Special Guest, Lisa Deneau

Bob (00:32.854)
Lisa Deneau!

No. Hi, Bob. It's so good to see you.

Bob

I cannot tell you how excited I am to spend this time with you and introduce you to the Jazz Piano Skills community. I think I told you in an email that they are going to love you. Everybody's going to love hearing your story, your background, what you're doing now professionally, your love for the arts, jazz. It's fabulous. So, you know, you join Jazz Piano Skills.

Lisa

We, I really started at the end of, at the end of last year, but I, you know, let's say this year. So it's been nine months.

Bob (01:17.71)
Yeah, and it's and you've an active member. You are you are officially the director of listening at Jazz Piano Skills. You do the research and put together the listening list for the community that we post every week, which you do a fabulous job with that. We'll talk a little bit more about that later as well. But you know what? To get started, I want to just turn the microphone over to you and I want you to share with.

the Jazz Piano Skills community. Share with me, because I haven't even heard this yet, so this is all new for me. I want to hear about your background, your childhood, parents, siblings, how you got into music, your love for jazz, and so on. So, Lisa, it's all yours.

Lisa
Okay. So Bob, thank you so much for having me here. I love jazz piano skills and I love our master class and everybody in it. So here is my background. I got to start with my mother. She was the most significant influence on me and my love for music period. And I know I was very moved by that when you said hello to me.

when I first joined Jazz Piano Skills because she's not here anymore. this music is so meaningful to me. Her mother was a classical pianist, a very accomplished classical pianist. And so my mother, I was told by my grandmother, sat at the piano when she was two and she never left. And I think that's probably true. I mean, she probably played piano. I mean, she wasn't a prodigy, but she had quite a gift.

So there's this musical background, which I'll go into. But first I'm going to show you some photos. I was looking for some photos. I wanted to share this with you a long time ago. And I found my absolute favorite photo of my mother before I was born. And those are probably in the fifties. She's singing. And, you know, these, I don't know who the guys were. could tell if you saw their faces, they were really digging it. And my mom was so happy.

Bob (03:20.334)
Wow!

Lisa (03:31.464)
That was who she was. cow. Yeah. okay, so.

Bob

Jazz singer?

Lisa

Jazz singer, So I was told when my mother was in her teens, like 13 and 14, she had a weekly 15 minute radio program. My grandmother played for her and she sang. And then she sang regularly in a jazz band. And those were stories I heard. And when she passed away, I opened a suitcase I didn't know existed and there was fan mail, little

like white postcards to, know, Barbara Schwartzman at whatever it was, whatever, da da da, in New Haven. The address was so simple, but all these beautiful pieces of fan mail. And a letter from, she wanted to be a professional singer. I mean, she's sang, you know, all her life. She was in choirs in school. She had a degree in music education. And in the suitcase, I found,

a letter I never heard of from an agent, talent agent, who said that my mom sang like a bird and then in his own way he had, he said, you your piano needs a little work. But you know, she accompanied herself. So when she got out of school, she became a professional singer. That's what she wanted to do. And I'm going to show you her glamor photo because I love it.

Bob (05:00.795)
Wow. Beautiful.

Lisa

That was my mom. She was She was. And that's when she met my she was singing in Boston and my dad was in the Navy and he heard her and you know one thing led to another. Okay so I have one more photo I'm going to show you and it's my glamour photo accompanying my mother.

Wow. See? Yeah, I'm ready.

Bob (05:33.198)
That's awesome.

And then my dad obviously took these photos. This was my brother in the background singing with all of us, right?

how awesome is that?

So, you know, we grew up in a home where there was a lot of classical music and a lot of standards. There was jazz. My mother loved Broadway tunes. She sang all the time. I loved it when she sang. I loved it when she played. I asked her to play for me all the time, really, from elementary school to high school to college, and then when I'd come home from moving to New York. The tunes that she played that she sang were, you know, the...

Heartbreakers and you know, here's that rainy day. yeah You know, she she could make you cry when she's saying Why did I choose you? Yeah, you know funny valentine, you know, embraceable you this beautiful music from the 30s and 40s and 50s so she sang that music and in our home we had she played everything from

Lisa (06:42.988)
I mean, she had Bill Evans, had Andre Previn, George Shearing, and then all the great singers of the day. You know, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn and Dakota Staton and Dinah Washington and on and on. And and we listened to Vladimir Horowitz. We listened to Andrei Segovia and his gorgeous guitar playing Bach. So there's a lot of beautiful music. And OK, so.

I started taking piano lessons when I was five or six. And I studied with a woman named Phyllis Cotts. Her husband, Paul Cotts, was the founder and director of the Dayton Philharmonic. And I would go to my lessons. And if I was early, I would sit in this little room. had like records and books. That's the way I remember it. And a mirror and a music stand. And one day, Paul Cotts said to me, I asked him why he had a mirror in his office.

And he said so that he could practice conducting in front of the mirror. And I couldn't imagine that, but I have spent so many years loving watching conductors. And I that's because of him. know? So anyway, I was with Phyllis for a few years. She was a serious classical musician. I was learning, you know, tiny little tunes. I remember one of them called I'm called Little Buttercup.

It had lyrics, I could sing it to you, but I'll spare us both. Oh, I do. I absolutely do. I remember a lot. But I think my, you know, my mom realized I wanted to play like her and I didn't know how to do that and Phyllis couldn't teach me. So I left her for a while and

You still remember it, don't you?

Lisa (08:32.777)
Then I guess in elementary or high school, I don't remember when I started studying with a teacher named Gail Charlotten. She went to school with Andre Watts. He came and played at my house. I was too shy to meet him, so I went upstairs and I fell asleep. Wow. But I took lessons with her. I honestly don't remember practicing, but I'm sure I did. And this is

Wow.

