Special Guest, Dan Haerle

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 0:29

I can't believe I am sitting here with you. Jazz performer, jazz author, jazz composer, arranger educator, jazz legend. Dan Hurley. Dan, welcome to jazz piano skills. me. I'm thrilled that you are here.

Dan Haerle: 0:53

I'm thrilled to be here to van. Because I've known you for a long time as a student at a couple different levels as a teacher, it's a couple different levels. Right. And it's exciting to see the good you're doing here.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 1:08

Thank you, man. Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day 1984. It was 1984 when I came to North Texas. Now I knew about you long before. I knew you long before you knew me. Because that's You are the reason I came to North Texas to come to study jazz. Don't blame me. Well, I'm not. But you are absolutely the reason. So I was kind of reminiscing this week with knowing that you were coming on to be on jazz piano skills. I was kind of reminiscing back to 1984. And, and, you know, thinking about how much has changed since then, in music and with technology. I mean, the fact that we're doing this right now.

Dan Haerle: 1:51

Yeah, the fact that things can be streamed and so forth. It opens up a lot of possibilities. I still don't like it. Right? Kind of old school. Right? Yeah. I mean, I'm really old school. In that respect. I like to be there to interact with the listeners or the other players, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 2:12

Yeah. You're old school in that sense. But you know, you're you are always on the cutting edge man back in 1984 8586. When the first Apple Macintosh came out, right. And you started the MIDI lab at the University of North Texas there. Yeah. I mean, that was like cutting edge stuff, right? We were all kind of trying to figure out what the heck is this MIDI stuff? And how does all this? How does all this work? You know, that was that was pretty exciting times I you know, I'll remember a story. I told you, this is like, this is 85. You don't I told you? I said you one day I said, Hey, man, I got I made the plunge, I bought a Macintosh. And you said, Oh, wow. Which one did you get? Because there was the Mac Plus, there was the Mac se. And then I think there was one other one I can't remember. But I said I got the Mac se. And you said the one with the 20 megabyte of memory? And I said, Yes. And you said, Whoa, man, you'll never outgrow that thing. Right, right. Like how different that is today, you know, so it's been amazing. Well, listen, so honored and blessed to have you on jazz piano skills and introduce you to the listeners from around the world. So I thought the best thing to do and I would love to hear this too, because quite honestly, I know a little bit about your just a little bit about your background, your childhood and upbringing. So I thought we'd start off by just letting you kind of introduce yourself to the listeners, and share with us a little bit of your childhood, how you got into how you got into music, how you got into jazz, and where and how you got into education and so forth.

Dan Haerle: 3:56

Well, I was born in Quincy, Illinois, and went to elementary school and high part most of high school there. But when I was young, I was fascinated with the piano. My father was a musician. He was a trombone player and arranger for bands that he played with. So we had a panel at home, right. And he didn't play piano, but he used to do his writing. And I loved to mess with it. And they both had so many recordings, both classical music, jazz, all kinds of stuff. So I grew up with a great opportunity to hear a lot of music, not sit at the piano and try to learn the melodies that I liked someone singing or playing you know, trial and error that's all it was, you know, and graduate I hear a few more bits of pieces you know, so it was it was good practice for my year. No one at that time told me you know music is sound and you need to learn how to hear crap different songs, you know, right. But my father exploded me basically in use We'd like a neighbor. So play along record. This is way before he, Jamie put out his first play along record 1968 I think or 67. That's amazing. And but I was sure it was bad news and good news. The bad news is we didn't have any fake books. So we had learned tunes offer recordings by here. The good news is we didn't have any fake books, and we had to learn to software recordings by ear. I didn't realize that at the time, but you know, it was good experience. Right? And then finally, my well my dad taught me how to play what I call bum Ching piano, they start in the court, boom, chick, boom, gee, man, he'd wail away on top of dw building beat up, you know, right. And he showed me all the chords to play for a song, you know, and I just memorize. Wow. And finally, one day I said, Dad, why do I push those notes? He said, Well, that's an F six chord, fa C, D 1356. Wow, a big light bulb went off. And then I started figuring out what the other chords I was playing. Right? That was the only theory lesson I ever had in my life. That's amazing, man. Yeah. And I was embarrassed often that I didn't progress faster, or as quick as a lot of people I knew. But I didn't have the opportunity to go to jazz camps or to buy by a jazz improv book, or, you know, heck, I

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 6:29

that didn't even exist, did it?

Dan Haerle: 6:30

They know. Right? Yeah. I mean, in fact, in 1974, I had my first book published, which was just a stack of stuff that I gave out to my students. And guy was wanting to publish a jazz book. And I said, Well, you think he'd be interested in this? He says, This is exactly what he's interested in. So that was a book called jazz rock voicings for the contemporary keyboard is still available today. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I've added a few other ones since. Yeah, so just a few. But we didn't have play along records, you know. So I just sit and play along, play the melody to a song recorded. And maybe I'd embellish it a little bit, put in a grace note, or, you know, a little extra pickup note. Or maybe I do something rhythmic with it, you know, right. While I was improvising, I didn't think about it. I mean, I didn't know what I was doing. I was just having fun. And, to this day, I remember thinking at one point, I figured that out. Maybe I don't need someone to tell me everything interact. And the way I put it as you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Right. But what you got to do is make him thirsty.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 7:51

Very good point.

Dan Haerle: 7:53

Excellent. And as teachers, I think we have an important role to guide a student's development. But you can't really teach someone to play jazz, right? They have to practice they have to listen, no doubt about it, you know, they got to get immersed. And so it's, it's been a lot of fun. And in the process of teaching, I learned too, and he got me to thinking that as musicians, I think we should really kind of be part teacher and part student our whole lives. Because there's always more to learn. And never get bored with this, you know?

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 8:31

Yeah, I tell everybody all the time. It's not like a model airplane where you put it together. You're done with it.

Dan Haerle: 8:36

Right? Yeah, exactly. Right. But so I want to buy folks when I was, I don't know, nine or 10 or something like that. So could I take piano lessons? Till we had this panel sitting there? They both knew what life was like for musicians on the road, crummy hotels, awful food, bad late hours, you know, a lot of miles traveling everything. said no, you don't want to study piano Go Go play baseball, right? I said, Oh, okay. So I, I played baseball, but I I kept trying to figure stuff out on my own, you know, and I think it wasn't until I got in college, that realize I didn't really have good piano instruction. I had a lot of teachers that taught me to play pieces. Right? And, and that was fine. You know, because I learned something in learning those pieces. But no one ever taught me how to practice or how to get better. Which reminds me. I was on tour with my quartet several years ago, South Texas San Marcos or somewhere I forget where we were. And in Music Building. There was a sign on the wall there. Quoting Vince Lombardi great coach. Oh, yes, Green Bay Packers. And it said Perfection is not possible. But in the pursuit of perfection, we can gain excellence.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 10:07

And I love that quote. Yeah.

Dan Haerle: 10:10

It says everything hit home. Yeah. But I think of teaching in a different way. Now I don't I don't teach an agenda. I don't I don't have a strict agenda. And I try to encourage students to do different things in their practice and in their listening and so on. But I always tell them if you have a question, let me hear from you right to wait to your next lesson. Correct. And occasionally, I get some good questions, they'll send me a piece of music to look at and explain it to him or something, you know. And the only thing right now these days it's been a little chaotic because my computer that I had for many years died a couple of months ago. And and so naturally, I lost a lot of stuff. Oh, my gosh, and they they salvage I think a lot of what was on the hard drive, but then they dumped it on this other drive. And now I can't find it.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 11:16

So you're so your Mac plus finally gave gateway. Mac plus finally gave you So you mentioned cold college, you know, well first of all, Quincy, Illinois. I grew up in Rock Island, Illinois. Oh, just up the Mississippi. Yeah. Right. I've been down to Quincy been through Quincy many, many times. Yeah. Right. And in fact, my high school used to play Quincy all the time in basketball. Yeah. So on. And so I'm from the Quad Cities Moline. You know, rich Madison was from that area. I went to high school there. I actually went to high school with my mom, believe it or not. Really? Yeah, that's really it's really fun. You know, it's kind of funny. I, when I got to North Texas, I, my mom gave me a yearbook picture of rich. And I went to jack Peterson and said, Hey, you know this guy, and he goes, is that? Is that rich? And I said, Yeah, he goes, I'll give you 100 bucks for that right now. Because he wanted that picture to show rich. So anyway, when you say Quincy, Illinois, man, that's like, take me back to my childhood because I grew up in that area. But Cole college talked to me about that. Because, you know, jazz education just wasn't a prominent thing there at that time. So what was happening that cold college where you have music major there at Coe College?

Dan Haerle: 12:33

Yeah, we had really two majors of music education, our performance, okay. And, and no one did performance. Everybody were music ed majors, because they wanted to get a job.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 12:48

Right? The safe path.

Dan Haerle: 12:51

But you know, I remember thinking I wish I could study composition. And that just wasn't an option. It was either performance or music guy, right. And so I got my degree in music, and I taught high school wealth, elementary, high school, junior high in high school for two years. And it was great. I had a good time. I enjoyed it. I think I taught taught the kids something. But I knew I didn't want to do that the rest of my life, right. So I resigned and went back to grad school. That was what I also wanted to make a break with north northeast Iowa, whether it was coming home from a job about two o'clock in the morning in a blizzard, and shoveling under the car or something. Right. And I remember said some to my bass player friend was with me that night. That said, Man, I'm going south. I don't care where but I'm going south. But I'd heard about North Texas and I'd heard about the the jazz program there. So I thought that's where I'm going. Yeah. And great decision. Yeah, it was it was a great choice. But what I started as a grad student there, I was a music Ed major, because that's what I'd done before. And the same semester, I took a jazz styles class from Sam Adler, a composer who studied with Paul Hindemith in south. And I said, Do you think I could take your styles class? He said, Oh, sure. Of course you could. Because I or no, no, I asked him if I could be a composer, major composition major. And I had taken his styles class. So I apparently did okay in that class, because he said, Oh, you're you're fine. Yeah, we'll do composition. And so that was a great experience. He he insists I read at least eight bars every day. And it's a Saturday you already put the arrow will I bring you in something To look at, he looked it over. And I say, now because of what happened back here 30 measures before, that has to be an F sharp. Yeah. And I go like, Whoa, Really? Wow. And after I thought about it for a minute, I realized he's right. So it was a kind of a different level or way of thinking about that. very stimulating to me, right. put it mildly.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 15:31

So what did you ended up with a Master's from the University of North Texas? Yeah, I had a man it was a Texas State University at that time, right.

Dan Haerle: 15:38

Yeah. Wasn't University North Texas? Yeah.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 15:41

Yeah. Yeah. Because when I came when I came in 1984 was North Texas State University. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was just the last couple years after that. It changed it did it. I think it was around 1988 1989. Somewhere in there that changed the University of North Texas.

Dan Haerle: 15:59

Well, anyway, because of that degree, I got a job at Kansas State University teaching, classical theory, yeah, and composition, and so forth. And there was no jazz program there. But they had a jazz band, I'd occasionally write them a chart, you know, and so on. And, but the the big decision that came along, due to Leon Breeden, who was my mentor, and in charge of the jazz program for many years at North Texas, he recommended me for a job in California, that was going to be half classical and half jazz. And I think, do I want to teach jazz? I want to be a composer, you know, I want to have my music played by great string quartets and symphony orchestras. And wow,

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 16:48

I know that I didn't know that.

Dan Haerle: 16:49

Yeah, I mean, position was your passion. That was my passion. And I thought, you know, I like jazz. And I like to play jazz piano and so on. But do I really want to teach it? You know, right. So if I said, Okay, we'll give it a try, you know, and that's been the story of my career, really something opportunity comes along, and I'd say, Yeah, why not? Why not? And the only one I decided not to be considered far was in Sydney, Australia. Theory position there. I was thinking about really moving at one point. And that was part of the reason I didn't want to do it either. But Mike nock found piano players from Australia. And I met him one time when I was down there with Jamie and met some cool musicians some good. But anyway. What was I saying?

