You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - First Take Friday: Sharel Cassity

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

Join Peter in the listening room on First Take Friday as they pull up the first track from Sharel Cassity's "Fearless" AND Bonus interview with Sharel Cassity.Get your copy of the featured album: FearlessListen on SpotifyHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Learn more about Open Studio Pro: openstudiojazz.com/proInterested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

What's up, everybody? Peter here. Today we have a very special edition of the You'll Hear a podcast. A conversation with saxophonist composer and educator Shirell Cassidy that I had just a few minutes ago. I'm super excited to present to you guys. But it's also a first take Friday because we got to listen to the first take from her new record called Fearless, wonderful cut called Whimsie with some great side men and great performances from Shirel. So I think you're going to enjoy both the discussion and the music. So now I present to you a conversation with Sherell Cassidy.

What's going on to Shirel? Thank you so much for being here. How are you doing? Hey, I'm good. Thank you, Peter. It's so great to be here. Yeah, it's wonderful to have an esteemed guest, but most importantly, a player, an educator, fellow musician. And I know you're in town here in St. Louis for a couple of days doing some teaching.

How is that going for you so far? It's great. It's great working with all the students of whether. was to Groves High School. Yeah. Being in St. Louis again, close to family. Yeah, good stuff, good stuff. So you are just up the road from us.

I'm super jealous anytime I get to talk to a musician from Chicago because it is one. I know you're not originally from Chicago, but you've been there for a minute now, and I'd love to get your take on the scene there because I always love Chicago. Every time I played there, like just the audience, the energy, the history. I mean, we got some stuff happening here in St. Louis. But I mean, Chicago's like, to me, it's like New York, Chicago, New Orleans. Then the list sort of gets a little bit shorter. So how has your time been there since?

How many years have you been in Chicago now? I've been there for four years. Four years. Okay. So you're like a local. Yeah, I'm becoming. Yes, I'm becoming. And I love it because the scene supports me so much.

The radio station, the High Park Jazz Society, so many different organizations in Chicago support me very much. And we'll say Chicago's on, which is really nice. It's a nice feeling. Yeah. There's so much support for the music and for artists who are alive and out there doing it in Chicago. And the audience, like you said, is incredible. When you play at a venue in Chicago, it's mostly a Chicago audience of people who just love jazz.

And a lot of these people are well-versed in jazz. They know a lot about jazz. And so it's really nice to have that kind of community. Yeah. Yeah. Now, so have you found it, have you found yourself stylistically, like, you? changed or nuances changing since you moved from New York to Chicago to adapt to that really serious, I mean, you know, the Chicago audience, they know what they want and the blues might

be like one of those things, but like have you felt yourself change yet in terms of style? Absolutely. I've seen a shift in New York. I lived in New York for 16 years and I love New York too, but it was more about burnout and technique and, you know, being quirky. or tasteful or, you know, certain things. In Chicago, you've got to play blues. You've got to be in the pocket. You've got to make the audience feel something. Yeah.

And when you can make that connection, that's an amazing feeling. So for me, the last few years have been this paradox of trying to combine the two things, the two different ways of playing. Right, right, right. Now, how was it coming back? Because I know you grew up a lot in the Midwest. You're from Iowa originally, but you primarily grew up in Oklahoma. That's right.

Oklahoma's Midwest, right? It is. Yeah, yeah. I always forget. I'm like, where's the line there? But, I mean, did you find that, I mean, Chicago to me is kind of the prototype, you know, leader Midwestern kind of city. But it's its own thing, too.

But did you, was that kind of like coming back to your roots a little bit too? I feel now I look at that and I think that that's true. When I first made the move to Chicago, I wasn't necessarily thinking Midwest. I was thinking more strategically, okay, there's an international airport. My in-laws live there. It's a great jazz scene. And it was kind of a combination of. of things that I needed at the time.

