"Actually, it was a mistake (laughs)," said Patti, during the duo’s press conference at Global Café. Tuck & Patti were recently in Manila to perform a series of concerts at the Meralco Theater in Pasig. Long overdue gigs, their fans will be quick to point out.
"Yeah," agreed her husband Tuck, "whenever we make a mistake twice in a row we decide that it’s intentional (laughs)."
Tuck and Patti as musicians thrive on serendipity, improvisation and that long lost art of taking chances – such anachronism in this day and age of flawless, manufactured and mass-marketed pop music. (Even Britney Spears sounds like a siren with today’s studio alchemy.) Andress and Cathcart are throwbacks to an earlier era where artists such as Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, Ella Fitzgerald and Mahalia Jackson, among others, performed without technological safety nets, parachuting their way aurally into the abysses of occasional mistakes and constant magic.
"When we do recordings, we make it a point to leave the mistakes in," shared Tuck. "That makes it human. Humanity is something people relate to."
Patti added, "And (humanity) is being taken out. Technology has progressed to the point that we can make a ‘perfect’ record. And people are making the tragic mistake of doing so, and making music that is dry (in the process). When we do takes, there may be one that’s more technically perfect, but we’ll always choose the one that has the feeling of the song."
Compare, although unfairly, saxophonist Kenny G’s neat and antiseptic renditions of show-tunes and pop schmaltz with, say, Ornette Coleman’s cacophonous forays into free jazz. Listening to Kenny G’s songs makes you wish some deus ex machine will drop a bulldozer over the guy’s head so you can ecstatically exclaim, "Oh my God! They killed Kenny!" Meanwhile, listening to Ornette Coleman (or even later-day John Coltrane) will make you evoke feelings and emotions without names through the bitchy brew of shrills, cackles and sheets of sound. That, dear readers, is mind-altering music.
While Tuck and Patti purvey ear-friendlier fare (too pogi for those who love "A Love Supreme" or "The Shape of Jazz To Come"), they too look upon jazz, soul and blues icons as inspirations. Patti mentioned her list of greats:
"Stevie Wonder. Miles Davis. John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald. Mahalia Jackson. The Crusaders. Patsy Cline. Ravel. Debussy. Wah Wah Watson. James Brown. Sly and the Family Stone. Chaka Khan. Fela Kuti."
For Tuck, guitar greats like John McLaughlin, Larry Carlton, Wes Montgomery and George Benson have been quite influential. He said, "There was a time I wanted to be the next George Benson, and I’m happy that it didn’t work out that way because I realized we didn’t need another George Benson, because he did it so perfectly. I had to do something different. I found my job to be the orchestra."
It is pointless to describe Tuck’s innovative guitar technique – the finger-style. Doing so would be the same as writing a haiku about a hurricane: It is better heard than read. Without sounding like a refugee from Guitar World, let me say that Tuck with just one guitar and infinite imagination purveys chords, melodies and walking basslines. This is akin to becoming the whole orchestra. When one sees Tuck perform, though, one doesn’t see a musical genius engrossed in mathematics or music theory, one sees a musician caught up in a conversation with another musician.
"(The conversation) gets deeper, but it is not less surprising," the guitarist said. "I think it feels more fresh to us than it did a few years ago. But that’s because Patti and I made a commitment to keep it fresh and to take chances. It doesn’t make sense for two people to keep it safe. And you miss out on a lot of things if you don’t have the conversation."
Patti added, "The whole thing is based on non-verbal communication. We have this heightened sense of communication. With Tuck, my singing changed completely because I stopped being afraid to be myself. And I am a songwriter known for writing humanly impossible guitar parts (laughs). Because I was never good at guitar, I didn’t write to the limitations of the instrument."
The results, of course, are songs that are sweet but never overly sentimental. Songs that are culled in classic pop jazz albums such as "Tears of Joy," "Love Warriors," "Dream," "Learning How To Fly," "Paradise Found," "Taking The Long Way Home," "As Time Goes By," "Chocolate Moment" and "A Gift Of Love." Yes, most of Tuck and Patti’s songs revolve around love, the loneliest of demons. Most of them cover tunes that are sometimes more remarkable than the originals such as Time After Time, Can’t Help Falling In Love, Lovin’ You, I Will, Let’s Stay Together and Song For You, among others.
