Conversations with Lew Tabackin

[Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] welcome to the NYU Steinhardt jazz interview series and tonight we have tenor saxophonist and flute player mr. Luke - backin fantastic that's our sound effect you're enthusiastic well ok goodbye thank you hey I want to talk to you about areas that maybe other people haven't touched that I've watched interviews of you and read things about you so maybe we talked about start with how did you get interested in music because that's we're talking to students here who we all start out the same you something piqued your interest or somehow you fell in love with music and I decided actually someone asked me that question not too long ago and I had to think about it because I come from a non musical family there was no music of any sort in my house I didn't know anything about anything and basically I thought it might be a good idea as maybe a twelve-year-old or whatever I was to play an instrument no I don't know why oh I thought maybe I played clarinet you know I knew what a clarinet was at least was Benny Goodman was a star so I go to the school the school has a program where they along with public school system would lend you an instrument and didn't have enough money to buy one so the only thing they had was a flute now I never seen a flew before I didn't know what it sounded like I didn't know what it looked like I didn't know how you hold it and three people tried for it long I didn't want it and the other girl was hopeless so I got it and that was the good news the bad news I had the worst teacher that imaginable this guy I don't know how he got the gig but can you imagine and he'd be put how many play the flute few but you know what it you know he imagine playing the flu in your shoulder that's how I played the flu and I only knew the b-flat thumb b-flat and so that's my horrible beginning but wait am I look at what the teacher taught you exactly he should have been shot but anyway that so now you ask me the question how did I get interested in music well that obviously wasn't how I got interested in music but that's how I got interested in trying to play an instrument I struggled along and eventually I wanted I got into high school and it and there was a guy next door to me he was a little older guy and I kind of looked up to him he drove a fancy car and you know yeah he had some jazz records in he played something for me and I kind of got interested and then I decided at 15 years old to get a tenor saxophone why well because because I heard some records second wall and this was a sound in Philadelphia where I grew up or almost grew up alcone was like a hero amongst all the white saxophone players he was like cult figure so I I kind of got interested that yeah a few remember Frank to Barry he believe it or not he was an alcohol free before he discovered Coltrane hmm I know a lot of guys and so I started to listen to a couple records and I got this intersection on content em number for real hard hard rubber mouthpiece and the two-and-a-half symmetric cut read now you don't even know what symmetric cut read is it's out of been out of business for a long time and I spent four hours trying to play and I actually after about four hours I got an approximation of the sound that I heard in my head so that was the beginning and from that period when I started to play the tenor I started to get interested in music I started to hear things and music became less of an abstraction I learned by trial and error and mostly error but well want me to say this you learn by trial and error because there was no internet there was no there was no internet there were many doing at jazzie's right so you're out there going to a jam session and there were a lot of jam sessions in Philadelphia and do usually they were kind enough to let terrible players or beginners this is a early 60s this isn't 50 I see 55 55 56 so they they would let guys like me play at the very end and we listen to all you know the good players hats you know the top players or whatever they were I use I thought they were and then you start to pick up things pick up sounds and and you get up and of course you play the blues you play the blues and b-flat now we still do that I guess and you're playing and everything is cool because it would be flat it you know to b-flat is cool you know that works so you play the out of the b-flat you can play the you know every possible from I can't my vocabulary's going permutation on the DS like wait a minute did so did you know more than one b-flat on the saxophone deuce world or just block this key yeah I mean you just play you wants in rhythmic things and then you get to the fifth bar something changes and you can't play the d-natural anymore and so I used to do a class and I do the one noted at a time experiment I have a either with the rhythm session without and I just play one chorus just one note next course I had a note and so and so and so on so and then it gets boring so you kind of start playing but actually a couple I ran into a couple people with and who actually witnessed my little class in there they said it was very important to them because you know like you can hear Sonny Rollins could do it feel are you smart to do it you know don't take it easy I didn't think it could be due to both so you learn you learn to do a lot with very little so all of a sudden you're like conscious of the rhythmic reality the sound reality and as your vocabulary grows one note at a time and you start to move on but every note that you learn is your note there's no one no one gave it to you and like so you you cherish that note every little passing note that you discover is as yours it might be the most mundane thing ever done but it belongs you do D mu D mu D D D D D whatever that is I thought that was great I did I discovered it myself so my