Latest / Caught on the Mike... / "Never Too Late..." with jazz musician Mitch Towne

Transcript

"Never Too Late..." with jazz musician Mitch Towne · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: You may have to see them around all kinds of grass and other midwebs cities to play with projects like 3029 for the J.R.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Robinson experience.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: I am very proud to welcome my friend Mitch Town to the show, and like a good record, I think you will enjoy this listen.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mic.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking with my friend Mitch Town.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Not only is he a fine organist, but he is an aficionado breaking down nickelback songs for you to hear uh his analysis on YouTube.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: How you doing, man?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm good.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: How are you, Mike?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Good, brother.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Good.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Good.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: What's going on?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I tell you what, I can guarantee uh, you know, knowing your podcast, that I'm the least athletic person you've ever had on your show.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, you know, I'm proud to be in that company.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Trust me, dude.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Trust me.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Trust me.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: The only sport that I went out for in high school was golf because you could eat and drink while you actually did the meet.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: There was no running involved, there were no laps.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, believe me.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uh kind of an indoor cat, as they say.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's no PTs or those in the uh from the military knows that as physical tests involved to be on this show.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I think we'll be good.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: We'll both be okay because I'm a little bit more out of shape than I normally am, but but we're getting there.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you were in New York the first week of May, weren't you?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Last week, actually, yes.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was out there doing a show at a club in in Brooklyn with a couple of, I mean, super fantastic musicians there.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then I brought them back here to Omaha.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: The reason the three of us got got hooked up, it's a drummer named Eric Alderson and an amazing keyboard player named Henry Hay, is Eric is actually from my hometown of Missouri Valley, Iowa, which, believe it or not, the little town of like 3,500 people in Iowa actually cranked out a few musicians there in a certain time period.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Henry Hay is a pianist who's actually from Sioux City originally, and he is a major New York cat.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's been the musical director for David Bowie and uh Rod Stewart and George Michael.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's an amazingly heavy cat.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the two of us were just talking a few months ago, and he said, Do you ever want to do a piano and organ thing?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Absolutely.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we hooked up a few shows and so did a couple like hometown shows here, and then went out and played in New York, or vice versa, time frame anyway.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was a pretty great experience to play with a guy like that.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: You you want to talk about uh being brought down to earth a little bit because he, you know, you can start feeling good about yourself, which you should as a musician, or as whatever you do, then you get him somebody at a different level, and it's like, okay, yeah, I got some work to do still.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's uh it's great actually.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Iron sharpens iron environment, I'm sure, for you.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: So how I first got to know you as a musician was, you know, probably 20 years ago, you were in a project called the Nines, and you guys are doing a reunion gig here before too long.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we were back then, you know, we were we were somewhat of an anachronism.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: We were, you know, a funk band in the late 90s when that was not the thing.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we were we were either too we I think we were too late or too early, you know what I mean, for whatever style of niche band we we were, because that was at the time when rap rock was a big thing, you know.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we would do these shows at the ranch bowl for you know Omaha listeners, they'll know exactly what that place was about.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it was we did not fit, but it was a great band.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it was what I wanted to do and what I was really into.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it was a you know, it was it was a really fun band that uh we had a good reputation around here, and uh, you know, that was uh that was a good time.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: You guys almost had residency at Travado's and uh the music box.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: We did, yeah.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: That was a really good time.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Great musicians.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're still we're still real close, you know.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, those are guys that I played with a considerable amount of my career, so we all know each other really well, and that's a special thing.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: As far as the the mainstream marketing, as I'm holding up air quotes with with a band like the nines, you you talked about the timing, whether you might have been too early or too late.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because you think about it, you know, what 2002 Maroon Five kind of blows up, right?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: But even they didn't hold on to that style of music for very long before you know pop culture took a hold and and shaped them.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: So what do you think it is that kind of you know keeps the funk in and out of the the cultural lexicon, if you will?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I a part of it is I think, and this is you know, you can say old guy talking here, but there's a certain level of musicianship.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now there are in there are I think pound for pound, skillful musicians, more skillful musicians in this day and age than there were 20, 30, 40 years ago.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: If for sheer numbers, there are great players everywhere you go.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there, I'm not one of those people that thinks, oh, you know, great music ended in the pick your favorite decade, you know, whatever decade you grew up in, the 80s, the 90s, best that was the best music.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, there's some amazing stuff being done now.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's just how there, you know, marketing is absolutely different.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you go back to, you know, the 80s, for instance, and you look at what was on pop radio then, it was literally a dartboard, man.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was like they threw everything against the wall, and some stuff stuck and some didn't.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd have, you know, you could listen to the radio and hear Dexies Midnight Runners into Prince, into Springsteen, into Journey, into, you know, into uh Madonna, I mean, into Duran Duran, into Asia.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everything was fair game.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: They threw everything out there now.