“The Beginnings”
By David Liebman

I wasn’t enough of a player to make a living playing jazz so when I got out of college finishing with a degree in American history I taught public school When I got hired by “Ten Wheel Drive” there was a weekly salary so I stopped teaching. I was the main soloist which meant I did improvise a bit. Part of the horn band premise was that there was going to be at least some improvised solos. It was the beginning of fusion, meaning you had a rock beat with an improvised solo over it. That gig led into another band which eventually got signed to Motown. I believe “Sawbuck”…the band name) was the first white band on Motown.

At the same time Elvin Jones hired me and I moved back into jazz. This was my path, from free jazz to a back beat to Elvin Jones and then Miles Davis which went back to the backbeat because of the style (“On the Corner”) in the 70s. I got lucky!!

“Specifically Healing”
By Dave Liebman

I am (we are) fortunate to have the music; without it I don’t know what I’d do. Music is a healing force; it’s obvious that it’s coming from another source beyond the material world. From Mozart to Jimi Hendrix to Coltrane,etc.,it’s all coming from outside of our physical being. 

Improvised music is specifically healing because it’s in the moment combined with the vibe that is being felt at that time between you and your audience and the musicians. Even if you don’t have an audience you have a vibe. We’re very fortunate, those of us who play this music and do it for a living and are recognized enough to be able to continue. We’re very, very fortunate to live a life like that. You’re kind of a medicine man; it’s shamanism to me. In the end that’s what it is, that’s what we do.

“Not Quite The Same”
By Dave Liebman

I think a jazz education is like a really good liberal arts education,, except about music. But the present reality and practicality of a jazz degree is not right, like a young person accumulating $200,000 in debt? On my side we’re living, being able to teach. This hypocrisy, if that’s what you want to call it, is very upsetting if you think about it the way we’re talking. You’re not going to put your money in that style (jazz). Jazz has an incredible history…a living history with some of the original masters still around!! On the other hand, how are you going to do it if you’re going to play for the door?  You can’t ignore what’s going on when the reality of playing for the door is obvious.

Our loft jam sessions in the late 60s and early 70s were the equivalent of guys showing up for an ensemble at Arizona State at 3pm. OK…not quite the same atmosphere, nor “accoutrements,” but it’s guys playing in a situation where somebody brings in music to play and so on. We were very enamored by Coltrane’s “Ascension” and “Interstellar Space” that affected us and inspired the free jazz a lot of us began with before learning bebop,etc. I’m talking late Trane, Cecil Taylor, Ornette and others. 

“Who You Are”
By David Liebman

If you’re on the bandstand and you’re a good student (which I am), you’re going to be observing everything that’s happening…. physically, mentally, spiritually, and of course musically. 

You go to those who have experience, that have been there before you, are senior to you, and hopefully they’ll be generous enough to share their experience and their knowledge. 

When you watch somebody play, you say, ‘I need to do that.” That is the message of the day.

I knew I was in a special honored and fortunate position to be on the stage with these people. Everything they did…I watched and imitated. Without verbal guidance, it would be more “look at the way he played that. Look at the way he did that. Look at how he said that. What tune did he call? Why’d he call that?” I tried to follow everything I could from them because I knew this was knowledge that was never going to happen again for me. 

Then you go back and think about it. I believe part of the forming of your own personality is the way you hear something because the way you hear it may not be the way the guy said it. You might be hearing it in your particular peculiar way, which in the end, becomes who you are.

Pete La Roca was a drummer in the 60’s who was my first mentor from an older guy. He eventually quit the business and became a lawyer. Over the years, I played with him on different occasions. He was quite influential on my life….my first real heavy gig at 23 years old.

“Past The Point”
By David Liebman

Miles (Davis) told me one time: “Stop before you’re done.” He always left a lot of space and let the rhythm section conclude what was being said or even better instigate the next statement. 

In order for that to happen you have to leave space in the music. You literally have to stop playing. His statement was hinting at the fact that you probably were past the point of having finished what you played but kept going….something like that. It becomes unnecessary to add more. Plus it opens the rhythm section up so that they now have a little space and maybe can do something that you can jump on. I think that’s what he meant by that, but it took a minute to understand it. 

I found that if you do leave a little space, if you drop the last few bars of a chorus, if it’s a tune that has a form and let the rhythm section do something, they will inevitably say to themselves: “Oh, he wants me to do something! “

“The Next Forty Years”
By Dave Liebman

I had many mentors, mainly Pete La Roca, Elvin Jones and, of course, Miles (Davis). They each had their own particular way of doing things both on and off the bandstand…real individualists which is a pretty good way to discuss jazz musicians as people. Pete was quite an intellectual and very smart. He could explain things to you in detail. Elvin was not that verbal about the music itself, but he was an amazingly beautiful person and of course player. Miles said hardly anything. You kind of had to decipher the code. It was a subculture; the jazz world was unique, mostly African American till the seventies. You were entering a whole other way of thinking, certainly speaking and of course making a living. There was a lot to be gleaned just from innuendo and nuance and your imagination. I think those guys were all kind of zen-like.

I have my quotations from each of these masters that I use for teaching. I’ll say: ‘This is what I thought of that then, and this is what I think of it now.” They didn’t say: ‘Play that, play this.” They said: “Play like I do or watch me.”

There’s nothing like living the process of on-the-spot, in the moment learning…. there’s nothing like that. Even listening to a record is remote until you’re on the stage in the heat of the battle. Each of these gentlemen (and others too numerous to list) gave me words of different depths. I’d take that home and think: “What did he really mean by that?” You didn’t go back to ask these guys; this was not the scene. You said “thank you” and thought about for the next forty years!!”

“Pre-Bop”
By Dave Liebman

We have to play to make points. In the end whatever we teach or say is secondary to the process of being on the stage with somebody who is more experienced. When they get on stage, they start to feel the timing, the drama/storytelling, inflection, attitude – all the stuff you really can’t teach. Until the student actually gets on stage with musicians of another generation, they’re not really going to get it. 

These days with the masters being pretty much gone, most of the young musicians play with other young musicians. That has its advantages and disadvantages. Experience, of course, is lacking in that respect. 

Accessing the source of the music was not as easy coming up on my time as it is now. Today you can press a button and have a history of music in front of us on a phone. I was not familiar with pre-bop at all. Lenny Tristano, who I studied with for one year, made me sing Lester Young solos from famous Count Basie recordings from the late 30’s. That was my first formal introduction to pre-bop. In those days, if you didn’t have somebody laying it on you, you didn’t really get it because there was no formal teaching. You got it by hit and miss. Someone would say: “Hey did you hear this Duke Ellington record (“Jungle Music”)? You ought to check it out.” It’s a process and it’s beautiful!!