Jesse Jones: Luthier, Composer, and EZRA Bluegrass Fusion
This transcript is linked to the podcast and video versions of this interview along with show notes with links to all the music featured.
Jesse Jones:
But it took me breaking my arm, I think, to know that I wasn't going to be a concert pianist and then discovering this other thing. And that led me, I don't know, it was just by luck really that I became a composer. It wasn't really on my radar too much.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. It's interesting because you became a composer, multi-instrumentalist, luthier, improviser. I'm guessing you're maybe happier now than you would have been had you been successful following your original dream.
Jesse Jones:
I think about that all the time. And I think yes, definitely.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman, which I hope inspires you through the personal stories of a fascinating diversity of musical guests. Jesse Jones is an internationally renowned composer, winner of both the Guggenheim and Rome Prizes. I discovered another side to his music with the Bluegrass fusion group, Ezra, and we start the episode with that wonderful collaboration. We’re also highlighting Jacob Jolliff’s album of Jesse’s music including his recent mandolin concerto. You’ll hear about how Jesse started building instruments and how he expresses his love of bluegrass and folk traditions in his complex classical music. He’s received commissions from many leading ensembles and soloists, and he is currently a Professor of composition at Oberlin Convervatory. You’ll also hear some of Xak Bjerken’s performance of Variations on Oklahoma Rooster, which was commissioned as a companion piece to Brahms Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. Jesse also spoke about his love for microtonality in a refreshingly personal way, and I was really moved to hear how his path in music changed completely and surprisingly after an accident. You can watch the video on my YouTube or listen to the podcast, and I’ve also linked the transcript. Have a look at the show notes of this episode on my website, where you’ll find all the links.
Hey, Jesse, thanks so much for joining me here today.
Jesse Jones:
Thanks for having me.
Leah Roseman:
When we were trying to connect a few weeks ago about finding a time, you were building a cabin. Might be interesting to start there. How about that project?
Jesse Jones:
Yeah, this will be relevant actually just a little bit about my past. I was raised by older parents who were both raised just sort of after the Depression. My dad was born, I think, in 1930 and was very much a work every day, make a living and be a good and honorable man that way. And so I grew up doing a lot of things like carpentry and woodworking projects and farm work and tractor work and things like that. So there's definitely that side of me. And since at this point in my life, both of my parents are passed, I find myself revisiting sort of the elements in me that are like them. And I've started to look towards things like carpentry and timber framing as my dad's side and his influence on who I am as a person. So yeah, my wife and I acquired some land three or four years ago now.
And I just decided to buy some rough lumber and try my hand at some timber framing. So I've got a cabin up and working on a barn just eventually to sort of live there someday. We're not going to move in anytime soon or anything, but it's a way to connect to my roots, I guess, in a way, which is what I'm always trying to do both physically in my life, but also artistically in my musical life as well.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And you were off grid. You had no phone?
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. I mean, I got a generator, so I could use things like hand saws and drills and things, but mostly it's just no electricity, no internet. I can't even send out a text or anything. I have a phone specifically for travel. It's the only phone I have really. So I take it to the land, but it's useless because there's no signal.
Leah Roseman:
Did you consider getting like a satellite phone for emergencies for that sort of situation?
Jesse Jones:
I'm not even aware of what that is.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Jesse Jones:
So no.
Leah Roseman:
Well, I discovered your music through Ezra Quartet and actually it was the Froggy's Demise album. And I was just, "What is this?" Well, I was just listening to it a lot. So I actually had reached out, I think last year when that came out. So I actually wanted to start with that project.
Jesse Jones:
Sure.
Leah Roseman:
I was listening again this morning and it shows off all the collaborators so well. I was just listening to McLaughlin a few minutes ago. And certainly Craig's bass playing is really for virtuosic in that. And like many of the pieces on this album, you start listening. It's like, oh, it's bluegrass, it's jazz, but it's actually a lot of them are through composed. Some of them have room for improv, but this one, McLaughlin, it's through composed, right?
Jesse Jones:
I think so. Yeah. I don't think there's room for anybody improvising solos in this. It's arranged from top to bottom. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
And is it your composition or was that collaborative?
Jesse Jones:
The outside bits are mine. And then there's a part that Craig wrote where he's just shredding on the bass in the middle. That tune that comes in in the middle is Craig's tune, but we arranged the piece as a band. So my music is in the outer parts and then Craig's tune, but all arranged by all of us. (Music: clip of McLaughlin from Froggy's Demise, Ezra)
Leah Roseman:
So you had met all the members of this band and other people. We'll get into it at different times, but this was kind of a pandemic project in terms of making the first recording, right?
Jesse Jones:
Ezra as a project kind of was. Yeah. I mean, it was a little bit after the pandemic, but yeah. So especially during the pandemic, I've always been sort of what I would call like a classical musician. I was raised playing piano and doing piano competitions and that was my main focus for a long time. And I found bluegrass through Allison Krause in the '90s after I had broken my arm, which meant that I couldn't really practice the piano at that time. And my sister had like a guitar laying around and I learned how to play some chords. And it was my first exposure really to anything other than classical music, like Chopin and Liszt and Brahms. And I just really, really fell in love, especially with the sound of the mandolin. And ever since breaking my arm and discovering guitar and mandolin and this new style of music, I sort of just fell headlong for it and started practicing that as rigorously as I had practiced the piano.
And I was so enamored with all of it that I couldn't really stick with any one instrument for too long. I've kind of played them all my whole life. And the result of this is that over 20 years since picking the instrument up for the first time, I have written just a host of tunes. And those were all just kind of sitting in my head and in my fingers for decades. And the only people that know them are my kids who have heard me play them in my living room their whole lives, my wife and me. And there just came a point where I had all these tunes and I realized that I just had to get them out there. I'm naturally kind of a reclusive person. I have a hard time putting myself out there for performances and things, but I just have this sort of vast output of what I would call fiddle tunes.
