Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: It beats listening to nothing.
Speaker 3: Oh my godness, Being Franklin, where the only way to
Speaker 3: be is Frank. Well everyone, and welcome to Being frank.
Speaker 3: We're the only way to be is Frank. I'm your host,
Speaker 3: Frank Lebuono, and i'd like to thank you for joining
Speaker 3: us here on what we like to call the Intelligent
Speaker 3: Conversation podcast, where no conversation is out of bounds and
Speaker 3: all points of view are welcome. As you know, we
Speaker 3: go live to tape and I give you the date
Speaker 3: so you'd have some context and relevance. It's the twenty
Speaker 3: second of October, in the middle of a beautiful autumn
Speaker 3: season here in New York. Listeners of this podcast know
Speaker 3: that one of the more common themes at Being Frank
Speaker 3: is that, despite the fact that we stream from a
Speaker 3: pretty small corner of New York, Rockland County, Rockland has
Speaker 3: an extraordinary music scene, not only locally but internationally too,
Speaker 3: with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy HENDRYX McJagger, and
Speaker 3: many others who have either lived or recorded here. But
Speaker 3: it's not just the international scene that makes it so vibrant.
Speaker 3: It's the bevy of extremely talented local musicians but made
Speaker 3: Rockland a great source for music of all kinds. And
Speaker 3: more than that, these musicians have established a legacy of
Speaker 3: giving back to the communities in which they perform, lending
Speaker 3: their considerable talents to charitable events and teaching moments. We
Speaker 3: have featured many such musicians previously and are proud to
Speaker 3: do so once again. New York Area guitarist, composer, and
Speaker 3: educator Eric DeVito has been performing throughout the Greater New
Speaker 3: York area since two thousand and three. Either as a
Speaker 3: soloist leading his own groups, he has performed at many
Speaker 3: of New York City's renowned jazz clubs and live music venues,
Speaker 3: as well as performances and festivals both domestic and abroad.
Speaker 3: DeVito has recorded two studio albums and one solo classic album,
Speaker 3: Soothing Classic Guitar Music, from Inner Splendor Media in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: As an educator, mister DeVito has taught classroom and instrumental
Speaker 3: music in the New York City Public schools and west
Speaker 3: Chester School districts since two thousand and six. He teaches
Speaker 3: is an adjunct lecturer of music at Dominican University in Orangeburg,
Speaker 3: New York, as well as his private guitar studio. In
Speaker 3: both person and remotely, DeVito is an Eastman guitar artist
Speaker 3: that has been published several times in Downbeat Magazine, are
Speaker 3: A Magazine, Playjazz guitar dot Com, and more. He lives
Speaker 3: with his wife and three children right here in Rockland
Speaker 3: County in Proliver, New York. Eric, thank you so much
Speaker 3: for joining us, taking the time. You're a busy guy.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about that. You've got a lot
Speaker 3: coming up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: You know. Before we get into a lot of the things,
Speaker 3: we want to talk about some of the musical history
Speaker 3: that you're involved with and some of the events you're planning,
Speaker 3: let's talk a little bit about Eric DeVito. What was
Speaker 3: your earliest exposure to music. When did you know that
Speaker 3: it was going to be music for you in your life?
Speaker 1: Huh?
Speaker 4: I did know early on. I don't know if it
Speaker 4: was Wow, we're going way back here. I guess by
Speaker 4: the time I was kind of like in middle school,
Speaker 4: I got really into guitar and I knew that I
Speaker 4: wanted to, you know, pursue music kind of most of
Speaker 4: the time. I don't know if I knew then I
Speaker 4: definitely was going to be a career path, but that
Speaker 4: was kind of what occupied.
Speaker 1: Most of my time.
Speaker 4: By the time I picked up the guitar in about
Speaker 4: fifth grade or something like that. By the time I
Speaker 4: got into high school, I was kind of operating on
Speaker 4: a you know, I'm only here so I can get
Speaker 4: into music college path by the time I was in
Speaker 4: high school, so I.
Speaker 1: Kind of, you know, had a mission in high school
Speaker 1: to get it.
Speaker 4: All my class is done and all my courses done,
Speaker 4: so you know, I could maximize my time in college
Speaker 4: studying music so I didn't have to take a lot
Speaker 4: of the you know, English courses and foreign language courses stuff,
Speaker 4: because I knew I wanted to do that. But i'd
Speaker 4: say kind of by middle school I started to formulate
Speaker 4: that idea and kind of operate under that assumption that
Speaker 4: that's that's what I was going to do in some form.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about some of your early influences. Not only
Speaker 3: you know, professionally musicians themselves, but often people have family influences,
Speaker 3: a parent or a brother or sister who also accomplished
Speaker 3: in music. Did you have anyone like that in Yeah,
Speaker 3: you did tell us about and some of the others
Speaker 3: who were influential for you early in your life.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 4: So, well, I started out as a percussionist actually, like
Speaker 4: in third grade when most people, you know, choose to
Speaker 4: take band or orchestra. So I chose the band and
Speaker 4: I started out as a percussionist and I continued with
Speaker 4: that even after I picked up the guitar. But in
Speaker 4: terms of influences, you know, I had there were some
Speaker 4: people in my family that are you know, we had
Speaker 4: played music, so there was some exposure. You know, both
Speaker 4: my parents played guitar, but I kind of consider that
Speaker 4: like your typical they were your typical amateur guitar players.
Speaker 4: But there was a guitar around, and there was exposure.
Speaker 4: But actually, I have a cousin you might, I don't
Speaker 4: know if you know him, but he's actually also a Rockland.
Speaker 1: County based musician.
Speaker 4: His name's Larry Siegel, and he he's my mom's first cousin.
Speaker 4: And when I was very young, you know, he would
Speaker 4: always be around and he would often like crash at
Speaker 4: our house in between gigs or stuff, and so I
Speaker 4: always was kind of exposed to him kind of being,
Speaker 4: you know, living the life of a professional musician, and
Speaker 4: you know, he kind of taught.
Speaker 1: Me some of my first things on guitar and things.
Speaker 4: I always remember that, and then you know, we kind
Speaker 4: of keep in touch when I got older. He also
Speaker 4: had a music business, like a book where you know,
Speaker 4: people would call him and he would provide music for
Speaker 4: like literally any event. His Guy's networking book was huge.
Speaker 4: When I got a little older, you know, he would
Speaker 4: be he would call me for certain gigs, like classical
Speaker 4: guitar gigs or more traditional or straight up head jazz
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. But he was actually a pretty early
Speaker 4: influence because I was like, you know, it was cool
Speaker 4: to hear about his you know, life as a musician.
Speaker 4: He plays banjo, guitar, he sings, he plays everything.
Speaker 1: He's a true, true entertainer. Larry Siegel. He's a great guy.
Speaker 4: He'sed check him out every time he plays over you know,
Speaker 4: throughout New York a lot too, especially in Rockland County.
Speaker 1: So there was him, and then a lot of the
Speaker 1: rest was really teachers. I had.
Speaker 4: Some of the biggest influences in my life were music
Speaker 4: teachers that I had, And that might be maybe why
Speaker 4: I kind of gravitated because I always, you know, felt
Speaker 4: very inspired by those music teachers and that they were
Speaker 4: kind of I said, oh, like I want to do that,
Speaker 4: you know, I want to be like that, or I
Speaker 4: like how this teacher is that. So you know, I
Speaker 4: have a few specific teachers in mind that from very
Speaker 4: early on kind of shaped me into maybe they kind
Speaker 4: of nudged me in the direction. So I remember, like
Speaker 4: my middle school band director was this brilliant percussionist named
Speaker 4: Steve Payson, and he actually passed away a few years ago,
Speaker 4: kind of unexpectedly, but he was actually pretty pretty well
Speaker 4: known and pretty renowned performer, and he's played with some
Speaker 4: like he was really into like contemporary classical music, which
Speaker 4: a lot of kids were not into, like twentieth century music,
Speaker 4: or even like music that was kind of headed into
Speaker 4: the twenty first century, you know, back when I was
Speaker 4: a kid in the nineties, but stuff that most kids
Speaker 4: weren't listening to. Like I remember he was on a
Speaker 4: George Crumb album. I don't if you're familiar with George
Speaker 4: Crumb and very kind of like avant garde twentieth century
Speaker 4: classical composer, and he was very into that and he
Speaker 4: used to do a lot of projects and things in
Speaker 4: the city. So he and he was a great jazz drummer,
Speaker 4: and I was in the jazz band with him too.
