Bob Seymour With; Lynne Arriale

Well I think a lot of fun. Thank you for a great time. Thank you thank you for having me here. I'm glad we did. You've been listening to Piano Jazz with host Marian McPartland Marian's guest today has been Daniela Schachter join us again next week when Marian welcomes another outstanding artist for an hour of conversation and improvisation. Piano Jazz is recorded at Manhattan Beach studios in New York and is a production of South Carolina TV and radio. The producer is Sherry Hutchinson recording engineer Marcos assisted by Mike Ritchie post production engineer David Mitchell production manager David Lyon the executive producer is Elaine Freeman. If you wish to contact our email address is Piano Jazz at SC or. Our postal address is 11 1. George Rogers Blvd. Columbia South Carolina. Support for NPR comes from NPR stations and the music performance for

striving to enrich lives by sponsoring thousands of free concerts in the United States scheduled to board and the National Endowment for the Arts. It's been a great nation great heart. This is NPR National Public Radio. Piano Jazz is here every Saturday night on your NPR station WUSA eighty nine point seven Tampa St. Petersburg and Sarasota service of the University of South Florida. And next week should be a great one. Miami based trumpeter Cuban player will join Marian McPartland playing trumpet and piano too he can play some piano and he has recently made the news as a club owner of a nice new place just opened this spring in Miami Beach Arturo

Sandoval with Marian McPartland one week from tonight. Later on we'll hear some of the artists who won in this year. This week's jazz Journalist Association awards including a few things from Roy Hanes who received a Lifetime Achievement Award at that celebration at B.B. King's club in New York a few nights ago. And catch up with some new releases coming your way all night every night. And right now we stay with the piano and welcome to our studio one of the great piano players who happens to be in concert in the area tomorrow evening to Lynn. Great to see you. Nice to see you thanks for having me. We've been looking forward to doing this for a while. Yeah you have been making some appearances here and there we're looking forward to the one that's tomorrow at the guerrilla theater in Tampa at 6:00 p.m. a different time than most of the gorilla shows have been. Six o'clock and that's 40 419 North Hubert Avenue. We actually are calling the area home now.

Yes I moved here almost a year ago in July and I love it here I should move 10 years. Well that it's great for us and you've been doing a few engagements here and there I know you've done some things with Rose at the Palladium at least a couple of times and been a finding yourself here and there. Yes. Most of the things we do are out of town we just got back from playing in Paris and and in Zagreb Croatia. You haven't been around. Yeah. But it's always nice to work at home. We actually the gorilla show was a penciled in at one time for about a month ago and then a one nighter in Croatia. How many people in any line of work. This spring you've actually done one nighters in France and Croatia. Now it's very strange flying over for basically a two hour concert. It's an interesting experience it's just going over for that short amount of time. We usually would tour for two or three weeks at a time and then you have a chance to acclimate to the time zone

and you know get your bearings but you know it's fine it's a festival and it's very cool. We've been sitting here listening to the program with Daniela Schachter. You appeared on Piano Jazz some time back yourself. Yeah right after I got back from a tour of Japan and Marion called me and I had actually subbed for her and that tour was a hundred called things like fingers tour and with the Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan cedar walls and Monte Alexander and it was it was quite an incredible experience. And she was unable to make it and I got called and then after that when she and I met and she invited me out to the show I was going say that was the first many people in the jazz world at large who knew of you was actually getting the call to sub for Mary and she played a pretty big role in that way in your career I guess. Yeah way back when was that.

