I Am My Neighbors Keeper: An Interview with Avery Sharpe

Avery Sharpe may be best known for his longtime association with jazz legend McCoy Tyner, but his musicality can’t be pared down to one style. He’s played funk, gospel, and he’s even had a career composing and arranging for orchestra. This past summer he released I Am My Neighbors Keeper, an ambitious recording project with a double quartet.

The instrumentation of a quartet includes a classical string quartet (two violins, viola, and cello) along with his own jazz quartet of piano, bass, drums, and African percussion. The octet blends to make an incredible sound that connects cultures. That unifying sound is part of the album’s purpose, given the uncertainty of the past decade.

“We have food insecurity, the unhoused, pandemics, school shootings, domestic violence, and an opioid problem, just to name some,” Sharpe said in a press release. “There is a need to remind people that each of us is here on this planet for a very short period of time. It doesn’t matter if one has a religious approach or a secular approach, it all comes down to concern and compassion for each other. Through these compositions and recordings, my mission as an artist is to remind us that we all are interconnected and that ‘We Are Our Neighbors Keeper.’ When we help to uplift one, we uplift everyone.”

We were privileged to spend some time on Zoom with Mr. Sharpe, who told us about his new album, his approach to right hand technique, and the lessons he learned from McCoy Tyner.

I Am My Neighbors Keeper is available now digitally through Apple Music, Amazon Music, and more.

I know you’ve done a lot of classical and arranging work in the past, but what is the origin of your double quartet? It’s such a cool sound.

In the past few years, people have been experimenting with the string quartet including jazz players, but to me the string quartets have never really integrated enough into the ensemble playing. They’re more of an afterthought. I love strings because I’m a string player. Even though I’ve written for everything from solo instrument all the way up to a full orchestra with choir, the easiest thing for me to write is strings.

One time I was going from Heathrow Airport in London. I was probably on a gig with McCoy Tyner or something. On the drive there I wrote out this string part that I would perform later with an orchestra. I can’t do that with any other instrument. With other instruments, I have to sit down and take my time with them. With strings, I hear the parts and all the movement.

Thinking about this project, it’s called I Am My Neighbors Keeper because our humanity has been lost over the last forty years or so, especially in this country. [The sentiment seems to be] if you’re poor, it’s your fault and God hates you and if I’m rich, God loves me. We now have more unhoused people than ever and the most billionaires on the planet. The disparity between those who have and those who don’t have has gotten wider.

Nobody gets to where they are by themselves. We’re human beings: we have to have help. If you’re a millionaire, you didn’t get there by yourself. Somebody helped you. “I built this business by myself.” Yeah, but we built the roads that your products were run on. Or your father gave you 300 million dollars.

So everyone needs that help and connection. We’ve lost that humanity, and that’s what this whole project is about.

As I mentioned in a lot of situations the strings are like an afterthought. In this project, the strings are really part of the ensemble. They’re playing parts and taking the lead and being more involved. They’re classical players, but fortunately the cellist knew how to improvise, which was a big plus.

Then I was thinking about trying to combine different instruments. So I had the string quartet, then my quartet is a little different. It’s piano, bass, drums, and then I have Tony Vacca on balafons and African percussion. I thought it would be a nice mix of what’s considered more classical string quartet along with the balafon, which is an African instrument, and combine that. It produced a different sound.

Anyway, getting back to your original question, it’s easy for me to write for strings. I love strings. Whenever I do symphonic writing (from a jazz guy’s perspective), conductors will say, “Your strings are really good.” They don’t comment on the other parts as much, but the strings are good.

It’s interesting to hear you say writing “as a jazz guy,” because you seem so well rounded to me. Do you view yourself as a jazz guy?

Well, that’s what I’m noted for. I don’t consider myself a classical composer in the real sense because as a “jazz player,” I listen to everything. [Jazz players] accept pretty much everything. John Coltrane was listening to Indian music. We incorporate what it is that we’ve already brought as African-Americans in terms music. American music wouldn’t sound the way it does without African and African-American influence.

With that said, jazz represents the epitome of America. America is supposed to accept everybody and that’s what makes it great. We take the strengths of every group and make it ours. That’s a winning combination. You have that happening in jazz. We have this base and then we’ll let all these other factors in to make it grow and make it stronger.

I just use the word jazz because that’s what people think of me as and also I think of it as jazz being able to incorporate every type of music.

