The Fuss about Russ

19 years after graduating from Harvard, musician Russ Gershon '81 may not have an office, secretary or benefits. But he's got it made.

Russ Gershon's resume must list at least nine professions.Russ Gershon's resume must list at least nine professions. In alphabetical order, he is a bandleader, player and producer; an entrepreneur; a composer; a jazz musician; a punk rocker; a saxophonist; and a touring musician. Your typical Harvard over-achiever? Yes. Your typical Harvard graduate? Not a chance.

Gershon is best known as the leader of the Either/Orchestra, a group that has become the bedrock of Boston jazz, and as the president and founder of Accurate Records, a label that has become a focal point in Boston music in general. Along the way, he has nabbed a Grammy nomination, released over 80 albums on his Accurate Records label, and toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe.

Gershon came to Harvard as a first-year in 1977 with almost no musical experience. While an undergraduate, he and several classmates formed The Decoders, a rock band that became popular at Adams House parties. The band parlayed their on-campus success into off-campus gigs in the Boston area. They soon began playing frequently at legendary New York venues like CBGB's and The Mudd Club, and even pulled off a two-month tour while still undergraduates.

After graduation, Gershon joined The Sex Execs, a local band comprised mainly of Yalies transplanted to Boston. Two of the players in that group were Sean Slade and Paul Kolderie, who have since built impressive resumes as producers: Dinosaur Jr., Courtney Love, Radiohead and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones are just a few of the names they have worked with. The Sex Execs had a local hit and became part of the vibrant early 1980's rock scene in Boston.

After leaving The Sex Execs in 1984, Gershon returned to school at Berklee College of Music. While at Berklee in 1985, he met the group of musicians who became the foundation of the Either/Orchestra and the band quickly became known for eccentric material and quirky performances. By the 1980s, most jazz had become neo-conservative and stuffy, but the Either/Orchestra had humor and wit. While Wynton Marsalis was getting started at Lincoln Center and oiling up hits from the 1920s, Gershon and company were playing at a self-proclaimed "Bill Walton" night at a local bar (which Celtics star Bill Walton once actually attended) and soaring through versions of King Crimson tunes and souped-up takes on Ellington and Mingus.

In 1987, Gershon founded Accurate Records to release Dial "E," the Either/Orchestra's debut. Since then, Accurate has released over 80 albums, including the debut albums from Morphine, Medeski Martin & Wood and the Jazz Mandolin Project.

The band went through various permutations as it grew, and the list of the Either/Orchestra's members reads like a roll call of Boston's greatest instrumental products. Among the notable past members of the group are John Medeski, a keyboard player, now front man of jam-crowd favorites Medeski Martin & Wood; Josh Roseman, a trombonist who has recorded with The Roots and Groove Collective; Mike Rivard, a bassist, now leader of Club D'Elf; Curtis Hasselbring, Matt Wilson and Andrew D'Angelo, who are all staples of New York jazz.

By 1996, the group had toured the United States and Europe countless times and had released six albums, including The Calculus of Pleasure in 1992, which led to a Grammy nomination for Gershon. The Either/Orchestra had moved from being local critics' darlings to players on the national music scene. But after 11 years, Gershon decided to take a break from the band and focus on his new family.

In late 1997, though, Gershon began to feel familiar urges. He put the Either/Orchestra back together, reinvigorated with a fresh crop of young jazz talent, and a firm commitment to play only new music. Over the past two years, the group has been playing regularly, and on April 4, the Either/Orchestra's 7th album, More Beautiful Than Death, was released, showcasing the new group and the new material. The Either/Orchestra just returned from a European tour to promote their new CD, and began their United States tour on April 7.

The Crimsonrecently sat down with Gershon, to hear about punk rock at Harvard, life on the road and what it's like to be a grown-up rock star.

THC: When you were a first-year, how did you imagine your life after college?

RG: When I came [to Harvard], I thought I'd be a journalist, actually. I went to a Crimson comp meeting. I had been the editor of my high school paper. And then I realized that I wasn't cut out to be a journalist because I wasn't into objectivity at that point, and that I was much more compelled by playing even though I couldn't play very well.

THC: What was your major?

RG: Philosophy. Basically, studying philosophy is learning how to write clear sentences about nothing. [laughs] No-about something or nothing. And that's a skill that you can't have enough of. The ability to write clear expository prose is a skill that is useful in every walk of life. Today, you have to be a businessman, even as an artist, and you have to be able to get ideas across clearly. If I got nothing else out of college than to have spent four years writing expository prose, then it was worth it. That's something I really feel I got out of the education.

THC: So how did you move from journalist to musician through your years here?

RG: When I was a freshman, my first gig ever on saxophone was with as band called LavaLava on a stage outside Mather. Then sophomore year, a couple friends and I were standing on the corner in front of Tommy's at about three in the morning. We decided if we were going to stand on the street corner at three in the morning, we better become a blues band. We formed this band called the Barbarian Blues Band. Soon we began writing original material-which was coming out more as funky New-Wave type stuff-and that band became The Decoders.

We were part of this nascent Harvard band scene. There was a nice support system on campus, which kind of misled me into thinking I could be a rock star. [laughs] We'd have these gigs at Adams House parties, and the place would be packed, hundreds of people, dancing and making us think we were big shots. We started playing in clubs-The Rat, Cantone's, The Western Front-all these great old Boston clubs. Then we started playing in New York.

After our sophomore year, we took time off to focus on the band. One of our guys, Eric Pfeiffer '81, was from Montana and got us a tour there through an agent he knew. We did this totally absurd tour of roadhouses in Montana during the summer of '80. It was a real kick in the ass...a real Blues Brothers type of scenario: people throwing stuff, getting fired in the middle of gigs. I had an interesting conversation with a guy in Eureka, which is just ten miles from the Canadian border. It's the kind of place where bald eagles roost on trees.

This guy came up to me between sets and said, "Let me talk to you here, boy. I understand what you're doing. I'm an international man. I've traveled. I've been to Europe. I've heard the Rolling Stones play. But what you're playing up there is black music. Ain't two black people between here and Missoula. And they're only here because we let 'em stay. Out here, a man's been out hefting hay in the field all day, he comes to hear a band at night, and he wants to hold a woman. He wants something nice and easy." And I stuttered, "Uh...uh...okay..." I took the guys back to the band house during the break and told them what he had said. We learned two or three slow songs during that break. We started trying to figure out how to avoid getting killed. And we survived. It really made me appreciate Cambridge when we came back.

THC: By the time you finished school, did you know you were going to pursue music professionally?

RG: I knew that I was going to be a musician; that was it. But The Decoders broke up right after we graduated in 1982. I was immediately inducted into The Sex Execs; I was brought in to bolster up the horn section. And they knew I was a good hang for them: another over-educated dude out there drinking too much beer and trying to be in a rock band.

But by the spring of 1984, there was a lot of dissention within the band. I got fired from the Sex Execs. After that, I was depressed-I didn't want to be in bands anymore. So I went to Berklee College of Music for three semesters, one calendar year. After Berklee, I started the Either/Orchestra. From the beginning, it had a vibe. Because I'd been in rock bands, I knew what it meant to be a band. To be a team. A lot of jazz players, especially schooled ones, don't really get that. They're such individualists and free-lancers that they don't understand what all rock people understand: which is what it means to be in a band. That's what the Either/Orchestra had right from the very beginning, this notion that we're in this together to make music together. And that's how people hear music. They hear the sound of the ensemble. The first impression is "What does the music sound like?" not "What does the guy in the plaid pants sound like?" I think we had a leg up on a lot of jazz groups because we had that group mentality going.

THC: What advice would you give to Harvard students who are interested in pursuing an atypical track?

RG: Learn from everything that you do. Also, do what you can't help yourself from doing. If you like being in a band, that's great, but if you can think of something else, career-wise, that you find compelling, do that, because being in a band, or being a filmmaker, or being a dancer, or whatever-those are really stupid careers. They're idiotic careers. They're really hard [and] most people don't make any money doing them. You're in for nothing but trouble. But if you can't help it, if it's what you have to do, don't hold yourself back.

Figure out how you're going to make your living on the side. Develop skills to support it: economic skills or other skills that you're going to need. If you want to be a film producer or director, you're going to have to lead people, you going to need to know how to run an organization. How are you going to learn that? Go and run WHRB, or The Crimson, or the Young Republicans, or whatever the hell you're interested in.

THC: Do you ever doubt that you made the right decision?

RG: Oh yeah, all the time. I still doubt it. I'm 40 years old, I don't own a house, I don't own anything! I have a van with 170,000 miles on it. I own a bunch of albums. One of my roommates from college is now almost a billionaire. He became a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, and now he's going to be worth a billion in a couple of years. And God bless him, it's great. That's what he wanted to do, he set out, and was in the right place at the right time. When I'm hanging out with him, I think, "Goddamn, I could have done this." Maybe not been as successful as him, but I know I could have done it.

THC: Do you think he might envy what you do?

RG: I think so, a little bit. He's so damn successful that it's hard for him to envy anybody. I think my friends from Harvard that envy me are the ones that have gone into business and haven't succeed on that level, or have wound up working for big companies. And I envy them for the fact that they've got pensions coming and houses and there's a point at which they're going to be able to retire and not have to do it anymore-and it's not too far from now. For 40 years old, some of them could retire today, and many of them will be able to semi-retire in 10 or 15 years. I'll still be struggling to pay the rent. But I've got a lot of stories. And I've got a legacy of music that seems to matter to some people. That's something.