B-Side Morning Brew w/ Bij & Niles

Unknown Speaker 0:07
Good morning and welcome.

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You're listening to beside morning brew would be at Niles had coffee, chat. chillin on the corner of lifestyle app

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and music straight on 91.5k would

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be jazz.

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Let's start with our sip of coffee. Oh, yeah, that's it? Well, let's just get right into it.

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We were jump right in the waters warm.

Unknown Speaker 0:35
Come on in. It was the other day, we were trying to figure out topics for this particular show. And you and I started down this road of booking our respective bands, if you will, right, our products projects, right. And we realize like we should save, we should save this conversation for the radio show. Because it is quite interesting topic in terms of the trials and tribulations of booking, right. Whether you're booking a big band or a trio, it's kind of well, there's differences. But in terms of there's some, some huge similarities there. So it's festival seasons coming up, right? Why live

Unknown Speaker 1:16
music season? You know, people are getting out of the house, they want to see some live music.

Unknown Speaker 1:20
Yeah. Like, for instance, for instance, with the with your project with the

Unknown Speaker 1:26
generation gap. Yeah. Jazz Orchestra?

Unknown Speaker 1:28
Yeah. Like what's going on with you guys? And you know, in terms of booking, or what are you guys trying to do right

Unknown Speaker 1:32
now? Well, you know, we were we were at a point in the project where it's time to do another album. So we have to consider that. Or we'd like to do another album well,

Unknown Speaker 1:42
before Okay, before that, then. Right. So in terms of music business, so we can let the audience in on how that works. So you've got your first album, how do you feel other than the award, obviously, other than the Grammy? Do you feel that you honestly have gotten what you really wanted out of that album in terms of really letting people know it exists? How many people know it exists? Touring the album, things like that? Have you really given it a shot. Or, as most musicians, we all know, once we put out something we're already bored, and we want to move on to the next thing anyway. And we don't truly give our our albums, a real chance for the listeners to really soak it in. Because creatively, we're already on to the next thing, which is unfair to the listeners, quite honestly, maybe to us as well. But do you feel that your first record, you guys have really stretched that out to where that you that you need to end or want to?

Unknown Speaker 2:38
Well, it's interesting, because usually, it's kind of like a chicken or the egg type situation. Usually you're spending time performing the content from that album, to garner respect and recognition or not recognition, Garner publicity in audiences, in order to hopefully get a Grammy or hopefully to get some type of recognition. We kind of did it backwards, we were we introduced, you know, the nature, the nature of the way music is disseminated. Now, we released things on streaming platforms, and did a release a live release show. But leading up to that, before we did the release show. It was after the Grammy voting had been done, right? Or at least the first round. So a lot of what we did, we never performed with the band live prior to the Grammy voting. So in terms of traction for the album, most of it was done through publicity and public relations. And which is interesting, too, because you need to have some type of presence in order to book a gig, right? You can't you don't just go up to Carnegie Hall and say, Hey, we want the generation gap jet or so it's like, well, what press Do you have? Where Where can we find your music? Are there any clips of you performing? You know? So it's very interesting. The path we took, but in terms of now that we've had the album out there met with some critical acclaim and some success. No, we haven't really had an opportunity. Because the group not only is so large, you know, to 18 piece, big band with special guests. We have not really maximized that. So what's interesting now is we're putting together a package to be able to present that on the next level.

Unknown Speaker 4:32
Now with that, go ahead, sorry. And

Unknown Speaker 4:35
approach these venues and say, Listen, here, here, here's what the group entails, here's what the budget is, here's what everything is, is this something you'd be interested in?

Unknown Speaker 4:43
Well, and with that in mind, you know, we're talking about an 18 piece band. And so that's quite the personnel. That's quite the dollar figure in terms of whoever's going to book the band, right. I mean, and logistics. Yeah. So I If I could just the trials and tribulations just there alone I can imagine are quite, quite large. And would limit you in terms of like how many shows you can realistically play at this time per year. Right. So maybe what two to three shows max at if you're getting the budget. You know, I mean, if you

Unknown Speaker 5:18
look at some of the more established big bands that have garnered some success over the years, like a Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, which obviously we're talking about, just on one level of size of a group, Maria Schneider, Jazz Orchestra, Count Basie, Christian McBride, big band, Gordon Goodwin, you know, all these big bands that are out there that are somewhat in the mainstream Hmong Castro. We're only doing four to five shows a year. And those are

Unknown Speaker 5:45
established groups can relate on labels, right? With a

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generation gap Jazz Orchestra is only been around three years, technically, two ways.

Unknown Speaker 5:53
With that in mind, depending depending upon where you'd want to go with it. I mean, could you if you if we've kind of talked about, I think I know the answer to this. But could you whittle that band down to get the music across to play live shows, if you wanted to play more live shows and just whittle that band down? You know,

Unknown Speaker 6:10
because part of the allure of having that band, there's the fact that it's made up of all these all star players? So in fact, in some of the contract negotiations we've had, it's like, well, we need to have a majority of the core group there. You know, maybe not curtailing or whatever. That's a whole different price point. But yeah, we need to have the majority of people that were on the album perform. Yeah, at this festival, that was a mandate. So right, you know, but by the same token, you're allowed to command more of a fee? Because well, you want to get this all star group. This is what the the all star group costs. Yeah. And everyone, everyone wins, ultimately, but it does require that. So that is the upside of having the success we've had so far.

Unknown Speaker 6:56
Yeah. Which then lead it? So I mean, in terms of wanting to or getting ready to do the second album, what do you really want to achieve? Out of this aside of the obvious of, you know, submitting once again, for the, you know, for the Grammy Grammy nomination, at the very least things like that, other than those kinds of things I'm talking about? Well, unless that's just what you guys want to do? Or is it more important to get it out? So like, you want people to love what you're doing, and as a result would want to play live? And people adhere to what you're doing? I mean, we all have our goals of what we want out of the music, right. So the Yeah, so the question I would have is, are you guys just wanting to get the accolades? Or are you wanting to really get an audience and do your thing? You know, what I mean? Well, I

Unknown Speaker 7:38
think, as with anything, when we formed this project, if you will, yeah. We had a mission, that we would include people from generations to make music together. So we've got this little generation gap within the sections within the within the artists that we present. And it's been a vehicle to present original music, original arrangements and such in this format, Big Band format. So from a project standpoint, yeah, we definitely want to keep doing it with that in mind, and we think that that has appeal to an audience and build an audience and also through the artists that we bring in to perform in the band as guests. And with the core group that we've already put together,

Unknown Speaker 8:24
ya know, it's such an interesting thing, right? In terms of, again, with the projects, or having business strategies, you know, when we're kids, and you just were playing music, because we'd love to play music, not that we love playing music now, obviously, but in terms of the strategy was like, let's just write songs. Let's do this. And let's record and let's just have a good time. And now, you know, as we get older, we're talking strategies. And there's, you know, it's a business at the end of the day, and it's really trying to find that happy medium. And I do want to talk about that in our next segment coming up. But in the meantime, why don't we Why don't we play a generation gap Jazz Orchestra tune for our listeners? What would you like to play? So

Unknown Speaker 9:01
I mean, there's so many great tunes off that album.

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On this end on the selling point go on, there

Unknown Speaker 9:08
are so many different Oh, my It's great. Every song every now, just a bit here. Just you can't lose. Yeah, you know, but I really think that one of the songs that the one of the tune on the album that really best represents the band is a tune entitled, well, it was the it was the lead track off the I've got algorithm and it featured the whole sack section. It really exemplifies what a big band is all about, musically,

Unknown Speaker 9:45
what do you Well, what is that? What is what is the big band all about in

Unknown Speaker 9:48
the tradition of the big band that comes from a swing tradition, swing, jazz, you know, some of the traditional jazz chord progressions Hey, so this tune exemplifies that it's a rhythm changes based off the tune I got rhythm. And so this is an original tune written by Stephen five key and performed by the generation gap Jazz Orchestra entitled, I've got algorithm, a little homage to the younger generation, dealing with social media, et cetera, et cetera.

