Open to Interpretation: A Conversation with Ches Smith

People often start down the path of better understanding and appreciating art by emphasizing an artist’s intent. While a valid line of inquiry, this focus on artistic objectives is also flawed. Too often, the interpreter’s personal biases predominate the analysis. Ultimately, subjectivity is an inescapable part of every artistic study. Statements by, or interviews with, an artist can provide a blueprint for better understanding their work. But even those resources can not reasonably survey every minute aspect of their craft. The difficulty in understanding an artist’s intent only further compounds where multiple minds are behind a project. A composer’s theories on the purpose of a melody may prove incongruent with a performer’s thoughts on the same subject. Can anyone state, with unquestionable authority, the intent behind any piece of art? With Interpret it Well (Pyroclastic, 2022), Ches Smith’s trio, augmented by Bill Frisell, challenges the concept that a definitive perspective exists in any art, particularly in its most creative manifestations.

Smith, an exuberant force of rhythmic ingenuity, is no stranger to pursuing music at its most nebulous. Besides albums under his name, the drummer’s credits include service in Secret Chiefs 3, Xiu Xiu, Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog, Tim Berne’s Snake Oil, and David Torn’s Sun of Goldfinger. His trio compatriots, pianist Craig Taborn and violist Mat Maneri, likewise adopt broad perspectives on music. And Smith is not one to restrain his bandmates, himself noting that even as a leader, he is hesitant to give other artists command or direction. Instead, Smith allows the music to follow its natural flow, whether that path is straight down the tracks or around the bend. This openness to all sounds served the group well on their first recording, 2016’s The Bell (ECM). The benefit of time and the contributions of a guitar legend arguably produce an even stronger outing on Interpret it Well. 

If one were to summarize the trio’s sophomore recording in one word, it would be “elusive.” Contrary to the opening piece’s tongue-in-cheek name, the music is never “trapped” in a single theme or motif. Minimal melodies serve more as opportunities to draw new lines than fill in a pre-existing plan. Once a listener begins to predict a song’s trajectory, the music immediately veers into another lane. “Mixed Metaphor” finds Frisell’s sparse guitar gradually meeting Maneri’s haunting groans and, later, Taborn’s seemingly broken phases. The piece grows slower and quieter as time progresses until a blast of distorted guitar and a flurry of piano notes meet crashing cymbals and snare. Similarly, the title track advances at a deceptively languid pace with a hint of wistfulness, only to gradually morph into a fervent thrust. Nothing is ever as it seems on Interpret. The album is eloquent yet elusory; a reminder that the road traveled is often more important than the destination. 

We caught up with Smith to discuss the album and its connections with some of his other projects. 

PostGenre: Interpret it Well is the second album by your trio with Craig Taborn and Mat Maneri, with the first being The Bell. In part because of Bill Frisell’s presence, the two albums do sound distinct from one another. Do you see Interpret as a continuation of The Bell or something else entirely?

Ches Smith: I definitely see a connection between the two albums. At the same time, they are different. Initially, the trio was a less defined group. Even though I think The Bell is a well-defined record, it was a new group at the time and still trying to find itself to some extent. Manfred [Eicher] recorded that album, so it had the ECM aesthetic, which I greatly enjoyed. But we were still getting used to our existence as a trio. Since then, we toured a lot as a group, and that experience allowed us to further develop our collective sound. 

PG: In what ways do you feel your sound further developed?

CS: Well, some of it was just an increased comfort with sounding more aggressive. We all have that side in our music anyway, but our music was a little more subdued on The Bell. The more we played as a trio, the more those aggressive ideas came out in our music. At the same time, there would be nights when we would play very quietly for extended periods. To play differently every night, we stretched out more and more musically. 

PG: The aggressiveness is particularly evident in the title track’s punk-like aesthetic.

CS: Yeah. 

PG: The title for the song – and record as a whole- comes from the Raymond Pettibon drawing that adorns its album cover. Pettibon is well known for his album covers for punk bands, particularly those from Southern California. Was Pettibon’s connection to the punk scene part of the reason behind selecting his work for this project?

CS: Well, I have been a fan of Pettibon’s work for albums, especially those he did for [the band] Black Flag, for a long time. He has a long and impressive career as an artist. 

But it was the producer of Interpret it Well, David Breskin, who suggested we incorporate the drawing into the album. David is also a fan of Pettibon’s and thought that specific drawing related incredibly well to the song that ended up becoming the title track. So, we ended up using the name “Interpret it Well” as a title for the song and, ultimately, the whole record. We needed to get permission to use Pettibon’s drawing. David is pretty well connected in the art world and somehow got the necessary permission. It blew me away that Pettibon was amenable to us using his drawing for the album. 

And, of course, the title of the drawing is also a good reflection of how this band operates. 

PG: You mean in terms of how both the drawing and its title are somewhat open-ended and the compositions on the album are equally open?

