KIRPAL
GORDON: You’re the trifecta in jazz: a composer of
renown, a dedicated educator at the New School among other programs
and a dazzling pianist with incredible chops. How did you manage all three? How
did you get your start and how long did it take before you got to the Big Apple?
DIANE
MOSER: Thanks, Kirpal, for those kind and enthusiastic words! For me, it all
started with my grandmother giving me her Baldwin Hamilton upright piano when I
was 5 years old, which my parents did not want in the living room, so they put
it in my room, which was so small that when I pulled the piano bench out there
was no room left in the room! However, because of that, I played the piano
every morning, noon and night. I didn’t know how to read music, so I invented
my own notation based on the hand movements of my kindergarten music teacher.
My first song was about birds, which funny enough I’m back to working on---this
time as a grown-up! I composed constantly, mostly about birds, weather, trees
and stories that I would make-up and compose the music to accompany. When they
finally sent me to a piano teacher, who showed me what notated music was about,
it was a lot like my system, but with staves, I was very relieved to find that
out. After that I did the usual route of piano lessons, clarinet and then later
bass clarinet in band, taught myself the guitar, flute, cornet, alto sax,
accompanied the choruses, played at church, played in all of the bands and
taught myself along with the help of the dad of one of my friends who was a
bass player how to read chord symbols, that was in the 6th grade. I got my
first solo Jazz piano gig when I was 14 for a private party, I was so thrilled
and so nervous. In high school I worked at a restaurant, and every night in the
bar they had Jazz groups, really great musicians. I was able to listen every
night, and talk with the musicians on my breaks. Finally, one night they let me
sit in, and they asked me what I wanted to play, I told them "Straight, No
Chaser" by Thelonious Monk...just like that...they looked at me with that
skeptical look in their eyes, and then I counted them off at break neck speed
(what was I thinkin’?!) and away we went. It was so thrilling for me to be able
to play with that caliber of musicians. After that, they let me sit in every
night at the end of my shift, I was 15 at the time. The group was comprised of
Sadie Stone, Dan Skultety, Richard Hale and Jay Alcorn, and they took me under
their wings and taught me so much, and introduced me to all of the great
musicians in Des Moines , Iowa (I grew up in Ankeny , just to the north of Des Moines ). My high school Jazz band and
chorus teacher was a wonderful bass player who introduced me to the late, great
Jazz pianist Stu Calhoun, who I took a few lessons from, after which he would
send me out to sub for him, I was 16 at the time. After that, I followed what
everyone else did, playing gigs, practicing, transcribing, taking lessons,
worked in rock bands, funk bands, went on the road, went to college, basically
played as much music as possible.
It took me
a while to get to the Big Apple, I wanted to go to college in NYC, but my
parents said I had to stay in Iowa , which turned out to be great
because I met and played with really great musicians in Iowa City .
KIRPAL GORDON: You were inIowa City in the mid-Seventies doing
undergrad work in music at the university. Those were wild years for the poets
in the writing programs. A lot of those folks loved jazz. I think Don Justice
played piano, too. You had a band named Satori in those years, yes? Had you
begun formal Buddhist meditation practice?
KIRPAL GORDON: You were in
photo credit, Dennis Connors
DIANE MOSER: Our trumpet player, Mitch Manker named the band Satori. None of us practiced Buddhism, and we didn’t think we were exactly enlightened, but we wanted to be enlightened. I think we went with that name because it represented going after the truth in music, with free improvisation, really listening to each other and accepting each other, and creating a sound based on that.
That band
was actually 2 bands in one. Satori, our free form/new forms/improvisatory band
and “Talk of the Town,” our Jazz/Funk/R&B band with the addition of the
great Jazz/R & B singer Ella Ruth Piggee. We worked as much as a Free Jazz
band as we did as a Jazz/Funk/R&B band. The other members were Duncan
Moore-drums, Randy Ward-bass and Bob Schleeter-guitar. We also worked with
poets in town, in both bands actually, but I think we had the most interaction
with poet Gerald Stevenson. Iowa City was a great place to be in the 70s
in terms of emerging new art forms on every level!
As far as
Buddhism is concerned, I meditate and read Tricycle
most everyday. I like the writings of several monks from different traditions,
Shunryu Suzuki…everyone should read Zen
Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron and Anagarika Sri
Munindra. I also read the writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan, founder of Sufi Order
International. His book, which is really one book and a collection of essays, The Mysticism of Sound and Music, is
also a must read, especially for artists.
KIRPAL GORDON:
I know you moved to the West Coast for awhile and worked in every genre---film,
spoken word, dance, theater and wrote for and led your own bands. What brought
you to Brooklyn ?
DIANE
MOSER: Following a dream is probably the best answer. I knew someone who was
moving from San Diego to NYC, so I decided it was a good
time for me to move too, with my not-yet-2-year-old son in tow. I really loved
the scene in San Diego , but I also craved more music, more
art, more dance, more everything. I knew that being a single mother would mean
I probably wouldn’t be able to play as much, babysitters are very hard to come
by, so I decided that I wanted to be in a place where I would be surrounded by
incredible art, and I wanted to raise my son in that place.
Chad celebrating his mom's one year anniversary, cancer free; photo credit, Diane
KIRPAL GORDON: Your son
DIANE MOSER: Thanks, Kirpal, I think he’s pretty awesome myself! I took
KIRPAL GORDON: How did the Composers Forum of Montclair happen? You have a piano studio there? You’ve been composing, writing arrangements for and leading a big band, yes, since ’97, and a quintet since ’99? What is Klezpoets? You have a CD forthcoming of music and short stories?
DIANE
MOSER: My son and I moved to Montclair in 1988 from Ft. Greene , Brooklyn . I wanted Chad to be able to go outside, ride his
bike, be in nature, but not too far from NYC. There were a lot of us from our
neighborhood who all had children around the same age, and we all moved to Montclair within a few years of each other.
I started
the piano studio there within a few months, and it is still going. It’s moved
around and had additions of instruments, but I’m back to just teaching piano
and composition to people of all ages and all abilities. Many of my students
have gone on to win major awards, produce their own CDs, go on tour, write
music for The History Channel and The Discovery Channel, but many of them just
play music for the love of it. It doesn’t matter what the style, although I
encourage my students to play all styles of music, it matters that they are
learning, doing it and loving it!
A few
months after starting the piano studio I met poet Marilyn Mohr. She was part of
the South Mountain Poets group, and I knew another poet in the group. They all
got together with me for a reading and I accompanied them. Marilyn suggested we
form a duo and named it “Klezpoets.” The poetry is mainly about Jewish life,
but not always, and the music is mainly Jewish music, but not always…occasionally
some Thelonious Monk tunes here and there. We did quite a bit of work together
throughout the 90s.
The
Composers Big Band started rehearsing in September of 1996 and then we began a
monthly residency at Tierney’s Tavern in January of 1997. In 2003 we moved over
to Trumpets Jazz Club. Most of the time there are 17 of us, but occasionally
we’ve had 19 or 20 sometimes adding French Horn and Tubas. There are 8 of us in
the band who compose, and we have one composer-at-large, who doesn’t play in
the band but writes for us. We’ve had over 100 guest composers and performers,
played Jazz Festivals, created special concerts with film, poets, rappers,
actors and my son on turntables. Our good friend and incredible photographer,
Dennis Connors, who has been documenting the band since the beginning, is working
on a feature documentary about the band.
You can see
a short version of that by going to https://vimeo.com/38220871.
I wanted to
do the same thing for composers of contemporary classical/new music that I did for
composers of big band music so I created the Composers Forum of Montclair, with
the help of Natascha Radke-Henke and the Central Presbyterian Church of
Montclair, shortly after the formation of the Composers Big Band, and ran them
simultaneously. CF of M only ran 3 years or so, but we produced an amazing
array of concerts, including a concert reading of the opera “Mary Shelley” by
composer Allan Jaffe and librettist Deborah Atherton with a volunteer 10 piece
chamber orchestra and 6 great vocalists.
I started
the quintet with trombonist Ben Williams, also a member of the Composer Big
Band, for the same reason I started the big band and the forum, but for small
ensemble. Starting in 1999, we had a monthly residency at a brew pub in South Orange called the Gaslight Brewery which
lasted for a year, inviting composers to come down with their music and others
to come in and play. By the following year we had settled in as a regular
group, myself, Ben Williams, Bob Hanlon-tenor saxophone, Barbara Allen-drums, Andy
Eulau-bass. We played other venues and concerts, and in 2002 recorded a live CD
called Looking Forward, Looking Back for
Twin Rivers Records. After that, Bob retired and I developed different
versions/personnel of the quintet. In 2003 I was awarded Chamber Music America ’s New Works: Creation and
Presentation grant, to write an extended suite for the quintet entitled “Music
for The Last Flower” based on the James Thurber book The Last Flower (1939). The personnel for that includes Ben
Williams-trombone, Mark Dresser-bass, Gerry Hemingway-drums and Marty
Ehrlich-alto sax/clarinet. In 2009, photographer/film maker Dennis Connors
asked me to create the score for his film Breaking
Boundaries: The Art of Alex Masket which you can see on Alex’s website at http://alexmasket.com/index.php?manuf=8.
