Mark Guiliana Interview on
The TrevBeats Show 

0:00 — WHY THE LISTENER MATTERS **MARK GUILIANA:** When I was younger—and maybe I’m exaggerating a little—I couldn’t have cared less. When I was 22, playing around New York with my friends, I didn’t know any better. My attitude was, “If you, the listener, don’t like this, that’s on you.” It was that punk mentality of, “No, we’re just going to do this with our heads down.” But I really started to appreciate the question: How can I include the listener? How can I honor them? I’m not going to compromise the art, but how can I honor them and include them in the experience? Because I need to interact with something. --- ## 1:13 — MEET MARK GUILIANA **TREVOR LAWRENCE JR.:** All right, everybody. Welcome back to The TrevBeats Show. Understand that today’s guest is one of the people pushing the envelope. If you spend any time around my show or my ecosystem, you know I live by a few things on this platform. One is “serve the song,” and the other is “music—or pocket—over everything.” Today’s guest is a visionary who embodies both while completely rewriting the vocabulary of modern drumming. He has seamlessly bridged the gap between electronic percussion and jazz, driving projects from his own Beat Music to his jazz quartets and working on David Bowie’s legendary final album, Blackstar. He’s an innovator, a composer, and an absolute monster behind the kit. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my brother, the one and only Mark Guiliana. What’s up, bro? **MARK:** What’s up, man? You’re way too kind. You’re making me nervous with that intro. How are you doing? **TREVOR:** Good to see you. **MARK:** Yeah, you too, man. --- ## 2:20 — THE MAGIC THE DRUM COMMUNITY LOST **TREVOR:** I know you’ve been super busy. You just got back from doing the Chicago Drum Show. How was that? **MARK:** It was cool. It actually warmed my heart a bit. It took me back to growing up in New Jersey, about 20 minutes from where they used to have the Modern Drummer Festivals in the ’90s. I would go to all of those. I remember the magic. I don’t know whether you went to any of them. **TREVOR:** I don’t think so. In the ’90s, I probably wasn’t flying across the country for them. But I know all the videos. They were on VHS back in the day. **MARK:** Exactly. You could get close to your heroes. You’d be in this college auditorium with maybe 1,000 or 1,500 seats maximum. And this was back when you would get the magazine, cut out the ad, send cash in an envelope, and they would mail you your tickets. **TREVOR:** I forgot about that period. **MARK:** Right? First of all, just having a magazine at all. You would see the lineup, and everybody did it. Everybody. It had an energy that is really difficult to recreate now. The Chicago Drum Show had some of that. There was a big exposition floor. Some of the big companies were there. Obviously, I was there with Istanbul Agop and Gretsch, and I was hanging with Scott. But there was also a lot of vintage gear, used gear, and small shops from the Midwest showing their stuff. It had this optimism and positivity that was refreshing. Sometimes you sit at home looking at your phone and everything feels like doomsday—which may be right. But just being around that energy was nice. **TREVOR:** That’s super dope. It’s wild right now. A lot of people don’t know what’s going on, or they don’t understand the depth of it. Sometimes we feel insulated because it hasn’t come to our doorstep yet. But one of my representatives from one of my companies had just bought a house in Garden Grove. Look at what happened. These types of events are more important now than ever. I think NAMM has experienced a new resurgence because the fraternal aspect of it is almost like therapy now for a lot of people across the country. **MARK:** I haven’t been since it came back, so I hope to get down there next year. **TREVOR:** It’s starting to feel different. It may never be like it was before the pandemic, but you can tell there’s a new generation creating a new set of memories. They’re morphing NAMM into whatever it is going to become for them, which is cool to see. --- ## 5:35 — FROM ’90s ROCK TO JAZZ **TREVOR:** Let’s talk about some drum stuff. You bridge acoustic and electronic music, but let’s talk about your background first. I would assume that, primarily, you started as a jazz drummer. Am I wrong, or is that a fair assumption? **MARK:** Jazz came early, but it wasn’t first. I don’t have any musicians in my family. I kind of stumbled onto music. It was the mid-’90s, and I was watching MTV. It was Soundgarden, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers—all of that. That’s what got me to the drums. In my earliest lessons, I just wanted to be Chad Smith. And, of course, Matt Cameron and all those guys. I don’t want to live in the ’90s for the entire interview, but it was a time when you could turn on the television and see musicians playing music. Even if it was a music video and they were on a soundstage, you could see the setup. I would pause it and