Jazz Monthly.com Interview with tom emmi

“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Tom Emmi

Smitty: I am certainly happy to welcome to JazzMonthly.com for the very first time one of the individuals in this business that I truly admire for what he’s doing. He’s a musician’s dream and I think he’s really a dream for fans because he has created something that will allow musicians to really have a great time making music and, at the same time, fans can not only hear, but see what these great musicians are doing in a very improvisational setting and having fun doing what they do best. The founder of Studio Jams, please welcome the incredible Mr. Tom Emmi. Tom, welcome to Jazz Monthly.Com!

Tom Emmi (TE): Hi, Smitty. Thank you for that nice intro. I couldn’t wait to hear who it was you were gonna be talking to.

Smitty: (Both laugh.) You are welcome, my friend. Glad to have you here. Now, you have created something so cool. I think with what you do with Studio Jams, it is one of the incredible things that I hope that all jazz fans will get to see because you give us such a window into what happens when these great musicians get into the studio and really kick it and how music is really created. You give us so many different facets and different angles as to what happens with music. And when I was at your studio, I just thought it was a dream to be sitting there and watching these great musicians just kickin’ and just come up with something that is once in a lifetime. Talk to me a little bit about where this idea came from.

TE: Studio Jams started about—well, the concept started back in 2001. I am friendly with the Flecktones of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and there was a date back—again, I think it was 2001—when they were in Philadelphia, where we tape our program. They were in town for a couple of days and at the time I was producing another music-related show, a show called Music Makers, and I reached out to Victor Wooten, the bass player with the Flecktones, and said “Hey, Victor, what are you doing on Saturday afternoon?” Because they were playing Friday and Saturday night. “Would you like to come into the studio and jam and I can get a few other cats together and we’ll jam to tapes?” And the original intent was just to create some B roll for this other music series I was producing, and so Victor said “Sure.”

He came in and Future Man, his brother, the drummer with the Flecktones, came along and Jeff Coffin, the sax player with the Flecktones, so the three of them and Joey DeFrancesco, the monster B3 player. Joey was in town. Actually, he’s from Philly, but he happened to be in town, again, for the weekend, Friday and Saturday night, so I reached out to Joey and Tuck Andress from Tuck & Patti. I called him, he was up in New York, and invited him down, and who else? Derek Trucks from the Allman Brothers Band and from his own band too, and he came down. So we had a wonderful assembly of musicians and I just told the guys “Hey, play whatever you want to. Just play it well. Give me five or six tunes and we’ll see what comes of this.” And again, I was just looking for some live B roll footage for this other show.

When it was done, Victor said “Tom, this was fun. This should be a show in and of itself.” And with that thought in mind, I ended up cutting it together into a show and then about, I don’t know, four months later or whatever, Bela and the Flecktones were back in Philly and I said “Geez, maybe I just got lucky that first time. Let’s try it again.” So I brought Victor in a second time and Stanley Jordan was in town at the time and we did the same kind of thing and it was great, and so I produced about six of them or so, six different episodes, on spec before I got a licensing deal with BET and BET Jazz, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since. It’s been really great. I feel just really blessed to be able to be a part of it. I mean, the musicians are what really make the program. I’m just the conduit, if you will, you know?

Smitty: Yeah. How long does each jam session last?

TE: In real time, two, two and a half hours. You know, again, I tell the guys when they get there—and what’s really nice is that I try to mix it up with musicians who may not ordinarily work with one another or oftentimes they’re meeting each other for the very first time, and I capture a lot of that on tape, so they’ll come into the studio and for the first 20 minutes they’re shaking hands, introducing themselves to one another, and adjusting their rig, and I try to make it simple for everyone so I have the backline all in place so they can just come in and plug in and play, although occasionally some of the musicians prefer to bring in their own amp or they’re particular about some piece of equipment perhaps, so the first half hour they’re just kinda getting to know one another and getting comfortable with the studio. And you’ve seen the studio. It’s just a fabulous space.

Smitty: Yeah, I was gonna say that it’s very easy to get comfortable because, man, what an incredible place. I wish the whole world could see your studio. I mean, it’s state of the art.

TE: Well, they can. They can watch Studio Jams any day and they could see it there. (Both laugh.)

