courtesy of Bruce Eisenbeil






C.I.M.P.

A ROADSHOW SIT DOWN WITH BRUCE EISENBEIL


DAVE WAYNE: What are the circumstances that resulted in a desire to start playing the guitar, specifically jazz guitar?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: From the dawn of my memory I remember hearing music. Although I was born in Chicago I grew up in Plainfield, NJ and whether it was on the street, in the park, on the radio, or on TV, I heard music. All kinds of music. Music from all over the world. Some of my friends had older brothers and sisters who played instruments. As a kid it seemed like everybody who was a little older than me played the guitar. Some of them played Bob Dylan or Beatles songs. Some played salsa, and there was this one guy who sat out on his porch and played along with Wes Montgomery records. I was amazed by his playing and he told me about Wes and the times he saw Wes perform at local bars. I have always loved music, any kind of good music, you know for the journey it takes me on. When I was a kid I carried a radio/cassette player with me everywhere I went. I was obsessed and sometimes my parents expressed their worry. I began mixing my own tapes of popular music when I was 7. I got a small guitar from a hippie cousin when I was 4 and played folk songs that we used to sing in church. On my 10th birthday my parents gave me a steel string acoustic guitar they had ordered from a Sears catalog. And I took lessons for about 6 months. My teacher, Mr. Pataglia, was a retired milkman. He kept me in a method book, so I got bored and discontinued. It was during this time that I would be practicing a song and I would find other notes that I liked better, so I began to improvise and compose. I heard jazz on the radio all the time and I also borrowed records from the library. The pianist Bill Evans was from Plainfield and whatever music store you went to, everyone talked about him. I'd hear about the musicians and records from the DJs on the radio and then would read about the players in magazines.


DW: So, there was a lot of music in your home when you were a kid. But what were your parents' attitudes toward music and/or a career in music?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: There was always music in the house. Mostly big band music and the music of Louis Armstrong. My father played trumpet. A very exciting sound! When he was a teenager, he played in the high school jazz band and also played dances on the weekends. He also wrote his own music. He was a furniture designer and builder and he could draw very well. We had an organ in the house which I learned how to play. My mother studied piano when she was young. Her aunt was a very good pianist as she went on to study in Vienna in the 1920's. My parents liked a lot of different types of music. They let me listen to the music on the radio and encouraged my desire to play the guitar. By the time I was 13, I was playing guitar 6-8 hours a day and when my grades began to slip, they would get anxious and on my case. Sometimes they would prohibit me from playing the guitar for a few weeks until my grades improved. My parents were not in a position to finance a college education and since I gigged throughout high school - hardly making anything to save - I didn't have enough money for a single semester at college. So when I decided to forego a conventional 9-5 lifestyle in favor of music 24-7 , they freaked out. It took them another 15 years to feel at ease with my musical lifestyle decision.


DW: What were your early (high school / college age) gigging experiences like? Where did you play? Clubs? Colleges? What sort of music... jazz standards, blues, rock?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: By the time I was 15 I was playing at private parties and dances at local schools. Sometimes we played at biker bars, which were no more than wooden shacks with a wood stove, way out in the middle of the woods. This was mostly rock and blues. These bands covered tunes by Jimi Hendrix, Clapton, Neil Young, The Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones. There was always a lot of jamming. We would play on one tune for 10-15 minutes. Audiences expected that. After awhile I began working with musicians who were 10 years older than me and we played all over the western part of New Jersey as well as the eastern part of Pennsylvania. We played at some colleges and in a club circuit. Some of these clubs were huge places that employed 4 different bands each night, each band playing all night long in a different room. I (also) began playing jazz with other musicians when I was 15 and, by the time I was 16, I was playing at dinner clubs with local guys. Usually these quartets and quintets played out a few times a month. We played very specific arrangements of tunes. These arrangements were written by a few of the older guys in the band who were in college and used these gigs to get their arranging chops together. At the same time I was playing in the high school jazz ensemble and we would perform once a week at one of the local elementary schools.


DW: Were there any musicians on your local scene whose influences were especially profound?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: By the time I was 16 I was really into jazz guitar. From some of the older guitarists on the scene I found out about Harry Leahy, a guitarist who lived in Plainfield, my old hometown. Harry had recorded with Phil Woods and gigged around with his own trio. I went to hear him perform in a concert with (alto saxophonist) Lou Donaldson. I think (trumpeter) Tom Harrell was on that gig too. Anyway, Harry and I talked, and he invited me over to his house to play music. He was a very kind and warm person and he projected that in his music.


