Bos Bones
Season 1
Episode 1: Jeb Bishop
Join host Michael Prentky for the Bos Bones premier with inaugural guest Jeb Bishop. They discuss the Boston music scene in relation to Chicago's, Boston's free improvising music community, and building a life in music.
-Follow @BosBones on instagram and facebook
-Watch on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC80NiTb8KEaiyZ5pE7OXgng
-Sign up for the mailing list at www.MichaelPrentky.com/BosBones
Bos Bones
Season 1
Episode 1: Jeb Bishop
Join host Michael Prentky for the Bos Bones premier with inaugural guest Jeb Bishop. They discuss the Boston music scene in relation to Chicago's, Boston's free improvising music community, and building a life in music.
-Follow @BosBones on instagram and facebook
-Watch on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC80NiTb8KEaiyZ5pE7OXgng
-Sign up for the mailing list at www.MichaelPrentky.com/BosBones
I am Michael Prentky This is Jeb bishop. Welcome to the inaugural boss bones podcast.
Jeb:Hello. Yeah.
Michael:So I'm, I'm here trying to talk to all kinds of Boston trombonists. And I guess first off, would you even consider yourself a Boston trombonist?
Jeb:Oh, well, yeah. My wife and I moved to Boston about almost exactly five years ago now. So, and I've been, you know, up until the beginning of the pandemic, I was playing around here quite a bit and working with a lot of Boston musicians. So sure, I'm a Boston trombone.
Michael:I thought so too, which is why I reached out to you by also acknowledge that you're relatively new. Yeah, five years. So it's not that much time?
Jeb:Well, there's probably people you can talk to who, you know, gotten out of school less than five years ago or something who were playing around and stuff? I don't I don't know.
Michael:Yeah, that's kind of an interesting way to put it. Because I was thinking about that, who I reached out to and what? And I, honestly, I didn't really want to reach out to students, because it's such a different experience. Yeah, even if you're here for four years as a student, you're not really interacting, usually with the scene in a bigger way.
Jeb:That's true. Yeah.
Michael:So you've been here for about the same time as like an undergraduate student, but you've only been in the scene. So it's kind of a different experience.
Jeb:Yeah. And when I showed up, I mean, I already had musical relationships with a number of well established musicians here.
Michael:Yeah. Who are some of those people?
Jeb:Jorrit Dijkstra, saxophonist and composer, bandleader. Pandelis Karayorgis, pianist, composer bandleader. And both of those guys are on a label called drif. And I had already, you know, been on some Driff recordings. And before moving here, I had come to Boston I think, a year or so before and participated in a drift festival that they put on at the lily pad. And who else Nate McBride, a bass player. He's been here for quite a while, and he lived in Chicago for a long time. And he and I played together a lot in Chicago, so when I came here, so the three of them were the ones who I would say I knew the best, but uh, yeah, I had met Charlie Kolhase before, I don't think I had played with him before coming to Boston, but I'd certainly met him on trips to Boston. And so we knew each other, and then I been playing with him regularly since then that year. And who else? Kurt Newton is another one I'd played with in Chicago. And, you know, I've been working with him regularly since I got here. Eric Rosenthal, I had met also on trips here, but I had not played with him. But then he and I've been playing together. So I had, you know, I had like, various knowledge of the scene and contacts and things like that. Yeah.
Michael:So there, it seems like there's kind of like a Chicago Boston connection, in some ways. Um,
Jeb:yeah, in those senses that I just talked about. I mean, you're it went out of his way to come to Chicago, starting back around 2000, if I'm remembering, right, and he came there and started a band with Chicago musicians, called the flatlands ensemble, because he was Chicago is flat, and he's from the Netherlands, which is famously flat. So he had this comparison between between that so that group did some touring and some recording and then he kind of expanded it later into a larger thing called pillow circles when he got a composition commissioned from the North Sea Jazz Festival. And then he added more musicians to kind of the same core, although it wasn't all the same. But anyway, it was a that was sort of an outgrowth or in a way of the flatlands thing, and then he and I, you know,
Michael:I grew up in the flatlands group.
Jeb:I was part of the flatlands group, I was part of this pillow circles thing, which played at North Sea that was like the sort of a, he got commissioned to rehearse and present this group and record so we did a recording with that. And then he and I also have a duo that did a record I do a recording in Chicago. And then we've done some cool With that, also. So and then you know, you're in panda lease and Nate and I are all in a band called cutout with Luther gray on drums, who is someone I only met when I moved here, although I knew about him before. And that band has a CDL. And we've done a little bit of touring and one. So there's lots of things we also had even before I came to Boston with your band, Elise, we had a thing called the whammies, which was based around the music, Steve Lacey. And that band has done like three CDs and some touring and every so you know, this is all, at least in my case, that was all on I was still in Chicago. And so there was a lot of, you know, Boston related activity, even before I left Chicago.
Michael:So it seems like it was actually like a fairly streamlined segue, because you already had some significant connections to the scene. And you'd been here a little bit. I guess. I'm wondering, were there any major? I guess, like shifts? Or like any, any major differences that you had to kind of adjust to moving here?
Jeb:Huh? Well, one thing I should say is, we didn't come straight from Chicago to Boston. And my wife and I went, were both from North Carolina. And we went back to North Carolina for three and a half or so years. And we're there before we came to Boston. So we went back there for reasons related to my family and her job, without getting into all the details. And then probably the main contributing factor to us coming here was again, that she got an attractive job offer here. So we decided and I was there were things about living down in North Carolina that I like, but it's weird to go back to where you grew up after 20 years or whatever. And, and musically, there, there are things happening there. And I had a lot of good experiences there. And I still have musical connections there. But for me, it was kind of not enough in a way, you know. So the chance to come to Boston and check that out. Plus, it was a really good career opportunity for her. So putting all that together, it made sense for us to come here after North Carolina. But the plan was no we didn't we didn't go from Chicago. And they're like, oh, we're going to Boston, we could kind of the the decision, the job thing. And the decision to come here all happened really pretty quickly and in kind of an unforeseen way. So it was kind of, you know, I don't want to say accidental, but we didn't have a long term plan to wind up in Boston. And now we are
Michael:sure that's kind of the the couples calculus, all the equations and mathematics we have to do when we're making decisions. Within a couple. Yeah, you said that North Carolina wasn't really enough. And I'm wondering, Why wasn't that enough? And has Boston been enough for you as a player?
Jeb:Hmm, well, I mean, for what I do, the kind of I guess you could say kind of niche kind of stuff that I'm mostly associated with, that exists down there is just kind of a much smaller scene, and you can perform around there. But in terms of like, for example, a larger scene where I can go see a lot of other musicians doing their thing or musicians coming through from out of town a lot. That I mean, again, all that does actually kind of exist there but and I don't want to over even over emphasize that factor, because for me, it has much to do with just feeling strange living in that part of the world again, and also there factors about my wife's job which were, which had, which had played into it also. It's like, it's a complicated subject. But as far as Boston goes, Yeah, I mean, they're the the caliber of musicians here is amazing. And I've had a lot of great experiences here and have been able to play a lot and record and use it as a base for some things get to New York a few times. I mean, we can get into it, when we get into it now. But as far as Boston being enough, my main reservation about it has always been the kind of performance and venue situation here. Because it's the the the the outlets where you can present at least the kind of thing I do are very limited, you have to pay to rent them for performance, which is far from ideal, and has not been the case anywhere else that have been and and even some of those have closed down, you know, maybe you know before the pandemic. So, that aspect of it is distinctly less than ideal from my point of view. And I know a lot of other musicians have the same, you know, sort of complaint, if you want to call it that about? Yes. And I don't know, I don't know what the structural reasons are that make Boston that way compared to anywhere else? And then, you know, I don't know how much that like, paying to rent the venue thing, for example, I don't know how much that's the case in New York. Maybe it is, I don't know, it wasn't the case at all in Chicago. Generally. And, yeah, that's the, that's the main issue that I would say I have is the, the, the, the difficulty in having like a wider variety of venues and feeling also feeling like the venues are kind of integrated with the kind of scene that I'm in, as opposed to just kind of people who run venues, you know. And they're, I don't want to overstate my dissatisfaction with it, because the people who run the venues are cool, you know, they're the ones that I've had dealings with. But there's something structural about the scene being like that, that, at least for me, is, you know, if I was doing more, like, straight ahead, jazz kind of gigging, or whatever you want to call it, maybe. Maybe that would look different. I don't know how Boston looks for people who are more identified with that kind of scene. I mean, what I do is kind of, mostly, as I said, Nish, anyway. So, you know, in a sense, like Chicago, for example, is kind of artificially, artificially, but unusually rich in different kinds of places where you can go and present that kind of thing. And you know, that somebody's doing it every night of the week is a large scene, and the people who promote that stuff and presented are committed to it in a way that's similar to the way that musicians are committed to it. So yeah, I get a less of a sense of that here. I guess I would say.
Michael:Definitely, I've, yeah, I've felt the same way. And I've heard that for many people. We Yeah. A lot of musicians feel that way. Um, I, I have a, I have a sense that things were different. You know, maybe 1020 years ago, not even have a sense. I know, things were different. I don't know the
Jeb:Boss, boss in Boston. You mean?
Michael:Yeah. And I guess that's kind of part of why I want to do this podcast is I want to talk to more people. So I'm excited to learn more about that. I guess where I'm going with this is I've seen videos of like, I think maybe in the 90s there was a pretty experimental music scene. And Tom plesac was a big part of that. Do you know about Tom, do you know him?
Jeb:Yeah, I know who he is. I haven't met him for him a bit. Fantastic trombone player. And he's like, kind of a department head at Berkeley or something right there. Yeah, I think so. No, I never had met him. A long time ago, Joe Morris played me a recording of the two of them playing some duo free improvisation, which was great. And then I haven't, you know, I haven't. Since I've been in Boston, as far as I know. I haven't had a lot of chances to see him perform. I don't know how often he gets out and plays these days. But I'd love to sometime, but I have not so far.
Michael:Yeah. Yeah. I was wondering if maybe you could talk about of the few venues that are here. What are some of your favorite spots that you play or hear music?
Jeb:Yeah, I mean, it's been places I still haven't even been yet. You know, I haven't been to the regatta bar, for example, was it the beehive I haven't been there. As far as I places I play. I mean, there's been this regular series at the lily pad that Eric Rosenthal organizes point 01 percent. And the group cutout that I mentioned before, has had kind of a semi regular slot on that series or connected to that series for quite a while. And everything I say about performing is pre pandemic, of course. And then Apart from that, there have been other times, you know, the lily pads, also a place that I booked myself and presented some stuff out a few times. And I played with other people who invited me to play or whatever. There's that there's the outpost, you know, close to the lily pad, play there quite a bit. Rob, who runs that place is a great guy who has a real interest in music. So that's, you know, that that's a positive thing. The thing about the outpost was even before the pandemic he got his eye as I understand it, kind of shut down by Cambridge for not having the right official licensing situation or whatever he needs for that. Which is weird because he'd been doing it for a long time. And it even been the uplisted it even then sort of officially recognized by the city as a, you know, significant cultural institution and replace features in the newspaper and things like that. So it's a little weird that they would come down on and maybe some neighbors complained or something. And he was, you know, he that by the time the pandemic hit that had not been resolved. So the outpost had already been out of the picture. By that time, and I have no idea. I haven't heard any news at all about what that looks like, for whenever live music starts happening again, around here. I don't know what that's gonna look like, nor do I know what the lily pad is going to look like, for that matter. I mean, I'm hoping that, you know, Gil will be able to keep it going and still put stuff on there because it's a really good room to play in and has a great vibe about it. And it's the right size kind of room. I'd like to play in that kind of thing. There was a place in Somerville shit, what was that called on their life? Third life? Yeah, that place. That was another place similar to you know, outpost in lilypad. Canada, similar situation that but that, that shutdown, also kind of, you know, well before the pandemic for, I guess, economic reasons. Yeah. Yeah. But that was another one. And then let's see, apart from those that have been fortunate to do a number of concerts organized and presented by this organization non event, who put on a lot of different music and performance, you know, events, even though they're called non event they present events. And they use a bunch of different venues for that, which have been really cool. You know, they there have been some at the What do you call that old waterworks museum. That place is amazing, because it has all of the old what used to be the actual water pumping equipment for Austin must have been much smaller than but even so it's like this amazing kind of steam punk, you know, environment for these incredible structures and tubes. It almost looks like Dr. Seuss, Willy Wonka kind of vibe in there. You know, but but it's a great room for music if you if you deal with the room on its own terms, because it's this large, very reverberant space. And it's not set up to be a performance room, because there's all this stuff in the way and so you have to set up seats around that and figure out where you're gonna play but but a play there a couple times and themes really good shows there. That's a really cool space, but they use other spaces, too. I did a show through them. with Joe McPhee and some other Boston musicians in a church in Cambridge. I've seen shows they've done at a couple of university spaces, they use a bunch of different rooms. They also had like a smaller. Well, there was a show I did in cafe fix in. Let's see, I think that's in Brookline.
Michael:I've never heard of them.
Jeb:Yeah, they're associated to the same people who run that three pond cafe in Jamaica Plain. I think it's the same owners. Anyway, it's a small coffee house, and they had some, I did a solo show there. And that got recorded and I eventually released it as a cassette. nice, solid performance. Um, there's also guy Alex Lenski, who does a he organizes and presents shows, using different venues, is a good mailing list and is able to get people out to shows so I've done some things that he's organized and he's continued. Even in the pandemic, he's figured out a way to organize some shows outdoors and he organized a cut out show at a very large Cathedral in Cambridge that we did. We manage to do in a distance manner, because it's such a big space, we are kind of on the moon is like a huge Cathedral. And we're kind of on the I don't know if it's the altar, or whatever you call it. That's the big space up in the front. And then there's people distance people in the pews, like, spread out. So we were able to do a show like, you know, under those circumstances, and a couple of outdoor things. So So that's, you know, you put all that together, there's not event there's Alex, there's just those venues that may or may not continue to
Michael:cross the fingers.
Jeb:Yeah. But then there's other places I've played a few times that the there's the bar down here in JP the you know, the Midway midway cafe? Yeah, they've been some shows there. Yeah.
Michael:Yeah, sure. Classic.
Jeb:Yes. Yeah. I like playing. I like playing bars. So that was that's been a fun place to play.
Michael:And were you doing like kind of Your improvised music they're like your your own stuff at the Midway.
Jeb:We did. We did a couple of straight up free improvisation gigs area.
Michael:Wow, I'd be really curious to to see what the reaction would be because it's kind of a
Jeb:was good. I mean, the guy who runs it? I don't really know him personally. But my understanding is he's actually pretty open to this stuff. You know, he has he's friends with Jim Hobbs, for example, and Hobbs and his group, we're doing a regular monthly thing there on Wednesday nights, or once a month on Wednesday, it was always the same night as to cut out shows. So we would do cut out at the lily pad. And then sometimes I'd go over and catch, you know, fully celebrated at the Midway, late night. But this the free improvisation thing I did. There's one that comes to mind, maybe there was more than one. But we played like on the floor. And it was earlier in the evening, like before, whatever other stuff they had going on later. But it was really worked out really well. It was a welcoming environment, and they people came out to see it. And I think there have been a number of things like that.
