Jazz Appreciation Month 2025: Finding My Own Way to Jazz Musicianship

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This week's Life Note, talking about my own journey to jazz music,
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in honor of Jazz Appreciation Month.
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Music.
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Welcome to Life Notes from Chair 17, a podcast dedicated to sharing life stories,
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wisdoms, and inspirations as we navigate life's journey.
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Now enjoy this week's episode.
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Alrighty, welcome back in, friends, to another episode of The Life Notes from
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Chair 17. I am your host, C.H., and I thank you once again, as always,
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for finding me in this corner of the podcast universe.
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And as always, I'd like to start off by thanking our returning C-17ers for your continued support.
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And this does include our returning international listeners who are checking
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networks, as it really does help us continue to grow our C-17 community.
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I know everyone hears this constantly these days, but like, share,
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you are aiming to do that because you have been enjoying the content of this podcast.
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But if you are tuning in for the first time, maybe you've just found us on one
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of the major podcast platforms or via our website out on LifeNotesFromChair17Podcast.com,
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or perhaps via a share out within your community or a community,
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a warm welcome in to you.
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Thank you very much for wanting to check us out. We hope you like what you hear,
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and you will want to continue to tune in.
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All right, so as I sit down to record this episode, it is going to be the first
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episode to air for us in the month of April 2025.
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It will actually air in the first Friday of April 2025, and April happens to
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be Jazz Appreciation Month.
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Now, full disclaimer, I only really just have learned this in the last couple of years.
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Because I have been participating in playing jazz music, so I will own that I did not know this.
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And very much like Women's History Month for March of 2024, we didn't do anything.
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We probably should have.
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We obviously didn't do anything for April 2024 as it pertains to jazz.
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I thought I would, again, make a few amends and do an episode in honor of Jazz
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Appreciation Month. but talking more about my specific journey into this musical genre.
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Now, those of you who have been listening recently or long-time listeners and
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are listening on a regular cadence, you know that we just recently did a Share
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the Chair episode a few episodes back with Toby Stone,
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who is a professional jazz saxophonist here in the greater Seattle area,
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and she also happens to be my first true music instructor,
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as we talked about in the episode.
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So if you have not listened to that and are curious to hear an actual professional's
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journey into jazz, I would highly recommend giving that a listen,
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especially to honor Jazz Appreciation Month. But...
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So that said, as I was kind of crafting this episode, I decided I wanted to
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spend time talking about my journey to the musical genre because I really was
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not a fan for most of my life.
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So it is something that I—and by that, I should preface that by saying it wasn't
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as if I really was absolutely against the music or anything.
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It just wasn't the music that I was intentionally listening to,
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and I will put an asterisk by that because we'll talk about actually how much
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it was really a part of my upbringing.
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But I really have come to appreciate jazz, the genre, its origins.
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Its history, much, much later in life.
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And it is very much tied to my return to playing drums after about a 10-year,
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I guess it was probably about a 10 or 12-year break.
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And, of course, that is tied also to the COVID pandemic because that is when
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I decided to pick them back up as we were all locked in our homes trying to
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figure out what to do with ourselves.
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And sidebar, for those of you who do want to know my entire journey to drumming,
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I did a Little Drummer Girl episode a while back, and it's funny because I still
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do get feedback on that episode sometimes where people ask me,
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so you really did not actually play a drum set for the first 10 years of your drumming journey?
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You really played your bed mattress?
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Seriously? And I always have to go, yep, I did. because my mom wouldn't let me play.
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But I digress. So I will put links to Toby's episode. I will put links to the
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Little Drummer Girl episode.
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And of course, I will do my best to put links out to the things that I mentioned
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in this episode right now.
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But I do feel it's important to call out sort of the connection between me taking
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an interest in drums and sort of the style of music that I was drawn to when that happened.
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So I was obviously in my grade school days, in, you know, 6,
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7, 8, 9, 10, and when I was at that age, I was purely coming at music from a pop rock angle.
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Full stop. 100%.
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And I did not really know much about jazz, just in general, right?
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I will even go out on a limb and say that I probably at that age was thinking
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it was something that was related to old people's music. Please don't hurt me.
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Again, childhood naivete.
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I didn't necessarily get drawn into it, and I couldn't quite figure out what
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it was, because I laugh thinking about this now, as it is clearly not old people's
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music. It is some of the coolest music out there.
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But I also was thinking, why did I think it was old people's music?
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And saying this now as somebody who could be seen as an old person.
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The reason that this is sort of the characterization of my initial thoughts
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about jazz as a super, super young kid is because every time I went to visit my grandparents.
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Specifically on my mother's side of the family, there was jazz music playing
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in the background in the house.
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And it was, of course, not something that I could identify or even really wanted to listen to.
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And so when you are that age, 8, 9, 10, whatever, you just think it must be
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old because, well, your grandparents are old and they're listening to it and
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so I guess it must be old music.
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No. And,
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I'm quite proud of my evolution into getting past that and, of course,
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embracing it now much later.
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But when I do think back on this and I think about where I am now in my musical
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drumming journey, but just in music in general,
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I really do call myself out on thinking how naive I was to categorize jazz that way.
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But that was the only way that I was hearing it for the most part.
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Or let me say it was the only way that I was consciously aware that I was hearing
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it. It was tied to going to visit my grandparents.
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But what I didn't realize, and I certainly realize now,
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is that my grandparents technically grew up in the classic,
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we'll call it classic swing jazz era of 30s, 40s, and 50s, They literally were
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teenagers during what is often referred to as the heyday of jazz,
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which includes the time period in which my grandfather was of the age where
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he did serve in the Air Force in World War II.
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So if we think about what I was hearing in the house, so Duke Ellington,
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Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker,
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Glenn Miller Orchestra, Benny Goodman, Chad Baker,
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probably was hearing Nat King Cole as well, and then later as we move, Frank Sinatra.
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Rat Pack, Dean Martin.
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I was hearing all of this as various musical showcases at the different times
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that I would go visit my grandparents.
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And that is ironically later realizing what I have been drawn into playing as
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it pertains to jazz music.
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And there is a familiarity that I realized, kind of put the pieces together all these years later,
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that I had this, when I started having songs put out to me in jazz night school
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to start playing, I'm going, why do I know these songs? Why have I heard these before?
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Maybe not, you know, I had to kind of learn how to read a lead sheet and sheet music.
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But when we would all start playing in the combo in the room,
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the song would start to play and I'd go, huh, I have heard this before.
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Why have I heard this before? Well, in my very, you know, amateur analysis here, it has come,
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kind of, from this osmosis way of having inadvertently listened to it as a very
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young child when I would go off and visit my grandparents.
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But at the same time, it's not just that style of jazz that was also playing
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in the background of my childhood and my teenage years and then even in university
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years. I have to also acknowledge.
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That my stepfather was a massive Brazilian jazz fan, and he always had it playing
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in the house. And I admit, I didn't even know what that music was either.
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I knew it was Latin, right?
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I knew it was quite pleasant to listen to, even though I was probably in my
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teenage angst years and didn't appreciate listening to it.
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I used to just call it, oh, that's his music and great, okay.
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And as I come into, again, learning the different styles of jazz and learning
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the different ways to play.
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It's all I can do to try to learn to play Brazilian jazz properly on the drum kit. It is not easy to do.
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It is a weakness in my playing. I wish I could sound as good as some of the
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great Brazilian jazz drummers because it is just a lovely, personally for me,
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I just love the sound of it.
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So one day maybe I will get there.
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But that was also playing sort of in the background of my childhood on repeat.
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So I was getting classic swing era. I was getting Brazilian jazz modern.
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And then I also was, since I was born in Los Angeles and lived in Southern California
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for a good portion of my life.
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It was out of the LA radio market where we had 94.7, The Wave, which was smooth jazz.
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And I swear, someone could probably look up that this is true.
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I don't care where you go.
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That radio station played in shops and restaurants and in the backgrounds to
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just pretty much anything and
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everything because they played a lovely variety of jazz on that station.
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Whether you were in a commute, whether you were just needing,
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you know, working at your office during the day.
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Also had my aunt and my mother playing that, as well as my stepfather,
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in the background as well.