The film is
about Alex who is a wonderful artist and is severely autistic. It has been
shown all over the world, won many awards including the CINE Golden Eagle Award
for Dennis Connors. The personnel for that soundtrack include Andy Eulau-bass,
Scott Neumann-drums, Rob Henke-trumpet, and Ben Williams-trombone.
The CD you
are referring to about short stories isn’t officially released yet, but it is
called Diane Moser WDMO. Jazz
journalist Elzy Kolb wrote about the stories for each tune in the liner notes,
and Chad did a remix of my poem “One Love.”
You can hear a few tracks of it on my ReverbNation page http://www.reverbnation.com/dianemoser
I did do a
Jazz Theater piece many years ago with Chad , the phenomenal vocalist Lisa
Sokolov and wonderful bassist Andy Eulau at the Luna Stage Theater, I called it
“A Day in the Life of a Jazz Mom.” Lisa and I wove stories and music about
being a Jazz Mom. It was very cool, some day I hope to revive that…especially
since our kids are older, and Lisa’s son Jake plays cello now, so we could
include him as well.
KIRPAL
GORDON: You’ve also won many awards as a composer and you’ve taught in so many
programs and places and you’ve seen so many changes in the business side of
music. What advice would you give a young musician or composer coming up?
DIANE
MOSER: The music business is rapidly changing everyday, and I don’t think any
of us can keep up with it. For those who have already completed their bachelor
of arts degree, and or masters, teaching in a K-12 program, or privately, is a
good place to start. It’ll give you enough money to live, while you’re
developing your art. Another avenue is the film and TV business, as well as
advertising. That is constantly changing as well. Or, pick a field that you are
equally passionate about and do that as well. I think having a wide range of
talents and pursing them adds a lot to the music. There are lots of grants you
can apply for as a composer from organizations such as New Music USA , Chamber Music America as well as local arts
organizations. The really important thing is to play and compose music as much
as possible, say yes to as many opportunities as you can, explore and meet
artists of all the disciplines, and keep an eye on what new technologies are
coming out and cultural trends. All of that plays into the way the music
business is taking shape. Artist colonies are great places to get some serious
composing time in and to be inspired by other artists. I am a fellow of the
MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and The
Millay Colony, and I highly recommend young artists to apply. Also, think
outside the box…who can you partner with...find non-traditional performance
venues...create collectives…start a series with all of your friends. I’m
fascinated with technology right now, the apps for phones are really great for
sharing live performances, or mixing music right on the spot. It doesn’t
replace a live performance, but it does keep people in the loop, which is so
important in our over-scheduled, busy, hectic lives!
KIRPAL
GORDON: How can Giant Steps readers stay in closer contact with all of what you
do? You can find me and my music in lots of different places! I currently teach
at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, the Vermont College of Fine
Arts for their BFA Music Composition program, and in my piano studio in Montclair .
I have some
concerts coming up: tomorrow on Sept 6th at Cornelia Street Cafe at 8:30 PM is the CD release performance of
Duetto with virtuoso bassist Mark Dresser, and at 10:00PM with my quintet, this time
featuring Ben Williams-trombone, Mark-Dresser-bass, Anton Denner-alto
sax/clarinet and Michael Sarin-drums. We will be playing “Music for the Last
Flower” and we will be recording it on Sunday the 9th at Tedesco
Studios with almost the original quintet that includes Marty Ehrlich and Gerry
Hemingway. The recording is made possible by a grant from New Music USA CAP Recording Grant and the Mary
Flagler Carey Trust. Here are some links for everyone:
“Duetto”
recoding with Mark Dresser on CIMP records http://www.cimprecords.com/albums/?album=786497576920
Review from
Robert Bush of the San Diego Record
Review from
The New
York City Jazz Record by Pat Spokony
New Music USA
Chamber Music
America
Diane
Moser’s Composers Big Band
http://www.myspace.com/dianemoserscomposersbigband
http://www.myspace.com/dianemoserscomposersbigband
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Kitty in the City
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