March 11, 2025 • 60 mins
https://www.duq.edu/faculty-and-staff/eric-susoeff.php
Guitarist and composer Eric Susoeff has been a staple of Pittsburgh’s jazz scene since 1976, performing with legends like Dizzy Gillespie. He leads the Latin jazz quintet Salsamba and teaches at Duquesne University.
Guitarist and composer Eric Susoeff has been a staple of Pittsburgh’s jazz scene since 1976, performing with legends like Dizzy Gillespie. He leads the Latin jazz quintet Salsamba and teaches at Duquesne University.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
God knows it.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This isn't video.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Anne, you are oh, bless your heart. This is the
COVID podcast Quickly Pittsburgh's music scene and welcome in. I'm
Johnny hert Well, your host, along with Andy Pugar. Today
we talked with guitarist and composer Eric Sussoff.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
How are you fine? Making up? Hi?
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Eric, it's Anny here too.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hi Annie, Hi Annie?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Him good?
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Good, You have your coffee in front of you.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Okay, So how are you, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Oh, I'm good. I'm you know, I'm the most popular
man in the world.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
You are to us today.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, although a little slower this week, which is okay nowadays,
just one gig, but you have some students coming to
the house and that's okay. I mean, that's that's fine.
But yeah, usually busy playing all the time. Yeah, I'm teaching.
(01:14):
Brought for an old guy nowadays.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I've noticed that you look, you look up your name
on on Google and it's like, here is all the
dates that Eric is performing, and it's there's a ton
of them. So you're a busy man.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, yeah, I you know, I found a niche that
it's good for business. Basically, you know, guitar for hire,
and I have, you know, fairly wide musicianship, good musicianship,
and a knowledge of a not every style, but a
(01:52):
few of them that make me employable. I tell my students,
maybe forget about guitar god, think about being a professional accompanist,
and if you do that right and know how to
fit in and do your job well, your phone will
bring off the hook.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
You've taught a lot of the people in the area.
I think I can't think of any names right now,
but sometimes your name will come up and see, yeah,
I took lessons from Eric, So I know you've taught
a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's true. Yeah, I sometimes I don't think
about it, but then on me once in a while,
I'm out and I see someone playing and I'm like, oh, yeah,
he came for some lessons, or he came for a lesson,
or yeah, it's it's a fair amount. Actually, of course
it's been years, so that you know, if you're lucky
(02:45):
to survive, that's you know, things going to add up.
Life experience is going to add up, all right.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So I got a question, what a coming thing? So
when it comes to teaching or maybe guitar styles, what's
the how what's your opinion, what's the evolution of guitar
guitar playing? Our people? Are students as enthusiastic today as
they were twenty years ago, thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, I would say sure. You know, I've been teaching
that you came for the last six years, and without exception,
my students have been really different, different people, different levels
of talent, but they're really into it. They're very sincere
and they want to learn. They love it so and
(03:36):
I mean that was true before too, so I from
what I see, I see it the same, even though
there's been a little shift, they say from you know,
the big explosion of the sixties with the Beatles and
all the guitar playing and the guitar bands. So nowadays
(03:57):
that's less of a thing with electronic music being pop
I want to say, more popular. Maybe they say that's
an influence, but I really don't see it. There's still
plenty of guitar players around. You know, it's an easy
instrument to pick up and play a few things on,
(04:21):
and it's portable, accessible kind of instrument. But even though
you might you might say the piano is more accessible
because you just put your hands on the keys, but
somehow the guitar, you know, they figure out how to
play a few chords on there, and and well.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Do you teach most from there? Do you teach mostly
jazz guitar? Are you seeing a lot of people that
still like jazz? Huh?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, I will at this point, I would only do that,
although once in a while I'll get an older guy
who or gal who's played blues their whole life and
they're looking to learned something new. There may be a
little burned out on the blues and they want to
you know, branch out, all right, And I see that sometimes,
(05:11):
but I'm still teaching jazz in that case.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
All right. So what's your earliest memory of music?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Oh? Oh yeah, that's a fun way to ask that question. Yeah,
you know, thankfully music was in the house. My dad
was a photographer, but he loved music, and he would
play records. He liked the kind of a mix of things,
but mostly jazz. I mean, he was, you know, when
(05:43):
he was twenty or whatever. It was a big band era,
and so he liked that. So but he would play
some jazz records, some Sinatra, maybe the Four Freshmen, and
so that was around the house. But I remember actually
(06:03):
I remember playing the radio at a radio in my room,
and I would just cruise the dial and I would
hear the rock and pop hits and R and B
things of the day. Yeah, for you know, I think
I was tuned in to just liking music. I didn't
know it at the time, but I liked it, and
(06:24):
so yeah, it was you know, music was around. Of course,
it was on TV. You'd watch the variety shows on
television and somebody would be seeing The Impossible Dream and
lo and behold. Years later, I ended up playing that show,
(06:45):
which was which was really a great show Man of
La Mancha. But yeah, music's around. If you're you know,
you had to be aware. I did still kind of
like that. It's you know, it's all over the place.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Did you grow up in Pitts.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yeah nothing, Yeah, no, I grew up in California, at
least until the age of fourteen. So yeah, I started
playing guitar. Well, I remember, you know, in those earlier years,
like I'm describing, somehow, there was a guitar in the house.
I don't even know if it had all six strings,
and I was very young and just sort of banging
(07:28):
away on it. And that led to one day. My
mother if she saw this happening, and that was maybe
six they or seven of the most, and she said
to my brother and I, I was three years older
than me, she said, oh, why don't want of you
(07:48):
learned to play the guitar and the other one learned
to play the drums. So I just blured it out. Guitar,
of course, was what I wanted. And that was the
start of it. You know, I started getting lessons from
you know, an early age, although you're not yeah, well,
(08:10):
you know, I can't pay myself. I mean I had talent,
for sure, I can't pay myself as one of these prodigies. It's,
you know, like these people who played violin with the
symphony at age fourteen. You know, it wasn't like that.
But you know, when I was in fifth grade, I
did play classical gas, which was a big instrumental hit
(08:35):
of the time, and I played on guitar, and yeah,
I thought it was hot shit, and I went and played.
I'm like, oh, of course I'm going to be the
fantastic winner of the talent show, and of course I wasn't.
It was the first of many opportunities to learn humility.
(09:00):
So a girl who played and sang my favorite thing.
She won. Yeah, it's like wow, but it's funny. You know.
Even now if I go back to California, people remember
me playing a classical gas rule. Yeah, so I had
(09:22):
to say, you know, along the same time, probably around
that's the similar year. Since we lived near the ocean,
our cultures was all about ocean things, being a waterman
or woman, although in those days mostly watermen, so that
(09:45):
meant surfing, scuba diving, boating, maybe fishing, swimming, being a
good swimmer, going to the beach. It's all about that.
And it was recently in California and seeing old friends
of mine and my brothers, and it's just struck me,
(10:07):
you know, water folks as they might say nowadays, everywhere
the culture. It pervaded the culture. Yeah. One of my
best friends, his father was in that. Even in that
business of selling scuba gear and wetsuits. They had developed
the body glove brand, if you know that, a huge
(10:29):
brand ultimately ultimately, which was amazing. But yeah, that was
our whole that was our thing. And as I would
tell people for years here, this whole music thing is great.
It helps take my mind off surfing.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Well, what do you do in Pittsburgh to be near
the water. There's some water around here.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Well, you know, from from the age of forty to sixty,
I was determined to surf again as much as I could,
and I did. I did pretty well. You know, considering
I live in a landlocked state, I serve quite a bit.
And so what I did was I got a board,
(11:16):
which back then actually was it wasn't like now with
the Internet and internet sales was so it's so pervasive.
You know. I had to actually call some surf shops
and have one sent to me, which was an interesting
experience because you talked to these like teenage kids and
these surf shops. And I think one of the perks
of working in the surf shop is you can go
(11:39):
in the back and smoke some pot. But eventually found
the spot and Promosa Beach are really professional and great board,
and I had it sent to me and I started
paddling it in the river because I knew I had
to be in great shape. So for years I've on
(12:00):
my stomach and the river. Like you know, it was
very dedicated.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
You know, there's no no surfing like surfing them on it's.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
It's I know, I would put it, I would say,
I would say I paddled off the coasts of Blondhak.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
All right, So getting back to your earliest music.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
And I switched to a stand up paddle board after
some years, so I obsensibly I still do that. I've
yet to get into the river this year, so yeah,
I've slowed down. I had a heart surgery a couple
two years ago, and yeah, things are different, but you know,
music is going great, so yeah, surfing very important. All right.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Let me ask you getting back to like your earliest
memory of music. You mentioned that your father played records.
Did anybody in your family play an instrument other than
maybe your brother playing drums?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, it's true. Yeah, yeah, my mother played piano a bit,
played like some standards off of sheet music, you know,
the shadow of your smile. I remember playing that moon River,
maybe a couple couple different standards. Reportedly, her mother was
very talented, although she died of She died at a
(13:22):
young age and when my mother was young, but reportedly
had a great musical talent. She would go to a
see a movie. This was a story that she'd go
to a movie and then come home and then play
the song the theme on the piano by year and
stuff like this, and then my dad played the harmonica.
