Penn Jillette

Downbeat Magazine, May 10, 2018

Jillette (R) with pianist Mike Jones; photo © Ezekiel Zabrowski

“Maybe I’ll tell you the truth.”

Penn Jillette may be the smartest person I’ve ever interviewed.

That is saying a lot but, on reflection, I think it’s true. Talking with Penn is like sitting behind the wheel of the most expensive, speed-hungry car imaginable, sensing that when you put it in gear and push the accelerator the response would be beyond anything you’d ever experienced.

I happen to be a longtime fan of Penn & Teller. Their impish willingness to pull back the curtain on their tricks infuriated their peers but certainly had me transfixed. I was also aware of Penn’s love for engaging in debate with anyone who challenged his varied views, whether on Ayn Rand’s radical Darwinian economics (he’s for it) or religious faith (he’s not just against it — he rebukes it with a kind of jolly glee).

What I didn’t know, until receiving a pre-release copy of The Show Before the Show, his duo CD with Mike Jones, was that Penn is also a music lover, whose taste is rooted in anarchic punk and other genres that might reflect — or amplify — his own love for extremes. More surprising, though, he also had developed a love for old-school jazz. He’d even taken up acoustic bass playing, learning his way around the instrument pretty quickly and well enough to open Penn & Teller shows by joining their music director Mike Jones in a warmup set before, as they say, the magic happens.

The thing is, Jones is blessed with an advanced technique on keyboard. Penn freely admits that, in terms of chops, they aren’t in the same ballpark. But Jones is also a good sport and so they worked out a set of duo arrangements that they could perform together to kick off the show.

The possibility of speaking with Penn was too great to pass up, so I pitched the story — vigorously — to Downbeat, who happily accepted. A short while later, I was engaged in an interview I would never have predicted possible even just a few weeks before. That it happened at all was, you might say, magic in itself.

You’d played bass guitar for years before you’d met Mike. Was he the inspiration for you to decide to explore acoustic bass?

Maybe I’ll tell you the truth. The Smothers Brothers came on a show we were doing. I became the third person to play bass with Tommy Smothers: Dickie Smothers, Jack Benny and I are the only ones who ever did it. I held Dick Smothers’ bass and it was really weird. I’ve heard painters talk about not only the art but also about how they get actual affinity for the tools. They like being around paint. They like the smell. I’d never experienced that before. I never liked anything. But all of a sudden, with Dick Smothers’ bass in my hand, it felt right.

What did you do with Tom Smothers?

I was playing “Jimmy Crack Corn.” I had to be able to play a C, an F and a G. I took one lesson from Morrie Louden, a fabulous bass player in Vegas. Then I heard from the bandleader of the Penn & Teller Sin City Spectacular that there was a bass for sale, just a regular old upright — not a bad one but not anything special. Now, Morrie’s bass is 300 years old. It’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But I just wanted a nice wooden bass that would sound good. So he found me one and said, “We’re gonna bring this to Vegas but you never know what humidity is going to do. When this gets into the dry of the desert, it may sound like shit. It may just break. It may be okay. Let’s gamble with this.”

So we brought it to Vegas. After two months it was sounding a zillion times better. And Morrie said, “Wow, if I’d known it would sound like this, I would have never let you have it.” So I ended up with this bass that’s very happy in the desert.

What kind of strings do you use?

I don’t know [laughs]. Morrie told our sound guy what strings to put on and they put them on. Isn’t that awful? Who else has a bass tech the first week they play bass? [But] I own the show. The theater has my name on it. I’m the producer. And there’s a mechanism in place that says, “Penn has to have a really nice-sounding, playable bass.”

Our bandleader said a really interesting thing. He said, “You know, Penn, you love playing that bass. If you buy this bass, the chances that you’ll learn to play it are almost zero. If you don’t buy the bass, they go to absolute zero.” So I bought it. It wasn’t overly expensive; it was maybe under a grand, which for an upright is pretty cheap. And it sat there in my house.

This is where it gets weird. My mother died. I was 45 years old. And I had this overwhelming urge, which I can’t explain, to learn something that I knew I could never be the best at. I was twelve years old when I started juggling. When I first threw those things in the air, I didn’t know I wasn’t going to be the best. When I started magic, I didn’t know that. When I started comedy, I didn’t know that. When I started writing, I didn’t know that. Of course, it turned out that I never became the best at any of those things, but I didn’t know that when I started.

I started bass at 45 years old, when you don’t have a very good ear and pitch is not your strong suit. That means you can’t be the best, which means in a sense that you’re learning it for some purer reason. I was and I suppose I still am a mama’s boy. I was very close to my mom. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I didn’t want to go out. I hired Morrie Louden and I practiced the bass until my fingers bled every day. He asked me, “What do you want to learn?” I said, “Imagine I’m twelve years old and I have a passion for learning bass. Start me where you’d start me.”

Now, I’ve always loved music. I’ve always loved twentieth-century classical, punk, noise and that kind of stuff. I had the Miles Davis and Coltrane records — all the stuff you have to be a contemporary citizen of the world. But I never felt that I connected with it. A lot of people said you weren’t gonna understand jazz until you played it.