And as I was meeting these great musicians throughout my life, I just said, yes, someday maybe I'll arrange all these tunes and put a band together. And then during the pandemic, I was writing more and more tunes. And then just after the pandemic, I came back in contact with a mandolin player named Jacob Jolliff, who I had known 20 years earlier as a little kid.
And we got to be friends again and reconnected. And there also happened to be a student here at Oberlin in my department who was just a world class banjo player, Max Allard. And then I'd been sort of playing with a bassist Craig Butterfield for the previous years, a little bit arranging tunes of mine and doing tunes of his. And so I just decided, stop just playing these in your living room. Let's get all these people together and make an album. And that was about three and a half years ago. And the initial recording was nine tunes of mine that we just got together and put together, I think in like a five day period. And then the next project was something completely different with like instrument inventor. And I had built instruments myself. And then Froggy's Demise, which you mentioned is our third album.
But we had only been together maybe a year and a half or something when we released Froggy's Demise, which is our third album already. So we had so many tunes that we had the ability to just put together all these albums in such a short time. So that's kind of the story of how Ezra came to be. It was through being isolated during the pandemic probably that gave me the impetus to want to play with other people. And then just the rest is history, as they say, and that we're constantly trying to find projects to do together now. And I think I'm about done with all the old tunes I've written, but I'm always constantly writing new ones. So hopefully this will keep going into the future.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Well, later in this episode, we'll get more into your life as a classical composer and academic, which is huge. But if we could just stick with Ezra for a while. Yeah. So back to Froggy's Demise album. So I love the whole album. I've listened to it many times. I'll mention a couple of tunes and maybe we'll include some clips and I encourage people to go and listen and maybe buy the album. So Sobreandando is named for a Peruvian horse gait. Is that right?
Jesse Jones:
I think so, yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So it's like the rhythm of it.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. That's a tune written by our banjo player, Max.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. (Music: clip of Sobreandando from Froggy's Demise, Ezra)
Jesse Jones:
And yeah, it's got this sort of gait to it. It was always a little ambiguous and vague. We're like, "What do you mean?" And he'd play it for us and we would just try to mimic it as much as we could. But he had this very particular rhythmic feel on the banjo. And there was also a little bit of tapping the head or scuffing the head of the banjo too, which was just kind of unique. Yeah. And definitely we had never done a tune in that feel before. So that's where that came. You'd have to ask him more of the details about the rhythm though.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Okay. You had mentioned that Max was in your department. So was he a composition student at the time?
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. Yeah. He had come in right around, well, exactly around the time when I got in touch with Jake again after a 20 year sort of hiatus when he was growing from a young boy into the virtuoso he is today. Max came into our studio as a composition student and studied with me for four years. And he's such a good banjo player and such just natural musician and intellect as well. I just tried to do as many projects while he was here as I could. And he's definitely grown since then in the last five years into just, I think, a world class player.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So you play some banjo as well.
Jesse Jones:
I mean, yeah. Like I said, I play a lot of instruments okay and maybe only a couple pretty well.
Leah Roseman:
Well, you play quite a bit of guitar, but do you play fiddle actually?
Jesse Jones:
I have fiddled in the past, never very seriously. Yeah, only fiddle. Although I did play the, what is it? The Guigue from the D minor Partita of Bach. Not very well, but I did learn that on violin. But mostly just fiddle tunes. I've done some fiddle contests sort of at the intermediate level.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Jesse Jones:
I need frets.
Leah Roseman:
Well, I'm a violinist and I tried mandolin. I'm sure if I actually worked at it, I could get it, but it felt so different. I thought it would feel familiar, but it really didn't at all.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. Yeah. You're not the first violinist to say that they've tried the mandolin. And like you, I would think it'd just be like a natural go over, but it is slightly larger and knowing how to fit it. The pressure is a lot more and it's really the right hand that is the tricky thing.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
So Jake Jollif, amazing mandolin player.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Great, great musician.
Jesse Jones:
I mean, without exaggeration, I'd say he's probably one of the top five players in the world.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Jesse Jones:
And not just in bluegrass, but he's an incredible jazz player. Just one of the best musicians I've ever known. And I'm really lucky to have become friends with him again. And yeah, he's actually become a large part of my most recent output, I'd say, in the last four years.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So his album actually, it's Jollif Plays Jones. So it's the concerto. I though we could get into that actually.
Jesse Jones:
You bet.
Leah Roseman:
Do you think he'd be okay with including a couple clips from that?
Jesse Jones:
I'm sure he would.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Well, actually the first, the opening, which is The Prelude. I really love that actually.
Jesse Jones:
Thank you. (Music: clip of Prelude, Jolliff Plays Jones)
Leah Roseman:
Violinists play that or is it really mandolin specific?
Jesse Jones:
Actually, I wrote it on the octave Mandolin, which is just like an octave lower than the mandolin. And then I got a commission for a solo viola piece. And this was during the pandemic. And so I sort of morphed that into a very barriolagi viola piece. You can actually find it on YouTube, the viola version. And I actually think it's really effective. And I'm sure that could go over into the violin. I'll send it to you and you can tell me if it's possible.
Leah Roseman:
Well, fifth over would be good.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
So this concerto, it's in five movements. And actually the finale, I really. Well, it's all great, but I really love the finale. So I though we could include a little bit of that. (Music: clip of Tune Book Finale, Jolliff Plays Jones)
Do you want to say a little bit about this concerto and the process?
Jesse Jones:
I guess I haven't talked much about sort of my life as a classical musician beyond just growing up as a pianist.
