If it were possible to personify the essence of the jamband world; its past, present, and future could be embodied by one Bruce Katz. A natural student of music since his childhood, he has spent his life learning and interpreting every major form of American music, much like Jerry Garcia once did. Day to day, he can be found recording or touring with a multitude of artists who have come to depend on his mastery of his art, as he moves amongst the rarified air that exists for artists such as Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks. And as an associate professor at the storied Berklee College of Music in Boston, he works with the coming generations, sharing hard-won wisdom from years of touring while modeling true devotion to the art form. In this regard, he has few peers; perhaps the future he’s working toward will see a wiser, more devoted class of musicians.
Whether you’ve heard of Bruce Katz or not, his star continues to rise across eras and genres, and his light is currently shining brightly in the land of peaches and peace. Touring as a full-time member of both the Gregg Allman Band and Jaimoe’s Jaaasz Band, this past October saw Katz finish the fall Allman Brothers tour as their pianist while Gregg rehabilitated a shoulder injury.
A musician since age six, the fifty-eight year old is coming off his widest-reaching year yet. Besides the aforementioned touring, he backed modern-day blues hero John Hammond, Jr.; hung around Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles in his adopted hometown of Woodstock, New York; toured with songstress deluxe Maria Muldaur; recorded with Hendrix contemporary Joe Louis Walker; fronted his self-titled quartet in support of their first live album, Live at the Firefly, signifying the first release on Katz’s own Brown Dog Records/Vizz-Tone; toured with his secondary group, the Organiks; and produced Project A, a Jazz Is Dead-esque look at the Aretha Franklin catalog released by Anzic Records.
Co-led by modern saxophone luminary Joel Frahm, Katz called on friends old and new for the A sessions, using the first Bruce Katz Band rhythm section, bassist Marty Ballou and drummer/engineer Lorne Entress, and current BKB members Chris Vitarello on guitar and Ralph Rosen on drums. Current bandmates in Gregg Allman & Friends, bass legend Jerry Jemmott brought his singular funk to the proceedings, while saxophonist Jay Collins helped flesh out the horn lines when needed with trumpeter Kenny Rampton. All of this presented an interesting situation for the arranger in Katz. The result? Some tracks feature both acoustic and electric bass, two drummers, extremely tasty guitar work, a three-man horn section, Katz’s keyboards, and Frahm’s melodic sax lines. A true jamband in every sense of the word, the principals reconvened for a handful of shows in New York; all remain hopeful that it can happen again.
To paraphrase Warren Haynes, “all of our heroes are strange dichotomies,” and Katz surely fits such a mold. For a man who wears so many hats so well, Katz speaks with earth-bound wonder when recounting times spent with icons, and humble grace when describing himself and his ambitions. In conversation, his vernacular mixes free-love charm and the precision of man with acute care for facts and history.
Just as the young Bruce dug into his parents’ records and found Bessie Smith, Fats Waller and so many treasures; Katz is now the gem waiting for the rest of the world to dig deep and make their own joyful discovery. Let the journey begin…
BF: In looking at your different musical adventures, you’ve got your fingers in a lot of different pies. What’s “an average week” like for you?
BK: (Laughs) You know, it depends. During the school year, if I’m not on tour, Tuesdays and Wednesdays I’m at Berklee, so that’s sort of one whole world. Some weeks I’m flying around and playing, or driving in buses and playing gigs, and then boom, I’m back in sort of an academic situation. My head gets really turned around going from one extreme to the other. It’s weird sometimes because to do any of those particular gigs I kind of have to throw myself into that person’s world a little bit. It [is] just really getting deeply into one particular musical experience and just living it for a while, and then sometimes turning around and doing something completely different twenty-four hours later. It’s kind of cool.
For instance, before doing the Maria Muldaur stuff this summer, all I listened to for about four or five days was live recordings of Maria Muldaur playing fairly recent shows, making cheat sheets and playing along with the recordings. Then I got in the van and did a week’s worth of tours, and it was just like my life was the Maria Muldaur band for that week and then I turned around and it was Gregg Allman or one of my own tours.
My thing is that I’m not one of those people that go in sort of half-prepared because that’s no fun at all, So, I have all these little worlds that I get into and then come out of, sort of hit and run, Like I have all these books- I have my Duke Robillard book, my John Hammond book, my Gregg Allman book. I literally have these books to remind myself of preparing for these bands. I’ll never read charts on the gig, but I’ve found that the act of writing things down really puts it into my head better
BF: Would you rather have it this way, or would you prefer to be in one stable group?
