Johnathan Blake: Upstart’s Ubiquity

Appeared in the December 2008 edition of DownBeat, an internationally circulated jazz magazine.

As a teenager, Johnathan Blake received a blessing from the late high priest of jazz drumming: Max Roach. 

“He came up to me and he’s like, ‘You’re the 17-year-old boy wonder,’” recalled Blake, who met Roach at a jazz camp. “He had a lot of encouraging words. He’s like, ‘Man, I’ve been hearing a lot about you. People have been talking.’”

People still talk about Blake these days, but the discussion centers less on his age (he’s now 32) than on his ubiquity among the leading lions of jazz. To wit: You can hear his ferocious drumming on five releases this year alone, including discs by Donny McCaslin and Joe Locke.

Blake’s journey from promising adolescent to first-call pro bears all the markers of a classic coming-of-age jazz tale—including guidance from seasoned mentors before later forays into composition and band leadership. It just so happens that one of those mentors was his father, jazz violinist John Blake Jr.

The younger Blake initially followed in his father’s footsteps, starting on the violin at age 3. He soon added percussion to his musical arsenal, going on to play drums in youth bands around Philadelphia. The scene was rich with young jazz players. “We’d call each other – “Do you have this?” – you know, playing music over the phone for each other,” Blake said. “And we’d start trading CDs, not knowing that we were really building our vocabulary and musical language.”

Blake’s vernacular expanded further when he harnessed up for his high school drumline, and it became clear that his heart laid with the drums, not the violin. He decided to hang up the violin for good. His father acquiesced, but only under the condition that he begin piano lessons, which Blake now considers a blessing. “It really helped me be more conscious of melodies and learning how to phrase tunes,” he said.

With that, Blake’s musical personality began to take root: a combination of jazz acumen, marching band chops and classical sensibility. Still, he struggled with self-control. “I was definitely more focused on how to do the slickest stuff,” Blake said. Then came a lesson in fundamentals from Rufus Reid, when Blake studied with him at William Paterson University.

“For a month, this cat didn’t let me play anything except for the cymbal and the hi-hat,” Blake said. “The reason he did that was so I could get the clarity of my cymbal sound. Later on, I was like, ‘I want to thank you, because it really helped shape my playing.’”

Having made these strides in his early college days, Blake developed a reputation as a gifted, joyous musician, and opportunities abounded. Saxophonist Oliver Lake hired the 20-year-old for a weekly gig at the Knitting Factory. Then, John Stubblefield, a sax player in Lake’s band, took a liking to Blake’s ride cymbal playing – credit Reid – and introduced him to the Mingus Big Band. He was hired on for a European tour and manned the drum chair for the next 10 years, along the way playing and recording with Randy Brecker and Conrad Herwig, among others.

Now that Blake has become a mainstay on the New York scene – known for occasionally stealing shows with his intricate flurries and flutters on the drums – he’s sharpening his pen and going DIY. He recently finished up his Master’s degree in composition at Rutgers University, and he’ll showcase his writing in the studio this winter with a quintet that includes pianist Robert Glasper and saxophonist Jaleel Shaw, a longtime cohort. He plans to put the album out himself.

Jazz Loft Project Digs Up Photographer's Musical Buried Treasures

Appeared in the April 2008 edition of DownBeat, an internationally circulated jazz magazine; photo by W. Eugene Smith, courtesy of the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona.

After a few listens, Thelonious Monk determined exactly what he wanted. It was 1959, and he and arranger Hall Overton were sitting in a dingy Manhattan loft, spinning his trio’s recording of “Little Rootie Tootie” and trying to orchestrate the number for tentet.

Monk’s revelation: “Let the band play the whole thing—the whole thing like it is,” he said. “Where harmony is, you put harmony.” His spur-of-the-moment idea—the ambitious, full-band transcription of the whole tune, frenetic solo included—would become the centerpiece of his historic Town Hall performance and Riverside recording.

Most such moments of spontaneous creative conception fade quietly into annals of time. But this moment, along with more than 3,000 hours of rehearsals, jam sessions and mundane urban existence, was captured on tape by photographer W. Eugene Smith.

Smith had holed himself up in the loft with a group of artists and musicians following a nervous breakdown. With the building’s four pianos attracting a steady flow of players, he lined the place with microphones and took nearly 40,000 photographs between 1957 and 1965, essentially turning the loft into an audiovisual study of post-war underground music making.

“I think it is the largest collection of recorded material this major anywhere in the country,” said Robin Kelley, a professor of American studies and ethnicity at University of Southern California. “It’s a lifetime’s worth of work.”

The building became a jazz nerve center. Overton invited over musicians like Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Bill Evans and Paul Bley, who led late-night jam sessions. Smith hovered in the background, snapping photos and letting the tape roll.

“The guy would hug you twice, take your picture and leave you alone,” Bley said in an interview. “The taping was a covert operation.”

Smith’s 1,740 reels of tape went unheard for many years. Following his death in 1978, they were brought to the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona. Sam Stephenson, a research associate at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, stumbled upon the tapes in 1998 while researching a book on Smith.

“In the photography world, the official view of Smith at this point was that he had lost his mind,” he said. “So nobody thought there was anything worthwhile on these tapes.”

After securing grants to preserve the reels and transfer their contents to CD, Stephenson began to sift through the audio gold mine. The Jazz Loft Project was born.

Listening to the tapes is like taking a sonic tour through mid-century jazz and the lives of those who played it. You hear Monk and Overton readying the tentet for Town Hall. You hear Zoot Sims egging on his compatriots to blow through one more tune. But you also hear brilliant passages from unknowns like Eddie Listengart, whose burning saxophone solos would have garnered wide recognition were it not for his severe schizophrenia.

Drummer Ronnie Free is another such forgotten son of the loft scene.

“It was such a fantasy world in some respects,” he said. “You’d be popping pills, smoking pot and drinking booze, and you never knew who was going to show up.” Free lived in the building and served as its de facto house drummer, only to disappear into relative obscurity after battling drug addiction.

Stephenson and colleague Dan Partridge, who have listened to and cataloged more than 1,500 hours of tape so far, light up when talking about Free and the other underground musicians who now have a documented place in jazz history. They’re also quick to point out the major historical revelations of the tapes—that Monk was much more involved in his Town Hall arrangements than previously believed or that Overton’s enormous influence on both jazz and classical music (acclaimed minimalist composer Steve Reich was among his students) has been understated among critics.

