Jeff Berlin is recognized by his peers and fans as being one of the best electric bass guitarists in the world. He started his musical career after graduating from the prestigious Berklee School of Music by recording Patrick Moraz's first solo album, The Story of i. Jeff later was an integral member of the highly respected Bruford group (recording three studio albums and a live disc with them).

Since that time he has played with some of the heavy hitters in rock and jazz including: Allan Holdsworth, k.d. lang, Bill Evans, Larry Coryell, Pat Martino and Mike Stern. Jeff was also called in at the last minute to rescue ABWH when Tony Levin fell ill and was unable to complete their U.S. tour. He has also put out several fine solo records Champion, Pump It! (both now available on one CD titled Crossroads) and Taking Notes.

I spoke with Jeff at the beginning of the new year and found him to be very willing to take time out of his busy schedule to discuss his career and work with Yes.

Tim Morse: Who were your first musical influences?

Jeff Berlin: My influences really stem from my classical background, because I was conservatory trained symphonic violinist at a young age. But, regional - in Long Island, nothing national or international, but definitely the classical background was very important to me. And then the Beatles came and I was very affected by them and I decided to become a bass player...and I subsequently got into jazz and began my career.

TM: Were your parents disturbed that you had left classical and moved into other genres of music?

JB: I think that they were quite content as long as that I did something that made me happy in music. I was so into rock and then jazz. Jazz really struck me as more of an interesting music, because of the variety of ways to approach it, whereas rock was more or less predictable. I've always liked adventure and I can enjoy playing predictable music, but I sometimes feel I would really be excited if I could have a certain portion where we don't know what's going to come up. I've always liked jazz for that reason, it's always different. And tomorrow I have a chance to do better what I think I didn't do so well tonight.

TM: I know what you're saying - particularly with rock bass parts which are generally - if you'll pardon the pun - basic.

JB: Well even Beethoven wrote very specific parts. Classical music is identical to rock in that it's a very exact music. So rock & roll has more freedom than classical music, except in terms of expression, because classical music can be incredibly different under different conductors. In that regard I'm very used to playing the part for the sake of the part and nothing else, in fact that's what Yes music is - I don't think I improvised one night ever (on the ABWH tour). 

TM: Yes, those parts are very set and structured, even the solos for the most part are set.

JB: Chris Squire who is not a soloist, did a little line in some tune and it was not what you'd call the best bass playing he ever did on record and they asked me to learn it note for note. So I did, but on the second night I said, "I can't play this, it's awful!" And this is coming from, arguably one of the greatest stylists in rock bass. I admire Chris, I always have, I just don't think the man can solo. He just a little four bar something and I elected to ignore the request of my leaders and played what I wanted. No one argued with me and so I just kept at it.

TM: It wasn't the part from "Heart of the Sunrise"?

JB: No, it wasn't that. But I did improvise a little on that too, didn't I? Yes, I did stretch that ever so slightly. I just kind of slightly extended it and I thought that just kept it fresh. It wasn't to do it out of boredom, I'm not bored to repeat lines...(but) the reason we're jazz players is certainly not the money! We do it for the thrill of seeing what we can do differently tomorrow, which is a life long endeavor. It's not that I have to play better tomorrow, but I want to play differently...That's a Pat Metheny principle. He plays these standards as I and a lot of the guys do and listen to Pat's evolution in it. He's a phenomenally developing musician.

TM: I have a tremendous respect for Pat Metheny.

JB: I love him. I think he's probably one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century.

TM: And he is a man who takes risks. He'll do his group albums and then he'll go completely out into left field, playing wild atonal stuff and then move onto a solo setting - he's always pushing the envelope.

JB: He has the option to do it, because he sells records in a commercial way - and he likes that music - and it gives you the option to do other things. I like the fact that Pat is not tied into one thing. 

TM: I wanted to talk a bit about how you hooked up with Patrick Moraz and recorded the Story of i.

JB: The minute I left the Berklee school of music I was in a band with Carmine Appice. Ray Gomez and Steve Hill. It was a fusion-rock kind of band and after I left that I went on the road with Pat Martino. And while I was with Pat, Patrick Moraz was going to do a record and Ray Gomez was going to be on it and Ray recommended me as the bass player. So I went to Europe and this is when Yes was in one its great apexes, one of its great heights of popularity.

TM: It was actually the height of their popularity.

JB: I think so, it was just after Rick Wakeman. Patrick had just hopped on the back swell that was pushing them a little further, even though I think Rick was a more popular keyboardist in the band...and so I went to Switzerland to record this record with Alphonse Mouzon and interestingly I still play Alphonse to this day with Larry Coryell. At that time I was scared to death of Alphonse, I was terrified of him! He was this big, bad, evil, black dude dressed up in leather and sunglasses looking heavy and mean. And I thought he was one of the greatest players of the era, because his quarter note was phenomenal. It was like a rottwieller jumped on it. I'll tell you the truth I was really nervous about playing with this dude who was a legend. We started to play together and I'm shitting my pants and this guy is grinning at me and I'm thinking, "Hey, he likes me!" We joke about it now, we laugh about it, but I was really scared of the cat. 

TM: Patrick had a pretty heavy rhythm section for that album. Did he have charts for the recording or was it by ear?

JB: I wrote out the charts on the spot. I've always had that ability. I would hear something and I would scratch out charts very quickly. If I recall correctly, he didn't have any charts.

TM: I was wondering, because some of that music is pretty wild. I was listening to it the other day and I was impressed with the diversity of music on it.

JB: There is so much stuff. One of the complaints that Alphonse and I have is that the mix must have been done by a...I'm trying to think of an analogy, but it's going to be rude! It came out terribly as far as we were concerned. Even Patrick apologized later - he said he didn't mix his own record. I find that hard to believe, but he said he had to do something and he had to leave it in someone else's hands.

TM: From what he told me, Yes was on him to rehearse for this tour. He was able to mix the first few minutes of the album and then he had to go. It's just insanity - can you imagine?

JB: Well, it sounds like that. Alphonse and I are barely audible and there's tons of keyboards. I agree that when it's someone's record you've got to be heard and prominent in the mix, but we were mixed out. And that's too bad for the listener, because I was very proud of the bass playing on that, but you can't hear it.

TM: I think Patrick had done lots of overdubs and then he'd be able to pull then out or put them subtly into the mix. But the person who was working for him didn't know how he heard it in his head and so we ended up with these keyboards high in the mix.

JB: You can't put your music in someone else's hands. It isn't fair. It's like here's a paint brush, here's a canvas now paint me a vase the way I visualize it. He should have put it in the can and put it out a year later. Or maybe we could remix it...or maybe we could re-record the whole thing.

TM: Wouldn't that be wild?

JB: I enjoyed it. I was a kid out of school and I was living off of this high-end Yes money. We had Chateaus on the lake Geneva and we were eating in stellar restaurants. I lived the good life.

TM: Have you seen Patrick recently?

JB: Yes, we see each other about once a year. He's a dear friend and he'd the first guy to record me so I owe a debt to him, an emotional debt. He just went on Ray Gomez's word and took a kid out of music school and I didn't want to let him down.

TM: He is an incredible musician. I've seen him play solo piano a couple of times and he's just a monster. I think he's the most versatile keyboardist that was ever in Yes.

JB: He is a classically trained pianist as well. He's a film scoring musician, he's an orchestrater - he can write symphonic works- Patrick is very gifted.

TM: Moving down the road a bit you were in Bill Bruford's band and recorded four albums with that group. What was that experience like for you?

JB: It was ecstatic. It was a great learning experience for me. I was in a band with a drummer who was very forward thinking, very investigative of his music, very knowledgeable of the music industry and he taught me a lot. My favorite story of Bill in a musical sense was that he was playing piano between takes when we were recording an album. And I commented to him that he can't play this chord, because this note he had in the chord and that note clash according to the rules of music. He looked up at me and said, "But I like the sound." And I remember this as a moment of clarity, it was if a bell went off in my head and I thought, "Of course! There is a separation between academic and artistic approaches." That little comment from him was very enlightening to me. Touring with Bill and David Stewart, John Clark and Allan Holdsworth - I was associated with terrific musicians all of whom taught me. I was the young guy, dying for the world to love my bass playing. So I played in that super aggressive, million note type of bass playing which fortunately wasn't that offensive in that era. 

TM: I love those albums and I think it's some of Bill's best work.

