Photo: Andrew Westhoff
Embrace Form, the latest album from Joan Torres’s All Is Fused, displays the band’s unconventional jazz fusion sound.
Talking about Embrace Form, Torres says, “The album explores the relationship between experimental instrumental music and popular music. Sometimes it’s easier to write experimental music that follows no rules other than ‘sound musical,’ but by leveraging familiar forms and enhancing or appropriating them to fit our expressive style we can also expand our vocabulary and the diversity of our repertoire.”
After receiving an artist grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission, All Is Fused worked remotely through the COVID pandemic on their fifth album, Embrace Form. They traveled to Cotati, California to record at Prairie Sun Recording Studios.
The ensemble got together in 2011, followed by releasing their debut album, Before, in 2012. A series of imaginative albums followed, including Revolution, which earned four Independent Music Awards nominations and won the Best Fusion Album award.
Tattoo.com caught up with Joan Torres to talk about the evolution of the band’s unique sound and the inspiration for Embrace Form.
How would you describe your own music?
Jazz+ or JazzPlus! I say this because I am influenced by jazz traditions, such as jazz’s emphasis on improvisation. However, there is also a significant amount of composition with a large amount of influences. You can hear a lot of the music I listened to growing up, such as Caribbean rhythms and rock or funk grooves. Fusion is probably the easiest ‘category’ to categorize all of this music into, although I sometimes think that fusion implies that I took existing ideas and purposefully added them together, rather than that things flowed together naturally into their own form.
Tell us more about ‘Embrace Form.’ What was your experience of making it?
The album was cathartic to put together. There were some challenges trying to work through unexpected schedules throughout 2021 and 2022, but at the end of it all, we managed to find the right studio, for familiar faces to come together, and bring out a new iteration of our sound. I was also very fortunate to have someone like Pete Min, who has worked on some killer albums I’ve enjoyed in recent years, do the final mix and mastering for us. Overall, it was an album filled with pleasant surprises.
Can you share the inspiration behind ‘Embrace Form’ and the creative process involved in bringing it to life?
I think part of it had to do with me reflecting on the previous albums and wondering how crazy we could make the next one. However, while working on the album the isolation of the covid pandemic made me think that we all needed more comfort than chaos. So, I shifted my focus to making an album of familiar musical forms, but with the All Is Fused modifier. That way, I hoped to give listeners the best of both worlds – the familiar with the unexpected.
The music itself I picked out of multiple ideas I collected between 2019 and 2021. I often record voice memos of me playing or singing ideas and then transcribe them. Out of the many I had (easily over 100) I focused on the ones that spoke to me, the ones that were the most emotive, or the ones that I could easily visualize already completed. I essentially had to feel excited about them first and then figure out a way to fit them into a ‘traditional form’ which was my core requirement for this album.
Additionally, I gave a lot of thought to the context in which the album would be released. I generally like to design a bit of a narrative arc to each album, but when I thought of all the craziness that had been happening since 2020, I thought people might need a palate cleanser or something to reset them and prime them for the rest of the album. So, I thought of including two improvised pieces. One at the very beginning of the album and one about halfway through. And so ‘Cotati Reset’ became the opener. A ‘Cotati Reset’ – a reboot to the system to stop worrying about everything up until this point and focus on the present moment and on the music that’s about to unleash. It was named after the city of Cotati, CA where the studios we recorded at are located.
The second improvised tune was ‘Caribbean Mountains.’ I felt it was important to have something that reminded me of the type of gatherings we have back home where people sing and dance together with no prior plans. Often lyrics are improvised and then a group of people repeat a part of them as a way to signal that we heard you and that we’re here partying with you. I thought both of these improvised tunes could add to the healing aspect of the record.
With ‘Embrace Form’ what was your main focus? What did you really want to try and achieve with ‘Embrace Form?’
‘Embrace Form’ was really about setting a context or a set of ‘rules’ for the album that would somewhat tie my hands one way but force me to be creative in other ways. I always like the idea of pushing the boundaries of what’s enjoyable music, but what if I deliberately took familiar forms, built melodies around them, and then got creative about where the improvised solos would happen or how the tune would evolve? For example, some tunes could grow horizontally as they grow vertically, a verse could be at a third of the tempo of the chorus instead of double or half, and a percussive instrument could solo over chord changes instead of by itself. Therefore, by going through this experiment I could make fun music and also push the boundaries of the forms we’re so used to a little more.
What sets your sound apart from others in the fusion jazz genre?
I believe there are two aspects of our sound that distinguish us. Our music has become more cinematic with each album. Thinking back to our first album, a lot of tunes were more traditionally focused on getting us to the soloists of each track. That aspect isn’t gone, but now we think in terms of conveying a narrative. Each solo has an emotive context about the composition beyond the chord changes. Soloists each try to paint a scene with their solo that fits into the wider picture of the tune itself as well as the album.
The second differentiator has to do with how the elements we use for each tune have become more nuanced. Each of us has grown immensely as individual musicians in the past decade. Our sound has benefited from that in many ways. For example, we are more comfortable taking risks and exploring options beyond what’s on the paper in order to properly serve the needs of the music. This has led to compositions maturing beyond ‘a bunch of elements that would be cool to blend in’ into an actual piece of music that stands on its own. Through that, I would argue that now it would be a lot harder to say, “Oh this sounds Brazilian,” or ‘This comes from Reggae’ or ‘I hear Coltrane or Nina Simone’ than it was for our first record, but the music is still enjoyable and fresh.