musical education was a lot of trial and error and baptism by fire mm-hmm baptism by fire well it's it's interesting because and then when you get you know more information then you can start experimenting and you start to think of different ways to play different harmonic relationships or whatever but the fundamental thing you never leave it's like it's stay from when I was 15 or 16 it's still it's the same at what point did you think that this was going to be your career career oh it's interesting I never actually I okay we all start out we thought we think maybe we're gonna be the next Charlie Parker surely you realize that it's not gonna happen so then I so I decided to maybe think along the lines of being of functioning player read player for want of a better word a utility player something like that lending lending your services flair so I you know I started to play the clarinet and and then like after a short time I realized this everybody felt like me there wouldn't be any players there wasn't you know you know nobody's gonna play like bird so like or with that level so it's a stupid it's a stupid way of thinking about things I saw it and I've got to realize that okay the next thing is to find out who you are and create your own personal way of fighting and that's about all you can do so that was so I gave up the idea of you know doing that kind of other commercial world I did do it later on but you were thinking of playing in big bands or Broadway those types of things I was thinking of maybe I could you know I didn't know what I was thinking maybe some kind of studio work or whatever whatever that was I figured I like at least make a living but I got rid of that really quickly and I just said okay so I went through you know influences I started listening to Sonny Rollins and then Coltrane came on the scene and I was I became a Coltrane Cologne believe it or not and then I thought I had this revelation I said I thought I was pretty good actually I heard some stuff actually came pretty close sound wise and stuff and I said there's something wrong with this Here I am I get on the stage and I'm pretending to be someone else and then I heard a lot of other you know white tenor players trying to play like train and I said he sound really bad and I said well maybe I sound that bad too so then I had a I had a had to find another way out of this so there was a trombone player who had a record collection and he invited me to his house and he played me all the great tenor players and he he played Lester I never really heard Lester I never heard anybody except too few players and I said wow that's perfect I mean Lester youngest Mozart and he was the youngest perfection for a classic Lester then he played Ben Webster wow what a passion what a sound then played on bias I never heard anybody play the saxophone like down by his tenor saxophone he could play he could execute with a big sound that's very hard to do and it was just great sex when he played all these guys and got the Hawkins and Hawking I couldn't get Hawkins Hawkins was too hard for me it was like the time field was different the sound was different harmony was too complicated and so years later like a light bulb went off as well caucus that's that's that's the key to everything that's the root for everything so I I had it in you know like it was in the back of my head so from that point I try to absorb through like some kind of osmosis all the great players that I heard how to bury and all these guys and rather than just be like transcribing so I tried to absorb the essence of what the spirit was like a spirit of prayer that buoyancy I've been Webster's tragic tragedy and and by his you know virtuoso all this stuff and so I started to evolve in the certain way I was kind of in transition and then when I would go to here Sunday Rollins who was you know my hero I could hear that he did the same thing I could hear all the elements that he that were part of his his cup his concept oh that's Prez that saw against it so that that reinforced my idea about how to find your voice pepper Adam just say to copy one or two players it's plagiarism if you copy a lot of players it's research so I mean it's kind of like what he wasn't so far off but that's I think it's very important for young players to you know you know when you're young you easily latch on to one person you know one or two people that you really like but a certain point research is really the key so you don't want to go out being a second-rate something no matter how good you get like all the guys that can execute better than Coltrane it's not the same and all the guys that especially can execute you know Sonny right first I won't mention a name somebody sound exactly like Sonny Rollins but there's something missing and you can't you can't be better than the original I got into an argument somebody about that that's another story but you can't you can't be better than the original you can I mean you can be technically better but you can't the essence is not the same so I mean it's very important to to do a lot of research and I go out and I play usually when I play I usually do something like I'll do something that tribute to Hawkins because nobody talks about Coleman Hawkins because it's like nowadays they think that the tenor saxman started with Michael Brecker or Coltrane was an old guy you know like so but but Hawkins is the key to everything Caulkins is our I guess our Louis Armstrong put an intellectual Lewis Austral so did you have a chance to meet any of these masters I'm had well I did I met Coleman Hawkins he wasn't long before he died I shouldn't tell you this story because it'll be a headline I learned a lot of times I'll do an interview and I'll say something I said oh I shouldn't have said that because that's gonna be the whole thing I have a couple I won't mention them I could