Unknown Speaker 10:20
I like it. You're listening to it here with beside morning brew on 91.5k One V jazz and more

Unknown Speaker 15:09
Welcome back you're listening to, besides morning brew, Bayesian Niles on 91.5k, u and v jazz and more. That last tune you heard was tune off, or Grammy Award winning album. From the generation gap Jazz Orchestra tunes and titled I've got algorithm. I

Unknown Speaker 15:26
got algorithm baby. Right now mad slam and dude, it's slamming, it'd be interesting to see what your next record is going to be quite honestly. I mean, obviously in the same vein, but it'd be

Unknown Speaker 15:35
it's gonna be a live album, too. We decided we're going to live out. Okay. Okay, record over two or three nights at a venue. Okay, a couple of guests and take the best tracks from that. Love it. We'll do it live.

Unknown Speaker 15:49
Yeah, there's no pressure on that.

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None whatsoever.

Unknown Speaker 15:54
Hey, if you're gonna hear mistakes, and all it's like, mice will go for it. Hey,

Unknown Speaker 15:57
they did it with Basie. And they did it with, I think that's the best way to not true Sinatra's out, live at the sands, live a capital, all that stuff. Like,

Unknown Speaker 16:06
I think I think it's the best way to do it. It really makes sure you're on top of your game, you got to be on your A game to do that, man. You can't be messing around. It's like, you know, that's cool. You're

Unknown Speaker 16:16
working on a project, too. We can. You know, I mean, I think what's interesting about our relationship is that, you know, whenever we come together as artists,

Unknown Speaker 16:25
we come together.

Unknown Speaker 16:27
We take it easy. Tourette's is good, right? That's right. I thought that was my, my, I know, I'm stealing from you. Whenever we come together. It's great. And we bring our mutual influences together and make some great music. But we all also like to pull from things outside that we you know, let me rephrase that. Each of us has our own interest and our own projects that we like to do outside of what we do together and jazz Republic. Yeah. And you know, what I love about have always loved about working with Niles, is that because he comes from a more of a song writer tradition, and being a bandleader. in his own right. He brings him up this completely. I don't want to say off the wall, but But you know, completely different set of influences. And he's like a chameleon. And this latest project he's doing, why don't you tell us about this latest project that you're working on? Yeah, man,

Unknown Speaker 17:30
I'm really, I'm really excited because it's been stretching my everything my lyric writing to my musicianship, my guitar playing, that I haven't pushed myself in so long. So this has been exciting just on that front. So I've been, I put together what I'm calling the Velveteen flowers. And it's a, for lack of a better description. It's a it's a rockabilly swing band, and it's a trio. So me on guitar, you know, we got a bass and drums, I wanted to whittle it down to a trio because I was in Israel for years, as you know, but I was the bass player and singer back in those days, but I wanted to whittle it down to just to kind of test myself as like, what, you know, how big can I make this music with three, with three instruments, and I realized quite a bit, you know, I mean, depending on how you play, and I love that challenge, and the music. I mean, I've been going back to, you know, some of the classics, you know, even you know, Elvis and such, and all the great blues players and, and, of course, in terms of into the 80s, you know, the stray cats and then you've got a lot of the great swing bands like squirrel Nut Zippers and royal crown review and all those guys what they when they brought that thing back in the 90s. And I realized that I'm having a blast, and forgot about how much jazz is really integrated into the chordal movements of rockabilly swing, you know, a lot of country in there to get some of that country twang with this. The other reason I'm having such a blast is because, you know, normally those of our listeners who have been to our concerts, my stuff is normally pretty downtempo chill, pretty haunting, the warlike and this stuff is just much more fun and uplifting and you know, me do that's kind of, that's a stretch for me to do that. And yet, oddly enough, it's become so natural. And I'm having a great time putting this record together. And so I'm launching the first single, which is what you're going to play here and a little bit but I'm launching the whole project March 1, so the with the website and you know, all the social media, of course profiles as well as the single and the music video we already shot which I'm really excited about. And I'm looking forward to playing live a lot for numerous reasons ones because I think to get people up off their seats, and dance and move and have a good time is I'm really excited about and to trying to book a trio just as much, seemingly much easier than booking an 80 piece big pad, or even a five piece or a sextet, you know, I mean, it's just, again, the, it's just easier to book that idea. And, you know, hopefully, you know, make a little bit more money off that as well. You know, you get a little bit more from whether you you know, some of these clubs do in the door deal or flat rate or even the festivals, you know what I mean? It's some No, you

Unknown Speaker 20:26
definitely have more definitely more options in terms of venues, hopefully, that you can perform at. Yes and foremost. Yeah. You know, 18 people on stage versus three. Yeah, the sheer physics of it.

