B-Side Morning Brew w/ Bij & Niles

Unknown Speaker 0:07
Good morning and welcome you're listening to beside morning brew would be at Niles had coffee chat, chillin on the corner of lifestyle app and music stream on 91.5k wouldn't be jazz sharing with people our processes because one of the classes I'm teaching is a professional development class. So let's talk about exactly this. Oh, I love it. Oh, this is gonna be great in for the show. Okay, cool. Let's just jump right into it. So good morning. Better up in the morning to get the MJ getting out. Are you sure? I didn't hear the normal.

Unknown Speaker 0:41
Okay.

Unknown Speaker 0:43
Let's start with our sip of coffee.

Unknown Speaker 0:45
Oh, yeah, that's it

Unknown Speaker 0:51
there it is.

Unknown Speaker 0:58
Last night, I was

Unknown Speaker 1:00
so downstairs I'm doing this design on one of the walls right. To be able to save downstairs now. It's strange. I'm still getting used to it. I am still getting used to it. I do get a lot more. I gotta go down to the garage. I gotta go downstairs. Yeah, yeah, it's um, I'm designing this wall so I've been staining and it was a late night last night because it's taken last night was three coats this morning. I got up early did a fourth coat because you know a stain. He tried to get the you know, you're trying to dial in that color that you want. Or your Home Depot VIP yet? Have they started to know you by name? So not quite yet, but I've been through the door. I've been in this house two weeks. I've been to Home Depot eight times already. It's more time since you've been since you boo.

Unknown Speaker 1:47
Eight years ago or seven years ago.

Unknown Speaker 1:51
Oh, it's great, though. I love it, man. I really do. I love it. Yeah, yeah. I love it. So yeah, the same Yeah. Worth coat of stain and just you know, it's coffee. It's late nights. It's it's you know, inhaling polyurethane and such shows no say that you should probably wear a mask.

Unknown Speaker 2:12
Live your life. But you know, you don't want to hear about your passion out from fumes.

Unknown Speaker 2:18
Well, I will say that I've had all the windows and doors open. And but last night was the first night during the break letting one coat dry. I went outside actually my backyard to sit on my patio furniture and just soak soak that up. I haven't done that yet. Last night was the first time I did it. Yeah. Yeah, it's I was just looking up at the stars are going What have I done? What am I doing? What am I

Unknown Speaker 2:46
doing? What is all this? But anyway, so yeah, man. So let's Okay, so big news that I would love to share with the people is that this has been a big thing for you for a long time. I don't know if it still is now that you've got it. Right. What you wish for? Yeah, yeah. Because you know that, how that always changes when when we do that in life. But you are now educating at Berklee School of Music, which is a, which is was free before I moved out here, man. That was a big dream for you. And I know that dream changed to one degree or another. But

Unknown Speaker 3:25
let's talk about that. Like, how do you feel? Where are you at with all this? What's your role there? Well, you know, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 3:32
Berklee College of Music, you know, it's one of the preeminent music institutions in the world, and happens to be in Boston, where I grew up where I live. And so it's always been there since I was growing up along with doing conservatory, which is another fantastic music school Conservatory, and the Boston Conservatory, which is there, but Berkeley has folded Boston Conservatory in to their school. So it's Berkeley. So it's the Boston Conservatory of Music at Berkeley college. So Berkeley and Boston Conservatory are now one. So we've taken these two awesome music schools, and they're one and yeah, all these always have considered and desired to be a professor there. But I always wanted to wait for the right role. I didn't just want to go in there just to be there. I was wanting to be in a department that I could have an impact. So I'm fortunate enough to be a going as an associate professor in the harmony and jazz composition department, as well as in the liberal arts departments. I'm teaching a couple of sections of harmony two, which is basically music theory in the liberal arts department teaching a professional development seminar, which is cool, which is for fourth year, students and above. Wow. Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker 4:52
let's begin with the circle of fifths, shall we?

Unknown Speaker 4:56
Go look at

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it's actually a little more advanced than

Unknown Speaker 5:00
Doing secondary right now. But

Unknown Speaker 5:03
oh, you'd love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, it's great. It's because it's cool because a harmony to class I teach is called entering harmony to. And these are all first year students. So they're all just their first year college for the first time at Berkeley. How do you feel about that in terms of what do you see different when you're talking about when or when you're teaching a first year student as as opposed to a fourth year student? What's the dynamic lack? Or have you experienced that quite yet? And if so, what is that? Well, the first year students are pretty much not jaded, yet. They're all excited, you know, figured it out, they're still trying to dial it in. So they're, they're open to any and all. Yeah, you know, advice that can be given how to handle stuff. They're a little nervous, too. So.