CS: Yes, this particular drawing is very open-ended. I find it a little humorous how the drawing is so ambiguous but advises you to make sure to interpret it correctly. 

PG: Your compositions for the trio are fairly skeletal, with much of the performance improvised and the melodies more of a general guideline. 

CS: Somewhat. Some parts are pretty fleshed out. But, in general, I love how Craig and Mat approach music and I give them a lot of free space to do what they think is best musically. 

I also really enjoy making music that sounds different every night, and leaving things more open better allows things to be different. Actually, a lot of the older musicians, especially in New York, often leave things more open-ended to produce different performances each night. Marc [Ribot] certainly takes that approach. He changes his pieces each night, whether it’s different tempos or different attitudes. I love that approach, Mat and Craig do as well, because it helps keep the music fresh and makes audiences respond differently. One thing that is very important to me musically is that I don’t continue to repeat what I have done before. With these songs, we have melodies on paper, but the band essentially internalizes the melodies, chords, rhythms, and the like and builds off of them. 

PG: Is it more difficult to leave the compositions more open than through-composed?

CS: It is a little more difficult to leave the compositions open. When you leave things open, you must imagine how the other artists will approach the songs. You have to write enough interesting features into the music to shape how the other artists will improvise but not so much that you are trying to tell them what to do with it. It is a very fine line between guiding someone and pushing them. It is a lot easier, however, when you are working with people like Mat, Craig, or Bill who are great improvisers. They are great at taking one idea for a long period and making it go places you could not imagine from its original concept. 

PG: Since you see Interpret as connected to The Bell, was the compositional approach you used for both more or less the same? Beyond writing a part for guitar, of course. 

CS: While the general concept of keeping things fairly open is the same for both albums, I think my compositions were a little more refined with Interpret. I had a better idea of where things may go or whether to leave something more open or closed. I think I got better at writing in this approach than I did since The Bell. 

PG: You wrote most of the compositions during the pandemic. Is there anything else you worked on musically during that time?

CS: During the first half or so of 2020, I focused on getting all the details together for the We All Break album [Path of Seven Colors (Pyroclastic, 2021)]. I got very deep into the details on that album and wrote a lot of music for it. I had worked closely with Daniel Brevil, who wrote all of the vocal parts on that album. I wanted to make sure the instrumental parts I wrote worked with his vocals and were also as faithful to Haitian Vodou music as possible. Part of the process of making the music required me to interview Daniel in the Haitian Creole language, with Markus Schwartz’s help. Markus translated between English and Haitian Creole and the entire process took a very long time. I was incredibly focused on doing the best job I could in presenting Daniel’s voice and writing and exploring the music.

PG: Your hard work on Path of Seven Colors seems to have paid off well. It was on several lists of 2021’s best recordings. 

CS: Yeah, I was very happy to have that recognition for such hard work. I really didn’t want to mess up the album or have it represent things incorrectly. 

As far as the rest of my time during the pandemic, my son was doing school from home over Zoom, and we had to be there to help him sometimes. I also wrote a lot and practiced a ton, especially on vibraphone and Haitian drums. I remained connected to the Haitian community of New York, especially during the Summer of 2020. They started having outdoor ceremonies again, and I spent a lot of time practicing to perform at those ceremonies. The project that became Interpret came up in the middle of it all. 

PG: We All Break sounds very different from Interpret, but since you worked on both around the same time, do you feel there is any overlap between the two?

CS: They’re related in some ways. Both bands are always flexible. And, in general, I tend to write with the particular group of people in the bands in mind. So, while both We All Break and the trio sound different and feature different instrumentation, there is going to be some overlap as my focus as a composer is on finding ways to emphasize the particular musicians’ voices and ideas rather than focusing on a specific instrument. And on both my emphasis was, as is the case in all of my music, on chromatic harmony. 

Of course, there are differences between the two projects not just in instrumentation but in how loosely I composed things. With We All Break, the music was heavily tied to the Vodou tradition and so heavily focused on the harmonic material which comes from that realm. By contrast, the trio is considerably looser and more nebulous in concept. With Craig, Mat, and Bill, I can stretch things out compositionally. 

PG: So, the Vodou tradition, in a way, restrained you with We All Break compared to working with the trio?

CS: We All Break has been pretty flexible in its execution but is more structured compositionally. We have had the band reduced to just a four-piece band at some points. I even proposed to Manfred that he record that band but he wasn’t interested in the project. He was more focused on getting another trio album and scheduling got too complicated to make that work. 

PG: You have mentioned Eicher or ECM a few times now. Interpret is not an ECM recording. But there are certain points on it where space and silence seem to predominate, a characteristic for which ECM is notorious. Did the emphasis on space and silence come about organically for this project or was it something you intentionally emphasized?