think, “Wait. How big is that crash on Matt’s right? What is that?” That was really fun. Those guys got me to the drums. Then I started taking lessons, and my first teacher was an incredible teacher named Joe Bergamini in New Jersey. He gave me a great foundation, which included checking out all different styles. When we got to jazz, something happened. I ran through that door. Pretty quickly, it hit me in a way I didn’t understand. Elvin Jones. Tony Williams. Roy Haynes. Jack DeJohnette. Art Blakey. I didn’t know what it was, but it was doing something to me. It lit me up. I took that path, and it was really the improvisation that spoke to me. I still think that, if I had to break it down, improvisation is probably what I’m most drawn to. Jazz is usually the place where that is most prominently featured. It is such a staple of the music. That’s where I really learned who I was as a musician. I don’t often present myself in a traditional jazz way, but that is definitely at the core of where I come from. **TREVOR:** I think that’s where I first got hip to you—online and through records. Then I think we finally met in person backstage at Montreux. **MARK:** Exactly. That was a crazy bill. A triple bill. I was there with Brad Mehldau and Sco. You were there with Herbie. Then John McLaughlin’s band played. I remember thinking, “This is overwhelming.” **TREVOR:** It was like Miles Davis alumni night. **MARK:** Exactly. That was trippy. I remember hanging with you and Terrace. I was still living in New Jersey at the time, but of course I knew about you guys. It was great to connect. And I have a little story. I don’t know whether you remember this, because it was around 2016. --- ## 9:15 — THE FIRST TIME MARK HEARD THE CLAP STACK **MARK:** When did the Clap Stack officially come out? **TREVOR:** I think 2017. **MARK:** That makes sense. I think that may also have been around the time I saw Justin, because he was the first guy I saw play it publicly. That was right around when it came out. You had it in your setup. Full disclosure—and I like telling this story because it comes around as a compliment—we were backstage looking at each other’s setups. You said, “Yo, man, I’m working on this thing. It’s like an 808 clap, but it’s acoustic.” And before I heard it, honestly, I thought, “Cool. But why wouldn’t you just use an 808 clap?” I didn’t really understand it yet. I trusted you. I thought it sounded cool. But it didn’t register with me in a particular way. Then, two hours later, I was watching from the side of the stage and saw you play that thing. I thought, “Damn. That thing is special.” Because it isn’t just an 808 clap. It is inspired by one, but the acoustic nature of it creates something different. It gets into the microphones differently. If it were a pad, you probably wouldn’t play it the same way. Psychologically, it feels different. Maybe it even feels different to the other musicians onstage. They don’t need it sent through a monitor wedge. It really felt like a unique instrument. And I haven’t heard much about it since. How did it end up doing? **TREVOR:** You know what’s funny? I also remember being on the side of that stage. You loved the way one of my trash cymbals sounded. I was using it as a ride on my left side. You said something about it, and I realized I had never really thought about using it that way. So I started using it on the right side as a second ride vibe. You said something that made me think differently about it. We’re all just trying to keep each other inspired. You’re one of the people I saw doing what I call “stacking the drums”—putting things on drums. You and Chris Dave were two of the main people I saw doing that. I had my own version of it that I had been doing for a while, but when I saw you guys putting creative things on drums—bells, bottle caps, whatever—I thought, “Yeah. This is a new era of drumming.” It became a new way for us to make the drums unique to us. That was inspiring coming from you, too. I was a huge fan of your playing and still am. --- ## 12:23 — HOW ELECTRONIC MUSIC CHANGED HIS DRUMMING **TREVOR:** Now you’re really into this bridging of worlds. We’ve established that you can play jazz. What made you get into the acoustic-electronic world? What inspired that change? **MARK:** It was almost the exact same story as jazz punching me in the face. I got to college, and now I’m studying jazz. A friend gave me a burned CD. I can still remember his handwriting on it. It was a Squarepusher record called Feed Me Weird Things. This was around 1999 or 2000. The record was already a few years old. I put it on, and mentally, I didn’t know what was happening. But in my chest, I felt, “Whoa. I have to check this out.” It felt like the first time I heard Tony Williams. I thought, “I don’t know what’s going on, but something is happening that I need to chase.” That’s how I felt with artists like Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, and music like that. Those guys aren’t drummers. I have always loved trying to play parts that non-drummers came up with