JB: I listen back on them and I think that there's a lot there that's really very meaningful for fusionish-English-art-rock records with a dose of American pie in it. I agree, it stands the test of time. A lot of people love it, my fans were Van Halen, Rush, Journey - the heavy rock bands of the eighties were fans of mine which always used to surprise me...I would be at a show and the Quiet Riot guys, White Snake, a whole bunch of these rock bands would be there and they're coming up to me, practically in reverence. I'm looking around like they must be confusing me with somebody else. So a lot of musicians used to listen to those Bruford records. Eddie Van Halen came to a show with his brother when we played the Roxy and he introduced himself, and I didn't know who Van Halen was. He came over and he was very polite and he just looked like he should have been a musician. And I said, "Hi, what do you play?" and he looked rather stunned. Later on we became friends and I chatted with him and he told me that Bill had a little dig on him and said, "Hello there Mr. Platinum." And so he took what I said as another dig and all he wanted to do was say hi!

TM: Can you tell me about the tune "Joe Frazier" came about?

JB: I was at Gil Goldstein's house and I was watching the Thrilla In Manila on TV. I got excited and I'm a very big boxing fan and I started to sing a line. Gil got some music paper and I said, "Write this down (sings the main melody)." And we wrote this line and I should give him a portion of that credit. Gil had great ears - he still does. I finished the tune and when Bill was going to do Gradually Going Tornado I suggested the song. It's an early composition piece. I think it became one of the bass anthems at the time. There was "School Days," "Teen Town" and "Joe Frazier." But probably the least was mine, because I was never as big as Stanley and Jaco.

TM: So it was something you had lying around for awhile.

JB: I was never a good writer. I had to work at it, for a lot of guys it came very naturally. Jaco Pastorius was a natural at composition. I wasn't, I had to put in my time and really work hard at it.

TM: What made you decide to do "Joe Frazier II" on Pump It?

JB: I had two problems with our recorded version of it; I didn't think the tune was complete and secondly I didn't like the feel of it because I'd put Bill in a little bit of an uncomfortable position to play a R&Bish rockish kind of vibe - which really wasn't his bag. So I tried it again to see if I could make it a little more funky and interesting.

TM: It worked great there too.

JB: I liked that version better.

TM: I was just listening to "Bach" this morning and I was enjoying that song so much.

JB: It's a nice tune, I'm very happy with that one myself.

TM: There are unison lines that are just blazing and Clare Fisher takes an impressive keyboard solo in it.

JB: Yes, it was the first take!

TM: During the ABWH tour Tony Levin fell ill and they needed a replacement right away and you basically saved that tour by being able to come in and play the bass lines. My question is did you learn all of that material in two days or were you familiar with some of it before hand?

JB: The reason I could to a Yes set in two days is because is I've spent years transcribing lines and music and playing them on the bass to the degree that I could hear a part and instantly play it without any rehearsal. If I knew the music in my head it would come out on my instrument. I knew a lot of those Yes tunes, I knew "Close To The Edge" it was in there somewhere. I knew "Heart of the Sunrise" somewhere.

TM: You had a least heard them before.

JB: Oh yeah, so I would listen to these records to remind me of what was there and therefore I could play them that night without any rehearsal. But there were songs I'd never heard before, even a couple of Yes songs that I wasn't a hundred percent familiar with and some of that new Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe, Sacco and Vanzetti music. So I put headphones and just wrote out the charts.

TM: And you were used to heavy jazz stuff in odd times, etc.

JB: It was easy to do. If you look at the video, I'm reading a lot.

TM: Yes, I've seen you looking at your chart on the stand.

JB: I wrote them out on Sunday and Monday night. Wednesday we were rehearsing and Thursday I was on the gig. Now if I didn't have the background and experience I probably would never have been able to do a Yes show in two days. These guys were rehearsing for six to eight weeks. And all I'm saying is that as good as a musician is, it's always based on what you know before you get to the audition or gig. So since I'm such a heavily trained guy and I did it as a choice - as a desire - you just rely on it...I could do a gig with blues bands or a lot of rock bands and never rehearse and play the parts practically perfectly.

TM: Were you happy with the show that was documented from that tour?

JB: I never really checked it out. I should have I suppose, but I never did. Are you happy with it?

TM: Yes, it's great. I think it's the best live concert video they've captured for posterity. Money was spent on it and it looks great.

JB: Well it wasn't spent on me! I barely got paid, we had to go to war with Brian Lane to pay us. He didn't want to pay me for the video shoot. Imagine I saved - and I say this in no pretentious way whatsoever - but I was the singular reason why that tour could finish and he tried to chintz me out of my money for doing the video shoot. It's a great industry we're in.

TM: That is the thing, there are so many people out there cutting up the pieces of the pie. You've got to have someone who is looking out for you. Did Bill offer you any advice about playing with his former cohorts?

JB: He certainly did.

TM: Anything you could share on the record?

JB: I certainly can't! Well, Jon Anderson likes to do things a certain way and often if you made eye contact with him he'd suddenly jump into this leader mode and give you an instruction. So Bill said, "Just don't make eye contact with him." But I did anyway.

TM: Jon has been called Napoleon.

JB: I really like Jon, we're good pals. We see each other every once in awhile.

TM: I wanted to ask you about working with David Sancious. How did you get on his Just As I Thought album?

JB: David Sancious is one of the finest musicians I ever played with - a very wonderful guy. I haven't seen him in years, but I remember him very fondly. I really respect his music and he is a very decent human being. He heard about me through the Bruford stuff, because that opened every single door in the universe for me.

TM: I did an interview with producer Eddy Offord where I asked him what would be on his desert island list and he said he wouldn't take anything he produced - including Yes - except for the two David Sancious albums he did. He said that Sancious had all of the talent of Emerson or Wakeman, but was also a very sweet and humble guy.

JB: Yes, a very sweet, giving, generous lovely guy. And I hope he reads this, because I want him to know how much I really respect him and his music.

TM: What are you currently working on?

JB: I've written music for a new record. I had a deal with Denon, but we parted ways amicably. I'm now in negotiations with Blue Note and Zebra...I love what I did on Taking Notes. I'm as thrilled and as proud of that record as I've ever been of anything that I've done. But now these new tunes that I have and the new direction I want to go in is a lot more lean and direct. These songs are not as deeply written as the Taking Notes tunes are, they're more jazz: here's the head, now solo! I'm really excited about that. I've been in interesting situations where I played with the late jazz pianist Bill Evans and I'm also the guy who played a bit with Van Halen, Rush and these guys...so I started to think that it isn't jazz that attracts people; it just seems to be my bass playing.

TM: You are regarded as one of the best bass players in the world.

JB: It's an honor, because there are a lot of more virtuoso players than me...It's an interesting thing, but I still have happy to put attention to the harmonic and rhythmical elements of music. Where I really have no interest at all in being a rhythm bass player in a way that a lot of the virtuoso rhythm bass players do it, the slap players or the rhythm guys. Because I think that stuff has a temporary life span. I don't think that stuff can survive.

TM: I think that if you're talking about virtuosity for its own sake that after awhile you start to long to hear a whole note...but if you're playing from your heart and for what the song calls for then I think that music will survive.

JB: That's my intention. I've been around for 20 whatever years without a band, that's like a guy without a country. It's an odd thing, because I seem to be known as this strong, powerful bass player, and yet people don't call me for gigs because they think I will take over and dominate which I don't. I am an excellent sideman, play the part and do the gig.

TM: Do you have a line-up together to do this new project?

JB: Mike Stern, Peter Erskine and I think the pianist is going to be Scott Kimsey.

TM: I don't know Scott Kimsey, but the other guys are heavy hitters.

JB: A lot of people don't know Scott, but he's a brilliant keyboard player in LA.

TM: I saw Stern back when he was with Miles Davis - what an incredible guitarist!

JB: We were neighbors, we used to play and hang all of the time. We'd get up around one in the afternoon - musician's time. And I'd go over to his house or he'd come over to mine and we'd plug in and play for hours. It was wonderful.

TM: I really want to hear this album.

JB: Yeah, I'm really excited about it.

TM: How soon do you hope to have it released?

JB: I'm not sure. I'll get signed, but I don't know when and how.

TM: Anne was saying that you were going to be doing some touring back East.

JB: Yes, Anne Leighton is going to be helping me set up some touring.

TM: Is there a possibility that you could come to the West coast as well?

JB: I'd like to do something at say, Catalina's. If I could do something there that would be great. I may have never played better than I do now, and I'm still growing as a musician - isn't that great about music?

TM: If that's the case I'd love to see you live on this tour. Thank-you for your time.

JB: It was a pleasure, thank you too. 

Tim Morse is the author of "Yesstories". His new book is "Classic Rock Stories".