Words by Harper Mahood
Thirty years of friendship, collaboration and musical exploration, better known by listeners as Chicago Underground Duo, has culminated in its latest iteration, Hyperglyph. Released on International Anthems on August 15, Hyperglyph blends the musical languages of Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor in a fusion of jazz, deep electronics, African rhythms and transformative compositions.
While Chicago Underground has existed in a variety of semblances and configurations, Hyperglyph strips the act down to its two constant members. Blending Mazurek’s wide range of dynamics and electronic interplay with Taylor’s intricate and driving rhythms, it is a testament to the ceaseless evolution of the duo’s explorations in sound.
Off Shelf: Hyperglyph is the first Chicago Underground Duo release in 11 years. How did you know that it was the right time to put out an album?
Rob Mazurek: Usually we look at each other and we’re like, ‘we haven’t made a record in a while, what are we doing?’ I don’t think it was anything other than that.
Chad Taylor: But if I’m not mistaken, Rob, didn’t the idea of making another record come because we had some gigs? And then we were like, well, why don’t we do something after these performances?
RM: Yeah, that was probably it. We did those shows in Italy, a Duo show at the NovaraJazz Festival in Milan. Me and Chad have played together for a really long time, so even though we hadn’t played together in this formation for a while, once we stepped on the stage, the sparks just flew. So I think you’re right after we did that show, we were like, we need to do something here.
OS: You guys have been collaborating and playing music together for almost three decades now. What is it like to work with someone for that much time?
CT: A funny story is that I actually remember seeing Rob for the first time when I was like ten years old. I went to this school called Ogden Elementary in Chicago. And at that time, Rob was in high school, and he was going to this place called the Bloom School of Jazz. So I remember seeing this guy with his case always walk along the side of the playground. And I was like, who is that guy? What’s in that case that he’s carrying? Four or five years later, I met a bass player called Dennis Carroll. And he had a gig at this club in Chicago called Sheffields. And then, low and behold, there is Rob Mazurek, also in the band. It was a trio, I think.
RM: It was me and Dennis, I couldn’t remember the drummer that it was supposed to be, maybe it was George Flutus or something like that. Dennis said to me, there’s this young drummer who is really interesting. What do you think about getting him in there? And I said, of course. Lo and behold, Chad shows up with the lollipop in one hand and drumsticks in the other. [laughs] He just sounded great at the age of fifteen.
CT: Rob has always been pushing me to get outside of my comfort zone. For instance, when we first started, we were mostly an acoustic band. Rob suggested that we add some electronics and get some other sounds happening and I just straight up said, ‘no, we’re not gonna do that.’ Rob didn’t give up, he kept pushing it, asking me, ‘well why not?’ Eventually I said ‘fine, let’s try it.’ And then the minute we started doing it, I was like, ‘wow, this is amazing.’ We each push each other to do different things.
OS: How do you feel Rob? Do you have any specific examples where you feel that Chad has pushed you in the same way?
RM: Chad is such a master in many different facets, not only in drumming, but also in composition and playing. But from early on, he was such a rhythm master. He would pull these rhythms from out of nowhere. His rhythmic integrity and the way he layered that stuff, he always sounded like two drummers to me.
Later I would use two drummers in various forms, probably because I was trying to get it to sound like Chad. Then he became one of the two drummers in groups like Exploding Star and things like that. His rhythmic sense but also his compositional sense has always been something that is a constant, beautiful thing that he does. It’s constant listening and constant study.
OS: That’s beautiful. 30 years is a lot of time. How do you feel like the two of you have evolved in terms of the way that you’re conceptualizing your music?
RM: Part of it is that we know each other so well at this point. With the example from Italy, we hadn’t played in a while and I don’t think we even talked about what we were gonna do. We just stepped up [on stage] and everything flowed beautifully, as far as putting an idea out there and completing someone’s thought musically. There’s a strange telepathy that happens over time. Don’t you think, Chad?
CT: Yeah, I think it’s also a trust thing. In any sort of relationship, the longer you’re in that relationship, the stronger the trust that’s going to build.
CT: We used to have a motto, ‘no fear’. What we meant by that is that when we’re on the stage, we don’t want to ever feel pressure that we have to do anything that isn’t our authentic self. Doing that for years and years, we really have built a strong trust between the two of us. There might be times where Rob is doing something and I’m like, ‘what the hell is that? What in the world is he doing over there?’ But I’ve come to realize that if you just trust it, it’s going to become something. Or I can add something to it to make it something else. It’s just trusting each other on the bandstand.
OS: I’m sure that’s a lot harder than it sounds.
RM: It’s also building a certain vocabulary that started 30 years ago, or around when we made the first record. That was really just an experiment in sound and it turned out so well that we kept going.
OS: Hyperglyph touches on a lot of different genres, with avant jazz, electronic, a big African influence and indie rock. Who would you say are your main influences behind this album specifically?
