JB: When did you begin on the guitar?

PK: I’ve been playing most of my life. My dad sang and played guitar and he got me started on ukulele at about age five. When I was six he gave me an acoustic guitar that he played when he was a kid. I still have that guitar.

JB: Along with your dad, were there any local players that inspired you?

PK: I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma and there were friends of my dad that he played with, mostly at home. They inspired me when I was very young. Later as a teenager, I remember certain players in Tulsa who left a profound image in my mind about guitar playing and music. One of my all time favorite blues guitar players is a Tulsa guitarist, Steve Hickerson. His feel is it. And Tommy Crook is an amazing solo guitarist in Tulsa. And of course, Eldon Shamblin, the king of western swing.

JB: How old were you when you started to play jazz guitar.

PK: Growing up we had records by Chet Atkins, the Ventures, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, The Beatles, plus some big band swing and some records that bordered on jazz like Les Paul, and that kind of thing. When I was about thirteen I got a hold of several Howard Roberts records and that really turned my head toward jazz. Man, I just wore those records out. Records like “Howard Roberts is a Dirty Guitar Player” and “Whatever‘s Fair”. They were perfect because the arrangements were all short and easy to listen to. They still sound great! Then I started buying Wes records and Johnny Smith and Joe Pass. A little later it was Pat Martino, George Benson, Jim Hall, John McLaughlin, all the late sixty’s and early seventies guys.

JB: Did you study with any guitarist or are you self taught?

PK: I took lessons from several different teachers after my dad. Bill Davis started me through the Mel Bay series and gave me an early start on reading. My next teacher, Dick Gordon, really stressed learning songs and performing them. I could play a hundred songs by the time I was twelve years old because of him. In high school I studied with the legendary Eldon Shamblin who played with Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys in their heyday. He was a great chord melody player and he worked with me on lots of chord melodies on jazz standards. Milt Norman was my last teacher in Tulsa. His single note jazz improvising was pretty advanced and he helped me mostly with that. I also attended week long seminars by Howard Roberts when I was eighteen and Johnny Smith when I was nineteen. After I moved to California I had a couple of lessons with Joe Pass.

JB: Did you study music in college?

PK: I was a music composition major at the University of Tulsa. I also played guitar in the TU jazz band. In high school I played in rock and soul bands. I supported myself in college playing primarily in a jazz quartet that played a super club gig six nights a week. So a lot of my guitar education comes from just playing all the time and learning from all the players I was around.

JB: When did you move to Los Angeles?

PK: In 1973 I moved to San Diego, lived there three years and then moved to L.A. The years in San Diego were a huge time of growth for me. I was practicing and playing all the time. There are some great players in San Diego and I got a lot better playing with them.

JB: What brought you to Los Angeles?

PK: The music business and the players. From a very young age I knew I wanted to be a musician and live in Los Angeles.

JB: What are three jazz guitar albums that influenced you the most and why?

PK: I mentioned Howard Roberts Is a Dirty Guitar Player, then I got into Wes (Montgomery).

JB: Let’s first talk about the Howard Roberts album. Why was that influential?

PK: I was moved by the swing and groove of it. I loved the tunes with chord changes. Howard also had a Bluesy sound. It had a rhythmic energy to it.

JB: Which of Wes’ albums would you single out?

PK: Smokin’ at the Half Note would be it. Wes stretched and developed his solos in the most mesmerizing ways. His ideas and feel are unequalled.

JB: A third album?

PK: George Benson’s Beyond the Blue Horizon. George had such a feel combined with harmonic sophistication. This record was recorded in 1971 when I was nineteen and before George was a pop star. For me this was a time of heavy learning, practicing, and absorbing music and this record got plenty of spins. It was so cool to work in George’s band many years later. Standing on stage with him for nearly five years was an honor.

JB: What did you find most exhilarating working in his band?

PK: Just being around him. George has such a strong presence. Of course, he is also such an amazing player. I love to hear him play solo guitar off stage. On stage he just seems to play effortlessly while keeping his audience spellbound.

JB: Any non guitarist jazz albums that really influenced you and why?

PK: Chick Corea’s Now He Sings, Now He Sobs is such a burning album. When I heard that, I thought to myself, “Man, guitar players just don’t play like that!”

Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. I know people have talked about this album a lot. When Paul Chambers launched into that walking bass on “So What,” there was something about that kind of swing. I was also fascinated by the way Bill Evans played and just the vibe and feel of the whole thing.

Also, Joe Farrell’s Moon Germs. Man those guys were burnin’! Herbie Hancock plays some incredible Fender Rhodes on it. I remember this one blues tune in particular where they were really stretching out.

JB: During your development years, how much did you practice and what kind of things did you do?

PK: I practiced a lot of hours. Scales, patterns, arpeggios, chord melody, reading, and tunes. I worked on how to improvise on the changes, breaking tunes down to figure out what worked over certain sections of the song.

JB: Like what?

PK: Not necessarily scales, but lines that sounded good over those sections. Let’s say the chords in the tune were Em7-5 to A7#5 to Dm. I wrote out pages of melodic ideas that sounded good over those changes and practiced them so that I could play through common chord sequences without sounding like I was starting a new idea on each chord.

JB: Does studio work enrich or detract from being a jazz guitarist?

PK: Studio work teaches the importance of time, sound, ideas, and feel. You have to learn to be very inventive. You also have to be very accurate with your part. Coming up with a creative part or reading a written part and making it sound good is what you are required to do. I think this training has helped my jazz playing. I’ve had a balanced life and I feel very blessed that I’ve had the opportunity to work with and learn from the greatest musicians in the world and make a decent living with music.

JB: I do not know your first three recordings, reflect upon them a bit for me.

PK: I was playing a lot of funky fusion jazz then. I used a clean sound, an overdriven distortion sound, and nylon string. The songs all had funky or Latin grooves, no swing grooves. I’m putting together a compilation of some of the early music for a Japanese label to re-release.

JB: Your album The Road Home is kind of a mixture of “smooth” jazz and then there are some straight ahead things on it. What were your goals in making it?

PK: I was getting back to playing straight-ahead jazz again. The Road Home was a mixture of several different styles. I even sang a blues tune. (laughs)

JB: The straight ahead things are really nice. I just love the chord melodies in “The Way You Look Tonight.”

PK: I love playing chord melody. That was recorded almost ten years ago and I have bumped my chord melody playing up quite a bit since then. I’d like to record a solo CD in the not too distant future.

JB: Reflect upon the making of the live trio album with Frank Potenza, John Stowell and you?

PK: That was actually the first time we had played together. It was John’s idea to put the three of us together. The Jazz Bakery was a perfect venue for recording. People come to listen. You can hear a pin drop in there.

JB: It is a wonderful album! You all seem to fit together nicely and stay out of each other’s way. What did you talk about ahead of time, or did you just listen very carefully?

PK: We put a song list together over dinner before we went on. Frank and John are such strong players and great listeners that they made it easy. Three guitars can be tricky but it felt good from the first note and we seemed to be able to shift roles without forcing anything. We want to play more together and there’s been talk about recording a second CD in the studio, this time with a little preparation.

JB: Your newest album is In the Moment. The organ is very dominant and the saxophone doubles the guitar quite a bit on the heads. What were your goals with this recording?

PK: I wanted to record this CD with my band and try to capture a live kind of feel. We stretched out with solos and everyone got to play. Rob Whitlock on Hammond B3, John Ferraro on drums, Ernest Tibbs on bass, and Andy Suzuki on sax. I think your readers will really like this CD. This band has such positive energy every time we play.

JB: I want to talk about your approach to playing jazz guitar and specifically, how you improvise. Tell me what is going on in your mind as you solo over a tune like “All the Things You Are?”

PK: Hardly anything (laughter)!

JB: You mean it comes so automatically?

PK: I tell my students that the goal is to become so fluent that we don’t have to think very much, but just react to each moment that the music brings. Now, that is very difficult to do. That’s why so few people get to that point. Because it takes so much thinking and hard work to get to that level. So, it is having a command of the fundamentals like scales and arpeggios, but it is also having developed your ears. Great phrasing and a real understanding of the language of jazz usually comes from listening to records and live jazz over and over again and playing your instrument with other like-minded musicians.

JB: Let’s say you are in the recording studio and you are called on to solo over a tune you have never heard before. What are you thinking about then?

PK: Almost the same thing. I have become so familiar with following chord changes that I can do it without thinking. Now that’s not enough to guarantee even a decent solo. It does, however, give me the luxury of being able to focus on the composition, style, rhythm, dynamics, and other elements that contribute to a great performance. This is where the fundamentals that we have practiced for so many years pay off. You can forget about them. They are there. I’m really just trying to let it flow from one moment to another.

JB: I want to ask you as an educator and professor of Jazz Guitar at USC, what are some common deficiencies that college level guitarist have as they enter your program?