mention it in here I guess it's cool one was one of my classmates and was Frankie Avalon know a few its before everybody Stein he was a teenage idol and he had a band and he said I'm gonna start a big band and I need a tenor player said okay man two more weeks I'll be cool so that became a headline but anyway what was I talking about I don't think my jet lag is creepy noticed on the Hawkins Colin walking so Zoot Zoot Sims who was really for some reason was very nice to me and you know he we became almost like older brother figure alcohol would be the father figure but he would be more because he was he had a very young spirit and he had a problem at home and he he was hanging out at German Andes he was staying there and he was there for a few nights and we're hanging out he's just come with me man so we went if you went to visit Hawkins Hawkins is like a father figure to him although everybody talks about Zoo you know being from Leicester which he was but there was a relationship and respect and Hawkins was at that point he was probably 62 or I'm not good with he was probably I think he died at sixty four or five he have a beard at that time well he had a beard and he had he was wearing like a bathrobe it was real skinny he didn't he wouldn't eat he was just drinking anyway I was kind of big in those I was bigger in those days than I am now and I he sat down on the sofa and it broke like the legs just gate they just gave way no that's that's kind of embarrassing and like he was so cool he was so cool he said oh man major Holly was their bass player he was a really big guy and Hawk said you all in his name was his nickname was a mule sure fault your fat asses on that couch too long too many times and I guess I'm gonna have to get it there he he was cool man he took the heat off me another another interesting thing that I remember was major Holly saw two checks on the dresser which is dusty and two uncashed checks from the Vanguard and he said hey hey bean what happened you didn't cash these checks you know when you've been there for two years just well max had a couple bad week so I just didn't cash in think about that you know I mean that's that that shows you a mutual respect that existed in the in the quote unquote jazz business if there is anything such as a jazz business well I'm glad you're talking like this because you know if somebody else was saying I met Coleman Hawkins and I said let's talk about your 1939 body you know and it's like that's that's likely never what people want to talk about to tell you the truth I was like really like I was like I don't know I didn't know what to think I just being in his presence and listening to - he and zu interact you know and they needed him like Stan gasps but that's not a secret anyway so that that's someone that's how I met Hawkins unfortunate unfortunately I didn't have enough really good questions I wasn't a lot of my experiences in my early days in New York I feel kind of weird about like I had great opportunities and my first night in New York I played Philly Joe's but was a drummer and it was jam session I I for I would force myself as something else to think about I would force myself to go to jam sessions and sit in because I knew it was important my tendency would be not to do that but I figured I had to do that and one day I I sat in with Elvin Jones Joe Farrell wasn't tender player at that time and know he liked me and so Joe would send me in when he couldn't do the games and then he started sending me and on other things like dad and Mel span and our jingle day because he knew I played the flute so we said be on a jingle day and it was like but I always felt like when I play with album quite a bit but I always thought well I wish I was just a little bit better you know I wish I could you know III had only been playing saxophone for ten years basically and I he'd get so intense and like I couldn't execute at that intensity and I just like scream I would just like just go totally got ice I played a little out music and - I just freaked out but it was a great experience and I one night I showed up and Wilbur where was playing Biggs and I said oh my god that's that's the you know that's that's Sonny Rollins and the Village Vanguard and and it was so amazing I was kind of insecure because I just got this song I just bought this car from Eddie Daniels balanced action tenor was all green and stuff and I wasn't used to it so anyway I got up on the bass and I started to play and every note that I played would were made it sound great he was a total genius like he didn't know anything about music you know from the technical point of view but play a note - nobody played under the other it was perfect man I can do anything I'm cool I mean I'm off to War II and Elvin school the only thing you had to worry about Elvin was oh if you played fours or aged you know am i right am i coming in or C right or am I wrong you know I used to space the wait for the hit but but those are great experiences that kind of ruin you because later you kind of miss it and but then I just I just wish I was like just a little bit more experience a more a bit better player to take more advantage of it but years and years I later I played with him and I was better and it was really you know he was great player but I was very fortunate to I played with some great drummers I played a lot with Billy Higgins and Shelley man Mickey Roker those those are my guys so here I am in New York but not new gigs and I practice all day I would start out I practice the flute first all I practice I learned how a basic I lung how to play the flute by listening to records and not not jazz workers I wasn't a fan of just food I would listen to all the guys that I thought really great I listened to Julius Baker Ron Paul there was a guy in Connecticut Tom and I finger I would buy these records just to hear