Joan Torres’s All Is Fused | ‘Embrace Form’
I do want to ask as well, what’s been the highlight of your career so far? Maybe touring or who you’ve played with, something that’s really stood out.
Hard to say! There were so many opportunities that I believed could come up if we worked hard, but I couldn’t figure out how to make them happen when I first started writing my own music. I had all these ideas, such as playing at a venue that seemed unattainable, sharing the stage with one of my heroes, earning an award, performing around the world, and so on. I can say that after playing at SFJAZZ, sharing the stage with Michael Manring, winning the Independent Music Award for Best Fusion Album in 2020, and receiving an artist grant from the city of San Francisco, we’ve been able to achieve quite a few of those goals. They’re all highlights and, while I like thinking about them, I generally don’t linger on them so I can keep moving forward. I mean, now we need to travel the world!! I recently got back from Asia as part of another tour, and I would love to take All Is Fused to Asia… and beyond!
Do you prefer the intimacy of a smaller venue or the spectacle of a larger venue? What’s your preference for that?
While I tend to prefer the intimacy of a smaller venue, I’d take whichever size as long as the audience is there to join us on the journey! Intimate shows are usually great. They feel much more relaxed and more akin to what it’s like to just jam on ideas with some friends. That said, the audience plays a huge part on how a show feels. I’ve had packed shows at smaller venues that are amazing and ones that are odd. Sometimes the audience doesn’t really react. Sometimes they heckle too much. It can make for an odd experience. I’ve also had shows at huge venues where everyone is there to enjoy the music and have a fun time and that makes a world of difference. We’re all connected by the music and focused on its every ebb and flow.
Which do you enjoy the most: writing, recording, practicing, or playing live?
Tough question! The truth is that for me each of those elements is integral to my own growth as a musician. They’re interconnected . . . or fused you might say. If I had to choose one, I’d pick writing because it allows me more freedom to play with new ideas. While playing live gives me lots of opportunities to become comfortable with the music and is often an opportunity to introduce All Is Fused to new audiences, it’s really more of a culmination of the effort that went into writing, practicing, and recording. And so, in order to keep the music coming and in order to keep growing, I find I need to focus my energy to sit and practice in order to challenge myself to unlock new expressive horizons that can be used for new music, recordings, and playing live.
Why do you make music?
I feel compelled to! Music has such a rich texture and such a power to evoke scenes, images, and emotions without it being really tangible or visible. That alone intrigues me. Additionally, it maybe fills a gap that I think words have struggled to fill for me. It also allows me an expression that I couldn’t achieve in other art forms. As a kid, I loved to draw and paint. I was actually a huge fan of Bob Ross, but I could never put to paper ideas that were in my head without a TON of work. Once I discovered that music was something people like me could do, I became hypnotized by it. The more I dive into it, the more I learn, the deeper the well seems to go. I hear in my head the idea of some music that I think is possible but isn’t out there yet, and I feel compelled to sit down and write it myself – just to make sure that it exists for other people the way the music I love exists for me.
What’s your definition of success?
I’ve had many ways I think of success. From grand goals like ‘Leave a legacy that equals that of Weather Report or Rush’ to small goals such as ‘Be better today than I was yesterday.’ After so many years of making music, I think it’s a success to keep doing it in good spirits, feeling energized by it, still wanting to do it, and doing it in a way that feels morally positive while also being able to make a living off of it. It doesn’t matter if you’re teaching, producing, writing, performing, making jingles, touring, film scoring, session work, etc. as long as you’re making a living from music and leaving a positive mark without hurting or taking advantage of anyone then you are probably a successful musician.
Based on your own experiences and lessons learned, what guiding principles or words of wisdom would you share with aspiring artists looking to carve out their own path in music?
Everyone nowadays has plenty of tools to make a path that works for them. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to a music career. Honestly, if we spend enough time thinking about it, this has actually always been the case. The world changes so much every five to ten years, that what worked for the previous cohort won’t necessarily work as well for the next. My recommendation would be to take a moment to separate the two parts of the music industry and decide how you will approach each while carving your path. By that I mean, the music industry is composed of music, which is an art form, and the industry which is pretty much all business. The sooner you define some clear goals for each, the easier it will be to understand how you move forward.
What’s next for you?
Touring and new music! I definitely want to focus on touring more! I think All Is Fused is hungry for it and we’ve gotten a few notes from fans saying, ‘When are you coming to my city?’ so now we have to make sure we figure out a way to deliver.
Personally, I’ve worked on a lot of new music, both with other groups and musicians as well as solo bass, during these past few years of empty stages. Aside from All Is Fused, I’ve released music with Venezuelan Guitarist Felix Martin, three singles with prog metal trio, The Wrong Sides, a full album with four-piece San Francisco band 6 Speed Supernova and am working on new music with Oakland-based Zimbabwe singer Piwai. Felix Martin’s album was released in March, and we already had an Asia tour and will be having a US tour announced soon. The Wrong Sides is also gearing up for a new album and more live performances. 6 Speed Supernova and Piwai are working on new music as well, so there’s going to be a lot of music-making and performing in the coming months. I’m feeling blessed and excited for all of them!
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