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Kris Tiner: From Prodigy to Professor - Still Touring and Teaching · San Joaquin Sound

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  You're listening to the San Joaquin Sound Podcast,
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  the podcast about music in Bakersfield and the
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  surrounding valley. I'm your host, AJ Rodriguez.
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  For this episode, I interviewed Kris Tiner.
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  He's a world -class trumpet player. He's had
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  longtime collaborations with Mike Begetta in
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  Tin Bag and also with pianist Kathleen Pineda.
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  He's played in upwards of 100 different groups,
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  including the Empty Cage Quartet, Wooden People,
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  Psychic Temple, Evil Live, Garden of Souls, and
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  Vinnie Golia's Jazz for Models. Chris Tiner is
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  the director of the Downbeat Award -winning jazz
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  program at BC. He's played on more than 100 recordings
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  and played concerts all throughout Bakersfield
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  and toured all over the world. He's worked tirelessly
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  for decades to build up the jazz scene in Bakersfield.
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  I'm excited to talk about Wasco. I like talking
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  about all these sister towns that are right near
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  Bakersfield. My dad was from Delano, and you
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  grew up in Wasco, which is 30 minutes outside
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  Bakersfield. You grew up in a musical family,
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  right? My dad was a drum major in high school,
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  and he played trumpet and trombone. He was the
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  one that suggested me to play trumpet as my first
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  instrument, and he was the one that sat down
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  with me and showed me how to kind of push the
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  valves down in the right sequence and to get
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  the embouchure together. But, yeah, my grandmother,
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  my dad's mother, was a church musician, and I
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  just remember my earliest memories are her singing
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  hymns, and she played piano a little bit. And
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  she had an upright piano at her house that we
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  always used to kind of bang around on. And, um,
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  her sister, uh, was a little bit of a black sheep
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  in the family. Nobody really knows a whole lot
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  about her, but her sister was named Mary Snyder
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  and she was a country singer and she toured around
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  with different honky tonk bands. And I've seen
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  some amazing pictures of her, like kind of publicity
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  type shots. Um, and I haven't been able to uncover
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  anything about her. Maybe, maybe you will, you
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  know, you're a better researcher than I am. Yeah.
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  That sounds fun to look up. Yeah. But yeah. And
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  then their parents, so the, the, the last name
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  was Snyder. This is my, grandmother's family
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  on my father's side they were like bluegrass
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  musicians and they you know they not professional
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  but they you know they were like family gatherings
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  and they would all get together and play string
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  instruments and sing hymns and like bluegrass
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  kind of folk music so you know I grew up with
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  those kind of stories and both my parents really
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  loved music and you know they They met each other
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  at a Santana concert. That's cool. They were
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  childhood acquaintances, but they met each other
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  and started dating and went to all these kind
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  of classic rock concerts in the early 70s. And
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  my dad loved Jimi Hendrix. My dad was there when
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  Hendrix played the convention center in Bakersfield.
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  Oh, that's so cool. So my dad was always jamming
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  on the guitar after work and stuff like that.
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  That's cool. Did he play in a band? There was
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  a couple things. Man, there were four brothers
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  and sisters, so two brothers and two sisters
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  in my dad's family. And my dad and his brother
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  were both musicians. His brother was a bass player
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  and record collector. I remember my uncle Daryl,
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  he was always bringing me vinyl records. He would
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  go, like, check out storage units and yard sales,
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  and he would bring me, like, stacks of Miles
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  Davis records and stuff when I was in high school.
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  And they had, I think, a couple things that they
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  played in together when they were in high school.
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  And my aunt, both of my aunts on that side were
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  church musicians. And my Aunt Evie, who lives
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  in Florida, was a pianist. So, I mean, they were
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  always just always involved in music, everybody
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  on that side of the family. Yeah. And so what
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  music did your parents share with you when they
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  were like, hey, listen to this? Well, you know,
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  in their record collection, which I eventually
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  got a hold of, you know, my mom was into blues
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  like B .B. King. She had like Curtis Mayfield
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  and a lot of stuff like that. She still is. I
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  mean, she goes out to hear music. She lives here
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  in Bakersfield nearby and she's out almost every
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  night of the week checking something out. She
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  was always at the Crystal Palace, you know, and
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  she comes to everything I do. She's like my number
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  one fan. My dad was into Jimi Hendrix. That was
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  his guy on the guitar and blue cheer, you know,
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  like all the sort of early 70s classic rock.
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  Yeah. And, you know, he was aware of a lot of
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  jazz because they had like a stage band at Wasco
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  High School that all my aunts and uncles played
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  in when they went through there. And a band director
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  out there in the 70s whose name was. Mr. Bangs.
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  And I got to meet him. He was substitute teaching
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  when I was in high school a little bit. So he
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  would, he found out who I was and he, he remembered
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  my parents. And so he would always give me recommendations
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  on, uh, jazz artists to listen to and stuff like
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  that. So, you know, there was a, there wasn't
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  much of a jazz concert scene in Wasco, but through
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  the high school music program, there was an awareness
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  of it. And, you know, I know that people were
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  like putting bands together and playing parties
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  and just that kind of low key stuff, you know.
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  What about the Muppets? Were they an influence
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  on you? Oh man. I mean, I remember seeing Dizzy
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  Gillespie on the Muppet Show as a kid, long before
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  I ever picked up a trumpet. Sesame Street, you
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  know, there was such hip 70s fusion music in
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  those Sesame Street episodes, and Mr. Rogers
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  was my favorite. And of course, every episode
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  of Mr. Rogers is underscored with this piano.
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  Trio, jazz trio music. The Mr. Rogers Show had
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  a pianist named Johnny Costa who underscored
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  every episode with just this brilliant improvisational
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  piano music. And it was just like magical when
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  you're a kid watching that. And then on the ins
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  and outs of that show, between scenes, they would
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  cut to his piano trio. Charlie Brown, there was
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  so much great just jazz. music featured in these
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  programs that we had as kids growing up in the,
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  in the eighties, you know, I was born in 77.
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  So like all that early eighties TV programming.
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  And, um, you know, I became interested in jazz
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  much later, like, uh, 12 or 13 years old. But
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  at some point I went back and saw some, some
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  old Sesame street episodes and Mr. Rogers episodes
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  and realized like, this is the, this is like
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  the comfort food, you know, equivalent of, for
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  me of music is just hearing like jazz piano trio.
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  It reminded me of, just these blissful childhood
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  moments, you know? Yeah. So maybe that has something
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  to do with the love I have for this music because
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  it goes way back. I read that you studied with
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  Miriam Grisso. That was your first teacher, right?
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  She was the band director at Thomas Jefferson
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  Junior High and also at Palm Avenue Middle School
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  where I went to middle school. So I started in
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  fourth grade with her as my teacher. Wow. So
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  what was she like as a teacher? Very strict and
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  very stern. The students, a lot of them were
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  scared of her, but she was very much focused
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  on the successful performance of the music and
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  instilled in us quite a work ethic that I think
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  was, that stuck with me. And she also encouraged
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  me to explore and find. jazz artist you know
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  I was in seventh grade when I started listening
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  to like Louis Armstrong records and things like
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  that and so I went to her and she she gave me
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  a lot of suggestions of what to listen to and
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  she gave me an opportunity to play a solo piece
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  called Blues in the Night all right so like she
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  would take her top students to the KCMEA Solo
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  and Ensemble Festival and usually we were performing
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  classical pieces my first time i did it i was
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  uh i played like a mozart piece with and she
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  played piano behind me um in eighth grade though
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  uh i told her i would love to play something
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  that's a little bit more kind of swinging a little
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  more jazz oriented so she had this arrangement
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  of blues in the night and um i found a local
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  pianist uh named bob ellis uh who was you know
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  capable of like playing that piano part and improvising
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  a little bit and that was like the first time
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  i got to play anything that felt like jazz. I
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  wasn't really improvising much, maybe just putting
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  a couple of embellishing notes here and there.
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  But I took that to the Solo and Ensemble Festival
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  in eighth grade, and all the other kids were
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  playing classical pieces, and I played this sort
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  of bluesy, swinging version of Blues in the Night,
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  which I had really learned off of a Louis Armstrong
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  record. He sings it with Oscar Peterson's band
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  on a record called Louis Armstrong and Oscar
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  Peterson, which I had checked out from the Wasco
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  Public Library. And that was my first real saturation
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  experience of a jazz album. That was really the
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  first jazz album to really... I mean, it changed
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  my life. That record changed my life. But this
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  performance changed my life. I got a scholarship,
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  and they sent me a check to be put towards private
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  lessons. And I used that money to pay for my
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  first private trumpet lessons. with a guy named
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  Rob Martens. He had just come into town as the
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  high school band director at Wasco High, and
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  he was a trumpet player, had a master's degree
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  in trumpet performance. So with him, I got to
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  start working on the trumpet proper, the trumpet
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  methods like the Clark book, and we started working
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  on some classical trumpet stuff. So I started
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  to shape up my technique because of that. I guess
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  I never thought about that, but when you're in
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  high school and you're in the band, your teacher
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  isn't always the master of your specific instrument.
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  Right. So that's something cool to have that,
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  yeah. Yeah, Miss Grissa was a flute player. You
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  know, the band directors have to take pedagogy
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  classes so they can play every instrument, at
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  least at the level that they're teaching it.
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  But yeah, for me to have those private lessons
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  where I'm sitting down with someone with a degree
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  in trumpet, you know, gave me a chance to take
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  it a lot further. Tell me about the time. When
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  you were a sophomore in high school and you went
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  to the North High Jazz Festival. That was another
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  life changing experience. I had been playing
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  with the jazz band at Wasco High School now starting
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  freshman year. And that was like for me, that
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  was the first experience I had playing in a band
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  playing jazz. I had that solo experience playing
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  the blues in the night earlier. That was like
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  my dreams were coming true, being able to play
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  this music and improvise and experiment and kind
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  of figure out how to play a solo over chord changes
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  and stuff like that. Man, I've got to get this
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  straight. Give me a second to remember this.
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  No rush, yeah. Yeah, Mr. Martins took the band
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  my sophomore year to the North High Jazz Festival,
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  and we played in their outdoor amphitheater.
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  And I have a memory of... We were getting ready
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  to play a song, and I don't remember what song
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  it was, but a huge gust of wind came just as
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  I was about to play my solo. And it blew the
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  music off of my stand and way up in the air and
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  over the back row of seats in the amphitheater.
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  So I'm watching my music just disappear from
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  sight as I'm about to play my solo. And so I
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  truly had to improvise at that moment. and let
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  go of like the scales and the chords that were
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  on the sheet and just like go from what I knew.
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  And I remember that being like, okay, here we
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  go, you know, like kind of experience. And I
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  remember like things working out great. I played
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  like a great solo and it was like a really inspiring
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  moment. But at some point after that performance,
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  I got a phone call from Dr. Doug Davis, who was
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  the... jazz director at CSUB, CSU Bakersfield.
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  He wanted to offer me an opportunity to come
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  to Cal State and play with the Combos and maybe
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  eventually the big band there. For me, that was
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  like getting called up to the big leagues, you
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  know, because Doug had been one of the clinicians
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  at this festival and he had heard our performance
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  and, you know, he was recruiting me to come join
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  the program at CSUB. But by my junior year, I
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  was driving out to Cal State from Wasco and began
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  playing with people like Jim Scully and Dennis
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  Hamm, Kyle Burnham, James Deathlison, and some
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  other folks who were in the program at that time.
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  Caleb Moore was a bass player who plays with
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  Mento Brew now. Yeah. Yeah, and I got plugged
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  in with the college guys through that experience.
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  And it was Doug who basically, like, he made
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  that happen for me. Yeah, that's really cool.
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  I think you I think you were a trumpet prodigy.
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  I don't think there's many sophomores in high
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  school getting called by professors and saying,
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  we need you to play with the band. That's really
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  cool. It felt special. Yeah. And, you know, it
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  took me outside of that small town Wasco experience
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  really for the first time. You know, I was aware
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  of the program out there. And even, you know,
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  in those days, like really the jazz scene in
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  Bakersfield was centered around CSUB and what
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  Doug was doing with the Bakersfield Jazz Festival.
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  People like Paul Perez and Paul Kearley and Ken
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  Bassano and all those great musicians that attended
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  CSUB when Doug first came, late 70s, early 80s.
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  They were still around and playing on the coffee
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  house concerts, you know, at CSUB that would
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  happen twice a quarter. Yeah. So I got to meet
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  all those guys, too. Doug asked me, I guess this
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  was my senior year, to play on one of those coffee
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  house concerts when he brought in a guest artist
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  named Carl Allen, who's a world famous drummer
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  and clinician who came through to do a clinic
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  and a special concert. And that was a big moment,
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  too, because, you know, the band was like. Doug
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  on piano, I think. Paul Perez was playing saxophone.
