Backbone > Ear Whacks
Harvey Kaiser: Ethics of the Sax
By John Trent; Photos by Roy Gumpel

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In 1970 Harvey Kaiser was a young mu-sician roaming through Europe in the midst of a quest. He was in search of the music, in search of his own voice as a saxophone player. Times were lean. He had traversed the continent from Denmark to Greece exhausting his health and resources. Connections weren’t panning out, so he limped back to Copenhagen, where he had some travelers checks stashed along with some other possessions.

At that time you could find a vast contingent of American jazz musicians working the European musical landscape. While visiting a record shop one day, Kaiser ran into one of the most innovative avant-garde jazz trumpet players, Don Cherry. After tossing around some names of cats they had played with, Cherry invited Kaiser to sit in with him at his gig the following night. Excitedly but with some trepidation, Kaiser accepted.
The show went on and at some point Kaiser was to play a long drowning B flat, the lowest note on the tenor sax. Kaiser flailed and Cherry called him on it after the show.

“What happened, man?” Cherry asked. “You said you could play whatever I asked you to.”

Cherry grabbed the horn, fingered it, and said: “I know what the problem is, your horn’s broken!”

“At that point something clicked in me,” Kaiser recalled, “which was my pride, my ego, my sense of survival. I took back the horn and to my astonishment, blew out the low B flat. Don then lights up like a benevolent spirit form and offers some roots level insight: ‘See, the breath is where the vibrations come from is where the music comes from!’”

“All my angst and nervousness,” Kaiser continued, “my fear of failing had prevented me from getting centered enough and connected enough to my own life force to make that sound he had wanted me to make.”

Later on, lying in bed, Kaiser realized what had happened. In standard guru form, Cherry had created just enough of an identity crisis to push him beyond his limitations. Prior to this moment, his saxophone technique was primarily focused on the mechanical and dexterous aspects of playing the sax without tapping into the root source of the music.

This was early on in a lifetime dedicated to an ancient tradition of artistic study. An aural tradition where the elders pass on the lineage of their musical and often spiritual wisdom to the next generation, and so on down the line.

Kaiser sheds some light on the true mission of the jazz musician: “The process of the artist/musician in the tradition of Afro-American classical music, or jazz, is that it carries on a master to student tradition of direct aural transmission. This permeates the life experience of the practitioners of this art form from Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra to people like me.”

Pre-Med to Post-Bop
Kaiser was born in New York city on May 23, 1946, and grew up in suburban Long Island. He started gravitating toward musical instruments in elementary school, beginning with the drums (his first set, which his son also learned on, is set up in his High Falls home). “I was fascinated with the idea of playing for an audience,” which Kaiser said may reveal an exhibitionistic streak in him, “but the music needs to be heard, the beauty needs to be appreciated.” In school, Kaiser started learning clarinet and saxophone. It wasn’t until he entered sunyStony Brook as a pre-med student that he made the decision to seriously pursue a career as a professional musician. At freshman orientation Harvey attended a concert given by Mose Alison, featuring Ben Webster on tenor sax, that would change his life.

“Ben Webster just filled the gymnasium with this warm, honey, effervescent tenor sound and I said damn, this is it!”

That was it. From there on it was all about the music. In 1968, after graduating from Stony Brook with a Bachelor of Arts, Kaiser went on to become a middle school teacher in Harlem, teaching by day, frequenting jazz clubs by night. It was at the renowned East Village club Slug’s that he met saxophone legend Joe Henderson and became his apprentice.

By this time, Nixon had disqualified teachers’ immunity to the draft. Kaiser was faced with being shipped off to Vietnam as an interrogator. Luckily, his number didn’t come up in the draft lottery. Instead, Henderson had another mission in mind for him—to go to Copenhagen and pay respects to Dexter Gordon. In the midst of his travels, Kaiser did find Gordon, and Gordon remained an important touchstone to Harvey’s development as an artist until Gordon died in 1990.

Upon his return to New York, Kaiser again encountered Don Cherry. This time he found Cherry practicing Raga, North India’s devotional, classical music, with the great Hindi singer Pandit Pran Nath. India’s musical tradition is also a prime example of an aural teaching system. The guru passes the fruits of thousands of years of musical/spiritual refinement through example—with typically no transcription. This is done freely with the intention of refining the life of the musician spiritually and physically, similar to that of other yogic practices. Many of the greatest practitioners of this music never even desire an audience. It is not a commercial form of music.

“While studying with Panditji I learned to measure my breath, in through the nose, hold, and sing a long note until I would run out of breath, then take a second breath and sing again. This quiet space in between all our frantic thinking is really the solution to all the problems we face at this time.”

What Kaiser is saying is that, by slowing the hyperactivity of the mind, a more subtle spiritual reality can be enjoyed. Relaxation as a result of repetition.

Throughout the days of disco and then the heavy metal years, Harvey continued to study and absorb the healing qualities of music through contact with a huge roster of jazz giants—Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Philly Jo Jones, there are far too many to list. All of these people have been integral to the creation and constant re-invention of what Harvey considers to be America’s greatest contribution to world culture. They are people who have been imbued with the gifts and talents to tell stories and enlighten us with song and sound. This is a precious gift, which he refines in himself and is happy to share with others.

Harvey’s attitude in reference to his illustrious mentors is a humble one. Listen: “A very important footnote to my career is that I’ve been in the company of so many great musicians who have always been supportive, inspiring me to upgrade my art form by virtue of what they were transmitting or sharing. They did this with encouragement or not saying anything and just playing together, having that affirmative experience which really can’t be measured.”

University of the Streets
In 1975 Harvey met his next teacher Sonny Stitt at the Village Vanguard. Stitt was a contemporary of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, a true maestro. For the next seven years, until his death in 1982, he expected Kaiser to be there ready to blow whenever he was in town, or else! Whispering in his ear while on stage how to play and when, he helped Kaiser earn his colors as a journeyman. This could certainly be called the University of the Streets. Stitt was also the connection for a European tour in 1979-80 with organist Herbert Noord. This time accommodations were much more hospitable and Kaiser was able to bring his small family with him.

For many musicians at this time life in the metro area wasn’t producing a viable income. So, in 1976, with a baby on the way, Harvey packed up the family and headed for the Catskills.

Although it wasn’t exactly the heyday of the hotel circuit, there was still a paycheck to be had and plenty of opportunity to hone his chops. There was also the promise of living a lay monastic-style life in a community based on traditional Tibetan Buddhist principles. It was on this circuit that he met many of the musicians in his current group The Kansas City Sound.

In the eighties, while Motley Crüe was refining the three-minute, Lee Press-On metal opus and I was busy drooling over Madonna videos, Kaiser was busy messing around with all sorts of little things, like receiving his master of fine arts for composition at Bard, playing and studying with Stitt, Roswell Rudd, Dexter Gordon, and playing sideman to Anita O’Day. Kaiser also composed four major works between ‘83 and ‘85—Three Buddhist Motivations; Minyan, string duo; Saxophone Quartet; and Self-Portrait in Five Colors.

Another key element in Kaiser’s life is that for 30 years he has been a devout Tibetan Buddhist, combining the compassionate and musical life. As a result of living the devotional life (both musical and spiritual), Kaiser possesses the attributes of a great mentor. A large part has been given over to teaching people with the therapeutic vibrations of music. He has taught in schools, colleges, prisons, and homes. After 10 years of being a music teacher at Ulster County Boces, teaching the “unteachables”, Kaiser understands that a child’s musical education cannot be based on a rigid, goal-oriented system where people are only looking for a return on their investment.

“It is so gratifying to see the joy in a young person, who may have been led to believe she wasn’t good enough or couldn’t keep up, experience her own creative musicality,” Kaiser said. “There is such a joyful response which releases such light and love into the room. If you happen to be teaching this person, a bonding occurs which will last for the rest of your lives.”

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The Kansas City Sound
Harvey’s current group, The Kansas City Sound, represents the culmination of his relationship with the late trumpet player Bobby Johnson, Jr. Johnson, himself a veteran of the Catskill jazz scene, was revered as a village elder by younger players on the post-borsch-belt circuit like Kaiser and Rudd. Johnson actually played with the Duke Ellington and Erskine Hawkins orchestras, and he taught everyone the right tempos and what it was like to play with the early jazz greats. The Kansas City Sound spans three generations: Three generations of world-class musicians who have founded a group where they can share their love of this timeless music. Johnson was 86 years old when they recorded their CD The Kansas City Sound Live. He died a year later.

Compositions by Lester Young and Count Basie are given a pure and swinging salute on their CD. Kick back and dig while the spirit of Count and the Prez make you jump and jive. Another CD with the same line-up and recorded at the same gigs, only this time mostly Duke Ellington compositions, is due out soon. In the album’s liner notes Geoffrey O’Brien writes, “They remind us of a time when jazz wasn’t an exhibit, a performance separated from its audience; when it wasn’t even “Jazz” at all, but a music to live and have fun with.”

Another new project, which seems like the one Harvey has been practicing for, is a group called Elmolennium, a tribute to Elmo Hope. Elmo was a hard bop pianist who played with the likes of Clifford Brown, Jackie McClean, and Philly Jo Jones. Hope died tragically at a young age, but he left behind a legacy of innovative and complex compositions that will continue to challenge future practitioners of jazz music. Elmo’s widow Bertha will be leading the group from the piano along with bassist Walter Booker. These are top-shelf musicians who have lived the jazz life for decades. Kaiser was blown away by the offer to join the group and honored to have the chance to perform with the true keepers of the lineage. Elmolennium will be performing at the Water Wheel in Milford, Pennsylvania on Saturday, December 14.

On December 19 Harvey will be living out a boyhood fantasy. Coming of age in the sixties, he has always had a great love for “that funky bottom, fatback voice of the baritone sax” so prominent in the Motown sound. When The Temptations take to the stage that night at UPAC in Poughkeepsie, Kaiser will join the horn section with some fatback of his own.

“All I ever need to be doing is what Roswell [Rudd] calls the American work ethic,” Kaiser said. “Go to work, take out my horn, look at my charts, count off the tempo, and the band plays. We’ve done our work. My art and my livelihood are the same. Not that I have to be driving a bread truck or a taxi like some cats have to. If all of us are working, America will be a much more enlightened place because we will be filling it up with light.”