Jazz Monthly.com Interview with sophie milman

“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Sophie Milman

Smitty: It is certainly my wonderful pleasure to welcome back to Jazz Monthly one of the fantastic new singers on the scene. Fresh off her debut self-titled album, she has now created a wonderful new record. It is called Make Someone Happy. You must hear this great new record. She sings with such emotion and such a rare splendor of voice. Please give a very warm welcome for the incredible Ms. Sophie Milman. Sophie, how are you, my friend?

Sophie Milman (SM): I’m great. After that little intro, I’m even better.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

SM: Thanks, Smitty.

Smitty: Oh, you’re so welcome and it’s great to talk with you again.

SM: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Smitty: You have been on the go and this new record is fantastic, and when I first saw the album cover, I said “Oh, this is just another level of Sophie Milman. I gotta hear it.”

SM: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Smitty: And the record….such great song selections.

SM: Thank you very much. A lot of me went into this record, so I’m happy that people are appreciative of it.

Smitty: Yeah, and one of the things I noticed right away was the increase of emotion in your singing and the band accompanying you is just fantastic. You both fit so well in putting this record together.

SM: Thank you. Well, the band is definitely an integral part of this record and, really, my career. I got together with these guys, I would say, almost two and a half years ago, and the musical director and arranger, Cameron [Wallis]—he plays saxophone for me—and Paul [Shrofel]—the piano player—we’ve been together for almost two and a half years, and our drummers and bass players kinda changed for us, but John [Fraboni], who’s featured on the record, joined us last year, and Kieran [Overs] actually played just on the session and then we decided that it would be awesome if he could come on the road with us and he agreed, which was great. And because the band and I, really, the core of the band, piano and sax, we’ve been together for so long, they really have been really important in helping me shape my sound.

Smitty: Nice.

SM: So when it came time to make the record, we were all super ready, I mean, we’ve been playing the stuff and we just really get each other musically.

Smitty: Yeah. That’s so important.

SM: And obviously with John, him being in the band for a year, and Kieran is just an unbelievable musician, so everything came together really organically.

Smitty: Very cool. You also have just been super busy. You’ve been on the road. Talk to me about the European trip. I mean, you went back to some places where you’ve been sometime back. What was that like?

SM: The experience was great. I mean, I traveled to Paris and London and Berlin and Scandinavia, which was terrific, and playing showcases and doing media, and it’s just fantastic, I mean, to be traveling internationally promoting these records, promoting my career. It’s really something that I never thought would happen. Something that I couldn’t even have dreamt of and then last April to be on stage at the Virgin Megastore at the Champs Elysee, you know, the biggest record store in all of France.

Smitty: How cool.

SM: And they set up this huge stage and there was an unbelievable crowd and posters and everything. It was just really kind of surreal.

Smitty: Wow.

SM: But a great, great experience, a great experience.

Smitty: Sounds so exciting.

SM: To meet different audiences in different countries. I mean, every country’s different, they respond to music differently, and it’s just amazing.

Smitty: Absolutely. Now, when you visit these different countries, what was the most remarkable thing about their response to your music? What was most striking about their responses?

SM: Well, the most amazing place was Japan, and Japan is my biggest territory in terms of sales, and there I’m actually kind of a celebrity, sort of a star, if you can say that, because us jazz singers in North America, even if we do well, we live in relative obscurity. Not so much in Japan. I’ve traveled to Japan three times in the last year and going to be going back in August for another tour and we were touring there in December and the response was just incredible and they treat us like rock stars.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

SM: They are screaming and yelling and reaching out, and they just wanna touch our hands and people bring gifts. People actually—we were on stage at—I don’t remember whether it was the Blue Note in Osaka or the Cotton Club in Tokyo—and people were bringing us gifts right before the show.

Smitty: Oh wow!

SM: Or while we’re singing, and I kind of arranged them all on stage and it was just really, really cool, and just the level of enthusiasm is completely just over the top, and it’s really—it’s amazing because you feel so much love and you wanna give as much back.

Smitty: Oh, very cool. Now, this interview will be reaching your fans in Japan. What would you like to say to them now about that experience?

SM: Oh, I love you guys. I love my Japanese fans. I love my label there. JVC has done an unbelievable job. The people at Blue Note that we’ve been working with on our first tour—and we’re going back on a Blue Note tour again in August—everybody’s been unbelievable and professional and really taking good care of us, and the audiences are just—they make us wanna sing and play better, you know?

