Even at ten o’clock in
the morning, Carla Brownlee has a boisterous, infectious laugh that ignites
frequently without warning. Both candid
and funny, Hurricane Carla doesn’t hold back when asked what she thinks about
traditional roles for female musicians, and she speaks eloquently about the
process of making music with other people, offering an intimate glimpse into
the mind of an artist.
Join Brownlee at the
Chicago Bar on August 14th, where she’ll be celebrating the release
of her second CD, “Hurricane Carla Drawn To Louis Jordan”. Other artists joining Brownlee on the CD are
Daniel “Sly” Slipetsky on piano, Scott Black on bass, and Chip Ritter on drums,
while Danny Krieger, Johnny “Guitar” Blommer, and Eddy De Lucia play
guitar. Also appearing on the album is
Heather Hardy, who sings with Brownlee in addition to playing violin. Other artists standing in include Gary
Mackender, Blake Matthies, Glendon Gross, Arthur Migliazza, Glenn Velardi, and
Steve Grams, who produced the album in addition to playing bass.
Here’s what Hurricane
Carla has to say about the life of a musician in Tucson:
Do you think there are more opportunities
now for women in music than when you started out?
I think so. Women as
artists are given more viability now. It
didn’t use to be that way. Women as
artists were seen as a trained monkey, or something. Isn’t that neat? Now, on to the men artists.
Is it fair to say you’ve broken tradition
by being an instrumentalist, as well as a vocalist?
I think so, because my voice doesn’t have a sex when I’m
playing, but if I’m singing it has a sex.
So (on sax) I can add to the group without being a “female component” to
the sound. So I think that’s true.
A woman playing the saxophone is unusual, and there’s no
reason why it should be. More
frequently, you see women playing keyboards, guitars, and that’s all understood
and accepted. But a woman playing sax,
why is that so weird?
A woman should be playing the flute, or something, they
think it’s a more feminine instrument.
But the truth is, it takes a lot more air than the saxophone does. So (flute) isn’t really a more feminine
instrument, that’s something the viewer brings to it.
Do you think male and female musicians are
treated differently as they age?
I get comments from people like “Wow, how old are you?” and
“You’re still out there doing it!” but
they wouldn’t ask that of a guy. They
wouldn’t say, oh, a guy’s still out there doing it. For instance, Madonna gets called out because
she’s still doing it, but so are the Rolling Stones. They’re older than she is, so what the
hell? Shut up! Shut up.
But I can’t let that stuff bother me, because I have to
realize that when I’m creating art, any artist creates art in the cultural
milieu that he’s born in, so that’s life.
Maybe a thousand years from now women won’t have this kind of issue.
What do you feel the most hopeful about
these days?
Well, I hope to sell all the CD’s I made and recoup my
money, and make another one.
What would you be doing today if you
weren’t making music?
Jeesh . . . oh, man.
Jeeze, I don’t know. I’ve always
enjoyed education, I almost became a teacher and I really would’ve enjoyed
that, because it’s a highly creative endeavor.
I loved the thought of nurturing young talent in some arts field, whether
it was theater or music, or whatever. So
I guess an education-involved area, (maybe) theater education. I don’t want to be starring in a show, or
something like that. I enjoyed it when I
did it, but I realized it’s the process of playing music that I enjoy more.
What’s the best part of that process for
you?
I think it’s actually the communication with other people on
a level that’s not verbal communication.
It’s non-verbal personal communication, it’s intimate, it’s
interesting. When it’s great, it’s
great. Better than anything.
What kind of lasting effect would you like
to see your music have on people?
You know, the lasting effect is “We went out last night and
danced, that was so much fun let’s go out and do it again tonight! Okay!”
That’s the lasting effect. I
guess that’s pretty shallow, I should be deeper, but that’s about it. I’m an entertainer, god damn it.
But you can come at it from a deeper angle too, because
music is very deep. Like I said, it’s
nonverbal communication, which means that it happens at a level that defies
social boundary, it defies everything.
It defies waking/dreaming states.
It’s in that in-between area that can last forever, but it
takes only a second. When you’re playing
music it happens in real time, and when you’re playing music it’s there, and
then the moment is gone, and it’s the next moment. And then it’s the next moment. And what are you doing in that moment to make
it bigger?
When you’re playing music you drop your ego, because you
have to lay that all aside. You lay
aside judgment, you lay aside rational, you’re inside the moment, and you’re
either there, or you’re not there. Are
you there? Yes. Cool!
When you’re creating a song, you’re creating a musical
moment, even if you’re playing a capella, are you in that moment or are you
not? If you’re in that moment, other
people will go with you, and then you take them along on the trip.
I love Carla's perspective in this article. My mom has a Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry from Rutgers, so I'm used to the idea of women being talented and successful as Carla is. But Carla always maintains her sense of humor, whether she is playing music or commenting on the state of female representation in the horn section. Let's just say that Carla plays so well that nobody cares whether she is a man or a woman when they hear her blow. So Carla may convince people with a narrow mind that "hey, women can do that as well as men can. "
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting Glendon. I agree, she's really funny!
ReplyDelete