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  And I was playing trumpet. So we were playing
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  Carl Allen's music with Carl Allen. But I think
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  I was more intimidated by standing next to Paul
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  Perez and having to follow his solos for the
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  first time. And I've been playing with Paul for,
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  man, the last 30 years ever since. But you can
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  imagine what that feels like as an 18 -year -old
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  kid and having to step up after Paul Perez. I
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  think of those stories that Miles Davis would
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  tell sitting with Charlie Parker for the first
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  time and just wanting to quit, wanting to destroy
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  his instrument every night because he just could
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  not keep up. Yeah. I mean, we've only talked
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  about when you're still a kid and you've already
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  gone through all these pressure cooker moments
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  that you've been able to succeed in. It's really
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  cool. Yeah. And that stuff is important because
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  you have to come up with something that you didn't
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  know that you had before. And I try to put my
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  students in those situations as much as possible
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  because I remember how big they were to me. And
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  I remember getting that cassette tape of the
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  performance with Carl Allen and listening back
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  and not being totally satisfied with my performance,
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  but hearing a couple of things that I did that
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  I didn't. believe i was capable of doing and
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  those those little inspirations are important
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  because they push you a little bit harder and
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  then you see where you're not measuring up you
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  can you can listen back and and hear where i
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  could have done this you know at that moment
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  and i should have done this there but this was
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  good and um that that sort of uh research and
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  development you know is important and that so
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  those having those opportunities to play and
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  hear yourself in a group with master musicians
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  is critical because if you're only playing with
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  people that um you know, are less skilled than
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  you are. You never hear that. We had a whole
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  episode with Doug Davis, episode 14, about the
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  Jazz Festival and Doug Davis's life in music.
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  Do you remember the very first Jazz Festival
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  that you performed at here at the Bakersfield
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  Jazz Festival? So you've had success in junior
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  high and high school, and how was the transition
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  to CSUB for you? Well, I mean, it was a decision
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  that I had to make. But, I mean, Doug was offering
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  me a scholarship and my parents really didn't
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  have, you know, the capability of sending me
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  away to college. And I wasn't totally certain
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  that I wanted to be a performer. I was just interested
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  in music and I loved music and I wanted to learn
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  more about it. And I loved Doug and I loved,
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  you know, the experiences that he was giving.
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  uh me so i stayed local it made a lot of sense
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  it was basically like a go to school for free
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  situation because of the scholarship and um and
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  i already had connections and i was already playing
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  around town you know there were uh there were
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  spots uh man coffee houses mostly there was a
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  place down on 19th street called java jazz which
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  we were playing a couple nights a week there
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  was a another coffee house up by uh bc on mount
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  vernon called the supreme bean And we played
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  music there and I was playing for weddings and
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  private events. And so it was a lot to, you know,
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  to throw away. I mean, I was also looking at
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  San Diego State where I got accepted, but I was
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  a little intimidated by just like moving away
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  and dropping all of this because I had a lot
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  going on. And the jazz festival was here, and
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  I had performed at the jazz festival twice as
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  part of the Kern County Honor Jazz Band, which
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  began my junior year. Some of the local band
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  directors, Rob Martins from Wasco High School
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  and Mike Bone from West High School and Tony
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  Aguilar, who still works with this group, they
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  started that in 1995, my junior year in high
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  school. So I got to play with high school students
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  from around Kern County who love this music,
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  and I got to play in a real big band for the
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  first time. And Doug would put that group as
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  the lead -off set on Saturday afternoon at the
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  Jazz Festival every year. So I got to do that
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  junior and senior year. So it was a smooth transition
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  into CSUB. And yeah, I mean, it was an easy decision
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  for sure. That's cool. So when you went to CSUB,
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  you were known as the award -winning freshman
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  trumpeter. Oh, that was from the Bakersfield
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  Californians. They got a hold of this story and
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  did an article on me my freshman year. And that
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  was exciting. It was like a big fish in a small
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  pond type situation. And I'd already been working
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  with a lot of the guys that I was playing with
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  at that point. So by that time, my freshman year,
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  I was writing a lot of music. That was the difference.
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  You know, I got really into composing through
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  Doug's encouragement. So he gave us a spot at
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  the Bakersfield Jazz Festival in spring of 1997.
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  And that was the first time I saw my name on
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  a poster like that, Chris Tiner Band. And, yeah,
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  that was on Friday night of the Jazz Festival
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  in 97. We opened up for Kevin Mahogany, who was
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  an amazing jazz singer, and then the Yellow Jackets
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  after that. There were three groups on that bill.
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  And we played a couple of my compositions in
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  that set. And the jazz festival you're playing
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  for 3 ,000 or 4 ,000 people in the CSUB amphitheater
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  and playing your own music on that stage was
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  a really exciting feeling. That's awesome. I
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  still have that poster in my space at home where
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  I practice, my little office space. And when
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  I sit down to practice trumpet, that jazz festival
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  1997 poster is right behind me. That's cool.
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  Yeah, 1997 seems like it was a big year for you.
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  One of the things that also happened was you
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  and your group went to the Pacific Coast Collegiate
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  Jazz Festival, right? That was an event that,
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  it was big, and it happened every spring. It
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  doesn't exist anymore, but Doug would take the
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  CSUV big band, and usually if there was a combo
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  or two from... from Cal State, we would go and
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  perform for feedback. And it was a little bit
• 20:46
  of a competition. So they would have awards for
• 20:48
  like outstanding musician, outstanding combo,
• 20:50
  outstanding composer. And I eventually got a
• 20:52
  couple of those awards. But that was another
• 20:56
  step forward is being able to play this music,
• 20:58
  not in Bakersfield, you know, up at UC Berkeley.
• 21:02
  And one thing that I always looked forward to
• 21:04
  with that trip. was being able to hit record
• 21:07
  stores and jazz clubs. Yoshi's Jazz Club in Oakland
• 21:13
  was a real big spot. It still is, but for the
• 21:18
  kind of music that I was interested in at that
• 21:20
  time. And the jazz festival always brought in
• 21:23
  top artists. I remember seeing Chick Corea there
• 21:26
  at the jazz festival. Gosh. John Faddis, one
• 21:34
  year. Jimmy Heath. I wish I had a better memory
• 21:41
  for this stuff, but we would go to Scully and
• 21:45
  Kyle Burnham and Dennis Hamm and I, we would
• 21:48
  go to Yoshi's and I remember checking out Wallace
• 21:50
  Roney's group and I just became completely obsessed
• 21:53
  with Wallace Roney's music at that time. He was
• 21:55
  sort of the protege of Miles Davis, taking that
• 21:58
  music that Miles was doing in the 1960s forward
• 22:01
  and that was like my favorite. You know, it's
• 22:02
  always been my favorite. period of music so being
• 22:05
  able to go up to berkeley and um and really just
• 22:08
  be let loose you know to explore the city and
• 22:11
  go over to san francisco if we wanted to that
• 22:13
  was like that was exciting yeah and it's cool
• 22:17
  because in that year the group won the highest
• 22:21
  rated big band at the whole festival seems like
• 22:24
  really hard to win against a lot of main music
• 22:28
  schools are competing. Yeah, that was a big year.
• 22:31
  The CSUB big band beat out a lot of the CSUs,
• 22:34
  the other CSUs. I don't remember which ones were
• 22:36
  there, but yeah, and our combos got a lot of
• 22:38
  attention. One year, one of our clinicians was
• 22:41
  Steve Smith, the drummer, the original drummer
• 22:43
  in Journey. Wow. And he was really impressed
• 22:47
  by what we were doing. I remember we played a
• 22:50
  Miles Davis piece called Gingerbread Boy. off
• 22:53
  of that Miles Smiles record. Steve Smith wanted
• 22:55
  to jam with us, so he sat down and played that
• 22:57
  with my band, and I got to play with him. And
• 23:00
  usually that doesn't happen. The clinician just
• 23:02
  gives you some feedback and some pointers and
• 23:04
  what you could do better next time kind of stuff.
• 23:06
  But he was like, you know, forget that. I want
• 23:07
  to play with you guys. And sat down and just
• 23:09
  jammed with us on this Miles tune. That's cool.
• 23:12
  Yeah, so it was a lot of fun, man. Those were
• 23:16
  crazy times. I was just in Berkeley driving around
• 23:20
  just... killing some time on Wednesday of this
• 23:23
  week. And I drove by the old hotel that we used
• 23:26
  to stay at, which has now been converted into
• 23:28
  housing for unhoused residents up there, the
• 23:32
  Golden Bear Hotel. And I took a picture and sent
• 23:34
  it, texted it to Doug and Jim and James and Kyle.
• 23:38
  And just, man, there's a lot of crazy memories
• 23:40
  at that place. So you also had some records that
• 23:46
  came out. You got the Mento Buru you played on
• 23:49
  one of the tracks, and you've got Twirl, right?
• 23:52
  Yeah, Mento Buru. That came out in 96, I think,
• 23:56
  or 97. No Dancing, Please. That was my first
• 24:00
  opportunity I ever had to go in a recording studio,
• 24:02
  and Matt Munoz took me down to L .A. where they
• 24:05
  were recording, and I played a solo on a song
• 24:09
  called Streets of Gold, flugelhorn solo. That
• 24:11
  was my first recording experience. And then the
• 24:14
  CSUB recordings that came out, I think there
• 24:16
  were two of them while I was a student there,
• 24:18
  Twirl, and then there was a follow -up called
• 24:20
  Tight. Doug put out those CDs really to highlight
• 24:26
  original music that was being written in the
• 24:28
  program and played on the Coffeehouse concerts.
• 24:31
  And we recorded all that music at Cal State,
• 24:33
  and then Doug had it professionally mixed and
• 24:35
  produced. And man, that was like the first time
• 24:39
  I got to see my name on a CD. which is a big
• 24:43
  deal because we're talking before streaming,
• 24:46
  before any social media or any of that, but seeing
• 24:48
  your name on a physical album with the music
• 24:51
  that you recorded and put your heart and soul
• 24:53
  into writing and rehearsing and performing and
• 24:56
  then recording. So that's something that we do
• 25:01
  up at Bakersfield College still with the students
• 25:04
  who are writing music up there. I remember that
• 25:07
  feeling, and I want them to feel that. same thing
• 25:10
  of like, you know, you put all this effort and
• 25:12
  passion into creating new music. And so taking
• 25:15
  it all the way to the finish line of like, you
• 25:17
  know, creating a CD and, or at least a band camp
• 25:21
  album or something like that and hearing it professionally
• 25:23
  mixed. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. So you studied
• 25:32
  under Doug Davis. What was his teaching style?
• 25:35
  Oh man, Doug, Doug. was an enigma and still is
• 25:41
  because when you're hanging out with Doug, he's
• 25:43
  just like so much fun. He's just waves of positivity,
• 25:48
  you know. And I've never seen him say a negative
• 25:52
  thing about anyone. If he was, you wouldn't know
• 25:55
  it because it's always with a smile. I mean,
• 25:57
  he's just a beautiful, amazing human being. And
• 26:00
  he was a guru to all of us in that way. We all
• 26:04
  just wanted to be. just like Doug, because at
• 26:07
  the same time, he's so deep and has so much depth
• 26:11
  of experience and knowledge. And we knew any
• 26:14
  question that we had about any form of music
• 26:16
  whatsoever, we could go to Doug and he would
• 26:18
  come up with an answer for us. It just really
• 26:20
  felt like we had someone in our midst who was
• 26:24
  endlessly supportive and endlessly knowledgeable
• 26:27
  and had been to places that we just couldn't
• 26:30
  even imagine. Doug spent time in Europe after
• 26:32
  he graduated from Harvard. just has so many great
• 26:36
  stories of working with Leonard Bernstein at
• 26:38
  Harvard and the connections that he's had throughout
• 26:41
  his life with jazz artists like Chick Corea,
• 26:43
  Eddie Moore, Benny Wallace when he was growing
• 26:46
  up. So Doug was this sort of portal of information
• 26:49
  and creativity for us, and he also pushed us
• 26:53
  hard. His lectures were no joke. I still have
• 26:56
  boxes and boxes of notes. I mean, one... One
• 26:59
  single quarter in Doug's 20th century music class,
• 27:02
  you would sit down and on day one, he would give
• 27:05
  you just a book of handwritten notes on every
• 27:09
  composer. And you'd have to study that. And then
• 27:12
  the information he's giving in his lectures would
• 27:15
  end up being another book, a full notebook of
• 27:18
  notes that we were taking. He just wouldn't stop.