Smitty: Absolutely, man.

TE: So for the first half hour, they’re just getting to know each other and then I just say “Okay, guys, play whatever you like and give me five or six tunes” and typically about every 20 minutes or so they’ll go on and move on to the next tune, and sometimes it goes in the straight ahead direction, sometimes it’s funk and sometimes R&B, rock. You’d be surprised, Smitty, how many different directions it goes because the eclectic mix of musicians…one particular session really comes to mind. We had Chris Thile. He plays mandolin. He’s with a group called Nickel Creek, which is sort of one of the modern bluegrass bands. But he’s just a monster player. He’s only 25 years old, I think, but he’s setting an incredibly high bar for the mandolin. And put him in a session with Steve Kimock as well as Karl Denson, you know, some of the jam band… And again, in jam band circles Karl Denson’s tiny universe is real popular on the jam band circuit, but by mixing this bluegrass mandolin player, the session just had such a unique feel. The musicians seem to get off on it even more than I do, Smitty. It’s just really wonderful to be—well, you know. You were there with Althea [Rene] and Kirk [Whalum] and all those guys.

Smitty: Yeah, yeah. What I really appreciate so much, and I think it’s just a dream for musicians and the fans as well when they see this, is that you are blending a lot of music and cultures, and it’s like East Coast sounds meet Brazilian or West meets East, and you break it down, Chicago sound blending with Detroit sound, but in the end it’s all fun, great music, you know? And I think that’s a beautiful thing. And I’ve never seen a frown in that building, never seen anyone frown. And we’ll get to the DVD, but I noticed that when you listen to the guys talk on the DVD and looking at them when they’re doing their short interviews, every one of them to a person mentioned the word “fun.” They mentioned the word “improvisation,” “creativity,” so you’ve created such a utopia for these great musicians to come together and do what they love to do.

TE: Yeah, and I’m not taking the credit for it and I don’t mean it to sound this way, but they do. They tell me that this reminds them when they were just getting started to play and they would do the garage jam sessions in the neighborhood with their friends.

Smitty: Exactly.

TE: Where they just put their instruments on, plug in, and say “What do you wanna play, guys?” And it’s very loose in that regard and they do have lots of fun and you know, Smitty, music is just the universal language.

Smitty: So true.

TE: One of the things I’m really looking forward to very soon is, I’ll be taking a three-camera crew with me and we’re going to Pescara, Italy, then to Copenhagen, Denmark, and then up to Stockholm, Sweden, and we’re going to be taping some episodes with Italian, Swedish and Danish musicians who I have never met. I’ve studied a little bit online, looked at their My Space pages or their Web sites and got a little feel for what they play, but I don’t know their music or their personalities from Adam, and it’s a little bit riskier in that, again, I’m trying to pair them up, so I’ll have Carlos from one band playing with Jean Paul from another band and I have no idea how these guys sound, much less how they’re gonna sound together. I’m not totally winging it like it might sound. Michael Lington had suggested a couple folks in Denmark. So I’m using recommendations and trying to intelligently walk in the dark, if you will, but it’s gonna be fun because I believe that the concept can work worldwide. I mean, it’s not just an American, you know, the Studio Jams concept thing.

Smitty: Oh yeah, I like that. You’re stretching out. I like that, man. I just have one question. Can I go?

TE: (Both laugh.) I’ll put you on first alternate. How’s that?

Smitty: There you go. Yeah, I’ll stand by, man, I will stand by. Actually, I will be at North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland during that time, but I love your adventurous concept.

TE: And you know what? I touched upon something that I really have to say too and that is the crew, my camera people. And the musicians have all been just wonderful about really tearing down the wall between artist and crew, so when we’re taping sessions and my camera men are literally two feet away from the fret board as the guitar player’s doing his solo, and he’s very comfortable with that. Now we obviously try not to get in a musician’s way, but they allow us into their world and that adds so much. My crew, they just love it. I mean, some of them are frustrated musicians themselves or they all love music, so they’re not just setting the camera up on a tripod and pressing “record” and watching it go down there. They’re as much part of the action as the players are.

