"Take Five" Q&A with Brad Allen Williams!

brad allen williams newsletter take five Aug 31, 2019

Q1: What's the best music gear or app purchase you've made recently?

I recently purchased a small Akai LPK-25 USB MIDI controller to take with me on the road. I’ve always traveled with a small MIDI controller so make charts, demos, and sketch out ideas while away. But the LPK-25 is small enough that I can actually work in an economy class airplane seat. Not only does this allow me to make better use of time on flights, but it makes long-haul flights go by faster, as well. 

Q2: What's your funniest or worst gig story? 

I lost one of my first weekly gigs when the club owner heard the singer/harmonica player use the word “blow” (while pantomiming harmonica with his hand up to his face), and concluded that he must’ve been talking about using cocaine in the bathroom.

 

Q3: What's one concert you've attended that has had a lasting impact on your life?

B.B King in Hattiesburg, Mississippi when I was 18 years old. He had a second guitarist in the band who also had some solos. The second guitarist played 50x as many notes and got 1/50th the response from the audience. The difference was that Mr. King had a touch that was supernaturally expressive and a sound that filled every corner of the hall. The sound and the touch were inextricable from one another, of course. I never forgot that and it was perhaps the single most influential moment on the direction I’ve taken as a player

 

Q4: What's a specific skill/exercise/technique that has taken your playing to the next level?

One of my mentors, the late genius Mulgrew Miller, continually impressed upon me the importance of listening—there is a direct correlation between being a great listener and being a great musician. Improving this aspect of musicianship has actually become all-consuming for me—it’s almost my entire ethos. In any situation, I want to be aware of every single thing that goes on all the time, so I can make sure that every single thing I play is strengthening the overall picture of the music.

If you wanted to crystallize this into an exercise—next time you’re in a rehearsal and the bandleader stops the group, see if you can sing the last phrase the soloist played to yourself, or remember the last four notes the soloist and/or bassist played, or the rhythm the keyboardist just played.

 

Q5: If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your younger self entering the music scene?

Be yourself. Go out and be involved in music in the ways that feel most real and exciting to you, and do so with complete immersion. 

Also, try to avoid the trap of false modesty. Minimizing yourself is fundamentally the same as egotism, because self-obsession lies at the core of both. Learn that it’s possible to know your worth and be humble at the same time. Be comfortable with your own strengths, but also know that they don’t make you more valuable than anyone else.

Finally—be careful how you treat people. Being good to people both to their face and in their absence is so much less-stressful than worrying whether word may have gotten back to so-and-so what you said about them. It’s a lot easier to keep your thoughts to yourself than to repair damaged relationships.

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