Discussing ‘Tether’ with Herbie Hancock Institute graduate Alden Hellmuth

Welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World, where I interview musicians about how their music helps make the world more harmonious.

It was great to be joined by sax player Alden Hellmuth just prior to the release of Tether. I reviewed her album just before our conversation and it captivated me straight away.

Thanks to Alden for allowing me to play extracts from Tether alongside our conversation.

Thank you for listening to Harmonious World. Please rate, review and share: click on the link and subscribe to support the show.

Don't forget the Quincy Jones quote that sums up why I do this: "Imagine what a harmonious world it would be if every single person, both young and old, shared a little of what he is good at doing."

Transcript

Hilary 0:33

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World. My name is Hilary Seabrook. And if you don't know already, Harmonious World is all about me interviewing musicians about how their music helps make the world more harmonious. This episode I'm joined by Sax player Alden Helmouth. And her album Tether comes out this week. I've already written a review, so feel free to read that. All the links are in the show notes. Alden's a spectacular sax player. And she has a very interesting two-bass acoustic jazz ensemble. With bassists Logan Kane and Miller Wren, as well as drummer Justin Brown, pianist Paul Cornish and trumpeter Yakiv Tvietsky. What you're listening to now is supply chain taken from Tether. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation and I hope you enjoy listening into it. Welcome Alden Helmuth. It's so good to be chatting with you just prior to the release of Tether.

Alden 1:49

Hi, yeah, it's so great to be chatting with you too. Thanks so much for having me.

Hilary 1:54

Brilliant. Thank you. Uh so where on earth did this come from? I'm especially fascinated by the two-bass thing you've got going on and the compositions and where it all came from. So let's go, let's wind it back a bit. So when did you start writing these pieces?

Alden 2:14

So from 2023 uh to 2025, I was at the Herbie Hancock Institute, um, which is out at UCLA. And so I was very focused on just composing and working, and I just spent a lot of time writing. And then I started to immerse myself into the Los Angeles music scene and made a lot of wonderful connections and friends. And there's some amazing musicians out there with some really distinct voices. And uh in fall of 2024, uh one of the bassists, Miller Wren, asked me to be part of a bill at Non-Plus Ultra, which is this very kind of DIY uh very fun space to play in, not a traditional jazz venue at all. And uh he told me that Logan was also gonna be on the bill doing his solo uh bass works, and I just thought, why not have both of them? Like what a fun idea. And they're just so different in their own right that I kind of saw it kind of made sense to me. I was like, you know, Logan's timbre and the way that he plays is the polar opposite of Miller, so it just made sense to me at the time, but it also was like this fun sort of outlet, and so that first show really inspired kind of the entire project because I decided right then and there that I'd been also listening to a lot of more punk music at the time. I had kind of been revisiting Deer Hoof, and I had just discovered this band, Oto Boke Beaver, which is an amazing Japanese punk band. And I kind of credit those two records that I was listening to at the time to the like sound of this project or what uh what started as the sound is of this project. And so yeah, I started writing kind of like it was like a fun sort of get away from school, get away from the way that I was writing for sixth tet in a more traditional sense, um, and write for two basses and chord this quartet. And I just had a lot of fun with it at first. And then as we played more and more shows, I very quickly realized, oh, this is this could be something bigger, and we can invite people in, and and it can be this this sound, and yeah, it just evolved into a much bigger project. And yeah.

Hilary 4:41

Yeah, it's interesting because once you know it's got two basses in, and two, sorry, two different people playing bass, it's not like you've double tracked, you know. Yeah, and you can hear the difference. And I found myself, it's like when you have um an album and there's two sax players, even if it's two, you know, two tenors, you can still tell which is which. And I I've never been able to do that with basses before, and it was really interesting.

Alden 5:08

Yeah, they are so different from each other, and it it just really, really worked. Like, yeah, it's really a testament to the improvisers and the players that they both are.

Hilary 5:18

Yeah. So why while we're talking about them, let's talk about Paul Cornish on piano. He's got a lovely style as well, hasn't he?

Alden 5:26

He really does. He also is one of my favorite improvisers. He's an amazing pianist and he has some amazing projects, and he's also an amazing writer. Love Paul. But he also, if you give him nothing, he somehow comes up with like the most magical ideas that make the most sense in any sort of context. And so the two tracks that I have him on are s a bit more open-ended, uh, though there is information that I gave him. I didn't give him nothing. But uh, and he just added all of the right things. I think it's I can't unhear the way that Paul played on Witness now. I think everything yeah, in the way that he contributed to fakers as well. Like there he's just such again, just a distinct voice on his instrument.

Hilary 6:17

Yeah, definitely.

Alden 6:18

And then you've got drummer Justin Brown, another incredibly distinct and just all around amazing drummer and musician.

