For over the past decade, Jay Collins has been blowing his sax in the Gregg Allman Band. What you may not know is that Collins also has his own group called The Kings County Band and that their latest CD, Rivers Blues & Other People, features Collins not only doing what he does best but singing as well. His voice, tinted with a husky old-timer’s good-time vibe, brings new life to tunes by Bob Dylan and Robert Johnson as well as to foot-tapping originals like “Mighty Mississippi” and “Mary Ann’s.” He is a renaissance man in more ways than one. A master on horns, he has a jazz and blues shaded heart that compliments Allman’s southern blues rock almost perfectly. And his story of how he got this far is not well known.
A few weeks ago, Collins called in to talk with me about creating music, playing with Allman and about his roots, one of the first times he has really opened up about his past.
Is there an instrument that you DON’T play?
(laughs) Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of them. Basically, I play all the saxophones, the flute, the piano and I sing. That’s pretty much it. A little bit of percussion here and there, but nothing serious in that department. I don’t play much guitar, I don’t really play any guitar, which for a songwriter is probably a little unusual.
So how do you write your songs?
On the piano mostly and occasionally I’ll get an idea where I might bring a guitar player in to help me with something if I’m hearing a guitar part and then I’ll co-write with a guitar player, sometimes Scott Sharrard or somebody like that.
Do you hear music in your head all the time?
Well, I do hear music in my head a lot. I’m constantly walking around singing and thinking of things. They’re not always original things but when something original does come I try to get it down somewhere.
Where did you grow up and what was the first instrument that you started playing?
I’m from Portland, Oregon, and I first started on the saxophone when I was probably about twelve years old and I wasn’t real interested in it. It’s funny, my first performing experience was actually as a dancer. I was playing a little saxophone but the first time I started performing in front of people was as a break dancer for Pepsi-Cola. I used to go to shopping malls and we were sponsored by Pepsi and we would go to these shopping malls and do gigs, do shows every Saturday and Sunday. And that was my first money that I made performing in front of people.
Then when the break dance craze kind of fizzled out, well, at least back then, it came back later and it’s cool again now. But it kind of got burned out and then I found the saxophone again and was playing a lot of Jazz and blues. My step-father plays guitar, he’s a black guy and plays guitar, so he liked a lot of blues and Jazz and he had a great record collection. So I used to take his records and play along with them. Then I started to figure out by ear how to play and then I got lucky enough to run into some high school teachers that had a great program at another high school.
So my Senior year I switched schools and I started going there and learning how to read music and learning about theory and how to go beyond playing by ear. That was pretty much the beginnings. We had a really good local scene and so I was fortunate that I started working professionally just about right out of high school, just playing with a lot of older musicians; mostly Jazz, blues, some rock and that was really my early training. Then I moved to New York when I was in my early twenties. The first time I tried to go there I was twenty-one; then I came back to New York again when I was twenty-four.
Was it a big culture shock for you?
Well, it was a little cushioned by the fact that I was actually born in New York and most of my family is from New York City. So I had a lot of extended family in New York City. I had two grandmothers, an aunt and an uncle, and some cousins. So it wasn’t like I was coming somewhere where I had not a friend in the world. I stayed with my aunt for a bit and then I stayed with a friend of my dad’s and when my money would get low, I’d go and get a meal at my grandmother’s house. That definitely helped, but even with that I did a lot of starving. There were a lot of lean years.
Did you ever feel like giving up and going home?
You mean giving up on New York? Yeah, yeah, I got a horn stolen from me maybe about two years or a year and a half after I moved to New York. My main saxophone got stolen when I was playing on a gig in New York City. I’d gone outside and we had left our equipment in the place we were playing and went outside to have a smoke and came back in and my horn was gone. Somebody had snuck it out the back door. That was the time when I almost felt like giving up and going back home. But a friend of mine, another saxophone player, let me borrow an extra one he had for a while and then I just built up some money and got myself a cheaper horn than the one I had but I got one. I played that for a while until I had enough money to get the same kind of horn I had that got stolen from me.
When did you feel like you were starting to make a dent in your potential career?
I would say when I got two gigs at the same time. One of them was with a guy named Jacky Terrasson, who is a Jazz piano player from France, and he was on Blue Note Records. I got in his band and we started traveling around the world playing. And I made a record with him on Blue Note Records. At the same time, I was also playing with another piano player who was pretty famous in the Jazz world named Andrew Hill and he was on a lot of Jazz recordings in the sixties. So he was pretty well-known to musicians. So I kind of felt like I was somewhat on my way cause I had two name bands I was working with at the same time. So that was note-worthy and I kind of felt like, hey, I’m actually successful, I’m successfully doing this. Of course, I went back downhill after that (laughs) But it came back up. That’s what it does. It goes up and down, you know. Most musicians will tell you that, even famous musicians go through that.
What did you learn most from playing with all these seasoned veterans?
At first I learned sort of the nuts and bolts, shall we say, of music theory and how important it is to learn to play a melody right and to get a really good sound on the saxophone and how important it was, cause that’s the first thing people hear is the sounds that you’re making and not the notes you’re playing. So I learned all these kinds of basic things. Then after that, playing with people like Gregg Allman, I learned a lot about pacing yourself and about singing and how to sing and how to phrase, how not to blow your voice out, how to get a good tone as a singer. From Levon Helm, I learned how to really stay on the groove. I learned that less is more. In other words, how to play less notes and make it mean more. I learned from him again about singing a song, how to do just what you sound good doing. Don’t try to sing like somebody else. Your strongest thing is always going to be to sing like you, and not to try and copy somebody else. I learned that lesson real strong from Levon because he really didn’t sound like anybody else and he always sang very simply. He never did any licks, he never did any extra stuff. He would just sing the song his way.
When did you become comfortable with singing? Because you were predominately an instrumentalist.
What happened to me was I always used to write poetry. I used to try and write poetry but I was never very good at it (laughs) and then I started trying to write songs. But I didn’t sing and I would try to write songs and get other people to sing them. A big turning point actually for me came when, and this is a little personal but it doesn’t matter; there’re enough musicians that have been through this. But I had to go to a rehab for drugs and when I got out of there, I remember seeming like I needed to do something in addition to playing the saxophone. It felt like I needed to do more to express myself. And that was when the thought came to me: I like writing songs so maybe I should take some singing lessons and try to learn how to use my voice. Then I could sing my own songs instead of trying to get other people to sing them. So I started taking singing lessons. It went slow at first but the thing was, the more I started singing the more I started writing songs, because then one thing fed the other. Then the funny thing was, I stopped hearing instrumental music in my head and started hearing vocal music. Nowadays, everything I write is vocal music. So I had this complete shift and I’ve continued to take lessons here and there and continue to try and just get better as a singer.
I really feel in the last few years like it’s really come together. I feel like now I’m capable of getting up there and singing and I could leave my horn at home. I wouldn’t want to but I could. I could do a whole gig just singing at this point and I don’t think anybody would feel let down when they left (laughs). Although of course, you know, I’ll always be a horn player. It used to be when I first started singing, it would be like, “Well, you sound ok singing but why don’t you play that horn some more. (laughs) That’s really what we want to hear.” And now people come up to me and they won’t say anything sometimes about my horn. They’ll say, “Wow, I really loved your voice.” And to me that’s like the ultimate compliment because most of them would never know that I didn’t sing a note till I turned thirty. So for me to have somebody compliment my singing, that’s like a thrill for me because that lets me know that the work I’ve been doing has paid off.
Is it hard to play saxophone and then try to sing?
Yeah, it can be hard. In fact, that’s one of the things I have to watch out for when I’m leading my band. Like if I play a big solo on the horn and then I have to take the horn out of my mouth and start right away singing something that is difficult, usually I can’t do it. I usually have to let the guitar player play a minute or let the piano player play, let somebody else take a little solo or something. Then I can reset. A lot of times what I’ll do is set it up so, let’s say, I sing and then I might play a solo and then the next guy will solo or there will be an instrumental section where I can catch my breath. Cause it can be hard. It just depends. Some songs if it’s not a real difficult vocal or if I don’t play a real long solo I can manage it. But yeah, you definitely need a lot of air or you can get winded, especially if I’m playing the baritone sax (laughs). That one takes a lot of wind.
What was it like the first time you went into a recording studio?
The first real time I went into a studio to record was probably when I was around eighteen, maybe going on nineteen. I recorded with a drummer out in Portland and I remember being real nervous. And I still get a little nervous in the studio, I think most musicians do. In fact, usually if I’m doing something, if I’m doing a solo in the studio on somebody’s record or on my own record, I always tell the engineer, I only got two takes, two or three takes. After that, I’m going to start sinking and that’s going to be bad (laughs) because the first couple of takes are always the best cause I’m in the moment. Then after that if I start thinking too much about what I’m doing then I start just making mistakes.
But you know, the thing is about this most recent CD I made, being in the studio was great because I did it all at Levon’s studio. Because I’m family he gave me a great deal and I was able to spend a lot more time in the studio than I had ever spent in the past. I had never quite had the money to spend as much time in the studio as it took to get it right. I always felt there was, “If only we’d had a couple more days in the studio” or “If only I’d been able to redo that vocal one more time.” But this time I got to spend enough time to get it done right and that was a huge relief.
