AS FUSION TOOK HOLD IN THE 1970s, MUSICIANS CROSSED MUSICAL BOUNDARIES LIKE MEMBERS OF THE EEC. SUDDENLY, NO ONE WAS SIMPLY A “JAZZ” OR “ROCK” MUSICIAN, AS ALL MEMBERS OF MODERN MUSIC WERE CLIMBING UP THE SAME SONIC MOUNTAIN TO REACH THE MUSICAL PEAK.
DAVID SANCIOUS HAS BEEN ONE OF THE ‘MUSICIAN’S MUSICIANS’ THAT HAS SUCCESSFULLY BRIDGED THE MUSICAL GAP, HAVING GROWN UP IN NEW JERSEY WITH A YOUNG CAT NAMED BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, JOINING UP WITH HIS BAND (AND BEING A MAJOR SOUND ON THE FIRST TWO ALBUMS) AND THEN GOING OUT ON HIS OWN, PLAYING ON FUSION CLASSICS LIKE STANLEY CLARKE’S SCHOOL DAYS AS WELL AS TOURING WITH SUPERSTARS LIKE JEFF BECK.
ON HIS OWN, HIS SOLO ALBUMS HAVE RANGED FROM JAZZ ROCK A LA MAHAVISHNU AS ON FOREST OF FEELINGS, TEAMING HIM ON GUITAR WITH BILLY COBHAM, IMPROVISING ON SOLO PIANO, OR, AS ON HIS RECENT RELEASE EYES WIDE OPEN, INCLUDING FUNKY SOUL GROOVES WITH MESSAGES OF SOCIAL IMPORTANCE.
WE FOUND DAVE SANCIOUS RECENTLY MOVED TO THE ISLAND OF KAWAII. LIKE THE REST OF US, HE IS LEARNING TO ADAPT TO LIFE WITH THE COVID LOCKDOWN. HE WAS GRACIOUS ENOUGH TO SHARE HIS THOUGHTS ON HIS RECENT RELEASE AS WELL AS HIS EARLY DAYS.
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT YOURSELF DURING THE COVID LOCKDOWN?
I learned that I don’t have a problem with isolation (laughs)
I’ve always been able to spend a lot of time by myself. My wife and I are here, living on the island of Kawaii. We moved here in January, just before all of this COVID madness started. We get along great; we’ve been married for 23 years.
We live in a natural environment; we don’t live in a neighborhood
WHAT’S THE SECRET OF A SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE?
Be honest; be nice; don’t worry about being “right” all of the time.
I’m definitely looking forward to playing this record live once this COVID thing settles down.
I miss it; I haven’t played live since last July in Germany. I was in this band called Moshulu with Dennis Chambers and Jeff Berlin.
YOUR RECENT ALBUM COVERS A WIDE RANGE OF STYLES, AND YOU PLAY A MYRIAD OF INSTRUMENTS INCLUDING GUITAR.
I’ve been playing guitar since my first record. I’ve played since I was 9 years old, and with the exception of one album I’ve always played guitar on them.
I’ve also been hired as a guitarist for other people. Back in the day, Stanley Clarke called me up to play on his third album Journey To Love (1975). He wanted me to play guitar on the song “Concerto for Jazz/Rock Orchestra”, and the only other guitarist on the record was Jeff Beck. I didn’t play any keyboards on that record; George Duke played on that one.
He called me back for School Days; I played keyboards and guitar on that one.
THIS IS A DIFFERENT FEEL THAN YOUR LAST ALBUM PIANO IMPROVISATIONS.
There’s also an album called Cinema, which is a collection of film music, and one which is a “live” solo synthesizer called Live In The Now. A lot of people haven’t heard them. (laughs)
WHEN YOU RELEASE ALBUMS AS DIVERSE AS THESE, IS THIS WIDE RANGE OF MUSIC A REFLECTION OF INSPIRATION, OR OF YOUR VARIOUS TASTES?
I grew up in a house where we heard all kinds of music, all day long. I’m the youngest of three boys, so part of it is being influenced by their tastes as well as by mom and dad, and listening to their own music.
I’ve always been interested and fascinated by various forms of music, and it comes out in my writing. I don’t write in a style, like rock and roll or jazz; I’m just writing music. It all comes through on different days in different ways.
**********
“I don’t write in a style, like rock and roll or jazz; I’m just writing music”
**********
THERE ARE MANY SONGS ON THIS LATEST ALBUM THAT HAD SOCIO-POLITICAL MESSAGES. WHAT INSPIRED THAT?
It was just my reaction to the times and what’s going on in the world.
After the last election in 2016 when Donald Trump won the election, a fire was put under me to finish the project. Before that I had been working on it off and on between tours. But when Trump won the election I had all kinds of things to say and had feelings about what was going on socially anyway. I decided to finally wrap it up and finished it up last November, and released it in March of this year.
Even the album cover speaks to the tone of the project. It looks like a shot from the evening news. Storm troopers in Portland and Hong Kong. The picture was actually taken from a protest in Hong Kong
The title track, “Eyes Wide Open” and others speak to what’s going on worldwide; it’s not an exclusively American or black experience. It’s talking about things that everyone is going through. Look at what the people of Hong Kong are going through; they are being shut down, and can’t even protest without risking being thrown in jail. The Chinese government is pure evil and bent on some bizarre idea of controlling everybody, everywhere, all the time. It’s hideous.
They’re going through it; we’re going through it in our own way with racial and police brutality issues. That song “In The Middle Of The Night” is everybody’s song now, and I wrote it a year and a half ago.
I was going through a period that was financially pretty tough. I wasn’t working as much as I wanted or needed to be doing. Things were getting really challenging.
I got through it, but when I wrote that song, I was really at my wit’s end. It was a totally sincere song. “How am I going to make it financially?” And then you have kids being separated from their parents at the border and kept in cages. People fleeing war zones, looking at their possessions burning in the road while they run for their lives. The whole world is in a challenged state.
“URBAN SONG #3” IS ALSO POWERFUL
I wrote that in 1991 after the Rodney King incident happened. I was inspired to do it. I had it on a four song deal that I was trying to sell, but it didn’t work out, but I kept it because I knew the song was decent and it was going to show up somehow on some project.
When I finally decided to congeal this thing in 2015 and pick the songs for the album that work. I went back to it, listened to the original drums and keyboards and redid it, adding some ambient sounds of college kids protesting. I found a speech of Dr. King himself that he gave in 1964 in London for a special event, and I interspersed some of that.
The end is brand new; I re-arranged the tag on it. So, it started in ’93, but I just finished it, and I’m really happy how it came out.
LET’S DO SOME HISTORY. WAS BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN YOUR FIRST GIG?
Bruce was the first thing I did professionally. I’m on his first three albums.
We lived in the same area on the Jersey Shore. Asbury Park was a kind of center of things on the Shore. That’s where kids from the other towns would come, get together and jam.
We met in Asbury Park when I was about 15 and he was 3-4 years older. We hit it off right away. He had a successful band called Steel Mill. We had long jam session of about 3 hours on the night that we met; it was crazy. At the end of that he told me that he was breaking up his current band and he wanted to start something new. Would I be interested in playing keyboards in it?
I said “Absolutely” and that’s how it started
THOSE FIRST TWO ALBUMS IN PARTICULAR REALLY SWUNG. HOW MUCH OF AN INPUT DID YOU HAVE?
Bruce always had a clear idea, but he gave me tremendous freedom. Once I knew what the basic chords and melody of the song were I had total freedom to come up what sounded good. There were a lot of ideas, textures and things .
It was that way with the rest of the band. Once he showed you the basic song, you were expected to interpret it in some way. He was not a control freak.
Especially the way my working relationship was. We would sit at a piano, and if it was a song that he wrote on piano I’d sit next to him, and he would play it once. I would watch his hands and then we’d switch positions, go through it and we’d make any “corrections” and, boom, we’d all play it together.
After that, you could come up with anything that sounded good to you and brought the song to life.
**********
“Once he showed you the basic song, you were expected to interpret it in some way. He was not a control freak”
**********
WHAT WAS YOUR INPUT ON THE “NEW YORK SERENADE” INTRO?
That was another “live” thing. He wanted an introduction to that song, and he asked “How about if we do a piano solo? Play whatever you like, and when you’re ready to stop the intro (he considered that whole free form thing just the introduction!) just give me a signal”.
We did a different version every night; the recorded version is the recorded version, but I was never held to repeat that every night. The one little signal was this descending arpeggio thing I do before the song starts. That was my way of saying “I’m done improvising now, and you can start the tune”. (laughs)
That was totally his concept.
YOUR ORGAN SOLOS ON “KITTY’S BACK” OR “INCIDENT ON 57TH STREET” FEEL PRETTY SPONTANEOUS.
It was the same thing.
If you look at the album cover, you’ll see that Bruce asked me to write a string arrangement for “New York City Serenade”. I was only 18 years old, and that was the first time I’d ever been asked to do that. He said “I’m thinking of putting strings in this. Can you do an arrangement?”
