Jazz Piano with Mark Davis

Dr. Bob Lawrence  0:32  
Welcome to jazz piano skills. It's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. Well today I welcome to jazz piano skills. jazz pianist, educator, and author Mark Davis. Mark has been a mainstay on the Milwaukee jazz scene for over 35 years and has shared the stage with many. I mean many internationally known performers, such as Phil woods, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, Charles McPherson, slide Hampton, Frank Morgan, Jason, Marcellus, Brian Lynch, Ted Nash, Jeff Hamilton, John plain, get my point, just to name a few. You know what, and here's what they say about Mark. Mark plays with the touch of Teddy Wilson, in the lines of Bud Powell. Slide Hampton. Mark Davis is a wonderful swinging player, with all the right stuff, Grammy Award winning trumpeter Brian Lynch, a true master of jazz piano tradition, and one of the greatest educators of our time. Dan Nimmer, pianist with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra, and my favorite, and though all though Mark looks like mild mannered reporter with The Daily Planet, Clark Kent. He's really Superman on the piano. jazz legend Charles McPherson. You know, in addition to being an accomplished jazz pianist and performer, Mark has a passion for jazz education. He founded the Milwaukee jazz Institute, which promotes jazz through education while seeking to expand and diversify the local jazz audience. In doing so, Mark and his team worked tirelessly to create opportunities for professional and aspiring musicians. Mark has done work for the Hal Leonard Corporation, including transcriptions, for Miles Davis, kind of blue for the transcribed score series, and numerous recordings for their real book play long series, and real book multitrack series. He authored the how linner jazz piano method book one, released in September of 2015, and the how linner jazz piano method book two released in June of 2019, available in English, Dutch, French and German. The method books check this out the method books have sold over 27,000 copies worldwide. Alright, enough already without further delay. Enjoy my interview with Mr. Mark Davis. Mark Davis on jazz piano skills.

Mark Davis, man welcome, buddy. How are you doing? I'm doing great, man. I can't believe it. You know, Mark Davis, one of the studs in Jazz, Jazz Piano are this one of the studs no doubt, man, you you you are you are on the stud list. No doubt about it. So I am thrilled to have you on today. Spend some time with you and thrilled to introduce you to the jazz piano skills listeners. They are in for a treat. So I've been telling them hey, I've been telling them for weeks, man, that that there's going to be this killer interview coming up interview, but I haven't told them who so you're the mystery guest. So welcome aboard my friend. I'm glad you're here today.

Mark Davis  4:06  
No, it's my pleasure. This is really, really cool. You're doing this and like, you know, piano players love to hang out. And I find it in my experience. I'd like to hang out with piano players. I'll at least put it that way. But in my experience, you know, I think all musicians like to hang out with each other. But I think especially piano players like to get together. Yeah. Ideas and talk.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  4:26  
Yeah, it's great fun, right. You know, I've said it many times. In fact, I've said it many times on the podcast that you know, I really enjoyed my my academic days, you know, at the at North Texas, you know, it was a great jazz education. But I always say I learned I learned more in the hallways than I did in the classroom just hanging out with the musicians and hanging out with everybody and talking and talk and jazz. So I totally get it. Yeah, that's important. So hey, listen, before we get into all your professional accolades and what you're doing, doing in the professional world, I want to start, Mark, I want to start at the beginning, man, I want you to take some time right now kind of fill us in, on your childhood, how you got into music siblings, if they're in the music, just kind of give us Yeah, give us a rundown of your life story. So my friend, the microphone is yours.

Mark Davis  5:18  
All right, well, well, I am from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For those who don't know where Milwaukee is, and we're about 90 miles north of Chicago. And I know in some parts of the world, or certainly in the country, even people are wondering where certain places are. But Milwaukee is home for me. And I was born here. And I started playing the piano in third grade. That was the first instrument I played. And later, I did some cello, some classical cello. But um, he started starting in third grade, and I kind of took to improvising right away it was, you know, I did the traditional piano and classical piano, but I always enjoyed improvising, even even from the start, you know, just making stuff up and creating some things doing little composing and things like that. So um, you know, I start I started to get into jazz in middle school. Seventh grade. Yeah. Just with school, like playing with some little jazz band at the school. And well, that's

Dr. Bob Lawrence  6:27  
pretty cool. I mean, the be in elementary school, and in Milwaukee, nothing against Milwaukee. I love my donkey man. But you don't you know, how, you know, I didn't I grew up in Rock Island, Illinois, right. So Oh, yeah. And find and find finding jazz teachers finding? Yeah. It's not necessarily it's not easy, right? So how did

Mark Davis  6:50  
you know, my, my, um, I was, I was not in a musical family, per se. My parents didn't really, really play music, all they loved music my dad ran. He was actually a Lutheran pastor minister. And he ran a coffee house that started in the 1960s. And there was a lot of, you know, activism and peace marches and things like that, that were going on at the time. And a lot of music and a lot of folk music, but also some jazz. So I sort of grew up in the environment, hearing a lot of musicians music, from over the house. And I tended to be guitar players, or folk musicians coming from, you know, from Milwaukee, or maybe coming from Chicago and different places. So I think that certainly had an influence on me and my parents love the arts, my, you know, the, we always went to art museums and things of that nature and took art classes. In fact, that was really my first love was visual art. So called during grade school, and up through high school. And then, in fact, through college, I pursued visual art. And that's what my degree is in is in. Drawing and painting. No kidding. Yeah. And that, I mean, it's Wow, going just a little bit, but I was really into that in grade school in high school and, but also into music. And my brother played violin. And then he got into playing guitar and keyboards. We had groups and things that we would put together in high school. Yeah, yeah, man. You know, it was just a great outlet. And I think it was it was, you know, I just continued to get get interested in it. And when I was a sophomore in high school, there was a guitar player that lived down the street from me, who said, you know, if you're interested in jazz, you really ought to study with this guy. He's a piano player in town. You really should get with him because he's, he's really great. And you could learn a lot from him. And so I did that. I got a hold of him and I started studying with him music became a great friend of mine. That's David Hazeltine, who is a tremendous piano, some, some people will be familiar with his name or his work, that are listening to this, or perhaps nothing, they can check them out. He lives he's from the walk in and, of course, was living in Milwaukee at that time. And that was during the 1980s when I was studying with him in the mid 80s. And then he moved to New York in 1992. And he's been there ever since he's done a whole lot of recording and performing. So but he had a huge influence on me and Dave was really steeped as a lot of the musicians, I think, in Milwaukee and like kind of a bebop tradition, heavily influenced by jazz, even though I mean, in retrospect, I kind of feel we were just in a little bit of a bubble in terms of, you know, it was still like when I came up, it was really a lot about Charlie Parker and Bud Powell and Barry Harris, and I was a little because it was pre internet. I was kind of unaware of some of the more current trends that were going on. I think, at the time, the although I think the first record I bought was witch's brew. You In seventh grade, I'm like, What is this? I don't like it later, I like it. But at the time, I had no idea what was going on in it. Yeah. What was your miles? And Miles Davis? He's the main guy, you know, the right. Yeah, exactly. So that was the first record, I remember getting although, really it was going to the public library and taking out vinyl records, you know, I would get asked Peterson and Eric Garner in particular, oh, my gosh, and I put those records on this has become going back to more like let's say like, more like eighth and ninth grade. I put those records on I love them. I didn't know anything about any of the tunes any, but I would try to improvise along. I just tried to go along with it. And not know for No, I wasn't at the level of being able to really transcribe it or anything like that. I'm just right here and and try to try to get in there and play a little bit later that students started trying to figure out what what is this? What am I hearing?