(13:44):
So yeah, the otherwise, no professionals. Well, everybody seemed to
like music. But yeah, it's not like here where you
have these generations of musicians. Although my son is a
fine piano player and a professional musician. He makes electronic music,
(14:09):
so you know, there's that, and my daughter also plays
a few things, teaches first grade. Otherwise, but yeah, yeah,
that was yeah, not yet. It's not like the Defade
family or some of these, you know, picture and the Alicos,
(14:32):
where generations the.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Bannacks, yes, yes, B one, B two all right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
All right. So what kind of music was on the
radio when you were young and how did that influence you?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, it was, well, it was you know, it was
the pop hits of the of the day. I mean
the ones I liked were the pop hit when I
was really young, and R and B, you know, and
I really didn't even think about it. It was just there,
and you know I would I would stumble on it
and think, wow, this is a great tune and would
(15:15):
kind of all come into me. But I never thought
about it. Otherwise. I just enjoyed it purely, you know,
late late my brother who was older than me, he
was into Jimi, Hendrix and Cream, so they were a
little beyond me when I was you know, he would
have been like thirteen or fourteen, and you know, two
(15:39):
young teenagers listening to this, and at first, anyway, that
was a little beyond me. But then I remember later
going to dances. I would have been about thirteen that
of these corect dances, and I remember specifically Sly in
the Family Stone, you know, doing their great hits. Answer
(16:02):
the music Santana still just sounds so good that, you know,
Yava and all the wonderful Latin jazz basically rock Latin rock,
and Hendrix too. You know, by then it was a
Foxy Lady and Purple Hayes. Stuff was great music. And
(16:27):
then the other guy from that era who I totally
loved was Jose Feliciano, and so yeah, he yes, maybe
more specifically an inspiration to me on guitar because he was,
you know, such a great musician all around, but fabulous
guitar player. And then you know, between Santana and uh,
(16:55):
Jose Feliciano, maybe the roots of the Latin jazz, the
love of Latin jaz. Some Brazilian music for me, Yeah, probably,
I mean my dad. My dad had had one Latin
jazz record, an early gay Brubak record, I think, but no, no, no,
(17:16):
he had some vibraphonis I forget his name at the moment. Yeah,
sort of on the exotic a tip like you might
hear an a tiki bar actually, but Latin jazz. So yeah,
you know I didn't. I didn't overthink it. You know,
(17:38):
in those days, you know, you're you're you're young, so
I was just kind of into it. I used to
play and play and sing actually too. I remember singing
Hey You've got to Hide your level Away by the
(17:59):
Beatles' is a record of that, And yeah, I could
have developed my musical skills. But when you hear it,
it's pretty funny. I mean, yeah, pretty funny. Young kid,
I was just like.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, well, being a beach guy, were you influenced by
Dick Dale and maybe the Ventures or the Beach Boys
and Janetina?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
You would think, but no, okay, all right, I mean
I like I liked some of the Beach Boys. I mean,
and this is true to today. I liked some of
their tunes, and you know that was sort of old
the other tunes were sort of folding when I was
real young, folding into the whole mix of just liking stuff.
So yeah, yeah, I think you had one of their
(18:43):
records when I was a kid. My parents bought it
for me for Christmas or something. But yeah, not so much. Yeah,
you know, people ask me that and I'm like, yeah,
I though, you know, there was a there was a
great bass player of living here for a while from
(19:04):
New York. Uh who who? Who loved Dick Dale And
it kind of surprised me. He said, oh, he's he
thought it was great and maybe changed. He's changed my
mind about him. Apparently he's a great dude, Dick Dale,
that is. And uh, yeah, I don't know, but not
(19:25):
so much to me. You know, Brazilian music kind of
makes sense to me. Is as beach music. You know,
Boston Nova connected to the south shore of the south
zone of Rio de Janeiro. It's a very beachy culture.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
So back back to the beach, back to the beach. Yeah, yeah,
Well do you have that band, that Latin jazz band,
don't you here?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I do? Yeah, we just have, you know, past the
forty year mark. So yeah, we've been together for forty
years George and I Eric de Fade only thirty, the
new person in the band. Yeah, although we used to
(20:16):
sub with us before that, Tom went and Paul Thompson
also been with us quite a while, so you were
still playing some gigs.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
And yeah, so you're fifteen.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Since we did six outs, we did six albums, and
we played a lot of cool gigs, some big gigs
over the years.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
We're going to get back to what you're doing today,
but I kind of want to get back to where
your beginning. So at fifteen you played classical gas. When
did you really want to pursue guitar professionally? How old
were you?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Oh, from almost from the beginning, Yeah, I was really young,
and I just thought it would be a great idea
to be in the music business. I didn't view it
exactly the way I found it I found it to be,
but yeah, I wanted to be a musician from early
(21:17):
early on. Yeah, basically I didn't want to be anything else.
I knew professional surfer wasn't gonna and so yeah, that
left music and yet yeah, so and then and then
as I got older, I got more disciplined and more serious,
(21:41):
and then moving to Pittsburgh was amazingly A big part
of that good learning of the music. And as I
got older, I got so I had. I had an
amazing guitar teacher initially, and then two other amazing guitar
(22:02):
teachers after him were or at the same time actually,
and then as I got older, I knew being a
socio professional musician wouldn't be a great life. So you know,
I was fueled by fear a little bit too. Yeah,
you better get this together or else it's not going
(22:25):
to go so well. You may it may be taken
away from you, which happens if you're not good enough,
you will have to, you know, fall out of the
music business basically.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So when was your first professional gig? Do you remember it?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
You know, I was always playing a little bit here
and there, even early on, you know, if I had
a chance to play the guitar somewhere, but I would say,
I mean, the one that comes to mind is I
was sixteen and somebody recommended that I I'd play at
this place called the odd Share Playhouse, which was in
(23:04):
the parking lot of the Sheraton South across from the
South Hills Village, and they were doing the musical hair
and they needed two guitar players. So actually that's when
I when I met Joe Negree. I had to go audition,
and I auditioned for Joe Negre in order to play
(23:28):
the show. Somehow he was connected to the to do
you know, getting the band together, I guess, And I
remember I played him some things that played the flight
of the Bumblebee. I was working on that, and of
course that was a big tune for Joe Negrey. Uh
played a beautiful version of that with the Pittsburgh Pops,
(23:52):
which you can find recorded actually and you can find
that on my YouTube. Spectacular amazing. But anyway, yeah, that
might have been sort of the first real real gig. Yeah,
I ran for several weeks, and you know, we played
(24:13):
the played the book and yeah, they comes to mind.
I don't know. I used to get together with my
friends and if we had a chance to play in
someone's backyard, because we do that, I know if that
counts for a gig or not. The usually I usually
count the professional years starting at eighteen. But yeah, you know,
just today I was thinking about the the odd Share
(24:36):
Playhouse gig, so that probably was it.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
So when did you move to Pittsburgh and what was
it like you know at sixteen, working with Joe Negri.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Well, I moved to Pittsburgh when I was fourteen. My
parents came to me one day, they said, hey, Eric,
how would you feel about moving to Pittsburgh? Said Pittsburgh?
That how far from the beach?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Is really close?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Like bar bar. But it was a blessing in disguise
because he had, you know, focused my mind toward music.
And like I mentioned, you know, I ended up with
one particularly great guitar teacher that kind of kicked off
my ability to get it all together, and then two others.
(25:34):
And so what was what was the other part of
the question.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Working with Joe Negri at sixteen? What was it like that?
What was that interaction?
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Like, well, I didn't play with him, he wasn't on
the gig, but I did end up playing with him later.
You know, when I was in my early twenties, Joe
was playing a soul gig at a restaurant right off
of the Parkway West in that little shopping area there.
(26:10):
It was in a hotel, and so he was he
was happy to see me had come and I'd played
with him, So this way he would have to play
all solo. You know, we could play together more fun, easier,
and then and then later maybe ten, ten, twelve years ago,
I played a number of duo gigs with Joe, you know,
(26:32):
actual gigs, which was really fun. So yeah, that's that's
the actual plane. So that sixteen year old that was Yeah,
he was just in charge of vetting the band, I guess,
getting the band together.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Were you aware of Joe what he what he who
he was at that time?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah? Yeah, I you know, my I have two younger
sisters and in California, they used to watch Mister Rogers,
so I would I knew about Joe because I saw
him on Mister Rogers and I'd seen him playing once
in a while on the show, and so I knew
who he was from that and then and then as
(27:22):
it came here, yeah somehow, I yeah, yeah I knew,
I knew. And then he actually played with my I
played in my high school big band in my senior
year and Joe Negrie was the guest artist with us
on one of the shows. And he came and he
(27:44):
played his assaf playing well with a whole high school band,
high school level players, and he came and he he crushed.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yeah, So when did you did you start, Uh, when
did you start appreciating jazz?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, it was kind of always. It was around a
little bit because my dad played it, played some records,
jazz records. But what happened was, you know, I had
friends when I moved here. I got together with another
guitar player at my age and a drummer, and we
used to play. We were into the blues and we
(28:29):
played all my brothers tunes and by you know, my
friend was from Rochester, New York, and he was flying
back to were from Rochester to it and he sat
just by chance, he sat next to this guy named
Freddie Robinson who was a great jazz guitar player, and
(28:55):
he played with John Mayle, particularly one John Mayle did
a record called Jazz Blues Fusion. We played blues, but
he played them in a jazz style. And so so
when he came home, we you know, he told us
about it. So they kind of opened our our eyes,
(29:17):
you know, eyes and ears, like, oh, let's check this
guy out. We started listening to him, and then soon
after that we thought, oh yeah, let's you know, let's
go buy a jazz records. So just by you know,
freakish good luck the record I end up buying is
Wes Montgomery Smoking at the Half Note, which is one
(29:41):
of the most pivotable and pivotabal and great greatest jazz
guitar records ever. So yeah, sometimes I want a kid
my students, if they come here, you know, for a lesson,
I say, do you have this record or you know
this record? If you listen to it? And if they
(30:02):
say no, I want to just say, well, get out,
because I've never done that, but I tell them the joke.