The researchers have interviewed more than 400 musicians, artists and others who passed through the building. In many cases, they play the tapes for their interviewees, who help discern their contents and recount battle stories—uncovering the layers of contextual tapestry that surround the music.

Much of that tapestry appears on the tapes. Smith recorded television footage of Martin Luther King, Jr. announcing his Selma, Ala., march and Walter Cronkite discussing Kennedy’s assassination. He also taped thousands of hours of conversations, late-night radio shows and even such banalities as cats meowing and drills buzzing.

As documentarians, Partridge and Stephenson take a particular interest in this non-jazz material, noting that jazz historians will have a chance to dissect and study the music once it’s available in a public archive. The project will also culminate in 2009-’10 with a book, traveling exhibition and WNYC radio series.

“The non-jazz stuff makes the jazz even more valuable,” Stephenson said. “When you release the jazz history angle from this story, the characters become not just jazz musicians, but really deep, complicated characters that could’ve been in a Eugene O’Neill or Tennessee Williams play. It just so happens they play great music.”

Eureka! A Wired World Leads Ears to New Music Discoveries

Appeared in the February 2008 edition of DownBeat, an internationally circulated jazz magazine.

In the non-wired world of yore, the search for new music to suit personal tastes was largely a hit-or-miss endeavor. The stock at the local record shop, the whims of the disc jockey, the wisdom of friends and the sheer coincidence of random chance directed what people sought out and listened to.

The modern digital devotee, however, has a more finely tuned, custom-tailored process. Endless stockpiles of downloadable music, Internet radio stations that play only what you like, online friends who share your musical tastes and ways to try before you buy have streamlined the music discovery process. Traditional discovery methods haven’t gone away—radio and TV (and magazines, of course) continue to play tastemaking roles. However, by using online tools that emphasize community and compatibility, listeners are honing in on the music they like best and artists are finding fresh new audiences for their work.

“Discovering a new piece of music I like is one of the sublime things in life,” said Tim Westergren, founder and chief strategy officer of Pandora Media. Westergren’s love for discovery—and his desire to help musicians promote themselves—led him to create Internet radio platform Pandora, one of several online services that use a computer algorithm to recommend music.

Drawing on a detailed taxonomy of songs known as the Music Genome Project, Pandora creates streams of music it thinks you will like based on the musical qualities of artists or songs you indicate to the computer you’re fond of. Plug in Ben Webster, it streams Coleman Hawkins and Don Byas; plug in Miles Davis’ “So What,” it gives you Herbie Hancock’s “Dolphin Dance.”

Pandora’s algorithmic approach to recommendation stands in contrast to software programs like Last.fm, which produce streams of recommended music based on the tastes of others with similar listening habits. Drawing on data from a network of users to make recommendations—a process called collaborative filtering—hinges on the notion that if two people like Cassandra Wilson and one of the people also likes Wynton Marsalis, the other person might like Marsalis too, even if he isn’t all that musically similar to Wilson.

On Last.fm, sometimes the discoveries come more directly from other users—you can browse your friends’ listening histories (a sort of musical voyeurism), send messages to other users, join fan groups and recommend songs. It offers word of mouth for the digital age, often among strangers who happen to share a common love for a specific artist.

Web sites devoted to jazz bring together fans from around the world who share an appreciation for the music. Bulletin board forums on web sites such as Allaboutjazz.com and Jazzcorner’s Speakeasy (jazzcornertalk.com) feature thousands of users trading ideas, arguments, recommendations and reviews on a wide range of topics.

Also, music tools allow friends who use social networks like MySpace and Facebook to expand their musical horizons. As these networks have embraced widgets—special applications that can live on existing web pages, such as MySpace profiles—more users are finding out about new music from friends online in territory traditionally associated with other types of socializing.

In May, a music discovery network called iLike created a Facebook application that allows users to post streaming clips of favorite songs, “dedicate” songs to friends and receive news about their
favorite artists, all within Facebook’s virtual walled garden. The service now has more than 15 million users.

“Part of our premise is to bring music to places that don’t already have music,” said Ali Partovi, founder and CEO of iLike, who said iLike widgets will also appear on Ask.com, Ticketmaster.com and a host of other sites.

From some record labels’ perspectives, if Internet users like discussing music and socializing on web networks, why not provide a home—on the labels’ own web sites—for them to interact and discover new jazz? That’s what Blue Note Records and Verve Music Group had in mind when they recently redesigned their sites. “The major initiative is to get the site beyond a destination for visitors to get information about just our artists or our upcoming releases,” said Matt Fitz-Henry, who heads up digital and strategic marketing at Verve. “It’s more of a destination, a community, rather than just a product presentation.”

On Vervemusicgroup.com, users can create personalized pages and blogs, post images and playlists, and even send instant messages to other site members who are online. Plus, Verve will provide incentives for the visitors to become members of the site’s community, such as members-only Verve Vault titles as digital downloads. Bluenote.com offers similar features and also includes full-song streaming previews. The name of the game is engagement. By letting users interact with and guide each other, labels are beginning to facilitate the discussion and discovery process, all in a jazz-focused environment.

“Maybe the level of participation is writing a review of a record that they liked,” said Jeff Zakim, senior director of e-commerce and Internet marketing at Blue Note. “Or maybe they want to build their own radio station of their favorite music, which is bebop, and then share it back with the audience. Maybe it’s someone who’s a jazz expert who wants to write a review, post blogs and comment. We want that person to feel comfortable and do those things as well.”

Of course, the sites also allow record labels to better manage and nurture relationships with fans. But what about artists on smaller labels—once listeners have discovered their music on discovery services like Last.fm, how can they easily reach out to their fans?

Since 2003, MySpace profiles have enabled bands to become online “friends” with fans, allowing them to send messages with news and other information. iLike has come up with another novel idea: the news feed. After users tell iLike who they like—which they can do directly or by downloading an application that analyzes listening habits on their computers—the service dishes them a customized feed of event listings, news and other information from those artists. If you listen to a lot of Hancock on your computer, for example, your feed might contain a video of the pianist in his practice room.

Though it’s up to the artists to post the information onto iLike’s syndicated channel, it gives them a new way to connect with fans without requiring them to actively seek out relationships. “We’re essentially turning over the keys of the castle to the artists,” Partovi said.

The ultimate test is whether services like iLike can turn new discoveries into album sales. Initial data look good: More than 40 percent of Pandora’s 9 million users said they’ve bought more music since they started using the service. According to a survey released last January by the Digital Media Association, nearly seven in 10 users of online music services are enjoying new genres of music.