But when I broke my arm as a teenager and I kind of left the piano for a little while, I cast about for some years wondering what my musical life would look like. I was a music education major for a little while. I looked seriously at conducting, for instance, as a degree. And then I finally found composition. And I was like, "Oh, okay. I could write music. Sure." And so those are the degrees I got, undergrad, master's and PhD. But that was a very different, that was definitely in the classical music trajectory, which I love. But I was always trying to reinvent the wheel harmonically all the time as a modern composer. I couldn't just write like Brahms or something. I had to come up with a voice and a language that was unique to me while still paying tribute to all the great masters, et cetera.
But by that time, I also am really in love with what I would call just like the fiddle tradition and fiddle tunes. And that's what I was mostly writing is fiddle tunes. And my whole 20 year career has been sort of like trying to synthesize what I know as a classical musician, both in terms of counterpoint, harmony, chromaticism, with just the bare essence of what I love about folk music and fiddle tunes. And that has proven to be a very difficult synthesis to make because it seems like when you try to superimpose a fiddle tune in sort of classical trappings, then it diminishes one or the other. Or if you try to turn a classical band like a string quartet into a bluegrass band, it somehow diminishes one or the other. And so my whole career has been trying to find a language that really does combine those two elements.
And I would say probably since 2018 is when I finally felt like I've started to find that language. And this is just a very long winded way of coming around to why the mandolin concerto is like it is.
So during this time, I'm writing fiddle tunes galore in my living room. They're just in my hands. Some of them became Ezra tunes, some as duos with Craig Butterfield. But when I started to develop this language of this synthesis between classical composition, modern harmonic techniques, but also like the fiddle tune elements, I basically started to become what I describe as sort of my version of a Bartók who definitely did the same thing. Knew all about all the modern techniques in composition, but really assimilated all this folk music from his region in this way that just makes this music that was Bartók. I mean, that's his language. And I'd like to think that the American sort of fiddle tradition music or roots music, plus what I know about modern contemporary composition, have synthesized to the point where I sound like me, just like Bartók, sounds like Bartók.
And so in the mandolin concerto, really why it's called Tune Book is because it's just five of those fiddle tunes that have been in my hands for decades. And actually one of them, I think it's in the second movement, I actually taught the fiddle tune to Jacob Jolliff back when he was like 12, as a fiddle tune. So I knew that I had to return to that one specifically. (Music: clip of Tamborine from Tune Book)
So yeah, I don't know if that really answers any specific questions about it, but it's the most recent thing I've composed that is engaging both like the contemporary classical tradition and also this sort of fiddle tune element in a way that I'm really happy to explore. I'm really lucky to have Jake. He's such a world class virtuoso to do it because it's a knuckle buster as they say.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And is that the university orchestra?
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. Well, it's actually just a group of students. It's a small ensemble, maybe 14 players or something. Just two violins, two violas, two cellos and bass for the strings. And then three flutes, three violas, or sorry, three flutes and three clarinets, two percussion and mandolin. And yeah, they gave the premiere here. And then I just went to everybody and said like, "Hey, let's make a recording of this while it's fresh and good." So we did a project here, brought Jake in and recorded it here at Oberlin.
Leah Roseman:
That's great. I want to talk about Whippersnap, but maybe we should talk about your lutherie first.
Jesse Jones:
Oh, okay. Sure.
Leah Roseman:
Because it's so interesting to me that you managed to fit all this into your creative life. I'm curious how you got started and what that looks like now.
Jesse Jones:
I guess it goes back to what I said earlier when we were talking about cabin building, timber framing. It's just like it's my dad's influence, I think. The building aspect is my dad's influence. But I just remember from being a very little kid, my sister had a cello that I was not allowed to touch. And it was there in the corner. She never touched it either, but it was her cello. And it was sitting there. And I just remember being in total disbelief. I'd go there and stare at it that this could be made out of a tree. And I just couldn't. And I just wanted so badly to go and make a sound with it and explore the whole thing when I was a very little kid, like five years old or seven or something. And I've always, always been intrigued with how instruments are made.
And I was actually as interested in that as I was in the music that was being made. And when I learned about people like Stradivari and Guarneri and just how they made these instruments, and I realized that there was no way for Yo-Yo Ma playing from Tanglewood. Those old broadcasts they did from Tanglewood back in the '80s and '90s, it used to be on PBS. I'd watch that and I'd be amazed by the music, but I'd also be amazed that someone made that instrument and I knew that the music would not be possible without that person. But that person was never talked about. But had so much to do with the sound that was coming out and like being defined by this great artist. And so it's always been something I've been really interested in. Whenever I see an instrument, I want to count the grain lines because I want to know how old the tree was.
And if the instrument was built in the 1850 and there's that, that means it's probably from the 1700s. And that just has always fascinated me.
And then as a player, eventually I realized that I was never going to be able to afford any of the instruments that I would want to play or sound like I wanted. So I better start building my own because it was much cheaper to build them myself. And that's basically, that's another pandemic project where I just found myself with so much time. And that's just something I've always wanted to do and have been interested in. So I started. I got a guitar kit and I put that together and I saw how it went together. And I was like, oh, I could do this just from raw materials. So I started to do that more and more.
Yeah. And I guess it's been sort of six years that I've been building seriously now, making most of my own instruments that I play on any of the recordings I'm on. Like definitely all of Ezra is mostly played on all instruments I built. I've made an instrument now for Jacob Jolliff. I built him an octave mandolin that he's playing. And I guess I've started to become known a little bit. I mean a little bit because I'm getting commissions from people to build instruments across the spectrum from the mandolin world to the guitars, but also the bowed world. I'm building a five string viola, a viola d'amore, a viola de Gamba right now. So yeah, sorry, I tend to ramble on without direction, but that's sort of my story of Lutherie. I love it as much as I love music. It's what I find myself doing at least half of the time.
Leah Roseman:
I mean, the fact that Jake is playing your octave mandolin, I've seen him post about it on social media. I mean, he's not just saying that because he's your friend. He obviously loves the instrument, right?
