Kelly Sill

Kelly Sill

Date Posted: July 03 2008

Written By: Chicago Jazz

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Searching the Internet for a biography of bass player Kelly Sill doesn’t yield much. What you will find on his website, and other sites drawing from the same bio, is the kind of information found on a resume, but which tells you nothing of the man:

"Kelly Sill has worked for over thirty years in the Chicago area as a house bassist for Rick’s Cafe Americain, George's, The Jazz Showcase, Pop's, and The Green Mill. Concert venues include the Chicago Jazz Festival, Ravinia, the Red Sea Jazz Festival, the Elkhart Jazz Festival, and Orchestra Hall (Symphony Center) in Chicago.

"Kelly has performed with Hank Jones, Woody Shaw, Dave Liebman, Eddie Jefferson, Snooky Young, Cedar Walton, Red Rodney, Eddie Harris, Johnny Hartman, Tommy Flanagan, Joe Henderson, Billy Eckstine, Don Menza, Clark Terry, Jerome Richardson, Barry Harris, Conti Condoli, Ruth Brown, Cissy Houston, Art Farmer, Red Holloway, Donald Byrd, Ira Sullivan, Anita O’Day, Freddie Hubbard, Herb Ellis, Bobby Watson, Jackie McLean, Dakota Staton, Bobby Hutcherson, Kenny Burrell, Bill Hardman, Charlie Rouse, Clifford Jordan, Morgana King, Barney Kessel, Urbie Green, Scott Hamilton, Chris Conner, Chris Potter, Mel Lewis, Art Blakey, Louis Bellson, Ernie Watts, Sadao Watanabe, Jim McNeely, Mose Allison, David Newman, Ed Thigpen, Marvin Stamm."

Stand-up bass is an instrument that suits Sill: it is an integral but supporting part of the ensemble, and its mass serves as a sort of shield, guarding him from... well, from whatever it is he wishes to be guarding. Despite his matter-of-fact demeanor and occasional reticence, Sill has much to say when he senses the moment is right and speaks volumes in this exclusive interview with Chicago Jazz Magazine.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: In the pre-interview you said that if you Google the word "sill" your website comes up as the eighth entry. Today you’re at number six—you’re trending up! But it could just be a result of all of our efforts to find information about you—like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Kelly Sill: Yes, the viewing affects the result! [laughs]

Chicago Jazz Magazine: The bio on your website is the least personal bio we've seen, so we are going to have to cover some ground. You’re a Chicagoan?

Kelly Sill: No, Fargo, North Dakota—March 2, 1952.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Are you from a musical family?

Kelly Sill: My mom played the piano, and there was music in our church, but I really didn’t hear a lot.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Even on the radio?

Kelly Sill: I don’t remember hearing a radio.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: So, how did you become…

Kelly Sill: I don’t know where else I heard my music. When I was four or five years old, my parents gave me a phonograph player, where I could play 45s. And they gave me one 45. On one side was "The Little Man From Chinatown," and on the other side was "Behind the Green Door," or maybe just the "The Green Door." They were both blues, which I didn't discover until twenty years later, as I thought about the songs. I began really hearing when I started music lessons.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Was bass your first instrument?

Kelly Sill: No, violin.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: And how old were you?

Kelly Sill: Fifth grade; so ten.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did that come about?

Kelly Sill: There were violins left in our family by my grandfathers and that was the way I went. It was easy.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Do you have any memory of them playing the violins?

Kelly Sill: Yeah, apparently my Grandpa Sill would play the violin, and when he did I would cry. Though I don’t remember that—that is what my parents said. So, either I was enjoying it immensely or it was terrifying to me. Equally interesting.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: And you took lessons in fifth grade?

Kelly Sill: Yes, at the school they offered an in-school teacher so I would see him once a week. Mr. Voldrich was his name, and he was great. I was only with him a year-and-a-half or two years and he gave me great musicianship. And then it was rocky for me with violin all through the grades, until I was eighteen—it was still rocky, I never had a good teacher. He may have been the best violin teacher I ever had. I went eight years on violin and when I was eighteen I went to college and stopped playing violin. I chose not to bring my violin. I chose to bring my electric bass to college, which I almost didn’t do. I was going to be a math major or a science major. When I got there I chose math. But I brought my electric bass, and when I got there I heard a bunch of great jazz players.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Had you been exposed to jazz prior to that?

Kelly Sill: Very little. The first live jazz I heard, ironically, was Judy Roberts, when I was sixteen—just about the time I was starting to play Fender bass. Judy Roberts came in and, I can’t really remember, I'm pretty sure it was Rusty Jones and Nick Tountas, but it couldn’t have been Nick, because whoever was playing bass was going to switch to electric bass and Nick, I don’t think, ever did.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Where were they playing?

Kelly Sill: At my high school. One of the philosophy teachers at my high school—and I had no idea at that time what philosophy was—brought in Judy Roberts because he was a jazz piano player. And that’s another thing: when I heard him—I walked by the music office once and I heard this guy playing jazz, and it was the philosophy professor. And I thought, this sounds really cool. I could tell he was making it up and I thought to myself, Does he know what it sounds like before he plays it, or does he just play and listen to what comes out? And at that moment, and I was sixteen or something, I decided that he already knew what it was going to sound like. So, somehow he had an understanding of sound and could make the sounds that he heard, not just playing and realizing the sounds at the same time the listener does. And for me, that was a profound moment.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Are you of the same opinion today?

Kelly Sill: Yes. Yeah, we hear things and we present them the way we want them to sound. That's what improvising is. It's not random generation, hoping it sounds good when it comes out.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What high school was that?

Kelly Sill: York High School in Elmhurst.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did you end up there?

Kelly Sill: I was in Fargo until I was eight years old. We spent eight or nine months in Denver, Colorado. When I went into third grade we moved to Elmhurst.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: And at that time you were playing classical violin?

Kelly Sill: That was the only violin you could play at that time as far as my experience.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Did that give you a good solid footing in music?

Kelly Sill: Oh, absolutely. Like Eric Montzka, a buddy of mine who plays drums. He and I were both the concertmasters of our high school orchestras and I’ve always enjoyed his musicianship. And I didn’t know for a couple years that he actually was that guy. But I was that guy, too.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: When did you switch to electric bass?

Kelly Sill: It wasn’t a switch; it was an overlap. I started playing electric bass when I was sixteen; that was in 1968. That’s when all hell broke loose...

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