Craig Brenner: The Boogie Woogie Piano Man from B-town

As a piano player, songwriter, father of two and friends to many, Craig Brenner definitely keeps busy in Bloomington. Craig talks about everything from local musicians and friends he's met and played with in Bloomington along the way, his love for all types of music, his kids, his girlfriend and group, his day job and everything else in between.

*Much Love for Music: Craig gets in tune with his music side*

When did you initially develop an interest in music?

Well, I came from a home in which my mom played piano, so I heard it right from the time I was born. I remembered we had a player piano and my mom used to play it without using the pedals, in other words without using the roles. But I would experiment pumping the thing, so that the role would go. But then I would also just sort of play along until somebody realized that I was interested in it enough to be taken to my first piano teacher. At first it was sort of strange because I was more aware of what it was like going into her home. It had different smells than my house and I remember it seemed sort of musty. She was an older woman and I don't know how many students she had, but I recall things like when I had to use the bathroom there was a different brand of toothpaste. You know I was just aware of little things like that that sort of set it off as her being different than my family. The one thing that stands out though is at some point I was taken to this thing called the Warren Conservatory of Music and there was an older man who was in charge of it. I can't remember his name, but he seemed like he was in his eighties. He gave me some kind of little test where he would ask me to turn around and then he would play a note on the piano. He would then ask me to tell him what note it was and then he would play another and asked me to identify that note by name. Somehow I was able to do that and some people call it perfect pitch, but I think it's called relative pitch myself. This is because the pitches we use today haven't always been the same pitches we've used throughout history and still not the same pitches in different countries. So, I think it's relative to what I heard at the time. And then I remember having this certificate with a gold star on it because I had passed this exam or something. I think I was in the first or second grade at the time and that showed my mother that I was at least interested enough. I also showed her that I had some kind of ability that if she continued to take me to lessons that I would probably want to continue to do so. And so I did. Then in 1957 when I moved to Florida we obviously didn't bring our old piano with us, so my mom bought a new piano. I then resumed taking lessons and that was when I was in the fourth grade. Those are a little bit more clearer in my memory because before that I just have little bits and pieces of my memories. So, I've been taking lessons and playing ever since, but I haven't taken lessons continuously. In fact, when I was a teenager I stopped taking lessons when I was around the age of 16. I stopped taking formal lessons again until I was 22 where I then resumed taking formal piano lessons once again. I went back to college again to study music after graduating with a degree in political science. I realized I probably should have studied music the first time.

Can you talk about your years spent at Indiana University's School of Music?

I was a student at the IU School of Music full-time from 1976-1980. It was nothing but music because I already had all the other requirements finished since I had my bachelor's degree already in political science. I took classes with David Baker and he's a friend of mine now who I happen to really admire. He's at the top of the list when you think about all the jazz educators in the world. He's also a great guy because, for example, this past Monday night he gave us three pieces for our Advance at the City Sponsors for Martin Luther King Day. He let three of his own music pieces be performed while he was there as well. So, I'm sure he felt very strongly about supporting the community's celebration of Martin Luther King.

What do you have to say about local jazz legend and professor at IU, David Baker?

He was my teacher of jazz improv for three semesters at IU, I think it was. Then, after I finished at IU and I was working full-time, I took one piano lesson with him because he had so much to offer. I tape-recorded the lesson and it was just so overwhelming that I never have gone back for a second one. But, I still listen to the tape because the main thing is that he can teach you in an hour.

Has it always been about the piano for you?

When I came to IU I was playing the oboe, but soon realized that I couldn't master both the oboe and piano within my musical ability. I had a couple semesters of oboe classes before I came to this realization of one or the other. I was in a drum and bugle corps as a bugle player and that particular instrument I played was called a valve bugle.

Did you enjoy your experience in the drum and bugle corps?

Yeah, it was a marching drum and bugle corps down in Florida and they still have those kinds of things. There was one in Bloomington called the Star of Indiana, which is now not so much a drum and bugle corps as it is a performing ensemble for Broadway shows.

