David Garfield joined John Bommarito on The Song Break.
John Bommarito: My guest today on The Song Break is an American keyboardist, songwriter, label owner, and record producer. You hear his music on the program periodically, and it's my pleasure to welcome David Garfield to The Song Break. Hello, David.
David Garfield: Hey there. How are you doing?
John Bommarito: I'm doing well, and it's good to finally meet you. We have that mutual friend of your brother in common, and we've talked about you several times, but I have never actually had the pleasure of your company or a conversation with you. So, it's good to have you on the program.
David Garfield: Thanks for having me.
John Bommarito: There is a fairly large handful of what we'd call “household names” in the jazz music scene. And while David's name isn't there for some reason, you'll wonder “why?” when I mention a few of the names of the people who have worked with and or recorded with David Garfield: Smokey Robinson, George Benson, The Manhattan Transfer, Freddie Hubbard, Natalie Cole, Steve Lukather, Larry Carlton, The Rippingtons, Boz Scaggs, Cher, Oleta Adams, Brenda Russell and… wait for it.. Spinal Tap and Michael Bolton. That's just the tip of the iceberg, people. That's a pretty impressive list, David.
David Garfield: Don't forget Ratt. I did a recording with them.
John Bommarito: That surprises me, and that's a pretty cool thing to add to the list of your talents that you've worked with, but that must speak to your talent. A few of these artists that I've named are regulars on this program. I wonder when you started playing keyboards, and I assume that was in the 60s when you were a kid, did you envision yourself rubbing shoulders with so many household names?
David Garfield: I really didn't. I dreamt of, you know, getting a chance to see real bands play and meet people. But I was a kid that grew up in the era of vinyl records and the heyday of “go to the record shops and we buy records and listen to them read the credits.” And, you know, it was very exciting for me. The whole music explosion that happened in the 60s and into the early 70s. I was in St Louis, where I went to high school, and I got interested in jazz. There was a jazz and R&B scene in the local clubs there. A lot of great jazz and R&B people have come from St Louis, like Miles Davis and Clark Terry, Donny Hathaway, Chuck Berry, Ike and Tina Turner, David Sanborn, Michael McDonald…It's a long list. So, I got involved in the local scene and then I met somebody older who was moving to California, and I just came out on a fluke 1974, on a complete whim. I came out to L.A. and I was very lucky because it was the heyday of the recording scene out here in L.A.. And so, it was quite good. You know, I got out here and I was very lucky that immediately I got a job the first week I was here. So, I got to play and meet a few players and then I started scuffling after that.
John Bommarito: Sounds like it's been going very well for you. And that's a good thing. Well, one of the reasons I'm talking to you today on The Song Break on WEMU is on Saturday, October 12th, the Trinity House in Livonia. David Garfield will be performing with the current touring drummer for Chicago, Walfredo Reyes Jr. and Lily Dixon on bass. I am not familiar with Lily. Tell me about Lily.
David Garfield: Well, Lily Dixon is my cousin and she's in school up at the University in East Lansing and a talented young bass player. She won the Louis Armstrong Award for her high school jazz band her senior year. She's going to be a very special guest on this. We're going to do quite an eclectic performance. I'm going to do a couple of solo pieces. I'm going to bring Walfredo out of to play a few songs with me, just the two of us. And then I'm going to bring Lily out two to make a trio at the end. And then I have a special surprise guest coming out at the very end who came all the way from the U.P. That's going to be interesting. But I'll tell you a little bit about Walfredo. We have a big history. And he is the drummer in Chicago, has been with them for a few years now. We've been playing for decades. And I'm a close friend with him and his whole family. His brother is in the Zac Brown Band. His father was one of the all-time great percussionists in Cuba who was on all the classic Cuban jazz recordings and so forth. Wally and I, we call him Wally, you know, played together with Boz Skaggs. He was with Santana, David Lindley, Jackson Browne, Steve Winwood in Traffic. So many great bands he's been with. He's had quite a resume and joined Chicago and lives in Cincinnati now because he married a lady that lives in Cincinnati that is so it is a perfect opportunity for him to drive up to Detroit and play with me.
John Bommarito: Sounds like going to be a great show with all those guests and special talent and your talent being the center stage there at Trinity House, October 12th. Thinking back on this long career of yours, what do you think your first big break was?
David Garfield: Well, my first big break was getting discovered by Willie Bobo. Willie Bobo was playing all over L.A. He was like a regular at all the big clubs. He had a record deal. He even had a small part on The Cosby Show at that time. Willie, he was known for his recording of “Evil Ways”, which was out before Santana. Santana actually recut Willie's version. And, you know, Willie heard about us. We were playing and I had started my own band and I had a, you know, a big following. We're playing down in Venice at the Comeback Inn. My drummer was Cuban. Carlos Vega. He was a great drummer and he had a great buzz going on around Town. “Have you heard this young Cuban drummer from Eagle Rock, Carlos Vega, he’s in this band Karizma” So Willie showed up to see what we were doing and he ended up hiring me and Carlos to play in his band. So that was my big break in L.A. started playing all the major clubs, started getting paid better, meeting all the higher level people. And it was from that break six months later that I got a chance to join Freddie Hubbard. And that was my I'd say that was my real big break.
John Bommarito: That's great. Well, in 1986, you became George Benson's musical director. How often do you still get to do that as part of what you do for a living?
David Garfield: Well, I just phased out performing with George in 2018. I had three stints with him for over 35 years, but I finally, you know, just needed to take a break from the touring because it was so time consuming and I've been working extensively on my own projects and I was just having to put things down for six weeks, you know, and then come back to them and go, What was I doing? You know? So, George and I stayed good friends. I actually just visited him a few months ago up in Arizona where he lives, and we had a great time. I was going to say, he's like a father, but he's more like a big brother. He's 15 years older than me. So, you know, we're like family. But boy, we had a lot of fun together. One of the things that I can tell you about George is when we were in Europe back in the late 80s, we would play often with James Moody and Clark Terry, and that was a treat. What else? One night at the Montreal Jazz Festival Herbie Hancock and George Duke came out to join us on the encore. Some really great moments. I produced a record of his called “Guitar Man”, and I wrote a song that he recorded with Smokey Robinson called “One Like You” that he recorded on his album “Songs and Stories.” You know, I got to play a few of his records, too, so we had a lot of fun.
John Bommarito: Sounds great. Good thing to have experienced in your lifetime working with such a great guitar player and singer as George. David Garfield is my guest today on the song Break on WEMU. David, what do you think the most excited you've ever been while recording or performing would be some big moment in your life. You're like, that was the pinnacle. It's probably been too many.
David Garfield: And a few. But, you know, there's a couple things that come to mind. When I was making “Guitar Man” with George recording with him at Capitol Studio B, which is.. actually no, we were in Capitol A, which is where they recorded This Masquerade, you know, And we were in that room and we had Harvey Mason, who was also on the Breezin record, Joe Sample, who is one of my heroes, and the young bass player named Ben Williams who is quite good. We were all playing with George live in that room and it just had that classic feel of like a real recording date with the real talent in a room. And we had great performances and we're being recorded by Al Schmitt, who was one of the greatest engineers of our time. You know, he had 40 Grammys that he’s won. And he’s done so many great records that I'd say that was probably number one.
John Bommarito: That's great! Well, back in 1988, you started releasing albums with your name out in front instead of part of one of the bands you were in, which included Karizma and Los Lobotomys. What fueled the desire to put yourself out front instead of playing sideman?
David Garfield: Well, you know, I was always the writer, the leader, the organizer, but I always had a tendency to feature all the other guys. I really made a point of featuring the other guys in the band. Announcing their names. Putting focus on them. And then I really was reluctant to focus on myself. And it dawned on me that, you know, it really always was my band and it was always me as an artist, but I was really generous for making it look like everybody else. Of course, they did contribute a lot to the bands, but after about three of my guys in the bands really got discovered in my band and went off to have amazing careers, I realized that I was just really showcasing. One of them was Michael Landau, guitar player, who's quite popular. He's currently a member of James Taylor's band and plays in Steve Gadd's Band. Vinnie Colaiuta was another that rose to prominence playing with me. And he is one of the most popular drummers of our time. People worship him like a god. It's crazy. But, you know, and I feel like I had to put my name up front and put the focus on myself, which I was reluctant to do. But it's been quite good because now the most important thing is that whenever I play, it's only important that I'm there. You know, when I had a band, it was always an issue of about “well we want the band” Then you try to line up the rest of the guys and then guys would have conflicts and problems. Somebody couldn't show up. It would cause a tremendous problem. So for me, it's just perfect to be “it's my show. Whoever I bring with me, I bring.” And it's always so good.
John Bommarito: Sure sounds like it…coming up on October 12th at Trinity House. So back even a few years after that, in 1997, you started your own label. What was going on there that you wanted to do that.
David Garfield: That was kind of by necessity? You know, I had got a label deal with Japan in the early 90s. They funded us to do eight albums, but they were the company, you know. We were just the production company, and we turned in the final tapes, but then the covers and everything was under their control. There was a lot of stuff that was kind of squirrely, but down the road, it became a thing where people started pressing their own CDs. And I decided to take that leap out of necessity. And I pressed my first CD and then I pressed my second and so forth. And now I've got about 50 titles.
John Bommarito: Wow. I was going to ask if you knew how many you actually had, because Wikipedia does a pretty good job of describing what you have in your catalog. And your website has some of them, but I don't think everything's there. So it's hard to hard to really keep track of your lengthy career that way.
David Garfield: And I couldn't tell you the exact number I have. We've been putting together a database based on everything that we've put out and every catalog number, and then now we're putting out the compilations. We're doing a database to keep track of everything. It’s just that so much is out there! But, you know, besides the groups and my solo records, I’ve produced other artists. I produced Michael Landau's record “Tales From the Bulge.” I did a lot of work with Smokey Robinson as an arranger, and I really was his right-hand man in the studio, but he didn't want to give me production credit at first. On this last record. He did. He gave me production credit, which I thought was really nice.
John Bommarito: That's cool. This one might be a hard one to answer, but let's try. In addition to original compositions that you put on your many releases; you do some mighty fine covers. As someone who's not a musician, like me, can you describe how you go about reimagining someone else's creation and making your own? Or is that a process that is impossible to describe?
David Garfield: No, I mean, the first thing I think of is how can I do it differently? That's the first thought is how can I do this different from the original? One time I did a Christmas record with a Japanese artist, and she wanted to do the Donny Hathaway “This Christmas”. That's such an iconic song, you know. There are always things that I had to figure out how to do it differently. I changed the time signature to 6/8. I got into changing it, rearranging it, trying to be clever with it. I did Stevie Wonder's “Go Home”, which I love. So the big difference with that was I did it with a saxophone melody instead of a vocal, something like “Sophisticated Lady”, Duke Ellington. I did it in an Afro-Cuban cha-cha-cha. I kind of take pride in doing clever little things with encoding other songs or, you know, quoting different things from the original in a certain way that pays homage to it. Stuff like that.
John Bommarito: Still going to keep the melody intact so people recognize the song, though, right?
David Garfield: The worst is when I played one of my covers for somebody and they go, What's that? I’m like, What do you mean?! It's “Let It Be” by The Beatles!
John Bommarito: Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, you have to keep some element of it alive. Otherwise, like, I don't know what that is. And I know a lot of songs.
David Garfield: If it’s too abstract…. you know. Herbie Hancock did a version of Both Sides Now that was quite well received. I think it may win a Grammy on the Joni Letters that year.
John Bommarito: Yeah.
David Garfield: And it's practically impossible to recognize.
John Bommarito: But you're right, you're right. That's a good example.
David Garfield: Yeah, but I had fun doing the Sophisticated Lady of that in that Latin style. We even had like a Turanga violin on it. And then I had the Latin vocals. Poncho Sanchez played on it, and then instead of having the vocals in Spanish, I had him sing in English. It was really kind of fun. So, what else. We did Sting's “Fragile.”
John Bommarito: Twice at least.
David Garfield: Yeah, but with an instrumental and vocal. But we did 26 strings on it. I have a nice orchestra. Currently, I may be doing a version of “Through The Fire.”
John Bommarito: Chaka?
David Garfield: Salsa. Yeah, because our drummer that is playing with me this week. I'm doing a show in L.A. celebrating 50 years in L.A. and the drummer is with me, John Robinson. He played on that original recording of “Through The Fire.” He's played on a lot of hit records. So I said “How can I do ‘Through the Fire’ different?” And I go into Salsa. It’a full blown Salsa take.
John Bommarito: Sounds interesting! We talked very briefly…I dropped the name of the band briefly a bit ago. Los Lobotomys debut did well enough, it must have done well enough, to get an exclusive Record Store Day reissue and pressing from Third Man Records. That's a bit more of a jam band sound than jazz sounds people might hear on The Song Break, but even though I've been in the music industry for a long time, I somehow did not know about that record. Did that do well nationally? Internationally?
David Garfield: Yeah, it's one of our best records. We had this band back in the 80s in L.A., which was a couple of the guys from Toto, Jeff Porcaro and Steve Lukather and myself and some of my friends: Brandon Fields, Nathan East, Lenny Castro. And we played, you know, it was kind of a jazz jam band, but we filled up the clubs. You couldn't get in, you know, because back in those days there was no Internet. Nobody ever saw Jeff play live. So, you know, people lined up in the afternoon to see it. And we started out we only had about seven songs and with some of the songs would go on for like 30 minutes. So it was really a jam band. We did a Herbie Hancock thing, “Butterfly”, we did Miles Davis, “All Blues.” We did “Heard It Through the Grapevine”. We did “Little Wing” Hendrix. We had a lot of great people sit in with us, too. I mean, we had Van Halen, David Sanborn, Sheila E, Marcus Miller. I mean, George Benson even sat in with us. It was crazy. Those were some times! Back in the 80s…
John Bommarito: That sounds like a lot of fun. Well, as we established, you're based in California right now. I imagine most of your live performances are out that way on a regular basis. When was the last time you performed in Michigan? Do you remember?
David Garfield: Geez. I think it was with George Benson, played at…it was at a theater, and we were the headliner. Boney James was on it, and Joe Sample and Lelah Hathaway were on it.
John Bommarito: Okay. Wow. Yeah. So, you haven't been a headliner here in quite a while then?
David Garfield: No. I'm trying to think when that was. That was probably 2007. Stan would know. My brother would know.
John Bommarito: Okay. Yeah, he's probably got a note of that somewhere. Well, here's your chance, dear listeners. Saturday, October 12th. The very intimate Trinity House Theater in Livonia. David Garfield, my guest, will be performing with the current touring drummer for Chicago. You said he's actually a member of Chicago these days. I never quite know with that band who's an official member and who's just touring. Alfreydo Reyes, Jr. and your niece Lily Dixon on bass. Is that correct?
David Garfield: Cousin.
John Bommarito: Cousin. Sorry. If you want to find out more information about that show trinityhousetheatre.org. Theater "re" not theater "er." David, I look forward to meeting you in person at the show on October 12th. And thank you so much for taking time to tell just part of your story. I know there's more to come.
David Garfield: Yes. Well, have you been there to Trinity before.
John Bommarito: Plenty of times, yeah.
David Garfield: It's a nice place, huh?
John Bommarito: It's a really cool, intimate theater. Nice backdrop. Good place to see a show.
David Garfield: Looking forward to meeting you. Looking forward to playing there. And I should say now that we're at the end of the show, that our special surprise guest from the U.P. at the end of the show will be Patrick Booth, who's a wonderful jazz saxophone player and professor up at the University up there so called will be a very big treat to have him join us at the end.
John Bommarito: Well, thank you for the little secret reveal there on the show at the very end. Made them listen all the way to the end. David, good to meet you. Here's a track from one of David's albums on The Song Break on 89.1 WEMU.
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