Journalist, Political Reporter, Cultural Critic, Editor/Proofreader
Alex V. Henderson
Philadelphia, PA
vixenatr
May 2015
Roger Davidson: From Tango to Klezmer
By Alex Henderson
Roger Davidson has not been an easy artist to pigeonhole. The veteran acoustic pianist/
composer, now 62, has devoted much of his career to bop, drawing on the influence of Bill Evans, Hank Jones, Red Garland, Wynton
Kelly, Tommy Flanagan and others. Yet he also has a long history of performing European classical music, religious chorale music
and world music, and he has combined jazz with styles ranging from Brazilian samba, Argentinean tango and Afro-Cuban salsa to
Jewish klezmer.
Born in Paris in 1952 to a French mother and an American father, Davidson was only a baby when he moved to New York City with
his parents—and he has spent most of his life around the Northeastern Corridor. One person who had a major impact on Davidson’s career
was the late Helen Keane, best rememberedfor producing and managing Evans. Davidson
had been concentrating on classical and religious music when he met Keane in the 1980s, but Keane urged him to perform jazz as
well—and in 1991, she produced the bop-oriented Ten to Twelve for him. Davidson went on to launch his own independent label,
Soundbrush Records, in 2002 and has used the company to release an abundance of his own albums as well as albums by other artists—
including singer Carol Fredette, klezmer trumpeter Frank London and Argentinean bassist
Pablo Aslan. At Soundbrush, Davidson has experimented with everything from tango on Amor por el Tango to klezmer on 2011’s On
the Road of Life (a collaboration with London) to Brazilian music on Journey to Rio, Brazilian Love Song and Rodgers in Rio (a
Brazilian jazz tribute to Tin Pan Alley icon Richard Rodgers).
During an April 21 interview, Davidson discussed his past and present activities.
JAZZ INSIDE: In what ways has your label, Soundbrush Recordings, grown and evolved during its 13-year history?
ROGER DAVIDSON: I started the label as a name in 1998, but nothing happened until later. My original vision, with the name Soundbrush, was to combine the visual arts and music in projects that would involve painters and sculptors and musicians working together. That ended up not working out. There was an informal recording I did in the beginning with a painter friend of mine. I would improvise music while watching him paint, and he would improvise painting while watching me play music. That’s where the name started—my friend and I came up with the name Soundbrush. But it has a more general meaning as well, and eventually, it turned into a full-fledged label that involved all kinds of music—particularly jazz and world music, Latin music, music from Brazil, classical music. Having said that, the quality of our covers is something we paid close attention to—and we were picked up by Museum Music because of the artistic quality of our covers. Soundbrush has thrived in that way because we pay attention to the artistry of our CD covers as well as the quality of our music.
JI: It’s obvious that Soundbrush puts a lot of effort into its CD covers.
RD: Thank you. I miss LPs. You have more room for art work with LPs, but artists have been doing a good job with CDs as well. We have had many good graphic designers working for us, and they have all done really well.
JI: And you have been emphasizing the foldout covers and cardboard covers rather than simply booklets with plastic jewel boxes.
RD: We started out with jewel boxes and found that they always broke. So we decided to be more practical and have the cardboard foldout covers with the booklets. They last, and they work better.
JI: How is the popularity of digital downloads affecting your label?
RD: The popularity of digital downloads has been both a boon and a problem at the same time. As you know, the nature of the digital music world means that almost anybody can copy anything and not pay for it if they know what they’re doing. But on the other hand, it also disseminates the music more widely. Our chief interest is dissemination, but of course, we also want income. That’s been a problem for many musicians around the world. Anyway, we’re proud of the CDs we’ve done at Soundbrush, and I’ve enjoyed being able to put out a lot of my music on Soundbrush. Some of my music is on one or two other labels as well, but most of my music has been on Soundbrush.
JI: You’ve built a diverse catalogue at Soundbrush.
RD: We have. Very diverse. We try not to be too diverse, but we’ve ended up with a community of Soundbrush musicians—if you want to call it that—and many of them know each other. I’m glad to be working with many good musicians who are enormously talented and a joy to work with.
JI: Your own albums at Soundboard have experimented with everything from Brazilian music to tango to klezmer.