So thank you for that comment about being well-rounded, because yes – I listen to everything. I listen to classical music. I love jazz, obviously, both inside jazz and outside jazz. I love some pop music, especially funk music, Rhythm and Blues… My kids used to make fun of me when they were younger because I love Willie Nelson. He’s a cool cat, a great writer, and he’s got soul. Maybe he doesn’t have a great voice, but there are blues singers that don’t have a great voice. They have soul.

No matter what the music is, if I can feel something coming from it, then yes I’m going to incorporate it into my databank. Then I’ll be able to put it back out.

I wanted to ask you about the arranging. You incorporated the strings by giving them more melody and solos… By the way, the cellist takes some really ripping solos.

Yeah, he’s cool. I wasn’t aware of him – or any of them – until this project. There was a cellist that I had worked with and I asked him to put together a quartet for this. He wasn’t able to do take part in it because he got a gig on Broadway or something. He recommended Dave Haughey, which is pronounced “Hoy.” I was surprised, first of all, that he could improvise. It’s unusual for a classical player, but he studied improvisation. Not from jazz or bebop, but improvising in general with sticking to chord changes and making it make sense.

What is arranging for the African instruments like? The song “World Love” has some pretty incredible balafon work.

That was totally improvised. I had an African dancer from Guinea [join us]. He was part of the performances when I originally did the rehearsals and performances. I also brought the dancer into the studio. If you watch the video, you’ll see him. I did that so we could get inspiration as well from what he was doing.

“World Love” was totally improvised. We just watched the dancer and what he was doing. The chances of us repeating that are very slim. As for the title, “World Love” is where the spirit is coming from. It’s what we need and what many times we’re lacking.

The dancer was on the songs “My Friend Don’t be Afraid to Ask For Help,” “I See You,” and “World Love.” Like I said, he was in the studio as we recorded those.

Did you have a lot of direction for the percussionist? Arranging for jazz is interesting because a lot of times you can present a song and just say, “Do your thing.” Did you have certain rhythms you asked him for or anything like that?

It depends on what it is. Tony Vacca has been immersed in African percussion and instruments for probably fifty years and he’s a white guy. He’s definitely one of the best balafon players that I know of. He makes trips to Senegal to stay there and learn from cats. He combined with some of the cats who did the soundtrack for “Black Panther,” too.

Some of the parts I wrote out for him to play, but for the most part I let him go. I said, “If you’re crowding us too much, I’ll let you know.” But I had particular patterns for some songs. I probably wrote out about one fourth of the music for him and the rest was me trusting him to play.

Sometimes I gave direction for instrumentation. The balafon is a pentatonic instrument. So if I’m in G minor or something like that, some of it works for a pattern he can play. But if we’re in Db, I told him not to even bother because it wasn’t going to work.

[While recording], my engineer was hearing the ringing of the gourds. He asked, “Can we get that out?” I had to say, “No, that’s part of the instrument. That’s part of the sound.” It’s not like a marimba where it’s really clean. There are boards as well that are going to buzz. You don’t want them to buzz too much, but that’s the actual sound. And it’s not perfectly pitched. They shave the wood off to tune it, but it’s not going to be pitched to A 440. It’s a little off, but that’s the nature of the beast. It’s not the Western European idea of perfection.

Sometimes when I work with Tony and some other African cats, they look at us like we’re strange because we’re trying to get everything precise. They’re like, “Let’s just play!” It’s the vibe and the spirit. You just have to get used to hearing it.

You open the album with “My Friend Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help” with a unique sound on the bass. How are you making that sound?

It’s strumming fifths, but it’s very rhythmic. I strum with my thumb. You can pull [towards you] but I strum [down] with this rhythmic pattern that is really jazz. It’s kind of a combination strum and slap.

I watched a video of you playing with McCoy and you start with a similar technique. Has experimenting with extended techniques something that’s just always been part of your playing?

The first person I heard play double stops was Jimmy Garrison on Live at the Village Gate or something where he opens with a bass solo for a couple minutes. For some unknown reason, double stops – especially where the neck breaks around the D – seem to fit my hand well. Double stops are hard to keep in tune, first of all. When I first started trying to do them, it just seemed to work.

That video you saw was probably forty years ago or something, but it’s developed into what it is now.

People who come to see me who have seen me before say, “I didn’t see you strum as much as you used to.” I’ll say, “Well, I just didn’t feel like doing it.” Or maybe the tunes I was doing with him just inspired me to do it. It’s become a thing where people don’t want to just hear me, they want to see me do that. Plus it’s fun and it sounds different. It takes the bass into a percussive direction.

I went to Senegal with McCoy Tyner and Jack DeJohnette as a trio. The first thing the Senegalese drummers said to me was “You play bass like a drum!”

