Mike Fitzmaurice – Continuing Journeyman
Brent-Anthony Johnson

“Nonetheless, it seemed perfectly logical to me, a 21st Century Irish-American, to make a CD inspired by a book, written by an Englishman some 200 years ago, about the adventures of a fictitious Persian character.” This is Mike Fitzmaurice’s explanation of his disc, “The Continuing Adventures of Hajji Baba”. The recording project that brings forth this richly woven tapestry of Irish/Folk/World acoustic contrabass at it’s very best, was originally intended to be a simple session with a few long-time friends of the Denver-based bassist. Instead it very quickly became the inspired soundtrack of the book, The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Isfahan – a book written in 1824 by a 19th Century English Ambassador to Persia, James Morier – that has been out of print for decades! “Perfectly logical….” It is this nearly invisible, yet incredibly wry, sense of humor that first brought Mike to my attention in the 1990’s.

Mike has been the bassist for Laughing Hands and Colcannon for the past 20 years. Along the way, he has gigged and recorded with the likes of pianist/multi-instrumentalist Art Lande, pedal steel guitarist Glenn Taylor, percussionist Ed Contreras, pianist Bill Douglas, American tabla master Ty Burhoe, flutist Rod Garnett, and ethnomusicologists Brian and Steve Mullins in an ever-morphing project that has become some of the best musical art ever produced in this Nation’s Southwestern States! Mike is a World-class bassist and composer and I can’t wait for you to meet my friend (and teacher) of many years. Readers, I most humbly bring you… Mister Mike “Fitz” Fitzmaurice!

BAJ: Mike! Thank you for talking with Bass Frontiers Magazine! It’s been a couple years since our last lengthy conversation. How have you been?

Fitz: Things are good in my life, I’m working enough to make ends meet and that work is mostly stuff I want to do. I play a variety of musical styles, Orchestral, Jazz, Folk, Blues (what a friend of mine calls “the rich tapestry of whatever comes along”) and that helps me stay interested too.

BAJ: Let’s go back… Not to the 19th Century, per se! When did the bass choose you and will you illustrate your early musical journey, from then until now?

Mike Fitzmaurice

Fitz: Well, you may remember that I’m something of a late bloomer and didn’t really start playing the bass until I was In my late 20s, but I do remember one of the first times I heard a recording of the bass that made me ask “what’s that sound?” I was in art school at Pratt Institute in New York and one of my closest friends, Mark Organic, had one of the most extensive folk and blues record collections I had experienced at the time. So one day we were listening to Peter Paul and Mary and on this disc there was a solo song by Paul Stukey that was just voice, a nylon strung guitar, and acoustic bass. It was a jazzy song so the bass was played pizzicato and it was just so present in the mix that the sound just reached out and grabbed me! Of course that wasn’t “the first time” I had heard the bass… but it was significant for me. I should probably mention that I already played the guitar at this point in my life, and gravitated towards folk and bluegrass music. I can thank another dear friend, Don McKennan, for getting me started on the guitar and for teaching me some of the foundations of music theory.

While I was at Pratt I heard a variety of music, but hey I was in New York, and you can’t avoid hearing music there – or anywhere else really! But I’ll come back to that… The summer in the city is one long Latin groove. Local percussionists would set up somewhere on campus and get a groove going that never seemed to end. I also heard some really great bluegrass players! But I always felt that I couldn’t really hear the bass in those situations. That is, until I met Mark Diamond who I could definitely hear… and liked what I was hearing! Mark probably has more to do with my becoming a bass player than anyone else, and we are still close to this day. In fact, he is on the “Hajji Baba” disc. So, back then I was a more or less self taught and mostly illiterate guitarist.