BK: You know, maybe somewhere in the middle? I feel like between the Bruce Katz Band (BKB) and the Gregg Allman Band (GAB), both are fairly active and I am a part of a stable collective voice, and then there’s just a lot of other little things that come up. I guess I like having the variety. Sometimes I think, depending on how busy a certain month is, maybe it’s a little bit too much of a good thing (laughs).
In 2009 in particular, I just found myself… like, I love the Jaimoe band and we don’t play all that much, but that’s so much fun, and it’s a certain kind of music that I probably wouldn’t get to play otherwise. Sometimes I’d like to be doing a little bit more with my own band, but things come up that are too good to pass up, you know? If I had to give a short answer, maybe it’s a little too crazy, but I love pretty much everything I’m doing, actually.
BF: When you first joined the GAB, Floyd Miles (percussion/vocals) was surprised by the fact that you were a professor and scholar of the music, yet you didn’t play like someone who had learned from a book. Sometimes it seems like people expect great musicians to be savants, where they just pickup an instrument and go.
BK: Well, I didn’t learn from a book. I could play really well, and I was reading Beethoven and stuff, but when it came to blues and rock and roll, I was teaching myself, playing gigs and kind of being ‘in the dark’ ‘til in my 20’s, when I went to Berklee as a student. All of a sudden, things got a little clearer. So in many ways, I was schooled as a kid in classical music and reading music, but I sorta had to figure out how to play just like somebody that was self-taught, because when it came to improvising or understanding how to play blues I was listening to records and learning how to copy stuff.
When I first met Floyd, that first morning I was sitting at breakfast with him and he was telling me how he had looked me up and seen that I was a professor, and how he was thinking “Oh oh, this guy’s gonna be some schooled, boring, passion-less player”… but it’s not like that, you know? That’s a misconception that sort of irritates me- that if you do learn certain schooled aspects of music, that it’s going to “ruin” you or something like that.
Appearing with Hubert Sumlin
BF: Switching gears slightly, how do you approach something that’s older and make it relevant to the audience sitting right in front of you?
BK: I guess it’s not really planned, it’s just nature. Through the nature of what I was interested in as I grew up, I kind of taught myself the history of American music chronologically. When I was ten or eleven I was listening to that early jazz and ragtime and sort of worked my way through all these different styles, not because I had any grand plan, just because when I was eleven I liked it. And when I was fourteen I liked boogie-woogie. I was kind of a weirdo, I guess (laughs). I was thirteen years old and was listening to early spirituals and Stephen Foster music. I don’t know why… I was always really into history.
As far as making it relevant to listeners- I don’t know. I believe in what I’m playing, and I don’t see the borderlines that so many people put on styles. I think it has something to do with conviction and passion. I think passion will always, if it’s real, communicate to people.
I played with Ronnie Earl for years and I was on a bunch of his albums. People just love Ronnie Earl, and a lot of times he’s not playing anything that different than a lot of other people. But it’s the immediacy and the passion that he’s playing with that just really grabs people. Anything that you do, if you have emotional investment and conviction- and you’re not sort of playing on the surface of it and you’re digging deep into it- people will be moved by it. I don’t have any grand plans like “I’m gonna take this swing-era thing and mix it with that and try to capture a demographic because they’re gonna like it.” I just do what I do, I guess.
BF: That’s how the Project A recording came out. You took the passion of Aretha Franklin’s soul music and translated it through a passion found in more of a jazz-blues idiom. Would you talk about how that came together? I’m guessing you assembled the band.
BK: Yeah, I definitely produced the album and I hired all the musicians. You know, the record company was very cool, they just said “Do whatever you want and we’re going to pay for it” (laughs). [They] came up with the concept, said you run with it, you pick the tunes, hire the musicians, do whatever you want, and I started listening to a lot of Aretha Franklin tunes.
But it was a fine line to find the material. I didn’t want to do certain tunes with the band because it would serve no point. On one hand there was the hip jazz musician thing- “whatever we take from Aretha we’re going to deconstruct it and turn it into something unrecognizable.” I didn’t want to do that, just because I’m supposed to be “hip” or something. And I didn’t want to record-copy the Aretha tunes cause then you can sound like you’re a wedding band. So picking the tunes was tricky.