Unknown Speaker 20:41
Well, you know, what was funny is that when we went to go record the music video, we played the song live, even though ultimately we tracked it to the original recording, right. But when playing it live was the first time I was playing with the boys. Because, you know, I had when I recorded these tunes, I've already had the drum tracks from George Doom, or our old pal and in LA. And then I recorded the course the bass and guitar parts. And so when playing with the band, it was really exciting because it was the first time we did that. And I thought, Man, this sounds big as it is, and even rob Katz, our engineer who's done our records, right? Because that's where we filmed the video. He stopped us because man, you guys sound like you've been playing for years. You know, of course, we got VIP on base, you know, in VIP Schmidt. And then I've got Nick wigs Kiddle on the drums and Nick Kiddle used to be one of the he was a blue man in Blue Man Group for a very long time. So it's a lot of fun, man. And now that I've heard the band Live Now I'm not so shy about being in a tree. I'm like, because you know, when you're in a tree out, it's pretty. Your News. Your man it's like, you can't mess up and if you do, everybody knows that. You know, you don't have horns helping you out. I don't have that warm blanket anymore. Like when I'm with when I'm with our jazz Republic band. You know, it's funny for me it's like right now I'm just having a great time with music again, which I haven't in a while and not that I don't always love it but there's a different excitement and and love and passion for this and it just puts a smile on my face with this whole new project. I love it. I love velveteen flowers.

Unknown Speaker 22:17
Believe me we like happy nails we really enjoy happy dials. Right? So why don't you introduce some of this new music that you're working on with velveteen flowers What are you would you like to have our audience here? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 22:36
yeah man. I've been watching a lot of the old classic movies with Cary Grant and this and like to catch a thief and it kind of got me on the spark of being you know, the cat burglar kind of idea right? So this song that we're going to release first which is what the music video will be out in the next week or two as well. This first single off the album is called sleek cat slippy Alright,

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gonna be your

Unknown Speaker 26:52
welcome back you're listening to beside morning brew with Bayesian not island so 91.5k When V jazz and more than last tune you heard was sleek cat slippy a new tune from Niles Thomas velveteen. Flowers project, man, that's a fun to man, that is definitely a departure from some of the music we've worked on in the past together and also some of your other other projects. So yeah, really, really proud of you man has some really great stuff. It's great to hear you sing in full voice, you haven't really done that. Oh my god,

Unknown Speaker 27:27
it's been a while.

Unknown Speaker 27:27
I know. They sound great, man. So thank you forward to hear hear more from that. We invite you to go to the Jazz republic.com and sign up on our mailing list. Something for you to save the date for is our upcoming show at the Smith Center on September 10. And this should have Okay,

Unknown Speaker 27:50
no, I was gonna I was gonna say sorry to interrupt you, man. But I was gonna say, I mean, this one, this show I'm really excited about because we're bringing up a handful of friends and collaborators to this show and just making it a really fun show. Not that they haven't been fun before, of course, but it's just nice to have a handful of musical guests come up there with us and

Unknown Speaker 28:10
absolutely jam. You know, we're also looking forward to a couple of surprises that we have in store for our audience. We're looking forward to doing one of our first surprise pop up shows at an intimate location to be announced soon. So we really want you all to be the first to know about that. Well,

Unknown Speaker 28:31
my friend Well,

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my friend did diamonds.

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It's that time to raise the

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roof and have some fun that we go on to

Unknown Speaker 28:44
what a great song man

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forever. I wish

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we know our listeners now gonna go they're all gonna go and go put on that song. I mean, come on. Come on, come on. It's a great tune. As

Unknown Speaker 28:56
always, we want to thank 91.5k u and v jazz and more for being our media partner. As well as high note roasters, keeping us fresh as a daisy first thing on our beside morning brew. And we want to thank you the listeners for sticking with us. We'll look forward to seeing you in the audience at one of our shows coming up real soon.

Unknown Speaker 29:17
Thank you everyone. Enjoy your Sunday, the morning.

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You've been listening to beside morning brew with beach and Niles chillin on the corner of lifestyle app

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and music stream on 91.5k u and v jazz

Transcribed by https://otter.ai