• 27:22
  The knowledge just flowed out of him. His final
• 27:25
  exams were legendary. His music theory courses,
• 27:30
  like the upper division music theory courses,
• 27:33
  like foreman analysis, were known to have final
• 27:36
  exams that would last upwards of four, five,
• 27:38
  six hours. Doug would order pizza for the class
• 27:42
  at about the four -hour mark, and we're all starting
• 27:44
  to kind of, our energy is declining. And there
• 27:48
  were students that, if they were still taking
• 27:52
  the final exam past hour seven, Six or seven,
• 27:55
  they would go home. They would follow Doug to
• 27:57
  his house and finish the exam at his house. And
• 27:59
  I was determined always not to be in that group.
• 28:02
  I wanted to finish well, like we were all still
• 28:04
  at school. I remember one time I was living downtown
• 28:07
  off of 19th Street. And I thought, like, I'm
• 28:11
  going to get my adrenaline pumping for this final
• 28:14
  exam and form analysis. And I'm going to ride
• 28:16
  my bike to Cal State and just, like, get pumped,
• 28:21
  you know, for this. So I rode my bike to Cal
• 28:23
  State. I took the exam. And this was another
• 28:26
  one of those seven, eight hour exams for some
• 28:28
  people in the class. I think I finished it in
• 28:30
  four and a half hours. And what we were doing
• 28:31
  was like analyzing Bartok string quartets. I
• 28:35
  expended so many brain cells on this part of
• 28:38
  the final exam. I remember like unlocking my
• 28:41
  bike, getting on my bike and riding towards Stockdale
• 28:45
  Highway for the bike trail. And then my next
• 28:48
  memory is like waking up in the... beating son,
• 28:53
  like lying in the dust somewhere behind Trader
• 28:56
  Joe's off the bike trail. Like I had fallen off
• 28:58
  my bike and just was like, I passed out just
• 29:02
  from the energy of this, uh, final exam. And
• 29:05
  I ended up having to like walk my bike home most
• 29:07
  of the way. Uh, so it, it really took it out
• 29:09
  of you. So he, he pushed us hard, but he was
• 29:12
  also, you know, just a endless encouragement
• 29:14
  and still is to this day. And we all love Doug
• 29:17
  Davis, uh, with all our heart. Yeah. I mean,
• 29:22
  he seems like he's very supportive, more than
• 29:26
  what an average educator is. I remember once
• 29:31
  you told me that you still had his home phone
• 29:33
  number memorized. And I think most educators
• 29:36
  would never want to give out their home phone
• 29:39
  number, you know? Yeah. Doug was different. Yeah.
• 29:42
  I housed that for him when he was on trips and
• 29:44
  stuff like that and got to kind of dig through
• 29:46
  his collection of books and records. You know,
• 29:48
  those were always fun times. And all of that
• 29:51
  group is like a family. Why do you think so many
• 29:54
  of that group went on to be educators themselves?
• 29:57
  It's no surprise. I mean, we had so much fun
• 30:01
  hanging with Doug every day. And like I said,
• 30:03
  when I started CSUB, I wasn't totally sure that
• 30:06
  I wanted to be a performer. I was never into
• 30:08
  the side of music performance where you're putting
• 30:10
  on a show and dancing and wearing costumes and
• 30:13
  that kind of thing. And that's what it was, man.
• 30:15
  By the time I graduated college... If you were
• 30:19
  a horn player, the music that you could perform
• 30:21
  is like salsa music maybe or like big band revival
• 30:24
  like Brian Sester type stuff where you're wearing
• 30:26
  zoot suits. And so I never really latched onto
• 30:30
  that. But seeing who Doug was and the fact that
• 30:33
  he was able to have this career where he created
• 30:36
  music on his own terms. And he's an incredible
• 30:39
  composer and a pianist and improviser. And like
• 30:42
  when he sat down to... To play, you saw absolute
• 30:46
  100 % focus. Like, we wanted that for our own
• 30:49
  music. He was a complete inspiration as an educator
• 30:52
  to all of us. And so maybe a couple years into
• 30:55
  the CSUB experiences when I started to think,
• 30:58
  like, man, I would love this. You know, coming
• 31:00
  to work, having an office, hanging out with my
• 31:02
  students, creating music, being inspired by my
• 31:05
  students, inspiring them, and then being able
• 31:07
  to play music on my own terms when and where
• 31:09
  I want to. Yeah, and I think I'm not the only
• 31:12
  one who picked that up, you know. Jim Scully's
• 31:15
  been running the program at CSUB for the past
• 31:17
  20 years or more, and he took over for Doug.
• 31:20
  Kyle Burnham teaches at BC with me, Paul Kearley,
• 31:24
  Paul Perez, all of us on the faculty at BC. Tony
• 31:28
  Rinaldi. We're all former students of Doug Davis.
• 31:34
  After you graduated from CSUB, you moved out
• 31:37
  of Bakersfield, you got into probably one of
• 31:40
  the hardest schools to get into, CalArts. What
• 31:42
  was that like moving out of Kern County? Well,
• 31:46
  I had a connection at CalArts, so the guy I went
• 31:51
  to CalArts to study with was a trumpet player
• 31:53
  and composer named Wadada Leo Smith, and he's
• 31:56
  legendary. He's one of the most important musicians
• 31:58
  in the world, and his career started in the mid
• 32:01
  -60s as part of the Association for the Advancement
• 32:04
  of Creative Musicians in Chicago. And I was aware
• 32:07
  of him. I began to be aware of his music while
• 32:11
  I was still going to school here at CSUB. And
• 32:15
  Doug had taken us, I think my junior year, to
• 32:18
  a conference in Anaheim of the International
• 32:21
  Association of Jazz Education, IAJE. And I remember
• 32:24
  being in a hotel conference room that was completely
• 32:29
  packed for this music industry panel with like
• 32:32
  Herbie Hancock and a bunch of executives and
• 32:34
  producers and stuff. And I'm up against the wall,
• 32:37
  hundreds of people packed in here. And I hear
• 32:40
  this trumpet just blasting from next door. And
• 32:44
  I looked at my program and I realized that was
• 32:46
  a CalArts faculty concert. and Wadato Leo Smith
• 32:49
  was playing trumpet in a duet with John Bergamo,
• 32:52
  the percussionist, just the two of them. But
• 32:54
  I was stuck in this conference room listening
• 32:56
  to Herbie Hancock speak, and I heard the trumpet
• 32:59
  again, and I got to get out of here, man. I got
• 33:01
  to go hear who that is. I was aware of Wadato
• 33:03
  Leo Smith, and I knew about the program at CalArts,
• 33:05
  but I had to go hear this. I got up and climbed
• 33:09
  as quietly as I could over these rows of people,
• 33:12
  and I remember making eye contact with Herbie
• 33:14
  Hancock, and he kind of gave me a dirty look,
• 33:16
  you know, as I was like the only person leaving
• 33:18
  this conference room. Ran next door to hear just
• 33:22
  the conclusion of Wadada. playing this improvised
• 33:25
  trumpet solo with just a percussionist. That
• 33:27
  changed my life, man. I went up to him afterwards
• 33:29
  and said, you know, do you give lessons? I live
• 33:33
  up in Bakersfield. You know, I'd love to come
• 33:35
  work with you. And I'm really interested in Cal
• 33:38
  Arts. And he gave me his number. And so I started
• 33:41
  going to his house for lessons on, you know,
• 33:44
  one Sunday a month. And I would pay him for like
• 33:47
  an hour, but I would end up usually... being
• 33:49
  invited to stay for dinner and we'd watch basketball
• 33:51
  games and listen to his records and play together
• 33:54
  and explore his compositions. And that went on
• 33:58
  for a couple of years before I finally entered
• 34:01
  his program at CalArts. So I had that connection
• 34:04
  with Wadata and that really gave me a direction
• 34:08
  and a sense of purpose because I wasn't, I mean,
• 34:12
  I had checked out some of the other... graduate
• 34:14
  programs in jazz studies like North Texas and
• 34:17
  Northridge and San Diego State. And I just didn't
• 34:20
  really feel like any of them were the right move
• 34:22
  for me. CalArts definitely was. And so what I
• 34:25
  was able to do there, hooking up with other students
• 34:29
  of Wodata's who were equally interested in improvisation
• 34:33
  and composition and putting all of this together
• 34:35
  in a creative way, that really set the course
• 34:38
  for the rest of my life. You were... Still playing
• 34:42
  a lot of music. I know you were with the Chris
• 34:44
  Tiner Trio at the time. How were you able to
• 34:48
  still perform while going to school? The trio
• 34:51
  was a Bakersfield project, and we recorded a
• 34:54
  CD of my music and put that out as like a CD
• 34:58
  -R release right at the end of my CSUB days.
• 35:02
  That was a fun project with James Deathlifson
• 35:05
  on bass and Brian Paula on drums. That was the
• 35:10
  first time I'd had a band that was like a stable
• 35:12
  group of people exclusively dedicated to playing
• 35:16
  my music and my arrangements for a period of
• 35:19
  time. And so I learned a lot about how to run
• 35:23
  rehearsals and how to book gigs and get everybody
• 35:27
  there and promote the gigs. When we did a CD
• 35:30
  release for our album at Barnes & Noble, back
• 35:32
  when they used to have live music, man, we had
• 35:35
  probably 100 people there. And we sold out of
• 35:37
  our discs. I think we printed... maybe a little
• 35:40
  bit over 100 copies of that. And man, we sold
• 35:44
  80 or 90 of them just at that one concert. And
• 35:46
  that's unheard of. Yeah, that's really good.
• 35:49
  We made so much money on those CDRs. And so I
• 35:52
  carried that experience into CalArts. And when
• 35:54
  I got to CalArts, I assumed everybody would have
• 35:56
  that kind of experience. But a lot of the students
• 35:59
  who had been there as students, they were really
• 36:03
  high level. They were very talented. But they
• 36:05
  hadn't had a lot of experience playing off campus.
• 36:08
  And so I put a band together and right away we
• 36:12
  started hitting up gigs in L .A. and playing
• 36:14
  off campus. And I feel like everyone else was
• 36:18
  impressed by that. But for me, it's just what
• 36:20
  I had been doing. You know, it's like you can't
• 36:22
  just limit yourself to what's happening at school.
• 36:24
  You got to get into the scene and, you know,
• 36:27
  go hit up jam sessions. Find the musicians who
• 36:30
  are a little bit beyond where you are and find
• 36:33
  opportunities off campus. Because otherwise you
• 36:35
  graduate and then what do you have? You've got
• 36:37
  nothing, you know, without the guidance of your
• 36:40
  teachers and your faculty. So I had a lot of
• 36:44
  real world experience being a big fish in a small
• 36:47
  pond. You know, being from Bakersfield and kind
• 36:50
  of doing what we were doing. We were like the
• 36:52
  only, one of the only jazz groups in town that
• 36:55
  was doing this kind of stuff. And so that gave
• 36:58
  me a confidence that was helpful when I got to
• 37:01
  L .A. and started trying to make it work as a
• 37:05
  small fish in a big pond. I read about a group
• 37:10
  that you started around this time, Evil Live.
• 37:12
  That sounds intriguing. An eight -piece group
• 37:15
  playing the electric Miles Davis stuff with turntables.
• 37:19
  Can you tell me about that? So that Miles Davis...
• 37:22
  like based on that Bitches Brew era of Miles
• 37:25
  Davis. He had two drummers and percussionists,
• 37:28
  electric guitar, two keyboardists. And so we
• 37:31
  had all that, but instead of the percussionist,
• 37:33
  we had a turntablist, a guy named Kevin Farrell,
• 37:35
  who also played in my group. And so Kevin would
• 37:38
  use the turntable as like a percussion instrument.
• 37:41
  You know, he wasn't just creating beats and stuff.
• 37:43
  He was like actually interacting. And so it was
• 37:45
  me and another horn player. And then the turntable,
• 37:47
  a lot of times we were creating all of this sort
• 37:49
  of polyphonic. sound and Kevin could do anything
• 37:54
  with that turntable so and he could also make
• 37:57
  it sound like sort of a hip -hop element if we
• 38:00
  went into more of a groove direction but you
• 38:02
  know Miles has this album from that period called
• 38:04
  Live Evil so we switched that around and called
• 38:07
  the band Evil Live and we started hitting up
• 38:10
  rock and roll clubs all around LA and when you're
• 38:15
  When you're a new band and you're trying to book
• 38:17
  shows at these clubs, the first slot they will
• 38:20
  give you is Sunday night at 11 p .m. That's the
• 38:23
  slowest day of the week, the last set of the
• 38:26
  night. And so that was our set for probably a
• 38:30
  year. We played every Sunday night at 11 p .m.
• 38:33
  at a different club all around L .A. I mean,
• 38:37
  the Temple Bar, all these well -known rock clubs.
• 38:42
  Until we had run them all out, and they wouldn't
• 38:45
  book us again because the music was so weird.
