I was hesitant to deal with it."Īllison says he tried to take Hathaway's song in a different direction by bringing in "a growing sense of angst." His guitarist, Brandon Seabrook, added a layer of white noise by playing an old '80s-era Walkman into the pickup of his guitar. ' Everyone knows what happened with Donny Hathaway, when he took his own life. When I hear the lyric on that tune that's talking about, 'The world is spinning, hold on, everything will be all right. "And his singing on it is so deeply personal. "I mean, that tune, for me, is one of the greatest R&B tunes in the history of music," Allison says. And I started singing 'Jackie-ing' and actually fused the two by experimentation."Īllison says he also had a complicated relationship with the Donny Hathaway song "Some Day We'll All Be Free." "I started on another tune, humming ideas over the top and singing musical phrases into my iPhone. "I didn't start out with the intention of writing an arrangement of 'Jackie-ing,' " Allison says. In fact, he admits he was embarrassed to attempt Thelonious Monk's "Jackie-ing," since, being a huge fan himself, he can't get Monk's style of playing out of his head. But when it works, that's the most gratifying feeling."Īllison says he didn't set out to outdo the original songs. Yes, it could fail, and that's not an easy feeling. In jazz, we don't know what's going to happen. "This is what makes jazz such an exciting prospect, because it's risky. ![]() "People bring in pieces, ideas, concepts and then we flesh them out, and then the band brings it to life," he says. ![]() He tells Weekend All Things Considered guest host Rachel Martin that, in taking songs apart and putting them together again, he felt a bit like Dr. Though Allison says he was attracted to "tuneful, well-crafted songs," his covers are by no means ordinary.Īllison says he tries to find a way to infuse the songs with his personal vision and the unpredictability of jazz. ![]() The selections vary widely: from the R&B of Donny Hathaway to the unconventional rock of PJ Harvey. Jazz bassist Ben Allison has made a name for himself with his original compositions, but on his 10th album, Action-Refraction, he reinterprets the works of other musicians.
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