arts & life

mu s i c
on t h e cover

Groove Is In
The Heart

Barbara Lewis | Contributing Writer
Brett Mountain | Photographer

Jon Liebman

has spent his life

following his passion

for music — and

would-be musicians

are about to benefit

from it even more .

38 July 21 • 2016

H

e’s performed around the
world with famous musicians
and groups, including Cleo
Laine, Eartha Kitt, Julio Iglesias, the
Ink Spots and the Fifth Dimension.
He’s played in the pit for Broadway
musicals, in auditoriums from
Madison Square Garden to Tokyo’s
Suntory Hall, and in bullrings in
Central America. He’s a past inductee
into Crain’s Detroit Business 40 Under
40, he’s been the top administrator
for a respected Michigan trade school
and more than 100,000 people have
learned to play bass from him. And
that number is about to multiply.
Now Jonathan Liebman is dedicat-
ing his love of music and his business
acumen to building an online music
empire.
He recently left his position as
chairman and CEO of the Specs
Howard School of Media Arts, the
Southfield school founded by his
father in 1970, to work full time for
his Notehead Media Group, which
develops resources and instructional
materials for musicians.
A love of music is part of his heri-
tage. His father, Jerry Liebman — who
took the name of Specs Howard in
1956 when he started working as a
rock-and-roll radio disc jockey — fre-
quently brought his children to per-
formances of the groups whose hits he
played on air. Liebman, 56, says seeing
the Beatles live in concert at age 6 was
a profound experience.
Growing up in Southfield, the
Liebman children (Jonathan is the
youngest of four) all took piano lessons,
and “there always seemed to be a lot of
guitars around the house,” he said.
Liebman took up guitar as a student
at Southfield High (after attending
Hillel and Akiva day schools as a child),
then switched to bass. “There’s no
shortage of guitar players; good bass
players always find work,” he said. He
plays both electric and stand-up bass.
In the 1970s, he and his brother,
Marty, played in a Jewish folk-rock
band that performed at parties all over
the U.S. and Canada, including conven-
tions for Jewish youth organizations.
He began his studies at Wayne
State University in classical bass but
finished as the first graduate of the
school’s then-new jazz program.
While studying for a master’s degree
in jazz at the University of Miami, he
traveled widely throughout the U.S.
and Central and South America, play-
ing with numerous well-known bands
and soloists.

