Josh Johnson: unusual objects and saxophone stories

(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)

LP: Discussing genre with artists is very difficult. It's not the most exciting discussion, but something interesting to me as it relates specifically to the Grammy win is this idea of alternative jazz. As a voter, when I open the ballot to pick the categories, I make a beeline to the jazz section. Seeing how things get filed, sub-filed, and classified is always interesting. Do you think about what that genre and classification means? Does it mean anything to you, positive or negative?

Josh Johnson: I have a lot of different feelings about it. I'm often asking myself, who benefits from genre? What are we hoping that genre does?

LP: Yeah.

Josh Johnson: To me, that category—the naming of that category—is somewhat of an acknowledgment that we understand that our labels are insufficient. We don't know how to get too specific, but here's another avenue for music to be recognized within this institution. It's positive that there's an acknowledgment that we've been trying to fit so much under this umbrella, and maybe it's not representative of how music is being made.

LP: Just so readers are clear, the Grammy was for Best Alternative Jazz for an album you produced for Meshell Ndegeocello. If you don't want to think about it too hard, you could say it's alternative jazz because there's going to be a shorthand that develops—it's not a Count Basie reissue. It's very interesting to think about the word "alternative." When you think about it in the context of rock music, it came to mean what you were articulating. We have rock music, and then we have stuff that's maybe newer and different. I hope that classification is almost like an incubator. In a few years, it's like, this is the new mainstream, or this is where the genre's moved forward. I guess it doesn't matter for the music, but those things have a way of sticking over time. If it encourages someone to make music, I'm into that.

Josh Johnson: We're naming things after they happen. I think that spirit and music are being made. I guess the question is, does a category like that bring some wider stuff happening in communities around the world?

LP: Given the diversity of work you've done, different players, different contexts, and different roles within projects, have you noticed any career impact? Does the phone ring differently? Do different opportunities come your way? Is there a post-Grammy win impact?

Josh Johnson: There's an impact that is less connected to career, maybe. Someone being like, "Hey, I saw you won a Grammy. Now, I want you to be a part of something." But just attention to other things I've been a part of or things happening now. Maybe it's happened, and it's just not that overt. If it's done something, I feel like perhaps it's helped to connect me with other people in communities that I sometimes step into. I feel like I move between a lot of different worlds.

LP: Something is encouraging and beautiful about the idea that the light from the Grammy can be refracted to shine on these other projects and communities that you move in and out of that may not necessarily get the attention. If something you're doing in one area can bring some love and light to those other areas, that's not a bad thing at all.

Josh Johnson: Meshell is somebody to me who very much embodies that. And my feeling is, if that's the name we need to give to the thing that's able to recognize a unique presence and kind of alchemizing presence in music, then I'm cool with that.

LP: Do you know what someone thinks when they need to call Josh Johnson? And might that be different when it's like an MD role versus a "come in and help me produce a project" role versus "come in and do that crazy thing he does with the saxophone"?

Josh Johnson: I'm not sure that I do. Sometimes, it's more general—we need a person who does this. We think this person would be a good fit. And then increasingly, it has that, but it's much more specific. It's not just like, "Oh, the song needs a saxophone." It's situations where I think I'm asked to show up with my perspective on music and how it influences how I make music with others.

To your point, it is different in different situations. And it can be hard for me to know. I'm finding that there are times when people articulate clearly what they're looking for. There are other times when that's something we'll discover as the music happens. I think I'm learning to walk into the room, curious and ready to learn something. That's been a good way for me to navigate the unknown.

LP: The word "curious" is a proxy for a certain open-heartedness, open-mindedness, even to a certain extent, like bringing a vulnerability to the table that allows you to be tuned in sensitively as an artist.

Josh Johnson: That's important to me, and I think something I've come to understand as an important part of my life, generally, but also my life in music, is leaning into that and seeing that as something that is—I don't want to say valuable in the capitalist sense—but can be energizing for other people.

LP: Can you tell me about the music you were first exposed to very early on? And then, as a corollary to that, what was the first music you chose to listen to as opposed to the ambient sounds of your parents?

Josh Johnson: My parents are big music fans. So I think the first music is probably a mix of soul, gospel, and R&B playing around the house, soundtracking early childhood. When you're a kid, your access to music is through what you hear around you. And there comes a point where you become or have the means to seek things for yourself.

I would say it was R&B and hip-hop. I was also playing music in church, but jazz came into the picture early. That's when I first started playing saxophone, fifth-grade band. I remember taking to it and asking for some CDs of saxophone players for Christmas. And I think my parents got me a stack; maybe it was like five things, and four of them didn't connect with me. And the one that did was a Lester Young compilation. I feel like I put it on, and I was like, this dude's talking to me. I would say middle school and high school, it was mixed with some electronic music and indie and post-rock stuff that was happening at the same time.

LP: That's beautiful. That's some fertile ground right there. I love talking to artists from the Midwest in general, but Chicago in particular, just because of the melting pot slash lineage for American music. As you grow as an artist and just age as a human being, do you have an articulation of the importance of Chicago to you as an artist?

Josh Johnson: It's interesting to have been away from there for so long. Los Angeles—I would say that Chicago is integral to the foundations of my music-making experience as a player, but even more as a listener. That was where I experienced culture, and I think it was also such a fertile artistic community with a lot of infrastructure.

It's interesting because even with firm roots in Los Angeles at this point, there are so many things still in my life or people that I'm connected to, people that I still make music with or have over a long period that have roots in Chicago.

LP: So the city was accessible to you? Like it was the kind of thing where if you wanted to go to a record store or find a gig, you could get in and out, and it wasn't this remote, distant idea?

Josh Johnson: Yeah, it was. I mean, it required effort—that was like my weekend activity. Me and some friends, we're gonna go down, and we're gonna see this show, and then we're gonna go to this record store. That was excitement.

LP: What was the initial why for Los Angeles as opposed to any other city or even staying in Chicago?

Josh Johnson: I'd gone to school in Indiana and then moved to Chicago. A few friends also applying for this fellowship program encouraged me to apply. Its format was like direct mentorship from some musical heroes of mine. I was playing on these audition recordings for some friends, and they were like, "Well, should we just split a day in the studio? Like, do you want to do one too?" And I was like, this would be a good thing to work on, just like a project, getting this stuff together.

One of the friends I recorded with didn't submit his, ultimately. I got invited to audition for this program, which meant coming out to California, which was my first time. I did an audition where, again, I was like, cool, just happy to be here. It'll be cool to play for some heroes, and then I will go home and continue life. But I ended up getting into that program, which, essentially, they take one band of musicians, it's like seven people, and you get a master's for free.

LP: Give you a place to live.

Josh Johnson: There were a lot of different kinds of teachers who came in and out of there, but the biggest draws were Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. I thought I would do that and then move back to Chicago or New York. But once I finished that, I felt like I'd just started to connect with and find community here. So let me stay for a year; let's see what that's like.

It wasn't like everything was clear, but I think I saw enough things and connected with different people who excited me about some things happening here and just being able to explore some other interests in music here.

LP: It's incredible, though, the group of musicians generationally that have emerged there over the last fifteen, twenty years. LA wasn't necessarily thought of that way. I see how that city emerged and the fascinating creative music scene there. There's so much great stuff going on. The way genre is integrated and transcended is some of the most exciting.

Josh Johnson: It's interesting. I mean, it's changed so much even in the time that I've been here. I remember finishing grad school, deciding to stay, and telling friends in Chicago or New York that I was staying. And everybody's like, "What are you doing? Why would you do that?" And it's interesting to see some of those people—some of them now live here.

LP: Do you mind me asking, could you share a Wayne Shorter anecdote? Like, did he drop any knowledge on you? I view him as almost like a Yoda figure, and he might tell you more about life than just about technique or harmony or whatever. It's Wayne Shorter.

Josh Johnson: He was never really talking about music in musical terms. He's somebody with this presence who encourages you to pull things out of yourself that you didn't know existed. There's a lot of mystery to it, for sure. He's often talking about music as it relates to an actor playing a role in a movie.

I remember one time we took a break from rehearsing, and he was sitting at the piano, just kind of putting his arm down on the piano, just hitting a bunch of notes and just pointing to me, he just goes, "You got to play the same way you hope and dream."

It's never like, "On this chord, you do this thing," but it elicits something out of you that you're like, I don't know that I understand this fully, but I'm reaching for something. And often, what you find is something that's beyond speaking in musical terms. He asked, "Do you ever try playing like a little kid? Do you ever play like you don't know how to play?"

Being around that presence helps connect me to the why, reflecting on what space you're creating or trying to connect. You can get so wrapped up in the tools that you can lose sight of what it is, like the why. What is it that you're trying to express? What's your point of view?

LP: That strand, it's something that always fascinates me about the jazz world or the creative music world, in particular—the poles of, in some instances like deep conservatory training and intense technique and knowledge of harmony and composition and structure and then the sort of other extreme of oral tradition. To your point, the musicians sitting with other musicians, like philosophy and spirituality, learned and shared wisdom. Some artists have both of those to different degrees. And there's just, that to me, like as a listener—there's just so much richness, regardless of which side of the microphone or the instrument you're on. It's a world that just keeps giving.

Josh Johnson: That's the question I'm—I think it's all the above. It's me; it's the kind of world that music exists in, but intentionally somewhat open-ended, to leave room for others' imagination.

LP: Were there touchstones either at the beginning where you said, "I want to make something that's mine in the vein of X"? There are so many different strands here that do come together, whether it's a solo saxophone or the sort of "one-man show." I even think of like a Stevie Wonder record, right? It's just the idea that you can go into the studio and have the musical and technical ability to achieve a vision. Is there any sense of context or lineage here that you could shed light on?

Josh Johnson: I would say not for the whole. There wasn't a template. It feels connected to how I think about influence in music sometimes. For some people, there's a person or a record that they're like, "This is the reference point." And I think, based on my experience, I don't think there's an exact template. I believe that within different material, there are things that maybe I'm conversing with and ideas that I'm trying to explore.

I wasn't sure I was making a solo album when I started making this. And that's the question in Unusual Object: What's a solo album? And to me, that came to me like it's just one input because there's an incredible lineage of solo saxophone albums in more improvised music traditions.

LP: What made now the time for this record because it is so distinct—there's a lot about it that's unique. And I'm just curious: is it time, opportunity, or capability?

Josh Johnson: A combination of all of it. My previous record came out in 2020, and yeah, it's been a lot of my life since then. They're ideas that I've been fascinated with or developing. A lot of times with other people, I did feel a desire to be like, I've been employing this in other people's music and more collaborative situations, but what's it like to try to make a whole work from this? Like, can I? Kind of a challenge to myself, you know, what's it like to try to do it for real?

At the beginning of 2023, I stepped away from an MD gig I had been doing for about five years. For several reasons, I found it was occupying so much space that even when I had free time, I didn't have the energy to participate in these collaborations that I knew would feed me.

But part of that role is to bring new ideas and realize other people's visions. So there's a part of me I don't think I thought of as I made it. Still, as I reflect on it, it's almost like a reaction to that in a certain way of, like, okay, I'm swinging in the other direction, which is like out of my curiosity and interest, but also maybe like as a way to kind of reorient myself, my priorities in music.

LP: I love the diversity on the record. Some pieces remind me of almost some Synclavier works from the eighties, like "Sterling and the Lost City of Industry." They have this very modern classical sort of feel to them in my mind. What does composition look like in a project like this? Especially again, when it's one person, are you writing charts? Are you composing on the saxophone or a piano?

Josh Johnson: It's all of the above. I have a lot of different interests in music and a lot of other curiosities. And what I've learned about myself is that things are best when I'm led by curiosity. There are some people for whom they start at the same place every time, and they're able to generate a lot of different things. For me, each thing is different. So, there's stuff that starts on the saxophone. There's stuff that starts at the piano. A lot of it begins with improvisation. There's stuff that starts with a sampler and a synth. There's stuff that starts from voice.