Smitty: Absolutely, yeah.

SM: It’s just such a level of love and appreciation that really is unparalleled.

Smitty: Very cool. Now, going back to the album, talk to me about how this whole concept of doing this album began because coming off your self-titled debut album, which I thought was just a total hit, how did you slip into this one?

SM: Well, the first album was a young girl—I’m still a young girl, but I was younger then—discovering her voice a little bit, you know? I came in with practically no performance experience, had three gigs under my belt, and then somebody said “Well, why don’t you make a record?” And I said “Well, why don’t I?” I was curious, I wanted to see where this would go, and I was in the studio and I was terrified and everybody’s heard the story before.

Smitty: Right.

SM: And I wanted to be kind of honest about it and choose songs—just my favorite songs, you know what I mean?

Smitty: Oh yeah.

SM: Nothing—no high art concept. There was no concept in my mind. I just wanted to give people a little musical introduction of myself, this is who I like, this is who I’m influenced by, this is the culture I come from. Here, enjoy, you know?

Smitty: Yeah.

SM: And there was a lot of innocence in it and there was a lot of inexperience in it, and it’s fine. I wasn’t shy about it. I was completely green. The second record we were getting ready to make following two and a half years of really intense touring and playing and growing, and nothing would grow a singer like touring. Nothing would grow a singer like going out there on the road and being in front of audiences and playing with a great band. That was my time to do that. Following the first record, it came out and started doing really well, and I found my life really changing and my music started changing because music has become really the best reflection of my life whereas before, when I was making the first record, music was something really fun, something I did as a hobby. Something I really enjoyed. Music—but it has a fault. Music is not always fun anymore. It’s work and it’s life.

Smitty: True that.

SM: And that is what I wanted to express on the second record, and all the turbulence of the last three years, all the ups and downs, emotionally, physically, just really trying to find myself and find my way, and there were so many firsts about this second record, really. I fell in love for the first time with a great guy and we’ve been together for almost two and a half years.

Smitty: Congratulations.

SM: Thank you. And just trying to figure out what my role is and how I can be a partner in a committed, serious relationship ‘cause I was like a kid before then, just playing around with guys and not really caring. Suddenly this thing happened to me and it came out totally unexpectedly. The first record, came out, started doing really well, the pressure mounted, I was in school full-time, I was trying to still….with the touring and with all the stress, to stay in a social life, I was trying to keep my band happy, I was trying to keep my teachers happy, producers happy, everybody happy, and a lot of the times at my own expense. So I had to kind of slow down and try to figure out what it is that makes me happy and that’s why we called the record Make Someone Happy.

Smitty: Ahh…

SM: After one of the most important tracks on that record, which I heard, again, two and a half years ago when the relationship was starting, and I just broke down in tears, and that was because superficially that song is a love song, but if you go deeper into the lyrics, it’s really about what it is that makes us happy.

Smitty: Mm…

SM: And, you know, “make someone happy and you’ll be happy too,” which is the core lyric. I don’t know if that’s necessarily true because you find a lot of artists who dedicate their lives to entertaining audiences and making them happy and they are themselves very unhappy individuals.

Smitty: Mm, yes.

SM: So the whole point of the record was kind of emotional, kind of highs and lows, and just trying to find myself and trying to understand my life, and so the song selection wasn’t actually very hard. I knew exactly what I was feeling and it wasn’t hard to find those songs that reflected what I was feeling.

Smitty: Very cool and I think that’s one of the striking things about this record that will attract so many people to it is that some of the things that you just mentioned are commonalities among people.

SM: Sure.

Smitty: In entertainment and at the other end of the spectrum as well.

SM: Absolutely. I mean, what we do in North America—and people outside of North America—but in North America especially, we work so hard. We work more than anybody else in the world.

Smitty: Yeah.

SM: And when we don’t work, we take care of people.

Smitty: Right.

SM: People take care of kids, people take care of elderly parents, and that’s something that’s really starting to be a real issue in North America with the Boomers and their parents and everything else, and at some point people have to—and in my own life, my parents live for their children in a lotta ways.

Smitty: Yeah.

SM: We, the children, live for our parents.

Smitty: You know, you’re right.

SM: Trying to make them happy, trying to satisfy them with grades, with achievements, with everything else, with attention.

Smitty: Yes.

SM: And that’s especially true in immigrant families….where the parents have sacrificed so much for the kids and the kids feel this responsibility to outdo themselves.

