Interview With Jazz Duo Tuck & Patty

This past Saturday the duo Tuck and Patty performed at the Opera House. If you are unfamiliar, Tuck and Patty are jazz guitarist /vocalist duo based in California. Their careers have spanned decades and the globe . They are not only partners in music, but are partners in life. They are true soul mates and that love is an energy that emanates from both of them and is so evident in their performances together. They are the parents and the music their child that they love, nurture and share in together.

I had the opportunity to speak with Tuck and Patty before they took the stage and ask them questions about their music and their life together on the road.

Q : So you guys have been on the road together for how long now?

A: Well, we’ve been playing together for 31 years and we didn’t’ start making records till 11 years after we met so we’ve been together all that time and playing together all that time. But , we have really been actively on the road constantly the last 21 years.

Q: And how much of your life is on the road?

Patty: Well now it’s about half and half, six months on and six months off. But, it’s not all at once. It’s sort of spread out over the year. In the beginning, in the first few years, it was more like 10, sometimes more.

Q: Now , you’ve probably been to a lot of great places and seen a lot of great things and one of the questions I always like to ask of the musicians that come through here is about some story , somehow or somewhere about something outrageous , funny or mystical or magical that has happened to you on the road. Do you have any story you can share with us?

Tuck: Well there was this time we went to Jim Thorpe … (all laughing)

Patty: You know, what happens is, each time you go out people always ask when was your favorite time or place to play and it’s usually the last time to played was your favorite time. It’s the people in the places that make the places. I mean, we have been driving into Paris at 5 am after having driven all night with Miles Davis playing, you know, stuff like that. So, there is all these little moments and vignettes and snapshots out of your life that jumps out for you, but really the thing that remains is the people and the people that you meet. We have been traveling for so long and we get to go back to lots of places in different countries. We have really been able to make friendships. Like when we go back to Japan, I’m really happy to be going back to Tokyo but , what I’m really glad about is that I’m going to get to see my friends there again and sort of reconnect with them. So , I think the biggest thing for me and the magical and mystical part of it is the fact that I travel around the world and am in a different place every day; a different city, different place, different language, different food, different customs but, the really amazing thing you find is that all those seeming differences are just superficial and that people are all the same and , we just basicallyall want the same things and have the same desires , feelings and everything. And , it’ s reassuring in an insane world, it seems, that we actually are so much more alike than we re different. That was the most profound affect I think that traveling has had on me.

Q: What country besides the U.S have you played in the most?

Patty: Europe generally Western Europe. We‘ve done a little of the East we haven’t done a lot of Eastern Europe. Japan we play in a lot. Because we play in Japan at Blue Notes we wind up being there five, six , seven nights a week in three different cities. So, probably physically more time in Japan.

Tuck: I think more total time in Japan and Italy next. We’ve had marked success in Italy early on for some reason and that has seen us through 85 90 different cities in Italy. We have been to more cities than Italians even heard of much less been to.

Q: Well there are probably a lot of people in the U. S who haven’t heard of Jim Thorpe (all laughing). So, here you are in one of them here in the U.S.

You’ve kind of told us about how while we are all different we are a like. In reception to your music, how do Europeans different from the American crowd?

Tuck: I think they are markedly similar.

Patti: I don’t think that part of it is so different because people come out to hear them music because they like the music, or the group or they know the songs. So it’s similar that way. I think where the division really happens is in the support for the arts and for music is just much more solid in Europe, I think, than it is in the U.S.

Q: Now in all that time is there one experience, one night or one performance that hit you in a more profound way than another? You must have at least one out there event or some outrageous story of some hiccups that happen while on the road and traveling. ( I went on to share with them the story the Nields had told me as an example)

Tuck: We probably have a lot of those but, the thing is , what eclipses those in our memory tends to be the micro moments which are musical. The sublime moment that goes by and we get to live that really short term micro moment adventure so intensely. I think it kind of causes us not to pay attention to the other stuff. I think the other stuff is just the overhead of life, missed flight, canceled concert, someone starts getting shocked during the show because of the rain coming down, and all those types of things. You kind of start to forget the specifics and instead like to focus on the ebb and flow in the middle of the music and, in our case it’s so intense cause we’ve worn the in -ear -monitors for so long and have gotten so lost in the sounds of each other you kind of live in the details of the moment. It’s all really intensified for us. I mean in the moment of performing the music there is nothing in the universe besides Patty for me because we both have our habit of focusing on the music that way and the fact that it gets re-enforced with the way we monitor and the whole audio part of it.

It ends up being the music and I especially say the micro moments you can’t really hold on to because your on to the next micro moment.