Lisa (09:01.12)
I learned to practice my left hand alone and my right hand alone and my hands together. I have no idea what I practiced. But what I really wanted to play was my all-time still favorite piece of music, and that was Rachmaninoff's Second Concerto. And I don't know, way too many notes for me. I don't know where I heard it. It could have been my grandmother. My mother didn't play it. My mother was...

a wonderful musician. She was not a great technical musician. I mean, she could hear anything and play it by ear, really. you know, so there were a few things I wanted to play when I was taking lessons. I really didn't want to play what I was studying. And I told my mom I wanted to play some music and I didn't know that it was Rachmaninoff. And in her own immutable way, she said, well, honey, why don't you just sing a little bit of it to me? You know, so.

I went, but, uh, da, da, da, da, da, you know, so Bob, I don't know if you can hear the orchestra in my head, but it's in my head right now. Right. Of course. my mom got it right away and she got the music for me and I couldn't read anything. There were way too many notes. They were too small. There were all these lines and dots and whatever, but there were a couple of pages that I could read. I'd heard the music.

Lisa (10:24.718)
And I played it over and over, left hand first and right hand. And at some point I was just able to play it by ear, just a couple of pages. The other thing that I really wanted to play, I wanted to play Carole King and Elton John and the music of my time. So my mother bought that music for me. And this is really revealing. I thought of all of this in the last week. I was playing something. I knew how to play it because I'd heard it and I knew how to read music.

So I was doing some sight reading and I was in our living room and I played a wrong note. I mean, it doesn't matter, but you And my mother from the kitchen says, be flat.

I knew that was coming.

And I was so, you know, I think I was angry because I did not know what a B flat was or where to find it on the piano. I knew how to read to some degree. Right. Right. So that's pretty revealing. So, you know, that's that. And I went to college and

I started off with a BA, regular BA, and I went to Indiana University. Great music school. Great music school, great art school. And at the end of my second year, I got accepted into the Bachelor of Fine Arts program for studio art. And up to that point, and I loved music. I went to jazz concerts. They had three jazz bands.

Bob (11:42.808)
Music school.

Lisa (12:05.294)
I went to classical concerts. heard Vladimir Horowitz, my hero, one of them, you know? And I ended up taking a history of jazz class with David Baker, the great David Baker.

The great David Baker, one of the pioneers of jazz education.

That's right. Yeah, no doubt. I didn't know that at the time, but he was a really cool guy. And because of him, a couple of things happened. I started listening to music that I didn't know. I'd go to that. There was a listening library. I went to record stores. They had these jazz bins where you could buy records for 99 cents. It's a huge jazz program. So there was always, you know, music coming in and out of record record record stores.

And I became friends with a couple of people, a jazz singer, who became one of my best friends, and a jazz pianist who, to this day, is one of my best friends. And these people had a lot of skill that I didn't. I never would have been accepted into the music school there. But I, in retrospect, surrounded myself with the music. I took a couple lessons from

Luke Gillespie, who's now the head of the music school there. And I remember, I think I was in a group class and we were studying Scrapple for the Apple, which I never heard, which I didn't like, and I didn't want to play it. Right.

Bob (13:38.67)
You didn't like Charlie Parker? You said like no, I don't want I don't want it

No, listen, I didn't really know. This is super interesting. My brother and I inherited this pretty vast record collection of 78s that belong to our mom. And they look like this.

You know, in these paper sleeves like this. So my mom had all this music, great music, but that was the music she grew up listening to. It's not what we listen to. When I was a teenager, we were listening to, you know, all the musicians I mentioned earlier, but also Bert Bachrach and Sergio Mendez and Brazil 66. And then my brother, bless my brother, he introduced

Exactly. Right.

Lisa (14:28.63)
me to the music of Stevie Wonder, who's such a beautiful musician. he took me, my brother is a couple years older than me, and he took me to a Stevie Wonder concert. He was old enough to drive and it was just the two of us. And he's done other things like this. He took me when I was in college to Earth, Wind and Fire. know, he introduced me to the music of Aretha Franklin. He's really...

Yeah.

I'm very fortunate.

goodness. Yeah, but by the time you got to college, up until college, your music background in terms of playing was classical.

Mostly classical, yeah.

Bob (15:15.102)
Okay, all right. So when you got to Indiana you got in David Baker's class Jazz introduction to jazz music you get introduced to Scrapple From the Apple and you didn't like it. So what happened because now you're this big jazz lover

Yeah, so this is what happened. I was listening. So I went to jazz concerts and a lot of times they played standards, which I loved. And a lot of times they played music, which I didn't, I wasn't familiar with and I didn't love so much. Right. But a couple of, I've had a couple of very special moments in the last 50 years. Okay. And one of them was at IU and I would buy albums to

to listen to that David had mentioned the artists in class. Like I never listened to Coltrane before. I'd never listened to Dizzy and I never listened to whoever. And one day I went into, and I love photography. I've been doing photography for a long time. And one day I went into this music store and I found this white album and it was a solo piano player. And I liked the black and white photo on the front. And it was

Keith Jarrett in the Colton concert. And so this was such a departure from anything I'd ever heard. I didn't know if it was classical. I wasn't exactly sure what was jazz, right? He played forever. It wasn't a 32 measure tune. I'm not sure what I thought. Part of it I loved. I can hear part of it right now if I think of it.

Lisa (16:53.742)
That opened my eyes. That was like, you know, I came from a pretty figurative background in art and that was like me looking at a de Kooning painting, you know, or my favorite all-time painter. don't know if you know who she was. Her name was Joan Mitchell, not Joni Mitchell, Joan Mitchell, painted these extraordinary, huge paintings. You could see them all and you know, you just couldn't grasp it all, but they were gorgeous, really thickly painted.

That in its own way was challenging when I first saw it just like listening to Keith Jarrett. Yeah, right, right, right. So, and I took voice lessons from it.

I can't wait to hear this.

I took voice lessons from a woman named Blanche Farman. She was getting her PhD studying black opera singer, black music, and their history of African music. she studied with Eileen Farrell. So I met Miss Farrell. She asked me to sing for her once. Thank God she didn't tell me she was going to have me do it or I would have walked out of the building backwards.