I incorporate a lot of melodic elements and percussion elements. I tell people that maybe I’m a frustrated drummer or something. Rhythm is a big part of African-American music, so I love rhythm.

Another nerdy bass bass thing I wanted to mention is that you’re playing both upright and electric on the album. Do you identify with one instrument over the other?

I’ve only had one lesson on electric when I was a teenager. A friend of mine played in another funk band. He came over, showed me how to tune it and gave me a book. That’s the only electric bass lesson I ever had. Everything else is self-taught, which is why my playing is a little unorthodox.

In terms of upright, I did have formal training and my very first teacher was Reggie Workman. He played with John Coltrane. You can’t get any more hip than that.

I only started playing upright when I was 19, which is relatively late by today’s standards. Reggie saw me playing electric and said, “Man, you’ve really got that under your hands. The electric is not part of my generation, but don’t stop playing it. Focus most of your time on upright.” One thing he told me that really told me that kept me going was, “You’re going to want to quit, but don’t.” I thought, “What is he talking about?”

Then I started trying to play it. You get blisters and you start bleeding. I was walking around campus nearly in tears. I’m like, “No one is going to hire me to play this stupid thing. Let me just play electric.” Then I’d hear his words in my head.

When people saw my technique, they’d say, “You’re using some electric technique on upright” and I’d say, “Yeah. What’s the problem?” I can get whatever sound I want. I can sound like Milt Hinton or Oscar Pettiford if I want. There’s not one way to do pizzicato. You can do one finger, two alternating fingers, two fingers together, or if you want to go the Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen route, you can use three fingers. I use my first two fingers and my thumb.

Do I have to be locked into what everyone else did? That makes no sense. Wouldn’t it be better for me to take what they’ve done and make my technique? I can use all of those techniques to get different sounds. If I’m playing with a big band I might play two fingers together to drive the band. I may go down closer to the bridge to get a harder, more pulsating sound. If I’m playing in a trio I might bring my hand up a little bit to get more speed.

I tell my students that your left hand and your positions, those are your “frets.” That’s it. You’ve got to think differently.

When I started playing upright, older cats used to tell me that electric bass was going to mess up my ear. They were talking volume, but then I really started analyzing it. I thought, “No,” but I do believe it will mess up your ear in a different way. It will mess up your listening. You have frets on the electric so it’s more difficult to play out of tune. If you’re out of position on the upright, you’re going to be out of tune.

Not every note that you hit on upright is the same [sonically]. Some expand bigger than others. On electric, the band is all the same. If you go to school and your teacher speaks in a monotone voice, after a while you will stop listening. That kind of happens with electric because the bandwidth is the same. After a while, you won’t listen as intently as when you play upright. You have to listen to every note on upright. You have to know if you’re in tune with the other instruments.

So I don’t think of them as the same. I think they’re two different instruments. And fretless electric is its own totally unique instrument, too. Fretless you play “on” the fret instead of above. In that way, it’s more like upright because you have to pay attention to intonation.

I’m gonna say it: you’ve got some cats that are doing fantastic stuff with electric bass. But no matter what you do about it, you can’t do anything about physics. [It won’t sound like an upright.] You can’t do anything about a body that has strings on it with f-holes. That’s where the sound comes from.

All the instruments are different and when people ask me which I prefer more, it’s like asking a parent which kid they love more. Each “child” requires a different amount of attention.

On electric, I don’t play what everyone else plays. I’m not interested in trying to sound like Victor Wooten. I’m interested in putting my time into sounding like Avery Sharpe.

Getting back to my strumming, people sometimes ask me if it hurts and yes – it hurts. But I’m going for a sound and it’s more important for me to achieve that.

Back to the album, you included the song “Unspoken Words,” which you had on your solo debut album, as well. Did you bring that back because you heard the instrumentation working with it?

It was more about getting back to the theme of “I Am My Neighbors Keeper.” Originally, I wrote “Unspoken Words” for my oldest boy when he was born. You can’t verbally communicate with a baby. I was just thinking about him and wondering how to communicate to him that I love him. The care I’m giving him is the love, and it’s unspoken. We’re in this together. As I said before, nobody gets here by themselves.

I have a new human being that I’m responsible for and I’m trying to give him values. I come from new age parenting workbook. Some people say if you just let a child go they will develop. That’s not true. Everybody gets a program. That’s how the human brain works. It will accept the things that you keep giving it.

