By Julie Hill
Contributing Writer

David Chesky

David Chesky, a three-time Grammy nominee, who currently holds the position of Composer in Residence for the National Symphony of Taiwan, is without doubt a modern-day Renaissance man. He is the co-founder of Grammy Award-winning audiophile record label Chesky Records, which has recorded hundreds of records with such legends as McCoy Tyner, Chuck Mangione, David Johansen, Ron Carter, and the late Peggy Lee. He is also the co-founder of leading independent music library, Manhattan Production Music. His newest venture is HDtracks.com, a high-resolution digital music store featuring content from such heralded record labels as ECM, the Beggars Group, Favored Nations, Rounder Records and Universal Music.

Julie Hill: Tell us about HD Tracks.

David Chesky: HD Tracks is the world’s only site that gives you high-resolution downloads. It’s CD quality and DVD audio with full PDF liner notes. So what’s cool about it is that a regular download is 128 kilobits per second. Our basic rate is CD quality. That’s 1411 kilobits per second. And our super DVD audio quality is 4608 kilobits per second. And what does that mean? Look…. A jazz musician—let’s say a sax player—spends his whole life to get a great tone, so why destroy that tone at 128 kilobits per second? If a drummer goes out and buys these amazing Zildjian symbols that have this amazing sparkle, why just go out and destroy the sound? The poetry of music is sound. So the beauty of HD tracks is that you really get to hear all the nuances and the tone, the poetry in a download now. And the other really cool thing about this is that you get the liner notes. I mean—what if you buy a really great jazz record online and you wanna know ‘Who’s the bass player? Who recorded this?’ That’s really important. I mean, if you go to the concert hall, how can you listen to a concert with out any program notes? In jazz, the liner notes are the program notes. To have that disappear in a second is really dumb. We need to recognize the great people on the record. By downloading HD Tracks now, you can get the full liner notes and an amazing audio experience.

JH: How did you guys get started with HD Tracks? A lot of people try to get music downloading servers up and running.

DC: This came about because my brother and I own Chesky Records. For the past 25 years, we’ve been developing music recording technology to get a really great sound. I mean, our motto is ‘Great Artists. Great Sound.’ We’re just taking this one step further, putting this idea online. It’s about quality.

JH: Who are you really trying to appeal to here? What do you hope for in the future for HD Tracks?

DC: HD Tracks was designed for people who really listen to music. You know the problem is today that people listen to music while doing anything else but listening to music. They listen while they’re vacuuming, walking their dog, eating dinner, jogging. How many people do you know who actually listen to

music? Our tracks are meant to be listened to. That’s why they’re high-definition. The market is people who really care about quality. And it’s not for everybody. I mean, if you wanna have 9 million tracks walking around with you, we’re not the site for you. But if you wanna have a great listening experience that you can download, that’s what HD Tracks is about.

JH: Absolutely. I think that a lot of Berklee students would like to get into some business that can make quality m

ore accessible. And I think what a lot of people are afraid of right now is that the masses don’t fully realize what they’re missing out on, so they go for quantity. I’m wondering how you guys create a client base that understands quality over quantity in this day and age. You guys have been so successful, and I think Berklee kids would be interested as to how you publicize great things like HD Tracks.

DC: Every musician you know—let’s say a rock band—just spent months in the studio sweating over EQs, mixes, what kind of echo. Do you think that the arena they want their music to be heard in involves 2 plastic speakers while someone is surfing the web? No. The album was intended to be played on big speakers. Sit down on the couch and rock out. So the artists are our biggest supporters. They wanna be on HD Tracks. We’re just trying to do justice to the artist. This is for any artist. I know its true for classical, jazz, rock n’ roll. People work hard to make records. They spend enormous time doing this and they want their work to be shown in the best light that it can. So the artists are our best source of PR, because they tell people about it. And I guess that people at Berklee who are into music will be into it, because they care about music.

JH: Can you tell us about some of the great artists who are on HD Tracks?

DC: Well, first of all, we’re the first people to release the new Keith Jarrett album, Paris. London. We just came out with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. We have all the standard great jazz from Louis Armstrong to Miles Davis. We have ECM. We have Sunnyside. We just signed Verve. We have tons of great jazz labels on the site. So basically we’re focusing on great Jazz, great Classical, great World artists.

JH: What kind of suggestions do you have for Berklee students who are getting into the jazz realm, either as performers or in the music business sector?

The Chesky Brothers: Norman and David.

DC: My advice is not to rely on other people. Go out, get a band, make your own recording, put it online, and sell it. Get out there and work it. It’s a different world. You have to learn about business. The days of the record company, of managers signing bands and taking care of everything are over. Artists have to be very web-savvy and very business-savvy. That’s the world. The future is going to be a world of independence. You’re going to see lots and lots of artists owning small labels. That’s the way it’s gonna go.

JH: Is there anything else you want to tell us about HD Tracks or about yourself?

DC: You know—I’m a composer. The whole reason for this is that I’m a composer. It’s all about the music. I live, breathe, eat music. Jazz. Classical. I love it. My philosophy is that if you’re going to do it, you might as well make it sound as great as you can, because you’re going to be in the studio anyway. When you make the record, spend the extra 20%. Make it sound good. Especially jazz musicians. I write classical music now, so it’s all written down. But the only real way to document jazz is recording. So you might as well make it sound great for the next generation. Not only are you making a piece of entertainment, you’re making a documentary of a time. That’s why Keith Jarrett puts the same passion and detail into recording and capturing his music as he does playing. Because he gets the whole picture. If you’re lucky enough to be at a Keith Jarrett concert, that’s great. But if you’re in Tahiti, and you can’t be there, then that’s where we come in, trying to bring you as close to the artist as possible.