I think it was around 1993 or 94. You have quite a great string of Trio releases. You've been quite prolific since Right about then I guess it was dark as in years or so. Yeah we have our chant CD coming out in the fall which is a recording of a concert of the birdhouse and jazz festival in Germany. And that's going to be a DVD and CD release coming out in October. And there should be another CD release in the spring of completely new material. So this will be a live one later this year. Yeah I was thinking it's been it was fall of 2004 for this one will hear in just a moment thinking you're about do that's great. Now get busy here. I want to ask you about a lot of things your background and a lot about your career but let's hear one. I like your compositions and standards. The masters also bring a nice twist

material from the pop world or other places to your treatment of has been a big favorite around here. Great thank you. How did you how did you a great opener for the last CD How did something you just worked up in your repertoire. Yes I take a long time to find the right repertoire for the group. I have lists and lists of popular tunes but finding ones that really resonate and stand alone regardless of the fact that hearing the lyrics often I hear a song and I think oh that would be great but then as soon as I really imagine you know how it would sound is someone who really had never heard the tune before. Does it stand up alone without having lyrics all of a sudden it's a really short list. And I love the Beatles we've recorded blackbird a couple years ago and their music is just

phenomenal in the melodies are timeless. Well come together it's the trio and Steve Davis. The Beatles to even come together for the most recent disc from the Lennon trio the

CD called Come Together live. Who's with us tonight here on W. USF eighty nine point seven with Jay Anderson the bassist and Steve Davis the drummer the trio is tomorrow evening at the guerrilla theater in Tampa it's the final concert of the season sponsored by the Tampa jazz club at that little venue in Drew Park 40 419 North Avenue in Tampa. And you've had the. Trio together quite some time Steve Davis now lives here in the area too and is on the faculty at USF we're very fortunate to have him teaching aspiring drummers at USF Lynn and you Steven J Anderson have been a very stable group. Yes it's challenging keeping a working group especially in this economic climate. We've been fortunate and we've worked really hard to keep that going. And here in the area use you right. Yeah we love it.

Mark also on the faculty at USF teaching aspiring bass players for a long time and he's a busy man. Oh yes he is I don't know how he keeps up the schedule lead us. He's he's you know he's just always busy. And so that's the group tomorrow night. Steve Davis and Jay Anderson will hear another one or two from the same CD The most recent one come together I love your version too we all did around here kind of we think of in the same breath I guess is that pop song by The Beatles is the great New Orleans standard. Michael go was a great one. When I first heard that in the movie The Big Easy and it was a faster version I think that was you know more of the original tempo but I thought I remember hearing the melody and I thought this is a really kind of humorous melody. And so we slowed it down and kind of was funkier and that's always a fun tune to play. You know you came from studying classical piano and when did you how did you come to Jazz from being classically

trained at the university level. Well I was literally walking down the street one day when I was finishing up my master's degree program. I was in Wisconsin and this concert secretary of music and I just had a path a passing thought that I should study jazz. I mean literally it just you should study jazz. That was the wow. And I didn't really know the Jazz as improvised music I did not know that first we played the melody and after that we make up new melodies over the same harmonic structure of the same chord changes so that every night we have the possibility of really having a unique composition. Certainly you know if someone heard us play come together a couple nights consecutively the arrangement would be basically the same in this case but after that the piano solo the bass solo the drums so all of that is improvised and it's based on learning this language you know for you know many many years and practicing and imitating and learning you know

how to create melodies. So it's really composition you know live in a sense spontaneous composition. And once I started to get a feeling for what that was and my God this is incredible there are so many possibilities there. You know the sky's the limit in terms of how we can approach music. And I started playing jazz then. I mean I really didn't have time to play both at that point because I was like 24 25 when I first started hearing jazz. Is that right. Yeah. I hadn't you know I may have heard a few hours in you know in my life but I didn't know what it was. I think I've heard of Dave Brubeck recording and I remember thinking oh they're playing melodies and then they're playing more melodies and it didn't register to me. You know what they were doing so I actually had to explain of this is what's happening. And you were very committed to European classical music. Definitely that's all I was doing I had no I had no sense of doing anything anything else. And when I was a little girl I used to play by ear. And