Unknown Speaker 5:52
But the fourth year is, you know, the cool thing about my class that I teach this seminar is that they all want the information. I mean, it's basically talking about how are we how are they going to handle life after Berkeley? So, and let's face it, there's no, there's no class per se, like that, in any lots of other institutions. Were and and, yeah, I'm sorry. And I would imagine, too, because you know, I've talked about this, even you can have those discussions, right about what the real life is like, it's still still not going to reflect what it really is, you can is only so much, you know, so the reality of the way I teach that seminar is really talking about putting in place processes to be able to adapt to the changes that are going on, that are inevitably going to happen.

Unknown Speaker 6:43
And, you know, partially through my story, partially through guests that I'll be bringing in throughout the, you know, the term talking about

Unknown Speaker 6:51
the thing that they ended up doing was not the thing that they planned on doing in the first place. So be ready to, you know, be able to self evaluate, and assess and learn from your mistakes that you will inevitably make and look at those in a positive way, you know, and surprisingly, a lot of students have not taken the time to look back and reflect on what it is they actually want to do. You know, they've been going to school with a degree that they've chosen degrees of study that they want to do, they get get a blueprint from their advisor, and they're like, take this class, this class, this class, you will be ready to go, Well, that doesn't tell you what happens if that changes along the way. What happens if you find something in one class that you gravitate towards that that's what you really want to do? Not necessarily what your degree said, it's good to do. So I want that brings up a good point, in that, I'm wondering if that's what's different about going down the educational path within the music industry in that to your point, you're saying, you know, they may not know what they want to do with it, or haven't thought about that quite yet. Whereas, as an artist, and my artists, friends, normally, that's the jumping off point you when you're a kid, you just want to be an artist, you don't know how to get there. And then you find your instrument and then you learn along the way. And some of those artists may go to school and educate themselves and some don't. So it sounds kind of the reversal in terms of what you're exactly what you're saying. Will these students do you think do you think are being more prepared for being either session players or educators themselves? Or what's the what what's what do you see they're not all they're not all instrumentalists, vocalists and there's electronic production design people there's, there is all types of, they probably have all played an instrument at some point, or, you know, or vocalist or, you know, music, you know, on some level, but they're not all instrumentalists. So somewhere in music therapy, some are and you know, they have all these different things. So it's really taking, being able to evaluate their skill set, and make it work for them. Whatever it may be, I haven't heard of music therapy, what is, you know, you, people with learning disabilities, people who, you know, autism that are not on the spectrum, I'll be able to use that as therapy and more, communicate with them, help them learn how to communicate emotionally, and, you know, obviously, through speech and stuff like that. So why is heavy? Yeah, it's pretty heavy. So it's Yeah, definitely. And through playing instruments and things like that. So there's different therapeutic ways instead of the traditional therapy that we think about psycho psychological, psychiatric, right? Yeah. And then there's, you know, electronic production design there. There's music productions, films growing, they have everything there. So it's kind of cutting edge just what's interesting about Berkeley, so I have this whole class of 25 students that all have these different things going on. They're trying to figure out

Unknown Speaker 9:44
how am I going to take what I've learned here and monetize it, quite frankly, or, you know, make a career out of it. Build one to start my own music therapy offices, am I going to

Unknown Speaker 9:59
you know,

Unknown Speaker 10:00
be a manager. Artists management. Am I gonna you know, there's so many other options.

Unknown Speaker 10:07
Yeah, so, yeah, sounds good. So I'm just great. And then I head off to Europe next week to do a tour with Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. So be on it two weeks. way guys gone. Started off in Amsterdam. Then we had to Dusseldorf Germany we had to Budapest, Stockholm, Lucerne, Switzerland. Vienna. Burnout, Czech Republic. How many shows? Do you know? 10 shows 10 shows before 14 day? It's great. It'd be great. Yeah, it'd be fun. Yeah, you bring back some chocolate from Switzerland. I hope I woke you up.

Unknown Speaker 10:47
Save some of those bars of chocolate bro.

Unknown Speaker 10:50
Yeah, man. Let's get into some music. Man. What do you want to play? So we're gonna do a little retrospective. I mean, we're talking about, you know, really recalibrating and realigning our priorities to be more focused and heading into the final quarter of 2023. So let's bring back alignment.

