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WEHM All Access - Sag Harbor American Music Festival - Jack Marshall · WEHM All Access

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's W E H M All Access, the State Harbor American Music Festival.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this year, uh coming Sunday, September 27th at 1130, it's the Jack Marshall Trio at State Harbor Express Alley Stage.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Welcoming in Jack Marshall right now.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Jack, what's going on?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing well.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Very nice to meet you.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know you've got a whole bunch of different projects over the years, and it's kind of fun uh to chat with you about the the trio.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you guys did a show at the talk house I was watching online, which is kind of cool.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was shot very well, and uh you sounded great, and a couple of special guests there.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that was earlier in the summer, if I'm not mistaken.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you're always uh yeah, you're always busy doing different shows and coming this year to the Stag Harbor Music Festival.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, have you done this festival before?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: I've played it in the past with other groups.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm also gonna be playing this year with Annie Tresa slightly after.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think they already did an inter interview with her as well.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, I haven't played with this group specifically, but I played with other groups um over the years for sure.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: What's been fun doing these interviews is you realize how intertwined a lot of uh the artists are.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: They work together, they collaborate, and it's kind of nice, I have to say, that uh it's a very uh it's kind of like a big family out on the East End for the most part of all the different musicians, and I love that uh you guys are playing together with different ones and helping each other out, uh, which is very cool.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh curious, figure if we focus on the trio project right now.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: When did this specific project come about for you?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's different incarnations of a similar idea that I was trying to do.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd always wanted to kind of lead with more of like a jazz kind of focused group, and I just didn't really have the right people that were in the same mindset and background of that to really put that group together.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I had kind of leaned into more doing like Funk and Soul, which our group also incorporates a lot of that in modern sounds.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And probably about a year ago, I got a good lineup of uh guys, and we were able to start booking shows, and it all kind of came together.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Probably a year or two prior, I had had a couple different incarnations that had different members, and we kind of settled on this group in like the last maybe year or so.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a little bit recent with this this lineup at least over the past year.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now take me back, where are you from initially and uh when did you and can you think back to when you first really started to love music?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I'm from East Hampton.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a lifelong East Hampton resident.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um both my parents grew up out in this area.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: My family's all from here.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, you know, I don't I remember just always being interested in music, whether it be, you know, being in school chorus or um listening to music on the radio.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: My family was never really largely music focused.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: There wasn't like a lot of like music in the house.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was just something that I kind of gravitated to over time.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we had a lot of really great uh uh public school teachers, like uh Troy Grindle.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I started playing violin when I was nine with uh Mr.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Grindel in the school orchestra all through uh my senior year.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I also started taking lessons speaking of Sad Harbor, it's no longer there, but the Sack Harbor Music Shop, if you remember, remember that.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: I took guitar lessons the same year.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I was in, I believe, fourth grade around nine years old, and that really helped develop a really good foundation because I didn't realize at the time I was learning two different stringed instruments at the same year, and that kind of really pushed me to go on to learn.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, now I play pedal steel, I play like some other instruments.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, it's really it was really great.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: We also, you know, David Douglas was really amazing, Jonathan Howe, Amanda Jones.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we just had this really great uh crew of people that were pushing us to do all these great things.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So how long did it take for you to want to be able to perform in front of people?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Was that natural for you?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or um, I think it's you know, I think at a certain point when you are playing, you're gonna have to get out and perform in some sort of way.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I naturally just started, you know, in high school making bands and trying to perform.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I when I was younger, I definitely got much more nervous.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I still get like a little nervous now, but when you get through the first song and people are into it, you kind of remind yourself, like, I know how to do this, and you know, you kind of just go from there.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: So now it sounds like you've been you've done a lot of different projects uh with music and a lot of different musicians.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what is your favorite type of music to play out of curiosity?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, in my own time, I really do like a lot of instrumental kind of stuff, like my my trio embraces, like jazz.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: I like a lot of modern kind of stuff uh in that world and a lot of jazz guitar-focused things.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: I like a lot of like kind of like funk and soul-oriented and groove-oriented music.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, I play in a lot of different bands that range from country to rock.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: When I was being a Long Island kid, I grew up listening to a ton of like metal and emo and all that kind of, you know, typical what we call like scene music back in the day.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm really spread thin, you know, which uh in some ways has helped me, and some ways has kind of made it hard to kind of narrow on one one thing for sure.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're you're very uh versatile, is the best way to describe it.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can work with a lot of different musicians, which is very cool.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you've watched the East E music scene grow over the years.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: What's that been like to see as far as um working with different people and and watching it kind of evolve uh in the in the Hamptons over the past decade or so?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think both with just the growth of the popularity of the Hamptons and particularly like Montauk and all these places really blowing up as like a destination place for people to want to go, has really driven more places to want music.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's given opportunities for musicians like me who make a living playing music to be able to charge a rate that's affordable, where you can, you know, try to make a living and uh you know get by actually playing music.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I've been here through uh a number of different incarnations of people where there's still a lot of people who've been playing here for years and years that I'm sure everybody knows.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I've noticed recently there's been like a wave of some younger guys in like their early 20s have that kind of come back into town.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So there's been like a nice kind of resurgence of um some like new blood coming into the end of the scene here.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So no, it's been great to see, and it's kind of nice to get some new blood every once in a while, but it's nice to have people that grew up in it and appreciate it.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you really it is not easy being a working musician.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um you've worked a ton of gigs.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, I was looking over your Instagram and seeing all the different places you've done.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think I found one that went way back to like 2018.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you've had a lot of projects.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, how do you keep uh what what really I'd imagine you you just obviously love music, um, but what keeps you I guess going with all of these gigs?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the challenge for you?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you kind of make sure that there's always a new challenge?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, definitely playing with different people and playing different genres and being required to have um different sounds available for different people.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: That keeps it interesting for me.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'd have a really hard time just playing like, even if I just did like my trio, which is largely focused on stuff I'm interested in, I'd always have like an urge to want to do something else.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it's actually been nice been, you know, playing in all these different projects because that really gets me to keep up on all these different things because it's uh sometimes I wonder, you know, what I should be practicing or working on, and all these groups will tell you, you know, because that's where you're performing, and those are the things that you need to work on.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: So getting to play in all these kind of diverse things really helps me be able to kind of keep it interesting and fresh.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I work on my own time just trying to uh keep up with my own playing to try to bring ideas to keep it fun for myself in the in the individual projects too.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, that that's great, and I think that's the key is that there are a lot of different projects.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: As far as writing goes and creating um original music, what what has that been like for you, kind of dipping your toe in there?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've gone in and out of it.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've been in some original bands where we wrote as a as a band.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was in like a lot of different kinds of like, for lack of a better term, like a rock band kind of format of the guys like kind of writing together.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have written a number of things over the years.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of it kind of got lost with the different projects that I was in.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and now I'm working on some instrumental music for the project I'm in, and we also do a combination of like our version of classic, you know, jazz and soul standards and and things like that for sure.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: What's it like in the summers out here when you're because it it it has it feels very I don't want to say competitive, but you have to find your the right spots for you.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um are there certain places that you know kind of take to the Jack Marshall trio better than others, I'd imagine.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a number of different places.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like I always love the talkhouse.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've been playing there like most of my you know guitar playing adult life.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: So um besides that, uh there's a couple spots out here, like the Sagaponic Distillery I like playing.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'll actually be playing there tomorrow on uh what's that, the uh the 19th.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So um and then what else is there?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um just like there's a bunch of fun, just kind of restaurants and things.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of like jazz-oriented stuff can be a little more in the background.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so some of the places like Talk Us are a little more fun where like you were talking about the video where you had like the three guitars and stuff where I try to open it up a little bit to make it like a little less uh wallpaper-y for sure.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, that was fun to watch.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know Greg Molin was a part of that one, uh, among others, uh, for that for that project back at the talkhouse in the summer.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh as you continue to grow and kind of just keep working, is there something things that you want to do with the Jack Marshall trio that you kind of want to grow it and and kind of do different things in the future?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have some some goals for it, I guess?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my original idea was so I do a lot of like session work where I either get hired or I play in individual bands.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you have one band and you're trying to make it as a musician, you can only really play once or twice a week or so many times.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you play in five bands, you can play, you know, every night of the week.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: So um I think that's really really helped me a lot.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the idea for me was that I started getting a little frustrated at times where I'd have these holes in my schedules and I couldn't schedule myself.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um or I'd have five days in a row and three days off, and then the you know, it becomes tough playing because you don't have a nine to five job.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of whenever you're asked to play or available.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot a large reason for me starting this group was to be able to book myself so that I could get out, play a music that I wasn't really finding other musicians were um asking me to play with them, and it gave me an opportunity to book myself.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: So the three of us, guitar bass and drums, is really um the core of the group, and then I'll add in, like you saw, like another one or two guitar players, a sax player.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: My idea would be over time to have the bassists be the three people, and in larger scenarios, have vocalists and keyboards and do these larger kind of production things, but um we're you know kind of slowly working there over time.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh tell me about the Santa Harbor Music Festival performance.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: What do you have planned for that?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sunday, September 27th at 1130 at the uh Sand Harbor Express alley stage.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is there kind of a plan for it?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is it different than uh other gigs?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I wouldn't say it's so much different.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So when we have more of an opportunity to play like a concert, I would say we definitely open up a little bit more.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um I wouldn't say we're like a typical like cocktail hour jazz group.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we'll get hired for situations like that where you kind of play a little more tame.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we definitely play a lot more lively for these types of things.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have a couple of newer ideas.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna try to see if we can throw in there a lot of improvisation, a lot of um, you know, jamming and a lot of our interpretations of the song.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned uh this is kind of a newer incarnation of the past year.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you meet your bandmates?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and have you I'd imagine you work with them over the years.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, who are they just to kind of give us a little information about um the trio?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, Dylan Hewitt, uh, he's like a guy who's in like uh that kind of group of guys in the last year or two in his like 20s that came back out here and he's been really prominent in the scene playing with everybody.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I snagged him up while I had the chance.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he's been a key member of the group.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: We've rotated between a couple different drummers.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: The drummer that's gonna be playing for uh this group is Anthony Genovisi.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: He plays with uh Bay Karma and a number of other groups out here.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he's a really a really great musician.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's been playing, I've been playing with him since he was like 15, and I was like sometime in my my twenties or something like that, because he's just such a good player.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that's a group we have for that.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: We've had Ned Hawili playing with us on drums and Kevin Ferran uh playing as well.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And occasionally we'll have a different bass player in, but uh Dylan's usually the the sole guy for that.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: We all met just out here, just growing up out here, you know.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so no, it it's great because you you have all these resources and people you've known for years uh that you can jam with and play with and and just have a good time.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that that's really it's nice to see it grow and and nice to see uh on the Dak Marshall Trio together at the uh the Stag Harbor Music Festival coming Sunday, September twenty seventh, eleven thirty at the Stag Harbor Express alley stage.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jack, I appreciate your time.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's nice to get to know you a bit and uh looking forward to you at the festival.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming on.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much.