his little solos like contemporary classical music records and so I was listening and I would practice for a long time and then I pick up the tenor practice for a long time in fact Gary Bart's moved into my but the building that I was in and he said you made me feel guilty because you're always practicing so I practice like you know I do to try and you know work in my sound working on some inner walls working on changes and after a while I just at the end of this long RG was practiced yeah I had a little closet I go into the closet and then totally freak out for about 15 minutes ago Knutson and like which was a which is really great I encourage people to do that because accidental music becomes it's not so accidental you can actually control that crazy you know and like and like it sometimes there's a need to just scream you know and so that was my my daily routine and it was cool I managed to survive somehow without working very much but you have odd jobs well what I did I did get one job I knew what guy in the army who had a band in the Catskill Mountains place called Gilbert's and I said I could work there on a weekend and I make enough money to get by for for the week and then I got my big job I got a gig for five dollars a night at a club called the La Boheme and I got offered the gig and the piano was terrible and the owner played the piano terribly so I said I'll do the gig but no piano and had a great drummer Jimmy lovely she was killing in those days but I had to find a bass player for five bucks a night and six six nights a week that's thirty dollars and thirty dollars a week man that's not too cool but it was great played every night and I mean imagine being able to play six nights a week like for like from 10:00 to 4:00 whatever it is what was it a bar who you're playing background music it wasn't no it knows it was a believe it or not I mean I play there I played it with Alvin I play there was do Pearson and I got actually got paid you know but when I was leader only made five books a night when I was a sideman I made twenty so shows you the reality of this business like a lot of us go on the road like we bring I think Dave probably knows about this I can go you go on the road and you have your own bed and you you you make less than the guys in your banner sometimes you lose money and that's that's the way it is you go in as a side person and you know you get you get paid so it's cool but it's weighted our businesses sometimes you sacrifice money for music and so I play I would play there and when I run out of money here's where my old idea comes in I would do subs and Broadway show like Frank West might send me in somebody I do a few nights and I would say I would send Dave they leave him was my sub at this club and so that's how I managed to do it for a long time and that was important period around 1927 I think saw the chance under I at that point I was believe it or not I was playing with four or five big bands and I never played in big bands I played in Clark Harry's van I played in two Pierce's van that was my main band and Chuck Israel's had a banjo Henderson's band I was a major sub instead of Mel's van so I mean I'm playing in big bands and I can't understand why I'm playing in all these big bands and I'm not even a I'm not a great reader or anything in those days I don't know there was a stereotype reality like if you were white you could read if you were black you could play jazz so I mean that's that's the way it worked so what kind of work was there for big bands in those days well those those gigs are like okay door gigs I played with Joe Henderson for five bucks a night every big band the Big Bang or to Pierson we play play it to whoever we played we do a little better but a lot of times we most of the times we played from the door and that's that's what happens what now that Amell started the thing where they actually got a guarantee so that was probably the beginning of you know for these are you know bands are put together for music and that's I did go on the road once I I did go on a road trip with less L guard for two weeks it was my first experience doing that it and it's quite interesting the good thing about it is he hated the singer so I would be like the singer I would play like he said want you know go play a song with the rhythm section mmm I had to play something like like misty or something but it was like I got to play a little bit so it wasn't a total total loss but it was a it was an interesting experience so I could write a book about that one hey let's go back to Zoot Sims for a minute okay please Zook read music mm-hmm did zip read he could read you didn't like to I don't know how well he read he didn't read changes he hears somebody clapping my classic saying I'm I hadn't been in New York very long hanging Jim and Andy's was the center of everything maybe you should can explain that far but there's a bar in New York or Jim Anandi's and only musicians are people involved with musicians would go there and I mean it was it was a great thing it was like a form of socialism like young guys are would come in now I have any money they run up a tab sometimes they'd skip they skip it and then so Jim had this system where the guys that were successful he would pad their tabs you know so one guy decay for saxophone player he said Jim man I I've been keeping track of what I've been drinking and you know you're overcharging me he says well man you know somebody's got to pay for for the guys that skip out so I thought that was it was accepted but it was a great place it was it was a like a family thing and so one night I was there hanging out and Zoot was drinking he's he's having a good time and he's just he says hey man Clark is rehearsing Ben I don't feel like doing it want you to make it so I did it it was Clark Terry's all-star band Saxon section was Phil woods Frank