Jesse Jones:
Hope not. Yeah. That really like a dream come true. I remember as a musician, I'm sure you're familiar with this, you make sort of goals for your progress maybe of like, oh man, by next year I want to have done this. I want to have played this piece or I want to like really get this technique down. And I think some of my goalposts for Lutherie or instrument building have been to get my instruments in the hands of real deal players. And I've done that a few times. And Jake is probably the pinnacle of like well-known players that I've gotten my instruments in the hands of. And I'm constantly working towards that thing. But to hear him play that and to know that he likes it, and I do feel that he is sincere when he says that, that's really special for me.
Leah Roseman:
I know violin makers source their wood from Italy because they're trying to - It's true. But I assume you're using American wood?
Jesse Jones:
It depends on the instrument or the instrument family of course, but I do source wood actually from a place in Italy for the bowed world stuff that I make. There are a number of smaller. There are some luthier supply places like Stuart McDonald that everyone goes to for tools. But I like to actually mill my own wood if I possibly can. And from logs that I collect. A maple tree just came down in our neighbor's yard. And I went over there and sheepishly asked, "Do you have anything for the trunk part? Do you have any purpose for it or could I have it?" And so there's this huge maple trunk sitting in my backyard now because eventually I will mill that up and that'll turn into mandolin or violin backs or something. So that's how I really like to do it. And I know that there are a number of shops around or small run mills around.
There's one in Oregon that I go to quite often. They do that process with domestic woods. So I like getting wood when I can from folks like that.
Leah Roseman:
Have you dabbled in bow making at all?
Jesse Jones:
I haven't. I think if I could actually play the violin very well, I might be more interested, but it's not something I touch on a regular basis or even pretend to understand that well. So no, I haven't. I know that's where the money is though.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, actually. So the guitar that you mostly play, the guitar players listening will be interested to know what that is that you made.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. Let's see. Well, it changes I think from album to album, but I'm pretty sure on Froggy's Demise, I play a classical guitar that I built. It's basically a Hauser model. And I play a shape or a mold of a L0, like a Gibson L0 is the guitar I played on there.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Yeah. Before we leave actually Froggy's Demise, there were a couple of tunes I wanted to highlight, maybe we'll get to.
Jesse Jones:
Sure.
Leah Roseman:
Just for contrast, Golden Hill.
Jesse Jones:
Golden Hill. Yeah, that's actually, that's me on Banjo and Craig on Bass. And that's the only duo on the album. And we actually wrote that at Tanglewood
Where I was there for a performance of a piece and they put me up in this amazing place that was overlooking the lake there. I think they call it the Punchbowl. And we just sat there and we'd cook steaks on the grill at night. And we just wrote this piece while we're there and it was Golden Hill Road. So that's why the tune is called Golden Hill. But I love playing the banjo. I think it's got this reputation of being sort of loud and brash, but I think it's such a sweet sounding instrument. And so, I don't know, crystalline or something. There's something about the tone that's very complex, but pure at the same time, just in the right balance. And so this tune is just this sort of floating atmosphere that's banjo and bass. And I think it's only pizzicato bass. And it's just a very particular plucked sound world that I'm very fond of. (Music: clip of Golden Hill, Froggy's Demise, Ezra)
Leah Roseman:
And you built that banjo that you're playing?
Jesse Jones:
I did not. I've never built a banjo.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Jesse Jones:
That would be cool though.
Leah Roseman:
A few years ago on the series, I had Adam Hurt and we talked about gourd banjos and he demonstrated different banjos. And yeah, that was a very cool episode because he played a lot. I can link that.
Jesse Jones:
Man. Yeah, that's a vast world.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Jesse Jones:
There's so many different types of banjos. And of course, so much of its history is obscure and luckily coming to light more and more. Just where it comes from, how many people, like the sort of appropriations of modern culture of the banjo. So yeah, it's an amazing instrument.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Well, your most recent album is Whippersnap and it has your friend pianist Xak Bjerken, who's also recorded some of your classical compositions.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. He's probably my MVP. Xak's a very special person. He's also a very dear friend. But our relationship started as, and I will always kind of think of him first and foremost as a mentor because when I got to Cornell as a graduate student, he teaches piano there. And me trying to just develop my skills while I was in school, I actually signed up for piano lessons with Xak. And I had to go in and audition and hope I was good enough to get into his studio because he's the professor. And I was, and I studied with him for about three years. And he was immensely helpful for me to like get me to just kind of relax in my technique. We had children who were the same age as each other and we would get together so that they could play. And Xak and I became fast friends pretty quick. And my family and his family became fast friends. And he started commissioning pieces from me.
So I think it's probably upwards of 10 pieces now that he's commissioned and premiered. And I love working with him because he's such a thoughtful and sensitive musician. And he just really, more than anyone I've worked with, honestly, he's so meticulous about how the piece should be interpreted. And he's very thoughtful about that. And it's sort of like a dream come true as a composer because you make this thing sort of alone with your instrument and your composition chops and you put it out there into the world. And then a really great musician like Xak will come in and he'll turn it into something beyond what you had envisioned. He'll take what you did and turn it into something that's greater than your initial vision. And he's done that with every single piece. Just a couple months ago, I wrote my third piano concerto for him with wind ensemble.
We went up to the Eastman School of Music to premiere it. And it's so hard. And he's so thoughtful of every phrase and how it should be interpreted and just has just a great attitude. And so for Whippersnap, we're always looking for something to add that's not quite just our bluegrass band. Like our second album, we used this like instrument inventor, the great Mark Stewart from Paul Simon's band and Bang on a Can. And so then we did Froggy's Demise, which was basically just our core members. And then for Whippersnap, we were like, "Let's get a piano in there. Let's see what happens there." And so my first thought was Xak. And even though Xak, I guess if you listen to the album, it might sound a little jazzier in its aesthetic. And Xak is not a jazz pianist, but our whole project is about just throwing ourselves into these situations that maybe not everyone's comfortable with.