Right.

Lisa (18:11.694)
Through her I met other musicians and also at that time, unbelievably so, the head of the jazz school let me go into jazz practice and do sketches and do an enormous painting. So I really filled my life with music and art. No doubt. Okay. Then I moved to New York in 1980.

So what prompted the move to New York?

I knew I wanted to move to New York. I'd come here with my parents when I was young. I wanted to be anonymous, really. I didn't know what I was going to do. I had no idea how I'd make a living. I thought if I failed, nobody would know me.

You know, there you go. I moved with a friend who was a painter. She and I didn't know anybody. We moved to a loft in Soho and Soho was really Soho before it was a giant shopping mall. You know, it was like gallery after gallery. Right. And my grandmother had stopped playing piano. She was in her 80s. So she gave me her baby grand. So I had her piano and my loft. And then after four years, I moved to Brooklyn and

And about the only thing I played over those four years, sometimes I played, sometimes I painted, most of the time I worked, was I tried to do my Rachmaninoff, right? Because I really didn't know anything else. And when I moved to Brooklyn, I was walking around in this neighborhood called Park Slope, and I passed by a house that had some flyers that said classical and jazz piano lessons. And

Lisa (19:54.7)
you know, I called the number and I ended up studying with this man, Charles Zaburski, who is a wonderful teacher. And I studied with him for a few years and I went away for about 12 years. And then I went back after my mom died because I, after six months, I couldn't stand not playing. Right. So what was really interesting about that, and I'm going to show you in a minute, some of my notes, cause we talked about note taking.

you know, I wasn't certain that I loved what I was learning. there was, I wasn't, you know, I think I always wanted to play and sing like my mom. I have a different, I'm so thrilled to say I have a different thought about that now, but, we did play, you know, some of the songs that, that I liked. I did not, I never really liked learning the basics and you know,

I pulled out my notes. These are the kind of notes that I kept when I was, you know, these are my weekly notes. check things off. So I'm just going to read to you. This is just arbitrary one week. Scales, two octaves, correct fingering, right hand, left hand, hands together. Triads, major, minor, diminished, augmented, where the metronome was. Triads, inversions, chords.

You know, we've got progressions, the tunes I was playing, all the things you are, how deep is the ocean, there will never be another you. And the reason why I made these meticulous notes was I couldn't keep, there's no way I could keep track of everything if I didn't. And maybe it was a little too much for me, you know? At the time.

curious that form that you just held up was that his form? That was something that you created?

Lisa (21:53.048)
Now

Yeah. And here was a different version of it. It's just on Excel. It's just on Excel.

But you know what? Very, very good. Excellent.

Yeah. So it doesn't look at all like what I do today, but, but, that's how I kept track of things. And with him, he had playing workshops and he would hire a rhythm section. And, know, I couldn't get through one song at the time that I was working on, you know, and the first time I agreed when I finally agreed to be in a, be in a playing workshop, there were maybe seven or eight people outside of the rhythm section.

my hands shook literally for about an hour before I even got to his house. And he knew that. So he let me play first and everybody was so generous. I have no idea what I did, but I got through it. know? Awesome. So I played with him and

Lisa (22:59.17)
I'm going to talk to you about pianos in a second, but when I stopped playing for him with him and then, around 2008, this was kind of the next pivotal thing that happened for me. I got a call from someone I knew, another piano player who said that he was studying with a musician in Harlem and they had a small group and they wanted to add one other person. He thought I'd be a good fit. the fellow was Dan Kaufman. He's a young player and he's a

beautiful, beautiful musician and the teacher. And the reason why my friend thought of me is it was a pretty quiet group because there was a young man, he was about 13 and he was autistic. his parents discovered his father was a musician, his mother was a mathematician, and they just discovered he had a great ear for music. But his social skills were different than other people's. So

You know, we were all very sensitive to that. So I was in that group for a long time. And at that time I learned about Jazzmobile. Now, do you know of Jazzmobile? yes. yes. Like one of your favorites. yes. So I went to Jazzmobile. And so for people that don't know about this school, it's in Harlem. It's moved from a couple of, you know, one place to another. think that's why it's called Jazzmobile.

But it was really for inner city kids. Anybody could go and, you know, learn jazz. And people who were very young to, you know, much older and well-known people would come and play and teach. And my teacher was teaching there at the time. And I was overwhelmed. mean, was... Jazz theory was really new to me. And it was too much. Right.

So I started taking private lessons with Dan Kaufman and he said to me, basically one of the things you said to us, he said to me, Lisa, there's certain core, there's certain things you need to know backwards and forwards. I don't care how you learn them. There are four part chords. It was like one, three, five, seven or three, five, seven, nine. Right. And the inversions. Right. And I started off.

Lisa (25:22.968)
very enthusiastically and that didn't last. Because I wanted to play. Yeah, of course. I just want to play. All right, so here's what happened. The second thing that was extraordinary for me, he said, OK, what do you want to play? And I said, Funny Valentine. And he took out some manuscript paper and he said, OK, we're going to do four measures at a time or maybe eight measures. And he started writing an arrangement.

Yeah, right.

Lisa (25:52.43)
And he would play some chords and he'd say, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? And then, you know, I'd a chord by itself may not sound good, but in context to the rest of the song, it's beautiful. And I saw that like, you know, you could play a D and an E flat in a chord and it didn't sound like mud. sounded beautiful. Right. So that because of that, it gave me hope that

you know, I could understand what I was hearing that I love. then also he did some really fun things like, and I have the most beautiful arrangement of Funny Valentine, right? But he did things like if he was playing a tune in his left hand, he might play whatever the bass note was with his pinky and in his right hand, he played the melody note with his right pinky and then hands together. I he did some very lovely things, right?

Mm-hmm.

Lisa (26:51.352)
So.

