In mystical stories, the protagonist's path to enlightenment is invariably marked by signposts, riddles and wise teachers. Pianist Andy Milne has been on that kind of journey since he was a child.
For a black musician who is now working at the core of one of the most interesting movements in jazz in the past 30 years - the Brooklyn, New York-based M-BASE collective - Milne, 28, began his journey from an unlikely position. As the adopted son of white parents in the small southern Canadian community of Kincardine, Ontario, a career in jazz was a remote prospect.
"I started on piano when I was seven," says Milne, "but there was no jazz in my house." His indoctrination came by way of one of his sister's husbands, who gave the budding pianist recordings by McCoy Tyner, Duke Ellington and Oscar Peterson, and the search was on.
"First of all, I wanted to understand this stuff, because it was like nothing that I was playing. Then, it just steadily consumed me, but I had no opportunity to see it played live, to really expose myself to it."
His chance came when his physician father accepted a job in Saudi Arabia, and 12-year-old Andy went to live with his sister in Toronto. Now, at least, he was living someplace where jazz was actually made. There was still the problem of convincing his family that a career as a jazz musician was something to aspire to.
"My folks always encouraged me to play piano, but it was with the understanding that I would go to the conservatory and someday be qualified to teach, which would give me a profession I could always fall back on. So when I got to Toronto it was like, 'Well, yeah, I could work towards that, or I could find someone to show me some jazz right now.' It took a while, but I finally made my point."
Studies with veteran Toronto piano teacher Frank Falco followed, along with gigs with a number of high school bands in which the repertoire was usually funk or jazz-rock fusion. At times, the process of assimilating school lessons as well as the mechanics of jazz piano was daunting. "I remember one summer asking my sister if I could just stay home and practice. The school I was attending was really academically demanding, and I wanted to have the time to concentrate on the new piano techniques I was learning."
Laughing, Milne recalls that he lost that battle, but the experience is the main thread in a theme he returns to often. "We tend to compartmentalize learning in our society. You've got mathematics and history and music and whatever else you're studying, and it's all in segments. That's absolutely the wrong way to learn things, let alone the wrong way to learn how to enjoy learning things." Although the seed had been planted, that revelation didn't occur until Milne had met two influential teachers. The first was Peterson, who Milne encountered while studying music at York University. "I played for Oscar, and I didn't play very well, and all he said to me was, 'You've got to learn the songs.' I was like, to myself, 'That's it? You're Oscar Peterson; tell me some secret guru stuff.' So I went home and took two weeks to get over it, and get to what he was really telling me."
The lesson was to internalize the music, not just play what's written. The second influential teacher was alto saxophonist Steve Coleman, who was on the faculty at western Canada's Banff School of Fine Arts in 1990. Although only a few years older, Coleman had already established a sizeable reputation as the co-founder - with Greg Osby - of M-BASE, a musical style that combines improvisation and structured rhythm.
"At that point," says Milne, "I still saw myself as the next Herbie Hancock. Steve forced me to answer a lot of questions and find out who I was, what kind of player I could become. It wasn't a formal kind of thing - mostly we just shot a lot of basketball - but he was constantly challenging me. He made me see that it wasn't just about trying to sound like somebody on a record. He taught me to absorb my surroundings to fuel my search for who I would be."
Coleman's other advice - to move to New York City - took longer to sink in. First, Milne moved to Montreal, where he already had some contacts through a part-time gig with singer Ranee Lee. "I actually caught the tail-end of the scene in Montreal, but it was an important period of dealing with the real world - learning to negotiate with club owners, talk to audiences, work with other players. That was going to school, too, and I jumped right on it."
While some musicians shy away from the business end of things, Milne embraced it, going so far as to organize a mini-festival in Montreal and secure a sponsorship from Canada's national passenger railway.
Throughout this period, Milne stayed in touch with Coleman, dropping down occasionally to New York City to catch an M-BASE concert. Eventually, the promise of work with Coleman's band, Five Elements, and singer Cassandra Wilson lured Milne across the border full time. "Every time I saw Steve I was telling him that I had to put a CD out, that this was the way you got work in Canada, and he kept asking me if I was ready. What he was really telling me, I realize now, was that I wasn't ready. In reality, I didn't really want to put a CD out; I just wanted to apprentice, to get better. I told Steve that I needed to be in a situation where I could do that, and he just said, 'So, move to where the situation exists.'"
The connection to the M-BASE movement, which besides Coleman and Osby included Wilson, trombonist Robin Eubanks, trumpeter Graham Haynes and several others, helped ease the transition, and provided an entree into the world's most competitive jazz scene. He made his first recording with the collective on their Anatomy of a Groove CD, and officially joined Five Elements on Coleman's 1992 recording Drop Kick.
Milne's own music is heavily influenced by the M-BASE concept of blending rhythm and improvisation, but there are elements that are unique to him, as well. "Steve comes from Chicago, so a lot of what he hears relates to what he grew up with - funk, R&B and saxophonist Von Freeman. I still hear acoustic music like Bruce Cockburn in there, because that's what I grew up listening to." He also finds inspiration in unlikely places, like the electronically morphing images in the Terminator films. "That's the kind of transformation I'd like to achieve musically, that kind of subtle, almost inperceptable alteration where you suddenly just slip into something totally different."
So far, Milne has recorded a single cassette of his own music - Andy Milne: the E is Silent - in the company of several other young players. Drummer Gene Lake grew up absorbing the influence of his father, saxophonist Oliver Lake, and has added a distinctly slippery feel to the bands of Coleman, Henry Threadgill and rapper Me'shell NdegeOcello. At 25, bassist Matthew Garrison, another member of Five Elements, has quickly made his mark on records with Pat Metheny and Bob Moses. In the place of the typical lead trumpet, sax or guitar, Milne substitutes vocalist Audrey Martells, whose style combines her Jamaican heritage with American R&B.
"This band allows me to really stretch my imagination, and that's what living your life in this music is all about. You have to get to the point where music is just another part of your life, as much as getting up and brushing your teeth. It has to be as natural as that if you're going to grow. That's the feeling I get with my playing now. But it's an unconscious thing. About a year ago I turned around and said, 'Damn, I must have moved to that next level.' Now this music is just another segment of Andy Milne."
The path continues.
Interview by James Hale
Published on 6th February 1996