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B-Side Morning Brew with Bij & Niles is a unique radio show broadcasted on 91.5FM KUNV Jazz & More in Las Vegas, pairing music and lifestyle through tasteful consciousness. Live the Lifestyle™. Shows air the first Sunday of each month.
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This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Good
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morning. And welcome.
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You're listening to B side morning brew with beef and Niles,
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hot coffee. Cool chat,
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chilling on the corner of lifestyle app
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and music stream on 91.5k
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u and v, jazz and more.
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All right. Man, we are in it. We are in it. We are in it. This took a little bit to make this happen, right? I mean, right I mean, right now you're in the midst of what's your Chaos again, renovating first floor apartment. School starts, and two of my colleagues are moving in next week, and I gotta get all that together and they cancel the appliance delivery. Let's start with our sip of coffee. Oh yeah, oh yeah, that's it.
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I don't know. They don't know they don't have it in stock. I knew the answer that question I would never have scheduled. So they scheduled it and said they don't have it. So, yeah, okay, so dealing with that, yeah, exciting times. And another this
Unknown Speaker 1:12
reminds me of an old radio show our episode we did long time ago with what, speaking of monk, who's your boy, who's, oh, what's his name? Easily, yeah, Beasley, I remember when he first won the Grammy couple, three years ago. Your question to him was, how's it feel? As well, I'm, I gotta do my laundry. I gotta. It's like, right? Nothing's changed, yeah? So people that might be able to go, oh, man, pigeon. I mean, award winning this there's like, Yeah, I'm dealing with refurbishing some house stuff right now. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:51
real life, trust me, so funny. The facade of things is great. It's all good. We are very fortunate to have homes to Raven Furby,
Unknown Speaker 2:04
yeah, yeah. No, that really is a blessing, isn't it, majorly. So all good, cool. Okay, well, now that you've taken your painter's cap off, so to speak, we're here now we are on 91.5k and v jazz and more. You're listening to the bijanis show. What's the show called B side, right?
Unknown Speaker 2:26
Welcome everybody. You're listening to B side, morning brew with beige and Niles on 91.5k U, N, V, jazz and more. There
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it is. You're the Pro. That's the pro way of doing it right now, there's
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some things I remember, but we're in it. We're in it.
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So let's speaking of let's just jump right in. Man, we've this. There's a few things to talk about. One is that we are rapidly coming upon our upcoming show at the Smith Center on September 10, which we're all very excited about. Tickets are selling amazingly, so we look forward to a sold out show, man, I'm I'm giddy as a schoolboy getting
Unknown Speaker 3:04
back should be. And one must realize, our listeners must realize, for Niles, to use the word giddy is something in and of itself. We are thrilled that he has attained that level of giddiness. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 3:18
right, yeah. No, you know, you know that place, it's like they take care of us too, even before we're, you know, the concert itself. I mean, just the staff and everybody there, and Kevin and the boys, you know, running sound and just really handling business for us. I mean, the whole, the whole team at Smith Center,
Unknown Speaker 3:36
first class, first rate from their education and engagement department, yeah, with Melanie and, you know, like I said, Kevin at the in production, and everyone in the marketing team is on point. So yeah, we look forward to them making your experience at the show awesome as well. So
Unknown Speaker 3:56
yeah, and we're looking forward to again, all of our guests, right, Linda Woodson seeing a couple of her tunes with Uli geisenorfer, her producer and pianist. He's going to be doing one of his original tunes as well. The Duchess, of course, got Laura Schaefer, you know, the jazz Sean two's herself coming up to join us for a couple, couple, two, three tunes. Man Who else bring
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him? Everyone's bringing their, their their, their vibe. You know, we've got my man, Tom lure. Tom face lure on sax. He'd actually be performing with Poncho Sanchez later in the month, at
Unknown Speaker 4:32
no later that week, later that week, yeah, yeah. They're, they're playing, I think, Friday and Saturday double dip
Unknown Speaker 4:38
with Tom face lure. Come see him with us, and then come back and see him with Poncho Sanchez later in the week. Yeah. And so it's gonna be a lot of good times.
Unknown Speaker 4:48
Well, we also have wyell Douglas, drummer for Barry Manilow, so that's going to be great performing with him, because we've never performed with him before. So I think that's going to
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be but it's. Great to for him to bring his musical talents and to the jazz Republic. And, of course, our usual suspects, Nick VIP Schmidt, Brian tree, Triola, and, of course, skits
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Lemos and Sam skitzman, yeah. So
Unknown Speaker 5:13
lot of stuff going on, lot of new territory. Got some surprises for you're going to see Niles in some different capacities on stage. We're looking forward to that. It's going to be fun. So look forward to him bringing his new music. And you know, Niles is kind of a renaissance man. He's always reinventing himself and taking from the things that he comes across historically, musically, and always incorporates that to his music, which makes him a great, great person to work with from an artistic standpoint. But also, you know, but also challenging real quick, because,
Unknown Speaker 5:50
but you know what, man, I appreciate it any other way. But, you know, look some of my heroes and like, from that perspective, like a David Bowie, right? You could never nail that cat down. He was always doing something different. That's that to me. You talk about gumbo of music, you know? I mean, it's not being limited to any one style or genre. It's taking all the influences and inspirations you have and kind of blending things together. And sometimes you're in the mood for some jazz, sometimes you're in the mood for soul or R, B or swing, or whatever it's going to be, rock and roll, you know,
Unknown Speaker 6:24
which is why I like those artists, yeah. Which is why we as artists are always frustrated by the music industry, how they try and compartmentalize what we do, yeah? And, you know, kind of throw a low key guilt trip on us for if we don't fit into their certain box of what they're expecting, right? And you and I constantly have this conversation, not only about what is quality music. What is quality what makes a quality performer, what makes a quality artist, which is totally, you know, subjective, of course, but yeah, also, why are we constantly forced to categorize our musical offerings and our artistry. And we had an interesting discussion about that with your music, your project, velveteen rabbits, about, yeah, what is that? Yeah? Again, it's
Unknown Speaker 7:16
a gumbo of, you know, yeah, it's, it's, it's rockabilly, it's swing, it's jump blues, it's kind of an amalgamation of everything. But going back to your point a second ago, I was talking a week ago with a mutual friend of ours in New York, and he was introducing me to this female singer. I won't mention any names. He's like, man, you got to check her out. We're actually inviting her to our they have a private club that they run, or something over there in New York, and we're inviting her to perform. And we had this long conversation. She's a great singer. I'm like, Well, what? What quantifies Great? What does that mean for you? Because everybody's definition is different, right? And he really couldn't answer the question. So he's like, Listen, I'll send you a link. Check her out for yourself. And I did, and it was exactly what I thought with, you know, the people here in town that my friends will say, Oh, man, you got to go see so and so, she's great. They're great. Okay, and I go. And there's no doubt these singers are fantastic. But for me, where I come from, they're fantastic. I would hire them for background vocals, but you don't. There's no when someone says, great to me, my definition is uniqueness as well. It's like, where's when I listen to this girl he sent me. I'm like, I said, What was her name? I'm going mind blank. Who I told you? Eliza Manelli. She already owns that. Liza Minnelli owns that, you know, right? I said, Where's, where's the unique voices to me that are great, the Billie holidays, Stevie Nicks, Kim Karnes, Shaw day, any of those kind of singers that have a unique quality to them, it's not that, and they're not great singers in terms of, technically, exactly, right?