That kind of changed my world for me. Seeing that maybe I can do what he did, knowing that it might be many years away, but I saw what he was doing. The other thing was I had had a few different pianos in my life and I really wanted, at the time I had inherited my mother's Baldwin Acrasonic. Classic.

Yeah.

Lisa (27:24.726)
my, had actually done a long-term lending to a jazz singer of my grandmother's piano because it needed work. I, I wasn't going to put into it the amount of work that was needed. And she was very happy to have it. She took great care of it. Right. so I had my mom's piano and I, I was learning to listen and I wanted something more. And so.

I started getting educated. had saved some money. I started getting educated about, whatever I needed to know to make a decision about what to buy to me. I didn't know what was under the hood of the lid of a piano, you know? And, so I did reading. I, I, went to, I did a little playing, at, Falst Harrison and Beethoven and these places on 57th street where they sell use pianos and a place in Brooklyn.

and I talked to people that rebuilt pianos, I really got some kind of an education. And then I finally decided, I learned that Steinway was known for beautiful pianos in the 20s and 30s. So that's what I looked for. And I found my suite, it's an

And in three years, I'm going to be celebrating its 100th birthday. It was born in 1928 and it's got all the original parts. Oh, I've got to tell you part of the story. It's got all the original parts, but one of the graphs broke. opened the lid over the winter, you know, as a brass and it broke and someone, thankfully I found somebody, you you got to drill down and anyway, somebody got strings and so the only new

Yeah, right.

Lisa (29:18.23)
new parts or this graph and some strings. But when I learned about this piano, I did a search online and I found an article about three men that used to tune pianos for Carnegie Hall. And I found one of them. And he lived in Connecticut. That's where my piano was at the time. And I said, would you please go, I'm going to, you know, I saw the piano. Would you please, I don't know anything about pianos. I don't want to make a very big mistake.

Right.

And he said, I'll do it, but I can't do it right away. So I found somebody else who went out and he called me and he said, Lisa, the piano's fine, but it needs about $14,000 worth of work. True story. And that was not much more than I paid for it. I couldn't afford it. So I called this guy in Connecticut and he said, don't let the owner sell it. There was somebody else who wanted it. He went out and saw it. He called me from the guy's parking lot and he said,

Right, right.

Lisa (30:18.146)
buy it. And that was it. I said to the guy, I'm going to send you, why are you some money? I got the piano. the few people that have, you know, tuned it. One person told me I had a, a jewel in a, you know, in a little jewel box. here's the whole thing. It's, it's the piano I love. Are there other pianos in the world? Yes. There's, there's always something else, you know, but it's a,

Right now, of course.

So between studying with Dan Kaufman and then having an instrument that felt like it has depth and a richness, you know, and a feel that I'm happy with, that was big for me.

Right.

Bob (31:04.054)
Absolutely. Yeah. 100%.

So I studied with him for a while and then right before, I guess it was around in 2000, I don't know how many years I studied with him, but I stopped around 2018 or 19. And I lost my job in 2020. And...

Lisa (31:28.438)
Okay, then maybe a year, a year and a half ago, I was listening to podcasts and I was looking for jazz podcasts and I found you. So I listened to you for, don't know, maybe six months before I joined. And what I loved and I still love is, and this is for anybody that's interested in being under your leadership, that it really is true. It doesn't matter where you start.

You know, I know that in our masterclass, I mean, when I joined the masterclass, I'd look some people up and I found one person who's a professional musician and found a video of her. And, know, I've heard about different people who have different educations. It's just an extraordinary group of people. I felt and feel very welcome there. I have, I mean, I admire every single person in the room. love the humor.

Right.

Lisa (32:24.448)
I love that we have somebody that calculates, you know, 5,000 cores if you did this with that. You know, there's a lot of people and, you know, some people are kind of quiet, but everybody's contribution is.

Very, very welcoming, you know. yeah. So, okay. So this is the third thing that really made a difference for me. And it happened a couple of weeks ago in class or listening to your podcast, really. You you started talking to us about chord songs. And I think I wrote to you that I did some playing and it sounded pretty ugly. And I, you know, increased the

Absolutely.

Lisa (33:08.278)
the beat of my metronome and I played a little bit more and then maybe it was two weeks ago you talked about harmony and remember there were five steps and when you got to the point where you were playing notes external to a major or minor triad right we went through everything to get to that and then you got to step five I thought I am in the right place I can't believe this I can't believe that he just explained to me what's going on

It's so profound after almost a year, you know, that I heard you playing and I felt so inspired by that. You know, I love your playing. thank you. yeah. So that's where I am.

Wow. You know what? Your background, Lisa, I gotta tell you, I am so honored that you're part of Jazz Piano Skills because your background, your musical background as a child, your mom's influence, did your dad play? Did your dad play?

No, my dad couldn't sing one note on tune. I actually have a, he passed away a long time ago and I adored him. I have a recording from many years ago. He recorded like on a cassette recorder. sang happy birthday to me. It is priceless. My dad was an architect. So that's where I got my interest in, you know,

art and you know I went to the Dayton Art Institute when I was a kid they let me take drawing lessons so it was kind of music and art.

Bob (34:51.392)
So, so even as a child, drawing, art, music, you get, go off to college, you know, Indiana, class with David Baker, I got to tell you, I'm totally jealous about that. David Baker is one of my heroes because just because of his contributions to jazz education is so massive. And, you know, he's like I mentioned, he's one of the pioneers along with

you know, Jerry Coker and Jamie Abersol, Dan Hurley, who, who I studied with at university of North Texas. I mean, he's David Baker, big stuff. You know, so, so, okay. So now you're in the jazz, jazz piano, you're in New York city and you lost your job. said in two 20, what were you doing in 2020 that you lost your job?

Well, what I did for 25 years was I worked for architects and structural engineers. did marketing and business development.

Okay. Yeah. But now you've turned, you've returned to your creative roots. Talk about what you do now professionally.

