Rhodes scholar

>> Montreal's Jaffa works out an equation for musical success

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

There's a wealth of potential miscalculations to be found in the release of Elevator, the debut album by Montreal musician/prodigal math whiz David Kakon, better known as Jaffa. Not the least of which is the inaccurate filing the disc will likely be subjected to in record stores. Elevator is bound to show up under both "electronica" and "jazz/funk."

The "electronica" tag comes when one simply scans the order form and spots the Nude imprint--Nude being the downtempo offshoot of Montreal's Dune label, serious drum & bass instigations headed by Double A & Twist (Aaron Seigner and Oliver Sasse). A double-check turns up remix credits for Herbaliser and Fila Brazilia which is when a Don Knotts double-take kicks in--it's an indie debut, remember. Okay, electronica it is.

Further investigation, though, shows a setup wherein the sweet tones of the Fender Rhodes keyboard make the wedge end of a triangle with beats and bass, supplemented not only by other keys but also by cameos from guitarist Jordan Officer, last seen in the swing of things with the Susie Arioli Big Band. Okay, maybe we've got a funky jazz thing here, slide it in just before Medeski Martin & Wood.

It's not really either, is it? In fact, Kakon can be quoted (in context, mind you) as saying, "I don't listen to electronic music," "I've never been crazy about jazz" and the rather contentious "I hate funk."

He says a lot of other bold and straightforward things too. Read on. Kakon's a guy burdened with little self-doubt, a guy with a lot of faith--in God, in his mom, in his colleagues and certainly in himself.

Calculated laziness

Let's start at the obvious point, where the two Ks, Kakon and keyboards, first formally intersected. "I'm basically just a kid who got a keyboard for his bar mitzvah," he tells me. "I got a DX-7 from my father's cousin, who's a doctor. I discovered that there was more to music than just the classical I'd been learning till then. My mother, though, understood that a long time ago. When I was six, seven, eight, I would cry not to play the piano. She didn't care if I was bawling my eyes out. My brother and sister, she let them get away with it, but me, I had to play the piano."

Since that point, Kakon's seen music from a variety of angles. As a record collector, he'd amassed enough blues by his early teens to wind up a guest on a radio show. As a concert-goer he was a weekend regular at G-Sharp, catching all the major blues figures rolling through (he was 15 at the time--guess the late, great Gary Sharp wasn't all that sharp on I.D.). As a performer, he was rocking teen talent shows with questionable Who covers in his band the Mental Floss.

Ultimately, though, it was the studio that felt most comfortable. Whereas most musicians cite a player of a particular instrument as their personal inspiration, Kakon points to production duo the Myzell brothers as his. "I pretty much started producing when I was 14. Small stuff, on four-track, but I learned the basics. What instruments do what, what's necessary, what isn't. Like anything, mathematics also, I didn't study that much--just the essentials, what I knew would be enough to carry over. Calculated laziness. Just enough effort to get 10 on 10."

That calculated laziness seems to have served Kakon well, as he now, years later, holds an honours degree in mathematics. "It was just what I did well. I could have gone into anything, but I figured in math I'd do fine and I wouldn't have to work too hard because I was naturally good at it. There's studies that show that music lessons, specifically piano, at an early age, develops that part of the brain."

Anna one, anna two

If music helped Kakon with his math, the reverse also holds true. Subtraction, rather than addition, is his key to good composition and production--"the minimum elements necessary to make the sound. Anything else is excess. Minimum, minimum, minimum. I'll never have more than two or three chords in my songs, ever. It's just easier to process. Look what we're faced with every day--yes, no, day, night, girl, boy. Everything's based on binary code. There's very little grey matter in the world we live in.

"I think we give ourselves too much credit--we're very basic creatures, and our instincts are very much in the forefront in everything we do. We have the same patterns as most animals in nature. We're just so into it that we can't see it on a larger scale. Which means that I appeal more to that emotional, animalistic side. It's instinct. I have no real formal music training, like every other punk who gets a keyboard for his bar mitzvah. I played a little Beethoven and Chopin, whatever, but I have no real understanding of how music works, chord progressions and so on."

Which is the key to figuring why jazz-funk so rankles Kakon. Omni-directional meanderings may please the music grad, but the math guy complains, when MM&W or the Grateful Dead come up, that "they just don't get to the point. You're waiting for it to kick in and it never does. Look, I don't do drugs, I hardly drink, I'm very focused. I'm a mathematician, for Pete's sake. I'm not about that loose jamming. If anything, my second album, which is half-done now, is gonna be tight, all the instruments working together. It's gonna be like this thick, warm machine, moving together in syncopated movements. The thing with these funk bands is, they're trying to get a groove on, but it's just chaos, confusion. A groove is easy to get. Two plugs--turn it on, turn it off, turn it on, turn it off. You get into a motion. It works. Like in math, a pattern is always simple. With two points you have a line. With three, a pattern. With one, you have chaos."

Counting those Euros

Chaos, any competent mathematician could predict, is about to be the state of the Dune/Nude offices, what with the unexpected success Elevator is seeing. Sasse and Seigner started the Nude offshoot to release stuff they liked that didn't fit the drum & bass format of Dune. For now, Jaffa is the label's only signing--"I take up a lot of room," he laughs, but it's no joke.

The remixes of the title track by Herbaliser and the Fila guys were just the start. Since then, a very impressed Masters at Work have cooked up not one but three variations on the piece, getting heavy spinnage on the other side of the pond. More recently, on the Pacific side of things, Warren G has been pestering the lads with phone calls--let's see where that leads.

Kakon made his European debut at Ibiza's celebrated Café del Mar, and has hooked up with the Munich-based Stereo Deluxe label. The story goes that Stereo Deluxe's Ollie Roesch got his hands on Elevator through his and Dune's mutual distributor over here, Fusion III. He had Richard Dorfmeister over for a weekend, which was apparently taken up largely with endless repeat listens. Dorfmeister says, "Get this guy," Roesch nods, Jaffa gets a Euro-licensing. Elevator just hit shelves there, with pre-orders at 12,000.

The late-breaking news is that the latest German club charts put Elevator at number two, right behind Fatboy Slim and ahead of names like MAW's Kenny Dope. You're again reminded that this is a debut, and one whose musical direction could, in clumsier hands, have come off too close to the muzak potentially suggested by the title.

Kakon's formula for pulling all this off is far more spiritual than anything off a math class blackboard. He sums it up articulately like so: "Do what feels right and the universe will conspire to help you." At the same time, he doesn't dismiss the very earthbound help he gets from his label, his colleagues and the musicians he plays with (Officer will join Jaffa for the Montreal debut at Living, as will bassist Dylan Kel-Kirkman, percussionist Eric Cohen and Sasse himself handling beats).

"The only people who'd really heard my stuff, back in the basement stage, were Oliver and Aaron. Nobody else had heard it, nobody knew about it. We thought it was good, we believed in it, and that was that. There was no sort of market testing, calling your friends and asking them what they think. Just do it how you feel it and that's it.

"Your instinct is much, much more powerful than your intellect. I think what people connect to is that it comes from a real place, that it's built on instinct, and you can't fake that. When it's there, it shines through. People react to that."

With Nav at Living on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 11pm, $10