because those parts are inevitably coming from a new angle. Then it requires your own creativity to repurpose that thing on the instrument and play it in real time. The drums are an acoustic instrument. If the music I’m inspired by happens to be electronic, I’m still always going to return to this acoustic instrument and try to capture the spirit of it. To me, it is all the same. I can be inspired by Tony Williams and try to bring some version of that back to the kit. I can pull from a completely different source and still return to the kit. In a way, you’re right to say I am bringing things together. But to me, I happen to play an acoustic instrument. Wherever the inspiration comes from, it is going to come out through that instrument. A lot of drum-and-bass music is impossible to execute in real time. By inevitably failing, you land in a place that is unique to you. Let’s say you and I studied a beautiful Steve Gadd groove. We could take an hour, figure it out, and come back. Neither of us would sound like Gadd, but we would probably be close. And you and I might sound fairly similar because the original source began on a drum kit. It was created by somebody playing in real time on an acoustic instrument. But if we took eight bars of some Aphex Twin track and went our separate ways, we would come back with very different results. That’s what started leading me toward ideas like putting something on the snare drum to make it sound more like a particular sample. Those weren’t necessarily my original ideas. I was seeing musicians in New York and was really inspired by the avant-garde scene, the free scene, and the downtown scene, where anything went. People were putting all types of things on the drums. Often the output was extremely avant-garde and wild, but the sounds and ideas were inspiring. I might see Jim Black scraping the drums with a chain. That exact expression may not be mine, but if I put a chain on the snare drum and suddenly it starts sounding like an Aphex Twin track, that becomes interesting. That’s where many of those things started coming together. Because the inspiration came from a non-drum-set source, you were forced to include your own ideas and creativity in figuring out how to express it. By definition, there was more of you in it. --- ## 16:41 — HOW FAILURE LEADS TO YOUR OWN SOUND **TREVOR:** You started developing that, and then you did something I’m now seeing replicated: the solo drum record. Before, we mostly had drummers who could sing, where the drummer happened to become the frontman. But now the solo drum concept has become its own lane. I think more and more people will do it. You recorded MARK in 2024 at Studio 606. You weren’t just playing drums. You were also playing synths, and we saw some of your process on social media. How did writing on keyboards influence your drumming? How did you find the inspiration for that project? --- ## 17:35 — CREATING MARK AND A SOLO DRUM SHOW **MARK:** That project was really the culmination of trying to get all of my experiences and influences into one place. Over the years, I had tried to keep things separated. Beat Music was the more electronic-leaning expression. I had an acoustic quartet that represented the more acoustic side. Then there were things in between. Sometimes I would get to say something as a sideman that I didn’t get to say in my own bands. But over the years of having these different projects, I always needed to feed the repertoire. Over the last 10 years or so, composition became much more of a focus. When I was 25, all I thought about was the drums. If I had a free minute, I ran to the drums. Now, if I get a free minute, I usually end up at the piano trying to work on something. With MARK, I wanted to put the drums at the front while also including the compositions. Intentionally, there were drum-only songs and songs with no drums. That formula made the most sense for the statement I was trying to make. I was trying to document everything that had led up to it and where my head was at. **TREVOR:** On the technical side, when you performed the music live, how were you running the tracks? Were you using Ableton? Was it static? Could you shift the arrangements in real time? How did that work from a production standpoint? **MARK:** It was quite different live. In the big picture, yes, the show represented the record and the record represented the show. But I wasn’t playing the same exact performance. On piano, I have very limited technique. I can’t really improvise on piano. So I played a couple of compositions from the record, and those parts were fixed each night. But with the drumming, I had different stations and different instruments set up. Each station would inspire me to go in a particular direction, but what I actually played there was improvised. The map was fixed every night. I knew, “I’ll start here. Then maybe I’ll go here. Then I’ll play a song. Then I’ll end up over there.” But what I did at each station was improvised. **TREVOR:** That’s inspiring. It put a battery in my back. It showed me that