 Welcome to 502 Sessions. I'm Brian Kirby. My guest today is Max Acree. Max is a trombonist currently living in Boston, but he has performed, taught, and recorded at the international level. In 2012, he was awarded a Downbeat Undergraduate Soloist Award, and he went on tour in France with the Bill Carruthers Group. In 2014, he received a full scholarship to Berkeley College of Music, and he recorded as soloist on an album with Jerry Burganzi and George Garzone, featuring the music of Nando Michelin. In 2017, he was the main guest artist at the Club de Trombone annual improvisation seminar held in Buenos Aires, where he spent a week presenting his ideas on improvisation in clinic and also performing at various clubs throughout the city. Max is joined today by Zach Auslander on guitar, Sozo Gelavani on bass, and Willis Edmondson on drums. Max Acree. 502 Sessions. I'm here with Max Acree. Acree, right? Yes, sir. Good. All right. So, 502 Sessions with Max Acree. Good to have you here. Thank you for having me. Oh, you're welcome. So, the quartet, do you always work with a quartet? Pretty much. I've used this quartet for the past year or so in this configuration with Zach Sozo and Willis. Okay. And so, your songs are heavily improvisation-based? Yeah. Yeah, you could absolutely say that. They have a lot of framework for the players to really go wild. All right. Actually, I jumped way ahead. Let's start. Let's just back up a little bit. Max Acree? So, where are you from, actually? I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio, originally. My dad was a trombonist in the scene there, a professional jazz trombonist, and he inspired me to take up the horn. Oh, okay. I was going to say how to end up with trombone. So, your dad, that helps quite a bit. And did you go to public school there? I went to a private school for elementary school, a private Catholic school. But then when high school came around, I went to the School for Creative and Performing Arts, which is in downtown Cincinnati. And when you went there, so you didn't go through a public school music program, you took it to the Performing Arts program. So, when you were in the Catholic school, did they do trombone, or was there much music? No. Well, how I wound up with trombone is really funny, actually. My eighth grade year, there was like a requirement. You either had to be in chorus or band, and I was not about to sing. No, we had to do both, I think. So, I talked to my dad about starting something, and he was like, well, I have a trombone you can use. That's no money for us. So, I started on trombone. That was it? Yeah, that was it. I mean, I had also heard my dad play a lot as a kid. He would take out the horn occasionally and play for me, and all was a big inspiration. So, wait, but he was a professional trombonist in a big band, or the jazz music? Yeah, well, my dad played lead on the Tommy Dorsey ghost band in the 80s, and then eventually, he made his living as a trombonist in Cincinnati, playing Broadway shows and big bands and society music type gigs. Okay, so Freelancer. Exactly, yeah. So, then you took it, so you go from elementary school to the performing arts school, which I assume was auditioned in? Yeah, it was still technically part of the Cincinnati public school system, but it did have an audition requirement to get in. And I started trombone in eighth grade. I'd been playing about six months at that point. Oh, no kidding. I guess I had a natural knack for it, and I was able to get in and secure a spot in the first trombone position in symphonic wins. Well, plus, they probably also need trombones. Those are middle horns for the orchestras. I'm assuming that you did a variety of performers, they're not just jazz. Exactly, yeah. And they need horns. It was for symphonic wins, orchestral literature, and then also for jazz. Okay. Playing in the big band. And that was from eighth grade through high school? Yeah, ninth grade through twelfth grade. I went to the school for creative performing arts from 2006 until 2010. It's a big step from high school to college, though. And you didn't make the step immediately, right? Or did you do something before Berkeley? I did. I started my college career at the College Conservatory of Music, which is attached to... So you did go from high school right to music? Yeah, I did. I was a transfer to Berkeley, actually. My long story short, my father passed away of cancer after my freshman year in college. And life circumstances kind of led me to leave the city. But I started my first year as a actual classical trombone performance major at CCM and was doing Philharmonia there and just playing orchestral literature. I've always wanted to play jazz, but my foundation is in classical. I feel like it's really helped me develop a good technique for the horn. You won an undergraduate Downbeat soloist award. I did. I'm assuming that'd be jazz because Downbeat's a jazz magazine, it was. It was for jazz. While I was at CCM, I was doing the Philharmonia and all of the orchestral stuff, Symphonic Winds. But then I was also in the big band. I was also part of a combo that was directed by Kim Pencil, who's a teacher on faculty there that I really admired a lot. So I was doing a lot of things back then. I would say so. So yeah, because you were doing the classical thing, but also the jazz. Yeah, classical was just my technical major. Oh, okay. Yeah, but anyone can play in the jazz realm if they can improvise and if they can read. Okay. And then so then you got your undergraduate degree. How did you get to tour in France? You did not graduate from Cincinnati. I did not. No, I'm actually just getting my degree this semester from Berkeley and finally finishing up. The tour with Bill Carruthers actually came from my recognition by Downbeat. He was doing this tour, which was commemorating the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. And at the time, I was a trombonist who I had a degree of repute for being able to do the ballad style very well, sort of like Tommy Dorsey and Irby Green. And he brought me on in particular to really use that style. How long was the tour? I was in France for three weeks at the time. And then that was 2012. How did you end up at Berkeley? Oh, that with Bill, that was in 2014. 2014. Oh, I think I mixed those up then. Okay. So you at that time, you had a full scholarship already to Berkeley. So you did the France tour and then you came back and started Berkeley? Exactly. And are you a trombone major, a performance major, a composition? I'm a performance major at Berkeley. That's when I'm getting my degree in. All right. And that's coming right up. You said this semester you're finally graduating? Yes, sir. So wait, it's 2018. So you did the standard four-year thing? Exactly. Yeah. All right. Now let's talk about the writing. So have you always written or when you got into jazz, did you start with standards like most people? Yeah. I was very traditional in my sort of introduction to jazz, you know, just playing standards, going to jam sessions and everything. It wasn't really until I came to Berkeley, until I developed an interest in composing. A lot of that was through my teacher, Hal Crook, who was one of my biggest inspirations in general. But he really got me sort of in the mindset for that. Specifically in the mindset like start writing your own stuff or you were just inspired by his original compositions, if you understand my questions. No, I understand exactly what you mean. I think it was a degree of both also. He said man, write your own stuff. Yeah. Yeah. He wanted me to really try to get out and, you know, write stuff that was going to supplement my own style in a way that, you know, standards wouldn't. But also another inspiration was Eric Dolphy. I always loved his writing and playing and I wanted to write something that was sort of in that vein but not, you know, completely just a rip-off. Okay. You're taking us back to the 60s here, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Dolphy died in 64, but way ahead of his time. And so that was just part of your listening. You discovered Eric Dolphy at Berkeley through like a history course or you'd always been interested in that sound. So we should kind of explain that I've had many jazz bands on and some of them write, they're not standards, but they're based on a more standard layout. You've been here now, you're here now, I'm sorry, Daniel Rodham was here. And they're more, you have a lead sheet, but it's pretty open when you get to the improvisation section. So I don't know, maybe you could, don't let me talk about it. I'll let you talk about what the difference is between a standard ABA form and... Yeah, I mean, that's a really interesting question. I think the biggest difference really is just how you negotiate the improvisation and how you negotiate the form. And sometimes the form that we play on the actual melody isn't the form that we play for the solos or the solos might not have no form at all. We'll play a head or a melody that I've composed and then for the solos we're just playing free, which was a setting that I really explored a lot with Howe in his classes at school. But also a big inspiration for this is it was influencing Dolphy too and I know it's influenced Howe as like the 20th century classical music tradition as composed by guys like Schoenberg and Bella Bartok and Stravinsky. A lot of the jazz, what would be considered the jazz avant-garde or modern jazz has been influenced by the Iodidium. So what are you, you've mentioned several artists there or composers as well, so what are you listening to over the last 10 years to... 10 years, man. Well, I shouldn't say 10 years, but not right now, but you're mentioning them as influences, but you've also listened to most of their works or... Not all of their works. I mean, with Bartok, I'm certainly an aficionado. Okay. With Stravinsky, it's more of a thing. I really enjoy the Ride of Spring in Petrusca. That's a great work and I played the Firebird when I was the Firebird Suite. It's part of an opera, but it was a ballet, sorry, ballet, and it was condensed down to like a three movement piece for orchestra to perform and I did that while I was at CCM, which is also a great inspiration. So yeah, those guys, I like Schroenberg, as I mentioned, Pierre Luner, the first A-tonal piece he composed is really amazing. And when you speak about, you play the melody and maybe the free or the improvised section doesn't follow the form of the melody, you may have a... I didn't pay that close attention. I mean, I was listening, believe me, but what I mean is I wasn't going, oh, they did an 18 bar head and now that's, I think that's 20 bar. I wasn't paying, you know, I didn't do that. Yeah. So, but what you're saying is maybe the melody was 24 bars, but then when you improvised it got stretched, so the changes would stretch? Exactly, yeah. Well, on the first tune that we played Excalibur, Excalibur, that actually doesn't have a form for the solos at all. So that's free, open. Yeah, it actually opens up with a rubato section. John Coltrane did this sort of on Love Supreme. Like in the very beginning, it's this extended rubato section, then it breaks into time and then it goes to solos. And so, I mean, that was kind of a similar layout to the way that I envisioned Excalibur. I have, you know, kind of a drone while I play this melody and then it breaks into time and then it breaks into swing and then we go into solos. So it's kind of just a tangent after tangent. And let's talk about free improvisation or did you have a different term for it? No, I think that's a great term actually. Open improvisation. So free sounds a little loose to people that don't listen that much, but there's a heavy component of listening involved there. Oh, absolutely. So I'll let you explain it because I'm interviewing you. But so you're all listening. It's not, you're not up here rambling on. So just talk about that from your perspective. My, like I've said before, one of my greatest inspirations is Howe, who I studied, Howe Crook, who I studied with at school. And it was really his system of improvisation that influenced me the most. And the way that he kind of thought about it is that it's an ensemble setting. You know, we're trying to be one unit that serves the music. And in that way, we're always listening to each other. We're trying to do something that complements us as a whole rather than as individuals. And I think, I mean in a nutshell, I think that's the way that I would describe free improvisation at its best. And your ears are highly attenuated to what's going on around you. I'm making that as a statement, but it has to be true. Okay, because it sounds like music. And so, but that's what I meant by, I mean, you're, you can hear individual changes in what Zozo is doing, which will influence you. But if you're soloing up front, he kind of hears what you're doing and can follow you. Yeah, so you might even change key a little bit. And they're following the sound where it takes them. Exactly. Well, in a way, it becomes a superconducting loop. You know, like what one does affects the other affects the other affects the other. All right, great. We will talk more about club de trombone. Did I get that correct? Yep, that's right. We'll talk more about that later, but how it's some more music now. Great. All right, let's bring your band back on. I'm sorry, let's bring your band back on. Max Acree is my guest today on 502 Sessions. Thank you. 502 Sessions, I'm back with Max Acree. And let's talk about club de trombone, annual improvisation seminar of Buenos Aires. That is one long name. It is. It is very easy. So why do they call it club de trombone? Is it all trombones or people use trombones as clubs and they go around raiding in the city or something? What's that all about? It's a group of trombonists that all play professionally in the scene. And Buenos Aires is doing, you know, jazz commercial type stuff. And every year they try to bring in a person to sort of give a lecture style master classes on different topics that they're interested. So they brought me in last year. I'm really lucky because Berkeley has a great connection to Argentina. And one of my dear friends who I met at Berkeley, a drummer named Juan Chiavaza, he sort of hooked me up with this trombonist who was putting it together last year in 2017 named Franco Espendola. And, you know, through talking, he gradually was like, you want to come down? You know, we would love to have you and, you know, have you play a few dates? You know, you can talk, you know, master classes over the week and tell us about your your concepts and everything. And just a great time. So how much organization did that take on your part? Or did you? Was it a it was a lot because you don't want to go in there and riff dialogue for an hour at a master class? Exactly. I had a lot of notes, you know, sort of saved on finale of, you know, different things that I had written out and how to approach certain things that I that I took down there to them. We planned this over a year in advance because originally the, you know, the plan was for me to come down in 2016 actually, but we couldn't make it work out that year. So we had to delay it by a year. And yeah, one of the greatest adventures I've ever gone on. Did you take your band down or when you played the clubs, they had a rhythm section for you? Yeah, they had a band for me. I played with a group that's sort of famous in Buenos Aires, the Hernan Merlo group. He plays with his son Fernan Merlo and I can't Merlo. Yeah, Merlo. Their last name is M-E-R-L-O. Oh, okay. And so I played with them when I was going out and doing my club dates. And then when I was doing master classes, it was just me surrounded by like this massive group of like 40 drum bonus. And did they have a student rhythm section for you? No, no, for that, it was just it was more me just presenting, you know, esoteric topics, you know, talking more than playing. I guess I would demonstrate every once in a while to show them what I meant. And when you were playing throughout the city, did you had you set your music in advance or were you going down there as a jazz musician playing standards that are, you know, there's a common knowledge of among jazz musicians in the world over? Yeah, it was sort of half and half. We played we played all of my original compositions that I had at the time. And then we also were playing because we were doing like two hour sets. We are also playing some standards and ballads and everything. So what's next for Max Acree? You've done a lot. It's all downhill from here, guys. So just kidding. It's all over. You know, I'm kind of unsure. I really have a big passion for teaching. And I want to try to continue that in any way that I can. How really inspired me, you know, to be that way. He's one of the most influential people in my life. And, you know, he was just a teacher that I had at Berkeley, but he imparted so much wisdom on to me. And I really want to try to be that mentor type figure for other people. It's one of the greatest aspirations of my life. So do you think private teaching or in a school setting, like ensembles and all of it? I love it all. I love teaching an ensemble, but I also, you know, love teaching private students, even just in trombone, basic trombone technique. It's all great. I love doing all of that. And but you're graduating with a performance degree. So you didn't think that you would go into like public teaching, like a school or anything? You know, that's right. It wasn't my plan originally when I started. That sort of has come on in the last two years or so. So you can always supplement your performance degree with some kind of master's in education. So let's talk about that. So performance degree, you're also competent. You can teach a theory class. You could conducting. And it's not just trombone. No, yeah, there's a principle instrument and you work a lot in improvisation and trombone. But exactly. There's a, I mean, there's a pretty thorough curriculum that we go through at Berkeley that's been, it's been set for like, you know, 30, 40 years at this point. But, you know, there's four harmony classes and then there's also a tonal harmony requirement. So you study jazz harmony or commercial harmony, whatever you want to call it. And then you go back and you study like the broken classical era and you study how to make like a classical counterpoint and how to make cannons. I think that that's what I did in school too. I think it was much easier in retrospect to learn the jazz stuff and then go back and do the figured base. Exactly. Yeah. Because then the figured base, oh, it's like a chord progression. Exactly. You know, I think it just happens to be whatever you start with is the easiest. Oh, maybe. And for me, you know, my dad was a jazz musician so that was the type of harmony or at least the terminology that I was exposed to first. So going through tonal harmony was a bit of a chore, at least in being able to label things in the correct way. And, you know, you can't have parallel fifths. Yeah, yeah, I remember taking my test and you think you got it perfect and then, oh, you moved to parallel fifths. All those rules. Exactly, yeah. It's pretty tight. But that's one of the, I think, my theory teacher at the time, I think he said, you know, get your figured base down because it's one of the things that'll be on the graduate, to get into graduate school. They'll ask you about that. And sure enough, you know, and even if you don't, isn't perfect, at least you've got the confidence. Because I guess, you know, it can be a little daunting. I think there's a lot of figured base in classical theory, but I could be wrong on that. There is up until like the late Romantic era and then when you get into the 20th century, you have guys that are pretty much rapidly starting to throw that out. But what I meant was when you're in school, the theory classes are kind of... Exactly, yeah. For me, the hardest part was always remembering the seventh chord inversions, you know, like six, four, four, three, four, two. Yeah, six, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't... Oh, that stuff. I remember the numbers, but I can't quite recall the details. So, all right. Max Acree is here on 502 Sessions. Thank you very much. Thank you. How about one more song? Yeah, let's do it. All right, gentlemen. Thank you for being here today. Thanks for having us. You're welcome, you're welcome. Max Acree has been my guest today and his quartet with Zach Oslender on guitar, Soso Gilavani on bass, and Willis Edmondson on drums. 502 Sessions is all about live original music. So, if you're a musician and you have a lot of original material and you have a lot of original music and you have a lot of original material and you have a lot of original music and you have original material and you'd like to be on the show, don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'm at 502 Sessions at gmail.com. It doesn't have to be a quartet. You could be a solo, could be a quartet, could be a duo. I've had even an orchestra in here before. So, don't hesitate to reach out. I check out all links and I respond to all emails. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you. You're welcome.