Dave Liebman Interview March 16, 2020 with Stuart Nicholson for Jazz Wise:
Q: Can you talk about the thoughts behind Earth that took you into what seems new musical ground to explore?
DL: Between 1997 and 2020 I made this series of four records celebrating the elements that we live in — water, earth, fire and air — each one intended to be suite-like, using different musicians and different instrumentations. Earth is the final work in this series. I’ve always been attracted to programmatic music, in other words a story line. If I think of a volcano I hear something, be it a rhythm, a melody, maybe a texture, etc. If I think of the wind that goes across the desert I hear it right away, again something I can use musically. Basically, these are pictures that come into my imagination evoking the forces surrounding us on the planet. (Of course now, the state of affairs today encompasses more than just observing it due to global warming, etc….a cause celebre.
Q: Yes, but what I was getting at is that you’re moving into musical territory you’ve not done much with in the past, improvising with textures, dealing with ambience and so on. It was not so much completing the suite which took you into that musical territory, because each of the four albums on the elements are quite singular, but this is quite different.
DL: Yes it is. From a musical standpoint, each one of the four albums involved a different attitude, as well as content and ambience. Earth centers on texture, color, timbre, as you pointed to, which is a result of the content but also with an emphasis on the sax and keyboard synthesizers. Air involved a computer genius, Walter Quintus, who took what I played and sonically manipulated it. The first album, Water with Pat Metheny, Billy Hart, and Cecil McBee was suite-like using some musical element of the opening theme for each of the ensuing compositions. Fire with Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland and Kenny Werner was the loosest of the four recordings, using mostly texture to achieve the results. And yes, each recording from a musical and programmatic standpoint is quite different. I tried to get inside the four elements and imagine what ‘The Sahara’ would sound like. For example there was one track titled the ‘Baptismal Font’ on the Metheny recording representing the element of water being used for religious purposes, and so on.
Q: Turing to the compositions on the new recording, as you indicate all the melodies are comprised of interval sets in service of melody. Did you feel limited by noting that for example “Concrete Jungle” was based on fifths and fourths in both the songwriting and improvisational aspects?
DL: I wrote a book about thirty years ago on my chromatic approach. There is of course a whole section concerning the use of intervals and this way of playing. Actually, composing and improvising intervallically is a good limitation because it challenges me: ‘How am I going to use those intervals for this particular sound.’ For example if I use seconds and thirds I get a much smoother palette than if I use sevenths and ninths, which are more pointillistic. The choice of the interval sets up a colour which I try to be obedient to for the sake of unity.
Q: But not necessarily just fourths and fifths….there’s passing tones too in the construction of the melodies?
DL: Yes. I’m pretty consistent with the interval(s) I commit to, but there’s going to be places where I would not rule out something that sounds good just because it’s not a fourth or fifth. Interval writing is always in service of a melody…. if I place a minor second in-between the interval set I wouldn’t fret about it!!
Q: Right, it’s more like a guiding star. You make reference to dissonance in the liner notes, and you don’t shy away from it on this record. I am always fascinated with experiments conducted using babies in utero and how they respond negatively to dissonance. This kind of suggests that humans are not naturally disposed to dissonance. I was just wondering if you use dissonance in jazz…..how do you manage it as a tool to be used?
DL: Well all the above…..let’s backtrack to the source of this which is 20th century classical harmony, more or less beginning with Arnold Schoenberg. I’m not a complete expert on it but I know a little bit on the subject and have sat at the piano trying to figure it out. 20th century classical music did not shy away from dissonance. If the 20th century contributed anything to the world as far as music, it was the idea that dissonance can hold its own against consonance if need be. Notes do not have to be resolved…certainly not in the fashion of Mozart, Bach, etc. It can be a madhouse but in listening to twentieth century music one must eventually (with repetition) ‘accept the dissonance’. I like those colours, especially if the pendulum swings between lyrical consonance and structured dissonance. I hope to be able to pull that off while improvising which is quite a challenge. I’m just doing what McCoy [Tyner], Herbie [Hancock] to a certain degree and other musicians have used in their harmonic palettes over the years, especially in the 1960s. The sound derives from 20th century contemporary music.