Unknown Speaker 11:12
And I wrote for the jazz Republic, listening to it here on beside morning brew with Bs denials on 91.5k u and v jazz and more.

Unknown Speaker 15:20
Welcome back, you're listening to beside morning brute with Bayesian Niles on 91.5k, u and v jazz and more. You just heard my tune alignments by the jazz Republic. That's a great tune, man. I mean, just the whole, that Bass Groove. And it's so funny because like, when we recorded it, and then when we play it on gigs, it's like, that's such a total earworm type situation where you get is you always start singing the groove. Yeah, I think he made up some lyrics. I think well, because the bad way, what we were doing sound check at Smith Center,

Unknown Speaker 15:56
alignment, alignment, I want to be alive, alive, alive.

Unknown Speaker 16:03
So we really thought it was appropriate thing said, as we head into this final quarter of the year, new things are shaping up here. And you know, my man has a new crib, I got a new gig, we got these new projects coming down the line and understanding that you have to filter a lot of these things. There's a lot of peripheral things that can get you off track. And so it's important to be aligned with your priorities, what's important to you. And, you know, I know that Niles is working, looking forward to doing the hang a proper break in hang at the crib. But getting to that point requires a lot of focus. Yeah, so now, you know, give us some I know you're an avid reader, you like to always take in lots of pertinent books and that are out there today. Yeah. Tell me about the you were telling me about a quote that you came across. Awesome. One of your books, actually, you suggested I read it. I have to get to it. Get into it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, before I jump right into that, it's, you know, back to what you were just saying is that it's funny, as you know, this year, you know, I was going to do a show in November at Smith Center, because I just want to stay, keep my toe in, so to speak. And I realized that this year, I've been more focused on other things, you know, I've, I've taken a break from music, so to speak, or what I want to do with it, even though I didn't know that I wanted to take a break. But the focus was, you know, the big deal for me was getting a house finally, and buying a home and something I, you know, thought I would was only going to do when I was younger when I had, you know, the idea of having a wife and kids and things like that, and I just kind of brushed it aside, but my focus has been that this year. So now being in the house, shout out to Monique

Unknown Speaker 17:51
Monique Buchanan on k and v 91. Five, but she's got the she's got her great show. She's She's, she's great. She was amazing. It's been amazing. As a real estate agent for me, what I what I need, I cancelled the show, because what I needed to do was really assess what I what do I want from this? Am I doing the show for ego reasons? Or what's the purpose of doing the show and when I realized there wasn't any real purpose of doing the show, other than being ego based and wanting to feed the monster, if you will, it wasn't the right thing to do, and wasn't the right vibe. And I realized that it's okay to take a break from all this and to really reassess and align myself back to your tune and align myself with me. And what does that mean? And what do I want to go what I want to do with music, and now I'm finally getting there. I'm, I really have a good idea that I'll share later. But I just don't want to dismiss the value of any of whether you're an artist or musician, an educator, whatever it is you're doing in life, the value of reassessing your life and refocusing, it's because I don't know, I think that taking that break is such a positive thing. I think you can get there more clearly, you know, that kind of idea. And in reading this book by one of the most famous and prominent music producers of our time is Rick Rubin. He has a book that I've been reading called the creative act, a way of being I was watching this interview with him on a on a podcast, the quote he was saying, and this just really, it was really profound for me because it hit me in such a way at the quote is understanding how you feel in the face of other voices, without second guessing yourself is probably the single most important thing to practice as an artist. And the key to that is not the I know so I know what's right for you. It just doesn't work that way. It's I know for me, and the reason I chose to be an artist is to demonstrate how I see it in quote that what hit me about that is that for years even you can relate to this we can all relate to this is that when I write songs, it is all