And I had a lot of my friends from up here in Woodstock and people I played with. Donald Fagan played piano on one – you know I was out with his band The Dukes Of September. For the last couple of years I’ve been touring with them as well and that features Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs. It’s a great band. So Donald came and played on one, Levon played on a song and then Larry Campbell, who was Levon’s musical director and guitar player for the last few years, he came and played on some stuff. You might also know him from Phil Lesh & Friends and from Bob Dylan’s band. Jimmy Weider, who was in the nineties version of The Band and he was in Levon’s band too, he played on some stuff. Scott Sharrard and Bruce Katz, my bandmates from Gregg’s band, they both played on the record. So I had a lot of help from a lot of great musicians and that certainly made it easier too.
Rivers Blues & Other People contains a couple of cool covers but why didn’t you just do all originals?
For a couple of reasons. The CD that I made before this one was all originals and I felt that it just made it easier for people who aren’t familiar with me to be able to get into the CD when there’s a few things they might recognize. The other thing was that I wanted to make this CD a little more representative of what I would do in a live situation, whereas on some of my other CDs I was really trying to get my songs down and recorded. This time I had a lot of songs I wanted to record but I also just wanted the CD to feel more like a party. I wanted it to feel more like the kind of CD of a band you might hear if you were at an outdoor festival, like a jam band festival or something like that. Before, my records were all a little on the arty side and this time I wanted to make more of a straight down the middle type of CD that had a lot of things people could hook onto right away.
It’s very organic. It doesn’t sound over-produced.
Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. More kind of like what you would hear if we were playing live in a bar or something like that, but you know, a little more shorter (laughs). Most of the songs are five minutes or under. I don’t think there’s anything longer than six minutes. Obviously, if you were seeing the band live we might have a couple of songs longer than that. I was just trying to give that live sense to it.
How long had you had some of your originals before recording the album?
You know, these were songs that we were playing for a while and that’s usually how it works for me because I don’t usually have the time or the money to be making a CD every year (laughs), even every two years; so I tend to make one every four years. Usually what that means is that the band has been starting to play newer songs on the gig for a while and that’s kind of how they get worked out with me. Some people work it out in the studio but you often have to have a lot more time in the studio than I’m usually given to do it that way. So my stuff tends to be worked out kind of in the rehearsal space and then played on shows and then it gets to a certain point when it’s time to record it and we’ll tear it down and go, ok, here’s how we’re going to shorten solos, maybe we’re only going to have one solo on it, here’s how we’re going to end it.
Usually it gets a little tighter when you’re recording it because it has to. You start putting it under a microscope and then you start going, “Oh, you know what, that harmony that you were doing there on the bridge seems like it would work better if we did it this way.” Then you start changing little things to make it sound tighter and better. Then you start doing those on the gig. So usually the process of recording something makes it sound even better when you start playing it live again.
You have a great song on the CD called “Leave A Light On For Me.” What can you tell us about that song?
I’ve got Bruce Katz playing on it and Scott Sharrard and he’s got a great guitar solo on there. Scott actually tuned down. He did a guitar trick where I think it’s his bottom string, he tuned it down a step so he could get some of those low notes, cause we wanted a real meaty, almost Johnny Cash type sound on it, although it doesn’t sound like a Johnny Cash song really (laughs). As far as subject matter, I can’t really go too much into that but you could probably figure out most of it from the lyrics (laughs).
It’s one of my favorites.
Oh cool, that’s always good information to know. It’s funny, with your own songs they’re kind of like kids. If someone asked you to pick your favorite one you just can’t do it. So it’s nice when you get some feedback and people tell you what they really like. That’s how I know which ones of my songs tend to be audience favorites is just by the feedback I get from people. After a while something will emerge and it’s like, wow, a lot of people really like that song. Like “Mary Ann’s” seems to be one that a lot of people like. I often start shows off with that one or maybe have it be second.
What is it about jazz that you love so much?
It’s the freedom but it’s also the discipline of it that I like. I really enjoy the challenge of having to play over a lot of different types of chords and the challenge of having to make a melody that people can relate to over a difficult background. But just the freedom to express yourself because in jazz, instrumental jazz, and I sing jazz too by the way, which a lot of people don’t know, but at a lot of my gigs down in the city I will do jazz gigs and sing all the standards and I won’t sing any of my songs. So I can do that, go and do a whole night of jazz standards. So I love the challenge of playing over all those different chords and singing those different melodies. It’s great.
And also I’m a horn player and most horn players learn about music through playing jazz because that’s just the way it is. A lot of guitar players learn about music through playing blues and rock & roll. Horns are so much a part of jazz. It’s such a big long tradition and there is such a lot of history behind that. With me, it wasn’t any different. I learned a lot of what I learned early on through playing jazz and then got into other stuff, or got back into other things later. But I always loved the blues. I grew up knowing the names BB King, Freddie King, Albert Collins, Albert King, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters. I don’t remember NOT knowing who those people are. The first concert I ever went to was Muddy Waters and Bonnie Raitt when I was four years old; my parents took me. Probably because they couldn’t find a babysitter (laughs) but I remember being there and I wanted to go home because it was too loud (laughs). I thought it was too loud and I remember telling my parents that but I couldn’t have been more than four or five years old.
The Allman Brothers too. I remember the live album, At Fillmore East, was played at my house from as far back as I can remember. I really had a good dose of the blues music growing up and then I got into the jazz thing and I came back around to blues and rock & roll later again. Now I do all of it, I love to do all of it. I even had a few years in New York City where I got heavily into Latin music and I went to Cuba and was playing with Puerto Rican musicians in New York, playing lots of Latin music, Salsa. So I’ve had a lot of different influences. I was into Indian music for a little while. On the flute I was playing classical Indian bamboo flutes from India. I had a teacher and I was studying Indian music for about a year. That’s probably been one of my downfalls is I’ve been into so many things nobody knows what I do (laughs). But I like that. I love different kinds of music and I probably always will.
You are Musical Director for the Gregg Allman Band. What does a Musical Director actually do?
Usually my duties are, I do the setlist for every gig. I have to come up with the setlist and then later on when Gregg gets there to the show I will run it by him and he makes any corrections that he sees necessary. But somebody has to do the actual setlist and I’m the one who does it.
Secondly, I run the soundcheck cause Gregg doesn’t usually come to the soundcheck. So I’ll be the one that when the band gets there, I’ll correlate between the tech guys and the band, I’ll help facilitate what needs to happen. And that’s really mostly what being a Musical Director does. I mean, everybody in the band makes suggestions when we’re at rehearsal and when we’re working things out. But if there is like a decision or something that we need to work on, say Gregg mentioned that there was a tempo issue with something that needed to be faster or slower or if there was a groove issue with something, then the next day when we’re at soundcheck I’ll address that. I’ll say, “Hey, Gregg mentioned that he wanted us to look at the tempo on this particular song” and then we’ll work that out at soundcheck. So it’s almost like being a go-between and everybody has access to Gregg too so it’s not like only one person has access to Gregg.
So how easy or hard has it been working for Gregg?
Gregg is really, really a sweetheart to work with. He may give you some direction, he might say like, “Hey, let’s bring this song up a little bit” or “We need to pull this one back a little bit” or he might say to me, “This particular song is hard on my throat so put it in the middle of the set so I have time to warm up to it.” He might say to me, “I don’t like starting out the show with this particular song.” Things like that. He’ll give me little directions and then I’ll take that and whatever I choose to do with that is sort of up to me. And as far as everybody’s playing goes, he’s really open to letting everybody play in whatever way they want to play. If he has anything to change about what’s going on, it usually just has to do with the feel of something or the tempo of something. When we work out our arrangements, pretty much everybody has a say in that. If we are rearranging something, like a cover song that Gregg’s been doing and he wants to rearrange it for his band, or an Allman Brothers song, we arrange it differently for Gregg’s band usually. All that stuff everybody has an input but he’ll make the final call on that.
He has a good instinct for when something is getting too long or when the arrangement isn’t quite right; it isn’t tight enough. He has a real good instinct for that kind of stuff. So we tend to follow that. Sometimes Gregg is all instinct. Sometimes he might not exactly know what’s wrong but he’ll know something is wrong (laughs) and then the rest of the guys in the band might figure it out and they’ll say, “Oh, you know it might be this chord here” or “It might be the fact that we’re playing this eight bars here and maybe we should leave that out” and then when Gregg hears the right thing he’ll go, “Oh yeah, that’s what it is.” So he has a real good instinct for that.
What are your plans for this year?
I’m playing at Mountain Jam on Sunday, June 9th, with my band. I’m on the indoor stage. I really don’t have much for April or May yet but I’m playing locally in the Hudson Valley in New York City with my band and I’m working with Chris Bergson’s band and selling my CD. Gregg Allman has another tour coming up this summer, probably at the end of June. Then whatever else comes up. There’s a few festivals I’m working on getting on for the summer for my band. And also I’m doing some Rambles at Levon Helm’s barn. We do those about once a month so we have one coming up on March 30th. I’m involved in leading the horn section in those.
