There has been unintended consequences to the lockdown that Dr. Denny Zeitlin can address. As a psychologist, he is able to talk to people who are suffering from the adverse affects of not being in community with people, as isolation can be a terrible thing to one’s mind and soul. As a jazz pianist, Zeitlin’s latest release (Live At Mezzrow) provides audio therapy for those missing the in-the-moment excitement of “live” music.
For this concert, Zeitlin is once again teamed with long-time mates bassist Buster Williams and drummer Matt Wilson, once again proving evidence of the benefits of long-term trusted relationships. This is their third recorded gig, adding up to five total for Zeitlin in just over a decade.
As this album testifies, there are intangible rewards for human contact, be it between the musicians themselves or between the band and the audience. Everyone wins on this latest recording.
A man with 60 plus years of experience playing jazz with artists ranging from Wes Montgomery, Johnny Griffin, Pat Metheny, Joe Henderson and Charlie Haden, Zeitlin’s musical career reflects the mind of a man that has been under the tutelage of mentors ranging form medical professors at Columbia University to composers George Russell and Alexander Tcherepnin.
His musical career has centered around Bill Evans-inspired small group jazz, but Zeitlin has also done some creative work in recording with electronics, not to mention being able to put the fact that he did the soundtrack for the classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” It requires a lot of mental, physical and creative dexterity to balance such a career over the long hall.
Dr. Zeitlin was kind enough to take some time to answer our questions about his career, in both fields, as well as his unique perspective on music and life.
How have you been dealing with this pandemic?
My wife Josephine and I have been staying pretty much hermetically sealed. At 82, I’m in a particularly risky demographic. No one comes in our home, we’re meticulous about sanitizing food, and we avoid going inside any other buildings. I’ve been blessed to share a life with her for over 50 years. We’re grateful to have a home that allows us to do so much of what has been our regular routine, and we have access to the nearby Mount Tamalpais where I go running 4-5 times a week and Josephine walks our dog. I feel extraordinarily lucky that this virus has disrupted my life so little compared to the tragedy so many others have faced. I have shifted all my psychiatric patients to Zoom; I stay active in my music studio downstairs; we’ve continued our recent passion for ballroom dancing by continuing lessons with my teacher on Zoom; while I’ve had to cancel a number of fly fishing trips to exotic locales, I’m able to continue practicing and studying fly casting at a nearby pond; though we can’t dine out with our friends, I’m so fortunate to be married to a world-class chef, and we hang out with our friends on Zoom. A big part of the challenge of these times involves a willingness to compromise, seek out workarounds, stay connected to the things and people you care about, and be grateful for every healthy day.
How did you get involved in a dual career in music and psychiatry? Do these activities enhance each other?
My father was a radiologist and my mother, a speech pathologist. They both played our living room Steinway– my father by ear, and my mother reading classical music. Music had a head start for me when around age 2 or 3 I started crawling around inside the piano or sitting on the lap of whichever parent was playing and putting my little hands on their hands, going along for the ride kinesthetically. Around age 8, I began talking with my uncle who was a psychiatrist about his work, and was fascinated. I began doing psychotherapy on the playground in third grade without a license. Early on I was convinced I was going to be somehow involved in both fields. I was extremely fortunate that my parents believed in me and never pressured me to choose one career over the other. Although these two fields might look very different, there are some important underlying commonalities. Both activities involve the deepest kind of communication, whether it is with a musician or a patient or one’s self.. This involves trust, empathy, and at its deepest level a capacity to achieve a merger state, where you become one with the person or activity. Over the years I have found that each activity refuels my energy and interest in the other; I never would’ve been happy doing one exclusively.
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“Both activities involve … trust, empathy, and at its deepest level a capacity to achieve a merger state, where you become one with the person or activity. Over the years I have found that each activity refuels my energy and interest in the other; I never would’ve been happy doing one exclusively”
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Were there people along the way that gave you important musical advice?