Well, I've started my own business a year ago as a professional pet photographer, mainly dog photographer. And what I love is photographing animals and the people who love them. And I've had animals my whole life. I've been taking pictures my whole life. So that's what I'm making a go at, you know, and I feel very fortunate.

Bob (36:30.67)
Fabulous.

And how's that been going good?

Yeah, I photographed a lot of people and their animals prior to starting my own business about a year ago. And I'm working it. You know, it's work.

It's work, right? Yeah. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about your jazz experience in playing. What for the folks listening for, you know, all the all the jazz panel skills listeners who are on their jazz journey? What? It what would you say has been the biggest challenge that you have dealt with?

in trying to wrap your mind, your ears, your hands around the study of jazz.

Lisa (37:25.624)
Sitting down at the piano and practicing. That's it. I mean, you make a lot of things easy once you get to it.

Yeah.

Bob (37:33.784)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just making the time, carving out the time to sit down and practice. You know, and one of things I'm telling everybody all the time, still practice time, right? Still 10 minutes here, five minutes here, 15 minutes there, you know, because it's rare. Don't you find it's rare that you have an hour to sit down or two hours to sit down and practice?

You know, it's the discipline. It's the discipline. That makes I want to show you something else. I have a couple other things. This is this is a book from when I was studying with Dan Kaufman. The whole thing is filled with the way I used to practice every day. So I was practicing, you know, at the time Body and Soul and Tenor Madness. And but I would literally write down if I played

practice 15 minutes or 45 minutes. You sometimes it was 60 minutes in a day. Sometimes it was 90, but, but I kept track in a very meticulous way. And when I started to keep track and I'm doing, it's like a very light version of that doesn't even compare to that now, but I have a calendar that I keep just for my, you know, when I'm, when I'm practicing, what helps me is

tracking what I'm doing so that the next day I can start off where I left off the day before. You know, it's interesting, Bob. There are times when I have to, I just have to go sit at the piano or I just have to go to my computer and work on the things for my photo business. Once I sit down, I'm okay. But I could find all sorts of other things to do.

Yeah, Yeah.

Bob (39:16.481)
Right.

Right.

before sitting down and because when you're playing piano, you know, if you love music and sounds, you're really listening the entire time. You're focused and that takes effort and energy. Right. And there's no playing anything by rote. There's right. There's whatever it is there. There's listening.

Yeah.

All right.

Bob (39:44.077)
right

Lisa (39:49.89)
Yeah. And listening. Yeah. And listening. So the hardest thing is just sitting down and do it. Once I sit down, you know, I think I told you when we were playing Blue Bossa, I had the most fun. I can't even tell you the last time I had that. I don't think I ever had that much fun playing piano than playing that.

That's awesome. Yeah. How have you liked the, you know, you touched upon this, I think in some of our emails back and forth or, or conversations, how did you like, you know, I spend a lot of time talking about isolating sound. You just mentioned that word sound and talk a little bit about that, your experience with just isolating sound on the piano and exploring improvisation.

I would think that that would really ring true for you as an artist.

It really ring. It resonates for me when I'm sitting at the piano because what matters to me are sounds and making beautiful music. And what I alluded to a few minutes ago, maybe someday I'll still want to sing and play piano. But but what I really want I'm realizing is to make beautiful sounds. And it's a very simple thing.

Yes.

Lisa (41:13.082)
And it's very satisfying to play a few chords next to one another or to do the...

Wait.

Bob (41:22.734)
100%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's why I try to stress all the time that, know, playing a song is one form of making music. There are other forms. Isolating sound is, is one of those forms where you just isolate a single sound and explore that sound using like those steps that I talked about in the, in that podcast, right? Chord tones, scale tones, you know, approach tones. there's so much that you can discover.

and tap into your own creativity and improvisational skills and emotional expression on the piano by doing that. You know, so I'm curious, your mom, a jazz vocalist, that picture that you held up, man, she looks like right out of that era of great jazz vocalists, like she just fits right into that whole era with.

Peggy Lee to Sarah Vaughn to Ella Fitzgerald, like she was made for that. So that was her, that was really her desire, jazz voice.

It was and what happened was when she decided to have a family and she and my dad got married She she gave up the idea of being a professional like that. But what she did was she ended up Composing music. Okay, I my whole life she was composing music and Writing music for children's theater and adult theater and there were a couple of lyricists in Dayton who she worked with one was you know, very much like

Cole Porter, very, very, very intelligent, sassy, you know, adult. And she also, you the children's music, I found this the other day. my, my mom was so cool. This is called Bentley the Bull. And the top part, she wrote a lot of her music in pen, which is just, how can you do that? know, because for me, can I tell you something? When I, when I,

Lisa (43:29.95)
even now I have to use pencil and paper it's like how do you get the notes to fill in between those lines and they're all different shapes you know not my mom and anyway when I was a kid there was this this song Bentley the Bull and one Tremor the Turtle and I sang them for show and tell when I was in kindergarten you know so she she

Yeah.

Lisa (43:55.694)
She was the music director. So that's what she did. She was also in choirs when she was older. She was in choirs when she was in college. I was in choirs because of her. Yeah.

Yeah, right, Yeah. Now, did your brother play? He was obviously singing in that one photograph, but did he play any instrument, piano or guitar?

He started clarinet. I don't know how that long, maybe it was for five minutes or five months, I don't know. And then he wanted to learn how to play guitar, but he didn't pursue it. He's talked about possibly doing it now as an adult and I hope he does for his sake. would be just a beautiful experience for him. He loves music.

Okay.

Bob (44:36.43)
Absolutely.

Lisa (44:40.43)
He loves rhythm and blues. We used to dance together all the time. And the other thing I can say that I really admire about him, he's listened to a lot of music that I haven't. So for example, years ago when he and my sister-in-law and I were in a car with my brother's, with their daughter, my brother and their daughter were singing to the radio, a lot of music I'd never heard.

Yeah, yeah.

Lisa (45:09.538)
having the times of their lives.