since there was no jazz in the house I grew up and I never I didn't learn that idiom at all in my classical teachers really didn't know what to do with me because I would be you know kind of making up things a little you know out of the main path of what I was supposed to be doing and they would say no. Here's what the notes are you need to be doing that and I would circle my music every week of the different the different color pen in order to get my attention. So that was never cultivated then years later. I mean I could play by ear but I didn't have any of the jazz language at all. So it was really an abrupt shift. Did you then just you were in Wisconsin did you just seek out local players to work with and learn the learn that new idiom. Yeah I studied at that time with David Hazeltine. It's a great pianist and teacher. And when I moved to New York I was I was in New York for about 14 or 15 years I studied with different people at different times Fred Hersch

and other people. And you know it's a it's an ongoing process all the time and trying to move forward and I mean every artist you know approaches things that way I'm sure. Well you chose good teachers and it's obvious listening to some pianists. How much of that classical training helps for what they what you want to do as an improviser later do you find that. I guess it's obvious that having that background just technically allows you to do more of what you want to do. I think so but it also I think it can give a person a particular sensibility in terms of shaping phrases. You know it is so that every phrase speaks and it really has a shape to it's not just you know it's not just delivering notes and the interesting interesting thing about jazz is that we're not only concerned with the content of what we're coming up with and which is spontaneous but how we're presenting it. It's like

you know we could I could read something with a monotone or I was using I could speak it with you know just a flat voice or it could shape the phrases and I just realized you know speaking Oh my voice is sounding pretty flat. For example I better have some highs in the air but it's the same thing with speaking and in jazz we want to create the shapes you know each each idea one idea leading to the next. The other element that we kind of have gotten from classical music is developing ideas just like Beethoven and develop that idea into an entire symphony in jazz we take ideas and turn and twist them and and develop them so that they become part of the whole structure of the piece and the audience can hear that. And it I think as a listener it it kind of it points the way it helps us listen you know know what to listen to.

There's the added kick of doing it in the now and it's different than it was last night. Yeah it's an added cake it's an added challenge you know to do that. Yeah. It's very challenging. I love this. I love many of your original compositions and this one I like it is and you refer to being from Wisconsin and it's got the Midwest sensibility to me that I hear in some of the music of Pat Metheny and melodies. You know what I'm talking about. Yes I do it's a sweet kind of there's Or there's a particular feeling. And actually the song was written when I lived in Nashville Indiana for several years and I come home after a long tour and it was July and it was the air was just beautiful just felt like that summer that summer air just very dense and calm. And there right outside my practice studio they were deer. They would come and.

I put out a big thing of water and I think I had to do something. But they were very close. It doesn't get any better than this and I was inspired by that and just the feeling of safety. You know what I you know beautiful thing is to be able to have a home you know obviously and to have a safe place to have a roof over our heads. It's a great gift. Oh. Beautiful melody. It's called an original violin. Who is joining us tonight

it's Saturday night jazz on w USF eighty nine point seven. Seymour so happy to have LYNN BELL in the studio we've been looking forward to someday getting you in to visit Lynn when your schedule has allowed And as you mentioned earlier you've been living in the area about a year or so that was from your residence a few years back in Indiana. So is our part of the world going to inspire. Some place oriented songs. Yes I have quite formulated anything yet but I'm sure it will happen. I hear gators outside the window now I hear this and I'm not sure exactly what that's going to do with this year's been just keep your distance really with the no rain of rain. It's so happy to have you living in the area you mentioned before you know that tomorrow's concert will be in part some new material that's coming out of this.

