June 26, 2025 • 61 mins
“The Sun doesn’t ask for anything. It just shows up.”
We deeply cherish our friendship and conversations with Dave Koz. In our circle of close friends, nobody can dispense a profound line of wisdom quite like him. Also, he makes a mean omelet.
A platinum selling artist with a barrelful of Grammy nominations, Dave continues to break boundaries and make some of the best music of his career, including his most recent album collaborations with Cory Wong and his latest with the great Bob James.
This episode is a lifetime full of stories over drinks with old friends. From the early days of Dave’s career on the Arsenio Hall Show to his trailblazing coming out story, it’s an incredibly heartfelt conversation that could not be a more fitting way to wrap up Pride Month with friends and chosen family.
You can find all of Dave Koz’s music AND all the info on Dave’s touring schedule and his series of Cruises on davekoz.com.
Be sure to follow him @davidstephenkoz and on YouTube.
If you’re finding that your Saucy Posse is needing a bit more (or less) space these days, we’d be happy to help. Contact us @tomandmickey or tomandmickey.com
The Tom & Mickey Show is produced by Smooth Jazz Director & Editor extraordinaire: Stephen Penta (@thepenta)
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Introduction
01:29- This Apartment Brings Back No Memories
02:35- The Sun Doesn't Ask For Anything
04:56- Making "Just Us" with Bob James
12:36- The Magic Of Summerwind and the Dave Koz One Egg Omelette
15:51- The Fellowship Of The Saucy Posse
18:45- WHICH OF THESE THINGS IS NOT TRUE? (Is the new Two Truths and a Lie)
24:16- Dave Breaks Down Each Saxophone By Their DateAbility
26:31- A Perfect New York Evening
27:05- Learning From The Younger Generation As A Jazz Elder Statesman
30:44- "About Your Name..."
33:54- Getting To Learn From Your Idols: David Sanborn
37:55- Bruce Lundvall, Herb Alpert, Burt Bacharach and other inspirations.
39:33- Last Summer We Missed The Boat
39:46- A Duet With George Gershwin?
43:44- Music Is the Best Exercise For The Brain (& Soul)
45:34- New Music Dave's Excited About
47:30- The World Of Norman Lear & Concord Records
50:21- You Played With Peter Allen On The Ill Fated Pat Sajak Show
52:28- Arsenio Hall Was Your First BIG break
54:11- I Want To Live One Life: Coming Out In 2004 Was A Different Time
01:00:19- Sommation Video Clip with Bob James
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:00:00):
From the greatest city on the planet Earth, it's not Tom and Mickey show.
Everything is show-based.
It lights camera action. Presenting... Dave Koss.
Gratitude.
(01:00:23):
We are thrilled to be joined by our beloved friend, who's infinitely talented and dripping in Grammy nominations,
Dave Koss.
And if you're not familiar with the name Dave Koss, you've been living under a rock, or you're just not that into smooth jazz. But Dave is so much more than that. He is a multi-hyphenate musician, a chameleon who reinvents his sound and his image, like most of us change our underwear. That was... That was over the top!
(01:00:59):
I was starting to come out, I'm like, I can't stop it now! Don't speak. Don't speak.
We love you, Dave Koss.
We're very happy to be back in this apartment. Mazel tov! Mazel tov! Cheers. Cheers folks. I love you. I love you. Thank you for having me. Very, very sweet. Thank you for being here. I'll see if you say that when the show is over. You know, this is like a Pavlovian, I know this is your show, you should be asking the questions, but when I come to this set, this apartment, this brings back a lot of memories, and actually no memories as well. Oh yeah.
(01:01:34):
Because I think on that couch, over there, I was passed out. That's right. No, see, passed out sounds so sloppy, because you're like Lily Munster, you were just sitting there in a pose. It was the most peaceful sleep. It was gorgeous. It was gorgeous. As we sat here into the wee wee hours chatting with Darren,
you can snore.
(01:01:54):
Especially when I'm applied with multiple glasses of, how many glasses? Well, you know, we pour heavy.
We've been told we have a heavy pour. It's not just that you have a heavy pour, but you have a heavy pour of gin, and gin makes me crazy. And a lot of people, I found out, I've done a research project that gin actually makes a fair amount of people crazy. Absolutely. Except for the two of you. Yeah. No, it's true. Gin, it's those. The juniper berries. The juniper berries. The botanicals. The juniper berries. It's not absent. Nobody's cutting their ears off. Well, maybe some are, but that's what I was dreaming about. That's where we're not dreaming about. I passed out on your couch, cutting my ear off.
(01:02:36):
This is wonderful to be back in this apartment. I've had a lot of memories here. A lot of great memories. Thank you. Thank you. You coined a phrase on that terrace at a sunset party many summers ago, and you taught us the power of the sun. The sun and what it means to us. And we stood there and we listened carefully. We thought, and you said, if it weren't for the sun, none of this, none of us, nothing would be alive on this planet. And we must respect the sun. And that comes, I guess, from a true Californian. Yeah. We love the sun in California. By the way, no sun here. Thank you. Not this week. Freezing cold. We picked a very bad week. But the sun doesn't ask for anything either. You let that part out. The sun gets up in the morning. Actually, it doesn't go to sleep. It's just the sun all the time. But it goes away for a while, lets us miss it. And then it comes back the next morning. It doesn't need a thank you. It doesn't need any acknowledgement. It's just the sun. It comes up. So I feel, and by the way, we shouldn't leave out the moon because when you leave out the moon, you're not going to leave out the moon. The moon is big. The moon is big. It's not as big as the sun. No, not really. A better publicist. Yes. Yes.
(01:03:47):
But the moon is very important and they work together very well. They do. The sun and the moon. The moon gives us a, moon gives us a tides. The sun gives us a reason to say thank you, sun with a libation in our hands. But on that note, every sunset that we watch, whether it's here at our house anywhere, we say thank you, son. And we think of Dave cause. No, that's very sweet of you. You actually listen to me, which scares me. Of course we look at most of the shit. I can say that word out. Where you can swear. You were Brenda Vekara said most of the shit that comes out of my mouth is absolutely meaningless. So thank you very much for listening and giving me back that reflection that sun, sun, sun salutation, if you will. Thank you, son. Thank you, son. Thank you, son. It's setting right about now, but we can't see it on this particular day. Thank you moon. Thank you moon. We're only about three minutes in and we've toasted at least three times. So that means we have a good show ahead. It's a good show. So we've been down a rabbit hole with your latest album with Bob James. Yeah. Did you get really beautiful? Yes. Yes. Thank you. It's really beautiful to that.
(01:05:07):
And we, I think we counted at least three standards that we are very aware of. And we wanted to start by talking about that because it's your most recent project.
And, and we think that at least one, possibly two of the songs came to fruition last summer when you were at our house on Long Island. I think you might be right. Yeah. There was, there was stuff brewing at that time period. Do you remember that we were all the way. All the way in particular. You were rehearsing a lot. You were rehearsing. You were busy with having some zoom calls. Trying to figure out, cause we were, by the way, we sort of backed into making this album. We didn't set out to make an album. Bob James for your listeners. Bob James is a very famous, he's 85 years old. He's a very famous pianist and a jazz kind of icon, if you will, a treasure.
(01:05:57):
But not just the jazz musician too. He's an amazing composer. I want guard composer. He's an amazing classical musician as well. We've known each other very well for probably over 20 years. We've known each other and we've collaborated together, but we've never collaborated like this. And I actually asked him to be, to come on our Soma cruise, which is the luxury cruise that we started last September for the first time in the Italian Riviera. And I asked him to be one of the artists and he said, I accept under one condition. He didn't make it a condition necessarily, but he said, I would really love to be one of the artists. I would really love if you and I, you came to my house, he lives in northern Michigan in Traverse city, right on a lake. It's absolutely beautiful. He's got like a compound. And he said, why don't you come up to the house? Let's record maybe two songs that we could do that we give to those guests, 600 guests that nobody else gets. And we could print it up on a, like a seven inch vinyl and be like a collector's item. So very special for those guests on the inaugural cruise. And I said, that's a great idea. And I want to thank him for that. And I also wanted to thank him for his great work. And I also wanted to thank him for his great work. And so I went to, and that was when I was at summer wind with you guys. And he parted that whole thing was please bring a song or two of your own, but also bring come armed with some ideas for standards that we were, we can record. So who better. Right before going there to hang out with, to explore a variety of different standards was you guys. So thank you for the inspiration.
(01:07:27):
And I think the end of that story is just didn't expect to record an album, but we finished those two songs very quickly. We did two more. And I was leaving on that. It was about a two day trip. And I, I said, Bob, I just don't feel like we're we're done. So can I come back in like six weeks? And I came back and we recorded another five songs. And then we did the last two songs at my studio in Los Angeles, but it was such an incredible thing. Just two musicians, very pure, very vulnerable, no net, very naked feeling of just working with one musician without headphones in, it was recorded primarily in his living room, overlooking the lake. And it was just almost like a living room experience, living room recording. And hopefully people will be enjoying it in their living rooms too. We've enjoyed it in our living room. That's right. Thank you. My ship.
(01:08:21):
That was one of his suggestions. You know, that song. Of course, of course. That was one that I didn't really know very well. I'd heard it before I've heard other versions, but that was the first song that we recorded for this album.
I think it might've been like take one or probably take two of that. But remember that these are live recordings. There's no way to punch because if you're recording live, and this is the antithesis of the way that I've recorded all of my records for 30 plus years, where you can perfect your sax track. Because maybe you record with the band when it's going down, but you're in isolation, you can go back and fix or do a whole new pass, etc. You can play it 50 times and pick the best pieces and splice together your best performance. This was whatever happened is it.
(01:09:26):
So there would be moments where I would be listening to him while trying to play the saxophone the best that I possibly could. And I would know that he was having the take. That we were recording the take that we're going to use because he was playing so brilliantly that I knew that that would be the one. Meanwhile, I'm like screwing up left and right. And I'm just trying to get to the end of the take without screwing it so much, knowing that I can't go back and fix anything. So in a lot of ways, this was such a perfectly timed project for this point in my life because it was more than anything, it was an exercise in getting more comfortable with my own imperfection. And it was really, I struggled a lot. But I also am very proud of the end product because it was capturing a moment. And the two of us were breathing together and making music together and we were really feeling it together. And I think that's represented on the album.
(01:10:30):
Beautiful. And that's the first time you've ever done anything like that. Even remotely like it. And for him too. Good. You really challenged yourself. And then we finished the album, comes out in March, and as we were preparing to do a handful of shows to promote the project, I remember being on, I was on our Christmas tour at the time and I was talking to him on the phone.
(01:10:54):
And Bob, I said, "Well, you know, maybe we could use a trio. He's got amazing young musicians that I had just seen play and totally blew me away." I said, "Well, maybe we can use your musicians. If you want to use my musicians, we can do it." And he said, "Stop.
We should really do this just us." This was even before the album was called "Just Us." He said, "This is how we've made the album and we shouldn't shy away from being bold. This is an 85-year-old man. I hope to just be able to get out of bed when he's like, "Let alone go on tour." He's got a busier schedule than me. And so he really made the pitch. He said, "I really think that we should do this just you and I." And I was very, very nervous about that. I've never been more nervous for a tour and actually to make a record than I was for this project, but I think it actually...
(01:11:49):
The results were really good. Pushing yourself to the edge of your envelope to see what you really got. When you have no net, no parachute, what's going to happen?
Is the tour still happening at this time or you're finished the dates for now? We have one more in Las Vegas. We want one here. We'll have one in New York. We can travel. We haven't done that.
(01:12:15):
Okay.
Please.
If you book it out at the theater by us at the Stahler Center, you know we told you. Well, maybe that would be the... We'll put it here on record again. The best after party ever, just 10 minutes from the gig.
Have you ever done one of these at Summerwind? I'm going to tell your listeners right now and your viewers that Summerwind, their house on the island, Nisquag. N-I-S-S-E-Q-U-O-G-U-E. That is spectacular.
(01:12:46):
We have nobody...
Nobody knows this thing twice any time in the opera system. Can you spell that?
Yeah, it's not easy. And how many summers has it been that I basically camp out there? I arrived there...
You guys are so nice to have this day there. Seven years, dear. I think this could be our fifth summer coming up, maybe sixth. We'll check the guest book. It's not summer unless there's a Summerwind. Extended stay at Summerwind. Thank you very much. It's no, it's a joyous... Dave has brought so much to our lives.
(01:13:22):
Like fire? Well, in all ways. Thank you, son. Thank you, Dave.
But the little things that you've taught us along the way, things that you've changed the way we think about making eggs.
Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. Now it's an important thing to talk about. These are maybe the most important things to talk about. Especially in these troubling, trying times. Eggs. Yeah, I mean, if you can make a one egg omelet instead of a three egg omelet, that's two less eggs. You've got to do that. So that's like significantly less money now. Yeah. I stand by it. It's a French omelet, a one egg French omelet. You have to have the right pan too, which by the way, you did not have, which... But now we do. Now we do. I got you the pan. Thank you. You're responsible for your own butter.
(01:14:12):
You need lots of butter too. We churn our own. Lots and lots of butter, but those are fun breakfasts. Actually, all the Dave parts are very fun. The thing about the Dave Kaz omelet, not what you've called it, but what we call it.
Because it is so different than a typical three egg omelet. It's light as a feather. It's like a crepe. It's just such a beautiful thing.
(01:14:36):
And as soon as somebody's digging into the first one, you say, would you like another?
Now this would never fly in a restaurant. You can't just keep putting out one egg omelets.
You can't even scale. You could. Nowadays, maybe. Because eggs are what? Like $62. Well, no, that's today's point. Oh no, you saw that coming. You were prescient. Well, maybe this is like a way of, but I don't sell these things. So this is my, um, I could sell them, couldn't I? Just travel around, let's travel around the world, making, going into people's homes and making a one egg omelet for them and their family. Or a concession at your shows. So after the show or before the show? Yes, both. Yes.
(01:15:21):
Fill them up. Well, you can have just, you can have people out there doing that. You teach them the ways of the Dave Kaz omelet, but we share it now with anybody that stays at the house. And we say, these are Dave Kaz omelets. So I have to give credit where credit's due. I learned how to do it from a guy named Krossh Gaddisha, who's my friend, is part of the saucy posse, which by the way, this denotes a member of the saucy posse, the saucy posse, the saucy lido posse is a terrible name, by the way, but it's a great saucy. Really? I think it's kind of a lame name, but the saucy posse is a group of people that found each other in, can I talk to this camera? It really is about this.
(01:16:06):
So saucy posse is a group that formed, uh, on the basis of the friendship that I had with Krossh Gaddisha.
And we found each other in, in Sausoleida, we were all living there during COVID and we couldn't go anywhere. So we all banded together and it's, but it's not a cult. I just want to say that for the record, it's not a cult, even though we all have this circle on our hands. Yeah, that's what most cults say. That's what most people in cults say. It's not a cult. And then they show you a tattoo of a cult.
(01:16:41):
I thought that that tattoo, and I appreciate you telling us the story and our millions of listeners.
I thought that that had something to do with Buddhism.
No, no. So sorry to disappoint you. I'm crushed. No, it's a saucy posse. Okay. I like the simplicity of it. Yeah. It's lovely. Thank you. It's my only tattoo. There's no way. I have no tattoos.
(01:17:06):
I'm thinking of getting one. Oh, you've been talking about all sorts of things. What would you get if you got a tattoo? I'll tell you exactly. Oh, you've really thought about this. I'm inspired by that circle because I believe in Buddhism. As I learned in the Gary Shandling documentary, that means it's fantastic. I'm not. That sort of means that it all happens as it's supposed to. It all is, don't worry about anything. And that's kind of, and I'm saying that miserably, but it's much deeper and much more profound than that.
(01:17:40):
But I also am tempted by the pink triangle and a red heart.
In one? Yeah. Yes. All in one. A circle. Doesn't it? With a heart and a pink triangle. So there would be the circle on the outside, then the triangle and then the heart inside? Correct. And these would all be the same color? No. The triangle has to be pink. The heart has to be red. And then the outer is, can be anything? Dark blue. I think it sounds lovely. You like it? Yeah, I do. Okay.
(01:18:12):
And where will it go? We'll talk about this later. Well, if it's not visible, then your clients don't need to. You'll help me figure out where it goes this summer. I mean, I think maybe right on your left nipple. Right on my left nipple. I've seen that nipple. Really? It's a nice one. Better than the right, actually. It's more appropriate. Extensive needlework.
(01:18:33):
Well, that's the one you don't feel, right? Or that's the one that's extra sensitive? I keep getting them. No, one of them is extra sensitive. Yeah, one is extra sensitive. I think the right one. I wouldn't put a tattoo on that one. How would I know that? I can't tell you. All right. So let's use that as a launching pad to immediately dig into. Which of these things is not true?
(01:18:55):
Oh, okay.
Which of these things is not true?
Oh, wait. Is that a question? No. No, we're going to give you an AB in the same. Oh, okay. Because I don't even know what the AB in the same was. You did this with Bob. You have a thing with Bob on this, right? Yeah. Two truths and a lie. Tell us how that happened. That's what the kids, how the kids said. Two truths and a lie.
(01:19:24):
A, at certain dinner parties at our home, by the end of the night, everyone at the dinner party somehow found Grindr on their phones. They're at the app just appeared on their phones.
That's one.
B. Wait.
(01:19:44):
Can I inject a question? You can inject. Yeah. So you're saying that at summer when or here summer wind, because that's a very important distinction. I did. You're right. You're right. That's right. Summer when a dinner party and where the dinner party guests, some of whom were not gay or some are all gay men. All gay men. And these are people that did not yet have Grindr on their phones. Correct. Some did. Some didn't. That's a lie. Every. By the end.
(01:20:15):
That's a lie. Yeah. I'm pretty sure about that one. I mean, you don't have to act on it, but it's pure entertainment. Okay. I mean, I can, I can whip it out right now and see not the, I'm talking about the grind. Okay. And we can see who is available even on this floor. Well, there's a Hootenanny going on next door. So
(01:20:40):
this, this episode is getting very gay all of a sudden. We can, we can butch it up. No, no, it's okay. All right. So that's one. Two. I'm very gay, by the way. I'm more gay than you and certainly more gay than you. You're queer with a capital Q.
And I thank you for bringing that up because, and I know that we're right in the middle of something else. That's okay, we can come back. We can always use it. I will not lose my spot, I promise. But I think that I have, I think I'd like to be queer now and not gay because gay is so boring now. It is, yeah, it is. That's why we can't get a TV show. They told us gay is not hip anymore. So that's why we're doing this.
(01:21:19):
(Both Laughing)
You switched to podcast. Too gay, man. No, that is not done. To podcast, gay is still kind of cool. Yeah, they like gays with gray hair. Television, not so much. Not so much, but podcasts. Anyway, where were you in your podcast? There are two more questions. So you threw that out as untrue.
The other one was Brenda Vaccaro will never date an alto saxophone player.
(01:21:46):
Is there another one? There's a third. Yeah.
Frank Sinatra referred to his voice as a read, his read. That's very good. Okay. You wanna review them again? Let's review. The dinner party at Summerwin with a bunch of gay men and by the time that they, the end of the dinner party, everybody had Grindr because you put him on everybody's phone. That's number one, right? That's number one.
(01:22:19):
In relation to the other two, I now think that that probably is true.
That is true. And you put them on their phone.
Which is why I've forgotten about it. That's so mean.
So nefarious, it's so mean. And we almost had a 1am visitor, but that's another story. We'll get to that. That was good. Go ahead. Let's see. This game is going really well. Brenda Vaccaro. Brenda Vaccaro will not date an ounce of saxophone player. That sounds like the,
(01:22:51):
because I think that I don't know for sure, and you guys know everything there is to know about Frank Sinatra, so, but I think that that's true, that he referred to it as Reed. It sounds plausible because it's two Reeds that are moving together that make the voice. He absolutely referred to his voice as his Reed and his wife, Barbara Sinatra, his last wife, told me that at a party. Really?
(01:23:16):
I had never heard it before. I was absolutely fascinated by it. And since that was probably 25 years ago, 22 years ago. And ever since then, I've been trying to remember to tell you that.
It's really a good one. Yeah.
And as for Brenda Vaccaro,
she's got a lot to say about a lot of things. Especially alto sax players. No, but she did not.
(01:23:44):
It wasn't Brenda specifically. It was a friend of hers who said, "Don't ever date an alto saxophone player." So why wasn't her? I mean, well, no, we went into that. We went into some detail, like, So, so, Subscribing her sax, Exactly. new tenors, no, shit. Alto saxophones? I don't know. (Laughing) Because typically there's some crossover, yeah. And do you, so we'd like to, we'd like to dig into the psychology of this a little bit. Why would anybody have a negative visceral reaction to an alto saxophone player versus a tenor or a soprano or a baritone?
(01:24:18):
And which of those instruments do you play? It's a two-part question.
Can I take the second part first? Absolutely. I play all the saxophones, alto, tenor, soprano, and baritone. Baritone is actually my favorite of the saxophones to play. It's just so fricking heavy. You don't wanna carry it around. But I love playing that instrument.
I started on alto saxophone, which is very suspect. Because alto saxophonists, now I'm finding out on the show, they're very suspect.
(01:24:47):
But I started on alto, it's like the,
most of the saxophone players that pick up the instrument to start will start on the alto because it's sort of, if you will, it's probably the easiest to play. Soprano, which is the smallest one,
and you know that I play that little curved soprano, versus the one that Kenny G plays, which is the straight one. So he's the straight one and I play the gay one. And, but that is actually the hardest instrument to play. The curved soprano is really difficult because you have to blow a lot of air through it to make the sound, but it's also very pitchy and just constantly have to be thinking.
(01:25:26):
Tenor is a beautiful, like,
I think it kind of has the voice of the tenor is low and it kind of is synonymous with that smoky jazz club and kind of very, very cool, you know, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stiz, like the real cool, the alto is a different voice and a different sensibility to play it. And soprano, I don't know, I'm not sure about soprano. The coolest saxophone players are baritone players. Okay, that's interesting. That's for me. That's interesting. But out of curiosity, have you ever dated an alto sax player? I would never. From then who knows? Absolutely never. Stay away from alto saxophone players. I would date a tenor player. Okay. Yeah. I've never actually dated a saxophone player though. That's interesting too.
(01:26:17):
We like to refill these for continuity. This is what happens is you don't even realize what's going on and next thing you know, sleep on that couch. We will not allow that to happen to you. It's not a chin. It's not chin. It's not chin. It could happen with this one too. We have a big night ahead of us. We are going to the polo bar for dinner. Do you know that the polo bar, anybody that I've said this to, and I'm not a New Yorker so I don't know. I know about the polo bar but I didn't realize that, oh my God, when I said the polo bar to a couple people that said, that's the most impossible place to get in in the entire tri-state area. Well, probably the planet.
