E-mail a friendJoshua Bell
airdate October 16, 2009
The world was first exposed to Joshua Bell's violin virtuosity at age 14, in his Philadelphia Orchestra debut. He's continued to captivate audiences throughout a two-decade career, recording more than 30 original albums and earning multiple Grammys. He also performed all the violin solos in The Red Violin, which won a best original score Oscar, and provided solos for the soundtrack of Angels and Demons. Bell was the first musician to have a classical music video played on VH1. "At Home with Friends" is his newest CD.
Violinist talks about the arrangements on his new album being as exciting as any classical work he has done. (1:32)
Full Interview (12:16)
Joshua Bell
Tavis: Joshua Bell is a renowned Grammy-winning violinist who has more than 30 albums to his name during his standout career. His latest project is called “At Home with Friends,” which features collaborations, as you might imagine, with friends, artists like Sting, Josh Groban, Chris Botti and many more. Here now is some of the making of “At Home with Friends.”
[Clip]
Tavis: That's the best you could do? Kristin Chenoweth, Sting, Botti? You couldn't do any better than that?
Joshua Bell: Got some good friends, yeah.
Tavis: Yeah (laughter). Good to see you again. How you been?
Bell: Nice to see you. Good. Thanks for having me again.
Tavis: My pleasure. Glad to have you back. I was teasing before we came on the air here about this home of yours. We saw a studio recording of the CD, but you actually do this at your house all the time.
Bell: I do, and the record was not recorded at my house. It was more metaphorical, I guess, but I do like to have gatherings at my house in Manhattan and invite my friends and whoever brings their instruments gets up and plays. I love the musical soirées, so the album is supposed to reflect that.
Tavis: So when people come by, you're not recording anything. It's just friends hanging out playing with each other.
Bell: Yeah, it's a party. You know, musical parties. It's a wonderful way to listen to music. You know, in the house, people sitting up close and enjoying food and music. I mean, a lot of the great music was written for that. You know, chamber music in the 19th century, a lot of the great music of Schubert, Mendelssohn was written to be played in the home, so I love that.
Tavis: So I assume the idea to do this then came out of you one night saying, "This is not a bad idea for a record."
Bell: Yeah. I mean, it's a couple of things. I mean, I wanted to capture that spirit and also I've just been collecting some really interesting friends in music and various genres of music and I always thought that someday I'd put them kind of all together in one place and I've done that here.
Tavis: On which track do you think you pushed the envelope the most? I mean, in terms of the collaboration itself.
Bell: Yeah. Well, certainly working with Edgar Meyer and my Bluegrass buddies, Sam Bush and Mike Marshall, Chris Teeley, that's always pushing the envelope. I've been working with them for years off and on and I've known Edgar since I was a kid at the university. That was a stretch, I think, playing with Anoushka Shankar.
Ravi Shankar, the legendary sitar player, wrote us a song to play together a few years ago for a festival. Playing the Indian music definitely was a bit of a stretch. I don't try to copy, you know, an Indian violinist or a bluegrass violinist. I kind of bring my own thing to it, but it's really challenging.
Tavis: How do you know that the collaboration, the genres, are going to mix well or do you not know that until you get in the studio and actually hear it?
Bell: Well, you know, everyone on this album really comes from some kind of basic common ground in really classical music. Everyone in some ways, I feel, are connected. Generally, I like to work with people that I feel an affinity for, an affinity for their music and personalities and these were not marriages made in the executive studio, which sometimes happens and you never know how that's going to work.
But I didn't know. Regina Spektor, for instance, a wonderful folksinger, songwriter. I always liked her music and I heard just at the last second as we were going to press with the album that she was willing to do a track with me, so we stopped everything and went in the studio.
We didn't even know each other. She's the only one that was a new friend for me and now we're good friends. I didn't know how that was going to work, but I took one of her songs called “Left Hand Song,”a little quirky, wonderful song, and made a violin arrangement and it turned out to be, I think, one of my favorite things on the album. So sometimes you don't know, but it's fun to see how things go.
Tavis: So I get the friend part. What about the actual tracks, though? How did you decide that these were the songs you were gonna do with these friends?
Bell: Well, some of them, I had done before. For instance, the song, “My Funny Valentine,” with Kristin. Kristin's been a friend for a long time. We did something for a special on TV years ago, this one song, just a wonderful song, “My Funny Valentine” classic, but then it would have sort of lived and died there because I wouldn't have had an album to put it on except for something like this.
Same with Anoushka Shankar. But in other cases, I just approached my friends, Chris Botti, for instance, and said, "You know, what can we do? What do you think will work?" Chris, for instance, said, "How about “I Loves You, Porgy” of Gershwin. So then we set about making an arrangement.
But even then, a lot of the work we did in the studio as we were going along, which for me, a classical musician, I'm used to having everything prepared beforehand. This was sort of a revelation for me to go in the studio and just begin there and it turned into something differing by the end.
Tavis: Was that uncomfortable for you?
Bell: I mean, a little uncomfortable, but in a good way. I like being challenged in that way. I'm sort of a wannabe composer in a way. I've always wanted to be. I don't get a chance to do a lot of that and this album allowed me to do some arranging and some spur of the moment changes and things, which is really creative for me.
Tavis: On the composition front, why not make the time for it? Why not clear your schedule out? Why not push yourself? It's pretty clear to me that -
Bell: - got to pay the bills (laughter).