there is an audience for this. People really do connect with drums. You can put your own creative expression out there, and it is possible. --- ## 20:59 — DOING SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU **MARK:** Thank you. There were two things I was thinking about. First, this was something I had considered doing for years, but I was always too nervous to follow through. I finally realized the only way I was going to do it was to put it on the calendar and book a show. I booked a couple of shows at Zebulon here in Los Angeles. I knew I was never going to feel “ready.” So I had to book it. When that date arrived, there was either going to be a show or there wasn’t. As expected, I started feeling nerves I hadn’t felt in a long time. I humbly always felt like I was the guy who didn’t get nervous. We go play. That’s what we do. For me, playing is usually the most relaxing part of the day on the road. It’s like, “Finally. Now we can just play.” Maybe if I look over and see you and Herbie standing in the wings, I might get a little nervous. But this experience made me rethink my relationship with nervousness. When I was younger, feeling nervous made me think I wasn’t prepared or that something was going to go wrong. This version of nervousness felt different. It made me realize, “Oh, wow. I really care. This is important to me.” It became almost a positive signal. You are entering a vulnerable place. And that is the point. --- ## 22:39 — RETHINKING WHAT A LIVE SHOW CAN BE **MARK:** Then I started thinking about our expectations of what a show is. Our expectations change based on where we are going. If I go see you with Herbie at Disney Hall, I pay a certain amount of money and I understand the environment. I assume I am going to experience the highest level of musicianship. I get to see one of my heroes play songs I know. There is a kind of social contract. I buy a ticket. You do that. Everybody is happy. Herbie doesn’t necessarily have to play the hits. I would still be happy. But there is a general expectation. The same thing happens if I buy a ticket to see Dave Chappelle at the Hollywood Bowl. He comes out, talks into a microphone for an hour, makes everybody laugh, and leaves. We all agree on those expectations. But then I started playing with those expectations. What happens if you buy a ticket to see Herbie and he comes out and talks for an hour? Personally, I would love that. I would love to hear his thoughts. But as an audience member, you might think, “Wait. This isn’t what I thought I was getting.” Or what if Chappelle came out and played piano for an hour? You’d think, “Wait. This isn’t it.” There is so much about the environment that tells us what to expect from someone. What you already know about that person helps build those expectations. As a performer, do you acknowledge those expectations? How much do you meet them? How much do you include them in your thinking? I also thought about a DJ. When you go see a DJ, you don’t expect the DJ to create every piece of music from scratch in the moment. Maybe they made the music at home. Maybe they are playing other people’s music. Their role that night is to create a vibe in the room and maintain the energy. And that is great, too. Or you go see a movie. I don’t expect the movie to be different the second time I see it. That is simply the art form. I started playing with all of that. How can I disarm people from their expectations? Can I pull from these different formats? I created a 90-minute visual element at home. It was static, meaning I didn’t directly interact with it, but it was running throughout the performance. There were moments of spoken word. There were moments of improvisation. There were compositional moments. I was trying to pull from as many different influences as possible. At the end of the day, yes, it was one guy onstage. I played a lot of drums. But I would like to believe that when people left, they didn’t feel like they had just seen a drum show. I was trying to pull from all of those different influences. --- ## 26:13 — LEARNING TO HONOR THE LISTENER **MARK:** The experience also made me think more about my relationship with the listener. When I was younger—and maybe I’m exaggerating a little—I couldn’t have cared less. When I was 22, playing around New York with my friends, I didn’t know any better. My attitude was, “If you, the listener, don’t like this, that’s on you.” It was that punk mentality of, “No. We’re just going to do this with our heads down.” But I really started to appreciate the question: How can I include the listener? How can I honor them? I’m not going to compromise the art. But how can I honor the listener and include them in the experience? Because I need to interact with something. **TREVOR:** Of course. With drums, it depends on the audience. For some people, just drums can be a little off-putting. But what you are doing is uncharted territory. You are taking a risk. You are pushing. You aren’t afraid to fail. Those are things the greatest jazz musicians have always lived by. Miles