Unknown Speaker 9:02
I mean, what would be the traditionally technical, technical pedagogy, what is a great vocalist, right? Not all those people are necessarily great artists. And so I think oftentimes in especially in music, there's too much hyperbole, yeah, oh, they're amazing. Oh, they're phenomenal. Oh, that's like, Well, I think we are not as careful as we should be with that, you know, or be more specific, oh, that was fantastic. The way they interpreted that, or what they did was great or but to make it all encompassing, I think is a slippery slope, and has basically made people numb to what is really greatness in terms of artistry, and makes it difficult for people to the audience I'm talking about to be able to discern what is really what it is that you. They're actually drawn to, because many times, many of our artists, I said this when we were talking last night, when we should have taped this show, was Dave Matthews is not a great singer, right? But you'd pay almost anything to go see him, right? There's a group that goes in, I mean, right?
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But he's a great singer in his own because He's unique. He does his own thing, you know, yeah,
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Elton John, you wouldn't say he's a great singer,
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right? Bruce sprint,
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that's good on the list, right? So we have to be, you know, conscientious of that, and understand, and I think that's what we are hoping to do with jazz Republic, is kind of enlighten or introduce the audience to a artistry that has high integrity to it, right? Do we say, will we be upset if you don't necessarily like it? We think you will, we know you'll enjoy it. For this artistry, it's not your cup of tea, that's one thing. I think it's different to say something's not your cup of tea, but there's some things which transcend whether it's a cup of tea and their artistry is undeniable. Well, I would rather artistry is undeniable. Yes, fan of Bob Marley, no, not really at all, right, but I can respect everything that's done.
Unknown Speaker 11:15
Well, I would much rather, as an artist, I'd much rather someone walk away not liking what I do because they're just not into what I do, rather than me being a quote, unquote tribute artist, me trying to do a Sinatra thing or something, and people not liking it's like, well, you don't sound enough like Sinatra. Yeah, exactly. But I would, I'd rather, I'd rather people not like me because of what I do, music or from my own art, rather than trying to determine if I'm good or not, because I'm trying to emulate, emulate someone. Yeah, I'm like, No, thank you. I've never been a good karaoke singer anyway, truth be told, well, and I don't mean to offend the singers out there doing tributes. I'm not
Unknown Speaker 11:56
saying and I think that's great. I mean, there's a there's a place for that, but I think to oftentimes categorize people that are emulating an artist versus people that are creating new artistry. I think it's it's there's definitely should be separated. They should not be put into one category. So we go through this all the time, and so if you look at our mission of jazz Republic is, you know, we want to welcome everyone to the table, just to introduce you to it. Take a listen, open your mind, open your senses to this stuff, and then come away and tell us afterwards, I'll, I think you and I can speak with a great deal of honesty that there have not been people that have come to our shows, and then afterwards said, you know, I really didn't dig that at all. Yeah, about my thing.
Unknown Speaker 12:43
I mean, no, we've been very blessed that
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way. We appreciate that from our audience, of course. So yeah,
Unknown Speaker 12:49
well, and it goes to show even with this upcoming concert Smith Center on September 10, I will continue to plug it is, I mean, Linda Woodson is, is more R, and B soul with hints of jazz, right? Laura brings in her thing this time, she's going to bring in a little bit more of the swing kind of flavor. And a couple of those tunes, you know, to what you do, which is a little bit more funky, little bit more R B based to one degree or another, not everything, but like, you know, it's a, it's, really is a mix. I think Ulis tune is going to be more of a Jazz Noir type song. And then you've got my, my new stuff, which is more upbeat, you know, it's interesting, man, I love that. I'm glad we do what we do, I
Unknown Speaker 13:27
mean, and we should be able to perform that without any trepidation. That's my point, right?
Unknown Speaker 13:32
Absolutely. Well, luckily, I think whoever does come to our shows, from our fans that have been with us for a number of years now, to even I've been looking at, you know, because we're running ads on Facebook as well, I've been looking at some of the comments from people we've yet to know or even meet, and they're excited by the commercial video. I'm like, man, there's some new audience members, but, but you know what you're getting? You know? I mean, like, you know that you're gonna get a mix, or a blend of different styles of music within the
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original music, by
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the way, all original music, yes, right.
