Interview with Ben Ratliff

Ben Ratliff is a music critic for The New York Times and while he writes on all styles of music, jazz is a specialty of his. He currently has two books on bookshelves. the first is the paperback release of his 2007 book examining the sound of John Coltrane, I>Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. The second is The Jazz Ear: Conversations Over Music. In it Ratliff sits down with artists like Ornette Coleman, Wayne Shorter, Joshua Redman and Branford Marsalis and talks about the music they love. Each interviewee had the opportunity to pick a few recordings that they loved and discuss them with Ratliff.

Music Tomes: When did you first get interested in writing about jazz?

Ben Ratliff: The first time I saw Miles Davis. I was 15 and I thought, you know, somebody could write something great about the details of his performance: why he turns his back on the audience, why he plays those cluster keyboard chords, how he directs the band - and also what the audience expects of him. I didn't have the answers, because I knew nothing, and I'm sure there were plenty such essays already at that time.

Then when I was 19 started reading people like Martin Williams and Gary Giddins and Albert Murray and A. B. Spellman and Robert Palmer, and the kinds of things they were interested in seemed naturally interesting to me too.

MT: You currently have two book on the shelves, The Jazz Ear: Conversations Over Music and the paperback release of Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. If we can take a moment to talk about each of these. First, your book on Coltrane is written not as a strict biography of the man, but more of a biography of the sound the man created. How did the idea to approach it that way come about?

BR: I don't read big, long, proper biographies for pleasure, because they always feel out of order: I only care about who the great-grandparents were after I know so much about the subject that I can smell him. And I like reporting and fact-finding, but five to ten years of reporting and fact-finding on the same subject didn't appeal to me. I wanted to be able to write a critic's book, basically, but a kind of expressive one. So I set up a framework - first half about his work, second half about his reception - and started writing and it felt right to me.

MT: While Coltrane is one of the most influential jazz figures, he is also offers a complex sound that some find very difficult to get into at first. Do you think your book will help people that are new to his music ease into it?

BR: I honestly don't know. I can tell you that I didn't really write my book in the tone I use when I'm talking to someone who has never heard a note of Coltrane before. Because that would be a very gingerly sort of book.

MT: The Jazz Ear is a series of interesting and innovative interviews with jazz musicians on, not their music, but the music they enjoy listening to. Was that a hard concept to explain to potential interviewees?

BR: They got it right away.

MT: Were there any interesting meetings that didn't make it to the book?

BR: Nope. Not a scrap wasted.

MT: Can you name some up-and-coming jazz musicians to be on the look out for?

BR: Stacy Dillard, John Hebert, Marshall Gilkes, Jonathan Batiste.

MT: What do you find to be the hardest part of the writing process?

BR: The first paragraph. After that you have an idea where you're going.

MT: Why do you feel that what you write about is important?

BR: It's cultural news. And it acknowledges an audience, or presumes that there could be one. Music needs an audience.

MT: In your role as music critic at The New York Times you write about a wide spectrum of music, not just jazz. Any plans to write books on other genres.

BR: Sure, but I can't tell you what they are. I would be disappointing if I didn't deliver.

MT: Any new projects you are working on presently?

BR: I'm between books; About to set up a new series of articles for the paper. Just grazing on local music.

MT: In your 2002 book The Essential Library of Jazz you list Bob Wills, which may surprise some. From your vantage point, do you see much "cross-pollination" between genres like that today?

BR: Much, much more than ever. Musicians of every stripe have sufficient reason to believe that knowing about other genres won't make them traitors to the one that they started in.

MT: Since you have published your list of 100 of the most important jazz recordings, can you name a few essential books on jazz?

BR: A.B. Spellman, Four Lives in the Bebop Business, Sidney Bechet, Treat it Gentle, Art Pepper, Straight Life, Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography