This Conversation Is A Wild Card
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The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
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Good morning and welcome you're listening to B side morning brew with beef and Niles.
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Hot coffee. Cool chat, chill on
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the corner of lifestyle app
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and music. Stream on 91.5
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KU and V jazz and more. Did you hear that? Got it? So I guess we're recording. I guess so. Yeah. I said recording on the Oh, yeah, I can see, cool. All right, let's see. Let's just start with a good morning. All right, good morning everybody. You're listening well, we already done the intro, so Okay, so we're gonna Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, good morning my man. Good morning. Man, good. Let's start with our sip of coffee. Oh yeah, oh yeah, that's it.
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Well, here we go.
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Here we go once again, into the breach, my friend. You know this isn't our first rodeo. Clearly, look forward to spending some time sharing our thoughts, intimate and not so intimate, with all of everyone out there, we're
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going to join it on topics of absolutely nothing.
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We have mastered the art of quantifying zero. I mean, or, in the words of my man, Thomas, less than zero. That's a term you like to use. I do. It matters less than zero. It's a new thing for me. That's a you, that's a you thing. I'm
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gonna apologize to our listeners now because I mean, yesterday, you and I jump on the call, go, oh my god, we gotta, we gotta do the radio show, and what do we talk about,
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I guess, I guess. What was, I guess? What was most enlightening about that is, normally, we don't have an issue with that. Such a good, yeah, we got a concert coming up. We're writing good music. We've got, you know, this is a rare occasion where we are caught with our proverbial pants down, putting this together. But I think, I think we've, there's a few things that we've we muse about. See what you don't understand listeners, is many times we have conversation, deep conversations that we would love to have your input and feedback on, we're just usually not recording it, which is a challenge. And usually after a conversation where we've figured out all the world's problems and everything, to go man, that would have been a great that would have been a great show for to share with our listeners.
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We should have
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10 radio shows episodes a week, in terms
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of, see, that's what's the most frustrating thing is, we've got plenty of content
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yet, but it's, again, I think we've said this before, where it's like, you know, you drive around your neighborhood and you see these wrestling, oh, man, next time we should go check out that restaurant. And then that day comes and you're hungry. Like, I don't know where to go. There's nothing to eat around here. Like, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 3:24
yeah. We should go check out that breakfast joint. We still end up at the same Yeah. Like, yeah. Let's go grab breakfast. We should check out that other spot now, let's just go to our spot, right?
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I think our listeners may agree, though, I mean, eggworks is, come on, that's where it says,
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oh, that's the spot and the muffin. And, you know, I think I blew Niles mind by not ordering it because, yeah, we were, we were looking to fit into our outfits for the show the next day. Blow our car.
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I don't need that button fitting that much tighter because I had the muffin
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popping and taking someone out in the front row because I had a muffin, albeit delicious.
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Oh man, I will say, speaking of the show, we did have a blast. That was probably one of our most fun shows, and, well, most people even said that to us, like that was probably the best show they've seen of us, which is interesting, because, you know, it's like we've had some great shows, but I just think the dynamic was just more fun and light, and yet, there was a lot of different music going on. It was great, man. And we
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definitely want to thank all of the listeners that that came to the show and everything and came up to us after the show and gave us instant feedback, yeah. And so we're glad that you all feel comfortable sharing your thoughts with us, good, bad or ugly, but But after that, show was great, great, great feedback and great. To hear Niles new music, and we had a few new personnel in the ensemble that that allowed for us to stretch out a little bit more than we normally do. A lot of miles on stage, lot of folks on stage over the course of that night, as we as we did our debriefing yesterday and everything we're talking through, all the logistics and numbers and everything, we're like, well, there are a lot of miles on stage, yeah, yeah, but it was a lot of personnel, well worth well worth everything, but yeah. Thank you to our listeners.
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That's a an audience, a lot of personnel on the payroll, personnel. I'm like, Okay, I know,
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I know many of our listeners think we're just musicians here, and we don't really have to be businessmen, but we do have a modicum of business back in America.
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This down to a trio
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will all be tracks, yeah,
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exactly. We just have a DJ behind you. And I just, you know, you know,
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we get it. We get it. Trust me,
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that's fun. I mean, that was fun, though. Man, yeah, great. It was a lot of fun. But you, you know, of course, you're like, that was the you haven't done that in a minute. But, like, all right, man, I'm coming in day before. We're gonna just, we gotta do this, this and this. We go to rehearsal, three hour rehearsal, I might add. And then, luckily, that night, we had dinner, had some drinks with some friends, you know. And then the next night, after the show, was like, Alright, man, I gotta head to the airport. What do you mean?
Unknown Speaker 6:33
No, but I felt as though we did have much more time to chill. We did, and it was great. It was great to be able to spend time with the band and the cats and the kittens. And
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that was funny when you said, man, your new music's great, man, in terms of the lyrics, though there's a there's a lot of cats and kittens,
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it was full hep cat, swing, jam, jump,
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jib, dude. What's funny is that, in that genre, the swing, rockabilly, kind of flavor, you go back and listen to all those songs, and a lot of it is they're using, you know, the cats and the kittens and the bunnies and the, you know, it's a simpler time, yeah, on the new one I'm writing right now I'm trying to refrain from that though. I'm trying to, you know, well,
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I didn't, I didn't say it to have you be overly conscious or self aware. Well,
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no, I know, but it's like, I've got all the because that doesn't
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happen to all the tunes that you wrote for the ones that we performed. Those looks like, yeah,
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it's like you've got sleek cat, Slippy and swing kitten. And yeah,
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yeah. I mean, I think it just goes to show that as artists, there are times in our lives when we're super influenced by different things, and that resurface over the course of time in our lives. I mean, when we were, when both of us were playing that music, I was, I was playing in those bands, big bad, Boo daddy, world, Crown review, cherry daddy. I was, I was playing horn in those bands, you know, those types of bands that even some of the SKA that into the rockability, which is, yeah, yeah, that crossover stuff. And, you know, that's huge in Southern California, huge, yeah, that whole research, that was my, that was my bread and butter, playing those gigs. So I, I'm very familiar with the vibe. And you know, you as a guitarist and songwriter, I mean, we were super, super familiar. That's a part of our musical growth and just being, you know, as artists and creators, you were influenced by that stuff?
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Yeah, man, I will say selfishly that one of the things again, that was like, you know, playing those songs live for the first time with the band, with a horn section, the whole thing, I didn't know what to expect at all, right. Just didn't. And it got a flavor of it for rehearsal. And I thought, okay, good, this is gonna be good. Like, everything's cool, right? What I did notice, and I'm really glad about, is that I thought I would need more piano on these tunes. You know, I mean thinking it's going to add a certain kind of flavor. But what I realized is I just, if there was no piano, it would have mattered at all. Luckily, the way I'm writing on guitar, it fills up all that space. So, yeah, that's less personnel for me when I'm doing the Velveteen rabbits, you know, gig, but,
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but, yeah, that was industry and business intersect, yeah, well, because,
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you know, it's like, oh, man, am I not going to be able to, you know, but with the horns and the guitar, it's, it's more than enough, because you guys on horns are playing chords, Really, you're playing all those pads, you know, so it fills it, you know, should we? Should we get into a tune? Well, I mean, you know, or not, yes or not,
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or not. I mean, I think the reality is that getting back to what we're talking about, you know, influences, yeah, we've had and one of our common influences, someone that has crossed over and. Done. My stuff is Sting. Sting had a birthday this week. I know we try and make you shows evergreen, but I mean, hey, this is a, you know, a timestamp for us, just knowing that both of us, once again, have been influenced by the same artist, and as a result, have produced different types of music, I know, with my big band generation gap Jazz Orchestra. We had vocalist Kurt Elling. When we asked him what he wanted to sing on the album, he came up with the the song until he wanted a big band arrangement of that until, which was a friend that movie, what Kate and Leopold, I believe
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it was, yep, but sting wrote that, right? That was, I
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believe, yeah, yeah. It's
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written and performed by Sting, which is interesting, because his version, or, you know, his original track, is that when he goes into his Renaissance period, kind of, yeah,
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that's what, that's what it is, right? I know that. I know that is not necessarily towards the top of your list as favorites, periods of sting.
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I don't mind. You know, when he's it's like, Hey, man, cool. You want to play loot. I'm sure. All right, I've already given you enough money to help with your houses in Italy and Malibu. This goes to show you
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reach a point as an artist where, like, you can do whatever you want. Yeah,
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he's like, Yeah, I'm
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gonna play some loot on this album. Yeah, he ain't going. He don't know if you like it or not. Doesn't matter. Don't really matter less than zero. Yeah, exactly,
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yeah. He could care less than zero. But you know what's cool is like listening to you and and Steven five keys, iteration or and, along with Kurt Elling singing on it, I was very pleasantly surprised at what you guys did, because taking what literally sounds like a renaissance period tune, right, it's then put it into the jazz idiom, temporary Big Band idiom, right? And then you've got, you know, Kurt Elling doing his Curt Elling stuff, you know his thing. And it's like, wow, that is a really cool well, let's, let's, without further ado.
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So this is off the Grammy Award winning album, Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra. Whose band is that? That's my band. Sure. This is Stephen 5p arrangement of platoon, entitled until Ah,
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if I caught the world in a bottle and everything was still beneath the moon. Without your love, would it shine for me if I were wise as Aristotle and understood the rings around the moon. What would it matter if you loved me here ain't yours where the world is impossibly still with a million dreams to fulfill, and a matter of moments until the dancing ends. Here in your arms, when everything seems to be clear, not a solitary thing would I feel, except when this moment continue the dancing, if I caught the world in our glass settled up the Moon so we could ride until the stars
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grew dim. One
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day, you meet a stranger and all the noises silenced in the room, you feel that you're close to some mystery.
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When everything shatters,
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you feel this lesson in history. Where the world is impossibly still, with a million dreams and a matter of moments until the dancing ends, when everything seems to be clear, not a solitary thing Do I Hear, except when this moment comes near the dancing
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room. I caught the world in an hourglass saddled up among then we would rise
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here in your home is where the world is impossibly still with a million dreams to fulfill, and a matter
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here in yours where everything seems To be clear now, the solitary thing do I fear? World
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in an hourglass saddled up the world and We will roar. Up the
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wind and we will
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welcome back. You're listening to B side, morning brew with bija Niles here on 91.5k and v jazz and more. And that was the song until by Sting, a new arrangement by Stephen five key for the generation gap Jazz Orchestra, which him and Bijon, if that's his band, Grammy Award winning cats and kittens. It sounds great. Man of Kurt. Kurt Elling, doing his thing is just, I mean, come on, he's so unique. You don't find that much these days anymore, these cats that are just unique, you know, I mean, doing their own thing, and it's just man, that
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level of originality. There's really no other male vocalist out there doing
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that. No, I was watching this podcast of Rick Rubin, one of my favorite producers, and again, he talks about, like, one of the questions was, you know, when you're writing music and producing music for these major artists, are you thinking about the fans? You know, it's like, no, right? Absolutely not. Like, I'm just, we do what we do for us, and if you like it cool, and if you don't, it doesn't matter, you know, at the end of the day. And so someone like a curt Elling to me at that time coming in, was the time when we were all, you just do your thing. And there was no, like, you know, what, if someone doesn't like it, or this, you know, that kind of thing that, seemingly, there are those that walk on that eggshell. Well,
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in mainstream popular music, yeah, in mainstream popular music, there's definitely an element of a formula, if you will, that is oftentimes used, which is why so much of it sounds the same. Well,
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I remember when Bub was just coming up on the rise, which was when Harry Connick Jr was kind of deciding to maybe do some more acting at that time in his career, you know, and I wouldn't say on a downswing, but just kind of took his foot off the gas a little bit. And I remember thinking, then I'm like, come on, this new kid, Michael blue, play. He's trying to be like Harry Connick Jr. I mean, even Harry Connick Jr going back to a Sinatra thing, but Harry had his own thing. Still had his own voice, his own, you know, quality
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played, played while he was thinking. I mean, he played piano, yeah, yeah.
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So to me, at that time, I had a and wasn't like a Buble fan, because I'm like, Ah, you're just, you know, trying to be like, you know, Harry Connick Jr bothered me. I dig him, but I still have that weird thing in my head of, like, you know, in the in the 80s and 90s, when those when Harry Connick Jr was really hitting at that time, you know. And I know, you play with him for a little bit too good. I
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did a few tours with him, yeah, for his Oh my Nola album, which was so much
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fun. Was that here in the States, though, was that just the
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stuff? Well, also Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, okay, Thailand.
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I just remember once you and I were doing a photo shoot years ago in LA, and you had this suit made, like, oh, man, I had this suit made while I was in China, or whatever it was. It was that, remember that blue suit? He had some, like, a, not royal, but it was a dark royal blue suit that was, you know, do you remember that?