Anyone, locally, that you have enjoyed playing with that has possibly been associated with the Star of Indiana?

The drum instructor for Star of Indiana and also Bloomington High School South Band Director plays on my most recent CD on a couple of cuts. His name is Robert Dubinski and is better known as "Dubie" to many people in Bloomington. He's a really good percussionist and drummer, so I have him adding percussion parts on a couple songs.

Dubie, oh wow! He was my band teacher at South from 1995-97, where I playedthe alto sax in his jazz band.

No kidding!

Can we talk about someone else who also is musically-involved and also went to South; your son Nate?

Yeah, he lives in Oakland, Ca. now and he just graduated a year ago from Oberlin Conservatory as a jazz bass major in Oberlin, OH. He plays bass primarily, but he's also a drummer. Last summer we had a gig for the Penrod Arts Festival and he decided to play drums for that gig. But the bottom line is he's really good on both the drums and bass.

How many other local artists have you played with or have enjoyed playing with?

Oh man! Well, I've been playing here for a long time, so I know a lot of people and I've played with a lot of people. It depends on what styles you want to talk about. Maybe about 50% of the time I do solo gigs and I play piano for background or concerts where I play jazz, blues and boogie woogie. But, when I have my band, I hire people to play with me that I've been working with for as long as 25 years. For example, one of my close friends, who is a blues guitarist, by the name of Gordon Bonham is someone I've enjoyed working with. I really like playing with Gordon because he's pretty much like a family member. I first met him in 1980 0r 81 and he was seeing the cousin of my ex-wife at the time. We were all eating dinner together one night and he had mentioned that he was playing guitar. He said he was going to Wabash College, I think it was. Then, later on the cousin, whose name is Tiffany, when she was going to IU and she started babysitting for my kids Gordon would come and visit her and so I got to meet him even more then. The first time I saw him play, Tiffany's band with Gordon on guitar was playing on IU campus back in the early 80s and I thought it was pretty good. He was sort of, at that time, limited to whatever he had been listening to and it happened to be Stevie Ray Vaughn. He was really good at it, but since then he's really gone back to the earlier roots of blues guitar and he knows all that stuff. We started playing together around 1985 or so. So, in the area of the blues world there are a bunch of people that I play with fairly regularly that play different instruments. So, it depends on what style and what instrument you're talking about. I have an opportunity to hire people, like for example, if I'm asked to play at a festival or a wedding then I hire the same people that I've been playing with because we all know eachothers' styles. That allows me to work with a bigger pool than say a band that has a fixed-five-person lineup that's the same every gig. Therefore, we get to vary our song list and our approach depending on who's playing. My girlfriend Lori is a great vocalist and she also plays piano. Of course, so far I've been able to successfully keep her from playing piano because I also play the piano. So, she can sing and also plays percussion. My friend Andrea plays electric violin and she's a good singer too, so the three of us have a trio.

Can you tell me more about the trio including yourself, your girlfriend Lori and your friend Andrea?

Yeah, I'll start off by saying that last year I got hired to play at the Cincinnati Blues Fest where they have this piano stage. The guy who hired us, Phil, said he wanted to try and bring some variety, so what could I do about that? Initially, he had asked me to bring Eli and Nate, my sons, but Eli couldn't make it because of his job and Nate was in New Jersey as a jazz director at some arts camp. So, I brought Lori and Andrea with me and they loved it. We even got to play with Johnny Vidacovich, who's a really good jazz drummer from New Orleans. That was our first time playing together, but since I play a lot of Professor Longhair-styled stuff, Vidacovich was really familiar with everything. All I had to do was talk through the tunes before we hit the stage. And so because of going to festivals like that, I'm able to meet a lot of people that have been doing it longer than I have. For example, Big Joe Duskin and Bob Seeley are two of the big names in boogie woogie, in which I'm really glad to know them and count them as friends. But in terms of Bloomington musicians, a lot of people come through town, go to school here at IU and then leave. I've had good fortune because I've been able to play with a lot of people who have gone on to be pretty famous. Michael Weiss is a really good jazz piano player who I think is in New York now, but when he was in Bloomington he was teaching himself how to play and improvise on the saxophone. He was in a band with me and a few other people and we just did street dances along with a couple of gigs for Bloomingfoods. When I look back on it, it's really funny because he was such a great jazz player and a great piano player, but he was willing to just pick up the sax and see how he did on that. Of course, he did great. So because IU's here, it brings people to town, in which some of them stay and some of them don't.

Talking about all this music-related stuff, I'm just wondering how much time is committed to music when you are in your home? Is it music 24/7?

Well, in the summertime it's like that. At my house, there's a ton of instruments like my piano, of course, and Lori's conga drums are set up and ready to go. And at anytime we could have accordions, violins and trumpets. Lori's daughter, Myriah, is taking piano lessons now and she also wants to take trombone lessons. So, there's a set of vibraphones at the house that she plays little melodies on. Lori has another daughter by the name of Antonya who is also very musical. Anyway, it's not like from the time I go home from this job to the time I go to bed we're playing music or anything. Actually, I'm sort of taking a break because right before the holidays it got really busy. And because I work full-time, I try to limit the number of performances to maybe one or two a week. I was doing about four performances a week and I started to get a little bit of tendonitis, so I sort of slacked off over the holidays. I've only had two gigs since the first of the year, which I'm glad. But, it's gonna start up again because I got a whole bunch of stuff coming up in the spring and summer.

This is something that you love so much you just can't stay away from playingmusic, right? Yeah and not to mention it's a good supplement to a day job income.

Have you always been interested in the same styles of music and how has it filtered down to your sons?

Well, let me see, when I was a student at IU I was studying classical piano and then I took an improv class with David Baker. But no, I really liked playing popular styles and I didn't really study with a jazz teacher until I was an adult. So, my development as a musician was based on the written music and the classical piano. I was using my ear all the time when I was alone, but I never really sat down with anybody who taught me how to play based on jazz or ear until David. Then afterward, I started listening to a lot of recordings, particularly boogie woogie players when I was driving to and from a job I had in Indianapolis. So, I could just immerse myself in that kind of stuff, but David doesn't really emphasize boogie woogie. Of course, it's because he's not a piano player first of all and second of all it's not really high on peoples' lists of what jazz consists of. He's more so emphasizing bebop in his teachings along with post-bop. To get back to your question, my kids had to grow up listening to what I was playing at the time. And from the early 80s on, I was really involved in learning Professor Longhair and a lot of the New Orleans piano players' styles as well as the early boogie woogie players. And from these styles, things such as rhythm and blues and songs on blues piano like Ray Charles, I was doing a lot of learning and playing of that type of music. So, that's what my kids learned when they were growing up and they learned that on drums first of all. Both of my sons took drum lessons and then Nate started taking bass lessons a little bit later. Nate realized that jazz was more difficult, while at the same time more rewarding for him. So, he decided to be a jazz bass major and I really applaud him for that.

As far as before the 80s, were there any other types of music you liked to listen to besides classical piano?

Well, in the 70s I was listening to a lot of Stevie Wonder. I had a job when I first came to Bloomington working in Karma Record Store and that's when Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life came out. Yeah, it was great! Then before that, Innervisions was another album that I really admired of him. Even the stuff from the early 70s when he was doing songs like "You are the Sunshine of my Life", they sort of were like pop songs but they had more of a jazz sensibility and more chord changes than the average composer. So, I always listened to that stuff in the 70s. I even played in bands in the 60s when I was going to college down in Florida. But, it wasn't anything where you would buy a sheet music or track; you would just hear what was on the radio and just play it. It was just like garage-band-style; you don't sit down and write out the parts or anything like that.

Would you say Stevie Wonder is a big influence on the music you write and play?

Well in terms of somebody that I admire as a composer-yeah. For example, his most recent album, if you haven't heard it already, is great. Oh man, it is just great! There are about five or six songs on the album that if I could approach writing at that level, even one of the songs, I would be happy. But in terms of people that I really admire on the piano, I really love early Ray Charles' approach to blues. I just don't think you could get better at playing blues piano than him. There are contemporaries of Ray Charles like Charles Brown and people like that. And in terms of composing, I like to stretch out and listen to everything. I like Antonio Carlos Jobim a lot for his Brazilian sound. He's most commonly labeled as a bosa nova composer, but really he was a jazz composer who happened to come from Brazil. His writing is unbelievable and he's as good as anybody that wrote music in the 20^th century, if you ask me. So, I wrote one song on my album, Window on the Soul, after listening to a bunch of Jobim. The song, "Aimlessly He Floats", has the same style of music as Jobim but with my own vocals and chord changes. I sort of set that up as a goal; now, let me see if I can write a song that is similar in style to Jobim. I've done the same thing with some other musicians that I really like such as the piano player, Horace Silver. So, I wrote a couple of songs, similar in style to Horace Silver, that are on that same album. One of the songs is called "Hardly Bop" where instead of sticking to his exact style, I took, what might be called, a hip-hop feel and straight-ahead jazz or bop feel. I was able to get some people from IU and some friends of mine to play the horns parts that I had written for that song.

I know you mentioned hip-hop, any hip-hop music you like listening to?

Well, I'm not really that familiar with the music, but I know that it is overused a lot. What I like to do is if I hear something and I pick up something from that style, then that's good because I can incorporate more into what I'm able to do as a writer or player. But I'm not saying I would go in that direction to be a hip-hop composer or anything like that because that's just not meee. However, I do own the double album by Outkast, The Love Below/Speakerboxxx, and enjoy that album very much so. The two songs I really like off that album are: "The Way You Move" and "Bowtie".

Getting back to making music, do you get more satisfaction out of playing music or writing music?

Ohhh man!

Tough question I guess?

Well yeah it's a tough question, but I would probably have to say playing music. That is simply because when you write, once it leaves you and somebody else plays your written music, you give up control of what the song sounds like. Whereas, when you're playing music you can shape a note, you can hold the note as long as you want, you can try using pedals and whatever else you want. But, I really like writing and if I had time, that's probably what I would spend more time doing. I use a really good notation program, on line, called Sibelius where I'm able to use my computer to notate music. A lot of the songs on my album, "Window on the Soul", I had written out parts for the other players. I was able to actually sit down and press play, where the computer would go from start to finish playing every note of all the parts. So, you could hear what the song's supposed to sound like, not necessarily the feeling, but what the harmonies are supposed to sound like. I really enjoying working with that program, so now my goals is to get a lab top, have Sibelius on it, so when I go away I can just hit the button.

I wanted to talk more about your group, Craig and the Crawdads. I noticed on your Web site that there were nine members in the picture, are there always nine members?

Well, when we have the opportunity to hire a lot of people, then I do so. Basically, it depends on what styles we want to approach, who's around and what the budget is. For example, when we have a large budget like a wedding, then we can bring an eight or nine-piece group. But when we play a smaller venue or have a smaller budget, then we usually keep it to three to six people. So, these are the two main reasons: the budget and the style of music that we want to perform.

Is your son playing with any big names in the music biz, worth mentioning?

Now, he's in Oakland Ca. playing and supposedly he's in a blues band, in which the lead singer is a friend of Taj Mahal. So, they're trying to figure out a way to get him involved by either recording some songs with them or sitting in with the band. Taj Mahal might have already sat in by now because he comes to see the band when they play Friday nights in San Francisco. Nate's still young and he's got a lot of potential, so I'm sure he's gonna end up playing with a bunch of really great musicians. My other son, Eli, is also a good musician, although he doesn't put the effort in and play regularly. He's a good drummer and he's got a good feel. Eli can sit in with me, Gordon Bonham and Lori and when we're done playing we're all saying: Man, we wish we could play together every gig because it's just such a great feeling.

