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Fuller
“When I started out, it was a big question mark: Is this going to be possible?” jazz bassist Jeff Fuller recalled. “I declared my major as music at the end of my sophomore year … and then I realized: ‘Oh my god, I’m not preparing myself for anything else than music. Is this going to work?’”
That was in 1965 at Yale College. Since earning a master’s degree from the Yale School of Music in 1969, Fuller has become a prolific jazz composer as well as an internationally renowned touring and recording artist.
Born and raised in Connecticut, Fuller has lived, studied, and worked in New Haven for much of his life. His long-term partner lives in Massachusetts, where she is a studio artist. A professional jazz bassist and teacher, he leads several ensembles in New Haven, including the Premier Jazz Ensemble at the Neighborhood Music School, and has been an active composer, arranger, and songwriter since 1968.
“When I got into the jazz scene,” he tells me, “it was, you know, roughly beginning in graduate school. The students at the Yale School of Music that I hung out with were all composers and jazz players, like myself. I was hoping to achieve a sense of personal identity through playing and composing jazz music, as well as instrumental prowess and creative expression. The jazz players that I knew could play any style — they could play rock and roll, they could play classical — but they chose this more widely improvisational form of music.”
He paused. “My thought was that this music leads to deeper self-expression,” he added. “You are representing yourself when you take a solo: ‘This is really, truly who I am.’ Now, I might be good or I might be bad, I might be in tune, I might be out of tune, I might be in rhythm or out of rhythm, but this is who I am. So I guess that was the ultimate thing that I wanted to get through jazz. And, at the same time, I realized that would take a lifetime to achieve. That was the real beauty of it in my mind: ‘This is something I could do for my entire life.’ Always challenge, push, always get better at it.”
Dr. Thomas Duffy, the director of Yale Bands, has known Fuller for 36 years. “He’s always impressed me as a first-class jazz musician,” Duffy said. “As a teacher, I refer students to him all the time — for jazz, for improvisation. We are colleagues at Neighborhood Music School. I do the orchestra there, he runs some of the jazz combos. I love the way he writes music. He’s kind of got the whole package: he writes the music, he plays the music, he teaches the music.”
Early in Fuller’s career, while touring in Europe with bebop saxophonist Lou Donaldson, he was asked to arrange and compose Latin jazz music. “A Chilean saxophonist named Raúl Gutiérrez loved Lou Donaldson and he and I started talking, and he says, ‘I have a salsa group here in Munich called Irazú. I need some arrangements, I need charts, I need big jazz salsa charts.’ And I said, ‘I can do that.’ And started arranging some covers like “Mambo Inn” and further started creating my own charts with his help … I learned what are the [structural or form] variations that are more important than the standard, you know? It’s the same with jazz. The variations from the standard make it interesting, not the standard. You gotta learn both. In order to write like Mozart, you have to know how to write how Mozart wrote. But then you want to do your own Mozart. I want to do my own Latin jazz.”
Comparing Latin jazz to its American counterpart, Fuller told me, “my tendency would be to say, ‘They spring from the same roots.’ Good music is good music. And good music of any style is true to itself, and possibly also self-referential, so that a jazz piece should refer to the jazz history and tradition.… So, for me to write convincing Afro-Cuban jazz, I gotta understand Afro-Cuban music. And that takes a lot of exposure, learning, and listening. For me to write or play convincing jazz, I have to be aware of the jazz history, tradition, technical [aspects], melody.”
We discussed his four Latin charts commissioned last year by the UConn Jazz Ensemble. “At this point in my arranging and composing career, it’s all about keeping at it and getting it done,” he said. “The lessons I learned as a composer…”
His orange tabby cat, named Butterscotch, meowed as it walked into the sunlit room.
Fuller called out. “Hey kitty, kitty, here look, here’s another redhead!” (Meaning me.) Butterscotch meowed a few more times.
Fuller continued: “The lessons I learn as a composer often occur in the early developmental stages.… What would it be like to mix a diatonic melody with modern harmonies? As soon as I say that, my first thought is, ‘What would it be like to mix a chromatic melody with basic diatonic harmonies?’”
Fuller went to the music rack on his mahogany Baldwin console piano and grabbed a music notebook. “Most of my real learning takes place in my sketchbook,” Fuller said. “This is book #36 of the ones I’ve been counting. Started on April 4, 2017. It’s just lots of little ideas. I woke up from sleep with this,” and he sang an augmented scale. He flipped to another page and said, “this is actually a full composition that was turned into a big band composition.” He politely corrected my pronunciation of the chart’s Portuguese title, “Manhã de Primavera.” He flipped a few more pages and sang another melody he wrote down.
“You can see the work process,” he said. I asked if he woke up every morning thinking about jazz.
“Yes!” Fuller shouted enthusiastically. “I wake up every morning with music going through my head.”
He flipped to another page. “This is more of a teaching thing,” he said. “How to create a song from a chord progression, rather than melody implying the chords first.” He then sang the melody of a song he thought of while biking. “This is how you develop your improvisation,” he told me. “There’s a fine line, if any, between composition and improvisation. To me, they’re both the same.” He reached a blank page halfway through the notebook. “That’s all I’ve done, so far — for this book,” he said.
He returned the notebook to his collection on the piano. He then picked up his Concord model bass off the white chair it was resting against. Handmade by Upton Bass in Mystic, Conn., Fuller’s bass is a copy of jazz legend Scott LaFaro’s famous Prescott bass.
“I don’t use the bass so much when I’m composing. It’s a little hard to do that,” he said. He prefers to use the piano. Holding the bass against his left shoulder, he gestured with his right hand by reaching his fingers out toward the notebook six feet away.
“To be honest with you, I don’t usually start with bass ideas. I get melodic ideas or rhythmic ideas,” he said. I inquired about his Bach classical books — one of which sat on the music stand, the others in a pile.
“Bach is my Bible,” he noted. He pointed to the pile. “These are all Bach. I do the cello suites and the violin sonatas,” though he plays them on bass.
Fuller invited me downstairs to his home studio, where he stores his musical collection. He has all the vinyl records he played on, but he doesn’t listen to them because, he remarked, “I don’t have time, man.” He showed me the first record he produced, Expansion (1979), and pointed to more of the records he’s been on. “You asked, ‘What is your success?’ This is it,” he said, pulling out an Irazú record.
What was next for him?
“I’m planning to go play a gig,” he quipped, then let out a hearty laugh. He slipped the bass into its black bag, zipped it up, and started heading to the front door with it. “I plan to keep doing what I’m doing,” he said. “Composing at the top of the list, but also performing — and learning.” One song, gig, and book at a time.