Jeff Kaiser is a multi-faceted musician who combines his traditional instrument, the trumpet, with technology and scholarship to create a highly personal, integrative artistic practice. Kaiser’s performances, in which he uses his own designed system of live electronics in conjunction with the trumpet, place him in a class of his own within the music community.
On June 30th, 2021, Joel Diegert had the opportunity to sit down with him and discuss topics related to performing with live electronics and collaboration. The conversation centered on the ensemble, KaiBorg, Kaiser’s duo collaboration with saxophonist, David Borgo.
Diegert: I want to talk to you about KaiBorg and collaboration. So you guys have actually been playing together in that configuration for more than 10 years, right?
Kaiser: Yes. We first started playing, and I think we even named the group, in 2008. When I first got to UC San Diego in 2007, as a graduate student, that was when I actually first made David's acquaintance. He became my dissertation advisor, of course a good friend, and also a frequent collaborator. In fact we have a new album out, IntraAction, our third together. I'll gladly send you a download code or you can listen to it for free as well on my website. We recorded it in February 2020, before the pandemic hit. I was in San Diego for that. It includes our duo plus the fantastic drummer Kjell Nordeson.
Diegert: You guys have been working together over 13 years, what has the working process been? How has it developed over time? In the music world, we're so used to just meeting somebody for one or two rehearsals, doing the concert, and then moving on to the next thing. It can be quite rare to have the opportunity to work together for such a long period of time. I'm interested in how things evolve over time.
Kaiser: Well, first of all, David went from being my professor to becoming one of my closest friends. We work well together, and like hanging out. You know, it is one thing to play well together, but it is another thing to stay in airplanes, hotels, trains, and cabs together for weeks on end. One of the interesting things in that article you mentioned, Configurin(g) KaiBorg, we discuss that relationship where we configure the software, then the software informs us through interacting with it, how we might change ourselves, and then that informs how we might change the software. So we have this feedback loop of configuration that's talked about in that article. I also talked about this at length in my article from a couple of years ago called Improvising Technology: Constructing Virtuosity based on some material from my dissertation, which you can find on my website if you want to check it out. With certain ‘traditional’ views of software, the human is seen as ‘in charge’; we are the masters of the software. Interaction, in the past, was just a metaphor for control. Whereas in fact, David and I both believe we're not always in charge. This is informing what we're doing and we inform what it is doing, and it is this feedback cycle. Our human collaboration is kind of like that as well.
When we first got together, David was working with the version of Ableton Live of that time, and I was developing custom software in Max. When we began collaborating, I was enacting the technology, and then David would bring ideas. David's ideas are, you know, deep. He would bring these ideas from cognitive science and improvisational practices from around the world. Then we would start to work with our stuff. As we collaborated, working together, we then began to influence each other the same way we talk about influencing that software. As my mentor/professor, of course he moved me more towards the scholarly side, because that was where I decided I wanted to go with my PhD. And then me coming in with the software moved him towards software development and how to enact ideas in the software. And so, our collaboration started out with more distinct roles, but as time went on, to use the word you use, these roles became blurred. I actually did a paper at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival [NYCEMF] called Changing, Blurring, Decentering: Community and Electroacoustic Musicians. The idea is that these roles are more blurred, and the humans also become ‘decentered’ in this process. It is not just about the humans, but it is about the elements that are in our system, our instruments and the technology included. One of the things about our collaboration is that we started with distinct roles, but those distinct roles became fluid over time.
Diegert: Something I thought about with your work is that there's also a certain blur or overlap between your role as an improviser and composer. How does that play a role in KaiBorg, for example, and when you release a CD with fixed titles for each track? Do you see these as works or improvisations that were captured in time?
Kaiser: Yes, that discussion. The difference between improvisation and composition has become less and less interesting to me over the years. When trying to find whether all this is improvisation or composition, at some point you realize that it is a battle for value. Somehow composition in Western European art music has this ‘big value’ in certain circles. So working in those circles with improvisation, we want to have improvisation claim that same value. We can deal with definitions, such as what is improvisation, what is composition? But I think, for us, it is really just music. We never plan things out. A couple times early on I remember saying, ‘So how do you want to start?’, and David would say: ‘I don't know’. And so, early on we just ended up not talking about it. We would get our tech systems set up, have our tools there, and then we just start and record. Of course, a performance or session is not a blank tablet. We are who we are: these collections of things that have inspired us and things we like to do and all that. But we don't plan it out as one would a composition. One could also plan out improvisation, of course. But we do not.
Titles are always added after the fact, after the recording, which is not uncommon for other friends working with improvisation. For us, the titles are usually inspired by what we are reading. So, Vibrant Matters is of course inspired by the Jane Bennett book Vibrant Matter (Bennett 2010), which is a fantastic book. Harvesting Metadata came about from Max/MSP, which every now and then this thing would pop up and it would say ‘harvesting metadata’ when it was building the database at the beginning. I'm still unclear what it was doing, but that is where the title comes from. We liked the sound of that. And then of course, in IntraAction our new recording, the titles come from the work of Karen Barad (2007), drawing from their area of exploration, ‘Intra-actions.’