Patty: Yeah, that is the fabric of it. I mean the plane is late, the stuff is there, the guy in the town way out in the rural part of Italy, or the guy in the big city that comes out with a little set of stereo speakers instead of a PA because he said it sounded great on my stereo at home. All that kind of stuff happens over and over and over again , you know. Ultimately if you are going to chose to do music, there is nothing wrong with pop stardom and all those things, but ultimately if you are going to do music the only thing you have left at the end of it all is the love for the music and how you treat that and what you make of that. So to us the music part becomes the sacred space that through all that crazy stuff nothing can touch that.

Q: I find, and I think it’s refreshing, that the artists that come through here are really the true musical artists. They are unspoiled by the fame that limits so many artists on mainstream radio. They are not ruined by that. You have you own success in being able to be musicians but you’re not spoiled by that fame that tends to box you in. (I gave them the example of Britney Spears)

Patt: I think in some cases it’s not that art or the music that was ruined it was all the peripheral stuff around it and the reason shet started to do it was because that’s what she wanted to do and she loved to do that and loved to sing and dance and somehow that gets lost in it when that other thing starts to happen beyond it. But , I think that it takes a lot of artistry to do that job that they do , an amazing amount.

Q: Oh no absolutely, it’s just in a different sense in that she and others like her are very limited in what they can do and ey tcan’t explore beyond that. But, you can and you do and a lot of people that come through the Opera House do because they have been spoiled and that is really neat. For example, when Jeffery Gaines came through here a few months ago we were talking about that and after his concert I kind of said to him that I’m glad he never reached that level because it didn’t ruin him. He was able to do what he does and be the artist I enjoyed watching and listening to because he wasn’t and isn’t boxed in.

Tuck: That’s true

Patty: Because it’s not your decision when you reach that level. It’s more music by committee.

Tuck: ..and you’re operating at a corporate level.

Q: I really like that and that’s why I’m looking forward to you r concert tonight because I know that’s the type of artist you are and why I like attending shows at the Opera House. It has so broadened my horizons.

Patty: It’s great what you have here.

Tuck: It’s a great resource.

Q: How long have you been in Jim Thorpe?

Patty: We drove in late last night. We had a gig in Bayshore, NY and then we drove here. Then, we go right out tomorrow morning and we have to fly to Minneapolis from Philadelphia. So, we’re on the road right now and ending up in Europe at the end of the month. We’ll be traveling past the middle of November.

Q: What’s the smallest country you have ever played?

Patty: Luxemburg probably.

Tuck: It would have to be Luxemburg. The city is the country.

I then started talking to them and asking them if they ever played in the small country of the Slovak Republic (My husband is from there) and we went on to discuss the Czech Republic. Turns out that they will be heading to the beautiful city of Prague for the first time in November and playing in Ostrava the day before, also for the first time.

Q: One of the questions I also like to always ask is, out of all the songs you perform or have written , which one is the one that hits you the most emotionally or is your favorite to perform and that is really from the gut.

Patty: Well, we don’t do it if it’s not from the gut. But again, I think , because so many people love it, ‘Take’s my Breath Away ‘ is a really special song.

Tuck: Which we didn’t write

Patty: We didn’t write it another artist named Claire Hamill wrote it. I love all my original tunes too. We are just so blessed to like it you know. A lot of , their music will come on and they will not want to hear it or want to take it off and they don’t like it. But, I like what we do. I know they have big mistakes in it all the time and I know where all the mistakes are but, you have to kind of fall in love with it mistakes and all. But I think “Takes My Breath Away” because it touches so many people.

Tuck: The actual name of it is probably “You Take My Breath Away” but we learned it as Take My breath Away so we’ve always called it that.

Their concert was beautiful. Her voice is amazing. They played their original tunes and as well as their own jazz versions of songs by artists like Eric Clapton and Hendrix. At one point Patty went off stage for a little break and Tuck stood up and told a story to the audience about how he would like to take things apart and put them back together as a child dissecting them. He particularly liked to do that with music. He, in a very humorous way, introduced the next song he was going to play on a guitar informing us that it was his favorite childhood song and that , when he got older, he dissected it amd put it back together again. He then started playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Hearing him play it on his guitar was like hearing it for the first time because while it was familiar it was also very unique. It also rang true for all the other familiar tunes that both Tuck and Patty delivered together.

They closed out the evening with their beautiful version of the Cindy Lauper hit, “Time After Time”. And, Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, for their encore performance they did ‘You Take My Breath Away’. Patty was absolutely right in that it is extremely touching. But, I don’t think it’s so much the words of the song, but the delivery of it that Patty gives vocally that brought tears to my eyes.