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Oh my godness, Being Franklin, where the only way to be is Frank. Well everyone, and welcome to Being frank. We're the only way to be is Frank. I'm your host, Frank Lebuono, and i'd like to thank you for joining us here on what we like to call the Intelligent Conversation podcast, where no conversation is out of bounds and all points of view are welcome. As you know, we go live to tape and I give you the date
so you'd have some context and relevance. It's the twenty second of October, in the middle of a beautiful autumn season here in New York. Listeners of this podcast know that one of the more common themes at Being Frank is that, despite the fact that we stream from a pretty small corner of New York, Rockland County, Rockland has an extraordinary music scene, not only locally but internationally too, with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy HENDRYX McJagger, and
many others who have either lived or recorded here. But it's not just the international scene that makes it so vibrant. It's the bevy of extremely talented local musicians but made Rockland a great source for music of all kinds. And more than that, these musicians have established a legacy of giving back to the communities in which they perform, lending their considerable talents to charitable events and teaching moments. We have featured many such musicians previously and are proud to
do so once again. New York Area guitarist, composer, and educator Eric DeVito has been performing throughout the Greater New York area since two thousand and three. Either as a soloist leading his own groups, he has performed at many of New York City's renowned jazz clubs and live music venues, as well as performances and festivals both domestic and abroad.
DeVito has recorded two studio albums and one solo classic album, Soothing Classic Guitar Music, from Inner Splendor Media in twenty sixteen. As an educator, mister DeVito has taught classroom and instrumental music in the New York City Public schools and west Chester School districts since two thousand and six. He teaches is an adjunct lecturer of music at Dominican University in Orangeburg,
New York, as well as his private guitar studio. In both person and remotely, DeVito is an Eastman guitar artist that has been published several times in Downbeat Magazine, are A Magazine, Playjazz guitar dot Com, and more. He lives with his wife and three children right here in Rockland County in Proliver, New York. Eric, thank you so much for joining us, taking the time. You're a busy guy. We're going to talk about that. You've got a lot coming up.
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here. I appreciate it.
You know. Before we get into a lot of the things, we want to talk about some of the musical history that you're involved with and some of the events you're planning, let's talk a little bit about Eric DeVito. What was your earliest exposure to music. When did you know that it was going to be music for you in your life?
Huh?
I did know early on. I don't know if it was Wow, we're going way back here. I guess by the time I was kind of like in middle school, I got really into guitar and I knew that I wanted to, you know, pursue music kind of most of the time. I don't know if I knew then I definitely was going to be a career path, but that was kind of what occupied.
Most of my time.
By the time I picked up the guitar in about fifth grade or something like that. By the time I got into high school, I was kind of operating on a you know, I'm only here so I can get into music college path by the time I was in high school, so I.
Kind of, you know, had a mission in high school to get it.
All my class is done and all my courses done, so you know, I could maximize my time in college studying music so I didn't have to take a lot of the you know, English courses and foreign language courses stuff, because I knew I wanted to do that. But i'd say kind of by middle school I started to formulate that idea and kind of operate under that assumption that that's that's what I was going to do in some form.
Let's talk about some of your early influences. Not only you know, professionally musicians themselves, but often people have family influences, a parent or a brother or sister who also accomplished in music. Did you have anyone like that in Yeah, you did tell us about and some of the others who were influential for you early in your life.
Sure.
So, well, I started out as a percussionist actually, like in third grade when most people, you know, choose to take band or orchestra. So I chose the band and I started out as a percussionist and I continued with that even after I picked up the guitar. But in terms of influences, you know, I had there were some people in my family that are you know, we had
played music, so there was some exposure. You know, both my parents played guitar, but I kind of consider that like your typical they were your typical amateur guitar players. But there was a guitar around, and there was exposure. But actually, I have a cousin you might, I don't know if you know him, but he's actually also a Rockland.
County based musician.
His name's Larry Siegel, and he he's my mom's first cousin. And when I was very young, you know, he would always be around and he would often like crash at our house in between gigs or stuff, and so I always was kind of exposed to him kind of being, you know, living the life of a professional musician, and you know, he kind of taught.
Me some of my first things on guitar and things.
I always remember that, and then you know, we kind of keep in touch when I got older. He also had a music business, like a book where you know, people would call him and he would provide music for like literally any event. His Guy's networking book was huge. When I got a little older, you know, he would be he would call me for certain gigs, like classical guitar gigs or more traditional or straight up head jazz
kind of stuff. But he was actually a pretty early influence because I was like, you know, it was cool to hear about his you know, life as a musician. He plays banjo, guitar, he sings, he plays everything.
He's a true, true entertainer. Larry Siegel. He's a great guy.
He'sed check him out every time he plays over you know, throughout New York a lot too, especially in Rockland County.
So there was him, and then a lot of the rest was really teachers. I had.
Some of the biggest influences in my life were music teachers that I had, And that might be maybe why I kind of gravitated because I always, you know, felt very inspired by those music teachers and that they were kind of I said, oh, like I want to do that, you know, I want to be like that, or I like how this teacher is that. So you know, I have a few specific teachers in mind that from very early on kind of shaped me into maybe they kind
of nudged me in the direction. So I remember, like my middle school band director was this brilliant percussionist named Steve Payson, and he actually passed away a few years ago, kind of unexpectedly, but he was actually pretty pretty well known and pretty renowned performer, and he's played with some like he was really into like contemporary classical music, which a lot of kids were not into, like twentieth century music, or even like music that was kind of headed into
the twenty first century, you know, back when I was a kid in the nineties, but stuff that most kids weren't listening to. Like I remember he was on a George Crumb album. I don't if you're familiar with George Crumb and very kind of like avant garde twentieth century classical composer, and he was very into that and he used to do a lot of projects and things in the city. So he and he was a great jazz drummer, and I was in the jazz band with him too. He actually is to kind of encouraged me to play
jazz guitar. I was really into playing drums and into the jazz band with him on drums, and he said, you know, you play guitar, why don't you studies more, harmony more and really, you know, learn the guitar thing. And that's kind of how it started actually with me being in I think it was like maybe eighth grade jazz ensemble with him.