RM: I think the beauty of what we do is that we’ve done this for such a long time that we’ve built a vocabulary that is uniquely our own. Although we’re drawing off of things, I feel like at this point we have a right to say that we’re just influencing ourselves. Without sounding too arrogant.
CT: I’m gonna flip the question in another way. A lot of people think about jazz as a genre of music, but you could also think of it as a music making process. If you look at it like that, then what we do is a process of taking known material and putting it together in a way to create something that’s unknown. That’s the process we do repeatedly for every record, which some people might call jazz.
OS: Can you tell me a little bit more about that process? How do you even begin to start conceptualizing an album like this?
CT: Both me and Rob are very active in our practice. What I mean by that is, Rob is constantly writing and composing music, way more than me. I also compose and write stuff, and I don’t always necessarily know what I’m writing for, I just write to write. When we decided to make this record, we just asked each other what we had. Some of the stuff wasn’t even a full composition. It was just an idea or a little sketch of something. It’s a thing where we compose on our own, and then we compose collectively by adding things and making suggestions to each other’s compositions.
RM: We always talk about elements. We never get to the end of a finished record until we feel like we’ve hit as many different elements to make it as interesting as possible at the end. We have so many influences from different areas that to bring that into a 40 minute realized record or composition, it takes some form of skill. Of course we don’t approve anything unless both of us are 100%. Even if 1% is missing for both of us, we say something and we work on it until it’s 100%.
OS: As mainstays of the Chicago music scene, I’m sure you’ve seen a huge evolution over the time you’ve spent playing in the city. I’m curious about how the scene has changed since you’ve been playing in it, if you could expand on that?
CT: When I was 18, I left Chicago and went to New York to go to music school. After music school, I played gigs around New York. It was really my idea that I was a serious jazz musician in New York and that I was going to make it there. I was playing every night of the week, and I had a day job working at a wine store. Even with all that, I couldn’t pay my rent. I couldn’t pay my bills. So I went back to Chicago with my tail behind my legs, and I felt like such a failure. Coming back to Chicago felt like the end of my career. But it was actually the beginning.
I found an apartment for $350 – back in 1997 – that was right next to a great rock club called the Empty Bottle. I would play two or three gigs and my rent was paid. Then I met some of the people in Tortoise. I met Nicole Mitchell, and the people in the AACM. I started playing with Fred Anderson and I started making pop records with Sam Prekop. So all of sudden, I was in all of this musical activity. It was amazing! I still feel like some of that vibe is in Chicago. It’s changed a bunch, but I still feel like it’s a city that’s very open to musicians figuring out what they want to do.
When I was in New York, I got the impression that in order to be successful as a musician, you have to figure out a very specific niche of what you do. Whereas in Chicago, it’s a different mentality where everyone’s playing with each other. Maybe it’s because it was cheaper when I was there. There’s not the pressure to make it, to get on the cover of Rolling Stone or whatever. You can just go out and figure out what your music is, what you want to do.
RM: I moved to Chicago in 1983 and stayed till 2000. I was in Brazil for eight years and then came back to Chicago for five. Now I live out in the Chihuahua Desert, in Marfa.
I had the experience of trying to be a jazz player then opening it up and to different forms. I was studying classical composition at the same time and I got deep into electronics, computer music and synthesizers. The people that we were hanging out with were all kind of like-minded, open-minded. You would go to anyone’s house on any given day and you’d have your mind blown just by 10 different types of music, the best of all different genres. Of course that contributed to how you compose, how you make things and how you construct the records and do tours. Chicago, I think it’s still going super strong. There’s a lot of great musicians and people doing interesting things.
CT: I think about somebody like Joel Ross, for instance, a young vibraphone player, who has all these different influences in his playing, which is very Chicago.
OS: How do you experience Chicago now that the two of you are living away? Does it still feel like a special place?
RM: For me it does. I come back to play, and sometimes it feels like I’ve never left. I wish I could get there a little bit more. I think Chad, you probably play there a little more than I do these days.
CT: Going back to what you were saying, Rob, I feel like what makes Chicago so special is the type of openness that the music scene has. It existed when we were there and I think it still exists now. It’s a non-judgmental openness that allows musicians to figure out their own thing, their own sound. I’ve had students come to me and say, ‘I want to move to Chicago.’ I always tell them that it was a long time ago that I lived there and I don’t know what it necessarily is like now. Then they move there and they’re like, ‘yeah, this was a great idea. I still feel the energy.’
OS: Is there anything you’re looking forward to in the future with Chicago Underground Duo?
RM: I’m looking forward to this record coming out and doing some shows to round that. We have shows in Chicago and New York and Philly. It’s a beautiful addition to what we’ve done so far and I think it’s taken that even further. I have Exploding Star Orchestra records that are being finished and various other things concerning sonic art and visual art. Now at the young age of 60, I think I’m just getting started here.
CT: I’m just excited to be playing as a duo again, because it’s been the longest collaboration for me that I’ve had. It’s always magical.
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Great interview!