Lake County >> When Tallman Hotel and Blue Wing Saloon owner Bernie Butcher described Dan Meyer’s music as Latin jazz, Meyer just went with it. “I’ve played 52 of my 65 years and I am most comfortable with Latin rhythms,” Meyer said. “Bernie came up with that description and I was like, ‘Well, that’s as close as anyone else has come to it.’”
Meyer performs twice this weekend, at Konocti Vista Casino Friday night and at the Blue Wing Saloon’s Sunday Brunch. On Friday he sings and plays the guitar with saxophonist Tyrone Rivera and drummer Randy Wimer joins him on Sunday.
While the Blue Wing brings in many a musician today, Meyer has been playing the venue since its humble beginnings. “I’m pretty sure I was the first person to ever play at the Blue Wing. I knew the place was so beautiful, [Butcher] was going to have music sooner or later. He’s been a real supporter,” Meyer said, adding that Butcher has an “understanding that what I do is different. I can tell you, this music, no one else does what I do.”
Latin music has always held a certain appeal for Meyer, from his childhood spent listening to flamenco music to the five years he lived in Honduras. “Growing up … I was right in the hot heart of the explosion of music in the 60s,” Meyer said, explaining that while his peers were shouted at to keep the rock and roll down, “my parents were yelling at me to turn down the flamenco.”
Though Meyer learned to love the big rock bands of the time, that enjoyment came much later than his friends. “I was way behind everybody else in appreciating the Beatles and Jimmy Hendrix,” he said.
As a child, Latin music wasn’t the only thing Meyer was listening to. “My dad was really into classical and show tunes,” he said. “At the time I thought it was god awful, waking up every Saturday morning to Camelot and My Fair Lady. I think it really affected me hugely but I didn’t know it at the time.”
Then he turned to a new genre, and his feelings on show tunes changed. “It was studying jazz that made me realize how fine Broadway music is,” Meyer explained. “A lot of standard jazz is from movies and shows, just done in a different way.”
Meyer picked up the guitar in middle school and has hardly set it down since. There were points in his life when he played for eight or nine hours a day. “I’ve definitely studied music in some form or another since 6th grade,” he said. “You’ve got to kind of be obsessive if you really want to master your instrument.”
It wasn’t long before Meyer decided to take his music abroad. He was on his way to Brazil when he realized he didn’t have the funds for the trip, so as he describes it, he landed in Honduras. As it turns out, his change of course may not have been destiny, but it was certainly a fortunate turn of events.
“I lucked out and met a woman … She had this amazing appreciation of classical music and world music, so it kind of fit into my obsession,” Meyer said. And he went on to marry her.
Meeting his wife was just one of many fortunate things to come out of his time spent in Central America. Meyer lived there “in a really peaceful kind of lucky time,” he said. “It’s become a very dangerous place and it wasn’t like that when I was there at all. I met good musicians when I was down there and kind of got to listen to real Latin music.”
A retired fifth grade teacher, Meyer got his start in teaching while in Honduras. Then he made his way back to the states, taught in Los Angeles for five years before finally settling down in Kelseyville. “I taught from 1990 to 2011 as a fifth grade teacher,” Meyer said. “When I retired from teaching I decided I was gonna do what I really wanted to do.”
It was through teaching that Meyer came to know someone who introduced him to yet another genre. Meyer met Beth and Tom Aiken, both music teachers with Kelseyville School District, and their music program impressed him. “Kelseyville used to have a shockingly fine jazz program … They were one of the best I’ve ever heard of,” Meyer said. “For a while one of Tom’s star students became my mentor.”
Even though the kid was younger than himself, Meyer was stunned by Aiken’s talented student. “He is truly a genius,” Meyer said. “He helped me hone my skills in gospel music of all things. I played for almost five years and then for a short time I became the pastor of the Ukiah United Methodist Church. It kind of gave me the basis for blues and rock … Blues and rock came out of church music. It was kind of a catch up course in where this all started.”
It’s clear that Meyer prefers to mix up genres. Instead of sticking to a style, he’s influenced by movement. “I played for 52 years and I hardly ever even learned how to strum a guitar. Which is kind of odd because I don’t think in terms of strumming, I think in terms of creating bass lines and chord movement,” Meyer said. “Like rock and roll … it’s all based on very, very few chords in truth. If you come from a jazz point of view … each chord represents many chords. The melody drives the chords.”
His musical background helped him understand this approach. “It’s what comes out of jazz and classical, it’s this idea that there’s movement,” Meyer said. “You have this potential to create movement so that whatever the instrument is, it’s kind of shoving the instrument forward. The audience doesn’t necessarily notice it … It’s what makes really great player’s movement so compelling. The great musicians are so fluid in movement.”
Meyer approaches the guitar as if it’s an entirely different instrument. “My guitar playing is based more on piano than guitar in truth,” he explained. “I’ve always attempted to provide that fullness or chord progressions. Some people have called it a pianistic approach, meaning that I play a lot of moving chords.”
The full sound comes easy on the keyboard, but it takes more effort to achieve the same effect with the guitar strings. “On the piano it’s very simple, the right hand plays the melody and the left hand plays the chords,” Meyer said.
“‘It takes two really excellent guitarists to be able to do what one good pianist can do,’” Meyer added, borrowing a phrase from a fellow jazz musician. “On the guitar you’ve got to work real hard to create movement … If you’ve got the tools you can really create movement.”
With his pianistic leanings and genre fluidity, Meyer’s performances are always unique. “I don’t play that many original pieces but all my arrangements are very original … Mainly I accompany myself on my own arrangements of these songs. It’s not like standard jazz,” he said. “I don’t really play popular music. This weekend is the first time I’ll be playing a couple Stones songs. But the way I play them is quite different.”
The Konocti Vista Casino is definitely a change of pace for Meyer. “My feelings wont be hurt and I wont be shocked if we don’t get invited back,” he laughed.
Meyer feels passionate about putting something original into the world. “I and the guys I play with are really dedicated to creating really special music. Because I go out so much dancing, I get very frustrated by the same old stuff,” he said.
Meyer said he finds it “tragic” that music in the U.S. seems to be losing it’s originality. “The United States … was the most important force in modern music for the whole planet … There were times in Honduras when it was pretty quaintly, oddly charming when Hondurans would think I was somebody famous. And now I see a music that’s dominated by creating the same old music all the time.”
Part of the monotony, he reasons, is a lack of appreciation for newer music. “At 65, we have three kids and I find the most exciting music is what my kids bring me,” Meyer said. “There is great songwriting by younger musicians and it’s just the same old generation gap. People my age don’t know and don’t appreciate younger folks music and actually I think younger folks do appreciate the great rock musicians of the 60s, 70s and 80s. I’m tremendously impressed by Third Eye Blind and Nine Inch Nails. It’s not that I play that music, but I adore it.”
So when it comes to his own music, originality appears in spades. “I think it all comes from being able to believe in songs so that I can do them over and over again,” he said. “A great song can be done a thousand ways. I find it extremely frustrating that people take great songs and are afraid to make it something new, because great songs have no limit to what you can do to them.”
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
