B-Side Morning Brew w/ Bij & Niles

Wes Knight
0:00:00
The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz & More, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Niles
0:00:10
Good morning and welcome.

Bijon
0:00:11
You're listening to B-Side Morning Brew with Beej and Niles.

Niles
0:00:23
Hot coffee, cool chatting, chilling on the corner of Lifestyle Ave and Music Street on 91.5 KUND Jazz and More.

Chipmunk Voice
0:00:33
Let's start with our sip of coffee. There we go.

Niles
0:00:36
Oh yeah, oh yeah. That's it.

Bijon
0:00:38
Yeah, I mean, you know, listen, we're not, we have no problem with people doing standards. Of course, we've all been influenced as part of learning the language, but we are not in the business of regurgitation.

Niles
0:00:55
Yeah, this is a tribute to ex-artists.

Niles
0:00:58
Like, no.

Niles
0:00:59
Well, so there was this, there's this girl I started, I started following some time ago. Her name's Erica Davies and she's out there in La Jolla. Which is gorgeous, by the way.

Bijon
0:01:09
Yeah.

Niles
0:01:10
And, and then she recently started following me and she's great, man. She's totally up our alley. I think we definitely should try to have her out on one of our series at Smith Center.

Bijon
0:01:23
Sounds good. Yeah, I mean, we're all about introducing new talents

Bijon
0:01:27
to people and people, yeah.

Niles
0:01:28
You know, and she does, yeah, like we're talking about the standards or what have you, but yeah, no, yeah, we ain't in the business of the standards on this. Just a public show. No Cerebro, no Cerebro. Nothing wrong with it, but it ain't what we do.

Niles
0:01:40
So how you doing, man?

Bijon
0:01:41
Man, we are in the throes of summer. Did I read somewhere that it's 115 degrees?

Niles
0:01:47
So check this out.

Niles
0:01:49
Check this out.

Bijon
0:01:50
So that's what what that is. The sun broke last week.

Niles
0:01:55
I haven't been to Brio in a while. So those of our locals will obviously know Brio. And that's kind of a should I say that's my hang?

Bijon
0:02:03
That's a hang.

Niles
0:02:04
I guess if you ever want to see us, you'll find me in the bar. But I went there and then, I don't know, some girl came up to me, exchanged numbers, blah, blah, blah, went out and she's like, you know, hey, do you want to go play tennis next week? I'm like, yeah, that sounds cool. I haven't played tennis in a while. So at my house, all right, Rod Lather, I know at my house, it's 106. I go

Niles
0:02:31
out to where, where she was out towards, I think Henderson, I think 114. No, I mean, yes, no, from where I'm at to a buck 14, like, yeah, it was, um, and don't give me that. It's a dry heat stuff. Well, give me that. Since I live closer to the mountain, you know what I mean, it is cooler here because of that reason alone. But you know what, I know it's funny, but it's true man, that dry heat I can hang way better than humidity. Come on. How many times have we been to New Orleans or down in Texas and it's just, oh, it could be 80 degrees outside,

Niles
0:03:10
which is nice, but the humidity would just kill you. No, we had some of that here in Boston was 87 walk out the

Bijon
0:03:16
door it's like you get enveloped by like this wet steam rag and you know but hey

Niles
0:03:23
man that's a horse I know I know I know yeah right I know that your thing when you write a tune there's single titles yeah I think you should write something called steam rag steam rag.

Bijon
0:03:37
Steam rag?

Niles
0:03:38
Come on, you just said that, that's a song title.

Bijon
0:03:42
Or steamer.

Niles
0:03:43
Steam rag. You do a ragtime thing.

Bijon
0:03:46
No thanks. Anyway, um.

Niles
0:03:48
So where, yeah, so the heat and yeah, it's uh, you know, it's crazy.

Bijon
0:03:53
And of course we've all got our home projects we're working on, you know. I think, I think you and I have called this, or we've given it the moniker the summer of figuring things out.

Niles
0:04:05
Well you know it's a combination of yeah I mean it's it's what a strange time I mean we've got a couple shows coming up July 11th we're gonna do the something we haven't done together in a long time which is playing like a small little intimate gig and I'm really looking forward to it just kind of a down-and-dirty gig so to speak and because we go off in a different way when we play those kind of shows, you know, so you know for those of you that would like to see us in an intimate

Niles
0:04:33
setting, July 11th we'll be at the Dispensary Lounge here in Las Vegas and doing a couple sets including Uli Geisendorfer on piano. A lot of you may know Uli, of course. And yeah, we've got our Nick VIP Schmidt on bass and Sam Skitslimos on sax. Got a couple newcomers on drums, we'll just tell you about. And then Linda Woodson's gonna join us

Niles
0:04:57
for a couple songs here and there, which is gonna be great. But within all that, and then of course, we have our Smith Center show coming up on September 10th, and we'll go into that a little bit later in this segment. But between all that, between me trying to rehearse

Niles
0:05:11
and get ready for this gig and also relearn all my original tunes. I'm like, how did I play that again? I don't remember. Exactly. But we're doing home projects, so you call me with the throw of some

Bijon
0:05:26
roofing issue. What was that about? Let's put it this way. What started out as a leak in, okay, so those are the listeners. My house is 125 years old, in Boston here. He's been in the family for about 70 years. I'm the third owner of the house.

Niles
0:05:43
And I do want to, sorry, I do want to say that your house is haunted with ghosts. It just is. I've been there. They are good ghosts, but weird nonetheless. Sorry.

Bijon
0:05:57
So, upon further inspection, what was originally a $15,000 job turned into a $40,000 job, which my entire roof needed to be replaced, reinforced, etc. And during that time, additional water damage took place because it was not tarped over properly. So, yeah, it's been quite a nightmare, but I literally have a roof over my head now.

Niles
0:06:25
Yeah, you're thankful for a roof, okay.

Bijon
0:06:28
With a 30 year warranty.

Niles
0:06:31
But has it been 100 plus years since that roof has been done? Or has it been done?

Bijon
0:06:35
So what they found was that was the original roofing platform, original roofing wood and everything.

Niles
0:06:42
Yeah, do roofs last that long nowadays? Do builders, you know?

Bijon
0:06:46
They don't, you can't even get that quality of wood to last that long.

Wes Knight
0:06:50
That's sad.

Bijon
0:06:50
I mean, that wood was so hard, you know, because it came from the original trees that were growing in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts back in the 1800s and early 1900s. Yeah man, yeah man, crazy. That is crazy. So we're dealing with them just, you know,

Niles
0:07:05
blessed to have a home. So, but yeah, that put my backyard projects on hold. Yeah. Well, that's the kind of home reno that you don't want to invest in. I mean, it's a great investment, ultimately, obviously, but that's not that, you know, you don't want to put that. Yeah, I mean, and I was mentioning to within all this, I decided to reno my kitchen. Right? So I what are you thinking? You know, man, I'm all into I'm all into the DIY thing too. We talked about this on a previous episode where you and I could build a house if we needed to. Luckily.

Niles
0:07:46
A lot of the young kids today couldn't. They're 30 something.

Bijon
0:07:49
They wouldn't even know what to do with a hammer.

Niles
0:07:52
Yeah.

Bijon
0:07:53
I could do some drywalls and all that.

Niles
0:07:58
Yeah, plumbing, the whole thing. I ripped down the kitchen wall cabinets, all of them, and then completely just redid the walls nicely and then did that whole textured thing. So I'm going for that Tuscan farmhouse kind of vibe. And I'm just putting the floating shelves up,

Niles
0:08:16
which looks cool, man. That's great. Yeah, so, you know, and it opens up the kitchen.

Bijon
0:08:20
I'm looking forward to seeing it next week.

Niles
0:08:22
I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Niles
0:08:22
That's right.

Bijon
0:08:23
Yeah.

Niles
0:08:24
Coming into town.

Bijon
0:08:25
That's right.

Niles
0:08:26
Our boy Bijon's coming into town.

Bijon
0:08:27
Look out. Yeah. Hurricane Bijon.

Niles
0:08:30
The Tasmanian devil's coming in.

Bijon
0:08:32
No, actually, I think I'm going to have time. You know, I'm coming in, you know, a couple of days before.

Niles
0:08:37
It'd be nice, man.

Bijon
0:08:38
You know, I'm not leaving until the next day after the show. I'm not I don't think I'm taking a red eye. Yeah. And I know I'm not taking a red eye.

Niles
0:08:46
So yeah. And we're going to have a little soiree, a little gathering the night before the show, which is good. Not too heavy though. Not too heavy.

Niles
0:08:54
Not too heavy.

Bijon
0:08:55
Take it easy.

Niles
0:08:56
Take it easy. I can't bounce back like I once could.

Bijon
0:09:00
You know.

Bijon
0:09:01
You do.

Niles
0:09:02
Yeah man, so that's going to be fun in terms of, it's going to be hot, but you know, since I built the pergola out back, I'm going to, got the lights and everything, I'm going to get some misters over the weekend and mount the misters so that at least when we have some people over if people choose to go outside on patio then you can at least stay cool

Niles
0:09:22
so what do you got man so in terms of you know summertime when the living's easy

Bijon
0:09:28
yeah that's obviously an easy that's obviously an easy thing to go to

Niles
0:09:34
yeah

Niles
0:09:35
but do you have a song in mind do you have an artist or song in mind?

Bijon
0:09:38
I thought I did here. I had my playlist going here. Hold on.

Niles
0:09:41
What tune do you want to play? What artist?

Bijon
0:09:43
You know, I mean, when we talked about putting the show together, we figured, let's find something that would be a nice summer playlist, something we put on a summer playlist. You know, chilling, grilling, rapping, hanging. This tune, Horace Silver is the composer. The name of the tune is called the Jody Grind and we happen to do this version of this, a big band version of this tune in the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. So we figured we'd play this Horace Silver

Bijon
0:10:09
Quintet tune, the Jody Grind. You're listening to B-side Morning Brew with Beej and Niles on 91.5 KUNV Jazz and more.

Niles
0:10:23
so the the the so so

Niles
0:11:16
so the the the uh so

Niles
0:12:43
That was Horse Silver, The Jody Grind. Man, that is such a cool tune. It just, you know, it's that whole 60s vibe. I just want to go get a martini. It's got the hidden bar in the house kind of, you know, in the walls kind of thing. That Jetsons kind of thing.

Niles
0:13:06
George Jetson. No, I'm not aging myself at all.

Niles
0:13:09
But what a slamming tune, man. Yeah, man, speaking of this in terms of like the cool stuff, and we've been going back and forth in terms of what we're playing for the upcoming show at Dispensary Lounge, and then a different kind of set for the Smith Center.

Niles
0:16:42
We always go back or hearken back to a show we, we've done numerous shows, obviously, but years ago we did a show together in Fullerton in California, Orange County area. Man, that night just went off. The red velvet walls. And then at that time we were mostly doing all my tunes and just very, very sexy stuff. And it just, the crowd was just, let's just say, was way into it. And so, I don't know about you, but the songs I've chosen for these sets for the upcoming,

Niles
0:17:15
that upcoming show on July 11th, I've just been doing, I've chosen, I should say, all the cool, sexy tunes from the repertoire. Well, I mean, they were, I mean, you know,

Bijon
0:17:25
sexy in such that the grooves were infectious. Yeah. There was an infectious groove that allowed room for,

Niles
0:17:30
Yeah.

Bijon
0:17:31
Some energy, it was cool. It wasn't like low key, it was definitely.

Niles
0:17:35
It's kind of shoddy if I were to, Yeah, yeah.

Niles
0:17:38
If you're gonna, you know.

Bijon
0:17:39
It's definitely groove oriented. Yeah, man, just crazy. Yeah, it'd definitely be a lot of fun. To this day, I think the gold standard in terms of our performance. Isn't that funny? Like, remember that had to have been, what, Yeah, bro.

Niles
0:17:56
20 years?

Niles
0:17:57
Yeah.

Bijon
0:17:57
Yeah.

Niles
0:17:58
Man. Anyway, but it was a while ago.

Niles
0:18:01
But it's always been the gold standard.