So, know, I was thinking about this this morning. There are probably hundreds of millions of people who've had parents that were musicians or, you know, just like I have and siblings who brought beautiful music into their homes. And, you know, I'm just one of them. I'm just lucky for the background I've had. Yeah. But so my brother still really digs a lot of great music and music, I don't know.

Yeah. Does he live in New York as well or where's home? He's in the Chicago area. Okay. Great. Awesome. Well, that's a good, that's a good music scene too. So that's, that's, you know, he's got a lot to choose from there to go out and listen. So, okay. So let's talk a little bit about some of your music, your music idols, who are some of the jazz pianists that you love to listen to.

No, he's in Chicago.

Lisa (46:04.192)
Okay, I'm if I can I think there's like a core 25 or 30. Okay, really right? Okay Everything from art Tatum to Brad Maldow. Yeah, so, you know, I'm gonna go all over the place but Probably the most is is Bill Evans anybody who played with miles so that was like Bill Evans and Kirby Hancock and Chick Corea and believe it or not red garland

Yes.

That really surprised me. Nat Cole, George Shearing, Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, Phineas Newborn Jr. know, Hank Jones, Wynton Marcellus, Ellis Marcellus, Wynton Kelly.

Yeah.

Bob (46:52.216)
Wait, yeah. Tommy Flanagan. Yes. Fabulous.

Tommy Flanagan.

Bob (47:02.091)
Billy Taylor that you mentioned earlier. Fabulous. Fabulous pianist. Yeah.

Yeah, an art tatum.

women. Fred Hirsch, more contemporary, Fred Hirsch and I found out about him because Dan Kaufman is a student of his. He takes lessons with him once in a while. Dan also still studies classical. But Fred Hirsch, who I've heard at the Vanguard, know, Keith Jarrett, know, McCoy Tyner.

yeah, of course. Right. Yeah.

Lisa (47:39.842)
You know, there are so many beautiful musicians.

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Well, you've done your homework. You've done your listening for sure. You just rattled off, know, basically gave everybody a lesson in jazz pianist that they should be listening to. So who are some of the instrumentalists?

OK, Joe Pass, Joe Venuti, Dizzy.

yeah.

Bob (48:06.858)
Check I was gonna say Chet Baker has to be on your list. Yeah. Yeah Cannonball Adderley, I suppose is on your yes Ray Brown

Good Baker.

Lisa (48:15.16)
Cannonball Adderley, Ray Brown. and I left out Gene Harris. yeah. left out Barry Harris. Yeah. And I left out also Andre Previn. And I'll tell you something else. And I will go back to.

Andre Previn, tremendous.

Yeah. I went to see him conduct. mean, and he played music that was very difficult for me to listen to. And I was ready to fall asleep. It was very difficult, you know, and, and, and people were walking out and he turned around and reprimanded the audience. I would not want, you know, in a gracious way, but you really got it. I wouldn't walk out of, out of respect for the musicians, you know,

Wow.

Bob (48:56.748)
Right, right, right.

But.

Okay, so let me go back to other, you know, I have a list of the instrumentalists who I look to when I do my, you know, research and also a lot of the singers.

Yeah.

Well, speaking of singers, with your mom being a vocalist, I saved the best for last. Who are the vocalists that you'd love to listen to?

Lisa (49:26.112)
Okay. It's a, an interesting group. of course, everybody from the beginning, like Sarah and Billy, who I didn't like Billy holiday for a long time and I love her now. you know, Eddie James, you know, Dakota state and Dinah Washington, a lot of people that my mom listened to Nancy Wilson. Of course. Yep.

Nancy, Nancy Wells.

Lisa (49:56.546)
Gal Costa, who's Portuguese. She sings a lot of Jobeam. I don't know if I'm going to pronounce her name right. Ellis Regina, she also sings a lot of Jobeam. Beautiful. gosh, I'm kind of drawing a blank here. Joe Williams.

Yep, a lot. Yeah, right.

Lisa (50:24.174)
Let's see, at home we also had Lambert, Hendrix, and Ross, you know. Let me think who else.

I love, I was just thinking of Mel Torme, but I love.

Tony Bennett. So this is, know, Tony Bennett knows how to sing a song and you feel every word he's singing. Right. And there are other well-known singers who I don't think that don't give me that experience.

Tony Bennett.

Bob (50:55.054)
Correct. Yes.

Bob (51:08.032)
Yeah, Tony Bennett experienced the song. was like he it was actually like he wrote that because he experienced it. That's that's that's the that's what you get from Tony Bennett. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, there's a young woman, a beautiful young talent who's not with us anymore, Amy Winehouse.

yes, right. What about the gentleman? His name escapes me right now. I'm getting old, I guess. He did an album with Coltrane.

She was extraordinary.

Bob (51:39.02)
Mal, Joe Williams-ish, but even I think even better, believe it or not. come on, hang on, I'll look it up.

Bob (51:54.52)
Who was that? When I say it.

You'll know exactly who it is. Johnny Hartman.

Jenny Hartman, yeah!

Right? Johnny, Johnny, Johnny Hartman, one of my all time favorite vocalist. Right. Yes. So wow. So I'm imagining that you are pretty active, passive listener as well. We've got music playing all the time at your place.

You know what? I actually don't. Really? When I listen to music, I want to listen to it. You know, right? So, you know, sometimes I'm playing old music from, you know, the Jackson five because I want to dance. Right. Right. Or listen, my brother introduced me to the music of George Benson. Boy, what another great talent, you know.

Bob (52:31.224)
Tell you what, I'm stunned.

Bob (52:36.242)
yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lisa (52:56.96)
Sometimes I'm listening to Kiss. I want to rock and roll all night, dancing in my bedroom. But, you know, and that's true, but seriously about all the other great music we're talking about, I think I've probably done a lot more listening than I have playing. And I remember in one of your classes, you talked about, you said, you you'll be exposed to this much.

Yeah, what?

