Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

David Naiditch interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 43

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David Naiditch joins me on episode 43. 

After starting out as a diatonic player, including having lessons with a touring Sonny Terry, David developed himself into possibly the sole exponent of playing Bluegrass music on the chromatic harmonica, and has recorded various albums with some of the stellar names from the Bluegrass world. 

David likes the clean, consistent tone that the chromatic brings.
He also plays Gypsy Jazz, a genre which he sees as having some similarities with Bluegrass. 
During the pandemic David recorded an album entirely remotely from the other musicians, and his delight with the results show the increasing potential of this, although it’s always nice to play along with others. 

David honed his craft live, and you might catch him jamming along at a festival in the US sometime soon. 



Links:
Website:
http://www.davidnaiditch.com/DavidNaiditch/Welcome.html

Steve Kaufman’s Bluegrass workout:
https://www.homespun.com/shop/product/steve-kaufmans-four-hour-bluegrass-workout-volume-one/


Videos:

David's YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/DNaiditch

David demos blues in 12 keys on chromatic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njLjIlYM02o

Jimmy Riddle playing chromatic on US TV show ‘Hee Haw’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO1xQ-TAF6k

Jackie Naiditch YouTube channel for house jams:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRvo2hgdJVyz8o-CQgopjTA


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/



Support the show

SPEAKER_01:

David Nadich joins me on episode 43. After starting out as a diatonic player, including having lessons with the touring Sonny Terry, David develops himself into possibly the sole exponent of playing bluegrass music on the chromatic harmonica, and has recorded various albums with some of the stellar names from the bluegrass world. David likes the clean, consistent tone that the chromatic brings. He also plays gypsy jazz, a genre which he sees as having some similarities with bluegrass. During the pandemic, David recorded an album entirely remotely from the other musicians, and his delight with the results show the increasing potential of this, although it's always nice to play along with others. David horned his craft live and you might catch him jamming along at a festival in the US sometime soon. Hello, David Nadish, and welcome to the podcast. Well, thank you. Hello. So thanks so much for joining, David. So you're based in Los Angeles on the west coast of the U.S.?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes,

SPEAKER_01:

I've lived

SPEAKER_02:

in the L.A. area since I was about

SPEAKER_01:

seven years old. And so what got you started playing music? Was the harmonica your first instrument?

SPEAKER_02:

Actually, harmonica and guitar. Just before that, at about age 13, I was playing the oboe in the junior high school band. Actually, I wanted to play clarinet, but the conductor really wanted an oboe because no one had an oboe. You know, it's a rare instrument, but I found it very difficult to play and my lungs weren't strong enough. So it was a real relief when I found, discovered the harmonica and the guitar. I like to improvise more than read music. So I got into the music by going to the Ash Grove, which was the focal point. of American folk music revival. So every weekend I took a buck. I met a lot of people out there, like my cousin, who introduced me to this kind of music, where almost all my friends turned out to be from Fairfax High School, which was near the Ash Grove. But the turning point in my music interest came when I first showed up at the Ash Grove and got to hear Doc Watson and Family with Clarence Ashley on fiddle.

SPEAKER_03:

She's a pretty bird. She wobbles as she flies and

SPEAKER_02:

on the second set they had reverend gary davis so here were some of the finest guitar players of all time both on that single show at the ash grove and that was a turning point in my life i didn't know such music existed i was listening to more popular music like kingston trio and new christy minstrels that kind of music and then When I heard this virtuosity, it just completely blew me away. From there, I started getting into other kinds of music that the Ashgrove featured. I saw a lot of shows. I started jamming with folks. Early on, I took lessons from Sonny Terry when I was still in junior high school, about age 14. And a guitar player friend of mine took lessons

SPEAKER_01:

from Brownie McGee. Some great tutors there. So yeah, so picking up on that lesson from Sonny Terry. So was he based out in that area as well then?

SPEAKER_02:

No, he wasn't. He was just on tour. So I caught him when he was at the Ash Grove doing some various music gigs and actually went to his hotel to get my first lesson. And later on, he and Brownie came to my house. So I got a little bit more lessons and really got to know those two great musicians at the time. It was really a great honor for me to be that close to one of my idols, you know, Sonny Terry. Between the guitar player and me, we were doing sort of a Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee clone group in junior high school. And we were called Joe Banana and his Bunch, later just called Joe Banana. This guy was a terrible punster, the guitar player. So that was the first group I was in. And like I said, we were mainly doing traditional country blues in the style of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee. And that was my first real effort into learning music and playing music.

SPEAKER_01:

So you're the first person I think I've talked on here who's had any lessons with Sonny Terry. So what were those lessons like with Sonny Terry?

SPEAKER_02:

Actually, I hate to say it, but they weren't very useful because he played harmonica from the age of, you know, really young age. It was so... second nature to him. It was like a person trying to explain how they're talking. So I had to ask him to do things like, play now without waving your hands in front of the harmonica, because I wanted to see how much the hands added, how much the harmonica added, and so on. He really had to try it, and he didn't even know until he tried it. It was so ingrained that he was not a particularly good teacher thinking about what he had to go through to

SPEAKER_04:

learn.

SPEAKER_02:

And the other thing about Sonny Terry is, you know, we're all harmonica players. You can't see what's going on, like on the guitar. Can't see chord shapes and how the fingers are moving and so on. It's all hidden in the mouth. So I actually had him open the mouth at one point to show how he can flip his tongue from side to side at a very high speed. He actually showed me what he was doing with his tongue. So that was kind of really interesting. He was a great teacher as far as being enthusiastic in everything. But like I said, he really couldn't explain things to a beginner.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think I've heard that a few from some of the home monica greats that they didn't necessarily teach that well they just kind of played and then kind of you know you just have to soak up what they were playing it sounds like he had a similar approach then so how many lessons did you have with

SPEAKER_02:

him

SPEAKER_01:

i had about three or four

SPEAKER_02:

from there i mostly learned from his album you know i picked it up very fast you know once i figured out how crosswalk worked i uh had the right keys and i just followed along on all of the albums

SPEAKER_01:

so yeah and you've been playing

SPEAKER_02:

for

SPEAKER_01:

very

SPEAKER_02:

long by that stage no monica no no that was really pretty much the beginning I started a little bit playing country harmonica from a mailman that delivered mail. He was a harmonica player. I forget how I found out. So I did learn a little country tunes and tongue blocking and so on. And I knew how to bend the notes pretty well by the time I met Sonny Terry. And I knew about crossbar. So all of the basics I had before starting the lessons, which was good. You remember how much you charged? Was it a reasonable rate or was it quite high? You know, there's no way I remember. But I do have the original Ashgrove flyers from that time. I kept them. And it mentions Sonny Terry, Brown and McGee as teachers. And they may have the price in there, but those are more group lessons.

SPEAKER_01:

So I really

SPEAKER_02:

can't remember how much he charged. And as a person, what was he like? He was very, very, very nice. Really wanted to help me. He had some great stories he would tell. Very approachable. Didn't have any big ego getting in his way. He was the nicest

SPEAKER_01:

person. Really enjoyed it. Great to have him, I'd say, maybe just as an inspiration as much as anything. And what was the album you listened to a lot of his? Oh,

SPEAKER_02:

any album that can get a hold of. Yeah, I had a number of albums. I remember one was from Folkway. My father actually had some Folkway albums he collected. And one of the albums was Sonny Carey just doing all solo

SPEAKER_04:

work.

SPEAKER_00:

Whoa, Lord, what a beautiful city. Whoa, what a beautiful city, God, no. Twelve gates to the city, hallelujah, amen.

SPEAKER_04:

Hear

SPEAKER_00:

me talking now. Yes, I mean it now. and then

SPEAKER_02:

i also had a bunch of brownie mcgee sunny terry albums and i think some of them i borrowed and some i bought just whatever i can get a hold of and All of our favorite songs, I then learned and played with that guitar player.

SPEAKER_01:

So you started off very much, you know, as you say, maybe a little country, but you started off very much as a blues player, a country blues player, maybe in the Sonny Terry style when you got started. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

I liked Paul Butterfield and that kind of music, but I just never got into that amplification. So I really stayed with the country blues. Plus, I liked to jam and I used to go, started going to various jam sessions at the Ash Grove and private parties and festivals like the Topanga banjo fiddle contest. And I played unamplified, totally acoustic with other acoustic musicians. And I found that especially satisfying, not having to lug around microphones and amplifiers and all that. Plus, I did a lot of backpacking where I brought my harmonica

SPEAKER_01:

to entertain. You're now mainly a chromatic player. So how long did you play diatonic before you made the switch across to chromatic?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, what happened is after a number of years, quite a times the music, which I already started doing on the guitar. I was fingerpicking guitar. I was doing ragtime tunes. I was doing some jazzy tunes. I was getting into bluegrass. And I did not like the way the diatonic worked for that. I like to play, especially for music like bluegrass, I like every note to have the same timbre and tone. And I found that when I played diatonic and had to bend notes to get the particular missing note, that it lost that constant timbre and tone. It sort of stuck out to me. notes that i had a bend which i didn't think fit the style plus i didn't like the bend style at all because it sounded too bluesy for things like bluegrass so at that point i woke up one day because i kind of gave up harmonica because i just didn't like the way it was working and i woke up one day and say well i should try chromatic which i only dabbled in uh and i found very difficult at first but i figured i'll really sit down and learn figure out how it works and try to incorporate the chromatic into this other genres of music besides blues and it took me a

SPEAKER_01:

while. Yeah, but you've got some great dexterities we'll get onto shortly, but before then. So again, on the diatonics now, there are obviously alternative tunings, which probably weren't so common back then. So did you ever consider alternative tunings back on diatonic back then, or would you consider you playing a diatonic with alternative tunings now instead of chromatic? Yeah, no, I only played a

SPEAKER_02:

standard tune, Richter, you know, harmonica. Even with the altered tunings and so on, you still have to bend to get some of those semitones and so on that are missing. You know, bend and down a semitone, just way before overblows and all that became well-known. So I just didn't like the tone that I got when I bent. It bothered me also that not just the tone changed when I had a bend, but also that I couldn't get certain notes. I played where I hear the notes, I hear what bluegrass people play, and it really frustrated me if I couldn't play that exact melody that I heard. I really wanted to nail the melody down without having to substitute any other notes. I didn't want to have to bend or do any note substitution And I found that impossible on the diatonic, where the chromatic, I was quite delighted that I had every note now. And I knew if I couldn't play it, the problem was me. It wasn't the instrument. The note was there. So I kept working on it until I got the notes I liked and, you know, modified things in ways that lend itself very well to the chromatic with certain embellishments and so on.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I think I read that you... So you started playing the diatonic back in the 60s, but it was about in the 90s. So kind of 30 years later, you picked up the chromatic seriously. Is that right? That's right.

SPEAKER_02:

I was in between. I did a lot of the car playing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Which is all great learning too, of course.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So a little bit more about your life, you know, away from music. So I understand you studied mathematics at university and then philosophy?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes,

SPEAKER_01:

I got degrees

SPEAKER_02:

in those two fields. And then I got into a little teaching. I set up a computer lab about 1980 when the first PCs came out. We actually set up a computer lab and I taught students how to program. And that was a very popular class because I showed them how to actually program games. And I taught all of the math classes and some of the science classes as well. And then I decided to use my math skills more and I got into the aerospace corporation. And that was the beginning. And then from then on, I just stayed in as an aerospace engineer until retiring five years ago.

