This past Wednesday was the first night of five consecutive nights of jazz for me this weekend — five nights of very different and very diverse musicians from dozens of different backgrounds. My first night led me to the Vitello’s Jazz & Supper Club in Studio City to check out the Bob Sheppard quartet — with Steve Hass on drums, John Beasley on piano, and Darek Oles on bass.

With the exception of Steve Hass, who I’ve had the exciting privilege to see perform on numerous occasions — the Angel City Jazz Festival (along with the Darek Oles) and the West Ranch High School Super Jazz Festival (with Jeff Babko, who you met a few posts ago), to name a few — it was a night filled with firsts for me. It was my first night at Vitello’s, an intimate little venue on the second floor of the restaurant, which has housed some pretty heavy names in the past month — including Billy Childs, Julia Gottlieb, and Poncho Sanchez, along with many others. And it was also my first introduction to the music of Bob Sheppard and John Beasley, both of whom have some history in the past of playing together with Freddie Hubbard. Overall, it was a very eye-opening experience for me sitting behind Beasley on the keys — especially marked by Sheppard’s declaration towards the end of the first set that he never played the same tune twice with the same group of people.

Speaking of which, Sheppard’s group surprised us with a special guest towards the end of the first set: Billy Childs. Considering that I’ve spent many a long drive home listening and re-listening to his NPR Piano Jazz interview with Marian McPartland, it felt like my birthday.

My visit to the Vitello’s venue was sparked by my interaction with drummer Steve Hass about a month earlier to the show, after I met him at my high school’s annual jazz festival in April. Hass is quite the memorable drummer – and after realizing in only a few minutes in the audience of my high school’s packed theater that he was the same drummer I’d seen about six months earlier at the Angel City Jazz Festival with the Ravi Coltrane/Ralph Alessi group, I made my way backstage during the final waves of applause, insisted a former Idyllwild summer classmate that I needed to help him with his bass, and introduced myself to him. Although it’s much less glamorous writing it out now than it was in my head, I’m glad that out of a burst of seize-the-moment excitement I was able to become acquainted with Steve Hass — and I’m looking forward to introducing him to you as well.

Long Island-native Steve Hass somehow manages to be sensitive and aggressive, subtle and assertively polyrhythmic, swinging and funky, back-to-basics and progressive all in the same motion. It was especially evident in the first few minutes of the Bob Sheppard quartet’s first set – where in the midst of snapping off the introductory beats to his tune, “Bait and Switch,” Sheppard whispered to Beasley and Oles, “Just me and the drums.” In the simple saxophone-and-drums intro, it was quickly apparent that Hass has an understanding of the drum set beyond rhythmic games and shifting meters – there’s also a rich tone and a voice that emanates from his playing. For each of the three times that I’ve heard Hass play, it’s clear that he’s just as much of a melodic contributor as he is a rhythmic foundation.

There’s also something about Hass that I realized towards the end of the Vitello’s show and even more so throughout a conversation I had with some UCLA students who were sitting towards the front of the audience. As students of jazz, people like me and the UCLA students that I met like to fancy ourselves with “He sounds like…” and “She sounds like…” based on who and what we’ve been listening to in the past year or so. In my head I imagined a Bill-Evans-Scott-LaFaro-esque interaction between Beasley and Oles — but when it came to Hass, I drew a blank. For split-second moments I thought that I caught Philly Joe Jones or Paul Motian or Max Roach, but he’d quickly evolve to something else. In the end, it drew to this: Steve Hass sounds like Steve Hass, a great, well-mixed melting pot of everything he’s listened and is listening to — drummers and non-drummers, jazz and non-jazz.

Without further ado, here are some words from Steve Hass.

What got you into jazz?

I was into rock music first, but I was always attracted to those who had the most facility and technique on their instrument – you know, being a young musician, that’s what you’re attracted to right away. And in order to figure out what they were playing, I had to listen to who they listened to. For example, Alex Van Halen listened to guys like Billy Cobham. And if you look up Billy Cobham’s history, you’ll see he played with Horace Silver, and he was a jazz drummer first. I just worked backwards.

By the time I went to college, that was all that I was doing – playing jazz. I kind of shut everything else out because I wanted to study the music, the history of the music.

I decided to pursue jazz even before college, which is why I picked Berklee. I was studying a little out here [in Los Angeles] at the Percussion Institute of Technology, and my first goal was to be a session drummer, which is kind of what I do now. I used to go hear Jeff Watts play with Kenny Kirkland for the Tonight Show around ’92, and I was inspired and I kept going to see them, checking them out on records, trying to get into who they were into. I just got into jazz that way, you know? I really studied in steps. I didn’t want to hear about Jack DeJohnette or Keith Jarrett or Miles in the ‘70’s at first, I was bebop – I was transcribing Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones. I wanted to know how the greats developed and who they checked out.

I like knowing what inspires people and where they get their influences from – a lot of times I’ll work backwards to move forwards, because you eventually have to stop emulating and start innovating. You emulate your idols until you can create your own sound.

What inspires you and who influences you?

It started out with Philly Joe, Max Roach – and at the same time I was into more contemporary players like Jeff Watts – but initially guys that played more straight ahead, not a lot of liquid time, which was very understandable. And then eventually I got into the really loose players like Paul Motian. I don’t just have two or three guys that are strict influences – and now that I’m playing all different styles of music, it’s really everybody. (What about rock drummers?) John Bonham. He was soulful, and he came from jazz – you could hear it. Still one of my favorites. And another successful guy, Abe Laboriel, Jr.

Outside of drummers, I love Jon Brion – he works with Fiona Apple. Prince is also someone who inspires me as well. And I love singer-songwriters too – Shawn Colvin, Sarah McLachlan.

What kind of differences do you see in the jazz scene of New York City and the jazz scene of Los Angeles?

There’s a different creative energy in New York City. I think that’s because of the concrete jungle and the weather. It’s a little bit of a rougher day-to-day over there, and that inspires you to write differently – that causes people to create differently.

I tend to think that it’s a little mellower in Los Angeles. It’s more of a groove-oriented approach to playing jazz. But I have heard some real creative stuff – Kneebody, but I feel that they’re still drawing from all the guys in New York.

The other thing is that Manhattan is a concentrated scene. There are clubs everywhere – it causes an unexplainable energy. In LA, you’ve really got to be committed to the jazz scene – you’ve got to get into your car, you’ve got to drive, you can’t really relax because you’ve got to get back in your car to get home. In New York it’s a whole other thing – you can club hop, you can see amazing musicians nightly there.

What about jazz audiences?

A big difference? I haven’t seen a big difference. Do you think that might have to do with the college scene? Young artists going out, not having to worry about getting to a car – for example, you’ve never been here [Vitello’s] before. If you lived in Manhattan and this was down the street, you would have been here a dozen times already.

In New York City – first of all, the apartments are tiny, and you want to go out. It seems like Los Angeles is the kind of place a musician would come to after experiencing that, to settle.

Who are some of your biggest mentors?

At Berklee it was Ron Savage, and then my second drum teacher, Jamey Haddad. Both of them were in the scene – they both really inspired me to practice.

Tell us a bit about working in Ravi Coltrane’s group.

There were very minimal boundaries in that band, and he dug that. But it was very creative and there were a lot of odd meters. It was very open – it was cue-based music. We’d be in the middle of one song and he’d have a musical cue – not a head nod – and he would play different lines that meant different things to us. He’d play one line and that’d mean that we were going into a five-eight riff – just in the middle of a standard. And people would watch us and they’d be like – “how do you guys know how to do that?” Ravi got that from being in Steve Coleman’s bands.

What’s your advice for the young and aspiring jazz musician?

Really follow what your heart tells you to do. Just go with that notion and that feeling, because that usually will lead you in the right direction, even though the road is kind of rocky at first. I think if you commit to something, it’ll happen. One of the worst things you can do is bounce around a lot – not having a clear vision, not trusting yourself. I think if you pick a certain path, you have to follow through.

If you really believe in yourself and you love the music, things start to happen.

Steve Hass’s listening recommendations:

MILES DAVIS/FOUR & MORE

JOHN COLTRANE/A LOVE SUPREME

CHICK COREA/NOW HE SINGS, NOW HE SOBS

WYNTON MARSALIS/STANDARD TIME VOL. 1

A special thanks to Steve Hass for the music and the words. You can learn more about Steve at www.stevehass.net.

(from left to right: Rachel & Steve Hass; John Beasley, Rachel, & Billy Childs; Philip Maniez, Rachel, Brandon Bridges, and Tim Lin — UCLA jazz students)

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: J Ben Jazz/Steve Hass/Traveler

It’s been quite the eventful month at The Jazz Post. As of about a week ago I’m now eighteen years of age — and in about a week I’ll be donning the iconic graduation gown and retiring the title of this blog’s “high school jazz musician.” Although it’s a bit sad to let it go, this graduation means that after a week of much-needed hibernation you’ll be hearing much more from me here at The Jazz Post. But in the midst of last-minute graduation and summer plans (yours truly is headed to the California State Summer School for the Arts on the CalArts campus this summer), I’ve still been able to check out some local jazz.

In fact, a few weeks ago I retired a Saturday’s prom dress for a more comfortable pair of jeans the Sunday afterwards to check out Shogun Warrior at The Baked Potato in Studio City. I was there with the initial intent to chat a bit with pianist Jeff Babko, who’s the son of my band director (and in a previous post here), but I ran into a few more familiar names and faces — I met trumpet player John Daversa, whose composition Bare Your Soul is a part of our jazz repetoire this year, and was surprised to see that the bass player subbing in for the night was none other than Kneebody‘s Kaveh Rastegar, who you might remember from some previous posts (check it out here!). I also touched base with my roots a bit with guitarist Toshi Yanagi (who’s headed near my mother’s hometown for some jazz gigs in Fukuoka, Japan) and met drummer Toss Panos that night.

The Baked Potato’s an interesting venue — it’s hardly larger than the size of an average classroom, with old jazz posters peeling off the walls. They serve salads and, well, you probably guessed it — baked potatoes. Because of its relatively small size, it’s quite the intimate place — I was sitting about close enough to shake Daversa’s hand. In fact, I got a few words in with Daversa — here’s some advice he had for younger jazz musicians:

“I think that you have to be on the scene all the time. I think you need to be talking to the players, and let them get to know you, and absorb all of the music live. I think it’s really important to learn from the records, of course, and all of the jazz masters that have come before us. There’s something about being a part of what’s happening in live music – because it’s what’s current.”

Overall, Shogun Warrior is an incredibly energetic band — if you’re looking for that kind of soul and energy, they’re a monthly staple at The Baked Potato on the first Sunday every month.

I also had the chance to talk a bit with Jeff Babko, who’s a popular keyboardist here in Los Angeles as well as the keyboardist for the Jimmy Kimmel Live Band. Jeff swings by our school sometimes to play for us — a few weeks ago he played in my high school’s “Super Jazz” festival as a guest artist (along with drummer Steve Hass, trombonist Jacques Voyemant, saxophonist Alex Budman, and bassist Reggie Hamilton).

There’s two things that stay constant in every performance I’ve seen of Jeff’s over the course of four years — (1) vintage instruments and (2) high-energy performances. Other than this, there’s always something new and — in a way — rule-bending that emerges every time I hear him play. There were so many elements that made up his playing that night — three layers of keyboards, a trombone, and an electronic touch-screen controller (which was the source of some DJ-esque scratching noises a bit into the set).

There’s also an astounding contrast between the Jeff onstage and the Jeff offstage. Offstage, Jeff’s got an easygoing, laid-back demeanor; but onstage, Jeff’s intense and dynamic throughout the entire set (to the point, in fact, where I wasn’t able to get a still picture of him performing). I’m always glad to be able to talk with musicians like Jeff Babko — so without further ado, here’s some words he shared with me after the first set.

How did you get introduced to jazz?

My dad’s a jazz teacher, a band director. He always had jazz records lying around – the first one I remember hearing clearly was Ramsey Lewis’s Sound of Christmas. He also listened to the Crusaders. He kind of listened to what was called “soul jazz” at the time, as well as the bands of the day – Chicago and Blood, Sweat, and Tears, who were both incorporating jazz and horns into rock and pop music.

