James: Thanks, everybody. Thanks for coming down.

Dave King: Thank you. [sighs] Is this far enough away? I wore this scarf to hold onto

my microphone.

James: Yeah. It looks very styling.

Dave: Well, checks and stripes is very sheik. So, I read in "Cosmopolitan." I read a lot

of "Cosmopolitan."

[laughter]

Dave: Because I'm in the airport, I read "Cosmopolitan." "What Women Like," I read that article all

the time.

[laughter]

James: What do they like?

Dave: This, the exact thing, right here.

[laughter]

Dave: White pants, some form of check.

James: And stripes.

Dave: And stripes.

James: Horizontal stripes.

Dave: Horizontal. Are you kidding me?

[laughter]

Dave: White pants, they don't like. Women don't like white pants because they feel that

it puts the man in the position of power.

[laughter]

Dave: Like the captain's chair. So, I wore these to create tension.

[laughter]

James: So, five years ago, you did this Making Music show...

[laughter]

James: I guess, feeling a little tense out there. I can't see anything.

[laughter]

James: [laughing] I'm being drawn into the light.

Dave: [laughs]

James: All right. So, five years ago, you did Making Music with us. We did our usual

Making Music. We heard all about the first songs you ever wrote and how you got into

music, your creative process.

And now, to have you back here, five years later, we thought, let's do version 2.0, where

we're going to talk specifically about these new collaborations that you're entering into

here, and these new projects. But, we've got a whole weekend of stuff coming up, and some

projects that have been around for a long time - Happy Apple, The Bad Plus - and some

projects that have never performed live at all, no music recorded released.

Dave: Right.

James: But, let's start, tomorrow night, do you want to talk a little bit about, tomorrow,

a Friday night show, what people can expect?

Dave: Well, there's a saying, "Friday night is all right for fighting." You ever heard

that?

James: Yeah.

Dave: Why did I say that? Saturday night is for lovers. That's the theme, basically, for

the two nights. Friday, what I'm doing this weekend, you mean? I thought I'd come down

here for a few nights and play the drums.

[laughter]

Dave: Well, tomorrow night, an improvised-music collective, I mean, called Buffalo Collision,

which is based in New York, is coming in. I guess it should just be called a band. I

don't know why I call it an improvisational collective. That's the Walker, making me feel

like I have to categorize things like that. But, doing it gently to me, though. They're

not being forceful with their terminology. It's always a very gentle atmosphere here.

But, you have to up your game a little bit here. I can't say, "It's our band. My band's

coming in." I can't say that.

That's a good photo of us right there.

James: It'll come up later...

Dave: I thought that was a teleprompter.

[laughter]

Dave: Buffalo Collision features the pianist of The Bad Plus, my good friend Ethan Iverson,

and then two real icons of American avant-garde music of the last 30 years, Hank Roberts,

the cellist, who is mostly known for his work with Bill Frisell, and Tim Berne.

James: Now, that is...

Dave: Yeah. The giant man next to me, a saxophonist. And we've been playing together for about

three or four years now, three years now. We made a record called "Duck," on Tim's label,

Screwgun Records, a few years ago. We actually just came back from Europe a few days ago.

This band does a few tours a year and a few festival appearances here and there. It's

a great challenge, because it's a band that has no written music. So, every concert is

a starting point and an ending point, and everything is improvised.

James: How did it come together? What was the idea?

Dave: The history of the four of us, I should say that Tim and Hank actually grew up in

this area, and Tim and Hank I would see periodically here at the Walker in the '80s. In my formal

years as an improviser, they were super-important to me. So, to get to be playing with them

now, even to see Tim Berne with his arm around me, I'm getting very choked up here. Look

at how big he is.

[laughter]

Dave: I mean, look at that. He caught me looking at my reflection in the window of a train

about a week ago, and he walked by me on the train and he said, "You care about your image,

don't you?" That's what he said to me and walked away. And I said, "Yeah, I do."

[laughter]

Dave: I met Tim because he started to come see Happy Apple in New York, when Happy Apple

started to kind of gain a following outside the Twin Cities. We were playing New York

pretty regularly.

[referring mic] Is this still good? I think it shifted.

Dave: Tim came to see us play at John Zorn's club, called Tonic. And we really kind of

hit it off. He ended up liking the gig, and he ended up kind of being a word-of-mouth

Happy Apple supporter. And we would have lunch when I'd be in New York or hang out.

We actually didn't play together for a few years. We just were friendly with each other.

I would see him play, or he'd see me play. And then we started to have little duet sessions

at his apartment in New York. We'd just go up into his workroom. Which, actually, the

cover of the "Duck" - the record we made is called "Duck." I don't know if that image

is here, but that's his studio, that kind of messed-looking, disheveled shelves and

things. He's got this drum set up there. We just played saxophone-drum duets for a few

hours at a time.

And then Ethan and I started talking about maybe we should try and incorporate Tim into

some project of real free music. Which is what Tim essentially does. He writes these

long-form compositions and then does totally free improvising. And he was really into it.

And actually, the first few shows of this band were with the viola master, Mat Maneri.

I don't know if anyone's familiar with some of this kind of music, but Mat is really brilliant,

son of Joe Maneri, the great micro-tonal professor who just recently died, recently passed. He

was a New England Conservatory micro-tonal professor, like a genius, and his son is clearly

that, too.