SPEAKER_01:

An interesting working life and helped you

SPEAKER_02:

fund your addiction to music as well, no doubt. Oh, yes. It's nice where I can do what I want and not worry about how much I'm making. Great deal of freedom to be very particular about what I do and only do things that I really

SPEAKER_01:

enjoy. Exactly. Buy some nice instruments and travel to as many gigs and music festivals as you like. Yeah. So I understand you've written two books on the Ada programming language.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. I became an expert in the Ada programming language, which at the time became mandated by the military and also a lot of civilian companies pushed it when you needed safety-critical software, where if something

SPEAKER_01:

went wrong, people's lives could be at stake. Do you see any similarities of your knowledge of mathematics and programming and music? Do you think that's helped you in any way?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I just don't know. Some of the best mathematicians I've known had no ear for music. So I kind of undermined it. But yet I knew one math genius that was brilliant in music. So I just don't know what to make of that. I don't know how much transfer there is.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you hear a lot of people say, you know, that music is a lot like mathematics. You know, if you think of the scale numbers, for example, you know,

SPEAKER_02:

Well, certainly the jazz folks that are really into the jazz music have a lot of theory in their head. And a lot of that's very mathematical, the way they think about some of these

SPEAKER_01:

relationships. And what about, you know, the, you know, the cue to resources we have now to practice with, you know, programs and backing tracks, slowing down in all these multitude of programs. Is that something, you know, being knowledgeable on software that you ever got involved with or at least using? I mainly

SPEAKER_02:

used software when YouTube started coming out, and I slowed down the videos for guitar. Because like I said, in guitar, you can see the chord structures. You can really see what the person's doing. And it sped up my learning immensely, because when I first learned guitar, it was all from just listening and figuring out from just hearing where the person was on the neck, how they were playing the chord, and so on. So it really, really helped to see it. Harmonica, I never used electronics that much. fast rate as well. I guess occasionally I slow things down on a mandolin or a fiddle to get ideas of what they're doing. But for the most part, I could learn it at whatever speed that we're playing. So just occasionally I slow things down for learning, but not too often.

SPEAKER_01:

So getting into, as you say, you started off playing sort of blues, country blues, and then you got interested in the folk music scene. So you went to the Ash Grove in Los Angeles. Well,

SPEAKER_02:

that was part of the folk music scene. It started off with blues harmonica, but I was listening to a lot of bluegrass, like the Kentucky Colonels with Clarence White. They were playing at the Ash Grove, and I heard other kinds of music. Jazz here kind of formed the music. I heard Ry Cooter at the Ash Grove. I got to know him a little bit. So I met a lot of people that did a lot more than just straight-ahead blues, and that really got me interested, but like I said, I didn't think the harmonica was well-suited to a lot of those genres. The diatonics, I turned more to guitar, but I was very aware of these other forms of music. I knew about Django, Reinhardt, even in junior high school. I had a record, and I figured I'd never be able to play this stuff, but I loved it. And I played it a lot. So that was a great influence on me. It was many, many, many years later that I actually attempted to play that kind of music.

SPEAKER_01:

A lot of your albums, which we'll get into shortly, are, you know, sort of heavily bluegrass and gypsy. So starting off with bluegrass, maybe for the uninitiated, you could just explain, you know, what bluegrass is. Yeah, well, I started with groups like Dillman

SPEAKER_03:

Rose.

SPEAKER_02:

acoustic form of music it's dominated by string instruments which means the bass guitar fiddle they call it fiddled in bluegrass rather than violin mandolin usually very tight harmony in the singing occasionally they have a dobro oh i forgot a banjo it's very essential to bluegrass and it's played in a certain style that people like earl scruggs promoted it's a finger picking style of banjo And then, like I say, dobro was sometimes used. Harmonica was always an outlier. There were groups like Jim and Jesse had Mike Stevens play with them, but that was unusual. Harmonica really didn't play any significant role in the history of bluegrass. So one problem with bluegrass is there are a lot of traditionalists that really don't want things like drums, don't want anything like a clarinet or even a harmonica. They really think of this as very specific to these kinds of instruments played acoustically. That was a challenge when I started playing harmonica and doing bluegrass. Eventually, you know, you're hearing more and more, more and more, like, for example, Eddie Barbash, for example, now plays a lot of saxophone and bluegrass, which was really unheard of in the past. So I'm hearing more and more people adding instruments that are not really that traditional with bluegrass, like cello, like even saxophone. So more and more, I think people are allowing bluegrass to evolve into, you know, and change with the time. Also into a very progressive bluegrass, bluegrass where you can add a little jazz note, bluegrass where you can add some jazz chords. And I like instrumentals a lot. So even though it's really sort of a niche area of progressive instrumental bluegrass, which is part of the niche area of bluegrass, which is part of traditional country. So, you know, I'm in sort of a niche within a niche.

SPEAKER_01:

But, you know, for people who are interested in playing traditional music, like, you know, Irish music or maybe old-time music, bluegrass is, like you say, similar to that in ways. A lot of it's instrumentals, isn't it? So for people who maybe aren't so familiar, there's lots of great bluegrass tunes out there as well, isn't there, in this genre? Yeah. But one thing that is definitely notable about bluegrass is that generally, not always, but it's played fast, yeah. So it's a fast style of music a lot, isn't it?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

What sort of challenges has that brought to you, particularly on the chromatic harmonica playing that? I know you said, obviously, you prefer to play on the chromatic rather than the diatonic.

SPEAKER_02:

I guess the thing that really helped me in the beginning on the chromatic was I'd show up at not a bluegrass, but a traditional country jam. And the folks there play all in unison, the same exact melody. And since they have to retune when they change keys... What they do is play all of the songs they know in a key of, let's say, D, and then all the songs in a key of G, then all the songs they know in a key of A. So it was a really good practice for me. And it tended not to be very, very fast. So that really got me comfortable with all the different keys on the C chromatic. And then in bluegrass, the challenge is certain tunes and certain keys are very hard to play fast. So I'd have to change the melody around a little bit so it lends itself better to the chromatic. That would be keys like A, keys like B. I never liked the idea of switching keys on the chromatic. I like to just carry a single C chromatic around because then I could jump. A lot of bluegrass tunes transition on keys. They go from one key to another or there's fast changes. And I like the idea of just keeping one C chromatic. And it opened up my mind to different kind of riffs and different kinds of keys. So I didn't get into a rut. I didn't want to think of just like in terms of adding one riff to another that fits a chord pattern. I really try to keep close to the melody and embellish the melody. But speed was certainly a challenge for both Gypsy Jazz as well as Bluegrass.

SPEAKER_01:

So did you use particular practice techniques to really build up your speed on chromatic?

SPEAKER_02:

Not really. I started quite often a tune I wanted to play. I start off slowly and gradually speed up and play as fast as I eventually could. And if there's certain note combinations that were just really difficult, I might modify just slightly in a way that's still pleasing that may be more playable. But for the most part, I did practice scales a little bit, but I wasn't that into it. I mainly just practiced by trying to play in all the keys and really develop my ear and play them slow at first and then faster. And one thing I used was Kauffman's Bluegrass Lookout. He has a DVD collections where he plays a standard melody, first slow, and then after they play it, you get to play it with just the backup. And then he gets a second version quite often that's sped up, so more normal bluegrass

SPEAKER_04:

speed.

SPEAKER_02:

And I found that very helpful to play the basic melodies and play them fast. And then I'd work on embellishing them and improvising around them and so on. Because bluegrass musicians do do some improvisation quite often. They don't play the exact melodies.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so you're basically learning the melodies of these tunes, and then you do some improvisation as well. It's basically how you approached it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, embellishments, improvisation, but I rarely do it to the point where you don't recognize in some form the melody. I like to improvise, but I somehow like in my head to hear the melody line. So I'm not just going by chord changes and... know what scales fit what chords and so on. I really try to get something that really nods to the melody, that really keeps referring back to the melody in some form.

SPEAKER_01:

We talked about how you might be one of the, most possibly the only person who plays bluegrass exclusively on chromatic, because there are other players, Charlie McCoy, P.T. Gazelle, Buddy Green, they do play some bluegrass, they're not entirely bluegrass players, but they do some bluegrass tunes, but they're playing those on diatonic, aren't they?

SPEAKER_02:

yes as far as i know with a possible exception of jimmy riddle you know that used to be on the hee haw show he played chromatic and he did do some bluegrass but mostly country with his possible exception i don't know anyone really put out bluegrass album that feature the chromatic harmonica it seems like i'm the only one yeah you're you

SPEAKER_01:

are unique well done david and it sounds great you've got some great fluency and speed i was listening Very impressed with, you know, what you're able to do, particularly on the chromatic. I think that is more challenging with the, you know, handling the keys, you know, playing in the key of A with three shorts, you know, with the slide movements and the chromatic is quite a challenge. And as you say, the key of A is a common key in bluegrass. So again, you're able to handle those tunes in the key of A, for example. Yeah. And

SPEAKER_02:

I've gotten pretty, there's so many tunes in the key of A that some tunes are still very difficult, but a lot of them are no longer a challenge. And I find it quite natural to play in that key.

SPEAKER_01:

And one thing, the word blue in bluegrass does suggest correctly that there is a blues element to it, isn't it? And you often do play seventh notes, don't you? You know, that is part of the, you know, there is a bit of a blues edge to bluegrass music, isn't there, because of that?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I find it's a little more related to some of the European music, you know, like Irish music and so on. But it depends on there's some bluegrass tunes that are very bluesy, certainly, but then there are others that I find really aren't. So, you know, bluegrass is really a varied form of music. There are many different bands that have written many different kinds of instrumentals. It's kind of all over the map, I think. And then going on to gypsy jazz bands. Again, maybe for the uninitiated. One thing that's interesting is even though the genres sound really different, bluegrass and gypsy jazz, there's a lot of similarity. They both kind of have a folk root to them. Even though gypsy jazz has some very sophisticated jazz, it also has a root element. You know, the East European kind of jazz, a bit of a klezmer sound, a bit of the gypsy jazz that was going around for music and so on. So it's a roots kind of music. And the other thing is it's played traditionally, it's played acoustically. It's not amplified. Also, traditionally, they don't use percussive instruments like drums. The percussion is handled by the string instruments, just the way it is in bluegrass. The other thing about that is that they often play in the sharp keys in gypsy jazz as well as bluegrass. A lot of traditional jazz, they play in the flat keys because it's horn-dominated, and the horn players like to play in the flat keys. But in gypsy jazz, often play in the sharp keys as we do in bluegrass, but it's dominated by the guitar. Django Reinhardt was the great Thank you very much. They have a bass. They have a violin. All of that's also in bluegrass. They do add accordions sometimes, which bluegrass people rarely use. And that made the harmonica pretty natural in gypsy jazz because the harmonica is also a reed instrument that in some manner has the same tonal quality as an accordion.

SPEAKER_01:

Another thing, as you touched on there, is gypsy jazz is kind of like a folk jazz genre, isn't it? So you get that kind of folk basis to jazz, don't you? And the chord changes aren't so complex as some of the crazy chord changes you get in some jazz music, so like you say, some similarities there. There is some history, isn't there, in the gypsy jazz. Larry Adler played with Django Reinhardt,

SPEAKER_04:

didn't

SPEAKER_01:

he?

UNKNOWN:

......

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, he did. He recorded at least four tunes with Django Reinhardt. I think Gilderay supposedly played with Django. They never recorded together. And I think Cook Steelman might have also. Oh, really? Gypsy jazz harmonica players, I'm certainly not unique. There are some great players out there today.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and obviously a lot of people who do play jazz and harmonica do use chromatic harmonica. So maybe that's more of a natural fit with gypsy jazz. But as you say, there's probably quite a lot of similarities with bluegrass that maybe, you know, maybe there is more space for bluegrass on the chromatic and you lead in the way in that. So we're getting now to talking about some of the albums you produce. You've been coming out with albums for the last 16 years or so. Your first album was in 2005, Harmonica and Guitar Duets. Is that you playing the guitar and the harmonica?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I'm playing both guitar and harmonica, fingerpick style guitar. I mainly did that album to learn Pro Tools because I just got Pro Tools and I figured the fun way to learn it would be to actually start recording. So I had no idea what I was doing. Like each track I put on a separate reverb and stuff, which was stupid. You know, you're supposed to do that to the master track. So my computer kept bombing. I had a computer that wasn't up to the task. So I had to consolidate all of the tracks as I went along so the computer wouldn't freeze. So it was very frustrating, and it had a bit of latency when I was playing, where I had to kind of compensate for the fact that things weren't lined up perfectly. So it was really a pain. But I did it, and then I found people loved the album. I was never intending to read lease it. But a lot of folks really liked it. And so there are problems with it. But like I said, I didn't understand Pro Tools very well, but it was a real fun album to do. And that's the only album I did without professional help. I just slumped it together in my little Pro Tools studio. From then on, I went out to Apple Valley, which is about an hour and a half from me, where I have a great studio with an incredible engineer. I've been using him ever since. But that first album I did completely on my own.

SPEAKER_01:

Great learning. You Nothing else, like you said, the process of recording is well worthwhile, isn't it? And the genres on there, I think you said earlier on, you were interested, there's some blues on there, some swing stuff from ragtime and country, and also a kind of classical piece with a tarantella, yeah?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I also did some diatonic on there, including a harmonic minor harmonica I used, as well as a natural minor harmonica, and then a regular tuned diatonic harmonica. So there is diatonic as well as chromatic on that album.

SPEAKER_01:

You did another album in 2008, High Desert Bluegrass Sessions. So this is the first time you released a dedicated bluegrass album with some bluegrass classics on there, such as Red Wings.

UNKNOWN:

So,

SPEAKER_01:

and you also started getting some good bluegrass players to play with you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. One of the things about bluegrass and gypsy jazz, what they have in common also, is that typically there are many soloists and often not one soloist dominates every other. On both these genres, I like to give everyone the opportunity to really shine and not to hold back in any way. That started with the High Desert Bluegrass session, my second album. Pat Cloud is a bluegrass legend. He plays banjo like no one I've ever heard. He records very little. There was a real coup getting him to agree to record on this album. So I got him, and then the violinist I used was a very young player. I think he was about 14, and he was already superb. And his father is a great guitar player, and it's also his studio. So it was all done at the studio. The studio, the engineer, Eric Uglum, actually is a real master of this style of music. He knows how to record acoustic bluegrass instruments. He's done recordings with a Alison Krauss and so on. So he's a master of that genre. I could not have gotten a better person to play guitar and to mix and master everything and record everything in the studio. We started off by trying to play things together in a circle. And since we're not a band, even though the players are great, we had to take too many takes because everyone would be happy with their break, except maybe one person would mess up and we had to do everything over again. So eventually it just got too expensive. We put everyone in their isolation booth, and that really made things a lot faster and more doable.

SPEAKER_01:

So talking about the recording process then, so what about recording of the chromatic, for example, what microphone did you use? Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_02:

I completely left it to the discretion of Eric Guzman. Eventually, I went back there once, and I tried all of the different mics he had, from$20,000 Neumann mics, I think, all the way down to about$500 mics, and fortunately, we both seemed to hone in on the Neumann mic, the little pencil mic, KM something or other, I forget the number, but they're about$800 to$1,000 mic. And that was affordable, fortunately, and I've been using that ever since. So that's a small

SPEAKER_01:

condenser mic then, is it?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's a

SPEAKER_01:

small condenser mic. Interesting that, yeah, you'd refer that over the large condenser, because I think a lot of people would record a harmonica with a large condenser mic. Yeah, so interesting.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and so I found some of those ones that worked well for vocals. The large condenser mics were so sensitive that I felt it would pick up even vibrating nostril hairs or anything. You know, they were just almost too sensitive. I had to really watch any kind of obvious noise. So this was a little more pointed to my mouth. I didn't have to worry quite so much. about making any kind of peripheral

SPEAKER_01:

noise. And that's a particular problem with chromatics, isn't it? Because you get the slide movement, of course. So it's quite a factor. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

I do play sometimes the CX-12. That is known for a noisy slide. But somehow when I record, I push the slide in without slamming it. And I am getting a quiet sound. So it's never been really an issue

SPEAKER_01:

for

SPEAKER_02:

me.

SPEAKER_01:

So you don't treat the slide with

SPEAKER_02:

any lubricant then to quiet it down?

UNKNOWN:

No.

SPEAKER_02:

No. I've had some people repair my harmonicas. We add a little stomper at the end so you can push the slide and it gets a little rubber bumper. And that does make it quieter. But it's never been much of an issue for me.

SPEAKER_01:

So then moving on to your next album. So you're getting them out quite regularly over two years or so. So you got a great title, Bluegrass Harmonica, to boldly go where no harmonica has gone before. And there's a picture of the harmonica with warp speed on the front of it, again, emphasizing that speed playing. Yeah, that was the

SPEAKER_02:

first album that I really emphasized more of the harmonica. Although, again, I did have Pat Platt on banjo and Eric Uglub on guitar. But I didn't have as many instruments as I did on some other CDs that I did later on. So it was a little more emphasis on the harmonica. And some of the tunes were bluegrass classics. I just wanted to really play them and demonstrate what a chromatic can do on standard bluegrass instrumentals.

SPEAKER_01:

And there's a song, Whiskey Before Breakfast, though. So you've got multi-tracked harmonica, haven't you?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, a lot of the tunes... Sometimes I add a second track of harmonica for harmony. If the harmony is playable, I think it adds a nice sound. So I'll play it with a straight line harmonica, and then I add a second track that provides some of the harmonic lines that parallel the melody. And sometimes the harmony parts are more difficult to play fast than the melody. So if it slows me down too much, I give up on it. And I let other instruments play the harmony part. Since we're in a studio, though, it takes a long time to get another instrument to know exactly the melody I'm playing and do parallel harmony so sometimes it's a little more convenient if I add it and it gives a nice sound I think having the double harmonica track on it so I've been doing that on many CDs since then too adding double harmonica lines

SPEAKER_01:

so are you using that sometimes as a technique to get in some of the more tricky maybe fast forwards

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I've understood your question. What I often do with a harmony line, I really have to know exactly what melody I'm playing. And I practice the harmony line really well. So when I get to the studio, I do multiple tapes until I get, you know, really get a nice clean sound. And sometimes like if I get the first half really well done, but the second half isn't too good, I might shift up a second half from another tape that sounds much more right on. So I will do a little cheating in the studio to save time, but generally not that much process. I I try to get things pretty much live in the studio when I play. When I improvise, I usually do multiple lines and take the one I like best. Again, sometimes combining various takes, like certain parts, like an A part I'll get from one track and the second track I'll get the B part and push that up. So I do a little bit of that kind of manipulation in the studio. But generally, I like, you know, really trying to make it more of a live sound. And

SPEAKER_01:

then in 2012, two years later, you did a dedicated gypsy jazz album, Douce Ambiance. And yeah, mostly, as I say, your gypsy tunes on here and the Lady Be Goods on there, Nuage, another great Django tune.

UNKNOWN:

¶¶

SPEAKER_02:

On this album, Gonzalo Vergara was one of the best Gypsy Jazz guitar players in the United States. He was a great player and I knew him for many years. I knew Gonzalo when he was first starting off on Gypsy Jazz. Before that, he was actually a blues player. And he was even a lead guitar player for Jason Ritchie's band, you know, the great blues harmonica player. And he himself played apparently great harmonica. I've never heard him. Anyway, he's been working on Gypsy Jazz for a while and he's just got to be an incredible player. player. So I thought of asking him if he'll do a Gypsy Jazz CD with me using his band members as backup. And he agreed. So we all went to Eric Oslund's studio and spent several days there working over all these different tunes. And he also helped out on the arrangements. A lot of those arrangements are really unique to his style. So it was a great pleasure. It was really great working with Gonzalo. It was really easy to work with and I had a really time of my life working with him. And then I added some Pat Cloud in there too because he He plays jazz banjo like very few people can do this kind of stuff on a five-string banjo the way he does. So I added him, even though it's very peculiar. If harmonica is not strange enough, adding a five-string banjo, the gypsy jazz was probably even odder. But I

SPEAKER_01:

did it. Great. I understand Lady Be Good won the runner-up for the Best Instrumental from the International Acoustic Music Awards.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I forget, I got some sort of dreams or something. They give you free items like guitar strings without even knowing I play guitar. It was not harmonica specific.

SPEAKER_01:

So then moving on to your next three albums. So the next one, 2014, this is where you start getting some really great bluegrass players. Stuart Duncan is a really top fiddle player. How have you managed to attract these fantastic musicians? Not saying that these are top players in the bluegrass world, aren't they?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, every single one of them, sometimes multiple times. The IBMA Instrumentalist of the Year Award. IBMA is the International Bluegrass Music Association, which is the biggest award in bluegrass. So Rob, I expect I think has been given more of those awards than anyone in history. And he's a dobro player, and Sierra Hall has won multiple times. Jake Workman is very young, a guitar player, and he just won, got that award last year, 2020. And they're all top, top-flight people. And most of them I became friends with because we used to host house concerts. And some of those people played at our house, and I got to know. And some I got to know by going to bluegrass festivals and jamming with them. Plus, our studio engineer, Eric Uglan, knows a almost all those people. They're not strangers to me. And I was really happy that they liked my harmonica playing enough to agree to be on my CD because I could not have gotten better players.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. And like you say, because the harmonica and the chromatic harmonica isn't known as a bluegrass album, again, to get these really top players. So was it just the case of you saying, you know, you inviting them saying, you know, do you want to play on this album? And they just said yes, basically.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

that was it.

SPEAKER_02:

I told them the kind of songs I wanted to play, the tunes. I like to give a lot of freedom to people. So if there's a tune they don't like or don't want to play they don't need to but i kind of figure these are the kind of tunes what i first do actually is give the background i get the the rhythm section i get the guitar track down i get the bass track down and i do it to a click track the click track allows me to actually open up space for an extra solo or to eliminate a solo boss so it gives me more freedom and then in the studio i often allow them to play you know one or two solos whatever they want to do and i found the more freedom i give these excellent players the better the CD turns out, I like to get the least amount of direction possible. Then we just put the solos together in those sections, and it gets integrated by our engineers, so it sounds like we're all together, always just playing live, where in fact, you know, we work separately quite often on these different

SPEAKER_01:

tracks. Yeah, so yeah, fantastic. Like you say, getting some chop drawer musicians on there obviously makes the album even more enjoyable and lots of great playing, and you know, they're taking solos as you do in Bluegrass. New Camptown Races is a great song on there.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

You do put a little bit of gypsy jazz on this. Bluegrass in the Backwoods album in 2014. You had a second harmonica player on that one as well,

SPEAKER_02:

didn't you? Yes, there's a local harmonica player, John Kipp, who is an outstanding jazz player. He's really more of a Tootsie Ullman style jazz player, which I don't do. So he really has a thorough understanding of jazz. He's been playing chromatic harmonica for about 10 years. And before that, he did a lot of studio work, playing everywhere from an oboe to a clarinet to a French horn and so on. So He's a real studio musician. I was trying to think of something we could do that would be an overlap. He's more jazzy than I am, and I'm into more hillbilly music than he is, you know, roots music. So we figured, oh, I'll try a jazzy jazz tune that I feel comfortable with and is jazzy enough that he feels comfortable with. So we tried that out, and I kind of liked it. We did Coquette together.

UNKNOWN:

¶¶

SPEAKER_04:

And

SPEAKER_01:

then in 2017, he did another album, Blue Graft Up Swings. with some of the same musicians on that you had in the previous album, yeah?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, again, I took my very, very favorites, and I decided to use them all the way through the album. Stuart Duncan is usually too busy to do a full album, but I realized he had a gap in his performances and recording projects, so I grabbed him when I could, and he was on every tune he wanted to be, and the same with Jake Workman and Ciara Hall and Rob I. So these, again, are all my bluegrass heroes. They're all my favorite players. And I got them all together on that CD. And it's a very consistent CD. You know, it's straight bluegrass with these finest players. And I find the better the player, the better I play. They make me sound really good, even on the backup that they do. And also, I get so inspired by their solos that if I don't play well, I sound really bad. And I really have to go up to a very high level, try to keep up with them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, there's a good lesson in there about playing with people who are better than you. And obviously, playing with people who are excellent is even better, but it pushes you on, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah. If I play with mediocre players, I don't push myself in the same way because I feel, oh, I'm really holding my own. But with these people, I really have to work hard. And I try as hard as I can to make it fit the bluegrass style. You know, when they play, they have to very even tone across their solos. There's very little bending going on. You know, I try to really get the feel that they have. And I also try to get out the note combinations that they use when they embellish the melody. So I think very carefully about melody. That's probably the most important thing for me is listening to the melody lines, seeing how creative it is, how melodically it works. A melodic integrity is central to my playing. I really think very carefully about the kind of notes I play. And I do try to put a little jazzy notes in if I can still keep that bluegrass feel and so does many of the other players like uh jake lurkman you know the guitar player