Speaker 4: He actually is to kind of encouraged me to play
Speaker 4: jazz guitar. I was really into playing drums and into
Speaker 4: the jazz band with him on drums, and he said,
Speaker 4: you know, you play guitar, why don't you studies more,
Speaker 4: harmony more and really, you know, learn the guitar thing.
Speaker 4: And that's kind of how it started actually with me
Speaker 4: being in I think it was like maybe eighth grade
Speaker 4: jazz ensemble with him.
Speaker 1: He really got me into that. Let me be sixth grade, let.
Speaker 3: Me jump in with that too. Did you ever have
Speaker 3: any kind of like people call it an epiphany moment
Speaker 3: where in speaking with him or picking up the guitar,
Speaker 3: all of a sudden one moment you said, Wow, I
Speaker 3: like this and I can do this. Do you have
Speaker 3: a moment like that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they kind of came in little, you know,
Speaker 4: I think being in the in his performing groups and
Speaker 4: you kind of you know, he'd really push you to work,
Speaker 4: and then of course you'd have those little musical moments
Speaker 4: that you'd be very proud of or that. You know,
Speaker 4: he'd inspire the group to get and then you'd go,
Speaker 4: you know, have those aha moments like wow, that was cool.
Speaker 4: You know this is cool. It's worth the you know, challenges,
Speaker 4: it's worth the struggle to kind of do this because
Speaker 4: you know, this is what we'd be wanting, me and
Speaker 4: my buddies who were into music.
Speaker 1: This is what we were doing in our free time. Anyways,
Speaker 1: we didn't have to do it. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of that did start with him.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I remember once he used to bring this always stands out.
Speaker 4: He used to bring in pieces he was working on,
Speaker 4: and he was a great percussionist and he play a
Speaker 4: lot of mallet percussion, like he played marimba, and that
Speaker 4: was like the first time I'd ever seen somebody play
Speaker 4: four mallet marina.
Speaker 1: But he might even played six mallet marimba, but I
Speaker 1: don't remember.
Speaker 4: But you know, this was in middle school and probably
Speaker 4: you know, most people wouldn't have been maybe that interested
Speaker 4: in what he was playing. He was, but I just
Speaker 4: thought it was fascinating how he was playing like four
Speaker 4: six mallet marimba.
Speaker 1: And I think it was like a I think it
Speaker 1: was a jazz piece, like a solo jazz, you know,
Speaker 1: something for the marimba repertoire.
Speaker 4: And I just remember being blown away by the technique
Speaker 4: and the musicianship and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And then I just like talking to him about jazz.
Speaker 1: He knew a lot about jazz, and I kind of
Speaker 1: got into jazz.
Speaker 4: You know, the improvisation aspect, I think really clicked with me,
Speaker 4: and he really kind of encouraged us to improvise and
Speaker 4: and to kind.
Speaker 1: Of listen to each other.
Speaker 4: He did a really good job explaining the roles of
Speaker 4: the rhythm section to a bunch of young kids, you
Speaker 4: know who just wanted to you know, most of a
Speaker 4: had like rock backgrounds and stuff, but he would talk
Speaker 4: about you know, the time and the high hat symbol
Speaker 4: or the ride symbol, and the bass locking in with
Speaker 4: the drums and the role of the guitar and a
Speaker 4: big band and things like that that you know kind
Speaker 4: of we found or I found really interesting. So really
Speaker 4: every moment with him, I always found was like a
Speaker 4: learning experience. And he was one of those teachers that
Speaker 4: when I when we were in middle school, you know,
Speaker 4: he'd let you we'd hang out instead of going to
Speaker 4: recess we'd go and hang out in his office and
Speaker 4: he'd listen to music with us, play jazz, or let
Speaker 4: us go practice on the drum set or do whatever.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of like one of those very inspiring
Speaker 4: teachers that you know, probably get characterized in like a
Speaker 4: sitcom or a movie. But he like really was one
Speaker 4: of those kind of teachers. And actually he became you know,
Speaker 4: my mom was a teacher in my district, so he
Speaker 4: was kind of like also a family friend.
Speaker 1: And I remember when I got you know.
Speaker 4: Older, as an adult and started doing gigs, he would
Speaker 4: come to my gigs and you know, him and my
Speaker 4: parents would hang out. They'd come show up at jazz
Speaker 4: clubs and stuff in the city, and I always thought
Speaker 4: that was really, uh, you know, kind of cool that
Speaker 4: he kind of was there, you know, later on, And
Speaker 4: really a lot of that started with him. And when
Speaker 4: I became a teacher, he really encouraged me to be
Speaker 4: a music teacher. You know, he knew a lot of
Speaker 4: musicians and he said, hey, man, like this is cool,
Speaker 4: but if you want to eat, get a music education degree.
Speaker 4: And my parents kind of had always been telling me that,
Speaker 4: but mister Payson, you know, Steve kind of sometimes you
Speaker 4: listen to other people more than your parents, you know,
Speaker 4: and he would have he would let me come in
Speaker 4: and work with the band, like when I was a
Speaker 4: little older. He'd let me sit in with the bands
Speaker 4: and stuff and kind of get a little practice like
Speaker 4: teaching lessons and conducting and stuff. So definitely a huge
Speaker 4: influence in kind of my entire you know, education and
Speaker 4: professional life.
Speaker 3: What are the professionals you message, teachers and of course
Speaker 3: there and you teach, and I teach as well. And
Speaker 3: we talk a little bit more about that later in
Speaker 3: our discussion. What about professionally, what people during the course
Speaker 3: of your journey, your musical journey, have really influenced you
Speaker 3: as a profession.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we talk guitarists here or just any kind
Speaker 1: of music guitar and go.
Speaker 3: Down the list. Who are some of the people that say, wow,
Speaker 3: they do it for me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember being first kind of really blown away by
Speaker 1: believe it or not. I remember listening to this.
Speaker 4: Bud Powell Trio record, Bud Powell Trio and really just
Speaker 4: being blown away by like the trio kind of.
Speaker 3: Form, concept of the format of a trio.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and just just the way they kind of you know,
Speaker 4: the space and the collaboration. So I remember, like really
Speaker 4: just you know, back then, I was listening to CDs
Speaker 4: on a discman and all that just done. And I
Speaker 4: remember like wearing out this Bud Bud Powell CD. I
Speaker 4: can't remember the name of the record now. It was
Speaker 4: something like Boxes or something.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. It was really cool. That's probably not
Speaker 1: the name of it, but I have to check it out.
Speaker 4: But then I really got into you know, by then,
Speaker 4: I was really trying to find guitarists that spoke to me.
Speaker 4: And you know, very early on, I was into Jim Hall.
Speaker 4: He's probably one of my most you know, influential influences,
Speaker 4: if you want to say. I guess I wanted to
Speaker 4: copy him as much as I could, so I listened to.
Speaker 1: A lot of Jim Hall.
Speaker 4: I always liked his use of space, you know, he
Speaker 4: was a very less is more kind of player, and
Speaker 4: I always kind.
Speaker 1: Of dug that about Jim Hall.
Speaker 4: And also one of the first records I really got
Speaker 4: into was his duo records with Bill Evans. You know,
Speaker 4: he has this record called Intermodulation and also Undercurrent, especially Undercurrent,
Speaker 4: and I was always really inspired by, like how they
Speaker 4: It was almost like a telepathy that they had with
Speaker 4: each other. And so I very quickly kind of got
Speaker 4: into not just you know, the notes and stuff and
Speaker 4: the technique, but kind of the the collaboration. So records
Speaker 4: where I could felt like there was a lot of
Speaker 4: collaboration and dialogue between the group always kind of moved me.
Speaker 4: That's another reason why I was big into the Bill
Speaker 4: Evans Trio records, especially like the Live at the Village
Speaker 4: Vanguard stuff that's kind of like an iconic record in
Speaker 4: my own upbringing. You know, I can remember like pivotal
Speaker 4: moments of my life where I was like unsure of
Speaker 4: something and I'd put on you know, Bill Evans Trio
Speaker 4: Live at the Village Vanguard to kind of you know, we.