He really got me into that. Let me be sixth grade, let.
Me jump in with that too. Did you ever have any kind of like people call it an epiphany moment where in speaking with him or picking up the guitar, all of a sudden one moment you said, Wow, I like this and I can do this. Do you have a moment like that?
Yeah, I think they kind of came in little, you know, I think being in the in his performing groups and you kind of you know, he'd really push you to work, and then of course you'd have those little musical moments that you'd be very proud of or that. You know, he'd inspire the group to get and then you'd go, you know, have those aha moments like wow, that was cool.
You know this is cool. It's worth the you know, challenges, it's worth the struggle to kind of do this because you know, this is what we'd be wanting, me and my buddies who were into music.
This is what we were doing in our free time. Anyways, we didn't have to do it. So yeah, I think a lot of that did start with him.
You know.
I remember once he used to bring this always stands out. He used to bring in pieces he was working on, and he was a great percussionist and he play a lot of mallet percussion, like he played marimba, and that was like the first time I'd ever seen somebody play four mallet marina.
But he might even played six mallet marimba, but I don't remember.
But you know, this was in middle school and probably you know, most people wouldn't have been maybe that interested in what he was playing. He was, but I just thought it was fascinating how he was playing like four six mallet marimba.
And I think it was like a I think it was a jazz piece, like a solo jazz, you know, something for the marimba repertoire.
And I just remember being blown away by the technique and the musicianship and all that stuff.
And then I just like talking to him about jazz. He knew a lot about jazz, and I kind of got into jazz.
You know, the improvisation aspect, I think really clicked with me, and he really kind of encouraged us to improvise and and to kind.
Of listen to each other.
He did a really good job explaining the roles of the rhythm section to a bunch of young kids, you know who just wanted to you know, most of a had like rock backgrounds and stuff, but he would talk about you know, the time and the high hat symbol or the ride symbol, and the bass locking in with the drums and the role of the guitar and a big band and things like that that you know kind of we found or I found really interesting. So really every moment with him, I always found was like a
learning experience. And he was one of those teachers that when I when we were in middle school, you know, he'd let you we'd hang out instead of going to recess we'd go and hang out in his office and he'd listen to music with us, play jazz, or let us go practice on the drum set or do whatever.
You know.
So it's kind of like one of those very inspiring teachers that you know, probably get characterized in like a sitcom or a movie. But he like really was one of those kind of teachers. And actually he became you know, my mom was a teacher in my district, so he was kind of like also a family friend.
And I remember when I got you know.
Older, as an adult and started doing gigs, he would come to my gigs and you know, him and my parents would hang out. They'd come show up at jazz clubs and stuff in the city, and I always thought that was really, uh, you know, kind of cool that he kind of was there, you know, later on, And really a lot of that started with him. And when I became a teacher, he really encouraged me to be
a music teacher. You know, he knew a lot of musicians and he said, hey, man, like this is cool, but if you want to eat, get a music education degree. And my parents kind of had always been telling me that, but mister Payson, you know, Steve kind of sometimes you listen to other people more than your parents, you know, and he would have he would let me come in and work with the band, like when I was a little older. He'd let me sit in with the bands and stuff and kind of get a little practice like
teaching lessons and conducting and stuff. So definitely a huge influence in kind of my entire you know, education and professional life.
What are the professionals you message, teachers and of course there and you teach, and I teach as well. And we talk a little bit more about that later in our discussion. What about professionally, what people during the course of your journey, your musical journey, have really influenced you as a profession.
Yeah, so we talk guitarists here or just any kind of music guitar and go.
Down the list. Who are some of the people that say, wow, they do it for me. Yeah.
I remember being first kind of really blown away by believe it or not. I remember listening to this.
Bud Powell Trio record, Bud Powell Trio and really just being blown away by like the trio kind of.
Form, concept of the format of a trio.
Yeah, and just just the way they kind of you know, the space and the collaboration. So I remember, like really just you know, back then, I was listening to CDs on a discman and all that just done. And I remember like wearing out this Bud Bud Powell CD. I can't remember the name of the record now. It was something like Boxes or something.
I don't remember. It was really cool. That's probably not the name of it, but I have to check it out.
But then I really got into you know, by then, I was really trying to find guitarists that spoke to me. And you know, very early on, I was into Jim Hall. He's probably one of my most you know, influential influences, if you want to say. I guess I wanted to copy him as much as I could, so I listened to.
A lot of Jim Hall.
I always liked his use of space, you know, he was a very less is more kind of player, and I always kind.
Of dug that about Jim Hall.
And also one of the first records I really got into was his duo records with Bill Evans. You know, he has this record called Intermodulation and also Undercurrent, especially Undercurrent, and I was always really inspired by, like how they It was almost like a telepathy that they had with each other. And so I very quickly kind of got into not just you know, the notes and stuff and
the technique, but kind of the the collaboration. So records where I could felt like there was a lot of collaboration and dialogue between the group always kind of moved me. That's another reason why I was big into the Bill Evans Trio records, especially like the Live at the Village Vanguard stuff that's kind of like an iconic record in
my own upbringing. You know, I can remember like pivotal moments of my life where I was like unsure of something and I'd put on you know, Bill Evans Trio Live at the Village Vanguard to kind of you know, we.
All have a particular set of music or whatever that we can go back to at times when we really need it, and the plays of an important role.