Diegert: Right now what we're thinking a lot about is about feedback and making judgments about the music. How does this work for you in KaiBorg? Do you listen back to recordings, make judgments and say: ‘oh, maybe next time we should do this’. Or, ‘oh, this part worked really, really well, let's build on that’. I feel like this is something that's missing a little bit in contemporary music composition.
Kaiser: We will certainly review recordings, especially since we co-mix. I do the mixing and mastering but it is seriously collaborative. I may have my hands on the digital faders, but David is getting in there with a fine-tooth comb and he is really awesome at sorting out mixes. At points we would say ‘I like that’, or ‘now let's get rid of that’, but it is seldom done with the idea that we're going to repeat something in the future. Though again, that's one of the myths that is prevalent with certain groups of improvisers, is that the performance is always this unique thing, whereas in fact, it just is not. We all have the things we like to play. We will not play the exact same notes or textures, but they’re going to be related to things that we've done before and areas of interest. That idea that every improvisation is new and comes out of nowhere is kind of an outdated idea. We cannot deny our influences, our own character, the character of the people we are working, and the character of the technology we are performing with.
So, David and I, we have certain shared musical vocabularies that have become refined, both acoustic vocabularies, and vocabularies hybrid with technology. And both of our software systems are constantly changing, maybe in subtle ways, maybe dramatic ways. But we don't review our recordings with the idea of repetition. We review with the idea of getting this document ready to be released to the public. I'm sure we both say: ‘oh, that was cool, I'm going to file that one away’. We also say just as many, if not more times: ‘I have no idea how it happened, and I have no idea if I could ever repeat it’. And that's probably for me, one of the most enjoyable territories. That is why I love improvisation. And that is part of this idea of realizing that agency is in this hybrid system of human and technology. If it is just me, how am I going to surprise myself? But the technology – in relationship and interaction with what I'm doing, or what it is doing on its own – never ceases to surprise me. And I love that.
I think that's a super interesting question, reviewing with the idea of looking towards what we're going to do in the future. I think we just tend to review to get ready to release to the world. Otherwise, we just go on to the next gig.
Diegert: Releasing the CD requires so much editing work, maybe it is a very similar process: you're going over the material, you're deciding what's released, how to release it. I know what you're talking about with the mixing, you have a lot of potential afterwards to rework material, as well.
Kaiser: You're talking about reworking it in the studio. Yes, absolutely. Especially, depending on how isolated we are, we can definitely forefront and background different materials. And sometimes we’d say: ‘hey, that's not working’. When you're in a trio, or even in a duo, you can say, ‘oh, that's not working. Just cut me out, let me just hear you play’ or vice versa. So that's the joy. That's a continuation of the improvisational practice, but in the studio rather than the stage.
Diegert: Something I did not expect when I started is how much fun it can be and how much you can learn after the fact. That takes on a huge part of the process. If you were never to release anything in a CD, or any kind of final form, you would miss out on that experience.
Kaiser: Yes, there's a lot of learning and configuring that takes place to the human mind in the studio when you are working with material. Maybe not with an eye towards repetition for me, exactly, but more like: ‘I'm going to file that away.’ More often than not, it is the opposite. Like: ‘how the heck did I do that?’ or ‘how the heck did you do that?’ with the answer being: ‘I have no idea.’ And so, I have no idea how to repeat it.
Diegert: For me, ‘repetition’ also can mean an unexpected moment that came up, which you want to further develop or explore in the future, not necessarily just repeat it in the exact same way.
Kaiser: I cannot store a state with my system. No presets available. I could, if I wanted to take a snapshot of a state of my rig, and then use that to recreate it, but this just doesn't happen for me. I'll have a button that does something, but I don't ever take a picture of my whole system with an eye towards repetition of a larger improvisational element. In my KaiserLooper I press a button, and it starts randomizing in certain ways. Or in my ambisonics patch, I press a button and it starts mapping certain trajectories, but I never take a picture. I certainly could do it; this is not about a weakness in programming skills, this is a decision to make the system in this way. And this idea came to me from a good friend when I first started working in Max, Andrew Pask of The Choir Boys. I have worked a lot with Andrew Pask (Cycling 74), and he was like, ‘Oh, no presets!’ I haven't thought about it in ages, until you mentioned it. It is kind of like a modular synth. You get what you get, and the idea of repeating all of the patch cord placements and knob settings, well, you could certainly do it if you wanted to, but that's not why you're working with a modular. And it is not why I'm working with this particular system. This particular system is about discovery, surprise.
Diegert: Over the years, have you and David developed some kind of a vocabulary or kind of way of talking about music? Or do you specifically avoid trying to pre-plan things in that way?
Kaiser: Yes, as mentioned, we avoid pre-planning things. But I think our vocabulary, in this case not music vocabulary, but actually words we use to talk about the music would be pretty familiar to others in this area. It is frequently transferable between groups in this world of making music. When we talk about it, speaking in metaphors of what it sounds like, descriptions as close to the sound as possible, or maybe words that become placeholders for bigger musical gestures. Also, our vocabulary when we're playing. One of the things I love about playing with David is the fluidity in which we can move between acoustic and electroacoustic. We both come from a background that values playing traditional instruments, and we are also intrigued by the affordances that electronics bring into that system.
Diegert: Absolutely. One of the things that I found in my collaboration with Adrián is that since he's a composer, he's coming from a composition background, he really likes to title things and try to make abstract ideas concrete. So we end up with all of our own personal terminology that's not transferable from other things. It is all completely invented terms, which we think of like a container which becomes filled with meaning over time, over repetition, over rehearsal. So it's funny, we come from a little bit of a different background from you, but in a lot of ways, what we do is actually very similar to what you're describing. We might have a little bit more of a compositional side to what we do, but we have tried to set up our system over the years to create an ecology to interact with, discover, and explore.
Kaiser: Yes, it is very true. When human beings from similar art worlds start to introduce new elements and vocabularies into those art worlds – bringing the stuff from the other worlds of literature, research, etc. – the vocabulary is going to be understandable to those in that art world. I think, because so much understanding is transferable. So, it could be me and David, or you and Adrián. There will be unique characteristics, but they will also be kind of similar ideas. For instance, I think I could step into your system, and I would probably understand, maybe not immediately, but pretty quickly, what you were talking about with your localized terminology. And vice versa, you could step into hanging out with David and I, and you would have no problem understanding what we were talking about.
When I was a graduate student, I read a lot of George Lakoff. And in one of his books (Lakoff and Johnson 2008), he talks about how when you introduce a new metaphor into a system, it changes reality for that system. When I was young, laptops didn't have the power to do live performances, it was only into my adulthood that laptops had the power for digital signal processing in live situations. For a certain generation, a certain age of musicians, this becomes a new way of thinking and understanding what is being introduced into our system, and it changes the reality for that system. We still have the language and objects from the previous time; it just changes things a bit, but we can still talk and understand. I'm always intrigued by all that.
Diegert: Even in the last 20 years, computers now come with more and more sophisticated, built-in interfaces. For example, Ableton Live with Max for Live. We have all these new tools; how do you see those impacting the artistry and the music that we can create?
Kaiser: I always want to make sure that I am not only valorizing new things. That type of technophelia, or technopositivism, does not make sense to me. There is so much value in older technologies and what we as humans bring into the system. What's that term, ‘remediation of technology’? I think Marshall McLuhan (1964) uses that term where, you know, you realize that the pen became a remediation of oration. And then, the printing press became a remediation of the pen. And then, the computer screen became a remediation of the printed material, and so on.
When it comes to Ableton, which I absolutely adore, is that it keeps bringing these really cool incremental improvements. It is one of these software packages that just keeps growing and getting better. The new release didn't look that much different visually, but then you get into it. You can see the possibilities really opened up. How does it change and how does that affect my art? I'm not so sure how it is changing those things. It just changes where we focus our time. Editing in Pro Tools is so much better than editing with the razor blade and tape. In reality, for many of us, that just means instead of hours upon hours with the razor blade, now, we spend hours upon hours on spectral edits, or with Izotope RX to get rid of all the clicks and pops that we never paid attention to until the technology came into existence to easily change them.
Diegert: Can you point to specific examples where it made significant updates or changes to your playing? Or is it more of a convenience, where you have access to what you need already?
Kaiser: I would not try to reduce it all to convenience. That's again too human centered. There are certain things, for instance, such as when a software feature comes out like multi-channel, the MC stuff in Max, I’m excited about, because when I have like 48 channels of audio to patch now, I can pass them over a single cable instead of having to connect 48 cables.
Diegert: That's what I mean by convenience.
Kaiser: As far as the technology having the possibility to change the way I'm playing, that is something that's continuing on, and the software constantly brings new affordances to the table. What I'm doing with MC or multiple cables to minimize time building, that's like a developer thing. But then, you have all these creative options with MC. For example, you can use a ‘deviate’ command all of a sudden to create these complex random deviations in your sound, or random variations to your sound processing within certain MC objects. Then it actually does start to affect the sound, and you're hearing things differently.
Another more tangible example, working with filters made me hear things differently. I then changed the way I would physically play the trumpet to recreate the filtered sound acoustically, to start to mess with the cavity of my mouth to change the way the sound coming out of my trumpet was resonating. All of a sudden I could do some really wild filtering sounds by changing the cavity, embouchure, and also adding vocalizations simultaneously into the trumpet. Again, which I would start doing because I was hearing them from the electronics. So one way the changes in technology are affecting my playing is that I start to try to imitate the electronic technology acoustically. We see it with pop singers. There was a time where engineers would use compressors to bring out the glottal sounds for the pop singers, to bring out that fry in the back of the voice. Now singers do that without compressors, because they're learning how to mimic the technology, or create that effect with their bodies acoustically.
