This month, we present the foreword to the book, written by jazz legend Buddy DeFranco. DeFranco is the recipient of twenty Down Beat Magazine Awards, nine Metronome Magazine Awards, and sixteen Playboy All-Star Awards. In 1998, he was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo. He has been honored with induction into the American Jazz Hall of Fame, a 2006 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship, and a 2007 Living Jazz Legend Award from the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
Foreword
Steve Botek’s Song on My Lips offers an entirely different perspective. Instead of the hero worship or romanticism usually offered up when discussing American jazz and big band music, Steve presents his own story without setting himself as part of an elite fraternity. He remembers what jazz meant and that its accessibility was meant for all. In doing so, he invites readers to recognize that jazz, like much else in life, is within their grasp if they only make the decision and follow through with dedication.
Steve was indeed a talented young musician, but he himself will be the first to tell you that this wasn’t some magical gift conferred on him. He put in the time, the effort, and most of all, the passion to make his dreams into reality. He listened not only to the music but the life around him, discovering what lay behind the instruments — taking the time to understand the colorful people who populated the field.
Sharing this understanding is a natural move for Steve, who would never have managed the opportunities and experiences he did were it not for his unwillingness to hold back or be held back, to give in to the expectations of society. Much is credited to the movements of the 1960s, but they were a continuation of what had gone before. Jazz was not simply music — it was a way of living, a conversation among equals that threatened entrenched ideas of race, gender, religion, sexuality, wealth, and propriety. The change that America experienced in the '60s and beyond, even to the present-day, gestated in the goodwill of musicians and was born kicking, screaming, and wailing on the stages of small clubs, in tiny studios, and in the hearts of anyone willing to listen.
As a performer of that era, I whizzed through life relying on instinct as well as study. Steve’s take on things included another component — detailed analysis of the often complicated people in the sometimes complicated world of music. His skill in breaking down a difficult piece of music so that he could absorb it extended to breaking down the complexities of the human spirit, which were let loose through many a horn, pounded out on many a drum, and sung to many a willing ear. His later career as a psychiatrist was a natural extension of this ability. In music, it allowed him to jump past expectations and assumptions and reach to the core of commonality with the many great musicians he met and played alongside, understanding them intuitively in the time it would take most people just to introduce themselves.
This book details Steve’s journey where he lets music lead him back to himself. His skills are honed through perseverance and force of will, then finally turned on himself to lead him to the life he wanted. Like any young man exploring new perspectives, he could have gotten lost in the trappings but Steve heard what was essential through the music and played his own song.
I invite you to read this book and hear the music.