Michael:Nice,
Jeb:you know, at least it's the guys open to it so that they book, you know, again, I hope they survive all this, but they're the kind of place that looks like a bunch of bands per night, like every night. So you know, they get a slot and you come in and do your thing. And then it's whatever. But But yeah, that was spent. That's been a good experience.
Michael:It seems like the the the number of like, formal, like official venues like standalone venue is actually pretty small. There's outmost and lily pad and midway, like a couple, a handful of spots. But then it's almost doubled by like non traditional venues, spaces like churches, cafes, or like, Yeah. Or houses house. Yes. and all kinds of other stuff. What have you done any house shows? Or what do you think about the sort of all these non traditional venues spaces?
Jeb:Yeah, I'm a big fan of that. Have I done a house show in Boston? Yeah, you're the saxophone player, has presented some stuff at his house. He has a really good where he lives now. Which is in Quinsey. Right. Yeah, it's a really good space for that. And, for example, Eugene chadbourne came from out of town and we did something with him at the lily pad. But we also the night before we did a thing at your house, which was kind of a combination of open rehearsal and how show so yeah, no, I love that kind of thing. I've heard about Brittany Carlson told me she was organizing some things like that, but I haven't gotten to do that yet. When we were living in Durham, North Carolina, we had outs and we presented at our house we did a couple of house shows ourselves, my wife and I in our living room there so it's it's a really fun thing to do. You know, it's it's you don't need to get that many people for it to feel like a good commute, which kind of atmosphere you know, you know, food and drink and stuff. And everybody has a good time. Yeah, it's, it's cool.
Michael:It feels to me like in my own memory now that I'm thinking of it. There's been such a strong scene of house shows and all kinds of situations like I think notably in like, you know, Austin Brighton, there's all the college kids doing. Punk shows underground shows. Yeah, and even like, I used to go to these, like Brazilian fall Hall shows like in houses and people are dancing the living room. Yeah, jazz shows. It's interesting to see how much people are doing music at home, maybe out of comfort, but maybe also out of necessity. It's kind of both.
Jeb:Yeah, I mean, I don't have a clear sense of where things are going with the pandemic at all. But it seems like if a lot of venues are struggling or going to go under or whatever, then especially for the kind of stuff that doesn't attract a big audience if the house shows might be a really viable way to continue for a while after, after it's safe to get everybody together again. I mean, I you know, a lot a long way back, I used to play. I was connected to a kind of a punk rock scene in North Carolina back in the 80s. And I mean, how shows were of course, a big part of that. I mean, there's just like that aesthetic. And I like the sense of Yeah, you want to have a show you can put on music in your in your apartment or whatever, your backyard and it's it's a good feeling. Yeah.
Michael:Um, my, my partner, she she's from LA originally, and she has this sort of, she's sort of quipped and joked that one of the best parts of Boston is not Boston, but the proximity to everything else. in proximity to New York City having proximity to Cape Cod having proximity to Western Mass or going up to maybe Canada or Maine. Yeah. I guess I'm wondering where was I going with that? How,
Jeb:I mean, that's an aspect of it, too. If we talk about venues, I could mention that I've been to Providence to play a few times with their machines with magnets space down there to good studio where we've done some recording. And I've had some really good shows there in that space. There's also this middle eastern restaurant down there, called tea and Sahara. And the guy who runs it is really into the music. And so he'll play there a few times, and you just go down and you just set up in the front. And we play like, or even in the back sometimes, and you can just play now we play the most out music we want. And, and he's cool, you know, and he and he doesn't even I mean, even the kind of people who are there to eat even don't seem bothered by it, which I was a little surprised by but it was a it's been some good things like that. Or you know, I've been to a couple times with Charlie Kobe's with the Explorers Club. We drove over to New Hampshire, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. There's like a community radio station there. And we did a gig there. Those gigs are hilarious, because speaking of proximity, it's to me it's just funny that you know, I could drive like get picked up a car, but I'll get picked up get a ride to Portsmouth with Seth Meyers, the sax player, somebody gets to play like a full two set gig. drive back to Boston. And then both times I've done that I've been back here and like in bed before midnight. Yeah, I drove I drove to another state played two sets. Probably went got some good eating and then got back here. before midnight. Oh, you know, in Chicago, the second set wouldn't even have started yet. And and here I am. You know, it's all over and I'm back home. That's it's different. In general, that whole earlier thing things earlier here with the music.
Michael:That's what I was gonna say. Yeah, that that seems like a cultural shift for a lot of people are people can plan that the city shuts down early. How's that kind of affected you?
Jeb:I definitely don't spend as much time out then I go to bed earlier. Even before the pandemic that was you know, so that's probably healthy. But it's true. That's a difference. Yeah. I mean, in Chicago to gigs that sometimes start, you know, well, after 10 year, they're often you know, we're done. But
Michael:yeah, I guess it depends. A lot of places will shut down by to last yell at one. Yeah. But yeah, it does tend to end earlier.
Jeb:I mean, I've heard these stories, you know, on the venue thing about these amazing venues in the past year, like, I guess the 1369 space down the street from the lily pad, right used to be some kind of amazing jazz club. We're like,
Michael:no, no carry but
Jeb:yeah, Chick Corea and all these people played. Yeah, I've heard some stories about that. He's like video of it. That was like, like, these heavyweights come and play there. Are there Yeah, I guess there used to be a place called the willow. Do you know about that?
Michael:Never heard of the willow there
Jeb:was some kind of maybe a bar that had a room for music. And that for a long time, or for a while was apparently one of the main places to do any kind of, you know, more free or out or whatever you want to call it. Music. That was a good place for that. But that closed down? I don't know, before I got here, but it kind of feels like there hasn't been a replacement for that kind of thing.
Michael:Yeah, it's kind of a sad, sad tale here. All these venues that shutter fail, just kind of die. And for every one that pops up, it seems like two or three shutdown.
Jeb:Well, I mean, I understand the economics must be difficult here just because the cost of everything, especially any kind of real estate related stuff is just astronomically high here so it's, it's got to be a factor putting pressure on it. Yeah. What do you think the audience for this? We're doing the first episode here. Do you anticipate this being like, watched mostly by trombone players?
Michael:I'm I'm really curious to see what the the viewership and listening will be like. I talked about this with a friend who is not a professional musician. He played in high school or whatever, but I don't think he identifies as a musician. But yeah, he's really into podcasts. And he was saying, you know, I'm, I'm actually think this is a really exciting podcast, because I think there's some kind of history and stories that will be relatable for all kinds of people, not just trombonists Yeah. So maybe there will be people who are interested about learning about the music scene here in Boston, who are not necessarily musicians who are excited to listen and maybe other trombonist from Boston, professional or amateur, and maybe people from all over the country or even world who want to learn about the trombonist in Boston. So we'll see.
Jeb:Yeah, well, I'm not personally in a position to talk about the history much just, you know, I haven't been here very long. But
Michael:But you've already I mean, you, you've shared a lot of really interesting perspective, you have a really unique kind of a niche within a niche within the city of Boston, and then the music scene and the trombonist. And then you're doing this kind of free music? I mean, who else is really doing free improvised music on trombone in the city? You and Tom paluszek? Yeah, I guess maybe Eric still? Well, he does some of that, too.