West Dandy Bank the other guy was an alto player and it was Bobby Donovan and I don't think he was that famous but anyway he had the geek so I I'm doing it and it was great sitting next to Danny back because yeah you know a classic on a Harry Carney baritone sound and I'm playing a peashooter Meyer mouthpiece you know my six with a three and a half reed which was so anyway I had to temper my sound so anyway next I made sure I was at the same place same time following week same thing happened I said about four or five weeks Phil said I don't think zoom wants to do this you know so you've been rehearsing you may as well do it but that was an interesting experience because I was like in the middle of not knowing where where I was what I was trying to do us I gotta call training or playing out and whatever I did when I played it it didn't fit I felt like I was imposing myself on the music and I said there's something wrong with this picture and then I would I decided to listen to Clark play I said and I I would try to come out of Clark spirit that he that he projected I I felt I I ran it to I want to a gig once at Cataldo and it was a not going to mention a name a well-known tenor player and he's failing this ensemble and straight ahead he gets up the plane he just totally just totally like destroys the music so we went on after they say man you know you can't do that that's you have to come out of the music you can like maybe by the third course you might take it some other place but you just can't it's not natural it's not right to just impose your so here I am and forget about everything else I tried to convey to my listen to him I don't know if it paid off it but it was very helpful to me to finally realize that wait a minute you know what am I trying to do you know what am I trying to prove that goes back to the old thing of trying to beat an exterior would be the next great innovator whatever it was so that was it didn't work and he's a either level but it but coming out of that experiences was really it was really important and I learned a lot from that so I was a the only non all-star and Clark Terry's all-star band but it was cool I got I got some recognition well can you tell me any musicians that you've interacted with that actually gave you musical direction hmm a good question I remember once hearing you talk somewhere and I don't know this is true what you're saying you were gonna go hang out with Sonny take a lesson with Sonny no and I never did that I mean I I used to talk to people nice to hang out with Joe Farrell who didn't usually talk to people he was not a social guy but some reason he liked me so we go out hang out talk about stuff and he was like talking about always looking looking you know to the future and I was saying I always I said I'd like to develop on parallel motion you know I'd like to to try to stretch but also develop you know the tradition and understand the tradition at the same time you you know anyway we go out and someplace I always have my horn and he was always he said I want you to go play with that guy so I one night I was playing and he sends me he says watch the place I go up in and I'm playing I looked up and there's Sonny Rollins is there I said I knew he had set me up for that one and like one thing you learn in those days in New York is that first thing you never know who's going to come into a club it wasn't so formal as it is now it was a lot of more interaction and clothes like played the vanguard anybody could show up at the vanguard wherever you played so it forces you to try to be personal as you can because you don't want to be playing as somebody else's and they come in and it's kind of embarrassing and then also you have to you have to say I just you have to play really play like it's the last time you're going to play like you have to really play really it's important to really play great and so so New York in those days when you came to New York it was a great conservatory you you make more develop you develop more in like three or four months in New York that you're doing two years anyplace else because you're forced into these situations and you know so interactions my interactions were informal interactions I'm not a good student so I always felt like I it was really my shortcoming I always had to try to do it myself and so trauma trial in every person even till this day so then you just realized you're doing something wrong you know but if you've figured out on your own also but my interactions I interact with a lot of people but and more of a you know conversation over communication with the basis well I mean I think we would do a disservice here if we didn't talk about your flute playing the tenor playing alone world class but flute playing is I think you're a unique entity in the world and and you were saying they were interested in the more classical guys of the class of legit tone to a baker Rampal but did you ever interact with Herbie Mann or so most or rollin Herc well that's quite a it's an array well I mean like I did do a couple gives us hurry man I mean he was more of a personality you know right flute player I never thought of most a really a flute player ever you know who else did you mention Sam Moses him Sam Moses I you know I I did interact with him a bit he was really special Sam Moses I mean he could he you know he his bebop vocabulary was incredible he didn't you know he he wasn't a sound guy we should call him almost you can almost hear him but he could he could really execute he was great he wrote a book he asked me to try to proofread it kind of went oh it was so hard man he he was great an under-recognized player who was just like there's have Frank West's maybe in Jeremy's tie well Frank West was the I guess it was quintessential if that's the right word jazz flute player because he had instrumental integrity most of