After art school I was lucky enough to start doing some regular gigs in local bars in New York and New Jersey and eventually moved out to Colorado with a band called “Arabesque” that I played in with Mark Diamond, Mike Scap, Ralph Brandofino, and Eric Levine. After a while, Mark joined a touring band and went out on the road, and that is when I became a bass player, and not a very good one either, but I was earning as I was learning. Eventually, I realized that I needed to learn to read or I was cutting myself out of about half of the available work out there. I started private lessons with Frank Carroll at the University of Colorado in Boulder and he convinced me to go back to school. Maybe it didn’t take that much convincing… I wanted to learn to read and to play with a bow, and I wanted to experience what it was like to play with an Orchestra and Big Band. Unlike most of my friends who play classical music, I didn’t grow up playing in youth orchestras and high school bands. So it was exciting (and a bit scary) for me and it’s still quite thrilling. I feel like I could go on and on, and in truth, I could… but I’ll stop here, for now, and move on to the next question.

BAJ: The liner notes for “The Continuing Adventures of Hajji Baba” are fantastic – they read like a wonderful story! Simply said, the music is really incredible! How did this project come together? As much as this… when did you begin playing the Erhu and throat singing?!

Fitz: Ah! Well… I once heard a storyteller say, “My Grand Daddy told me to never let the truth get in the way of a good story!”
But I will tell you the truth… ‘cause I think it is also a good story. I had been studying with the amazing jazz musician and teacher, Art Lande, and at one of our lessons he said that I should think about starting to document some of this music. I was going to make a somewhat different album than what I ended up making. I had also been playing in a quartet called Goat Magnet with Art’s son, Aaron, who I also play with in the Greeley Philharmonic, and we had been doing a tune of mine that I had written a long time ago and it had a really stupid name. But, but Aaron was playing the living daylights out of it! The quartet setting was not really the way I heard that particular tune and I had wanted to try recording it with a variety of other players but not with drum set and keyboards! So, I booked a day at this small (but very cool) studio and started calling people to see how many of them I could get to show up. We recorded ten versions of the tune that day and nine of them were really good! So, I had to make some decisions on what to use! As I was sitting there listening to playbacks I remembered this classic novel The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan that Brian Mullins had recently loaned me, and suddenly I realized that I could have a concept album here. If I removed the more jazz sounding tunes I’d written from the “to do list” and renamed the remaining tunes after characters or places in the book I had a pretty good start. However, now there were holes that needed to be filled, so I had to write some new tunes.

At this point I decided to allow my self to run with it and have a good time. I try to never worry about “being authentic” and by naming the album “The Continuing Adventures…” I was setting up a situation where I could allow myself to just paint. This is probably the art school influence… As I got more tunes written and recorded, over the course of a year, I gradually put together what is now the sound recording.

As far as the Erhu and throat singing go… It was a cellist turned bassist, Steve Buckley, I was at CU with, who first turned me on to Tuvan throat singing! It will probably be no surprise to you that Brian Mullins got me going on the Erhu… I think that in some way, the Bass Harmonica also got me thinking about throat singing again. There is a website, www.friendsoftuva.com, that has a link to basic instructions for overtone singing. But I would have to attribute my throat singing to being a working musician who spends a lot of time alone in my car traveling to gigs, and as it turns out, that is a perfect place to practice throat singing.

BAJ: You possess, in my humble opinion, a wealth and depth of musical understanding not typically heard! Describe being a student of this world’s music and when it began for you.

Mike Fitzmaurice

Fitz: Wow, that is very flattering, thank you! Well… about two questions ago I remarked how you can’t avoid hearing music in New York – or anywhere else for that matter. Part of what I mean is that canned music is blasting out at us everywhere we go in today’s culture, and it may not be something we want to listen to… But we don’t have much of a choice! Music is no longer a special event in the everyday lives of modern humans. It is, simply, there. This has been the case for some time, in fact I was just reading The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross that John Cage in his 1950 “Lecture on Nothing” quoted a woman from Texas who said “We have no music in Texas”. Cage then said, “The reason they have no music in Texas is because they have recordings in Texas. Remove the records from Texas and someone will learn to sing”. (Laugher)

