Getcha Some Productions Podcast Episode 81
https://www.jasonkeisermusic.com
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A podcast covering all things related to music production: from the first note to the last fan and everything in between. We create music and inspire others to do the same. Every episode is a live business meeting between me and Dan (me and Keith) as we build this media empire right before your very eyes/ears.
In this episode we discuss:
https://www.jasonkeisermusic.com
This is our interview with Jason Keiser. Born and raised in San Jose California. Jason has five siblings and he’s a twin. He loves to cook.
Jason starts out talking about the killer jazz in the San Jose/Bay area. Jason drops a lot of names so we’re taking notes. He mentions Mimi Fox, of course who comes up a couple times in the episode. One of Jason’s mentors, John Stowell, played in the LA jazz scene with Joe Diorio, and was in that GIT related to scene as well.
Jason’s older sister actually played guitar but didn’t pursue it further and that’s kind of where he picked it up a little bit but he comes from a big family where no one else was musical. No one else really pursued music. He really started getting serious about Guitar when he found out there was a jazz band in his high school and he tried out for it and got in and started learning. Jazz really spoke to him.
His grandpa was really into music. His grandpa played trombone in a marching band, and he was really into music like Creedence, Clearwater, Revival and Ray Charles. His dad, not a musician, was really into Music as well, and was always playing a lot of good stuff.
We listened to Jason’s jazz stuff in preparation for this episode, but he’s also into Bluegrass. Of course, he corrected us to say that he categorizes this other form of music as “Space Grass” or New Acoustic Music.
He leads a string band that fuses, Bluegrass and jazz, which is called the New Acoustic Collective.
Jason studied with Tony Rice’s, younger brother, Wyatt Rice. Jason recommends that we check out the Tony Rice Project. Their first record is called actually it’s called the Tony Rice Unit and the first record is called Acoustics. Tony Rice was David Grisman’s first guitarist.
The Modal jazz of the 60s had a great influence on Tony Rice and David Grisman. Speaking of space grass.
Jason mentions again, Tony Rice and Wyatt Rice as his two main influences when it comes to the more bluegrass side of things and the flatpicking technique on guitar. With respect to the jazz players, John Stowell is one of his mentors along with Mimi Fox both contemporary artists. He also mentions Joe Pass.
I wanted to take the technical efficiency of Bluegrass and bring that into jazz.
‘When I brought one of my space grass tunes to John Stowell, he said,”yeah man that’s cool. Reminds me of Al Di Meola.”’
He mentions his album the Axe Axis, which is one that I really like and it features both John Stowell and his other mentor Rick Vandivier.
Jason’s newest record called Shaw’s Groove is a tribute to Woody Shaw who’s probably Jason’s favorite trumpet player next to Kenny Wheeler.
The germ, or the seed of the idea for Shaw’s groove actually came from a Larry Young record, called Unity. Which Jason highly recommends. Elvin Jones on drums, which is Jason’s favorite drummer and it also has Joe Henderson on saxophone.
“If that record had never been done, I wouldn’t have done this new record Shaw’s Groove.”
Jason recommends checking out Woody Shaw’s record Moon Train. Also check out Little Red’s Fantasy.
Impetus for the project was first, Two Guitarists. He got John (Stowell) on board and John recommended. Erik Jekabson on trumpet
Need to make sure there’s a side bar to put out the links for Jasons Scofield interview, which is on his website.
“The Through line for the record, I was thinking about how to place these tunes how to use these tunes and place them a little differently.”
“I was listening to Woody Shaw for six months before recording this record nonstop and I’ve been listening to him nonstop ever since then.”
“I was listening for his use of Pentatonics and sidestepping you know like playing outside of the chord and then coming back in.”
Then he starts talking about this tune he recorded with his string band, which was written by his cello player who is is a classical player and is influenced by Shostakovich. The song is called the 11th cycle. It’s in the key of E flat minor, but it has a sharp 11.
“That’s probably the weirdest minor chord I’ve tried to play over at this point.”
“John (Stowell) can play free forever. He is such a beautiful sense of time.”
“I’m so honored and lucky to be able to play with him. I didn’t study with him formally, but I feel like I’m always studying with him.”
“I almost do more listening that I do playing because I know it’s gonna come out in my playing.”
“My goal was to be the worst player in the room. Hopefully that’s the goal all the time, right? My colleagues were playing all this awesome shit, and I have felt like I had to rise to the occasion.”
“The ovation that I use is a 1977 legend that was previously owned by my mentor Wyatt Rice.”
Jason also has a Godin fifth Avenue what he used on Shaw’s Groove.
Jason talks a bit about his record Conversations with Jason with Jason Day on piano. Jason day studied with Donald Brown who played with Art Blakey and the Jazz messengers.
“It starts with the hands man. No matter what guitar I pick up I wanna make sure that it’s what I want to be putting out before I even plugged in.”
Then we nerd out about pics for a little bit. Jason uses a pic that actually carved from an actual tortoise shell. He also highly recommends picks by the company blue Chip.
“I don’t know if you can hear it in my playing, but I really do dig in with my right hand.”
He also uses a pic from a company called charmed life. He also recommends picks by Tone Slab. The latterer to companies might make a custom. Some of his picks are custom ordered.
Jason is 28 years old
jasonkeisermusic.com
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