Dr. Bob Lawrence  11:00  
Yeah, you know that. That's what we did back then though, right? That's what we did. I mean, we put the out that we put the album on, and we would we would try to hang the best we could try to make stuff up that sounds like it fit, you know, yeah, you could

Mark Davis  11:15  
not like now we can slow it down and stop it and pause and oh my gosh, put it under a microscope, which is cool. But it's um, I guess that's another topic to talk about later. But yeah, but at that point, like you said, you just trying to figure it out. So But David was a huge influence. I mean, my father passed away when I was a junior in high school. And Dave, Dave, and I even got closer at that time. You know, you take me to record stores, and we hang out and so a big influence. But when it came time to go to college, I decided, you know, sort of thing, Oh, I could make a career, maybe in music, but was also very interested in visual art. And

Dr. Bob Lawrence  11:57  
I were thinking, Yeah, I can maybe make a career. But I think I got a better shot at visual arts.

Mark Davis  12:05  
You know, so I did that. I went to Skidmore College. It's in upstate New York, Saratoga Springs. And

Dr. Bob Lawrence  12:13  
I, how did you how did you pick that? How did you get how'd you get there? How'd you land there?

Mark Davis  12:18  
You know, I wanted to go away somewhere. And, you know, it was just some good opportunities there to you know, we're great art department and Okay, so really what for the visual art department but um, I did a lot of practicing there. I mean, I just, you know, get everything done during the day. And then at five o'clock, or maybe six o'clock, I go to the practice room. And I'd stay in there till one o'clock. Yeah, right. Right. You know, and, and there was some other musicians there that were great. There was a saxophone player, Mark Vinci used a great alto saxophone player who now teaches at Juilliard, I believe. And he, and I would play a lot, you know, we play until like, one of us started nodding off.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  13:03  
He was teaching, but he was just a little bit older than me. So what years what years was this? So

Mark Davis  13:09  
I graduated high school in 87. And then I was in at in college, I graduated, I did in three years, because I did some summer and took some extra, you know, overload stuff and whatnot. And so I graduated 90. Yeah. And then, at that point, you know, I had an art degree. I wasn't really that interested in at that point, although I'm more interested in No, like design or graphic design, things like that, which might be a little more practical to, like, try and work as, instead of just being like a fine artist, you know, so it's kind of like be a fine artist, or be a jazz musician. So then it became the point, you know, I think it can be a little easier to be a jazz musician.

Unknown Speaker  13:56  
You ever thought you just say that?

Mark Davis  13:59  
We know how this goes. Sometimes it's not. It's not necessarily like a decision you make one day, you know, right. We've all had students that say, Hey, should I go into music? Or, you know, and yeah, you know, it wasn't like that. For me. It wasn't like, you know, one day I decided this is what I'm going to do. But but I moved back here in 90, and then it started started playing a lot. And then and teaching just on my own, like, just private lessons. Yeah. And, you know, I was gonna describe a little bit like the scene in Milwaukee because, again, like you say, what, you know, people are probably unfamiliar with the Milwaukee jazz scene. Yeah, a lot of people are unless they're in this vicinity.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  14:38  
Well, yeah. Because you don't you don't say jazz and you don't immediately think Milwaukee?

Mark Davis  14:44  
I do. Know you, I mean, most people don't give you that. Right. Right. Right. But um, but you know, it was really interesting seeing it in you know, Milwaukee has a close proximity to Chicago like you say I mean, yeah, exactly through the decades, you know, I mean, we've always had Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, all these people Miles Davis, passing through Milwaukee. Right. But that's long before my time, you know, but but there is that, you know, tradition of urge, you know, that history. But more in short terms of the history I came up in, which is more like, you know, starting with, I'm going to talk more about the 70s and 80s. There were some tremendous players who came here from Indianapolis. And so I don't think purely by coincidence, but there were a number of several there was Melvin Ryan, who was the organist, who people might know, he was on all those early West Montgomery recordings. That was Mel Ryan, and then he kind of, well, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, then he moved to Milwaukee sometime, I don't know the exact year but you know, generally in the early 70s, and was here to Intel, I kind of lose track, but um, you know, he was someone we would go here a lot, you know, it'd be three Oregon. And then also here, my piano, and Keeks, sort of, you know, people thought he was like, had disappeared, or somebody who had been living in what plane in Milwaukee for many years. And then he started recording on that criss cross label, actually, Brian Lynch, kind of, I think, brought him kind of back into the public eye. Brian Lynch is a trumpet player who's from Milwaukee, who's a good friend of mine, and I work with him a lot here in Milwaukee and in Chicago. And Brian is for those who don't know, is great trumpeter. He was part of Horace Silver's band and also in Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in the last group. That was back like when Jeff Keizer was in the band. Yeah, Wisconsin, actually, he's deep, but he's from northern Wisconsin, Eau Claire. And but anyways, but just just the scene at that point, Melvin was an important player. And I'm talking now about some of the older players like when I was coming up in the 80s, there were players who were in there. At the time, they seemed old, but now I realized they were young, because they were, but but they were, they were probably, you know, at that point, generally in their 50s, you know, right. But they seem like the old, you know, cats in town, and they were there. So it was it was Melvin Ryan, and Buddy Montgomery and the great pianist and vibraphone player, who was the younger brother of West Montgomery, had had just moved, he moved out of Milwaukee in the early 80s. And so he had a tremendous influence on the scene here. He lived here through the 1970s. So he's another Indianapolis guys. Okay, so I'm kilrea Appleton also lived here. He was a drummer from from Indianapolis who was from work with Freddie Hubbard and

Dr. Bob Lawrence  17:55  
yeah, see, I never I would have never thought this right. This is like this is

Mark Davis  18:01  
history. There's a lot of history is in some really deep players. There were some guys that no one has heard about other than, you know, our people around here. But right, fudge, Berkeley fudge was a tenor saxophone player, incredible, unique player, he's still around. He suffered a stroke a few years ago. He's not playing, but I'm a huge influence on the scene. I did. hundreds, if not 1000s of gigs with Berkeley. And he, he's, he's in his late 80s now. And then the other sort of towering figure of the Milwaukee scene that had a big influence on me, was Manti Ellis, who is a guitarist who's still performing. He's in his early 90s. Now, wow. Another, you know, like, you know, Milwaukee Titan, right. Right, that didn't get a lot of exposure outside of the area here. But he had a tremendous influence. Yeah, but he was, you know, came up with, you know, there are a number of players that grew up here, like Willie Pickens, who was a piano player who worked in Chicago for many years and recently passed away. bunkie Green, who?

Dr. Bob Lawrence  19:09  
Oh, yeah, yeah. saxophone player. Yeah, right. All came

Mark Davis  19:13  
up at the same time. It's sort of in the 1950s as kids here in Milwaukee, Bucky green. Frank Morgan. Yeah, the alto saxophone player. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so they were all part of this, this scene here, you know,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  19:32  
so some of the walkie was more walkie was a pretty rich jazz scene that you have at your disposal. It's

Mark Davis  19:38  
kind of a kind of a deep thing. And wow, you know, so that was early 90s. That was all happening, you know, and it was kind of like a true jazz scene, I'd say like, you know, I mean, in every sense of the word, you know, whatever that might mean to anybody. You know, I mean, in terms of, you know, what might someone might think about what what a jazz musicians life is? that's what that's what these guys were the real deal cats. And right, and you know, was it it wasn't necessarily an academically based kind of situation where sometimes I don't think it's a bad thing, but sometimes now, jazz scenes center on an academic setting, you know, right, right. It was just an organic thing it was, you know? No. David Hazel time back to David, my mentor moved to New York in 1992. And he called me like about 11pm When I said, let's go. So we got in the car. And we drove through the night it was just kind of one of those kinds of things.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  20:42  
The good old days, I mean, I remember