I was really fascinated as a young kid with album covers, so I would want to put the record on and look at the covers and study all the musicians. And I was also learning stuff off the radio. It all kind of collectively funneled into my brain – and I played piano from when I was really young, so I wanted to play whatever I heard and try to figure it out for myself.

The first formal training in jazz was from a guy named David Roitstein at CalArts. I was introduced to him when I was ten or eleven. I started classical studies when I was five, but I wasn’t very disciplined. I would always find myself improvising out of Bach. I would incorporate more jazz into my classical practicing.

What made you want to continue to pursue jazz?

All I ever wanted to do was play music. I kind of wanted to be a session musician in Los Angeles, since I grew up so near the city. Also, my dad was doing some recording sessions at the time. He wrote some jingles back in the ‘80’s, and he would let me come to the sessions and let me play in one of them when I was twelve. I knew that it had a real allure to it. All of that kind of funneled in and I knew that I wanted to be a session guy. Then I got heavily into jazz in high school – David Roitstein got me transcribing a lot – Charlie Parker and some others.

And also, people were selling their vinyl because everyone wanted to buy CDs, so I could get all this used vinyl for like ninety-nine cents a record. If I made thirty dollars working at Magic Mountain, I’d spend thirty dollars on records. I was just a sponge.

How has jazz evolved over the course of your career?

When I was in college and when I was coming out of college there was this big Young Lions movement – Wynton Marsalis, Kenny Kirkland, Branford Marsalis, this next generation. When I came back to LA there was this jam led by these guys called Black Note – they had a deal with Sony in the ‘90’s and they led a jam session. You had to wear suits – and I got into that for a while; that was kind of what was happening and I thought that I wanted to go down that road. I kind of forgot how much I liked pop and rock, because I grew up just really eating that stuff alive, too.

By the time I started touring and doing sessions, I started realizing that I wasn’t as purist as those guys. I liked to infuse this other stuff that I was listening to – rock and pop and Bjork and all these people that were doing stuff that was interesting to me.

I definitely went from that Young Lions, straight-ahead, has-to-swing thing to now, we just play whatever will work and this definitely has a blend – it has a rock element. I mean, we’re not afraid to say that we love Van Halen as much as we love Miles Davis. And there’s definitely a Miles Davis influence, he’s probably my hero as far as pushing the envelope and using every bit of input from the world into his music.

I was in the cab the other day in Kentucky and the cab driver was Somali. And he was playing me Somali music and I could’ve ridden in his cab all day. He was turning me on to the best stuff – you never know where you’re going to hear something amazing.

What’s your advice for the young jazz musician?

If you don’t enjoy listening to it, there’s no real point playing it. I mean clearly you love the experience of seeing the musicians get into the moment and experience the moment and communicating with one another – and that’s been happening since the beginning of jazz. That’s what’s exciting. If a student can see a gig where they get turned on by that, I think they’ll understand that it’s fun. Whether it’s through accessible, soul stuff like Eddie Harris or Cannonball, which is really fun to listen to, kind of R&B influenced – even Les McCann, I think kids can’t be expected to play or understand jazz unless they go see some or listen to some – then it gets in you and then you want to get it out of you. But you can’t force it.

Jeff’s suggestions for introductory jazz albums:

MILES DAVIS/FOUR & MORE

HERBIE HANCOCK/THRUST

WAYNE SHORTER/SPEAK NO EVIL

Thanks again to Jeff Babko and Shogun Warrior for the music and the words. You can learn more about Jeff at www.jeffbabko.com.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: 15 Step/In Rainbows/Radiohead

I’ll admit that I didn’t go out to the Blue Whale to see Bob Reynolds because I knew who he was, because I was familiar with his music, or because I knew he’d been playing with John Mayer. In fact, prior to last week, I’ll admit that I knew very little about him at all until my musician-friend Jacob Guardado began raving about him to me after one of our CalArts jazz classes after a show he’d seen at the Cordial Cafe.

So it was only the result of mere word of mouth that had me sitting in front of Bob Reynolds and a group of jazz musicians — Dennis Hamm (piano), Calvin Turner (bass), and Lemar Carter (drums) — on one of the Blue Whale’s soft plastic preschool-esque cube chairs. As I sat and listened to the band work out last minute pieces of their set, a strangely intimidating host asked me for my ID and marked both of my hands with black slashes — which, regretfully, didn’t seem to do much considering that an unsuspecting man asked to buy me a drink only several minutes later. It was definitely an unusual introduction to the Blue Whale.

It wasn’t until the band began their set that I realized how packed the already small Blue Whale jazz bar was. And rightfully so. Reynolds opened the set with the title track from his recent album, Can’t Wait for Perfect, a laid-back tune with a steady, rolling groove from Hamm on the piano, later joined by a soulfully stretched, simple melody from Reynolds on the tenor saxophone. At this point I was stuck in a trance by the reverberating sound of the group in such a small venue, notebook and pen barely dangling from my fingers, half-forgetting that I was supposed to be documenting something. I’d missed this.

About thirty seconds into the next tune, Jacob began making strange faces at me, impatiently tapping his fingers on his chin as if he was trying to remember something. And then in an a-ha-lightbulb moment, he whispered to me, “It’s Creep! Radiohead! He’s covering Creep!” His sudden excitement was almost unexplainable — but our mutual familiarity with this tune had us almost involuntarily leaned forward.

I’ll admit that even trying to explain in detail how beautifully synced this band was is a daunting task — and it certainly wouldn’t do them enough justice. But I will tell you that I melted at Hamm’s Herbie-esque lines and punching octaves, and the tiny burbles of ideas that were passed on between him and Reynolds.

There’s also a few things that I’ve learned about Reynolds. He’s got a calm and collected presence on stage, casually joking from time to time that they’ve never rehearsed the tune they’re about to play. (Perhaps he seemed especially cool and collected because the last jazz show I’d been to was of Paul Motian at the Village Vanguard. Maybe.) But it’s starkly contrasted once he picks up his saxophone and begins snapping his fingers — Reynolds suddenly becomes adamant and commanding through the tenor sax. Initially, it’s not entirely spontaneous. Many of the tunes open with a repetitive groove from the piano, joined in by Turner and Carter on the bass and drums, and later by Reynolds with the melody. But there’s always a point in each tune (with the exception of the solo-sax piece Reynolds played on his own) where Carter hits a crash and the band escalates in head-explosion-worthy energy and spontaneity — something that’s not captured as much in the new album as it is live.

