Montreal native Les Sabler has enjoyed a rich musical education on Jazz guitar. His journey, like most started in Rock' n Roll but Sabler quickly took a detour into the Blues resulting in an in-depth study of the genre. His road to Jazz started with a passion for legends like George Benson, Wes Montgomery, Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour. Sabler who now lives in Florida chatted with us via phone on August 7th 2003.

John Beaudin - Hi Les. Welcome to Smooth Jazz Now.

Les Sabler - Hi John. How are you doing?

John - Great thanks. I know there are only three commercial radio stations on the Jazz thing in Canada everyone else is public/pledge type station but 'The Breeze' in Calgary is on "Bridge the Gap" and so are 'The Wave' in Hamilton. Have you had bites from Winnipeg's Cool FM yet?

Les - Not to my knowledge. I've sent correspondence up there but so far haven't heard back.

John - Well, so far two out of three ain't bad?

Les - Oh Yeah, it's good. I also heard from Jim Craig from the CBC this week and he loves the CD. He's added every cut from "Bridge the Gap" onto his rotation so that's great to hear.

John - Yeah, I've communicated with Jim when Smooth Jazz Now was first up. I have to get him on this site.

Les - Yeah, he has a radio show on the CBC and it's programmed into the cable. He was formally with the Wave in Hamilton and now he's out of London, Ontario.

John - Hey, speaking of radio I know you used to do a radio show in College.

Les - Yes, when I was growing up in Montreal I went to Vanier College and I handled the music for radio station there and then when I went to Concordia University I did a show there for a couple of years.

John - What kind of a show was it?

Les - I played pretty much Jazz and fusion which was pretty popular back then. You know some John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, Chick Corea and stuff like that.

John - It must have been some good fun?

Les - I loved it. The best thing about it was this Jazz club in Montreal in those days called "In Concert" and they used to get the top names in Jazz and Blues for five night stays. They used to always invite me to come down as a guest on opening nights and many times I'd get to interview the artists for the radio station. Sometimes I'd go back two, three times each week to see these guys. It was a great opportunity to learn the history and to understand what it was all about.

John - Wow. Who did you interview?

Les - I interviewed some Blues guys like Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon. I also met Dizzie Gillespie and countless others.

John - Do you have copies of those old interviews or does the station own those?

Les - Unfortunately not. I'm not sure if they still exist but I have a real good memory about it.

John - Good for you. Not many people get a chance to talk to these people. I know you've done the music cruise thing. I was talking to Brian Hughes a little while ago and he's done that. He really enjoyed it. When you did the cruise were you doing Jazz?

Les - We did quite a bit of Jazz. I had a trio and the other two guys were from Columbia. We played Latin music and Jazz standards and some pop music as well. It was a nice blend.

John - The cruise was based out of Miami, right?

Les - Yes it was. I was going to the University of Miami and then it was time to go to work and I was lucky enough to get my first job out of school playing music on a cruise ship. (Laughing) I don't know if I could call it work.

John - No kidding and at what point did your career segue to total Jazz and Smooth Jazz?

Les - I guess it was the late eighties when it became my focus. Maybe even before that a few years before in 1985 I'd gotten out of playing full time. I was living in Sarasota and they were starting to play that kind of music on the radio and we actually had a radio station there called 'The Wave' back then. It just evolved from what I enjoyed listening to and what I enjoyed writing and playing. I wasn't really trying to come up with anything to fit a certain format; it just seemed to come naturally to me.

John - I know some of your big influences were Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton, George Benson and Wes Montgomery. If they really were a huge part of your life I'd say it was inevitable that you'd move to Smooth Jazz.

Les - Certainly. When Larry Carlton's first album came out in 1978 it was all I would listen to. I used to study that and transcribe solos to learn exactly what he was doing. I was also listening to him way back when he was with the Crusaders.

John - You must have had "Captain Fingers" by Lee Ritenour?

Les - Sure did.

