{"id":334,"date":"2009-06-07T12:53:56","date_gmt":"2009-06-07T18:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=334"},"modified":"2017-08-29T21:52:03","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T21:52:03","slug":"the-sea-and-cake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2009\/06\/07\/the-sea-and-cake\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sea and Cake"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jeff Friesen<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo by Megan Holmes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While it isn\u2019t a jazz band in any sense of the word, the Sea and Cake, like many other contemporary Chicago groups, is highly influenced by the genre. Sam Prekop formed the band in 1994 with bassist Eric Claridge, guitarist Archer Prewitt and drummer John McEntire. Fifteen years, eight records as a band and two solo records of his own later, Prekop\u2019s bringing the band to this year\u2019s Jazz Winnipeg Festival. Both his solo projects and a significant part of the Sea and Cake\u2019s material show numerous jazz-like elements: Brazilian rhythms, jazz voicings and simple song structures reminiscent of 1950s model jazz. Sam Prekop may exist outside of the jazz vocabulary, but he\u2019s most interested in its aesthetic. Stylus spoke to the front man of the not-jazz band to talk about his love of jazz and how it has impacted his work with the Sea and Cake.<\/p>\n

Stylus: The Sea and Cake will be playing at the Jazz Winnipeg Festival. Is this the first time you will be playing in such a setting?
\nSam Prekop: I think it is, yes. We\u2019ve played other festivals with a broad territorial concept behind it, but never a specifically jazz festival. We\u2019ve played with Fred Anderson (a tenor saxophonist, who founded the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in Chicago) but it\u2019s not something that we\u2019ve ever really pursued per se. Jazz has been an important part of my listening career and has had an influence on my career, but technically we\u2019re not really playing jazz.<\/p>\n

Stylus: One term sometimes used to describe the Sea and Cake is \u201cpost-jazz.\u201d Whether or not this is accurate, it is fairly clear from songs like \u201cLamont\u2019s Lament\u201d or the more recent \u201cDown in the City\u201d that jazz has been a driving force in your own songwriting. Where does this interest of yours stem from?
\nSP: I think a lot of the aesthetic of jazz has sort of leeched into what I would like to try to hear in our music. It\u2019s just sort of whatever I\u2019m into at the moment, what I\u2019m really loving at that point, impacts what we play.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Are there any particular albums that you\u2019re thinking of?
\nSP: I\u2019ve always cited Sun Ra as a huge influence on me, [the] melancholy melodics that [are] unique to his writing. That\u2019s always been influencing what I write, you know, trying to sound simpler than it actually is, an unadulterated beauty. Model jazz, even stuff like Miles Davis\u2019 Kind of Blue, that type of structure has been influential. It\u2019s pretty linear and subtle. That would be construed as a definite jazz element of the Sea and Cake, the droney model type of song structures we work with. The one thing [that] usually defines jazz is improvisation, which is something we don\u2019t do a whole lot of. We\u2019re still a tacked-down rock band.<\/p>\n

Stylus: For sure. I mean, with you guys it\u2019s always been more about the composition than it has been about improv, something that is different than most jazz, but still not unlike the likes of Sun Ra or Miles Davis. What about the use of electronics, something you have explored a great deal as a band? Do you see a relationship between the Latin rhythms you employ and electronics?
\nSP: We use electronics sort of in the same way as we use the guitar. But it has always been part of our language and is an important element of our sound. The Brazilian element, I feel like that has sort of ebbed a bit lately. It\u2019s hard to incorporate those types of things without sounding like a bit of a stylist. Treacherous territory.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Definitely, and that is certainly noticeable with your most recent record, Car Alarm, which is more of a straight-up rock record. Earlier you mentioned that it\u2019s often what you are listening to at the time that most influences your sound. Is there a specific sound or style that you want to explore further with the Sea and Cake?
\nSP: Well right now I\u2019m working on a solo electronic album that is very rooted in early musique-concr\u00e8te stuff, and I have a feeling a lot of those ideas will eventually leech into the Sea and Cake stuff. But the stuff I\u2019m working on right now is pretty unrelated to the Sea and Cake.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Has that happened to you in the past with your other solo efforts?
\nSP: Not as intensely as this time. I mean this stuff is really different, and a lot of people could be shocked if they new it was me making it. It would be hard to make the connection. At least that is how it is in my mind, and I could be completely off the mark. People could find that it sounds like everything else I\u2019ve ever done. I think the sensibilities between the two are not unsimilar\u2014beautiful without being pretty, I hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jeff Friesen While it isn\u2019t a jazz band in any sense of the word, the Sea and Cake, like many other contemporary Chicago groups, is highly influenced by the genre. Sam Prekop formed the band in 1994 with bassist Eric Claridge, guitarist Archer Prewitt and drummer John McEntire. Fifteen years, eight records as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[474],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-jazz-winnipeg-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10115,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/10115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}