As for me… I have always been drawn to acoustic music and instruments and have sought out the more obscure. My logic was I’m going to hear top 40 weather I like it or not. So I’ll have to dig a little to find something other than what mainstream media wants me to buy. But media and technology is also a good thing. Thanks to the Internet it is much easier find all sorts of different music. Then again, I would have to say that my friends have turned me on to most of the cool music I’ve heard. As far as my depth of musical understanding… Well, I’m still trying to learn! I can state fairly honestly that, “I am a theory nerd.” I have always been interested in how music works, and becoming literate means learning to read and write! But there is more to it than just that…! At CU I studied theory, history, analysis, and counterpoint… while I also had the opportunity to perform with Orchestra, Big Band, and Wind Ensemble. It was in Wind Ensemble that I got to play some very cool modern music. At that time I was still gigging around as a freelance player and played in a couple of bands. As you know, we have to do a lot of different things to make ends meet. I was playing in an Afro Pop band that was put together by pedal steel player, Glenn Taylor, who had an extensive record collection of music from various parts of Africa but mostly wrote his own music based on those styles. Glenn provided us with compilation tapes to listen to. Which meant that I was hearing stuff that I couldn’t hear on the radio… at least until Paul Simon came out with “Graceland”, then African music became popular for a while.

(Editor Note: I also played with Glenn in another African music project!)

I met Glenn while playing with The Boulder Creative Music Ensemble, formed by Fred Hess where I also met trumpeter Ron Miles. As it turned out, I would be at CU at the same time as Fred, and Ron, and Mark Harris and we all played in the Big Band together. I also joined Colcannon at about this same time. I didn’t know anything, really, about traditional Irish music… But the band had a regular gig in a local pub and a book of chord charts for their tunes! I started off just subbing occasionally but soon after joined the band. Colcannon was a pub band at the time…that means that they pretty much did the standard tunes and songs. I knew none of the material, so didn’t have any opinion about it! All I knew was that the players were good and it was a steady gig – for terrible money, by the way! But it was steady and fun. Colcannon became another “earn while you learn” situation. Mick Bolger, the singer/bodhrán player – and another friend with extensive knowledge and a huge record collection (not to mention books) – also made compilation tapes for us to listen to. Mick turned me on to probably most of the cool finger style guitarists that I know of today, as well as a couple African bands and a few classical composers. He also wrote lyrics to one of the two pieces I wrote for Colcannon and Orchestra. The members of Colcannon, by the way, are: Mick Bolger who sings and plays the Irish goat skin drum (bodhrán: pronounced bau-ron) and some trombone; Jean Bolger plays fiddle and concertina, Rod Garnett plays traditional wooden flutes and fife, Brian Mullins plays cittern, guitar, mandolin, flute and whistle… and then there’s me on bass, guitar and bass harmonica. We all compose, in fact, Jean took it upon herself to write a tune a day for a year, and did just that! We have been performing just a couple of those tunes so far… but will most likely do more. I’ve been playing with Colcannon now for 21 years and the band has grown from our pub band days to a touring concert band with 7 CDs and a PBS special to our credit. We have also been playing more with Orchestras – either performing one of the two pieces I wrote for us, or more of a pops concert format with orchestral arrangements of some of the songs and tunes from our CDs. The first of the two pieces is called “The Red Kite” and is a concerto in three movements for the band and orchestra, and the second “Lusanna” is made up of tunes and songs with the orchestral harp providing the glue in the transitions. (This one has lyrics by Mick, in Gaelic, except for a spoken word section in English) Then there’s Brian and Steve Mullins of Laughing Hands. I joined “the Hands” shortly after Brian joined Colcannon. Steve and Brian are both prolific composers and Steve has become an excellent flamenco guitarist. Brian, as you know, had a big influence on the Hajji Baba disc – first by loaning me the book “The Adventures of Hajji Baba” to read, and then just by being encouraging and having a large collection of instrumental colors to draw on. At this point I should mention Rod Garnett, who I met while at CU and have been friends with ever since. Rod, as I stated earlier, is a member of Colcannon too! Some of the tunes on the Hajji disc were originally written for him, and he provided some of the more exotic sounds on the disc from his collection of flutes of the world. So I guess I would say that I’ve learned inside and outside the traditional university setting and I continue to study and write and hope I will keep on learning.

