The Yellowjackets are a pioneer jazz-fusion band, following in the footsteps of Chick Corea’s Return to Forever and Weather Report in the 1970s. Formed by guitarist Robben Ford in 1977, the Yellowjackets now consist of founding members Russell Ferrante (keyboards), Jimmy Haslip (bass), and more recent additions Marcus Baylor (drums) and Bob Mintzer (sax). The outstanding group debut in Hong Kong as part of the Hong Kong International Jazz Festival finale at Queen Elizabeth Stadium on Friday 21. Guitarist extraordinaire Mike Stern joins the group to form a truly all-star line-up. Henry Chung interviews the US-based Ferrante and Haslip ahead of their trip.

Your 2008 release Lifecycle has proven to be a huge success. How did you guys come up with the idea of featuring Mike Stern on guitar? How would you describe your chemistry with Stern?

Russell Ferrante: We’ve known Mike for a long time but had never played together until the summer of 2007 at the Montreal Jazz festival, where Mike was the artist in residence and invited us to join him for an evening concert. There was an immediate connection. After the concert we all agreed we’d love do more playing together. In the fall of 2007 as we were making plans for our next recording, we decided to ask Mike if he’d be willing to be a guest artist for this recording. He graciously accepted. We had a wonderful time recording and have had a fantastic and inspiring time touring together in support of this recording.

Jimmy Haslip: We and Mike have known each other for a long time and the chemistry was brilliant from the get go. We all wrote music specifically for this Lifecycle recording and the sessions were excellent. We also brought out our engineer, Rich Breen, which made it even more interesting.

 It’s hard to label your music. Jazz purists and bop snobs will probably dismiss your music as funk and rock-influenced electrified music. But one can easily find a improv-player’s mentality on tracks such as Country Living and Measure of a Man. What role does jazz play in your music?

Haslip: Jazz music is a staple and a definite influence in the music we write and perform. We are inspired by jazz heritage and the jazz masters from A to z. We happen to also be inspired and influenced by rhythm and blues, rock, classical, gospel, and many different kinds of ethnic and folk music, blues to bluegrass. So we are not offended by anyone who doesn’t get what we do and we certainly aren’t offended by genres and classification for what we do. It’s really up to the fans and the critics to label our music and that’s really okay!

Ferrante: We all have a great love and respect for the jazz tradition as well as many other musical traditions. We greatly value improvisation, spontaneity, and interplay, which make up all of our music. We try to seamlessly combine all of these influences into our musical universe.

Many critics would compare your sound to Weather Report and Return to Forever – the early fusion groups. How much influence do you have from the fusion era? What is the main difference between you and say, the group Spyro Gyra?

Ferrante: I know we all respect those groups and were certainly influenced by them but I think we have our own unique sound. What we share in common with those groups is an openness to diverse musical traditions and an eagerness to expand the boundaries and definition of ‘jazz’. I’ll leave it to the listeners to make any comparisons between ourselves and other groups.

Haslip: Fusion music most certainly brings the element of energy into the picture. My all-time favorite is the Miles Davis Electric Band with Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, John McLaughlin, Jack DeJohnette, Airto Moreira, Gary Bartz, and Dave Holland.  

Robben Ford was a founding member and the first guitarist of your group. Robben later became primarily a blues guitarist and often appeared with blues shouter Jimmy Witherspoon. Tell us about Robben and whether Robben’s bluesy repertoire still has a resonating presence in the group’s sound.

Haslip: Robben Ford was the quintessential founding member of the Yellowjackets! He was single-handedly responsible for handpicking the members of the original group. His spirit lives on in this band for sure and we will always honour him in our music. He still performs with us from time to time.

Jimmy, you cited one of your bass heroes as Scott LaFaro. Being a quintessential member of the Bill Evans Trio, LaFaro had a short-lived yet monumental career in jazz. How do you think LaFaro’s bass playing has changed the way jazz musicians play the bass these days?

Haslip: Scott Lafaro was an innovator on the instrument and his approach to the instrument, the bass, was extremely important in the advancement of the bass player’s role in an ensemble. He was extremely melodic and inventive with his rhythmic and harmonic instinctual solo improvisations with the Bill Evans trio. His interplay with drummer Paul Motian had an exquisite chemistry and just to listen to his performance is a total inspiration for any bass player. He brought a fresh new voice to jazz music. He will always be an inspiration to me and my music.

Russ, you say one of your favourite John Coltrane’s recording is Ballads, which is one of mine too. In that album, Coltrane didn’t play any crazy licks. He just played the song like it was. Do you think sometimes jazz musicians overplay and what’s your advice on that? How do you like McCoy Tyner on the Ballads album?

Ferrante: I love almost everything Coltrane did! You’re so right that on Ballads the musicians played with great restraint and delicacy. That’s what the music called for. To me, that’s the measure of a great musician. Your technique should always be put in service of the music. Many musicians overplay, myself included! It’s a lot easier to play a lot of notes than to select just the right ones. It’s a lifelong journey to refine one’s playing to the point that you can say what needs to be said in the most direct and honest way.