Yes the whole second half is going to be new material and several originals and Chelsea morning by Joni Mitchell and me and Julio down by the schoolyard by Paul Simon and some other other new tunes. I liked the popular material you're drawn to. Thank you though that I can hear you. I can oh I'm looking for that. When we spoke before with that song reminds me of I grew up just one state over from your residence at that time in Indiana and relate to that Midwestern sensibility that I hear in that song anyway as I said of a kind of reminded me of those melodies by Pat Metheny among others. When we when we spoke before you were headed back up to the Midwest back in the dead of winter to do some good education outreach programs do you do that kind of thing very much. Whenever we can. This was was a long residency we were there for a couple weeks going into the public schools from first grade to sixth grade or seventh

grade and some high school as well. And we talked about improvisation we talked about language of jazz in a way hopefully that was accessible to students that age. I feel it's so important to expose kids to jazz. The earlier the better. This is such a unique art form. And it's you know they get it. They hear the melodies and they hear they're making new ones and it was really a lot of fun even though the weather was you know horrendous but you were in Iowa at the time. Yes. And it was very cold how long residency. There's a couple weeks for two weeks. Yeah. So we would be up at 6:30 in the morning to go to the first school and you know be driving around Moline and it's amazing. They set up this program and coordinate all the dates. It's really it's really remarkable. That's a great age at which to make an impression with with this music isn't it. Absolutely. I think the younger the better if you can get them to to get it right. It's

a lot better than trying to interest them at age 15. Yes absolutely. And at that point they're so receptive is just like you know young kids learning a foreign language. It's easier when they're younger because you know their minds are just so open and so receptive. Do you perform as well and have them take part. Oh they would sing along actually we pick some tunes and we'd improvise on them but you know it was it was Christmas time and so we did you know a bunch of Christmas songs which helped a lot because these are songs they knew and we would make up melodies and you know and have them sing the original melody the same time so they could have a reference as to you know this is the tune this is still the tune but there are new melodies. And whether they intellectually got it or not there's something that clicks. You know when when they have that experience. Do you teach privately to. Yes I have students from all over the world actually I have I do phone lessons and lessons in person of course but

I had a student in Australia I have one in in Germany and students from all over this country as well. Done by Internet. A speakerphone. It's not perfect but it's. I can hear what they're doing and I play back for them and I say check this out try this and when you play for me play eight bars of this let me listen back in. It works it works great. I've run into you a few times at conventions every year of the International Association for jazz education and your performance even though there are hundreds literally of performers in the course of any of those wild conventions. Your performances are always real favorites and and all is remarkable. So I was wondering how much of that was a part of your career in jazz education. Yeah yeah education in general. Oh absolutely it's so it's so important and I love being part of in any capacity but I'm involved in their sisters

in jazz program. I'm on the advisory board and that is specifically to encourage young women to become jazz musicians and there's a whole collegiate competition in fact on Marion's show Daniella Schechter was a winner I believe of the collegiate composition competition two years ago. And there's some great talent in this really gives you know that you know some exposure that they deserve. But I love you know I love being part of it and it's always a thrill to perform at the conventions when you know when possible. Let's through another song with a sense of place. And this is another of your riddles you have. The number of things that go to the border. How did this come up. I heard a melody you know with one little melody and then the question is what come after that. But after that first idea I've always loved music and this kind of kind of

quality of. Brasilia from trio all the three that we have heard

so far come from the same disc as a matter of fact are the opening three songs on the most recent come together is the name of the CD we've heard come together and another original Brazilian. And with us tonight here on w us Point 7 where it's his music every week and. It's so hard to know where to start with a big shelf of discs that you've put out very regularly over the past dozen years or so so we've concentrated on this the most recent and Lynn tells us there's a new one coming out in the fall. A live CD. Duke Ellington was a great piano player but it's conventional wisdom to say that his instrument was the orchestra. And you're a great pianist but your inst you really are committed to the trio format aren't you. Yes I love I just love the interaction in the group. I love being able to play

the melodies but but especially to play with great players and to have that musical conversation going on. That's you know it's a wonderful experience every time to play with guys like Mark and Steve. There is something special about that format is there. Yes there is. Jazz is all about finding your own voice. I guess it's an it's an ongoing process as long as you're playing it. But was there a time getting back to the idea that you first turned to jazz in your 20s from not really being exposed to it before that was. How was the process of developing finding your own voice as a pianist. Well I think there are a couple components one is the choices we make in repertoire I mean that's huge in terms of creating a particular energy and a vibe in the music. And it's not just a question of well any tune will do because of course you could pick any standard