By Melissa Blasek
Contributing Writer

donnamcelroy.com

Donna McElroy has toured as a background singer for Amy Grant, Garth Brooks, Kenny Rogers, and Crystal Gayle. As an arranger/background vocalist she worked on the platinum hits “Why Haven’t I Heard From You?” by Reba McIntyre, “We Shall Be Free” by Garth Brooks, and “House of Love” by Amy Grant. Her solo album, Bigger World with Warner Brothers, was nominated for a Grammy and in 1993 she was awarded Best Actress for her lead role in “Nunsense” by the Circle Players. Today she is a Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music

MB: Fly To Forever is comprised of your original jazz compositions. What’s your writing process?

DE: It takes several different forms. I’ll come up with all the lyrics, melody, and I’ll think about what the chords should be- but since I’m not a harmonist, I can only come up with the bass. Then I’ll sit down with someone who will fill that in. The other way I’ll write is I’ll sit down with my very rudimentary chord skills, and write a song that is very nice and pleasant sounding. I write really well for myself when I write a little pop number. Then the third way I write is someone will give me a track and say, “Listen to this and if you want to write some lyrics or melody, you do that.”

MB: As far as selecting covers to perform, what makes a song special enough for you to sing it?

DE: Well I try to steer away from the word “cover” because when I think of a cover, I think of a hit that’s current and on the radio, and when you get up there to sing it, it better be as close to the original as possible or don’t even come. I sing standards though. I look for a song that has a lyric that I can relate to personality-wise, or a song where the melody and the harmony are so intricate that it’s exciting for me to say, “I can sing that song!” Or I’ll have a specific composer’s work that I really like and I’ll look for obscure tunes by that person.

MB: You had a run as a solo recording artist in the late 80s. What did you take from the experience?

DE: The most important thing I took is to have a plan because I did not have a plan. Have a style you want to sing in and be comfortable with it because if your record hits, even if it doesn’t, you will be singing that style. My mistake was that I didn’t pick a style. My CD said, “Look how versatile I am!” [The record label] tried to advise me. They said, “We cannot market this record.” But I was thirty-two and you couldn’t tell me anything. I had been out on the road, I had sung on many records, and I had done a ton of jingles. I didn’t understand at all what was expected of me as an artist because all the years I’d been singing background. I was only looking at the concert end of the artists I was singing with. I wasn’t examining the records and song choices. Naturally, on the road, one gets the opportunity to stretch and do lots of different styles if he or she wants to. But you gotta have the band and singers to support those directions. I was part of bands that were all great and versatile musicians. But those musicians weren’t always used on the album/cd, and the album/cd was usually a group of songs which all sounded pretty close to the singles which were released to sell the project. I came into the artist realm not understanding this, and a little too arrogant for my own good, so when they signed me I told them, “You pulled me away from my gig where I was making a lot of money. I did not ask for you to sign me. I expect that you will supplement my income.”

MB: You spent years touring as a background singer for such stars as Amy Grant and Garth Brooks. What’s the hardest aspect of being on the road?

DE: There was nothing hard about being on the road. I liked the travel, the food, and the hotels. Even when I first started out with Amy [Grant], we would get two rooms at a Motel 6, one for the girls in the band and one for the guys in the band, and we would just wash up and then pile back on the bus. And then her records started to do well and by the time I left her we were staying at the Four Seasons and I had a room for myself. I liked it and I liked the luxury of it.

MB: What was the most difficult aspect of dealing with the business end of the music industry?

DE: For me it was not understanding what the record industry was. The first question [the record company] asked me was, “Who is your demographic?” I did not know what the word “demographic” meant. I was like, “I’m singing to everyone!” The fact that I did not understand how the industry worked, worked to [the record company’s] advantage. They will sign you, spend a shit load of money on you, use it as a tax write off, and then shelve your record. You will sit around for years wondering what you did wrong. But you didn’t do anything wrong, you just didn’t know what to do in the first place. You’re being moved around, as an artist, like a pawn on a chessboard.

MB: What advice would give a singer looking to enter the recording industry?

DE: My advice would be to take my recording lab to get the technical end of the job under your belt. Then learn as much about Internet technology as possible. Do it yourself. If you do it yourself and you never get the major deal, you are still your own person, you still have your natural breasts (chuckle), your privacy has not been invaded, and you are a decent person. You’re not as rich, but you can still have a fan base, work with great musicians, and develop yourself as a songwriter. You can just be responsible for representing you and your music and not getting up on that stage and representing so many other people.

By Jehad Choate
Contributing Writer

Photo Courtesy of Artist

In a time when society is detached from an over abundance of reality; taking refuge in the anti-personal, over-produced circus of crap music, one voice shines through to give hope to the world’s weathered ears.  Sammy Witness. This Seattle-based female folk singer crosses boundaries of style as well as emotions with her raw talent, and sincere words. Always pushing her voice to different intensities, and writing music that transcends beyond genre, she never loses her folk roots of great story telling. Her new EP, The Winter Sessions, is a sincere and emotional story of one person’s journey of growing up into an imperfect world where she playfully and at times brutally calls out the strengths and weaknesses of everyone, including herself.  Everything about this EP is genuine, from honest lyrical content to dynamic music that flows behind each story told.  This not something you just pop in while you pass the time between train stops, this is music that walks with you when you are lonely, pushes you when you are lazy, and carries you when you feel like you can’t go on.

But who is this siren that is leading the modern day listener’s ego to ship wreck? I sat down with her via Skype, to have a cross-country discussion of epic proportions:

Jehad Choate: So, Sammy it’s great to have a bit of your time, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Sammy Witness: Well, I am a singer-songwriter from South Florida, just got established in Seattle.

JC: How is Seattle treating you?

SW: Seattle has reached out to me with open arms personally and musically.

JC: How would you best describe your music?

SW: [laughs] folk music with a grr! … I would say brutally honest. I have always been eager to write popular songs that aren’t repetitive or cliché’ as far as the lyrics are concerned. You’ll never catch me using words like ‘Baby’ or ‘Tonight’, and I don’t sugar coat anything.

JC: Do you have a particular message that you hope to provide with the songs that you write?

SW: I never really think about delivering messages… I just write songs in hopes that someone will relate.

JC: Tell me about some of your influences.