his Jess who first didn't and so he played the instrument wall and he played with a lot of dignity and now he was great so he was probably the ultimate I mean you were losses of the best I mean technically it's the best but it's from a pure jazz point of view Frank West is the guy I mean there are all different things like a moody foody's arch equals articulation you know a lot of articulation he said say man I I need some residents I can't get residents but he didn't have residents but he had articulation and the microphone so those guys were you know cool one but I like isolating you know I simply like quasi simply just sort of irritate me and when I started to get into learning the instrument I had one good teacher and forced a listen a year and when I went to see him I couldn't play at all I'm I just playing the tenor and would he care and he showed me some very fundamental things about overtone series how to use the jaw out like concept was every note is a slightly different embouchure so these basic fundamental things I started to work on on my own and then listening to sounds that I really liked and I pasted chuck is used to write stuff for me and so I would do like more like French impressionistic over it instead of instead of Bebop you know and so that's what I that's what I started to do I did if I did a TV and did you know Harvey estrin the name he was like great you know the number one doublet he was fantastic his wife was Trudy cane it was a principal flute player at the Met but he got me a gig when a TV cops-and-robbers show this is this is like way back in in the sixties late 60s and I had I had to improvise you know I think dick Kahneman was playing the piano he was playing like we'll play some out stuff you know so I improvise for about eight minutes and they all got all excited although he sound like Julius Baker like you know like playing improvising issue but the dumb thing about it is composer took a lot of this stuff and he'd use it throughout the whole series I'd only get paid once so sometimes you shouldn't get too carried away with having fun on a date but now recorded regarding jazz flute one of my favorite recording Seaview is is on the rights of pan where you're playing bebop Obie book yeah yeah yeah I decided that yeah I decided to do that something really fast attend be about the steaming Bebop you know what I said I'm trying to plate as fast as I could play it yeah I did you know I I do go once in a while but it my heart is not in it my heart is in you know trying to play from the sound like that that was my first and only all flute album and if I might you know not being hold but I think that was an important record because no one was doing stuff like that in those days you know like I was trying to expand stuff a little bit I did like a log improvisation with Shelly man just I just had turned the lights out we didn't say a word you just start to play and we play for about six minutes and a minutes I don't know and I was trying to stretch the sonic boundaries of I didn't wanted everybody's playing wimpy you know what he plays with everybody used the microphone is the main thing and I said you know that you don't have a flute doesn't have to be a you know this delicate little thing you can take it and I I didn't like I'm one of two guys that didn't like Eric Dolphy you know who was inspired a lot of people but I just hard to listen to but he had some great ideas I was hard to listen to but I tried to and my way to try to expand the stuff a little bit so and I got better at it now with your connection with Toshiko did that lead because I hear some sometimes some shakuhachi maybe well I can tell you the story behind that she wrote she wrote this piece golf Colgan was about the soldier that was was a reconnaissance guy he during a during a war Second World War he he was in the Philippines in the jungles he was supposed to disco Japanese guys hope everything else I wanted on the victorious Japanese army Canada everything was cool but he he was there for 30 years and he didn't know the woman had they lost the war after war was over and his name lieutenant Oh nada anyway she wrote this tune about him now it's like she writes this tune is gotta come amodal doing it so she plays like straight ahead and Satoshi oh I don't really want to do that you know I I want to try to tell the story you know that's why I can and I didn't have a lot of information about shakuhachi music and stuff but I listened a little bit and I try to play in the spirit of that and then eventually that one thing led to another and I started to really expand on it and make it a like an important part of my expression I did Zend stuff and now I'm doing those stuff and you know you know I just the beauty of it is when it's really right is like she can he can like start playing like the low E and he can play just one note and change the nuance the intensity pitch and if you keep on playing that one note you can actually can hypnotize yourself and if everybody's if you're really if the audience are the people you're playing for really into it you can you can go into another space and you start playing you don't know what you're playing that's the ultimate it doesn't happen that often but it's the ultimate I started to get into quasi Zen reality and first time the band went to Japan in 1976 I think it was we played we played man we were really hot we you know we packed concert halls 3000 people first concert they wouldn't let us off the stage we had to play everything on the book so I'm playing I'm playing my Cogan long Cogan solo and I say well maybe maybe these people will hate it maybe they think I'm Jeff you know and maybe you know invading their culture or something but they everybody really was into it and they said oh you you have a Japanese soul on bah bah bah so I I was encouraging to the stake I'm doing the