said it to Herbie. Herbie said it to us. Stevie said it to Stanley. You make a mistake? Play it again. You cannot be afraid to fail when you are trying something uncharted. The easiest thing is always what has already been done. It is much easier to go work for an established company than to start your own. Kudos to you. You’re going to keep pushing. --- ## 27:54 — STRAIGHT 08: MARK, KEYON HARROLD & SAM BARSH **TREVOR:** I came across Straight 08 with my man Keyon and Sam Barsh. **MARK:** Yeah. Barsh was the first guy I met in college, so we go way back. We went to William Paterson University in New Jersey. At freshman orientation, I saw this guy walking around wearing a Thelonious Monk shirt. I thought, “Hey, I need to talk to that guy.” He was the first person I met, and we have been best friends ever since. I met Keyon because Barsh and Keyon had met in high school through some national youth music program. Keyon didn’t go to our school, but he was around New York, and I met him back then, too. So this project was a reunion of sorts. We got together for a day and put some music down. Barsh said, “Man, this is a record.” And I said, “There you go.” **TREVOR:** I can’t wait for that. Having all of you together with that whole 808 aesthetic is going to be bananas. --- ## 29:16 — INSIDE MARK’S DRUM AND CYMBAL SETUPS **TREVOR:** Let’s talk to the drummers watching and get into some gear. I know you play Gretsch drums, Istanbul Agop cymbals, and Remo heads. Tell me about your setups. **MARK:** There are basically two main setups. With my more acoustic band, it is a bop kit: 18-inch bass drum, 12-inch rack tom, and 14-inch floor tom. Usually I bring a Gretsch Broadkaster. They are new drums, but they have that older aesthetic. Almost 10 years ago, I got a kit in White Satin Flame because I had seen all these photographs of Elvin Jones playing White Satin Flame. I thought, “Okay. I need that one.” That setup is very traditional. With the more Beat Music-oriented project, it is the same basic concept but with bigger drums: usually a 22-inch bass drum, a 16-inch floor tom, and a snare drum. I definitely like smaller setups. They inspire me to try to get as much as possible out of them. On the bop kit, it is basically coated Ambassadors on everything. On the other kit, the drums are tuned much lower. I might have a clear Emperor on the floor tom. It is all fairly straightforward. The cymbals are always moving around. I had just been in New York doing a week at the Village Vanguard with my band. With all the Elvin energy and all of that history in the room, I had two 22-inch 30th Anniversary rides. One had six rivets. One had three. People ask me about those cymbals constantly. I don’t know whether a gig goes by without somebody asking me about them. Honestly, I like being able to say they are just off the shelf. They sound so good, but they are standard cymbals. I have developed a special bond with those particular two, but they are still off-the-shelf cymbals. They are a little heavier, which I guess has more recently been called “medium.” They are heavier than what I had previously played, but they play light. They behave in a light way. Then I have the different rivet configurations and 14-inch hi-hats. People ask, “But what are they?” And on paper, they are the same cymbal. The two 22s are the same model in the catalog, but they have become two completely different worlds. With Beat Music, I sometimes bring smaller hi-hats to use as tight, closed hats. That gives me access to more programmed-style sounds and lets me lean into that influence. In the last five years, I also did a lot of touring with St. Vincent. That was more of a rock environment, so I used bigger drums and bigger cymbals. Those were Istanbul Agop Traditionals—20s and 22s—a little on the heavier side. They still had warmth and character. They could cut through and project more, but there was still a smokiness in them. **TREVOR:** The cymbals are unbelievable. Every time I stumble across something in storage or go through some of my cymbal vaults, I’m reminded of how good they sound. I recently cut an organ trio record. I used a 22-inch Traditional, the Joey Waronker ride with rivets added, and a 24-inch Traditional. I was sitting there thinking, “This is crazy.” These cymbals are so versatile. Obviously, it also comes down to how you play them and how you set them up. --- ## 34:13 — WHY MARK PLAYS WITHOUT WING NUTS **TREVOR:** Let me go back to Montreux. I noticed you were playing that particular gig without wing nuts. Is that always the case in a jazz situation? Are you changing rides between songs? I started doing that for a while. Why not change a ride for a different song if it has a different vibe? **MARK:** I think it started in New York because you would have 10 minutes to set up in some club after the previous band finished. But as I started laying things on drums and cymbals, it became even more practical. I don’t do it as much anymore, but every now and then I would have an extra splash or crash that I could place on top of