SW: Well, I’d watch Sheryl Crow music videos as a kid, and I tried to base my life around her songs. But I am a big Counting Crows fan because their songwriting is flawless, and I love some Alanis Morrisette and all the chick rock that follows in her footsteps. I also love Joane Osbourne for her relentless raunchiness and raw sound.

JC: I sense a hint of Maria Taylor in some of your style.

SW: Actually she is not one of my influences, great music, but we are just oddly familiar.

JC: I see you also play guitar, any influences there?

SW: Not really, I started playing classical guitar in middle school, so I listening to Paco De Lucia.

JC: Tell us about the Winter Sessions.

SW: The Winter Sessions EP was recorded in Boston, and on a side note it was the first time I ever saw snow… I recorded it in Mad Scientist Studios outside of Harvard Square. There were two blizzards and an Ice Storm while I was there, and we worked on it while snowed in. I was living off ramen and everyone else was living on ham for a week. Brian Hauver co/produced the album and Jason Dunn engineered. A lot of the songs were previously written before getting there, but we reconstructed to whole album the night before recording, and then knocked it out the second week.

JC: All the music came out great on the EP, but there was one song in particular that truly struck a chord with me, what is ‘Only Human’ about?

SW: It’s about religion. At the time it was written, I was walking around Gainesville, Florida, and passed a guy preaching fanatically. A couple girls walked past him wearing shorts, and he screamed at them about how they were going to hell. I just thought of the ridiculousness of being religious and being so hateful, and wrote about such a contradiction.

JC: Who were your session musicians on the album?

SW: I recorded all the acoustic parts, and Jason Dunn did the electric.

JC: Any Berklee kids?

SW: Our drummer, Steven Foster, is a Berklee alumnus, and we coerced him to brave the terrible snow and be locked up with us, with only a mere offer of great music and a six-pack of winter ale [laughs].

JC: Any song off of the album that has particular significance to you?

SW: ‘Therapist’ was one of the hardest songs to write. It stems from a situation when I was signed to a label at 15, and the music producer truly left a negative impact on my life. I locked myself in my closet for 48 hours to get the situation down on paper.

JC: [laughs]… In a closet?

SW: [laughs] Yeah! In the early days I would write and record all my music in a closet… so I wouldn’t disturb anyone, and they wouldn’t disturb me. I find the whole thing suitable since my fan base is made up of men, lesbians, and metal heads…. The metal heads came along when I had a reoccurring opening gig at a Metal bar in Orlando, Florida called The Haven.

JC: Any upcoming events or shows lined up for you?

SW: Aside from usual gigs, I am playing a festival called ‘Free Fall Festival’ in Santa Fe on October 2 and 3. There will be over thirty bands performing. Scott Huttin, who owns six Santa Fe radio stations puts on a fall festival of this caliber annually, so I will be getting airplay on his radio stations.

JC: Where can the public give your music a listen?

SW: You can find the EP on ITunes, and if you go myspace.com/sammywitness or sammywitness.com, it will have information on where to obtain CDs.

JC: Well Sammy, there are plenty of folk musicians circulating through Boston from a lot of the local shows I’ve hit. Before we go our separate ways, do you, as a successful folk artist on both coasts, have anything to say to aspiring folk artists out there?

SW: Make it happen! The world doesn’t owe you anything so kick ass and make it yourself. Practice. When some people get me down, it doesn’t stop me, it just becomes fuel to the fire, and it should be the same for you too.

There are few artists in the past twenty years that have fused jazz, pop, and rock as interestingly, and convincingly, as Jamie Cullum has. After the release of his international hit record Twentysomething in 2003, Cullum has played all over the world in clubs, theatres, palaces, studios, and festivals, thrilling and charming audiences with aggressive piano abilities, tuneful songs, and captivating stage presence.  He’s currently on tour in support of his new record, The Pursuit, and will be performing at the House of Blues this Saturday, March 6. The world class entertainer shared a few moments over the phone with The Groove.

Zac Taylor: Hey Jamie, how are you doing?

Jamie Cullum: Well, I’m a little bit on the flu side of good, really. But apart from that I’m fine. I’m well.

ZT: Are you drinking plenty of fluids and Vitamin C?

JC: Yeah, absolutely, all the usual things. Pumping my body full of all that, and I actually have to go back to work tomorrow.

ZT:  Well I’m still a student at Berklee, and you’re a big hero of mine. When you were still in college, how did you balance your studies with your music and your social life? Was music always first, or how did you juggle those things?

JC: I think the answer to that is not very well. It was a tough one, because music was essential to me in every way, and I wanted to pass my exams and do well at college, and I wanted to have a social life. So there wasn’t a lot of sleeping involved in my life then. The other thing was, I wasn’t studying music. Music was my part time job, that was the thing that made me enough money to pay the rent, buy books and stuff. I think ultimately, music always won out. I got offered a great gig right before my finals, which took place when my graduation was supposed to be taking place, so that’s probably your answer right there. I think I chose music, because I got offered a great gig and I wanted to do it.

ZT: So were you playing cover gigs, original gigs, and everything?

JC: Well the stuff I was being paid to do was pretty much peoples’ parties, piano bars, weddings, playing in different bands, cover bands, a lot of different things.

ZT: Did you have any other regular part time jobs, or was it all music?

JC: No I was lucky enough to be able to just do music. That’s all I did at the time, which was great. I was kind of doing my own thing on the side, in terms of writing originals, and thinking about doing proper gigs that weren’t just about making money and trying to move forward my musical career. But I didn’t really have a lot of time. It was only one summer I started to record an album of songs to sell at these gigs I was doing to make some extra money and kind of record where I was at.

ZT: The new album sounds great. I downloaded it, legally mind you, and I think it sounds really cool. What parts of your songwriting process have stayed the same over the last ten years, and what parts have evolved? Feel free to be as technical and nerdy as you want with regards to chords, flat nines, melodies, and everything—we can handle it.