DW: Did your interactions with these musicians shape your own philosophy, or musical outlook, to any great extent?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: Maybe, I'm not sure. That's a difficult question to answer. I always had a particular vision and sound that I was going for. When I was young, older musicians always recommended that I find my own voice. Older musicians frowned on young musicians who copped someone else's sound and vibe. You know like when a young guitarist would perform in public but play tunes in the style of Wes Montgomery. Man, back then, that shit didn't fly with the older cats.


DW: So, it seems to me that you are primarily a self-taught musician, or did you attend music school at some point?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: I am primarily self-taught though I've had a few good teachers. I have been fortunate to learn directly from Harry Leahy, Howard Roberts, Joe Pass and Joe Diorio. Each of these guitarists are very unique and original with a strong foundation and a healthy appetite for originality. Harry was the first person to mention Dennis Sandole to me and then a few years later Joe Diorio told me about Sandole. So it seemed like a natural progression of development when I finally met and studied with Dennis Sandole. I didn't really want to go to music college. I didn't want a school and certain kinds of teachers to get their fingerprints on me. Besides, I did not have the bread and I did not want to incur the debt. I play and compose by ear. My decisions are based on what sounds good. I studied counterpoint from a few of the available academic methods, but the strict counterpoint outline that Sandole introduced me to is the best. The 'Canti Firmi' is traceable back to Antonio Salieri, the teacher of Beethoven, and the many students who became teachers of the great composers of 19th century Germany. Rosario Scalero, a student of Mandeoyski in Vienna gave the 'Canti Firmi' to Sandole and he passed them on to me. More importantly though, I have strong desires for modern sounds. I have studied music intensely and in order to understand and participate with contemporary composers. I made it my business to learn about modern rhythmic concepts, form, chord structures, unified concepts of pitch organization, unorthodox harmony, contrast in variations, modern densities, structural factors of textural progression, atonal and serial techniques, etc. On my own I learned as much as I could. This was when I was living in Philadelphia, not participating in the marketplace, living in the underground. Playing music out every day. I was into it 24-7. The music that I compose, perform and record is an expression of myself. Like characters in a novel that are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Every time I play the guitar I strive to cross a border that I myself have circumvented. It is that crossed border - the border beyond which my own 'I' ends - which attracts me the most. Beyond that border begins the secret that music asks about. Far from being a confession, the music is an investigation and an exploration of human life in the trap the world has become.


DW: How did you come to study with Dennis Sandole? (feel free to explain his significance in the grand scheme of things!)

BRUCE EISENBEIL: In 1985 I became spellbound by the music of John Coltrane. By that time I was playing the guitar 16 hours a day, learning many of Coltrane's songs: the bass lines, the melodies, the harmonies and the solos. I eventually began reading all the biographies on Coltrane and I came across the reference that Trane had studied with a Philadelphia guitarist named Dennis Sandole. One afternoon I went over to check out a Mesa Boogie amplifier. The guy who was selling the amp, Steve Hayden, asked me if I knew about Dennis Sandole and then gave me his contact info. Steve is an amazing guitarist and composer and has been a close friend since that day. I met with Sandole a few weeks later and was immediately impressed with his approach. Now, you know, it's just like anything else in life, you only get out of it what you put in, and I found out early on that by concentrating on his literature, he would illuminate through an advanced development procedure, uncommon harmonic principles with original rhythmic inventions. Each lesson was not only unique to each student but was Sandole's response to that student's conceptual development over the past week. I apologize if this is not clear, but suffice to say that Sandole's literature was musically stimulating. Now please understand, Sandole never demonstrated this material. As a matter of fact he never played a guitar in front of me until I had known him for 10 years! I just did what I wanted to do with the material. Dennis Sandole was a great musician, composer and guitarist. Dennis became a close friend. Dennis Sandole died recently, on September 30, 2000, and he is deeply missed.


DW: I am most impressed by the musical cohesion evident in both of your CIMP releases, Nine Wings with saxophonist Rob Brown and drummer Lou Grassi, and Mural with bassist J. Brunka and drummer Ryan Sawyer. How did these groups come about? How did you come into contact with these musicians & then decide to work with them?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: Rob Brown had studied with Sandole for awhile and Dennis recommended that I contact Rob. So I went to hear him perform at an early incarnation of the Vision Festival and introduced myself. He told me about Lou and before too long the 3 of us started playing together. Ryan Sawyer came out to gigs and introduced himself. We eventually began to play sessions with various people and J was on some of those sessions. As it turned out, J lived near me so we began to get together a few times a week. Once he became familiar with my music we started playing in a trio with Ryan.


