Here’s to Locale & In-Person Collaboration
As this year like no other finally lurches toward an end, I want to take a moment to appreciate my locale. Sonoma County, roughly an hour north of the Golden Gate Bridge, boasts natural beauty, state parks, diversity, and a tolerant vibe of city and country folk living side by side.
I also feel thankful for the local bounty of artistic collaborators with whom I have been lucky enough to create books and music. Last week, the Arts & Entertainment journalist Dan Taylor featured my latest book in our regional newspaper The Press Democrat. (Click here for the online feature.)
One reason Jazz Fly 3: The Caribbean Sea caught Dan’s attention is the unusually LOCAL nature of its creation. For reference, here’s how collaboration on books usually works—and has for years even before Covid. Authors in one state write emails to editors in another. Illustrators, often in a third time zone, email PDFs to the art director. The editor and art director type their replies, politely suggesting revisions point by point. Phone calls are made only after much confusion. Rarely do the author and illustrator meet face to face.
If the book contains audio, the narrator and musicians won’t likely meet each other either. Composers and instrumentalists often record at home and send WAV or MP3 files to the sound team for editing.
By contrast, with Jazz Fly 3, I’d meet the illustrator, fellow Santa Rosan Karen Hanke, at Starbuck’s. Sometimes, we’d discuss artwork and layouts for two hours before even remembering to order a drink. (But, hey, it’s Sonoma County, so no pressure from the baristas.)
Sonoma County also gave me the opportunity to collaborate with musicians. The Healdsburg Jazz Festival brings jazz artists from New York. And numerous venues feature local stars each summer. Greeting them in person between sets is preferable to phone calls for making contact. That’s how I met Sebastopol trumpeter Hal Forman and re-established contact with saxophonist Ylonda Nickell (a.k.a. “Nancy the Gnat”).
In the early stages of composing the music, bassist Pierre Archain would stop by my house to map out comfortable keys and transitions, before shuffling off to his evening gig in Sausalito. (Great to have a native French speaker on the project to check my pronunciation of the French words in the story!)
For the rhythm section recording (bass, drums, piano and guitar), I settled on Mesa Recording in Sebastopol. It’s got two isolation booths, a piano and Hammond B3 organ (great for the reggae passages). Owner Kenny Evans, a laid-back, seriously tall Alabama transplant, graciously let my co-producer Tim Gennert take control of the mixing board. Once we finally got their schedules to coincide, the musicians relished playing together and fed off one another’s enthusiasm.
In a follow-up recording session, between tours with the band Los Tigres del Norte, the Cuban percussionist Carlos Caro found his way to Tim’s country studio in Healdsburg. Carlos laid down tracks for us on congas, timbales, maracas and guiro. Then, over a burrito dinner at El Sombrero, he described aspects of Cuban music that have deepened my understanding of Jazz Fly 3 to this day.
In short, even in this age of collaboration from afar, face to face creative work yields lovely benefits, thrilling too in a locale like Sonoma County. With some vaccinations already under way, maybe we can again collaborate in person in the new year.
Helping Children Explore their Locale
Wherever they live, children benefit from exploring their surroundings, and appreciating little things that inspire joy and interest. With their world so much smaller, they are ideally suited to this endeavor! Exploration may be as simple as looking closely at things outside: a bush near the home showing verdant leaves after some rain; the architecture of a nearby lamppost or fence, the smiling eyes of a masked neighbor waving…For older kids, it may be drawing maps of neighborhood streets, or homes with holiday decorations that catch their eye.
And thankfully, many public libraries offer curbside pickup of books. Here is how it works in Sonoma County: https://sonomalibrary.org/library-curbside-pickup
This season, I wish you comfort and creativity wherever your locale.
Matthew