Bijon
0:18:03
And as artists, those are the things that you remember, those types of things, the experiences and performing. Absolutely. But even when we've gone out to San Antonio, Texas

Niles
0:18:14
and played Jazz Texas, which is a great venue, and small club venue, but very high end, very cool, hip, chic kind of vibe Doc Watkins the owner of that place and great piano player himself He's got such a great establishment, but when we when we played there we do the same thing it just gets Discussed uninhibited so to speak maybe you know and we may save a greater conversation about this

Bijon
0:18:43
I know we in a couple of episodes coming up. We are gonna have a booking proprietor of an establishment in Los Angeles come on and talk with us about their process for programming the series or programming their calendar.

Niles
0:19:00
Which is how these, yeah, just how some of these jazz venues book. It's funny, I mean, we won't go into this now, we'll save it for the next show.

Bijon
0:19:07
No, but I think what it came down to initially, different venues are listening rooms and other

Niles
0:19:12
venues are not. Right. Smith Center is a total listening room. Yeah. Which is beautiful, which is great. But you know having said that, as we're you know saying these things aloud and in that talking about how when we play smaller venues together it seems to get a little bit more maybe loose. It's loose but not loose. Maybe we just let go a little bit again. Maybe the word is uninhibited.

Bijon
0:19:38
I prefer that.

Bijon
0:19:39
I don't think, yeah, loose in terms of we're stretching out more in terms of taking the music to different places.

Niles
0:19:46
But I wonder why, at least for me, I wonder why, if that's the case, why it might have been that way when we do Smith Center shows, where I might not let go as much as I would in a very small, intimate place. Yeah, I don't want to do that.

Niles
0:20:00
Meaning Smith Center should be that.

Bijon
0:20:02
Right, sure, the same.

Niles
0:20:03
That same vibe, yeah.

Bijon
0:20:05
Yeah. And this upcoming show will probably be more like that.

Niles
0:20:10
Yeah, I think so too.

Niles
0:20:11
Yeah.

Niles
0:20:12
Just because we're there mentally, I think.

Bijon
0:20:14
And the host of guests that we're going to have performing with us that have contributed to our musical growth in Las Vegas as the Jazz Republic. These are all people that have contributed in some way throughout our time here.

Niles
0:20:30
Well, that's surely gonna be a review show, right? So the Jazz Republic review at Smith Center September 10th and you know what I mean by that is that yes We have we have more guests than we've ever had before in any of our concerts there. I mean, we've got Linda Woodson Who's gonna join us for some songs. We've got Laura Schaefer. We've got our old friend who's now here in Vegas from New York, David Pop-Tart T. Morris, who's going to come up and sing with us, who is just an incredible singer. We've got Tom Face Lure, who's coming in from LA to hit us with some sax. We've got our usual

Niles
0:21:07
suspects, our gang. Of course, we've got Brian Tree, Trio on piano that night. We've got Nick VIP Schmitt on bass that night. We've got, and of course, Sam Skitslimas will also be joining us on sax. Uli Geisendorfer will be up there also supporting Linda Woodson, whom he's produced and recorded her recent album. It's a big night! Our songs, of course, your originals, my originals, I mean it's just

Niles
0:21:32
it's a big night of music. It's exciting. Yeah, it's going to be a great time.

Bijon
0:21:36
And just a testament to our growth too in terms of collaborating with the musical community here in Las Vegas you know becoming entrenched and part of it really showcasing original music yes we set out to do yeah no it's it's it's

Niles
0:21:52
exciting I'm really looking forward to that show for those of you that are interested feel free to go over to the Smith Center comm and look up the Jazz Republic review for tickets and availability for the

Bijon
0:22:05
September 10th show. There's no tickets for the dispensary or advanced ticket sales, right?

Niles
0:22:12
No, for those that are interested in going to our upcoming intimate show at the dispensary lounge, if I'm not mistaken you can give them a call to make reservations. You do have to make reservations. It is, it is.

Bijon
0:22:29
It really looks like a bullshit.

Niles
0:22:30
And I think the reason, there's other than musically speaking, I think part of it is that when we do Smith Center concerts, they're a lot for us, meaning there's a lot of behind the scenes

Niles
0:22:42
that makes those shows happen.

Bijon
0:22:44
A lot. A lot of production.

Bijon
0:22:46
A lot of production.

