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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftzett's podcast. My

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Speaker 1: guest today is pianist Mike Garson. Mike, who were just

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Speaker 1: involved with a video Heroes Ukraine, tell us about that.

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Speaker 2: Well. I got a call from the director Rupert Winwright

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Speaker 2: and he had done this song of David Bowie's Heroes

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Speaker 2: with a rewrite of some of the lyrics, and then

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Speaker 2: he gathered these Ukrainian female talented women singers and guitarists

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Speaker 2: and at the very end he thought it might be

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Speaker 2: nice because I had the connection with David to maybe

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Speaker 2: aired piano and he'd been working on months and as

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Speaker 2: you know, it would have been nice if it came

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Speaker 2: out six or eight months ago. Climbing it is hard

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Speaker 2: for it now, but in any case, it was heart

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Speaker 2: felt by everyone who delivered it. And it's hard to

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Speaker 2: even watch the video. You know, musically it sounds cool,

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Speaker 2: but it's just suffering, you know, a lot of pain.

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Speaker 3: Can you tell us a little bit more about the

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Speaker 3: music and the visuals.

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Speaker 2: You know, I like the way it's sounded, you know,

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Speaker 2: these young women were great, you know, and their fears.

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Speaker 2: It was loud and they found some motif for me

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Speaker 2: on the piano and I was just banging away. It

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Speaker 2: just kept going and it was a long video, but

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Speaker 2: it was a fun shoot that came over to my studio,

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Speaker 2: which my big piano is downstairs here. I just have

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Speaker 2: like a mini piano, so that's here on this piano,

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Speaker 2: and I could have you seen my fingers. Keep your

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Speaker 2: interested if I play for you. But to glee, yeah,

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Speaker 2: this is a nice setup I have up here. It's

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Speaker 2: nice to acquiet and I'm upstairs and I'm in Calabasta,

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Speaker 2: so it's all working fine.

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Speaker 3: So is being associated with David Bowie all positive or

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Speaker 3: is it a little bit of an albatross too?

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Speaker 2: It's a double edged sword, you know. And one way

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Speaker 2: I owe my career to him because every rock star

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Speaker 2: that's called called me in the last thirty years with

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Speaker 2: fans of him and my playing on those early records

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Speaker 2: like Diamond Dorg's Young Americans, especially Aladdin Sane. But so

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Speaker 2: that's that's the plus. I've made a living instead of

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Speaker 2: where I was prior as a starving jazz musician, which

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Speaker 2: I still do, and that was good. The downside of

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Speaker 2: his everyone always wants to talk about Bowie and my

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Speaker 2: standard line is I played good before I got the gig,

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Speaker 2: and he just happened to like my playing. So I

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Speaker 2: was the fucking whipped cream on the cake and let

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Speaker 2: him do what he want with what I'm mean. I

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Speaker 2: know nothing, Bob about rock and roll. I mean, you're

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Speaker 2: an almanac, and I didn't know who Bowie.

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Speaker 3: Was what he called me, Bob. Okay, so what year

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Speaker 3: were you born in?

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Speaker 2: I was born in nineteen forty five, and I waited

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Speaker 2: just for the war to be done.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so you're born in nineteen forty five, Elvis Presley,

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Speaker 3: you're aware when Elvis breaks, You're certainly aware when the

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Speaker 3: beatles break. You don't care, or you don't pay attention.

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Speaker 2: I didn't pay attention. I was practicing the piano, and

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Speaker 2: I was a little bit of a classical in jazz snob,

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Speaker 2: which life humbled me out. And when I recognized that

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Speaker 2: Joni Mitchell's and the Bob Dylan's and the Bowies of

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Speaker 2: the world, it was a little late because it had

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Speaker 2: to be fancy and virtuostic. And I grew up with

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Speaker 2: Vladimir Harwitz and Rubinstein and Glenn Gould and Bach and

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Speaker 2: Chopin and Liszt and Oscar in a Tatum and Bill Evans,

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Speaker 2: And where am I? I thought to myself, because I

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Speaker 2: go to this audition and jeans and a T shirt

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Speaker 2: on a Tuesday night at RCA in New York City

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Speaker 2: and they're decked out like they're going on stage in

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Speaker 2: Madison Square going. I was, where the fuck am I?

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Speaker 2: You know?

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Speaker 4: Okay, you're born in forty five? Yeah, what do your

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Speaker 4: parents do for a living? My dad was a liquor

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Speaker 4: salesman and he turned me on to jazz because he

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Speaker 4: sold liquor to the Half Note, which was on Spring

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Speaker 4: and Hudston and Manhattan Great Jazz Club. He brought me

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Speaker 4: down to see Lenny Tristano, who was a blind pianist

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Speaker 4: who had played with Charlie Parker introduced me to him.

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Speaker 4: I audition on a break when the band was on

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Speaker 4: a break for Lenny. I played take five. I was

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Speaker 4: just a budding jazz pianist, and he accepted me as

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Speaker 4: a student. Studied with him three years and then the

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Speaker 4: rest is kind of history from that viewpoint, But it

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Speaker 4: was my dad was the culprit.

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Speaker 3: My mom.

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Speaker 2: Oh, medical school. I was a pre med student at

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Speaker 2: Brooklyn College. But I dissected the fucking pig and it

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Speaker 2: just was a mess. I made chopped liver and spare

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Speaker 2: ribs and I was done, and he'd given me an

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Speaker 2: f on the test. And I said, come to the

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Speaker 2: window here. I point to the music a building. I said,

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Speaker 2: if you give me a d I'll get the fuck

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Speaker 2: out of your face, you know, And that's what?

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Speaker 3: Okay? How many kids in the family. I have two daughters. No, no, no, no, no.

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Speaker 3: On your level, you have brothers or sisters.

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Speaker 2: One sister she just passed a few months ago, and

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Speaker 2: she was ten years older than me. So she passed

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Speaker 2: and at eight eighty nine, I'll be out. I'll be

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Speaker 2: eighty in a few months. And she was ten years

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Speaker 2: older than me.

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Speaker 3: Were you close to her?

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Speaker 2: She got out of the house when I was seven

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Speaker 2: years old. My mom screamed so much she had to

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Speaker 2: get out. And she got married and I haven't seen

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Speaker 2: her since.

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Speaker 3: And how did her life turn out?

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Speaker 2: She married a gentleman who also died four months ago.

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Speaker 2: My brother in law who I knew for seventy years,

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Speaker 2: and he was in real estate syndication. He was a lawyer,

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Speaker 2: but he owned two Park Avenue which shown thirty third

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Speaker 2: in Park. So they were fine. They were fine, and

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Speaker 2: then they moved out of New York. They got burnt

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Speaker 2: out and they went to Sedona and they owned Enchantment,

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Speaker 2: which was a nice hotel there, and they did that,

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Speaker 2: and then he got dementia, so we moved him out

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Speaker 2: there us here in Woodland Hills, and then my sister

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Speaker 2: stayed with him for thirteen years of dementia. Then and

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Speaker 2: then my sister got cancer a few months before he died,

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Speaker 2: but she wouldn't leave till he died. He died, and

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Speaker 2: a month later she was gone.

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Speaker 3: Wow, Okay, how many generations was your family in America?

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Speaker 3: My dad was.

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Speaker 2: From the Bronx, myms from the Bronx, and all the

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Speaker 2: grandparents were Russian somewhere probably Ukraine and some of those

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Speaker 2: places over there.

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Speaker 3: I had the idental situation Russia and Ukraine. So you

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Speaker 3: grow up exactly.

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Speaker 2: Where Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, between Prosper Park and Nathan's

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Speaker 2: Coney Island Ocean Parkway. I still dream about those hot

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Speaker 2: dogs fifteen cents. The French fries were ten cents.

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Speaker 3: You know what people don't remember about Coney Island was

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Speaker 3: the steeplechase, which was really something else.

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Speaker 2: There you go, there, you go Where did you grow up?

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Speaker 3: I grew up in Connecticut, about fifty miles from New

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Speaker 3: York City.

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Speaker 2: Got it, got it, got it. But you got the

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Speaker 2: Coney Island though.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely got on the steeple chase. They wouldn't have the

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Speaker 3: steeple chase today because there was no safety belt. But

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Speaker 3: those people don't know. You got on this horse and

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Speaker 3: it was on a rail, started inside, then went outside.

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Speaker 3: It was kind of a race, and it was you

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Speaker 3: know that in the roller coaster. You were like the

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Speaker 3: two famous rides in Cody Island. You got it? Okay,

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Speaker 3: So you grew up? Is there a piano in the house.

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Speaker 3: There's a piano in the house. My mom played and

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Speaker 3: my sister played. Both played classical, and at seven I

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Speaker 3: started with a wonderful teacher and I never looked back.

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Speaker 3: So that's all I've ever done for I've been playing

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Speaker 3: professionally since I'm fourteen. But I started learning the instrument

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Speaker 3: at seven. Okay, so you were seven. What was the

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Speaker 3: motivation to finally take lessons?

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Speaker 2: Peer pressure? Drew and Brooklyn With a piano in the house,

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Speaker 2: What the fuck are you gonna do? You know?

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Speaker 3: So?

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Speaker 2: I but then I started to like it. But we

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Speaker 2: had a little telephone in those days in a closet,

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Speaker 2: and I was a little lazy at practicing. But I

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Speaker 2: loved it. But I didn't want to practice that much.

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Speaker 2: So anytime I didn't practice, my mom would run into

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Speaker 2: the little closet to the telephone to call for faking it.

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Speaker 2: So she's gonna call the piano teacher and canceled the lessons.

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Speaker 2: So I run to the piano and start playing.

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Speaker 3: You know, Okay, you didn't like to practice, but were

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Speaker 3: You know a lot of people begin by playing by

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Speaker 3: ear and they leave out the reading and all the basics.

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Speaker 3: You had a lot of training. How did it work

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Speaker 3: for you?

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Speaker 2: I was had perfect pitch, so I could play by you.

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Speaker 2: But I was playing classical. I didn't know what jazz was.

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Speaker 2: I heard by the time I was nine, a little

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Speaker 2: about Elvis and those kind of songs from those days.

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Speaker 2: But I was playing Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and

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Speaker 2: chopin I was. I was playing, you know, say, you

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Speaker 2: know that kind of stuff in Beetho, and I was

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Speaker 2: doing all that, and then at fourteen, I got the

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Speaker 2: jazz bug. What could I say? And that's that's when

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Speaker 2: I heard Dave and Errol Ganna, but I had now

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Speaker 2: pretty good chomps. And then I started doing gigs my

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Speaker 2: first kid at fourteen, I made five bucks playing at

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Speaker 2: sweet sixteen. I thought I was Elon musk By at

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Speaker 2: five dollars there.

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Speaker 3: Okay, let's go back though. What kind of kid were you?

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Speaker 3: Were you a good student, bad student? Were you a loaner?

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Speaker 3: Did you have friends? It's a great question.

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Speaker 2: I was a loner. I had a few friends, but

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Speaker 2: I was not understood. I hated school all through public

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Speaker 2: school or high school and college, and I just couldn't

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Speaker 2: wait to get out. And when I was in college,

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Speaker 2: even I was playing gigs and I was the only

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Speaker 2: one working and applying it, and they were talking like

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Speaker 2: what year was Beethoven born?

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Speaker 3: Do I give a fuck? You know?

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Speaker 2: I want to know?

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Speaker 3: Do I like this piece?

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Speaker 2: So I was always about the music, and I stuff

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Speaker 2: through learning. But all my great lessons were from great

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Speaker 2: piano teachers and Julia teacher, Leonard Tristano, Herbie Hancock's Torkorea,

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Speaker 2: Bill Evans.

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Speaker 3: I was blessed.

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Speaker 2: I was in New York in the sixties.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so you're playing the piano, your father takes you

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Speaker 3: to the jazz Club, the Sweet sixteen gigs after that.

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Speaker 2: The Sweet Thing actually was first. It was more like

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Speaker 2: a club debt. I played a lot of weddings in

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Speaker 2: ball Misfits, so it wasn't really jazz. It was like

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Speaker 2: the Shadowy a Smile or more, or some of the

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Speaker 2: songs that were the hips way you know, or rumbas

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Speaker 2: like best of mag Muco. It was all that and

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Speaker 2: I had to learn a song today at that time.

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Speaker 2: Within three years, I knew a thousand songs by heart.

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Speaker 3: Chris.

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Speaker 2: When you played these weddings at Ball Misterers, you weren't

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Speaker 2: allowed to read the music.

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Speaker 3: So it was always solo. You were never a member

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Speaker 3: of the group.

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Speaker 2: Oh those weddings and Babs was I would play at

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Speaker 2: the beginning for the ceremonies. But we always had a band.

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Speaker 2: I mean one was worse than the next, but it

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Speaker 2: was a band.

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Speaker 3: But did you play in the band? Oh? Yeah, So

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Speaker 3: you were always like the special star coming out of

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Speaker 3: performing on your instrument. So how did you get all

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Speaker 3: these gigs in New York?

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Speaker 2: Did you ever hear of the Roseland? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Sure?

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Speaker 2: Every Wednesday at two o'clock it turned into the local

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Speaker 2: eight or two musicians place where we all gathered, thousands

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Speaker 2: of musicians will being there and somebody be at the

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Speaker 2: microphone piano gig at the Concorde Hotel. I raised my hand,

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Speaker 2: Groszegger's Hotel, Bob, it's first Saturday night at Lenon's and

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Speaker 2: great the thirty bucks and we'd be all rushing for

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Speaker 2: the gigs and we need someone in the castle for

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Speaker 2: the summer fifteen bucks a week, my first game, you know.

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Speaker 2: And then they would still little Sheep music for fifteen

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Speaker 2: cents and we'd learn the latest song. And it was

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Speaker 2: great training. But at a certain point I wanted to

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Speaker 2: kill myself because I didn't want to play music while

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Speaker 2: people ate, you know, I wanted them to hear me.

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Speaker 2: So I made a serious decision.

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Speaker 3: Like fuck that.

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Speaker 2: But I did a thousand gigs before I had the

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Speaker 2: balls to do that.

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Speaker 3: Okay, little bit slower, you're playing the Sweet sixteen? Are

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Speaker 3: you getting the gigs by going to roseland or is

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Speaker 3: your now word of mouth? Little Mikey is the guy

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Speaker 3: you want?

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Speaker 2: He instead of Mikey likes it. And it was just

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Speaker 2: so simple, Oh he plays, you know, the girl in

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Speaker 2: school likes you.

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Speaker 3: He plays.

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Speaker 2: Oh, my friend's having a sweet sixteen where you put

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Speaker 2: the band together. So I put a band together. It

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Speaker 2: was called the impromptu quartet, which is for telling, because

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Speaker 2: my whole life is improvisation. I came from the same

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Speaker 2: let's say, mindset as Keith Jarret is just the wider

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Speaker 2: viewpoint of music. But I always liked improvising. So that

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Speaker 2: was we had a nice quartet, and we did hundreds

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Speaker 2: of gigs.

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Speaker 3: You know, hundreds, And what kind of money were you making?

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Speaker 2: The gigs would pay around sixty dollars seventy dollars for

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Speaker 2: an individual bomments for a wedding. When I was working

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Speaker 2: in the castles, it was a weekly pay. It started

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Speaker 2: at fifteen dollars at fifteen a week, and then it

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Speaker 2: went for forty dollars to eighty to ninety. The highest

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Speaker 2: was ever one hundred and seventy dollars.

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Speaker 3: Well, if you're a teenager, that's kind of good money, right,

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah yeah. And what did you spend the

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Speaker 3: money on?

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Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't even remember. It wasn't that

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Speaker 2: much money, you know, probably candy or something, you know.

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Speaker 3: I was I was a.

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Speaker 2: Little different as a musician in that, for one reason

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Speaker 2: or another, I didn't drink or use drugs. So I

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Speaker 2: never did my whole life. Maybe that's why I'm here

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Speaker 2: telling the story and feeling younger, almost turning eighty than

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Speaker 2: when I was twenty. I don't know that's the exact reason,

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Speaker 2: because I'm not judgmental. I understand what the good and

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Speaker 2: the band of drugs, but it just wasn't my cup

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Speaker 2: of tea sushi, Yes, a little addicted.

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Speaker 3: What could I say? Okay, you're working in the cat Skills.

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Speaker 3: I've been to the cat Skills. They made movies about it.

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Speaker 3: Was that a good experience, you know, where you're running

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Speaker 3: with the other people working there and you're having sexual

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Speaker 3: adventures or was it like a drag just playing the piano.

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Speaker 2: So the first three four years I loved it. I

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Speaker 2: loved it. You're a young kid fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and

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Speaker 2: it just was wonderful. Plus I got a lot of experience.

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Speaker 2: Every night you had a comedian, Jackie Mason, you had Heinz,

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Speaker 2: Heinz and Dad. I played for mel to May over

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Speaker 2: those five years. Every summer I played for almost eight

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Speaker 2: hundred seniors before I met David Bowie. So I had

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Speaker 2: a lot of experiences of company and I loved the company,

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Speaker 2: but then the quality wasn't high enough for me. The

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Speaker 2: better I got, so I had to get out of

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Speaker 2: there sooner then later.

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Speaker 3: Okay, let's go back to the lessons. So you start

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Speaker 3: with the guy Lenny from the club. How long do

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Speaker 3: you study with him?

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Speaker 2: Let me Trestano was three years and I lived in Brooklyn.

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Speaker 2: He lived in Jamaica, Queens. It took me two hours

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Speaker 2: each way to get there. I had to take a

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Speaker 2: train to New York City, another train to Queens, and

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Speaker 2: then a bus, and then I had to walk a

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Speaker 2: half a mile for a ten minute lesson for eight dollars.

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Speaker 2: He tore eighty students in two days and the rest

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Speaker 2: of the week. He practic and he was blind, he

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Speaker 2: was dark, he was bitter, and he was a fucking genius.

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Speaker 2: And he taught me three thousand left hand chord voicings

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Speaker 2: or harmonies or however you want to call it, just

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Speaker 2: in left hand over the first two years, three thousand.

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Speaker 2: I think I used thirty of them. You know, well,

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Speaker 2: you think of you think of imagine, it's four chords,

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Speaker 2: you know, and he's teaching me these chords that sound

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Speaker 2: like this, I mean, just just an instant. It probably

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Speaker 2: worked for his head, and he had a whole mathematical

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Speaker 2: way of laying out. So I had to memorize all

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Speaker 2: these chords in all twelve keys. It was torture. If

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Speaker 2: I had to do it now, I'd call you up,

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Speaker 2: asked you to shoot me.

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Speaker 3: The lessons were only ten minutes long. Do you believe that?

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Speaker 2: Sometimes nine minutes?

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Speaker 3: Well, tell me a little bit about the lesson. Could

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Speaker 3: sit down and then.

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Speaker 2: What So it was four hours round trip in getting there, right,

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Speaker 2: And I'd sit down and let's say these chords that

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Speaker 2: I had to learn, Let's say I had learned at

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Speaker 2: home two hundred that week. When I'd come in, he'd say,

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Speaker 2: play it in one particular key, so that might be

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Speaker 2: twenty to thirty chords, So that took two minutes. Then

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Speaker 2: i'd have to do some scales stuff like this, then

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Speaker 2: do that, and then different fingering to get all sorts

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Speaker 2: of coordination and strength. So then I would do that.

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Speaker 2: Then he'd have me listen to Leslie Young or Billy

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Speaker 2: Holiday or Bud Powell, and I have to sing and

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Speaker 2: imitate their phrasing. And then he would let me improvise

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Speaker 2: a little bit. And that was the lesson because ten minutes.

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Speaker 3: Goes right right, and what would be the assignment for

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Speaker 3: the following week?

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Speaker 2: Now you did it in the key doing in the

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Speaker 2: key of D flat next week. It's not like the

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Speaker 2: guitar or the fucking capo.

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Speaker 3: Right right right right right right right right right. Okay.

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Speaker 2: So I love your questions. Nobody asked me this shit.

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Speaker 2: You know what I mean, kids, but you do what

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Speaker 2: I listen.

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Speaker 3: I stayed out to a Jewish family with a piano

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Speaker 3: with the house. I started taking lessons at five. It's

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Speaker 3: like I never I hated to practice. So when did

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Speaker 3: it change?

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Speaker 2: It was piano was your first instrument. Oh yeah, then

350
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Speaker 2: I really love you keeping going?

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Speaker 3: Okay? So at what point did you get the bug

352
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Speaker 3: such that you wanted to practice.

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Speaker 2: You're not going to believe this, but it was during

354
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Speaker 2: Vietnam and I was at Brooklyn College. I was still

355
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Speaker 2: only doing an hour or two a day, and I

356
00:19:52,359 --> 00:19:56,080
Speaker 2: was very good. But I wasn't great. But I was

357
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Speaker 2: very good, and my marks were terrible because as you

358
00:20:00,640 --> 00:20:02,920
Speaker 2: asked before, I was not a good student. They were

359
00:20:02,960 --> 00:20:06,080
Speaker 2: not paralleling my mind.

360
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Speaker 3: I needed.

361
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Speaker 2: Freedom, I needed rebellion, I needed innovatives, not fucking machines

362
00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:18,680
Speaker 2: and regurgitating Beethoven. There was a million people that could

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Speaker 2: do that and better than me, although I was pretty

364
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Speaker 2: good at it, but it's not me. I wanted express

365
00:20:25,119 --> 00:20:31,399
Speaker 2: what was in there, and so my marks went to

366
00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 2: a d and if they dropped below C I got

367
00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:39,440
Speaker 2: a call to be drafted because it was during Vietnam,

368
00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:43,159
Speaker 2: and then the rubber or whatever when it hits the ground,

369
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Speaker 2: I said, oh fuck, I'm not going to go shoot people.

370
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Speaker 2: So what happened was I found out if I put

371
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Speaker 2: an extra year of DOS in three years instead of

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Speaker 2: two and I passed the test, I could be in

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Speaker 2: the band. So I auditioned, I got one hundred on

374
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Speaker 2: the test, and I joined the band. So I knew

375
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Speaker 2: I'd have to pay some serious dues for the first

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00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,800
Speaker 2: eight week school based of training. Then the next three

377
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Speaker 2: years I'm playing the fucking Glockaspiel down Fifth Avenue and

378
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:26,879
Speaker 2: marching and you know, then we played for the Generals.