BAJ: As you know, I have long coveted your beautiful Juzek acoustic contrabass (yeah, I said it)… Tell our readers about your instruments and your preference for recording them in your varying session environments. Also, let’s discuss your bowing technique and practice regimen… Oh, and can we talk about your approach for the Arco melody of “Dervish Ghessehgou”? Thank you!

Fitz: OK, let’s start with “Juanda” (Wanda) my 1929 Juzek bass. One thing that is a little unusual is that the original, signed, makers label is still in the bass… So I know that John Juzek made her in Prague in 1929. When recording, I’ve learned that the better the microphones, the better the sound, and the more tracks that you can dedicate to a given instrument, the better the production quality will be. For example, the opening piece on the disc, “Dervish Ghessehgou”, which is unaccompanied bass, was recorded with four different microphones and a direct line from my Realist pickup that engineer, Andy McEwen put through a tube pre-amp. We didn’t use much of the pickup, though, unless it was a pizz part – which is 5 tracks of bass! Not 5 different performances layered on top of one another, but one performance recorded by 4 microphones that are each sensitive to a different part of the sound spectrum and blended into one. Now, as to my bowing technique and practice regimen… I don’t have a routine that I do every day, but I try to practice everyday, and I have varying levels of success. It mostly depends on how busy I am with gigs or if I’m on the road. But it mostly goes like this: I always use my bow when I practice, it lets me know much better than playing pizzicato just how in or out of tune I am. I practice scales and arpeggios and whatever piece of music I have to perform next. There is a ton of great practice material in the symphonic literature and when I was taking auditions, I put in a lot of time on orchestral excerpts, which led me to coin the phrase: “Life is a Meaningless Nightmare of Excerpts.” Now I’m not taking orchestra auditions. But I still practice the music for the orchestra concerts that I have coming up – which is more fun because I’m actually going to perform the music! I’ve also been working on some bowing techniques that the bluegrass and Celtic fiddlers have been doing for a while, “chops, and grooves” and shuffle patterns that I can incorporate into accompaniments. Also some of the advanced techniques that I use in “Dervish Ghessehgou” come from studying the music of Francois Rabbath.

BAJ: I believe your bass was the first 7/8 and full-size instruments I ever played! As they are seen so rarely, what is the greatest benefit of playing the larger basses?

Fitz: My bass is a 7/8 size with a 44” scale. This is pretty long – as most basses have a string length of 41 to 42 inches and when I’ve had to rent basses while traveling! I have trouble playing in tune the way I want to because the notes are not where I expect them to be! This is one of the disadvantages of playing the larger instruments! Of course, the advantage is a bigger sound! But sound is a combination of the player and his/her instrument. Let’s face it… the instrument doesn’t make any sound by itself! (Laughter) A better instrument, which is set up well, makes it easier for the player to do what he or she wants. In the end, I believe sound comes from the player’s head, heart, and hands. Incidentally, I recently, resolved some of my travel with a bass issues by having a custom upright electric made for me. Robert Ross, a friend and bass maker, made it for me and readers can see a picture of it and some of Bob’s other “real basses” at www.rossdoublebass.com. It is an exact copy of the dimensions my Juzek, but with a low B-string, and it comes apart into 4 pieces! The bass and case that Bob also made for it, comes in at just under 50 pounds! I still get hit with an oversize charge by most airlines. But when I put it together the notes are where I expect them to be, and it is a beautiful instrument.