RD: The nature of my career has been like moving many pieces on the board at the same time—and often incrementally because you can’t do everything at once. But I have a lot of musical passions, and they’re all related to each other. For example, one of my passions is Brazilian music. I’ve loved the music and spirit of Brazil since I was about nine years old and discovered the early bossa nova recordings—and it went on from there. Likewise, I’ve always loved the Argentine tango and many other types of music from South America, Central America and the Caribbean. Of course, I’m steeped in European classical music and was educated that way from the beginning. And I’m steeped in a lot of American traditions as well, including the African-American experience and gospel music—which I love. American traditions are part of my vocabulary as well.
JI: You don’t make cookie-cutter music.
RD: It’s difficult to make cookies from me because you think there’s one edge, and then, it goes on to another. But to tell you the truth, no matter how funny the shape of a cookie is—or no matter how many cookies there are—they’re all related to each other. In other words, music is music. And it communicates with an audience. I’ve never specialized in one thing, against the advice of some of my professors who said, “Roger, you should just do one thing well.” For example, I went to see Nadia Boulanger in France a long time ago in the ‘70s. I was pretty young at the time. I played the piano, I played the violin, I was a composer. And she said, “Mr. Davidson, you’re very talented. But you have to concentrate on one thing at a time.” I listened to her, and I tried to do one thing. But it didn’t work because I wasn’t happy. And I’m glad I took the path in life that I did. I went on and explored the world of music as a player and composer, and I’ve had a great life doing it.
JI: Another type of world music you have embraced is klezmer.
RD: I started working with Frank London, which resulted in the album, On the Road of Life. That album was a barrel of fun to do.
JI: You’ve said that your interest in klezmer stems from your own European background.
RD: Very much from my own background. I couldn’t play it if it weren’t in my own background. I’m interested in Japanese music, but I don’t feel as comfortable doing it as a native Japanese musician would even though I can try. I have a lot of empathy for many cultures. Even though I’m not Brazilian, I’ve spent so much time with Brazilian music that it feels as natural as breathing to me. And Brazilian music is close to many European traditions. There are cultural threads that come in there as well. Likewise with jazz, which is related to all the things I’ve grown up with.
JI: Many of the titles of your original songs have been in languages other than English, depending on the nature of the music. For example, you have come up with Portuguese song titles on Brazilian projects and Spanish song titles on your tango projects such as Amor por el Tango.
RD: I’m keen on that because if I’m playing tango, for example, tango comes from a Spanish-speaking culture—and to me, it makes more sense to have the title in Spanish. I’m already thinking of Argentine culture when I’m thinking of tango and composing tango. So it makes more sense for the titles to be in Spanish. I’m also reaching out to the Spanish-speaking world. Likewise, with the Portuguese titles for many of my Brazilian tunes, I’m reaching out to Brazil and the Portuguese-speaking community. It’s just natural for me to think of a title in Portuguese when I’m composing Brazilian music. And I have some Brazilian tunes with French titles because the nature of those tunes is very French.
JI: How many languages do you speak?
RD: Fluently, I speak English and French. I was born in France and grew up mostly in the U.S., but I grew up bilingual. My mother is French, and my father was American. My parents decided that they were mostly going to speak English at home, but occasionally, they spoke French—and I always spoke French with my cousins in France. I speak German pretty well too because I studied German in college. It was my major. Instead of majoring in music, I thought I was going to be a language teacher, among other things. It didn’t work out that way, but German proved to be tremendously useful in music. And it’s also part of my heritage. Most of my heritage is German. My mom was from Eastern France, but her background goes into Germany as well.
JI: And you also understand Portuguese?
RD: I do. I’m learning Portuguese because my wife, Nilcelia, is from Brazil. We’ve been married now a year. My wife’s name is Nilcelia Davidson. She’s an amazing lady from Brazil. I have to say that my musical life has gotten better since I met her. She improves my life in all ways. I speak French, and my wife and I have fun because of how similar French and Portuguese are. I started learning Portuguese a bit before I met her, but since we met, I’ve been learning it in earnest. I’m taking lessons, and I love speaking Portuguese. I speak Portuguese at home with my wife sometimes. I love the language. I’m learning to sing some Brazilian songs as well, and maybe that will pop up on an album someday if I’m brave enough.
JI: Is Italian one of the languages you’ve studied?
RD: It is, but briefly. I studied it in high school. I went to school in Switzerland during my senior year of high school because my dad was working in Europe. We all moved to Europe for a while. There happened to be a very good Italian teacher in that school, and I learned quite a bit of Italian—which is spoken in some parts of Switzerland. I always loved Italian, which is one of the greatest singing languages in the world. Looking back at my musical life, it’s been a very happy one—an adventurous one. I’ve learned a lot. And of course, you learn from other musicians too. But I’m always eager to have other musicians play my music. It’s a wonderful community.
JI: One of your current projects at Soundbrush is Live at Caffè Vivaldi, a series of live recordings made at Caffè Vivaldi in Manhattan’s West Village.
RD: I came up with the idea with my manager. I was playing at Caffè Vivaldi frequently anyway and thought, “Why not record there, pick the best performances, and then turn them into live albums?” And so, we started doing that. It started with a duo album with Pablo Aslan, my friend and colleague on the bass—and it went on to a trio with David Finck on bass and Adriano Santos, the Brazilian drummer. That’s my Brazilian jazz trio. That’s the second volume of Live at Caffè Vivaldi, which is coming out May 20. The third one is going to be a solo-piano album, and the fourth one will most likely be a duo. I don’t know how many there will be after the fourth volume. The Live at Caffè Vivaldi series is an opportunity, at a relatively lost cost, to put out wonderful albums.
JI: What are some of the things you like about that particular venue, Caffè Vivaldi?
RD: It has a real piano, for one thing. I will tolerate electronic pianos if I have to—I have one at home and like the sound of it—but I like playing most of my gigs on real pianos. There’s so much more you can do on a real piano. And Caffè Vivaldi is a warm, congenial place where you can get a good dinner and relax with fun music. There are a lot of interesting artists who go through Caffè Vivaldi. It’s a joy to record there. Caffè Vivaldi has attentive, lively audiences. It’s a wonderful place. I’ve played at other places in New York too, such as Zinc Bar and Iridium. But Caffè Vivaldi has been a steady thing the past two and one-half years.
JI: You can tell that Caffè Vivaldi is playing up its Italian theme not only because it is named after Antonio Vivaldi, but also, because they spell Caffè the Italian way with two f’s instead of one.
RD: Exactly. It is the Italian spelling. One of these days, I’m going to have to do a concert entirely of jazz variations of Vivaldi. That would be fun. We haven’t done that yet. I’m not sure what Vivaldi would think about that.
JI: Let’s discuss some of the pianists who have inspired you along the way.
RD: I love Scott Joplin and James P. Johnson. I love ragtime and the early stride pianists. I love playing ragtime. People don’t know that because I’ve rarely performed it, but I love ragtime and old stride piano. I also love Erroll Garner, Wynton Kelly, Red Garland and Oscar Peterson. Bill Evans is one of my top stars—I’ve been heavily influenced by him. Bill Evans invented a huge harmonic language in jazz and did it in such an original way. He’s always been one of my musical heroes.
JI: What about Tommy Flanagan?
RD: Tommy Flanagan, for sure. I love Tommy Flanagan’s playing. And Hank Jones. I love Thelonious Monk too, particularly as a composer. I’m fascinated by him. The list goes on and on.
JI: What were some of the things you learned from Red Garland’s playing?
RD: Playing melody and harmony at the same time and keeping the swing going. I had a few jazz lessons from Harold Danko, who was a jazz professor. I took some private lessons from Harold in New York in the late ‘90s, and he had me transcribe Red Garland’s solos and practice them. So I got inside of the musical mind of Red Garland when he was improvising.
JI: Red Garland had such a great sense of melody, and one can hear his influence on McCoy Tyner when McCoy plays the block chords—although McCoy is quite distinctive himself.
RD: Exactly. I sometimes play with block chords when I feel like it. It’s fun. It’s part of the jazz vocabulary and part of the piano vocabulary. That’s the wonderful thing about the 20th Century—there was an explosion of the musical vocabulary in the concert world, the jazz world and the classical world. The things that nobody thought were possible became possible, which was a wonderful advantage for musicians. By the way, I’m a major fan of Oliver Jones. I don’t want to leave him out. He’s a Canadian jazz pianist who was a close friend of Oscar Peterson. Oliver Jones is a truly great pianist, perhaps the greatest living jazz pianist. I definitely put him at the top of my list. Also, I like the playing of Eliane Elias, the Brazilian jazz pianist and singer. She’s a phenomenal pianist. And I think Diana Krall plays really well too.
JI: What are some of the things you admire about Wynton Kelly’s playing?
RD: I didn’t study Wynton Kelly as closely as Red Garland, but I love listening to him. He had a natural melodic sense and swings very easily. He’s a pleasure to listen to. Wynton Kelly is definitely one of my favorites.
JI: What about Chick Corea? Would you consider him an inspiration?
RD: He used to be in the early days, when I heard him on an album he did in 1967 with Stan Getz, (Sweet Rain). When he got more modern and radical, I sort of parted ways with his aesthetic. But I love the early Chick Corea. Another pianist who is a great talent is Keith Jarrett. He’s very diverse and pulls it off well. And let’s not forget Marian McPartland. She’s another great figure in the history of jazz piano.
JI: One of your albums that received a lot of attention was We Remember Helen, dedicated to Helen Keane.
RD: We Remember Helen was done 20 years after my first jazz album, which was produced by Helen Keane—who was Bill Evans’ producer and produced many other great jazz musicians as well. Helen passed away before I had a chance to get other projects going with her. In the ‘80s, Helen persuaded me to get into active jazz playing—which I did immediately. I followed her advice, and eventually, Helen introduced me to the bassist David Finck—who I have known for over 20 years now. David played on that first album, called Ten to Twelve, which we recorded in New York City in 1991. And 20 years later in 2011, I got back into the studio with David and decided to do a memorial album for Helen. We Remember Helen was in honor of Helen, who passed away in 1996. Lewis Nash was on the drums. It was amazing to play with Lewis Nash, who I had never played with before. That was fun.
JI: What are some of the things that tie all of your work together? What is the common thread?
RD: To me, the most important thing about music is that it come from the heart—that it not be artificially constructed from the outside in. In other words, music means the most when it is an expression of love and an expression of life whether it be joy or sadness or spiritual aspirations. Music means very little to me unless it comes from the inside out and is generated from within your soul. For me, the most important thing as a player and as a composer is, “Where does the music want to go?” That’s the key question to me. Once you’ve launched the ship and have decided what the spirit of that ship is going to be, then the music follows that spirit. I try to generate the best energy that I can whenever I make music whether it be as a composer or as a player. That underlies everything that I do.
JI: Your albums, although improvisatory, always sound very focused—not random.
RD: Improvisation, to me, is not the least bit random. Improvisation is composed, in a way. If you are improvising with a focus, the notes that result from that will be part of that focus. They will be going in the same direction even though it may be very diverse. It may change along the way, but it will still be part of that focus. A related statement is something I remember Stan Getz saying in 1983. I went to the Stanford Jazz Workshop two summers in a row in 1983 and 1984, and in the summer of 1983, Stan Getz was one of the main features of the Workshop. I remember that he said, “When you’re improvising on a melody, stay close to the melody because the melody is what means the most.” And the other thing I remember Stan Getz saying was, “It’s more important to know what to leave out than what to put in. All of you are very talented young musicians, and you know how to play a lot of notes. But that’s not what matters. What matters is how clearly you’re putting the music out.” I already believed that myself, but it was good to hear Stan Getz say it. Having had many years of experience as a great improviser, he said that the melody was always the king. You can improvise on the melody and on the harmony all over the place, but stay focused on the melody all the way through. And the second thing Stan said was that it’s OK to leave spaces in the music—breathing points. Miles Davis was a genius at that too. I remember that when Miles Davis played “Bye, Bye, Blackbird,” he didn’t actually play every note in the tune. But you knew what it was.
JI: Another one of your interests is spiritual music, which you highlighted with your organization, the Society for Universal Sacred Music.
RD: Soundbrush adopted the recordings of the Society for Universal Sacred Music, which I founded in 2000. The Society for Universal Sacred Music closed its doors—temporarily, anyway—a couple of years ago. Our budget ran out; so we had to make choices. But it may start up again. The Society ran for about 12 years and put out over 50 compositions by composers around the world for the purpose of disseminating a universal spiritual message. When I started writing what I call universal sacred music in the early 1980s, I wanted to express a universal, all-inclusive message. The Society for Universal Sacred Music was a dream of mine that came true, and we had many wonderful concerts. And although the office is closed, the mission goes on. The composers are still there. We have the music archived, and it’s available to any music directors that wish to perform it.
JI: The Society for Universal Sacred Music got into a variety of spiritual music.
RD: There were many types of music that we produced, not just chorale concert music. We also had Indian musicians. We had gospel songs. The music we put out varied tremendously. My wife and I have been students in an interfaith seminary in the New York area for the past two years, and we will be graduating at the end of May as ordained ministers—but not from a particular faith. The purpose of that seminary is very similar to the Society for Universal Sacred Music, going beyond the boundaries of religions and focusing on how they are connected.
JI: The Society has maintained a non-sectarian focus.
RD: Exactly. Why do we take up arms against our brothers and sisters? Because we have forgotten that we’re brothers and sisters. It’s time to remember that we are brothers and sisters and lay down our arms. Unfortunately, the religious conflicts are still going on, as you know. Muslims are fighting Muslims. Jews are fighting Jews. Christians are fighting Christians. And they’re all fighting each other. None of it makes any sense because we all have the same God. Each club is saying, “My God is better than your God, and if you don’t realize that my God is better than yours, I’ll kill you.” And how stupid is that? That is the ultimate shame in humanity. If anything is blasphemous, that is.
JI: You’ve performed in different parts of the world, including Argentina.
RD: Argentina, of course, is where the tango started. The tango become very popular in the rest of the world. When I was growing up, my grandfather on the French side became fascinated by the tango. He was a tango dancer as a hobby. He danced the Argentine tango, and I watched him sometimes. That’s how I got interested in tango, which is very popular in France.
JI: Tango is unique. It’s so different from the tropical forms of Latin music such as salsa, merengue, cumbia and bachata.
RD: And then there’s the combination of tango and jazz, which I love. I think that my composition, “Adios, Dolór,” is one of my best examples of combining tango and jazz.
JI: “Goodbye, Pain.”
RD: Exactly. “Goodbye, Pain”—that’s what that title means in Spanish. “Adios, Dolór” is one of my favorite tunes that I’ve written. It’s a good example of how combining jazz and tango works.
JI: Jazz and tango certainly work well together. Incorporating jazz was one of the things that the late, great Astor Piazzolla was known for. That was one of his innovations.
RD: Absolutely. And my musical partner, Pablo Aslan, is himself a pioneer of combining tango and jazz.
JI: Many people hear the term Latin jazz and strictly think of Afro-Cuban jazz. But there is so much Latin music out there in addition to Afro-Cuban music and salsa.
RD: Oh, yeah. And Brazilian jazz, of course. Sometimes, it’s hard to see where Brazilian music ends and jazz starts. They really are brother and sister, and they go so well together. Stan Getz, Charlie Byrd and other great musicians in the 1960s were the first to bring bossa nova to the United States when they came over with João Gilberto and others. The American musicians who visited Brazil brought bossa nova and samba back here and fused it with jazz, and they brought that back to Brazil and influenced Brazilians. They went back and forth, and it’s been a wonderful synergy over the decades. Speaking of Brazil, I have a book of Brazilian music—it’s called To Brazil with Love and contains 120 of my Brazilian tunes written over a three- or five-year period. And I’m about to come out with a second volume of Brazilian music with over 100 tunes written in various Brazilian styles. The next book after that will be a book of about 100 of my tango compositions, followed by a jazz book with well over 100 jazz tunes that I’ve written over a long period of time.
JI: Who are some of the Brazilian musicians who have inspired you?
RD: Of course, one of my Brazilian heroes is Antonio Carlos Jobim. My others are Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, Gilberto Gil and João Donato. I met Roberto in Rio de Janeiro and in New York. There’s a wonderful picture of Roberto with my wife and myself. All of those guys have been great influences on my Brazilian writing.
Copyright 2022 Alex V. Henderson. All rights reserved.
Alex V. Henderson
Philadelphia, PA
vixenatr