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Marc Mittag: touring with Mike Clark

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In 2007 Mittag took off to New York where he recorded an album with drummer, Mike Clark. Mike is one of America’s foremost jazz and funk drummers and first gained recognition for his innovative drumming with Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters. He has played with everyone from Tony Bennett and Chet Baker through to Joe Henderson, Bobby McFerrin and Al Jarreau. He is also the most sampled hip hop drummer in the world. With credits like that it is hardly surprising that Mittag admits to finding it a bit daunting to make the call to Clark.

“It was one of those things you dream of that you don’t actually think you’re going to get. It definitely felt like a mission impossible but it came down to just deciding to ask.”

The problem of course with meeting your heroes is, if you finally get to meet them, will they live up to your expectations?

“I was very nervous meeting him but then I realised his humour was worse than I expected,” laughs Mittag. “He was very down to earth and open and I just love his incredible sense of groove – it’s like driving in a car with a powerful engine, you know the groove is going to move. The amazing thing about Mike is at the same time that he’s laying down a fat (with a "ph") groove, he has all this delicate cymbal patterns and ghosting going on with his snare and that adds a real artistry to what he does.”

In preparing for the recording, Mittag wanted to make sure he left more than enough room for his hero to have creative input.

“Mike has been one of my strongest influences so there was naturally something of his groove playing in my approach to arranging these pieces,” says Mittag. “I went in there with what I wanted to contribute to the recording firmly in my head but I also really wanted to listen to the other musicians and create a space for them to contribute their incredible talents to my recording.”

“The album will be half-electric, with Mike on drums and the bass duties being shared by Eric Udel and Charles Fambrough – those tracks were recorded raw and live in the studio,” says Mittag. “I’m currently completing the other half of the album which features some solo acoustic pieces. The title track on the album is called The Interview and I wrote that piece to get across the feeling of actually being in an interview or an audition and in a way, me going to New York and playing with the likes of Mike Clark, made me feel like I was auditioning for my place in the world.”

Mittag’s album, The Interview, is due for release later this year and will coincide with ‘The Interview’ tour which will see Mike Clark touring Australia for the first time ever. Clark will also be conducting drum clinics as part of the tour. To be the first to find out about gig and workshop dates email marc@marcmittag.com or visit www.myspace.com/marcmittag for previews of the album.

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Hear free play: Tommaso Cappellato

Before I continue, I must tell you that Peter Knight (to whom I had the pleasure of being introduced the previous night at the Melbourne International Biennale of Exploratory Music) is one of my favourite performers and composers. He echoes great trumpeters like Dave Douglas, Scott Tinkler, and Wynton Marsalis, but brings a completely different approach to every note he plays.

This same freshness was evident on the night: everybody played with their own unique contributions to the musical stew.

From the first note, each musician had their own way of creating change; playing broken rhythms, creating odd harmonic structures, or adding an element of ambient sound to throw the performers into a new direction. The communication seemed subconscious on stage; the flow seemed sometimes obvious and sometimes impossible to tell where it would lead next. The best part was that I didn't mind if there was no resolution! The music was so pure, so raw, that it sounded like it had been written for that night alone.

In a way, it was. In conversation with Peter, I asked what his inspiration was for the music.
“It was all improvised,” he said, “We just had a lot of fun.”
As did the other audience members. The music sometimes had brooding qualities, clear motives, directive drive and joyous moments. Sometimes these moods were evoked simultaneously.

The real star of the night was Tommaso. His vision, to put together a somewhat unrehearsed band and let them do whatever, whenever and for however long they like, had a brilliant, almost Miles-esque, quality. His drumming was absolutely superb. Using a full range of auxiliary percussion as well the drum kit, his technique commanded rapt attention from the whole audience. It was a pleasure watching his bare hands create phrases that outlined the central idea of themes, then repeating these themes with sticks, brushes, mallets, replacing familiar tonalities with sea-shells on rope and junkyard percussion.

So that’s why I’m going to be listening to our own boys and girls playing the music I feel most passionate about. Being a musician myself, I can appreciate just about anything for what it is, but, being an Australian jazz musician I feel we are different to the Europeans and Americans in our approach to jazz. This is refreshing considering how much American and European jazz is available to us in comparison to the Australian jazz available overseas. The whole concert could be summed up with the simple comment Miles Davis made to Chick Corea before a recording session: “Just play what you hear.” And what a pleasure, hearing what they played.

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