DW: Are these still viable, active groups, or has everyone moved on?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: Each group, the Nine Wings project and the Crosscurrents Trio, are still viable projects. Each band toured and when a promoter offers us the opportunity to perform in the future, we will gladly oblige. I look forward to that opportunity. In the meantime I compose and perform with as many good musicians as possible.


DW: Returning to your two recordings for CIMP, it seems to me that Nine Wings has a more jazz-oriented feel to it, unlike Mural which seems to avoid obvious stylistic references. Am I way off base?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: No man, I think that's really it. The music on Nine Wings uses compositions and concepts that were in place for up to 7 years. It was the first opportunity to release them. So the title of the project kind of represents these 9 different facets of my jazz vocabulary. Like 9 rooms in a house. Of course, the music that is expressed is still a reflection of the musicians involved in each project. The tune "Hermitage of Xhzeng Xhzu" on Nine Wings used musical concepts that interested me a lot and that's the direction I maintained through the course of Mural. Each composition on Mural explores a different organization of pitch material, which in turn helps to inform our improvisations.


DW: It seems to me that you've worked with an amazingly broad array of musicians in the past few years, and your website indicates that you have 10 (or so) different groups. Why so many? It seems to me that it would be a Herculean task to produce material for all of these different bands, get them all rehearsed, an so on.

BRUCE EISENBEIL: I work with a lot of different musicians because I am inspired by the sound they make on their respective instrument. And I work with musicians when they are available. Each one has such a different life, you know. Each band has different material which is written and performed in mind of the individual personalities of each band. I enjoy every aspect of playing music so I rarely feel stressed out by the responsibilities. My hope is that concert and festival promoters will be interested enough to book an ensemble. Perhaps a major label will notice that I have enough material to provide continued interest over many years.


DW: Have you done any work as a sideman? Now that you have a few recordings out under your own name, is sideman-type work still of interest to you?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: For most of my life I worked as a sideman. It is something that I have always enjoyed. I worked with R&B bands when I lived in LA and in Philadelphia and I played in show bands that played in Las Vegas and in Atlantic City. All kinds of music. Then I worked with various jazz-funk bands in the early 90's. I never worked as a leader until 1994 and that was because I needed to work. Up until that time I thought if I worked as a sideman it would just be a matter of time before Miles or Ornette heard about me and would give me a call. Well, the phone didn't ring and I became bored with the available sideman gigs so I started gigging out with original music. I'm currently a sideman on a few projects. I play with Oluyemi Thomas' band, Positive Knowledge. That band also includes his wife Ijoema, Wilbur Morris and Michael Wimberly. And with Jim Ryan's band, Forward Energy, which includes Matthew Heyner and Dave Sewelson. I am a member of Rosi Hertlein's band. She is a fantastic violinist and vocalist who has recorded with Joe McPhee, and she and I are now working on material for a recording.


DW: Please tell us about your next release. Is there another one for CIMP in the works as well?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: My next CD, Ashes, is due out in December on the Freedom Jazz label. This release features some of my favorite musicians including: David Murray on bass clarinet, violinist Matt Maneri, Badal Roy on tabla, Jeribu Shahid playing bass, Bob Moses and Edgar Bateman on drums, Todd Margasak on cornet, percussionists Felix Sanabria and Michael Sotolongo, flutist Mark Weinstein, Edward Rollin on oboe and English horn, John Clark on French horn. It is a very different album of creative music. There are also a few pending projects. I'm in another band called RAKE with Chris Kelsey, Michael Attias and Jay Rosen. We will be recording for CIMP in February. There are a few other projects that I am involved with but I would prefer to not talk about them because I tend to be a bit superstitious. I have a few other projects but I'm not sure which label will pick them up.


DW: One final question. Where do you see yourself going, musically, in the next 10 years?

BRUCE EISENBEIL: I want to continue performing and recording with the best musicians that are available. I would like to have the opportunity to perform throughout the world enabling me to expand my scope of awareness and enjoy the sounds and perspectives of musicians from all over. There are some large scale musical projects that I would like to write for, some uncommon instrumentation in combination with different types of dance. I've always been into film, so I hope to include visual images with my CDs in the future.


DW: Bruce, I really appreciate your participation in this interview, as do the readers of www.jazzweekly.com. Thanks for your time!

BRUCE EISENBEIL: Thank you Dave, for your time, enthusiasm, and interest. I'd also like to thank everyone behind the scenes at www.jazzweekly.com. I really appreciate all of the support. I know a lot of musicians who feel likewise. Peace and best wishes.


Dave Wayne is a regular contributor to Jazz Weekly. Email Him.