379
00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 2: But basically I was in the fort I was stationed

380
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Speaker 2: in Staten Island. I told everybody I was overseas from

381
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Speaker 2: Brooklyn over the Arizona Bridge, and I would practice eight

382
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:41,240
Speaker 2: hours a day because there was nothing to do we

383
00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:44,800
Speaker 2: do a parade on Fifth Avenue every three months, and

384
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:47,480
Speaker 2: we had a big band, so we practiced there and

385
00:21:47,560 --> 00:21:50,600
Speaker 2: all the generals I would play for their parties, so

386
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:53,560
Speaker 2: I made extra money. They paid for two piano lesters.

387
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:56,480
Speaker 2: I go into the city. After basic training. I was

388
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Speaker 2: living home and eating a steak in the morning the

389
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Speaker 2: sixth of the morning going to the fort and I

390
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:03,040
Speaker 2: was home by five o'clock. And I did all the

391
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:06,520
Speaker 2: shopping and the PX so everything was one third the price.

392
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Speaker 2: And I did that for those three years, and that's

393
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Speaker 2: when I got good.

394
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Speaker 3: I ended up.

395
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Speaker 2: There was a drummer in the band who ended up

396
00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:19,639
Speaker 2: with Woody Herman and Man at Ferguson. There was a

397
00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:22,399
Speaker 2: trumpet player ended up in Bloodswort and Tears. So we

398
00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:26,040
Speaker 2: had a great band. And all I did is go

399
00:22:26,080 --> 00:22:30,280
Speaker 2: every morning and practice. So it was like that pressure

400
00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:34,960
Speaker 2: was needed because I didn't have that discipline. I'm kind

401
00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:40,040
Speaker 2: of lazy and intuitive and I play from my heart.

402
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:43,119
Speaker 2: But there I had to do hard work and I

403
00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 2: did it.

404
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:48,520
Speaker 3: Okay, the Army is after you. Brooklyn College right in

405
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:50,960
Speaker 3: the middle. After I finished, I went back and finished

406
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:55,080
Speaker 3: Brooklyn College. Okay, so you figure you'll join, So you

407
00:22:55,160 --> 00:23:01,359
Speaker 3: won't be drafted in extent to Vietnam. I won that game. Okay,

408
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:09,440
Speaker 3: So what's it like being a Jewish guy in the army? Okay?

409
00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:12,600
Speaker 2: I was not going to share this story, but I

410
00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:15,679
Speaker 2: think it's an important story. I was in basic training

411
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:19,440
Speaker 2: in Fort Dixon, New Jersey, and I was the only

412
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:27,440
Speaker 2: Jewish fella there, and I felt very isolated, and I

413
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:33,600
Speaker 2: had a German sergeant. I was not the most athletic person.

414
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:39,880
Speaker 3: In the world. And when you learn how to take a.

415
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:43,240
Speaker 2: Bayonet and you're supposed to stab it into the dummies, right,

416
00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:46,360
Speaker 2: and you're supposed to do it like you're going to

417
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:51,160
Speaker 2: kill somebody. Everybody was stabbing it hard. And I took

418
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:54,639
Speaker 2: the knife and I was just like touching it because

419
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:58,720
Speaker 2: I was picturing I can't hurt another human being. And

420
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, this German sergeant said, in front

421
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 2: of the whole barracks, if you're an example of a Jew,

422
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:15,720
Speaker 2: it's no wonder what Hitler did to those people. My

423
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 2: body's still shivering saying it and thinking, shouldn't have I

424
00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 2: done something about that? What could have I done that?

425
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:25,920
Speaker 2: I mean, do I report it? I mean I still

426
00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:29,400
Speaker 2: play it in my head that was a pretty big

427
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 2: chump symptism. It lasted me for a long time. You know,

428
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:37,439
Speaker 2: I got a free pass when I started playing music.

429
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 2: Nobody cared if I was white, black, green, Italian. You

430
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 2: know you're Jewish, Catholic. You know it was different, Okay.

431
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:48,399
Speaker 3: You know, forgetting a pianist, a lot of people said, oh,

432
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 3: I'm going to send my kid to the army for discipline.

433
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 3: To set them straight. Was there any lesson that you

434
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 3: learned in the army that was good.

435
00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:01,360
Speaker 2: I learned how to practice. I shine my shoes pretty good.

436
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:04,880
Speaker 2: I learned that appeal potatoes. But really what I did

437
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:07,600
Speaker 2: and I could run a mile, which now I barely

438
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:10,280
Speaker 2: could get up to the studio, you know, from the downstairs.

439
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:13,760
Speaker 2: But I mean basically, what I learned is to practice

440
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:17,920
Speaker 2: the piano and get good. Because eight hours a day

441
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 2: for three years, even if I had no talent, at

442
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 2: least you could mechanically play. Might not have gotten good gigs.

443
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:28,439
Speaker 3: Yeah. Were you practicing eight hours because you were personally

444
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 3: inspired at or had nothing better to do, or were

445
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 3: the generals saying, hey, Mike, you know you gotta get better.

446
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 2: No. Within weeks, I fell in love with it, and

447
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 2: I saw a progress.

448
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:44,720
Speaker 3: Okay, let's go back. How does it end with Lenny?

449
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 3: And who's your next teacher?

450
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 2: So simultaneously to Lenny Trestado, there was a gentleman named

451
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 2: hal overton O ve Rtn how twar did Julia? But

452
00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 2: he also was a great jazz player, and he stard

453
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 2: at the piano on twenty third Street and sixth Avenue.

454
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,359
Speaker 2: The cigarette would be hanging out of his mouth and

455
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:10,440
Speaker 2: he loved to bebop guys and Butt Powell. And he

456
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 2: did the Felonious Monk big band arrangements for a jazz

457
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 2: album at town Hall that came out around nineteen sixty three.

458
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 2: So he had a treasure chest of Monk song Selonious Monk,

459
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:25,359
Speaker 2: and none of them were available at that time, and

460
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 2: he would teach me these. It was the most fantastic

461
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 2: experience because he knew how to teach properly, and he

462
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 2: prepared me for life for music for gigs up until

463
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:40,919
Speaker 2: but all with jazz. And one day I came in

464
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:45,919
Speaker 2: and I was mixing classical in jazz. So there's a

465
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 2: chopin song that goes it's full of revolutionary town and

466
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 2: it's a crazy left tandpo so I took the Gershwin

467
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 2: song Summertime, and I went.

468
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 3: Something like that.

469
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:07,679
Speaker 2: I remember the left hand point. So he says to me,

470
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 2: that's the colectic. And the way he said it, Bob,

471
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 2: it was like I had leprosy and I was just

472
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 2: hearing all my influences and they started to come out.

473
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 2: I might sit there and play a jazz thing for him,

474
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:29,119
Speaker 2: but then I might be going then and then that

475
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 2: sounds mixed the classical in jazz, and then I might

476
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 2: be starting like a classical thing. Didn't like it because

477
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 2: he only liked one of the straight be box that

478
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 2: sounded like this, and I was much more of a penis.

479
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:54,920
Speaker 2: I wanted to do other things. I wanted to play

480
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 2: two hands like he stole me like that, and I

481
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 2: wanted to be to play like Arldonna that kind of

482
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:10,679
Speaker 2: a thing, and he wanted to keep me in a

483
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:11,399
Speaker 2: small box.

484
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 3: I mean, you've heard that story before.

485
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 2: And I had a Julia teacher, just dropping back to

486
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 2: when I was thirteen, and he showed me some mozart,

487
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:28,160
Speaker 2: that beautiful sonata, and I came in the next week

488
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 2: and I went.

489
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 3: And he said, you.

490
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 2: Have delusion as a grandeur. I should have said, I

491
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 2: am possibly a budding composer and improviser. But I got

492
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 2: intimidated and kind of stepped me back twenty or thirty years.

493
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 3: But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Okay, how

494
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 3: did you last with that guy? How long?

495
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 2: That was about a year? And how Overton? That is

496
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 2: the Julian teacher, how Overton jumping? A few years later,

497
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 2: when studying with Lennyd Tristano, that was two years. Tony

498
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,720
Speaker 2: Williams Miles Davis, drummer, came for a lesson right after me.

499
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 2: He was seventeen, you know, and so he was studying

500
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 2: composition even though he was a great drummer. So I

501
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 2: was in good company. And I got to play with

502
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 2: Felonious Monk rhythm section at the New School in New York.

503
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 2: So it was great, great training. And then there were

504
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 2: these miscellaneous teachers who would pop up, like Herbie Hancock

505
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 2: came up to visit the drummer I was with in

506
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 2: the Catskills, and he stat in and played old stand

507
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 2: that Don't Blame Me, and it just said, oh my god,

508
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 2: this guy couldn't really play. So I asked him for

509
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 2: some piano lessons and he gave me three lessons but

510
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 2: life changing. And then Bill Evans, who was pretty serious

511
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 2: heroin addict. I went to see him at the Village

512
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 2: Vanguard about twenty times. One time I got the enough

513
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 2: balls and I said to them Bill could have a lesson.

514
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 2: He said, come up to my house and he spends

515
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 2: six hours with me. Didn't charge me a penny.

516
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 3: Okay, to the degree you can speak it in terms

517
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 3: of layman can understand what did Herbie and what did

518
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 3: Bill Evans teach you?

519
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:37,360
Speaker 2: Someone asked me that today in some interview, and I

520
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 2: only remember the transmission and the energy from Bill Evans. Oh,

521
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 2: it's like you're being with an idol, the way you

522
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 2: know people love Bowie or a Dylan, you know, a

523
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 2: Paul or John you know. I was that way to him.

524
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 2: He showed me what's called some jazz voice ss, like

525
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 2: maybe you played this way. You want to see the piano?

526
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 2: Would that help you? No?

527
00:30:57,480 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 3: No, no, So.

528
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 2: So Lendy Bernstein tune and instead of playing a simple

529
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 2: triad like CEG maybe it's like a stem major seven so,

530
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 2: but just voice it, or you spread out the notes

531
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 2: like BCE and then you play it. So I learned

532
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 2: that from him. From Herbie Hancock he taught me what's

533
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 2: called a diminished scale. Because I knew major scales, I

534
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 2: knew minor scales, he taught me a diminish scale, which

535
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 2: sounds like this. It's a different scale. Instead of seven notes,

536
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 2: is eight notes. And it's a half step whole step,

537
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 2: half step, whole step. It's symmetrical. So if you're playing

538
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 2: jazz and I'm playing a song and I'm playing a

539
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 2: ste steven chord in the left hand, I could play

540
00:31:54,800 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 2: a seed a diminished scale over it. So you build

541
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 2: up a vocabulary. It's like learning English or Chinese or whatever.

542
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 3: Okay, you're in the army that you finish your term,

543
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 3: what's the vision? How do you decide to go back

544
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 3: to Brooklyn College.

545
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 2: I only had a few months left, and I got

546
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 2: a call to audition for Buddy Rich. So I figured

547
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 2: I'll drop out of college if I could work with Buddies.

548
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 2: So I went to see his band and they played

549
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 2: a song. They sounded fantastic. He sounded fantastic on drums,

550
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 2: and then he stood up after the song and screamed

551
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: at the saxophone player, just like bullying, an invalidation beyond,

552
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 2: and I thought, oh oh, So then I stopped there,

553
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 2: and then I heard another song, and then he stood

554
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 2: up and screamed at the trumpet player, at which point

555
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 2: I went to my car and said, fuck him. I'm

556
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 2: going home finishing college, because if I'm that abuse, I

557
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 2: may as well go home to my house.

558
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 3: Okay, but let's go back before that. You finished with

559
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 3: the Army. Did you always plan to go back to college. Yeah,

560
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 3: and I just got the bachelor degree. I didn't want

561
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 3: to go for my masters. I put in three and

562
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 3: a half years, so I may as well knock it off.

563
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 3: And I knocked it off. I graduated maybe a little

564
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 3: early in January, and then I was right into the

565
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 3: music world. Okay, your music education at Brooklyn College? Was

566
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 3: that worth something?

567
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 2: You know? At the time, I thought not. When I

568
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:47,960
Speaker 2: look back there, I'm sort of a sponge and if

569
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 2: there's something valuable, I have pretty distant discernment and differentiation.

570
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,320
Speaker 2: I learned a few things, but could have I spent

571
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 2: better time. Yes, but you're in a Jewish middle class family.

572
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 2: You finishing up? Oh yeah, you know that. Boy, you

573
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 2: have to have a backup plan. Well, I got the degree.

574
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 2: My mind who was in education? I swear to you,

575
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:10,840
Speaker 2: I never went into the school system except as masterclasses

576
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 2: and that kind of thing, because I didn't want to

577
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 2: be trapped in that world. It was bad enough playing

578
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 2: weddings and bomsters. I knew as early as very young

579
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 2: that I had my own voice, my style. I knew

580
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 2: I wanted to say something. But I wasn't a singer

581
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:30,279
Speaker 2: and I wasn't a performer. But I could play the

582
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 2: shit out of the piano.

583
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 3: You know. So that's the story. Okay, so you graduate,

584
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 3: what's the next step.

585
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 2: I graduated. I got married Susan Uh and I met

586
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:49,040
Speaker 2: in the Catskills. She was fourteen. I was sixteen, and

587
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:57,720
Speaker 2: I was playing Rhapsody in Blue. You know that one.

588
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,239
Speaker 2: I was playing raps in Blue. She comes from a

589
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:04,600
Speaker 2: little bungalow colony. Some girls in a bungalow colony went

590
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:06,839
Speaker 2: to my hospital. Let's go see the band over there

591
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:09,319
Speaker 2: at Cherry Hullo Hotel. I'm making forty dollars a week

592
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 2: in the dumb There's fucking bats flying around in this room.

593
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 2: It wasn't like a gorgeous room. It was horrible. And

594
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 2: a lot of folks would go up there like dirty dancing,

595
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 2: that kind of a thing, like the movie and she

596
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 2: comes with these friends and I'm playing Rhapsody in Blue

597
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 2: and a little old lady taps her on the shoulder

598
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 2: and says, you're gonna marry him. Six years later, we

599
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 2: got married. Last week we celebrated fifty seven years. Go

600
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:39,839
Speaker 2: figure it, because fifty seven days is long in la

601
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:40,680
Speaker 2: and you know that.

602
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 3: Okay, what happens for the time she hears you play

603
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 3: Rhapsody in Blue to the time you get married. Was

604
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:50,799
Speaker 3: it a continuous connection or she go back to high

605
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 3: school and you ran into her again? How did this

606
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:56,839
Speaker 3: relationship play out? We were together the whole six years

607
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:57,800
Speaker 3: before we got married.

608
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 2: When I was in the army, I only saw her

609
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 2: right the times that I get some time off, and

610
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:06,799
Speaker 2: she come to see me at four Dicks, and when

611
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,919
Speaker 2: I was a basic training she actually walked right by

612
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:12,399
Speaker 2: me because they shaved my head when at that time

613
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 2: I had a lot of here and she couldn't believe

614
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 2: what she saw. She actually passed by me, says this

615
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 2: is your future husband, you know. So anyway, that's that's

616
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:27,400
Speaker 2: what happened. Then, Okay, you're a musician. Hey, she's young,

617
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:30,879
Speaker 2: you're a musician. What did her parents say about this?

618
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:31,280
Speaker 3: Wedding.

619
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 2: They loved me because they thought I was gonna be

620
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 2: a doctor. Yes, yes, yes, okay, so Dad, you got

621
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 2: you gotta hear this. Bob her dad owned a trucking

622
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 2: company in Manhattan. The mafia was on him every day

623
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:54,399
Speaker 2: with guns, payoffs. He was a tough guy. Grew up

624
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 2: with no money with three brothers in Manhattan eating bread

625
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 2: stiffs is all they got, sharing a room that was

626
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:06,280
Speaker 2: thirty feet you know. And he made it. All brothers,

627
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 2: they all made it. He owned the trucking company.

628
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 3: He made it.

629
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 2: He worked six days a week and the seventh day

630
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 2: he was in the garage. All he wanted to do

631
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:18,839
Speaker 2: was give me the trucking company and come to work

632
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 2: with him. I would have been dead, like fifty years ago.

633
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 2: I said, Dad, I can't do that. He said, make

634
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 2: the music a hobby. I said, I'm serious about that.

635
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 2: I had a jazz trio. We already sounded good playing

636
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 2: local gigs in New York. So we go to a

637
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:37,839
Speaker 2: wedding one day, some family member and as an eight

638
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 2: piece band, but kind of horrible, like a bomb. It's

639
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:45,399
Speaker 2: for band, wedding band. And he said, hey, Michael, now

640
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 2: that's the band. Because it was eight pieces and I

641
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 2: had a trio. He didn't couldn't differentiate quality from quantity,

642
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 2: and so he finally stopped bothering about the trucking business.

643
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 2: When I turned forty. He said, Okay, Mike, I know

644
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:03,359
Speaker 2: what we're gonna do. I'm going to put you through

645
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 2: medical school and by fifty you'll be a doctor. So

646
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 2: he never gave it up, but so so he look

647
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:13,240
Speaker 2: it was his daughter. He stare.

648
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 3: It was an up and down life.

649
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 2: I was getting five dollars a night on jazz gigs

650
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 2: and all this before Bowie and then after David. There

651
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 2: were times I wasn't working with David and then he'd

652
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:29,440
Speaker 2: come to the house and I wasn't working it, and

653
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 2: then Susan would say, well he's practicing. What is he

654
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:35,920
Speaker 2: practicing for he's in the house. Well, he's writing a piece,

655
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 2: and I don't understand, you know. So he's looking around

656
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 2: and trying to snoop around and see my royalty checks.

657
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:47,439
Speaker 2: So Susan was hiding them. So I said, you got

658
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:50,919
Speaker 2: to put these checks out to shut them up. So

659
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:52,840
Speaker 2: she didn't put out the two stend ones and the

660
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,160
Speaker 2: thirty sen ones from being She put out a few

661
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 2: that were five thousand tenth outs and then he was

662
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 2: quiet after that. But by that time I was like

663
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 2: fifty five years old.

664
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:06,839
Speaker 3: Okay, you graduate from college, you get married, what are

665
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 3: the next steps in your musical career. I worked.

666
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 2: A lot of miscellaneous gigs, backing up different people like

667
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:22,319
Speaker 2: Martha Reeves from Author and their Van dellaz I did

668
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 2: music director at Madison Square Garden with them. There was

669
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 2: a very famous jazz big band called mel Lewis Thad

670
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 2: Jones Big Band. They played every Monday night at the

671
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:35,880
Speaker 2: Village Vanguard. I did a few gigs with them. I

672
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 2: worked with the jazz student Nancy Wilson with them. She

673
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 2: was fantastic and I was getting calls. While I was

674
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 2: doing that, I was also teaching, because I love teaching.

675
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:51,360
Speaker 2: I started teaching nineteen sixty three and I've had only

676
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:53,640
Speaker 2: private one on ones now it's a lot of it

677
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 2: is zoom all around the world, but about ten thousand

678
00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:00,880
Speaker 2: students since over the last sixty two years. So I

679
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 2: made extra money teaching and then I pick up miscellaneous gigs.

680
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 2: And then one fine day, someone named David Bowie called

681
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 2: to I didn't know who he was, and the rest

682
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 2: of his history.

683
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 3: Okay, So when do you graduate from college? How old

684
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:23,800
Speaker 3: are you after the all main graduated was probably about

685
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 3: twenty okay, so we're in the late sixties. First, let's

686
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 3: talk about jazz. The heyday of jazz was the thirties

687
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 3: and forties. Okay, So are you aware that somehow your

688
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 3: passion is a little lot of time or do you

689
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 3: think jazz is forever? What was going through your head?

690
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 2: I had known business mind. I only knew the music,

691
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 2: and somehow I got by because I was teaching. If

692
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 2: I didn't do some teaching, I couldn't have survived because

693
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 2: a five dollar jazz gig going to it. In fact,

694
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 2: the way I got the bowie gig, I was practicing,

695
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 2: as I told you, eight hours a day. And then

696
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 2: I get on this jazz gig with Dave Leebman, who

697
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 2: I went to high school, was a sax player, with

698
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:19,760
Speaker 2: Miles Davis and other great musicians were in a club.

699
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 2: I waited my whole life to get to this jazz gig.

700
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 2: Five people in the club five bucks. So I said

701
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 2: to myself, this is not going to work. The rent

702
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 2: was one hundred and fifty dollars. I'd have to do

703
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 2: thirty of those gigs a month and then I still

704
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 2: don't pay for the phone and gas. So I said,

705
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:38,239
Speaker 2: you gotta watch what you wish for, and I said,

706
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 2: I think I better go out with a rock band.

707
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:47,440
Speaker 2: Two days later David Cole, Okay, before we get to David. Yeah,

708
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 2: there's things like take five that anybody can understand. There

709
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 2: are a lot of people say jazz I don't get it.

710
00:41:55,960 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 2: Explain it to those people. They're partially right because it's

711
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:04,799
Speaker 2: heady and it's its own little cult, you know, and

712
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 2: we're better than them because they're playing just three chords

713
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 2: and look what we're doing, you know, well no one

714
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:17,520
Speaker 2: and they don't get it, you know, they just want

715
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:18,240
Speaker 2: a little groove.

716
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:21,760
Speaker 3: They just want to feel.

717
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:26,320
Speaker 2: I could do both, but I naturally was a songwriter

718
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 2: at fourteen, but it was so simple for me that

719
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 2: I made a silly mistake and I said, I think

720
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:36,799
Speaker 2: I don't understand the code of jazz ceode. I think

721
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:38,560
Speaker 2: I'm going to figure it out. And I went on

722
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 2: this Cecuitish trip for a lot of years and it

723
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:48,800
Speaker 2: ultimately helped me, but it certainly didn't financially or commercially, because,

724
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 2: like you said, nobody understood the music. I mean, Miles

725
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:54,800
Speaker 2: Davis is great culture and is great, you know, or

726
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 2: Tata Muscapediston, but they are few and far between. Stan

727
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 2: gets out a hit for the Boston over you know

728
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:04,360
Speaker 2: erl Gone, who was a bit of a showman. You know,

729
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:08,360
Speaker 2: you had people like Victor Borgier who used comedy and classical.

730
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 2: I didn't think like my father in law thought, you

731
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:15,440
Speaker 2: need to work and have a gig and make some money.

732
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 3: I got by.

733
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 2: I was somewhat blessed in a way, and I had talent,

734
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 2: and I was willing to do a wedding involvement. So

735
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 2: I would do five on the weekend Friday night, Saturday afternoon,

736
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:30,440
Speaker 2: Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, and then I wouldn't

737
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:33,440
Speaker 2: work all week, and I teach on Tuesday, but not

738
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,239
Speaker 2: like ten minutes like Lennard Tristana, an hour or less

739
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:38,920
Speaker 2: than I would give. And I teach eight ten students

740
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 2: and then have enough money to just get by and survive.

741
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:48,320
Speaker 3: And that was it. Okay. Nineteen seventy Miles goes electric

742
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 3: in a silent way and bitches brew Joe Zonal's in

743
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 3: the band, then informs weather report. Is this something you

744
00:43:57,960 --> 00:43:59,800
Speaker 3: like or is it too far from tradition.

745
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 2: I liked it, but I was a little more earlier miles.

746
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 2: But I did end up working with Stanley Clark and

747
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:11,560
Speaker 2: played fusion, but that was in seventy eight, and I

748
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 2: did that kind of music. So the thing with me is,

749
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:18,400
Speaker 2: I don't see divisions in music. I think I have

750
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 2: the same mindset as Duke Ellington. He said, this is

751
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 2: he the good music or bad music. So if it's

752
00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:28,799
Speaker 2: a great rock song, I will gravitate to it, and

753
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,440
Speaker 2: if it's a great jazz song, I'll gravitate. It's not

754
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 2: that all jazz, good old rock, or all poper or

755
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 2: all fusion, so you know, and art is and opinion.

756
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:42,960
Speaker 2: So I went to things that resonated with me. But

757
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 2: I never was one of these people. I only liked rock,

758
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 2: or I only like Popper, I only liked Beboper, only

759
00:44:48,719 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 2: liked fusion. I liked what I liked and just because

760
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:56,680
Speaker 2: it's music, and it's certainly better than war, certainly better

761
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 2: than politics. It's like maybe the only same thing left

762
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:03,319
Speaker 2: on the planet. So I'm happy that I'm doing it.

763
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 2: Mind you, if I was a pre med student, you know,

764
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 2: you can help people that way. But it wasn't my calling,

765
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 2: and when I was twelve, I wanted to be a rabbi,

766
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:19,680
Speaker 2: but I didn't like the separation. I just wanted to

767
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:22,759
Speaker 2: be a person of the world, and music was the

768
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 2: closest I could get to it.

769
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 3: Not that it was.

770
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 2: I hate the music business, don't get me wrong, but

771
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 2: I love the music.

772
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:40,880
Speaker 3: So what's the status of jazz today.

773
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:44,880
Speaker 2: There are some great talent out there, that's all I know.

774
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:48,719
Speaker 2: I know nothing about the specifics in the business. There's

775
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:52,399
Speaker 2: some great piadists like Brad maldu who's really really good,

776
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:55,840
Speaker 2: and he does some rock things and interpretations of a

777
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 2: lot of Beatles, and he did a boie soul, So

778
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:01,359
Speaker 2: there's some big talent out there.

779
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 3: I don't know.

780
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:06,080
Speaker 2: I don't think jazz has ever been close to mainstream.

781
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:09,480
Speaker 2: When I grew up, it was always rock was the mainstream.

782
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 2: Rock is small now it's hip hop. So you know,

783
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:16,759
Speaker 2: who knows I'm the wrong person to ask that. You

784
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 2: probably know better than me. It doesn't look that good

785
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 2: to me. From the friends I have that are starting

786
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 2: that I could only base it on. Oh, I better

787
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 2: give this guy fifty bucks. He's fucked.

788
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 3: Okay, let's go back to this transitional moment. How long

789
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 3: after you graduate from college do you audition for Buwie?

790
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:45,040
Speaker 3: About seven years and before you have that break in

791
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 3: your mind you say I'm gonna be an itinerant musician

792
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:50,279
Speaker 3: and all work out in the end, or in the

793
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 3: back of your mind you say, you know I'm gonna

794
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 3: have a big break. People are gonna know who I am.

795
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:58,279
Speaker 2: I never thought of break or fame or anything. You know,

796
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 2: Fame is probably the most unstatem drug there is. It

797
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:07,360
Speaker 2: never impressed me. I just wanted to play the piano. Okay,

798
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 2: So how do you get the call from Bowie? Do

799
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:12,880
Speaker 2: you ever hear of Anette Peacock?

800
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 3: Sure? Yeah.

801
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:17,839
Speaker 2: I had played on one of her albums, a very

802
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 2: avant gard and there was a song she could call

803
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 2: on the one and the piano solo was a little

804
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 2: similar to Aladin say.

805
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:25,759
Speaker 3: It was out there and she was.

806
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 2: An avant garde singer. She would sing through the move

807
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 2: through the microphone, the mini move back in the not

808
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:34,920
Speaker 2: even the mini one, the big one. And I played

809
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 2: on her album. Bowie comes to do the first American

810
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 2: Ziggy Startles tour. He doesn't bring a piano player. Rick Weightman,

811
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 2: who'd done Hunky during those things great pianists he was

812
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 2: doing sessions or I don't know if yes was formed

813
00:47:51,760 --> 00:47:54,319
Speaker 2: or I don't know the sequence, but he steadily couldn't come.

814
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:56,759
Speaker 2: So he comes with just Mick Ronson and Woody and

815
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 2: Trevors the Spiders from All but he needs a piano.

816
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 2: He's doing life. How do you do it without a piano?

817
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:06,840
Speaker 3: Or changes?

818
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:12,279
Speaker 2: You need a piano, you know. So he being very

819
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:17,920
Speaker 2: tuned into avant garde musicians, he knew a net and

820
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:19,800
Speaker 2: he was a fan of her music. And so is

821
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:24,279
Speaker 2: Mick Ronson to lead guitarist in the band. And he

822
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:26,840
Speaker 2: goes to visit her and he said, would you like

823
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 2: to be in my band? She said, Now, I have

824
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 2: my own career. But Mike Garson, he just played on

825
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:35,440
Speaker 2: my album. He said, you're in. So I got hired

826
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:41,239
Speaker 2: for eight weeks only and I then ended up I

827
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 2: think the longest standing musician and probably did four hundred

828
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 2: shows with him in twenty albums and things are still

829
00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 2: coming out.

830
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:53,440
Speaker 3: Okay, do you audition? My audition for.

831
00:48:53,440 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 2: Seven seconds and you're gonna hear it right now. Nick

832
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 2: Ronson said, you got the game. I said, Mick, I

833
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 2: didn't start the play. Yet as he was sitting at

834
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 2: the piano, he said, I know, I played piano two.

835
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:19,799
Speaker 2: It's the gig. You got it, And David was in

836
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:24,920
Speaker 2: the control room about thirty feet away. That was it, okay.

837
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 2: I saw that tour in Boston at the Music Hall.

838
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 2: I did not know who you were at that point

839
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:37,839
Speaker 2: in time, but that album was gigantic in England and

840
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:41,240
Speaker 2: it was just the beginning of the success of Bowie

841
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:44,400
Speaker 2: in the US. What was it like being on the

842
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 2: road for those eight weeks. It was a shock, you know,

843
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 2: at the jazz clubs and having to go on a

844
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 2: back entrance. I was treated like the way black musicians

845
00:49:57,640 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 2: were treated in the forties.

846
00:49:59,080 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 3: You know.

847
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 2: It was a and all of a sudden with the

848
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:05,160
Speaker 2: Plaza Hotel and we're at the Beverly Hills Hotel here,

849
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:07,800
Speaker 2: not even in the hotel, in the bungalows and Elton

850
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:10,359
Speaker 2: John's on the left and Perry Como's on the right,

851
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 2: and we're eating eighty dollars meals and they're paying for everything.

852
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 2: And I think we're the ones responsible for everybody having

853
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:22,880
Speaker 2: to leave their credit card now because then incidentals were

854
00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:27,399
Speaker 2: all covered by RCA. I remember the band the tech

855
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 2: guys bringing in like ten cases of champagne and just

856
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 2: putting on the bill, and the band buying cameras and

857
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:37,480
Speaker 2: for a coach. So you know, it was those days

858
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:44,319
Speaker 2: and it was shocking. But again the music was fascinating

859
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 2: because they were doing about twenty two storms on the

860
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:50,839
Speaker 2: Ziggi tour, and some storms don't need piano at all,

861
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 2: like hang on to yourself and this and that. So

862
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 2: I would sneak out into the audience and watch David,

863
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:03,120
Speaker 2: and I thought to myself, this guy's a fucking genius.

864
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 3: I like this guy.

865
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:07,960
Speaker 2: I want to stay longer than eight weeks. He's the

866
00:51:08,040 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 2: Miles Davis, a rock, and he's changing. He's a chameleon.

867
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:16,719
Speaker 2: He paralleled my mind because that's what I did. I

868
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:19,479
Speaker 2: changed one hundred times. It's just that it didn't matter

869
00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 2: because I was doing the jazz of classical. Who gives

870
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 2: a fuck? But he was doing it brilliantly in the

871
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 2: commercial of the pop world, and to his credit, he

872
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:32,800
Speaker 2: was able to still stick with his integrity except for

873
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:35,319
Speaker 2: the eighties, when he told me he felt that he

874
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 2: lost it to record companies and the pressure got to him.

875
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 3: Well, since we're there, you're talking about when he does

876
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:48,200
Speaker 3: the dance records and that type of stuff. Yes, he

877
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 3: feels felt like he sold out. I mean he.

878
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:53,920
Speaker 2: Felt like doing Let's dance and that felt good. But

879
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:56,560
Speaker 2: then they like that, let's milk that shit. And that's

880
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:01,000
Speaker 2: exactly when the integrity gets fucked. And as I like

881
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:07,680
Speaker 2: to say, you compromise your integrity, your improvised drops.

882
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:15,359
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're in the band. You know there are

883
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:18,479
Speaker 3: people who play in a band and essentially never talk

884
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 3: to the leader of the band. So to what degree

885
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 3: did you interact with the other three and Bowie and

886
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:26,359
Speaker 3: did they treat you as a member of the band

887
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 3: or oh, this guy just plays piano on some of

888
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:29,320
Speaker 3: the songs.

889
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 2: Initially the Spiders were a little reluctant, except for Mick

890
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:36,360
Speaker 2: Ronson because he loved me. And then I ended up

891
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:39,840
Speaker 2: playing on his two solo albums, Slaughter on Tenth Avenue

892
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 2: and played Home or but I became friends with all

893
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 2: of them. But to take a few weeks because what

894
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:49,800
Speaker 2: does that sound? One of those jam squads just supposed

895
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 2: to be playing and then they're hearing Bowie's eating it

896
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 2: up because we lost the beat. It was just enhancing

897
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:06,400
Speaker 2: the harmonic vocabulary. Which has to do with chords, you know,

898
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:16,439
Speaker 2: and David loved it. They accepted me, and I made

899
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:18,680
Speaker 2: a decision after the eight weeks, I want to stay

900
00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 2: for two years, and we finished Young Americans. That's when

901
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:26,840
Speaker 2: I was the musical director because Nick Ronson he fired

902
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:29,160
Speaker 2: the whole band in that last show when they did

903
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 2: the Ziggy movie, which is pretty well known, and David

904
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 2: had told me, you're the only one I'm keeping, but

905
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:39,920
Speaker 2: everyone is being fired. And in that first two years

906
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:43,480
Speaker 2: most people don't know that he fired five different bands.

907
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:46,799
Speaker 2: We were friends, but that's not why he took me.

908
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:49,360
Speaker 2: I was able to change styles with him, so I

909
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:50,280
Speaker 2: could do Young.

910
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:54,439
Speaker 3: Americans or play a gospel face.

911
00:53:58,600 --> 00:54:00,560
Speaker 2: I could do that, or I could play you know,

912
00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:21,799
Speaker 2: I could do all of that. Well the song he

913
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 2: never sang once live and I love that record. Ah

914
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:30,320
Speaker 2: me too? Yeah, good says.

915
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:34,960
Speaker 3: Okay, let's just focus for a second on Mick Ronson.

916
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 3: Oh supposedly, you know, he was, you know, not equal

917
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:43,560
Speaker 3: to Bowie, but he was a main part of those

918
00:54:43,640 --> 00:54:46,840
Speaker 3: shows and he worked with other people. He did the

919
00:54:46,880 --> 00:54:51,000
Speaker 3: two solo records and died of alcoholism. So who was

920
00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:54,240
Speaker 3: the real Mick Ronson? Who was alcohol really is demon.

921
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 2: Mick was an unstung hero. He was very close from

922
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:03,440
Speaker 2: He also smoked a lot, so between the alcohol and smoke.

923
00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:06,600
Speaker 2: He died of liver cancer and started Bowie. So they

924
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:12,399
Speaker 2: both smoked and drank, so they both died from that.

925
00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:16,560
Speaker 2: But Mick was a sweetheart. He made it safe for

926
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:19,200
Speaker 2: me to be in the band. I was uncomfortable. I

927
00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 2: didn't know about popularity and fame and autographs.

928
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:23,799
Speaker 3: Where am I?

929
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:26,799
Speaker 2: You know when we did the very first show, I

930
00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:31,880
Speaker 2: think it was in Cleveland in seventy two. After the encore,

931
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:35,279
Speaker 2: I see these skies, the spiders and Bowie running to

932
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:38,600
Speaker 2: a back entrance, zooming down to the basement to get

933
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:41,720
Speaker 2: in a limo, and I'm folding my music on stuff

934
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:46,080
Speaker 2: it was, and all of a sudden, thousand the people

935
00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:48,560
Speaker 2: are coming at me because I'm the next best target.

936
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:53,200
Speaker 2: And I learned very fast, be careful, get out of there.

937
00:55:54,200 --> 00:56:00,600
Speaker 3: Okay. That show started with a classical piece from Clockwork Orange,

938
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:04,560
Speaker 3: which was hot at that particular moment. Do you know

939
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:05,880
Speaker 3: why that was chosen?

940
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:09,880
Speaker 2: I don't know why, but it makes sense that someone

941
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:13,800
Speaker 2: like David would choose this Beethoven thing that was twisted.

942
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:20,840
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know anything other than my relationship

943
00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:23,840
Speaker 2: with him, but I'm sure in the books that's available.

944
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 2: But I actually only had this musical. He only went

945
00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:30,320
Speaker 2: liked to see me as of his pianist. He didn't

946
00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:32,280
Speaker 2: want to know me as anything else.

947
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:39,040
Speaker 3: Okay, so how do you feel what he fires the band? Terrible?

948
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:43,239
Speaker 2: Because they were my friends and now I'm having to

949
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:45,279
Speaker 2: be on a stage with them for two nights and

950
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:52,719
Speaker 2: I know they're going and they went into shock, And

951
00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:58,160
Speaker 2: there might have been reasons for it on a let's say,

952
00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:02,160
Speaker 2: a mundane bullshit level. The real truth is this guy

953
00:57:02,200 --> 00:57:05,200
Speaker 2: couldn't stop. He was hearing the next thing, and he's

954
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:08,399
Speaker 2: hearing Diamond Dogs, and he's hearing young Americans, and he's

955
00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 2: hearing pin Ups, which were all English covers, and he

956
00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:18,800
Speaker 2: just couldn't help himself. And I think that's the real reason.

957
00:57:19,040 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 2: But there were probably financial things and stupid shit that

958
00:57:22,720 --> 00:57:25,840
Speaker 2: musicians do. You know, So that's okay.

959
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:29,560
Speaker 3: You're on the road for eight weeks. Was this the

960
00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:32,320
Speaker 3: first time you were on the road that long and

961
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:34,520
Speaker 3: away from your new wife?

962
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:38,760
Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, in nineteen seventy I was out for a

963
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:41,520
Speaker 2: year or two on and off with a band called Brethren,

964
00:57:42,560 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 2: Rick Murata, the drummer he played in the band, and

965
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:49,000
Speaker 2: a guy named Tommy Cosgrove, and we had a manager

966
00:57:49,080 --> 00:57:53,360
Speaker 2: named Sid Bernstein who brought the shea Stadium and he

967
00:57:53,440 --> 00:57:54,760
Speaker 2: thought we were next Beatles.

968
00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 3: I didn't. He did.

969
00:57:56,760 --> 00:58:01,520
Speaker 2: We sounded like Stevie Windward band, and I thought, how

970
00:58:01,600 --> 00:58:04,360
Speaker 2: can we be the next Binals if we're doing even

971
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 2: though they were originals, It distinger sounded too much like

972
00:58:07,400 --> 00:58:11,120
Speaker 2: Stevie Woodenwock. I was original. I took over doctor John's job.

973
00:58:11,200 --> 00:58:14,080
Speaker 2: He did the first album with Brethren, and I did

974
00:58:14,600 --> 00:58:17,200
Speaker 2: the second album, and I toured with him and in

975
00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:19,840
Speaker 2: one fine day we didn't make it. And we played

976
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:21,800
Speaker 2: a lot of shows. We opened up all those Joe

977
00:58:21,840 --> 00:58:23,880
Speaker 2: Cocker shows with the mad Doorgs and it. I used

978
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:27,360
Speaker 2: to watch Lee and Russell ferociously. And two Drummers was

979
00:58:27,520 --> 00:58:30,040
Speaker 2: fantastic playing at the Capitol.

980
00:58:29,680 --> 00:58:35,280
Speaker 3: Theater in news. I saw that show too, said hello

981
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 3: right at the Capitol. Okay, so you say, you know

982
00:58:40,720 --> 00:58:43,520
Speaker 3: he fires the spiders from Mars and he's gonna do it.

983
00:58:43,640 --> 00:58:47,840
Speaker 3: Ladd Insane. Tell me about trying out all these new

984
00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 3: musicians at all these bands that don't work.

985
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:59,400
Speaker 2: He had fantastic drummers, Ainsley Dunbar, Andy Newmore, Dennis Davis,

986
00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:05,360
Speaker 2: Tony Newman Wood. He would mint See Sterling, Campbell, z Acholford.

987
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:08,720
Speaker 2: They were all fantastic drummers. Some just didn't fit for

988
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:14,040
Speaker 2: a project he was doing. He never put the friendship

989
00:59:14,160 --> 00:59:17,520
Speaker 2: above the integrity of their music. It would sing when

990
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:19,880
Speaker 2: there was an album he didn't use me, but I

991
00:59:20,080 --> 00:59:23,640
Speaker 2: understood it wasn't personally. He heard something else, maybe as

992
00:59:23,680 --> 00:59:26,680
Speaker 2: synthesize it, maybe Brian Eno. So there's plenty of albums

993
00:59:26,680 --> 00:59:29,520
Speaker 2: I'm not on and I got it, you know, And

994
00:59:30,320 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 2: you got to love somebody who has integrity, and I

995
00:59:34,880 --> 00:59:38,280
Speaker 2: learned that from him. I had it in me because

996
00:59:38,280 --> 00:59:41,320
Speaker 2: I was disciplined and I only played what I loved.

997
00:59:41,760 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 2: But I learned even more about holding the A position

998
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 2: because I went most of the time when I wasn't

999
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 2: with him, and you know, most rock artists they take

1000
00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:53,320
Speaker 2: months and months of sometimes years. So I was composing

1001
00:59:53,360 --> 00:59:56,080
Speaker 2: classical music and doing all sorts of other things.

1002
00:59:56,360 --> 01:00:00,880
Speaker 3: So tell me about the recording of the Laddin scene.

1003
01:00:01,120 --> 01:00:04,920
Speaker 2: You couldn't play a wrong note well, because we were

1004
01:00:04,920 --> 01:00:08,440
Speaker 2: a Trident studio where they did Hey, Jude and queen

1005
01:00:08,600 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 2: and all these things. The piano was this Bechstein. It

1006
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:15,920
Speaker 2: was like sent from God to tried. The studio he

1007
01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:18,800
Speaker 2: had Ken Scott, who had worked with the Beatles, an

1008
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 2: amazing engineer, producer, and David I think was tired of

1009
01:00:25,840 --> 01:00:32,280
Speaker 2: the guitars from the Ziggy album, you know, and we

1010
01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:34,360
Speaker 2: did it. I mean that tour could have gone on

1011
01:00:34,440 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 2: for five years and he could have short after eighteen months.

1012
01:00:37,640 --> 01:00:40,920
Speaker 2: So now he I'm the flavor of the month, so

1013
01:00:41,160 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 2: it's going to be piano centric and I show up

1014
01:00:45,000 --> 01:00:49,240
Speaker 2: on these sessions and it was like forensically he went

1015
01:00:49,280 --> 01:00:52,680
Speaker 2: into my brain. Let's get that romantic part of Mike

1016
01:00:52,760 --> 01:00:58,680
Speaker 2: where it was like this, let's get that, and let's

1017
01:00:58,720 --> 01:01:16,400
Speaker 2: get the nineteen twenty jazz. But twisted, I'm getting the

1018
01:01:16,520 --> 01:01:18,560
Speaker 2: chance to practice when I got two gigs coming in

1019
01:01:18,720 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 2: next week, so thanks for adultery me.

1020
01:01:21,600 --> 01:01:22,760
Speaker 3: So that was time.

1021
01:01:23,040 --> 01:01:26,400
Speaker 2: And then Aladdin's say, which was my avante garde's side.

1022
01:01:26,440 --> 01:01:29,960
Speaker 2: So he was able to get the best out of

1023
01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:34,040
Speaker 2: whatever had practiced the prior years, almost like a prophet

1024
01:01:34,080 --> 01:01:38,280
Speaker 2: who could no Every musician he ever had was the

1025
01:01:38,320 --> 01:01:41,400
Speaker 2: perfect one at the perfect time, whether it was Carlos

1026
01:01:41,480 --> 01:01:46,280
Speaker 2: Alamar or the guitarist, great blues player who died in

1027
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 2: the Plain accident.

1028
01:01:47,720 --> 01:01:48,520
Speaker 3: I forgot his name.

1029
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:53,840
Speaker 2: Great guitars, and of course Nick Ronson and then the

1030
01:01:53,960 --> 01:01:58,800
Speaker 2: later albums were Donnie mcclasten on Sacks. He always found

1031
01:01:59,720 --> 01:02:04,000
Speaker 2: the perfect musicians for what he wanted and he the

1032
01:02:04,040 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 2: best thing about him is he never micromanaged. I've been

1033
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:11,120
Speaker 2: on projects with directors and singers. Do this, play this chord?

1034
01:02:11,160 --> 01:02:11,360
Speaker 3: Here?

1035
01:02:11,440 --> 01:02:16,320
Speaker 2: Do and I go from the potential of giving all

1036
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:18,520
Speaker 2: of myself, which is one hundred and ten percent, to

1037
01:02:18,760 --> 01:02:21,640
Speaker 2: probably minus twenty because they take the life out of

1038
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:26,280
Speaker 2: me and the music. I see it as flowing through me.

1039
01:02:26,720 --> 01:02:28,960
Speaker 2: So if someone's fucking yaking at me, do this.

1040
01:02:29,400 --> 01:02:29,880
Speaker 3: It's over.

1041
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:33,000
Speaker 2: Because I'm not a true studio musician. I'm a I'm

1042
01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:35,600
Speaker 2: an artist. I'll do some studio work, but only if

1043
01:02:35,640 --> 01:02:46,440
Speaker 2: I want to do it. Okay, Latin saying comes out

1044
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:51,120
Speaker 2: at this point. He's a known quantity in America. From

1045
01:02:51,120 --> 01:02:54,439
Speaker 2: the outside, it does not look it's as if it's

1046
01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:59,360
Speaker 2: commercially successful, as the hate to use the word hype,

1047
01:02:59,720 --> 01:03:02,760
Speaker 2: as the expectations. What was it like on the other

1048
01:03:02,840 --> 01:03:03,640
Speaker 2: side of the curtain.

1049
01:03:05,880 --> 01:03:06,760
Speaker 3: It wasn't easy.

1050
01:03:07,080 --> 01:03:11,840
Speaker 2: It wasn't easy, and the part of him that wants

1051
01:03:11,880 --> 01:03:16,600
Speaker 2: to reach and be famous and all that and was hurt,

1052
01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:23,920
Speaker 2: you know, because he was torn between his artistic integrity

1053
01:03:23,960 --> 01:03:27,240
Speaker 2: and he has to do this because he traveled. I

1054
01:03:27,360 --> 01:03:30,720
Speaker 2: was with him in the limos when he's listening to

1055
01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:35,919
Speaker 2: a wreath of Franklin and absorbing getting ready for young

1056
01:03:36,000 --> 01:03:40,960
Speaker 2: Americans before we did a lot insane and America every

1057
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:45,240
Speaker 2: town was affecting him. So he had to do it.

1058
01:03:45,280 --> 01:03:47,840
Speaker 2: But success wise, I don't think it was anywhere near

1059
01:03:48,360 --> 01:03:49,080
Speaker 2: the ziggy thing.

1060
01:03:49,960 --> 01:03:54,520
Speaker 3: Okay, and what was your experience of pit ups?

1061
01:03:54,560 --> 01:03:57,600
Speaker 2: A lot of fun. We were at that chateau where

1062
01:03:57,600 --> 01:04:00,720
Speaker 2: Elton did one of his albums in France, and it

1063
01:04:00,840 --> 01:04:04,000
Speaker 2: was so much fun. Lulu came and she sang man

1064
01:04:04,040 --> 01:04:06,600
Speaker 2: whole Soul of the World for fun. That became a

1065
01:04:06,680 --> 01:04:09,120
Speaker 2: number one single when he recorded it was not on

1066
01:04:09,160 --> 01:04:12,840
Speaker 2: the charts, so that was fun. Ainsley Dunball played drums

1067
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:15,600
Speaker 2: and I thought, because I know nothing about rock, I

1068
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:21,200
Speaker 2: thought they were all Bowie songs. He didn't care. I

1069
01:04:21,320 --> 01:04:25,360
Speaker 2: had Hammond organ that I had connected to the piano

1070
01:04:25,760 --> 01:04:28,920
Speaker 2: on Sorrow, one of those great songs, very short, and

1071
01:04:29,000 --> 01:04:30,560
Speaker 2: I was getting this down you could hear it on

1072
01:04:30,560 --> 01:04:32,560
Speaker 2: the record what the piano sounds a little different, so

1073
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:36,120
Speaker 2: we were experimenting. Then it was an easy album, was fun.

1074
01:04:36,160 --> 01:04:38,160
Speaker 2: I think it was good for his head because he

1075
01:04:38,240 --> 01:04:43,160
Speaker 2: was separating from the spiders. And more about Mick ronson.

1076
01:04:43,360 --> 01:04:48,320
Speaker 2: When they sang together, it was magical, Bob the blend.

1077
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:51,320
Speaker 2: Sometimes I couldn't tell who was who, and the way

1078
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:56,919
Speaker 2: they performed on stage together, it was unreal. Now, when

1079
01:04:57,040 --> 01:04:59,240
Speaker 2: Mick went off on his solo album and then his

1080
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:02,520
Speaker 2: solo tour which I played on, they were not successful

1081
01:05:02,560 --> 01:05:06,360
Speaker 2: at all, and while it was a great band, some

1082
01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:11,680
Speaker 2: nice tunes, it didn't have the Bowie magic. So some

1083
01:05:11,760 --> 01:05:14,640
Speaker 2: people are meant to be that person right under.

1084
01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:23,240
Speaker 3: Okay, just a couple of things. Many people are keyboardists

1085
01:05:24,120 --> 01:05:27,280
Speaker 3: and they'll play the piano, they'll play the sin, they'll

1086
01:05:27,280 --> 01:05:32,640
Speaker 3: play the organ. In your particular case, you view yourself

1087
01:05:32,800 --> 01:05:34,080
Speaker 3: just as a piano player.

1088
01:05:35,320 --> 01:05:37,840
Speaker 2: Yes, but I can play all those and I'm very

1089
01:05:37,840 --> 01:05:40,280
Speaker 2: good at them, but I'm not known for it. And

1090
01:05:40,520 --> 01:05:43,600
Speaker 2: my default is the piano because I love it, and

1091
01:05:43,640 --> 01:05:49,000
Speaker 2: that's people know my sounds on any album and when

1092
01:05:49,040 --> 01:05:54,600
Speaker 2: I play synths or electric piano or organ, I sound good.

1093
01:05:54,680 --> 01:05:58,120
Speaker 2: But it could be any great player, because that's not

1094
01:05:58,960 --> 01:06:02,000
Speaker 2: where I live. I just do it as a convenience

1095
01:06:02,840 --> 01:06:05,840
Speaker 2: as somebody wants. Oh give me a little electric piano,

1096
01:06:06,160 --> 01:06:08,040
Speaker 2: but I love the piano.

1097
01:06:08,920 --> 01:06:13,439
Speaker 3: You went on the road Ziggy started. Did they take

1098
01:06:13,520 --> 01:06:18,080
Speaker 3: a piano or was there a piano in every market?

1099
01:06:18,440 --> 01:06:21,400
Speaker 2: They would have a nine foot grand on every show.

1100
01:06:22,400 --> 01:06:24,640
Speaker 2: I'll tell you remember the story with the M and ms,

1101
01:06:24,640 --> 01:06:26,520
Speaker 2: with the rock guys and the Green and the Blue.

1102
01:06:26,920 --> 01:06:29,160
Speaker 2: I was in Madison Square, Go in the seventy three

1103
01:06:29,160 --> 01:06:31,680
Speaker 2: and I had a black nine foot Steinway. I was

1104
01:06:31,760 --> 01:06:34,440
Speaker 2: like a pig and shit, the happiest guy in the world,

1105
01:06:34,600 --> 01:06:40,280
Speaker 2: real piano. And I made a joke after the concert,

1106
01:06:40,320 --> 01:06:43,040
Speaker 2: and the piano technician was there. I said that being

1107
01:06:43,120 --> 01:06:46,360
Speaker 2: nice to have a white Steinway. And the next night

1108
01:06:46,440 --> 01:06:50,400
Speaker 2: there's this fifteen hundred pounds nine foot white Steinway. I mean,

1109
01:06:50,680 --> 01:06:53,560
Speaker 2: I'm lucky if I get a stupid keyboard cassio with

1110
01:06:53,640 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 2: a kid. You know these days, so that those were

1111
01:06:56,720 --> 01:07:00,040
Speaker 2: those times with unbelievable money being spent.

1112
01:07:00,040 --> 01:07:03,200
Speaker 3: And was the deal that they had to deliver the

1113
01:07:03,200 --> 01:07:06,960
Speaker 3: piano and they had to be tuned that day exactly,

1114
01:07:07,800 --> 01:07:15,720
Speaker 3: And did somebody ever fuck up. No, okay, So now

1115
01:07:15,840 --> 01:07:21,080
Speaker 3: it comes to Diamond Dogs. Diamond Dogs has Rebel Rebel.

1116
01:07:21,520 --> 01:07:25,760
Speaker 3: It's an arena tour. Some people say, wait, this is

1117
01:07:25,800 --> 01:07:29,760
Speaker 3: a commercial compromise. What was it like from your side,

1118
01:07:29,880 --> 01:07:31,880
Speaker 3: from your viewpoint, you.

1119
01:07:31,840 --> 01:07:33,600
Speaker 2: Know, I was only I was one of the only

1120
01:07:34,240 --> 01:07:38,120
Speaker 2: musicians on that album because there was no more Spiders,

1121
01:07:38,200 --> 01:07:43,040
Speaker 2: and there was Tony Bisconti was involved in production, an engineer,

1122
01:07:43,520 --> 01:07:45,960
Speaker 2: and there was a bass player named Herbie Flowers who

1123
01:07:46,000 --> 01:07:48,600
Speaker 2: passed this this year. He's the one who played on

1124
01:07:48,640 --> 01:07:51,280
Speaker 2: the lou Reed Walk on the wild Side Great. I

1125
01:07:51,320 --> 01:07:53,800
Speaker 2: toured with him with Bowie on the Diamond Dogs tour.

1126
01:07:54,440 --> 01:07:58,000
Speaker 2: But that album, David was into William Burrows and the

1127
01:07:58,040 --> 01:08:01,720
Speaker 2: cutups and he would take newspapers and cut it up

1128
01:08:01,760 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 2: and form lyrics from it. It was a style of writing.

1129
01:08:05,600 --> 01:08:08,080
Speaker 2: They ended up in some of those lyrics. But like

1130
01:08:08,120 --> 01:08:12,120
Speaker 2: a song like sweet Thing Candidate is, I think it's

1131
01:08:12,160 --> 01:08:16,439
Speaker 2: a genius song. Rebel is what everybody knows, Rebel Rebel.

1132
01:08:16,479 --> 01:08:20,040
Speaker 2: But there's some good music on there. But it's a

1133
01:08:20,080 --> 01:08:25,080
Speaker 2: hard album to digest. But I think it has for

1134
01:08:25,200 --> 01:08:28,880
Speaker 2: me to test the time. But not everybody feels that way,

1135
01:08:28,920 --> 01:08:30,960
Speaker 2: you know. So it's a music his opinion.

1136
01:08:31,560 --> 01:08:35,840
Speaker 3: So could you tell that David was satisfied that he

1137
01:08:35,880 --> 01:08:37,679
Speaker 3: had this level of success in America?

1138
01:08:37,760 --> 01:08:41,720
Speaker 2: Then I could tell it was breaking. I could feel it.

1139
01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:44,320
Speaker 2: I could feel it. They created a little bit of

1140
01:08:44,360 --> 01:08:48,120
Speaker 2: a vacuum around him to cause that kind of kernel

1141
01:08:48,320 --> 01:08:50,719
Speaker 2: stuff that they did with Elvis and all that, and.

1142
01:08:51,320 --> 01:08:55,920
Speaker 3: You know, okay, so that's seventy four, there's a huge success.

1143
01:08:56,600 --> 01:09:01,360
Speaker 3: He disappears for about a year, comes packed with something

1144
01:09:01,560 --> 01:09:07,240
Speaker 3: completely different, young Americans to what did we? Were you

1145
01:09:07,400 --> 01:09:11,840
Speaker 3: up front in all the Philadelphia you know Elements and

1146
01:09:11,920 --> 01:09:15,760
Speaker 3: Luther Van Rose and you say, Carlos Alomar shows up,

1147
01:09:17,560 --> 01:09:20,640
Speaker 3: what was your viewpoint? What was your participation?

1148
01:09:21,960 --> 01:09:26,160
Speaker 2: So actually in that album, I was the understarted hero

1149
01:09:26,280 --> 01:09:28,160
Speaker 2: because it was me who set the stage for a

1150
01:09:28,200 --> 01:09:30,959
Speaker 2: loadst look for the young Americans by going.

1151
01:09:34,160 --> 01:09:34,960
Speaker 3: And it starts with.

1152
01:09:37,000 --> 01:09:40,160
Speaker 2: It laid the vaud But Luther was the new star

1153
01:09:40,280 --> 01:09:42,120
Speaker 2: coming up and I knew it, and I was the

1154
01:09:42,200 --> 01:09:46,759
Speaker 2: music director. I had no problem. You tell the singers

1155
01:09:46,800 --> 01:09:49,320
Speaker 2: what to do, you do this, you do that, and

1156
01:09:49,960 --> 01:09:53,439
Speaker 2: that music. It was American music. So it was actually

1157
01:09:53,560 --> 01:09:56,559
Speaker 2: closer to my heart than the English music because I

1158
01:09:56,560 --> 01:09:59,160
Speaker 2: didn't know the English music. I just played on it,

1159
01:09:59,200 --> 01:10:02,360
Speaker 2: but I didn't know it. But I knew the sounds

1160
01:10:02,360 --> 01:10:05,080
Speaker 2: he was looking for, and I knew the ojs, and

1161
01:10:05,120 --> 01:10:08,600
Speaker 2: I knew all that those kind of music and arefa

1162
01:10:08,960 --> 01:10:13,240
Speaker 2: now Luther vandros By the way, he's a great documentary

1163
01:10:13,280 --> 01:10:14,960
Speaker 2: on him on CNN that.

1164
01:10:15,000 --> 01:10:16,200
Speaker 3: I saw last month.

1165
01:10:16,280 --> 01:10:19,920
Speaker 2: It's tested and you see me in it with hair.

1166
01:10:20,280 --> 01:10:23,920
Speaker 2: That's what nobody knows. But anyway, he's sitting right behind

1167
01:10:24,000 --> 01:10:29,240
Speaker 2: David Bowie and I'm playing the Young Americans and he

1168
01:10:29,320 --> 01:10:32,479
Speaker 2: starts singing some harmony stuff. He's not in the band,

1169
01:10:32,520 --> 01:10:35,320
Speaker 2: and David doesn't know him. Carlos brought him there. He

1170
01:10:35,439 --> 01:10:39,040
Speaker 2: was just hanging and David said, oh, come up to

1171
01:10:39,080 --> 01:10:42,519
Speaker 2: the mic and the rest of his history. So that

1172
01:10:42,600 --> 01:10:45,719
Speaker 2: was a big help to Luther's career, you know, because

1173
01:10:46,320 --> 01:10:50,800
Speaker 2: what people don't know is during that tour we were

1174
01:10:50,840 --> 01:10:54,000
Speaker 2: the opening act for David. It was called the Garson Band,

1175
01:10:54,280 --> 01:10:56,320
Speaker 2: but the manager was a prick, and he wouldn't put

1176
01:10:56,360 --> 01:11:00,320
Speaker 2: my name on the you know, until he and when

1177
01:11:00,320 --> 01:11:03,000
Speaker 2: he saw I was successful, but then it was too late.

1178
01:11:03,080 --> 01:11:05,360
Speaker 2: And then he's one of those guys. He was taking

1179
01:11:05,400 --> 01:11:10,479
Speaker 2: fifty percent of the royalties fifty percent of gross of David,

1180
01:11:10,479 --> 01:11:12,320
Speaker 2: and that's what he wanted, what he wanted to manage

1181
01:11:12,320 --> 01:11:15,559
Speaker 2: me and goodbye. But we opened the show for David,

1182
01:11:15,720 --> 01:11:18,599
Speaker 2: and there were towns we got a better review than David,

1183
01:11:18,800 --> 01:11:21,120
Speaker 2: But there were towns they were also throwing raw eggs

1184
01:11:21,160 --> 01:11:23,200
Speaker 2: coming on the stage because they didn't want to black

1185
01:11:23,200 --> 01:11:26,160
Speaker 2: lives singing soul music when they're waiting for David Bowie.

1186
01:11:26,280 --> 01:11:28,759
Speaker 2: So I experienced the good and bad and the ugly

1187
01:11:28,840 --> 01:11:31,679
Speaker 2: of that. But I knew Luther was a big talent.

1188
01:11:32,080 --> 01:11:39,240
Speaker 3: Okay, Stylistically it was a big change from certainly Diamond Dogs. Yeah,

1189
01:11:39,280 --> 01:11:42,240
Speaker 3: how did you find out that Bowie was going in

1190
01:11:42,280 --> 01:11:45,519
Speaker 3: that direction? He told me.

1191
01:11:46,400 --> 01:11:49,800
Speaker 2: You could hear it a little bit on nineteen eighty

1192
01:11:49,920 --> 01:11:53,240
Speaker 2: four on one of the early albums. You could feel

1193
01:11:54,560 --> 01:11:57,600
Speaker 2: America influenced them for better or worse, you know.

1194
01:11:59,120 --> 01:12:03,320
Speaker 3: Okay, favorite songs on that album, or somebody's up there

1195
01:12:03,560 --> 01:12:08,559
Speaker 3: likes me in Fascination, you got good taste, so yes,

1196
01:12:08,720 --> 01:12:12,760
Speaker 3: so tell me about certainly the clavinet on Fascination and

1197
01:12:13,200 --> 01:12:15,200
Speaker 3: instead do I play keyboards? That's me.

1198
01:12:16,800 --> 01:12:19,439
Speaker 2: And I just you know, I heard a little Stevie Wonder.

1199
01:12:19,439 --> 01:12:21,519
Speaker 2: I said that sounds like fun, maybe I'll try it.

1200
01:12:22,240 --> 01:12:24,879
Speaker 2: We have all these jams, maybe these tapes will someday

1201
01:12:24,920 --> 01:12:27,800
Speaker 2: come out there hitting tapes. We're just jamming. David be

1202
01:12:28,040 --> 01:12:30,760
Speaker 2: just smiling listening to us playing, because we have an

1203
01:12:30,800 --> 01:12:37,719
Speaker 2: amazing band. We had Willie Weeks on bass, Oh my god,

1204
01:12:37,920 --> 01:12:40,559
Speaker 2: you know, maybe the best electric bass player I played

1205
01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:43,960
Speaker 2: with for that kind of music. We had Andy Nwmalk,

1206
01:12:44,080 --> 01:12:48,799
Speaker 2: who's fantastic trauma. He's in London. He's crazy, is anything,

1207
01:12:48,920 --> 01:12:53,160
Speaker 2: but he's he's great, and he played drums and columns,

1208
01:12:53,320 --> 01:12:57,040
Speaker 2: you know, and earl Slick was starting to emerge, you know,

1209
01:12:57,600 --> 01:13:01,360
Speaker 2: and because there was no Mick ronson but David was

1210
01:13:02,040 --> 01:13:07,160
Speaker 2: fascinated with Stigma sound and Philly and that sound. But

1211
01:13:07,240 --> 01:13:09,439
Speaker 2: he did it his way, you know. They kind of

1212
01:13:09,479 --> 01:13:12,479
Speaker 2: called it a plastics or whatever they named it, but

1213
01:13:13,000 --> 01:13:16,479
Speaker 2: it was authentic for him. Whatever he did, he always

1214
01:13:16,479 --> 01:13:19,600
Speaker 2: sounded like David Bowie. I didn't rehearsals. He'd fucked with

1215
01:13:19,680 --> 01:13:23,240
Speaker 2: us and sound like Elder saw Johnny Cash for fun

1216
01:13:23,240 --> 01:13:25,879
Speaker 2: because he had that kind of ear and he could imitate,

1217
01:13:26,200 --> 01:13:29,040
Speaker 2: but he really had his own voice, didn't he.

1218
01:13:30,120 --> 01:13:33,599
Speaker 3: So then he starts working with Eno, going to Germany

1219
01:13:34,280 --> 01:13:37,599
Speaker 3: and you're not called well, how did you find out?

1220
01:13:37,680 --> 01:13:40,439
Speaker 3: And how'd you feel? Terrible?

1221
01:13:41,320 --> 01:13:43,760
Speaker 2: I still feel terrible because I know just what I

1222
01:13:43,800 --> 01:13:45,720
Speaker 2: would have played on every album.

1223
01:13:45,479 --> 01:13:46,400
Speaker 3: I wasn't on.

1224
01:13:46,880 --> 01:13:51,120
Speaker 2: I just know. But you know, you have to respect

1225
01:13:51,439 --> 01:13:55,280
Speaker 2: a guy. Here's another direction, and God bless him. And

1226
01:13:55,520 --> 01:13:58,400
Speaker 2: it's not like I wasn't working. I started working with

1227
01:13:58,800 --> 01:14:02,599
Speaker 2: fusion music, like at Stanley Clark, I played with Freddie Hubbard,

1228
01:14:03,400 --> 01:14:06,000
Speaker 2: Elvin Jones. I mean it was on and on. I

1229
01:14:06,080 --> 01:14:10,080
Speaker 2: was doing great, but I started to miss him and

1230
01:14:12,320 --> 01:14:17,200
Speaker 2: he started to miss me, and we reconvened, believe it

1231
01:14:17,280 --> 01:14:21,880
Speaker 2: or not, in eighteen years after the Young Americans for

1232
01:14:22,720 --> 01:14:25,679
Speaker 2: Black Tie, White Noise, and then I did everything through

1233
01:14:25,720 --> 01:14:31,519
Speaker 2: two thousand and five or something like that. So I

1234
01:14:31,640 --> 01:14:36,559
Speaker 2: was very appreciative to be creating again. And I'll never forget.

1235
01:14:36,920 --> 01:14:40,120
Speaker 2: We're sitting in the studio, you know, the outside album

1236
01:14:40,760 --> 01:14:46,120
Speaker 2: by any chance. So so yeah, it's pretty out there.

1237
01:14:46,800 --> 01:14:49,559
Speaker 2: And here's what he said to me. He said, Mike,

1238
01:14:50,600 --> 01:14:57,160
Speaker 2: I really I suffered with the record companies. I feel

1239
01:14:57,200 --> 01:15:02,160
Speaker 2: I compromised my integrity. I'm doing now is gathering all

1240
01:15:02,200 --> 01:15:07,160
Speaker 2: my favorite musicians, Carlos said, Brian Eno and me and

1241
01:15:07,200 --> 01:15:10,760
Speaker 2: we're gonna go to montrou and we're just gonna improvise

1242
01:15:11,760 --> 01:15:15,360
Speaker 2: with two Sony tape records forty eight connected and we're

1243
01:15:15,360 --> 01:15:18,880
Speaker 2: gonna just improvise two three four hours a day for

1244
01:15:18,920 --> 01:15:21,640
Speaker 2: two weeks, and you're gonna go home and me and

1245
01:15:21,680 --> 01:15:23,920
Speaker 2: Brian turn him into songs.

1246
01:15:25,080 --> 01:15:25,760
Speaker 3: Well, this is.

1247
01:15:25,800 --> 01:15:30,040
Speaker 2: Right up my alley. Right, That's all I did is improvised.

1248
01:15:30,080 --> 01:15:32,920
Speaker 2: They didn't even tell us keys. Sometimes they played us

1249
01:15:32,960 --> 01:15:35,240
Speaker 2: Marvin Gay in the headphones and they told us to

1250
01:15:35,240 --> 01:15:37,840
Speaker 2: play against it, and then they took off Marvin Gay

1251
01:15:37,840 --> 01:15:40,720
Speaker 2: and you had some crazy collagio sound and then it

1252
01:15:40,760 --> 01:15:43,000
Speaker 2: turns out to be a song called I'm Deranged or

1253
01:15:43,000 --> 01:15:46,320
Speaker 2: this and that. So it was a fantastic musical experience.

1254
01:15:46,400 --> 01:15:48,760
Speaker 2: But he said, I need to go in with you

1255
01:15:48,840 --> 01:15:51,599
Speaker 2: guys to get back to myself. So this is gonna

1256
01:15:51,600 --> 01:15:54,080
Speaker 2: be a very avant god album. People are not gonna

1257
01:15:54,200 --> 01:15:57,479
Speaker 2: like it. Then when we toured his manager A bil Zie,

1258
01:15:58,120 --> 01:16:00,559
Speaker 2: he runs to State. He came to me said, can

1259
01:16:00,600 --> 01:16:03,679
Speaker 2: you talk to him about doing the hits? I said, Bill,

1260
01:16:04,400 --> 01:16:07,880
Speaker 2: you talk to him. You're the manager. This is I'm

1261
01:16:07,880 --> 01:16:12,160
Speaker 2: happy here. You're rich, he's rich. Let him do what

1262
01:16:12,240 --> 01:16:14,640
Speaker 2: he has to do I promise you will end up

1263
01:16:14,640 --> 01:16:18,080
Speaker 2: doing hits again whenever that comes. It happened a year

1264
01:16:18,160 --> 01:16:21,040
Speaker 2: or two later, so he had to do it for

1265
01:16:21,160 --> 01:16:24,360
Speaker 2: Saul and I haven't delight the album, but it's not commercial.

1266
01:16:25,439 --> 01:16:28,360
Speaker 3: You work with Eno for the first time. What does

1267
01:16:28,439 --> 01:16:32,439
Speaker 3: he add? Picture this.

1268
01:16:32,720 --> 01:16:35,559
Speaker 2: I'm on this nine foot steinway and right behind me

1269
01:16:35,600 --> 01:16:39,960
Speaker 2: there's a DX seven Yamaha keyboard. And every day there

1270
01:16:40,000 --> 01:16:44,000
Speaker 2: was a little music store right next to montro where

1271
01:16:44,040 --> 01:16:46,240
Speaker 2: they had the jazz festival, and right next to the

1272
01:16:46,320 --> 01:16:50,559
Speaker 2: studio where Queen recorded, there's a little music store. He

1273
01:16:50,560 --> 01:16:54,120
Speaker 2: would buy this little box, did crazy sounds like the

1274
01:16:54,240 --> 01:16:56,600
Speaker 2: tall players buy boxes. And he connect us to the

1275
01:16:56,680 --> 01:17:03,000
Speaker 2: DX seven keyboard and I'm playing all this, I'm all

1276
01:17:03,040 --> 01:17:05,080
Speaker 2: over the piano and I'm hearing in my head of

1277
01:17:05,560 --> 01:17:13,040
Speaker 2: peep peep, peep, peep peep like and that turned out

1278
01:17:13,080 --> 01:17:16,320
Speaker 2: to be on Space Boy or something. But he had

1279
01:17:16,360 --> 01:17:19,559
Speaker 2: a lot of taste. He told me his instrument was

1280
01:17:19,600 --> 01:17:22,800
Speaker 2: the studio. So he took me Alpha dinner, and he

1281
01:17:22,880 --> 01:17:25,479
Speaker 2: wanted to know about Bill Evans and jazz, and he

1282
01:17:25,600 --> 01:17:28,880
Speaker 2: respected my playing, and he in his book he calls

1283
01:17:28,920 --> 01:17:33,200
Speaker 2: it the garsthonic style. So there was a deep respect

1284
01:17:33,280 --> 01:17:36,360
Speaker 2: and of course he's kind of a whack o genius,

1285
01:17:36,439 --> 01:17:39,320
Speaker 2: you know, in a whole different way, which just shows

1286
01:17:39,360 --> 01:17:42,360
Speaker 2: you how deep art can be if you're not sucked

1287
01:17:42,400 --> 01:17:46,400
Speaker 2: into the you know, the bullshit, you know. And it

1288
01:17:46,520 --> 01:17:48,880
Speaker 2: was fun working with him, and he had a nice vision,

1289
01:17:49,000 --> 01:17:51,759
Speaker 2: and he played jokes on David every day and crazy

1290
01:17:51,800 --> 01:18:02,520
Speaker 2: stuff we go on in the studio, you know, Okay.

1291
01:18:02,479 --> 01:18:05,880
Speaker 3: Ultimately you go on the road. That's David's a little

1292
01:18:05,880 --> 01:18:07,800
Speaker 3: bit of an underplay. I saw it at the will

1293
01:18:07,880 --> 01:18:11,200
Speaker 3: Turn and that's his last tour.

1294
01:18:12,360 --> 01:18:13,280
Speaker 2: You saw that one.

1295
01:18:13,320 --> 01:18:15,479
Speaker 3: Oh, I was there absolutely, Yeah.

1296
01:18:15,560 --> 01:18:18,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a fun gig actually, and well he

1297
01:18:18,840 --> 01:18:20,000
Speaker 2: was very loose.

1298
01:18:19,800 --> 01:18:22,599
Speaker 3: And without all the airs, and that's why we made

1299
01:18:22,600 --> 01:18:22,960
Speaker 3: it cool.

1300
01:18:23,040 --> 01:18:26,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it was a breath of fresh air,

1301
01:18:26,320 --> 01:18:28,720
Speaker 2: you know, right. That was that was the last to

1302
01:18:29,000 --> 01:18:31,559
Speaker 2: sadly we had. Look, we had been on the road

1303
01:18:31,680 --> 01:18:34,400
Speaker 2: thirteen months ball and we did one hundred and thirteen

1304
01:18:34,439 --> 01:18:37,679
Speaker 2: shows and he gets a heart attack in Hamburg, Germany,

1305
01:18:37,760 --> 01:18:40,600
Speaker 2: and I'm playing for him on the stage and I

1306
01:18:40,640 --> 01:18:43,320
Speaker 2: see him holding his heart and I could feel my

1307
01:18:43,439 --> 01:18:48,439
Speaker 2: fingers tightened up because we have this spiritual, telepathic connection

1308
01:18:48,600 --> 01:18:51,719
Speaker 2: from so many years of playing together and I said

1309
01:18:51,720 --> 01:18:55,000
Speaker 2: something was wrong, and he managed to get through the

1310
01:18:55,040 --> 01:18:57,720
Speaker 2: show and they zoomed him over in hospital. He had

1311
01:18:57,920 --> 01:19:02,760
Speaker 2: thence put in and never after that. I did one

1312
01:19:02,840 --> 01:19:05,880
Speaker 2: or two shows with him and me alone with Alicia Keys,

1313
01:19:06,120 --> 01:19:09,360
Speaker 2: like some Benefits, and that was the last shows he

1314
01:19:09,439 --> 01:19:12,599
Speaker 2: ever done. He did two more albums later. He wanted

1315
01:19:12,640 --> 01:19:14,600
Speaker 2: me to move to New York that I had my

1316
01:19:14,600 --> 01:19:17,760
Speaker 2: whole family settled here. Had I have a regret because

1317
01:19:17,800 --> 01:19:20,360
Speaker 2: had I moved, which I couldn't was impractical when my

1318
01:19:20,400 --> 01:19:23,559
Speaker 2: kids were in school and all that. But had I moved,

1319
01:19:23,600 --> 01:19:25,360
Speaker 2: I would have been on those last two albums because

1320
01:19:25,400 --> 01:19:27,559
Speaker 2: he used everyone from New York and he told me so.

1321
01:19:28,240 --> 01:19:32,360
Speaker 2: But whatever, I'm happy that where I contributed is where

1322
01:19:32,360 --> 01:19:33,080
Speaker 2: I contributed.

1323
01:19:33,240 --> 01:19:36,880
Speaker 3: You know, Okay, when did you know he was sick?

1324
01:19:38,600 --> 01:19:43,479
Speaker 2: I heard it only through rumors and he never told

1325
01:19:43,680 --> 01:19:47,840
Speaker 2: anyone except one or two people. And there was a

1326
01:19:47,880 --> 01:19:51,200
Speaker 2: biography being done by me at the time, by some

1327
01:19:51,320 --> 01:19:51,960
Speaker 2: English guy.

1328
01:19:52,080 --> 01:19:54,000
Speaker 3: I think it was called Bowie's Piano Man or something

1329
01:19:54,080 --> 01:19:54,679
Speaker 3: like that.

1330
01:19:54,800 --> 01:20:01,800
Speaker 2: And the author said to me, can you listen to

1331
01:20:01,880 --> 01:20:04,880
Speaker 2: these sixty songs or eighty songs that you played with

1332
01:20:05,439 --> 01:20:09,360
Speaker 2: through David's career? And critique to all of them, and

1333
01:20:09,400 --> 01:20:12,040
Speaker 2: now I had never done that. I had to step

1334
01:20:12,120 --> 01:20:14,760
Speaker 2: for hours and go through every single song. I was

1335
01:20:14,840 --> 01:20:18,599
Speaker 2: overwhelmed because it was good him and me and it

1336
01:20:18,640 --> 01:20:24,880
Speaker 2: was magical. And so I wrote David and I said,

1337
01:20:25,240 --> 01:20:28,040
Speaker 2: I'm in shock here. This ship was better than I thought.

1338
01:20:28,560 --> 01:20:32,599
Speaker 2: And within three seconds I got an email Mike. We

1339
01:20:32,640 --> 01:20:35,559
Speaker 2: did a great body of work. And I got off

1340
01:20:35,600 --> 01:20:38,840
Speaker 2: the phone and I said, Susan, I said, that's the

1341
01:20:38,920 --> 01:20:40,920
Speaker 2: last time I'm going to hear from him. He said

1342
01:20:40,960 --> 01:20:44,960
Speaker 2: something very final. We did a great body of work

1343
01:20:45,960 --> 01:20:47,439
Speaker 2: and three months later he was dead.

1344
01:20:50,560 --> 01:20:54,559
Speaker 3: So he's such a big part of your life. Is

1345
01:20:54,600 --> 01:20:59,080
Speaker 3: it like a death of a member of a family. Yes. Yes,

1346
01:21:01,439 --> 01:21:03,280
Speaker 3: Just to go back to put a rap on it,

1347
01:21:03,760 --> 01:21:08,120
Speaker 3: you say that he treated you as his piano player.

1348
01:21:08,680 --> 01:21:13,760
Speaker 3: It was a musical connection. To what degree did you

1349
01:21:13,960 --> 01:21:20,120
Speaker 3: have experiences or a relationship like two people might be

1350
01:21:20,120 --> 01:21:23,439
Speaker 3: a member of a band but might talk about, you know,

1351
01:21:23,560 --> 01:21:26,479
Speaker 3: what they had for dinner or some movie. Was he

1352
01:21:26,560 --> 01:21:28,160
Speaker 3: that kind of guy or did he keep you at

1353
01:21:28,200 --> 01:21:28,759
Speaker 3: arm's length?

1354
01:21:29,560 --> 01:21:32,280
Speaker 2: No, he was very sociable and he considered his band

1355
01:21:32,439 --> 01:21:35,400
Speaker 2: close friends. Now we were in a bus together right

1356
01:21:35,520 --> 01:21:39,720
Speaker 2: for years and so we talked philosophy. He was going

1357
01:21:39,800 --> 01:21:42,000
Speaker 2: to be a Buddhist. He told me the Buddhist guy

1358
01:21:42,000 --> 01:21:44,879
Speaker 2: said you better go sting, You'll have a bigger effect,

1359
01:21:45,400 --> 01:21:49,200
Speaker 2: and he was smart. We'd be going from one city

1360
01:21:49,240 --> 01:21:50,960
Speaker 2: to another, and by the time we got the next

1361
01:21:50,960 --> 01:21:53,920
Speaker 2: city had read three books I mean kind of like

1362
01:21:54,000 --> 01:21:59,959
Speaker 2: You and that were just like absorbing, absorbing. And sometimes

1363
01:22:00,080 --> 01:22:02,880
Speaker 2: we wouldn't see him, but many times after a show

1364
01:22:03,320 --> 01:22:06,000
Speaker 2: we'd be sitting in He used to like to watch

1365
01:22:06,080 --> 01:22:11,479
Speaker 2: The Office, the original one, the English version would really rissed,

1366
01:22:12,000 --> 01:22:14,960
Speaker 2: and we would watch that after while we're in the

1367
01:22:15,000 --> 01:22:17,120
Speaker 2: bus going to another country a city.

1368
01:22:17,439 --> 01:22:17,960
Speaker 3: And he was.

1369
01:22:20,320 --> 01:22:23,639
Speaker 2: Very warm person. He had a lot of feeling. When

1370
01:22:23,680 --> 01:22:26,560
Speaker 2: my dad died in the mid nineties, I had to

1371
01:22:26,720 --> 01:22:29,479
Speaker 2: be at the funeral, and my dad made sure. He

1372
01:22:29,600 --> 01:22:32,559
Speaker 2: asked me when I'm going to Finland and when the

1373
01:22:32,560 --> 01:22:36,360
Speaker 2: tour was over, and he worked out his death right

1374
01:22:36,479 --> 01:22:43,000
Speaker 2: in between those two things. It was unbelievable. My dad said,

1375
01:22:43,000 --> 01:22:45,200
Speaker 2: I want you to play these three songs, and I'm

1376
01:22:45,240 --> 01:22:48,080
Speaker 2: getting a Steinway. It was all planned, and then you

1377
01:22:48,200 --> 01:22:50,839
Speaker 2: go back on tour and I go to the funeral

1378
01:22:50,920 --> 01:22:54,599
Speaker 2: and I go to rehearsal right after, and David gave

1379
01:22:54,640 --> 01:22:58,120
Speaker 2: me the biggest hug and sincere condolences.

1380
01:22:58,560 --> 01:22:58,840
Speaker 3: It was.

1381
01:23:01,000 --> 01:23:04,120
Speaker 2: That was David Bowie, that was David Jones, or that

1382
01:23:04,280 --> 01:23:07,360
Speaker 2: was the real person, that was not a persona. And

1383
01:23:07,640 --> 01:23:12,160
Speaker 2: I think that's where his love and the music was

1384
01:23:12,360 --> 01:23:15,280
Speaker 2: underneath whatever crap they might have been on the crust

1385
01:23:15,360 --> 01:23:18,120
Speaker 2: on the top. You know, it's just a horrible business.

1386
01:23:18,439 --> 01:23:23,840
Speaker 3: Okay. Your father and mother, your father in law, were

1387
01:23:23,840 --> 01:23:26,560
Speaker 3: they proud of your success or with your father in

1388
01:23:26,680 --> 01:23:29,160
Speaker 3: law was always you know, it's like Bruce Springsteen mother

1389
01:23:29,240 --> 01:23:31,000
Speaker 3: saying go back to college when he's talk about the

1390
01:23:31,040 --> 01:23:34,360
Speaker 3: trucking company. Or were they thrilled about Could they even

1391
01:23:34,439 --> 01:23:35,919
Speaker 3: understand your success?

1392
01:23:36,080 --> 01:23:40,680
Speaker 2: The only one who understood was my dad. He was

1393
01:23:40,720 --> 01:23:44,920
Speaker 2: put on the planet to support me, and no matter

1394
01:23:45,120 --> 01:23:47,920
Speaker 2: what I played. He was on his dying in bed

1395
01:23:47,960 --> 01:23:52,280
Speaker 2: one time and I said, Dad, I'm playing in Arizona

1396
01:23:52,600 --> 01:23:56,880
Speaker 2: discosta with Dox Everson and a symphony orchestra. He had

1397
01:23:56,920 --> 01:23:59,280
Speaker 2: just told me two hours earlier you couldn't go down

1398
01:23:59,320 --> 01:24:02,920
Speaker 2: to the delicatest and he loved his pastrowomy sandwiches. And

1399
01:24:03,960 --> 01:24:05,640
Speaker 2: he got on the plane and he was at the

1400
01:24:05,680 --> 01:24:09,479
Speaker 2: gig handing out Champagne to do Stevenson and the Band,

1401
01:24:10,960 --> 01:24:14,559
Speaker 2: totally alert and happy in his mid eighties. The show

1402
01:24:14,720 --> 01:24:18,320
Speaker 2: was over. Back in the wheelchair, flumped over, looked like

1403
01:24:18,360 --> 01:24:19,120
Speaker 2: he was gonna die.

1404
01:24:21,040 --> 01:24:22,800
Speaker 3: So he was. He was the one who got it.

1405
01:24:22,960 --> 01:24:26,880
Speaker 2: My mom medical doctor, my mother law medical doctor, my

1406
01:24:27,000 --> 01:24:28,320
Speaker 2: bad in law, trucking business.

1407
01:24:28,439 --> 01:24:32,040
Speaker 3: It was unfortunately, I can understand this.

1408
01:24:32,800 --> 01:24:35,240
Speaker 2: What makes you say that?

1409
01:24:35,240 --> 01:24:37,719
Speaker 3: That's my own story going back to Okay, So those

1410
01:24:37,800 --> 01:24:42,120
Speaker 3: seventeen years when Bowie is doing his thing without you,

1411
01:24:42,240 --> 01:24:43,040
Speaker 3: what are you doing?

1412
01:24:44,479 --> 01:24:47,360
Speaker 2: I played a lot of jazz, did a lot of teaching,

1413
01:24:48,040 --> 01:24:50,639
Speaker 2: and I became part of a group called Free Flight.

1414
01:24:51,200 --> 01:24:53,439
Speaker 2: It was a flute player who played in the La

1415
01:24:53,560 --> 01:24:57,960
Speaker 2: Philharmonic that loved jazz and classical. Was Ralph Humphrey on

1416
01:24:58,040 --> 01:25:01,240
Speaker 2: drums who played with Zappa and Algio, and a great

1417
01:25:01,240 --> 01:25:04,800
Speaker 2: studio musician and a bass player named Jim Lacefield and

1418
01:25:05,560 --> 01:25:08,720
Speaker 2: myself and we mixed classical and jazz. We had a

1419
01:25:08,760 --> 01:25:11,719
Speaker 2: lovely career. Played on Johnny Carson three times. We played

1420
01:25:11,720 --> 01:25:15,000
Speaker 2: at the Hollywood Bowl. We played at Lincoln Center for

1421
01:25:15,080 --> 01:25:18,080
Speaker 2: a jazz jazz classical group. We did pretty good. We

1422
01:25:18,080 --> 01:25:20,639
Speaker 2: had an agent and we played those performing art centers

1423
01:25:20,680 --> 01:25:23,120
Speaker 2: of whole two thousand people. So they have built in,

1424
01:25:23,240 --> 01:25:25,040
Speaker 2: they still out and we had a good ten to

1425
01:25:25,080 --> 01:25:27,679
Speaker 2: fifteen year room. I was totally happy. And then David

1426
01:25:27,720 --> 01:25:30,479
Speaker 2: Cole I got a sub for those other gigs after

1427
01:25:31,080 --> 01:25:33,800
Speaker 2: and so I was good at Stanley Clark was a

1428
01:25:33,840 --> 01:25:36,559
Speaker 2: great bass player. I played on piano and a lot

1429
01:25:36,600 --> 01:25:39,000
Speaker 2: of his movies Boys in the Hood. That's me playing

1430
01:25:39,000 --> 01:25:40,360
Speaker 2: piano and a.

1431
01:25:40,040 --> 01:25:43,920
Speaker 3: Woaho a little bit slower. Hey, let's go back to

1432
01:25:43,920 --> 01:25:46,360
Speaker 3: Bowie for a second. Do you have a royalty interest

1433
01:25:46,680 --> 01:25:47,639
Speaker 3: from Bowie at all?

1434
01:25:49,120 --> 01:25:50,320
Speaker 2: You know the number zero?

1435
01:25:50,840 --> 01:25:54,840
Speaker 3: Yes? Okay, next, that's what I thought it was. But

1436
01:25:55,360 --> 01:25:57,080
Speaker 3: just making sure, okay.

1437
01:25:57,280 --> 01:26:01,479
Speaker 2: So in London in nineteen seventy three, the union scale

1438
01:26:01,800 --> 01:26:07,000
Speaker 2: for three hours was eighteen pounds, which was thirty three dollars.

1439
01:26:07,560 --> 01:26:10,759
Speaker 2: So I'm pretty fast in the studio. So on Aladdin's Staine,

1440
01:26:10,920 --> 01:26:13,640
Speaker 2: I made one hundred and fifty dollars.

1441
01:26:14,880 --> 01:26:18,360
Speaker 3: How long are we there? Well, I did you know?

1442
01:26:18,439 --> 01:26:22,719
Speaker 2: Maybe three sessions over a few days, three three.

1443
01:26:22,520 --> 01:26:27,640
Speaker 3: Hour sessions, six hour sessions. Okay, let's let's see it.

1444
01:26:27,840 --> 01:26:28,920
Speaker 3: I don't I don't want to.

1445
01:26:29,960 --> 01:26:32,240
Speaker 2: I don't want to upset you too much because you've

1446
01:26:32,280 --> 01:26:37,639
Speaker 2: heard it a few times, and you know, David's viewpoint

1447
01:26:37,960 --> 01:26:40,840
Speaker 2: is use my name. And he probably didn't know what

1448
01:26:40,920 --> 01:26:43,280
Speaker 2: I was even getting paid, because he himself was being

1449
01:26:43,320 --> 01:26:45,800
Speaker 2: ripped off by the manager at fifty percent, as I

1450
01:26:45,840 --> 01:26:47,720
Speaker 2: told you, and he was bankrupt in the eighties, so

1451
01:26:48,040 --> 01:26:50,000
Speaker 2: I don't know that he knew. All I knew was

1452
01:26:50,040 --> 01:26:52,639
Speaker 2: in the later years when we said, can't we get

1453
01:26:52,680 --> 01:26:55,240
Speaker 2: a million dollars for this tour? We're giving our life

1454
01:26:55,280 --> 01:26:57,680
Speaker 2: away from He said, just use my name. You'll be

1455
01:26:57,760 --> 01:26:59,639
Speaker 2: busy and you'll be working the rest of your life.

1456
01:27:00,200 --> 01:27:00,880
Speaker 3: Some truth to that.

1457
01:27:01,360 --> 01:27:09,720
Speaker 2: But the English guys Nick and David Sheep passed legendarily.

1458
01:27:12,640 --> 01:27:13,519
Speaker 2: What's the word just then?

1459
01:27:13,800 --> 01:27:19,960
Speaker 3: Is it legendarily? Okay? You talk about working with Stanley Clark,

1460
01:27:20,360 --> 01:27:24,040
Speaker 3: working on movie scores, et cetera. Are you just sitting

1461
01:27:24,080 --> 01:27:26,599
Speaker 3: at home and the phone range or today it's an

1462
01:27:26,640 --> 01:27:30,000
Speaker 3: email or are you working it networking? How does all

1463
01:27:30,000 --> 01:27:30,759
Speaker 3: this should happen?

1464
01:27:32,280 --> 01:27:35,960
Speaker 2: I never did anything. The phone would bring christ you know,

1465
01:27:36,280 --> 01:27:39,680
Speaker 2: I tended to deliver, and I love music and I

1466
01:27:39,720 --> 01:27:44,960
Speaker 2: love communicating, co creating with people, so I didn't really

1467
01:27:45,360 --> 01:27:49,040
Speaker 2: do anything. And sometimes there would periods no work would

1468
01:27:49,080 --> 01:27:51,920
Speaker 2: come in, but all of a sudden, The movie Stigmata

1469
01:27:52,040 --> 01:27:56,000
Speaker 2: comes out twenty five years ago, and actually the same

1470
01:27:56,040 --> 01:28:00,240
Speaker 2: director who did the Ukrainian thing. But that movie comes

1471
01:28:00,240 --> 01:28:02,559
Speaker 2: out and I do the score with Billy Corgan and

1472
01:28:02,600 --> 01:28:06,479
Speaker 2: then Billy Corgan says, you want to go out with

1473
01:28:06,600 --> 01:28:11,920
Speaker 2: the Smashing Pumpkins. Things would always come in, but there

1474
01:28:11,960 --> 01:28:15,599
Speaker 2: would be those very rough times where I'd have to

1475
01:28:15,680 --> 01:28:17,360
Speaker 2: just refinance my house just to.

1476
01:28:17,320 --> 01:28:20,599
Speaker 3: Buy Tell me a little bit more about that.

1477
01:28:23,040 --> 01:28:25,880
Speaker 2: I should bring my wife in on that one. She's

1478
01:28:25,920 --> 01:28:28,960
Speaker 2: the one who suffers because she's paying the bills every Monday.

1479
01:28:29,439 --> 01:28:32,519
Speaker 2: And it was not easy, you know. And several times,

1480
01:28:32,560 --> 01:28:35,040
Speaker 2: over many years, we had to refinance our house and

1481
01:28:35,160 --> 01:28:37,280
Speaker 2: never get us going for six months for a year,

1482
01:28:37,320 --> 01:28:41,200
Speaker 2: and then you're paying more mortgage. Sometimes, grace of God,

1483
01:28:41,240 --> 01:28:44,760
Speaker 2: I would get another gig, and sometimes I didn't, and

1484
01:28:44,840 --> 01:28:46,960
Speaker 2: sometimes we're gonna have to sell the house. And then

1485
01:28:46,960 --> 01:28:49,320
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, Bowie calls, you know. I mean,

1486
01:28:50,160 --> 01:28:54,360
Speaker 2: it's a rollercoaster. Would I recommend that kind of a career.

1487
01:28:56,240 --> 01:28:58,479
Speaker 2: You just have to love the music so much that

1488
01:28:58,520 --> 01:29:00,519
Speaker 2: you don't care what the fuck happened to you.

1489
01:29:00,640 --> 01:29:04,840
Speaker 3: Did you ever get so frustrated that you contemplated giving up,

1490
01:29:05,439 --> 01:29:06,400
Speaker 3: not for a second.

1491
01:29:06,479 --> 01:29:11,040
Speaker 2: B I would just go play the piano for ten hours,

1492
01:29:11,400 --> 01:29:14,799
Speaker 2: and I got better. When I had no work, I'd.

1493
01:29:14,640 --> 01:29:18,519
Speaker 3: Compose, Okay, to what degree? You know? It's one thing

1494
01:29:18,560 --> 01:29:22,120
Speaker 3: if Stanley Clark is calling, Billy Corgan whatever, But to

1495
01:29:22,240 --> 01:29:25,400
Speaker 3: what degree could you work on your own when no

1496
01:29:25,479 --> 01:29:26,400
Speaker 3: one was calling.

1497
01:29:26,880 --> 01:29:29,760
Speaker 2: I always had solo gigs and trio gigs. I'd go

1498
01:29:29,800 --> 01:29:32,719
Speaker 2: to Israel, I'd go to Japan, go to the Blue Notes.

1499
01:29:33,000 --> 01:29:37,400
Speaker 2: I always worked. There was small clubs called two dollars

1500
01:29:37,439 --> 01:29:40,120
Speaker 2: Bills that was on Franklin and Bronson. I worked there

1501
01:29:40,280 --> 01:29:43,960
Speaker 2: for years, maybe forty six to eighty dollars, and did

1502
01:29:43,960 --> 01:29:46,839
Speaker 2: a Friday and a Saturday. I played in San Diego

1503
01:29:46,920 --> 01:29:49,479
Speaker 2: and another jazz club for six years. I played there

1504
01:29:49,760 --> 01:29:53,680
Speaker 2: six nights a week, sometimes over six months. So I

1505
01:29:53,760 --> 01:29:58,080
Speaker 2: was always working. And I love anything I played because

1506
01:29:58,080 --> 01:30:01,000
Speaker 2: it was jazz or it was a great rock band.

1507
01:30:01,400 --> 01:30:04,840
Speaker 2: And then, like I said, I was smart enough to

1508
01:30:05,800 --> 01:30:09,599
Speaker 2: add the income through my piano lessons that I taught,

1509
01:30:10,080 --> 01:30:14,479
Speaker 2: and that was steady because students came, you know every week.

1510
01:30:14,960 --> 01:30:18,479
Speaker 3: Okay, how did you build that business? Word of mouth?

1511
01:30:20,560 --> 01:30:23,360
Speaker 3: Word of mouth? Okay, there are a lot of people

1512
01:30:23,400 --> 01:30:27,479
Speaker 3: who are great players and shitty teachers. So what's the

1513
01:30:27,560 --> 01:30:29,080
Speaker 3: key to being a good teacher.

1514
01:30:30,240 --> 01:30:32,559
Speaker 2: I might be a better teacher than player. If I'm

1515
01:30:32,560 --> 01:30:36,160
Speaker 2: going to be really honest, If I've done five thousand concerts,

1516
01:30:36,160 --> 01:30:39,799
Speaker 2: I'd say two thousand were great and three thousand okay,

1517
01:30:40,520 --> 01:30:44,080
Speaker 2: phoned it in or whatever I've thought. Ten thousand students

1518
01:30:44,360 --> 01:30:47,719
Speaker 2: nine nine hundred and ninety were great, a few didn't

1519
01:30:47,760 --> 01:30:51,280
Speaker 2: go right, And it's it's getting out of your own

1520
01:30:51,320 --> 01:30:55,840
Speaker 2: way wanting to answer the question. The problem with classical

1521
01:30:55,920 --> 01:30:58,840
Speaker 2: teachers and chanced you must do this, you mustn't do that.

1522
01:30:59,320 --> 01:31:01,559
Speaker 2: My viewpoint is what do you want to learn? Why

1523
01:31:01,600 --> 01:31:04,040
Speaker 2: am I going to put you on an excursion of class?

1524
01:31:04,080 --> 01:31:06,439
Speaker 2: But if you want to be a singer songwriter? I

1525
01:31:06,479 --> 01:31:11,760
Speaker 2: taught Vonda Shephard. She did the Ali McBeal show. All

1526
01:31:11,960 --> 01:31:17,360
Speaker 2: I certainly, oh good, Yeah, she was my student at fourteen.

1527
01:31:17,880 --> 01:31:22,360
Speaker 3: Wow. So how skilled does someone have to be for

1528
01:31:22,439 --> 01:31:25,040
Speaker 3: you to teach them?

1529
01:31:25,240 --> 01:31:28,200
Speaker 2: In the seventies, I was like a tyrant in New York,

1530
01:31:28,240 --> 01:31:29,960
Speaker 2: and they had to be willing to do eight hours

1531
01:31:29,960 --> 01:31:33,000
Speaker 2: a day and be very advanced. But now, so many

1532
01:31:33,080 --> 01:31:37,519
Speaker 2: years later, all I require is desire, they don't have

1533
01:31:37,640 --> 01:31:41,280
Speaker 2: to play. I teach doctors and lawyers on Zoom all

1534
01:31:41,320 --> 01:31:45,559
Speaker 2: around the world and they just love it. And that's

1535
01:31:45,560 --> 01:31:48,400
Speaker 2: all I need. And I did all the virtual also

1536
01:31:48,479 --> 01:31:50,679
Speaker 2: class and stuff I taught the jazz people. I taught

1537
01:31:50,680 --> 01:31:54,040
Speaker 2: people who worked with Miles Davis. I won that game

1538
01:31:54,360 --> 01:31:58,480
Speaker 2: a long time ago. I actually like teaching simple songwriting

1539
01:31:58,560 --> 01:32:02,040
Speaker 2: and simple cause I'm playing simpler now that I ever did.

1540
01:32:02,160 --> 01:32:03,880
Speaker 2: And I was always had to be jazz for was

1541
01:32:03,920 --> 01:32:08,120
Speaker 2: now simple pop cause, but getting the magic out of them,

1542
01:32:09,040 --> 01:32:11,960
Speaker 2: whether it's solo. I played a cancer benefit. That's when

1543
01:32:11,960 --> 01:32:15,000
Speaker 2: I met your nephew right two weeks ago. And you know,

1544
01:32:15,040 --> 01:32:17,080
Speaker 2: I do a lot of that stuff and I love it.

1545
01:32:17,160 --> 01:32:21,599
Speaker 3: You know. So when you're playing two dollars bills, is

1546
01:32:21,640 --> 01:32:22,800
Speaker 3: it depressing at all?

1547
01:32:23,640 --> 01:32:26,160
Speaker 2: No, it's always filmed. I get two dollars each person.

1548
01:32:28,800 --> 01:32:30,599
Speaker 3: I'll leave it at that. Okay, how do you meet

1549
01:32:30,640 --> 01:32:33,280
Speaker 3: Billy Corgan? And ended up working with Billy Corgan.

1550
01:32:33,880 --> 01:32:37,160
Speaker 2: So we're in France and one of these television shows

1551
01:32:37,200 --> 01:32:39,479
Speaker 2: and there's several bands in a circle and Bowie was

1552
01:32:39,520 --> 01:32:41,280
Speaker 2: one of them. And I'm in the dressing room and

1553
01:32:41,720 --> 01:32:44,880
Speaker 2: bolways have a new discussion with Billy Corgan about God,

1554
01:32:45,240 --> 01:32:48,240
Speaker 2: and he says tells his bodyguard called Mike, he'll want

1555
01:32:48,280 --> 01:32:50,800
Speaker 2: to discuss this, and he said, what do you think

1556
01:32:50,840 --> 01:32:51,400
Speaker 2: about God?

1557
01:32:51,680 --> 01:32:52,120
Speaker 3: I don't know.

1558
01:32:53,120 --> 01:32:56,000
Speaker 2: It's not a guy sitting up there waving a hand

1559
01:32:56,160 --> 01:32:59,320
Speaker 2: striking people. There may be all that is. I don't know,

1560
01:32:59,439 --> 01:33:04,320
Speaker 2: infinite intelligence something. I know it's bigger than just the body,

1561
01:33:04,400 --> 01:33:08,479
Speaker 2: but I didn't know much more to stay other than that.

1562
01:33:09,240 --> 01:33:12,840
Speaker 2: And then we became friends. And then he's auditioning. I'm

1563
01:33:12,880 --> 01:33:16,040
Speaker 2: in a jazz gig in Wisconsin or something, and I

1564
01:33:16,040 --> 01:33:19,400
Speaker 2: see he's auditioning paddle players because there was a mess

1565
01:33:19,479 --> 01:33:24,320
Speaker 2: with Smashing Pumpkins and the drummer and the terrible and

1566
01:33:24,520 --> 01:33:26,759
Speaker 2: they needed a keyboard play and it was auditioning people.

1567
01:33:27,080 --> 01:33:28,840
Speaker 2: So I called him. He said, well, I never thought

1568
01:33:28,840 --> 01:33:31,160
Speaker 2: you would want to work with me. I said, you're interesting,

1569
01:33:31,280 --> 01:33:34,479
Speaker 2: and I'd like to. And that's how I got that gig.

1570
01:33:34,640 --> 01:33:37,879
Speaker 2: You know, we have about one hundred and eighty hours

1571
01:33:38,120 --> 01:33:41,880
Speaker 2: of DVDs and never released with Kenny Aronoff and oh

1572
01:33:41,960 --> 01:33:44,479
Speaker 2: my god, it wasn't a Pumpkins band. It was a

1573
01:33:44,520 --> 01:33:47,680
Speaker 2: Billy Corgan tour. I did a Pumpkins tour that one

1574
01:33:47,760 --> 01:33:50,759
Speaker 2: of their final ones. These bands always have final gigs

1575
01:33:50,800 --> 01:33:52,639
Speaker 2: and then they do ten more final gigs.

1576
01:33:52,920 --> 01:33:59,800
Speaker 3: Okay, Billy Corgan has a reputation as being somewhat mercurial

1577
01:34:00,080 --> 01:34:04,800
Speaker 3: and difficult. Is that a misperception or what is the

1578
01:34:04,840 --> 01:34:13,719
Speaker 3: insight into that? It's not a misperception. But for better

1579
01:34:13,840 --> 01:34:16,800
Speaker 3: or worse, he knows what he wants and he doesn't

1580
01:34:16,840 --> 01:34:20,040
Speaker 3: stop till he gets it. He maybe could get out

1581
01:34:20,160 --> 01:34:23,559
Speaker 3: some soft sandpaper and refinement a little. Maybe he has

1582
01:34:23,720 --> 01:34:27,120
Speaker 3: now because he's married and got some kids. I think

1583
01:34:27,200 --> 01:34:29,120
Speaker 3: he's changed because I sat him with him at the

1584
01:34:29,120 --> 01:34:31,600
Speaker 3: Hollywood Bowl about a year or two ago and it

1585
01:34:31,680 --> 01:34:34,000
Speaker 3: was different. I also, he got married last year. I

1586
01:34:34,040 --> 01:34:38,080
Speaker 3: played his wedding, So he's cool. But I saw him

1587
01:34:38,520 --> 01:34:41,439
Speaker 3: pretty rough on the guitar players and bass players in

1588
01:34:41,520 --> 01:34:45,160
Speaker 3: the band, you know, James and Darcy. It was painful.

1589
01:34:45,600 --> 01:34:48,519
Speaker 3: He respected me so much. We never had an issue

1590
01:34:48,560 --> 01:34:52,040
Speaker 3: with him. But one time he came into the bus

1591
01:34:52,160 --> 01:34:54,439
Speaker 3: after a constant in Japan and he went around to

1592
01:34:54,520 --> 01:34:57,240
Speaker 3: each person in the band and must have a photograph

1593
01:34:57,280 --> 01:34:59,599
Speaker 3: of memory, but told each one what they did wrong,

1594
01:35:00,720 --> 01:35:03,120
Speaker 3: and it really hurt me. So I went to him

1595
01:35:03,200 --> 01:35:08,200
Speaker 3: and I said, Billy couldn't you wait till tomorrow? Everyone's

1596
01:35:08,280 --> 01:35:11,320
Speaker 3: coming off the stage. The audience was happy. We played good,

1597
01:35:12,479 --> 01:35:14,840
Speaker 3: he said, these people are coming to see me, Mike,

1598
01:35:14,960 --> 01:35:17,479
Speaker 3: and my job is to give the best I could give.

1599
01:35:17,560 --> 01:35:19,519
Speaker 3: And when I hear something wrong, I wanted fixed.

1600
01:35:19,880 --> 01:35:21,960
Speaker 2: So how could I fault that?

1601
01:35:22,800 --> 01:35:25,479
Speaker 3: I might say? Can you do it with a soft touch?

1602
01:35:25,600 --> 01:35:31,479
Speaker 3: That's all? Okay, you're a jazz guy. Smashing Pumpkins certainly

1603
01:35:31,520 --> 01:35:35,040
Speaker 3: had an arrow where they make it commercially successful. But

1604
01:35:35,360 --> 01:35:40,280
Speaker 3: is that music to the lady enough interesting enough for you?

1605
01:35:41,840 --> 01:35:44,280
Speaker 2: My challenge when I play with any of these rock bands,

1606
01:35:44,320 --> 01:35:48,719
Speaker 2: even Bowie, what can I find that contributes and ads?

1607
01:35:49,360 --> 01:35:54,679
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's minimal and sometimes it's a long and Billy

1608
01:35:54,800 --> 01:35:56,960
Speaker 2: is a funny guy. We'd be doing and he'd stop

1609
01:35:57,080 --> 01:35:59,600
Speaker 2: the band playing for twenty thousand people and asked me

1610
01:35:59,680 --> 01:36:01,679
Speaker 2: to play Summertime by myself.

1611
01:36:09,840 --> 01:36:11,920
Speaker 3: Okay, how did you hook up with Trent Reznor?

1612
01:36:12,640 --> 01:36:16,960
Speaker 2: He uh opened with us for Bowie in ninety five.

1613
01:36:17,000 --> 01:36:19,080
Speaker 3: I remember being at the Forum. Were you at that show?

1614
01:36:19,120 --> 01:36:21,519
Speaker 3: By anyhow? That show I was not at? Okay.

1615
01:36:21,840 --> 01:36:25,120
Speaker 2: So we were on tour together, not in Europe but

1616
01:36:25,200 --> 01:36:28,479
Speaker 2: in America, and they would play the first half of

1617
01:36:28,520 --> 01:36:30,800
Speaker 2: the show, and then there would be some dovetailing where

1618
01:36:31,160 --> 01:36:33,320
Speaker 2: David would sing a trend song and TRP would singer

1619
01:36:33,439 --> 01:36:38,040
Speaker 2: David Saw and he would be always listening to me

1620
01:36:38,160 --> 01:36:38,800
Speaker 2: in rehearsal.

1621
01:36:39,080 --> 01:36:41,920
Speaker 3: I couldn't understand why I didn't even know him, and

1622
01:36:42,040 --> 01:36:44,040
Speaker 3: we'd walk in the hall to the dressing rooms and

1623
01:36:44,160 --> 01:36:50,160
Speaker 3: we sort of not never was introduced, and one time

1624
01:36:50,479 --> 01:36:54,000
Speaker 3: in Keyboard magazine or Downby, somebody asked him in the nineties,

1625
01:36:54,000 --> 01:36:56,519
Speaker 3: who would you like the next recovers and he said me,

1626
01:36:56,760 --> 01:36:59,920
Speaker 3: and I was felt flattered, And then that didn't occur

1627
01:37:00,080 --> 01:37:02,880
Speaker 3: for another two years. Then I did the Fragile album,

1628
01:37:02,880 --> 01:37:06,280
Speaker 3: which was a great double album, and and then a

1629
01:37:06,360 --> 01:37:08,840
Speaker 3: few years later he invited me. I think it might

1630
01:37:08,880 --> 01:37:11,439
Speaker 3: have been at the Wilton again nine in Shales. They

1631
01:37:11,479 --> 01:37:15,439
Speaker 3: were it was their last. Do you remember seeing me

1632
01:37:15,520 --> 01:37:18,600
Speaker 3: at that one? Because there's so many last shows, No,

1633
01:37:18,800 --> 01:37:21,960
Speaker 3: I Jim Garrino was the manager. I certainly remember that

1634
01:37:22,160 --> 01:37:25,920
Speaker 3: last show, all the things about the ticketing. Unfortunately I

1635
01:37:26,040 --> 01:37:29,160
Speaker 3: do not remember you being there. I'm not sure it

1636
01:37:29,280 --> 01:37:34,080
Speaker 3: would have have been maybe in two thousand and six. Yeah, yeah, anyway,

1637
01:37:34,439 --> 01:37:37,120
Speaker 3: I played two Stars at matt As, not but he

1638
01:37:37,240 --> 01:37:41,320
Speaker 3: said something that was hard for me to grasp or

1639
01:37:41,680 --> 01:37:45,360
Speaker 3: or absorb. He said, ladies and gentlemen, I like to

1640
01:37:45,400 --> 01:37:48,720
Speaker 3: bring up friend of mine and he's been my biggest inspiration.

1641
01:37:49,560 --> 01:37:52,799
Speaker 3: And then he announced me, and I'm thinking, I hardly

1642
01:37:52,960 --> 01:37:57,400
Speaker 3: know you, and we come from different universes. And then

1643
01:37:57,439 --> 01:38:00,360
Speaker 3: I remembered when we were in the studio. I played

1644
01:38:00,400 --> 01:38:02,720
Speaker 3: on fifteen tracks on the Fragile album, but he only

1645
01:38:02,800 --> 01:38:07,240
Speaker 3: put me on three. I said, Trent, what happened? And

1646
01:38:07,360 --> 01:38:11,200
Speaker 3: he said, your influence was so strong and so connected

1647
01:38:11,240 --> 01:38:15,080
Speaker 3: with Bowie, I was losing my voice, so I picked

1648
01:38:15,120 --> 01:38:17,920
Speaker 3: the three that I felt with work. I said, this

1649
01:38:18,080 --> 01:38:20,559
Speaker 3: is exactly what I said to him. I said, I.

1650
01:38:20,640 --> 01:38:24,720
Speaker 2: Really respect that, but I also said fuck you, and

1651
01:38:25,040 --> 01:38:27,920
Speaker 2: I said, please put them out instrumental someday because it

1652
01:38:28,040 --> 01:38:30,599
Speaker 2: was amazing and he was a great producer. He had

1653
01:38:30,720 --> 01:38:33,280
Speaker 2: sixty keyboards in the studio in New Orleans is the

1654
01:38:33,320 --> 01:38:37,440
Speaker 2: place that burned down, and then he had three pianos

1655
01:38:37,479 --> 01:38:40,479
Speaker 2: for me. Pick your choice. I mean, so what is

1656
01:38:40,760 --> 01:38:41,719
Speaker 2: his magic?

1657
01:38:42,560 --> 01:38:43,559
Speaker 3: What does he bring?