Smitty: Yes.

SM: Outperform themselves in everything and that doesn’t always stop in the relationship with the parents. It continues in school, it continues in professional relationships. You always wanna be at the top and that’s really hard. It takes a real emotional toll and it throws you kind of from highs to lows very quickly and that’s what I found my life becoming, and so the record is really kind of an honest portrait of me over the past three years.

Smitty: Well, I think everything you’ve said thus far, as we began to talk here.

SM: Mm-hmm.

Smitty: You can feel that in the music. It’s not only great music, but it’s a wonderful and emotional conversation with your audience, with your fans.

SM: Thank you.

Smitty: Yes, and I think that’s the beauty of the attraction to your music, which is a beautiful thing.

SM: Hmm, well, that was the point. The point was to make a much more personal record than the first one, to make a record that was more revealing of me.

Smitty: Yeah.

SM: And that’s gonna really not just, you know, “Here’s a girl that sings her favorite songs,” but was really “Here’s a girl with demons and happiness and fears and satisfaction and let’s get to know her.” So I think this record reveals a lot about me and hopefully people connect.

Smitty: Yes, and your live performances are such a wonderful evening and I think that’s a title that you can’t take away from your live performances, that it’s just a wonderful evening with Sophie Milman, which is fantastic.

SM: Yeah.

Smitty: So, now, you pulled off this record amidst touring, going to school…how did you do it?

SM: I don’t know. Honestly, people ask me as if like I can give them a formula to overexertion and I don’t actually recommend it. (Both laugh.) I think I need to slow down at some point, but this past year has been truly insane, I was touring around the States in the first semester, then I went on a trip, then I toured a lot of Canada, then I went on a trip to Europe, then I came back in time for final exams. Right after final exams, the following day, the day after I wrote my last exam, I was on a plane to Tokyo to play ten shows in five days, and in January we came back, I was touring again in the States and then started school again. In February we were in the studio, right? So it was really intense and crazy, but I was just so ready to make a record.

Smitty: Yeah, yeah.

SM: You know what I mean? When you’re on a label, they have an interest of putting out a record and exploiting it as long as possible.

Smitty: Right.

SM: As long as they can make some of the money back, you know?

Smitty: Right.

SM: Where as an artist, I was ready. I mean, honestly, it’s been—I recorded that first album in 2004. That is a long time. My sound has evolved, my live show has evolved, and I was just ready to connect with those feelings and to make another record, and so the choice would have been to do it in February with all the craziness and madness or to do it in the summer, but then I wouldn’t have a record right now, I wouldn’t be on the festival circuit, and I would’ve had to be performing the same stuff from the first record. And don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed that first record and it comes through great live—but I don’t know if it’s me anymore so much.

Smitty: Yeah, it was just time to do it.

SM: Some of the songs we still perform and we still really enjoy, but I’ve moved on, I’ve grown up.

Smitty: Yes, you have.

SM: So, really, I took the hit and we were in and out of the studio in a week, and as soon as the week was over I had to write midterms that had been deferred. And I just had to bite the bullet and do it.

Smitty: Very cool. Now, I’m sure that your producer, Steve MacKinnon, has been a wonderful help to you and just a serious plus for your career. Talk about working with him.

SM: Well, Steve…I first met him right before I made the first record, we were supposed to work together and something didn’t work out, and then I totally just—I forgot the whole thing, and right before we were starting to think about the second record, I heard a record by Molly Johnson. Do you know her?

Smitty: Yes, absolutely.

SM: Yeah, she’s a great Canadian singer.

Smitty: Yes.

SM: And a record that he had just finished working on and had just come out, and I was just blown away by it. I mean, this guy knows how to work with a singer. He has an unbelievable amount of respect for singers and that’s not necessarily true for a lot of producers. So I needed to find somebody who I felt respected by, because I felt like I had so much more to say on this second record and I would not be put down and told “Just shut up and sing.” I wanted somebody who would get performances out of me that I didn’t even think were possible.

With Steve it became just that. We agreed that we need to take this record to a quite different place than the first one and we had to create a different sound to reflect the fact that my sound has changed and we can’t just pander to the same stuff. The recording experience was just amazing. It was truly unbelievable because he definitely pushed us and he worked us hard because you don’t get 15 tracks in seven days without really working a lot. He was pushing us and getting us to get out of our comfort zone a little bit, but it was really a very organic, respectful process between me, Steve, Cameron, who arranged most of the tunes, and the engineer and the rest of the band. Everybody just really we came together in this creative atmosphere. It was fantastic and I think all that love, you can hear that on the record.