Smitty: I noticed that too when I was in the studio. They are really into it and when you look at the DVD, you know it because they capture every essence of the jam session and the camera work is incredible, and I have to say something about the quality of this DVD. It is so sharp, it’s so crisp. I mean, when I look at James Lloyd, I see James Lloyd as I see him when we’re standing in some theatre. Gerald Veasley, you know, it’s like “Well, that’s him. There’s no doubt about it.” I mean, the camera work is pristine, it’s incredible, and the sound quality is magnificent, man. I really can’t say enough about the camera guys that you have working with you, the crew.

TE: Oh, thank you, Smitty. I’ll be sure to pass that on to them because, again, I feel blessed to be able to work with them and a lot of the camera people are proactively reaching out to me. “Tom, when’s the next session? When can we do it again?” I’m feeling pressure from my camera guys to keep doing the sessions, which is nice.

Smitty: Well, I have to ask you something. I mean, you’ve done so many of these great sessions.

TE: We’ve done about 30, to date about 36 or so, 36 episodes.

Smitty: Wow. How do you sleep at night after something like that? Good grief!

TE: You know, I tell ya, it’s kinda strange. Leading up to the sessions, it’s like playing three dimensional chess. Have you ever seen those three dimensional chess sets?

Smitty: Oh yeah.

TE: Where—and I’ve never played. I have trouble with two dimensional chess. But you’re playing diagonally on different levels and all this, and to put one of these together, sometimes it’s a little chaotic and so leading up to the session it’s a real challenge sometimes because one musician can come in at one o’clock but he has to leave at three and another guy needs to be picked up at the airport at ten of twelve and then he needs his amp picked up, and then he’ll do it, this other guy will do it, and this guy can do it if this other guy doesn’t. To piece it together sometimes is very challenging and I’m not complaining; it’s just that’s where the work really is, so then when we hit, when the session starts, it’s a pleasure from the moment they arrive to the moment they end, and when they do leave, invariably I’m always wishing like oh, geez, I wish I would’ve asked Pat Martino about such and such or, you know, I’m always kinda kicking myself a little bit.

Smitty: Yeah, I’ve done that here. (Both laugh.)

TE: Yeah, but then my camera men are pretty aggressive, so when a session—they’re pretty independent, so I might be working with one camera man working with the drummer and I look over my shoulder and I see that my other camera man is doing a little interview with the bass player, and so I don’t even know as it’s coming down what I’m getting, if you will, until after the fact and then the session’s over with and then next week I’ll log the tapes and look at the source material and I’m pleasantly surprised more often than not that wow, geez, that’s great. I’m glad that we got that comment from such and such. And so editing it is the challenge and editing is just what do we leave out? Because sometimes, well, as you know, at the sessions there’s just so much going on and I can only use 47 minutes of material for the hour-long show, and I gotta tell ya this too, and forgive me if I’m rambling here.

Smitty: No, no, no. I love it.

TE: As nice as some of the episodes do come out, some of the best material never makes it to air because—one case comes to mind. We had a session with Larry Carlton and Joey DeFrancesco and Gerald Veasley, and they did a rendition of “All Blues,” the Miles [Davis] tune. It would just give you goosebumps, but when it was all done it was about 12 minutes long and I was just like oh, man, it’s a little too long and I hate to, in editing, cut down their performance. I’ve done it, I think, twice but I like to use the music they produce as is and they don’t go back in and punch in mistakes or whatever. It is what it is. But this tune was so great and I had them do it again. I said “Oh, that was just killer, guys, but it was just too long” and they did a really nice job in the next version of it. It was, I don’t know, seven minutes long or eight minutes long, and they cut out a solo or something, and it was really still nice but in the back of my mind, every time I see it, I go “Oh, man, if you guys could only hear the other take.” And that’s the case with, really, a lot of the sessions. I mean, we’ve done like it’s what, 36 sessions? And if there are four songs I use from each session, there’s probably two or three songs that I don’t even use from each session so, yeah, I have more great stuff on my shelves that has never been seen as much as there is out there, you know? Which is really kinda neat.

Smitty: Yeah, you’ve got like the Fort Knox of jazz, you know?

TE: There are really some special golden moments and I try, when I can, to accommodate the musicians. When I first got started—I mean, again, I owe so much to Victor Wooten for the inspiration, I just love Victor—but early on I would try to produce these shows and I would reach out to musicians and say “Hey, you wanna come in and do a jam session? I’m not really sure who you’re gonna be playing with yet, but it’s gonna be fun.” And managers and artists would be, their initial reaction was “Well, wait a minute. You want me to come in and just jam with people I don’t know for TV? Uh, I don’t think so. Call me back after you figure out who’s gonna be there.” It was a struggle to put together the musicians. And I say struggle—the world is full of musicians—it just meant more phone calls, but now I have artists and managers and labels proactively calling me saying “Hey, such and such will be in town next month. You wanna do something with him?” So the job of putting the sessions together is…

Smitty: It’s at the other end of the spectrum now, trying to fit everybody in.

TE: Yeah, and it’s a different kind of challenge because it might be that a particular musician is coming through town but I don’t need to produce another episode yet or I can’t find a strong enough supporting cast, and I’ll ask a lot of these musicians when they’re working there and say “When we do this again, is there somebody that you’ve never worked with that you’d really want to play with?” And I mentioned Larry Carlton earlier and Larry has never met nor worked with McCoy Tyner, oddly enough, so I’ve always had in the back of my mind that whenever a session’s coming up or if I can reach out to McCoy and get him in a session, I know that Larry would be the first person I call. I want it to be enjoyable for the musicians.

Because I know that when that session does come together Larry’s gonna play his socks off and we’ll have a wonderful session. It’ll be magical for those guys. So I’m all about trying to—it’s all about the music, Smitty. It’s not about somebody’s marquee name. I’d much rather work with—for the lack of a better word, I’m just gonna call them supporting cast or the supporting players, the guys who are not the headliners but they are fantastic—or case in point, drummer Rayford Griffin. Rayford…I love him. Rayford has become, in addition to a dear friend, just one of my favorite drummers and he plays with everybody. You know Rayford.

Smitty: Oh yeah.

TE: And he’s done, I don’t know, four or five different episodes with me and he’s just a monster. There’s a lotta players like that who don’t get the recognition. And a lot of these musicians have done it three, four, five times because it’s important, much like a stereo system where your stereo is only as strong as your weakest component. I don’t wanna put together a band of four A-List cats and then bring in a drummer who just started taking lessons two weeks ago because the session will just nosedive, so I try to keep the bar high and if it is a bluegrass player with a rock player, let them be experienced and I know in my mind—if I know them personally, I know that they are at a level where they can adapt to one another.

I remember one session—and again I keep going back to Victor Wooten—but there was one session where after the session, and Victor was on it, I had said “Oh, man, Victor, I was about to invite a violin player from the Philadelphia Orchestra. Now, of course, the Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the finest orchestras in the world, so the musicianship of all those guys in the orchestra is fabulous, but I was just concerned that maybe this violinist wasn’t into the whole jazz improv way of doing things. He might be technically proficient and wonderful but he would have a difficult time adjusting to the rest of these jazz cats. And I said “You know, Vic, I almost called this violin player but I was just concerned about him not being able to adapt” and Vic said “You know, Tom, it’s not about him adapting to us as much as it’s us adapting to him, so next time invite him.”

Smitty: How cool.

TE: And I was like “Okay.” And it’s that attitude that was so refreshing, you know?

Smitty: Yeah, absolutely, man. Well, I just wanna say that this has got to be such a relaxed thing for the musicians because I noticed the smiles on everyone’s face and how much they really got into the music once they started to play. The cameras didn’t bother them at all and between sessions there was some food and you always have great food there for everybody to eat, some snacks, and then they get to come back into the studio and listen to just a snippet of the session. I mean, it was just a great experience and I think in some respects for the artists it’s like a sightseeing tour of their own craft. It’s an opportunity to hear what they do in a different setting, in a more relaxed setting. I thought it was just a fantastic thing.

TE: Oh, thank you. You know, that’s a keen observation. I sometimes take it for granted because as the sessions happen, I am kind of oblivious because I don’t even hear half the stuff that’s going down because I’m making sure that the cameras have enough tape stock and making sure that they’re recording in the studio. I keep one ear and one eye on the musicians but the other ear and eye are on the technical side, so I don’t fully appreciate it until I’m in the editing suite, and you’re right, though. They seem to enjoy it and it’s interesting to see the musicians—well, actually, there’s another musician—because little stories like this probably help a little bit.