JC: Shocking! Great. That’s a really good question, I’ve never really had to answer that before. When I first started out writing songs, there are two distinct times. One when I was really young, and I had a guitar and I knew three or four chords and I wrote very simple little things with terrible lyrics, but they were very simple nonetheless with nice little melodies. And then I started getting quite heavily into jazz piano in my later teens and I started writing very complex things without choruses, with long form songs with drum and bass sections in the middle. Things that would go on for nine or ten minutes. And gradually, I kind of merged the kind of kid that knew three chords on guitar with the guy that knew a lot about flat nines on the piano. I realize that there was a world beyond knowing everything about your instrument when it comes to writing songs, and sometimes a childlike approach to your instrument can be a great way to write songs.  So I started actually to write songs without the piano. I would set up a drumbeat on Logic, or just get a loop going, or something like that. Or just try to compose with no instrument at all, just with my voice, and that yielded pretty good results as well. The thing that hasn’t changed at all, is that I always try in every song that I write to do an eyebrow-raising moment, that is basically kind of shoehorning something clever into pop music, even if you don’t realize it. Hopefully in every song that I’ve written, there’s always a kind of clever moment for the musos, you know?

ZT: So when it comes time for the clever moment, the gold coin, of the song, is that when the theory comes back? Do you think, ‘OK, I’ll put an Eb major 7 here, that will really spice things up?’ Or do you just feel it out?

JC: I always feel it out. My knowledge of that stuff is actually really undeveloped. I know how a lot of the stuff sounds. When people talk about it, I don’t necessarily understand it, but if they play it for me, I go ‘I know what you mean there. So that’s what a tritone substitution is. Yeah I do that because Herbie does that.’ And a lot of the stuff I’ve learnt just through feel and trial and error. But a lot of what I do is just fishing. I’ll just fish around and play a bunch of different chords after another chord, and see what sounds best and go with that. So it is definitely more feel-based with me.

ZT: With things like your horn arrangements, are you composing those, or do you sing a part to an arranger or a copyist, or how does that work?

JC: It’s a mixture. On the some of the stuff I think really needs another color, or another ear, I’ll take it to an arranger. But with pretty strong ideas in mind, I’ll already have an idea of the main line, and some of the main harmonies, and they can make it sound a lot cooler for me. And other times I’ll just do it on Logic, print it out, and give it to the horn guys, and they’ll have to work out whether it works or not. But normally I can hear what I want the horns to do, and occasionally my saxophone player, who is a great arranger, will come and re-voice it for me and make it sound fruitier.

ZT: Do you ever look at the Real Book or a standard song and just pick out stuff, steal chords, and mine it for ideas?

JC: Sure, I have a ton of music books. I don’t read notes but I can read chord symbols. A lot of the time just for fun I’ll pull out the Real Book or a Ben Folds or Tom Waits anthology, just sit through and play a bunch of their songs. And then I find that after you play a bunch of songs that great, you tend to be in quite a fertile period. So I won’t necessarily kind of nick those four chords I like, well, that’s not true—maybe I have done that.  But writing for me, it’s a good time to do it after you play a bunch of other songs, or listen to a bunch of music, and then just take one tiny idea from a great song you love, and run with it, and that tends to be a great way to write for me, definitely.

ZT: How about when you collaborate with someone like Clint Eastwood or Pharrell, or all these people you get to write with, do you bring in song titles, or a groove, or do you start fresh?

JC: Well, working with Pharrell is quite different than working with Clint, for me for a co-writing session, I’m not massively fond of co-writing sessions that start off with someone going, ‘Right, we’re going to work on this, I’ve already thought it up.’ Probably because I’m the artist and I want it more to come from my head, because it feels more natural for me. I nearly always start co-writing sessions just by jamming with three or four chords, and waiting for some to start improvising over the top, or something like that. Or with Pharrell, he got some beats going and messed around with a couple of chords, and we just started vibing over the top of it, really. And then as soon as one person hits on something cool, you go ‘That’s cool—lets go with that.’

ZT: So when you have an actual session, do you put away four hours or eight hours at a studio or someone’s house, or how does it work?

JC: Yeah, sometimes. I work with this great songwriter named Guy Chambers, and he likes to be quite strict with his co-songwriting times so you meet for three hours in the morning, and then four hours in the afternoon, and you just kind of work on stuff. And then other people, a guy I worked with recently called Ricky Ross, we wrote something in two hours, and that was it, and we went home. And other guys, you jam through the night. And you wake up, you open the door to the studio, and it’s morning, and you realize you’ve been going all night and you’ve written a couple of songs. It varies from writer to writer.

ZT: So what advice would you have for the more jazz-oriented players here at Berklee that play bass, trumpet, or drums or something that want to be hired by someone like you?

JC: Well, it obviously differs from musician to musician, but I’m personally interested in people that have a very wide musical conception. I find it really difficult to meet musicians who have a bigger appreciation for John Coltrane as they do for certain Pussy Cat Doll songs, and I don’t say that for amusement effect. If you can’t appreciate why the hook for ‘Don’t-cha think your girlfriend is hot like me’ is incredible, maybe we’re not supposed to be in the same band. I love to be able to get simple joy from the simple parts of music, but then being able to dig deeper. And the great thing about having training as a jazz musician, you know how to go deep, from chord one, you can go outside, you can substitute this, and that to me is a wonderful thing. But you need to work up to it. And if I can get a drummer and bass player and say ‘I want this tune to sound like a modal sheets of sound thing, but I want you to quote a bit of Timbaland drum loop in this bit.’ And if they can translate that, I think that’s a great thing. Because we’ve got to move this music on and whether you do that by melding it with classical music, or melding it with music that’s happening today, whether it’s pop music or more contemporary classical music. Conception is different for each person, but I really like a musician who listens and plays widely. Who has technique, but can occasionally forget that and get down and dirty. There’s nothing worse than hearing a jazz musician not nailing the backbeat, who plays terrible kind of fills. Sometimes you just need two hits on a tom, and you’re there. It’s great to get into one thing entirely, and you should do that, but I think its great to have really open ears as well.

