Jon Hey is a dynamic Chicago-based musician and composer who has worked in musical contexts such as classical and jazz. Recently I spoke with Jon about his early influences, arranging and composing music, being inspired by artists such as Duke Ellington and Bill Evans, and his involvement with the Mingus Awareness Project.  

DG: What are some early memories that you have, in terms of composing?

JH: I first starting composing in teen years as I learned the piano. I would do arrangements, like chorale settings of Paul Simon songs. Then I started notating piano pieces. Influenced by Bartok and some others such as Chopin and Debussy but more like Karol Szymanowski.

DG: Who are some composers who have influenced you?

JH: In college I studied serial (tone rows) composition. I composed in bi-tonal styles before and during. I was never interested in total serialism where everything is a mathematical series. I had influences from pop and jazz also. I learned a technique of a goal/avoid note (Stravinsky did this), writing 11-note tone rows and saving the ultimate note. I did a few pieces this way. Woodwind Quintet and a Piano Sonata. My influences were Penderecki, Stravinsky, the orchestration of Brahms and Mahler, Benjamin Britten and Les Six and others. In jazz it was bebop, Monk, Mingus, and Ellington. It is all too short a list, of course.

DG: You just mentioned 11-note tone rows. Would you explain your concept for “Improvisation on an 11-Note Tone Row,” which you performed during an Experimental Piano Series concert?

JH: When I would write through-composed pieces on 11-note tone rows, I would experiment with ways to get through without that ONE missing note. So I was (once) used to improvising, at least in exploration. I went through about a half-dozen tone rows to see which would be best to actually try to perform. I have no doubt some of the experiments might have been better than the performance, but I guess it turned out ok. I likely broke a lot of rules as a performer that I would have avoided just as a composer.

DG: Who are some of your influences, in terms of playing the piano?

JH: My influences are rather wide. I learned both the Western composers who were the great pianists themselves -- Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and many others. I'm not a great classical pianist, merely adequate at times, but I performed in the North American premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Kontakte in 1980. I'm not really influenced by "classical" pianists, but appreciate quite a few.

DG: Who are some of your favorite jazz pianists? 

JH: I starting learning jazz early, and was influenced by the scant exposure to the few things I had time to encounter as a youngster. Ragtime. Then Jelly Roll Morton, then a big influence Earl "Fatha" Hines. But also Monk and then Bud Powell, and then into the 70s, Chick Corea was a very big influence and Keith Jarrett and later Herbie Hancock. Then trying to learn the magic of Bill Evans, after so many had also tried. 

One's perspective changes over the years - I hear pianists' recordings I heard years ago, and now have a greater understanding and perhaps greater appreciation.

I added hundreds of jazz piano players to my sphere of listening. Some famous, some not so. If I could play Harlem Stride like Fats or Willie the Lion I would (I have a problem with black to white tenths in the left hand, not quite the stretch). I count a semi-encyclopedic knowledge of jazz piano players, yet I know there are a lot of people out there who know more obscure players and have a deeper historical context. It's silly to list everybody. All the bebop players, all the post-bop, the fusion keyboardists, etc. I have a ten CD set of Teddy Wilson and I have barely had time to get past the first disc. I'll listen to Mulgrew Miller, then Oscar Peterson, then Geri Allen, then James P. Johnson, then Tommy Flanagan ... and on and on. 

DG: How has Bill Evans influenced you? 

JH: His melodic lyricism was an influence for most modern, post hard-bop players. It would be hard to "keep him out" as an influence, because others who I learned from had also been influenced by Evans. As an early college music student, I would listen with my peers and we were in awe. It took years to really assess and now listening to the same recordings has a different outcome. I suppose it is a maturation of hearing, performing, and composing over the years.

DG: Your rendition of “One for Helen” is one of the pieces you performed during the Experimental Piano Series concert. How did you come up with that approach to that composition?

JH: When you study Bill's own compositions you get a little closer to the harmonic perceptions he often brought to standards. That song is a nice challenge. I didn't do so much but learn competent voicings flow. After that it is connecting from moment to moment. Evans was known for practicing one tune for a long period of time, assimilating all the possible incarnations (and usually in multiple keys). So when I played "One for Helen" it was because I similarly had been exploring it for a while during that time.

DG: How would you say your composition approach has evolved over the years?

JH: I learned to sit alone with no musical instruments and notate by ear. Pencil and paper. I learned how to transfer scores and parts with calligraphy pens onto velum for copying. When I first started doing game music it was written in line-by-line assembler language macros for embedded in electronics board FM synthesis (8 mono voice, 4 operator). Very tedious. Early I would notate and then translate, but that was double the work so I just started thinking and writing directly in the assembler macros. Nested loops, etc., somewhat like this -- load voice (say, bass), start loop 0, start subloop, note a2(Pitch) and 2(duration), note b2 - 2, end subloop, end start loop, etc.

DG: Did you find that working with technology helped your composing?

JH: At the time, for me it was all about conquering technology. Then we abandoned that system, to much relief -- and composing became much like any production music with sequencers and samplers. Now it's all Pro Tools, virtual instruments, sampled orchestras, plug-in processors. And was, for a while also about data compression. That's mostly an abandoned artifact also. I became rather tired, frankly, of music technology. I appreciate actual instrumental performance more at this point.

DG: How would you say are some connections between composing and improvising?

JH: Really compelling improvisation is not just layering on a style and a series of "licks". When done by a master of these things that is quite good. When it verges on creating a whole new light, a new sensation or feeling, it has probably become composition in real-time. I think that is properly the goal in improvising, to create a new composition in that real time. 

DG: What do you like about Charles Mingus’ compositions? What would you say is unique about who he is as an artist?

JH: I was always attracted to his compositions and his legacy. I saw him perform in Springfield, IL when I was in high school. I like to watch Triumph of the Underdog. It always impressed me (from the video interview portions) that Mingus could seemingly be dropped into any period in history and seem fresh, both musically and as a spokesperson for the "underdogs." He was also a good piano player; some people don't know that.

DG: You have done a lot of arranging, in addition to composing. How would you say arranging and composing relate to each other? 

JH: "Composing" is partially about melody (or lack thereof), rhythm, some basic elements -- such as intervals and subsequent harmonies, or harmonies that suggest a melody. But the "color" is the arranging of the timbres, from various instruments or electronics. So I arrange others' compositions to suit my own "color" choices (including re-harmonizing). Sometimes it is a bit easier to start with something that is a given. And sometimes I arrange my own basics.

DG: How did you decide how to arrange and perform your rendition of Billy Strayhorn’s "Isfahan," during the Experimental Piano Series concert? 

JH: I just fell in love with the piece after hearing it on an Ellington tribute CD. I have studied how Ellington played the piano and he was often very self-effacing about his playing, but sometimes he would be quite insistent about his playing at a top level. In reality he was a great jazz pianist. So I guess mostly playing the piece came from playing the Ellington/Strayhorn "book" for many years and wanting to invoke both the Johnny Hodges solo and some stride piano.

DG: How did you develop your arrangement for “Isfahan,” for the Mingus Awareness Project? How was your approach to arranging for larger ensemble different from how you approached that composition as a solo pianist?

JH: I wanted to replicate a bit of the Ellington Orchestra there. I also wanted to put some intervals together in close harmony for the Saxes, Trumpet and Trombone parts that would really be quite different from what you can delineate on the piano. Things that might seem awkward or dissonant at the keyboard that can really sound lush and tense at the same time while reminding people of the Ellington band, whose members tended to stay for decades.

DG: How did you come up with the idea for “Charlies’ Arch Isle," your composition that we'll be performing during next week's Mingus Awareness Project concert at the Jazz Showcase?

JH: After doing some "Isfahan" arranging, I wanted to write something original that could be performed during the Mingus Awareness Project concert. I just happened to have a keyboard in the office while working on parts in Sibelius software. So the song just came in about two hours, with a few hours of minor adjustments afterward. I wanted to write something that had the reminiscent melodic "arch" of a Mingus tune, some bebop and some modern elements. So there is a little Monk, a little Mingus, a little Afro-Cuban quote, and a blowing section just so that it contrasted with the A section has a lot of Mingus tunes do. Somehow, after the fact, it seems to me a bit akin to Chick Corea's tribute tune "Bud Powell." And it seemed to all work together well enough. People seem to be able to remember it, so I guess it has a "hook." It came so quickly, I think, because I was immersing myself back into the Mingus repertoire.

DG: What are some other projects you're planning on working on later this year?

JH: I think I'll try to write some more jazz pieces. But I have had a project in mind for a long time (years) to write an opera. I have the source material, but haven't found time or structure for the setting.

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