The more jazz musicians I meet, the more I appreciate musicians like Reynolds — the friendly, open, non-intimidating musician who’s excited to share his work, especially with the younger crowd. In fact, Reynolds set aside some time for me between sets for a quick interview in the corner of the Blue Whale, where he shared a few stories and a few laughs with me. Without further ado, here’s some words from Bob Reynolds.

How did you get started in jazz?

I didn’t know at first that I was getting into jazz. It wasn’t like I had heard jazz music and then decided that I wanted to do it. But I knew I wanted to play music because I wanted to write music – that was my entry into it. I would sit at the piano and I would noodle around – there were sounds in my head and I wanted to figure them out. So I thought if I learned an instrument I’d learn how to play them. But it wasn’t like I had a specific desire to play something – I’d never heard of jazz. I got a saxophone because a neighbor gave it to me. It was that haphazard.

It took a couple years before I heard about jazz. I went to an arts high school in Jacksonville, Florida, because I went to a concert and I heard that high school perform. I saw kids who were about two years older than me just blazing on the sax – I wanted to do that. I really worked backwards – I started playing the sax, and somebody gave me a Kenny G record – like, “Oh, you play the sax, this guy’s famous.” And it literally was Kenny G to Grover Washington to Cannonball Adderley and then to Charlie Parker. I had to work my way backwards, you know, from the shallowest to the most deep musicians.

And that’s jazz, you know? To me jazz is not mine – I can’t claim credit for it. Like Bill Evans said, “Jazz is not a what, it’s a how.” I just wanted to make up my own music. Jazz is really the only musical art form where you can do that.

On introducing others to jazz.

My wife’s dad, who’s a big music lover and a big jazz lover, tried to get her into some Joshua Redman albums all while she was in high school. She had no interest whatsoever, but when she started dating me in college, I took her to see Joshua Redman and his band at a concert – now she’s a fan for life. I was the gateway drug, but I didn’t sell her at the concert – Josh and his band did. I think you need to see some good jazz to really appreciate it. You see that there’s interaction happening – you can’t ever get that from listening to a record. I think you have to see it to appreciate the beauty of what’s going on. It doesn’t mean that all jazz is equal – absolutely not. I think I would favor guys like Joshua Redman, Nicholas Payton, Roy Hargrove, Christian McBride – guys who’ve got funk and soul and blues in their playing more so than the players who are a little bit less root-sy in their playing. I think you’re more likely to find a connection there if you’re totally new to it.

Where do you see jazz headed today?

I think it’s pretty obvious now that the current generation of players are much more interested in embracing all of the influences from folk and pop music to singer-songwriter stuff and indie rock, and people are much more accepting of embracing those influences that are not just jazz. You just don’t hear as many jazz records coming out where people are just playing the same old standards – and maybe it’s cyclical, maybe that’ll come back around in ten years, that’ll be the thing. But I think right now, like the Radiohead song we just did [Reynolds performed a cover of Creep that night], you can appreciate what we do to it that’s different. How do you mix it all together? That’s the challenge.

What’s your advice for the young and aspiring jazz musician?

Show up to everything, meet everybody, and take every gig you can. You never know what’s going to lead to what. Case in point, I met John Mayer at Berklee in a recording session at 2 am that I almost didn’t go to. I was doing a favor for a musical friend to do this recording session from 2:00 to 4:30 in the morning. I did it, and that’s where I met John. Needless to say, that was the beginning of our relationship.

The other thing is that you can’t have a plan B. If you really, really see yourself going the distance, the passion has to be strong enough that there’s no backup plan. Very few people will be lucky, but you’ve got to be full tilt. All in. Totally committed. And people will sense that.

Bob Reynolds’ suggestions for introductory jazz albums:

JOSHUA REDMAN/MOODSWING

PAT METHENY/SPEAKING OF NOW

KENNY GARRETT/SONGBOOK

Thanks again to Bob Reynolds for the music and the words. You can learn more about him at www.bobreynoldsmusic.com.

And thank you to the Blue Whale for the lovely gifts — just for us under-21 folks.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Can’t Wait for Perfect/Bob Reynolds/Can’t Wait for Perfect

I recently spent the last few weeks with the Southern California School Band & Orchestra Association‘s All-Southern Jazz All-Stars — selected from about two hundred aspiring student jazz musicians in Southern California this year. It was quite the experience, to say the least, to be able to play with so many incredibly talented jazz musicians from so many different backgrounds — and it’s truly something that I’ll never forget.

Perhaps one of my most memorable experiences with the SCSBOA All-Stars was working with our band director, freelance musician Sal Lozano. In a nutshell, Sal is a woodwind instrumentalist who currently works with a variety of musical groups, including the Gordon Goodwin Big Phat Band and the Dancing With the Stars House Band, as well as a professor of saxophone at Cal State University, Long Beach. Although Sal did keep us in line during our rehearsals, it’s his lightheartedness and patience — as well as the dozens of stories he shared with us — that had me and the rest of the band so reluctant to say goodbye to him at the last show in Anaheim this weekend. I think it’s Sal’s ability to be serious and good-humored at the same time that made these rehearsals so memorable — for instance, I’ll never forget when he asked us to play “Happy Birthday” in eighteen different keys to his friend Tom Kubis over the phone during one of our breaks.

Without further ado, here’s some words from Sal Lozano regarding his experiences with the jazz world, just as he shared with us.

Tell us about your early experiences with music.

Sal: I started in junior high, seventh grade, on the baritone saxophone, and then switched to the alto about a year later. When I got to high school, I kept it going because it was very fun to do – I had a great passion for it – after a while I got a hold of the right equipment and I started studying privately with Greg Adams, and he hipped me to getting the right equipment and things like that. It all began coming together.

The first opportunity I had to play in a band like the SCSBOA Jazz All-Stars was the Jazz All-Stars in 1979. While I was in high school I would also go to Pasadena City College and play in the jazz band there. My friend Alex Iles and I would go over to Pasadena City College on Tuesday nights to work with Gary Foster, the leader of the band. They introduced us to a bunch of different things, and Alex and I would get together at his house and play all the time – playing along with records, finding things to listen to. We’d go to concerts, and I really just grew to really love playing music. And then I got to college – that’s when another world of music was opened to me and I began to really study the saxophone.

What and/or who introduced you to jazz?

Sal: My friend Alex Iles and I started to go to jazz clubs in LA. We went to Dante’s –I heard Super Sax play here – we went to Concerts by the Sea…we just kept at it. Alex would find a record or I would find a record and our parents would take us to Tower Records. We’d have the extra money and we would listen to things. We’d go and hear players play – we sought it out ourselves. At Arcadia High School, it wasn’t there. It had no jazz program; it had just classical studies. So we had to go to some other place.

I just basically fell in love with it. I wanted nothing else to do but to listen to Count Basie, and then eventually, Cannonball Adderley. I’ll never forget the day I was listening to the radio in my sister’s Mustang – it was KBCA 105.1 (now KJAZZ 88.1), and the DJ was a guy named Chuck Niles. I remember this alto player playing, and this was the first time I’d ever done this: I pulled over, and I sat and listened to him. I listened until the better end of his playing, and it just struck me. For that to happen to a high school kid – it really affected me. And Chuck Niles said, “That was Cannonball Adderley.” I don’t remember which tune he did, but it was burning – the time and feel and the swing and it just touched you like crazy. That was in high school.

In college at CSU Long Beach, I worked with John Prince, the head of jazz studies. John Prince was great because he would sing to you. He would sing rhythms to you, and he had such a great sense of swing – it really hit me as to how that felt to do that. Another thing about John is that he wanted us to play. He used to encourage us to not be afraid, and I don’t think I was ever afraid to – I didn’t care if I made a mistake and I made tons of them. I still do.

As a jazz musician, who are some of your influences?

Sal: Like I mentioned before, Cannonball Adderley, then Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Johnny Hodges, Marshall Royal – the list is going be endless – Clifford Brown, Miles Davis (early Miles Davis, the sextet), Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Mel Lewis, Buddy Rich, Sonny Payne, Frank Rosolino, Carl Fontana, Snooky Young, Pepper Adams, Gerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn. And then more contemporary players, you know, the ones who are around now, and that’s Rick Margitza, Eric Alexander, Chris Potter, Dick Oatts, Jon Gordon, Steve Slagle, John Ellis, Will Vinson, Rich Perry. Like I said, the list is endless. I’m leaving so many out. I’m always listening to players; I’m always searching out things.

How has the jazz world you knew as a younger jazz musician changed to the jazz world today?

Sal: Styles have definitely changed. Back then, here on the west coast, there weren’t too many clubs that I can remember that were into brand new things that were a little more experimental. It was more straight-ahead jazz. I also didn’t know of many places that had jam sessions; not that they weren’t any – I’m sure there were plenty – but I was probably too young to even get into one. You know what I mean? But one thing I noticed is that there are a lot of younger players who are going out and finding out these places to play. There are so many gifted players who know who the legends are. And that’s where it’s at; the younger kids know who the “founding fathers” are and who these musicians were, and how they’re playing and what they’re playing, and all that. To me, there’s a lot of opportunity out there right now. I just didn’t know it back then in Arcadia.

What are your thoughts on jazz today?

Sal: I don’t see the interest in jazz declining whatsoever. I know that we’re still trying to push things through to try to get people to appreciate music in general, especially jazz, because we love it. What I do know in my experience is that there is a feeling sometimes that there are certain types of jazz that people don’t like, and so when somebody tells me, “there’s not a lot of jazz out there,” I tell them, “now, there’s not a lot of jazz that you like.” Now there might be some jazz out there that’s somebody else likes, or there might be some people who love smooth jazz or who love you know, something that’s a little less, well, experimental. But that doesn’t mean to me that jazz is dying.

What’s your advice for the young and aspiring jazz musician?

Sal: It’s a long, long road. The chances of doing things are slimmer than it was when I was growing up. The opportunities are somewhat fewer, yet at the same time, the demands are increasing. You have to be much more well-rounded, and the periphery that you use – your sixth sense – they all have to be up and running. You don’t just go out of college on the road with a big band anymore, there’s none of that. For the long haul, you’re going to go some other way of doing something to make a living – teaching music, working in a music store, working in a production facility as a musician, working in film production, television production, music production – things like that. While you’re pursuing the stuff that you want to do in your music, it’s tough. At the same time, I can’t not say that you need to keep your dream. Keep your dream. If you have an idea of what you want to do, you’ve got do it. You’ve got to go for it one hundred percent as long as you can, as long as you can survive being able to do that.

Man, there’s nothing like it. There’s really nothing like it.

You can learn more about Sal Lozano at his website, www.sallozano.com.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Whisper Not/Tom Warrington, Larry Koonse, and Joe La Barbera/Back Nine

Vijay Iyer had a distinctly different demeanor from many musicians that I’ve met in the past. It wasn’t that difficult to spot him from my table when I arrived at the Birdland Jazz Club — he looked exactly the way I’d seen him in pictures: sharp, clean-cut, emanating professionalism. In fact, his image was so overwhelming that my father had to pull me out of my seat to go introduce myself to him. (Thanks, Dad.)

I can best compare Iyer’s music to that of Stravinsky’s. By the end of each piece, it’s challenging to come away from it with the melody ringing in your head; rather, it’s an array of innovative chords, unique motifs that you wish you could write down on paper to use later, and a strange image of visually disconnected yet completely intertwined group of musicians that’s stuck in your head when you leave the set. Initially I felt like I was watching three different performances from three different musicians at the same time — but as the tunes progressed, and as I grasped a better understanding of each musician, I also slowly could see a connection between the three. It seems like listening to Iyer’s music is somewhat of an intellectual pursuit.

Throughout my studies in jazz as a high school student, I’ve been told many different opinions about instruments and their respective roles in jazz — specifically, in a combo setting, I’ve been repeatedly told that it’s my job as the pianist to lay down the chords; the drummer’s job to maintain the beat; the bass’s job to set the groove; the horns’ jobs to establish the melody. These concepts have consistently held true through my high school combo and the jazz group at CalArts, but it’s as if all these rules were broken that night at Birdland. Justin Brown (drums) was often more colorful than beat-oriented; Iyer even held the bass line at some moments; Stephan Crump (bass) seemed to even have more of a melodic element than a groove at times. I believe what struck me the most was the fact that this all wasn’t confusing — in fact, everything that Iyer, Brown, and Crump played made complete sense, despite the fact that they were going against every rule I’d ever learned about playing in small jazz ensembles.

