Interview: Gary David on The Sound of Feeling

In early August, I posted about Leonard Feather Presents...The Sound of Feeling and the Sound of Oliver Nelson, a unique jazz vocal and instrumental album released in 1968 on Verve. On one side were three voices backed by a quartet with Oliver Nelson soloing on soprano saxophone. On the other was the Oliver Nelson Big Band. [Photo above, from left, of Gary David, Rhae Andrece and Alyce Andrece in 1967, courtesy of Gary David]

The vocal side featured a concept conceived by Gary David, who doubled on piano and vocals along with twin sisters, Rhae and Alyce Andrece, who sang with Gary. His piano was joined by Ray Neapolitan and Chuck Domanico on bass and Dick Wilson on drums.

`
The album was so interesting that dozens of questions sprang to mind: How did Gary come up with this singular approach to jazz vocalizing? Who were the twins? How did they come to be in the group? How did they all wind up on a side of an Oliver Nelson album? How did Nelson come to play soprano saxophone with them? And what was the significance of the group's name—the Sound of Feeling? [Photo above of Oliver Nelson]

Bill Kirchner, who originally hipped me to the album, put me in touch with Gary. We hit it off, and Gary agreed to a chat.

Here's my e-interview with Gary:

JazzWax: Where did you grow up, and when did you start to play piano and sing?
Gary David: I was born in 1935 and grew up in Sacramento, Calif. I sang before I could talk and was a self-taught pianist starting in my teens. I had only two lessons from a one-eyed, door-to-door piano teacher who taught me chord structure. But I never had lessons in the mechanics of playing the piano. [Photo of Gary David today, courtesy of Gary David]

JW: When did you relocate to San Francisco and why?
GD: After being discharged from the Army in 1959, I lived in New York for about six months. I was auditioning and gigging as a standup singer. Then I returned to Sacramento and sang in clubs and on local TV. In 1960, I moved to San Francisco to get better gigs. I soon realized that I’d have to play and sing to get jobs. My theory was right. About that time, I met Alyce and Rhae Andrece, twin sisters who had just moved to San Francisco from Las Vegas.

JW: Where did you meet?
GD: We met at an audition for a musical review in Sausalito, Calif. They lived near me, so we'd play and sing together. They weren't jazz singers at that point, but they admired Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis. I guided them musically into jazz's rhythmic and improvisational nuances. About that time, I was playing at the Dragon Lady in North Beach. I learned to play piano more formally while accompanying myself. It was on-the-job training. I soon had a following and was allowed to hire a bass player and a drummer. That was the start of the Gary David Trio. Alyce and Rhae would sit in. Initially, there was no romantic attachment. That came in 1962 with Rhae.

JW: The singing approach by you three was so unusual. How did that develop?
GD: They eased into it with me as a coach. But they had extensive vocal ranges and tracked each other like radar. I think Miles Davis was their most significant influence, along with Lena Horne. The inspiration for our approach to improvised singing originated with me, since it was an approach I developed throughout my career up until that point. I was interested in how singing voices were used in other cultures. My most intense interest was composing and arranging, and our trio of voices was a perfect workshop for my explorations. The twins had an excellent aesthetic sense, and we learned together. [Photo above of the Sound of Feeling, from left, Rhae Andrece, Alyce Andrece and Gary David]

JW: Did the twins catch on immediately?
GD: They were not trained but yes, they were quick to catch on. I created the group's name when we moved to Los Angeles in 1964. We were in search of greater visibility and work. I had been exploring the connection between music and emotion in jazz. Simultaneously, I began my studies in applied epistemology—how we know what we know—which took me deeper into music as emotion or the sound of feeling. Given my Arabic heritage, I was interested in the sound of Arabic scales and the intervals that aren’t present in Western music.

JW: Who did you study with?
GD: I studied simultaneously with Erv Wilson, a master of how to explore pitch space, and Lyle "Spud" Murphy, who taught me the nuances of orchestrating in 12 tones.

JW: Were the twins easy to work with, or were they frustrated they weren't doing more commercial material?
GD: Early on, working together was easy. They weren't frustrated with the direction we were exploring. Seven years later, they had their own ideas about their artistic direction.

JW: How did you cross paths with Leonard Feather and Oliver Nelson?
GD: Leonard was taken with the whole deal we were presenting. Leonard first heard us at Donte's nightclub in North Hollywood in 1967. He wrote a very positive review in the Los Angeles Times. We met, and he had the idea of filling an empty side of an Oliver Nelson album he was producing that hadn't been completed. He brought Oliver to Donte's, and we immediately clicked and agreed to record together. [Photo above of the twins with Leonard Feather]

JW: How did you feel?
GD: I was elated but anxious since I didn't consider myself a "real pianist." Now I had to play with Oliver. I considered him a giant of jazz and the music world in general.