I think we came to a nice middle ground, where we have three of her gospel tunes, two or three of her early tunes from her first couple of records when she was on Columbia and they didn’t really know what to do with her, and a couple of her hits. We re-interpreted the tunes that I felt like there was a good reason to re-interpret them. A few things, especially ‘The House that Jack Built,’ I just thought “OK, Jerry Jemmott’s on bass and it’s the coolest groove, and there’s no reason not to play it like it was played, and then just take it somewhere else.”
I transcribed all those melodies, and that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. To take the timing she used to phrase her melodies, and put it down on paper, was really tricky. You’d be amazed at “Rocksteady” or “Maybe I’m A Fool,” which sound so natural coming out of her mouth. I poured hours and hours over little sections of things because we did the record in three days, [and] I didn’t want to go into an Aretha Franklin tune where some jazz player was vaguely approximating the original phrasing, because then it’s not the tune anymore.
When we walked in, I put written music in front of everybody that dealt with the melodies, so that everyone could see, play, and understand the phrasing. I couldn’t count on everybody delving as deeply into it as I was. And I’ve seen too many things be half-assed, especially sometimes with jazz musicans who think “To hell with the melody, it’s time to blow!” I wanted to have it really connected to Aretha, yet be really open for interpretation, and I think we succeeded actually.
BF: As I was listening to it in my iTunes mix, Coltrane and Burrell’s “Why Was I Born” by Jerome Kern came up, and it struck me how jazz wasn’t always so much from the head. I think you accomplished, with this session, the same thing Coltrane did with his more soulful work, where you respected the song’s “heart and soul,” yet took it somewhere new and interesting.
BK: That’s, in general, what I’ve been trying to do with my own stuff all along- combine the physical groove aspect, and still allow it to have intellectual roots if it wants to. I think that’s a lot different than a lot of jazz musicians, who have gotten away from the notion of grooving, or getting people to move their bodies as well as getting people to think with their minds. Which is why I think jazz has declined as a popular art form to a large extent. There’s no reason in the world why something can’t have melody and harmony and challenging ideas and still have the physicality of what used to be jazz.
People used to dance to jazz, but with contemporary jazz musicians, nobody dances to it. You can’t really dance to it; you could but it would be really pre-formed. Sometimes I play with some more modern-leaning jazz musicians, and it’s like the whole idea seems to be to hide the downbeat so that nobody can feel it.
BF: It’s interesting in that it’s the jamband world where, more so than perhaps any other current genre, people are open to hearing complex harmonic things, as long as they can groove to it. Talk about your experiences in that world, and let’s focus on 1969-1973, when you were a self-proclaimed ‘Deadhead’.
BK: Oh yeah- I would follow them around. Not exclusively, but there was a few years there where I was one of those people that, probably 90% of the music I listened to was the Grateful Dead, with some Allman Brothers and some other people in there as well. I was captured, definitely, by that music.
BF: If you were to describe the Dead to a jazz class at Berklee, what would you relate to them from your experience with the band?
BK: Um… that’s a good question. I guess, in my formative times, the Dead really struck the chord with me. Garcia was coming from the jug bands, and the country music, and the early American music, and he was like mixing with free [jazz]… I wouldn’t call it jazz, but it was the same concept as free jazz.
BF: Like the “Space” jams, where time was very free, and people could interject what they wanted to.
BK: Right, but it was still very communicative though. I remember the Bruce Katz Band I had with [guitarist] Julien Kasper, that made ‘Mississippi Moan’ and ‘Three Feat off the Ground.’ We would be driving around in vans and I’d be talking about the Grateful Dead and they would all sort of wrinkle their noses up.
So finally, we were in the middle of a long drive, and I brought Live/Dead with me and I played Dark Star, St. Stephen, and the Eleven for them, and they were really surprised at, first of all, how cool it was. Ralph knew about the Grateful Dead back in the day, but the other two guys, they just never really listened to it. And they listened to “Dark Star” and they just didn’t realize the level of sophisticated free… just the level of communication and broken time and time that’s implied and all the things that really jazz musicians do, or did.
In some ways it’s almost like the Bill Evans Trio. Especially in the last 60’s, early 70’s, where the time was really broken up and nobody was stating it, but it was there and people played around it and communicated with each other. And the Grateful Dead were doing that, and that was really a big influence on my concept of music.