ZT: What advice do you have for people who want to be a bandleader and songwriter like you? I suppose that advice applies, but what else do you want to add for someone who wants to be a frontman?

JC: Well no, that’s pretty simple. Just get out there and do it. Don’t wait till you’ve learnt that bit, don’t wait till you’ve done this, don’t wait till you’ve worked another year. If you feel like you’ve got something to say, get out there and say it.  Don’t wait. You can be playing in front of two people, because the biggest lessons are learned on the bandstand.

ZT: I saw you play in Barcelona four years ago at that beautiful Greek Theatre on Montjuïc. Do you remember that?

JC: Oh God, yeah I remember, everyone was dancing on the stage at the end?

ZT: Yeah! I was there. That was a wonderful show. You give a lot to the crowd. You have great energy. You bring everyone into it. What does that fulfill for you as a performer?

JC: Well, I’m just following my instincts really. It’s not easy to put into words what it fulfills for me. When I get onstage, I just try to be truthful about what I’m trying to do, and I guess I’m naturally quite an open and inclusive person, and I do take great joy in feeling like I’m including people, and I guess a lot of contemporary music maybe takes great pleasure in excluding people, or at least pretending to exclude people. I’ve always quite enjoyed drawing people in. So I think its quite a natural thing for me to do.

ZT: I love the cover songs you choose. But have you ever chosen a cover song that you brought to your band, and they said ‘Jamie. Come on man. We can’t do this one, this is too much.’

JC: Well, do you know they beginning to Charlie Parker’s “All the Things You Are?” [sings melody]. Well I tried to mix that up with a version of “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC. And that definitely didn’t work. I dreamed about it, and in my dream it worked really well. But in reality, it wasn’t happening.

ZT: I bet you have a ridiculous collection of vinyl records.

JC: Yeah I do. I have a pretty thick collection of records. It’s getting out of hand, actually. I just got married, so I’m not sure it’s going to grow quite as quickly as before. I’ve got a couple thousand vinyls, and probably twice that in CDs. I know things are going another way, but I do love to play records still. That’s for sure.

ZT: What are some of your favorite records that you’ve worn down to a thin wafer of vinyl?

JC: That’s a very, very tough question. I picked up an original Miles Whitney record, ‘It’s Your Thing,’ which I love. Some techno from the early days of Berlin from a guy called Maurizio and Basic Channel I’ve pretty much worn out. I’ve got this old Miles Davis playing with Bad Groove with Milt Jackson that’s on the original pressing that’s super heavy old vinyl that you can break real easily, which I’ve played a lot. A lot of stuff, I would have to go on all day.

ZT: You have that new song called “Mixtape,” and you talk about everything from Nine Inch Nails to Louis Armstrong. If you got out your ipod or whatever you use, what would be on the most recent on-the-go playlist?

JC: It would probably some stuff from the new Massive Attack album, Heligoland. Probably some stuff from the new Hot Chip album. Some Mad Libs stuff.

ZT: What irks you about today’s music industry? We all love music here, but we’re all a bit intimidated to jump into it, but here we go. What’s something that gets on your nerves?

JC: Well, cliques always exits. It’s human nature to kind of group certain people together and decide that’s where they live. I think I often find myself, not so much in America, but in other places, trying to get out of a certain box that people put you in. People hear you sing a standard once and they assume you’re trying to be like Michael Bublé, or something. Which is not a problem, but it can be if you’re trying to reach in different places. I think it can be quite tricky, but if you don’t get hung up on that, and just play and go do your thing, forget about all that stuff, and if you do it with belief and truth, people will find what you’re doing, and the right people will find what you’re doing. You can get really famous really quickly, but that doesn’t necessarily lead to a long-lasting fan base that will be watching you for the next 20 or 30 years. Some people go on about how the music industry is dying, it’s not. We’re not going to make as much money as we used to, but its certainly not dying, I think it’s as healthy is ever.

ZT: What else gives you hope along those lines? You’ve been at it for ten years professionally, what do you wish that you had when you were starting out that we have now?

JC: One of the things we can look forward to is that pretty soon there won’t be that traditional artist who makes album, tours, then disappears for two years; and then that artist makes another album, tours, disappears for four years. I think what you’ll get from most artists because of the way we’ll consume our music, is that they’ll do a session, and then release it. And then do another session, and release it. There won’t be a big gap and a big wait for the next massive artistic statement. I hope that the trickle of music from artists who are then freed of the traditional record label structure will just keep releasing music. And in a way, that kind of used to happen. You’d get two albums from Bob Dylan in 12 months, because one session produced all this music. You couldn’t fit it all on one album, so they released one album at the beginning of the year, one at the end of the year. And I think that kind of more continual flow of music will part of what were doing. And I think Radiohead are already hinting at doing things like that. I think that’s a good thing.

ZT: Cool. Final question. Who would win in fist fight—you or Michael Bublé?

JC: Ha. Well, I’m a very fast runner so I don’t know whether we’d get to find that one out. But of course it would definitely be me.

ZT: Excellent. Well thanks a lot for talking to me. I’m looking forward to seeing your show on March 6, and I’m going to have my Berklee crew with me.

JC: Well, we better make sure our chops are in order!

Talk with the Guitar Masters

By Ivan Chopik
Contributing Writer

Arguably, Steve embarked upon his career in the 10th grade, after being expelled from school for refusing to cut his hair. It makes sense then, that in an industry of ever-changing trends, Steve Morse stands on his own – having forged himself a 30-plus year music career while staying true to his music, and making a point of approaching his duties with the utmost dignity and professionalism. His musicianship transcends the boundaries of style – whether he’s playing fusion with the Dixie Dregs, progressive rock with Kansas, hard rock with Deep Purple, or a blend of all of the above mixed with country and classical with the Steve Morse Band.   