JW: Were you already familiar with Nelson?
GD: I was very familiar with his recordings. He didn't write arrangements for us. He chose to play soprano saxophone. He joined our ensemble of two bassists (Ray Neopolitan and Chuck Domanico), a drummer (Dick Wilson), me on piano and our three voices. The group had been together for a year by then, so everyone knew what we had to do without reading music. I gave Oliver some musical sketches of our material. He took them into a room and grasped the concept immediately. We went into the studio and played the whole set with no overdubs. Oliver played his ass off, and my anxiety disappeared in the music and the inspiration he embodied. We all played beyond our pasts.

JW: What was Nelson like?
GD: I can't say enough good things about him as a musician and person. He approached us with great care and interest. He wasn't too chatty, but he gave us his full attention. There was a sweetness about him that I felt immediately. He was a true inspiration. I've never played as well before or since, as I did behind Oliver Nelson.

JW: That's pretty tough music. Were many takes needed?
GD: No more than one or two takes because we had been playing clubs and concerts for a year, so we were seasoned and loose. There was no overdubbing by Oliver or anyone else. I can't remember our responses to the playback, but we had an excellent engineer at Verve—Val Valentin—who guided us through the process. We were not easy to record because of the wide dynamics of pitch and volume. [Photo above of the twins with Oliver Nelson]

JW: Spleen was a fascinating follow-up album. What's the meaning of the title?
GD: The title came from a poem by the French poet Paul Verlaine. I set one of his poems, Spleen, to music. Leonard was the producer, and I came up with all the arrangements, with input from the twins and the other musicians in our group. In a sense, I learned how to arrange for us by listening to them.

JW: Your covers of pop songs are fascinating. Why didn't you record more of them?
GD: We never got the chance. After Spleen, our one album at Mercury, the label let us out of our contract to pursue a new direction. We continued exploring recording avenues for another year, but no one picked up on what we were doing.

JW: How did the group break up? Did the twins get too busy with film work?
GD: The twins' TV and commercial work for products such as Doublemint gum was a way to supplement their income. As you can imagine, the Sound of Feeling was not a commercial success. Having studied drama at Northwestern University together, they gravitated to acting auditions with great interest. The last few months of rehearsing were conflict-ridden as Mercury's A&R department had other ideas about the types of music they wanted to produce in the rock era. By then, my relationship with Rhae had run its course.

JW: What happened next?
GD: Maurice Miller, the drummer in the Sound of Feeling, along with bassist Ray Neapolitan and I formed a group called Sweet Grease. I wrote many of the charts and wrote many new songs. Maurice was a terrific singer, so we featured him. We had great fun, but ultimately it wasn't sustainable. Maurice, a former member of the Association, went on to play clubs as a blues singer, while Ray became a well-known bass player and Joe Cocker's manager.

JW: And you?
GD: I had been studying epistemics while the Sound of Feeling was active. So, I started teaching at a place called Viewpoints Institute. J. Samuel Bois was its director, and he mentored me for 12 years. I received my PhD in 1973. At the same time, I was playing with pick-up rock bands. Eventually, teaching and counseling became full-time. I have been doing that ever since. I have a studio in my home, and I love to record my first passion—singing the Great American Songbook. I came into the world singing, and I'll probably go out that way.

JW: And the twins?
GD: They never married. They formed a trio with a guitarist-singer named Terry Gris. I loved what they did, but it ultimately went nowhere. Gradually, poor health became too much of an obstacle for them.

JW: Where were the twins from, and was your relationship with Rhae hard on Alyce?
GD: The twins were from Thornton, Ill. My relationship with Rhae began while we were in San Francisco in 1962, before the formation of our group. Our relationship lasted seven years. Alyce was overprotective and unhappy about us because, in her mind, I was pulling Rhae away from her. It was a seven-year struggle, but the music made it all worthwhile.

JW: What became of them?
GD: Alyce and Rhae lived together their whole lives right to the end. They each had passing relationships after the Sound of Feeling, but their primary one was with each other as sisters. Alyce died in 2005 at age 68. Rhae died in 2009 at age 72.

JW: How did you take the breakup?
GD: I keep learning. In fact, I have an online forum called "The Art of Learning." My experience in music has been invaluable in all that I do.

JW: Were you in touch with Rhae over the years?
GD: My love with Rhae was immature, dependent and bound to fail. When the music stopped, so did our intimate connection. I stayed in touch with her occasionally and tried to help her in her last years when she was destitute. It was all challenging for me. She, my father, and my first musical mentor, Bob Fylling, all died in the same year, 2009.