It's very important records. So yeah, we started getting into
it after that, and you know, the Korea and just
(30:22):
started discovering it all. There's a lot to discover. John
McLoughlin's fusion era had had exploded by that point and
we were into it. Larry koreyell, you know, fusion was
a thing too. And then also in those years, yeah,
I started discovering Brazilian music and Latin jazz, you know,
(30:50):
like the energy of the rhythm, the field of the rhythm.
So yeah, I'm not sure how that, I guess. I mean,
that's all Latin jazz always a part of regular jazz.
Every jazz musician is going to play some Joe Beam
tunes and so it was no exception. So I thought, oh,
Joe Beam, why not go get one of his records
(31:13):
and see what he's doing on it. You know, he
wrote the songs. So you know, that led to discovery
of Brazilian music. And then I like the feel of
the rhythm and then I hear like Tito Plenty, and
I'm like, well, let's even a little more more macho
groove going on. Yeah, I like that too, so I'll
(31:37):
get into that and I did. Yeah, so that would
have been in my later teens discovery of that. So
there's a lot of music.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
So you went from at sixteen playing blues like Dwayne Album.
I don't want to say Dwayne Album is pedestrian, but
you know he's amazing. He is amazing.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Oh he was great. Holy crap, what a talent.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
But your your your your love of music really changed
in just a few years.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
It's true. Yeah, I think about it now and it
wasn't that many years. And I learned so much in
those years to the point where I was eighteen, I
was ready to go into the music business and I
did so. Yeah, it was that was that was based
on my you know, my level of talent whatever that is,
(32:33):
and my drive. You know. Finally sixteen so years it
started getting more disciplined, although I still had lessons to learn.
For instance, so when I before I got with my teacher,
who I will, you know, talk about Rob Wilson. I
(32:53):
studied with Victor Lawrence, who was an old timer teacher.
He had a shop and and capsule Shannon, and he
was actually Joe Nagre's teacher, so he you know, he
would I had had some you know, lessons from him,
(33:14):
and one day come in and of course I hadn't practiced,
you know, my reading, and I'm trying to learn how
to read. Like like almost all guitar players, they come
from these grassroots places and then at some point, you know,
they either learn music in a in a broad sense,
(33:35):
as I would call it, a broader and deeper sense,
low broader, maybe not necessarily deeper, and so you know,
reading music is a big part of that. Sony, if
I didn't practice, and I'll never forget this victory. Just
he looks at me and I'm struggling, and he just
goes he didn't practice. Get out, but I would never do.
(34:01):
But it left the mark, you know, it was you know,
remember that. And then a couple of weeks later, my teacher,
Rob Wilson started working at the shop there, and he
turned out to be, I mean, not that Victor was
at an amazing teacher, but for me, Rob Wilson was,
(34:22):
I mean just freakishly good teacher. So we ended up
doing a lot of things that you know, I worked
with my college students, frankly, so we learned to read
and he was a stickler for timing, and we learned
music theory, all kind of things about guitar technique, and
(34:45):
was studying different people's styles solo guitar, working on the improvisational,
you know techniques, playing duets. We'd play violin exercises adapted
to the guitar to develop you know, the dudes, to
(35:05):
develop your ability. Yeah. It was was really into it,
practicing hours a day, and he was it was a
great teacher. Yeah, sort of ironically he did. He was
not much for playing gigs. He mostly just taught. And
(35:25):
then yeah, then then then not long after that, I
also started taking classic guitar lessons from Tony Chanfloon.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Yeah yeah, people around here.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, yeah, I was doing that also, which was also
broadening all of this I'm sure added up to the
fact that makes me a good employable guitar for hire.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Are you talked about later?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
I did study with Joe and Agri Also, yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
So you talked about breaking into the music business. How
did you break and what? How did what happened?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah? So, yeah, this is what happened. I once I
got out of high school, I I did two things.
And say, I would go to I would go to
every jam session all the time. I would almost never
stay home. And and then somebody, actually it was my
my ex, my band leader from from high school.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
He said, he said, what you need to do is
go down to Lamican Music and talk to a guy
named John Katazone who was playing piano and Harold Betters
and and asked him if you can sit.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
In with the band. So I went down to Loamicton
Music and I talked to him and he's they were
playing at the Encore and Shady's side. So I did
and yeah, played a long and yeah I played you
know a little bit like Kenny Burrell sort of, and uh, yeah,
they liked it enough. And and what happened was I
(37:06):
would come in every Wednesday and I would was like
the guitar player that would just not go away, and
little by little I worked my way into the band,
you know that I would I would end up playing
doubling Harold's trombone line on guitar and just kind of
adding to the band and the and the best way
(37:27):
I could. And uh, eventually I got hired into the band.
And then you know that, I mean that took a while.
You know, that was maybe the summer of that year,
and it was maybe the next spring by the time
I was working with them more. You know, you had
to be determined. I was determined and but then but
(37:51):
eventually it was working with him full time. And then
he moved from the from the Encore to uh the
South Hills Villa sha Agan again out there, and that's
actually when he kind of added me in full time,
was when he moved out there. And I worked with
him for several years, quite a few three or four years,
(38:16):
until you know, I needed to move on and do
something else. But that was good experience because we worked
all the time, and I got to meet everybody in
town because we would be everywhere and people would see
me playing with him, and you know, it was it
was a good way to break in. I would also
(38:38):
play Mondays. During a lot of those years i'd played,
there was a jam session every Monday at Jerry Better's club.
Harold's brother, Jerry had a club called the Crescendo on
Melwood Street in Oakland, and I'd played there every Monday.
And also great for getting to know people and just
(38:58):
a fun experience. It's in general playing down there. I
played with Billy Eckstein at Jerry's club, not a not
a an Elekana private moment where Billy was visiting Jerry
and he the two of them sang and me and
(39:20):
my friend Dave Brand organist. We played for the two
of them and hung out with them and with him.
There was another time hung out with him too in
the club. Stanley Turantine used to drop in there when
he was in town. George Benson came in one night
and played my guitar, played a few tunes. This is
(39:45):
all at the Crescendo. Fun plays.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
And who else have you played with?
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Oh? God, well locally yeah, I mean yeah, I want
to say everybody, but I mean everyone in the jazz
you know style. Uh yeah, let's see Sarah Class, Frankle, Amundo,
(40:15):
Gane Ludwig, Pete Henderson, David Murray, Budway, Sandy Saley, Kenya,
Roger Humphreys, Ed Riquette, can you Blake Bald Harper, Nathan Davis,
Don Alaco, importantly John Wilson. That was a very important
gig for me. Mike Tomorrow, Oh yeah, everybody.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Just about everybody? All right, what is?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I can only do that because I have my bios.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
So what is?
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Richie Cole? Later on Don Alifield Junior, and I mentioned
him these some people are recorded with, Kenya recorded with Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Just let me ask you a question?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
What is? And then some you know, I played with
the Pittsford Symphony too, was actually quite a few times,
also an important, interesting gig for a jazz musician to do.
And then I played with, you know, some big names.
I played one gig with Dizzy Gillespie when I was
(41:26):
Dave Amram, Roger Williams Airto, Yvonne Lynz from from ometto Lobambo, Charro,
Frankie Avalon, Marty Allen, some of the international people that
I played with.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Let me ask you what is? What is your style?
And how when did you develop your style?
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Well, I mean I'm definitely a jazz guitar player, you know,
and you know emerged from my you know, my studies
and as a teenager, I think from listening to West
Montgomery and Joe Pass, particularly Kenny Burrell, I would say,
(42:16):
you know, I'm I'm definitely out of that mole those
Jim Hall also, you know, in the jazz, it's hugely
influenced by them, among others. I'm listening to everything. But
and then for Latin jazz, you know, a hugely influenced
(42:37):
by Cal Jader and Tito Plante, Pancho Sanchez, you know,
all these sort of Jerry Gonzalez, all these people in
Brazilian music, definitely Antonio Carlos, Shabim, Joel Giberto, big influences there.
(43:03):
But not to mention in that way, you know, I was.
I was lucky to start working with Kenya some years ago,
so I played with quite a few great jazz or
Brazilian musicians thanks to her, and also just working with
her because she has embodies the soul and the depth
(43:24):
and purity of Brazilian music in her voice. So if
you're a depth side man, you can absorb that by
working with her. She has an incredible sense of time,
and that was in a way like Stinching school for
Brazilian music for me. So yeah, you know that I
(43:48):
would say that I can read music. That's important. That's
been a huge influence on you know, my work, my
career is I'd get the call for a lot of
things because you know, it's a pretty good reader, especially
for guitar player. Maybe not compared to a saxophonist, but yeah,
(44:13):
that important. I guess that's part of your part of
the style. I could play solo guitar too, So two
important things that make me employable. But definitely yeah, Joe Pass,
Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
And you've recorded quite a few records. Is there any
particular moment, or any particular song, or any particular moment
in a song where you go, yeah, this is this
is Eric at his best.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's a good, good question.
The recording is so different than performing live, you know,
it's it really is a different craft, you know, to
be able to sit there and then as they would say,
the red light comes on and then it's like bang
go It's it's it's different. Not to mention the fact
(45:16):
that you know you bay, I mean more so in
the past, you had to really get things right. You know,
your mistakes can be okay on recordings sometimes, but sometimes
they're not. But puts a whole different kind of pressure
into it. Yeah, I don't know, I had to. There's
(45:43):
there's some moments on my Latin jazz albums I think
I'm pretty good. Yeah, they got me there.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Well, you know, it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
I mean, there's a lot of a lot of recordings
and yeah, there's a lot of them. So yeah, you're
mostly pretty good. As I put it, I learned in recording, like,
don't try to play a great solo. Just try to
play a solo and get it, get it, you know,
(46:19):
something that hangs together and kind of answers all the
basic musical elements, and you'll probably do a lot better
because as you're absorbed with trying to hit some imaginary mark,
that's going to distract your thinking and there's only so
much thinking to go along. So just play a solo
(46:40):
and it might be great. Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
go to people can go to my YouTube page and
you know decide.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Well, I think recording is kind of took.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
My I'm proud of my arranging and composing abilities also,
so to me that's part of the package of of
recorded music.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Well, recording is almost counterintuitive to a jazz player because
when you're playing live jazz, it's your it's life on
the wire, you're you know, you could take it any
different way, but when you're recording, it has to be
it has to be almost exact. Is that kind of difficulty, Yeah, there.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Is some, there is, I mean there there is different
different amounts of spontaneity going on in a recording studio
depending on the setup of the tune and the band
and what they're what they're going after. So it might
be you know, mostly arranged with a little bit of improvisation,
(47:45):
or it could be well, let's just do this and
see what happens, which would be kind of, you know,
maybe more like the band's stand. But the band, you know,
the band stand can also be this, you know, where
we have a lot of arranging. It just it just
seems to be looser because if you make a mistake
on the bandstand, by and large, it's gone, whereas in
(48:06):
the recording studio you might not like that. I say
that because sometimes the thing you think is a mistake
or a bad note ends up being the most interesting
note you played occasionally, but you never know, all right,
So yes, you had different, different feel And yeah, craft
(48:30):
is a big part of being a good studio musician,
knowing having very technique, knowing craft, relying on a lot
of different abilities to get the job done, which is
also true on the bandstand, but somehow a little more
focused in recording, although nowadays they can fix a lot
of things thanks to computers. But it's better when you
(48:53):
get it right for real, for sure.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
So as a professional musician, do you prefer the the
production the creation of music? Is it the performance live?
Is it recording or is it teaching?
Speaker 1 (49:12):
I like I like performing live for sure. Yeah, it's
just fun. And although I do kind I do enjoy
writing music because it's sort of a you know, I
don't just uh, a happy creative spot where the performance
(49:36):
of it lives in the future and you don't have
to worry about that. Like in the studio, it's a
lot of it's a lot of work, especially if you're
the producer of the album. To put a CD together,
Most people, I don't think realize how much work that takes.
But for in writing. It's it's this kind of esoteric
place you go into and you write and you have
(49:59):
a it's a very good feeling of creative emergence, which
is also true for like jazz soloing, although a little different.
That's a little more warrior like you're out there dealing
with the room and the people and you know. Fun.
I mean, it's mostly fun, especially if we played with
great musicians. But something about the writing for me is
(50:24):
just a fun, happy place to go to. I enjoy that.
And I use a computer program called Finale, which is
very capable, and so I like that. That's secondary recording
is it's cool to have recordings and you need them.
(50:47):
They're great for posterity because you know, the gigs kind
of dry up in the noonday sun. The recordings have
a different sort of life and can travel in different ways,
which is nice. And then the teaching is for me,
something that's kind of always been there. You taught at
a very young age because it's just new more than
my friends, and sometimes they would hire me to teach,
(51:11):
you know, even when I was very young, ten or
eleven years old maybe, And it's something that's always just
kind of been there, and I do really enjoy it
When I'm doing it, I'm really into it, and I
really want my students to learn and get better. But
if somehow I retired from that, weirdly, I'd be okay.
(51:35):
I mean I might miss it a little bit, but
you know, if that makes sense, you know, Yeah, I'm
really into it when I'm doing it. But yeah, so
it's kind of in that order.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
What sparks your love my students?
Speaker 1 (51:49):
I mean I really love them. They're almost yeah, all
of them. Yeah, They've just been so sincere and they
love music, and so I truly love my students.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
Yeah, what sparks your creators? Let me ask you a question, Mark,
go ahead, Yeah, what sparks your creativity? And what has
been your muse in the past?
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Yeah, any anything could could spark I mean it depends
on I mean, usually it would the question would I'd
be thinking of maybe composing a song, So that could
be might just play a couple of chords on the
guitar and think, wow, there's something here, and then I
would continue it and to the completion of a tune.
(52:40):
But uh, you know, it might be it might be
inspired by a piece of some other music, and I
could write you know what they call like music is
where you take it, take the elements of one tune
and then rewrite them into something else. Sometimes it's the
(53:01):
it's the the job, you know, when we need some
music for this or uh, you know, so there's deadlines.
Deadline is a is a beautiful thing. So having a
job and having to get something done at a certain time,
(53:22):
certain thing. Narrow Narrowing things down is a big is
great for creativity. If you have the whole universe of options,
you might not do so well. But if you can
narrow things down to a few elements, well, I'm going
to write a thirty two bartoon and it's going to
(53:43):
be a A, B, A form and I'm going to
write it as a boss and nova, and I'm going
to use a lot of melody notes on the upbeat,
and I'm going to try to hit some interesting color tones.
And I'm gonna be influenced by Joe Beam. You know,
I've narrowed it down quite a bit, and that often
(54:06):
can can help or or even you know, even just
even just one idea of what the tune might be. Oh,
I need a mambo for my band, So I want
to write a mambo that's mostly just a few chords,
not too many chords, and then then you start looking
for it and usually you know, if you I would
(54:28):
say that one of the big big elements of inforation
is just put your put your ass down in a
chair and start working, and you'd be surprised what emerged. Or,
as I heard somebody else, put it sit down and
try to write a bad tune. If you have talented
(54:48):
but you can't, you know. Yeah, so I'm fired by
hearing music. I like all kind of music. I love.
I love symphonic mus also, yeah, just you know, good
quality music in general inspiring. A lot of the people
(55:09):
I've worked at super talented. That's inspiring, especially when you
work with them. You know.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
When it comes to jazz culture, I think a lot
of people think New York or New Orleans or something
like that. But yeah, but Pittsburgh has a rich history
of jazz.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
Yes, it sure does. Yeah, as I might put it, Yeah,
if you come to Pittsburgh and get into the jazz
scene as a musician, you know, you if you're not
good enough, you might have your ass handed to you. Here.
There's a lot of good musicians, which is amazing considering
(55:54):
the town, it is not that large, but the level
of musicianship very high for jazz, and it didn't really
realize it, you know, earlier on I was just here
and absorbed in the scene. But as I you know,
had chances to travel to other places and play with
(56:16):
people or just to see what's going on. I can
see that how high the musicianship is here. That would
say you have been very happy here playing music. And
then of course it has some other things going on,
you know, advantages. You know, it's not you know, as
(56:40):
I would think, unless you're just stinking rich, living in
New York is kind of a hassle, but living in
Pittsburgh not that at all. You know, it's very doable, manageable,
cheaper for sure, so a great place to live. And
(57:01):
then you're going to be playing well, you know, with
great players. You know, if you're good enough and you
put yourself out there, you'll be playing with great people.
So yeah, you're a long tradition of people that have
left here that become famous. You know, there's if you
stay here, maybe not so famous as I would also
(57:24):
put it. No, it's famous in Pittsburgh because everybody knows everybody,
so even if you're Joe Nagri. Of course everybody knows him.
I mean he knows him as for his work on TV.
But then also everybody knows him, you know, yeah Joe.
They just say Joe. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (57:47):
And so.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
Even George, I mean George Benson will come back and
he's still kind of it's famous, but but it's like yeah,
but then there's a little bit of maybe, but you're here,
You're back here in the burg, you know, I don't know. Yeah,
there's a lot of yeah, yeah, yeah, great place for music.
(58:12):
I've been totally happy with the way things turned out
musically in this way. Being here been great.
Speaker 3 (58:23):
What's your legacy?
Speaker 1 (58:24):
That list the people I mentioned, yeah, amazing talents, God,
all those people, you know, fantastic.
Speaker 3 (58:35):
One final question, what is your legacy?
Speaker 1 (58:37):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean
I played a lot of gigs, as I mean, I
would say off that I was been thinking about this. Yeah,
it wasn't even thinking about the gigs before I was eighteen,
So I was calculating that might be about ten thousand gigs,
(59:01):
mostly in Pittsburgh. That's a lot of gigs. So I'm
out there doing it and doing the plain jazz music
and and honoring it. I think, yeah, definitely the teaching.
(59:21):
You know, you you you're helping people along. That's important,
you know, to pass that on. So there's there's some
of that too. The written you know, they say the
pen is mightier than the sword, So there's you know,
written music out there. I don't know. I don't know
(59:46):
how much of a legacy that might be. I wouldn't
want it to be, you know, like a popular song
would be nice. I have some good I have some
good tunes, but it's hard to get your stuff noticed.
But yeah, maybe that you never know. Like I said,
the recordings and the written page has a different lifespan
(01:00:12):
than the gigs. So yeah, I think, you know, there's somebody,
you know, I would say, a jazz guitarist, you know
who who had good musicianship and capable. Yeah, that's that's
pretty good. That's pretty good. And then and then I
(01:00:35):
went out and they did it.
Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Yeah, so one final question that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Checked me. On the right day, it was a pretty
good surfer. Yeah, on the right day, you'd be impressed.
God knows it.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This isn't video.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Anne, you are oh, bless your heart. This is the
COVID podcast Quickly Pittsburgh's music scene and welcome in. I'm
Johnny hert Well, your host, along with Andy Pugar. Today
we talked with guitarist and composer Eric Sussoff.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
How are you fine? Making up? Hi?
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Eric, it's Anny here too.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hi Annie, Hi Annie?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Him good?
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Good, You have your coffee in front of you.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Okay, So how are you, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Oh, I'm good. I'm you know, I'm the most popular
man in the world.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
You are to us today.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, although a little slower this week, which is okay nowadays,
just one gig, but you have some students coming to
the house and that's okay. I mean, that's that's fine.
But yeah, usually busy playing all the time. Yeah, I'm teaching.
(01:14):
Brought for an old guy nowadays.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I've noticed that you look, you look up your name
on on Google and it's like, here is all the
dates that Eric is performing, and it's there's a ton
of them. So you're a busy man.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, yeah, I you know, I found a niche that
it's good for business. Basically, you know, guitar for hire,
and I have, you know, fairly wide musicianship, good musicianship,
and a knowledge of a not every style, but a
(01:52):
few of them that make me employable. I tell my students,
maybe forget about guitar god, think about being a professional accompanist,
and if you do that right and know how to
fit in and do your job well, your phone will
bring off the hook.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
You've taught a lot of the people in the area.
I think I can't think of any names right now,
but sometimes your name will come up and see, yeah,
I took lessons from Eric, So I know you've taught
a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's true. Yeah, I sometimes I don't think
about it, but then on me once in a while,
I'm out and I see someone playing and I'm like, oh, yeah,
he came for some lessons, or he came for a lesson,
or yeah, it's it's a fair amount. Actually, of course
it's been years, so that you know, if you're lucky
(02:45):
to survive, that's you know, things going to add up.
Life experience is going to add up, all right.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So I got a question, what a coming thing? So
when it comes to teaching or maybe guitar styles, what's
the how what's your opinion, what's the evolution of guitar
guitar playing? Our people? Are students as enthusiastic today as
they were twenty years ago, thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, I would say sure. You know, I've been teaching
that you came for the last six years, and without exception,
my students have been really different, different people, different levels
of talent, but they're really into it. They're very sincere
and they want to learn. They love it so and
(03:36):
I mean that was true before too, so I from
what I see, I see it the same, even though
there's been a little shift, they say from you know,
the big explosion of the sixties with the Beatles and
all the guitar playing and the guitar bands. So nowadays
(03:57):
that's less of a thing with electronic music being pop
I want to say, more popular. Maybe they say that's
an influence, but I really don't see it. There's still
plenty of guitar players around. You know, it's an easy
instrument to pick up and play a few things on,
(04:21):
and it's portable, accessible kind of instrument. But even though
you might you might say the piano is more accessible
because you just put your hands on the keys, but
somehow the guitar, you know, they figure out how to
play a few chords on there, and and well.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Do you teach most from there? Do you teach mostly
jazz guitar? Are you seeing a lot of people that
still like jazz? Huh?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, I will at this point, I would only do that,
although once in a while I'll get an older guy
who or gal who's played blues their whole life and
they're looking to learned something new. There may be a
little burned out on the blues and they want to
you know, branch out, all right, And I see that sometimes,
(05:11):
but I'm still teaching jazz in that case.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
All right. So what's your earliest memory of music?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Oh? Oh yeah, that's a fun way to ask that question. Yeah,
you know, thankfully music was in the house. My dad
was a photographer, but he loved music, and he would
play records. He liked the kind of a mix of things,
but mostly jazz. I mean, he was, you know, when
(05:43):
he was twenty or whatever. It was a big band era,
and so he liked that. So but he would play
some jazz records, some Sinatra, maybe the Four Freshmen, and
so that was around the house. But I remember actually
(06:03):
I remember playing the radio at a radio in my room,
and I would just cruise the dial and I would
hear the rock and pop hits and R and B
things of the day. Yeah, for you know, I think
I was tuned in to just liking music. I didn't
know it at the time, but I liked it, and
(06:24):
so yeah, it was you know, music was around. Of course,
it was on TV. You'd watch the variety shows on
television and somebody would be seeing The Impossible Dream and
lo and behold. Years later, I ended up playing that show,
(06:45):
which was which was really a great show Man of
La Mancha. But yeah, music's around. If you're you know,
you had to be aware. I did still kind of
like that. It's you know, it's all over the place.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Did you grow up in Pitts.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yeah nothing, Yeah, no, I grew up in California, at
least until the age of fourteen. So yeah, I started
playing guitar. Well, I remember, you know, in those earlier years,
like I'm describing, somehow, there was a guitar in the house.
I don't even know if it had all six strings,
and I was very young and just sort of banging
(07:28):
away on it. And that led to one day. My
mother if she saw this happening, and that was maybe
six they or seven of the most, and she said
to my brother and I, I was three years older
than me, she said, oh, why don't want of you
(07:48):
learned to play the guitar and the other one learned
to play the drums. So I just blured it out. Guitar,
of course, was what I wanted. And that was the
start of it. You know, I started getting lessons from
you know, an early age, although you're not yeah, well,
(08:10):
you know, I can't pay myself. I mean I had talent,
for sure, I can't pay myself as one of these prodigies. It's,
you know, like these people who played violin with the
symphony at age fourteen. You know, it wasn't like that.
But you know, when I was in fifth grade, I
did play classical gas, which was a big instrumental hit
(08:35):
of the time, and I played on guitar, and yeah,
I thought it was hot shit, and I went and played.
I'm like, oh, of course I'm going to be the
fantastic winner of the talent show, and of course I wasn't.
It was the first of many opportunities to learn humility.
(09:00):
So a girl who played and sang my favorite thing.
She won. Yeah, it's like wow, but it's funny. You know.
Even now if I go back to California, people remember
me playing a classical gas rule. Yeah, so I had
(09:22):
to say, you know, along the same time, probably around
that's the similar year. Since we lived near the ocean,
our cultures was all about ocean things, being a waterman
or woman, although in those days mostly watermen, so that
(09:45):
meant surfing, scuba diving, boating, maybe fishing, swimming, being a
good swimmer, going to the beach. It's all about that.
And it was recently in California and seeing old friends
of mine and my brothers, and it's just struck me,
(10:07):
you know, water folks as they might say nowadays, everywhere
the culture. It pervaded the culture. Yeah. One of my
best friends, his father was in that. Even in that
business of selling scuba gear and wetsuits. They had developed
the body glove brand, if you know that, a huge
(10:29):
brand ultimately ultimately, which was amazing. But yeah, that was
our whole that was our thing. And as I would
tell people for years here, this whole music thing is great.
It helps take my mind off surfing.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Well, what do you do in Pittsburgh to be near
the water. There's some water around here.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Well, you know, from from the age of forty to sixty,
I was determined to surf again as much as I could,
and I did. I did pretty well. You know, considering
I live in a landlocked state, I serve quite a bit.
And so what I did was I got a board,
(11:16):
which back then actually was it wasn't like now with
the Internet and internet sales was so it's so pervasive.
You know. I had to actually call some surf shops
and have one sent to me, which was an interesting
experience because you talked to these like teenage kids and
these surf shops. And I think one of the perks
of working in the surf shop is you can go
(11:39):
in the back and smoke some pot. But eventually found
the spot and Promosa Beach are really professional and great board,
and I had it sent to me and I started
paddling it in the river because I knew I had
to be in great shape. So for years I've on
(12:00):
my stomach and the river. Like you know, it was
very dedicated.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
You know, there's no no surfing like surfing them on it's.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
It's I know, I would put it, I would say,
I would say I paddled off the coasts of Blondhak.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
All right, So getting back to your earliest music.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
And I switched to a stand up paddle board after
some years, so I obsensibly I still do that. I've
yet to get into the river this year, so yeah,
I've slowed down. I had a heart surgery a couple
two years ago, and yeah, things are different, but you know,
music is going great, so yeah, surfing very important. All right.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Let me ask you getting back to like your earliest
memory of music. You mentioned that your father played records.
Did anybody in your family play an instrument other than
maybe your brother playing drums?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, it's true. Yeah, yeah, my mother played piano a bit,
played like some standards off of sheet music, you know,
the shadow of your smile. I remember playing that moon River,
maybe a couple couple different standards. Reportedly, her mother was
very talented, although she died of She died at a
(13:22):
young age and when my mother was young, but reportedly
had a great musical talent. She would go to a
see a movie. This was a story that she'd go
to a movie and then come home and then play
the song the theme on the piano by year and
stuff like this, and then my dad played the harmonica.
(13:44):
So yeah, the otherwise, no professionals. Well, everybody seemed to
like music. But yeah, it's not like here where you
have these generations of musicians. Although my son is a
fine piano player and a professional musician. He makes electronic music,
(14:09):
so you know, there's that, and my daughter also plays
a few things, teaches first grade. Otherwise, but yeah, yeah,
that was yeah, not yet. It's not like the Defade
family or some of these, you know, picture and the Alicos,
(14:32):
where generations the.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Bannacks, yes, yes, B one, B two all right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
All right. So what kind of music was on the
radio when you were young and how did that influence you?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, it was, well, it was you know, it was
the pop hits of the of the day. I mean
the ones I liked were the pop hit when I
was really young, and R and B, you know, and
I really didn't even think about it. It was just there,
and you know I would I would stumble on it
and think, wow, this is a great tune and would
(15:15):
kind of all come into me. But I never thought
about it. Otherwise. I just enjoyed it purely, you know,
late late my brother who was older than me, he
was into Jimi, Hendrix and Cream, so they were a
little beyond me when I was you know, he would
have been like thirteen or fourteen, and you know, two
(15:39):
young teenagers listening to this, and at first, anyway, that
was a little beyond me. But then I remember later
going to dances. I would have been about thirteen that
of these corect dances, and I remember specifically Sly in
the Family Stone, you know, doing their great hits. Answer
(16:02):
the music Santana still just sounds so good that, you know,
Yava and all the wonderful Latin jazz basically rock Latin rock,
and Hendrix too. You know, by then it was a
Foxy Lady and Purple Hayes. Stuff was great music. And
(16:27):
then the other guy from that era who I totally
loved was Jose Feliciano, and so yeah, he yes, maybe
more specifically an inspiration to me on guitar because he was,
you know, such a great musician all around, but fabulous
guitar player. And then you know, between Santana and uh,
(16:55):
Jose Feliciano, maybe the roots of the Latin jazz, the
love of Latin jaz. Some Brazilian music for me, Yeah, probably,
I mean my dad. My dad had had one Latin
jazz record, an early gay Brubak record, I think, but no, no, no,
(17:16):
he had some vibraphonis I forget his name at the moment. Yeah,
sort of on the exotic a tip like you might
hear an a tiki bar actually, but Latin jazz. So yeah,
you know I didn't. I didn't overthink it. You know,
(17:38):
in those days, you know, you're you're you're young, so
I was just kind of into it. I used to
play and play and sing actually too. I remember singing
Hey You've got to Hide your level Away by the
(17:59):
Beatles' is a record of that, And yeah, I could
have developed my musical skills. But when you hear it,
it's pretty funny. I mean, yeah, pretty funny. Young kid,
I was just like.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, well, being a beach guy, were you influenced by
Dick Dale and maybe the Ventures or the Beach Boys
and Janetina?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
You would think, but no, okay, all right, I mean
I like I liked some of the Beach Boys. I mean,
and this is true to today. I liked some of
their tunes, and you know that was sort of old
the other tunes were sort of folding when I was
real young, folding into the whole mix of just liking stuff.
So yeah, yeah, I think you had one of their
(18:43):
records when I was a kid. My parents bought it
for me for Christmas or something. But yeah, not so much. Yeah,
you know, people ask me that and I'm like, yeah,
I though, you know, there was a there was a
great bass player of living here for a while from
(19:04):
New York. Uh who who? Who loved Dick Dale And
it kind of surprised me. He said, oh, he's he
thought it was great and maybe changed. He's changed my
mind about him. Apparently he's a great dude, Dick Dale,
that is. And uh, yeah, I don't know, but not
(19:25):
so much to me. You know, Brazilian music kind of
makes sense to me. Is as beach music. You know,
Boston Nova connected to the south shore of the south
zone of Rio de Janeiro. It's a very beachy culture.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
So back back to the beach, back to the beach. Yeah, yeah,
Well do you have that band, that Latin jazz band,
don't you here?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I do? Yeah, we just have, you know, past the
forty year mark. So yeah, we've been together for forty
years George and I Eric de Fade only thirty, the
new person in the band. Yeah, although we used to
(20:16):
sub with us before that, Tom went and Paul Thompson
also been with us quite a while, so you were
still playing some gigs.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
And yeah, so you're fifteen.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Since we did six outs, we did six albums, and
we played a lot of cool gigs, some big gigs
over the years.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
We're going to get back to what you're doing today,
but I kind of want to get back to where
your beginning. So at fifteen you played classical gas. When
did you really want to pursue guitar professionally? How old
were you?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Oh, from almost from the beginning, Yeah, I was really young,
and I just thought it would be a great idea
to be in the music business. I didn't view it
exactly the way I found it I found it to be,
but yeah, I wanted to be a musician from early
(21:17):
early on. Yeah, basically I didn't want to be anything else.
I knew professional surfer wasn't gonna and so yeah, that
left music and yet yeah, so and then and then
as I got older, I got more disciplined and more serious,
(21:41):
and then moving to Pittsburgh was amazingly A big part
of that good learning of the music. And as I
got older, I got so I had. I had an
amazing guitar teacher initially, and then two other amazing guitar
(22:02):
teachers after him were or at the same time actually,
and then as I got older, I knew being a
socio professional musician wouldn't be a great life. So you know,
I was fueled by fear a little bit too. Yeah,
you better get this together or else it's not going
(22:25):
to go so well. You may it may be taken
away from you, which happens if you're not good enough,
you will have to, you know, fall out of the
music business basically.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So when was your first professional gig? Do you remember it?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
You know, I was always playing a little bit here
and there, even early on, you know, if I had
a chance to play the guitar somewhere, but I would say,
I mean, the one that comes to mind is I
was sixteen and somebody recommended that I I'd play at
this place called the odd Share Playhouse, which was in
(23:04):
the parking lot of the Sheraton South across from the
South Hills Village, and they were doing the musical hair
and they needed two guitar players. So actually that's when
I when I met Joe Negree. I had to go audition,
and I auditioned for Joe Negre in order to play
(23:28):
the show. Somehow he was connected to the to do
you know, getting the band together, I guess, And I
remember I played him some things that played the flight
of the Bumblebee. I was working on that, and of
course that was a big tune for Joe Negrey. Uh
played a beautiful version of that with the Pittsburgh Pops,
(23:52):
which you can find recorded actually and you can find
that on my YouTube. Spectacular amazing. But anyway, yeah, that
might have been sort of the first real real gig. Yeah,
I ran for several weeks, and you know, we played
(24:13):
the played the book and yeah, they comes to mind.
I don't know. I used to get together with my
friends and if we had a chance to play in
someone's backyard, because we do that, I know if that
counts for a gig or not. The usually I usually
count the professional years starting at eighteen. But yeah, you know,
just today I was thinking about the the odd Share
(24:36):
Playhouse gig, so that probably was it.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
So when did you move to Pittsburgh and what was
it like you know at sixteen, working with Joe Negri.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Well, I moved to Pittsburgh when I was fourteen. My
parents came to me one day, they said, hey, Eric,
how would you feel about moving to Pittsburgh? Said Pittsburgh?
That how far from the beach?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Is really close?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Like bar bar. But it was a blessing in disguise
because he had, you know, focused my mind toward music.
And like I mentioned, you know, I ended up with
one particularly great guitar teacher that kind of kicked off
my ability to get it all together, and then two others.
(25:34):
And so what was what was the other part of
the question.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Working with Joe Negri at sixteen? What was it like that?
What was that interaction?
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Like, well, I didn't play with him, he wasn't on
the gig, but I did end up playing with him later.
You know, when I was in my early twenties, Joe
was playing a soul gig at a restaurant right off
of the Parkway West in that little shopping area there.
(26:10):
It was in a hotel, and so he was he
was happy to see me had come and I'd played
with him, So this way he would have to play
all solo. You know, we could play together more fun, easier,
and then and then later maybe ten, ten, twelve years ago,
I played a number of duo gigs with Joe, you know,
(26:32):
actual gigs, which was really fun. So yeah, that's that's
the actual plane. So that sixteen year old that was Yeah,
he was just in charge of vetting the band, I guess,
getting the band together.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Were you aware of Joe what he what he who
he was at that time?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah? Yeah, I you know, my I have two younger
sisters and in California, they used to watch Mister Rogers,
so I would I knew about Joe because I saw
him on Mister Rogers and I'd seen him playing once
in a while on the show, and so I knew
who he was from that and then and then as
(27:22):
it came here, yeah somehow, I yeah, yeah I knew,
I knew. And then he actually played with my I
played in my high school big band in my senior
year and Joe Negrie was the guest artist with us
on one of the shows. And he came and he
(27:44):
played his assaf playing well with a whole high school band,
high school level players, and he came and he he crushed.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yeah, So when did you did you start, Uh, when
did you start appreciating jazz?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, it was kind of always. It was around a
little bit because my dad played it, played some records,
jazz records. But what happened was, you know, I had
friends when I moved here. I got together with another
guitar player at my age and a drummer, and we
used to play. We were into the blues and we
(28:29):
played all my brothers tunes and by you know, my
friend was from Rochester, New York, and he was flying
back to were from Rochester to it and he sat
just by chance, he sat next to this guy named
Freddie Robinson who was a great jazz guitar player, and
(28:55):
he played with John Mayle, particularly one John Mayle did
a record called Jazz Blues Fusion. We played blues, but
he played them in a jazz style. And so so
when he came home, we you know, he told us
about it. So they kind of opened our our eyes,
(29:17):
you know, eyes and ears, like, oh, let's check this
guy out. We started listening to him, and then soon
after that we thought, oh yeah, let's you know, let's
go buy a jazz records. So just by you know,
freakish good luck the record I end up buying is
Wes Montgomery Smoking at the Half Note, which is one
(29:41):
of the most pivotable and pivotabal and great greatest jazz
guitar records ever. So yeah, sometimes I want a kid
my students, if they come here, you know, for a lesson,
I say, do you have this record or you know
this record? If you listen to it? And if they
(30:02):
say no, I want to just say, well, get out,
because I've never done that, but I tell them the joke.
It's very important records. So yeah, we started getting into
it after that, and you know, the Korea and just
(30:22):
started discovering it all. There's a lot to discover. John
McLoughlin's fusion era had had exploded by that point and
we were into it. Larry koreyell, you know, fusion was
a thing too. And then also in those years, yeah,
I started discovering Brazilian music and Latin jazz, you know,
(30:50):
like the energy of the rhythm, the field of the rhythm.
So yeah, I'm not sure how that, I guess. I mean,
that's all Latin jazz always a part of regular jazz.
Every jazz musician is going to play some Joe Beam
tunes and so it was no exception. So I thought, oh,
Joe Beam, why not go get one of his records
(31:13):
and see what he's doing on it. You know, he
wrote the songs. So you know, that led to discovery
of Brazilian music. And then I like the feel of
the rhythm and then I hear like Tito Plenty, and
I'm like, well, let's even a little more more macho
groove going on. Yeah, I like that too, so I'll
(31:37):
get into that and I did. Yeah, so that would
have been in my later teens discovery of that. So
there's a lot of music.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
So you went from at sixteen playing blues like Dwayne Album.
I don't want to say Dwayne Album is pedestrian, but
you know he's amazing. He is amazing.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Oh he was great. Holy crap, what a talent.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
But your your your your love of music really changed
in just a few years.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
It's true. Yeah, I think about it now and it
wasn't that many years. And I learned so much in
those years to the point where I was eighteen, I
was ready to go into the music business and I
did so. Yeah, it was that was that was based
on my you know, my level of talent whatever that is,
(32:33):
and my drive. You know. Finally sixteen so years it
started getting more disciplined, although I still had lessons to learn.
For instance, so when I before I got with my teacher,
who I will, you know, talk about Rob Wilson. I
(32:53):
studied with Victor Lawrence, who was an old timer teacher.
He had a shop and and capsule Shannon, and he
was actually Joe Nagre's teacher, so he you know, he
would I had had some you know, lessons from him,
(33:14):
and one day come in and of course I hadn't practiced,
you know, my reading, and I'm trying to learn how
to read. Like like almost all guitar players, they come
from these grassroots places and then at some point, you know,
they either learn music in a in a broad sense,
(33:35):
as I would call it, a broader and deeper sense,
low broader, maybe not necessarily deeper, and so you know,
reading music is a big part of that. Sony, if
I didn't practice, and I'll never forget this victory. Just
he looks at me and I'm struggling, and he just
goes he didn't practice. Get out, but I would never do.
(34:01):
But it left the mark, you know, it was you know,
remember that. And then a couple of weeks later, my teacher,
Rob Wilson started working at the shop there, and he
turned out to be, I mean, not that Victor was
at an amazing teacher, but for me, Rob Wilson was,
(34:22):
I mean just freakishly good teacher. So we ended up
doing a lot of things that you know, I worked
with my college students, frankly, so we learned to read
and he was a stickler for timing, and we learned
music theory, all kind of things about guitar technique, and
(34:45):
was studying different people's styles solo guitar, working on the improvisational,
you know techniques, playing duets. We'd play violin exercises adapted
to the guitar to develop you know, the dudes, to
(35:05):
develop your ability. Yeah. It was was really into it,
practicing hours a day, and he was it was a
great teacher. Yeah, sort of ironically he did. He was
not much for playing gigs. He mostly just taught. And
(35:25):
then yeah, then then then not long after that, I
also started taking classic guitar lessons from Tony Chanfloon.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Yeah yeah, people around here.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, yeah, I was doing that also, which was also
broadening all of this I'm sure added up to the
fact that makes me a good employable guitar for hire.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Are you talked about later?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
I did study with Joe and Agri Also, yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
So you talked about breaking into the music business. How
did you break and what? How did what happened?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah? So, yeah, this is what happened. I once I
got out of high school, I I did two things.
And say, I would go to I would go to
every jam session all the time. I would almost never
stay home. And and then somebody, actually it was my
my ex, my band leader from from high school.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
He said, he said, what you need to do is
go down to Lamican Music and talk to a guy
named John Katazone who was playing piano and Harold Betters
and and asked him if you can sit.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
In with the band. So I went down to Loamicton
Music and I talked to him and he's they were
playing at the Encore and Shady's side. So I did
and yeah, played a long and yeah I played you
know a little bit like Kenny Burrell sort of, and uh, yeah,
they liked it enough. And and what happened was I
(37:06):
would come in every Wednesday and I would was like
the guitar player that would just not go away, and
little by little I worked my way into the band,
you know that I would I would end up playing
doubling Harold's trombone line on guitar and just kind of
adding to the band and the and the best way
(37:27):
I could. And uh, eventually I got hired into the band.
And then you know that, I mean that took a while.
You know, that was maybe the summer of that year,
and it was maybe the next spring by the time
I was working with them more. You know, you had
to be determined. I was determined and but then but
(37:51):
eventually it was working with him full time. And then
he moved from the from the Encore to uh the
South Hills Villa sha Agan again out there, and that's
actually when he kind of added me in full time,
was when he moved out there. And I worked with
him for several years, quite a few three or four years,
(38:16):
until you know, I needed to move on and do
something else. But that was good experience because we worked
all the time, and I got to meet everybody in
town because we would be everywhere and people would see
me playing with him, and you know, it was it
was a good way to break in. I would also
(38:38):
play Mondays. During a lot of those years i'd played,
there was a jam session every Monday at Jerry Better's club.
Harold's brother, Jerry had a club called the Crescendo on
Melwood Street in Oakland, and I'd played there every Monday.
And also great for getting to know people and just
(38:58):
a fun experience. It's in general playing down there. I
played with Billy Eckstein at Jerry's club, not a not
a an Elekana private moment where Billy was visiting Jerry
and he the two of them sang and me and
(39:20):
my friend Dave Brand organist. We played for the two
of them and hung out with them and with him.
There was another time hung out with him too in
the club. Stanley Turantine used to drop in there when
he was in town. George Benson came in one night
and played my guitar, played a few tunes. This is
(39:45):
all at the Crescendo. Fun plays.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
And who else have you played with?
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Oh? God, well locally yeah, I mean yeah, I want
to say everybody, but I mean everyone in the jazz
you know style. Uh yeah, let's see Sarah Class, Frankle, Amundo,
(40:15):
Gane Ludwig, Pete Henderson, David Murray, Budway, Sandy Saley, Kenya,
Roger Humphreys, Ed Riquette, can you Blake Bald Harper, Nathan Davis,
Don Alaco, importantly John Wilson. That was a very important
gig for me. Mike Tomorrow, Oh yeah, everybody.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Just about everybody? All right, what is?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I can only do that because I have my bios.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
So what is?
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Richie Cole? Later on Don Alifield Junior, and I mentioned
him these some people are recorded with, Kenya recorded with Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Just let me ask you a question?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
What is? And then some you know, I played with
the Pittsford Symphony too, was actually quite a few times,
also an important, interesting gig for a jazz musician to do.
And then I played with, you know, some big names.
I played one gig with Dizzy Gillespie when I was
(41:26):
Dave Amram, Roger Williams Airto, Yvonne Lynz from from ometto Lobambo, Charro,
Frankie Avalon, Marty Allen, some of the international people that
I played with.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Let me ask you what is? What is your style?
And how when did you develop your style?
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Well, I mean I'm definitely a jazz guitar player, you know,
and you know emerged from my you know, my studies
and as a teenager, I think from listening to West
Montgomery and Joe Pass, particularly Kenny Burrell, I would say,
(42:16):
you know, I'm I'm definitely out of that mole those
Jim Hall also, you know, in the jazz, it's hugely
influenced by them, among others. I'm listening to everything. But
and then for Latin jazz, you know, a hugely influenced
(42:37):
by Cal Jader and Tito Plante, Pancho Sanchez, you know,
all these sort of Jerry Gonzalez, all these people in
Brazilian music, definitely Antonio Carlos, Shabim, Joel Giberto, big influences there.
(43:03):
But not to mention in that way, you know, I was.
I was lucky to start working with Kenya some years ago,
so I played with quite a few great jazz or
Brazilian musicians thanks to her, and also just working with
her because she has embodies the soul and the depth
(43:24):
and purity of Brazilian music in her voice. So if
you're a depth side man, you can absorb that by
working with her. She has an incredible sense of time,
and that was in a way like Stinching school for
Brazilian music for me. So yeah, you know that I
(43:48):
would say that I can read music. That's important. That's
been a huge influence on you know, my work, my
career is I'd get the call for a lot of
things because you know, it's a pretty good reader, especially
for guitar player. Maybe not compared to a saxophonist, but yeah,
(44:13):
that important. I guess that's part of your part of
the style. I could play solo guitar too, So two
important things that make me employable. But definitely yeah, Joe Pass,
Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
And you've recorded quite a few records. Is there any
particular moment, or any particular song, or any particular moment
in a song where you go, yeah, this is this
is Eric at his best.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's a good, good question.
The recording is so different than performing live, you know,
it's it really is a different craft, you know, to
be able to sit there and then as they would say,
the red light comes on and then it's like bang
go It's it's it's different. Not to mention the fact
(45:16):
that you know you bay, I mean more so in
the past, you had to really get things right. You know,
your mistakes can be okay on recordings sometimes, but sometimes
they're not. But puts a whole different kind of pressure
into it. Yeah, I don't know, I had to. There's
(45:43):
there's some moments on my Latin jazz albums I think
I'm pretty good. Yeah, they got me there.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Well, you know, it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
I mean, there's a lot of a lot of recordings
and yeah, there's a lot of them. So yeah, you're
mostly pretty good. As I put it, I learned in recording, like,
don't try to play a great solo. Just try to
play a solo and get it, get it, you know,
(46:19):
something that hangs together and kind of answers all the
basic musical elements, and you'll probably do a lot better
because as you're absorbed with trying to hit some imaginary mark,
that's going to distract your thinking and there's only so
much thinking to go along. So just play a solo
(46:40):
and it might be great. Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
go to people can go to my YouTube page and
you know decide.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Well, I think recording is kind of took.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
My I'm proud of my arranging and composing abilities also,
so to me that's part of the package of of
recorded music.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Well, recording is almost counterintuitive to a jazz player because
when you're playing live jazz, it's your it's life on
the wire, you're you know, you could take it any
different way, but when you're recording, it has to be
it has to be almost exact. Is that kind of difficulty, Yeah, there.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Is some, there is, I mean there there is different
different amounts of spontaneity going on in a recording studio
depending on the setup of the tune and the band
and what they're what they're going after. So it might
be you know, mostly arranged with a little bit of improvisation,
(47:45):
or it could be well, let's just do this and
see what happens, which would be kind of, you know,
maybe more like the band's stand. But the band, you know,
the band stand can also be this, you know, where
we have a lot of arranging. It just it just
seems to be looser because if you make a mistake
on the bandstand, by and large, it's gone, whereas in
(48:06):
the recording studio you might not like that. I say
that because sometimes the thing you think is a mistake
or a bad note ends up being the most interesting
note you played occasionally, but you never know, all right,
So yes, you had different, different feel And yeah, craft
(48:30):
is a big part of being a good studio musician,
knowing having very technique, knowing craft, relying on a lot
of different abilities to get the job done, which is
also true on the bandstand, but somehow a little more
focused in recording, although nowadays they can fix a lot
of things thanks to computers. But it's better when you
(48:53):
get it right for real, for sure.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
So as a professional musician, do you prefer the the
production the creation of music? Is it the performance live?
Is it recording or is it teaching?
Speaker 1 (49:12):
I like I like performing live for sure. Yeah, it's
just fun. And although I do kind I do enjoy
writing music because it's sort of a you know, I
don't just uh, a happy creative spot where the performance
(49:36):
of it lives in the future and you don't have
to worry about that. Like in the studio, it's a
lot of it's a lot of work, especially if you're
the producer of the album. To put a CD together,
Most people, I don't think realize how much work that takes.
But for in writing. It's it's this kind of esoteric
place you go into and you write and you have
(49:59):
a it's a very good feeling of creative emergence, which
is also true for like jazz soloing, although a little different.
That's a little more warrior like you're out there dealing
with the room and the people and you know. Fun.
I mean, it's mostly fun, especially if we played with
great musicians. But something about the writing for me is
(50:24):
just a fun, happy place to go to. I enjoy that.
And I use a computer program called Finale, which is
very capable, and so I like that. That's secondary recording
is it's cool to have recordings and you need them.
(50:47):
They're great for posterity because you know, the gigs kind
of dry up in the noonday sun. The recordings have
a different sort of life and can travel in different ways,
which is nice. And then the teaching is for me,
something that's kind of always been there. You taught at
a very young age because it's just new more than
my friends, and sometimes they would hire me to teach,
(51:11):
you know, even when I was very young, ten or
eleven years old maybe, And it's something that's always just
kind of been there, and I do really enjoy it
When I'm doing it, I'm really into it, and I
really want my students to learn and get better. But
if somehow I retired from that, weirdly, I'd be okay.
(51:35):
I mean I might miss it a little bit, but
you know, if that makes sense, you know, Yeah, I'm
really into it when I'm doing it. But yeah, so
it's kind of in that order.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
What sparks your love my students?
Speaker 1 (51:49):
I mean I really love them. They're almost yeah, all
of them. Yeah, They've just been so sincere and they
love music, and so I truly love my students.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
Yeah, what sparks your creators? Let me ask you a question, Mark,
go ahead, Yeah, what sparks your creativity? And what has
been your muse in the past?
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Yeah, any anything could could spark I mean it depends
on I mean, usually it would the question would I'd
be thinking of maybe composing a song, So that could
be might just play a couple of chords on the
guitar and think, wow, there's something here, and then I
would continue it and to the completion of a tune.
(52:40):
But uh, you know, it might be it might be
inspired by a piece of some other music, and I
could write you know what they call like music is
where you take it, take the elements of one tune
and then rewrite them into something else. Sometimes it's the
(53:01):
it's the the job, you know, when we need some
music for this or uh, you know, so there's deadlines.
Deadline is a is a beautiful thing. So having a
job and having to get something done at a certain time,
(53:22):
certain thing. Narrow Narrowing things down is a big is
great for creativity. If you have the whole universe of options,
you might not do so well. But if you can
narrow things down to a few elements, well, I'm going
to write a thirty two bartoon and it's going to
(53:43):
be a A, B, A form and I'm going to
write it as a boss and nova, and I'm going
to use a lot of melody notes on the upbeat,
and I'm going to try to hit some interesting color tones.
And I'm gonna be influenced by Joe Beam. You know,
I've narrowed it down quite a bit, and that often
(54:06):
can can help or or even you know, even just
even just one idea of what the tune might be. Oh,
I need a mambo for my band, So I want
to write a mambo that's mostly just a few chords,
not too many chords, and then then you start looking
for it and usually you know, if you I would
(54:28):
say that one of the big big elements of inforation
is just put your put your ass down in a
chair and start working, and you'd be surprised what emerged. Or,
as I heard somebody else, put it sit down and
try to write a bad tune. If you have talented
(54:48):
but you can't, you know. Yeah, so I'm fired by
hearing music. I like all kind of music. I love.
I love symphonic mus also, yeah, just you know, good
quality music in general inspiring. A lot of the people
(55:09):
I've worked at super talented. That's inspiring, especially when you
work with them. You know.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
When it comes to jazz culture, I think a lot
of people think New York or New Orleans or something
like that. But yeah, but Pittsburgh has a rich history
of jazz.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
Yes, it sure does. Yeah, as I might put it, Yeah,
if you come to Pittsburgh and get into the jazz
scene as a musician, you know, you if you're not
good enough, you might have your ass handed to you. Here.
There's a lot of good musicians, which is amazing considering
(55:54):
the town, it is not that large, but the level
of musicianship very high for jazz, and it didn't really
realize it, you know, earlier on I was just here
and absorbed in the scene. But as I you know,
had chances to travel to other places and play with
(56:16):
people or just to see what's going on. I can
see that how high the musicianship is here. That would
say you have been very happy here playing music. And
then of course it has some other things going on,
you know, advantages. You know, it's not you know, as
(56:40):
I would think, unless you're just stinking rich, living in
New York is kind of a hassle, but living in
Pittsburgh not that at all. You know, it's very doable, manageable,
cheaper for sure, so a great place to live. And
(57:01):
then you're going to be playing well, you know, with
great players. You know, if you're good enough and you
put yourself out there, you'll be playing with great people.
So yeah, you're a long tradition of people that have
left here that become famous. You know, there's if you
stay here, maybe not so famous as I would also
(57:24):
put it. No, it's famous in Pittsburgh because everybody knows everybody,
so even if you're Joe Nagri. Of course everybody knows him.
I mean he knows him as for his work on TV.
But then also everybody knows him, you know, yeah Joe.
They just say Joe. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (57:47):
And so.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
Even George, I mean George Benson will come back and
he's still kind of it's famous, but but it's like yeah,
but then there's a little bit of maybe, but you're here,
You're back here in the burg, you know, I don't know. Yeah,
there's a lot of yeah, yeah, yeah, great place for music.
(58:12):
I've been totally happy with the way things turned out
musically in this way. Being here been great.
Speaker 3 (58:23):
What's your legacy?
Speaker 1 (58:24):
That list the people I mentioned, yeah, amazing talents, God,
all those people, you know, fantastic.
Speaker 3 (58:35):
One final question, what is your legacy?
Speaker 1 (58:37):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean
I played a lot of gigs, as I mean, I
would say off that I was been thinking about this. Yeah,
it wasn't even thinking about the gigs before I was eighteen,
So I was calculating that might be about ten thousand gigs,
(59:01):
mostly in Pittsburgh. That's a lot of gigs. So I'm
out there doing it and doing the plain jazz music
and and honoring it. I think, yeah, definitely the teaching.
(59:21):
You know, you you you're helping people along. That's important,
you know, to pass that on. So there's there's some
of that too. The written you know, they say the
pen is mightier than the sword, So there's you know,
written music out there. I don't know. I don't know
(59:46):
how much of a legacy that might be. I wouldn't
want it to be, you know, like a popular song
would be nice. I have some good I have some
good tunes, but it's hard to get your stuff noticed.
But yeah, maybe that you never know. Like I said,
the recordings and the written page has a different lifespan
(01:00:12):
than the gigs. So yeah, I think, you know, there's somebody,
you know, I would say, a jazz guitarist, you know
who who had good musicianship and capable. Yeah, that's that's
pretty good. That's pretty good. And then and then I
(01:00:35):
went out and they did it.
Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Yeah, so one final question that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Checked me. On the right day, it was a pretty
good surfer. Yeah, on the right day, you'd be impressed.
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