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 17:48

About Leon breed in the composition? Oh, yeah.

Dan Haerle: 17:51

Right. So I decided to try the the job in California. And I did that and I was teaching classical piano and classical theory and jazz improv and jazz listening saw, you know, half a half an hour, the Monterey Jazz Festival wanted to hire somebody. And the person that had preceded me in that job, or no one directly preceded Jerry Coker had taught there. And I think I don't know how that all came about. Jerry Coker, it also worked for Billy at Sam Houston state in Texas. No kidding. He was the Dean of the music louder down there. And so then, you know, I was there for three years and Jerry called me up and said, you want to come to Miami and work with me down here? I said, You bet. Wow.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 18:46

warm, warm.

Dan Haerle: 18:49

Yeah. Well, I love the winters there. Yeah. Magic, but the summertime hot, right? Yeah. Did did a couple of things out of town in July and August. You know, he flew, flew back to Miami in an air conditioned airplane. Walk through the air conditioned airport, out into the parking lot. It's like someone took those little army back blankets have soaked in water. Just put it up. Wow. But it was great. I really enjoyed working with jury. I mean, I just thought this is one of the guys in jazz education. I got, you know, learn from him.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 19:28

Well, you know, when I think of jazz education, I think of you, Jerry Coker, David Baker, as as the pioneers, you know, well, I think John Mahegen, and then you Jerry Coker, and David Baker as the pioneers of jazz education.

Dan Haerle: 19:47

Well, I think I think we all made some contributions, Jerry and I did a lot of interesting things with courses and with groups. You know, we had a couple of big bands We had groups that were kind of like eight or 10 pieces that were combos, but they allowed for different kinds of writing and different kinds of play. And, and, and, and but we really promoted this combo, small group, right concept, combos directed by students, right? Because first of all, there's not enough teachers to Saturday get together and rehearse 10 or 12 or 15 combos every week, right? So you want to lead a band? Okay, there you go. You go, right. Yeah. But there were some good years there. But the the dean had a funny philosophy German, I couldn't get any help from him in ways we need in terms of supporting the Jasper things things we need to support the program, charts cut, just a copier, you know, right. We came back at the summer and the copy machine was gone. And we just kind of said, What?

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 21:02

What do you do now? Yeah. All right.

Dan Haerle: 21:03

So anyway, that was at the end of my second year there of saying, I really need some time to practice. I've not happy with my security on some scales and some key so I need to go back in the shed for a while. So I'll just quit. I worked on Miami Beach tried to save as much money as I could. So I could afford to be broke. Right? And have a little cushion this save the day, you know, right. And actually, as it turned out, I worked enough. And my ex wife worked also. So we didn't really have to go into the savings too much. Right? It worked out pretty good. But Interesting, interesting place.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 21:51

So how'd you get from Miami? How'd you get visit from Miami that you went directly to North Texas? To teach at North Texas? No, no. Okay.

Dan Haerle: 22:01

I went to North Texas two different times one when I went down there for grad school and 63. Right. And then 77 when I came back to join the faculty, okay,

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 22:12

right. But were you at Miami before? The teaching position before North Texas? Yes, the Miami position.

Dan Haerle: 22:19

What happened was the Miami thing faded. And I packed up my bags and went to New York. Okay, I lived in New York when I was in high school and younger. Okay. But I you know, we had some little high school groups, but I didn't get to play with anybody that was could really play, you know, our study with anybody that I'd like to. So it was a great experience. And I just loved New York anyway, I always say it's great place to visit visit, but you should have lived there.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 22:57

That's great. Right?

Dan Haerle: 22:59

You always hear something like that. That's great, man. That's awesome. But

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 23:08

so in North Texas, I mean, you were there during the years where it really exploded where it really became Yeah, really jazz school.

Dan Haerle: 23:16

Yeah, there were good. Good years. I was there from 63 to 66. for grad school, right. And I came back and 77 and retired in 2002. Right. I was there. 25

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 23:30

years or so we when you went back? The teach was rich Madison already there and jack and jack Peterson where they were already there.

Dan Haerle: 23:37

Yeah. Jim Riggs was there. Right.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 23:42

couple other people Leon Breeden was still there.

Dan Haerle: 23:47

One o'clock, right. running the program. Right? Yeah, yeah. But what when I got back to North Texas, I went to New York spent a couple of years freelancing, you know, had some fun. While I was there, did a couple of tours with carteri, one in the states one overseas. And

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 24:10

now how did you connect with Clark? Terry, how did that come about?

Dan Haerle: 24:14

I think I met him when I was teaching at Kansas State. And they brought him in as a clinician, guest artists, you know. And so they wanted me to put together a local rhythm section to accompany him, you know, wow. And I remember the first tune we played which is at a session in the afternoon when the evening concert. I'm sitting there kind of waiting for a space in his plane to drop a little comma in there, you know, and no space of what's going on. I turn around and I look at I see him breathing in his nose and blowing out the heart and rotary breathing, you know, and I think oh my gosh, wow. He's phenomenal. But anyway, that was the first time I got to play with him and get acquainted. Then we did a couple of festivals together other places, right? And so he called me up for this tour of the states, which was a mini Newport tour. It was it was, like three groups on the tour at a time. Wow. And we'd all do one concert, big concert in whatever city we played in. But while we're there, we go out to different schools and do clinics and things like that. So he asked me to do that because of that. And and while I was living in Brooklyn, my friend Ed soft came over one day, we're a little session at our house and he said, Hey, you should come out. Clark. We're playing with Clark. Saturday night. It's someplace y'all come out and say hello. I say, Yeah, it sounds great. I'll do it. So I went out to this hall where they're playing went backstage, and we were having a real nice talk. Just how you doing man and everything. And he says, where you want to play? Because the piano player hadn't arrived? here go on mentioned at all. I don't want to slam somebody. Right. But it's suspected that he had a lady. Oh, okay. Yeah, right. Right. But he hadn't arrived. I said, Well, what are you gonna play said, Oh, you know, the tunes, as I hope so. Because Clark never called tunes he just he played part of something. And he wouldn't tell you what key you know, the key or you hear the key. Right, right. So he starts out noodling around on things. C minor. It's the bridge The Secret Love, okay. And, and away we go where you go, right. And so I got through the gig. All right, you know, I knew all the tunes and didn't embarrass myself too much. And about two weeks later, he called me to go to Europe. Wow. Wow. So I thought, glad I knew the tunes. Glad you knew the tunes.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 27:00

Did you do a little mumbles with them? They do mumbles

Dan Haerle: 27:03

Oh, he hated to do? Did he really? Yeah. But overseas, he'd do it in three or four languages. That's a French mumble. Tie him.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 27:15

That's hilarious. I never thought about that. Yeah. Oh, that's funny, man. He was a great cat to work for a great.

Dan Haerle: 27:23

Great human being period. Right. But wonderful sense of humor.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 27:27

What did he live here in Fort Worth? Or Dallas? Wasn't he from Texas? No, he's from St. Louis. St. Louis. Okay. But he I think

Dan Haerle: 27:37

he had a girlfriend that lived in Dallas or Fort Worth for a while.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 27:42

Yeah, maybe that's maybe that's what I'm thinking. I think it might be Yeah. So okay, well, how about Stan Kenton, you, you perform with Stan kitten?

Dan Haerle: 27:51

Well, I did the summer of clinics with the cat man. Okay. Because a stand in teach even just serves a figurehead, you know, right? stem kit and jazz clay, the band would play every night, right? And so on. And, but he didn't teach there. So you'd hire somebody like me to teach a theory class and so on. Right? And, and we do a rhythm section class. I remember one day I had a real epiphany. We were getting ready for a rhythm section class. And I was just sitting there playing something on the piano and not having trouble remembering the drummer's name, while us there were a number of great drummers getting bent out right. I think it was john, from Indiana,

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 28:56

it will come to you, man.

Dan Haerle: 28:57

Anyway, he sat down at the drums and start playing along with me and I thought, Oh, boy, that feels good, you know, and we played a little bit and finish the tune. Then we start the class john van olan. Okay, that was the drummer, but that it really struck me. We didn't have a bass player. It was just me and john. Right. That felt great. That was a real epiphany man. Oh, my God is hardcore. You gotta have a piano bass and drums. Right. Right. And that was a really important lesson. But usually one night. During the camp, we'd have a small group night standard, kind of give the band the night off. And then but I'd always grab some guys out of the band to do a quartet or quintet or something like that. And Stan was totally cool with this. Yeah. Great. That's awesome. And so Peters Can I remember Peter and I played a free piece and gave me a very creative cat then I mean, when he was like 18 or something, you know, and but he came kind of fishing for a response or a compliment or something. And I said, Peter sounds great man, but don't play everything I do. Because he was just imitating Right, right,

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 30:20

right.

Dan Haerle: 30:20

I said, you have some ideas. Let me let me hear. Right. And so ever since then he said, the guy taught me how to improv.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 30:29

Oh, that's awesome. That's great story. Yeah. Now, Stan, Ken had a love for North Texas too. Right University north. Yeah.

Dan Haerle: 30:38

His whole library went to North Texas.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 30:40

Yeah. Yeah, of course. Kenton Hall named after Stan Kenton. Fantastic. So okay, so between you. I mean, how many books have you how many books have you written? How many books? Yes, I don't know several. Well, let me see I got a list of some jazz rock voicings for the contemporary keyboard. That was the first one right I had published scales for jazz improvisation, jazz improvisation for keyboard players. And three volumes at three volumes said I remember that jazz tunes for improvisation in two two volumes with you rich Madison, jack Peterson collaborated on that effort. In fact, that was a book we used an improv class at the jazz language, which I think is like an iconic book in jazz, like that book. Oh, my gosh, everybody uses it. You know,

Dan Haerle: 31:32

my problem is I gave it to how Lennar and they hadn't didn't do diddly to promote it. I was really disappointed.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 31:40

Yeah, because that's a that's maybe one of the finest jazz education books ever.

Dan Haerle: 31:46

I felt good about it. You should you know,

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 31:48

yeah, you should. But it's tremendous. The Jazz sound, jazz piano voicing skills, jazz improvisation, Pocket Guide magic motives. A method for developing jazz vocabulary, the essential jazz harmony book? How many lifetimes if you live man?

Dan Haerle: 32:10

Well, I've tried to make things a little better. My goal has always been to make things as simple and clear as possible, right? I don't want to impress someone with my vocabulary, right? literary vocabulary, right? I want to guide their progress, get a move on, you know, the thing of it is sometimes it's hard to tell there I believe that all humans have a musician inside of them. Right. But the the musician reviews itself in different ways. It may be just because as someone who likes to sing along with the radio, you know, they write remember tunes and learns. And so it doesn't have to be any elaborate thing like a composer does or jazz arranger does or anything like that. But it's all important. Yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, so I my main main line is students when I ask them to play the melody to a song. I said, Don't play it. Like you see it in a fake book on quarter notes and half notes. do something with it. Correct. Make it your version of correct and correct. Most of them most of the time, they realize that it's kind of like, Yeah, that'd be fun. Right? Yeah.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 33:29

Yeah. It's so important. You know, I agree. You know, making music is kind of like a birthright, you know, with the musician is in us. And, you know, the thing that I always try to stress upon students all the time I want everybody to play, regardless of how well you play, or how phenomenal you are, you know, I always compare I said music could learn something from the play. What is it the L, the golf, the PGA Professional Golf, golf. So right, they want everybody playing golf. Everyone, yeah, whether you're good, whether you're bad, they want you to enjoy the game. Yeah. And and I said, you know, music, we could we could learn from that, right? I think so. We want everybody to enjoy the thrill of making music at whatever, whatever level. And I remember I had a teacher when I was in high school, you know, he said to me, I'll never forget this. He said, Bob, what he what he was wanting me to look at some Oscar Peterson transcriptions. And I was really young and foolish. And I said to him, Well, you know, I like looking at those transcriptions. But I'm afraid that you know, I want to play. I don't want to end up playing sounding like Oscar Peterson. And he goes, he says to me, dad, he goes, he goes by. He said, you won't. You will never sound like Oscar Peterson in my heart went right down to my feet. Right? But then this is what he said right after it. I love this. He goes and Bob Because an Oscar Peterson will never sound like you. He said, You got to be you. You got to be you.

