C a t i n a  D e L u n a

  Musician

                                                                           Hollywood, CA, February 2024

Catina DeLuna

  D a v e  L i e b m a n

  Musician

                                                                                                   At home, New York City, 22 March 2023

W. "Well it's lovely to see you again and thank you so much for welcoming me to your home to participate in this project I wonder if you could give me an insight please into what you felt during the restrictions of Covid when you couldn't play live and just what went through your mind and what did you do perhaps.  Any aspect you'd like to talk about."

D  "Well I'll be honest with you I took advantage of the time to rest.  I've been extremely busy you know I'm always busy.  Well I'm not going to say I was burned out but I felt the need to cool out.  So a lot of that time was spent watching some television and to a certain degree reading but it's funny because in the last few weeks I’ve had students who were involved in projects during that time and it was heartening actually you know they were the young folks and and they continued to put persevere as young ones do and so watching then and seeing retrospectively now because it's been long enough to have a past history this Covid 19 again it was really interesting to hear the projects.  There was so money available for clubs to stay open, there was some compensation going on to help, so it wasn't just like we're on our own you know.  But for me, we just moved here two years ago, so there was a lot on the plate that really I needed to listen to and everything and gather together my feelings about it but outside of the fear of your health going crazy it was like a sabbatical and of course the thing about money (? How. Can you survive when you don’t have an income ?) there was a lot of aspects that were involved and just well we couldn't do anything but hands up a lot of it was very positive .. except for the dying ..outside of that there was very positive atmosphere not during but during it everybody was like hangdog …. how are we ..you know
But in retrospect now it comes up to be a little more positive than it really was maybe I don't know we could conjecture about that all day you know.  So R and R rest and recreation was my mantra."

W  "Just to carry on with that theme did you feel as if taking that time for R and R.. Did you consider or compose new pieces or did you just enjoy the relief, release of ..

D  **Little of both, a little of both I did a certain amount of writing at the beginning,…… living in Manhattan ..we came from Pennsylvania f??fiveteen ..thirtyfive years ?? To living in Manhattan finding some paperwork it's going to be challenging but outside of that initial response at the beginning I was pretty much not on the same page.. what can I say.. I felt that I needed to rest and be nicer to myself because normally I wouldn't take a rest, I've never taken a rest you know but this( ??????) And of course in my own situation I've been doing this for 60 years young guys look at you and say what are you doing, you know, so there's some responsibility for how you handle the prison aspects you know that your caught and you can't go anywhere I mean you couldn't wipe the counter with a sponge I remember when you bought groceries it would take hours to put it on the table because you had to brush everything up etc etc.  They had a plague in 1919 somehow the world went on."

W. "So as you emerged from the restrictions and were able to perform live again is that something that you began to do or were you pursuing other things."

D  "Yeah .. I mean have a lot of people who I am in contact with, you know, musicians and gigs were like ..you made up for the lost time (????? ) now we could do it.  So there was a feeling of sort of jubilation of how we could really get into this not that it's over but it's abated and I'm ready to burn I'm ready to make my contacts, new contacts and old contacts and that slowly happened over the past two years for everybody.  Is New York back.. not quite.. but in some ways yes really it is the centre of jazz it has been since the 40s you know I mean.  So from when you go down from below 14th Street to Canal Street and count the clubs you have dozens.  I also had to make a living .. I mean that was the other thing you know you couldn't just go float around for six months you know.  First month or two okay injury time count your blessings and your hopes and your disappointments but you know by the fourth or six month you know you’ve got to get on the case because you can't live on air and everybody's got responsibility I mean (?there is some series small past Masters but they’re recorded) and I did that and it was good and it paid very well.  So actually I’ve been recording more than I ever did with overdubs and things like that ..that’s all since the pandemic."

W  "Have they been studio located recording sessions or remote Dave.?"

D  "I have a young lady five minutes from here who can do the overdubs stuff where I come in I have to play 28 bars or something like that. I can do that you know (laughs) and she's down the street .she’s on 89th Street we're on 77th Street so you know."

W. "So does she come to you Dave?"

D  "No .. no she has her equipment.  Its just a little room and she's even cutting back on it again because you know live you have to contend with different things but if you go into the studio it’s kind of we do no harm."