Have you and your two sons ever played in front of live audiences?

Yeah, but lately it's been difficult because we all live in different cities. So, getting us together is obviously difficult. But when they were in high school, obviously still living at home and I was there, we played a lot of times as a trio. Sometimes the three of us would add some other musicians to supplement the group. We did this in front of live audiences and for different events.

*Craig Talks A little bit about his Non-Music Side*

Can you tell me more about your day job, what is rewarding about the work you do and how is it different from working on music?

Well, I work for the City of Bloomington, Indiana and my job is very rewarding. It's rewarding, not in the monetary sense, but because I work with wonderful people from diverse groups. Some of these diverse groups include: the Commission on the status of Women, Commission on the Status of Black Males, Dr. Martin Luther King Commission and Council for Community Accessibility. All the groups address issues under the broad topic of human rights, each from their own perspective. And my job, as city staff, is to help them achieve their goals, plan events, write and administer grants, communicate and so forth.

I can see you do a lot of communicating and writing through your job, so I was wondering if you're interested in reading leisurely as well. If so, what enjoyment do you get out of reading, what types of things do you like to read and are there any reading materials and/or authors you would recommend?

I enjoy reading both fiction and non-fiction. My current, favorite fiction author is Saul Bellow. I'm reading a book of his short stories he selected for publication prior to his death. I love Henderson the Rain King and his other novels. In non-fiction realm, I enjoy reading books by physicists trying to explain things to non mathematicians. I recently finished and enjoyed books by Lisa Randall and Brian Greene.

I'm curious to know if there are any other activities you enjoy doing in your spare time. Also, what enjoyment do you get out of each activity and what's the feeling like inside, for you personally?

I enjoy canoeing rivers in Indiana, especially the Blue River and Griffy Lake near Bloomington. Floating or paddling on the water gives me a peaceful feeling and it's very relaxing unless you're battling rapids. Fortunately, in Indiana, we don't have many rapids, although the Blue River in the early spring can be exciting. Speaking of Griffy Lake, I also enjoy walking the trails there. Walking gives me a chance not only to stretch my legs, but also to do some thinking and to enjoy being outside.

Speaking of getting outside, do you get out to see movies much? If so, what types of movies do you enjoy and any that you would recommend to the many movie-goers out there?

I enjoy all kinds of movies and usually pay attention to the sound tracks. Recently, I really enjoyed the re-make of King Kong. A few other favorites include: Blade Runner, Love Actually, It's a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, West Side Story, Chinatown, King of Hearts and Ray. A recent quirky movie worth seeing is What the Bleep Do We Know? I also enjoy the screwy movies by Christopher Guest and crew.

*Final Thought: It all comes back to the Birthplace of Jazz-----New Orleans-----for Craig Brenner*

I thought I would wrap up this interview by talking about the birthplace of jazz, New Orleans. I know you have gotten a lot of inspiration from the likes of Professor Longhair and many other New Orleans players, so how has the recent Hurricane Katrina affected your life not just as a musician, but as a human being?

Actually, I have a really heart-wrenching story involving a friend of mine by the name of Alfred Uganda Roberts. I've been working with Alfred for a number of years, but not as frequently as I would like. He lives in New Orleans, or did, as he is now in Houston, Texas. He is well-known for his association with Professor Longhair and he has played and recorded music with lots of well-known musicians. Some of these names include: Dr. John, the Wild Magnolias, Willie Tee, John Mooney and Alfred is even on two of my albums. Alfred and I performed together, along with my girlfriend Lori Wallace, my friend Andrea Fielder from Bloomington and Bunchie, a great drummer from New Orleans on August 13, 2005. This performance was held at the New Orleans Jazz National

Jimmy Rae