of the guitarist’s intense nuts-and-bolts
focus on jazz theory, which inspired him
to write four books relating to George
Russell’s Lydian Chromatic concepts,
including A System of Tonal Convergence
for Improvisers, Composers, and
Arrangers (1975).
Vernon Reid, who came to know him
through Jazzmobile workshops in the
’70s, relates: “Mr. Dunbar had a serious
and imposing afro-ed and dark, dashiki-
ed presence ... somewhat cantankerous
and deeply philosophical. If he smiled, it
felt like a rare gif t. I clearly remember a
lively back-and-forth between a student
and himself about whether or not a note
an octave above was the same note. That
discussion fairly crackled.”
“He was a super theoretician,”
remembers Rodgers, who began studying
with Dunbar in 1970. “He’d say, ‘Connect
the shit, Niles. Connect the shit. Make it
sound like music.’ Later I realized what he
was saying—you want to be a composer
and make people happy? Well, you’re
composing on the spot. Learn the rules so
you know when and how to break them.”
Most of Dunbar’s students recall the
tasks he would give them, like a list of 4 0
tunes they had to know inside and out:
ballads, bebop workhorses, a few modal
numbers. “The key, as I understood
it,” says Peter Bernstein, “and this has
continued to stick with me 34 years later,
is to figure what any tune has to teach
you about how music works. Whether it
was a Horace Silver or a Cole Porter tune,
every piece of music has a lesson—or
several—for you to extract. In other
words, the music makes the ‘rules,’ music
is not made from the ‘rules.’”Teacher Man
Nile Rodgers and other illustrious
students remember Ted DunbarThe full legacy of some musicians can be
gauged as much by tracing their impact
on those they trained as by their own
performances. Guitarist Ted Dunbar (1937-
1998) is the perfect example, remembered
today with reverence by the numerous
guitarists who studied with him. Their
collective résumé is an impressive swath
of experiences and success: Nile Rodgers
(Chic), Vernon Reid (Living Colour), Kevin
Eubanks (The Tonight Show with Jay
Leno), Rodney Jones (The Rosie O’Donnell
Show), Trey Anastasio (Phish), Peter
Bernstein, and many others.
Dunbar landed in New York City in
the mid-’60s by way of his native Texas,
where he’d trained to be a pharmacist,
and then Indianapolis, where he studied
at Indiana University and played with
Wes Montgomery and his brothers.
Within 10 years, he was an in-demand
sideman for Gil Evans, Frank Foster,
Sonny Rollins, Ron Carter, and—
notably—Tony Williams’ Lifetime, valued
for his clear-toned playing and an ability
to handle a wide range of modern flavors,
from postbop and soul-jazz to freer
forms. Dunbar simultaneously pursued
an instructor role, first with Jazzmobile,
then at Rutgers University and other jazz
programs in the Northeast.
His students today recall Dunbar with
fondness and gratitude—and still with
a degree of intimidation, in part because“He would say, ‘ Take off the top E string
and the bot tom E string, and practice all
week just like that,’” Kevin Eubanks says,
laughing. “I would say, ‘ What for?’ And
he’d say, ‘Af ter a week, you tell me what
for.’” Eubanks met Dunbar through Slide
Hampton and, af ter a few impromptu
lessons and friendly conversations,
accepted the guitarist’s offer to take over
his Rutgers classes for a semester. He
adds: “[Dunbar] spoke about tonality and
harmony mixed in with numerology and
astrology. He was really deep into these
things—palmistry, acronology—all of
these things were part of the same thing
for him. We would never just talk about a
musical thought without it being a part of a
constellation of other thoughts.”
“I would call his teaching approach
‘complete immersion,’ recalls Trey
Anastasio, who at tended a University of
Massachuset ts workshop with Dunbar
in the early ’90s. “He told us that we
should have a music stand in every
room, including the bathroom, learn
every jazz standard in all 12 keys, and
immediately break up with our girlfriends
or boyfriends, because the guitar was
every thing to us now. He opened my mind
about the fingerboard, harmony, and
methods of practicing that would prepare
me for any musical idea that came down
the pike while I was improvising.”
When Dunbar succumbed to a stroke
in 1998, The New York Times marked his
passing, commending him for a sound
that was “warm and clean,” noting his
role as an instructor, and adding that “he
also continued to practice pharmacy, his
first profession, along with numerologyRAY and astrology.”—AK
MO
ND
RO
SS
AR
CH
IVE
S/C
TSI
MA
GES
Ted Dunbar (far right) with (left
to right) Victor Gaskin, Joe
Newman, and David Lee, Jr. at
Boomers, New York, 1974x The New York Times’ obituary for Ted Dunbar