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So I had these three groups of jazz, let's call it jazz styles,
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playing in various ways in the backgrounds of my upbringing.
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And so we've got grandparents doing classics, standards, old school heyday.
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We've got my stepfather doing Brazilian jazz, playing that on a loop with his favorite artists.
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Then we've got my aunt and my mother, and then pretty much just lots of places
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in Southern California playing 94.7.
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That also includes my stepfather. And so it leads to this unique collision because
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I was absolutely in my own listening, a pop rap girl, even some country thrown
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in there, country rock occasionally,
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for like Shania Twain back in the day.
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And I was not listening to jazz on my own intentionally, but I was surrounded by a family who did.
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So I couldn't quite say I had never been exposed to it or I'd never heard of it.
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No, I just wasn't choosing to listen to it on my own.
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And what is funny when I think back about how much, so if we go from what,
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what is this, seven, eight years old, probably into like 20s and 30s.
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I mean, that's, you know, 20 plus years of listening sort of subconsciously
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or subconsciously to jazz and developing a sense and a feel for what the music is,
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only to then end up playing it later in life as I approached my midlife,
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right, half century or old.
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And in thinking about that kind of influence, no one played an instrument though, right?
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So I'm not coming out of a family that was musicians or a lot of musicians or
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I was drawn into any kind of specific jazz musicianship. No.
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My grandmother had an organ, but I cannot recall ever hearing her play it.
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I know my other grandmother on my dad's side of the family, so she had a great
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love of Hawaii, so she had a ton of ukuleles, but I don't remember ever hearing her play them.
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She probably maybe did, but I did never hear that.
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My dad, funnily enough, always wanted to learn the trumpet, but he didn't.
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He kind of started, and then he kind of gave up on it.
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That's it. That's all I can really kind of connect dots with any musicianship in my family.
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So for, I guess I'm kind of the only one, really, at this point.
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But the irony, especially on my mom's side of the family...
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There was this appreciation for listening to it or coming out of an era where
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her parents, my grandparents, grew up listening to it.
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Her second husband decided and was very interested in the genre,
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plus her own interest in that.
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And as we know, right, kids soak up their surroundings and the environments
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that they're in at a very young age. I absolutely did this as it pertained to
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jazz music and the genre, even if I wasn't aware of it at the time.
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And even if I remained really focused on,
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let's say, listening to pop and rock, I would have never guessed that I would
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have ultimately started or leaned into playing this style of music,
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playing jazz later in any capacity back then.
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So there is sort of a lovely nostalgic look back of going, wow,
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this genre was kind of surrounding me, almost like hint, hint,
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hello, that I wasn't paying attention to.
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But I ultimately got there. And if we do cut to, you know, the COVID pandemic
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era and everybody picking up those hobbies again to try to pass the time,
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it was really then that I got not only back into playing drums,
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but then realized I personally had changed my own musical tastes.
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So I started back playing drums thinking, yeah, I'm going to pick it up.
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I'm going to play pop rock again like I had before. I'm going to plug in my phone.
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I'm just going to run my playlist. No big deal.
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And I just wasn't feeling it. And I just felt kind of, eh, no,
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this isn't really feeling great for me.
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While at the same time, I had started to listen to more jazz just on my own.
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And also really specifically around holiday music. So, you know,
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those early holidays of the pandemic where we were kind of, you know,
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doing virtual holidays.
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I started listening to a bunch of holiday jazz and I had the drum set there or the drums in my space.
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And I thought, hey, I wonder if I should just like sit down and start playing to these.
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And that was a big, big influencer as well and really made me start to go, huh.
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So I sort of shifted my own musical listenings anyway. And now I'm also kind
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of really much more into holiday jazz music than I was at any time before,
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and I was already pretty into it.
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I wonder if I could maybe, you know, start to play some jazz tunes.
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And voila, here we are today. So,
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I love kind of, this is, I don't know, right, I'm still very early in my jazz
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journey, and a lot of very seasoned jazz musicians or people that have been
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around jazz a very long time, it's basically a lifelong journey.
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You don't ever master it. It's not something that you sort of learn,
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you're done, it is forever.
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Probably make that argument about any musical journey.
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But my current instructor has told me that I have some sort of natural tendency towards it.
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He can observe that as him not being able to replicate some of the things that I'm doing.
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And I think, okay, well, to be fair, he's quite a skilled, like,
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he can write for orchestras and kind of thing.
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So he's quite a multifaceted musician.
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And he asked me, you know, how often do you practice or how often do you,
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you know, really focus on trying to develop technique?
00:19:17.840 --> 00:19:25.820
And I said, in the words of beloved British actress Olivia Colman, who often gets asked.
00:19:26.642 --> 00:19:31.902
If she prepares for her roles and she always kind of does this sort of squeamish
00:19:31.902 --> 00:19:36.582
turn away from the question because she actually doesn't do a lot of practice
00:19:36.582 --> 00:19:41.562
and she doesn't do a lot of prep versus some actors who go very, very deep, right?
00:19:41.662 --> 00:19:43.702
And she's just brilliant in anything that she does.
00:19:43.862 --> 00:19:48.582
I am not, by the way, equating myself to Olivia Colman, but I don't spend a
00:19:48.582 --> 00:19:53.322
lot of time focused on just drilling and drilling and drilling and drilling
00:19:53.322 --> 00:19:55.502
and drilling. for me when I play.
00:19:55.782 --> 00:19:59.702
I'm very focused on what are the songs that I'm currently needing to learn,
00:20:00.442 --> 00:20:05.542
and what are the things that I am trying to lean into playing more that might challenge me a lot,
00:20:05.542 --> 00:20:11.302
but I learned a valuable lesson that you can sometimes burn yourself out if
00:20:11.302 --> 00:20:16.142
you try to drill and drill and drill all the time on playing.
00:20:16.302 --> 00:20:18.702
Now, sometimes this works for folks, and if it works for you,
00:20:18.802 --> 00:20:23.482
if you're a musician out there, that is okay. Don't change what you're doing.
00:20:23.622 --> 00:20:28.042
That just doesn't work for me. So I try to really be thoughtful and maybe even
00:20:28.042 --> 00:20:32.842
very lean and budgeted on kind of how I approach playing.
00:20:32.962 --> 00:20:39.782
But a lot of it to me is feel, and it also is playing along to songs that I like.
00:20:39.962 --> 00:20:43.942
That has really always been my approach because I'm not formally trained.
00:20:45.022 --> 00:20:48.002
But oftentimes instructors will tell
00:20:48.002 --> 00:20:50.942
you that can sometimes be one of the best ways to learn an instrument
00:20:50.942 --> 00:20:53.582
is to play to the songs that you like and so I have a take in
00:20:53.582 --> 00:20:58.722
that approach to jazz which of course if you do know how difficult jazz is to
00:20:58.722 --> 00:21:04.462
really truly master right that seems sort of like a hack approach or a footnote
00:21:04.462 --> 00:21:11.322
approach but it's worked and it's brought me into this genre that if you had said to me back in,
00:21:11.442 --> 00:21:14.002
let's say, my 20s, my 30s, even my teens,
00:21:14.262 --> 00:21:17.162
I would have said to you, there's no way I'm going to end up playing that,
00:21:17.262 --> 00:21:19.942
or there's no way I'm going to end up defaulting to that.
00:21:20.242 --> 00:21:22.202
But alas, we are there.
00:21:22.982 --> 00:21:28.962
And it has been a really important part of my, I'm going to call it my musical
00:21:28.962 --> 00:21:33.462
evolution, and also fully stepping into calling myself a musician.
00:21:33.702 --> 00:21:40.302
I never really did that before. I'd gone down this path of Leaning into learning jazz,
00:21:40.902 --> 00:21:45.302
Finding jazz night school here in Seattle Finding bands in which to play I had
00:21:45.302 --> 00:21:49.182
always danced around Calling myself a musician Because I had only really ever
00:21:49.182 --> 00:21:54.422
played for myself In my room To the radio To pop rock So I'd always say Oh no,
00:21:54.542 --> 00:21:58.542
I just play drums But now I've stepped into being able to say No,
00:21:58.682 --> 00:22:04.022
I am a musician And even further than that I am a jazz drummer And End.