But yeah, it's great in a lot of ways to be back in the Midwest. I also miss some things about the East Coast. I wish there was a place where you could have it all in one. But Chicago is actually a great blend of that. Yeah. I totally agree. I was just thinking like Chicago, it's got a lot of the advantages and kind of idiosyncrasies of the Midwest, but it is truly an international city.

and I think the level of musicianship, I'm always amazed there. I mean, a lot of musicians that I know you've worked with there, and I have as well. But then every time I go there, there's like new younger musicians, and like it's pretty deep there, especially on the jazz side. It's really deep. There's so many great rhythm sections. There are some insanely great saxophone players and horn players. And there's this level of mentorship that's happening there that I'm not seeing so much in New York.

When I arrived in New York, it was happening. People like Vincent Herring. We're running jam sessions and really pulling the coattails of the young players. Yeah. But now I don't see it so much in New York these days. And in Chicago, there's so many elder musicians that are mentoring. The younger musicians coming up, they're coming out to the gigs. They're recording.

They're taking notes. They're saying, what can I work on this week, Ms. Cassidy? Yeah. You know, so it's really great to see. Yeah, yeah. So you've been involved, I think, talking about mentorship and jazz education on a really deep level at some of the most, you know, hallowed and important institutions, how do you see, I mean, you went to the,

you went to the new school for undergraduate, right? And, you know, and then you went to Juilliard, you know, for master. So you really kind of had that, that New York, you know, top shelf experience with other great players and the best teachers and everything. How do you see, jazz education and how it's shaping, you know, your generation of musicians and then the next generation come along as you're teaching them with it being in this more formalized setting somewhat where there's access to gray players one-on-one and, you know, mentorship with, you know, small groups and stuff. I mean, stuff that I would have loved to have. I mean, when I went to to Juilliard, I had to lie until my piano teacher that I wasn't even playing jazz, he's like,

if you're playing jazz, you can't study with me. He's like, I don't want to, he's like, that's going to mess up your technique. And he was a great teacher, Martin Cannon. I mean, legend, I've learned so much from him. But I mean, like, things have changed really quickly. How did that affect you? And then what are you using from what you learn from that to affect the next generation now? You're right. They have changed very quickly, especially, I would say, in the last 15, 20 years. I too started out as a classical musician. And I thought that I had to completely give up classical to play jazz. And I did for 20 years, and I'm just now coming back to it. But going through all these different institutions that I was fortunate to attend. For me, at the time, in my brain, a 20-year-old

brain, it was my way of being in New York and playing. We didn't have a 50-second street. We didn't have a space where we could all go play all the time. I was still hanging out as small as and Cleopatra's Needle and all the spots to hang out and play. But it was kind of my way of being in the city. Later, when I went to Juilliard, I realized, okay, I'm getting this real education. The new school was also good. But when I went to Juilliard, it was a different type of education of digging back in the history. And I wanted validity. I wanted to know from the beginning of jazz to modern jazz and really do some digging to find out who I was and where I was coming out of specifically.

But jazz education, it's in a place now that's way better than it was. we have more real I don't say real but more professional musicians in the colleges in the universities than ever and I think that's a great thing as long as these musicians are also hip to education and some pedagogical techniques of teaching

and not going on tour all the time and I think that's sort of ending and we are getting a lot of professionals now that are really interested in education like yourself this is a fantastic program open studio is an amazing program by professional musicians, you know, incredible musicians, world-class musicians. And if you go to the conservatories now, such as Juilliard Manhattan School, Berkeley has,

you know, great musicians, any of these schools, you're going to find world-class musicians. I'm very fortunate to be at DePaul. It's a similar situation in the Midwest. DePaul has great musicians running the program, the heads of the program, and the faculty are professional musicians. and I think that's a great thing. So I think that has changed. But I think what is starting to be missed

is the real life experience of jazz where students, now anybody can learn jazz if they have the money or the talent to go to a school and get a scholarship or pay for it. Anyone can learn it if they go to the right school. But it goes back to that thing that Charlie Parker said, if you don't live it, it doesn't come out of your horn. So if you're not, for one, if you don't know why you play,

then we have a lot of more people than ever playing jazz, but not knowing why they play. Or if you're not going out on the scene to take part in the community of jazz, which is also really important, and learn from the people that are out on the scene, then you're also missing this aspect of community. And it seems like, you know,

everyone's in their little box learning how to play jazz. And I don't think that that's what the music is about either. But that community aspect, yeah, I mean, you've, for me, you've hit right on it and that word and that approach. And even like what you said when you went to the new school, it was about, oh, I want to get to New York where I can be a part of a community and find that community. And that was the same for me. It was just like a conduit to this mythical. Well, I guess it wasn't mythical.

It was a real place. But I think in our minds, I'm sure it was like, oh, we're going to find the new 52nd Street. But I think like Cleos and Smalls and, you know, Mesro and all these places now, and it's always cyclical. And the younger musicians always like, oh, it wasn't like when you guys were coming up. But there's always, you know, it's also up to the younger players to make it happen too. But I think that that, you know, those are just places, Bradley's. I mean, like I caught the very tail end of Bradley's and that was amazing. But it was never just the place.

It was about the community and connecting with musicians from, you know, well, now all around the world that are coming together for the music. And, you know, I wonder if younger musicians, especially ones coming up now, And that, you know, I've had to kind of adapt to the, you know, pandemic and quarantine period where it's like everybody was separate and stuff kind of stopped for a while. You know, how do you keep that community going? And then how do we come back together? But even on a bigger thing with jazz education, like how do we keep them from getting into this mentality of like, well, I can sit at home and learn everything, you know, from open studio or from wherever. And I don't need to go out and, you know, I can listen to the records and I have all this access. But you do still need that community.

You need that connection. you need to create what the next great thing is not just study what the past is. Right. And I hear so many people have excuses for not going out. Oh, I don't want to get vived. Oh, I don't feel good enough. Right. Whatever I might be or I don't need to go out.

Yeah. I hear that too. And really, ultimately, it should be about getting past those things. The music is about resilience. The music is about getting past roadblocks and burdens and things such as this. So if you're not going out for these, simple little or maybe anxiety or depression, whatever, you know, and those things are real things. But the music is actually about pushing past those things and creating something beautiful out of it,

creating joy or expressing how you're feeling. And so you have to learn to be a conduit in the midst of all of these roadblocks. Yeah, that's spot on. And I think about like, you know, if you love the music and you want to be connected with it and see if your contribution, you know, make your contribution. you know, make your contribution to the music. Like you use that energy to get past, you know, as you say, these very real things, anxiety.

I mean, when we're young and coming up, we don't know what we're doing it. It's hard to, like, reach out. I mean, you don't know how many young musicians are like, man, I want to be in touch. Can I get your email or phone number and I'll give it to them and I'll never hear from them. And I get it because I know that they're like,

I mean, not that I have any secret scrolls or anything to give them anyway. But, I mean, I do worry about younger music. Look, a lot of young people, Now they're afraid to make a phone call, right? So that's like, I got kids that are around that age, so I get it. But you've got to get over. I think that like you've got to let whatever fear, social anxiety you have, be trumped by your love of the music and figuring out.

Because anybody can be connected. Anybody can be connected with the music. And I think that I'm sure you know this better than anybody else. Like it comes down to if you can play and if you can bring something to the bandstand. And so I would just. encourage, like, I'm getting on my soapbox. Sorry. Sorry about that.

But, you know, it's like, encourage young folks to reach out and stuff. I think the way that we did when we were coming up in different ways. And I was actually not brought up to reach out. The one thing I could do was show up and play. Even if I was shaking or palms were sweaty, you know, everyone gets nervous. I would still play.

But the one thing I wasn't taught was to ask. And it took actually a colleague of mine at Juilliard to do. dial Jimmy Heath's phone number and put it up to my ear. Wow. And that's how I ended up playing with Jimmy Heath. Wow. Was that one phone call or writing emails for endorsements, even for gigs. And I wasn't one to ask.

Yeah. So I think that's also, like you said, very important to learn. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is you did. I mean, even if somebody else dialed the phone, you made the call still. You know what I mean? And that's, I mean, what a touch point and what like a possible pivot point in your life?

You know, I mean, Jimmy Heath, it's like that's that. that connection with the legacy, with the music, and that opportunity. But as you say, it's to ask. And I think that we have to, that has to be part of the education process for the younger folks that we give them, you know. Absolutely. And I also meet students where I ask them, what's your favorite bass player alive that you've seen?

What's your favorite trumpet player alive that you've seen play? And oftentimes, Zoom mentioned someone that's been passed away for 20 years. Right. Or 50 years, you know. Right. And I say, no, that's alive. And they haven't seen somebody alive that they've listened to. Right, right, right.

That's very important, too. Yeah, I heard a great, I won't name it. It was a great jazz pianist in an interview recently. It was like they were asking him about, you know, young jazz pianists, and he listed some different people. And I was one of the ones that he listened. And I was thought, I was like, really? There's some great, great, great, great young jazz pianists out here.

I'm not one of them. There's, you know, I mean, it's just that whole thing of like, you know, to the point of like, let's look at something a little bit more contemporary. Yeah, I mean, if you talk about great trumpet players, of course, Louis Armstrong is the OG, and that's where it all flows from. But, you know, that's not, it didn't stop. Lewis Armstrong didn't want it to stop with him, you know. And there's so much great stuff to be celebrated nowadays.

And I think that I am very encouraged, though, by like the, you know, kind of early 20s musicians now in New York and Chicago and other places and like Tokyo, different places I've traveled and I'll go out and hear music. Like, I think that the scenes are really happening and that there's a lot of great stuff. I think they need to do a better job of celebrating that and connecting. And I think all of us need to because, I mean, this music doesn't have an age. You see all these great groups with people of different age and that's the way it should be. But I think young people coming together and making local scenes and really pushing the envelope,

you know, exploring new venues and stuff is important. And a lot of times, even for them, they look back at previous genera. I mean, I get a lot of stuff because I came up in that early 90s kind of young lions thing. A lot of younger players are like, oh, man, I wish I could have come up then. Man, that was so cool with you guys. And I was like, I wish I could have come up now like you guys where you can just like go online and create a live stream performance anytime. Like if you don't have a gig, you can just make a gig at your house.

You know, I know it's not the same. But we didn't have that option. And so maybe that helped us in a way. We had to go out there and hustle in a way. but I think that there's a lot of exciting things that are happening and can happen, and I want to always encourage them to do things their own way, because it's not the early 90s. Thank God. We're not all wearing fanny packs.

Well, actually, they are wearing fanny packs again. That's a problem. But, I mean, you know, each kind of era has its thing. And when I actually hear the players, and I mean, I fall victim to that, too. People are like, what young piano players? I'm like, well, I love Sullivan Fortner, you know, Jonathan Battis. I've known these guys since they were teenagers. I mean, they used to come to my house in New Orleans.

But then I think about it. I was like, wait, those guys are like in their early 30s. They're not even that young anymore. There's like, you know, there's, I'm like, well, Jared Clay. I was like, well, he's not, but these are all folks. Yeah, but these are folks that I've known since they were, they were super young. But then there's all other ones coming up. And there's always going to be great players coming up.

And I'm never worried about that. But you know, the Young Line movement and it influenced me greatly. Hearing you on Josh Redmond's live at the Vanguard, spirit in a moment, that was a huge inspiration. Before I was really even playing, that was a. second CD I owned. Wow. And yeah, so there's such a huge part of the jazz history for me. Wow. Yeah. Well, thanks. And I mean, speaking of that, we're going to get to listen to some of your music because you are incredible player. And I'll just say that, you know, we got a chance to play together a few years ago right about a block from here at the Jazz at the Bistro, Jazz St. Louis,

on a really memorable gig. And I'm looking forward to us playing again in the very new future, I hope, you're just a monster player. And I think a lot of our listeners probably have heard you, but for those of our very astute listeners, well, you know what? They're not astute if they haven't heard you. But now they're going to get a chance to hear you. If they're astute,

they're going to keep up with you because you're really one of the, you know, top players out there, Chicago, New York, or otherwise. So I was thinking if it's okay with you, can we listen to something from Fearless? Sure. Okay. So this is an album. This came out.

You guys recorded this last year. Is that correct? I believe in... Or was released last year. It was released last year. It was in summer of 2019, we recorded it. Okay. And then 2020 was like a very long year.

