Smitty: I agree, because it would be like, if you can you imagine inviting everybody to your garage, you know? To hear your garage band or to hear your rehearsal, you know, so, yeah, it changes the whole element if you’ve got an audience.
TE: And I don’t wanna risk them changing their mindset of “Oh, I better not go in that direction. I better not experiment. I better not try this because I might lose the fan.” And I really try to make it reality TV at its best, Smitty. When Bela Fleck walks in the studio with a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup and he sets it on the amp and he takes out his banjo and starts playing, that’s what I want, you know? I don’t want to say “Okay, we’re gonna get started now. Let’s clean up this and, okay, let’s make sure you guys are….” I’ll check and make sure they all have water ahead of time or something, but I want them to be totally free—you know, they’ll come in unshaven and in blue jeans, and if that’s the way they wanna be, great, man. I don’t care what you wear. That’s all irrelevant, Smitty, you know?
Smitty: Absolutely, and then that’s the beauty of it. Well, speaking of that, man, I can’t resist talking about the DVD. You have done a Best of Studio Jams where you have pared down some of the sessions and included a couple of takes from some of the other different sessions that you’ve done, and I just want to mention some of the names that are on this DVD that are just totally doing their thing on this DVD: Richie Cole, and Ray Vega I just love on the horn on this; I mean, he was so into it on this DVD. You’ve got Pieces of a Dream cats Curtis Harmon and James Lloyd, Gerald Veasley’s there, Rick Braun, Steve Oliver, Jeff Kashiwa, and an old-timer that I still love, Anton Fig.
TE: Oh yeah, Anton was terrific. Yeah, Anton, of course, now he’s part of Paul Shaffer’s band, actually has been for years, on the [David] Letterman show. Anton is wonderful.
Smitty: Yeah, and a cat that I’ve never met but I did an interview with, a cat from the Cintron band.
TE: Edgardo Cintron?
Smitty: It was Rocco DePersia. It was one of the guys in the band. It was just great to see all these great cats just really—it was like a reunion in a way, but at the same time there were some of the guys there that had never met each other before and they just got into it and they were discussing bars, vamps, and the charts and “Hey, let’s do this in a C or B or who will take the first solo,” you know, it was like wow, and you just got such a beautiful feeling watching them all interact and put some great songs together, and at the same time it can be educational for some of the musicians that are out there thinking about doing this for fun or as a career.
TE: Oh, I get e-mails all the time from viewers who are musicians and young musicians who say “Oh, I just saw the episode and I tape every one. I just love this. Where can I get a copy? It’s so inspiring. I want to play along to it on my TV because these guys are great.”
Smitty: That’s a true reward.
TE: Yeah, it is very inspiring for musicians and sometimes musicians who have never been on the show and they’ll be coming in to do a session and they’ll call me the week before or send me an e-mail saying “What should I bring?” or “How can I prepare for the session?” And I tell them, “Don’t do anything. As a matter of fact, I would prefer you not even think about it. Don’t be thinking what tunes you wanna play or that you’re gonna be playing with such and such so maybe we should do straight ahead jazz instead” and I say “Don’t even think about it. I would prefer it to be….the more spontaneous, the better.”
Smitty: Yeah, absolutely and you captured that on this fascinating DVD, and that’s what jazz is all about, you know?
TE: Yep.
Smitty: Let me ask you, how can people get the DVD?
TE: Right now the only way to get the DVD is on the Web site, which is www.studiojams.com, and it’s on the merchandise page, and it’s the Best of Studio Jams Volume 1. We hope to early 2008 come out with Volume 2.
Smitty: Oh, you knew I was gonna ask about volume 2.
TE: Volume 1 has a lot from the first season. We are now in our fourth season. So there’s just a ton of material that we could share on these DVD’s, but that’s the way to pick up the DVD.
Smitty: Okay.
TE: They do make great gifts.
Smitty: Oh, absolutely, excellent gifts. What else can they find on your Web site?
TE: Oh, the Web site talks about the concept of the program, but then we also have a listing of all the episodes, the different mix of musicians for each episode and the songs that they played, we link to some of the artist Web sites. Actually, we’re going to start including streaming video on it. There’s a little bit of streaming video on a few episodes so they can get a feel for what the show’s about, but we want to do a little bit more of that. We’re very excited that January 1, 2008 we are going to launch a whole new look for the website, where we will have a lot more things available for sale and information for everyone to check out.
Smitty: Oh, cool.
TE: One neat experience, and I love sharing this story because people will ask me sometimes, they say “What were some of the interesting moments that you’ve had with all these different mix of musicians?” And I don’t think I’ve shared this with you in prior conversations, Smitty, but if I have, forgive me if I repeat myself.
Smitty: No, no, no, no. Go ahead.
TE: But we did a session not too long ago with Chuck Loeb on guitar. Of course, Chuck is a monster.
Smitty: And he’s on the video, the DVD.
TE: Yeah, he is, he is. And Gerald Veasley and Tim Ries on saxophone and Chuck Leavell on keyboards, and then on drums we had Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones.
Smitty: Yeah, man.
TE: And, you know, Charlie is an old-time jazz cat.
Smitty: Yep.
TE: So Charlie comes in and we’re setting up and, again, there’s no audience, there’s just the musicians and a camera man and I, and actually Charlie’s management, the Rolling Stones management, insisted on some additional security and bodyguard and all this jazz, so there was nobody in the room that wasn’t supposed to be there, and Charlie is the most humble, gracious guy you ever wanna meet, but before the session started I said “You know, Charlie, we’re about ready to get started here. What’s going through your mind right now before we get started? How are you feeling?” He looks at me and he goes “You know what, Tom? I gotta tell ya, I’m nervous.” (Both laugh.) And I said “You’re nervous? You’re Charlie Watts. How can you be nervous? You’ve played in front of millions and millions of people. You’re nervous?” And he goes “Yeah, I hope I can keep up with these cats.” And it was just mind blowing to hear Charlie Watts express that feeling and he did fine. He did really well. It was a great session.
Smitty: Yeah, but isn’t it great….that humbling respect that each musician has for the other?
TE: Mm-hmm. That was interesting because we taped it in the afternoon of when the Rolling Stones were playing in Philadelphia and I went out to the show as a guest that night and it was interesting. I can remember seeing the show at night and he’s pounding away the rock and roll tunes, and I couldn’t help but just remember a few hours ago he’s laying in a bebop jazz thing and what a difference, you know? The stark contrast was an experience for me that I’ll never forget.
Smitty: Absolutely, man.
TE: And then the other experience, I’ll give one more that I’ll share with you that was really interesting. As you know, I’ve been a fan of Bela Fleck for a number of years and so many musicians, jazz musicians, look up to Bela and put him on such a pedestal as a musician because being such an innovator and the like, as do I, I put him on that pedestal, but at this session we paired him up with, the session was Rayford Griffin on drums and Rick Braun on trumpet, Gerald Veasley on bass, but we brought in Pat Martino, the legendary Pat Martino, on guitar, and lo and behold, and I wasn’t aware of it, but growing up, Pat was Bela’s hero, so it was just so neat to see Bela talking to Pat off to the side in awe and hanging on every word that Pat would say. It was so much respect being shown for every word, telling stories about when he was a teenager and how he snuck into bars in New York just to see Pat just to get inspired, and it was just really neat.