“I remember having a 75-year-old guy tell me ‘I never used to listen to new music—I like Benny Goodman, Fats Waller and all these folks,” said Pandora’s Westergren. “Now with Pandora he's finding and discovering new music, and he's enjoying it. This is a transformation for him.”

Adonis Rose: Texas Catalyst

Appeared in the November 2007 edition of DownBeat, an internationally circulated jazz magazine.

If you're not sure where Adonis Rose is from after listening to his drumming, you'll know it once he opens his mouth.

Rose speaks with a classic New Orleans accent, morphing words like "there" into "theyuh," and "orchestra" into "auchestra." In the same way he drops fat Big Easy bombs into his crisp, clean drumming, he speaks with a cadence that leaves little doubt about his New Orleans roots.

His accent might be why he sticks out in Fort Worth, Texas, where he moved after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent floods ravished his hometown. Here's another explanation: in a city known for its honky tonks, Rose is building a jazz institution.

Last year, Rose launched the Fort Worth Jazz Orchestra (FWJO). Having recruited some of Texas' top young players, he hopes the presence of the big band will help build up the city's fledgling jazz scene, which at one time included thriving territory bands and such luminaries as Dewey Redman and Ornette Coleman. Jazz musicians have migrated away from the city or opted for higher-paying church gigs over the years. In 2001, the city's flagship club, Caravan of Dreams, closed, leaving jazz audiences deprived.

"There's a good corps of jazz fans in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and I'm trying to reach out to those people," Rose said.

The drummer came to Fort Worth from his home in New Orleans a few days before Katrina hit. He didn't think he'd stay long.

"I thought Fort Worth was just a place where you have a bunch of cowboys and people riding horses down the street," Rose said. Upon arriving, he was surprised with the city's cultural offerings, and when he found his New Orleans house destroyed by the storm, he decided to make the move permanent.

The jazz scene was a far cry from what the 32-year-old drummer had grown used to in New Orleans, but he saw potential. "The vibe down there was happening," Rose said. "There were people playing music, just not any jazz. I saw an opening."

Rose also saw an opportunity to break out of his sideman role, which had included stints with trumpeters Terence Blanchard and Nicholas Payton, as well as a tour with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in 1994 while on hiatus from Berklee College of Music in Boston. "The nature of the business is to look at other instrumentalists as bandleaders and not drummers," he said. "I'm trying to break that cycle."

Starting a big band in a new city is no easy task for any musician. Rather than go it alone, Rose registered the FWJO as a non-profit, opening the door for corporate and community support. He also established an educational outreach component. The band now has a monthly gig at the city's 2,056-seat Bass Performance Hall.

"I wanted to start an institution, something that could last 50 years," Rose said, adding that the non-profit model was something he picked up from Wynton Marsalis. "Wynton put all those things into focus, and talked to important people who musicians wouldn't normally think to talk to. Working with Wynton and Lincoln Center has helped me to be a leader."

Rose had performed and recorded as a leader before. He cut two records in the late '90s heading up Payton's working band, and earlier this year he released On The Verge (Criss Cross). In directing the projects, Rose developed a hands-off leadership style that facilitated the albums' sense of swinging spontaneity. The strategy bore fruit on the latest release, especially in the group's take on Jimmy Heath's "Gingerbread Boy," on which the rhythm section seems to change tempos at will.

Rose also recently released an album of New Orleans jazz with the N.O. Vaders, the official moniker for the group of New Orleans natives he gathered for the session. The disc, Untouchable, also serves as the debut release for his homespun House of Swing Records, which he sees as a vehicle for greater artistic and financial control over his work. He hopes to use the label to release an album with the FWJO in the near future.

By forging ahead with his label and big band in Fort Worth, Rose is straddling his past and future musical personae. Though he was by no means stagnant in New Orleans, Rose admits that the jolt of losing his home during Katrina motivated him to chart a new course.

"If there's anything in life that I've ever wanted to do, I'm doing it now," he said.

Rose insists that New Orleans will always be home, but he's excited about sprinkling some Crescent City seasoning on Fort Worth's music scene, not to mention gleaning what he can from his surroundings.

"I want to be part of the culture," he said. "Maybe even part of the cowboys. Roy Haynes wore a hat. And boots. We'll see if my wife likes it."

Around the Clock Battle: North Texas Celebrates 60 Years as an Elite Jazz Program

Appeared in the October 2007 edition of DownBeat, an internationally circulated jazz magazine; photo by Craig Marshall.

Students at the University of North Texas don't exactly walk around campus wearing 60 years of jazz studies tradition on their sleeves.

But with the largest degree program in the nation, a faculty packed with Stan Kenton Orchestra alums and an impressive list of North Texas graduates—including Lyle Mays, Lou Marini and Bob Belden—the world's first jazz degree program remains one of the standard-bearers for excellence in jazz education.

Denton, Texas' reign as the unlikely jazz capital of the South sprouted from enthusiastic but frustrating beginnings. Its early champion was Gene Hall. The young pianist wanted to develop his big band chops during the '30s, but found no college degree program in which to do so. Conventional wisdom at the time said that the professional bandstand, rather than the classroom, was the place to hone his skills.

"He considered it a deficiency in the American educational system," said Bill Collins Jr., who played with the late Hall in several dance bands. When Hall entered graduate school in 1942 at what was then called North Texas State College, he began a thesis: "The Development of a Curriculum for the Teaching of Dance Music at a College Level." In 1947, after a bit of wrangling with the administration, that thesis turned into a full-fledged dance-band degree program.

He built the curriculum around arranging courses for students, with lab bands in which they would play their arrangements and sharpen their technique. (At that time, the Two O'Clock Lab Band, named for its daily meeting time, was the top ensemble.) North Texas music faculty carped that jazz wasn't worthy of academic study, and that it would bring dope-smoking hoodlums to the campus. They stuck Hall and his band in the basement of a run-down building.

By 1959, despite winning awards and garnering widespread attention for his program, Hall had grown weary of the negative vibes from the faculty and administration. "He always made the comment that, 'You're not a hero in your own hometown,'" Collins said.

After Hall announced he was leaving North Texas, he tried to dissuade his friend Leon Breeden—whom he had recommended as his successor—from taking the job, listing the numerous obstacles Breeden would face.

Unfazed, Breeden took over, and immediately catapulted the program into national prominence with victories at the 1960 and 1961 Notre Dame College Jazz Festivals. North Texas' premier big band (renamed as the One O'Clock Lab Band) soon became a breeding ground for Kenton and Woody Herman's bands. The One O'Clock even played alongside Stan Getz and Duke Ellington at the White House in 1967.