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I do. It was when we were the artists in residence at the Hollywood Bowl, played some jazz orchestra. Yeah, we were the artists in residence, and we would back up every all these musicians that would come through as part of the jazz series, from Yeah, Diana crawl to Ramsey Lewis to Benny Golson, all these, you know, jazz luminaries and stuff like that. And, sure, yeah. So we all had custom suits made that were indicative of our style preferences,
Unknown Speaker 21:44
yeah, well, man, since we're on a since, you know, I don't know, I guess we can call this, this the sting celebration, the birthday celebration. Well, the thing it was, I mean, you know, to your point, earlier, for me, I only got into music because of sting back in the police, you know, I mean, he was it for me, I wasn't paying attention to jazz or anything like that at the time. Obvious for me, I was, I was jazz. It was rock and roll, and, you know, new wave music and the cure and, you know, the clash and all those kind of bands and you too, and stuff. Duran, Duran, but sting when he left the police and then went in to his solo career and into dream of the blue turtles album is when he was bringing on all those great jazz musicians, you know, including Branford, Marcellus, Omar Hakeem and Daryl Jones, Kenny Kirkland, the late great Kenny Kirkland, yeah, and when that happened, that was back in, I want to Say, 86 that was when I it somehow was like the floodgates were opened of where you, you know, he's bringing pop and and melting it with jazz inspiration, if you will. And when that happened, it just, even though I didn't tap into it to that degree, it was just like, wow, you can do this. You know, it was like a that was a new recipe at the time. To me, yeah, I mean, you wrapping your head around you getting into classical and jazz at an early age. To me, is a lot of is a lot of information, you know? I mean, it takes a certain mindset and a discipline to do that. So when Sting was bringing in jazz inspiration into the pop medium, I could understand that, you know? I mean, it was two plus two equals four times five, you know, I mean, like, it was adding a bit more to it, like, oh yeah. It's like, oh, I can understand this. Now, you know, because I don't want to say I would appreciate it any more than going back and listening to a miles record or a Coltrane record. You know, those huge are Brubeck. But it was, I could understand at that age. It was like, oh, okay, I see what's going on here. You know, it was easier for me to to get into it
Unknown Speaker 23:43
well, and even for jazz artists who maybe didn't consider sting music valid, because he was a rock guy, this the nature of his band that he put together. You know, Christian McBride, Chris Bodie, yeah, on trumpet. Chris McBride on bass, Branford Marsalis on sax. I mean, if you don't think that's legit as a group of jazz musicians, then well, then you don't know jazz. So Sting was brilliant, and putting that together and really helping elevate the project that way. Yeah.
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And even back then, he'd have interviews, and, you know, of course, all the magazines and everything, so you're doing jazz, he's like, no, no, I have nothing to do with jazz. And I didn't understand it then. Now I do. And he's absolutely right, it wasn't jazz. There was jazz integration, or, you know, whatever the chordal, you know, extensions would be, but there was no, wasn't Jazz at all, you know, nope. So I'd like to play this incredible bluesy tune called Moon over Bourbon Street you're listening to B side morning brew with bija Niles here on 91.5 KMV jazz and more. Enjoy.
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It tonight, I see faces as they pass beneath of no choice but you follow that call the bright lights, the people and the moon and all. I pray every day to be strong for I know what I do must be wrong. Oh, you never see my shield or hear the sound of my feet While there's a moon over Bourbon Street
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that I became what I am. I was trapped in this life like an inner sundry. No, I can never show my face truly.
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See me walking by the light
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of my heart hides the eye, but the hands of a priest or you'll never see my shame or hear the sound of my feet while they'll see you off
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a murmur street. You
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she walks every day
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through the streets of New Orleans. She's little suntanly on from a family of
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me I have steeped many times outside of how could I be this way when I praise you God,
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upon close us out. Man, yeah, well,
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thank you for joining us on our journey. Thank you for indulging styles and I on our wild card programming. We also want to thank K, U, N v for being our media sponsors, of course, and and if
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you're interested in what we're doing collectively with the jazz Republic, feel free to visit our website at the jazz republic.com
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All right, good sir.
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Enjoy your morning. You too, my friend. Enjoy your morning. Everyone. Happy Sunday. You
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You've been listening to B side, morning brew with bees and Niles, chillin on the corner of lifestyle app
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and music street on 91.5
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KU env, jazz.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