I made a movie called The Aristocrats. Although you can’t tell it from the movie, it compared Miles Davis’s improvisation to Gilbert Gottfried’s improvisation. That’s what I attempted to do. I wanted to talk about improvisation separate from form in the movie. What does it mean to take things you’d learned before, things you borrowed from other places, and maybe get five percent that’s actually improvised in real time? That’s what I wanted to do with The Aristocrats. So I listened to a lot of music while I was taking these heavy-duty bass lessons from Morrie Louden.

Then the story is that Mike Post and I went out to dinner to hear Jonesy. I was going through a rough time. We’d both lost our mothers and were recovering from that, which takes a little while. We kind of fell together. Jonesy started giving me homework assignments to listen to music. In a very short period of time I told him, “Jonesy, I think you should tour and be a famous piano player. But I can offer you this deal. If you want a steady paycheck, you can play before our show. The downside is that I’m gonna play bass with you. I know I’m way below your level. I know this is Bob Dylan sparring with Mike Tyson. I hope you don’t find it insulting. But that’s the deal. If you want to go on to be a great piano player, I’m completely behind you. In fact, I think that’s the choice you should make. But here’s another choice for you.”

Then I went to Teller and I said, “I want to hire Mike Jones to play piano in our show.” And like any sane person would do, Teller said, “You know, Penn, a CD costs twelve dollars. It’s a onetime payment.” And I answered with the only thing a sane businessperson would say: “I guess you’re right, Teller. There’s only one act in Vegas who ever had live opening pre-show music. And that’s Frank Sinatra. But I guess we’re not trying to do that, are we?” And Teller said, “Really? Sinatra had a live pre-show?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “So do we.” I think that was sixteen years ago.

That Syncing Feeling

In your very first gigs with Mike, according to him, your performance was a little rough. But you learned quickly and in a surprisingly short time you were in sync. What was the process like that got you to that place?

That’s a very interesting thing. When Jonesy and I started playing together, I suspected that after every show there would be notes, there would be comments: “On ‘Corcovado,’ watch your tempo in the middle. Watch your change here. I’m not sure that passing tone is right.” I don’t believe he ever said that to me once. I’ve always envied how jazz musicians communicate. Jonesy never talked to me like that. I learned music the way I believe you’re supposed to learn music, which is by playing with other people. I think we can be rather blunt about this: I don’t think he ever counted a tempo that ended up being the tempo I played. There were dropped beats, there were wrong chords. Jonesy is a very strong player and I’m sure he was doing a lot of stuff behind my back that I knew about in some deep showbiz level but didn’t know about intellectually, like having me loud in the monitor and not heard much in the mix — the Linda McCartney trick. But that’s also the kind of thing that professionals do without being asked. As I got better, I’m sure I got louder in the house.

If anything doesn’t sound right, even for an instant, I know it’s not Jonesy. It never will be. Everyone else who’s learning to play music is playing with someone who in some sense is their peer. Otherwise, why the fuck would they be there? But we have this weird situation. I was successful in another realm of show business that gave me a kind of power that nobody has. I mean, imagine being able to play anything with the best, whether you’re talking about a sport or you’re talking about art. A first-year magician doesn’t go onstage with Penn & Teller. If he did, that motherfucker would learn fast [laughs].

After sixteen years, I don’t consider myself good. But I consider myself much better than I ever thought I would be. Some studies have said you can’t improve pitch over the age of forty, but my intonation has gotten tremendously better. So it’s just not true, at least not with me. I always had a pretty good time. I was a drummer in high school and took serious lessons. I don’t even play matched grip. But a good sense of time for an amateur musician and a good sense of time for a jazz musician are two very different things.

Jillette (R) with pianist Mike Jones; photo © Ezekiel Zabrowski

Have you found opportunities to play with other musicians?

I do not have the sophistication to be able to make decisions like that. It’s like, you have all these stories of the real funk guys — the Funkadelics or even in Sun Ra’s band — where you could play in that band but you couldn’t play anywhere else. Some of the funk guys who started out in Motown and stuff, you ask them to play the instrument with none of the other guys around and they can’t do it because they’re so part of a team. My playing is totally behind Jonesy. I’ve played behind a couple of other piano players and it’s always a weird feeling because nothing sounds right to me. I know one thing: I know how to play bass with Mike Jones.

“Jazz is much more universal than rock ’n’ roll. Rock ’n’ roll is very, very specific and rigid and conservative.”

One really interesting thing about jazz: With pop music and rock ’n’ roll, guys become what they’re supposed to be in the band. The best example is the Beatles: The rhythm guitar player is really their drummer. John sets the rhythm that Ringo didn’t have. Their bass player is really their lead player. Paul’s bass playing is much more lyrical than George’s guitar. They learned to play in the Beatles to play in the Beatles. George is the guitar player for the Beatles; we saw afterwards that he’s not a particularly good guitar player anywhere else. You get the same thing with the Who and a lot of those other bands — certainly shitty guitar bands like the Kinks or Talking Heads.

