Our next featured artist is multi-instrumentalist Dennis Lichtman.
Growing up in Newport, Dennis recounts how lucky he was to grow up in Boston where he had a great foundation of musical education.
"I don’t come from a jazz family, but we are music lovers. My grandfather introduced me to Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli’s music and my mother always had classical records playing in the house (she had played clarinet and piano when she was younger). She went out of her way to take me to concerts - Don Byron, chamber music, the Del McCoury Band, Klezmer Conservatory Band, blues festivals, etc. — anything she read a preview for in the newspaper that sounded particularly interesting.
For such a small city, Boston has a huge arts scene. I never experienced it as a working musician (I moved away for college when I was just shy of 18) but as a listener, I remember a constant onslaught of opportunities to hear world-class music. There was and still is strong support for the arts in public schools. I started violin in 1st grade and clarinet in the 4th due to twice weekly music classes. My main teachers were classical players, but they were open-minded and encouraged me to pursue other styles that interested me."
Dennis wasn't always sure he'd make a career in music; the 30 year journey of exploration and discovery has been hard fought. His ideology of what it meant to be a professional musician crystalized as a conservatory student at Hartt School of Music CT.
"I thought it was either playing in an orchestra full-time, having a world-famous band, or teaching full-time. My clarinet teacher there, Charles Russo, had been a NYC working musician for 60 years. He had played the most prestigious chamber festivals around the world and recorded with classical legends, but had also played in seedy strip clubs, done thousands of studio jingle sessions and pick-up gigs, and had incredible stories about all of it. I didn’t know how I was going to make it happen, but that sounded so much more appealing to me (and attainable) than pursuing an orchestral career."
After graduation in 2001, Dennis was a part of a band which toured but didn't last, and was working in an office near Boston.
"In 2002, a friend offered me a low-paid apprenticeship at his booking agency in NYC, and with no other options, I jumped on it. I hated the job and only lasted a few months, but it was immediately clear to me that the music scene here was immensely deep and infinitely inspiring.
I did catering jobs part-time until I had enough music gigs (it took a couple of years). I literally took every gig that came my way, no matter how unqualified I may have been or how little it paid or how long of a subway ride. Sink or swim, fake it til you make it. As I got busier, I was able to take more control of my career, choosing the gigs I wanted to do, and eventually creating my own projects and opportunities."
"Mona's" is an east village staple and one of the best places to hear live jazz on a Tuesday night.
"Over the years, we’ve seen waves of new players come and go at the Mona’s session. Young players come through for the first time, sounding rough around the edges, and we see them improve each week. They come back often for a while, then get busier with their own careers and move on. When we started, I was one of the young guys! As I move towards being an “elder statesman,” it’s a joy to see people who now have thriving careers, when I remember their wide-eyed, sometimes terrified faces sitting in with my band for the first time.
In the beginning, we didn’t play very well but we had heart, and there was the excitement of this new, underground scene of youngsters. The crowds were thin. Now, we have an international reputation and the crowds come from all over — not just East Village locals stumbling in for a pint.
The things that haven’t changed are the musical integrity and the openness. It’s never been a cutting session, and it’s always been community-minded first and foremost. And now, just as then, we don’t know who will show up. We get jazz legends and we get inexperienced newer players, and everything in between — and we find common ground and make good music together.
In 2006-2007, a monumental shift took place as dozens of young musicians in NYC who were interested in pre-bebop jazz all found each other at the same time. There was an explosion of new bands, and gigs started to pop up all over. (A similar movement happened in bluegrass/string music at the time, and there was a lot of crossover between our scenes.) I loved the music, but had found very few people my age to play it with, and all of a sudden they were everywhere. My guitarist friend Izzy Zaidman, who I knew from local bluegrass gigs, suggested we start a weekly jam session so we could get to know more players and tunes.
Mona’s is a cozy East Village dive bar that had hosted a high-level Monday night traditional Irish music session for decades. As a string music enthusiast, I had spent some time hanging out there. One night, the Irish session ended early, so I started playing tunes with a few of my jazz bandmates who were there. The bartender, Aidan Grant, invited us to start a session the following Tuesday. Aidan is still my partner in the venture, and we’ve done every Tuesday since June 2007 (with a pandemic break, of course)."
Dennis has travelled extensively and performed on a multitude of stages. He recounts a few of his favorite stories.
"The best moments are the ones when we feel like fish out of water, but the music connects with the audience in a way that breaks down all barriers.
On a tour of China with banjoist Cynthia Sayer, we did several performances at special boarding schools for children of migrant workers. The whole town came out - they had never seen foreigners or heard jazz. But their sheer delight and joy absolutely melted my heart.
On my first European tour ever, with the Cangelosi Cards in 2008 or 2009, we played at an arts festival in Sweden that was like a miniature Burning Man. Most of the other music was electronic or rock — it was more like a rave — and while we were setting up the crowd stared at us like we were aliens. But from the very first note, they danced like nothing I’d ever seen. They flowed on ballads and went wild on uptempo tunes and cheered in the middle of hot solos. If we brought the dynamics way down, they would crouch down. If the trombone player played a loud note, they would jump up and shout back at him. I’ve never felt more of a direct connection with an audience — they didn’t know what to expect from us, we didn’t know what to expect from them, but we gave each other the benefit of the doubt and built a little community together for a couple of hours."
So what is Dennis listening to this month and what does he have on the horizon?
"Béla Fleck’s new bluegrass album, Ellington’s Queen’s Suite, James Booker. I’ve had my head in the sand about new music coming out recently - I need to get back on top of that!"
"I’m playing 7 shows overseas as a duo with the incredible Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton in November. He’s known internationally as a solo blues performer, but beyond that he is a deep encyclopedia of folkloric American music from ragtime to early country to minstrel music to Tin Pan Alley and more. We just recorded an album that will only be available at shows.
I’m working on a secret composition project under a grant I received — tentatively titled “SECRET WORKSHOP” — but I can’t yet provide details beyond that. It’s extending me creatively beyond my usual comfort zone, and I’m thrilled with what I have so far. Look out for that in late 2022.
And I’m beyond excited to get back to playing festivals and concerts with The Lovestruck Balladeers in early 2022. The band is a personal “supergroup” of longtime collaborators. We’ve been quiet during the pandemic because we’re spread out across North America, but we’ll be coming back strong soon!"
And finally, Dennis speaks about the importance of KU! to the city
"I love everything about KU! An old college friend recently told me about it and connected us. KU! has enabled me to expand the Mona’s house band from a quartet to a quintet, which widens the pool of musicians I can include each week — with an eye on diversity in all ways.
I love that they are enabling weekly performances to happen in places that might not be able to sustain it without a bit of support. The larger, established venues like Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Vanguard, and the Blue Note are great, but the smaller local venues are the true pulse of the city. That’s where young players cut their teeth, new sounds are explored, musical relationships are forged, and newcomers to the music become lifelong fans."