Speaker 3: All have a particular set of music or whatever that
Speaker 3: we can go back to at times when we really
Speaker 3: need it, and the plays of an important role.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But I always find with those records it's I
Speaker 4: listened to them over and over and it still amazes me,
Speaker 4: you know, and I can know every note and now
Speaker 4: at this point, I know what's going to happen, I
Speaker 4: know the comping rhythms at this point, but it still
Speaker 4: sounds like they're just they're just you know, they just
Speaker 4: recorded it yesterday and they had you know, they hadn't
Speaker 4: rehearsed it or everything was just so tight and so
Speaker 4: kind of in sync. So records like that. But Jim
Speaker 4: Hall in terms of like tone, I always loved his
Speaker 4: tone and his use of space. Then I got big
Speaker 4: into Joe Pass. I mean, I don't know a guitar
Speaker 4: player who's not influenced by Joe Pass. But being a
Speaker 4: classical guitarist and playing a lot of solo fingerstyle stuff,
Speaker 4: Joe Pass is kind of like one of my main
Speaker 4: guys that I really just love to study and copy,
Speaker 4: you know, copy a lot of stuff. I mean, he's
Speaker 4: he plays a lot of great licks that everybody plays,
Speaker 4: but you know they're Joe Pass licks.
Speaker 1: So he's a big one.
Speaker 4: And then I kind of got really big into I
Speaker 4: went through like a little Grand Green thing.
Speaker 1: I think everybody loves Grand Green and his blues feel.
Speaker 4: But then I kind of got heavy into Pat Metheni
Speaker 4: for a while, and I think I kind of a
Speaker 4: fusion guy.
Speaker 3: I labeled as if you and I'm not a chance
Speaker 3: a historician like yourself, but it's that's what comes to
Speaker 3: mind when you hear.
Speaker 1: His yeah and actually his more fusions.
Speaker 4: You know, one of the things I love about Papadini
Speaker 4: is when you try to put you know, when you
Speaker 4: try to define him, he goes in another direction, which
Speaker 4: I love. But you know, there's certainly records that are
Speaker 4: very much you could call them fusion that he did,
Speaker 4: and that's usually actually not my favorite stuff by him.
Speaker 4: My real favor stuff by him is the stuff that
Speaker 4: he does more straight ahead jazz stuff on because I
Speaker 4: like how he approaches it, because the fusion stuff is not,
Speaker 4: like probably not my favorite type of format in terms
Speaker 4: of how I kind of hear, you know, the music
Speaker 4: compositionally and improvisationally. But I like when he plays more
Speaker 4: straight ahead or bebop stuff, but he comes at it
Speaker 4: with such a unique style that's kind of rooted in.
Speaker 1: Rock and fusion. And I don't know.
Speaker 4: I just some about that, But like his trio records
Speaker 4: are actually my favorite. Some of my favorite records, like
Speaker 4: stuff that he has a great record with Dave Holland
Speaker 4: and Roy Haynes. I think that's called question and answer,
Speaker 4: I want to say, And his trio album like ninety
Speaker 4: nine two thousand that's another record.
Speaker 1: I remember just.
Speaker 4: Being blown away by he played steel string guitar on it,
Speaker 4: and I remember being really inspired by the compositions that
Speaker 4: he wrote. So he kind of really got me interested
Speaker 4: in like being a composer a little more like, oh,
Speaker 4: you can be a guitar player, but you can also,
Speaker 4: you know, be a composer.
Speaker 1: And listening to all the you know, he can't.
Speaker 4: He wasn't writing tunes that sounded like jazz standards, even
Speaker 4: though he was playing with the jazz trio. He was
Speaker 4: playing tunes that had you know, pop changes and rock
Speaker 4: changes and things that you'd kind of associate maybe a
Speaker 4: little more with non jazz groups. And I really got
Speaker 4: kind of inspired by that with my own writing.
Speaker 3: You know, perfect time if I might jump in here,
Speaker 3: Eric too, because it's a word that's popped up versatility.
Speaker 3: You consider yourself a versatile musician. I got that from
Speaker 3: reading your bio and meeting you, etc. And some of
Speaker 3: the things that you describe from these other musicians is
Speaker 3: their versatility that they may be great with in a
Speaker 3: particular genre, but they can play a lot of different
Speaker 3: ways and continue to improvise and create original material. Why
Speaker 3: do you feel it's important for someone to be a
Speaker 3: versatile musician. It's always amazing to me. I have friends.
Speaker 3: Ken Harden comes to mind. I watch him and sometimes
Speaker 3: in any given event he'll play three or four different instruments,
Speaker 3: And well, why is it, Why is it important, especially
Speaker 3: today for a musician to have that kind of versatility.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think it's a good question.
Speaker 4: And you know, sometimes you want to specialize, you know,
Speaker 4: like sometimes nobody wants to be mediocre at a lot
Speaker 4: of things, right, so, you know, part of us always
Speaker 4: wants to be like really focused, you know, and sometimes
Speaker 4: that comes with like a genre. Like you know, for
Speaker 4: a while, I wanted to like really be like a
Speaker 4: modern jazz guitar player, you know, but there there was
Speaker 4: already like five of those in New York that were
Speaker 4: getting most of the gigs. So there wasn't a whole
Speaker 4: lot of work for another one that sounded like the
Speaker 4: other five anyways, And you know, I think just there's
Speaker 4: too much great other music out there that I still
Speaker 4: want to play, and so being versatile kind of opens
Speaker 4: you up to more work, you know, if you're not
Speaker 4: if you're not the guy. And I wasn't anywhere near
Speaker 4: one of those guys. I'm not the guy getting called
Speaker 4: every night to go do gigs at the at the
Speaker 4: Blue Note and at the at all.
Speaker 1: These other clubs.
Speaker 4: So if I wanted to work and make money, I
Speaker 4: had to be a more versatile so and and I
Speaker 4: have a classical guitar degree in a background, so I
Speaker 4: was always interested in that anyway. So, you know, I
Speaker 4: very quickly part of what I guess, you know, you
Speaker 4: might consider my sound or my style is kind of
Speaker 4: a combination of bringing a lot of classical guitar you know, influence,
Speaker 4: I guess into my jazz guitar playing and vice versa.
Speaker 4: You know, I think I even did an article about
Speaker 4: that in one of my Downbeat articles a couple of
Speaker 4: years ago about I think it was called like.
Speaker 3: You know, brings it brings up another great point, you know,
Speaker 3: making a life in music is a dream to many,
Speaker 3: but of reality to few. Why is it so difficult?
Speaker 3: We all love music, We all love to go to
Speaker 3: hear live music. I live in Nayak. It's a wonderful
Speaker 3: town for so many different venues for music, from rock
Speaker 3: and roll to jazz, et cetera. Yet all, it seems
Speaker 3: all of my friends who are in music struggle with
Speaker 3: being musicians, yeah, and making a life in music.
Speaker 4: Why, well, I think that, first of all, there's plenty
Speaker 4: of people who do make a living just playing music,
Speaker 4: just like there's plenty of athletes when you turn on
Speaker 4: the TV who make a living playing sports. But there's
Speaker 4: just way more people who don't. And that's usually the
Speaker 4: ones you know, right Like, so you know, there's no
Speaker 4: shortage of great musicians. I have friends who I went
Speaker 4: to school with, and they work seven nights a week
Speaker 4: and they make great money, and they have families and
Speaker 4: they're doing it and that's awesome, and they you know,
Speaker 4: I just tell myself, I wasn't as talented as them,
Speaker 4: I guess, or I didn't get the same breaks or whatever.
Speaker 4: But I would say most of those people I would
Speaker 4: consider immensely more talented than me. So of course there's
Speaker 4: a talent issue. But that's not to say that I
Speaker 4: also know a ton of people who are way more
Speaker 4: talented than me, who can wipe the floor with any
Speaker 4: play circles around me and they're broke as joke, and
Speaker 4: they you know, so I think it's uh, it's a
Speaker 4: it's a it's there's a lot of factors I think
Speaker 4: you have to be, you know, talking about like, you know,
Speaker 4: making a living doing this. I don't consider myself somebody
Speaker 4: who makes a living performing or as a guitarist.
Speaker 1: I make a living as a musician.
Speaker 4: Some some weeks I'm playing more gigs and that's putting,
Speaker 4: you know, giving me some more.
Speaker 1: Bread in the in the in the jar.
Speaker 4: And then there's periods, Thank god, because I am a
Speaker 4: music teacher where I can still afford.
Speaker 1: To have a dry spell.
Speaker 4: I don't have to go, you know, go jump on
Speaker 4: a cruise ship or something like I did in college
Speaker 4: and take a contract, you know, doing something like that.
Speaker 4: And that's a cool gig too, Not to put that down.
Speaker 4: I know a lot of people who do that, and
Speaker 4: that's cool. But I realized, like I, I kind of
Speaker 4: wanted to have some freedom to do the gigs I
Speaker 4: want to do and not have to do certain gigs
Speaker 4: they don't want to do.
Speaker 1: But the more.
