Margherita Fava
Welcome back to On Keys. I'm your host, Margherita Fava. Today we have a special guest - pianist Dado Moroni, who you just heard on Clark Terry's recording of Definitely So. I hope you enjoy our conversation. We got to some pretty deep subjects!
Today, we are talking to Italian pianist, composer, educator who shared the stage with too many jazz legends to name them all. But with a few of them, he also shared some time in the studio, more notably with Ray Brown, Ron Carter, Tom Harrell, Clark Terry, and the list goes on. He travels all over the world with his project and with other great band leaders. But when he's home, he teaches at the Conservatory of Torino, or spends some time at home in his hometown of Genoa.
But did I mention that he owes his career to the great, none other than Dizzy Gillespie? Because if it wasn't for him, he'd be a lawyer at this point! So how about that? Welcome Dado.
Dado Moroni
Ciao. Ciao to everybody. Thank you for having me.
Dizzy. Yes. Well, that goes back. We go back almost 40 years. I used to play with this, you know, famous Italian saxophone player by the name of Gianni Basso. I was playing with this quartet, and one night, one day, he said to me “well, we might have a concert with Dizzy Gillespie”. And I was all excited, because Dizzy was Dizzy! He is a milestone for music, not only for jazz, and I accepted, you know. How many chances do I have to play with Dizzy? You know, we did play. And the funny thing is that Dizzy started to call all of his compositions that for us were like the real book. I mean, we grew up, at least I grew up studying Woody n You, A night in Tunisia, Con Alma, you know. And he called all those. So he turned to me and said “You know con Alma?” I said “Yes”. “Do you know this? Do you know that?” And, and then he turns around after about, you know, the fifth song we played, and he goes, like, “how come you know all my songs?” And I said, “Oh, because we study your songs, we develop our language by studying your songs also”, along with others, you know. But at the end of the concert, I was studying law, you know, in law school at that time, and my father was there. And my father, you know, he was the driving force behind my deciding to become a musician. But he, as a man of his generation, he was born in 1921 he had the famous what in Italy we call the “pezzo di carta”, piece of paper. You know, you do whatever you want, but you need a piece of paper, which meant a diploma, kind of like a degree, things like that. So for him, the pezzo di carta, was the law degree that, you know, I was studying for.
And Dizzy said “what do you do?”. And I said “well, you know, I study law”. And Dizzy said “there's too many damn lawyers, you know, and not enough good piano players around. So you should play piano. That's what you should do” he said. “Is that your father?” I said “yes”. “Tell him!”. I said “you tell him!” And so my father, seeing that the kind of advice was coming from Dizzy Gillespie, he accepted, and he just helped me instead.
I mean, we were already thankful for Dizzy Gillespie for many reasons, but one more reason to be thankful for Dizzy Gillespie than his genius! But speaking of your father, I read from other interviews of yours that he was quite an enlightened parent. Because, you know, while some parents might be, you know, very strict about school and contrarian to the arts, seems like your dad always prioritized you being able to hear all of these great musicians passing by in town or nearby, you know, so and in that, I think that this quite, you know, an enlightened kind of style of parenting, yeah.
I mean, you know, we had an agreement. He could tell that even though, I mean, yeah, okay, I was studying law, but I was serious about music. I always was serious about music, as he was, you know, because he was serious about listening to music, we made it kind of like an agreement. He said “if you're serious about music I will support you, and I give you the freedom to do whatever you want, to go listen to concerts, to go to bed late to, we all even go together there, but I want results in school. I don't care how you do that. I don't care if you have to stay up and study”. So we had a deal.
I remember specifically one Sunday, was a Sunday afternoon, and I was studying for an exam the next day, a math test, and I was studying for this math test, and then my father was reading the newspaper, and he found out that Johnny Griffin was playing in Milano that night, which meant from Genoa to Milano would be like, about a couple hours and then couple hours back. And so he said, “Oh, Johnny Griffin is playing in Milan”. I said, “Dad, too bad I'm studying, having a test tomorrow”. He said, “Wow, forget school, let's go here Johnny Griffin! But you’re going to school tomorrow, and you're going to take the test. So whatever you want, if you want, we can go listen to Johnny Griffin”. And I wanted to go listen to Johnny Griffin, so we went. We came back about like, three o'clock in the morning. I went to bed. I woke up at seven. I studied again a little bit for about half an hour. Luckily, the school was very close to my house, so in 15 minutes I was at school. I did the test. I failed, but, you know, I heard Johnny Griffin, and there was, you know, already university, there.
And that was a solo performance by Dado playing his original il Carnevale di Tito. Now that you are a father, what role does music play in your household?
Music has always been, you know, around the house. I cannot remember a single moment of my life without music, whether it was the family that I grew up into, or my family. I mean, we would listen to gospel music, to Earth Wind and Fire, to Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, big bands, Ella Fitzgerald, that kind of stuff, and so is my son. My wife is, she's more like, you know, like Michael Jackson, but you know, good stuff, the good stuff, the good pop and classical music and jazz. So my son, you know, he's growing up in an environment where he listens to good music. And now, of course, you know, because he's going to school with his peers, and he's 11 years old, so they also like these Italian, you know, pop-ish thing, you know, but he likes everything. He basically has good taste. I don't force him. I know he knows that there's a piano available at home, there's drums, you know, there's a bass. So he can do whatever he wants. So sometimes he's asking me “can you show me that?” sometimes, but when I try to show him or show him something without him asking for it, then he is a, “go away, go away! I want to do it myself!” you know. I just let him be a kid. And I just let him be, you know, the 10-11 year old kid. And if he decides to be serious about music, I'll be very happy. If he decides to be something else, I'll be very happy also. What's important is that he appreciates music and he understands music, that's good,
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, yeah, that's all you can aspire to, you know, appreciating this incredible human expression which is music: the ability of certain humans to translate pain into something beautiful to me, like, when I first really, like, sat down and realized that about music, you know, and about the blues, I was like, Oh, wow. This, this, this is what makes it all worth it, like, the fact that humans have this ability of turning something so destructive and unbearable into art.
When I was a kid, I did not speak English. I did not understand what the songs were about, you know, I just heard a voice and notes behind it. And so I remember the first time I heard Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday, you know, I started crying without knowing the words. I mean, you know, I could not understand, or even know what the songs were about. You know, I found out much later. Studying English, I understand that this woman was expressing, describing something really terrifying, you know, and scary and sad, but, but she reached me. Music is a magic form of art. You know, in my opinion, I don't want to discriminate against other art forms, but if you think of it, you know, music does not really exist in a way. And in jazz music, it's really here now and never again. You know, it's because the improvisation cannot be the same. So, I mean, that's what's magical. That's what you hear now. And if I do it, if I do the same thing, 10 seconds later, is going to be completely different. You know, there's something really fantastic.
It's funny, as you're describing the difference between the music and visual art, it kind of made me think, like, yes, music is the only form of art that allows you to be the “painter” in your mind as you listen to it. While you know visual arts, you're receiving somebody else’s artwork, but music instills that creativity and that art in your own mind as you listen to it. It's crazy.
You know? The funny thing is that I was talking to a painter, and the painter told me “in reality, you know, a painting is never finished”. Because if you go and look at it, a painter would always try to add, take out, do something. It's about “when does it stop”? And he started laughing, you know? He said, “well, you know, it stops, because all of a sudden your house is full of paintings, and you gotta sell them to get rid of them, you know!”. But in the mind, I guess it keeps going.
And even if you listen to classical music, which is written, so basically, you have to play the notes that are there, right? But you know, there's so many different ways you can play those notes. And there's a great story that Aaron Copland talks about, you know, he was able to study in France, I guess. He had a recital when he was very young, playing the music of Debussy. And at the end of the recital, Debussy himself was in the audience and went to congratulate Aaron Copland. And he said “thank you for playing my music, but why did you stop?”. And Aaron Copland said “Stop? What do you mean stop?”. “Yeah. Why did you just play what I wrote?”. And he said “Well because that's what you wrote”. Debussy said “No, that is the palette. What I wrote is a palette you have to create. You have to improvise from them. I give you the colors, and you have to start from there. You know, that's the beginning. I give you the beginning, and you create with what I give you”, which was, you know, a fantastic story, if you think about it.
So, you know, even in the classical world, it is not so granitic.
And welcome back to on keys with your host, Margherita fava, you are listening to WUOT 91.9 FM also streaming on wuot.org. Today we are talking to Mr. Dado Moroni, who you just heard on a track from Ray Brown's record “My best friends are piano players”. That was My Romance.
A few of your collaborations that stand out are with arguably two of the best bass players that ever lived: Ray Brown and Ron Carter. So I was wondering, What aspect of your musicianship or of your playing do you think captivated them and got you to work with them? Have you ever thought about that, like, what was maybe an aspect of your playing that really stood out to them, or maybe your personality? I don't know.