Dan Haerle: 35:06

And I'd like to tell you my Oscar Peterson story. When we were in London with carteri, right? We're playing at a club. They're called Ronnie Scott's great j club, right? And one night, bought halfway through the first set. Clerk gets on the mic says, op that you, ladies and gentlemen, Oscar Peterson. And I'm going, Oh, my God, how did I sound on that first half of the setup? I hope I didn't embarrass myself too much, you know? Right. Fortunately, Clarke invited him to sit in so I didn't have to play the rest of the set. Right. Oh, my God. And then on the break. I've got to meet Oscar. And I said, I've loved your playing for so long. I can't tell you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I enjoy your work. And I took the use of the word work to be a qualification that means you're doing okay, but you're working in it? Which, you know, which, you know, I didn't mean it that way. No, not at all right. But that's that's it. That's that musician that has man always wanting to be better. Well, we can be a tough taskmaster for ourselves. We can't. We can't. And that's another thing. I tell a lot of students all the time, hey, cut yourself some slack. You know, and first of all, don't worry about mistakes, because Miles Davis said there are none. That's right. And ultimately, mistakes are part of your learning process. Yeah, in fact, you learn the most when you screw up.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 36:37

Yeah. Did you ever heard Herbie Hancock tell the story about when playing with miles. Yeah, they played it wrong. Corey literally played a mistake. And he said it was flat out just flat out wrong. Yeah, it miles ran with it. And, and he goes, he made it sound like it was absolutely intentional. You know, it's unbelievable. So between you. Like I said, You, Jerry Coker, David Baker, if you put all your books together, I think you can comfortably say that you've educated several generations of Joe,

Dan Haerle: 37:14

I hope I've done some good of I get feedback here and there along the way that that makes me feel like it

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 37:22

helped out and talk a little bit about you and Jamie Ebersol had a cut a relationship for many, many years. In fact, you've you've well around many of the JPA resaw collections play logs,

Dan Haerle: 37:36

I'll tell you how that have 1968 I think I've been doing the Kent, Stan Kenton clinic clinics. And but I knew a lot of musicians that were on the national stage band camps, right. And so that summer 68 I was hired to do three national stage band camps, one in Salt Lake City, one in Portland, one in Seattle. No, there was a fourth one. What's the University of Illinois? I can't think of it now. Anyway. So I've met Jamie there. In fact, I was walking through the Music Building, looking for a room. And I come by this room where Jimmy is talking to a bunch of students. And without skipping a beat, he says, Yeah, why I've heard the Dan Hurley does that but I don't think it's a good idea. And I'm going What? I haven't even met this guy. That's hilarious, right. But it led to many fun years, you know? Yeah, you got a great unique sense of humor and as a really good musician, right. And a passionate supporter and recruiter for people to help stop smoking. Oh, yeah.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 38:55

I didn't. I didn't realize that about Jamie.

Dan Haerle: 38:57

Yeah, yes. At the jazz camp seat. Always have a couple of glass urns with a charcoal lung in it. Oh, no kidding from somebody smoking. Oh, wow. Yeah. But the first jazz camps we did together is combo camps were smaller. And we had maybe a dozen or 15 faculty at most, right. Whereas in recent years, he's had 65 or 70 faculty, you know, 300 people. Yeah. But, so we got to play together a lot. And I did some things besides the camps with him, you know? And, you know, we just became friends. I brought him I think the fall after those stage band camps, I brought him out to California to work with my students at moderate and and it's just been A great, great experience. No, I knew him and working with him and yeah, and and disagreeing with him. He's very opinionated but opinionated about some things and that's fine. You know, I am too. Right?

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 40:13

You have convictions.

Dan Haerle: 40:14

We had a we had a big argument about chord symbols and nomenclature one time. And I recalled going to a panel discussion and Reno at the Reno Jazz Festival one year, where they had a half a dozen great musicians lined up. And they were going to talk about it and decide once and for all one chord symbols we use. Do we say C m i n or doing c m i? Or do we say C dash or right and students get very confused. All they did was argue for that's all they did. They accomplished nothing, right? Yeah. And yeah, I thought I'm not surprised that interesting.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 40:55

Yeah, that's, that's amazing.

Dan Haerle: 40:57

Oh, you know, I forgot one thing. After New York, I went to Phoenix for two years, I got hired to do co lead a new jazz program there with the guy that was a saxophone teacher and ran things without any help for a number of years. And his students used to go to him and say, when can we have an improv class? And he says, Just shut up and learn your lessons. But classic answer, but it was it was a great experience for me. Because of that, there was no jazz program entrenched in DOJ, and it was brand new. And so we had a kind of educate attitudes.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 41:51

Well, I mean, you're you're a pioneer. I mean, everywhere. Everywhere you had to go was was forging new ground, quite honestly. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. There's no there's no question about it. Now. You think about the jazz programs that exist around the country, at the different schools, universities, call Yahtzee programs?

Dan Haerle: 42:12

Right? Up till 1967. North Texas was the only school that offered a degree in jazz, and that was actually in dance band.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 42:21

Right.

Dan Haerle: 42:22

Right. That was the way they slipped it in under the door. Right. Oh, man.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 42:27

So yeah. So I mean, you like Like I said, You Jerry Coker, David bit pioneers. We owe so much gratitude to you guys for foraging away for jazz musicians and jazz educators and jazz education.

