MUSIC

MUSIC Stephen Ulrich will get dangerous with Paul Pigat

by Steve Newton

Doing research for an interview with guitarist Stephen Ulrich can be a fun thing—especially if you’re a Beatles fan. It doesn’t take long to discover a YouTube version of the John Lennon–penned “Girl”, off the 1965 Rubber Soul album. The tune, as performed by Ulrich’s instrumental band, Big Lazy, sports an offbeat, Tom Waits–type vibe and features some sweet trumpet playing by Steven Bernstein. It was included on the trio’s 2019 album, Dear Trouble.

“It’s actually really nice to take a Beatles tune and sort of put it through our kind of gothic filter,” Ulrich says on the line from his home in Jersey City. “We had played that song like hundreds of times, and our music is accessible—people dance, it’s not like avant-garde—so it’s actually fun to just do one of the songs that you throw around at a gig. We had Bernstein in the studio to record something else, and we were like, ‘You know what, let’s do it,’ so we brought him and we did two takes.”

Like many musicians his age, the 62-yearold Ulrich goes way back with the Fab Four. He remembers first discovering his love of music at the age of three during a weekend visit to his cousin’s house that involved plastic Beatles guitars. But when he started playing real ones at 13 or 14, it wasn’t as if Ulrich’s main goal was to learn how to fingerpick “Blackbird”. He studied jazz with New York City bebop guitarist Sal Salvador. “It was pretty cool,” Ulrich recalls. “He had like a dusty old music studio at the Ed Sullivan Theatre, so I would go study with him there. And I was also starting to dabble in the downtown music scene—the punkrock, alternative-underground scene. So I kinda swerved off the road from studying bebop and jazz to playing in bands where I was the only one that could play an instrument, which was interesting sometimes. Not always.”

While Big Lazy is strictly an instrumental outfit these days, the group—which also includes bassist Andrew Hall and drummer Yuval Lion—wasn’t always that way. It started off as a working band with a lead vocalist, but one night he just didn’t show up for a gig.

“The singer just sort of fell off the boat,” Ulrich explains, “so we just went on as an instrumental band, and I felt it was more captivating than with a singer. On the one hand, it’s kind of limiting because, you know, instrumental rock—there’s not that many bands that have truly made it. But at the same time, we started licensing music for films, because the music’s evocative of film noir.”

Cinematic is a term often used to describe the sound of Big Lazy, and Ulrich has always found inspiration in music created for the celluloid realm. He points to the “frightening” soundtrack work of Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood on There Will Be Blood and Quincy Jones on In Cold Blood as particularly impressive. And he was heavily influenced by the music Elmer Bernstein did for director Otto Preminger’s 1955 drama, The Man With the Golden Arm.

“Frank Sinatra plays a junkie,” Ulrich says. “He’s a jazz drummer, and it’s a brilliant movie. And the other movie Elmer Bernstein did that I really loved, that really affected me, was The Magnificent Seven. I often say that that’s what Big Lazy is—it’s sort of like Big Sky Country music meets claustrophobic film noir—kinda like East and West.”

Ulrich’s biggest breakthrough in the music-for-film world came when he scored the job of composer for the HBO series Bored to Death, which ran from 2009 to 2011. He didn’t find that boring at all. Just very demanding.

“I love working with a gun to my head, so to speak,” he says. “That’s not a good metaphor these days, sorry. But I actually like working with deadlines just because it kinda strips away all the preciousness of writing music. When I was writing the music for Bored to Death, often they’d be like ‘You know what? We need a tango and we need it by 4 p.m.’ So you’re just kinda workin’ on pure instinct, you know, which I like, ‘cause I feel like my best music is produced out of some sort of raw, primitive thing.”

While currently residing in New Jersey—where he lives with his wife and two kids—Ulrich has spent most of his life in New York City. His music has always gone over well in the Big Apple, and Big Lazy has had no trouble getting gigs there.

“We’re just constantly playing,” he says. “That’s what I’m doing in New York; otherwise, I’d be living out in the woods, probably. I mean I’ve been in the city forever, and it’s great, and that’s why I’m still here.”

Luckily for Vancouver guitar freaks, Big Lazy’s live music isn’t confined to the New York metropolitan area, as Ulrich will perform two TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival shows here, a free one with his band and another one where he’ll be joined by local six-string maestro Paul Pigat. Pigat found out about Ulrich and sought him out—as one Gretsch player will to another.

“In a way, we’re sort of workin’ the same side of the street,” Ulrich says. “And Paul’s a phenomenal talent. It was like, ‘How did I never hear of this guy?’”

For the ticketed June 30 show, the two pickers will play a set as a duo, performing their own songs and some covers, then the Big Lazy rhythm section will join in. Ulrich and Pigat have only met online previously, when they performed a livestreamed show during the pandemic.

“It was an amazing experience,” Ulrich recalls, “but it’s nothing like being together and just having our molecules mix. We’ve never met in person, but I’m flying in and rehearsing with Paul, and the next day we’re playing a show, so it’s gonna be kinda like working without a net. We’re gonna be prepared, but it’s gonna be nice and dangerous.” g

Guitarist Stephen Ulrich (middle) brings his trio Big Lazy to Vancouver for two jazz festival shows, one of which will see him getting “nice and dangerous” with local picker Paul Pigat.

CHOR LEONI

Stephen Ulrich and Big Lazy perform a ticketed show with Paul Pigat at the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts on June 30 and a free show at the West Vancouver Memorial Library on July 1. Both concerts are part of the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival.