Yesterday Sound Tomorrow: Paul Cebar goes back to the future on his new record
If you combine the best aspects of the Chess and Checker labels, the most soulful Stax grooves, and some Afro-Cuban rhythms, all filtered through New Orleans, you might end up with Milwaukee’s own Paul Cebar. Backed by his groove brothers, the Milwaukeeans, Cebar is the city’s leading song-and-dance soul man. He’s also potent on record- the new TOMORROW SOUND NOW FOR YES MUSIC PEOPLE sounds a bit like a more soulful James Hunter or funkier Los Lobos. Cebar sat down with The A.V. Club to talk about the new album, his ritualistic wanderlust, and the allure and influence of the Big Easy.
The A.V. Club: It’s been some time since your last studio and live releases. What have you been up to?
Paul Cebar: It’s been about 8 1/2 years since THE GET-GO, and five and a half since SUCHAMUCH, the live album. The band’s personnel shifted five years back with the departure of Mike Kashou, Terry Vittone, and Michael Walls and the arrival of [bassist] Patrick Patterson and [percussionist] Romero Beverly. During the course of those transitions we began to record with an eye toward the next record. With the lineup stabilized we headed for Brooklyn to work with Gabe Roth [Daptone’s Bosco Mann], whom I had befriended on one of his early tours with Sharon Jones. Then, we headed back home and began working with the producer, David Vartanian, whom I’d worked with mixing, editing and assembling the live album. To get it sounding uniform after all that rambling around, there was a lot of fine-tuning, remixing, editing and re-sequencing done, first with David V. and toward the stretch with Mike Hoffmann. Then a ridiculous label search for a doggone long-ass time. And voila!
AVC: You also did some home recording, right?
PC: We were touring out East and I started hollering “Knock It To Me Now” while pumping gas on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I’d been working on a series of instrumental recordings built off of sub-par handheld tape recorders, boomboxes and samples and “Knock it…” seemed to want to exist in that world, with a nod in from [drummer] Reggie Bordeaux and Dave V. “Spread That Sugar” was inspired by some “advice” offered to me by Olu Dara, and took initial shape on a car recording that was augmented by drums we recorded at a house we used to stay in in Pittsburgh, and then melded at Dave’s studio. Subsequently, the band has turned it into a live highlight a few funky miles down the the track from the crypto-mysterio version on the disc.
AVC: Jim Macnie of the Village Voice once wrote that your music has “it’s heart somewhere in the 5th ward of New Orleans.” Is New Orleans music still a big influence for you?
PC: New Orleans has always been a touchstone for me since my first visit back in ’78. I’ve made an annual visit to Jazzfest as something of a religious holiday since either ’80 or ’81. i actually met the writer of that blurb while driving him and a friend to the 5th ward to see a very early performance of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.
AVC: The new record seems to cover a lot of other physical territory as well.
PC: In recent years, since the last studio record, I’ve made a return trip to Cuba, a visit to carnival in Trinidad, four trips to Mexico, and a grand visit, with the assistance of Milwaukee visual artist, Gerald Duane Coleman, to Salvador, Bahia in Brazil. all of these were undertaken in an effort to follow my heart to the music and feel. Also, I’m hoping that all my time driving the van around the country and shouting it out has added up to a coherence and clarity to my process that probably doesn’t come any other way.