The Abe Laboriel Interview

Music is a language that musicians speak. When you start getting into the original music of the United States the richness that comes out in the music is like nothing else in the world. When "Sissy Strut" was released all the musicians in Berklee were mesmerized because it was a feel of music we could understand but not relate to. Different people began to tell us it had to do with the whole New Orleans thing. Harry Blazer and I were both going to Berklee and in those days I didn't have a car or transportation so Harry would drive me all over the place. He would ask me in a very humble way if I could teach him about time feel. Harry and I would go to my basement of my house in Boston and we would practice time feel. We both fell in love with "The Meters." That allowed us to bring a perspective into jazz that rhythm sections did not have then. When Gary hired us we were able to bring that feel to the session. I remember Peter Erskine telling me how much that record ("Gary Burton New Quartet") influenced him and George Mraz the same thing.