Sitting in the back of a dimly lit room, watching Brandi Disterheft wrestle with an upright bass, you realize the instrument is a beast that requires total physical submission. It is not just about the notes; it is about the wood, the tension of the strings and the sheer kinetic energy required to make a hollow box sing. Disterheft has been doing this since she was a kid, born into a lineage that stretches from the grit of Chicago to the polish of Los Angeles.
She eventually landed in New York, the only place where jazz actually breathes. Her latest record, *Surfboard*, is a sharp collection that pulls from the greats while asserting her own dominance as a composer. We caught up with her to talk about the grind, the legends and why playing the bass is a lot like playing hockey.
She has already tasted the industry’s version of success, winning a Juno for her debut, *Debut*, in the Best Traditional Jazz Album category. It was a hell of a start. Most people spend decades chasing that kind of validation.
“Yeah, it was really exciting,” Disterheft says. “I wasn’t expecting to win and I remember my speech, I said, ‘Jazz is thriving and jazz is alive,’ which it is, so that was a big honour. It’s nice to be recognized and it keeps you moving forward.”
But the industry is fickle. Her sophomore effort saw her pivoting, a move that often confuses the purists who want their jazz musicians to stay in a box. She has been nominated four times out of five releases, which is a staggering batting average in a genre that often ignores its young talent.
“The second one was a little more pop, which I really liked,” she admits. That record involved a collaboration with Rhys Fulber, a name more associated with industrial beats and electronic textures than swing rhythms. It was a calculated risk that gave the album a cold, modern edge.
“Yes. And he was wonderful to work with,” she says of Fulber. “He came all the way up to Toronto and we recorded in the woods. It was great and I wanted that sort of experimental sound. And I think we achieved that. We have a good video, Combien de Chances (How Many Chances) from that, it was interesting.”
The shift was jarring for some. It felt like a departure from the smoke-filled room aesthetic of her debut, but Disterheft was clearly hunting for a bigger stage. She was trying to bridge the gap between the conservatory and the club.
“I was touring a lot,” she explains. “And I think I wanted something more mainstream in which I could relate to a wider audience. I might have lost a little bit of the jazz crowd doing that but I had a blast. I had this wonderful guitar player on the album and he made all these interesting sounds, it’s nice to have the freedom to experiment, right?”
With *Surfboard*, she has returned to the core. The title track is a Jobim piece, but it is not the bossa nova elevator music you hear in hotel lobbies. It has teeth. There is a specific technicality to how she handles the counterpoint, making the bass feel like a second vocalist.
“It’s funny; it’s a throwaway too because it sounds quite flighty, surfboard?” Disterheft says. “But then it’s actually such a wonderful composition and the counterpoint and the rhythms almost sound like you’re balancing.”
She is backed by a trio of absolute monsters. Portinho, Klaus Mueller and the legendary George Coleman. Portinho is 82 now, but he plays with more fire than most kids half his age. He is the secret sauce on this record, providing a rhythmic foundation that feels dangerous.
“Portinho is now 82 and he’s known as the definitive Brazilian drummer,” she says. “And he’s worked with everyone and he has this really particular sound they call the James Brown of the Brazilian Funk Samba so it’s very forward moving and he took me under his wing and basically taught me what to listen to, and to work on all those Brazilian grooves.”
Then there is Klaus Mueller on piano, a long-time collaborator who understands Disterheft’s internal clock. In New York, these connections are everything. You do not just hire a session guy; you hire a mind.
“Klaus is his piano player and he’s also a very good friend of mine so we’ve been working together for years,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to do it and then being in New York City you get to hear the jazz giants. Often I would hear George Coleman play and it’s interesting because he’s a prodigy, he’s a virtuoso, but he has his way of making it so relaxed. He makes the other elder gentlemen on stage look like high school kids. It’s this whole other realm of this movement and feeling just this ultimate sound.”
Adding Coleman to the mix was a power move. He is a link to the golden age, having played with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. His presence on the album gives it an immediate authority.
“And so I was thinking, well, how cool would that be to have that sound with the Brazilian theme, and I think it turned out really well and George is so sweet and he had heard of me because of my last album with Harold Maybern, may he rest in peace,” she says. “He recently passed and he’s from Memphis. George Coleman and Harold were in high school together in Memphis; they grew up together, so that was sort of the connection to George.”
Disterheft’s trajectory feels inevitable when you look at her training. She did not just show up in New York with a bass and a dream. She moved there after establishing herself in Toronto, seeking out the hardest taskmaster in the business: Ron Carter.
“My mom’s from Chicago,” she says. “She’s a B3 organist and piano player in Vancouver and because I always had dual citizenship she was like, ‘Brandi when are you going to move to New York?’, so she really encouraged me. Then I moved after I had already established myself in Toronto and then went to further study in my late 20s with Ron Carter which is a nice time because you already feel like you’ve put in almost 10 years of playing and now you’re ready for this next chapter.”
Studying with Carter is like taking a masterclass in physics and philosophy simultaneously. He is the most recorded bassist in history, the man who held down the floor for the Miles Davis Quintet. He does not tolerate mediocrity.
“Yeah, he is and he basically revolutionized modern bass playing in jazz and his use of octaves and chord tones and pedal points and his sound and his time and the famous Miles Quintet records where they all talk about Tony Williams the drummer or Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter or George Coleman of course recorded with them too,” she explains. “But really, it’s Ron Carter creating this harmony and opening it up. It was wonderful studying with him. Mr. Carter would say, ‘My way’s the only way. You may like what you hear from other players, but my way is the only way!’ and he’d be yelling at me, ‘Brandi, play lighter, play lighter!’ because being a girl I wanted to play so loud, like hockey, like the boys are, I can keep up, and he’s like, ‘It’s not about that,’ It’s about creating this beautiful, huge, almost light sound.”
Portinho is now 82 and he’s known as the definitive Brazilian drummer... he took me under his wing and basically taught me what to listen to, and to work on all those Brazilian grooves. ... George Coleman is a prodigy, he’s a virtuoso, but he has his way of making it so relaxed. He makes the other elder gentlemen on stage look like high school kids.
That discipline translates into how she runs her own sessions. She does not need to micromanage legends, but she has to command the room. Working with men in their 80s requires a specific kind of ego-less leadership.
“We never spoke about being a band leader,” she says of her time with Carter. “He is how his playing is, he’s very regal, he’s very dignified, he’s very respectful, he commands perfection. He would say not once but five times in a row, ‘Brandi I want this perfect.’ So it was almost this Zen, he demanded higher execution than anyone I’ve ever met. So in that regard, it’s how do you hold yourself? How do you want people to perceive you? How are you playing music?”
The recording of *Surfboard* was an exercise in efficiency. In jazz, if you need more than two takes, you are probably overthinking it. The chemistry between Portinho and Mueller provided the engine, and Disterheft just had to steer.
“I was working with Portinho for ten years so he’s one of my very, very good friends,” she says. “We were able to rehearse the music and we had already tunes in the can ready to go. It was so fun recording because you’re just banging out, banging out, no problem. Then we brought George in and he was just the icing on the cake. And it’s very special, you’re not going to do more than one or two takes. George was so sweet too, because a lot of older people or some older musicians are very protective if they haven’t heard about you and George isn’t like that. He’s like, however I can help you and he was so encouraging. He’s like, ‘Wow, you can really play,’ and all these beautiful things. That’s very rare, it really is.”
There is a sense of stewardship here. Disterheft is not just playing notes; she is preserving a lineage that is slowly fading as the giants of the 1960s pass away.
“Oh, that’s sweet. I would like to think so,” she says when asked if she feels she is carrying their legacy. “It feels that way in the moment.”
Her upbringing in Vancouver was a cocoon of jazz. While other kids were listening to grunge or pop, she was immersed in the Royal Conservatory and her mother’s B3 organ riffs. It was a lifestyle, not a hobby.
“My mom being a jazz musician, I studied with many local bass players there,” she recalls. “And I had the piano growing up, training since I was five, some at the Royal Conservatory, so that helps. Then I had some jazz piano lessons from my mom. I already had quite a base. I remember idolizing Jodi Proznick one of the wonderful strong female bass players and I just grew up in it. There was music always playing. I don’t really know too much about pop culture, it really was always quite jazz heavy. You know, we were forced to practice as kids.”
She was not the only talent in the house. Her brother had the chops too, though he took a different path, one that involves turntables rather than upright basses.
“Yeah, my brother and he’s super talented,” she says. “He was always better than everything I did; art, and now he chose not to pursue that. Mind you he DJs and he makes quite a bit more money than I do deejaying. He could be like, Kid Koala and he just doesn’t want to do it.”
Her father, meanwhile, was on the corporate side of the industry, working for Yamaha Canada. He understood the business of music, which provided a necessary counterweight to the romanticism of the art.
“That’s right. My father worked for Yamaha Canada for many years,” she says. “He was the director and he made Yamaha the household name before people knew about it. So traveling and putting a lot of the education systems together and the competitions for high school music programs, he had the opposite perspective. Like you want to try and be smart and make some money doing it so I’m still trying to figure out that part. It’s all relative, right?”
The family history is deep. Her mother actually shared stages with Jobim back in the day, a connection that makes Disterheft’s rendition of "Surfboard" feel like a full-circle moment.
“Yeah, she has such a nice story that she was on the road in Las Vegas, and she romanticizes it saying how they used to have all these wonderful jazz rooms, I guess almost like cabaret rooms and anyway, they were on stage and Jobim was opening up and he was very sweet and they exchanged voicings,” she says. “She also had a regular gig in Chicago where she was opening up for The Supremes, they were upstairs and there were dancers, so she was always in it. And my aunt is a singer out in LA. She worked with Daft Punk, and she does the whole Brazilian thing.”
Her aunt also worked with Sergio Mendez, the architect of that 1960s bossa nova sound. When Disterheft sings, you can hear that influence. But do not ask her to play "The Girl from Ipanema" unless you are prepared to pay up.
“Yeah, we do a lot actually,” she says of the classic. “When we play that you have to tip us a hundred dollars because it’s so common, but my mom actually has a great arrangement of it. I should delve into it more. I get bored a bit, I like the more obscure songs.”
Still, she respects the craft of the hits. A song does not become a standard by accident.
“Yeah, but no, if you delve into it and make your own changes and make it interesting, those are powerful songs and the bridge is really beautiful,” she notes. “It’s really complicated, it’s not a simple song.”
When it comes to vocalists, she looks to the greats who understood space and timing. Shirley Horn, Dinah Washington and Nancy Wilson are her touchstones. But singing while playing the bass is a logistical nightmare. The brain has to split in two.
“Yeah, the learning curve takes so long,” she admits. “It’s not like bass or singing where you learn a tune and an hour later you can perform it. It’s sort of six months later, it’s ridiculous. And you just get used to bombing. That’s why it’s good in New York City, you have these regular gigs and you just bomb and that’s okay until it becomes extraordinary muscle memory from this and this.”
Her writing process has become more clinical over the years. The myth of the tortured artist waiting for a lightning bolt of inspiration is just that—a myth. She treats it like a job.
“Writing is interesting,” she says. “I always thought I would need a drink or you hear about the romantic stories about Hemingway and now I’m really efficient. And you have a mood and you develop it and write it down and take bridges and just keep editing it 15, 20 times, lyrics included and I love stealing stories from other people. I still try and take piano lessons, just to refresh, just to come up with new voicings and new sounds. Composing to me is the most gratifying and I also feel like I haven’t done enough. Although I do have a lot of originals on my albums, I’ve just been waiting for this magical thing.”
She gives a lot of credit to Klaus Mueller for the sound of the new album. His precision is almost frustrating to her.
“Isn’t he amazing? He’s so perfect,” she says. “Sometimes it’s like a sports thing where I get envious of him. I just want to hit him because he’s so perfect. His time is perfect, his harmony. He studied with Richie Beirach, one of the great modern jazz piano players in New York. He’s great, he’s very sweet.”
Disterheft has a knack for finding established rhythm sections and inserting herself into them. It is a shortcut to a cohesive sound.
“I sort of stole Klaus,” she laughs. “Sharon Jones had that band The Dap-Kings and Amy Winehouse, right, she just came and stole that whole band and then just fronted it. That’s what I almost like to do, like the last album was Harold Maybern and Joe Farnsworth, and they’ve been playing together for 30 years. So I just took that team, took my tunes, lead it and worked it out. So same thing with Portinho and Klaus, they’ve been a team for 20 years. I’ve been part of it for some of it.”
It works because they respect her. In the jazz world, you do not get hired back if you cannot hold your own.
“And they hire me back a lot so that’s really beautiful and jazz you know is reciprocal movement so we all keep working,” she says.
The last year has been a strange one for New York musicians. The clubs closed, the street noise died down and the hustle shifted online. Disterheft kept busy with regular gigs at Fine and Rare and The Flatiron Room when they were open, and pivoted to digital platforms when they were not.
“We have regular gigs at these jazz clubs, Fine and Rare and The Flatiron Room, so those have gone in and out,” she says. “Some online festival gigs. Supposedly Central Park is really great. I just can’t get myself to go back and play in the park because it really wears you out. I’d rather just compose. I also started an online club called Brandi’s Club Live, which I’m going to start up again every Wednesday night that was really fun.”
The lockdown was a period of intense productivity for her. She recorded an album with Anthony Wonsey and used the downtime to refine her technique.
“Yeah, it’s almost like a new opportune time, right? It’s like an opportunity if you can think your way around it,” she says. “I did a lot of writing. I pumped out quite a few tunes and I recorded an album with this great piano player, Anthony Wonsey, so we had sort of a writing session where the people in the band would bring a song every week. And then we recorded his album, which is coming out so I’d say I got a lot done. I practiced a lot of things I always wanted to work on. Being a bass player, everyone needs a bass player so we’re playing every night, you know, and weekends, you’re doing doubles all the time. And if not, you can’t say no to triples. It was really a blessing to take some time out and work on stuff I’ve always wanted to work on and then have time to work the album out and I did some videos and that was nice.”
There is a quiet power in being the bass player. You are the one who decides where the song goes. You are the anchor.
“Yeah. And you have so much control, which is nice,” she says. “Depending on which notes you pick it just pivots the music. You have the rhythm and when you’re really strong, almost sometimes boss those drummers around. The intricacy of the groove is wild, isn’t it?”
She has not been back to Vancouver in a while. The distance and the pandemic have made travel difficult, but the city remains a part of her DNA.
“I haven’t been back and my parents are very apprehensive about me traveling and just doing the right thing,” she says. “You’ve just got to wait till it’s the right time. We’ve been vaccinated here and I miss it.”
As for the Junos, she is up against her former teacher, Pat Labarbera. It is a bittersweet nomination, but in the jazz world, being in the same conversation as your mentors is the ultimate win.
“We’ll see,” she says. “We’re up against Pat Labarbera and Kirk MacDonald and Pat was my teacher so they’re so great. We’ll see what happens. But of course, the nomination is great. I did want to just really quickly plug my videos because we have such nice YouTube videos online for this album.