• 38:47
  We brought enough people to at least make it
• 38:50
  work and have a fun audience, but it was not
• 38:53
  what anybody had in mind for the club atmosphere
• 38:56
  at that time. We had a pretty good run, man.
• 38:59
  It was a lot of fun. Just sort of freaking out
• 39:01
  at people all over Los Angeles with this Electric
• 39:05
  Miles music. It was so loud. The band was so
• 39:07
  loud, and I wasn't using any electronics or anything
• 39:10
  on my trumpet at the time. I was just blasting,
• 39:12
  and I had to come up with sort of new strategies
• 39:16
  for playing at that level of volume. And it really
• 39:20
  pushed me physically to another level in my instrument,
• 39:24
  because I'm playing these solos, and behind me
• 39:26
  is two drummers, an electric guitarist who's
• 39:28
  just shredding, two electric keyboards, electric
• 39:32
  bass, and this turntable. And so everything was
• 39:35
  amplified but me. That was challenging too. It
• 39:39
  was really hard not to just go up there and copy
• 39:41
  Miles because everybody's familiar with that.
• 39:44
  I wanted to try to do my own take on it as well.
• 39:47
  That was a fun period. We made a recording which
• 39:50
  we put on a website once, but we couldn't do
• 39:57
  anything with it because it wasn't our music.
• 39:59
  What about the MTKJ Quartet? That's another avant
• 40:03
  -garde. group you did um yeah we we were all
• 40:08
  students of wadada at cal arts so this was my
• 40:10
  second year there and we wanted to start a band
• 40:13
  it was mainly the kind of the brainchild of me
• 40:16
  and a friend named jason mirrors who was a saxophonist
• 40:18
  uh paul kikuchi was the drummer and then ivan
• 40:22
  johnson was the bass player so our our initials
• 40:26
  of our last names were mtkj Mears, Tiner, Kikuchi,
• 40:29
  Johnson is actually how we started. And on the
• 40:31
  concert posters, it looked too much like a law
• 40:33
  firm, right? Mears, Tiner, Kikuchi, and Johnson.
• 40:36
  So we shortened it to MTKJ. And then eventually
• 40:39
  we started going on tour. We did a couple West
• 40:43
  Coast tours. We made a bunch of records. I was
• 40:45
  with that quartet for 15 years. I remember one
• 40:48
  point we were up in Northern California or Oregon
• 40:50
  Coast somewhere playing, and we were hanging
• 40:51
  out with some folks who had come to the show
• 40:53
  and who were putting us up after the gig. Uh,
• 40:56
  they had a house by the lake and these guys were
• 40:59
  smoking pot and a little bit and like kind of,
• 41:02
  kind of, uh, getting loose. And like one of the
• 41:06
  guys was like, Oh man, I got it. I finally realized
• 41:08
  this is empty cage. Whoa, man. And he thought
• 41:13
  it was like this deep thing that we were trying
• 41:15
  to think like he figured out the words empty
• 41:17
  cage were coming from the initial empty cage.
• 41:20
  And we were all like, yeah. let's use that so
• 41:24
  we changed the name on the next tour changed
• 41:26
  the name of the band from the initials Empty
• 41:27
  Cage A to Empty Cage Quartet and that was right
• 41:32
  in line with when we got signed to Clean Feet
• 41:35
  Records which is a jazz record label based in
• 41:39
  Portugal and we did two albums with them as the
• 41:41
  Empty Cage Quartet and a couple albums after
• 41:43
  but yeah we went to France on a grant and collaborated
• 41:49
  with some musicians in Montpellier in south france
• 41:52
  and did a record over there with uh aurelian
• 41:56
  baynard and patrice toledi clarinet and guitar
• 41:58
  duo and that that music is some of the recordings
• 42:02
  that i'm most proud of in my career and then
• 42:04
  the two records on clean feed we had a good time
• 42:07
  with that band you know and uh one of the things
• 42:11
  that made that group work is uh you know paul
• 42:13
  the drummer lived in seattle Ivan was in LA,
• 42:17
  I was in Bakersfield, and Jason, the saxophonist,
• 42:19
  was in New York for a long time. He was in Japan
• 42:21
  for a little while and then moved to New York.
• 42:23
  So we had home base in the Northwest, in Southern
• 42:27
  California, and in New York. So we did multiple
• 42:30
  tours up the West Coast and then in the Northeast.
• 42:36
  And then we did a couple of things in the Midwest
• 42:38
  and Chicago. So we were able to... get ourselves
• 42:41
  out of our local zones and to be able to collaborate,
• 42:45
  you know, because we had this band that was located
• 42:48
  in different parts of the country. It worked
• 42:51
  out for all of us, yeah. I want to take you to
• 42:55
  the Schindler House in West Hollywood in 2004,
• 42:58
  and you're doing an exquisite corpse concert.
• 43:01
  Man, you're digging up all this stuff that I
• 43:03
  haven't thought about in so long. There was an
• 43:05
  organization in L .A. called Sound. And they
• 43:10
  were very supportive for many years putting together
• 43:12
  sound artists, you know, from the jazz and improvised
• 43:15
  music side of the spectrum to new music and composition
• 43:20
  side of the spectrum. And microtonal artists
• 43:22
  like Craig Grady, who was another composer down
• 43:26
  there that I worked with for years. They were
• 43:28
  a lot of really great people. And I did several
• 43:33
  events with them that was... based on this model
• 43:36
  of the exquisite corpse, which was a game that
• 43:39
  the surrealist painters would do, where they
• 43:41
  would fold up a piece of paper and each artist
• 43:43
  would draw a segment of the paper and then they
• 43:46
  would pass it to the next artist who would draw
• 43:47
  their segment without looking at the previous
• 43:50
  artist's work. And then they would pass it on,
• 43:52
  pass it on. And then at the end, you open it
• 43:54
  up and you see the connections. So it's this
• 43:56
  sort of collage of different ideas that are unified
• 43:59
  into one picture. So the musical equivalent of
• 44:02
  that is, of course, a concert where each... A
• 44:04
  musician contributes their own piece or their
• 44:08
  own part of the experience, but then it moves
• 44:11
  on to another musician or another group. And
• 44:14
  the Schindler House, I believe that one we each
• 44:20
  did solos, and there were a lot of musicians
• 44:24
  involved. One was Petra Hayden, Charlie Hayden's
• 44:27
  daughter, who played violin after I played. Gosh,
• 44:31
  I wish I remembered everyone else. Do you have
• 44:32
  the information there? performed on that i did
• 44:35
  i don't have it written down i do have a i found
• 44:39
  it from a newspaper article and i just thought
• 44:41
  it sounded really cool yeah i wanted to hear
• 44:43
  more about it but i don't have it written right
• 44:45
  here we did another one of those um in chinatown
• 44:48
  a few years later on chungking road uh and it
• 44:51
  was called chungking corpse and these were uh
• 44:54
  we had duos improv improvising musician duos
• 44:58
  situated all the way down the street so it started
• 45:01
  with two trombonists Phil Teal and Bruce Fowler,
• 45:06
  who played with Frank Zappa. They were the first
• 45:08
  duo. And then all the audiences down there on
• 45:11
  the street in between these two trombonists that
• 45:13
  are on each side of the street. This is all on
• 45:15
  YouTube. You can find this recording. And then
• 45:17
  the audience moves down the street, and then
• 45:20
  the next duo is me on one side of the street
• 45:22
  with Alicia Mangan, who's this improvising tenor
• 45:24
  player. And we're... playing back and forth at
• 45:27
  each other while the audience kind of moves through.
• 45:29
  And then the audience continues on, and then
• 45:31
  the next duo is like, I think it was Dan Klukas
• 45:33
  and Eric Sabar, I think, who's a brass player
• 45:36
  from L .A. Dan Klukas is a cornetist. And the
• 45:39
  audience gradually moves all the way down the
• 45:41
  street, and the last duo was Wadada Leo Smith
• 45:43
  and Vinnie Golia, these two L .A. legends. So
• 45:49
  that was based on that same idea of an exquisite
• 45:51
  corpse, and that was done. produced by the sound
• 45:53
  organization society for the activation of social
• 45:58
  space or something like that it's s -a -s -s
• 46:00
  -a -s you'll have to look up that abbreviation
• 46:03
  for the the organization that's cool you know
• 46:08
  i forgot to ask about wadada's teaching style
• 46:11
  well i mentioned i would um i would go to his
• 46:17
  house for these Sunday afternoon lessons and
• 46:20
  usually we'd just sit down and chat for a little
• 46:22
  bit and then we'd get the trumpets out and we'd
• 46:24
  play together and improvise and whatever he was
• 46:27
  working on at the time or whatever he had on
• 46:30
  his music stand that he was writing usually is
• 46:33
  what we would look at. He also had some books
• 46:35
  of etudes and things that were written in his
• 46:38
  compositional style. He's got his own system
• 46:40
  of notation for his music and so I began learning
• 46:44
  how his system worked. He was working on an album
• 46:48
  when I was coming down. The album was called
• 46:51
  The Golden Quartet. And Jack D. Jeanette was
• 46:54
  on drums, Malachi Favors on bass, and Anthony
• 46:58
  Davis on piano. And this was like a real breakthrough
• 47:01
  album, I think, in his career. I was at his house
• 47:03
  the day Jack D. Jeanette's agent called and confirmed
• 47:07
  that he would do the recording. And I was the
• 47:08
  happiest I'd ever seen Vedada, ever, that I'd
• 47:11
  known him. So he was working on music for that
• 47:14
  project and he would put the trumpet lines in
• 47:16
  front of me on the music stand and listen to
• 47:18
  me play them. And so he could hear what the trumpet
• 47:21
  sounded like and he would kind of show me what
• 47:23
  he would do with the music and then let me improvise
• 47:25
  on it and kind of help me to find my own direction
• 47:28
  and path through the music. Yeah, so it was a
• 47:32
  lot of just kind of what he was thinking about
• 47:34
  at the moment as an artist. And that's really
• 47:37
  like the CalArts style because when I was working
• 47:39
  with him at CalArts, it was the same. Whatever
• 47:41
  he was researching and working on at that time
• 47:44
  is what he brought to the class. The classes
• 47:48
  didn't really have like a syllabus or a... you
• 47:51
  know, a schedule, a set schedule like that. It
• 47:53
  was really more about sitting down with Wadada
• 47:56
  or with Charlie Hayden or with Mort Sabotnick
• 47:58
  and just kind of talking through what these master
• 48:00
  musicians are working on currently. Because for
• 48:03
  an artist, like whatever is firing your creativity
• 48:06
  at the moment, that's what you have the most
• 48:09
  active information about and the most relevant
• 48:11
  information. And so as young artists, as students,
• 48:15
  being able to see our... our heroes and our teachers
• 48:20
  you know working through that process is it's
• 48:22
  an invaluable thing and I think more so than
• 48:24
  you know getting like a just a class that they
• 48:28
  teach the same way every semester over and over
• 48:30
  and over again which is kind of what more what
• 48:32
  you get in like the state school type model you
• 48:35
  know yeah so that's what made CalArts really
• 48:37
  special and you know the first time I Sat down
• 48:41
  in Leo's jazz composition class. I was expecting
• 48:43
  to learn about jazz composition because that's
• 48:46
  what it says on the schedule. And he started
• 48:47
  talking about Charles Ives. For like two months,
• 48:51
  we looked at Charles Ives' music. And Charles
• 48:53
  Ives was an early American, considered a classical
• 48:57
  composer, but he was really starting to change
• 48:59
  things from that classical tradition and experiment
• 49:04
  with things that wouldn't be. discovered for
• 49:06
  another 20, 30 years in contemporary music. I
• 49:09
  mean, Charles Ives was in the early 20th century
• 49:11
  and he was doing things that wouldn't even be
• 49:13
  recognized until the 50s and 60s. And so he anticipated
• 49:18
  a lot of what came to pass in experimental music
• 49:24
  and jazz in the 50s and 60s. And that whole semester
• 49:28
  we compared Charles Ives and Ornette Coleman.
• 49:31
  and eventually Miles Davis, and that's what we
• 49:33
  talked about. And it was just what was on Wadada's
• 49:36
  mind. That's pretty special. I mean, if you go
• 49:39
  into a class like that expecting to have a curriculum
• 49:41
  and assignments and a syllabus, some of the students
• 49:46
  who were fresh out of high school didn't really
• 49:47
  know what to do with all that. We're just supposed
• 49:49
  to listen to this guy talk for two hours, and
• 49:52
  what are we supposed to do? But I ate it up,
• 49:54
  man. That was exactly what I wanted. I mean,
• 49:58
  I had already gotten close with Leo through those
• 50:00
  lessons at his house, but getting to see him
• 50:02
  at CalArts and interact with the other faculty
• 50:05
  in that way. I mean, in Charlie Hayden's class,
• 50:08
  sometimes we would just all walk to Starbucks
• 50:11
  together and sit and listen to Charlie tell stories
• 50:14
  about his life and his career while we're sipping
• 50:17
  coffee outside of a Starbucks across the street.