Whereas in jazz, a guy who’s good at his instrument can walk into a bar in Tokyo, pick up that instrument and play what that instrument does in that band. Jazz is much more universal than rock ’n’ roll. Rock ’n’ roll is very, very specific and rigid and conservative: “This is my band. These are the guys I play with.” Jazz is really expansive: Everybody fucks with everybody. It’s much more polyamorous.

Also, the recordings are much more interesting. When you listen to Elvis Presley, when his hand hits the microphone in “Jailhouse Rock,” that becomes part of the song. Whereas Miles Davis even talking over a song, that isn’t a part of it. Jazz happens at a more intellectual level. The quality of the recording sometimes matters less in jazz because the ideas are there.

“The thing I’m proudest of in this whole journey is that now I understand things that I can’t explain to you.”

But I’m not that. Because I’ve had sixteen years with one person, I haven’t learned all the tricks. I would be very nervous walking into a bar in Tokyo and have someone call “Giant Steps.” But I know just what Jonesy is going to comp under my solos. I know where he’s gonna go. For someone as verbal as I am, it’s very nice to learn skills that are so non-verbal. I couldn’t describe to you how I play with Jonesy, yet I can feel it and understand it.

When I would listen to music, all I ever wanted was my connection with music. The stuff that’s easy for me to listen to: Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Schoenberg, Varèse, things that are so intellectual and verbal. Zappa is the easiest music for me to understand. The hardest music for me to understand is the Stones because their music happens at such a visceral level. In jazz I would listen to the records you have to have, whether you understand them or not — Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain. I would get it on a couple of levels but they were all levels I could talk about. The thing I’m proudest of in this whole journey is that now I understand things that I can’t explain to you.

Did any particular bassists influence you?

All Jones has ever told me was Ray Brown. There’s really nothing but Ray Brown. Jonesy also has a very strong prejudice against guys who play soft, with a lot of amplification. He would always say, “Bass is a big man on a big instrument, moving a lot of air.”

So you’re a Mingus fan too?

Oh, yeah. Mingus was everything for me. I just love the Mingus sound. If you absolutely forced me, I would tell you I like Mingus more than Ray Brown — but I wouldn’t say that in front of Jonesy.

I would love you to use this. If you want one pull quote for this, I’ll tell you what it should be. I went to see Ray Brown at the Blue Note very shortly before he died. I was so thrilled, sitting in the front row. The sax player and the piano player recognized me. During one of the breaks, they came over to me and I was talking about how thrilled I was to be there. They said, “Would you like to meet Ray?” I said, “Well, yes!” So they brought me backstage to the dressing room. I said, “Hi, my name is Penn.” He said, “Yeah! They told me you’re a really heavy cat. Do you play classical?” I said, “Actually, I’m a magician/comedian.” And Ray said, “It doesn’t matter what you do. What matters is you’re a heavy cat [laughs].”

So I always thought if I put out a record that has me playing bass, I would have a quote at the back: “A very heavy cat [laughs].”

Top & Bottom Billing

Why release the album now, after years of playing together?

I would never talk about it. Jonesy had monsters on bass for his previous records with Chuck Hamilton on drums — monsters. So I never felt qualified. But Jonesy just came to me out of the blue. One night when we were warming up before the audience came in, he said, “I think I want to do my next jazz record with you.” I went, “Wow! You think I’m good enough?” Jonesy said, “Well, I asked you. I didn’t ask before [laughs].” I went, “Well, I don’t really think I should do it.” He said, “Well, I do.” So I said, “Okay! What do I have to do?” He said, “Just play for the show.” So nothing changed for me.

So this is a full representation of what you guys do. There’s nothing different because you were recording it.

Nope, nothing different.

How do you choose the tunes?

See, here’s what we’re talking about. I couldn’t be ranked higher at the Penn & Teller Theater. And I couldn’t be ranked lower in the Mike Jones Duo. He tells me what songs to play. I play them. Jonesy put a book together for me, sixty or seventy tunes. We concentrate on about ten. I go out there. I sit down. My bass is tuned. I get warmed up in my proper Simandl position. I run my scales. I do my thing for five or ten minutes. Then our stage manager says, “The house is opening in two minutes.” And Jonesy says a number, 1 to 38. Then he counts halfway to four and then to four — “1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4” — and I start playing.

Once in a while he’ll say a number and I’ll say “Oh, boy!” That is my entire input [laughs].

Is there anything we didn’t touch on?

I have nothing else to say about the record except that I never saw myself as a musician but I’m actually playing jazz bass on a real duo record! It’s hard to express how wonderful that feels. At the same time, I kind of blush a little bit. By definition, I’m a dilettante. I just hope it doesn’t sound that way.

It’s like in magic, in the deception of cards: When we write a magic trick, it’s as though you want to play a piano piece and you have to invent the piano. You start from scratch every time. For 43 years, Teller and I have been always learning new stuff. I now have to do this with my left hand. You don’t have the transferable skills. So in an odd way, my career as a magician prepared me to learn bass. I’m very good at being bad with stuff. I’m very good at starting something and improving. Many, many people are scared to death that they’ll suck. But I’m not frightened at all.

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