In Praise of Steve Chavez

We don’t agree politically--in fact when we were in Guatemala together once I thought that we could have been arrested/abducted by either side depending on who was listening to who. But Steve Chavez is one of the greatest musicians I’ve ever met and probably the most influential. From the time I interviewed at the University of New Mexico  (where I coached Steve, the former student, on a vibraphone transcription of Bach) to the most important period where I studied first hand by example (Steve’s), regarding both traditional Mexican music as well as the means by which one improvises in a Salsa band (Steve on vibes, Tomás White on percussion, Ken Battat on drums, José Ojeda on guitar, Pedro Hernández on bass). When I revisited Mexico City last week, overwhelmed (as always) by the native musics of such a great country, I thought of Steve. Because it was him who created the interest I had for learning more about Mexican music.

The story of how Steve became so interested in Mexican marimba music is his and I’ll let him tell it. Except for the part of how he practically locked himself in his house practicing hour after hour and day after day until he perfected the roll that is an important part of what makes Mexican marimba music sound so distinctive. I don’t know anyone else in North America who can do it as well as he can. And I suspect it is because no one else ever took the time necessary to master that roll.

In the 1980s, soon after my arrival to New Mexico I had the chance to play with Steve and his band STTP. We played Chick Corea--La Fiesta and (my favorite) Spain as well as using a fake book to do covers. We also played originals, especially by Pedro Hernández who wrote music for the band. The way it started was simply this: I went over to see Steve for some reason and his band was practicing in one of the rooms of Steve’s house. Steve asked me to sit in and play marimba with them, which I did. Then at Steve’s direction I was asked to improvise a solo. I had never improvised on the marimba in my life! And because of that it went badly and I dropped out. But what happened next I’ll never forget. Steve said, actually yelled (it was pretty loud in there), “Keep going!” And so I did. Again and again and again. Until finally the improvisation started to work its way into something good. And that’s how I learned to improvise. Not through changes or studying music theory. Instead I learned by just doing it until my ear and hands found their way to where they needed to go. It was an amazing experience. We used to play in a lot of places: Summer Jazz at Madrid (where José couldn’t get his guitar tuned right—don’t ask why); the Cooperage (where our solos went so long that we stopped getting asked back—even though the audience loved it); and at the State Fair (until one time they didn’t invite us—I heard it was because of my being in the band but that’s another story). I can’t really remember why we stopped. My brother Eric visited once when we did a radio show at KUNM (I still have a treasured cassette of that) and he can attest to the power of the band. And also (he spent time with them privately) of the collective and individual power of their personalities. Playing with them was one of the great musical experiences of my life. And I think some of my best playing as a percussionist was with them. Thanks to Steve.

I came to UNM from the University of Illinois where I played in a steel drum band under the direction of Tom Siwe. In addition to playing standards, the members of the band made their own arrangements. One of my favorites was an arrangement of Sonny Rollins’s St. Thomas by Mike Friedman. That was a blast to play--especially as I was on the bass pans! I made a proposal to the University to purchase steel drums and start a band at UNM. Their response (turning down the proposal) was not only sensible, “we don’t see how this has anything to do with the musical culture in New Mexico,” but also influenced what to do next: I proposed the creation of a marimba band at UNM. Surprisingly, back then a full steel band was going to cost only $6000.00 whereas a marimba band (xylophone, four marimbas, one bass marimba) would cost $20,000.00. I got the money and we started a band.

I’m a little less dogmatic now (not much) but at the time I hated transcriptions. In 1981, when the percussion convention was in Indianapolis, I heard George Gaber’s marimba ensemble (Indiana University) play a transcription of Barber’s Adagio for Strings. That made me want to actually hurt somebody. But I’m a pacifist so I behaved. At this year’s percussion convention (again in Indianapolis) a mass marimba orchestra played Wagner. This time I was smarter and walked out so I wouldn’t have to hear it. Fortunately at UNM, I succeeded a great percussionist Robyn Schulkowski who was a strong proponent of advanced contemporary music and left UNM to go to Germany where she still lives and works.  Thus, there was no expectation that I would have to play anything other than music written for my instrument. I remember UNM’s violin professor at the time (the great Leonard Felberg) saying to me: “I don’t like all the music you play but the repertoire is all contemporary so of course you have to play it.” He later performed (brilliantly) Lou Harrison’s Violin Concerto at the percussion convention in Los Angeles in 1985 and then again when Lou Harrison was the “headlining” composer at the UNM Composers’ Symposium in 1986.  Sorry I digress …