same but I'm trying to do it better you know I'm like trying to be more expressive if I can but that that's how they the Asian thing happened and that so I and those days I was kind of like saw it one way I was doing French Impressionists exert an iWatch II stuff so it was another duality so I guess I'm a natural schizophrenic but in a sense you've learned something from the experiences of not of going into a club and seeing some guy copying Coltrane or copying this and that and you found your own direction that that's see that's I think that's you know if I can give any advice for whatever it means that if you can develop a personal approach to playing and then like I've had some kind of protégées and then I go to hear them play and they sound like their money tenor players you know like a market style I said come on man like your styles change but but our artistic approach doesn't change so you you find your voice and your voice is strong enough people want you you're a lot of jokes about that you know get me Dave Sanborn who who's Dave Sanborn and then it gets to get me somebody sounds like the you so long sampling and who's Dave sample I mean that's so it's it's kind of a ephemeral and the most important the most important thing you can do was find your voice and it's a great compliment so so I can I can tell I can tell it's you after through a couple modes I can tell us you I don't know if that's good or bad could be for bad reasons but but anyway that that that's the greatest thing you can do is to have your own your own thing and you get up and play and it's you and sound I have people that come today they they want to take a lesson and they basically want to talk about Salim and and anyway it's I think it's very important sound I think it's the most important thing is like if you really have a tonal pilot a tonal palate or talk loud michael has she came up with his term about Ben Meister tonal virtuosity so it's important everybody plays a lot of notes I mean it's not I haven't heard one young guy that doesn't can't play a million notes I mean it's just like a part of the thing but if you're in a situation that okay I remember playing in bands like and be a bunch of trumpet purse they're all like playing tons of notes and looking young we'll play one beautiful note and have this little kind of nuance at the end this little Royal just kind of quiver and do one sort of you want to call it nobody remembered anything to use of the guy's flame so to learn to play to express a lot with less I'm I was saying at Birdland about six years ago and a quartet and I'm playing an introduction and I'm playing like I want up on a middle D on the tenor I just felt like I really wanted to put everything I had into that one note and and it was really weird I started to feel energy come coming from the audience of coming and becoming a part of that note and it's it's kind of weird but things like that happen and it's possible to really express a lot through one note and you know I used to hear Sonny Stitt and Jean Hammonds and Sonny Stitt that's great I mean and then GM's would play a couple of notes and everybody would go like that so and we think about sound think about and personal the Coleman Hawkins says listen listen to yourself on your play and when I was young I I'm listening to Sonny Rollins and going to gig I would play - he's ridiculously long solos I mean really I didn't know any different but but what I what I would do is I would force myself to create an out-of-body experience so I would I would be listening to myself play and I'd be poured back you know it's it boy that was stupid what you did on the third chorus man that was really dumb and why did you do that and I was all I was always aware of development like different creating different intensity try to utilize kind of what he could play a phrase I maybe three but three courses later you there's a classical term for that but my jet lag is kicking in but anyway there's a lot of things to think about and to trying to play in a personal way finally fine to find your own way I mean I guess it's a again research and then the ultimate goal is this fine Who am I unfortunately I'd say this but it seems that it takes to you're about 44 that they're really happy because i-i've talking about zoom I was hanging out with him and a half of voting that he was playing and he came off the bass in and he said Han I finally feel confident when I'm on the bass then serious he's playing great for a million years and and I started to think about it he was around 40 and at that time and then I was playing a nice one time and Jimmy he came over to me say man you're something happened maybe your sound for an early much richer and but you're 40 now I started to think about it maybe that's the magic I mean there are some geniuses of course that you know or would not you know are lucky enough to have it happen a lot early but I think most people takes a long time to finally reach the point where you accept your idiosyncrasy you accept the nuance that you've been trying to get rid of all those years the thing that comes out at the end of the note you really you really didn't like it now you get to cherish it because another thing that no one talks about is ending nodes like again the end of your note is your signature like a hero or painter that's your signature so the nuance at the end of the note is really important so that gets back to the air make sure you have enough air to finish the phrase I mentioned that to Frank West once he said I said you know some guys you know they play really great and they ruin it when they do once at the end is really bad he said yeah that's why I cut the note short I said well that was hopefully that was a sense of humor but you know there's there are a lot of things that you know you can think about and again the ultimate thing is to I look