Some things sometimes start with—I don't know when I started doing this; I think I started doing it when I was just trying to become a better improviser generally, but I always kind of had a little notebook where, like, as I'm doing something else, you dream up a certain scenario. It's like, a solo with this shape, you know, only playing in this part of the horn and then contrasting it with this. So there are always these little ideas that I write down as I have these curiosities, and I do the same thing with composing, where some of it just comes from playing or improvisation.

Sometimes, it's almost like imposing some sort of limitation. Still, a limitation allowing me to engage with my curiosity is employing curiosity to get a different access point to creativity. I found that to be important. And sometimes there are periods where I'm like, cool, I'm writing everything at the piano. But I find that hopping around and using many different processes keeps me engaged, and I also think certain instruments lead you to certain things.

LP: Obviously, the pieces will have a fundamental Joshness. How does Josh manifest differently through what a piano can do and what a piano is than he does through a saxophone? Or is that bullshit?

Josh Johnson: It is different. They're different doorways to the same place. But that's fascinating to me because, like on the saxophone, I have many more facilities. Sometimes, that might lead me to write something more dense than it needs to be because I can, versus another instrument where I'm like, I need to move slowly here. Or, like, I can see everything on the piano, right? I can see how it's laid out. And that influences how you hear, too.

And it's different than the tactile feeling of, well, this thing feels like this, but I'm not seeing it. I can't visualize moving from one idea to the next in the same way. And I find that's where all the good stuff is for me.

LP: That sort of editing or refinement or just process, however that manifests. It's really interesting to hear you speak about some of those things because it comes up a lot when I speak with artists here that the palettes are so big and limitless, whether you're a rules-based artist, or generative, or whatever it is, it's super helpful and focusing on playing around with the concept of limitations.

Josh Johnson: It's essential to me. And it's also interesting to me that when you get to that point where you're like, I feel like I've exhausted this thing, so maybe now I need to expand that limitation. Different access points to creativity are the thing, and the instruments matter to an extent, but imagination is the instrument. It's more nuanced than that, but I truly believe that.

LP: Could you talk a little bit about the role of Paul Bryan beyond just the printed credits? It seems like there's a real collaboration going on there or assistance that he's providing.

Josh Johnson: I'd love to talk about Paul Bryan. He is a close collaborator. He recorded and produced my previous album with me as well. We've played so much music together. We play in a band of Jeff Parker's called the New Breed together. We've been making music together for probably almost ten years or something like that.

One of his big contributions to this record is sonically giving things a place or a sense of place. And in ways that are often really subtle. He's essential to the record's sound and helps frame the composition sonically. What I mean is that these kinds of subtle moves draw your ear and help support the changes in the form of the song or help treat it in the right way. There's a way to keep a listener engaged outside of just the material, supporting the material, but sonically. And he's a master of that.

Many of the tracks are a microphone, with effects and electronics. It's like three tracks. There are fewer elements, but they can occupy more space and be more detailed. And I think he's really sensitive and attuned to framing those moments. I think he helped keep me from overworking things. Sometimes, I do a take of something, and I'm like, "Ah, that thing." And he's like, "That's my favorite part." And he often has the intuition to be like, "Hey, this thing—instead of minimizing that, let's blow it up."

LP: Let's draw even more attention to it.

Josh Johnson: Yeah. There are many, many whys for that track. The title alone, and conversing with what a solo album is, was really interesting. But that song is so beautiful. It's been haunting me. There's a feeling in it that is so deep and relatable, and it's nuanced and complex, but it's very accessible. I don't mean that like—you can feel its depth and weight, but it's so relatable, and Mal is so idiosyncratic. His voice and music, there's so much power in the restraint and the kind of sparseness of it.

I'd been drawn to it for so long, and I wanted to try to figure out a way to explore that same sentiment, but in the sonic palette, that's a part of this record. And I think as I worked on it, it's a sentiment that I connected with but also in conversation with "Solo" and speaks to a collective experience of the last few years.

LP: Thank you for making time. I enjoy your music, and it's been great speaking with you.

Josh Johnson: Thanks for having me. It's such a pleasure to talk to you.