The two met in ’78 in San Francisco. When Patti auditioned in a band that had Tuck as guitarist, she knew right away that she was going to steal Tuck from the band.
"When we tell it now, it’s almost embarrassing. It’s as if we made this up," said Patti. "As a musician you’re always looking for someone you could communicate with, and when I heard Tuck I knew that I found the one."
"It’s the same expe-rience for me," said the guitarist. "I’d been in 300 bands prior to joining Patti. For the last 25 years, I’ve been in only one. Within a few seconds of playing with Patti, I knew that it’s a lifetime collaboration."
A collaboration that has a no-fault policy, the two were quick to point out.
Patti shared, "Sometimes we go, ‘Whoa, what was that?’ In the end (making mistakes) is always good, because if you lock yourselves in, you stifle and stop creativity. Everyone in bands freak out when somebody messes up. But if you don’t mess up, there’s no chance for magic. No chance for creativity. No chance for being sublime. No chance at all."
When I told my girlfriend Becca (a Britpop and Blue devotee) that we were going to watch the pop jazz duo, she looked at me as if I asked her to watch a movie starring Eddie Gil and Madame Auring. But quickly Tuck and Patti won her over, especially the guitarist’s solo renditions of Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror and Carlos Santana’s Europa.
"This is a song by Michael Jackson," Tuck announced, which elicited frenzied applause. No, the reaction wasn’t for the freaky pop singer who popularized the tune, but for Tuck’s jaw-dropping interpretation of the tune in the "Reckless Precision" album. The guitarist played everything – chords, melodies, including Jackson’s hollers and vocal acrobatics. (Everything, except Wacko Jacko’s crotch-grabbing antics.)
"Oh my God! My heart! My heart!" one yuppie woman exclaimed, clutching her bosom. She didn’t die, though, despite Tuck’s incredibly tempestuous solo. We were all so fortunate to have watched one of the best musicians in the world, seldom seen in our shores inundated by the likes of Keith Martin and the Searchers.
Seeing Tuck play, I never realized you could do all those things with six strings, a sound-hole, glued wood and electricity.
Patti also did a solo of her own, doing an unaccompanied ditty titled High Heel Blues, and singing everything from the turnaround to the bluesy comp.
As for the staples, Tuck and Patti played The Beatles’ I Will, Takes My Breath Away, Love Flows Like A River, Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, I Was Born To Love You, Love is the Key, among other cuts. Too bad they didn’t perform Jimmy Cliff’s Sitting in Limbo, Better Than Anything or Tuck’s eloquent Sweet P.
Of course, they sang their cover of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time (a much-revived tune, with artists from Miles Davis to Cassandra Wilson to Everything But The Girl doing their own renditions). Some say Tuck and Patti’s version is more evocative. Well, I think the duo’s version is more introspective, what with Tuck’s restrained plucking and Patti’s somber singing.
For the gig, Patti coaxed the crowd into a round of classy karaoke. She told the audience to sing Time After Time in three parts, as part of a worldwide experiment she has been conducting from Russia to Japan to Switzerland and to other parts of the world. Patti said, "To make people realize that there is one earth and we all live on it – this is my deepest, most inner longing whenever I get up to sing."
Hey, I found myself crooning, too – something that would make William Hung sound like a cherub in a choir of freaking angels. No matter, since to err is human, in the words of Tuck Andress.
"We want to put out our songs – mistakes, warts and all. I think people should be reminded that there is an aspiration for greatness in each of us, that in every moment we can transcend ourselves and push for something higher. You don’t need to be a sax player to listen to John Coltrane. You only need to be a human being to get this tremendous feeling of Coltrane trying to transcend his limitations. And it doesn’t matter whether he succeeded or not, what matters is how much he valued the journey."
For Tuck and Patti, it’s an infinite and precious trip.