Sheila Tracy Talks to John Fedchock

John FedchockThe opening concert at the International Association for Jazz Education Conference in New York in January 2003 was given by John Fedchock's New York Big Band. Held in high regard, the band only performs charts by its leader, one of which, featured on their latest album, has been nominated for a Grammy Award.

"It's an arrangement of Joe Henderson's Caribbean Fire Dance, a classic jazz standard, a really great tune but the challenge was to make it work for the big band and I guess I did. I was very pleased to see it nominated, as Resevoir, the record label I am on, is not one of the big ones. There are hundreds of entries but then it's boiled down to just five so the fact that enough people knew my music to vote for me was a nice feeling."

Former lead trombonist with Woody Herman, John Fedchock didn't start writing seriously until he left Ohio State University although he had experimented while still in his teens.

"I'd been playing in bands all through school and listening to all these sounds and getting a feel for them, taking note in my mind as to what sounded good, rather than trying to write before I knew what I was trying to imitate. Starting to write without studying the masters is like trying to improvise without listening to master improvisers. I had been listening to a lot of big band music, I was a big band fan, but I didn't really have the craft together."

Following his four years at Ohio State University, John went on to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester to gain a Jazz Masters Degree, studying arranging with Rayburn Wright, an unbelievable teacher, according to John and that's when it all started to come together. On leaving Eastman, he went on the road with Woody Herman where he wrote his first charts and he was responsible for most of the arrangements on Herman's very last two albums, which were both nominated for Grammys. Born and Raised in Cleveland, Ohio (must be something to do with the air as Ray Anthony and Jiggs Whigham both hail from Cleveland!) where at 9 years old he was offered a choice of musical instruments at school and chose the trombone for two reasons; one, he was tall for his age enabling him to reach the positions (he stands 6ft 6 inches) and the host of his favourite TV cartoon played the trombone.

"I wasn't really aware that you could make a living as a player but I wanted to be involved in music. When I was about 16, Woody Herman brought his band to my school to play a concert and give a clinic and that day changed my life because seeing his band made me realise you could still be a jazz musician in this day and age. His band was full of these 25 year olds and they were all playing this great music and it wasn't all the old nostalgic stuff, there were some fresh and exciting new things. That really gave me the drive to practise, get better and maybe some day get good enough to play with a band like that. That became my long term goal, to play with Woody Herman. I knew that was a tough goal to obtain but I knew I wanted to continue with my music.

My very first teacher at the age of 9 all the way up until I was 17, 18 years old, was Billy Lang who played with Ray Anthony and was a product of the big bands. I still do things in my warm up today that he gave me when I was 9 years old. The first thing he did was to start teaching me scales He wasn't classically orientated at all, he'd have me play technical studies, scales and each lesson ended with us playing duets, two part harmony popular tunes, many of them with a swing feel to them which was invaluable because you were sitting next to someone who was interpreting the music correctly and you start to get a feel for his phrasing.

Then I went to study at the university level and it was totally different. I had never played classical music, never in my life and I was like a fish out of water and was almost kicked out of the music programme at Ohio State. I didn't even make the Marching Band! But Billy Lang had given me a great foundation for popular music and that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a jazz player and I was approaching playing the trombone in a way that some of the tight-laced classical faculty didn't like too much.

We had to play pieces and from a prescribed scale syllabus for what they called a jury and I played these scales in all different permutations perfectly. They asked me how much time I'd spent on the scale sheet and I said, well to be honest, no time at all as I play scales all the time as I'm a jazz musician. They didn't like that at all!"

John was scared but help was at hand because one of his teachers, Joe Duchi, who, like him, was new to the university, recognised his pupil's talent and took his side against the big guns with the result that John, determined to make good, started practising five or six hours a day, every day. But he continued to follow Woody's band and every time they were around would go to listen to them and soon discovered that Herman was getting a lot of his players from the Eastman School of Music, a very elite conservatory, so his next goal was to get into Eastman.

"I had to take two auditions because I didn't do too well on the first one but I was persistent. I went to Eastman and studied with John Marcellus who was unbelievable. He heard things but he also saw things and on my first lesson he saw the way I was holding the horn, the manner in which I was playing and he got me thinking more about relaxation and economy of motion. For a jazz musician, that is invaluable because so many things go by so quickly needing snap judgement and if you're too tense, it takes away from the music. So after studying with him I really tried to concentrate on that feeling of flow, relaxation and making things easy on myself and that's when the doors opened, when everything started to make sense. Everything I had been practising was now achievable and I wasn't getting nervous about it. It wasn't really nerves, it was the tension, my body was too tense and he helped that a lot.

At Eastman I was a graduate student in the jazz programme but I had to play classical music in my audition and I did study classical music with John Marcellus. He helped in the technique but he would also draw parallels to jazz, we'd be talking about legato and he would put on a Tommy Dorsey record or he'd talk about phrasing and he'd put on some Carl Fontana for me to listen to. He was such a great teacher. My other teachers are the ones I've never really studied 'with' but have studied intensely. I've listened for hours to recordings of Carl Fontana, J. J. Johnson, Slide Hampton, Frank Rosolino and when I was in High School Urbie Green was my ultimate hero. He could do anything and it taught me that I had to be able to do the same.

At around that time Bill Watrous came out with all his big band recordings and that freaked me out. Here was a trombone player leading a big band in the '70s, unheard of and that was a huge inspiration. I've been fortunate in the past several years to be able to work alongside some of these people but unfortunately I never got to work with J. J. but I became really great friends with Carl Fontana and got to know Bill Watrous and Slide Hampton and working here in New York and elsewhere, it's like a dream come true."

To be a member of Woody Herman's line-up was still John's ultimate goal and during his first year at Eastman he met people who knew the musicians out on the road with Woody.

"My friends introduced me to the guys on Woody's band and I gave them a demo tape and when an opening came up, they called me. It sounds simple when you look back at it but it worked out real well for me. I started on the 2nd trombone chair, the jazz chair, for about two and a half years, then moved up to play lead and around that time I started to become more interested in writing. At first I didn't want to try writing for the band as I just wanted to concentrate on playing but after three years of playing the same music, you start to think, well maybe I could try something.

I got on very well with Woody, he was a great man. He was very fair and I learned a lot from him, being a bandleader now myself. He was a big inspiration to me just to become a musician but what I always liked about his band was the fact that all his soloists got a chance to do their own thing and at length. I think Woody was an under-rated player but the band wasn't about featuring himself, it was about featuring the band and then he would ride on top of that. He would always make sure everybody had plenty of solos and it wasn't even a conscious thing, it was just second nature to him that everybody should play. It was a jazz band and even if we played the oldest things in the book, he didn't want us to approach it in a nostalgic way, it was always forward thinking.

He was always very loose on the bandstand. If something went wrong he didn't blow up, he was very relaxed and had a lot of charisma, relating not only to musicians but the audience. He had a keen ear and eye to what the audience was responding to and he would alter the programme to fit what they needed. I've tried to do that in leading my own band."

Woody Herman died in October 1987 and John, who had left the band in June, joined the ghost band for occasional dates and tours.

"When I was with Herman, we were on a bus, day in, day out, 46 weeks a year. Now with just isolated events, we fly and stay over and the band is made up of alumni from whichever region we happen to be in. I'm fortunate to be involved in most of those and when I'm available I also play for other leaders, like Louie Bellson, who does the same kind of thing, when he's in New York he draws on New York musicians."

After leaving Woody Herman John moved to New York, joining Gerry Mulligan for the final year of his Concert Band, culminating in a three week tour of Europe. The studio scene in New York at the end of the '80s, bore little relation to what it was in the '50s, '60s or '70s, but he did his share of studio work and gets the occasional call for a jingle or a movie date which he enjoys.

"When I first moved here I did some trombone quartets, chamber music and to be honest some of the studio work I've done, had me ready for anything. I got called once to do some American Express commercials with three different spots. One was a big band, one was rock, one was chamber music and as a contractor doesn't want to have to hire three different bands, you have to be versatile. I play classical music every day in my practice and I try to get in two or three hours a day minimum, even if it's in three or four sittings. Most of my practice is classically orientated, the things everybody does, lip slurs, long tones, articulation and then I'll play Rochut Etudes. I have some of them memorised so when I'm on the road I can play them without having to carry the books around. Playing those legato etudes really helps in attaining the flow that I try to get on my jazz playing. Those long phrases help the breathing and the air control."

With the band business in such bad shape, I wondered what had made him decide to form his own line-up in 1988.

"I was out with Woody for seven years and it was so much fun, playing and writing for the band and getting the satisfaction of hearing my music back right after composing it, that after a year of being in New York I started to miss it. Also in the back of my mind, even years ago, I would think boy I really like these charts on Woody's albums so how come these guys who wrote them, aren't doing that anymore? I know they left Woody's Band but why aren't they still writing charts? One guy is writing sports music, this guy is writing for commercials and another is doing film scores and nobody has really taken it upon themselves to carry the torch. For me it's a labour of love anyway, it's something I love to do, have a band and play my music.

The work pattern has changed over the course of the past 15 or 16 years. When we first started we played little clubs here in New York for not much money. But after the first album came out we started getting calls for larger venues and festivals such as the Imatra Jazz Festival in Finland, the Stockholm Jazz Festival, the Ottawa Jazz Festival and we've played Chicago two or three times. The money is better and they are higher profile gigs for the guys so I put more energy into doing those rather than the little clubs that don't pay much. When I first put the band together, nobody knew who any of these guys were and now they all have unbelievable careers of their own so it's getting a little harder to co-ordinate all their schedules. At the same time I can't ask musicians of this calibre to go in a club and play for $30, I just can't do it. I would rather concentrate on the big, high profile gigs that pay big money, let them play their hearts out and be recognised for it on a larger scale. I think they deserve that and it's more enjoyable for everybody."

Knowing the problems that bandleaders in the UK face when their lead trumpet pulls out of a concert at the last minute in favour of a more highly paid film session, does that ever affect his New York Big Band?

"I've had that exact scenario happen and it was a pretty big gig but fortunately for me, I live in New York. Not that anybody could really replace my lead trumpet player because his sound is an important part of the band, but there are guys who can cover the book if necessary, guys who want to do it because the band is good. I don't want to say they're waiting in line to play in the band but there are a lot of people who if I call to ask them for help, are very happy to do it, because they want to be included in that very elite group of guys."

Having been brought up in Ohio, living a short distance from the King factory, John has always played King trombones. He played a 3B all through college and for his first year or so on Woody Herman's band. Then in the early '80s, King brought out a 2B Plus.

"It kind of intrigued me because it was a more streamlined sound but still very warm so I bought it and really fell in love with it. I played that horn from 1982 until October 12th, 1999, I'll never forget the date. I'd never checked my horn on an aeroplane before but the airlines were cracking down on what you could carry on a plane and I had a simple flight to Chicago and back, so I checked it to Chicago. On the return flight I actually tipped the guy a lot of money to hand check it and take it out to the plane but he took it to the wrong plane. It was put on the first flight to New York and kept going around the carousel, no-one picked it up and someone walked off
with it."

Having played the same trombone and mouthpiece for 18 years, John felt lost. King had discontinued his particular model, so whenever a 2B Plus came up for sale, he bought it, ending up with eight, none of which matched the one that had been stolen. Finally, King came to the rescue and suggested that John should help them design a similar trombone.

"It's a really nice horn and I'm really proud of it as I never thought I'd get one to play as easy as my last one. The new 2B Plus is based, from my memory, on that one gem of a horn I had 20 years ago which is floating around somewhere, someone's got it. If it ever came back I'd be very intrigued as to how it would feel as there are some features on this new one that I like a lot. A lightweight slide so I can move around a lot quicker and easier and it's very free blowing, even in the upper register."

Apart from the trombone, John also went through about 75 Bach 11C mouthpieces trying to replace the one he had lost. Carl Fontana sent him 25 but when news got out that his trombone had been stolen, someone in Chicago mailed him a selection and from that came the one he now plays.

On the second day of the I.A.J.E conference, John was the guest soloist with the New World School of the Arts High School Band, all under 17 years of age and playing some of the Fedchock arrangements that his band had played in concert the previous evening.

"The kids are all very talented and when you talk to them about their future, I have to put myself in their position. When I was 16 I didn't care about the practicality of being a musician, I just wanted to learn about music and if they want to learn it from me I'm happy to give them any advice or knowledge they are looking for. Because if they really want it badly enough, they'll find a way. Look I'm making a living playing the trombone, isn't that absurd? And not just utilitarian trombone, I'm playing jazz and making a living being artistic and creative. So if I can do that anybody can do anything."

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