Band leader embraces musical reputation as ‘old man’

Carter Graham isn’t afraid to be untimely.

The 30-something pianist and leader of soul outfit Vox Populi — which launches its debut LP, Invasive Species, in a concert tonight at the West End Cultural Centre — thinks in musical terms that almost seem old-fashioned today: albums, melodic and harmonic richness, live bands.

“I was told by many people to not even do this,” he says. With the music industry now geared heavily towards singles in an era of algorithmically curated playlists, he describes producing and releasing a full-length record as a quasi-act of “rebellion.”

“I feel like I have to. It’s like, ‘Why do I do music?’ No one would do this job of lugging your stuff out for 50 bucks and getting either heckled or harassed or talked down by drunks if you didn’t love it.”

Graham is being a little self-deprecating.

Over the past 10 years, he’s established himself as one of Winnipeg’s leading jazz pianists, while Vox Populi treads into more populist, albeit vintage, territory.

Members of the band — whose influences include Stevie Wonder, the Doobie Brothers, Chaka Khan and Jamiroquai — also read like a who’s who of the local jazz and R&B scene.

There’s singer Sheena Rattai (best known for the roots act Red Moon Road), Brazilian guitarist Emmanuel Bach (seemingly destined to be a stellar musician with a name like that) and bassist and University of Manitoba music prof Karl Kohut. (Local jazzer Julian Bradford has often played four-string with the band as well.)

Kevin Waters, one of Canada’s best groove drummers, is behind the kit.

It’s quite a lineup — a crack band fit for tunes filled with changes and syncopation that would make many of the popular voices of today’s music spin.

While Graham, like most of his collaborators, went to jazz school, he says he came by many of his influences almost naively at a young age, through oldies pop radio and record collections.

“I remember I heard this song. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s amazing. What is that?’ And then I stayed up all night, listening on the radio, ready to hit the ‘record’ button on the cassette,” he says.

That song turned out to be Marvin Gaye’s I Heard it Through the Grapevine, something not so easily discoverable for a kid in the era before streaming and Shazam.

In addition to channelling that era’s songwriting, Graham says Vox Populi’s new record — which becomes available on vinyl later this fall — reflects the band’s shared interest in liveness and analogue.

“One of the things I love… when I listen to those great pop albums — by Michael Jackson, Toto, George Duke or Stevie Wonder — is the production,” he says.

“You can hear some of the imperfections. And I love those imperfections because (it) also means they were humans who made that.”

Graham jokes that his musical fixations have earned him the reputation of being an “old man” since he was quite young. He’s been a little anachronistic from the jump.

But remembering the formative power of his own early explorations, he’s protective of his younger peers’ and students’ tastes and intuitions — even when they run in other directions.

“You can be dismissive at any age, whether you’re old or young … But there’s this beautiful lineage of people learning from the older generations and the older generations being generous enough to share their knowledge with you,” he says.

“Now that goes both ways. Older folks who I’ve met who are really great musicians and really with it, they’ve always had a healthy appreciation for… what younger people are doing. Because sometimes you go into stuff with a childlike innocence and that’s where discovery can happen.”

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca