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Last night’s “First Tuesday of the Month Nashville Berklee Jam” was a huge success! The otherwise quiet Nashville suburb of Kingston Springs came alive as the alums began filtering into The Fillin’ Station for this night of camaraderie and music.
The mission of this monthly event is to help build our Berklee community in Nashville, and for the first hour, old friends reunited and
new friendships formed over lively conversation in this quaint setting. Shortly after 8 pm I made a few brief announcements before introducing the night’s guest speaker, A-list session bassist, Mike Chapman.
Mike’s talk centered on his lifelong career as a session player and he compared what he considers the key ingredients to being a successful studio musician to slices of a pizza.
The essential slices of the “session player pizza” include:
- Talent and Skill
- Positive Attitude
- Strong Work Ethic
- Flexibility
- Taste
In talking about the support role that musicians play on a recording, Mike commented “there’s a big difference between something that is fun to play, and something that is fun to listen to”, noting that they are not always the same thing. He also added that “musicians, both live and in the studio, are essentially in the service industry, and it’s our job to provide the window dressing to the song or artist”. Another point he couldn’t drive home hard enough was how essential it is to know “The Nashville Number System”, as this is the main way songs are charted in Nashville, again, both live and in the studio, and the book bearing the same title by Chas Williams is a great way to learn.
After Mike answered some questions from several alums it was time for some music. To get things started, I took the stage with our house band, consisting of Mike on bass and fellow alums, Heston Alley on Drums and Brian Lucas on Keys. We started out with a spirited version of Freddy King’s “Key to the Highway”, Paul Butterfield’s “Born in Chicago” (featuring bar owner, Patrick Weikenand on harp) and one of my favorites, “Ain’t Wasting Time No More”.
Our next grouping featured Ted Schemp on guitar and vocals and Elton Charles, a recent arrival to Nashville, on drums, and we played one of Ted’s originals followed by an instrumental blues jam. Sofia D got up and played some funky drums behind George Wong on bass and Ben Graves on guitar and vocals. Ben led us through a cool version of the Sam Cooke classic “Cupid” before Sarah Tollerson, host of another Alumni event, “Strength in Numbers” (held on the second Wednesday of each month at the Riverfront Tavern in downtown Nashville) joined us to sing “Oh Darlin’” and “You Make Me Feel like a Natural Woman”.
Michelle Lambert, another recent newcomer, brought charts for a couple of originals and delivered some emotive vocals interspersed with some fine fiddle playing to a couple of arrangements on the fly. Bassist, Keiffer Infantino got into the mix with another recent arrival, guitarist Rick Carrizales, and at this point Ben Graves came back up to play some sax. We played a funky jam in A minor and everybody got to stretch out before our final tune of “Freddy the Freeloader”, for which Mike Chapman got back up to finish the night.
If there’s one thing I have learned from all of the alumni events I have attended, it would be that Berklee alums are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. And that open, warm feeling was evident in both the conversations and music that took place on this cold February night. I would also add enthusiasm to this list of traits, as there was an infectious, electricity in the air during these performances.
This jam was our first of many to come, as this will be held on the first Tuesday of each month, and the Nashville Berklee Jam website will serve to keep alums informed about future jams and all of the upcoming Nashville alumni events. I would also like to encourage interactivity on this site, so don’t be afraid to post, comments, songs you would like to play or any other ideas you may have. On that note, I’m looking for volunteers to take photos and possibly shoot a few video clips of our next jam for future blogs.
Thanks again to all those who participated in making this night a great success and see y’all at the next one!
For those who are new to Nashville, or considering relocating to Music City, my book “The Nashville Musician’s Survival Guide” is a street level perspective of the music related jobs found here, and the ultimate companion for today’s musicians, songwriters and artists. Decades worth of information learned on the streets of Nashville for $20! How can you go wrong?
Berklee is alive and well in Nashville! On Monday, November 7 we had our first “New to Nashville” Berklee alumni reception at the NSAI studio on Music Row, and the event was a huge success. Upon the suggestion of Berklee Alumni Affairs Officer, Karen Bell, I put this event together to welcome alum’s who recently relocated to Nashville.
The reception was a three stage event. The meet and greet gave recent transplants a chance to reconnect with their fellow classmates while forming new relationships with some of the alumni who have already been here a while. From what I could tell, out of the 40 or so in attendance, at least half were new arrivals.
After about an hour, everybody took their seats and I gave a brief talk about my Nashville experiences. The talk evolved into a pretty good group discussion, with lots of questions about networking in Nashville. Most of my experience in Nashville has been in the areas of touring, gigging around town, and recording, and most of this discussion centered on these issues.
One alum asked about what clubs and situations would lend themselves for sitting-in with bands. Sitting-in is a great way to build your reputation while making connections that might lead to gigs, and I mentioned a few that are worth checking out – The Fiddle and Steel has a player-friendly jam every Tuesday night; Douglas Corner has “The Loud Jazz Players Jam” every other Monday night; and there are also a few blues jams around the city including one at Carol Ann’s Café on Sunday nights, and The Fillin’ Station on Thursday nights. I also suggested becoming a regular at some of the clubs on Broadway, as this is also a good place to meet players who are gigging regularly.
Rich Redmond, one of the contributors to my book “The Nashville Musician’s Survival Guide”, has one piece of great advice he gives to players who are new to town, and I passed this advice on in response to a question about evolving a music career in Nashville – “Be patient, and take every gig that is offered”. Every gig will potentially lead to more gigs, and no matter how unimportant some gigs might seem, you never know where those roads might lead.
We paused briefly after my talk to give everyone a chance to stretch their legs and grab some more 
refreshments. Then everybody settled back down into their seats and I proudly introduced the night’s final speaker – country music artist, hit songwriter, BMI songwriter of the year, and my current boss, Rhett Akins. For those of you who aren’t in the know, Rhett is currently one of the hottest songwriters in Nashville, and he shared some great perspective, stories, and advice for all of the songwriters in the room (and judging by a show of hands a little earlier, at least half of those in attendance had come to Nashville to pursue careers in songwriting).
After Rhett’s brief talk about his evolution as a songwriter and artist he also engaged in a group discussion. He spoke candidly about different aspects of being a Nashville songwriter. The Nashville uniqueness of 
co-writing, the pros and cons of publishing deals, and his lifelong passion for music and songwriting were some major talking points.
Some of the perspective he shared that I found most interesting was the sheer number of songs that he writes, stating “I pretty much write at least one song everyday” and that to wind up with five hits songs, he’s probably written 500 songs. He also said that he and his co-writers try to finish a song during each writing appointment, but that he is also interested in experimenting with writing some songs over a longer period of time, noting that “it took Gregg Allman three years to write Melissa”. After his talk concluded he stuck around for a while, giving those who were interested a chance to speak with him one-on-one.
All in all, the event accomplished what we had set out to do. Some of the newest arrivals to Nashville got a chance to reconnect with former classmates that they didn’t even know had moved here, others made new friendships, and many, myself included, got new insights into the ever-changing world of the Nashville music biz’.
I would like to send out a special thanks to the following people for helping make this event a success: Rhett Akins, Karen Bell, Emily Dufresne, Dave Petrelli, Meg O’Brien, NSAI, Berklee, Heston Alley, and Kelly Normand.
Epilogue: I met with Alumni Programs Officer, Emily Dufresne the following afternoon for coffee, and we discussed an idea I had about organizing a monthly “Berklee Alumni Networking Jam”. More info on that will be coming soon!
From left to right: Meg O’Brien, Dave Petrelli, Rhett Akins, Eric Normand, Emily Dufresne