Jeb:I don't know. And I've seen that name, but I haven't. I haven't run into. I mean, there must be a million trombone players around here.
Michael:Just there's a lot. I mean, when I started to make a list of all the people who I personally know, or I'm aware of, I easily came up with, I don't know, like, 40 or 50 names. So I think about interviewing people. Yeah. Not a lot of them who are doing what you're doing. So you're in an interesting position. I
Jeb:mean, you know, it doesn't pay the bills, and a lot of people don't like it, you know, just musically. So, yeah. Yeah. There's also, you know, Bill Lowe doesn't, I guess he lives. What do you know, Bill?
Michael:bass. Sure. He's a figure for sure.
Jeb:Yeah. Yeah. And I guess he doesn't live in Boston. But he's come here and play it a number of times. have played with him a bit and seen him perform. Yeah, fantastic. educator musician. Yeah.
Michael:Yeah, he's great. Probably a huge wealth of knowledge. I reached out to him. I have yet to hear back. But I love that interview him.
Jeb:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's great to hear somebody playing like that on bass trombone to his. You really don't hear that. That often.
Michael:Yeah, definitely. All right, everybody, we're gonna take a short break. So grab a snack place and long tones. And we'll be back in a minute. Now, back to the show. Speaking of Bill and just thinking about all the other trombonists I'm wondering, are there any trombonists in town that you've heard and particularly liked? Not well, on the spot. Yeah. Yeah, I
Jeb:should have thought about that before.
Michael:No, it's okay.
Jeb:I mean, the problem is, I can think of some things and now the names are gonna escape me because it's just people I've seen once or twice a year or something. Maybe I can get back to you on that. Sure. Yeah.
Michael:Um, what about what, what are some of the most memorable gigs that you've played in town? Or in the area?
Jeb:Yeah, you mentioned that like, you're asking about like, nightmare gigs and stuff and
Michael:yeah, any generals anytime, sir.
Jeb:Well, I mean, it just even just thinking back about my entire involvement over the last 20 plus years. I have I have a hard time thinking of any genuine nightmare gigs. Yeah, there have been things that have been a little weird or uncomfortable in some way but like usually involves presenting kind of like challenging music in a setting that's not really appropriate like a place where people are having dinner that's more like where they think they're going to have like dinner and hear some jets or something and then we come out play this loud dissonant stuff for you know, whatever, that but I haven't had any nightmare as long as lines but sometimes you almost feel kind of bad for doing that. You know. It's like it's not you know, you don't want to like ruin anybody's evening out or anything like that. But let's see the memorable gigs here. I mean, there's been plenty of musically wonderful gigs. You know, that gig I mentioned earlier that Alex Lenski presented at the church in Cambridge, which I'm forgetting the name of the church with Joe McPhee, and that was also with daymond. Smith on bass when he was living here. And Andrew indika demu. Forbes Graham. Yeah. That was a really nice concert. Yeah, Joe, and I did a short duo. And then the whole group played that was those were, the setting was really good. And Joe is a really special musician and somebody I have a long standing connection with. And it was just great to, you know, play in this context with him. Yeah, that when Damon was here, he's a bass player. And he runs a label, and it's very committed to free improvisation. And when he came here several years ago, he really like hit the ground immediately working to organize things and kind of make stuff happen. So that was a really positive thing. And then he ended up moving to St. Louis. Hmm. Well, now a couple of years ago. Yeah. So that's kind of missed in terms of his energy of organizing stuff, you know, like he was the one who put it together for me to play with rockmelon Bob Moses for the first time at the outpost, for example. Yeah, it's like that.
Michael:Do you think anybody is filling that void right now of organizing?
Jeb:I mean, in the current situation, it's difficult to say, because it's kind of nothing to organize, you know, the people trying to shoot people trying to solve this problem of it, you do this in a pandemic, and I've done a few remote, internet things. But I have to say, I haven't been that attracted to that idea, you know, especially if trying to do a live real time collaboration via the internet. And now I did do one like that, that I thought worked really well, which was a non event show that we did in the Green Street gallery at the Green Street tea station, not far from where I live in JP. There's a room though, it's like an art gallery. And, and so we did a collaboration there with. I mean, they approached me and asked me if I wanted to do something. And it could have been just me doing a solo thing in my living room. But I wanted it to be more interesting than that somehow. So I thought we could I wanted to do a live real time collaboration with Forbes Graham, but I mean, Forbes can do whatever he wants, but my thought was that he could do some electronic processing or electronic response, because I like he does. He's a great, wonderful trumpet player, but also, I really like his electronic stuff. So I approached him about it and think, how would you feel about that, and he, you know, immediately agreed to do it. So then Suzanna at non event suggest doing it in the screen, street t space. And then she also got laneah cynthiana on board, who's a video artist who brought this really interesting angle and aesthetic to it. So it wound up being completely different than what I had envisioned, you know, I thought at first I thought, well, I'll be at home and then Forbes will be at home and we'll somehow cook up something together, but then I wound up being in this completely different space and then the spaces lit. And then the way she did it, which was really interesting was a lot he put a camera in the room that I was in. And then there are monitors around the space facing outward. So if you're outside the station or outside that room has big windows and under the big monitors in the windows, and then she was outside Well, how did this work she had the camera that within the room was actually going to those monitors. So you weren't just getting an image from the camera in the room of me going to the internet you were getting the camera in the room of me going to the monitors and then she was outside with a handheld camera videoing the monitor the images you saw me were mostly me on these monitors, which introduced this kind of blown out distorted visual aesthetic. But then you could also see beyond the the into the room and seeing you walking around like in you know, almost like an isolation chamber which seemed appropriate to the you know, the current era. Yeah, and then also there was a sound guy whose name I'm gonna blank on I'm very sorry to say right now but he was in he was in the in the next room with the laptop and coordinating the sound and mixing the set. He had the microphone set up in the room, Kevin, and he was mixing Forbes and me together. You So Forbes is at home, dealing with what I was playing in the room go on to Forbes coming back through and then that was going out onto the internet, with the video accompany it's actually all on YouTube. You can find it not event as a YouTube channel, you can see it on there. But I was really happy with how that came out. And it came out really differently than anything I would have thought just on my own. So that was a good example of a collaborative thing dealing with isolated online streaming pandemic conditions that I thought was an interesting response to that situation. Yeah, other than that, though, the other The only pandemic things I've done, I've done kind of remote recording elaborations that I've done a couple of those. One of them marry, establish, organize this thing called distant duo's, she's organized a whole bunch of these were two people each record five minutes of stuff independently, and then she mixes them together. And there's a whole Bandcamp page you follow those dudes, I didn't want to drummer called Joseph Morrow who was a Providence guy. But now I think he's living in Taipei or somewhere like that. And then there's my friends and colleagues in North Carolina, they have a label called out and gone music, Dan ruchika, the viola player who I have a duo CDs with, he organized a series of larger ensemble recordings in it. And the idea there was that somebody would go first and do a recording and then somebody else would listen to it and record along with it listening to it for the first time. So they hadn't heard it before. But you would listen to what somebody else had done. And wait a certain prescribed length of time 30 seconds or something, and then come in and improvise along with what you're hearing. And then that was iterated until you had like a quartet for different people all doing that. Well. And he did a few different ensembles like that. And that got that that the digital release at the you can get on out then gone. called. What's it called? My memory is poor bird songs of the something. Not of the Mesozoic. But if you look it out and go on, you'll find it. It's like these, these cumulative, improvise quartets. That's the nature of that project.
Michael:Yeah, I think, I think the collaboration that you're describing, I mean, that happens everywhere. And it's all online. I think. I think what you were describing happening at the Green Street, tea station, that non event series that's,
Jeb:yeah,
Michael:that's actually not entirely uncommon here. I feel like there's a lot of people around town doing a lot of interesting kind of inter medium collaborations and stuff like that. Yeah. I'm thinking maybe like, Boston Center for the Arts and like, the wasn't a bullet Rome or whatever. Like, I've heard about people doing stuff, like, sculpture, good music and dance stuff over there. And also, are you aware of the dreamscape series by the Boston compass?
Jeb:No,
Michael:that one's pretty cool, too. And it also made me think about how you were talking about churches and how they played such an interesting role in the scene? No, it's kind of unlikely that churches end up housing, a lot of kind of weird music. They end up being these bastions for weirdness.
Jeb:Yeah. I mean, I'm sure I'm sure. It depends. It depends on the church, you know, and, and the people. But um, yeah, I mean, a lot of them are very open to wanting to be part of the community and opening their doors to the community and letting people do you know, events that will draw people together. And I think a lot of churches have that vision as part of what they want to do.
Michael:Yeah. Mmm hmm.
Jeb:Do you want to talk about any trombone stuff or no?
Michael:No. Do you want
Jeb:trombone players are all out there like.
Michael:Okay, any any juicy, juicy trombone stuff? No, we don't have much or Oh, that's
Jeb:a good question. Well, yeah, it's been off and on, I have to admit, because in some ways, it seems like okay, this is an ideal time to hunker down. And then I've been doing some of that, but it's hard for me to, it turns out, it's hard for me to really get motivated. If I don't have anything on the horizon. You know what I mean? Sure. But I do it, but I do have this semi focus focused idea of stuff I'd like to work on. I mean, there's always tons of stuff to work on, you know, the problem is that To be honest, I get kind of at this point, I'm I'm being honest, I'm good. Some days I'm a little bored with the trombone To be honest, you know, I mean, I've been doing it for a long time. And, you know, there's, there's obviously, I mean, I'm 58 years old, there's way more to work on, I feel like, you know, I still feel like I'm at the bottom of the mountain, you know, I might have taken two or three steps up the side of the mountain or something, you know. And obviously, if I wanted to, like, there's so much that I could just spend all this time working on, but I don't feel myself drawn to like, really work on my instrumental skills like that. I mean, I do it some and I mean, I would, I do want to do it. But I don't want to do it enough to where I'm like, Yeah, my real goal in life is to be this completely monster, technical trombone player, you know, I mean, I've put in a lot of time on the horn. And you have to put time in on the horn, if you're going to keep doing it at all. Because, as you know, it's the kind of thing that disappears quickly if you don't maintain it. But um, yeah, I don't know, I'm not I'm not I don't feel like this young hungry guy who wants to, like, prove to the world that I can, like, you know, play the shit out of the trombone or something. I mean, I mean, for login. This gets into my personal history, too, though, because I trained as a classical trombone player A long time ago, really. And I did, yeah, I did, like two years of undergraduate of an undergraduate classical trombone degree at Northwestern University. That was my first two years of college, which was like, you know, classical trombone, boot camp kind of place. And so I was totally immersed in that. And it was great. I learned a huge amount about music and about playing the trombone, it was a great environment. And there was even even though that was like, 100%, classical, you know, environment really, there was some exposure to jazz and some other things there, you know. But then I quit. I didn't want to I had this kind of crisis of realizing I didn't want to be an orchestral trombone player, and not knowing what I really didn't want to do. So I quit, and I left Northwestern. And that was the end of my formal music training. And I kept playing some but I that was when I started playing, I picked up bass guitar. And then a little bit later guitar and other instruments and totally self taught, ended up around the punk rock scene in Raleigh, North Carolina, and around there, which is I went back to where I grew up. I was in school, studying. At first I was on an engineering track, but then I switched to philosophy. And I ended up studying philosophy for seven years. And during that time, I played the trombone a little bit, but I didn't play it in any focused or directed way. It was my main thing. I did, there was a guy, an old friend of mine who had dropped out of Berkeley, he was a guitar major, after one year, and he was back in Raleigh. And so he and I would like get together and play through real book tunes and stuff, you know, just try to deal with that somehow. But we were also playing punk rock together, that was kind of the main thing. And then for a while, I didn't play the trombone at all I did. I mean, there's there's whole period of about 10 years where I wasn't working on it seriously, roughly from when I was about 20, when I was about 30. And for the last few years of that I like didn't touch it at all. I didn't play the trombone at all. And then when I got to Chicago, which was connected with being in graduate school of philosophy, I was looking for a way to get out of graduate school, I didn't realize I didn't want to be an academic. And I met like some of the free jazz and pre improvising players around Chicago at that time. So I kind of made this exit from grad school into that scene in the early 90s. And that was when I started picking up the trombone again. So this is all long winded, but the point I was trying to get to was that for a long time, I didn't identify as a trombone player. And even after I started playing the trombone again, I still didn't really identify as a trombone player in the sense of someone who had spent all this time focusing on that and making that my identity. You know,
Michael:I was what would you if you had to choose some kind of moniker what would you identify as?
Jeb:I mean, I'd like to be a musician, you know, nice, but by musician, I mean, someone who is involved in some way with the creation of music, you know, I don't identify being musician with being an instrumentalist, exclusively.
Michael:What does that mean for you?
Jeb:being a musician? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a good question, but it means someone who is involved in I mean, it can mean different things for different people. For some people. It is Being very focused on being an instrumentalist with a focus on this one instrument that they're completely bound up with you. And I do have some, you know, over the years since I started playing trombone again, which is quite a while now, I've gotten back to much more of that point with the trombone, gradually, but sometimes I kind of feel like it's gone a little too far like that, you know? Like, I don't, I don't want to be just like, wrapped up in this instrument like that. On the other hand, I love it. And it's my main medium of expression. And I definitely need to have an ability to get around it and do whatever it is I want to do I? And I don't know. Yeah, I mean, how many hours a day Am I gonna spend working on lip slurs and, you know, double tonguing scales and stuff at this point, I mean, I, I do that, but trying to get it down. Actually, at this point, I kind of, I can practice more efficiently, you know, so I can work on certain concentrated things and get something out of it without having to. I mean, back in the day, I would do like, you know, five hours in the practice room plus rehearsals and performances and stuff, you know, and I put in a fair amount of time like that. So, you know, I learned something about how the horn works and how to play it. I can draw on that whenever I need to, as long as I keep my basic thing in shape. But the basic thing being shaped goes up and down during a pandemic, I can tell you that. Yeah, I don't know. How have you dealt with that? If you I mean, if you had any kind of performance, schedule, online or otherwise? And then oh, no,
Michael:everything was canceled. No, no performances. I had one performance in the fall, which was actually kind of a special event. That was really nice. The I have a friend who works for the trustees, which is like a organization that manages the parks in the area. Yeah, we're trying to put on music in this big park in near lower Mills. Dorchester, I think is in Milton. Okay. And it was just like this big expansive field. And they're like, Hey, get your band to play. So I'm playing with this band called kinos. Ra, which is this led by a Mozambican guy so we're doing his his music. Yeah. So I played with kinos already in this field. And it was like this. We played two sets. It was actually it was the Chinese New Year I remember as a fullness okay. And like the It was getting dark and there was like a big Full Moon behind us. It was like people out in this field with little twinkly lights lit up and it was a that was pretty special. That was nice as far as, like events, but sounds cool. Yeah, I was like the first time we played in months, you know, we haven't been rehearsing, we haven't been playing gigs. So it's kind of surreal after like, many months, barely talking to each other like, okay, we're here at the gig. And it's time to play, you know? Yeah, first, but yeah, it was fun. But yeah, nothing. Nothing for me. As far as gigs,
Jeb:yeah. Yeah. So what do you have you had? What do you try to show that up with working on other things, or?