Speaker 4: Versatile you are, the more stuff you're qualified to do,
Speaker 4: as long as you do it well, you know. So
Speaker 4: there's that, But also, you know, New York is like
Speaker 4: a funny place. There's a lot of there's a scene
Speaker 4: and the scene is actually kind of it can be
Speaker 4: quite small sometimes and sometimes you got to really be
Speaker 4: on the scene, you know. I remember being younger and
Speaker 4: being in grad school and people were, you know, on
Speaker 4: the scene.
Speaker 3: Every night.
Speaker 4: You would go out to the clubs and go to
Speaker 4: jam sessions and in hopes that you'd get a call
Speaker 4: to sit in and this and that, and that's really important.
Speaker 4: But as I got a little older, it's harder and
Speaker 4: harder to do.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: I rarely can leave the house anymore to go to
Speaker 4: something that's not paying me, you know, but if otherwise,
Speaker 4: it's kind of hard to do when you have a family,
Speaker 4: so there's less kind of you know, maybe opportunities, so
Speaker 4: I end up having to make a lot more opportunities
Speaker 4: or you know, I take gigs that I want to take,
Speaker 4: and know that some gigs, you know, I can't be
Speaker 4: traveling and doing this.
Speaker 1: So it's it's tricky, man.
Speaker 4: And there's also you know, one of the things I
Speaker 4: had mentioned, there's the there's the whole payment issue of it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: There's just I always joke to my wife that I
Speaker 4: unfortunately I have to turn down probably way more gigs
Speaker 4: than I take sometimes. And that's not to say that
Speaker 4: not to say I'm taking a lot of gigs and
Speaker 4: I'm so busy, but it's actually the opposite. It makes
Speaker 4: me said that, I often get offered really bad money
Speaker 4: for something that I feel doesn't value the time and
Speaker 4: effort that it would take me to play the gig well.
Speaker 4: And I don't want to undermine somebody else by just
Speaker 4: taking the gig because I can afford to not make
Speaker 4: good money on it, because that sets the.
Speaker 1: Whole industry standard low.
Speaker 4: And I, I philosophically, kind of have an issue with
Speaker 4: cats who do that.
Speaker 1: I understand when you're young, you know, it's different.
Speaker 3: That's a that's an issue. I've heard you say it.
Speaker 3: I've heard others say it. Musicians are are grossly underpaid.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's often, uh, you know that you get
Speaker 3: that word exposure. I often get that as as a photographer. Hey,
Speaker 3: we would like to use your photographs. We can't pay
Speaker 3: you anything, but we can give you exposure. And I say,
Speaker 3: at this point in my life, the only thing exposure
Speaker 3: gets me is a cold Yeah. You know, how do
Speaker 3: you deal with that? You know, people say, oh, it'd
Speaker 3: be great, we'd love to have You're terrific and talented
Speaker 3: but we can't pay you. I assume it's just common
Speaker 3: in the music businesses. It can be with photography.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely what it is. And like
Speaker 4: you said, if you're younger, you may just take it
Speaker 4: because you want to work.
Speaker 1: And that's cool. And I don't blame young.
Speaker 4: Cats to do that. I have a little more problem
Speaker 4: with older cats to do that. But you know, you're young,
Speaker 4: you want to play, you want the experience. But I
Speaker 4: do you know, I think you have to think about
Speaker 4: what is There's a lot at stake when you do that.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of people who you know, there's now
Speaker 4: a club owner thinks that he can pay you seventy
Speaker 4: five bucks for that gig, and that's what everybody would take,
Speaker 4: and that's what he's going to start offering.
Speaker 1: And then gigs.
Speaker 4: You know, then people can't afford to take those gigs,
Speaker 4: and then the guy at the club down the street says, oh,
Speaker 4: maybe I'm paying my guys too much. And then all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, musicians can't afford to take gigs anymore
Speaker 4: because they don't pay enough.
Speaker 1: So it's a slippery slope.
Speaker 4: And you know, I'm sure it's like you said, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's got to be the same in any of the arts.
Speaker 4: But I think there's another component to it which people ignore,
Speaker 4: and that's the public. You know, the public is funny.
Speaker 4: They love the arts, right, but there's a limit, right,
Speaker 4: Like I love I love steak, right, but if there's
Speaker 4: a certain price point where I can't afford it, I'm
Speaker 4: not buying it, right, So you won't see me too often,
Speaker 4: you know at the New York Philharmonic paying one hundred
Speaker 4: dollars ticket or even these days playing seventy or eighty
Speaker 4: bucks a ticket at the Blue Notes. Sometimes that's a
Speaker 4: stretch for me, like depending on what I got going on.
Speaker 4: But you know, if the public is willing to pay
Speaker 4: a certain amount, that can be the owner, the club
Speaker 4: owners of the people who are paying these gigs. They
Speaker 4: want to pass that on to the public, you know,
Speaker 4: So I get you know, club owner doesn't want to
Speaker 4: pay my ban what it is unless they think he's
Speaker 4: going to make it back. So it kind of becomes
Speaker 4: tricky because you have to say, well, like how much
Speaker 4: do you value art that it has to be a
Speaker 4: dollar for dollar thing in real time? Maybe you know
Speaker 4: it could it be an investment, you know, when you
Speaker 4: buy art and put art on the walls. Do you
Speaker 4: expect people are going to come down to look at
Speaker 4: that art that week to go and put that money
Speaker 4: is going to go into your restaurant.
Speaker 1: You're going to make all that money back? Or you know,
Speaker 1: how do you kind of look at it?
Speaker 4: So I think a lot of times people look at
Speaker 4: the music is like it has to make a real
Speaker 4: time money back right away. Well, then you're asking your artists, who,
Speaker 4: by the way, are traditionally terrible businessmen, to be in
Speaker 4: charge of your business and your customers. And to me,
Speaker 4: that makes me question, why would you, if you're serious
Speaker 4: about your business, why would you put me in charge
Speaker 4: of that? Why would you put me in charge of
Speaker 4: bringing your clientele down? Like I guarantee one thing when
Speaker 4: I do gigs, I guarantee that I'm going to put
Speaker 4: one hundred percent effort into practicing and making the music
Speaker 4: sound as good as it can be, and that the
Speaker 4: musicians I hire are going to do the same. That's
Speaker 4: kind of where my guarantee ends. You know, if you
Speaker 4: expect your musicians to bring down, then you don't really
Speaker 4: need good musicians. You just need people that have a
Speaker 4: lot of friends that don't have families or have a
Speaker 4: lot of free time. But that's not me or my
Speaker 4: demographic anymore. My best friends aren't coming out on a
Speaker 4: Tuesday night and getting a babysitter.
Speaker 1: I could be playing at Carnegie Hall. They ain't doing that.
Speaker 3: Not at nine o'clock. I'll tell you that, right, my friends,
Speaker 3: I asked them, what time is your gig? If it's
Speaker 3: after eight, I ain't coming.
Speaker 4: Right, So I just say listen, I kind of you
Speaker 4: know this is I say, here's my music.
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of money and practicing and producing,
Speaker 1: and I even sank money into records and things so
Speaker 1: that I can showcase my sound. Now you have to
Speaker 1: decide is that a sound that you want, that's good,
Speaker 1: that your customers are going to pay for that you want?
Speaker 4: And if it's not, fine, don't have me. But don't
Speaker 4: I don't like the back and forth, Well how many
Speaker 4: people you're going to bring down? Is if I can
Speaker 4: predict the weather and I can predict all this stuff,
Speaker 4: you know, I say, if you don't, if you just
Speaker 4: want that, that's that's that's not how this business should
Speaker 4: really run, because now it's not really about the arts,
Speaker 4: you know, So it's tricky man. You know, not to
Speaker 4: go off on the crazy tangent, but uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I guess going back to your original question, how do
Speaker 4: you deal with the you know that aspect of it.
Speaker 1: I just had this conversation.
Speaker 4: With Lauren, who we were talking about when he was
Speaker 4: out of my house tuning the piano, and we both.
Speaker 3: Kind of said the same thing local musicians.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, he's got a few years on me, of course,
Speaker 4: but we both kind of said the same thing.
Speaker 1: I said, Man, we don't do that stuff, you know.
Speaker 4: I gotta frank, I can't use curses right now. We
Speaker 4: don't do that stuff anymore because I'm too old for that.
Speaker 4: We both made the same comment, we're getting too old
Speaker 4: for that. So I guess you know, when you're younger,
Speaker 4: you put up with it or you hope it's going
Speaker 4: to lead something, and as they get older, I kind
Speaker 4: of feel like it's that, you know, I can't really
Speaker 4: afford to do that, or I'll just be doing that
Speaker 4: all the time. So the gigs are there, I just
Speaker 4: think there's less gigs are there where the public and
Speaker 4: the owners are kind of willing to invest in what
Speaker 4: it actually costs to make it, To make the musicians
Speaker 4: feel valued, you know, you know, and I hear.
Speaker 3: You're also a husband and father, and you mentioned that.
Speaker 3: Obviously it has to be first in your thinking. And
Speaker 3: you know, they say about sports, baseball, it's a young
Speaker 3: man's game. Would you say the same thing about music.
Speaker 3: I mean, part of it is the athletic ability. As
Speaker 3: you're younger, you're stronger, But it's also the time commitment
Speaker 3: to travel, et cetera. Musicians the same thing. In order
Speaker 3: to be able to make a living playing music often
Speaker 3: means traveling, and that's something I would assume that as
Speaker 3: you get older and you get into the family scene,
Speaker 3: you have children, becomes more and more difficult. How do
Speaker 3: you balance that the role of being a father, a husband,
Speaker 3: a father, and a musician.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean it's always yeah, when you're younger,
Speaker 4: it's right, people go on tour.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: You know, when I was younger, I did a lot
Speaker 4: more touring and wasn't concerned about you know, what, the
Speaker 4: what I was bringing home at the end of all
Speaker 4: my expenses. Now it's it's if I mentioned to my
Speaker 4: wife that I'm putting together a tour, I got to
Speaker 4: give her like an itemized budget of exactly how much
Speaker 4: it's gonna met me after and then she runs that
Speaker 4: by how many days I'm going to be gone and
Speaker 4: na childcare, And no matter how I swing it, it's
Speaker 4: never a it's never looks profitable on paper. But yeah,
Speaker 4: so when you're you just I find when you're older,
Speaker 4: you're doing that less unless that's your that's how your
Speaker 4: life is set up, you know. So I have a
Speaker 4: lot of friends who are full time touring musicians, but
Speaker 4: they started that early and then their family lives revolved
Speaker 4: around that, so they made that work, whereas I didn't
Speaker 4: do that. I started, you know, other than just doing
Speaker 4: gigs around New York and around town.
Speaker 1: My income based you know, my income was.
Speaker 4: Through teaching, So everything revolves around me still being able
Speaker 4: to have a teaching job so I could pay my mortgage.
Speaker 4: So I did touring on the summer around my schedule
Speaker 4: or when I was on break or uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I would do gigs mostly on the weekends or or
Speaker 4: you know, maybe not super late things like that. So
Speaker 4: I think it also kind of depends where your priority
Speaker 4: was first. You know, I got to a point where
Speaker 4: I was like in my twenties and said, all right,
Speaker 4: I'm not making enough money right now that you know,
Speaker 4: so I want to make more money, and you know,
Speaker 4: my circumstances and the situation was I'm going to teach music,
Speaker 4: so then everything kind of that was the big puzzle
Speaker 4: piece that everything else kind of just had to fit.
Speaker 1: Around, you know, And then thought place, No, yeah, I
Speaker 1: was just gonna say.
Speaker 4: And then you know, as I get older and I
Speaker 4: look to retirement, then I said, oh, maybe I'm gonna
Speaker 4: have more time to do some of those other things
Speaker 4: you know that I didn't do, you know, or maybe
Speaker 4: I have time to take more gigs or tour a
Speaker 4: little more or whatever. But you know, that's kind of
Speaker 4: like the pillar that I have to revolve everything around
Speaker 4: in order for me to do all this stuff because
Speaker 4: I can't, you know, tell my wife like, hey, I'm
Speaker 4: going to jump on a cruise ship for six months
Speaker 4: because the bread's pretty good, because I don't, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm not a situation to do that anymore now.
Speaker 3: And you mentioned teaching and teachings your your foundation, if
Speaker 3: you will, right now, it's what keeps you afloat. But
Speaker 3: I have the feeling it's more than a monetary compensation thing.
Speaker 3: And obviously not to belittle that it's important. We all
Speaker 3: like to eat, you like to feed your family, and
Speaker 3: I know it helps to do that. But I get
Speaker 3: the feeling that teaching is a little bit but a
Speaker 3: little bit more to you, that it's a way of
Speaker 3: giving back. And you hinted at it before developed that
Speaker 3: a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, so you know, I mean you can't
Speaker 1: I find it.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be able to teach if I didn't like
Speaker 4: what I was doing, you know, I mean, just so, yeah,
Speaker 4: I hope I didn't. I hope, but in downplay the
Speaker 4: fact that, you know, I.
Speaker 3: Enjoyed at all.
Speaker 1: No, No, and it's actually very hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't mean to imply that he's doing it
Speaker 3: for the money. That's my point obvious, that you're not
Speaker 3: just doing it for the money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, teaching is you know, I always viewed
Speaker 4: teaching a little bit differently because musicians tend to learn
Speaker 4: in more of like an apprentice style, or at least
Speaker 4: I did, and I always thrived that way, where you
Speaker 4: had a more one on one kind of interpersonal relationship
Speaker 4: with the person you're learning from. And I always thought, oh,
Speaker 4: and that's kind of like how I think most people
Speaker 4: learn music for many, many, many hundreds of years, just
Speaker 4: like a great artist would apprentice with another artist, you know,
Speaker 4: And I kind of like that style. Of course it's
Speaker 4: a little bit harder to achieve in like the public educations,
Speaker 4: but I was kind of approach how I teach with
Speaker 4: that mentality, you know, like that's you really want to
Speaker 4: pick your teacher's brain and you really want to be
Speaker 4: challenged by them, and you really want to you know,
Speaker 4: you want them to put you in situations where you
Speaker 4: fail and you learn and then you succeed and that
Speaker 4: kind of thing. So you know, that's kind of how
Speaker 4: I like to do things. Also, I'm a music teacher.
Speaker 4: I feel like music teachers are a bit of like
Speaker 4: our own maybe like unique bunch.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of bowish teachers in the school.
Speaker 1: Right, like, you know, like we're not quite like gym teachers,
Speaker 1: but we're almost like that. So you know, you can
Speaker 1: always spot on music and teacher usually there.
Speaker 4: But I I like, you know, I always enjoyed teaching
Speaker 4: ensemble playing a lot like direct I'm a band director.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what I mostly do.
Speaker 4: Because there's a lot more of that kind of real
Speaker 4: life teaching in the moment like you're on a bandstand
Speaker 4: kind of thing where that's a lot the great you know,
Speaker 4: any conversation you have with the great jazz musicians to
Speaker 4: tell you I learned that on the bandstand because this
Speaker 4: guy you know, played and I didn't know what to
Speaker 4: do and I figured it out or I got played
Speaker 4: off stage, and that kind of healthy competition. I think
Speaker 4: I like that aspect. I think you learn a lot
Speaker 4: from that. Getting outside of your safe zone. That's when
Speaker 4: you really see people grow, you know, when I see
Speaker 4: when I see students that are not I can challenge
Speaker 4: them to get outside of their comfort zone and they
Speaker 4: they fail, but then they beautifully succeed right after.
Speaker 1: It, you know, and they learn from it, you know.
Speaker 4: So trying to get people not to be afraid to fail,
Speaker 4: it's hard. Nobody wants to fail. I got myself included.
Speaker 4: But sometimes the best moments you have or when you
Speaker 4: just you know, maybe.
Speaker 3: Fail and overcome failure at a huge life lesson. I
Speaker 3: teach that to my students as well, part of life.
Speaker 4: It's a little harder to do now. I find it
Speaker 4: when I you know, I feel like I've been teaching.
Speaker 4: I'm almost twenty years now, as a teacher. And I
Speaker 4: really do feel like there's like two periods of education,
Speaker 4: at least in my life's time as a teacher, there
Speaker 4: was the before and the after, and at some point
Speaker 4: during my career, I feel like I started off as
Speaker 4: education was more like how I remember it as a kid,
Speaker 4: and then somewhere along the line it got very different
Speaker 4: and the kind of I don't want to say the respect,
Speaker 4: but the role or the trust of the teacher kind
Speaker 4: of change and it was very you know, maybe parent
Speaker 4: driven or kids weren't as used to parents didn't maybe
Speaker 4: let their kids fail as much they really wanted to.
Speaker 4: If you if their kids felt like they failed, they
Speaker 4: really would. It could be hard as a teacher. You'd
Speaker 4: really you know, they wouldn't really get what you were doing.
