“Man, that’s who I want to be!”

[ BILLY DREWES ]

When did you meet Lyle?

I remember the first meeting with Lyle we had a dinner.  A great hang.   After dinner we went to his music room and all of his keyboards were there. This was my first insight as to how great his mind worked because he had programmed one of his keyboard to blow through “Giant Steps” while he comped on guitar. I could see he taught himself the guitar. And while his synthesizers are blowing through “Giant Steps” I said to myself “Man, that’s who I want to be!”

Can you tell us about the Lyle Mays Sextet gig at Willow Jazz Club in the early 80s?

It was seamless with the musicians.   The best way to describe that gig is that it was a total dichotomy in that where we were playing and what music was being represented and how it was getting represented.  The high level of presentation in the lowest punkiest joint you can imagine.   I remember there was a line around the block to get in.  Lyle brought in this Hamburg Steinway.  I had played there before with good crowds but never like this.  People were hanging off the rafters.  They put as many people as they could in that place.

The music was beautiful as was his touch and palette and his writing.   I remember Lyle telling us that he wrote the tunes for this gig.  The group was fantastic. I had done a couple things with Tiger but not much. Joe and I had done a lot prior and of course, Marc Johnson.  Mike DiPasqua was great in how he approached the music. [Willow Jazz music is here]

What do you remember about playing in the Lyle and Nana band in 1983?

When I got the call for this gig it was exciting because I knew it was going to be different. I could sense Lyle was going for a little more compositional stuff.  I am always aware of how do you combine compositional with improvisational. If the music is real small you can have two notes or two harmonies or you have more music written.  How do you combine those things together? The enormity of his writing allowed it to be open. Maybe you don’t blow for 20 minutes but that was the beauty. I loved that. It is seamless and I could sense that based on the music we played prior at the Willow Club but this was probably something else. I also sensed that maybe this would be like the music he played with Pat - something in that realm. And then there was the cast of characters and that was just exciting.

We rehearsed at the place in Long Island where we taped that performance and it sounded fabulous. Lyle was hearing all of these different voices together. Bill Frisell and I playing melodies. Bill knowing how to comp wide. Bill can make your notes sound good! It is always perfect. With Lyle comping and playing, Bill found spaces to open things up wide.

We actually had met prior at Lyle’s house and improvised for hours and he was using all of his instruments and sounds. He just loved it and so did I. I felt good and it was a beautiful experience that I was lucky to be a part of. Bill was there and Marc Johnson not the entire cast. I am not sure if Nana was there.

You played on two Rabbit Ears productions with Lyle (The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Tale of Jermey Fish), how did that come about?

This was an exciting project with just me, Marc Johnson and Lyle. I was excited because I like to play clarinet. Just to see what Lyle did with the text - this is a different medium. I remember he had a muted trumpet sample and this was many years ago when this stuff was new and it sounded so good. I was playing some heads with the muted trumpet.  We worked on those for two days and it was fun to do.

Any final thoughts?

I was honored to be a part of all of the projects with him and  the collaborations and the basketball we played several times together. There was no limit to what Lyle could have done. There is no limit to a person like him.  His voice is still going. He was innovative and also influenced many people and will continue too for a long time.