Smitty: Absolutely.

SM: You can hear that it wasn’t forced, it wasn’t pushed, you know. It was just something that came together really nicely.

Smitty: Yes, it has certainly been a giant step in the direction of international stardom for you.

SM: Thank you.

Smitty: Yes indeed, and I applaud you and everyone involved with this great record, and I really think you have a lot of great things that will happen beyond what has already happened with this record, just fresh out on the scene, because it just dropped just recently, so…

SM: Mm-hmm.

Smitty: Yeah, it’s a beautiful record.

SM: Thank you.

Smitty: And I really love what you did with the song “Matchmaker, Matchmaker.”

SM: Yeah?

Smitty: It’s my favorite song on the record. (Laughs.)

SM: Really?

Smitty: Yeah.

SM: Cool. That’s my second favorite song.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

SM: But I’m happy to hear that. I’m happy to hear that.

Smitty: Yeah, because it was such a distinct, different song of all the songs, for me. Everybody has their own choice, but that one grabs me more than any of the other songs. They’re all great, but that one just stands out for me.

SM: Yeah, I love that one too. Listen, it’s obviously from Fiddler on the Roof.

Smitty: Mm-hmm.

SM: Definitely my Jewish connection, it’s just kinda my soul coming out. That’s my favorite musical by far and I’m a huge musical fanatic, so if I had to choose, it’s really a close call between the Bernstein musicals and Fiddler, but Fiddler wins ‘cause it makes me cry every time I watch it. And the song just spoke to me. Again, it was a song that I decided to do two and a half years ago when I started working with Cameron and this was actually the first arrangement Cameron ever wrote for me. That one and “Make Someone Happy.” And the reason “Matchmaker,” other than the fact that it’s an awesome tune and really kind of really makes me feel Jewish and homely, which is what I really am, a personality, but my boyfriend and I were also set up by not a professional Jewish yenta matchmaker, but somebody who might as well be one. He’s a great piano player in Toronto named Ron Davis and he set us up and so I love singing that song ‘cause it reminds me of that experience and it took a whole new meaning again. Listening to it as a kid and listening to it as an adult in a relationship, and it was really cool.

Smitty: All right. So, now, what’s up for Sophie Milman now? I mean, you’re on the road, you’re doing your thing, what’s coming that you want all the fans to know about?

SM: We’re now in the middle of a Canadian tour and gonna be playing some great shows in Toronto and Montreal Jazz Festival, and we’re making a DVD as well at the Montreal Jazz Festival, so people should watch out for that.

Smitty: Oh, wow.

SM: And the record comes out in the States in late August, then we have a lot of dates, especially California.

Smitty: Oh, cool.

SM: And going back to Yoshi’s, which I’m very excited about. There’s also a performance at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola in New York in August as well.

Smitty: That’s a great place.

SM: Yeah, I’ve been there listening to music. Honestly, the most beautiful acoustically unbelievable venue. You can hear a needle drop there. Unreal.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

SM: And very excited about that, and going back to Japan again for a week in August, four performances at the Blue Note in Tokyo, which I’m really excited about, and then after doing the California run in the States, going on a Southeast Asian tour that’ll take us from the end of August to the beginning of September, and, again, discovering new places, which I really always love, and that’s it and the record’s gonna come out in Europe and we’ll see where it takes me. Hopefully there’s gonna be a lotta shows and more records to come.

Smitty: Somehow I think so. (Laughs.)

SM: I hope so.

Smitty: Well, Sophie, I can’t thank you enough for sharing such a great experience in making this record and sharing this wonderful music, not only with myself but your fans and audiences around the world. It’s just incredible what you’re doing musically and it’s great to be a part of that and be able to get a window on your life and your musicianship through your music.

SM: Thank you, Smitty.

Smitty: You’re so welcome.

SM: Very sweet. Thanks for having me.

Smitty: Always a pleasure, my friend. We have been talking with the fantastic and amazing Linus recording artist Ms. Sophie Milman. She has a great new record out. It is called Make Someone Happy and trust me, that title is very appropriate, especially once you hear this wonderful record. Sophie, thanks again and all the best for you in 2007 and beyond, my friend.

SM: Thank you very much, Smitty.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

For More Information Visit www.sophiemilman.com and www.linusentertainment.com and www.myspace.com/sophiemilman