but it would be a good tune but you know finding an emotional connection to certain tunes and you know then developing those. It's very important. And it's funny when I deal with students I say you know if you don't really love a tune I mean of course learn it so you know it doesn't mean you have to play it really fine material that you resonate with. And sometimes that's a very foreign concept to them because they just think well I should learn this tune because everybody else plays it. And that's step one but there's also you know what key should it be played and how fast how slow What kind of a vibe should it have what kind of I feel should the drums create. You know and there's so many different options and it's not just about well let's just do it this way because it's different than how it's normally done. Sometimes the way it is typically done is the absolute best way. Sometimes there are other other ways to present material that kind of a different a different light shining on the material than just you know just a slightly

different angle. And finding that is really is really tricky you know. And so that's important also in terms of one's compositions of finding melodies that really are single and that sound like the human voice of one idea leading organically to the next. And sometimes I'll hear just an opening idea and I mediately make a mad dash to write it down because I've learned that if I don't write it down I'm you know it's gone forever probably. But then what needs to come next. And sometimes I'll have six or eight options. This is how it sounds when it goes from here to here how does that feel. And I can only you know I trust you know whatever that response is. That's all I have to go on. It's not so easy. There is the intellectual aspect of it being a craft and as you know how does this shape feel next to that shape. But really there's an emotional quality. And if we want to reach people and music that's what we have to go with. And the whole idea of finding a voice in

music is a very interesting concept to me because so many musicians say well you know they're speaking of themselves is that I can sound like so-and-so and I can sound like you know well quite Tyner all these different people. Now I have to find out who I am. But to me if we're making choices all the way you know all through our lives where we're playing the music we love to play or we're trusting our instincts. How can we not develop a voice. You know it would be like saying at age 21 OK well I can be like my best friend or I can be like my mom or I can be like this person and who am I going to be. And yet we would think that's funny if someone said that you know because we take it for granted at a certain point that personality is going to develop you know. And I have had that trust in students and you know in my own process that that's inevitable. I think listening to your version of a night in Tunisia and you remarked in the letter notes that approaching that standard to develop your treatment of it

took a year and a half to go to where you got to where yeah you were happy when you had this arrangement you elected. Well actually I was supposed to record and the previous CD and it wasn't ready. It didn't have the slam bang finish that I knew it needed it needed to really really take the next notch. I had to create something that felt like the horses running home to you know you know the last stretch. And and how you know how to find that and so listen if it's not ready for primetime it's not ready. Once you put on a record it's out there forever. The gestation period is going to be what it's going to really tell me about. Consider that when the next arise Ridgeley had a different title it was originally called for the heroes. And I wrote this during the time of after 9/11 and I was just you know glued to the television set watching and just in utter shock and horror at what was what had gone on but also the

events after 9/11 and the incredible heroism and the people you know these rescue workers just walked into the you know World Trade Centers and. You know just they didn't even think twice about putting their lives down you know on the line for other other people. And I remember when Dan Rather was on the Letterman show and he just said Who are these people you know who are these human beings among us that you know without thinking twice this is what they do every day. And there are so many heroes in the world who sacrifice and who put other people before themselves on a daily basis and may never be you know never never make the evening news but that's not what it's about it's who they are. And there are angels among us you know. And so I this is what this tune I try to find a melody that somehow represented just whatever that is that that incredibly inspiring

spirit that that we saw during that time. This is again the Lynn Ariel trio with Jay Anderson and Steve Davis. Oh. Beautiful piece Linaria trio. And again that is arise from the

CD of the same name and written in the wake of 9/11 Lynne Ariel with us this evening here on w us F. eighty nine point seven and appearing tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. It's a concert at the gorilla theater that's 40 419 North Hubert. You can find more about them and this concert and the address and so on to guerilla theatre dot com and that's with an R E not an E R girl a theater. It's in the Park neighborhood of Tampa it'll be with the same drummer we've been hearing on all of these and now on the faculty at USF Steve Davis and Mark two inch wonder. These gigs on the base. Great bassist Lynn. You mentioned the spring having engagements over and back in Gage once just outside Paris and it was as I grabbed. Yes. Croatian. What's the summer travel travel look like with the festival season.