There were three musicians at pivotal points in my life. Billy Taylor was one of my early influences in jazz piano, and at age 15 my family invited the Billy Taylor trio to our home for dinner, and my fledgling trio played for them. Billy was extraordinarily encouraging, particularly around my idea of pursuing both medicine and music. He spoke to me about the rigors of his full-time musical life and how difficult it was for him to maintain the kind of contact he wished with the people he loved. In 1963, in my third year at Johns Hopkins medical school, I had a fellowship to Columbia University in New York City. I had tremendously admired the seminal work of George Russell and contacted him hoping I could study with him. He agreed, and it ended up more that we hung out together frequently during my fellowship, and I would play for him and he would comment. His belief and encouragement of my music was extremely important for me at this point in my life. Then a year later, I recorded my first trio album for Columbia records, and emboldened by the positive remarks Bill Evans had made about my playing in a Downbeat Blindfold Test, I contacted him to see if he’d be willing to listen to my album and offer a critique. Bill was extremely welcoming, listened carefully to the album, loved it, felt I had my own thing, and advised me to never let anyone tell me what to play. I was touched by his generosity of spirit.
Like your recent album, “Live at Mezzrow,” you always pick the most adroit sidemen. What do you listen for in a bassist? A drummer?
I’ve always been lucky finding good people to play with. I feel trio music, at its best, is an equilateral triangle. I may be the leader, but there’s equal contributions being made by the bass and drums— a collective music emerges. I adjust to the strengths and perhaps the limitations of the people in the trio. I look for people who are sensitive to my artistic aims, but have their own contribution to make, and are interested in exploration. I’d like them to be as open to dissolving genre boundaries as I am. A good interpersonal vibe is key, and a belief in each others’ music and trust that going out on a limb musically is safe.
In addition to the solo, duo, and trio acoustic jazz albums you’ve recorded over the years, you’ve had an abiding interest in the electro-acoustic domain that stretches back to the 60s. What is it that draws you to that music, and are there special challenges in achieving a personal sound?
As a small child I had a fantasy of becoming an orchestra—being able to produce all those wondrous sounds myself. I would crawl around the insides of our Steinway piano in the living room and bang on the strings with objects and my fingers to make unusual sounds. As much as I love the acoustic piano, in the mid-60s I became restless with the limitations of the piano sound and wanted to be able to hold notes and bend notes the way guitars, wind, and string instruments could. I also wanted to be increasingly involved in a multi-genre music that didn’t impose artificial boundaries. I amassed multiple racks of keyboards and synthesizers and sound altering devices to open up that world. A challenge as a pianist was finding ways to achieve a personal articulation from different keyboards– a small price to pay for the increased timbres for melodic and harmonic expression. I was lucky to have George Marsh on drums, and either Mel Graves or Ratzo Harris on bass to join me in these adventures on a couple albums for 1750 Arch Records, and a decade of concerts. The exponential growth in the technology of electronic music drew me back into it seven years ago when I reunited with George Marsh for an ongoing exploration of duo electro-acoustic free improvisations. We’ve released two albums on Sunnyside records, and another is slated for 2021. We feel like a galactic orchestra. This music realizes my childhood dream, and pulls on everything I’ve ever felt or thought about music
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“Bill (Evans)… advised me to never let anyone tell me what to play. I was touched by his generosity of spirit.”
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Most people don’t realize that you did the soundtrack for “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. How did that come about, and how was the project different from a jazz performance?
For many years I had hoped to someday get a chance to score a Hollywood film, but knew it was highly unlikely unless I were to move there and spend huge amounts of self-promotional time to try to get a project. I ended up entering through a back door opened by director Philip Kaufman, who in 1978 asked me to score his remake of this classic science-fiction-horror film. He had also grown up in Chicago, had heard me play at sessions and listened to some of my albums, and had it in mind for some time to someday have me score one of his films. It turned out to be the most exciting and exhausting musical project of my career, different from an improvisatory jazz performance in so many ways. Here I was writing for a symphony orchestra where note timings had to be accurate within hundredths of a second to match perfectly with action on the film. Overdubs of synthesizers and other electronic instruments required the same precision. The process was extremely arduous, with my often getting four hours sleep a night for the 10 weeks of composing and recording. Hearing my music come alive in a symphony orchestra was a lifetime thrill .I was lucky the director and producer and critics loved the score, and there was a soundtrack album. I was grateful for the experience, but vowed not to do it again.
Compared to your Columbia sessions back in the mid-60s how has your style evolved over the years?
In addition to continued technical growth, my musical vision has broadened and deepened so that I see more of the potential territory around me and appreciate the geology. I’m able to draw on much more from multiple genres into my compositions and improvisations, integrating more complexity. I’m more able to go to the “heart” of what I hear. Staying curious has been a prerequisite for growth.
You’ve played with some legends like Wes Montgomery and Johnny Griffin. Any stories to share?
I played with Wes when I was an undergraduate at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. Wes was in the nearby town of Danville. It was very exciting to play with him–he had an incredible spirit, groove and time feel, and would build chorus after chorus of amazing improvisations. The first time I sat in with Johnny Griffin was also during my college years, and he started off by calling “Cherokee” at a breakneck tempo. After he took a few solo choruses, he waved to the drummer and bass player to lay out, and there I was suddenly all alone for a number of choruses. I survived, and Johnny was subsequently gracious about letting me sit in.
In recent solo albums for Sunnyside records, you’ve been focusing on the work of a single composer. What has drawn you to this approach?
Up until a handful of years ago, I had been focusing on maximum variety of composers on albums, including my own compositions. This recent focus has been intriguing, and I’ve enjoyed delving deeply into the works of some composers I admire. I’ve discovered more about the core of their work, and immensely enjoyed re-imagining it. The challenge, as I see it, is to honor the original compositions, yet transform them into something of my own. Sunnyside has released Wayne Shorter and Miles. And Monk, Billy Strayhorn, George Gershwin, Richard Rogers, and Cole Porter are “in the can” for future release.
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“Staying curious has been a prerequisite for growth”
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You’re a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California in San Francisco. What is the emphasis of your teaching? And how about when you teach piano?
I’ve been on the clinical faculty at UCSF since finishing my residency back in 1968. Over the years I have taught courses on group, couple and individual psychotherapy and supervised individual residents in their casework. My main emphasis is helping trainees develop a good working relationship with their patients, and come to understand how psychological problems develop, and how psychotherapy works. I’ve never had individual piano students. My teaching there has been limited to master classes at various jazz festivals, where I hope to find aspects in pianists that I can encourage, as opposed to solely focusing on areas of deficiency.
I know that you have a longtime interest in wine. Do you see a relationship between your taste for wine, jazz, and psychiatry?
I first got involved with wine in college, fascinated with how grapes could be transformed into such an amazing sensory experience. In the late 60s my wife and I began to lay down our wine cellar, and have remained avid collectors. We became active in the San Francisco Bay area wine and food subculture, participating in tasting groups, judging wine, and I wrote articles about wine for Vintage Magazine back in the 70s. I hadn’t thought about it, but I think a common element with jazz and psychiatry is my interest in the integration of complexity. I think that’s one of the hallmarks of good jazz improvisation, psychotherapy, and wine
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“a common element with jazz and psychiatry is my interest in the integration of complexity. I think that’s one of the hallmarks of good jazz improvisation, psychotherapy, and wine”
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If you could spend $1000 to see a performance by a pianist living or dead who would it be? Why?
Walter Gieseking died in the 50s, and I never heard him live. I would love to attend his solo concert focusing on the work of Debussy and Ravel. Modern jazz owes so much to those composers. Gieseking was a master of that repertoire, capable of extraordinary nuance, color, and atmosphere. Among living pianists, I would magically have Martha Argerich return to the solo concert stage for a performance. More than any living classical pianist, she has the ability to inhabit a composition to the point of owning it.
If you could spend the day with anyone on earth, living or dead, who would it be?
There are of course myriad possibilities, but at the moment I’m immersed in the study of fly casting , so I would like to spend the day with Lefty Kreh, who died at 93 a little over a year ago. He took a fresh look at the challenge of this difficult sport, and had a tremendous impact on the art and science of fly casting, over a lifetime of videos, books, and workshops.
What’s the secret of having a marriage last so long?
Many books have been written on this topic. Meeting Josephine was the luckiest moment of my life. Elements that have been central in my life with her are our deep love, respect, and belief in each other. We accept and are patient with each other’s imperfections. Our empathetic connection is deep and strong, and when we get out of sync, we don’t get hung up on who is “right.” We’re able to own mistakes and make prompt repairs. If it came down to it, we’d each take a bullet for the other in a heartbeat.
What do you want people to say when they put you in the pine box?
That I was loving and loyal to family and friends; that I was a patient and effective teacher; that I helped a lot of people in psychotherapy; that I made some important contributions to music; that I enjoyed numerous interests and stayed curious and full of zest up until the end.
Judging by his appreciations of the interactions between musicians themselves, between musicians and the audience, between people in long term relationships, between acoustic and electric sounds and even between grapevines, sunshine and earth, Dr. Denny Zeitlin is of the fortunate people who have been able to integrate his life to be an inspiration of those who appreciate things that age well over time; marriage, music and wine.