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Are we ready? Are we ready for music now one of my hugest influences in terms of composition and performance, and has featured people like Miles Davis, who performed with Miles Davis, performed with Freddie harbors, performed with so many other vocalists and artists, and is actually the artistic director of jazz for the Hollywood Bowl. Is Herbie Hancock, and I've had the pleasure of performing with him, you know, backing him up at the Hollywood Bowl and Disney Hall and things like that. And one of my favorite tunes of his is a tune entitled Tell me a bedtime story, and it's from his album, Fat Albert Rotunda. I don't know if you remember that cartoon Fat Albert, because a lot of this music was, was based off of that cartoon, which featured, you know, African American youth live down basically, you know, not in the hood, but, you know, they were, they're the city, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, I figured we'd play the yay.
Unknown Speaker 15:05
Yeah, this is, tell me a bedtime story tune written by Herbie Hancock off of his album, Fat Albert Rotunda. You're listening to B side morning brew with bees and Niles on 91.5k U, N, V, jazz and More. You,
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Music.
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Welcome back. You're listening to B side, morning brew with bija Niles here on 91.5k U N, V jazz and more. That was Herbie Hancock's Tell me a bedtime story. Man, they're so much cool going, Yeah, dude, you know me. We talk about the end of the tune again, that trickling out, kind of beautiful, just riding off into the sunset, kind of ending. You know, I dig that.
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I would also like to add that that was from 1969 that album that I'm
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glad you're telling me this, because my story coming up on the song I'm going to present was released in 65 you and I are on the same boat. It
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just goes to show that there's some music that's timeless, that transcends any you, if you could have put that out today, even as we contemporary,
Unknown Speaker 21:04
I would never have guessed that was in the 60s. There's no way I will
Unknown Speaker 21:07
we, when we talk about jazz, unfortunately, it's thought that, you know, it's this free for all you know, there's a caricature of what jazz is. Is that, you know, coffee shop, you know, bootleg beatnik, you know, free jazz, whatever. And I think unfortunately, that has given a not so savory taste in the mouths of many people that would normally want to check this out.
Unknown Speaker 21:33
Well, I had asked you the other day that was part of this going into what you're saying. I said, Man, you know, you brought up Dave Matthews earlier, and it so happened I was referencing a Dave Matthews tune. I don't like all his music, but there's some that just like, Wow, it really hits you. And I was watching a live version of this particular tune called dreaming tree. And your friend, your boy, Rashawn, is playing trumpet on phenomenal trumpet
Unknown Speaker 21:57
player. He is phenomenal trumpet player. Yeah, he's we can use hyperbole with him,
Unknown Speaker 22:01
yeah. So they're playing this tune, and it starts off very quiet. It's just, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And towards the 10 minutes in, it's just massive. And Dave is just singing its tail off, and Rashawn is playing his tail off. You're just like, and they're all feeding off each other, as you can imagine. And it just made me weep. You know, I'm just like, man, because you you can hear their souls coming out of this. You know, it could be frustration, anger, love, all of it's just coming out. I just get so blown away. So my question was the other day to you, I'm like, do you ever really just cry over music? Because in my head, I've known you for years, and I don't see you tearing up over a tune, but You surprised me and saying you did, and yet, I was waiting to have a debate with you about about like, if you said, No, I don't cry over music, then I was going to go into I'm wondering if it's because, if you're so immersed in jazz music, so to speak, is it because there's not those long winded melodies all the time? It's a little bit too complex, too much going on to allow your emotions to just release and let go. But you surprised me with a couple things that that I was not thinking of. You know, well,
Unknown Speaker 23:08
I think a lot of what you were saying was based on the perception of what most people when they hear jazz. Why? Why the young people go, I hate jazz? Yeah, because they they've been introduced to the caricature of what jazz is, right, right? And so you hear a piece like we just played, tell me a bedtime story. It's like, oh, okay, this is cool, you know? Yeah. And so there's elements of that that unfortunately people aren't made aware of. It's unfortunate that the leading perception is that it's this, if you're not, if, if you're not in the know, you're, you know, you're not one, you know, you're not part of the jazz police, you're not in the know. You can't understand it. It's too hip for you. Yeah, that type of thing. Yeah, it's unfortunate, because I've never interpreted it that way, because I've played with so many different artists, and, yeah, write my own music. So yeah, I don't look at it that way, but I can see how it could be misconstrued as such, from
Unknown Speaker 24:01
a from a mainstream perception, I guess mainstream perception, yeah, yeah, it's interesting. So you know, as I've been going down this road for me musically on my new project with the rabbits, or bellatine Rabbits, recently, I've been going back to the history of blues and jazz and like, Okay, I want to refresh my memory on some things. And I just kind of listened to some interviews and documentaries in the background. At one point, I put on this, this mix of 1960s mix of I typed in jump blues. I'm like, All right, let me, let me. Let me see what this is about. You know, let me really understand it as I'm listening. There's a artist that popped up because there was a song I heard. I'm like, wow, what is that? Just really cool, piano. It's drums, bass, piano and horns. So I look up this cat. His name is Ernie Washington, all right, this song that I'm going to play here for us in a minute is, is, is a tune that was released back in 1965 So I'm like, I want to learn more about Ernie Washington. I can't find anything on him other than I'm researching it. The only thing that comes up, I keep seeing Thelonious monk's name come up. Like, what is that about? Like, why? I mean, what you know? So then I found a couple of now that I don't know how true this is or not, in terms of, is this guy the same? But what I do know, and this is something at one point, maybe you bring up to Beasley, to John Beasley. So as you know, also give you a little history, as you know, back in between 1940 and 67 in New York, the all the the city was requiring all the musicians back then that were performing cabarets right to carry an identification card. Yeah, called the cabaret card now, so then police officers would arrest these musicians, and this includes Duke Ellington got flagged Billie Holiday, and Thelonious Monk was getting flagged all the time, right? So he was so sick of it, he decides to come up with an alias named Ernie Washington, so he would perform under the pseudonym of Ernie Washington. Now this is where it gets tricky for me, because when you listen to the song I'm about to play for us, Ernie Washington is a piano player, but sounds nothing like what monk would have released back in that time. And ironically or maybe not, Christian McBride, your boy, wrote a tune called The Ballad of Ernie Washington that he released in 2018
Unknown Speaker 26:30
interesting. Maybe we need to have Christian on the show and have a chat with him. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 26:35
it's, it's interesting, man, because I can't, but yet, some there's a vocalist on this tune, which I can't find. If it is Ernie Washington singing it, or if it's someone else, I don't know. But what a crazy that's
Unknown Speaker 26:49
great story. Very well could be. I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on back then.
Unknown Speaker 26:54
It's great. Well, without further ado, let's listen this tune that I think it's great. It was like one of those things, a very simple tune, of course, but like man again, the more I dug into this, I'm like, I can't find any history other than monk. And you know, just anyway, we'll let our listeners decide. So this song is called lonesome shack by Ernie Washington, released back in 1965 you're listening to it here on B side morning brew with bija Niles here on 91.5k U, N, V, jazz and more?
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My heart is heavy. My step is slow. My heart is heavy, my step is slow, my girl has me and she
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won't Come back. Now I called Cleveland,
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but she found
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somebody. But that she loved.
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I Know I won't who? Delete
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is, oh yeah, that's timeless, lonesome shack.
Unknown Speaker 29:30
On that note, we're really looking forward to an amazing concert. We'll be performing at the Smith Center coming up on September 10.
Unknown Speaker 29:39
So we look forward to seeing all of you there. Good morning. Everybody. Enjoy your Sunday. You've been listening to B side, morning brew with bees and Niles, chillin on the corner of lifestyle app and music street
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on 91.5 kunv, jazz.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai