Robert Walter is reluctant to call himself a jazz musician. As a solo artist and member of the soul-jazz act Greyboy Allstars, the organist/keyboardist/pianist pits himself as on the cutting edge of the scene, fusing traditional jazz with funk, rock, and dance. Tonight he performs at SPEC's Jazz and Grooves show as a duo with drummer Eric Kalb. Street had a chance to chat with the New Orleans native about his career and his thoughts on the music world.
Street: What can we expect to hear tonight? Robert Walter: A mixture of music, a lot of my own compositions, some classic jazz tunes, some organ funk tunes - just a mixture of stuff I like.
Street: What should non-experienced jazz listeners listen for? RW: I definitely don't try and play my music in a way that you need to be educated in anything to get into. I have ideas I'm trying to communicate. I even hesitate to call it jazz - it's a mixture of all music. Some of it is jazz, some of it is rock music, some of it is funk and dance music - all of that. But the main thing about playing in a duo situation is that the interaction between the two musicians becomes more intimate and more free in a lot of ways.
Street: What brings you to Penn? RW: I think the story is that someone from the college saw me and a drummer named Johnny Vidacovich down in New Orleans. Every week Johnny does a duo gig that me and him play a lot. Someone saw us and emailed me and said do you want to do a gig. I thought that was great - we don't usually get to play without that formation [drums and organ].
Street: Who do you listen to in your spare time? Jazz? Non-jazz? Any "guilty-pleasures"? RW: I'm sort of a fan of all kinds of music, so it kind of depends on the day. Lately I've been into music from the first half of the 20th century, so Art Tatum, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington.
Street: What about current acts? RW: There are people I like, and most of them are operating in some way either on the fringes or outside what would be considered the jazz scene. I like Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, and others that play more in rock clubs rather than in traditional jazz venues. That's because jazz has become elitist and academic. In a lot of ways it has rendered itself irrelevant to mainstream culture; it has become sort of museum music.
Street: Do you take into account critics or public reception? RW: I try not to. If you get a really crappy review, or a really good one, it's real easy to be swayed by that one way or the other - either feel great about yourself or feel bad about yourself and second guess what you're doing with it. It's really a mistake to start chasing down stuff like that.
Street: What is your goal when you play? RW: If I'm working as a sideman for someone else, I'm trying to serve whatever their vision is and trying to make them sound as good as they can sound. In my own music I'm really trying to learn something about myself and the people I'm playing with by having a real intimate conversation. That's why I'm attracted to improvised music. You can't really get to know a person that way by talking to them. You can learn other things by talking with them, but when you play music with somebody you're trying to explore ideas together. With the audience, it's a way of communicating with people that is beyond what you can say in words.
Street: What advice do you have for college students - music related, or not? RW: People who are studying music, I would urge them to get out and play in real life situations and not just study music in a classroom. Although you can learn a lot in a classroom, there's a lot of stuff you can't learn unless you're out there playing in a real setting with a real audience and learning with the problems that come up.
The Robert Walter Duo will perform at the Harold Prince Theatre (3680 Walnut St.) tonight at 8 p.m. $7 with Student ID.