1658
01:38:44,840 --> 01:38:47,519
Speaker 2: What I could tell you is in nineteen ninety five,

1659
01:38:47,680 --> 01:38:50,240
Speaker 2: David Bowie said to me, watch out for this guy.

1660
01:38:50,320 --> 01:38:54,080
Speaker 2: He's going to be the one, and you ended up.

1661
01:38:54,000 --> 01:38:56,479
Speaker 3: Working with him on the Social Network soundtrack, which was

1662
01:38:56,560 --> 01:38:57,719
Speaker 3: his first big success.

1663
01:38:58,800 --> 01:39:02,920
Speaker 2: I think gone girl, I think I remember. And there

1664
01:39:03,080 --> 01:39:06,360
Speaker 2: was Watchmen, which was an eight part series on HBO.

1665
01:39:07,080 --> 01:39:10,040
Speaker 2: He would always call me for anything he couldn't play

1666
01:39:10,080 --> 01:39:13,080
Speaker 2: because he plays the piano, right, but anything that he wanted,

1667
01:39:13,160 --> 01:39:18,120
Speaker 2: something a little fancier. But I don't know if I

1668
01:39:18,200 --> 01:39:21,680
Speaker 2: did Social Networks to say I did that on Wikipedia,

1669
01:39:21,720 --> 01:39:22,080
Speaker 2: I don't know.

1670
01:39:22,360 --> 01:39:25,160
Speaker 3: Twenty ten, Okay, how do you get hooked up with

1671
01:39:25,320 --> 01:39:28,800
Speaker 3: the Dillinger escape player? I have seen that act.

1672
01:39:30,720 --> 01:39:35,160
Speaker 2: Those guys were on the same trend show and they

1673
01:39:35,200 --> 01:39:37,840
Speaker 2: were wilder than nine ers now. They were hanging from

1674
01:39:37,880 --> 01:39:42,240
Speaker 2: the speakers. Well maybe that's where I saw them. Okay, okay,

1675
01:39:42,560 --> 01:39:44,479
Speaker 2: I was on that show and that's where they heard me.

1676
01:39:44,800 --> 01:39:47,640
Speaker 2: And they thought, oh, this motherfucker is as crazy as

1677
01:39:47,720 --> 01:39:50,080
Speaker 2: us in a different way. So they called me to

1678
01:39:50,160 --> 01:39:52,280
Speaker 2: play on that. It was so much fun, and the

1679
01:39:52,360 --> 01:39:55,040
Speaker 2: Stinger was actually directing me. It was a hard song.

1680
01:39:55,120 --> 01:39:57,640
Speaker 2: It was in hard meters and I had a lot

1681
01:39:57,720 --> 01:40:00,799
Speaker 2: of fun. It was just one of these little magic moments.

1682
01:40:00,880 --> 01:40:02,920
Speaker 2: You meet somebody in the elevator and you connect, but

1683
01:40:03,000 --> 01:40:05,080
Speaker 2: you never see him again, you know, And then what

1684
01:40:05,160 --> 01:40:11,120
Speaker 2: about pretty reckless? When I was doing all these COVID

1685
01:40:11,240 --> 01:40:16,479
Speaker 2: things through streaming, I had every singer who loved David

1686
01:40:16,560 --> 01:40:19,360
Speaker 2: Stingwood made from Adam Lambert to Boy George and Duran

1687
01:40:19,479 --> 01:40:22,840
Speaker 2: Durant to Joe Elliot, and she was one of them.

1688
01:40:22,920 --> 01:40:26,439
Speaker 2: She said, let's do a quickstand, so we met on that.

1689
01:40:26,840 --> 01:40:30,680
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm pretty lucky because over those years there

1690
01:40:30,760 --> 01:40:33,960
Speaker 2: must have been one hundred Stoners. The only ones who

1691
01:40:34,080 --> 01:40:38,080
Speaker 2: came anywhere close to David when they worked with me were.

1692
01:40:38,000 --> 01:40:41,880
Speaker 3: Steel and Sting. When did you work with Sting.

1693
01:40:43,200 --> 01:40:46,880
Speaker 2: At the Wilton? One of those shows, he did Lazarus

1694
01:40:46,960 --> 01:40:49,840
Speaker 2: in Blackstar, which two of the songs from that last album,

1695
01:40:50,280 --> 01:40:53,920
Speaker 2: and it was breathtaking what he did. And they weren't

1696
01:40:54,000 --> 01:40:56,960
Speaker 2: friends or connected, but the love was still there.

1697
01:40:58,080 --> 01:41:01,280
Speaker 3: Okay, if one does a little research about you online,

1698
01:41:01,920 --> 01:41:05,200
Speaker 3: they find for a while you were remember of scientology.

1699
01:41:05,439 --> 01:41:06,240
Speaker 3: Tell me about that.

1700
01:41:07,360 --> 01:41:10,759
Speaker 2: Chick Korea turned me on to scientology in nineteen seventy

1701
01:41:11,840 --> 01:41:15,479
Speaker 2: and something didn't feel kosher, but I respected him, so

1702
01:41:15,600 --> 01:41:19,599
Speaker 2: I thought maybe he said there's some good communication skills

1703
01:41:19,640 --> 01:41:21,599
Speaker 2: and bloody blah blah blah. So I did it from

1704
01:41:21,680 --> 01:41:25,560
Speaker 2: seventy to eighty two. But I couldn't take the structure

1705
01:41:25,760 --> 01:41:28,479
Speaker 2: and the hierarchy. It just wasn't who I was.

1706
01:41:28,880 --> 01:41:29,439
Speaker 3: So I left.

1707
01:41:29,680 --> 01:41:32,639
Speaker 2: But Stanley, at the time, my wife was managing chick

1708
01:41:32,680 --> 01:41:36,360
Speaker 2: Corea and she fired him and he disconnected from me,

1709
01:41:36,720 --> 01:41:38,880
Speaker 2: and I never saw him again to the day he died.

1710
01:41:38,960 --> 01:41:41,280
Speaker 2: But yet he had been the godfather of my kids

1711
01:41:41,920 --> 01:41:45,160
Speaker 2: and who were best friends, and we played shows together,

1712
01:41:45,240 --> 01:41:47,799
Speaker 2: him on synthesized me on piano and this kind of stuff,

1713
01:41:48,439 --> 01:41:53,519
Speaker 2: and we went to Israel together in Japan. But that's

1714
01:41:54,760 --> 01:42:01,000
Speaker 2: what occult mentality can do to people. And I guess

1715
01:42:01,040 --> 01:42:06,400
Speaker 2: I had a vulnerability and I had the ability to

1716
01:42:06,520 --> 01:42:10,760
Speaker 2: find what's right in things, but there were things that

1717
01:42:11,000 --> 01:42:13,960
Speaker 2: just didn't feel right. So I had to leave, and

1718
01:42:14,080 --> 01:42:16,479
Speaker 2: I left. And so when I left, I had no

1719
01:42:16,600 --> 01:42:19,600
Speaker 2: friends because everyone in the Church of Scientology canceled by me,

1720
01:42:19,720 --> 01:42:23,439
Speaker 2: and I was like a heretic. And then everyone wasn't

1721
01:42:23,479 --> 01:42:26,280
Speaker 2: a scientologist still thought I was in scientology. So I

1722
01:42:26,360 --> 01:42:29,280
Speaker 2: had a lonely, lonely ten years. But that's when I

1723
01:42:29,400 --> 01:42:31,720
Speaker 2: found a lot of my own classical music. I had

1724
01:42:31,760 --> 01:42:35,160
Speaker 2: a movement of music that I put together in the nineties.

1725
01:42:35,280 --> 01:42:36,040
Speaker 3: And I still do it.

1726
01:42:36,080 --> 01:42:39,160
Speaker 2: It's called now music, and I used the concept of

1727
01:42:39,280 --> 01:42:41,280
Speaker 2: improv that we do in jazz, but I did it

1728
01:42:41,479 --> 01:42:43,720
Speaker 2: in classical, so I could sit at the piano and

1729
01:42:43,760 --> 01:42:48,520
Speaker 2: improvise a sonata and it sounds written. But I developed

1730
01:42:48,560 --> 01:42:51,960
Speaker 2: it over thousands of pieces. I actually have over five

1731
01:42:52,040 --> 01:42:54,880
Speaker 2: thousand pieces of music i'd written. Had I written that

1732
01:42:54,920 --> 01:42:57,240
Speaker 2: out by hand, it would take three hundred years, but

1733
01:42:57,360 --> 01:42:59,439
Speaker 2: it would just come. I would sit there and all

1734
01:42:59,479 --> 01:43:15,720
Speaker 2: of a sudden, I mean, I could do this ten

1735
01:43:15,840 --> 01:43:19,120
Speaker 2: thousand years and not stuff moments. There's a bathroom nearby

1736
01:43:19,240 --> 01:43:22,400
Speaker 2: and some food, so that's still. I developed a lot

1737
01:43:22,439 --> 01:43:24,479
Speaker 2: of music that way, and I have a copyist who

1738
01:43:24,600 --> 01:43:27,479
Speaker 2: not tates it all. I don't play them. I do

1739
01:43:27,640 --> 01:43:31,120
Speaker 2: them once and give them to classical piatus who can't improvise.

1740
01:43:31,600 --> 01:43:35,240
Speaker 2: So just like there was Baroque music, Renaissance music, classical

1741
01:43:35,439 --> 01:43:38,880
Speaker 2: romantic minimalists, this is called now music. But I've been

1742
01:43:38,920 --> 01:43:41,240
Speaker 2: doing it for thirty years and nobody knows about it,

1743
01:43:41,320 --> 01:43:44,679
Speaker 2: because they'll take another one hundred and fifty years before

1744
01:43:44,800 --> 01:43:47,439
Speaker 2: my music was discovered. Because people are happy that I

1745
01:43:47,479 --> 01:43:49,559
Speaker 2: did a lot understanding God bless them, you know, I'm

1746
01:43:49,600 --> 01:43:52,400
Speaker 2: not gonna reject that and say it's below makers. I

1747
01:43:52,520 --> 01:43:57,040
Speaker 2: write symphonies and this bullshit. You know, I love people,

1748
01:43:57,160 --> 01:44:02,400
Speaker 2: I love music, and I love creating. With people, magic happens.

1749
01:44:02,840 --> 01:44:05,960
Speaker 2: It's that old saying when tool more gathered in my

1750
01:44:06,120 --> 01:44:10,120
Speaker 2: name and something magic happens. When you're by yourself, it's fine,

1751
01:44:10,200 --> 01:44:13,479
Speaker 2: you get with somebody. It's something with Brandy Carlin last

1752
01:44:13,560 --> 01:44:17,599
Speaker 2: month song and I played the simplest piano possibly play,

1753
01:44:17,840 --> 01:44:21,040
Speaker 2: and I loved it, you know. So you know, I

1754
01:44:21,120 --> 01:44:25,040
Speaker 2: get the strangest calls. Just when everything is falling apart,

1755
01:44:25,280 --> 01:44:29,600
Speaker 2: I get a call, okay, just to go back to scientology.

1756
01:44:29,800 --> 01:44:35,479
Speaker 2: Was there anything positive about that experience. I liked some

1757
01:44:35,640 --> 01:44:39,160
Speaker 2: of the communication skills where you learn to listen, where

1758
01:44:39,160 --> 01:44:41,840
Speaker 2: you learn to ask the right questions. They had a

1759
01:44:41,920 --> 01:44:45,200
Speaker 2: drug program, not as good as AA, but I helped

1760
01:44:45,240 --> 01:44:47,519
Speaker 2: a few people get off drugs who were heroin addicts

1761
01:44:47,600 --> 01:44:52,000
Speaker 2: that worked. There was some processing where you could remove

1762
01:44:52,120 --> 01:44:56,000
Speaker 2: some traumatic incidents. But for the most part, I'm not

1763
01:44:56,120 --> 01:45:00,600
Speaker 2: a person that works well within structure or hierarchy, and

1764
01:45:00,840 --> 01:45:03,720
Speaker 2: I'm not just kind of a free spirit. So I

1765
01:45:03,840 --> 01:45:06,920
Speaker 2: knew even in nineteen seventy the day would come, I'd

1766
01:45:07,000 --> 01:45:10,320
Speaker 2: have to leave. But it took me a little longer

1767
01:45:10,360 --> 01:45:13,280
Speaker 2: than it should have. But Chick stayed to the day died,

1768
01:45:13,680 --> 01:45:19,080
Speaker 2: died a travolter and Tom Cruise, So there's something that's there,

1769
01:45:19,439 --> 01:45:23,519
Speaker 2: but it didn't I needed my freedom. I was finding

1770
01:45:23,640 --> 01:45:26,200
Speaker 2: I was giving my power away to l Ron Hudbrid

1771
01:45:26,240 --> 01:45:27,439
Speaker 2: instead of to myself.

1772
01:45:28,160 --> 01:45:32,560
Speaker 3: That's not good. And when you went to leave, to

1773
01:45:32,720 --> 01:45:38,200
Speaker 3: what degree was that process difficult in terms of them

1774
01:45:38,320 --> 01:45:43,639
Speaker 3: forget the emotional decision to leave. You know, from the outside,

1775
01:45:43,680 --> 01:45:45,320
Speaker 3: they don't seem to like people leaving.

1776
01:45:46,400 --> 01:45:49,479
Speaker 2: Oh, forget about it, you know. And because I was

1777
01:45:49,520 --> 01:45:54,120
Speaker 2: a celebrity and I had played many scientology organizations around

1778
01:45:54,160 --> 01:45:57,000
Speaker 2: the world, this was a shock. So they for ten years,

1779
01:45:57,040 --> 01:45:59,200
Speaker 2: I got a call every week trying to get me

1780
01:45:59,360 --> 01:46:01,639
Speaker 2: back in and I never did.

1781
01:46:03,880 --> 01:46:06,720
Speaker 3: Okay, But other than the calls, did they haunt you

1782
01:46:06,880 --> 01:46:09,639
Speaker 3: me some stories they say they come to the house, etc.

1783
01:46:10,080 --> 01:46:11,440
Speaker 3: Did you have those experiences?

1784
01:46:11,520 --> 01:46:14,880
Speaker 2: I had one or two of those. They didn't want

1785
01:46:14,920 --> 01:46:18,320
Speaker 2: to mess with me because I have a big mouth

1786
01:46:18,400 --> 01:46:21,439
Speaker 2: and I go to the press. But so and also

1787
01:46:22,600 --> 01:46:25,479
Speaker 2: the people who were in certain positions who would be

1788
01:46:25,640 --> 01:46:29,040
Speaker 2: nasty to others like you would describe me. They liked me,

1789
01:46:29,240 --> 01:46:33,080
Speaker 2: and they they just thought I was ignorant and misinformed,

1790
01:46:33,200 --> 01:46:35,880
Speaker 2: or somebody was in my ear. They didn't know that

1791
01:46:36,439 --> 01:46:39,080
Speaker 2: I smelled bullshit. You know, I have a bullshit to

1792
01:46:39,160 --> 01:46:43,080
Speaker 2: Tepta somewhere in my brain. Did you say your wife

1793
01:46:43,320 --> 01:46:46,960
Speaker 2: was managing Chick COREA, Yeah, and she really put she

1794
01:46:47,040 --> 01:46:50,559
Speaker 2: put return to forever back when they couldn't whoa wait, wait.

1795
01:46:50,439 --> 01:46:54,280
Speaker 3: Wait you marry this girl? She's from the bungalow colony?

1796
01:46:54,600 --> 01:46:56,000
Speaker 3: How did she become a manager?

1797
01:46:57,400 --> 01:46:59,760
Speaker 2: Chick came up to me in nineteen seventy nineties, said,

1798
01:46:59,800 --> 01:47:04,400
Speaker 2: my something about Susan that she knows to know the business,

1799
01:47:04,920 --> 01:47:07,560
Speaker 2: but I think she could be a good manager for me.

1800
01:47:08,120 --> 01:47:10,760
Speaker 3: Can you will you allow that? And I said yeah?

1801
01:47:11,760 --> 01:47:14,920
Speaker 3: And she was great, but she knew nothing. But she's bright,

1802
01:47:15,040 --> 01:47:18,400
Speaker 3: she's smart, she's lovely, she's warm, and she knows how

1803
01:47:18,439 --> 01:47:20,560
Speaker 3: to talk to people. But she told me just the

1804
01:47:20,640 --> 01:47:23,639
Speaker 3: other day, she go all these meetings with my Worston

1805
01:47:23,720 --> 01:47:27,120
Speaker 3: and all these cool people and and she just wouldn't

1806
01:47:27,120 --> 01:47:29,680
Speaker 3: say a word. So they thought she was like this

1807
01:47:30,560 --> 01:47:34,120
Speaker 3: silent genius. But she was just trying to learn the business.

1808
01:47:34,439 --> 01:47:37,280
Speaker 3: She took a few classes at UCLA, and she did

1809
01:47:37,320 --> 01:47:39,720
Speaker 3: great things for your because returned to forever. They were

1810
01:47:39,800 --> 01:47:42,360
Speaker 3: fighting at that time, and they were offered like a

1811
01:47:42,439 --> 01:47:44,960
Speaker 3: million dollars a guide to go on this tour for

1812
01:47:45,000 --> 01:47:47,519
Speaker 3: a few months. She got them together, so she used

1813
01:47:47,600 --> 01:47:52,840
Speaker 3: some of her skills and all was good until I

1814
01:47:52,960 --> 01:47:56,080
Speaker 3: left the church. Chick wanted her to divorce me. Go

1815
01:47:56,280 --> 01:48:00,200
Speaker 3: think about that. Of course she was loyal. And just

1816
01:48:00,280 --> 01:48:02,760
Speaker 3: to be clear, you joined the church. Did she join

1817
01:48:02,920 --> 01:48:03,400
Speaker 3: her church?

1818
01:48:04,040 --> 01:48:06,280
Speaker 2: She didn't want to, but she thought she would lose

1819
01:48:06,320 --> 01:48:08,200
Speaker 2: her marriage if she didn't join with me.

1820
01:48:08,560 --> 01:48:12,880
Speaker 3: She never liked it. So how long did she manage Chick?

1821
01:48:14,320 --> 01:48:18,000
Speaker 3: For maybe three years? And she had any other music

1822
01:48:18,120 --> 01:48:19,040
Speaker 3: business adventures.

1823
01:48:19,680 --> 01:48:23,640
Speaker 2: She did Billy Chiles, who was a great pianist and composer,

1824
01:48:24,120 --> 01:48:26,920
Speaker 2: and then she did film composers for a few years.

1825
01:48:27,200 --> 01:48:29,799
Speaker 2: And for the most part, she prefers being a grandma,

1826
01:48:30,280 --> 01:48:33,240
Speaker 2: and she keeps an eye on my ship. But she

1827
01:48:33,400 --> 01:48:35,679
Speaker 2: doesn't want to. She hates the business, but she will

1828
01:48:35,720 --> 01:48:38,560
Speaker 2: give me advice when I do some stupid shit, you

1829
01:48:38,640 --> 01:48:41,160
Speaker 2: know which, Yeah, I'll take that gig and I'll be

1830
01:48:41,240 --> 01:48:44,320
Speaker 2: away three months and make forty dollars. Well think about that,

1831
01:48:44,520 --> 01:48:47,560
Speaker 2: But about your two year old grandkids. You know that

1832
01:48:47,720 --> 01:48:50,760
Speaker 2: kind of shit, you know, normal women thing.

1833
01:48:51,439 --> 01:48:54,080
Speaker 3: Okay, when we were talking about setting this up, you

1834
01:48:54,200 --> 01:48:58,320
Speaker 3: were in Europe. How much do you work now outside

1835
01:48:58,360 --> 01:49:02,960
Speaker 3: the home and you know, paid gigs? How much am

1836
01:49:02,960 --> 01:49:05,000
Speaker 3: I out of the country versus no, no, no, How

1837
01:49:05,120 --> 01:49:06,320
Speaker 3: much are you playing gigs?

1838
01:49:07,800 --> 01:49:12,840
Speaker 2: Maybe fifty a year? Fifty shows solo piano?

1839
01:49:13,840 --> 01:49:16,599
Speaker 3: Yeah, what kind of shows? And who gets you these gigs?

1840
01:49:18,920 --> 01:49:22,760
Speaker 2: Solo piano gigs are pretty easy promoters because there's no

1841
01:49:22,880 --> 01:49:25,400
Speaker 2: fuss nor must and I show up and I love

1842
01:49:25,479 --> 01:49:28,000
Speaker 2: playing solo piano. I've done it in Israel. It tour

1843
01:49:28,120 --> 01:49:32,240
Speaker 2: through Israel in different places. Sometimes my jazz trio. That's easy.

1844
01:49:32,400 --> 01:49:36,240
Speaker 2: Sometimes a stinger and pianist. I work with Jane Oliver.

1845
01:49:36,800 --> 01:49:39,519
Speaker 2: What a long time ago. She was a neighbor in Brooklyn.

1846
01:49:39,560 --> 01:49:42,000
Speaker 2: Her name was Janie Cohne. She's the one who signing

1847
01:49:42,040 --> 01:49:46,000
Speaker 2: something enchanted evening. Barber streis In and her were both

1848
01:49:46,080 --> 01:49:49,040
Speaker 2: on Colombia and she told Colombia either she goes or

1849
01:49:49,120 --> 01:49:51,880
Speaker 2: I go. So that fucked her career up. They let

1850
01:49:52,000 --> 01:49:56,880
Speaker 2: go of Jane, who work with her studio work would

1851
01:49:56,880 --> 01:50:00,400
Speaker 2: pop in again. The students were consistent. Just I was

1852
01:50:00,400 --> 01:50:03,559
Speaker 2: playing with symphony orchestra. I actually did an orchestra arrangement

1853
01:50:03,640 --> 01:50:06,719
Speaker 2: of Aladdin saying which I wanted to bring something fresh,

1854
01:50:07,160 --> 01:50:09,280
Speaker 2: and I had a sixty piece of orchestra and I

1855
01:50:09,439 --> 01:50:12,080
Speaker 2: played and there was some Bowie alumni. Then I went

1856
01:50:12,120 --> 01:50:14,680
Speaker 2: to London played with another rock band, and I went

1857
01:50:14,720 --> 01:50:16,880
Speaker 2: to New York work with Judith Hill, who used to

1858
01:50:16,960 --> 01:50:20,479
Speaker 2: work with Prince and Michael Jackson, very good singer, and

1859
01:50:20,800 --> 01:50:26,519
Speaker 2: we would someone producer was doing reimaginations of Pink Floyd

1860
01:50:27,479 --> 01:50:32,320
Speaker 2: and interesting projects. I get these things out of nowhere.