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, radio is so homogenous and not only homogenous uh within the within a genre, but within even the radio stations, because they're all programmed out of the same place.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you're getting the same stuff no matter where you go.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think back in the more freewheeling days of radio when things were locally owned, you'd have a station that played some different stuff.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd have, you know, a station in you know LA that's that spun certain things, and now it's all the same, and there's just such a formula.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you see that in movies, you see that in it's it's it's not just music.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think you see that in literature.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like whatever sold before is gonna sell now, and that was always the case before, but now it's just really, I think they've got it down to such a science that it's really hard for anything fresh to break out into mainstream.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, all you got to do is dig a little bit.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: To the contrary, we have YouTube.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever you're into, if you're into uh uh folk klezmer music, you're gonna find that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're gonna find your group of people and you're gonna have that.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So there's kind of a two, there's two sides of it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's more stuff out there than we could ever be able to find.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: The hard thing is just finding it or having it certain things promoted a certain way.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a jazz musician, I'm a jazz musician, so I don't even know what I'm talking about.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mostly play jazz, but you know, yeah, anyway.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: I totally I totally agree with you on that.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's so weird because it's almost from a business perspective, you can take a step back, and the industry hasn't fully embraced what's working yet.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's they're still trying to fix what isn't broken, and you hit it.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna bring up the YouTube thing exactly.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: I find most of my new music off YouTube more than anything else.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: I just shut off the radio, and occasionally I'll find some stuff from streaming, but it really makes you wonder, and it's all hypothetical, like if the industry wouldn't have leaned into streaming and the online content 20 years earlier, would we be in a different place having a different conversation right now?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, music is no longer really a viable career.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's you're not gonna make it music anymore because the money's not there anymore.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: They I think the record companies missed the boat when it came to streaming.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Napster got ahead of them, Apple jumped in there.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying anything wrong with Apple, but I'm just saying it's you know, musicians are just uh it's not your it's not gonna be a real living anymore unless you I don't know, I don't even know how you do that, really, you know.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: But it it it's just a different world than it was 20 or 30 years ago when it comes to a band making it, you know, oh, we're gonna get signed, you know, like the like like the Boston song, sign the record company contract, you know, we got great expectations.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Even back then it was still a business, but there was a possibility that musicians were gonna make some money because they sold some records.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the only way for a musician to make money, a popular musician to make money now is on the road.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Doing tours.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's where they make their money, it's not on the record.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: I make that same analogy.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, whether you like his music or not, um, in the mid-90s, Dave Matthews, whenever he signed his record deal, he's like, I don't care about the getting the royalties off the actual uh product itself.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: I want more of the tour dollars, and he made himself millions doing that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: That was genius.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And see, and the record companies caught on and started doing those 360 deals.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So they get a so then they get a piece of everything.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: They figured out that, oh, we can't have the musicians making too much money.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: We need to take a piece of that too.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: Primary instrument is the organ.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: I play keyboards, but I focus on the ham and organ a bit because it's a bit of uh it's a specialty instrument.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people, I think they don't realize they know what the ham people are like, oh, you play the organ, what's you know, in church, you know.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But the ham and organ is one of the probably uh four major keyboard instruments in all of pop, rock, soul, jazz, gospel, you know, piano, organ, synthesizer, and maybe electric piano.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can those are the four, you know, so you've heard the organ your entire life, no matter what style of music you've heard, you know.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um there was something about it, you know, I like I said earlier, I come from a small farming community in Iowa, you know, so there wasn't um uh we didn't have a music program that pushed, you know, there were some good musicians that came out of Missouri Valley, and I was influenced by them.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they got me those older guys when I was like a junior in like junior high and like a freshman in high school, they were the ones that were turning me on to some music that you weren't hearing on the radio that you didn't know existed.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember vividly I was a freshman in high school, and I was uh waiting, I was waiting to uh for a ride home from choir practice, you know, and this cool senior that I knew, his name was Done Baber, and he had a Monte Carlo that had with the T-tops off, and it was a spring, it was a spring evening.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Hey, do you want to ride home?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, sure.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So here I am riding with this this cool senior, and he's playing this music, and I was like, What is that?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Oh, it's Tower of Power.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I was just like, This is the greatest thing I've ever heard in my life.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, little white boy from Iowa hearing this that music was like in me somewhere, and I was just like, that's the funkiest thing I've ever heard.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: I just felt cool listening to it.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Just being in a car that had Tower of Power playing made me feel like I was cooler than everybody else.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the main keyboard instrument was Chester Thompson playing the organ.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, I don't know what that this is, you know, this is way back before the internet, you know, I'm dating myself here, but you couldn't just go and find shit.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: The only stuff you could find when you were younger was stuff people told you about.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: I come from an era where if someone didn't say, Hey, uh, you know, check out uh Yes, or check out Emerson Lake and Palmer, or check out Tower of Power, I didn't know it existed.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I only had what was on the radio.