Tavis: Yeah, you got to pay. That answers that (laughter). I'm glad you raised that, though, because I get that. Paying the bills and paying for this wonderful apartment that you have these friends come to, the mortgage has got to be paid. I get that. So I understand paying the bills. On the other hand, you want to leave a legacy and, if you want to do composition -
Bell: No, you're right. It's also a combination of laziness, being scared -
Tavis: - now the truth comes out.
Bell: (Laughter) When you write something, it's really baring your soul when you write, more than anything else. What little I've experimented, I've loved it. I write my own cadenzas for the violin concerto and some arrangements and I really do want to do more.
One track that I wrote a lot on with my friend, Frankie Moreno, we did a version of “Eleanor Rigby” from the Beatles. I always loved the Beatles, of course. Who doesn't? But I always thought that that song would be a good - I wanted to make a violin arrangement of it.
This friend of mine, Frankie, who really comes from the rock world, we met in Las Vegas, became friends and I thought he was really talented and I asked him to be on this album and we sat down and improvised for an afternoon and came up with this arrangement that I'm really proud of, so I plan on doing that on my recital tours as an encore here and there.
Tavis: I don't want to give your encore away for those who haven't seen you do this, but the encore that you do now, I absolutely adore.
Bell: Oh, the little “Yankee Doodle?” You've heard it.
Tavis: Yeah, yeah (laughter). I love that piece.
Bell: Oh, well, that's actually a version of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” done by Vieuxtemps, a great virtuoso in the 19th century. 1840, I think, he did it, which I learned to play for President Obama at the Fords Theater because I needed something Americana or whatever. It's a flashy fun on -
Tavis: - I love it. When I saw you last in New York - I saw you here in Los Angeles and you did it and weeks later I was in New York for something and called you and, as you know, came by.
Bell: It was nice of you to come.
Tavis: I was honored. I came by to see you at the Philharmonic in New York and the performance was great. I told my friends who I was with, "Don't go, don't go" because people were getting up. I said, "Don't move, don't move. He's gonna come back out. He's gonna play this encore that you have to hear." You didn't come back out and play it (laughter).
Bell: I don't always play that encore (laughter).
Tavis: I was like, "Josh, Joshua, come back out and play this thing!" I told them they'd hear it some other time. Anyway, speaking of the Philharmonic, what about purists? There are always purists who will say, "Come on, Joshua, this is not…"
Bell: I'm not sure what they're preserving, the purists, all the time because in some ways this idea of doing new arrangements of things that we know from the past, doing a new version of this is an idea that goes way back. You know, in a way, it's a very traditional idea. There will be people that, you know, would love to use the word "crossover" or me trying to pander to more masses or whatever.
I just don't worry about that. I mean, this is exciting a project as any that I've done. I learned so much from playing with Edgar Meyer and Chris Botti. I mean, they're some of the greatest musicians around, so I don't worry too much about what people are expecting of me or what they think. Also, you know, there is a nice sort of side effect of doing something like this.
Josh Groban, for instance, I returned the favor. I played on his album a few years ago and now he did one for me. When I did his album, I had many people and still to this day have people coming to my concerts saying, "You know, I never went to a classical concert before, but I heard you on Josh Groban's and now I'm buying your Beethoven album and going to the symphony." It's like, if that happens, it's a great thing.
Tavis: Let me close with a silly question, for me at least, but I've noticed this. Every time I watch you play, and I'm sure you've done otherwise, but every time I see you play, you come out dressed nice, but very comfortably.
I rarely see you, almost never, in the tuxedo, the tie, so the whole - there you are. Great photo. Thanks, Jonathan. I appreciate that (laughter). Nice assist. So the whole orchestra is tuxedoed down, even the conductor, of course, has his tails on and you come out in your black nice satin, but very comfortable. Why that look for you?
Bell: Well, I abandoned the tails about ten years ago or something like that. I used to always wear the white tie. This is very uncomfortable, for one. I mean, the violin's sitting on top of a white tie and it ends up halfway around my neck by the end. It's not actually a good look.
Tavis: (Laughter) Not a good look, huh?
Bell: No. So it was great to get rid of that because - I mean, I try to dress respectfully, but it's so much more comfortable.
Tavis: Did anybody say anything about that, speaking of the purists?
Bell: Yeah, of course, of course. I mean, I have people on my website that follow me a lot, you know, sending in their suggestions what they think I should be wearing or not. In the end, again, you can't worry about what people are going to say and it's just good to be comfortable.
Playing the violin is a physical, athletic thing, you know. I mean, there was a time where golfers, you know, it was such a formal thing that at golf tournaments they would wear - I've seen pictures from the 19th century, you know, tails on the golf course. Can you imagine Tiger Woods?
Tavis: (Laughter) To all of Joshua's fans, I learned the hard way not to hug him immediately following a performance. He's right. It's very physical (laughter) and he gets awfully sweaty. Let him take a shower first, change clothes, then hug him and tell him how great a show that he did. Speaking of which, where's your instrument?
Bell: I actually have it behind the chair over here.
Tavis: I was about to say, I've never seen you without it.
Bell: It's very close by.
Tavis: Yeah, exactly. Okay, your Stradivarius. Joshua Bell's new project is called “At Home with Friends.” I highly recommend you add it to your collection. Joshua, good to have you on. Always good to see you.
Bell: Thanks for having me.
Tavis: Take care, my friend.
Back to October 16, 2009