 Steve’s playing style is as instantly identifiable as it is versatile: it combines blues-inspired lines filled with chromaticism, exceptional alternate picking, rapid-fire arpeggios, classical fingerpicking and chordal ideas, and extensive tone manipulation, giving his guitar an array of voices that are each distinct, yet are all clearly Morse. For five years in a row Steve was voted “Best Overall Guitarist,” by the readers of Guitar Player Magazine, placing him among two other legends in the “Guitar Player Hall of Fame.” I spoke with Steve at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston, MA during his tour in support of the latest release by the Steve Morse Band, Out Standing In Their Field.

Ivan Chopik: How’s the tour in support of Out Standing In Their Field going?

Steve Morse: It’s going good. We’re right in the middle of it – this is the end of the first week. In fact, this marks about the sixth day that we’ve spent playing together in the last few years [laughs]. It’s pretty intense. Actually, Dave [LaRue, bass] and I rehearsed at my place before we started the tour. We met Van [Romaine, drums] at the first gig and we just went [makes cracking noise] – instant, total immersion. These guys are pros, so it works with them – and we recorded the album together and everything, so it’s not like we’re strangers.

IC: What was the recording process for the new album? I know you have a studio at home – did you record there? 

SM: Pretty much everybody does. Van did the drums at his place up in Manhattan – he has a studio with an actual engineer, and Dave and I just do our stuff in our own little studios. If I’m going to work for a half an hour at one in the morning… you just can’t get an engineer to come over in some small town. You pretty much have to figure it out yourself. The software has lots of possibilities if you’re manipulating sound – but if you’re just plain old recording what you do, it’s real easy to work with and it’s no problem to do that. That’s my approach – to play it and get it right, and take the right ones, and layer it and make it sound good. We don’t change much.

IC: What was the writing process like for this one compared to previous releases?

SM: It was very similar. A lot of times Dave and I will sit down together and work on stuff, just sitting in chairs – and I’ll have an idea that I’d like him to try and it gives me an idea of something to work on. Some of the tunes were already pretty much composed and brought in, like ‘Flight Of The Osprey’ and ‘Baroque ‘N Dreams,’ that just had to be written out and planned out, pretty much every note. In some areas there was like: ‘Let’s do a thing there.’ We had this long bass solo: ‘I’ll do a laid back thing like this [plays chill chords] and you do a bass solo.’ So obviously that has to be realized as an improv, but that’s just a section. We never do a whole tune of improv, because even though it would be fun to do for us, I think it would be less fun to listen to, for a lot of people [laughs].

IC: The new album sounds really organic – did you stick with your Marshalls, or was it the new Engl rig?

 SM: It’s a combination of stuff. I had an Engl amp, but it wasn’t the Engl amp [Engl Steve Morse Special Signature 100] until near the end. [The Engl I had] sounded not quite as warm and low-midrangey as I’d like, so I didn’t use some of it. And I just do this thing while I’m recording – if I had a sound that worked with the last song, I’ll just start with something different for the next song [laughs]. I know, it’s like shooting yourself in the foot, but to me it’s fun to work with a different sound each time. So I make a small adjustment, whether it’s using a different mic or a different speaker cabinet, or changing amp heads – I do change something on every song. The commonality of course is the guitars, the playing style, and the nature of what I choose sonically – that will make them all sound similar. Some of them I did with an Engl amp on one side, and a Line 6 Pod on the other, and used about 20% of the Pod, and 80% of the Engl – things like that. I like combining mics, but it almost always makes a hollow, somewhat unsuitable sound – [it creates] phase problems.

 So I’ve been trying to combine different amps using a splitter, and that’s kind of neat. I don’t write [my settings] down, so I remember in one of the tunes, I wanted to go back and change the arrangement, and I said: ‘I have no idea what I did for this sound!’ So there was no way to duplicate it exactly. That happens a lot. With the Dregs and with my stuff, I used to always print whatever sound it was with effects and everything, just print it – believe in it, commit, put it on tape and just walk away. Whereas with a lot of people: ‘it’s always got to be dry and clean! We don’t want to put all that in the mix.’ To me, the mix should just be: turn everything up and it sounds good.

 IC: Can you tell us one thing that you’ve never mentioned before in an interview – a story, an experience or something about yourself that you haven’t shared before?

 SM: Wow, you’ve got me on this… I’ve done lots of interviews… how about what’s happening tonight? We’re playing, the Steve Morse Band – which originally was with Rod Morgenstein [on drums] and Jerry Peek [on bass], and then became Van Romaine and Dave LaRue, playing drums and bass. Rod Morgenstein and I go back to the early 70’s, when we met at the University of Miami, playing in basically the Dixie Dregs – it was called the University of Miami Rock Ensemble #2, and we met on Tuesdays and Thursdays at seven p.m. or whatever. That became our band.

Tonight, Rod’s going to be sitting in, playing drums with Van – playing this incredible solo that they worked out together. I think it’s really neat when people can be open like that. Instead of Van having the attitude of: ‘Oh, I’ve gotta protect my turf. No one else is gonna sit in.’ Rod and I are like brothers, so it’s great for him to come along and do this.

Something I never get to mention in interviews, is to encourage people to support other musicians – give them a leg up. Rod doesn’t need a leg up – Rod is a professor here at Berklee. But I’m saying that when you see a chance to help somebody that you think is good, do it. Don’t say somebody’s great that isn’t, of course – but if you know somebody’s playing good and playing from the heart and there’s anyway you can help them, do.

 Keep that fraternity alive of people that really love music, because there’s a lot of people getting into the music business because they see Star Search or America’s Got Talent, those kind of shows, where it’s instant fame and money. Just support people that really play from the heart, and remember that. If you see somebody you know and you’ve got the chance, and wherever you’re playing is cool with it, have them come up and sit in – pass it on.

 IC: What advice do you have for aspiring musicians looking to break into the industry and share their music?

