Joe Farnsworth on The Big Room

It’s no easy feat to become one of most highly regarded drummers on the US jazz scene, but with a career spanning over three decades and a résumé that reads like a celebrity list of jazz legends, it’s hardly surprising that Joe Farnsworth has earned a top spot on the list. From his early days with Art Taylor to his extensive work with the likes of McCoy Tyner and Pharoah Sanders (not to mention his friendship with the late Al Foster), Farnsworth’s journey now brings about his latest release with Smoke Sessions in The Big Room. 

Despite currently being on tour, Joe was able to join me (against the backdrop of the Colosseum in Rome) to discuss the details behind the album, his influential experiences with jazz greats, and the importance of passing on the legacy to a younger generation…

What was the spark that drew you to a career in jazz?

That's easy: my father, who's still alive at eighty-eight years old, was a music teacher, and I have four older brothers. The oldest one is David, he played the drums, John plays saxophone and trombone, Paul was kind of like the rock and roll guy in the family and then my brother James plays saxophone. When I was around three years old, I was in my brother David’s room – he had a beautiful set of drums – and when he got up to go to school he’d say to me ‘don’t touch my drums’... I’d watch him walk down the street to the school, and when I couldn’t see him anymore, I’d jump on the drums and play. 

Growing up the joke was that David listened to big band and ‘Soul Train’ music, which would include The Temptations, The O’Jays, and James Brown. But in another room, my brother James, a saxophone player, listened to Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins, and John in another room listened to Charlie Parker and J.J. Johnson. So I would listen with David for a little while before moving to the other room with James to listen with him, and so on – it was like the old 52nd Street in New York City with all the clubs. I grew up on 23 Hadley Street, so instead of 52nd Street, I had a 23 Hadley Street. It was like a whole row of bars, man – a whole row of listening!

Having worked with some of the greatest performers in jazz, how have these experiences influenced your own approach to music over the years?

Well, let's go back to the very beginning, starting with Max Roach who I met as a kid, and then Charles Greenlee, a trombone player. He was from Detroit, but he moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, where we lived. And then in college, it was the great Harold Maburn. When I got to New York City, I wanted to enroll in two schools, the school of Cedar Walton and the school of George Coleman – two of my favorite players. I got to play with both of them. And with McCoy Tyner and Pharoah Sanders, the main thing was to swing hard: to play with a lot of energy and charisma. I mean, those guys played so dynamic, they kept your attention. They used soft and then loud transitions, and you were always left asking ‘what's gonna happen next?’ It was so thrilling to watch them, and then to play with them was really overwhelming – but failure's not an option. You've just got to play.

All those guys were telling me, 'just swing hard'. I learned a lot from Billy Higgins, the drummer, because he had a great ride cymbal and a great feel. And because he had that, everybody wanted to work with him: Pat Metheny, George Coleman, or Cedar Walton. So, I knew early on if I could just get a good ride cymbal and swing hard, people would want to play with me. 

I understand you knew the late Al Foster well. What impact did that relationship have on you? 

Well, he was one of the greats in New York City. He was one of the drummers that had an impact on me, but one of the most important ones was the great Art Taylor, who played with John Coltrane, Bud Powell, and Charlie Parker. He was really the main guy for me in New York City.

I started taking lessons with him, and I believed everything he said and watched everything he did. When I first met him, I couldn't believe that he was a human being, that he had a daughter and had ups and downs… I just thought he was just a swing machine. So meeting him and then becoming friends with him, that opened the doors to a lot of things and a lot of people. I'd see Donald Byrd, Walter Davis, Walter Bishop, Jackie McLean, all these guys that would go see AT, and I was introduced to them and allowed to be in their company. He gave me all sorts of wisdom. You know how lots of people have jealousies and egos? AT would always get mad at that kind of thing and would say ‘Your business is the drums, not anyone else, how anyone else plays, or what everyone else is doing. You take care of the drums, and the drums will take care of you.’

When I was eighteen, I wasn't sure how I was going to be in this world with guys like Roy Haynes, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach and Buddy Rich? I mean, I'm just a little kid from Western Massachusetts, so how am I going to make it? How does someone from Paris, Australia, or someone from a farm make it to New York City and play with Tommy Flanagan? And he said that if you have a will and desire, the hard work gets it done. If you put in an honest day's work, you could do whatever you want to do. And I really felt that. 

What impressed me most about Al Foster was that every time I saw him, he talked about Max Roach, Art Taylor – and he's played all this modern stuff, but he always went back to Max Roach and Art Taylor. So we shared that bond together – even though he was older than me, we had that common bond of loving those giants. He said to me before he died, ‘be true to yourself’. This was right before COVID where I had a lot of time to start thinking. I could tell you about Billy Higgins, I could tell you about Max Roach, but I didn’t really know about myself. I was kind of uncomfortable in my own skin, and didn't know where I fit in. So that really hit home with me, and I was determined to start feeling like it was okay to play like me. I don't have to play the perfect Max Roach solo: I tried for 40 years, and I never did.

Speaking of your playing, I’d love to talk about your new album. You’ve mentioned that the title of the album, The Big Room, isn’t inspired by a physical place. Could you tell me a little more about that?

When we were younger, the great Jackie McLean used to talk about ‘the big room’. I also heard Max Roach talk about it, and I heard Ron Carter mention it once, too. It was a place where Jackie McLean and Charlie Parker would go to when they were playing and improvising during their solos. They were getting such a high that they started going to the next level, where you go into a room that you can organise any way you want. There were no rules, no regulations – it was just you and God, and playing straight from the Holy Spirit. A lot of times it was explained to me that music comes from the Holy Spirit, through you, through your hands, to the audience. 

So the big room is a place where you just break down all the barriers, all the walls, all the rules, and you’re left with that feeling of playing free. That freedom with discipline. I’m in a place now in my life where I feel comfortable in my skin and I'm grateful to play. I'm trying to live happy, joyous, and free, and the big room to me is being comfortable with my own skin, performing with what the Holy Spirit gave me, and just playing.

What does your ensemble bring to this project and what made these musicians the right fit?

The first one I recruited was my friend Sarah Hanahan, a young alto player. Right before COVID, my main teachers and mentors passed away: McCoy Tyner, Harold Maburn and Pharoah Sanders. So there was a big void in my life and I didn't know what was going to happen going forward. But during COVID, we were doing a livestream where Sarah was sitting over on the side. She waited and waited, and then she played the last tune and played this note… it gave me goosebumps. I felt the spirit of those three guys, Pharoah Sanders, Harold Maburn, and McCoy Tyner, and it felt like ‘We're here with you. You've got to keep moving forward’. I was so happy to meet her, and we instantly became friends. We’ve been around the world together for the last two years, so when I made this record she was the very first person I thought of because she means the world to me.

As well on my records, I like to document who I'm playing with at that moment and over the last year, I've been playing a lot with Emmett Cohen. He's smiling, he's positive, he's talking about Jelly Roll Morton, Bud Powell, Barry Harris and all these young people are listening, He's a great messenger and he believes in it 100%. I knew I had to have him because when I play with him it’s like playing with Pharoah Sanders. I can play any way I want to play. 

With Joel Ross, he's a guy that I consider to be really in the forefront of a new, advancing style of music. I'd never met him before, but I knew that having him on the record would kind of take some of my blinders off me and some of the walls I've built up  over the years. When you're older, you've got to play with younger guys to keep growing and being inspired. You have to, or you just grow old. I don't want to be old!

Yasushi Nakamura is a young legend, man. He has such a majestic sound, like Tommy Flanagan meets Billy Strayhorn meets Oscar Pettiford. I just knew that he would make everyone sound better. And finally, I was just going to use a quintet format, but then I just wanted to have my friend Jeremy Pelt on this because he's a legend, and I knew for sure he was going to play great.

How did the compositional side of things work? Did you invite other people to collaborate?

Well, one of the blessings was that we were making this album around the idea of making an LP – so that would be around forty-five minutes. Records are what I grew up on: it's like drinking water for me. When you make recordings for CDs, it can turn into like, sixty-five minutes. I feel like it starts to lose the story. Much like a novel, each tune should be a paragraph that completes the book, and every tune should make sense. But when you get into CDs, there's, like, ten tunes, and it just doesn't make as much sense. 

I knew that the first tune would set the tone, and I had 100% faith in Sarah Hanahan to come up with a tune. And sure enough, she did. Once you have that first tune, it's like the fruit from the vine, so I asked Joel Ross to write a ballad because he writes stylistic tunes that I've never really played before. I knew for sure that I wanted Jeremy Pelt to play that ballad, (‘When I Fall In Love’), because it makes you want to cry when you hear him play that beautifully. And so I knew that the only thing I needed then was a blues tune, which is where Emmett came in. I knew that tune would be a good closer. So I had a beginning and a closer - it was perfect, man. It was perfect. I want to play with people that I like playing for, not to exclusively play my music. What makes my soul fill up is being able to play what someone wrote in their heart. I want to experience that.

What’s in store for you next?

Well, believe it or not, I'm on tour with Emmett Cohen now. From now until March for the next year I’m travelling and playing with him! 

As someone who’s played with many of the greats, how do you see your role in carrying forward the tradition of jazz?

You know, I'm very friendly with Wynton Marsalis, and we talk about this: the idea of paying it forward. My project, it's not about a record. It's about how I’m fifty-seven now, and all that stuff that those guys gave me when I was younger, I'm ready to give it back to younger people around the world. I want to talk about Max Roach, about mental health, about being comfortable in your own skin. To be able to show people that it's okay to be fearful, that you're not alone. There’s ways of getting involved in music, and there's things you can do. Some people like to isolate and think ‘I'll never be able to do it’ and I want to be the person that can help, to reach out a hand and do something to make them feel better.

That's my main project, without a doubt. I mean, playing your instrument well is great, but there's so much to learn: like that lesson with AT, when I realised that there was a human being behind the artist. These guys had such big shoulders and such big personalities, and they really helped me. Travelling with Emmett Cohen allows me to see a lot of young people, and I want to continue passing the messages that were given to me. I spent years trying to speak through Max Roach and I could never do it, so I've felt that uneasiness – until I realised that hey, God loves me for who I am right now. That’s the message I really want to give. That it's okay to be yourself.

The Big Room is available from Friday 25th July on Smoke Sessions Records 

More content and behind the scenes available on Instagram: @joefarnsworthdrums