CS: I mean, that’s just how the group plays. Maybe that is what drew Manfred to the trio initially before we recorded The Bell together. At the time, I was in Germany with Tim Berne at an ECM event. Manfred was there and approached me and asked if there was anything I would like to record with him. At the time, I had done only one improv gig with Craig and Mat. I barely knew them but we had a great time playing together. I mentioned it to Manfred and right away he was interested in it. Craig is still on ECM for his albums, so maybe there’s something around how Craig plays that emphasizes silence as well.

PG: And part of it could be in the compositions themselves. The trio’s music seems to have a minimalist influence, especially on Interpret. You had worked with Terry Riley at some point, correct?

CS: Yeah, I worked with him back between 2009 and 2011. I was supposed to reconnect with him in September 2020 but the pandemic derailed those plans. Then he moved to Japan. I’m not sure if I will be able to work with him again, but I learned a lot from playing with him. 

PG: Do you feel there is anything specific you learned from your experience with him that shaped the trio’s music?

CS: I’m sure something I learned influenced my work with the trio. But I can’t pinpoint something specific, partly because the experience of working with him is also a little blurry to me. I have been a fan of his music for such a long time and have listened to some of his records so many times that I’ve probably been influenced by him as much by listening to his albums as actually playing with him. 

PG: Speaking of working with your heroes, what was it like working with Frisell on this project?

CS: It was great. Working with Bill kind of just happened.

I have been a big fan of his work since I was a teenager. All three of us in the trio are fans of Bill’s music. Bill ended up coming to one of our shows and liked what he heard. I was pleasantly surprised that he dug what we were doing and asked him to join us. I probably wouldn’t have thought of asking him if he hadn’t come to check us out, just because I hold his music in such reverence. Honestly, I thought it was cool he was interested in our music but it was even more amazing getting to work with him on this project. 

Understandably, when we were recording, Bill occasionally asked for some guidance on things like how a particular passage should sound. I generally  don’t like to give a lot of instruction and am not great at telling people what to do. I much prefer to be surprised by what people bring to a project on their own.

One time he just started playing something else during one of our rehearsals and what he came up with was so great. It was not, at all, what I wrote. He was just improvising while Craig, Mat, and I were playing composed parts and it was incredible. Bill added a lot to the music. There were some pretty drastically different takes we did not end up using on the record. We went through the music at least two or three times for each piece. Craig and Mat are both great at transitioning between composed sections and improvisation and I realized once we were going into mixing that there were a lot of moments where Bill would play something and turn the group’s direction musically. That he was a new part of the band and able to do that was pretty amazing.

PG: Since you generally do not like to give direction, do you prefer to lead your own group and have a legendary figure, like Frisell, join you or to be part of another icon’s group, like on Dave Holland’s Uncharted Territories (Dare2, 2018)?

CS: My preference ultimately depends on what environment will allow me to write a lot of music. I love writing music. The easiest way for me to get my compositions out is by leading my own groups. I don’t dislike the work of setting up what is, hopefully, a fun situation for people. As long as the other musicians understand that I am asking them to bring themselves, as much as possible, into the project. I am not looking for a certain result but rather a process or experience. 

But, that said, I can be equally satisfied in a collective if I can present my own music as part of it. Since you mentioned Dave, he had invited me to write for that record. I’m pretty sure he saw me play with Tim Berne’s Snake Oil in London once and then also with my own group. Dave seemed to like how our trio played in a way that was both open but defined. I think seeing how we did things may have influenced him in reconnecting with Evan Parker and trying to do something with him, Craig, and myself. In a way, it is somewhat similar to how Bill approached our trio as well. 

PG: And, back to Bill, he is one in a long line of excellent guitarists you have recorded with, including Marc Ribot, David Torn, and Mary Halvorson. That is some pretty heavy firepower on guitar. Do you feel there is something specific about the guitar that resonates with your musical ideas?

CS: I don’t know. I like the guitar a lot. But many times, it’s just been luck that led me to working with those people, rather than some conscious choice to emphasize guitar. I met Marc through [bassist] Shahzad Ismaily and became part of Ceramic Dog through that connection. I met Mary, originally, through Trevor Dunn when I was in Trevor’s group [Trio-Convulsant].

PG: Do you have any plans to get the trio together with maybe another musician other than Frisell to see what other directions the group may follow?

CS: You know, it has been a little difficult to have all four of our schedules line up to play gigs. We did have a few performances in New York. But, it has been difficult for all musicians to set up gigs right now just because so many musicians are so busy trying to make up for two years of canceled performances. 

Partly because of the difficulty in getting the entire group together, we do have a performance in Germany this September of the trio with Mary [Halvorson] on guitar. I’m looking forward to that because Mary and I go way back and she has seen our trio several times. It should be interesting to see what she does with the group. 

But beyond that, I would need to think about who may work well with the trio. It partly depends on not just who would be interested in working with us and whether they would fit what we are doing but also their availability. Any recommendations? [laughing].

Interpret it Well is now available on Pyroclastic Records. It can be purchased on Bandcamp or on the label’s website.

More information on Ches Smith can be found on his website.