Michael:Yeah, I mean, I've been pretty motivated to practice. I think, what's, what's helped me stay focused is just working through books. Like oh, yeah, I finally decided I want to learn how to doodle tongue. I tried over the years over. I tried a couple times and just never got it. Yeah, so I finally bought the book by
Jeb:Bob McChesney. But
Michael:yeah, the Mick Chesney book and I'm on my way through it. That's me a while. Okay. I can, I can say can doodle tongue. It's still not like a natural instinct, but I get that kennex of it now, I kind of
Jeb:Yeah, yeah, I years ago in Chicago, I worked through part of that book. And I got to where, for me that, you know, I've never had that doodle tagging is not, I don't think it's ever going to be like a natural thing that I turned to in performance early, but working on it does something for loosening up everything in the mouth, you know, and like, was able to, I noticed, like a wider general flexibility of approach to articulation after spending some time working on it. Yeah, and I and I still work on it. Sometimes. I'm not good at but uh, but I can, like, do the thing really slowly, you know, and make things happen like that.
Michael:Yeah. So yeah, I've personally been just trying to keep practicing and work through some books. I got through that. And now I'm going through my old teacher john McNeil McNeil's book that he wrote with Laurie Frank.
Jeb:Oh, yeah. flexus book, right. Yeah, so I have that. I was doing that again quite a while ago. I went through. That's a great book. It's amazing. Yeah, I've still Yeah, for a long time, I was using some of those warm ups every day, that particular version of the flowing through the harmonics, you know? Yeah.
Michael:Yeah. And just, I had this idea to do the podcast over the summer. No, no, I'm finally trying to bring this to fruition. So, here we are. And, yeah, I'm trying to write music and record. Yeah, busy. Yeah.
Jeb:Yeah, I mean, I'd like to get, I'd like to learn more about recording at home. That is a project, something I should work on. And I have some gear and, and I have some ideas about gear to get that let me go more in that direction. So that's a thing maybe for this year, that's another thing I realized, though, is that, you know, you feel like, okay, we're in this pandemic. And there's all this time that you have to fill up and work on stuff. But really, I mean, you have all the time anyway, even when there's not a pandemic. So this is making me think about how I organize my time and you know, when the pandemic is gonna be gone. It's not like, oh, all of a sudden, I don't have the time to learn these things anymore. I mean, definitely want to work. If you want to learn these things. You can learn them, whether there's a pandemic or not, you know, if you want to work on these things, you can work on them, even when there's not a pandemic. For sure,
Michael:for sure. Yeah, pandemic has been interesting for that. Yeah, kind of forcing us to turn our previous way of life kind of upside down. And now we're home all the time, and forces us to kind of face our lives in a different way. How do we schedule our time? What what are our priorities? Yeah, yeah,
Jeb:yeah, it is a big thing to think about. Yeah. I mean, I've been fortunate anyway, because for for a long time, since the 90s, that I've had this, you know, the way I make most of my money has been through this freelance translation stuff that I do, right. And I worked Actually, I was a translator in a law firm, in about 1996, to 99. And that was like a full time job. But then I went freelance in 1999. And ever since then, I've just worked at home, completely on my own schedule. without having any other, you know, job that I had to look for, other than that, and music at all, so. So when the pandemic hit for me, things didn't really change that much, you know, I couldn't go out. I mean, the gigs dried up. And I couldn't go out to restaurants and bars and stuff anymore. But everything else to working at home is the same. The going to the grocery store, is the same with the precautions in place. And yeah, so for me, it hasn't been as big for one thing, it hasn't been an economic source of stress, like it has been for a lot of people. So I'm really lucky that way. And also, the change to working at home that a lot of people experienced was not a change for me, because I was already working at home. So my wife started working at home, she's still doing the same job, but now she does it almost completely at home. So that's been different. But that hasn't been a difficult adjustment for us. Really?
Michael:That's good. To hear it. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeb:Yeah, it's a weird time we're living in for many reasons. But for sure, I wonder, I wonder how we're gonna look back on all this, you know, five years from now what it's all gonna feel like, I mean, I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic that let's say a year from now, at least, the pandemic thing is gonna start to be really behind us. Maybe another pandemic will come along, who knows. But this one, I feel like we might get back to a semblance of normalcy by the end of 2021.
Michael:You think by the end, do you think it's gonna be strong through the summer and fall?
Jeb:I think it's impossible to predict. And I don't have any special knowledge or expertise. Needless to say, I'm just going by what I hear about, you know, what they're talking about vaccine distribution in this country. And the initially way too optimistic things you were hearing and then I've learned to kind of like take whatever even the more measured less optimistic predictions and then like add some time to that. I mean, when this thing hit, you know, I had this like, large project that I did this, at span 10 p span, called every opportunity that I had presented at the lily pad at the drift Fest in 2019 as a large group that I wrote, like this large kind of suite of music for and presented it and I really wanted to do that again and get it recorded. So I had this whole performance setup and rehearsal schedule setup with bringing two people in from out of town and getting all the schedules, coordinated and booking recording studio time. And I was just saying Haven't get to the point where I had to like really sit down and write all this music for it. And then the pandemic hit and everything got canceled. So I just had to scrap that. And I actually this was I scrapped it already. It was supposed to be in early May, I think. And I scrapped it already. Still in March, probably. Maybe April. I think it'd be still March when I said, You know, I don't think this is going to work, but maybe later in the year, so then we rescheduled it for early December. thinking at the time that we are, well, maybe things look better by then instead, by early December, it was worse than it's ever been. Yeah. Right. And it's just continued to get worse since then, right now, it's still even now worse than it's ever been. And that makes me pessimistic, you know, that it's I mean, it's obviously not going to clear up. I mean, I'm supposed to maybe go to Germany and do some stuff with these guys in March. And when that was originally talked about a few months ago, we were like, okay, maybe by March, things will be okay. But as it is, I don't know. I mean, I doubt I'll be vaccinated by March.
Michael:That's only a couple months away.
Jeb:And I don't know, I don't think I'll be vaccinated by March. I don't know how travel is going to look, if there was some Europe stuff back in October, November, that got cancelled, largely because of travel restrictions on Americans going to Europe, then it was just too onerous to try to get around. And also, I didn't even really feel comfortable doing it. So this one festival that, you know, I tried in Austria, and I went back and forth with somebody at the Austrian consulate about what it would take. And it was like kind of ridiculous, onerous things that would have to happen. And then in like, two weeks before the festival, or there was like renewed lockdowns in Austria, and they canceled the festival anyway. So it happened. So just because of all this, like all this uncertainty and unpredictability, you know, I don't know if this trip in March is gonna happen. I don't feel that optimistic about it. And I don't know when I can start feeling like it can make solid plans again, like that.
Michael:What do you think summer COVID 2021 is gonna look like compared to last summer?
Jeb:Well, yeah, you know, I mean, how would I know, but I think by the summer, I think you can say that. A not insignificant number of people will have been vaccinated by them. And maybe that'll start to make a difference. That's like, the most optimistic I can be about.
Michael:I guess I'm wondering, to me, it felt like only by the end of the summer and into the fall, we were sort of starting to get like socially distanced, responsible ways of performing here. And then by the by the point where it seemed like it was sort of feasible, it got too cold, and you couldn't really do it anymore. Yeah. But do you think there's gonna be more of that? Or what do you think that could look like, in the spring and summer?