SPEAKER_01:

you do have a couple of gypsy songs all of me on this album for example and it's good to hear these bluegrass players playing on these kind of gypsy jazz tunes as well and doing a great job soloing on them too so

SPEAKER_02:

It's a very different feel than the gypsy jazz. So it's kind of interesting to hear what the top bluegrass players will do on something like All of Me. And again, they're all sophisticated, like Jake Workman has a master's degree in jazz, if I recall. So they know how to play jazz as well as bluegrass, which really helps when they play these

SPEAKER_01:

tunes. And then your most recent album, released in 2020, is David Nardich Plays Bluegrass and Swing Instrumentals. So again, keeping up this theme of playing bluegrass and gypsy jazz songs. An interesting song off There's this Bistro Fada, which is kind of French waltz, isn't it? And I think it was a theme to the Woody Allen's film Midnight in Paris. It's a nice one.

UNKNOWN:

¶¶

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I really like that tune. I love the gypsy jazz waltzes and some of them are very hard to play on the chromatic because they jump around like a single run might span several octaves because of all the downstroking technique on the guitar, the down sweep. But this tune I was able to play and it was written by Stephan Remble, who's a great gypsy jazz guitarist in New York. And he wrote that for the Woody Allen film, although it's very similar to some of the other gypsy jazz style waltzes. So I realized I could play you know, and I play very close to his melody. And then I have a local guitar player who put the time into doing harmony with me and doing parallel picking and so on. So he's a great job backing that up.

SPEAKER_01:

You've got a clarinet player on there as well, I think, and you're on the I Found Me Baby.

UNKNOWN:

I Found Me Baby

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, Rob Hart I've known for many years, and he doesn't play that much, but he's one of the real fine clarinet players. Actually, I first heard him with Gonzalo Vergara and with John Jorgensen, people like that, and he's just an outstanding woodwind player. He plays flute, he plays clarinet, he plays saxophone, and so I was really happy to get him on the CD. Yeah, so brilliant. So that's your albums. Any more albums lined up? I haven't really thought about it. I mean, that album was the most challenging because I didn't meet anyone face to face. It was during the height of the pandemic. Some people that were normally so busy, couldn't even imagine getting them on the recording, now have the time because a lot of their gigs were canceled. So I actually got people like Yoshio Stefan. who's one of the top gypsy jazz players and lived in Germany. Then I got Jason Anik, who teaches at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He laid a track, and I got Richard Smith and Stuart Duncan, those folks from Nashville. There were actually seven different studios used in that CD, and yet it really integrated. I was really pleased the way it came out. So you didn't play face-to-face with anybody in this album? It was all remote? Yeah, it was all done remotely because of the pandemic. And I could not believe, because of the caliber of players, you know, we were actually answering each other and working around each other's solos. which sounded like we were just in the same room together, which I was really delighted it turned out so well. But no, we never met face to face. A few of the people in Nashville did, but quite often, no, everything was separate.

SPEAKER_01:

Did they lay down their own track and then the next person came along and sort of listened to that and played on top? Or was there some interaction?

SPEAKER_02:

Pretty much that way. And sometimes we went back and they listened to what other people did and responded more. You know, they updated their track. And I did as well when I heard what other people did. Because I like it when people respond to what other musicians are doing. Too often, musicians have their solo in mind and they'll play the same solo regardless of what others are playing. But I really like it when people address what was done previously by other players and kind of answering them in a dialogue. And I think it has some of that feel because we did do it multiple times. And we also did it to a click track, which made it easier. If someone wanted to do double solo instead of single solo, I could open up another spot for them since it was all done according to a quick track.

SPEAKER_01:

That's interesting. I know you said the pandemic and this new, not so much new, but pushed on this idea of doing remote recording and albums like that. So yeah, you'd do that again when you're doing a remote recorded album. Oh, I really like it. I love

SPEAKER_02:

meeting people face to face. I'm not very smart when it comes to recording, and so I really rely on the experts when I'm at the studio. So I was a little uncomfortable not using him at the studio, but it turned out okay, I thought. He does all of the mixing and mastering and really make it sound like we're all together in the same room acoustically. But I gave him the raw recording. I didn't do any processing on my harmonica track, and he does a little compression, maybe a little reverb, maybe cut out some of the highs. I don't even know what he does. So I'll leave that to him. So it all has the same quality, like we're in the same room. I did get the mic that he used in the studio, that Neumann pencil mic. And I thought it worked out very well and had a very quiet room in the house. So I did that at home and I was actually very happy the way it turned out. So I could possibly do that in a future album. I don't know. Although I do prefer being, like I said, face to face

SPEAKER_01:

in

SPEAKER_02:

the studio with at least some of the other musicians.

SPEAKER_01:

But one thing I noticed you do on your website is you have this Airplay section, which is where you make your songs available for radio stations to play your songs. So it's something that I talked to recently, Matt Whatley. He did the same thing. So do you find that gets you lots of Airplay on the radio?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. What happens is when a lot of radio stations, especially in Bluegrass, like using that Airplay Direct, and what they do is they subscribe and they can download whatever tunes they want that are featured on that site. And there are many, many different Bluegrass albums. That way, they don't have to get physical CDs. I recently promoted my latest CD there and did get a lot of downloads. And people have been telling me they've been hearing it more and more on the radio. The Bluegrass radio stations, they've been hearing more of my music. It's a really nice way to promote your music and get it heard on radio. You

SPEAKER_01:

have to pay something to this airplay director.

SPEAKER_02:

You have to pay, depending on how much publicity you want, advertising, but even without advertising, just putting it on the site, people notice it. They discover it on their own. It's often used in bluegrass, the airplay direct. I don't know if jazz musicians use it as much. It seems like it's mostly a root kind of thing, and I'm not getting as many hits with gypsy jazz. Radio stations that play gypsy jazz, they're not that many, but I don't think they use them as much as the bluegrass people.

SPEAKER_01:

You recently appeared in a Harmonica UK magazine article interviewed by Tony Ayers, so... Tony's an Australian guy. So how do you know Tony and how did that interview come about? Interestingly, Tony and I knew

SPEAKER_02:

of each other for a long time because he played similar music. He liked playing bluegrass on diatonic. So we were aware of each other. He has a harmonica academy where he teaches harmonica. We met at SPA, which is the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica, and did a lot of jamming together, which was great fun because there's hardly anyone else that attends that know the kind of tunes that I like to play. So I got to know him pretty well from SPA, got along great. And then the strangest thing, I went to the Galax Fiddle Festival in Virginia. The last person I expected to meet there is Tony, but I kept hearing that there's another harmonica player from Australia that's really good, and that was really curious, and it just occurred to me that's got to be Tony. And sure enough, we finally met there and had a really good time wandering from campground to campground, playing a lot of bluegrass, a little old-timey, and there were some very good swing jams as well. The musicianship at that camp was just amazing. They had some of the top bluegrass players just walking around wanting to jam with everyone. They had a great time playing, and Tony and I did quite a bit of playing together at that festival. It was great fun. And then, so he then mentioned that he does these articles for the magazine and said, sure. He wrote it up. I thought it was very good. He talked about a lot of the things that no other article really mentioned because he knows bluegrass so well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, it's a good article. Yeah. If you can check it out, I think it's June, July edition of the 2021. So yeah. So a question I ask each time, David, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing? Well,

SPEAKER_02:

actually, the thing that's helped my playing, I'd say, more than anything is jamming with other musicians. Even better than practicing alone, I find by jamming with other musicians, you've really got to think fast. You've got to start playing tunes you've never heard before, really feel a tonal center and what you can do with it, and try to get close to the melody lines as you can. So I find that's excellent training. And if I'm going to a bluegrass jam, I might prepare myself by practicing a little some of the bluegrass standards. If I'm going to more of a swing jam, I'll be working on some of the swing standards. But I find that by being with other musicians in informal jam sessions, that has done more to my playing than anything else I could think of. Way more than practicing scales, a lot more than even just playing to a CD, because you really have to listen carefully to what others are playing and respond right on the spot.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, just talking a little bit about gear. So talking about harmonicas and clearly you're mainly a chromatic player. I think you're playing the Seidel Saxony and the Horner CX-12.

SPEAKER_02:

Those are my two favorites. In cold weather, for some reason, the CX-12, those wind sabers just stick like glue and don't work well. But the Saxony works much better, I find. And also, sometimes when it goes to the higher register, the Saxony has a nice sweeter sound. So I will jump between those two, depending on the condition of the harmonica and how I'm And do you

SPEAKER_01:

play just 12 holes?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I can't say that. Every so often, I need the lower register, so I will go to a 16-hole. Sometimes the melodies really sound better if I jump to a lower note, and that's when I'll actually pick up a 16-hole chromatic. Yeah. And are you playing any diatonic these days? No. No, I haven't played diatonic for quite a while. I get so frustrated because I hear notes that I can't play or I feel constrained or I don't have the range I want. And again, I don't like to bend the notes. I like all the notes that have a similar timbre and tonal quality. And when I start bending certain notes and not bending others, I find it's harder to get that real uniform sound that I'm really after in music like bluegrass and gypsy jazz. So I just find it frustrating to play those. I'll play them if I'm, the diatonic I'd be happier to play with if I'm playing country blues again or something like that, which I think it lends itself beautifully to.

SPEAKER_01:

And embouchure-wise, are you lip-pursing, tongue-blocking?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I'm mostly a tongue-blocker. I do know how to pucker. I mostly tongue-block. I do tongue-switching on some of my recordings, but sometimes I like to make these jumps that are just too hard to do without switching from one side of the tongue to the other. So I find that very useful. And occasionally I'll play octaves like on that last CD I did on I Found a New Baby. There's one little section I do all octaves playing. And I love octaves on the chromatic because if you block, you know, the three central holes and play the outer two, that you always get an octave, whether it's a blow draw, whether the slide is in or out, which makes it really nice. So once you get that mouth shape, you just move the harmonica and can play all the octave lines. So I do use tongue blocking for that as well.

SPEAKER_01:

So when you're playing live, you're playing acoustically and maybe there's just an acoustic mic, which is being used sometimes to pick you up.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, almost all my playing live is done in jam sessions at festivals and nothing's amplified. It's all 100% acoustic. Sometimes on stage, I just use the vocal mic. If I'm joining in with a band, let's say, I'll use whatever they use typically as a vocal mic, sometimes the violin mic. But usually I find the vocal mics work pretty well.

SPEAKER_01:

And final Question then, any future plans coming up? You're getting out, playing now, getting back to more festivals?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes,

SPEAKER_01:

I'm also going to

SPEAKER_02:

private jams. I have a lot of friends that host jams. Plus, I'll be going eventually back to our house concerts and also to our house jams. My wife hosted a lot of these on YouTube. If you go to Jackie Nadech's YouTube channel, you can hear a lot of our house jams as well as some of the house concerts. I sometimes sit in with one of the band on a few numbers for a house concert so they get to know me. But a lot of it is also just house jams where I invite some of my favorite players locally to come in and we just jam, play whatever songs we want. Sometimes bluegrass, sometimes gypsy jazz, sometimes swing tunes. And I do plan to go to some future festivals. Summergrass is coming up, which is near San Diego. There's a 48-hour jam in Carlsbad that's coming up. I think there's going to be one pretty soon in Bakersfield. There's one in Bellevue, Washington that I really enjoy. And it's a gypsy jazz festival at Whidbey Island, which I might be going to. And that's a beautiful island about an hour and a half north of Seattle, where they have superb play and a lot of jamming all over the city of Langley, and great shows and great workshops, a lot of fun. So thanks so much, David

SPEAKER_01:

Nabitz, for joining me today. Well, thank you. I really enjoyed this. Thanks for the interview. That's episode 43, and thanks again to David. Be sure to check him out at a jam near you. Just over to David now to play us out with some Gypsy Swing. Gypsy Swing