Bob (53:21.484)
Yeah,

Learn this much and then there'll be more and learn this much and that's the way I feel it is for me, right? You know, I'm so I I'm learning more and more as I listen. I'm really I have to say that sometimes I watch videos or podcasts of people who can instantly tell you what chord project chord progression someone's playing or what key something's in or you know what note something was.

I wish I had that, I don't have that. I'm still trying to get, you know, sometimes I get stumped when I'm figuring out a tune on the piano and like, I think it's the notes a third away from the one I just played and it's really the sixth or something like that, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Bob (54:06.772)
It happens. It happens to everybody. okay, so time for you to give some advice for folks that are starting their jazz journey, starting at the beginning. What advice would you give a beginner, an adult beginner, just jumping in, starting this journey? Because we have a lot of those at Jazz Panel Skills folks that are just jumping in and starting. What advice would you give?

based on your lifelong experience of pursuing your education in jazz.

Yeah. I'm not used to giving advice, but I would say if you really love the music and you're going to start studying with you, to listen to you and believe the wisdom in starting where you are, not worrying about where anybody else is, not comparing yourself to anyone, not being fearful of

You know, I remember the day that I said, I just don't understand this in class, you know, and someone else said that's true for me too. And then a bunch of people piped in and said, it's okay. You know, it takes a little while, you know, there's so much generosity in our, in our, our, our, our fellow musicians. So,

Hmm.

Lisa (55:30.606)
It's really about just starting with something and that's all.

That's it. You know, yeah. And you know, this, journey, what you just mentioned, it's so important that we all realize that we're going to be part of conversations where there are going to be words or concepts that just fly over our head. Right. And that's okay. I mean, that is absolutely okay. And, and that's how we do learn is kind of

jumping in the middle of those conversations. That's why I like the master class because we're jumping in the middle of conversations, you know.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. And, and I'll say, you know, maybe this would be encouraging for anybody who's just starting in the beginning, the first couple of classes, it took a lot for me to follow what you were saying and that, and that's just not true now, you know, and it's only been eight or nine months. Can I practice everything you've presented us with? No. I mean, if I, if I practiced for hours a day, I think I could,

I mean, I remember somebody in class saying he gets through everything in about an hour. Of course, he's in a place that I'm not. But I think there's a lot of material and you can work on what you want. Right. You just start. And you've always said, start with the 60 chords. And I go back to that sometimes. I really loved when you said,

Lisa (57:10.222)
Okay, work on the chords in this tune. So you're not working on 60 chords, you're working on 15 or 8 or something.

That's right. That's right. That's right. That's our musical universe for the month. Those chords. Right? Yeah. You know, I was just working with somebody today and he lives in the San Antonio area. And so it was an online lesson and we connect every, you know, a couple of months for a lesson. And, and so, you know, our last lesson we were talking about

you know, the assignment was basically like, yeah, we're going to work on these chords and root position. if, if you get those under your hands, those 60 chords and root position, then, then let's look at them. Let's start looking at them and inversions. And he says, okay, great. That now Lisa, that was our assignment like two months ago, right? Let's, let's focus on that. So we get on the line today and I said, I'm all excited.

I go like, how's it going, man? How's those chords coming along? And any chance you got the inversions, just fill me in and give me an update. And he says, my gosh, I'm so excited. said, fill me in. goes, man, I've been learning about half whole diminished and whole half diminished scales and whole tone scales and augmented. And he goes, I just can't. And I feel like I'm getting overwhelmed.

I had to stop him. said, you know what your biggest challenge is today as a jazz student? He said, what's that? And I said, the biggest challenge is not to become overwhelmed with the abundance of information that you're going to be bombarded with every time you go out on the internet and start poking around. And he said, you know what? You're right. I said, yeah, because two months ago we're working on chords in root position and now you're bringing in all these

Bob (59:12.814)
synthetic scales and symmetrical scales and so forth. And I said, it's so easy to get swept away. I said, it's great to listen to those conversations like what we talk about, be introduced to something, be aware of something, but leave it there. Don't get it to the piano. Stay focused, right?

Okay, is funny. I had this thought. I have all sorts of music books on rhythm, on chords, and blah, blah, blah, blah. You talked about this in the past about all the stuff we could pick up and then think you could learn something. It's just way too much, right? And I was thinking I should just send it to you and you could put it like in a little shelf in a basement of the Dallas School of Music and it could be there. You could have a little sign that says you will never need this.

Yeah, yeah, stay away.

And that's a great relief. It's a great relief to know that everything I could possibly want, other than listening to other musicians, right now is right in front of me in our class. I'm very satisfied with that. It's a relief.

That's right.

Bob (01:00:23.138)
Yeah. Yeah. Hey, you know what? Before we kind of wrap things up for the evening, talk a little bit. You've been such a blessing to Jazz Piano Skills with coming on and really taking the reins with assembling the listening list that we all get to enjoy on a weekly basis. But share a little bit about your thought process with that because it's pretty obvious that you're just not

You know, you're not just grabbing something here, grabbing something here. You have a real thought process that you're going through when you're making these selections. And then now with your adding a bonus listening for the week to the list, share with everybody your kind of thought process.

Okay. And by the way, I've already listened to 15 versions of Tangerine.

That's a great tune. I'm sure your mom sang this.

Yeah, I bet she did. I bet she did too. Okay, so when we started doing this, pretty soon after I started doing it, I thought that it would make sense to have selections of music that were specific to each of our four weeks of practice in a month. So first harmonic, then melody, then improvisation, and then generally the last is improvisation anyway. And

Bob (01:01:50.744)
Right.

Lisa (01:01:54.146)
I think I told you that the kind of the easiest slots for me to fill in are melody if someone's singing and improvisation because, all the great masters, they'll play the melody and then they're off to the races and improvisation. For the first week, sometimes I try to find an a cappella group or I try to find, you know, a jazz choir. can't always do it. I can't always find somebody that's singing the tune that we're playing on so we can hear harmonies.