(01:26:51):
(Laughing) So how is it that you get in it? We can't talk about that. But let's have another toast. The polo bar. And then we're gonna go to bed moments. Is that okay too? Oh my God, what a perfect New York evening.
Yes. Because I had lunch today with this kid, Brian Eng, who is quite an interesting guy. And you don't know him, right? We met him at, I don't know that we met him. Did we? Did we met him where? We met him, so Jim Caruso knows him. Very well. And he brought him to Barry's Radio City back in October. He was his guest. So we were all backstage for Barry. He's a very, like a really deep kid. I'd never met him before. We communicated and I'm a fan of his. He's a really nice singer, great singer, great pianist. Singer, pianist. 26 years old. Oh my God. He's just got a great sensibility about him. He's now venturing into his own songwriting. He's been very much in the Great American Songbook for the last, since he'd been doing it. He is one of these new kids on the block where you have to do everything. So he's his own manager and he's his own agent. Smiling and dialing and emailing and every day. I mean, he's booked his own tours around the country. Is he good with the social media stuff and all that? He's good with social media. It's an interesting time period now as I've sort of graduated to somewhat of an elder statesman in our world. The best part of my life right now is getting a chance to hang out with younger musicians
(01:28:18):
that somehow are not embarrassed to be seen with me in public. And just to learn from them and if there's anything that I can offer in terms of my life experience for them. It's a completely different world now for younger musicians than it was when I started out. It's the democratization of music where now if you have a good idea and a couple hundred dollars worth of recording equipment in your bathroom, you can record a record.
(01:28:51):
And with one keystroke, you can have international distribution. And there used to be all these roadblocks to that for our entire record business up until just recently. So now there's so much more music. And that's a great thing because now there's not these gatekeepers labels where you had to be signed to a record deal and all that stuff. So there's just a lot more music to sift through. And that's the hardest part is like, it's not hard to get your music out there. It's just how do you get people to listen to it? Right, that's amazing. I mean, it's a lot like what we've gone through with the journey with TV and networks and the network executives who you start a conversation six months later, they're gone. You start a new conversation and the entire landscape of TV has changed. Well, this is not what we're doing now. It's like, well, we don't have to do what anybody's doing now, we're doing this.
(01:29:46):
This is what we decided is if people like it, they'll tune in if they don't like it. We'll probably keep doing what we're doing anyway.
Well, now you- What are we supposed to adapt? No, you guys are doing it the right way. You have an idea, you say, well, we don't need a network. I'm just gonna do this ourselves and put it out there and build a following.
(01:30:07):
I for one, I'm happy to be a part of it.
And we are happy to have you. You're in very good company. How much is this pay actually?
Scale, so I can't get on the scale. (Both Laughing)
How much do you weigh?
We pay how much do you pay? It's how much do you weigh? You're on the scale. (Both Laughing) You're about 125, I'd say. We can give you 250 bucks. Really? That's good.
(01:30:34):
Two bucks for every pound? Not all at once. Slow down, fella. Installments. Oh, DK.
How many people call you Dave Kause?
A lot of people call me Dave Kause. Oh, what? Yeah, the full name. The full name? Dave Kause. Dave Kause. I think it's because it's easy. It's easy. It's easy, it's a one, two punch, blah, blah, blah. Dave Kause. Actually, it's funny that you should bring that up because there is a cute little story about that. Because I was always David, always David growing up. I never, ever called myself Dave or referred to myself as Dave. And no family member, no friend ever called me Dave. I was just David. Cut to the first, when I made my first album for Capitol Records and it was like 1989, my first album came out in 1990. I mean, my manager and I at our first meeting in the Capitol Records Art Department, where they were going to pitch me record covers based on the photo shoot that we had done for the record cover. The head of the Art Department says, and unveils like four comps of thing. And every one of them said Dave Kause. And I'm sitting there with my manager and I'm kind of like biting my tongue. And I'm finally, you know, because I didn't want to ruffle any feathers. I just signed to Capitol Records. I don't want to get dropped before my first record comes out. So I said, sheepishly at a break, I just said, you know, my name is actually David Kause, not Dave Kause. And then he said, well, we had a meeting about that. (Upbeat Music) (Laughing) And I just thought, sorry, it's funny that they had a meeting about my first name. That's interesting. And they came up, I guess they focus grouped it and they said, well, Dave Kause sounds better than David Kause, David Kause. And plus at the time there was David Sandberg, my idol, my saxophone idol. And it says, well, there's already a David in the space. So you can't be another David, you gotta be Dave. And so they sold me and that was it. And then from that point on, so this is now 35 years ago, even my own family members, like my brother and sister who always called me David growing up, they call me Dave for the last 35 years. And like, I think it was last year that I asked my brother and sister to if they wouldn't mind just as an experiment, because I don't really care that much, but as an experiment, I said, do you mind just reverting back to David now, calling me David, not Dave? And they said we would try. They've failed absolutely miserably. They have not used David once. Wow. It's just sort of ingrained there. And the flip side to that is,
(01:33:13):
David Sanborn, who was beloved to all of us,
we never called him David. We always called him Dave. That's funny. Did you ever call him David? I did because when you know somebody well, you wanna like be kind of hip and hey, hey Dave. Was his billing every time he performed, did it say David Sanborn? It did. And his records and everything? Yeah. But even his own wife would call him Dave.
(01:33:40):
And I think he would refer to himself as Dave. You were always a David. He was always a Dave. He became David and you got stuck with Dave. It's funny how that happened. But you are Dave Koss. He was such an amazing guy. We all, the three of us share David Sanborn as a friend and for you guys, a client. And he was, oh my God, the guy,
(01:34:03):
he played the alto saxophone. He did. Oh. And he was also married five times.
(Laughing)
Score one for Brenda.
But David was, he was just my hero, my North star.
(Upbeat Music)
(01:34:28):
Who ended your first theater? I met him when I was in high school. He was playing the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles and he had a sold out show. It was like 5,000 people. He was so, so popular when I was growing up and I memorized all of his music and played along with his records. And then a friend of a friend, of a cousin of a friend, of a sister of a cousin invited me to see his, they had backstage passes to see him. And I went to the show and now I'm face to face for the first time with my idol. And I was just a blubbering fool. I don't know what to say. I love you so much and I just learned all your music and just. And finally, and I just went on and on. I could tell him getting, it sense him being very uncomfortable and it's like, stop.
(01:35:19):
He said stop? Yeah. Stop. Wow. And he said, probably the best advice that I've ever heard, career advice. He said, you know, I'm still here.
I got hopefully lots of years ahead of me. Why don't you just let me be me and you find out who you are and do that.
It was not, that came out a little harsher than it did out of his mouth, but it was really good advice because. That's very sweet. It's very easy. And I find this a lot in our world where it's easy to sort of get stylistically attuned to one musician that you kind of hop on that bandwagon, especially if they're successful. And then you end up sounding like that person and maybe a little too much. So this was a really nice thing to hear at a pivotal time in my development.
(01:36:10):
And you, how old then? I was probably 17. Okay.
And we ended up becoming good friends and colleagues and recorded together and wrote together and we did this big tour together. (Somber Music) And every tour picture, you can go on Google, whatever you type in, Dave Kaz and David Sandborn.
(01:36:31):
And they're pictures of the tour. Every one of them has the same exact picture. It's David Sandborn, head back,
eyes closed, wearing a beautiful black jacket, just looking so cool, right? And then there's me right next to him going, oh my God. (Laughing) (Somber Music)
(01:37:03):
(Laughing)
Try for yourself. Our idols, our idols, people we put in pedestals and revere and they make such an impression in our lives. But there were warnings about meeting your idols too. Well, I think in this case, it was a beautiful meeting. This was good.
(01:37:28):
But you're right. Sometimes it's better to just have that be a question mark of how it would go. And you can write for yourself the way, the scenario that feels best. And the reality sometimes doesn't match up to your fantasy. But in his case, that was a really, and actually the people that I look to as my music mentors, there's been, like the guy who signed me was a legendary New York record executive named Bruce Lundvall. And he was the president of Electra, he was the president of Columbia, he was president of Capitol.
(01:38:01):
And the list of people that he was responsible for signing from everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Norah Jones, for example, he'd be part of that pantheon. And nobody would go to lunch quite like Bruce Lundvall. I can't remember the name of the amazing Italian restaurant. He'd have two martinis before his lunch. And then two double espressos at the end. And ate like a king at lunch back when people did that kind of thing.
(01:38:31):
He'd settle me down and build me up two martinis and two espressos. Yeah. Not at lunch. That was yesterday. But like Herb Alpert is still a big mentor of mine, just turned 90. He was just here, he was just in New York last week, two nights. I got pretty close to Burt Bacharach. And I've just gotten a chance to really get to know and be inspired by a tremendous amount of wonderful people in my life. Feel very blessed that way. You're a wonderful person. And I think that helps.
(01:39:05):
Thank you, Nick. Not just, you know, not just stroking the ego. You are. Touch me again.
In the morning. Thank you. Then just walk away. Thank you. Don't you? I appreciate that. Thank you. I love the both of you too. And we love you. Mutual admiration, society.
And you are, you're the you. We have our fun summers together. We have our fun. This summer we are taking the boat out. Last summer we missed the boat. We missed the boat last summer. I don't know what happened or why. It's about scheduling. Those are some great days. Those are fun. And we'll have them again. And you played, you played, let's not forget. You played a duet with George Gershwin in our music room. That's the most amazing thing. These guys have a player piano, I know it's not called a player piano. What's it called? Yeah, it's a player piano. It's a duo art. Duo art. Yeah, duo art. I knew that had a fancy name. But basically it's a baby grand piano that you put these roles in, piano roles, and then you can watch whoever played the piano part into the role, like created the role, what the technology is so long ago. But the one for, was it Rhapsody in Blue? It was Rhapsody in Blue. You're watching George Gershwin's fingers on the keyboard. His fingers are not there, but you can see him press the keys. That is really amazing. Anybody that, and we try anytime anyone comes to the house that finds it interesting, we share it with them. Because to us, it's still, I mean, we get goose pimples every time we play it. So like, it's just amazing the technology. And the piano was from 1927. 1927 technology is spectacular. And there are a lot of people who think of player pianos like old spaghetti westerns, like, (Imitates Piano) like somebody's peddling it, and like the pianola girl. But the technology by 1927 was really top notch in what they were doing. Somebody once wisely said that a recording is like a photograph, and a piano roll is like an oil painting. Wow. Because it gives the artist the opportunity to say, no, I held that a little bit longer, and not quite auto-tuned. I think it's a little bit more romantic. So you can go back, or they could go back and fix certain notes? Otherwise they were playing, it would sort of be like a typewriter that would punch holes in the paper, but they would sit with a producer in the room, and they'd play it back, like, no, no, no, that's wrong. You missed the D, okay, we're gonna cut that in. Could they have done it in pieces? So it wouldn't have been done, you know, from start to finish?
(01:41:41):
It's a great question. Because there was no mistakes. No, and they were actually so long. Yeah. I mean, it was-- It's on two roles. It's on two roles. We have to put the second role in. But the fact that he could play it.
He could play that, he didn't just write it, but he could actually play it on the piano and also for it to sound like an orchestra. That's the thing is you deal with, and I find that too with Bob James, or anybody that's great, or Billy Stritch, for example, a good friend who's, like, when you are playing a song with Billy Stritch, it's like floating on a cloud, like cloud nine, it's just so amazing. Like these people, they can simulate an entire orchestra with two hands, they get 10 fingers, and there's so much music coming out of them. That's a real gift in an art. I wish that I could, that's one of my secret dreams, is if I could just play piano. See, we put Peter Sencati here, and he just turned around, sort of like he was reaching for his phone. He was looking this way and doing that kind of thing. Reaching for his martini. No, that was over here. Right in front, front and center. He's a very talented young man. Very talented. I like him. I love Peter. He's a great kid, great kid.
(01:42:54):
I make myself sound a little bit older, but yeah. What are we gonna do?
We're getting older. That's good. We have to keep getting older is what we have to do. We don't have the choice of it. And you have to come to our house every summer and make new memories.
Marilyn May, when she was on the show, really did not like people talking about her age. Why does that matter? Why does that matter? Do you want people coming to see me because they think I'm going to drop dead? She refused. She just turned 97. She just turned 97 yesterday. Oh my God. She's in the middle of it. She's doing 10 shows. 10 and I run two blocks from here at 54 Below, 10 nights.
(01:43:31):
Someone argued that that's keeping her going. Exactly. And one thing that I can tell you is music, and I don't need to, you understand this just as much as anybody else, is music. There's something that happens with music in your brain that is like it's the best Sudoku or crossword or whatever, it's like you can hear your brain work through music and also the way that, if you're not a musician, the way that music enters your brain and goes through your ears and into every little crevice of your soul. Like I've used this as an analogy to describe what music is like, where if you're walking on a sidewalk and you take a pitcher of water and you pour it on the sidewalk and you watch where the water knows how to go into these tiny little crevices. That's like music. I love that. It just fills all the little crevices that need caressing. I've been so humbled by it for my whole life. I feel very lucky, very blessed to be able to do this for a living, to actually make it as my living. And hopefully it'll keep me around. I can get to- At least 97. At least 97. And then some. And fascinating how people in older age homes and facilities and such, they may be losing their memory on all sorts of things in names of family and friends, but they remember the lyrics to songs.
(01:45:05):
That boggles my mind, but- It's a beautiful part of the brain. It's a beautiful thing.
But I keep, and I credit you with this all the time.
We were out at Summerwind and you sternly said, why don't you listen to newer music? You're always listening to old music. Why don't you listen to new music? And I think I responded with something like an old codger, like, well, because nothing interests me.
(01:45:35):
No, but that's not true. And I've said, but when people recommend something, I will listen to it and I will attach, often attach to it. And sometimes I'll be very critical of it. And I think, well, it's derivative. It's very electronic. It's not authentic, but there are times I will be sitting in the bathtub and say, stop, don't listen to this. Listen to last week's top 10. And I'll go through the whole thing. Like I don't attach to everything, but I'm trying to allow new wrinkles to form in the brain to let the water in.
(01:46:09):
I have somebody for you. He's a brand new artist.
He lives in the UK. His name is Aaron, A-R-O-N. He's got a very long last name that he doesn't use.
And he goes on Instagram, Aaron the guitarist. I write that down. And he writes new songs, but in,
(01:46:31):
and he's got a voice like Chet Baker. And he writes music like that classic Chet Baker album. All right, well, that was so unique to us. It's like great American songbook songs, but they're new compositions that he has written. And the lyrics are so playful and so sweet. I mean, these sound like pieces of music that were written 80 years ago, but they're brand new pieces of music. And he just got signed to a big management company and they've got big and a big record company. And so he's like, he's got the whole thing brewing. He's something, he's probably 24 years old. Fantastic. Tell us about Norman Lear.
(01:47:16):
That would be another one of those mentors.
We know you were very good friends with him.
We both finished reading his autobiography at some point in the last year, which I could not put down. Have you read it? Yes, I think you haven't read it. I have not read it. I don't really have to read it. I'm not a big reader, especially big books. It's a big book, but it goes fast. You don't want to put it down. Do they have a clip notes on that?
(01:47:43):
Actually, I think Norman did a recording of the book.
He was amazing. He was, and I feel like one of those, every time that I was in his world, whether it was at his house, because we would have these cigar nights once a quarter, pretty much. The cigar group was a really weird mixture of people, but somehow we all found each other. So it was Bob Saget when Bob was alive, and Norman Lear, a few other people, some of the business people, some music people. But Norman, I met, and his partner, because they bought Concord Records at the time I was on Concord Records. So I got to know Norman and Hal Gaba, who was his producing partner, who passed also quite young. And Norman made it to 101, he did. And he loved his cigars, and he loved music, and he loved his friends, and he loved being,
(01:48:40):
he was a great raconteur and amazing storyteller. And also, you're sitting around a table of eight or 10 guys, and these cigar nights were legendary. Go over to his house, there'd be cocktails and incredible appetizers. Then you would sit down and meal, completely catered meals, special chef. And then we would retire to the patio with our instruments. Most of the people in the group were not professional musicians. There were a couple of us ringers.
(01:49:08):
But Norman would sit there and just put his cigar, light his cigar, and sit there with the biggest smile on his face. And just enjoy. Love the music. And it would kind of meander, and somebody would start a song, and then somebody else would start a song. And next thing you know, it was a couple hours out there, just totally enjoying each other. Those are very special memories for me. And when COVID happened,
(01:49:34):
Norman was like very, he was just really missing this group. So we did it every Sunday on Zoom for like that whole year. Wow. From 2020,
soon after the lockdown, for that whole next year, every Sunday. And you know how Zoom, there's the whole, like what comes up. I don't know how we somehow figure out a way Bob Saget would always be the middle square.
(01:50:01):
(Laughing) Like Paul Lind. Paul Lind.
(Laughing) Those are special. Those are very, very special.
We did something we'd never done before. We read your Wikipedia page.
And all sorts of fabulous things popped up. But one thing stood out that actually made us laugh, because it said on Wikipedia,
(01:50:27):
and you know Wikipedia, that's not something that anyone has control over that's out there in terms of the truth and the world and such. Right. And it said it referred to the short lived Pat Sajak show.
And we're not gonna name names, but we do know that somewhere it was referred to as the ill-fated Pat Sajak. (Laughing) You know where I'm going with this, don't you? Because you played, I did. With Peter Allen. Yes. On the ill-fated Pat Sajak show. Pat Sajak show. What part of the story, what part of that did you not like? The ill-fated part? No. Because Peter Allen was on it? No, no, no, no, not at all. No, it was not faded. We've joked a lot. The show is just bad. We, it's the ill-fated. B-A-D. Bad. I mean, I hope he's not watching here, but if he is, it's okay. Cause he is a funny guy. Pat Sajak is a funny guy until the red light goes on.
(01:51:24):
(Laughing) But I get off when you're on TV. I think if you're a talk show host, you have to be able to hug people. You have to be a hugger. And my take is he's not a hugger. No, he's just kind of like uncomfortable. He's not a hugger. But that is part of my past, the Pat Sajak show. And I do want to say for anybody who remembers, for the four people in America that remember the Pat Sajak show, if you're one of them, the band was awesome bands. Oh, the band's spectacular. That was like my first real gig, 1988, I think it was. TBS really wanted to go head to head with, cause Johnny Carson had announced his retirement. And I think that was right before Arsenio went on the air to kind of, and Arsenio just went, as soon as he went on the air, that was the one that took off. And that was your first big thing, right? Arsenio Hall? Arsenio, I went and did Arsenio after they canceled the Pat Sajak show. Uh-huh. Arsenio loved music. Here it comes!
(01:52:27):
And now let's party like it's 1993!
Let's all wear a suit! Me and the women. How you doing, Dave? I'm doing great, how you doing? Oh, I'm hanging, man. You all were brilliant, by the way. Thank you so much. Brilliant. Brilliant, that was wonderful. (Audience Applauding)
And blow for them in return.
(01:52:48):
Four of them, four of them! (Audience Laughing) (Saxophone Playing) That saxophone does it, man. I gotta get me one of these. Somehow he kind of like, would always come over to me if I was there that night, and you know, it was Kibitz with me. And he knew that he'd have a willing foil with me, like I would be up for anything. One time I went there and a producer said, you know, we have an idea for a little skit here. Arsenia wants to see if you can cook cream corn in the bell of your saxophone. So can we like figure out a way to get like a little thing made to put in your saxophone, where you can put the corn in, we can film it. And I'm like, yeah, come on, bring out the corn. Bring it up.
(01:53:35):
I just started out and everybody was watching that show and I could feel it immediately. Like if I was on that show on a Thursday night and I went, you know, to do gigs over the weekend on a Friday, I could feel it at the airport. Like, you know, you really could feel it immediately. Those were really great times. And he was a huge supporter and really changed my life. I read in the Wikipedia that you officially came out in the advocate in 2004, is that correct? That's absolutely correct. So 21 years ago, you said, I'm gay.
(01:54:09):
I said it before that as well, but- And many of your boyfriends knew it before that.
That was the first real public one. What was the significant intervening variable to get from here to there? Well, it was at a time when people didn't come out. Men didn't come out like they do now. And I think that the new coming out is not coming out now.
(01:54:35):
Because there's really no need to, based on what we talked about before, because being gay is like, okay, whatever, nobody cares. But back then people cared. And I was already on my way. I had a pretty nice career going.
And I just would, growing up gay and dealing with the shame of that and also the onset of HIV and AIDS and just like people were afraid of everything. And I just lived like for many, many years, I just was, even though I was gay, I might've met somebody or had a date or something. Like, I was not really there. Even if my body was there, I wasn't there because I was just too petrified. And so I kind of put everything on hold for basically 20 years. And when I was 40, right around this time, was like a renaissance where I kind of like, what am I doing? And a really good friend of mine is an infectious disease doctor at UCLA, researcher. And we were out to lunch one day and I just said, if you don't mind, and I'll pick up the tab, but I'm gonna ask you everything I can possibly think of about this disease and this virus. And you can tell me. And he just sort of laid a lot of my fears, education, which is not something that was really widely disseminated back then. You were too young to know that, but we were all kind of wandering in the dark, not knowing what the hell was going on and how to protect ourselves really and what the real risks were. So he got me more comfortable in my own skin and I've started to finally have more dates. And the turning point was another friend of mine, he was a journalist, who wrote for like a gay rag magazine said, and I had this album coming out called Saxophonica in 2004.
(01:56:29):
And he said, I love this album. I wanna do a story on the album. And I said, well, you know that I'm not gonna be able to come out and know this is a gay. And he said, oh, no, no problem. We just wanna talk about the music.
(Upbeat Music)
(01:56:54):
So I do the interview, he turns it into his editors, new editors of this magazine. I was kind of not out publicly, but people know I was gay.
Cause I was out and about. And these guys knew that I was gay. And he said, you have to ask him about being gay. Otherwise we can't print it. This is our new edict. So he sheepishly came back to me and he said, I know what you're gonna say, but I can't run the, unless you come out, I can't run this article in this magazine. And I noticed the way that I felt, like instead of it being that just write it off, it's not gonna happen. I was like, well, maybe this is time. And I just was like, I'm tired of playing with two different decks. I wanna have one deck of my life. I wanna live one life publicly and personally. So I told him that, I'm actually gonna think about this. And when I told my managers, my managers who had shepherded Melissa Etheridge through her hole coming out, they were like, we're behind you a hundred percent, but don't do it with that magazine. Do it with the advocate, which is like the time magazine of the gay world. And so we did it.
(01:58:09):
I was like, praying that my career would still be salvageable no matter what happened.
Nothing happened.
(Laughing) It was like a lip on the screen.
(01:58:29):
The first call that I got was actually an email. The first one was Melissa Etheridge, whose email was, come on in, the water's warm. That was her email. And then the next one was from David Mixner, who was like the Martin Luther King of the gay world. And he said, I had no idea you were gay. I've listened to your albums. This one album got me through this and this and this. We're doing a private party in the backyard of Senator Ted Kennedy's home in Washington, D.C. for the Democratic senatorships. We want you to be the entertainment. And that was two weeks after coming out. And then the other thing was the People Magazine, who I'd been trying to get into for years, completely not interested in anything you do with me. All of a sudden. Yeah. I was, they said, we want to make you as one of the 50 bachelors of that year. And so next thing I knew, I was doing a photo shoot for People Magazine. So it was like very quickly, all this positivity coming in saying, you did the right thing.
(01:59:36):
(Somber Music)
Whether you're gay and worried about coming out, that's one issue, but we all have fears that we make into
much more than they really need to be. You put more and more clay on your mountain of fear, and then it's unscalable. And you look at it and you say, I'm never going to be able to get over this. And that's the way I was. Until you just say, I'm doing this. And then you get on the other side of the mountain, you look back and there's no mountain. There's nothing there.
(02:00:11):
(Somber Music)
(02:00:55):
(Somber Music)
From the greatest city on the planet Earth, it's not Tom and Mickey show.
Everything is show-based.
It lights camera action. Presenting... Dave Koss.
Gratitude.
(01:00:23):
We are thrilled to be joined by our beloved friend, who's infinitely talented and dripping in Grammy nominations,
Dave Koss.
And if you're not familiar with the name Dave Koss, you've been living under a rock, or you're just not that into smooth jazz. But Dave is so much more than that. He is a multi-hyphenate musician, a chameleon who reinvents his sound and his image, like most of us change our underwear. That was... That was over the top!
(01:00:59):
I was starting to come out, I'm like, I can't stop it now! Don't speak. Don't speak.
We love you, Dave Koss.
We're very happy to be back in this apartment. Mazel tov! Mazel tov! Cheers. Cheers folks. I love you. I love you. Thank you for having me. Very, very sweet. Thank you for being here. I'll see if you say that when the show is over. You know, this is like a Pavlovian, I know this is your show, you should be asking the questions, but when I come to this set, this apartment, this brings back a lot of memories, and actually no memories as well. Oh yeah.
(01:01:34):
Because I think on that couch, over there, I was passed out. That's right. No, see, passed out sounds so sloppy, because you're like Lily Munster, you were just sitting there in a pose. It was the most peaceful sleep. It was gorgeous. It was gorgeous. As we sat here into the wee wee hours chatting with Darren,
you can snore.
(01:01:54):
Especially when I'm applied with multiple glasses of, how many glasses? Well, you know, we pour heavy.
We've been told we have a heavy pour. It's not just that you have a heavy pour, but you have a heavy pour of gin, and gin makes me crazy. And a lot of people, I found out, I've done a research project that gin actually makes a fair amount of people crazy. Absolutely. Except for the two of you. Yeah. No, it's true. Gin, it's those. The juniper berries. The juniper berries. The botanicals. The juniper berries. It's not absent. Nobody's cutting their ears off. Well, maybe some are, but that's what I was dreaming about. That's where we're not dreaming about. I passed out on your couch, cutting my ear off.
(01:02:36):
This is wonderful to be back in this apartment. I've had a lot of memories here. A lot of great memories. Thank you. Thank you. You coined a phrase on that terrace at a sunset party many summers ago, and you taught us the power of the sun. The sun and what it means to us. And we stood there and we listened carefully. We thought, and you said, if it weren't for the sun, none of this, none of us, nothing would be alive on this planet. And we must respect the sun. And that comes, I guess, from a true Californian. Yeah. We love the sun in California. By the way, no sun here. Thank you. Not this week. Freezing cold. We picked a very bad week. But the sun doesn't ask for anything either. You let that part out. The sun gets up in the morning. Actually, it doesn't go to sleep. It's just the sun all the time. But it goes away for a while, lets us miss it. And then it comes back the next morning. It doesn't need a thank you. It doesn't need any acknowledgement. It's just the sun. It comes up. So I feel, and by the way, we shouldn't leave out the moon because when you leave out the moon, you're not going to leave out the moon. The moon is big. The moon is big. It's not as big as the sun. No, not really. A better publicist. Yes. Yes.
(01:03:47):
But the moon is very important and they work together very well. They do. The sun and the moon. The moon gives us a, moon gives us a tides. The sun gives us a reason to say thank you, sun with a libation in our hands. But on that note, every sunset that we watch, whether it's here at our house anywhere, we say thank you, son. And we think of Dave cause. No, that's very sweet of you. You actually listen to me, which scares me. Of course we look at most of the shit. I can say that word out. Where you can swear. You were Brenda Vekara said most of the shit that comes out of my mouth is absolutely meaningless. So thank you very much for listening and giving me back that reflection that sun, sun, sun salutation, if you will. Thank you, son. Thank you, son. Thank you, son. It's setting right about now, but we can't see it on this particular day. Thank you moon. Thank you moon. We're only about three minutes in and we've toasted at least three times. So that means we have a good show ahead. It's a good show. So we've been down a rabbit hole with your latest album with Bob James. Yeah. Did you get really beautiful? Yes. Yes. Thank you. It's really beautiful to that.
(01:05:07):
And we, I think we counted at least three standards that we are very aware of. And we wanted to start by talking about that because it's your most recent project.
And, and we think that at least one, possibly two of the songs came to fruition last summer when you were at our house on Long Island. I think you might be right. Yeah. There was, there was stuff brewing at that time period. Do you remember that we were all the way. All the way in particular. You were rehearsing a lot. You were rehearsing. You were busy with having some zoom calls. Trying to figure out, cause we were, by the way, we sort of backed into making this album. We didn't set out to make an album. Bob James for your listeners. Bob James is a very famous, he's 85 years old. He's a very famous pianist and a jazz kind of icon, if you will, a treasure.
(01:05:57):
But not just the jazz musician too. He's an amazing composer. I want guard composer. He's an amazing classical musician as well. We've known each other very well for probably over 20 years. We've known each other and we've collaborated together, but we've never collaborated like this. And I actually asked him to be, to come on our Soma cruise, which is the luxury cruise that we started last September for the first time in the Italian Riviera. And I asked him to be one of the artists and he said, I accept under one condition. He didn't make it a condition necessarily, but he said, I would really love to be one of the artists. I would really love if you and I, you came to my house, he lives in northern Michigan in Traverse city, right on a lake. It's absolutely beautiful. He's got like a compound. And he said, why don't you come up to the house? Let's record maybe two songs that we could do that we give to those guests, 600 guests that nobody else gets. And we could print it up on a, like a seven inch vinyl and be like a collector's item. So very special for those guests on the inaugural cruise. And I said, that's a great idea. And I want to thank him for that. And I also wanted to thank him for his great work. And I also wanted to thank him for his great work. And so I went to, and that was when I was at summer wind with you guys. And he parted that whole thing was please bring a song or two of your own, but also bring come armed with some ideas for standards that we were, we can record. So who better. Right before going there to hang out with, to explore a variety of different standards was you guys. So thank you for the inspiration.
(01:07:27):
And I think the end of that story is just didn't expect to record an album, but we finished those two songs very quickly. We did two more. And I was leaving on that. It was about a two day trip. And I, I said, Bob, I just don't feel like we're we're done. So can I come back in like six weeks? And I came back and we recorded another five songs. And then we did the last two songs at my studio in Los Angeles, but it was such an incredible thing. Just two musicians, very pure, very vulnerable, no net, very naked feeling of just working with one musician without headphones in, it was recorded primarily in his living room, overlooking the lake. And it was just almost like a living room experience, living room recording. And hopefully people will be enjoying it in their living rooms too. We've enjoyed it in our living room. That's right. Thank you. My ship.
(01:08:21):
That was one of his suggestions. You know, that song. Of course, of course. That was one that I didn't really know very well. I'd heard it before I've heard other versions, but that was the first song that we recorded for this album.
I think it might've been like take one or probably take two of that. But remember that these are live recordings. There's no way to punch because if you're recording live, and this is the antithesis of the way that I've recorded all of my records for 30 plus years, where you can perfect your sax track. Because maybe you record with the band when it's going down, but you're in isolation, you can go back and fix or do a whole new pass, etc. You can play it 50 times and pick the best pieces and splice together your best performance. This was whatever happened is it.
(01:09:26):
So there would be moments where I would be listening to him while trying to play the saxophone the best that I possibly could. And I would know that he was having the take. That we were recording the take that we're going to use because he was playing so brilliantly that I knew that that would be the one. Meanwhile, I'm like screwing up left and right. And I'm just trying to get to the end of the take without screwing it so much, knowing that I can't go back and fix anything. So in a lot of ways, this was such a perfectly timed project for this point in my life because it was more than anything, it was an exercise in getting more comfortable with my own imperfection. And it was really, I struggled a lot. But I also am very proud of the end product because it was capturing a moment. And the two of us were breathing together and making music together and we were really feeling it together. And I think that's represented on the album.
(01:10:30):
Beautiful. And that's the first time you've ever done anything like that. Even remotely like it. And for him too. Good. You really challenged yourself. And then we finished the album, comes out in March, and as we were preparing to do a handful of shows to promote the project, I remember being on, I was on our Christmas tour at the time and I was talking to him on the phone.
(01:10:54):
And Bob, I said, "Well, you know, maybe we could use a trio. He's got amazing young musicians that I had just seen play and totally blew me away." I said, "Well, maybe we can use your musicians. If you want to use my musicians, we can do it." And he said, "Stop.
We should really do this just us." This was even before the album was called "Just Us." He said, "This is how we've made the album and we shouldn't shy away from being bold. This is an 85-year-old man. I hope to just be able to get out of bed when he's like, "Let alone go on tour." He's got a busier schedule than me. And so he really made the pitch. He said, "I really think that we should do this just you and I." And I was very, very nervous about that. I've never been more nervous for a tour and actually to make a record than I was for this project, but I think it actually...
(01:11:49):
The results were really good. Pushing yourself to the edge of your envelope to see what you really got. When you have no net, no parachute, what's going to happen?
Is the tour still happening at this time or you're finished the dates for now? We have one more in Las Vegas. We want one here. We'll have one in New York. We can travel. We haven't done that.
(01:12:15):
Okay.
Please.
If you book it out at the theater by us at the Stahler Center, you know we told you. Well, maybe that would be the... We'll put it here on record again. The best after party ever, just 10 minutes from the gig.
Have you ever done one of these at Summerwind? I'm going to tell your listeners right now and your viewers that Summerwind, their house on the island, Nisquag. N-I-S-S-E-Q-U-O-G-U-E. That is spectacular.
(01:12:46):
We have nobody...
Nobody knows this thing twice any time in the opera system. Can you spell that?
Yeah, it's not easy. And how many summers has it been that I basically camp out there? I arrived there...
You guys are so nice to have this day there. Seven years, dear. I think this could be our fifth summer coming up, maybe sixth. We'll check the guest book. It's not summer unless there's a Summerwind. Extended stay at Summerwind. Thank you very much. It's no, it's a joyous... Dave has brought so much to our lives.
(01:13:22):
Like fire? Well, in all ways. Thank you, son. Thank you, Dave.
But the little things that you've taught us along the way, things that you've changed the way we think about making eggs.
Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. Now it's an important thing to talk about. These are maybe the most important things to talk about. Especially in these troubling, trying times. Eggs. Yeah, I mean, if you can make a one egg omelet instead of a three egg omelet, that's two less eggs. You've got to do that. So that's like significantly less money now. Yeah. I stand by it. It's a French omelet, a one egg French omelet. You have to have the right pan too, which by the way, you did not have, which... But now we do. Now we do. I got you the pan. Thank you. You're responsible for your own butter.
(01:14:12):
You need lots of butter too. We churn our own. Lots and lots of butter, but those are fun breakfasts. Actually, all the Dave parts are very fun. The thing about the Dave Kaz omelet, not what you've called it, but what we call it.
Because it is so different than a typical three egg omelet. It's light as a feather. It's like a crepe. It's just such a beautiful thing.
(01:14:36):
And as soon as somebody's digging into the first one, you say, would you like another?
Now this would never fly in a restaurant. You can't just keep putting out one egg omelets.
You can't even scale. You could. Nowadays, maybe. Because eggs are what? Like $62. Well, no, that's today's point. Oh no, you saw that coming. You were prescient. Well, maybe this is like a way of, but I don't sell these things. So this is my, um, I could sell them, couldn't I? Just travel around, let's travel around the world, making, going into people's homes and making a one egg omelet for them and their family. Or a concession at your shows. So after the show or before the show? Yes, both. Yes.
(01:15:21):
Fill them up. Well, you can have just, you can have people out there doing that. You teach them the ways of the Dave Kaz omelet, but we share it now with anybody that stays at the house. And we say, these are Dave Kaz omelets. So I have to give credit where credit's due. I learned how to do it from a guy named Krossh Gaddisha, who's my friend, is part of the saucy posse, which by the way, this denotes a member of the saucy posse, the saucy posse, the saucy lido posse is a terrible name, by the way, but it's a great saucy. Really? I think it's kind of a lame name, but the saucy posse is a group of people that found each other in, can I talk to this camera? It really is about this.
(01:16:06):
So saucy posse is a group that formed, uh, on the basis of the friendship that I had with Krossh Gaddisha.
And we found each other in, in Sausoleida, we were all living there during COVID and we couldn't go anywhere. So we all banded together and it's, but it's not a cult. I just want to say that for the record, it's not a cult, even though we all have this circle on our hands. Yeah, that's what most cults say. That's what most people in cults say. It's not a cult. And then they show you a tattoo of a cult.
(01:16:41):
I thought that that tattoo, and I appreciate you telling us the story and our millions of listeners.
I thought that that had something to do with Buddhism.
No, no. So sorry to disappoint you. I'm crushed. No, it's a saucy posse. Okay. I like the simplicity of it. Yeah. It's lovely. Thank you. It's my only tattoo. There's no way. I have no tattoos.
(01:17:06):
I'm thinking of getting one. Oh, you've been talking about all sorts of things. What would you get if you got a tattoo? I'll tell you exactly. Oh, you've really thought about this. I'm inspired by that circle because I believe in Buddhism. As I learned in the Gary Shandling documentary, that means it's fantastic. I'm not. That sort of means that it all happens as it's supposed to. It all is, don't worry about anything. And that's kind of, and I'm saying that miserably, but it's much deeper and much more profound than that.
(01:17:40):
But I also am tempted by the pink triangle and a red heart.
In one? Yeah. Yes. All in one. A circle. Doesn't it? With a heart and a pink triangle. So there would be the circle on the outside, then the triangle and then the heart inside? Correct. And these would all be the same color? No. The triangle has to be pink. The heart has to be red. And then the outer is, can be anything? Dark blue. I think it sounds lovely. You like it? Yeah, I do. Okay.
(01:18:12):
And where will it go? We'll talk about this later. Well, if it's not visible, then your clients don't need to. You'll help me figure out where it goes this summer. I mean, I think maybe right on your left nipple. Right on my left nipple. I've seen that nipple. Really? It's a nice one. Better than the right, actually. It's more appropriate. Extensive needlework.
(01:18:33):
Well, that's the one you don't feel, right? Or that's the one that's extra sensitive? I keep getting them. No, one of them is extra sensitive. Yeah, one is extra sensitive. I think the right one. I wouldn't put a tattoo on that one. How would I know that? I can't tell you. All right. So let's use that as a launching pad to immediately dig into. Which of these things is not true?
(01:18:55):
Oh, okay.
Which of these things is not true?
Oh, wait. Is that a question? No. No, we're going to give you an AB in the same. Oh, okay. Because I don't even know what the AB in the same was. You did this with Bob. You have a thing with Bob on this, right? Yeah. Two truths and a lie. Tell us how that happened. That's what the kids, how the kids said. Two truths and a lie.
(01:19:24):
A, at certain dinner parties at our home, by the end of the night, everyone at the dinner party somehow found Grindr on their phones. They're at the app just appeared on their phones.
That's one.
B. Wait.
(01:19:44):
Can I inject a question? You can inject. Yeah. So you're saying that at summer when or here summer wind, because that's a very important distinction. I did. You're right. You're right. That's right. Summer when a dinner party and where the dinner party guests, some of whom were not gay or some are all gay men. All gay men. And these are people that did not yet have Grindr on their phones. Correct. Some did. Some didn't. That's a lie. Every. By the end.
(01:20:15):
That's a lie. Yeah. I'm pretty sure about that one. I mean, you don't have to act on it, but it's pure entertainment. Okay. I mean, I can, I can whip it out right now and see not the, I'm talking about the grind. Okay. And we can see who is available even on this floor. Well, there's a Hootenanny going on next door. So
(01:20:40):
this, this episode is getting very gay all of a sudden. We can, we can butch it up. No, no, it's okay. All right. So that's one. Two. I'm very gay, by the way. I'm more gay than you and certainly more gay than you. You're queer with a capital Q.
And I thank you for bringing that up because, and I know that we're right in the middle of something else. That's okay, we can come back. We can always use it. I will not lose my spot, I promise. But I think that I have, I think I'd like to be queer now and not gay because gay is so boring now. It is, yeah, it is. That's why we can't get a TV show. They told us gay is not hip anymore. So that's why we're doing this.
(01:21:19):
(Both Laughing)
You switched to podcast. Too gay, man. No, that is not done. To podcast, gay is still kind of cool. Yeah, they like gays with gray hair. Television, not so much. Not so much, but podcasts. Anyway, where were you in your podcast? There are two more questions. So you threw that out as untrue.
The other one was Brenda Vaccaro will never date an alto saxophone player.
(01:21:46):
Is there another one? There's a third. Yeah.
Frank Sinatra referred to his voice as a read, his read. That's very good. Okay. You wanna review them again? Let's review. The dinner party at Summerwin with a bunch of gay men and by the time that they, the end of the dinner party, everybody had Grindr because you put him on everybody's phone. That's number one, right? That's number one.
(01:22:19):
In relation to the other two, I now think that that probably is true.
That is true. And you put them on their phone.
Which is why I've forgotten about it. That's so mean.
So nefarious, it's so mean. And we almost had a 1am visitor, but that's another story. We'll get to that. That was good. Go ahead. Let's see. This game is going really well. Brenda Vaccaro. Brenda Vaccaro will not date an ounce of saxophone player. That sounds like the,
(01:22:51):
because I think that I don't know for sure, and you guys know everything there is to know about Frank Sinatra, so, but I think that that's true, that he referred to it as Reed. It sounds plausible because it's two Reeds that are moving together that make the voice. He absolutely referred to his voice as his Reed and his wife, Barbara Sinatra, his last wife, told me that at a party. Really?
(01:23:16):
I had never heard it before. I was absolutely fascinated by it. And since that was probably 25 years ago, 22 years ago. And ever since then, I've been trying to remember to tell you that.
It's really a good one. Yeah.
And as for Brenda Vaccaro,
she's got a lot to say about a lot of things. Especially alto sax players. No, but she did not.
(01:23:44):
It wasn't Brenda specifically. It was a friend of hers who said, "Don't ever date an alto saxophone player." So why wasn't her? I mean, well, no, we went into that. We went into some detail, like, So, so, Subscribing her sax, Exactly. new tenors, no, shit. Alto saxophones? I don't know. (Laughing) Because typically there's some crossover, yeah. And do you, so we'd like to, we'd like to dig into the psychology of this a little bit. Why would anybody have a negative visceral reaction to an alto saxophone player versus a tenor or a soprano or a baritone?
(01:24:18):
And which of those instruments do you play? It's a two-part question.
Can I take the second part first? Absolutely. I play all the saxophones, alto, tenor, soprano, and baritone. Baritone is actually my favorite of the saxophones to play. It's just so fricking heavy. You don't wanna carry it around. But I love playing that instrument.
I started on alto saxophone, which is very suspect. Because alto saxophonists, now I'm finding out on the show, they're very suspect.
(01:24:47):
But I started on alto, it's like the,
most of the saxophone players that pick up the instrument to start will start on the alto because it's sort of, if you will, it's probably the easiest to play. Soprano, which is the smallest one,
and you know that I play that little curved soprano, versus the one that Kenny G plays, which is the straight one. So he's the straight one and I play the gay one. And, but that is actually the hardest instrument to play. The curved soprano is really difficult because you have to blow a lot of air through it to make the sound, but it's also very pitchy and just constantly have to be thinking.
(01:25:26):
Tenor is a beautiful, like,
I think it kind of has the voice of the tenor is low and it kind of is synonymous with that smoky jazz club and kind of very, very cool, you know, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stiz, like the real cool, the alto is a different voice and a different sensibility to play it. And soprano, I don't know, I'm not sure about soprano. The coolest saxophone players are baritone players. Okay, that's interesting. That's for me. That's interesting. But out of curiosity, have you ever dated an alto sax player? I would never. From then who knows? Absolutely never. Stay away from alto saxophone players. I would date a tenor player. Okay. Yeah. I've never actually dated a saxophone player though. That's interesting too.
(01:26:17):
We like to refill these for continuity. This is what happens is you don't even realize what's going on and next thing you know, sleep on that couch. We will not allow that to happen to you. It's not a chin. It's not chin. It's not chin. It could happen with this one too. We have a big night ahead of us. We are going to the polo bar for dinner. Do you know that the polo bar, anybody that I've said this to, and I'm not a New Yorker so I don't know. I know about the polo bar but I didn't realize that, oh my God, when I said the polo bar to a couple people that said, that's the most impossible place to get in in the entire tri-state area. Well, probably the planet.
(01:26:51):
(Laughing) So how is it that you get in it? We can't talk about that. But let's have another toast. The polo bar. And then we're gonna go to bed moments. Is that okay too? Oh my God, what a perfect New York evening.
Yes. Because I had lunch today with this kid, Brian Eng, who is quite an interesting guy. And you don't know him, right? We met him at, I don't know that we met him. Did we? Did we met him where? We met him, so Jim Caruso knows him. Very well. And he brought him to Barry's Radio City back in October. He was his guest. So we were all backstage for Barry. He's a very, like a really deep kid. I'd never met him before. We communicated and I'm a fan of his. He's a really nice singer, great singer, great pianist. Singer, pianist. 26 years old. Oh my God. He's just got a great sensibility about him. He's now venturing into his own songwriting. He's been very much in the Great American Songbook for the last, since he'd been doing it. He is one of these new kids on the block where you have to do everything. So he's his own manager and he's his own agent. Smiling and dialing and emailing and every day. I mean, he's booked his own tours around the country. Is he good with the social media stuff and all that? He's good with social media. It's an interesting time period now as I've sort of graduated to somewhat of an elder statesman in our world. The best part of my life right now is getting a chance to hang out with younger musicians
(01:28:18):
that somehow are not embarrassed to be seen with me in public. And just to learn from them and if there's anything that I can offer in terms of my life experience for them. It's a completely different world now for younger musicians than it was when I started out. It's the democratization of music where now if you have a good idea and a couple hundred dollars worth of recording equipment in your bathroom, you can record a record.