I don’t know that I had really listened to or heard stuff that was so well done. That whole concept of deconstructing something to where it’s “free” but it’s not free because there were pulses going on. People weren’t necessarily stating them overtly but they’re playing around them or just getting to the point where it really is this open thing and everyone’s contributing melodies at the same time. That was very, very influential on me.
BF: It hearkens back to the Dixieland music in a lot of ways where the horn players would be throwing melodies out and interacting with each other.
BK: Right, but the big difference being, the timekeepers were really keeping time though. But, yeah it’s true. Actually the great, early Chicago blues bands- the harmonica, the piano, and the guitar were all kind of playing at the same time. But, you know, the whole essence of the Grateful Dead’s little vortex of time and space (laughs), and people playing all over the fringes of that- like I said, I don’t think I’d ever played or thought that deeply about music from that angle.
Of course, at the time, I found myself playing a lot of bass. I grew up playing string bass as well, so I found myself playing bass in a couple of bands with two drummers, whose repertoires were both original and Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers, Moby Grape, and Quicksilver, stuff like that. And of course Phil Lesh was my idol at the time. The Grateful Dead were coming out of an Americana tradition, and then mixing this much more sophisticated, improvisational aspect to it. You could say that’s what I’m still trying to do forty years later with my music.
I don’t know if it’s the greatest thing to say to a jamband [site], but that’s what I miss out of a lot of the jambands out there- they don’t have that Americana thing going on. Most of them are playing this sort of 70’s funk music, at least to my ears. Although, when I played with the Allman Brothers this past October, we were on the bill with Widespread Panic- I really like those guys. I felt like they had some of those roots, like the Dead had in their music, as well as some of the original generation of jambands, such as the Allman Brothers.
BF: Going back to the Allman Brothers, let’s talk about your back story with them. Was the first time you met Gregg actually when he wrote and recorded with Ronnie Earl in 1997?
BK: The funny thing about that is that I recorded with Gregg Allman in ’97 but never met him. It was one of those things where we did the tune and sent the master down to Gregg and he put his vocal on. We were never in the studio together. The first time I ever met Gregg was backstage at the Beacon Theater when Jay Collins said to him “This is Bruce Katz and I think he’d be good for the band” and Gregg said “Well, have him come up and he can play on ‘Stormy Monday.‘” That was when I met him, that first night, so the recording ten years earlier- we never met. That’s happened a few times with me with people [Site editor’s note: Although Katz did open for the Brothers during some amphitheatre dates with the Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters during the summer of 1997].
So, we did “Stormy Monday,” and then Susan came out and did a Little Milton tune, and Gregg really liked it and had me come back a couple of days later and I played a few more tunes. That worked out pretty well.
BF: You were asked to fill in on piano for the fall tour after Gregg hurt his hand, correct?
BK: Yeah. He was pushing his motorcycle up a ramp and hurt his shoulder, which twisted a nerve, so he had this numbness in a couple of fingers. He felt like he could play organ OK, but even that was a little of a struggle. He felt like he definitely couldn’t play the piano, which takes more pressure and it’s a different kind of touch.
They had Danny Louis play a couple of nights, and then Gregg called me up, and two days later I met the band in Knoxville. I got there and the tour manager, or “tour mystic” as he is called, Kirk West, came to my hotel room with the previous thirty-five gigs worth of CD’s that they had played all summer, so it was like sixty or seventy CD’s. And he said “We’ll bring a piano to your room. Learn everything on these CD’s.” (laughs) I mean, I knew some Allman Brothers tunes- I know them all now- but I didn’t know tons of them, and especially more contemporary things, some of Warren’s tunes. You know, tunes like “Black Hearted Woman,” where it has the part that’s in 7/4- all the little things that make these tunes great.
I basically woke up the next morning and there was a piano in my hotel room. I had one day, I didn’t leave my hotel room, and I spent 13 hours with headphones on at the piano and I learned every single tune that was on those CD’s. Then the next day, I got on stage in Knoxville and played. I was more nervous that first night than I had been since I was about fifteen years old. Playing in front of people was crazy man, ‘cause those guys don’t make the set list until right before the show. I just attacked my little stack of cheat sheets right before we went on waiting for Warren to make the setlist. He made it, and we did it, and it was all good!
That was pretty nuts, very exciting, really fun. They gave me tons of space, it was an amazing experience, and they all seemed to really like it. The more gigs we did, the more space I kept getting. When we started the first night, what they were doing was, like, Derek would skip his solo and nod to me. By the last night, I was playing on Elizabeth Reed and Mountain Jam and they were just giving me all this space! (laughs). I was sitting on the same bench as Gregg, so our backs are practically touching the whole time. We’d be playing a tune and Warren would look at Gregg like “OK, sing the next verse” and instead of singing the next verse, I’d feel Gregg’s elbow go into my back, like, “Go on man, take one.” It was…. a great experience… I really had an amazing time.
It was another one of those things where I wasn’t going to be reading the charts on stage, [but] the act of writing things down, sometimes even just the chord progressions, helps me assimilate 50 songs in one day.
BF: From your viewpoint as a keyboardist, it seems like you’re living in such a guitar-heavy culture right now.
BK: Yeah! (laughs)
BF: But if you were to take away Gregg, Chuck Leavell, and even Johnny Neel from the ABB sound, sometimes you wouldn’t recognize the tune, yet they often get overlooked. Are keyboardists the red-headed stepchildren of the realm?
BK: I guess it depends. You can be a boring guitar player and you can also be a boring keyboard player. I spent some time in the 1980’s playing with a band called Barrence Whitfield and the Savages- it was sort of a punk rhythm and blues band, which is the only way I know to describe it. I stood up and played piano and windmilled my arms around and played like Jerry Lee Lewis meets Sun Ra or something. So, to me, you can be just as extroverted playing the piano and I think people will relate to it.
It’s in the blues world where I find myself quite a bit, and you’ll have three days of a blues festival and there will be one keyboard leader out of three days in a row. The promoters think that if they have a second keyboard band out of twenty bands that that’s too many, and yet they’ll have nineteen guitar bands.
The Allman Brothers without the B3 would certainly not sound like the Allman Brothers. I saw the Allman Brothers, by the way, a couple of times when Duane was alive, so I kind of go all the way back with them. I saw them in this little 300-seat venue on Long Island just before the Live at the Fillmore album came out.
BF: In his blues documentary Piano Blues, Clint Eastwood says, to paraphrase, that the piano is the most important instrument in the history of the blues. Do you agree?
BK: Yeah, I don’t think I agree with that (laughs)! I mean, I hate to say it, but I think the guitar is probably the most important instrument in the development of the blues. I guess it depends what blues you’re looking at. The classic blues of the 1920’s “Bessie Smith”-type blues- that was about the singers and the horn players really, [though] the piano was there. The country blues artists, that was certainly all about the guitar and occasionally the harmonica. I think piano’s really important, but I don’t think that’s really a true statement, as much as I’d like it to be.
BF: I think a valid argument is that Robert Johnson’s greatest strides on the guitar were things he translated from the piano to the guitar, making them more guitaristic, in a way.
BK: That’s true. He’s the first guy, incredibly enough, that went “dun duh DUN duh, dun duh DUN duh” on the guitar, which is definitely a left-hand piano thing, that he probably picked up in Mississippi and Texas and wherever he was traveling hearing those piano players. And not to mention all those turnarounds he did. I hadn’t thought about it that specifically; he’s doing a lot of things that are piano-like on the guitar, and it must have been from hearing some of the whore-house piano players there, you know?
The funny thing about Robert Johnson is that he had a lot more influence twenty-five years after he died then he had [during his life], so I have read and been told. But at the time, in the 30’s and 40’s, like Tampa Red and some of those people were much more influential than Robert Johnson, and then he got rediscovered, or almost discovered for the first time really. But yeah, I think Robert Johnson was definitely interpreting some piano, not mention [guys like] Chuck Berry, and I think it went both ways with T-Bone Walker.
But the piano, in many kinds of music, it’s like it’s all there. 88 keys, and bass lines, and everything. I do think that’s true about Robert Johnson, but on the other hand, I don’t think that Bukka White and Charley Patton and Son House were really interpreting the piano on the guitar, but that’s probably one of the things that makes Robert Johnson so incredible on the guitar- the intricacies of what he was doing on the guitar were being done by piano players, but not by guitar players.
BF: As a multi-instrumentalist working with great guitar bands, what are some bass-centered things or guitar-centered things that you translate into a uniquely keyboard style?
BK: Well, that’s a good question. You know, I’m as into great guitar solos as anybody, and I think when I was first listening to electric blues, I was trying to copy some of the guitar kinds of lead lines that I would hear, into my right hand, and play some improv ideas and melodies; like when they would bend strings, I would slide. I know a lot of my phrasing ideas, especially early on, were influenced a lot by guitar players, ‘cause that’s what you’d hear more of. Even today, I teach a Hammond blues class at Berklee, and I tell them there’s not a whole lot of stuff to really listen to, historically, that’s Hammond organ and really blues. There’s obviously all the jazz guys playing bluesy stuff, but I mean real blues- like the equivalent of Otis Rush or something on the organ.
As far as bass goes, especially on the organ, I think the fact that I literally played bass in rock bands and blues bands has given me, conceptually, [an idea of] what bass is about- what to do, what not to do, what to play. With organ stuff, when I’m playing bass on the organ, I have the advantage of being an actual bass player. So it’s not only the lines, but how to support the foundation of everything.
When I was 18 years old, [I was] totally enamored with Phil Lesh and Jack Cassady and those kind of guys, and I was more “freely associating” on the bass. Now, I feel like bass players are there to lay down a certain groove, [except] when you do “it” really well- Phil Lesh was, and is, a genius.
Actually, the BKB is doing a lot of gigs as a three-piece these days. [BKB bassist] Rod Carey really hurt his back, and he’s still recovering and can’t really play right now. I just put the piano on top of the organ. I’m not sure, ultimately, what we’re gonna do; I was working so much with Gregg that we weren’t doing a whole lot of BKB stuff. But we’ve really been enjoying the organ trio- there’s something about it; like when I’m playing harmony, melody, and bass, and I’m playing with Ralph, who I’ve been playing with in my band now for 12 years or something, we find that the music’s been going some real interesting places because there’s that much more telepathy. If me and Ralph hook up in some way, we can anywhere at any time, so that’s been kind of interesting lately.
BF: Looking at power trios like the original Gov’t Mule and Cream, they are able to do a more powerhouse type of improvisation that you can’t do with seven people on stage, or even sometimes four. Do you think you may take the plunge and tailor your setlist towards that audience?
BK: Succinctly, yes! I’m coming from that going way back, so it’s almost like a full-circle. For me, to have played with Levon and Gregg- when I was seventeen years old, I was listening to Levon and Gregg. I joke with my manager, Steve Langbein, he’s got to get me in Phil and Friends so that I can complete the triumvirate of being at Watkins Glen, seeing the Allman Brothers, the Band, and the Grateful Dead!
We had a great gig the other night in the Hudson Valley, and at the end we were talking and we all realized that we had gone to some places we hadn’t gone before, and we were attributing that to the trio aspect. Playing organ, bass, and being in sync with Ralph and Chris, we are catching some left turns that are different than what we’ve done before. And I’m interested in presenting that to some different audiences outside the blues realm.
BF: Let’s talk about some of the heavyweights you’re working with. You were doing the Midnight Rambles with Levon Helm, correct?
BK: I haven’t actually played with Levon for over a year. I find myself doing opening slots with different people every few months it seems, with Alexis P. Suter, Chris Bergson, the Organiks, the BKB. His keyboard player doesn’t seem to be missing anything ever!
The Jaimoe thing- I sort of knew, but didn’t realize until I was playing with him in his group, just how much of a jazz drummer he is. His touch and his conception- in the Allman Brothers he’s kind of the colorist, I guess. But he’s so intuitive, and he’s so willing to try crazy things.
We did a few gigs last fall, and one gig, the day before we got an email from Junior Mack, the musical director. He said, “Jaimoe wants to combine ‘Ain’t Wasting Time No More’ with John Coltrane’s ‘Africa’ tomorrow. So, get ready, ‘cause we’re going to put the two tunes together.” And we did it onstage. We just sort of talked about it. We didn’t have a chance to rehearse it. He’s just literally willing to jump off a cliff, in the tradition of the great improvisers, right in front of the audience. “Let’s try this for the first time ever tonight, live!”
He has some really cool ideas- anything can happen, at any moment. I just play and watch him the whole time, because the whole band will stop on a dime and spin in another direction depending on where he’s kind of leading.
The thing with Gregg- just to say- he’s possibly the greatest singer in the world (laughs)! He can sing a phrase that will practically knock you over and it’s just an afterthought to him. He is amazing. I have so much respect for that guy. His sense of time and musicality is at such a high level. The band’s time varies one millionth of a degree, and no one’s noticing it, but he’s like “There was a shaky thing there in the middle, and we slowed down just a hair.” Then we go back to the recording, and yeah, this absolutely miniscule change happened, and he’s so sensitive to that stuff, his pitch and stuff are at a really high level. I guess you can’t sing like that if it’s not, really.
BF: Will either of those bands will end up releasing projects?
BK: There’s going to be a new Gregg Allman Band album coming out in June. T-Bone Burnett produced it. There was this weird situation, and everyone was cool with it. T-Bone does a certain thing, in certain studios, with his list of players. The players are great- Doyle Bramhall, other great players. Dr. John isn’t really too much of a slouch. (laughs) It’s T-Bone Burnett’s concept, but it’s definitely filtered through Gregg’s phrasing and vocals, and he plays organ on it.
Gregg had never done an album without his working band being on it. He wasn’t really too happy about this, but we all talked about it with his management. His management was saying “T-Bone Burnett, Grammy after Grammy, platinum album after platinum album.” So, the band was happy to do that.
Surprisingly, it’s like a blues album. Gregg doing Muddy Waters, Magic Sam, Skip James, a couple of his own tunes, country blues… very interestingly. This album is going to be wildly successful, I suspect. At the same time, we are going to be doing a live album sometime in the next year that will be the band playing live.
The Jaimoe band, we are definitely going to be doing an album. We were going to do one this fall, then he hurt his shoulder. He had an operation, and now he’s fine, and in fact, he’s better than he’s been in years. And so, some time in 2010, the Jaimoe band will be making an album. We have a bunch of original tunes, everyone’s contributing. Not sure when we’re going to do it, but it will be a live-in-the-studio thing, though.
BF: Gregg’s touring?
BK: Starting in the summer, it will probably be a month on and a month off. Gregg will be busier than he’s been for quite a while, especially ‘cause the Brothers are laying low.
BF: What would you like to see come out of the next year?
BK: Best case? I guess a lot of Gregg Allman gigs, some new type of touring opportunities and musical stretching for the BKB. I’d like to stay really busy on both fronts- those two groups are the closest to my heart. If I can figure it out schedule wise, I’d like to break a lot of new ground musically and commercially with my own band. I know I can connect with a lot more people than I’ve been connecting with on the so-called ‘blues circuit.’ And I do notice that some of those folks have been coming out to my shows more lately- more rock people from the jam world. I think it can be interesting, ‘cause I can get into some of their energy and vice-versa.
BF: Jamband audiences are definitely opening up to you. The video of you and Jimmy Herring doing “Franklin’s Tower” smokes (see above).
BK: Holy shit, that video smokes, doesn’t it!? I am so glad that someone took that and posted it. That was happening.
BF: If you could speak directly to that audience, how would their life be better with a little Bruce Katz in it?
BK: That could be a tough one! [laughs] I just think the music I’m playing has a pretty direct emotional content to it. I think there’s a lot of things I do that are familiar to them. They would find themselves going on a little deeper journey through American music. I think they would enjoy the journey, and it would be a slightly different direction and destination than some of the other bands out there now. You’re stumping me, man!
BF: Does the music speak for itself enough?
BK: I’d like to say it does, but I don’t know. There’s a lot of music out there, and people lead very media-obseesed lives, and it’s hard to get their attention. Once people allow themselves to listen to something, the music is enough, because they’ll find themselves intrigued or moved by it. Sometimes it’s hard to get their attention though, and you have to capitalize. Some of my associations over the last few years, it’s been great. It’d be nice if you didn’t have to do that, but the reality of the commercial world is getting the attention of a listener is not easy. That’s why I’m very happy if anybody stumbles across my music. The radio is non-existent for the most part, so people are not going to get exposed to whole lot on the radio anymore
BF: Before we go, I have to ask. Your daughter’s name is Liz Read-Katz. Did you really?
BK: No! It was purely coincidental, and I didn’t even realize it until a good friend pointed it out to me well after the fact. My wife and I had agreed to hyphenate our last names, and we just thought Elizabeth was a beautiful name. It had nothing to do with the song, maybe unfortunately.
But Liz came to one of the shows last fall, and was waiting at the bus to come aboard and meet everyone. When it was her turn, they asked her name, and she said “Liz Read-Katz” and everyone just kind of stopped and stared. It was probably a little embarrassing.