So that year kind of started all blending. But, you know, we do a little thing here called First Take Friday. So this will actually kind of segue in Nice. And you will be our first official in studio guests to do this. But we like to take the first track of albums. Like basically Adam and I like to contradict ourselves. Because we're always like, to listen to albums all the way through.

And I'm a big believe. I don't know how you feel about that. But like I, not that I always do this, but I definitely didn't come up in the air of like you just jump around from one track to another. I'm like, if an album is worth listening to, it can really tell a story when you go all the way through. But I think this, hopefully this track will peak people's interest. And I invite them to acquire it.

And we'll have a link below to buy it or you can check it out on Spotify and that kind of thing. But the first track, can you kind of just tell folks a little bit about that this is whimsy? And this is your composition, right? It is. And it's, like you said, it tells the story. This is the beginning of the story, the beginning of this long journey. And the original title for this was actually begin again, but Nor Jones took that in the same year.

So I retitled it, whimsy, because it has this playfulness to it. So you might hear kind of elements of both titles. Okay, got it. All right. So here we are, whimsy. And this is Mark Whiffield, Jr. on drums, Richard Johnson on piano, ever heard of him? Alex Claffey on bass and Shirell Cassidy, saxophone leader and composer of whimsy. Hold on. Let me get back to the very beginning. Okay, here we go.

From Shirel Cassidy's Fearless. I sound like a NPR jazz DJ there or something. Right? That is awesome. That is, that's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I want to add, okay, can I just sort of lay out my ideas on this? And then you can tell me how off base I am or not. My first impressions, now full disclosure, this is, I've actually heard this before. But I'm kind of coming back to it. Like, I love this as a first track because I can hear a lot of what's going to happen in the album.

I feel like it's a great introduction and kind of like maybe some foreshadowing and kind of like, you know, this is the appetizer, but you get a little bit of the flavors of what's to come, you know, in terms of the composition, in terms of your playing in leadership, and then also, you know, with some individual stuff with all the different players and stuff. Am I spot on on that? Okay. Now, did you do that on purpose or did that just kind of unfold as you were making the record, or do you remember?

The record itself kind of unfolded. Okay. The tunes somehow ended up just unfolding into this kind of story and that was the beginning. Okay. And to me, when I hear that song again, it's about change because inevitably everything changes. And in those moments of change, I called it whimsy because I think it's healthy to keep a whimsical sort of attitude, not to be tied too much to anything in particular and just be open for what may come. Yeah. Well, okay, so it's interesting.

So you start out with the melody. It's super like relaxed. It's like swinging, but it's like very like, you know, it's lilting, you know. And then when you go into your solo, you're just like, I mean, talk about it's. change like you go right in you don't transition you like right in the pocket you're pushing you know mark woodfield junior you know gets on top like there's really good interplay between you guys richard like the comp and like you guys are dialed in but in a way that you know with this kind of you know i love listening to stuff like great musicians play where we can really concentrate

we got the headphones on in here we're dialed in but like you can feel the energy like in fact as it started to go to me it feels like it's speeding up it's not been like the energy speeding up. And so that was like my next thing. It was like, oh, okay, we're going to go somewhere quickly. This is not going to be like a slow transition. Like she's jumping right in. And I love that everybody listened to you and that that was,

because that's stuff that you can't like program in or say we're going to overdub or we're going to tell everybody, hey, we're going to lift the energy here. Like you can feel that interaction between you guys. Exactly. That's right. And so that was, yeah, that was the first thing that struck me on the solo and you're just like, you know, your sense of groove and then you're navigating. these really interesting changes, both the kind of changes you were just talking about in terms

of life changes, but there's a little bit of connection between the actual chord changes and how they shift around. But then you're pulling out some interesting blue stuff at the same time, like within your phrases. And then Richard, like, kind of catching some of that with the comping, which is really fun. And so, I mean, this is the type of track and album. I would just encourage everybody to check out, but also will really reward you, as do all great albums and great performances with repeated listening because you can kind of hear it through different lens and I'm sure next time I hear it out of your different things as well how do how do you how do you do you do you're kind of I mean you weren't like jumping up and