Speaker 4: And it was that, you know, maybe you're not a
Speaker 4: good teacher this, So, you know, I see a lot
Speaker 4: of people get discouraged from teaching because of that, and
Speaker 4: it really it really is different. Having done it for
Speaker 4: so long now, it's I don't feel like it's quite
Speaker 4: the same. I feel like, you know, maybe it's a
Speaker 4: generational thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: So in topic, we'll we'll have to pick that up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that's a whole that's a whole other
Speaker 1: frank there. Yeah, we can go on and on about that,
Speaker 1: and you know we're disgruntle teaching. But no, I do
Speaker 1: love you know, I do love teaching.
Speaker 4: And also, you know, I actually started at a new
Speaker 4: school district this year and I'm teaching a different grade
Speaker 4: level than I have in a long long time, and
Speaker 4: I really, I really love it. It's kind of reinspired me,
Speaker 4: reinvigorated me in a way because it's you know, you
Speaker 4: do the same thing, and you know, you're a professor
Speaker 4: for so so I'm sure you know, if you teach
Speaker 4: the same course over and over, like, yeah, you get
Speaker 4: good at it, but sometimes you get on auto pi.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it gets stale. I worry about that all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I keep it fresh for them. It's important to sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I kind of feel like, you know, I
Speaker 4: got this new new grade level, news everything, new school,
Speaker 4: new grades, new group of students, new ensembles, new curriculum.
Speaker 1: I basically wrote a whole new curriculum. So it's very
Speaker 1: busy because everything is new.
Speaker 4: It'll be a lot easier after a year or two,
Speaker 4: but it's really it's kind of like refreshing. It's kind
Speaker 4: of like reinspired me and made me kind of re examined,
Speaker 4: you know, things that I kind of was doing on autopilot.
Speaker 4: Well what if what maybe I should try to do
Speaker 4: it this way, you know, and try it this way.
Speaker 4: And you know, in a way, it's kind of it's
Speaker 4: I guess it's a little I'm a little outside of
Speaker 4: my comfort zone and I'm finding I really.
Speaker 1: Like that, you know, so so teaching is cool, and
Speaker 1: then of course, you know there's the whole the job
Speaker 1: security of it. You know.
Speaker 4: I think musicians who are who don't teach full time,
Speaker 4: you know, they have a whole different stress.
Speaker 1: Man about job security.
Speaker 4: I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've
Speaker 4: been on Facebook and seeing a GoFundMe page to help
Speaker 4: pay medical costs from some guy that I grew up
Speaker 4: listening to who's one of my heroes, and it makes
Speaker 4: me sad that this dude, you know, has this amazing resume,
Speaker 4: career and life, but man, when he gets sick, he
Speaker 4: needs help to pay his medical bills. And that's great,
Speaker 4: and I, you know, as much as I can, I
Speaker 4: try to donate to those things, but that like kills me, man, like,
Speaker 4: that's just something I don't have to think about as
Speaker 4: a teacher. And I in the you know, the stress,
Speaker 4: and then I think, man, these cats that have kids
Speaker 4: like what, you know, worrying like my kid gets sick,
Speaker 4: like I don't have the health and so you know
Speaker 4: that is a big deal.
Speaker 3: Man. Well, speaking big, you have a big deal of
Speaker 3: a weekend coming up. We're going to take a commercial break.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about that, and we're going to
Speaker 3: display your versatility both as a musician and as a teacher.
Speaker 3: You have le series starting at the Piermont Library. We're
Speaker 3: going to talk about that. Yeah, you know, you also
Speaker 3: have a gig with your band. You want to talk
Speaker 3: about that, and we will in just a few minutes.
Speaker 3: We'll be uh, we'll be talking that and and a
Speaker 3: bit more. So hang with us. Uh, this is being Frank.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Frank Lebono. My very special guest is
Speaker 3: a musician and teacher, kind of a renaissance man. I
Speaker 3: like to give him that label. He does a lot
Speaker 3: of things, and we're discussing a lot of things about music,
Speaker 3: and we'll talk a little bit about the roots of
Speaker 3: American music with my very special guest musician, composer and
Speaker 3: teacher Eric DeVito. This is Being Frank. I'm your host,
Speaker 3: Frank Lebono. Will be right back right after these brief
Speaker 3: commercial men messages.
Speaker 2: Hudson River Radio dot com, Hudson River Radio dot com.
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Speaker 3: Welcome back to Being Frank, the Intelligent conversation podcast. Thanks
Speaker 3: for sticking with us. I'm your host, Frank Lebono, and
Speaker 3: as you know, our engineer is the mailman, mister Neil Richter.
Speaker 3: We bring our audience a fresh topic every week. We
Speaker 3: stream from Hudson River Radio, which is located in beautiful
Speaker 3: historic Stony Point, New York. But you can catch Being
Speaker 3: Frank anywhere you get your favorite podcasts like Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio and all the others. And because every Being Frank
Speaker 3: is archives, you can listen to any of our programs
Speaker 3: anytime you like. Find links to Being Frank on the
Speaker 3: Hudson River Radio Facebook page. We're at our website Hudsonriverradio
Speaker 3: dot com. Just click and you're there. My guest today
Speaker 3: is a composer, musician, teacher mister Eric DeVito. Eric, you
Speaker 3: we want to talk a little bit about your teaching aspect,
Speaker 3: and you know, cause you don't only play music, you
Speaker 3: lecture on the history of American music, particularly jazz and
Speaker 3: the blues. Tell us about the roots of American music
Speaker 3: and what's important to know about it and why is
Speaker 3: it important to preserve today.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, you know, American music is a funny term.
Speaker 4: America is such a young country compared to a lot
Speaker 4: of the world. And you know, one of the things
Speaker 4: I love about America, and I really I think one
Speaker 4: of the things that I love about jazz is it's
Speaker 4: very synonymous with being.
Speaker 1: In a know, with America.
Speaker 4: You know, the roots of jazz, like America come from
Speaker 4: all other places. You know, there was no you know,
Speaker 4: to be American means you have roots somewhere else, right,
Speaker 4: So same with jazz. You know, jazz gets its roots
Speaker 4: primarily from the music of Africa and the music of
Speaker 4: Western Europe and in a lot of ways. You know, Americans,
Speaker 4: if you trace your roots back far enough, you're coming
Speaker 4: from somewhere else. But also you know, American or Americans
Speaker 4: kind of I feel like early on we were kind
Speaker 4: of like a scrappy bunch of you know, colonists who
Speaker 4: weren't very well respected initially, and then you know, maybe
Speaker 4: maybe we got too big of a head, but we
Speaker 4: kind of decided to, you know, think that we were
Speaker 4: one of the greatest nations in the world.
Speaker 1: In many ways we were, depending on how you want
Speaker 1: to look at it.
Speaker 4: But you know, jazz started off as this very crude,
Speaker 4: not respected, not even folk music kind of status.
Speaker 1: It was very underground and.
Speaker 4: Very you know, some people would say it was eleude music,
Speaker 4: or you know, it was being played jelly roll Morton
Speaker 4: was playing in brothels and doing all the stuff, and
Speaker 4: it was kind of born in the cd under parts
Speaker 4: of the country, you know, along with prohibition and all
Speaker 4: that stuff. And then it became really this It became
Speaker 4: America's classical music, and it's been elevated to a status.
Speaker 4: And some some people don't even like that about jazz.
Speaker 4: Some purists don't like to even see jazz be elevated
Speaker 4: to that status. But I think it really speaks a
Speaker 4: lot about you know, American culture and how you know,
Speaker 4: something started somewhere and was elevated and that's really part
Speaker 4: of the folk culture of it, you know, and now
Speaker 4: we look at jazz and we say it's America's classical music, and.
Speaker 1: However you want to look at it.
Speaker 4: But I'd say that jazz really is our meaning, America's
Speaker 4: musical contribution to the world. You know, I think it's
Speaker 4: I think it's one of one of the things that
Speaker 4: makes me most proud about being an American, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm not a you know, I love America.
Speaker 4: I don't know if i'd you know, you know, I
Speaker 4: think it can get tricky when you start to really
Speaker 4: love your country these days, it's hard to be a patriot.
Speaker 4: But when it comes to jazz, I just think it
Speaker 4: really sums up, you know, America and being an American.
Speaker 4: And and now just like being an American has really
Speaker 4: evolved there in the world has gotten a lot smaller,
Speaker 4: you know, with with cultures mixing easier with technology and there,
Speaker 4: you know, you see the same thing in jazz. It
Speaker 4: really does parallel society. And so that's kind of what
Speaker 4: this lecture series was meant to be about.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I got this great grant from it's called an Arts
Speaker 4: Alive grant through Arts Westchester, and I applied for it,
Speaker 4: and I really just wanted to do like a survey
Speaker 4: of jazz. You know, it's something I'm always passionate about
Speaker 4: teaching anyways, And I said, you know, I'd love to
Speaker 4: put something together that's really comprehensive and really kind of
Speaker 4: covers jazz pretty much from its inception to you know,
Speaker 4: where it is today or maybe where it's headed in
Speaker 4: the future.