(01:28:51):
And with one keystroke, you can have international distribution. And there used to be all these roadblocks to that for our entire record business up until just recently. So now there's so much more music. And that's a great thing because now there's not these gatekeepers labels where you had to be signed to a record deal and all that stuff. So there's just a lot more music to sift through. And that's the hardest part is like, it's not hard to get your music out there. It's just how do you get people to listen to it? Right, that's amazing. I mean, it's a lot like what we've gone through with the journey with TV and networks and the network executives who you start a conversation six months later, they're gone. You start a new conversation and the entire landscape of TV has changed. Well, this is not what we're doing now. It's like, well, we don't have to do what anybody's doing now, we're doing this.
(01:29:46):
This is what we decided is if people like it, they'll tune in if they don't like it. We'll probably keep doing what we're doing anyway.
Well, now you- What are we supposed to adapt? No, you guys are doing it the right way. You have an idea, you say, well, we don't need a network. I'm just gonna do this ourselves and put it out there and build a following.
(01:30:07):
I for one, I'm happy to be a part of it.
And we are happy to have you. You're in very good company. How much is this pay actually?
Scale, so I can't get on the scale. (Both Laughing)
How much do you weigh?
We pay how much do you pay? It's how much do you weigh? You're on the scale. (Both Laughing) You're about 125, I'd say. We can give you 250 bucks. Really? That's good.
(01:30:34):
Two bucks for every pound? Not all at once. Slow down, fella. Installments. Oh, DK.
How many people call you Dave Kause?
A lot of people call me Dave Kause. Oh, what? Yeah, the full name. The full name? Dave Kause. Dave Kause. I think it's because it's easy. It's easy. It's easy, it's a one, two punch, blah, blah, blah. Dave Kause. Actually, it's funny that you should bring that up because there is a cute little story about that. Because I was always David, always David growing up. I never, ever called myself Dave or referred to myself as Dave. And no family member, no friend ever called me Dave. I was just David. Cut to the first, when I made my first album for Capitol Records and it was like 1989, my first album came out in 1990. I mean, my manager and I at our first meeting in the Capitol Records Art Department, where they were going to pitch me record covers based on the photo shoot that we had done for the record cover. The head of the Art Department says, and unveils like four comps of thing. And every one of them said Dave Kause. And I'm sitting there with my manager and I'm kind of like biting my tongue. And I'm finally, you know, because I didn't want to ruffle any feathers. I just signed to Capitol Records. I don't want to get dropped before my first record comes out. So I said, sheepishly at a break, I just said, you know, my name is actually David Kause, not Dave Kause. And then he said, well, we had a meeting about that. (Upbeat Music) (Laughing) And I just thought, sorry, it's funny that they had a meeting about my first name. That's interesting. And they came up, I guess they focus grouped it and they said, well, Dave Kause sounds better than David Kause, David Kause. And plus at the time there was David Sandberg, my idol, my saxophone idol. And it says, well, there's already a David in the space. So you can't be another David, you gotta be Dave. And so they sold me and that was it. And then from that point on, so this is now 35 years ago, even my own family members, like my brother and sister who always called me David growing up, they call me Dave for the last 35 years. And like, I think it was last year that I asked my brother and sister to if they wouldn't mind just as an experiment, because I don't really care that much, but as an experiment, I said, do you mind just reverting back to David now, calling me David, not Dave? And they said we would try. They've failed absolutely miserably. They have not used David once. Wow. It's just sort of ingrained there. And the flip side to that is,
(01:33:13):
David Sanborn, who was beloved to all of us,
we never called him David. We always called him Dave. That's funny. Did you ever call him David? I did because when you know somebody well, you wanna like be kind of hip and hey, hey Dave. Was his billing every time he performed, did it say David Sanborn? It did. And his records and everything? Yeah. But even his own wife would call him Dave.
(01:33:40):
And I think he would refer to himself as Dave. You were always a David. He was always a Dave. He became David and you got stuck with Dave. It's funny how that happened. But you are Dave Koss. He was such an amazing guy. We all, the three of us share David Sanborn as a friend and for you guys, a client. And he was, oh my God, the guy,
(01:34:03):
he played the alto saxophone. He did. Oh. And he was also married five times.
(Laughing)
Score one for Brenda.
But David was, he was just my hero, my North star.
(Upbeat Music)
(01:34:28):
Who ended your first theater? I met him when I was in high school. He was playing the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles and he had a sold out show. It was like 5,000 people. He was so, so popular when I was growing up and I memorized all of his music and played along with his records. And then a friend of a friend, of a cousin of a friend, of a sister of a cousin invited me to see his, they had backstage passes to see him. And I went to the show and now I'm face to face for the first time with my idol. And I was just a blubbering fool. I don't know what to say. I love you so much and I just learned all your music and just. And finally, and I just went on and on. I could tell him getting, it sense him being very uncomfortable and it's like, stop.
(01:35:19):
He said stop? Yeah. Stop. Wow. And he said, probably the best advice that I've ever heard, career advice. He said, you know, I'm still here.
I got hopefully lots of years ahead of me. Why don't you just let me be me and you find out who you are and do that.
It was not, that came out a little harsher than it did out of his mouth, but it was really good advice because. That's very sweet. It's very easy. And I find this a lot in our world where it's easy to sort of get stylistically attuned to one musician that you kind of hop on that bandwagon, especially if they're successful. And then you end up sounding like that person and maybe a little too much. So this was a really nice thing to hear at a pivotal time in my development.
(01:36:10):
And you, how old then? I was probably 17. Okay.
And we ended up becoming good friends and colleagues and recorded together and wrote together and we did this big tour together. (Somber Music) And every tour picture, you can go on Google, whatever you type in, Dave Kaz and David Sandborn.
(01:36:31):
And they're pictures of the tour. Every one of them has the same exact picture. It's David Sandborn, head back,
eyes closed, wearing a beautiful black jacket, just looking so cool, right? And then there's me right next to him going, oh my God. (Laughing) (Somber Music)
(01:37:03):
(Laughing)
Try for yourself. Our idols, our idols, people we put in pedestals and revere and they make such an impression in our lives. But there were warnings about meeting your idols too. Well, I think in this case, it was a beautiful meeting. This was good.
(01:37:28):
But you're right. Sometimes it's better to just have that be a question mark of how it would go. And you can write for yourself the way, the scenario that feels best. And the reality sometimes doesn't match up to your fantasy. But in his case, that was a really, and actually the people that I look to as my music mentors, there's been, like the guy who signed me was a legendary New York record executive named Bruce Lundvall. And he was the president of Electra, he was the president of Columbia, he was president of Capitol.
(01:38:01):
And the list of people that he was responsible for signing from everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Norah Jones, for example, he'd be part of that pantheon. And nobody would go to lunch quite like Bruce Lundvall. I can't remember the name of the amazing Italian restaurant. He'd have two martinis before his lunch. And then two double espressos at the end. And ate like a king at lunch back when people did that kind of thing.
(01:38:31):
He'd settle me down and build me up two martinis and two espressos. Yeah. Not at lunch. That was yesterday. But like Herb Alpert is still a big mentor of mine, just turned 90. He was just here, he was just in New York last week, two nights. I got pretty close to Burt Bacharach. And I've just gotten a chance to really get to know and be inspired by a tremendous amount of wonderful people in my life. Feel very blessed that way. You're a wonderful person. And I think that helps.
(01:39:05):
Thank you, Nick. Not just, you know, not just stroking the ego. You are. Touch me again.
In the morning. Thank you. Then just walk away. Thank you. Don't you? I appreciate that. Thank you. I love the both of you too. And we love you. Mutual admiration, society.
And you are, you're the you. We have our fun summers together. We have our fun. This summer we are taking the boat out. Last summer we missed the boat. We missed the boat last summer. I don't know what happened or why. It's about scheduling. Those are some great days. Those are fun. And we'll have them again. And you played, you played, let's not forget. You played a duet with George Gershwin in our music room. That's the most amazing thing. These guys have a player piano, I know it's not called a player piano. What's it called? Yeah, it's a player piano. It's a duo art. Duo art. Yeah, duo art. I knew that had a fancy name. But basically it's a baby grand piano that you put these roles in, piano roles, and then you can watch whoever played the piano part into the role, like created the role, what the technology is so long ago. But the one for, was it Rhapsody in Blue? It was Rhapsody in Blue. You're watching George Gershwin's fingers on the keyboard. His fingers are not there, but you can see him press the keys. That is really amazing. Anybody that, and we try anytime anyone comes to the house that finds it interesting, we share it with them. Because to us, it's still, I mean, we get goose pimples every time we play it. So like, it's just amazing the technology. And the piano was from 1927. 1927 technology is spectacular. And there are a lot of people who think of player pianos like old spaghetti westerns, like, (Imitates Piano) like somebody's peddling it, and like the pianola girl. But the technology by 1927 was really top notch in what they were doing. Somebody once wisely said that a recording is like a photograph, and a piano roll is like an oil painting. Wow. Because it gives the artist the opportunity to say, no, I held that a little bit longer, and not quite auto-tuned. I think it's a little bit more romantic. So you can go back, or they could go back and fix certain notes? Otherwise they were playing, it would sort of be like a typewriter that would punch holes in the paper, but they would sit with a producer in the room, and they'd play it back, like, no, no, no, that's wrong. You missed the D, okay, we're gonna cut that in. Could they have done it in pieces? So it wouldn't have been done, you know, from start to finish?
(01:41:41):
It's a great question. Because there was no mistakes. No, and they were actually so long. Yeah. I mean, it was-- It's on two roles. It's on two roles. We have to put the second role in. But the fact that he could play it.
He could play that, he didn't just write it, but he could actually play it on the piano and also for it to sound like an orchestra. That's the thing is you deal with, and I find that too with Bob James, or anybody that's great, or Billy Stritch, for example, a good friend who's, like, when you are playing a song with Billy Stritch, it's like floating on a cloud, like cloud nine, it's just so amazing. Like these people, they can simulate an entire orchestra with two hands, they get 10 fingers, and there's so much music coming out of them. That's a real gift in an art. I wish that I could, that's one of my secret dreams, is if I could just play piano. See, we put Peter Sencati here, and he just turned around, sort of like he was reaching for his phone. He was looking this way and doing that kind of thing. Reaching for his martini. No, that was over here. Right in front, front and center. He's a very talented young man. Very talented. I like him. I love Peter. He's a great kid, great kid.
(01:42:54):
I make myself sound a little bit older, but yeah. What are we gonna do?
We're getting older. That's good. We have to keep getting older is what we have to do. We don't have the choice of it. And you have to come to our house every summer and make new memories.
Marilyn May, when she was on the show, really did not like people talking about her age. Why does that matter? Why does that matter? Do you want people coming to see me because they think I'm going to drop dead? She refused. She just turned 97. She just turned 97 yesterday. Oh my God. She's in the middle of it. She's doing 10 shows. 10 and I run two blocks from here at 54 Below, 10 nights.
(01:43:31):
Someone argued that that's keeping her going. Exactly. And one thing that I can tell you is music, and I don't need to, you understand this just as much as anybody else, is music. There's something that happens with music in your brain that is like it's the best Sudoku or crossword or whatever, it's like you can hear your brain work through music and also the way that, if you're not a musician, the way that music enters your brain and goes through your ears and into every little crevice of your soul. Like I've used this as an analogy to describe what music is like, where if you're walking on a sidewalk and you take a pitcher of water and you pour it on the sidewalk and you watch where the water knows how to go into these tiny little crevices. That's like music. I love that. It just fills all the little crevices that need caressing. I've been so humbled by it for my whole life. I feel very lucky, very blessed to be able to do this for a living, to actually make it as my living. And hopefully it'll keep me around. I can get to- At least 97. At least 97. And then some. And fascinating how people in older age homes and facilities and such, they may be losing their memory on all sorts of things in names of family and friends, but they remember the lyrics to songs.
(01:45:05):
That boggles my mind, but- It's a beautiful part of the brain. It's a beautiful thing.
But I keep, and I credit you with this all the time.
We were out at Summerwind and you sternly said, why don't you listen to newer music? You're always listening to old music. Why don't you listen to new music? And I think I responded with something like an old codger, like, well, because nothing interests me.
(01:45:35):
No, but that's not true. And I've said, but when people recommend something, I will listen to it and I will attach, often attach to it. And sometimes I'll be very critical of it. And I think, well, it's derivative. It's very electronic. It's not authentic, but there are times I will be sitting in the bathtub and say, stop, don't listen to this. Listen to last week's top 10. And I'll go through the whole thing. Like I don't attach to everything, but I'm trying to allow new wrinkles to form in the brain to let the water in.
(01:46:09):
I have somebody for you. He's a brand new artist.
He lives in the UK. His name is Aaron, A-R-O-N. He's got a very long last name that he doesn't use.
And he goes on Instagram, Aaron the guitarist. I write that down. And he writes new songs, but in,
(01:46:31):
and he's got a voice like Chet Baker. And he writes music like that classic Chet Baker album. All right, well, that was so unique to us. It's like great American songbook songs, but they're new compositions that he has written. And the lyrics are so playful and so sweet. I mean, these sound like pieces of music that were written 80 years ago, but they're brand new pieces of music. And he just got signed to a big management company and they've got big and a big record company. And so he's like, he's got the whole thing brewing. He's something, he's probably 24 years old. Fantastic. Tell us about Norman Lear.
(01:47:16):
That would be another one of those mentors.
We know you were very good friends with him.
We both finished reading his autobiography at some point in the last year, which I could not put down. Have you read it? Yes, I think you haven't read it. I have not read it. I don't really have to read it. I'm not a big reader, especially big books. It's a big book, but it goes fast. You don't want to put it down. Do they have a clip notes on that?
(01:47:43):
Actually, I think Norman did a recording of the book.
He was amazing. He was, and I feel like one of those, every time that I was in his world, whether it was at his house, because we would have these cigar nights once a quarter, pretty much. The cigar group was a really weird mixture of people, but somehow we all found each other. So it was Bob Saget when Bob was alive, and Norman Lear, a few other people, some of the business people, some music people. But Norman, I met, and his partner, because they bought Concord Records at the time I was on Concord Records. So I got to know Norman and Hal Gaba, who was his producing partner, who passed also quite young. And Norman made it to 101, he did. And he loved his cigars, and he loved music, and he loved his friends, and he loved being,
(01:48:40):
he was a great raconteur and amazing storyteller. And also, you're sitting around a table of eight or 10 guys, and these cigar nights were legendary. Go over to his house, there'd be cocktails and incredible appetizers. Then you would sit down and meal, completely catered meals, special chef. And then we would retire to the patio with our instruments. Most of the people in the group were not professional musicians. There were a couple of us ringers.
(01:49:08):
But Norman would sit there and just put his cigar, light his cigar, and sit there with the biggest smile on his face. And just enjoy. Love the music. And it would kind of meander, and somebody would start a song, and then somebody else would start a song. And next thing you know, it was a couple hours out there, just totally enjoying each other. Those are very special memories for me. And when COVID happened,
(01:49:34):
Norman was like very, he was just really missing this group. So we did it every Sunday on Zoom for like that whole year. Wow. From 2020,
soon after the lockdown, for that whole next year, every Sunday. And you know how Zoom, there's the whole, like what comes up. I don't know how we somehow figure out a way Bob Saget would always be the middle square.
(01:50:01):
(Laughing) Like Paul Lind. Paul Lind.
(Laughing) Those are special. Those are very, very special.
We did something we'd never done before. We read your Wikipedia page.
And all sorts of fabulous things popped up. But one thing stood out that actually made us laugh, because it said on Wikipedia,
(01:50:27):
and you know Wikipedia, that's not something that anyone has control over that's out there in terms of the truth and the world and such. Right. And it said it referred to the short lived Pat Sajak show.
And we're not gonna name names, but we do know that somewhere it was referred to as the ill-fated Pat Sajak. (Laughing) You know where I'm going with this, don't you? Because you played, I did. With Peter Allen. Yes. On the ill-fated Pat Sajak show. Pat Sajak show. What part of the story, what part of that did you not like? The ill-fated part? No. Because Peter Allen was on it? No, no, no, no, not at all. No, it was not faded. We've joked a lot. The show is just bad. We, it's the ill-fated. B-A-D. Bad. I mean, I hope he's not watching here, but if he is, it's okay. Cause he is a funny guy. Pat Sajak is a funny guy until the red light goes on.
(01:51:24):
(Laughing) But I get off when you're on TV. I think if you're a talk show host, you have to be able to hug people. You have to be a hugger. And my take is he's not a hugger. No, he's just kind of like uncomfortable. He's not a hugger. But that is part of my past, the Pat Sajak show. And I do want to say for anybody who remembers, for the four people in America that remember the Pat Sajak show, if you're one of them, the band was awesome bands. Oh, the band's spectacular. That was like my first real gig, 1988, I think it was. TBS really wanted to go head to head with, cause Johnny Carson had announced his retirement. And I think that was right before Arsenio went on the air to kind of, and Arsenio just went, as soon as he went on the air, that was the one that took off. And that was your first big thing, right? Arsenio Hall? Arsenio, I went and did Arsenio after they canceled the Pat Sajak show. Uh-huh. Arsenio loved music. Here it comes!
(01:52:27):
And now let's party like it's 1993!
Let's all wear a suit! Me and the women. How you doing, Dave? I'm doing great, how you doing? Oh, I'm hanging, man. You all were brilliant, by the way. Thank you so much. Brilliant. Brilliant, that was wonderful. (Audience Applauding)
And blow for them in return.
(01:52:48):
Four of them, four of them! (Audience Laughing) (Saxophone Playing) That saxophone does it, man. I gotta get me one of these. Somehow he kind of like, would always come over to me if I was there that night, and you know, it was Kibitz with me. And he knew that he'd have a willing foil with me, like I would be up for anything. One time I went there and a producer said, you know, we have an idea for a little skit here. Arsenia wants to see if you can cook cream corn in the bell of your saxophone. So can we like figure out a way to get like a little thing made to put in your saxophone, where you can put the corn in, we can film it. And I'm like, yeah, come on, bring out the corn. Bring it up.
(01:53:35):
I just started out and everybody was watching that show and I could feel it immediately. Like if I was on that show on a Thursday night and I went, you know, to do gigs over the weekend on a Friday, I could feel it at the airport. Like, you know, you really could feel it immediately. Those were really great times. And he was a huge supporter and really changed my life. I read in the Wikipedia that you officially came out in the advocate in 2004, is that correct? That's absolutely correct. So 21 years ago, you said, I'm gay.
(01:54:09):
I said it before that as well, but- And many of your boyfriends knew it before that.
That was the first real public one. What was the significant intervening variable to get from here to there? Well, it was at a time when people didn't come out. Men didn't come out like they do now. And I think that the new coming out is not coming out now.
(01:54:35):
Because there's really no need to, based on what we talked about before, because being gay is like, okay, whatever, nobody cares. But back then people cared. And I was already on my way. I had a pretty nice career going.
And I just would, growing up gay and dealing with the shame of that and also the onset of HIV and AIDS and just like people were afraid of everything. And I just lived like for many, many years, I just was, even though I was gay, I might've met somebody or had a date or something. Like, I was not really there. Even if my body was there, I wasn't there because I was just too petrified. And so I kind of put everything on hold for basically 20 years. And when I was 40, right around this time, was like a renaissance where I kind of like, what am I doing? And a really good friend of mine is an infectious disease doctor at UCLA, researcher. And we were out to lunch one day and I just said, if you don't mind, and I'll pick up the tab, but I'm gonna ask you everything I can possibly think of about this disease and this virus. And you can tell me. And he just sort of laid a lot of my fears, education, which is not something that was really widely disseminated back then. You were too young to know that, but we were all kind of wandering in the dark, not knowing what the hell was going on and how to protect ourselves really and what the real risks were. So he got me more comfortable in my own skin and I've started to finally have more dates. And the turning point was another friend of mine, he was a journalist, who wrote for like a gay rag magazine said, and I had this album coming out called Saxophonica in 2004.
(01:56:29):
And he said, I love this album. I wanna do a story on the album. And I said, well, you know that I'm not gonna be able to come out and know this is a gay. And he said, oh, no, no problem. We just wanna talk about the music.
(Upbeat Music)
(01:56:54):
So I do the interview, he turns it into his editors, new editors of this magazine. I was kind of not out publicly, but people know I was gay.
Cause I was out and about. And these guys knew that I was gay. And he said, you have to ask him about being gay. Otherwise we can't print it. This is our new edict. So he sheepishly came back to me and he said, I know what you're gonna say, but I can't run the, unless you come out, I can't run this article in this magazine. And I noticed the way that I felt, like instead of it being that just write it off, it's not gonna happen. I was like, well, maybe this is time. And I just was like, I'm tired of playing with two different decks. I wanna have one deck of my life. I wanna live one life publicly and personally. So I told him that, I'm actually gonna think about this. And when I told my managers, my managers who had shepherded Melissa Etheridge through her hole coming out, they were like, we're behind you a hundred percent, but don't do it with that magazine. Do it with the advocate, which is like the time magazine of the gay world. And so we did it.
(01:58:09):
I was like, praying that my career would still be salvageable no matter what happened.
Nothing happened.
(Laughing) It was like a lip on the screen.
(01:58:29):
The first call that I got was actually an email. The first one was Melissa Etheridge, whose email was, come on in, the water's warm. That was her email. And then the next one was from David Mixner, who was like the Martin Luther King of the gay world. And he said, I had no idea you were gay. I've listened to your albums. This one album got me through this and this and this. We're doing a private party in the backyard of Senator Ted Kennedy's home in Washington, D.C. for the Democratic senatorships. We want you to be the entertainment. And that was two weeks after coming out. And then the other thing was the People Magazine, who I'd been trying to get into for years, completely not interested in anything you do with me. All of a sudden. Yeah. I was, they said, we want to make you as one of the 50 bachelors of that year. And so next thing I knew, I was doing a photo shoot for People Magazine. So it was like very quickly, all this positivity coming in saying, you did the right thing.
(01:59:36):
(Somber Music)
Whether you're gay and worried about coming out, that's one issue, but we all have fears that we make into
much more than they really need to be. You put more and more clay on your mountain of fear, and then it's unscalable. And you look at it and you say, I'm never going to be able to get over this. And that's the way I was. Until you just say, I'm doing this. And then you get on the other side of the mountain, you look back and there's no mountain. There's nothing there.
(02:00:11):
(Somber Music)
(02:00:55):
(Somber Music)
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