• 50:19
  Those were some of my favorite memories, man,
• 50:21
  of being able to. I remember just thinking, I
• 50:25
  can't believe this. I'm sitting down with this
• 50:27
  legendary musician, my hero, and we're at Starbucks
• 50:29
  and he's just telling stories. School is amazing.
• 50:34
  I think back to my time at BC and I think of
• 50:36
  some of my favorite moments are kind of that.
• 50:39
  I remember going to deep cuts and hearing...
• 50:42
  The professors and people talk about their favorite
• 50:44
  album and how it meant something to them and
• 50:47
  how a lot of those were really meaningful to
• 50:50
  me or just when the teacher would go way off
• 50:54
  topic and talk about something they were really
• 50:56
  passionate about. Yeah. And those were really
• 50:59
  fun moments. Yeah. Those are the funnest for
• 51:01
  me, too, as an educator, because like I know
• 51:03
  that I'm connecting with half the room who's
• 51:05
  just like they just really want it. have a personal
• 51:07
  connection, you know, with their faculty member.
• 51:10
  And then I know that like at the same time, the
• 51:13
  other half of the room is just really frustrated
• 51:15
  and pissed off because like, you know, is this
• 51:17
  going to be on the quiz or what? You know, and
• 51:19
  I can see the, I can see it happen. Like the
• 51:21
  looks on the faces of half the students are like
• 51:25
  really, they're there with me. And then the other
• 51:27
  half, I'm just losing them. So it's always kind
• 51:29
  of a balance you have to strike in a, you know,
• 51:30
  teaching in a community college or a public school.
• 51:33
  I agree, man. Those are the best moments that
• 51:36
  I can remember as a student is like not the assignments
• 51:39
  I did and not the lessons I learned, but, you
• 51:41
  know, the human interaction with these people
• 51:46
  who are like real people, you know. And at the
• 51:50
  same time, like with Doug, we respect him so
• 51:53
  much, but he's also just met us where we were
• 51:56
  at as human beings, you know, and was able to.
• 52:01
  see our world through our eyes to have a connection
• 52:05
  like that as a young person is really valuable
• 52:08
  yeah i agree so you were just talking about doug
• 52:12
  davis and you know he built up the jazz program
• 52:16
  at csub from a very small program to a very prestigious
• 52:20
  program and it really parallels you with what
• 52:24
  you did at bc who's been building up a good program
• 52:28
  but a small program up to a very prestigious
• 52:32
  program at BC. Can you talk about some of the
• 52:35
  history of that? Well, there was a long history
• 52:38
  before I arrived. The jazz ensemble at BC was
• 52:42
  started in 1962 by a faculty member named Ken
• 52:46
  Fosbender, and he was a saxophonist, and he had
• 52:49
  played in some dance bands and swing bands. And
• 52:52
  Ken actually owned Stockdale Music later in his
• 52:56
  career. He retired from teaching and started
• 52:57
  that music store, and that's where I worked.
• 52:59
  when I was in college at CSUB. So I knew Ken
• 53:02
  through that. But he called me just after I'd
• 53:05
  gotten hired full -time at BC, and he wanted
• 53:08
  to donate his saxophones to the jazz program
• 53:10
  because he saw that I'd gotten hired and that
• 53:13
  they were finally investing in a full -time position
• 53:16
  to expand this program that he had started. And
• 53:19
  I went over to his place, and he was telling
• 53:21
  me stories about... about the program and he
• 53:25
  actually teared up a little bit just you know
• 53:27
  as he's handing me this like professional model
• 53:29
  alto saxophone that he was just giving to us
• 53:32
  for free to use with our students and he and
• 53:34
  he was talking about what bc meant to him and
• 53:37
  uh and i realized like man this is a real deep
• 53:39
  history uh that it goes back really further than
• 53:43
  that our archives have dug up uh information
• 53:45
  and photographs of swing bands as early as like
• 53:49
  the late 30s before the Panorama Campus was built.
• 53:53
  So there was jazz education and jazz music happening
• 53:56
  at Bakersfield College almost earlier than anywhere
• 53:59
  else in the country. But Ken said that there's
• 54:04
  a great story that I think the Lakers were coming
• 54:08
  to Bakersfield to do an exhibition game in our
• 54:12
  gym, and they wanted music, but there was going
• 54:15
  to be so many people that there was no way he
• 54:16
  could fit the marching band. on the floor, you
• 54:20
  know, or even in the stands. So he asked the
• 54:23
  administration if he could put together a studio
• 54:26
  band or like a stage band is what they called
• 54:28
  it, you know, big band in those days. And they
• 54:31
  approved it. And then they eventually became
• 54:33
  a chorus because it was so popular. But that
• 54:37
  chorus, which eventually became known as the
• 54:40
  Bakersfield College Jazz Ensemble, has nurtured
• 54:45
  the... Early careers and student experiences
• 54:48
  of so many important musicians in this town over
• 54:50
  the years. A guy named Randy Fendrick a few years
• 54:54
  ago wrote a great book called The Other Music
• 54:56
  of Bakersfield. And he's put a lot of this history
• 54:59
  in there. You know, when the band was directed
• 55:03
  by Chuck Woods, who recently passed away. I never
• 55:06
  met Chuck except through a few Facebook messages.
• 55:09
  But he led the program in the 70s and 80s. You
• 55:13
  know, a lot of local musicians. Tony Aguilar
• 55:15
  and Matt Munoz and folks like that were in the
• 55:18
  band when Chuck Woods was in charge. And so when
• 55:20
  I came in 2004, I was taken over for Jim Scully,
• 55:25
  who had been there as an adjunct for a couple
• 55:27
  of years. And Jim got hired full -time at CSUB,
• 55:29
  so he moved over and he asked me to take over
• 55:33
  the jazz ensemble at BC. And I was teaching a
• 55:35
  couple of music appreciation classes at the same
• 55:36
  time and did that as an adjunct for 13 years.
• 55:39
  Through some pretty challenging times, you know,
• 55:41
  that economic downturn that happened in the...
• 55:44
  08, 09, when we almost lost the program. And
• 55:47
  then again, the Performing Arts Center was closed
• 55:49
  down for renovations in 2011. And that ran over
• 55:53
  schedule and over budget. And so we were like
• 55:56
  rehearsing in classrooms for three years. We
• 55:59
  had to cancel the orchestra program. Luckily,
• 56:01
  I was able to keep enough students in the jazz
• 56:03
  ensemble to keep that going during that time.
• 56:06
  But we didn't have a theater to perform in and
• 56:08
  we didn't have a band room to rehearse in. you
• 56:10
  know students would show up and like get all
• 56:12
  of our gear out of a closet and roll it across
• 56:13
  campus and set up you know at one point we were
• 56:16
  in the financial aid building uh and then we'd
• 56:19
  rehearse and then they'd have to roll it all
• 56:20
  back and put the equipment back and anytime we'd
• 56:23
  perform we were using outdoor spaces you know
• 56:25
  to do our concerts and stuff Finally, in 2014,
• 56:28
  the Performing Arts Center reopened. You know,
• 56:30
  you've been in there. It's absolutely beautiful.
• 56:32
  The indoor theater, the outdoor theater, recording
• 56:34
  studio, all that stuff was brand new. The instrumental
• 56:37
  side of the program is being run by adjunct faculty
• 56:39
  at that point. And, you know, our enrollment
• 56:42
  was just like bare minimum. Fortunately, Sonia
• 56:45
  Christian, who was president of BC at the time,
• 56:47
  came in and said she wanted to put world -class
• 56:49
  programs in this world -class facility. So they
• 56:52
  started hiring instrumental director, marching
• 56:54
  arts director, commercial music director. They
• 56:58
  replaced the choral director when Ron Keane retired
• 57:00
  and replaced him with Dr. Jennifer Garrett. Finally,
• 57:05
  in 2016, the announcement came that they were
• 57:08
  going to hire a full -time jazz studies professor
• 57:10
  to... to expand this program, which had been
• 57:14
  going, again, since like the 60s at least. And
• 57:17
  so I had to go through all of the interview process
• 57:20
  for that position, but I eventually got the job.
• 57:23
  And then 2017, began teaching at BC full -time.
• 57:28
  And in 2018, we started the new curriculum, which
• 57:31
  includes the jazz combos and jazz improvisation
• 57:34
  class and private lessons for jazz music majors.
• 57:37
  A lot of the faculty that teach the jazz program
• 57:40
  also teach some of the recording classes, and
• 57:43
  I took some of those at BC, and it was a real
• 57:47
  treat, and I really loved learning about recording.
• 57:50
  Yeah, we're fortunate to have those side by side,
• 57:53
  because if you're going to go to school and get
• 57:56
  a music degree and hope to be a professional
• 57:58
  musician afterwards, you've got to have some
• 58:00
  experience with the technology and to be able
• 58:02
  to make your own recordings. you know, make demos
• 58:05
  at least and put them on, but like to go into
• 58:08
  a recording studio and know what to ask for,
• 58:09
  you know, and to have some familiarity with that
• 58:13
  part of the industry is important. So, you know,
• 58:18
  it's a two -year program if you're just getting
• 58:19
  a music degree, but we really recommend students
• 58:21
  stay longer than that and get the commercial
• 58:23
  music courses done because it's all great preparation,
• 58:27
  and you can't beat the price. You know, community
• 58:29
  college is the cheapest education. For higher
• 58:33
  education, there is. So you've been in so many
• 58:37
  groups. I I picked out a few to talk about. We
• 58:40
  can talk about other ones if I didn't bring something
• 58:42
  up, because like to be fair, like I'm looking
• 58:44
  at like hundreds over 100 groups. Well, you're
• 58:49
  digging up stuff that I haven't thought about
• 58:50
  in so long. So let's see what you got. OK, so
• 58:53
  it's 2001. You're in the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead
• 58:57
  program at the Kennedy Center and you meet someone
• 58:59
  that becomes a frequent collaborator. Yeah, Mike,
• 59:03
  forget it. Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead is a program
• 59:09
  that is really kind of rooted in straight -ahead
• 59:12
  jazz, modern jazz. Man, it was so valuable to,
• 59:15
  I mean, they flew us into Washington, D .C. for
• 59:18
  a week. We got to rehearse with some amazing
• 59:21
  faculty. I mean, they were all legendary jazz
• 59:23
  artists and educators. Betty Carter had passed
• 59:25
  away by that point, but the program was still
• 59:27
  named after her. There was about 20 of us. And
• 59:31
  it was all original music. So we were, you know,
• 59:33
  you had to be a composer performer to get into
• 59:36
  that program. And so we're, you know, we each
• 59:39
  brought like three compositions and we got to
• 59:42
  play them for the class after having rehearsed
• 59:44
  them with the supervision of a faculty member.
• 59:47
  And then we did a proposal for the final concert,
• 59:50
  which took place at the Kennedy Center, and it
• 59:52
  was streaming online. I mean, this was like new
• 59:54
  technology in 2001, so it was pretty exciting
• 59:58
  to know that not only were we playing in this
• 1:00:00
  legendary space, but that it was on the Internet
• 1:00:03
  for everybody to experience. So I brought a couple
• 1:00:07
  of pieces to that. Gosh, one was a little bit
• 1:00:10
  more of a traditional jazz thing, and then one
• 1:00:12
  was kind of a... very open improvisational thing,
• 1:00:16
  which I based on like Ornette Coleman's music.
• 1:00:18
  It was a song called plastic people. And that's
• 1:00:20
  what I played on the final concert. Um, but it
• 1:00:23
  was probably the most out there thing on the
• 1:00:26
  concert. You know, it was, uh, it was a very
• 1:00:28
  kind of open improvisational piece. And I connected
• 1:00:31
  with Mike because he, he brought in sort of a
• 1:00:34
  bebop piece and then a couple of other, his original
• 1:00:36
  compositions that were a little bit more original,
• 1:00:38
  you know, like, uh, more, more open as well.
• 1:00:41
  But for the concert, they picked his bebop. And
• 1:00:43
  he wasn't really happy with that. And he felt
• 1:00:46
  really kind of reined in creatively by just sort
• 1:00:51
  of the parameters of this program. So Mike and
• 1:00:53
  I kind of got to know each other by kind of hanging
• 1:00:57
  out on the sidelines, complaining a little bit
• 1:01:00
  about the traditionalism that was dictating the
• 1:01:06
  music that was going to be on this concert. And
• 1:01:08
  we had a connection. And so Mike... Actually,
• 1:01:11
  after that, a year or two after that, started
• 1:01:13
  doing a really experimental project where he
• 1:01:16
  played this old plastic broken guitar with alligator
• 1:01:19
  clips and different kind of preparations, metal
• 1:01:22
  objects on the strings, and just improvising
• 1:01:25
  on this basically dysfunctional instrument and
• 1:01:28
  creating this really beautiful music from it.