Yeah, But I always find with those records it's I listened to them over and over and it still amazes me, you know, and I can know every note and now at this point, I know what's going to happen, I know the comping rhythms at this point, but it still sounds like they're just they're just you know, they just recorded it yesterday and they had you know, they hadn't rehearsed it or everything was just so tight and so
kind of in sync. So records like that. But Jim Hall in terms of like tone, I always loved his tone and his use of space. Then I got big into Joe Pass. I mean, I don't know a guitar player who's not influenced by Joe Pass. But being a classical guitarist and playing a lot of solo fingerstyle stuff, Joe Pass is kind of like one of my main guys that I really just love to study and copy,
you know, copy a lot of stuff. I mean, he's he plays a lot of great licks that everybody plays, but you know they're Joe Pass licks.
So he's a big one.
And then I kind of got really big into I went through like a little Grand Green thing.
I think everybody loves Grand Green and his blues feel.
But then I kind of got heavy into Pat Metheni for a while, and I think I kind of a fusion guy.
I labeled as if you and I'm not a chance a historician like yourself, but it's that's what comes to mind when you hear.
His yeah and actually his more fusions.
You know, one of the things I love about Papadini is when you try to put you know, when you try to define him, he goes in another direction, which I love. But you know, there's certainly records that are very much you could call them fusion that he did, and that's usually actually not my favorite stuff by him.
My real favor stuff by him is the stuff that he does more straight ahead jazz stuff on because I like how he approaches it, because the fusion stuff is not, like probably not my favorite type of format in terms of how I kind of hear, you know, the music compositionally and improvisationally. But I like when he plays more straight ahead or bebop stuff, but he comes at it with such a unique style that's kind of rooted in.
Rock and fusion. And I don't know.
I just some about that, But like his trio records are actually my favorite. Some of my favorite records, like stuff that he has a great record with Dave Holland and Roy Haynes. I think that's called question and answer, I want to say, And his trio album like ninety nine two thousand that's another record.
I remember just.
Being blown away by he played steel string guitar on it, and I remember being really inspired by the compositions that he wrote. So he kind of really got me interested in like being a composer a little more like, oh, you can be a guitar player, but you can also, you know, be a composer.
And listening to all the you know, he can't.
He wasn't writing tunes that sounded like jazz standards, even though he was playing with the jazz trio. He was playing tunes that had you know, pop changes and rock changes and things that you'd kind of associate maybe a little more with non jazz groups. And I really got kind of inspired by that with my own writing.
You know, perfect time if I might jump in here, Eric too, because it's a word that's popped up versatility. You consider yourself a versatile musician. I got that from reading your bio and meeting you, etc. And some of the things that you describe from these other musicians is their versatility that they may be great with in a particular genre, but they can play a lot of different ways and continue to improvise and create original material. Why do you feel it's important for someone to be a
versatile musician. It's always amazing to me. I have friends. Ken Harden comes to mind. I watch him and sometimes in any given event he'll play three or four different instruments, And well, why is it, Why is it important, especially today for a musician to have that kind of versatility.
Yeah, I mean I think it's a good question.
And you know, sometimes you want to specialize, you know, like sometimes nobody wants to be mediocre at a lot of things, right, so, you know, part of us always wants to be like really focused, you know, and sometimes that comes with like a genre. Like you know, for a while, I wanted to like really be like a modern jazz guitar player, you know, but there there was already like five of those in New York that were
getting most of the gigs. So there wasn't a whole lot of work for another one that sounded like the other five anyways, And you know, I think just there's too much great other music out there that I still want to play, and so being versatile kind of opens you up to more work, you know, if you're not if you're not the guy. And I wasn't anywhere near one of those guys. I'm not the guy getting called every night to go do gigs at the at the Blue Note and at the at all.
These other clubs.
So if I wanted to work and make money, I had to be a more versatile so and and I have a classical guitar degree in a background, so I was always interested in that anyway. So, you know, I very quickly part of what I guess, you know, you might consider my sound or my style is kind of a combination of bringing a lot of classical guitar you know, influence, I guess into my jazz guitar playing and vice versa.
You know, I think I even did an article about that in one of my Downbeat articles a couple of years ago about I think it was called like.
You know, brings it brings up another great point, you know, making a life in music is a dream to many, but of reality to few. Why is it so difficult? We all love music, We all love to go to hear live music. I live in Nayak. It's a wonderful town for so many different venues for music, from rock and roll to jazz, et cetera. Yet all, it seems all of my friends who are in music struggle with being musicians, yeah, and making a life in music.
Why, well, I think that, first of all, there's plenty of people who do make a living just playing music, just like there's plenty of athletes when you turn on the TV who make a living playing sports. But there's just way more people who don't. And that's usually the ones you know, right Like, so you know, there's no
shortage of great musicians. I have friends who I went to school with, and they work seven nights a week and they make great money, and they have families and they're doing it and that's awesome, and they you know, I just tell myself, I wasn't as talented as them, I guess, or I didn't get the same breaks or whatever. But I would say most of those people I would consider immensely more talented than me. So of course there's
a talent issue. But that's not to say that I also know a ton of people who are way more talented than me, who can wipe the floor with any play circles around me and they're broke as joke, and they you know, so I think it's uh, it's a it's a it's there's a lot of factors I think you have to be, you know, talking about like, you know, making a living doing this. I don't consider myself somebody who makes a living performing or as a guitarist.
I make a living as a musician.
Some some weeks I'm playing more gigs and that's putting, you know, giving me some more.
Bread in the in the in the jar.
And then there's periods, Thank god, because I am a music teacher where I can still afford.
To have a dry spell.
I don't have to go, you know, go jump on a cruise ship or something like I did in college and take a contract, you know, doing something like that. And that's a cool gig too, Not to put that down. I know a lot of people who do that, and that's cool. But I realized, like I, I kind of wanted to have some freedom to do the gigs I want to do and not have to do certain gigs they don't want to do.
But the more.
Versatile you are, the more stuff you're qualified to do, as long as you do it well, you know. So there's that, But also, you know, New York is like a funny place. There's a lot of there's a scene and the scene is actually kind of it can be quite small sometimes and sometimes you got to really be on the scene, you know. I remember being younger and being in grad school and people were, you know, on the scene.
Every night.