Speaker 1: And then I.
Speaker 4: Always, you know, living in Rockland County and you know,
Speaker 4: I'm only in Rockland County less than a decade. You know,
Speaker 4: I was in Queen's before that for many many years,
Speaker 4: and I always find that there's a lot less jazz
Speaker 4: gigs for myself and to go here in Rockland County,
Speaker 4: you know, and that's just a lot of that has
Speaker 4: to do with its accessibility maybe to Manhattan and other things.
Speaker 4: So I said, you know what, I feel like there's
Speaker 4: a little bit of an underserved you know, demographic here
Speaker 4: that you know, we could have some more exposure to
Speaker 4: jazz and more education around jazz. And there's a ton
Speaker 4: of great jazz musicians in Rockland County. So I propose
Speaker 4: this grant to basically cover all the different periods of
Speaker 4: you know, how I typically teach jazz. And you know,
Speaker 4: if I had ten different people advised me on this,
Speaker 4: you'd come up with ten different exact ways, you know, everybody.
Speaker 4: We love to discuss and argue about jazz, But basically
Speaker 4: I broke it into the roots of jazz, which would
Speaker 4: be like kind of the blues, you know, so maybe
Speaker 4: just touching a little bit on slavery and how that
Speaker 4: culture came to this part of the world through and
Speaker 4: then what the you know, the influence that had on
Speaker 4: music from the slave songs that kind of in the
Speaker 4: field songs that eventually developed into what we could call
Speaker 4: the blues, and then how the blues developed into it
Speaker 4: mixed with you know, the other cultures that were coming
Speaker 4: over here during the turn of the century or a
Speaker 4: little bit before, mixed with a lot of European styles
Speaker 4: of music, you know, particularly New Orleans. That's kind of
Speaker 4: the birthplace of jazz because of that melting pot of
Speaker 4: culture there, and that's when early jazz was kind of born.
Speaker 4: So I kind of started it there with the blues
Speaker 4: and early jazz is the first lecture that we're going
Speaker 4: to start with, and that's this Sunday, the twenty seventh
Speaker 4: at the Piermont Library.
Speaker 3: And what time should people come there. It's three o'clock,
Speaker 3: three o'clock, three o'clock library, right in the heart of
Speaker 3: peer downtown Piramont, New York, right on the beautiful Hudson River.
Speaker 3: It's a great spot to be.
Speaker 1: But it's a great room too. I've played there before
Speaker 1: for some other things. It's a great spot. But this
Speaker 1: is cool.
Speaker 4: I excited because you know, I didn't want to just
Speaker 4: I didn't want to just do a gig and play
Speaker 4: the music, which you know I thought about, but I said,
Speaker 4: you know, I'd like there to be some context here.
Speaker 4: So it's a lot of playing, you know. I'd say
Speaker 4: it's probably seventy five percent performance and twenty five percent lecture.
Speaker 4: So there's some slides and I'm trying to you know,
Speaker 4: it's not going to be exactly chronological, because nothing is.
Speaker 4: And but you know, we try to give things chronology
Speaker 4: to make them make sense the best we can. But things,
Speaker 4: of course are always overlap, and history is never history
Speaker 4: is always messier, and it appears in textbooks. But you know,
Speaker 4: so we I start with introducing the blues and kind
Speaker 4: of where that came from, and then its development into
Speaker 4: ragtime music, and then early what we'd call new Orleans jazz.
Speaker 1: You know, some people might call it Dixie Land jazz.
Speaker 4: But rather than just play the music, so I want
Speaker 4: to feature the composers of the time that were really
Speaker 4: influential and what makes those styles of music kind of unique,
Speaker 4: the characteristics of the rhythm and the harmony and the
Speaker 4: melody and the form and the structure.
Speaker 1: But also you know, feature.
Speaker 4: The different you know, different styles and the roles of
Speaker 4: the instruments. You know, why was the rhythm section comprised
Speaker 4: of what it was in the nineteen tens and twenties,
Speaker 4: you know, and what with the role of the different instruments,
Speaker 4: but also the role of the musicians. You know, jazz
Speaker 4: to me is very much like a democracy. It's messy,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of there's a lot of personal choices
Speaker 4: you make, and there's a little bit of a hierarchy
Speaker 4: to it.
Speaker 1: But everybody gets there, you know, peace.
Speaker 4: So when we talk about New Orleans jazz, where there's
Speaker 4: a lot of collective improvisation verse. The next thing I'll
Speaker 4: do in November is going to focus on the swing
Speaker 4: era and the big band era, the nineteen thirties when
Speaker 4: jazz really changed a lot, and a lot of people
Speaker 4: say that the commercialization of jazz, and you know, segregation
Speaker 4: really took a lot of the African influence away from jazz.
Speaker 3: I want to jump in here, Eric. I think the
Speaker 3: timing is good, and it's the question I posed. Is
Speaker 3: two of the other great jazz artists who've been guests
Speaker 3: on being Frank David Budway, the proprietor and great pianist
Speaker 3: at Maureen's, and his bass player, a great stand up
Speaker 3: jazz bass player, Jim donnic I have both, but I
Speaker 3: posed this question to them. I call it the jazz paradox. Okay.
Speaker 3: In other words, you can't have it both ways. You know,
Speaker 3: sometimes jazz artists can play well, you know, we're not mainstream,
Speaker 3: but then on the that's on one hand, and then
Speaker 3: on the other hand, they say, we don't want to
Speaker 3: be I think there's a great scene in a film
Speaker 3: called The Man with a Horn with Kirk Douglas and
Speaker 3: he's speaking with an older black gentleman about playing jazz,
Speaker 3: and it's interesting, it's very relative to our conversation, and he,
Speaker 3: the older man, is saying, well, you know, it's great
Speaker 3: that you play all this improvisational music and stuff, but
Speaker 3: is it going to sell because you got eat too,
Speaker 3: and at the time Douglas has well, I don't play
Speaker 3: for them, might play for me. So I call that
Speaker 3: kind of the great paradox, where in a certain sense
Speaker 3: you can't have it both ways. What are your thoughts
Speaker 3: on that.
Speaker 1: Man, that's a good question.
Speaker 4: I think that there's a romantic aspect to it that
Speaker 4: you know, we like to do that, right. I think
Speaker 4: there's just it depends. I think it depends. It's you know,
Speaker 4: I know some jazz musicians that make a lot of
Speaker 4: money and they still play really, you know, so I
Speaker 4: think it depends. I think I feel like it's harder
Speaker 4: to be more well, I.
Speaker 1: Think I think it's even proven.
Speaker 4: Like if you're talking like jazz purism, maybe it's just
Speaker 4: a fact there's less record deals, less people are buying.
Speaker 4: You know, you could you could see that just with
Speaker 4: the shift of culture around how people consume music. Right,
Speaker 4: Jazz always had a very small piece of the pie, right,
Speaker 4: but now that piece is that everybody gets is just
Speaker 4: so much smaller that there's just less and less and
Speaker 4: less you know, ability.
Speaker 1: To do it.
Speaker 4: But you know, you know, it makes me think of
Speaker 4: like Miles Davis, right, like nobody is more. I'm trying
Speaker 4: to find a nice euphemism to put in here, like
Speaker 4: nobody was more not interested in the audience, as Miles
Speaker 4: Davis claimed to be right, and he didn't sacrifice his
Speaker 4: music for anybody. But you know what, that guy drove
Speaker 4: Ferraris and had plenty of mansions and he didn't worry
Speaker 4: about that aspect of it. Now would he have changed
Speaker 4: if that wasn't?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: You could say, well, he got all that money because
Speaker 4: of what he did, and I don't, you know, to
Speaker 4: some extent that might be true, but but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it depends, you know.
Speaker 4: I think that at some point there needs to be
Speaker 4: a balance there, you know, you don't you everybody has
Speaker 4: kind of their own personal line of integrity of how
Speaker 4: much of this am I doing, you know, for myself
Speaker 4: and my own and how much am I doing so
Speaker 4: I can also, you know, continue to do my art
Speaker 4: and make a living doing it.
Speaker 1: So I just think there's a balance.
