Chuck Loeb

HK: When you performed in this club, you played more cool jazz. Four months later, in December 1979 I heard with Stan Getz group in Stuttgart, South Germany. Then I really was astonished, because you played stronger, even "punk music", like I've written in a newspaper review.  CL: I don't know whether it was "punk"! You liked more the cool stuff then.

HK: How do you recall your time with Stan Getz? 
CL: It was an amazing thing for me. To be 22, 23 years old and to be asked to play with Stan Getz was like a dream come true. I’ve always been involved not only as a guitar player but also as a composer. Stan was not a composer, so he was always looking for other people to write music for his group. He asked me to write for him, Andy LaVerne wrote music for him. So I not only to got play with this guy, but I also had my music performed by this
great jazz group all over the world, traveling to the jazz festivals and meeting all these people, an amazing experience that was very important for my development, I think.

HK: I liked his soft, warm and human sound very much. On the other hand, Getz was a nervous person with many problems. How would you describe him as a person?
CL: It's interesting. First let me say this: He really had a very big influence on me in his way, he always made a lot of his beautiful warm, love sound. When he played the saxophone it was like that. I tried to make the emphasis on getting a pretty sound on the guitar when I play. I think this is important. As a person, Stan was a kind of difficult – this is the best way to say. He had a lot of problems, you know. He had drug problems, drinking problems
and stuff like that. That became evident in his personality. I had seen him be very nervous and not so nice to certain people. But I have to say with a few exceptions he was very nice to me.

HK: What did you learn musically from him?
CL: Many things, but one is really putting emphases on sound and warmth... This guy played a few notes, and he would draw the whole audience to him. The other thing that was great about Stan is economy. He didn't have to play a lot to say a lot. And I think that's stayed with me also. As a bandleader he was very good at designing what to play and who do let play. He was very democratic, he let us play a lot. It wasn't that like we were just accompanying Stan Getz. He wanted us to play. That made an influence on me. When I had a band I wanted to feature everybody, and tried to make a program that was balanced.

HK: Now, you do your own stuff. What do you feel like most: like a guitar player, a jazz composer, or even like a composer for TV? Or as a producer?
CL: Everything that I do musically really comes out of playing the guitar, because I learned how to compose on the guitar, I even learned to arrange on the guitar. So it all comes down to being a guitar player. However, as a person, I really like to be involved in the big picture, the whole thing. If I had to write a business card it would say, "Chuck Loeb: guitarist, composer, producer." Because I think everything is equal. But it was really starting with the guitar. I spent many, many, many years in the studio working many, many hours, working on records, on films and on TV. I had
all that experience and I really enjoyed it. So it was a natural thing for me to move from that into things like producing records. The expression "soup to nuts" – like a whole meal from the beginning: the main course, the dessert.. I like to see how the whole process happens. Somebody comes with project, a song, an artist, and then trying to arrange this song, how the recording process should be, who the engineer should be, mixing this song, which order will come on the CD, and the cover. I like that. 

HK: What kinds of guitars do you play?
CL: I have solo guitars from many years. I played a electric guitar called Pensa / Suhr. Recently I started to play this guitar, which is a YAMAHA Pacifica USA. This is a new one, I got it last week. They are helping to get to the point where I feel totally comfortable. For acoustic guitars I play two different kinds – for steel string I play Taylor, for classical I play Ramirez, a Spanish guitar, which belongs to my wife. 

HK: Do you combine synthesizers with your guitar?
CL: I also do a lot keyboard programming for my records. This has less to do with the guitar than with arranging an composing. But on stage basically I just use simple effects, some reverb and delay. Some stuff I do has a harder rock sound, so I use an amplifier called AXSys2 from Line 6. It has digital storage for all these settings, things are getting very sophisticated that way, I used to bring to a million pedals and wires and cables. Now all I have this basically one thing (this guitar).

HK: Back to the roots!
CL: Yeah!

HK: It could be the other way, that you could sound like a vibraphone or like chimes and so on. It's all possible, you know. 
CL: It's interesting. Few years back, it was very popular for people to play a guitar synthesizer. In fact, when I was in Steps Ahead, I played guitar synthesizer. There was no keyboard in the band, so I got the chance to really experiment with that. I remember, I listened to the radio one day – and there was a flute solo, a synthesizer flute. And at the end of the record the person announcing on the radio said: "That was Lee Ritenour from his new record". I realized I would much rather really play the guitar than play the flute. Now I try to do all the keyboard stuff separately, and when it comes time to play the melody and the solo, I take the guitar.