Perhaps the Vijay Iyer trio was a reminder to me that if jazz does have rules, they’re completely arbitrary.

I’ve been giving a set list for each performance I’ve attended this past week, but unfortunately the only tune Iyer mentioned was an adaption of Michael Jackson’s Human Nature, where he added: “I just met someone who was born in 1993, so I was afraid she wouldn’t know that one…I graduated in 1992, so…”

(That person, by the way, is yours truly.)

He also played some pieces from his recent album, Historicity.

I was also able to talk to Iyer afterwards:

On the same note as all the college tours I had that week, Iyer and I talked about attending a liberal arts college versus a music conservatory — as you might have seen in one of my previous posts, one of the highlights of my college tours was my trip to Columbia University, where I got a better look at opportunities in both the fields of jazz and journalism. Iyer received his B. S. in Math and Science from Yale College and a Masters in Physics and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Technology and the Arts from UC Berkeley along with his studies in jazz at both schools, so I got to get his perspective on the issue of higher jazz education. He expressed that liberal arts schools give musicians an opportunity to experience a breadth of topics along with jazz, preparing the musician for interaction with the outside world.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, come check out Vijay Iyer at the Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena on the 15th of August — I might see you there!

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: The “Pretty” Road/Maria Schneider Orchestra/Sky Blue

Last night I had the privilege of meeting bass player Kaveh Rastegar and drummer Jaydon Bean (as well as my teacher, Mark Nilan Jr.) at the Watermark on Main in Ventura. Let me tell you, it was quite the experience just watching the three musicians set up in such a tiny venue — a small space surrounded by already-inhabited tables — yet somehow it worked. I also believe that my heart did skip a beat when Nilan pulled out that lipstick-red keyboard — and the same goes for when he told me that Rastegar was the bass player for the jazz fusion band, Kneebody. It’s not usual for me to be that excited before the show starts — but in this case, I genuinely was.

But it was watching the three of them create this intense musical sphere right there in that busy restaurant — uninterrupted by bustling waiters and rowdy customers — that was probably the most mesmerizing part of the show. And it was even more astonishing to know that this crazy musical bond was created by three musicians that had not once played with one another — in fact, they’d just met only minutes before the gig.

I can’t describe their performance that night as anything else but organic. Organic in the sense that they rapidly caught each others’ idiosyncrasies as the pieces progressed — even the slightest bit of a catchy phrase was repeated and answered and echoed and turned through each player, as if their music was some living, growing, breathing being. I especially enjoyed this nonverbal exchange of ideas and the way Bean’s face lit up every single time something interesting was played (or perhaps he was smiling at the fact that I reveled in this so much).

Their set included Green Dolphin Street, the Beatles’ Blackbird, Someday My Prince Will Come, and my all-time favorite, Alice in Wonderland.

(left to right: Jaydon Bean, Kaveh Rastegar, me, Mark Nilan Jr.)

I also got a chance to talk a bit with Rastegar during their breaks and gained some pretty insightful advice on being a young and ambitious jazz musician. Probably the most valuable piece of advice he gave me was on working with other musicians — recognizing your place and position as a part of the group you are playing with is one of the most important parts of being a successful player. Also, like I’ve read and heard from many musicians, he noted that the most important part of being a musician in any situation is developing yourself into the best musician you can be. It sounds like a given here, but I’m beginning to notice that it’s very easy to get caught up in petty concerns — age, race, gender, equipment, length of study, money, personality issues, even placement or chair seating in a band — which hold the potential to lead you astray from this fundamental goal.

After talking to Rastegar, I now have an appointment at the CalArts library to go on a music-hunting spree, as well as a transcription bucket list nailed to my wall. Not to mention that I’m even more intent on continuing my Joseph Campbell-esque hero’s journey out on the East coast. As you read this I’m most likely staring dreamily into the pages of a college application in some deserted library as I begin the last summer before my senior year.

I’ll conclude this post with the video that introduced me to Kneebody:

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Brother Mister/Christian McBride and Inside Straight/Kind of Brown

After a grueling two weeks with four AP tests, I can finally open my computer for reasons other than the College Board. But still, these past two weeks were also a collection of some valuable experiences in jazz. (Not to mention that the last few months of life in front of AP review books and coffee has strengthened my gratefulness for it.)

Last week I decided to take advantage of my high school’s required job shadowing activity by using it as an opportunity to go hear some live jazz — so I shot an email to my former CalArts CAP teacher Tina Raymond about it. It turned out that Tina’s currently the drummer of the all-female jazz band Maiden Voyage that’s going to be playing at the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. this week; although I knew that yes, female jazz players do exist, I’d never heard of anything like Maiden Voyage.

Tina invited me to go attend a Maiden Voyage rehearsal at the Musician’s Union (thanks again, Tina!) where I was able to meet Ann Patterson, accomplished female sax player and band leader:

Of course, it’s nothing new to see a talented female jazz musician. There’s Mary Lou Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, and Toshiko Akiyoshi from back in the day, and Hiromi Uehara, Esperanza Spalding, Dee Dee Bridgewater performing right now. But I didn’t expect it to be that big of a shock for me to see so many talented female musicians playing together. I suppose it’s the fact that whenever I do see female jazz musicians, they’re either playing alone or they’re being featured as part of an otherwise all-male group. And even though I initially approached the Maiden Voyage rehearsal with questions revolved around the experiences of being a female in the jazz world, it suddenly felt strange to even ask those questions — the fact that being a female player in the jazz world was even significant suddenly seemed disappointing.

It was later that week that this disappointment settled in even further. As I sat on my piano bench at my school district’s honor jazz band first rehearsal and watched each musician walk in, it began to dawn on me that I would be the only female playing in the band.

Yes, jazz is a genre that succeeds most of the time at embracing differences and highlighting individuality, and being the one female in this jazz band is only one more difference that I have in relation to everyone else. But after watching the lead trumpet player of Maiden Voyage hit all those screaming high notes, I begin to wonder where her younger counterpart is in my younger jazz sphere. It’s not as if females have less accessibility than their male friends to jazz bands at my age, so where are they?