Breeden's former students credit a two-pronged formula for the program's success: a respected leader who demanded the best, and dedicated students who brought out the best in each other.

"All through the years [Breeden] was there, due to his building on the program, better and more students came who had that talent," said trumpeter Marvin Stamm, who graduated from North Texas in 1961 and played with Kenton. "It was a cycle that fed on itself."

Despite continued battles with uncooperative administrators throughout the '60s and '70s, the experiment in "dance band" education at North Texas had proven indomitable. And the movement spread. "Other educational institutions would look at this and say, 'Wow, maybe we can do that,'" said Neil Slater, the current chairman of the jazz studies division. By 1970, 10 colleges offered jazz degrees.

Slater, after taking over the program in 1982, has maintained its elite status in part by letting his talented faculty members carve their own paths. "Neil gives us free reign to do with our students what we think is going to be the best thing for them," said Jay Saunders, a jazz studies instructor who also attended North Texas. This results in a diverse department with a reputation for solid bands, versatile alums and highly motivated students.

"You get there as a freshman, and you're just surrounded by badasses," said senior Andy Rogers, a bassist. Such high expectations can make studying there intimidating—Slater likens the rigorous biannual auditions and high-pressure juries to "jazz boot camp." Students who are in over their heads are often encouraged to consider a new major.

Most North Texas students, though, see the intense environment as a good thing, emphasizing the sense of friendly competition among students. "You let that competitive attitude drive you," said Dave Richards, a third-year master's student who played trumpet in the One O'Clock last semester. "If you slip, there's somebody right behind you who will take your spot."

That's the idea, say faculty—give young musicians a sense of the environment they'll face as professionals. If students can't make their lab band rehearsals, for example, they're required to find subs.

Preparing players for the uncertain world of jazz also means instilling in them the flexibility to play the Village Vanguard one night and a Broadway show the next, Saunders said. "If you want to optimize your position as a professional musician, you should be able to do both," he said. "And then go out and play in a rock band the next night."

Faculty don't see that philosophy at odds with the school's emphasis on lab bands, a subject on which North Texas is sometimes criticized. Although opportunities to make a living playing big band music aren't nearly as ubiquitous as they once were, professors say the lab band system trains players to work well with other musicians, to have patience and discipline, and to develop big ears.

Saunders calls these essential skills for young players, especially when they're just starting out. "You've got to be able to be adaptable, and you want the leader to like and want to hire you again, whatever the gig is," he said.

But make no mistake about it—North Texas isn't a factory that churns out uncreative session players, said John Murphy, a professor in the jazz studies division. With dozens of small groups inside and outsideof the curriculum, the program's students have plenty of opportunity to collaborate and pursue their own musical voices.

And though they're not New York, Denton and nearby Dallas give students the chance to showcase their groups to the public. With a steady flow of guest artists visiting from out of town, the jazz studies division is "large enough to kind of constitute its own scene," Murphy said.

Combine that with the world music, orchestral and other offerings from one of the largest music schools in the country, and students enjoy a diversity of opportunities that smaller schools can't offer. "If they want to get involved in 19th-century Romantic piano music, trying to see where Brad Mehldau is coming from somewhat by studying that music, they can do that on a high level if they're prepared to," Murphy said. "If they want to play in the gamelan, if they want to play African ensemble, Indian ensemble, Afro-Cuban ensemble—we have all those resources."

Although the jazz studies curriculum features progressive elements—guitar ensembles, electronic music—it remains rooted in the traditions Hall started in 1947. Lab bands still constitute the department's backbone, and students still compose and arrange for the bands in which they play. Top leaders still recruit players from the program's pool of talent. (Before trumpeter Maynard Ferguson died in 2006, he made a point of hiring North Texas grads whenever he had a vacancy in his band.)

Interestingly, the lab band rehearsal space is located in a new building on the site of the same dingy spot where Hall rehearsed his bands in the '40s and '50s. The coincidence makes Professor of Jazz Studies Jim Riggs chuckle. "It's almost like the vibes were just real good at that place," he said.

Ivy League Jazz: Students Pursue Jazz Degrees at Elite Universities

Appeared in the October 2007 edition of DownBeat, an internationally circulated jazz magazine.

As a college student, Joshua Redman wasn’t much of a multitasker. The saxophonist rarely practiced when he attended Harvard University from 1987-’91—playing jazz alongside such a rigorous academic schedule just didn’t work. "I was focused on school, and I wasn’t able to carve out time for music during the school year," Redman said. "I barely touched my horn."

For Redman, music and demanding academics didn’t mesh. But a growing number of students balance musical and scholarly pursuits simultaneously, studying jazz at some of the nation’s best colleges.

One such example is Julia Brav, a Princeton senior who won an Outstanding Performance DownBeat Student Music Award in the Jazz Soloist category this year. The pianist said she wanted to combine stellar academics with a formidable jazz education, and she attends a program that’s won several DownBeat awards of its own. As expected, it’s been no cakewalk.

"The rigors of this education can be daunting and overwhelming," said Brav, who sits next to future molecular biologists and lawyers in the New Jersey university’s bands, then jets off to classes in such subjects as modern Japanese culture and number theory.

At New York University, Director of Jazz Studies David Schroeder said the difficult course work challenges jazz studies majors to do more than just develop their talent. It translates to their musicianship, instilling critical thinking skills that can beef up their playing. He beams when students coming out of philosophy classes engage with and challenge the ideas of guest artists and clinicians. He also encourages his 120 jazz students to experience the music of other cultures by studying abroad.

Rigorous academics don’t necessarily lead to better playing. "It’s not like reading Kant made me swing harder," Redman said. But superior liberal arts offerings can enrich the study of music, as when author E.L. Doctorow, who wrote Ragtime and teaches at NYU, worked with students on the musical adaptation of his novel, Schroeder said.

Although Brav has moments when the musician in her longs for a less demanding academic environment, she takes comfort in the fact that her impressive degree can sustain her if a career in music doesn’t work out. "I’ve come to accept the open-endedness that this education offers," she said.

Schroeder remembers a music/economics double major who landed a three-record deal with SteepleChase during his junior year at NYU. Days before graduation, he asked his director for a law school recommendation letter. "He’s not alone here," Schroeder said. "All these guys aspire to much more."

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, which offers a jazz minor, mostly graduates students who seek careers in other fields. Some continue to make room in their lives for jazz—a business school graduate a few years ago took a job on Wall Street trading during the day, while continuing to play jazz gigs at night. Director of Jazz Studies David Pellow sees himself not only as a music instructor, but also as a steward of the jazz tradition for tomorrow’s movers and shakers in business and other fields. "Maybe I won’t train the next Brecker, but maybe I’ll train the next guy who’s going to open a club or create an arts center that’s going to present the music," Pellow said.

Admittedly, an austere academic experience isn’t for everyone, and admissions requirements at top universities can be barriers to studying jazz there. At Princeton, though, Conductor of University Jazz Ensembles Anthony Branker has the ability to influence who gets the thick envelope come April. Strong audition tapes can give applicants a boost if their grades aren’t as high as other admitted students.

"Obviously, academically they have to be what the university is looking for," Branker said. "But I can be part of the process."

The New Expo Model

Appeared in the October 2007 edition of Music Inc., the leading trade magazine for the musical products industry.

Guitarists aren’t known for their punctuality, but hundreds showed up early for the inaugural Montreal Guitar Show on July 5. Inside, the first comers—and later, some 3,000 others—encountered a 70-exhibitor event that sought to showcase the best in Canadian and international guitar making.

The exhibition was an offshoot of the massive Montreal Musician and Musical Instrument Show (MMMIS), held the same weekend. Only in its third year, the 2007 MMMIS attracted 90,000 attendees. Both Montreal shows represent an experiment in coupling musical instrument exhibitions with a major concert event, the Montreal Jazz Festival. The strategy has enabled organizers to stage consumer-friendly expos that take advantage of the city’s increased foot traffic.

"You have 2,000-3,000 professional musicians in town during the jazz festival, so that’s a good start for a musical instrument show," said Jacques-Andre Dupont, vice president and business development associate for Spectra, which produces the three festivals. "Then you have all those lawyers, doctors and architects who are into jazz but who are also into music at home. The biggest part of our success comes from this joint venture."

About 60 manufacturers, distributors and retailers set up shop in the exhibition hall for the MMMIS. Like most consumer expos, the showroom was for promotion and exposure, not sales. It also featured a number of activities designed to engage musicians of all stripes. Last year’s show provided how-to sessions that put instruments in the hands of complete tyros, and this year, the sessions took place in an outdoor tent, situated in downtown Montreal. Tourists could wander over and, an hour later, know a basic blues progression.

To target more experienced players, workshops and master classes were held with musicians like Bill Frisell and Mimi Fox. In addition, the MMMIS put on Brazilian percussion and djembe jam sessions, intimate concerts with festival performers and a blues camp for young people.

Unlike the open-door MMMIS, the Guitar Show cost $10 to attend and catered to pros and collectors. Independent luthiers took center stage, traveling from all over Canada, the United States, Europe and South America to showcase their wares. Guitar makers, such as John Monteleone and Linda Manzer, gave workshops, took orders and let attendees try out their hand-made instruments.

The goal was to highlight the artistry and craftsmanship that goes into guitar building, Dupont said. Although luthiers were featured as part of last year’s MMMIS, the general interest audience wasn’t right for the specialty guitar builders, who received few orders. "[Luthiers] are not interested in the tire-kickers," Dupont said.

Next year, to account for the difference in clientele and allow for continued growth, the Guitar Show and the MMMIS will become even more disaggregated, with the Guitar Show taking place during the first weekend of the jazz festival and the MMMIS closing the event. Dupont also said he hopes to add separate rooms for acoustic instruments at the MMMIS to ensure they aren’t drowned out by amps and drums.

Band Says Hi to Duke Coffeehouse

Appeared in the March 22, 2007, edition of Recess, the weekly arts and entertainment section of Duke University's independent daily newspaper, The Chronicle.

For a vampire, Eric Elbogen is pretty subdued. He doesn't speak with a creepy accent, his hair isn't slicked back and his bushy brown beard gives him an appearance more befitting Amish Pennsylvania than Draculian Transylvania.

But Elbogen, lead crooner for indie-pop trio Say Hi to Your Mom, softly sings lyrics like, "Most days these fangs are inside someone," and "I-I-I am gonna drink your blood." Clearly garlic and sunlight don't top his list of favorite things.

Elbogen, who also plays guitar, bass and synthesizer, isn't the first to write an album about vampires. (To this reporter's surprise, a Google search of "'concept album,' vampires" produced about 45,300 hits.) But he may be the first to suggest that some vampires are "people just like you and me who happen to get their nourishment from drinking blood," as the liner notes for 2006's Impeccable Blahs read.

Elbogen's murmurings--melancholy tunes about bloodsuckers who lash out at the world while trying to conceal their inner darkness--work, in a strange way. Even though he told Recess that in the absence of grander motives he just thought it would be fun to write a vampire record, the metaphor allows Elbogen to consider these themes in a more creative way than many of his "woe is me" contemporaries in the indie realm.

Not that Elbogen takes this stuff too seriously.

"It's not like we're going up on stage in black capes and goth makeup," he said in an interview Monday. "It's all pretty lighthearted."

And although Elbogen said most of his fans pick up on the tongue-in-cheek nature of his vampire songs, not everyone got the joke.

"I got one MySpace message from this goth kid who thought it was the worst vampire record ever because he heard it was a record about vampires and he was looking for something a lot darker and more goth," he said.

By day, in addition to writing and performing modest, lo-fi ditties (of both the vampiric and non-vampiric variety), Elbogen also manages Euphobia Records, a label he founded in 2002 to put out his albums when no one else would.

Such multitasking came at a price in the band's early days. Elbogen said trying to juggle his music with his business obligations sometimes left him too exhausted to facilitate the creative process. But once he started selling more records and attracting bigger crowds, Elbogen was able to hire a staff to handle the more mundane aspects of record labeldom.

"I'm no longer having to worry about filling mail orders when we're on tour, which I did for many, many years," he said.

When asked about the prospect of signing with a record company, the shy impassivity of Elbogen's tone disappears. "Most labels are pretty incompetent, and of the ones that I do think are competent, there aren't many that I think could sell more records than I sell myself," he said.

Biting criticism. But what else would you expect from a vampire?

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Critic's Notebook: A Lack of 'Common' Courtesy

Appeared in the Feb. 22, 2007, edition of Recess, the weekly arts and entertainment section of Duke University's independent daily newspaper, The Chronicle.

Almost every year in recent memory, Duke students have found a reason to complain about the bands selected to perform on the Last Day of Classes. Invariably, the moans and groans center on some claim that the artists are either second rate, past their prime or some combination of the two.

But with the news that rapper Common--one of this year's performers--blasted Duke lacrosse players at a concert at Emory University last spring, two days after then-sophomores Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann were indicted, student disapproval has taken a whole new form. Current and former students have called his words irresponsible and offensive, and a Facebook group called "Keep Common out of LDOC" has 133 members.

During a freestyle, Common said, "You know I never get lost, yo f- them damn n-s from Duke lacrosse."

Why all the uproar? What difference does it make what someone said in the heat of the moment at a time when many at Duke were still divided about lacrosse?

Well, for one thing, inflammatory comments by an artist in such a public forum are a dagger driven deeper than accusations confined to private opinion.

"There's definitely a difference between Common saying something at a concert and a random Durham resident thinking something," said Drew Keaton, a sophomore who started the Facebook group opposing Common.

In our culture of celebrity, we tend to hold musical artists to a higher standard than everyone else in terms of their public statements, said Marc Faris, visiting assistant professor of music.

"We assume that once people are famous, what they say must be of greater importance," he said.

Still, if Common is coming here to entertain, can't we put aside his statements about a criminal case and simply enjoy the experience of seeing him perform? A good show is a good show, right?

Tell that to the Dixie Chicks.

The trio was blacklisted from country radio after lead singer Natalie Maines told a London audience she was "ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas" on the eve of the Iraq invasion.

Across the nation, fans boycotted the group's albums as an implicit referendum on the group's anti-war views. And although they picked up five Grammys at last week's awards ceremony, the Chicks' relationship with red-state country music fans remains rocky.

Part of the tension no doubt stems from country listeners' unwavering sense of patriotism.

"[Country listeners are] an opinionated, loyal, down-home, respectful group, and Natalie just isn't fitting into it right now," said Lisa McKay, program director for WQDR-FM 94.7, a Raleigh country station that stopped playing the Dixie Chicks after the 2003 comments.

But the incident also speaks to the powerful impact of musicians' values on their fan base.

Although there may be any number of factors that influence personal music preferences, people listen to certain music partly because it reflects particular social ideals, Faris said. When artists say things that don't fall in line with the image fans have for them, fans can be turned off.

This gets to the core of why many Duke students disapprove of a Common performance at LDOC. His biting criticism of lacrosse players, especially seen in the context of new evidence that has come to light since last spring, erodes his image as a thoughtful, socially conscious hip-hop artist whose values align with those of this University and its students.

Available online here

Drum Circles Are the New Yoga

Appeared in the Nov. 9, 2006, edition of Recess, the weekly arts and entertainment section of Duke University's independent daily newspaper, The Chronicle. Photo by Jeff Hu.

For two hours on a rainy Tuesday night in Durham, a group of 20 locals ceased to be businessmen, retirees and students--and became, instead, African drummers.

At local drum shop Music Explorium, master drummer and former Rusted Root member Jim Donovan led Triangle residents through a rhythmic workshop on West African djembe drums, one of many workshops he regularly conducts around the nation. The pattering of hands on goatskin filled the cramped room as a hodgepodge group of eager Westerners pounded out--with mixed success--ancient African rhythms.

But the night was about more than just cultural learning--it was also about personal and community development. At several points, Donovan challenged the drummers to clear all other thoughts from their heads, to focus only on the sound of the drums. At evening's end, he invited them to embellish and deviate from the traditional patterns to create something all their own. "Listen," he told them. "Figure out how to make the group better."

Donovan's sessions are part of a growing number of hand drumming workshops and drum circles that seek not only to educate but also to rejuvenate the mind, body and soul and to encourage cooperation and community.

"I really believe that drumming is one of the most immediate tools to reflect on yourself what it means to have presence," said Donovan, adding that "presence" is a focusing method used to achieve personal harmony.

Some of the biggest beneficiaries of this wave of rhythm-making have been schoolchildren. Lowe's Grove Middle School in Durham offers a world music drumming course as an elective for students.

"It's a phenomenal team-building class," said Debra Molnar, the course's teacher. "If you're able to drum with someone that you don't necessarily care for, you might get another side of that person."

At Duke, adjunct lecturer Bradley Simmons' courses on West African and Afro-Cuban drumming are popular alternatives to traditional classes.

"It's a great release during the week," said senior Clare Sackler, who plays in the Duke Djembe Ensemble. "I've kind of fallen in love with it."

The widespread popularity of hand drumming in the U.S. stretches back to the 1990s and Arthur Hull, who founded a company called Village Music Circles. According to its website, the organization "offers a variety of accredited programs that use rhythm to explore and inspire group empowerment, leadership and community building."

Village Music Circles trains drum circle facilitators and conducts workshops at schools, churches and even corporations such as Microsoft and Motorola.

In contrast to traditional African drumming, which often carries ceremonial or religious connotations, Hull's approach puts an emphasis on how drumming can benefit people and communities. The rhythms used aren't rooted in African tradition; instead, the playing is much freer and more improvisational.

This non-customary approach has drawn criticism from some purists who liken it to cultural plagiarism, Donovan said. "Some say you're doing a disservice to the [African] culture with drum circles," he said.

Others, however, applaud community drum circles as a way to bring people together and to learn the lessons collective drumming has to offer.

"Many people can have different functions but one objective-it's the most profound secret that we can borrow from African drumming," said Robert "Igbo" Johnson, a professional drummer who plays with Duke's African dance classes four days a week. "People from all over the world are united by the heartbeat of the drum."

Johnson, who began studying African hand drumming in 1967 as a way to explore his cultural heritage, said he's not surprised that corporations are interested in drum circles as a team-building technique.

"I think it only serves to make people a lot more buoyant and more sensitive, and it can certainly bring more fun to what could be a very tedious process," he said. "Americans need more fun."

Johnson sees drum circles in the context of a larger surge of interest in African music in the U.S., which has been fueled by the multiplicity of African recordings made available to Americans in recent years.

In the Triangle, regular drum circles are commonplace, often comprised of people for whom drumming is a completely new experience.

Cathy Kielar, who facilitates monthly drum circles at Music Explorium, said she views them as part of a human craving for engagement with others. "I think it's people wanting to get together in the community--they're tired of being isolated in front of the computer or the TV."

For Donovan, preserving cultural traditions while helping people connect with themselves and those around them is the ultimate gig.

"We are benefiting from a tradition that's hundreds and hundreds of years old, and it's giving us something that we're starving for," he said.

Available online here

Where Have All the Hippies Gone?

Appeared in the July 19, 2006, edition of Recess, the weekly arts and entertainment section of Duke University's independent daily newspaper, The Chronicle; photos by Eric Bishop.