I started out also playing bass before I actually went on stage as a pianist. I had a piano teacher when I was about 11 years old to when I was about 12, a great piano teacher. His name was Flavio Crivelli from Savona, which is near Genoa. And he always told me this story, one time he went to Benedetti Michelangeli, which was one of the greatest interpreters of Debussy. To him, he says “Maestro, what do you think about this note?”. And Benedetti Michelangeli said, “Yeah, that's a very nice note, but it's not on the paper”. He said “Yeah, but I like it better. Don't you like it better? Don't you think if Debussy had written this instead of that…?”. “Yeah, I agree. That's a better note. But if you want to play Debussy, you have to play what's written. I'll tell you what. If you want to change notes, you should play jazz”, and so that, Benedetti Michelangeli, sparked the interest for jazz in my teacher. So then he became, actually a jazz player, you know, amateur jazz player, but, you know, very good jazz player.
And he gave me a few lessons but he said “You have to learn the bass clef now”. And the bass clef for me was really hard, because I have perfect pitch. So the problem was that, if I read on the paper, let's say, you look at the staff, for instance, and you see that all your life, G was on the second line, right? You know, coming from the bottom, the second line from the bottom, that's a G now, and I associate that position on the paper with that sound. So you cannot tell me that now that the little black dot is a B, you know! I just couldn't hear that. It just messed me up completely. So he had the intuition of, I think he said “maybe, if you change instruments, maybe you can learn”.
And so I convinced my father (he was a saint!), to buy me a bass, but not an electric bass, a big upright, you know, bass. And so we came home with that big bass in the car, and I started practicing. So Flavio, my teacher, transcribed a little bit of Oscar Peterson trio arrangements. So he would play Oscar’s piano part and he would write Ray Brown's bass part. And I would read bass and the thing actually worked! And I found that bass playing has helped me immensely, connecting chords.
One thing that I could tell you maybe that works, why some bass players enjoy playing with me, I guess, is I think I can kind of, not really predict, but I can kind of, you know, follow them, make them feel comfortable. I guess it has to do with me knowing how the bass works.
And so if you guys want to get a gig with a bass player, learn how to play the bass! Yeah.
I mean, you know, that's what I teach my students, I say “even if you are not going to be a bass player, but at least you have to be able to create a nice bass line on the piano, you know”. When the bass line makes sense, like organ players, you know, like if you listen to Joey De Francesco, Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Mel Ryan, Pat Bianchi. I mean, you know, you name it, there's all these great organ players. They all have great bass lines, you know. And they don't play bass. I mean that I know of. But I mean, if you know how to create and develop a nice bass line, that really will help you understand, and the drums. I force them to create bass lines, and I force them to take at least five drum lessons. Ahmad Jamal man, that sound that Ahmad created is so particular because he knew what he wanted from the drums, and he knew what he wanted from the bass, you know. And also he picked the perfect guys, you know that, it just works both ways. I mean, you know he knew what he wanted. But also he knew that if he called Israel Crosby and Ronald Fournier, he knew what those guys could give him. But he also knew that they would listen to him, they would accommodate his vision, and that's why, you know, you listen to two notes from the Ahmad Jamal trio, and you go “Oh, that's magical”.
I play bass in church every Sunday, and that really informed my understanding of how to even drive energy. You know how changing, like a pedal note or something, can completely change the energy in the room, and, like, the physical reaction that you get from a certain note! I don't know if, for some reason, I mean, like, of course, you do that with piano as well, but there's something about the bass that gives you even more, like a visceral and a physical even, sensation of like, what a note emotionally signifies.
You know, the drum is the Earth, the base is the tree of life, and all the rest is fruits and birds and stuff like that. If you listen to Miles’ quintet, you know, the one with Wayne and Herbie and Ron and Tony. Most people, not all, of course, but most people would focus on Miles, of course. “Listen to what Miles played!”. Yes, okay. “Oh, Wayne! Wayne is so, you know, almost like Eric Dolphy with those harmonies and Tony!”. You know, and THEN Ron. Ron's work with that quintet is not celebrated enough, because it's Ron that changes the music and the proof is that with the same band, there's some recordings where, like the there's a fantastic bass player, Albert Stinson, sitting in. Of course, he's great, but the music is completely different. And then the same band with Eddie Gomez, who's another genius of the bass, but the music is completely different. I'm not saying better, I mean it's just different. And then you know that band had Dave Holland. Dave Holland played in, you know, in place of Ron, and Dave is a fantastic genius. But with Ron it was different because Ron changes the mood. And Herbie would play those incredible sounds on the piano. And Ron would just go like, boom, play another note, and you go like, “what the hell happened?”, you know? And what's Ron, you know? So I can understand what you're saying. You play in church, you know, especially if you play like gospel music, there's a lot of difference if you play like a root or a third or a seven or a fifth, you know, and you can really feel also in the people that listen to that, you know, yeah…the bass.