It did give me hope, however,  to see several talented female jazz players in the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts’ jazz band this weekend at the Workman High School jazz festival. There’s also reassurance in an article I read in the March 2010 Downbeat — Marian McPartland’s Gender Barriers? Observations of a Working Pianist and Bandleader, in which she asserts that “if women seem to be in the minority in any field,” her advice is still the same: “you have to have talent and motivation, be dogged and persistent, believe in yourself, and not be deterred by anything or anyone.” Also, she notes that she believes “people with determination and a desire to succeed” move ahead, “ignoring all barriers,” despite the stories she initially heard from other female musicians about the difficulty of beginning a career in music. And considering the fact that Marian McPartland is an influential figure in both jazz and in journalism (if you haven’t checked out Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz of NPR, do so now), that’s some powerful advice.

But in the meantime,  events like the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival that highlight the talented jazz women of today are also accompanied by a certain degree of pride from both those jazz musicians and aspiring female jazz musicians like me — and that’s some pretty indispensable and irreplaceable passion in the growing jazz sphere.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Van Gogh/Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra/Portrait in Seven Shades

Listening to this album reminds me that I’ve forgotten to mention my essay that’s published on the Jazz At Lincoln Center’s website as part of this year’s Essentially Ellington essay contest, check it out here! (I received this autographed album as part of the prize package.)

Also, here’s Jeff Jarvis of California State University, Long Beach (left) and  Chris Stevens of Long Beach Polytechnic High School (right); I met them both this past weekend at the Workman High School jazz festival, and they’re both very inspirational band directors with fantastic bands. (Check out this post for a bit about the CSULB band at Newbury Park High School.) Thanks for saying hello!

It’s thirty minutes before we leave for Newbury Park: thirty-six of us are packed into our small jazz rehearsal room, staring at the unbelievable amount of  equipment in disbelief. Three amps. Forty music folders. Two keyboards. A drum set. Two basses. Some of us take a slightly extended trip to the restroom. Some of us push up our sleeves and roll up the cords and cables, lock down the amp cases, count and re-count our music folders. By the time we get on the bus, it’s already groaning at the weight of our trumpets and trombones and saxophones, each wrapped up in comfortable cases. I rub my hands together to warm them up — there’s a slight imprint from the corner of the Yamaha S90ES on my left palm. As the bus rocks back and forth from the asperous freeway, I fall asleep.

This past weekend the two West Ranch High School jazz bands traveled a good hour to the Newbury Park High School Jazz Festival after months of preparation. Our set included Time Check, Dave Holland Does it Like This, Black Orpheus, and In a Sentimental Mood. Have a listen at some of our pieces from both the upper jazz band and the combo:

We left the NPHS Jazz Festival at the end of the night with a second place (WRHS Studio A Jazz Band), a third place (WRHS Lab Band), and another third place award for our new WRHS Jazz Combo. But for me, the greatest part of the festival was the people that I was able to meet — both student musicians from schools like Camarillo High School and Golden Valley High School to professional musicians like CalArts Jazz Program Director David Roitstein, Cal State Long Beach Director of Jazz Studies Jeff Jarvis, and Hemet High School Jazz Director/Idyllwild Jazz Summer Workshop Chairman Jeff Tower (he awarded several full and partial scholarships to this camp to many students at the NPHS jazz festival!).

In fact, David Roitstein was our clinician for the WRHS jazz combo. Meeting him was like meeting some sort of jazz celebrity — for the past three years, I’ve heard my jazz director talk about him; I’ve heard my jazz director’s son (Jeff Babko) talk about him; Even my jazz teacher has talked about him with great respect — he’s often started many pieces of advice with “this is what Mr. Roitstein would tell me to do…” Luckily enough, Mr. Roitstein put much emphasis on improvisation. “It’s something we do every day in conversation,” he told us. Of course, I was pretty skeptical. But after he had us trade fours several times with the Kind of Blue tune So What with the aim of repeating/reflecting on the solo preceding our own, Mr. Roitstein brought us a brighter light to improvisation.  After he told us to imagine having this musical conversation with ourselves, jazz improvisation has lately been starting to make much more sense. The concept of developing smaller, simpler ideas before starting a solo (and even while comping) has become an increasingly more valuable core to developing my own understanding of improvisation.

We were also awarded by an incredible performance by the Cal State Long Beach jazz band directed by Jeff Jarvis. Their set included Airegin, The Days of Wine and Roses (featuring their lead trumpet player), Songbird, Captain Hook, High and Mighty (written by Jeff Jarvis himself), Trumpets Forever, and Got a Match. My two favorites that night were The Days of Wine and Roses and Jarvis’s High and Mighty. Wine and Roses had this romantic, Bill-Evans-esque feel to it (probably because the last time I heard it was in a recording of the Bill Evans trio); it’s also a personal favorite of mine when a jazz band’s horns hits a no-rhythm-section a cappella part with goosebump-evoking perfection — and that’s exactly what happened with this tune. On the other hand, High and Mighty was an upbeat piece that Jarvis said was inspired by the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. Personally, though, I saw that the piece reflected the entire city itself: Jarvis began the piece with morning-sunrise-like bell-tones (which, by the way, reminded me so much of Bernstein’s West Side Story) and progressed towards busy nighttime tones behind the tenor sax solo. What CSULB gave us that night, in fact, was exactly the subject of the conversation I had with a few jazz music students only a several hours prior:

Project Improv Part I

(From left to right: Carlos Rodriguez, Sean Doane, Brett Lopez, and another Camarillo HS student)

I asked Omer Benyamin, a tenor sax player from my jazz band, to help me seek out some high school students at the Newbury Park High School jazz festival — and I was able to talk to Carlos, Sean, and Brett from Camarillo High School about our own experiences and desires regarding jazz. All three students were introduced to music via an outside influence: for example, Brett was introduced in watching his sister play the clarinet, and Carlos was intrigued when he heard Mickey whistling on the old Disney cartoon Steamboat Willie. But Sean what asserted — and what we all seemed to agree on –  in regards to exposing jazz to primary school and high school students alike was something that I’ve known all along but never even thought to say: we all need to see someone amazing. Since jazz has an increasingly older audience as the years go by, it’s difficult for a young person with little exposure to jazz to perceive it as anything but music that’s, frankly, music for old people. But many of us know that this isn’t the case with today’s successful and young jazz musicians like Vijay Iyer, Hiromi Uehara, and Christian Scott — however, how is it possible for anyone still in high school to know anything about them?

Sean, Brett, Carlos, Omer, and I came to the general consensus that we want and need jazz musicians to reach out to us while we’re still in high school — we want them to perform for us and our high school friends; live jazz is physical proof that (a) it’s still alive, (b) it’s not just for an older generation, and (c) it’s actually a pretty fantastic style of music. We get this bubbly kind of feeling when we hear someone like  Miles Davis or Joe Lovano or David Sanborn on the radio — and as student jazz musicians, we want our friends to get and understand that feeling as well.

This is only the beginning of the answer to the question that I recently received from jazz musician Richard Frank of PTJazz: “How do we make jazz relevant and accessible to youth today?”

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Red Clay/Freddie Hubbard/Red Clay

Time is a common problem in jazz band. Before competitions, we constantly fret over time — is the music too long? do we have enough of it? are we speeding up? are we slowing down?

But yesterday, my jazz director made an interesting remark: “If I catch anyone playing hacky-sack in the courtyard while we’re there,” he warned, wagging an assertive finger, “I’m going to be pretty upset.”

I came to the realization that there’s another problem we have regarding time: we’re arriving at the host school at 9 in the morning and we’re coming home at 9 at night, and there’s no way that any combination of big band performances, combo performances, and clinics adds up to twelve hours. I’ve been to quite a few jazz competitions over the past few years, competitions that facilitate the mingling of dozens of different schools in my area. I’ve eaten lunch and I’ve warmed up in the same room as hundreds of different high school students from hundreds of different backgrounds, all with common experiences in jazz. But have I met any of them?

I’ve come to notice that over the past three years, I’ve missed out on hundreds of different stories.

Nevertheless, I still have little over a year left. That’s why I’ve attached such a blatantly tacky name to an outrageous idea: Project Improv. From here on out, I’m going to meet, interview, and take pictures with at least three random groups of high school students from three different schools. I’m going to get their perspective on how they perceive jazz as teenage jazz musicians; why they’re so crazy about it (or not?). I’m going to find out how and when they met jazz; where do they see jazz going from here? And how can we make jazz more appealing to younger generations (or is it fine just the way it is?)?

So if you’re looking to find a way to get today’s younger generation increasingly more involved in jazz, Project Improv will hopefully open a window for you to the current opinions of today’s teenage jazz musicians. The first Project Improv will start this weekend at our first jazz competition; I’ll keep you updated on who I meet via Twitter (@thejazzpost) this Saturday.

Wish me luck on making new jazz buddies!

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Take Five/Dave Brubeck Quartet/Time Out

Being a teenage musician in a place like Los Angeles has got its perks. I’ve got access to the Hollywood Bowl, the Baked Potato, the Monterey Jazz Festival, and the California Institute of the Arts — not to mention access to thousands of musicians associated with LA-based music organizations. Nevertheless, it’s still exciting to meet those people that you only see in websites and magazines; the faces behind the names that show up on the songs that you play every day.

It was on the last Sunday of January that I met Antoinette Perry, the Senior Lecturer of Keyboard Studies at the University of Southern California, for a master class in a home of a quiet suburbian neighborhood. If you know anything about master classes, you’ll know that they can be absolutely frightening — in front of a large, judging audience the student has to perform a piece, knowing that in the next few minutes an intimidating master class instructor will be hovering over her shoulder, exposing tiny mistakes, insisting on minuscule nuances. It’s not one of the most pleasantly exciting things to do.

But my experience with Antoinette Perry was quite the opposite. To tell you the truth, the first thing I noticed about Perry — before her tall, lanky stature and her youthful smile — were her hands. I was nearly infatuated with them. Her fingers were bony, slender, delicate; they stroked the keys of the piano with the grace of a prima ballerina. I’ve constantly tried to justify playing piano with my short, stubby fingers by pulling up names like Thelonius Monk, insisting to myself that he probably didn’t have Rachmaninoff fingers either and could still play a killer B-flat blues — but Perry flat out dissolved those comforting thoughts. Even she noticed that my elbows aren’t even close to being perpendicular with my hands when I play, leaving me in an awkward angle above the piano keys — a realization that she quickly dismissed by hastily moving on to a different topic. It’s a pretty sensitive subject for a compulsively-obsessive pianist like me.

Still, she had fantastic critiques about my performance of Schubert’s Impromptu No. 2 in E-flat Major — everything from inner melodies that needed more emphasis to small fluctuations in pedaling to help me out with my E-flat major scale runs. And Perry was an exciting instructor — as she had me try out her tips with the Schubert, she’d flail her arms wildly in imaginary conducting, passionately singing along. She was definitely a great window into the music program at USC.

(P.S. I later won a $300 scholarship from the local Music Teacher’s Association of California playing the same piece!)

Just as exciting was a clinic with Don Menza, the composer of one of our currently most challenging pieces: Time Check. (Menza’s also the composer of the popular piece Groovin’ Hard.) “You can only play as good as you can play,” he told us in regards to being nervous before a performance, adding, “I talk about this with Sonny [Rollins] all the time.” He only ever took off his shades when he wanted to emphasize a crucial point — putting air through the horn; playing lines together; hitting the drumset with confidence. While Perry was a window into a prospective college, Menza was a window into the past — a place where jazz was a taboo gateway into violence and drugs and alcohol. It seemed like jazz had this fountain-of-youth effect on Menza — as he spoke, he moved his body energetically, visually showing us what he wanted us to do, throwing around in his speech the colloquialisms of a jazz kid from the sixties.

And then there was his saxophone. Before he arrived, we already knew that he’d written and played with Maynard Ferguson’s orchestra and Buddy Rich’s big band; we knew that he was an amazing tenor sax player. But the word amazing is used everywhere in nearly every circumstance imaginable — it can’t even come close to describe what came out of Menza’s horn.

On a concluding note, here’s what I’m failing in an attempt to describe in words:

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Roustabout/Simple Citizens/Me and Miss Lemona K