W.  And when you got back on stage literally, and I can understand a massive contrast between, I'm not sure to what extent you did any social media involvement or streaming did you get involved in that side at all Dave?

D  "Well my daughter is big on PR she is very.. Getting to be quiet well-known in PR jazz PR so I count on her of course and my wife (????)changes every day it seems. It's not that I find anything wrong with the social media is just that I don't have time for it.  If I was 25 years old I’d be right on it like I was when I was 25 etc so everything in its time you know,"

W  "And when you would got back performing live with other musicians what kind of reaction did you have to that any thoughts that you may have had before whether you were concerned are we going to get this together or what we feelings on actually being back there Dave."

D  "Well it was positive you know we were coming from ashes and everybody was equal ..a small community like Jazz community ..maybe 100 young people involved you know then established guys like me we were glad to have something to be positive about because the pandemic we were just talking about was quite cruel ..shall we say ..in its way it struck and when you started to see some clubs opening up guys playing more you say yeah man let's go let's go support the music and support these young musicians.  So it's been a cycle you know kind of down vibe .. into the middle where people are starting to interact until where we are now which is(? quite a bit happening .. you’ll pick it up I your few days here I’m sure?) You take that hot house magazine and you look in there and it looks like there's nothing but jazz clubs in New York.  Manhattan not just Manhattan Brooklyn also and there’s an enthusiasm that’s natural to young people that we try to encourage.  I teach here they come in here and I go to the positive side what I can do for them and what they should be doing.  Look the glass is half empty .. half full let's do it half full tonight."

W  "The kind of composition elements that you were doing during that time is that something you're working on now are you still adding to those pieces Dave or do you feel as if they’re .. Are you going to record them or what’s your.".

ID  "I'm not sure I'd love to record them of course.. there's nothing monumental about what I wrote during the pandemic you know just a couple of things I think I could do  and stuff like that my work with orchestra, big band everything, that's all things in the past and that would be a body of work that I fix and I start again you know like that but I don't look at composition that way I think composition is a chance to really make choices that have an inevitability about them when they're in the music and your job is to ferret out the useful and the not useful with whoever it is, with younger musicians with your own musicians.  I mean I had a band a good band we did three recordings and a pandemic ended that because it was too much to get the guys together and I was a little nervous (??I’m not going to wear a mask I'm a saxophone Player I can't wear a mask ..which was kind of a problem ?) But the positive energy was started to evidence itself already."

W. "Do you sort of get the vibe that more small clubs have opened their doors since to kind of give the young the emerging musicians literally a stage do you feel as if that's the kind?"

D  "Yes these places especially in Brooklyn they playing kind of door maybe … pass the hat literally pass the hat but that's what you do.  That's what I did with my first Group(???) We did 10,000 miles in the states did a loop (???) Had everything booked we were the young cats that's what you do ..when you get established you bring it back to the bandstand and to the human element is there is any they're not necessarily has to be I mean I know bands were nobody talks to each other but more or less there’s a positive element of communication.  Jazz is a great communicative field it's not just the music it's like what we're doing today journalism and art that's why we love covers so much.  And I think the community is really, without being formal about it, is really enthusiastic about whoever playing and ‘I’m working Friday night with so and so ..oh yeah tell me a little bit about it .. oh Come on down play a tune you know that camaraderie is something very evident in jazz, can’t talk for rock'n' roll or for classical.  I know one thing about Jazz it's about about communication and the music actually is secondary to a human relationship I mean when you talk about another musician you say ‘is he cool’ ..you know what that means.. that means he can play and he's a nice guy .. Then we start to talk about ‘well bar three you know."

W  "Thank you Dave."

D  "I"'ve never been questioned about the pandemic."

Dave Liebman

  D a y r e n  S a n t a m a r i a

  Musician

                                                                           Hollywood, CA, February, 2024

Dayren Santamaria

  G r e g  P o r é e

  Musician

                                                                                                    Hollywood, CA, October, 2023

Greg Porée
.

  M a r i s a  R a w l i n s - B r a d f i e l d

  Musician

                                                                            Hollywood, CA, February, 2024

Marisa Rawlins-Bradfield

  M a r k  G u i l i a n a

  Musician

                                                          Village Vanguard, New York City, 22 March 2023

Mark Guiliana