to heal ourselves by being skillful and masterful in our practice of musical and creative interaction with those who are like-minded. In this case, Paul and I are like-minded. 

PG: Does that also mean your music will be inherently “avant-garde” if it were to be labeled because you need to push beyond Western musical conventions more than some other people? 

TM: Absolutely. That’s the point; to be beyond. But we also have to be careful with the concept of beyond because we are the beyond. Because we are the beyond, we need to be beyond. And then that plays upon the fact that we recognize the potential that we have as artists. When we get together to play, it’s going to be what it is supposed to be without us thinking about it. That’s a little bit of a paradox. We can say we don’t know what’s going to happen. But, at the same time, we know exactly what’s going to happen. We can’t describe it before it happens because it hasn’t happened yet.  But we know it’s going to happen. And we know it’s going to be good because we have a history and the experience over time to know what the evolutionary result is of playing this music for a period of time at this level of intensity or depth. Part of this experience is the openness to intensity, but it’s creative intensity, which implies that what is being intensified is the creative itself, expressing what it needs to express in that moment. 

PG: Paul, your time with Letterman or on Saturday Night Live is more in the cultural mainstream than some of the aspects Tisziji is describing. Do you feel that in these more prominent experiences, you spread these ideas to people who may not have been exposed to them, and are maybe not as openly receptive? 

PS: My goodness. I don’t even consider it that way. I love all kinds of music, as I know you do. And Tisziji does, too. Before working with Tisziji, I was limited to hearing things I couldn’t play because I just didn’t understand them. My ear wasn’t so sophisticated. But I was so gratified to meet Tisziji, and he immediately started opening up these limited ears of mine. And any time I have an opportunity to play with Tisziji, I say yes. I can’t explain it any more than that. Something about the opportunity to play with him has always appealed to me. And when I hear his sound, it makes me smile. I can’t analyze it much more than that. 

PG: For this particular quartet, how did you select who would be in the group? What was your thought process in selecting Jamaaladeen and Will to play with the two of you? 

PS: Well, normally, Tisziji will put together a band and include me in it. But in this case, he – or it may have been his wife, Nancy [Muñoz] – suggested I get the band together. I agreed, and it didn’t take me too long to think about having Will Calhoun on drums. 

I’ve known Will since the early 1980s, when his band, Living Colour, came on the scene, and we were just starting up the Letterman show. I would run into Living Colour all over New York for some reason. Will and I became friends, and, over the years, he’s played with me in many different circumstances, including on television with the Letterman show house band. We’ve also done a little touring together with that band, including going all the way up to my hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Will also played with Pharaoh Sanders quite a bit. That was helpful because I had found a YouTube video of Will playing with Pharaoh that I could send to Tisziji so he could see how he could relate to Will since both had their time with Pharaoh as a common ground.

As for Jaamaladeen, I initially had a different bass player in mind. But Will strongly suggested I check out Jamaaladeen instead.  I had seen Jamaaladeen around since the early 80s, too. At that time, he came on the scene with Ornette Coleman when Ornette went electric with his Primetime band. Jamaaladeen had also appeared with the Letterman band a few times. When I told Will who I initially had in mind, he agreed that the bassist was great, but we needed Jamaaladeen for this project and to see what he can do with Tisziji. And both Tisziji and I agreed, and that was that. 

PG: While you had performed with Will and Jamaaladeen previously, Tisziji had not with either.

PS: That’s right. And I find it notable that Tisziji had never played with either of these guys before. Once we were together, Tisziji gave no direction before we started playing. And, of course, there was nothing written down or even predetermined in any way. He just said thanks to everybody for being there, and we started to play. And that’s how each of these cuts were made. Just totally improvised. And our two new players just played what they felt at the time. No direction known, as Bob Dylan said. 

PG: Is that lack of a specific direction an essential part of the music? It seems like the absence of a plan fits in a little more with what Tisziji was saying earlier about allowing your spirit to lead the music than forcing other musicians to follow a preset plan. 

TM: It wasn’t about a musical direction that enabled us to do what we did together without a thought. We had a psychic connection between all of us at that time, which was just obvious. It was time for us to play together without thinking about it. It was a conversation between us, spiritually, and we had a ball of doing it without planning on doing it. It was just done. 

PG: Paul can select great musicians, but it does not necessarily mean you have to agree to work with them. Tisziji, is there something you specifically look for when other musicians to work with?

TM: It’s an intuitive sense. Musicians can sense in some cases, relative to their abilities and experience, if something’s going to work or not that day. It definitely worked for us. It was easy as pie. It was the right thing to do, and the record proves it. I don’t know if we can do a record like that if the four of us got together again. I couldn’t estimate that. It really depends on the time, space, and the energy, and what was going on. All of these things came into a resonance and made it easy to do what we did. But that doesn’t mean it can happen again in the same way, which then brings about the uniqueness of the situation and the rarity of that kind of event. It’s rare for us to do that. It’s not rare for us all to get together, but for that kind of thing to happen again like that, almost perfectly as it did without a word, is unique. It was a unique time for a unique group. 

PG: Because the album was created fully in the moment, it was only after the fact that you went back and titled the tracks, each with the word “Blues” in the name. One you named “Who is Not the Blues?” Another is “Swami Lama Blues” and has clear Indian influences. Was part of the thought process in applying these names that the Blues, in a more general sense, is broader than a specific genre or culture?

