John D’earth:

The King of Thursday Night

Interview by Andrew Simon

Tuesday, October 6th. Beer menus and a few empty seats provide the backdrop for local jazz night at Michael’s Bistro.

After playing a ninety-minute set with the Aaron Binder Quartet, trumpeter John D’earth tells me that he has to do a few things before our interview. First, he needs to order a slice of pie for his wife, then he needs to give a few quick pointers to an undergraduate flutist who just sat in with the band. After completing his tasks, John walks over to my table smiling despite a raucous cough.

Grip Monthly: What, do you have a cold like everyone else?Did you try that Echinacea stuff? It works.

D’earth: Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard. I was up in New York

this past weekend, I think being in New York is really a drag for your respiratory system.

Grip: So you must have actually missed a Thursday night. I’m

sure the usuals were disappointed.

D’earth: Yeah, kind of like poker night.

Grip: So how did the whole Thursday night thing (D’earth’s weekly gig at Millers, in Charlottesville) evolve?

D’earth: Well, I was in New York for years with a group of musicians who now live here. One of whom is my wife Dawn Thompson, and one of whom was Robert Jospe the drummer, and we all lived in New York together and had this band Cosmology. And Dawn, who’s from this area, used to bring us down here to do gigs in the 70’s. The band Cosmology had a lot of really great players in it like John Abercrombie and John Scofield, both of whom came to Charlottesville with us to do gigs. And that’s how I got to know Charlottesville. A few years later, we were trying to get out of the city for the summer and we came down here with the band and some friends. We hung out, did some gigs around here, one thing led to another, and we just ended up staying. We used to play a lot at the C & O restaurant over on Water Street, which used to have this really cool bar and dancehall. Then when the C & O closed, we moved over to Miller’s and we started doing a lot of gigs at Miller’s on the weekends and there was this whole extended family of musicians who would jam with us like Leroi Moore, Carter Beauford, me, Pete Spaar, Jospe.

Grip: Did the owners of Miller’s dig your style of music?

D’earth: Miller’s is owned by this guy (Steve) Tharpe, who is an

actor and a real artistic kind of guy. And he would just let us play. He never bothered us. Anything we wanted to do was cool. And we just sort of had a good arrangement. We could do whatever we wanted, he didn’t even have to pay us that much. We just sorta liked it. So, in like ‘89 or ‘90 we started doing the Thursday night thing, and we’ve been doing it ever since. It started out as kind of a jam night, but then we coalesced as a band and became real serious about the music, and really tried to make it tight. Finally, we made a record which we just put out called Thursday Night Live At Miller’s. We recorded it over two nights.

Grip: I was actually at Miller’s on the initial night, and you guys seemed to just let loose as usual.

D’earth: Yeah. It was a very live record, Greg Howard produced

it, did a great job, and actually exceeded way beyond everyone’s expectations of making the record sound like a record. Miller’s acoustics are tough. There’s a lot of tin and wood & glass & brick. It’s kind of tinny in there.

Grip: Now you and Greg also helped out with the most recent Dave Matthews’ album. What was that experience like?

D’earth: I wrote arrangements for the Kronos String Quartet for "Halloween" and "The Stone." It was actually kind of scary. I don’t know if you know who they are, but they’re like the premier avant-garde string quartet in the world. And Dave actually was the one who introduced me to their music years ago, long before there was a Dave Matthews Band. We were all just hangin’ out one night, and he said "do you know the Kronos String Quartet?" Of course I was like "No." Anyway, he got me over to his house, played me some of their stuff, and it just blew me away. So, working with them was amazing.

Grip: Did he write the pieces knowing that you would help him out?

D’earth: Definitely. Dave and I have a pretty cool relationship. We did another project like this in the past with the Richmond Symphony. I wrote a couple of charts for the Richmond Symphony to play some of Dave’s tunes. So we collaborated on it, talked about it a lot, and then I did the orchestration. And we did the same for These Crowded Streets. We got together, had one meeting, went through the songs, he told me some of his ideas, I mixed in some of my own ideas. It came out great.

Grip: Do you like his new (Dave Matthews Band) album? It’s a bit morbid...

D’earth: It’s a dark album. I like it cause it’s not so poppy.

Grip: He is selling out places like Giants Stadium for forty bucks a ticket. It’s unbelievable.

D’earth: The thing that’s great about Dave, he was always one of the ten or fifteen people that would make me say "man, this guy can make it. This guy can be huge." It was just the right band, right time, right city—everything was right.

Grip: So Dave just blossomed from this blend of musicians?

D’earth: Definitely. It’s very unusual here. And I may be over the top saying this, but I think we had something to do with that when we moved here years ago. After playing in New York for years and meeting all these musicians, we knew the scene there, but we never really identified with any one group of musicians. You see, New York is kind of snotty, you know? It’s kind of like the biggest small town in the world. It’s the most provincial place in the world. And we wanted to get out of there, because we didn’t like all of the judgmental, New York, snooty shit. So we came down here, and there were all these great players and we became totally submersed in the whole thing. Everyone was very inclusive. And so, a lot of music was created in pools. Just a lot of good stuff happened. I always felt really mixed about being out of New York, like I was shirking my karmic duties by leaving New York. But in a way, it’s much cooler to be here because it’s easier for everybody to find their own voice here, whereas in New York, everybody was always like "These guys are weird."

Grip: Was the expansive group of musicians a bit intimidating? Too many egos to put up with?

D’earth: The ton of people is the good part. And the gifted players are the great part. But the bad part of it is what I call the Jazz Police (he chuckles) who are just like "that’s not cool because it’s not like the regular thing." For example, there’s this guy coming down here to play in a couple of weeks named Denny Wallace, an old friend of mine

who came up to the New York scene years ago. Anyway, nobody ever dug Denny. They thought he was too outside, too different, being from Chattanooga. And he never fully adapted. But he really rose to the top much more than anyone else. He’s played with the great players. He was in a trio with Eddie Gomez and Danny Richmond, he played with Chick Corea, and always had his own group and own records because he did not let New York change him. So he was always a big example to me. His attitude was always kinda like "fine, all these cats are so hip and they like each other, it’s better to have your own voice."

Grip: So is Charlottesville homebase for now?

D’earth: It’s homebase. I’m here. I love Charlottesville. And I always thank my lucky stars that I didn’t grow up here.

Grip: Why, do you think that you would be sick of it by now?

D’earth: Well if you grow up in a place, you gotta leave. You know? And I’ve been all over the world, and I have not found a better place. And I only tell my good friends about it. I don’t tell people I don’t want to know about it (he chuckles). This is the most beautiful place.

Grip: Definitely. Charlottesville is like this expanding sphere of intellect and creativity.

D’earth: It’s a good combination of rigorous, intelligent people. And at the same time, there’s also the innocence. People don’t act like they know everything, which is very cool. So I’ve decided I know my denomination: I know that I don’t know. I can’t hear what a dog can hear, I can’t see what a cat can see. I am an ignorarium.

(In addition to his many other gigs, John D’earth and his band can still be found at Millers in Charlottesville every Thursday night)