Jeb:I mean, once the weather starts to get nicer, the outdoor thing is cool. You can make that way. I did a number of outdoor gigs over the last nine months, that were that were fun. Yeah. And maybe you know, what the new landscape is going to look like maybe that'll become a more more frequently seen scenario. If a lot of clubs are closed or not yet willing to have crowds come into the space. I mean, maybe we'll see more outdoor stuff.
Michael:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeb:I mean, it's not a bad solution. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I do miss clubs and this playing at the lily pad. Yeah, it feels like a zillion years ago. Now. My last kind of official indoor gig was last early March. I think. Maybe it was still February with cutout at the lily pad. And that was like, right at this time when we were right on the brink. And even at that last gig, I remember people were very wary. Nobody shook hands. And you know, it was like, sparse. Nobody wanted to get too close together. And then here we are playing horns in a small space like blow instead all over the place now. That was it. That was the last time Yeah, yeah.
Michael:So any, any big music plans for the future whenever COVID is over?
Jeb:Well, that large group, larger ensemble thing I mentioned every opportunity I really wanted. I'm not giving up on doing that. So when it seems like reasonable to actually book a solid date for that, I'm going to do that and write the music for it. I have some other writing ideas in my head that I should sit down and get to then I want to talk about them since they're gonna set us I mean, I'd love to, you know, just start playing regularly again with cut out and doing free improvisation gigs I used to do when I was playing Once or twice a month with Charlie co aces Explorers Club for probably three or four years before all this hip, so be great to start doing that again. I don't know. I hope some venues come back and maybe people will find some new venue solutions, maybe how shows we'll come back. Yeah, the house show thing I should all that also meant to mention, there's a guy here, Eric Zimmerman, a piano player. Do you know him? He's a supervising pianist. But he has a nice place in Cambridge. And he's had some house shows there. He has a piano in his living room. And a couple times I got to do some, some cool shows there.
Michael:Yeah, those are some of the best shows, I think.
Jeb:Yeah.
Michael:Yeah, some of my favorites, for sure. Yeah,
Jeb:yeah. Well, I mean, I do feel like something's gonna come back.
Michael:Yeah. I heard somebody make an analogy that this will be the roaring 20s. This is gonna be our roaring 20s. And once once COVID is over, everyone's gonna have nuts and party for.
Jeb:It's not too hard to imagine. Yeah. I mean, climate change isn't getting any better through all this. So it's kind of everybody's kind of forgotten about that. Or, at least I haven't heard as much talk about it. But yeah, I mean, maybe when we're when it's possible to do. Maybe there'll be this explosion of new kinds of activity, it's gonna feel renewed in a way to be able to go and do that kind of thing. Again, I think.
Michael:Definitely. Much huger sense of appreciation. Just for the opportunity to go out, right. Yeah. fraternize and play music and see shows.
Jeb:Yeah, maybe it'll teach us that we should never take it for granted. You know?
Michael:Yeah. It's a pretty powerful lesson. Yeah. And as the venues are shuttering, and musicians are struggling, I think it it's maybe illuminating about the I don't know, the way that our society values, the players and the institutions. Yes. Or doesn't value, obviously. Yeah.
Jeb:Hmm. Yeah, I mean, that's been an issue related to the economics of trying to be a performing musician anyway, for a long time, but it does kind of put it in a new light. Yeah, like, how much am I how much does this mean to people that this thing that probably a lot of people, including us, really kind of took for granted forever, and now you realize you can't take it for granted? Sure, a lot of a lot of the venue is going to be gone. So we kind of hold does that leave? You know, and how's it gonna get filled?
Michael:Yeah, you know, it's the classic trope, but you know, people always talking about the the venue leaves, and then they they build a condo. But yes, it's true. I mean, I don't Johnny DS, I go through Davis square. And it's a condo now or the Did you ever know the space? They just call it the space? And JP is right, it was super close to the Green Street Station is around the block is a really nice space. But that one again got demolished and they're building condos.
Jeb:Is that what happened to rails?
Michael:Same thing.
Jeb:So doing condos there. Yeah.
Michael:So at what point do we say, you know, the, the artists and these venues they they provide a B provides something to the city near the various cities such as Boston, Cambridge and the surrounding cities, that huge amount of value that makes the city so much more desirable. And interesting. And if you're, if those things are gone, and if you have condos if you have, you know, all these luxury condos and abundance of luxury housing, who's gonna want to live there? I mean, maybe, but yeah, I guess. Yeah, the the city is far, far more bland, kind of decrepit.
Jeb:Culturally, that's the thing. Yeah. I mean, they have a large economic value to as a matter of fact, but also the, but also the intangible things you're talking about? Yeah. That's, I don't know. I don't feel like I have anything wise to say. But, but I hear everything you're saying. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael:But, you know, it's, it's comforting to know that we're here and we're pushing your Austin bone, Bosco. We're here. Each of our various niches in a niche or related work.
Jeb:Yeah. You know, next door. There's a good clarinet player who lives next door guy called Michael grunder and over the holidays, like the nights, evenings leading up to Christmas, we get together more or less safely on our front porch. And we would play holiday songs at seven o'clock every night now who's kind of my wife Jackie's idea. And she called it horns in the wild. She's like, you guys should get together and play, you know, Christmas songs on the porch. So, so we did that every night for a few nights, culminating on Christmas, Joy to the world or something, you know. And it was fun. It was a good thing to do. It felt like a good community. A way to be together with some people, and it was a good feeling. You know, and I usually hate Christmas music and I'm not even that big a fan of the entire Christmas juggernaut in general. But this year, being able to do that just felt like okay, this is actually kind of a nice thing to do. Yeah,
Michael:I mean, it's the the sinking ship. The Titanic where we're here. As the ship sinks, we're we're here trying to make it better.
Jeb:write some music on the ship while it's going down. Well, I don't think the ship's gonna go all the way under.
Michael:That's good.
Jeb:Maybe it will? I don't know.
Michael:I mean, we don't know. We can't know. But we're doing our best to keep playing. Yeah,
Jeb:yeah. You know, speaking that reminds me a few years ago, there's a guy. Again, I'm gonna forget his name. But I got called to do an evening. I guess they were organized like, do you know about this? He's like trombone ensembles would get together and do these like arrangements of holiday songs downtown. You would go outside on
Michael:the left in the bid? I don't know for the business improvement district. Oh, yeah. Downtown Crossing that. That's where we first met the bid gigs.
Jeb:Was that what it was? Was that where I met you? Yeah. Okay. And who was the guy who did those arrangements? So that gave the card? Exactly right. Yeah, I got I went down and did one of those. That was it's kind of fun to think back on that now. You know. I mean, that was a definitely a Boston trombone event that I did. That was either the first or second holiday season that I always hear that I went down and did that.
Michael:Yeah.
Jeb:Those are good arrangements.
Michael:Yeah, Joe's a great writer. Yeah. Great player. Great writer.
Jeb:Yeah. Is he still in Boston?
Michael:I think he just moved to the west coast in Oh, shit. Okay. I think he grew up in the Bay Area. Yeah, I think he maybe went back there or maybe went to San Diego. I'm not sure. But
Jeb:okay. Yeah, I
Michael:think he left indeterminately he may or may not come back. I'm not sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeb:So where are you from around here? Or did you grow up somewhere else?
Michael:I grew up in the area. I grew up in our south of Austin in a suburban town called Hanover. I also didn't hang on. And then I moved to Hanover a little bit later as a kid. Yeah, yeah. Not a lot to say about those places.
