Matt Borghi

Songs, soundscapes, and improvisations for deep listening.

Tag: Music Improvisation

A story about musical vision

August 17, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Recently, I had a band. My first band in years. A band I assembled mid-pandemic; no small feat. It lasted for about two months, mostly because I’m not a great band member and lack the ability to compromise where vision is concerned. Some, who are inspired by leadership books, might think this is admirable. Some others, who aren’t, might just think that I’m challenging (to put it nicely) to work with. I’ve been around long enough now to know who I am and I’m not above change, but when it comes to musical vision, I have a stubborn and uncompromising streak that’s very unZen and frequently has me getting in my own way. We live, we learn, we evolve. That’s the journey.

In an effort to communicate that musical vision, I drafted the story/note below. It’s not impertinent to my musical journey, so I thought I’d share it here:

Several years ago, when several of my longtime collaborators relocated, geographically or temporally, I started looking for other musical likeminds. My interests could be jazz, rock, jam bands, country, folk, what have you, but at the core was group improvisation. 

I stumbled upon this art quite by chance when I was sixteen. I was hit with a sudden moment of deep and profound awareness. I remember it very clearly: A dark and dingy basement. A gang of lackluster, wannabe, punk musicians trying to make art, trying to begin a journey of musical exploration by going in any direction, knowing only that the call was real and palpable, but otherwise clueless as to how to proceed. 

We were trash, mostly from broken homes. A couple us played in school band, but mostly we knew nothing about assembling a band, making music as a group or even making a go of such a thing. While we were trying to be punk, thinking that that was a skill level we could meet, we all loved and bonded over Pink Floyd. One night we decided to try and do “a Pink Floyd kind of song” – Whatever the hell that meant. We had no real effects, just a bass, drums, two guitar situation, so we got to it. It started with some cymbal washes and I played a droney bass guitar line. The guitar players tried a two guitar harmony thing. Neither of them knew their scales so after a series of wrong notes that didn’t help the vibe, they telepathically and mutually agreed to stick with the couple notes that they had learned through real-time trial and error and were in key. We jammed on this vibe for about forty minutes – We were stone cold sober as a deep harmony and resonance took us over. What we lacked in technique we made up for telepathically, each player knowing where the other player was going to go; playing, blending, truly in concert until we were musically one. Our connection to the music, the moment and each other was deep and palpable. After the jam, nobody spoke, nobody made eye contact, we just looked at the ground in awe. Silent. A couple of us lit up cigarettes and just let the vibe sink in. Finally, somebody made a joke to ease the awkwardness of such a vulnerable experience. We laughed, but shit had changed; we had just taken a ride on some celestial plane. 

For me, music would never be the same; it became a readily-accessible, substance-free, vehicle for transcendence and for thirty years, my life since that point, I’ve been driven by the pursuit of solo and group musical improvisation.  

Book Review – Dave Liebman’s The Art of Skill

August 17, 2026 / / 0 Comments

 

I love Dave Liebman, his work, his philosophy, his artistry and his dedication to craft. As a devoted musical improviser, when I learned of his book, The Art of Skill – Establishing the Mindset For Unleashing the Music Inside You, I was super eager to get into Lieb’s brain and see what insights this master could offer. Instead, after thousands of purchases across more than two decades of using Amazon, I was moved to write my first product review.  Here tis:

I don’t think that I’ve ever written a review for anything in thousands of Amazon purchases, but I definitely feel obliged to issue a ‘buyer beware’ warning for this unfortunate collection of pages attributed to Dave Liebman, as author. I say attributed because there are references in the text stating that this was a project of a Michael Lake, who I can’t seem to find anything biographics or CV on – He is credited thusly, on the cover: “Edited and Designed by Michael Lake”. No other credentials are included. 

When I first heard about this book from Lieb, I went to Amazon and reluctantly swallowed the thirty bucks thinking that this might be a real chance to get an insight in Lieb’s perspectives; that was partially true. However, when I first received this in the mail I was taken aback by the paltry, print-on-demand collection of perfect bound pages that arrived. To call it a book, m’mmm… not quite, only if, say a pharmaceutical insert stuffed in The Times is considered a book or more aptly, a Scholastic Reader, which is what this 50ish pages of wide margins, poorly written and even more poorly proofread text alongside a mish-mash of motivational stock imagery with a few pics of Lieb and friends through the years thrown in for good measure seems to be. A book? That’s a tough proposition by any measure. 

I didn’t pick this up for about six months, but when I finally picked up this collection of pages, it was, well, not great. A series of shoddily edited interviews (maybe?). I know now that LIeb almost became an orthopedic surgeon and a lawyer, but that didn’t bear repeating four times in, sort of, tangential asides to other things Lieb was talking about. And that’s the thing here, there’s no editorial throughline and no narrative to speak of. I surely didn’t get any insight into ‘the art of skill’ or really an insight into anything except Lieb’s other potential career directions! Without a doubt, you’d get more, better articulated (and edited) insight if you were to just read the first ten articles in a Google search for “Dave Liebman”. Certainly, this collection was not, is not, worth thirty bucks. And that’s the thing that’s outrageous here: Dave Liebman is known for quality and lifelong dedication to craft; this poorly written, poorly edited, poorly assembled, poorly laid out, cheaply printed and extremely overpriced collection is far beneath Dave Liebman. If anybody ever reads this, I’d say a fair price point for this is about $10 and with the printing costs you should still be making $9.

If it were some rando jazz guy, I’d give ’em a pass, but with lieb, man, I just can’t do that. He’s a teacher, master, musician and founder of the International Association of Schools of Jazz. Was there really nobody in his orbit that he could have shared this with to get an opinion on the writing, the editing, the layout, the presentation, etc. As someone who worked in publishing, I’d wager that a second set of eyes were never laid on this collection. Perhaps, the price tag can be attributed to the astronomical price of college textbooks and somebody was hoping to get this on some syllabi? I really don’t know, but this is an unfortunate and overpriced collection of pages that’s not worthy of having Dave Liebman’s name on it or associated with his amazing legacy of excellence. 

As disappointed as I am with this work, I’m being generous with the three star rating. I think there are some, just Ok, insights within these pages, but it never scratches the surface of the promise of the title:  The Art of Skill – Establishing the Mindset for Unleashing the Music Inside You, this collection of pages and random images, definitely ain’t that! 

Anyway, my work is done. I’m disappointed, but hopefully, other folks can avoid the same disappointment and maybe even the editors/authors will take another look at things in the second printing. Lieb’s an amazing and awe-inspiring artist, a true craftsman, don’t let this dissuade you from his work.

 

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