Hilary 6:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And then the tr the your trumpeter. So I think what's really interesting is when you and the trumpet do some ensemble pieces, that's really nice. The way you you kind of do stuff where you're in unison and then you're not, and then you come back and like that. It's really nice.

Alden 6:48

Yeah, thanks. Yeah. I Yaakov is uh from Ukraine and he was doing the program with me. And so, you know, just playing with someone for two years, you develop a really close musical relationship.

Hilary 7:00

Yeah, that well, that's really interesting. So, so my guess is that if I tried, I could probably find other pieces where you two played together, and I bet they would be they'd be interesting because you'd be different, because this is obviously your stuff and your kind of direction. So uh so I'm gonna look out for that now.

Alden 7:22

Yeah.

Hilary 7:23

That's a rabbit hole of the internet that I'm happy to go down.

Alden 7:27

Yeah, absolutely.

Hilary 7:28

Yeah. So where did you learn to play the saxophone?

Alden 7:32

I grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, and so I had some great teachers early on, and then I went to the heart school. Um, and I actually studied music business or like entertainment performing arts management, but I couldn't escape music. I think, you know, I took some classes during the summer and did some extra credit work so that I could continue taking lessons with then Abraham Burton. Um, and yeah, it was I mean, I've just loved the saxophone from an early age, and then once I found out about improvising, it was game over, you know.

Hilary 8:12

Yeah, and and clearly that's where your strength lies. It feels like I don't know how much, but I guess probably not very much is what you know, you went into the studio with these germs of an idea and then took them in whatever direction they went at that time, and then they'll probably live go in a different direction sometimes.

Alden 8:37

Oh, absolutely. I mean the music is pretty there, it is pretty written out, some of it, or composed, but I've been playing a lot of the music in a completely different context. I just did a show with Paul where he was playing on everything, and it still really works because it's so open-ended and because I'm down for whatever to happen within this music and it allows for that. So it works in like any sort of context. And we'll be touring this summer in Europe, and we're doing just uh more traditional quartet with one bass, drums, and piano.

Hilary 9:12

Yeah. Well, it'll be interesting then to hear, I'm hoping to get to one of at least one of those gigs. And it'll be interesting to hear how different it is live, because it will be different anyway, but of course you know, with a different uh ensemble.

Alden 9:26

Yeah.

Hilary 9:27

Yeah, fantastic. So so where in Europe can people see you?

Alden 9:31

Uh we'll be in Basel, Switzerland for two nights, July 8th and 9th, and then we'll be in Frankfurt at Jazz Montez July 10th, and then North Sea Jazz Festival on the 12th, and then uh Berlin on the 13th at Danao, and then uh in Italy, Mantova, um playing at this beautiful church on the 14th.

Hilary 9:59

Brilliant. I I'm still ho holding out hope that I might get to the North Sea jazz festival because I've really wanted to get there, so I'm still kind of like weighing up the possibilities.

Alden 10:12

Yeah, I'm really excited. It's yeah, it's such a incredible festival. I was so honored that they asked me to play, and it's gonna be such a blast. I already know.

Hilary 10:21

Yeah, absolutely. So, what's the next plan? So you've got some gigs coming up, you're coming to Europe, but what's the next bit of life for you?

Alden 10:32

Well, I mean, that band is I live in New York now. Um, and so I think I'm gonna start writing for the next project. Um which will probably be similar to my band from Good Intentions. Those are the people I love playing with here in New York. Um But I mean, I love playing with Miller and Logan, and I feel like eventually maybe we'll do like a volume two of this project. Um that's my hope in the future future, but you know, being in New York, it's just tough.

Hilary 11:03

And um yeah, I definitely want to keep pushing and writing and and growing and yeah, but also you've got the stuff that's on Good Intentions, which was your debut album, which you can still tour and there will still be people who haven't yet heard that.

Alden 11:18

So yeah, no, that is true. I always forget that it's not over.

Hilary 11:22

No, that's right, and actually sometimes uh funnily enough, I just I went last weekend to uh a gig with a Sax player who because he went off on tour with Abdullah Ibrahim in 2009, he didn't tour a whole the whole album, he toured it like a little bit, but not very much. So he's just re-released it and he's gonna tour it now. It's like 18 years later, but why not?

Alden 11:47

Yeah.

Hilary 11:48

So they can have a whole new life lease of life.

Alden 11:53

Yeah.

Hilary 11:54

Um, can yeah. Can we talk briefly about Face the Wall? Because that was the first single off the uh album. I'm interested in why you chose that to be the first single.

Alden 12:06

I think ultimately it was more of a group decision. Right. Um I felt really strongly. I feel this about most records, and it's just the way the industry is, right? That we have to put out singles.

Hilary 12:22

Yeah.