Mark Davis  20:44  
I remember we were looking for Center Street in New York and in Dave's looking, I'm like, It's middle the night like Dave, you might want to take your sunglasses off. So So Dave, Dave moved out there, I ended up taking his teaching position at a at a school here that had been a college and had become a community music school, called the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. And I was the chair of that program from 1992 until 2019. So it's about 27 years and previously had been a college program. So like Brian Lynch and Dave Hazeltine, Gerald Kenan, a great bass player who people know who he worked with Roy Hargrove in his band for many years, and also with McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones for many years, great bass player. You know, whole number of great players came out of that program when it was college, and Manti Ellis was leading that along. And Berkeley was teaching there as well. One more Indianapolis guy gotta mention his Haddish. Alexander. He's great names. Haddish was also involved over there just a little bit early on, but he was another great Milwaukee figure, tenor saxophone player at Indianapolis and had grown up with miles and St. Louis, and then, you know, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  22:04  
So is that

Dr. Bob Lawrence  22:06  
is that school still going? It

Mark Davis  22:09  
became a community music school. And so when I was there, we were focused more on high school programming, like teaching high school kids, I developed the whole high school aspect of it, we had a great program, and we've subbed subsequently. And when I say we, I'm talking about most of the faculty, and also some board members and, and supporters decided to leave and form a new organization. That's when we formed the Milwaukee jazz Institute, which was in 2019. So it's really this organization organization that I co founded with my wife, Erin, is sort of the really the extension of this whole history of all these players I'm talking about, and the history of what went on in Milwaukee and has gone on continues to go on, but also the educational thread that that started back then with Manti and we've just decided it's important for us now to have an organization nonprofit that focuses solely on this art form. And so we can really shine that raise the opportunities.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  23:14  
Yeah, that's fascinating. So So what So then what goes, talk a little bit more about the Milwaukee jazz Institute? Yeah, it's a nonprofit. So yeah, so what goes on there?

Mark Davis  23:29  
Click on the piano here. The walkie jazz and shoot, like I said, we formed it in 2019. November of 2019. Everything okay, what was happening? 2019. Well, we, we formed it. And we all know what happened. Yeah, we got our nonprofit says, we applied, I believe in January, thinking this would probably take six months, in two weeks, we had our nonprofit status and boom, we're, you know, we were elated, like, okay, we're, we're on our on the road here. At the same time, I late January of 2020. Just again, to a little personal stuff. I had I had a brain seizure in the middle of the night. Oh, my gosh, completely, like out of the blue unexpectedly. So that no, no warning. No, I mean, no, I had no, no, no, no headaches, no health issues that, you know, contributed. It was just a complete random thing. Wow. So we were sorted in the midst of this, you know, I had left this organization had been with for 27 years, which was a big deal for me, and forming this new organization, which was a big deal for us. And then, and then Eric had this this brain seizure, which was just like, you know, I woke up in the ambulance, and, you know, like, I had no idea what had happened. You know, and I ended up having brain surgery, early March of 2020. So I'm just kind of painting the picture of what we were going through, when we were four. In this organization, because we wow, I, I hadn't had the surgery yet. But we finally had the nonprofit status. We were really excited. We had a festival plan for 300 students did the surgery. It was I don't know how much I don't wanna get into too much detail. But I had the surgery in the evening on a Monday night. They sent me home, it was full fledged brain surgery. I mean, they go into your got go, I mean, I don't get gruesome what we have to have a parental warning here. But right. But at 1pm The next day, they, you know, they sent me home. I'm like, what? You know, and so I went home, I practice countdown. On the piano. I said, either get my brain going. Make sure I still have all my faculties. No. I mean, the fortunate thing is that, you know, I had no the the situation situation that had causes was, there was no, nothing was cancerous, nothing was a tumor. It was good. You know, everything was fine. I the only thing that I regret it, I didn't tell people that I now only function at about 75%. Because then, you know, if I forget to show up somewhere or, you know, take the trash out, you've got a good excuse. But I made that mistake by in that 100%. But anyways. So, you know, we got through that I'm like, you know, I made it through the surgery. Now we can get going with the Maliki jazz Institute. You know, and then I had been so preoccupied with anything, I had no idea that this whole pandemic was coming. Right. You know, of course, the world shut down like a week later. Was a che, it was a challenging time. It was a weird time. No doubt you were we were really enthused by, you know, just about starting this organization. We went like, totally full steam ahead. We just did a whole ton of online programming. You know, we did have over 100 workshops that year. And, wow, it was an interesting way, it was kind of interesting way for us to get started. Because I mean, as you probably experienced, when you start going online, you start getting people tuning in from all over the place. And, um, so it was, it was interesting. But now like, just to explain a little bit about the Milwaukee jazz Institute now that we're, you know, able to kind of fully realize, you know, what it is we want to do and not have some of the restrictions of, you know, COVID Impose, we, we teach and we perform. So, you know, our mission is to promote and preserve and, you know, push this music forward. And by doing that, so we teach youth and adults. So we have youth ensembles, and classes that we teach weekly. And we also have adult ensembles. So it's not age specific. I mean, the groups are generally either youth or adult. There's a few that are a little mix we have for youth ensembles for adult ensembles. One of those is a mini big band, like a six horn, big band and fantastic. And so those those occur weekly, and we partnered with a place called the jazz gallery Center for the Arts, which is in Milwaukee, which I mean that that was a major jazz club here in Milwaukee during the late 70s, early 80s Dexter Gordon Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughn, Chet Baker, all these great people performed there at that time. Again, that proximity to Chicago was part of the circuit Waukee Minneapolis, right. And so it's great to be in that setting. The students, you know, get to rehearse. Right, where, you know, Jimmy Smith was plugging in his beats, you know.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  28:53  
That's cool. That's McCoy Tyner,

Mark Davis  28:55  
you know, anyway, so we teach, we have online courses, I have some jazz theory sequences that I teach for levels. We have a jazz piano class, we have a baseline class. These are online courses. And then we do we do a lot of in person things that we have what we call our jazz circle, which are free offerings to the public. So we do a monthly jam session. Wow. Get a great turnout. We we fantastic classes. And then we do a summer jazz camp a day camp for high school kids youth. And we do International Jazz Day celebration, which was really big last year. And then we did a we do a educational Jazz Festival in the spring. It's fantastic. Invite high school bands to come.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  29:40  
So I'm assuming I'm assuming for all of us not living in the Milwaukee area there at the wet we can go to the website and we can we we can enroll in that we can enroll if I wanted to enroll in one of the classes I certainly could Yeah, yeah.

Mark Davis  29:54  
I mean, um, you know, and you know, our performances are in person but you know, they can check out some This educational stuff Milwaukee jazz institute.org. Like performing is our other big aspect. So we're partnering with different venues in Milwaukee area and presented concerts monthly. So we do, there's a smaller jazz club where we, we either use local musicians or people passing through town.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  30:19  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So how

Mark Davis  30:23  
is from Milwaukee, he's great drummer and just perform there a few months ago, Camille Thurman, great saxophone as vocalist was there. But a great Chicago people come up and great Milwaukee players play their play through through it with our performances.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  30:38  
So how's the how's the attendance people turning? Now people coming to the checkout jazz?

Mark Davis  30:45  
It's good. I mean, my belief about you know, all of this is is you know, you know, it's not enough just to put on a concert, it's not enough just to say, Hey, I'm a player, I'm just gonna go and try and get gigs. I really don't even like trying to develop audiences. And so that's a big part of what we are trying to do is, is increase visibility, increase audiences that create great more diversity in our audiences. And so we have, we continue to build our mailing lists, email lists, we really work at it trying to get promote a lot, because that's kind of like, what it's about, you know, if you really want to, if you really believe in something, and you still have to market it. But it's great. No, we get we get great turnout. You know, sometimes I get frustrated because you have something great. You're like, Yeah, I wish more people would come on to this. Right? You're competing against everything in the world, including Netflix. And that's right. There's great TV shows. I mean, they're great.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  31:53  
Right? Yeah, you absolutely are. Yeah, well, it's, it's fantastic. Man, I'm gonna be I'm gonna check it out. I want all the listeners to check it out. And man, I think it's great that you have offerings there that, like I said, folks like us that live outside the Milwaukee area that we could log in and take part and participate in those classes

Unknown Speaker  32:12  
as well. It's fantastic. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  32:15  
So So you know, what I want to talk about, you know, obviously, you're a player, I mean, big time player, you sound fantastic. So somewhere along the way, man, somewhere along the way, you found a passion, an interest in teaching and an education. How did that come about? How did that, that drive that interest in becoming an educator? How did that happen?

Mark Davis  32:43  
Right. You know, I think sometimes it's hard to pinpoint a moment, of course, but right sometimes there is a moment. I don't think it was a moment. But you know, along with what I'm saying, I believe that all musicians should be involved in trying to spread the message of this music, or, or whatever it is, they're into AI in, not in a self serving way, but just trying to share it with other people and pass it along. Because I think that we, if we want to have the audiences and the opportunities that we all want for ourselves, and for every one else, it takes, it does take work. And so I feel there's there's an obligation to be involved with that. But I will say Barry Harris was a primary David Hazeltine, as well. But Barry Harris was a prime influence on me. And I had a chance to get to know him quite well. In the mid 90s, he did a residency here in Milwaukee, where he was here for four weeks. And so it was four separate weeks, but I had a chance to be be by his side, you know, glue there for that entire duration. And, and it everybody who knows barrier has seen videos of very No, like, right? This is a guy who, who he doesn't decide to teach he just, he is, he's an incredible player, of course, but he, he just conveys or he, you know, knowledge. I mean, he just, you know, it spews out of him, and he wants to show people music and bring that into people's lives. So, he was a big influence on me. And it continues to be right. So I would say he was the primary influence and, and he was also David taught partially, you know, based on Barry's sort of approach to teaching, and so I kind of came up with that, and then getting to know Barry and working, you know, studying with him. I became sort of a disciple of of him. And, and I teach, you know, my approach that's heavily influenced by that In fact, like, my books are based on those experiences to a large degree, but they're also based on on 30 years of teaching, and we all develop our approaches of how that we'd like to present things. You know, right,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  35:14  
exactly. Yeah, I was just gonna say, you know, I saw I saw on your website, you know, the picture of Barry Harris with your books, you know, your book. So I thought that was awesome. So let's, let's go there. Let's go there. I mean, it's fascinating, right? You have you have two jazz books out, maybe at least I know.

Mark Davis  35:32  
Just for the heck of it. This is this one's a little dog. I sometimes uses the students but this is now it says Book One because this was right. The first time

Dr. Bob Lawrence  35:42  
when it came out how? Yeah, how later publisher right? Yeah, yeah, this

Mark Davis  35:45  
is how letter jazz piano method. I wrote this book or published it in 2015. And then, four years later, I came up with a volume two, which doesn't it doesn't sell as well. But I'm so happy with this book. I wish more people would have access to it or check it out. But

Dr. Bob Lawrence  36:07  
yeah, it does. It does. It doesn't have to sell well, your first one sold over 27,000 copies. So you know,

Mark Davis  36:12  
collectively they've sold 27,000. I think, you know, the majority house or book one? Yeah. And then recently, I mean, maybe, you know, this, this guy, email me. He said, You know, I won't even attempt a bad French accent because I can't do it. But imagine I'm talking with a French accent. He said you bought your book. I bought your book. And and I'm wondering, should I get the ink? Or no, I want to buy your book. But do you recommend the English version? Or how was the French translation? And I emailed them back? So it doesn't? Sorry, I don't think there is a French translation. You said, yeah, there is, you know, so I talked to a friend of mine, and Hal Leonard. And he investigated and sure enough, they've, they have translated the book. This one. This one's in Dutch. This one? This, this one is the French one. Oh, my God. And frankly, I don't know how the translations are. I hope they're good. But I have no way of knowing until I actually write email back to let me know, this is German. But wow, I'd love to I'd love to get these you know, in Spanish or also Japanese? Yeah, great. GET requests from people, you know. In fact, I work with some students from Guatemala, the end of group of students and be great to get in Spanish, because I'm

Dr. Bob Lawrence  37:31  
so we truly an International Jazz educator? Mark, I guess? Yeah. Right. No doubt.

Unknown Speaker  37:41  
Yeah, go ahead.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  37:42  
We'll talk about the books a little bit like, yeah, you know, the, the approach that you've taken them, they're excellent. I mean, I've looked at the, you know, the Egypt, both books, they're laid out incredibly well. So talk to us talk a little bit about your approach to these books, and the layout, the sequential order of the content that you that you decided upon?

Mark Davis  38:06  
Yeah. So, you know, the, the background in the books is that, um, you know, I started working on these a lot a long time ago, like, cuz I students would say to me, as they probably said, you know, hey, what book, you know, like, What books should I get? Because, like, you know, I liked the lessons, but I'd like to be able to read a book or something during the week, right? You know, right. And nothing against all the great books are out there. Because there's, there's been great books, you know, through the, through the years, right. But frankly, for me, like, as a teacher, there was just never quite the right book that, you know, again, like the Mark Levine books are excellent. I learned stuff from those books, they're great. I still would recommend. But with my students, they would say, Well, I got, I got this, this might have been that book or some other book. And I was confused. What as soon as I got to chapter two, you know, it's like, I don't know what, you know what, you know, Phrygian chords are? Like, yes. I don't know how to play a blues. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So it just occurred to me, you know, I really, I really want to put something that's sequential and a method together, because I was already doing in my teaching, and I just wanted to thank him on it. So I approach how Leonard about it. And I say, Hey, I've got this great idea. I want to call this the jazz piano method. You know, and it would be, you know, explain what my idea was. And they said, No, we're not. We're not interested.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  39:34  
got this great idea. No,

Mark Davis  39:36  
no, I was doing work for them. I've recorded a whole lot for them. I mean, like I've lost track of how many recordings I've done for them because, however, it happens to be based in Milwaukee and Hal Leonard is the largest music print music publisher in the world. They are here. Blocky, and so I do a lot of recording for them like for, you know big band tracks or play lines. We recorded the real books You know, tracks. We record. There's some books like this, you know, like multitrack books. And so I had a relationship with them. And then it was like six months later they called me said, Hey, we're thinking about we'd like to have a jazz piano method book. Would you be interested in writing?

Dr. Bob Lawrence  40:21  
Your go like, Oh, geez, I know, out there.

Unknown Speaker  40:28  
You shouldn't sit. No.

Unknown Speaker  40:30  
Thanks. I'm kind of busy now. Yeah, right. Anyways. I mean, the book, I mean, this book is not its

Mark Davis  40:40  
biggest, it's 96 pages. It's not Yeah, it's not as thick. Right? Right, here's what I wanted to do with this book. And I feel like I'm very proud or happy with how the books came out. I feel like, I feel like I succeeded with what I was trying to do, which is create something where someone could start on page one, and they would work through it sequentially. And they would understand everything that's going on, everything would be clear. And then it wouldn't be so much. Talking about writing about it, that they glaze over, you know, the musical examples. Right? So anyways, um, the other thing that I wanted is that, you know, that you'd flip open any page and you'd play something and you say, Hey, I like how that sounds, right? Because, you know, there are some books out there. And that's an all book, but there are some books where I've looked at it, like, I opened it up, I'm like, Well, I don't even like this. Why would I want to try and work through this book, when it doesn't even sound like something I'd want to play? You know? So it's a goal of mine to have, like, have real content, like real music, not just be, you know, theoretical exercises? Correct. Again, I don't I don't mean to, like, I don't I don't mean to disparage anything. But sometimes I see stuff on Instagram, where it's like, here's, it's this warm up, or this exercise, or like, that's cool, it sounds cool. But I'm not gonna go to a gig and play a warm up exercise. You know, it's gotta be music. Right? So my point is that I wanted it to be like, you know, hey, this is stuff. You know, we're gonna, we're gonna cut to it. Now, in terms of the organization. I don't know how detailed we want to get. I mean, we're getting detail out about stuff here. I guess my approach, just a fundamental thing that I find with jazz piano, like from right off the bat, I think all jazz piano instructors encounter is, can you reach a 10th? You know, it's like, you know, it's like, some, what I do with the book is I start with what I would describe as net shell voicings. Right meaning like root root, third, seventh or root 7/3, which requires a 10th interval. So I have people break it, because, you know, certainly a lot of students I work with can't reach a 10th Correct. But I haven't start that way. No rootless voicings, you know, any of that kind of stuff that comes later, I want people we'll play solo piano, I want people to play roots and not get involved with playing extensions in their left hand initially. So that's kind of the approach. It's, um, in terms of the content melodically. You know, it's, I deal with, you know, soak up, you know, what we might describe as bebop scales, you know, and it's, it's definitely heavily influenced by Barry's approach very Harris's approach to the right. Conveying improvisation. So, you know, yeah, do with dominant and major and altered dominant, and then it's really, really booked to that gets more into, like, melodic minor scale. Yeah, right. Right. Like, you know, applying that to different chord types also, like more modern and modal styles and things like that. But what I've tried to do is just make it clear, you know, there's a description, there's something you can, you know, there's specific things that you can practice in a specific instruction on what you should do when to practice it. And my students, I mean, I've had great success. I mean, I have I have students work through these and they come out playing great. Yeah, right. Yeah. Dan Nimra was a young student of mine. He's a pianist with Wynton Marsalis, you know, and so he's one of the, you know, great strengths. I work with that, like, to develop this technique. You know, it's like, how I would take someone through something, you know, but he, you know, he plays incredibly.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  44:37  
Yeah. So is he from Milwaukee as well? Yeah. He's

Unknown Speaker  44:41  
from Milwaukee as well.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  44:42  
Yeah. Wow. Fantastic. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah. He's a great player. So yeah, yeah. So I'm curious when he came when he came to you, did you were you? Was he you starting him from scratch or did he already come to you knowing jazz? What was his background when he got when he came

Mark Davis  44:58  
to me? He was cuz I think he was in seventh grade. And I said, you know, he played a little bit of drums too. Oh, yeah. And I'm gonna put you on drums because piano wasn't.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  45:18  
Drums don't work out we're going to but then

Mark Davis  45:20  
we started doing lessons. No, no, when I first met him, I think I hadn't played drums. I bet I wonder if he even remembers that funny. But anyways, no, he was very young. He was very young. But, you know, we've probably, you know, many of us have had that experience where you have a student where it's just like, yeah, each week, and I've had a lot of great students even really recently, where I'll suggest they work on something. And then the next week they do it. And I'm like, I'm thinking like, I wasn't really serious.

Unknown Speaker  45:52  
Yeah, good.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  45:55  
Solo they come back with.

Mark Davis  45:57  
I mean, I mean, I consider myself lucky to have all these great students. Because I mean, you know, it's almost a cliche, but it's a true one. You learn so much through teaching.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  46:09  
Oh, no doubt about it. No doubt, you know? Yeah. It's a cliche.

Unknown Speaker  46:15  
Yeah. Inspiration. Yeah, no

Dr. Bob Lawrence  46:17  
question about it. Yeah. You know, I'm always in my experience as an educator over the past 30 years. I'm literally thrilled with how many adults are into and wanting to play piano and jazz piano specifically? You know, it's it's very encouraging. Very encouraging. Yeah, you know, so it's not just

Unknown Speaker  46:45  
it's not the seventh grader. No,

Mark Davis  46:47  
I think you I mean, I'm sure you're probably the same. I mean, I've had every kind of student I've had students start in their 80s. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then they get harder themselves. And I say, hey, look, if you were, you've only been playing a year, if you were six, you'd probably be on The Tonight Show by now. You're playing good.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  47:05  
I mean, they are hard on themselves. No question about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no question about and not only are they hard on themselves, but they work incredibly hard. It's, it's amazing. I tell many of my adult students that I work with, I go look, man, you work harder than a lot of guys that were majoring in music in college that I went that I went through school with, you know, they they're very serious. They're very,

Mark Davis  47:33  
you know, I think because I do a little bit teaching at a college, but then I have over the years, but primarily, my teaching is just people who, either privately or with the with the walkie jazz Institute, classes, but it's always people who just want to work on it. So I've never had to tell a student, you need to practice more.

Unknown Speaker  47:52  
Yeah, right. Right. Because, like,

Mark Davis  47:55  
I just haven't had to, I mean, really, in general. Yeah. Well, they wouldn't be coming to me if they didn't want to

Unknown Speaker  48:03  
correct stuff. Correct. They

Unknown Speaker  48:04  
do what they can.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  48:05  
Yeah. But

Mark Davis  48:07  
um, yeah, I have, I have some students who are like, really high powered high level corporate executives to write and play, you know, and then I have students who are, you know, another end of the economic spectrum. But my point is that, you know, it's a great outlet for people who might not make it their career, you know, just to be involved with this. It's so for someone who's who's, you know, in a different line of work, sometimes it's just to deal with something so abstract and beautiful. Yeah, really, what we're trying to create is beauty through something that's really abstract. And it's not about, you know,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  48:47  
yeah, I teach. It's funny, I teach several seniors, you know, folks in their 80s, that that will come in for lessons. And, you know, they're, they're equally drawn to, not just the creative side of music, the creative side of jazz, but they're equally equally drawn to the intellectual side, right? The thought process that that you have to go through to understand the art form, right. And so I always, I always remind them at the end of every lesson, when they walk out, I always go Hey, man. So this is a hell of a lot hipper than a crossword puzzle that your buddies

Unknown Speaker  49:26  
Yeah. You know, no, sorry,

Mark Davis  49:28  
your brain in that same way. Or maybe a different way. But but but it's working your brain? That's right. And the end result had doesn't have to be them going to be on a concert stage. Correct.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  49:39  
100% Yeah, correct. Well,

Mark Davis  49:43  
I think I think for myself, personally, I mean, as much as I love performing, and like just creating music, I also I love that aspect of this music is just figuring things out. Yeah, little discoveries, you know about maybe what I think someone was thinking about when They play it, you know? Yeah.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  50:00  
You know, there's a great, there's a great Bill Evans quote, and I'm paraphrasing it now, I'm gonna probably butcher but, but I was so drawn to it when I first read it, he said, maybe it's a peculiarity of mine, especially being an entertainer. But he said, I'd much rather play alone by myself. Because I think what he's just getting at is that because now he can just bathe in the whole process, the intellectual process, the music itself, not trying to impress anybody not trying to you know, that, you know, I wonder, I hope they're digging this, you know, right. Yeah, he could actually just be alone with alone with his thoughts and with the music. And you you can you can relate to that. I mean, yeah, totally. I'm sure I'm sure some of the best times that you've enjoyed playing is by yourself sitting there at home at midnight and playing some tunes and, right, exactly.

Mark Davis  50:58  
Situations where we're playing and someone says, Oh, I'm sorry, it doesn't seem like you know, there's anyone listening like, musicians. We're listening to each other where you know,

Unknown Speaker  51:10  
but I know you're right.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  51:13  
And what I'm saying is, I tried to communicate that I try to stress that to the adult students that I work with that, look, it's not about going to play a gig, it's actually about what you're going to experience through the study of this art form. Just playing your home. Just playing

Mark Davis  51:30  
home. Yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah. And those are the players that I tend to be drawn to. I mean, there are. I mean, I think all the great players are a players that are not concerned with ego, but correct. But I think there's certain players that are even, you know, I put like a Hank Jones. Berry here is Bill Evans. Monk, I mean, you know, in a category of like, Hey, I'm not trying to impress anybody I'm trying to just put be true to the music, and play something of deep, deep of depth, you know, right, but not about flash or about trying to impress somebody. And I do kind of wonder, I don't know how, you know, I don't know how Instagram, for example, just to say, Pick our social media platform, but it can be any, you know, how will that affect the music? Because, you know, you know, now there is a tendency to need to make a splash to get somebody's attention, you know, you get a second or two to like, get someone to tune in.

Unknown Speaker  52:37  
Yeah, yeah. You know,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  52:40  
you know, along those lines, another great Dave, Dave McKenna is one of my favorite players are McKenna's playing. Because it always sounds like he's got three hands instead of two. I don't know how amazing

Mark Davis  52:53  
I only got to hear him once, like live, but he was played up at the hotel where I play at the top floor head of jazz series for a while. Incredible.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  53:05  
How was it hearing him live, man? Was it just unbelievable? It

Mark Davis  53:08  
was beautiful. I mean, those are those experiences where I wish I could go back in time and hear him again.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  53:15  
Right? Yeah. Right. So he was being he was being interviewed one time and in that person interview and kept referring to him as, as a jazz musician, jazz pianist, jazz musician. And he finally stopped the person in the interview. And he said, we stopped calling me that. And an interviewer said, Well, what should I call you? In McKenna said, This is what I love. He said, I'm a song player. Okay. I'm a song player. So what? Such great, great humility, right? And that the emphasis, he wanted the emphasis to be placed on the song. That's

Mark Davis  53:54  
interesting. Yeah, well, that there are you know, that's something I become more like, intrigued with, is I mean, I've always loved playing standards. Yeah, I've gotten more into like, really like learning the tune, like the way it was written. And you can't see on here, but I have a big stack of sheet music here on the piano of the old sheet music. You know, if I don't have I try and find it in really, like, try it. I mean, it's something I've got to do more recently. It's just like, I used to think like, oh, well, jazz musicians have like, changed the song. I should play just the way jazz musicians play it, which I might but I always know I've realized I want to know how the tune was written. I think David McKenna is one of those players like they know through song, you know, they really know that. Yeah,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  54:41  
because he I get asked that the I get asked that a lot a lot as well. Like somebody will say, well, what's the original melody that Gershwin wrote and I'm gonna like, and I'm sad to say a lot of times I go, You know what I mean? I'd have to go back and study that because I've learned it from I've learned it from a secondary source. So you You know, who learned it from a secondary source? Who learned it from a secondary source? You know, so yeah, you know, so I get, I get totally what you're saying. And

Mark Davis  55:08  
that's probably what he's thinking. I feel like Hank Jones, I think Bill Evans was someone to like, the real true to the original tunes, even though think like, Well, Bill Evans, didn't he we harmonize everything. But are Hank I mean, they did some of that. But it was always kind of like, based on a knowledge of that original. Yeah, too. Yeah.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  55:26  
Yeah. Yeah. So that's fascinating. So do you have any more plans for a book three with your materials, or is Book Two is to it for now?

Mark Davis  55:39  
I want to but but um, I'm just trying to figure out what I want to do is I've written a whole bunch of solos, using techniques from the books, like on standards, and I want to create a book out of it. But I'm thinking maybe I'll release them separately, individually. And my goal, it really isn't like, you know, it's not like I want to try and bank on the bank on it. It's just I want to get, I want to put that information out there to get people intrigued with these books, because I feel they can really help people out. You know, structure?

Dr. Bob Lawrence  56:14  
Yeah. So, okay, you know, I want I want to have a little fun with you, Mark, I'm going to I'm going to do I'm going to do a little lightning or a lightning round with you, man. I'm going to, I'm going to throw out some kind of musical term, musical concert a skill. And I want you to address the listeners and tell them in a few sentences, your do's and don'ts regarding this time. Okay, so I'll start off, I'll start off with an easy one for you. Easy. Development of time.

Mark Davis  56:45  
Yeah, time. So easy. Interesting. How much time do we have?

Dr. Bob Lawrence  56:57  
So time? Yes, time?

Mark Davis  57:00  
Well, here's the thing. I think I think most people have some inner decent sense of time. Now, as a teacher, I've experienced some students who have a seemingly much stronger sense of time on the piano than others. But most of us if we have, you know, if we're able to, you know, to, you know, not we walk across a room with an even pace, or we can write, are there certain things we can do they have, you know, it's part of life to have a consistent sense of time. The challenge is to, to put that into the instrument, and it requires a certain amount of fluency or just, you know, being comfortable on the piano not having to think about things that disrupt that natural flow.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  57:52  
Right,

Mark Davis  57:53  
you know, and so a lot of times for students, I think, you know, it might be they're trying to read and they can't read it, or they don't, don't have something memorized completely, and things that they're, they get in the way of having a good time like that, that good time is often in them. And they have to find a way to kind of like, limit the, the barriers, but as far as like, like being more, more specifically about developing it. I mean, my thought, my thoughts on it have changed a little bit on me, I used to price a lot with a metronome for decades, you know, a lie. Right? And I And now, now, I kind of question whether how much value there is to playing with a metronome. I think I like some of the new apps and things where you can play with drums, like drum genius. I love playing with that. I like having my students play with that, because they can develop a sense of a feel, not just, yeah, I mean, it has, as our listeners know, I mean, time is about consistency, but it's also about your feel, are you on the behind the beat ahead of the beat? Right? And with a metronome. It's hard to, it's hard to practice that or if not impossible, right? Obviously, playing with real people is great. I saw that. A quote and I forget the trumpet players name right now, but I have to look it up. But he said, learning learning to I think he said I may be misquoting him a little bit, but I'll get to the basic basics of it. Learning to swing with a metronome is like learning to dance with a broomstick. Which

Dr. Bob Lawrence  59:25  
I love. That's awesome. I'm stealing that man. I'm using that I

Mark Davis  59:29  
can find the source for you if you're curious, but but not really. Because I'm

Dr. Bob Lawrence  59:33  
going to claim it as my own.

Mark Davis  59:36  
The point to me is, you know, like, when we play with others, you know, and we've all experienced this, man, the drummer is dragging Well, I can't, you know, you got to do about it. Right. Right. Right. You know, are you know, or are they dragging, you know, or maybe I'm rushing but it's point it's, it's, it's figuring out how to to to get together. timewise So, you know, the metronome is valuable, but I wouldn't I encourage any students who work with some, like, either recorded drums or ultimately get with real people.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:00:10  
I agree 100%. Because when we grew up, right, you know, the only way we could test our skills and our time was the jam session, right? If you go out and you, you'd have to get up there and do your thing, and you'd find out real quick, where you are with your, your sense of time and knowing, knowing tunes, and sometimes it can be very, very embarrassing. So I do think what you touched upon is spot on, I tell students all the time, you know, whether you're using something like band in the box, or some of the apps or software out there that can simulate the feel of real musicians, right, yeah, at least you're placing, you're placing, you're placing the skills that you're working on within the context of time, so you can develop feel an articulation. And, and that's something that, you know, I tell students that as a teacher, I can't teach you that we can talk about time, but you have to experience it, you have to absolutely experience it. And you're right, the technology today, the technology, they allows you to do that. And I've often said that if some of my old teachers could come back to life, and and see the technology that we have, that we can student can practice with today to develop time and feel and articulations and tunes, and they would equate they would equate that to like steroid abuse and baseball, they'd go like this. Are you? Are you kidding me? And then and then they would turn around and say, Man, I wish I would have had that, you know. So I, I agree, I agree with you. 100%. You know, and I think time is something that should be, should be front and centered from the beginning, right? I told you, you know, when you're playing an arpeggio when you're playing a scale or whether you're playing Yeah, you know,

Mark Davis  1:01:53  
that's something I do. Yeah, if you're practicing chords, you know, say you're trying to learn triads in all the keys. Practicing the tempo. That's why I have people you know, always practice, right tempo. Yeah. Because then it's like a real playing situation. Correct? Right. That's something very, very here. So he's talked about was make your practice, like a real playing situation. You know, if your practice is this, but then when you go to play, it's completely different than right. Makes sense. It should be right. That's right. You know, 100% 100%?

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:02:22  
Okay. Your thoughts? Let's talk about scale practice. What would you tell listeners about do's and don'ts of scale practice?

Unknown Speaker  1:02:35  
Another easy one, right? Yeah.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:02:38  
These are all easy.

Mark Davis  1:02:40  
In terms of the the instrument? I guess I'd have you know, there's just some, I mean, there's so many aspects of it. Um, I always feel that technique has to be linked to good time. I mean, back to our old, you know, our other topic, you know, if you're practicing scales, it should be linked to good time. Otherwise, they're virtually useless, you know, correct. So that would be that would be the the number one thing I would say. Now, there's different aspects of it ultimately. So it's, well, how are you? You know, are you playing even eighth notes? Cool, because maybe you're playing even a music, right? Are you playing swing? A swing field? Cool. You should work on those different things. Technically, what is it that you're doing? I mean, I, in my teaching, I don't spend enormous amounts of time working on technique, although it's always something that's, that's there. I mean, I mean, just with a lot of my students, but I do work with on scales with students, a different technique. There was a technique that, you know, a classical teacher presented to me and I've always practiced this way. And then I haven't watched be watching a brad Mehldau video where he was teaching, it was an old one, it was kind of a grainy, fuzzy video. And I don't know, maybe, you know, maybe it's it. Maybe every classical piano player, does it? I mean, I don't really know. But I was gonna try and switch to this. Is it gonna switch cameras? Or no? Let me just see it, you know, I was gonna try, but maybe it's not gonna go you can turn the camera. But I'll just do it from from here. But like I said, would be like, if I'm playing a major scale. As I go up, first of all, I start with students just gliding.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:04:28  
So good. That's great planning. Yeah, find the

Mark Davis  1:04:30  
overhead we could see the angle of the elbow, like I find a lot of times is people up the piano, they're reaching towards it, and then we can get our thumb under so. So it's good to keep that in mind, especially when we're playing right hand lines. But the basic exercise would be I play my thumb, and then as soon as I put play the second figure, I put my, my thumb under right away quickly, right. I don't wait for prices skill is slow. Every time I play that second thing Here this summer's under very quickly. There's a video of Malmo talking about this with my teacher.

Unknown Speaker  1:05:08  
Maybe everybody talks about them, but But I combined that with with a kind of a relaxed approach to playing the piano. I tried to training, working with students to get that relaxed approach.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:05:25  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, with with scale practice is interesting, right. I at North Texas, I studied with a classical pianist. Nina Lowe. Chuck was her name. Russian pianist. And, and, you know, did her bachelor's, master's and doctorate at the Moscow Conservatory. So you kind of, you know, you know, the intensity I'm talking about, right?

Mark Davis  1:05:47  
Yeah. And she was a Russian piano teacher.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:05:51  
Oh, my gosh, right. Very tough, very, very tough. And she was a big one on the hand kind of constantly gliding what you were talking about, but always keep always keeping the hand in its natural position, that she she was a big one. Instead of thinking of thumb under she was always saying shift shifting handle the hands constantly shifting, shifting, shifting. So there's no tension anywhere in the hand. Right.

Mark Davis  1:06:15  
Was there any? Was there thumb under not so much? No,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:06:18  
not so much. In fact, she worked, she worked that I've seen that style. Yeah, she worked. She worked relentlessly with me to get me out of that, you know, so it's, you know, different approaches. Right. But I'm, I'm curious about one thing that I teach was scales, that I wish I would have had somebody show me when I was younger, because I you know, we I think we all kind of grew up with the, you know, kind of the traditional classical approach to playing scales where you play the C major scale from C to see F major scale F to F, and you do it like one octave, or two octave, or three octaves, or whatever, four octaves. And I started practicing some time ago, and the way I teach scales with my students, I'm always encouraged them, your entry point, your destination point must always be different. I want the IRS to be I want the IRS to be actively engaged. So if you're going to play a C major scale, I want to I want to hear it from C to C to B. So I hear that major seventh sound. Yeah, or, or, or I want to go from third to ninth or fifth to the 11th, or seventh to the 13th. So I'm exploring the entire sound. So, you know, I think that's helpful for students because now the ears become because the ears a lot of times we practice in such a way, haven't you found that we, we, I think we're all guilty of this, we practice in such a way that the ears kind of go on vacation, we just kind of going through motions, right? Especially with scare practice.

Mark Davis  1:07:42  
I also think that that that practice should be to some degree in Proverbs attori in as the very things that you very thing. So that that is not simply a routine. That's the same all the time. Right. And people do that with athletics, too. If they're training, I mean, it you vary things because

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:08:04  
great point, great point, it

Mark Davis  1:08:07  
can be physically important to do it, but also mentally, that you're, you're there's easy ways of challenging yourself with with anything, but it could be like we said before, practice practicing, you know, with a different field with a different kind of, you know, practicing with with, you can practice in different meter, you can do all kinds of things. Yeah, yeah, they kind of put a curveball on. Yeah.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:08:31  
Okay, another topic that I think students wrestle with quite a bit. And, and this topic. I'm telling you even, even depending on what books you're looking at, it can become like fish, it can become like fishing line tangled up very, very quickly. And that's the topic of voicings I think jet. The young jazz pianists trying to figure out how to voice on the piano so that they sound like a jazz pianists. Yeah. Give us give us your thoughts on voicings. Yeah.

Mark Davis  1:09:01  
Well, in my my, the books go through a certain system, you know, is this system that that I believe is the system that virtually all jazz pianos are using, even if whether they kind of realize that or not, but I'm what I do is I have students when they're playing jazz, which in jazz typically has seventh core, so mapping out the thirds and sevens and I have people rising show voicings with these alternating seven Yeah, but I have a system of adding add, you know, like, like, like many of us do with rootless voicings one out of adding nines or Thirteen's, nines and fives. In Book Two, I've got like these introductory exercises that I have students work through that, that help to establish this, they go through four note, voicing patterns that go around the cycle for the different chord quality And then and then we do it with five note chords. Because part of part of voicings is just like trying to it's, I don't even know if there's a good analogy, maybe you have one of like, what is this, like keeping track of all these voices and where they are, and what they're doing and where they're going, you know, it's something that other other instruments will let me guitarist certainly might deal with it, but it's a unique musical skill that we have to develop. And the other. The other thing that I deal with quite a bit in my teaching is Barry's approach of the six diminished scales and chords, you know, and so, like, trying to develop that ability to play harmony, that's, that's more fluid. You know, where I can, you know, I can move harmonies around, you know, rather than this is a chord, but you know, yes.

Unknown Speaker  1:10:52  
Moving, being able to move that, I

Mark Davis  1:10:54  
mean, that's an ultimate, you know, just talking generally not getting too in depth here. What I work towards with with harmony is trying to create a fluid sense of harmony, just like we when we hear an orchestra, we don't hear oh, they just play this chord. And now the whole orchestra went to this court. Sometimes we hear that sometimes, right, but it No, it's weaving lines and things. Right. You know, and that's, that's the goal, I think, ultimately, is to get that kind of orchestral sound.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:11:22  
Yeah. Well, I think the, you know, in your book one, you addressed it really nicely. Because I think the first order of business for any beginning jazz pianist, is man get those basic block shapes, you know, you know, root, third, five and seven. I mean, if you're not, if you can't, if you can't see those, and if you can't see those in their inversions, then Voicing is going to become a nightmare for you. Because you don't have you don't have a handle of the foundation itself. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:11:54  
Keep track of right.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:11:56  
And you lay that out nicely in your book. So all right. So, voicings All right, so now here's another easy one. For me. They're all like, I'm giving you like I'm throwing you softballs here, man.

Mark Davis  1:12:11  
No. And of course, we could go on and on about these topics. I mean, maybe we'll get we'll have to get together again. And we'll, we will.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:12:18  
Yeah, you know, that's, I would love to do that. What we'll do ahead of time is pick out here's the topic, we're gonna dive deep. We're going to drill down deep into it. Yeah, it'd be a lot, a lot of fun. Improvisation, right, everybody. They're drawn that they're drawn the jazz, they're drawn to playing the jazz piano, they hear pianos improvising, embellishing melodies, embellishing tunes, and playing through changes effortlessly, and they want to do that. Right. But they're getting started getting started with the improvisation process can be overwhelming. So what do you what? What do you do as students to kind of help kick start that process of getting their feet wet with improvising? Yeah.

Mark Davis  1:13:01  
And even even though, you know, this is kind of a fundamental question. It's a fundamental question for any anyone who's going to try and help someone along. Right, it still seems to be a question that this still is, I don't know, if you're debated or has a lot of different opinions, I think. But um, at least at least when once you start getting a little bit more, no, I, I'm definitely an advocate of, of, you know, because I work with a lot of kids and adults who are improvising for the first time, is you got to put your get your foot in the door somehow, what can you do this is going to be fun, and you're like, you're having some success. And you feel like, hey, this sounded pretty good. It's this sounded almost better than I thought it would, you know, so working with blues scales, or kind of tonic scales and things like that. I mean, I think those are great ways to get started. As far as like, the improviser who's like, maybe they have, you know, maybe they've, they've been improvising a bit, but they want to get to that next level, if we want to use that term, which is kind of vague. But, but and say, my, my feeling is to give students very specific things to play. Like, like, I believe in giving them some background on you know, what it is, but, you know, as you'll see in the books, I give students very specific things to play, whether it be a, you know, a specific kind of jazz, arpeggio, you know, whatever it might be, you know, short, short phrases that we generally refer to as vocabulary or language, music, right. And I'm definitely an advocate of getting people to have a foundation where they can be fluent. And I mean, it's the you know, it's that the old analogy that jazz is like a language. And I truly believe it is it was actually a kind of an interesting workshop that took place at the jazz education network. conference in New Orleans this past January, where someone would say, hey, jazz is not a language, you know, and sort of pushing back about, you know, how much should transcribe. And I use an audible professor and an accomplished player and someone I like a lot. But you know, just interesting to start thinking about what, you know, kind of questioning those things. But I've always found that, like, if we can start emulating things we hear in we might get to that point where it's transcribing or, you know, but I think that's an important step in terms of like, hearing something and being able to express it on the instrument. Yeah, right. You know, so when you have to hear something on a recording, and then you have to play it back. I find with my students that come to sometimes it's the magical turning point for them. And it's like, even though you've inputted these different ingredients into their system, have, you know, some knowledge that all of a sudden things start to come together? Right, right. So I'm an advocate for that.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:16:03  
Yeah. You know, it's interesting, I had a teacher that I remember, I was like, 14 years old right now, and I'm going to try to improvise. And so he literally, he literally, we took a C major chord, C major seven, and he and he gave me the note E, the note E, the third. And he said, Now, he said, and he had two pianos in the room, and he said, I'm gonna walk, I'm gonna walk a baseline, you play the chord, you play the C major seven, your left hand, and I want you to play something rhythmically with that note, e improvise with the note not denote E. Yeah, went like, okay. And I was really intimidated. I was scared, you know, I didn't know what to do. And, and I said, don't care. Can I have more than one? Can I Can I have more? Can I have? Can I have more than one? No, for heaven's sakes, I need I need more in my arsenal to be creative. And I remember I remember he said, Can you can you improvise with one note? And I said, No. And he goes, well, then you think adding the second one's gonna make it easier, and a third one or fourth? And I said, Well, you got a point. But what was really interesting was he got he broke me through that barrier, with taking a single note. And me doing something rhythmically with that note with space and time, right? With that chord. And I can remember leaving that lesson at 14 years of age, I can remember leaving it and go like, Man, I think I could do this man. This is like, yeah, you know. So. So in other words, it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be complicated.

Mark Davis  1:17:49  
No, it's got to be a foot in the door. Right. Right. Like you're just running the door. The door somehow? Yeah, right. Yeah. Like it's I work with students of different instruments. And it's usually the adults that are a little bit more scared of improvisation, or sometimes the accomplished classical players, you know, are sometimes I've had students where they're, yeah, that's scarier. Where it's scary is, is put this music in front of you, and you have to play this perfectly. Every night. Like that stereo. Right. That's a that's a piece of cake. Ah, just when I you know, so it's, it's a mindset is the other thing and, yeah, you know, I always literally literally say this to students, but I think anybody has to realize like, it we know, you know, it's, well, just that it's a process, we're not trying to, we're never really trying to sound good, you know, or, especially as a student, I mean, I know we are but um, I try and try and let people know that you're just experimenting. It's like, you know, right. Right. You know, it's like, like, it's like you got some paint and different colors in your right experiment. And nobody gets hurt. You know, we're not teaching parachuting, you know, we goof up. Nobody's. And there's no record of it. I mean, you hit a lousy, no. No movers. Move on. That's the beautiful thing about music.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:19:18  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's fascinating. So, yeah, well, let's listen man, this, this is you and I could literally we could go on all day. Again, I would love to have you back, Mark. You know, I think what would be really fascinating is that you and I put our heads together next time and maybe pick one of these topics, and actually put together a discussion that drills deeper, deeper into into that specific topic. I think we could maybe do a whole series on different topics it would be it would be a great blog, it would be great fun, and I think it'd be beneficial for so many listeners. Yeah. Let's do it. So, okay, so listen, we're going to I'm going to post all the stuff out there so all the listeners can get in touch with you. But Milwaukee jazz institute.org Is that correct? Awesome, man. And I want to encourage everybody to go to your what's your personal website address? Because I want everybody to go check you out. It's

Mark Davis  1:20:22  
a personal website is Mark Davis music.com. Yeah. And this mark with a que ma RK.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:20:29  
Yeah. And that's got the videos of you performing and recordings of you performing out there. And it's fantastic, man. Listen, it's been a thrill to have you on today. And on behalf of all the jazz panel skills listeners, a huge, gigantic Thank you, my friend. Oh,

Mark Davis  1:20:46  
my pleasure. And I hope to we'll keep the dialogue going.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:20:49  
Absolutely. So thanks, Mark. And we'll be we'll be back on jazz be get piano skills here again together soon.

Mark Davis  1:20:56  
Sounds good. All right. Take care.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  1:20:59  
Well, I hope you have enjoyed this jazz panel skills podcast episode with special guest, Mark Davis, our friends and an old teacher of mine used to remind me after every lesson, don't forget Bob. The greatest thing about music is the people you meet through it. Spending time with Mark affirms our sentiment 100% If you're a jazz piano skills member, I will see you online in the master class this Thursday evening at 8 pm to discuss the Mark Davis interview and of course to answer any questions that you may have regarding the study of jazz. If you cannot make the class no problem, you can always watch the video of the class, which you will be able to access through your jazz piano skills account through your dashboard. If you have questions needing attention before Thursday, I want to encourage you to post them in the jazz panel skills forums, so all the members can benefit. If you need to reach me, you can do so by phone 972-380-8050 My office extension here at the Dallas school music is 211 if you prefer email, Dr. Lawrence, drlawrence@jazzpianskills.com. Or you can use the nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is found on every page of the jazz piano skills website. Well, there's my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the pearls of wisdom shared by Mark Davis. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano!