In the Studio:
The Evolving Musical Tapestries of
BRYAN ROMBALSKI
By Scott Baker
A master musician in every way, Bryan Rombalski exudes sound, spirit, senses, and his surroundings just as much in his daily life as he would on stage. It is as if he were permeating his consciousness upon the life that surrounds him 24 hours a day.
A music spiritualist at heart, Rombalski has taken the time to educate himself in world music settings, as well as academically on the guitar. The concept is as much personal as it is otherworldly, quiet as it is loud, simple as it is dramatic. For the musician, it is beyond desire.
The Midland, Michigan based family man is an example for musicians. He is a guru of instrumentation, tone, soul and balance, often singing his notes as they are played, both lightning fast or staccato slow.
Having honed his spirit around his instrument for more than four decades now, Rombalski is currently leading his newest quintet, Three Worlds, into the studio to follow the heels of his most personal CD to date, The Awakened Heart.
Proud to introduce Three Worlds to the world, the jazz-based quintet that feeds off Rombalski's idealism is made up of Ed Carney on saxophone, Mitchell Atkinson on bass, Earl Tiffin III on percussion, Mike McHenry on drums, and Eddy Garcia on percussion. Rombalski refuses to surround himself with negativity or addiction and with his group's personal attitude and love of music at the center, they provide overall inspiration for Rombalski in their individual positions within Three Worlds. And then there is the fact that they can perform beyond imagination.
"The synergy of working with like-minded people is the thing that really counts," said Rombalski. "I feel comfortable with these guys. (Just) Listening to each other and you really care about how each other does. And I would rather not play out anymore, because I'm old enough and I teach, but I don't need to go out and battle other musicians own substance abuse, drinking or whatever. That's not a problem I have or need to deal with."
Rombalski's surroundings inspire and purge his desire for creation. Little is left to the imagination and everything is game. He has also taken musical trips to learn the culture of his musical ideals.
"The primary thing next to that is how I work on the songwriting," he informed. "The song is everything to me. I grew up listening to my Mom play Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and all these songs. I just remember hearing the beauty of Nat King Cole's voice. Even when I went back later to hear his trio work, I was totally blown away at how wonderful of a piano player he was. It's fantastic. I love the Beatles; I love Middle-Eastern music, Peru, music from Asia, Africa. I spent a lot of time listening to polyrhythmic elements. I base a lot of my playing on that. I spent tons of time on African music. I try to incorporate those (rhythms) and try to make a flowing style."
"I've been to New Orleans twice in a year, as a pilgrimage one of the times. I had to go to Congo Square and I had to learn more about the history of it and I started listening to a lot more gospel music, too."
Coloring styles per his own astute taste has kept the songwriter busy since his initial release, Nozomi, in 1987. Thirteen years later, his follow-up, Devotion, covered another decade of musical philosophies. 2004's Awakened Heart served up yet another treasure chest of possibilities. And now there is a brand new band for him to work within with no limits.
"What's nice about Ed and Mitchell (is) they can read (music)," said the guitarist. "So what I do is write the parts down and give it to the guys. We're playing the tunes live first. They get a chance to breathe for a while before we actually record them."
Rombalski likes to re-arrange classic pop and rock standards, along with jazz and blues in his own guitar tongue. There are no limits and often a popular song may pass by within an evening of music unnoticed.
"I love the challenge of doing some standards because you learn a lot from the past. It's continually challenging for me to take a piece of music, harmonize it, do whatever I need to try to play it in a solo part where you're doing the bass notes and the highs, you know. But I played a lot of linear playing when I was younger. Rock (and) a lot of folk music and then I studied classical guitar for a little while and then jazz guitar for a while. So the linear element I was getting frustrated with. Normally I'm a fingerstyle guitar player and I would play my songs and sneak them in between covers."
Tonality keeps Rombalski firmly planted in his musical concepts, where each note has a meaning, both linear and figuratively.
"Wayne Shorter is one of my favorite composers. Miles Davis was a great writer. Herbie Hancock is a great writer. So you have these compositionalists - how can that not influence their interplay? They think compositionally. They've got the chops too, but they've got this thing where they like to create stories. So you actually have a play there. There's an architecture to music. It's like a house and you can walk into the house. If you get sensitive enough, you can open the door and walk inside. You can look around thorough the rooms, you can go up the steps, you can walk around (and) do whatever. You can decorate that house any way you want, you can put pictures up, do whatever. That architecture is there."
"A lot of what's going on (with today's music) I think now is more people are outside of the house--as (both) a player and as a musician. It's like math too. As your math gets more advanced, then you're going to hear things that somebody wouldn't normally do or you're gonna feel things, or there might be another floor to that house you didn't think there was before."