a 22-inch cymbal to create a more synthetic sound. Obviously, if I am putting things on cymbals, having no wing nuts is the easiest way to do that. But mostly it was convenience. I also never played in a way where there was much risk of the cymbal flying off. At this point, it is probably more habit than necessity. **TREVOR:** I tell younger musicians—especially people who don’t have endorsements yet and don’t own a huge amount of gear—that there is absolutely nothing wrong with changing something during a song or a set. Now you have all these overlays for snares and products that can create multiple sounds from one drum. You can take one snare, add different overlays, and suddenly have a huge number of sounds available within one set. The same thing applies to cymbals. If the set is morphing, you might use one ride for a more jazz-influenced section and then change to something drier for another part. We need to open ourselves to that energy. Putting things on drums. You, Chris Dave, and my dear friend Jim Keltner—who is like an uncle to me—are examples of people who can treat different sections within the same song differently. As drummers, we can do that. For years, we were taught that the drum set was a static thing. Now, with technology and all these additional tools, we can adjust and change sounds. Something might only happen in a bridge. Something might only happen in a hook. That is part of the new creativity. --- ## 36:59 — WHAT GREAT IMPROVISERS ARE THINKING **TREVOR:** Speaking of creativity, improvising is a skill. It is almost a mental game with yourself. When you are onstage and everything moves away from what was rehearsed—when the music takes a tangent and goes somewhere completely different—what is your internal monologue? What are you thinking? Are you worried about the form? **MARK:** It depends entirely on the environment that was created in advance. Whether it is my band or someone else’s, the more I understand the expectations, the more relaxed and willing I am when something unexpected happens. If I am playing someone else’s music, I would never assume it is okay to suddenly go way left unless I have been invited to do that. But if the leader says, “This is the tune, but if it goes somewhere, let’s go,” you don’t have to tell me twice. The environment matters. If you are recording the definitive version of a song in the studio, that might not be the moment to go completely somewhere else. But on the road, you are playing every night. Isn’t that part of the joy? You don’t want to take advantage of those moments. You don’t want to be selfish or exploit them. But from night to night, there are places where the music can go. Let’s see what happens. That comes from the top down. Energetically, the possibility is predetermined. The specific musical choices are not predetermined, but the energy is in the air. Everyone understands that going somewhere else is an option if the music needs it. **TREVOR:** There is a tremendous amount of confidence and trust in those moments. You can hear it with great groups. Wayne Shorter’s final quartet was unbelievable. The commitment and communication in that band were unreal. --- ## 39:42 — THE GENIUS OF WAYNE SHORTER’S BAND **MARK:** I have to say something about that Wayne band. Whenever I see those guys, I end up grilling them with Wayne questions. I saw Brian Blade a couple of times last summer. We would start catching up, and inevitably I would start asking him about Wayne. To your point, it sounded like there was very little talking and very little communicated verbally, but so much was communicated energetically. That band was tricky. You would see them reading seven-page charts, but the music sounded completely free. From what Brian told me—and I don’t want to speak for him—my understanding was that if a moment was taking you somewhere, it would be a shame to think, “No. What about the form?” There are many situations where the form is king. Of course. But that band felt like a great example of saying, “If this moment is telling you to go here, the worst thing you can do is resist it.” That was the whole point. If the band happened to land somewhere else, that was who they were in that moment. Brian said that a lot of the time, they had the repertoire available to them, and Wayne might bring in a different song in the middle of an improvisation inside another song. Everybody would recognize it and find their way there. The songs were almost more like signposts than fixed maps. Of course, in the wrong hands, that might not be music I would want to hear. But in those hands? Those guys are the mountaintop for me. I don’t know when this is coming out, but today Miles Davis would have been 100 years old. It is fitting that we are talking about him. I feel like he is always on my mind, but especially today. **TREVOR:** I see Vince at my coffee place almost every morning. **MARK:** Really? **TREVOR:** Yeah. That’s one of my hangout spots. And unfortunately, we also have to acknowledge that we lost Sonny last night. What a career. One of my