And I also will pick a couple of what I think are stellar recordings. Doesn't matter if you, if it's all great improvisation or not, but there's kind of a method to what I listen for. So you, you let me know what the tune is and you know, I probably spend about three or four hours listening and I make a list of, and, that's over two days usually. And I make a list of.

everything that I've heard that I like. And while I'm listening on my list on my Excel spreadsheet, and I have a list from since the beginning, right? Of everything. I'll make a note week one, week two, week two, week three, you know, for tangerine, I have two entries right now that are weeks one, two or three. So I have a sense of what I can suggest week by week.

That's awesome.

Lisa (01:03:21.014)
And truthfully, every week I have to listen to everything all over again, right? So I start with, I have a pretty large collection, a CD collection, and a friend of mine who's a singer and a drummer, we've been friends for years, he recorded everything in his whole collection, in his wife's collection. And so I do a search, whatever tune we're playing, I generally do a search for my collection to see if there's somebody I don't know from him.

You know, from his or her music. And then YouTube is phenomenal. I wanted to mention something before. Because you've the I think the beauty about this listening to there's a it's really insightful to listen to different musicians play the tune we're working on. Right. And I realized I did that with classical music a long time ago.

Bye.

Lisa (01:04:18.188)
When I say long time ago, like 15 years ago, when I started listening to YouTube, because I listened to whoever I could hear play Rachmaninoff second concerto. So whether it was Vladimir Horowitz or it was Rachmaninoff himself, or it was Richter, I don't know his first name, but begins with an ST something, or Kitson, this gorgeous pianist who I heard sometimes I listened to a classical station here in New York.

I'm in the habit of listening to many different people to hear the variations that I love, right? So it's really pretty easy to move over to our world of jazz. So that is my approach for the generally seven recordings. That's kind of what it averages every month, every week rather. And then,

Right,

Bob (01:05:10.253)
Right.

Lisa (01:05:14.082)
The bonus thing just started with me sending you bonuses. I didn't know that we'd ever put them in the recordings for our masterclass.

Yeah, they're too good to keep, they're too good to keep private.

Well, you know what, remember finding music that I just loved and I wanted to share it with you and I did. then I remember, you know, I kind of went down the rabbit hole and I was listening to Dizzy Gillespie at some, do you remember at a, some festival and instead of his playing trumpet, he starts, you know, scat singing and it was beautiful. You know, so, okay, so I've,

Sometimes I'll find a video that's educational. What is a jazz standard? We did that. It was a five minute thing, right? Or the interview between a classical musician and a jazz musician. What is improvisation?

Fabulous. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Lisa (01:06:17.442)
last week's was, you know, this, whole discussion of, Coltrane and playing, basically one chord through an entire song. so there's the educational part then, sometimes for some reason, I just want to share somebody's music, right? Or maybe there's some humor.

Like I really love that little pink puppet.

Lisa (01:06:50.926)
And listen, are two recordings, two recordings where this pink puppet Muppet is learning to sing the blues with a real blues musician. It's priceless. I don't know when I'm going to have us listen to it yet. or was it, that's all? I think that started off with...

Yeah.

Lisa (01:07:16.824)
someone singing the tune and it was recorded in an I Love Lucy TV show. And then they were like, you know, and it was it was nice. It was serious, right? Yeah, right. then we then we got down the very last recording was

in the movie in a movie and i can't think of his name he's on he's on he used to be on saturday night live all the time tender adam sandler

That's it Sandler wedding wedding singer.

Yeah, yeah such such a sweet rendition. Yeah, that's all. Yeah, you know, don't have to be a great singer

Bob (01:07:52.566)
That's right. yeah. Of course. yeah.

You can move people.

Yeah, well, do a fin... It's obvious that you put a lot of thought, consideration in what you're putting together. And it's what a great addition to the community in the forums to have that every week. So I know I speak on behalf of everybody at Jazz Piano Skills. Thank you so much. It's awesome.

You know, can I mention one other thing? Sure. I loved it when you asked people in class the other day, you know, who do you aspire to be like and who do you love? And people brought up musicians that I didn't know about. And I want to say for anybody that's in our master class, it is important to me that that you get to hear the musicians you love.

Lisa (01:08:43.552)
So if they, if you bring it up more often or if they let you know, or somehow they let me know, I absolutely want to include who they love to listen to. You know, because, you know, maybe I'm leaving out a whole bunch of people that would make a difference. Yeah.

great. Yeah, yeah.

Bob (01:08:59.106)
Yeah, yeah. mean, well, this has been it's such a treat to have you as part of Jazz Piano Skills. You're locked in now. You can't go anywhere. I'm sorry. You're locked in your life. And I can't help but to think what would your mom be thinking right now? Here you are talking jazz, talking music, talking about her, sharing your life and your thoughts and your love for her and your family.

I'm

Bob (01:09:27.054)
in a jazz piano skills podcast. What would she be thinking?

I'll just tell you, I wish she was here. I know she knew how much I loved her. I don't know that she knew the profound influence she had on me.

Yeah, I'm sure. I wish she was here too, because I would love to meet her and I would absolutely love to play behind her singing Tangerine or singing some standard. It would be a joy. So, well, Lisa, I can't thank you enough for carving time out of your schedule on a Saturday night, mind you, that we're connecting here. I can't thank you enough and for sharing your story with the Jazz Panel Skills community.

I can't wait to get everybody's feedback. I know they're going to be thrilled and they're going to have a deeper, everybody I know in the masterclass is going to have a deeper connection with you now. So it's awesome.

And thank you. I love our class. You know, you're, I love studying with you and I think we have an extraordinary group of people and a lot of that is because of you. So many thanks to you.

Bob (01:10:26.424)
Yeah.

Bob (01:10:36.952)
Well, it's my pleasure, Lisa. Thank you and the only thing left to do is say, will you promise to come back on in the future and share some more stories with us?

Ha

Thank you, Lisa

Thank you, Bye bye.