 SM: A lot. This could go on forever. The first thing is responsibility – you have to be a responsible person and an independent person to be a musician that’s going to make it. The chances are very good that the things that will make you famous in your own way, the classic things that happen musically in your life, will come from unexpected places. Like this guy says: ‘Hey, man, You wanna come over and jam? I’ve got a little recording deal on my laptop.’ ‘Alright, let’s do that.’ Those are the sessions that could end up being the best things you ever write. Chances are it will not be a phone call from somebody saying: ‘Our band is huge and famous, we have millions of dollars. We just want to give to somebody, if we could only find a guitar player.’ No, that’s not going to happen. But what will happen is your peers saying: ‘I wish I had somebody to work on this with.’ or ‘This gig is free and it’s 50 miles away – could you do it?’

So in order to take advantage of those opportunities, you have to keep your overhead low and make yourself available. So I suggest not starting a family until you’re well into your career. In other words, don’t take on any responsibilities other than your music. That means no debt – learn how to change the oil in the car, and learn how to get a lot out of a little bit of equipment. Buy small quality stuff that you can carry yourself. The bigger your enterprise is, the more difficult it will be to take advantage of opportunities. So keep your overhead low, limit your other responsibilities, and strive for excellence in everything.

If you have a day job and you’re flipping burgers four hours a day, flip those burgers right onto the middle of the bun. Make everything count. If you’re sweeping the floor, don’t say it’s okay that you left that piece of dirt behind. Say: ‘If I sweep up every bit of this dirt to the best of my ability, that’s going to affect the way I play music. It’s going to make everything I do strive for perfection.’ That’s how you can tell if somebody’s going to make it or not – it’s not by whether or not they know somebody’s phone number on Star Search. Those are the kind of people that, when the opportunities come – and every couple of years or so, everyone will get these, what other people would say are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, but they keep coming… the people that are ready, and luck allows them to, and fate allows them to, will find that they will get connected.

There are no players that are incredible that go unnoticed forever – unless they’re on a deserted island with no communication whatsoever. Make yourself available to the public, and [if you] keep your options open and are playing great, somebody’s going to notice you sooner or later. If you want to do the whole road thing – being in a band, forming a band, keep all of your options open and limit your responsibilities. Low overhead – and by low, I mean low. Don’t buy a new car – just down to the bone. Pay off your guitar, pay off your amp, get a few effects – it’s common sense. The less you need to make, the more opportunities you can take, and the more jams you can go to. I promise you, that’s where it will all come from. It won’t be from some phone call saying: ‘Here’s a million dollars. I just need somebody to take it. I can’t find anybody that plays guitar.’

 This article is a short excerpt of the complete interview with Steve Morse. Log on to GuitarMessenger.com to view the full article.

Every band and artist on the new roster of Heavy Rotation Records sat down with BerkleeGroove.com to talk about their lives, music and dreams of success. Click on their name and picture to read their full interviews.

Danny, Elizabeth, and Pete. Photo by Peter Van Hattem.

By Zac Taylor
Managing Editor

 In the wake of Heavy Rotation’s 10^th Anniversary, it’s nice to know that indie-pop songsters Elizabeth and the Catapult, whose debut LP Taller Children is now a featured item at Barnes & Noble across the country, first appeared on Dorm Sessions Vol. 3. Elizabeth Ziman (keys and vocals), Pete Lalish (guitars) and Danny Molad (drums), have really been making a name for themselves with fans and critics alike. Not only has the record been getting rave reviews, so have their music videos for the record’s title track and the second single, “Race You.” The Catapult sat down with The Groove before their most recent Red Room appearance to talk shop on their record, creative mindsets, and making the big metropolis of New York feel like a Mr. Roger’s neighborhood.

Zac Taylor: Welcome back to Boston. You guys came from Brooklyn today?

Elizabeth Ziman: Yes. Yesterday we had a really eventful day. We did this really funny late night show for Fox, and then we did NPR, and Iggy Pop was on the same program. Then we had a show for housing work and raised $1,500 for homeless people with HIV. So that was literally a 24-hour period.

ZT: Wow, that’s quite a day in the life. How was Iggy Pop?

EZ: He was so sophisticated and sweet. He was the absolute opposite of how you would expect Iggy Pop to be like. He was like, ‘How are you? I’m so happy that you brought a string section—that’s so lovely!’

Danny Molad: I was like, ‘Hi, I’m Danny,’ and he was like, ‘Hi, I’m Iggy.’ And that was my exchange with him. He’s 62 years old, did you know that?

ZT: He looks good for 62. He must hit the gym. And the hair stylist probably. Did he have highlights?

Pete Lalish: He had beautiful highlights. A beautiful mane.

ZT: So you guys are back at Berklee—your home turf. How long has it been since you were here?

PL: We were here in 2004.

ZT: Is it fun coming back? Do you feel like hometown heroes at the alma mater?

PL: I’ve actually only been back to come here now and it’s a whole new school. It looks great.

DM: We definitely kept in touch with a lot of our classmates, play music with them, and we live in the same apartment complex.

EZ: We live with Via Audio, the Prigs, St. Vincent—everyone is in the same building. It’s like a Berklee dorm in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.

ZT: How is rent there?

DM: Amazing.

EZ: It’s going to go up once we get it out on the Groove.

DM: The Groove is going to expose us and our secrets!

ZT: If you could go back in time and tell the Elizabeth, Pete and Dan from 2004 who were eating lunch at Crazy Dough’s and cramming for Ear Training tests some advice about the music industry, moving to New York, and some things to watch out for, what would you tell those youngsters?

EZ: In all seriousness, it would be to really trust your instinct as much as possible, because it’s going to be tested a lot. And the more of any kind of success you have, the more people are going to try to tell you what to do—the more you’re going to have to trust yourself. And even though it sounds like a self-help book, I think that’s the biggest thing.

PL: I’ll give advice that someone gave me in regards to New York. When I was a Berklee student, I told a teacher, ‘I think I’m going to leave school early and move to New York.’ He said, ‘Great. So what do you want, my blessing?’ But then he said, ‘So you’re going to move to New York? Well, there’s going to be a bunch of great musicians around. And there’s going to be a bunch of really bad musicians around. There you go.’

ZT: Ha!