• 1:01:31
  And he made a recording called Canto. And that's
• 1:01:34
  when I was at CalArts, and I thought, man, it
• 1:01:37
  would... this would really line up with some
• 1:01:39
  of the improvisation music that I'm trying to
• 1:01:42
  get into. And so we booked a duo tour. Having
• 1:01:46
  never played this music together, we just had
• 1:01:50
  jammed a little bit on some jazz stuff at the
• 1:01:52
  Kennedy Center. But that first tour, we rehearsed
• 1:01:58
  one evening at my apartment, put a couple of
• 1:02:02
  compositions together, and then we played the
• 1:02:04
  next night in San Francisco. man, LA, Bakersfield,
• 1:02:09
  San Francisco. I forget how far North we went.
• 1:02:11
  And then we made an album at the end of the week.
• 1:02:14
  Gradually we, we continued playing together.
• 1:02:16
  He lived in New York at the time. So, you know,
• 1:02:18
  uh, once a year I'd go out to New York and we
• 1:02:20
  would do a tour up in the Northeast and he's
• 1:02:22
  from Massachusetts. So we would do, we would
• 1:02:24
  do like Boston, Portland, Maine, um, New Hampshire,
• 1:02:27
  Vermont, we'd play up there. And then Mike would
• 1:02:31
  come out here and he had never been to the West
• 1:02:32
  coast before this project. So we would. you know,
• 1:02:35
  go up as far as like Seattle and all the way
• 1:02:39
  down to LA and then eventually out through the
• 1:02:41
  Southwest and Albuquerque and Santa Fe. And yeah,
• 1:02:46
  we made four or five records together and the
• 1:02:49
  music really evolved quickly. You know, we got
• 1:02:52
  away from the more experimental things that we
• 1:02:55
  were doing initially and started bringing in
• 1:02:58
  some music that we just loved because we were
• 1:03:01
  spending long hours like driving together, you
• 1:03:03
  know. on these road trips. And so we were listening
• 1:03:07
  to Bob Dylan and Neil Young and Townes Van Zandt,
• 1:03:10
  I remember, and all these sort of country artists
• 1:03:13
  and things like that in the car. And at some
• 1:03:16
  point it was like, why don't we try some of this
• 1:03:18
  music? The first cover we did like that was a
• 1:03:21
  Bob Dylan song called Just Like a Woman. And
• 1:03:24
  that changed the music because we found each
• 1:03:26
  other in this harmonic language, which wasn't
• 1:03:29
  jazz, which was coming from this sort of country
• 1:03:30
  folk music tradition. but it took our original
• 1:03:33
  stuff in another direction. So yeah, I was real
• 1:03:36
  proud of the music that we did with that project
• 1:03:39
  because it also helped me to find a way of playing
• 1:03:41
  that was less experimental and more lyrical,
• 1:03:44
  but just as spontaneous and just as improvisational
• 1:03:47
  and just as honest, and maybe even more honest
• 1:03:51
  than the music I'd been doing up to that point
• 1:03:53
  in all of my projects. So we both discovered
• 1:03:56
  new, deeper dimensions of our own music through
• 1:03:59
  working together. Yeah. I remember a lot of moments.
• 1:04:04
  There's a lot of moments that I can think back
• 1:04:06
  to that were like moments that blew my mind at
• 1:04:09
  a concert. And one of them was seeing Tin Bag
• 1:04:12
  about seven years ago when all of a sudden it
• 1:04:16
  seems like it was. it seems like it was really
• 1:04:18
  quiet. The music was kind of quiet and somber.
• 1:04:21
  And then all of a sudden he reaches behind his
• 1:04:23
  guitar and he like grabs the springs that are
• 1:04:28
  on the tremelo system and he just yanks on it.
• 1:04:31
  And it just made this really strange sound that
• 1:04:34
  I wouldn't expect to come from a guitar. And
• 1:04:36
  it was just this really cool moment of like,
• 1:04:38
  whoa, this is something way different, you know?
• 1:04:41
  Yeah. Yeah, Mike's really a genius of the guitar
• 1:04:44
  like that because he can do everything from just
• 1:04:46
  rock and country music right in the tradition,
• 1:04:49
  you know, as experimental and as out and as noise
• 1:04:52
  oriented as you want. But he brings it all together
• 1:04:55
  like it's all connected. There isn't like there
• 1:04:57
  aren't you can't see the seams, you know, when
• 1:05:00
  he plays between these noise elements and these
• 1:05:04
  like traditional harmonic elements that are just
• 1:05:07
  beautiful and gorgeous, you know, and that's
• 1:05:09
  always. what I've been trying to do in my own
• 1:05:14
  playing is to be able to have all of the sounds
• 1:05:17
  and all of the colors available. And I think
• 1:05:19
  Mike and I spent, we spent a lot of time talking
• 1:05:21
  about that. Like, you know, when we started playing
• 1:05:23
  together, we felt like the experimental side
• 1:05:25
  of our playing was in one room and the traditional
• 1:05:28
  side of our playing was in another room. And
• 1:05:30
  then like, we were stuck in this sort of jazz
• 1:05:32
  room a lot of times where we didn't know how
• 1:05:33
  to break out of that, but how to connect these
• 1:05:35
  different. rooms together and to be able to move
• 1:05:39
  freely between these different approaches and
• 1:05:41
  styles that's really what we were both working
• 1:05:44
  on on an individual level with that project and
• 1:05:47
  we found a lot of those solutions together so
• 1:05:50
  when you listen to the gosh how many records
• 1:05:52
  did we make five records that we made together
• 1:05:55
  you hear that evolution you know in the beginning
• 1:05:58
  we're playing with like scratchy screechy sounds
• 1:06:01
  and noises and then in the end we're covering
• 1:06:04
  like a Patsy Cline song Our last record, we did
• 1:06:08
  a Leonard Cohen tune and a Willie Nelson tune
• 1:06:10
  alongside our own music. It was a really great
• 1:06:13
  journey for both of us. We haven't played together
• 1:06:16
  in a while. I have my thing with Kathleen Pineda
• 1:06:19
  now that I feel like kind of picks up where I
• 1:06:21
  left off with Mike and been able to take all
• 1:06:25
  of that, all those discoveries further. And Mike
• 1:06:27
  has these incredibly successful projects with
• 1:06:29
  Mike Watt on bass. Stephen Hodges on drums, his
• 1:06:33
  MSSV group that he's been touring with, and he's
• 1:06:36
  got a new version of that that he's working with
• 1:06:38
  now. Yeah, that music was important to both of
• 1:06:42
  us. You just mentioned Kathleen Pineda. How did
• 1:06:46
  that duo start? Actually on some double bills
• 1:06:49
  where Tin Bag would play. I think the first time
• 1:06:53
  was at the Blue Whale in L .A., and we did a
• 1:06:55
  few shows like this where Tin Bag would play
• 1:06:57
  and then Kathleen's quartet would play. She invited
• 1:07:01
  me to play a couple of songs with her quartet.
• 1:07:05
  And then I recorded a couple of the songs with
• 1:07:07
  her quartet. And then I became a member of her
• 1:07:09
  quartet or trio. It was a trio. And then they
• 1:07:11
  added the trumpet to make it a quartet. So I
• 1:07:15
  was a guest on her first album on Arenda Records,
• 1:07:17
  which is mostly trio. And then we did two more
• 1:07:22
  albums as a quartet with her music. And I just
• 1:07:27
  absolutely love playing Kathleen's music. She's
• 1:07:29
  an incredible composer and pianist, and she's
• 1:07:33
  got this classical background. She was at CalArts
• 1:07:36
  as a classical piano major as an undergrad when
• 1:07:38
  I was there, so we didn't really know each other.
• 1:07:40
  Then she moved to New York and just started going
• 1:07:42
  out to hear jazz every night in New York City
• 1:07:44
  and decided she'd rather be a jazz musician instead.
• 1:07:47
  And she's such an incredible musician that she
• 1:07:49
  could just make that decision and then, like...
• 1:07:53
  you know, switch gears and come back to CalArts
• 1:07:55
  and do a jazz master's degree. And she was writing
• 1:07:57
  incredible original music. So more and more inside
• 1:08:00
  of her quartet concerts when she was writing
• 1:08:02
  music that, you know, that included me as the
• 1:08:06
  trumpet player, she would begin to write these
• 1:08:08
  little duet moments for her and I where the bass
• 1:08:11
  player and the drummer would lay out and then
• 1:08:12
  Kathleen and I would play. And those moments
• 1:08:16
  got bigger and bigger and we just both loved
• 1:08:17
  playing together as a duo so much that we started
• 1:08:19
  talking about it. And I don't know when the first
• 1:08:22
  duo concert was, but I brought some of my pieces
• 1:08:25
  and she brought some of hers and we did some
• 1:08:26
  covers of different things. And for both of us,
• 1:08:29
  I think it's been such an amazing experience
• 1:08:32
  to work together because we have this natural
• 1:08:35
  telepathy and this ability to really read each
• 1:08:38
  other with total openness and honesty and trying
• 1:08:42
  things, you know, like I've brought in things
• 1:08:44
  by Duke Ellington and Leonard Cohen. Gosh, and
• 1:08:46
  she's brought in her own music, some really diverse
• 1:08:49
  artists. Man, on our last concert, we did a transcription
• 1:08:53
  that I had made of this Catholic chant that was
• 1:08:55
  recorded in Sri Lanka off of an old Okora Records,
• 1:08:59
  you know, a French national record label. Very
• 1:09:02
  rare recording, but it's just this haunting,
• 1:09:04
  just deep, you know, religious chant that was
• 1:09:07
  done in this Buddhist community. And I transcribed
• 1:09:10
  that in Kathleen and I played that as a prelude
• 1:09:12
  to one of her new compositions. And it works,
• 1:09:15
  man. Everything we have tried together has just
• 1:09:17
  worked. I can't say that's been the case with
• 1:09:19
  like any other musician I've ever played with.
• 1:09:21
  Just like I know like with Kathleen. And if it
• 1:09:23
  doesn't seem to work, we'll figure out a way
• 1:09:26
  to make it work. But man, we just love playing
• 1:09:28
  together. Yeah, I remember I went to the Three
• 1:09:31
  Days in Space music festival that Killer Kern
• 1:09:34
  Records put on this year. I knew you were playing,
• 1:09:37
  and I just saw a trumpet and a piano, and I was
• 1:09:40
  like, huh, I've never heard of that duo. Maybe
• 1:09:43
  there's a bunch of records of that specific type
• 1:09:45
  of instrument combination, but I'd never heard
• 1:09:47
  of that. I was like, what is this going to sound
• 1:09:48
  like? And it was just really cool, and it was
• 1:09:50
  way different than anything else that went before
• 1:09:53
  it. It was really fun. Well, that... gig was
• 1:09:56
  so fun because you know we followed happy now
• 1:09:58
  which is like a you know punk project and val
• 1:10:01
  was on stage smashing the bass and everything
• 1:10:03
  and uh kelso who's a great local singer songwriter
• 1:10:07
  and uh man there was just such a great energy
• 1:10:10
  in the room that when we get up usually we play
• 1:10:12
  these concerts at jazz spaces and everything's
• 1:10:14
  very quiet everybody's you know everybody's paying
• 1:10:16
  attention to stuff and we had like kids who just
• 1:10:19
  experienced all this punk music standing around
• 1:10:21
  us right in front of the stage so we started
• 1:10:24
  just by playing open we just started improvising
• 1:10:27
  and playing just as and we didn't even talk about
• 1:10:30
  this we just like said okay go and playing as
• 1:10:33
  fast and as chaotic and as dense as we could
• 1:10:36
  and gradually we shifted into this composition
• 1:10:38
  called sung which is from our record which is
• 1:10:42
  a piece that i wrote for doug davis a long long
• 1:10:43
  time ago and played with him originally and uh
• 1:10:47
  And the audience was so receptive and so responsive
• 1:10:49
  to it. I think one of the real great things about
• 1:10:53
  that day was just the diversity that they put
• 1:10:55
  together on that event, Three Days in Space.
• 1:10:58
  Because after us was this Voodoo Five, right?
• 1:11:02
  An exotica band from L .A., which was another
• 1:11:05
  complete shift in direction. So I've always loved
• 1:11:09
  that kind of energy. Some of our favorite gigs
• 1:11:11
  with Empty Cage Quartet were playing... Man,
• 1:11:14
  we played at a punk club in Olympia, Washington
• 1:11:16
  one time, and kids were like dancing to the music.