• 13:22
  unknown: Right.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was on Z92 or whatever, you know.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you'd hear something like, oh, that's cool.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: What's that?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but you couldn't find it.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really know anything about jazz until I got to college because nobody in Missouri Valley told me who Charlie Parker was or John Coltrane, right, or Monk, or Bill Evans, or I could go on and on.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I got into bait through Tower of Power, and then some of these older guys turned me on to Yes and Emerson Lincoln Palmer and Sticks and that kind of more progressive stuff.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, Mike, I was the coolest kid in school, right driving around listening to that shit, you know, while everybody I'm I'm cranking Emerson Lincoln Palmer, and everyone's looking at me like, what's wrong with you?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but uh the thread between a lot of those groups is the organ.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: There was something about the organ.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was a piano player, I played keyboard, I took you know piano lessons as a kid, and I had a really great teacher who taught me music theory and everything.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: But there was something about the organ, even though I never put my hands on one or knew how to do anything with it.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to find a synthesizer that had a sound sort of like that.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: But so then I went to college and I really started studying jazz.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I went to the University of Iowa and they had a really great music program.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: They still do now.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great school.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I studied jazz and stuff.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of getting around, I'm kind of giving you the background of how I ended up to where I am now, if that's okay.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you so it's sort of a journey.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I studied, I studied music and I was I was gonna move to New York because that's what everybody's supposed to do when you're a jazz musician, you know.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I will, and it's funny that I just got back from there, but I'll be straight up honest with you.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: I went, I visited there when I was in college to take some lessons and to and to visit my friend Eric, who had moved there from my hometown.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I hated the city, I didn't like it.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't for me, and I was sort of like an existential crisis for a young 21-year-old kid.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, well, this is what I thought I was gonna do with my life, but I don't really want to be here, you know.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I ended up staying around the area, joined some really good bands, and I toured the country a bit with a really great horn band called the Jailbreakers.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we did a lot of like funk and Tower of Power and James Brown stuff, and we played Western United States and played Vegas a bunch, you know, and I really kind of learned what I don't want to do.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what you spend a lot of your young life doing if you're halfway aware, is finding what you don't want to do.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people fall into exactly what they want to do when they're young, and I applaud them and I envy them, but I think a lot of us kind of just stumble from thing to thing, finding out what we do and don't want to do.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what I didn't want to do was play in a band that just did a bunch of covers.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like that's just not my I'm not gonna we're gonna do this better than James Brown did.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: So why are, you know, there's there's there's there's a ceiling to that, you know.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided I'm just gonna play original music, and that's that's what led me to the nines, and I played with those guys for a long time.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we get around to the 2000s, and I got married, and I had a stepson that I was raising, and so we're getting into my 30s there, and that's when I hit that wall that I think a lot of musicians and athletes and anybody from any field that when you get into life gets in the way.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I just sort of I never gave up the dream, so to speak, air quotes.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I just I was dealing with uh learning how to be married, you know, working a full-time job, raising a son, and music was still a thing, but it just kind of started to fall away.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was really dealing with that, I think emotionally and personally, like not wanting to admit that things weren't the way I wished they were, and not knowing really what to do to change that.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so that takes us up through that first part of the century.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we hit the 2010s or so.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: My wife had some serious health issues, so I was dealing with that.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, music had just taken a back seat, and I hated that.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to like look in the mirror and admit that, but I knew it was true.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so we get around to actually, it's really interesting that we're talking about this in May of 2022, good lord.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because in May of 2012, it's like I'm marking this month as 10 years from when I really decided to get serious again.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and what led to that was um, I was I was an organ player by then, but I was also playing piano.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: I played which I still do, I play all the keys, you know.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: But but um there was a really fabulous musician who uh lived in Omaha for a little while.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's a trombone player, his name was Marcus Lewis.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Marcus Lewis is one of the most talented musicians, composers I've ever known.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he got his, I knew him because he was in Omaha and he got his master's at UNO.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I knew him when when he was here, and after he left UNO, he ended up touring uh the world with Janelle Monet.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she's one of the top RB artists, right?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he moved to New York and was doing all that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he came back at Christmas time in 2011.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I saw him, I was like, hey, it's great to see you.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's he's just he's just one of the sweetest guys in the world.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, I would love to do some playing with you sometime.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Oh, well, I'm actually I'm putting out a record in a couple months, and I want to do a release show in Omaha in May.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um wanted to know if you could if if you'd want to play on it.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, absolutely, that'd be great.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple months later, he sends the music.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Mike, I gotta there's there's jazz, and then there's like modern stuff.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's you know, slang a dang, you know, standards and that kind of stuff, which is fabulous.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: But then the but then there's just like newer 20 to 21st century modern jazz that is just on another level harmonically and rhythmically.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was the hardest.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I put I pulled this music up on like, oh my god.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this is the hardest stuff I've ever had to try to play.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was just like, it was really intimidating.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought, you know what?