Niles
0:22:46
A lot of production, a lot of advertising, a lot of money. It's, it takes a lot to put on those shows. It's funny, a lot of people, if they ask, why are you paying X for this or the room or this? People don't realize when you go and see some of the biggest artists in the world, it could be anywhere from Sting to Adele to you name it. Yeah, someone's putting up that money to rent those venues.

Niles
0:23:08
And they're hoping that we, as their listeners, are buying the tickets to help make sure that that promoter who is typically the one putting up all those funds is getting reimbursed. There's an ROI on this. And with Jazz Republic, that's exactly what we are. We're also the producers and promoters. It's a lot for us.

Niles
0:23:31
And I think it's, without going into it, there's more stress involved.

Niles
0:23:35
There is.

Niles
0:23:36
I just want to play the trumpet now What tonight's your night, buddy? Yeah, there was a Smith Center show. We were at one of our many that we had I don't remember what year it was but not long ago a couple years ago Whatever pressures that were going on that day pre show it were heavy and we're you know out doing our thing trying to organize everything and had, which is not like Bijon, but he had a slight meltdown and we're walking through

Niles
0:24:03
this market wherever we were. I think we were talking to the Smith Center, something was going on because there was some issue with the backstage something or we couldn't get one of the dressing rooms. They were, I don't know what it was, whatever the politics of it were, but Bijon just has a meltdown and I had to try to make light of it. I'm like, it's like, I just want to play the trumpet, man.

Niles
0:24:21
I just want to play the trumpet like well tonight's your night and you know the funny thing is little did you know what not what the one two years later Mr. B. John Watson here gets to play his trumpet and wins himself a Grammy so you know you got you got your wish my friend you got it tonight's your night you know man I'd like to get into some more music I stumbled on this independent artist, Jazz Chantouce, out of La Jolla. She's great, man. I started following her just to kind of get a, you know, look around, kind of see what's up, what is she doing, what is she not doing, with any artist, if we're going to look some

Niles
0:25:02
artists up. And she's just, to me, very consistent. She's great, man. Her name is Erica Davies, and she's out of La Jolla, California, which as we know, for those of us that have been down there many times in our life. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous area. She's cool, man. She does originals as well as, of course, she's going to play some of the book, you know, or she'll put her twist on some of the book kind of thing. But either way, I think she's great. I'd love to ultimately invite her to be on our series for Jazz Republic at the Smith Center. So let's play one of her tunes. Her name is Erica Davies. This song is called Part the Sea. You're listening to

Niles
0:25:42
it here on B-Side Morning Brew with Beja Niles on 91.5 KUNV Jazz and More.

Niles
0:25:48
I have got a mouth that cannot lie Yes, he's very let's depart the sea You will see yourself inside of me Play me like a drum, I'll beat on time Doesn't matter how you want to change the beat You think I can walk on water And it's got me feeling that much better

Niles
0:26:40
We hear the same melody but we sing a different tune What do you prefer, I ask you You're just a color that I wear Well it doesn't matter what you think you are to me Cause I told you how much I adore you but it don't mean a thing It ain't time we agree to disagree

Niles
0:27:16
You're just a color that I wear Well, it doesn't matter what you think you are to me I told you how much I adore you but it don't mean a thing It ends and we agree to disagree I have got a mouth that cannot lie Welcome back. You're listening to B-Side Morning Brew with Beej and Niles on 91.5 at KUNV Jazz and More. Man, that's great. It's great that you are combing the interwebs, the music

Niles
0:28:28
outlets to find some new artists. That's awesome. Nice. Yeah man. I think this is starting to close out our segment here. I believe so. I think we'll allow our listeners to continue with their grilling and chilling and home projects etc. Staying out of the heat or in it. Go to the pool. Or in it. Be bold. Be bold. Be bold. Be brave. Well good morning everybody. Enjoy your Sunday.

Bijon
0:29:37
Peace. You've been listening to B-Side Morning Brew with Bij and Niles, chillin' on the corner You've been listening to B-Side Morning Brew with Bij and Niles, chillin' on the corner

Niles
0:29:46
of Lifestyle App and Music Stream on 91.5 KUNV Jazz and More.