I said “Yeah”; I had been studying orchestration at home on my own. That was a great opportunity, and it came out beautifully.
YOU LEFT RIGHT AFTER BORN TO RUN CAME OUT. DID YOU FEEL THAT YOU PULLED “PULLED A PETE BEST” AND LEFT AT THE ABSOLUTELY WRONG TIME, AS THEY TOOK OFF RIGHT AFTER THAT?
(laughs) That’s a funny way to put it.
No, I did not, and the reason I didn’t was because one of the reasons I left was because Epic Records (a division of Columbia) had offered me my own contract. That’s what it was about.
This is why Bruce and I are friends to this day. The thing about Bruce was that there was no issue with my leaving. He was unhappy that he was losing one of his keyboard players, but he totally understood and appreciated what I wanted to do.
He knew that I’d always been writing music and working on my on at home, so when it happened he was completely supportive. There was never any hard feeling about it.
DURING YOUR CAREER, YOU’VE PLAYED WITH SOME OF THE BEST BASSISTS LIKE STANLEY CLARKE, JACK BRUCE AND STING, AND DRUMMERS LIKE VINNIE CALAUITA AND COBHAM. AS A KEYBOARDIST, WHO DO YOU LOCK INTO AND FOCUS WITH WHEN YOU’RE PLAYING?
The key thing for me is the drummer; whoever is playing percussion.
If I’m in an ensemble, I’m listening to everybody; I’m keying off of what they’re doing. I try not to isolate anyone.
As to a personal favorite instrument or part of an ensemble that really motivates me, there’s nothing like some great drumming. It totally sets me on fire.
WHO ARE YOUR COMFORT FOOD DRUMMERS?
The guys on the record, Vinnie Colaiuta. I have the privilege of also being personal friends with him since the 90s. We started working together with Sting and have done tons of concerts and tours together with multiple artists. I did a short tour with Jeff Beck when Vinnie was in the band.
When you call Vinnie, it’s like an insurance policy. You can be assured; whatever the music is, whatever the time signature, whatever feel or whatever groove is, it’s covered. He’s gonna have it, and he’ll blow your mind.
Not only will he have the area that you’ll want to get to, but he’ll put some extra little thing on it beyond what you even imagined.
Will Calhoun and I have the same kind of thing. We have an incredible rapport playing live. We have a duo called Open Secret, and we’ll have an album coming out soon. It’s keyboards and percussion, which is amazing.
That level of player is what I’m looking for.
Now, Vinnie and Will are different drummers, but they both hang out in that same area of excellence.
***********
“Vinnie (Colaiuta) is like an insurance policy. You can be assured; whatever the music is, whatever the time signature, whatever feel or whatever groove is, it’s covered. He’s gonna have it, and he’ll blow your mind
***********
YOU HAVE PLAYED WITH TONS OF FAMOUS ARTISTS, NOT ONLY THOSE ALREADY MENTIONED, BUT WITH JON ANDERSON, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, ERIC CLAPTON AND JACK BRUCE. YOU’VE SEEN THEM COME AND GO. HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT WHY A MUSICIAN “MAKES IT” OR NOT?
First of all, you’ve got to define “making it”.
The reason a person makes it to a certain high level in the industry of recognition, say he’s getting a lot of work, a lot of session work and tours…why some ‘get there’ and some don’t?
I don’t know, man, but if you’re not willing to totally persevere, the odds are it may not work out for you. Maybe it will. Some people who aren’t as serious as others end up having some fantastic success.
But the basis of ‘getting somewhere’ is perseverance, not quitting.
For my definition of ‘making it’, I would consider that I have “made it” separately from the ‘success’ I’ve had, but I’ve made it because I have been able to be a musician for my whole life. That’s really what I’ve wanted to be. I wanted to be a musician my whole life; not part of it or “Oh, I was that for a few years and then I did a computer programming thing and then I did this and then came back to music”. No, I want to be a musician my entire life.
***********
” if you’re not willing to totally persevere, the odds are it may not work out for you”
***********
WHEN DID YOU FEEL THAT YOU HAD YOUR OWN SOUND?
(long pause) I’m going to say maybe around at 15-16, when I started writing a lot of stuff.
I was also working a lot with drummer Ernest Carter in my band Tone. He was also briefly in the E Street Band, and is on Born To Run.
Back in those days I used to get together with Ernest and would work out songs and things. That’s when I think I developed my “sound”.