• 1:11:19
  You know, it was not what they normally hear
• 1:11:20
  in this space, but we were playing this just
• 1:11:24
  like real out there kind of avant -garde jazz,
• 1:11:27
  and the kids were like dancing, man, figuring
• 1:11:29
  out a way to dance to it. That's cool. And it
• 1:11:31
  was so much fun. You know, always like plugging
• 1:11:34
  something unexpected into a space like that can
• 1:11:37
  result in some pretty surprising connections.
• 1:11:40
  Is there any other groups that you wanted to
• 1:11:42
  talk about? Yeah, there are a few other groups
• 1:11:44
  that were important to me over the years. I played
• 1:11:46
  in a project called the Industrial Jazz Group,
• 1:11:49
  you know, in my 20s when I was touring a lot
• 1:11:51
  with Empty Cage and with Mike Brigetta. This
• 1:11:54
  was another group that I was able to see other
• 1:11:57
  parts of the world and stuff. That group went
• 1:11:58
  to Italy. We played a real high -profile, sold
• 1:12:02
  -out gig in Milan and multiple tours over on
• 1:12:05
  the East Coast. And all the music was written
• 1:12:07
  by a guy named Andrew Durkin, and it started
• 1:12:10
  as an L .A. band that was just like four or five
• 1:12:12
  pieces and then gradually expanded. When I joined
• 1:12:14
  the band, there were seven people in the group.
• 1:12:16
  This was around 2002 or 2003, while I was at
• 1:12:20
  CalArts. That was a lot of fun because it eventually
• 1:12:22
  expanded into a full big band, and we were wearing
• 1:12:24
  costumes on stage, and it was like circus party
• 1:12:27
  music, but kind of like a jazz version of Frank
• 1:12:30
  Zappa's approach, really irreverent. And he would
• 1:12:33
  do these sort of satirical takes on different
• 1:12:36
  pop music styles and things, and it was just
• 1:12:38
  hilarious. It was really, really a lot of fun.
• 1:12:41
  And so there's a lot of recordings out that we
• 1:12:43
  did with that over the years. And another guy
• 1:12:48
  I was closely associated with was a producer
• 1:12:50
  and guitarist from Long Beach named Chris Schlarb,
• 1:12:52
  and he had a band called Psychic Temple, and
• 1:12:55
  there was a whole series of albums that were
• 1:12:58
  released. His record label is called Big Ego
• 1:13:01
  Records, and Mike Pagetta and I, our last album,
• 1:13:04
  Evening Hawks, was put out on that label. But
• 1:13:08
  Chris is a songwriter, and I did a couple of
• 1:13:10
  tours and concerts with his band. That project
• 1:13:13
  was a lot of fun too because it's sort of this
• 1:13:17
  sort of post -genre, you know, genre -less aesthetic.
• 1:13:21
  You know, the band kind of started as a jazz
• 1:13:23
  fusion project and eventually crossed over into
• 1:13:26
  all these different singer -songwriter areas.
• 1:13:27
  And I'm really proud of all the records that,
• 1:13:30
  or at least my small part, you know, on these
• 1:13:32
  records that we put out with Psychic Temple over
• 1:13:35
  those years. And Chris is still doing it. He
• 1:13:39
  runs a studio in Long Beach where Big Ego is
• 1:13:42
  located. And what type of music is Psychic Temple?
• 1:13:47
  I know you say that it's genre -less, but what
• 1:13:50
  kind of instruments are in it? It depends on
• 1:13:53
  the album and it depends on the project. One
• 1:13:55
  of the records was a hip -hop record. The early
• 1:14:00
  ones were a little bit more jazz fusion, moving
• 1:14:03
  into Americana folk music type territory. It
• 1:14:07
  became more of a rock band for a while. But with
• 1:14:12
  Chris, it was just about... good music you know
• 1:14:16
  and his his models were these great producers
• 1:14:18
  like brian wilson and joe jackson and when we
• 1:14:22
  did this national tour we we were doing a cover
• 1:14:25
  of everybody wants to rule the world tears for
• 1:14:27
  fears yeah and um a bunch of his original music
• 1:14:30
  you know just kind of putting all these things
• 1:14:32
  side by side which you wouldn't expect to see
• 1:14:34
  side by side so My view of music has been really
• 1:14:38
  influenced by people like this, like Mike and
• 1:14:41
  Chris Schlarb and Kathleen and people who can
• 1:14:43
  just pick up any genre and put their voice on
• 1:14:47
  it. That's not an original idea. I think it's
• 1:14:49
  an idea that's really central to the way creative
• 1:14:52
  music works these days because we have access
• 1:14:54
  to everything. When I was a kid, it was more
• 1:14:59
  like... If you wanted to play jazz, you had to
• 1:15:02
  learn the jazz tradition. If you wanted to play
• 1:15:03
  rock, then you get involved in a rock band. If
• 1:15:05
  you wanted to play whatever style of music, if
• 1:15:07
  you're going to play classical music, then you
• 1:15:09
  have to be in a symphony orchestra. But those
• 1:15:11
  rules don't really exist anymore. You can be
• 1:15:13
  influenced by whatever, and you can pick up your
• 1:15:15
  phone and instantly have access to any sound
• 1:15:18
  and any information that's ever existed. The
• 1:15:22
  genre is really the artist now and the artist's
• 1:15:25
  experience. Some of the most interesting and
• 1:15:28
  surprising music is the music and the art that
• 1:15:30
  comes from, like, you really feel like you're
• 1:15:34
  experiencing a new perspective from an individual,
• 1:15:38
  from a human being, and not, like, another jazz
• 1:15:42
  record or another rock and roll record. You know,
• 1:15:44
  it doesn't work that way anymore. Yeah. I guess
• 1:15:47
  I'm the last generation that grew up. like was
• 1:15:49
  was still in an analog life like i grew up with
• 1:15:53
  vhs tapes and cassette tapes cds were out but
• 1:15:58
  we didn't have dvds yet like i just remember
• 1:16:01
  everything was physical you know and that's when
• 1:16:04
  i was little and then i watched streaming come
• 1:16:08
  out and youtube and everything and now every
• 1:16:11
  every genre exists at the same time you know
• 1:16:14
  there it's almost like you flattened the time
• 1:16:16
  to where before when i was growing up i could
• 1:16:20
  turn on 98 .5 the fox and i could listen to classic
• 1:16:23
  rock i could turn on the oldies station and listen
• 1:16:25
  to oldies or i could listen to now that's all
• 1:16:27
  if i wanted to find anything else i would have
• 1:16:30
  to go to will go to goodwill and dig through
• 1:16:32
  records and so now you just everything at your
• 1:16:35
  fingertips almost crazy yeah i mean that's that's
• 1:16:39
  how i grew up too is uh you know analog childhood
• 1:16:41
  and digital adulthood Yeah. That's that early
• 1:16:44
  millennial, like late Gen X. It's the last generation
• 1:16:47
  that remembers life before the internet. The
• 1:16:50
  first time I logged on to the internet was my
• 1:16:52
  senior year of high school. So everything before
• 1:16:55
  that was a matter of tracking stuff down, going
• 1:16:58
  to the library, checking out CDs, saving your
• 1:17:01
  money, going to a record store, picking out an
• 1:17:03
  album. And it was such a special thing to get
• 1:17:05
  an album in your hands. And your entire life
• 1:17:07
  gets invested in that record for maybe a few
• 1:17:09
  weeks while you're learning it and checking it
• 1:17:11
  out. And it's just a completely different way
• 1:17:13
  to interface with information now. So the exciting
• 1:17:17
  thing about that is all of those limits and those
• 1:17:20
  boundaries just don't exist anymore. At the same
• 1:17:24
  time, I feel like young people don't appreciate
• 1:17:28
  how much time and effort and attention, I guess
• 1:17:32
  attention is the word, that we had to put into
• 1:17:34
  art and culture and music because we had such
• 1:17:38
  limited availability of it. And when you did
• 1:17:41
  get a hold of something, it could be just life
• 1:17:43
  -changing. And when you have a device that you're
• 1:17:47
  holding, I don't want to sound too old and cranky
• 1:17:49
  here, right? Like when you have a device that
• 1:17:51
  you literally have access to everything, I don't
• 1:17:53
  think there's that same level of just investment.
• 1:17:57
  I don't know. I'm trying to think of a better
• 1:17:58
  word. Yeah, there's something to be said about
• 1:18:00
  that, especially because at a certain time, you
• 1:18:03
  only had five CDs. So that's all you could listen
• 1:18:06
  to. And now it's overwhelming how much you have.
• 1:18:09
  But I have been seeing it come back around. People
• 1:18:12
  are so used to, kids are so used to growing up
• 1:18:15
  with everything digital. Now physical stuff is
• 1:18:18
  starting to become special again. People are
• 1:18:20
  making zines again. People are buying CDs. I've
• 1:18:24
  been seeing CDs. being more popular than records
• 1:18:27
  right now that's true and that gives me a lot
• 1:18:29
  of hope you know for the kids who see that is
• 1:18:32
  it better to have access to everything but like
• 1:18:34
  knowledge of nothing or you know or to have real
• 1:18:37
  limited access and just a couple of albums in
• 1:18:40
  your collection but to know them so deeply that
• 1:18:42
  they might even change your life you know it's
• 1:18:45
  a matter of just like really paying attention
• 1:18:47
  you know and and listening deeply yeah that's
• 1:18:51
  that's it's getting back to something you know
• 1:18:54
  that's more honest and i i have some hope when
• 1:18:56
  i see that you know the younger generation is
• 1:18:58
  like actually smart enough to realize that that
• 1:19:00
  there's a lot that we're missing out on just
• 1:19:02
  because we're overloaded with information and
• 1:19:05
  content you know i hate that word man it's like
• 1:19:09
  there's there's a big difference between art
• 1:19:11
  and content yeah yeah moving on to a completely
• 1:19:15
  separate topic um the jazz workshop So I know
• 1:19:20
  Steve Eisen started the Jazz Workshop in 2004,
• 1:19:23
  but you've become an integral part of that, right?
• 1:19:27
  Well, I'm on the board. Yeah, I've been on the
• 1:19:28
  board of directors for I don't know how long,
• 1:19:31
  maybe 10 years or so. It's a great organization.
• 1:19:34
  You know, it's been a real... important place
• 1:19:38
  for young musicians and professional musicians
• 1:19:40
  to go and to meet each other and to jam together
• 1:19:42
  and, you know, to have a chance to try out ideas
• 1:19:45
  and put bands together. And it's happened weekly.
• 1:19:48
  I mean, that's kind of unheard of, you know,
• 1:19:49
  for anything that's a weekly presentation to
• 1:19:52
  last for now almost 20 years. That just doesn't
• 1:19:56
  happen. And, you know, like you think of places
• 1:19:58
  like the Village Vanguard, you know, in New York
• 1:20:00
  City, that's been going on for a long, long,
• 1:20:02
  long time. Blue Note Records has been around
• 1:20:05
  forever. But, you know, things come and go. And,
• 1:20:09
  you know, Steve's been a real hero in this community
• 1:20:13
  for keeping that going so long. And there's a
• 1:20:16
  lot of support, man. People like Laura Booker
• 1:20:17
  and Mark Hall and Tim Stone Lake and Doug Davis
• 1:20:21
  is on the board of directors. Kyle Burnham and
• 1:20:23
  Tony Rinaldi and I are all on the board of directors.
• 1:20:26
  And we're more like advisors, you know, just
• 1:20:28
  kind of as educators keeping the... the integrity
• 1:20:32
  of what the workshop is about, which is really
• 1:20:35
  like bringing music to the community, but also
• 1:20:37
  encouraging students to have a place to go, a
• 1:20:40
  safe place, right, to go and hear music and to
• 1:20:43
  learn tunes and to jam. And, you know, they don't
• 1:20:47
  have to go to some bar or nightclub to do it,
• 1:20:49
  right? Or like when I was a kid, we had to make
• 1:20:53
  our own opportunities. If we wanted to hear something
• 1:20:55
  that wasn't on a college campus, we had to start
• 1:20:57
  a scene at a coffee house or something like that.
• 1:21:00
  And that's a lot of work. But to be able to go
• 1:21:01
  and have a thing that happens every Tuesday night
• 1:21:04
  where the music is going on, it's going to be
• 1:21:07
  good. That's really, really valuable to our community.
• 1:21:10
  And it's free. We don't charge anything for it.
• 1:21:14
  It's a non -profit. It's awesome. It's free.