00:22:04.740 --> 00:22:11.100
I attribute this period of my life and kind of coming to appreciate jazz later
00:22:11.100 --> 00:22:18.060
on my own and then tying that to my own style of playing the instrument that I play.
00:22:18.520 --> 00:22:20.260
It's all kind of a package deal.
00:22:20.780 --> 00:22:25.640
But I will say, to be fair, I do still sneak in some pop, rock,
00:22:25.860 --> 00:22:30.120
some indie stuff from time to time, looking at you, Folklore and Evermore.
00:22:30.120 --> 00:22:34.120
So thank you Taylor Swift for those two albums because I actually really love
00:22:34.120 --> 00:22:38.200
playing along to them because some of the you can kind of be really creative
00:22:38.200 --> 00:22:42.320
but I will digress and not bore you with that but I do love those albums so
00:22:42.320 --> 00:22:46.280
I'm not saying that I don't sit down and play to some of my favorite,
00:22:46.820 --> 00:22:53.460
whatever songs of the moment but what I've learned about jazz and really in
00:22:53.460 --> 00:23:00.600
music in general is that we come to whatever the genre is in the way we are meant to come to it.
00:23:00.780 --> 00:23:05.680
Could be at a young age, could be at an older age, but something resonates.
00:23:05.880 --> 00:23:10.240
If you are a musical person or you love music, even if you just love listening
00:23:10.240 --> 00:23:15.280
to it, going to see live music, some version of something speaks to you about
00:23:15.280 --> 00:23:18.620
whatever your genre is that is the one that you follow.
00:23:19.420 --> 00:23:25.700
And it is something that leaves an imprint, we could say, or it ignites a spark.
00:23:25.700 --> 00:23:28.660
And if you happen to
00:23:28.660 --> 00:23:31.940
be one of those people that you can pursue it potentially
00:23:31.940 --> 00:23:34.720
to make a career out of it or become a
00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:38.520
professional at it that's a real gift and
00:23:38.520 --> 00:23:41.700
as they say you know hindsight's always 20 20 I probably
00:23:41.700 --> 00:23:48.160
should have leaned way more into my interest in music in general during my university
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:53.740
years like I should have just taken some elective classes or maybe even minored
00:23:53.740 --> 00:23:57.000
in it I don't know that I could have gotten away with majoring in it because
00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:00.720
I think I would have had some pushback from the parentals on that,
00:24:00.900 --> 00:24:05.920
but I could have just joined a band or something. I didn't do any of that, right?
00:24:06.440 --> 00:24:11.100
Of course, then it would have been as a pop rock person, but I do,
00:24:11.600 --> 00:24:16.560
you know, you don't ever want to get up in age and then look back and have some regrets.
00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:20.780
But that is definitely one, is that there was clearly a spark there musically,
00:24:20.780 --> 00:24:26.020
and I didn't do anything about it. So I'm trying to do something about it now.
00:24:26.920 --> 00:24:33.700
And yet, even if I had done that, I might not have really even noticed jazz
00:24:33.700 --> 00:24:38.340
then in the way that I do now, since it was, again, you know,
00:24:38.560 --> 00:24:41.600
tied to my grandparents or my stepfather or whatever.
00:24:42.300 --> 00:24:49.080
But now, it's very much a part of me, all on its own, with this unique homage
00:24:49.080 --> 00:24:53.560
to growing up in a family who really actually did listen to it,
00:24:53.860 --> 00:24:58.040
although they never played any instrument, and it filled me.
00:24:58.925 --> 00:25:02.865
Background soundtrack, I guess you could say, of my upbringing.
00:25:04.045 --> 00:25:09.665
And I really am grateful because it has helped me out to accelerate my jazz
00:25:09.665 --> 00:25:14.805
journey when I have gone in to play in music, you know, in these combos that
00:25:14.805 --> 00:25:17.685
are set up either, you know, jazz night school or jam sessions.
00:25:17.885 --> 00:25:21.305
And even if we haven't played all the standards that are out there,
00:25:21.545 --> 00:25:25.625
sometimes a song will come across and I'll go, yep, I know this one too. Huh, yeah.