Smitty: Yeah.

TE: Oteil Burbridge is the bass player for the Allman Brothers Band, but Oteil is a wonderful, wonderful jazz bass player but he’s well unrecognized as such because his bread and butter gig is the Allman Brothers and that’s blues rock, but he is in the same class of bass player as Jimmy Haslip and Victor Wooten, just a real monster on the instrument, and Oteil was saying that what he really liked about being on the show was that typically when he’s on television, whether it’s on the Tonight Show or Jimmy Kimmel and it’s with the Allman Brothers, that the television exposure that they have, they’re expected to either play the hit that everybody knows or else certainly play in the genre that people know them as, so Oteil’s playing Allman Brothers stuff every time he’s on television, which is great for the Allman Brothers and great for Oteil, but he said what’s fresh, what he loves about Studio Jams is that he can come in and just play what he wants, and that’s how I want it to be, you know?

A lot of people have asked me “Geez, can I come to the session?” or “You should sell tickets to this and have a little audience and that would be cool” but I don’t think I will ever have an audience for the reason that I think it’s too risky. I want the musicians, their mindset to be “Hey, I’m coming to play and have fun with my musical friends” and that’s what it is. You add an audience in there and then suddenly it’s a gig.

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.

Smitty: Isn’t that priceless? You have really created something special for artists and for fans, I think, and to be there for each session, it’s got to be such a dream and it’s gotta be an experience that you can’t get anywhere else, and I’ve said over and over to different people that Studio Jams has one thing that you just can’t get anywhere else. What you hear and what you see only happens once. That’s once in a lifetime, so you have all of these great once in a lifetime sessions and perhaps once in a lifetime that you will see each one of these great musicians in the same room together. You may never see that again because their diverse background and their travels. I mean, it’s truly once in a lifetime.

TE: Yeah, it is. I do feel blessed to be kinda steering the ship, you know? I’m not driving it, I’m just sort of steering it. The musicians make it happen. And one might think that you bring in all these musicians and oftentimes, well, actually over the years I’ve gotten to know a lotta these players in my travels, so a lotta times I feel like I’m working with friends or acquaintances, at least, when they come in, but sometimes I don’t know some of them from Adam, so there could be a train wreck. You bring in these great musicians and you just wonder is the ego gonna get in the way or are they gonna have these creative differences, but personally, as a producer, my mindset is I don’t mind running that risk a little bit because that’s where I think the magic really happens.

If I brought in an established band and brought them into the studio and said “Hey, why don’t you guys just jam?” To me, it’s not that exciting because these guys all know each other and maybe the rhythm section is so locked into one another, they’ve been playing together for ten years and even though they may be playing a new song, still the vibe is the same and it’s fun and everything, but it’s nothing special, if you will. So I don’t mind mixing it up and crossing my fingers and hoping there isn’t a train wreck. And again, I don’t take huge, huge risks bringing in people who I know have huge, huge egos or whatever, but nevertheless, there’s always that risk and what I have found is the opposite.

Where I expect there could be friction and there never is, and the opposite happens more times than not, whereas they’ll show each other too much respect, like “Oh, you wanna take the solo?” “No, why don’t you do it?” “You take it.” “No, I’ll take it.” “No, no, no, you take it and then I’ll come in on the bridge.” “Oh, okay, all right, then with the next song you can take it.” “Oh, okay, great.” And there’s this respect and sometimes I wanna go and say “Okay, you guys, quit being so nice to one another and let’s play,” you know? (Both laugh.) Yeah, the vibe is very, very good, very cool, as you well know. You were there.

Smitty: Yes, and I was totally blown away by the camaraderie, respect, musicianship, the fun atmosphere, and having seen most of them play at their own respective gigs many times over, this experience in your studio captured a side that was truly remarkable on all levels.

TE: Thank you!

Smitty: When you really think about what happens in each jam session, when the musicians leave and they go back to their respective environments of making music, do you think they take something away that improves or enhances their musicianship?

TE: You know, I don’t know. You’d have to probably ask them that because I think most of them view the session as an unexpected trip to Tahiti, you know?