Alden 12:22

Um, but I really feel strongly about this entire album as a body of work. Um and it's tough when you have to pick singles, and it's like, what's gonna grab people's attention, or do you want to work against that and put out something that may not grab people's attention but will make it make people question, or you know, how how how are you gonna get people interested in the record? And yeah, I think it's really interesting the whole single thing, but I I think it's an exciting song, you know. And it was to be fair, it was the very first piece that I wrote for this project specifically. Uh so I think I felt a little bit sentimental about it being the single, maybe.

Hilary 13:10

Right. Okay, well, so I think it's a I think it's a good track. I I I agree with you about the whole singles thing because sometimes it just it feels like it goes, uh, you don't need to listen to the whole album, listen to this. But actually, especially I think with Tether, uh and I and I I read somewhere you saying something about there's a sort of thread that goes through the whole album, which and I and it feels like that, it feels like there's um not necessarily motifs that come back, but there's a sense that if if it wouldn't be the end of the world if somebody heard it like one track by track by track and heard different things sort of cropping up in them. So yeah, yeah. So it does feel like a a whole body of work rather than a collection.

Alden 14:00

Yeah, yeah, that's how I feel about it as well. It's really it's really just its own thing, and I felt it's it was tough because when we were picking singles, I was like, oh no, just release it all, you know. But yeah, yeah. It's it's it's tough. I think I was thinking about this the other day. Like, I genuinely think the next record I'm just gonna drop. I don't I don't wanna do any singles. I just want to let people have it and see how they feel about it and which songs stick out. Although maybe uh that's not the most advisable on the industry side of things.

Hilary 14:35

Well, yeah, and that's the problem that that actually industry people sometimes do know what they're talking about. And so that can help, but um, but equally, you know, you've got to there comes a point where you have to do what is right for you.

Alden 14:51

Yeah.

Hilary 14:53

One of the first guests on Harmonious World was Maria Schneider. Oh and it I know, and it was when she had just released Data Lords.

Alden 15:03

Oh wow.

Hilary 15:03

And it was ironic that Data Lords came out right at the start of lockdown. So she couldn't play it anywhere, and and I don't think it had the exposure that it it should have done, but she's very much a woman in control of her music, you know, and and very much in control of where you can get hold of it and where it's performed and and all the rest of it. And I think uh when you reach that stature, then then you can perhaps do that, and perhaps in some ways doing that before you get there will help you get there quicker, you know.

Alden 15:42

Who knows? It's all gamble.

Hilary 15:44

Exactly, absolutely it is, absolutely, you never know.

Alden 15:48

That's why it's so great when people really resonate with your work. It's it's you never know, you know, you really never know. And it's it's really interesting uh when and it just means a lot when people tell me that they really like it or they hear the motifs or they get it. I'm like, yes, I did it, I did the thing.

Hilary 16:09

You did the thing. And I yeah, I hope when you read my review, you'll realize that I I got it. I what I did, what I always do with when I'm I'm either going to interview somebody or I'm gonna review an album is I dip into it first. So my first thing is like I listen to, especially if there's a single, I might listen to that, and I might listen to a little bit of other bits, but it's very much kind of piecemeal, and then when I'm about to review it, then I go and listen to it start to finish. And as soon as I heard a bit of yours, I was like, Oh, this is gonna be nice. It's it's brilliant.

Alden 16:46

Oh, thank you. Thanks.

Hilary 16:48

Do you know Melissa Aldana?

Alden 16:50

Yes.

Hilary 16:51

Okay, I I know. I it's not that you're the same, you're not the same at all, but I could hear something of that freedom that she's got that you've got as well.

Alden 17:02

She is a master though. Oh man, I really look up to her so much. I got to study with her a little bit while I was in grad school, and she is she truly is masterful in her discipline, in her practice, in the way that she executes things, in the way that she is still so open and searching in her ideas. Like, what an inspiration. Yeah, I really, really, really love Melissa's playing.

Hilary 17:27

Yeah. So I did the same. I interviewed her, and and it was just it was just it's breathtaking, isn't it? Her as you say, mastery. Yeah. But uh as I said, I love Tether and I wish you all the success with it, because I think it's a I think it's a really interesting, great piece of work.

Alden 17:49

Thank you so much. That really means a lot. It really does. Like just having people uh resonate with it. It's yeah.

Hilary 17:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Well, good luck with it and uh good luck with the release on Friday. And thank you for talking to me.

Alden 18:06

Of course, thanks for having me. It was a real treat.

Hilary 18:34

Well, I hope you enjoyed listening to that conversation with Alden Helmet. And what you're listening to now is definitely not friends. This is such a great album. Tether is absolutely wonderful. And uh it takes a list to listen to. You need to kind of give some time to it, but I think it's a wonderful thing and very well worth that time. So please do share, rate, review this podcast wherever you get yours. And I hope you have a very, very good week.