Anyway, he ended up doing a few shows but then couldn't tour with us. There was some

stuff going on with him, and we ended up getting the replacement, Hank Roberts, who is basically

the most renowned improvised-music cellist in the world. And he's such a beautiful guy.

That shows his spirit right there, the way he looks in that photo. They're both like

6-10. Look at Ethan and I, man. It just heightens our squatty, Midwestern bloodlines, man. Look

at those two healthy gazelles of free jazz, and look at...

James: Ethan's standing in that picture.

Dave: Ethan's standing on a box in that photo.

[laughter]

Dave: [laughs] And look at these cheese-eating, Doritos people. [laughs]

[laughter]

Dave: We're just like, [laughs] "Chips ahoy!"

[laughter]

Dave: Anyway. [laughs] We ended up playing one of our first gigs here, in the Twin Cities.

We did some festival appearances and then a couple shows in New York, and then Hank's

first show with the band was at the Dakota, like three years ago. Two and a half years

ago, we played the Dakota two nights. Anyway. That was a long answer.

James: OK. So, Buffalo Collision. Going into that project, have you guys had conversations

about how you want that to happen?

Dave: What happens? No. In fact, there is never a discussion about music, never. Which

is kind of unbelievable, but we don't discuss the music. We discuss other music sometimes,

on the road or whatever, but there's never a discussion about the rule, how long we're

going to play, how long any piece is going to be, never a discussion. Which is really

freeing, and also, it can be exhausting.

I've had my most exhaustive moments touring with this band. Halfway through this last

tour I was on, I was phoning friends, asking for support. I mean, to be honest with you,

it sounds dramatic, but it's like you're very under-slept, and then there's this improvising,

it's on such a high level. And I don't mean that because I'm involved, but I mean it's

really high level because of these great masters, you know.

You can't want to make music happen with it. You've got to know when to let the moment

to appear, and you've got to allow for failure, and you've got to allow for searching. And

those things are difficult, you know. You can feel like you have to steer this thing

out of the minefield we're in now, and that's the wrong attitude. You've really got to lay

back and let things happen.

Oftentimes when you feel that things aren't going well, you've got to remember that that's

usually the moment, if you hear the recording back, that's usually the strongest moment.

So, you've got to get your head out of that moment. And that's difficult, if you're on

four or five hours sleep for five or six nights in a row; and people are there showing up

to hear some great music, and you've got no music.

You've got to make some music for someone. I keep dropping the name of your show here,

[laughs] make music. But, it's just so overwhelmingly heavy that when it really happens, there are

moments in shows that are so beautiful, and so heavy, and everyone knows it. It's so deep

to come off stage and just be like, "What was that?" We'd all look at each other and

laugh, and then it's just back to the hotel, and finding out what type of porn is on.

[laughter]

James: So, [laughs and clears throat] one of the features of this weekend is that, you've

got these bands tomorrow. Besides Buffalo collision, you've got Happy Apple, and The

Bad Plus, which you've been playing in for years and years. And you've got these longstanding

relationships of composing music, and performing with those guys. But then, we've got these

projects this weekend, which are taking those members of those bands, and putting them into

these new projects in a different dynamic.

So, in this case with Ethan you guys, how is that dynamic different? In terms of performing

with Ethan, has it brought anything new to your interplay with each other, or having

these other things?

Dave: That's a good question, if anything is strengthens the bond between Ethan and

I, because we are very connected. Obviously musically, The Bad Plus, one of the strengths

of the band is that it is a deeply connected personal band. We're very old friends, and

we also leave a lot of room for each other being different, we're very different from

each other.

But, Ethan is such a genius, and such a great inspiration. To me, he's really one of the

greatest musicians in the world. He really is profound. And so to get to spend time with

him in different formats, we talk about our connection then. And you can really hear it

when we play, Duets will sometimes happen or trios, and people will drop out. And a

few times a tour, it's just Ethan and I, and it just goes. It truly is magical; even they

would step back and go "Whoa!"

Because we have such a connection, that as soon as we start going on this language we

know; I was making fun of us being this sort of dopey mid-western kids, but really that's

one of our strengths, as we have come up with the same language. We had to seek out this

music; we had to really fight for it. We had to earn our place there, and we did it together.

So, it's like here we are, looking across the stage from each other, both at The Bad

Plus shows and Buffalo Collision; and it's like this thing where we know, and we're laughing

looking at each other. It's unspoken between us, and it heightens I think.

We're away from The Bad Plus, and some of those well worn paths The Bad Plus has gone

down. And we're just playing free music. Which of course The Bad Plus has always incorporated,

we're die-hard fans of free jazz musicians. And we use those tools, but just to be stripped

away from everything, and just be out there playing with each other; it's very fun and

very connecting.

James: Is there anything about tomorrow night's performance that will be different, or will

it just be typical Buffalo Collision?

Dave: They're all different; my only hope is that there is no added feelings because

it's like my weekend here. I've already explained to everyone we have to make me look good.

[laughter]

Dave: That's the only thing, so if that adds any pressure to what you're going to play,

I really don't want that. I want you to play what you want to play but you've got to make

me look good.

[laughter]

Dave: That's the conversation.

James: Sorry?

Dave: My mother flew in for this, you know.

James: [laughs] from [inaudible 0:13:51] ?

Dave: I actually said that to him, and he's just looking at me. Like this [laughs] ,

the last night of that tour, the last thing I said to him was "next week, Friday, you've