Anyway I didn’t like transcriptions. So that meant I had two categories of music to play with the newly founded marimba band: xylophone rags which, at that time, were available in published versions of what had been recorded by Nexus; and traditional Mexican and Guatemalan marimba music. At first I used the arrangements Bill Cahn made of Un Misterio and La Negra. I also used a transcription Tom Siwe did of a Guatemalan piece whose name escapes me.  At first we played both kinds of music as written. But then Steve Chavez entered the picture and that moment where I improvised in the small rehearsal room in his house returned and the marimba band was, as a result, transformed. We began to improvise.

That meant everyone learning a rag had to improvise one of the verses. And it also meant we opened up the Mexican pieces and members of the ensemble (often two, sometimes even three) would improvise too. The entire character of the experience changed after that. Thanks again to Steve.

There was another thing Steve influenced and probably even more important than the creative element improvisation added. That was the lead sheets he gave me to use for the Mexican music he wanted us to play once when he was going to perform with us as a soloist. On the surface, it was simple enough: like most lead sheets it was just the melody and chord symbols. But what wasn’t there is what really mattered. You had to essentially memorize what was on the sheet, depending on what part you were assigned, either melody or chords (after we got started the rule was you had to memorize both melody and chords by the first rehearsal in order to join the group), but that was just the beginning. After that you had to rehearse with the group and learn how to play with the group. What began as a band learning to play rags and Mexican marimba music had become the UNM Marimba band with its own traditions. Not copying the tradition of either rags or traditional Mexican music but instead creating our own tradition. We didn’t sound like Nexus and we didn’t sound like a band in Chiapas. We instead started to sound like ourselves. It became such a popular part of the musical scene (at UNM and in the musical community of New Mexico at large) that we travelled widely and, now it can be told, we made money (through contributions) that made it possible to fund the entirety of what the percussion area did without the need of any support from department or university. Which, to be honest, wasn’t forthcoming anyway. Toward the end of my time teaching percussion at UNM, the instruments had been used so much they wore out and needed replacement. Donna Peck, wife of then-president Richard Peck, spearheaded the fund raising at a cost of more than double the original instruments. It was a great period of my musical life and a place where I was able to play with my students as equals, sharing in the pleasure with them of being a part of such a wonderful group and playing such beautiful music.

When I returned to Mexico City in June of 2012, for the first time in twenty years, I remembered how much I owe to Steve Chavez. Not just because the last time I was in Mexico was with him (we went there, and to Guatemala as well, on a UNM research grant) but because the time I spent in the eighties studying Mexican marimba music and visiting Mexico, usually at the invitation of my dear friend (and great composer) Julio Estrada, was the most important early influence in my career as a creative person, the one who composes music now instead of playing percussion instruments.

Sitting in the darkened theater of the Bellas Artes in Mexico City, listening to the great music of Mexico as I watched the dances of the Ballet Folklórico, I didn’t once think of myself as what I so obviously was: just another tourist doing what all tourists do when visiting Mexico City. My heart started pounding, my feet involuntarily started tapping, at first one beat per measure, then two, and finally when that extraordinary triple meter started doing those great hemiolas you so often hear I was tapping right and left feet, rapidly on every single beat, sounding a bit like Alex Van Halen’s double bass during “Hot for Teacher.” I was beside myself with joy, tears came to my eyes, and I felt again, deep down in my musical soul, the power this music has on me. There’s nothing I’ve written as a composer that hasn’t been influenced by it. Something I can’t articulate fully here except to say it is something I felt conscious of for the first time in twenty years. And for that, again, I thank Steve Chavez.