Music Union : Live Your Music

by Young Jin Choi

If there is one thing worse than walking down the streets of Harlem alone at 2:00 a.m. on a Friday night, it is walking down the streets of Harlem with your 18 year old cousin at 2:00 a.m. on a Friday night. Granted, we did have some good White Castle burgers at 125th & 7th, coming complete with a cup of complimentary coffee. But seriously, what’s the point of all these jazz clubs here staying open until four in the morning if they are going to stop playing live music at 1:30 sharp? Well, at least they didn’t card my cousin, so after getting super wasted on five shots of gin each and some fragrant NY Diesel, we decided to get the fuck out of this place and actually go look for some live music. We’ve had enough slumming fun for the night.

So we happily strolled across the entire width of Harlem and Morningside Heights, all the way over to Broadway. I don’t know what the fuck we were thinking, but honestly, climbing up about 2000 steps in Morningside Park at 2:30 in the morning, completely drunk and high and giggly and nonsensical, is actually quite a therapeutic fun experience in itself; that is, if and only if you manage to escape the park without getting attacked by any of its resident serial rapist-killer-druggies.

Our first stop on Broadway is Smoke, between 105th 106th Street, but I guess we got here just a tad bit late, too. As we enter Smoke, we see two people and two people only in the entire club. The one who is sitting on a chair, dapperly dressed in a grey suit, is holding some sort of instrument case on his lap which seemed to be a trumpet case. The other guy standing at the bar, a tall, muscular middle aged black man in a snazzy wine-red suit, greets us.

“Hey, our restaurant is closed. You guys can sit at the bar area if you want to.”

“Um, are you guys still playing music tonight?”

“No. The last set was at 12:30. But our bar’s open till 4:00, if you guys want to stick around.”

Et tu, Smoké? It’s so fucked up. But we’re both way too tired and thirsty from all that walking up the stairs in the park. So we get another round of Gordon’s & Tonic each, which we gulp down in a sip before moving out on to our next location on Broadway, Cleopatra’s Needle on 92nd St, where we finally find some quality live jazz music that we had been so cluelessly groping for the whole night. I mean, the whole morning.

I was able to catch Jesse Simpson, the awesome, hard hitting drummer of the band who kept the groove rolling with his laid back, steady beats, for a little conversation about jazz music and his life as a jazz musician after the end of their set.

The suave tenor sax player with warm, fat tone, Steve Cargeo, respectfully declined an interview. But last time I checked, he was doing rather well himself, laying down some fat game on a couple of Japanese exchange students at 4:00 in the morning at the empty bar in Cleopatra’s Needle.

MU: Hi, Jesse. Thank you for joining us tonight. How did you first start playing drums and how did you start listening to jazz? Did you start out playing jazz or other genres of music?

JS: I first started playing Jazz because I had heard it on the radio and was interested in that sound. I went straight into jazz without prior experience in other genres. Before I played jazz I had done Flamenco dancing for a few years, which certainly helped my playing and rhythmic knowledge. Only now am I starting to get into other genres, composing more classical and pop music.

MU: Who is your biggest influence, if there is one at all?

JS: My influences are constantly changing. Lately I’ve been checking out a lot of modern classical composers like Sciarrino and Neuwirth. The biggest influence on my playing would be my teacher and mentor, the legendary drummer Donald Bailey. Without his guidance early on I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today.

MU: How did you guys first meet? Did you guys really just meet last night? How did that come about? How did you start playing at Cleopatra’s Needle?

JS: Jake, Josh and I had all met prior to the gig but had never played together before. The usual pianist, Sullivan Fortner, was on tour with Stefon Harris’ band Blackout and the bassist Kevin Hsieh had a previous engagement. The way I obtained the gig was through a series of events; subbing for someone and inheriting the gig, so to speak.

MU: How do you view the status of New York music scene currently, as a musician yourself? What are some great things, and what are some things that could be better?

JS: A lot of the jazz scene is very backwards, with gigs paying worse than before and fewer of them existing. Because of this, many players have resorted to teaching, which creates larger jazz programs and thus more students who will be in the workforce without work. However, I think the playing level as a whole may be higher than ever and continues to grow, which is great!

MU: Do you think jazz musicians are putting in enough effort to get closer to the popular audience, like in the days of Swing Era when jazz music dominated the charts and jazz bands played all kinds of shows to all kinds of audiences every night? Or do you think jazz music should stay in the ivory towers of concert halls? In other words, do you consider jazz music first and foremost as a popular product or as an art in itself?

JS: Jazz is such a broad idiom that it can exist in popular and artistic realms. What is Jazz, anyways? The people who attend Jazz at Lincoln Center are, by and large, not going to attend a performance at The Stone, so the two never step on each other’s toes and can exist peacefully. As for the individual, I think it just depends on what level of popular success the artist is interested in and whether and how they’re willing to obtain it.

MU: Who are some other musicians or bands that you play with?

JS: I’ll play with anyone who calls me! I don’t have my own project at this time; I’m still a student at the Manhattan School of Music. Afterwards I hope to compose for film, play around more and eventually create my own projects– stay tuned!

MU: What do you think of the NYC music fans? How would you describe them? What are some great things about them and what are some things that you still want from them?

JS: New York City music fans are great people, very dedicated. People are really coming out to the shows, which is probably the most important thing. If I had to wish for one thing I would hope that people could be more open-minded within jazz. It seems like so many musicians find one singular style to plant themselves in without seeing the big picture, at the exclusion of so much great music.

MU: How do you think the technological advancement is going to change the landscape of music industry? What are some things that could be done in order to utilize this change for the benefits of both musicians and music consumers, rather than making it act as an agent of mutual antagonization?

JS: Technology is a key factor for younger musicians to reach audiences. I think in this day and age it’s beneficial to flood the market with material, overloading sites with your art. You have to have a website which allows Google search and which has depth to it, which few artists do. One jazz site which is accomplishing this is www.smallsjazzclub.com. They broadcast their live performances with video and archive all of their previous performances for people to listen to at a later time.

MU: Anything else that you want to tell our readers about?

JS: Music doesn’t influence music. Life influences music, and music is an interpretation of life. I’ve been reading Stephen Hawking’s “Brief History of Time” and Robert Geroch’s “General Relativity from A to B” which both show how little we know about the universe. It’s a journey.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons — living or dead, — is entirely coincidental.