Robert Walter is a busy man. Between the Greyboy Allstars, Stanton Moore Trio, W.R.D. (Walter, Roberts, Deitch), his film and television work and god knows how many other one-off musical configurations, it’s safe to say he gets around. That he could do all of this and still find the time to revive his old band, the 20th Congress, seems astonishing. Yet the funkified gumbo of a group that was once home to drummer Joe Russo, saxophonist Cochemea “Cheme” Gastelum, guitarist Will Bernard and many more has returned.
The 20th Congress, who played their first gig in five years this past June during Walter’s four show residency at The Mint in Los Angeles, have recently made their way back to the studio to work on a new record. On top of that, the band will be headlining another gig on December 8—this time at the Brooklyn Bowl—with a lineup that includes Bernard and Gastelum, as well as bassist Reed Mathis, drummer Simon Lott and percussionist Elizabeth Pupo-Walker. We spoke with Walter about the new album, the revival of the 20th Congress, the future of the Greyboy Allstars, his love for New Orleans and more.
So tell me about this new incarnation of 20th Congress. It’s been a while since you guys hit the road. Has the band’s sound changed since you were last playing shows?
Well this is sort of a mixture. Cheme—Cochemea Gastelum—who’s been in the band forever. That’s our sax player, he’s been on all our records and he was in the first version of the band. And then there’s Will Bernard, who played with us for a long time—I guess sort of in 2004 through 2008. Then Reed Mathis, who I’ve known forever and also Simon Lott. I’ve been using him for a rhythm section for other gigs lately, and I’ve just been really enjoying playing with him. So this is the first time all of us are together in this configuration.
Did it take a while for you guys to get back in the groove or did things come back pretty easily?
Oh, it’s always pretty easy. All of us—even though some of the guys have not been playing in the 20th Congress—we all played gigs in a million different combinations. All of us have played together and have known each other well, for years. You know, it’s all in the family.
Tell me about the people outside of your band who are working with you guys on the new album. Is anyone else sitting in on any of the tracks?
The album is mainly me and Aaron Redfield, the drummer for Greyboy Allstars. Also Mike Andrews, you’d know him as Elgin Park from Greyboy Allstars. He’s our guitar player, but he produced the record and played bass and guitar on a lot of the record. Karl Denson is on a couple of tracks and Cheme’s all over it. Our percussion player, Chuck Prada, who’s been in the 20th Congress for years, is on it a lot too.
Let’s talk about the recording process in general. How’s it been going for you?
I like to do it kind of fast and dirty. We don’t do various over-dubs. There’s a couple things—everybody’s liable to put a tambourine on a couple things afterwards or something like that—but it’s pretty much live in the room. It’s more about just getting performances that we like, and we do it fast. The whole thing was recorded in four or five days.
We just go in and then it takes a while to mix and select which tracks you want to go on there and stuff. But, basically the recording process is real fast. In the morning I’ll go in and I’ll pitch the band a song and we’ll talk over what we want to do on it—everybody gives their two cents on every arrangement or whatever—and then we just record it. As soon as nobody messes up, that’s it. And there’s not a lot of fancy digital editing and no click track or any of that stuff. I like to play it, I like the spontaneity of a band playing. You know?
So with a band like this—that’s comprised of so many musicians working on so many other projects—is it hard to get them all together for a series of shows and an album?
Yeah, that’s the trickiest thing for me nowadays. When we started we were just a garage band, it was just us and nobody had any gigs and nobody had anything to do. So we would just rehearse all the time and go on the road. We were kids, so our entire life was devoted to one band. [Now] everyone’s grown up and is in demand— and those are the guys I want to play with. They’re really great players that I grew up with. So now it’s just a matter of scheduling. And everybody’s moved to different towns so it’s all of that kind of stuff. I think it’s worth it to wait until the people you want to play with are available, and there’s nothing like playing with people who you’ve known for twenty years.
Cheme Gastelum—who’s been playing saxophone with you guys—has been doing a lot of the R&B and soul thing with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings for some time now. How do the different musical backgrounds of different musicians come through in the studio?
All that kind of Funk 45 sound and old soul is always an influence on us and, when he moved to New York, Cheme kind of fell in with the Daptone people. I had been a fan of a couple of those records early on, and I think he was into that stuff too, so it made a lot of sense for him to move into that world. But as he’s been in that longer, he’s gotten better and better at arranging horn sections and doing stuff in the classic mode. I think he likes to go to my bands sound because it stretches out a little bit more and all that. All these things feed into everything. I work on a lot of film music now and that is subtly influencing the music we play with the band too. Any thing you do adds to the whole thing.
Could you elaborate on that a little bit? How has the stuff you’ve written for film kind of found its way into your repertoire and into the way you work in the studio?
Working on the film music is a lot more precise and there’s a lot of economy. You’re not making music per se, you’re making a film, you know what I mean? The music has to serve a purpose. It has to move the story along and it’s not about your fancy little thing that you thought of or your little music fetishes. You always have a higher purpose, which is to make the story better and make the audience feel more emotion about whatever is happening on the screen. So it’s just taught me to streamline, and cut things and not be afraid to edit myself more.
Have any of the songs you’ve written for films found their way into any of your live shows?
Greyboy Allstars occasionally performs some stuff that we played for the Zero Effect soundtrack that we did. It was the first movie we did, years ago. But most of the music we did is not exactly applicable. It was either too short of pieces or without the film they work in a different way. But the whole idea of really thinking about the sonics of a piece and stuff like that has found its way into my style of composing for sure.
So let’s talk about the Greyboy Allstars for a second. The band played a couple of shows last year—Gathering of the Vibes and Jazz Fest for instance. Is there any chance we’ll get a full tour sometime in the future?
Yeah, it’s supposed to be in the spring. We have an album coming out April 2. We’ve been working on it for a couple years now—that’s a longer process. Although we still kind of cut the tracks the same way as I like to do. Everything’s done the same day you start it pretty much. (Laughs) But we recorded a whole lot of songs. We did, I don’t know how many, but way too many for an album. Then it was just the process of listening to the music over a period of time. We’d go in and do like three days at a time. So we would do a few tunes and then wait a couple months until everyone was available and then we’d do a few tunes more until we had this whole giant mess of songs. Then we tried to fit them together in some way that made sense, and we were experimenting a lot, so the music is pretty varied. We whittled it down to an album, but there’s all these outtakes that we’re hoping to release maybe even before the album. Like one at a time and just put them out on the internet, so all the outtakes are available to people too because they’re all interesting even though they all didn’t work together as an album.
Between Greyboy, 20th Congress, the film work, Stanton Moore Trio—you’ve got a lot of things going on. Is it hard to juggle so many projects at once?
I like it. It keeps me excited about music. I remember there was a period in Greyboy Allstars, and also 20th Congress, when we were just touring so much. It’s not that you’re not enjoying the shows, but you definitely lose a little of the romance about the music because it’s really a job and you’re doing the same thing everyday with the same people. I think it’s healthier, at least for a person that can be this interested in a lot of different kinds of music. I love playing with a lot of different players—it’s nice to be able to switch up projects so that whenever you’re playing in each one you’re really excited to be there. You’re glad to see the people again, and you’re inspired. They have new stories to tell you, musically and otherwise. When you hear someone play and they’re surprising you, that’s the thing I’m looking for.
You moved down to New Orleans in 2004. I’m a native of the city myself. What was it about New Orleans that drew you there?
I was always a fan of the music, and sort of one of my most profound moments—I played piano and I was really into Professor Longhair, James Booker and Dr. John—and my grandparents bought me a trip to New Orleans for my high school graduation present. So I went to the Maple Leaf, and they have that little piano sitting on the side, and during the set break someone encouraged me to go up and play. I got all this applause and I was playing piano at the Maple Leaf in New Orleans and it kind of solidified my choice to become a musician. So that was always a real formative experience for me. For years after I loved going there and I made friends with a lot of musicians from there and it was always my dream to actually go there and do a little sort of study. I always called that my grad school, my time in New Orleans. I learned a lot about playing music from being with those musicians and being in that environment where you play with different people every night. There’s all kinds of different music, and it was just a real intensive period of learning for me.
That’s interesting because I know you did that album with Johnny Vidacovich and James Singleton [Super Heavy Organ], and I’ve seen them play at the Maple Leaf god knows how many times.
The reason I wanted to play with them is that they had been James Booker’s rhythm section at the end right before he died. They were always a legendary rhythm section for that reason—for me—and Johnny had played with Professor Longhair too. I couldn’t believe I got to play with those guys. And after being in New Orleans for a month I was on a gig with them. It’s so easy to meet good musicians down there.
You moved to New Orleans in 2004, which was right before Katrina. I guess you must have really loved it if you stuck around through all of that.
It’s interesting. I’m really glad I got to live there for a little while before the storm, but I also feel sort of thankful that I got to see that time in history. To see how the city changed and what are sort of the essential things in that culture; the things that sort of survived throughout that difficult time. It’s really an amazing thing to me. The first thing to come back was music and everything was still closed and they were having gigs. There were street fights at night and everything, and the Maple Leaf had live music like right after the storm. I wasn’t there; I was out of the city for a month before I came back. Especially that year right after, there was something, I don’t know, there was something profound about the way people responded to the music. It meant a lot to them that that was not lost. For the people that did stick around and did come back to the city, there was definitely a shared kinship around that.
Joe Russo, who now is playing drums for Furthur, among other things, used to play with the 20th Congress back in the day. Have you ever seen him play with Furthur?
I have not. I heard them on the radio and I thought it was a 70’s show or something. You know I’ve never been the world’s biggest Deadhead, but I grew up with that band because my parents were super into the Grateful Dead. I remember hearing those records and shows when I was really small, so I’m familiar with all the music. I was like “Wow! They sound really good this night.” And then the announcer came on and was like “This is Furthur with Joe Russo” and I was amazed. It sounded great but I still haven’t seen a show yet. I was out of town the last time they came to Los Angeles, so I couldn’t go. I recently had Joe come out and play. I did this series of residencies here in L.A. with different musicians each week and Joe did one with me as a duo, which was great.