Unknown Speaker 20:00
always, for me, which is the most important you have, it's got to be honest, somewhere along the way for me in the middle of a song. And I don't mean, well, I do mean musically as well, I guess. But a lot of it for me is lyrically, I start to second guess myself and think, Well, should I say this word? Or should I use this rhyming Cooper, whatever we're going to do? Because what would the what what do I think that the audience is going to like, or they're going to adhere to? And it ruins me every time. It just does. what that's done is that thinking that way can take you out of your element, and then you you begin to, I wouldn't say that you're dishonest within the music, but it's not as honest as it would be if you weren't thinking about what you think the audience wants to hear, or is going to adhere to, you know, and I don't care what genre of music it is, it's, it's got to be honest. And so I this last EP I did was the most honest thing I've done in a very long time. But I haven't known as you know, this, we talked about this man, I don't haven't known how to navigate it. I don't haven't known what I want to do, how do I want to get it out there to what degree I want to get out there. And going back to you teaching at Berkeley, that I don't want to be a social media guru, I don't want to be this, this and this and not to say that I I won't do what I have to do. But at the same time navigating these, the music industry today is so much more different than when I was in my even mid to late 30s. Having being signed, it was different man. And you made a point, it's like, it's good to know all those things. Because when you're building your team, it helps. Yeah, and there's no doubt that it does. But at the same time, it's trying to learn the balance of what that is going well, at the end of the day, you're still trying to create music. So you have to put most of your focus on what it is you're doing, you know, it's easy to put your focus on what you consider to be the social media formula of how to post something or this, I gotta have this, this, this, this and this, and this will get me into the feed of the you know, what, what do they call that the, the algorithm, you algorithm and stuff like that. But and so you spent too much focus on that instead of just really presenting the music in an honest way that people will gravitate towards. And if it happens to be through social media in a particular way. Great. And also we're talking about live performance as well. You know, what handsome, you know, right? I mean, that's, that's part two. So it's easy to get caught up in what you think people want to see. That

Unknown Speaker 22:33
instills a level of doubt in your what was ultimately your the reason why you're doing this in the first place your desire to create art, your desire to put the song out the desire to write these lyrics. And so, and also, it's understanding your demographic, and I don't know if this is part of what you teach to in your classes, but it's, it's also understanding your demographic and where they're hanging out. And I'm in that, for me, I'm learning that I'm in that weird space of how many people that a certain age are really on on Instagram, you know, or who's on Facebook? I'm definitely not I'll never go to the Tick Tock world. I mean, those that's that's like, that's for kids. You know, I mean, that's not what I do. It's not what you do. And within that, being on Instagram, or Facebook, which is the most the two still the most dominant, or prominent, what you know, what do you Well, which, which brings us back to you have to reflect and have a clear vision of what it is that you are putting out there, right, so that you can give it to your team and insulate yourself from all that stuff to think about it. That's when we fall into a trap Islam, if you have to think about all those things, the demographic and suddenly other than it's very easy to get off track, and start to doubt your material. But you know, the idea, I'm glad I've been taking this time to reassess and try to learn because now for this next year, I'm gonna be back in action on a whole other playing field. And it's just right now I'm just kind of putting it all together. Well, I didn't really I didn't realize for myself how how much it took Atomy to want to get a home to buy a home. I know that sounds maybe a bit ridiculous to some people. But for me personally, it just has taken all my everything. And so but now that that's done, I now feel like I have this free space mentally to now go okay, now it's time to refocus.

Unknown Speaker 24:24
Which brings me to, we worked on my first EP together. At the time I was watching this that great documentary about Nina Simone came out what hit me was that I identify with Nina Simone more than I dared to dare to admit to. It really hit me so I wrote that song Miss Nina Simone and I'm reintroducing it and putting it out as a single. So I'd like to introduce this tune that we recorded songs called Miss Nina Simone.

Unknown Speaker 24:54
She was black and beautiful.

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She stood for something more than the music

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voice cut through your heart

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with words she knew how to use

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how to use the

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sorrow smile

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entangled in the cost of a sound

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jazz Melati

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a touch lag ray to allow

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a flower

Unknown Speaker 26:20
there a cover time

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sauna prior

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so find

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little girl blue

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love.

Unknown Speaker 28:17
Welcome back you're listening to besides morning brew with Bayesian Niles on 91.5k, u and v jazz and more. That was Miss Nina Simone written by my main man is denials Thomas. Wow, that was so much fun recording that song. That was fun. That was a fun day in the studio. Well, I'd like to thank you, my brother. Here we are, again. Once again, doing the show together, doing what we do. I'd like to thank our audience. Thank you all out there for listening to us and supporting us on our journey. We'd also like to thank K u and v 91.5. Jazz and more for being such gracious hosts of our show and giving us a platform to present this to you. I mean, they've been amazing partners continue to be amazing partners. Thank you. 9.5 Kyp jazz.

Unknown Speaker 29:05
Well, good morning, everybody. Have a wonderful Sunday.

Unknown Speaker 29:09
You've been listening to beside morning brew with beach and Niles chillin on the corner of lifestyle app and music stream on 91.5k u and v jazz

Transcribed by https://otter.ai