1861
01:50:32,840 --> 01:50:36,320
Speaker 2: I'll come home and the phone rings or an email.

1862
01:50:44,240 --> 01:50:47,439
Speaker 3: Okay, those are the projects. If someone is booking you

1863
01:50:48,320 --> 01:50:51,040
Speaker 3: or your jazz trio. Do you have an agent who's

1864
01:50:51,040 --> 01:50:52,280
Speaker 3: getting these gigs.

1865
01:50:52,960 --> 01:50:55,760
Speaker 2: I used to back in the day. No, Now they

1866
01:50:55,880 --> 01:50:58,760
Speaker 2: just call on I deal with it. Bowie told me

1867
01:50:58,840 --> 01:51:01,679
Speaker 2: something funny, he said, London told me this. He said,

1868
01:51:02,320 --> 01:51:04,920
Speaker 2: don't have a manager, but have the best pr god,

1869
01:51:05,000 --> 01:51:07,679
Speaker 2: best lawyer, best account and blah blah blah. I don't

1870
01:51:07,720 --> 01:51:10,160
Speaker 2: know that that's totally true, because he had managers. And

1871
01:51:10,280 --> 01:51:11,960
Speaker 2: you know as well as I know that the accent

1872
01:51:12,120 --> 01:51:12,960
Speaker 2: made it needed great.

1873
01:51:13,280 --> 01:51:14,560
Speaker 3: So I never made it.

1874
01:51:14,680 --> 01:51:18,960
Speaker 2: I'm just underground. You know, I'm the secret source when

1875
01:51:19,000 --> 01:51:21,719
Speaker 2: someone needs some help, you know, whether it's Saint Vincent

1876
01:51:21,840 --> 01:51:24,879
Speaker 2: on her album. I played on some of these people's

1877
01:51:24,960 --> 01:51:27,679
Speaker 2: first albums and then they launched, and well, fuck Mike,

1878
01:51:27,800 --> 01:51:29,160
Speaker 2: you know he got.

1879
01:51:29,080 --> 01:51:35,639
Speaker 3: It's going okay. Someone calls said, Mike, yeah, I want

1880
01:51:35,720 --> 01:51:40,360
Speaker 3: you to do something, but you're doing something else. You're committed.

1881
01:51:41,240 --> 01:51:44,120
Speaker 3: Who do you tell him to call? They can't get you.

1882
01:51:44,920 --> 01:51:50,360
Speaker 2: Every time I've done that, it's backfire, really terribly. Not

1883
01:51:50,520 --> 01:51:54,160
Speaker 2: because who I sent wasn't proficient, But that's the difference.

1884
01:51:55,360 --> 01:51:57,960
Speaker 2: And you know better than me, or as well as

1885
01:51:58,040 --> 01:52:03,479
Speaker 2: I do, that are and technical expertise in virtuosity two

1886
01:52:03,560 --> 01:52:06,839
Speaker 2: different things. I'm blessed to have both because I practiced

1887
01:52:06,840 --> 01:52:11,080
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty thousand hours and still practicing. And

1888
01:52:11,400 --> 01:52:15,080
Speaker 2: any time in this compensation that I could move my fingers,

1889
01:52:15,320 --> 01:52:17,800
Speaker 2: I was happy. You know, that's my happy place.

1890
01:52:18,320 --> 01:52:23,559
Speaker 3: So you know, So why exactly did these circumstances backfire?

1891
01:52:26,880 --> 01:52:30,120
Speaker 3: Which ones? Do you mean? Will you recommend somebody when

1892
01:52:30,160 --> 01:52:31,400
Speaker 3: you're unavailable? Ah?

1893
01:52:31,520 --> 01:52:34,400
Speaker 2: I did it. I did it with a great clarinetis

1894
01:52:34,520 --> 01:52:37,080
Speaker 2: Eddie Daniels. And I wrote a piece of music and

1895
01:52:37,240 --> 01:52:39,559
Speaker 2: I sent this pianist. I got a call to work

1896
01:52:39,640 --> 01:52:42,640
Speaker 2: with the Smashing Pumpkins ninety miles down the road, and

1897
01:52:42,720 --> 01:52:46,600
Speaker 2: this is some esoteric classical piece I wrote for the

1898
01:52:46,720 --> 01:52:49,320
Speaker 2: three best clarinet plays in the world, one with the net,

1899
01:52:49,400 --> 01:52:52,640
Speaker 2: one with the Chicago Symphony, and one with la and

1900
01:52:52,880 --> 01:52:55,200
Speaker 2: they asked me to write a piece for three clarinets

1901
01:52:55,240 --> 01:52:58,920
Speaker 2: and pianum. So I gave the music to this. The

1902
01:52:58,960 --> 01:53:03,240
Speaker 2: pianists retorted he was great, but he didn't have my feel,

1903
01:53:03,520 --> 01:53:07,280
Speaker 2: and they it ruined him because they made fun of him,

1904
01:53:07,520 --> 01:53:09,320
Speaker 2: and it ruined me my reputation.

1905
01:53:09,520 --> 01:53:11,720
Speaker 3: They never called me again, So I don't do that.

1906
01:53:12,600 --> 01:53:16,640
Speaker 2: If someone wants something that I know somebody could do,

1907
01:53:16,960 --> 01:53:20,160
Speaker 2: like you know, a piano teacher. But even there people

1908
01:53:20,320 --> 01:53:23,840
Speaker 2: end up disappointed because my thing is thought very specific,

1909
01:53:24,160 --> 01:53:27,960
Speaker 2: and if somebody does play like me, and there are

1910
01:53:28,040 --> 01:53:32,080
Speaker 2: many imitators, it doesn't have the same you know vibe,

1911
01:53:32,200 --> 01:53:34,720
Speaker 2: you know, because it's this karaoke.

1912
01:53:34,960 --> 01:53:39,080
Speaker 3: Okay, if we use a different instrument. We talk about guitarists.

1913
01:53:39,080 --> 01:53:42,400
Speaker 3: People debate the best guitarists I have, but I think

1914
01:53:42,439 --> 01:53:45,640
Speaker 3: it's Jeff Beck that's not relevant. But there's Jeff Beg,

1915
01:53:45,840 --> 01:53:49,120
Speaker 3: Jimmy Hendrakes, Eric Clapped and Jimmy Peach. Then there are

1916
01:53:49,200 --> 01:53:52,040
Speaker 3: people who were stylists who would never go on record

1917
01:53:52,080 --> 01:53:56,439
Speaker 3: that they're the best guitarist, Keith Richards, Pete Towns In etc.

1918
01:53:57,360 --> 01:53:58,680
Speaker 3: Where do you put yourself?

1919
01:53:59,600 --> 01:54:02,719
Speaker 2: I'm look I played with Jeff Beck with Stanley Clark

1920
01:54:02,760 --> 01:54:05,400
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine, so I was at his house

1921
01:54:06,000 --> 01:54:09,880
Speaker 2: in Tunbridge Wells and if he wasn't fixing his cars,

1922
01:54:10,160 --> 01:54:13,960
Speaker 2: the guitar was always in his hand. So we shared

1923
01:54:14,320 --> 01:54:17,200
Speaker 2: that love and Simon Phillips was the drummer and we

1924
01:54:17,280 --> 01:54:20,080
Speaker 2: had like three or four gigs. You know, that's the

1925
01:54:20,160 --> 01:54:22,519
Speaker 2: funny world, the jazz world. And he wanted to be

1926
01:54:22,680 --> 01:54:25,719
Speaker 2: with jazz players. He wasn't at my level jazz wise,

1927
01:54:25,920 --> 01:54:28,800
Speaker 2: but he was Jeff Beck, and he imagined. He sat

1928
01:54:28,880 --> 01:54:31,320
Speaker 2: in with us on one of the last Bowie shows

1929
01:54:31,400 --> 01:54:35,320
Speaker 2: with the Spiders, and him and Mick Ronson they played together.

1930
01:54:35,680 --> 01:54:37,160
Speaker 3: It was unbelievable.

1931
01:54:37,360 --> 01:54:42,480
Speaker 2: So I'm with you on Jeff. And you know, Paco

1932
01:54:42,640 --> 01:54:45,200
Speaker 2: di la Cheer is one of my favorites. He died

1933
01:54:45,520 --> 01:54:50,000
Speaker 2: at sixty ten years ago. Amazing flamenco player, but he

1934
01:54:50,440 --> 01:54:54,760
Speaker 2: moved in some jazz circles and with John McLoughlin, Al

1935
01:54:54,840 --> 01:55:00,160
Speaker 2: Demiola and different people. But how about piano players you

1936
01:55:00,360 --> 01:55:01,320
Speaker 2: in the hierarchy?

1937
01:55:02,080 --> 01:55:02,880
Speaker 3: I have no idea.

1938
01:55:03,120 --> 01:55:06,440
Speaker 2: I can tell you my favorites. I love Nicky Hopkins,

1939
01:55:06,520 --> 01:55:09,680
Speaker 2: who actually gave some Kano lessons too, because he wanted

1940
01:55:09,920 --> 01:55:13,000
Speaker 2: to pick my brain about more advanced harmony.

1941
01:55:13,320 --> 01:55:16,680
Speaker 3: But I loved his Well, well, you gave piano lessons

1942
01:55:16,720 --> 01:55:21,920
Speaker 3: to Nicky Hopkins. I'll give you one if you want. Hey, okay,

1943
01:55:22,440 --> 01:55:30,400
Speaker 3: how did you know Nicky Hopkins? The Blue and you

1944
01:55:30,440 --> 01:55:33,200
Speaker 3: know he died at a young age. What can you

1945
01:55:33,280 --> 01:55:34,160
Speaker 3: tell us about him?

1946
01:55:34,560 --> 01:55:39,360
Speaker 2: Sweetheart? Nice documentary on him. Now, yeah, I've seen I

1947
01:55:39,440 --> 01:55:43,200
Speaker 2: would have preferred his playing, but that's that bullshit world,

1948
01:55:43,320 --> 01:55:46,960
Speaker 2: you know, with the rights. But look at his credits.

1949
01:55:46,960 --> 01:55:51,120
Speaker 2: They're ridiculous. So Angie and this he I asked him

1950
01:55:51,160 --> 01:55:53,280
Speaker 2: in the lesson that I was being paid for to

1951
01:55:53,360 --> 01:55:55,720
Speaker 2: teach him jazz and this and that. How do you

1952
01:55:55,800 --> 01:55:56,680
Speaker 2: put those songs?

1953
01:55:56,760 --> 01:55:57,839
Speaker 3: Together? So simple?

1954
01:55:58,880 --> 01:56:01,800
Speaker 2: I have a very funny story with Nicky Hopkins. I

1955
01:56:01,920 --> 01:56:06,120
Speaker 2: got called by a famous producer and I'll remember his

1956
01:56:06,240 --> 01:56:09,480
Speaker 2: name maybe, but anyway, I'm in the studio he's producing

1957
01:56:09,640 --> 01:56:12,160
Speaker 2: this pop singer and he calls me he said, well,

1958
01:56:12,160 --> 01:56:14,360
Speaker 2: I want you to play like that Bowie stuff on

1959
01:56:14,520 --> 01:56:16,720
Speaker 2: these songs, and that's a pop song and I'm trying

1960
01:56:16,760 --> 01:56:19,040
Speaker 2: to do that and it's wrong and it's wrong. So

1961
01:56:19,200 --> 01:56:23,680
Speaker 2: he micro manages me through every bar and the piece

1962
01:56:23,840 --> 01:56:24,880
Speaker 2: is done in two hours.

1963
01:56:25,040 --> 01:56:25,640
Speaker 3: I hated it.

1964
01:56:26,960 --> 01:56:29,240
Speaker 2: I love where I played, but I hated the process.

1965
01:56:29,960 --> 01:56:32,560
Speaker 2: And I said, you know, that sounds like a friend

1966
01:56:32,560 --> 01:56:35,200
Speaker 2: of mine. That sounds like Nicki Hopkins, And he said, oh,

1967
01:56:35,720 --> 01:56:41,200
Speaker 2: that's who I meant to hire. Oh god, because I'm

1968
01:56:41,280 --> 01:56:43,960
Speaker 2: with Bowie, he's with the rolling song, He's we beatles.

1969
01:56:44,000 --> 01:56:48,440
Speaker 2: I'm not el So you know, I don't know how

1970
01:56:48,480 --> 01:56:51,400
Speaker 2: that works. But it was hilarious and pathetic, you know.

1971
01:56:51,960 --> 01:56:56,400
Speaker 2: But Nicki was special Leon, Oh my god, Leon Russell,

1972
01:56:57,800 --> 01:57:06,680
Speaker 2: and I watched them every night. Oh yeah, I mean

1973
01:57:07,720 --> 01:57:09,840
Speaker 2: when I got cool to play in my first rock band,

1974
01:57:10,040 --> 01:57:12,840
Speaker 2: I listened to him and Doctor John for one full

1975
01:57:12,920 --> 01:57:15,120
Speaker 2: day straight and I was straight for the rest of

1976
01:57:15,320 --> 01:57:19,120
Speaker 2: my life. So those guys. I love Billy Joel, I

1977
01:57:19,200 --> 01:57:23,760
Speaker 2: love Elton. None of them are pianist the way I am,

1978
01:57:24,160 --> 01:57:26,760
Speaker 2: but they don't have to be. I love guys. I

1979
01:57:26,920 --> 01:57:29,640
Speaker 2: like the way Bowie plays piano, and Billy Corgan and Trent.

1980
01:57:30,440 --> 01:57:32,640
Speaker 2: Some of the things they play are much deeper than

1981
01:57:32,720 --> 01:57:35,560
Speaker 2: what I play. But I have finance, I have touch,

1982
01:57:35,880 --> 01:57:38,880
Speaker 2: I have some people just like some of the fancy shit.

1983
01:57:38,960 --> 01:57:41,800
Speaker 2: But these days, as I said, I'm playing simpler than ever.

1984
01:57:43,000 --> 01:57:46,520
Speaker 3: Okay, So in the runway you have left, which could

1985
01:57:46,560 --> 01:57:51,440
Speaker 3: be one minute or twenty years, any specific goals or

1986
01:57:51,640 --> 01:57:54,880
Speaker 3: you just feeling you know it's going like it's going

1987
01:57:54,960 --> 01:57:57,480
Speaker 3: away for the phone to ring. I'll practice, I'll write

1988
01:57:57,520 --> 01:58:00,480
Speaker 3: some jazz stuff. You know.

1989
01:58:01,480 --> 01:58:06,000
Speaker 2: This might sound insane, but I considered his first seventy

1990
01:58:06,080 --> 01:58:10,320
Speaker 2: years my apprenticeship. So I'm just beginning my career because

1991
01:58:10,360 --> 01:58:12,640
Speaker 2: all I did is support all these other motherfucker's my

1992
01:58:12,720 --> 01:58:13,240
Speaker 2: whole life.

1993
01:58:13,960 --> 01:58:15,160
Speaker 3: It's my turn, and.

1994
01:58:15,280 --> 01:58:18,040
Speaker 2: Funny things are happening now, you know. I mean to

1995
01:58:18,160 --> 01:58:20,560
Speaker 2: get called to Dublin to play with a symphony orchestra

1996
01:58:20,640 --> 01:58:22,400
Speaker 2: and make good money, and then a rock band, and

1997
01:58:22,880 --> 01:58:26,000
Speaker 2: I'm getting paid thousands and thousands because they think I'm

1998
01:58:26,040 --> 01:58:27,680
Speaker 2: gonna die, and they might be right.

1999
01:58:30,560 --> 01:58:31,240
Speaker 3: I never forget.

2000
01:58:31,280 --> 01:58:33,320
Speaker 2: I was playing the Blue Notes with Stanley Clark in

2001
01:58:33,360 --> 01:58:36,880
Speaker 2: the nineties and he said, Mike, just wait till our

2002
01:58:37,080 --> 01:58:40,280
Speaker 2: seventies would go into legacy. Mode said, what are you

2003
01:58:40,360 --> 01:58:43,040
Speaker 2: talking about? He said, they'll bust your chops now, but

2004
01:58:43,080 --> 01:58:45,120
Speaker 2: as soon as they know you're gonna die, they treat

2005
01:58:45,160 --> 01:58:48,040
Speaker 2: you much differently. You know, poor guy, you have a cane,

2006
01:58:48,080 --> 01:58:50,200
Speaker 2: you're walking in a wheelchair. You'ren't gonna get a hard

2007
01:58:50,200 --> 01:58:52,400
Speaker 2: at time because look, let's face that, all all friends

2008
01:58:52,480 --> 01:58:56,560
Speaker 2: they're going. My dad's biggest loss was every day call

2009
01:58:56,680 --> 01:58:59,839
Speaker 2: me and said another friend died. That's what he suffered

2010
01:58:59,840 --> 01:59:02,120
Speaker 2: with in his last few years of his life. And

2011
01:59:02,240 --> 01:59:05,400
Speaker 2: I'm seeing that now, aside from all musicians I lost

2012
01:59:05,440 --> 01:59:10,200
Speaker 2: who committed suicidal overdose, which are hundreds just the old

2013
01:59:10,320 --> 01:59:13,880
Speaker 2: age now. And thank god, I'm in good shape.

2014
01:59:13,920 --> 01:59:15,360
Speaker 3: But who knows.

2015
01:59:15,600 --> 01:59:18,840
Speaker 2: You know, nobody knows how old was your father when

2016
01:59:18,880 --> 01:59:23,200
Speaker 2: he died eighty nine. But he didn't have to die.

2017
01:59:23,320 --> 01:59:25,520
Speaker 2: He had an ulcer and they could have fixed it.

2018
01:59:25,640 --> 01:59:28,400
Speaker 2: He said, No, he knew I was struggling. He wanted

2019
01:59:28,440 --> 01:59:32,280
Speaker 2: me to have whatever money he had left, so he died.

2020
01:59:32,320 --> 01:59:33,920
Speaker 2: He bled to death in the middle of the night

2021
01:59:33,960 --> 01:59:36,240
Speaker 2: in the hospital. He wouldn't sign the paper. He would

2022
01:59:36,280 --> 01:59:38,200
Speaker 2: have been he could, he would have lift to one hundred.

2023
01:59:38,240 --> 01:59:41,600
Speaker 2: He had great genes. Well, hopefully you have those genes too.

2024
01:59:42,920 --> 01:59:43,800
Speaker 3: Somebody told me.

2025
01:59:44,040 --> 01:59:46,600
Speaker 2: I don't know, but somebody said to me, as long

2026
01:59:46,680 --> 01:59:49,160
Speaker 2: as you have a purpose in doing what you love

2027
01:59:49,560 --> 01:59:53,160
Speaker 2: to be okay, when that's over, you'll probably split. And

2028
01:59:53,480 --> 01:59:57,040
Speaker 2: I'm accepting that. I mean, I know the limitations of

2029
01:59:57,120 --> 01:59:59,880
Speaker 2: a body, but I also know I feel good when

2030
02:00:00,000 --> 02:00:02,240
Speaker 2: I'm playing, and I don't feel so good when i'm not.

2031
02:00:03,120 --> 02:00:06,920
Speaker 3: Okay, you're not on the road, you're at home. You

2032
02:00:07,120 --> 02:00:09,120
Speaker 3: play every day, and how long you play for.

2033
02:00:11,040 --> 02:00:13,560
Speaker 2: In the old days it was eight hours, four hours,

2034
02:00:13,880 --> 02:00:18,120
Speaker 2: two hours. Now, I just compose, improvise, arrange, and I

2035
02:00:18,280 --> 02:00:21,680
Speaker 2: do sessions right where I am for hundreds of artists

2036
02:00:21,840 --> 02:00:24,440
Speaker 2: known and unknown, because people can't afford to find me

2037
02:00:24,520 --> 02:00:26,880
Speaker 2: here and there. Some do, but they send me a

2038
02:00:27,000 --> 02:00:29,040
Speaker 2: track and I just put piano on it, and they'll

2039
02:00:29,160 --> 02:00:30,840
Speaker 2: send me a couple of grand and it takes me

2040
02:00:30,920 --> 02:00:36,400
Speaker 2: an hour. So it's good. I'm fine. I feel bad

2041
02:00:36,480 --> 02:00:38,720
Speaker 2: for other people, I don't feel bad for me. I'm

2042
02:00:39,440 --> 02:00:42,760
Speaker 2: one of the lucky ones that snuck through. And I

2043
02:00:42,880 --> 02:00:43,800
Speaker 2: don't know how.

2044
02:00:44,040 --> 02:00:46,320
Speaker 3: I never did a day game other than the piano.

2045
02:00:46,600 --> 02:00:50,400
Speaker 3: I wouldn't know how to do anything. Well. We're lucky

2046
02:00:50,520 --> 02:00:52,800
Speaker 3: to have heard your story, Mike, I want to thank

2047
02:00:52,840 --> 02:00:55,480
Speaker 3: you so much for taking this time with my audience.

2048
02:00:56,640 --> 02:00:59,160
Speaker 3: I love your audience, I love your letter, I love

2049
02:00:59,240 --> 02:01:01,800
Speaker 3: this interview. Been waiting for it for five years because

2050
02:01:01,840 --> 02:01:04,160
Speaker 3: I know you asked cool questions and it's been a

2051
02:01:04,200 --> 02:01:07,800
Speaker 3: pleasure being with you. You got me smiling.

2052
02:01:08,880 --> 02:01:11,880
Speaker 2: That's all that matters. If you want to watch something

2053
02:01:12,000 --> 02:01:15,280
Speaker 2: really stupid, some crazy director from London who used to

2054
02:01:15,320 --> 02:01:18,000
Speaker 2: make sci fi and movies travel following me around for

2055
02:01:18,000 --> 02:01:22,000
Speaker 2: a few years, and there's this documentary called Mike Carson

2056
02:01:22,040 --> 02:01:25,400
Speaker 2: and his eighty eight Friends, because there's eighty eight and

2057
02:01:25,520 --> 02:01:27,240
Speaker 2: he did a documentary and you can see it on

2058
02:01:27,320 --> 02:01:31,240
Speaker 2: Amazon and it's it's interesting. It's not a great documentary

2059
02:01:31,720 --> 02:01:34,480
Speaker 2: and it captures thirty percent of me, but another part

2060
02:01:34,560 --> 02:01:37,160
Speaker 2: that we didn't discuss, so that might be fun.

2061
02:01:37,240 --> 02:01:42,400
Speaker 3: Food for thought for next time. Until next time, This

2062
02:01:42,600 --> 02:01:43,800
Speaker 3: is Bob Left SAIDs