MANCHESTER, Tenn. -- The biggest music festival in the country was a little different this year. And everybody knew it.

Sure, the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival was on the same 700-acre farm, in the same tiny city of Manchester, Tenn. As always, festival-goers braved the elements, spending their days under the hot sun and their nights surrounded by an 80,000 person tent city that made K-ville look like a Lego set. And the music lineup featured many of the usual suspects, including Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, My Morning Jacket and moe.

But this year's Bonnaroo saw noticeably fewer tie-dye shirts, more pairs of dark-rimmed glasses and the one band everyone was talking about: Radiohead.

Scheduling the British art-rock heros to headline Bonnaroo was the last step in a process of moving toward a more diverse mix of artists, a process that had already been a few years in the making.

It meant the end of Bonnaroo as a hippie music festival.

Bonnaroo began as a jam band haven, born and bred for the Phish lovers who pined for the good old days when the love was free, the drugs were plentiful and the music was groovy.

"[Bonnaroo] was the first time that someone said, 'we're getting every band that these people like to see and getting them all together,'" said Bryan Rodgers of the Home Grown Music Network, a group of music promoters that deals extensively with the jam scene.

Of course the lineup had a variety of jam, bluegrass, folk, funk and other styles from the beginning; but those first few years were decidedly geared toward hippies' musical tastes.

Now in its fifth year, the festival's musical offerings-as well as its fans-have slowly become more eclectic. Twenty-minute mandolin jams and meandering guitar solos are still around, but they're sharing the stage with an increasing number of hip-hop beats and emo crooning.

"I think it's changed completely over the past five years," Rodgers said. "I think Radiohead had a lot to do with it this year."

Rodgers said he personally welcomes the growing diversity, as do many die-hard jam band listeners. But not all of them see it as a good thing.

"There are a lot of jam band fans who just cannot stand Radiohead," Rodgers said.

Others said they thought the broader demographic attracted by the plethora of better-known names had made the festival less fun.

"It was never a problem with the music," said Lisa Benefield, a patchouli skirt-wearing 24-year-old who chose not to attend Bonnaroo this year. "It was a problem with the community that showed up. Like all the preppy kids who are just going 'cause it's the cool thing to do."

Benefield said she prefers smaller jam band festivals, which take place across the country throughout the summer.

Seth Dennis, a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said he didn't want to go this year because he thought there were too many indie rock bands.

"At indie shows, everybody just stands around," he said. "No one gets into it."

Perhaps the most surprising complaint: a number of hippies lamented that the drug culture at Bonnaroo had gotten out of hand.

What?

After a few years, the festival had earned a reputation as the place to be for hard drugs like ecstasy and LSD, said Duke senior Laura Pyatt, who attended Bonnaroo this year. While drugs have always been a part of hippie culture, a growing faction of people started going to Bonnaroo just to experience its Candyland-like drug scene.

"I saw a lot of irresponsible drug use last year," Benefield said.

It's almost as if many of the aspects of Bonnaroo that had attracted hippies to the festival in the first place-the diverse music, the drugs-had been pushed too far, and some jam fans became disillusioned with the whole operation.

The secret of Bonnaroo got out, and many of the carefree folks who thrive on operating at the fringe of society were shying away from the baseball cap-wearing masses who wanted in on the action.

To be fair, there were still plenty of dreadlocks at Bonnaroo this year. There were still plenty of bare feet, plenty of unshaven faces and plenty of good vibes-plenty of hippies.

But they no longer dominated the festival like they once did. There were also plenty of frat boys, plenty of hipsters and plenty of middle-aged Tom Petty fans.

The hippie jam band festival has become the American music festival, in all its diverse glory. And while some weren't thrilled with the change, few can deny that Bonnaroo has earned a prominent place in the fabric of American music culture.

"We want to be something that's around for 30 years, like a Glastonbury or a New Orleans Jazzfest," Bonnaroo founder Rick Farman told the New York Times. "We want to be an iconic event."

Available online here

Jazz Takes it from the Top

Appeared in the March 30, 2006, edition of Recess, the weekly arts and entertainment section of Duke University's independent daily newspaper, The Chronicle.

NEW ORLEANS--Step away from the strip clubs and tarot card readers of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, drive down a seemingly endless stretch of sleepy neighborhoods and you'll find one of the true gems of the New Orleans jazz scene--Vaughan's Lounge.

Vaughan's is the place to be on a Thursday night. That's when legendary trumpeter Kermit Ruffins brings his soulful, gritty jazz to the tiny Bywater club, packing it with scores of locals ready to get up and move their feet.

The atmosphere at Vaughan's is joyous. The people here come from all walks of life--bikers mingle with businessmen, truck drivers flirt with sorority girls--but everyone is dancing. One audience member smacks a tambourine. Another taps his beer bottle with a spoon. Outside, music and people pour out onto the streets, so even those who can't pay the $10 cover can join the party.

After a night at Vaughan's, it's hard to believe that only seven months ago this city was in shambles from the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. But even though the recovery process has been slow, locals insist that the jazz is back in New Orleans.

"When we first reopened at the beginning of October, it was just the neighborhood people who were straggling back," said Janet Kenkel, a longtime bartender at Vaughan's. "Now pretty much everyone is back."

Vaughan's itself was spared the worst of Katrina's devastation--the building came away with only minor flooding. But just a few miles away, in the Lower Ninth Ward, there is still destruction as far as the eye can see. Houses sit twisted off their foundations, collapsed roofs lie in heaping piles of debris and rusty abandoned cars litter the streets.

Despite the physical destruction, the scene at Vaughan's ensures that at least the sounds of the city remain intact.


Jazz has always been a vital part of the cultural gumbo that is New Orleans. The city, which is often dubbed the birthplace of jazz, has long stood at the epicenter of musical vitality in the Deep South.

In the early 1900s, its black Creole subculture, combined with a heavy dose of Gospel church music, gave rise to ragtime, blues and Dixieland. The intermixing of these musical elements led to an explosion in the popularity of big band jazz music in the 1930s. Since then, jazz has remained a vital part of New Orleans culture.

"The recovery of this music scene is absolutely essential to revitalizing the spirit of New Orleans," said Bill Taylor, director of Tipitina's Foundation, an organization that provides relief to the city's musicians and is housed out of a jazz club of the same name. "You can't separate music from life in New Orleans."

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, this connection manifested in a new way.

"Tipitina's was a base camp for rescuing people after the storm," said Erin Hoyer, a Tipitina's employee.

The club's Uptown location was spared from flooding, allowing it to contribute to the relief effort.

"Employees went around in a canoe and saved people's lives," Taylor said. They even delivered a baby inside the club.

Through the foundation, the club remains an important source of assistance for musicians in New Orleans. Tipitina's offers replacement instruments, free legal and accounting seminars and a Music Co-op Office for musicians to use during the day. So far, the Tipitina's Foundation has given away more than $500,000 worth of new instruments and 240 musicians have used the co-op office.

The foundation has also tried to find ways to allow as many musicians as possible to return to New Orleans.

"Finding housing for musicians who have lost their homes has been the biggest challenge in rebuilding the music scene," Taylor said.

Although the jazz scene is steadily improving, Hoyer said there is still more work to be done.

"A lot of bands are still scared to come down here," she said, explaining that musicians may mistakenly think that clubs have yet to reopen their doors.

Some clubs, like Preservation Hall, remain closed. The world famous French Quarter venue that has been a staple in the New Orleans jazz scene for generations does not plan to reopen until April 28.

And there still aren't as many people coming out to see the shows, said Kutlay Guc, a New Orleans resident and a regular at Vaughan's. The real question, he said, is when the scene will return to the way it was pre-Katrina.

Willie Washington, Jr., a New Orleans-based musician who relocated to Memphis after the hurricane hit, said he's not as worried about the clubs as he is about the street traditions that used to take place in areas destroyed by Katrina.

"Underneath the interstate--where the black community used to celebrate Mardi Gras with big celebrations that usually had four stages of music--there are piles of abandoned cars," Washington said. Ten-mile jazz parades, called "second-lines," used to frequently go through the Ninth Ward, in an area that is now almost completely uninhabited.

Whether such traditions return will depend on the city's plan for rebuilding the neighborhoods, but signs of revitalization are surfacing.

Second-lines have been popping up here and there in the Ninth Ward, and brass bands circle the French Quarter almost every night. "People are dying to hear music in New Orleans right now," Taylor said.

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Belle and Sebastian: Illustrated Edition

Appeared in the February 23, 2006, edition of Recess, the weekly arts and entertainment section of Duke University's independent daily newspaper, The Chronicle.

Cult indie-pop darlings Belle and Sebastian, whose name comes from a French children's book, now have a book of their own.

In Image Comics' new release, Put the Book Back on the Shelf: A Belle and Sebastian Anthology, a team of comic book artists melds the band's songs into comic book stories.

While similar song-inspired comics have occasionally turned up, rarely have these endeavors involved artists on the level of Belle and Sebastian, said B. Clay Moore, the former public relations and marketing coordinator for Image Comics and instigator of the project. The Scottish band has sold more than two million albums worldwide.

The band showed enthusiasm for the idea from the outset, said Belle an Sebastian keyboardist Chris Geddes. "When anyone is inspired to take something you've done and do something creative with it, it's flattering."

Fans of the band say Belle and Sebastian are the perfect group for the unusual project.

"Belle and Sebastian have a lot of character as a ban--they're very idiosyncratic and quirky," said Suzan Davis, a freshman who will travel to Tennessee over Spring Break to see the band play. "The comic book seems like a good fit for them."

The book, released Wednesday, coincides with the relase of Belle and Sebastian's sixth album, The Life Pursuit.

The collection is the brainchild of Image Comics CEO Eric Stephenson, who initially approached Moore about an anthology focusing on the music of songwriter Stephen Duffy, Moore said.

The two were discussing other potential bands for such a project, and Moore said he suggested Belle and Sebastian because of their popularity among cartoonists.

The anthology's host of contributors-handpicked by Moore for their interest in the band-gives it a mix of artistic styles ranging from classic comic panels and colors to more abstract collages and watercolors.

"The collection treats Belle and Sebastian's songs like a library of books that you're looking through," said Laurenn McCubbinn, art director for Image Comics. McCubbin designed the cover of the comic book and also contributed a story. She said the highly narrative nature of the band's lyrics lent itself very well to the project.

While many of the comics in the 144-page anthology depict literal stories from the band's songs or show their actual lyrics accompanied by pictures, others draw inspiration from ideas or feelings contained in a particular track.

For example, the artists' rendition of "We Rule the School" takes the song's themes about childhood and creates a new story about a young boy and his imaginary friend. The different interpretations reflect the varied songwriting styles of the band's different musicians, said Geddes.

"For [lead singer and songwriter] Stuart Murdoch, narrative and characterization are very important," said keyboardist Geddes. "Other band members are more impressionistic in their writing."

The comics also vary in the emotions they deal with, another feature of the band's songs. The opening story, "The State I am in," bleakly recounts Murdoch's drug-induced stupor as he struggles through his sister's wedding. In contrast, "Step into My Office, Baby," is a lighthearted and humorous take on Belle and Sebastian's hit single of the same name.

Project initiator Moore said artists were given a good deal of artistic freedom in everything from the choice of songs-which span the group's 10-year career-to the degree to which the interpretations stayed true to the songs' literal storylines.

"In my story, I tried to combine a surface reading of the song with what I read as the song's deeper meaning," McCubbinn said. For example, he said he reads certain lyrics as a metaphor for the character's emotional numbness.

Transposing other media into comic book tales was relatively familiar territory for McCubbinn, who had previously adapted several prose stories into comics.

These types of adaptations, however, are less common than one might think, Moore said. "There are a lot of things you'd think would make good comics, like video games. If you're dealing with major labels, though, there can be a lot of red tape," he noted.

Moore said that's why he thought Belle and Sebastian were a good choice for this project, as he had heard Stuart Murdoch was a comics fan.

As a boy, Geddes also had an affinity for comics, he said. "The whole band definitely shares an appreciation for the art form."

So how did it turn out? Geddes said the band members were "quite intrigued" by the final product.

Moore also cited the potential for fan crossover between Belle and Sebastian and indie comics as a motivator for the project.

The creators may hope the release will expose a wider audience to the comic book genre. However, Jon Newman, manager of Ultimate Comics in Durham, said he doesn't see much potential for increased comic book exposure. "It's not something that will really fly off the shelves," he said.

For his part, Newman is not concerned. He said that most of the people he expects to seek out the anthology will be diehard Belle and Sebastian followers. This is exactly the type of audience the book is being marketed toward. According to Image Comics' website, mailings about the anthology have been sent to more than 40,000 Belle and Sebastian fans.

Student fan Davis said she didn't receive the mailing but is nonetheless excited about the release.

"I've never read a comic book before, but I'll definitely get this one," Davis said.

Available online here