I'm one of the. Playing at the North Sea festival and a couple other places with the I remember Clifford tribute band which is with Benny Golson and Eddie Henderson right Hargrove and Buster Williamson Al Foster. Wow. And then after that I'm going to stay around for a couple more days and then we have some trio concerts at the vegan festival. In the end and something in Amsterdam after that. So you'll be here get the RICO fire Miles. Yes. They the north is it this summer I guess North Sea is got new digs they've moved the festival. That's what I heard. It's been a few years since we've been there so I don't know. I'll find out it's always been known as the biggest jazz festival in the world I guess. Yeah. That's quite a band that Benny Golson I hadn't heard about that concert. I remember Clifford and Benny Golson of course wrote that great piece in the Elegy for Clifford Brown but that is that's an amazing lineup of

musicians. Yes it is I'm really excited about where that is that a New York. Engagement. You know I just got a call and it's just for these dates in Europe. Oh that's a your lives are European dates. All right. That I want to hear all about that when you get back. And I hope you'll keep coming. It will drop by from time to time and you know what's going on here. The new CD will be it what can we look forward to. It will be an October that will be a cd dvd combination and I think it's called in our lives and it'll be on my music which is the label that we've recorded several albums with and they've been just wonderful. All right. Well thanks again for coming in tonight and spending some time with us. Shall we go out with the one we were talking about a few minutes ago. Is the night in Tunisia. John Steve Davis on drums with a slam bang and I don't

know if you wear yours. Thanks. Thanks for coming. And come back soon. Thank you. For. I mean.

Will the trio once again this time with John Petrucci bass drummer Steve

Davis and from the CD called a long road home that is the arrangement of Dizzy Gillespie's a night in Tunisia. It's Saturday night jazz on your NPR station WUSA f eighty nine point seven Tampa St. Petersburg and Sarasota. Thanks once again to Al for spending some time with us the saving one of the newspapers had the time wrong incidentally so let me remind you again it's 6:00 p.m. a lot of the Tampa jazz club concerts have been at three in the afternoon and one of the notices in the newspaper on Friday said 7:00 p.m. but it is trust me at 6:00 p.m. the gorillas at 44 19 North Hubert. And we tilt telling you about some of the other things going on as we go along Actually there is one other concert tomorrow that is worth your attention to and that's at 3:00 in St. Petersburg. Geez jazz jam is continuing with concerts at Saffron's and it's the music of your life quintet that features Laurie Hafer along with Laurie saying along with her husband

Mike A for keyboards and Paul hay for their son on the bass. Lyle Warner and Rich Hall round out the quintet and they're at three o'clock tomorrow at 17:00 Park Street in St. Petersburg for sound friends jazz Itzhak friends. This ongoing Sunday series to take a look down the road. There's a lot there's a few nice things coming up in the next couple of weeks. Look at the live music scene and what you can look for tomorrow on this and here too. It's about a minute before 11:00 jazz coming your way all night. We look forward to a visit in the next few days. Early in the week probably for Marilyn Harris terrific singer and she's a lot of fun. She's from Los Angeles and is doing a road trip. As a matter of fact that's the name of her new CD and we'll check in with Marilyn Harris's new CD during this hour. Here's something from John faddists who we haven't heard from in a while. The fattest quartet. And look at this. The pianist who Lyn Ariel

referred to is one of her early teachers and friends David Hazeltine is the pianist. This is a Benny Carter tune that's just out from John Faddis This is called the courtship. With. With. With.

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Thank you.

Thank you.