Dave HaskellB I O G R A P H Y

The hisTory of jazz is strewn with brilliant

players who have inexplicably eluded wide-

spread recognition, flying under the radar of

labels, journalists, and fans. But guitarist

David Haskell’s stealth status over the past two

decades isn’t hard to explain. He’s spent most

of that time on the move as a commercial pilot,

fulfilling a dream that took root

as a child, about the same time

he became enamored with the

guitar. Before Haskell took to

the air as a profession, he was

a widely respected improviser at

the center of the San Francisco

jazz scene, a versatile, blues-

drenched player often heard as

a sideman and bandleader at

high profile venues like Key-

stone Korner.

Now that he’s hung up his

wings, Haskell is once again

making waves on the Bay Area scene, working

with a superlative group. With his lean, fluid

tone, clean attack, and simmering sense of

swing, Haskell is back in fighting trim, ready to

pick up his music career where he left off back

in the mid-1980s.

Born into a jazz-loving San Francisco family,

Haskell soaked up the sounds of Duke Ellington

and Count Basie from the record collection of

his father, a doctor. When his father’s medical

career took the family to Ukiah, they ended up

moving near a small airfield, which sparked

Haskell’s lifelong love of flying. He credits the

Beatles’ invasion of America with turning him

onto the guitar, and by the mid-1960s he was

leading a garage band. While initially inspired

by the straight ahead artistry of guitarists like

Wes Montgomery, Howard Roberts, and Bar-

ney Kessel, Haskell fell in with a trio of blues

loving brothers, Mark, Patrick, and Robben

Ford, who turned him onto the Chicago sound.

“Robben Ford had a bluesy R&B band with

horns, and when he took off for the summer

to play with his brothers in San Francisco I

ended up subbing for him,” Haskell recalls.

“When he came back he played alto sax and I

took over the guitar chair. Of

course, he was still playing guitar

with his brothers in Charles Ford

Blues Band and he became a

role model and mentor for me.”

Working with Robben,

Haskell performed in churches,

schools, and social halls around

Ukiah, and when the Fords relo-

cated to the Bay Area, he used

to head down on weekends to

hear them play. “I barely fin-

ished high school, because I

needed to get out of Ukiah,”

Haskell says. “I graduated in 1972, and the

Fords engineered it so that I came down and

joined a blues band.

”After a few years playing blues, Haskell fell

in with a succession of exceptional pianists

based in the Bay Area, including Yugoslav-

raised Larry Vuckovich, Smith Dobson, Larry

Dunlap, and New Zealand-born Mike Nock,

who featured the guitarist on a gig with his

seminal fusion combo the Fourth Way at the

Great American Music Hall. While gaining

invaluable bandstand experience, he started

making a name for himself as one of the

hottest young guitarists in the area. When

Native American tenor saxophonist Jim Pepper,

a jazz/rock fusion pioneer who co-led The Free

Spirits, decamped from New York City in 1974,

he quickly scooped up Haskell, bringing him to

Alaska for a four-month gig the following year.

Back in the Bay Area, Haskell started

playing with pianist Mark Soskin. When Pepper

returned to town, the saxophonist launched

a new incarnation of Pepper’s Powwow with

Haskell, bassist Ratzo Harris, and pianist Russell

Ferrante (who went on to found the Yellow-

jackets). Featuring a singular sound blending

rock, post-bop jazz, and Native American influ-

ences, the group worked steadily for several

years performing up and down the West

Coast, with long sojourns in Portland and

Alaska.

In 1977 Haskell decided to launch his own

combo, the David Haskell Group. Honing a

book of intricate, rock-tinged compositions,

Haskell attracted several rising young stars,

like pianist Susan Muscarella, who was also

working with saxophonist Mel Martin’s popular

band Listen. When she left, multi-instrumen-

talist Bruce Williamson, best known these days

as a lyrical saxophonist, took over the piano

chair. With regular gigs at Keystone Korner and

a devoted local following, the DHG signed a

contract with Theresa Records and made an

album produced by Mark Isham, but it was

never released.

When he wasn’t leading his own band,

Haskell often worked with keyboardist Jeff

Lorber and harmonica ace Mark Ford, his high

school buddy from Ukiah. Playing with Ford’s

band gave Haskell the opportunity to share

stages with blues and R&B institutions like

Muddy Waters, Albert King, and Tower of

Power. Around the same time, a call from

organ star Merl Saunders led to a gig backing

soul singer Randy Crawford on the Crusaders’

1980 national tour. Haskell continued to work

with Saunders throughout that year.

A move to Los Angeles opened new doors

in 1982, when he and keyboardist Greg

Karukas co-founded the band Rush Hour with

bassist Jeff Andrews (later replaced by electric

bass master Gary Willis), which played leading

clubs like the Lighthouse, Donte’s, and At My

Place. By the mid-80s, burned out on the

music scene, Haskell decided to parlay his

experience as amateur pilot into a full-time

profession.

It took years of paying dues and studying

to meet extensive licensing requirements, but

Haskell eventually achieved his dream, flying

internationally for a major U.S. airline. After

years of neglecting his musical gift, Haskell

bought himself a nylon-string guitar in the late

1990s, and slowly started getting in touch with

old musical friends at musicians’ hangs like

Jazz at Pearl’s in North Beach. Since retiring

as a pilot, he’s devoted himself to jazz again.

Despite his vast store of bandstand experi-

ences with some of jazz’s most respected

players, Haskell has yet to appear on an

album.

With his captivating quartet he’s ready for

his second act. His new CD Pivot Point—pro-

duced by long time friend and world renown

bassist and producer Jimmy Haslip—is a major

waypoint in his lifetime journey. Indeed a piv-

otal time of direction and intensity change as

Haskell plots his future musical course. n

(2017)

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