|
Dave Liebman Interview (1/99)
6. Younger Artists & Underappreciated Artists
RK: Who are some of the younger artists that you find interesting?
DL: I enjoy a young saxophone player -- well, I guess he's not so young anymore, Ellery Eskelin, who's been around quite a bit. He took some lessons from me years ago; he uses an accordionist and is kind of into free things. There's a fine saxophone player named Tony Malaby who's been around. A good writer named Joey Sellars has also been around. I mean, New York is full of interesting music; I just don't get down and hear a lot of people. Paris is full of interesting music, mixtures of African and Vietnamese, and rock stuff. There's a lot of great stuff going on... and there's a lot of hype going on. They're all trying to find their niche. I think there's a place for all of that stuff.
The thing about jazz I hope will always be there is that a guy goes out on a tightrope with maybe a safety net below him... which you hope is a drummer and bass and piano... but he's basically balancing himself. He's taking chances; he's taking a step. He may fall, but he comes back. And it's that process you don't hear in world music in the same way. You don't hear (...certainly in classical or pop music...) that chance, that bravery, that courage. The good ones are those who know what they're doing and their next step isn't going to be off the tightrope. To witness that live (...because records, forget about it, it's over now with digital editing; nothing's real anymore...) is an amazing, existential experience that I hope will not be lost. That spirit of questing, of looking, of searching, of not being afraid to miss the note, miss the chord, get lost, play out of tune, whatever. Because you know you're searching; you're not afraid to fall because you know you have enough musicianship to recover. I hope that will still exist.
RK: Who were some of the great jazz artists of the past that go unappreciated, unrecognized? Or have just become lost through history?
DL: There's a guy who's unappreciated named Tisziji Muñoz, a guitar player who kinds plays out of a Santana/Sonny Sharrock vibe. On an historical level, Hank Mobley, an incredible improviser who played with Miles, did a lot of great records and was really a deep improviser who never got the accolades. Paul Bley is another great who is known primarily in Europe. He works a lot and he's famous in Europe. He has a real revolutionary approach, but I think he hasn't gotten his due respect. Lennie Tristano is another for sure, due to maybe the school of thought he was attached to. Being blind, it wasn't easy for him to get around. But I studied with him, and I have to say he was a genius. He was unbelievable... the things he did in the'50s.
There are so many people who don't get recognition. I just came across a guy named Bob Graetinger who wrote for Stan Kenton and died very young from a drug overdose. In 1947, he wrote music that is still unapproachable as far as complexity with the Stan Kenton Orchestra, with strings and woodwinds and so forth. There are unknown guys that come along. (It's true in classical music too, guys come along like Mompou.) Guys come along that you never heard about who just didn't hit the imagination or didn't take care of business or whatever. There are so many of them. And in music like jazz, it's really great when you find a guy who's undiscovered and you say, "God, what a body of work!" and you go into it, and it becomes a source that's not known. That's one of the ways that you can try to find an original and personal voice, to find some sources that are not so standardized and not so well known. And of course this doesn't mean that Charlie Parker should not be studied, but it means that when you find someone who's not so obvious... my God, you have a gold mine of influences to dig into. That's something we all try to look out for. In fact, if there's anything that musicians talk about, it's probably "Did you hear this thing by this guy?" or "I just heard a tape, I never heard of it before."
Continue
Liebman Interview
Supporting Materials
Biography
Links
Archive Home
|
|
Dave Liebman |
Supporting Materials
Biography
Links
Archive Home
|