John - I used to have that one. In 1979 I worked for a cable TV station, it was actually my first professional gig in broadcasting and the Program Director there had this huge collection of George Benson, Ritenour, Carlton stuff which he wanted us to use as BG music for shows and I refused to use it as simple background. (Laughing)

Les - (laughing) that's good!

John - Hey, these were the guys paving the way in the seventies.

Les - It really did start in the seventies. There were the CTI recordings with George Benson. That really started the sound.

John - I don't know if you know Linda Nash, she used to work for CTI way back when and Linda is one of my favorite people in this format. She knows all these guys, all the innovators in the format which she indeed is also but in her case on the business sense. I have to ask you did you have "The Other Side of Abbey Road" by George Benson?

Les - I listened to that but I never bought that recording. I really enjoyed "Bad Benson" and "White Rabbit" those were two of my favorites along with "Beyond the Blue Horizon."

John - When did your love for George Benson music start?

Les - Well, it goes back to that club in Montreal called "In Concert" that I used to go to. He came in there several years before "Breezin" came out and he was the best guitar player that I'd ever heard at that point.

John - Were you really familiar with his music when you saw him live?

Les - I had heard some of his records but I really wasn't that exposed to all that made up George Benson. After seeing him in a small club up close doing mostly instrumental music. I was just blown away.

John - Let's talk about some of these guys and your relationship with them. Larry Carlton for instance, when you first heard him did you feel the connection right away?

Les - No doubt about it. The thing that caught me first was a solo on a Crusaders tune called "Whispering Pines" from an album called "Southern Comfort." It was a double album that came out in the mid seventies (1974). When I heard that solo right away I thought I would like to emulate that sound.

John - Yeah, that's the ultimate compliment when someone says in any profession that a piece of work inspired them to do that job.

Les - Absolutely.

John - Tell me about your first experience with Wes Montgomery?

Les - I guess after I became really familiar with George Benson it lead me to wanting to listen to where he got his sound. So that brought me to pay more attention to Wes. The stuff that I was familiar with originally which didn't really capture me was the more commercial stuff he did towards the end of his career. When I got more into it I got into the earlier phase where he was playing some Be Bop and really stretching out, obviously the octave style. He came up with that I don't know of anyone else back then who did it. It certainly played a big role in the sound that I was developing.

John - I also was exposed to latter cover commercial tunes and when I was later exposed to the Jazzier stuff I didn't recognize it was the same guitarist.

Les - Certainly, the earlier work that he had recorded was very sophisticated. He was the real deal, no question about it.

John - Tell me about your relationship with the Blues?

Les - Well, the first music I was exposed to was the early Rock'n Roll in the early sixties with the Beatles and Stones and after playing a lot of that music at a very young age I wanted to know where they got their sound from and it lead me directly to the Blues. When I was in college I actually did a term paper on the History of the Blues and did an in-depth study. I read every book I could find, bought tons of records and took a really hard listen to everything that had gone on. Everything from the Mississippi Delta Blues to Chicago Blues and I got to see a lot of the acts like Lightnin' Hopkins, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. It was a big part of my life in the early seventies.

John - Have you thought of writing a book on the Blues?

Les - It would be an interesting thing to do. I certainly have the background. It's something I should consider doing.

John - I know the fundamental structure of so much of music is in the Blues but why do you think so many people don't get it at all? They just don't like it.

Les - Harmonically it's pretty basic as far as the structure of the compositions but that's not where the real qualities lie. The quality is in the emotion that expressed through that music and what the people had to go through in their lives. The music that they played and sang about had a healing quality to it. I think it was somewhat a therapy for the artists to get it out. People who had their own struggles could also relate to it but some people don't really associate with that outlook. Those people just want to surround themselves with positive thoughts and maybe the Blues is a cry or complaint about life. I don't think the Blues artists wanted to portray it in that light but I think sometimes that how people perceive it.

John - I'm certainly not a big Blues fan but I admire the fact that they made something very positive out of something that was anything but.

Les - You Know I think a lot of people don't relate to the issues that the Blues artists had to struggle through.

John - So the Blues led you to Jazz or having a bigger appreciation for Jazz?

Les - From listening to the Blues I grew into exploring Jazz which is essentially a more complex version of the Blues. The structure is based on Blues progressions with some substitutions to make it more complicated and more interesting harmonically.

John - Primarily you moved to Florida for Schooling right?

Les - Right. My parents had moved here when I was still at the University of Montreal. I'd read about the University of Miami and all the great musicians that had been coming out of there like Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius so it seemed like a great thing and it wasn't too far from where my parents were living. I learnt a lot there, I wasn't there very long but it certainly had a big impact.

John - Where do you live now?

Les - I live in Tampa and I've been here two and a half years.

John - Lot's of Canadian acts have moved down south, Brian Hughes, Warren Hill. Has it been easier for you?

Les - Musically there are plenty of opportunities. There's a good scene here, tremendous talent so I'm able to network with some great players. There's great radio and great turnout for the shows and it's one of the best markets for Smooth Jazz in the country.

John - Are you getting good bites on radio in the U.S.?

Les - In selected markets. Some stations out of California have picked it up, I've done really well in Philadelphia and of course here in Tampa I've been on the air about twelve years now.

John - You were raised in Montreal right?

Les - Yeah I was born there and I moved to Miami in 1978.

John - Are you bilingual?

Les - Well I speak some french but I was raised in an english community and went to english schools. I have to say the communities were more polarized when I was growing up.

John - I was born in Montreal and spent my first seven years there but by the time we left in 1967 it was really polarized.

Les - Yeah it was a great place to grow up and there are so many cultures there and I consider myself really fortunate to have grown up there.

John - Did your parents move down because of retirement or something else?

Les - Well they didn't see much future with where the economy was at in the mid seventies and there were some opportunities in commercial real estate for my dad so they did very well for many years. My Mother passed away a few years ago but my dad has done very well in business. It worked out well he loves it here.

John - Did you find the University of Miami very challenging?

Les - It was a bit of a shock to the system. When I came out of school in Montreal I was near the top of my class. I certainly wasn't cocky but I had a certain confidence about me. When you begin school at the University of Miami you have to do an audition no matter what your background is and I got dressed down by the guitar teacher very quickly and he let me know in his terms that I had a long way to go to make it to their standards. It was a small guitar program I think they had thirty five players. I like a challenge so I went to work and I was practicing fifteen hours a day back then. I was scared out of my wits and it certainly was a good thing for me. I found though after speaking to a few others who have gone there that my experience was generally their approach with people to dress them down. Well you know maybe a kid comes from a high school where they're the top player and had some confidence but in Miami they want to make people understand that there's a much different standard at a school like that.

John - Well at least it's a good way to weed out the posers. (laughing)

Les - Yeah that's for sure. I was there a year in the graduate program and I played in a guitar ensemble and studied arranging and one of my classmates was T. Lavitz who did some work with Dixie Dregs

John - Have there ever been times when you thought I'm going to get a real job?

Les - Not during my school years at that time I was so enamored with playing music I wasn't thinking too much about the future. It probably irritated my father a lot (laughing). I was just so involved with what I wanted to do that I really didn't think that far ahead. Later on when I was playing professionally there were some struggles no doubt about that. I had some low points when I thought there most be something out there better than playing music full time.

John - Did you parents get what you were doing?

Les - I think they were concerned with respect to the fact that they thought I should have some stability in my life and I don't blame them for thinking that way. They were thinking what would be best for me in the long run. Maybe they realized I wasn't thinking long term. I was just thinking in the present and I loved playing music and I was committed to that. It is a challenge to hold on to a career in music. I did select another path at a certain point

John - What was it?

Les - I just had one too many disappointments with where my career was going. I had some opportunities to get into business but at the same time I made a conscious decision to stick with music and treat it as a career and spend as much time as possible not making any compromises. It wasn't a hobby and I took it very seriously. I continue to this day with that approach.

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