TM: As soon as we go to the word “Blues,” we’re talking about a feeling. An emotional sense and presence. We’re not really discussing a technical description of the Blues, in a sense, but an emotional description of it. If I’m playing the Blues, what does that mean? It’s really about the feeling. 

PS: Yes, Tisziji’s definition of the Blues is all about the feeling. Tisziji is the only one who really takes that definition of the Blues as a feeling seriously. On a musical level, he is the only guitarist that I have played with who musically is not Blues based in the least by the musical definition of the Blues, which is, as I understand it is twofold: a twelve-bar format and use of the Blues scale. Tisziji ignores both of those things. He’s not Blues-based at all by the musical definition, yet he captures the feeling of the Blues. I’ve played with most of the guitar greats of this era, including Albert King, Albert Collins, Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King, and  Buddy Guy. But Tisziji is the only one who plays the way he does. Nobody plays like him. And yet, as Miles Davis said, ”It’s all Blues.”

PG: Paul, you were the first musical director for the Blues Brothers. That group sounds very different from the music on Quantum Blues, but do you feel both the Blues Brothers and this new quartet are going after the same feeling?

PS: Absolutely. We had two great guitar players in the Blues Brothers. One was Matt “Guitar” Murphy, of the Chicago Blues scene, who had played with all these authentic cats like Little Walter, Memphis Slim, and Howlin’ Wolf. And the other was Steve Cropper from Memphis, who was in Booker T and the MGs. Both Matt and Steve bent the strings on their guitar and used the Blues scale in ways Tisziji doesn’t, but they were going for that same feeling. And we knew, sometimes we had it, sometimes we didn’t. But when we had it, we shared it. That’s certainly the same kind of concentration that working with Tisziji requires.

But things were also very different with the Blues Brothers. With that band, the guys were authentic cats who learned from early Blues and R&B cats. They could sense the resurgence we were doing with our shows, and the shows were so important to them. As a result, man, they were competitive and focused. And that competition is different from what Tisziji promotes. Tisziji doesn’t promote competition. But, in terms of expression, the Blues Brothers had almost the same result in that a lot of focus and everybody was trying to express as much feeling as they could.

PG: As far as that feeling of the Blues, the feeling is often identified as perseverance through pain and suffering. When Tisziji was five years old, he severed an artery in his left wrist and still, to this day, experiences pain from it.

TM: That’s right.

PG: Experiences like that, as well as those of emotional and psychological pain, also inevitably enter into an artist’s artistic expression. Not to mention the pain sometimes involved in making music itself, whether forming calluses on your fingers to learn a string instrument or pianists getting tendonitis and neck pain from performance. So, the question is, is pain a necessary part of music? An unavoidable sacrifice, as it were, to creative expression?

TM: Yeah, pain is part of it, of course. I think pain is its own voice. And sometimes we respond to various life experiences relative to pain. But pain is not the game as far as that goes. We can play around pain. We can play from pain. And we can play with pain. But pain is its own voice. It’s a scream. It’s this whole thing that is in the Blues. 

PS: I agree. Tisziji is coming back to the old idea that the Blues isn’t a particular scale or format, it is a feeling. 

PG: Paul, you have often referred to Tisziji as your teacher, and while you have learned from him, education hardly goes in one direction. Often, the teacher learns from the student as well. So, as a final question, what do you feel you have learned the most from each other over the years? 

PS: I continue to learn from Tisziji. We had a wonderful engagement recently at the University of Oklahoma. There was a question from the faculty there about whether we were going to play the same songs from the record. Of course, we never thought we would do that. No, we were just going to improvise again. And that’s all we did. And it was beautiful. 

Maybe it is my more commercial side coming out here, but initially, I worried if the audience was going to be able to access what we were doing. With a name like the “Quantum Blues Quartet”, were they going to be expecting something like Eric Clapton and instead get something that they’ve never heard before? They have a hip music department with a lot of good feeling, but there was no guarantee the audience would be receptive to what we were doing. But they were. All I know is that Tisziji came through again. I love to watch how he deals with these different situations. He scored again and I learn a lot from watching him in these types of situations. 

TM: I love Paul. As a fellow musician and a creator, as per my experience with him, he allows the genius that I might have to be heard in a certain way, because of his development and our early life experiences together as I was teaching him chords and harmonic, let’s say ”jazz” things that I was working with at that time. The music we play is creative. It is bluesy, but it is creative more than it is just form. It has an aspect of formlessness and unpredictability that makes it special for the players and inspiring for those who can dig this kind of music as it happens. 

PS: Thinking back to those early days in Toronto, Tisziji certainly didn’t rush me with these concepts. When I think about how he started me on, as he just said, jazz standards, I knew the songs but couldn’t play them. I knew them because of my parents playing them in the house and such. But I couldn’t truly hear them until I got with Tisziji. What I didn’t know at the time was that the standards were just a way for us to get started. And, eventually, Tisziji was able to say, “OK, now just forget about all of those chords and the standards. We’re just gonna play now.” I think moving beyond those things was a difficult concept for someone like me who had grown up in classical piano lessons. But he only broke it out when he thought. I was ready. And, since then, we have had the advantage of being together for so many years and, hopefully, many more to come. 

‘Quantum Blues’ is available now on Ropeadope Records. It can be purchased on Bandcamp. More information on the Quantum Blues Quartet can be found on the band’s website. You can also read more about Tisziji Muñoz and Paul Shaffer can be found on their respective websites.

Photo credit: Sound Evidence