Audible: "Hey Little Girl, Come Go With Me Tonight"
By Grant Moser
My first time seeing the Howard Fishman Quartet was at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg. If you've ever been, you know the back room where the bands play is narrow—narrow and a little more narrow. The only way up to the stage (which is at floor level) is through the crowd; a rite of passage as I see it.
The night in question, the back room filled up quickly, becoming mobbed. The back door was jammed with people trying to see and hear the band. Once the chairs filled up, people sat down right on the floor. They seemed an unsupposing bunch when I first saw them, but the music changed all that.
Now, as a writer, I'm supposed to describe what they play so you, the reader, understand what to expect. I can't. The best I can come up with is "updated traditional." Traditional what? I can't even tell you. I can tell you to go see them. Please. Oh my, you will have fun.
There were songs for sunny porches down along the Bayou, when all is good. There were songs when life is cold and you're out on the curb but somehow the stars are still bright every now and then. There were songs where both twisted around each other. They aren't just songs either; they're lifestyles for these guys. Each song they play is the world for that moment.
Howard Fishman (guitar, banjo), Russell Farhang (violin), Erik Jekabson (trumpet), and Jonathan Flaugher (double bass) have only been together in this lineup since September of this year. Their playing is inspired, inspiring, and magic. They are trained musicians, but they bring a feeling to a room that is... reunion-like. Everyone there is part of a community when they play; it can't be helped.
At Pete's, they had problems with a new sound system and had to play acoustic, which they were happy about, since the music "should be performed that way". The room was attuned to the band during the songs, no one wanting to miss anything or lose the thread. It was hard to suppress a smile during some songs, and hard to take a breath because of the tension in another. It worked its way under your skin.
I met up with them before another show at Mercury Lounge in Manhattan for an interview. I stayed afterwards to catch the show, which this time was plugged in. It was infectious, surrounding you like you were underwater in the clearest ocean. After the interview while we were waiting for showtime, I sat with Howard and had a drink. We chatted. At one point he said, "Most reporters have an angle and I've been trying to figure out what yours is. I can't". I didn't have an angle; I was there to let them tell me their story.
Q: I've read the reviews you guys have gotten—swing, cabaret. Last night, I saw you play Appalachian, blues, Dixieland, jazz. How do you classify yourselves? Do you care?
HF: We're the band that defies classification. If you were to go through our press kit, you'd get quotes about the swing band, the cabaret band, bluegrass band, and post-modern bluegrass band. We incorporate all these things, but we're not any one thing.
RF: We only really care about classification when we get classified. We have to object and say that's not really all of the story.
Q: So what's the guiding voice in your music?
HF: We come from all these influences and then we sort of throw them together for the original material.
JF: Howard usually introduces a song to the band.
Q: Do you have a message you aim for when composing a song?
HF: Any aspect of life qualifies. The only things the songs really aren't are topical or political or have an agenda.
RF: They're about emotional experience. About life.
Q: What does the word "art" mean to you? And then, what's your art?
RF: Creation. Presentation.
JF: Conveying how you're feeling at the moment.
RF: Taking emotion and making it into music.
HF: What do you hear us as?
Q: I hear a variety of influences, like last night at Pete's Candy Store. The first song reminded me of a cotillion, then blues, then swing, then jazz, some folk thrown in. What about those types of music made you decide to head down that path?
RF: I think that reflects how each of us came from different backgrounds. Howard's played all different kinds of music and we all color that with our own different takes.
HF: For me, I've always been interested in where things come from. Finding something to build on.
Q: How do you make them your own? Once you have these building blocks, how do you tweak them to make something new?
RF: The process of changing it into something new is where we come in as a band. When we play together is when something gets created.
JF: The great thing about the band is we don't think hard about changing it into something new. Usually Howard has a tune he plays and it goes through the filter of us.
RF: Howard takes a tune and starts playing it and John puts in a bass line that's his own and then Eric and I start playing and we each bring a new slant to it and how it comes out is how it comes out. What I love is that the song comes as a raw entity and then there are four hands in there shaping it all.