Dan Haerle: 42:43

Well, I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunities I had, although, when I was asked to come for interview by the search committee at North Texas. I remember someone looked at my resume seven received in here two years, we have been here three years. Right? Right. So I know where and I said, Well, mainly, if I've seen an opportunity where I feel like I can contribute, I want to contribute, test it out, see? And I said but you know, sometimes I wish people would leave me alone. I said that to a member of the search committee. And you still got hired and I got hurt. Oh, that's awesome. What the dean Dean in our Texas was the only Dean I ever worked for that really administrated. Yeah. And he ran a tight ship. He did a good job. Mark Byers is his name. And he's one that hired me and said, No, you don't want to come in with full professor Wait, you get a promotion, you know.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 43:49

There you go. So okay, so now I want to do a little rapid fire session with you okay for our listener. So I'm gonna I'm going to throw out some different jazz piano skills. And then I just want you to talk off the top of your head with regards to maybe some do's and some don'ts. words of encouragement and pearls of wisdom from Dan Hurley Okay, with regards to these jazz piano skills. So the very first one, the classic of the granddaddy of them all, practicing scales and arpeggios, what what are some do's and don'ts advice you can give jazz piano skills listeners?

Dan Haerle: 44:25

Well, it's all good. We can arpeggiate just triads, major minor triads, and in all keys, you can arpeggiate seventh chords or ninth, I use actually our arpeggiate 13th chord Gordon 13573579. And you know, that's going up to 30. So correct, right. And then a lot of variations, you could do that. Mainly, I divide practice into two parts of mechanical practice where you do the math and get the right notes and a musical practice. Where you make music out?

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 45:01

That's fantastic, you know? Yeah,

Dan Haerle: 45:03

they're both important. Absolutely. And so playing arpeggios and scales and things like that when I wrote my scales book that was in about 1971 or something like that. No must have been must spend later. Now that's about when it was. I decided I didn't really feel secure with all my skills and all keys. So I wrote out all scales and treble and bass clef in all 12 keys. So I could put fingerings in if I wanted to. This is my practice workbook. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. And

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 45:42

see that? That's vital. Right. I call that paper practice. I tell students to do that kind of work today.

Dan Haerle: 45:48

Well, it took a lot of time to write all those skills. Yeah, it was a lot of pages. But you know what, when I went to the piano and started to play a certain scale and all keys, it was kind of easier. Yeah. Because in the process of writing that scale out, I would visualize it in another way. I mean, when we visualize music by seeing an imaginary keyboard in your head, correct and seeing your hand on the keyboard, RC notes on a staff corrects our hearing what it sounds like, you know, they're all important. Absolutely. But again, the mechanical practice involves a lot of that. I am eternally grateful to my great aunt, only great piano teacher. I didn't have a good piano teacher until my sophomore year of college. He was a Jew yard guy. His name was Herbert Melnick, and he was Portage, prodigious sight reader and technician, he, they'd hire him to fly, you know, to Cleveland and do a concert with no rehearsal with somebody or something like that. Holy smokes. Yeah, I mean, something. Unfortunately, the man was in an auto accident and was killed at a far too young age. But what I went in for my first lesson with him talking about scales and arpeggios, he said, play a C major scale. And so I played a C major scale, my fingers were flying around in there. Oh, stop, stop. So what's matter? You're wasting motion and energy, your fingers on the keys? Really? Start, you know, we spent the rest of the lesson on that. And then he'd make me do it. I don't know, for like six months or something. To my hand was relaxed and functioning the way it should be, you know, right. And, and then reminded me of another thought, not a character.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 48:04

So how do you encourage the students to do the music side? So there you have with the scales and arpeggios? You have, like you said that the math side or the mechanical side?

Dan Haerle: 48:12

Well, different ways. I want them to feel strongly about the melody and how they present. Right, right. And I said, you know, you can embellish things, you can add little fills and extra things. But you've got to be faithful to the melody as the composer wrote it. Absolutely. And

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 48:31

because that's one of the main reasons we pick the tune well, right. And Can't you tell when when somebody is improvising, whether they know the melody or not? Oh, yeah, it sticks out like a sore thumb, doesn't it? Yeah.

Dan Haerle: 48:42

Yeah. And and I also along with that encourage people to know what key they're in. Right? And you know, I said in the Great American Songbook or jazz compositions, you have lots of changes the key sometimes only one change from a major key to the relative minor right back again, I sometimes cadences to five one progressions in several keys. Yeah. But know what key you're in. Because if you can just sound like you're in the right key. That's a good start. That's a great start. You may not play a great melody, but at least you won't sound horrible. You know. I said, that's been my goal. My whole life is just sound okay. Right. I'll settle for that.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 49:24

Yeah, that going back to the Vince Lombardi right? Yeah, it's certain grab excellence, right.

Dan Haerle: 49:29

So know what I was going to say though, is I encourage students to spend at least 10 or 15 minutes of each less each practice session, doing something in all keys, it might be arpeggiating chord or it might be playing a scale or a certain kind of mode, right? Or it might be playing a 251 progression with the left hand right. Playing in all 12 keys and moving chromatically up or down throughout. Keys, then when you feel like you're fairly secure, go around the circle of fifths go up a fourth or a fifth, right? Because you have to know it better if you're going to jump, literally. So the piano, the mechanical practice is to kind of liberate you. So you are prepared to make music, right. And I also like to think about all the times I listen to jazz at the Philharmonic concerts, recordings are there, Norman granz, or somebody like that, and they're maybe eight or 10 musicians on stage, you know, right. And how some of the great players really didn't know that much about theory, but they knew what key there were. And they knew how the melody was correct. And so instead of playing audibly, is going da da, da, da, they go boo boo to do BD. Right. Right, give their own interpretation of the feeling of it, you know,

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 51:05

so, um,

Dan Haerle: 51:06

oh, and here related to that one of the great things about jazz, I think, is it's very personal music, no doubt in classical music, you know, we know the cliches and the typical kinds of elements that we find in the music of Mozart, or Beethoven or Chopin, or whoever. And so we can turn on the radio and say, Oh, that's Chopin, you know, right. Or that's, you know, Mahler, whatever. Well, in jazz, it's, it's more personal. And we can say, yeah, that's jazz, or that's country music, or that's classical. Right, but in a personal way, we recognize the cliches or the favorite licks, right? And we say, Oh, that's Tommy Flanagan, or that's Herbie Hancock, right? Yeah.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 51:53

Very good point.

Dan Haerle: 51:54

Yeah. And I've noticed as I've traveled out of the country, in Europe, and so forth, and went to South Africa a couple years ago, and I hear a national voice, I hear a very personal sound that I think is related to the folk music and musical experience of my players over there. Right. whatever country, I can remember when I hear some English players trying to sound just like Charlie Parker, and maybe they did. But it was just like, it sound like some people trying to sound like Charlie Parker. Right. Right. Right. And I think it's important to, to leave ourselves open to express our experience. And it might involve hymns haven't played in church or it might involve, you know, some right very soul rooted musicians played a lot of blues and so forth. And it's all good. All good. As Duke Ellington said, there's only two kinds of music. Good, good music and the other cut. That's right.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 53:07

So okay, what what advice can you give to jazz piano students, I find an area that's very confusing and challenging for students. voicings, you know, voicings if they don't have a real strong approach to study in voicings that can become like fishing line real quick, get tangled up really quickly and get run down some blind alleys. So what advice can you give the listeners on how to approach the best ways to approach getting some really good jazz voicings under their fingers?

Dan Haerle: 53:41

Well, start with the idea that the important tones in any court are the third and seventh and they reveal whether it's major or minor was dominant or major and so forth. And so important tones extensions like 911 13, alterations, sharp, five sharp nine butter, any alterations or extensions are important in describing the sound. Now as far as voices, there's a lot of systems and ways of going about it. I like to think that I've been using the last few years called Magic voices, right, where if you play an E flat g a d below middle C, with your right hand and pry put in different bass notes with that you could put a C with it, you can put an F with it, he put a B with it, he flat with could put an A with rice, very versatile, and that's that that's not the only possibility. But there are many voicings that are very versatile, like to open force versus fourth stacked on another fourth. That could be a dominant chord. It could be a major chord three half diminished, right. So it's it's a lot about voting. Valarie voicing vocabulary is going to evolve. Well, if you asked me to say what is jazz harmony and 25 words or less, well, it's chords with extensions or alterations and tensions in them. So for instance, when we have a voicing like egta, D, we've got a tension between G and A, right? Because they're a step apart. And those tensions add to the color and the flavor of jazz harmony, right? We're in that we don't normally want to play just triads, right. There are spots where tribes are prey. I remember George Sharon, telling me one. He can't his group played a concert at college, I was going to an Iowa and we have a friend in common or something long story short, he winds up at our house after the concert waiting to catch your train at four o'clock in the morning. But it was a great hang, you know, no doubt, right. First of all, he loved to tell jokes. He had great jokes. But dance a piano player. Oh, yeah. Great. Thanks. Shut up. So George, very kindly says what would you like to play something? So I said, Okay. So I said on I played a ballot, I ended on a kind of colorful chord with a like a sharp 11 and a third. Right on. And he got up, walked over to the piano, of course blind. Right. Right. It says, Well, that was very nice. And I liked the cord you blended I was attractive, he said, but we must never lose sight of the beauty of the triad. Wow. And I'm thinking, try it. Huh? jazz? Aren't we supposed to have all those extensions? And then he started playing Mozart, and Haydn and Bach. And I'm like, What?

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 56:58

Wow,

Dan Haerle: 56:58

I guess I better take that stuff more seriously. Wow. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, it just knocked me off my feet. You know, right.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 57:07

Yeah. So right, but as far as

Dan Haerle: 57:14

harmony or scales or other, that's all in the mechanical department. You do the math, learning the notes, you know, right. But you know, if you got a voicing for a dominant chord that you like, are, say minor chord, I call I call it one voice in that I like the I feel pretty voicing. As it goes, I feel pretty, right? Right? So if I play G, B, C, E, on an A minor seven, I've got the, the G and the C, I've got the third and the seventh, I've got a tension between Korea and C. Right. So that voice is really good. That's why I call attention to it a lot. Right? I feel pretty.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 58:01

Right?

Dan Haerle: 58:03

I guess but I try to I try to encourage students to separate out problems, try to look at a tune, identify the problems and solve them.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 58:15

Correct.

Dan Haerle: 58:16

The problem might just be the key, you haven't played in that key that much. So you need to play scales and chords, diatonic seventh chords, key and sought, right, get familiar with the key, it might be a certain kind of modes are required that you normally do, right, use certain sounds, you know, whatever. But I encouraged him to improvise with the right hand with no company with the left hand and I said, you know, there's the good news is a piano player can play a chord to support the sound monies improvising. The bad news is a piano player can play a chord to support this. And the melodic line may not be doing it. Correct. So I encourage them to practice just right hand alone playing melodies and see if you can hear the harmony and you're getting an emphasis on the important notes.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 59:08

So important, right? The sit there and pretend you're a trumpet player. Pretend you're a sax player. Yeah, play lines, like a trumpet player would approach him exactly breathe like a horn player would breed. Right. That's why I tell students all the time we get you know, the, I'll use I'll use your line. Right? You know, the good news is on the piano. We don't have to breathe, we can play long. The bad news is we don't have to breathe, you know. So yeah. So okay, so. So we've talked about some scales, arpeggios, some voicings, how about how about rhythm,

Dan Haerle: 59:45

the development of rhythmic vocabulary, rhythmic ideas, I find students struggle a lot with rhythm development, being able to play quarter notes and eighth notes and swing i think i think that's where Listening to becomes an important element, you know, we listen for information and inspiration, right? And initially, we may just want to hear, right? This idea I get to this day, I'll still do that I may be driving down the road, I may pull over to the curb for a minute and sing back. But I just heard to make sure I had it straight, you know, right. And when I get home, I'll recall it and play it on the piano or something, but right. Either one's good. But it's a gradual process of adding vocabulary of various sorts, you know? And listening, listening has a huge effect on the outcome and

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 1:00:45

what you do with it, right? You know, you're right, you know, we all we tend to want to think of vocabulary always being linear. And there's there's harmonic vocabulary, the voicings that we have to get under our hands, rhythmic rhythm vocabulary, right? We got to start thinking a little broader. The student encouraged the student to think a little broader than just thinking vocabulary in terms of a melodic idea. Yeah, yeah. You know,

Dan Haerle: 1:01:13

but I think the melodies really important. It's just it gets to be more and more important to me, for instance, I think, in classical music, the sonata allegro form, yes. Where there's a exposition statement of one or two or three themes, the development section where those themes are messed with, right extensively, and then a recapitulation, right, to wrap it up, right. Well, that's what we do in jazz. We play a theme, we have a development section, and then we have a recapitulation. Exactly. Unfortunately, the development section very often has nothing to do with the theme. Right? Right. And it really hit me one time. You know, I liked the way he played the melody. But I there was no trace of it after that. Correct. And, right. And here's the thing about improvisation. It's it's spontaneous composition, right. But you still still need to prep a lot of preparation for that, right. When we improvise. I think we rely heavily on learned information. Correct. And I learned that the hard way I have favorite licks I'd like to play, right? And I'd say, Oh, I can't I play that all the time. I got to stop playing that like, that's no good. Right. And then I start hearing great players played the same idea half a dozen times in solo in

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 1:02:51

the same song in the same solo. Yeah, in the same solo.

Dan Haerle: 1:02:55

And I think, well, he must like that idea. I guess it's okay to repeat it.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 1:03:00

Well, and along those same lines, going back to what George Sharon said to you, I remember doing a transcription of red garland transcription and discovering that he kept repeating this triadic idea. And I kept thinking that can't I must be hearing that wrong. It can't be a triad. And it can't be the same thing repeated because it sounds way too hip. And come to find out. No, I'm not hearing that wrong. Yeah, it's the rhythm. Right? It's it's correct. It's absolutely correct. So, yeah, that's fascinating. I remember in one of our back in the 80s, and one of our jazz, small group, small group forums, remember the small group forums? Yeah, you know, that, that we used to have, I think on Friday afternoons, were right, come into play, right. And I remember you said to somebody one time and it stuck with me ever since because I know your passion for melody right? And somebody got done playing and you said, Look, you know, if you if I can't remember the tune, it might have been Stella by starlight or some classy tune that everybody would play. And you said, Look, if you want to play Stella, play Stella, but if you want to write your own tune, then write your own tune.

Dan Haerle: 1:04:16

Well, you just got done playing, after you played the head of stella didn't even sound like stella. And I it's stuck with me ever since all those years. I've really been trying to improve my improvisation in the last eight or 10 years, I'd say. And I find it gets a little easier if I don't overreach. Right? You don't have to create a whole earth shaking experience when you're improvising, right can just play another video but I can remember times on concerts when I played some tune, play the melody and then kind of get there to the end of the course and think Can I play anything as good as the melody? Let's let's give it a try. Right? And that's why I found myself recalling bits and pieces of the belly trying to build off of that. Right? It's it's like a matter of interpretation, how we how we account for things right? You know,

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 1:05:17

yeah. You had another yet another great line that one of those classes I remember he said to somebody, I really love your ideas. I really love all your ideas, but I don't need to hear them all in one song.

Dan Haerle: 1:05:34

I remember one. One trumpet player who played and, and afterwards I would, I felt I felt bad about it. But it just came out. I couldn't seem to stop it. I said, you know, you're like a butterfly flitting around the changes, but you'd never land on any. Yeah. Well as all, but you know, the good thing was a year or two later, he was landing on him.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 1:06:04

Yeah, right. See, you know that back then. And those in those classes back in the 80s. And that I look at those years so fondly, man, that was a great time. I miss him, quite honestly. But you know, you guys, you guys were tough. You know, you rich jack. But we all learned a ton. Man. If you didn't take that approach. I don't think we would have developed like players like we had. Well, no,

Dan Haerle: 1:06:27

have you ever feel very lucky about it's been associated with Jamie resulting Jerry Coker, David Baker and swash because those guys told the truth, right. And and we all understood that it was in a loving way. And because we cared about helping, oh my gosh, you know, now I'm not just trying to put you down here. I'm just trying to wake you up.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 1:06:50

Yeah, I remember rich in an improv class. We were playing What is this thing called love. And the trombone player in the back kept playing D natural on that G minor seven, flat five. And rich goes, whoa. He let it slide the first time I think even let it slide the second time and he slammed the brakes on his and he asked this trombone player. He said, Why do you insist on playing a D natural on that half diminished chord. And the trombone kid said, because that's the way I heard it. And rich goes, Well, then you need to pack up your bags and hit the road because he goes you only have one question to answer here. Do you want to sound like a professional or don't you? And if you don't hit the road, that was right in class, and then and then then then he starts the band back up. And he points over to me to take my solo. I was playing octaves, the flats. I was going like this.

Dan Haerle: 1:07:47

I was gonna make sure I play that that half diminished. Correct? Right? Yeah. And ritually over anyone like,

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 1:07:54

but those were tough. You know, they told you guys told the truth. Well, that's the thing. And there's a way to be honest and and not be scathing. Correct. You know, that's, that's the challenge for educators to be honest, and tell the truth, but do it in a loving way, right? In supportive encouraging way. So Well, you've done that for many, many years. And I can't, I can't begin to thank you enough. Not just for me, but on behalf of literally and you know, this everybody who's went through the North Texas program and influenced by you influenced by your teaching, and all the books and materials that you have put together for for students to learn for many, many years. So on behalf of the entire jazz world, man, thank you for everything. You're welcome. Jazz world. Thank you for all the great music. All right, so uh, Dan Hurley website. Everybody can check out Dan heath.com. Dan hurley.com. Go check it out. All his books are listed. There's materials where you can purchase it. You're doing lessons online too. Still? Yeah,

Dan Haerle: 1:09:03

a few I not really wanting to go on my days too much. Right.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 1:09:08

Well, so. And then. But check out his website. do a Google search for Dan check out all the wonderful things he's done not just recently, but throughout his entire life, Dan,

Dan Haerle: 1:09:18

yeah, look on the books page. Down at the bottom where it says jazz hands. There's a bunch of free stuff there. Oh, fantastic. On scales and voicings and all kinds of stuff.

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 1:09:29

Fantastic, Dan. Thank you.

Dan Haerle: 1:09:31

You're welcome. Thank you for having me on this. Okay.