PK: We’ve been getting some strong students. They aren’t all into the same music but most of them have a real sincerity about wanting to be musicians. The most common problem in playing jazz is not having listened to it enough to have it in your soul. The players of past generations grew up listening to jazz in the clubs and so they had a natural concept of what jazz is and how jazz is phrased.

JB: As a jazz guitar educator. What are some skills that you require your jazz guitar graduates to have?

PK: The USC Studio/Jazz Guitar Department encourages a wide range of skills. Students learn all kinds of music. We have a strong emphasis on reading. Everybody has to learn some classical guitar. Everybody plays standard jazz tunes. Richard Smith teaches a guitar style class where students learn everything from the funk rhythms of Earth, Wind and Fire and James Brown to the early rock of Chuck Berry and the Ventures. This is preparation for the TV date where the arranger says “I need a Dick Dale kind of guitar sound.

JB: So, you are pretty thorough.

PK: Yeah. We want our students to be prepared to make a living in music.

JB: You’ve mentioned that the studio scene is not what it once was. Talk about career opportunities for your graduates?

PK: It is a different world out there, but I believe that new artists will find their way. Live acts need players. Schools need teachers. Some will pursue artistic dreams. Songwriting is very important. Studio work will be for some. Some will become composers for television, radio, movies, video games, or whatever. Music technology is still developing.

JB: I want to ask you about that. How essential is it for a jazz guitarist to know computers and the Internet?

PK: Young musicians have to know computers. They do anyway so we don’t even need to worry about that one. Seriously, we can all record now with a computer so I think anyone serious about the recording end of music must be involved with computers. They are not going away.

JB: As a jazz player, tell us about the guitar that you use?

PK: I’ve been playing a Roger Borys guitar for the past four years. I love it.

JB: Did he build it for you?

PK: No, I found one for sale that was made in 1984. It takes quite a while to get one of Roger’s guitars made so when I came across this one, I snapped it up. Ironically, it once belonged to Paul LaRose, former chair of the USC Studio/Jazz Guitar Department.

JB: What other guitars do you have and use for jazz playing?

PK: I have a beautiful Guild Artist Award, a Tom Williamson acoustic steel string made in Maine, and a Mike Stephens guitar that has a maple top and a chambered mahogany body about the size of a Les Paul.

JB: Is Mike Stephens a local builder?

PK: Mike is an exceptionally fine guitar builder in Texas. He has a website you can check out also. My guitar was actually made by him when he worked for Fender Custom shop a few years ago. I also use a “62 Relic” Fender Strat from the Fender custom shop, a Tom Anderson Tele, and my favorite strat, a James Tyler, which I’ve used on more recordings than I can remember.

JB: What amp do you use?

PK: My main amp is a Bad Cat amp. Tube type, class A amp designed by amp guru Mark Samson of Matchless amps. I also have a couple of Matchless amps, an Evans amp, a ’64 Blackface Fender Deluxe reverb, and a vintage 4X10 Fender Bassman. For my last recording, I used both the Bad Cat and Evans amps blended together.

JB: Do you often use two amps together?

PK: Yeah, I like the sound of stereo amps.

JB: What strings do you use?

PK: I use D’Addario strings and quite a few different ones. Nickel, Bronze, Nylon, Baritone guitar. On my Arch tops, I use nickel wound D’Addario strings with a .012 first string.

JB: What is your favorite performance ensemble? Trio, quartet?

PK: I enjoy it all. In a guitar trio setting I play a lot of chord melody and I love that. I also like having the organ in the band, or the sax.

JB: I understand that you were inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame last summer. How do you feel about that.

PK: Well, I feel honored beyond words to be acknowledged by my home state in this way and to be placed in the company of such great artists as Charlie Christian, Barney Kessel, Chet Baker, Lester Young, and many more.

JB: You have played with so many different people, toured all over the world, worked on hundreds of sessions, put out your own records. What would you like to do with the guitar now?

PK: I still want to do lots of different things. I want to play jazz, work sessions, write music, finish my book, produce new music, and be a better mentor to my students. Playing jazz and learning keeps a spark alive in me. I’m excited about music because I’m still growing and evolving as a guitarist and musician.

JB: What advice would you give to young jazz guitarists?

PK: Use your time wisely to prepare for the future. Get the fundamentals down. Work on your time and develop a strong harmonic sense. Let your style evolve. Learn tunes. Learn from everyone around you and don’t forget that a great feel will help you achieve your biggest success.

JB: Pat, thanks for talking with me.

PK: Thank you Joe.

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