at it this way when I was a kid I was in teenager was existential philosophy and one of the things I got out of it was that the concept of in becoming you never you're never a saxophone player you're becoming this excellent player and there musician you've become a musician never a doctor practicing medicine so you're practicing so no matter how old you get you're still in the in becoming stage so although it gets harder but you still and you still try to think of yourself as a work in progress so that keeps you keeps you young and keeps you honest and keeps you from being arrogant and you know and never everybody's an artist recording artists I'm an artist it's an arrogant term you're becoming that you're trying to become an artist and so if that means if that means anything I think it's important well I think you've covered everything tonight but let me just say this if there's if there's any usually in these interviews by saying is there any words of advice because everybody here is in the process of becoming like you were yeah I am I am so you are so what do you have any any final words of wisdom for these young folks well that I mean that's that's pretty much sums it up but I mean keep on playing I had a high school teacher he said his his philosophy was you can't learn to swim on a piano stool but see he was trying to learn how to swim and someone put him on a piano school and you know going through the physical motions of swimming it doesn't work so I think it's like you know just play all the time and play with other people and I had him I was very lucky I keep on these stories keep on opening up I mean I got a gig with us when I was 26 with the Cab Calloway reunion band now think of that Cab Calloway reunion band Utah you know 1930s and 40s I wasn't even born and I'm there somebody is either a joke or if somebody had a some kind of a weird sense of humor and I show up and Here I am and I met some great guys it was one of my great experiences and one of the guys in the band was Eddie Barefield who was an important figure in jazz music and you can say yeah man we go on the road and we go and go to some joint we play we didn't have to have algorithms whole rhythm section it might be two horns it might be whatever we had we played with it and so they were pretty they're more hip than we are now everybody has to have a rhythm section oh we had would we get where's the drummer where's the bass player where's the piano player so point important to just keep on playing and communicate communication is it's listen to the rhythm section and rhythm sections listen to the horn nowadays guys played that there's so practice so much that doesn't matter who the rhythm section is they play the same way and because they're there they're locked in to that thing and that's that's an T music you have to learn to play with different people and to you don't change anything but you you in other words the style that you develop can encompass a lot I don't I can get off on another tangent but if it's it's like all right that's what I told you because she starts thinking thinking about things and anyway but just play a lot and and always and don't don't just play for getting a lot of applause I think a lot of the families are responsible for this if you go to here a school college van or whatever high school bat some kid will get up and just do you know a lot of stupid things and just for the audience so the audience sort of the audience will go nuts and and the band erect the band director is taking credit for it might hear my guy the band director shoot he has to be on topics you know play something you can play music if you can play three beautiful notes it's better than playing a thousand notes you know so I think integrity learn integrity at a young age practice like mad when we go out to play you don't have to play what you practiced and that's that's something else to think about there were some remember when the Oliver Nelson book came out patterns and pattern for jazz there are some well-known players are playing it I won't mention names either they started playing it playing that so what is that that's for practice it's not for performance so separate separate practice from performance in certain ways anyway so I think that's I think I'll be here all night if we actually next time we do it we get up we get a bottle of wine and then we talk about two or three hours and and then we would copy something but you did you just let me ramble on minitor cool that's I've got this oh boy somebody told me you saw one of your interviews he's very impressed you've interviewed Jimmy Cobb and he's talking about I have to check it out he was talking about why Miles fired Hank Mobley is that ring a bell about that he thought that he made the rhythm section place law behind that's kind of interesting you know I never would think about that I always thought it was the fact that it was a gay after Coltrane the balance of you know wasn't quite right intense he was exactly so great but I figured there is no section would just do their thing you know but I guess so that was interesting he was really impressed by he never heard that before I put you probably didn't either hmm no well I think we've heard some things tonight that we've never heard okay anyway see you Skype rings out stuff man he's you're lucky that what is your position though now you don't want to know okay there's a Europe is it exposition yeah extras all right Aelita back of everybody thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: NYU Steinhardt Jazz Studies

Views: 1,059

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Dave Schroeder, Dr. David Schroeder, NYU Jazz Studies, NYU, New York University, Lew Tabackin, Jazz Saxophone, Jazz Flute, Combo Nuvo

Id: ucoqdJNtLIc

Length: 65min 34sec (3934 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 07 2020