Trumpet player / composer / bandleader Adam O’Farrill on belonging to a rich musical legacy, how video games, literature and most of all the films of PT Anderson have informed his work, the hazy lines around labels and categories, the importance of making space for other musicians to support one another, and how he strives to remove “the external” from his playing.
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Trumpet player and singer Benny Benack III on “the relentless commitment of playing trumpet”, the value of stagecraft, jam session etiquette, keeping old songs fresh, why he’s sometimes accused of being “too entertaining”, how come he takes his trumpet on dates, and what he calls “the elephant in the room.”
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Guitarist Lionel Loueke on growing up in Benin, discovering the guitar and eventually jazz by way of a George Benson record, making his way out of Africa, through France, to America, finding his voice and his style, how he sees his contribution as a teacher, and much more.
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Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist producer/composer Tyler Duncan on “just how rich the world sounds”, how producing a project is like “being the surrogate parent” of the music, and how when it comes to making pop music, “You can’t mold yourself to a moving target.” Plus, more Vulfpeck origin stories.
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Advice from friends and family ranging in age from 10 to 93 about how to stay young, what makes a meaningful life, ambition, desire, fear, success and music.
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Martin Sexton on his new release (2020 Vision), his origin story, the musical journey that he’s been on now for over 30 years, the tension between art and mortgage payments, how "people connect to honesty", The American Dream, and how songs, like produce, grow naturally, as he says it, “out of shit.”
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Mike Errico on his personal story, as well as his new book, Music, Lyrics, and Life: A Field Guide for the Advancing Songwriter. In our talk we considered such questions as “what is a song?”, what is means to make something non trivial and undeniable, the important distinction between how things act versus what they are, the fallacy of Art, the search for timelessness, what is melodic math, and what do Ani DiFranco, The Beatles, Billie Eilish, or McDonalds have to do with any of it.
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Madison McFerrin calls herself a soul singer because she sings the music of the soul. She says “I originally thought I was just going to be an artist who showed up… but if you don’t adjust now you’re going to fall behind. The music industry is changing more rapidly than pretty much any other industry.”
In this bonus episode, actor, author, poet, director, screenwriter, narrator of films, and Zen Buddhist priest Peter Coyote talks about Buddhism, the "JewBu" phenomenon, the distinction between suffering and affliction, the limitations of language, the True Self, why it's so difficult to speak about attachment, the creative process, and his newfound passion for poetry.
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Singer songwriter hairdresser amateur photographer schtick enthusiast Monica Martin talks about discovering her musical talent in her late teens, what it means to be “Wisconsin sober”, the complex and delicate dynamics of her first band Phox, her mental health struggles, why it’s so expensive to be poor, the many ways that she has had to integrate in her life, staying in bed all day, the influence of Fiona Apple and Billie Holiday on her music, working with James Blake, Vulfpeck, Scary Pockets and how being a hairdresser is similar to being a therapist (but much less well paid).
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“Legendary” drummer Nate Smith on the technical, emotional, strategic, mystical, unpredictable aspects to music and a life in music, how where you come from affects how you sound, the value and values of great leadership, the influence of other drummer-bandleaders on his conception, what he learned from working with Dave Holland, Chris Potter, Brittany Howard, Fearless Flyers, Betty Carter and Jose James, and what the internet taught him about his own playing.
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Family musicians Dan + Claudia Zanes on their new record, and their new life in Baltimore, what they see as their responsibility as folk singers, artists and advocates, what they describe as the “racial pandemic in America”, how to practice productive antiracism, coming from “two different worlds”, the work-life balance in a creative partnership, and what artisanal soaps have to do with any of it.
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Pianist Joe Alterman on his new record The Upside of Down, southern charm, “finding in jazz and black music what [he] had tried to find in Synagogue,” tipping the doorman, being born 50 years too late, playing for regular people, using adversity as an opportunity, what he learned from his friendships with Ramsey Lewis, Les McCann, Nat Hentoff, and Ahmad Jamal.
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Singer Antwaun Stanley on walking the line between spiritual and secular music, managing the responsibility to his fans and his own desire to explore, how he sees his career as “one giant experiment” and “a constant process of discovery”, his new EP Ascension, and his experiences singing in Vulfpeck.
For the third year in a row, I talked to my dad, musician/producer/journalist/philosopher Ben Sidran in honor of his birthday. This time he’s turning 78, and we consider the “buddhist roots of jazz”, joy and pain, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, the final recordings of Lester Young’s, saxophonist Willis Jackson’s 1978 album Bar Wars, drummer Nate Smith’s latest record, how you know when you’re old, and the Baal Shem Tov.
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Jon Lampley knows how to “get in where you fit in.” He’s been doing it since he was a boy in an Ohio suburb, spending his week as “the only black kid at school” and his Sundays at Apostolic church in Akron, learning to play gospel music and call the spirit down. We spoke recently about growing up in two worlds, learning to play “unnecessarily soulful melodies” and call on the deep well of musical emotion that he learned in church, what he looks for in a collaborator and why he thinks he gets called so much, how he practices and prepares, and why “music is the vehicle.”
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Drummer Michael Bland on his early development in Minneapolis, the “guilt by association” of working with Prince, getting the gig, keeping the gig, losing the gig, recovering from the gig, confronting racial politics in Minneapolis, playing music with “endless potential”, his first time flying on an airplane, keeping the flame lit on local music, and much more.
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Philip Lassiter unravels his journey starting out a preacher’s son in Mobile, Alabama to the top of the mountain as one of the first call horn arrangers and trumpet players for top notch musicians (including Prince, Ariana Grande, Kirk Franklin, Timbaland, Roberta Flack, Jill Scott, Anderson. Paak, Queen Latifa, Al Jarreau, Fred Hammond, The Isley Brothers, and many more). Why does he get called so much? “People ask me how did you get this gig or that gig. I always tell them, ‘I didn’t get the gig. The gig got me.’”
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Guitarist Julian Lage on his new record, Squint (his first on Blue Note), how he handled youthful exceptionalism (he was a child prodigy), the connection between the artist and the audience, his philosophy of record making, and how he thinks about notes as having the weight of speech. He says, “I want it to feel like I’m talking to you when I play.”
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Singer-composer Michael Mayo on managing his relationship with social media, which he describes as finding the “balance between staying sane and being seen”, the subtle space between practice and performance, live looping, bi erasure, the “syllables discussion” in jazz singing, generational trauma, his new record Bones, discernment, and living a life authentically without labels.
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