favorite records was that album with him, Max Roach, and Clifford Brown. It is such an incredible example of swing. **MARK:** Swing has groove. A couple of weeks ago, when I was at the Vanguard, of course I listened to Coltrane’s band at the Vanguard. That is where my mind naturally goes. But I made a point to listen to Sonny at the Vanguard and really get inside the energy of the room. It is the baddest. **TREVOR:** I was also lucky enough to get one of those bucket-list experiences. I did a run with Wayne—just Wayne, Herbie, James Genus, and me. That was a bucket list within a bucket list. An unexpected bucket list. Now, when I look back, I reflect on the other things. Being in the terminal waiting to get on a plane together. Rehearsals. Ironically, the tour was in Ukraine, and so many of the places where we went have since been destroyed. We were in Lviv and Kyiv. I saw Brian Blade at one of those same festivals and met him for the first time. It makes me reflect on the offstage memories. I have to remember the rehearsals. Wayne had that energy where, yes, we would rehearse, but the real thing was going to happen in the show. It comes back to what we were talking about: trust and communication. You have been exemplary of that. I am excited to see what you continue doing in the future. --- ## 44:08 — AI AND THE FUTURE OF MUSIC **TREVOR:** Before we get out of here, I have to address this. I’m curious about your thoughts on AI and what is happening in that arena as it relates to music. **MARK:** I definitely feel undereducated. Maybe some of that is a self-defense mechanism. A little bit of ignorance is bliss. I know that isn’t necessarily healthy. I know it is important to learn about it and get in front of it. But I have been trying to think about it as technology. When I frame it that way, it feels a little softer. I look around my life and think about all the ways I already use and embrace technology. This may sound silly, but even a calculator. I don’t want to do that math in my head. I’m going to reach for the calculator. I am going to reach for a tool that helps me do something. Sometimes technology even helps me do things I cannot do myself. That example is less creative and more functional, but that is the direction from which I have been trying to approach AI. What are the functional elements that could be helpful? Are there automated things in my life that, if handled for me, would give me more time and energy to put toward creative work? In that sense, it feels like a win. Of course, here I am continuing to ignore how AI is affecting the creative side. I know that is where it gets sticky. At the moment, I am trying to remain optimistic. I am an optimist at heart. I think I need to be in order to keep going at all. When it comes to creative things, I would like to believe that people will still want human expression. They will want the human version of an expression. As AI gets closer and closer—and it already feels like it can get very close—I hope two things happen. First, I hope there is some way to identify what is AI-generated. People have talked about labels, almost like the difference between organic food and other products. If people are given the knowledge that one thing is AI-generated and another is not, and they genuinely prefer the AI product, that is none of my business. That would surprise me. But I would like to believe that most people will still prefer the human thing. Live music, at the moment, seems like the most impenetrable space. Someone could probably prompt AI to make something in the style of Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit,” add specific elements, and produce something that sounds convincing enough that, if it came on in a bank, you might not think twice about it. But I don’t know whether anyone will ever be alive to see a live version of that technology that genuinely competes with the human being. I don’t know whether people will choose that over seeing the actual person. **TREVOR:** I think you’re absolutely right in a lot of ways. AI can 100 percent create a song that sounds like something else. That is what it excels at. It can recreate things based on what has already happened. But it cannot be in the moment the way you are when you are improvising. Someone does something that has never happened before and will never happen again. You react to it in that exact moment. AI cannot do that. There are robots that can be programmed to play impressive jazz, but they are doing it based on things that already happened. It is not the same as someone saying, “Let’s play this song. Let me sit in,” and everybody responding in real time. I think people want to feel the energy of somebody onstage. They want to see the imperfections. --- ## 49:48 — WHY HUMAN IMPERFECTION STILL WINS **TREVOR:** I tell people this all the time. When we go see somebody live, believe it or not, we are going to see the imperfections. We already have the perfect version on the record. The record was the attempt at perfection. We go to the live show to see the anomalies. That