Smitty: (Laughs) Yeah.

TE: But after the session, they get right back into playing their gig. And they probably look back on it and say something like “Yeah, I had fun last week at that Studio Jams session and opened my eyes in playing with those other cats that I can’t even remember half their names, but it sure was fun.” But they’re back to doing their gigs—because I tape it when they pass through town with their tour.

Smitty: Right.

TE: When you were there with Althea, I mean, earlier that day I did a session with Kirk Whalum and that was because Guitars & Saxes was passing through Philadelphia.

Smitty: Right, and Jeff Golub was there, too.

TE: Right. But after the gig he’s playing Guitars & Saxes and the next night he’s playing Guitars & Saxes, so, now, does it change them? I don’t know. I do know that there have been a couple of hookups after the fact that I’ve been real happy to say. I mean, Steve Oliver was on a session and he ended up working with the percussionist in the session that I had for a leg of his tour. They had just met at the session and so they hit it off and they hooked up, and some of the musicians, they’re always—at the end of the sessions, which are kinda neat because the sessions, we tape them during the day and oftentimes a lot of the players have to get out of there to go to sound check or travel to their nighttime gig, but they’re all grabbing their Blackberries and their cell phones and “Hey, gimme your number.” “Okay.” “Gimme your e-mail.” “Okay. Well, I’ll get back to you.” And it’s a sharing of information all with one another and it’s kind of neat to see them. That’s how I know that they enjoy it because the drummer is saying “Man, I really enjoyed your guitar playing. Gimme your info.”

Smitty: Yeah. The reason why I asked that question is I can see myself in that setting and I would say “I love the way Pat Martino went off on that and I wanna do something like that or I wanna see if I can get him on my next project.” And perhaps musicians themselves may have explored a territory that they had never been in themselves while in that jam session and say “Whoo, you know, I like that whole thing or direction and I think I’m gonna try something like that on this song I’ve been working on for my next record” or whatever and I see that as an enhancement of their musicianship in that what they’ve experienced in one of the Studio Jams sessions is an inspirational thump for them.

TE: Yeah, maybe.

Smitty: So, yeah, and just the mere fact of wanting to connect with the musicians that they had never met before, exchanging information, like you mentioned…..

TE: Mm-hmm.

Smitty: …..Says that there was something there that they had not experienced before that has significant substance. And I just wanna say, man, if there was ever a time where you wondered if this is worth it or do people really like it or do they get it, man, I wanna tell you right now, we get it and I appreciate what you’re doing with Studio Jams because it gives us a whole new fantastic dimension of these great artists and how they create music and how they communicate with one another musically.

TE: Oh, thank you, Smitty. I’ll tell you, one of the things that I do think about from time to time is that, I mean, I wear many hats for the shows. Sometimes I’m a fan, sometimes I’m a producer, sometimes I’m directing it, whatever it is, and I study television a lot. I watch a lot of television, good and bad television, because I just need to know what the landscape is, and so I look at shows that are on the air, even the hit shows, and I look at them and I say “Hey, that’s a neat show but it has a steady cast of characters and the idea is eventually gonna get stale.” And actually a musician friend pointed out, he said “Well, what’s really neat about Studio Jams, Tom, is it will never get stale with the approach that you’re doing,” and I believe he’s right because the world is full of musicians from all styles, and as you pointed out earlier in this conversation, I’m capturing this once in a lifetime moments and the world’s full of once in a lifetime moments, and ten years from now it might be totally different—I mean, every show is a different cast of characters and it’s not straight ahead, it’s not Smooth Jazz, every show has a totally different vibe and actually the players are writing the script when they lay it down, so it’s an unscripted show, so it’ll never get stale in my mind, you know? So as long as people keep watching, I’ll keep producing.

Smitty: Yep, that’s reality at its best, my friend.

TE: Yeah.

Smitty: Well, Tom, I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing and I just want to mention again the DVD. It is called Best of Studio Jams Volume 1. You can get it on the Web site at www.studiojams.com. Tom, thanks again, my friend, and best of everything with what you’re doing and I applaud you for it.

TE: Thank you, Smitty. It’s always a pleasure connecting with you. I look forward to when we can get together face to face again.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

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