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna I'm gonna buckle down, I'm gonna woodshed this as much as I can, because what here's the thing is uh I've really kind of fallen into this what I call uh and every city has this, your local good.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, every city's got their local guys that are good, and especially, you know, the bigger city you get, the better those guys are, you know, your local your local Minneapolis musicians are killer or your local cognition, but you get a city like Omaha or Denver or a place like that, you know, your local guys are good, but they're local good.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm not absolutely it's not a disrespect thing, but it's a I I didn't I realized that I was becoming local good and I didn't want to be that.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: I would rather, yeah.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: I make that same analogy about songwriters, like it's like it's like there's a difference between a good songwriter and a good musician.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they could be two totally different things.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, they are two too, they are two totally different things.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between a good performer and a good musician.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: There are people in bands that are great performers that aren't the great great industrially musicians, but there was this this this whole this whole local thing.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, I was by playing with Marcus, I was dipping my toe in not local good.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there was no call for this kind of music around here.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't played this kind of music because nobody was writing this kind of music around here, and I wasn't really exposed to it.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so Marcus was also bringing this really incredible young prodigy saxophone player with him named Adam Larson.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna be Marcus and Adam, trombone and sacks, a fabulous drummer from Omaha who moved to New York, who uh he's one of my guiding stars, a good old friend of mine named Dana Murray, who's a monster drummer who lives back here now.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's the real Oracle of Omaha, by the way.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone talks about Buffett.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Dana is the Oracle of Omaha because so many, ever since he came back to Omaha, so many young musicians have studied with him and gone off to done amazing things.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, anyway, and uh so I I shed as much as I could for this gig and I made it through the it was in May of 2012, and I made it through the gig.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: There were no train wrecks.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I made I played okay, and I maybe played better than I had my whole life just because I was so prepared for that.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: But it was just like I made it through, and that one gig made me go, okay.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: You have just proven that if you really work and really practice, because I hadn't been, like I had just kind of I practiced, but you know.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not with any real motivation or drive or focus.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I proved to myself that if I could practice and really do that, I could maybe I could get better.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I could prove I could get better.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So let's see what happens if I do that.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And on that gig, I played piano and I told Marcus, this was kind of like stepping out in faith, as it were.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I said, the next time you come through here, because I knew he was coming back, I said, let's do this with me playing organ.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And let me explain to you and to your listeners what's maybe the difference between playing organ and playing piano is.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm playing organ, I'm not only playing the lines and the comping and the chords, I'm also playing all the bass parts.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: With my left hand and my foot.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: So basically there's no bass player on the gig.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that I kind of equate playing organ to being a tightrope walker.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you go out, and because if if if I lose my spot when I'm playing piano, I can listen to the bass player.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can figure out where we are.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm playing organ, uh there's nobody to listen to but me.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like I got I it if I get off, we're getting off.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's not a good thing.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I told him, I was like, I want to do it on organ next time.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, okay.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have to take the piano parts and the bass parts and combine them and synthesize them into one solid part.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that was where my 10-year, you know, climb started.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Was I really got back in the woodshed, I practiced, I decided to really look in the mirror at my playing and rip it to shreds and go back to real solid basics and not be embarrassed about what I didn't know.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, we talk about that.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, you and I are in a chat group and we talk about imposter syndrome a lot.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a that's a big that you talk about imposter syndrome.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was the poster child for that.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's like every time I played well and somebody thought or thought I played well, I was like, well, I fooled them, you know, because I knew everything that I didn't know.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided, okay, now I've just got to break it down and go back to absolute basics and get stuff under my fingers that maybe I didn't have under them before.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that was where I really started rebuilding.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing, sir.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's it's funny, just to backtrack on one little point, you talked about the importance of the Hammond organ in um in music in general.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: I know there was a production trick that producer Howard Benson in particular did in the mid-2000s.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of modern rock and heavy metal albums, they will take a Hammond B3 and they will sync it up with the actual bass as a production trick to thicken up those bass trends.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: On some of the some of these metalhead kids' albums, and they have no idea.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure the classic cocaine riff has organ.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can hear the organ grinding under it.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's in there too, you know.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like but you know, but I grew up watching David Letterman and uh Paul Schaefer's right up there playing organ on everything, you know.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: That was something that was a very influential thing to me growing up and listening to Paul play the organ because it was such a great sound.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, I'm kind of filibustering here.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean to you're good, you're good, but but you know, so in that 10 years, so and there's another real important piece coming up within that 10 years, but in that time, it's like I decided, okay, you know, I I want to start to expand, you know, regionally.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I started to do, you know, I reached out to some people that I knew across the state, across Iowa, across the battle.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: I said, hey, if you ever I will drive anywhere to come play a jazz gig with you, you know, I'm playing Oregon now, you know.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I started to play in Des Moines and got over to Iowa City.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the people I was playing with in Des Moines, which surprisingly has a really nice jazz scene, beautiful jazz club there with some great players.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: One of the players that I was playing with there a lot, we hit it off really well, and he moved to Kansas City.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, You need to come down to Kansas City and play.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a big part of my development was getting into the Kansas City scene because Kansas City has a fantastic jazz.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was right around the time the jazz in Kansas City was really starting to explode again, and a lot of really good young players were there and still are.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's become like a destination city for jazz musicians that are moving to Kansas City because of such a great scene.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I was getting involved in that scene with another level of players then, you know, in the 2014, 15, 16, 17 time.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was driving down to Kansas City just about every other weekend or two or three times a month to hit at various clubs down there.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I met so many fabulous musicians and amazing drummers and amazing guitar players and sax players and everything.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So during that middle part of that 10 years is when I started to sort of expand out, you know, regionally.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And a big opportunity came in around when was this?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: 2015, I guess.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Was uh there's a famous producer named Terrace Martin.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Terrace Martin is a uh he's one of the big producers in hip-hop, actually.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Terrace produced Pimp a Butterfly, the Kenneth Lamar record.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he produced a bunch of stuff with Snoop Dogg and DJ Quick.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's got a resume like crazy.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, his father is an old school jazz musician from Omaha named Curly Martin.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: So around about 2015, Terrace came to Omaha to record a record.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they played he and his band that that he brought with him, which included uh one of the greatest drummers in the world.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: His name is uh Robert Sput Seawright.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's the drummer, he he was a drummer on the early Snarky Puppy stuff.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, if you've heard of Snarky Puppy, yeah.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sput's on that.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: But Sput came to play keyboards, and he's an amazing keyboard player.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, dude, stick to something, you know, stand in my neighborhood, man.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're too good, you know.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why, you know, don't be one of those guys who's so good at everything.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: But he was killing on keyboards, so they performed a show here in Omaha, and my group with Dana Murray and this great guitar player named Luke Polypnik, we opened up for them, and that got us connected with them.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Terrace was like, Man, we're gonna be recording this record all week.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Come on down and hang out at the studio.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm there.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I went down to the studio every day, and they were just writing the record in the studio, and his father was playing drums on it and everything.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Terrace is telling these amazing stories, and just it was just a really great hang.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: And at one point when I was there, Terrace is like, Mitch, go out and get on the organ.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta I got something I want you to play.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I went out there and I and I played what he told me to, and I played the section of this song.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it ended up on the record, and that record got nominated for a Grammy.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, all of a sudden I'm on a Grammy nominated record for best RB record, you know.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that fell into, you know, that came out of nowhere and happened, but didn't come out of nowhere because I I put myself in a position to be ready for it when it did happen by the rededication, the practicing, and all that.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I'm not giving myself a bunch of credit.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying I was ready for it when it happened because of the work that I'd been doing.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was a wonderful thing.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, some other crazy, crazy gigs came along.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I did some gigs with Eric Gales and uh with Mickey Thomas, the singer from Starship, you know, I mean, that kind of thing.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was like my career's been like a weird weaving of like, how did this happen and how'd I end up here?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and how did I end up on the on the stage at the at the uh at the Haymarket stadium in Lincoln playing for thousands of people with Eric Gales and you know, it's like how did this happen?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like it's just being available and getting getting my name out there, you know, and becoming because I tend to be, I like to focus as a side man, like I'm not a lead, I'm not, I'm not a songwriter per se.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna do open mic night and do my own stuff.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: I like to play with people, I like to be a side man.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: My heroes are the guys who were in Toto that were side men on thousands of records, you know.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the guys, the guys who played on all the Steely Dan records.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Steely Dan is my favorite rock band.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was all studio guys, you know.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of what I've wanted to fashion myself as.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I'll just finish up.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: So in that time, so then around about 2019, the Jewel opens, and the Jewel is this amazing jazz club here in Omaha, which it's one of the finest clubs in the country, bar none.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the owner basically told me when the place opened, he's like, Who do you want to play with?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: We will bring them in, and you can, you know, I want you to set up shows.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, all of a sudden, I was given a budget to play with some of these people that I'd all see some of these heavy New York jazz musicians that I'd always wanted to play with, you know, that I could set up the shows.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so now you want to talk about comparing yourself against the best.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: You call up somebody and say, hey, you know, here's do a weekend here, doing this, you know, and they come in and destroy the earth, and you're up there hanging on, you know, that's that was really where things really started to open up for me, was when the jewel opened and I was given that ability to start bringing in people.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that just further, you know, let people know that I'm here, that I exist, that there's somebody in Omaha that can do what I do, you know.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, it's just been so in that 10 years, man, it's just been a steady trend line up.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you think about a career in general, whether it be in music or anything, you have certain touch points where you know that you've turned a corner and you can't identify it.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: You can't say, okay, I can clearly identify that something big is gonna happen next, but I can't put my finger on it.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: So it gives you this sense of anticipation.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: You get that little knot in your stomach, and you're like, okay, what's the next biggest big thing around the corner?
