Michael League y Bill Laurence, Fundamental members of the international jazz super group Snarky Puppy, stand out from the band to present “Where you wish you here”, stheir intimate and ambitious musical project of piano and lute with which they will tour several cities in Argentina, including Neuquén, where they will play This Thursday, at 9:00 p.m., at the Desafíos Cultural Center (Brentana 46).
Snarky Puppy will return to Argentina to present on Sunday May 21, at the Luna Park stadium in Buenos Aires, his most recent album, Empire Central, with a particularity: its creator, the bassist, guitarist, keyboardist… in short, the multi-instrumentalist Michael and League, and his old friend and bandmate, the no less essential pianist and keyboardist Bill LaurenceThey traveled to Argentina for a few days to present their duo work that emerged from the vicissitudes of the pandemic. An introspective work that experimented with the sound possibilities of the piano and the lute, in the key of jazz & pop.
A few weeks ago, from Washington, the Michael League granted BLACK RIVER an interview via Zoom, in perfect Spanish, a language that he has handled with expertise since he established his residence three years ago, in a small town in Catalonia, Spain.
“Where you wish you here” (“Where you want you to be”) it is the result of an experience that Michael and Bill had in the middle of a pandemic. League’s Italian agent contacted him in mid-2020 to ask if he would not be interested in participating, virtually, in an Italian music festival, since it was impossible for them to hire musicians due to the quarantine.
I know a lot of people think of me when they think of Snarky Puppy, but I do a lot of things that have nothing to do with the band. This is a very different experience than Snarky Puppy.”
Michael League.
The founder of the Snarky Puppy he called his colleague and friend Bill and they got to work on a set list. “Billy and I have been best friends for 20 years and by chance we both lived in Europe when the covid came out,” says League. “So we put together a repertoire immediately because we have a lot of chemistry. We started making versions and adaptations of mine and his. It was so much fun and so inspiring that we decided we had to write for this duo and get something out of it.”
That something is what “Where you wish you there” ended up being, a project in duo format, which, in the words of League, “is one of my favorite formats because there is so much freedom there because we don’t play loud, just with piano and lute. The idea was to compose simple but beautiful themes, that could be played in a duet without other musicians, like something that you don’t need overdubs and more production to get it right, something natural, very naked and vulnerable, in some way. Billy and I have that side of our personalities. I know a lot of people think of me when they think of Snarky Puppy, but I do a lot of things that have nothing to do with the band. This is a very different experience than Snarky Puppy.”
In general, the last three years have been weird. Any record that someone is making today is a pandemic record in some way.”
Michael League.
Born in California, a resident of Catalonia and very interested in flamenco, leader of a group that is attended by dozens of musicians from very different backgrounds and formations, for all this (in addition to taking classes with Turkish and Moroccan teachers) it is that Michael League is definitely a world musician. Is it surprising then that he chose the lute to compose a duet with his friend Bill? “The lute has a very distinct and very recognizable sound, but the truth is that it all comes from a vocabulary that Bill and I have developed over 20 years. Bill has always had a very visual sound, his playing inspires a lot of visual things, like a soundtrack. I am contributing something more pop. The idea was to compose super clear, emotional ideas, but also as a way to discover different ways of relating as a duo”.
“The lute -he continues explaining- has possibilities that a guitar does not have, it goes lower than any guitar, like a fifth lower. It has no fret so it is much more melodically expressive. It’s also very percussive, much more than the guitar, in my opinion it’s more or less a drum and there are microtone possibilities that are very interesting as well. And because it was like a challenge for me to carry out a musical project with a lute”.
The most typical, League describes, would be the lute playing melodies and the piano playing chords, but on this record they tried to change that, sometimes the lute is playing a bass line, the piano playing melodies or himself doing some percussion with the instrument. “Above all, we wanted to capture an emotion, something nostalgic,” he says of the record’s sound. “Our job as musicians is to create an imaginary world, something magical, when you listen to music it puts you in another place, neither your place nor that of the musicians, another. And that has always been my goal as a musician. On this record we got a different vibe, definitely”.
“Where you wish you there”, produced in post-pandemic circumstances, is not really his first solo work. Before (not long), she had recorded “So Many Me”, a truly pandemic album. Recorded during 2020 in absolute solitude, Michael League gave shape to a highly recommended electropop album where he plays everything.
Put on a par, it could be said that the pandemic is the duo work with Laurence, but no. And League has a good explanation for it: “In general, the last three years have been weird. Any record that someone is making today is a pandemic record in some way.”
Tickets for this show are available, by system, through livepass.com.ar and at Flipper (Av. Agentina 179, Neuquén).
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