And Xak just of course rose right, because he's such a great musician, rose to the occasion and wrote his own solos and everything. So it was a real pleasure to have Xak on board for that project.(Music: clip of track 6 Whippersnap, Ezra)
Leah Roseman:
And I was curious in terms of pieces you've written for him, when people commission you in general, do they give you any guidance or their ideas or is it just, "Please write me a piece that's 10 minutes long?"
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. Well, it depends on the person and what it's for, but Xak is usually like just write me a piece and make it whatever you want to do. The only thing he'd say, like with the concerto, for instance, he would say like, "Yeah, probably under 20 minutes would be good, but just write what you want to write." And he would say stuff like, "I really love your fun, lighthearted sort of Ezra-like voice or like the Mandolin Concerto, for instance. So I'd really love that, but of course write whatever." (Music: clip of Procession from Variations on Oklahoma Rooster with Xak Bjerken, video linked in show notes)
So I took those into account, but he's never been one to say like, "I really need a piece that's for microtonal piano in five minutes." Some people though do really want that. There's a piece that I wrote for Xak back in 2018, I think, which is a huge set of variations called Variations on Oklahoma Rooster, which is a 26 minute piece. And it was meant to be a companion piece to the Brahms Handel Variations. And he was going to do a concert where he put those back and forth. And so I did have to respond. The Brahms, it's a seminal work. It's one of the great sets of variations ever written in my opinion. So I had to make a piece that sort of stood next to Brahms. So that was a challenge. So that was like a specific commission idea where I was a little more constrained, but I actually like constraints.
They helped me focus through and get through a piece. So the Oklahoma Rooster is probably one of my favorite of my works. I kind of consider it my Magnum Opus at this point. (Music: clip of Riffing, Variations on Oklahoma Rooster, with Xak Bjerken, video linked in show notes)
Leah Roseman:
And what I'll do is I'll link the YouTube file for people in the show notes so they can go hear the whole thing.
Jesse Jones:
Awesome. I'm very proud of that piece. I would appreciate that.
Leah Roseman:
Actually, I really enjoyed the piece you wrote for the Beethoven project, that Scherzo for violin
Jesse Jones:
And piano. Thanks. I've done this with Bach as well. This seems to be a big commission. When people commission you, it's often with a project in mind. I have a violin concerto that I wrote back in 2009 or something for the violinist, Joseph Lin, who teaches at Julliard. And he was going to play all of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas solo. And then he wanted that many composers, however many suites there were, or sorry, Sonatas and Partitas. He wanted a composer to write a companion piece that was based on that. And I was lucky enough to get to E-major in that famous Prelude. And so I wrote a piece that was in response to Bach and used some Bach. And then another one was this Beethoven project that you've mentioned where it's just like you respond with your compositional voice to Beethoven. And so I just said like, okay, Beethoven is just like fire and virtuoso and counterpoint and great harmonic shifts.
And so that's what I went with. I used a little motto from one of his sonatas and just went with it. And then this Brahms project was another one that I wrote for Xak. So that seems to be pretty ripe territory these days where it's like if you have a composer you love and then you have pieces, modern pieces written in response to those pieces. I think it makes for a nice collaboration.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And it's a good in for the audience too because they hear something they know well.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. And even just on a tune level, if you're going to incorporate a tune or some aspect of a piece, it's really good.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Actually on Whippersnap, you have this tune, My Point eXAKtly , that gets quite Bach-like.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. That's a tune that Jake wrote. Jake Jolliff wrote. And he was trying to write something that was sort of classically based. And then Xak wrote a counterpoint to it. So it's like that's just Jake's punny title. It's a counterpoint written by Xak, My Point eXAKtly. (Music: clip of My Point eXAKtly, Whippersnap, Ezra)
Leah Roseman:
Hi, just a really quick break to let you know that I’ve linked a few suggested episodes in the show notes for you: Banjo player Adam Hurt, mandolinist Joe K. Walsh, instrument innovator, and improvisor, creator of the Bazantar, the late Mark Deutsch, Irish composer Karen Power, who uses nature recordings from some of the most remote places on earth, Jesse Stewart the Canadian composer, percussionist, visual artist, researcher and educator, and composer and pianist Michael Stephen Brown, , among so many episodes since 2021. Sign up for my newsletter, where you’ll get exclusive information about upcoming guests, consider buying me a coffee on my Ko-fi page, or buying some unique podcast merch. You can also review this podcast, share it with your friends, and follow on your podcast app, YouTube, and social media. All this helps spread the word! Thanks. Now back to Jesse!
So back to Whippersnap, that opening track, Milk on Tap, really great.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. Oh, it's so fun. And yeah, Max Allard, that's a tune by him.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Jesse Jones:
And I think he was a student here and at the dining hall, I think they just literally had milk in his cafeteria that I think he would sneak in and get in odd hours and stuff. So that's where the title comes from. But that's really a piece that is a good depiction of what a great musician Max is because he's a banjo player. And I think when people initially think, oh, a banjo player, they think like loud and rowdy bluegrass, which is a great thing. And of course Max can do, but there's such a more sensitive side and a very melodic side to banjo. And in his hands, the tunes that come out of his hands and out of his mind are just very lyrical and beautiful and harmonically rich. I think beautiful rather than always driving and brash, which I think is what everyone thinks of when they think of the banjo.
There's those funny Far Side things where the maestro's being led into a room full of banjo players and that's like his personal hell. But I really love the banjo, especially in the hands of Max because it's so sensitively done. He's, I think, just got a really bright future. (Music: clip of Milk on Tap, Whippersnap, Ezra)
Leah Roseman:
Well, there's also the tune Gossamer, which is so meditative. It's a nice contrast. Did you think putting together the album, because I'm sure you recorded more than what an album's worth, like we want to have some balance or just pick your favourites?
Jesse Jones:
I think because the guys in my band are like really world class virtuosos. I think we tend to make things really difficult. They tend to be really notey and fast paced and kind of heady. And I love that very much. But sometimes I think it's nice for an album full of tons and tons of notes and harmonic changes for there to be something that's a little bit more contemplative. That's a tune that sort of just fell out of a new instrument I had made, a classical guitar. That seems to be the case that whenever a new instrument comes to life, I just find myself writing a tune on it pretty naturally. Within the first couple hours of its life, the first time it strung up, it just kind of wants to make a certain sound. And so this guitar that I'd built had this very beautiful quality on a particular string and that melody came out and I harmonized it. And we again came up with the arrangement as a band. (Music: clip of Gossamer, Whippersnap, Ezra)
Leah Roseman:
And have you guys performed at all? Because I know it's just recordings.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. We have as many albums as we have done live performances. I think we've played live together maybe four times. And that's not because we don't want to or anything, but it's just kind of a logistical thing. Jake is a world class musician with his own touring schedule. And it's almost all we can do is just to like lock him down for a week every year, let alone trying to like organize a tour. And he's got his own tour schedule with his own band. And also we're just like geographically in different parts of the world. So mostly the project is just like we're musicians who really like each other and want to make music together and we're going to continue that into the future. But it's just not been a focus of ours to go out there and play live. We would love to. It's very hard to make happen.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. You're not the first musician I've talked to with the same story. It's pretty common, I think, actually.
Jesse Jones:
Making an album is very fun. And it's an intense thing for like five or six days. And on a life level, it's very fulfilling to do these kind of projects. And I think it's more, from my perspective as a classical composer, that's really what we do. We make a piece of music and then we hand it out there into the world. Hopefully it's recorded for other people. And then we move on to the next piece. That's like a complete cycle for us. Whereas I think a lot of people, like I know Jake is like this. He'll write tunes for the next album, which he will then sell at the shows that he will play. And so that's the motivation for a new album is to have a product to take to your shows that you're going to do. But for me as a composer, I don't really have that aspect.
So releasing an album into the world, that project is complete for me. So I know it's kind of different outlook and it's probably not very financially viable, but that's what it is.
Leah Roseman:
Well, you are a composition professor at Oberlin Conservatory. I'm curious, what kind of courses are you teaching? What's that like working with students?
Jesse Jones:
Yeah, it's great. I teach topics courses in composition related to compositional techniques, especially in harmony. I teach a tonal counterpoint class where basically we try to write fugues and inventions like Bach because that's very relevant to any time a composer wants to use tonality, which is pretty common. And then I also teach a course based on my dissertation research, which is in microtonality. You'd never know it listening to like my mandolin concerto and Oklahoma Rooster and things like that, but I actually have a deep fascination with microtonality and alternate tunings. There's a piece of mine called Impromptu on Ezra's second album, which is a solo piece in 13 tones per octave.
An instrument that I built that has 13 tones per octave. And I wrote a piece from that instrument that's on the second album. Yeah, this piece called Impromptu, which is just, I said I wrote this piece after I had made this 13 tone instrument. So instead of 12 tones per octave, there are 13. I always think of this as like the clown car where there's like the car and there's like 12 clowns in there. And then there's a 13th one that everyone just kind of has to get a little smaller. And that's what happens to all the half steps in there. They're just slightly smaller, but still sound beautiful and tonal. And so this piece Impromptu is just this three minute little short piece that explores 13 tones per octave. So that might be a nice one to use. Yeah, this is from Earth to Ezra. (Music: clip Impromptu, Earth to Ezra)
So I teach a course here in that and all the students will write pieces using some sort of microtonal tuning. We talk about temperaments going way back into the Renaissance and earlier. What else do I teach? Oh, and then just a whole host of private lessons.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. For composition?
Jesse Jones:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. When we have to do microtonality in orchestra, which I'm primarily an orchestra player, I don't like it because it's not accurate because it gets more approximate because we can't take the time to make sure everyone's quarter tone is exactly above the note. Also, I don't have perfect pitch, so it kind of drives me crazy.
Jesse Jones:
It's hard.
Leah Roseman:
But I do appreciate it in small ensembles listening and my ears have definitely opened up to that. And I listen to a lot of music from all over the world. So I'm very attuned to modes and different kinds of tuning. So that helps, I think. But I have to admit, I was aware of your second Ezra album, but I didn't listen to it as much because it didn't.
Jesse Jones:
It's a harder one to listen to.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. It's a whole other thing, but it's fascinating. And actually I'm always thinking of episodes to link for people because I want to. I've been doing this for five years and like, hey, the late great Mark Deutsch, he built this instrument, the Bazantar. He was based in San Francisco. I don't know if you ever heard of him.
Jesse Jones:
I have. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
So that whole episode is a deep dive into his microtonality and his instrument building. And he plays a lot. And actually we recorded a few months before he died.
Jesse Jones:
Wow.
Leah Roseman:
So yeah, I'll link that because he was quite something, quite a musician.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. There are a few people out there who just really devote their lives to exploring that world. And I actually, not to get too mystical here, but I actually think that microtonality is a really great way, if done tastefully, and done in doses that are sort of manageable, is that it can actually make an audience or someone listening to the music listen in a way that's different than it would be if it was just in equal temperament. Because it can create these sort of beautiful atmospheres and you don't know what it is. There's no way to sort of analyze. And I think that takes you into this mode of listening that takes you out of yourself a bit.
But it takes some really careful treatment by the composer. If the work gets too microtonal, then you just kind of get lost in this gray soup, I think. But there are certain ways of making it, I think, kind of a spiritual encounter, musical encounter, so that it can really just pierce your soul or something in a way that just other musics can't. And that's the beauty of it. And that's really what I'm after when I think of microtonality. It's not just a esoteric intellectual exercise, but just actually something that has a lot of beauty and meaning on a personal, spiritual level.
Leah Roseman:
Did you have a musical memory when you were first exposed to it?
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. I Yeah. When I was very young, I had an aunt who was a very good musician. And when she realized that I had, as a kid, when I was a young kid, that I had musical leanings, she would basically fund a trip for me and my mom to go. For instance, I think I was, I forget how old I was, but I went to go see Van Cliburn. When he toured with the Moscow Philharmonic, they came to Salt Lake City. So my mom and I drove from New Mexico all the way up to Salt Lake City and I got to see Van Cliburn, who as a young pianist was one of my heroes. But another trip, and I can't recall how old I was, but I went to Santa Fe, New Mexico. My aunt bought us tickets for this piano quintet, so string quartet plus piano.
And they played a piece by Schumann. And then they played the piano quintet of Alfred Schnittke. And that was the very first piece I'd ever heard of contemporary music, period. And it's a microtonal piece, and I was just blown away by it. And I was too young to really know anything. And I went up to this person and I said, "I really like Mr. Shneikey's music. Where can I find the score to it?" And whoever that was sent me, asked my mom for our address and sent me a score
Leah Roseman:
Wow
Jesse Jones:
A recording of Schnittke's piano quintet. And that was my first exposure to it. I was quite young.
Leah Roseman:
That's interesting, Jesse, that you were saying you were in university or a teenager when you realized you were interested in composition, but that wasn't in your childhood, even though you had this interest in even looking at a score.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. I think just because my trajectory was such that I was going to be a concert pianist. I was very focused on that. And I did dabble in composition as a teenager, but it all sounded like Rachmaninoff because that's what I was playing. I realized that, well, okay, I don't really have the chops to write anything that's not Rachmaninoff and it's not as good as Rachmaninoff anyway. So I just kept practicing rep and preparing for competitions and things like that. But it took me breaking my arm, I think, to know that I wasn't going to be a concert pianist and then discovering this other thing. And that led me. I don't know. It was just by luck really that I became a composer. It wasn't really on my radar too much
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. It's interesting because you became a composer, multi-instrumentalist, luthier, improviser. I'm guessing you're maybe happier now than you would have been had you been successful following your original dream.
Jesse Jones:
I think about that all the time. And I think, yes, definitely. Yeah. Looking back, I realized that I probably was only doing it for not the healthiest of reasons. I grew up in a very sort of rural place where I was definitely the best musician around. And I was very serious about it, but there's just a lot of ways to treat that in the wrong way. So I was actually kind of cocky with my skill. I mean, I was the guy at these piano competitions that would just go rattle off a Chopin Etude backstage just to mess in the heads of the other contestants. But it took breaking my arm actually to realize that I was actually immensely unhappy in that world because I never had any nerves or anything up until I broke my arm and I kind of realized that I was mortal or something.
I'm sure this sounds so strange, but all of a sudden then after I was out of a cast and I was playing again, I would have the most debilitating stage fright. And it was just like me breaking my arm that made that happen.
And of course, it felt different to play. There was pain involved with some of the bigger octave passages, et cetera. But yeah, I don't know. I realized that there was so much more to music than just winning a competition or being like the big fish in my town. And so when I left New Mexico, I went to a different region and then I had this stage fright and I started to become more of a human, I would say, and realize sort of what music was about. And it's about the expression, be that virtuosic expression or emotional expression. And yeah, just breaking my arm and making that turnover was the crucial turning point in my musical life.
Leah Roseman:
And for your undergrad, you went to Oregon. And I was interested to read like you had some success. You had a string band, you were on NPR. That's quite young.
Jesse Jones:
Wow, you've dived way back there. Yeah. I had a successful band named String Helix, which again was just me and some friends that were writing tunes together. And I would sing and they were just tunes that I wrote in my living room. Again, that was probably the most performing I've ever done. We made a run of a thousand CDs and we sold them all. This is back when people bought CDs. We were on this televised thing and a national, whatever the national television, what's that called? PBS, I think it was called. We had this Oregon-wide televised thing. We played Garrison Keillor. We came to Bend, Oregon. That was for like a listening audience of 10 million people. I remember playing a show once and we did this one tune and the whole audience stood up and started singing with us. They knew our album well enough to where they were actually singing the lyrics with me as I was singing them.
And that was pretty special. But then I just decided I also had a family and I knew that I had to make money somehow. So I decided to go to grad school. And that's when I kind of left that world and went into the classical music vein full time.
Leah Roseman:
So unlike your parents, you had kids young?
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. Well, my parents had kids young too. I just happened to be the very youngest.
Leah Roseman:
Oh, okay.
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. So I actually have nine siblings.
Leah Roseman:
Oh, okay.
Jesse Jones:
But the closest one was 13 when I was born. So my mom was 47 when I was born. So I kind of was raised as an only child because all my siblings were out of the house, but I do have those nine siblings.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Are any of them musicians, like professionally?
Jesse Jones:
Professionally, no. I have a couple very good musicians in my family. And actually that's one of the things that drew me to just folk music in general is that me and my sisters would sing harmony together growing up. And my mom too. My mom was a really good musician, could play the piano. And my sisters were all really, really good musicians, although they would never believe that if you told them that. But they actually have tons of skill, great voices. My sister's a good guitar player. Yeah. And going back, my aunt that funded everything, she was actually a concert pianist in her area, not of any world renowned or anything, but she would concertize sort of in the, I don't know, the West Coast area. And going back, even I have some people on my mom's side who were in the early sort of Metropolitan opera. So there is music in my mom's line.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Jesse Jones:
I'm very happy to have received a modicum of that.
Leah Roseman:
I was curious because you've written a lot of vocal music and chamber operas as well.
Jesse Jones:
I love writing for the voice. And again, I've been lucky to meet some just astoundingly good musicians. Soprano, Sharon Harms, specifically who has really championed so many of my works and I've written for her. And again, just a person who can take my work and turn it into something beyond what I had envisioned. There's something about writing for voice though, because it's just an immediate type of expression that everyone hopefully will be able to understand the words. So there's the power of the words. And then it's done with this human voice. And then you can just. It just kind of takes care of the form for you. You just let the music follow whatever the words are evocative of. I love it.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And you haven't. Maybe this is past tense, but are you writing a symphony now?
Jesse Jones:
So I'm writing my first symphony for the Mahler Fest Orchestra. Colorado Mahler Fest. It's in Boulder every year. They've been meeting every summer for decades, I think. They do a Mahler symphony every year plus other programming. And next year they are doing Mahler eight. And they've commissioned me to write a piece for that orchestra minus all the singers, which I don't know if you're aware of, but that's a huge orchestra. I think there are eight horns in it. It's a colossal orchestra. I will play the mandolin part in the orchestra. And then I'm writing a symphony for those players and I'll play the mandolin part in my own symphony, which will be fun. And I'm really hoping to have a worthy mandolin that I make for that performance.
Leah Roseman:
Fantastic. But it'll be miked or -
Jesse Jones:
I would think so. It usually is. Yeah. I did it with the Boston Symphony more than a decade ago now, and I was miked.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Wonderful. And I'm curious, do you have a violist in your life? Because you've written so much viola music.
Jesse Jones:
I do. I have a very special viola player in my life. It's my daughter. My youngest daughter, Lindsey, plays the viola and she's very, very good. I'm very proud of her. She just got into Oberlin as a viola major. So yeah, we'll see where she goes. I'm currently building her an instrument as well.
Leah Roseman:
Wow.
Jesse Jones:
I'm excited to do.
Leah Roseman:
Do you experiment with varnish at all?
Jesse Jones:
I feel like varnish is one big experiment, if that makes sense. There are different types of varnish and I'm not yet completely comfortable with them.
Leah Roseman:
And I also wanted to ask you, Jesse, going back to your early life, you got this prize to live in Italy for a year, composition prize. So do you want to reflect on that experience a bit?
Jesse Jones:
Yes. That was right out of grad school. So I just finished up at Cornell with my doctorate. And I got the Rome prize from the American Academy in Rome. And it's this amazing, idyllic situation where you get to go to Rome for a year. They house you. They give you a studio and you're not to do any work or anything related to making money. And they pay you a stipend. And there's a world class chef there that makes you three meals a day.
Leah Roseman:
Wow.
Jesse Jones:
I got to go there with my whole family. They put us up in an apartment. My kids went to Italian school for a year. We got there in like August maybe. And by October, they were just like speaking fluently. Italian kids would call our kids on the phone and they'd just be yapping in Italian. It was awesome. It's one of the best years of my life. I just went up to this studio called Casa Rustica. And it's this famed old place that just used to be a roadhouse on the outskirts of town, but it's right by the Aurelian wall. And it's just gorgeous there. All the people we were with were just incredible. Something about Italian culture is that any old man on the street will talk to you until the wee hours of the morning, even if your Italian's bad and their English is bad.
There's just this openness in the culture there, at least when I was there, that I'll just never forget. And of course, it was just like a 20 minute walk down to like the Vatican and Trastevere. And yeah, I'll never forget that time. It was beautiful.
Leah Roseman:
Did you have commissions or like what was that like in terms of your creative life?
Jesse Jones:
Yeah. I had several commissions. I wrote a piece for the Scharoun Ensemble when I was there, which is players from the Berlin Philharmonic, which was premiered there. And then I went up to Berlin. So I wrote that and finished it and premiered it while there. I wrote an orchestra piece, which is quite special to me because where I was, where the academy is, is located on this hill in Rome, which is kind of the tallest hill in Rome. It's right by the Doria Pamphili, the big park there. And supposedly like 400 years ago, it's the hill that Galileo went up to with his invention, the telescope, to first look at the night sky.
Leah Roseman:
Wow.
Jesse Jones:
And he said when he first looked through the telescope sort of up at the cosmos, he says that the heavens were arranged and innumerable stars scattered in clusters was how he wrote it. And every morning, I don't know if it was like drinking wine late at night or something, but I would wake up at like 3:30 every morning and I would go up to my studio. And I realized that the city was asleep. It's not like a modern city where there's lights everywhere and you can't see the sky. At the night, you can see the night sky. And it was just always so clear and the stars. And I realized that I was here sharing 400 years later the same experience that Galileo had. And so I'd walk through the gardens up to my studio and look up at the sky and think about Galileo.
And so I go there and I compose this orchestra piece and I called it Innumerable Stars Scattered in Clusters. And it's kind of this trajectory through space musically. So it's just stuff like that. I don't feel like usually in life there's a ton of those moments where you feel such a connection to history. But in Rome, it was definitely like just around every single corner. Anywhere you'd go, you realize that you're a part of this long human trajectory. So it did give me a lot of perspective.
Leah Roseman:
That's beautiful. Well, I think that's a great place to wrap this up, but I always want to ask if there's things we didn't get to that you want to talk about.
Jesse Jones:
No, I don't think so. Thanks for like the long form interview. It's nice.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. It's what I like too. So thanks so much, Jesse.
Jesse Jones:
Thank you for having me.
Leah Roseman:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Keep in mind, I've also linked directly several episodes you'll find interesting in the show notes of this one. Please do share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at LeahRoseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support this series, that would be wonderful. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. All the links are in the show notes. The podcast theme music was written by Nick Kold. Have a wonderful week.