You would go out to the clubs and go to jam sessions and in hopes that you'd get a call to sit in and this and that, and that's really important. But as I got a little older, it's harder and harder to do.
You know.
I rarely can leave the house anymore to go to something that's not paying me, you know, but if otherwise, it's kind of hard to do when you have a family, so there's less kind of you know, maybe opportunities, so I end up having to make a lot more opportunities or you know, I take gigs that I want to take, and know that some gigs, you know, I can't be traveling and doing this.
So it's it's tricky, man.
And there's also you know, one of the things I had mentioned, there's the there's the whole payment issue of it.
You know.
There's just I always joke to my wife that I unfortunately I have to turn down probably way more gigs than I take sometimes. And that's not to say that not to say I'm taking a lot of gigs and I'm so busy, but it's actually the opposite. It makes me said that, I often get offered really bad money for something that I feel doesn't value the time and effort that it would take me to play the gig well.
And I don't want to undermine somebody else by just taking the gig because I can afford to not make good money on it, because that sets the.
Whole industry standard low.
And I, I philosophically, kind of have an issue with cats who do that.
I understand when you're young, you know, it's different.
That's a that's an issue. I've heard you say it. I've heard others say it. Musicians are are grossly underpaid. It's it's it's often, uh, you know that you get that word exposure. I often get that as as a photographer. Hey, we would like to use your photographs. We can't pay you anything, but we can give you exposure. And I say, at this point in my life, the only thing exposure gets me is a cold Yeah. You know, how do
you deal with that? You know, people say, oh, it'd be great, we'd love to have You're terrific and talented but we can't pay you. I assume it's just common in the music businesses. It can be with photography.
Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely what it is. And like you said, if you're younger, you may just take it because you want to work.
And that's cool. And I don't blame young.
Cats to do that. I have a little more problem with older cats to do that. But you know, you're young, you want to play, you want the experience. But I do you know, I think you have to think about what is There's a lot at stake when you do that. There's a lot of people who you know, there's now a club owner thinks that he can pay you seventy five bucks for that gig, and that's what everybody would take, and that's what he's going to start offering.
And then gigs.
You know, then people can't afford to take those gigs, and then the guy at the club down the street says, oh, maybe I'm paying my guys too much. And then all of a sudden, musicians can't afford to take gigs anymore because they don't pay enough.
So it's a slippery slope.
And you know, I'm sure it's like you said, yeah, it's got to be the same in any of the arts. But I think there's another component to it which people ignore, and that's the public. You know, the public is funny.
They love the arts, right, but there's a limit, right, Like I love I love steak, right, but if there's a certain price point where I can't afford it, I'm not buying it, right, So you won't see me too often, you know at the New York Philharmonic paying one hundred dollars ticket or even these days playing seventy or eighty bucks a ticket at the Blue Notes. Sometimes that's a stretch for me, like depending on what I got going on.
But you know, if the public is willing to pay a certain amount, that can be the owner, the club owners of the people who are paying these gigs. They want to pass that on to the public, you know, So I get you know, club owner doesn't want to pay my ban what it is unless they think he's going to make it back. So it kind of becomes tricky because you have to say, well, like how much do you value art that it has to be a
dollar for dollar thing in real time? Maybe you know it could it be an investment, you know, when you buy art and put art on the walls. Do you expect people are going to come down to look at that art that week to go and put that money is going to go into your restaurant.
You're going to make all that money back? Or you know, how do you kind of look at it?
So I think a lot of times people look at the music is like it has to make a real time money back right away. Well, then you're asking your artists, who, by the way, are traditionally terrible businessmen, to be in charge of your business and your customers. And to me, that makes me question, why would you, if you're serious about your business, why would you put me in charge of that? Why would you put me in charge of
bringing your clientele down? Like I guarantee one thing when I do gigs, I guarantee that I'm going to put one hundred percent effort into practicing and making the music sound as good as it can be, and that the musicians I hire are going to do the same. That's kind of where my guarantee ends. You know, if you expect your musicians to bring down, then you don't really need good musicians. You just need people that have a lot of friends that don't have families or have a
lot of free time. But that's not me or my demographic anymore. My best friends aren't coming out on a Tuesday night and getting a babysitter.
I could be playing at Carnegie Hall. They ain't doing that.
Not at nine o'clock. I'll tell you that, right, my friends, I asked them, what time is your gig? If it's after eight, I ain't coming.
Right, So I just say listen, I kind of you know this is I say, here's my music.
I spend a lot of money and practicing and producing, and I even sank money into records and things so that I can showcase my sound. Now you have to decide is that a sound that you want, that's good, that your customers are going to pay for that you want?
And if it's not, fine, don't have me. But don't I don't like the back and forth, Well how many people you're going to bring down? Is if I can predict the weather and I can predict all this stuff, you know, I say, if you don't, if you just want that, that's that's that's not how this business should really run, because now it's not really about the arts,
you know, So it's tricky man. You know, not to go off on the crazy tangent, but uh, you know, I guess going back to your original question, how do you deal with the you know that aspect of it.
I just had this conversation.
With Lauren, who we were talking about when he was out of my house tuning the piano, and we both.
Kind of said the same thing local musicians.
Yeah, yes, he's got a few years on me, of course, but we both kind of said the same thing.
I said, Man, we don't do that stuff, you know.
I gotta frank, I can't use curses right now. We don't do that stuff anymore because I'm too old for that. We both made the same comment, we're getting too old for that. So I guess you know, when you're younger, you put up with it or you hope it's going to lead something, and as they get older, I kind of feel like it's that, you know, I can't really afford to do that, or I'll just be doing that
all the time. So the gigs are there, I just think there's less gigs are there where the public and the owners are kind of willing to invest in what it actually costs to make it, To make the musicians feel valued, you know, you know, and I hear.