Jeb:I don't, I don't. I feel you know, before we moved to Boston, I had been here, essentially only to play gigs, over the years. And that, you know, quite a few times, but I didn't have any knowledge at all of how Boston is laid out or connected. I don't even know if I had actually heard of Jamaica plane before we moved here. But we had, you know, between the interval between when my wife took this job, and we actually landed here was about six weeks, and we had to like pack everything up. Figure out where we're gonna live here without actually coming here to look. So we had Nate McBride, the bass player, helped us out with that, to some extent. We were looking online and talking to different people and trying to figure all this out. We landed on JP because it's close to where she works. And we heard it was, yeah. But uh, but yeah, my knowledge of this area is still very limited. We don't have a car so I don't really drive around much. I drive when I have to, but Boston is very difficult to drive in. And finding your way around here because of the way the streets are laid out is, as you know, challenging. Sure, but then the whole thing with all like the surrounding areas, suburbs, or towns that are close by I don't know. I still don't have any real clear sense of all that. Yeah.
Michael:Yeah, I miss JP, I lived there for years.
Jeb:You know, every single musician I meet in Boston tells me they used to live in JP I guess I guess it used to be cheap. And then it got too expensive and, and it is too expensive. I mean, we're, you know, we're doing it, but it's, it's financially challenging. Whatever.
Michael:Yeah, I mean, JP is great. Yeah. Yeah, having a car when I got a car a couple years ago, that made a big difference for being able to explore. So that has been fun being able to explore the city a lot. Yeah. I mean, I already did that on a bike. I was biking a lot. So
Jeb:yeah. Well, it's weird as Boston because it's actually very small. Like, really. I mean, compared to Chicago. Chicago is enormous. It covers a huge amount of space, but it's a grid. Right. But Boston is a lot smaller. So it takes a long time to drive anywhere. But you could walk, you know, do a lot of places with a pretty reasonably
Michael:I want to add a caveat that I think downtown Boston is what people associate with Boston, and is small, but there's actually a lot more to Boston, which is actually pretty sizable. But it's not usually accounted for in like the collective meant mentality about what Boston is. Yeah, thinking about Dorchester, which is huge. And mattapan. Okay, Hyde Park. Yeah, huge, like, twice or three times the size of like the downtown, like South End Back Bay Boston area. Yeah. But it's kind of across. It's kind of segregated. That's kind of the black area of town.
Jeb:Yeah.
Michael:But it's huge. I mean, it's also part of Boston. Yeah. There's a lot to the city, I think a lot, a lot more than people.
Jeb:There's a lot more I could find out about it, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I haven't, you know, partly because it might be the age I was at when we landed here. I mean, I was in my 50s. And we landed in this new place. And, you know, when I first went to Chicago to live there, I was still in my 20s. And your whole attitude, then towards getting out and around exploring stuff is different than
Michael:Yeah.
Jeb:And here, I just haven't, you know, then like, well, I already had like, kind of a musical slot to some extent I could drop into which determined some things I was doing as soon as I got here. And then other than that, it was just kind of like, Well, where do I go buy food, and I didn't have this big urge to poke around and discover all the things about the city. And when we have done this, we have done it to some extent. But there's lots of parts of the town I haven't really been to, or I've only driven through or written through, or than to once or something. There's a lot more I could find out about it. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know any other burning questions for them.
Michael:I think that's a maybe a great place to kind of wrap this up with. Okay, there's a lot we can both learn about this place. Yes. It's just kind of fun. It's fun to explore. Even if it's not physically just learning.
Jeb:Yeah. Well, one day we can get out there again.
Michael:Cool. Well, thanks so much for joining me in person, give me a little bit of your time to talk and share all your amazing experiences and knowledge and perspective. I really appreciate it here just for the trombone players.
Jeb:This is my current mouthpiece. We This is a Doug
Michael:Elliot bone talk.
Jeb:We got it, we got to nerd out a little bit. This is a Doug Elliot thing I started using. Actually, during the pandemic I decided to switch over and I did an online lesson with Doug which was really good for some basic stuff about armature and my buzz and things like that. And then I wound up for years and years and years I was like six and a half al and then he got me on to this basically larger rim but smaller cup setup. So it's like a one a two rim which is almost like a box for in that vicinity. And then what he calls a C plus cup, which is significantly shallower but it's been great. Kind of revelatory for me. So but
Michael:that's very funny that you bring up Doug I have my own dog story of quarantine. Oh, yeah. I sent my mouthpiece out to get gold plated.
Jeb:Oh yeah.
Michael:I think I have like acidic skin or something. I kind of eat through the the metal. Yeah. And all the gold had been worn off of my mouthpiece and I like the feel of the gold. So I called up Doug and asked if he had played it and he said yeah, you know, to do it right. And if the silver plated, gold plated, whatever, but because of the quarantine, I'm low on gold. There's a gold shortage. So you might have to wait a little bit. It could be a month or two before I get the mic my next gold shipment, said okay, it's fine. It's quarantine I can wait whatever. Yeah The only my mouthpiece and then he had it for many months and I still haven't gotten it back. So I've gotten increasingly angry with him started emailing him saying like What the hell's going on? And actually just yesterday I called him on the phone and he finally picked up and he said in a previous email and he repeated on the phone yesterday Hey man, like I'm sorry I I think I lost it like Which one was it that you sent me again? It's Yeah, and then he had mistakenly thought I sent him another mouthpiece so I corrected in his mind which one it was, you know, he knows the correct mouthpiece to look for. Okay. But in the meantime, he he sent me one of his mouthpieces. Oh, it should be coming in the mail within a day or two. So both you and I are going to switch more or less from a six and a half mouthpiece to a Doug Elliot. Oh, yeah, he's so that's a funny.
Jeb:Well, he's got his stuff is the only other stuff that has stuck for me. You know, over the years, I've played some of these things off and on, but I was never totally happy with him. But then he did something where he redesigned his back bores last year. And something about this new back board design clicked for me a lot better, like a lot more open field. You know what, you know what he's sending you exactly did he tell you?
Michael:I don't remember what he said he was gonna send me but he said was something that was similarly comparable to what I had, which was a box six and a half. Al mega tone, which I had custom work done on the rim. Okay, it was like less rounded on the inner rim is more just
Jeb:Alright. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, his rooms are kind of like that. Anyway, they're a little flatter. Yeah. But uh, yeah, well, you let me know what you think. I like it.
Michael:Yeah, okay. Yeah. Cool. Well,
Jeb:I'll do a whole other episode about mouthpieces, but we should probably avoid that.
Michael:Oh, man. I know nothing about mouthpieces. I'm not really a gear guy at all. But yeah, talk about it another time. I'd be curious to hear what you have to say about that. But, um, yeah, let's, let's call it for today. Okay. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks,
Jeb:Jeff. Thank you so much. I'm glad invited me and yeah, I'm honored to be the premiere episode or maybe I won't be the premiere episode, but at least your first interviewee? Yeah, and I got to work on that theme thing for you too. So I got it. I got I got an idea. Sit down and do it. Amazing. Yeah. All right. Good. Thank you. Yep, he's
Michael:CEO. Thanks for listening. Comments, questions? message me at boss bones@gmail.com that's Bo. Bo. gmail.com are you continue Instagram, YouTube, and Spotify. You can learn more about Jeb. Jeb bishop.com trombone. Gregory project.com. Special thanks to Selena Jeffrey. Boston's theme written by Michael Prentky bosmans themes One, two and three recorded and arranged by Jeb bishop. Again, please follow at boss bones on Instagram, YouTube and Spotify or visit at Michael prentky.com forward slash boss bones. Thanks for listening. See you next time.