Gabe Shuford Transcript

October 26, 2007

Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Authors. In the fourth segment of every show, we like to showcase authors of sound, and Gabe Shuford is a special guest who is indeed that ‑ he plays the harpsichord. He won a composing competition when he was young. He won the top prize at an international harpsichord competition down in Texas recently. He’s an extraordinary baroque player, as well as, a jazz pianist and folk harpsichordist. What don’t you do, Gabe?

Gabe Shuford: Thanks that’s awfully nice. I don’t know. There are probably some things I don’t do.

Kent: Let’s chat about your upcoming project. You’ve been working with a saxophonist?

Gabe: Yeah, a friend of mine, Lars Jacobsen, who I met through another friend, Nicholas Walker, who I think you know. Lars is a great saxophonist. We started collaborating together a couple years ago, working in his studio apartment and recording some stuff with tenor sax, soprano sax, and Fender Rhodes. So, we got a great sound on the Rhodes, and it was just a blast doing that. A lot of free improvisation, it was a good time.

Kent: People can check out the music at his website.

Gabe: Yeah, you can check it out at LarsJacobsenMusic.com.

Kent: LarsJacobsenMusic.com.

Gabe: That’s right.

Kent: So, let’s listen to one of my favorite clips of you playing piano. For most of the album you play Rhodes. Now is the clip where you play piano also part of the album?

Gabe: Yeah, absolutely. And the way it happened was that we recorded some stuff with Rhodes and sax. To fill out the album, we decided to add a couple tracks that had piano in them. I like this tune a lot too.

[music]

Kent: Just a little piece of that song from Gabe Shuford and Lars Jacobsen. You can find all of the music at www.LarsJacobsenMusic.com.

Gabe: That’s right.

Kent: Now, this is jazz. It’s sort of crossover jazz and something else. But how do your worlds relate to each other? You’ve got a degree in harpsichord and you’ve won awards in early music. How does that relate to jazz? How does that relate to popular music?

Gabe: Well, the whole thing with early music is that there’s a lot of improvisation and free‑spiritedness that goes on. I feel like the music leaves room for a lot of creativity, in terms of improvisation. So, for me that’s where the jazz comes in ‑ there’s definitely a connection.

Also, there’s kind of a swing element to early music, baroque music, just like jazz. So I feel like there’s lots of connections between the two. In terms of harmonies, baroque music can be very simple, very much like pop music. You’ve got your 1, 4, and 5, and that’s like the basis of the music. I really enjoy that kind of simplicity. You’ve got beautiful melodies, but the underpinning is this very simple harmonic progression.

Kent: We’re playing right now ‑ and we’ll listen to the end of the show ‑ a piece that you recorded on just the harpsichord. What’s it called?

Gabe: Let’s see. This is a piece by Sweelinck, who is a Dutch composer. And I believe the title is “Mein jungnes Leben hat ein End”. Now I’m going to make a fool of myself because I can’t remember the title.

Kent: A German title. So, let’s listen for a second. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you, Gabe. You have incredible music. We’ll visit LarsJacobsenMusic.com for your jazz. We’re excited to see what you do with your baroque music career. Let’s listen to a little bit of the baroque harpsichord on the way out.

[music]

Kent: I wish I could talk all day long with Gabe Shuford, and my other guests, Roy Lantz, Ralph Watley and Cynthia Blomquist Gustavson. This beautiful music you can find on the web at LarsJacobsenMusic.com. Cynthia Gustavson’s books you can find at CynthiaGustavson.com. Ralph Watley’s stories you can find at PopGoesThePoetry.com. And Roy Lantz, “The Possibilitarian”, you can find at RoyLantz.com. Until next week, thank you to everyone on this end at World Talk Radio. Have a wonderful week.

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