The guitarist was surrounded by a lot of the musicians outside of the house while making a living musically throughout the '80s and '90s where musicianship took a back door to marketing and noise shock.
"It's good to have chops, don't get me wrong, but I don't subscribe to where a lot have said there is a melody (while playing a fast lick). If you need that color, it's nice to be able to do it, but I want to serve the song."
"So songwriting since the '70s, I've just written the music, put it aside, written the music, put it aside. It's a centering thing for me. It's a thing that's keeping balance. It's like the way I cope with the world."
The yin and yang of Rombalski's musical existence is one of overall art. Both become sonically and visually adoring to the artist.
"For balance I have to write music or I used to do art work a lot. And that's what I love, but there came a period where the seclusion and working on it was fine, but there's something about the immediacy and the in-the-moment element of playing live - interacting with musicians. It's almost a democracy element where I'm really, really loving it - feeding off of it. I really love the idea of working on something until it's done and everything, but there's something about being right there in the moment and you prepare for it and you just let her go. We have sections of the songs that are all worked out and parts of the song where I'll say, 'You guys take it right here. But we'll always have cues."
With his inane sense of melody, Rombalski not only can perform what he hears, but he can musically sing it as well.
"I always sing what I play. To tell you the truth, it's been a part of me since day one. But I do remember my jazz teacher Gene Parker, who is a wonderful musician; he told me you should be able to sing whatever you play. I've always enjoyed singing and I've always enjoyed like Ella Fitzgerald or people who sang."
In his musical relation to rock and roll, Rombalski's first love was Jimi Hendrix. He even has studied with King Crimson's Robert Fripp for a week.
"Band Of Gypsies by Jimi Hendrix. I was in my teens and I'll never forget Message of Love, Power of Love, and then Machine Gun. That's spooky stuff. It scared me and it felt comfortable at the same time. Good songs, good tunes."
Songwriting is a spiritual highway for the guitarist.
"I'll conjure up an image and that takes care of itself. It's like watching a play, you just let it unfold. If I don't think too much then I'm able to follow. Then this thing will dictate where I'm supposed to go, because all of a sudden it will come; wham-wham-wham-wham. Then it will take time - it's almost like, 'Oh damn, you don't want to slow it down, but it's almost like then you have to edit. Maybe this goes here, and this goes here. But the parts pretty much present themselves really quick."
While he figures to have around eight tracks for the new CD with no projected release date, the live element will spill into his group work now more than he's ever experienced.
"With the way we explore and improvise a little bit, we're going to have to do some live playing."
It's not going to be like all overdubbed. It's going to have to be, 'OK, let's give it a shot. Be fearless, right?"
Music is a document of the moment, which Rombalski has finally come to terms with, both in life and in script.
"If you know you're working at your craft, you're practicing, you're working at what you're doing, there's all these things that come. It's like the planets being aligned - if you've had enough sleep, if you've eaten, you're in the right frame of mind, personal things going on in your life, whatever, there's all kinds of things that can affect your performance. I have to be kind to myself at times. There are a lot of people that will judge you or will be more than happy to critique what you are and do."
"But you know what? You're doing it! You're the one doing it. It's scary sometimes, but it makes you so happy too."
Like many musicians past and present, Rombalski sometimes has found himself overwhelmed with a reality moment that brings his visions home.
"I was talking to someone and he said, 'Your music's your meditation. And I thought, 'Oh yeah, that's right. So in a sense it's kind of a devotional act, it's not trying to get real far out there or anything, but there's a part in you that just gets to connect. You try to do that in your daily life anyway, but there's this thing. It's humble, you lay it out there (and) you just do it. It's a very personal and universal thing. It's humbling."
"If you are going to take the journey of an inward thing and if you are going to spend the time searching for that, and you are going to spend the time trying to coalesce these little ideas and these things together, even if it's just to amuse or if it's to learn, or if it's to elevate one's soul or spirit, it's an act that you can energize one's self with. You don't have to worry what other people think. It's the actual act itself is what you're getting something from. I tell that to people too. There are places in the world where you can't play music. You can't have an instrument. This is like a real honor to be able to play, for crying out loud."
Rombalski's goal is to live his life as his art.
"You can transfer this wonderful connection that you achieve through music and then I can learn how to achieve that in other areas of my life. Whether or not its just conversations with people, with students, with friends, out in the world, whatever that challenge is already there. But what a wonderful thing to experience, - that contact that then you can transfer to other areas."
"So isn't it beautiful to have music to paint that poetry for us?"
Nov 03, 2005
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