If I Could Do It All Over Again I Would Have Practiced More

Interviews and portraits of four Tacoma jazz artists

Saul Cline

tenor saxophonist and general manager,Tacoma Symphony

When I’m performing well, it feels like my brain has been replaced with bees, my chest has been replaced with a bass drum and my ears are being used by the other people on the bandstand. Your audience is smarter than you think. I’m happy whenever I’m listening to Otis Redding. Music has taught me that endless pursuits are the best kind. The thing that makes me nervous onstage is a drunk and aggressive person in the audience who really wants my attention. Some of my best ideas come to me while I am playing music with friends. Fear is an opportunity to be proud of yourself later. Improvisation is the only time in my life when I can keep my brain clear and stop it from stewing about unimportant things. Right now, I’m focusing on finding some nice tunes to play on clarinet. If I could have made a career on another instrument, it would have been piano. After that, maybe guitar so I could get in on some country gigs. Motivation is something I can’t control. Sometimes I don’t experience it for weeks and then suddenly it’s there. I cried when I got to sit next to Ray Charles and he started singing the first few lines to the verse of “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”. . . it was a little more soul than I was expecting. The future of jazz is in great shape. I love the people I’m playing with, the groups I hear in clubs and the new music coming out. If I could do it all over again I would have practiced more.

Karen Shivers

vocalist

Someone once told me that I’d be wise to go into computers. They were right, I could have made a lot more money, but I wouldn’t have been happy. When I was fourteen, my parents made me take piano lessons for one year. If I could do it all over again, I’d have continued to take piano lessons. My parents were pioneers. My father was a Tuskegee Airman and my mother was an elementary school teacher. Before integration, my grandparents owned a very nice hotel in St. Louis, the Hermitage. It was ”the hotel,” where Negroes would go to stay when they were in town. Prominent people like Jim Gilliam of the Dodgers, Duke Ellington, etc. And for a brief period, back in the late fifties, my parents owned and operated a jazz club in Maryland. While I was growing up, neither of them expressed bitterness regarding the racial struggles they went through. People ask me if I give singing lessons. I give performance consultations. The thing about music is it can be used for positive and negative purposes. My audience is multigenerational and multicultural. I have sung a cappella for seniors at retirement centers, at company parties, to people on their beds just hours before death. Some musicians just don’t understand it is not so important how loudly or how many notes you can play or sing, but rather why and how you play or sing those notes. Change is inevitable. Songs I sang five years ago have new meaning to me now because my perspective has changed. The sum total of my life experiences is found in the way I will approach a song. Fear is something I avoid. I’m happy whenever I’m listening to Thelonious Monk. I also love silence or the natural sounds around me, like the sound of the wind blowing through the trees. Teaching is something I have not aspired to do. That is why I served on the Central Kitsap School Board instead. I just don’t think I have the patience. In the last twenty years, I’ve seen a change in the type of jazz singers that are being promoted as “stars.” And that is all I have to say about that.

Mark Ivester    

drummer

People ask me if I ever wished I played the flute. Motivation is Girl Scout cookies. Teaching has been an amazing educational experience. Home is love. Trust is what develops when you play music with someone for many years. Right now I’m focusing on my daughter’s softball teams. Music has taught me most of what I know about life. Some of my best ideas come to me when I’m practicing. Improvisation is speaking through your instrument. I’m happy when I’m listening to my daughters singing or playing piano and guitar. Fear is a mind killer.  It keeps you from fully living. Practice makes me realize how fun — and challenging — it is to play drums. When I’m performing well it feels like a magic-carpet ride. When I was fourteen, I knew I would play drums for a living. My parents were totally supportive. When I was about two years old, during one of my performances on pots and pans on the kitchen floor, a neighbor came for a visit and sternly reproved my mom for allowing this type of behavior. My mother let me do it anyway. If I could have made a career of another instrument, it would have been the baseball bat. As I get older, I realize that I really am getting older. The future of jazz is in the hands of many talented and passionate young people.  I have complete faith in them.

David Joyner

pianist and director, Jazz Studies at PLU

When I was fourteen, it was my first year in my high school jazz band. I had to learn jazz piano pretty much on my own, but was thrilled to be a part of this wonderful world. When I’m performing well, it feels like I’m only watching it happen . . . watching in wonder because something else is in control. Some musicians just don’t understand that the joy is most often the only reward. Change is what happens while you’re making plans. In the big scheme of things, what really matters is seeking joy beyond material things. I cried when I first heard “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” on the album Ellington at Newport. The ego causes a logjam. Right now, I’m focusing on finding my essential self, ridding myself of wasted motion. Some of my best ideas come to me on long drives. My parents were extremely supportive and forgiving, and are still my greatest advocates. If I could have made a career on another instrument, it would have been the saxophone. I’m happy whenever I’m listening to music that is sincere and doesn’t exist only to try and prove something. Teaching has been my greatest learning experience. The future of jazz is certain. If I could teach my kid(s) one thing it would be to “follow your bliss,” yet be self-sufficient and harm no one. Music has taught me that it functions best when those who make it get out of its way and allow it to come out.  

Special thanks to Sanford & Son Antiques in Tacoma, where all photographs in this series were taken.

Additional thanks to Kaitlin Powell, design intern, who assisted on this shoot.