You're also a husband and father, and you mentioned that. Obviously it has to be first in your thinking. And you know, they say about sports, baseball, it's a young man's game. Would you say the same thing about music. I mean, part of it is the athletic ability. As you're younger, you're stronger, But it's also the time commitment
to travel, et cetera. Musicians the same thing. In order to be able to make a living playing music often means traveling, and that's something I would assume that as you get older and you get into the family scene, you have children, becomes more and more difficult. How do you balance that the role of being a father, a husband, a father, and a musician.
Yeah, well, I mean it's always yeah, when you're younger, it's right, people go on tour.
Uh.
You know, when I was younger, I did a lot more touring and wasn't concerned about you know, what, the what I was bringing home at the end of all my expenses. Now it's it's if I mentioned to my wife that I'm putting together a tour, I got to give her like an itemized budget of exactly how much it's gonna met me after and then she runs that by how many days I'm going to be gone and na childcare, And no matter how I swing it, it's
never a it's never looks profitable on paper. But yeah, so when you're you just I find when you're older, you're doing that less unless that's your that's how your life is set up, you know. So I have a lot of friends who are full time touring musicians, but they started that early and then their family lives revolved around that, so they made that work, whereas I didn't do that. I started, you know, other than just doing gigs around New York and around town.
My income based you know, my income was.
Through teaching, So everything revolves around me still being able to have a teaching job so I could pay my mortgage. So I did touring on the summer around my schedule or when I was on break or uh, you know, I would do gigs mostly on the weekends or or you know, maybe not super late things like that. So I think it also kind of depends where your priority
was first. You know, I got to a point where I was like in my twenties and said, all right, I'm not making enough money right now that you know, so I want to make more money, and you know, my circumstances and the situation was I'm going to teach music, so then everything kind of that was the big puzzle piece that everything else kind of just had to fit.
Around, you know, And then thought place, No, yeah, I was just gonna say.
And then you know, as I get older and I look to retirement, then I said, oh, maybe I'm gonna have more time to do some of those other things you know that I didn't do, you know, or maybe I have time to take more gigs or tour a
little more or whatever. But you know, that's kind of like the pillar that I have to revolve everything around in order for me to do all this stuff because I can't, you know, tell my wife like, hey, I'm going to jump on a cruise ship for six months because the bread's pretty good, because I don't, you know, I'm not a situation to do that anymore now.
And you mentioned teaching and teachings your your foundation, if you will, right now, it's what keeps you afloat. But I have the feeling it's more than a monetary compensation thing. And obviously not to belittle that it's important. We all like to eat, you like to feed your family, and I know it helps to do that. But I get the feeling that teaching is a little bit but a little bit more to you, that it's a way of giving back. And you hinted at it before developed that a little bit.
Yeah, of course, so you know, I mean you can't I find it.
I wouldn't be able to teach if I didn't like what I was doing, you know, I mean, just so, yeah, I hope I didn't. I hope, but in downplay the fact that, you know, I.
Enjoyed at all.
No, No, and it's actually very hard.
Yeah, I don't mean to imply that he's doing it for the money. That's my point obvious, that you're not just doing it for the money.
Yeah, you know, teaching is you know, I always viewed teaching a little bit differently because musicians tend to learn in more of like an apprentice style, or at least I did, and I always thrived that way, where you had a more one on one kind of interpersonal relationship
with the person you're learning from. And I always thought, oh, and that's kind of like how I think most people learn music for many, many, many hundreds of years, just like a great artist would apprentice with another artist, you know,
And I kind of like that style. Of course it's a little bit harder to achieve in like the public educations, but I was kind of approach how I teach with that mentality, you know, like that's you really want to pick your teacher's brain and you really want to be challenged by them, and you really want to you know, you want them to put you in situations where you fail and you learn and then you succeed and that kind of thing. So you know, that's kind of how
I like to do things. Also, I'm a music teacher. I feel like music teachers are a bit of like our own maybe like unique bunch.
You know, a lot of bowish teachers in the school.
Right, like, you know, like we're not quite like gym teachers, but we're almost like that. So you know, you can always spot on music and teacher usually there.
But I I like, you know, I always enjoyed teaching ensemble playing a lot like direct I'm a band director.
That's kind of what I mostly do.
Because there's a lot more of that kind of real life teaching in the moment like you're on a bandstand kind of thing where that's a lot the great you know, any conversation you have with the great jazz musicians to tell you I learned that on the bandstand because this guy you know, played and I didn't know what to do and I figured it out or I got played off stage, and that kind of healthy competition. I think I like that aspect. I think you learn a lot
from that. Getting outside of your safe zone. That's when you really see people grow, you know, when I see when I see students that are not I can challenge them to get outside of their comfort zone and they they fail, but then they beautifully succeed right after.
It, you know, and they learn from it, you know.
So trying to get people not to be afraid to fail, it's hard. Nobody wants to fail. I got myself included. But sometimes the best moments you have or when you just you know, maybe.
Fail and overcome failure at a huge life lesson. I teach that to my students as well, part of life.
It's a little harder to do now. I find it when I you know, I feel like I've been teaching.
I'm almost twenty years now, as a teacher. And I really do feel like there's like two periods of education, at least in my life's time as a teacher, there was the before and the after, and at some point during my career, I feel like I started off as education was more like how I remember it as a kid, and then somewhere along the line it got very different and the kind of I don't want to say the respect, but the role or the trust of the teacher kind
of change and it was very you know, maybe parent driven or kids weren't as used to parents didn't maybe let their kids fail as much they really wanted to. If you if their kids felt like they failed, they really would. It could be hard as a teacher. You'd really you know, they wouldn't really get what you were doing. And it was that, you know, maybe you're not a good teacher this, So, you know, I see a lot of people get discouraged from teaching because of that, and
it really it really is different. Having done it for so long now, it's I don't feel like it's quite the same. I feel like, you know, maybe it's a generational thing.
I don't know.
So in topic, we'll we'll have to pick that up.
Yeah, you know, that's a whole that's a whole other frank there. Yeah, we can go on and on about that, and you know we're disgruntle teaching. But no, I do love you know, I do love teaching.
And also, you know, I actually started at a new school district this year and I'm teaching a different grade level than I have in a long long time, and I really, I really love it. It's kind of reinspired me, reinvigorated me in a way because it's you know, you do the same thing, and you know, you're a professor for so so I'm sure you know, if you teach the same course over and over, like, yeah, you get good at it, but sometimes you get on auto pi.
Yeah, it gets stale. I worry about that all the time. Yeah, I keep it fresh for them. It's important to sure.
Yeah, So I kind of feel like, you know, I got this new new grade level, news everything, new school, new grades, new group of students, new ensembles, new curriculum.
I basically wrote a whole new curriculum. So it's very busy because everything is new.
It'll be a lot easier after a year or two, but it's really it's kind of like refreshing. It's kind of like reinspired me and made me kind of re examined, you know, things that I kind of was doing on autopilot. Well what if what maybe I should try to do it this way, you know, and try it this way. And you know, in a way, it's kind of it's I guess it's a little I'm a little outside of my comfort zone and I'm finding I really.
Like that, you know, so so teaching is cool, and then of course, you know there's the whole the job security of it. You know.
I think musicians who are who don't teach full time, you know, they have a whole different stress.
Man about job security.
I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've been on Facebook and seeing a GoFundMe page to help pay medical costs from some guy that I grew up listening to who's one of my heroes, and it makes me sad that this dude, you know, has this amazing resume, career and life, but man, when he gets sick, he
needs help to pay his medical bills. And that's great, and I, you know, as much as I can, I try to donate to those things, but that like kills me, man, like, that's just something I don't have to think about as a teacher. And I in the you know, the stress, and then I think, man, these cats that have kids like what, you know, worrying like my kid gets sick, like I don't have the health and so you know that is a big deal.
Man. Well, speaking big, you have a big deal of a weekend coming up. We're going to take a commercial break. We're going to talk about that, and we're going to display your versatility both as a musician and as a teacher. You have le series starting at the Piermont Library. We're going to talk about that. Yeah, you know, you also have a gig with your band. You want to talk about that, and we will in just a few minutes. We'll be uh, we'll be talking that and and a
bit more. So hang with us. Uh, this is being Frank. I'm your host, Frank Lebono. My very special guest is a musician and teacher, kind of a renaissance man. I like to give him that label. He does a lot of things, and we're discussing a lot of things about music, and we'll talk a little bit about the roots of American music with my very special guest musician, composer and teacher Eric DeVito. This is Being Frank. I'm your host,
Frank Lebono. Will be right back right after these brief commercial men messages.
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Welcome back to Being Frank, the Intelligent conversation podcast. Thanks for sticking with us. I'm your host, Frank Lebono, and as you know, our engineer is the mailman, mister Neil Richter. We bring our audience a fresh topic every week. We stream from Hudson River Radio, which is located in beautiful historic Stony Point, New York. But you can catch Being Frank anywhere you get your favorite podcasts like Apple, Spotify,
iHeartRadio and all the others. And because every Being Frank is archives, you can listen to any of our programs anytime you like. Find links to Being Frank on the Hudson River Radio Facebook page. We're at our website Hudsonriverradio dot com. Just click and you're there. My guest today
is a composer, musician, teacher mister Eric DeVito. Eric, you we want to talk a little bit about your teaching aspect, and you know, cause you don't only play music, you lecture on the history of American music, particularly jazz and the blues. Tell us about the roots of American music and what's important to know about it and why is it important to preserve today.
Yeah, so, you know, American music is a funny term. America is such a young country compared to a lot of the world. And you know, one of the things I love about America, and I really I think one of the things that I love about jazz is it's very synonymous with being.
In a know, with America.
You know, the roots of jazz, like America come from all other places. You know, there was no you know, to be American means you have roots somewhere else, right, So same with jazz. You know, jazz gets its roots primarily from the music of Africa and the music of Western Europe and in a lot of ways. You know, Americans, if you trace your roots back far enough, you're coming
from somewhere else. But also you know, American or Americans kind of I feel like early on we were kind of like a scrappy bunch of you know, colonists who weren't very well respected initially, and then you know, maybe maybe we got too big of a head, but we kind of decided to, you know, think that we were one of the greatest nations in the world.
In many ways we were, depending on how you want to look at it.
But you know, jazz started off as this very crude, not respected, not even folk music kind of status.
It was very underground and.
Very you know, some people would say it was eleude music, or you know, it was being played jelly roll Morton was playing in brothels and doing all the stuff, and it was kind of born in the cd under parts of the country, you know, along with prohibition and all that stuff. And then it became really this It became America's classical music, and it's been elevated to a status. And some some people don't even like that about jazz. Some purists don't like to even see jazz be elevated
to that status. But I think it really speaks a lot about you know, American culture and how you know, something started somewhere and was elevated and that's really part of the folk culture of it, you know, and now we look at jazz and we say it's America's classical music, and.
However you want to look at it.
But I'd say that jazz really is our meaning, America's musical contribution to the world. You know, I think it's I think it's one of one of the things that makes me most proud about being an American, you know.
And I'm not a you know, I love America.
I don't know if i'd you know, you know, I think it can get tricky when you start to really love your country these days, it's hard to be a patriot. But when it comes to jazz, I just think it really sums up, you know, America and being an American. And and now just like being an American has really evolved there in the world has gotten a lot smaller, you know, with with cultures mixing easier with technology and there, you know, you see the same thing in jazz. It
really does parallel society. And so that's kind of what this lecture series was meant to be about.
You know.
I got this great grant from it's called an Arts Alive grant through Arts Westchester, and I applied for it, and I really just wanted to do like a survey of jazz. You know, it's something I'm always passionate about teaching anyways, And I said, you know, I'd love to put something together that's really comprehensive and really kind of covers jazz pretty much from its inception to you know, where it is today or maybe where it's headed in the future.
And then I.
Always, you know, living in Rockland County and you know, I'm only in Rockland County less than a decade. You know, I was in Queen's before that for many many years, and I always find that there's a lot less jazz gigs for myself and to go here in Rockland County, you know, and that's just a lot of that has to do with its accessibility maybe to Manhattan and other things.
So I said, you know what, I feel like there's a little bit of an underserved you know, demographic here that you know, we could have some more exposure to jazz and more education around jazz. And there's a ton of great jazz musicians in Rockland County. So I propose this grant to basically cover all the different periods of you know, how I typically teach jazz. And you know, if I had ten different people advised me on this, you'd come up with ten different exact ways, you know, everybody.
We love to discuss and argue about jazz, But basically I broke it into the roots of jazz, which would be like kind of the blues, you know, so maybe just touching a little bit on slavery and how that culture came to this part of the world through and then what the you know, the influence that had on music from the slave songs that kind of in the field songs that eventually developed into what we could call the blues, and then how the blues developed into it
mixed with you know, the other cultures that were coming over here during the turn of the century or a little bit before, mixed with a lot of European styles of music, you know, particularly New Orleans. That's kind of the birthplace of jazz because of that melting pot of culture there, and that's when early jazz was kind of born.
So I kind of started it there with the blues and early jazz is the first lecture that we're going to start with, and that's this Sunday, the twenty seventh at the Piermont Library.
And what time should people come there. It's three o'clock, three o'clock, three o'clock library, right in the heart of peer downtown Piramont, New York, right on the beautiful Hudson River. It's a great spot to be.
But it's a great room too. I've played there before for some other things. It's a great spot. But this is cool.
I excited because you know, I didn't want to just I didn't want to just do a gig and play the music, which you know I thought about, but I said, you know, I'd like there to be some context here. So it's a lot of playing, you know. I'd say it's probably seventy five percent performance and twenty five percent lecture. So there's some slides and I'm trying to you know, it's not going to be exactly chronological, because nothing is. And but you know, we try to give things chronology
to make them make sense the best we can. But things, of course are always overlap, and history is never history is always messier, and it appears in textbooks. But you know, so we I start with introducing the blues and kind of where that came from, and then its development into ragtime music, and then early what we'd call new Orleans jazz.
You know, some people might call it Dixie Land jazz.
But rather than just play the music, so I want to feature the composers of the time that were really influential and what makes those styles of music kind of unique, the characteristics of the rhythm and the harmony and the melody and the form and the structure.
But also you know, feature.
The different you know, different styles and the roles of the instruments. You know, why was the rhythm section comprised of what it was in the nineteen tens and twenties, you know, and what with the role of the different instruments, but also the role of the musicians. You know, jazz to me is very much like a democracy. It's messy, there's a lot of there's a lot of personal choices you make, and there's a little bit of a hierarchy to it.
But everybody gets there, you know, peace.
So when we talk about New Orleans jazz, where there's a lot of collective improvisation verse. The next thing I'll do in November is going to focus on the swing era and the big band era, the nineteen thirties when jazz really changed a lot, and a lot of people say that the commercialization of jazz, and you know, segregation really took a lot of the African influence away from jazz.
I want to jump in here, Eric. I think the timing is good, and it's the question I posed. Is two of the other great jazz artists who've been guests on being Frank David Budway, the proprietor and great pianist at Maureen's, and his bass player, a great stand up jazz bass player, Jim donnic I have both, but I posed this question to them. I call it the jazz paradox. Okay.
In other words, you can't have it both ways. You know, sometimes jazz artists can play well, you know, we're not mainstream, but then on the that's on one hand, and then on the other hand, they say, we don't want to be I think there's a great scene in a film called The Man with a Horn with Kirk Douglas and he's speaking with an older black gentleman about playing jazz, and it's interesting, it's very relative to our conversation, and he, the older man, is saying, well, you know, it's great
that you play all this improvisational music and stuff, but is it going to sell because you got eat too, and at the time Douglas has well, I don't play for them, might play for me. So I call that kind of the great paradox, where in a certain sense you can't have it both ways. What are your thoughts on that.
Man, that's a good question.
I think that there's a romantic aspect to it that you know, we like to do that, right. I think there's just it depends. I think it depends. It's you know, I know some jazz musicians that make a lot of money and they still play really, you know, so I think it depends. I think I feel like it's harder to be more well, I.
Think I think it's even proven.
Like if you're talking like jazz purism, maybe it's just a fact there's less record deals, less people are buying. You know, you could you could see that just with the shift of culture around how people consume music. Right, Jazz always had a very small piece of the pie, right, but now that piece is that everybody gets is just so much smaller that there's just less and less and less you know, ability.
To do it.
But you know, you know, it makes me think of like Miles Davis, right, like nobody is more. I'm trying to find a nice euphemism to put in here, like nobody was more not interested in the audience, as Miles Davis claimed to be right, and he didn't sacrifice his music for anybody. But you know what, that guy drove Ferraris and had plenty of mansions and he didn't worry about that aspect of it. Now would he have changed if that wasn't?
You know?
You could say, well, he got all that money because of what he did, and I don't, you know, to some extent that might be true, but but I don't know.
I think it depends, you know.
I think that at some point there needs to be a balance there, you know, you don't you everybody has kind of their own personal line of integrity of how much of this am I doing, you know, for myself and my own and how much am I doing so I can also, you know, continue to do my art and make a living doing it.
So I just think there's a balance.
And to be honest, man, I think that line it's not a straight line. It's constantly changing, and like with you, as your life changes and as your needs change, and you know, just like you go to work and you might go to work and be like, you know what I hated work today and what I had to do, but I loved it yesterday. And that could be the same thing. If you're a musician, that could be the same too. Yeah, that's that's it's a it's a good
question though. You know, there is like a romanticism about especially in jazz, you.
Know, a lovable loser. I don't know if that's the right word, but you know that, yeah, that likes Everybody likes the underdog if you will like the match. Yeah.
Like my friends always ras me, my my good buddies who come out to my jazz gigs and always say, you know, DAVIDO, why don't you play songs that people know, you know, like if they're not listen to and we can sing along, you know, why don't you go play rocky? You'll make twice as much money. And sometimes you know, I've done that and it's cool, but and and I guess the bottom line is I've done that, and to me, that's way more work because I just don't I don't
love that as much. But if I did, But I love going to hear a rock band and they're just killing it. And even though I don't listen to a lot of that stuff, and I can't you know the amount of hours I'd have to practice to not even play.
When you see those guys into it and it's awesome, and I'm like, that is just as good as alget.
Now, you know, I think it's just more about you see people doing something that they're really passionate about, and then you're right, the money isn't as important, but like, there comes a point if people aren't able to make a living and doing it, they're just not gonna be able to do it anymore, and then that stuff's going to go away.
You know, we just have a few more minutes. This has just been absolutely great, terrific. I really appreciate everything you've brought to that party. So let's rehact though. The Piermont gig Sunday, the twenty seven. I give the date because as we mentioned, this is archived.
And yeah, go to every twenty seven, you know.
If you're seeing this before or on the twenty seven three o'clock the Piermont Library, right is the Jazz Lecture series. Now you also have another gig where you're playing. I believe that you wanted to talk about Oh.
Yeah, thanks, I'll plug it.
But let me also say on the Piermont gig there is limited seating, so do you definitely want to go to the website. It's free to the public. All these concert lecture series are free to the public because we want public to be educated. So we're very thankful for the grants, you know, from Arts Westchester to be able
to put these on. And one of the big things that was important to me is that I could pay because I had to hire a lot of musicians to do all these different lectures, and it was important to me that I could pay them and what I consider an industry standard fair wage. So there's really no money going towards anything else. Every dollar goes to paying the musician fees.
You know you mentioned first of the series.
How many is the first? So it's a four part series. The first one this Sunday at three pm. It's the blues and early Jazz. Then November seventeenth will be the nineteen thirties swing era Big. I have a great big band for that one. Then in January I do one on the on Bop. It'll be bebop, hard bop and post pop. Kind of the beginning of modern jazz kind of from like the nineteen forties through the nineteen sixties, and then the last one it will be global fusion
and modern jazz. So it kind of picks up when the seventies when jazz kind of became a little more global and fusion took off, and then you know, kind of the what we could consider modern jazz, which is a very hard thing to nail down, of course.
And where can people get more information about that?
No more, Yeah, more information about that is you can definitely get it on my website www dot erictivito dot com.
You can check out the Arts Westchester website end it'll you know, I'm going to be post at the libraries.
Each library, so Piermont and Niac Library are the two libraries that the events are held at. They kind of alternate first one Piermont, second one Nyak, third one Piermont. I think the fourth one Act but I might have that wrong.
I have to read check.
But they'll be on the libraries websites and they send out newsletters for the community, and of course I'm gonna plug them as much as possible. And then yes, yeah, you were mentioning thanks, I'm also just just a fun little gig. I'm playing with the trio at a in Yonkers at a Simple Motive Brewery. And that's in Yonkers, New York. On that's this Friday, actually is before this
this Friday, seven pm at Simple Mode of Brewery. It'll be my self on guitar, great drummer John Weekon on drums, and the amazing Peter Brenler will be on the bass. And those are, you know, part of my regular rotating trio that I usually perform with when I'm in the New York area. So we'll be doing It's a pretty laid back gig. The place is great beer, and it's just a nice hang and you know, we'll just do a mix of I think they're kind of promoting it as like a jazz and cocktails vibe, but I think
it's pretty casual. We'll play some tunes, maybe some original stuff, some of my arrangements of maybe some folk or pop or rock tunes along with you know, straight ahead and modern jazz kind of stuff.
We're going to close the program with one of your original tunes, very appropriate further season. I'll let you introduce it in just a minute. So I'm looking forward to hearing that Eric would like to thank you for joining us here on being Frankly with all this intelligent conversation. It's been great, really interesting.
Thanks for having me. I had a last thank you good.
Of course, we offer special thanks to our listeners who take time to give us a voice in their lives. Remember you offer fresh topic every week and catch us wherever and whenever you get your favorite podcasts. Can also check us out at the Hudson River Radio Facebook page. We need to leave us a comment. We also ask that you consider sharing Being frank with others. You know, I always leave you the two last little things the music, which can allow Eric to introduce in just a minute.
But there's also a quote and it's I think I try to pick something that's appropriate and this is today's where words fail. Music speaks and that comes from Haines Christian Anderson for our engineer Neil Richter. I'm your host Frank Lobono and we'll let Eric Devido announce the closing tune Autumn. What's him?
Oh cool?
Yeah, So Autumn is an original composition of mine. It's on my second record called The Second Time Around, that was on the PJC Record label in twenty thirteen, I think, And it's an original tune I wrote, and it's a trio tune, and it's actually one of the few tunes that I play on steel string guitar, and I kind of actually, you know, we spoke a little bit earlier about Pat mctheney, and that's kind of very inspired by his trio work when he uses his steel string guitar.
This the sonic kind of the differences in this, the sonic details of the tune and this and how it changes with the space and the trio with the acoustic guitar. So this tune is a ballad. It's called Autumn, and it's just meant to be a very kind of pretty modern jazz ballad that kind of has some you know, compositionally, there's some the form that goes through like some periods of ebb and flow in terms of of energy, and yeah, it's just, uh it's just a nice ballad that's got a.
Couple some blues influence in it. And uh, yeah, I hope you like it.
Okay, Eric Devido, thank you so much once again. It was this was terrific.
Thanks for having me bank for our.
Engineer Neil Richter, the mailman. I'm your host, Frank Lebono. This has been being Frank and we hope to see you the next time around.
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