is why we want to see it. Otherwise, we could stay home and listen to the record. --- ## 50:06 — THE CHRIS DAVE FACTOR **TREVOR:** The next generation is coming up, Mark. I always like to end with some legacy and advice. What do you have for a young musician who is just discovering music the way you did? Maybe they are leaning toward jazz. Maybe they are not. What do you have for them right now? **MARK:** I will get to that in a moment, but I have to chime in on what you just said because it connects directly to the advice. You mentioned Chris Dave a few times. I have to shine a light on him. He is an example of someone I have never once seen make all the choices I expected him to make. But everything is always in support of the music. That is the magic. It isn’t random. It isn’t disconnected. You could program AI and say, “Try to make the choices Chris Dave would make,” but there is no way. **TREVOR:** You can’t. He’s an alien. **MARK:** Alien intelligence. But I’m a fan. I would like to believe I understand his musical world. And without fail, I am still surprised. Maybe he is surprising himself, too. I feel like that is part of the point. --- ## 51:18 — WILL INDIVIDUALITY SURVIVE THE ALGORITHM? **MARK:** To turn that into advice for moving forward, my optimistic view is that bold, individual personalities will hopefully be rewarded as things become more homogenized—or potentially homogenized—by AI. I hope individuality becomes something people covet again. Sometimes individual people are considered too dangerous. Too unique. Too far ahead of the curve. It can be difficult to keep up with them or understand what is happening in real time. That individuality is not always rewarded immediately. But my advice—and I am saying this to myself right now—is to try to learn as much about yourself as you can. --- ## 52:06 — STOP COPYING A COPY OF A COPY **MARK:** I spent so much time trying to learn about everybody else that I didn’t leave enough time to learn about myself. The more you can learn about yourself, hopefully, the more of that you can put into the world. It should go without saying, but there is space for you in the world. I hate to say it, but there isn’t space for another Chris Dave. He is already here. That guy takes up a lot of real estate. Being around New York in the 2000s, I felt like I was hearing more versions of him—more caricatures of him—than I was hearing him. I had to make a point to go hear Chris more. I thought, “I need to hear the source because I’m hearing more versions of him than I’m hearing him.” I felt the same way about Tain in the late ’90s. I was hearing more versions of Tain than I was hearing him. It gave me a whole new love for the original. It was like, “Okay. This is the source.” Emulation is important. Inspiration is important. Influence is important. But the one thing I can say for sure is that there is room for you. --- ## 53:39 — ADVICE FOR YOUNG MUSICIANS **MARK:** You have to ask yourself: Who are you, actually? You have to do the work. Who am I? What can I contribute? Then you go from there. **TREVOR:** That individuality is key. You are right on the money because the homogenization is getting scary. On Instagram and social media, every once in a while somebody pops out and you think, “Okay. That is an individual voice.” But a lot of people are copying somebody who copied somebody who copied somebody. We have an entire generation of the exact same drum playing. The same attempts at drum tuning. The same cymbal selections. A lot of times, even the same cymbal company. No shade. I’m just speaking about the reality. Individuality is important. Of course, influence is part of what makes us who we are. But influence is information. You take that information, digest it, synthesize it, and put your own thing on it. Only time will tell. I hope people become more individual. I hope the live experience—and the people who actually do this—continues getting more respect. People like you need support. You are out here pushing the envelope, being versatile, being individual, and giving people a complete musical experience. --- ## 55:17 — FINAL THOUGHTS **TREVOR:** On that note, I really appreciate you being here, Mark. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Mark Guiliana on The TrevBeats Show. **MARK:** Thanks for having me. It was great to catch up. We have to do this in person. **TREVOR:** For sure. I feel like we need to play, too. **MARK:** Yes. Let’s do it. **TREVOR:** I appreciate you, my brother. We will be in touch soon. Everybody, Mark’s social links are in the description, so make sure you go check him out. We’ll see each other soon. Thanks again. **MARK:** Thank you, man. I really appreciate it. **TREVOR:** Everybody, we appreciate you for rocking with us today. Share this episode with somebody in your circle who is on their musical journey. You never know who needs to hear this conversation. Like, comment, and subscribe. Follow us on Instagram at @trevorlawrencejr and stay locked in. I’m Trevor Lawrence Jr. It’s The TrevBeats Show. We out.