KSUA Special Interview: Sean Imboden, Interviewed by Moody Pierce

A photo of Sean Imobden, taken by Rich Voorhees. The photo is black and white and features Sean on a stage surrounded by instruments. A person is in the background.

It’s been a while since KSUA has interviewed an artist about their work. That stretch of time is finally coming to an end, with the start of a new series of KSUA Special Interviews.

If you’ve been listening to KSUA over the past two months, chances are you may have heard the recently released Communal Heart album by The Sean Imboden Large Ensemble play on our automation system or on one of Saturday Morning Jazz’s broadcasts. The Sean Imboden Large Ensemble, led by the eponymous saxophonist and composer Sean Imboden, is a 17-piece ensemble based in Indianapolis. Here at KSUA, staff member Moody Pierce was lucky enough to interview Mr. Imboden, and inquired about his history with music and the creation of Communal Heart. This interview aired on KSUA a few times, but you can also listen to it directly on this blog page as well. Additionally, it has been transcribed into text down below.

BEGIN INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

– Pierce: I was wondering as my 1st question, how did you find your initial appreciation for music?

Imboden: Both of my parents are musicians. Maybe now you could say semi-retired, but they still do play live gigs, and my dad still does a good amount of teaching. So you know, when I was growing up I would hear them practicing just in the house, but then I would also sometimes like, if they couldn't get a babysitter, they would be carting me off to their rehearsals and gigs with them. 

So a lot of times. I was sitting there, you know, watching a band or an orchestra rehearse from a very young age, and not even realizing, maybe, how unique of a situation that really was. But you know I was just sort of indoctrinated in the life of a freelance musician from a young age, and so I was, you know, hearing all these different styles, and it would be everything from a jingle recording session, which they would just be maybe recording for a TV commercial, for example, in a recording studio, that sort of thing, all the way to both of my parents subbing at different times in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. So then, I was hearing all the great classical music being performed. My dad had a corporate wedding band for a time, so he was playing top 40 music from the eighties and nineties in a live band setting.

All the way until when I started playing in school, and when I got in high school and I got into jazz band. Then I was really immersed into people like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charles Mingus, Dave Holland, lots of current modern players at the time, and I had friends that were giving me albums by like Joshua Redmond, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, John Coltrane.

So it was very much yeah, from a young age, I was just getting hit with all this different music and all these styles. That's one of the nice things that I think now is that I did have an appreciation for all different types of styles. I was never really just a jazz snob, although I really did sort of focus in and tunnel my focus into jazz for a while at a certain point, but I was always open to everything, and when I think about it now, I have as much love for Radiohead as I do, Rachmaninoff, and it's just this broad spectrum of music that I love, which is one of the cool things when it comes to being a composer, because it's like, you have all these different ingredients that you can incorporate into the music you're creating, and it doesn't just have to be straight ahead jazz, or any other style that I'm trying to write. I can take a little bit from here and here and it's all sort of swimming around back there in my subconscious. And then, when I want it to, it can sort of come out, and I can use it as an expressive tool. So yeah, it was really just from a young age, mostly from my parents. And then when I got into school, you know, going to music school, it all sort of started to turn into something that I could actually use, not only for a career, but also doing my own creative work. So it was a lot of different things, but mostly from my parents, and then grew from there.

– Pierce: That's excellent! I remember reading another interview that someone conducted with you on another website, and I saw that you mentioned that your parents were very supportive of going to music school and such. I believe you joked about how a lot of parents would often tell their kids, “Don't go to music school.” But yours were very supportive, and that's cool to see. My second question was actually, “Was there a family history of music?” So that also kind of answers that. As a substitute second question, you mentioned commercial jingles was something that your parents were involved in. Are there any commercials that they worked on that sort of stick out to you in your memory?

Imboden: Oh, well, you know I would. I would maybe need to ask them, because I think at that time it was the situation where, especially in like the eighties and nineties, for the most part, pre-people making songs right on their computer, which nowadays is like, you know, everybody does that. I even do that myself. But back then it was like they would show up a lot of times, and they would maybe have, I don't know, 3 to 5 days in the studio in a week. A lot of times they would be in there every day during the week, and they would just show up, and they wouldn't know even a lot of times what the music was being used for, for it would just be like they would be recording this little 30 second thing. Then they would go on to something else. There's this whole sort of wall of audio engineers, and there's producers, and there's the company that's hiring the producers to do it, and that company is hired by whoever – Nabisco, Hershey – that's like creating the commercials. A lot of times, you don't even really know what the specific piece of music is for. A lot of that, I didn't really know specifically what they were doing. I think sometimes they found out later, they would maybe hear it on TV and it'd be like, “Oh, Folgers Coffee,” and be like, “Oh, yeah, we played on this one.” That was rare, though, most of the time it was they wouldn't know specifically what it was. That was good work for them because it was a lot of times fairly easy music, or they could just show up and sight read it. Good paying work that was pretty consistent at that time. Now a lot of it has dried up, although there is still some of that happening. One of the things that still happens a lot is that there's this publishing company called Hal Leonard, and they publish music for mostly school bands, middle school, high school and college bands and what they'll do a lot of times is they will hire studio musicians to record demos of their arrangements and compositions so that they can send either clips or the full tracks to the school so that the teachers and the students can hear it, and they can sort of hear what it's supposed to go like. So they still do a lot of that. now, and my dad still does those recording sessions quite a bit where he'll go, and it'll be anything from like a big band where he'll be playing like saxophone to maybe an orchestra thing. 

I even did a few of those back in the day, when I was still, maybe in college, or a little after, where I would show up and just be playing clarinet in like a wind ensemble. A lot of it was pretty easy, just like recording middle school band charts. But yeah, as far as specific ads. That would be one I would need to check with my parents just because a lot of that was when I was a little kid, and I don't even necessarily remember specific ones. But that'd be an interesting question to ask them.

– Pierce: My 3rd Question is, what are some of your favorite jazz albums?

Imboden: Thinking specifically about things that inspired my current band, which is, you know, a big band setting. I think one of my favorite composers is Maria Schneider. One of her albums that really stands out to me, that really struck me from a younger age, was her album Concert in the Garden. It was one of those things where you know, growing up as a music student, you're always playing in big bands, because, you know. with our public school system, we have decent music education programs, for the most part, now certainly could be better. But what I experienced was, starting in high school I was able to play in a full jazz big band, which is traditionally between 17 and 20 musicians. You know, saxophones, trombones, trumpets in the rhythm section. And so the music that I was playing at that time was more traditional. It was like they would give us Count Basie charts or Duke Ellington, Sammy Nestico. Sometimes we would get more modern stuff like Charles Mingus or Gordon Goodwin, or you know, other people that were currently putting out music at that time for that instrumentation. But then, at a certain point, I started to hear Maria Schneider's music and what she was doing. She was taking that traditional instrumentation, but then putting her own spin on it and writing it in a modern style that did not completely ignore the past, but it was like, “I can take elements from the past, but then incorporate it into my own thing, and try to create my own sound.” She has so many great albums Allégresse, Sky Blue, her latest one Data Lords, and she just has such a unique way where she can take that instrumentation, but not use it in a cookie cutter way, but really just find her unique sound and get the emotions out that she wants, and just create the energy and the sonic soundscape that she wants. So for me, that was really one of the early light bulbs that went off. I was like, “Wow, you're allowed to do that? It doesn't have to be just like the Basie band?” I love Count Basie and that kind of music, but you know they did that. They did that music. There's no reason necessarily to just sort of rehash that. So it's kind of like, how can we build on what was done? So you know any of Maria's albums definitely stand out to me. You know, as a saxophone player, you know a lot of the classic albums like John Coltrane, Blue Train or Giant Steps, or Miles’ Kind of Blue with Coltrane and Cannonball. I have a long list of favorite saxophone players, George Garzon, Seamus Blake, Branford Marsalis, Ravi Coltrane, so many people that have big discographies of music. I love a lot of piano players as well. Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Danilo Pérez, and Daniil. I got to hear him play with Wayne Shorter. I got to hear them play live when they were still touring a few years ago. That's another one where it's hard for me to give you a very succinct answer. I think that's maybe just a snapshot of a few things that I'm really into.

– Pierce: That's excellent. That was a very good encompassing list. I'll have to go and listen to some of Maria's work after this, because now I'm interested in hearing how she takes the past, but melts it into her own creations.

Imboden: For sure she's one, too, where it's harder, well, it’s not really hard to get her music, but she's pretty anti streaming well, not pretty, very anti streaming so, but she has it all available on her website as well. So you know, you can find her stuff. 

– Pierce: I’ve found a lot of anti streaming artists while working here, in our CDs there’s a lot of artists who are like, “No, no Spotify.” And I respect that angle.

Imboden: Yeah, for sure, I do, too, and I would love it If I could do that myself. I just feel like I would be leaving too much off the table as far as people discovering my music. Which you know it's a trade off. It's a sacrifice, it’s like more people will find out about you if you're on streaming and Youtube and all that. But then, what do you lose? You know. So it's you kind of just have to make the decision. But yeah, no, I absolutely respect that, for sure.

– Pierce: It's such a trade off, it's such a complex situation.

Imboden: Yes, very much so. The one take that I heard that I really am really curious about is just the idea of, you know, they have all the data on what's being listened to. And you know, we're each paying our whatever it is, $9.95, $14 a month, I don't know what the amount is, I use Apple Music, personally. I don't even have Spotify, but, like just what seems like, it would make more sense is we take a percentage of what your monthly pay is, and we divvy it out according to what you're listening to. So if I'm listening to Maria Schneider for 90% of my listening, technically, she should get 90% of my monthly pay right? And that's what would just make so much more sense. Now I'm sure that obviously there would be a lot of technical infrastructure to set up to actually make that work. And there may be, you know, pitfalls that I am not realizing. But I heard that and I was like, “Okay, at least now we're thinking about making it an equitable situation for the artists themselves, and making it something where they could actually maybe sustain themselves on this.” Because, you know, there's so many people that do have big fan bases that could absolutely not survive on what Spotify is paying them. And even the big famous artists are getting paid such a small chunk from what they actually should be getting paid. So it's tricky. It's tricky, but I do hope that it moves back in the direction of the artists getting paid, because that's how we can make this stuff. You know. We need the money to be able to produce these albums if we don't have the funding, then we're kind of stuck. So we got to figure out a way to make it happen.

– Pierce: Definitely. My 4th Question, you've already answered it a little bit, but I believe there might be more. You've mentioned saxophone and clarinet, and I'm wondering how many instruments do you play altogether.

Imboden: Well, now, I've really focused it down to just tenor and soprano saxophone. And then I do still play a little bit of clarinet. I play a little bit of piano as well, but when I was starting out my career I was doing the Broadway Circuit, where I was doing different tours with different Broadway shows. And I did shows like Hairspray, A Chorus Line. Young Frankenstein, South Pacific. I did a show in New York called the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. And for when I was doing all those shows I was doing like all the woodwind doubling stuff. So woodwind doubling encompasses all of the woodwind instruments, you know, more or less how you choose to take them on. So I was doing the flute, clarinet, saxophone primarily, and then I also did a lot of the other instruments within those families. So in the flute family you have, like piccolo, alto flute. In the clarinet family, you have B flat clarinet, E flat clarinet, bass, clarinet, saxophones. You have soprano, alto, tenor, bari, and then I also did a little bit of oboe and bassoon and English horn. So with all of those combined for a period of time, I was playing about a dozen instruments, and then, you know, it's one of those things where I realized, “Okay, I'm decent at all of these, but I want to get good at like one thing.” Because I've kind of felt like I was kind of stuck, and I wasn't able to progress with all that many at one time. So that's when I was doing those Broadway shows for about eight years. And then I decided to kind of scale it back and say, “Okay, let me focus on mainly tenor, saxophone, and soprano, and then try to start my own band, and then sort of see where I can take that.” Because I was in a way feeling like I was always putting out fires like, you know, a gig would come up. It's like, “Oh, I need to play flute for this,” and then something else would come up. It's like, “Oh, I need to play bari Sax for this,” but it was hard to like progress, so I decided to scale it back, and just try to improve on a smaller scale, which seems to work. Well, I'm happy with how it's going now.

– Pierce: Great! Which one would you say, as Question number 5, is your favorite one to play.

Imboden: Oh, well, I guess it depends on the day and how well the reads are working for me. But you know, if I'm really in good shape, I really do love playing the tenor saxophone. I love it because of the range, really. And you know, it's maybe more so than most instruments. It has a nice extreme ranges, and what I mean is like in terms of the ability to play both really low and really high and really soft and really loud. You just get a different timbre than most instruments, and I like that. I also like having the soprano saxophone there as sort of a counter to that, because the soprano I can really focus on that particular range which is a little bit higher sounding. But then also the sound of it, I can just get like a maybe warmer, a little bit more mellow sound. So I like having the tenor and soprano together on gigs and recording sessions, because you get that nice, really nice contrast. So I really like both of those. And I've been learning a bit of piano, which is really fun because you get to play harmony, and you get to play more than one note at a time, which, you know, it's just a funny thing that's overlooked with like the horn instruments, you don't ever get to do that. So just sitting down at the piano. That's why, a lot of times I really get a lot out of just trying to compose something, because, you know, on the piano I can play chords, and I can play counter lines, and I can play melody with a bass line and change it up and experiment in new and maybe richer ways than I can on the saxophone, where I'm limited to just like one note at a time.

– Pierce: That's cool! My familiarity with the saxophone in my mind is that it's just the saxophone, and I forget that there's like, the tenor saxophone and soprano one. It's really cool to hear about the differences between them.

Imboden: Yeah, for sure. You can think of it almost like a choir, you know. Traditional choir will have like alto, soprano, tenor, and they'll call it basses. So it's basically the same thing with the saxophone family. You have the soprano, alto, tenor, and bari, and the way that the ranges are set up. It's like that same sort of deal. You could also think of it as like a maybe like a Bach piece that would have four different parts. It would have, the low part, the two middle parts, and the high part four, part harmony, and it, you know, if you have those four notes, then you can basically play any harmony that you need to. You can play a major chord, minor chord, augmented, diminished. You've got your harmony covered with those four voices. So then, when you imagine, like the big band, typically the saxophone section will have two altos, two tenors, and a bari, and then the lead out, and sometimes double on soprano if you need that extra higher voice. So then you get that big range, especially amongst the five of them. So yeah, you have a lot to work with there. And definitely. It’s fun when it comes to composing, too, and writing for that, and blending those with the different brass instruments. So you have a lot of possibilities.

A photo of Sean Imboden and his ensemble playing before an audience. Photo taken by Rich Voorhees.

– Pierce: Thanks for sharing that! Question 6: I was wondering, how did you form your 17 piece ensemble? That's a lot of individuals to coordinate. Were they friends, colleagues? Did you hire them, or…

Imboden: Yeah, a little bit of everything. When I first started out, I guess I would consider them all friends at that time, like I had known everybody for at least a few years, and most of them were living nearby in Indianapolis. I don't think I was really bringing anybody from outside the city too far at that time. And so initially, it was like, “Okay, I've got this music. I want to try to play it, you know. Would you be willing to get together for rehearsal?” I was always pretty conscious of the idea that I didn't want to be having them feel like they were doing me a favor, so I was always trying to make it so that I could pay them, even if it was just for a rehearsal. But then, certainly, when we started getting gigs, I was always like, “Okay, this is how much it pays. Would you?” And I was asking everybody, “would you be willing to do it for this much?” I was never asking people just to do it as a favor, or do it for free, because I knew there was always going to be sort of a dead end there, or I didn't want it to feel like, you know, a friendship could be on the rocks, because somebody was bailing on my thing to do something that paid better. That kind of thing. So I always need to make sure. I needed to treat it professionally, even though most of them are my friends, and I've known them for a while. Now it's a situation where I'm even sometimes needing to hire somebody from outside of Indianapolis. For example, we don't have a lot of trumpet players here, so sometimes I bring somebody in from Cincinnati, or I might bring a couple people in from Kentucky. The neighboring states where they're still close enough, where they can make the drive to the gig. In those situations, I am definitely aware of their time and their effort they're putting in and the practice time to learn the music. So I'm always thinking, “Okay, how much does the gig pay? How much can I afford to pay each player?” But I do also really want to try to foster that feeling of friendship where it's something they want to do. And the pay hopefully makes it feel like a bonus, I want them to want to do it because of the people and the music. And then the pay just makes it like a no-brainer that they're going to just say yes to the opportunity, hopefully. So I think it is a little bit of everything. I do want to keep the level of the musicianship high, which means paying people which in turn kind of gives them the expectation I want them to show up ready to go. You know, if we're doing a recording session, I need them to know their music. Or if we're doing a recording or a live gig to have put in the preparation needed for that. So yeah, it's friendship. But hopefully, also with a professional sort of polish on everything.

– Pierce: Nice, that's excellent to hear! That brings me to Question 7. I'm wondering what it's like managing such a large group of people? And is the ensemble something that you kind of want to keep where it's currently at? Or would it be something that you'd be willing to grow and add more people to?

Imboden: Yeah, that's a good question. I think, as far as managing it, it is basically just me doing a million emails all the time, and I would love to someday have some type of assistant that can take care of administrative work for me, but I'm just not there right now. For one thing, I like having control, but also, obviously, funding is one thing that I always am taking into consideration. If I can cut down the costs, then I can just do more with the band, and we can put out more music. For example, we just recorded our second album last month, which will be released next spring. The only way I'm able to do this is for one thing, me trying to be personally just really aware of where all the dollars are going. With this project I've been able to, especially with our first album, we had a big donor backing in terms of the funding. We did a Kickstarter, and that's what paid for pretty much everything. And now I have more donors on board where a lot of them supported the second album as well. And when it comes down to it, basically, I just got to make the ends meet, and just figure out how much it's gonna cost me on the studio, and then how to make that funding work. For me, that is one of the trickiest things. The other thing would be, you know, just getting the lineup. The personnel lineup set for whenever we do a gig or a performance. And that just means trying to get things on the calendar early and then asking people if they're available, and then trying to get it on their schedules early, because most of the people in my band are freelancers to some extent where they have a lot of things coming in. They want to be able to say yes to opportunities and if they say something that conflicts with my thing before I even ask them, then I missed the chance to get my A Team. Then I maybe kind of have to scramble to find a sub or something like that. So it's just trying to stay really on top of it and be proactive and thinking ahead as far as l I can make things go smoothly, but every time I do it I'm learning a lot in terms of management. But the main thing is asking early, getting things on the book early, and trying not to procrastinate when it comes to hiring the band, but also writing the music and all that stuff as far as where I'm seeing the group go. I mean, I have a lot of aspirations for doing all sorts of different collaborations. There's an Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, but there is also an Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, just a smaller version which is great, and I would love to maybe do something with them at some point where my big band is on stage with the chamber orchestra, and maybe they're playing. Maybe I've incorporated them, the orchestra into my arrangements, that sort of thing. So I am a big lover of classical music, and I would love to try to incorporate more strings and more classical musicians into what I'm already doing. I've done some smaller collaborations with string quartets that I put together playing some of my music, and also live performances with some professional dancers as well. We have two really great dance companies here, the Indianapolis Ballet, and then also Dance Kaleidoscope with some amazingly talented dancers, and I would love to try to do more with some of them if I can, down the road. I have lots of ideas and things that I'd like to try. A lot of that again will come down to funding. That's one of the tricky issues in terms of making it so the orchestra can be on stage with my band. That's just a huge cost in and of itself. So that would be one thing. But then also, just working out the scheduling, usually the music side of things comes together. I'm not lacking in ideas when it comes to trying to write music, and, you know, write in genres that are crossing over, maybe traditional genre lines. So that's something that I really enjoy. I'm going to try to do as much of that as I can in the future. And, like I mentioned, we just recorded our second album. I would love to maybe do one new album with this band every year, if possible. So that's the goal as of now. We'll see if I can stick to it.

A photo of the Communal Heart album by the Sean Imboden Large Ensemble. The album art depicts a stylized heart painted in hellow.

– Pierce: Nice. On that note, that's a good segue into Question. 8. I was wondering, how long did Communal Heart take to produce overall? When did you first start having ideas for these pieces? When did you start writing them like? At what point did it transform from a collection of song ideas to an album?

Imboden: I'm thinking it was maybe the year after the pandemic, or when, the year after the pandemic started when I was really getting going with the music for this album. We hadn't played a gig for like a year when the pandemic started, and after that I was like, “Well, we're going to come back, and we're going to play at some point, and I need to have the music ready to go.” So I think I just sort of got motivated at some point, knowing, I don't know when things are going to open back up, but I want to have the music ready, so that when it does, I can call that first rehearsal. We can book that gig, and we can get this going again because I started the band originally in 2017, and I was actually getting ready to record before the pandemic and just scheduling wise with the musicians, I wasn't able to get it done, which I think was actually for the best, because that gave me a few more years to let my writing mature a bit and really fine tune the sound of the band that I was going for. So then we didn't end up playing a gig after the pandemic until 2023, and at that point, I had almost all of the music from the whole album done. And so we started rehearsing and playing gigs in 2023, and then recorded the next year in last spring in 2024. So it was pretty slow, relatively speaking, but that was a good thing, because it made sure that the band knew the music really well, and it made sure I was able to fine tune the arrangements to get them exactly how I wanted them to be. I feel like I'm getting a little bit faster at it now, and I'm able to sort of pump out the charts on a better timeline. But at the same time I think it's good if the music sort of bakes in the oven, as we say, a little bit longer. That can be a good thing, because we want the end result to be as good as it can be and not try to rush this stuff. So yeah, I think it was the beginning of 2024, when I had my book of music that had the newer stuff, but also the pre-pandemic stuff. And I was thinking, “Okay, what would work well in terms of an album?” And I was kind of picking what I felt like were the strongest pieces. And then, in my mind, sort of imagining, “Okay, what's a good opener? What's the sort of flow of the album that I want?” Because I want a nice up and down. I want it to feel like you're going on this journey and that it's hopefully telling a story, and that it's interesting. And there's a lot of diversity. in the styles on the album, I don't want it to all be just like one color of music. So from there, giving a lot of thought in terms of, if I'm putting an album together of five or six pieces, what's the flow? What do I want it to look like? Where is it going to go? And then eventually it just sort of takes shape after giving it a bit of thought, and then eventually thinking about the story of the music, that for me always comes later, when I'm writing the music and putting the pieces together. That's more of an abstract musical thing that I'm experiencing and trying to put together in a way that makes sense. And then later on, “Oh, yeah, this makes sense as an album, as a whole.” And then I can think about where the music came from.

– Pierce: I really like what you said about how each song has its own identity. That's something I noticed while listening to it. Each track was very distinct to me, they all had a different feeling to them. And I really liked that about Communal Heart.

Imboden: Oh, good. That's definitely something that I think about. Because I think when I'm writing the pieces, I'm not really thinking how an individual piece is going to fit into an album. I'm just trying to make the individual piece as good as it can possibly be, and because then, if I have like five to ten of those, then it's like, “Oh, I can just piece these together sort of like puzzle pieces and make an album out of them.” So that's definitely something that I'm going for. I just want each piece to be as strong as it can be on an individual level.

– Pierce: Nice! My next question is, I'm wondering where the name Communal Heart came from? It's a very nice name. It has a very pretty sound to it, and I would like to know more about the meaning behind the name.

Imboden: I think one of the things that I realized with this band when we would get together, because any music scene is gonna have a lot of little cliques and different groups of people that maybe don't mingle or interact just naturally, because a lot of people will play with the same musicians a lot of times, but with this band I noticed it was a thing where oh, we were getting a lot of people that don't hang out or even play together a lot to actually come together and make music together as one. So it feels like we're sort of developing our own little community here. The second side of it was when we started playing gigs after the pandemic. This was around 2023. I was noticing we were getting really good turnouts with our crowd, and they were really supportive. So it was like this extra side of the community, the non-musician side, just the music lovers, and the audience was coming out to support. And so I was like, “Wow, you know, this is another level.” That's when I was thinking, “How am I going to afford to make this album?” So I was like, “Oh, yeah, let me try to do this, Kickstarter.” Then I noticed the crowd really came in and supported what we were doing. And I was like, “man, this is amazing, because now it's not only the community musicians, but the audience that came together to allow us to make our recordings.” So it was just everything that came together on the community level where it just made me really thankful to have that support, and to be somewhere where I could actually see my vision through in the way that I wanted it to. So I felt like I had to title it that mainly just because it felt like a lot of it was out of my hands. And it was just like the community took on this power of its own where I just sort of stepped out of the way, and, you know, allowed it to do its thing. So that's where it came from. Hopefully, I can come up with a good title for the second album that sort of matches that one. So we'll see. I haven't titled it yet, but I need to start thinking about it.

– Pierce: Well, I think so far you're two for two, because I saw the streaming only album that you recently released, Dreamer’s Journey, and that also has a really nice name to it, I feel.

Imboden: Oh, yeah, thank you. That is a nice one. I guess one of the things is maybe just not relying on just naming the album after one of the tracks, or assuming it has to default to that which I understand why people do that because it is hard to come up with a title, but I think it's worth it if you give it that space to think about it, and then give the album its own name. So I like trying to do that.

– Pierce: Yeah, it gives it an overall identity rather than just kind of tying it to the eponymous track.

Imboden: Right, exactly.

– Pierce: Going back to the Broadway productions… You've been in many groups and played for, and with, a lot of people. I saw that you're even on The Tonight Show at one point. Along with touring on these Broadway productions. And I was wondering what is it like playing for these large crowds? And how does it feel then, when you were first starting out, compared to now?

Imboden: Hmm, it's a good question. it's interesting, doing the Broadway stuff. And then when I was able to do some of the TV things. Any of those situations, I'm such a small cog in a very big machine, especially with the Broadway stuff. The touring shows you would have 30 to 50 people on stage, singers and dancers, and then I'd be in the pit, which a pit orchestra could have anywhere from 5 to 30 musicians as well. So I'm just playing my small role. And it's interesting in a way, because you feel that power when everybody comes together, and it just goes just right. And then the crowd reacts. And you, you feel like you're maybe a part of something bigger than just yourself, which is pretty cool. A lot of times I try to carry that feeling now into even when I'm doing my own stuff, even if it's just like a small jazz group, or if I am leading my large ensemble, I wanted to try to get into that same space where it feels like, you know, when we come together, it's something that's bigger than the sum of the the parts or the the individual parts. I suppose, we want the outcome to be this thing that takes on its own life and its own force, and it has its own character and personality. So I think that's something that I always try to keep in mind. I mean, even when I was playing, I remember when we did the Fallon show I was playing in the horn section with the band The All American Rejects. And I remember thinking, “Okay, I'm you know, one of three horn players. And then there's 4 or 5 guys that were in the band. So it's not a huge band.” But still my part is relatively small and plays like a background horn line. Then they have all their stuff, their vocals, and their lead guitar out front. That's the stuff that the crowd's really paying attention to. We're just sort of in the background in the shadows. But it was so cool because we noticed all these little elements that come together to create this bigger thing. And I'm still trying to do that. Now with my band, we have the big band playing, it's 17 musicians playing. And I want to think about how every aspect can come together to create something cool rather than thinking, “Okay, we have a lot of great soloists in the band. We want to just try to feature everybody.” I do want to do that. But I want to think about the power of of the group when we really come together and really make it happen on a high level together, because that is just such a special thing. And that's what makes music so interesting. I think a lot of times, it's yeah, we have great soloists. We can think of plenty of people throughout history. Everybody from Louis Armstrong to Whitney Houston to Kurt Cobain. Anybody who's going to stand out as a great, you know, unique soloist, that's special. But also when we come together and make it happen, like an orchestra or a big band or a string quartet where our sound is defined when everything is added together, not just like individuals that were here. That's where a lot of the magic comes into play, so I’m trying to incorporate that, you know, in my compositions. But just as a band leader in general, and I’m always trying to keep that in mind when I'm putting things together.

– Pierce: Thank you. That's a very good answer, very in depth. And that brings me to my final question. What advice would you give to any other aspiring jazz musicians out there? What would you tell yourself, if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self when you're just getting started out with all of this? What advice would you give to yourself?

Imboden: Yeah, it's a good question. I think maybe a few things. I guess one of the big things would be, just really trying to focus on the craft. And by that I mean whatever instrument or art form, or really anything, you're trying to get better at, just focusing on the craft aspect in terms of the technique. How well and effortlessly and expressively you're able to do the thing and also depending on, you know the genre, or the instrument, or or even the art form itself, you know each sort of genre or area is going to have its own necessities as far as technique that you're going for. And what I mean by that is, say, you're trying to play in a symphony orchestra. Well, that means you got to be able to play your instrument nearly perfectly in tune and be able to match the people next to you exactly. That's one very specific thing. If you're trying to play in a jazz band, it's a different thing. Maybe you're trying to be able to stand out as a great improvising soloist, for example. And if that's the case, then just doubling down on that specific thing and trying to get really, really good at that. That's one side of it. So just, you know, mastering your instrument so that you don't really have to think about it. There was somebody that came into town as a guest artist with one of my bands. He played in my band, and then we did another small group thing the next day, and he pointed out the drummers that I had on both bands. He's like, “Man, these drummers. They just play the drums like it's a toy.” And what he meant is that it's just so effortless and fun for them, because they were such masters on a high level at that instrument. That's really what you need to do is just master the craft so that it is just fun, and you're just playing it just like you're a kid playing with a toy. It just needs to be that effortless and able to get into that flow state just so quickly and just being able to play things without thinking about them, and just make it second nature. So that's the craft aspect. That’s definitely what I encourage everybody to do. Then the other side of it would be, especially if you are someone who's wanting to sort of put things out there in an artistic way, where you know you want to create your own thing. You want your voice to be heard, whether it's as a composer or an instrumentalist, or even as a band leader, or maybe in an original band. And it could be any style, I would say. Don't be afraid to be unique, because we need individuals out there. We need the next John Coltrane, or the next Maria Schneider, or the next Rachmaninov, or the next Mozart. We need those people, and we need them to really double down on who they are personally, and let that shine through in their artistry, because we see a lot of times it's easier, maybe, to just play. Just start a band and try to sound just like John Mayer, for example. Now I love John Mayer, but he already happened. You know he's already his thing. We need the next person a lot of times. I like to say that to my college students. I'll say we need the next “you” and I'll use their name like, “Oh, we need the next Aaron,” or, “we need the next Michael,” or whoever it is. Because a lot of times, they don't maybe get that encouragement. We're always like, “Oh, well, just learn this John Coltrane solo,” or, “just learn this Jimi Hendrix solo,” which, yeah, that's great to do. But then you got to take the next step and say, “Okay, what's your thing gonna be?” And a lot of times we're scared to do that because it doesn't necessarily equate to record sales or views or plays, or even getting gigs necessarily. But if you stick with that and double down on the uniqueness. Then that can turn into just pure magic. And it's one of the things that I've realized with writing my own music. I didn't really think we would get too much of a crowd a lot of times, but I was completely bowled over by the fact that we were getting big crowds. And now I think, like the last five gigs or so that we've played, we've sold out the house. And I'm just like, man, this is crazy because I wasn't writing it in terms of trying to get popular or thinking about selling a lot of tickets. I was just writing what I loved and what was really in my heart, the music that really spoke to me, and that got me excited and inspired. So you know I would encourage people to do the same thing really, just double down on who you are and not be afraid of that, because maybe it doesn't fit the mold, but just go for it, and you'll be rewarded even if it is something where it doesn’t become highly popular or successful. You will be very happy and satisfied, because you'll love the outcome of what you got. So I think that would be the other big thing besides really getting the craft aspect down. Then just doubling down on your own individual artistry.

– Pierce: That's beautiful advice. And I think what you say to your college students is something that our college radio listeners should also hear themselves. I think that's very, very fitting, and I'm glad that you said that so that we can broadcast it to all those college students.

Imboden: Yeah, for sure, for sure. That's the age where it is very much like, maybe if you don't connect with somebody who you've been given as an assignment, for example, “learn a Miles Davis solo.” And you're not really feeling the solo. It's like the the teacher has given you that for a reason, because there's a lot of great musicality that you will learn and and get out of that, and you'll grow a lot through the experience of doing that. But that doesn't mean that we don't want you to try to go and write a song that sounds like what you want it to sound like, even if it sounds nothing like Miles. That's fine. That's okay. That's good. If you realize that, and you're willing to accept that. You want to take a little bit of a different path. That's good. That's where we get these artists. That's where we get this great artistry from. And again, like it takes people different periods of time, too. Some people can latch onto what their style is from even in high school. And then some people, it might take them into their thirties and forties. And either way it's fine. It's just the the fact of doing it and and being okay with being patient with it. At the same time, studying what you think you're supposed to study. Especially if we're thinking about jazz music. You want to know Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, who the legends are. They're legendary for a reason, but the more that you learn that, too, it will also feed into your own thing. That's one of the things that I noticed with myself, too, is that even I still study the history of the music now, because it allows me more tools and more inspiration for creating my own thing. So it doesn’t block you off from that. But you just want to be open to the past, present, and the future all at once, and then that's going to just sort of keep you going and keep you motivated.

– Pierce: Excellent! Thank you so much. I think I've officially ran out of questions, and we're coming up on the top of the hour. So I'd like to thank you for your time and give you a chance to give parting words to the listeners and our readers on the blog version of this, and maybe give you a spot to tease your next album.

Imboden: Yeah, well, thank you for having me. It's been nice talking with you,  just connecting with anybody from Alaska is cool because I don't think I actually know anyone that lives in Alaska. As far as I know I could be wrong about that, but I'm hoping to make it up there someday, and maybe even play in Fairbanks if the fates allow it. So I hope to do that. 

The next big band album with my band is going to be coming out next spring. We have recorded it all now. I just got to mix it and master it this summer and then go through the production process, and then we'll be releasing that one. I plan to hopefully record, maybe like a small group album that I would release later this year as well. I always post that stuff on my website. But yeah, as far as parting words. I hope everyone in Fairbanks is doing well, and I hope that my music gives you something to enjoy, and maybe something different to think about, and you know, shoot me a message if you just want to say hello! I'd love to hear from anybody as well.

– Pierce: Thank you! Alright, have a nice day, Sean!

Imboden: Yeah, you too, Moody. Thank you for doing this, it was fun!

END INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

For now, thanks for reading, and take care.

Moody AKA “Airwave Valentin”

June 11th 2025