now but you were enjoying it you seem like you have a good sense of like being able to enjoy what you've done okay full disclosure on my part it is hard okay okay good I feel better because I'm like man I can never be that relaxed and listen to my stuff but I've learned actually something Orrin Evan said to me really struck once on one of his gigs is if you don't like what you play, how can you expect someone else to? So I've tried to learn to appreciate the things that I do like about what I play and what I do. So when I listen back, you know, it's not as painful the things that I'm missing. Because at the time I recorded this, I was also going through some physical things where I was dealing with some mild paralysis in my hands and doing exactly what my

mind, you know, told my hands to do. And so I was fighting through that, through this album before I was diagnosed and treated. And it was a little bit frightening, you know, to think when I recorded this, that this would be my last album. Wow. I recorded it when I did because I wasn't sure if I would be able to record down the road, even three months later. So I did it.

And when I listened back, I listened to a different person than I even heard two years before that or two years before that, you know. And so it's interesting just to hear the change and then think about where I am. am now and you know when you listen to your own music you hear all these different things that I think other people just don't have the reference of hearing yeah absolutely well that's well okay I understand the the title track and the title to the album being fearless that makes some sense too had I known we were going to have a pandemic and it maybe take on another meaning I would have retitled it maybe but yeah fearless meaning you just have to push through things it doesn't mean you

don't have fear yeah just means you have to be fearless yeah Yeah, it's great. That's great stuff. Yeah. And then the other thing I thought that was really interesting on this track was that, you know, there was, there was a great balance to it. There was, there was like the predictability of kind of how the form went, which I really like, like, in terms of like, you know, it went right into the saxophone solo, which is kind of predictable. But then there was balance in that you kind of attack the solo in kind of an unpredictable way. So it, like, it kind of makes you turn your ear in and be like, oh, okay, so she's going. there. Let's see if okay that's where they're going. So it's not just like it's not like maybe the most expected way to start the solo. So it makes to me to an attentive listener want to hear

even more. And then it went to the piano solo, which is in terms of the form, it's kind of predictable that it would go there. But it was a killing solo and like he kind of stayed in there in a way. It was almost still interacting with you as even when you weren't playing, which was cool. And then you played the melody and then it was so funny because I was hoping, I was like, oh, I hope they go to some kind of vamp because I want to hear Mark Bufield, and then you went to that. But it was like, it was a balance between the kind of predictability of good things. It's like you're eating a meal and it's like, oh, I hope this happens. And then there's some unpredictability, but there's also some things you can kind of hold on to. And I think that, you know, you guys can do that because the

level playing is so high. I'm like when some of these albums that come out and I hear and like, you can just tell they're trying to be tricky at every turn. And then there's not always a lot of substance to the playing. It's like they have to do that kind of thing. But I just thought it was a really well-balanced track, which I don't, for me, I don't think every track on an album has to have great balance. But I do think that the first track, it's important to have that because you're setting a tone for the, and then you can, like, a great track like this, it's kind of like

you can go anywhere you want afterwards, you know, because you've opened up some different doors, but you've also kind of welcomed people in and not maybe given the most unpredictable stuff. Yeah, you know, I'm sure you're going to get to that later. Absolutely. So, well, great. Well, I encourage everyone check this out. This is fearless from Sherell Cassidy.

Thank you so much for being here on the pod. There was this other guy who sometimes is sitting over here and name Adam something. I don't think we need him anymore. If you're available, he might have just lost a job. Drive to St. Louis. Exactly. So where should folks go? Shirel Cassidy.com.

I know you got a really nice website. They can check you there. What about social media? Is there a particular place you want to direct people if they want to interact with you? Twitter, Instagram. Instagram at Sherell, S-H-A-H-R-E-L-E. Okay. Or my name, spelled out.

Facebook is fine, too. Okay. You know, the social media thing. The usual spot. So look out for her there. Look out for hopefully Sherell coming to a city near you as that starts to get happening again, too. Yes.

So thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you for having me. All right. You'll hear it.