When I am asked who are the most important musicians in the twentieth century, I say Schoenberg and Charlie Parker, basically because both the them pushed the harmony to a place where it had not been before. Jazz has been playing catch-up. You can make a jazz case for the classical, romantic, impressionistic periods of classical having their much younger parallel denouement in the jazz tradition, harmonically and more. It’s almost like Mozart was Lester Young, Beethoven was Bird, and a bunch of others are the Coltrane period. In jazz it took 50-70 years to absorb the harmony of the classical tradition which took four hundred years!
Q: We’re talking about the classical music tradition and I just wonder if you could talk about its interrelationship with jazz because in the past jazz educators have wanted to establish jazz as something with its own tradition, culture and history. This bebop-based pedagogy, though apparently different and separate from classical, is actually a huge data base as far as jazz is concerned.
Q: One other thing Stuart. Understanding twentieth century music from Schoenberg to Stockhausen implies that a lot of study has to go down. You just don’t wake up in the morning singing ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ in twelve keys. I mean, you have to put in your time and if you’re not a classically trained musician, as we are not, most of us, it means you’re going into a field which has its own set of rules, mores, customs which you have to understand. The challenge is do you put in the time? When I was starting on this track in the ‘70s I would have a score in front of me while I listened. If I heard a combination of notes that sound intriguing, I put a red line around it and go to the piano to figure out what it was technically. To understand twentieth century harmony takes time, study, and practice and it’s not a light affair. It is definitely piano-centric music…..you don’t do this on a flute! You need to understand the chords and how to use them. It’s always a work in progress for a jazz musician to understand the classical world which takes years of study and is never done. Studying Schoenberg’s Fourth String Quartet is not quite what you want to do when you’re having your tea! Again, you have to accept the dissonance. ‘What sounds weird today, or strange or off-putting will sound cliched after you study it.’ And that’s a good thing. So get ready to change your way of listening and what you need to enjoy music. If I hear no trace of chromaticism/dissonance I’m bored very quickly because over the years I have become trained to accept dissonance and in my case, use it. Jazz is an ear music…with classical you have to know what’s happening intellectually as well.
Q: I was checking out interviews you’ve done, especially Bill Kirchner who’s a friend. I would like to go back to your first group, Lookout Farm. In a sense that early band on ECM was about textures too in the context of its time.
DL: As you note, Lookout Farm was a product of its time. It was not a music of the past or the future. In that period of the ‘70s, rock elements made their way into the jazz world. The seminal groups were Weather Report, Return to Forever, Mahavishnu, Miles of course and Lookout Farm. Jazz-rock or fusion had its run of popularity which appealed to the younger generation because it wasn’t that dissonant and it had a scintillating beat instead of the jazz rhythm……not that far away from James Brown or Sly Stone or even the Beatles. The rhythm made it a little easier to accept and enjoy the music. The other thing was when you combine aspects let’s say of jazz and rock, or any other odd stylistic pairing, one must be ready for musical sacrifices…. something’s got to give. In order to be inclusive, the music had to be exclusive. So that’s a decision each artist makes: ‘How much am I going to change what I do to accommodate this rock n’ roll rhythm and chords?’ That was a decision each of the above named made for themselves. One thing was for sure…in fusion, the drums had a major role which emphasized its presence. Certainly Tony Williams, Elvin Jones and others produced high level excitement, but now a drummer was expected to know what a Moroccan beat was besides knowing what the Beatles played on such and such recording. Now the drums became part of the up-front conversation because of the power of the music while the use of electric instruments helped fusion get over the bridge of understanding. Lookout Farm was a product of its time with a shelf life. By the ‘80s fusion was finished for the most part.
Q: It kind of changed from the modulated statement of its ECM debut (1973) to post Pendulum (1978) with full-on post-bop from the newly released Live at Uncle Po’s Carnegie Hall. (1975)
DL: The trademark of Lookout Farm was the harmony that Richie [Beirach] was playing underneath me. That was the beginning of our exploration of — (I’ll go back to the word) — dissonance. That was the beginning of our musical relationship. Richie is an expert on 20th century music, much more than I am. If a piano player doesn’t know the classical tradition you can hear it. The other thing was, as compared to the other groups I mentioned, I insisted that there was still some trace of Coltrane. So even though we were going electric, plugging into synthesizers playing with a rock feel, you could be sure the next tune was going to be jazz. I didn’t want to lose that aspect of my playing which I had trained on. This was a great working period for me, to have a group that was steady and really enjoyed what I was asking them to do.