BAJ: Would you explain to our readers how you stay on the scene and how you have become such an in-demand player? What aspects of musicality and “human being” are most important to you?

Mike Fitzmaurice

Fitz: I guess “staying on the scene” can be as simple: “keep working”. I often get last minute calls asking “can you make a gig tonight?”, and while that can be a drag, it’s important to say yes as often as you can. For a while I joked about not taking any regular gigs so I would always be able to say yes to the last minute calls, and then, those calls kept coming in. When you work a lot (also in a lot of different genres) you get to know a lot of different musicians. Add to that an ability to “wing it”, or improvise, or read the dots off the page – if that is what is required – and you have the skills needed for steady work. I went back to school to acquire those skills. Learning doesn’t stop after school, and I’ve learned a lot since, and the more I learn the more I realize how little I really know! I’ll admit that there are some gigs I don’t enjoy playing. But that is not because of the music. Generally, it has more to do with the environment. I’ve found that when it comes to live performance, especially on the club scene where your music is often largely ignored, it is often as simple as “If you have fun… they will have fun” and with your fellow musicians, a good attitude is everything. But this is true of any working environment.

BAJ: The other disc you sent was great, by the way! I really dug your rendition of “Here, There & Everywhere”! Beautifully done, man! You cover a lot of ground on this disc. What is Colcannon doing these days?

Fitz: That other disc was a compilation of excerpts from different recordings I’ve been on, and there is some other stuff too. But you can only fit so much on a disc. I’ve been fortunate on a number of recording dates to be given feature spots or to just be allowed to run with an idea. Every session is different, some folks have a written part for you to play, and some don’t even know what key their song or tune is in. Maybe all they know is that they would like you to play an Arco part. This was the case on one of the tunes on the other disc. I got a copy of what singer/song writer Kevin Rumery had in the can already and then I had the opportunity to give it some thought and practice with the disc. Then at the session, since it was an overdub, I would play some stuff, then Kevin would say “I like what you did there, let’s keep that, but this passage was too busy, could you . . .” or something like that, and we put together what ended up being a prominent bass part. Kevin was originally thinking of a bass part that would be more accompaniment and less solo, and then have a soprano sax as a melodic voice. But when we finished the session he decided to just stop there. The other night I did my first Hip Hop session where I played a variety things, but was surprised when I was encouraged to just play a big improvised solo on one track. Colcannon’s most recent disc is two stories set to music, “The Pooka and the Fiddler and Happy as Larry” and it is one of my favorites of the 7 CDs we have made to date. We also have a Christmas show that is completely different material from what we do the rest of the year, and then there is the orchestral stuff, and some concerts with choir. Besides the two pieces for Colcannon and Orchestra that I mentioned earlier we have arrangements of songs and tunes that I and Mick and Jean have done. A friend from the University of Wyoming, Anne Guzzo, is finishing up a “Concerto for Folk Ensemble and Orchestra” that she is composing for us, and we hope to premier it this coming year. With any luck my newest piece “Short Stories for Solo Bass and String Orchestra” which had it’s premier this past April will also be on the program.

BAJ: How do you relax, and what are you favorite non-musical endeavors?

Fitz: I like to read, and right now I’m reading The Rest is Noise, Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross, but am also a big fan Jasper Fforde, Philip Pullman, and J.K. Rowling. These people are great storytellers. Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next, Literary Detective made me go back and read more than a few classics. I also like to go to Irish music sessions, which is social music by nature and a lot of fun! Though sometimes I spend more time socializing than playing.

BAJ: What is next on your roster of sessions and performances?

Fitz: I have a session with George Inai who is a singer/songwriter that I went to London with last February; Eric Moon is also on the session and was on the London Tour. Colcannon will play the Colorado Irish festival this weekend and next week we fly out to the Long Island Irish Festival, and we go to Nova Scotia for a folk festival in early August.

BAJ: What is the most important aspect of life?

Fitz: Happiness.

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