And that was a live performance from last year recorded in Switzerland by Dado Moroni and his trio playing If You Go.
I always hear people talking about swing or like, touch, as something that you either have or not have. Like it's impossible to teach somebody how to swing. People always say that, well, you definitely have that thing! You definitely have that intelligible thing that is so hard to teach to somebody, and I was wondering, like, how do you teach it now that you are yourself an educator, and how do you think you achieved it?
Like, was there an “aha moment”, finally one day you didn't know how to swing and the day after it was easy? Was it like a gradual process for you, or you always had it?
It's hard to answer this question. One thing that I do, that I tell my students, to do, if possible, is to listen to gospel music, because let's say, all my favorite musicians, or piano players…let's talk about piano we're talking about keys, right? So keys! All my favorite piano players, 99% of all my favorite piano players have a gospel background. You know: Hampton Hawes, Les McCann, Oscar Peterson, McCoy, James Williams, Mulgrew Miller. It's not just the harmonies, but it's also the ability of finding a groove within yourself. You told me that you play bass in the church, and sometimes all you need is just one note. And you know, if you do it right, that sounds wonderful. You know, I remember the first time, you know, the first time I came to the States, also I went to church, and it was such an experience for me, I cannot, I cannot even describe, it was something, you know, really something supernatural for me, when you find a groove within yourself. So what I try to tell my students, you know, is to listen to that and sometimes, I don't know if it happens to you also, but for me, I could go on for 45 minutes just playing a groove, like a gospel groove, without improvising. And if you manage to find enjoyment in that, it's almost like it's like it's a prayer. You know?
A lot of people also feel diminished, a lot of piano players are like “oh, they didn't give me enough solos”. Who cares? You're improvising when you comp! The great thing about a piano player for me is that you're an orchestrator, if you can find enjoyment in grooving and comping and making the music happen, man, that's great! You know? That's great. I mean, that's the best because then when you have your moment to solo, you have more material to think about, more material that you can use for your solo. That's what I'm saying.
Bashiri Johnson is a great percussionist, you know, played with Stevie Wonder, with a lot of great people, with Herbie, and Bashiri always says “man, music is simple. Music is simple. It's human beings that make it difficult.” Music is much, much simpler, but you just have to accept it, you know? It's like love.
And that was an incredible duet between Dado Moroni and one of my favorite trumpet players and composers, Mr. Tom Harrell. The song was entitled Poinciana.
You lived in the US for almost a decade, or a little over a decade in the late 80s, and I'm actually, I'm about to approach the decade of me living in the US now next year, it's been nine years now for me.
I'm just wondering, is there any aspect of your life in America that at any point you missed while living back in Italy? Or are you happy where you are right now, no looking back?
I think there is a time for everything. When you're single and you're like 25-26 years old, late 80s, early 90s, it was great. Plus, you know, a lot of people were still alive. Think about it, a lot of our heroes were still alive. Dizzy, Miles, just about anybody you know, Jimmy Heath, you could go listen to Oscar. You know, everybody was alive. Not one care in the world. You're living in New York, and never, never slept. You sleep only when it's absolutely necessary, when you can't walk anymore, then you go to sleep. But at the same time, you know you're afraid, you know you might miss something incredible, you know. And I tried not to miss anything! And now there's the time I'm a father, I'm a husband, and I could not do that kind of life anymore. And plus, I mean, I think the music has changed a lot. I love to come here and I enjoy, you know, the spirit that you can feel around, the music and to see my friends, and to to feel the heartbeat that it's in America. You know, there's a special heartbeat. There's something which is different from every other country in the world.
But I'm happy where I am now. Happy that I have my family, watching my son grow, and I'm happy teaching. I'm happy that I can transfer my enthusiasm and passion hopefully, to some people that will never have the chance to experience that, you know. Because I can talk about Dizzy all I want, you can listen to all the Art Tatum recordings, you can memorize them all, but you’ll never be able to hear them live. It's just a different era, you know. So you have to do with what you have and what you know.
The key to me is like, try to express yourself with a passion. Passion is the key, you know, if you play because you have to make a living, forget it. Do something else. Passion. And respect. I was lucky because I'm old enough to have met some of the creatives of this music, you know, and I played with people that were in the Count Basie Orchestra, and they told me about that. I heard Count Basie live, you know, I heard Ella. Now, you have other other musicians, and hopefully they will be as influential, as powerful as Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald, I don't know! But the passion, if you do anything, do it with passion, again.
Thank you so much for joining me today Dado, this was a treat.
Thank you. Thanks to everybody for having the patience and the passion for listening.
