{"id":15576,"date":"2018-11-25T05:30:43","date_gmt":"2018-11-25T10:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15576"},"modified":"2018-11-16T10:30:09","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T15:30:09","slug":"jonathan-scales-structural-integrity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/25\/jonathan-scales-structural-integrity\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Scales’ Structural Integrity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Composer, band leader and steel drum player Jonathan Scales maintains a busy and challenging schedule. In just the last two years or so, he\u2019s toured internationally as part of the U.S. State Department’s cultural ambassador program, given a TEDx Talk, played at Victor Wooten\u2019s music camp, and produced an album by his friend, musical associate and fellow Asheville resident Chuck Lichtenberger. Amid those activities, he made time to record his sixth studio album of original music \u2014 he celebrated the release of Pillar<\/em> with a show at Isis Music Hall on Friday, Sept. 14.<\/p>\n

Scales\u2019 approach to writing music is a hybrid of composition with \u201cmoments of improvisation,\u201d he says. He contrasts his method with the traditional jazz approach of playing the \u201chead\u201d or basic melodic line once, then allowing each band member to take a turn at soloing, and then restating the head at the end. \u201cEvery single tune of mine uses a different road map,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s more about what needs to happen in a particular moment to express whatever needs to be expressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jonathan Scales. Photo by Sandlin Gaither<\/p><\/div>\n

Pillar<\/em> features a number of high-profile guest players including bassists Wooten, MonoNeon and Oteil Burbridge, B\u00e9la Fleck on banjo, saxophonist Jeff Coffin and percussionist Weedie Braimah. \u201cI had the guests in mind before we went in the the studio,\u201d Scales says. He composed with consideration for their styles: \u201cHow would I want the drums to play so that the banjo would fit nicely in there?\u201d<\/p>\n

The basic tracks for Pillar<\/em> were cut over the course of a two-day session at Echo Mountain Recording. \u201cI\u2019d been there before doing [sessions] for other people,\u201d Scales says. \u201cBut this was my first time recording at Echo for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Scales on steel pans plus bassist E\u2019Lon Bruce Jordan-Dunlap and drummer Maison Guidry, the approach was straightforward: \u201cRecord, record, record, record,\u201d Scales says with a laugh. \u201cAnd then at the end we came out and asked, \u2018What just happened?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

With multiple takes of each of Pillar<\/em>\u2019s eight songs from which to choose, Scales and his sidemen listened to the recordings and chose the best. Then \u2014 in separate sessions at other locations \u2014 the guest artists added their parts.<\/p>\n

Scales\u2019 signature steel drum sound is at the center of the Pillar<\/em> recordings, but all the players shine. The band leader cites Thundercat, John Cage, Stravinsky and Johann Sebastian Bach among his wildly diverse influences. But he says that with his new music, he aimed for the cinematic quality found in the work of Danny Elfman. \u201cThe Nightmare Before Christmas<\/em> soundtrack was a big influence on me during the writing process,\u201d Scales says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you make an album, you usually realize things you wish you had done differently,\u201d Scales says. But as the release date for Pillar<\/em> approaches, he doesn’t feel that way at all. \u201cThis is the culmination of the last 11 or 12 years of my career,\u201d he says. \u201cIt is what it is, and I love it as is. I wouldn\u2019t change anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Pillar\u2019s standout tracks is the nervy \u201cHow to Rebuild Your Battleship.\u201d After a careening steel drum melodic line \u2014 one so precisely executed that it feels like a sequencer program rather than Scales and his mallets \u2014the tune features a stuttering, insistent and menacing bass break reminiscent of \u201cIndiscipline,\u201d a mid-1980s King Crimson track. The two textures contrast sharply but exist in a kind of skewered harmony. That tension between coexisting elements is a key characteristic of the album as a whole.<\/p>\n

For Scales, who turns 34 the day of the hometown show, change is a creative catalyst. \u201cA lot of life changes \u2014 moving to different houses, relationship things \u2014 inspired the album,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And as he faced those events, ones that psychologists agree are among the most emotionally traumatic, he says he has felt the need to be strong. \u201cIt might be a subconscious thing,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I feel like I\u2019ve needed to be stable for everything and everyone around me: a pillar.”<\/p>\n

Scales continues, “I\u2019m not saying that I make everything happen, doing this, doing that. But it\u2019s something that I thrust upon myself, trying make sure everything is taken care of. And when things are overwhelming and approach a breaking point, using that same pillar analogy, there were times when there was too much weight that I was trying to hold.\u201d<\/p>\n

While that subtext may have served as a creative engine in the making of Pillar<\/em> (credited to the Jonathan Scales Fourchestra), the music has an uptempo, playful and adventurous exuberance that belies such weighty notions. Emotion does provide the spark for Scales\u2019 music writing, but he says that, in the past, he has applied it in a detached fashion. \u201cOn the songs I\u2019ve released before, I would sometimes come from a more technical place,\u201d he says. \u201cThere was always emotion behind it, but there were always techniques that I wanted to try out … things like that.”<\/p>\n

Scales adds, \u201cThis time, I started with the emotional parts, and then used my techniques to try to put them across.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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