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: One thing watching you from afar, and it sucks because every single one of your gigs gets booked on a weekend that I have my kids.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I still haven't made it to the jewel yet.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: We'll keep working on it.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: But but uh J.R.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: Robinson experience, the project you threw to me from afar, that was a big touch point in the past year.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're absolutely right.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of turned for you.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk a little bit about that.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, that you know, that ties into the pandemic.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because, okay, so we just said 2019, I'm starting to play with some cats, you know, I'm playing with some some of the big league jazz musicians, and things are just really playing with some heroes and people I've been listening to on records for years.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, wow, I'm playing with this guy.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this is crazy, you know.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh then the pandemic hits and the world shuts down.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, something that I learned about myself during that time is that uh I am driven to, like I said before, I'm not a solo artist, I'm just not that person.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: But what motivates me to get in the woodshed, what motivates me to practice is knowing that there are things coming that I have to be ready for.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love having really hard music for a gig in a couple months.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: So then I'm gonna shed that music and get that stuff under my fingers and be ready.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: So when that artist comes to town, I got their shit on lock, you know.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And because that's a that's a way of me respecting them.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: I respect them enough to work on their stuff and be ready with it.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell you what, man, that shit gets noticed because there are a lot of people that don't do that.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: And these guys travel all around, and when they actually get to a place where the musicians are ready, it means a lot to them.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, so the pandemic hits, all of a sudden, there are no gigs, and there's no possibilities of gigs.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like even before the pandemic, it's like, well, maybe I'm gonna go play New York.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've got this possible thing.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not in stone, it's not scheduled, but it might happen.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm driven by what might happen, you know.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there are no more mites.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is, you know, locked up.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, okay, well, I'm gonna try to be one of those people that now it's like, okay, I got all this time, we're just gonna shed and practice and work on all this stuff.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that lasted a couple weeks, you know, and I'm just playing golf on my phone.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I watched the last dance twice, you know, it's like, you know, it's like I just I was depressed.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so many musicians, it really helped to hear, to see Facebook posts by big-time musicians that I admire who were like, if you're depressed and not working and not shedding, everybody's like that.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're all feeling that way.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: The the artist I just played with, Henry Hay, this amazing keyboard player, he made a post like that midway through pandemic, and it meant a lot to me just to read that guys like that were feeling the same way.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: So uh midway around about September of 2020, I started to think it's like, okay, the world can't stay shut down forever.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is going to open up.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: Will the jewel still be there?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, will the what's it gonna look like?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I started to think, okay, what do I what do I want to be doing?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want to have coming up?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like if now's the time to think about that stuff.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: So now, flashback to about 2017 or 18, I had met uh there was uh this drummer named J.R.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that name is maybe not a household name, but I guarantee you that everybody listening to your podcast knows his playing because he's one of the most recorded drummers of all time.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever heard a little tune called Rock With You by Michael Jackson, that's him on drums.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's J.R., the most famous one-bar drum fill in history is J.R.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's the drummer on that entire record.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's the drummer on uh All Night Long by Lionel Ritchie and uh uh Higher Love by Steve Winwood and Greatest Love of All by uh uh uh Whitney Houston.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the guy's resume is ridiculous.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: He was Quincy Jones's go-to drummer in the 80s, and now he's David Foster's go-to drummer.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: The guy is on so many hit records, it's insane.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: I had met him, he was here playing at the Holland Center for a function with David Foster that uh Reba McIntyre was singing on.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Reba McIntyre's manager at the time is a good friend of mine.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: She's from Omaha and she was Reba's manager, and she'd said, Hey, I got tickets to this event.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, do you want to come?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be sort of a variety show thing, but I got a ticket.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, absolutely, I'll go see David Foster.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And like Nathan East was the bass player at this show.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this was like, yeah, this is like heavy hitters, right?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: These are I'm like, holy shit, that's J.R.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson on drums.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a variety show kind of thing.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was, you know, it was it was what it was.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: But after the show, I'm hanging out on stage waiting for my friend Carolyn.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: I look over and there's J.R.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson, who's actually from Creston, Iowa, believe it or not.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: I know, right?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: I went to college there.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's from Creston, Iowa.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: The one with the most recorded drummers of all time is from Creston, Iowa.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's over there, it's kind of tearing down the drum kit.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I walked over and I said, J.R.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Do you know who I am?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hell yes, I know who you are.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we just we hit, we just had a nice conversation, real nice guy.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he gave me his business card.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, just because he was being friendly.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: What am I ever going to call J.R.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson for?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's one of the one of the cats, right?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so fast forward to 2020.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm watching the Quincy Jones documentary on Netflix.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, J.R.'s in it.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh wow, hey, that's J.R.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've been using his card as a bookmark for three years.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whenever I read a book, I got J.R.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson's card.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh wow, J.R.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson, yeah, cool.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I watched the David Foster documentary.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Did J.R.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson's in the David Foster documentary?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you know, I wonder, since he's got local ties, I wonder if I tried to this this this idea just evolved in my head.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: What if I tried to put together a tribute to J.R.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson featuring J.R.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson and do it at the jewel, and I could put together a band, because there are some killer musicians around here that can hang.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I knew the perfect singer because you know, J.R.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: was in Rufus with Shaka Khan, you know, play with Whitney.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you got to add somebody who can cut that shit, right?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I know Allison Nash, the perfect singer for that.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, what's the worst this guy can say?
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've got his contact information.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's the worst this guy can say?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, or he can never respond to me.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I pitched, I wrote up an uh email pitch and I said, Hey, you know, you don't remember meeting me, but I got this is how I got your information.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: I met you in Omaha.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: I pitched this idea.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Believe it or not, I can put together a crack band.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to do a tribute to you doing all the songs that you made famous.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think we could it could be a hit, I think it could be great.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Send off the email, don't hear anything.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: A couple weeks, I I let a you know, a week or so ago.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: I call, I have his number.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: I call leaving a voicemail.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, this Mitch Town, I sent you an email, blah, blah, blah.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, well, you know, I I I took a shot, whatever.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: About a month later, I thought, you know what?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna reach out one more time.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: I hit him with another email.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: He sends back this really short message.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: I like this idea.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: We got to wait for a vaccine.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hit me in a couple months.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, will do.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I wait until the first of the year when people start to talk about vaccine.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we end up getting on the phone.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's the coolest guy.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's just really gregarious and really interested in this idea.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I had sent him some clips of me playing, you know, so he knew that I at least knew what I was doing.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: I could get around on my instrument, you know.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I told him I was like, I can put together this great band, and he was like, send me clips of everybody playing, you know.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I sent him clips of well, of Allison singing and Miles Jasnowski, the guitar player from Lincoln, and Jacob Sorensen on bass and David Hawkins on percussion.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he got so we got his manager involved talking to the Jewel about the fee and everything, and all this time, he and I start talking about assembling the set list and what to do.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, Mike, and this is what I told people when the show finally came together in December.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: We sold out the Jewel, we sold out two shows, he did a drum clinic.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of the greatest nights of my life.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: See, guys like guys like J.R.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson aren't household names, but all the music that you love doesn't exist without him, without guys like that, without guitar players like with those studio guys, the bass players.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: Michael didn't play any instruments, Whitney didn't play.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like these guys made these records.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: So for someone like me, this guy's a this guy's a hero.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's a superhero, you know, and so to just touch the hem of the garment of someone who was that connected in the industry, who was Quincy Jones's call, his right-hand drummer, the guy on all his shit, and the guy that played on all this stuff was played with Herbie Hancock.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: He played with everybody, you know.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was, and so JR comes to town, we have one rehearsal, everybody showed up knowing their shit.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: He was he was over the moon.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: He was absolutely thrilled with the whole thing.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, he starts calling me his musical director.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm J.R.'s musical director for the J.R.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson experience.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to tour this, he wants to get this on the road, hit, you know, do this in clubs around the country.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: So all of a sudden, once again, I'm in a different, you know, plateau now.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've reached a different spot because now all of a sudden I'm playing with this guy.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: And just to even say to some people in the industry, oh yeah, I, you know, work with J.R.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson, oh, okay.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like this whole 10 years has been adding to my resume and eliminating the shared the stage with entries, you know, you actually having played with X, Y, and Z, you know.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, the J.R.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson thing.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so did so uh in July, I'm going out to LA, and he and I and this uh other really hot new session cat are gonna make uh like a jazz funk record.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's awesome!
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're so that's what I'm pointing towards now.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm writing music for that, and uh yeah, the J.R.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson thing, but but you're right, that was that was one of those points you go, because it's the first time maybe in my career that I had an idea and saw it all the way through to fruition, you know.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not patting myself on the back, but it's just like it's good to take notes sometimes to of what you've done so you can go, okay, yeah, I'm capable of doing something like that.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we both have been a part of projects that have released albums before.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing that I liken it to is the anticipation and a and the fatigue that comes after releasing an album.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: You kind of drop that album and you're like, oh shit, what am I gonna do next?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know where the next step is, but there's that that air of excitement that's kind of just flowing through it.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: And watching you from afar, it's only been six months.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's May.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: The J.R.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: Robinson gig happened in December.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: The the opportunities I've seen you earn, and I use the word earn because they are very well deserved, is a byproduct of the uh from where I my vantage point of this one experience.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a spark to fight.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Moment that I makes me as a friend and as a third party observer really excited for you.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I appreciate that.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, you know, it's one of those things that's like, and especially coming out of the pandemic, man.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, yeah, I we I, you know, I needed something like that, something to really focus on when the world was still slowly opening up.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had a lot of other gigs and a lot of jazz gigs and stuff and doing that.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: But that was one that I was like, okay, where, you know, I put everything on hold for like a month and a half just to shed his music, you know.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I was very proud of the musicians that I hired for this because they all fucking brought it.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Alice, when I told JR, I was like, I got a singer who can sing with the Whitney and Chaka stuff.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: And his reaction was, really?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm like, trust me.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: And she brought down the house.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: She did uh, you know, I'll all I will always love you.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the crowd, I mean, there were people in tears.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember grabbing the mic, and I turned to JR and I said, Hey, Jr.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: Remember when I told you I I had a singer who could cut all that stuff?
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Told you so.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and he's laughing.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: The crowd, the crowd's laughing and cheering, you know, and he's laughing.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, You did, you told me.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she nailed it.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was so proud of her.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was so proud of Miles and Jacob and David.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody, because that's the thing, Mike.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: People, when you're in a smaller market like Omaha, it's easy to half-ass things.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: I did it for fucking years, you know, until I finally decided I didn't want to half-ass it anymore.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I wanted to really focus on.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there's something else I wanted to get in here.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: A big important part of that 10 years, about midway through, about five years ago, I started seeing a therapist.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was the whole imposter syndrome and the self-hatred and loathing that a musician can have about their own playing, uh, especially when you're playing jazz and playing that kind of stuff, where you can't hide your deficiencies.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: And no matter, it's like I just I finally saw a therapist because my wife encouraged me to, and I'm like, what's a therapist gonna tell me?
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm one of those people that kind of I feel like I know my own bullshit.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I know when I'm bullshitting, so it's like, well, if I know when I'm bullshitting, it's like, what's she gonna tell me?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm full of shit when it comes to X, Y, and Z.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: But man, she dug stuff out of there that have absolutely changed my ability to just enjoy what I'm doing and not just hate myself, you know.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that sounds dramatic, but that really is sort of what it is.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: You like you hear yourself play, like, oh god, this is the worst thing I've ever heard.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Turn it off.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: You hate yourself, you know, and you it's the ability to make a mistake and keep going.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I will hear my favorite musicians, people I worship, you can hear when they make a mistake.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'll be hearing a solo, like, oh, he didn't mean to do that, and then he goes on and just destroys the next four minutes.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how I couldn't figure out because I'd make a mistake and I'd be like, you know, 12 bars ahead, still thinking about the mistake that happened 12 bars ago.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, she really helped get release that and get that out of me.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of what's happened within that subsequent five years has been a direct result of having somebody help me dig out some of those things.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a firm believer.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you can find, you know, how do you find a good therapist?
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's something that's hard to answer.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just search good therapist, you know.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can find one, man, they're worth their weight in gold.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's clearly paying off, my friend.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: This is this has been amazing.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I I'm so glad to know you.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm so glad to call you a friend.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um your story is excellent.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: I hope everybody that's listened to this takes a little bit something from it.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: Go follow Mitch.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: Look up Trio 29 on Facebook, give them a follow.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: Give the nines a follow on Facebook, give the jewel a follow on Facebook.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: Pay attention to upcoming shows if you're from the Omaha area or within driving distance.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, go check out a show at The Jewel because honestly, Omaha didn't have something like that just a few years ago.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, in my entire time here, it's never had something like the Jewel.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it and it's something I always wanted.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: Shit, I'm I mean, I'm remarried now, but when I was a single guy, that's probably where I'm like.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that would have been your seen here all the time.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say one more thing.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say one more thing to close this off, is that I think what I what I want to really get across is something that that I learned is that it's not too late for what you want to do.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, I was in my 40s when I really decided to get serious again.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's people in their 20s, in their teens that play better than I do and to just destroy.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it took me, my journey was to get to a point where I had to go, okay, I'm gonna, as our friend, as our friend John says, bet on yourself.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you want to, I've decided I'm gonna bet on myself and see if I can get better.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's not too late.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you're in your 40s and you want to play in the NBA, that's probably too late.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, there are certain there are a lot of things in your life that aren't too late to really pursue, and you don't know where it's gonna lead to.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that it was gonna lead to me 10 years later going to play in in New York and then going to record in LA.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was a pipe dream.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's that shit was not possible then.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I had but I decided I'm gonna see what happens, and here we are.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I got plenty of ways to go too, you know.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_02: We all do, we all do, we got a whole life ahead of us.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: Man, thank you very much.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: The world's a better place with you and it, my friend.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Mike.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_02: I once again want to thank my friend Mitch for joining me on the show today.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you are not giving him a follow on social media, please do so right now.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: Follow his project, Trio 29, the nines.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: Follow the jewel.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: They are a great venue in Omaha, Nebraska.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: Check them out.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: Mitch promotes a lot of shows there.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of hard work goes into that.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure you are giving Caught on the Mike a follow on all forms of social media: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, wherever you can.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: You can also visit me at www.cotonTheMic.com.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: I always appreciate the five-star review on the Apple Podcast app.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_02: And now Spotify has a review option as well.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: Give me five stars there.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: This has been Caught on the Mike with Michael Clark.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Michael Clark.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, thank you.