Q: How much up on stage is improv?
HF: A lot.
JF: But it's within parameters. The best description of jazz I ever heard was it is a bunch of rooms interconnected that are the same all the time, but within them you can do whatever you want.
Q: Accurate?
RF: Good description.
JF: Yeah, there are certain tunes we will treat a certain way. But we are not deliberately playing it only one way. We try and find what's appropriate and fit it in the tune.
RF: But there are times when everything is improvised. In terms of key and time and structure of the song. We just go off and it becomes completely organic. We communicate well enough that we can signal when it's time to move on to the next section.
Q: You've received all these high-profile reviews, in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Village Voice, Le Monde. For a band that's not even really a year old, how has this affected you?
HF: I think what it's done is given us credibility in our own minds. Some validation, like we're doing something good.
RF: We knew we had something interesting but we were so afraid everyone was going to hate it.
Q: Do you think the great response has been because you guys are one-of-a-kind? Not many other people today are playing this type of music.
HF: I do. I don't think there's another band that could necessarily do what we do. Without sounding too pompous.
JF: I think there might be moments where we sound like one person or another, but I think the whole enchilada is definitely unique.
RF: And I'm grateful the audiences we've played in front of have enjoyed what we're doing up there. I think part of the audience reaction is the vibe you give off while you're playing.
Q: You definitely are enjoying yourselves up there.
HF: There's something about the music that goes over the lines of age and class. And we haven't been able to hit on it yet, and maybe you will, but there seems to be something about us that appeals to the masses.
Q: Maybe because you're taking something so old and exposing people to it again. How many bands are playing this music? How many kids have ever heard this before?
JF: I think it's definitely fresh. People are like, wow, I didn't expect to hear that.
HF: My conviction is that it has more to do with the four of us and whatever music we did would appeal to people.
JF: But you can't underplay that we have an interesting repertoire.
HF: We also have an interesting instrumentation—no drums, no electric guitar. I sit down when I play the guitar. All that says to people we're different from the norm.
RF: I think we're having fun. It's a lively atmosphere we're putting out. And people respond to that.
Q: Let's talk about the audiences. The last five years have seen drastic changes in Williamsburg. What have you seen different in the audience makeup? Are they different than audiences in Manhattan?
HF: The shows we do are different in Manhattan. The show we're going to do here tonight is similar to the Williamsburg show, but won't be the same.
RF: The show is the Williamsburg show and then we have to modify it when we come in to Manhattan.
JF: Williamsburg gives us a good place to play. The people are receptive to music and art there.
RF: The thing I've noticed about Williamsburg is the audience is "These are fellow artists". You get the feel people are there because it's community music. Whereas, in Manhattan, people say "I'm going to see a show".
JF: Living in the neighborhood, I'll always see people from the show on the subway or at the grocery store and they're always very nice. People are way into the fact it's a local band.
Q: OK. Your new CD, "I Like You a Lot." Expectations? What are people going to hear?
HF: It's much different from the first CD.
RF: It's more faithful to the live show.
HF: It is basically a live show, recorded in the studio. No overdubs; we just laid it all down and chose the best tapes. It wasn't planned that way, but once we did it and listened to the tapes, we decided to go with it. This one is mainly original material, except for two songs, which the first one was not.
Q: If you could meet a hero, a music role model, who would it be?
EJ: Duke Ellington.
RF: Clifford Brown.
JF: The Beatles.
HF: Buddy Bolden.
Q: Who?
HF: He had the first jazz band. A guitar, a violin, a cornet, an upright bass and a clarinet. And there are no recordings of it at all. I'd like to hear what that band sounded like.
Come see what the Howard Fishman quartet sounds like. They're an anachronism in time. Something this pure doesn't exist anymore. Well, until now. You won't be disappointed with what they've conjured up out of the past and made their own. http://www.howardfishman.com