PL: When you’re in school, you feel like you’re part of this group of amazing people. At the same time, you don’t have to be technically amazing or be in school forever to go and play music anywhere.

EZ: So Pete, you’re basically telling people to drop out of Berklee?

PL: Well, it really works for some people to stay, and it really works for some people to go. Either way, whether it’s two or four years, it’s a great time. But the best advice I had was that everyone outside of the school is doing it, good or bad, it’s still the same thing.

EZ: Yeah, just set your own rules.

DM: So much has happened in the industry in eight years, it’s insane. Coming to Berklee my freshman year, I would be going through a library of CDs, and then mp3s were sort of happening, but slowly. Then record stores started closing, and all of a sudden playing these summer festivals was like the thing to do.  Festivals have become this insane thing, where 40 amazing bands will be in this one city, and then they’ll be in this other city. And all these things adding up, and…I’m not sure where I’m going with this.

EZ: I think what you’re saying is that we started off with music being made for joy, and then it turned into a business, and then the business went out of business, and now we’re making music for joy again. Is that it?

DM: I guess it’s really you have to make your own path. Don’t listen to what anybody tells you. If you think you know what you’re doing, trust yourself, like Elizabeth said.

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Photo courtesy of artist.

By Ben Camp
Contributing Writer

It is not by happenstance that the first thing you notice while entering Alex Lacamoire’s office is his keyboard— a dedicated focus on music is one of his top priorities. It is that very focus which has led to Alex’s tremendous successes on Broadway: arrangements for the Tony Award-winning “Wicked,” orchestrations for “High Fidelity,” a Tony Award for his orchestrations on “In The Heights” and a Grammy Award for producing its cast album.

Oh yeah, and he’s a Berklee grad.

Lacamoire attended Berklee from ‘93 to ‘95, tested into the top levels of Ear Training, Harmony, and Arranging on arrival, and took a driven, fast-track approach to his studies. He majored in Professional Music with an emphasis in Arranging & Orchestration, with some Film Scoring thrown in. I sat down with Alex at the Richard Rogers theatre, where he is currently the Music Supervisor for “Heights,” to talk about his experiences from Berklee to Broadway.

Professionally, you’ve had some tremendous successes. Before we get into those, I’m curious to know how you made the transition from Berklee to…not Berklee?

I stayed in Boston for about a year and a half after I graduated. I was fortunate that I had great people to work with. I played on the Spirit of Boston for two years as a pianist and a singer – even though I’m not really a singer! I played there with other Berklee musicians such as Anthony Vitti, Bill D’Agostino and Ken Zambello, and we all had a great time. I played gigs there at night, and during the day I accompanied vocal lessons at Boston Conservatory, which increased my musical theater repertoire and allowed me to meet people in the theater world. I would also play theater auditions around town where I had to sight-read and sight-transpose all the time. All of those skills brewed this perfect concoction such that right before I moved to New York, I got hired to play auditions for Broadway’s “The Lion King” while they were looking for actors in Boston. The music director flew in from New York to hear the singers, and when he heard me play he said ‘When you move to New York, call me.’ It was definitely very one-thing-led-to-another.

And what made you want to move to New York? Was it ‘The Lion King?’

Well, I had already made the decision to move before I had gotten the offer from Lion King. I thought I was going to just show up in New York, call all my Berklee friends and say “Hey I’m in town, let me know if you got any jazz gigs for me.” That would have been a total disaster, because I’m not a jazz pianist—I studied jazz at Berklee, but it wasn’t really my calling. Back then, if I had a choice between listening to Miles or listening to Zeppelin, I would have chosen Zeppelin.

You seem to have found a great niche, and are doing some wonderful work here!

I’m very thankful. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t realize how lucky I am to be doing what I love to do. I never had to take an office gig. I’ve never had a job that wasn’t music-related. I feel very, very fortunate.

What was your favorite part of Berklee?

I loved all the hands-on experience that you could get if you went after it. I loved being able to go into the studios at three in the morning if you wanted to. It was great to have the Learning Center, to be able to just grab a computer and learn how to use Finale or a sequencer. And I loved being able to have a jam, just calling up some cats at ten o’clock at night to play Rush tunes or something. I loved that I could take a class about Stravinsky, and then two hours later play in the Free-Jazz ensemble. I loved the diversity. Being able to study that wide a range of music is important, and I think it keeps you well-rounded, and it keeps your ears and your mind open.

Absolutely, and I think that diversity shows in your music. Looking even just at ‘In The Heights,’ the arrangements have such a wide range stylistically, and yet all work together in one show.

Yes. What’s great about Lin [Manuel Miranda, composer and lyricist for Heights] is that he knows about all those styles of music. He happens to be like people of our generation who appreciate all those genres. His iPod is hysterical—he has all the Jay-Z records, but you’ll also find Kings Of Leon, Phil Collins’ Greatest Hits and the soundtrack to Camelot. He really digs all that stuff. He genuinely loves music. The fact that he has all this inside of him and that it comes out so naturally is what makes him so unique and so good. As an arranger, I feel that if music comes from the heart, if it’s genuine and if it’s melody-based, you can do anything with it.

And you have quite a talent for arranging. What would you say was the most fun project you’ve worked on as an arranger?

“In The Heights” is definitely my baby. I put so much work into it, and I was really tireless about it. Bill Sherman and I just toiled and worked on those charts until everything was right and every decision made us happy. We had a lot of arguments and disagreements along the way, but in that process we both arrived at something that we both dug. I have put so much of my life and my love into Heights, and it’s gonna be rare to find an experience where I do something like that again.

You think?

Yeah, only because the show is so unique and so pioneering. Plus, it taps into my Cuban heritage. I don’t want to say it’s ahead of it’s time but –

It’s setting its time?

Yeah, I think so. The year it came out, the only other original musical was “Passing Strange.” Everything else was either based on a book or a movie, or it was a revival. So it was great to be involved with something so trendsetting—I don’t know if there will be a “trend” of salsa or hip-hop shows, but it definitely opened the door for hip-hop and salsa music to exist on Broadway.

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