YOU’VE BEEN ON STAGE WITH SOME HEAVY HITTERS LIKE BECK, CLAPTON AND MCLAUGHLIN. HAVE YOU EVER FELT INTIMIDATED AT A GIG?
Not really, especially when you’re in a jam with someone.
Music to me is not a competition; it’s a cooperative exercise.
When you’re improvising with someone, all bets are off. There’s no rules; it’s just whatever’s going to come through you at that moment. You can’t screw up, unless in a true improvisation you tense up and thinking too much or you’re trying to be somewhere so you’re not listening to the rest of the people in the ensemble.
A real improvisor is going to have an open mind, an open heart and open ears in order to be inspired by the rest of what’s going on around him, not just by some little idea that might be in their heads.
***********
“Music to me is not a competition; it’s a cooperative exercise.”
***********
WHAT MUSICIANS HAVE INSPIRED YOU THE MOST TO MAKE YOU WHO YOUR ARE?
Wow. To hold that to a single one
I wish he was still alive-Jimi Hendrix . He was a kind of cosmic gift; some blazing thing that couldn’t too long because the energy he carried burned itself out.
Jaco Pastorius-what a phenomenon. To come along and achieve everything that then achieved musically, and then of course there was an unfortunate end for both of them.
In terms of who influenced me on my instruments, my three favorite piano players are Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea. I listen to those guys more than I listen to anyone else.
As far as guitar playing, it’s definitely Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton
**********
“(Jimi Hendrix) was a kind of cosmic gift; some blazing thing that couldn’t too long because the energy he carried burned itself out”
**********
WHAT THREE BOOKS DO YOU RECOMMEND EVERYONE SHOULD READ?
Number One is The Open Secret by Tony Parsons. It’s a very thin read, but it’s one of the most profound books I’ve ever read in my entire life.
Another book is one that I read when I was 11-12 years old, and it made me high for three days; I was in a state of bliss. It’s called Lessons In Truth and the author is H. Emile Cady.
For the third one, if you can find any version of the Bible that just has the words of Jesus, the “red letters” that came out of His mouth, and not the rest of it (chuckles), that would be it.
WHAT’S THE BEST ADVICE SOMEONE EVER GAVE YOU?
My mom told me “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again. It’s that third ‘try’” The best thing my father ever said to me was “David, everyone isn’t going to like what you do, or get it or understand it, but you should do it anyway. It’s art; it’s you.
*********
“A real improvisor is going to have an open mind, an open heart and open ears in order to be inspired by the rest of what’s going on around him, not just by some little idea that might be in their heads”
*********
WHO, LIVING OR DEAD, WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET AND PICK THEIR BRAIN FOR AN EVENING?
Nikola Tesla. A true genius.
WHO WOULD YOU PAY $1000 TO SEE PERFORM, LIVING OR DEAD?
I’d pony up $1000 if someone could bring back Hendrix so I could watch him play. I’d definitely do that.
WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SAY WHEN THEY PUT YOU IN THE PINE BOX?
If they say anything, I hope that they enjoyed my music, but if they remember me at all, please remember me as a gentleman, a kind person who tried to make a positive contribution to the world.
WHAT GIVES YOU THE MOST JOY?
When you’re in the throes of music, whether you’re on your own writing it, or on a stage performing with other people,the high state of consciousness that music can put you in is undescribable.
**********
“the high state of consciousness that music can put you in is undescribable”
**********
DAVID SANCIOUS’ CAREER HAS ENCOMPASSED STYLES RANGING FROM CLASSIC ROCK TO FUSION TO EVEN R&B. MORE IMPRESSIVELY, HE HAS CARVED A NAME FOR HIMSELF BY PLAYING TWO DIFFERENT TYPES OF INSTRUMENTS, KEYBOARDS AND GUITAR. HIS HIS CATALOGUE OF ALBUMS SHOWS A DIFFERENT MEANING TO THE PHRASE ‘PROGRESSIVE ROCK’ OR ‘PROGRESSIVE JAZZ’, AS DAVID HIMSELF HAS PROGRESSED AS AN ARTIST AND A MAN THROUGHOUT HIS MUSICAL PILGRIMAGE. HIS LATEST RELEASE, EYES WIDE OPEN, SUMMARIZES HIS KALEIDOSCOPIC VIEW OF MUSIC AND FAITH, AND IS A JOURNEY WORTH JOINING HIM ON.
LOOK FOR HIM TO TOUR AROUND ONCE THIS LOCKDOWN ENDS, AND TAKE IN THE WIDE RANGING COLORS OF AN ARTIST WITH A WIDE PALATE.