I have to put in the values that were passed on to me into my children. There’s a love that happens between a parent and a child that you can’t verbalize when they’re that young. I used to tell my kids that they were lucky and unlucky. They’re lucky they were born into this family, but they were also unlucky they were born into this family because they’re expected to add to society and not take away. The expectations are high. Is that pressure? Yes, but if you’re here you’ve got to make it a better place than when you got here. Being a baby boomer, I think our generation has failed that, but that’s a whole other discussion.

That was the genesis for “Unspoken Words,” and so as it relates to the album, there are unspoken words between humans that happen. It should be love, but sometimes it’s not. People can put vibes on you. That’s unspoken as well. Someone that doesn’t even know you might not like you because of the color of your skin or because you’re a jazz musician.

I thought it would be good to redo it. I started thinking about my friend John Blake, the violinist on my first album. John and I were like brothers. We first met in the McCoy Tyner Group. We used to room together and practice together. We formed a duet of bass and violin. John would have been on this record if he was still alive.

In fact, on the first tune, “Don’t Be Afraid to Ask For Help,” the first part of that melody is from one of John’s tunes. I miss him dearly because every time I did a record, I would call him and say, “Hey John, I stole this lick from you on the bridge of a song.” He’d say, “That’s cool, man, because I just wrote a tune where I stole something from you!” We had that brotherly love. Our families mirrored each other. Both of our mothers played piano in the church. His family had seven kids, and I was one of eight. Everybody in our families were into music. We just had a lot in common.

So I was thinking about the theme of the album, the unspoken words between people, and I was thinking about John. Then I just reimagined it with strings.

You had a couple decades with McCoy Tyner. What was the best piece of advice you got from him?

I obviously got a lot from McCoy. We were together for so long because our personalities were similar in some ways. He was one of the most sane people I worked for. Sometimes you work for people where one day they’re cool and the next it’s like, “Who is this guy?” McCoy was very consistent and very even-keeled, like myself.

When people hear my music, they’re going to hear the influence of McCoy. I mean, I worked with the man for over 20 years and recorded over 25 records with him. Of course that’s going to come out.

The main thing I learned from McCoy, aside from all the musical things that he does, is his consistency in performing. McCoy never sounded bad and he always brought the energy. Whenever he stepped on stage, kabam!

We’d be on tour for three or four weeks in Europe. We’ve have to go across the continent and have a brutal travel day. We’d have to go straight to the gig. We’d look at each other like, “He’s gotta lighten up tonight. We just had twelve hours of crazy travel.” Nope! He would play great as ever. We realized we had to step up.

Or if we would have three weeks or a month off, we’d come back and it was like he had never had any time off. He’d still be hitting with the same intensity. The rest of us would be trying to get it together. He was the most consistent and intense player. Maybe that’s how he always was or maybe that came from John Coltrane. I don’t know.

I also learned from how he dealt with problems. Because as humans, that’s all we’re doing every day when we get out of bed. What are you going to wear? What are you going to eat? I just got a call that someone is acting up, and so on. You’re always improvising.

One thing I saw with McCoy was that no matter what was happening, rather than sitting and complaining about it, he would go to plan B or even plan C. He was always putting energy into solving the problem rather than whining about the problem.

A quick example is when we had the trio with McCoy and Louis Hayes. We were getting ready to go to Greece. For some unknown reason, they kept saying “We’re going to Greece next weekend” or “We’re in Cleveland, but we’re going to Greece.” Usually if they say we’re going to Europe, I think about my passport. Since they said we were going to Greece, as far as I’m concerned we were going to Chicago. It never dawned on me to grab my passport.

This was a time when I was traveling with a large Kolstein trunk for my bass. I flew up from Hartford to New York because we were leaving out of JFK. I get there before everybody else with my bass. McCoy gets to the counter a little lot so they’re rushing.

McCoy said, “Ok, give me your passport.”

I said, “….Passport? McCoy, I didn’t bring my passport!”

He looked at the counter, then looked at me and said, “Ok, we’ll take your bass. I’ll have somebody pick you up in Greece.” Then they were gone. Not upset or anything, he just solved the problem and left. They were gone so fast.

I had to go back and get my passport then fly out on my own. I just barely made the gig. That was just a lesson for me. He didn’t spend the time cussing me out. He was cool as a cucumber.

I always try to spend my energy solving problems. Like I said, that’s what we have to do every day. Even in music, we’re problem solving. I’m an improvisor. How do we get from this G7 to this E half-diminished or whatever. How do I make that work? As I tell my students, we’re constantly problem solving, and McCoy was a master of that at a human level.