HK: You played with many musicians, did a lot of studio work, and met a lot of musicians. What do you think about European musicians like drummer Wolfgang Haffner?
CL: Oh man, Wolfgang is really one of my favorite drummers. I love playing with him, and we are were close as people. He was recommended to me, when we were putting together the band called "Metro", I think four or five years ago. We had Anthony Jackson playing bass. We said, we're not sure who the drummer’s gonna be. The first gigs were in Germany. He said: "I've just come from Germany and I played with this guy Wolfgang Haffner – and he was incredible". So he got me involved, it came from Anthony Jackson. From the first minute it was great playing with him. Through Wolfgang I met a lot of great European musicians; I met Till Broenner, with whom we just did a record with in New York, a beautiful record, all ballads. You know some of the other people like Roberto Di Gioia (p), Patrick Scales (b-g) and also another bass player Christian Deiner, so I'm meeting more people here in Germany. And I meet people in Spain also, because my wife is from Spain. To me, a musician is good whether he lives in Alaska or in New York, it doesn't matter.

HK: Before we started, you mentioned some clarinetists: You played together with Eddie Daniels and Richard Stoltzman. Your impressions? Your answer interests me, because I'm a clarinetist, too.
CL: Six or seven years ago I started to play with Eddie. The first one was on Eddie Daniels Collections with the pieces "Sun Dance" and "Equinox" (with John Patitucci on bass, Dave Weckl on drums and Sammy Figueroa on percussion). I made three or four records with him. I knew him before that because we did sessions together, studio recordings together. But we first started playing jazz together then. We developed the relationship. Eddie is too busy to do a lot of classical concerts all over the place. But every year we get one or two things to play together, doing a
record or we play in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lives. I just think this guy is such a virtuoso, he is really on the top in musicianship. So to me it's great. The sound that we get between the guitar and the clarinet is very nice, soft, a combination sound, we have a certain thing, it happens with the chemistry. Richard Stoltzman...

HK: He is also from the classical discipline.
CL: That's right. Eddie comes more from the jazz world. Richard came from the other way. Richard comes from  classical and goes to jazz, and Eddie comes from jazz more. Working with Richard Stoltzman was really interesting because I not only wanted to play jazz, he wanted me to play the piece "Pavanne" by Ravel, just myself and him and Gary Burton. I was chicken-livered, because I was not a classical player. I was nervous. But it came out good. He is a great player.

HK: Now you mentioned Gary Burton. How was it with the vibraphone players like Gary Burton and like Mike Mainieri in Steps Ahead?
CL: Great. I think it's a beautiful sound those two instruments, guitar and vibes…

HK: Although the sound could be quite similar?
CL: It could be! The reason I love that sound is from guitarist Wes Montgomery, his brother Buddy who plays vibes and George Shearing on piano. They made a record together called George Shearing And The Montgomery Brothers. It's a beautiful record. That sound was always in my head, so I love that combination. Also Dave Samuels is on my new CD. He plays marimba, not vibes. It's a very organic sound – it’s like bells. 

HK: What means "balance" to you? You’ve even used that word in an album title.
CL: The thing that I was trying to emphasize with that title was the fact that at that point I had become a father recently, four, five years before. I sometimes felt like a guy walking a side road, the kids are on the one side, and family life and work and money, trying to do television work, trying to do jazz, trying to be a father, trying to be on the road, trying to be home. So in order to make all that work I felt that it really took a lot of balance. The way I got the title was watching when Michael Jordan was playing basketball: he was almost falling over, at the last minute he was
able still to focus and make this beautiful shot into the basket. I thought: That's what it is. It's like things are always going on your life, but you have to have balance enough to be able to get the ball into the basket, to able to do what you're trying to do.

HK: What ethnic music has influenced you?
CL: Once when I was with Stan we were going to India, we were playing at the Jazz Yatra festival. In the mornings they had Indian concerts for us, for anybody, to go to. In the evenings we were playing jazz. In the morning, I went to this concert. I noticed that they were sitting there and tuning their instruments. But there was no break between tuning the instruments and the song. They were just starting to play, and it became music. It was so interesting. I listened to Indian music; of course, I love Brazilian music. My wife is from Spain, so I got the advantage of really getting a taste of Spanish music. I often spend time there with her family. All that stuff, also, with European classical music. There is
a point of reference on my new CD: The song that my wife sings is coming from a Brazilian feeling, with the marimba and percussion.

HK: Where are your personal roots? Loeb could be a German name.
CL: My father was born in Germany, in Duesseldorf, and being Jewish he had to leave when he was ten. His parents moved to New York. He grew up in Europe, he speaks German. When I was fifteen or sixteen he came back here, and I came with him for the first time since he left. 

© 1998 Hans Kumpf. Text and Photos - All Rights Reserved.