00:25:26.185 --> 00:25:28.965
And that is from a very long time ago.
00:25:30.245 --> 00:25:35.925
So, as we round out this episode, if you have the ability to watch Ken Burns'
00:25:36.085 --> 00:25:39.765
documentary, Jazz, I really highly recommend that.
00:25:39.785 --> 00:25:45.925
He, of course, is a great documentary filmmaker. He's my personal favorite.
00:25:46.325 --> 00:25:50.585
I would actually go so far to say as he really changed the game,
00:25:50.585 --> 00:25:53.725
even arguably revolutionized the
00:25:53.725 --> 00:25:56.805
way in which documentary films are made
00:25:56.805 --> 00:25:59.705
if we think back to when he did the civil
00:25:59.705 --> 00:26:02.645
war on public television back in
00:26:02.645 --> 00:26:05.925
the late 80s early 90s so he
00:26:05.925 --> 00:26:09.145
is very much known and again sidebar
00:26:09.145 --> 00:26:16.045
he has done tons of documentaries all of which are absolutely fantastic to watch
00:26:16.045 --> 00:26:21.725
if that is your thing but his series on jazz is I feel a worth a worthy watch
00:26:21.725 --> 00:26:25.945
to really truly understand the origin so we're talking end of.
00:26:26.796 --> 00:26:30.876
Well, if we think about it here in the U.S., right, and I might be getting this
00:26:30.876 --> 00:26:34.216
slightly mixed, but we're talking sort of end of 19th century,
00:26:34.356 --> 00:26:38.296
turn of 20th century, and then sort of the building of that and the mixture
00:26:38.296 --> 00:26:44.756
of kind of where the influences are across both black and white populations
00:26:44.756 --> 00:26:48.816
and sort of how that has merged and mixed.
00:26:48.816 --> 00:26:52.056
So if you have a chance to watch that, I highly recommend it.
00:26:52.276 --> 00:26:57.796
I'm taking a definition that I found online that I will link to that talks about
00:26:57.796 --> 00:27:00.756
why and how Jazz Appreciation Month was formed.
00:27:00.756 --> 00:27:05.896
So it is called Jazz Appreciation Month, fondly known as JAM,
00:27:06.196 --> 00:27:10.716
which I love, and it was created by the National Museum of American History
00:27:10.716 --> 00:27:17.116
in 2001 to recognize and celebrate the extraordinary heritage and history of
00:27:17.116 --> 00:27:19.136
jazz for the entire month of April.
00:27:19.136 --> 00:27:24.696
And it is intended to stimulate and encourage people of all ages to participate
00:27:24.696 --> 00:27:30.116
in jazz, to study the music, to attend concerts, listen to jazz on radio and
00:27:30.116 --> 00:27:33.596
recordings, read books about jazz, watch a documentary.
00:27:33.596 --> 00:27:37.756
I'll throw that one in and a lot more. So I leave you with that definition.
00:27:37.936 --> 00:27:42.696
I'll link to it. I found it when I was kind of looking through resources for
00:27:42.696 --> 00:27:47.036
what I would want to share out with you in the share notes at the end of this episode.
00:27:47.776 --> 00:27:52.996
And maybe you'll listen to it for the first time. Maybe you'll discover it for the first time.
00:27:53.156 --> 00:27:56.056
Maybe you'll rediscover it if you haven't listened in a while.
00:27:56.056 --> 00:27:59.436
But all this to say, never forget
00:27:59.436 --> 00:28:05.776
how much music can truly influence in a good way, and a positive way,
00:28:06.316 --> 00:28:13.736
and sort of an all-encompassing, inclusive way, and shape our lives in all of
00:28:13.736 --> 00:28:16.456
those things. It's a lasting gift, I feel like.
00:28:16.976 --> 00:28:21.976
And in times that we are in currently, that feels like a really good thing to lean into.
00:28:22.776 --> 00:28:27.376
So I will leave you with that. And as always, be kind to yourself,
00:28:27.556 --> 00:28:32.916
take it one hour at a time, one day at a time, and I will see you next time.
00:28:33.520 --> 00:28:39.440
Music.
00:28:46.960 --> 00:28:54.378
Music.