• 1:21:17
  it's free to learn if you wanted to learn jazz
• 1:21:20
  but it's also free just to go i go there sometimes
• 1:21:23
  it's really fun it's always a fun night at the
• 1:21:25
  jazz workshop yeah so looking looking back on
• 1:21:28
  your career jazz is more than just a job for
• 1:21:31
  you it's not like some professors that might
• 1:21:34
  teach whatever subject and then go home and not
• 1:21:38
  work on that subject you really picked a job
• 1:21:42
  that you could teach jazz and so that you would
• 1:21:45
  still have the time to tour and do concerts.
• 1:21:48
  You've worked with the Jazz Workshop. I think
• 1:21:50
  it's really great. You've played concerts all
• 1:21:52
  over the world, right? You've played overseas.
• 1:21:56
  What's it like to bring Bakersfield Jazz overseas?
• 1:21:59
  Well, the groups that I toured Europe with, like
• 1:22:03
  Empty Cage and Tin Bag and Industrial Jazz Group,
• 1:22:06
  they were all collaborative projects. I remember
• 1:22:08
  early on getting asked that question when we
• 1:22:11
  would tour. Okay, where are you from? And where
• 1:22:13
  are you from? And where are you from, Mr. Tiner?
• 1:22:16
  And I'd say, well, you know, like, from California.
• 1:22:18
  Oh, California, where at in California? Like,
• 1:22:20
  you know, outside of L .A. a little bit. Okay,
• 1:22:24
  like, well, I've been to L .A. You know, where
• 1:22:26
  outside? Well, okay, like Bakersfield. I'm from
• 1:22:28
  Bakersfield. And it would eventually come out.
• 1:22:30
  And I tried to cover that up for a while in the
• 1:22:32
  early days because I wanted, you know, I was
• 1:22:34
  playing mostly in L .A. and I wanted to be a
• 1:22:37
  musician from L .A. But I got sick of having
• 1:22:39
  that conversation. And at a certain point, like,
• 1:22:42
  I realized, you know, just be proud of where
• 1:22:45
  you're from. There's so many, there's so much
• 1:22:48
  great history here. And the fact that Bakersfield
• 1:22:51
  gets a rap for being like a country music oil
• 1:22:54
  town or whatever, you know, that's not the whole
• 1:22:56
  story. And so the longer I stayed here and got
• 1:23:00
  invested here, you know, after college, the more
• 1:23:05
  I felt like I need to do my part, you know, to
• 1:23:09
  change that perception. even if it's just one
• 1:23:13
  little person at a time. And to work on really
• 1:23:17
  building something. The Jazz Workshop has been
• 1:23:20
  building and building for 20 years. The BC Jazz
• 1:23:23
  Program has been around since the 60s. But I
• 1:23:27
  was there for a long enough period of time where
• 1:23:29
  I felt like this is an opportunity to really
• 1:23:31
  build something lasting and meaningful. And then
• 1:23:35
  to use that program and that platform to bring
• 1:23:38
  people and present artists from other parts of
• 1:23:41
  the world. country and other parts of the world
• 1:23:43
  um on stage like we brought jeff parker and jeff
• 1:23:47
  coffin and jenny scheinman and wadada leo smith
• 1:23:50
  to bc to perform and to you know give something
• 1:23:53
  to this community but also do what we can to
• 1:23:56
  i don't want to say change the reputation but
• 1:23:59
  just maybe add to the reputation that bakersfield
• 1:24:01
  has in the national international scene That's
• 1:24:05
  one of the reasons I started Epigraph Records
• 1:24:06
  years ago was to document the concerts that were
• 1:24:10
  happening and put some recordings out there so
• 1:24:11
  that the recordings would maybe hopefully have
• 1:24:13
  a wider reach than the concerts did. The first
• 1:24:17
  record we put out was a vinyl LP called Ritual
• 1:24:20
  Inscription, and that was reviewed in the New
• 1:24:22
  York City Jazz Record, which is the main jazz
• 1:24:24
  publication in New York. And one of the lines
• 1:24:28
  in that review said, there's something different
• 1:24:29
  happening in Bakersfield since the days of Merle
• 1:24:31
  Haggard and Buck Owens and whatever. And I was
• 1:24:34
  really proud of that because, you know, that's
• 1:24:37
  all I want to try to do is to be able to tell
• 1:24:39
  people, like, yeah, I'm from Bakersfield. And,
• 1:24:41
  you know, if they give me some sarcastic reply,
• 1:24:45
  I can say, no, actually, you're wrong. there's
• 1:24:48
  a lot of great things that are happening here
• 1:24:50
  and I'm proud to be from this area and I'm really
• 1:24:52
  proud to have had the experiences that I had
• 1:24:54
  here. They shaped me and my collaborations and
• 1:24:58
  relationships with people like Doug and Charles
• 1:25:02
  Brady and Paul Perez and just these amazing musicians
• 1:25:04
  I've got to work with over the years have really
• 1:25:07
  meant a lot to me. That's awesome. I agree so
• 1:25:10
  much. That's so much about this podcast is about
• 1:25:13
  showcasing the variety of cool Bakersfield music
• 1:25:18
  history that there is because there's so much.
• 1:25:21
  It is bottomless how much stuff there is and
• 1:25:24
  how varied. Yeah, Bakersfield has always been
• 1:25:27
  a music city. Yeah. And you know, one thing that
• 1:25:31
  Kyle Burnham and I had a deep conversation about
• 1:25:34
  this once, and I think we both realized, like
• 1:25:36
  the Bakersfield sound was always about rebellion,
• 1:25:39
  was always about doing your own thing. Yeah.
• 1:25:43
  You know. Buck and Merle and the folks who came
• 1:25:46
  before and the folks who came after as part of
• 1:25:48
  the Bakersfield Sound, they were going against
• 1:25:50
  the grain of what mainstream country music was.
• 1:25:52
  So Nashville West wasn't just like a Nashville
• 1:25:54
  copy. It was a retaliation and a rebellion against
• 1:25:57
  what Nashville was putting out, which at the
• 1:25:59
  time in the 60s they called country -politan.
• 1:26:01
  Real glossy, kind of, you know, a watered -down
• 1:26:05
  version of that honky -tonk music that had such
• 1:26:08
  an important... uh foothold in the in you know
• 1:26:13
  in the community here that that that sort of
• 1:26:15
  oppressed oaky community that had come over in
• 1:26:18
  the 30s and 40s so uh you know kyle and i were
• 1:26:22
  we're talking about this and realized that like
• 1:26:25
  you know that's exactly that's the same thing
• 1:26:26
  that doug encouraged us to do when we would go
• 1:26:28
  to like that pacific coast jazz festival at berkeley
• 1:26:31
  play your own music you know don't go up there
• 1:26:34
  and try to play what every other college band
• 1:26:36
  is playing you know um Play your own music and
• 1:26:39
  present the music on your own terms. And that's
• 1:26:44
  what I try to impart to my students at BC. Write
• 1:26:47
  your music and make it sound like you're from
• 1:26:49
  Bakersfield. Don't try to make it sound like
• 1:26:51
  you're from New York or New Orleans or anywhere
• 1:26:53
  else. Make the music sound like you and find
• 1:26:57
  something that's honest. And if you're inspired
• 1:26:58
  by something that's outside of the jazz tradition,
• 1:27:01
  that's okay. That's to be encouraged because
• 1:27:04
  that's really where we are now as a culture.
• 1:27:06
  And who wants to hear a kid from Bakersfield
• 1:27:09
  trying to sound like they're not? I think it's
• 1:27:13
  much more important to take that next step of
• 1:27:18
  like, what's the Bakersfield sound now? Man,
• 1:27:20
  there are so many great artists and bands around
• 1:27:23
  town now that are taking that a step further
• 1:27:25
  and not just copying the past, but stepping into
• 1:27:28
  their own place in that tradition. I agree with
• 1:27:31
  what you're saying. If you listen to what Nashville
• 1:27:34
  was putting out before Buck Owens came out with
• 1:27:38
  his twin Telecaster songs, which are very rock
• 1:27:42
  and roll compared to country, two electric guitars
• 1:27:44
  was unheard of. And yeah, and I think that happened
• 1:27:49
  again in the 90s with Korn because no rock band
• 1:27:52
  sounded like Korn. No one. A lot of people sounded
• 1:27:56
  like them after. Yeah, and you have the opportunity,
• 1:28:00
  being from a small community like that, to reinvent
• 1:28:02
  the bigger scene. I mean, that's what Grunge
• 1:28:06
  was. Looking at being from a small community
• 1:28:08
  as an opportunity and not as a detriment, I think,
• 1:28:11
  is the first step for an artist, if you're going
• 1:28:13
  to have any reach beyond that community with
• 1:28:16
  your music. At the end of the episode, we always
• 1:28:18
  talk about music recommendations. So what Bakersfield
• 1:28:21
  music, past or present, do you recommend for
• 1:28:24
  people to listen to? There's a great singer who
• 1:28:27
  I just got to work with or shared a bill with
• 1:28:30
  a couple nights ago named Kelso. She's writing
• 1:28:33
  some really, really creative, witty songs. And
• 1:28:36
  I just love the harmonies and stuff that she
• 1:28:39
  uses. Plays ukulele and keyboard and mostly a
• 1:28:43
  solo act. And I feel like there's a really exciting
• 1:28:48
  wave of young jazz musicians coming through right
• 1:28:52
  now. They are, you know... People who have been
• 1:28:55
  through the program at BC who are starting to
• 1:28:57
  do what you're supposed to do, which is get out
• 1:28:59
  there and create a band and, you know, start
• 1:29:02
  hitting up gigs. And there's a group called Palanoia,
• 1:29:05
  which are some students at BC who are just about
• 1:29:08
  finished with the program. There's a group called
• 1:29:10
  the Nash Quartet that are former students of
• 1:29:13
  mine. And I love that these guys are getting
• 1:29:15
  out and trying to contribute something to the
• 1:29:18
  scene, you know, and not just rely on school.
• 1:29:21
  you know, to give them performance opportunities.
• 1:29:23
  That's what I really try to impart is like if
• 1:29:26
  you want something to happen and the phone's
• 1:29:28
  not ringing, then you've got to create your own
• 1:29:29
  opportunity. So getting out, hitting up open
• 1:29:31
  mics, like finding venues that are willing to
• 1:29:35
  host live music and just making it happen for
• 1:29:37
  yourself, you know, writing music, recording
• 1:29:40
  it. That's the name of the game. And that's how
• 1:29:43
  you start. Who knows where it's going to take
• 1:29:45
  you, but you've got to like have the faith and
• 1:29:46
  the courage to take that first step. You can't
• 1:29:49
  allow yourself to be intimidated by the folks
• 1:29:51
  who are older than you who are already doing
• 1:29:53
  it because they were your age once. And I try
• 1:29:55
  to be real honest with my students about that.
• 1:29:58
  I was where you were. The only thing that got
• 1:30:01
  me out of the academic environment with my music
• 1:30:05
  was just having the courage to go out and say,
• 1:30:09
  I've got a band. Do you need live music at your
• 1:30:12
  place? This is how much it costs. And just having
• 1:30:15
  the confidence to do that. And having an educator
• 1:30:19
  like Doug who encouraged us to write our music
• 1:30:24
  and put us on stage at the jazz festival to play
• 1:30:27
  it in front of thousands of people, that's big.
• 1:30:29
  That's a big opportunity. Because you've got
• 1:30:32
  to either find that courage or else, right? Or
• 1:30:38
  else you just self -destruct in that situation.
• 1:30:40
  And I chose to find the courage. And then that,
• 1:30:44
  you know, once you get past something like that,
• 1:30:46
  then it becomes easy to maybe hit up a restaurant
• 1:30:48
  or a coffee house or something. So I try to give
• 1:30:50
  my students those kind of opportunities and just
• 1:30:52
  encourage them to get out there and do it. Like
• 1:30:54
  if you say it's real, it's real. Get a business
• 1:30:56
  card, you know, put a website up, put a social
• 1:30:58
  media page up for your band. Yeah. Put some pictures
• 1:31:01
  up there and suddenly you look like a band. And
• 1:31:04
  then, you know, as long as you're practicing
• 1:31:05
  and you're rehearsing and you're staying on top
• 1:31:07
  of it and trying to improve, you know, you'll
• 1:31:09
  have what you need. to back it up. I always tell
• 1:31:12
  them like, you just need an hour of music, right?
• 1:31:14
  You can get an hour's worth of music together
• 1:31:16
  in a couple hours of rehearsal and then go play
• 1:31:18
  a show. And then you might find somebody at that
• 1:31:21
  show that has a connection or they want you to
• 1:31:24
  play at their place. And then you go play another
• 1:31:26
  show. And then somebody at that show approaches
• 1:31:28
  you. If the music's good and it's quality, one
• 1:31:31
  opportunity will lead to another. And that's
• 1:31:33
  how you network and, and build a network of contacts
• 1:31:36
  and opportunities. But you've got to put it out
• 1:31:40
  there. You've got to take the first step.