FOR AUSTINITE WHO TEACHES AT THE BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC, A CONTINENTAL DRIFT

Jazz guitarist Bruce Saunders has one of the most eclectic, far-reaching work commutes in Austin

By Brad Buchholz - American-Statesman Staff - Sunday, April 7, 2013
Bruce Saunders is one of the premier guitarists in Austin. Yet he's also one of the most invisible. Saunders doesn t play that many local live shows as a bandleader, and he did not chart in this year's best guitarist category of the Austin Music Awards. Why is that? Well, Saunders plays jazz, hardly the headline genre in this city. He s also really, really shy. And he has a job-a prestigious day job, with a difficult commute-that occupies most of his time. Bruce Saunders, our Austin neighbor, teaches jazz guitar at the Berklee College of Music & that's in Boston & the most renowned jazz academy in the country. Saunders has been on the Berklee faculty for two decades. He's been commuting to Berklee, via Austin, since marriage brought him here in 2006. Saunders knows all about life on the move, life above the clouds. No surprise, then, that he chose to title his most recent CD "Drift" an allusion to being blown about, airport to airport, week after week. Austin to Boston. Boston to Austin. With essential detours to his old home, America's jazz capital, New York City. "I think of (the album) in terms of continentaldrift", says Saunders, who plays a CD release show for "Drift" at the Elephant Room Thursday night. "When school is in session, I'm always up in the air, somewhere, 20 hours a week at least, in an airport, a subway, a bus...."

Bruce Saunders' music is kinda up in the air, too: smart and dreamy, sensitive and free, a little angular, infatuated with odd meters, flying in the direction of adventure. The shy guitar professor is no ax man; he does not wail or shout. Saunders is more like a painter. As a composer, a soloist - his guitar is an instrument of color. "Bruce is a world-class jazz artist," says Austin saxophonist Elias Haslanger, who has known Saunders for 5 years. "We're just lucky that he lives in Austin at all, lucky that he's married to Jessica, who happens to live in Austin. We're lucky on all counts because Bruce is a magical guitarist."

TERMINAL M
Growing up in Florida, Bruce Saunders didn't come to jazz right away. He was open to all forms: bluegrass, classical guitar, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Hall, Blind Willie McTell. Acoustic blues were fun "wow, Robert Johnson!" primarily because Saunders could play around with those tunes on his guitar in solitude. Then Saunders discovered Thelonious Monk. "I was working in this factory in Vermont, trying to earn money to go to music school. And a friend (Ian Dodds) said, "Man, check this out."It was the Monk-TraneLP, a double LP set, "says Saunders. He's lean, quietly self-deprecating and clearly more comfortable talking about his heroes than himself. "You know, I really didn't understand it at first. But the more I listened to it, the more I got interested in that music. There was no guitar on it. And that was OK, because it was beautiful. Like: mysterious. Like:  What are they doing? Saunders loved Monk, first, for the pianist/composer's sense of imagination, for the very idea behind Monk's music. The idea of an ensemble, devoted to the free exploration of a vivid musical landscape. Years later, Saunders' own music and to some extent, his approach on guitar reflects his affection for Monk. His music doesn't copy Monk. But it's driven by the same sense of imagination, the allure of expressing something genuine yet at the same time & unlike anything else. "Monk is an individual," says Saunders, whose assessment of Monk reveals a lot about himself. "Nobody sounds like him. He followed his own path, no matter what. Even if he wasn't getting gigs. There was no way he could play any differently or write any differently. He didn't say, "Oh, OK, I'm going to write popular jazz, so that people will "understand" it and I will get more gigs. I have to confess that when I first heard Monk on the Monk-Trane thing, I was more into Coltrane. It took, like, 25 years to truly understand what Monk was writing: his compositions, his playing, how great they both are. He's a musical genius. And the people who matter recognize that: Miles and Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Bud Powell, all those stupendous musicians who changed the direction, sound and scope of jazz music.

FLIGHT PLAN
Bruce Saunders believes in jazz as a reflection of democracy, freedom, discipline, expression, improvisation. As a bandleader, he's gracious: It's all about the group. Saunders rarely takes the first solo on his own recordings. He doesn t tell members in an ensemble what to do. He talks, all the time, about writing music that enables others to shine. "He's a very sensitive guitar player and composer," Haslanger says of Saunders, who majored in classical guitar at Florida State University and obtained his master's degree from the prestigious University of North Texas jazz program in the 1980s. "He's very empathetic. He listens. He's always trying to collaborate in the best possible way, whether it's playing melody with another horn or accompanying the soloist or integrating with the rhythm section. That's what I mean when I say he's extremely empathetic." Saunders draws from a deep well of influences. His affinity for textures suggests a musical kinship with John Scofield, Pat Metheny or even Austin's own Mitch Watkins. "Drift," which features star New York players Gary Versace on piano and Adam Kolker on saxophone travels very well alongside Metheny's 2012 Unity Band CD, or Michael Brecker's Pilgrimage.

THE DIFFERENCE
As bandleader, Saunders is less of an instrumental focus. The most joyfully audacious solo on the entire record may belong to Versace, on "Either/Or" Saunders tends to impress in more subtle ways on his albums, such as his ability to blend sounds  saxophone and guitar, trombone and guitar  to create a brand-new sound color. As a guitar professor, Saunders notes a tendency toward perfection among today s young jazz players, as if technical note-to-note perfection trumps emotional sincerity. "There are so many talented  unfortunately perfect players out there," he says. "Sometimes, I just keep waiting for a mistake. And (when it happens) I say, "Yes! Thank you for leaving that in!" Saunders wonders aloud about the value of jazz contests, jazz as competition. "Would Miles Davis win a modern jazz contest, in the company of so many perfect players? Would Monk even be allowed to compete? Would Trane consent to participate? I can listen to Joe Henderson or John Scofield. Or Miles. Or Wayne Shorter. And those are perfect solos, says Saunders. But if you analyze them (academically), you could say, "That solo is not correct." Yet to me, the solos are perfect. The music is perfect.

LAYOVER
Bruce Saunders travels so frequently he knows the faces of ticket-takers and flight attendants by heart. There's one guy, Gary, a night manager for Jet Blue, at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, who waves to him when he boards the plane to Boston almost every Monday night. Saundersnormal load at Berklee is a heavy one: 17 live hours a week, plus online classes for 100 students a year. But this spring, he's decided to take a semester's leave of absence. Saunders is still traveling, though: a two-week tour in Spain, in January. And teaching, too, at the University of Texas and Austin Community College, while maintaining his Berklee online courses. Most of the time, on Fridays, he plays a secret little gig in Austin at Sao Paulo's restaurant, near the UT campus. Saunders is never billed by name. But when he's in town, he joins a quartet led by drummer Kevin Witt. Haslanger plays sometimes, too. Diners come and go, most unaware that one of the most imaginative guitarists in American jazz is playing just a few feet away. Near closing time, Witt's band kicks into a Thelonious Monk tune. Tucked away in the corner, Bruce Saunders plays the melancholy melody line of "Round Midnight," touches the strings of his guitar in tenderness and flies, flies, flies into the spirit of jazz.