Speaker 4: And to be honest, man, I think that line it's
Speaker 4: not a straight line. It's constantly changing, and like with you,
Speaker 4: as your life changes and as your needs change, and
Speaker 4: you know, just like you go to work and you
Speaker 4: might go to work and be like, you know what
Speaker 4: I hated work today and what I had to do,
Speaker 4: but I loved it yesterday. And that could be the
Speaker 4: same thing. If you're a musician, that could be the
Speaker 4: same too. Yeah, that's that's it's a it's a good
Speaker 4: question though. You know, there is like a romanticism about
Speaker 4: especially in jazz, you.
Speaker 3: Know, a lovable loser. I don't know if that's the
Speaker 3: right word, but you know that, yeah, that likes Everybody
Speaker 3: likes the underdog if you will like the match. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Like my friends always ras me, my my good buddies
Speaker 4: who come out to my jazz gigs and always say,
Speaker 4: you know, DAVIDO, why don't you play songs that people know,
Speaker 4: you know, like if they're not listen to and we
Speaker 4: can sing along, you know, why don't you go play rocky?
Speaker 4: You'll make twice as much money. And sometimes you know,
Speaker 4: I've done that and it's cool, but and and I
Speaker 4: guess the bottom line is I've done that, and to me,
Speaker 4: that's way more work because I just don't I don't
Speaker 4: love that as much. But if I did, But I
Speaker 4: love going to hear a rock band and they're just
Speaker 4: killing it. And even though I don't listen to a
Speaker 4: lot of that stuff, and I can't you know the
Speaker 4: amount of hours I'd have to practice to not even play.
Speaker 1: When you see those guys into it and it's awesome,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, that is just as good as alget.
Speaker 4: Now, you know, I think it's just more about you
Speaker 4: see people doing something that they're really passionate about, and
Speaker 4: then you're right, the money isn't as important, but like,
Speaker 4: there comes a point if people aren't able to make
Speaker 4: a living and doing it, they're just not gonna be
Speaker 4: able to do it anymore, and then that stuff's going
Speaker 4: to go away.
Speaker 3: You know, we just have a few more minutes. This
Speaker 3: has just been absolutely great, terrific. I really appreciate everything
Speaker 3: you've brought to that party. So let's rehact though. The
Speaker 3: Piermont gig Sunday, the twenty seven. I give the date
Speaker 3: because as we mentioned, this is archived.
Speaker 1: And yeah, go to every twenty seven, you know.
Speaker 3: If you're seeing this before or on the twenty seven
Speaker 3: three o'clock the Piermont Library, right is the Jazz Lecture series.
Speaker 3: Now you also have another gig where you're playing. I
Speaker 3: believe that you wanted to talk about Oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks, I'll plug it.
Speaker 4: But let me also say on the Piermont gig there
Speaker 4: is limited seating, so do you definitely want to go
Speaker 4: to the website. It's free to the public. All these
Speaker 4: concert lecture series are free to the public because we
Speaker 4: want public to be educated. So we're very thankful for
Speaker 4: the grants, you know, from Arts Westchester to be able
Speaker 4: to put these on. And one of the big things
Speaker 4: that was important to me is that I could pay
Speaker 4: because I had to hire a lot of musicians to
Speaker 4: do all these different lectures, and it was important to
Speaker 4: me that I could pay them and what I consider
Speaker 4: an industry standard fair wage. So there's really no money
Speaker 4: going towards anything else. Every dollar goes to paying the
Speaker 4: musician fees.
Speaker 3: You know you mentioned first of the series.
Speaker 4: How many is the first? So it's a four part series.
Speaker 4: The first one this Sunday at three pm. It's the
Speaker 4: blues and early Jazz. Then November seventeenth will be the
Speaker 4: nineteen thirties swing era Big. I have a great big
Speaker 4: band for that one. Then in January I do one
Speaker 4: on the on Bop. It'll be bebop, hard bop and
Speaker 4: post pop. Kind of the beginning of modern jazz kind
Speaker 4: of from like the nineteen forties through the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 4: and then the last one it will be global fusion
Speaker 4: and modern jazz. So it kind of picks up when
Speaker 4: the seventies when jazz kind of became a little more
Speaker 4: global and fusion took off, and then you know, kind
Speaker 4: of the what we could consider modern jazz, which is
Speaker 4: a very hard thing to nail down, of course.
Speaker 3: And where can people get more information about that?
Speaker 4: No more, Yeah, more information about that is you can
Speaker 4: definitely get it on my website www dot erictivito dot com.
Speaker 1: You can check out the Arts Westchester website end it'll
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to be post at the libraries.
Speaker 4: Each library, so Piermont and Niac Library are the two
Speaker 4: libraries that the events are held at. They kind of
Speaker 4: alternate first one Piermont, second one Nyak, third one Piermont.
Speaker 4: I think the fourth one Act but I might have
Speaker 4: that wrong.
Speaker 1: I have to read check.
Speaker 4: But they'll be on the libraries websites and they send
Speaker 4: out newsletters for the community, and of course I'm gonna
Speaker 4: plug them as much as possible. And then yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: you were mentioning thanks, I'm also just just a fun
Speaker 4: little gig. I'm playing with the trio at a in
Speaker 4: Yonkers at a Simple Motive Brewery. And that's in Yonkers,
Speaker 4: New York. On that's this Friday, actually is before this
Speaker 4: this Friday, seven pm at Simple Mode of Brewery. It'll
Speaker 4: be my self on guitar, great drummer John Weekon on drums,
Speaker 4: and the amazing Peter Brenler will be on the bass.
Speaker 4: And those are, you know, part of my regular rotating
Speaker 4: trio that I usually perform with when I'm in the
Speaker 4: New York area. So we'll be doing It's a pretty
Speaker 4: laid back gig. The place is great beer, and it's
Speaker 4: just a nice hang and you know, we'll just do
Speaker 4: a mix of I think they're kind of promoting it
Speaker 4: as like a jazz and cocktails vibe, but I think
Speaker 4: it's pretty casual. We'll play some tunes, maybe some original stuff,
Speaker 4: some of my arrangements of maybe some folk or pop
Speaker 4: or rock tunes along with you know, straight ahead and
Speaker 4: modern jazz kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: We're going to close the program with one of your
Speaker 3: original tunes, very appropriate further season. I'll let you introduce
Speaker 3: it in just a minute. So I'm looking forward to
Speaker 3: hearing that Eric would like to thank you for joining
Speaker 3: us here on being Frankly with all this intelligent conversation.
Speaker 3: It's been great, really interesting.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I had a last thank you good.
Speaker 3: Of course, we offer special thanks to our listeners who
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Speaker 3: Remember you offer fresh topic every week and catch us
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Speaker 3: I always leave you the two last little things the music,
Speaker 3: which can allow Eric to introduce in just a minute.
Speaker 3: But there's also a quote and it's I think I
Speaker 3: try to pick something that's appropriate and this is today's
Speaker 3: where words fail. Music speaks and that comes from Haines
Speaker 3: Christian Anderson for our engineer Neil Richter. I'm your host
Speaker 3: Frank Lobono and we'll let Eric Devido announce the closing
Speaker 3: tune Autumn. What's him?
Speaker 1: Oh cool?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So Autumn is an original composition of mine. It's
Speaker 4: on my second record called The Second Time Around, that
Speaker 4: was on the PJC Record label in twenty thirteen, I think,
Speaker 4: And it's an original tune I wrote, and it's a
Speaker 4: trio tune, and it's actually one of the few tunes
Speaker 4: that I play on steel string guitar, and I kind
Speaker 4: of actually, you know, we spoke a little bit earlier
Speaker 4: about Pat mctheney, and that's kind of very inspired by
Speaker 4: his trio work when he uses his steel string guitar.
Speaker 4: This the sonic kind of the differences in this, the
Speaker 4: sonic details of the tune and this and how it
Speaker 4: changes with the space and the trio with the acoustic guitar.
Speaker 4: So this tune is a ballad. It's called Autumn, and
Speaker 4: it's just meant to be a very kind of pretty
Speaker 4: modern jazz ballad that kind of has some you know, compositionally,
Speaker 4: there's some the form that goes through like some periods
Speaker 4: of ebb and flow in terms of of energy, and yeah,
Speaker 4: it's just, uh it's just a nice ballad that's got a.
Speaker 1: Couple some blues influence in it. And uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: hope you like it.
Speaker 3: Okay, Eric Devido, thank you so much once again. It
Speaker 3: was this was terrific.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me bank for our.
Speaker 3: Engineer Neil Richter, the mailman. I'm your host, Frank Lebono.
Speaker 3: This has been being Frank and we hope to see
Speaker 3: you the next time around.
Speaker 5: M hm hm hm by h.
Speaker 6: Hudson River Radio dot com. This is Hudson River Radio
Speaker 6: dot com.